Would I Lie to You?

by Trisha R. Thomas

  Venus stopped avoiding his eyes and looked up slowly. “I have to apologize, too. Everything about you is sincere, and so real it scares me. Men like you are scary, dangerous. Women like me are afraid of men like you, that you’ll break our hearts and steal our souls. So it’s safer to not believe you, to keep the distance.”

  A sudden chill crept up her shoulders, remembering the way he held her at Lila Kelly’s concert. She wanted nothing more than to believe him. It was always the case. No matter how self-assured and confident a woman appeared to be on the outside, on the inside, she wanted to believe, to trust, but was simply afraid.

  “That’s an interesting take. Especially coming from you. You come off like you’ve got it all together.”

  “Oh, yeah, right. Like falling helpless into your bed with my damsel-in-distress routine?”

  He shook his head. “Forget what I said.”

  “No. You had a point. I mean I can’t blame my mother’s sickness anymore. Being scared and traumatized can make you do some crazy things, but I’m not feeling that way anymore. Things have settled down and I’m still here, no excuse.” She finally had the strength to take her hands back. “Maybe something is missing, or wrong, in my relationship with my fiancé, but I learned a long time ago not to blame others for my unhappiness, or happiness for that matter. Either way, it’s my responsibility. I’ve got to know what I want if I ever expect to have it.” She stopped picking at the fine threads in the linen tablecloth. “I have to look within myself.”

  “So what is it then, why are you here? If happiness can only be found within yourself, that would mean you don’t need anyone.”

  Venus looked around the restaurant to all the smiling happy couples, the toasts of champagne glasses meeting in the air, kisses being shared over the table, hands being held. The rituals and mating dances that spoke volumes of love, constant sweet emotions caught in the lenses of her eyes like a photographer capturing the shots for a lifetime of memories. She looked to Jake, still unable to find the words to explain. There was no explanation without a confession. She’d already told him that she didn’t depend on others for happiness, she’d told him boldly that she was responsible either way the pendulum swung, so it would be foolish to tell him now a simple truth.

  She was here with him because he made her happy. Indeed, hearing his voice on the other end of the phone made her smile, the warmth of him standing too close made her dizzy with joy.

  “I guess you’ll tell me some other time.” Jake took her hand as he stood up. “Come here.” They walked out of the restaurant holding hands. The dark wooden stairs of the restaurant led down to the pier. The Santa Monica beach crowd had thickened. By nightfall the pier transformed into a carnival with cotton candy stands, whirling Ferris wheels, and sandbag tosses.

  “Where to now?”

  “That’s up to you.” Jake stopped and turned to face her.

  She didn’t have a chance to respond before her lips met with his. His mouth felt like a warm treat. Sweet caramel dripping down the sides. She opened wide, her arms around his back, her tongue tasting the smooth inside of his lips.

  His hands slipped underneath her jacket, pausing near the sides of her breasts before circling her waist, just how she pictured, exactly how she’d dreamt. It all came back to her, the dream, how they’d kissed on the beach, rolling in the wet sand.

  Venus pulled her head away. She watched him; this wasn’t a dream, or a fantasy. It was the two of them standing amid a full crowd of people, a crowd she couldn’t see or hear. She found his lips again, wrapping her arms around him even tighter. Venus kissed him openly without reserve. She could stay in his kiss, in his arms; all she had to do was believe.

  As much as she wanted to follow Jake home, fall into his large king-sized bed with the big soft pillows and silk sheets, she couldn’t ignore the guilty voices in her head. He pulled up in front of her apartment to drop her off. He leaned across the gearshift and kissed her good night. “I understand,” he said. His eyes shone in the reflection of the moonlight. It could have been the street lamps, but to her, it was the light of a million shooting stars. She walked up the brick steps of the entrance to her apartment feeling like lead weights were attached to her arms and legs. It was the hardest walking away she’d ever done. Jake waited in the car, making sure she got in safely. She turned and waved once securely inside. He put his thumb and pinky to his face, to say he’d call. She’d be ready when he did, in bed, warm and cozy, waiting for his sexy voice to lull her to sleep.

  WET LIES

  THE door of her apartment opened without her assistance. Venus stepped back, shocked to see Airic.

  “I was starting to worry.” He held out his arms. “Thank God you’re here.”

  She automatically fell into his slim build. His heart was beating erratically. Or was it hers?

  “I wanted to surprise you. I thought somebody kidnapped you. Your purse, your wallet, everything left there on the table. I checked the garage and your car was still parked. I didn’t know what to think.”

  “I went for a walk.” The lie tumbled out quickly. “How long have you been here?” Venus sensed him looking her over for clues.

  Airic pulled the cuff back on his shirt and checked his watch, “A couple of hours.” He gave it some thought. “That was a long walk.”

  “I stopped and had some coffee in a little espresso bar and read a couple of magazines. Just out wasting time on a Saturday night.” She began peeling off her shoes, then her clothes, anything that would show traces of Jake or a sandy beach. “I think I worked up a sweat. I’m going to take a quick shower.” She kept talking while she made her way to the bedroom. “Do you want to get something to eat, or are you full from that delicious airline cuisine?”

  He didn’t respond.

  She turned the shower knob to full pressure. Her heart was threatening to leap out of her chest.

  “The only thing I need is right here.” Airic’s voice startled her. She jumped, turning around to find him directly in her face. He kissed her. “It’s been such a long week.” He rubbed his narrow chin in her hair. The hair that probably smelled of sea air and garlic-brushed shrimp from the restaurant she never got to eat in.

  The phone rang. Venus went rigid.

  Airic zeroed in on her jangled nerves. “That’s probably your dad calling. I spoke to him earlier, trying to find you. I think I got him worried. I’ll get it.” He hurried to the phone on the bedroom nightstand.

  Venus could barely remain standing, surely she’d fall over. She reached out and held on to the sink, hoping, praying it wasn’t Jake on the phone. She pushed the bathroom door closed and leaned against it with her ear. She couldn’t hear a thing with the shower water beating against the porcelain tiles. She wasn’t able to hear anything over the sound of her blood coursing to her brain. Jake, he would know better than to speak. He would know. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Please, know,” she whispered.

  A light tap at the door before Airic let himself in again. Venus was standing in her bra and panties feeling like her brother had just walked in on her instead of the man she’d been sleeping with the last two years.

  “I told him you were safe and sound.”

  “It was my dad?” Her voice rose in a strange octave.

  A resounding “Yeah.” The kind that says, of course, who else would I be talking about?

  She swallowed something dry and painful. Relief, fear, guilt. “Okay, good. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  “Can I get in with you?”

  This wasn’t happening. Airic, her sweet, polished, no-nonsense older man, who carried out actions based solely on necessity, asking to take a long hot shower with her. What would be the sense in that? Neither one of them would get clean, absolved from the fate that was headed their way.

  “I just want to get in and out, babe.” She kissed him on his chin. “You can jet in after me.” She stepped into the shower, pulling the frosted glass door to a close.

  “Swe
etie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You forgot something.”

  Venus looked down at herself, wearing the soggy bra and panties, and couldn’t help but cough out a hysterical laugh. She stripped off the wet panties and tossed them over the door; the bra followed, hitting the floor with a splat. She heard him pick them up, squeeze out the excess water, then hang them on the towel bar.

  “Thanks, hun. I’ll be out in a sec.” She didn’t talk like that, words like hun and sec. She didn’t jump into a shower without testing the temperature first, and she certainly didn’t do it with her bra and panties on. He’d know. Any fool would know there was something off-kilter. Maybe she was in luck, Airic wasn’t anybody’s fool.

