Reserve My Curves: Your Husband Chose Me

by B. M. Hardin

  She had always been so sweet and kind to me.

  She had been more than understanding when it came to my babysitting issues and she’d always told me that she would help me in any way that she could.

  She’d said that single mothers had a special place in her heart.

  Carmen didn’t have any kids, but she was one of six kids and she’d said that her mother had always struggled to raise her and her siblings on her own.

  From the story that Carmen told me, her mother had killed their father but it had been written off as self-defense; but Carmen had always believed that there was more to the story.

  It was clear that Carmen resented her mother’s actions but she still admired her for doing everything that she could to raise them and from what she’d said, all but two had made something amazing out of themselves.

  But nevertheless, up until Carmen’s indecent proposal, she’d shown me a ton of compassion.

  It was hard for me to believe that she’d given me such an ultimatum in the first place.

  But that just goes to show that you never really know a person.

  You just never know what a person has up their sleeve.

  Exiting out of the hotel doors, with my check, I attempted to sort out my feelings.

  “Oh, excuse me,” I said to the gentleman that I’d accidently bumped into without even bothering to look at his face.

  “No sweetheart, excuse me,” he said behind me, but I didn’t bother to look back at him as I started down the street.

  As I headed down the busy street, this time instead of worry and grief, I felt a sense of relief.

  At that very moment I knew that somehow, someway, things were going to be just fine.

  Hopefully.

  *****************************************

  Chapter TWO

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” Rodney’s wife asked me in a low voice.

  I looked at her suspiciously.

  I’d seen the police stop by their house a few days ago and her and her husband had been giving me the evil eye ever since.

  But I could have cared less.

  She was just as sick and stupid as he was.

  Against my better judgement, instead of heading into the house, I headed towards her as she stood on her front porch.

  I noticed that Rodney’s car wasn’t there, so I figured that maybe we could talk woman to woman.

  “Come on in, have a seat,” I walked slowly behind her and sat on the couch.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  Yeah…right.

  Knowing her she would have probably put something in it.

  You just never know with crazy people.

  “No thanks. Look, whatever you and Rodney allow to go on in your marriage, that’s your business. My only issue is that I would prefer that he keep his comments…and his eyes to himself. I don’t have relations with married men and I never will,” I explained to her.

  She smiled at me.

  I never noticed how pretty she was until that moment.

  She wasn’t black.

  I wasn’t sure if she was Hispanic or Indian; but she was something.

  I was surprised that she’d chosen to be with someone as ugly and unattractive as Rodney.

  Maybe she loved him for what was on the inside…and then again, that couldn’t be all that much.

  Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the front door opened.

  Rodney walked in with a smile.

  “Good job baby,” he said to her and she smiled at him.

  What?

  What the hell is going on here?

  I jumped to my feet but Rodney blocked the door

  “Where do you think you are going? The party is just getting started,” Rodney said licking his lips.

  I turned back to his wife who was slowly backing away from me but she wasn’t moving fast enough.

  Before I could stop myself, I pounced on her as if I was a cat and she was a mouse.

  Obviously they had some other motives and because of her participation, she was now a lucky recipient of a good ole’ Southern style ass whopping!

  I don’t know what I was thinking coming over here in the first place.

  It had been years since I’d been in a physical altercation, but unfortunately for her, it was just like riding a bike.

  It seemed as though we had been going at it for forever, but finally Rodney pulled me off of his wife.

  It wasn’t until he had me pinned to the floor that I realized that now he was completely…naked.

  What the hell?

  When the hell did this fool take off his clothes?

  “Get the hell off of me!” I screamed as he held my hands down and pressed his body up against mine.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his wife, bleeding… and undressing.

  You have got to be kidding me!

  Just how crazy are they?

  This just could not be happening.

  “Rodney, get off of me now! I swear---,” but before I could finish my sentence, he kissed me with my mouth still open.

  And then he licked me, all the while making some kind of strange noise, all at the same time.

  I’d always known that he wasn’t right, but this was just sick!

  His wife was now assisting him with holding me down as he attempted to peel my clothes off of my squirming body.

  I cursed, I screamed, but no one could hear me.

  Was I really about to get raped by a husband…and his wife?

  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it all but I knew that I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  But thank goodness that I didn’t have to fight alone.

  The gunshot startled all three of us.

  It was Tia.

  Where in the hell had she come from?

  “If I were you, I would be real careful about what you do next,” she said.

  She must have found the gun in my top drawer.

  “I saw you about to come in the house and then you stopped and came over here. When you didn’t come back out and considering what you told me about these two, I assumed that something just wasn’t right. I hope you don’t mind that I brought a little reinforcement,” Tia said and then shot the gun in the wife’s direction.

