Once you go black

         “Don’t worry about me; I’m doing fine,” Michael Patterson breathed into the payphone. He wasn’t sure of whether he lied for the sake of his overprotective mother or to talk himself out of taking her up on her offer to send him a plane ticket home to Delaware. Either way, he wouldn’t tell her that he had been robbed twice since he arrived in Norfolk, Virginia. He wouldn’t tell her that he  was afraid to leave his rundown, roach infested apartment unless his only friend, Nyeem, accompanied him, nor that he was the only resident of  the housing complex that wasn’t African-American or Latino, which made him a prime target for abuse. “No!” he sighed, struggling to hide his home-sickness, “ I moved out here to make my own way. Tell Dad that I don’t need him to send me anything.  Okay, Mom. I can get by on my own. Don’t cry! I love you too.”
         As he hanged the phone up and turned to address his waiting bodyguard, he could tell from Nyeem’s expression that they shared similar thoughts: Mikey was dumb as hell to have turned down any offer of money, especially when he had been robbed of his last week’s pay, and had spent days sulking and wondering what he was going to do for grocery and utilities. Thankfully, he was smart enough to have set aside some emergency money before the move, which would take him through to the next month’s rent.
         “I don’t need their help,” he shrugged, answering the confused look in  Nyeem’s probing brown eye. “What’s the point of moving away from home if you’re only going to run back every time something bad happens?”
         “I wouldn’t know,” Nyeem retaliated. “I been wanting to get away from home for over twenty-two years. Every time I think about leaving, I think about all my little brothers and sisters that’s going to be left here to fend for themselves. I feel you on wanting to make your own way, but why here? What’s here for you…for anybody?”
         They began to walk, Nyeem not looking back to acknowledge, Michael, who he knew was sure to be close behind. Michael tried his best to mimic his leader’s care-free posture and match each “fuck the world” stride, which held the declaration that the streets belonged to their creator. Michael’s steps were clumsy and offbeat in comparison, keeping beat with his own heart instead, which kept telling him that he was out of his element.
         “Do you know what they’ll do if they knew that I live around all black people?” Mikey chuckled, hoping that his revelation wouldn’t turn his one friend against him. “They’d come down here and physically drag me home. All they know about blacks are the images they see on television, the nightly news and such. To them, all blacks are criminals.”
         “Getting your ass whipped twice since you been here, having all your money stolen, and having to walk to a payphone because you got stuck for your cellular hasn’t made you think that they might be right about that?” Nyeem teased.
         “Bad people come in all colors. So do good people. You’re black, and you’re one of the coolest people I ever met!”
         Nyeem shrugged and tried not to show how delighted he was with Mikey’s brilliant reply to his rhetorical question. He wasn’t the type to ever get sentimental, especially not before someone he had known as briefly as Mikey.  “ Fall back,” he instructed as they came upon two of his waiting clients. “I got to handle this business. Nobody’s going to fuck with you; that’s my word!”
         “Alright,”  Mikey swallowed, knowing that if he followed his friend across the street, the fiends would assume he was an undercover, and that assumption could be dangerous for the both of them.
         He tried to not look panicked as he stood alone and watched Nyeem’s meticulous maneuvering, the way he pretended to dap the junkies up as he slipped  their purchases into their palms, stepping on the money they dropped on the ground to keep the wind from taking it until they had walked away and it was safe to bend over and scoop it up without drawing attention. All the while, Nyeem never stopped talking and smiling, as if the illegal exchange were as natural to him as breathing.
          Michael, flushed red on the other side of the street, a million thoughts racing through his mind about what would happen if the cops rolled through at that moment. He was sure he wouldn’t be arrested, but even if they only took Nyeem away, that would mean that he would be left to journey home alone, and even that simple task of six blocks scared him shitless, while Nyeem, who had everything to lose, remained composed. Even the way Nyeem did things that Mikey considered to be beneath him made Mikey envious of the raw machismo that seemed to ooze, sexily, from every pour of the guy.
