400 Days of Oppression

II

I was molested by a cousin as a child. I don’t say that to explain why I’m with Kenyatta. I don’t hate all white men for the degeneracy of one. I say it to explain all the fucked up choices I made before meeting him.

It’s true that I hate my father. Not because he was a drunken asshole who beat my mother (though he was), but because all he did to my cousin was kick his ass. That solved everything in his mind. No police were called. I never went to counseling. My parents never even spoke to me about it. They never told me that what happened wasn’t my fault. They swept it under the rug, turned it into a dirty secret, and advised me to do the same. I never could. I still wake up screaming with his taste in my mouth. My parents never told me that what happened didn’t make me a bad person. So it did.

I started sleeping around, got pregnant, lost the baby, started doing drugs, got kicked out of the house, started using more drugs, moved to Las Vegas, got a job and started attending UNLV, met a lot of men and slept with most of them, got off drugs, began drinking more. Somehow, through all the drinking and partying, I managed to squeak my way through college. I got a B.A. in English with a guaranteed student loan that has been in default for five or six years, got my teaching credentials and started teaching English at a middle school in Green Valley. I continued drinking and partying and sleeping with the wrong men, barely managing to drag my tired ass out of bed each morning to teach spelling and grammar and literature to kids who didn’t want to hear anything poetic unless it was accompanied by a drumbeat and included the words “bitch” and “ho” interspersed at regular intervals. Then I met Kenyatta. None of the rest of that shit matters. This is where the story begins.

From the moment I met him I didn’t think I was good enough for him, which is weird considering that I come from a family that thinks the polite word for African Americans is “coloreds,” and they don’t use the polite word much. Kenyatta was so different from everyone else I’d ever met. There was something so regal about him, something princely. His eyes were wise and strong, cruel at times, but even that was sexy. His voice was deep, Lou Rawls/Barry White type basso profundo. Sultry, smooth, and sensuous, yet still forceful and commanding. I hate telling you that he was surprisingly articulate. I know that sounds like some kind of off-handed racial insult. As if I’m implying that most black men are not. The ones I’d fucked in the past definitely weren’t, neither were the rednecks, junkies, and trailer trash. I didn’t come from a world of articulate people. It had taken four years of college to correct my own trailer park drawl. So that was the first thing that impressed me about him. His voice, his words, his eyes. Those were the things that made me think I could love him. His body was what made me want to fuck him.

We’d met at a nightclub six years before when he was still married. I was walking upstairs to the bar and he was walking downstairs. He was wearing this tight black nylon shirt that hugged his chest and biceps in a way that would have made most men look effeminate but looked sexy as hell on him. Muscles seemed to be bulging from everywhere. My girlfriend and I looked up at him, smiling from ear to ear because he was fucking huge and gorgeous and he was looking at us. We passed on the stairs and his eyes bored into mine. He wasn’t smiling, just staring, staring in a way that made his intentions absolutely clear. There was such raw sexuality in that stare that it made the temperature in the room jump and the moisture on my body increase, especially between my thighs. I felt like I should have said something, but no words would come, so I just stared back, smiling nervously and perspiring.

He turned to look back up at us as he continued down the stairs and we turned and looked down at him. His eyes went from my friend Tina back to me and then to Tina again. I knew the look. He was deciding which one of us to pursue. I would have laid bets that he wouldn’t have picked me, not with Tina standing there.

My girlfriend Tina was thin and pretty and easy and drunk. She had fake breasts that still barely increased her bra-size to a C-cup. She was dressed in a tight baby-t to show off the surgeon’s work and her thin waist. The mini-skirt she wore just barely covered her tight little ass and her legs were long and slender. She dressed like a slut because that’s exactly what she was and she wanted to make sure that every man in the club knew it. I was sure she would wind up sucking his dick in the parking lot if he wanted her to. When he started walking back up the stairs toward us, I was certain the evening would end with her head bobbing up and down in his lap while I waited for her at the bar. When he walked right past her and took my hand I almost fainted. I was fat then, not obese, not the kind of fat that made people pity me. I was just a little chubby, thighs thicker than I would have liked, hips wider, ass bigger. My waist was actually rather small for a large woman though I still had that unsightly bulge where my lower abs should have been. Tina had once called it my FUPA—Fat Upper Pussy Area. I hated her for that even though I laughed when she said it. Laughing is what fat girls are taught to do when insulted. It is the most common defense mechanism in the world. That’s why I was so surprised by Kenyatta’s actions. I knew I was fat and men didn’t often pass up women who looked like my friend Tina for women who looked like me.

