Chapter Three❖O’Shea I met Domingo when I was a bartender at one of his seven restaurants

Chapter Three
❖
O’Shea 

I met Domingo when I was a bartender at one of his seven restaurants. I made him a drink when he brought a large group of friends into the restaurant fifteen minutes before we closed. My head hurt. My feet hurt. I was tired. When Domingo called me over to the cluster of tables to praise me for the drink I made and perhaps have a little fun at my expense, I wasn’t thinking about job security. I looked at him with his salt and pepper hair, golden eyes, skin the color of cork, and swimmer’s body; I saw an opportunity. Here was a brown man surrounded by white men. He was louder than them, he ended private conversations that didn’t involve him, his eyes never rested, he took each of them in, measured them, calculated. 

I saw how I would paint him, what colors I would use. Skin the color of vomit. Not the flecks of tan and russet brown and beige. No. This was a man that denied his race and dared you to tell him he couldn’t. He wouldn’t want to be associated with melanin. Sickly, jaundiced yellow. Like roadkill that disgusted but fascinated. You couldn’t look away no matter what your brain screamed at you to do. 

I saw the colors of our relationship; I knew, even then, I would have him. The deep purples, blues, and ugly greens of bruises, both fresh and healing. The bruises I would leave when I put my foot on his neck and the bruises I would gain when he knocked me back. He would be awful, abysmal to me. He did not know any other way. He would need to be abused. That excited me. The ugliness in me yearned for the worst parts of him and told me I would be strong enough. I could handle him. 

“Sugar, we need you to solve a debate for us.” Domingo’s accent was thick like sorghum, his words were round, his eyes hard as they moved over my body.

I waved a hand for him to get on with it.

“I’ve told these boys that no one in this place would say they care about me. Tell them I’m right.”

“Of course I won’t. I care about you.” My voice dropped into the timbre I used only when I wanted secrets and money. Domingo wiped the surprise from his face before anyone but I could see it. “Of course I care. You sign my paychecks.”

The laughter was raucous. We didn’t join in, didn’t smile.

“I don’t sign paychecks anymore. The bank handles that with electronic signature,” Domingo said.

“Oh. How boring. But if that’s the case, you’re right. No one here cares about you.”

The laughter died. We stared at each other. None of Domingo’s friends dared break the silence. Their heads swiveled between Domingo and I, wondered what would happen next. 

“Do you mind?” I gestured to the full pile of locs in a haphazard bun perched atop my head. “I’ve normally taken them down by now but since we’re keeping the restaurant open for Your Highness…”

Domingo nodded and watched each loc fall around my face, over my shoulders, down my back, cover my breasts as if he could control their movements with the strength of his gaze. I saw who he was behind his thick accent and the posturing he did for his friends. 

“Are you a witch?” Domingo said.

“Would you like to find out?”

One of Domingo’s friends turned in his chair to stare at me. 

“I’ll tell the rest of the staff to go home. The cleaning crew can clear your table.” I walked away from them and let my hips sway. 

It took me two weeks to make a plan. Then I fucked him. When it was done, I began to dress. 

“Stop putting on your clothes. I want you to stay,” Domingo said. I pulled my panties from under the bed and slid them on.

“I have work to do at home.” I hopped into my jeans. 

“You heard me when I told you what I want.” Domingo stretched out on the bed. I gave him thirty seconds of silence. For his ego. For my amusement. 

“It doesn’t matter what you want.” I walked out of the room. 

He fired the general manager of the restaurant I worked at and gave me the job. He bought me clothes and transferred money into my accounts. He moved me into his house. He called me names and questioned my intelligence. He told me to be quiet. I let him. I fucked him. 

I worked nineteen hour days and didn’t think about the pain in my knees, my back, my hands, my neck. 

I stood in the foyer of his house that night and looked at my paintings. He bought them and didn’t know I painted them. No one did but Delia, Zion, and Nadia. I didn’t sign my art. I just watched it spread through the City and the country. Restaurants, homes, strip clubs. 

My phone buzzed with another text message. Where should they seat the mayor? He didn’t have a reservation. I walked into the bedroom and stripped my clothes off then answered the text. I remembered the warehouse then. Damn. I looked down at my arm and the colors I’d swatched there. My grocery list: blood red for tampons, vibrant yellow-orange with green at its edge for mangoes, the pale brown/cream of ice cream cones for ice cream. Gold for the meeting with my accountant. But not the brick red and money green for the warehouse. Shit. 

I stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I wanted a gallery space. Nadia wanted an event space of her own. The warehouse was ugly, needed a lot of work, but the bones were there. We could each have what we wanted. 

Nadia would say yes. She was a vibrant, saturated lilac, soft and polite and delicate and in need of acceptance, but she would take this risk because her lilac managed to be so vibrant because it was painted over gray the color of steel: the stubborn streak in her, the determination in her, the wild girl that wanted to be free. But it was polite and more beneficial for people to feel like they had a say, had some control in the decision making process. I would ask her. 

The steam rose around me, the water was hot enough to leave third degree burns on anyone else. The in-shower speakers were on. Dinah Washington’s voice floated around me. I sighed. The shower door opened and Domingo’s broad shoulders filled the doorway. I sighed again. Schooled my features to hide my annoyance. 

Domingo fiddled with the buttons in the shower. He made the water colder, turned off my music, then reached for me. I wanted to say no. I wanted to take my shower in peace. I wanted to get my laptop and work. I wanted to go back to my old apartment and paint. But the last time I told Domingo no he didn’t pay me for a month.  He didn’t try to hide the investigator he hired to follow me and report back my every movement. He berated and disrespected me in front of my staff. Grabbed my arm when I laughed at his derisive words. Laughed at him where others could see. Happiness is the yellow of summer suns. Domingo hated me in yellow.

I pressed my hands against the shower wall and arched my back to him. He groped and fumbled as he always did. I kept lube in the shower in a bottle covered in lavender and labeled women’s shower gel. He never touched it. I pumped some of the lube into my hand and slid it over my pussy and his dick. He slid inside me and I gave him the sounds and movements he wanted from me. 

He finished quickly. Lucky. There were nights when he held my body hostage for hours. I slipped out of the shower when he finished using me, toweled dry, moisturized. I threw on sweat pants and an old t-shirt and left the bedroom

My laptop was in the sunroom. I opened it and pulled up the blueprints for the warehouse, reviewed them again. I had a plan. A solid plan. A plan that was coming together. I was fine. Everything was fine.

Continue Reading