Passion for the Heist, page 3
The daydream brought Passion’s hand to the twin heart lockets she wore. She ran her thumb over the engravings on the back of each heart: GEORGE and EDNA. Those had been her parents’ names. The bit of ashes inside the lockets and the ritual of watching the sunrise were all that remained of the loving souls who had brought Passion into the world. One was her joy and the other … her pain.
CHAPTER 3
“I don’t know how y’all can smoke them things.” A voice intruded on Passion’s moment. She turned and found a pair of big, doe-like eyes staring at her from beneath the blanket covering the daybed on the other side of the room. The third occupant of the bedroom was now awake.
“My fault, Birdie. Is the smoke fucking with your asthma?” Passion stubbed the cigarette on the wall outside the window before flicking what was left of it to the wind.
“Nah, you good.” Birdie came out from under the blanket and sat up. She was a young girl; slender of build with long arms and legs and a nose that was slightly too large for her small face. Her features were how she earned the nickname Birdie, because of her close resemblance to an ostrich.
“Go back to sleep. You still have another hour or so before we gotta start getting ready for school,” Passion told her.
“You know when I’m up, I’m up.” Birdie slid from the bed and came to stand next to Passion. For a few seconds she didn’t say anything else, just stared out the window and tried to see what Passion saw that pulled her from sleep each morning. “You think it’s gonna rain today?” she asked, looking to break the awkward silence.
“Feels like we get hit by a storm every day, even when the ground ain’t wet,” Passion told her before peeling herself away from the window. She moved to the small hope chest next to her bed, which held her few meager belongings. From it she selected her outfit for the day, which consisted of her favorite USC sweatshirt and a pair of worn jeans. It had always been her dream to one day attend the University of Southern California, but somewhere along the line her dream was derailed.
“You think Claire is okay out there?” Birdie moved closer to Passion. She didn’t invite herself to a seat on the bed, she just hovered over it until Passion nodded that it was okay to sit.
“Claire has been getting herself in and out of shit for as long as I’ve known her. She’ll be fine. Ramel is a thirst bucket, but he ain’t no ass-kicker. Even if he was, ain’t nobody swifter with a blade than Claire.”
Birdie chuckled. “Her blade work is impeccable. From what I saw, her mouth game needs a little work, though. Too much teeth and not enough spit.” She jabbed her thumb at her mouth and flicked her tongue into her cheek to mimic a blow job.
Passion gave Birdie a shocked look. “Was your little nasty ass watching them freak off?”
“With all the noise they were making, how did you expect me not to?” Birdie questioned. “Ramel had that girl in here calling on all the saints while he was giving it to her. I’m surprised it didn’t wake you up, too, considering they were damn near under your bed getting busy. Oh, I forgot, you can sleep through a nuclear blast and wouldn’t budge,” she joked.
“Sleep is my only refuge these days. It’s my escape,” Passion said seriously.
A brief quiet slipped between them.
“I wish I had that,” Birdie broke the silence. “An escape from the bullshit.”
Passion turned to Birdie and really looked at her. She recognized the misty eyes and slight quiver of the lip as early warning signs that Birdie was about to go there. She was about to crawl down a psychological black hole. Passion had pulled her out of many such funks, but that morning she wasn’t sure that she had it in her to do so. But she would try. Passion stroked Birdie’s hair, which was pulled into a short ponytail, and pushed a smile to her lips. “You got an escape, Bird, and it’ll be the greatest escape than any of us raised in this bullshit can ever hope for. You’re going to graduate high school and fly up out of this bird’s cage. When you march down that aisle and receive your diploma, you better keep going and don’t you dare look back.”
“But you looked back,” Birdie pointed out. There was a brief period when Passion had run away, but she soon found how cold the world was, especially when you didn’t have a pot to piss in. So she eventually came back.
“And like Lot’s wife, I turned to salt.” Passion looked around the room she shared with two other girls. “Now, go take advantage of the fact that the bathroom is free and shower before Claire comes back to wash that whore’s stink off her.”
Birdie smiled and went off to get herself ready. While Birdie showered, Passion went about the task of straightening their shared bedroom. She picked up dirty socks, bras, and underwear, which she deposited in the laundry hamper to be washed. It pissed Passion off to have to pick up behind her roommates as if they were children. Besides Birdie, Passion was the youngest in the house, but from the way she was forced to mother all of them you’d have thought that she was the eldest. Sometimes she was tempted to leave the messes the girls made, but they would likely just step over the clothes as if they weren’t there until they began to pile up. This would create a bigger mess than anything in the bedroom. One of the rules of their uncle’s apartment was to keep it tidy at all times. It was a rule he enforced with an iron fist.
When Birdie returned from her shower, Passion grabbed her towel and toiletries so she could have her turn before any of the other girls beat her to the bathroom. In the hallway she met Claire, who was just coming back into the apartment. She was just about to enter the bathroom when Passion cut her off. “I had dibs.”
