Black Grandpa, the Second Cumming

Mary Not Wollstonecraft

© Copyright 2025 by Mary Not Wollstonecraft

NOTE: This work contains material not suitable for anyone under eighteen (18) or those of a delicate nature. This is a story and contains descriptive scenes of a graphic, sexual nature. This tale is a work of pure fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously-any resemblance to actual persons, whether living, deceased, real events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Black Grandpa, the Second Cumming

The Grace Way Church was one inch shy of a pastor worshiping cult. They had an aggressive outreach program modeled on the Church of Latter Day Saints and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This involved sending young, attractive people door to door. Especially going into the homes of the elderly.

Even if they couldn’t get them into the services, they expected their daughters and sons to bring back donations. And while they don’t advertise to the younger members of their outreach participants to use sex as a weapon, once they’ve experienced several failures, they are turned over to the Outreach Director to train them.

When that happened, they were indoctrinated into a different kind of religion.

But Faith Anderson hasn’t reached that point in her training. And for her second mission, they send her to the one man who might throw a monkey wrench in their works.

When Faith Anderson parked her rusty Civic under the shade of a dying sycamore, she double-checked the address scrawled on the scrap of pamphlet. Six digits, all correct. As if triple confirmation might still her heart.

The whole street stank of cut grass and watered dirt, with every house showing off their little trophies. Star-spangled buntings, ceramic birdbaths, the rare Obama-Biden sticker fading to a bruise in the late June sun.

However, Faith’s target had no flag, no decoration, only a door as black and severe as the lines of a barcode.

Before exiting the car, she smoothed her skirt and adjusted her cardigan. The sleeves of the sweater pinched at the elbows, and she hated the way the polyester tickled her arms. Coiled into two severe pigtails, her hair yanked at her scalp.

Clutching her Bible to her chest, the pink Post-its stuck up, neon teeth markers. Clutched in her other hand, a fan of four-color tracts, each with its own promised path to salvation.

“God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind,” she said, and forced her sneakers out onto the curb.

Marcus Thompson’s house squatted at the end of the cul-de-sac, alone, confident, not trying to impress anyone. Windows mirrored the sky, refusing to let strangers peek in. However, Faith’s hands trembled anyway. Counting every step, she made herself walk in the open. The hedge scratched her ankle, so she made herself do it again, slower, like she owned the sidewalk.

She practiced her smile and lines, tossing them out into the muggy evening. “Hello! I’m Faith, from-” No, too eager. “Good afternoon, sir, may I speak-” Too telemarketer. Maybe just knock and let the Spirit move.

At the door, she wiped the sweat from her palms onto her skirt and prayed the polyester would dry quick. Eyeing her reflection in the narrow sidelight, she hesitated. Blue eyes too large for her face, skin too milk-white, lips chewed raw. She didn’t see anything there that hinted of bravery.

Knocking on the door, her fist barely made a sound against the old painted wood, but the sound carried anyway, all the way down her spine. Again, Faith knocked, three times, like she meant it.

She shivered, forced herself to roll her shoulders back, and smooth her skirt. This was what she was supposed to do. This was what Sister Chapman had told her: “He’s been on the list for years, Faith, but nobody ever makes it past the first minute. Now it’s your turn to try, and I’m sure you can get a foot in the door.”

However, Faith wasn’t sure if that was a compliment.

The wait took forever. The inside of Faith’s mouth dried up. Probably, he wouldn’t answer. It might’ve been that he saw her from a window and decided to hide, or the rumor about the reclusive ‘Black Grandpa,’ who lived there, was true.

It has been said that he spends his days deflowering white virgins. Also, it is rumored that when he isn’t making girls into women, he’s pleasing white women of all ages.

Perhaps he’d died inside, and no one knew. She tried again, this time a little harder. Out of frustration, Faith pressed her ear to the door, listening.

The deadbolt shot back with a sharp, metallic click, and the door whipped open. Shocked, Faith jerked upright, face to face with the largest human she’d ever seen up close.

