For a moment, it felt like Annie’s world stopped. This man was looking at her like she held all the answers to the universe. And she didn’t even know his name. She tilted her head, studying him in this new light. ‘You know my name, but what’s yours? Annie asks, curious. Stack’s hands rub soothing circles over Annie’s neck, fascinated by the softness and smoothness of her skin. He takes his time before answering.
‘Name’s Stack’ he eventually bit out. Annie raised her eyebrows at this. ‘That the name your mama gave you?’ Stack raised an eyebrow right back, mirroring Annie’s skeptical expression. ‘Did your mama name you Nightrider?’ He responded cheekily. Annie laughs at this. ‘Touche, you got me there.’ Stack winks at her. ‘I know I do.’ The music slows to a heady, steamy Victoria Monet song and eventually Annie continues her slow sensual grind on Stack, who’s still holding her face like it’s the most precious thing in the world.
‘C’mon baby, touch me for real’ she purrs at him. Stack’s hands begin to glide down further away from her face, touching gliding over her neck, her back, until his huge hands grip her hips, squeezing with appreciation. ‘That’s more like it’ she sighs contently. Stack moans at her in response and Annie is positive it’s one of the sexiest sounds she’s ever heard. All of a sudden she’s desperate to touch him. ‘Do I feel good, baby?’ She whispers to Stack, somehow drawing impossibly closer to him. His eyes burn into hers. ‘You feel fucking amazing. You gotta know that, don’t play with me.’
Annie says nothing to that, just bites her lip almost shyly. She leans in again, this time by his ear. ‘Turn about is fair play ain’t it? So it’s only fair if you get to touch me, I get to touch you too’. Stack breathes a laugh. ‘Nightrider, you can do whatever you want.’ Annie bites her lip and then smiles warmly at Stack. ‘Dangerous words, right there.’
But Annie takes him up on his offer, gliding her hands along the muscled planes of his chest, gripping his firm biceps and pressing at different spots just to have him gasp and moan at her. Beneath her, he’s getting harder by the second, and usually this sort of thing is just a component of the job. A gorgeous half naked woman on a man’s lap will result in an erection, no doubt. But like the rest of the night, something was different. Stack wasn’t getting hard for a half naked woman. He was getting hard for her. Because of her. And perhaps it was foolish, but it didn’t seem like anyone else would be able to get this reaction out of this man. The way he held her face in his hands and told her she was beautiful reverberated in her mind like an echo. Making people feel good was her job, someone making her feel good? Another thing entirely.
As Annie’s mind continued to turn over this startling interaction, Stack’s hands roamed the curves and hills of her body. One hand brushed over her full belly. Another wrapped up an ass cheek in his hand and squeezed. He buried his face in her breasts and inhaled deeply, like a man coming home from a particularly weary war. And Annie was overwhelmed from the pure want that seemed to emanate from Stack. She had never been wanted with this kind of single minded focus and it scared her.
They rocked back and forth, lost in their own world and it was heady and arousing, almost alien. When the clock on the wall pinged, it immediately pulled them out of their trance. Annie reluctantly pulled herself off of Stack’s lap before facing him again. The man looked pulled through the ringer. Stack stood up, erection still furious and demanding in his pants. But he ignored it, instead pulling out a huge wad of cash, holding it out to Annie.
‘For you’ he said simply.
Annie laughed nervously. ‘Stack, I-’
‘Don’t argue with me. Just take it. If I could give you my bank account right at this moment, best believe I would. Now take it.’
Annie reached out and took the wad of cash, looking at it. And then she came closer, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek, before slipping out the door. Stack stood there for a moment, feeling like the world had just shifted below his feet. He could still feel her, all of her softness in his hands, after she had given him the privilege of touching her. Her soft, silky voice in his ear…
Time had stopped and now that it had restarted, everything felt different, somehow colored by his experience with Nightrider. He left the room, moving through the club to find his brother, who he spots nursing an old fashioned.
‘Where have you been? I’ve been trying to find you for damn near an hour. Shit’ Smoke grumbles at Stack. Stack just shrugs him off.
‘You the one that said you don’t even wanna be here that long, and you disappear on me like that? Fuck is wrong wit’ you anyway?’ Smoke testily asks his brother. ‘Aht, aht. You ain’t my daddy, I can ‘disappear’ anywhere I damn well please. Now, I’m here, we leavin’ or what?’ Stack testily responded.
