by Carl Weber
“So, what brings you over here?” Shawna asked. There were three other chairs in the room, but she sat down next to him on the love seat, their thighs touching.
“I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by. It’s been a long time.” He paused and looked directly in her eye. “I wanted to make sure we were still friends.”
“Well, you can’t be my friend, Antoine.”
“Why?”
“Because all my friends give me a hug when they come over.”
She smiled flirtatiously, opening up her arms. He hugged her tightly, and the tension left his body. She was so soft, he didn’t want to ever let go.
“I missed you, Shawna. I really missed you.”
“Not as much as I missed you.” She broke their embrace and looked at him seriously. “But what’s up, Antoine? I know you well enough to realize that you just don’t pop up on anyone.”
“Yeah, you do know me pretty well, don’t you?” He took his glasses off and wiped them with his handkerchief. “I need to ask you a question.”
“Ask me anything you want.” She was nervous.
He was silent for a few seconds. He was afraid to speak for fear she would tell him she no longer felt the same way about him. Glancing down at her hand, he saw the engagement ring he had given her. It was still on her left ring finger, and the sight of it gave him the confidence to ask her where they stood.
He touched her hand, then the ring. “Shawna, do you still love me?”
In an instant Shawna knew she wanted to scream yes at the top of her lungs. But the image of Keisha stopped her. She knew that starting over with Antoine left her very vulnerable to being exposed, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to deal with that. Somehow she needed to be sure that her rival was no longer a threat.
“Well, that all depends,” she said hesitantly. “Is it true that you’re dating Keisha?”
Antoine’s face dropped. He could not imagine how she could have known about him and Keisha. Maybe she was just guessing, but he didn’t want to risk lying about it. Things were such a mess, he had nothing to lose at this point.
“Well, yeah, we’ve been seeing each other.”
“Oh, you’ve just been seeing each other, huh? I never did understand what you could see in that hussy.”
“Wait a minute, Shawna.” Antoine was upset with Keisha, but he couldn’t let Shawna disrespect her. “I don’t expect you to understand why I would be with her. You two obviously had your differences, but she and I found that we have more in common than I thought. What was I supposed to do? Be alone for the rest of my life?”
“The rest of your life? What are you saying, Antoine? Do you love her? I need to know if you love her.” Shawna was so afraid of what he might say, her hands were trembling.
Antoine exhaled loudly, wiped his face with his handkerchief, and stood. This was very difficult, and he had to put a physical distance between them. He paced across the room.
“I don’t know if I’m in love with her.” He lowered his head in shame. “Some days I wake up and think she’s everything I ever needed. Other days I wake up wishing it was you lying next to me.” He stopped walking and looked straight in her eye. “God, Shawna, I don’t know. I might be in love with her. That’s part of the reason I’m here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Before I can have anything with Keisha, I have to be sure that we’re over. That you don’t love me and you don’t want me.” He walked over and took her hand. “I might not be sure if I love Keisha. But I’m positive I love you.”
Shawna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was surprised when she felt Antoine’s lips pressed warmly against hers.
Oh, my God, Antoine, you don’t know what you’re doing, she thought as she accepted his tongue into her mouth. When she finally broke the kiss, she stared into his eyes for almost a minute without speaking. There didn’t seem to be a road she could take that wouldn’t be paved with sorrow. If she took Antoine back into her life, she would have to live in constant fear of her secret being revealed to him by Keisha. But if she told him it was over, she would mourn his loss for a long, long time.
“Antoine, why did you come here? If only you knew how complicated you’ve just made things.” She pulled her hand out of his grasp and stood. “I still love you, Antoine, more than anything in the world. I just don’t think you can accept me for who I am.”
“Shawna, I love you. And if I really love you, I have to accept you for who you are. But you’re right. I still don’t know if I can deal with the thought of you being naked around other men.” Antoine folded his arms to make sure his point hit home.
“How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not a stripper, I’m a makeup artist.”
All the anger and hurt she had felt during the end of their relationship came rushing back stronger than she imagined it could.
“Maybe we don’t need to be together if you can’t even trust me!” she shouted as she rushed into her bedroom. After all the time she had spent missing him, the strain of having Antoine with her again and all its uncertainty was more than she could bear. Her bedroom was the only place she could escape to think for a few minutes.
Antoine waited quietly in the living room for her to return. He wanted to chase after her but decided he better give her some time to cool off. It was a confusing moment for both of them, and he could understand the emotional roller coaster she must be on just then. After all, he did just show up on her doorstep after nearly five months and expect her to pour out her heart.
Finally she returned from the bedroom carrying a large photo album. She stood in front of Antoine, holding the book. He waited for her to say something or put the book down, but she didn’t. He decided she must be waiting for him to speak first.
“What’s this for?”
“This is the story of my life. It’s a scrapbook I’ve kept since I was about ten years old.”
She flipped through the pages until she reached one near the back of the book. As she examined the page, a smile came to her face. Antoine was glad to see it replace the sadness in her eyes and was eager to see what had made her happy again.
