-\ JALEN /-

It’s the rattling of chains that wakes me, knocks me back down the hill like Sisyphus’ fucking bullshit rock. Yea. I know Sisyphus. Paint him black and you get the inner city version where the damn rock is America’s racial aggression that never quite dies. Double down by making that sad fuck an addict and shit, there I am, up the hill, down the hill.

I groan, head pounding, and pull my face from the salty sweet embrace of a still moist cunt.

Nose twitches.

I fight back a sneeze. Realize the sneezing-agent is a dusting of fine white powder over the mystery cunt’s thin stripe of purple fuzz.

Which sparks a haze of purple memories.

Purple panties.

Purple Rain

Spinning on

Purple vinyl.

Purple lips round purple dick.

The chains rattle and there’s a purple moan.

And up I look into purple light.

Fuck.

The moment passes and I’m left with the nightmarish image of a purple haired white girl that looks too much like a young Anastasia. She’s chained up nice and snug in an apartment I don’t recognize but smells of money. Can’t remember her name. Don’t want to know it either. Names make things too real. Why do you think they give you numbers in prison? It’s easier to be a number than a name.

-

My eyes roam up and down the Anastasia-clone. She looks used up. Frayed at the edges. Strung out and fucked up, my fellow pea in a pod.

Fingernail scratches dance up her thighs. Bite marks mar frosty white tits. Semen is crusted in her hair and all over a flat stomach decorated with a belly button chain. There’s so much of it that for a moment I think it’s melted wax.

I feel sick, brain dredging back up all the shit I tried to forget. Shit the naive little white girl begged for. Shit I was far too willing to grant.

I roll over into a fifth of Jack. I take a swig. Taste pussy first. Whiskey last.

I see visions of the bottle wedged inside her, familiar red hair wiggling between her thighs.

I look wildly around the dimmed room, hoping she’s here, praying isn’t. I don’t see anything. Hear anything. It’s all just empty silence and dim purple light. Which suits me just fine.

-

I dress in a jumble, limbs as slurred up as my drunken muttering.

Through thin curtains, cracks of lightning jar me up good, get me stumbling back onto the bed, face planting her coked up cunt again. I can’t help the addict lick over that purple fuzz, or the rushing of blood back into my prick. Girl got that pretty pink gash dreams are made of. Would another taste really hurt? Pump that teenage cunt full of felon spunk again.

Lightning flashes again.

The chains around her slim wrists jangle as her small body shifts. Puts me back in the box. Shrivels my dick up nice and good.

I want to vomit.

-

I grab my phone off the floor, a pair of shiny red headphones that aren’t mine. Make my shaky ass way to the door before I’m tempted back into jailbait sex with the Anastasia-clone and a catastrophic relapse.

-

I stumble out the door and down the hallway of a too fine condo.

-

Whirring lights of blue and red bleed in through a foggy downpour muted by noise cancelling headphones and the fifth of pussy-flavored Jack I’ve been nursing into sensory oblivion. I don’t hear the officer’s command to put the bottle down. Don’t see his fat nervous fingers diddling his service weapon like a jittery virgin round his first pussy.

I ignore him. Swallow another mouthful of amber hell.

Kendrick’s murdering beats like a motherfucker and I’m trying to keep up, slurring the poetry into an ugly drunk mess.

It isn’t until garlic peppered breath is grunting Miranda Rights heavily into my ear that I spring back into the land of the living dead.

I’m facedown in a puddle with a knee in my back, tracksuit sucking up cold water like a sponge until my balls are raisins.

For a split second I consider putting up a struggle. Goad the overweight cracker into drawing down. Reach for his weapon. End it all there. Be easy. The times are the times after all, different and all the black and white same. But… nah. Granny Teague would come knocking on Hell’s Door to whoop my black ass for willingly becoming another fucking statistic. That’s the last damn thing I want. So I put up with his attempts to manhandle me into his cruiser. Attempts. Fucker’s shiny baldhead is popping veins and flushing crimson. I can tell he wishes he had an in-shape rookie as his bitch to handle all the physical stuff. Officer Diabetes looks like he’s about to stroke out on me and that’s the last thing I need on my conscious or my rap sheet.

“Need a donut, officer?” I slur.

Huffing and puffing, he shoves me against the cruiser and my head bounces off the window.

I see stars.

“Guess not,” I chuckle through a mouthful of blood I spit out onto his uniform.

