“Hey, baby. You look lonesome.”
I look up to see Tash. I look at her—really look at her. There’s nothing wrong with being a Twinkie. Lips is a great example of a good woman. Tash though…she’s ugly, and I’m not talking about the outside. Inside she’s ugly—like me. She’s got the same rotting insides as I do. This is what I deserve. Carrie, the baby…that’s not the life for me. I should have never touched her—never let myself dream.
“Sure baby climb on board,” I tell her, patting my lap. She slides on and my dick…lays there. Her perfume feels as if it’s going to choke me. Carrie doesn’t wear perfume. Her scent is a mixture of the lotion and shampoo she uses. It’s clean, sweet and…too good for me.
She starts licking on my neck like some damn dog in heat. Is this what I have to look forward to in life? I down another shot to dull the feel of her.
“Keep your fucking hands away from my head, Tash,” I bark when she starts to pull my face to her. I can’t handle that shit. I couldn’t handle certain things with Carrie, but the feel of this bitch’s hands pulling my head down… fuck I want to vomit. Instead, I down another drink. My hands are shaking. Images flash in my mind. I was unconscious during most of my attack but every now and then I remember the smell, the voices, and the laughter as another… SHIT! Why the fuck are the memories getting more intense and coming so often?
I look back at Nicole, her face is blurry as hell. I see her laughing, her hand on her stomach. My mind pictures Carrie in that same pose, laughing and being happy—with me. The thought of her makes my dick jerk, which considering the bottle I’ve ingested is a miracle. Tash is undoing my pants. What does it matter? Not a damn thing, unless you count the fact that my dick just shriveled up at the thought.
I’m about to push the bitch off of me when I feel her hand graze the head of my cock. I can feel bile rise in my throat. I haven’t been able to let anyone touch my dick, but me. I grieved it. I wanted Carrie to suck me off. I longed for it. Yet, just the thought of giving someone control…
I take another drink. The bottle is empty now. I’m going to grab another and get the fuck away from Tash and pray the liquor does its job.
“You disgust me,” Nicole says from beside me.
I jerk around to face her, swaying but I manage to stay on the stool. She’s looking at me with so much revulsion it pisses me the hell off. She wasn’t lying. Fuck I was pretty sick of myself. Still I don’t appreciate this bitch calling me out in front of everyone.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I ask, knowing if Dragon walks in, he will hand me my ass on a platter.
“I am apparently the only one here with enough nerve to tell you what a fuck up, you’re being. I know you got shit going on in your head Dancer, but don’t you think it’s time to grow the hell up? You’re home now quit hurting people who give a damn about you and be a fucking man!”
“Woman, I’m not going to tell your ass again. Get the hell out of my business.”
“Carrie is my business.”
“I don’t owe that cunt a damn thing. She wanted my cock and she got it. End-of-story!”
Even saying this shit hurts me, but I can’t give in. Carrie left me. She gave up on me. She finally discovered what I already know. She’s too good for me.
“You’re such a pig. She loves you. Dragon does too.”
Her words cut open the part inside of me that isn’t dead. Dragon and Carrie are probably the only two people in my life who have ever cared about me besides Jazz. That thought hurts so deep, I lash out.
“The bitch asked for my cock, she got it. Who I give my dick to, is none of your fucking concern. That is unless you want to take a ride on the train too?”
“Don’t make me gag! You stay drunk off your ass! You take a good woman’s virginity, who just so happens to love you and you just kick her to the curb for a woman whose pussy has been used so many times it’s wider than the grand fucking canyon? What is wrong with you?”
“What’d you say about me bitch?” Tash joins in.
“Do you really want me to show you how the fuck I feel about you again Tash? If you do, bring it on. I’ll do your ugly ass a favor and break your nose the other way this time and get rid of that nasty crooked shit you got going on,” Nicole responds.
“Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” Tash asks.
I hold my head down and rub the bridge of my nose. Fuck a duck, I can’t handle this.
“Bitch please, your legs get spread more than peanut butter,” Nicole snaps at Tash and I want to laugh.
“Well I never!” Tash whines back and her voice is so grating I cringe.
“There are three words no one ever thought they’d hear out of your mouth. I guess God still gives out miracles.”
“I doubt you know anything about God,” Tash snaps in response to Nicole.