         Mikey drew in a deep breath and pretended not to notice how low his companions baggy shorts were riding, revealing a trail of curly, black pubes. His throat grew dry as he thought of what thick delight waited at the end of that trail. He also wondered how, by simply playing basketball, Nyeem had managed to achieve such a great body, when he, who had access to the most high-tech gym equipment prior to his move, just barely had any muscle definition in his own flat stomach.
         “That didn’t take too long, did it?” Nyeem teased, completely removing the sweat-soaked t-shirt that had previously been pulled back so that it only remained on his body due to both arms still being in their rightful holes. All else of the shirt had been stretched behind his back, blowing carefree in the wind, a makeshift vest that accented his well-chiseled body.
         Mikey was too busy watching the same t-shirt become fashioned around Nyeem’s head to reply. The vest was now a makeshift turban, tying back his shoulder-length dreadlocks. Mikey marveled, thinking how he would have only thought to tie his discarded shirt around his waist, or tote it around in his hand. He never stopped being amazed by the innovative nature of the people who surrounded him, and even when he feared his for his life, there was always some part of him that ached to be one with them, to belong, and to know their secret of being so fearless, effortlessly sensual, and  in control.
         Growing up with strict, prudish, Baptist parents, he had to hide his deep-rooted love for anything hip-hop influenced. He especially had to hide his desire for the black male physique, and that was the one secret that he hadn’t been allowed to unleash, even after moving out on his own. If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that being openly gay would only increase his potential for being prey to violence.
         He Hadn’t even told Nyeem about his curiosity, not even on the  night when Nyeem had walked him home from work, and they had spent the night getting drunk and smoking weed, talking about their upbringings.  That night, the part of him that he hated, the part that remained skeptical of Nyeem, whom had looked out for him since his arrival, fending off his attackers, and even loaning him money for groceries, told him that he would be a fool to sleep and  leave the strange, black man  with access to his laptop and the few possessions that hadn’t been stolen from him the first night in the building. The weed and the liquor helped him to override those thought, and when he woke, Nyeem was long gone, but everything remained in place. Nyeem had even walked to the corner store, and had left him a breakfast burrito in the microwave before departing. Money for his bus commute had even been left behind, along with a note to be safe.
         As he ate and verbally punished himself for giving into the ignorant ways he had been raised, he noticed that his computer had been left on, and when he traced Nyeem’s cyber footprints, each page took him to homoerotic content, mostly white guys being brutally fucked by black cocks that seemed surreal in length.  He bookmarked the sites for later masturbatory purposes, but his mind was too cluttered with thoughts of how knowing what he now knew about Nyeem may somehow complicate their friendship to allow him to give in to his current arousal.
         Nyeem was smart. He had fixed the laptop just days earlier, and bragged that his uncle had taught him everything about computers. Why hadn’t he thought to erase the browser history? Had it been left behind for Mikey to purposely find? Was Mikey supposed to make the first move, and if  he did, what would Nyeem’s retaliation be?          What if Nyeem had picked up on Mikey’s lustful,  hungry stares, and was only baiting him,  waiting for the boy to be foolish and attempt to act on his desire, only for Mikey to have the shit kicked out of him and to lose his only friend? Mikey decided to keep the discovery to himself, no matter what the case.
         The subject remained avoided, for three weeks, until the next time Nyeem invited himself to stay over. The two had gone almost completely through a twelve-pack of extra dry Coronas, and Nyeem, who had just finished rolling their sixth marijuana blunt, turned to Mikey and unapologetically asked, “When you going to stop acting all shy and get you some of this good dick?”
         “What the hell?” Mikey struggled to sound as if the words were outrageous to him, even though he had been asking himself the exact same question in his mind, only the words lacked the sexy confidence in his head that they held when they rolled from Nyeem’s tongue.
         “You know you want to.” Nyeem insisted, crawling from his reclining chair, the marijuana blunt tucked behind his ear as he made his way over to Mikey, who lay sprawled on the shaggy, blue rug. “You really going to lay there and act like you not aching to feel me on top of you…inside of you?” He ran his fingers through Mikey’s shaggy brown curls, staring into his brown eyes the entire time, daring him to deny the mutual attraction that had them drawn to one another like the opposite poles of two magnets.
