Nympho

by Andrea Blackstone

  As I wiped the tears clean, I considered that he was getting on my nerves by assuming so much about me and my mind-set, until I heard something I never expected. Trey touched the glass with the fingertips of his left hand. I placed the phone back up to my ear to hear his words.

  “When I was fifteen, I secretly fathered a child. My parents don’t know, but somewhere out there…I have a son. The baby was snatched away from his mother and given up for adoption. I searched high and low for him for years and years to no avail. I never wanted to risk hurting you; I loved you so much, Lesile. You’re beautiful and I could hardly manage to resist you. What I felt for you transcended the physical, and I thought you knew that. To me, abstaining was the lesser of two evils. Now you know why I wanted to stop having sex with you, until our wedding day. When I found out you did get pregnant, I figured it was a sign from God that he gave me another child to make up for the sadness I experienced so long ago. You don’t have any idea of the life I’ve led either. Now you know my biggest secret, too. Are you happy now, Leslie . . . are you?”

  Trey dropped the phone and broke down in tears. I watched him sob, and the thought of a man revealing his hurt at the most inopportune time made me feel small and defeated. I hung up the phone and left without saying goodbye. As I walked away, all I could do was pretend I didn’t hear what he told me. When trial time came, maybe I’d tell the District Attorney the truth . . . but probably not. I could always pretend I didn’t remember a thing. After all, I was high as a kite when the love train collided and derailed. Unfortunately, our desire to communicate fully was much too late—too much wickedness had already fallen upon us. Despite his surprising confession, I still doubted I could ever forgive him for marrying Tanya behind my back. To me, doing that was completely unforgivable. As a result, I would never fully extend the olive branch and regret what I did to Trey, even if my affair with Rico began over a simple lack of communication

  25

  Whats Done In the Dark

  I would never admit it to Trey, but he was right about a few things. Now the big question was if my lack of self-control led to me being HIV positive, or if it would prove to be a bit of a set up for a strong come back. To answer that question, I took off on a not so fantastic voyage in pursuit of the truth. I went to the health department’s STD clinic to get an AIDS test. I didn’t desire to make an appointment with my regular medical doctor because I didn’t want to generate a paper trail that would follow me on my medical record if anything was in fact wrong with my health. I recalled some prostitutes on craigslist.org mentioning that they got tested at the county health department, so I went to Google and found a number to ask about how things worked. I had never had reason to get tested in the past, but now I truly did.

  “Yes, I would like to have some information about getting tested,” I said to the woman who answered the phone.

  “Get here 8:00 A.M., Monday through Friday, with the exception of Thursday. We’re open from 11:30 to 6:00 on Thursdays,” the woman told me.

  I could tell by the tone of her voice that people pestered her with those sorts of questions every few minutes. I don’t now how she had the patience for it, even if she was being paid.

  “What do you test for? Do you get your results the same day?” I asked.

  “We test for all of the major sexually transmitted diseases. After you’re tested, it takes a week or so to get everything back from the lab.”

  “So you also test for HIV there?”

  “The results take two weeks for that.”

  “I read something on the Internet about a test where you can find out your results the same day so I’m a bit confused.”

  “That’s the rapid results HIV test. HAP is on the first floor. We’re on the second floor. You have to call down there to find out their hours.”

  “Do you have their number?”

  “Yes, it’s area code 301 . . . ,” she said, rambling off the number.

  “Thank you.”

  “Goodbye,” she replied.

  As I drove to the clinic to get tested for the ABC’s of STD’s, I lost myself in wondering if I was going to die. When I was getting mine, I really didn’t consider that Rico or even any of the others could have something. I was so afraid of facing my final judgment call that I could feel my heart pound and my throat get dry. Finding out my status was the pits but I had to do it. Everything we do has consequences. When we play any game of chance, sometimes we luck out and get off light, and sometimes we don’t. I walked into the room feeling very nervous about all of that. I filled out a form that was obviously created for statistical purposes. There was no way I was going to admit I engaged in any type of high-risk sexual activity with so many random partners, even though I was getting tested anonymously. If I did admit those things, how could I ever look at myself in the mirror again? It was much easier to lie through the pain. Running away from it made me feel a little better, so I let that part of what was done in the dark stay in the dark.

