Chapter 4

In the 21st century, introversion has been replaced by an obsessive need to look at one's phone in social situations. Nick Calloway, certainly, was an introvert.

It took not even 60 seconds of silence before Nick had dug out his phone while his great-great-grandfather's silence quickly morphed into staring at the television.

When he looked at his phone, Nick noticed that his Kik notification had lit up like a Christmas tree.

Message from Laura from England. Message from Kiana from Atlanta.

Message from Brittani.

The notification from Brittani is what sent a chill up his spine. She was, because of her age, bad news. Really bad news. Nick decided to wait until he checked the others before he saw what she had to say. All he saw was the first few words of her message next to her avatar

Britt_bitch15: I'm Sorry I took off...

He sucked back his temptation and checked on the other two, both of which were girls he met when trying to find girls to sext on a site called KikFuckers.com. He'd already "went all the way" with them, in the sexting world, at least.

Laurish1551: Hello Nick

Laura was a 24-year-old married girl from Hastings. When she and Nick first met online, she wanted to do a thing called "role play," in which both he and she pretended to be characters in a scenario while sexting.

In retrospect, the whole practice was dorky, Nick thought. Like a night with a prostitute, the two set ground rules, agreed upon a scenario, and, while staying in character, advanced a story with one another which ultimately ends with sex, all inside of the medium of text messages.

In their first scenario, in which Nick pretended to be a 17th-century aristocrat named "Lord Pennyfeather" and Laura was a maiden sex slave named "Annabel Stratford," they somehow created a scene that ended in an orgy in a poorly-lit sex dungeon that would make the Marquis de Sade blush.

Ultimately, the two dropped the pretenses and just sexted with each other. When she discovered Nick's endowment and he realized she was a lonely D-cup redhead housewife, the two had played with other a few times a week ever since.

So, Laura's "Hello Nick" was less a salutation than a digital booty call.

YoGirlKiki: Are you busy? I wanted to ask you something.

Kiana made Nick smile. Kiana was a 19-year-old single mother from Atlanta with a selfie addiction. She loved sending selfies to Nick and he would oblige with some of his own. They talked about her infant son's father, who had just gotten out of prison for trafficking, as well as her baby-daddy's new girlfriend. She also talked about the struggles of being a single parent living on a fixed income while attending school, and Nick genuinely liked talking to her. She was funny and smart as a whip.

But, he was somewhat of a predator with her. She didn't sext. Hadn't ever done it. He tried to make insinuations but she never bit. And he was desperate. Based on what she told him and what he'd seen in pictures, she was 5-foot-7 and about 160 pounds with a curvy bubble butt. His Pièce De Résistance, though, was laying his eyes on her 38J chest, which was still swelling from breast-feeding.

It was strange how any photo that included peeks of Kiana's cleavage sent Nick to the moon with excitement, almost as much as a bare-boob pic from somebody else. She was a stunning, light-skinned black woman with green eyes and soft, frizzy black hair. After being emotionally broken by her ex-boyfriend, she actually loved simply talking to Nick. But, Nick desperately wanted more.

First, he responded to Laura. Before doing so, he scrolled up to old messages, seeing a pic of her modeling a purple push up bra that she'd recently gotten. Her tits were incredibly full, and the lighting of the picture was perfect. She looked so ripe and healthy. It was enough to make his cock begin to plump.

Nickthedick_95: Hello Laura 😉

Nick grinned as he reassured their "connotations" of hello.

He went back to Kiana, and again, scrolled up through a long, recent conversation. First, he wanted to remind himself what they had most recently talked about, and second, he wanted to see a few of her selfies.

He saw that they had most recently talked about her ex-boyfriend. Not only was he threatening to sue for custody, but he also reeked of weed on his last visitation, joined by his also weed-reeking girlfriend.

But Nick's mind got washed away when he saw one of Kiana's recent selfies, wearing sunglasses while driving, her son's car seat visible in the corner. The entire bottom of the screen, though, was taken up by a mile of cleavage in a tight pink and purple top.

Nick audibly groaned when looking at it. He felt a tingle down his spine, going straight to his dick.

"Christ, boy!" Edward groaned, causing Nick to jump out of his seat in shock. "I thought I told you to put that damn thing away!"

