by RM Johnson
“Jayson, Jayson,” Asha said, tears now falling from her eyes, as she still tried to dry his face with her now wet hands. “Jayson, please stop.” But he wouldn’t, and she knew he wouldn’t soon. It was a pain so deep that he had no control over it, a pain that she shared with him now, and there seemed no way to stop it, so all she could hope to do was smother it by throwing her face into his, pressing her lips against his. It was all she knew left to do. They had experienced pain together in the past, and as they kissed passionately, their cheeks brushing against each other’s, their tears joining, it seemed oddly familiar, safe, and secure, like a home left years ago and then returned to.
The sobbing stopped, but the crying still continued, and the pain was transformed into something that no longer hurt them, but something they fed off, something that strengthened the bond between them. And as Asha felt her clothes being peeled off her, and as she disrobed Jayson, she knew this was something that he needed. In some strange way, it was something they both needed.
23
“So, I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
“Of course, baby,” Gary said, kissing Faith on the lips, patting her on the behind, then walking out her front door.
Faith stood there on her porch and watched till his car pulled out of sight. It was only eight o’clock, but he was leaving after being there for only two hours.
“I have business to take care of,” was his excuse, but Faith wasn’t some fool, or at least she wasn’t when it came to him. She had been dealing with Gary long enough to know the code words for “I need to be getting home to my wife and children.” That’s what it was, and even though she didn’t want to let him leave, felt like a fool allowing him to, considering that they were supposed to be in a relationship, supposed to someday be getting married, she let him walk out that door.
It was partly because she knew that this was the last of it. Gary had already started to move his stuff over to Faith’s house, and that meant commitment. The overnight bag that he had brought over today and was now sitting in Faith’s hallway closet proved it. He would be finally filing for divorce tomorrow. His wife wouldn’t like it, and she would try to talk him out of it, as she had always done in the past, but this time, he wouldn’t allow that to happen. Gary said so himself. This time, he would pack up the rest of his things and head on over to Faith’s house and that was where he would stay. As soon as the divorce cleared, the way would be freed for the two of them to get married.
“You almost got away from me, but I ain’t gonna let that happen again,” he said, referring to how serious he thought things had gotten between her and Jayson. He’d seen the look on Jayson’s face when he walked in the room, and knew the man loved her. There was no faking the hurt that was on his face. As Faith was still getting taken from behind, she herself could see the moment Jayson’s heart broke into a million pieces.
But why was she even thinking about that? That chapter of her life was over. Yes, she’d spent a year of her life with him, playing relationship, planning to play house with him, and although he was a good man, she was after other things.
Faith stepped back into her house, closing the front door behind her, wondering if there had been no Gary, could things have worked between her and Jayson? She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she thought it was possible. There were times when she would almost forget that it was a game she was playing with him. She would almost lose herself in the excitement of planning for their marriage. There were times when she would go with him on his little imaginary journeys into the future, and she would see the two of them ten, fifteen years from that moment, see their two or three children, and she would smile with Jayson, a warm feeling in her heart, until she awakened and realized it would never happen.
And why wouldn’t it? Because she was in love with Gary of course. She was in love with married Gary. Gary with kids, kids representing obligations that he would have for the rest of his life, and that meant a relationship that he would have with his wife for the rest of his life as well.
“You are the stupidest woman I’ve ever known for playing Jayson like that for tiredass Gary,” Karen had told her so many times. “Jayson is fine as hell, he’s paid, no kids, no wife, and he loves your holy ass panties, and you want to sacrifice him for some brother who has to spend all his money on his family, and will always have to spend at least half of it on them. That is, if he ever leaves them.”
Faith felt a pain in her heart as she thought about Karen. Even after what that woman did to her, she missed her, because Karen was her girl. They’d shared too many good times together for it to have to end like this. Faith still couldn’t believe what Karen had done to her, but in her heart she knew it was because she was jealous. She was just jealous because Faith had two men at her disposal, and she had nothing. Sure there were men who stepped to her on occasion, but nothing that her high-standard-having ass would ever lower herself to.
Faith plopped down on her sofa, grabbed the remote, and thumbed through all one hundred plus channels in twenty-five seconds, realizing that there was nothing on TV worth watching. She thought for a moment about what she could do, but there seemed to be nothing at all. Normally on a day like this, after she had just finished seeing Gary, she would call up Jayson and they would go to dinner, or go for a walk downtown, or along the lake, and he would shower her with affection, tell her how much he loved her, and how happy they’d be together once they finally got married.
Faith quickly shook those images out of her head, but it took a little longer to shake the smile that was on her face. She wasn’t missing him, Faith told herself. She wasn’t, because she had exactly what she wanted now. And she knew she couldn’t be missing him, because if she did, that meant that she had feelings for him, and she knew she had done a hell of a job at keeping her heart guarded from him. If that wasn’t the case, she would’ve felt more than just the minimal amount of sympathy for Jayson when he walked in and found her with Gary. If she really had feelings for him, she wouldn’t have been able to turn a deaf ear to Jayson, to be so cold to him when he tried to come back to her, to bargain his way back in her life.
