by D. A. Prince
When you’re faced with another woman’s vagina—only one thing happens. That one thing manifested in me as a lunatic twenty-minute hunt to find out who the lady parts belonged to. I needed to know.
But first, I had to swipe past the vaginal monster and search for more clues.
Boobs and bits, boobs and bits.
Whoever this woman was, she had a very high opinion of her sex organs. It would have made me sick to my stomach, but instead, it made me rage. I was the goddess of thunder, shaking in all of my thwarted beauty—thoughts of rampant murder itching in my fingertips.
Why couldn’t I just have let it be! Why did I have to discover a virtual treasure trove of snatch? I sat staring at what I could only hope was this woman’s most attractive feature, lost in a black meringue of fury. I started towards the shower door a few times, considering how easy it might be to bludgeon Burt with one of those ceramic pots he loved, or to drown him in his spa bath.
No woman who loves a man should ever have to discover something as outrageous as another women’s penis fly trap on their phone. What kind of a woman was this? Did she get kicks out of debasing herself like a $5 hooker?
James was constantly playing on his father’s apps. What if he stumbled across this whore of horrors?
“I’m going to kill him!” I thought savagely. “I’ll hit him where it hurts. I hope he’s enjoying his shower because it’s the last time he’ll be well enough to take one on his own.”
It was the end. I knew it was. I would stay by a man’s side through anything, but not through cheating. I respected myself far too much for that.
What outraged me the most was that I had suspected Burt of cheating since the beginning of the year. Things had not been the same since then. He’d become distant, like I lost a part of him. Now it was clear that he was giving that part to someone else. Hell-fire burned in my belly. I was so angry; the sheer heat of my hatred could have eviscerated that girl’s vagina.
I imagined her at work, minding her own business, when suddenly - poof! No more lady bits. A spontaneous combustion that would serve her cheating ass right. She’d never hurt another woman with porn pics of her pussy again. This vicious fantasy kept me from imploding.
Burt would try to tell me these photos had just mysteriously appeared – but these weren’t common dirty pictures circulating online featuring a porn model’s improbable perfections. This was a real woman, with uneven boobs, someone he knew, someone he was involved with. I had to find out who, before Burt got out of the shower.
I clicked Burt’s laptop into action and navigated to Facebook. It was password protected, but I could still log in with my account. I searched through photo after photo on his page, and lo and behold, a familiar image cropped up. I wasn’t certain it was the same image, but the boobs were a match, with the left one bigger and much lower than the right, and arrow-shaped mole under the collarbone matched too.
About two weeks before Los Cabo, Burt had been leaving comments on this woman’s whack photos on Facebook. They seemed…overly familiar. Too many smiley faces, winks, and compliments. When I asked him about this, he’d laughed it off, and said it was just some woman working out in the same gym.
Now it seemed they’d been working out together in quite a different way.
My lying, cheating husband has been ogling another woman’s honey pot. Something intimate was going on, and I was sure that the girl from the fitness club was involved.
I checked her name: Layaho.
For a few minutes, I entertained myself dreaming up ways I could teach that Layaho a lesson. I could still not fathom what kind of slut would send a married man such explicit photos. That bitch needed therapy. Or her face kicked in.
The bathroom door swung open, and steam poured into the room like at an ominous stage show. Burt was standing in the doorway with fluffy white towel wrapped around his hips and a smell of eucalyptus shower gel.
He took in the scene of me sitting on the bed like a volcano about to erupt. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I have one question for you, just one.” My voice was dangerously calm.
His face fell. “Okay…”
“Does this pussy belong to this hoe?” I held up his cell phone and turned the laptop around.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Are you cheating on me with this slut? Or have I somehow misinterpreted this friendly exchange of sex organs?”
“Just calm down, Crystal, we can talk about this.” He closed the bathroom door. “Why are you looking at my phone?”
I stood, fuming. “You ask that, when a moment ago you were spying on mine? Answer my question. Is it hers?”
“Crystal, those are just photos, right,” he started. “It’s not what you think, I swear.” His voice sounded strained as he groped for excuses.
I was not interested in hearing lies. “Just stop it, Burt. When did you stop loving me? How can you lie to me like this and cheat on me with this skank?” I threw his phone at him.
“Oh get a life, Crystal, I’m not doing anything to you. Look at you, searching through my private phone for something to be mad about. I have to get ready for my meeting, and now I have to deal with this shit?” He was getting upset. Burt was never any good at being upset; he always tended to overreact.
“Who is that, Burt?” I demanded. “That is not just some porn you got off the Internet. That’s a real person, someone you know. Who?”
“I told you, I don’t know who that is—I can’t help it if women send me dirty photos. I get them often and I delete them; you can see that!”
“They are in your temporary deleted files; you are keeping them!”
“That’s not true.” He pulled on his sharp-creased trousers without looking at me.
“Don’t just ignore me, Burt. Women don’t send photos like this to men with whom they aren’t involved.”
