...of all Possible Worlds
by T.S. Severe

Chapter 18


"What, I'm sposed to turn here? Or the next one?" I frowned glancing at
Venus who was holding my school notebook and sitting on Sarah's lap.

"I think...This one?" Venus was frowning too and that map that Purdy had
made for me sucked.

"He shoulda just wrote the street address down." I took a left and we were
driving slowly, looking around like there might be a neon sign saying
'Party Here!' or something.

"He did...Lexington Apartments number 202. You shoulda told him to like
wait outside or something." Sarah said.

"Yeah, in a clown suit." I giggled.

"Holding balloons." Venus grinned. "I think it's the next street."

"Great." I shrugged.

"You gotta...Ugh..." Sarah was shifting around. "...There...Better."

"You feeling my ass?" Venus giggled.

"I am not!" Sarah protested. "You're pretty fuckin heavy though."

"Fuck you." Venus wriggled her butt some and I rolled my eyes. They'd been
sitting like that a long time though, Hemmford was like the other side of
town from where we lived.

"Bout time, baby. I was getting worried bout you." Purdy was waiting
outside, although not in a clown suit with balloons unfortunately.

"Thinking we were gonna stand you up?" I grinned at him. "Is my car safe
here?"

"This is like the hood or something." Venus looked around. "You sure
there's white people here?"

"Shit." Purdy laughed at her. "Come on, we'll go in and meet some."

"Where's Tricia?" Sarah wondered and Purdy just shrugged.

"My car better be safe." I said to Sarah and she just gave me a shrug of
her own.

"Stuck up bitches. Ya'll been living in those big white houses too long."
Purdy laughed at us. "This ain't no hood."

"How would you know anyway?" Sarah asked. "You live in a big white house
too."

"Yeah, but I don't stay in it all the time neither." Purdy gave her a wink.

Hemmford was all lower middle class, mostly white people, a few freeborn
families here and there. It wasn't awfully run down or dirty or anything,
but my parents lived pretty well and Mr. Reiser was very wealthy, so this
was just about as far across the tracks as I ever wanted to get. My two
friends as well and Venus especially was looking like she was ready to turn
around and go back home. When she thought of white people she thought of
people like she was used to, her master-father and his rich friends, not
the white folks who made the city work. The plumbers and electricians and
Shoney's managers or whatever.

"Welcome, come on in." A man was saying, a white man and Purdy hadn't been
lying about that.

We didn't say anything, walking into the apartment which was in the middle
of a U-shaped complex built around a little swimming pool. It was clean
enough, but there was a lot of stuff in it too, books mostly, some
computers and a television. A stereo was going, playing some trip hop, and
there was a lot of smoke in the air. Cigarettes and marijuana and something
else, cloves probably, I didn't know. All the furniture was old and covered
up with blankets and there weren't a lot of people, but enough to make the
apartment feel crowded. The shades were drawn and curtains closed and all
the lights had weak light bulbs, colored red or yellow, some of them
blue. It was all weird.

"You're safe here." Some white girl was saying and she looked about my age,
maybe a little older. All blonde hair and blue eyes and she smiled at each
of us and then gave Purdy a kiss on the lips.

"I didn't know we were in danger." I said to Sarah and the white guy
overheard me and laughed. He was tall with round glasses and long brown
hair. Not bad looking and young, in his twenties.

"We're all in danger." He said. "But not in here."

I had no idea what that meant and I figured he was just high or
something. There was another white guy too, shorter and blonde haired,
looking like the girl's brother maybe. He was cute, I thought, and so did
Venus apparently. She was talking to him about two minutes after we got
there, being the bedroom negra she was and flirting shamelessly. Everyone
else was black, mostly guys from school, Purdy's friends and I knew them
well enough. They were sitting around drinking beer and passing a joint,
acting like they didn't have a care in the world. All I could think of was
if my Master ever found out about this I was gonna be in real trouble. This
wasn't any birthday party.

