Hold Me in Contempt

by Wendy Williams

  When I went back to work, I decided that there was no way I was going to be involved in a workplace affair—with my boss. It could ruin him. It could ruin me. He was separated but still married and had two kids . . .  ​and that golden retriever. I couldn’t get involved in all of that. Still, Tamika was right. Paul had that Blair Underwood mystique. Almond skin and sophisticated eyes that were so dark they looked black. He had perfect teeth and clean nails. His style was impeccable and his body was solid—even with his clothes on. And he always smelled so complex—rich sweet and dark spicy.

  I fought off my attraction for him for a few months. Ignored his texts. I even went out on a couple of dates, and as Tamika instructed me to in hopes that I’d get over Ronald, I got my “feet wet” a few times. But nothing seemed to satisfy me. Through so many botched and just plain awkward love affairs, I was learning fast that contrary to popular belief, not all men are created equal. Some were soft, some were little, most were wack, and the others couldn’t even get it up. So I’m clear: I’m talking about penises.

  I don’t want to make it sound like I was out there looking for nothing but a great fuck. That was far from the truth. Like anyone else, I wanted love. I wanted to find my mate. And sometimes I came close. I met some great guys, but no matter how strong the connection was, once we got into that bedroom and the private parts were released and I had to check for the motion in the ocean, if things weren’t right with my body, everything went wrong with my mind. I’d go from seeing the same man every day to ignoring his calls and rolling my eyes when he spoke. It was hard to explain. I didn’t understand it myself, but I thought it had something to do with intimacy. With being touched again. Moved from inside of my body. For all of her man trouble, Tamika explained it best. “It’s like finding the right dance partner,” she said one night when we were drinking wine on her front steps in Brooklyn. “Y’all step together. Y’all groove together.”

  “I came to your office twice today,” Paul said, looking up at the ceiling over my couch.

  “Yeah, you shouldn’t have done that. Not the way everyone talks. They already think something’s going on. Easter Summer keeps sniffing around, asking questions. I think she’s—”

  “I’ve missed you. I’m going crazy,” he cut in.

  “Paul, we had to stop.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, ‘Why’? You’re my boss. That’s why,” I said. “Don’t pull me back into this. I was doing well. It’s been two months. Let’s just move on.” I picked up my shoes and trudged to the bedroom to escape smelling him, looking at his body relaxed on my couch.

  I put the shoes in place and thought about how I was going to get Paul out of my apartment.

  Before, he’d broken me down without me even knowing it. I was so lonely. Soon I started responding to his texts. Then he showed up at my door with flowers one night. God, I was so stupid. But still, it felt good. Felt too good to be wanted. Sought after. Chased. He claimed the flowers were to congratulate me on some case I’d won. I pointed out that they were roses. Red roses. He laughed and kissed me on the forehead. “Maybe they’re about something else, then,” he’d said. Maybe that was when it all began.

  “You’re so fucking sexy,” I heard Paul say from my bedroom door. “I never understood why you don’t believe that about yourself. Make a nigga get hard just looking at you.”

  I turned to look at him roll his eyes up my calves and over my butt. I loved that shit about him—how he could say something vulgar and make it sound so sexy.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “So, that’s what you miss?” I asked.

  “You know it isn’t about that. You know what it was,” he said, stepping into the bedroom.

  My heart quivered and I held my hand up fast to stop him from approaching me. If he took one more step, the sixty days I’d spent trying to erase whatever we’d been doing would die in the sheets on my bed. Paul was one of those brothers whose swagger made it hard to turn him down. Hard to say no to him. And he knew it, too. Licked his lips and grinned all day long. Said the perfect thing to make any woman melt. He used it everywhere. Even at work. When he walked by in the office, every woman stopped to take all parts of him in; even men looked to admire. I was determined to get off that train.

  “I already told you, yes. Fine. We did have a connection. You’re cool. We’re cool, but that doesn’t change the facts. You’re my boss,” I said.

