Her Pleasure

by Niobia Bryant

  And now I have neither one.

  Jaime sighed as she rolled over onto her back and pressed her hands to her belly. “We have neither one,” she said. “Not in the way we would have. Forgive me for that. But I promise all that I am, all that I have, and all that I will be ever be, is about you from now on.”

  And it was the picture of her pressing her face to the sweet neck of her newborn baby that finally gave her the peace she sought.

  Chapter 11

  Virginia Osten-Pine’s long and drawn-out sigh into the phone said more than words ever could.

  Jaime held the phone away from her face as she stepped onto the elevator of Luc’s building, still looking like she did yesterday although night had come and gone. A call to her realtor revealed a perfect rental in Tribeca that would not be available for another two weeks. She had a choice of paying over six grand to stay in her hotel suite for that time, accept Renee’s offer—and risk hearing about her foolishness in involving herself with Graham again—or go home to her parents, where her mother only knew the wedding was off but nothing more of the sordid details. She chose the latter.

  God help my last nerve. May she not jump on it too much.

  She placed the phone on speaker as she massaged her nape. “Mother, we can talk about all of this when I get there. Okay?” she said.

  “Does this mean you’re going to raise the baby alone?” Virginia asked in a loud whisper that seemed to hiss like a snake.

  Maybe if I pay extra I can get the condo sooner.

  “Call Luc and fix it, Jaime!” Virginia urged.

  Maybe Renee’s anti-Graham campaign won’t be so bad.

  But she wasn’t up for any Graham slander.

  “Mother, I have to go. I’m meeting the movers at Luc’s” she said, as the lift stopped on the sixtieth floor of his building and she exited to make her way down the hall.

  Jaime entered the condo, confident Luc was gone, and she would have the time and space to pack her things. She closed the door and leaned against it as she looked around. Everything was spotless as ever.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  She looked down at her phone in her hand. A text. Luc.

  She ignored the message and called his number. It barely rang once before he sent the call to his automated voice mail message. She checked the text.

  LUC: What part of stay the fuck away from me did I not make clear?!?!

  “I’m just here to get my things, Luc,” she called out knowing he was watching her via the video surveillance. She understood. Yesterday had been a shit show that caused everything to change. Absolutely everything.

  But in the aftermath, after a good cry which led to an even better night of sleep, Jaime was beginning to welcome the distance. She needed the time to think because the business of juggling two loves had kept her from focusing on her reality. A living, breathing baby would emerge from her body in seven months.

  I’m going to be a mom—a mama, not a mother.

  After skipping a shower but changing into jeans and a sheer long-sleeved white tee, she was in her closet, gathering her jewelry into a designer travel case when the movers arrived. For the next couple of hours, she supervised them boxing her clothes, shoes, and accessories.

  She gave the house a final walk-through to make sure she hadn’t left any of her items behind. As it became clear the only thing left was her, she bit her bottom lip and blinked to prevent tears. Yesterday, this had been her home. Today, she was no longer welcomed here.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  She picked up her phone from the top of the island in the now empty closet. A text.

  LUC: Leave the key and the ring.

  That stung like alcohol poured into an open wound, but she worked the house key off the ring and then slid the engagement ring off her finger as she left the closet to walk over the room. She held up both items to the surveillance camera to wiggle at him before she set both on his bedside table.

  “Luc,” she said, walking over to the black glass bubble in the corner. “You didn’t deserve the way I’ve treated you these last few months. I apologize for hurting you,” she said truthfully.

  She held her phone a little tighter in her hand thinking it would vibrate.

  It didn’t.

  With a few soft nods of understanding, she looked at his spectacular view of the city one last time before she turned. Her line of vision landed on the sketch. How could I forget it?

  She set her keys and phone on the end of the bed before kicking off her navy Converse sneakers to climb up onto the bed and take it down.

  “This is one helluva mess I’ve gotten us into, huh?” she asked the representation of herself.

  The eyes seemed to say: “Sorry, girl.”

  “Anything else?”

  She stepped off the bed and nodded at the burly mover in a black coveralls who stood in the doorway. “Just box this for me and that’s it,” she said, handing him the frame before she quickly slid on her sneakers and picked up her things.

  “This is dope,” he said about the sketch before turning to walk away.

  “Yes, it is.”

  She had to bite her lips to keep from saying that her ex—the well-known painter Graham Walker—did it. The last thing she needed was for Luc to overhear that.

  Wait. Now I have a new ex. What a fucking mess.

  Jaime padlocked the rear door the movers used to reach the service elevators before she left the condo via the front door, making sure it was also securely closed behind her. She walked the length of the hall and had just stepped onto the elevator when the vibration came.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  She looked down at her phone.

  LUC: The last thing is a paternity test. ASAP.

  She cued her phone for a voice message. “Hey, Luc. I will talk with my obstetrician because I assume the safest method will be waiting for the baby to be born,” she said. “And I know you may not be as invested as I am anymore, but I won’t risk the baby for anything.”

  Jaime stepped off the elevator on the first underground parking level to quickly make her way to her waiting car. Her phone vibrated again. She waited to check her phone until she was sitting in the driver’s seat.

