Son of a bitch!
      Raven limped along as fast as her uneven gait and broken shoe heel could carry her, not daring to stop to remove the damaged shoe.  She just wanted to reach the security of her cabin at the other end of the passageway.
     If the ship hadn’t been sailing into the wind, she would have gone out on the fore deck since the exit was practically outside her door.  Hell.  She shouldn’t have been outside at all since she had a cabin on the Verandah level.  Yet, instead of a balcony, she had opted for the large handicap suite at the end of the corridor, with a big-ass window, no balcony, chosen because the bathroom accommodations were compatible with her mobility issues.
     Hugging the wall while intermittently grasping the handrail to maintain her equilibrium, Raven ambled forward, periodically glancing over her shoulder.  The choppy movement of the ship had her as off balance as her thoughts.  Each time she passed an opening to the stairways and lobbies to the banks of elevators, the hair on the back of her neck stirred.  Goosebumps sidled up her arms.
      “Son-of-a-goddamn bitch!” she growled.

Someone had tried to push her down the stairwell.  Knees twisting, shoulders wrenched, she had tumbled forward.  If she hadn’t had the presence of mind to grab the rail with both hands as she teetered on the top step, she would have plunged headlong down those stairs.  She could have died or been incapacitated.  No one would have noticed her missing for some time.

Damn it!

She inhaled deeply in an attempt to get a grip on her emotions and prevent her thought processes from running rampant with potty language, as her parents used to call it.  Hell.  Even at her age, she couldn’t shake the guilt, the internal conflict of upbringing versus environment.  Her parents didn’t cuss, per se, and the words they used when frustrated, no one had considered real cussing, hence, the term potty language.  She snorted.

Then she’d met and married Marcus, and he had teased her because she didn’t know how to cuss, didn’t even know vernacular like cuss, said stupid-ass crap like curse.  If you combined her home life with thirteen years of catholic school, where everyone regarded cursing as a sin, what did you have?  Her so-called cuss words had consisted of family standards like shoot, darn, heck, and Marcus’s all time favorite, what the devil.

She had been a blank slate and hadn’t known diddly about the real-deal cussing.  What an insular environment she had lived in, but she soon had a wake-up call.

The first time outside her community, she had learned quite a few people harbored inflexible ideas about who or what she was supposed to be.  Coming from the North to live in the South, you would have thought she’d had a speech impediment with the ‘folkes’ constantly asking, “Where are you from, or why do you talk funny?”  Inferring what?  Her home planet wasn’t earth; Philly wasn’t part of the contiguous forty-eight.

Then there were the folkes who became insulting because they assumed she was putting on airs.  So damn skippy, she had armed herself with the appropriate tools to even the playing field, but getting the phonetics correct became an issue.  With her background, she had sounded all proper English, white folksy, adding all those i-n-g’s to the ends of her cuss words.  It had taken some practice, but she had learned to articulate on the folkes’ level, using the foulest language, clearly a universal dialect understood by many.

In a way, learning to cuss had been a godsend, since beneath her multi-layered persona lingered the heart, the soul, and the background of a closet gang banger.  Cussing became a substitute for her impulsive propensity toward violence.

Conversely, this incident wasn’t one of those times.

She had thought she’d left the necessity for that type of behavior behind her.  But there you go.  Eons later, it’s the same old, same old.  She’s minding her own damn business, trying to relax and enjoy herself, while attempting to behave like a rational adult.  She meets a handsome black man and they get busy, then…

Wait a minute.

Her pace hiccupped.  She paused midstride and gripped the handrail.  Eyes narrowing, she nibbled the inside of her bottom lip and tried to recall what had happened between them—shit!  A slight noise had her jerking to attention and peering down the corridor to gauge the distance she still had to cover.  With her lame gait, she was only halfway there, and stopping made her a stationary target.  Raven resumed her painful trek, her mind in overdrive.

What was it she couldn’t remember about the man?  He…something about him had freaked her out.  Senior moment.