Smoke jingled his car keys, his long legs eating up the distance between the bar and the exit. Stack was right beside him, effortlessly matching his older brother’s stride. ‘You good to drive?’ Stack asked, scanning all the people in the room. Smoke hissed in response. ‘Man, c’mon. Didn’t drink that much. Now stop trying to drive my ride, you know I’d never trust you with that, speed demon that you are’. Stack chuckled. ‘Worth trying anyway.’ They both slid into their respective seats and disappeared into the night.
When Annie stripped down by her locker, her pleasers were always the last to go. That’s when Nightrider receded into the background and Antoinette Leveau came back into form. She was proud of those shoes, stupid as it sounds to anyone who’s not a dancer. Every single pair she bought, she customized herself in painstaking detail. She only had so many outfits that she could buy, so her accessories needed to be on point. Some of the other dancers would tease her gently about all the added accessories: cowboy hats, feather boas, piles of costume jewelry. But Annie didn’t care because extra outfits meant extra money. Extra money that she didn’t have when she had another mouth to feed. Lost in her thoughts, she failed to hear Cherry flounce in until she felt her sticky arms come up to rest on her shoulders.
Cheryl, get away from me girl! What I tell you, leaning on me before a shower?’ Annie fussed. Cherry let out a huff of laughter. ‘Damn, my government, huh? What crawled up your ass and died, then?’
Annie rolled her eyes at her closest friend’s rudeness. ‘Girl, nothing. I’m just tired, you know how it is.’ Cherry began stripping down next to Annie, going from ‘Cherry’ to ‘Cheryl’, the girl who used to fall asleep on her couch while she braided her thick long hair when they were teenagers by the time she got to her pleasers, her process the exact same as Annie’s. Cheryl wiped herself down with a damp towel before throwing on a pair of baggy jeans and a t shirt that had seen better days.
Annie mimicked her friend’s movements; quick and efficient slipping her lower half into a pair of sweatpants with a matching top that Cheryl had begged on more than one occasion to toss. Annie, as stubborn as ever, had ignored her friend and kept it. After spending hours in impractical clothing, sometimes she just wanted something that felt like a second skin no matter how ‘ugly’ it was. Cheryl jangled her keys, hips swaying to a beat only she could hear. She placed a kiss on Annie’s cheek, the night finally over. ‘Say hey to little man for me, ok?’ Annie’s lips quirked to the side. ‘He misses his aunty.’ Cheryl sighed, cocking a hip. ‘I miss my little man too. I just gotta get straight and…’ Cheryl trails off, uncharacteristically silent. Annie squeezes her hand, ‘I know’ she replies gently. Cheryl rallies, struggles to smile before letting the pretense fall. ‘I’ll see you on Tuesday, ok?’ Picking up her duffle bag she strides to the exit, slips out the back, and then it’s just Annie again. Like always.
Her ride home was quiet..relaxing, even. Annie made sure that her car was always clean, not an easy feat with a three year old but she made it work. She spent so much time in her car; hustling from place to place, driving the distance between her home and the club, running errands to make sure she and her son had whatever they needed. She needed one place that could carry silence and peace when needed and as foolish as it might be to some people, she made that place her car. She very rarely felt at peace anywhere or with anyone. Strangely enough, she did feel at peace with Stack. When she danced for him in that room, it felt like he was seeing her. Not Nightrider, the fantasy she built from scratch after getting kicked out of her third foster home at fifteen, with nowhere to go. He saw Annie, the full, realized woman underneath, the person with bills, responsibilities, a back that still spasms despite her baby now entering toddlerhood, who lives with the loss of her mother, her guiding angel taken from her far too soon, too young. And he liked what he saw, he craved it, even. She tried to shake off the feeling, but she couldn’t. It clung to her, like honey on the skin. Sweet, sticky, deepening in her psyche. She pondered on it for so long that the drive flew by and before she knew it, she was in front of her apartment.
Cassandra, an angel in human form babysat Elisha for her on working nights. Her Aunt, her mother’s older sister who was more of a viper than a human, had offered to care for Elisha more than once. Annie would rather chew glass after drinking lime juice than entrust her baby to that woman. Cassandra was a neighbor who loved children and God knows, children loved her. She always had a soothing word, a well of patience, a warm meal to give to any child that came to her door. With Elisha, it was no different.
