CHAPTER THREE
Mister Richard?
When he ripped her blouse and told her he was going to kill her if she screamed, she only knew it was a man behind her.
But when he turned her around and she saw his face, she could not believe her eyes.
It was Richard Lowe, one of the founding partners and a man known affectionately in the office as Mister Richard, although she never had any affection for him.
But when she saw who it was, and saw that wild look in his beady blue eyes, she knew she was in trouble.
When his stubby hands grabbed her small face and began kissing her as if he was so out of control he couldn’t contain himself, she knew it was beyond trouble. She was in danger.
She, at first, tried to reason with him. “What are you doing, sir?” she asked him anxiously as she leaned her face as far back from his mouth as she could get it. “We’re at work. What are you doing?!”
“I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I first laid eyes on that black ass of yours,” the big-bellied white man said as he began kissing on her neck while his hands tried clumsily to get beneath her bra.
“All these flat asses around here. Flat as pancakes! But yours is most definitely not flat.” He was kissing her again.
She was leaning back again. “Now is it, Latoya? Is it?” He was talking between his stank kisses.
“You put these young girls to shame with your style and your body. They’re still just girls.
You’re a full-ass woman. And that’s what I want! ”
He went in for a mouth kiss, but Toya was able to fend him back with her hands to his barrel chest. “But you have a wife, sir.” She was still reasoning with him. She was still trying to buy time to figure out how in the world was she going to get herself out of this one.
“My wife is an old wench,” he said as he began massaging Toya’s breasts, even though he still couldn’t get his fat hands inside her cups. “I like fresh meat. I like ladies in their thirties just like you. Not too old. Not too young. You’re fresh meat just like I like it.”
When he squeezed her breasts, she cried out. “Stop!” she said loudly. “Please stop!” His breath smelled like raw fish, and she could feel the sweat on his jowly face dropping down on her neck. “Somebody will hear us if you don’t stop!”
But he only laughed at her distress. “Nobody can hear you down here,” he said as she continued to try to wiggle away from him.
“They’re all upstairs. I made sure of that when I allowed them to have their little breakfast in the conference room.
But if you scream I’ll kill you. I’m getting some of this today! ”
And that was when he took his hands and flung up her bra so violently that she knew in that instant the level of danger she was in.
How could he let her live if he went all the way?
How could he assault her this violently and let her live to tell about it?
She realized she had to fight for her life, not just for her right not to be violated!
And as his big body kept pressing her harder and harder against that countertop until she could barely move at all, she used the freedom of her hands to do the only thing she could think to do: She reached back, grabbed that hot plate filled with grits and bacon and sausage and eggs that sat in that microwave and slammed it brutally into his face.
He screamed out in agony and reflexively let her go of her as that hot food, especially those hot grits, stuck against his skin and seared it. He ran backwards, holding his face in agonizing pain, as he slammed his big back against the wall.
But Toya knew he wasn’t done yet, and that rage she felt for him wasn’t done yet either.
She grabbed the first thing she could grab, which was that pot of grits on the breakroom stove, the same pot from where she had gotten her grits.
It was no longer hot, but she didn’t care.
She rushed up to him and began beating him down with that pot until he was sliding to the floor covering his head with his hands and those grits in that pot were flying all over the room.
“I told you to leave me alone!” Toya was screaming as she kept plummeting him. “I told you to leave me alone!” She was trying to bash his fat head in. “Didn’t I tell your ass? Didn’t I tell your ass? Didn’t I tell your ass?!”
“Yes!” he was crying out. “You told me, yes!” He was no longer the big man in total control of the little lady.
“I told your ass! I told your ass!” She kept beating on him even as he was agreeing with every word she was speaking.
And then the door to the breakroom opened quickly, and a thin middle-aged white woman stood at the doorway. It was Agnes Lowe, the office manager who also happened to be Richard Lowe’s wife.
Toya stopped seeing red and came back to herself when she saw Mrs. Lowe in that doorway. She stopped beating on the woman’s husband and stood upright, that pot still in her hand. Toya knew that Mrs. Lowe could be a bitch just like her husband. But she knew how to conceal it better.
