by Maria Benson
I tried to make the picture clear for Sydney. “Look, we ran into each other a few months back and had a decent rapport. He’s a guy who checks all the right boxes on paper, so when he asked me out I figured why not try it? But things just never quite clicked.”
Sydney frowned. “How much of that had to do with the fact you were still flying to New York to hook up with The Commish?”
I shot daggers at my friends, unable to believe they were trying to get me to discuss Ian again. In their eyes, Ian was just a LifeTime movie stereotype, the philandering, self-absorbed captain of industry treating their friend like a disposable play toy. They didn’t appreciate that I had worked with this man right out of college, had been friends with him before he was appointed to one of the most visible leadership roles in pro sports.
“If you’re asking whether Michael had a tough standard to overcome with me, the answer is hell yes. I wasn’t some spinster looking for a guy to marry me and fill me with babies. I’m probably open to a life partner if the right guy’s out there, but life has shown me not to wait around pining.”
Sydney played at wiping her brow. “See, Tara? She’s got no delusions about Mr. Commissioner.”
Tara shrugged. “Okay, forget the mystery man. Back to Michael. Are you saying he didn’t have any moves? He couldn’t do anything to make you forget a lost cause like you-know-who?”
That closing question lit a pilot light in my core, left me grasping for some emotional cool. Best to ignore Tara’s implicit accusation. “Michael was perfectly comfortable with his body, but I guess he was just too . . . civil. A girl likes a little spark in her man.”
My girlfriends exchanged knowing looks, and Sydney won the race to verbalize. “Sparks, like she gets from The Commish.”
“Separate conversation,” I sang back. “Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear about my feelings for Michael, or the truth?”
Sydney shook her head. “Okay, he was slow on the draw with getting a goodnight kiss. What other war crimes did he commit?”
I was irritated enough to throw some of my friend’s earlier logic back in her face. “Sydney, when you have as many men after you as I do, you have to thin the herd somehow. Pardon me if an early criterion is that the guy has enough confidence to express his physical attraction to me.”
Sydney sighed again. “So you wrote him off a long time ago. What was so disastrous about the other night exactly?”
I recounted the experience, the way Michael orchestrated Friday night like some staged production: the late afternoon boat ride on the Chicago River, dinner at Winthrop’s at a coveted table. Sydney oohed and ahhed at every step, like she didn’t know I’d been treated to these antics in far finer establishments. By the time I detailed Michael’s profession of love and his sudden loss of good sense, she and Tara slapped hands in amazement.
Tara shook her head. “Wow, Michael really let you have it. He pretty much said you can’t appreciate a guy who’s good husband material. Sounds like he’s encountering a lot of women like that.” She smirked, though her tone sounded more serious. “Women like you gonna drive poor Mikey wild.”
I poured some more hot water into my teacup. “Getting wild might do a guy like Michael some good,” I replied, my eyes stinging a bit at the recall of his words and the weight of our shared history.
Sydney glanced at Tara, an oddly shy move considering the words were clearly aimed at me. “From all you say, he sounds like a great guy. If so, he should stay true to himself. Can’t be long before he meets someone who appreciates him.”
“Oh dammit, Sydney.” The sudden words shot from my mouth, punctuated by the slam of my teacup against its saucer.
As Tara glanced self-consciously at prying eyes, Sydney leaned toward me as if spoiling for a fight. “And your problem is?”
“Just say it,” I replied.
Now she was playing dumb. She took a second to wink at a big-haired nosy woman at the next table. “Say what, Chase?”
“Say that Michael’s right, Todd too I guess,” I said, flashing back to my boss’s implicit allegations about my lack of judgment. “Clearly I’m too damaged to know what’s good for me.” The words barely escaped as my throat closed up on me. I grabbed my purse, shoved aside my plate. “Put the entire bill on my card.” I tossed my VISA at Sydney. “And don’t lose it.”