Nevertheless, she had tried to be polite.  Told the man in her most lady-like manner that she wasn’t feeling a connection and she didn’t want to hook up again.  Holy hell!  You would have thought she’d said something derogatory about his mother, the way the bastard went ballistic on her.  So yeah, his attitude had prompted her to retaliate in kind.  Alligator mouth overloaded hummingbird ass, she developed diarrhea of the lips and lambasted his dumb behind.

Whoa.  Was that what instigated the sudden drama?  Could her mishaps be the consequence of refusing to see the asshole again?  If so, the concept boggled the mind, unless the dumb shit viewed her as the clichéd older woman on the prowl, and thought she deserved reprisal because she’d had the nerve to rebuff him.  Which in turn, what?  She had become disposable.  Hell.  What was wrong with people?  Did it never end?  Evidently, as before, her demeanor had presented this dummy with a deceptive impression of her.

Sure, her background consisted of a regular weekday regimen of eight hours confined in classrooms with well-educated white nuns.  Not only did these pious women serve up correct proper English, they gratuitously force-fed credulous students a side order of gloom and doom -- mortal sin and venial sin.  So yeah, she knew all the right and wrong behavioral propaganda, supplemented by the familial school of social decorum.

On the other hand, her neighborhood had been reputed to be one of the toughest in North Philly.  In that environment, beyond the confines of religious rhetoric, she had learned, nurtured, tested, and perfected survival skills.  In addition, on the eve of her wedding, she’d been in an accident that should have taken her life.  Left with a feeling of vulnerability had prompted her to enhance her street skills with training provided by the Marine Corps via her husband.

To paraphrase an old adage, ‘take the girl out of the city’, after so many years, it still held true for her, and the bastard dogging her ass needed to understand he had picked the wrong victim.  She would not go down easily, and she would defend herself, by any means necessary.

Damn.  Mind babble.  Clearly, this life-in-jeopardy crap was beginning to work her last nerve, if it had her reverting to her back-in-the-day persona.  At fifty-two, a half step from senior citizenry, she was too old for this shit.

Over the years, although her adversaries probably wanted to kill her, she had managed to avoid physical violence.  But this foe was an unknown and had tried to kill her.  Perhaps aggressive verbosity wasn’t going to be a practical defensive tool.  If her only protection meant jumping into thug mode, she was so there.

Hmm.  Since the coward was ambushing her, perhaps the skills cultivated by her husband and his friends would be more effective.  Celer, Silens, Mortalis…hoo-rah, Semper Fi!

A door slammed and Raven pulled up short, peered nervously over her shoulder and strained to identify the direction of the sound.  Shivering, she drew her shawl around her shoulders and picked up her lumbering pace.  Another few yards, she’d reach the safety of her room, call Jolene, and tell her what had happened.

Jolene Rogers, a relatively new friend and confidant was fifty-five, part African-American, part Puerto Rican, and a schoolteacher from New York.  They had met on Maui at the Writers Retreat and Conference several years ago and had bonded instantly.

A widow of seven years, Jolene was tall and lean with just the right amount of curves, and her classically attractive features touted her mixed heritage.  She had smooth, rich chocolate skin, kept her salt-and-pepper hair cropped short, and her large, dark brown eyes reminded Raven of doe caught-in-the-headlights.

Jolene had style, and she made even casual and sporty outfits take on a look of elegance.

Raven, on the other hand, was too much of a tomboy, sported a totally laid-back style, and refused to go for what she called the ‘frou-frou’ look.  Yet, despite that quirk, her ass could profile with the best dressed on formal occasions.  Although complete opposites, she and Jolene complemented each other.  Raven the hot head and Jolene the imperturbable one.

Raven couldn’t have been happier when Jolene managed to get time off during the school term for the cruise.  In her current predicament, she needed Jolene’s calm rationale.  Together, maybe they could make sense of the unexpected drama dogging Raven’s life.  Except this time, she wasn’t falling for any bullshit about the instability of the ship’s movement and her mobility issues.

