Whispers in the Night Read online

  “Only if you want it to be,” Noir said, her voice filled with accusation. “I’m here because I’m not into games, and I thought you were the same way, but if you want to keep on chasing after Marie, then go ahead.”

  “So you do know Marie.”

  “Didn’t I just tell you that?”

  “I’m sorry,” Damon said, on reflex. Noir grabbed his head again, this time more gently, caressing his cheeks.

  “I know her, and I know you. I’ve seen your longing. Tasted your dreams.” Her voice trailed off as her eyes glazed over.

  Great, the one woman I’ve had success with is crazy, Damon thought, already whirling contingency plans through his mind to toss this woman off his lap and tear out of the club if she got violent. “I don’t understand.”

  She smiled. It was one of the most serene expressions he had ever seen. Her eyes twinkled as she leaned in close to whisper in his ear, “I’m not supposed to tell you, but this is a dream.”

  “Bullshit!”

  She twisted his head roughly, her nails digging into his bald pate. Damon bit back a yelp.

  “Don’t do that again,” she warned. “I’m serious. This is a dream. You are my charge. I have been with you for a long time . . . since you were eleven in fact.” She paused, peering deeply into his eyes with wistful fondness. “I was there for your first wet dream. And every one since.”

  His erection a memory, Damon didn’t even try to hide what he thought of this strange woman’s revelation. “Noir, I’ve never seen you before in my life. This shit isn’t funny.”

  “My name is Nahema. Please call me by my given name. It is only fitting, since I know so much about you, and you know almost nothing about me.”

  “Bitch, I don’t know shit about you!” Damon’s anger felt soothing. He needed it to get some control back over this spiraling situation.

  “I know about Mrs. Harland, your sixth-grade teacher, Tomika Simmons, your first crush . . . Aria Jenkins, the little cheerleader you jerk off over during your lunch breaks, and so many others.”

  “How . . .” The rest of the question hung in his throat.

  She smiled, nodding with approval. “They were me. Well, actually I assumed their forms.” She tapped his right temple. “In your dreams. Your fantasies. I fulfilled your every desire, performed, suffered, and enjoyed your most deviant whims.”

  “How . . . what . . .”

  “I’ve seen how these mortal females treat you. They don’t understand you. They’ll never accept you.” Her voice was filled with an unfathomable sadness. “They don’t appreciate your passion. I do.”

  “You . . . do?”

  “I want to be here for you. Forever.”

  “Forever.”

  She smiled, nodding. “Yes. Forever.”

  “How . . .” Damon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If this was a dream, it was the weirdest dream of his life.

  “Right now, in the corporeal world, you are dozing on your couch, preparing to disgrace yourself by apologizing to Marie, a mortal, who has never known your heart like I have.”

  He took in his surroundings. The black leather couch, the murky carpet, the disco light, the music blaring through the VIP’s thin walls and beaded entrance, and the salty tang of Noir/Nahema’s breast on his lips . . . It all seemed so real to him.

  Damon shook his head, trying to clear his mind. But how did she know those things about him, about the women he had secretly fantasized over since his first strand of pubic hair had sprouted?

  “Fine, don’t believe me,” Noir/Nahema huffed, pouting as she lifted off his pelvis.

  “Wait.” He grabbed her arm. “Let’s say this is a dream. How can you be with me? What do you want from me? How can you be here for me? Forever?”

  She hopped back on him, pushing him into the plush leather. He couldn’t help but feel like he was drowning, being swallowed up by something far beyond anything he had ever known or believed possible as Noir unzipped his pants and pulled out his dick, stroking it back to aching readiness. Pushing aside her panties, she mounted him, her heat engulfing his manhood, spreading out from his shaft to envelop his entirety.

  As she rode him, slowly at first, increasing in force and rhythm with music only she heard, Damon had never felt closer to a woman. In fact, he felt outside himself, his whole existence becoming a pulsing, throbbing sun, entwining with her fiery star, exploding in an orgasmic supernova that he feared might incinerate the club around them.

