“Always has been! Always will be!” We smiled at each other, and then he started kissing me on my neck while I looked up through one of the skylights at the stars.
There was a long, uncomfortable pause. I was trying to decide whether or not I should even mention Marcella. I decided to hint around and see if the shit hit the fan.
“I met this cool doctor today. A sistah.” I pushed back a little from him so I could survey his expression. I didn’t see a damn thing except the so-what look. “Her name’s Marcella Spencer.”
Jason picked up another pencil and started fiddling with one of his blueprints. “That’s nice, honey.”
I walked over to the stereo and flipped through the CD rack, searching for nothing in particular but seeing if he had bought anything new.
“What kind of doctor is she?” Jason quizzed. “Maybe I can send her some business.”
“Umm, actually she’s a psychiatrist.” I waited for the other shoe to drop.
“Psychiatrist?”Jason acted like I said she was a hooker or something. Like the word was a four-letter one instead of a twelve-letter one. “Where in the world did you meet apsychiatrist?”
“Through a mutual friend.” That was only a halfway lie—I did hear about her through the lady at the beauty salon. “She’s very nice and down-to-earth.” Jason chuckled like I had said something funny. “Why are you laughing?”
“No reason. It just amazes me that people like that can even make an honest living,” he stated emphatically, shaking his head.
“People like who?”
“Psychiatrists. Shrinks. Head doctors,” he said with an edge of sarcasm. “I mean, really, Zoe. What kind of person pays someone to listen to their silly-ass problems?”
I was offended but not about to confront him by admitting I was paying, and willing to pay out the ass if I had to if it would help. “Lots of people need therapy for different things, Jason. I can’t believe you’re being so closed-minded.”
“Well, thank goodness neither one of us is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” he chuckled, laughing at his own half-ass joke. “I would send her some clients if she was an internist or cardiologist or pediatrician or something normal,but apsychiatrist?No freakin’ way! All my friends are sane. Stressed-out, maybe, butdefinitelysane.”
I hunched my shoulders and paced to the window, debating whether to run out of the room before I started crying in despair. How was I ever going to tell him I was seeing a psychiatrist?
“Guess what, baby? I have some great news of my own!”
I took a deep, restorative breath and turned to face him. “What’s that, Boo?” I asked, forcing a smile.
He got up, walked over to me and put his arms around my waist. “I got a huge contract today. The city wants me to design the new civic center.”
“Really?” I was stunned. I knew my baby was the bomb-diggity all along, but he was really hitting the big time lately, having just completed the new YMCA. “That’s great, baby!”
We shared a long, passionate kiss. I could feel my panties getting wet. Any show of affection from Jason always turned me on. “I have a great idea.”
“What’s that?” he asked me with a mischievous grin.
“Why don’t you go grab a bottle of champagne while I go upstairs and slip into something more comfortable?”
“Hmmm, sounds promising!” He gave me a big, wet one right smack on the lips. “But what about the kids?”
“You know as well as I do those chaps are probably all passed out on Peter’s bed.” We both laughed. It was a regular Friday-night routine for the kids to all fall out from the past week as if they had worked twelve hours a day. “I just want to be with you. I want tonight to be very special.”
“Every night with you is special.”
I looked into his eyes, wishing things could be differentbetween us. If only he could be more receptive to my needs. I pranced off like Little Red Riding Hood on the way to her grandmother’s house, grinning from ear to ear and hoping he was about to portray the part of the Big Bad Wolf and eat me, just like the one in the story. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening, but one can always maintain a strand of hope. “I’ll see you when you get upstairs.”
chapterten
When I awoke the next morning, Jason had already left to play his Saturday-morning round of golf with his two partners from the
architectural design firm. It was after nine. I was surprised all the kids were still asleep—a welcome treat, as normally they would be up at the break of dawn.
Rays of sunlight invaded the haven of our bedroom through the skylights in the ceiling. The sun is the only major drawback to having a house with dozens of skylights. It’s beautiful but can become a nuisance sometimes. As long as I get to see my stars at night, it’s all good though. When it rains, it’s so sexually stimulating. Then again, most things are sexually stimulating to me.
Unfortunately, after Jason and I proclaimed our undying love for one another in his drawing room the night before, it was followed by yet another sexual disappointment. After he fell asleep, I snuck into the bathroom, sat on the countertop, and masturbated with thedildo I kept hidden behind the cleaning supplies in the lower cabinet until I came.
Lying there thinking about it was bringing on an episode of depression, so I decided to get up and get moving. I called Brina, my partner in crime, and asked if she wanted to take the kids and hang out someplace for a little while. As expected, she was wide awake and down for whatever. We decided to hook up in about an hour at her place. I took a quick shower and got dressed. I woke the kids, who had all been bathed the night before, got them ready to go, left Jason a note on the fridge, and headed for Brina’s.
When we got to Brina’s, her ass wasn’t ready. I could hear the shower running in her apartment as I was knocking. I opted to retrieve the key she always hid on top of the emergency lamp in the building corridor rather than wait for her to finish. The loafers I had on were killing me, and I wanted to rest my feet for a while. The kids and I bumrushed into her place. I turned on some Saturday-morning cartoons for them and went into her bedroom just as she was drying off.
“Girl, hurry your ass up!”
She jumped, obviously unaware we were already inside. “Damn, Zoe, you scared the hell out of me!”
“Sorry, Sis. I didn’t mean to freak you out.” When she dropped the bath towel to the floor, I was staring at her body. Not because I thought she was sexy—lawd knows I’m strictly dickly—but because her arms, shoulders, and rib cage were all covered with bruises. I quickly shut the bedroom door, anticipating the highly emotional conversation we were about to have.
“Brina, are you out of your freakin’ mind? You’re still letting Dempsey’s skank ass beat on you?”
Brina started throwing on clothes faster than a runway model changing clothes between appearances onstage. “Zoe, he doesn’t mean it. Sometimes he just has a rough day at work, and shit happens, you know?”
“Yeah, shit happens, and when I catch up to his ass, he’s going to find out what kind of shit happens when he messes with my best friend!”
I was fired up. I couldn’t believe she was letting his limp-dick leprechaun midget ass beat on her. Dempsey was this little trick Brina met at a nightclub, which was hint number one she didn’t have any business with him. Add to that the fact he was unemployed 90 percent of the time, drank more vodka alone than a Russian football team can drink altogether, and had five kids by four different women, and you have a shitty-ass excuse for a man, one of those scrubs TLC is always singing about: a Sexually repressed, Childish, Raunchy, Useless Bastard!
Brina was almost completely dressed in a black sweatsuit, comparable to the jeans and cardigan I was bumming around in for a Saturday escapade. I turned on the TV in her bedroom, hoping to drown out our voices even more so the kids wouldn’t hear us. Then I got medieval on her ass.
“Brina, let me tell you something. You’re too good for that trick. He’s a fucking waste of oxygen.”
“Zoe, look, let’s not start this shit again today. Let’s just go hang out like we planned.”
“Hang out? We need to be hanging at the damn emergency room! Look at your ass!” I walked over to her, attempting to console her, and she flinched due to all the pain the bruises were causing. I took my index finger and pressed it against one of her ribs, and she collapsed on the bed, bent over in pain. “Sis, I think your rib is fractured.”
I reached for the telephone, but she grabbed the receiver out my hand. “Who are you calling? Jason?”
“Hell naw! Jason’s playing golf, and he can’t help youanyway. I’m calling an ambulance, and then I’m calling the police so you can file charges against his trifling ass. This shit stops right now. Today!”