Dessa Rose (18 page)

Miz Lorraine laughed, gently, mockingly, and made him sit on the edge of the bed. She knelt before him and took his penis in her mouth. Terrified, he at first tried fumblingly to pry her head away, but already her mouth and tongue were sending such intense waves of pleasure through him that all he could do was hold her head and moan—and try to control the muscle that threatened to leap from his control. “Mistress,” he whispered frantically, “Mistress,” trying to pull her head away now, “Mistress, I'm, I'm—” not knowing how to say it so she would understand him but terrified of coming in her mouth. “Mist—” He could hold it no longer. The power of his climax rocked him back on the bed and he lay there, waiting for her to denounce him, to call the laws, but uncaring. She squirmed onto his still erect penis. Her lips still wet with his come, she sought his mouth. Faintly repelled but already excited by the pull of her vaginal muscles on his penis, he turned his lips toward hers. “If you ever breathe a word of this to anybody, I'll chop it off,” she breathed then. He believed her, but the threat didn't deflate him; rather the knowledge that he lay in danger, not only of his member but of his life, sent him plunging up a peak of unspeakable desire.

Miz Lorraine took her bedmates young, saw that they learned some more conventional trade, and, about the time their fear of discovery and their awe of her abated, about the time they found their tongues with her and might have boasted to others, about that time she got rid of them, sold them off. Nathan was young enough when he came to her that it took a long time for him to reach that stage, at least in front of her. He believed Miz Lorraine implicitly when she told him, with a finger over his lips, that talking to niggers was like trying to get monkeys to talk (it was even longer before he thought to ask himself what fucking niggers was
like), and she, for one, did not want to do it. By the time Nathan found his voice, he also understood (or thought he did) something of why his mistress chose her belly-warmers from among the lowest of the low. Nature was strong in her; she did not call on him that often, no more than once or twice every month or so, but when she did, she kept him awake most of the night and sometimes kept him for a day or even two. If she had tried to satisfy her sexual needs with white men, even ones outside her own class, she would have had no way of ensuring their silence. If a black man boasted, she could have his life. He never learned who else, if anyone, besides her maid knew of the mistress's habits. He talked to no one about what he did and no one talked to him. This was what Miz Lorraine wanted: to be in control.

She was not as freakish as some of the white men people whispered about; she would copulate orally with him, but only once did she allow Nathan to serve her so. He did so, not because he wanted to—he never did get used to coming in her mouth—but because he thought it was expected. He had been with enough women to know that, usually, they did to you what they wanted you to do to them. While this was a wholly new thing to him and still slightly distasteful, it gave him such joy that he was not averse to returning the pleasure. He nerved himself up and took her, and himself, by surprise, his tongue flicking across that little slippery piece he knew got delight from his fingers almost before he was aware of what he was doing. She had writhed and kicked but he held on till he felt the thick come against his tongue. She threatened to yell rape that night; to sell him, to have him flayed within an inch of his life. He never took the lead in sex with her again.

At what point Miz Lorraine began to take his silence for sense, Nathan never knew, but she kept him longer, she said, than she had any other slave lover and promised to put him out to stud rather than sell him. He hadn't looked forward to that. He was thoroughly enraptured by her and he liked Savannah. He loved his work as coachman, the driving, his smart livery, the horses. He felt also, but so dimly he could not have articulated it, that there was something demeaning in what she proposed. Then, she
had decided, as far as Nathan could see on a whim, to marry and, contrary to her word, had sold him to Wilson. He understood the reasons for her betrayal—he had never dared boast of his relationship with her, but on that plantation, away from the twin goads of fear and desire, he wasn't sure he could have held his tongue, as he had not been able to once settled at the Glen. He had tried to be philosophical about the change in his fortune. Driver was a brutal job, but Wilson had not been an especially brutal master. He had rather favored Nathan; the latter did his job and knew how to return an amusing quip without seeming uppity. Had Nathan been more inclined toward harshness, he might have stood higher in Wilson's esteem. As it was, knowing something of the hardships to which most slaves were subjected, he would not complain. Miz Lorraine had given him what few niggers even dreamed about.

There was, he told the men in the Quarters late at night, nothing in the world sweet as that white woman's pussy and he knew because he had had his share of black women both before and after Miz Lorraine. It was not, as he liked to claim, that they had snapping pussy that held on to your dick until the last little seed was drained, then opened to let you fill again. It was the terror, he knew, that made it so sweet. If climax, as some men said, was like death, then a nigger died a double death in a white woman's arms. And he had survived it. He walked a little taller, aware of the power hanging secret and heavy between his legs.

