For Lovers Only

by Alex Hairston

  Within seconds Robert’s neighbors came out of the woodwork to get an eyewitness account of the pure and unadulterated ass-whipping Renee put on Tamara.

  Even though Robert found humor in the way Renee threw down on Tamara he was still pissed at her for bringing this kind of drama to his doorstep.

  Robert said, “Renee, get away from here with all this. How could you embarrass me and yourself like this?”

  “How could you embarrass yourself by putting on these nasty-ass see-through pajama pants?”

  Little kids were outside eating ice cream and laughing at Robert’s funny-shaped butt.

  Robert ignored the fact that he was standing outside practically nude in front of his neighbors. He took off his T-shirt and applied it to Tamara’s bloodied head and face. He didn’t know what to say to Renee and just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  He said, “Won’t you go harass Joel and leave me and Tamara the hell alone? He’s the one you’re really mad at.”

  It was as if Renee’s mind was open for suggestions, because hearing Joel’s name made her feel that he needed to feel some of her grief, too. She looked around at all of the neighbors. A few of them were on their cell phones. Renee assumed they were calling for an ambulance or the police. She hurried back inside her Escalade. She threw it into drive and peeled out of the parking space.

  Chapter 28

  It’s hard for most guys to go from store to store, rack to rack and then stand around for hours looking at women’s fashions. Joel wasn’t in the mood for holding pocketbooks while the girls tried on clothes. He knew the routine and decided to sit in the mall directly in front of Macy’s entrance. The mall was bright and lively, with a whirlwind of different scents along with a kaleidoscope of colorful advertisements and displays. Joel adjusted to his surroundings and blocked out the obscure pop music that played softly in the background.

  He planned to sit on the bench and play his NFL football game on his cell phone. Before he started playing his game, he did something completely out of the ordinary. He reached into his wallet, pulled out his rarely used Macy’s card and told the girls to treat themselves to whatever they liked. He felt comfortable doing this because he knew they weren’t the type to take advantage of his kindness. His gesture surprised the girls and made them smile.

  Kenya asked, “Is this some kind of test to see where our heads are? I think you’re trying to see whether we would take advantage of you or not.”

  Joel laughed and said, “No. That’s not what this is about. I already know that I can trust the two of you.”

  Erin said, “You don’t have to do this. We have our own money and credit cards.”

  Joel said, “I know I don’t have to do it, but I just wanna do something nice for the two of you.”

  With laughter in her voice Kenya said, “Well, if you insist, I’ll take it.”

  Joel handed her the card and said, “Go ahead ... it’s fine.”

  Kenya asked, “Is there a limit to how much we can spend?”

  He said, “Use your own discretion. I’m not worried.”

  Kenya said, “All right, and you said pick out whatever we like, right?”

  Erin said, “Yeah, he did say that. C’mon.”

  “I’ll be right here playing my game ... the Baltimore Ravens vs. the Cincinnati Bengals. See y’all in a little while.”

  Erin and Kenya thanked Joel and they both gave him quick pecks on his lips.

  Joel sat alone on a bench playing a serious but imaginary football match-up on his cell phone. Some older married men sat across from him on the benches that surrounded the indoor fountain. Some of the men looked numb and exhausted. They just sat there guarding their wives’ shopping bags. Joel laughed to himself.

  A young couple and their little boy walked over to one of the other benches. The mother asked her son, “Are you going with me or staying here with Daddy?”

  The little boy looked about three years old. He clearly stated, “I wanna stay with Daddy.” As soon as his mother walked away he took off running behind her yelling, “I go with you.”

  Joel admired their little family. He found himself thinking about having a family quite a bit lately. He hoped to have kids one day. He always dreamed of having a Joel Davis Jr. who closely resembled him. He imagined having kids with Erin and Kenya. He imagined how they would look. He tried to figure out how the three of them would even integrate kids into their current relationship. He knew that people had done it, but deep down he knew that it would be confusing, weird, uncomfortable and possibly disastrous for a child to be raised in a poly relationship. His thoughts quickly shifted back to his game.