  The sound of the twenty-four-hour financial channel on the television came from the living room. She came up behind Airic sitting on the couch and kissed him on the earlobe. He put the pen in his hand down and reached up, touching a handful of wet hair. “Uummm.” He pulled up, putting his face in for the deep scent of herbal freshness.

  “Smells good.” He held her hand while she walked around the length of the couch, then climbed into his lap.

  “So what happened? I thought you couldn’t make it here this weekend. This is the second time you’ve changed up like that.”

  Airic cradled her in his long arms, “I try to do the logical thing, stay and work, but then I start missing the woman I love.” He kissed her nose. “You. You’re important You’re here dealing with something real. Made me reevaluate things. Give some thought to what’s important, and what’s not”

  Venus closed her eyes, remembering why she’d been attracted to him two years ago. How they’d met while sitting in an airport during the Christmas holiday. She didn’t want him then. She was still hoping for a reconciliation with Clint. She eventually accepted fate and gave Airic a chance. They weren’t a passionate couple, filled with starry-eyed hope. Just two grown people who’d had enough of life’s curveballs, wanting stability and union. Honesty. No games.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” She felt the angled hardness of his penis stiffen underneath her.

  He searched her eyes. “For a minute it didn’t seem that way.”

  Venus ran her fingers along the freshly cut hair at the nape of his neck. “You just caught me off guard. First I don’t hear from you at all, and suddenly you’re here.” She zeroed in on his brown eyes. “Has everything been going okay? Seems like you’ve been busy.” It was a natural course of action to turn the blame, a defense mechanism used by the guilty party.

  “Been in the trenches, but no more than usual. I called and left a few messages but couldn’t seem to catch up with you.”

  “My mom. I’ve been running around dealing with her and the doctors. It’s been a mess.”

  He looked so tired. Venus couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips. “Of course I want you here. I would have come to D.C if all this hadn’t been going on with my mother.”

  “Your dad says your mom is doing well.” A perplexed look creased his already furrowed forehead.

  “She is, actually, very well. Good enough to chase me down the stairs.”

  “What?”

  Venus chuckled to herself. It hadn’t been funny at the time, but now, she was glad to know her mother’s spirit was still intact. She was still a fighter. “No, it’s nothing. She got out of bed to scold me for asking my father about their financial situation. It’s nothing.” She waved it away. “I have to give them some money, though. My mom reminded me that I borrowed money to buy the house in D.C.”

  “How much?”

  “Eighteen thousand.”

  “Whoa!”

  “Yeah, I want to give her half now and then a little each month,” Venus tilted her head a little, confused. “Why are you acting like $18,000 is a ton of money? Aren’t you the rich entrepreneur?” She ran a finger across the point of his nose.

  Airic blinked hard, brushing her hand away from his face. “It’s your money we’re talking about, not mine.”

  She was speechless, staring into his sharp profile. “Yours, mine? And we’re talking about marriage?” She held up her hand with the ring that had caused so much trouble a few hours earlier. “Since the day you put this on my finger I’ve felt like there was no yours and mine. I’ve always felt like we were in this thing together.” The firm lines around his mouth remained in place. “Airic?” She waited, still poised for his reply.

  “You’re right. No, absolutely. That’s not what I meant We,” he emphasized, “need to pay your mother back.”

  She wasn’t satisfied. “Is there something going on?” She searched his eyes. “Tell me.”

  “Venus, you know better than anyone that here today doesn’t mean here tomorrow. I can never get lax. I have to be careful, always. If something goes down, next year, or the year after that, I won’t be able to walk into a bank and ask for a helping hand. Black-owned companies get rejected nine times out of ten. A white company could be floating by the seat of its pants and it’d get cash thrown at it.”

  She stroked the new gray hairs trailing in his hairline. “I love you. You know that?” She kissed him hard, on the lips, pushing herself up, straddling him with her open robe. “You think they’d know you were black?”

  He rolled her over. She cried out a giggle. That was their running joke, that Airic could pass if he wanted to. His creamy pale complexion, his fine curly hair that he kept so short it lay flat against his head.