         “Is this real?” Michael laughed, reaching out to caress the bare torso that was now less than two inches from his own naked chest. The humidity from the stuffy room had Nyeem’s skin  glowing with a translucent film of sweat that seemed to define every muscle and ripple of his god-like body. “Are you being for real with me, man? You really want to fuck me?”
         “No,” Nyeem corrected. “Animals fuck. I want to make love to you.”
         “So, you love me now?” Mikey slurred. Drunk from the surplus of beer and high from the shit-load of weed they had just consumed, his mind was still clear enough for him to compute the possibility that a guy as street-wise as  Nyeem had genuine feelings, beyond sex, for him. The answer was slim and none.
         Nyeem’s eyes narrowed with a hint of anger as he watched Mikey sway with drunken laughter. “Why the hell is that funny? I can’t love you?”
         “You can,” Mike smiled. “But I just don’t think you do. Not yet anyway.”
         “Look at me!” Nyeem ordered, palming the sides of Mikey’s head. “I been looking out for you since you got here, Mikey. It ain’t because I want nothing from you in return. In fact, if you tell me you don’t ever want to have sex with me, I’ll be cool with just being your friend. What I don’t want you to ever do again is tell me you don’t believe I care about you; you got that? We been through too much shit together, and I deserve better than that.”
         Mickey struggled to free the sides of his face from Nyeem’s grip, but then something he saw in his friend’s eyes made him give up struggling. It was sincerity. Instead of pulling away, he leaned forward and gently pressed his mouth against Nyeem’s. His hands roamed Nyeem’s torso, and he could feel that his companion’s heart was beating just as fast as his.
         He told himself that a guy as suave as Nyeem couldn’t be nervous about what was going to happen. That emotion was reserved only for Mikey, a church boy, who had only experienced sex through what the boys that his parents forbid him to hang with had told him in the locker room, and recently, through following the links that Nyeem had left on his computer.
         “You know I’m going to make it feel good for both of us; don’t you?” Nyeem promised, pulling at Mikey’s basketball shorts. Mikey raised his hips to aid in the removal of the stubborn fabric from his sweaty body, but his nerves wouldn’t allow him to answer his friend.
         When they were both stripped completely to their bare flesh, and Mikey could feel Nyeem’s sweat mixing with his own, he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, awaiting the pain of the entry. He had felt the length and girth of Nyeem’s cock sliding up and down his stomach and probing between his thighs as they kissed, and he was certain that he was in for a large degree of pain.
         “You ever sucked dick?” Nyeem asked, trying to make the question sound as respectful as it possibly could.
         “No, but I want to try.”
         “Follow my lead,” Nyeem instructed, positioning himself so that his crotch was level with Mikey’s face, and Mikey’s with his. “Wow, I guess what they say about white guys isn’t true,” he laughed, marveling at the girth of Mikey’s thick, nine inches.
         Mikey thought about giving a retort, something like what he had heard about blacks certainly being true, as he lifted Nyeem’s pulsing eleven inches to his mouth , but he was afraid his nerves would make it come out more offensive than funny. He let go of the thought and ran his tongue across the purplish head of Nyeem’s cock, and then he opened his mouth to accept Nyeem’s demanding thrust. His body shuttered as his friend reciprocated with all the gusto of a seasoned veteran.
         He would have never pegged a guy with as much machismo as Nyeem to be a champion cock sucker. Yet, there they were, tangled together, fucking each other’s faces with a rhythm that seemed to come so naturally. Mikey was also surprised by the fact that he didn’t need to follow Nyeem’s lead. He was returning every tingle and erotic sensation that  Nyeem offered him with so much finesse that Nyeem began to question if this was really Mikey’s first sexual experience.
