by Quiana
Still I enjoyed cooking and seeing them enjoy my meals and it became a rewarding line of work. I got the chance to experiment with new dishes and reinvent old recipes. Jay was a very picky eater so often I sacrificed my own taste buds to accommodate to his. I didn’t notice how often I was doing this until it became time to prepare for another man. If I didn’t eat what I prepared for my own home I always blamed it on my diet. At Kai’s I could conjure up a dish exploding with mushrooms, peppers and other fixings that Jay never cared for.
Kai would give me the money to go grocery shopping for him and I took on the role with care. My maternal instincts would always kick in to make sure that I fed him things that would keep him healthy. So after making a grocery list for the night’s dinner at my desk I dashed over to the local supermarket to buy a few things. I would be making barbequed salmon with onions and a tossed salad on the side with ranch dressing! I specialized in barbequed salmon and I couldn’t wait to knock Kai’s socks off with the smoky flavor of my fish.
Knowing there was no way that I could dare bring food into the house and take it back out in front of my boys I left the bags in the trunk. Everyone was home and I played my mommy role as usual. I declared it to be hoagie night in our home, calling for homemade sandwiches for everyone. We pulled out all of the dressings, onions, lettuce, cheese, mayo, peppers, oil and of course turkey, and individually worked on our masterpieces. Well not I. I watched everyone else as I made small talk about work while I asked the boys about school and Jay informed us with his stories about the shop. When I was asked why I wasn’t eating I began working on a small turkey salad and explained to them that I was about to head to a Zumba class at the gym and that I didn’t need much to fuel my system.
I hung around until they were deep into their eating before sliding off to the bathroom. Being cautious I didn’t want to shower before I went to Kai’s so instead I just spent a little time at the bathroom sink freshening up. Quickly I rushed into my bedroom and changed into a pretty lime green and pink pair of boy shorts and bra set. I hurried back into the clothes I had previously worn, grabbed my gym bag and trotted down the steps. They were still munching on their meal when I yelled from the front door that I would be back later.
“You’re wearing that to the gym?” Jamir questioned which made Jay look up.
I was caught off guard by him asking the question but I had already prepared myself for if Jay did. I by passed it like it was a stupid question and gave him a quick answer to shut him up.
“Have you ever done Zumba? You sweat so much! There’s no way I’m leaving their in those sweaty clothes and sitting in my car.”
I found myself doing a lot of explaining lately. None the less it was Jamir and a simple explanation was all that was required. Kai had left the door unlocked for me as usual so I could walk in and work on his dinner. He wasn’t even there. But when he did come home the smell of the hot food flooded his nostrils and warmed his belly. Pressing up against me from behind, he greeted me with a kiss and a comforting hug. We were like newlyweds. I simply loved being in his presence and everything we did had a wave of love sprinkled over it.
Every day I got to enjoy a vacation to Kai’s even if it was only for a brief moment. Spending time with Kai made being at home even easier. I would go home well fed, relaxed, and my hormones would be fully released. Showering at Kai’s would allow me to go home to cuddle next to my husband and put me at piece for the work day. Our sexual encounters would help with creating gym hair!
When I got home Jay was sleep in the bed. He was a sound sleeper. I didn’t worry about him hearing the front door close or my car’s engine pulling into the driveway. Before heading upstairs I turned the living room TV on and made sure to leave it on. I took my shoes off and pulled out a blanket from underneath the coach. If Jay found me downstairs sleeping on the coach with the TV on he would know why I wasn’t in the bed. He always woke up in the middle of the night to search for me if I wasn’t next to him. I would use a late night reality show as my excuse for falling asleep downstairs. I snacked on a bowl of grapes that I intentionally placed on a side table next to the remote and went to sleep waiting for my husband to wake me.