“I know you’ve been on your knees more than Billy Graham, does that count?”
“Bitch…”
“WILL YOU TWO SHUT THE HELL UP? I’m fucking tired of it. Nicole, get your cunt ass back to Dragon and get the fuck away from me!”
The room goes completely quiet. It had died down before, but this quiet is more.
“I can’t believe you, but yeah I’ll leave you alone. Carrie and the baby are better off without your sorry ass anyway.”
I get out of my chair pushing Tash off of me. I need out of here. It feels like I’m fucking choking on the air.
“Only time I need to hear or see your damn mouth is if you want to suck my cock. I hear you’re good at that shit…”
I growl dismissing Nicole, intent on getting the fuck out of here.
“What the fuck did you just say to my woman, Dance?” Dragon yells out from across the room.
I shove Nicole out of my way, I have to leave. The room is swimming and my heart is pounding double time. I can’t let anyone see me like that. I can’t….
Dragon grabs the edge of a table and propels it half way across the room. Before I even blink, he’s in front of me and his fist is coming at my face.
It’s one punch and I’m down. I couldn’t stand after a punch like that, even sober. I lay on the floor trying for some reason to hold onto consciousness.
I look up and focus on Dragon. He is looking down at me and again it’s just another person with disgust in their eyes. I try to shake off the effects of the upper cut and all of the alcohol swimming in my system, I can’t.
I let out a painful breath and bend double as Dragon’s steel toed boot connects with my stomach. Before I can react further, not that I could have at that point, Dragon slams his size twelve boot into my nuts.
The pain is so intense I turn to the side and puke some of the liquid poison I’m swimming in. My pulse pounds and thrums in my ears. Dragon grabs me by the neck of my shirt and now I can see the pain in his eyes as well as the disgust.
“I know you got shit gutting you, Dance. I see it and it kills me that I can’t help, but Motherfucker if you ever talk to my woman like that again? If you ever put your hands on her in any fucking way, I will end you. Do you hear me? I will put a bullet in your fucking brain, and end you. I’ll give you what you’ve wanted since you got out.”
Dragon lets me go and my head hits the floor and rolls into my own vomit. My vision is blurry, but I could see Crusher, Freak and Gunner standing beside Dragon and the pity in their eyes makes me want to fucking scream. I close my eyes to avoid it instead.
“Dragon, sweetheart let it go.”
I open my eyes when I feel a towel on the side of my head. Nicole is wiping the side of my face. She is trying to help me, even after I had shot my mouth off towards her.
“Mama, get up from there, you shouldn’t be bending down in your condition,” Dragon says.
My eyes lock on Nicole’s blue ones. I’m not sure what is there. There’s pity, but something else. I want to ask, but I don’t. She gives me a weak smile and lets her man pull her away from me.
“Get your shit together, Dance. You want revenge? I’ll help you. Whatever you need brother you got it, but get your fucking shit together. We’re brothers. I’m here for you. No judgment. You feel me?”
I don’t answer. I hear him I just can’t stop looking at the way my brother is holding Nicole. I watch as she stretches her head up and kisses him on the lips and slowly pulls away.
She gets to the hall at the back of the club, stops and looks at me. She gives me a weak smile. I pull my eyes from her and look back at my brothers. They’re all standing in a semi-circle looking down on the fucking mess I have become. I know what they want from me, I’m just not sure I can give it.
I’m lying here in vomit with my pants undone, with my brothers watching. Is this rock bottom?
Dancer
T
he feel of
cold water rushing over me greets me. I sputter into consciousness. Dragon is standing over my bed in the club, a dripping empty bucket in his hand.
“What the fuck, man?” I yell jumping out of the bed, using my hand to wipe the water out of my eyes. I moan at the pain the sudden movement costs me. I sway but manage to stay on my feet.
“Time to get off your ass, Dance. We got shit to do.”
He throws a towel at me, I wipe my face off and then put the towel on the bed and sit down to get my bearings. Sadly, most of the water hit me not the bed.
“What kind of shit?”
He throws down a flyer and I look at it.
Hope Harbor, A Sexual Trauma Recovery Center
“Oh, fuck no!”
“Oh, fuck yes,” Dragon returns.