"I'm Sarah, this is Danielle." My friend said and she waved at some of the
guys as they called to us to come over.

"Cool." The white guy nodded. "I'm Brent, uh...That's Mickey..." He
gestured to the blonde girl, "...and that's Lance over there."

"Where are you from, sir?" I asked Brent.

"Sir?" He looked around. "Oh, me? I thought my dad was here. Don't say that
word, okay?"

"Why not?" I looked at him, almost smiling at his theatrics.

"It's against the rules." He smiled.

"You have a funny accent." I changed the subject slightly.

"Do I?" He smiled at me and Sarah was going to sit with the guys from
school. "You're accent is nice."

"I sound like everybody else." I shrugged.

"You want something to drink?" He asked and it was clear that the guy liked
me, he was all friendly.

"Sure." I agreed, only cause I had no idea what I was doing.

"I'm from Boston, we all are. You know where that is?" He asked, walking us
into the kitchen and I rolled my eyes.

"Is it close to Paris?" I giggled and accepted a small bottle of peach wine
cooler from the refrigerator.

"Yeah, just to the west of there." He grinned. "We go to Harvard."

"The college?" I asked and he nodded. "Don't you have school tomorrow?"

"We're on a field trip." He smiled.

"I guess so." I took a sip of that wine and it was like drinking soda pop,
sorta. "Kind of a long way to come for a field trip though."

"Not that far." Brent shrugged. "It's your fault anyway."

"My fault?" I laughed. "Why?"

"Cause this is where you're at." He said. "You should live closer to
Boston."

"Oh, you came all the way to Memphis to meet me?" I shook my head.

"You and your friends." He nodded. "You want to see my fish?"

"What?" I sipped some more wine.

"My fish, come on. He's from Boston too." Brent put a hand in the small of
my back, touching me through the thin white dress I was wearing, trimmed
with blue and very comfortable.

"You brought a fish with you?" I wondered and knowing it was just an excuse
to get me to his bedroom. This white man wasn't so different from anyone
else.

"I couldn't leave him." Brent said. "He'd get hungry."

"You have a lot of friends, huh?" I giggled.

"Well, I hope I have one more now, Danielle." He said softly and we were in
his bedroom, probably the only bedroom as there were three mattresses on
the floor, kind of made up with sheets, but looking well used.

"We'll see." I said, drinking a little more wine and setting the bottle
down next to the aquarium. "Just don't ask me to feed your fish."

"The story of my life." Brent's hand was moving up and down my
back. "That's why I had to bring him."

His fish sat in a small aquarium, lit blue with a bubbling treasure chest
and some gravel. It was a fat goldfish and I looked at it while the man
stood behind me and put both hands on my hips.

"You move pretty fast." I told him, looking over my shoulder. "You sure you
don't want me calling you sir?"

"Is this too fast?" He asked and leaned forward to kiss my lips and I
didn't reject it or encourage the man, I just let him do it.

It was strange knowing I could say no to him if I wanted to. I was a slave
and negra in the New South and if a white man wanted me, I didn't have a
choice really. Sure, white men had to respect another's property and all
that, I wasn't going to be raped or anything just walking down the street,
but I couldn't refuse my teachers, for example. I couldn't refuse a
policeman if he wanted to fuck me, or a friend of my Master's if I was
offered to him.

This was different. This man, and his two friends, they were from the North
and tourists or students or whatever, not citizens. I didn't have to call
Brent sir, or let him touch me, or do anything. He wasn't black or white,
he was a foreigner, an alien. For the first time in my life I had my own
decision about what I wanted. My parents had always decided until
Mr. Reiser had taken me into custody and after that I was a slave. But
right there, right then, it was like I was a person somehow and it confused
me a little, even excited me maybe. But mostly it scared me. I didn't want
that responsibility.

"You're so beautiful." Brent told me and he was looking into my eyes,
moving his hands slightly, like he wanted to reach around me for my tits,
but he was waiting for a sign.