  Rodney’s wife scream and Tia shot the gun again, just barely missing Rodney’s left arm.

  Both Rodney and his wife were silent and now on their feet and before I could even get my thoughts together, I hurried off of the floor and ran out the front door.

  Saying that I was in shock was an understatement.

  I was astonished; flabbergasted even.

  I kept running until I was safely inside my house. I saw that Horizon was asleep on the couch so I sat on the couch beside her and covered my mouth as I began to scream.

  I couldn’t believe that something like that was about to happen to me.

  I just couldn’t believe it.

  My emotions and my mind were all over the place and I began to cry tears of disbelief and anger.

  Seconds later, the front door opened and Tia appeared.

  She was carrying my gun and my purse.

  “Are you okay?”

  I jumped to my feet and embraced her.

  I cried on her shoulder and she held me close to her.

  She didn’t say a word for a while and then she instructed me that we needed to call the police.

  A little while later, the police arrived but no justice was served.

  Rodney and his wife were gone.

  And I was sure that they would never be coming back.

  “Thank you for today. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t showed up when you did,” I said to Tia later on that night.

  I was still slightly freaked out, so she and Horizon were both sleeping in the bed with me.

  “No thanks needed. You are my sister and I am my sister’s keeper. I’m just glad that I had been looking out the window otherwise I would have never
seen you go over there,” she said to me with a frown.

  We small talked about the situation for a little while longer and then Tia fell asleep.

  She’d saved my life and she didn’t even know it.

  And little did she know, once before, I’d saved hers too.

  ***

  “Mommy, I’m hot,” my daughter managed to say.

  The air conditioning unit stopped working a few days ago, and we were miserable.

  We had fans, but they just didn’t seem to be getting the job done.

  It was barely the middle of summer, and during the day, without air conditioning, all the fans seemed to do was blow in hot air.

  I’d had someone come out to take a look at the unit and of course, it was old and needed to be replaced.

  It was one of the few things that we hadn’t upgraded when we’d started remodeling the house.

  I remembered mentioning it to Keymar but he assured me that it was in pretty good condition so he thought that it was best that we wait to replace it.

  I guess he had been wrong.

  Since the incident a while ago with the crazy neighbors, I’d been thinking of Keymar a lot.

  Had he been there, something like that would have never happened in the first place.

  He would have been there to protect me.

  Though strangely he still had my heart, I was starting to see the value in moving on and letting go.

  People were crazy these days and sadly a single mother with no man around made me an easy target.

  And I would surely kill somebody if I ever even came close to going through something like that again.

  The police had yet to find Rodney and his wife and I was sure that they were long gone and probably in a different state by now.

  I was one tough cookie so the shock of it all was over but the anger wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  For their sake, they’d better hope that I never, ever saw them again.

  Anyway, to repair the air conditioning unit, it was going to be hundreds of dollars that I just didn’t have.

  I’d made a couple of trips to the nearest pawn shop to see if they had a used, cheap, window air conditioning unit, but so far, I hadn’t had much luck.

  I just couldn’t afford to buy a brand new one.

  I had to budget and save what little money I had left.

  It was coming up on the fourth week since I’d lost my job at the hotel and I was definitely starting to feel the pressure.

  My unemployment had yet to be approved.

  It seemed as though I called them every other day to check on the status, but I was always told that it could take anywhere from eight to twelve weeks.

  Who in the hell could wait up to twelve weeks for unemployment?

  The point of filing it in the first place was because a person was now unemployed, which meant that they no longer had a damn job!

  Who in the hell made that rule?

  Whosever bright idea it was to make anyone in a horrible situation, wait that long for what was rightfully theirs should be slapped in the face, twice, with the back side of a sixty year old grandma’s hand.

  Seriously, with such a long waiting period, a person could be homeless and hungry by then; especially with how hard it was to find a job these days.

  Speaking of, I hadn’t received one single call back and to date I’d probably put in at least a hundred applications.

  I’d even applied for other maid positions, but as of yet, nothing.

  Though I tried to hide it, I was stressed to death.

  I was so worried about the next day and bills that I had to drug myself up on medication at night just to get a decent nights rest.

  And being jobless, soon to be homeless and addicted to pain medication was one hell of a bad combination.

  So, something had to change and it had better change fast!

  My sister, Tia, entered the living room as I began to strip my daughter down to cool her off.

  Tia was wearing only a t-shirt that barely covered the bottom of her panty-less ass.

  She flopped down on the sofa across from me.

  “I can get you the money to fix the air,” she said nonchalantly.

  I eyed her suspiciously.

  My daughter, now down to just her underwear, took off running and I waited for Tia to speak.

  In my opinion, Tia was the most attractive of all of the sisters.

  She was a dark, mysterious complexion.

