Tell Me No Lies

by Nikki- Michelle

  “You could be right, but it was just something I wasn’t prepared to endure today.”

  “Baby, we talked about this, remember?” he asked me while his hands caressed the back of my head.

  Jamie’s voice was so smooth and calming. His baritone was dulcet. Sometimes just hearing it made me putty in his hands, and his attentiveness was a drug.

  I nodded. “I know. I know.” I sighed. “It’s just frustrating, is all.”

  “I know, but remember we said we would take it one day at a time. And you have me right here in your corner every step of the way. You don’t have to suffer through this alone.”

  I smiled up at him and laid my head on his lap. He’d always known just the right things to say to lift my spirits. After a few more minutes of idle talk, I let the water out of the tub before we both moved to the shower together. I was up around his waist as the water washed over us. Jamie made me feel like I was a size two when I was twelve. I had lost a few pounds over the last year, had gone from a size sixteen to a size twelve over a period of months. With Jamie’s help in the gym, and a lot of stress, it hadn’t been that hard. The whole thing with Stephanie had taken its toll on me, mind, body, and spirit. I swear, if I hadn’t had Jamie in my corner, I probably would have ended up in the nuthouse. He was against me losing weight. If it had been left up to him, I’d still be a healthy size sixteen. I had no complaints about my old size, but I couldn’t say I didn’t like the way my clothes had started to fit and look on me.

  I found my back against the wall, with his head between my thick thighs. It had become clear that Jamie had a fetish for performing oral sex on the female persuasion, and I got to enjoy it almost every night. I never got tired of it. There was something about the way he took the time to part my yoni lips with his tongue and lick between the folds that got to me. The way he would then use his tongue to penetrate me always sent me right over the edge, not to mention the way he French-kissed my pearl. I called him a pussy connoisseur, because that was what he was.

  Gabe

  “How’re you feeling about the stuff you’re seeing on the news, Pop?” I asked my father as we sat outside on his patio.

  My father reminded me of an old-school gangster at times. He was always dressed to the nines, casket sharp, as he’d once joked. His feet were never adorned in anything less than Italian leather or something niftier. Everything he wore was tailor made to fit his lofty, muscled physique. His look was an illustrious one, and if it wasn’t the best, he didn’t want it. That included women. He’d been flying back and forth to Atlanta from Nassau since Stephanie’s trial had started. I had to hand it to him; he was going to be there for her no matter what. I guess as her father, he was supposed to. He’d gone through a lot since that incident with Stephanie as well. Being that he was an ex-chief of police, his reputation had been called into question, which put a strain on him.

  My relationship with my pops was a pretty cool one. We had had our fights, especially since the mess with Stephanie. My pops had a way with words, just like his children did, but I loved the man plain and simple, although I’d never quite understood the relationship between him, my mother, and Stephanie’s mom. I knew the story behind it, yes. Did I understand the method to their madness? No. My father was a man who believed he should be able to have whatever he wanted. He’d struck out with my mother in the beginning.

  They’d met when my mom was seventeen. He’d been the new cat in town. Being that his family came from old-world money—the slave masters had left money to my father’s great-grandparents—it was easy to see why he’d caught a lot of women’s eyes. Not to mention, my pops wasn’t a bad-looking dude. He was twenty-two at the time, so my mom said that the age difference was one thing that made her kind of stay away from him. She’d liked him from the moment he stepped out of his 1974 Charger and walked into her father’s store. My dad and his family had moved to Jonesboro, Georgia, for political reasons: my grandfather had been running for Congress.

  Pops said he was taken with my mom as soon as he saw her behind the counter, but my mom said she quickly lost interest in my father after her best friend started to like him. My mom and Stephanie’s mom, Cecilia, were best friends until my dad stepped into the picture. According to my mother, Cecilia had known she had a crush on my father, because my mom had told her. That didn’t stop Cecilia from going after him, anyway, and that was when the drama ensued. The thing that confused me the most out of all of this was the fact that my father claimed he was taken with my mother as well.

  So how did he end up married to Cecilia? Since my mother was no longer paying him any attention, he went with what was right in his face. And that was how it pretty much went, until a year later, when my mom lost both her parents all in one month. She had nobody after that. She was eighteen and was in her first year of college when they both died within weeks of each other. First, my grandmother died silently in her sleep. My mom had always told me that she believe her father died of a broken heart, because a couple of weeks later he too passed on while he slept.

  My mom’s parents were never really close to their families, since neither family approved of one dating the other. My grandmother was a black woman with Choctaw blood, and my grandfather was white mixed with Cherokee. My grandparents had caused all kinds of fuss within their families when they started dating, but according to my mom, they loved each other regardless. After their passing, my mom was left all alone. That was when my father found his opening. Cecilia and my mom were still friends up until that point. Then, on the day of my grandfather’s funeral, when no one else was there for my mom, my father was. One thing led to another, as they say, and I was created. The story just goes downhill from there, depending on how you look at it.

  “I’m feeling like I wish they would find something else to talk about, but you know how this goes, son. This shit won’t be over till it’s over.”

