“No.” There was no time for boyfriends when you spent as much time as you could doing hair and trying to make money. “No boyfriends, just…well, my dildo.”
“Oh?” He raised a bemused brow. “I’d like to see my competition.”
She buried her face into the pillow and laughed.
He swooped down and kissed her neck and shoulders again and again.
She closed her eyes and sighed, passively allowing Troy to kiss a path down her body. When she felt completely consumed by her own need she turned and cupped his face. She kissed him fiercely. She needed this. She needed to feel this man inside of her.
“Please…” She reached down and gripped his hard cock and now he was the one that trembled. Troy slid easily between her legs and she brought them up and enclosed him against her. Why did this feel so right? His hands were planted on either side of her head, his body not quite resting on her, and he waited for her to guide him inside of her.
Juicy positioned him at her opening and then he pushed forward. “Oh god…” he moaned. “Oh Juice…” His eyes closed as his lips parted. Troy pushed deeply into her and then he sought a tempo as he repeatedly thrust in and out of her. Juicy clutched him desperately, her hips matching his every move and soon their intertwined; one dark, one white resembled a strange ying yang symbol.
They made love for the entire evening using only two condoms though they made love four times. The third time Juicy whispered that she was taking the depo shot and she tossed the condoms across the room to land on the dresser.
Almost desperately, Troy plunged into her, unsheathed. A short while later he cried out his third orgasm of the night as if it were his first. Juicy writhed beneath him, pushing back against each of his thrusts and it was her climax that triggered his responsive ejaculation--almost as if it was the first time they had touched.
CHAPTER 7
Hunger drove them out of bed. After a meal of scrambled eggs and toast, Troy slipped on his freshly laundered clothes while Juicy watched tensely. Of course he would have to leave. He couldn’t just stay in her apartment forever…
He kissed her lips three times allowing his fingers to gently stroke the small of her back. “Go to the doctor, okay? A real doctor. Have them look at the bruise here, it’s pretty bad.”
“I will do that, and I will call the police station and I will rest.” He blushed knowing that he’d repeated this to her several times. “Um…when will I see you again?” It was the question that sounded desperate no matter how off-handed you tried to sound.
Troy had already pieced together that Juicy had to make up a lot of work. There were some things that he wanted to take care of, as well. “This weekend? I’ll come back Saturday.”
Saturday was three days from now. “Ok.”
“Don’t work too hard. And if you start getting a headache, Juicy, don’t just try to work through it. It won’t get better if you do that, only worse.”
This time she opened the front door and let him out. “I will be okay.” He smiled, lowered his head to give her another quick kiss then he bounded down the stairs and out the door. Juicy stood there and watched for a few moments wondering if that would be the last time she’d see the strange, unique man that she’d become so instantly attached to.
Things moved fast over the next few days. She visited her doctor who kept making her repeat everything she’d told him about her attack and hospital stay. When she told him that she had been in a coma for three days and that the swelling in her brain almost caused them to cut out a portion of her skull he just looked at her like she was a damned lie.
Then he wanted to see her antibiotics, and when she responded that she wasn’t on them or any other medication he almost stroked out. She was at the doctor’s for the entire morning. He found several additional fractures and gave her special cleansers for her skull injuries, as well as fresh bandages. He told her to return in a week and to go straight home and get some sleep.
Instead, she went home and did hair until after midnight. The next day she did the same thing, working on hair until the wee hours of the night. But at least by Friday she was caught up and could start rescheduling her regulars.
The night brought terrifying dreams of thugs and beatings. Juicy wasn’t used to being afraid, but there were nights that she would wake up and be frozen in her bed, absolutely incapable of moving. Later, when the panic attack subsided, she would leap out of bed and turn on a light. She was very tired; working all day with only a restless sleep each night.
One morning she sat at her neat table and drank coffee before her first client was to arrive. She thought about Troy and then she wondered if she would be stuck in this apartment doing hair for the next ten years. She wondered how he’d gotten where he was, but mostly she thought about how good he made her feel when he held her and looked deep into her eyes and told her to take care of herself.
“Juicy…it looks like somebody beat you good.” Barbara Jean said, while giving her a distasteful look. Barbara Jean had known her Momma back in the day, and Juicy had been doing her hair regularly since she was seventeen years old. Miss Barbara didn’t tip good since Momma had died, but she was regular income.