  LUC: I was fully invested and happy until yesterday. I want to be fully invested again . . . once I know which of us is the father. But yes the safety of the baby is best.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  LUC: Before yesterday it was our baby and not the baby.

  A dig. I deserve that. But I refuse to acknowledge it.

  She dropped her phone into the cupholder and pared it to the car’s Bluetooth before she reversed out of the parking spot for the last time.

  * * *

  Lately, Jaime was having a lot of regrets.

  Instead of reaching her parents, she took the exit on the turnpike just before the one she normally did to get to their house. She found the closest hotel and checked in. The room left a lot to be desired from her suite on Fifth Avenue, but dealing with the eternal sighs and thinly veiled judgments of her mother would be worse. Much worse.

  She decided to give herself through the rest of the week and the weekend before tucking tail and moving back in with her parents for the two weeks. After a trip to Walmart for casual clothes to lie around in, sheets and a comforter for the bed—because she was not trusting possibly laying up in someone’s else’s dried sex juices, snacks, and microwavable food—and sanitizing wipes to cleans all touchable surfaces, she felt ready for her staycation from hell.

  The spray of the water from the shower did feel good against her skin as Jaime tilted her head back to prevent her new cotton bandana and the weave it covered from getting wet. The scent of her vanilla and peaches organic soap rose in the steam and she took a deep inhale of it just as her hands paused over her stomach. There was just the slightest bulge.

  In a few more weeks her obstetrician would be able to tell her the sex of the baby via an ultrasound. An appointment she
would now be attending alone. “It’s just me, myself, and I, that’s all I got in the end,” she sang of Beyoncé’s hit song.

  She finished up her shower and wrapped a new plush towel around her body before she used one of the hotel’s towels to clean the steam from the large mirror over the sink.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  Jaime looked down at her cell phone on the countertop before she answered. “Hi, Mother,” she said, as she wet her toothbrush with hot water.

  “Where are you? The moving truck came an hour ago. I had them put most of it in the garage.”

  Jaime looked at her reflection in the mirror.

  I’m ten minutes from your house, in a seventy dollar a night hotel hoping I don’t catch crabs or lice.

  “Change of plans,” she said as she opened the box of toothpaste. “I’ll be there Sunday night. Last-minute work came up.”

  Liar.

  “Oh,” Virginia said.

  Wait for it.

  “I never worked while I was pregnant,” she said.

  And there it is. Judgment was her mother’s best friend.

  “You were my priority from the moment I knew I was pregnant,” she added.

  “Unless Daddy got a paper cut or needed a glass of water,” Jaime countered dryly.

  “That’s not humorous.”

  Jaime smiled as she shrugged her shoulders. “Mother, I have a meeting. Can I call you back?” she said as she squeezed paste onto her toothbrush.

  “Please take care of my grandbaby,” Virginia stressed.

  “Of course, Mother. Thank you for the reminder,” she said. “Au revoir, Maman.”

  She made a frustrated face as she jabbed the screen with her finger to end the call. “Her grandbaby,” she said, pressing her hand to her belly. “Don’t worry, Baby, I will protect you from her bullshit.”

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  She glanced down at the screen as she brushed her teeth. Another text from Luc. She tensed before she bent to rinse her mouth. For the last couple of hours, he was in a Q&A mode. She dried her hands and released a frustrated exhale as she opened the latest of his random message. “What now, Luc?” she said.

  LUC: Is he G. Walker who did the sketch of you?!?!?!

  “Shit,” she swore, dropping the toothbrush into the sink.

  Tell him the truth. The same truth I denied him the last three months.

  So she did. “Yes, Luc,” Jaime said aloud as she typed and then held the phone in her hand as she awaited a response. None came. She started to text him again but paused. Words escaped her. Even an apology seemed pointless.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  LUC: YOU FOUL AF.

  She locked eyes with those in her reflection.

  Two men. Both betrayed by her design and doing.

  A tear raced down her cheek. “I know,” she admitted in a whisper.

  * * *

  “What are you going to do?”

  Jaime ate from a bag of chips with one hand and used the remote to flip through the cable channels with the other. “I don’t know, Renee,” she said as the lights of the television flashed across her face in the darkness of the motel room.

  “How are you doing? Are you okay?” Renee asked with obvious concern.

  “Just wishing everything could be different,” she said softly. Truthfully.

  “Like what?” Aria asked. “That’s the truth you have to face. What would you change? What do you wish it all could look like?”

  Jaime didn’t know and so she didn’t answer.

  “Which one do you love?” Aria asked.

  “Both,” she said.

  “Bullshit,” Renee swore with swiftness and a suck of air between her teeth.

  “Yeah, not true, Jaime,” Aria added.

  “Why not?” she asked, as she eyed a rerun of The Golden Girls. She dropped the remote and settled back against the wood headboard she had covered with a sheet.

  “Do you believe in polygamy now?” Renee asked.

  Jaime shook her head. “Of course not,” she said.