  After I filled out the form the receptionist gave me, I waited for my turn to be examined. It alarmed me that people sat in the lobby laughing as if sitting in the STD clinic was some sort of joke. I was amazed that anyone could manage to laugh at a time like that when I was embarrassed just being there, and even more embarrassed when they called me by my first and last name. As I stood to enter the back area, the door opened, and a couple exited with brown bags in hand. I thought their faces looked familiar, so I kept staring at them as we nearly brushed shoulders in the hallway. The woman was carrying a small brown paper bag of what a reasonable person could assume was antibiotics. By the time the man touched the doorway to let the woman through the other side of the door, I finally recalled their identity—it was the man and woman I had picked up at the club in D.C., Deja and her husband! My mouth dropped and I continued looking over my shoulder as the door eased shut. I wanted to run up and smack the both of them, but I had no right to. All I could do was watch them leave the room. I then saw what Trey meant. Some people were burning out here. I swallowed, sighed hard, and caught up with the woman I was supposed to be following.

  The next thing I recall was being tormented by a monster migraine headache as I made a fist to have my blood drawn. I kept wondering if I was going to lose the only thing I had left—my life. After I walked across the hall, an unemotional doctor told me to undress and put on a paper gown, and then she exited the room. I did what she instructed and was ready by the time she returned. Afterward, she ordered me to move down on the table so she could give me a gynecological exam and take specimens to send to the lab. As I placed my legs in metal stirrups, fear grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

  “Open your legs,” she told me.

  “I did.”

  “Miss, you must open them more than that,” she said sounding annoyed.

  I opened them wider and cringed as she struggled to affix the speculum. I was waiting for her to apply KY jelly like my GYN usually did upon examining me but she never did.

  “Did you know you have a titled uterus? When’s the last time you had sex? Have you had an AIDS test yet? You should have an AIDS test,” she said with a distinct accent.

  I believe she was Ethiopian, or at least she appeared to be. My head spun as she asked me a series of personal questions I preferred not to answer. As for her cold demeanor, I couldn’t blame her. My hole was just one of many to inspect, and after all, I was only paying ten dollars for all of the services that were being rendered on my behalf. Although I understood where she was coming from, I felt intimidated by her sterile approach.

  Just as the person who answered the phone when I called for information explained, I had to call back for results the following week. In the meantime, I was given two bottles of medication as a preventive measure: 500 milligrams of something called Metronidazole, and 100 milligrams of Doxycycline Hyclate. Why? I couldn’t dare admit to the doctor that I had been sexing all sorts of partners I didn’t know so I lied and told her that I was raped a few days pr
ior. I didn’t need anyone judging me, and telling a little white lie was the only way I could make it through. But then again, I could argue that Rico led me to be sexually assaulted by a room full of policemen. I never told them to stop what they were doing so that evening fell into a gray area.

  Next, I took my last journey to the first floor. HAP was written on the door, so I opened it when I was certain I was in the correct place. I made it in thirty minutes before closing, and the counselor agreed to test me. He explained the procedure and how the rapid results test worked. After he swabbed my mouth below my lower set of teeth, I waited for the big count down. Before leaving the clinic that day, I’d know my status thanks to a modern technique that involved collecting saliva, not blood. In the meantime, I decided to write Trey a letter that would explain the other half of my issues—the half I never revealed to anyone outside of my family. I didn’t know if I would mail it after his performance but I knew I at least wanted to put it on paper.

  Dear Trey,

  I have twenty minutes to wait before I get my HIV test results. While I am waiting, I’ve decided to tell you my biggest secret, since you shared yours with me. Don’t mistake my opening up to you as forgiveness because I never would’ve married Rico, but you did, I repeat, did, marry Ms. Tanya.

