Tell Me No Lies

by Nikki- Michelle

  “Thank you, and yes, it is.”

  God, that hug always took me back. He must have felt that way too, because he hugged me tighter. I could feel when his hands travel down and stopped just around the dip in my back. I pulled back slightly and looked up at him. He ran his thick tongue over his lips, and my coochie had a spasm as I remembered what he could do with that tongue. He didn’t let me go, though; he held me close to him. His chocolate eyes played chicken with mine. Which one of us would look away first? As always, it was me. Gabe had an effect on me that not even Aric had. It was crazy to me. His and Jamie’s pull had always tugged at something different in me, even when I was with Aric. I couldn’t explain it. All I knew was that I needed to get away from him, just like I needed to stay away from Aric.

  By the time I made it home, my head was all in a daze because Gabe was texting me things that made me blush. Some just made me smile. The last thing I wanted to do was get caught up with Gabe, but there was something about that man that mystified me, that always had me wondering what it would be like to spend more than two pilfered nights with him. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but the way Gabe had satisfied me brought it back.

  Jamie

  I could feel myself relapsing, falling back into old thoughts of suicide. The more I tried to remain lucid, the worse I became. Five times I’d stopped myself from calling my grandmother. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to speak to her. I just didn’t want that tone of pity in her voice, that “Poor Jamie, I feel so bad for him” pitch. My childhood had been torture. What had happened to me, as much as my grams had tried to hide it, had gotten around. The times when I had to go to school, where the teachers look at me with pity and the children mess with me because they thought it was funny, had always made me regret coming back home.

  I couldn’t even begin to explain how I felt after telling Chyanne. One minute I was happy I’d told her, and the next I found myself hating the fact that I did. I’d even found myself not wanting to be around her at times because she knew. It had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the guilt I felt about the situation. Yeah, I knew it was weird that I carried guilt about what had happened to me, but I did.

  I turned and looked over my shoulder at Chyanne as she stepped from the shower. Her skin glowed; her breasts were more swollen than normal. Our bedroom had been quiet as of late. Porn had become my friend, self-satisfaction my mantra. My left hand had become Chyanne’s face. My right hand had become her breasts, thighs, ass, and pussy. I missed our intimacy. I’d started to wonder if she’d become afraid of me.

  “You look beautiful,” I complimented her.

  She moved her massive mane from around her face with a headband and smiled. She smiled at me. I couldn’t remember that smile last night, as I’d pictured her face while touching myself. All I could remember was the scowl she’d given me the day after I cursed at her for bothering me. She’d been asking too many questions and it had annoyed me so I lashed out at her to leave me alone. I thrived on that scowl. In my head, while I self-medicated with porn the night before, I’d pictured that scowl. It had made me get harder. It had made me picture us fucking, not making love, but fucking hard like animals in a mating craze. There was something primal about it. In my mind she’d let me fuck her in every hole she owned.

  “Thank you, Jamie,” she answered, then turned to grab her lotion from the dresser behind her. “You’re getting dressed, so I’m assuming you’re going in to work today?” she asked.

  I nodded and stood. It was a Monday morning, and I needed to visit each of my stores to have meetings with the store managers. “I am. I plan on visiting each store today. Need to have a few meetings with each store manager.”

  “Why? Is something wrong?”

  “No, it’s just something I do from time to time to ensure everything is going the way I want it.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, don’t work too hard. You’ve been more tired than usual as of late.”

  Her voice was getting to me, working my body in a way that I’d wanted to do hers. I didn’t want to think about anything that had happened back home. That was why I hadn’t been taking my meds. I was zoning out until I could get the image of my uncle out of my head. I didn’t want to see him, not even in the way I’d imagined killing him as a child. There had been many nights after I returned from the hospital when I sat in the shower and just scrubbed my body, trying to get the smell of him, which wasn’t there, off.

  As my mind rambled a mile a second, I found myself walking up behind Chyanne. My hands just needed to touch her, needed to caress her and feel her bare skin. When she gave a light moan and leaned back into me, my heart rate sped up a bit. I moved my head from side to side, letting the curls in her hair massage my face as I inhaled their cucumber-mango scent. My hands moved away the big, thick red bath sheet that covered her body, my treasure. Although I was completely dressed for the day, having donned black designer dress slacks, a dress shirt, and black wing-tipped dress shoes, having her respond to me so unabashedly made my dick thump. My hands gripped her breasts, squeezed them. I knew they were sore. She’d said as much when she hissed. Even that had turned me on. I loved the discomfort and the stimulation it gave her.

  My hands slid down the softness of her stomach until they reached her hairless, moist mound. She was wet for me. So damn wet . . . My fingers played, slipped, and slid in between her folds until they got lost inside of her. Her head fell back against my chest, allowing me to look down into her face. She was biting her bottom lip and looked to be completely taken. I needed to see that, had been deprived of it for a while. Her hand moved behind her, and she stroked my dick through my slacks. It was already threatening to break free of its zipped prison. I turned her to face me, caressed both sides of her face, and then kissed her like I’d never done it before. It wasn’t a perfect kiss. It was a sloppy yet mind-boggling one, one that she returned with fervor.

