Tell Me No Lies

by Nikki- Michelle

  Hours later Chyanne and I were sitting in front of the TV. Dr. Phil was on, and we were just lounging around. She was going through the DVR, watching all the shows she’d missed. AJ was asleep in his bed. He’d fallen asleep after dinner. I couldn’t bring myself to cook dinner, so I’d called for takeout, Chinese. In order not to think about my uncle being out of jail, I pretended to pay attention to what was on the television. Some woman was confessing to her husband the number of men she’d really had sex with before she married him. I didn’t even think things like that should be important. Who cared what their lover had done before them?

  “Oh my God, Jamie, that woman has slept with over two hundred men. Goodness,” Chyanne commented as her head lay in my lap.

  I only pretended to be listening, not really caring one way or the other. The fact that my uncle was out of prison kept replaying over and over in my head. I couldn’t get the images and nightmares of him out of my head. I thought about my mother and wondered if she was safe. Sometimes I hated the woman. Other times I missed the mother she never was.

  I shrugged. “So what?”

  She sat up and looked at me. “So you would be okay if I’d slept with that many men?”

  The look on her face was one of incredulity.

  I shook my head as I responded, “Who cares what you did before me? As long as you’re clean and take care of your body, I don’t really care.”

  She studied my face like she was waiting on me to say I was joking, but I wasn’t.

  “Seriously, Jamie?”

  “Seriously.”

  “But you can’t tell me that you aren’t at least happy I opened up to you about how many men I’d let have sex with me, right? And that it’s nowhere near her number, not even close?”

  I watched the way her hair moved around as she spoke. She was beautiful in every sense of the word. Her skin was glowing; her eyes were bright. Almost made me forget about the things plaguing my mind. Almost . . .

  “Sure. It’s good to know that your woman hasn’t been around the block, but I wouldn’t judge you if you had.”

  I’d answered her by rote. Wasn’t as confident in that answer as I should have been. She smiled, then leaned in to kiss me. I returned the kiss as my hand came around to stroke and caress her waist. After a brief moment of affection she went back to watching the interracial couple on TV. The white woman was crying her eyes out because of all the dick she’d had inside of her, and the black man looked as if he was about to be put back on the auction block for sale. He was appalled, disgusted.

  My thoughts drifted off. I didn’t know to where, because I zoned out. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t focus after that phone call. My hands actually started to shake. I got up to go to the restroom. When Chyanne asked me why I didn’t use the one downstairs, the closer one, I shrugged it off. Told her because I needed something out of the room as well. It was a lie. I needed to get to my medication. By the time I walked back in, Dr. Phil was suggesting counseling to the couple and Chyanne was shaking her head. I sat down, hoping the effects of the pills would kick in soon.

  “Jamie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask you a question?” she asked, looking up at me.

  “Yeah,” I half answered, only casting a glance in her direction.

  “How many women have you had sex with?”

  I turned to look in her eyes, not sure why she was asking me that. “What?”

  “How many women have you had sex with?”

  She watched my reaction closely.

  “Why?”

  “I just wanted to know, because we never talked about it.”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “No, we didn’t. You know how many men I’ve had sex with, but we didn’t talk about you.”

  There was a look on her face that told me she wasn’t going to let it go.

  “Can you tell me why you want to know, though,”—I shrugged, then licked my lips—“all of a sudden?”

  “I just want to know, Jamie. Is it a problem?”

  I sat forward and ran a hand through my locks before sighing. I rested my elbows on my knees and thought long and hard about what she was asking. I had to be honest, right? Because I’d just given her this whole speech about honesty the week before, when she confessed to a Judas kiss.

  “You sure you want to know?” I asked her.

  I could tell my answer shocked her by the way her brows rose. For some reason her legs started to shake.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  I stared at her for a long time before answering.

  “A lot, Chyanne. I don’t really know how many. I just know it was a lot, though.”

  A shadow overtook her face. I’d already known she wouldn’t be able to handle that truth. Her mouth was hanging open as she gawked at me. I was no longer her Mr. Perfect.

  “Are you serious, Jamie?”

  “Yes, I’m serious.”

  “Over a hundred?” she asked.

  I shrugged and brushed my locks back. “Could be more, Chyanne. I didn’t really keep tabs after a while. For a while I was having sex with a different woman every day, sometimes two or three a day.”

  She slowly stood and looked at me. “Oh my God . . .”

  I didn’t say anything to her, just gauged her reaction to the news. When she asked me if I was serious, I knew she was looking at me differently. But I wasn’t joking. I was serious. I stopped counting the number of women I’d had sex with after I went past a hundred. Sex had always been an issue or a nonissue for me, depending on how you looked at it. It was only in the past two years that I’d calmed down. I wasn’t a sex addict or any shit like that. I just liked sex.

  “My God, Jamie. Two or three women a day?” she asked in total disbelief. “Next, you’re going to be telling me you slept with men too,” she all but yelled.

  My eyes darkened as I looked at her, my leg started to shake, and my nerves teetered on the edge. I roughly dragged my hand over my face but didn’t respond.

  “Oh my God . . .”

  She sounded like she was out of breath, like she was about to faint. My silence spoke for me. She was shaking her head and slowly backing away from me, like she wanted to run off. I stood, then reached to grab her wrist.

  “Chyanne, stop,” I said as I looked down at her.

  Tears sprang to her eyes as she tried to pull away from me. My insides felt like they were being twisted, and my heart rate had my heart beating against my rib cage. It was my moment of truth.

  “Let me go, Jamie. I . . . I can’t believe this. Let me go,” she yelled at me.

  If I hadn’t grabbed her other hand, she would have swung at me and connected.

  “Listen to me. Just listen,” I pleaded with her, snatching her close to me. “I’m not gay.”

  She tensed up but didn’t stop struggling in my hold. She would have to listen to me tonight. She was forcing my hand, making me disclose things that I’d rather leave hidden. For a while I questioned if I even had to tell her. She could possibly look at me differently . . . like she was doing just before. She was adamant that I let her go. And I would . . . as soon as I told her the truth.

  “When I was ten years old,” I began, then took a deep breath and blew out steam. I could feel the sweat forming on my head. “When I was ten years old, my uncle attacked me. He raped me. . . . I . . . am not gay, and I haven’t . . .”

  She stopped moving and just looked up at me with her mouth agape. I couldn’t even bring myself to say anything else aloud. Just the fact that I had told her that truth grieved me. I hadn’t told another soul, other than the people back home who’d known. I was not gay and had never been with a man sexually . . . unless you counted what my uncle had done to me, how he’d violated me as a young boy. She blinked rapidly, then slowly, like she was trying to see me for the first time.

  I dropped my hold on her, then walked out of the front room. I couldn’t stomach standing there and watching the look of pity that had taken over her featur
es. I’d had enough fucking pity to last me a lifetime, not to mention the fact that just minutes before I felt as if she had been judging me. I even questioned if she really loved me, given her reaction to what she assumed was the truth. I grabbed my keys from the kitchen counter on my way out the door. I hopped in my car and didn’t stop driving until I made it to my loft in Atlanta.

  Chyanne

  My hands covered my face. Jamie’s words had hit me hard because I hadn’t been expecting that. His uncle had done what? I kept replaying what he said over and over in my head. For a moment, all I could do was stand there. I was dumbfounded, at a total loss for words. When he looked away to hide the ignominy and the depth of his hurt and shame, I felt like a fool for the way I’d initially reacted to everything else. I wanted to run after to him, to try to make him feel anything but rejected, but I couldn’t. My feet wouldn’t let me move.

  It wasn’t until I heard AJ calling me from his room that I moved. All he wanted was water. He was wide awake and didn’t appear to be going back to sleep anytime soon. So I just let him stay up a bit, since I didn’t feel like fussing with him about going back to sleep. Once I got him settled with a snack in front of an educational DVD on the TV, I tried calling Jamie. More than once I tried and got no answer. I sat on the couch and stared at my son. What would I have done had that happened to my son? I would either be in the nuthouse or in prison, more than likely prison. What had happened? How had it happened? Why wasn’t there anyone there to prevent it from happening? Where was this uncle? Would he be down there when we got there? If so, why hadn’t he been locked away?

  Too much had come at me all at once. I might have thought my childhood was filled with nightmares, but nothing I’d experienced could compare to what had happened to Jamie. I immediately tried to figure out how to be there for him, how to get him back home. Then the thoughts of all the women that he’d slept with came creeping back into my mind. My goodness, what could possess a person to have sex with that many people? Did he have a problem? Was it something that I should have been worried about? I guessed one good thing was that we’d both gone together to get tested for all STDs, so I knew he was clean. That was something I hadn’t even done with Aric, but Jamie had insisted that we both do it together. Nothing could have prepared me for what had been dropped on my lap. Nothing.

  My phone rang, jarring me from my mental anguish.

  I grabbed my cell. “Hello?”

  “What are you doing?”

  It was Aric.

  “Sitting here with AJ, watching one of his DVDs with him.”

  It was a semi-truth. Aric had always called to see AJ to bed, so his phone call didn’t bother me. I just didn’t want to be on the phone with him at that moment.

  “Okay. So do you have a minute?” he asked.

  I sighed. Anytime Aric wanted to talk, it was usually so he could demand that I do something concerning AJ his way or no way at all. I stood and walked into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water.

  “Sure, Aric. What’s up?”

  “Why have you been avoiding me?”

  I knew that question would come up sooner or later. I had been avoiding him, but I was sure he knew why.

  “You know the answer to that question.”

  I could hear him moving around in the background. “So you’re avoiding me because we shared a kiss?”

  “There was so much more to what you were doing, and you know it,” I fussed and slammed the water bottle down on the counter in frustration.

  I spilled some of the contents, so I grabbed a towel to wipe the counter down. His voice dropped a bit, and I swear I felt as if he was trying to hypnotize me with it. Aric’s voice had always been sexually enticing.

  “Why are you trying to act like it wasn’t?”

  “Because I have a man, and unlike you, I know he loves me. I’m not going to mess that up for you or anybody else.”

  “Yo, fuck that nigga that you think you love, Chyanne. You don’t love him. If you did, you wouldn’t have kissed me back like that.”

  His words gave me pause, and I was about to respond when I heard what sounded like music in the background. Then came a woman’s voice, asking him if he was coming back out.

  “Leave me alone right now,” he told her.

  She told him Gabe had told her to come and get him.

  “I don’t fucking care, man. Leave me alone right now. Tell him to give me a second,” he said. “Get out and close the door behind you.”

  I shook my head and blew out steam as I listened to the music die out. Did he really call me while he and Gabe were entertaining women? I thought. To fuss at me about avoiding him?

  “Really, Aric? You called me while you have a houseful of women?”

  “There is no houseful of women.”

  “I don’t care. You called me while you have women at your house, to talk to me about avoiding you?” I threw the towel in the sink, clearly annoyed. I didn’t have time for him or his shenanigans. What Jamie had just revealed to me weighed heavily on my mind.

  “Look, fuck that. I know you still love me. Don’t you?” he asked like he hadn’t heard a word I said.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No.”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “I’ve had a few. Not drunk, though. Come see me. I miss you.”

  I was so shocked, I almost choked on my water. I rubbed my eyes, knowing I needed to get off the phone with Aric.

  “I don’t have time for this. You’re sitting over there with Gabe, and you two are doing God knows what—”

  “What’s that got to do with you and me? Meet me somewhere.”

  “No . . .”

  That didn’t come out with as much finality as I would have liked.

  “Why?” he asked. “Why? Tell me why.”

  I heard what sounded like a crash, then him cursing. I didn’t even care to ask what had happened.

