MYRICK
We headed across town to Outback Steakhouse. The last time I ate there was three weeks before I got locked up. I ordered the biggest T-bone they had with a mess of sweet potato fries. It was nice to be eating something other than bologna and mustard sandwiches on stale bread. That prison pig shit they called themselves trying to pass off as food did nothing but give me the bubble guts, had me shitting half the night. I savored every hearty bite of the meat, letting the juices run down my chin. I tore it up like it was my last meal.
“How’s your steak?” Krista asked. “Or do I even need to ask the way you’re scarfing it down?” She took a napkin and dabbed my chin clean of grease.
“It’s funny what you take for granted when you’re locked up,” I said. “Something as simple as a steak. You don’t know how good you got it ’til you lose it, you know?”
“Baby, stop, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m gonna take real good care of you for now on.”
“Come here,” I said, bending across the table. Krista met me in the middle with a kiss. “Don’t know how I survived in that hellhole if it wasn’t for you. Your letters and cards got me through some rough, fucked-up days, Krista.”
“With everything you told me about your last girlfriend and what she did to you, I knew you needed somebody to stand by you when you had nobody else.”
I had gotten Krista’s name and contact information from Craig, dude who was doing an eighteen-year bid for armed robbery. This brother was six-four, 278 pounds, whole. No one fucked with Craig knowing good and well it meant an ass whipping of Texas-sized proportions. He used to read me letters and poems Krista sent—real pretty poems that smelled of perfume with envelopes sealed with lipstick kisses. When Craig showed me a picture, her beautiful smile, long hair and big round titties, I had to holler at her, so I wrote her a letter introducing myself and whatnot. I didn’t tell her at first what I was locked up for. I wasn’t trying to scare the girl. After several letters back and forth, I finally came out and told her what I was in for. I told her about Shariece and explained that it was all a misunderstanding. I told her how much I loved Shariece, that in return, she ripped my heart out and kicked my shit around like an empty soda can. After a week of not getting a letter from her, I figured she didn’t want anything to do with a brother. Finally, I got this envelope decorated with hearts and silver stars, the address of the prison written in cute, cursive bubble letters. Krista explained that she understood, that she was in a bad way with her ex, when she was addicted to booze and meth.
I sympathized with her when she went on about how she grew up in a single-parent home, raised by a mother who did nothing but drink and beat on her. With the physical and sexual abuse I’d endured from my own mama, I sympathized.
I would get two letters a week from Krista, sometimes three, that smelled of perfume and smudged with lipstick kisses like the ones she had penned to Craig. There were other chicks that I corresponded with, but not as much as Krista. Most of them were prison groupies, but Krista was on a whole new level. I stopped writing this chick, Tanesha who lived in Boston who said I could come stay with her once I got out, but I didn’t want to leave Florida, and Boston is too damn cold for this Southern boy. I took a job in New York once for six months and damn near froze my ass off. I ran back to Tallahassee after getting enough of the twenty-mile-per-hour wind chill and snow up to my balls. It was good to feel Florida sun on my face again.
Alexis, this cute waitress with sugar-brown skin and perky titties tight in a white Outback Steakhouse T-shirt, made her way back to our table. “Would you guys like some dessert? We have chocolate cheesecake, apple turnovers and peach cobbler, fresh and made from scratch.” Alexis looked a little like Shariece. Seemed like every black woman I laid my eyes on resembled her in some way.
“You got room for some chocolate cheesecake?” I asked Krista.
“Sounds good,” Krista said. She came off a little flippant to Alexis. I figured it was because she came off as a bit flirtatious. “Let me get two slices of chocolate cheesecake to go.”
“Let me get those plates out of your way and I’ll be right back with your dessert.” I watched Alexis walk away, admiring her apple bottom booty taut in a pair of black shorts.
“So have you heard from your brother at all?” Krista asked.
“No, and I’m guessing that he doesn’t want shit to do with me after finding out what I did to end up in prison. He’s married with kids. I don’t blame him for staying away.”
“Have you tried contacting him at all?”
“Damn, what’s with all the questions?”
“Sorry. I was just wondering if you had any family to come and see you.”
“Look, I tried with Rashawn. Letters, phone calls, no word. I’m done. Far as I’m concerned, he’s got his life and I got mines.”
“I know, but baby, ya’ll are family.”
“Rashawn and I were always at each other’s throats as kids. A lot of jealousy bullshit with me and him.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
I stabbed a piece of gristle with my fork and forced it in my mouth. “Kris, look, I really don’t want to talk about my brother. Like I said, he’s got his shit and I got mine. Let’s just . . . leave it at that for right now.”