  I slid him another glass of liquor as the grill smoked and put the smell of barbecue in the air. I’d driven to his house out in Duluth. We’d been sitting out on his patio, enjoying the view and small talk. His yard was a massive landscape and went on for miles. There was even a nature trail, which he sometimes jogged along just to keep in shape. Just beyond the wrought-iron gates was a golf course, which most of the men in the neighborhood frequented. The backdrop was a perfect picture of fall, with brown, red, and orange leaves billowing in the wind. It was pretty warm for February. The weather had been crazy. It seemed as if it had gone from fall right into spring, skipping winter altogether.

  “How’s Cecilia handling it?”

  “Do you see her out here? She’s staying as far away as possible. She’s even blaming me, saying I should have forced Aric to make Chyanne have an abortion.”

  My father sighed and took a sip of the rum and Coke he had been nursing. I watched the way his graying locks swayed as he shook his head. The stress of it all was getting to him.

  “Pop, you couldn’t have made Aric do anything. You already know that, and who knows what would have happened if you had tried to force him?”

  “I know, son. I know, but she’s been going at me hard these last few months. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

  I had to chuckle and take a swallow of my Corona before looking back at my father. “Pop, Cecilia has always been that way. What do you mean, you don’t know what’s gotten into her?” I chuckled again, shaking my head.

  His eyes locked on mine, and I couldn’t read his face. “I know my wife, Gabe. What y’all see sometimes isn’t what I see.”

  I wanted to say something to counter what he’d said, but I didn’t want to be disrespectful to my father. “Okay.”

  We were both quiet after that. He and I had had plenty of disagreements when it came to him, my sister, and her mother.

  “How’s Dixie?” he asked after a while.

  “I don’t know, Dad. Why don’t you call her and find out?”

  He cut his eyes at me and asked again, “How’s your mom, s
on?”

  I got up and walked to the grill. “She’s fine. She sprained her ankle while she was training for this marathon she wants to run. Other than that, she’s okay,” I said, flipping the chicken and ribs.

  “She still over there in Fayetteville?”

  I gave an amused chuckle and turned to my father. “Pops, I know you know that she’s still living in the same place she’s been for the last five years.”

  All he did was grunt and look away. My mom had finally moved back to Georgia five years ago, because she’d missed home. My father would never come right out and say he still loved my mother, but I knew he did. He would put on a front for me, like I didn’t know about the nights he’d gone to see my mother after I’d gone off to college. Even when he’d moved us to New York, he’d still fly out to be with her. I’d known because she told me. My mom had always been honest with me about everything. Not to mention the nights when I was a teenager and I would wake up to the sound of his voice as he sweet-talked my mother right out of her clothes. I wouldn’t mention those mornings when I would wake up and we would all eat breakfast together and pretend we were a family, if only for that short period of time. Then he would have to get back to the real world.

  “She still seeing that pastor?” he asked.

  “No, she isn’t. She was technically never seeing him in the first place. They were friends.”

  “A man isn’t just friends with a woman that looks like your mother, son. Don’t fall for that.”

  “Pop, Mom isn’t and wasn’t into Pastor Robinson like that.”

  “She may not have been, but he sure as hell was into her.”

  “How do you know?”

  He finally looked back over at me before he stood and polished off his drink. “I may have had a talk or two with the man.”

  “Really?” I asked, tickled, because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Shut up, boy. Don’t make fun of your father.”

  “Why don’t you just—”

  “Have you spoken with Aric about the case lately?” he asked, cutting me off. “How’s he taking it?”

  I shook my head and decided to let it go for the moment. “He’s holding on to the little sanity he had pretty well. He’s just trying to shelter his son and keep it from breaking Chyanne.”

  I tried not to mention Aric’s name in front of my father unless he did first. He and Aric had been on bad terms, as expected. My father had even been pissed at me for remaining friends with Aric, but Pops had been on the outside, looking in. I knew the whole story since I’d been there from the beginning. Aric and I had been down the road of fighting about him putting his hands on Stephanie. The first time he found out that she’d cheated on him, Stephanie had come running to me. As a man, with her being my sister, best friend or not, he had to be handled. That was the first time Aric and I had fought. I was no punk, and neither was Aric, so it ended only when we were pulled apart.

  I’d been trying to defend my sister’s honor regardless of all the shit she’d put me through, but what she did afterward fucked me up. She attacked me, came at me, screaming and yelling about fighting with Aric. I didn’t understand that shit. There I was, bruised and bleeding because she’d had me believe that she was in danger from a man I considered my friend. I’d been the one who was almost arrested, and were it not for Aric stepping in, I would have been. From that moment on, I never stepped into their relationship again. I’d say a few words to Aric now and again just to make sure he kept his head on straight, but that was as far as I’d go.

  My father nodded and moved over to the smoker, which was built like a fireplace chimney, to check on his homemade barbecue sauce.

  “Is he still messing with that girl?”

  “Nah. She’s moved on. She’s in another relationship and all.”

  He grunted and shook his head after closing the lid to the pot and turned to me. “So all that shit and they aren’t even together? Was it worth it?”

  “For him it was, Pop. I don’t know what Stephanie had been telling you, but she put the man through hell, Dad. When he broke, he broke.”

