She stood between my legs. Even through the trouser cloth I could feel the hot dampness of her outer thighs. The inner surface of my kneecaps tingled under the heat.
She quivered and rolled her jet satin belly under my nose. Her humming of the “Indigo” was low and throaty. She sure qualified as the package the pimps had warned about. My twenty-one month cherry was aching to chunk out.
She took a lighter off the cocktail table. She ran the sticks in and out of her mouth to get an even burn. She lit them and handed me one.
She said, “Daddy, this is light green pot from chili gut country. It will make us mellow. Why don’t you take your clothes off?”
I took a deep pull on the stick of reefer. I looked up into the sultry dreamy eyes.
I parroted, “Bitch, don’t put shit in the game. Business always comes before pleasure in my book. I’ll take my clothes off when I know I’m taking them off with my whore. I don’t sucker for the Georgia. Jar loose from respectable scratch, Bitch.”
I had heard it verbatim in the joint. It worked like a lie detector. The motor in her belly threw a rod. Her eyes had a far away look.
She was busy tailoring the con for me. She collapsed to a yogi squat on the polar bear rug. Her moon was winking at me. Her voice was bullshit sweet.
She warbled, “Sweetheart Daddy, you already shot me down. I’m your sweet bitch. I got a C note coming from a trick with his nose open for me. He’ll spring for it tomorrow night. It’s yours, but you got to wait. Now come on and put your freak baby to bed.”
My system had been clean. The reefer was powerful. She didn’t know how desperately I needed to pimp. She couldn’t know she was the first. I couldn’t let her escape.
I had to have a whore. That reefer was sending currents of anger and hatred through me in time with “Indigo.” My mortal enemy squatted on that white rug.
I thought, “I’m going to murder this runt black bitch if she don’t give me that scratch she had in her bosom.”
Like a brute cop giving a heist man a last chance to confess, I said, “Bitch, give me that scratch you had between your tiddies.”
Her peepers ballooned in surprise and anger.
She gritted, “You’re pimping too hard skinny ass nigger. I have changed my mind. Get your lid and benny and split.”
The “Indigo” was on a torrid upbeat. Like brown-skin lightning I leaped erect from the chaise. I flung my right leg back.
I could feel the tendons at my hip socket straining. My eyes sighted for a heart shot. My needle-toed eleven triple-A shoe rocketed toward her.
The lucky runt turned a fraction of a second in time. The leather bomb exploded into her left shoulder blade. It knocked her flat on her belly. She lay there groaning.
Then like in the dreams in the joint, I kicked her rear end until my leg cramped. Through it all she just moaned and sobbed. I was soaked in sweat. Panting, I lay on the bear-skin beside her. I thrust my mouth against her ear.
In an icy whisper I said, “Bitch, do I have to kill you to make you my whore? Get up and give me that scratch.”
She turned her head and looked into my eyes. There was no anger in them now, only fear and strange passion. Her tremulous mouth opened to speak. For a long moment nothing came out.
Then she whispered, “You got a whore Blood. Please don’t kick me any more. I’m your little dog. I’ll do anything you say. I love you, Pretty Daddy.”
Her talons stabbed into the back of my neck as she tried to suck my tongue from its roots. I could taste her salty tears.
She wobbled to the record player. She lifted a corner of it. She slid that wad of scratch from beneath it. She rejected “Indigo.” She put another platter on the turntable.
“Lady Day” was singing a sad lament. “My man don’t love me, treats me awful mean. He’s the meanest man that I ever seen.”
I was standing on the bear skin. She came toward me with the scratch in her hand. She laid it in my palm. I riffled it in a fast count. It was respectable. It had to be over two bills. I was ready to let that cherry pop.
I scooped the ninty-pound runt up into my arms. I bit her hard on the tip of her chin. I carried her to the side of the bed. I hurled her onto it. She bounced and lay there on her back. She was breathing hard. Her legs were a wide pyramid.
I got out of my clothes fast. I snatched the top sheet off. I ripped it into four narrow strips. I tied her hands to the bed posts. I spread eagled her legs. With the longer strips, I tied her legs to the top of the springs at the sides of the bed.
She lay there a prisoner. I put her through the nerve shredding routines Pepper had taught me. She blacked out four times. She couldn’t pull back from the thrilling, awful torture.
Finally, I took a straight ride home. On the way I tried to smash the track. I reached my destination. The blast of hate was big enough to spawn a million embryo black pimps.
I untied her. We lay there in the dim blueness. The fake white stars glowed down on us. “Lady Day” still moaned her troubles.
I said, “Bitch, I want you to hump like Hell in these streets for a week. We’re going to the big track in the city. Oh yes, this week we got to get that title to the Ford changed. I don’t drive no bitch’s wheels. It’s got to be in my name, understand?”
She said, “Yes, Daddy, anything you say. Daddy, don’t get angry, but I was bullshitting about that C note trick.”
I said, “Bitch, I knew that. Don’t ever try to con me again.”
I got up and put my clothes on. I peeled a fin off the scratch and put it on the dresser.
I said, “I want you in the street at six tonight. Stay out of the bars. Work the area around Seventh and Apple.”
“I’ll come through sometime tonight. You be there when I show. If you get busted your name is Mary Jones. If you forget it I can’t raise you fast. Have some scratch whenever I show.”
I went down to the street. I got into my Ford. It roared to life. I drove toward Mama’s. I felt good. I wasn’t doing bad for a black boy just out of the joint.
I shuddered when I thought, what if I hadn’t kept my ears flapping back there in the joint? I would be a boot black or porter for the rest of my life in the high walled white world. My black whore was a cinch to get piles of white scratch from that forbidden white world.
Mama was pressing a young customer’s hair. She saw me get out of the Ford in front of the shop. She called me inside with a waggle of the pressing comb.
She said, “I have been worried. Where have you been all night? Where did you get the pretty little car? Did you find a job?”
I said, “A friend of mine let me borrow it. Maybe he’ll sell it to me. I stayed with him all night. He’s got a hundred-and-three fever. I’ll try to find a job tomorrow.”
She said, “There’s a roast in the oven. Shut the gas off and eat. I hope, Son, you haven’t been with Pepper.”
I looked down at the nut brown, shapely girl getting her hair pressed.
I said, “Pepper? She’s too old for me. I like young pretty brownskin girls. Pepper’s too yellow for me.”
The young broad flashed her eyes up at me. She smiled. I winked and ran my tongue over my lips. She dug it. She blushed. I put her on file.
I turned and walked to the sidewalk. I went upstairs and attacked the roast.
I took a long nap. At five-thirty P.M. I went down and got into the Ford. I drove to Seventh and Apple. I parked.
At five minutes to six I saw Phyllis coming toward me. She was a block away. I fired the engine and pulled away.