His eyes cycle through the stages of annoyance and… well shit, ain’t that a surprise, Officer. Pity? Sympathy? Officer Diabetes with a caramel-filled heart of gold? Wheezing, he apologizes and… I actually believe him. He nods to the open door, eyes pleading. I give him a broke ass smile and throw myself into a cruiser that smells like prison. Smells like home.

* * *

“Still fine?”

She’s perched in the seat next to mine. Her knees are drawn up to her chin, head tilted to the side. Her eyes are empty blue voids. No accusation. No sadness. There’s nothing there at all. And why should there be.

“Sweet as apple pie,” I say, channeling Granny Teague.

“Look a little scorched around the edges to me, babe.”

“Don’t you have anything else to do?”

“I’m dead. What else is there?”

“Peace and quiet.”

Her laugh isn’t anything like I remember. It’s cold and reptilian.

A warm hand cups my jaw and turns me around. “Oh J-Baby… aren’t you tired of all this?”

“Don’t really know.”

“Know what,” Jasmyn asks, purple shadowed eyes flashing concern.

“You tell me, Ana.” The words slush out of me in a disoriented haze.

“Fuck,” Jasmyn swears, worry in her voice. “Any idea what he’s on, Stedges?”

“I flunked out of narc training, Rodriguez. On account of my addiction to donuts.”

“Fuck you, Stedges.”

“You asked. Nice outfit by the way. Makes me miss the old days. Wasn’t so damn PC back then.”

Jasmyn sighs again, this time with annoyance peppered in. “Thanks for the call, Karl.”

“This make us even?”

“Not even close, but you’re on your way.”

“You love having my balls in a vice don’t you, Rodriguez.”

“Yea, well. Life’s a cunt, Stedges. And better my vice than your wife’s.”

“That’s for damn sure. If you don’t kill me, that bitch will.”

“Gonna tell her you said that.”

“Ah fuck you.”

“Fuck you both,” I groan from the cruiser.

“Help me with him?” Jasmyn asks, batting her lashes.

“Not for all the donuts in the world, Rodriguez.”

-

Upfront, Jasmyn grips the steering wheel of a Charger with white-knuckled intensity as the car splashes through rain slickened streets. She’s not used to wet roads. No Oaktown native really is. But that ain’t why she has the death grip. Or the murderous rage in her eyes. It’s to keep her from throttling me and throwing me off a pier.

Told me herself.

“How long?”

“What?”

“You been keeping tabs on me, Jazz. Thought we were finished. How fucking long?”

“Long enough to know you been dicking some vanilla jailbait you shouldn’t be dicking.”

“Didn’t do anything she didn't beg for. Besides. She’s legal… I think?” I feel another wave of nausea and it’s not from the Jack.

“You don’t know, do you? Or is it that you just don’t give a fuck about anything anymore?” There’s hot anger in her voice. Disappointment. And. Shit. Fear.

“Know what?”

“She’s Stevenson’s daughter you goddamn fucking idiot! And she’s still in high school. Jesus fucking Christ, Jalen!”

The name triggers something in me. Stevenson. Stevenson. Ah yea. Salt’n’Pepper Man with the fancy suit. I push through the haze. Jack Stevenson: Oak-Town’s recently elected major. Signed off on my early release for ‘good behavior’. Said he wanted to reform the justice system. End over-sentencing. End abuse of power and money. I’d been in too long. Was dealt a bad hand by a Russian dead set on revenge for his daughter. I’d be his poster-child of rehabilitation. Help him win political capital.

The Man chose poorly.

Bitterly, I say, “Maybe your Mayor needs to leash his addict daughter. Bitch gets more action than one of them Berkley skanks.”

Brakes slam. Car skids. Head bangs against the seat in front of me.

Jasmyn’s head whips round, cold fury in her eyes. “Stevenson is a good man. It’s a damn good thing Anastasia can’t see what you’ve become. Even her privileged white ass would be tired of your pity party bullshit.”

My blood runs cold.

‘Careful, Jalen’ Ana whispers in the back of my head. ‘She may very well put a bullet in your brain. But then, that’s what you want, isn’t it?’

“Don’t forget all the fucked up shit you’ve done, Jazz.”

“I buried that a long time ago.”

“Funny. That’s exactly what happened to Dee. Got buried.”

Jasmyn doesn’t flinch.

“You know. Longest time I thought Thimble was full of shit. We all knew he wanted you bad. The way he’d stare at you shaking your brown ass in that yellow bikini under the fire hydrant. Never gave him the time of day. Got shit for it all the time. Made him a bitter little asshole. But he wasn’t lyin’ was he? You snitched on Dee. Fucked him over to save your own ass that day.”

