"Tried to save a place from the cuts and the scratches
Tried to overcome my complications and my catches
Nothing ever grows and the sun doesn't shine all day
Tried to save myself but my self keeps slipping away"
Nine Inch Nails – "Into the Void"
The hospital bed was cool and the sheets over Disa made her feel constricted like she was wearing a straightjacket.
Three days.
It took three days for the blood and tissue to pass through her. Emotionally she wasn't well, and Yamilet talked the doctor into keeping her in longer just to make sure she wouldn't be sent home to bleed to death or suffer an infection. She hadn't considered being pregnant at all. Her cycle did not differ from what it had always been, and the last few months had been extra painful to the point of long bed rest and hot water bottles. She couldn't bring weed or edibles on base, so she stuffed painkillers down her throat to cope.
"Hey…"
Yamilet came into her private room with flowers and a candy bar. She sniffed the roses and devoured the chocolate.
"I'm ready to leave," Disa said.
Yamilet glanced at her phone on her fold-over bed table.
"No word from Erik yet?"
"None."
"He'll be so upset when he hears about this."
"I'm not telling him."
"Why not?"
"Because… it was probably meant to be. There's no way to have a baby with him now when he's God knows where. I'm not parenting by myself and stressing out over him and a baby. It wasn't planned. I didn't know about it, so I want to forget it. Move on."
"Disa, honey, he needs to help you get through this—"
"Get through what? I'm just going to act like it was hemorrhaging from fibroids, which I've had before, and forget it. I'll be extra careful with him wearing condoms on top of my three percent failure rate birth control pills."
Yamilet looked unsure. Disa touched her hand.
"I want you to drive me home and I'll curl up in bed and mope for a week, then get back to figuring out my life. It sucks right now. Allah did me a favor—"
"Don't say that. I know you're trying to put on a brave face, but this was serious."
"How serious could it be? I had no connection to anything inside of me. I was clueless and acted like I normally do with a bad period. Trust me, my pain is strictly physical."
Yamilet bit her tongue. Disa could see she wanted to say more, but that would only make her feel worse by trying to give deeper meaning to something that was a shock for sure. She and Erik were not in a good place to have a baby. Her health was poor and her hair was falling out.
A doctor released her, and a nurse wheeled her out. Tatum drove the rental car and waited out front for them. They picked up fast food and drove Disa to her own home where Yamilet made up her bed and Tatum helped her get in it. They ate burgers and fries with lots of ketchup and she slept on and off for a few hours once her sleep meds kicked in.
Yamilet and Tatum eventually had to return to Cambridge, and they left her alone to walk around in a daze. She stared at herself in the mirror and looked at her stomach. Imagined being pregnant and Erik being off on a mission and having a baby alone. That wasn't the vision she had for child-rearing. Introducing a months-old child to a man who had been away for so long that he missed the entire gestation/birthing process was a no-no.
Erik didn't need the stress either. He'd worry about her and lose focus on his dangerous job. They didn't need that. She pushed it out of her mind. Her friend Pamela flew down from New York and stayed with her for ten days, using up her work vacation time to do so. Disa made all of her women friends promise not to say anything to anyone. Not even her own mother.
She sketched buildings. Houses. Went outside and sketched the neighborhood. Listened to music and stared at the pictures of architecture on the walls of her house as she played with her turntables. Disa was in the middle of making new beats with old vinyl records when a car horn honked outside. It was her neighbor Scott's big-ass Ford truck. He was home to pick up his wife for the Wednesday night bowling trips. She ignored it, but he kept laying on the annoying horn and she walked outside to investigate. Maybe it was stuck. She knew how to turn off a truck horn if he didn't.
Stepping out into the sunshine after days of being shut inside, she blinked several times when Erik grabbed his duffels from the back of Scott's truck bed.
"I thought your horn was broken!" she shouted to Scott before running to Erik.
She slammed into him as he held his bags and wouldn't let him go. Every inch of his face received a kiss, and she held his cheeks in her hands to make sure it was really him. He wore dark fatigues, and she helped him carry his things inside their house.
