Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This

by Mary B. Morrison

  Women, like sports, were gaming competitions for men. Harry was upset with Fancy because, with Mr. Riddle’s help, Fancy had become Harry’s number one contender and Fancy wasn’t stopping until she took Harry’s place in the real estate industry. One day Fancy would meet Harry face-to-face again, and when she did, Fancy would blow Harry the biggest kiss, thanking him for making her better than him.

  Fancy refused to shrink ever again to boost any man’s self-esteem, including Darius and Byron. Fancy wasn’t sure if Byron wanted her as much as he wanted to win her from Darius as if she was some prize trophy to sit on his shelf of countless accomplishments.

  Perhaps Mandy would accept Fancy’s call today. Mandy’s words were constantly in her mind. “Love is defined for self, Fancy. I cannot give you a description or write you a script or prescription for love. Listen, if you don’t know where to begin your definition of love, think about this. Who or what are you willing to die for?” Finally, Fancy had an answer.

  Cuddling under the down comforter, Fancy had already proven to Darius that she would die for him. Why had Fancy really jumped in front of Darius? Maybe it was because Fancy didn’t believe she deserved to live. Thaddeus was sent to rot in a jail cell with men who’d brutally raped him because he was charged with raping her. Indirectly, Fancy had killed an innocent man. And she’d aborted her baby. That was another life or death choice she’d made. How could Fancy forgive herself? Fancy would gladly trade places with Thaddeus if she could. Fancy’s cell phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She was relieved for the break in her mental sabotage and happier that Darius’s name appeared on her caller ID.

  “Hey, Darius.”

  Darius blurted, “Ladycat, I want you to move to L.A.”

  Darius’s statement took Fancy aback. Way back. “Whoa. Where’d that come from?”

  “I’ve decided that I want you here with me.”

  So typical. Once a man decided what he wanted, the woman was supposed to be equally or exceedingly excited. Not Fancy. Where was Darius’s consideration for what she wanted? “Darius, I can’t. I’ve established a notable reputation and the business clients I service are in the Bay Area. Besides, I’m not moving in with any man as his live-in girlfriend that he can kick out whenever he wants.”

  “You don’t have to work, Ladycat. My mom gave me ten million dollars. I’ll take care of you. And if you want, I’ll marry you. We were meant for one another.”

  Calmly Fancy questioned, “If I want? Darius, that’s not the way to make a commitment or a proposal.” Mandy would’ve been proud of Fancy. Fancy knew Mandy would when Fancy told Darius, “I’m open to discussing our possibilities of having a future together. I love you. Very much. Enough to be your wife. But the way you degraded me over the phone the other night, we’re not going to pretend that that didn’t happen. And if it happens again, I’m terminating our friendship. I’m not going to create, perpetuate, nor allow your unacceptable behavior. I don’t put myself down. After all you’ve done I’ve never put you down. And I’m not going to allow you to bring me down by lowering my self-esteem or making me completely dependent upon you. Darius, we have to support one another. In so many ways, we already have. And just like you, I have goals, too. One is to own and operate my own real estate firm by the end of next year. My success is not about you. It’s just that now that I know how to take care of myself, never again will I allow a man to solely take care of me. Not even you.” Silence lingered. Did Fancy hear Darius sniffling?

  “My heart is aching. I’ve never felt for any woman the way I feel for you. I’ve tried to forget about you, but I can’t. I’ve already lost my brother, my son, and I’m scared of losing you. I’m not sure how much more rejection and death I can handle. I need you, Fancy. And I’m not accepting no from you. Fancy, I do want to marry you. Don’t wait until I go pro to make up your mind. Just think about relocating.”

  “If you think I want you for your money, there’s nothing to think about. Good-bye, Darius.” Fancy hung up the phone and hugged her pillow tight.

  Unlike when Mandy spoke those words to her, Fancy’s good-bye to Darius wasn’t final. Desperately, Fancy wanted to be with Darius but she wasn’t going to let him mistreat her. If Darius genuinely wanted Fancy today, he’d want her tomorrow. And no matter how difficult it was for Darius, he would respect Fancy.

  Picking up the phone, Fancy dialed Mandy’s number.

  “Hello, this is Dr. Sinclair’s office,” the receptionist answered.