         Mikey’s back stiffened as he felt Nyeem lean over and spit into his exposed, twitching asshole. He was so repulsed by that sensation that he gave up trying to reciprocate the pleasure he was getting, now from the vigorous hand job that Nyeem was giving him. He was about to question why his partner would do something so cheapening to him, when he felt Nyeem’s tongue darting across his rim, massaging the saliva in. That feeling was even better than the blowjob he had just been blessed with. He stopped trying to orally please Nyeem and bit his own tongue to hold in his moans. Nyeem would have to settle for a hand job too.
         “You ready for the real thing?” Nyeem questioned, when he was able to get two fingers inside his friend’s pouting hole with only a slight moan of discomfort as a retort.
         “Do you have any protection?” Mikey asked, his eyes nailed shut, still awaiting Nyeem’s painful entry, regardless of the answer. He had come to far to turn back.
         “I told you I was going to take care of you.” Nyeem whispered, and gave Mikey’s closed eyelids a kiss. “I got you.”
         Mikey remained still, and tried to stifle his trembling as he heard the rip of a condom packet and felt something slicker and more heavy than saliva being rubbed across his waiting rim.
         “I’m going to put it in now,” Nyeem warned, lining his mushroom shaped head up with his tight target. “Just breathe in real deep and it’ll be over.”
         Mikey screamed out in pain as Neyeem pushed inside, inch by inch, until his scrotum was all that remained outside. Nyeem’s deep thrusts made him question if even that would remain outside, scraping against his spread cheeks. He reached down to feel himself for tearing, but his hand was pushed away and Nyeem’s hungry mouth devoured his lips, forcing his tongue inside Mikey’s mouth, much like his penis had just invaded the opposite end. Their fingers locked together as if Neyeem was offering his hand to aid Mickey in coping with the pain. That idea of subtle intimacy turned Mikey on, and his meek erection began to fill out to its capacity again, scraping the ridges of Nyeem’s chiseled stomach.
         “Jesus!” Mikey screamed out when his mouth was free, and he wondered if it was from pain of pleasure. He certainly didn’t want whatever Nyeem was doing to him to stop. He could feel the pressure of each thrust course through every erogenous zone of his body. His cock made pools of precome as it smashed between their stomachs. He didn’t know if Nyeem would ever reach his climax or feel a need to slow down, but he knew that he was seconds away from erupting himself.
         He wandered if it would be proper to announce his approaching orgasm, like the guys he had watched perform this act on the websites, but he thought that screaming, “I’m going to come,” would cheapen the ordeal, so he lay there, tangling his fist in the sheets as his convulsions took Nyeem by surprise. His fluids landed just below Nyeem’s sweaty neck and oozed down his flexing chest.
         “Yeah!” Nyeem moaned, evidently turned on by the mess of it all. “Give me every drop! I won’t pull out ‘til you give me every drop!”
         “OOOOW!” Mikey howled as he felt Nyeem dive deeper. Suddenly he was exploding for a second time. His hands hugged the sofa pillow to his face to keep the noise down.
         Nyeem stayed inside of him, not moving, but in as deep as he could go. He held the quaking boy to his body and whispered, “Good boy. Let it all go, baby!”
         It seemed to Mikey that Nyeem was also unloading into the condom. He thought he felt it swell inside of him. He was sure when Nyeem fell flat against him and began to pant like a dog in the summer’s heat.
         Nyeem withdrew without saying a word, and walked to the bathroom to discard of the rubber. Mikey’s eyes drank in the wonderment of his friend’s glory, and his heart sped again as he contemplated releasing the questions that formed  in his mind: Did what just happened between them make them officially lovers? Was this a one time thing, and if so, would Nyeem treat him the same now that they shared this secret?
         “Ready to get some sleep now?” Nyeem asked, crawling behind Mikey’s spun body. He cradled the boy with such a sensitivity that all of Mike’s concerns subsided. All that mattered was that moment in time, and the only two people in the universe were him and Nyeem. There was no place safer nor more comfortable than Nyeem’s broad chest and arms.

