by Kiki Leach
“It was just calling me,” Sheila continued, ignoring her; she raised her hand and balled a fist. “Begging for me to ride on top of it even when I tried like hell to ignore it.”
“Shit--”
“And we went around and around like a Merry-Go-Round and up and down and up and down like a sea-saw.”
“I can’t believe this shit, I cannot believe this shit--”
“Rocked back and forth like a rocking chair as he pushed all up inside of me while I straddled his lap.” She shut her eyes and pushed out her lips. “The moment I saw him,” she went on, “he just seemed to have all of this pent up energy and anger after being locked up in that cell. And I know that what we did was more about himself, and probably about you than it was about me, which it most often is. Even still, I managed to cave in like an idiot, just like I always do when it comes to him and the looks he gives. My body just can’t seem to resist him, or his hands, even if he’s not as good with them or his dick as he thinks he is compared to Adrian, who really showed me the way, V.”
“It’s never ending--” She reached out for the button on her speaker and called for Samantha, who had yet to return to her desk.
“For the first time I actually knew what it felt like to make love to someone in being with Adrian. I didn’t realize it the first time we were together, I just knew that it felt different. I couldn’t really understand why until that second time that morning. The second time is when I felt it hit me straight in the heart. And when we looked at each other as he held me--”
“Okay, that’s it.” Vanessa shoved herself away from the desk and dropped her hands to her lap, shrugging. “I’m entirely fucking done with this conversation. We’re not girlfriends who can sit around and talk about this shit because I don’t give a damn who you’re fucking unless you’re trying for a triathlon and Maurice is next on the list. Look, you asked me before you started babbling on like an idiot what you should do? Here’s a thought, get your ass to the nearest clinic and make sure that the only thing you’ve been passing back and forth between these men is your body and nothing more.”
“We use condoms.” She looked aside. “For the most part.”
“What?”
“Adrian and I used a condom the first time. But the second time just sort of happened and we weren’t prepared. And if I had reached for one with Nathan before we got started, he would’ve known something was up because we’ve barely used them throughout our entire relationship -- !”
“Goodbye, Sheila,” she replied as she returned to her computer. “Whatever the hell happens to you as a result of this is on you and nobody else this time.”
“Fine.” Sheila snatched her purse and stood up straight. “I just thought I could come down here for a little friendly advice since you weren’t trying to toss me out on my ass when I came to your house before --”
“No.” She angrily dropped her hands to the keyboard. “Don’t play that victim bullshit here with me. You wanted to come here and boast about getting laid back to back, just like you wanted to boast about fucking Adrian the first time. You used blaming me as a bullshit excuse to get inside the building, which I’ll be forced to talk to security about again. Now leave.”
Sheila stared at her before moving toward the door. “I was serious about needing some advice. Especially since I have to meet Adrian for lunch in an hour and he wants me to--”
“LOOK, I just gave you some damn advice, alright? And I don’t care what Adrian wants. Get thee to a fucking clinic. If a virus isn’t what’s dangling between your legs, in nine months it’ll be something else.”
Sheila smacked her purse against the door and flew down the hallway and toward the elevator.
Vanessa sat back and turned her mouth downward, recalling every vile word Sheila had just relayed.
“Blech!”
She wiggled in her chair and reached down into one of her drawers for a bottle of antibacterial gel. She squeezed golf ball sized portions into both hands and rubbed it across every exposed part of her body. Just thinking of Sheila with either man, let alone both in the same day, made her skin crawl.
Part Twenty-Eight
A few hours later, Nikki breezed into her office and knocked on her door.
“Hey V,” she called out. “Are you ready for lunch?”
“Yeah, just a second,” Vanessa replied, never taking her eyes off of the computer screen while continuing to type out her memo. “Let me just get a few more words in here for my mother before she calls me out on it being too short to hand out to the employees, and then we can go.”
“Alright.” Nikki took a seat on the couch and crossed her legs. Then she looked around the office and furrowed her brows. “Is there something different in here?” she asked. “The space looks so much bigger for some reason.”
Vanessa paused. “The couch is smaller. I got rid of the old one yesterday.”
“Why?”
“I guess I just felt like I needed a change in here and the old one didn’t really fit the decorum anymore. But it’s still in storage because I can’t seem to get rid of it. Like a lot of things in my life that could use some getting rid of.” She sighed. “How was rehearsal today?”
She bobbed her head and lifted her wrist to wave her hand back and forth. “It was okay. But the closer opening night gets, the more nerve wrecking everything else becomes.”
“I can imagine.” She glanced over at Nikki before returning her eyes back to the computer. “In the meantime, who do you actually plan to take with you as your date that night?”
She chucked. “Why are you asking that like I wouldn’t take William?”
“Oh I don’t know. Maybe because after what you told me last night about still being in love with Oscar, I thought he might be an option for you now too? Or, again?” She finished typing up her last word and dropped back in her chair.
Nikki made a face and turned her head. “Don’t start with me about that right now, V.”
