Black's Magic

Guys didn't read, and therefore, didn't believe in fairytales. They weren't raised to be princes. They weren't taught to seek out Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. There were no dragons to slay, curses to break, or glass slippers to fill. There was no such thing as true love, love at first sight or a soul mate.

It was fuck or be fucked, and you left this world just as alone as when you entered it.

He couldn't say for certain when he became so cynical, so pessimistic, so jaded as to the turns his life would eventually take. He only knew he was doomed.

No matter what small fortune, what minor miracle, what benevolent being may enter into his life, at the end of the day, everything always returned to ruins. He would never be anything more than he was, and no matter what the Lord saw fit to give him, someone always came and took it away.

He was just born under a bad sign, he supposed. Not that he believed any of that shit. A man made his own luck; he just hadn't found the right recipe.

But . . . this latest development in his life, had him hoping beyond all reason that there was just alittlebit of magic left in the world, and just one, small smidgen of an iota was reserved for him . . . and her . . .

"You're such a prude, Daniel." She laughed, raising up on tiptoes, stretching her right arm high above her head to fill the empty slot she'd created just seconds before on one of his shop's topmost shelves.

Any other man would have been irritated, if not outright offended at the verbal jibe, but he'd known her so long, they'd been through so much, and her laughter was just so damned . . . soothing . . . that even if she cussed your mother, burned down your house, totaled your car and kicked your dog, you wouldn't, no,couldn'tget mad at her because her laughter was just so alive, just so musical, just so lyrical that you had no choice but listen to every word she said with a smile on your face as your head nodded time to her rhythm and your lips mimicked the words spilling from her mouth.

She was an unknowing Siren, you were her knowing slave, and you couldn't imagine life any other way.

Some manowningher,possessingher, attempting to break her with whips and chains? Impossible. Slavery may have been in the history of her people, but he could see no such manaclesevermarring that beautifully bronzed skin, that tightly toned flesh, that softly shimmering complexion that spoke not only of health, but of . . . un-use . . . or maybe disuse was the more appropriate term.

His cousin, Terri, who happened to be Mecca's (yes, that was her name) best friend, had said she hadn't let a man touch her in over five years. Considering her attractiveness and obviously open attitude about sex, he found that hard to believe. But, in one of their awkwardly intimate moments they often shared but seldom spoke of, she confessed something to him that she swore she'd never told another living soul.

He couldn't really remember how the conversation began, but it took a turn (as it often did) to the differences between men and women. He'd said that women were duplicitous and untrustworthy, freely shouting out useless shit, but never telling you the things you really needed to know--like STDs. He'd been bored one night and couldn't sleep, and while channel-surfing he'd come across a report about Herpes on The Learning Channel.Itsaid that one out of every four women had Herpes and either a)didn't know or b)knew and had no intention of telling you.

She was sitting in the store's empty window seat, her back towards the glass, her legs folded beneath her, her fingers fiddling with a loose thread on the bottom of her tank top. She was dressed from head-to-toe in white except for this wicked pair of dark brown gladiator sandals that snaked all the way up to her knees and tied neatly behind them. "All men are dogs," she'd said. "They'll fuck anything that moves whether you want them to or not, and they don't even have the sense to know there's somethingwrongwith that."

Then she spewed out a statistic of her own.

"Did you know that by the age of 18oneout of everyfourwomen will have been sexually assaulted?"

He didn't really know what to say.

"And nobody really does anything about it. They're just numbers. Just statistics. But it's pretty scary when you think about it. I mean, think of four women you know, and odds areat leastone of them has been forced to do something they didn't wanna do."

He still didn't know what to say, but he felt if he stayed silent, she'd sort him in the same category as all the others. "Not all men rape." It sounded weak, without any real conviction; a hollow statement meant to pacify as opposed to console.

"Yeah? Well, not every chick has Herpes or is trying tohidethe fact that she has Herpes. Hiding other things, though..."

Things got uncomfortably quiet, and he felt the unconscious need to make himself busy in the back room by performing price checks and other mindless tasks that would remove him from the situation, but keep him from looking like a total ass. Thiswashis shop, after all. Hedidhave a job he was supposed to be doing. The movies, CDs, games, systems and controllers weren't gonna stock themselves.