Reaching over for me, Tara spoke soothingly. “Look, we’re just exploring–”
“It’s fine,” I said dismissively as I rose from my seat. “I get it. Everyone can see my situation so clearly, I guess I’m the fool.” Putting both hands to work, I flipped my two best friends the bird as I backed away from the table, purse swinging. “Thank you both for the counseling session.”
CHAPTER 6
Michael
I had just divulged my plan to my old friend Brody Lyons, a baseball teammate from Kenwood High, and he was confused. “Mikey, you wanna do what?”
I smiled at him across the butcher-block-like table in his kitchen. “You heard me,” I replied, lacing my hands behind my neck. “I’ve thought this through, Brody. It’s the only way to get what–or should I say, who–I want.”
Brody, who is beanpole thin and reminds strangers of an even thinner Chris Rock, tugged anxiously on his Cubs ball cap. “So . . . you want to figure out how to hold a ‘guys-only’ party next week and get a specific list of them to attend?”
I nodded.
Brody grabbed his Samsung Galaxy, scanning its face again. “I’m checking out your so-called guest list again,” he said with a hint of his parents’ Arkansan drawl. “Nope, this’ll never happen.”
“Why would you say that?”
Brody’s nostrils flared as he replied. “Well, let me count the ways. These are busy guys you’ve listed here; bros with places to be and hoes to do, if you know what I’m saying. You think you’re gonna get them on short notice to show up at a dudes-only party?” He lowered his voice, seemingly paranoid about the listening ears of his wife, Tisha, or their four children who were each somewhere in the house. “There something you’re not telling me, Mikey? ‘Cause straight guys hit parties that have ladies in the mix.”
“I’m just looking to pick some brains, man,” I said. “These guys are known for always having a new girl between the sheets.” I shrugged at Brody’s vacant stare. “They get what I want, and I plan to learn the secrets of their success.”
This, of course, led to an uneasy few minutes in which Brody tried to dissuade me from my planned “playboy” transformation. When he lost that battle, he had the nerve to ask why he wasn’t on the list.
Brody is a great guy, and I value his friendship, but I needed to learn how to be a Bad Boy from true masters, and Brody wasn’t on the level of my guests of honor. Tisha wasn’t the only woman he’d ever been with, of course, but it was always obvious that once he’d hit that, he was no good for anyone else. Sure, he talked all the typical trash whenever they had their little weeklong separations back when we were kids. I don’t need that trick, Mikey. There’s tons of finer babes I can pull.
Maybe Brody could have “done better,” but he never did. He’d mess with a girl here or there during their break-ups, then go crawling back to his Tisha. Today, however, you couldn’t tell Brody he wasn’t the most skilled Player who ever lived in his single days. We all humor him, but even he knows he’s spinning tall tales.
With that unpleasantness out of the way, I put Brody to work. Where I needed his help was in staging an effective venue for my little recruitment party. He was two years into ownership of The Pit Stop, a sports bar near the Loop, on Wells not far from Ed Debevic’s.
While a huge pot of beans simmered on his stove, Brody and I sat there for nearly an hour and mapped out the characteristics my gathering would have to offer in order to draw men who had much better ways to spend a Saturday evening. We fussed over what sporting event to tie it to, what time to hold it and how much I was willing to spend on complimentary wings and beer.
By the time we had all the details spelled out, Brody slid low in his seat. “We have a plan, Mr. Blake. Don’t send any text invites just yet–still got to get Tisha’s formal approval.” While Brody was a talented chef and a great business development guy, he leaned heavily on his outspoken wife; the woman wielded her business degree and the force of her personality to make sure The Pit Stop was a well-run business.
I nodded, my fingers itching to type and send the text to my intended distribution list. “Tisha’s approval is just a formality, right?”
“Well . . .” The pitch of Brody’s voice rose a couple of notches as he stood, his balls likely shrinking at the thought of telling his wife he’d be shutting down the Stop to public traffic next Saturday. “I mean, sure, sure it’s a formality. Just give me a second, Don Johnson.”
I shot him the finger for picking with my “Miami Vice”-like five o’clock shadow. I had been working on it since Friday, the night Aimee had inspired my intended journey. I planned to work the shadow into a well-manicured beard. Anything to help signal that I was no longer Michael Blake, Mr. Play-it-Safe.
