I'm
sayin'. But listen, could you just kind of keep your eyes and ears open and let me know if...you know. And you got my back, right? Not so much for me, but I don't want Nia to be part of any....
ugliness
."
Trey looked at me dead-serious, as serious as I'd ever seen him, and said, "I got you, Mark. You're my brother, I mean that."
"Thanks, Trey. I feel the same about you." We did the cool black-guy handshake/hug thing, and then I made a joke about my last customer complaining that her pie (one that Trey had cooked) was almost burnt, because we'd gotten too close to 'feelings.'
"Man, I'ma burn
you
if you don't get up outta here!" He raised his pizza peel up at me, but it was all in good fun, and I thought I could tell he was grateful I'd broken the seriousness tension.
The girls' Italian sausage and mushroom was up so I took it. It was about 8PM, so no extracurricular activities tonight.
Marcus was there and we said hey after Candace invited me in. No Derek, so she and he were probably still on the outs.
"Hey guys, Nia and I are going to the Alpha Phi party tomorrow night, you guys should come!" Including Marcus in the invite. The girls looked at each other questioningly, like,
Should we?
Could
we?
Then thinking I needed to explain to Marcus why I seemed so close to the girls, I said, "Candace arranged for me to meet a great girl from Zeta Phi and we've really hit it off, so I thought she and maybe Keisha would like to come to the party with us and meet her. Oh, Kyla is going too, if you guys know her. With my friend Trey from Domino's." Their expressions said they did, and that they probably liked her.
"You go ahead and go, baby. We've got that out-of-town game tomorrow, so no sense you sitting home alone." Keisha's face lit up and she seemed to be about to thank Marcus when he said, "Mark, keep an eye on my girl, wouldja? When those frat boys get a load of this..." Keisha beamed and snuggled back into his arms.
"I will. They'll be with Nia and me and Trey and Kyla. Hey, I gotta run, but the party's at 10 I guess. See ya there!" The girls nodded and Candace let me out, smiling at me some kind of way.
I went back to the shop and got one of the guys to agree to take over for me tomorrow night at 9. I offered Trey to ride with me and we could pick up both girls together, but, "Naw, dog, I might need my own wheels in case we need to bounce early."
"Alright, playa, have it your way. See you there."
Back in my dorm room I called Nia and we arranged for me to pick her up about 10:30. The frat house wasn't too awful far from ZP, but it had been cold lately, so driving would be better.
"And hey, I'ma need some new clothes I think. The clothes I wore to the ZP party are the only 'cool' clothes I have, and I don't want Kyla or anybody recognizing them."
"Mark, you worry too much! But we could go to Ross, they have cool stuff for cheap. And this French lady I met the other day told me they have
really nice dressing rooms...
"
"Oh
this French lady did
, did she? Yeah, I think I ran into her there once,
and barely survived the ordeal!
I don't think I can risk going to that particular Ross again." Nia busted out laughing and said okay, we didn't have to go there then.
"Hey, have you ever shopped at Goodwill? The people at the Boy's Home would take us sometimes and I always found good stuff. I haven't looked for them here in Detroit, but there must be some, huh?"
"Oh yeah, my mom used to take me and my sister and brother sometimes, I like them too."
"Cool. Are you busy tomorrow?" She wasn't. "What say I pick you up about 10 and we'll hunt up a Goodwill then?"
"Sounds great, see you at 10!"
Saturday, 10/22
"Can you come in for a few minutes? Rita wants to talk to you about something."
"Sure." While I wondered what this could be, Nia led me into the kitchen and offered me a hot chocolate, which I gladly accepted, it being in the low 40s and windy outside. I soon heard the click-clack of high heels on the tile floor and turned to see Rita walking in, as voluptuous as ever. This time in long black pants that accentuated her hips, and a tucked-in white button-up shirt that was doing all it could to contain her chest.
"Mark, so nice to see you again!" And she gave me a big hug, pulling me decisively into said chest. "I'm so glad to see you and Nia hitting it off so well. She talks about you
all
the time."
"Not
all
the time..." Nia meekly responded. I looked at her with such love, my heart again full of her, and found her looking back at me the same way, smiling shyly.
"Mark, Nia told me you asked Candace and Keisha to go with you guys to the party tonight. Do you know if they plan to go?" I said I didn't, but that I'd text Candace and find out. Nia passed around three hot chocolates (Swiss Miss with the little dehydrated marshmallows, my favorite) and we chatted about things in general.