“I’m not starting anything,” she said. “But what you said gave me a little food for thought before I finally managed to fall asleep, and I do think after everything that went down in the Hamptons and in front of my mother, that I have at least some right to ask that kind of question. Now it’s more than just still being in love with him, isn’t it?”
Nikki dropped her eyes down to her hands and wiggled her fingers against each other to keep herself distracted. After a few seconds of silence passed between them, she stopped and lifted her head.
“We slept together the same day we all came back home from the Hamptons,” she said. “I didn’t even have time to unpack my bags yet before he showed up at William’s door asking to talk to me about his impending divorce. William had gone out to see about his daughter in Connecticut and so it was just the two of us.”
“Are you telling me that you and Oscar fucked somewhere inside of William’s house?” she asked. Her non answer told Vanessa everything she didn’t want to know. She rolled her eyes up into her head and gagged while muttering, “Great.”
“But it was one time,” stated Nikki. “One. And then a few more after.”
“Good grief, Nik.”
“He keeps saying that he wants more than that.”
“And you believe him this time?”
“I want to,” she said. “But I also feel like William might be better for both me and my career. Todos es simplemente tan complicada. What made you bring him up, anyway?”
Vanessa slammed her head back against the chair and exhaled nosily. “Melanie,” she told her. “I didn’t want to talk about it last night because I was still too pissed to even bring it up, but I saw her with Mo when I was on my way to work yesterday. She was practically humping his leg outside of that new popup market around the corner from my office, and making snide remarks when I asked her what the hell she was doing hanging around with him when she’s still married.”
Nikki arched her brows. “What did Maurice have to say about it?”
“
He couldn’t say too much since he had to be all grateful to her thirsty ass for bailing him out of jail.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
“Yeah. The bail was apparently 40k. He only had half on him to get out and claims that she came up with the other half.”
Nikki laughed, though unintentionally. “Are you serious, V?”
“As a fucking heart attack in an old folks home.” She tightened her arms around her chest. “That bitch is planning something, I can just feel it. She’s like Nathan, only sneakier because she hides her shit behind that blond hair and those mysterious eyes and that perfect fucking smile.”
“I know that smile,” said Nikki. “I hate that smile.”
“I’m beginning to hate it too. I can’t even look at her cover anymore without wanting to throw darts at it or send it straight down into the shredder.”
Nikki sighed deeply, afraid to ask her next question, but feeling the need to do so anyway.
“Do you think she’s sleeping with him?”
Vanessa quickly shook her head. “No. Now that I’ve seen the way he looks at her, I don’t think he has any desire to see her naked.”
Nikki tilted her head and questioned. “Really?”
Vanessa wrinkled her nose, irritated at the lift in her voice. “He might have some, he has a dick for fucks’ sake. But I don’t think he wants to have sex with her. Not like he still wants it from me.” She rested her elbow on her chair and pointed to her chest with her index. “I own that dick,” she said. “Even if we’re not together right now, I still own that dick. And his heart. She’s never getting either one.”
Nikki smiled. “That sounds like a bad rumble in the Bronx.”
“More like a beat down in the Bronx. Not that someone like her would actually be caught dead outside of Manhattan unless it’s back to the Hamptons.”
Samantha knocked on the door and peeked her head inside. “Your mother’s on her way down,” she said in a hushed voice. She peeked behind her, then quickly turned back. “She apparently just heard about Nathan and Maurice’s arrests.”
Vanessa pinched the bridge of her nose and dropped her head. “Aw, shit.”
Nikki panicked and whipped her head around to her friend. “You didn’t tell her about that yet?”
“No. I’ve been trying to avoid her as much as I can since it all happened.” She bent forward and whispered. “I haven’t even told her that I was pregnant with Adrian’s child!”
“What the hell is this?” asked Alexis, shoving Samantha out of the way and holding up the Daily News with a side by side picture of Maurice and Nathan on the front cover
Vanessa shot back in her chair and turned straight ahead as Nikki tried to sit as still as a statue to remain unnoticed. But Alexis peeked at her from the corner of her eye.
“My daughter and I need to have a word,” she said, stern. “I suggest you wait in the hallway.”
Nikki looked up at her and gulped. “Yes, Ma’am.” She jumped up from the couch and went to the door.
“Oh, and Nicole?”
Nikki rested her hand on the frame, then dropped it and slowly spun around like a mannequin atop a spinning wheel. She gulped again. “Yes.”
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about every little thing that you said to me in the Hamptons. Nor have I forgotten about your indecent relationship with a man old enough to be your father.”
She nodded and peeked over Alexis’s shoulder, glaring at Vanessa.
“Mother, just let her go, okay? Whatever is going on between them is still none of your concern.”
Alexis turned her head to the side and gave her daughter that ‘don’t test me’ look that Vanessa easily picked up on. Before she could say anything else, Nikki was on her way out the door, gesturing to Vanessa that she would be waiting downstairs in the lobby.
After making sure she was gone, Alexis closed the door and hurried toward Vanessa’s desk, slamming the paper down on top of it. “This scene,” she said, “is starting to look all too familiar to me.”