CHAPTER 5
Good days and good nights life was good! Pulling up to the house after work I was surprised to see Jay’s car sitting in the drive way. I was kind of excited to see my husband home and was hoping for some good spooning time for us. When I walked in the house was still. I assumed Jay was taking a nap, but after a few more steps into the living room I could hear him shuffling around in the kitchen. I dropped my pocketbook on the coffee table and began taking my shoes off at the foot of the couch when I heard the echo from the other room yell “don’t take them off!”
Usually this would mean something kinky was in store for me, but Jay and I hadn’t had sex for two months so that couldn’t have been the case, plus the cold calm tone of his voice left a concerned feeling in my gut. I paused by the couch watching him enter the living room. Jay slowly paced around closing the wooden blinds and floral curtains one by one never making eye contact with me. The room became dim with very little sunlight peeking through the cracks that the closed blinds didn’t cover. Like a child, I stood waiting for my punishment. I wasn’t sure what I did wrong, but I knew when to listen to my husband. When he finished closing the blinds, he walked around me locking the door. I wouldn’t let my eyes leave him.
To say I wasn’t scared or worried would be a lie because I was more than a bit terrified. He was making the moves of a serial killer, closing off the house into complete seclusion and moving in silence. Instinct told me to shift my focus from him to the door, in case I needed to make a sudden move. Jay sat down with his hands together, fingers clasped between one another bent over looking at our floors. His eyes looked up at me with a world full of sadness in them. Not anger but sadness.
“I’m having trouble with getting it up. Maybe it’s early stages of erectile dysfunction…I don’t know. Too much pride to take it to the doctors, I’ve just been trying to relax and not let the stress get to me. They usually say that stress will stop a man from performing properly.” He starred at me a little longer trying to read the response on my face. I took a deep breath and exhaled.
“Jay-”
He put his hand up before I could finish as if he wasn’t done speaking. I stood silenced as I had been told. There was a long pause before he finished his words. His head dropped back to his chest and eyes never left the floor as he stuttered trying to break into his next statement.
“Don’t feel sorry for me now. Don’t feel sorry for me when you’d rather be a neighborhood whore than wait for your husband.”
The adrenaline causing my heart to pump went into over drive. I bit my tongue not knowing what could be said to cure the moment. I was in pure disbelief. As I starred at my sadden husband who wouldn’t even look at me, I saw a tear drop down his cheek and run down to his knuckle. Seeing Jay cry sent a bullet of guilt into my heart and one into my stomach, yet I couldn’t cry. I just stood by the door numb, like a manikin in a department store; totally speechless, emotionless and motionless, I was lost.
Jay went on to tell me how he had been doing laundry and noticed that my panties had smelled extra strong lately plus they had stains in them and how he had let the issue go. Then he went on to state that I had been going through more pairs of underwear in the laundry and that all of my kinky one’s were dirty, yet he never saw them. I couldn’t believe how observant he had been. Never would I have thought about how closely he paid attention to my clothes. Yet, he reassured me that wasn’t what gave it away. My heart boomed harder than a door knocker on an old wooden door.
“Do you know how it feels to have someone tell you they suspect your wife’s cheating?” He questioned as a stream of tears began washing his face. “Another person telling you your wife may be cheating with their neighbor!”
Jay’s voice echoed so loudly I was sure the neighbors could hear. He stood up and made eye contact with me
and began making his way across the room towards me. Panicking and scared I let out the loudest cry hoping it would soften his heart. Worst come to worst and if Jay was crazy, I hoped that my cry was loud enough to sound off the neighbors. Only my cry increased as I felt a sting from his left hand on the side of my face. Shocked and hurt, I sat down on the living room steps and tried to calm myself down, I knew he would make no remorseful attempts. Jay had never put his hands on me, and I knew I deserved it.
My husband went into a rage telling me about one of the customer’s at his shop who came to get some work done that felt the need to tell him about his wife’s whereabouts. They went on to tell Jay that they knew it wasn’t their place, but they wanted to make sure that he knew that my car was parked on their block almost every night for the past month. Halfway through his story I zoned out and he sounded like I was hearing him underwater. My mind felt like a race track as I tried to figure out who could’ve been telling my husband about what I was doing. Who could possibly care enough to spread my business as if it was their place? Why would they even care? I was nauseous.
