Ruby doesn’t mind the rutting. Not usually. Granted, she doesn’t love some big ole man sawing away at her, sweating all over her in the heat, ruining her best sheets, but she’d had other jobs, and this wasn’t the worst one by far. In her estimation, the money was better, she could set her own hours, and she worked for herself. Not many of her people had ever been able to say as much.
She hadn’t realized this was the lesson her mother and grandfather had been teaching her until they were both gone. Sometimes, she could still remember watching her poppa bowing and scraping with his hat in hand, hoping those white people would pay him what they’d agreed — even though everyone knew it was a fraction of what his work was worth. Even as a young girl, she’d known that something about those situations just wasn’t right; it weren’t fair.
But life wasn’t fair, and her mama always said that life don’t give none of us any gifts. Hard work was all any of them could rely on.
Now that she was older, she knew why her mama took in pounds of washing and sewing and cooked or baked for anyone could afford her — and some who couldn’t — so long as she could do it from their home. She’d thought, at first, that her mother had made those decisions so she could stay at home with Ruby, as a way to make up for the fact that Ruby didn’t have a daddy. In reality, her mama had done all that because being a maid in white people’s houses was how she’d gotten Ruby in the first place. And with that kind of history, Ruby had decided when she was just a slip of a girl that she would do everything it took to carve out a life where she didn’t have to work for anyone else, especially white people.
Her mama had always said God bestowed everyone with a talent, but it was their job to figure out just how to use it. It didn’t take long in her adolescence for Ruby to decide that she had three gifts — her brain, her breasts, and her pussy — and she knew that if she used them, she could get close to the life she thought she deserved. Unfortunately, she’d had to test her theory when she was barely a woman after she lost her mama, and she was all alone. Her talents had kept her fed, with a roof over her head for years, and it got her this house that she’d earned, which was good for her and for Esther and Marcus, too.
So, she didn’t mind the rutting, not usually.
But it was too hot tonight. The humidity was so thick, Ruby had been battling a headache for most of the day, and there was Sheriff Dean just sawing away on top of her, sweating, his red face pressed into the crook of Ruby’s neck, his tongue sliding over her damp skin. The longer this went on, the harder it was getting for Ruby to breathe, and by the Sheriff’s wheezing, there was a chance he was struggling on that front as well, or at least, that’s what Ruby told herself when she decided to bring this session to a close for both their benefits.
She wrapped her arms and legs around his body and squeezed him close. She knew he liked that. And then she squeezed him with her pussy; pulsing around him, keeping him deep inside her, pushing him over the edge.
“Wait. Wait. No,” he whined but shot off inside her anyway. His hips spasmed and then locked, and he shouted into her ear before groaning as he emptied inside Ruby with a satisfied sigh.
She counted to fifteen while she held him. She knew he liked that and always paid more when she did it.
This was the part she didn’t like. Ruby liked to sleep alone, always, no matter who’d been in her bed earlier. She didn’t give up half her bed or her space to anyone, and sometimes, holding people was just a bit too close to crossing the line into things she had no interest in selling.
When she reached the end of her countdown, she patted Sheriff Dean on the back. He huffed out a breath and crawled off her, which was why he was the only white man she let in her bed or body. He fell flat on his back on her bed, still huffing and puffing, trying to catch his breath, and Ruby let him. She climbed out of bed and walked across the room, behind the screen she’d had shipped from a shop in New Orleans just for this occasion. The shop advertised their wares as the finest French furniture this side of the Atlantic. Ruby didn’t know if she believed them, but she liked the screen and wasn’t using her money to buy it anyhow, so who cared if that shop had been lying about where it came from?
She put her foot on the stool and reached carefully between her legs and inside herself to remove her diaphragm.
She didn’t love this part, either.
“How about another round?” Sheriff Dean called to her. “Just as soon as I get my breath,” he joked.
Ruby laughed as her mind was already working on the best way to say no when she was saved by a window in her bedroom crashing in.
“What the shit?” Sheriff Dean yelled.
Ruby dropped her diaphragm on the small table next to her, grabbed her robe from atop the screen, and threw it around her body. She was tying the sash around her waist when she came around the screen. There was glass on the floor by her bed and what looked like a rock laying in the midst of the mess. And then there was Dean standing at attention, naked as the day he was born with his pistol in his hand, pointing at the window as if another rock was surely coming and he could shoot it down.
Ruby moved closer to him carefully, her eyes darting to the rock. There was a scrap of paper tied around it with twine. Another had come through the window in the dining room just last week. “Nigger Whore,” it said in barely legible handwriting. She had a fairly good idea of who was behind it, but those were worries for another day. Right now, there were more pressing matters at hand.
“Sheriff, sweetheart, can you put that gun away for me, darlin’? You know I don’t like pistols.” That was maybe the biggest lie she’d ever told in this room, and that was saying a lot.
There was a knock at the bedroom door — more like pounding — and predictably, Dean turned toward the door, cocking that damn pistol. Ruby moved as quick as she could to him. She put one hand on his shoulder and the other on the hand holding that gun. It was trembling. She used her softest voice to calm him.
“Ruby,” Marcus called through the door. “Ruby, you alright in there?”
Ruby’s heart was thumping against her chest, and her mouth had gone dry with fear. In her mind, she was navigating a disastrous turn of events. If this cracker killed Marcus, she’d just have to kill him, and that would leave Esther here all on her own. The thought of that made her want to cry.
“Come on now, sheriff,” she said. “Put that gun down, and we can have that second round.”
That got his attention.
She waited until his pistol was stowed before calling out to Marcus. “I’m fine in here, just fine. Ain’t we, Dean?”
“Y-yeah,” he stuttered as she pushed him on the bed, carefully avoiding stepping onto the glass on the floor.
She undid the sash on her robe but turned away from him, heading back to that screen. Good thing she had an extra diaphragm and had learned how to get it in place lickety-split. The trick was to keep him waiting just long enough to do what needed to be done to protect herself from ever having to carry the burden her mother had while raising her. All Ruby had to do was keep his blood racing, and as it happened, she was good at that.
Very good.
Just before she disappeared behind that screen, she turned to look at him over her left shoulder and pushed her robe to the floor. She didn’t think it was possible, but Sheriff Dean turned redder than a cooked crawdad.
She spread the jelly on her spare diaphragm, lifted her foot onto the stool, and inserted it carefully inside her body. She tried not to think about that rock or what she would do if it wasn’t a rock next time.
So, she wondered at how to get Dean on his back since she wasn’t interested in lying there while he rutted on top of her again. Her headache had finally burst into full bloom, and she didn’t have the energy to let him use her body to get off one more time, no matter how much he was paying her.
She walked back to the bed and climbed on top of him. She took control with a smile, knowing that she was damn sure gonna make sure he paid her what she was worth.
More than that, actually.