  “I’ll quit.”

  “You’re married.”

  “Separated. And we’re talking about divorce.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  I hadn’t noticed it, but as I was speaking, Paul was stepping in closer to me, and then he was directly in front of me. His cleft chin was dangling over my forehead like an apple I had to bite.

  “You miss me?” he asked. “Just tell me.”

  “Yes,” I said so softly, and then I knew I was failing at mission Get Paul out of Your Apartment and likely embarking upon mission Do the Wrong Thing Again.

  “Let’s not miss each other anymore,” Paul whispered seductively with his mouth so close to my ear, his breath sent butterfly wings down my spine and I was cured of pain. That’s what he’d been to me since Ronald was gone. Something like a cure. A healer. The first time we had sex, I cried like a baby. And it wasn’t because it was bad. Paul was a master performer in bed. He came at me like he wanted to take something I had. And just when I thought I was about to let him take it, he picked me up and sat me on a hard penis that made me give myself to him freely. But he didn’t just sit there. He wrapped his arms around my waist and held my back up with his forearms. He wrapped his hands over my shoulders and thrust himself into me like he knew what I’d been searching for.

  “I can’t,” I moaned, remembering how he’d come at me so many nights in the very bed that was just two feet away from us.

  “Yes you can,” Paul said, slipping his hand around my back to unzip my skirt. “Let me show you how much I miss you.” He licked my ear and whispered, “Don’t you want this dick?” before sliding my hand over his throbbing penis.

  I nearly fell to the floor along with my skirt.

  “Shit,” I whimpered before snatching my hand away.

  Paul grabbed both of my arms and began kissing my neck wildly.

  I was overwhelmed. I closed my eyes but I saw everything going on in the room. Hell, I even saw into the future. How his deep dark muscles would look once he took off his shirt. Him holding my hands to the headboard from behind. His chin resting in the cup between my neck and shoulder. His pelvis jerking and his pulsating just before he climaxed. “Oh, fuck!” I sighed loudly. “Don’t! Please don’t! Stop!”

  I took in another breath and quickly noticed that the heat that had been in front of me was gone. I opened my eyes and saw that Paul had let go of me and backed away. He looked lost, bewildered.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “You just told me not to,” he said soberly.

  “What?”

  “You said no and then you told me not to. You said, ‘Please don’t. Stop!’ ”

  “So?”

  “So, you’ve never said that before,” he said.

  “Of course I have.”

  “No. I would’ve stopped. I can’t touch you after you say something like that. It’s just too . . .  ​too . . .  ​rapey.”

  “Rapey?”

  “Yes. Every man knows that. If a woman says no, and don’t, you have to stop. You fucked up the mood.” He looked down at his crotch. “I mean, my dick is soft and everything. Nothing like a woman saying those words to make a brother go soft.”

  “Are you freaking kidding?” I said.

  “No. I’m not kidding. Nothing I can do about it now. Maybe you could . . .  ​you know . . .  ​get me back up.”

  “No. That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I don’t care about your dick getting soft. I didn’t invite you
here. You just showed up. I didn’t even want to have sex with you.”

  “Oh no, you’re making it worse. Just stop talking,” Paul said, laughing nervously.

  “Leave!” I pointed out of the bedroom. “Since you’re listening to everything I say now, follow my instructions and leave.”

  “Come on, Kiki—”

  “Don’t you dare call me that again!”

  It took ten more minutes to get Paul out the front door. He pulled out every trick in the book to try to make me feel sorry for “ruining the mood,” but it was all pathetic because I wasn’t trying to be in any mood—especially not with him. Even if he quit his job and got a divorce tomorrow, he wasn’t a better pick than Ronald. He was just a different kind of yesterday. As much as he wanted me and “missed me,” he was the kind of man who wanted me to want and miss him more. That was what the whole scene in the bedroom was about. Somehow, I was supposed to be convinced that I’d ruined a perfect evening by saying no to sex I never asked for, get down on my knees and give him head to convince him to make love to me, and then thank him for giving me an orgasm . . .  ​I never asked for.