"Did Purdy tell you about me?" I asked, licking my lips.

"He told us about all of you." Brent shrugged. "You're slaves, sex slaves
for your white owners, going to that segregated school..."

"Sex slaves?" I smiled at that.

"Isn't that what you are?" He smiled back.

"I'm a bedroom negra."

"Sounds the same to me." Brent said.

"My Master loves me." I told him and I didn't know why sex slave bothered
me so much, but it did. "I'm his mistress."

"But you still had to sneak out to come here, didn't you?" He said, looking
like he thought he knew everything there was to know about me.

"No." I told him. "I asked him if I could come and he said yes."

"Oh yeah?" Brent looked surprised then, like I knew he would be.

"You think a Master can't love a slave?" I turned around, being a little
tired of looking over my shoulder.

"No, I don't." He told me seriously, keeping his hands on me as I turned to
face him.

"Then you don't know anything." I said.

"Hey...Whoa, sup girl?" Purdy was coming in with the blonde girl, Mickey,
and they were both giggling and pawing each other.

"Hey." I looked past Brent. "We were looking at the fish."

"Yeah, huh. The fish." Purdy grinned. "This here's Mickey and that's Dani."

"Hi Dani." The girl smiled. "Brent being a bad boy?"

"No, we're just talking." I shrugged, watching as Purdy held Mickey close,
his arm around her narrow waist and fingers digging lightly against her
tummy. She was wearing old jeans, ripped in the knees and a t-shirt hugging
her thin body. She had smallish tits and hard nipples poking through the
cotton.

"Maybe you're being the bad boy." Purdy grinned at me.

"Maybe." I teased. "I ain't decided yet."

"Bad boy, huh?" Brent chuckled and I realized he didn't know my little
secret, Purdy hadn't told these people everything afterall.

"Come on, down here..." Mickey was half falling onto one of the mattresses
and pulling Purdy with her. "I want some bad boy too."

"I got you're bad boy." Purdy grinned and sat down with her, putting his
arm around Mickey's shoulders and pulling the white girl close for a kiss.

"Let's sit down." Brent was saying to me and I guessed these people weren't
shy at all, which didn't bother me. They thought we were just sex slaves
anyway and that was probably all these white people were looking for, some
interracial sex to tell their friends back home about.

We watched Purdy and Mickey make out for awhile and I knew Brent wanted me
the same way and so I let him. He kissed me gently at first and he tasted
like cigarettes and beer and his tongue was eager as he pushed it into my
mouth. It did feel good though, just kissing like that and watching Purdy
out of the corner of my eye, getting loose with a white girl. I'd never
seen that before and even though I knew Purdy was a bedroom buck for his
mistress, I'd never really thought about it much. It was sexy watching the
two of them make out and I was getting warmed up, slowly but surely.

Brent soon had his fingers working at the buttons of my dress and then his
hand was inside, feeling my breasts and squeezing me while we kissed. I'd
found his cock through the man's khaki trousers, not an overly large one,
from what I could tell, but he was very hard and I squeezed it through the
cotton. He was moaning softly and kissing my ear, licking me lightly and
making me smile when Mickey pulled Purdy's cock free and he was big. It was
one reason he was a buck, not just for his natural good looks, but the boy
had about a ten inch cock. Not too thick really, but it was long and dark
and Mickey plainly liked it a lot as she tried to inhale it.

"Yeah, suck my dick, baby..." Purdy nodded, sucking a breath and then
looking at me with a grin. "...All you white bitch's love my motherfucker,
don't you?"

"Mmmphhh..." Mickey tried to agree, but her little white mouth was full of
big black cock.

"Do that for me..." I breathed, because my penis was hard and Brent was
going to find it any second. His mouth was going down to my tits and his
hand drifting down across my tummy.

"Hmmm..." He sighed and looked at our friends for a second and then
smiled. "You want to suck me?"