She continued to sit there as he made his way to the back, behind the black curtain he'd hung up as a makeshift divider between his "office" and the actual "store." He had shelves and shelves of DVDs, stacks upon stacks of CDs, and rows upon rows of games and VHS tapes haphazardly arranged in his crowded little cubby hole. There was a 27" TV in front of him, connected to a PS2, an XBOX and a VCR. His computer desk was behind him, cluttered with various action figures, sports memorabilia and actual office supplies you'd need to run a business--pencils, pens, paper clips, a stapler, staples, rubber bands, and a somewhat outdated computer, equipped with Windows 98. And all his back-stock surrounded him.

If you were claustrophobic, you would've suffocated back there. But he wasn't claustrophobic and was quite comforted by his odd arrangement of possessions. Superman had his Fortress of Solitude, and he had his . . . Cavern of Clutter-tude.

He smiled to himself and settled back into his desk chair, then wheeled it around to face the TV. Just as he was about to click it "On," she appeared on the other side of the curtain. It didn't completely touch the opposing wall. There was a "doorway," of sorts that could comfortably accommodate two full-sized adults and a decorative mirror that he used to keep his eye on potential shoplifters.

"Do you . . . do you think I could use your bathroom? Normally, I'd just go home, but . . ."

He was so . . . fascinated by the thought of her bare ass touching his porcelain seat, he couldn't form a single, coherent word; he merely nodded in the direction she was to go.

There was a doorway (depending on which way he was facing) off to his immediate left/right. Once inside, straight ahead was a less-than-sophisticated sound system and the sudden left held a room longer than it was wide. To the far left was a personal shrine of sorts, composed of various religious images, Good Luck cards from his opening, and a vase containing a single, artificial black rose, Mecca, herself, had seen fit to give him. It wasn't a curse, or anything. Black was his favorite color, and they hadn't known each other long enough for any other color to be given with any amount of sincerity. The toilet, a mirror and a sink were to the far right. All of which, luckily, he'd just cleaned.

He heard the light switch flick "On" and the sound of flat shoes on vinyl flooring. The footsteps stopped and (he didn'tmeanto listen so hard) he swore he could hear every tooth of her zipper as it came undone. Or, perhaps it was just his mind playing tricks on him. It had been well over two years since that particular sound had graced his ears, and when it was his ex, Alicia, doing the undressing it was always accompanied by an irritated/exasperated look and a sigh of utter boredom. He'd managed to fuck her twice before the effort it took to maintain an erection with her became greater than the pleasure of mutual release.

Not that she ever came for him, he ruefully recalled. She'd "tolerate" his touch. She'd put up with his grunting and grinding. He could lick and suck and fuck where he may, but she refused to enjoy it. Two times was all he could take. She'd mentally castrated him their first time together, and the second time was an exercise in futility. He wanted to prove that he wasn't as "whipped" as his friends had said. He'd fuck this bitch till his come filled her every orifice, she was so bow-legged all her friends would call her "Hoss," and she'd break the world's record for the highest note hit, inaudible to man.

But, shit. She was cold, dry and motionless. He ate her out till his tongue cramped up, he played with her tits till he got a severe case of carpal tunnel, and he'd gottenhimselfso worked up, trying to getherworked up, he came the instant he entered her. She'd looked at him, asked if he was done, then shoved him off to go get high in the bathroom. And they went on like that for over a year. He knew itsoundedpathetic, and he certainlyfeltpathetic, but heneededher. Even if she treated him like shit and made him feel a million times worse than that, hedidhave a girlfriend. He introduced her as such, and she never argued the fact. That, in of itself, earned him some amount of masculine esteem from his friends. "Yeah," one of them had said. "Alicia's a bitch, but she'syourbitch."

True, Mecca could come across as cold and hard, and it could certainly be argued that every move she made was calculated to the nth degree of certainty. But if you looked beyond the well-preserved degrees, the well-toned body, the impeccably applied makeup, and the expensive-looking, but cheaply purchased clothing, there was something undeniablysoftlying underneath. Something in her eyes, something in her laugh, something in the way she moved when she thought no one was looking. There was a strange . . . sensuality to her strength, as a wayward child might look up to a stern mother. You couldn'thelpbut want her love and approval because you justknewwith her on your side, you could never lose.