Faith thought back for a moment, remembering some of the things she had said to him. Did he deserve to be treated like that? No. Not really. All he did was love her. But she had to get her point across, Faith reasoned. She loved Gary, and she would be with him. She loved him so much that when she got pregnant, she yearned to have his baby, wanted to have it so much. And when he told her that it wouldn’t be a good time, that it would be better once they were together, she loved him so much that she aborted that child.
Afterward, she cried for it, as though she had been the one who killed it, as though she had been the one to stick that vacuum up inside her and suck it out of her. But Gary was there for her, allowed her to cry on his shoulder, and he cried with her, until he had to get up and leave, go home to his family. But while he was there, he said all the right words, words that comforted her, words that made her look toward the future.
“That baby’s not gone, sweetheart,” he said, holding Faith, kissing her on the forehead. “It’ll be back next time. That baby will be back when we’re together,” he said, and that calmed her. It was the promise that Faith held on to. While she was playing the game with Jayson, while she was trying to continue to convince Gary to leave his wife, that thought was with her. She was doing everything she did because she needed to bring that baby back, the baby whom she had killed, she needed to bring it back, and she couldn’t do that without Gary.
That’s why she was so hard on Jayson. He had to know that there was no way that he could ever get back into her life. No way. But now when Faith thought about it, she realized that she had been far too harsh on him. And there was something else she realized. She had never once apologized for being caught with Gary, for subjecting him to such a thing.
Faith thought it over for a brief moment, then reached for the cordless phone there on the table before her. She punched Jayson�
��s number in it, and listened while it rung.
“I can’t take your call. Leave a message, please,” was what Faith heard.
She thought about leaving a message, but then hung up. Considering all that she had done to him, she knew he wouldn’t have called her back. She would have to call him while he was at home, or better yet, apologize to him in person.
24
When I opened my eyes and looked at the clock, it was 8:45 P.M. I turned my head to find Asha’s cheek resting against my shoulder. I craned my neck to get a look at her to see if she was awake. She was sound asleep, on her side, one arm draped across my middle, a leg thrown over my legs.
I kissed her head and caressed the smooth skin of her bare shoulder with my fingertips. I didn’t know exactly how all this happened. One moment I felt I was on the verge of dying from a broken heart, and the next minute, Asha’s warm lips were pressed against mine, her tongue finding its way into my mouth. Amazingly, that action seemed to stop the pain I was feeling, to fill the hole that allowed everything to seep out of my heart. I didn’t know if what we were doing was right or not, but I didn’t have the time to answer. Nor did I really want to know the answer. It was what I needed at that moment, and I told myself I would search for the answer later.
Now I was lying there awake, next to this beautiful woman, this woman that I once loved as a woman, then as a friend, looking down at her, feeling her soft, warm breath grazing the hair on my chest. Did I ever really stop loving her as a woman? Even though I regarded Asha as only a friend, did Faith see something deeper in that relationship? Did she know something that I didn’t?
I had to admit that I’d never stopped being attracted to Asha. She was, and still continued to be, the most beautiful woman I’d ever been with, and that included Faith, even though I loved Faith harder than I had ever loved another woman.
But Faith was history now.
“She didn’t deserve you,” Asha said. “She’s not worth your tears,” and although I was crying so hard I could barely hear what she had said, somehow the words did get through, and now I was starting to believe them. It was definitely time to move on.
But move on to what? Again I was looking down at Asha, lowering my lips to her soft, long hair, smelling its sweet scent, kissing her there again. Was it a mistake to ever have stopped things with her? And now I had to think back to exactly why we had broken it off to begin with. She was preoccupied with something; I felt that there was something stopping her from allowing me to get as close to her as I would’ve liked. At first I just thought that she needed time to get to know me better, that eventually her occasional aloofness would pass, but it didn’t. So we settled for being friends.
But now that I looked at her and thought about what had happened just hours ago, I wondered, where did we stand?
We’d just made love, and yes, it could’ve been something that she did for me because of the pain I was in, a way to distract me from thinking about Faith. But it seemed like more than that. As she rode atop of me, there was nothing quick about her actions, as if she were trying to get it all over with. There was nothing forced, nothing mechanical in her movements. I may have been wrong, but I really felt she was doing what she was doing, not just because she wanted my mind on something else, but because she wanted me to feel good. I remembered her looking down at me through partly opened eyes, as she gyrated her hips about on top of me, asking “Does it feel good to you? Is this good?”
All I could do was nod my head. I could not speak, because it felt so good. It felt as good as it had when we were together, almost better. When we were both satisfied, her body collapsed upon my chest, and we held each other. We held each other, and I felt her body start to relax even more, felt the characteristic twitching in her arms, and legs before she fell all the way off to sleep. She woke herself just to give me a kiss on the lips, and say, “Everything will be just fine, Jayson. Don’t you worry,” and then she fell right off.
