by Braya Spice
“No, baby. The last thing I would ever do is hurt you like that sick bastard. Now, are you gonna tell me who he is?”
“No. What I do now is not your business, like I said. Let it resonate through your head.”
He shook his head at me, and his cheeks were poked out in frustration. He had no answer. After a moment, he said, “You fucking that nigga?”
“Okay, this conversation is over, goddamn it.” I walked off, yelling as I did, “You bastard, you left me pregnant, and now you wanna question what the hell I do? You got me fucked up, James.”
I went and sat back down next to Derek and pretended James wasn’t still standing in the spot where I’d left him. I ignored him even when he jumped in his truck and skidded down the street.
Fuck you, James.
A few days later, like a dumb ass, I allowed my anger to melt when I arrived home after picking up Sierra after work.
James was sitting on my porch with a bouquet of flowers.
“There she is!” Etta was standing near the mailboxes, with a big-ass smile plastered across her face.
When he saw me, he smiled confidently.
Instead of walking over to him, I made a U-turn and headed back toward my car with Sierra in tow.
“Mommy, that’s James!” Sierra said.
“I didn’t see him,” I lied.
“Allure!” He chased after me.
I was gonna keep on walking, but he grabbed my arm and spun me about to face him.
“Baby, don’t do me like this. Listen to me.”
I avoided his eyes so he didn’t see the tears that had formed in the corners of them. Because of what he did.
“Listen, baby, I was a fucking asshole to you, plain and simple.”
I continued to grasp Sierra’s hand and blinked rapidly to prevent my tears from falling.
“I’m sorry for hurting you, and I wanna be there for you, Sierra, and my baby. If you’ll let me.”
“What are you talking about, James?”
“I wanna be with you. And I’ll be right. I’ll be so good to you. Help you out, cook, play with Sierra when you too tired to play with Sierra, clean up so you can study, take her to school so you can sleep late. Rub cocoa butter on your belly so you don’t get stretch marks. Come on, baby, stop crying.”
He started rubbing the tears off of my face.
And I let him. I grew weak and didn’t stop him.
“What you did hurt, James. It hurt!” I took a deep breath.
“I’m gonna fix this shit. I’m so sorry. Just give me another chance.”
I was scared as hell to put my heart on the line for James again. He had lied: he had promised me he wouldn’t hurt me and he had. Of all the times to leave a woman, he had left me while I was pregnant.
“Come on, baby. What do you say?”
I didn’t want to go through my pregnancy alone. I also wanted a man by my side to help me raise this baby. So I told him, “If I do this, you have to be serious. That stuff you did, don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.” He kissed me long and smooth before scooping Sierra up in his arms.
“You and Sierra can move in with my brother and I, Allure. The place is bigger, and we can do a nursery there.”
I pulled away from James, who was cuddling with me in my bed as we tried to figure out what was best in terms of our living situation. The day before, we had found out the sex of our baby. A boy. James was ecstatic about that. He had started talking about putting him in football and basketball. As for me, it didn’t matter, and yet it did. I had no real gender preference, but I feared that if something happened and I had to raise my son alone, he would fall victim to gangs and would end up in prison. I just felt that a father always needed to be there for his children, especially his sons. And with black women that wasn’t always the case.
“So what do you think, baby?”
I just wasn’t comfortable giving up my Section 8 and moving in with James and his brother. For me, it was a dumb move, because there was always the chance that James could start tripping again or that it wouldn’t work out. “Look, I’m cool where I’m at, James, because it is mine. I’m not going to move in with you, and you have a change of heart and kick me and my babies out. Now, if we were married and we bought a house with both our names on it, then that’s different.”
He nodded. “Well, I already own a house, baby. With my brother.” He took a deep breath. “I see I’m gonna have to do a lot of proving that I’m here to stay ’cause of all the bullshit I already did, huh?”
I didn’t answer. I just kept my hands on my tummy to feel the baby kick. I was now five months pregnant.
For a while James helped out the way a soon-to-be father was supposed to. He would get me the foods I craved, take me to school and work, pick me up, take Sierra to the babysitter, and scoop her up and take her to the park when I was too tired to play with her. He even enrolled her in ballet class. And I knew she loved him for it. At night, when he got off work, he would come home and rub cocoa butter on my tummy, then spoon with me. He was doing everything he had promised he would do. But you know damn well peace don’t last for too long.
My seventh month of pregnancy was when I saw the difference. First, there were little things. He became less doting. He stopped with the cocoa butter on my tummy and didn’t care too much at all about spooning with me. One afternoon he snapped at me when I asked him if he was going to take Sierra to ballet practice.
“Why you gotta be so lazy?” he asked me. “Take Sierra yourself.”
With me being a sensitive wreck because of my hormones, comments like those just set me off, and I would go into my bedroom and cry. The first couple times this happened, he would come in the room and comfort me, saying, “Baby, I’m sorry. I’m just stressed with work.” Then he offered me no comfort at all. Things digressed from there to where he started saying he had to work late. Then, while he was working late, he made no effort to answer his cell when I called him. When I confronted him, he would say, “I’m working. I can’t get shit done with you blowing up my phone, so I turned it off. Why are you questioning me, anyway?”