Marcus Thompson-Black Grandpa, as everyone called him stood on the threshold in a sleeveless gray tee and navy sweats. With his bare feet planted wide on the cool tile. He loomed, not just in height (Faith guessed at least 6’6 or 7), but in density, a man who had aged into his bones rather than out of them.

Ebony skin, rich and smooth, caught the lamplight and made Black Grandpa’s arms and neck shine. Silver fuzzed the edges of his frizzy hair, and he wore a look that could turn milk sour.

He did not say hello. He did not say anything. He just waited, arms crossed, as if measuring how long Faith could last under direct fire.

“Um, Mr. Thompson? I’m Faith Anderson. From Grace Way?” Faith squeaked the words mousy and weak.

A slow blink, not unfriendly, but not much else.

“You’re early. Supper’s not till seven.”

“Oh! No… I mean, I’m not here for supper. I’m…” She forced her mouth to shut for a half-beat. “I wanted to talk to you about… um… well, we’re going door-to-door, talking about the Good News. Just for a few minutes?”

Black Grandpa glanced down, his gaze moving from the tracts to the Bible, to the pink-white knuckles of her hands. For the life of her, Faith tried not to shrink, but her shoes turned into two blocks of ice.

“Despite them immense ole tits, you look young. That a requirement now? The looking young with big tits, I mean.”

Faith blinked, flushed, and managed a nervous giggle.

“Eighteen, actually. Just small.” She raised her chin a bit, trying to hit her mark. “And my dad always said my faith made me younger.”

“Hmm.” Marcus leaned into the jamb, showing off the musculature of his shoulders, and sighed through his nose.

“Let me tell you something, had three women last week at this door. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and two girls in blue skirts from the Unification Church. All tried to save me. You gonna tell me you’re different?”

Black Grandpa considered Faith as though she were the most perplexing of the set.

The directness staggered her. She stammered, “I…I don’t…um…think I can save anyone. Only Jesus can do that. We just, um, bring the message.” The words came out by reflex, a catechism, but her voice rose at the end, like a question.

He nodded once, a micro-expression of respect, and stepped aside.

“Come on in, girl. But make it quick. I got a game coming up.”

She moved past him, almost bumping his shoulder. The air inside hit her like an arctic blast: cold, dry, more luxurious than any mall or bank. He shut the door with a gentle click-so precise, not an inch wasted in the movement.

The entryway opened into a living room that could have staged a magazine photo shoot. Leather sofas in a rich caramel, throw pillows in dark navy, shelves lined with more books than a library, and not a speck of dust anywhere.

Every picture frame hung perfectly level. Every surface gleamed. A subtle scent rode the air, something smoky and floral-his cologne, maybe, or some fancy candle. But Black Grandpa didn’t seem like the fancy candle type of person.

Faith perched at the edge of the nearest sofa, knees glued together, pamphlets fanned on her lap. Her skin pebbled as the A/C hit sweat that had not yet dried. A shiver ran up her spine and made her shoulders twitch.

Marcus noted it, lips tightening.

“Cold?” he asked, not unkind.

“I’m fine,” she lied.

He circled around to a matching leather armchair, dropped into it, and gazed at her over steepled fingers.

“So, you live in this neighborhood, or did they ship you in from the country?”

“Closer to I-25. Near the community center,” Faith said. And she tried to keep her breathing even. The memory of his size, the way the room shrank around him, kept buzzing in her mind.

“You bring cookies, or you one of the carrot-stick evangelists?” Marcus grunted, scanning her with a sharpshooter’s eye.

“I…I have a recipe card, if you want it. We just talk. No obligations.” She tried a smile, but her lips kept folding back into a line.

His eyes roved over the pamphlets and locked onto her face.

“All right. Preach at me.”

Faith inhaled. Her first line, scripted and practiced for a month, stuck in her throat. She remembered her mentor’s advice: let the Spirit fill the space. She forced her shoulders down, laced her fingers atop her Bible, and gazed directly at him.

“God loves you. He really does. That’s not a sales pitch, it’s…it’s the whole reason I’m here.”

