The Complete Trilogy by Zi'ere: The Trilogy Completed

by Zi'ere

  Feeling safe, I lean back in my seat and wrap the light sweater around my body tighter. Tears began to fall from my face. Just when I think that I am coming into my own, it is being snatched away in a second’s notice.

  “Mrs. Foster?”

  “Um, yes?”

  “We have made it to the private landing strip.”

  “Oh, wow. That was fast, I must have fallen asleep.”

  The driver gets out of the car and pops open the trunk before he opens my door. One of the stewardesses helps me up the four steps of the plane and shows me to my seat. I try my best to recover from dry tears and then the new ones that are falling.

  I must be doing an awful job of it though because the same stewardess leaves and returns with a box of Kleenex and a flute of champagne. Still being a lightweight with the drinks, it takes two of them to relax me enough to sleep for the next seven and a half hours.

  Drifting off to sleep, I meditate on peace and serenity. I pray for new direction and purpose. I pray for healing and the strength of forgiveness with forgetfulness. I ask God to be my parental support. I ask for a new heart, not one that is rooted in a man but him. I want to be wrapped so tight in him that no man with wicked intentions can even find me.

  This is the reason why as soon as I touch down in Chandler, Arizona that I go to the Four Seasons Hotel instead of my home. It is time for me to decide my next move before I have to return to work. I don’t know if I can just remodel certain parts of the house that Pain has tainted to get the images out of my head.

  When I watch more of the videos, I realize that he has disrespected my home in every room. I need a new house. Not even a full year in a million dollar home and it is necessary for me to move. Anger overtakes my feelings. In five minutes that is over. One thing Stymy taught me is to never let my emotions get the best of me.

  If it doesn’t involve my pockets, then it isn’t worth my concern. I decide to remain clear with a level head. After all, no matter what happens I will forever be a boss chick in the state. I put in a call to the family realtor. I want another apartment or condo this time around. There will be no more living in a huge mansion all alone for Kamille.

  I make a potty run and then I get back in bed and then I drown myself in the blankets. I look at both of the phones in my possession. No calls from any man, not even my damn stalker. I’m sad and happy about that shit. Even though I told Broderick that I want to be with him, growing and seeing where things would go, he still left when he said he never would.

  Instead he waits until my back is turned, knowing full well when he would be missing at the first turn. I fell in love with Pain’s company in the beginning. It is as good a time as any to be real with my damn self. With Pain’s company came the pain of Pain’s disappearing acts. He truly did put an end to the loneliness that I felt . . . The void that Jai or the kids could not fill.

  Then I turn around and fall in love with Broderick’s ability to keep respect for me on one million percent every day. He’s been a friend and respectful from the start. He never lied to me about who he was. He had still chosen to love me and provide for me when he knew that I wasn’t being cared for in the right way.

  I have solid proof that he ended one relationship completely before he’d tried to enter into another one. I don’t know a woman who doesn’t want that kind of respect from a man. There are so many men in the world just floating from one vagina to the next, with no pause in between.

  Still getting into my big girl panties, I should have put on a life jacket or bullet proof vest when Pain started his shit from the beginning but nah, Kam was in love. I couldn’t see past his chocolate pipe and his gift of gab. I have lied down and allowed for him to enter me without protection. I’d gotten pregnant by a man, who was still pretending to be living with his other family who lived across town.

  Fuck both of them! You did this shit before on your own, your pockets are deeper…you good.

  Why anyone would be knocking on my door when no one even knows that I am in Chandler is a mystery. I haven’t ordered room service. I hop out of the bed again and pull on a robe. Surprise, surprise Ant is on the other side of the door.

  “Hey!” I don’t hesitate to pull open the door for my boo.

  “Hi sweetheart, how are you doing today?”

  “I’m ok Ant, how about you?”

  “I’m better than I was yesterday, so that’s good huh?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  I can’t help but assume the worst.

  84

  “Hold on, it’s nothing like that. I really would like to know how you are.”