“That white boy wants to do what!” The echo of Tisha’s insistent voice came rushing up the same stairs Brody had just descended, and I literally bit my fist in amusement. I loved Brody and Tisha, and a part of me envied the warm, loving home they had built for their kids, the oldest of which was already headed toward junior high. There were times I looked at their life, compared it with mine, and felt completely empty. Then there was a moment like this.
“Brody Lyons, Jr. get out of my way.” Tisha, a petite superwoman who led a daily kickboxing class and got the kids to and from school, charged up the steps. Dressed in a stylish, sleek microfiber pink sweatsuit, she eyed me playfully before taking a nearby seat.
“Michael, bless your heart, are you serious about this?” When I shrugged in affirmation, she rested a hand on my shoulder. “You know I love you, okay, but I am going to have to quote you a fixed fee. We can’t give up twenty tables’ worth of revenue for three hours, not without making sure we’re fully compensated.”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t hold me to that,” I said, smiling.
“One other price of our letting you host your shindig at the Stop.” Tisha crooked a pointer finger toward me, lowered her voice for the benefit of her children. “What the hell did some woman do to you, making you think you need to change who you are? We’re getting a little old for these games.”
Brody, timing ill-advised as ever, appeared just then at the top of the stairs. Hearing his wife’s words, he threw up both hands. “Mikey, ooh, sorry. I know you didn’t really want me sharing–”
I waved him off. “Forget it. I know there are no secrets between the Lyons.” I pivoted back toward Tisha. “You got a second for me to explain my insanity?”
Eyes lit with laughter, Tisha’s shoulders bounced and rolled. “You can try.”
I rubbed my hands together and sat back in my chair. “Well, it all starts with my run-in with Aimee Chase.”
Tisha didn’t even fight the roll of her eyes. She looked between me and Brody as she replied. “Oh Michael . . . really?”
CHAPTER 7
Aimee
Seconds after storming out of brunch with my girlfriends I was on the street, marching toward one of my favorite boutiques. Some girls reach for a can of Redi-Whip or a tin of Mrs. Fields cookies when they’re feeling depressed, others like me shop. I charged forward, my ears full of the clip-clop of my heels, my pace daring a fool to try and impede it.
The last thing I needed, while juggling my powerful attraction to Ian despite the way it endangered my job working for Todd, was my friends’ validation of Michael and his accusations. Eyes stinging, I inhaled stubbornly and curled my hands into fists. It was a pointless exercise; I had barely made it a block before mentally assaulting myself with the image I had suppressed from the moment I first reconnected with Michael months earlier.
Chad Tucker, a brunette, bearded eighteen-year-old pot dealer, was my first-ever hook-up, and from my virginal perspective at the time, my “first love.” Early during sophomore year at Kenwood, I had allowed his perfectly proportioned facial features, washboard stomach and over-confident gaze to win me over. With very few words, he taught me just about every position I’ve experienced over a couple dozen afternoons in his grandmother’s basement.
My mother, a former free spirit herself who never expected me to take a chastity pledge, always says she wishes I would have delayed my “Chad experience” by four years. I think that’s based on the assumption that by then, I would have had the strength to walk away from the under-belly of life with someone whose mother was in prison for nearly beating him and his sister to death.
Chad had been raised by his grandmother since his early teens, and by the time we met the poor woman’s dementia had largely confined her to an upstairs bedroom. That didn’t stop Chad from buying or preparing her every meal, and using his “entrepreneurial” sources of income–weed and discount Rottweiler puppy sales among them–to cover maintenance on the house as well as the house note. For those who bothered to look past the tattoos and foul mouth, Chad was a gentle soul, busting his ass to outrun his demons.
“You’re like me,” he had said the first day I let him drive me home after school, when we were still in the flirting stage. “You got the pretty packaging, the perfect grades, all the right goals in life, but we’re the same beneath the surface.” We sat outside my apartment building that day and talked for nearly two hours about the jarring similarities between the forceful abuse he had suffered at his mother’s hands, and the abusive neglect my father had inflicted on me.
