by Noelle Vella
That woke me up. Something had gone wrong in fairy tale land. Carl and Dalisay had the perfect marriage . . . or so it had seemed. They’d gotten married a few years after college and things had been perfect for them ever since. Dalisay was a rising partner in her corporate law firm. Carl and I were two of the top dogs in the microchip business.
I knew Carl loved and respected his wife, so the fact that she had locked herself in a room and he was threatening physical harm alarmed me. Something major had to have happened.
I flipped the light on in my bedroom. Saw the mess Ricki and I had made when we decided on a nightcap back at my place. My stained hardwood floor had her black thong, jeans, shirt, and shoes strewn about, right along with my suit from the workday. Ricki’s rounded chocolate backside was a greeting even God could appreciate. She lay on her stomach, shapely legs positioned in the number four while she softly slept in the California king-size bed.
Her wild ’fro covered the side of her face. Scratches adorned her hips and thighs from where my nails had grazed her as she tried to ride me without falling off. She’d lost that fight. Golden condom wrappers littered the floor by the bed, and the sweet smell of our sex permeated the air. As much as I would have liked to slip back between those shapely thighs, she had to go. She didn’t have to go home, but she had to get the hell up out of my place.
As rude as it may have sounded, Ricki understood. She and I had been doing that same song and dance for the better part of three years. I tapped her backside to wake her up. Waited until she got her bearings about her. She awakened, then looked around for a few minutes while her eyes and mind adjusted.
“I have to go?” she asked once lucid.
I nodded as I tossed her clothing to her. She smacked her lips and gave a sigh, but rose without a fight.
“Dali, what in hell is going on over there?” I asked, bringing my attention back to the woman on the other end of my phone.
“Oh, God, Diego, just please hurry up and get here. I don’t want my husband to go to jail. I’m trying not to call the cops, but he’s scaring me, and one of my neighbors may call the police,” she pleaded. “Just get him to calm down for me please.”
“Calm down for what? Tell me what’s going on.”
I rushed around the room grabbing up my discarded clothing. Thought about actually finding something else to wear altogether, but the direness of the situation didn’t give me time. I grabbed my boxer briefs, white sleeveless ribbed cotton tee shirt, and gray suit slacks. Ricki sauntered into the bathroom like she was floating. I gave her a smack on her backside and tapped my watch to get her moving. She jumped, cut her eyes at me, but got my message.
“Just get here, Diego. Please.”
I hung up the phone, tossed it on the bed, then quickly threw my clothes on. I prayed traffic would be nice to me. Coming from downtown Brooklyn heading to Garden City, Long Island would be damn near an hour’s drive, depending on traffic. So I silently prayed that whatever was going on between the two didn’t escalate before I could get there.
I grabbed my cell and my car keys and waited for Ricki to slide her feet into the brown wedge pumps. She scurried past me, bra and underwear still in her hand. I watched her backside as her hips called to me. Ricki walked like her entire existence was to hypnotize a man with the sway of her hips. I’d always been a sucker for darker skinned women. The darker she was, the better. Ricki ran a hand through her ’fro as we walked across the glass floor, then descended down the spiraled staircase with stainless steel railing.
“Are we still on for tomorrow?” she asked me once we got into the hall.
I had promised to take her to a show on Broadway. Told her to pick what she wanted and we would go. That was the way it was between us. It was rare I told her no because it was even rarer that she gave me a hard time.
“I don’t know yet. Let me see what’s going on with Carl first.”
She knew who Carl was. She’d been around long enough to know quite a few of my friends and associates.
“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll see you whenever you have time.”
“I’ll call you to let you know what’s up.”
She nodded. Stood on her toes to kiss my lips once the doorman opened the door for us to walk outside. Her lips were full, soft, and plush. I placed my hand on the small of her back as I returned the kiss. She smiled as we both pulled away. I didn’t know why she hadn’t worn her coat outside. The chill in the air was almost crippling. Yet, all she had on was a thin blouse. I took my jacket off and handed it to her. Walked her to her car and waited for her to get in before taking my jacket back.