  I am not surprised when he kisses me on the cheek as he greets me.

  It’s not exactly a church type of embrace but it still feels familiar. I hear him sniff my body as he holds on to me. I smile. I am glad he is with me.

  “I’m fine, really.”

  After the hotel room door is locked, he follows me toward the sitting room furniture. I wait for him to pick a side, so that I can purposely pick the other. Sitting beside him can get me into trouble. I’m looking into his eyes when his facial expression changes from cordial to somber.

  “Do you need anything?”

  He looks around the suite, as he walks to a chair.

  “Uh, no. Not that I can think of at this moment.”

  “Ok. I see that you’re all about business today. I’m gonna get to it.”

  “I would appreciate that.”

  “I have something that you need to see.”

  “Look, I’m not ready to see anybody right now.”

  “I said something not someone. It’s on a disc.”

  “Oh…ok. That sounds interesting.”

  “I won’t hold you up with bullshit and you know that.”

  “How did you know I was here? You know what, don’t answer that.” I pull the belt of the robe tighter.

  He’s dressed as if he just hopped off of a jet himself. Trendy Gucci shades on his high yellow face set off a baby pink crispy button down shirt. The wrists of it are unbuttoned and turned up, along with crisp khaki slacks, and expensive tan loafers. He smells like wealth. Ever since I’ve met him, I’ve always thought that he was a good looking man.

  The female he is with at the time is a noticeable mismatch and I haven’t seen her since Vegas. I shake my head to get out of my lustful thoughts. Ant’s love life isn’t my business on any level.

  “You look good, Miss Lady.”

  “Thank you, so do you….as always.”

  “This is what a man’s gotta do to hook a woman like you, right?”

  I laugh. Ant and I have been down this road before.

  “You men make it so complicated, when it really isn’t.”

  I notice that he is holding a single cd case.

  “You are the only exception worth mentioning.”

  I smile. Ant and I can go back and forth all day and all night.

  “So, I know that you didn’t come here just to flirt. What’s that?”

  I nod towards his hand.

  “What in the hell is wrong? You are scaring the shit out of me, come on with it.”

  He slips the disk into the slider of the laptop. My hands automatically go to my chest when I realize that I am watching yet another video clip of some action that has taken place at my home. I relax when I see Jai pressing the doorbell.

  Whatever is wrong on the inside, I know that Jai will correct it for me if I am not home. I assume that I have to be inside of the house on this day because I am positive that she has never told me of a time she has come to the house and I wasn’t there. Pain answers the door, still using his cane. I sit back on the couch.

  On the inside of the house the two go to the kitchen. Pain is seated at the island while Jai fixes herself a glass of lemonade. Conversation is flowing between the two of them, even though I can tell that she is saying something that Pain isn’t receiving very well. She pulls out an envelope from her purse.

  She then throws several picture
s at him. When he sees the pictures right side up, he then connects his forehead with the granite countertop. Not even five minutes later, Pain is between Jai’s legs eating her out on my kitchen counters. I feel as if I have just been shot.

  Minutes go by and the video stops. Ant starts another clip. Pain and Jai are in a downstairs spare bedroom enjoying each other orally this time in a perfect matched sixty-nine. He doesn’t wait for the next clip to end before he switches to another. More Pain and Jai doing the nasty: sucking, fucking, and sharing with each other in my home.

  If there is a good part to the situation, it has to be that they never entered my bedroom. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter because Neka, Sanye, and Tiff have all soiled my marital bed. I am out in the world being the best woman that I can be while the people that I thought loved me the most can’t even control their hormones.

  Jai was so quick to make sure that Neka didn’t end up with Pain that night in the club. Here I was thinking that Neka was my only sworn enemy. I have been giving a frienemy the inside tract to my heart, life, and love from the start.