"No..." I giggled and I put my left hand on the back of his head, pushing
him down as I pulled my skirt up with the other.

"Okay..." Brent said softly, thinking I wanted him to lick my pussy,
probably. "...What's...That?"

"Suck it for me..." I whispered and my girl cock was standing straight up
from the side of my lace panties, pointing at Brent's open mouth and
resisted me for a second, long enough so I thought he was going to get mad
or something.

"You're a...boy?" He voiced his surprise and I was pushing his head down.

"No, I'm not." I promised and then I sighed as I felt the first tentative
touch of the man's lips on the tip of my penis.

"Shit...Look at you, girl." Purdy grinned at me. "I told they wasn't gonna
care."

"Take more of it..." I urged the man and Brent was moving slow, not real
sure about what he was doing, but I kept my fingers in his hair, pushing
his lips down the dark shaft of my penis until I felt my cock surrounded by
warm wet mouth.

"Let me have some of that pussy too." Purdy was saying and he pushed and
pulled at Mickey, getting her jeans undone and pulling them off her hips
and ass and down her pale thighs.

She knelt like that, with her pants around her knees and her ass towards me
and she wasn't even wearing panties, which almost made me giggle. I watched
Purdy finger her pink cunt, slipping his black fingers between the girl's
greasy labia and making Mickey wriggle her ass and make muffled moaning
sounds around the cock in her mouth.

"Ummmm..." I sighed as Brent had all of my penis in his mouth finally and
he was moving his tongue slowly, exploring this new experience.

"That's it...uh-huh...Wash it all over, suck it...Mmmm...Careful your
teeth, Brent..." I said, talking to him softly, coaxing him to love my girl
cock and I was getting off knowing this guy wasn't queer at all. A straight
man sucking my sissy penis for the first time was real sweet for me and I
was going to cum soon, but maybe not too soon as Brent wasn't very good at
it.

"Yo, Bailey! Get your ass in here, nigger!" Purdy grinned at one of his
friends who was watching from the door.

"Shit...That's cool!" Bailey wasn't much to look at and he wasn't anyone's
bedroom slave. He went to school because he was smart, like most of the
kids there, and his owner had plans to put his brains to work later.

"You ever fuck a white girl before?" Purdy asked him and Bailey was
undressing quick, glancing at me and widening his eyes a little, but only
because of Brent sucking my penis like he was. All the kids at school knew
I had a girl cock.

"I ain't never fucked nobody." Bailey admitted.

"Then get your cherry dick inside this bitch!" Purdy laughed and he was
holding Mickey's head tight. "She likes the dark meat just fine."

"Get up for a minute." I told Brent, pulling his mouth off my penis and he
was red faced and his chin was wet as he breathed deep.

"We all gonna do you, Mickey." Purdy was saying. "That's what you want,
huh?"

"I've never..." Brent was licking his lips and half smiling at me.

"I know" I giggled. "Take off your clothes, your pants. I wanna see your
cock."

"Yeah, okay." He agreed and Brent undid his trousers while I took off my
dress completely, pulling it over my head while we watched Bailey get
behind Mickey, pushing his black dick inside her slowly.

"Hey, uh...You need to put on a condom, man..." Brent said. "...She's not
on the pill or anything."

If Bailey heard what the man was saying he didn't care. He was just a
seventeen year old boy losing his virginity and nothing was going to stop
him once he felt that blonde girl's hot pussy around his cock. Bailey was
fucking her hard and fast and he wasn't going to last long at all.

"She'll be okay." I giggled and Brent was frowning. "Come here, like
this...You ever sixty-nine?"

"What?" Brent blinked at me and I was pushing him onto his back, straddling
him with my balls and penis rubbing over the man's glasses and then his
nose and finally his mouth as I got comfortable.

Brent's cock was hardly any bigger than mine, which made me smile, but it
was hard and if he wasn't queer, he sure didn't mind sucking my girl
cock. Brent had me in his mouth quickly enough and I took him all the way
inside mine easily enough, holding him there while I worked my tongue all
around it.