One of the reasons Ricki was still around was because she followed the rules when it came to being with me. I wasn’t looking for love. Didn’t need the headache of having to account for my time and actions. I simply wanted a friend with benefits. Someone I could call and chill with from time to time. Someone I could take out on the town, catch a few shows on Broadway, dinner a few times, and some good sex. Once I was ready for the night to end, I needed a woman who didn’t have a problem with me asking her to leave. Better yet, I needed one who I didn’t have to tell to leave. Ricki was good with all of that. And that was why she was still around.
Yeah, I kept money in her pocket. Made sure she got an allowance every month. What man would have sexual relations with a woman, and then be reluctant to help her when she needed him to? I wasn’t that kind of man. While Ricki never asked for anything unless she needed it, which was hardly ever, I still had her bank account number. I kept her pockets filled so when the time came, she wouldn’t have a problem keeping me satisfied. What we had worked.
Yes, at forty, I still wasn’t in a hurry to settle down or start a family. I didn’t get that nagging incessant urge to find a woman to settle down with. At least that was the lie I told myself.
I was thankful traffic wasn’t bad. Sometimes at two thirty in the morning, traffic in Brooklyn could still be a curse. I made it to Garden City in a little under an hour. I pulled into the long driveway. The tan and golden brick structure looked menacing in the dark. Like the outside told of the anger inside. The black-framed windows and mahogany doors seemed to be scowling under the strain.
I parked my car in front of the garage, behind Carl’s black-on-black Mercedes. I could see a few neighbors had their lights on. Some had even come outside, not caring to hide the fact they were trying to see what was going on. The last thing I wanted to have happen was a scared, timid, white woman calling the police on an angry black man.
I would have knocked on the door, but since it was already cracked open, there was no need. The foyer looked as if a hurricane had torn through it. Pictures had crashed on the floor like they had been thrown against the wall. Several holes were in the walls, like Carl had taken his anger out on them since he couldn’t hit his wife. Papers lay strewn about in disarray. Dali’s clothes and shoes had been tossed over the railing like they were yesterday’s trash. Makeup, makeup brushes, and the like painted the foyer’s marble flooring.
“Seventeen years,” I heard Carl roar out. “Seventeen fucking years of marriage and for what? So you could go and screw around on me?”
The front room had furniture overturned. Bookshelves had been knocked down. But my ears perked up when I heard his accusation. That would explain why Carl had been acting strange as of late. He’d always been a hard worker, but for him to be in our office in Manhattan before me meant he had to be sleeping in his hideaway office at work. Since the day we had formed the business together, Carl had never clocked in before I did. I’d asked him about it, but he just brushed me off, saying he wanted to make sure the new project stayed ahead of task. I didn’t question him about it because I too had wanted to stay ahead of task.
I rushed up the grand staircase two steps at a time when I heard Dalisay screaming again.
“Carl, please, stop. I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
I followed their voices until I got to one of their guest bedrooms. There, I found
Carl trying to put his foot through the bathroom door. The room had been turned upside down just like the rest of the house. The bed had been flipped. Dressers had been turned over. Carl’s ropey locs swung angrily, back and forth, when he placed his booted foot against the white door. If the door hadn’t been thick, he would have surely kicked it down. He was dressed in black sweats and a black tee shirt, his muscles bulging anytime he inhaled and exhaled.
“I know you’re sorry, you fucking bitch. You fuck another man in my house, in my bed!”
Say what? I thought as I rushed into the room.
“Yo, Carl, what in hell is going on?” I asked him.
He didn’t even spare me a look, just kept trying to kick the door down.
“Carl,” I called to him again, this time with much more bass in my voice. “You have to chill. Your neighbors are going to call the cops.”
“Tell them to call. The only way I don’t put my foot in this bitch’s ass is if they kill me first.”