Erik yelled the moment he stepped into their home, a war cry of relief to be back. He lifted her up in his arms and walked her into their bedroom. Laying her down, he crawled next to Disa and held her tight. He couldn't even speak the first hour he was back. As she shifted in bed to get more comfortable, he clung to her like she was going to disappear.
"It was bad out there, Disa," he finally said.
She didn't question him further. The tightness in his shoulders and the way he avoided eye contact telegraphed that the mission didn't go the way he thought it should. A shiver rippled through him and he kissed her temple several times before he spoke again.
"I missed you so much," he sighed into her hair.
He stroked her face and noticed her thinning edges and the tragic state of her hair. The bags under her eyes told more of her story away from him. His eyes watered and he buried his face in her neck.
"I'm sorry we couldn't give you any information. Shit got fucked up out there and took longer to rectify things. I know you don't want to hear all that. I was gone longer than I said I would be. I'm sorry. I did my best to get back here as fast as I could with the team that I had."
"Don't explain anything. Just… shhh... hold me and I'll forget you were even gone," she whispered through watery eyes.
"Okay baby… okay."
"I want you to finish this contract and get out."
"I hear you."
"Please. I can deal with being alone and the need for secrecy during your time away. You know that. But it's been weeks, Erik, with no word about anything from anyone. A simple, 'It's taking longer' from the leadership here would've been all I needed. But there was nothing and no one would give us answers about anything."
"I know… I know."
They slept together for a few hours before he woke up to take a long hot bath with her bubble bath perfumes and bath salts. He bathed, and she heated one of Pamela's leftovers. Baked Ziti with turkey meatballs. Sitting at the kitchen table and tasting the food, he knew right away it wasn't her cooking. He didn't ask about it, just quietly ate and listened to her prattle softly on about her sketches, the little garden patch she planted in the yard, and the latest military base gossip.
He couldn't tell her the full details of his mission, but he spoke to her in code so that she got the gist. An Egyptian kidnapping situation with diplomats. Two team members were lost and two diplomats were killed. They could only rescue four of the six they were secretly sent to retrieve. She pretended to listen. Disa didn't care about the details, she only cared about hearing his voice and watching him in person as he spoke. He was alive. Uninjured. Two women who lived five minutes away from her did not have the luxury of their men speaking to them. They were sent home in body bags.
She went to bed with Erik, and he rubbed against her and fell asleep quickly. Grateful for him not wanting sex, she stayed awake all night listening to him breathe and constantly touching his arms around her. The tactile comfort helped ease her heart. He snored, and she cried softly.
###
Erik noticed that she kept her hair wrapped up.
Her brushes were full of dark strands, and her skin looked sallow. Lifeless. He cooked for them so she could just relax while they enjoyed his time off from the mission. He had to go on base for a few debriefings and then he had a long leave that he was desperate for.
Disa worked in her garden in the mornings while he caught up on TV shows she recorded for him. There were obligatory phone calls to Grandpop and other family before he could just disconnect from the world and enjoy being with his woman.
They didn't have intimate contact for more than a week. Disa said she had a yeast infection and told him they would have to use condoms for a while during intercourse. He accepted the explanation. She'd had infections and female problems before. Disa pleased him in other ways. Oral sex on him. Fucking her breasts and mouth. On their couch, he sandwiched his dick between her ass cheeks and humped her with the eager energy of a teenager getting his first piece of ass. He even allowed her to use her feet to stroke his dick after they watched a porno together that explored foot fetishes. Erik kind of liked it when she put on heels and rubbed the side of his erection with one heel. He'd read that foot fetish connoisseurs had different wiring in the brain that switched sexual arousal from the genitals to the feet. It was fun experimenting, but soon, powerful urges came over him and he wanted intercourse. He bought new lubricated condoms and after a binge session of sports events and cozy mysteries, they retired to bed and he snuggled up against her with a throbbing erection pressed against her ass.