One night, Elisha was running a nasty fever. It wasn’t life threatening, but kids are walking germ machines. He most likely picked up a bug from daycare. Elisha was miserable and therefore, so was Annie. He refused to stay bundled up, he turned his face at all medicine she attempted to wrestle down his throat. His head hurt so much that his piercing whines became the soundtrack to the madness as Annie tried to gather tissues and wipe down counters while also keeping an eye on her son. She was at the trash chute, dumping the sick bags down the bay when Cassandra had seen her. Cassandra notes the tired eyes, the sweat gathered at the base of her neck and the sort of fatigue that clings, that stays, that says ‘it’s all on me.’
‘You ok?’ Cassandra’s soft melodious voice had asked. And something about the gently inquisitive nature had made Annie burst into tears. Later that evening, Cassandra had softly rocked Elisha in her arms, managing to get him to settle after hours of fussing. Annie nearly fell all over herself in thanks, Cassandra had insisted that her gratitude she come in the form of rest. So Annie had sat on the couch while Cassandra had made a water-free chicken soup with lots of ginger, wiped the messy microwave clean, detangled Elisha’s hair and braided it, cracked joked with Annie over Elisha’s slumbering frame.
Cassandra had been in her life ever since.
As the key unlocked the apartment, Cassandra stood, leaning against the slightly slanted wooden table. She smiled when she saw Annie, noticing how her fatigue did nothing to dim her natural radiance. ‘How was work?’ Cassandra asked softly. Annie shrugged. ‘More of the same. He wake up at all?’ Cassandra shook her head, but Annie was already moving, her heart unable to settle until she had placed eyes on her son herself. He lay on his stomach, one arm thrown over his head. His bonnet slipped off, revealing the fresh braids that Cassandra had installed for him. His toys decorated his bed like a shrine. Annie breathed a sigh of relief. Her baby was safe. All was well. She headed back into the living room. ‘He’s out like a light.’ She joked with Cassandra and Cassandra laughed.
‘He’s been driving me crazy with the Elmo reruns. Took him to the park to expend a little energy. And that was all he wrote.’ Annie nodded in approval before peeling some money from her night and handing it to Cassandra. Cassandra put it in her bosom and headed out the door.
Annie flexed her fingers, while getting something to eat. She knew she should probably eat a full meal, but the idea of rooting around that blinkered fridge, pulling out one of the prepped meals and warming it was too exhausting a prospect, so she posted up at the kitchen counter, eating Elisha’s fruit snacks instead, trying to stop her mind from drifting back to the man with the awestruck expression, voice dipped in honey following her…..
Isadora Moore was having a good day. The pain that came with her sickness was mostly at bay and she decided that she would enjoy it. Her sons were here, at home. Fussing at her, finding things to repair. Grilling the home aid about any changes. She let them. She knew this was how they showed they cared and she also knew how scared they were. How scared they had become when her physician sat down across from the three of them carefully, announcing that he suspected she had sarcomas. Elias had immediately lashed out, asking the doctor what the hell that even was. Elijah was already on the phone looking up symptoms and rates of survival.
His jaw tightened more and more when he found out how rare the cancer was, how it wasted away the essence of the person- bones, fat, blood vessels and nerves.
Her boys held on so tight. Elias comes to visit every other day. Elijah loads up her bank account every month with obscene amounts of money. Still, it was rare that they were both at home at the same time and she was going to make the most of it. She made all their favorites. Catfish, macaroni and cheese, her ‘dense’ kale salad with strawberries and walnuts, smothered chicken, warm, fluffy biscuits. And for dessert? That’s where she really threw down (with help from her nurse of course) Elias had an incurable sweet tooth. Bread pudding, with a thick caramel sauce, a new york cheesecake, a buttery pound cake with a lemon glaze and a no churn butterscotch ice cream.
‘Mama’ Elias had breathed, eyes wide, when he looked at the spread in front of him.
‘You shouldn’t have’. Isadora waved her hand dismissively at her boy. ‘You don’t tell me what to do. Now sit down.’ Elijah said nothing, just gathered his mother close, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. ‘Thank you Mama’ he almost whispered, deep voice rumbling out of his chest and into her heart.
When all of them settled, that’s when she peppered them with questions. How Elias’ garage was going. Praising Elijah for making managing partner at his accounting firm. Until finally they got to the bombs, the sensitive places of the heart that no one truly likes to discuss, but rots if it's ignored.