  A few minutes later he was so engrossed in his game that it appeared as if he hardly noticed a steady stream of attractive women who walked by. He definitely noticed them, but didn’t feel the need to acknowledge them with anything more than his usual brief eye contact and a subtle smile. Although Joel was into the game, he was well aware of everybody around him. As a matter of fact, he felt someone staring at him. He looked up and saw two guys who looked a whole lot like the rappers Baby and Lil Wayne staring at him from the opposite side of the mall. They walked by Joel without saying a word. A few seconds later he felt the same strange feeling. When he looked up he saw the same two guys again. This time he kept his eyes on the two of them. When they realized he was watching them, one of the guys headed toward Joel.

  Joel was calm and took a couple of seconds to select the save & exit mode on his game.

  The guy who looked like Lil Wayne approached Joel and said, “Yo, ain’t you the dude who beat Spanky’s ass last night at the club?”

  Joel felt an instant adrenaline rush. His heart started beating out of his chest. Retaliation and bloodshed was all he could think of for the moment. He played dumb at first and said, “Huh?”

  The guy nodded and said, “Yeah, you are the one. I remember you.”

  Joel was ready to take on whatever came his way. He stood up boldly and looked like he was ready to defend himself. With an intense look in his eyes he said, “Yeah, it was me. Why? What you want?”

  The guy laughed and said, “Nah, I’m not trying to step to you like that. I just want you to know that the streets is lovin’ you right about now. That nigga Spanky gonna be away for a while. He was on probation and I know they gonna make him serve out the last seven years he had left on his sentence.”

  Joel had a nonchalant expression on his face. “That’s kind of messed up, but he brought that on himself.”

  “You don’t even feel bad about that, do you?”

  “Nope, I don’t. Why should I?”

  “Nah, you shouldn’t. He wasn’t a friend of mine. Me and my people hate him. You did him a favor and added a few more days to his life ’cause everybody was after that boy. They just gonna get him on the inside now. What was y’all fighting about anyway?”

  “I used to mess with his cousin, and Spanky was mouthing off about stuff he didn’t know nothing about. And then he put his hands on my girlfriend.”

  “I don’t blame you for doing what you did. I would have knocked his ass out too, if he had touched my girl.” The guy paused for a moment, gave Joel a look of respect, threw his hands up and said, “Aw-ight, that’s it. I just wanted you to know what was going on.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  The two guys walked away, but Joel didn’t trust them. He sat back down and felt like a stationary target sitting there. He continued sitting there, playing his game until it was interrupted by an incoming text message.

  The text message was from Erin. It read, I miss you!

  Within a few seconds another text message came through, but this time it was an I miss you from Kenya.

  Joel replied to both messages, I miss you, too!

  Forty-five minutes later, Joel saw Erin and Kenya walking toward him, each carrying two medium-sized shopping bags.

  Kenya handed Joel his Macy’s card and said, “Thank you. We didn’t use your card. They had
a nice sale going on and we decided to pay for our own clothes. We treated you to a couple of nice things ... just to show you how much we appreciate you.”

  “You’re both appreciated and that is why I offered to pay for your clothes. Now I definitely have to do something special for the two of you.”

  Erin said, “You’ve already done enough.”

  Kenya said, “Speak for yourself.” Then in a sexy tone she said, “I know a few things you can do.”

  They all laughed.

  Joel asked, “Did y’all get what you wanted ... from the store?”

  Erin said, “Yeah.” She handed him one of the shopping bags and said, “This is for you from me and Kenya.”

  “What is it?”

  Kenya said, “The simplest thing to do is to just look inside the bag.”

  Joel said, “I knew you were gonna say that.”

  Kenya said, “Just look inside, please.”

