Bi-Satisfied

by Nikki-Michelle

  “One has nothing to do with the other, David. I’m not going to let anybody keep harming me physically and just take it. I’m not,” I replied, defending myself.

  “One has everything to do with the other, because one wouldn’t have happened without the other,” he fussed, then shook his head as he spit blood in the sink. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into this shit. I don’t. I knew where the fuck it would end. I knew it.”

  My heart started to beat rapidly as we studied one another. I kept my thoughts to myself. There was nothing I could say that would change anything. Did I feel bad for trying to knock the shit out of Sadi? No, I didn’t. If I could have, I would have mopped the floor with her ass, but I hadn’t got the chance to. The same man who treated me like the ground I walked on should be worshipped anytime he saw me was the same one who had defended his wife. He did what any husband who loved his wife would do. But I did feel like crap about placing David in the middle of the mess.

  I slapped the tears away from my face and instantly regretted it. The pain was almost unbearable. I gritted my teeth, then cussed under my breath. David winced when he ran a hand along his left side, where his ribs were. When Michael had tried to slam him to the floor, a chair had caught David’s side. Even though Michael was taller, thicker, and had more muscle mass, David was the stronger man, especially when he was angry.

  I slowly made my way over to him, tried to help him again, but to no avail. He told me to take care of myself and not to worry about him. I tried to explain to him my position again. It wasn’t my fault that Sadi had gone there first.

  None of it mattered, though. When the police finally arrived, they didn’t care which one of us had started the altercation. Two lawyers, a mechanic with three years of law school under his belt, and a paralegal all went to jail.

  Summer

  Five hours later, I walked out of Fulton County Jail. I had no words to explain what had transpired. We had been charged with disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace. I didn’t even know where it would leave me and David....

  David had bailed me out. My boss and his twin brother were there. They talked to David as we all walked to his truck. I remained silent, as if I’d been Mirandized again. I could only imagine that David had placed the call to them. They told us that they would meet with us at the beginning of the following week, once they had a clearer picture of the actual charges being leveled against us. David thanked them. Opened the passenger-side door of his truck for me to get in. Once I was strapped in, he walked around to the driver’s side.

  We drove all the way to my house in silence. He didn’t say a word to me as he unlocked my front door and held it open for me to walk in first. Ever the gentleman, even though hours before he’d acted like a caveman. Had banged his chest to let Michael know he was never to touch me in a way he didn’t approve of.

  David followed me upstairs. We stopped in my bedroom, and he removed something from my top drawer. Helped me to undress before he did, then went to my bathroom to start the shower. Still, there were no words between us. We got in the shower, and he washed me up. Took his time with me. I took my loofah sponge and did the same to him. He was bruised. Ribs looked purple and black. He also had a bruise under his eye to match my swollen one. I kept avoiding looking at his left hand. Kept my mind off the question I was soon going to have to answer.

  “I’ve had time to cool down,” he said in a calm voice. “Can’t really blame anybody for this but myself.”

  I didn’t say a word. I just listened to him as he spoke.

  “Never again,” he said.

  The water created a song of rain around us. Tears burned my eyelids. I knew what he was talking about. Didn’t need to question where this conversation was going.

  “This is the first and last time,” he continued.

  “Okay.”

  “All of this. I did all of this for you.” His voice was heavy. Burdened.

  “I know.”

  “Never. Again. I’ve already given you all of me. Even when I thought there was no more to give, I found a way to give you more. Is this enough, Summer? Huh? Was this enough?”

  I nodded as I bit down on my bottom lip. Tears mixed with the droplets of water and rolled down my face. Made the stitches above my eye sting when I dropped my head.

  “No. Hold your head up and look at me. Look at me. Look at what you made me do,” he demanded.

  I raised my head slowly. Looked up at the man whom I’d put through eight years of hell because of my insecurities. I’d had time to think while locked in that holding cell, too. Thought about the shit I’d taken him through in the name of me. I’d been selfish, very much so. I’d felt entitled because I knew he loved me, was in love with me, and would never go anywhere. I’d taken advantage of that.

  “I’m sorry, David.”

  “I don’t want your apology. I need to know if this is enough. Is it enough? What more do I have to do? Tell me now. Tell me so I can start doing it, because no matter what, I won’t leave you alone. I won’t let you go. So, I’ll jump through three rings of fire. I’ll run through hell, drenched in gasoline. Tango with the devil, grab the hem of Jesus’s garments, and curse him to hell, all for you. All for you, I will. So tell me. Tell me, how much more of my soul must I sell to have you, all of you?”

  My breath hitched, and in that moment, I was at my lowest. I knew I couldn’t explain how I felt upon hearing the pain in his words. I didn’t have enough apologies to soothe the ache. I’d driven this man to a place he didn’t want to be, because I was insecure. How many women had done that? How many women had made men snap, go to lengths and extremes that they never would to prove their worth?

  I couldn’t handle his honesty, so I’d made him pay for it. Many women begged men to be up front and honest with them, and in the end, they proved that they couldn’t handle the truth. How many women in the black community could really handle their black man admitting that he was attracted to men, just as he was to women? Even when I thought I could, I couldn’t and didn’t.