“Hello, ladies. My name is Kenyatta.”

His voice was deep and warm, and he continued to hold my hand and look into my eyes when he spoke to me, still ignoring my Barbie-like friend, still looking at me like I was something on a dessert tray.

“M-my name is Natasha and this is my friend Tina.”

He never looked at her. Not even once. He kept his eyes on me the entire time.

“Are you ladies having a good time this evening?”

“We’re doing great,” Tina interjected.

Kenyatta turned toward her, looked her up and down, then turned back to me. I didn’t even have to look at Tina to know she was insulted. I looked at him quizzically, wondering what his game was. Then I turned to Tina and shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know what I could have possibly done to single myself out for his attention, what might have made me stand out above Tina. Tina looked pissed. She crossed her arms beneath her hard surgically enhanced breasts, pushing them up even further so that there would be no mistaking what she had to offer, and started tapping her foot impatiently waiting for him to notice her. Kenyatta seemed to enjoy ignoring her. I began to wonder if he was just using me to get a rise out of her.

He began asking me about myself, where I was from, what I did for a living, what I did for fun, why I was at the club tonight. He never let go of my hand and never broke eye contact.

“I’m a teacher. I teach seventh and eighth grade English.”

“Cool. You like kids?”

“Most of the time. Sometimes it can be rough. I used to work at a group home for girls when I was in college. The whole reason I went to school was so that I could get a job helping children. I thought I wanted to be a social worker or a child psychiatrist for a while.”

“That’s really cool that you were that into helping kids.”

“Yeah, but after a year of working at the group home I quit and switched my major to English. I was having nightmares every night. I just couldn’t detach myself from those kids. I’m too sensitive for that kind of work. I was depressed all the time. You’d be amazed what some of these girls had gone through, violence, abuse, rape, I just couldn’t take it. Half the black girls that walked in there were crack babies and half the white ones had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or mothers that were on meth. They didn’t have a chance in hell. Sometimes I felt like someone should just drop a bomb on the entire ghetto.”

“Fuck did you say?”

Kenyatta’s face twisted up into a snarl as he spat his words out at me in anger. I pulled back, fearing for a second that he was about to physically attack me. He sensed my anxiety and did his best to relax his features and his posture. When he spoke again it was in calm measured tones.

“I’m from one of those ghettos and not everyone in there is smoking crack.”

“Yeah, but you’re an exception. The majority of them are.”

Again, I could see that it was taking everything he had not to lose his temper.

“No. The majority of them are not. The majority of the people in the ghetto are hardworking honest folks who were just given less opportunity than most. When you live in an environment where violence, drugs, and gangs are everywhere, coupled with the worst educational system imaginable, it takes an exceptional individual to crawl up out of that mess. I wasn’t an exceptional individual. I just had an exceptional mom who made sure that I never went to any of the neighborhood schools. She faked our address and gave me bus fare so that I could go to schools in predominantly white areas where the quality of education was better. If she hadn’t done that I’d probably be stuck right there in the ghetto with the rest of the kids I grew up with.”

“You can’t blame all the ills of the ghetto on education.”

“You’re a teacher and you don’t believe that education has that great an impact? Do you know that every single kid I know who went to my neighborhood high school instead of a magnet school or a Catholic high school or something is still right back there in the ghetto and most of them have drug habits or criminal records or both? They can trace seventy-five percent of the prison population in Oakland back to three high schools. Eighty percent of the prison population in America never graduated from high school. Rather than blowing the ghetto up or putting it under martial law they need to spend all that money they’re currently spending on more police and bigger prisons and put it into building better schools with better teachers. I mean, no offense, but when I was growing up teachers weren’t kids fresh out of college. The teachers I had were the same ones who taught my parents. Back then teaching was a career not a job. Not something you did for a while until something better came along. I mean, if you don’t believe that education makes a difference why are you even doing it?”

