EXCERPT
I can taste the salty blood as it oozes from the corners of my mouth. My lips feel puffy, swollen, tender, and, as the back of my right hand touches my top lip, it aches. Slowly and nervously, I bring my hand into view, disgusted by the sight of my own blood and saliva mixture. Inside, I scream silently. My eyes peer down to ripped pantyhose that lay so carelessly atop bruised calves and thighs. Purple ovals cover my legs, and the crimson deep scratches, I nervously trace with my fingertips.
The towering figure, I once adored, creeps further and closer into view. The veins protruding from his forehead, coupled with the tiny beads of sweat, causing tiny streams down over his brow, makes him look just as scary as he is. The man I once loved, now out of breath, pants like a jealous lover. Full of rage, Cujo is no match for Derrick. As with a rabid dog, he foams at the mouth, before opening his jaws wide, and the thunder escapes him, every ounce of him screams at me as he lands another blow.
Looking up at his towering, brown, six-foot frame, and muscular stature, I try to scream, “No!” but no sound form. The word, wrapped tightly around my throat, won’t come out. As his punch lands against the side of my head, I hear my neck crack, and my face crashes against the maroon-colored wall in Derrick’s bedroom, leaving a trail of mucous, teardrops and fear. Again, panic stricken, my heart races and beats so fast, I feel as if I may convulse. Trembling, my legs shake and ache and I scramble, literally crawling on my knees, for dear life. I panic. If I don’t get out of here alive, Daddy will be burying his only child in a few days.
And, at this moment, while I lay still on his bedroom floor, my lifeless body, covered only by a ripped beige tank top and a torn white skirt, has not the strength to move one inch, let alone, run for cover. The blow of a man twice my size has taken over. And, no matter how hard I try to grasp on, I feel myself fading out of consciousness, slowly.
The jolt of Derrick grabbing my arm shocks me, briefly, as panic shoots through my being. With hatred and contempt, he drags me across the floor, pulling me to the foot of the bed. And, as I glide across his floor, I can feel the thin pieces of wood splinter into my flesh. Again, I want to scream, but no words. The nightmare I cannot escape from has me in a trance.
Derrick props me up like a rag doll, and now my head rests at the foot of his bed. Pearl satin sheets drape down to the floor. The stiffness of the box spring pokes dents into my back, which I’m sure is all whelped from the beating. Each time I exhale, and then inhale, the spring reams further into my spine. A river of tears flow down my butterscotch cheeks; the salt burns as it enters the crevices of my wounds.
As Derrick stands in front of me, I look up to see a snarl only the devil could adorn. I want so badly to damn him and send him to Hell, but somehow, I think he’s managed to take me with him. His chocolate coated fingers dangle near his crotch, and as he prepares to unzip his jeans, he laughs—a gothic, deadly, immoral laugh, which moves and shakes the earth beneath me. Consternation wraps around my heart, dreading what’s about to come next. He’s going to rape me.
As I pray that I am covered by the blood of Jesus, I wonder how hard it would be to murder Derrick Simmons.
“Don’t look at her! That’s what got your ass whooped in the first place. Coming in here, unannounced and uninvited with dinner,” Derrick yells, still unzipping his jeans. Purple swollen eyes lose sight of the other woman in this quagmire. Although my vision is cloudy, I can still see her with my peripherals. Curiosity gets the best of me, and I once again turn my head ever so slightly and glance at this woman.
This woman, I’ve seen before. I know her. And, she’s sleeping with my man, obviously. Ringlet curls dance around her face as they glide past her ears. A light-skinned, plump African American woman; late thirties maybe, unless she’s early twenties and has seriously let herself go. I want to call her. What’s her name? “Sherri?”
Only darkness covers me as the open-handed slap with two years of bullshit behind it, lands across the side of my head. I begin to fade as my head crashes against the bed post. Derrick’s clearing of the throat is a prelude to the wad of phlegm that lands in my hair, dripping down the sides of my face.
I scream within and my nightmare becomes a distant memory.