  For dizzying, terrifying seconds afterward, Damon couldn’t see, he couldn’t breathe or feel anything around him; only the slackening pulse of his heartbeat told him he was still alive.

  “That’s what it can be like, Damon,” Nahema whispered into his ear. His vision clearing, he saw her looking at him, her dark skin aglow and smile beatific. “Every night.”

  “My . . . God . . . what do I have to do?”

  “I live in your dreams, sustaining myself on your essence . . . in small doses.” She lowered her head, her voice tinny, penitent. “I’ve been imbibing more of your soul lately in order to puncture the walls of the dreamscape to be able to talk to you like this . . . that’s why you’ve been so tired,” Noir admitted, her haughtiness subdued. She looked at him again, her gaze searching for acceptance. Damon nodded impartially, forcing himself not to roll his eyes. “For me to be with you permanently, in your world, a bigger infusion will be required.”

  “Infusion . . . like blood or something?” Damon was still dazed from their frenzied lovemaking. He wasn’t sure what Noir was talking about, but if it allowed him to continue fucking her, he was down with it.

  Nahema pursed her full lips, her confidence now resurgent. “Not quite . . . I need a body, a vessel to live in. I need you to find a person for me, with a soul I can consume totally so I can be with you on your plane.”

  “You’re serious?”

  Noir merely looked at him. Damon felt his intestines twisting. A frost layered his skin. “My God, you are serious.”

  “The only question you really need to ask yourself is, are you?” Noir replied, her eyes eager as she took him in again. Damon readied himself for another session, but the dancer slithered off him. Her hungry gaze never left him as she walked backward out of the VIP, saying nothing else, the clinking of the beads the only sound in the club, in Damon’s whole world.

  Her voracious eyes lingered long minutes after he woke up, on his couch, a damp stain soiling the crotch of his jeans.

  Taking in his surroundings, his heart stalling in his chest, Damon forced out a breath. “My God, that shit was real,” he whispered. “I was dreaming. She was right.”

  His thoughts a muddle, Damon stumbled to his bedroom. He glanced at the glowing red digits on his alarm clock: 9:30 p.m.

  He still had time to make it to Tamales, still time to find Marie and attempt another apology. Still time to hear her curse him out, or laugh at him, or even worse, ignore him, dismissing him for the scrub he feared he was.

  “There’s another way. . . .” The words wafted through his ears, coiling around his mind, piercing his heart.

  “There is another way,” he muttered to himself. If Nahema was right, then there was a woman waiting for him, wanting him, who knew all of his faults and secrets, and still found him desirable.

  Wake up. His sanity tried to push through the fog. It was a dream. And since it was a dream, wouldn’t it make sense that Nahema would know everything about you?

  “You’re right,” he mumbled, the haze dissipating with the thought. He chuckled. Damn, was he that hard up for a woman that he was actually considering a dream woman to be real? “I really am pathetic.”

  Hoping that he had at least laid out his Tamales wardrobe before he had fallen asleep, Damon yawned as he entered his bedroom. He smiled at the neatly folded blue shirt and olive khakis lying in the midst of rumpled sheets and torn pages from the latest Black Tail magazine.

  The shiny pages, each featuring a different nude black stripper/ model
in various forms of invitation, ringed his Tamales gear, almost like a shrine to his lust. Damon usually bought two copies of each issue, one to keep and the other to play with. He could be frenzied at times in his quest to get off, but he didn’t remember tearing through the magazine after work. But I don’t recall laying out my clothes, either. He shrugged. He was a little off tonight, but he would get back on track once he had a beer in his hand and an ass swinging in his face.

  He untied his shoes, pulled off his shirt and socks, and tugged out of his jeans, leaving them all in a heap. Damon also doffed his sticky underwear, holding them with a hooked finger as he put them in the hamper beside his closet. He knew he should take a shower, but he didn’t feel like it. He was already behind, and he wanted to get to Tamales and see if he could make amends.

  When he reached across the bed, his penis twitched as a glossy image caught his eye. He picked up the picture of the smiling, honey-colored model, her head cocked to the side as the camera captured her from the plump backside. “Every night,” Nahema’s voice purred, as the image on the page transformed into Noir right before his eyes, a current surging off the page, running down the length of his arm, and squeezing his dick in an electrifying spectral grip. His ejaculation strafed the picture.

