As I approached my front door, I smiled to myself. It had been a fantastic day -- probably my best in the six weeks since I'd moved to the big city! My morning train had been on time and uncrowded for once, my bosses (all three of them!) had signed off on my proposal, and after work I'd had a productive session on the treadmill at the gym. On top of all that, the dice game that seemed to be going at all hours on the stoop of my building was even absent tonight, and I had the rare experience of entering my building without cat calls and come-ons.
I climbed the stairs to the second story, turned right, and walked to the end of the hallway and the door to my apartment. Mine was a quiet unit, isolated from other tenants at the end of a long hall. I reached into my bag for my keys as I approached the door, buzzing with the happy energy of my day.
I inserted the key in the lock with my right hand; turning the knob and pushing the door open I reached up and took out an earbud with my left. I shut the door, turned, and was confronted with a scene that turned my good day one hundred eighty degrees: three giant men, dressed in black sweatsuits and ski masks spun around to face the entryway.
In the living room, two of them were attempting to detach my television from the wall, my blu-ray player already on the floor next to them. The third stood at the door to my bedroom, my laptop folded under his arm. Behind him, I could see the open window; they had apparently climbed up the fire escape and pried open the window that I always left cracked for ventilation against the onslaught of a brutally hot summer that had extended nearly into October. I stood with my hand suspended at my right ear. The only sound in the apartment was the creaking of floorboards under the shifting feet of the intruders as they paused momentarily at my unexpected(?) arrival.
All I could see of any of the three was the black skin around their eyes and mouths, visible through the holes in the ski masks.
"What the... FUCK!" I finally managed to yell, furious and shocked at once.
"Oh shit!" one of the men in the living room responded, stepping away from the wall and grabbing the blu-ray while they both turned to the bedroom burglar, apparently seeking guidance. He placed the computer on my desk and stepping towards me, more confident than the other two who walked past us into the bedroom towards the open window.
"Well well, looks like you came home at the wrong time, Lil' Red!" he chuckled to himself, pulling within inches of me and addressing me by my auburn hair, which was tucked in a ponytail after my workout. He bent over so that despite our nearly one foot difference in height, we were almost eye to eye. I clutched my phone behind my back while I frantically reached for the doorknob with my free hand. He drew closer still, I could feel his hot breath on my neck; his muscular chest almost pressing into my large breasts, which were compressed against by body by the yellow sports bra beneath my loose white t-shirt.
"Just go. Get out, please! Please, I promise I won't call the police, just leave and don't hurt me!"
"Oh, you're right you're not gonna call the cops!" he hissed, firmly grabbing me by the sleeve of my thin white t-shirt, "Cause if you do, we're gonna come back. And we won't be taking no TV when we do!" He moved his hand down the length of my torso, roughly squeezing the left side of my ass in his massive hand, two of his long probing fingers reaching between my cheeks and lightly grazing the rim of my asshole through my yoga pants and exercise thong. He paused like that for a moment, holding me there by my buttocks, our faces inches apart -- his hot breath smelling of coffee and cigarettes, flowing over me as I strained to look away from him.
"You got a hell of a nice ass for a white girl." He grinned and leered down my shirt at the cleavage above my sports bra. Then he pulled away abruptly, moving back through the bedroom to the window, grabbing my camera and computer off my desk along the way. As he stepped through the portal, he turned and looked back at me, holding my gaze for a few brief seconds that felt a thousand times longer. Then he smiled again, winked, and ducked down the fire escape into the dark night.
I stood, stunned and paralyzed for a moment, my world and sense of security splintered by this intrusion. Gradually, I became aware of my senses and surroundings; in my ear, Huey was finishing "All alone with you, All alone with you..." God, he was so right; I was completely alone in this city and so vulnera- no! I wasn't going to let this happen to me. I shook my head, ripped the earbud from my ear, and marched through my apartment, surveying the damage and assessing what had been taken. My fear transitioned to indignant rage. How dare those men come into my home, take my things -- touch my body in that way! -- and think that because they issued some threat, I wouldn't call the police!?! I turned off the music and dramatically punched 9-1-1 into my phone.