  I’m talking about as dark as midnight or so dark that it was difficult to see her if all of the lights were off.

  Yes, I know that some may think that dark skinned women weren’t the prettiest, but she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.

  She was flawless, stunning, even if she didn’t have on a stitch of make-up.

  Tia in a way reminded me of a black Chinese woman. It was a weird comparison, but it was just something about the shape of her eyes and the structure of her face. But she also possessed the high cheek bones, full lips, and dominating smile of a sista’, all day, every day.

  She was truly a sight to see.

  “I have a friend. I can ask him for the money,” she said.

  Immediately I shook my head no.

  “It’s okay, I’ll figure it out. There’s no telling what you will have to do for your friend, just to get it. I’ll figure out something,” I said to her and got up from the chair, signaling that the conversation was over.

  She didn’t say another word, she simply started to hum.

  I wasn’t selling my body and I surely wasn’t going to allow my baby sister to sale hers.

  There just had to be another way.

  ***

  “Where have you been?” I asked Tia as she tip-toed into the house.

  It was two o’clock in the morning and I’d been waiting for her since about ten.

  I’d dozed off while I was reading Horizon a bedtime story and when I woke up, Tia was nowhere to be found and she wasn’t answering her cell phone.

  “Last time I checked I was grown you know,” she responded with an attitude.

  She entered the living room, barefooted.

  She dropped her shoes from her hands to the floor beside the table, exhaled and then she laid on the couch and closed her eyes.

  I could smell the alcohol on her.

  I was just a little jealous because she’d gotten drunk without me. I was the one that needed a drink.

  But my money was so funny that I would even hesitate spending a few dollars on a bottle of wine out of fear that I might need the money for something else.

  The struggle was real.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Tia said and reached into her bra.

  She pulled out a wad of cash and threw it in my direction.

  “Here you go. It’s $1000. That should be enough right? Oh, and you’re welcome,” she said and turned her back to me.

  Immediately I began to question her about the money but she didn’t give me a single response.

  The only answer I received was the sound of her light snores.

  Hesitantly, I picked up the money and proceeded to count it.

  I could only hope that she hadn’t had to do anything that she would regret just to help me.

  I was supposed to be helping her, yet here lately she was the one coming through for me.

  I retrieved a blanket and placed it over her.

  Kissing her forehead, I mumbled the words thank you and headed to bed.

  I sat the money on the night stand, undressed and forced myself to relax.

  And surprisingly, that night, for the first time in forever, and without any medication, I fell asleep just fine.

  The next morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, I made a few calls to a few people and finally a family friend of ours agreed to fix the unit for about eight hundred dollars.

  “I know you have spent the last hour or so making calls, but I have a suggestion. Go and buy two window units; one for the front of the h
ouse and one for the back. It’s a lot cheaper, and that way you can use the rest of the money for other things. Those two units should cool the house just fine. Not to mention we can still keep on a fan or two. And you won’t have to spend but about a hundred, or two at the most,” Tia suggested.

  She was right.

  I could get the old central unit replaced some other time and the extra money would help out tremendously.

  And since it was Tia who had brought the money home, so to speak, it was only right to do as she said with it.

  After getting a cousin of ours to take us to get the window air conditioners, and once the house started to cool off, I headed to the kitchen to start dinner.

  As I watched Tia play with Horizon, I couldn’t help but reminisce about Tia when she was her age.

  We were many years apart in age, but I could remember watching after her and pretending as if she was my own child.

  With Mama being a school teacher and all back then, she seemed to be so busy teaching other people’s kids, that it somewhat fell on my shoulders to teach my siblings what she’d taught me; especially when it came to Tia.

  I taught Tia her ABC’s and how to tie her shoes. I was the one that taught her how to ride her bike and I’d even been the one to teach her how to read.

  Minus the child birth and labor pains, I was pretty much who she looked at as Mama and I was the first one that she came to when she needed help or answers.

  I was who she wanted to tuck her in at night.

  It was me who tended to her bruises and I was the one to rescue her from the monsters that lived under her bed.

  I was also the one who saved her from Uncle Johnnie.

  Uncle Johnnie was Mama’s adopted brother.

  Well, I don’t even think he was adopted…legally.

  His parent’s had died when he was in his teens and my grandparents had taken him in.

  But real uncle or not, he was the biggest drunk that I’d ever seen and nobody seemed to care that he was drinking his life away.

  But I hated him…especially when he was drunk.

  He was always too touchy-feely if you ask me but no one else seemed to notice.

  But I did…I noticed.

  I would always watch him and how he would look at all of us, especially Tia.

  She was only about four at the time, but I remembered coming into the house from playing outside to find her. I’d noticed that I hadn’t seen her for a while and I’d gone to look for her.