Nathan was the color of eggplant, a rich, velvety blue-black; beside him, Rufel's skin took on a pearly glow. They sweated and rested, his face buried in her bosom, one leg caught between hers. She stroked his back; his fingers played purposefully in matted pubic hair, teasing the slick lips of her vagina. Supine, she waited for him to enter her again.

They never heard the door open, only the startled gasp: “Mis—Nathan!”

Surprised, Rufel saw the wench's face, wide-eyed with shock, over Nathan's shoulder and glimpsed Ada's bandanna.

“Nathan,” the wench breathed again, striding into the room, “and Miz
Ruint—
Well, I knew you was a fool—”

“Dessa!” Nathan shouted, rising.

“What you call me?” Rufel cried.

“Miz Ruint!” Odessa repeated harshly, deliberately, struggling now in Ada's grasp.

Nathan was out of the bed then; together he and Ada got Odessa, breathing hard but no longer struggling, out of the room. Nathan closed the door and turned to Rufel. “What's that she called me, Nathan?” Rufel asked.

“Rufel,” Nathan said, grinning slowly, widely. “Miz Rufel; that's what she meant.” He held out his hand to her. “That's all she meant.”

Rufel shrank from him. Ruined, that was what the wench had said. Ruined. That was what she meant.

I never
seed
such a thing! Nathan—laying cross that white woman—Black as night and so—so
sat
isfied. It was like seeing her nurse Mony for the first time all over again. I was
that
surprised to walk in on them. I seed the name upset her, so I said it again out of plain meanness; I wanted to call her something worse. All the while I was yelling at her, Nathan and Ada was hustling me out that room. And something inside me was screaming, Can't I have nothing? Can't I have nothing?

Well, I went, just about stumbling down them back steps with Ada fussing in behind me. I'd “gone too far,” she say, calling that white woman out her name. Miz Rufel been “good to us.” Oh, yes, the white woman was “Miz Rufe!” to her then—when
she'd
been the main one started me calling the woman Miz Ruint in the first place. Anyway, far as I was concerned, that white woman was the one'd “gone too far,” laying up with a black man. And Nathan. I was so mad at him, I could've
spit
.

Ada huffed at me all the way cross the yard: We was all going get put off the place; if I wanted that “fool negro,” I could have him when Miz Lady was through with him. I turned round on that one. I could feel trouble all round me and in me, and pain;
she was talking like all I needed was a little belly-rub. “You put Annabelle name in this mess,” she say. And forgot Mony; remembrance of him didn't come to me till then. I'd forgot him just that quick, when it was him we'd gone in that room to peek at in the first place.

You know, any other time, Miz Lady—which is what we mostly called her amongst ourselfs; to her face, it was always Mis'ess or Miz Rufel. But everyone, Nathan included, called her Miz Ruint, too—amongst ourselfs; this was the name Annabelle give her. Both names meant about the same to me, though Ruint did fit her. Way she was living up there in them two rooms like they was a mansion, making out like we was all her slaves. For all the world like we didn't know
who
we was or how
poor
she was. Them rooms was big all right, but it was only two of them, same as any poor buckra; and that stairway didn't lead to no other story. It ended right smack dab against the roof before it had gone ten good steps. We all knew
some
thing wasn't right up there. And any other time, she'd've been out to the woods someplace, way she did most afternoons when I put Mony down for nap. That's where me and Ada both thought she was when we seed she wasn't in the parlor. Setting out there in the kitchen the way we was, we never even seen the white woman, neither Nathan, go in the House. Wasn't no way in the world we'd've just walked in that room if we'd knowed she was in there—I'm saying “me and Ada,” but I knowed Ada wasn't that much in it. I was the one had mocked the white woman in public.

For the first time I wanted to cry. I couldn't go back in that House, not to get Mony, not and see Nathan, see
him
and that white woman again. The remembrance of them in that bed kept stabbing at my eyes, my heart—black white red. I knowed that red was her hair, but it looked like blood to me.

I moved down to the Quarters that evening. Tell the truth, I didn't have that much to move, just Mony (and Ada'd had to go back to the House and get him) and the clothes I stood up in. Even these was gived to me by Miz Ruint, just like most everything else I had. It chafed me to be so beholden to her. For the
life of me, I couldn't see no reason for a white woman to let us stay there—less it was for devilment. I'd only heard of “good masters”—I didn't know nothing about no good white folks—and none of them claimed Miz Ruint was a “good master.” No “good master” would've let us stay anyway. So why she would do this was a puzzlement to me.