He waited, silent, stone-still. Despite the cold, Faith’s sweat prickled behind her knees.

“We believe everyone has worth. No matter what you’ve done, or…who you are. The world tries to tell people they’re not enough. God says you are.” She swallowed, feeling ridiculous. “Have you ever-?”

Marcus raised his hand, palm out, as if silencing a toddler.

“Let me tell you something. You walk into a man’s home, you best believe he’s already heard that line, ten times over.” Without warning, he leaned forward, elbows on knees, voice dropping into a register that made the air vibrate.

“So you either believe it yourself, or you’re just reading a line off a card. Which is it?”

Faith’s throat closed up. She blinked, felt the shiver again, this time from inside.

She answered, “I…I believe it. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

Accepting, he nodded and let a silence expand. Faith wanted to fill it, but didn’t know how. Her hands fussed with the corners of a pamphlet, crumpling it, and she forced herself to set it flat on the coffee table.

With eyes quick as radar, Marcus picked up the movement.

“You ever get scared, knocking on strange doors?” he asked.

“All the time, especially this one.” Faith surprised herself with honesty.

He grinned, just for less than a second, showing a flash of teeth.

“Good. That means you got some sense.”

Faith noticed, on the side table, a cluster of photographs. A boy with an astronaut helmet, a woman smiling in a cap and gown, and a huge dog with a tongue hanging out the side. All of them, she guessed, his family. All of them wore the same stubborn, tight-lipped expression he did.

“You have a lovely home.”

He shrugged, unimpressed.

“Not mine, really. My daughter decorated. I just live here.”

Faith smiled, a real one this time. “She did a great job.”

Another silence. Marcus’s eyes softened a touch. “You want some water?”

She hesitated and nodded.

“Thank you.”

He stood, every movement slow and precise, like he didn’t want to waste a single calorie. He returned with a chilled bottle of water, set it beside her, and slumped back into his chair. Faith took a sip, not realizing how parched she’d become.

“So what’s the sales pitch? We do a little prayer, I come to your church, everybody claps?” Marcus said, folding his arms.

“There’s no pitch. Just…want you to know God loves you. And if you ever want to talk, or pray, or just…have company, we’re here.”

Marcus studied her for a long time, and Faith wondered if he’d start laughing or tell her to never return. Instead, he nodded.

“You did good, kid. Better than the last ones. Ask me about those two girls from your rival cult next time, and I’ll tell you of their conversion.”

The conversion comment intrigued her. Better than the last ones might be a compliment or a dismissal.

He rose to his full height, stretched his arms overhead, and cracked his knuckles. “Now, I got a Lakers game in fifteen. You want to stay and watch, or you need to get on?”

Faith panicked, unsure of protocol.

“I…I should probably get going. Unless, um…ah, you’d rather I stay?” Faith said, surprising herself.

He considered, grinned again, a little less guarded. After all, the girl was a pretty little slut.

“Why not. Could use the company.”

He flicked on the TV, and the room filled with the electric blue and white of pre-game analysis. Faith watched him for a moment, the way he sank into the chair, content and alone and somehow not lonely at all. She thought of the other men she’d visited, the ones who postured and talked over her, tried to convert her back. This was not that.

She settled in, clutching her bottle, and waited for whatever happened next.

Marcus didn’t push her to speak, and Faith found that, for the first time all week, she had nothing to prove.

By halftime, Faith had mapped out every object in Marcus Thompson’s living room, from the nubby throw blanket to the row of remote controls, identical except for their sticky labels: TV, CABLE, FIRE. She catalogued the art prints (jazzmen with wild hands, a blue city skyline, three small black-and-white photos of a little boy in a Yankees cap).

She traced the outline of every pillow seam, memorized the feel of the glass coffee table against her kneecaps, and noted how his cologne thickened in the cold air whenever Marcus shifted position.

None of it helped.

The man filled the room even when he sat completely still. With his gaze glued to the screen, profile sharp and unblinking. Inside her, his presence pressed like a thumb on a bruise. When the buzzer blared and commercials cut in, Marcus muted the TV, leaned back, and pointed his chin at Faith.