There wasn’t any doubt in my mind he meant every word coming out of his mouth. I’d never heard Carl refer to Dalisay with such disdain. I didn’t have time to think about that though. My sole purpose for the moment was to keep him out of jail. I walked over to the man I’d called a good friend for over twenty years and shoved him backward. For the first time, I got a good look at the madness behind his eyes. They seemed glossed over, as if rage had taken away his common sense. The black-framed glasses he had on did nothing to take away from his imposing presence.
“What you need to do,” I told him, “is calm the hell down before you do something you can’t take back. I get that you’re angry, but you still need to think before you act, my man.”
“That’s a coldhearted bitch hiding in the bathroom,” he snarled.
When his big hands balled into a fist and I saw a tear escape the corner of his right eye, I knew what Dali had done to Carl had broken him down to his core.
“Seventeen fucking years I’ve been faithful,” he fumed, then bit down on his bottom lip. “I’ve done everything she asked of me, and then some. Went above and beyond to be what she wanted and needed. All for this bitch to fuck another nigga raw and be carrying his seed.”
My eyes widened, and I tilted my head to the side. “Say what now?”
I listened while Carl ranted and raved. I had a good mind to move to the side and help him kick the door down. Was he honestly telling me that Dalisay had cheated on him and was pregnant with another man’s baby?
I could hear her sobbing loudly in the bathroom. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, I swear.”
“Oh, what, so you just ended up on his dick by accident?” Carl boomed.
“I swear it just happened. I didn’t mean for things to go this far. John and I . . . we—I made a mistake, Carl.”
“You don’t make a mistake and fuck another nigga raw, Dali,” he belted out as his left fist slammed into the open palm of his right one. “You don’t make those kinds of mistakes. Then you let him come into our home, the fucking home I helped you to build, and you fuck this nigga in our home. That ain’t no fucking mistake!”
Dali slowly pulled the door open. Her sun-kissed skin was flushed with tears, giving her a ruddy undertone. Silky brown hair cascaded down her shoulders while her light brown eyes held the fear she had of her husband, a man who’d never lifted a hand to her other than to help. I saw the bruises on her arms and wrists. I shook my head. Carl had lost his mind. I couldn’t help that my eyes traveled to her stomach. She didn’t look pregnant.
She slapped her tears away as she looked at me, then dropped her head. I guess the shame was too heavy to hold. Dali was beautiful in her own right. She was Filipino and proud of her race and heritage. She was what black men considered exotic, the kind we went crazy over and oftentimes preferred over our own race of women. Not that I had anything against interracial dating, I just didn’t appreciate the notion that any other race of woman was better than my own simply because the other woman was of another race.
Dali tried to move toward Carl, and he bristled, frowned his face at her like she was a random whore on the street. He made a move toward her, and I blocked his path.
“Mrs. Robinson,” I heard someone call from downstairs. “Mrs. Robinson, it’s Officer Davis, your neighbor. My wife wanted me to check on you. Are you okay?”
Dali quickly wiped her eyes and rushed to the hall. I heard her assuring the officer that she was okay as she descended the stairs. Officer Davis asked about the bruises on her arms and wrist. Asked if her husband was home. She answered yes.
“Who did this?” he asked her.
I told Carl, “You need to pack a bag. You can’t stay here tonight.”
“I ain’t packing shit,” he snapped. “She’s leaving. I’m not. I didn’t desecrate my home with some random pussy. I married a whore, a fucking whore.”
“Carl, I know you’re pissed, but if that white woman has sent her husband over here, your black ass is only one step away from jail.”
Carl snarled at me. “This is my fucking house, and I’m. Not. Leaving,” he bellowed out, enunciating each syllable in the last three words spoken.
His pride was talking, had a hold on his ability to make intelligent decisions. Carl’s jaw was clenched. Veins popped out on the sides of his head. When I heard the officer yell for Carl to come downstairs, I knew shit was going from bad to worse. I knew the only thing that would get Carl to calm down at that point was for Dali to leave, and since she refused to, once Officer Davis called in for backup, they’d make Carl leave. He could either leave or be arrested for domestic violence.
