Damali took her time, soaping away all the anger as she made huge circles with the natural sponge on her skin, enjoying the texture of it as it slid against her. Where would she go anyway, even if she did sneak off alone? There was no one to make her secretly smile. There wasn't a soul she knew that she could risk putting in danger, just by association. Her thoughts immediately went to Jose, and it made her shoulders drop as she let out her breath fast in pity for him.
Tears came from a source within that she couldn't explain even to herself as they ran down the bridge of her nose and dropped into the swirling abyss of the drain. They were so happy, he and Dee Dee. They had a right, didn't they - to live and love and be as one? Now look at this shit. One of her guardian brothers was all screwed up and dying inside. She flung the sponge at the shower wall and it left globs of soap against the bright Moroccan tiles. The sound of the splat made her close her eyes, and she grabbed the shampoo, blindly feeling her way to open the bottle, squeeze a large blob into her palm, set it down again, and apply the lather to her locks.
Blues and yellows from the colors of the tiles hovered as an image inside her lids and then disappeared. Yeah ... where would she go anyway? She was living with the equivalent of five brothers who could kill with their bare hands, and Marlene who was no slouch as a perpetual guardian den mother, either. Damali chuckled sadly and let her breath out more slowly. Her twenty-first birthday was in a few days, and this ragtag family would celebrate it. That was cool. It was a blessing, she supposed ... to even have people around her who cared. At one time she didn't.
But there would be no quiet table in the corner of a restaurant, there would be no roses coming from anyone she could call special. And there would be no evening out, ever. No nights like she was beginning to fantasize about. The only person she knew that wasn't afraid of her brother-squad was history - Carlos was old news.
That his name even popped into her mind made her begin to roughly rinse the soap from her hair. She was not going there ever again. Damali kept her eyes shut tight, allowing the pulsing water to beat sense into her brain. That was five years ago. She was fifteen. She hadn't met the Guardians. Was living life on the edge and in the streets, then. Had narrowly missed sleeping with the man too many times.
Picking up the conditioner more slowly, she opened the bottle, studying the light lemon-colored fluid and the fragrance of it as she poured it into her palm. Once she'd set down the bottle, she played with the slick texture between her hands, and shut her eyes again as she bent over, throwing her locks before her, adding conditioner to her nape and working it out to the ends of her locks with care. What if?
She turned and faced the spray, noticing that it was beginning to cool. But the change in temperature as it gradually went from piping hot to lukewarm felt good on her body and clean scalp. At one time, they were from the same world. She could remember him taking her by his people's house to get a grub on. Regular, nice folks.
He'd been the one to tell her to run away, and had had her back when her drunken foster father tried her one, and only one, time. Even she didn't know that by the time of puberty she'd become as strong as a grown man. How would she have known, especially when her body still looked like a regular kid's? But she'd kicked that old, perverted bastard's ass - then had to jet the scene. Carlos had been there, waiting for her... arms opened wide. And he'd teased her about being a church girl in hip-hop gear. Had made fun of her for not giving it up during his many attempts to break her in ... but was also very cool about it, in a strange, respectful sorta way.
The thought made her laugh. Before he'd blown up in the drug world, she remembered thinking how he might have been the one. Had she not been so scared after that foster care attack, maybe she would have given in - but Carlos had messed up. Rumors of a shootout had been enough to make her back off. A shiver ran through her and she quickly doused her hair under the water, half chuckling at herself for being so stupid. Fate had conspired to keep his boys ever present, or to always have his pager go off with a 911, just when things could have gone too far. She'd made it to fifteen without incident - a long time in her world. But she'd seen too many of her girls from 'round the old way get pregnant, die, or be hurt, or all of the above. That had kept her cool. Made her wary. She wasn't going out like that.
Yeah, a cold shower was probably in order. Anytime she was back to putting Carlos's face on a fantasy lover. Thank God Marlene had found her. Thank God she'd never slept with anybody, or gotten pregnant. She'd seen so much in other people's houses that there was a definite link in her mind between men and disaster. Who needed a man? What was all the fuss about sex, anyway? Probably just like another drug. Thank God she always argued street politics with Carlos and didn't go down that slippery path of dealing and jail with him. But, what if? Nah.
He wasn't the one; when she would finally make that decision it would be a righteous brother - and she hadn't run up on anybody yet that was worth the risk of satisfying that one curiosity she had. Marlene said be patient. Marlene was wise. Marlene had helped her get herself together and launch her career. Marlene would know ... Yeah, but, Marlene was old, too. On the other hand, though, Marlene was gettin' some.
Why she was even thinking about this was beyond her. They'd just been through a high-stress situation; Jose was all messed up, and now there was some new entity to contend with. Maybe she was like Big Mike: just wanted the basics to relieve stress. Good food, good loving, and go to sleep. Mike was a trip.
Damali felt the temperature shift in the water again, but it had oddly warmed up. Probably one of the fellas got out. Cool. That meant she had a little more of the tank to herself. Today she didn't feel like being as one, a team, or sharing. She'd just stand here until the water got cold enough to chase her out of it on its own.
Besides, at the moment, it felt just as good as someone massaging her shoulders. Carlos used to do that for her. Now nobody did... .
Damali lolled her neck, the rhythmic pummel against her skin making it tingle. Thick rivers ran down her na**d form and just the flow across her br**sts, past her abdomen, down her legs sent a tremor through her. He'd been the one to listen to her rap, said he'd make enough money one day to showcase her in his own club. Somebody to dream with ... but that was before she fully understood that she could never go there, not the way he made his money. Ever. Knowledge was power, he'd always say; the guardians said that, too. But at the moment it was a bitch.