“You get nervous around people, or just Black folks?”

The question jammed in her throat, and she worked it out with a cough.

“I…I get nervous around everyone. Sorry. You just…you remind me of my high school principal.”

“Was he handsome, too?”

Stunned, Faith blinked and snorted with laughter, which she immediately tried to hide.

“Yeah, and he was, uh, very strict.”

“Same difference.” He nodded once, let the silence hang.

Faith checked her phone, saw the time, and gathered her scattered tracts into a neat pile. She thumbed the top pamphlet-THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD!-and took a deep breath, running her fingers down the edge of her Bible’s gold leaf.

“Would you mind if I shared a verse with you?” She fought to keep her hands from shaking. “It’s my favorite.”

Marcus leaned back, made a show of folding his arms, and waited. Faith opened her Bible to Romans 8, the page soft from use. Her mentor, Sister D., called this “the money passage”-the one that could break a man or make him weep, if delivered with the right tremor in your voice.

Faith read, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers-neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation-will be able to separate us from the love of God.” She glanced up, saw Marcus’s expression, and her voice faltered.

“That’s-uh, Romans 8:38-39.”

“Now listen here, you believe that?” Marcus said it not loud, but with doubt.

Faith nodded, so hard her pigtails bobbed.

He pressed on, “You really think there’s a power out there that keeps you safe from everything else? You ever been punched in the face?”

The question caught her off guard.

“No, sir.”

He studied her, tapped his temple.

“I been hit. Shot, even. Had my own people turn on me, and strangers spat at my daughter. You think your God showed up for any of that?”

Faith felt herself shrink, but something inside stiffened. She said, “Yes. I mean-I think He’s with us even when things hurt. Especially when we hurt.”

Marcus made a sound, halfway between a grunt and a sigh. “You ever doubt? Even once?”

Faith’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wanted to lie, to say her faith never wavered, but something about the way Marcus eyed her made honesty possible, even mandatory.

“Sometimes, and others, I try not to. But yes, sometimes.”

Marcus nodded, like he’d won a bet. “That’s better. Now tell me this-what’s the worst thing you ever did?”

Faith stared at her Bible. She wanted to say “Nothing,” but the truth hovered in her mind like a mosquito. She said, “I-I cheated on a math test in junior year. Lied about it to my mom.”

Marcus’s lips curled, not unkindly. “That’s all? You’ve got more skeletons in there. Everybody does.”

She flinched, a rawness opening inside her chest. “My best friend tried to kill herself last year. I didn’t-I didn’t see it coming. I should have. I thought if I just prayed harder, she’d be okay.”

Marcus uncrossed his arms, leaned forward, and let his hands hang between his knees. His forearms bulged, thick as tree limbs, and veins were blue under skin rivers.

“You think your prayers work if you don’t help your friend first?”

Faith’s cheeks burned. Her mouth shaped itself into a dozen words, but none made sense. She focused on the gold leaf of her Bible, the way it caught the lamplight.

She said, “I think I messed up. I think about it every day.”

Marcus’s eyes softened, just enough to see. “You’re honest. That’s rare.”

Faith felt the tears sting behind her eyes, but she blinked them away. “What about you?” she asked, voice quaking. “You ever pray for anything?”

Marcus smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “Only time I prayed, my mother was dying. I said, ‘Don’t take her, take me.’ Guess what happened.”

Faith wanted to reach out, touch his arm, say something…anything…he hadn’t already heard a thousand times. Instead, she squeezed her Bible tighter and let the silence stretch.

Marcus let out a breath, slow and ragged.

“People talk about faith like it’s a parachute. But sometimes it’s a suitcase full of rocks, and you gotta drag it everywhere you go. Why do you think you came here?” He gazed at her, and for a moment, the world shrank to just the two of them.