“Because I love kids. But you wouldn’t know what it’s like trying to teach children nowadays. I don’t exactly work in some rough inner-city school, but I do get a fair mixture of kids and you can almost tell the income level of each child by how well they perform in school. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if I had to walk through a metal detector every morning and have security walk me to my car every afternoon after work. How the hell do you teach kids like that?”

Kenyatta’s nostrils flared.

“I can understand it might be easier for a kid to concentrate who has a full stomach when he comes to school, who didn’t wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of gunfire and have to hide in the bathtub because stray bullets were coming through the walls, who wasn’t listening to police helicopters thundering overhead all night long, who wasn’t dodging gang members, drug pushers, crack heads and crack whores everyday walking to and from school. Poor kids have a lot going against them, but that doesn’t make them any less intelligent or any more inherently violent. It just means that teachers have to work a little harder to keep them on track.”

“I do work hard. I give those kids everything I’ve got every day!”

“How can you when every time you see some poor black kid walk into your room you’ve already labeled him in your mind as a lost cause?”

“It has nothing to do with black or white. We’ve got white kids from the trailer parks who are in the same boat.”

“Yeah, but do you treat them the same? You don’t because you can relate to the kids from the trailer park. You clean up well, but I can still hear the faint hint of white trash country twang in your voice. It must have been hard work getting rid of that accent. I know. I had to do it too. My ghetto slur. Gangsta drawl. So, you can understand the white trailer trash, but not the black ghetto rats, am I right? Don’t answer now. Right now you’ll just get defensive. You won’t answer honestly. You’re going to tell me what you think or hope is true, not what you know is true. Go back to work tomorrow and just test yourself. Watch how you interact with each kid and tell me if you’re giving them all the same level of attention. I think you’ll be surprised.”

I stuck out my chin and rolled my eyes in self-righteous indignation. Who was this guy to talk to me like he knew me? He didn’t know shit about me. How dare he call me a damn racist? I jabbed a finger at his chest.

“I’ll do that. That’s fine. But let me ask you something, how much good do you think people like you are doing those kids by being apologists for them? By making excuses for them and blaming their environment or the educational system or institutionalized racism or the government or slavery or whatever? How much good do you think you’re doing them with all of that?”

He smirked and shook his head.

“A hell of a lot more than those who ignore them. Look, you’ve got a difficult job. No question. And I applaud you and all teachers for what you do. Putting up with these hardheaded kids can’t be easy. But if every school had enough qualified teachers, if they had enough books, enough computers, enough classrooms, smaller class sizes, so that they could actually do their jobs, if we flipped the script and started spending as much or more on giving a kid an education as we do on locking their asses up once they slip between the cracks, don’t you think your job would be easier?”

“Yes, yes it would. And you’re right. And I probably sound to you like some out of touch racist asshole.”

“Not at all. Out of touch? Perhaps. Racist. No. If you’re not from there how would you know what it’s like?”

“Well, you were right. I grew up in a trailer. I was as poor as any kid in the ghetto so I know a little bit about poverty.”

“Yeah, but crime is very different in a trailer park than it is in a crowded inner-city neighborhood.”

“Different but not better or worse. You don’t see many kids leaving the trailer park for Ivy League schools either.”

“I’m sure.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I know I’ve probably turned you completely off…”

“I’m not trippin’. I don’t expect white people to have a clue about the black experience. All your opinions are media created and the American media has an interest in demonizing the black male. Monsters sell newspapers and the young black male has become the American monster.”

“Yeah, and black people also have an interest in demonizing the white male and the white female for that matter. We make great scapegoats.”

I couldn’t help but smile when I said it. It was hard to believe I was in the middle of a crowded dance club with the most beautiful black man I’d ever seen having a political debate about race. It was just too surreal.