Jasmyn starts to shake. “You don’t know shit.”

I shake my head. Laugh. “I wanted to believe he was full of shit, Jazz. You’n’me? We were tighter than a virgin’s ass. But you did it, didn’t you?”

Hands twist on the steering wheel. “Stop. We’re not going there.”

“The fuck we aren’t! I’m thinking I’ve kept too much shit buried for far too long. You let that cop ride you like a ghetto whore didn’t you? Squealed on the whole operation while you squealed like a pig with his dick up your ass. Damn near got us all killed. For what? Save your own skin? Get you an in with the blue-blooded bastards that like profilin’ us? Fuck you.”

“That’s not it at all.”

Jasmyn pounds on the steering wheel in a fit of rage.

Pulls on a handful of braids.

Stops.

Stares straight ahead,

Empty as blank canvas.

Then,

Calmly opens door,

And steps into drizzling rain.

Slams door.

To pace, and pace

And pace.

Up.

Down.

Cycling through those bullshit breathing exercises,

Till she’s soaked through to bone.

Door opens.

Mine.

She’s like one of those Greek Furies.

Murder in her eyes.

“Fuck you,” she growls and crawls back into the Charger, rain slick body squeaking across leather seats.

‘Poor girl can’t help herself,’ Anastasia frets into my ear. ‘I know the feeling.’

I pull back, still sluggish. “What the hell?” I slur.

“Fuck you,” Jasmyn repeats, pulling the door shut behind her.

“Fuck you.” She slides over my lap.

“Fucking fuck you.” She straddles me.

“I fucking hate you,” she hisses, eyes wide and manic. “I fucking hate you… and I fucking love you. And you deserve neither.”

Her kiss is bruised madness flavored with all the lust and love and hate churning inside her. Except. That ain’t quite right. More like it’s exploding out like a frag and I’m hit with all that razor sharp, emotional shrapnel till I’m paralyzed.

I want to forget all that I’ve done since being granted the freedom I don’t deserve. Forget the little Asian ass with the crazy eyes and snug pussy. Forget Anastasia’s cold dead eyes. Forget her lookalike. And, for just a fleeting moment, forget a different blonde, one whose name I don’t know but whose face I can’t decide if I want to put to canvas or scorch out of my brain.

No clear answers.

So fuck it.

I pull Jasmyn into me, hands finding purchase on her curvy ass, squeezing till she yelps.

“Fuck you too,” I grunt, yanking on her braids to get at her caramel throat and that spot just under her ear that still gets her to quiver.

-

The heat in the Charger fogs the rain-cooled windows. It’s like we’re sixteen again. Fumbling awkwardly at each other’s clothes. Pawing awkwardly at exposed skin. High as kites. Except, there’s no awkwardness this time. No reluctance.

It’s addict sex.

Sex to fill the voids.

Quench the thirst.

Salve the wounds.

Sate the hunger.

If only for a few breathless beats.

-

No romance. No foreplay. No games or tricks.

Neither of us got the patience for that. Just growls of frustrated obscenities until my sweats are past my knees. We don’t bother with her waterlogged hoodie dress. The cold cotton’s got her nipples popping. Gives her that sexy Playboy look. So I leave it bunched up around her lush baby-making hips, hips that give me pause. Hips I could have all to myself with the right words dropped to the right beat. Hips that could give me a family if I ever let her in, if I just gave her wanted she wanted.

I’m a coward though. Cruel even. A broke man stuck on a memory and a reincarnation that isn’t a reincarnation at all, but is no less blonde. No less pale. No less breathtaking. No less quirky. No less frustratingly crazy. But I fucked that up too.

And here I am.

So I find my target, a slick gash radiating the warmth I need right now, and barrel forward.

“Fuck you.” Our growl is harmonious, as is the hate in our eyes and the incompatible love in our selfish hearts.

“Fuck you.” Hips grind.

“Fuck you.” Pussy melts.

“Fuck you.” Like chocolate in the sun.

“Fuck you!” A mad sugar rush.

“Fuck you!” And a sticky embrace.

“Fuck… you.” That overloads thought.

-

Fingers find her dilating asshole. Strum it like a Hendrix riff till she’s singing lyrics of devilish pleasure to the pump of my cock and the squeeze of her cunt.

“Fuck,” we harmonize again, racing to an end I can’t describe, until there are no more words to say. They’re just gone, man. It’s rhythm and flow now. It’s rhythm and flow. It’s Kendrick sampling Coltrane sampling volcanic ash sampling two lost ghetto souls.

