C6 Spike and Coffey (Alicia Chay)

Staring at Gree with hatred, Coffey remembered the last party she served as a chef for Gree's invited guests. There were twenty guests in attendance she catered to without a thank you or a head nod. Two of the red-faced men followed her into the back pantry and defiled her against her will. After they were done beating her, she went back out to Gree's dinner party with two black eyes and a swollen lip.

Gree found it amusing, so did her wealthy guests. “Get up on the table, Coffey. Stand there naked with that swollen face. I'm thinking about putting you up for sale. You're washed up."

Coffey glared at her house nigger husband. He looked deep in her eyes. He was whipped by Gree riding the juicy erection of his loins every day and night, sometimes four times a day. He made her urinate and squirt over and over while he released in her face or in her throat. Coffey lowered her head. Her husband Spike was dressed in expensive satin and velvet and suede. His tuxedo had a ruffled shirt.

He looked better than any white man that sat in the room. Gree goo-goo eyed him, making her guests uncomfortable. She lied about him being her right-hand slave, justified it by saying she employed him only for sexual labor. To please her in every way. To see him more than he sees his wife. And if he said “no,” she threatened to cut off Coffey's breasts, salted over some onions, and feed it to him.

When she refused to get on the table, Spike and the two red-faced men that defiled her stood up, picked her up and threw her on the table like a bag of trash. It was her husband that demanded that she obey Gree.

"Don't you understand, Coffey, that I love her and not you?" Spike said, breaking Coffey’s heart.

"Die a thousand times!" Coffey yelled at him.

Spike treated her like a dog. "Head high!" He demanded. Coffey held her head high. "Take off your clothes!" Coffey took off her clothes. "Hold your breasts and turn to the left so these potential buyers can check out your assets." And she did so with huge tears running down her face. It stung because her eyes were swollen and she only saw him through blurs and floating colors that she couldn't quite grasp.

All the guests passed on her. With a swollen face she was damaged inventory and damaged goods had to be discarded. Coffey decreased in value, making her a sudden liability Gree had to rectify.

After the dinner party ended, the guests raked all the scraps that was left on their plates, all the uneaten food, and forced Coffey to eat it while they filed out of the room. Gree stripped Spike naked and was making love to him in the middle of the table like wild animals. If Gree didn't get pleasured, she would kill him. She killed black men, chopped off their penises when they did not sleep with her, without batting an eyelash and fed them to her dogs. They only ate black flesh or bloody meat. For Coffey's husband, he feared death, so he pleasured Gree in every way she saw fit. Spike also made sure that at night when his wife wept in his arms, he made love to Coffey in a way he would never make love Gree. Then they snuck to the barn and slept with their kids.

"We have to obey to survive, sweetheart."

"This can't be our life," said Coffey.

"Mom, will me and my brother ever leave this dungeon?"

"In due time, sons."

"Coffey, snap out of it!" Gree yelled, bringing her back to earth. "What were you thinking about? I've been talking to you this whole time, and you're standing there like you're in a trance, like you're remembering something from the past. If you're thinking about doing something to me...change your mind before I kill you right here. I don't know what it is, but you need to come back down to earth and do what I'm asking you to do, which is follow my directions.

"Ma'am, I apologize for my undue insolence," Coffey said, covering her face.

"You know I'm a woman of action. You remember your punishment for disobeying me."

Only then did Coffey look up. "Ma'am! Please, he's my husband!"

"Is that a fact?"

"Yes."

"But you're my property, so is he, correct?"

"Yes..."

"He's my laborer and my lover, and so are you. Either you do the job, or I'll make him do it right in front of you, like the night before."

Gree stepped out of the bathtub as Coffey gently pat-dried her body with cotton. When her eyes locked onto mine through the mirror, I momentarily possessed her. Gree gazed at Coffey with awe as the slave slowly rose to her feet in a trance. Coffey thrilled Gree with a smile and seduced her with a wink. Once Gree led Coffey to the balcony, she offered her herbal resin tea in a porcelain cup adorned with glittering spectacle. With huge black eyes, Coffey accepted the drink. Spike had chains around his neck, stripped naked.

The two red-faced men that assaulted her stood behind him, taking off their belts and loosening their trousers. "I know you're wondering why I have your husband chained, Coffey. My two brothers here, they're not my guests or my friends by the way, said that they overheard your husband telling you, while he's making love to you in a way he never made love to me, I had him thousands of times, that it was all an act...." Coffey looked at Spike, and he didn't recognize her eyes. He immediately knew something was off about his wife. Spike was helpless. "I also hear that your oldest son is about to be eighteen." Spike growled. "What are you talking about?" Gree whistled, and one of her brothers brought out his two sons.

I got to give it to the boys. They were very strong and well mannered. They kept their bearings. They didn't fold, they didn't break down. They didn't even shed a tear. Coffey was a fascinating woman. To discover how she was turned against her will into a slave resonated with me in a way that caused me to understand her, not feed on her. I couldn't imagine my captors throwing my immediate family to the sharks in the Atlantic Ocean while I helplessly watched the waters turn red.

Coffey instilled so much fight in her children hover the years, that they were prepared for anything if it happened, even war because their mother already taught them how to move if they were ever caught, in a way their sorry Father never could because he was too busy sleeping with the Master and loving her and convincing his wife that he still loved her as well.