“You’re just baiting me now. Look, I have no animosity at all toward white women. You may not realize it, but white men have oppressed you as much as they have our people. Woman is the nigger of the world.”

“You’re quoting John Lennon?”

“Actually, I think that was Yoko Ono. I could quote Malcolm X if you’d prefer?”

“Now who’s baiting who?”

“You started it.”

He smiled again, and again my heart did that little flutter. I couldn’t remember a man ever affecting me this way. It was disconcerting as hell.

“Sure, okay, women have it hard. Black people have it hard. So what are we supposed to do? Cry in our beer and blame everybody else while our lives continue to turn to shit?”

“Nope. We succeed and prosper despite of. Success is the best revenge.”

He winked at me when he said it as if we were some sort of co-conspirators. I smiled again and then laughed.

“Okay, I like that.”

“Still, once we get ours we have to go back to help those who may not have met with the same success. Like I said, I escaped the ’hood because I didn’t go to the neighborhood school and so I got a decent education. I was lucky, pure and simple. But that school graduates six-hundred students a year. Six hundred! Those who don’t end up in prison or on drugs end up on welfare or in minimum wage jobs, which is to say, right back in the ghetto. And there are hundreds of schools just like it all across the country. We can’t just turn our backs on them or flush the entire ghetto down the toilet. They deserve a piece of the American dream as much as the next man. We’ve got to help because the frustrated and ignored student of today is the drug-dealing, drug addicted murderer of tomorrow. Believe that.”

I nodded in agreement. Damn, I liked this man.

“You should be a politician.”

“A black politician who hangs out at nightclubs pickin’ up white girls wouldn’t really go over too well.”

“That’s probably true. You would have to give up the white girls.”

“Would you miss me?”

His smile looked almost predatory now as he leaned in closer to me and reached out to stroke my cheek with the back of his hand.

“We ain’t quite that tight yet.”

“We will be,” he said as he leaned in closer and brushed my hair away from my ear.

“Oh really?” I tried to sound cocky, but my knees were shaking.

His lecherous grin widened again into that big confident smile. His eyes softened then he shook his head and chuckled. He gave my hand a slight squeeze and pulled me closer until our bodies touched.

“You are beautiful,” he whispered in my ear.

“A beautiful, ignorant racist?” I blushed, thinking of some of the things I’d said earlier. I don’t know what the hell I’d been thinking. If ever there was a time for political correctness it was when talking to a six-six, two-hundred and sixty pound black man, especially when you were attracted to him.

“No. Just beautiful.”

How Kenyatta could have not been offended by some of the things I’d said was beyond belief. I kept wondering if he just wanted to fuck me so bad that he was suppressing the urge to pimp-slap me every time I said something stupid. But if all he wanted was some ass then why wasn’t he hittin’ on Tina? It’s not like it was difficult to tell that the girl was easy.

He stood there staring at me without saying a word as I looked at him and then looked away and blushed then looked back again only to find him still staring at me, causing me to turn away and blush again. It was the most sexually charged moment I’d ever had inside a nightclub and I’ve had sex in nightclubs before. But this was somehow more intense than any of the drunken groping and thrusting I’d done previously. All he was doing was holding my hand and staring at my face, but it was like I could feel him all over me. I forgot all about Tina. I forgot I was in a nightclub and forgot that Kenyatta was some stranger I’d just met. I felt like I was falling in love. But I didn’t believe in love at first sight.

“I have to go soon. Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll call you.”

“Why are you so interested in me? I know I just pissed you off with that little conversation and my friend would probably fuck you right now.”

He pulled back and looked at me. The smile was gone, but his eyes still had that warm consoling look in them along with that playful hint of mischief.

“Who says I want to fuck her? She’s drunk and conceited and you’re beautiful and sweet and yes, a little naive when it comes to race, but who isn’t?”

“I was getting you pissed off though wasn’t I?”

“Yeah, well, I tend to get a little worked up when it comes to racial issues. What black man in this country doesn’t?”

“So, then why even bother fucking with white girls? Why not just stick to black women? I’m sure they’d understand you better.”

