A difficult woman could really throw a man off.
I didn’t like it made difficult. The beauty in what I did to my wives was that it was so easy. There was very little resistance. There was a pattern to how I did it. It never deviated. It went like this: They loved me. They trusted me. They let their guards down around me. Then I swooped in and turned their lives upside down and inside out. I took them for all they had. I left them with little or nothing. And I had absolutely no remorse about it.
“Let me go, Michael.” There was both a whine in her voice and a touch of defiance. “Please, Michael. Let me go.”
Michael James Darling. One of my names. The one I’d given her that day six months ago when we met. Jacqueline knew me as just Todd. Dawn called me Terry as she traced my face with her fingers. Nikki bounced between dayum, nigga and James when I was, as she would say, blowing that back out.
“Please, Michael,” she said for what felt like the hundredth time.
She was just in from her morning run, covered in sweat. Her long locks were pulled back and held in place by a gray scrunchie that didn’t match her purple workout clothes. Her T-shirt was soaked with sweat under the armpits and across the chest. Her breasts were small but perky. Her nipples could poke out an eye when she was aroused. Her running tights showed off the flare of her hips and her round apple bottom. The tights were damp in the crotch. Anger and allergies colored her hazel eyes red, did the same with her nose. Her eyes were moist with tears. Her tan skin was flushed. I found her so sexy at that moment. So sexy, in fact, I almost felt guilty for what I’d done, for what more I would do. Almost.
She bit into her lip and sniffled from her allergies. Tears continued to stream down her face. But on the good side of things, she’d stopped trying to wiggle free from my grasp. She’d lost her fight. And she stood to lose a lot more.
“Are you calm?” I asked her.
She hesitated, and then said, “Yes,” after that pregnant pause.
I didn’t believe her. By nature, I wasn’t trusting. Especially of women.
I asked her, “What’s your favorite part in Coming to America?” My aim was to get her even calmer, talking about something she loved. Her holy trinity was God, Eddie Murphy and me. Not particularly in that order, I’m proud to say. Without question I headed the list. Women could be shortsighted like that.
“Let me go,” she snapped. “I’m not doing this with you. I’m not answering any questions. I’m not one of your old Houston Oilers buddies that you can just manhandle and impose your will on.”
I looked into her hazel eyes, a beautiful woman set to marry me in a few short months, a woman who believed that I played eight seasons in the NFL, for the Houston Oilers. She had sweet, innocent eyes, I realized. Even then, even with all the anger that was bubbling inside her. She was a sweet, innocent woman. But so were all my other wives. It did none of them any good. And it wouldn’t do her any good, either. In fact, I relied on it. It’s what made what I did to them so easy. Innocence is a weakness, trust me.
“They’re no longer in Houston,” I said. “Moved to Tennessee, changed their name from the Oilers to the Titans. Remember that. You date me otherwise.”
Despite the sweetness and the innocence in my fiancée’s hazel eyes, I decided that was the closest I would ever steer her to the truth.
“Whatever,” she said. “I couldn’t care less, Michael. They could have moved to Alaska and renamed themselves…”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” she huffed. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter.”
I thought of Jacqueline, my first wife, with her snappy lines and quick wit. She’d have had an answer, a quick comeback. My fiancée had Jacqueline’s looks—all of my wives had been beautiful—but nowhere near Jacqueline’s wonderful sense of humor and wit. And yet, all the snappy lines in the world didn’t protect Jacqueline from my betrayal. And they wouldn’t help my fiancée, either. My eyes remained on the prize.
I said, “If I let you go now—”
“I won’t hit you again,” she promised.
“Are you sure? You were pretty upset.” I was playing a role. “You’re worse than Joumana Kidd.” Jason Kidd, superstar point guard in the NBA, had written in the divorce papers filed against his wife that Joumana had physically abused him. Jason Kidd, battered husband—I just couldn’t see it at the time. But now, after all this, I could understand.
