Pernicious (25 page)

         
Besides, if her bubble-lip, gap-toothed cousin, whose hair looked like broccoli gone bad, could obtain thirty-three dollars from the man, then she herself could gain hundreds, perhaps thousands. She was sure of that.

         
Though unsure of a major concern: how could she abstain from doing what Erica had done and still get paid? She was a virgin and intended to stay pristine.

         
“I’m not showing my panties to no-damn-body!” she said to herself. “I’m damn sure not digging into his pockets.”

         
Robert Stubbs opened the door, his face displaying pleasant surprise. “Come in, gal.”

         
Perry stood there, staring at him, debating if she should turn tail and run.

         
“Come on in, gal,” grabbing her hand, pulling her inside. “I ain’t gon’ bite.” He led her to the room where Erica had exposed herself. “You want something to drink? Tea? Soda water?”

         
Perry shook her head.

         
“What you wanna show me?” His grin reminded her of Burt, her stepfather, when he had entered her room, drunk, and had exposed himself.

         
“Where’s your maid?”

         
“Who, Emma? She’s off today. Don’t worry ’bout Emma. She works for me. Show me the honey!”

         
Hesitantly, Perry undid the top two buttons of her white blouse, showing only the divide.

         
“That’s it?” Robert Stubbs said. “That’s all you showing? Now how much you think you getting for that?”

         
“A hundred dollars,” Perry mumbled.

         
“A hundred dollars! For half a titty! Gal, you must think yo black ass is auriferous!”

         
“Yes,” though she wasn’t sure what auriferous meant.

         
Robert Stubbs stared hard at her, then erupted into a raspy, raucous laugh that culminated in another coughing spasm.
 
“Okay…okay…come…get it.”

         
Perry started toward him, stopped. “I’m not reaching in your pocket.”

         
He reached inside his pocket and extended a fist. She could see the edges of a bill sticking out.

         
“Come and get it, gal.”

         
She moved to retrieve it…and he grabbed her wrist.

         
“Let me go!” she shouted. With a twist and a pull she broke free and started running…Before she reached the hallway, Robert Stubbs caught her, pulling her hair.

         
Perry pleaded, “Stop it! Please stop! Stop!” She tried to fight him, and was surprised by his strength and agility.

         
She fell on the hardwood floor, convinced she’d broken her right elbow, with him on top. She screamed, a high-pitched yodel that reverberated off the walls.

         
His forearm pinning her neck, he tugged at her jeans, tight Levis she’d worn to prevent any possibility of exposure.

         
She resisted the best she could, wildly kicking, scratching, wiggling, cursing; but still Robert Stubbs managed to pull her jeans down.

         
Suddenly he stopped, and for a moment she thought it was over…He coughed, cleared his throat…and resumed the attack.

         
Witch Hazel filled her nostrils, and long after the smell would sicken her. In a flash her white cotton panties were ripped away.
   

         
“Ah!” Robert Stubbs laughed…and buried his face inside her pubis.

         
Perry passed out.
        

         
When she revived, Robert Stubbs was sitting in a chair, grinning. He ran his tongue across his top lip. “Mmm mmm good!”

         
She jumped up, grabbed her jeans and shoes and ran. She didn’t stop until she was deep into the woods, where she sat on a stump and cried. Tearlessly.

         
Then she remembered:
the money!
All she’d gone through she didn’t have a dime to show for it. She had to go back.
 

         
He answered the door.

         
“I want my damn money!” she demanded.

         
Robert Stubbs reached inside his pocket and handed her a hundred-dollar bill. She snatched it and started down the steps.

         
“Hey,” he called after her. She didn’t stop. “There’s a lot more where that came from.” She kept going. “When you want it washed again, come see me.”

         
Perry stopped, turned on him. “You rotten, dirty old
ba
s
tard
! I’m going to the police, tell them what you did to me!”

         
Robert Stubbs laughed. “I’ll be here.”

         
When she said it, she meant it, with every fiber of her being, yet she didn’t tell anyone. A decision that confounded and agonized her for years.