Nick saw his cock tenting his pants, immediately recoiling and dropping his phone on the floor in surprise. Edward looked down at it, seeing the cleavage-filled picture from Kiana. He immediately started laughing.

"Boy, if I brought Eliza there home, my mother would have killed me!" Edward said. "But us Calloway men have nigger dicks, so it makes sense! They like that sorta thing!"

Nick was still embarrassed, even more so after hearing his great-great-grandfather's slur. Somewhat angry, his cock already shrunken, Nick picked his phone up off the floor.

"Grandpa! Kiana ... she ... she's not an ... n ... N-word," Nick stammered.

Edward grinned, chuckling and shaking his head. "I didn't say that! Jesus Christ, you get a negro president and you can't say anything..."

"Shut up!" Nick howled, interrupting Edward. "President Obama is not a ... negro" he began, his voice dropping an octave as he finished his sentence.

"Right, I forgot," Edward said, sarcastically. "I mean 'African American.'" He shook his head again.

"Yes. Thank you."

Edward began to scowl at Nick, inwardly scoffing at his great-great-grandson's beard, curlicue moustache and stylish hair, and his apparently trendy suspenders holding up his jeans. The whole sight filled him with rage. It reminded him too much.

Nick represented something to Edward that still made his blood boil, even after 114 years.

"That's the trouble with you kids!" Edward groaned with a head full of steam. "Gotta be politically correct. Use the right word about everythin'. And you expect us to, too!"

Nick's breath caught in his throat as he tried to say something, but Edward just continued.

"I grew up in a different time. Teddy grew up in a different time. I'm old as shit, you understand?!"

Meekly, Nick looked at Edward and nodded.

"No, I don't think you understand, boy. I'm OLD. AS. SHIT! And goddammit, we talked differnt. If you were black, they called you a nigger. If you were I-talian, you were a wop. And I was called a cracker. A peckerwood. White trash. A..."

Hearing such words, Nick was aghast and horrified. He was enraged enough that he interrupted Edward.

"I don't fucking care, Grandpa! I don't want to hear the N-word! It makes me uncomfortable!"

Edward's eyes turned fiery at being interrupted, his lips curling into a mock, sad face.

"Oh, you feel uncomfortable?" Edward said sarcastically. "You hear a bad word, and it makes you uncomfortable?"

"Just shut up, alright!?" Nick shouted sheepishly. "You can be racist all you want, but don't say hateful things around me, okay?"

Edward's eyes turned to fire.

Racist.

The very idea made the old man angrily cringe. He might have been lots of things, but "racist" wasn't one of them. He was sure of that. The very implication made Edward explode in an inappropriate, almost evil laugh.

The ominous sound of his dusty chuckles made Nick recoil somewhat. He flinched as he tried to read his great-great-grandfather's eyes, highly expressive, hinting at something devious.

"Racist, huh?" Edward blurted matter-of-factly, the tone of his voice suggesting that he was incredulous. "My whole damned life, very few people suggested I was racist. I'm one of the least racist people you've ever met."

"But..." Nick responded after a long silence, " ... you said the N-word."

Edward was spitting mad at his great-great-grandson repeating his implication of racism.

"Who cares?!" Edward yelled, his voice starting to give. "I think I earned the right!"

Nick's eyes got huge as his resolve returned. "Why would you have ANY right to use the N-word?!"

Edward pushed his false teeth against his bottom lip, angry spurts of saliva shooting through. He was beyond upset, the whole conversation bringing back decades of pain.

"Y'know what I was called, Nicky? Huh? You know what they called me more than anything?! It sure as shit wasn't 'racist.'"

Nick stared blankly after getting cut off by Edward, nervous where this conversation was going.

"Nigger ... Lover!" Edward said, emphasis on his final word, nodding his head matter-of-factly. "Let that sink in to your liberal head. Nigger ... Lover!"

Nick had no idea what to say to that. He was simply stunned. His ears hated the N-word, but he struggled with the connotations of what "nigger lover" meant. Even thinking about the word made his skin crawl.

Edward leaned against his chair, clutching an empty brandy glass, the melting ice clanging around as he slowly pumped his wrist and surveyed the women on the dance floor.

