Preview of "Tourniquet" by Keith Kareem Williams

Sneak Peek of "Tourniquet"
by Keith Kareem Williams

**Here's an exclusive sneak peek of my latest short story....only because I love you guys. I submitted it today so hopefully, it will be accepted. Please, leave comments and let me know if you'd turn the page.**


DROP 1 – Square Peg, Round Hole


Gavin pulled his father’s old revolver from underneath the futon’s run-down mattress. He had been sound asleep until the racket at his front door abruptly ripped him away from dreams he couldn’t remember now. He listened with the pistol in his hand as the front door shook weakly on its hinges as someone on the other side wrestled with the locks. He could feel his heart rattle erratically in his chest as he nervously prepared to send a hot slug straight through whoever was trying to break into his apartment. He’d never actually had to pull the trigger before so he could only pray that the gun even worked. He would find out soon enough as the door swung open.

“You really need to fix this damn lock,” Angelique said as she finally forced the door open. “SHIT!” she screamed, ducking, holding her head and dropping her schoolbag when she saw Gavin’s gun aimed at her.

“What the…I nearly shot you! Why didn’t you knock?” Gavin yelled and quickly stashed the gun back in its hiding place.

“Because I have a key, remember? You know, the one you gave me as a symbol of our love and permission to show up anytime I want?” she answered, gathering the books that had slipped out of her bag and lay scattered all over the apartment floor. Her heart was beating so fast that she could feel it shaking in her chest.

“Next time, knock first,” he told her, still shaken up over nearly blowing a hole in his girlfriend.

“Fix the damn lock!” she told him again as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “And I told you to get rid of that friggin’ thing! You see how you nearly shot me?”

“I’m sorry. Now fix your face. I hate when you pout like that,” he told her as he sat up to the chorus of crinkling papers. All over the futon that served as his bed, loose sheets of lined paper torn from notebooks lay scattered about with his scribbled chapters all over them. It was a sure sign that he had a lot of his mind. More and more, writing down his thoughts had become his only form of therapy when the weight of his world threatened to break his back. Angelique put her bag down in the corner and sighed as she studied the chaos. The apartment was as messy as she'd ever seen it. She never understood how he couldn't keep such a tiny place neat. It wasn't like he lived in a mansion. She put her hands on her curvy hips while she tried to decide if she should wash the pile of dirty dishes in the sink or tackle the tangle of papers first.

“What a mess,” she said, pulling her long brown hair into a ponytail as she prepared to clear the papers up. She hated doing dishes anyway.

“Like the mess on your face?” Gavin asked, noticing the black and purple bruise on the side of her face once her hair was swept back. “If your stepfather…” he started to say.

“Oh this?” she asked, pointing to her cheek. “Yeah, it wasn’t him. I made a new best friend today.” Angelique answered. She had been having such a horrible week at school that she really didn't want to revisit her most recent ugly incident. She tried to avoid going into details as she started to gather the scattered pages before Gavin stopped her.

“Don’t worry about that. What happened to your face?” he asked. She pretended to ignore him until he gripped her by the arm firmly to her get her attention.

“I got jumped by Kiki Weston and her debutante goonettes,” Angelique answered as Gavin pulled her to sit down next to him.

“For what?” he asked, touching the discolored blotch on her face with his finger. She winced in pain as he poked at the tender spot.

“Well, I was minding my own business after gym class, getting dressed in the locker room and I overheard Kiki tellin’ her little bitch squad that I was a lesbian,” she started to explain.

“And then?” he asked, pressing for more details. He knew his girlfriend well enough to know that there was a whole lot more to the story.

“And then, I walked over to Kiki, grabbed her tit and squeezed her ass. She’s got a nice one too by the way. It’s much softer than it looks in her three hundred-dollar jeans. Anyway, she gets all upset and starts swinging, and then I fought back, and then I start winning, and then I got jumped,” she continued nonchalantly.

“Looks like you caught the worst of it,” he joked.

