by RM Johnson
“Well, I’m not blaming you. You only did what Faith asked you to do. I mean, you’re her friend more than mine so I understand. It just bothers me that everything just seemed to turn around all of a sudden. I mean, one minute we’re in love, we’re fine. We’re talking about honeymoons, about the children we’re going to have, and then next thing I know, she’s asking you to give me some key, and …”
“She didn’t ask me to do it.” Her face turned to the side again.
“She didn’t ask you to do what?” I said, feeling as though I missed a beat somewhere.
“To give you that key. She didn’t know I gave it to you.”
“Of course she did. She set it up that way. She had you give me the key, so I could walk in and—”
“Jayson,” Karen said, turning toward me, holding both her palms up at me, trying to calm me, because she had to see that I was beginning to get riled. “That’s what happened, but she didn’t want that to happen. That’s what I’m here to tell you.”
I looked at her, as though she were crazy.
“Hold it, hold it. I’m not understanding. What are you trying to say?”
“It was going too far. You were all crazy in love with Faith, and with each day that passed, the more you actually thought you two were going to get married.”
“What are you talking about, thought? We were getting married.”
“No, you weren’t, Jayson. It wasn’t going to happen, at least not if Faith got what she wanted.”
I was really getting annoyed at that point. “Karen, make it fucking plain,” I whispered loudly.
“What aren’t you getting!” she whispered back. “Faith didn’t love you. At least not enough to marry you.”
And that was as plain as she could make it. Too plain, actually, and I sat there frozen on the edge of that stool like a stone statue, threatening to topple off. Even if what she said wasn’t true, just hearing it made my heart disintegrate.
“That’s bullshit, Karen. She had sex with that guy because she was trying—”
“—trying to get him to marry her. Jayson, I don’t know what she told you, but that just wasn’t some guy she met in a club that night, or pulled off the street. His name is Gary, and she knew him even before she knew you. She was in love with him, still is, but he’s married, has kids. He’s been back and forth with his wife though. His wife would put him out, and he would stay with Faith before she met you. And then he would go back to the wife again. He always said that he would leave her and marry Faith, but he never seemed to have enough incentive. And that’s when you came along.” Karen paused to sip from her cup again and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin.
“The day you met her at the movie theater, what a loser she thought you were. No game. But you were handsome, more so than Gary, and Faith’s wheels started spinning the way they do, and she found a way to use you.”
Found a way to use me, Jayson thought. This wasn’t happening. Karen didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. She was lying. She just had to be.
“You’re trying to tell me that for almost a year Faith has been seeing somebody else, that she never loved me, let me buy her a ring, make all the preparations, and she never intended on getting married in the first place?”
“What preparations, Jayson? Getting a time slot at city hall?”
“I wanted to do more. To have a big wedding, but—”
“But Faith said she wanted something small, something intimate,” Karen cut in. “Didn’t want to make a big fuss over anything. She said that, Jayson, because she never had any intention of it actually happening. I think she loved you in a way, but not enough to spend the rest of her life with you.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said, shaking my head. “No.” I shut my eyes, thought about all the times we had together, tried to remember if her mind seemed elsewhere, if while making love, her body didn’t seem totally invested in what we were doing, but that never seemed to be the case. “I would’ve known. I just would’ve.”
“You don’t give women enough credit. We can hide things better than you think. Men think we can’t be anything but open with our emotions, but we could care less for a man, remain with him, and never have him doubt that we love his dirty drawers,” Karen said, looking me intently in the eyes through her dark glasses.
“There’s more, Jayson. September. Not long after you met her. The two weeks you couldn’t have sex with her.”
I had to think a moment about that. How did she even know that much about our sex life? “She had a yeast infection,” I said.
“No, Jayson. She had an abortion. She was carrying Gary’s child, but he convinced her that she shouldn’t have a baby before they got married.”
And again I found myself traveling back in my mind. Wouldn’t I have known all this if it were the case? No. This just wasn’t happening. None of this was true. I turned away from Karen, lowered my face into my hand. I was trying to keep all these bits of information from coming closer together, because I knew that if they did, they would probably fit perfectly together like a puzzle, forming a picture that fully supported what Karen was saying.
I turned back to her, feeling as though I could barely hold myself up on the stool.
“Why did she do this to me?”
“I told you, because she wanted to make Gary jealous, agree to leave his wife before she married you.”
“And what if he didn’t? Would she have married me, anyway?” I asked, and for some sick reason, I was almost wishing that was what would’ve happened.
“She said she would’ve, but I don’t know, and I didn’t want to find out. That’s why I gave you the key, Jayson.”
“And what happened. Did he agree to marry her?”
Karen looked in the other direction for no reason, then looked back at me through the wide dark glasses. “That night after you caught them, she said Gary realized how much she must’ve meant to you. She said he got jealous, and he finally agreed to leave his wife.”
“So that’s why, no matter what I say to her—that I’m willing to forgive her, that I’m willing to never see Asha again—” (and how worthless I felt at that moment for agreeing to sacrifice my friend like that)“—no matter what I say, she won’t hear it, because she’s gotten what she wanted from the start.”
