A Black Girl (Book 1)

Tastes Like Fried Chicken

Bright and early Sunday morning, the preacher is beating me down with his proverbial sayings. He doesn't know it, but he's speaking directly to me right now.

"The Lord knows when you ain't doing right," with his dark forehead just a-shining, Brother Berry moves his lithe body to and fro all over the pulpit. The church claps, some hoop and holler and Grandma gives him a standing ovation. Her long grey braid swings slightly against her small back as her wrinkled hands clap vigorously.

I roll my eyes. I can't wait to get up out of here because if I have to listen to one more condemnation I'm gonna crack and sing like a canary.

"Fornication is a sin!" His beady brown eyes rove over the church, but I know he's really looking at us, the young ones.

Everybody knows that the hos of Briar Side Church are Ola Cummings, Bri'kia Carter, and the little mixed boy Connor White. Why he's looking at me like he can see into my whole soul, I don't know.

I didn't do anything...completely. I'm still chaste-ish and virgin-ish. I'm just a tad bit tainted that's all.

That's it, and yet I can't shake the feeling that what I did was just as bad as having sex.

I wonder if my Grandma knows how sinful I've been lately, that I've let a boy touch me in places that she told me was meant for a husband only? I'm a little antsy is all, that's it.

I'm good though. I'm straight. I'm not tripping.

"And the devil aint through yet!" Preacher man leaps across the stage with his hands extended like he's the very lion he describes Satan as. He creeps slowly with his eye darting back and forth over the church, his flooding slacks flood even more and his tight button down shirt presses against his chest. I can even see a thin dot of spittle at the corner of his mouth.

Ew.

I smooth the invisible wrinkles out of my long ugly paisley colored skirt and pray for deliverance. I thoroughly believe in the Lord. I believe that he's my redeemer and he's my king, but I want more than anything to not be here.

I've been told that God's house holds the largest percentage of hypocrites and evil-doers. They are masked, these wicked ones, walking around seeking to destroy others so that they may all be one in wickedness.

I wonder if I'm one of the masked people. It would make sense actually. Me and my sinful ways as of late, letting a boy touch me and make my body flutter like a butterfly in flight. Those hot feelings pooling in the seat of my favorite black panties and that weak feeling of knowing that I have arrived---If you know what I mean.

I'm not proud of myself though, and the moment the sermon is over, after the communion has been served and after the final prayer has been said, I slip away from my Grandma. She won't mind one bit, she's going to spend the next thirty minutes talking to every single person in the church.

It's what she does best, talk.

"Roshni?"

Damnit. I thought I had made it at least half of the way, but there's always someone who knows my name.

I whirl around with a fake bright smile on my face, my long skirt swirls with me creating a dizzy array of blurred colors.

Ashley, a light skinned girl with long wavy hair stands beside a guy the color of midnight, Malik.

Malik, I don't talk to much, we keep each other at arms length for a cornucopia of reasons. For one I had a crush on his brother when he had a crush on me when I was ten, two he stole my favorite cd and broke it in two jagged halves when I told him I thought he was uglier than a coon. He said some things about me too, I was too fat for him, I had no butt and my head was the longest he had ever seen.

We didn't have a vendetta against each other, we just didn't talk much...especially since he had grown up into such a well known guy.  He goes to my high school's rival and is known for his angelic voice. Please.