“Yes Ma’ame. I just got jumped coming out the bank on Providence Street. Stole all my stuff and landed myself in the hospital for three days.” She repeated the story as she had for the upteenth time.
“Well why didn’t you call me? I would have come by.”
Juicy almost laughed. “Yes Ma’ame.” If I get put into a coma again I’ll remember that.
“Well you best get your locks changed. If those thugs got your wallet then they know where you live.” Juicy’s back straightened. She’d forgotten to call the police. Damn. Would they come back and finish what they had started? Juicy picked up a small towel and wiped her hands clean of pressing oil as she walked out of the room.
“Juicy, girl? Where you going?!” Barbara Jean called out after her.
“Be right back.” She called absently over her shoulder. She quickly dialed the building manager. “You need to come up here and have these locks changed, and I need another key. Yeah I was robbed…What?! No I didn’t give my key to another deadbeat boyfriend!” She slammed the phone down and got something for her headache before returning to her back room.
Miss Barbara Jean was impatiently looking at her watch and some of the other ladies waiting were tapping their feet and looking like they had better things to do. She pierced her lips together as a thought kept nagging away at her. They were going home to look nice for their men, or going to parties, or out clubbing. And all she was going to be doing is pulling in the next client so that THOSE heffas would be having the fun that she didn’t have time for.
Well this really sucked. She hadn’t looked at things in that way before. If she couldn’t get her own shop then she would be stuck in this room doing hair while life past her by.
Several hours later the maintenance man arrived. His nosey ass was trying to cock his head into the back room of her apartment. Yeah, she wasn’t supposed to be holding a business there but, he wasn’t supposed to be poking around either. She never let maintenance into the apartment unless she was going to be home. She was thirty-three and had always lived in apartments. She knew that men could be nasty as hell.
One of her Landlords had gotten busted coming into people’s apartments, drinking up their liquor, and eating up their food. Another maintenance man had gotten caught with his female tenant’s panties…he had tried to lie and say he found them in the laundry, but some of them still had tags.
She looked at the maintenance man with narrowed eyes to let him know not to try making small talk.
“Sounds like you got a party going on.” He waited for her response.
“Looks like you need to get to work.” She turned and went to the back room where she shut the door soundly. Fifteen minutes later he was knocking on the door. She sucked in an annoyed breath and opened the door a crack, blocking his view with her large
body.
“Are you finished?” He was trying hard to peek around her. She stepped out and closed the door after her.
“Yeah. Here is your new set of keys.”
“Thank you.”
The older man gave her the once over. “Someone really did a number on you, sista.” She was about to say something smart when he continued. “There’s been some strange white man watching the building. People have been seeing him for the last few days. I hope he ain’t trying to scope-”
Juicy’s heart jumped. “Across the street?”
“Yeah.” He took her excitement as fear. Juicy hurried to the front window and tried to see out. It was dark and she couldn’t see much further then the slight green space that marked the end of the yard. She rushed out of the door before she remembered the maintenance man. She rushed back and ushered him out of her apartment. She kept telling him goodbye and he kept trying to stop her from confronting the perspective thief. Finally she slammed her door shut and hurried past him still clutching her keys. When she got to the bottom of the stairs she smoothed down the front of her shirt and opened the buildings entry door.
She stood there on the stoop trying to adjust to the dark and then she saw him pacing back and forth looking so out of place; one white man in an all black neighborhood. Juicy quickly headed across the street and he watched her with quiet anticipation.
“Why didn’t you come up?”
“Ugh,” came his one word response…if that could be considered a word.
“Huh?”
“Too many people. They come in, but I don’t see them coming out. They stay for hours, then I think, ‘Juicy is busy.’” He shrugged. “So I thought I’d wait until you weren’t busy.”
Her brow went up in surprise. “Troy…you could have come inside and waited.”
He looked at her calmly. “I don’t think so.”
“Well how many days have you been waiting for me?”
He laughed merrily. “I don’t stay all day. When your light goes out I leave.”
Juicy paused and considered his words. “Oh.” She then stared at him when the unspoken question did not illicit an answer. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to come up when you weren’t busy, but you’re always busy until well after midnight.” He gave her an accusing look. “And you promised that you wouldn’t work too hard. I knew that if I came up too late, you’d try to stay up for me. So I left so that you could get some rest.”