“You don’t know what the…”
“I don’t, exactly. I’ll give you that, but I know what it’s like to be used for sex when I had no idea what sex was.”
“Damn it, Drag…”
“Look at me, motherfucker. Do I look weak to you?”
I stop and look at him.
“I was traded around the streets as a kid for sex. A fucking kid! I survived. I am my own fucking man and I fucking fight to keep that. I fucking fight to keep my woman and…”
“It’s not the same! I went off half-cocked!” I scream standing up, the state of my hangover lost in the crap that Dragon seems intent on bringing to the surface.
“So? You kept Carrie from being…”
“If it had been you, it would have turned out different! You would have kept your cool! You would have saved your woman and covered your ass and none of the other shit would have happened! You even told me that shit!”
“I fucking lied!” Dragon yells back and I freeze.
“If it had been Nicole attacked in that fucking alley. If it had been Nicole some motherfucker had his hands on, I would have gutted him like a motherfucking fish and I would have danced on his corpse. Fuck I might have even made a necklace out of his entrails.”
I listen and my hand comes up to rub the stubble on my face. I almost want to smile.
“You’re a sick bastard.”
“Never claimed different.”
I sit back down.
“If it had been you Drag, you would have been able to protect yourself better. You would have stopped them…’
“Bullshit. You were one man. One man, who they grabbed, shanked from behind like the fucking pussies they were and then beat you into unconsciousness—all before they took from you what they did. Hell Dance, even with all that you still managed to put two of the guards in the hospital.”
I swallow as I look down at the floor. I can’t look up at Dragon. I’m not ready.
“They didn’t take from me, Dragon. They didn’t steal a watch off of me. They didn’t rob me of money. They raped me.”
It’s a whisper. A broken whisper and I hate that there are tears, but there are. So, I keep my head down.
“They did, but they did
not
break you, Dance. You’re still here and you got a good woman who loves you. You got a baby on the way. You got a family who needs you and brothers that would fucking die for you. Do NOT let these pussies take that shit from you, man. Don’t let it happen. If they do that, if you let them do that, then you’re
weak
. Right now brother, there’s not a motherfucking thing weak about you.”
“How do you know?”
“Your dreams in the hospital, then I did some digging.”
“The brothers?”
“Might guess, but have no idea. I did this, I called in a marker.”
“You really think some new age recovery center can help me?”
“I think it’s worth a shot. I think it will help you get your woman and kid back.”
I swallow and chance a look at him. I breathe easier when he is looking down at me and I don’t see pity. I see… belief. I grab the paper again.
Hope Harbor
. I sure could fucking use some hope.
“I want them all to die. I want to send them to hell. I doubt Hope Harbor can do that for me.”
“No, that’s where I come in.”
I look up at him and he has another sheet of paper. He slides it in the pocket of his jeans.
“You get better. If you want to help you’re welcome to, but I will make the fuckers pay. I made a promise.”
“A promise?” I ask trying to ignore the panic at the thought of the men on that paper.
“Red told me to make it hurt. I intend to.”
My eyes freeze on Dragon’s.
“She did?”
Dragon nods.
“I need help, Drag. I…I can’t do it on my own.”
“Then let’s get you help and get your woman home where she belongs.”
“She might not want to come home.”
“Then you’ll just have to convince her.”
“You think I can do that?” I ask, but I feel lighter than I have in forever.
“It’ll take a lot of work,” Dragon shrugs, but he is smiling too.
“A lot of work,” I echo.
“Anything good in life is.”
“Let’s get me healthy then,” I respond and when I stand in front of Dragon he cups my shoulder in support.
Carrie
G
od, I miss
him.
I thought with time it would get better, but it hasn’t. It’s been four weeks. A whole month now since I have seen Jacob and every day the need for him gets worse. What is wrong with me?
I’ve gotten settled. I have a routine, but that’s what it is. A routine. The highlight of my week is when Nicole calls me. She told me that Dancer has been attending therapy for the last two weeks. She feels like he’s trying to get better. I’m glad. I really am, but there’s a part of me wondering why he couldn’t do that when we were together. A bigger part of me is hurt because he hasn’t tried to contact me. Did I mean so little? Now that he’s trying to get better, am I no longer important to him? Did I finally convince him it was over? That thought chills me.