  I loved that in the moment she had no inhibitions. It fed me and had me lifting her from the floor to the bed. I flipped her over on her stomach, then made quick work of ridding myself of clothes and shoes. I was naked before she could take her next inhale. Chyanne’s ass arched back perfectly when she felt my weight on the bed. The small of her back had dipped and called for my tongue to taste her there. I wanted to take my time with her, savor the moment, but I couldn’t. I needed it. I needed her . . . wanted her . . . had to have her. I snatched a handful of her hair and pulled her back as I shoved into her hard. She moaned . . . more like cried out. Her hands gripped the comforter so hard, she pulled it from its neat position on the bed.

  As soon as I felt her tightness enclose me, my hands gripped, then spread her ass cheeks. I could see the creamy-like glaze of her arousal coating me as I pushed in and out of her. Her delightful soft moans turned into whimpers. The sheets were now coming off the bed. Her head was turned to the side, and I could see her gritting her teeth, trying to take my length and girth. That look excited me. It had been forever since I’d loved her hard this way. I zoned out. The only thing I was in tune with was the way I felt making her take all I had to give.

  “Jamie . . .”

  I heard her whimper my name, but I didn’t respond. Sweat trickled down my forehead as I went faster and harder. I felt her hand come back to push at my thighs. I moved it, gripped it with my hand, and held her wrist. Her whimpers turned into silence and then muffled grunts. The grunts were dry, not as stimulating as her moans and whimpers had been. Her grunts were like our sex. She was no longer as wet as before.

  “Jamie . . . you’re hurting me,” she finally told me when I slowed down, then let her wrist go.

  I didn’t know if she meant the sex had hurt her or me holding her wrist. Either way, I stopped and backed away, pulled out of her, but my craving was still nowhere near satisfied. She turned over and covered her breasts as she sat up. Her eyes were watery, and she didn’t say a word. She just looked up at me, a puzzled expression on her face. Then she stood abruptly, snatched
the bath sheet that had once covered her, haphazardly wrapped it around her body, and then rushed into the bathroom. When the door slammed, I knew that I would have to once again use my hand and porn to get me where I needed to be.

  “Chyanne,” I called to her as I knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you okay? Tell me what’s wrong. I’m sorry. If I hurt you, I’m sorry.”

  My erection was slowly ebbing away. I stood there at the bathroom door for at least ten minutes, begging her to talk to me. The only response I got was the sound of the shower coming on. She wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t come out of the bathroom and let me fix the mess I’d made. So I just sat by the door and waited for her. I had never wanted to hurt her, never wanted to see that look on her face. Forget work. Work could wait that day.

  Gabe

  It had been a couple of weeks since I’d last seen my father. My mother and I had spoken only occasionally. She was still hurt and upset. My guilty conscience had me rethinking my decision to expose my father’s dirty little secrets. I’d never seen my mother as reclusive as she’d been the past few weeks. I didn’t set out to hurt her like that. My intent had been to get her to see that although my father claimed to love her, and he might have loved her, his love was tainted. Their love was tainted.

  I’d have to see my father sooner rather than later, though. Stephanie’s sentencing hearing was coming up. When the jury found Stephanie guilty but mentally insane at the time of the crime, I had texted Chyanne to see how she was. She said she was scared that Stephanie might not get locked away, and she was right. I knew my father, and I knew that by any means necessary, he would try to ensure Stephanie walked away without any jail time.

  Speaking of Chyanne, my mind had been on her a lot lately. There was something about the woman I just couldn’t shake. Even before we’d had sex, she was a problem for me. I’d known that the moment I tried to kiss her the first time. I’d shown up at Aric’s office when she was still his executive assistant. Aric hadn’t been there, and I offered to take Chyanne to lunch. We had a good time at lunch, but Aric had her attention. Even knowing that she was head over heels for my best friend, I wanted her, tried to kiss her. She stopped me, but the look in her eyes told me she was feeling it too. I had to be out of my damn mind. Fucking with Chyanne was a sure way to cause more turmoil in my life. I didn’t have a woman, but I had plenty of female friends. I didn’t want to be loved at the moment. All the women in my phone knew that. Of course, there was the occasional one who had to be reminded, like Jennifer.

  I’d left Jennifer at her hotel room no more than two hours before. I met her a few years ago at a business meeting in Washington. The sexual attraction was instantaneous, and that was all there was until the year before, when she started saying crazy shit to me, like she’d do anything it took to make me hers. It was then that I cut her off. I stopped talking to her altogether until Monday, when she called me. Shit, a man had needs. Things had been a little stressed between Aric and me too. I had told him that the board had offered me his old job. He’d told me it was cool if I took it, but we hadn’t said much to each other since. That could have been more because of me, though. If he knew the thoughts that were running through my head about Chyanne, we’d be fighting for sure.

  The rain was coming down hard outside. I could barely see in front of me. Traffic was backed up for miles, and all I could see were brake lights. I sighed. I was on my way to my mother’s house, but it looked as if I’d be stuck in traffic for a while. I picked up my phone from the passenger seat and smiled at the number and the face that showed up on my screen.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “Thank you for the flowers, Gabe. I wasn’t expecting them, and today I really needed these.”