  “This is enough,” I said through shaky breaths.

  I looked down at David’s left hand again. Looked back up to see tears running down David’s cheeks. I honestly didn’t know if they were tears or water, but the fact that he looked as if he was crying was enough to crush my heart.

  “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m sorry for everything. I apologize for making you pay for your honesty. I’m sorry for making you feel as if you had to hide who you are to appease me. I’m sorry for Michael. Sorry for asking you to reach out to him. Sorry for inviting him in so easily. I feel like shit for making you go against your principles. I apologize for dangling that piece of forbidden fruit in front of you and making you become the kind of man you despise.”

  I was breaking down. Apologizing to him for all the black men, the bisexual black men, who felt they had to hide because there were those of us in the black community who would ostracize them if they showed us who they truly were.

  I laid my forehead on his chest as he cupped the back of my neck and pulled me closer to him. We stood there under the water and let it wash away our sins. I was his Eve. He was my Adam. My left hand connected with his. I let my finger brush against the piece of platinum and gold that encased his ring finger. We weren’t friends. We’d never been just friends. From the moment he stopped me in Lenox Square, our destiny had been fitted in the stars.

  His thumb stroked my left ring finger. Only, the band that matched his wasn’t there. He shook his head, disappointed, but he didn’t stop holding me. He didn’t let me go. I let his hand go and hugged him like I never had before. I held him like he was the man who loved me unconditionally. I hugged him like he was my husband . . . because he was . . . my husband.

  David

  Eight years ago, I met the woman whom I eventually married. I said in the beginning that she friend zoned me, because after all the shit she took me through, that was what it felt like. That first date, when I told her I was bisexua
l, she did more than hold my hand and smile. She told me that none of that mattered to her, because her mother and father were both bisexual. She told me she wanted to know me. She wanted to know the man who had damn near chased her down to give her his contact information.

  Took her three weeks to call me, but when she did, we both fell in love, with no pretenses. Lived life like it was a storybook romance. Got married six months later. Took that honeymoon trip to Aruba. Made love like we were the only people who knew how to do it. For the first few months after we got married, everything was the way any marriage was when two people were madly in love. We were in love, dangerously so, and didn’t care who knew it. Her family accepted me with open arms. She gave me something I had never had, family. We loved like we never would again.

  Then her insecurities started to show. Any man who looked at me for too long rattled her nerves. Anytime I spoke to any man, she felt like there was some kind of hidden message in the greeting. We started to have arguments, which turned into shouting matches. She accused me of cheating on her. Told me that bisexual men couldn’t be faithful and were controlled by their dicks. Started searching my phones and e-mails. I had to get rid of a lot of male friends with a bisexual orientation. Life in our home had become a war zone. We were strangers in our own home, combatants. The honeymoon was over.

  She moved out. I let her. Got tired of the back-and-forth. Was annoyed with the fights and arguments. We decided to separate. Were headed to divorce court until we found a happy medium. We started dating again. I was more sensitive to her insecurities. She tried harder to be accepting of my sexuality. We became friends instead of lovers, then lovers and friends. Changed the status of marriage and tried things a different way.

  I told her about Michael after she asked me about the other side of my sexuality. Told her the stories of the escapades he and I had gotten into. She wanted to know more about Michael. Wanted to know what it was about him that made me speak about him so passionately. I filled her in. Told her he was the one man whom I’d loved. No matter how many men I’d been with, only Michael had had my heart at one point in time. I told her the two of them had that one thing in common. But I didn’t tell her that Michael and I had been intimate.

  As fate would have it, Michael responded to me after I reached out to him. The thing was, if Summer hadn’t told me to reach out to him, I probably wouldn’t have. Against my better judgment, I did it for her. I knew as soon as I saw them together what would happen. I’d always allowed her to be free in her sexuality. Never hindered her. She didn’t give me that same freedom.

  I started having sex with other people only after we separated, because she told me she had. I’d yelled, screamed, cussed, and fussed, but alas, she’d done it. She had used it against me. Said the fact I’d gone out and had sex with other men proved her point.

  Yet married men had always been her Kryptonite. All married men except me, her husband. At least, that was what it felt like. She was okay with the other women. Her soul burned when I told her that men, too, were a part of my sexual escapades. Still, we remained . . . friends. Then, two years ago, she stopped having sex with other men . . . and me. Said she needed to get her mind right and really work on us. Since she was running the show, I went along with it. Anything for her, I’d do.

  She told me she wanted to see me with another man so she could accept it. Didn’t want it to be some random man. Said he had to be somebody with whom I had a connection so she could see the passion in the sex. Thought Michael being with me would be our first time together sexually.

  I told her that Michael was married and that there would be no way I’d go there with him unless his wife knew about it. She’d been okay with that, and then, without warning, she’d changed her mind about wanting Michael to come down. Said she really wasn’t so sure she could handle seeing me with a man. I told her that was fine. I never wanted her to do anything she was uncomfortable with. Fate once again stepped in, and Michael decided to fly in, anyway. The rest was history.