“You disgust me! You’re sleeping with your son’s friend? Are you that desperate and washed up for attention that you are willing to fuck up a marriage and friendships for sex?” Seeing him standing over top of me, eyes red and streams pouring out of them, voice deep and bellowing through the house all matters of regret sunk in to the fullest.
“I’m sorry Jay!”
Never in our life time had Jay ever rejected my tears. As he watched me cry my plea all I wanted was for him to reach out and touch me. I knew I was wrong, but I wanted to know that he was still my husband, still the man I knew. The man in front of me was a stranger. A yelling, crying, crazed stranger, I never expected to wreck his emotions like this. I couldn’t have prepared myself for this reaction. My stomach couldn’t take the numerous emotions overtaking my body. I ran to the kitchen trashcan and threw up my entire lunch. As I cleaned myself up at the sink my heart sank even more. Sounds of Jay rummaging through my pocketbook scratched my ears like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“Don’t come looking this way now!”
“Get off of my phone Jay!” I screamed scared for what evidence he might have come across.
“What’s in the phone Ramae?” He held the phone out of my reach swinging it in the air preventing me from getting it back.
“Jay I’m sorry!”
My failed attempt to wrestle the phone out of his hands landed me on the floor from him flinging me off of him. He joked about me having “good stuff” stored in there due to my protective nature before he struck me with the words Get the fuck out! I sat in a daze for a second trying to get a hold of the situation. This was too much. I didn’t know how to salvage anything right then or even if I should at the very moment. But what I did know was that the boys would be getting home anytime now and this was not how they should see their parents.
Sitting on the floor, helpless as ever, I begged Jay to calm down and talk upstairs. By now his eyes were dry but still red. His demeanor grew colder and unforgiving and I saw little hope in his disposition to aid my request.
“Get the fuck out of my house.” He said sternly.
I hesitated for a minute before picking myself up from off the ground. Finally I got up and made my way to the staircase to grab some of my things, but Jay’s hand wrapped around my arm to stop those efforts. I snapped around confused about his gesture, but his grip was too strong to get out of.
“You’re not taking shit out of this house! Everything in here belongs to us and the kids YOU don’t get to keep anything! Get the fuck out!”
Jay griped my arm tighter as he pulled me towards the front door. I tried to hold onto the rail but that only caused him to drag me as I screamed and tried my hardest to hold on to my home, while he opened the front door to put me out on the front steps. Trying my best, I pushed and pushed my hardest against the front door but I was too weak. He slammed the door, tossed my ID out the mail slot, and put on the bolt lock.
Embarrassed, walking past my neighbors was like taking the walk of shame. They whispered and starred while I walked towards the bus stop. I didn’t know Kai’s number by heart so I couldn’t call him, and I wasn’t ready to tell Porscha about my affair or anyone else. I just wanted to rest my head and figure out how I could make things better. I needed my home, my kids and my family. I wasn’t sure what Jay planned on telling the boys or even if he had plans on telling them. I just knew I couldn’t have my boys looking at me like a hoe.
Remembering I didn’t have my pocketbook with me I dug through my pockets hoping for enough money to catch the bus. Of course I didn’t have it, so this was going to be a long walk. We lived on the opposite ends of the city and this would take me at least an hour and a half. I was kind of nervous to go to Kai’s house. Not because of the drama, we brought that on ourselves, but because of that neighbor. I didn’t have a clue who it was that told Jay about me being over Kai’s, and I didn’t want them to see me again. If there was any hope for my marriage I knew that being seen over there wouldn’t be the best thing for me, but I didn’t know where else to go.