She looked at Toya’s torn blouse and her lifted bra, and the grits that had flown everywhere, including in Toya’s freshly-permed hair.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had taken place in that breakroom, and Toya could see that his wife knew exactly what had just taken place too.
But when she closed the door behind her, as if to hide what had happened, a sinking feeling came all over Toya’s body.
Because Mrs. Lowe had the look of a lady who knew exactly what kind of man she had married, and it was never going to be a deal-breaker for her.
And Toya realized, in that moment, that she’d just lost everything she’d worked thirteen years to achieve. Somehow she knew it.
But she still had to fight. “He attacked me,” she said to his wife.
But Richard declared himself the victim. “You see what she did to me?” He was still in pain as he looked up at his wife. “You see what that bitch did to me? She burned me in my face! I’ll be disfigured for life! You see what she did to me?!”
Mrs. Lowe was astonished as she looked at the blistering and bruising all over his jowly face.
Then she looked at their employee. And that look said it all to Toya. “What have you done?” she asked in a voice so accusatory and enraged that it enraged Toya even more.
“He assaulted me!” Toya replied angrily. “I didn’t come at him. He came at me! He tried to ra--”
But before Toya could even say the r word, his wife cut her off.
“You’re fired!” she said as if she was the victim too.
“As office manager I can fire at will. And you’re fired.
You don’t even pack a bag. You don’t even say goodbye to a living soul.
You get out of this office and you get out now or I’ll call the police. ”
“Then call the police.” Toya was frowning. “What I care about you calling the police? I want you to call’em. He came for me. He tried to rape me. You call them motherfuckers!”
But Mrs. Lowe only shook her narrow head. “You’re dumber than I thought you were. Just listen to yourself. If I phone the police, who do you think they’re going to believe? My husband, the president of the chamber of commerce, or you? A nobody!”
Toya’s entire demeanor changed.
“I witnessed the whole thing,” Mrs. Lowe lied and said.
“Jill wanted to promote you today, not because you deserved promotion. We needed a black face in one of the supervisory positions and you were the only half-way decent one we had. But my husband was dead-set against it and came in this breakroom to tell you so. And that was when you became your naturally violent self and attacked him. So I had no choice but to attack you to get you off of my sweet husband. That’s why your blouse is ripped.
That’s why this room is a mess. That’s why! ”
Then she gave Toya a look that could melt the North Pole.
“Now are you sure you want me to call the police? Are you sure you want to be arrested and stand trial for what I will declare to the rafters you absolutely did to my husband? Or do you want to accept your termination and leave this office, without ever mentioning this affair again, and never come back?” She folded her thin arms. “It’s up to you, Miss Morgan. ”
Toya knew those rednecks of Marion County wasn’t about to believe her even if The Lowes weren’t one of the most respected couples in town.
Their complexion was their protection and, on top of that, they were one of the most respected couples in town.
She’d be arrested, tried and convicted of something she didn’t do.
It was fight or flight for Toya and she knew it. And she knew, if she ran now, if she let him get away with this, she’d never stop running.
“Call the police,” she said firmly, and folded her arms too.
Mrs. Lowe was stunned. She didn’t expect that response, not for a second.
Secretly, she’d always thought of Latoya as a smart, levelheaded girl, unlike those other ghetto queens around town who didn’t have the sense they were born with.
She had to know she didn’t stand a chance.
She had to have that much going for her.
“I personally know the sheriff,” Mrs. Lowe said. “The mayor of Ocala has had dinner at our home on several occasions. You’ll get ten years’ incarceration I guarantee it.”
Toya knew she was taking the risk of her life.
She knew she was going to put herself into the hands of a criminal justice system that was rigged against people like her from its inception.
But he attacked her. He tried to rape her.
She wasn’t walking away from that like nothing never happened. “Call the police,” she said again.
Richard looked up at his wife. Then he looked at Toya with shame on his still-aching face. But he was who he was. “Call’em then,” he said defiantly to his wife even as he was still looking guiltily at Toya.
Toya’s heart was hammering in pure terror as his wife called the police. But she stood her ground.
Because she knew her self-respect was all she had.
Because she knew if she didn’t stand up for herself, who would?