She wouldn't take shit from you or anyone else, but she'd happily take shitforyou and give you anything you wanted as long as you treated her right.

"I'm one of the statistics."

The sound of her voice snapped him from his reverie. He was still in his "office;" she was still in the bathroom.

"N-not the Herpes one. The other one . . . I . . . um . . . I'm the one in four."

He took a moment to process the information she'd just given him. Her? One in four? Raped?

He scoffed to himself, shaking his head. She'dneverlet anything like that happen. Just theideathat some guy would try to touch her without her say-so was just . . . ridiculous. She'd kill them long before anything of significance could happen.

"You keep saying that doing a little weed never hurt anybody, and I'm not saying that it does. But I was a little drunk, and whole lot high, mainly because I was nervous. I mean, I really liked this guy, and I'd just . . . well, I'd been with this guy for awhile, and he was really nice, and we talked about getting married and kids and . . . all that shit. And then he just . . . dumped me. Said I was too good for him, and I should stop wasting my life."

She sounded really . . . not like herself. Small, fragile . . . vulnerable.

"My friends wanted me to just call him an asshole and forget the whole thing, but . . . he should've been my first. I kind of . . . made the offer a few times, but . . . he always seemed kind of freaked out by it. Like, he didn't wanna put his 'dirty' hands all over me or something, but I . . . I really, really liked him."

She became too quiet, and becoming quickly uncomfortable with the situation, he tried to . . . help her along. "And he . . ."

"No! Allen . . . no. He'dnever. Like I said, he didn't wanna get me dirty, but Eric was . . . Eric was . . . very charming. And my best friend's brother to boot, so . . . What could go wrong, you know? I just wanted to go out and have some fun and . . . get laid for once in my life."

Again, she grew quiet, then he heard her sigh.

"I started to get a bad feeling halfway into the night. You know, that gut feeling that something just isn't right. But . . . I'm hardheaded. Once I decide I wanna do something, I do it. Pride won't allow me to back down. It's gonna kill me one of these days, but fuck it. It's my life, and I'll live it the way I want, you know?"

"Yeah." He was familiar with the feeling, but he'd yet to actually do it: live life the way he wanted to.

"But he took me to this bar I'd never been to, showing me off like some sort of . . . freakish trophy. I mean, I'm not new to being the only black face in a crowd, but having it pointed out by the guy I'm with, and having him try to start shit with other people because of it . . . I should've flat out cussed him and told him to take me home."

"But you didn't."

"No. I had a few more drinks till I mellowed out and didn't feel so pissy and . . . I let him stick his fucking hand up my skirt. I mean, what the fuck? I don't do shit like that. True, there's a time and a place for everything, but in a crowded redneck bar certainly isn't one of them."

Feeling the need to contribute in some constructive way, "You've always struck me as a rather private person."

"Exactly! I don't do that shit out in public, but, go for the gusto, you know. Everyone in the place obviously thought I was some sort of black whore, so why not act like one and put on a good show?"

Show?

"He had his fingers up my cooch, so I wrapped my hand around his cock and started jerking him off."

Daniel swallowed hard. This was certainly not the type of conversation you wanted to be having with a half-naked woman through a bathroom door . . . especially one with no lock on it.

"So I straddle him and put my ass in his lap and said 'Let's do this.' He pushes me off him, grabs our coats, pays our tab and drags me out the door."

Damn, he wished he could actually do something like that. Grab a girl, say let's go and actually have her do it.

"But it was cold outside, and I slowly started coming to my senses. Something kept saying, 'you don't really wanna do this. You don't really wanna do this.' Then he shoves my back against his car, sticks his tongue down my throat and his hand up my shirt."

Sympathy, he reminded himself. She wants sympathy and understanding. She doesn't want you to jack off while she shows you her soul. This istraumaticfor her; itshouldn'tbe a turn-on.

"And part of me hates it, but part of me likes it. I keep reminding myself that the first time is supposed to hurt, and I'm not really gonna like it, anyway, so all this shit is no big deal. Just go back to his place. Let him do what he needs to do, and it'll be over with. You won't have to be on guard so much anymore. So paranoid about rapists hiding around every corner. So freaked out about relationships because you know eventually everything will come down to sex: will you or won't you?

