His Private Black Coffee Shop

Shannon caught her reflection in the window; a tired face stared back at her. The raindrops on the window looked like beads of frantic perspiration in her reflection. The cold grey morning lashed its fury against the glass; the wailing wind pounded and taunted anyone who dared to feel safe at this time of day. Shannon’s usual smooth skin appeared to have slipped down her cheeks and her eyes seemed to have sunk further into their sockets. Funny though, since they felt as thought they might pop out of her head any minute now. She felt all hallow on the inside. She sighed and turned towards the stove, paused but thought better of it, and poured a cup of coffee instead.

Every bone in her body ached and she hoped the warm brew would ease the discomfort. Closing her eyes, she felt the liquid slide down her throat where it promptly flash-froze as it hit the chill deep within her body that she could not shake.

“If I cried right now, wouldn’t be surprised to weep ice crystals instead of tears,” she muttered.

From down the hall she heard the bed springs moan and creak as he stirred. He had charmed his way into her apartments and into her life again. She could never figure out why. Yes it was true that the toiled kept running a little longer than necessary and the shower leaked. She recalled her previous attempt to play Miss Fix-it.

First there had been the guffaws from the jerk in the hardware store. He was incredulous at the thought of some woman attempting to do something with her hands that did not involve a zipper.

“You always do the hard work while hubby sits around watching the game?” The guy was creepy right down to his greasy comb over and nicotine stained fingers; the only thing missing was the toothpick that should have been in his mouth. Before she knew it, her face spoke the truth.

“Oh, so there is not man around the house. You know, I’m certain we could arrange something, because as our motto says ‘We aim to please and leave you satisfied’. His hard as stone eyes stared so hard it felt as though they were boring a hole through her skin. No amount of soap could wash away his dirty, slimy sexist residue.

“No thank you. I can manage.”

‘You some kinda independent lesbo or something?”

“No, what had that got to do with…?”

“Fine, you skanks are all alike, sisters under the skin. Head home thinking you got more balls than a man. But you know damn well you’ll need someone to rescue you once you’ve made a real mess of things. By then, I will have already moved on to more promising pastures.”

“Good, keep it that way for the future.”

Future? She should throw the stuff at him and tell him where and how high to shove it. Why was she even thinking of buying stuff from this dumpy hardware store?

Because it was the closest to her apartment and the only one on her bus route. Since she had to give up the car after the breakup, she was very limited by her new world. It was apartment to work, work to apartment day in and day out. The weekly monotony was brightened up, no wait that was really stretching it, by the grocery run and other assorted errands.

“And last year I was dropping a grand a week on clothes, shoes and anything else I damn well pleased to fill my never ending closet and other habits.” She surprised herself by speaking out loud, but he hadn’t heard her.

He stretched and farted as he rose from the bed, then shuffled stark naked into the bathroom to shit, shower, and shave. She heard him whistle and sing at the top of his lungs before he grunted then resumed singing. A few more grunts, then the final congratulatory high-five before he flushed the toilet. The nerve of him, using her bathroom like that. He would always leave a mound of soggy towels on the floor, strong after-shave odours in the air, and globs of slick hair oil residue all over the counter top.

He has a perfectly good bathroom of his own downstairs. Why the hell can’t he use that one?

Oh yes, the wife wouldn’t like it when he came back home smelling of tenant.

Shannon pretended to ignore him as he entered the small kitchen they opened her refrigerator. It was the same refrigerator that he had insisted was so very clean when she came to look at the apartment last year. It was clean if you overlooked the solid block of ice that took up the entire freezer. In reality, it was his personal beer fridge.

He pulled out a bottle of beer. The 'pwisht' sound of the twist-off cap took her back to last night when she lost track of how many such caps had become scattered around her living room rug. She concentrated on her coffee as her slugged back several swallows. His ear-shattering belch filled the room. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. He belched again.

"Ah, yes, that’s it. Good morning my dear. It is a very good morning after last night, yes?”

His soft Hindi accent sounded so damn sexy and as she turned her head slightly to look at him, she was torn between shock and lust. He was old enough to be her father she thought as he stood there with his shirt wide open exposing a dark hairy chest peppered with a handful of grey hairs. He must have been a fine specimen years ago she told herself. He continued with his morning belching routine.

“Yes good morning. Sleep well?” She longed to reach out and massage that chest of his.