Rubbing her breasts and kissing her neck and lips, he pushed her big thighs open and reached for a condom he kept under his pillow for easy access. That first push through her folds made him shout unexpectantly. The hard labor of his soldiering in secret had him lose sight of what it was like to be with someone soft and female. He made love to her, spooned on his side, lifting her leg up to get in deeper. Disa laid there like a pillow princess and he accepted that passive stance because he was so happy to be inside of her.
"Oh, baby, I missed this pussy… oh it feels so good. I'm in there deep… your man is back, taking care of you the right way..."
She held onto the side of the bed and took his thrusts, small pants, and moans sending him spiraling until he came with grateful spurts. He pulled off the condom and strolled to the bathroom to take a piss and dispose of his fluids. Returning to their bed, he found Disa with her face smashed against a pillow with tears in her eyes. He sat beside her.
"What's wrong, Disa?"
She pushed her face into his thigh.
"I just missed you. Grateful that you're back. That's all."
He sensed something different, but didn't want to upset her more. It was a taxing time for her and him. Spooning around her, Erik whispered in her ear that he loved her and would make her happy by making up for the extra time lost. She nodded, and he wiped away more tears.
The next morning, he took another bubble bath and invited her into the tub with him. She sat between his legs and rested her head on his neck as warm bubbly water soaked them in a liquid bliss.
He stroked her hair and wrapped his arms around her breasts. She started weeping again. Softly at first, and then her body shook against him and she covered her face with her hands.
"Baby?" he said.
She shook her head and held onto his arms. Her sobbing subsided, and he waited for her to engage him in whatever pain she was in.
"I'm just having a hard time, Erik. That's all. It's all coming out because you're home, and I just… I'm just… hanging on."
No amount of apologizing on his part could fix what she was feeling. It took Disa a long time to get back to a state that he recognized as being better. Her friends called often, and he encouraged her to go visit or invite them down if she needed more support than he could give her. She didn't want that. Just wanted him. Her torment forced him to be the best man he could be for her and he pampered her day and night. The toughest time came during her menstrual cycle, and she stayed in bed the entire time. Eventually, her smile came back. Her energy. She started pampering him, and their lovemaking became more connected emotionally. Her hair grew back slowly.
During the next few months, there was some normality as Erik's skills were used to help train new Special Ops soldiers on base. There were still secret missions and periods of time away from each other, but they adjusted. Disa asked to postpone their wedding until his contract was up and he was out for good. It upset him and planted the seed of doubt in his heart that she still felt the same about him. When family and friends asked about the new postponement, Disa told everyone that his job was unpredictable and it was better to wait until there would be no unpredictable missions hanging over him.
The new plans crushed him.
For a time, Erik felt like he was reliving their university days, trying to impress her with his sincerity. Her love for him was still there, but it sat guarded and he didn't like that. He threw himself into his work and reasoned that all couples had rough patches. Even his parents had them. During that time, his superiors sent him to West Africa to help destabilize a dictator that the U.S. government had lured into being an ally until they had no need for him. Erik helped storm an African state building that was the presidential dictator's private home and waved his weapon at the man's wife and staff. His Special Ops team ushered in a bloody coup backed by the U.S. and English Parliament. He learned a lot from that mission. A new dictator was thrust into the presidency. One who would do the bidding of the U.S., and backed up by the U.N. Good ole American Democracy. The breakfast of champions. Neo-Imperialism at its finest.
The Africans from that nation who wanted the tenets of U.S. democracy were assed out. The person they desired for president was a brilliant woman educated in England with a graduate degree from Harvard.
Nope.
She wanted to change her nation to follow the ways of democratic socialism. One thing Erik knew from experience was that the U.S. hated smart Black people anywhere on the planet. Especially ones who sought their own destiny outside of American influence.
That woman haunted Erik. He sat in his house while Disa was out shopping for food and thought about his hand in preventing a Black woman from leading her country into a new day. He saw pictures of her. A tall, robust woman with unwavering righteousness in her smoky brown eyes. Her husband had been killed in a previous coup attempt against the man Erik placed in a chopper. His wife, Sacha Furaha, picked up the torch and led the fight for progressive political change that would never come her way with U.S. fingerprints all over the current coup.