Soon my phone buzzed and it was Candace saying they were planning to go to the party, and could I pick them up because their car was acting up. "Sure, I texted back. About 10?"
"Perfect," Rita said, "because I wanted to ask if you could bring them here and kind of act as an intermediary. I think you know they both used to live here, but there was some...
friction
, and things are kind of awkward between some of us now. So I thought that if the 3 of you came in to pick up Nia tonight then I might have a quick word with Candace. Would that be okay with you?"
"Yeah sure, glad to help." Rita gave me another chest-crushing hug and then was gone, taking her hot chocolate with her. I raised an eyebrow at Nia, who answered me with a puzzled look: she didn't know what was going on either.
"Rita told me we might have good luck up toward Birmingham. She said a lot of rich people live up there, and they donate nice clothes."
"Sounds good, ready to roll?" She was, and we did. As I drove north up Woodward Ave I noticed it getting nicer and nicer. And whiter and whiter. And suddenly I was worried about Nia. It was 2005 and not the 1950s, but still.
"This
Birmingham
place, have you been?" She hadn't. "Do you know what kind of people live there?" Rich white people, she'd heard. Looking it up now, nearly 20 years later, the 2000 Census showed 175 Black people out of 19,291 total. Not even 1%.
"Do you think we should....?" And she didn't know. This was the first time our interracialness had ever bothered me, and I felt angry about it. Part of me wanted to boldly walk the streets hand-in-hand with Nia and dare anyone to say something. But the more practical part of me wanted to avoid putting her in any kind of danger.
We talked about it as I slowed down a bit to prolong the trip. I'd heard things in my hometown of Ann Arbor that was only about 10% Black, and she'd heard things in her hometown of Kalamazoo, which had a larger Black population. In the end I saw a sign for the "Detroit Zoo" so many miles ahead, so thinking that would be fun to do with Nia I pulled in there. I figured at the very least it would be a safe place to walk around and see how people reacted to us.
"Ever been to a zoo?" She said she'd been to one in Battle Creek a few times as a kid, but had heard the Detroit Zoo was better. I said I'd never been to one, but as we walked toward the entrance it seemed somehow familiar. Maybe my parents had brought me here once?
I paid our way in and after the turnstiles we walked hand-in-hand, both of us watching for how people might react. It had warmed up to maybe 50, no wind, and the sun was out. Very pleasant, at least for Michigan in October. The zoo attendees were maybe 25% black and the rest mostly white, and I can't say that I saw anyone react to us negatively. Heck, we even saw another interracial couple 'our way.'
We'd grabbed a map and Nia led us toward the back of the zoo, saying she wanted to see the Monkey House. It was warm inside and we laughed at the antics of some of the monkeys. On the way out the back of the place was a hallway that led to some restrooms. She had to go but I didn't so I said I'd wait by the Macaque monkeys, who were in the last exhibit before the exit. But Nia asked if I'd walk her down to the restrooms, so of course I did; I had to protect my mate, after all. Just as the male gorillas outside were protective of their mates.
At the end of the hallway was a tee, Women to the left and Men to the right. But before that were two Family restrooms on either side of the hallway, and Nia checked the one on the left and found it open. After a quick look up and down the hall she pulled me inside, with more strength than her small frame should've allowed.
"Nia! I don't want to be in here while you..."
"Be quiet, silly! I don't need the bathroom, but I DO need you to make me come!" She'd hiked her shirt and bra up over her breasts and was undoing her pants before I could react.
"Nia! I don't think we should do that in here. Someone will catch us!" But she wasn't listening to reason. Instead, she leaned back into me and put one of my hands on her breast and one in her crotch.
"The door is locked, and I won't take long. I've been so horny for you all week! Just do me now and I'll make it up to you later, I promise." And then she began to writhe and gyrate against me, and the feel of her tight little butt on my growing erection broke down my resistance.
"Okay, but be fast. And be QUIET!" Because I knew how she got. She promised, and I went to work. I switched hands so my dominant right was on her sex, while my left squeezed and prodded her firm spheres of womanflesh. There wasn't much room between her legs with her jeans only pushed down to her knees, but I found that by inserting my hand flat between her thighs I could work her clit with my thumb while massaging her labia with my forefinger.