  What kind of man cheats on his wife while she’s at work with her muthafuckin cousin? I worked myself to the bone day in and day out for this bitch and this is how she repays me? Her scandalous ass lived around the fucking corner. But my God babies couldn’t see Uncle Gavin in their mother’s bed.

  Jai is dead wrong but I’ve said vows to Gavin Brown. Jai is the only family that I have left. Whenever she’s needed me, I have put my own life aside to be there for her and the kids. This is how she chooses to repay me? I’d just had a conversation with her earlier and she’d acted as if she still meant me a world of good.

  “Soooooo……how long was this going on?”

  “Up until the time you left and afterwards. Neither one of them know that we know.”

  “Who is we?”

  He looks away.

  “How did you get this?”

  “You know I have been your shadow from the start. Sty’z doesn’t even know about this.”

  “What? How is that possible?”

  “I had it erased before he could burn the clips he has now.”

  “ So all ya’ll muthafuckas just in and out my house like it’s a fuckin Wal Mart?”

  “I tried to minimize the hurt, Kam.”

  “Fuck minimizing hurt!”

  “What did she have on him to get him into this shit?”

  “She found out that he’d gotten Neka pregnant. I guess she used the shit as bait for her to keep her lips sealed. But then Neka found out about them and it was too late.”

  “So everybody is in the loop, except for me?”

  “Kam, I knew that Sty was going to drop the bomb on the other hoes in your lap but I didn’t want this kind of pain on you when I wasn’t around. I wanted to protect you from this shit. But then you came back early, I know that you were going to call her, and I know that she was going to talk to you like she had never done anything foul. I can’t sit back and let that happen.”

  “So who in the fuck are you supposed to be? Got damn Robin Hood?!”

  He laughs.

  Wrong move.

  “What in the fuck is so funny about my life? How dare you sit there and laugh when the only blood relative that I have in the world has been fucking my husband behind my back?”

  “Kam, Jai was foul even when Ryan was still alive. I know you don’t know anything about it, but please take my word on my life that she was.”

  “How do you know Ryan?”

  My heart stops beating, while waiting for an answer.

  85

  “Ryan was my cousin. You know how straight laced that he was. I was too far on the wrong side of the law for him but when he wanted the nitty-gritty, he knew that I could and would get it for him. He suspected her of cheating for years. But before he could come home and address the shit, he was killed.”

  “THAT FUCKING BITCH!”

  I have loved Ryan from the start.

  “KAM, CALM DOWN!”

  I’ve always had fond memories of the man who treated my cousin as if she were a queen and his children as if they were royal blood princes and princesses. The room starts to spin. A sound too dull to be a scream escapes my mouth. I’m doubled over in pain. Tears are falling and I’m sobbing. This time it is Ant who is holding me tight. I fight him off of me. I’m fed up with this fucked up- deceitful crew that I have been pushed into the center of.

  “GET OFF OF ME AND GET THE FUCK OUT!”

  “KAM, DON’T DO THIS. YOU DON’T NEED TO BE ALONE! I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE OKAY!”

  “HELL NO, I’M NOT OKAY BUT I STILL WANT YOU TO GET THE FUCK OUT! I’M SICK OF THIS SHIT! ALL THIS SHIT HAS BEEN NOTHING BUT A PAIN FROM DAY ONE!

  I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE . . . ALL OF YOU! I DON’T WANT NOBODY CALLING ME, DON’T TELL NOBODY WHERE I AM, JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!

  WHY WON’T YA’LL LEAVE ME ALONE? WHEN YOU SEE THOSE HOES IN THAT VIDEO YOU TELL THEM THAT I SAID TO GO TO HELL!”

  I know that Ant is allowing me to literally throw him out the room. He’s double my size and he is a man. He gets the door slammed in his face, as he stands in the hallway looking pitiful. I am hurt because he knows every complaint. Ant has seen and dried the tears.

  He was in the room glowing in order to make some of my days brighter. He promised me that he would never keep anything from me anymore. I understand that it is my first day back, but he could have said something before I left or even in Hawaii.

