Eye for an Eye

by Dwayne S. Joseph

  He was thrilled and wanted to celebrate. They’d gone out to dinner. Italian food and red wine. They toasted, talked, and laughed. Love actually felt like it did during the first six months, and for short while, she found herself relaxing ever so slightly. But then they went back to his place. Well, it was their place, but nothing in it represented her. Not unless you counted the toothbrush and tampons in the bathroom.

  He put on Luther. It was his favorite singer when he wanted to fuck. They danced, and as they did, Lisette Jones’s heart began to race and beat heavily. Earlier that day, Mother Nature had delivered her monthly gift. Before the dinner and the red wine, they’d had Hennessey at the bar, waiting for their table. While Luther sang, they began to kiss, and as they did, she began to shiver. The alcohol fueling his fire, Jamil started to work his hands up beneath the skirt she’d been wearing.

  Before he could go too far, she said, “We can’t, baby. It’s my time of the month. You can’t have me that way, but I’ll make sure you have a happy ending.”

  Jamil pulled back and looked at her for a moment before palming her ass. “I don’t give a shit about a happy ending. I want my pussy.”

  He pressed his lips against hers and tried to force his way back up her skirt.

  She pushed him away. “We . . . we can’t, Jamil.”

  Her heart was stammering. Anxiety made it difficult for her to catch a breath. She felt the blow before it came, hard across her mouth.

  She stumbled back as Jamil told her again that he wanted his pussy. Luther was just reaching the breakdown in the song, holding the word “forever”. As he did, everything around Lisette Jones slowed down and then froze.

  For seconds that seemed like minutes, she stared at the Denzel-P. Diddy-50 Cent combination, and within those precious seconds, she saw in the highest definition of clarity the monster she’d given her soul to. He’d been the perfect director, who’d had her starring in the perfect horror film for eighteen months.

  In that moment of clarity.

  Lisette Jones disappeared.

  I took over.

  I caught my balance and with all of the anger, pain, and hatred I’d had built up inside of me, I let out a throaty growl and attacked.

  I hit him with a solid punch in his mouth, causing his lip to bleed first.

  “You fucking bitch!” he yelled out after the shock had worn off.

  He swung out and hit me in my jaw. I staggered back. Nearly went down. Lisette Jones would have. But I wasn’t her. I wasn’t putting up with the shit. I regained my footing and attacked again.

  I punched.

  I kicked.

  I kneed.

  I spat.

  I attacked him with a rage that Lisette Jones would have never been able to attack with. Everything came out with my fury. The bitterness I held toward my mother and her abandonment. The disgust toward my father and his perverted lessons. The anger I had for the boys and men and their disrespect. The hatred that had been building up inside, for Jamil and his perfect deception, for Lisette Jones and the goddamned weak bitch she was.

  Everything came out.

  I scratched at his face and dug my fingers into his eyes as he tried to fight me off. We fell down to the ground. I bit at the top of his ear, taking off a piece of flesh the way Mike Tyson had done to Evander Holyfield.

  Jamil screamed out and rolled off of me.

  I reached out for his paperweight in the shape of a Black Power fist, and grabbed it, my grip damn near strong enough to shatter it.

  He called me a “Bitch!” and as he held his hands to his eyes and ear, I brought the fist down on his head over and over and over again, telling him with each blow how much I hated him. How much I hated the sight of him. How much I hated his sound, his scent. His mother for giving birth to him. His father for showing him how to put his hands on a woman. His ex for not doing what I was doing now.

  Eighteen months worth of hate.

  Two years total.

  That night, Jamil Parker died.

  As he lay unmoving, I stood up and looked down at him, and wondered how the hell I could have ever fallen for him.

  I said, “Direct that, motherfucker,” and then let the weight fall to the ground.

  I took a breath, held it in, and let the rage simmer down.

  I was in control.

  No one else.

  I exhaled.

  Then I called the police.

  Jamil’s family tried to have me put away in jail. They said I murdered him in cold blood. In court, my lawyer had me play the role and shed tears about the abuse I’d suffered. I deserved an Oscar.

  There were more women than men on the jury. They all saw it my way. I walked out of the courtroom exonerated of any wrongdoing.

  I’ve never looked back.

  6

  Love.

  Tried once.

  During a moment of weakness.

  Never to be tried again.

  After Jamil, there were no others. Not out of fear, but rather because of the sheer fact that men and compromising myself in any way, shape, or form for them just simply wasn’t an option. Lisette Jones had made that mistake. I never would.

  With that distraction dead and gone, I went on to achieve success working for a major fashion company in New York. At that point in my life, I thought I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing. I was twenty-six. I held an executive position as head buyer. I was living comfortably, earning well over six figures. The car I drove was a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz. Most importantly, I controlled everything and everyone around me, whether they realized it or not.

  Lisette Jones.

  The lack of respect she had for herself disgusted me. Made me hate any woman like her. On one level or another, most women were like Lisette Jones. Most women sought the company, comfort, and love from a man, as though having that validated their roles as women. The ones who claimed they didn’t want or need it were full of shit.

