Me, Myself and Him

by E. N. Joy

  “Oh, uh, yeah, it was,” Elkan said as he got comfortable under the cover. “Good night.”

  Good Night? Ha, yeah right. “Who was it?”

  Yawning, Elkan said, “It wasn’t anybody.”

  Nobody. Well, since when do you hold conversations with nobody in the middle of the night? “So you mean they hung up?” Please don’t lie to me. When people lie they have something to hide. Don’t let my husband be hiding something from me. I don’t think I can take anymore trust issues. Please, don’t let him lie.

  “Yeah, they hung up,” he lied. It was his way of making a long story short, but it was a bad idea on his part.

  A huge knot formed in Hannah’s throat as her eyes began to water. She couldn’t believe Elkan had allowed that lie to fall off his lips, as if lying was the easiest thing in the world for him to do. At first, Hannah didn’t even have words for him; she was just going to cry herself to sleep like she had done plenty of nights before. But tonight she decided that she was not gon’ cry. She was tired of crying. That never seemed to get her anywhere. Instead, she decided that if Elkan wanted to deal with a black woman, she was gon’ give him black all right. Even if it was just some members of society’s stupid, stereotypical definition of black, it was time for Elkan to receive every man’s fantasy—role-play in the bedroom. Hannah was about to be somebody other than the sweet, non-confrontational Hannah he was used to. She was about to be a mad black woman!

  “They hung up, huh?” Hannah sucked her teeth.

  “Yeah, you heard me. I said they hung up. Now go to sleep, babe. You know I got an early trial in the morning.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell the person who called you that you had a trial in the morning?”

  “Because they hung up. I told you.”

  “Well, let’s call them back and tell them now.” Hannah snatched the covers off with an attitude, got out of the bed and stomped toward the door.

  Being that Elkan slept on the side of the bed closest to the door, he was able to jump up out of the bed so fast that he caught up with Hannah before she could make her way out the door. “Honey, what are you doing? It’s one-thirty in the morning. It’s not that serious. Besides, the person that called hung up.”

  “That’s what caller ID is for. We’ll look at the caller ID on your cell and see who it was that called, and we’ll call ’em back. Plain and simple.” Hannah brushed her hands together as if to suggest that the task would be as easy as taking out the trash.

  “No, wait!” Elkan grabbed her arm.

  “What, Elkan? We’re going to go see who is calling your cell phone at one o’clock in the morning so we can tell them about themselves. I mean, after all, you have a court date in the morning. How rude.” Once again Hannah tried to walk off, and Elkan tightened his grip. He stood there staring into Hannah’s eyes—eyes that were relentless. Something told him that this time, unlike all the other times, Hannah wasn’t going to just roll over and go to sleep on this one.

  “Look, Hannah, I lied. It was Peni. But it’s late. Can we just talk about this tomorrow? After my court hearing, I’ll take you to lunch.”

  “You said you would never lie to me again, Elkan,” Hannah told him. “You said you would never lie or cheat on me again.”

  “Come on, Hannah, darn it!” Elkan said as if he was the one who should be upset. “I’m not cheating on you, and I really didn’t lie. I told you the person that called hung up. Well, they did hang up—after we finished talking. But I didn’t lie because I was trying to hide anything. I lied to make a long story short. For heaven’s sake, it’s going on two in the morning and I knew if I told you it was Peni who had called, I’d have to explain it and be up all night and stuff. And like I said, I have to be in court.”

  “So you feel as though with all that you and that tramp have put me through, you don’t owe me a little conversation no matter what time of night it is?”

  “I knew it. I knew it. There it is!” Elkan balled his fist and punched the air.

  “There what is?”

  “It took a few years, but I knew eventually you’d start throwing the past back up in my face. You said that you forgave me for cheating on you, but I knew you really hadn’t. I knew it, and that’s why I always felt that I had to lie—to protect you.”

  Somehow Elkan had managed to turn the tables on tonight’s events. The conversation was no longer about the fact that another woman had called him, but that Hannah had secretly been convicting him while making him think she had forgiven him.