  “Still, when you marry someone, it’s for better or worse, ’til death do you part. You don’t let outside pussy influence your decision on your home.”

  I had to grit my teeth, because I almost called him on his statement about outside pussy. I wanted to ask him if he was talking about my mother too. I cracked my knuckles and rolled my shoulders to keep composed.

  “Shit, Stephanie almost made that part a reality,” I said, giving a slight frown.

  “Yeah, but my baby girl just didn’t wake up crazy one morning. Something drove her there.”

  “Yeah, your wife.”

  Too late I realized I’d said that too loud. His gaze narrowed on me. My dad was big on protecting his family, his home, and his name. There had been many times when I was at their house as a kid and I would overhear Cecilia telling Stephanie to never trust a woman. She would tell her that bitches who called themselves your friend couldn’t even be trusted. I would also hear her tell Stephanie to never let anyone do anything to her and get away with it. Cecilia was an evil woman in my eyes. There were so many things that I had yet to tell my father when it came to the stories of what Stephanie and her mother had put me through.

  His dark eyes frowned as he looked over at me. Those were the same looks he would give me when my mother used to call him and complain when I would get beside myself as a teenager. It was a look that said he was two seconds from putting his foot in my ass. However, times had changed, and I was a grown man standing eye to eye with the man who’d helped to create me. I was my father’s son, so if he was going to swing, then so would I.

  “Excuse me? Say that again,” he said, moving a step closer to me as he folded his muscled arms across his chest.

  “Look, Dad, I don’t even want to go there with you right now. Just forget I said anything.”

  “Too late for that, son. The bag has been opened, and worms are falling out. Man up and state your case, boy.”

  The way he told me to man up made me roll my shoulders, almost made me turn away and ignore him, but I didn’t. He’d called me a boy too. It wasn’t the way a white man would have called you a boy, in a racist fashion. It was my father’s way of telling me to stay in my place. I was still his son, and he wanted to make sure I didn’t forget it.

  “Okay. I’m saying that you don’t pay attention to a lot of the stuff that goes on.”

  “Like what, Gabriel?”

  “Like the fact that Cecilia has always whispered in Stephanie’s ear, and Stephanie has always obeyed like she was a damn puppet.”

  He sighed and exhaled. “Go on.”

  “Not to mention all the shit I had to endure because of Stephanie. She’s not the angel you always think she is, Dad.”

  “Explain. All of what shit?” he asked, his eyes narrowing in frustration

  I could see his anger rise with his visible change in breathing.

  “She told everybody and anybody who would listen that my mother was your whore. Do you know how many times Cecilia would come to Mom’s house, beat on the door? She would be bat-shit drunk but would want to fight my mother. I may have been only five or six when that part happened, but I remember it.”

  “What kind of shit you trying to pull with me right now, Gabriel? You think I need any of this shit right now? Do you think your mother is my whore?”

  He was talking with his hands. I had to sit my beer down when I saw a chair go flying. I didn’t want to go heads up with my father, but if he took it there, I would have no choice.

  I held up my hands. “My mother is no man’s whore. I’m just saying when it comes to Stephanie and her mother, you can’t see the forest for looking at the trees. I don’t know why, but that’s the way you are when it comes to them. They can do no wrong in your eyes. Mom would never say anything, because she was always on some guilt trip when it came to you and her. Do you know how many times I’ve had to
watch the way you ignore what’s going on right in front of you?”

  “So now I’m an idiot?”

  “That’s not what I said, Pop.”

  “I heard what you said, son. Trust me on that. I’m just wondering why you’ve been holding your tongue so damn long,” he retorted. “Seems as if that shit has been sitting on your chest for a long-ass time.”

  I thumbed my nose and gave a less than amused chuckle. My father had a way with words. The way he dipped his head, then gave a coarse chuckle of his own, let me know he was being mordant. He believed in giving you enough rope to hang yourself before he walked in to help you finish the job. I mimicked him in the way he glared at me from across the patio. My father didn’t really care who you were. If he felt you were trying to be snide with him, he’d give you his ass to kiss like he did anyone else.

  “No need for the rhetoric, Pops. I’m just giving it to you straight, no chaser. I said what I had to say. Take it or leave it.”

  He spit on the ground but never took his eyes off me. He gave a grimace, like what I’d said to him was repugnant.

  “I’ll leave that shit for now. I don’t have time for no sibling rivalry bullshit. Your sister could be on her way to prison,” he said. “That’s my concern.”

  I didn’t even say anything else after that. What would have been the point? Obviously, he didn’t hear what I was trying to say to him, so I let the shit go. There was no sibling rivalry, as he’d put it. I was simply stating the facts. That whole comment about outside pussy had rubbed me the wrong way. It had me wanting to go ask my mother if she knew she was regarded only as outside pussy. Yeah, I was a little ticked off, so it was best that I kept my mouth shut until I was more lucid. My anger might cause me to say something that I couldn’t take back.

  My father didn’t say anything else to me. He walked into his home and didn’t come back out, not even to eat the food we’d cooked. When he was mad, he didn’t like to be bothered, and neither did I, for that matter, so his exit was welcomed.