Buttercup (8 page)

It was a strange question. He frowned not understanding at first. So he replied, “Kentucky.”

She giggled, “No silly. That’s where they at. Where you from? I think you’re from Camelot.”

“Camel who?” he gave a baffled blink.

“I read, you know. Tiny gets me all kinds of books. I read about King Arthur. He from Camelot. So is his knights. Kind-of think it’s where the good white people come from. Your people are from there I’m willin’

to wager. You probably don’t even know it.”

Silvio rubbed his brow at her logic. One minute she was wise and mysterious. The next she was like a child. She grinned. Her face loomed in close, her wide eyes blinking for a response. “No, doll, not from that place.

My Pa is a miner in Hollow Creek and Ma dead and buried after childbirth. I’m from two counties west of here. That’s all.”

“But we all from somewhere, Sil. Somewhere is the beginnin’. This here is just middle stuff?”

“Is that so? Then where you from?”

“Africa, silly! Lone Wolf said he knows my tribe. I might go back one day to see them too when I become rich or famous like Lady Joyce. My ma and her Magic Man are there too. I think.”

“You’re the strangest girl I’ve ever met.”

“We should get dressed. There are times when they come in to check on me. You can’t stay here. Gotta hide you.”

Silvio rolled on top of her pushing her thighs apart with his, her sticky center rubbing his pelvis, his penis growing harder by the minute.

“You make it bad for me, doll. Its hard to want to leave.”

“Me?”

“Any other girl in here?” he chuckled.

“You just sayin’ that cause we done the pokie.”

“I got news for you. I say what I mean. You different, see. And I like that. I’m different too.”

“How you different?” Della frowned.

“I’ma be big one day. Real big. Got plans, see… and when I do, I’m coming for you. I figure I need a girl like you. Gonna take you with me.”

Della laughed. She pushed at his shoulders and laughed. Silvio didn’t welcome laughter. It stung. She was a colored girl in a carnival.

Here he was making an offer after just meeting her, an offer that he ain’t made to no woman. Then here goes this one having a laugh at it. “I mean it. See that five dollars I gave you. That’s the beginning, doll. I told you before. Don’t laugh at me. I don’t like it!” he grabbed her throat. Not hard, but to emphasize his point. He was a man and not a boy. She should show him some respect.

“What you gon’ do with a colored?” she asked, not the least bothered by the way his fingers circled her neck. In fact, the light of fearlessness in her eyes unnerved him. She mocked him with her smirk.

“What you think? I’ma go with you and your people gonna welcome me in? We gonna have a bunch of yella babies and…”

“When I become a legend, so will you.” He released her throat to stroke the side of her face for forgiveness. “What I do and where I go, it won’t matter. Never will.”

“But what them important people you work for think? A colored girl in tow? Think they respect you then?”

He hesitated. She had a point. Since when did he want any girl, especially one that would just bring him scorn? The truth was he didn’t know where the promises came from, certainly not his head. Then where?

Della shrugged it off as if bored with the topic. But he could tell his silence hurt her feelings. Maybe part of her wanted to be convinced that this wasn’t just some roll he gave her for pay. “You different is all. I never met anyone like you,” he said.

“Get dressed we...” She tried to rise. Silvio pulled her back down.

He was on her again. Her nervous laughter impinged his already foggy brain. He ignored it when she parted her thighs to receive him. He got in her smoothly this time, her body now accommodating. He preferred to continue the rest of the conversation inside her. He liked the way her eyes fluttered and how she bit down on her bottom lip when he thrust deep and withdrew slow. He gave her long strokes to prolong the pleasure, and his access to the ways she stimulated every fiber in him, groaning her name—

her stage name, Buttercup.

With thirsty lips Silvio kissed away her objections. When they heard others outside of the tent he would not be denied. Especially if this was going to be the one and only time he had her. In her arms the world didn’t exist and race didn’t matter. It was just feeling. What you felt is all that mattered. He fucked her. She fucked him. The world careened on its axis.