  “Elkan, that’s not true,” Hannah said. “When I said I forgave you, I really did. I haven’t been suffocating you, wanting to know where you are and who you are with all the time, going through your pockets or none of that.” Hannah tried to convince him by looking at him with sincere eyes. “I’ve done nothing but love you—love you and Little E. It was so hard to forgive you, but I did. And after all that, now you want to stand here and accuse me of being insincere?” Tears began to fall down Hannah’s face.

  “Oh, Hannah, I’m sorry,” Elkan said, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her forehead. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to doubt your sincerity. I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry for everything.” Elkan kissed Hannah on the forehead again, then he lifted her face with his hands and began to place kisses on her lips. “Do you forgive me?” he asked between kisses that were starting to burn Hannah with passion. “Do you forgive me?”

  “Yes, baby. Yes,” Hannah said as she grabbed the back of his head and returned his kisses. “I’m sorry too. I just want us to be happy and love each other.”

  Intoxicated from the sweetness of Hannah’s tongue, Elkan lifted her off her feet and carried her to bed. “Woman, I’m gonna love you right now.”

  Elkan laid Hannah in the middle of the bed and slowly, from the top, began to unbutton her silky avocado-colored gown. His tongue took a tour of the inside of her mouth like it was its first time ever being there.

  Hannah began to unbutton her gown from the bottom, meeting her husband halfway in their joint effort. She poured out of her gown once it was all the way unbuttoned, and Elkan raised his head to stare at his wife. While he covered every inch of her in kisses, Hannah rubbed her hands through Elkan’s low-cut, dark brown hair. Once his mouth found her mouth again, they became one inside each other. Being married had its struggles and hard work, but as Hannah melted underneath her husband, she could only focus on the pros.

  When Hannah woke up the next morning, she felt like she had been to heaven and back. Her husband had made love to her like never before. That little tiff about Peni’s phone call was a nightmare long forgotten as far as Hannah was concerned. But unfortunately for Hannah, Peni was one of those nightmares that wasn’t going to allow itself to be so easily forgotten.

  Chapter 6

  “I can’t believe I’m asking my little brother for female advice.” Dawson shook his head as he stood in position over his younger brother, Drake, spotting him on weights.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed. Older doesn’t always mean wiser, big bro,” Drake managed to breathe out as he finished up his third set of lifts. “It’s not your fault that God just so happened to have blessed me with a better understanding about the psyche of the female species.” He let out a huge sigh after struggling to push up his very last lift. Dawson aided him in resting the barbell in its proper place. “I may only be twenty-five years old, but I’m beyond my years when it comes to the ladies.” He winked at his brother.

  “Don’t go getting the big head,” Dawson said as he sat on the bench next to Drake.

  At least once or twice a month, the two brothers worked out at the gym together. This was the most time they could fit into their busy schedules. Although Dawson was eight years Drake’s senior, they were still pretty close growing up. They didn’t spend as much time together in their adulthood as they would have liked to, but the same brotherly love was still present whenever they were together.

  They had different fathers,
each bearing their own father’s last name, yet looked more like twins. Their personalities, however, were total opposites. While Dawson had always enjoyed the company of a lovely lady, never able to settle down with one before meeting Locksie, Drake had always been the settling down type. But he was never lucky enough to find that one woman who was also willing to settle down—or attend church regularly like he did.

  For some reason, Drake, as wholesome as he appeared, always attracted women who wanted to give it up after knowing him only a few days—sometimes after only a few hours. Then there were those women who were more interested in the kind of car he drove than they were in the fact that he had graduated in the top five percent of his class from Capital University.

  Dawson had warned him that once women learned that he was the young entrepreneur featured throughout the city’s local newspapers, who owned a graphics design business with the country’s top businesses as clients, they wouldn’t be able to see past that. Being one of the elite million-dollar condo owners in downtown Columbus added to his appeal as well.

  “So Locksie is getting weird on you, huh?” Drake confirmed the statement his brother had made to him earlier about how Locksie seemed to be changing.