“C’mon, Passion. I just want to grab a quick shower. I’m all sticky.” Claire motioned toward her lower regions.
“That ain’t my problem. And I know you weren’t dumb enough to let that boy hit it raw?” Passion questioned. When Claire averted her eyes, Passion had her answer. “Claire, what do I always tell y’all about protecting yourselves?”
“Ramel ain’t got nothing.” Claire rolled her eyes.
“How do you know? Last time I checked, people with STDs didn’t walk around with signs on their foreheads advertising that they’re burning. Let’s say for the sake of argument that he is clean, what about pregnancy? You can barely take care of yourself, let alone a baby,” Passion scolded her.
“You act like if Ramel did get me pregnant he wouldn’t help me out. Ain’t like he’s broke,” Claire defended him.
Passion gave her a disbelieving look. “Claire, are you really going to stand here and try to make sense out of getting pregnant by a dude who sells dime bags of weed in the projects and fucks you in stairwells?” she laughed.
“You gonna let me go in the shower first or not?” Claire asked with an attitude.
“Not,” Passion said before going into the bathroom and slamming the door in Claire’s face.
Passion took a long, hot shower. While she was in there she washed and conditioned her hair. It had been a while. She worked her fingers through her roots, creating an almost orgasmic feeling. The shower was one of the few places in the apartment where Passion could find privacy. At any given time, there was a half dozen people or more living under that roof and only four bedrooms. The adults in the house had their own rooms, and Passion roomed with Claire and Birdie, but everyone else who happened to be crashing there had to get in where they fit. There had been plenty of mornings when Passion found herself having to step over bodies on the floor in order to get to the kitchen.
The water had started to cool. She must’ve been in there longer than she had thought. It was so easy to get lost under the warm spray, especially living in a place that could be so cold. Daring to prolong her moment of serenity, Passion turned the water up higher, hoping to bleed what little heat was left while she finished washing herself. Generally, she might’ve tried to save at least a little hot water, knowing Claire needed a shower more than any of them, but that morning she allowed herself a rare act of selfishness. After the week she’d had she deserved the tender mercy of a long shower.
Passion took her time while lathering her body: neck, legs, arms. The rough green loofah felt liberating moving in circular motions over her skin. When she went to wash her breasts, she found that her nipples were swollen. This meant that her period would be arriving soon. This meant cramps that would only add to the aches and pains her body was already feeling from running around almost nonstop for the last couple of days.
She’d started out just rubbing her thumbs over her nipples to test the tenderness. She wasn’t even sure when her index fingers had joined the party, but before she realized it she was gently massaging her nipples between the two digits. The she cupped one of her breasts and began to knead it like she was working the knots out of a tense shoulder. It felt good and she wanted to feel better. Passion’s hand slipped between her legs and began playing with her sex. She used two fingers to hold her lips open to let the steadily cooling shower water pepper them. Her toes curled against the rubber shower mat as she continued to work herself. Holding onto the shower bar, she placed one foot on the side of the tub so that her legs were spread wide, and dipped a finger inside herself. She was so wet that you couldn’t tell where the shower water ended and her juices began. One finger turned into two, and finally Passion was jacking three of her fingers to the knuckles, in and out of her God-given lake. The low panting she’d started out with had dipped to grunts and curses muttered under her breath as she felt herself going there. Passion wasn’t sure if it was the fact her period was so close, or all the stress she had been under lately, but this nut felt different. It was the answer to everything going wrong in her life. With eyes closed and head thrown back, Passion finger-fucked herself into a release of atomic proportions.
The water had gone completely cold. It felt amazing against her skin, which felt like it was on fire. Her forehead was pressed against the shower tiles, and her shoulders rose and fell with her heavy breathing. She stood like that for a good little while because she didn’t trust that her legs would support her if she tried to step out of the shower right then. No sooner than she had finished the deed did she start to feel the first hints of embarrassment. It wasn’t that Passion thought there was anything wrong with masturbation, but she was always teasing the girls about it because they were so open about doing it. In front of them Passion pretended not to be into it like that, but behind closed doors her fingers could play her pussy like a baby grand piano. “Damn, I needed that,” she breathed into the wall.
“Looks like you needed that and then some.” A masculine voice scared the daylights out of Passion.
A short, roundish man with a clean-shaven head and lips too big for his face stood in the cramped bathroom with Passion. She could’ve sworn that she had locked the bathroom door, but the fact that he was in there with her said that she hadn’t. Over the fresh smell of her body and hair, she could still smell the stench of liquor and cigarettes coming off him. Bloodshot eyes roamed openly over Passion’s naked body. “Damn,” his lips mouthed while his hand tugged at his crotch.