“I can’t believe they even bothered to still print this considering how long it’s been.” Vanessa leaned up and shrugged. “But at least I wasn’t directly involved this time.”
“Indirectly,” Alexis replied. “Turn to page forty-three and read the fine print.”
Vanessa picked up the paper, flipped to the page and hovered her glasses over the tiny printed letters located at the bottom of the article.
“Reportedly,” she started as she read, “the brawl took place at none other than the home of Vanessa Rae Brown, current Editor-In-Chief of the” – she moved closer to read the smaller bits of print – “sales slumping Attitude Magazine?!” She tossed the paper back. “Assholes. Overnight our sales shot UP from last quarter.” She placed her glasses next to her keyboard and rubbed her head.
“Girl, I don’t give a damn about that right now. What the hell happened inside your damn house last night? And if Adrian wasn’t the issue, was Nathan the reason you and Maurice are no longer together? What the hell was he doing there to begin with?”
Vanessa wavered on whether or not she wanted to tell her mother the entire truth, or bits and pieces.
Alexis wagged her finger as she sat down in the chair before Vanessa’s desk. “Don’t you TELL ME that you were even THINKING of getting back with that vile little snipper after what he did--”
“I wasn’t – I’m not, I’m completely past that.”
“Then what the hell was he doing inside your home?!”
“He came by to tell me about Adrian and the reason he brought him down to the Hamptons in the first place. Maurice showed up a little while later and that’s when all hell broke loose.”
“My God, girl.” She lay back in the chair. “Drama, drama, drama just seems to follow you wherever you go.”
“I’ve heard that tune before, Mother, and not too long ago at that, if I can recall. Maybe it’s about time you finally stop singing.”
“I’ll stop singing it when YOU finally stop living it.” She rested her head in her hand and sighed. “Were you the one who decided to have them arrested or were they so loud that the neighbors decided to call instead?”
“I had them arrested, and I won’t apologize for thinking they deserved it for being such idiots and tearing up my house like two animals in the street.”
“This is the reason you no longer wanted Felicia’s birthday dinner at your house for tonight.”
“I didn’t want you all coming over and asking questions about the railing that got broken in the middle of it all. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t think it would ever actually blow up like this.” She thought a moment and moved her head about. “Maybe I did, but I at least hoped it would be something that wouldn’t get out like almost everything else.” She pressed her palm against her forehead and wiggled it back and forth. “Maurice may be screwed out of his job and it’ll be all my fault for putting him in this position.”
“Don’t you dare go blaming yourself for what he did, girl. I love that boy as if he were my own son and maybe someday you two will get it together and actually make it happen on paper. But if he and Nathan got into that fight, then it’s all on the two of them and has nothing to do with you.”
She winced. “Mmmm, except it kinda does.”
Alexis breathed in heavily and pressed her thumb and forefinger together. “I was trying very hard, Vanessa, to give you the benefit of the doubt. Thank you for proving to me once again that I should always follow my instincts. Now tell me.” She slid forward in the chair and rested her hands in her lap. “How are you involved in all of this, aside from the obvious?”
“Before we left for the Hamptons…” She paused and pressed her lips together, nervous. She waved her hand back and forth a few times which made Alexis nervous.
“Spit it out, girl!”
“Before we left for the Hamptons, Nathan sort of caught Maurice and I having sex.”
Alexis closed her eyes and arched he
r brows. Then she bit the inside of her lip and wrinkled her nose. “Were you two in public?” she asked, attempting to remain calm.
“Of course not. I’ve done a lot of things, but I’m not Sheila for eff’s sake.”
“Then how could he have seen the two of you together, Vanessa?”
“After Mo and I left your house, we were sort of feeling each other a little too much and I guess forget to lock the front door. Nathan came by to talk to me that night about Adrian and long story short, found us together upstairs.”
She pressed her fingers directly between her eyes and leaned forward. “My God. And that’s what led to what happened there.” She pointed to the paper.
“Yes, but not exactly.”
“What the hell does that mean?” she snapped.
“It means that when Nathan came over again, on the night that fight took place, he was coming to tell me the reason he brought Adrian to the Hamptons.”
“Which was…?”
“Seeing Maurice and I together. After he told me, I went ballistic and we got into a fight; words were said, dishes were thrown at his head. Not long after, Maurice showed up. And then we got into a fight, but the end result was somewhat different.”
Alexis glared.
“Nathan didn’t catch us again or anything like that,” Vanessa continued. “Well, I mean he almost did, but nothing went as far as it did the first time.”
“And that is what led to this.” She pointed to the paper again.
“Yeah.”
“Which is also the reason you and Maurice aren’t together now.”
She pressed her lips together and hummed. “Um…”
Alexis placed both hands on her head. “Oh my God, girl, WHAT?”
“I didn’t want to say anything to you about this, because I don’t want you to think of Mo as a bad person. Because I don’t think of him as a bad person, I just think he did a really stupid thing. He thought it was for the right reasons and I understood his intentions, but--”