  “Can I say one more thing before you lock me out again?” Paul asked, holding his foot in the doorway so I couldn’t close him out.

  “What?”

  “You were perfect last week. Knocked the ball right out of the park,” he said, and made the cracking sound of a bat hitting a ball. “And I mean that. It’s about time for you to move to the next level. You need to be thinking about that.”

  “I know,” I said more meekly than I intended to.

  “Good night, Kiki—”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “But it’s so cute,” Paul whined.

  “Good night,” I said, looking down at his foot in my doorway.

  “Okay!” He slid his foot out, and I slammed the door on the start of another sentence I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t know how much longer my nos would last.

  I looked down at my exposed stockings and panties and cursed myself for pouring the last of my wine away. It was going to be a long night.

  I went to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom to get two of the painkillers I normally took before I went to sleep. There was only one left. I’d have to call the pharmacy in the morning.

  Chapter 4

  “It seems you’re out of refills, Ms. Kind. You’ll need to call your doctor.”

  “No. There must be an error,” I said into the phone, though I could clearly see there were no remaining refills by reading the label. “I just saw Dr. Davis a few weeks ago. He’s the one who gave me the prescription.”

  “I see that here in the computer, but it appears that you’ve had the prescription refilled three times in the last two months.”

  “So?”

  “You’re out of refills.”

  “There must be an error.”

  “Maybe there is. You can call Dr. Davis and have him call it in. Or we can call. Would that help?”

  “No. I’ll call him myself.”

  “Wonderful. Please give us a call back if we can do anything else to serve you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I hung up the phone and used speed dial to call Dr. Davis’s office, ready to lean into whoever was unlucky enough to answer the phone at 9 a.m. I’d been to Dr. Davis’s office too many times over too few months for there to be any problems with any of my prescriptions. But somehow there always seemed to be an issue, and at some point I’d be on the phone with someone, sounding like a crazy lady. Dr. Davis would want me to come in. To talk about my pain. To discuss my levels of pain—look up at the chart of scary to smiley faces on his office wall and try to pick out one to describe my pain. How consistent it was and where it was. Sometimes I’d point to ten, the harshest of pain, the crazy face with red eyes and tears streaming. “Everywhere! All of the time!” I’d say. “I feel it everywhere at every minute of the day.” He’d leave the room, come back with a small square of paper with chicken scratch on it and his signature at the bottom. I’d deliver it to the pharmacy and we’d start the dance again.

  As angry as I’d get, I knew he was just doing his job. Everyone was just doing their job. But my job was to manage my pain. And while it wasn’t always everywhere at every moment, sometimes it felt like that. And worse, when I had to think about it, I’d have to go back to how it started, why it was there. Kim 2 and I leaving the mansion that night in the Hamptons. It was Diddy’s birthday party, and Kim 2 had gotten us on the list. We were so drunk, but we had to get back to the city. I knew Kim 2 had popped some pills earlier, but I was more messed up than she was and I couldn’t get caught driving drunk. She said she was okay. I gave her the keys to the rental car, and we started driving. Kim 2 turned on the radio. Taylor Swift was playing, so she turned the volume all the way up and we started singing along and laughing. The farther up the highway we went, the closer we got to the city, the fewer cars there were on the road. I tried to keep my eyes open and on the pavement. It was so late, it was early. I couldn’t see the sun, but even in the night sky I saw some light shining. That was the last thing I remembered before I heard Kim scream and saw the light shining in my eyes. I thought it was “the light” until I came to and realized it was a doctor running along the side of my gurney as they rolled me into the emergency room for surgery. I didn’t know what happened, why I was there, so I started crying and calling for Kim 2. I asked if my friend was okay. “Yes,” someone said. “She’s fine.” Then the doctor with the light asked, “Is there anyone we can contact? Your next of kin?” That’s when I realized that my entire upper body was being held in place by a brace. I couldn’t move. I started screaming. Hollering. The doctors put a gas cup over my face. I went to a black place. When I woke up again, I was in a hospital bed with Ronald sitting in a chair beside me.

  “Dr. Davis won’t be able to see you until Thursday, Ms. Kind,” the woman on the other end of the phone said when I called Dr. Davis’s office about my prescription.

  “I need to see him this afternoon.”

  “Yes. I heard you. But I’m looking at his schedule and he doesn’t have any openings until Thursday morning.”

  “I’m out of medication and I need a refill.”

  “Actually, according to your schedule—”

  “Schedule?”

  “Yes. We have a new app where we can see how many refills the doctor has ordered for each patient and weigh that against the dosage. According to your schedule, you should have another month left.”

  “I don’t care about any app or schedule,” I said. “I’m in pain and I need a refill. I need to see Dr. Davis this afternoon.”

  “His next opening is on Thursday morning. I can squeeze you in at eight. First thing. How’s that?” she repeated, so sugary sweet, it sounded as if she was doing me a favor.

  “That’s not what I asked you for, Ms.—what’s your name?”

  “I already told you my name, Ms. Kind. I’m Jessica Hopson,” she answered. “I’m only telling you what I can do for you. There are no openings today or tomorrow.”

  “Look, Jessica, I am an assistant district attorney of New York County, and I am in pain. I can’t go to work like this. I need for you to make something happen right now,” I said, nearly growling.

  “Again, I can only—”

  “You know what? I don’t even know why I’m dealing with you. Give me Dr. Davis’s cell phone number. I’ll call him myself.”

  There was a silence and then she said, “Fine,” no doubt to cover up all of the nasty names she was calling me in her head. I didn’t care. I hated to pull rank, but it had to count for something sometimes.

  Immediately after she gave me the number, I hung up and dialed Dr. Davis. I don’t know if she got to him first or if he’d been sitting right there while she was on the phone with me, but Dr. Davis repeated everything Jessica had said and just as smugly, just smug enough to make me and my complaining sound ridiculous.

  “I could call in a
prescription for ibuprofen, but you can get that yourself over the counter. Take three if you feel any pain. We’ll get back to it on Thursday morning. First thing,” he said firmly, and there was really nothing I could say after that but okay—or curse him out and find a new doctor. I decided to go with the former option.

  For some reason, Tamika made it her mission in life to get me to come to Wind Down Wednesday. She called Carol and had her put it on my calendar, sent me text messages Wednesday morning to remind me to wear something “sexy to work that could easily translate to after-work activity,” and called me three times on Wednesday afternoon.

  In addition to the fact that I personally thought most of her friends were desperate, sex-crazed lunatics, my list of reasons for not being excited about a hump-day night out included that there was nothing happy about a happy hour that included an all-you-can-eat buffet of fried shrimp and French fries, divorced men with fat bellies and huge egos, and listening to sad stories fueled by watered-down well drinks. It was just a reminder that thirty was not the new twenty. In fact, being single and in my thirties was like being fifty and barren. If I went home and got into my bed, there’d be no one there to ask me if I was “seeing” anyone new, remind me that I “needed” someone to hold me at night, and force me to lament that it wasn’t happening. I’d tried. I’d failed.

  But I couldn’t say no to Tamika’s pushing, so on Wednesday night I left the office super late and took a local train to Brooklyn, to a hole-in-the-wall bar with a name that knew irony too well: Damaged Goods,

  The dark bar was fairly full, with an unfair mix of many women and few men organized in circles reminiscent of high school dances. The brave sat at the bar or did a two-step on the tiny dance floor. Biggie Smalls was playing so loud, it rattled the speakers. Tamika and her friends were sitting at a high-top toward the back of the bar, the table littered with martini glasses filled with neon-green alcohol and plates of fried shrimp. Everyone looked so happy to see me that it was clear they were already drunk.