“There’s a hell of a lot more to me than just the color of my skin. Just because a woman’s black doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll understand me any more than you do. Sure, she’ll get the race thing. But there’s much more to me than that. Besides, that would be playing it safe now wouldn’t it? What fun would it be if we all just stayed in our comfort zones? I believe in expanding my horizons. Besides, I’m taking Dick Gregory’s advice and trying to wipe out the white race by having sex with all the white women I can. I’m gonna breed you right out of existence.”

I laughed.

“You are crazy.”

“It could work though. That’s one crusade I could start without looking like a hypocrite. I could convince every black man in the country to sleep with white women and create a master race of mixed babies.”

“There is something seriously wrong with you.”

I was laughing so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes.

“You’re right. The sistas would definitely hate me. That would leave them with nothin’ but white boys. I’d wind up gettin’ my ass assassinated. So what do you think?” Do you think I should stick to my own kind? You’re not into brothers?”

I looked down at the floor, shuffling my feet nervously. Kenyatta reached out and lifted my chin so I was looking into his intense eyes again.

“I’m into you,” I answered, shrugging. “I’m into whatever feels right.”

“And do I feel right?”

I looked at his massive shoulders and bulging chest, his thick biceps and that flawless smile filled with perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth, the high cheekbones, and smoldering black eyes. He was intelligent and he had a sense of humor. I didn’t care what color he was. He was damn-near perfect.

“Yeah, you do.”

“Then give me your number so I can call you sometime.”

He pulled me close to him again, wrapping his arms around my waist and hugging me, still staring into my eyes.

“You are weird. I can’t really figure out what your deal is. But okay, I’ll give you my number.”

I wrote my phone number down and he took it and placed it in his pocket. Then he took my hand again and pulled me close to him once more.

“Give me a hug before I leave.”

I smiled and almost laughed.

“Are you serious?”

“You don’t want to hug me?”

I wrapped my arms around him and he leaned down and kissed my neck and shoulders then breathed heavy in my ear as he spoke in that deep luxurious voice of his.

“I’ll call you.”

“Yeah, sure you will.”

He did. He called me from work two days later while I was sitting at home in my t-shirt with what looked like a sea of bills spread out in front of me, wondering how I was going to pay off the two payday loans I’d taken out weeks before without taking out another one. When the phone rang I almost leaped for it, eager to have something to take my mind off my finances even if it was just Tina calling to brag about her latest sexual conquest or cry about her latest heartbreak.

“Natasha?”

“Yes? Who’s calling?” I was smiling already. I recognized the voice.

“This is Kenyatta.”

My heart did a somersault. I knew Tina had been betting he wouldn’t call. She was still certain he’d just been fucking with her and that the next time she went to the club he’d be there trying to get into her well-traveled panties. I couldn’t wait to tell her she was wrong.

“Oh, hi. I didn’t think you’d call.”

There was a long pause.

“Where do you live?”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to come visit you. Where do you live?”

“I don’t even know you.” I almost giggled when I spoke, like some shy schoolgirl. Something about his voice was making me crazy.

“Well, you’re not going to get to know me over the phone. I hate talking on the phone.”

“I’m not into booty calls.”

“Then let’s not make this one.”

I didn’t even know what the hell he meant by that. He could have said anything to me and it would have worked. I didn’t care if it was a one night stand or not. I just wanted to look at him again. I wanted to see him look at me again, the way he had at the club, like I was the most desirable woman on earth. I should have been immune to all of this. I’d heard every line by men who just wanted to get inside me and then get out with as little hassle as possible. Men who called you their dream girl one day and then didn’t call you at all after you’d let them in your bed. But no matter how many times I’d been fucked over by men there was always a part of me that hoped the next one would be different. So I gave him the directions to my house.

I almost laughed when he showed up at my door wearing a suit and tie. I had never asked him what he did for a living, but whatever I had assumed certainly didn’t involve a business suit.

“Hi! Come on in.”

He walked into my apartment, removed his suit jacket, looked around, dropped the suit jacket onto the back of one of my kitchen chairs then casually reclined on my couch. If you didn’t know any better you’d have sworn he had been there a thousand times.