It’s funny, but looking back I’d have to say in the early going my first “bad boy” was actually a very sweet guy. Chad was willing to go to dark emotional places with me in a way no boy my age ever had.
That explains why our first hook-up was so explosive. By the time I ventured into his basement a week later, Chad definitely knew more about me as a person than any other male in my life. There was a real emotional connection, one that he quickly solidified by bringing my erotic fantasies to life in vivid, living color. As I would later see by comparison, Chad was hung, highly experienced for his age and very adventurous. His hands brought me to orgasm twice that day before even introducing me to intercourse.
In the immediate weeks that followed, sex talk with Tara and other friends became increasingly awkward. I admitted that Chad and I were hooking up, of course, but the other girls’ stories left me in a quandary. Even those who seemed satisfied with their sexual relationships whispered about faking orgasms, humoring premature ejaculations and guys who lacked force or rhythm. When I finally confessed my experiences–out-of-control orgasms every time and Chad’s ability to go for up to an hour before coming–half of my friends insisted I was lying.
Initially, the sex wasn’t the only thing that was great; I saw Chad grow as a young man in the early months we were together, even as he grew increasingly jealous of my time and seemingly expected me to spend every free minute with him. I guess the combo of great sex and revealing pillow talk was a real draw, because I humored him to the point that my mother grew concerned that he was too possessive. I defended him to Mom numerous times, though, insisting my time with Chad was therapeutic.
What I didn’t share was the fact that he’d already threatened three of my male friends for committing the sin of going out to lunch with me; unbeknownst to me, he would case out the Kenwood student parking lot some days to see who I was hanging out with. By the time such warning signs flowered into full-blown abuse, the reality of it had arrived so gradually that I barely noticed it.
I had excused two prior instances in which he’d put his fists to me when he had decided to teach me a lesson on a chilly after-school afternoon near the Kenwood football practice field. If only out of physical vanity, I was defending myself from him, in mid-swing, when Michael and his friend Tisha Carmichael, the girlfriend of his
buddy Brody Lyons, rounded the corner.
Over fifteen years later, I could still recall the way a silent wave of shame enveloped me the second Michael and I locked eyes. The way that silence succumbed to the hammering of my own heartbeat as Michael’s gaze hardened and swung toward Chad, whose mouth turned up in amusement. The way that I shrank before the judgmental glare in Tisha’s eyes, as she pulled vainly at Michael’s sleeve. The way I curled into an emotional ball as Michael shoved Chad to the ground.
The way everything went black after that.
My head cleared momentarily, my mind pulling me back from the hellish past. I stood in the threshold of the boutique’s entrance, involuntarily blocking patrons trying to come and go. Unable to get out of their way, I let them bump up against and brush past me as I closed the loop with myself. I refused to shriek, but my whirring brain tossed a jumble of words from Michael, Todd, Sydney and Tara into a blender and spat them back at me in a toxic combination.
You don’t know what’s good for you. A mental kaleidoscope rolled across the screen of my mind, assaulting me with visuals of Chad and nearly every guy who’d followed him into my most private regions. Aside from Ian, I struggled to find a healthy human being in their midst.
“No wonder,” I said weakly, a metallic taste in my mouth, “they think I’m damaged.”
CHAPTER 8
Michael
As I pulled away from the curb near Brody’s house, I smiled in grim satisfaction at Tisha’s approval of my recruitment party arrangements at The Stop. Before leaving, I had distributed text message invitations to a viewing party for a hot Bulls’ road game against Indiana featuring free beer, wings and nachos plus a hastily-arranged autograph session with former Chicago White Sox star Frank Thomas. Within minutes I had a dozen RSVPs.
Tisha’s go-ahead, though, had come with a price. I don’t know why I had to even drop Aimee’s name into the middle of the conversation, least of all with her. Tisha, you see, had a front row seat for the sad play that was my teenage infatuation with the same woman.