  Joel opened the bag and found two striped Ralph Lauren Polo shirts that were different from any of his others. He said, “Thanks. I love these. Just what I needed, a couple more to add to my collection.” He paused for a moment and then asked, “So, what did y’all treat yourselves to?”

  Before Erin and Kenya answered they were distracted by the little boy Joel had noticed earlier. He had returned with his mother. He walked up to his father and said, “We back, Daddy.”

  Erin and Kenya thought that the little boy was cute, but quickly turned the conversation back to shopping. They showed Joel their clothes. After that the girls wanted to go to Victoria’s Secret and insisted that Joel come along to help them pick out something sexy. He agreed, because he loved looking at Victoria’s Secret lingerie—what he considered gift wrap for breasts and ass.

  The young married couple overheard Joel, Erin and Kenya’s Victoria’s Secret conversation. The husband envied Joel’s situation with the girls and wished he could have traded places with him. The wife just stood still with a puzzled look on her face. She didn’t know what to think of the threesome.

  Chapter 29

  Renee stopped by CVS Pharmacy on her way to Joel’s apartment, to pick up her sleeping pills. Her mother had dropped off the prescription the day before. Luckily the medicine was ready for pickup because Renee wasn’t in any kind of mood to wait. This wasn’t the first time she had experienced anxiety and dramatic mood swings. For years she refused to go on antidepressants. Now she really needed a psychiatrist and some antipsychotic drugs, but she and her mother convinced her internal medicine doctor that she would be fine if she just got some sleep. Although the doctor knew Renee and her mother were in serious denial, he still followed their wishes.

  Renee was on edge and hadn’t slept in almost three days. Somehow she still felt revved up. The slightest thing made her irritable, like the stupid people around her complaining about the hot weather. Renee was in the middle of what she considered a really bad anxiety attack and the customers around her noticed the crazed expression that was plastered on her face, a mixture of shock and fear. Her heart seemed to beat out of control. Her chest felt tight and she had a hard time controlling her breathing. She couldn’t think straight. She knew what she wanted to do, but there were just too many ideas in her head trying to surface at the same time. She wanted to go see Joel and go see her family. Something inside was telling her to go get a glass of ice water because she was dehydrated. McDonald’s golden arches kept flashing in her mind, but her appetite was completely gone. Renee’s stomach felt like it was filled with a million butterflies. The music that played over the intercom system seemed a lot louder than usual. She had a headache and kept feeling strange bursts of mental energy—crazy energy. It made her so anxious that she felt like she could break out into a high impact aerobic workout, do a tap dance routine, break through a brick wall and still have enough momentum left to run all the way home. She just wanted to take enough pills to finally get some sleep.

  A few minutes later she got the pills and left the pharmacy. As she drove along the road she came to a red light. Out of nowhere she was struck by a strong urge to go through the red light and just plow right into oncoming traffic. She thought about driving her Escalade over the side of the closest bridge. Living felt painful and dying seemed peaceful. Everything was just so loud in her head and there was nothing she could do to settle things down.

  Renee reached into her CVS bag and took out her pill bottle. She popped a couple of sleeping pills in her mouth and swallowed them down. She took one more and then another. The usual dose was one 10-milligram pill per twenty-four hours. When Renee reached Joel’s development she parked two buildings down from his so he wouldn’t notice her Escalade. She laughed to herself because she knew that nothing was going to stop her from getting inside of Joel’s apartment. She had an extra key that Joel didn’t know she kept in her change purse. As she made her way up to the front door she noticed Joel’s nosey neighbor Ms. Benson exiting the building.

  Ms. Benson recognized Renee right away. She liked Renee because she saw her as a troublemaker and a great source for gossip. In a lively voice Ms. Benson said, “Hey, honey. How are you doing?”

  Renee gave her a strange look and said, “I’m fine.”

  Ms. Benson squinted and said, “You don’t look fine.”

  Offended, Renee replied, “Well, neither do you.”