“Okay, baby, that’s fine. No more talk about your brother.”
Alexis’s fine ass returned with two to-go desserts inside a bag. “Here you go and here is your check. You two enjoy your evening.”
“Thank you, Alexis, ’preciate it.” Krista rolled her eyes before she finished off the rest of her raspberry sweet tea. I can’t stand jealous women, especially if it’s over dumb shit like what Krista was doing. She was starting to grate on my nerves. First the twenty questions about Rashawn and now she’s mean mugged because of some damn flirty waitress. Krista pulled forty dollars out of her purse and laid them on the table.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Where to?” Krista asked.
“Back to my crib. There’s a spare key I always leave under the doormat. I just hope it’s still there.” Krista and I walked out of the steakhouse with our chocolate cheesecake and full stomachs. “How ’bout I drive?” When we got to the car, Krista handed me the keys. It felt good to get behind the wheel of a car again. To feel all that steel under my ass. Krista’s Tempo wasn’t my Cadillac Escalade, by any means, and I couldn’t wait to see my whip.
* * *
The driveway was strewn with leaves and pine needles, and the front yard was overgrown with weeds. “This is a beautiful house,” Krista said.
“It could use a bit of work. It’s all that’s left of my mama. Surprised it’s still here, really, and it hasn’t been sold.”
“It just needs a coat of paint, that’s all.”
We got out and walked along the overgrown lawn to the porch. I turned over the doormat. “Yep, right where I left it.” I slid the gold-plated beak of the key into the slit of the doorknob and turned it open. The stench of mold and mildew bit my senses as we walked in. It felt damp.
“Myrick, it ain’t that bad. Just needs a woman’s touch is all. Once we get it cleaned up, it’ll be livable again.” I didn’t recall asking for Krista’s opinion about my house.
“I see that it needs cleaning. I’m looking right-the-fuck at it.”
“I know. I’m just saying.”
“Well, stop saying.” Krista continued sizing up the house. Unfortunately, it was exactly like I had left it: dirty as hell. There were clothes folded over the back of the sofa and chairs; dirty plates and glasses filled the kitchen sink. I didn’t realize that I had left the house in such a pigsty.
“Myrick, baby, what’s wrong?”
“She would be so ashamed of me.”
“Who?”
“Mama. Look at this place.”
“Don’t cry. You just need to straighten up a little, that’s all.”
“She was too sick to visit me in the pen ’cause of the cancer. She died and I wasn’t there when she needed me the most. I let her down.”
“No you didn’t; don’t talk like that. Your mama loved you.”
I gave Krista an expression of disgust. “How the hell would you know? Did you know her?”
“What?”
“You didn’t know her, so you don’t know shit.”
“I just think you’re being too hard on yourself that’s all,” Krista said.
“Well, do me a favor. Don’t think.”
“Baby, I was only trying to—”
“Don’t try, do. That’s what Mama always used to say to me before she clocked me upside the head with a bedroom shoe. Don’t try, do.”
“Sounds like a wise woman.”
“She was always on my ass for every little thing. Tell me how worthless I was. You know she told me once that she wished she had never had me.”
“Oh my God, baby, I’m sorry.” I pulled away when Krista placed her hand on my shoulder to comfort me.
“She used to beat me with anything she could find. One time, she gave me ten lashes across my back with an extension cord because I wet the bed.”
“I’m so sorry. Was your dad ever around?”
“I never knew the man. Rashawn and I come from different daddies. Mama pointed him out to me once when we were in Publix, but I never met him. I never had anything to do with him. She made sure of that.”
Krista wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug. “All my daddy does is sit home and drink. He’s probably fucked up right now. Why do they do it to us, Myrick? What did we ever do?” I looked about the house at all the work that needed to be done, knowing that there was no time for reminiscing.
“Okay, enough talking about our damaged childhoods. I just got out of prison and that calls for a celebration. I think I have a bottle of wine around here somewhere.” I scavenged the cabinets, but nothing. When I opened the refrigerator, the rancid odor of cheese was like a pimp slap in the face. I slammed it shut, but I had already gotten wind of the stench. “Like a damn biohazard in there.” I looked in the cabinets above the refrigerator where I found a bottle of Cabernet. I took two wineglasses, set them on the kitchen counter and poured. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Krista’s breasts. They were so big you could float out to sea for days on her titties. “I hope you like red wine.”
“I like anything with alcohol. I heard that red is good for the heart or something,” Krista said.
“That’s true. It has antioxidants in it that help to prevent against artery damage.” I handed Krista a glass.