Next, our sex life changed. James had always told me that virgin pussy and pregnancy pussy were the best. He said I was so moist. And every time I turned around, he was rubbing on me, licking and sticking me. My now plump booty and even bigger breasts drove him insane. Now I could be ass buck naked in the bed, and it wouldn’t faze him.
This all continued into my eighth month. Damn, I thought sadly as I sat on the couch, reflecting on my situation. We just couldn’t make it through. And it made me hella sad. Because I felt like it was just not going to work.
My phone rang. I grabbed it off the edge of the couch and answered, “Hello?”
“How’s the bun in the oven?” Creole asked me.
That was when I started crying and blurted out, “I think he’s cheating on me.”
“Damn!”
I took a deep breath. I knew all the things he was showing me. His disregard for his household, not coming home like he used to, and not wanting to have sex with me were signs of cheating. And if he wasn’t cheating, then maybe he was falling out of love with me, which hurt as much as cheating, because if he plain out didn’t want me anymore, that meant I would lose him. I was so confused as to what to do about the situation.
“What is he doing differently to make you think that, L?”
“He’s coming home late, talking about how he had to work late four nights in a row this week. It was the same thing last week. He stayed late three days. And the week before it was two days. He has this funky-ass attitude toward me, finding any and every reason to start an argument with me. And he acts like he doesn’t want me to touch his black ass.”
“What are you going to do?”
Before I could reply, he walked in the house, swept past Sierra, who was watching cartoons, gave me a dirty look, and went into the bedroom.
His iciness toward me hurt. I loved him, and I was
carrying his child.
“I’ll call you back.”
I patted Sierra on her head and walked past her to the bedroom, following after his ass. I stood in the doorway and watched him. He went straight to the shower. That was a new move.
Part of me felt he did so to wash away the scent of another woman. And a part of me prayed that he was just tired and sweaty from work and just wanted to freshen up and unwind with a warm shower. I prayed that all these things that I had interpreted as signs of estrangement were just figments of my imagination. But the logical side of me felt they weren’t.
I waited as I heard the water running and him scrubbing himself. I didn’t say nothing, though. Just listened. Ten minutes later I watched him come out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around him and walk into the bedroom. I followed after him.
When he saw me standing there, he snapped, “What?”
“James, what’s going on with you lately? You have had this snappy attitude. You’re not keeping your word on the things you promised. You been coming home late, and you won’t touch me anymore. It makes me feel like you’re cheating on me.”
When he started getting dressed, ignoring my questions, I started crying. “Can’t you just answer me?”
“Baby, it’s nothing. Since the other CPA quit, they are doubling up on my workload. I’m always tired, which is why I never bother with having sex anymore. I don’t have the energy, and as a man, it would kill my ego if I didn’t satisfy you the way you like. All you would get is a couple of humps. Then that would start more problems. Because you would feel I’m not trying to satisfy you. And then you forget this is tax season, so I been doing a lot of the employees’ taxes for extra money, because when you go on maternity leave, I’m going to have to pay these bills in here. Everything doesn’t have to be about another woman. All your pregnancy I have been spoiling you, but you want to focus of the last few months and make me this bad guy.”
He did have a point. He had been good to me all this time. Why would he just change up out of the blue? Maybe it really was his job. I did know that his co-worker had quit. He had told me that before
I started to feel bad, so I told him, “I’m sorry, baby. The last thing I want to do is add more stress to you.” Now I really felt bad. “Are you hungry?”
“Naw. I grabbed something at work. Just let me sleep.”
“Okay.” I left the bedroom and went into the living room.
Chapter 18
All right, I know that I said I believed James. But I still had to be 100 percent sure he wasn’t lying to me and seeing another woman. So the next day I dropped Sierra off at Greg’s mother’s house and went back home. Saturdays were supposed to be his night out with the boys, while I lounged at home. Only I didn’t step foot in my house. What I did instead was park around the corner. Like clockwork, James’s truck pulled up, and he hopped out and walked briskly into the house. I rushed up to his truck, used the spare key he had given me to open the hatchback, and jumped in back.
The truck had a third row of seats. I pushed those seats down and left the second row up so it would block any view of me. I waited in the truck for about fifteen minutes before he hopped back in. I lay on my side, with my legs crammed into my stomach. I hoped he’d hurry and get where he was going, ’cause my legs were getting cramped. It was a good thing James took pride in his truck and it wasn’t packed with shit, like my bucket was. And with the cologne he wore, he did smell so fresh and so clean.
I held my breath until he started up the car. Then I breathed slowly.
He got on his cell. “Hey, baby. I’m on the way. Make sure you ready this time.”
This time?
My head was banging against the inside of the truck, and he was playing Dwele. I knew he had snatched my damn CD. I had asked him if he took it, and he’d said no. Lying bastard. You lie about a CD, so who knows what else you’ll lie about? Shit, CDs cost only fourteen dollars, five if they were bootleg.