“Let’s just leave,” I told him. “At least leave for the night and calm down. Come back when you’re thinking rationally. You don’t want to be arrested right now. Actually, our business can’t afford for you to get arrested. All the meetings and shit we got scheduled for this deal with Apple and Microsoft won’t allow it. So grab a bag and chill at my place for the time being,” I reasoned with him.
After a few more not-so-pleasant words to Dali and another threat of detainment, Carl took my advice. I waited around anxiously as he packed a bag and answered a few questions for the police. I only knew parts of what they knew. So there wasn’t much for me to tell them.
It was only because Officer Davis knew Carl and Dali that he didn’t take Carl to jail. Although Carl left, he didn’t come back to my place. He told me he was going to the condo he and Dali had in Manhattan. I had a lot of questions to ask, but I didn’t want to push him any further over the edge than he already was.
It wasn’t until a few days later that he told me the whole story. Told me of how Dali had come to him with the confession of cheating with another partner at her firm. He told me of how she felt she had to tell him the truth, especially since she was pregnant and didn’t know if he was the father.
“Diego, you know me. And you know how much pride I took in my marriage. I took pride in my wife and the home we’d built. So for her to fuck another man hurt me like I ain’t never been hurt before. And then to tell me she’s pregnant and the kid could have been his took the cake.”
“How did you find out it wasn’t yours?” I’d asked him while we sat in the office after work.
“She took an early DNA test because there was no way I could wait nine months to know if the child she was carrying was mine or not.”
“And I take it the test told you it wasn’t yours.”
He glanced out his office window, then thumbed his nose as he shook his head.
That had been a month ago. That was why Carl’s actions, while questionable, didn’t surprise me. Any other time his actions would have been odd to me, but because I knew he was having trouble at home, him paying attention to another woman just told me he was doing what he had to do to move on. Carl had never cheated on his wife. Hell, he didn’t even flirt with other women because he took his vows seriously. He’d come from a single-mother home, and he vowed that he would never bring children into the w
orld unless he was a husband first. I had a hell of a lot of respect for the man my best friend was.
I checked the time on my watch while Shell and Gabby whispered back and forth. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I could guess. I didn’t need to talk to Carl to know what he was thinking. I’d initially only walked over to their table because Carl had wanted to talk to Shell. He’d been checking her out for quite some time, since she had walked in the door, actually.
Even still, I found myself more than thrilled to have to take one for the team. Taking one for the team between male friends usually meant while one friend tried his luck with the pretty girl, the other friend kept the less attractive friend occupied. Turned out that Shell’s friend was just as beautiful as she was. I couldn’t front like her backside in the dress she was wearing wasn’t holding my attention. Baby may have been a little on the short side, but she had a body that could weaken any man.
She had just the right amount of everything, I surmised, as we walked back inside. I chuckled. I had to. Gabby had given her friend, Shell, a strong side eye when we walked back in to find she and Carl locked in a battle of the tongues again. Gabby sat down and looked at her glass of wine as if something was wrong with it before pushing it away. While I didn’t know why she’d done that, it was safe to assume it was because she didn’t want to end up like her friend, tonguing down a stranger.
“So are you going to give me that dance we talked about, or are you going to keep cock blocking Shell?” I asked Gabby in jest.
She turned to me, then blinked slowly. “I am not cock blocking,” she said with a light laugh.
“Looks like it to me,” I told her.
“Whatever,” she quipped saucily. “Forgive me for making sure my friend doesn’t lose herself in lust.”
“But what if she wants to?”
Carl placed a kiss on Shell’s neck. Shell really looked as if she was helpless to the seduction Carl was putting on her. No way should a married woman leave home unsatisfied in such a way that a married man, not her husband, should have that look of pure lust in her eyes.