It only took a second before the initial shock wore off, and Passion snatched a towel off the rack. She covered herself as best she could. “D’fuck? Who are you and what the hell are you doing in here?”
“Up until a second ago, enjoying the show,” the man said with a sly grin.
Passion pulled the towel tighter around her. “Weird-ass nigga! What are you, some kind of pervert? You get off on looking at little girls?” She stepped from the shower so that if the creepy man tried something she’d have a better chance of defending herself on dry ground.
“Nah, it ain’t like that, baby. I’m a friend of the family,” he told her. “I only came to find somewhere I could take a piss. Running into you has been an unexpected bonus, I wasn’t expecting no show. I’ll be out of your way in a minute.” He turned to the toilet and began undoing his pants.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Passion asked in disbelief.
“I told you, I gotta take a piss.” He pulled his dick out and began relieving himself into the toilet. It was thick and traced with veins leading up to a swollen, mushroom-shaped head. He caught Passion’s eyes lingering on his dick longer than they should’ve. “What’s the matter? You’re acting like you’ve never seen a cock before. Living in this house I find that hard to believe. Bet you ain’t never seen one as pretty as this, though.” He gave it a little shake and some of the excess pee dripped onto Passion’s foot. “You can touch it if you want.”
Passion felt her vision shift, followed by a ball of ice starting to form in her stomach. This was the first hint that she was slipping into what her therapist used to call “the darkness.” That was the place where Passion’s mind would retreat to when her body was being put through something traumatic. The little voice in the back of her mind would assault her with whispers of worthlessness and self-loathing. Believing that she was deserving of what was happening, she would retreat to the furthest corners of her mind and relinquish control of her body to the darkness. From her hiding place, she would watch as a mental spectator while her physical body was punished. This was something that had begun to manifest before her parents died, triggered by an event that had been the subject of a few whispered conversations within her family.
When she first started showing signs that something might’ve been going on with her mentally, her father was concerned, but her mother dismissed it as her just acting out. She blamed him for spoiling her so much. Her mother, like so many other parents, treated mental health like a taboo subject. Something to sweep under the rug or ignore rather than face and run the risk of a stigma being attached to them. She was more concerned about how it would look in their social circles, especially the busybodies at the church their father made them attend. There were sure to be untold amounts of gossip if it ever got out that they had a child that was mentally unwell. It wasn’t until Passion started cutting herself that they were forced to seek help. Ironically, they ended up finding help for her amongst the same people they were trying to hide it from, the church. There was a member of the congregation who her parents trusted, a psychiatrist who had a private practice. He offered to treat Passion at a discounted rate, and discreetly so that it wouldn’t get out. Her father was suspicious, but her mother was okay with it, so Passion was given over to the doctor’s care. Her mother had only wanted to help her baby girl, but ended up unknowingly making the problem worse.
After only a few weeks of treatment, Passion’s sessions were brought to an abrupt halt. The psychiatrist unexpectedly closed down his practice and moved out of state. The official story that had been given to the church was that he had been offered a position at a prestigious clinic somewhere down south, but there were rumors that suggested otherwise. It was sometime later when the same psychiatrist made headlines in a Louisiana newspaper. Several young girls he had been treating came forward with allegations about him and his “private” practice. It made for quite the scandal and was the talk of the congregation up north. The police questioned all of the young girls who the psychiatrist had previously treated, including Passion. In their lone interview, Passion denied ever having been assaulted by the man. That was good enough for them. Had anyone taken the time to peel back enough layers of that onion then they would’ve seen that it was really a scallion. The writing was on the wall, but no one bothered to read it.
Something warm and sticky dripped onto one of Passion’s bare feet, bringing her back from wherever she had been. The man must’ve taken her stunned silence as an invitation. His penis was in her hand and he was working her wrist so that it was moving back and forth. Pre-cum was beginning to ooze over her fingers and drip across her knuckles. He was smiling at her while he forced her to jack him, as if he was doing Passion a favor by violating her. His glare put her in the mind of an episode of Law & Order: SVU she had seen. In his eyes was the same malice as a suspected serial rapist who had spent a good chunk of the episode trying to convince detectives Benson and Stabler that he wasn’t a predator. This was right before he went out and claimed his next victim. The ball of ice that had been in her stomach melted away, and in its place was a burning fire.
“See, ain’t no thing, baby,” he whispered while continuing to use her hand to pleasure himself. “Let me just stick the head in.”
“How bad do you want some of this tender, underage pussy?” Passion asked in a sultry voice that sounded nothing like her own. She moved her hand and let the towel fall away so that he could get a good look at her. She could feel his cock swell in her hand. It was fat with blood, like it would explode with the right amount of pressure.
“Bad enough to pay you to keep quiet about it,” he offered. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his bankroll. The way she was stroking his dick he was worried that he wouldn’t even make it to the pussy before blowing his load.
