Chapter 10: Sabina

This can be read and enjoyed as a stand-alone story, but deeper character depth and the effects of the plots, rivalries, twists and turns will be found by reading the chapters in order.

It was 1958, and when I heard the knock on the cheap motel door in Edgefield, Edgefield County, South Carolina, I said, “Enter,” and a 25-year-old Negress entered. Why I was there you will find out later.

As she entered, it immediately struck me. Body-wise, she looked like Anna Mae Bullock, later to become famous as Tina Turner. I had started listening to two South Carolina stations that played Negro blues and R&B, WOIC 1320AM, and WHYZ 1030AM, and had become hooked. There was no widespread FM then, just powerful AM stations. When Ike Turner, who recorded the first rock and roll predecessor in 1951, “Rocket 88”, became more famous, some Whites had started attending his shows on the Chitlin circuit. I was one of those and had noticed his backing singer Anna Mae Bullock. I should have signed her up then.

She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. For a moment she just stood there, her eyes darting around the room before settling back on me. She was as nervous as a cat in a dog pound, which in Edgefield, South Carolina in 1958 was probably a fair comparison for a Negress entering a white man’s motel room. Even more so considering why she was there.

But it was her body that made me sit up straighter in my chair and forget my bourbon on the nightstand. I had expected the usual southern Negress built for cotton-picking and child-bearing: heavy arse, thick thighs like tree trunks, and a waist that had disappeared sometime around 1945. Instead, what was standing before me was a vision that could have been on the stage of the Club Imperial in East St. Louis. She was Anna Mae Bullock to a T, or what Anna Mae, renamed as Tina Turner after their marriage, would become once Ike finished polishing her, and from her autobiography he did more than just polish her.

Sabina was twenty-five years old, maybe five foot four, with a body that was lean muscle but with good tits and an arse that I found I couldn’t tear my eyes away from. Her backside was tight and shapely but not what was starting at that time to be called a big booty, but her legs were the first thing that grabbed you, long and shapely with calves like a dancer’s that tapered down to slim ankles.

She wore a simple cotton house dress that had probably been washed a hundred times: a cheap pink floral print with little blue cornflowers that you could buy at any five-and-dime in Augusta. It had short sleeves frayed at the edges, no belt to speak of, just a line of buttons down the front that strained slightly across her chest. The hem fell modestly below the knee, but her legs were bare with no stockings, just smooth brown skin. On her feet she wore scuffed black flats, the kind of practical shoes a cleaning woman or a diner waitress would wear, and I noticed the leather was cracked across the toes. She was drawn here by the money.

Her face was what nailed the Tina Turner comparison. It was sharp and angular, with high cheekbones, a narrow nose, and eyes that were large and, given the situation, wary. Her lips were full, painted with a cheap red lipstick that had probably come from the Woolworth’s counter, and her hair had been straightened with a hot comb and pulled back from her face in a simple style. Her skin was the colour of strong tea with cream, smooth despite the obvious poverty, and her hands, clutching a small worn handbag of plain black vinyl, had long fingers with nails bitten short and unpainted.

“Morning, Sabina,” I said, leaning back. “You aren’t what I was expecting. But you know why you are here, don’t you?”

She swallowed, her throat working nervously. “Yes, Maasa,” she said, in a low, husky voice. “I heard about it from some woman in the audience at the Havana Club in St Louis. I know none of the men thinks I look good or sexy, but I want to try for what the message said we had to do. This ain’t no joke, is it?”

“Call me Bill,” I said, and then continued, “As you can see, I am white, not black, so I think differently from those men, including how I think you look. And yes, the message you heard was correct.” Her eyes brightened, though I didn’t know which of my replies caused that.

It made sense. I had used word of mouth at clubs and other venues on the Chitlin circuit for black blues and R&B bands. As they listened to bands such as Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm, BB King, Ray Charles and James Brown, and more to my taste, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, the audience would talk and gossip to other attendees. It was proving to be one of my better ideas. As if on cue, the radio blasted out Little Red Rooster, and she exclaimed, “Howlin’ Wolf. I like this one, but I love his “Back Door Man”, more.” Interesting, I thought: the music or the action.

“I suppose you need to see me naked?” she asked “I am not good looking and black men don’t want me, but I think and dream of sex a lot and can do what you want.” I nodded.

Her fingers trembled as they went to the top button of her faded pink floral dress. It slipped through the worn hole, then the rest followed. When the last button came free, she let the dress slide off her shoulders and pool around her scuffed black flats on the thin carpet. She stepped out of it, and stood there in nothing but a pair of plain white cotton underpants, her arms crossed over her small tits she was trying to hide.

“More,” I said.

She obeyed slowly. The underpants came down over her slim hips, and she was naked, her hands twitching at her sides like she didn’t know what to do with them. Christ, she was magnificent, but she didn’t know or believe it about herself. Her body was lean and muscled: the kind of body that came from hard work and not enough food.