  Her voice sounded strained, and I heard her sniffle, like she’d been crying.

  “What’s wrong? You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little under the weather and a whole lot stressed.”

  “Bad day at work?”

  “Yeah, that . . . among other things.”

  Someone in the background asked her if she’d taken the phone call on line one. She told them she had and that she’d also faxed the paperwork over to their office. I turned my attention back to the snail’s-pace traffic. I saw flashing lights and an ambulance rushing down the side emergency lane. I should have known someone had caused an accident. People in Georgia couldn’t drive worth a damn when it was sunny, so you knew they drove like bats out of hell when it was pouring down rain.

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said when she got back on the phone.

  “It’s no problem. You want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

  “Not really, Gabe.” She chuckled a little bit. Her voice was soft. “It seems like every time I talk to you, something is wrong.”

  “It’s okay, though, especially since I like talking to you.”

  She was quiet for a moment before asking, “Gabe, what are we doing?”

  It was the same question I’d been asking myself. We’d been talking through texts a lot. It was friendly conversation . . . sometimes. Other times it was slick innuendos and questions of what would have happened if. She was my best friend’s son’s mother.

  “I don’t know, Chyanne.”

  “We should stop. I love Jamie. . . .”

  “I know, and I don’t want to lose my best friend.”

  “So we should stop.”

  “Okay. I’ll hang up, and I won’t call you anymore. I won’t send flowers, either.”

  “Okay, and I’ll hang up, and I won’t send you text messages anymore.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  There was a moment of silence. I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line, and then she hung up. I blew out steam and ran a hand down my face. A fire truck blared its sirens, trying to get through the mess of traffic. I could see plumes of smoke up ahead. I pulled over behind a big rig in the next lane, doing my part so they could get by and help whoever had been injured. I looked down at my phone before picking it up.

  Throw my flowers away, I texted her.

  I thought we said we wouldn’t text?

  I said I wouldn’t call, I responded.

  LOL. I’m not throwing them away. When I’m in a funk, I’ll look at them and think of you. :–).

  I smiled. That’s not fair. I have nothing tangible to look at from you when I’m feeling some type of way.

  I had no idea what the hell she and I were thinking. It was obvious that she loved Jamie, but I still had this itch that seemingly only she could scratch, and we hadn’t had sex in over a year. She didn’t text back immediately, and I started to pay attention to the road as traffic had begun to move. “This Woman’s Work” by Maxwell was playing on low volume on my radio. As we inched forward, I could finally see the accident. A big rig was on fire, and a black Mercedes was trapped underneath right at exit 238, toward the airport. Whoever was in that car was dead for sure. No way was anybody surviving that crash. The car was burning and had been crushed, as the tractor-trailer lay on top of it. I sent a silent prayer to God for whoever’s family would get the bad news.

  As I moved along, I turned off the radio and sat in silence, thinking about my father and mother. No matter how much I tried to figure out why they carried on a relationship on the side, nothing made sense to me. My phone buzzed, and I looked down at the text message. I chuckled when I saw Chyanne’s face. She was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, making a goofy face. But the picture still had a certain beauty. She had on a cream business suit that accentuated all her womanly curves, and she was glowing.

  When you’re feeling you need a happy face, this one is for you, the text read.

  I didn’t respond. Just saved the picture to my phone. I knew if I responded, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  I finally made it to my mother’s house and was surprised to see her open the door with a smile on her face.

  “Come on in, Gabriel,” she said as sh
e held the door open for me. “And why don’t you have a hood or something on your head? You trying to catch pneumonia?”

  She was fussing, so that meant she was in a good mood. Her hair was back in a bun at the nape of her neck, and when I leaned in to kiss her cheek, she smelled of my father’s Cuban cigars.

  “No, ma’am. Just wanted to get in the house, out of the rain. I’ve been sitting in my truck forever.”

  “Traffic?” she asked, holding her hand out for my leather coat.

  I nodded. “Tractor-trailer fell over on someone off that ramp going to the airport.”

  “Yeah, your father had said it was a lot of traffic when he got here last night too.”

  I didn’t say anything as we walked down the hall to the front room. She stopped at the hall closet to grab a hanger for my coat. I could smell blackberry cobbler, which meant she had cooked for my dad while he was here. He must have found a way to work his way back in.

  “So Dad was here last night?” I asked her before grabbing a seat in one of the chairs that I always sat in.

  “Yes, he was, Gabriel. And yes, we worked past our differences. For the last two nights your father has been here. He refused to leave until we talked. After we talked, I decided to forgive him,” she explained to me.

  The yoga pants she had on showed that she had been exercising before I knocked on the door.

  “Just like that, Mom?”

  “Yes, Gabe. I love your father, and God knows no matter how many times we’ve tried to walk away from one another, it never works. He told me about the other women. He apologized for hurting me, and after a few hours of yelling, screaming, and cursing, I decided to forgive him. As crazy as this may sound, son, I feel like Ce-Ce is the other woman.”