  My family was at the wedding. I didn’t invite them and you wouldn’t have guessed that any of them were related to me, and now I’m going to explain why I lied about them being dead. When I was growing up, I was made to feel that I was an unattractive person. Comments like, “don’t play in the sun,” and “don’t marry no black man, your kids will be cursed to be reminded they are niggers, every day of the week,” reminding me that I was the darkest in a family full of light skinned people. In fact, we still had relatives that passed for white, and no one ever would know any different, at least by sight alone. When I asked my mother why her relatives would proclaim to be something they weren’t, she would explain the history of our country which ties your amount of hue to the opportunity you seem to deserve. According to her, whites embraced light people more, sometimes without even thinking, because they appeared to be more like them. As a seven-year-old child, I’d shrug my shoulders, considering history books I’d devour about the motherland and all of the wonderful books about black inventors and trailblazers. Initially, I never viewed my deep brown skin as any different from white or lighter skin, but my lack of similarity to those who were in my bloodlines ate away at my self-esteem. Each time I looked in the mirror, my reflection reminded me that I didn’t have blue eyes and blonde hair like my mother, aunts, and cousins, nor did I show any signs of an Indian heritage like my father and sister—I was one of the few who stood out like a sore thumb. I felt like a foreigner in my own territory because everyone seemed to question how this happened since both of my parents were born of “mixed” families. Even so, what could I do? This is how my inadequacy complex all began.

  My older sister grabbed all my mother’s genes, and was often mistaken for Puerto Rican, if she spoke one measly word of Spanish. People would automatically assume she was one of them, if not biracial. She ate up the attention greedily and often reminded me that I was an unworthy after thought. She went from describing me as such to taunting me like she despised me for having fuller lips, a larger nose, and kinky hair. Sometimes I would watch her brush her jet blac,k wavy hair that reached her waist and fantasize about what it must be like to be as beautiful as she was. After she finished, I often walked over to a mirror and began plucking my hair with my fingers. I would turn to her and ask her to help me with my hair and she would laugh, replying that she could do nothing with three-inch naps. My sister would primp in the mirror and would even try to look at her reflection in the microwave or anything with a reflective quality. At every turn, she’d proclaim that she would never cut her hair so she could remind the world that she was no ordinary blackie. Although her insults made tears flow, I continued trying to get her to love me by making her queen for a day, waiting on her hand and foot, and letting her take the credit for completing her chores when I had really done them. In a sense, being nice to her seemed to make her treat me worse.

  When my parents went away on a vacation, she once locked me in the basement and told me that my dinner was in the dog’s bowl. I shook with fear in the crawl space for the duration of the night. My eyes fell upon snakeskin where one of the critters had left their old ones behind. I finally submitted to my hunger and drank the water from the dog’s dish and ate the Alpo that sat clumped on the other side of it. My sister walked around to the outside of the house and pointed at me through a small window. She and a teenage boy ridiculed me for several minutes before disappearing like ghosts. When my parents returned, I explained every detail of what she did that evening, but I was punished for fabricating a tall tale. If I fabricated that tall tale, why couldn’t they see the truth of her ugly side through another incident?

  On my ninth birthday, only two kids showed up at my birthday party, and she still was jealous that I received any attention and angry that my parents demanded she wear a party hat and sing happy birthday to me with everyone else. When my mother set the cake on the table, my sister punched it with her fist as hard as she could, then gave me a look of death. I ran to my bedroom to escape the humiliation, and I got in trouble for being rude to my guests, while she was permitted to go out with her friends after pitching a fit, behavingas if she were nine, not sixteen. After that incident, I no longer begged for my sister’s love. I became withdrawn and stopped vying for the loved little sister spot. It was my parents who continued to force me to interact with her. At this point, she was so mean-spirited that when my father asked her to help me learn how to ride the new bike I was given for my birthday, she intentionally pushed me too hard, and I flew into a tree stump, badly scarring my knees. While I sat on the ground with bloody knees, she laughed and told me no man would ever want me anyway, and having ugly legs would not matter. Enough about that bitch though, I could go on forever about her cruel antics.