Over a glass of chilled hibiscus tea. Isadora watches Elijah, who is currently tearing into a piece of catfish like he has a personal vendetta. ‘How’s Yetunde?’ Isadora asks softly. Elijah freezes like the breath of a ghost whispered across his neck. He slowly puts down his utensils, intentional, calm. But if one looked closely they would notice the slight tremor of his hands. His mama always looked closely. ‘I don’t know mama. Haven’t spoken to her since the sale of the house.’ Smoke answers quietly, knowing that ignoring his mama’s question was not an option. Isadora nods. ‘Haven’t heard much from her either, but she be dropping stuff off.’ Stack raises an eyebrow at this. ‘What kind of stuff?’Elias asks. Isadora pushes the little food on her plate around. ‘Well, everything you eatin’ she either bought it or grew it.’ Isadora answers simply.
The table is as quiet as a church mouse on Sunday. ‘Mama-’ Elijah starts, frustration coloring his tone. But Isadora just raises an elegant hand, cutting off his thought. ‘Now don’t you start. That’s still my daughter, the mother of my grandbaby. Whether they here or not. And the food good ain’t it? So eat.’ Elijah frowns hard, the way he did when he was a little boy and he would press antiseptic to the wounds his father beat into her. Elias watched the mental parry between his mama and his brother, fascinated like always but before he could say something slick, his mama smiled at him, the same slick grin he inherited and pointed her butter knife in his direction. ‘Now don’t get cute, Elias. I got questions for you too.’ Stack groaned goodnaturedly while Smoke chuckled….
‘Fuck!’ Annie screams, lightly banging her fists against the steering wheel. Her car, her old faithful, her sanctuary, has finally given up the ghost. She’s tried to restart it multiple times but it refuses to enter into the land of the living. She takes a deep breath and considers her options. She can take an uber to pick up Elisha from daycare. But she cannot be in multiple ubers indefinitely. It was financially unsustainable. The money she just made was already halfway gone. Rent, utilities, food, enrichment toys, daycare, cloth and accessories for work, and the little bit extra in her Roth IRA meant she had very little that would keep her afloat from now until when she started working. She did not prepare for this unexpected expense, but then whoever did?
Sitting in the uber, all she could think about is how she was going to have to pull the money out of her ass in some way to get things up and moving and she was already exhausted. Elisha was so excited to be ‘fancy’, to have someone drive them around while he babbled on and on about his day, his sentences half formed as his brain quickly switched gears.
When they got back home, Annie put him in front of the TV, something she still felt guilty about, but she needed time to think. Just as she was spiraling, Cassandra knocked on her door. She would recognize that knock anywhere. Two quick raps followed by two slower ones. As soon as she opened the door and Cassandra saw her face, her smile fell.
‘I just don’t know what I’m gonna do, Cass. I don’t need this shit right now.’ Annie said tiredly, after unburdening herself. ‘I done told you to put that good for nothing man on child support. This is ridiculous, Annie!’ Cassandra responded, outraged. Annie just laughed tiredly. ‘Don’t I need a lawyer for something like that? Where am I going to get the money for that? Tell me. Besides, can’t file for child support when that muhfucka’ is a ghost.’ Cassandra perks up all of a sudden. ‘Wait, when my brother’s car quit on him, he went to this car garage near his house. Swears that they brought his car back to life. Saved him from having to get a new car. Lemme
Annie lays back on her olive green sofa, breathing in deep, the smell of cocoa butter and johnson’s baby oil mixed with mushy peas filling her senses. The smell of her baby. ‘And then what? What if they ask for some crazy price” Annie presses. Cassandra rolls her eyes dismissively. ‘Oh boo, I’m sure you can negotiate. Chill, Annie. We gon’ figure this out.’ Cassandra scans her messages, waiting for her brother to respond. She taps Annie on the arm triumphantly. ‘Ah ha! It’s called Moore Life Garage! Ain’t too far from here. We need to head over there tomorrow. Can’t let this fester and possibly get worse.’ Cassandra says brightly. Annie groans in defeat. ‘Fine, whatever. But you’re gonna drop me off at the club then. And help me find a tow truck that can lug all that metal over there’. Cassandra grins at Annie. ‘Deal’, smugly agrees Cassandra. Annie just rolls her eyes heavenward before heaving off the couch to wake Elisha up. ‘Lord help me’ she mock whispers for Cassandra’s amusement, who belly laughs.
Cheryl aka 'Black Cherry' and Cassandra:
Yetunde Moore and Isadora Moore:
