Tell Me No Secrets

by Michelle-Nikki

  After a while I was finally able to pull myself together and prepare for bed. The fact that I didn’t have a job or a job prospect still bothered me until I remembered Shelley’s card in my purse. I looked at the clock and it was a little after one in the morning. I didn’t expect her to answer, but I picked up my phone, grabbed her card, and dialed her number.

  “This is Shelley,” she answered.

  “Hey. I know it’s late—”

  “Chyanne! Please tell me you’re calling to tell me you’re all in,” she exclaimed. “I’m at my wits end and could really use you girl!”

  “What comes with the “all in” title?” I asked her.

  “Are you busy right now?”

  “No, not really. Why?”

  “Can I meet you or you meet me at an IHOP or something? I’ll bring everything needed. I want to talk to you about being my partner actually . . .”

  As she talked, I thought to myself that I wasn’t expecting anything more than an executive assistant’s position or at least another position in the company, but not a partner. What did I have to lose, though? I had no job and didn’t think I had a great chance of finding one at the moment. I threw on something comfortable, grabbed my resume, and made my way to meet Shelley.

  Aric

  Gabe and I had been working so long and so hard on the merger that I knew I’d damn near run myself into the ground. Early days and late nights was what it had been for the last past three weeks. I was focused more than ever and besides wanting to make sure the merger of two of the biggest firms in the region debuted strong, I also needed to get away from Stephanie. She had been on a hell storm and I had not been in the mood to deal with it. I’d probably made things worse by spending as much time with Chyanne as I had been, but when a man had the task of choosing between peace and bullshit, my money would bet he’d choose peace.

  Not only that, but Chyanne and I had been busy getting things prepared for the baby. She and I had gone shopping for little things she’d felt she would need. Some of the stuff I didn’t understand why she would need it, like the breast pump. If she was going to breast feed then why buy a pump when the baby would be latched on to her titty? We’d also gone to my personal bank so I could set up an account to put money in for the baby. Although I trusted Chyanne to do what she was supposed to do for my child, I still wanted an itemized account of everything.

  With all that Chyanne and I had been doing to prepare for the baby, and all the time that I’d been spending with her, all Stephanie’s mind could think of was me having sex with Chyanne. And yes, quite a few times, I’d indulged myself between her thighs, but all of our time was not spent having sex. I knew that what Stephanie had been dealing with had to be mentally draining, but I still didn’t think it was an excuse for her to carry on the way she had been. She’d become angry and bitter and I’ll admit to my fault in that, but it was nothing new for Stephanie. Throughout our marriage she’d had spells where she would be purely evil because she felt like it most times, but I was so excited about being a father that nothing else mattered. The feeling that I’d get watching Chyanne’s stomach grow with my child was overwhelming at times. I would find myself laying my head on her lap while we’d be watching TV just so I could find a way to be closer to the baby.

  “Aric,” Gabe called out to me.

  We’d been doing some number crunching that needed both of our full attention, especially because we’d decided to do it head on. When dealing with budget proposals and trying to merge companies’ assets it was a very complex and lengthy process and my head was all over the place.

  “Yeah,” I answered knowing his reason for calling me.

  “That’s the fifth damn time I’ve told you that equation won’t work and you keep putting that shit down. Get your head back in the game or go take a break.”

  He was annoyed and he had a right to be. We both needed to be paying close attention to detail in what we were doing on the spreadsheets and I wasn’t.

  “We’ve been at this shit since six this morning,” I said to him looking at the Cartier watch on my arm. “It’s damn near two and I need to eat anyway.”

  I was annoyed with my damn self. I’d sat with Chyanne the night before because she’d been sick. That caused another fight between Stephanie and me. No matter how many times I’d said I wasn’t fucking Chyanne but was there because she was sick, she heard and believed what she wanted.

  “What’s on your mind anyway?” he asked as he took a seat in the chair behind him.

  We’d been in my office because we didn’t want to be bothered and being in the boardroom would have meant the possibility of being interrupted.

  “Didn’t get much sleep,” I said covering my mouth to stifle a yawn before continuing. “Chyanne being sick all the time is not allowing me to get much rest.”

  “Something wrong with the baby?”

  I shook my head. “Doctor says the baby is fine. She’s just one of those women who stay sick the whole pregnancy I guess. Had to put up with Stephanie’s bullshit too.”

  I went to the hidden liquor cabinet behind the office bookshelf and pulled out a bottle of Hennessey Ellipse and some Louis XIII Black Pearl Limited Edition cognac. The Ellipse would get me a fast steady buzz, but the Black Pearl would sneak up on me so I decided to go with that one. I needed something that would mellow my ass out and help me to relax. After ordering lunch from PF Chang’s and pouring both Gabe and myself a glass, I sat down in my desk chair and let my head fall back as the Black Pearl molested my tongue going down.

  “I take it you had to stay with Chyanne last night and Stephanie didn’t like that too much?” Gabe inquired.

  I sat up and put my empty glass on the desk. “She showed her ass and she showed up at Chyanne’s house.”

  “What? Get the fuck outta here!”

  His voice clearly showed that he was amused and shocked. Those deep baritones laugh of his resonated around the office.

  I chuckled. “That shit ain’t funny, Gabe.”

  “Like hell! You can’t tell me that you believed you would ever see the day Stephanie would do some shit like that. I don’t know man . . . Chyanne must have gotten under her skin about you and her.”

  “I don’t know, but as soon as I saw that red Mercedes pull up I was out the door and I put a stop to that before it even started.”

  “I wonder how she found out where Chy lived, though...”

  “You know Stephanie, probably sweet talked one of your father’s FBI friends.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re probably right, but damn,” he laughed again. “You and Chy together has Stephanie all bent out of shape.” He knocked his drink back and placed the empty glass on my desk before pouring another one and returning to sit on the couch.

  To think about what he’d said, he was right. I don’t ever remember Stephanie going as far before as she was doing with Chyanne. “I don’t know why though. I keep telling her that me not wanting to be with her has nothing to do with Chyanne.”

  “Yeah, but . . . are you sure about that?” He asked as he sat back and cast a skeptical look my direction.

  I frowned. “What the hell do you mean am I sure?”

  “Just what I asked, are you sure?”

  “Come on Gabe. You of all people should know how long I’ve been asking for a fucking divorce!”

  “I do and I know, but . . . I don’t know. I guess I see something else when I see you and Chyanne together. Say what you want, there is something about that full figured chocolate woman that gets you all bent out of shape.”

  I looked at him like he had lost his mind as I walked around to the front of my desk and leaned on it with my arms folded. “Bent out of shape?” I repeated as if I hadn’t really heard him when he said it the first time.

  He laughed. “Come on Aric. We’ve been boys for how long? I know you enough to know that your feelings are running a little deeper for Chy than you are putting on.”

  “I care a lot about her because she’s the m
other—”

  “You cared about her before then!”

  “I did, but not on the level you’re insinuating.”

  “Bullshit, Aric! Real bullshit! Get the fuck outta here. You say that shit now, but let another motherfucker try to get at her and all hell is going to break loose,” he said and laughed.

  We both laughed. “Kiss my ass Gabe. You can’t tell me how I feel about someone—”

  “You’re right, but I can tell you what I see and I see that Chy has an effect on you whether you want to admit it or not. Stephanie sees it and it’s fucking with her mentally I bet. And if she doesn’t see what Chy does to you . . . she’s seeing what you do to Chy.”

  On one hand I was laughing at his repartee and on the other he was seriously annoying me with trying to tell me what was going on between Chyanne and me.

  “The girl loves you and you know it,” he continued.

  I nodded because he was correct.

  “My thing is, why make her fall in love with you and you know you don’t even want to be with her like that?”