“What’s that, Shawna?”
“These are the certificates I won two weeks ago. Want to guess what they were for?” she asked sarcastically.
Before he could answer, she walked over to a shelf and picked up a trophy. She laid the photo album on the shelf in the space where the trophy had been and brought the award to Antoine.
“You might not think this is much,” she told him defiantly, “but it means something to me. And it proves I was telling you the truth about the Men’s Club all along.” She handed it to him.
“For Shawna Dean, nineteen ninety-eight exotic makeup artist of the year,” Antoine read out loud as a look of regret came across his face.
“Oh, my God, you really are a makeup artist.” He placed the trophy on the coffee table. “I don’t know what to say.”
“There is nothing to say. You should have trusted me, Antoine.” Tears rolled down her face.
“Oh, my God!” she said as she felt the tears. “Look at my mascara running all over my face.” She rushed out of the room again.
Antoine sat alone again, feeling the weight of his mistake. If he had been more trusting in the first place, he and Shawna would never have broken up, and he would not be in the mess he was in with Keisha. Instead, he had listened to the suspicions of people like Benny and Tyrone and allowed their doubts to become his own. Now Shawna was crying in her bedroom, and he didn’t know what he could do to change things.
He wandered around and looked at the snapshots of the two of them that were still displayed on bookshelves and side tables throughout the room. He looked at each of them fondly as he recalled how happy they had once been. Picking up the trophy from the coffee table, he read the inscription once more and walked sadly over to the shelf to replace it. He lifted the photo album and replaced the award.
Settling
on the love seat, he flipped through the album to learn more about the woman he loved and thought he had lost for good. The further he got in the book, the more obvious it became to him that this album that supposedly represented Shawna’s life was full of photos not of her but of some young man. Antoine assumed from the resemblance that he must be Shawna’s brother. It wasn’t until he came to the more recent photos that he began to find pictures of Shawna.
“I didn’t say you could look at that!” Shawna practically shrieked as she ran panic-stricken out of the bedroom. She snatched the book away from him violently and ignored the look of confusion on his face.
“Sorry, Antoine, I’m not ready to share this book with you yet,” she told him as she wrapped her arms tightly around the cover.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry, Shawna.”
“I snow, Antoine. It’s just that this album holds all the secrets to my life.” She was still clutching the book tightly. “And I don’t think I can share them with anyone yet.”
“That’s fine by me,” he answered nonchalantly, although his mind was racing, trying to imagine what kind of secrets she could be so protective over. To start with, he wanted to know who was the young man in all the early photos, hoping his identity would shed some light. He tried to make his question sound as innocent as possible.
“But why didn’t you tell me you had a brother?”
“What brother? I don’t have a brother.”
In Shawna’s nervousness, her mind did not make the simple connection between Antoine’s question and the pictures of her pre-hormone-injection days. She hadn’t looked at the early photos of herself for quite some time because she couldn’t stand the way she looked before she had her Adam’s apple shaved down. As it dawned on her exactly what Antoine was referring to, she was relieved that the doorbell rang before she answered him.
“Oh, that must be Roberta. I’m supposed to do her face for a date tonight.”
She walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. Relieved to see that it was indeed Roberta, she opened the door slowly, trying to think of an excuse to get rid of her before she said the wrong thing in front of Antoine.
Please, don’t let her run her big mouth, Shawna prayed, hoping that her friend would notice the expression on her face that was meant as a warning to be careful about what she said.
“You sure took your time,” Roberta barked, walking past her into the living room. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company,” she said as she caught sight of Antoine.
“No, that’s quite all right, Roberta. I was just about to leave.”
“Antoine, why don’t you stay and watch me do Roberta’s makeup? Then you’ll understand why my job is needed at the club.”
She was right Made up, Roberta’s looks were barely passable, but as she stood in Shawna’s living room now with no makeup on, she was downright ugly.
Shawna had asked him to stay because she had an ulterior motive. She had decided fifteen minutes before, while she was brooding in her bedroom, that she was going to give him more oral pleasure than he had ever had. When she discovered him with her book, she had been coming out to seduce him. Her mind was made up. She had convinced herself that after he felt the magic skill of her mouth, he wouldn’t care who she was. Roberta’s knock on the door had only delayed her plans as far as she was concerned. Once she finished the woman’s paint job, she was going to give Antoine a royal treatment that he would never forget.
“I don’t know, Shawna. Maybe I’ll just go over to Benny’s and have a drink. I really need to think.”
“Please, Antoine. You can have a drink here. I really want you to stay so we can finish our discussion later. Maybe I can clear up some of your questions.”
He looked at his watch. It was after nine, and he knew the school would be locked up, so he couldn’t go talk to Tyrone. The thought of going to Benny’s was suddenly not so appealing, since he realized that Keisha might be there. He figured that staying there would be the lesser of two evils.
“Sure, why not? I’d love to see what you do.” He sighed as he got up and walked over to the small bar Shawna had set up. He poured himself a strong drink. While his back was turned, Shawna hid the photo album, hoping he would forget about it, at least until she had him hooked.