"Oh shit!" Bailey was groaning a minute later, if even that long, and he
arched his back, giving Mickey his orgasm as deep inside the girl's
unprotected womb as he could.

"Goddamn, boy...You cumming already?" Purdy laughed. "Gonna call you
jackrabbit from now on."

"Shut-up." Bailey panted. "That shit felt good!"

"Course it does, get your dick outta there now and go get somebody else."
Purdy told him and then he looked down at Mickey. "Suck my balls for
awhile, baby...We got all kinds of dick comin' your way."

Bailey pulled his pants back on and getting undressed had been a real waste
of time for that boy, I thought. He didn't care though, he wasn't a virgin
anymore and he was all smiles as he went to find one of the other guys and
we could hear him whooping it up as he left the bedroom.

"Oh God..." I heard Mickey's breathless voice. "...Did he cum inside me?"

"You didn't feel it?" Purdy laughed. "Come on now, lick my balls that nice
way you do it."

"I'm not protected, I told you that before." Mickey was feeling her pussy
and I just watched with some amusement while I sucked Brent's dick nice and
slow.

"Too late now." Purdy shrugged. "John Boy's here now anyway, get your mouth
down there."

"Sup?" John Boy grinned and he was big, a pudgy black boy and he wasn't
getting undressed, but just unzipping his pants and fishing out a thick
black cock that looked very respectable.

"You see it." Purdy grinned at his friend.

"Shit, Dani got some too, huh?" He looked at Brent and me, shaking his
head.

"You want some?" I asked, licking my lips and holding Brent's cock tight in
my fist.

"I want some of this." John Boy grinned and then he was getting behind
Mickey, shoving his cock inside her already cum soaked pussy, but obviously
stretching the blonde out some as she stiffened and groaned loudly.

"Shush now...That boy's gonna make you feel good." Purdy promised her and
he was more than content to get his balls washed by Mickey while his
friends fucked her.

"I ain't never had no white girl before." John Boy grunted, thrusting in
and out of the girl hard. "Damn, she tight too!"

"She's been fuckin white dick her whole life." Purdy laughed.

Brent and I sucked each other while John Boy fucked Mickey. Brent was
getting better at it too, gagging only occasionally as the tip of my penis
would tickle the back of the man's mouth when I pushed myself down, giving
him as much as I had. I was playing with him more than anything else
though, not wanting Brent to cum or anything. It was better to keep him hot
and needy, give the college boy some incentive to suck my girl cock
nicely. Men lose interest in sex if they cum too soon, I think, for a
minute or two anyway. I wanted Brent to stay hungry because I was going to
cum any minute and I wanted him to swallow it for me.

"Mmmm...Like...That..." I sighed and I was fucking Brent's lips, lifting my
hips and pushing down, sliding my dark swollen penis into his mouth over
and over while he held my ass in his hands, squeezing me with gentle
fingers digging into my warm skin.

I was going to cum, my balls feeling tight and my ass clenching as I tried
to hold off, wanting it to build more and more as the anticipation always
felt good. I wished he'd finger my ass for me and a nice thick cock pushing
into my rectum would have felt so good right then. Even just a finger,
twisting inside my anus, tickling my boy pussy sweetly would have brought
me off immediately, but Brent didn't know what he was doing. He was getting
mouth fucked, that's all he knew.

"Ohhhh...Yes!" I moaned, lifting my head and jerking my hips hard, shoving
my penis into the man's mouth as my orgasm erupted inside him. 

