“Right? Sure, you wouldn’t.”
“I like my women from the motherland. Dark, sweet on the tongue, you know what I mean,” he goaded the men and Topaz’s skin rose. “Yeah, you were sent packing by a dark skinned vixen weren’t you? She tempted and teased you and then you fell short.”
“Fuck you,” he spat. “Like I’d ever—”
“That’s it isn’t it?” Onyx retorted. “Was it her sweet kisses or did you slip a bit lower, you know the forbidden fruit is the tastiest. You remember don’t you? Did you make her wet enough it trickled down your throat? They do that you know, black women, white not so much, but a black woman. Mmmmm.”
Topaz’s eyebrows knitted together in a mix of jealousy and pride. She knew Onyx was fucking with the assholes. The man hadn’t been celibate since he’d come to Turnabout and the only two black women around were claimed, fully and totally in love with their partners. Whatever he was doing had the men ready to kill. Was that his plan? Him dying. No, she shook her head, trying to stop the rage building inside her.
“We saw you,” the short one said. “Practically fucking in the alley.”
“No,” Onyx continued. “You saw me putting a bitch in her place.”
“Right, like a fucking nigger can control his urges, especially around a fine woman like this.” The short one cupped her breasts and she cut her eyes at him. “She might be unspoiled.”
“Not even slightly,” she sniped, unwilling to let Onyx take the fall. Selfish in away because she refused to let him take any beating alone. “Trust, I’ve seen more big, thick, black cock in my life than the Lakers’ locker room.”
Onyx choked, at first she feared the men were hurting him until she heard the light chuckle behind her.
“Untie them,” Glen ordered, then leveled his rifle on Onyx’s temple. “Just in case, you get any smart ideas.”
The little one fussed with the ropes. “Oh, ya’ll thought you could pull a Houdini on us huh?”
“Again, with the classics,” Onyx smarted off. “I’m telling you, I’m really impressed.”
“We’re gonna show you all sorts of classic hits,” Glen said with a laugh. “Even got my Louisville slugger in the truck for later.”
“And I thought you were more of the grease me up and let me wrestle type of a guy.” Onyx laughed.
In hindsight, fucking with Glen and Stimpy, as he came to name the ignorant assholes after round one of let’s see if we can make the black man cry, was probably not the best idea. While it was satisfying and easier than a girl with daddy issues on prom night, he’d grossly underestimated the pent up rage in the men. Onyx was absolutely spent. He had to get it together because Topaz needed him and this wasn’t something he could give in to.
“Topaz, sweetheart please stop crying. I’m okay.”
The sobs coming from her were tearing him apart. The strong and independent woman he knew had completely unraveled because of what those men had done. He couldn’t stand the thought that part of the reason was him and his damn mouth. At first, he thought she could handle it. Taking to fucking with the men too. Giving as good as him until the rope.
Right now unlike him, she was untied. They’d swung a rope over a beam in the ceiling. At first, he thought he’d be dangling by his neck. Instead, they bound his wrists and used him as a punching bag. Either he was completely numb by that point or they were tired, because the grunts and groans were at a Meg Ryan orgasm faking level. In a way, the stringing up had helped his back reset. If it wasn’t for his shoulders burning like a brush fire, he could hang for a while. Or at least, long enough for Topaz to remember there was a world beyond the one she was currently locked inside.
When the rope was tossed, it was the final straw for Topaz. Maybe something else happened? She’d just been taken out to the bathroom. When she came back, she seemed fine until the thump of the rope as it flopped over the beam. The light in her eyes lost, gone to the world as she curled into a ball in the corner. Covering her head like a tornado was on the horizon as she turned into the corner. No longer able to handle the visual.
“Topaz, I need you,” he said hoping the trauma hadn’t made the woman completely check out of reality. “They’re gone.”
Her body trembled in the corner. Head shaking from side to side.
At least, he was breaking through. “Honest, baby—they’re gone, my shoulders are killing me—can you please…”
Her body tightened, somehow making the round ball of herself smaller. “I can’t—I can’t see it—not again—”
Again? Fuck.
“Topaz, I’m alive,” he said and spit the metallic taste from his mouth. “Promise.”
“Oh God, voices, fuck, fuck, fuck.” She rocked in the corner.
She needed a splash of cold ass water, then he could comfort her, but right now, he needed her to know he was alive. That she wouldn’t be turning around and finding a corpse.
“You think I’m dead? Fine, bitch, come suck this dick and see if you feel a pulse.” The words more acidic than he’d expected, but he’d pray they would do the trick. “You called me a sub, how about you come get this footlong?”
The scratch of dirt against wood gave him a bit of hope as he saw her leg shift and move. That’s it Topaz, he thought afraid encouraging words would make her stop. Come on baby, turn around show daddy your face. See mine.
With a slow turn of her head she held her eyes closed shut, but turned enough her chin touched her shoulder.
Open those pretty baby blues for me.
Her back rose and fell as she slowly opened her eyes. The contact between the two of them instantaneous as she leapt from the corner and rushed to him.
