by Mary Monroe
I hadn’t planned to visit this particular Tuesday afternoon a few minutes after four, and I wouldn’t have if I’d known that my big sister, Elaine, was hosting a party in the living room selling erotic products to a bunch of housewives. I arrived just as the party was about to end. I was not a prude (and I had my own sex toys to prove it), but some of the items she had on display surprised me. There were vibrators so huge, they looked like large sausages; two-headed dildos; black condoms; fruit-flavored lubricant, and a few items I couldn’t identify.
I was glad that Mama and Elmo had both taken off work so they could visit some of Elmo’s relatives in Oakland for the whole day. They weren’t prudes either, but I didn’t think they’d approve of Elaine selling sex products in the same living room where there was a huge velvet picture of Jesus walking on water.
I was doubly glad that Junior had not come into the house with me. I’d picked him up from school half an hour earlier. As soon as I’d parked my car, he bolted down the block to go hang out with some of his friends.
Wild-eyed women were oohing and aahing like kids in a candy store. One frowsy redhead grabbed her bag of goodies and giggled all the way out the door. The last guest to leave was Mrs. Paxton, a fussy old woman in her late seventies. She was married to a man who had just turned fifty and she liked to brag to anybody who’d listen that they had a very active sex life. Mr. Paxton used Viagra, and since there was nothing yet comparable for women, Mrs. Paxton needed a little help every now and then.
My day had started off with a bang, and I was still in a good mood. At ten a.m., I’d received a call from “DaddyLongLegs,” one of my favorite Wall Street hookups from New York. He was back in town and wanted to see me. I was so anxious to see him, I’d driven like a bat out of hell and made it to his hotel in half the time it normally took. Because of all the pleasure I’d enjoyed for two hours, I still had a blissful look on my face when I sat down next to Elaine on the couch.
“You sure are doing a lot of grinning these days,” she teased as she jabbed my side with her elbow. She had sold almost everything, so she looked rather pleased. Elaine had provided four pitchers of margaritas for her guests. I had to drive home, so I poured myself just half a glass. It was just as well, because that was about all that was left anyway.
“That’s because I have a lot to grin about these days today,” I quipped. “And by the way, you’d better not let Mama or Elmo catch you having one of your sex toy parties in this house, you nasty buzzard.”
“Don’t worry. I never leave any evidence lying around.” Elaine stopped talking and gave me a smug look. “You still like to hate on me, I see,” she teased. She crossed her shapely legs and raked her fingers through her curly brown hair, which was all hers—not a weave like her real haters hoped it was. Some people (including her) thought she was the most attractive female in my family because of her beautiful, caramel-colored skin and her big, brown Diana Ross eyes. Twenty years ago, she’d lived in L.A. and worked as a swimsuit model. She’d also partied with Hugh Hefner and his crew at the Playboy Mansion. Other than Lola and me, Elaine was the only other woman I knew who thought about sex more than the average woman. She was currently juggling dates with a musician, a cop, and a bartender.
“No, I’m not a hater. Seeing all those funny-looking items you’re selling . . .” I paused and nodded toward the two dildos left on the coffee table. “It makes me feel kind of strange.”
“Humph! There is nothing ‘strange’ about sex enhancements. You should know by now that some women need a little help in that area. If a man can’t get the job done, what’s a woman to do? Shit. We have just as much right to enjoy sex as men.”
“I know that. But the best ‘prop’ is still a man.”
Elaine jabbed my side again and winked. “And I guess you’d know?”
“Well, yeah. . . .”
“Well, excuuuuse me. I’m about to fire that bozo cop I’ve been seeing. He just turned forty-five and looks it and acts it. Nowadays he can’t light my fire with a blowtorch. It’s a good thing I still have my two spares.” Elaine rolled her neck so dramatically, I was surprised she didn’t get whiplash. “I guess you don’t need any of the unique new toys available these days,” she added with a snicker. “Or any spares. . . .”
“I guess I don’t,” I said with a smirk.
“Oh well. No wonder Reed treats you like a queen. I’ll bet he’s the kind of man who has always dipped his stick two or three times a night, every night.” She turned her head to the side and gave me a curious look.
“Uh-huh,” I said weakly. If Elaine only knew! Reed had never “dipped his stick” two or three times a night, or even a week. Our sex life was down to one day a week maybe, and sometimes not even that!
What made me want to scream was the fact that Reed thought he was a red-hot lover. And from what he’d told me, all of his former girlfriends had raved about his bedroom skills. I had become so frustrated with his mediocre performance, it was a wonder I wasn’t climbing our bedroom walls. Lola told me that I should talk to him about it, and if that didn’t help I needed to make an appointment for us to talk to a sex therapist together. Something that drastic was absolutely out of the question. I’d read a lot of magazine articles and seen enough TV shows on the subject, so I was well aware that even casually hinting to a man that he was lousy in bed could make matters even worse. In a movie I’d watched just last week, a woman told her husband that he didn’t satisfy her in bed. He got so depressed and self-conscious, he eventually couldn’t perform at all. Reed was in bad-enough shape with his mood swings and fascination with suicide. Just thinking about how much worse he’d be if he became impotent too made me shudder.