I knew he had hopped on the freeway, because he was going fast as hell. Minutes later he coasted down a street, singing, “For the weekend, baby.” After another couple of minutes he brought the truck to a stop.
I leaned up a little bit, peeked, and saw someone get in the passenger seat.
“Hey, baby.” That was him.
My heart sped up.
“Hey, sexy.” That was him again.
I heard smacking and more smacking and more smacking.
“Slow down, baby.” That was a chick.
“Well, shit, what did you expect, wearing that little-ass dress you got on?”
“Well, I wanna go to the movies,” she whined.
“Well, I want some pussy.”
She started giggling, and he joined her.
“James, you so silly.” Her voice turned serious. “But you are taking me to the movies.”
“Well, let me eat your pussy.”
And this was what had fathered my baby. I was so disgusted. I wondered how many times he had tasted her pussy and come home and kissed me on the lips. He was tainted, and I was so disappointed in him.
“Okay, damn. Hurry up, and don’t get my panties messy like last time.”
I lifted myself up farther and watched him slide his seat back. I slid a little closer ’cause it was dark, and I made her out. She was positioning her legs so he could go down on her.
When she leaned over to lift her panties off, I got a really good glimpse of the funny-looking bitch. She wasn’t even cute, not by far, and she had a fucked-up weave.
When I saw his head dip between her thighs, I sat all the way up so they could see me. “James!”
The chick screamed and jumped in her seat. I wondered if she knew about me.
“Shit!” he yelled and pulled away from her.
I pressed the handle on the hatchback door so it slid up. Slowly lowering my feet to the ground as best I could so I didn’t fall or bump the baby, I got myself out of the back of the truck.
The doors of the truck opened, and she got out and backed away when she saw me. Then she eased towards her house.
James, however, ignored her and rushed up to me, his eyes wide, wiping his face. “Baby.” He tried to grab my arm, but I snatched away from him. “Baby, listen!” He was sweating and breathing hard. Pussy was on his breath.
I pushed him with one hand and backhanded his ass with the other. “Fuck you, James. Fuck you.”
I walked away and from the corner of my eye saw him hop back in his truck. Soon I heard his truck start up. I kept walking, shivering and crying as I went.
He drove alongside me and yelled out the window, “Baby, get in the car!”
I flipped him the bird and felt my heart caving in as tears and sobs came from me. I held one hand on my tummy and kept on walking.
He sped up. “Baby, get in this car!”
A car horn sounded, and I heard tires skid on the pavement as a car drove around him.
“Baby, you gonna get me killed out here!”
I ignored him again, then turned down a main street. We were in Palos Verdes. He followed me for a while, but I refused to get in his truck.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Crystal and asked her to pick me up. I sat down at a bus stop and waited for her. James remained parked alongside the bus stop and waited until my sister arrived. Once she did he pulled off.
I cried all the way to my house.
Creole packed up all of James’s shit, drove it to the house he shared with his brother, and dumped it on the porch. According to her, she told James as she did this, “You bitch-ass nigga, you step foot on my friend’s property, I’ll do you like Al Green’s and Lionel Richie’s wives did they ass. Try it if you want to, muthafucka! I’m connected!”
And to that he responded, “Tell my baby I’m sorry and I love her.”
“Fuck you!” she yelled.
During the first couple days it was hard to fight the urge to talk to him, because I really did love him and miss him, despite t
he fact that I’d caught him red-handed giving face to another woman. That shit hurt me. I had thought he was really going to be serious, and instead he fucked up. I knew it was best that I not have anything to do with him anymore. He wasn’t healthy for my sanity, because when I saw him in that truck with that bitch, I wanted to slice and dice them both.
So Creole became my bodyguard, dealing with him and helping me around the house and with Sierra. She showed him no mercy when he called. She would hang up on him, but then he would call me right back.
“She don’t want to talk to you, fool!” she yelled one day, while I stared off into space.
I didn’t even bother to strain my ears to hear what he said.
Creole took a deep breath and said from the kitchen, “Allure, do you wanna talk to this clown?”
“Tell him to leave me alone,” was all I said.
“You heard that shit, punk-ass, bitch-ass, bum-ass nigga! Leave my girl the fuck alone before we get some grits and fish grease ready for your ass.”
Moving on from this situation, I tried to concentrate on my last exams of the semester, and I tried to keep myself in good spirits so I didn’t affect the baby. Talking to or thinking of James’s ass and what he did definitely would not keep me in good spirits. I tried not to think about him, but it wasn’t always that easy. My mind was occupied with Sierra, schoolwork, cooking, and cleaning, but in those small moments of downtime I had right before I lay down, he always came to mind. He had hurt me yet again. Left more scars on me.
And I was now alone, because I refused to be with a lying-ass cheater. I would sit and cry, despite the fact that I knew it wasn’t good for the baby. Negative thoughts weren’t all that consumed me in those moments. I missed James—the way he held me when it was good, the way he made love to me, how he told me how pretty I was when I felt like a fat ass, how he would take the time to make sure Sierra was okay. Every night he would go into her room and make sure the covers were on her. I missed those things, his overall presence, even when he stopped being so considerate, because I loved him.