After the first episode earlier that day -- she’d been on her way out to the fore deck, had opened the door, and had raised her leg to step over the threshold—wham!  Propelled forward, foot catching on the doorjamb, her knee caved, she landed on hands and knees, ass in the air.  Jolene’s arguments had convinced her that no one would believe it wasn’t an accident caused by her mobility awkwardness.  So Raven had gaffed off the incident as just that, although the feeling of the shove between her shoulder blades remained real.

But two such mishaps occurring on the same day…oh, hell no.

Raven stopped in front of her suite.  With her head cocked to one side, she listened.  The only distinguishable sound was the creaking of the ship’s bumpy progress.  Taking the key card from her bra, she slid it into the slot and pushed against the door.  One more glance down the corridor and she ducked inside.

She leaned back against the door, inhaled deeply in an attempt to calm her racing pulse, then jerked away, hobbled to the sofa, and dropped down on the seat.  Kicking off her shoes, she picked them up and surveyed the damage to her brand new beige satin pumps.

The right shoe had a badly scuffed heel with the smooth satin material across the toe shredded.  While the heel of her left shoe had been completely sheared off.  Shit.  Her shoes were beyond repair.  As much as those bad-boys cost her, somebody owed her a hundred and fifty bucks.

Raven tossed her shoes aside, removed her shawl, and examined her chocolate brown peachskin sheath.  Having felt the delicate material snag on the wrought iron railing, she ran her hands down the sides of the dress while her eyes skimmed along the bottom edge where she noticed a small tear in the hem.  The modest side-slit had ripped in a zigzag pattern all the way up to her thigh and probably wasn’t repairable, damn it!

Anger finally trumped her fear and she reached for the phone.  Earlier, Jolene and some of the group had remained in the Ambassador Lounge when Raven decided to go off by herself.  Pressing 0-6128, she waited, and hoped Jolene had returned to her room.

* * * *

The door closed behind him with a subtle click.  He stormed across the room, and in a fit of temper, he swept everything off the table.  Books, pens, and magazines went flying.

“Bitch!  Bitch!  Bitch!” he snarled as he paced the confined space, finally coming to a stop in front of the vanity mirror.  He stared at his reflection and the cold fury etched into his features.

Damn.  He’d gone after her twice and she kept bouncing back, hardly a scratch on her.  The first time had been a test run to check out her vulnerability.  She had gone down easily enough, which had led him to believe the steps would do the deed.  She wasn’t supposed to have so much strength in her arms, but the bitch had held on.

If it hadn’t been for the fear of someone seeing him, he would have finished her off out there on deck.  Fuck!  He banged his head with his fist.  What a wuss.  Couldn’t do one woman, half his size, for godssake, she’s a damn cripple!

With a look of disgust, he whirled away from the mirror, slipped off his shoes, sauntered over to the bed, and threw himself down across it.  Hell.  It wasn’t as if he had a plan.  He was improvising, so why beat himself up.  With the bitch and her nosy-ass friend in separate groups, he still had eight days and ample opportunities to catch her on her own, and get it right.

Hmm.  He couldn’t make another move on her so soon after the first two mishaps, so tomorrow, he’d give it a rest.  The day after, while docked in Costa Rico, would work.  With most of the passengers going ashore, he’d have an easy shot at her -- end game.  Then he could get on with enjoying the cruise.  A slow smile eased the tension in his jaw.  He had his eye on several viable prospects for his customary indulgences, so the trip wouldn’t be a total waste.

Writers.  So anxious to indoctrinate the newbie.  Easy prey.

Hell.  If he had started working the writer’s conference venue years ago, he would have met the bitch sooner and she would have been history.  Of course, he only had himself to blame for letting her slip out of his reach when their paths crossed the first time.  He’d made the mistake of thinking she was different from the others, so he had wanted her for keeps, and he’d been willing to change for her.  But she quickly disillusioned him.  She turned out to be exactly like the others.  An arrogant, autonomous bitch, who thought she was all that.

He started chuckling.  Bitch should pay more attention to her surroundings.

 

© Emily Wade-Reid