5 Minutes and 42 Seconds by Timothy Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

wanted to do them too.
    Then he turned all serious. His light-brown eyes darkened, and he gripped my hair so tight I thought he was going to pull it out. He got so close to me I could smell steak and potatoes on his breath when he said, “If you want to work for me, I need to have all of you.”
    â€œNigga, what the fuck is you talking about?” I squirmed my head away from his, then started laughin’ ’cause that chronic was some potent shit.
    He laughed a little bit too, but he wasn’t laughin’ ’cause it was funny. I guess he was laughin’ at me. He grabbed my head again, and his light-brown eyes went back to being dark. I tried to move, but this time he didn’t let me. I took another puff.
    â€œIf you want to work for me, you have to belong to me.”
    I thought he was high and talking crazy. So I said, “Aight, man, whatever,” then took another hit. It’s funny how when niggas get high they think everybody else is high too. I thought Fashad was lettin’ the weed talk for him, but, shit, he ain’t never even hit that shit. Turn out, he don’t smoke.
    He stroked his hand through every one of my French braids, and licked his lips. “Say it. Say you’ll belong to me.” From the tone of his voice I couldn’t tell if he was mad as hell or happy. There was so much smoke in the air, all I could see were his dark eyes staring at me like crack fiends waiting to be served.
    â€œSay what?” I asked, probably sounding like I was scared, because I was. I’d never seen a nigga with eyes like that before, and I was high enough to think he was some sort of monster.
    â€œSay you belong to me.” He sounded calmer when he said it this time, but I still couldn’t tell if he was mad or sad.Either way, I knew he was crazy, so I just said it. I mean I ain’t think it was that big of a deal. Just four words: “I—belong—to—you.”
    â€œYou gonna do everything I tell you to do, ain’t you?” He pulled his hands from my hair and started massaging my neck. “Everything,” he said again. That’s when I felt his hand rubbin’ on my chest. It might have been there for a long time, but I ain’t feel it until he started rubbin’ like he wanted me to feel it. He wasn’t rubbin’ me like he was my boy, he was rubbin’ me like he was my man. Then I looked down and saw his other hand rubbin’ on his dick!
    Shocked, I opened up my mouth, and he stuck his finger in it. I should have bit that muthafucka off. Then he said: “Pull my pants down and suck my dick.”
    I would say I ain’t want to, but I don’t know. I mean I ain’t no fag. Fashad ain’t neither. He probably did time, though. That’s just what niggas do in the joint—it’s punishment. That must have been all it was. Still, I was only sixteen.
    Â 
    F or two years I lived in that apartment, being his bitch and sucking his dick whenever he told me to. I ain’t have to go to school, or work, or nothin’. All I had to do was keep growing my hair long and wait for Fashad to stop by whenever he wanted to fuck. For a minute there, I even thought I was a fag. Just for a minute, though, ’cause I was young, dumb, and didn’t know no better.
    He said he owned part of a record company, that if I dideverything he told me to, he’d put me on. It’s been three years since the day I met him, and I still ain’t got no goddamn contract. Sur-muthafuckin’-prise, huh?
    One day last year, out of nowhere, he told me to move out. I was pretty happy about it, to tell you the truth, until the next day, when I found out some other nigga was moving in. Whatever. My life has been ten times better since the day I moved out. Fashad started treating me like a grown up, trusting me to do shit. I think I was a little afraid he was going to forget about me when I moved, but it was almost