I gave my name and address to the operator. "I'd like to report a robbery." My voice cracked as I forced out the words to the woman on the other end of the line, and told her my story. "I came home from work and there were men -- three men -- in my apartment, and they took my computer, camera, blu-ray player... I don't know what else. ... No, they aren't still here, they left. ... No, they didn't touch me," my mind strayed briefly to the assailant's grip on my butt as his fingers came dangerously close -- closer than anyone had been allowed -- to penetrating the barrier of my asshole. "He said I had a nice ass." I thought and blushed at the absurd memory as I continued answering questions. "No, I'm not hurt" I continued.
"Ma'am, if you haven't been hurt and the assailants -- you said there were two of them?"
"Three of them!" I corrected angrily, already sensing where the discussion was going.
"Yes, three, ma'am. Look, if the burglars are no longer in your home and you aren't in any danger, you need to understand that the force is stretched thin and can't respond immediately to non-dangerous situations such as yo-"
"NON-DANGEROUS?!" I nearly screamed at her. "There were three giant black men in my home when I came back from work! How is that not dangerous?!" I had entirely lost the buzz of my good day, as well as my patience with the emergency dispatcher. Was everyone in this city so callous?!
"Ma'am, if you will please calm down, I will send a car to your address as soon as one is available. The officers will examine your home, take a statement from you, and file a report for you so that your insurance company can begin processing a claim for you in the morning. Are you ok, ma'am?"
I took a deep breath; there was no need to lash out at this... person. I was rattled from my encounter, but like she said, the intruders were gone and the danger was passed. "I don't have insur-... nevermind. Yes, I'm all right, I guess. Do you have a rough estimate when there might be a car free in my area?"
There was a weighty pause. "There should be a unit to your apartment by ten o'clock tonight."
I almost exploded again. "TEN!?! It's barely seven!" I tried to gather myself again, taking a deep breath and exhaling dramatically. "Ok. Again, it's apartment 207."
I hung up and looked around the mess of my bedroom. The books from my shelf were scattered across the floor, the papers from my desk strewn about the room, and the drawers of my dresser were torn out and laying upside down on the bedroom floor, their contents billowing out in a reversed cloud of t-shirts and underwear beneath them. "Guess I can't clean up any of this," I said aloud to the empty space, collapsing on my couch, "They'll need to dust for prints or whatever."
I sat there, thinking about the abrupt turns my life had taken the last three months: graduation from college in June, a brief return to my parents' home in the sticks for a few weeks of limbo, and then I landed my job and moved to the big city. My parents' had had reservations about my living alone, a pretty (their word), naïve (again, their word) twenty three year old on her own for the first time, with all those... strangers around! I'd been unable to find a roommate (one who wasn't a complete nightmare), and had found an apartment I could (almost) afford in a neighborhood that wasn't a complete warzone. There was no talking me out of it, my parents had known that and so had given up arguing, and resorted instead to sending weekly cards containing earnest well-wishes and clusters of twenty dollar bills.
No one in my neighborhood seemed to notice me anyway, whether it was the Russian lady at the corner market, or the Middle Eastern flower vendors. The only people who seemed to see or remember me were the guys who played dice on my stoop, who unleashed a string of sexual invitations any time I wore anything more revealing than a baggy sweatshirt. The sight of a white girl with a big ass, small(ish) waist, and large, pronounced breasts wasn't something they seemed willing to miss, as they were almost always on the stoop no matter what time I was returning home, waiting with a barrage of graphic "compliments" ("Bet you know how to use that fine ass, bitch!" "I'd love to put my twelve inch cock between those beautiful tits." and "Gorgeous mouth like that, I bet you can really suck a dick."). Above all else, they seemed to love the days when I didn't change out of my tight exercise pants after my workout; they would be disappointed to have missed my black yoga pants today, I thought.
"Maybe Anastasia wasn't that bad after all," I sighed, recalling a potential roommate who had sewn her own wardrobe... and a matching one for her cat. "Ugh, I need a drink."
I walked to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of cheap white from the fridge. I knew I had to be sober to give the police a statement, but certainly no one would begrudge me one drink to calm my nerves after that ordeal. I poured a more-generous-than-intended glass and moved back to the couch, putting my running-shoes on the edge of the coffee table and taking a healthy gulp of wine.