  “My God,” he gasped, shivering, his skin both hot and cold. “I’ve never. I’ve never come like that before. What the fuck is going on?”

  He closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them, the honey-hued model would still be smiling at him through his oozing come. He felt a bowel movement bubbling when he opened his eyes to find Noir still on the page, now spread-eagled, a teasing finger over her glistening chocolate-pink clit. Damon balled up the page and threw it against the wall. It bounced off, falling behind his bed.

  I need to lay off the caffeine, or something, Damon tried to joke, though he felt hollow inside, guilty even, as if he had somehow hurt Nahema. The bitch is not real, sanity railed. Get it together!

  “Get it together,” he whispered to himself, exhaling away the craziness in a big gust. His peace of mind lasted all of a few seconds.

  “That . . . took a lot out of me . . . to do that,” Noir’s voice wheezed in his ear. “Hurry, Damon . . . I need you.”

  He shook his head in denial. “This shit can’t be real.”

  “Hurry . . . please.”

  Damon then grabbed his head, painfully squeezing his meaty noggin. “Shut up,” he warned with quiet vehemence. “Shut up.” Am I losing my mind? Oh God.

  “You’re not losing your mind,” Nahema breathlessly continued, softer currents now brushing against his naked skin, amazingly bringing his flaccid penis back to life. “We don’t have a lot of time. I can only remain on the corporeal plane for a few moments. If you don’t want to be alone anymore you have to make a choice . . . now.”

  It was madness, he knew, but what if it was real? What if it was his one shot at companionship? Something he had always longed for, but never knew how to make a reality.

  And she was offering it to him, begging to be in his life.

  If he had one chance, didn’t he have to take it? But how?

  “Hurry.” Gossamer lips brushed against his left earlobe, serpentine words dripped venom into his heart, burning away his loneliness, dissolving his fear. Phantom fingers fondled him once more before fading into the ether, perhaps never to touch him again. Unless I did something about it, Damon sadly understood, a plan already forming.

  He went to his closet and pulled out a metal case. A black .22 caliber pistol was nestled inside it. Damon hated guns, but he had felt a need to have one just in case something crazy popped off. His neighborhood wasn’t exactly high society.

  He took the gun out of the case, his hands trembling as he loaded it with bullets. Placing the loaded weapon on his bed, he quickly put on his Tamales gear, thankfully unspoiled by his wild orgasm.

  Next, he rifled through the mirror cabinet hanging over his bathroom sink, tossing barely used medicine bottles until he found the sleeping pills he was looking for.

  As he stepped out of his apartment, in a blue pressed shirt and crisp pair of olive slacks with noticeable bulges in both pockets, Damon Mitchell no longer felt alone.

  My Sister’s Keeper

  Chesya Burke

  Naomi walked through the park alone. The night around her seemed to make her dark skin invisible. The path narrowed, forked, and split off into two directions. The right was darker than the left.

  She took the right.

  She did not hesitate, as she knew exactly where she was headed. She had been there before. She’d left behind the streetlamps long ago; all signs of civilization had faded. Only the night lay ahead. The branches of the nearby trees shook and arched, as if they were arms warning her away.

  She tripped over a tree stump that had split straight through the sidewalk, stood, dusted herself off, and walked on. To the right, just past the shadows, she heard rustling in the bushes. She walked toward it.

  Suddenly, a loud scream broke the silence and she jumped despite herself. But she knew that voice. She rounded the bend, passed the large oak, and saw them.

  Two forms lying naked under the blanket of night. Another scream erupted and Naomi realized it was a shout of pleasure, not pain.

  “Colleen!” Naomi called.

  The man jumped, surprised by her presence. This park should have been deserted at this time of night. And except for the three of them, it just may have been. Only the drunks and junkies even dared to roam these woods after dark.

  He sat up, looked at her, angry.