         The next morning Michael awoke to find that Nyeem had long abandoned him. His head pounded from last nights beers, and his bladder screamed for a release of pressure, his asshole was throbbing with a sensation that was a little less than what he could describe as pain, but all he could focus on was his heart. It beat a mile a minute as thoughts raced through his head: had Nyeem gotten what he was after all along? Would he ever hear from the man again?
         He told himself that he was being foolish; Nyeem wasn’t that kind of guy. Nobody who had made love to someone as passionately as Nyeem had made it to him the night before would just pick up and leave the person without so much as a goodbye. Just when those words began to win out, he noticed that Nyeem hadn’t left empty-handed. The eighty bucks that he had tucked under a book on the living room table was gone, and so was his beloved laptop.
         Mikey had been played. The thought made him nauseous, because Nyeem was just starting to make him rethink what his parent’s had taught him about black people all of his life. Admitting that Nyeem, who he trusted with all of his heart, was capable of such an act, meant that there was no end to the evil that blacks he didn’t know as well as he thought he knew Nyeem could do to him, if he allowed himself to be taken again.
         He thought about calling his parents, but as he held the spare phone that Nyeem had given him for emergencies and began to dial the number, the thought occurred to him that he would have to give them an explanation for his change of heart. He felt bad enough hiding the truth of his living situation from them for so long that there was no telling what parts of it he would let spill from his mouth in his time of panic. He had just gotten over the brutality of the robberies himself, and hearing his mother cry, let alone his fathers “I told you so,” would just be rubbing salt in a closing wound. He certainly couldn’t tell them about Nyeem. What would they think of their precious son if they knew he had committed the soul-damning acts that his father preached against nearly every Sunday, and with a black, street hooligan, no less?
          He felt bad for that thought, and tried to make himself think of a good explanation for it all, some reason why Nyeem, who had befriended him, been a shoulder to cry on, and even loaned him money in his time of need, would steal his last penny and leave him alone, afraid to venture outside for the fresh air he needed to clear his head. Why did Nyeem pick the night after he had surrendered his heart and his virginity to show his true colors?
         Nyeem simply wouldn’t do anything that heinous, he told himself, and tried to remind himself of all the times he had left Nyeem with access to all of his valuables. Of course, he had yet to give the fucker the most valuable thing of all at those times, possibly what Nyeem had been baiting him with kindness to get all along. How could he be so stupid?
         He realized that the thoughts going through his head belonged more to his parents than him, and tried to calm himself. There had to be an explanation beyond the conclusion he had jumped to. When he couldn’t find the answer, he tried calling Nyeem’s cellular phone, but all he got was the voicemail message and a beep. This cycle was repeated every thirty minutes over a period of countless hours, until Mikey had given up all hope that he was wrong and cried himself back to sleep, ignoring his hunger and choosing to focus on his broken heart.
         He awoke again hours later, blanketed by the dark and scared out of his mind as he heard footsteps in the living room. He wished Nyeem was there to protect him from whoever it was, and then reality set in. For all he knew, it may have been Nyeem, sneaking in again to get what he couldn’t tote away in the broad daylight. Mikey’s hands nervously gripped the metal baseball bat that he kept beside his bed, and he tiptoed into the living room, not even thinking to step into his pajama bottoms.
         He could make out two figures, but it was too dark to see their faces. The light switch was on the other side of the room. To get to it, he would have to dodge pass them. His throat grew dry and his knees buckled together as he realized that he had never committed an act of violence a day of his life. Even with the bat in his hands, he was fucked.
         “What are you doing, up?” he recognized Nyeem’s voice as the leaner of the  figures came towards him. “Give me that before somebody gets hurt!” Nyeem laughed, snatching the bat out of his hands. “Mikey, this is my homeboy, Little James. I did him a favor today, and he’s helping move this furniture in here for you in return. I wanted you to just wake up and see it, but I guess you spoiled that plan, huh?”
         “Surprise, fucking surprise!” Mike breathed angrily. “I’ve been calling your phone all damn day. Why didn’t you answer? I didn’t know what to think!”