  I pulled the sleeves up on the red V-neck sweater I was wearing. “I didn’t make her fall in love with me.”

  “You know what I mean Aric. You got that girl so caught up in you that she stood there and let Stephanie and her mother call her all kinds of names and all she did was look at you from time to time to gauge your reaction. That girl would do anything for you and you know it. She may hate loving you, but she loves you all the same.”

  Before I could go off on him like I’d had a good mind to do at that moment, because he had pissed me the fuck off in his assessment of me ‘making’ Chyanne love me, April pushed my office door open and walked in like she owned something in there. We both looked at her with surprise. It had been a little chilly when I left for work that morning, but judging by how short her denim skirt was I could safely assume it had warmed up. Looking at her dressed the way she was at thirty-five and a mother of three teenage boys reminded me of why I fucked her once and forgot about her. She had been calling me over the last few weeks and I’d been ignoring most of her calls because, really, we had nothing to talk about. Having sex with her hadn’t been that serious for me.

  She smiled at me first and then Gabe before speaking. “Hello, you two! How’s it been?”

  Anybody who’d known me knew the one thing I hated was for someone to barge into my office unannounced and without an appointment. Instead of returning her greeting like Gabe had done, I allowed my silence to speak for me.

  “Hello Aric,” she greeted and tried to hug me.

  I brushed her off and walked around to sit behind my desk. Don’t get me wrong she was a beautiful woman with her butterscotch tan skin and her body was the stuff most men dreamed about. I just wasn’t as impressed as I had been before I’d fucked her.

  “What’s up April?” I asked after I’d sat back casually in my chair and looked up at her.

  She stood there with a surprised look on her face as if she was expecting a different reception.

  “So, I can’t get a hug?”

  I sighed loudly. “We were in the middle of some very important work. Is there anything we could help you with?”

  April struck me as the vengeful and vindictive kind of woman; the kind of woman that plotted your downfall, all the while smiling in your face. Any woman who would fuck a man just to make her friend mad, really couldn’t do shit for me. I never really liked her to begin with, but since she was throwing pussy around and her body made my dick curious, I obliged myself inside of her. Her head game was immaculate; the stuff super head legends were made of.

  “Well could you make time, a minute or two, for an old friend?” She asked with a hopeful and flirtatious smile on her face.

  Gabe chuckled and threw his head back in amusement.

  I looked at my watch. “Your two minutes start now,” I said to her.

  She huffed and gave an ersatz chuckle. “Any particular reason you’re in my office April?” I asked her after I saw she was just wasting my time.

  “I came to talk to you about something Chyanne told me and I just came by to say hi.”

  As she talked she moved her neck and it was clear that the chipper mood she’d walked in the door with was gone.

  “Well you’ve said hi. Now what else can I help you with?”

  “Are you really married and if so why didn’t you tell me before we had sex? I don’t sleep with married men.”

  When Gabe laughed out loud, I couldn’t help but to chuckle myself. “Let me get this right”—I started as I leaned on my desk and clasped my hands together before me staring at her with a bemused expression—“you’re telling me that my having a wife bothers you more than letting me fuck you just to make your ‘best friend’ mad?”

  I remembered she had told me that after the one time that we’d had sex. Afterwards she proceeded to tell me she was glad she’d done it because the sex was good . . . too bad I couldn’t tell her the same.

  “If I would have known you were married, I wouldn’t have had sex with you at all!” She had the nerve to have attitude in her voice. “Having sex with married men is not something I do.”

  “But betraying the woman who was supposed to be your closest friend is?”

  “That really has nothing to do with you. That’s between me and Chyanne—”

  “That’s what you came down here to tell me? You could have called and left a message.”

  I was intentionally being an asshole and I knew it. So did Gabe which was probably why he’d been shaking his head and getting a kick out of it. I didn’t know why she thought she could just show up at my office and expect the reaction to be other that what she’d gotten besides I still remembered that shady shit she pulled on Chyanne when we all were at that business social.