Sacha wore the clothing of working-class people and criticized the bulk of their resources hoarded by the elites who parroted American billionaires in overconsumption and greed. Those factual accusations were the reason Erik had no sympathy for the dictator and his wife. They stole from the people. The dictator's wife often took trips to New York, Paris, and Milan to shop with money that should've been earmarked for public infrastructure, education, and health. Instead, they squandered their country's natural wealth. No different from Erik's own country. The only difference was that Sacha's country was all Black. They couldn't blame direct white racism on greed, but they bred white colonialism traits into the leaders. Can't beat them? Join them in fleecing the bottom.
Sacha was lucky that she wasn't installed in office. Like Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the C.I.A. would work covertly against her and have her murdered on the spot or whisked off into obsolescence like the former African President Erik shoved into a plane with his weeping wife by his side. Somewhere over the skies of West Africa, the couple was shot and killed, then thrown out of the plane. Their bodies were never found, and since no one witnessed them slaughtered outright in their presidential home, the C.I.A. and the U.S. government could claim plausible deniability about what happened. Erik knew exactly what would happen to them once he handed them over to the pilots. In the icy darkness, as a freezing African wind rushed across his face, he stood there with his weapon braced against his chest and watched the couple fly to their doom. He had no sympathy for them. They were only part of a long lineage of African despots puppet-mastered by the U.S. Their white colonial minds were bred to do the bidding of systemic white Imperialism. There were too many on the continent, popping up like unwanted weeds left and right. Righteous Africans were squashed or co-opted by wanna-be rulers using outside forces and internal greed to prop themselves up. Over and over, Erik found himself going into Africa, Afghanistan, and Iraq to play the same war games again and again. Always the same plays on the chessboard.
He wondered where Sacha was now that the new dictator was selling their wealth to the highest European bidder. That man did not differ from the one cast out of the plane. Erik expected to get a phone call in another year with an order to go back in and remove that clown if he stepped out of line from white interests in the region.
Men are trash.
His mother's voice sat in his head. Erik used the dark net to make a donation to Sacha's attempt to run for President again. A vibrating cell on his backside made him pause in his reading up on the country he helped destroy.
"Jaja."
Marisol's perky voice cheered him up from the glum research on his laptop.
"'sup, girl?"
"Guess who was voted the Carnival queen for Globo TV?"
"Who, that girl with the new BBL and bad blonde dye job?" he joked.
"Não! Mim!"
"No shit?!"
Erik sat up from his seat on the couch and nearly dropped his laptop.
"I won the vote! I get to dance on TV and represent the entire carnival season!"
"Congratulations! I want pictures—"
"Não, I want you and Disa to come down here and see me. Watch it on TV with the família in person. Let me speak to your noiva."
"She's not here yet. Went shopping."
"You okay? You sound funny."
"I'm good. Just busy."
"You're always busy. That's why your ass isn't married yet. Come here and see me! I want both of you here. I have a new hairdo and a new boyfriend."
"Boyfriend, huh? What happened to Nilton?"
"He's old news—"
"Zion?"
"Got married—"
"Adriano—"
"Shut up! Like you never had a stable."
"Stable? You callin' me a thot?"
"If the condom fits."
"Wait 'til I see your smart ass."
"Tell Disa to call me when she gets back. You will come, won't you, JaJa? I miss you."
"I will bring it up to Disa and if she wants to go, we'll try to come down there."
"Don't try. Do."
"Okay, Yoda."
"Tchau."
She hung up, and he couldn't help smiling. Millions all over the world would see his busy-body play cousin shake her rump, basically naked. On TV. His cell vibrated again, and he glanced at it. Marisol sent him pictures of her new haircut. All of her long, glossy black hair was gone. In its place, she rocked a short, shiny pixie cut. She was topless, and her nipples were covered in orange glitter.
"See you soon!"
Her text had heart emojis and kissing lips.
"What are you grinning about?" Disa said.
She walked in carrying two grocery bags. He jumped up to help her carry them to the kitchen.
"Marisol wants you to call her. She told me she's the new Carnival Queen for Globo TV and wants us to come down and watch her television premiere."