  Naomi recognized him right away; he was one of the local dealers, Torch. He was known for burning the skin off junkies who owed him money, with the lighted tip of a cigarette. Loved the smell of burning flesh, they said.

  She didn’t care, she had come this far for her sister, and she wouldn’t leave without her.

  “Colleen,” Naomi said, her words bouncing off the trees and back into her ears. “Get up from there.”

  The girl didn’t answer.

  “Get up, we’re going home,” Naomi repeated.

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” her sister said. From beneath the large, dark man her body was almost invisible.

  “Get up, damn it!”

  “She ain’t goin’ nowhere, girl, till I get my money’s worth,” Torch said. “Now get.”

  He lay back down and resumed pumping into her sister.

  Naomi walked over to them and pushed him off. “Keep your filthy hands off my sister.”

  “Your sister seems filthy enough on her own. You shoulda been here a minute ago when she was suckin’ my dick.” He laughed.

  Colleen stood up without modesty; breasts and pubic hair shone in the moonlight.

  “Get outta here, Nay,” Colleen said.

  “Yeah,” Torch agreed. “Before we make this a threesome. You ever done it before, lil’ girl?”

  Colleen stepped between him and her sister. “She ain’t no ho. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Well, maybe things have changed.” He caressed his genital area. “Come on, let me show you what a real man can do.”

  “No,” Colleen said.

  “Let’s go.” Naomi grabbed her arm.

  “Oh no, you don’t!” Torch rushed at Colleen and pushed her to the ground. She fell face-forward into the grass. He kicked her in the stomach; she gagged, caught her breath, and coughed. “You stupid trick bitch.” He kicked her again.

  He ran toward Naomi. His angry eyes and teeth protruding through a wicked smile were the only things she could see in the darkness. But those were enough. He was going to hurt her. Bad.

  He stopped when he saw the silver pistol in her hands, aimed at his head.

  “You don’t know how to use that piece, lil’ girl. Now put it down before I bash your head in with it.” He took a step closer.

  “Don’t come no closer, man. I swear to God, I’ll shoot you. I mean it.”

  “No, you won’t.” He laughed.


  On the ground, Colleen sat up and looked at Naomi. “Where the hell did you get that thing, Nay?”

  Naomi spoke, not taking her eyes off Torch, the barrel still aimed at his face.

  “You think I learned nothin’ from Mama, when she used to come out at night lookin’ for you? I know where she kept it.”

  “Put it away, you’ll hurt someone.” Colleen stood, holding her stomach, a slick of blood on her lips.

  “Not if he just lets us walk away.”

  “Hell no!” Torch shook his head. “I paid her for it, now she’s gotta deliver. She took my stuff. Tell her to put the gun down, Chocolate,” he said to Colleen.

  “I’ll pay,” Colleen said.

  “No, you won’t,” Naomi said. “Give him the stuff back.”

  “I can’t. It’s . . . it’s gone.”

  Naomi glanced at her older sister just long enough for her to see the anger in her eyes.

  “You usin’ again, Colleen? Who am I kiddin’? Of course you are.” She tipped the gun on its side, still pointing the barrel toward Torch. She switched off the safety. “Now you can either let us go, or I can shoot you. Right there where you stand. You know they won’t find the body for days, and then they’ll just think another dealer did it. So what ya think? Say?”

  He stood there for a moment as if contemplating his options, staring into Naomi’s eyes. When she did not waver, he bent down and scooped up his clothes.

  “This shit ain’t over, bitch,” he said, stepping into his shoes and glaring at Colleen. “I’ll burn my money out of your ass, if I have to.”

  At eighteen years old, Naomi had already taken on the role of mother to her fifteen-year-old sister, Malaya. As well as to Colleen, who at twenty had been a prostituting drug addict even before their mother had died.

  They had no father to speak of, so none of them did. No one else to count on, except each other. And most of the time, they couldn’t count Colleen, so there was only the two of them.

  Naomi had already gotten Malaya off to school and done the breakfast dishes before it was time to go to work at the phone company. She had gotten the job through a friend of her mother’s and had worked there a little over six months. It paid most of the utilities; the others just got shut off.