Karen agreed with me by nodding her head.
“Why are you telling me all this?” I said.
She took another sip from her coffee, which had to be near gone. “Because she did you wrong.”
“But you were never too big on doing me right yourself,” I said, looking at her suspiciously.
“There’s something else,” Karen said, changing the subject, digging into the purse she was holding on to so tightly. She pulled out a videocassette and placed it on the counter between us.
I looked down at it oddly. “What is it?”
“It’s them. That night. The night you walked in on them.”
And what kind of sick shit was this? Why would they have taped it, and why would I have wanted it?
“They taped it? Why the hell would they do that?”
“I … I don’t know,” Karen said, looking away. “Maybe they … I don’t know.”
“Well, why would Faith give it to you?”
Karen didn’t answer and her face was still turned away from me. I scooted closer to her, trying to look into her eyes.
“Faith did give this to you, didn’t she, Karen?” I asked her, raising the tape, holding it in her face.
“Yes, she did,” Karen said, snatching a look at me, and then looking away. Something wasn’t right here. This just didn’t make any sense for that to have happened. I looked down at the tape again, then decided to play my hunch.
“She didn’t give you this tape, did she? And if what you say is on here actually is, the only way you could’ve gotten it, would’ve been for you to have been the one who taped it. That’s right isn’t it?”
Karen slowly turned back around, resting tho
se big black lenses on me.
“Why did you do it?” I asked her, trying to find the answer in my own mind.
Karen didn’t answer right away, as if judging whether I was really on to her or not. Finally she sighed and said, “If when you walked in, they weren’t in the act, I didn’t want her to be able to lie and say that she wasn’t involved with him. So I taped it.”
I shook my head, barely able to believe any of this. “How did you do it?” I asked her.
“Simple. I hid the camera, pointed it toward the couch and programmed it to start recording around the time I knew they’d be there. I didn’t think they’d do it right there on the couch. I just thought I’d catch them saying something, kissing a little. But like I told you,” Karen said, looking sympathetically at me, “I thought it was going too far. I thought you were really going to get hurt, that’s why I did it.”
“You never cared if I got hurt before. As a matter of fact, you always seemed intent on hurting me.”
“Seemed, Jayson,” Karen said, under her breath.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” Karen said, looking down into her empty cup of coffee.
“No. Tell me what you mean by that.”
“I said it was nothing,” she said again, spinning away from me on the stool. I grabbed her by the arm, but she pulled away hard, and when she escaped from my grasp, she almost fell off the stool. She caught herself before she did, but the dark glasses dropped from her face and hit the floor. I quickly bent over to retrieve them and held them out to her.
Karen’s head was turned, as if she was trying to hide something, blindly reaching for her glasses.
“No. Let me see,” I said, softly, placing my other hand on her shoulder, and turning her to face me. Her left eye was slightly closed by swelling, and the lid was discolored.
“Where’d you get that?”
Karen didn’t answer the question, just reached for her glasses in my hand. I didn’t release them.
“Faith was that mad at you, hunh?”
“I don’t care. She was wrong,” Karen said, pulling on her glasses again. I let her have them, but she didn’t put them back on.
“She was wrong, but why did it matter to you?”
Karen stared me sadly in my face, shook her head, as if deciding if she was going to disclose what she was thinking, then stood as if she was going to walk away. I grabbed her, this time not as forcefully, but by the hand.
“Karen, you have to understand what I’m going through, all that’s just happened to me. Now I’m trying to make sense of this but it seems like you’re hiding something from me. Just tell me. Please.”
“I was always mean to you, because I didn’t want her to know how I felt about you. At first, I just thought it was a passing thing, but over time, Jayson, I …” And then Karen just stopped speaking, as if she all of a sudden ran out of words. I sat there, staring at her, my mouth open, waiting for her to continue.
“You what, Karen?”
She looked as if she had reconsidered what she was about to say, then slowly continued. “I fell for you, Jayson.”
“What do you mean, fell for me?” I asked, after a moment, as if I didn’t understand English.
“You know. I fell in love with you. I think I still love you. That’s why I always tried to break the two of you up. Yes, I didn’t want you to get hurt, but I also didn’t want to see you with anyone but me. I didn’t want you to marry Faith.”
Me and Karen. I allowed myself to think this thought for only a fraction of a second. Any longer, I would’ve barfed all over the Starbucks floor. “That’s why you gave me the key card?”
“Yeah,” Karen said, very softly, nodding her head. She stared directly into my eyes afterward, and wouldn’t look away.
“What?” I said.
“I want to know what you think. If, maybe we could—”
And I cut her off before she even had a chance to get the question out. “I still love Faith, Karen. Regardless of what she’s done. I know she has a good reason, and I know she loved me once, and still does.”
Karen’s face fell.
“But if I wasn’t still with her,” I said quickly, trying to save her feelings.
She looked up at me.