  “You know what? Fuck you Aric,” she snapped and turned to leave. “Fuck you and Chyanne. You two deserve each other.”

  I stood and moved back around to the front of my desk. “Sorry, but I don’t think she rolls that way, but maybe if you saw her in action you could learn a thing or two.”

  The smirk on my face had to be sinister as she gave me the middle finger and slammed my office door on her way out. Gabe and I made it no secret that we’d both fucked her and the general consensus was the same, her head game was better than the sex.

  It wasn’t long after that little fiasco that the food we’d ordered was delivered. We ate lunch, and finished up the spreadsheets afterwards. Food and a couple drinks were just what the doctor had ordered, and while I’d been hoping to go home and try to get some sleep in, Stephanie had other plans. She wanted to talk and in order for me to have some semblance of peace I knew I had to do it. So against my better judgment, I’d agreed.

  After I’d worked out, showered, changed into some sweats, relaxed a bit, and had been watching the Lakers eat the Hawks alive, she came into the living room to start my interrogation. I watched her as she briskly walked into the front room while her pony tail swung from side to side like a pendulum. She sat on the end of the couch opposite me and tucked her long lithe legs under her. Although I turned the TV off, I didn’t move from my laid-back position on the couch. There was a brief moment of silence where we both just gazed at each other. I could tell she had been crying. I saw no tears, but the puffiness around her eyes gave it away as well as the balled up tissue in her hand.

  “Do you love me Aric?” She asked suddenly.

  I closed my eyes briefly and exhaled. I’d known she would start off with that question. “I will always love you Stephanie,” I said looking at her as she slowly blinked. “There’s no way you can go through what we have and I not love you.”

  “But you’re no longer in love with me?”

  “Stephanie, why do we keep doing this same dance over and over?”

  “Because you’re never straight forward with me Aric. You evade questions, answer questions with a question, and I never really know just what the hell you’re thinking. I need
some answers Aric. That’s all I’m asking.”

  I finally sat up. “What answers Stephanie? Everything you ask, I tell you.”

  She started shaking her head. “No you don’t Aric, you don’t.”

  Her tears had started to fall and the one thing I could not deal with was her crying. I’d begun to get annoyed, but because I really didn’t want to fight with her I continued to talk.

  “What do you want to know that I haven’t told you yet Stephanie?” I asked using the back of one hand slapping it in the palm of the other.

  “Why her?” She asked after a moment of silence.

  I wasn’t quite sure I understood her question. “Why, who? What do you mean, why her?”

  “Why Chyanne? What is it about her that made you want to get her pregnant?”

  I sighed loudly. “See, that’s the problem, no matter what I tell you, you will hear what you want to hear. I’ve told you that it wasn’t planned...”

  “You can say that all you want, but the fact that you didn’t use a condom with her tells me a lot. I know you Aric. I know the fucking man I’ve been with for twenty damn years! I know how you are about STD’s and HIV, so she must be something special if you were fucking her without a condom. So what is it about her?”

  I shook my head and chuckled lightly in my irritation. “You can laugh all you want, but—”

  “There is no but, Stephanie. I didn’t plan to get her pregnant!”

  “But you didn’t do anything to prevent it either! You had her in this house, our home!”

  “This house”—I said standing and pointing to the floor as I spoke—“this house, my money bought. So this is my house.”

  “And I’m your wife,” she said defensively as she jumped up from the couch. “What’s yours will always be mine! The fact of the matter is, you had her in the very house that we have sex in. I have to lie in the bed that you’ve probably had sex with her in and, since it’s you we’re talking about, I know you’ve fucked her in this house.” Her right fist had been balled around the wad of tissue in her hand while she used the left to move around to get her point across. “All through the holidays we talked Aric. We were talking about making our marriage work and then all of a sudden . . . nothing! Just like that? If your decision has nothing to do with her then let me know exactly what the hell is going on.”