He shot off a continual stream of raw pleasure before once more collapsing in a haze of delirium. It was bliss. Buttercup was right. After he hitched out of the country, they’d never meet again. But the night with her like this made him want to pretend.

“Get up,” she whispered, alarm in her voice. “You have to get dressed. I’m tellin’ you, you can’t stay here. I’ma hide you, then talk to Tiny.”

He grunted through his final release, then withdrew. Stunned again from what she awakened in him, he managed to rise on shaky legs. She was intoxicating and stronger than the case of hooch he covered with leaves and branches in the forest. His dress movements were slow and awkward. The muscles in his body strained to regain control. He looked up to see she had put on a tattered dress. Gone was the allure of her costume. She was simply a girl, young, confused, trying to survive in a motherless world like him. Was that it? Was it why he felt so connected to her from just minutes of knowing her? He watched her pick up the wet stage dress and stockings as if they were delicate items and fold them neatly. Her hair was now a matted bush of tangles, but still he wanted to sink his fingers into the coarse strands. He longed to run his lips over the exposed nape of her neck. He wanted to whisper that life was hard for them all, but she was destined for more. That he had a feeling about her. “I think we can hide you over by the donniker.”

“The what?”

“Donniker,” she said, looking over at him and smiling. “The honeypot? Doncha’ know nuthin’?”

“You mean where you take a shit?” he frowned.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Stan’s tent is there. He and Lone Wolf are the last to turn in after the carnival closes. And no one ever goes over by the donniker now. While you wait, I find Tiny and explain your needs.”

“We got a problem, doll. Need to find my boy. Name is Jelly.”

Her thin brows drew together. She dropped her hands to her sides and gave him a puzzled look. Then her eyes lit with renewed understanding. “The fat kid that was with you. Right?”

“Yes, he’s waiting for me. Let me find him and…”

“No. If’in you leave without me, you won’t get back to me. The greenies are patrolling tonight. That mean sheriff Tuck always gives us problems at night. So everyone ready. Let me find your fat-boy friend.

First, we hide you, then I find him. Okay?”

Silvio smiled. “You think Tiny will help us get past the sheriff?”

She walked over to him. Her hands clasped behind her back, she rocked on the balls of her bare feet. “Tiny hate that sheriff too. I’ll explain it to him. You can trust me. He like my pa. He listens to me.”

He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her over to him.

“Stick with me, babe. I promise to take you places.” He winked. She hit his shoulder playfully. Running in circles, she found her shoes and dusted the bottoms of her feet before slipping them on. Blowing him several kisses, she darted out of the tent. Silvio dropped down on the broken cot. He shifted and removed his gun that was in his pocket. Checking for the bullets, he put it back in. Buttercup was definitely his kind of girl.

1932 Kentucky - Tiny’s Rules

Della was in luck. The carnival had drawn in most of the town. This meant patrols were heavy near the midway. It didn’t take her long before she found her warden. Peanut leaned against the Daisy twin's train car, his hat pulled down low over his brow. He tossed a dime piece in the air.

Peanut was one of the tallest and meanest roustys under Tiny’s employ.

Lone Wolf would often pick him to walk the bone yard at night. He wasn’t attractive. His face was a horror story. A lumpy nose from his constant brawls and fistfights and a scar that ran from brow to his cheek over his left eye was what people had to look at. His cheekbones were high and sunken. He constantly licked chapped blistered lips. When Della approached, his head lifted. He gave her one of those looks. After a night with her new friend, she knew exactly what it meant. She smiled. “Hey there, Peanut. You watchin’ the bone yard tonight?”

“What you doin’ out there, Buttercup?”

“Goin’ to the tents. I got to…”

“You know the rules!” Peanut said. He moistened his bottom lip and stepped before her. Her head went back to maintain his stare. He smelled of grease, the kind that oiled the gears of the rides. The coppery stench caused her nose to itch, but she batted her lashes at him.

“I do know them rules. Tiny rules this, and Tiny rules that,” she said smiling. “He won’t ever let me have a little fun. Tell you what though.