  “Hey girl, this is Fancy. I’d like to schedule a much needed appointment with Mandy.”

  “Sorry, Fancy.” The disappointment in the receptionist’s voice stunned Fancy’s desires for the much needed therapy. “Mandy adamantly refuses to put you back on her schedule. I’ve already asked her ten times and she’s warned me not to ask her again. I need my job. But I can give you the number for the referral from Mandy.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Fancy, wait. Don’t hang up. Most people don’t realize it but Mandy’s home phone number is listed on-line in the white pages. Not her address, just her phone number, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

  “Thanks.” Fancy hung up the phone with no one to fault but herself for her rejections. Obviously Mandy wasn’t going to permit Fancy to disrespect her again. Fancy sighed with frustration. “I guess that’s what Mandy meant about standing in my own truth. Huh. She’s going to show me by example. That’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  Fancy thought about the people she’d isolated to protect her emotions and the ones she’d rejected based on her standards, like her so-called friend Tanya. Tanya wasn’t smart enough to be her friend. Because Tanya allowed William to control her, Fancy had stopped associating with Tanya months ago. Tanya had feelings, too.

  Now Fancy knew why rich people suffered from depression. Fancy had money but she didn’t have happiness. Not a mother, a father, Desmond nor Darius. Marrying Desmond was out of the question. Marrying Darius would be the biggest commitment or worse mistake of her life, but a chance Fancy was willing to take.

  Fancy’s heart ached particularly painfully when things didn’t go well between her and Darius. Like tonight. Fancy wanted to call Darius back but didn’t. Instead, with no destination in mind, Fancy got in her car and drove along Harrison Street onto Interstate 580 East. To 680 East. Took I-5 South toward Los Angeles. Six hours later Fancy was sitting in Darius’s driveway contemplating whether to knock on his door or check into a hotel and phone Darius in the morning.

  Ringing Darius’s doorbell, Fancy waited several moments.

  Darius stood in the doorway and said, “Hey, um, Ladycat. Do you know it’s three in the morning? What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

  Fancy brushed past Darius into the living room. “I miss you, Darius.” Fancy continued walking toward Darius’s bedroom.

  Hurrying, standing in front of Fancy, then blocking her path, Darius stuttered, “Um, well, you can’t go in the bedroom. It’s a mess. The maids didn’t come today.”

  “I don’t care about the mess. I care about you, silly. And I’m tired from driving.” Maneuvering around Darius, Fancy opened his door and froze when she saw two naked women in his bed. “And you had the audacity to call me a trick. Who in hell are they?” Fancy asked, pointing.

  Hunching his shoulders, Darius said, “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know! You can come up with something more honest than that. I knew I should’ve stayed in Oakland.” Turning on the lights Fancy yelled, “Y’all got ten minutes to get your shit on and get up out of here!”

  The two girls, one black and one white, French-kissed and smiled at Fancy, then said in unison, “Join us.”

  “Oh, hell no!”

  Darius grabbed her arm, closed the door, and said, “Let’s talk about this in the living room.”

  Jerking her arm, Fancy slipped, losing her balance. “Whoa!”

  “Aw, shit!” Darius yelled, breaking her fall. “Whew! I almost had a flashback.”
>
  The heels of Fancy’s boots scuffed along the carpet like she was running. “Get off of me!” Bracing herself on her hands and knees, Fancy grabbed her purse then stood. “That’s okay. They don’t have to leave.” Fancy turned and slowly walked away. When Darius didn’t stop her, Fancy knew there was no respect and their relationship was over.

  CHAPTER 26

  “This is bullshit!

  “Fancy has got to stop sitting courtside at my games with her male friends, clients, or whoever in the fuck those guys were.” There was no way in hell Darius would marry Fancy now. Did she enjoy torturing him? Disrespecting him? Did she like that nigga’s touch who was feeling up her leg, caressing her thigh? Darius hadn’t seen him before. Fancy had lost her damn mind. Did she love the dude? Was he a bigger and better lover than Slugger? What made him so damn special? Fancy seduced his ear, as though she was considering giving him some pussy after the game was over. Dude sat there smiling. Grinning. Darius wanted to pop him in the face with the basketball. Had Fancy sucked his dick?