Those didn’t seem like the actions of a woman who was giving charity sex.
I was about to move her around a little bit, so I could wrap both arms around her, hold her in a tighter embrace, when I heard something. I raised myself up a little, listened again. It was someone buzzing the front door. I hoped that it didn’t wake Asha, but when I looked down at her to see if it had, she was already stirring and opening her eyes.
Is that someone at the door?” she said, in a groggy voice, slowly raising her head.
“Yeah, but don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep. They’ll go away.”
“No, no. I should get that,” she said, and she was pulling herself from the bed, reaching into her closet and grabbing a thin robe. She threw it around herself, and tied the belt around her waist as she left the room.
I watched her as she went, asking myself if I could envision myself with her again. It didn’t take me a second to answer: Yes.
“Who is it?” I heard Asha ask into the intercom. There was a reply, but I didn’t hear it. I heard her buzzing whoever it was in. I continued to relax, knowing that she would soon get rid of the person and come back to bed.
I heard her unlock the bolts on the door, and I imagined her doing it, seeing her slim fingers twisting the locks. I envisioned her entire body, the robe cinched tight around her slim waist, conforming to her round behind.
“Gill, what are you doing here?” I heard her say and immediately I was brought out of the little fairy tale world I was living in.
“I thought I was supposed to be seeing you tonight, Suga’puss. Give me a kiss,” and I actually tried to listen for the sound of his lips smacking against hers, feeling more jealous than I had ever felt about her before. But what gave me the right to do that, to feel this way? Yeah, for some reason I had forgot all about Gill, but that didn’t mean just because I forgot him, Asha did too. She was his woman, she was wearing his damn ring on her finger. That meant something. But she had just slept with me, and unless I’m mistaken, that meant something too.
But nothing could happen between us with Gill still hanging around.
“Damn baby, you looking good tonight. Give me a squeeze.”
“This is not a good time, Gill,” I heard Asha say, and I imagined her pushing away from him.
“Aw, Suga’. Any time is a good time for me. Now come on over here and let me see what you have on under that robe,” he said playfully, chuckling.
“Stop it, Gill,” Asha said, and the threatened tone in her voice pulled me quickly out of bed. I raced over to the door, naked, grabbed the knob, and put my ear to the door. I should walk out there, I kept telling myself. I should walk out there, and yes, it would surely ruin things with Gill and Asha, but if we were about to restart something, wouldn’t that be okay?
I looked around, looked down at my clothes on the floor, but felt it would take too much time to put them all on. I grabbed the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around me, quickly getting back to the door and listening again.
“Gill, I don’t have to give you a reason why. I just said it was a bad time, and you’ve got to leave,” I heard her telling him.
“Asha, why you doing this? Why you acting like this?”
“I can’t explain it, at least not now.”
“You can’t explain it to your fiancé, to the man you’re about to marry, to the man you love, or are supposed to love,” Gill said.
“And what is that supposed to mean, Gill?”
“Just what I said. We supposed to be getting married, and you keeping secrets, kicking me out of your house for reasons you can’t tell me. This don’t seem like the actions of a woman that loves her man.”
“That’s what you think?” Asha asked, sounding a little hurt by what Gill had assumed of her.
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I think.”
I didn’t hear anything for a second, and I was starting to get worried, ready to open the door and walk out there, until I heard her say, “Think what you want, Gill, but right now, you have to go.” I heard her op
en the door again.
“Asha, I’ll be at home when you’re ready to explain this to me.”
“I know you will, Gill. Goodbye,” and then I heard the door close.
That was it. That had to be it, I thought, as I went back to the bed, threw the cover back on it, and slid back under it, so as not to seem that I had ever gotten up. She did want us to get back together, and she proved that by putting me before Gill. Her man had come to the door, wanting to see her, but she would rather spend time with me. There was no question about it, and when she walked back into the room, pulled off her engagement ring, set it on the nightstand, then bent down right into my arms, I knew that I had been right.
“Is everything all right between you two?” I asked her.
“I don’t want to talk about that right now, okay?” she said, kissing me on the lips.
“Okay,” I said, kissing her back, and lowering her down to the bed to make love to her once again.
25
Angie had been through all this before, gotten the same mess from another woman who couldn’t control her feelings and emotions, got demanding, wanting Angie to commit to her, and Angie had had to cut her ass loose, forget about her. It was easy, and it didn’t even take a day for her to forget everything about the girl. She could do that, wipe these women out of her mind like they were simple notions, ideas that she entertained just before falling asleep at night. She was good at that.
But if she was so good at it, why was Asha still on her mind? Sure she had only told Asha goodbye a matter of hours ago, but in the past, by this time, Angie was more consumed by what she would have for dinner, than her feelings for the woman she’d just dumped. This was different. From the moment she’d left the spa, she couldn’t get her mind off what had just happened, and just before stepping out that door, she paused for a moment and thought about turning around and apologizing to Asha, seeing if they could come to some accord. It was only the slightest second, but in the past that would’ve never happened.