My fiancée gazed at me. Her hazel eyes sparkled like the diamond engagement ring on her finger. The cost of the ring was an investment for me. I expected my return to be ten times what I paid for it. Warren Buffett had nothing on me, let me tell you. Berkshire Hathaway could really turn a profit if it dealt in the commodity of wives. That’s what I did—I got all the value I could from a woman, then I traded her in for another. I appraised women like the Dow Jones.
“You had no right to call him,” is all my fiancée could say. Again, the fight was gone from her. Her voice was so soft, her tone so heartbroken, so broken. “No right, Michael. No right to call him. No right.”
Babbling and clearly tortured. That was good. Very good.
I started, “I thought—”
“Crap, you didn’t think,” she cut me off and started to wiggle again. “Now let me go, dammit.”
I was surprised. She still had fight after all. See, Dow Jones. Up and down.
“Sing that song you love,” I said. “What’s it? ‘Let’s Get Married’ by Jagged Edge.”
She took a deep breath, settled herself. “I’m not singing anything, Michael. But I’m calm. I swear.”
Dawn, my second wife, she could sing. Like an angel. It did her no good.
I said, “If I’d have known you’d get so upset, I wouldn’t have called him.”
That was just another lie to add to the pile.
“He sounded so happy when I said I was calling for you,” I said. “His tone changed, got real soft and sensitive. He asked right off if you were okay. Then he asked me a million questions about myself. What did I do? How did I meet you? What my intentions were? Feeling me out, I suppose. He sounded concerned.”
She started to wiggle and sway yet again, doing her best to break loose. I finally let her go. My mission had been accomplished anyway. I’d turned over a dark part of her past, kicked it and just watched as a swarm of ants marched toward her new life with me. The life she thought was already picture-perfect and would only get better. She was so wrong about that. It would shatter her when she learned the truth.
“Crap, crap, crap,” she yelled, then whirled and stomped over to the couch and foolishly kicked it. Immediately, she bent and touched her foot. A grimace was on her face. She plopped down on the couch and let out a piercing scream. She rubbed her foot, grit her teeth and let out a few more craps.
I stood back and watched. I’d have her saying fuck in no time. Eddie Murphy wouldn’t care. I certainly wouldn’t. But God would be displeased. I guess two out of three in her holy trinity wasn’t too bad.
She looked up at me. The tears came stronger as her emotional levee broke. “Why would you do this to me, Michael?”
To make your dependence on me that much more prominent, I thought.
But I said, “Thought since we were getting married, and your parents are gone, you’d want someone from your family to share in the day. Feels like you don’t want anyone to know about me. Are you ashamed of me?” I was playing a role, playing it very well. Eddie-Murphy-in-Dreamgirls well.
She whispered, “Of course it’s not that. How could I ever be ashamed of you? You’re…perfect.”
“What is it then?” I put as much hurt in my voice as I could muster.
Her whisper even more pronounced, she said, “I have no family, Michael. All I have is you, sweetie, just you.”
“Am I enough?”
“My cup runneth over,” she said as she crossed her heart and forced herself to smile. The look in her eyes said it was so. It was as clear as the look of murder from earlier. I smiled. S
he probably attributed it to me being happy I was the shoulder she leaned on. Really, it was because once again I’d picked wonderfully. This was the watershed moment I always looked for with my wives. They’d all been from fractured families—parents dead, a scarcity of other family and friends. The relationships they did have were always dysfunctional with a capital D. They’d all had only me to really depend on. They’d all been vulnerable. I exploited vulnerability. That’s what I did. That’s why I smiled then.
My fiancée’s deep gut sobs was the only sound in the room. She was an emotional wreck. It was like music to my ears. She was hurting so badly. The pain was palpable. It was a real, living thing. It had fingers, and those fingers were rubbing up and down my arms, gave me goose bumps. Her pain was wrenching. Her pain was my pleasure.
“My uncle did horrible things,” she cried. “I thought you understood that.”
I did.
But I said, “I didn’t realize, love. I’m stupid. I’m so sorry. I probably should have understood from what little you did tell me about the man, but I didn’t.”
I did.
I moved toward her and offered my hand, the denouement in the scene I’d orchestrated. She wiped away her tears and took my outstretched hand, squeezed it in affirmation of our love. We looked one another in the eye. We shared a smile. She looked so sweet, so innocent. The red was gone from her hazel eyes.