         “Like I said, I was doing my boy a favor.” Nyeem’s posture seem to beg Mikey’s forgiveness.
         Michael’s heart sped and his body tensed in discomfort, but he knew that if he was to ever trust Nyeem again, he had to get answers to all of his questions. “I locked the door; how the hell did you get back in here? And what happened to my computer and the money I left on the table? Do you know that that’s what I had to eat with today? I’ve been hungry all day, and worried to death!”
         “I’m sorry,” Nyeem cooed. “I should have thought about that, but you was sleep when I left and I didn’t want to wake you up. I couldn’t lock your door, so I didn’t want to leave nothing valuable just laying around.” He walked across the room and flicked on the light. “I put the money inside your laptop and I put the laptop in this closet. I figured you would get the laptop when you went for your clothes, and then you would have the money. As for the door, man, that piece of shit lock was too easy to pick. I’m going to have that shit changed tomorrow.”
         Nyeem seemed to have thought of everything, but what he didn’t count on was Mike being so hurt and afraid that he didn’t feel like getting dressed, making a trip to the closet obsolete. As Nyeem stood, watching Michael’s anger turn to embarrassment, for the first time, the thought occurred to him that he should be the angry one. After all they had gone through together, especially the night before, Mikey still didn’t trust him.
         “I’ll be back tomorrow to hook the cable up. I think I should just get out of yawl’s way,” his friend said, shifting nervously.
          Finally,  Mikey was able to focus on more than just Nyeem, and remembered that they weren’t alone. He stared at Nyeem’s friend, who was much taller, with a portly belly and cornrows. His face was handsome, but it lacked the drop dead appeal that Nyeem’s boyish face offered. The rough sex appeal didn’t seem to balance out with the softness as well as Nyeem’s, and the green contacts he wore did nothing for him.
         “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. My name is Michael.” His hand was extended and accepted by the potbelly intruder. “Call me Mikey.”
         “They call me Little James.”
         “Little James lives right across the street from you,” Nyeem informed. “I’m going to be getting him to keep an eye on you and your place when I can’t be around. He’s good people.”
         There was an awkward silence, as Mikey remembered that he was stark naked, and apologized a dozen times. Finally, Little James excused himself and Mikey and Nyeem were left alone to arrange the new furniture. Mikey ached to ask where it had come from, but he knew he had already upset Nyeem with his lack of trust, and he hoped that the rest of the night would go smoothly.  Possibly, they could pick up where they had left off the night before. Any questions could wait for the next morning.
         “It looks damn good in here, don’t you think?” Nyeem asked, walking behind his lover and engulfing him in his python arms.
         “You think the sofa can stand up to our love making?” Mikey smiled devilishly.
         “We’ll have to test it out,” Nyeem laughed, lifting the boy into his arms and toting him over to the couch, like a groom taking his bride over the threshold.
         “Promise me that you won’t ever do what you did today,” Mikey begged as Nyeem kissed around his neck. “Never just leave me alone like you did!”
         “You wasn’t alone. I told you, Little James watches out for me when I cant be here.” Nyeem laughed. “As long as I’m alive, you ain’t going to ever be alone. That’s my word.”
         “That’s all I wanted to hear,” Mikey smiled, pulling Nyeem’s t-shirt over his head.
         “Uh-uh!” Nyeem chided as Mikey leaned in for a kiss. “Before I put everything into this, you got to promise me something too. Promise me that you won’t just pick up one day and move back to Delaware. Not after you already got me for my heart.” Nyeem demanded, nibbling Mikey’s earlobe. “Promise me that!”
         “You don’t have to worry about that, baby.” Mikey smiled. “You know what they say: once you go black, you never go back!”
         The two laughed uncontrollably for a few seconds before Nyeem turned to Mikey with a serious look on his face and said, “I love you, boy. I swear to God, I won’t ever do nothing to hurt you.”
         “I know.” Mikey answered with full sincerity. “I feel the same way about you, and it feels good to finally have that.”