“My sister and I took a wine-tasting class last year and we learned all about how healthy red wine is.”
“In moderation, though. You can’t go drinking the shit like it’s Kool-Aid.”
Krista inhaled the aroma of the wine before she took a sip. “That’s pretty good.”
“We’ll clean up later. Let’s take our wine up to the bedroom.” The thought of smothering my face between Krista’s tits, got my dick hard. My bedroom was slightly cleaner than the rest of the house. Every table, lamp and chair was covered with dust.
“This is my bedroom,” I said, taking a seat on the edge of the king-size bed. Krista gave a sinister smile as she came over and sat next to me, knowing full damn well where it would lead. She placed her glass on the bedside table and began to rub my dick through my jeans again. I was already bone-hard. “Damn, girl, you fine.” I roped my arms around Krista and pulled her down on top of me, her large titties pressing against my chest, the tent of my dick grazing against her camel toe. We came together with sloppy kisses, shoving our tongues mutually in each other’s mouths. I pulled at Krista’s white tank top until her breasts flopped out of the ribbed cotton. I tongue-teased her nipples, sucking them past my lips as I pushed my hand down into her low-riding jeans, past her panties until I felt her pussy slick with her juices. How in the hell did I go without this so long? I thought. Krista ran her fingers along my hair as I toyed with her nips. “Let’s get you out of these clothes.” I peeled off her cutoffs as she released her titties from the confines of her tank top.
I kicked off my Timbs as I tugged my shirt off. I had lost thirty pounds in the pin from lifting weights, building a nice six-pack. Taking the anger out on free weights was better than sitting in a cell to stew for five years.
My dick popped free from the cage of denim and underwear when I pulled them down to my ankles, pushing them from my feet. I pulled Krista to me, the mushroom head of my dick grazing against her pussy. She sighed when I sank my dick in past the lips of her vagina. Her skin was powder-white and soft as cream. Her pussy was as warm as apple pie as I stirred her insides with my double chocolate dip stick. “Fuck, don’t stop,” she said, as she clawed at my back, locking her legs around mine as I thrusted. When I looked at Krista, all I could see was Shariece’s face again. I kissed her hard, sucking her tongue and lips, squeezing Shariece’s round, brown breasts. “Baby, you’re hurting me.”
I glanced to find that it wasn’t Shariece, but Krista’s freckled, pasty-white face staring back at me. Fuck! “My bad,” I said. I dropped my face off to the side. I couldn’t stand to look at Krista. She wasn’t who I desired. Shariece was who I wanted, not this trailer-trash, stringy-haired bitch. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t the type who slummed.
I fucked until I popped my load. I couldn’t stomach being with Krista another minute. I wanted her out of my bed, out of my house and the fuck out of my life. I couldn’t have been more disgusted with myself when my dick slipped out of her stank-ass cooch.
“You lasted a lot longer in the car,” she said, as she caressed my chest. I almost cringed to this bitch putting her hands on me, the sound of her trashy Southern twang. I wanted to cut out her tongue for even fixing her mouth to speak to me. This skank couldn’t hold a matchstick to my Shariece. I needed to get what I needed out of Krista before I got rid of her.
“So did you get the information I asked you to get for me?”
“Shariece just got hired at the community college teaching English on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and she has a Tuesday night class from six-thirty to nine forty-five. She lives on Sixth Street in midtown. She usually gets home a little after six on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and around ten-thirty on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“Did you get the other thing?”
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot.” Krista took her shorts and pulled a key out of the back pocket. “It was tough for me to get this, but I managed.”
“What would I ever do without you?”
“You know I would do anything for you.” I kissed Krista, pressing her back down into bed. I ran my hands up along her stomach, in between her cleavage, stretching my hand across her throat. I looked into her eyes as I started to apply pressure. She started to cough, gawking at me as fear took her over. Krista clawed at my hand, pushing to get loose, but she couldn’t free herself from under my weight. I straddled her, taking her by the throat with both hands now, squeezing, pushing, choking her. Krista tried to scream, but my hands were like a vise grip. I thought of Shariece. The more she fought, the more I tightened my hands around her throat. Krista stopped struggling. I could see the life fading from her ocean-blue eyes. Her body went limp, felt light. She was gone. The back of my hand was on fire from all her scratches. Her arms flopped lifeless over the edge of the bed. I eased off of her and watched her for a short while. “You do have some beautiful titties.” I groped and sucked on her titties for what would be the last time. I stared at myself in the mirror, my dick dry with Krista’s pussy juices.