She closed her eyes thinking about the nightmares and how she would have loved to snuggle in his arms. She looked up at him again. “But if you would have let me know that you were here I could have sent them bitches home.”
“Them bitches is how you make your money,” came his sincere response. Juicy’s serious expression changed to one of amusement. Shyly she closed the space between them and placed her arms around his body. His arms came around her to hold her tight. He pulled back abruptly and gestured up when she gave him a questioning look.
Them bitches were crowding her apartment window watching her every move. “Damn!” She grabbed his hand and dragged him towards her apartment. She had momentarily forgotten about them.
When the two of them returned to the apartment, the front room was suspiciously empty of nosey customers. She went to the back room where her three remaining customers were pretending to be reading magazines.
“Oh hey, girl.” Miss Brenda feigned a surprised look. “Who’s that white man?”
“This is Troy. He’s the man that took me to the hospital.”
Troy raised a hand. “Hi.”
“Hi.” The three women responded in unison. Good thing Miss Barbara Jean had already left or she would be scowling at him. She didn’t trust white people just as much as Momma hadn’t.
Troy nodded his head, more like it bobbed up and down, and then he turned around and walked away.
“Be right back.” Juicy held up a finger to the room of women, closing the door after her. Troy was pacing slightly in the living room.
“Ok, don’t leave. I just have to finish up, ok?”
He nodded.
“Troy?” She didn’t like his quiet nervousness.
“Yes?” He had a distracted look on his face.
“I’m happy you’re here. Help yourself if there’s anything you need; food is in the kitchen, television in here, shower if you want…or hang out in my bedroom. I’ll be finished as soon as possible.”
He stopped pacing. “Okay. Juicy, you better get back in there.” He spoke anxiously. “Those women look mean.” They kinda scared him the way they stared at him like he was the police. He could picture them ready to fly out of that room, demanding to know why she was out here with him instead of in there with them.
Juicy wished that he wasn’t so odd about things. She wanted him to come inside and cop a seat until she was finished. But she already knew that he wasn’t going to be comfortable until the apartment was empty of her clients. She tried to finish them up quickly but they kept asking questions.
“Who is that white man?”
“I told you that he is the man that saved my life.” But then the shower began.
“Uh-huh.”
She didn’t know how to answer the questions. She still didn’t know who he was to her—other than her friend; beyond that she just didn’t have any answers.
When the last head was finished she quickly ushered that woman out the door. It was just a bit after midnight and she had been going since the crack of dawn. Yes she was tired, but anxious, too. She went to the bathroom and showered. The apartment was quiet which meant Troy would be in her bedroom.
Knowing Troy, wasn’t just about having sex; he wasn’t her boytoy. But she couldn’t help how horny she felt at the idea of him in her bedroom. The memory of his body straining over hers was enough to create a pulse between her thighs that she seldom had time to acknowledge. Opening the door softly she saw Troy in bed sleeping; the covers concealing his lower body, his upper torso enticingly nude.
She slipped into the bed nude as well, and he stirred, turning towards her with a sleepy smile on his face.
“Sorry. I tried to stay up but I guess it takes a long time to do hair.” He reached out and touched one of her dreds; not necessarily because he wanted to feel a dredlock, but so that he could have contact with her; safe, non-pressure contact. He didn’t want her to think that he was a pervert just because he was lying in her bed naked. But one thing he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt is that women did not like homeless men lying in their bed with their street clothes on. So he was careful—with her more than with most, because despite her tough exterior, he could see that she was more hurt than most.
“Tired?”
“Not too tired…” She tried not to look too anxious.
“Not too tired for…?” He smiled slightly.
Her eyes hooded and she reached beneath the covers and ran her hands over his nude body. He shivered, his eyelids fluttering closed.
“Ok.” His sigh sounded like a purr.
She pushed back the covers because she wanted to be familiar with his body. He needed a tan—No. He was pale but he was fine just the way he was. She bent down and kissed his flat nipple. Troy reached out and stroked her hair. Her warm tongue caused his nipple to perk up and soon he felt her teeth lightly grazing his sensitized flesh.
He closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her mouth on his body. Mmm, he thought, when he felt her lips travel down over his abs. Her tongue flicked and then her teeth nipped and he shuddered. Her felt her fingers wrap around his shaft. Troy’s breath caught in his chest as he arched upward.