“Well … you know,” I said, implying that it could’ve been me and her, which would always be the farthest thing from the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No. Don’t be. It was wrong of me to even say anything,” she said, slipping her glasses back on, slinging her purse over her shoulder. She stood up and extended her hand, and we shook hands like civilized people.
“Take care, Jayson, and good luck.” She turned and headed toward the door.
“Karen,” I called to her. “What about the tape?” I reached for it, held it out to her.
“I don’t want it,” she said, turning around to face me.
“Well, I don’t want it either,” I said, looking down at it like it was a piece of filth.
“Hold on to it, Jayson. You never know, you might need it for something.”
What the fuck was she trying to say? I wanted to ask her, but I was done dealing with talking to her. I was done with this entire situation.
“I won’t need it for nothing,” I told her, as I turned to walk toward the opposite door.
“Fine, leave it for the next person who sits down then,” Karen said. She exited and left me standing there a few feet from the tape.
I stared at it for a moment. I looked around quickly to see if anyone was paying particular attention to my movements. Then when I saw that they weren’t, I quickly walked over to the tape, grabbed it, tucked it under my arm, and left.
20
Karen was in love with me? I thought about this all the way home and I still couldn’t believe it. Why didn’t she just pull me aside one day, and instead of cursing me out, calling me names like some third grader who can only express her feelings by slugging you, just tell me what was up? She could’ve let me know how she felt and we could’ve worked all that out right then and there.
I could’ve said something like, “Woman, are you crazy? Have you been sniffing glue? Get that nonsense out of your head and bring your ass back to reality.” It wouldn’t have been quite that harsh, but she would’ve gotten the point, and all of this hotel setup, with a complimentary keepsake tape of the event would’ve been avoided.
I sat there now, in my apartment, on the sofa, that tape sitting right in front of me on the coffee table. I had been sitting there for the past two hours trying to ignore it, trying to stop myself from grabbing it and sliding it into my VCR. Why the hell did Karen give that thing to me, and why hadn’t I thrown it away on the way back up here? I should’ve, I wanted to, but something sick inside of me obviously wanted to see it more than I wanted to toss it.
I extended a trembling hand, fearful of touching it, as if thinking that the mere feel of it could hurt me as much as what was recorded on it. I picked it up, pulled back the cover that protected the actual video tape, and thought of yanking the shiny ribbon right out of it, but I couldn’t. Dammit, I couldn’t.
I walked over to the television, turned it and the VCR on, and slid the tape in. I grabbed the remote, and on nervous legs walked back over to the sofa and sat down. I clicked the TV to channel three, and noticed that I was trembling, that my hand was shaking and sweating so much that the remote almost slipped from my grasp.
But what was I afraid of? I asked myself. There was nothing on this tape that I hadn’t already seen. There was no more harm that this thing could cause me, for I had been there when it happened, absorbed the full brunt of its pain. I couldn’t be hurt any more than I had already been. Telling myself that, I pressed Play.
The screen went black, there was a flash, a horizontal line ran up the length of the screen, and then the image appeared. It was Faith and that man. The picture was grainy, the light was bad, and it reminded me of those cheaply made porno flicks. He w
as undoing the buttons of her blouse. He started kissing Faith’s neck, and she was sensually turning her head to the side, giving him more access. She was moaning, clawing at his back, as he rubbed his hands up and down her, settling them on her behind. I felt myself getting weak, as beads of cold sweat started to roll down the side of my face, accumulate under my arms.
Karen must’ve known exactly what she was doing when she positioned that camera, or Faith and this man had to have secretly known it was there, for they seemed to be playing to it. They were directly in front of the camera, allowing me to see everything that was happening, and the camera caught a direct shot of Faith’s breasts as they fell out of her bra when that man removed it. I felt the need to avert my eyes, as if embarrassed by what was happening before me, as if I had no business watching this. He threw the bra to the floor, and started to grab at the button on Faith’s jeans but was interrupted when Faith yanked his Tshirt up and over his head. He went back to her jeans, unzipping them, as Faith kissed him about his neck, his collarbone, started to suck on his nipple, and then started to undo his jeans.
After undoing her jeans, he slid them and her panties down her shapely ass and hips. She stepped out of them, totally nude, as beautiful as she had always been when I had undressed her. She was excited, and it was clear by how engorged, how erect her nipples were, and by the desire in her eyes as she feverishly worked on that man’s zipper.
And at that moment, something told me to turn it off, because I knew what was going to happen, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to bear it. It would’ve been the worst thing I could’ve possibly seen, the worst thing any man can see. I would rather have seen her getting her brains fucked out as I had, than see what I thought was about to happen. But I didn’t turn it off, because I was hoping, praying, that she wouldn’t do it, that she couldn’t do it. I was hoping that at that time something familiar would strike her, something that reminded her of us, something that said that there were some things she only did with me.
But that didn’t happen, of course, for when she did snatch his pants below his hips, and his erect penis jumped out at her, she quickly put her lips around it, taking him all the way into her mouth.