She let her breath out hard. Damn, those were some good old days, though, when everybody was scramblin', but could be free, and laugh despite all the tragedies the streets offered. Same diff. Hanging out at rave parties, free styling on open mics, dancing until sweat poured off them and they could practically wring out their clothes. Eating barbeque chips with a soda pop in her hand, dropping the bandana for souped-up cars drag racing at night... the night. Her man's red Chevy bouncing, engine gleaming set up high and mounted in a cut out of the hood - Carlos wasn't scared of shit. She missed the freedom of it all. That's what she missed about him, he wasn't scared of shit.
"You will not go there," she whispered into the rain of the shower, using the words to help stave off the memory of his touch.
Yet the temporal awareness pulled her deeper into the pulsing spray, making her close her eyes once more. The sound of the water became a blanket against any other noise in the compound. They had come so close. They had been talking, had become all deep and philosophical, down by the beach, right about dusk, his boys weren't around, and his pager was off His finger had traced her jaw on that one particular day. She remembered. Yeah ... and it had trailed across her collarbone, the edge of his finger nudging away her light blouse, finding a point on her breast that had made the tips of both sting. The memory washed over her like the water from the shower, warming her. If people hadn't walked by; if his boys hadn't found him. If his sister hadn't OD'ed later. She'd wanted him so badly that night, if he'd only known.
Unable to stop the torrid memory that beat on her hard, just like the spray, she allowed it to seep into her pores and take over her thoughts. How could she get it out of her head, when it was the closest she'd ever come to being conquered - different worlds notwithstanding? He'd been the only one to touch her like that, or make her feel anything like that. Especially when he'd brushed her mouth, and had followed the invisible trail of his finger, replacing the path with kisses at points along the way. Then a sudden heat had covered one of the stinging pebbles, a tongue, then the gentle graze of teeth, pulling at it with warmth that soaked through her sheer top, made her lean into the lips that suckled her as the sensation soaked her panties.
Without permission her palms cupped her br**sts, creating tiny waterfalls at the edges of her hands. A slight shudder forced a quiet moan. It happened so fast, so out of the blue, so crazy. She squeezed her thighs together, feeling her own inner river spill over the thickened lips between her legs. This was nuts, she told herself, as her palm slid down her wet belly toward the heat-slicked source. For weeks she'd been in this perpetual agony. She swallowed away another moan, letting it come from inside her throat when her finger touched a part of her that now craved something she'd never had.
Trembling, the returned coolness of the water didn't bother her. What if... Then she felt it, an awareness of being filled from behind, a shaft of heat traveling up her center, quaking her uninitiated womb.
The sensation was so real that she found her hands flat against the tiles, the texture almost boring into her palms as her head dropped back and her h*ps writhed to a rhythm that even the unexplored could comprehend. Phantom pleasure dipped her spine into a deep sway; she couldn't get enough air. Her back felt like it was being anointed by kisses, a bite at her shoulder. Her head tilted of its own accord, exposing her neck in offering, the sensation of a deep, passionate bite sent indescribable delirium through her whole system. Her lips parted to give way to ragged inhales and exhales that transformed into a staccato pant. Just once ... Please ...
A burn like fire ringed the engorged delta that she now opened her thighs to allow full entry to ... from behind, something invisible but that felt so real... pleasure so unthinkable that it literally buckled her knees and made her cry out.
Carlos's face blurred and new intense eyes, intoxicating, drank her in. The tight rim of her valley ached so much that it began to spasm as she moved her body to draw friction from the shower wall, her vertebrae separating as she flipped over and her back hit the tile and the water beat against her face, her collarbone, her br**sts, her stomach. Shards of ice-hot need tore away shame, transforming it to liquid anguish that ran down her legs. Her quick gasp reverberated back as an echo, and she could feel it cast prisms of energy through her bloodstream. The burn was all-consuming, and she wasn't even touching herself. Her hands were splayed against the wall, her nails beginning to dig at the tile as her mind grappled with the explosive sensations. If this was what it felt like ... Oh my God ...
Years of wonder, frustration that had made sleeping at times torture ... Had turned her pillow into a lover until she gasped alone in the quiet. Movements often so frantic that she feared her bed would be heard by the others. Hot tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, mixing with the spray that pelted her. A sudden weight felt like it was crushing her, making her skin ignite as it slid against her, again causing her to turn her head for the sensation at her neck, exposing her jugular, wanting to feel that force against her throat. She didn't care. Profound, erotic heat swept through her. Then it was gone.
Breathing hard, she glanced around the empty room. The shower, now freezing, made her immediately shut it off and wrap her arms about herself and shiver. Then she rocked, her eyes closed, one hand over her mouth. Unable to stop shaking as aftershock tremors slid between her legs, gently petting the molten surfaces as though a good-bye kiss, and evaporating like the stream, she wept.
* * *
For a long while she sat on the edge of her bed, staring out at nothing. This thing that had happened was so private, so humiliating, but so gloriously paralyzing that she couldn't even tell Marlene. What could she say? How did one explain something like this, especially to someone who was practically your mom? What - so the team could whiteboard it and draw a weapons diagram for the shower? She was only glad that Marlene's second sight had been spotty lately, and she could put up a wall against her when these feelings manifested. But she still strained to sense whether this private invasion had been detected. Damali became very, very still. No. Whew. She let out a sigh of relief.
Chapter Seven
She couldn't fathom fixing her mouth to describe a sudden onset of severe horniness, that's all it was. She glanced at her pillow with disdain, total inner shame making her face feel hotter. Once in a while had become too regular. That's all it was. The mood just descended on her followed by a mind-blowing fantasy about an old lover who was now practically an enemy. Oh shit.