  “Then until you realize you don’t love them both you will continue to mourn the loss of both, and it will keep you from moving forward,” Renee explained. “To be able to co-parent you have got to get beyond this idea of loving both.”

  Jaime felt more confused than ever. “If it’s not love, what is it?”

  “Lust,” Aria offered. “Or greed.”

  “Sins, huh?” Jaime asked.

  “Shit, we’ve all got our sins to bear. I was fucking Jackson out of revenge,” Renee confessed. “And that was my pride. How dare he want another woman other than me.”

  “I wish it all was that simple,” Jaime said.

  “Well, that’s one thing you said right, because your situation is complicated as fuck!” Aria exclaimed. “Listen. All jokes aside. I think you fucked up a great thing with a great guy—”

  “Thanks,” Jaime drawled dryly as she watched Blanche saunter into the kitchen in a flowing silk nightgown and feathered slippers with heels.

  “But,” Aria stressed. “You have to get the paternity test done before anything else. God willing it’s Luc’s and y’all can fix this.”

  “Amen to that,” Renee added.

  “And if its Graham’s?” Jaime asked, hating her friends’ insistence on being so against a man they barely knew. “What’s y’all vote then?”

  “Co-parent and pray,” Renee said.

  Easy for you to say. I love him.

  She pictured a little boy with Graham’s eyes and a deep dimpled smile.

  “Luc asked for a paternity test,” she said. “I thought I had to wait until the baby is born.”

  “Girl, its 2020 not 1920. They can do it with a blood sample from you and swabs from the two suspects,” Aria provided.

  “It’s a pregnancy, not a crime, Aria.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  Jaime eyed the television at Dorothy, Rose, and Blanche sitting at the little round table eating cheesecake in the kitchen. “Do you think we’ll be the Golden Girls when we get older?”

  “You’re definitely the Blanche now,” Aria inserted.

  Renee chuckled.

  Blanche was the frisky and promiscuous one who loved men.

  Jaime hung up on them.

  “That’s the truth you have to face. What would you change? What do you wish it all could look like?”

  The words of her friend replayed in Jaime’s head as she looked out at the bright lights and steady movement of the busy exit at night. Thunder rumbled from in the distance, moments before a light rain began to fall, blurring everything as the water hit against the window.

  “Who do you love?”

  She closed the curtains and walked back to the bed just as her phone lit up with an incoming call. She had it on silent, wanting no distractions as she struggled once and for all to reckon with her feelings for both men.

  Who will I fight for?

  She flipped it over to avoid the temptation to answer. She had not heard from Graham. Luc had attempted to call her in the past couple of days, but she was unwilling to face his anger and reprimands, no matter how justifiable. Assuming Graham’s annoyance with her matched Luc’s, she had decided for the weekend not to speak to either one. She could only assume juggling both men’s censure of her would be no easier than juggling both their loves.

  “Then until you realize you don’t love them both you will continue to mourn the loss of both from your life and it will keep you from moving forward.”

  And moving forward was key. One thing she did know for sure was more than Luc or Graham, she already loved the child she carried regardless of which man she loved, or which one was the biological father. That she knew.

  * * *

  Four days.

  That’s how long Jaime gave herself in that hotel room on the New Jersey Turnpike.

  That Sunday afternoon, Jaime got dressed and gathered her thoughts, preparing herself for whatever
might happen.

  Knock-knock.

  Her eyes shifted to the door. Her entire body moved into high alert. She exhaled as she reached for the remote and turned off the television before crossing the room to open the door. “Hey,” she said, stepping back and waving her hand for Luc to enter.

  He barely spared her a glance as he passed her to enter the room. “Not your style,” he said as he claimed a seat at the small round table in the corner.

  She closed the door. “I’m checking out today and will be at my parents until my rental condo is ready,” she explained, moving across the room to sit on the edge of the bed.

  He clenched and unclenched his jaw as he gazed out the window at the afternoon sun beaming brightly. “And then you can hang your picture over your bed,” he said, leveling his eyes on her.

  She looked away first. “I’m sorry, Luc—”

  “Nah. You said that a dozen damn times, tell me something I don’t know,” he said with contempt. “Because I’m lost on a lot of shit about you.”

  He hates me.

  “What do you want to know?” she offered.

  “Were you going to pass another man’s baby off on me?” he asked as his eyes dipped to her belly.

  “No, but I didn’t know—don’t know—which of you is the father and I was intent on you and I making a family together,” she explained.

  “If you’re not lying, you were going to tell him you were pregnant, and he could be the father?” Luc asked, looking down at his watch as a clear deterrent from looking at her.

  “Yes,” she said with a nod.

  “And were you going to tell him another man could be the father, too?”

  “Yes,” she answered again.

  He shook his head and released a sarcastic chuckle. “When were you going to tell me another man might be the father?”

  Truth only.

  “I wasn’t unless the baby wasn’t yours,” she admitted, looking down at her finger where her engagement ring once sat.

  Another caustic laugh as he eyed her with a hard stare. Eyes that once looked at her with love and adoration now were filled with annoyance and contempt.

  “Luc, my intent was never to end things with you for Graham. I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him forever. There was so much between us left unsaid.”