Bailey was crazy to get with Lucy. Many men were crazy to get with her. For her part, Lucy, a single woman in her late twenties, stayed away from fraternizing with the help and with customers. Mr. Bowman, for obvious reasons, wanted Lucy to get with Bailey. He was hoping they would go out a couple of times and maybe find their way to The Upper Room. Robert secretly hoped for the same thing, but he would never enter into any discussions about such things, not even with Mr. Bowman who had broached the subject several times.
“It would make things so much easier,” Mr. Bowman had said.
Robert had stayed mum. But Mr. Bowman was right. Bill would never again have to worry about the police picking on him or even watching him. They would never follow him home again, and that was a lot better than having to look over his shoulder to see if they were on his trail, which he always had to do now. The numbers game would be more protected than now too. Now it was only protected by the fact that Bailey played one number every day for free as long as he played other numbers too. The more of his friends who played, the better his perks, and this didn’t count his eating for free.
Marie was relentless. The swollen cheek which was also a black eye blossomed. Once again she wore sunglasses for nearly two weeks, right up until Bill was ready to take off for Cleveland to visit with his fiancé’s family for Christmas. Both he and Henry Lee had inquired about it. It was a familiar story. He had seen her get out of Bill’s car and wobble up the walk and into the house. Just after he closed the door and right before she could say a single word, he had cracked her one right on the side of the face. She’d gone done like a limp rag-doll and when she was conscious enough, he’d forced her to do things she would have done for him if he’d just asked. Then again, if he’d just asked, she would have told him the truth, that she was drunk and high and couldn’t drive and Bill was nice enough to drive her home.
Every day, black eye and all, Marie implored Bill to tell Henry Lee he was gonna get with her. Every day Bill stayed away from it as much as he could, and when she took things on her own and said something to Henry Lee about it, Henry Lee told Bill it was okay with him, that he really didn’t care and even hoped Bill would because she was a pain in the ass.
Every night Marie ambushed Bill. She would wait for him to go outside to get high and join him behind the building for smoking a joint. While they smoked she would cop feels of him and lead his hand to take feels of her. She would make sure to wait until he went to the storeroom to go down for what she needed so that they were together down there when no one else was around.
Bill couldn’t deny that he liked being pursued. He couldn’t deny that he liked touching her and getting touched by her and that he’d even begun to have some fantasies about things with her. He even liked when she cornered him against a stack of cases and jammed her tongue in his mouth, pressing all up against him and making him press against her. One time, when she’d taken his hand under her dress and wasn’t wearing anything under there, she’d kept his hand until she thoroughly pleased herself.
“So when we gonna finalize this?” she asked repeatedly.
“Finalize what?”
“Come on white boy. Make me happy. Have some more chocolate.”
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