Her tits were small but high and perfectly shaped, the nipples a dark chocolate brown and stiff from fear or the coldness from the air-conditioner, which had just started to be a consumer item, or both. Her waist was narrow, almost pinched, before flaring to slim hips, and her arse was tight and high, not the heavy black booty she probably thought men wanted. Her legs, fully exposed now, were even better than I had guessed: long for her height, the thighs slim but strong, with defined calves.

She stood straightened up when I asked, presenting herself with her chin down, her eyes on the floor, and I saw the untamed black hair at her cunt and the dark line of her arse crack. Her stomach was flat, almost hollowed, with the faint outline of ribs showing, and her collarbones were prominent.

“Turn around,” I said, and she obeyed, her movements jerky and uncertain, giving me the full view. From the back view I took in the taper of her waist, the tight curve of her arse cheeks, and those legs that seemed to go on forever. When she faced me again, her arms had drifted back across her chest, and her eyes were still wary, still waiting for the judgement of unsatisfactory that she expected.

“You are the best of the 173 Negro women that have come to this room since 1953, Sabina,” I said, “That dress was doing you no favours. Tina Turner has nothing on you.”

She said nothing, just stood there, mouth open in shock, her nipples hard under my gaze, as she searched my face to see if my words were what I really thought. Seemingly satisfied, she asked, “Have any won the money?”

I shook my head. “No one has, but all have been paid for coming here and trying.”

Her eyes caught the bulge in my trousers. She swallowed a couple of times and then asked, Do you want to try me to see if you think I am good enough to try for the money?”

Thank God, at last. I thought she would never ask.

“On the bed,” I said. “And lower your arms. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

She crawled onto the thin mattress they must make specially for cheap motels and lay on her back, knees pressed together, staring at the ceiling with the expression of a woman walking along death row. I stripped quickly, worrying that she had been fucked by some well-hung Negro. When I dropped my trousers, and my cock sprang free, her eyes widened to the size of saucers, her gaze locked on it like she was trying to calculate whether it would fit or split her in two.

“It’s ... it’s so big,” she whispered. “I ain’t never ... I mean, the few men I knew did it with the light off, but I am sure they were nothing like yours.”

Thank God for small mercies. I started gently, more gently than normal. I kissed her neck first, then her collarbone, working my way down to her tits that felt like ripe peaches. I sucked a dark nipple into my mouth, rolling it with my tongue, and she gasped, her back arching off the mattress. “Oh Lawdy,” she breathed, her hands fluttering at her sides before settling on my shoulders.

“You’re beautiful, Sabina,” I murmured against her skin. “Any woman would kill for this body. Lean, strong, every inch of you tight as a drum. Those Negro boys don’t know what they’re missing.”

She made a sound that was half happiness, half sob, and I moved lower, tracing my tongue down her flat belly to her untamed jungle of cunt hair. I made a mental note that it had to go. I parted her legs with my hands, feeling the resistance there, her ingrained modesty caused by lack of use, but she let me. I lapped at her cunt, finding her clit with the tip of my tongue, and she jolted like she’d touched a live wire.

“Easy,” I said. “Let it happen. You’re soaking wet already. Your body knows what it wants even if you don’t.”

I ate her slowly, methodically, the way I approached a good steak. Her juices were tangy and rich and filled my mouth as I worked her with my tongue and fingers. She responded, moaning loudly, as her hips rose to meet my face and her fingers tangled in my hair to hold me there. When I slid a finger inside her, she was tight as my wallet, and her cunt walls gripped me. I worked her gently, curling my finger until I found the spot that made her eyes roll back, and she cried out, a sharp, surprised sound. “Maasa Bill ... oh Maasa Bill, what you doing to me?”

“Giving you what you deserve,” I said, rising and positioning myself between her legs. I guided my cock to her entrance, pressing the head against her opening, and pushed in slowly. She was so tight I groaned despite myself, feeling her stretch around me inch by inch. Her nails dug into my back, her teeth biting her lower lip until I thought she might draw blood. “Relax,” I whispered, feeding her more of my length.

Once I was fully seated inside her, I held still, letting her adjust to the fullness, feeling her throb around my shaft. Then I began to move, slowly and deeply, grinding my shaft against her clit with each thrust. Her moans grew louder, less frightened, more hungry. She started moving with me, her slim hips rising to meet my downward strokes, her legs wrapping around my waist.

“Good girl,” I grunted, picking up the pace. “See? Your body knows. What you need.”

My gentleness didn’t last. I felt the moment she surrendered completely, her body going soft and open beneath me, and I took it as permission to unleash. I flipped her over onto her stomach, pulling her up onto her knees, and slammed into her cunt from behind. She yelped, then pushed back against me, her arse meeting my hips with loud slaps.