Disa's eyes lit up, but her lips grew tight.
"You want to go?" he asked.
"Yeah, but… can you go?"
"I'll put in a request for time now."
Hesitation rested in her eyes.
"Things have been relatively smooth, baby—"
"I always get my hopes up, Erik, and then… you already know."
"If I can't go, then you should go down. A trip away from here would be nice for you, and you love it down there anyway. Hell, take your girls with you. Invite them to go with us so that no matter what, you'll still have a good time."
The small trace of a grin lifted her pretty lips. He kissed her.
"This time you should dress up in a costume and shake your ass. Let Daddy see you all glittery and bedazzled."
"You know damn well you wouldn't want my tits and ass out for other men to see…"
He slid behind her. Bent her over.
"Daddy can tap this big ass while you're all shiny and beautiful."
He rubbed his crotch into her thick cheeks. He pulled down her sweatpants and slid her panties to the side.
"Would you like that? Me fucking you nice and slow in a sexy costume?"
He lowered his sweats and rubbed his flaccid penis against her folds. Thinking about her half naked, in a Sao Paulo street, stiffened him quickly. His voice transformed from playful teasing to full arousal, imagining her gyrating and jiggling. He palmed her breasts under her shirt and released them from the heavy bra cups. Disa wiggled her backside against him and soon her folds glistened. Pre-cum dribbled slowly from his tip. He slid his erection against her folds so that it rubbed the topside of his dick.
"Tell me you want that," he gasped in her ear.
Darting his tongue in and out of her ear canal, he fondled her nipples and listened to her pant. She rode the top of his dick and rubbed her hard clit against it.
"Tell me, Disa."
"I want that."
He slid inside of her raw and hot. His hands fumbled to pull off her t-shirt, and he freed her breasts completely. Gripping her arms behind her, Erik fucked her in the kitchen, their food still sitting in bags right in front of them. Clapping her cheeks was a must, and he luxuriated in a condom-free grip from her pussy all over his dick. Her breasts started slapping together once we thrust harder.
"Just like this baby, in the middle of the street, fucking you fast like this… big titties all out, deep pussy swallowing my shit…"
Disa's slippery pussy brought him to a fast release.
"Get on your knees," he sputtered.
She turned and dropped to the floor. He tilted her chin with his hand to raise her face up to him as he fisted himself.
"Open your mouth… oooh, just like that… don't move… lemme dirty up that pretty face. Okay? Let Daddy make a mess all over that pretty face… oh my fucking God… dammit Disa! Making me nut all over that… making you a dirty girl. Look at all that… goddamn… goddamn…!"
He couldn't stop cumming. The build-up of tension in his loins and the stress he felt from her needed the release.
"Hold those titties up, baby… ah fuck… just like that… lemme cum on those big titties too… oh shit!"
He reached out for the counter behind her to balance himself and to keep from falling over. She kept her eyes on him and that mouth open. Her sweet tongue sat there pretty for him and he aimed for her mouth to milk out the last of his orgasm.
"Fuck!" he whimpered.
His legs shook and stumbled back with his shaft still heavy. They couldn't ignore the throbbing at the root of his dick. He wanted more. Erik dragged her toward their bedroom, but the house phone rang. It was Marisol, leaving a message on the answering machine to remind Disa to call back in case Erik forgot to tell her.
"Call her later!" Erik pleaded, his dick pointing right at her.
Disa grabbed paper towels above the sink and wet them, cleaning herself.
"She's excited, and this is a big deal for her. We can do the nasty again later," Disa teased.
"Look at my dick, though," he begged.
"It can wait."
Dismissed, Erik pulled up his sweats and went back into the living room.
"This shit is poking out of my sweats, D. You need to take care of your man first!" he called out playfully.
He dropped onto the couch and lifted his laptop. A new email caught his eye from a secret account he kept on the dark net. Glancing over at Disa, she was deep inside the kitchen and ignoring him with a call to Marisol.
Tapping the link, Erik opened the e-mail.
Tahir.
"We should talk."
With those three words, Tahir changed the trajectory of Erik's life.