Taking my walking tour through the city I looked at all the cracks and dirt with an open eye. It’s rough out here. Driving past all the city pits you don’t notice how good you have it. I came too far to lose it all, I refused to start over. Maybe some couples counseling and a vacation would soothe things over. I never cheated before so I was owed at least one mess up right? My head and heart felt like a little man was doing the rain dance inside of them as I thought about Jay going through my phone. All the text messages, pictures, and phone calls that he would uncover would end any chance we would have.
About two hours later I landed on Kai’s block happy to see his car sitting outside. What I wasn’t happy to see was Kai sitting on his steps laughing and smiling with one of his friends and two other females. I took a deep breath before I approached his house. Trying to keep my composure and tears from having a total fit, I let out a sigh of relief when I caught eye contact and he smiled back at me. Part of me expected him to be upset with me for popping up at his house unannounced, but his smile changed the closer I got, and he could tell something was wrong. I assume that seeing me walk down his block when there were plenty of open parking spaces gave it away, or maybe it was my tear consumed puffy eyes. My hair tousled and under my eyes was stained from leaky mascara. I looked like a raggedy mess in close eye sight.
Before I could get too close to the house, I saw him nudge his friends that he would be heading in and everyone began to scatter. They probably assumed I was his mom the way they all politely moved out of my way, the one girl making sure she spoke as I brushed past her. I remained silent and didn’t look their way as I walked unto the porch and into the house. Inside, Kai waited for me in his bedroom sitting on the edge of the bed smoking a blunt. I snatched it away from him and inhaled until I felt high enough to tell him what happened.
He assured me that I had a place to stay and not to worry about my things. Promises to take me shopping and to buy a new phone were ok, but it wouldn’t fix the problem. I had no car, no real home or family. I couldn’t even think about going to work the next day. My mind was so jumbled all I could do was break into tears and cry into a pillow. As my eyes soaked the pillow case the sensation of Kai’s sweet lips on my neck softened the day’s events. Surrounding his arms around my body, my panting and outburst of cries slowed down until they came to a halt. I was here now, no need to cry. Everything that I didn’t have I took away from myself. Kai and I drifted away into a deep sleep holding each other tight. I was at least happy to have him, and happy that he didn’t turn his back on me like many men would.
We woke up two hours later to the door bell ringing, apparently it did work. Kai jumped out of the bed half startled and scrambled to look for his house slippers. He walked into the other bedroom before taking a leak then finally made his way down the stairs. The doorbell rang uncontrollably the
whole time which made Kai take his time even more. I tried to ignore it, not like it was my place to answer it anyway, but I couldn’t ignore the urgency of the doorbell ringing.
“Who is it?” Kai yelled with his sexy bass voice.
“Layla!” A snappy sounding young female shouted back from the opposite side of the door.
Layla was one of the girls that he and Jason brought to Jalal’s graduation cookout. I never asked him if he was sleeping with her or not, but by the tone of her voice, it appeared something was going on between them. I sat up trying to hear their conversation a little better and why she felt the need to pop up at his house. Kai opened the door to a raging 20 year old ready to barge in.
“My girl told me you be having some woman in your house Makai! Let me in the fucking door!”
“What? Don’t ask me about anything that goes on in my house!” I could hear his response which was indifferent towards her feelings. The front door slammed and the argument moved to the porch.
As soon as the door closed the sounds of feet shuffling took over the conversation and Kim yelling, “Fuck you Makai!” as her car door slammed and she sped off. I ran to the bedroom window to see what was going on but the covering over the porch prevented me from seeing anything underneath. I flew down the steps with no shoes on and bust through the door to see Jamir, Jalal and Jason punching and stomping on Kai. I was scared for Kai’s life knowing how much rage was in my boys to make them come over here. My yelling and shouting for them to stop did nothing at all. Kai’s aggression was directed towards Jason. Blood dripping from his mouth, he scooped Jason’s legs into a grip and slammed him on the porch. I could barely hold Jamir back when I saw Jalal pick up an old rusty metal shovel to hit Makai with.
