Magic City Read Online Free Page B

it.”
    â€œStop it, Dell.” She flailed her legs helplessly. “Mr. Bates makes coloreds take the stairs. Only place they go is the washroom. On the fourteenth floor. ’Specially for coloreds.”
    â€œBut you walk by them shoeshines in the lobby everyday. How can you stand them looking at you? Thinking about you.”
    â€œThose boys don’t look at me.”
    He bit her throat, sucking her skin into his mouth. “Marry me.”
    She felt like crying. “ Marry me .” This was what she’d been taught to wait for —Marry me— this was what a good woman wanted to hear.
    â€œLet me go, Dell. Let me go.”
    â€œMarry me.” He guided her hand down to his crotch. “Feel what you do to me, Mary.” She tried to pull her hand back, but he held it. “I know you can love me, Mary.”
    â€œStop it, Dell. Stop it.”
    His hands pinched her nipples; he tugged her panties, his knee spread her legs.
    â€œStop it.”
    She scratched him; Dell slapped her. She cried out—her head bounced against dirt.
    â€œYou don’t know what’s good for you, Mary.”
    â€œNo, Dell.”
    â€œYou don’t even know your own mind.”
    He sounded like Pa, dogged, grating in his certainty.
    â€œYou think you’re better than me?”
    â€œNo. I’m not better than anyone.”
    Holding her hands in one fist, he reached back, grabbing his silver-trimmed belt off the nail.
    â€œDell, don’t.” He was going to beat her like Pa did. The buckle caught the lamp’s glow and it glittered, the silver showering rainbows.
    Mary fought—bucking, trying to free herself as he bound her hands in the leather. She felt cold silver cutting deeply into her wrists.
    â€œDell, please, let go my hands. Let go.” Tears drained into straw. She felt helpless, like Jody must’ve felt when they’d tied him down and sawed. “Please, Dell.” Hysteria choked her throat. “Let me go.”
    â€œNot ’til I’m done.” He jerked her backward, stretching her arms over head, and caught the buckle on a nail. “Scream, Mary. Your Pa and brother might be heading back for breakfast.”
    The silver buckle reflected her tangled hair, the shadow of Dell bending over her.
    Dell unbuttoned his pants. “Go on, scream, Mary. I want you to. Your Pa will make you marry me.”
    She wouldn’t scream. She kicked; he caught her legs.
    â€œIt doesn’t have to be this way.”
    â€œI’m not a whore, Dell.”
    â€œLook where you are, Mary. Look around. It ain’t much. But it’s a man’s bed.” He leaned close, their lips almost touching. “I didn’t drag you, now did I? Scream, Mary.”
    He rammed inside her and she swallowed a wail. The narrowness of the pain surprised her, then it began spiraling outward, cramping her abdomen. She bit her tongue, tasting blood. Lie still. Don’t scream .
    â€œI didn’t know you were a virgin, Mary.” He entered her again. “Got to be a grown woman sometime.”
    When she’d started bleeding at thirteen, Pa had handed her worn sheets, telling her, “You’re grown now. Don’t let any man touch you. Your body’s meant for a husband’s use. Seeds are meant to bear fruit.” He watched her burying her bloodied rags behind the shed, admonishing, “Whores like doing it. Good women don’t.”
    â€œMary.” Dell was thrusting deep, his mouth slack.
    Blood speckled her pubic hair. What would life have been like if her mother had lived?
    Like a revelation, she saw her mother, her lips pursed, eyes shut, lying beneath Pa’s bucking abdomen .
    â€œMa,” she whispered. Probably, Pa had made her mother feel guilty for every season she didn’t harvest a son for his land. What good was a woman anyhow?
    â€œMa,” she whispered again, trying to comfort herself.
    She felt