  As if my “easy going” home life wasn’t enough, the kids at school also taunted me for trying to make myself appear lighter with my mother’s finishing powder, having short hair, crooked teeth, a string bean- like body, and nerd qualities. After hearing degrading comments yelled from the bus window thrown my way one time too many, I just became desensitized to what others said or did. Feeling spit balls stuck in my hair, kicks at the back of my heels in school, and eating lunch alone became just a day in the life. I never bothered to fight back. My defense was sticking my head in my books and excelling in school. I decided that when I got older I would save my money and move far away from my hometown. Each day I arrived home, I placed aluminum foil over my teeth, in the secrecy of the bathroom. I tossed my head back like my sister did when she wanted to make her hair shake like the white girls did, and I fantasizing about buying braces and boys whistling loudly when I walked by.

  My plan to escape the hell at my home address worked. While my parents paid for my sister to attend Fisk University, I wasn’t offered one red cent to further my education. Someone suggested I join the military or investigate becoming a maid or caring for wealthy white children. I shook my head respectfully, but inside, I was saying: “Later for that Gone With The Wind mess. I’m about to do bigger and better things.” I didn’t tell my parents of my scholarship to a Historically Black College because I knew I would receive zilch in the praise department. I rejoiced with myself and decided to disown my entire family. I prepared myself to lie and tell everyone that inquired that all of my immediate family died in a tragic accident and I didn’t care to elaborate. I disappeared into thin air and never saw any of them again, until they looked me up after hearing I was going to get married. If they cared, I’m sure they could have found me somehow—before that time—they failed the test, yet another time.

  While attending college, the zits that plagued my skin dried up, braces did wonders for my jagged teeth, and I’d developed a hell of a figure, which
made men scream, hoot, holler, and lust when I walked by. I became very popular on campus and was voted homecoming queen of my class. The verdict was in—everyone liked chocolate, and redbone and yellow girls were no longer hogging all of the male attention.

  Every sorority approached me about becoming a sister, every athlete tried to get in my pants, and every semester I made it to the Dean’s List. Even with all of this reversal of events, I was lonely as hell. One day I was walking toward the library when this tall, dark, and handsome brother who had a smile like Morris Chestnut, sex appeal like Tyson Beckford, and a body cut like a Greek God, stopped me to ask where a place to grab a bite was located I had met a brother who made me feel something real and I could barely manage to explain that a fast food joint was sitting right behind us. Apparently, he felt something too and invited me to come with him. I had already eaten dinner but my lips prevented me from letting him know that I had been there an hour earlier. The conversation over the worst food of my life proved to be the best one of my life. I felt drawn to the commuter student who attended Morehouse and was also putting himself through school. Well, graduate school.

  He was the soul mate kind of real deal, and treated me like a queen from day one. Time proved that his inner self was as beautiful as what made my mouth water—he was the total package. Within one month, we became a couple and never looked back. The day we both graduated from our prospective programs, he professed his love for me and presented a friendship ring to me that he requested I wear until the time came for an engagement ring. A few years later, I got that ring, as promised. As you know, the man I am speaking fondly of is you. With all of my friends complaining they were alone, you would think I would have rejoiced to know that my man was nearly signed, sealed, and delivered. The thing is, Trey, I felt you stopped paying me attention so I turned to another way to get it. I held back my libido and never let go, until we started having relationship problems. When you started turning me down sexually, I was reminded of how good it felt to be chased back in college, based on my looks. This time around, I was out to have some fun while turning some heads again. I had no idea you were making efforts to reinforce our financial future. I don’t know if I’m really a nympho; maybe I’m more like attention starved, given that I internalized the hurt of my childhood, or maybe I just love sex and can’t get a grip. Quite frankly, I’m not even sure if I truly understand the meaning of love. What I do know is that I acted on my fantasies and screwed all of those people to deaden the pain of rejection, since getting off was the only thing I could seem to control. In fact, I never reconciled with the worst part of my emotional damage. I don’t believe I’m about to tell you but the emotions are just pouring out of me right now. It was the time that . . .