I said, “I’ll never contact him again, love. I’ll never put you in this position again. I’ll listen more closely and better understand everything you tell me from here on out. Always and forever. Forgive me, please.”
She said, “I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to forget…him. I don’t ever want to be that eleven-year-old girl again, you understand? I don’t ever want to be hiding under those covers late at night. I don’t ever want to hear the bedroom door creak open again. That’s too much of a burden for a teenage girl trying to understand the changes taking place with her body…with her mind. Okay?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry. Honestly and truly sorry.”
She sniffled, then shook her head, shook away her dark thoughts. Her uncle wasn’t sliding under her covers. He wasn’t kissing along the inside of her thighs. He wasn’t asking her to touch him in his special place. He wasn’t licking her special place and making her so confused…because it wasn’t right…but it felt good in some way. He wasn’t sliding those rough fingers inside her. She couldn’t smell the Brut on his skin or the peanuts on his breath.
She’d told me it all, in vivid detail. Down to the Brut he lathered on and the smell of Planters peanuts that was always on his breath. To convince her then that I hadn’t understood the tale of abuse she’d confessed, well, only someone deaf, dumb, and blind would believe that. She was in love, though. That’s what love did. It made you deaf, dumb and blind.
“Promise you’ll never hurt me,” she said. “Seems like that’s all men do.”
Eve to Adam. Delilah to Samson. Kim Basinger to Alec Baldwin. I begged to differ. Plenty of women hurt men. In fact, they started this vicious cycle, Eve to Adam, just as I said.
But I told my fiancée, “I promise, love. I won’t hurt you, ever.”
There was no love, only one promise: I would hurt her.
She hesitated before saying, “Let me ask you…?”
“What, love?”
“Did you…did you…did you tell my uncle where I am?”
I looked at her sadly, so sadly. And I did not answer. I let the silence be my answer. She started to sob again. That same deep gut sob that was the only sound in the room. Music to my ears.
I pulled her close to me. I could feel her warm tears soaking through my shirt. I rubbed her back, and ran my fingers through her hair. The sobbing continued. It would last deep into the night. When she’d finally fall asleep, she’d be eleven years old again. The bedroom door would creak open. She’d wake up terrified. I’d shush her and assure her everything was okay. She’d fall asleep again in my arms, somewhat placated. But that nagging thought would be there. Gnawing at her soul. The uncle she’d run away from in Virginia, he now knew where she was. Her boogeyman could come get her at any moment. She’d spend her days worried about what hid in the shadows around her, looking over her shoulder, waiting for the horrible to happen. Feeling so very vulnerable.
I had her just where I wanted her. I said, “It’s just you and me, love.”
There was no love.
CHAPTER 2
JACQUELINE
She was so very scared. Despite her best efforts to hide that fear, I could see it in her eyes. I’ve been there, had that kind of fear myself. I could relate.
She was Latin. Mexican, Guatemalan, something along those lines. Her frightened eyes were large like silver dollars. They were dark. She tried her best to have them project an is-okay aura, as if nothing in the strange South Carolina territory where she now lived, this strange land of bald cypress and tupelo trees could take away their beauty. And she was probably right. I’d have given my right leg for her lashes and figured out how to walk straight later. I’d have been a mess, hopping around on one leg, I know, but my lashes would be to die for.
Her skin was naturally light brown, but coasting toward dark with her recent tan. She had yet to smile but I bet her teeth were white and even. Her hair—long, wavy jet-black locks—hung down to her butt. If you ever spy a sistah with long, curly lashes, long, wavy jet-black hair and a double amputee, that’ll be me. I’d have given my left leg for that hair. Honestly.
She made me, at five foot six, feel supermodel tall. I was grateful for that. I pushed my shoulders back a bit and walked across the kitchen linoleum with my chest poked out. It felt good to have something on the beautiful miniature woman. Felt good to feel good about myself. I hadn’t in a very long time. My husband had robbed that from me with everything else.