  “Yeah, I mean all of a sudden she’s acting like she’s embarrassed for me to see her naked. She had a fit one day when I barged into the bathroom when she was getting out of the shower. And I don’t want to get graphic here, but after sex, instead of feeling like I pleased her, I feel like I’ve raped her or something.”

  “Dang, man, is it like that?”

  “And you know how much I love her. She’s the first woman I’ve ever dated that I didn’t cheat on. I would never force sex on on her.”

  “Has she told you that she feels like you’re forcing her to have sex?”

  “No, nothing like that. As a matter of fact, it’s nothing she says that makes me feel this way, but it’s everything she does. She used to have this smile on her face after we’d been intimate, but now she has this look of guilt and shame. I can’t even lie; that’s really starting to screw with my manhood. You know, bruh?”

  “So, have you talked to her about it, or are you just talking to me?”

  “What am I supposed to say? She hasn’t talked to me about it. The only person she ever talks to is her aunt Mary.” Dawson thought for a moment. “Matter of fact, it’s probably because of her that Locksie’s acting this way.”

  “Why do you say that?” Drake asked, wiping his forehead with his hand towel.

  “Her aunt Mary is all into the church and stuff.”

  “So, what’s that got to do with anything? I go to church too.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t Bible-bash people and try to push religion and your beliefs on everybody else. You do you and let other people do them. Her aunt is slick about sneaking sin and fornication into a conversation. Trust me, I know. We’ve invited her over to dinner enough times for me to experience it firsthand.”

  Drake chuckled. “Yeah, well, don’t hate on her auntie just because she wants her niece to live a life pleasing to God.”

  Dawson took offense and stood up. “So, what are you trying to say? That because of me, God doesn’t like Locksie?”

  “Calm down, man.” Drake made a gesture with his hands for Dawson to lower his voice. “I ain’t trying to get on a religious trip, nor do I have a heaven or a hell to put anybody in, but, man, God’s Word is what it is. There is no exception. The wages of sin is death. And no, that doesn’t mean that you are going to drop dead because you sinned. It means you might jeopardize eternal life with the Father. But our God is a good God. A God of second chances. A forgiving God. That’s why He allows us to repent for our sins.”

  “This is why I don’t even holler at you on stuff like this. We’re too different. But now you’re starting to change even more. Maybe I spoke too soon. Maybe it was only a matter of time before you started all that Jesus crap too.”

  Drake knew that his brother was right. Ever since he got invited to that Bible study on campus, he hadn’t been the same. He had only been on campus for two months when his dormmate, whose mother was a minister, started a Bible study. Drake only went because his money was tight and his dormmate was serving food and refreshments. And although Drake had gone to feed his flesh with food, he ended up getting spiritually fed, and on that night, he gave his life to Christ. So again, Dawson was right; Drake hadn’t been the same since—and he wasn’t going to apologize for it.

  “I wish you didn’t feel that way, bro,” Drake told Dawson, “but I ain’t gonna apologize for the man I changed into. You know, in high school, I didn’t have to worry about abstaining from sex. It wasn’t like chicks were falling all over me. I was as skinny as a tree limb with a face full of acne. I wore pop bottle glasses.”

  “Thank goodness for Lasic eye surgery,” Dawson jumped in with a snicker. “Now you don’t have to wear those Steve Urkel glasses anymore.

  “And thank God for Proactiv skin treatment,” Drake added as he shared a slight chuckle with his brother.

  “And what about me,”—Dawson flexed his muscles—“the dude responsible for helping you get that nice little build you got now?”

  “Yes, and thank God for you. But anyway, back in high school, I was the epitome of a geek. I was on the chess team for crying out loud. I couldn’t even get a girl to be my study partner, let alone sleep with me.”

  “Yeah, but by college, you was like a whole new dude,” Dawson complimented.