“Come sit with me.”

He held out his hand and I took it. His palms were rough and calloused, but the back of his hands were smooth as a woman’s. Even that I found strangely exciting. He continued holding my hand as I walked around from the back of the couch to the front and took a seat beside him. I was nervous as hell. He seemed so casual. Not the nervous excitement guys normally have when they enter a woman’s apartment for the first time and the possibility of sex is there. He was either confident that I would fuck him or he didn’t care either way. I was starting to perspire again.

I sat next to him and he hugged me and kissed me on my neck again.

“I wanted to hang out with you and get to know you a little. Just don’t get offended if I fall asleep. It’s not a comment on your company. I worked sixteen hours straight yesterday and then spent two hours in the gym this morning before going back to work today. I’m exhausted.”

“What do you do?”

“I make money, lots of it. I’m not wealthy, but I’m comfortable.”

“Don’t be mysterious. Whenever a guy in this town gets all mysterious about his occupation it usually means he’s either a drug dealer or a pimp.”

“I’m no pimp.”

“Drug dealer?”

“That would fit the stereotype wouldn’t it? But no, sorry to disappoint you. I’m a real estate broker and I’m also part owner of a boxing gym.”

“I didn’t mean just because you were black. There are white drug dealers too. My brother was arrested for running a meth lab. He was mysterious about his occupation too.”

“Okay, well now there’s no more mystery.”

Every time I opened my mouth in his presence I seemed to step on some racial landmine. I had to do something to turn the conversation back around.

“You box?”

“A little. Nothing serious. I’m not pro or anything. I’m more interested in the business side of things. I’m part owner of a little gym on Sahara and Rainbow. It’s not like a real boxer’s gym. It’s for guys like me who want to learn to box but don’t actually want to fight. Mostly executives who want to let out a little aggression and feel like tough guys and housewives trying to lose weight. I make a lot of contacts there for my real estate business. Anyone who buys a house from me gets one month free membership to my gym. We get a lot of law enforcement guys in there too, cops, military, even Feds. I never get speeding tickets because of that place.”

Sometimes it was all about asking the right questions.

“So you’re like an entrepreneur? That’s cool. I’d have never guessed. I mean I figured you were some kind of athlete by the way you look, maybe a basketball or football player. I just never figured you for owning your own business and selling houses.”

“You just figured I was some dumb jock, right? Either a pimp a drug pusher or a basketball player. You are just full of prejudgments aren’t you?”

Another landmine successfully detonated.

“I’m not gonna lie. You don’t usually meet guys like you walking around night clubs.”

“Then why go?”

I shrugged.

“Where else are you going to go? Why were you there? How the hell do you find time with everything that you do?”

“I hate sleeping alone.”

“You don’t have a girlfriend?”

“Not right now, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m too busy and my life is complicated enough. That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway, but now I think having a girlfriend might help uncomplicate my life a little. It would at least keep me out of the nightclubs.”

The guy said all the right things. Rich, intelligent, well-built, looking for commitment. Something had to be wrong with him.

“So, if you hate sleeping alone then why didn’t you try to get me to come home with you on Saturday?”

“I also hate making mistakes. You aren’t one night stand material. You’re the type of woman men fall in love with. Now, your little blonde friend, she was one night stand material. I made a choice and decided I was more up for falling in love than getting head in the parking lot.”

“You saw all of that just by looking at me?”

“I saw most of it. Talking to you confirmed it.”

“Why? Because I like to argue?”

“Because you’ve got more on your mind than last night’s episode of Desperate Housewives or what the latest designer drug is and because you’ve got guts but you’re also really sensitive, really sweet, and really lonely. I could see your loneliness like a beacon in that nightclub. Some men could take advantage of that. I’m not that type of man. I’ve been that type of man, but I’m not anymore. I knew I had more of a potential to get sprung on a woman like you than to use her and discard her.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that. It almost sounds like you’re proposing.”

“I’m proposing we get to know each other better and letting you know that I’m serious.”

I hesitated. This was just too fucking weird.

