Secrets of a Side Bitch

by Jessica Watkins

When Tre saw my tears, he immediately got agitated. “Simone, come on now. You gotta stop this shit. I cannot fuck with you no more. Do you understand?”

  I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to understand. I wanted him. Bad.

  When he reached for the door, I immediately grabbed his arm to make him stay. “No, wait.”

  “Simone, I gotta go.”

  Despite the fact that I was pulling on his arm, he opened the door and snatched away from me as he got out.

  “No, Tre! Wait!” I was hysterical as I jumped out of the car and met him at the curb. As soon as he was in arm’s reach, I wrapped my arms around him tightly. He was trying to get me off of him with all of his might. I was holding on to him with all of mine.

  It was like we were playing tug of war. He was trying to leave, and I was pulling on him to make him stay. He looked down on me like I was crazy and pathetic.

  I was desperate to convince him to stay. I could only think about him leaving and me never seeing him again. I let go of his arm and reached for his dick. I caressed it through the basketball shorts that he was wearing. Though he still tried to push me away while continuing to say that he had to leave, I reached into his pants.

  Then I squatted down in front of him.

  We were on a random residential block, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to stay and I didn’t know what else to do to show him that I was down for whatever.

  He actually laughed. “What the fuck is wrong with, man? Stop!”

  Tre tried walking away but I held on to his shorts so tight that he literally had to snatch away, making me fall a little bit.

  Again, he laughed at me like I was weak and ridiculous. “You are crazy as hell. I’m out.”

  He literally did a light jog to his truck as I stood up and followed him. He closed the driver’s side door as I approached it.

  Through the window, he told me, “You need some help.”

  But I ignored him. I slapped my hands against the window and asked him to stay as he started to the truck. He damn near hit me as he sped off.

  Aeysha

  “Girl, when he get home, I’m kickin’ his ass!”

  Eboni laughed as we stood in the backyard of the building that we stayed in. She was my neighbor. We lived in a two flat, so had become friends during the two years that Omari and I lived there. Eboni had three kids and lived alone, so me and her often sat in patio chairs in the backyard and gossiped while her kids played.

  “No, you’re not,” Eboni said with a giggle. “You gone argue with him. He gone deny it. And you still gone be right upstairs in the bed with him in the morning like always.”

  I playfully rolled my eyes at her with my arms folded and a serious attitude. It was hot as hell. Damn near ninety-five degrees. We had a bullshit air conditioner in the living room of our two bedroom apartment, so being outside in the shade felt better than that oven of an apartment. On top of that irritation, Omari left his Facebook page open on the computer like a dumbass. So while I’m on the computer this morning looking for jobs, its continuous instant messages from bitch after bitch popping up. So, naturally, I go through his inbox and see all kinds of message threads between him and other women. Some were innocent. Some were flirtatious. Some were downright initiating sex. And others flat out told that they had had sex.

  I was pissed!

  Omari had a lot of fucking nerve! His broke ass couldn’t afford to be cheating with no gawd damn body. And I wished those bitches knew that! Women thought Omari was so sexy, but I was the one that knew that he was soooo broke! These side chicks got to get the Omari that took them out and fucked them, but I was dealing with the nigga who couldn’t pay the rent!

  I couldn’t even get mad though. I didn’t have my shit together, so I couldn’t talk. Omari didn’t start stepping out on me until I started stepping out on myself. It all went downhill a year ago. First, after going in for a checkup, the doctors told me that I had fertility issues. Since I was a kid, my periods came and went whenever the hell they wanted to. After being with Omari for seven years and never getting pregnant, I figured there was a problem. But for the doctors to actually tell me that I couldn’t get pregnant, I felt useless. I felt like less of a woman because, since he doesn’t have any, Omari wants children so bad. Then I was fired from my coordinator job at the hospital. They were changing all of the positions to union positions. The new position required at least a Bachelor’s, and I had never been to college.

  I was twenty-five with no education, broke, and couldn’t have kids. I felt useless, especially when it came to my relationship. I felt like the only reason Omari was still with me was because of our history. It felt like I was a burden to him, if anything. Therefore, I started eating my emotions and gained a good twenty pounds.

  I couldn’t even blame Omari for cheating on me.

  Tammy

  I was looking at Donte like he had lost his mind. He was my best friend, but he couldn’t be serious. Even Simone, a friend of mine, was looking at him like he was crazy.

  “I’m serious. Just stay here,” he said like it was the perfect solution.

  Simone, Donte, and I were in the guest bedroom of Donte’s condo up North on Montrose. I figured this was the perfect place to hide while the police still looked for Jimmy.

  Luckily, I had only suffered a graze wound to the head. You couldn’t have told me that! I thought I was about to die! After fainting, I came to with neighbors huddled around me. I thought I was in a dream. Soon the paramedics came and transported me into the ambulance. That’s when they examined me and told me that it looked like a flesh wound and that the whole ordeal had sent my blood pressure up so high that I fainted.

  The police were at the hospital when I got there. They put out a search warrant for Jimmy. I had them call Donte. It seemed like he got there within minutes.

  “Well, Tammy, you do need a place to stay,” Simone said. “You can’t stay with me or your mom because Jimmy knows where we live.”

  She was right, but still I was hesitant. Donte noticed my uncertainty. He knew damn well why I was hesitant and so did Simone.

  “Look, just think about it. I gotta go to work. Stay here until I get back. Don’t get yourself shot while I’m gone.”

  Simone giggled so uncontrollably. The way she was laughing, you would have thought that this nigga was Katt Williams. It wasn’t that funny. Even Donte looked at her like she was crazy as he walked out of the room. That was Simone though, always so damn extra when she was around a man. She always went over and beyond to get a man’s attention. She was thirsty for it. Though she was thirty years old, she acted like a teenager when it came to men.

  “Girl, you know I can’t stay here with him!” I was sure to be quiet since I had yet to hear Donte leave the house.

  “Why? Because you still have feelings for him?”

  I wanted to smack that silly grin off of her face. But hell, she was right. Donte and I had been friends for ten years. I knew all of his secrets and he knew all of mine. It was the coolest thing having a male best friend. Then, about six years ago, we had sex. It was the oddest thing at first. It was four in the morning after hitting the club on a Friday night like we always did. We were slapped! But not too slapped to begin to feel on each other as we slept in my bed. One thing led to another and he was giving me the business until six in the morning.

  We casually had sex for awhile. We both could see that we were feeling each other as more than friends. Then, I met Jimmy, who at the time was the older more established man that swept me off of my feet with every date we went on. I told Donte that I was in love with Jimmy and didn’t want to fuck up our friendship with sex and emotions. He agreed, but I could tell that Donte was hurt. Eventually, he and I got back to the best friends we always were. However, as Jimmy changed, I realized that I could have possibly made the wrong decision. Donte, being the friend that he was, was there for me every step of the way while Jimmy put me through hell. But because he was there, my feelings for Donte resurfaced.
I use to try to tell Donte that, but he always cut off the conversation, telling me that he would never want to mess up our friendship with sex and emotions. He was using my words against me and I couldn’t blame him.

  I respected my friendship with Donte. But deep down inside those feelings surfaced whenever he was around. Therefore, living with him was bound to be trouble!

  THREE

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19TH, 2013

  Omari

  “Oh my God,” Aeysha moaned into my ear. “Yes, baby. Yes.”

  I loved the way she encouraged me.

  “Your dick feels so good inside of me, baby.”

  I was on top of Aeysha trying to sign my name in that pussy. I was trying to fuck her soul. I knew that I was completing my mission because I could feel her nails digging into my back. I heard her hissing because, even if the length of my dick applied too much pressure, it felt damn good to her.

  I whispered into her ear. “I love you.”

  I knew that shit was going to drive her crazy.

  In response, her breath got even shorter. “I love you too, babe,” she told me with tears in her eyes. “I love you so much.”

  I tongue kissed her so romantically that I felt her body leaking all over my dick. It felt so warm. I loved the way my baby’s pussy felt.