He buttoned up his crisp white shirt. “This crazy woman does.”
“Oh, so you do know her, you know exactly who she is! And she sends photos of her nasty tits and bits to everyone, does she?”
Burt clearly thought I was an idiot he could placate with lies. He meant to lull me back into submission by insisting he had better things to do than fight. “Look, Crystal, nothing is going on, alright! I commented on a friend of mine’s Facebook photos and some girl sent me nude pictures. It happens.”
His blasé attitude was churning me up. The violence inside wanted to peep its head outside to search harder for the truth.
“Stop lying to me! Why can’t you just admit that you have been cheating? I have all the evidence I need here!” I was desperate. Had I lost perspective? Was this really just a crazy lady sending everyone pictures of her cooch?
No, no, no! It echoed inside me like a scream in an empty cavern. Men like Burt didn’t get to do whatever they want just because they felt like it. This was crossing the line. I wouldn't be disrespected.
“What about you and Max?” Burt challenged. “I’ve seen your emails.”
“Oh yes, turn it around on me. Typical! Max is Jordan and Joyce’s father. There’s nothing there, you know that!”
The argument heated and I could hear that someone turned up the cartoons in the lounge. The nanny must have arrived for James. Good thing too, as I suspected that things were about to kick off. I would get the truth out of Burt, even if it killed me.
“I know that you spend a lot of time with him, and that you are probably cheating on me. Anyway, you have never been able to control your mouth or your temper. Look at this mess… right before my meeting…” Burt was fully dressed now and was reaching for his Nordstorm leather slip-ons.
“If you mention your meeting again, hon, I’m going to lose my shit!” I sat on the bed, and calmly pulled the laptop onto my lap. I downloaded the file Ugly_Ass_Vagina_1 onto his desktop. I was going to post it on Fa
cebook for everyone to see.
“What are you doing?”
“This fucking hoe likes to send everyone photos of her vagina, so I am going to help her advertise it! There! Now Facebook can enjoy everything her dirty ass has to offer.” I clicked ‘post’ and it went live.
Burt flushed with frustration and anger. He was pissed off that I posted his girlfriend’s pieces online. That was the moment I knew. Had these been a stranger’s body parts, he wouldn't have cared.
“That’s great, Crystal, really? Really mature response to this situation. Here let me make it clear for you…” He picked his phone up off the floor, and a second later the photo got a like on Facebook.
“You liked the photo?” I said, hurt to my core. “How could you do this to me?”
“That’s what you get if you are always going to behave like a crazy bitch. I told you I wasn’t cheating. I told you what happened, but you just can’t accept it, can you?” Burt boomed. “I don’t need this right now. You can stay here and deal with it. I’m out.”
Burt grabbed his light jacket, leather briefcase and phone, and stormed out of the room slamming the door behind him. Another banged door and he was gone.
He’s left, I kept thinking. A business meeting is more important than me.
The previous night, I’d enjoyed a romantic evening with Burt, fresh from our restful holiday in Los Cabo. And now this?
Cheating caused all these hard feelings, but he wouldn't admit to it. All I had were those nude photos, a gut feeling, a blurred image of a mole that might or might not be arrow-shaped, and Burt’s behavior.
My thoughts careened around my head. I considered going down to the fitness club and talking to this Layaho to find out what was going on. But if she really was the nude model, and she had seen me circulate her private parts in public, she would refuse to talk to me. Also, if she was the one, I had no desire to get close to her, except maybe to rake my nails across her face.
Burt’s behavior was the most reliable clue to what was going on. It gave me the answer I needed, told me what Burt denied. His mouth said no, but his actions said yes. You cannot lie your way out of your own feelings. Burt was involved with that vagina, whoever she was. And he was angry with me for posting it on a public network.
Ironically, it was the act of posting it that kept me from breaking down. I achieved a victory, no matter how small. That would teach them to mess with my heart.
CHAPTER 3:
Get a Life
“If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person. It's how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.”
~ William J. Clinton ~
I was left there, perched on my percale cotton bedspread, surrounded by everything I could ever want in the world except the one thing I felt I deserved; real love. All Burt could say to me was ‘get a life.’ Did he really delude himself I didn’t have one? I lived for him and our family. Now, once again I faced a choice.
I stared out of the top floor windows looking out over the city. Rectangular buildings, square ones, pyramid shapes, with dark dots for windows, and between streams of pin-prick cars. So many people, so much life!
How had I arrived in this situation? I’d always had a knack for inviting the entitled kind of men into my life. Selfish men who felt powerful. I chose to spend my life with them, instead of ‘getting’ my own.
I was aware of it, knew I sacrificed my career for love, made the conscious choice many women make. When all of the wealth and power rest on one side of the relationship, things generally tend to go south.
Somehow I had convinced myself that Burt would be different from the previous men in my life. But he wasn’t different at all—he was the same, and on top of that, he was an attention-seeking bastard.