Letting us stay on the place wasn't zactly slave stealing, true enough, but I knowed she was posed to tell
some
body we was there. Wouldn't the white folks get her for keeping runaways? She couldn't be letting all these peoples stay just so she could lay with a black man, I told myself. Could she? And I was scared. Ada was right, Miz Ruint could make us all leave. I didn't really think she would do it—who was going pick that crop, feed that boy, mend them draws? But she could, you know; she was white and it was her place. I couldn't just go round popping off at the mouth any old kind of how—least ways not at her. I had plenty I wanted to say to Nathan but I hadn't seed him since he put us out that door.

The Quarters wasn't no better than what Ada had said—one room with a dirt floor; wasn't even no chinking in between the logs. Harker and them'd added a lean-to where the mens slept and I moved into the cabin with the womens. I had walked down to the Quarters a time or two when Ada took dinner down, helping her lug that big kettle once I got my strength back. I knew most of the peoples by sight, and all of them knew Mony. He never wanted for lap nor arm long as a person was in the Quarters.

There was three other womens: Flora, a big hefty seal-brown woman; Janet, a little string-bean woman (both of them worked the fields); and Milly, a old woman with a ulcerated foot who helped Ada with the laundry and tried to work that loom Dorcas had used. I kept the House, helped Ada in the kitchen, and did the sewing, mending really. I could do decent plain stitch and darn; this what our mammy taught all of us, so we knowed how to be neat. But I couldn't bit more cut a dress or do nothing fancy than a man in the moon. Even this was better than what Miz Ruint could do and I set some store by it.

There was eight mens, counting Nathannem. Uncle Joel and his
grand-boy, Dante, belonged to the place. Uncle Joel had been sold more times than he could count; white folks just call him to the House and point to his new master. That last time, he figured his old master was using him to settle some small debt. He begged for Dante and the master throwed him in as a present to the new master's son. Being as his arm and leg was crippled on one side, no one valued Dante but Uncle Joel (though Dante could do just about anything peoples with two good arms and legs could do). Master Man, that's what Uncle Joel called Miz Ruint's husband; made it sound like something nasty, too. Master Man hadn't wanted either one of them and plained all the way home about getting the worst of the deal. Ned was a young fellow round about the same age as me; Castor and Red was both about the age of Harker. We didn't none of us know how old we was, but near as I could figure out, I think Harker must've been close to thirty. I wasn't no more than seventeen or eighteen myself. All the mens worked the fields except for Uncle Joel; he tended the garden which House and Quarters both ate from, and the few head of stock. Nathan mostly hunted and fished.

Evenings they sat in front the cabin; not everybody, every evening, but usually peoples sat out there a minute or so before turning in; sometimes Ada would sit a spell when she brought supper or walk down again after we'd cleaned up. Mostly I guess they was quiet—peoples don't talk too much in the heat, not after they been in the fields all day. Oh, sometimes they did talk, now and then trade stories, or Uncle Joel would play his mouth organ. I had heard it once or twice wailing faint through the night when I was laying up at the House. Sadder than a whippoorwill, more lonesone than a owl, it wrung my heart; it reminded me so much of home. But these wasn't like my home Quarters, and I sat there that first night holding Mony, feeling like a stranger amongst them.

The weather, the crop, this is what they talked about; Milly's foot, Mony—but Mony was sleep—the weather again. It was hot. Harker, Cully, and Red was off somewheres; I spected Nathan was up to that House. Even Ada and Annabelle was there, but Ada
hadn't more than said good evening to me. The rest of them spoke and I could feel the ones had seed me bring my pallet down wanting to ask why I'd moved. No one did but they couldn't seem to keep a conversation going.

Long about the time Harker and Cully walked up, someone inquired after Nathan; after everybody say good evening, Janet inquired again. I didn't say nothing. Ada waited a minute, then she say, “Up to the House.” No one said nothing to that; then she say, “Laying up with Miz Lady.”

Don't nobody say nothing then; finally Harker slap his thigh and laugh. “Doggone it, Cully,” he say, “I didn't believe old Nathan'd do it!”

Cully let out a big whoop. “Miz Lady bound to come in on the deal now!”

I couldn't believe my ears; had they planned this? “Nathan doing
that
with that white woman wasn't part of no deal I knowed about, Harker,” I told him.

Everybody was talking at once, but he turned around when I said that. “What got you so mad, Dessa?” he ask.

“That's a white woman, Harker.” They all quieted down when I said that.

“She willing,” Harker say, dry as dust. That's the way he try to be, so calm don't nothing faze him.

Well, that give them all a big laugh, till Ada say, “That fool negro going to get us all killed.”

“Ain't no such a thing,” Harker say real sharp, “less one of us going tell it.”