“Oh no sweetie. I took down her whole punk-ass crew. This only looks bad because I’m so pale. You should have seen what they looked like when I was done with ‘em. If Mrs. Schwartz hadn’t stopped it, I think I would have put at least one of ‘em in a hospital bed,” she said with a satisfied smile and an excited gleam in her eyes.

“I can’t believe I’m in love with a damn goon. You fight too much. You know that that’s very un-ladylike right?” he laughed.

“Whatever. You love it though,” she giggled. “With the amount of times I’ve had to fight my scumbag step-daddy, I better be or I’d be in trouble. AND, I wouldn’t fight if people didn’t pick on me. All I wanna do is paint and mind my own business. Anyhow, my goon-ish behavior got me suspended from school for a week.”

“Your mom is gonna scream your ear off when she finds out you were in another fight,” Gavin warned.

“No, she won’t because she’ll never find out. The cable and the house phone is off because her awesome husband hasn’t paid the bill yet. I’m surprised the bum hasn’t let the lights get cut off yet. Lazy ass, video game all day playin’ ass, grown-ass, can’t keep a job, derelict-ass, piece of shit. Anyway, I’m lookin’ forward to the days off…speaking of which, why haven’t you shown up to class for two days mister?” she asked as she punched him in the chest playfully.

“Eh, I just didn’t feel like goin’. I caught a nice flow with this story I’ve been working on so I stayed home to work on it,” he explained, picking up one of the loose pages to show her. She pushed it away.

“Are you trying to get yourself in trouble? You’re gonna keep cuttin’ class until they send a social worker over here. What you think is gonna happen when they find out that your dad died and that you’re here all on your own?” she asked.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m almost old enough to be on my own legally anyway,” he answered.

“Keyword: ALMOST! I don’t know why you just don’t call your mom to let her know what’s going on,” she asked.

“Why would I do that? The last time we heard from her was when she called to rub it in my dad’s face that she was pregnant with twin girls for her new man. That was almost four years ago. Naw, I’m good. I’ll manage on my own,” he answered.

The hurt and disgust on his face made Angelique feel guilty. The pain in his voice hurt her as well and she was sorry that she mentioned his mother. She already knew how Gavin felt about her and cursed herself for speaking without thinking. The slightest mention of the woman who had given birth to him and then eventually abandoned him brought about nothing but grief. She knew it was possible that she might have triggered a dangerous bout of depression for the man she loved. Sometimes his melancholy moods lasted for days at a time. At that moment, she wished that she could have crawled under a rock and died for being so foolish. To make things worse, she knew that he was deeply missing his father who had died just the month before from a heart attack. His dad had raised him as a single parent since he was a small boy. Angelique’s father had been killed when she was just a baby so she didn’t know what it was like to have a real dad. Her abusive stepfather certainly didn’t count. The closest thing she could equate to his loss was what the living nightmare that her life would be without her mom.

“I miss your dad too. He was always kind to me,” she told him, knowing his soul and exactly what was causing it to ache. He was the one human being that she felt totally in tune with. “I wish your dad could’ve met my mom instead of my stepfather.”

“I don’t,” he answered with a smirk.

“Your dad was a good guy that deserved a good lady so why not? Something wrong with my mom?” she asked.

“Not at all but if our parents had hooked up that would have made us brother and sister and we couldn’t do this!” Gavin answered, grabbing Angelique by the waist. Before she could say a word, he had pulled her on top of him.

“Ouch, not so rough,” she told him as he started to aggressively strip off her clothes. Her body still ached in certain places from where she’d taken a beating from Team Weston. Once her bra was off, she put her breast in his eager mouth. She made a mental note to remind him to get a shave as his scruffy beard tickled her skin. His hands wrestled with the drawstring on her tight grey sweatpants. Once he had them loose and pulled down to her ankles, his hands found their way to her plump rear. He loved how juicy she was. Her butt was so big that no matter what size panties she wore, they always seemed a size too small. She loved the way his hands felt on her body. She quickly slipped out of her underwear while he got out of his jeans.