Repetitive blunt force impacts trample my shoulder. “Girl, wake up! Queen, get up!”
Groggy, numb and motionless, I respond, “What?” Looking up to this woman I know so well, yet, I don’t at all, has me confused and curious, and then I remember. Through bloodshot eyes, I expel, “Sherri?”
“Yes, Queen, it’s Sherri from the courthouse. Listen, girl, we have to get out of here.” Leaning in to pull me up, Sherri reaches under my arms and tugs, pulls hard and I stand on shaky, trembling legs, and weak knees. “He’s in the bathroom. We gotta go now,” she softly yells in an exaggerated, panicked voice. Squeezing my hand, she pulls me toward Derrick’s front door, and I hesitate, take a step back. The fire in her eyes confirms her disgust and fear as she looks at me through dark brown curls of good hair. “What, Queen? We have to go!”
“Did he rape me, Sherri?”
Bowing her head in embarrassment, she answers the question I’m not sure I want the answer to. “No, he didn’t.”
“Thank God,” I prayed through swollen lips.
Our pace quickens as the sight of the brown, wood grain door becomes within reach. Our freedom is right before our eyes. Nearing the Promised Land, she looks back at me again and with the strength of a dying lamb, Sherri confesses, “he raped me,” as the flood of stainless tears pour relentlessly from her eyes, landing onto the back of my hand. I cry with her, as we keep hope alive.
The faster we run, the more I see evidence of not only my abuse, via bruised feet and legs, but also of her invasion, as her skirt is partially gone and her ripped blouse exposes a purple lace bra and a bruised breast. My heart pounds fast as Sherri’s hand lands on the golden doorknob. She turns it. The cool breeze strikes us in the face, as it is the wind of autonomy; under the guise of a nightly chill, freedom rings.
Amazingly, my keys are still in my skirt pocket, and I hear them jingle as we run down the flight of red-bricked stairs. “Did you drive?”
“No,” Sherri grunted.
“Let’s go to my truck!”
Scurrying across the street, hand in hand, resembling two school age girlfriends, we raced. My right thumb presses the open symbol on my car’s keychain, and the doors unlock. As we hop into my Dodge Durango, which now serves as our safe haven, the porch light to Derrick’s two-story, bi-level colonial comes on, and the towering inferno, the devil himself, runs down the staircase, with the swiftness of a lion, and the calculated movements of a cheetah, he reaches my truck in record time. Sherri screams, as terror has taken her hostage, coming face to face with the man, my man, who just stole her dignity, and ripped away her identity with a single stroke.
Frantically, I lock the doors, and as Derrick’s once handsome profile comes face to face with my driver’s side window, I pull off, leaving a dirty villain in the dust, forever.
The wooded Pocono Mountains, while lovely, scenic, quiet and serene, is no place to attempt a fast getaway. Winding roads, fully blossomed trees, and colorful foliage makes for a great Hallmark card, but does nothing for two women, racing down and around winding dark roads at seventy miles per hour, running for dear life. Our sanity lies in my hands, as I dance with the devil, pressing the pedal to the floor. The main road is about two minutes away.
“Thank you, Queen,” Sherri testifies as she grabs hold of my arm. “He told me you two were no more,” she gushed, voice full of tears and bad memories. Before I can respond, flashing lights and the constant beeping of a horn distracts me. Derrick is right behind us, high beams introducing themselves to my rearview mirror and the back of my truck. My speed quickens. At eighty miles per hour, I no longer have control of this vehicle. It will be by the grace of God that we make it home alive.
“Queen! Watch out!” Sherri screams a blood curdling scream. Bambi leaps in front of my truck with the grace of a ballerina and all the common sense of a walnut. Jerking the wheel to its far most right swerves us across the road, where the onset of a tree is inevitable. The muscles in my legs tighten as I press down on the break, with all my might, while pulling the emergency break. My heart beats so fast, it’s hard to breathe. Feels like slow motion, as I rise out my seat, as my face crash against the windshield. I fade to black.