This made us all shut up. Wasn't none of us going tell and I reckon he knowed that well as I did, but I think his putting it so harsh made us see that we was all liable. Knowing about it, and telling, was about as bad as doing it—at least to the white folks. Then, just like he couldn't help hisself, Harker burst out, “West, here we come.” And the men commence to dance around and laugh.

Harker come took Mony, gived him to Ada, and pulled me to
my feet. Trying to waltz me around, you know, but I didn't feel like no dancing and I shook his hands off. “This how we going work our way West,” I ask him, “on our backs?” I got Mony and went on in the cabin and laid down.

I could hear them going on about Nathan and the white woman. Harker allowed as how he wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall do the white man ever come back and catch them. Not that he was wishing for them to be caught, understand; he couldn't wish that on no brother. But just so's he could see the white man's face. “Reckon his eyes would bug out?” he asked real serious. “You know that mouth would gape something scandalous, and he would get red. Got to get red. But he just might be carried off in apoplexy before he could do anything to him
or
her.”

By this time, they was all laughing fit to be tied; I wanted to laugh myself cause it was true. A slave loving with the mistress, the
master's
wife, might be enough to give a white man the stroke. I could see my old master's face turning red—might even go purple—as the sight of that fly in his milk and death hit him all at once. Course his eyes would pop. Mine had. But I wasn't in no mood to laugh; Master might get red, but if Master lived, the slave was dead. Nathan could die tomorrow cause of this mess. I was mad at him for letting that white woman put him in such risk and I was mad at her for doing it.

Nathan and Cully, and Harker, too, sat with me the whole time I was out my head; Ada said that was the only thing kept me quiet—they hands, they eyes, they voice. These had stood between me and death or me and craziness. We'd opened to each others. Oh, I had a admiration for them—same as they did for me. We had
scaped
, honey! And they'd come back for me and we'd scaped again. You didn't do this in slavery. We laughed about it—they teased me about the white man what “kept company” with me while I was in that cellar; I said they'd been sparking the girls in the Quarters, that's what took them so long to see about me—but it was this that brought us close.

We talked about some of everything while I was laid up in that
bed, and they was some talkers. Cully could have you dying about his old master trying to raise him as a slave
and
like a son—teaching him to read but not to write, to speak but daring him to think. Nathan would fascinate you with stories about outlandish goingons. And Harker got us all fired up about West. He could put some words together, make you see broad, grassy valleys, clear, sparkling streams, a river that divided slave land from free. And wasn't no pretense between us.

Mammy wasn't no more to Cully than breast in the night and he never knew enough to wonder about her till after he was sold. Somebody had carried him like I carried Mony; he'd kicked in a stomach same way Mony did in mine. But he might as well been carried in a bottle for all he knowed. Mammy wasn't even a face to him. Cully cried when he told us this and I was the one held him, right there on that feather bed. But we all heard; and Nathan, neither Harker was shamed of they tears. I never thought one of them could be so ignorant to something that hurt me so bad. White woman was everything I feared and hated, and it hurt me that one of them would want to love with her.

I thought “the deal” was a joke when Nathan and Harker first started talking about selling theyself back into slavery so as to get a stake big enough to where we could all leave from round there. This was a story they was telling to help while away the hours Ada made me stay in bed. Harker had the idea of someone posing as the master and of the peoples running away after they'd been sold and the “master” selling them again in another town. This was what his old master used to do with him when they was down on the luck. Harker's master was a regular scamp, gambling, mostly—he'd won Harker in a card game in Kentucky when Harker was about leven or twelve—and high living, but he wasn't above a swindle or a cheat now and then.

At first, Cully was “master”—except for that nappy hair, he could've been white, and he could read some and write a little. But anyone with half a eye could see he was too young to be out trying to sell a gang of negroes, and we joked about having Har
ker paint a mustache on him to make him look older. Harker had learned this from his master, too.

It was Nathan put that white woman in it. Oh, not by name; but once they got the idea wasn't but a step to seeing if it would work. And for that, like Nathan said, we needed a real white person, someone in want, to play the master. I didn't think about the idea of us selling ourselfs or each others back into slavery long as I took it for fun, you know. But I was uneasy, once they put the white folk in it. Wasn't no white folk I'd ever heard of would bit more go along with this cutup than a man in the moon—and if they did, it would just be to cheat us out the money in the end. These was the stories we'd all heard, that we'd told right there by that bed—bad jobs made good and the darkies not even getting thanks, promises of freedom or favor the white folks never kept. So it was hard for me to see this as anything but a joke. Even when Harker said he thought Miz Lady could use some money and Cully said he'd oversee the place—since he was so white—while they was gone, I didn't believe they would trust her. So I—just to keep the story going—I said I better go along to keep a eye on her. I didn't think they had the nerve to ask such a thing, but I begun to back off.