Something in his eyes made her uncomfortable; he had the same thing in his eyes as the boys at school. Lust. But Faith tried to answer, her throat closed up. She looked at the tracts, the cheery cartoon fonts, and realized she couldn’t remember the last time she actually believed them. Her body trembled, but not from the cold.

She said, “I…I wanted to help. I thought maybe if I could help someone else, it would make things better for me.”

Marcus nodded, slow, patient.

“Did it?”

Faith shook her head. The answer hurt, but it was true.

He said, “Let me tell you something. Most people don’t know what they need. But you, you’re closer than you think.”

Faith’s chest twisted up, tight as a fist.

“I’m not sure what that means,” she said.

He smiled, this time with all his teeth.

“Means you can stop pretending you got the answers. Means you can just be. You got youthful passion inside you, but it ain’t for any god.”

The words stunned her. For a moment, Faith forgot her script, her mission, her entire rehearsed persona. She just stared at Marcus, a mixture of gratitude and humiliation flooding through her, like heat and ice poured into the same cup.

The TV blared back to life as the second half started, the world’s noise rushing in. Faith blinked hard, once, and looked at Marcus with new eyes.

“Can I come back?” she asked, the words out before she’d planned them.

Marcus didn’t answer right away. He let the question hang, like a challenge or a benediction. Then he grinned and said, “You got the address, don’t you?”

Faith nodded, and this time her smile reached all the way to her bones.

She stayed for the rest of the game. She watched Marcus cheer and curse at the screen, the sound of his laughter bouncing off the perfect walls. She didn’t say another word about church, or sin, or salvation. She just sat, and watched, and let herself belong in the room, if only for a while.

When she left, Marcus opened the door the same way he had before, but now he gazed at her like an equal.

“Take care, Faith, and next time, bring cookies.”

Faith promised she would. As she walked back to her car, her body felt lighter, every nerve alive. Something pestered her down deep, but not in her mind, but between her legs. Sinful thoughts flooded her mind. If she were one of those girls, she’d masturbate.

“The wages of sin are death,” she said as she started her car.

***

When Faith left his house that first day, a trembling, giddy mess, Marcus Thompson, Black Grandpa’s voice, followed her all the way to the Civic. You’re closer than you think…haunting the back of her skull and the tightest space inside her chest.

But there was no god in the mix, only a slick stain of desire. And for whom, a man at least forty years older than her. Those thoughts were sinful.

Once she went home, Faith sat at her desk and tried to write in her prayer journal. The pen wouldn’t move. The ink pooled on the page, bleeding in strange blue lines. She caught her own reflection in the dark screen of her laptop: pigtails askew, face pale, eyes large planets, and blue as the ocean.

She tried to pray, but it came out as static.

Next afternoon, she returned to Marcus’s house with a new stack of tracts, a Thermos of sweet tea, and a tightness in her stomach that would not unclench. She wore the same cardigan, same skirt, she’d washed them the night before, just in case. But this time she buttoned the cardigan all the way to her throat.

When her hands shook, she told herself it was only caffeine.

He opened the door faster this time. No pretense, a sweep of his arm, and a curt, “Come in.” No mention of church, or salvation, or the Lakers. Following him, she tried to shrink herself in the shadow he cast.

The living room seemed smaller, the air colder, the blinds drawn to a surgical slit. The leather sofa gleamed under the white track lighting. Standing in the middle of the room, Marcus stretched his arms overhead, rolling his shoulders with a wet, audible crack.

The cold air invaded Faith as she perched on the edge of the couch. With her knees pressed together, and the thermos between her hands clutched as a life raft. And her skin bristled anew as the first new gush of air conditioning reached her.

Stupid, she hadn’t expected it to be this cold in June. But it wasn’t freezing outside, foolish girl, only inside his house was it this bitter.

But she clamped her lips and willed herself not to shiver.

One leg slung over the arm, Marcus collapsed into his recliner, bare feet propped on a stack of National Geographics. Wearing another sleeveless tee, Marcus’s color of the day was black. And sporting a pair of basketball shorts so thin Faith could see the faint edge of his boxers underneath and the gigantic bulge in his crotch.