Brent sputtered and coughed, his hands pushing at me then as getting a
mouthful of creamy boy cum surprised him. I wasn't going anywhere though,
not right then, it felt too good flooding Brent's virgin mouth with my
semen. I didn't care if he swallowed it or not just then and I was sure
most of my load was spilling out of his mouth, over his cheeks and down his
face. I stroked his cock all the while too, not letting him go soft at all
as I was afraid that maybe he might get turned off by the new experience. I
wanted Brent to stay nice and hard because after I was done pumping my
salty sperm into his mouth I was going to seriously fuck that man. I was
ready for that and there was a condom in my purse with Brent's name on it.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

An hour later and our little orgy or whatever you wanted to call it was
over, or taking a little recess anyway. While I'd been fucking Brent, and
Purdy had been playing with Mickey, and she'd been fucked bareback by five
black guys, Venus had been fucking Lance in the living room. Sarah had been
sharing all our friends from school, taking them before and after they had
Mickey. So I guess it was a party, sort of, but just for sex and I really
thought of it as a wasted afternoon for the most part. I should have just
gone to see my parents. They'd been a little disappointed when I'd called
to say I couldn't make it that day and besides, I could have sex anytime I
wanted pretty much. Brent hadn't been too good at it.

"What are you looking at?" I asked Sarah and I'd been using the bathroom to
clean myself up. I wasn't too bad, but it was warm in that apartment I felt
sticky.

"I don't know." She shrugged and it was a small pamphlet. "Lance just gave
it to me."

"...there's people there to help you find jobs, a place to stay, all that
stuff." Mickey was talking to a couple of the guys.

"Let me see that." I took it from Sarah's fingers and it was something
called Searchlight and it some drawing of a black man in chains on the
front.

"No, I ain't gonna run away." Venus giggled and Brent was talking to her.

"What's this? Are you guys crazy?" I dropped the pamphlet quickly, as soon
as I figured out what it was.

"Shit, that's the truth right there." Purdy told me and I stared at him.

"What are you talking about?"

"Purdy's going." Brent was saying. "Some of the other guys too, we got it
all worked out."

"Ain't you tired of being a negra?" Purdy asked me. "We can go up North,
these guys take slaves across the border all the time."

"Runaway?" I blinked at him.

"You don't have to be a slave, Danielle." Lance told me. "Up in the States
you can go to college, get a real job, have a real family..."

"I can do all that anyway." I shook my head. "I'm freeborn, okay? I can do
all that stuff."

"You're a slave, girl." Purdy laughed at me. "You don't know what you gonna
do, cept what your Master tells you."

"How do we get across the border?" Sarah wondered.

"You shut-up about that." I told her. "We're not going anywhere except
home."

I started getting up, but Purdy grabbed my hand.

"Just listen to what they got to say, it don't hurt none." The boy told me
and I tried to tug my arm free but he was holding me tight.

"It's gonna hurt if we get caught. Let me go." I jerked free. "You can't
believe anything that these people say."

"We're the only white people you can believe." Lance said.

"They're abolitionist, they're from the North and they just come down here
cause they want to make trouble." I stared at the man and he was shaking
his head.

"Dani, we're just here trying to help." Brent said from across the room.

"You're trying to help by spreading these lies?" I kicked at the pamphlet
on the floor.

"There's nothing but the truth in there." Lance said, echoing Purdy.

"I get the truth from my Master, we all do. Not some white agitators
looking to get us high and drunk and fuck us." I spat at him. "Come on,
Sarah, we gotta go. Venus you're coming too, right?"

There was a lot of talk from the other guys, mostly complaining because
they thought all the girls were leaving so soon, but Sarah didn't want to
go and Venus was kind of shaking her head.

"I don't know." Sarah frowned at me. "My master doesn't even love me
anymore."

"What? Don't be stupid, so what if he's got another girl." I stared at
her. "We gotta go. This is bad."

"Leave her be. Shit, you the crazy one, all happy being a slave." Purdy
stared at me. "Course it ain't bad for you, right?"

"What are you talking about?" I barely looked at him. "Sarah, please, I
ain't staying here."

"I mean you're all queer anyway, so being a slave is like being a faggot."
Purdy chuckled.

"What?" I gave him a finger. "Come on Venus, you know you ain't going to
run away."