  “What the fuck?” While Darius was dribbling the ball and trippin’ on Fancy, his opponent had stolen the ball and there was no way Darius could catch him without drawing a foul. His opponent slam-dunked and the crowd went ballistic, screaming and cheering.

  “Fuck!” Darius yelled, slapping his hands together before taking the ball out. Glancing at Fancy, dude was laughing, holding his stomach.

  The referee gave Darius a warning. “One more profanity outburst and I’m giving you a tech.”

  Throwing the ball to Lance, Darius’s opponent didn’t simply block his shot, he hit the basketball so hard it flew into the fans three rows back.

  “Fuck!” Darius yelled.

  The referee signaled and then pointed toward Darius. “Technical on,” he said, holding up two fingers on his right hand with his palm facing inward, followed by three fingers palm facing outward. Darius’s head coach leaped from the bench onto his feet and jumped up and down while yelling at Darius. “Williams! What the hell are you doing out there?”

  Lance pulled Darius aside and sternly said, “Chill out, D. Get your head off the fuckin’ feline on the sideline. There’s nothing over there more important than winning this game. Not even pussy. You’ll have your pick of pussy in an hour.”

  Looking at Darryl Senior sitting next to his mother in the first row behind UCLA’s team, Darius pressed his lips together, exhaled, and said, “You right, L. You right.” Then he relinquished and let someone else take the ball out.

  Darius’s mother didn’t have to use his father to get back at Wellington. And Fancy didn’t have to flash some other brotha in his face or sleep with somebody else simply because Darius had allowed those two females from the swim team to please him the other night.

  In his reoccurring dream last night, Darius did the butterfly and backstroked, tossing all night long until Fancy showed up at his front door at three o’clock, drowning his ménage a trois with her irrational behavior. That dream reoccurred every night after Fancy had shown up without calling. Darius shouldn’t have opened the door. He wanted to put those women out when Fancy arrived unannounced, really he did, but those seniors weren’t through seducing one another or sexing him. But Darius was caught off guard when Fancy was bold enough to open his bedroom door without his permission. Fortunately Fancy hadn’t attempted to join them because Darius definitely didn’t want to marry that type of freak. Those seniors were cool and all, serving their purpose, but neither of them were marriage material like Fancy.

  “Get Williams!” Darius heard the coach yell after he’d dribbled down court and missed an easy-ass layup. Dude sitting next to Fancy was holding his fuckin’ stomach again, this time bent over his own lap. The coach benched Darius the remaining four minutes of the second half. Postgame interviews went to the other starters on his team, including Lance.

  While the commentator questioned Lance about Darius’s performance, Darius casually strolled up to Fancy and waited for the explanation that he deserved. Fancy had better have a damn good one for humiliating him in front of millions of fans. Of all his games, Fancy would’ve chosen to show up at an ESPN nationally televised game.

  “Hi, Darius. This is Desmond. Desmond, this is Darius. You didn’t play well. Are you okay?”

  Knocking Desmond’s hand back into his stomach, Darius said, “Laugh at that, muthafucka.” Darius didn’t want no goddamn introduction. Darius said, “I remember you now. You’re the dude from the church New Year’s Eve. Don’t your broke ass fuck my woman, man. You can’t afford Fancy.”

  Desmond looked at Fancy. When Desmond opened his mouth to respond, Fancy said, “Darius, stop. Desmond is just a—Desmond is my friend. You are, too.”

  “Fuck that friend shit. I’m your man. And you’re my woman. I’ll talk to you later. Make this your last time showing up at my game sitting courtside letting some so-called friend feel up your ass.” Darius walked away, then back to Fancy. “You know what. Better yet. Don’t trip. You can fuck whoever you want. I’m through with you.”

  “You ready, Dez?” Fancy asked, ignoring Darius’s comment. “’Bye, Darius.”

  Darius had fucked up again. Losing his cool in front of another man. Fancy was driving him insane. Dressed in her tight, low-rise black suede pussy pants that divided her vaginal lips and her hips right down the middle like a half-court line. Darius saw the imprint of Fancy’s pussy so he knew everyone else, especially Desmond, had, too. The lace-up drawstring crisscrossed where a zipper should’ve been. The silver shiny turtleneck shielded Fancy’s braless protruding nipples but not the diamond in her navel. Already late, Darius ran to the locker room for the team’s postgame meeting before getting into deeper trouble.