“First you call me up sounding like you just want to get some and now you come over and tell me that you might, if the stars are right and the moon is in Pluto, be able to fall in love with me even though you don’t even know me? But all you really want to do is just fall asleep on my couch?”

He laughed.

“Yeah, that’s about right. I mean, I’d prefer to make love to you. I just don’t want to rush things. Okay, I do want to rush things. I’m just fucking tired.”

I laughed too then.

“I wouldn’t have let you anyway. I’m not that kind of girl…not anymore anyway. I’ve been celibate for almost a year and I’m enjoying my life without men…less bullshit to deal with. I’ve gotten burned way too often. I’m taking it slow from now on.”

Kenyatta smiled and something in his eyes glittered. I recognized the look. He was warming to the challenge. I was both excited and disappointed by it. It was such a typical male response. But I wanted him too.

He reached out and stroked my hair, pushing it out of my face and back behind my ears. Then he kissed me. It was a slow passionate kiss. His lips pecked at mine, once, twice, before he sealed them to my mouth and sucked my breath away.

We kissed and stroked each other for more than an hour. He delicately caressed my neck, back, and arms with his fingertips. Raising goose bumps wherever he touched me and sending tingles and chills all over my flesh. He raised my shirt and rubbed his face against my breasts and stomach, nuzzling like a kitten. I lost all control of myself. I didn’t care about being a good girl and not having sex on the first date. I didn’t care anymore if he thought I was a slut. I just wanted him. He sucked my nipples into his mouth, and I moaned unselfconsciously as he flicked his tongue across them, gently biting until I screamed for him to make love to me.

As soon as the words left my mouth Kenyatta withdrew his lips from my breasts and sat back onto the couch, smiling with satisfaction. I realized then that I had fucked up. It wasn’t about the sex for him, but about the control. Now that I’d gone back on everything I’d just said to him about taking it slow there was no need for him to actually fuck me. He had his victory, his conquest. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had gotten up and left.

“Why don’t you tell me more about yourself instead?”

My pelvis was making small circles and I was actually whimpering. I wanted him so badly. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to fuck me.

“But…but don’t you want to…”

“We should probably take it slow like you said. Plus, I am still tired.”

I wanted to kill him. Instead, I started another argument.

“You were right.”

“Right about what?”

“About me treating poor white kids differently than I treat poor black kids. When I was in my class today, I paid attention to the way I interacted with each of the children and I definitely have a bias. It’s wrong, but it’s there. I really don’t think it’s avoidable. Everyone has their prejudices.”

“Yeah, but some are more destructive than others. Those kids might look at you and think you’re some spoiled white woman who grew up with her daddy giving her everything she wanted and that could be the farthest thing from the truth, but it doesn’t really hurt you for them to think that because they have no power over you. You’re in a position of authority over them so your prejudice is more destructive.”

“I’m agreeing with you that it’s wrong for me to think this way, but it’s just as wrong if some kid in my class looks at me and assumes that I’m some over-privileged spoiled brat. There are no degrees of prejudice.”

“There is justifiable prejudice though.”

“What? Now you sound like the racist here.”

“I’m saying that because of the way black people have been oppressed in this society it is understandable if they feel a certain hostility toward your race.”

“That is absolute bullshit. You’re trying to tell me that because I’m white it’s wrong for me to hold negative feelings toward black people, but it’s okay for black people to hate me for my color?”

“Not okay, but understandable.”

“So are you trying to say that black people can’t be racists?”

“Of course not. That would be absurd. All I’m trying to say is that it’s easier to understand the hate that hate made. It’s easy to understand why the underprivileged kid who has nothing resents the privileged child who has everything and has acquired it at his expense. What’s hard to understand is how the privileged child can hate the underprivileged kid. That’s just plain evil.”

“Shit, I’m not privileged! I had to work hard for everything I’ve gotten in life. I’ve been stepped on and beaten down as much as anybody.”