I looked out the kitchen window and saw tractors in the distance plowing the fields. A cloud of dust kissed the sky. I could smell manure. I used to keep the windows closed when I first moved in but as the season turned to a brutally hot summer, that option had closed while the windows had opened. I saw my Uncle Roscoe hosing down his pickup truck. It was covered in dirt and what looked like moss. Jimmy, my ain’t-wrapped-too-tight cousin, was removing all the rubbish in the bed of the truck and placing it next to the garage.
That was my life.
I turned back to the woman. Smiled to set her at ease. “Are you hungry?”
She said, “No,” and shook her head; puzzlement replaced the fear in her eyes.
I moved to the fridge, touched it, and turned back toward her. I struggled to come up with, “Umm…¿Comida?”
Her eyes came to life. She smiled. Her teeth were in fact white and even. “Si,” she said. “¿Habla español?”
I shook my head, sighed. “Do I speak Spanish? Poquito. Not much. My Spanish is ’bout as good as George W. Bush’s English.”
Either she was as Republican as Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity, or she didn’t understand enough English to get my joke. I said, “Habla español. Poquito.”
She nodded, defeated. “Oh. Si.”
“You speak much English?” I asked her.
“English,” she said. She sounded it out as Eng-glaysh. “No, English.”
I smiled at her, said, “You’ll learn in due time.” I knew she didn’t understand my words but my smile was universal. I was an ally, a friend. “Probably learn it watching ‘Flavor of Love’ or something.”
She smiled in return, said, “You…muy linda.”
“Me? Very pretty?” My smile widened. I was touched. I nodded to her, returned the compliment, “Muy linda, uh, tambien.” Tambien meant too or also, if I remembered my high school Spanish correctly.
“Si. Si. Tank joo.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
I looked out the window again. Out in the yard, Uncle Roscoe turned off the hose. Jimmy continued removing all that crap from the truck, placed it in neat stacks by the garage. A
small man, with the same color as the woman in the kitchen, stood off to the side, shuffling back and forth between watching the house or my uncle and cousin. More than once he’d attempted to help, more than once Uncle Roscoe had shooed him away like a pesky fly. The small brown man looked like he was itching to work, to use his hands, to get dirty. In Mexico, Guatemala or wherever he was from, a man worked. Hard.
The woman in the kitchen with me, she had a glow to her skin. The kind that came from good sex. Good hard sex. I imagined her and the small brown man got it on pretty heavy. Maybe I needed to start shopping in the Goya section for my next man. You think?
I turned away from the window. I wanted to ask the woman if she had children, if the small man was her husband, her esposo. She seemed kind and pleasant, all the qualities needed in a mother. So hopefully she had children. I hoped the small man, if he was in fact her esposo, didn’t steal from her and lie to her at every turn. She deserved so much more than that. All of us women did.
“Muy linda,” the woman repeated, letting the words hang in the air like a song.
Second time she’d called me pretty. Suddenly I felt a bit uncomfortable. I hoped she wasn’t looking at life through Rosie O’Donnell shades. Hoped that wasn’t her view. I’d caught some bad breaks with these knee-grows, for sure, but not enough to go deep sea diving. That wasn’t a good look for this black woman.
I said, “Still ended up as a man’s doormat, no matter how pretty I am.”
Puzzlement found her eyes again. “¿Que?”
“My esposo,” I paused, thought, came up with, “he not very bien.”
She shook her head, clucked her teeth. “He asshole, yes?”
I laughed. She got it. Despite the language barrier, she got it. Didn’t matter where you were from. Men were a thorn. Some woman was on Venus right then, upset at her no-good man, telling him, “Bounce your ass back to Mars, please.”
I said, “Mucho asshole, yes.”
She laughed then. “Mucho asshole.” More laughter. “Mucho asshole.”
Before I could tell her more about the ways of the knee-grow species, the front door of the trailer home blew open. Interrupted that tender moment between two women that weren’t warring with one another over some no-good man. A man could manipulate and divide two women like Moses parted the Red Sea. It was a terrible truth about my gender. We were gullible when it came to our men.
Counterfeit Wives Page 3