"Yeah, I'm gonna hang out though." Venus shrugged at me and I wondered if
everybody there was high except me.

"Slaves can be queer all they want, shit." Purdy was going off. "You're
master can suck your dick, don't nobody care, huh?"

"Fuck you." I said and I looked at Sarah one more time. "Don't do it, okay?
Come on, I'll take you home."

"She doesn't want to be a slave." Lance said and he smiled at her like they
had a secret and Sarah gave me an apologetic look.

"Sorry, Dani. I'm gonna stay too." 

"You're afraid to be free." Purdy was following. "That's what it is, huh?
Just scared of being real, huh?"

"You don't stay here." I told him. "Get Sarah and Venus out of here, you
hear me?"

"I don't hear nothing but a slave talkin." He shook his head at me and I
was gone with that.

I sat in my car for about five minutes and I was scared and mad. More mad
than scared really, now that I was out of the apartment and away from those
people. They had my friends though and Sarah was vulnerable, I knew
that. She was depressed and angry with her master for taking a new girl to
his bed. Venus just wanted to be with white people, going North might sound
good to her, if she believed those lies those people were always
saying. How everybody was free and happy and everything was perfect in the
States.

None of that was true. They had ghettos and drugs and gangs. The police
were always beating on black people, they had it on videotape and showed it
on the news all the time. Jails were full of black people and there were
homeless blacks living out of trashcans. We got all that news down there in
the South and I knew my country wasn't perfect, but it wasn't like it was
up North neither. Wasn't none of that stuff in those pamphlets, I bet. Just
stories about how some black guy got hanged for no reason, they liked those
kinds of stories a lot. Or how sterilizing black people was evil and a
sin. Those Northern abolitionists always had bad things to say about the
South and right now my friends were in there listening to them.

"Nine-one-one...What's the nature of your emergency?"

"Uh, there's some abolitionists having a...a meeting or something, they're
talking to my friends and..."

"White abolitionists?" The woman asked.

"Yeah, they're from the North, Boston I think, Harvard College or
something."

"What's the address?"

"Um, Lexington Apartments...In Hemmford, it's on uh, Fourth Avenue and..."

"What's the apartment number?"

"What? Oh...Um, two-oh-two."

"Okay, what's your name?" 

"M-My name?" I blinked at that. "I , uh, I'm gonna..."

"Don't go anywhere, stay on the phone. Some officers are coming, but I need
to know your name."

I didn't say anything as I was suddenly very scared. Too frightened to
admit who I was and deathly afraid not to. Would I be in trouble just for
having been in that apartment, even if I'd left it as soon as I knew what
was going on? Probably, I decided, or at least I'd have to explain why I
was at that party in the first place. My Master would be in trouble too, if
he said he was letting me go to it. If he said he hadn't given me
permission, then I'd be punished, charged with something and whipped more
than likely. Mr. Reiser wouldn't be able to stop it and if he tried, then
he'd just be in trouble anyways.

I felt like crying, or throwing up, and I was about to do both when I
decided to just run. I'd go home, back to my Master's house and stay
there. I'd tell him what happened and he'd figure it out for me. I couldn't
do it, I wasn't smart enough, but he was. I should have thought of this
before I'd called, but I hadn't. I'd just wanted to see those abolitionists
caught and stopped, my friends sent back home before they did something
really stupid. God! Why hadn't Sarah come with me? Venus too, the rest I
didn't care about, but those two girls were my best friends and I'd called
the police to save them.

I was breaking the law by disobeying a police officer, the woman on the
phone. I hadn't hung it up, but I'd left the receiver dangling, getting in
my car and pulling away from the telephone booth just as I saw some police
cars coming down the street behind me. No flashing lights, no sirens, but
they were coming fast and I took a left turn and then pulled over so I
could puke. I was shaking so bad and I wondered if I'd done the right thing
or not. I had to go home, my Master would take care of everything. He'd
know what to do now.


End of chapter 18