“That’s just a metaphor. When I say privileged, I’m talking about the rights that everyone should have but that minorities in the country do not. The right to not be denied jobs, promotions, equal pay, fair treatment under law, equal representation in government, the right to walk into a store and not be followed every second by security, to drive a nice car without getting stopped and harassed by the police, to stand before a judge and not receive a harsher sentence than members of the racial majority, all because of the color of your skin. When it comes to those basic rights white people are the privileged majority.”

“So that makes it okay for you to hate us?”

“Not okay, understandable. White people are in a position of power that we are not. Just like with the kids that you teach, your racism can cause them far more harm than theirs can cause you. You grade their assignments, you determine what their assignments will be, you decide which students you will put the most effort into and which ones you won’t. Likewise, the ruling majority, the white people in this country determine how many tax dollars will be spent on improving education and providing opportunity for minorities. The predominantly Caucasian corporate leaders determine how high they will allow a minority employee to climb. The predominantly white juries across America and the predominantly white judges and lawmakers determine what kind of treatment a minority will get when he enters a courtroom. Your prejudice has the ability to cause us much greater harm than we could ever cause you.”

“All prejudice is still wrong.”

“No argument there. I’m not condoning anyone’s prejudice. I wish that everyone could be judged on their own individual merits alone without bearing the weight of their entire race. It’s not fair to anyone. But when that shit is coming from a white person, it’s a hundred times more destructive.”

I could tell Kenyatta was still steaming when he left my apartment. He didn’t even hug or kiss me, just smiled, waved, and walked out the door. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if I’d never seen him again. When he came back the next day I was determined not to start another argument with him. I needn’t have worried.

Kenyatta walked in, grabbed me in his arms and kissed me hard while brutishly ripping my nightgown in half. I didn’t care that I’d paid almost fifty dollars for that gown at Victoria’s Secret and would probably never replace it. I just wanted this man. The front door was still open when he laid me on the floor and fucked me like some whore he’d plucked off the corner, hard and aggressive. Just like I liked it. He bit my face and neck so hard he left bruises. My ass was likewise tattooed with his hand print in livid red and purple. At one point he’d even used his belt on me, leaving welts on my back and buttocks as I knelt on my hands and knees and he fucked me hard from behind. I screamed when I came. Then I begged him for more.

“Oh my God! That was incredible! Don’t stop. Fuck me again, Daddy!”

Abruptly, without the slightest warning, Kenyatta pulled me onto his lap, belly across his knees, forehead brushing the floor, ass in the air. He never asked me if I was into being dominated or spanked. He just did it. Before I could say a word, his palm came down on my ass.

“What the—”

He spanked me again and again, reddening my ass cheeks and raising welts. Then he bit me. He leaned down and seized my still sore and throbbing buttocks in his mouth and bit down hard.

“Ahhhhhh! Fuuuuuck! Stop!”

I couldn’t believe he’d just bitten me. It was somehow more disturbing than the spanking. Yet, I was powerfully aroused by it all. He rolled me off his lap and stood. I was still lying there on the living room floor with my legs quivering and my breaths coming in short rapid bursts, Kenyatta’s sweat and semen drying on my belly, when he stooped, picked up his clothes, and began to dress himself.

“You’re leaving?”

“I’ll be back.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“So what was this? Why’d you bite me? What was that spanking for,” I asked still trying to catch my breath.

“Fun. I’ll be back.”

He turned and walked out the door leaving a noticeable absence as if he’d taken a part of me with him. After being single for years, I suddenly felt incredibly alone. If Kenyatta never came back, I knew I’d miss him forever. I couldn’t remember ever feeling that way about anyone. I reached down and rubbed my ass where Kenyatta had spanked me. It was still warm, raw, and sore, sensitive to the touch. When I pulled my hands away, my fingertips were red. He had drawn blood. I stood and locked the front door behind him then ran to the bathroom. Kenyatta may have gone, but he had left me with something, his signature. His teeth marks were embedded in my left buttock. He had broken the skin and the indent of each tooth was clearly visible. Blood dribbled down the back of my leg. I smiled, remembering the feel of the mouth that had caused the damage. I dreamed about him all evening, rubbing my wounded ass and wondering if there was something wrong with me that I had enjoyed the pain, enjoyed submitting to this man I barely knew.