  The problem was that I loved the way other women’s pussies felt too. When I got home from work yesterday, Aeysha was pissed! My stupid ass left my Facebook page open. I managed to talk my way out of it, like always. I swore up and down that she was reading into innocent flirtation. But I knew that Aeysha knew deep down in her heart that I was fucking other women. No matter what she knew though, Aeysha was never going to leave me. Besides our history, Aeysha had hella insecurities. She felt bad that she wasn’t working and couldn’t find a job because she didn’t have a lot of education. She felt like she wasn’t good enough for me because I had so much more than she did. On top of that, not being able to have my baby fucked with Aeysha. I knew that her biggest problem with other women was that they could have my baby and she couldn’t. She had even gone as far as going to a fertility doctor, but those appointments had to stop once she got laid off.

  I stepped out on Aeysha every now and then. I even had a few steady dips here and there, one being KiKi; one of the chicks I was chatting with on Facebook that Aeysha saw. But I loved my woman. She stuck by me through thick and thin. There I was; could hardly pay the rent and she never left me. Even though it was niggas out there trying to get at her that had way more than me, she stayed with me when no other woman would. Nobody could replace her. Every time I got in trouble, I told her that, and then I tried to show her with this dick.

  I could feel her walls clinching around me, so I knew that she was cumming. I pulled my dick out, threw her legs in the air, and started to kiss her beautiful clit. It was throbbing inside of my mouth while I sucked it and flicked it fast with my tongue at the same time. I was on a mission. My mouth went on a search inside of her pussy to find the doubt she had in me. I went searching for the anger that she was feeling. I found the insecurity that cheating on her made her feel. Then I sucked, kissed and licked every doubt, all the anger, and every insecurity away until it all came out of her in milky satisfaction.

  Aeysha was literally squealing at a high pitch. I chuckled with a mouth full of pussy as I figured that Eboni and her kids could probably hear Aeysha.

  “Oh shiiiiiiiit!”

  Aeysha was fighting with me, trying to push my head away from my meal, but I wouldn’t let her. I slid two fingers inside of her, found her G-Spot, and attacked it until my baby was cumming everywhere.

  I kissed her real quick before leaving her out of breath in the bed while I hopped in the shower and got ready for work. Ching finally hit me up and told me that I could meet him to pick up the dough he was supposed to lend me days ago. It was always hard to catch up with Ching.

  Within thirty minutes, I was out the door and on my way to Ching’s. He was right down the street on 71st and Aberdeen, so it only took a few turns to get to his crib.

  He was wide awake and smoking a blunt when he opened the door. He was fully dressed in jean shorts, white tee, and some hot ass Timbs. Ching was a big dude. He was dark skinned, black as hell, with dreads a lot shorter than mine. He was about three inches shorter than me and chubby as hell. He wasn’t fat, but he didn’t have one muscle, I swear to God. He always told me that he’d rather be in the streets than in a gym. I guess that’s why he always had money and I always had muscle.

  “Here you go, Pretty Boy.” Before I could sit down, he was handing me a wad of cash– much more than I asked him for.

  “What’s all this? I only needed a couple hundred.”

  “You gone work off what you borrowing and earn the rest. I got a job for you…”

  I cut him off quick. “Naw, naw, Ching! I already told you…”

  “Man, look! You wanna keep bein’ this fuckin’ pathetic?!”

  Me and Ching stood eye to eye in the middle of his living room. His words had cut but I couldn’t act like it. “Call it what you want, nigga, but I ain’t down for this shit. I told you, man. I…”

  Before I could say anything else, he was snatching the money from me. “Fuck it then, man! Damn!” While he fussed with the blunt hanging from the tips of his lips, he counted out what I actually asked him for and forced it into my hand.

  If he wasn’t family, I wouldn’t have taken shit from him. But I knew he meant well, and I knew he knew the same of me.

  Simone

  “Urgh!”