He drained the last of the beer and emitted the longest and loudest belch, signaling that he was ready to face the day. He headed for the coffee pot. “I most certainly did, especially after round three, or was it round four, yes?”

It was more like round six. Even though she had tried to leave her body during the never-ending sessions, she found herself returning with each of his volatile thrusts. It wasn’t all that hard to keep track anyways; he announced each time with a robust yell followed by several minutes of panting.

He sipped the coffee. I always sleep well after such delights. But you seem terribly tense this morning, yes?”

As if he really gave a damn, but she kept things light.

“Oh I think it’s that time of the month coming and it always affects me.”

Like hell it did, especially since she hadn’t had a period in three months. Yes, it was that long because that was when the heater had conked out.

“Oh, woman stuff. I don’t think about that shit anymore since she doesn’t get it anymore. I guess that means she’s dried up now, yes?” His black eyes grew large with lust as he sipped his black coffee. That’s what he compared Shannon to.

Black coffee.

He told his wife she couldn’t make decent coffee anymore, if she ever had, and he always had to go out and get some. But since when had apartment 604 become the fuckin’ local coffee shop?

“I have to get ready for work so it might be a good idea if you…” She wanted to scream get the hell out and never come back. He certainly would if he knew about the baby. He would never give so much as a second glance backwards. Then he would accuse her of sleeping around since it couldn’t possibly be his. She was dying for a snort but had promised to stay clean and it had been seven months since the last one.

“…could please see if the toilet and shower can be fixed. I would mean so very much to me and I would be so very grateful.” God this was so disgusting watching his eyes twitch and his hand move toward his pants waist band.

“I’m sure you would be very grateful. I will do a very thorough job. We can talk about some kind of compensation, maybe as we try out the shower to make sure that it works, yes?” He licked his tongue around his lips in a counter-clockwise motion, then smiled and winked.
Shannon’s resolve was fading fast. She wondered if J-Mon still dealt downtown. “I will see to it that you are properly compensated.” She laughed as she shut the coffee maker off. Your private fuckin’ black coffee shop is closed, buddy she wanted to scream.

What would her baby look like? Would he or she share the same fate as Shannon? Her Sikh mother had been charmed by that incredible South African and his sexually charged body. But their union led to a daughter that easily could pass for either race depending on the day, but she failed to secure a place in either world.

Now Shannon was going to be just like her mother; alone and shunned, pregnant and uneducated. The dreams of nursing school were over now.

“I hope that you will find my work satisfactory, yes” He took out his ever present key chain. It was his personal sexual Rolodex. He even went so far as to wrap different coloured rubber bands around the tops of the keys in his sexual satisfaction filing system. Shannon’s key was green.
What the hell did that mean?

No, Shannon could never tell him about the baby. He might even kick her out of the building and she couldn’t afford that. She could never get enough for the deposit to go anywhere else. He had arranged her deposit for this place and there was no way she could ever get that part of herself back. When she started to show, she could use some one else as the excuse, maybe even J-Mon.

He grabbed Shannon, kissing her and tasting of a mixture of beer and coffee. His left hand caressed her breasts and played with her firm, erect nipples that rubbed against her over sized t-shirt.

“There, that’s my retainer fee, yes?’’ His right hand never let go of that damn key ring and the keys brushed up against her hips as he squeezed her buttocks. Shannon’s hips responded as she moved closer to him but remembered something about getting ready for work.

“Now, you run off to work like a good girl, and by the time you get home, you will have a bathroom worthy of you, yes?”

What it didn’t take to get something fixed around here! And he always made sure there were plenty of things that went wrong.

“Now I will check on the rest of the building and carry out my work. It is never ending, yes?” He had at least two other toilets, a leaky faucet, and a loose kitchen cupboard lined up for the day.

Shannon leaned up against the door after he left, sobbing quietly as she heard him walk down the hall rattling those mother fuckin’ keys. She heard muffled knocks and voices at one of the doors near hers as he went in to carry out his latest inspection.

Did he even have a tool box?

She scooped up the empty beer bottles and caps, putting them in her recycling box. She returned to the window and caught her reflection again. It was time to pay J-Mon a visit. A few lines and a quickie would ease her conscience as she set in motion the lies she would start telling everybody about the baby inside her. She took a long hard look at her face.

It was hard to prop up your skin, or your spirit, when your insides had been hollowed out.