Read Online Imani All Mine by Connie Rose Porter - Free Book Online

up next to mine and his breath come right in my ear. It was so strong I could taste it in my mouth. You know you like it, you stupid cunt, he say. Tell me you like it. Tell me to fuck you some more.
    I ain’t say nothing. He grabbed me by the hair. My breath come out in a moan.
    He say, Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. He pushed my face back to the ground and got up off me. You can tell anybody you want, he say. I don’t give a goddamn. Ain’t nobody going to believe your dumb ass no way. He yanked his jacket up from under me. I heard him take off out them trees.
    It was a while before I even moved. I don’t know how long I stayed just like he left me, still burning inside. When I figured he was gone, really gone, I rolled over on my side and touched myself quick down there to see if I was bleeding. I was all wet. I ain’t know if it was blood. The night was so dark, even with the yellow lights shining above me in the leaves. So I pulled my pants up and brushed myself off. My knees wouldn’t stop shaking. But I got up. I ain’t even went back in the Skate-A-Rama. I ain’t even went back through the parking lot the way I came. I was shamed. I went around the other side and waited for the bus home. Spitting. Spitting. Spitting all the time I was waiting.
    Mama was sitting on the couch when I got home. Watching TV with the lights out. She ain’t even look up when I come in. It was a Friday night and she like to watch a cop show that come on. Mama say, Lock the door behind you. Which I did, and went right straight upstairs into the bathroom and pulled down my pants and panties. There wasn’t no whole bunch of blood like I was expecting to see. Only a little spot, already turning dark like a old penny. That made me feel better. Like things wasn’t so bad. Like I wasn’t going to have to tell Mama about it because it was just a bad dream anyway.
    I took me a shower and brushed my teeth with the water running all over me. I kept brushing them and brushing them, squirting out long white worms of toothpaste until my mouth tasted fresh and clean like mouths be on commercials. Like mint. Then I washed myself. I ain’t even want to touch myself down there in my private parts. But I squatted down, with my knees still shaking, and washed off real gentle but real good two times. I wasn’t burning like I was before.
    When I laid down in bed that night, with the moon shining through the tree outside my window, with the moon shining down on me, I wanted to get up and go downstairs and tell Mama. I should have told her right then. I was so shamed. Even though my mouth was clean, seem like when I just thought of that boy, I got that nasty taste in my mouth again, and I wiped off my tongue with the back of my hand. I ain’t want Mama to think it was me that was the nasty one. But I wanted her to come to me in my room that night because I was quiet. Because I had come in and gone straight upstairs. Which I never did. Showered without being told and got right into bed with no radio playing. No light on. No nothing. How come Mama ain’t know that wasn’t even me acting like that? What was she thinking about if she wasn’t thinking about me? Royster, the Jherri Curl King?
    When I was a little girl, if I was out of her sight and quiet for a minute, it seem like Mama would come to me. I would look up to see her face over me. Full and shining like the moon. Mama would watch me until she was satisfied I was all right and then she would slip away quiet. Quiet as the setting of the moon. I wouldn’t even know she was gone until I looked up and seen she wasn’t there.
    I hid in the dark of my room that night like I was some little girl too shamed to tell on myself for doing something so stupid. Mama always been the one thinking I’m so smart. I’m so special. That I’m the one who has got a brain that’s going to take me somewhere in my life. Maybe Mama