  Soon as Darius entered the room all heads focused on him as the coach yelled, “Williams! What the hell happened out there? When you’re on my court, you forget about everything else or sit your ass on the bench! I don’t care if your mama is sitting in the center of the court butt naked licking on a lollipop, you run over, around, or through her to protect the ball! Then you score! Score, Williams, score! That’s your job! Not watching some two-bit half-naked broad on the sideline. You almost cost us the game.”

  Picturing his mother without clothes was not a visual Darius entertained and he hoped none of his teammates had either. Speechless, Darius stood staring at the coach until the team was dismissed. Fancy wasn’t some two-bit broad. She was his woman. But the coach was right and Darius knew he’d have the same or similar speech from Darryl in about an hour.

  Driving fifty on the freeway to prolong his trip home, Darius wondered what was his mother’s scheme for spending more time with his dad. And although Darryl was unhappily married, Darius prayed his parents didn’t marry after all these years. Ashlee, Ciara, Fancy—why in fuck did women have to be so scandalous and revengeful?

  Darryl was waiting in his car in the driveway when Darius arrived home. Parking next to his dad, and before they entered the house, Darryl lamented, “Son, let that be a valuable lesson on how women will try to bring you down. I keep trying to warn you about these females but you won’t listen. When you’re on that court, beating your opponent is the only thing that matters. Not Fancy. Not the guy she walked in with. Not me. Not even your mother. If your head isn’t in the game, you need to be on the bench. Remember all the times I benched you at Georgetown? That’s why. Don’t mess up again. You’re lucky y’all won this one or you would’ve lost your starting spot.”

  “What difference does that make? I’m going pro after this season anyway.”

  “Don’t get cocky. You’re not there yet.”

  Sitting next to his dad on the sofa, Darius said, “Remember when you said, ‘You have no idea what it’s like to lose your firstborn’? And that Darryl Junior may have not been perfect but he was yours? Well, I found out.”

  “Son, what are you talking about?” Darryl Senior asked, placing his arm around Darius’s shoulder.

  As Darius cried on his dad
’s shoulder, he said, “I didn’t even have a chance to be a father to him. I held him in my arms for five minutes, Dad, then I rejected him.”

  Passively, Darius listened to Darryl’s monologue about Darryl Junior until his dad left his house. Then Darius sat on his sofa with a bottle of Louis XIII, no glass. Drinking from the bottle, visions of his son appeared. Tiny. Long. Pale. Wrinkled. Innocent. Small hazel eyes resembling Darius’s mom’s. Shiny straight coal-black hair like Darryl Senior. Cute toothless smile. That was until Darius started yelling at Ashlee, making him cry. His son’s fingers, short but strong, gripping his pointing finger. Darius gulped from the bottle again.

  Darius’s son, whom he’d only held in his arms once, was dead. How could Darius love that little boy so much? Someone he honestly didn’t know, when he didn’t love or show love to the people he did know? Darius had rejected the flesh of his flesh because he thought, like Ashlee, that Kevin was the father. What was his cause of death? Ashlee had never said.

  Fancy was probably fucking Desmond right now. Darius wanted to call but he’d been trampled over enough.

  “Fuck that,” Darius said, dialing one-zero anyway. The phone rang five times then went to voice mail.

  In his attempt not to trip on Fancy, Darius powered off his cellular then turned off his home ringer. He set the thermostat to eighty degrees to heat up the Jacuzzi then took a long hot shower, letting the jet streams pound his sore muscles.

  Stepping out the shower, the doorbell rang frantically. Shaking his locks, Darius said, “Groupies.”

  They always came to his front door. Not tonight. That’s how his woman had gotten mad at him before. Sometimes it was hard to resist the groupies. Win or lose, after a game getting laid was one thing Darius could consistently rely upon. The adrenaline of having as many freaks as he wanted running nude throughout his house pumped energy into every vein. Looking down, Darius’s dick was standing straight out, welcoming a charge. His hand wrapped around his long shaft. Long strokes. Slow strokes. Strong strokes.