  I had nothing in common with Lisette Jones or any woman like her, which is why I never established friendships with them. I had no desire to be around them. I had no desire to bond with them. The drama they endured in their lives would never be something I would have to deal with, because I didn’t do relationships. Being completely self-satisfying meant being the fittest one to survive, and survival was all that mattered. Nothing and no one else did.

  At twenty-six, my path was laid out before me. Straight and uncompromising. But then I went to Houston, Texas, and the most unexpected right turn appeared on the path I’d been traveling.

  I became a home wrecker.

  A woman paid to set up husbands, to help wives regain all of the power, dignity, and control that they should have never given up.

  The change in my profession had been unplanned, and it had been a destiny that I couldn’t avoid.

  It started with Marlene Stewart. A successful woman, she allowed herself to be stuck in a marriage to a pathetic joke of a man named Steve. In the lounge of the Sofitel Hotel in Houston, Texas, I came up with a plan to give Marlene the ability to walk away from Steve with all of the control she’d lost long before Steve or her two exes before him. My help hadn’t been free and it hadn’t been cheap, but Steve’s cancerous ways had been killing Marlene slowly, and in order to receive the chemotherapy I was offering to help put her in remission, she was willing to pay me $50,000.

  Marlene Stewart.

  My association with her should have ended after I helped her, but just as the control had been an aphrodisiac for me, so too had been the money that she’d insisted other wealthy women she’d known were willing to pay for the freedom that I could help give them.

  And pay they had.

  For two years, the partnership Marlene and I formed had been a lucrative one, and relatively drama free. All of the clients we dealt with knew to keep the information they passed along to a bare minimum. Or so I thought, until one client who’d received far too much information threatened not only my liveliho
od, but my life as well.

  Kyra Rogers.

  She wanted me to trap her husband because she couldn’t go through with a deal she’d made. Her husband had her sign a prenuptial agreement, stating that she would receive $5 million for every five years of marriage. She was in year two of the union when she came looking for my services. She wasn’t a woman struggling with life with no control the way the other women I’d dealt with had been. She wasn’t living with a man whose mission was to conquest as much pussy as he could. Her husband wasn’t physically, verbally, or emotionally abusive. He was quite simply a spineless waste of a man with a dick that he didn’t deserve to have. Kyra arrogantly offered me $200,000 to get the job done. But despite the amount, I turned her down, because as much as I have no tolerance for women who allow themselves to be controlled, I had less respect for Kyra and her arrogance and greed.

  Kyra was used to getting what she wanted though, and didn’t appreciate my rejection. She tried to teach me a lesson.

  I won’t lie.

  She almost did.

  She’d managed to do what no one else had. Break me down. Turn me into the type of woman I loathed. She’d had me beaten and raped, and I became weak, vulnerable, and insecure.

  I didn’t have any friends, or so I’d thought.

  Fortunately for me, Marlene saw our relationship not as a partnership, but rather a friendship. I tried to fight her and push her away, but despite my best efforts, she wouldn’t have it. She helped pull me out of the black hole I was being sucked into. She also helped me realize that while Kyra had broken me, she hadn’t won because I had survived.

  Kyra thought she’d been better than me, but after Marlene helped slap me back into reality, I showed Kyra that she was nowhere close to being in my league.

  Most women would have quit after going through what I’d gone through. Most women would have rationalized that they’d been lucky to survive and that they needed to quit while they were ahead.

  But what didn’t kill me only made me stronger and smarter.

  Home wrecker.

  That’s who I’d become.

  And I enjoyed it.

  Present

  7

  I opened my eyes.

  “Amado Mio” was replaying again.

  I’d fallen asleep. I don’t know how many replays I’d missed, but my bath water had gotten cold. Before Marlene called and disturbed me, I was relaxing. Enjoying Pink Martini’s melody, on my way to an orgasm that no one but my song could deliver. I shivered, but not because of the water’s temperature.

  My past.

  That had given me the chills.

  Damn Marlene for fucking up my high.

  After her call, I closed my eyes and breathed slow, even breaths. Her talk about the bullshit possibility of it had irritated the hell out of me. I tried to focus on the song that I should have detested. Tried to get back to the self-satisfaction I was minutes away from achieving.

  I breathed.

  “Amado Mio” played.

  I went back to the goddamned past.

  I shivered again.

  Said, “Fuck you, Marlene. Fuck you and love.”

  Love was for the weak. Love was for people who wanted to live their lives blind to the reality that love was nothing but a lie. Marlene could talk all of the bullshit she wanted to, but my mother, father, Jamil Parker, Lisette Jones, and all of the men I’d dealt with since, have all shown me just how full of shit the word love really was.

  It didn’t exist.

  Marlene called me jaded, but she’d been wrong. I wasn’t jaded at all. My eyes were simply open and my heart refused to play tricks on my mind.

  “Amado Mio.”

  I really should hate the damn song.