         
 
Three days later she was back inside Robert Stubbs’ house, upstairs, in his four-poster bed, staring wistfully at the intricate lacing in the blue canopy as Robert Stubbs’ varicose-tattooed head undulated between her thighs.

         
Two weeks later she fired the maid, Emma, who had worked for the Stubbs family fifty years.

         
And approximately two months after the day Robert Stubbs, a terminally ill septuagenarian, had violated her on a hardwood floor, Perry ran away from home and moved into the three-story antebellum.

         
A truck horn blared and startled Perry into the present. The truck driver honked his horn again as he whizzed by. She continued gimping along the shoulder of Wilbur Mills Highway, her right shoe missing the heel, deserted a few miles back.

         
“Timidity, passivity, and magnanimity will get you no where,” Robert Stubbs had told her a hundred times. “Take it! If a sumbitch gets in your way, knock him down and take his shit, too!”

         
Up ahead she saw the traffic lights that marked the end of Wilbur Mills Highway. A few blocks beyond that was her street, Chenal Valley Parkway.

         
She’d walked almost ten miles. Her clothes drenched with sweat, feet hurting with each step, the sun beaming on her neck like a magnifying glass, she increased her pace; she had a job to do, and the sooner she started, the better.

         
Her pink house was in sight now…She smiled, though not because nearing the end of a long walk. She had a plan. A damn good plan.

         
“If a sumbitch gets in your way, knock him down and take his shit, too!”

         
It was the best advice she’d ever heard.

                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                               
                                     
Chapter 11

         
“No, Neal,” Tasha repeated the third time, “I do not have a boyfriend.”

         
“Why you get your hair fixed?”

         
Tasha sat in a wicker barstool while Neal lounged on the couch, his feet propped on the coffee table.

         
“Neal, I decided a new look, okay. It’s no big deal. How long has Derrick been asleep?”

         
“Since we hit the road. You know how road trips knock him out.”

         
“No, I don’t. You never allow me to tag along.”

         
Neal picked up the remote control, aimed it at her and clicked it several times.

         
He wish it were that easy.

         
Neal pointed the remote at the television and clicked it on. “Who is this guy? Are you sleeping with him already?”

         
“I get my hair fixed means I’m sleeping with some guy?”

         
“Uh-huh, it sure does.”

         
“Please!” She’d intended to ask him if she were gaining weight, but he was making such a fuss about her new hairstyle, she decided not.

         
“When was the last time?” Neal asked.

         
“Last time what?”

         
“You got your hair fixed?”

         
“Neal, I think it’s time you leave.”

         
“Awww baby,” getting to his feet. “I was just joking with you.” He crossed to her. “It looks good, really, it does.” He ran his hand down the bun to the long, curly strands that spilled down to her shoulder.

         
“I like it,” he said, and she knew he was looking for the tell-tale, where the real hair stopped and the fake hair began.
    
The first time in her life, Tasha had allowed the introduction of synthetic hair to her head.

         
“Is this all yours?” Neal asked.

         
She slapped his hand. “What do you think, Neal?”

         
“Considering the last time I saw you, yesterday.” He hugged her, preventing her from hitting. “It wasn’t this long. Either you grew hair in an incredibly short period of time, or you weaved in horsehair. My guess: a palomino is somewhere pissed off.”
   

         
Before she could respond he started kissing her neck. “I like it,” he whispered in her ear. “Really, I do.”

         
His hand traced along the edge of her lapel and wandered inside her shirt, stopping at her breast. He squeezed softly.

         
“No, Neal,” not a hint of disapprobation in her tone.

         
Neal nibbled on her ear. “Let’s go lie down.”

         
“No, Neal,” holding his hand, following him to the bedroom.

         
Not an hour later, Neal was fast asleep, snoring sonorously, while Tasha sat up in bed.
         

         
She felt as if she’d used Neal. When she’d followed him into the bedroom, her mind was miles away from sex. When he removed his clothes and gently stripped her of everything but her new hairstyle, her mind wasn’t there. Even as he’d spilled his seed inside her, shouting her name, professing his love for her, her mind was elsewhere.