Youwillbecause you already have, and there won't be any over-convoluted discussion involved because the topic of your virginity no longer exists."

Curiosity overcame him, and he had to ask. "How oldwereyou?"

He imagined her shaking her head.

"You won't believe me."

"Why wouldn't I believe you?"

"In this day and age, it's an oddity. Frankly, I wanted to get rid of it because itwasmaking me feel sort of odd. And every time you go out with a guy, and it goes beyond three dates, they always have to push the envelope, and then you have to tell them. And," sigh, "they ask you if you're frigid or gay or just all sorts of stupid shit, and I got sick of it. I was 26."

She was 29 at the time they'd had this conversation.

"And I'venevertold anyone. Everyone just assumes or assumed, you know. I didn't even tell Eric. I was afraid that if I did, he'd turn out to be like Allen, and fuck that. I was getting too old."

He scooted his chair back to the bathroom doorway. "So, if you wanted to, how did he?"

Again, she sighed. "You know the definition of rape is aforcedact of sex. Iwillinglywent down on the guy. I'd done it before; it wasn't any big deal. Of course, I said 'yes' to vaginal because I wanted him to pop my cherry, but then he . . ."

Daniel felt his stomach turn.

"At first I thought it was a mistake. I mean, he'd been drinking, I'd been drinking, and we'd both smoked a bowl. I wrote it off, and laughed and told him he was in the wrong hole."

He forced a half-hearted laugh to match her own.

"He laughed, apologized, and stuck it where it was 'supposed' to go. I mean, my back was completely to him. I was on my knees bent over the couch, and actually, it was kind of starting to feel good,untilhe took it out and put it in my butt. But, you know, it was an honest mistake, I thought.

Till he did it again, andwouldn'tstop."

That was something Daniel never understood. There had to be something severely wrong in a man's head to be more turned on by "No" than by "Yes." To have to knock a chick around, hold her down andforceyourself inside her. He'd never forced Alicia to do anything, but he knew from experience there was nothing more uninviting than a dry pussy. Things just didn't . . . fit the way they were supposed to, and it was usually more painful than pleasurable.

"At first, my head was all foggy, and I was still giggly, and I kept telling him he was making a mistake, and it was in the wrong hole, and that it really . . .hurt. I thought, you know, he'd stop. But, after a couple of minutes, I knew he wasn't, so I . . . I elbowed him in the ribs. I clawed him in the eyes . . . which got him off me, then I kicked him in the balls while calling him every foul name I could think of, and . . . he thought it was funny. He . . . I guess he didn't think there was anything wrong with what he did. He curled into a ball and told me I should calm down and 'loosen' up. I . . ."

Her voice faded off into nothingness, and he again found himself straining to make out any sounds from the restroom. When it became too quiet, too still, he scooted himselfintothe hallway, just outside the bathroom door. All he had to do was stand up, step up and turn the knob . . . then he heard it: sniffling.

"I don't knowwhyI told you that. I mean, I guess you tell me a lot of things yousayyou've never told anyone before, but men lie, and I guess I don't want you to be a liar, and I don't wanna come across like an insensitive bitch, and with what we were talking about . . . It just came out. Maybe it's been wanting to come out, but . . . Iknowother girls this has happened to, I mean, some like me where you know the guy and others where it's this totally random act of violence, and I can't help it. I kind of pitied them, but at the same time, I didn't wanna be around them, anymore . . . You know, before it happened tome. And . . . I don't have that many . . . you know . . . friends . . . to begin with, so to risk alienating them just so I could share my nightmares with them, well . . . Not something I wanted to do."

"Do you?" he asked. "Have nightmares?"

"No. At first, I just couldn't sleep. I'd have to shower for two hours every night and then . . . I guess Allen was kind of right. You do feel . . . dirty, and nothing ever seemed clean enough for me. I mean, it happened athishouse, but after I came home and showered and shit, I threw out the towels. And then after I went to bed and woke up, I threw away my sheets and pillowcases. And it stayed that way for the next couple of weeks. I'd use the shit once, and I just wouldn't want to touch it again.