This situation could be disastrous, because I had nothing to fall back on. Leaving Burt meant having to start over.
In this situation, some women would choose to stay. They would put up with their husbands misbehavior as the price to pay for the lifestyle. But I wasn’t like that. I had a heart, and it beat for the man in my life. The relationship mattered more than the material comforts. It was always that way, since I was a young girl.
Like many serial cheaters with ways and means, Burt clearly didn’t feel he had done wrong.
I sobbed my face in my hands. I was older now and have been wiser. I made yet another mistake that would lead me back down the road to instability and sparseness. I understood myself though, and I could never be with Burt again.
Having to start over again was a major blow. I had no career, few qualifications and three kids. My only material asset was a condo apartment that I rented out. I should have done more when opportunity presented itself.
But this had always been my biggest strength and my most persistent weakness. I was amazing at living in the moment, having fun and enjoying life, and terrible at planning for the future. I had neglected myself, and now I had to stew in that neglect.
“The fifth time,” I said aloud, horrified at my own bad luck. “I fell in love five times, and none of them worked out.” Confusion spun a scarf of thoughts that draped over my mind. I felt cold and hot, enraged and in despair. Broken. Again. Enough was enough!
Where had I gone wrong?
My mother and father were both from Jamaica in the West Indies, and they had me when they were in their early twenties. My dad Valentine was a tall, broad man who would tower over most people, but the size of his body was nothing compared to the size of his heart.
My mother Adel-jean was his perfect complement, more creative and even tempered than he was. The two of them worked to build a life together for their children, all then of us. “Real love has a way of creating more family members,” my mother would tell me.
Back home in Kingston, my father had grown in impoverished circumstances. His mother raised him single-handed, and his alcoholic father was rarely around. The only good memories he had of his dad were after a few days of being with him. Some people make you happy when they are around; others make you happy when they leave I guess.
In Jam Town, Jamaica, it was not uncommon to have a lot of brothers and sisters. My father had twelve other siblings from Grandma Doris, and she did just fine teaching each of them about the world and how to live in it.
The threat of extreme poverty scared my parents. They had a severe attitude when it came to money and practiced tough frugality. We never had enough money, and we children had to start work as soon as we were able.
We always had food, a roof over our heads and clothes, but little else. Yet while were poor in material things, but we were rich in love.
As a child, I was surrounded by love and acceptance. There was never a dull moment at our house.
We were poor, but my aunts and uncles were always around when we were growing up, bringing us things and having fun. They knew how to live life, and embrace every moment, regardless of their circumstances, that bunch.
My aunt eventually helped my parents come over to America where they started their family, and so we became citizens of the USA.
Had my parent’s attitudes towards money influenced my decision to marry wealthy men? It must have. For a young woman who had never experienced the finer things, even small gifts seemed like overwhelming gestures.
I often observed how rarely rich people had large families. They could afford to support many children, yet they chose to have only one or two children. Were they afraid the kids would squander their wealth?
My father was a great role model for me. A proud man who always worked more than one job at once, he taught me the value of having a good sense of humor. “Either you laugh at yourself, or the world will laugh at you,” he used to tell me, “and there is nothing more painful than weaponized laughter.”
We lived in Long
Island, New York for a long time, as happy as a family could be that didn't have much. My mother spent all of her time looking after my ten brothers and sisters, and I learned the value of sharing at a very young age.
We knew the value of the US dollar, and what it meant to a large family like ours. Burt, however, didn't have that kind of mindset. The more he spent, the more there seemed to be.
“It’s not whether you spend or not,” he used to tell me, “but what you choose to spend it on.”
Burt learned that investing as a sure fire way to make a lot of money, and he solidified his wealth by always spending a large portion of it on more investments.
Beep. A text message jolted me back the present. It was Burt.
“Hey babe. I’ve had lunch with this woman a few times, but we haven't slept together. I would never do that to you. She sent me those photos by mistake, (apparently she sent them to everyone on the Wi-Fi network at The Tasting Lounge) they were meant for her boyfriend. I hope we can sort this out. I love you. Burt.”
A new story. Why did cheaters always think that once they were caught a new story would somehow exonerate them? Burt obviously didn’t grasp that I had a ton of experience with cheaters. I knew exactly how men operated. First comes the denial, then comes the new story.
I bet he called that woman and they came up with it together. If I called her, their stories would align. But I’m not naïve like that anymore. If he had told the truth, they all would have pictures on their phones of the monster vagina. Burt probably thought I’d be too ashamed to call the restaurant. However, love has nothing to do with shame.
I Googled the number and called right away. “Yes hello. I’d like to speak to your manager about a sensitive subject please.”
A cheery tune jingled, then the line clicked. “Hello, this is Rachel.”
Phew, a woman. This would be easier than I had thought. “Yes, hi Rachel. My name is Crystal. I have a strange question to ask you, and I would like you to keep it in confidence please.”