  I loved Summer. I loved her on her terms, never on mine, but it was still without conditions. No matter her insecurities and her faults, I fought to keep my wife and my marriage. I would do it all again if I had to, but this time, I would do it without inviting Michael into our bed. Michael had never been good for me. He had also been one who I would have gone out my way to satisfy, and I had at one point. But he had walked out on me. Walked away from me for the woman who was his wife. Michael had never loved me. It was one sided, unless it involved sex, men, and women.

  Summer walked out of our home, but she didn’t walk away from us. She kept fighting and trying as hard as I did. Family and friends often looked at us and shook their heads. They didn’t understand the method to our madness. It wasn’t for them to understand. Summer and I didn’t know our biological sperm and egg donors. She had foster parents who loved and nurtured her the best they could. I had had the system to raise me. The system had almost made me another statistic, but I had refused its offer.

  In the beginning, she had never really and truly opened herself up to me. Had never let go. Not with sex. Not with love. Not with herself. Eight years and another man later, a man whom I had genuinely loved at one time, she saw that it wasn’t about the sex with men, as she’d thought. It took me eight years. Eight damn years to get her to be as open with me sexually as she was when Michael joined us. Eight years for her to allow me to be who I was. Eight goddamned years to get her to this point, and then I had to share her. It angered me. I couldn’t lie. I felt like all the work I’d put in had been for her to slap me in the face with it.

  But I couldn’t lay all the fault at her feet. I had to take responsibility for it too. Had to own up to the mess I’d made of us too. She’d been right in a sense about everything. Reaching out to Michael had proved that there was that part of me that still needed to be sated. I’d gone and done what I’d said I’d never do. I’d told her that I never would, but I knew deep down inside what I was walking into. I’d used her as an excuse to do it. So even though I was in my feelings, I wouldn’t lay all the blame on her, because in the end, she was still here. I was still here. Neither of us was going anywhere.

  I picked my wife up and carried her to the bed we had once shared with Michael. I dried her off. Placed kisses all over her body. Wanted to make love to her, but I wouldn’t. Not in the bed that had been tainted by our other lover.

  I walked over to her dresser and opened the top drawer. On top of our wedding picture lay her wedding band. I picked it up and walked over to kneel in front of her.

  “It’s time to come home now,” I told her. “Say it.”

  She was still in tears. Couldn’t stop crying as she looked at the ring in my hand. I didn’t take her hand in mine. She had to want this as much as I did.

  When she held her hand out to me, I slid the ring back in the place it was supposed to be.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I want to go home,” she said to me.

  So we went home, to our home. Not the house she lived in, but to our home, a place Michael had never been. There was a reason I wouldn’t let Michael into my home. That was because it was home. I would never let another person into our home. I had never moved out. Had never left, because I’d known that one day she would come back home. Took us eight years to get it together, but we did.

  That night we made love. Despite the bumps and the bruises on our bodies, we climbed that stairway to heaven. In our bed we created magic. I got to know my wife like a man did in the biblical days. Explored her body like I never had before. Took her over the edge, jumped off behind her, and then put her over my shoulders and climbed back to the top so we could do it all over again.

  A few weeks later, Summer and I would exchange vows again. Her family would be there, and so would all our friends. The female minister would look on with raised eyebrows as we repeated a new stanza to our vows.

  I stated, “Coke on her black skin made a stripe li
ke a zebra. I call that jungle fever. . . .”

  “You will not control the threesome. Just roll the weed up until I get me some . . . ,” she continued.

  “We formed a new religion. No sins as long as there’s permission . . .”

  Together we ended it, saying in unison, “And deception is the only felony. So never fuck nobody without telling me.”

  Later that night, she told me she had something she needed to tell me. We had gone to the doctor a few weeks before for her annual exam, and the doctor had alerted us to the fact that her IUD had fallen out. The doctor couldn’t tell us when it had happened exactly, but he knew for a fact that she was six weeks to eight weeks pregnant. She wasn’t showing, but we both knew a baby was in there. I could see subtle changes in her appearance, like the swelling of her nipples, which were sore. Her skin glowed, and her freckles were more visible. Whatever she had to tell surely couldn’t be more emotionally confusing than that news.

  She walked into the front room and sat on my lap. Tears were in her eyes, and I had to wonder what it was that she had to tell me that had her so emotional. She had her phone in her hand.

  “I’ve been keeping something from you since we saw him last,” she said.

  We didn’t mention Michael by name. Referred to him only as “he” or “him.” Nothing more. He hadn’t called us. No text had come through. In typical Michael fashion, he’d packed up and left, all in the name of Sadi. Only this time, I was okay with that.

  “Talk to me,” I said, encouraging her.

  “I should have done this a while ago, but with everything going on, I couldn’t . . . didn’t really know how to.”

  “What is it?”

  She looked down at her phone and started scrolling through her text messages. It kind of annoyed me, especially when I saw that she still had one from him, even though we’d both agreed to let that part of our lives go.