  Ms. Benson took Renee’s response as a joke. “Aw, I’m up in age now, that’s my excuse.” She paused for a moment and then she realized that something really was wrong with Renee. She didn’t know what to say next and asked, “You and Joel back together?”

  Renee lied easier than she told the truth and this time was no exception. “Yeah, I’m back for good now.”

  “You know he’s been running around with those two girls from upstairs.”

  With anger in her voice and in her eyes Renee said, “They’re just friends.”

  Ms. Benson laughed and said, “Oh, you think so, huh? Those three are a lot more than friends. I heard they were having a threesome. Those girls been sleeping over there with him since the new one came home on Friday.”

  Renee snapped, “I don’t care. Can you please leave me alone so I can go up to my apartment?”

  “Well, I’m sorry. You go right ahead and take it easy ... get some rest.”

  Renee kept walking and ignored anything else that may have come out of Ms. Benson’s big mouth. She entered Joel’s apartment without any difficulty. Right away she noticed how neat and clean his place was. She headed straight to Joel’s bedroom so she could search through his personal belongings. The closet was her first stop. For some reason she checked all of his pants, shorts, shirts, and coat pockets and came up with nothing. The top shelf of the closet was lined with shoe boxes. Some contained shoes, while others contained paperwork. She pulled down the boxes and carelessly dumped their contents all over the place. Nothing was off limits. She looked under Joel’s mattress and under his bed. When Renee didn’t find anything significant she searched through his dresser drawers. Joel had cash tucked away in his underwear drawer and deep in the back of the drawer she found the note he had written in his classroom, titled “Free-flowin’ Thoughts.” Wrapped up inside the note was her one-and-a-half-carat diamond ring. She put the ring on her finger, but instead of putting it on her right hand she wore it on her left ring finger like an engagement ring. She sat on the floor and read Joel’s note. His words touched her and the next thing she knew her tears had fallen onto the paper. They soaked into the paper’s surface, making it easier for her to tear the paper into hundreds of tiny pieces that she tossed in the air like confetti.

  Renee got up off the floor and turned on Joel’s television. As soon as it came on she turned to a music video. She started dancing and jumping up and down on Joel’s bed like she had completely lost her mind. All of a sudden Renee was struck by the urge to burn everything in sight like Lisa “Lefteye” Lopez did to Andre Rison’s mansion. But Renee didn’t want to risk the lives of the innocent people who l
ived in the building. She thought that vandalizing Joel’s entire apartment would be more than sufficient. She began by kicking the lamps off of the nightstand. Renee wiped the dresser’s surface clean with her hand, knocking Joel’s little sculptures and designer cologne bottles to the floor. She punched holes in his painting and pulled down his wall-mounted flat-screen TV. She made her way out to the living room to break, crush and smash everything in sight. The other wall-mounted TV had to come down too.

  Renee looked under Joel’s kitchen sink and pulled out a gallon bottle of Clorox bleach and doused everything in sight, including most of Joel’s clothes. She grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and sliced Joel’s leather furniture to shreds. She vandalized the entire apartment.

  On her way back to Joel’s bedroom Renee stopped in the kitchen one more time and took out a bottle of wine that had been chilling in the refrigerator.

  She sat on Joel’s bed gulping down wine when she noticed two duffel bags sitting in the corner of the room near one of Joel’s nightstands. She opened them and figured that they must belong to Joel’s two girlfriends. These were their overnight bags. Renee dumped their contents into one big pile. One bag had a few sex toys inside. Renee wondered what kind of freaky shit the girls were into. They had all types of lubricants, condoms and massage oils. Renee flipped the lid open on one of their bottles of body wash, took a sniff and instantly fell in love with the fragrance. She began to undress and headed to the shower with the body wash in hand. About ten minutes later she got out of the shower and stood in front of the bathroom mirror. She studied her appearance for a while. Renee was alarmed by what she saw. It didn’t take a genius to see that she looked insane. She was even more alarmed by what she had done to Joel’s apartment. In a moment of clarity, she realized that he didn’t deserve that.