And it doesn’t last long. Shit this powerful never lasts long. Anyone who tells you different is full of shit. Fragmentary sex, shrapnel sex, burns fast and quick, like a bullet in the brain. Bam. Then it’s gone. I’m gone.

A dozen pumps in a buttery gash to feel alive again before it all resets.

-

Her body shudders; hips slip slide over sweaty thighs.

I pop a finger in her ass. Hook it deep. Find my shaft. Strum that too.

And…

Snug folds milk splash after ball twitching splash of spunk from my dick.

“Fuuuuck... you.” Words found again in a whistling rasp.

-

She slurps my spent dick into her mouth. Moans at the taste, rolls the collected fluid over her tongue like she’s at one of those fancy ass wine tastings the rich love so much. Wakes the lust back up. Has me spitting another load up her hungry cunt fifteen minutes later.

Fuck.

Damn pussy has me feeling like a punk ass teen again.

-

“So… What’s her name?” We’re propped up at opposite ends of the Charger, backs against doors, sweat cooling on superheated bodies.

“Whose?” I’m distracted by the frothy gush of semen and feminine arousal still drooling out of her still quivering gash. She’s been playing with it. Pushing it back inside and letting it leak back out again.

“The white chocolate you got yourself hooked on.” Jasmyn blows a ring of raspberry flavored cigarillo smoke.

“Thought you quit?”

“Can’t a girl indulge in a vice after a satisfying fuck every now’n then? Answer the damn question, Jalen.” The words come out in a lazy, satisfied slur. Smooth as whip cream.

“Don’t know.”

Jasmyn chokes on a puff of smoke. “You don’t know?”

I shrug. “Never asked.”

“And I thought my love life was dysfunctional,” she mutters, mouth curving downward as she pushes my cum back inside her pussy for the tenth time.

“Does she know?”

“Know what?”

“How pitifully in love with her you are?”

“Love? I’m off that train, Jazz, and I got no plans to ride it again.”

Jasmyn rolls her eyes. “Keep telling yourself that. You always been a romantic, J.”

“Prison sucks the romance outta you. Beats it to a bloody pulp with a Mike Tyson fist.”

There’s a sad sigh. “You know, that bullshit is exactly why I do what I do. Someone’s gotta look out for the invisibles.”

Amen, Granny Teague would say. Amen!

I can’t really argue. Get yourself into the prison system and you become a faceless dollar sign for the sick fucks running the joint.

More silence.

Then a question.

“Fuck me in the ass?”

My dick twitches, processing the words faster than my brain.

“What?”

“Fuck me in the ass.” She gives me a hard look, trails a creamy finger down her puffy pussy to tease her other hole.

Something in the way she says it stops me cold. She’s giving up. Burying another piece of her past like Dee. That’s the ghetto instinct I guess. Damn if I don’t understand it. Sometimes you just gotta get out. Save your own skin before you’ve got no skin left to lose.

I pull her back onto me. Love the feel of her sloppy cunt drooling over my shaft as she grinds, waking my dick back up for one last round. Wish we had a bed instead. Get her face down. Ass up. Give her the kind of anal fucking she deserves before the finality of our fucked up friendship meets its end. But that’s not an option. It’d make things worse.

So we settle for this, an anal joyride in the backseat.

Hips rise up.

Dick finds tabooed hole.

Hips ease down.

Mouths meet.

-\ JASMYN /-

It’s late, or rather, it’s early. She hasn’t been up to see the sunrise in a long time. It fits her mood, that changing from night to morning, dark to light.

She shouldn’t have fucked him. Again. Shouldn’t have had him pumping live rounds in her again and again like some side street hooker. Begging for his cum. She never thought she’d have to worry about that fact. Thought she couldn’t. All the tests said she’d never have one of her own.

But, there’s the proof. A splash of pee on a white stick with an indicator her OBGYN was as surprised by as she still is when she made the call.

Fuck. Why didn’t she just have him wear a condom? Spurt on her belly. Fill her mouth. Spunk her ass more than that one final time.

Shit.

She should tell him. It isn’t fair not to. But then, telling him isn’t really fair either. He’s not equipped for it. Never will be. Maybe never was.

So why?

Fuck.

She knows exactly why she had him fill her cunt full of cum. She knows exactly why she played with it after, pushing it in and out. She’d prayed for a little magic and she hadn’t done that religious hocus-pocus in years. Truth is, she wanted a piece of him because she knew she’d never have him. Not all of him. Not that parts that count. But the truth now is this. She has her one little piece. And, surprisingly, it’s more than enough.