  “I’d know,” he said, kissing her deeply.

  She pulled his shirt off. She held him in her grasp, clinging for dear life, listening as the phone began to ring.

  “You want to answer that?” Airic whispered into her ear, new life recovered in his erection.

  “Venus, hey it’s …”

  Her foot “accidentally” looped around the cord of the answering machine, pulling it out of the wall. Jake’s voice cut off in the middle of his sentence.

  “Who was that?”

  “One of the guys I’m working with. I’ll call him back later.” Venus closed her eyes, blending in with the rug under her back, feeling as low as the floor beneath her. She tightened her grip around Airic’s neck, pulling him down. The weight of his body wasn’t enough to shut out the thought of Jake, his sweet face filled with worry sitting at home, wondering what was going on. The phone rang again and again while Venus pretended to be in such ecstasy that she had no mind to answer the caller, sinking into the movement of Airic pulsing inside of her. With each ring trying desperately to close off thoughts of Jake.

  FRAYED EDGES

  THE sound of her Reeboks slapping the pavement sent a flurry of starlings into a frenzy. They flew in a trail straight up to the sky. She ran fast and hard, her breath flowing in and out at a rapid pace. Her palpitating heart was a sure sign that she hadn’t exercised in days, maybe weeks. She couldn’t remember. All that mattered was now. What she’d done, or hadn’t, was of no consequence. She had decisions to make. Hard ones.

  She stretched the corner hard, her strides long, picking up speed as her apartment building came into focus. She considered circling one more time to have another conversation with herself. Jake Parson was merely a distraction. Clint showing up like a mirage was just another coincidence. She felt like she’d come to a crossroad with signs posted in four different directions, four different names—her own, Jake’s, Clint’s, and Airic’s. The signs were meant to confuse her, but she knew what was best, what was right.

  A stream of sweat tickled before dropping from the edge of her brow. She slowed, then stopped, bending over to catch her breath. The morning air smelled faintly of last night’s traffic. It hurt her nostrils to take in as much oxygen as her heart and lungs requested. She stood up and tried to stabilize. She immediately saw the car from the corner of her eye. The bright red sports car pulled up. Jake stepped out coming toward her, his mouth open with questions before she could meet him halfway.

  “What happened?
I was worried. I tried calling all night, then I came over and you still didn’t answer the intercom.” His breath came in spurts as if he’d been the one jogging.

  “Airic’s here,” she blurted out, then looked up at the building, grateful her apartment window faced the rear.

  He blinked in confusion.

  “Honey? she clarified.

  Jake backed away. “Got it,” He swung the car door open then got in and slammed it shut. He started the engine.

  She watched his car skid around the corner. She felt like she was going to be sick. Her mouth filled with liquid; she turned so he wouldn’t see the expulsion of water coming through her lips. She’d overdone it, using her sleeve to wipe the traces. The early morning silence filled the street, a nuisance of buzzing that she couldn’t shut out even with her hands pressed over her ears.

  VENUS submerged the plate in the hot sudsy dishwater. She wiped with an intensity that thickened the foam. She tried to drown out the voices and intermittent laughter of her father and Airic in the living room. They were having a conversation that spaced in and out, Airic promising to find a company her father could invest in that produced miniature trains.

  She pressed the nozzle, pushing out a jet stream of water to rinse. Airic came and poured the last bit of coffee from the pot. “How much longer do you plan on staying?” He leaned on the counter, sipping from his mug.

  Venus continued to wash, spraying a skillet to rinse. The water splashed on her chest. “Shit.”

  Airic dumped the bitter brew down the sink. “I have to get back to the apartment and get some work done.”

  “Take the car. Dad can bring me later, or you can come back and pick me up. I want to cook dinner for them.” It didn’t matter that her aunt had precooked for a week. She couldn’t handle spending the full day with Airic.

  “So you plan to stay here for dinner?”