He was a regular. Sometimes he'd dance, other times just enjoy the music at the Dreamland Cafe in South Side Chicago, a "black and tan" club that admitted both whites and blacks.

On this night, though, the Dreamland was far more black than tan, and that suited Edward just fine. King Oliver was on the cornet and Bill Johnson on the bass, but to Edward, their Creole jazz was just background beats as he eyed a sea of women, and Louise Jefferson, in particular, cutting a rug.

Louise was most recently from Chicago, but she was a Southern girl through and through. The few times that Edward had heard her speak, he had trouble keeping up with her. It was like talking to an Okie back in Kansas, but different.

"Bill Johnson sez ah is cute as a button and sing lak a angel," Louise would say as she stood on stage, introducing herself before one of her periodic sets with King Oliver's band, a shy blush fighting its way through her dark brown skin. The drawl sounded both exotic and calming to Edward, strangely reminding him of home.

The southern black drawl was somewhat common among those that frequented Chicago's jazz clubs. King Oliver had it, albeit with a Creole twang, and a lot of other transplants from the South had it, many recently escaping from the lynchings and Jim Crow practices of the South.

Regardless, it was especially alluring coming from Louise.

She was a few years younger than Edward's 20 years, just days from being 18, but she had the strange way of looking like she was both 11 years old and 40 years old at the same time, showing the curious combination of youth and experience that you'd expect from a 17-year-old that had run away from home and been on her own for some time. She was undeniably cute, with giant brown eyes and rouge upon her dark cheeks. When she smiled a wide-toothed grin, showing a bit of gums along with smaller than normal teeth, she looked terribly innocent and girlish.

But, her clothes told a different story.

Unlike the straight, frilly drapes that a lot of the other, mostly white, flappers wore, Louise wore a black and gold dress, flaring naturally at her hips with gold fringe dangling toward her knees. The gold fringe also adorned the top, as well, which was part of an absolutely scandalous plunging top that exposed Louise's sizable cleavage. Her dark red lipstick and her short, pressed and bobbed hair, literally shining under the stage lights, illuminated her entire head, beckoning every eyeball in the Dreamland unto her.

The Dreamland was Edward's secret - at least to the people back home. His family and friends back in Kansas would faint if they knew where he was at, fraternizing with negroes in such a scandalous place, smelling of cigars and recently-outlawed booze.

But in Chicago, where Edward was working as a bellboy at the famous Blackstone Hotel, attracting a who's who of famous, and sometimes infamous, guests, he had no problem hiding. There was nothing to hide from. In Chicago, there were no real rules. While you still didn't bring negroes to white places and vice versa, nobody batted an eye when you chose to hang out in a black and tan club. There was the occasional run-in, but it was all mostly forgotten in the name of fun.

Mostly.

When Edward worked the day shift at the Blackstone, he sometimes took his tips to buy a bottle of scotch or whatever he could from the speakeasy at the 226 Club on Wabash Avenue and not-so-secretly sneak the booze into the Dreamland in his coat pocket. Everybody did it, with the express understanding that if you got busted in a raid, it was your own ass on the line.

It created a near-constant feeling of foreboding danger. Edward used that danger when he burnt holes through Louise as she danced, reaching into his coat pocket to slowly pull out the small, unlabeled bottle of scotch. The slow cadence of his action, brazenly making a show of opening up the bottle to refresh his glass, grabbed Louise's attention, producing a knowing smirk.

Edward was eager to get to know the girl behind the golden pipes, having largely failed in his previous attempts to earn her attention, at least in the carnal sense. With a fresh pocket full of dough after getting his latest check from the Blackstone, he splurged to buy a white fedora with a black band, black shirt and a white silk tie. It was a daring combination for a white man on the streets of Chicago, but inside of the Dreamland, mixing with black men dressed very similar, it was normal.

As he topped himself off with a pour of scotch, Louise bopped her hips in a dancing walk as she inched up to Edward, flashing an intoxicated, side-eyed grin.

"Some 'air of de dawg, Missah Calloway?" Louise questioned as she sashayed up to Edward, a close-mouthed, proud grin growing on his face.