Chapter 24
Joan
I WAS SO DEEP IN THOUGHT, I DIDN’T REALIZE ELAINE HAD GATHERED up what was left of her erotic products and moved to another part of the house. I didn’t even hear Mama enter the room.
“Girl, you gone deaf or what?” she barked.
“Huh? Mama, are you talking to me?” I hollered, almost jumping out of my skin.
“You the only one in this room, ain’t you?”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I was thinking about something. I guess I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I guess you didn’t. Anyway, Reed just called. He said he’s been calling your cell phone for hours.”
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t answer because I was just about to go home,” I said, rising from the couch. I didn’t know my son had come in, but now I could hear him fussing with Too Sweet in the kitchen. “Junior, come on, baby! Let’s go home!” I yelled toward the doorway. Within seconds, he galloped into the room. The older he got, the more he looked like Reed. He was exceptionally smart and ambitious for a fourteen-year-old. He loved to watch educational TV shows, and he loved to read. He even read some of the boring medical publications Reed subscribed to. Junior had already decided that he wanted to be a dentist like his father and his grandfather. People often told him how handsome he was and that he was going to make some lucky girl a good husband.
“Can I stay here all night?” Junior asked with the same pleading look that I saw so often on his father’s face. “It’s boring at our house!”
“Let the boy stay. He’s got plenty of clothes here, so Too Sweet can get him off to school tomorrow morning,” Mama said before I could answer my son. “I got a few chores he can help me take care of. He can go out there and straighten out that mess in the garage first. Then he can clean out that litter box Elaine’s too lazy to take care of. After that, he can run over to Cottright’s market and pick up them chicken gizzards, Gatorade, and turnip greens that Too Sweet wants to cook for dinner tonight.”
Junior turned to me with a horrified expression.
“Uh, some other time would be better,” I said. I was already walking fast toward the door. “Reed’s mother is in town visiting friends, and she’ll probably pay us a visit this evening too. She’ll be real disappointed if Junior’s not around for her to fawn over
. Come on, baby.” With a look of relief, my son followed me as we rushed out to my car.
“Whew! I thought I was going to have to do all kinds of stupid stuff for Grandma,” Junior said as he buckled his seat belt. “And I wish she’d get a real computer. The one she’s got don’t even have speakers and it’s hella slow.”
“Be glad your grandma’s even got a computer for you to play games on. When she was your age, the only tech items they had were typewriters.”
“What in the world is a typewriter?”
“It’s a boxy little device with keys that have the letters of the alphabet on them. It’s what people used before computers came out. They didn’t even have the Internet back then either.”
“Dang, Mama. How did people get on Facebook back in those days?”
I laughed. “Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, cell phones, DVRs, and many other electronics we take for granted now have only been around for a few years. Some of them weren’t even around when I was your age.”
I had to stop for a red light, so I had a few moments to look at Junior. He looked totally confused. “Mama, I feel so sorry for you old folks.”
I gasped. “You think I’m old?” I asked, glancing into my rear-view mirror to check for wrinkles and other signs of age. Of course I didn’t see any, but I was still concerned about my son referring to me as old.
“Yup. You’ll be thirty-three this year.” The serious look on Junior’s face now made me sad. “But don’t worry, you still have a pretty face. If something ever happens to Daddy, I’m sure another man will marry you. That is, as long as you’re still pretty and not too old and fat by then.”
Junior’s comments gave me chest pains. I was glad he remained silent for the rest of the way home.
Reed appeared extremely exasperated, his arms folded, when I entered our living room. “Woman, what’s the point of you having a cell phone if you don’t answer it for hours at a time?” he hollered.
I clutched the strap of my purse tighter. I knew there would be a real war if Reed insisted on checking my cell phone caller ID history, especially today. I had not deleted LongJohn’s or DaddyLongLegs’s numbers yet. “What’s the matter this time?” I asked with one of my frequent and heavy sighs.
“Where have you been all day?” he asked with his lips snapping over each word.
I motioned for Junior to go to his room. When he was out of earshot, I turned to Reed with my hands on my hips. “I was out shopping,” I said hotly, with a neck roll. When I realized how suspicious it looked for me to come home from an extended shopping spree empty-handed again, I added, “I didn’t see anything I wanted to buy.”
“That’s been happening a lot lately.”
“So what?”
“So what did you really do today? What do you do all the other times you go ‘shopping’ and come home with nothing to show for it? I know you’re up to something.”
“Don’t you start that shit again! I’m not in the mood for it!” I yelled while I rubbed the side of my head. Then I started rolling my neck some more and wagging my finger in Reed’s face, two gestures he hated. He referred to such behavior as “ghetto queen foolishness.”
“Joan, how many times do I have to remind you that you no longer live in the ghetto? Why do you have to act so ‘black’ when we have serious conversations?”