  I was so angry that I damn near threw my cell phone across the office. I was pissed! I just tried to call Tre and his fucking number was disconnected. Tre was a CPD detective. He made over eighty thousand dollars a year. His damn phone wasn’t off. He changed his number!

  There was a knock on my office door, so I quickly put on a fake professional happy face, since I could tell by the beat of the knock that it was one of the kids.

  “Come in.”

  I worked at Lexington House, a home for wards of the state. I was an administrator in the business office, but I still had a relationship with a few of the kids. When I got my Master’s Degree, I had dreams of continuing my education and becoming a licensed psychologist. Then, my mother passed away two years ago. I lost all interest in furthering my education after that.

  My mother was my best friend. We were thick as thieves and closer than close since I was an only child. She spoiled me rotten as a kid and even in my adulthood. I missed her dearly and had yet to deal with her death. I even moved into her home once she passed. It was a beautiful four-bedroom 3,549 square foot home in Hyde Park. I cherished that house because there were so many memories of my childhood and my mother. It was worth nine hundred thousand. When my mother passed, I had multiple offers, which sounded good to me since the hefty mortgage payments were kicking my ass.

  But I couldn’t bear to get rid of it. It would be like getting rid of my mother.

  As I thought of my mother, my mind was taken away from my visitor briefly. When Chance opened the office door it brought me out of my trance.

  “What’s up, Miss Simone?”

  “Hey, Chance. What are you doing in here?”

  Chance was one of the older kids that had the misfortune of growing up in Lexington House. His mother was a drug addict and he was born with crack in his system. None of his family was prepared to raise him, so he became a ward of the state from birth. He bounced around from one foster family to another, but was never legally adopted.

  “Just got off work. I was just coming in to say what’s up.”

  Chance had grown quite close to me within the last three years I worked at Lexington House. Most of these kids were bad as hell, but there were some with goals and ambitions that reached outside of Lexington. From first sight I could see that Chance was one of them. Beyond his tatted pale skin, medium length dreads, and baggy clothes, I saw a boy that really wanted to be different than his surroundin
gs. He just didn’t know or see how.

  “You ready for the big day?!”

  In a few months, Chance would be eighteen and officially emancipated. Lexington House set up transitional housing for wards that turned eighteen. In transitional housing they were allowed to work, go to school, and save money until they turned twenty-one.

  Lexington House was not hell, but it wasn’t heaven for these kids either. I could imagine that it was hard to live with hundreds of kids. It probably felt like living in high school.

  When I thought that any child would be ready to get the hell out of Lexington House, Chance looked burdened by the idea. “I don’t know, Miss Simone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready. It’s hard out there.”

  Lexington House was on the Westside of Chicago, so when these kids went to school and work they saw the worst of what this city had to offer. There was poverty and ghettos everywhere. Luckily, Chance wasn’t a thug. He was a good kid who looked forward to having something for himself.

  “It is, but you’ll be okay.”

  “How? I don’t have any family. Nobody to help me.”

  “We’ll help you. I’ll help you.”

  Chance smiled bashfully. I knew that would make him feel better. Honestly, I knew that Chance was drawn to me because he had a little crush on me.

  It was time for me to go to lunch, so Chance followed me out of my office and towards the exit. As we walked, I tried to assure him that becoming an adult was okay and nothing to be scared of. As we said goodbye, I knew that I was feeding him a bunch of lies. I was thirty years old and still didn’t have a handle on being an adult. Hell, I couldn’t even keep a man.

  Speaking of men, the man of all men was in my peripheral as I walked to my car. His name was Omari, but I would have liked to call him Daddy. This man was so gawd damn fine; pretty was more like it. But his tattoos and locs gave him more of a rugged look. I didn’t know him personally. He was a driver at UPS, across the street from Lexington House. I learned that much about him last year after a brief encounter in the parking lot, which Lexington shared with UPS. He tried to get my number but I was so wrapped up in Tre’s ass that I turned him down. Ever since, when I did see Omari randomly, it was a hi and bye situation. It’s like he never even tried to talk to me. I assumed he was offended that I had the nerve to turn down someone as fine as he was.