  “Because I have a man and your son to look after. It’s a school night, and I have work in the morning.”

  “Bring AJ with you. I just want to talk, I promise.”

  He slurred his words, which made me roll my eyes.

  “Aric, please go lie down somewhere.”

  “Does that mean you’re coming?”

  “No. Jamie—”

  “Fuck that nigga. I didn’t call to hear you talk about him. So you coming or what?”

  “No, I’m not, and if you say that again about him, I’m hanging up.”

  “I need somebody to drive me home.”

  “Aren’t you at home?” I asked him, then walked back to the front room to check on AJ.

  He was up dancing around with the characters on TV. I smiled as he did a little wiggly dance and laughed.

  “No. At Gabe’s. He’s lit too. Can’t drive me.”

  “What about one of those women?”

  “I don’t want them to know where I live.”

  “But I thought you weren’t drunk?”

  Why was I even entertaining the idea of going to pick him up to drive him home? The look on Jamie’s face as he walked out our front door flashed in my mind.

  “I’m not, but I just needed someone to talk to. B&G let me go today. Said it was too much bad press and the company couldn’t afford any more of it.”

  I turned away from watching AJ and walked back into the kitchen, my heart heavy.

  “I’m so sorry, Aric. . . .”

  That was all I could say. He’d come in and brought that company back from the brink of disaster, and in the end they still gave him the boot. I felt bad for him, wanted to comfort him, but I needed to comfort Jamie. Only, Jamie wasn’t home and wasn’t answering my calls. I wished he would answer my calls.

  “Yeah . . . so I need you right now, just to take me home . . . and maybe talk for a few. Want to see my son too.”

  I’d never heard Aric as depressed and down as he seemed in that moment. I’d always considered him a the strong alpha male. To hear him that way made me feel
something. Something stirred in my stomach and had me actually walking over to pick AJ up so I could get him dressed.

  “Give me a few minutes to get AJ dressed. I’ll be there,” I told him.

  “A’ight.”

  I hung up the phone as I walked upstairs with AJ. It didn’t take me long to bundle him up.

  “Mommy,” my son said to me.

  “Yes, baby,” I answered, pulling his hat on his head as I kneeled in front of him.

  “We going?”

  He was trying to ask where we were going.

  “To get Daddy. We’re going to get Daddy.”

  AJ started clapping and jumping around. I smiled as he began singing a song about getting to see his father again. I made my way back downstairs with AJ in my arms. I tried to call Jamie again and still got no answer. Sighing, I grabbed my purse and keys after sliding on my shoes and coat. I remembered where Gabe lived from going there once before, so it wouldn’t take me using GPS to find my way to his house out in Sandy Springs. I set the alarm and turned to walk to my car . . . then stopped dead in my tracks.

  “Where’re you going?” Jamie asked me.

  I hadn’t even heard him pull back into the driveway. Normally, he parked in the garage, so I would be alerted that he was home. He was just stepping out of his car, closing the door behind him. Jamie’s eyes were red. They almost looked as if they were glazed over. My heart started to beat fast, and I had to think of something quick. Jamie had known I was lying when I lied to him the first time around. I prayed this time would be different.

  “Since you left, I was going to meet Kay at her place to talk,” I lied. I felt disingenuous, but I couldn’t risk Jamie knowing what I had been about to do.

  “I’m here now,” he said.

  His locks swung and blew in the wind as he walked up to the door. I knew he had to be cold. I had on a leather coat, and the wind was killing me. Jamie had on only gray sweats, Jordans, and a T-shirt. I kept quiet as he unlocked the door and told me to go in. I swallowed hard. I needed to steady my nerves, because they were causing my hands to sweat. AJ jumped out of my arms and ran to Jamie. Jamie scooped him up, and I watched in silence as my phone rang out. I wanted to ignore it. AJ was busy trying to tell Jamie about his DVD in his own animated way. I walked over to the bar in the kitchen to lay my purse down since Jamie had stopped in there to grab some water.