  “Still, I just couldn’t see myself with a different chick every day of the week like I saw some of those other cats in college doing—getting chicks pregnant, having babies too soon and dropping out of college, paying for abortions, abortions gone bad and the girls never being able to have kids again. There were others going to the clinic every month to get rid of an STD—some they couldn’t get rid of because a cure had yet to be found—or even worse, getting HIV.” Drake sighed after rattling off his list. “I just couldn’t be one of the brothers dating and sleeping with all kinds of women just because they could.”

  “Let me guess—you’re referring to me.” Dawson looked his brother up and down and sucked his teeth. “Dude, that was the past. I don’t go through women like water anymore, and besides,”—he leaned in to whisper in his brother’s ear—“it was just jock itch.”

  Drake shook his head as Dawson continued.

  “You know I’ve changed since hooking up with Locks. But even still, don’t trip. You done switched up on the ladies quite a few times yourself as I recall.”

  Drake was quick to defend himself. “Yeah, but that’s because most of the time the ladies I meet, although dime-pieces, aren’t sent to me to be my soul mate. Some of them portray themselves as godly women, but then they’re the first ones trying to initiate physical contact—contact that they know what it’s going to lead to. They ain’t nothing but traps from the devil trying to keep me from being holy, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t know what you mean. Shoot, I remember what I used to do when the ladies would throw themselves at me.”

  “What would you do?”

  “Catch ’em, what else?” The brothers laughed. “Look, bruh, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to snap on you,” Dawson apologized. “It’s just that I gave up a whole other lifestyle to be with Locksie, and I don’t want that to be in vain.”

  “It’s cool,” Drake said, standing, giving his brother some dap. “I know how much you love Locksie, but it sounds to me like the lifestyle you and Locksie are living is starting to bother her.”

  “So, you saying I should just live with my girl and not sex her up until she gets over all this mess?”

  Drake chuckled. “It ain’t that easy, man. I mean, when it comes to something like that, and again, I know you ain’t trying to hear all this, but the Bible tells you exactly what to do when your flesh tries to take over. First Corinthians 6:17 says to flee fornication. It works for me.”

  “Negro, please,” Daws
on said, sucking his teeth. “So, you trying to tell me that when the ladies push up on you, you cut ’em loose?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “Once again, another reason why I never talked about women with you.” The two headed toward the locker room. “But I know even though you might be some dumb, you ain’t plumb dumb. You ain’t ran from all of the honeys you’ve hooked up with, otherwise you’d still be a . . .” Dawson’s voice trailed off, and then he nudged his brother’s shoulder with his own. “You know what I’m saying? And I don’t care how much scripture you can quote, you can’t make me believe you ain’t never got you none.”

  Drake shrugged his shoulders. “Okay then, I won’t try to convince you. Besides, it ain’t you I have to convince; it’s God.” Drake took a few more steps until he was finally in the men’s locker room. He had tried his best to ignore the curves of the women along his path, although there was a curve or two that caught his eye.

  After following Drake into the locker room, Dawson stopped his little brother in his tracks by grabbing his shoulders. “You trying to tell me that you ain’t never . . . that you are a . . .” Dawson couldn’t even fix his lips to say it, so Drake helped him out.

  “A virgin? Yep, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Drake confirmed.

  “Shhh,” Dawson said, putting his hand over Drake’s mouth and then looking around the locker room to make sure no one else had heard him. “You trying to have every dude up in here know you ain’t never been with no chick? They liable to think me and you are . . . you know . . .”

  Drake laughed as he walked over to his locker and opened it. Like a lot of patrons, he never brought a lock with him, so he just placed his items in a locker and hoped no one would want to bother stealing his clothes.

  Drake felt a little guilty about letting his brother assume that for all these years he had at least had sex with one woman. But he knew the first thing his brother would think was that he was gay, or even put some pressure on him by teasing and taunting him. This might have made him want to conquer one woman after another just to prove a point—that he wasn’t gay and could get any woman that he wanted to. And he probably could. He’d run into several women who flat out let him know that they wouldn’t mind letting him please them in bed. But he just couldn’t do it. With the fear of the Almighty in his heart, he chose to please God instead.