Shawna sat Roberta in a chair in the living room and Antoine was impressed as he watched her slowly transform her friend into a rather decent-looking woman. When Shawna finished, Roberta stood up and ran to the mirror in the bathroom.
“Oh, girl, you outdid yourself,” she exclaimed as she walked out of the bathroom.
“I didn’t do anything. I keep telling you I’m just bringing out the beauty that’s there,” Shawna lied to spare her friend’s feelings.
“Oh, my God,” Roberta said. “Look at the time. I gotta go.” She hugged her friend, then looked at Antoine. “It was nice seeing you again, Antoine. I told Shawna you were the kind of guy that would love her for who she is and not what she was.”
“Well, I know you have to go, girl,” Shawna interrupted loudly as she shoved Roberta to the door. “Antoine and I have so much to talk about.” She didn’t wait for Roberta to respond before she shut the door in her face.
“What was that all about? What did she mean, love you for who you are and not what you were?”
Shawna walked over to the love seat and sat down beside Antoine. She literally had a thousand different thoughts running through her head. Each one of them was more confusing than the next. After a long while, during which Antoine kept shifting uncomfortably in his seat, she decided it was time to lay all her cards on the table.
“I have something to tell you, but first I want a kiss,” she told him in barely a whisper.
Antoine looked at her affectionately. He was afraid that she was going to tell him that she was a prostitute or that she had cancer. What he was about to hear would change the way he looked at women for the rest of his life.
He leaned forward to kiss her and was pulled in tightly by Shawna’s urgent grip. She kissed him as passionately as she could, exploring his mouth with her tongue until Antoine broke the kiss, gasping for breath. Shawna knew this could possibly be their last kiss, and she wanted to remember it forever.
“Wow, that was some kiss!” He was still gasping for air. “Now, what did you have to tell me?”
Shawna stood up and began to pace slowly in front of him. She wanted to tell him the truth, because she knew he was going to find out soon enough. Her charade would not last forever, and she was finally admitting it to herself, though she had known it all along. Even if by some miracle she could prevent Keisha from giving up the information, someone like Roberta would eventually slip up. Shawna wanted him to hear it from her first. When she finally gathered her courage, she spoke rapidly.
“That wasn’t my brother you saw in my album.” This was one of the most painful moments in Shawna’s life, but she knew there was no turning back now.
Antoine watched her for a few minutes. Slowly the reality of the situation was seeping into his consciousness. Before he asked his question, he had an inkling of what the answer would be, and he was terrified.
“Well, who is it, then?”
“It’s me,” Shawna said so quietly that he could not hear.
“What did you say?” He stood up, struggling to hear her words.
“It was me in those pictures, Antoine.” She moved away from him slightly.
“That’s not even funny, Shawna. That would mean you’re a man.”
He looked at her beautiful new breasts and around at the feminine living room. It was nearly impossible to fathom that this person he had fallen in love with was really a man.
Shawna was silent, trembling.
“Shawna, why would you play with me like this?” He started to become agitated. “Just tell me who’s in the picture.”
She began to cry and repeated her words. “It’s me. But I’m going to have an operation soon to become a complete
woman.”
There were no words for the rage that overtook Antoine. What come out of his mouth sounded more like a roar as he threw anything that was within his reach. Framed photos flew across the room and shattered against the wall. Books landed in every corner after he ripped the pages out. In a frenzy he pounded his fists against the wall until there was a gaping hole in the Sheetrock. Then he turned his fury on Shawna.
She tried to escape his reach but did not move fast enough as he lunged at her over the love seat. He grabbed her hair and yanked her head around as he screamed obscenities at the top of his lungs.
“You motherfucker! Tell me this is some kind of sick fucking joke! Tell me you’re not a man! Tell me you are not a man!”
The words flew out faster than a locomotive, and his fists flew just as fast, pounding Shawna about her face and head. She fell to the floor and curled up in the fetal position.
Shawna screamed for help, praying her landlord was still outside and would hear. Fear gripped her as she imagined the end of her life. There was good reason for her to worry when Antoine grabbed a brass candlestick holder from a nearby table. He raised it high above her head, trembling, a crazed look in his eyes.
“Tell me you’re not a fucking man, or I swear I’m going to fucking kill you!” he screamed. Suddenly he was startled out of his violent trance by a rapid knock at the door.
“What the hell’s going on in there?” Shawna’s landlord demanded.
Antoine dropped the weapon, which landed with a thud very near Shawna’s head.
“You are so fucking lucky someone was here to stop me, because I swear to God, you were five seconds away from being dead,” he hissed as he turned to leave. Shawna did not budge from her defensive posture on the floor.
Throwing the door open, Antoine came face-to-face with her landlord. Without a word he shoved his way past him and stormed out of the building. The landlord rushed to Shawna’s side and slowly helped her up from the floor. He helped her limp to a seat and grabbed the phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked painfully through her swollen lips.