If’in you let me break Tiny’s rules now, I might…” she dropped her eyes to her feet like she was shy and then peaked up at him. “I might let you break Tiny rules with me later.”

Peanut moved in on her. He touched her cheek, ran his finger up under her chin, and tilted her head back. “Tiny won’t let none of us have you. Why’s that? What he savin’ you for?”

“He my pa. What pa you know let any man have his girl.”

“Pa my ass. Even if he had a cock, and I say he don’t, he couldn’t reach no pussy to put it in. I think if he can’t have you he don’t want none of us to. That's what I think.” Peanut hawk-spit out a wad of phlegm to the right and then grinned at her. Della held her tongue and her nose. She had to bite down hard to keep from saying what she truly meant. Joyce told her once that Tiny had a thing for her ma, and when she up and left her behind it broke Tiny’s heart. Tiny always believed her as his and gave her the name Buttercup, even though the dark hue of her skin proved she wasn’t.

Tiny was cruel to most, but he protected her. She never had to suffer his wrath. But she never defiantly disobeyed his rules like she was by letting an outsider hide amongst them.

“You gonna take a breeze or what?” Della smirked.

“Where you meet me later?” Peanut asked. He grabbed at her breast. She flinched. His touch was nothing like Silvio’s. He gave it a hard squeeze, pinching her nipple until she felt it bruise. Della managed to hold back her discomfort. That seemed to excite him. The nasty critter that he was. “I’ll meet you down by the genny after Lone Wolf shut it down,” she said.

Della waited for him to think it over. She endured his rough feels and pinches a little longer and rolled her eyes when he had the nerve to kiss her neck. He was so disgusting. Even his fingernails were ringed in black oily muck. The musk and funk that was him permeated from every cell in his skin. Finally, he nodded his agreement. “Sure, I need a breeze anyway. Nothing happening now. Where you heading?”

“My business,” Della said.

Peanut chuckled. “We gonna have a little fun t’night. Don’t make me come lookin’ for you.”

Della smirked and then stuck out her tongue behind his back once he turned and walked away. Sighing, she headed toward the midway, careful to not be seen. Della took to walking behind the tents, peeking out at the midway when opportunity presented itself for the fat-boy that belonged to Silvio. Nearly twenty minutes had passed and she feared he’d taken to the woods, a place even she wasn’t fool enough to venture into unattended. Set to give up, Della backtracked to the bone yard. The clouds covered the moon, which aided her with multiplying shadows. She wasn’t afraid of the dark. What she was afraid of was Tiny. If he discovered her wandering, the punishment would be severe. So she was extra careful to listen and watch her surroundings.

Della’s travels took her back through the girl’s tents. Tiny had lost many. Girls come and go at a carnival. Sometimes he’s only stuck with lot lizards, and they aren’t enough to turn a profit in the tents. So she hurried her pace, expecting to find nothing but empty tents until the sounds from one gave her pause. Della strained to listen. Out came the hoarse grunts and mewls from a woman. She giggled, confused and intrigued. She pushed her ear to the tent. Inside the soft grunts continued.

Della knew that noise anywhere. “Trixie?”

Quiet and careful she crept around to the opening. Her fingers gathered up the edge of the fold enough to gently draw it back an inch.

Della peered inside. It was Trixie. She was naked. It was the only beginning of the horror. To Della’s shock and disgust, she discovered Trixie on top of some townie, riding his cock backwards. Trixie’s long scraggly blonde hair covered her face. But that didn’t spare her captive from the worse of it. Trixie’s wrinkled ass, dotted with moles, bounced up and down like some rabid jackrabbit. And the poor townie or rousty—

Della couldn’t quite discern—grunted for mercy. Straining against the darkness covering the scene, Della leaned in further. The young man’s face dropped over to the side. It was Silvio’s fat-boy friend, Jelly. He was either in the throes of passion or holding back his puke. His face was pinched into a grimace—the deepest shade of pink.