Chapter 2: The Homeless Man In The Alley

Shit! She had forgotten all about that bum in the alley, and she had forgotten all about reporting him to the authorities. She had quite a list going of all the people she planned to report!

"And you can shut your filthy mouth!" Juicy snapped while stalking past him. This time it was he that followed her with his eyes.

She suddenly came to a halt. He wanted to mess with her? Then she was going to let him have it, too. Make her feel bad about herself? She'd tell him exactly what she thought about him.

"I'm a whore? I'm wearing a two hundred fifty dollar outfit from Macy's, hundred dollar shoes, jewelry worth even more then that...and I ain't never had to sell my ass to get what I got! What do you got?" She scowled.

The man's lip twitched.

"Exactly!" You ain't got shit! Sitting in an alley trying to get laid and you're nothing but white trash!" She pointed a French manicured nail at him. "You're less than white trash! You look down your nose at me and you can't even kiss my black ass! Cracker!" Juicy turned and stormed away.

Her heart was beating a mile a minute. It had felt so good to let lose! Her eyes didn't even feel close to tearing up the way they had just a second ago.

A couple jumped back at the sight of the wild-eyed Amazon when she stepped out from the end of the alley. She didn't even see them and she barely noticed the group of young men she was fast approaching.

"Damn Sista. You are too pretty to look so mean," a youngish man spoke. He and two of his friends were sitting on the stoop of the apartment building that made one half of the alley.

Juicy looked up in surprise. She had been so caught up in her own angry world that for a moment it was as if she had tunnel vision; her anger and the bus stop was all that she knew. The young man that was currently appraising her was tall and thick but probably no older then twenty-five. Too young, plus he had a look about him that was...predatory.

Juicy slowed her walk and calmed down. "Thank you." She murmured.

The man jumped down from the stoop directly in her path. His friends watched with gleaming eyes. Juicy was still riding off the adrenaline rush from her altercation with Mr. Cracker in the alley. Her nerves nearly popped out of her body.

"What's your name?" The man demanded in a not-so-casual voice.

Juicy hesitated. No. She didn't like the way he had just popped up in front of her. Instead of answering she stepped around him. Best to get to the bus stop and away from-

"Hey Sista!" The young man said loudly. He stepped in front of her again. She noticed that his friends had joined him and the three of them now completely blocked the sidewalk so that she would have to either walk in the grass to get around them or turn around and walk the other way.

Either way they were going to keep messing with her, following her and her bus was due. She didn't have time to play games with these wannabe thugs.

"Look," She said while tapping her feet. "You don't need to know my name! Just let me pass—or do I need to scream for the cops?!"

Her words didn't have the desired effect. Instead of cat-calling her and reluctantly giving her a break, in unison their expressions grew instantly fierce. It was like she had flipped a switch.

A different young man spoke. "Don't nobody want yo fat ass anyway! Take your black ass out of here!"

They didn't move out of her way and Juicy was forced to walk around them. Her heart was thudding again, this time in fear. When they were behind her she almost put them out of her mind until something sharp struck her in the back of the head.

The pain was so immediate and intense that she didn't think about anything—not how she collapsed to the hard cement ground with her legs sprawled apart, not how her purse fell out of her hands, and her manila folder containing her business plan went scattering in the wind. Juicy didn't even think about crying out for help when hands gripped her and began dragging her back around the corner and into the alley.

She clutched at the first thing she could reach, which was a young man busy pulling her blouse open. Her head hurt, and in alarm she weakly struck out at him. She felt the breath leave her body as one of them brutally kicked her in the stomach.

"Shut up Bitch!" Somebody smacked her and before she knew it the three of them were all over her roughly pulling off her clothes, squeezing her breasts, slapping and punching her.

Someone was kneeling on her right hand and the pain was like they were grinding the bones into the ground. She could feel and hear them cracking and breaking beneath the weight of the man's knee. She tried to form a protective ball, to draw up her knees, to fold her body in on itself but couldn't because of the bodies holding hers down. Suddenly someone was pulling her panties off and there was absolutely nothing she could do as someone's mouth covered hers, smothering her weak cries

The breath caught in Juicy's chest. It was like she had clawed her way up from a drowning lake.

With a choked sob she tried to sit up. A hand was pressing her back down and Juicy felt the fight come back into her. With a scream she began pummeling the person that was desperately trying to hold her wrists down at her side.

"Stop it stop it STOP IT!" Someone was screaming almost as loud as she was. After a moment Juicy focused on the words and the person screaming them. She blinked her swelling eyes. There was one man; one lone man gripping her wrists.

The three young men were nowhere in sight...just this one man. She watched him in terror. Then in slow recognition she realized who it was.

Mr. Cracker...only Mr. Cracker looked like someone had done to him what it felt like had been done to her! His lip was busted and bleeding and his eye was purple and swelling more and more by the second. He watched her just as warily as she watched him.

"Please..." She cried. "Please don't…"

Mr. Cracker slowly released his grip on her wrist. Immediately Juicy tried to rise, to run away screaming, to crawl away if she had to—instead the world turned black.