  I exhaled, lifted the stopper to let the cold water go down, stood up, and stepped out of the tub.

  Marlene had a potential client. Four months had passed since I’d had one. During that time, I’d worked with Aida, a younger version of me. I’d seen her on the dance floor of the 40/40 club, the night I’d shown Kyra what it meant to truly be in control. She was dancing alone in the middle of the floor, putting on a show for everyone, yet no one at the same time. Men and women watched her, their stares filled with lust, envy, and jealousy, but the attention meant nothing to her. She wasn’t there looking for anyone’s approval or company. That night, the satisfaction she craved had been to utter a silent “Fuck off” to everyone there.

  No one else inside of the club understood that, but I did, because saying “Fuck off” was something I got off on. There’s a power to it. An orgasmic feeling to knowing that you are both wanted and hated.

  Until that night, I’d never given thought to turning what I did into something that would extend beyond myself. But staring at Aida on that dance floor, knowing that the thoughts she’d read in everyone’s eyes, the yearning in their body language, had her wet, made me wet. Never before had I met someone with the looks, the attitude, and the almost full understanding of what control was. It was as though I’d given birth to her.

  I approached her because I knew that what I did would appeal to her. She craved control. She liked to manipulate. I wanted to show her how to master them. I wanted to show her how to truly get off.

  As I knew would be the case, Aida had been a natural. Digesting and willingly putting into practice the knowledge I instilled, setting up men became her new form of masturbation. I found great satisfaction in that.

  I stepped out of the bathroom and went to the living room. The past three clients had gone to Aida. Now there was a new one. I’d told Marlene to give that one to Aida too, but standing there, unmoving with the love song that excited me like no other, I knew the time had come.

  I turned my BlackBerry on.

  I didn’t believe in love, but I loved what I did.

  I found Marlene’s name and hit the talk button to connect the call.

  When she answered seconds later, I said, “What has her husband done?”

  “Not her husband. Her brother-in-law. He’s come on to her repeatedly. She’s told her sister, but the sister doesn’t believe her and now isn’t talking to her. She wants proof to help open her sister’s eyes. She says money is no object.”

  “Have her meet me at Barnes & Noble tomorrow at noon.”

  “OK. Oh, before I forget, someone called yesterday. A former client.”

  “Who?”

  “Rebecca Stantin.”

  Rebecca Stantin. She’d come seeking my help because her husband, a very well, known pastor, liked to physically and verbally abuse her. I provided very graphic photographs that instantly put an end to the bullshit.

  “What did she want?”

  “She requested a meeting with you. She says she has something important to discuss with you.”

  “And she didn’t tell you what it was?”

  “No. She said she only wants to talk about it with you.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have time. If she calls again, tell her that whatever she wants to discuss, she’ll have to do it with you.”

  “OK. One last thing.”

  “What?”

  “I have to ask . . . What made you change your mind about meeting with the new client tomorrow?”

  I thought about her question for a moment, then said, “My past.”

  I ended the call and stood still.

  My past.

  It was history.

  Just like Kyra.

  Aida was good, but the time had come for me to get back in the game.

  8

  Barnes & Noble.

  At the café.

  On the left side, sipping a vanilla latte, venti size. No whipped cream.

  As usual, the café was alive with activity. High school students hovered around tables with school books open in front of them and talked about anything but their schoolwork. College students sat with ear plugs in their ears and their heads buried in their textbooks or laptops. Mothers sat with children in strollers or highchairs, waiti
ng for fathers who stood in line to buy sandwiches, cookies, and milk. Wives without their children sat with other wives and enjoyed their few moments of peace, while husbands and single men alike sat together and discussed various topics ranging from politics to sports, as their lines of sight went from one woman’s ass to the next, both discreetly and without shame.

  I observed it all without paying any real attention to any of it as I waited for Shante Hunt to arrive to discuss why and how she wanted me to trap her brother-in-law.

  Women generally wanted their husbands set up for various reasons. Some wanted evidence to use against their men to help them garner the best payday possible as they sought divorce. These women were often physically, verbally, or emotionally abused and felt as though they had no way out. My services helped to empower them so they could take the necessary steps that they’d been afraid to take to seek happiness.

  Other women wanted me to provide them with hard evidence, not for the purpose of divorce, but rather for leverage. These clients usually didn’t work and were completely dependent on the money and lifestyles their philandering husbands provided. The hard evidence, usually in the form of photographs or videos, gave them the ability to do whatever the hell they wanted. Let’s face it, it was easier for their men to allow them to run around and fuck whoever they wanted, than it was to go through with the hassle of divorce, and the money their infidelity would cause them to lose–especially if children were involved.

  Empowerment and leverage.

  The definition for both was control.

  I always gave my clients that.

  Shante Hunt would be my first client not seeking it for herself.

  “Lisette?”

  I’d seen her when she walked into the bookstore. She wasn’t there to browse for a novel. She wasn’t there to meet friends. Her steps were full of purpose. Her line of sight had been focused solely on the café.

  I took a sip of my latte and looked up at her.