“In case you forgot, we are black. And how many times do I have to remind you that the neighborhood I grew up in is not ‘in the ghetto’!” I boomed. “And don’t try to change the subject. Let’s stick to what we were just discussing.” I was talking so hard and fast, I had to pause so I could catch my breath. “I’m getting damn tired of you accusing me of being ‘up to something’ every time I turn around! I’m your wife, not your prisoner or your child. You don’t need to know what I’m doing or where I’m at all the time! Or who I’m with!” I glared at Reed and stomped out of the room with my purse. When I got into the guest bathroom, I locked the door, pulled out my cell phone, and called up Lola. I was about to hang up when she finally answered on the fifth ring.
“Sorry it took me so long to answer, but I couldn’t find my phone again,” she explained. “Dummy me. I’d dropped it by mistake into my dirty clothes hamper.”
“Shut up and listen and don’t ask any questions. Just answer yes or no. Can you meet me at the Black Hawk bar ASAP?”
Lola replied without hesitation. “Yes. I’m on my way.”
“Good. If you get there before I do, grab a booth or a table toward the back so we can have some privacy.”
Chapter 25
Joan
I WAS NOT SURE IF REED’S MOTHER WAS GOING TO PAY US A VISIT this evening, and if she did I was not in the mood to deal with her. One of the reasons I had managed not to go completely off on her all these years was because I made myself as scarce as I could when she visited.
I didn’t even tell Reed that I was going back out, because there would have been another showdown. I waited until he went into the kitchen and had been there for about five minutes before I bolted out the front door.
When I got to the bar, Lola was hunched over a glass of wine in the booth the farthest away from the entrance. The only bad thing about this particular booth was that it was the one closest to the restrooms; you could hear each time a patron flushed the toilet. The Black Hawk was rather seedy, but the drinks were good and cheap, and it was close to home. I was glad to see that Lola had already ordered a glass of wine for me too.
“Uh-oh. I recognize that look on your face,” she began as soon as I slid into the booth. I plopped down so hard, the table shook. “What’s the matter this time?”
I had to take a long drink before I could respond. “Reed got on my last nerve again.”
“Is that all? When is he not on your last nerve?”
“This evening it seemed more irritating than usual. I had to get out of the house.” I exhaled and forced a smile to my burning face. “Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about you. And please tell me something good.”
Lola took a deep breath, blinked a couple of times, and then reared back in her seat. From the sparkle in her eyes, I knew that I was about to hear something juicy. “I talked to Calvin today,” she announced in an excited tone.
I couldn’t think of anything more appealing than the glow of a woman in love. I had never seen it on Lola’s face until now. She looked almost fluorescent! But I was not too happy about her falling “in love” with a man she’d met online through a sex club—especially after I’d warned her not to! As much as I enjoyed my membership, I was convinced that a relationship that began in such an unconventional manner didn’t have a chance of becoming serious and long term. However, in spite of my feelings, I refused to allow myself to share them with Lola, especially since I’d already made her think that I was in her corner. For all I knew, when she and Calvin finally had sex, they might not even enjoy it and then go their separate ways and never speak to each other again. At the end of the day, the main thing I really cared about was my girl being happy. And if experiencing one intimate encounter with Calvin was enough to do the trick—even if just for the duration of that one date—I was all for it.
“Oh? He’s back from Chicago?” For some reason I was glad to hear that Lola had communicated with Calvin. By now I was real curious to see what was going to happen.
“No. He left me a couple of voice mail messages and I called him back this afternoon. He’s not sure when he’s going to be back in California, but he finally told me he’s ready to hook up with me.”
“You mean he’s ready to do what he should have already done by now?” I had not meant to sound so sarcastic, but the words and the bitterness had slid out on their own before I could catch myself. I was miserable enough because of my own love life. I didn’t want Lola to think I was sabotaging hers just so we’d both be miserable. The glow was still on her face, so I assumed she had not detected any resentment in my tone. And that really wasn’t what it was. I was only responding the wa
y a true friend was supposed to, I told myself. “And while we’re on the subject, I don’t understand how come you didn’t initiate something with him yourself. You know how the club works. You have sex with somebody and get it over with and then you move on to the next person. Maybe if you had hurried things along and told him point-blank the first time you communicated with him that you wanted to fuck his brains out, you wouldn’t be obsessing about him now.”
“Duh! What’s wrong with you, girl? You know me better than that. I have never initiated a hookup with one of the club members. I don’t think I’ll ever be bold enough to contact one and ask him if he wants to sleep with me. Shit. If I did and he turned me down, my ego would never recover.”
“News flash,” I said with a look of mock amazement. “I’ll remind you again: You belong to a sex club. You don’t have to be ‘bold’ to contact a club member you want to sleep with. So what if one turns you down? I’m sure that even some of the hottest club members have been turned down before.”
I could tell from her exasperated look that I was making her uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. She did the same thing to me often enough.
“It doesn’t matter. I still don’t think I’m ready to be that forward. Besides, didn’t I already tell you that I liked Calvin so much from the get-go that I didn’t want to rush into anything with him? After our first chat, I knew that I didn’t want to just have sex with him and move on to the next man. I wanted to get to know him. And I’m happy to tell you that he felt the same way about me right after our first chat.”
“He told you that?”
“Uh, something like that.”
I hunched my shoulders and took another long drink before I responded. “Well, all I can say is, I hope he’ll be worth the wait. Too bad I didn’t think that with Reed.”
“Did something happen today?”