  He didn’t even let me know that he was there. I had the mindset that all I had in the world was Broderick. Things would have gone differently if I had known that Ant was there. Betrayal is an action word that never stops re-gifting itself.

  Tears and snot are falling. I run to grab my purse, my book bag, and keys. I’m at the door when I realize that I have on a robe. By the time that I make it back to the door, Ant is standing there. He shakes his head no. I have no choice but to sit my ass down. I can shoot his ass for calling himself preventing me from leaving but I have to save all of my bullets for those who truly deserve them.

  I wonder if I have enough ammo for what I need to do. What I want to do is dead them all. Clean house. Jai’s kids are to be mines, should anything happen to her. There is no way that I can live with her mini twins for the rest of my life though.

  I realize that I will have to find another way to deal with her trifling ways. Ant’s pretty ass was going to get hungry or have to pee at some point. All I have to do is wait his ass out. There is going to be some smoke in the city when I shake my sitter!

  I sit in the common area of the suite staring at the walls for hours. Ant gets his thin ass comfortable with the remote and doesn’t move another muscle. The more that I blow long sighs of boredom, he never gets my hint. Or maybe he does, he just doesn’t give a fuck. When the sun sets and there is no way that I can go anywhere, he hops his ass up to leave.

  “Be good, Baby Girl. I will hook up with you tomorrow.”

  He grabs my book bag and then he strolls on out of the door. All that I can do is what I have been doing . . . . Cry. I pick up my phone a million times to call someone but there is no one to call. I eject the disc from my laptop, which is still sitting on the coffee table. In a fit, I throw it across the room. On MSN’s home page, I do a search for Keith Foster. I feel as though I need to know that one person truly loves me.

  I haven’t seen Keith since I was a little girl. Tracking him down will take my mind off of the bullshit and answer important questions at the same time. A simple search leads to police records that lead to inmate search engines.

  It takes about fifteen minutes to find out that good ole Keith is in a federal prison in the mountains of California with a release date of June 2023. The sentence is life on a capital murder charge. His inmate profile sheet proves that he is now fifty-six years old, which I have never known . . . And it’s something so simple. It is clear that he is going to die where
he is.

  Well, at least you know where his ass is at right now and that he damn sholl ain’t going anywhere, so no need to run out on a Nancy Drew investigation case.

  My stomach growls so loudly, that there is no way that I can ignore it. I put in a call for last minute room service at an obnoxious price. While I am waiting, I think over my life. I can honestly say that I have never had lunch with either of my parents. I haven’t lived in the same home as my mother since I was seven.

  Little half white girl living a gangster life, a hard unnecessary ass life. All of the book sense in the world but can’t spot a master manipulator.

  86

  I’m sitting in a garden tub . . . a full bubble bath with my iPad on the counter, playing Aretha Franklin’s station on Pandora. I start out laid back with my head resting on a therapeutic neck pillow. My feet rest on the top of the tub, on the opposite end.

  I notice that I need a pedicure. Surely that will release some stress. I make a mental note schedule for the hotels Spa Suite. Bath salts, cocoa butter moisturizer and lavender scented bubble bath, along with the lavender candles lit around the huge room give me the scenery.

  I need my space. I need clarity and peace. My world in disarray is new for me. Then the song comes on. Aretha Franklin starts to sing about my life story. Even though I don’t want to, I can’t help but join the queen of soul, who is singing my favorite song.

  Oh baby

  Oh oh babe

  Oh oh oh oh oh

  Oh baby

  Love was always supposed to be

  Something wonderful to me

  To watch it grow inside yourself

  To feel your heart beside itself

  Sometimes it hurts to love so bad

  (When you know you’ve given all you can)

  Sometimes it hurts to even laugh

  My tears are flowing like rain but I still continue to sing. Once it plays out on Pandora, I won’t hear it again anytime soon.

  (You do your best but it’s still much too sad)

  Sometimes the pain is just too much, oh oh