The Cheating Curve

by Paula T. Renfroe

  “I don’t wanna talk about it right now, Sean,” Aminah finally said, letting go of his hand and resting her head on the armrest of his sofa.

  Sean knew better than to push Aminah when it came to Fame. He figured she’d eventually get over whatever he’d done this time, like she always did. The many times Sean questioned Aminah’s “proactive surrender,” she usually hit him with, “It takes a strong woman to stay and a weak one to leave” or “My marriage is good and worth fighting for” or simply “I love my husband.”

  “You wanna watch the game then?” Sean asked, flashing his brilliant smile and unmuting the TV. “It’s a good one. Philadelphia and Indiana are playing.”

  Aminah laughed hysterically. She needed that. Sean was truly a basketball fiend. “Only if you pour me another glass.”

  “All right, but promise me you’ll let me or Lang drive you home.”

  “What if I’m not going home?” Aminah asked with the seriousness of a Barney’s warehouse sale.

  “Okay, then one of us will drive you out to Hempstead to pick up the kids,” Sean said, pouring her a second glass of wine.

  Aminah nodded her head in agreement. “What about to the studio? Would you drive me there?”

  Sean didn’t answer right away. He knew Fame’s disdain for unannounced visitors, particularly his wife. Yet he didn’t agree with Fame’s stance or Aminah’s tolerance of it. Lang had warned him very early on in their relationship not to get caught in the intricate design of Fame and Aminah’s marriage. As difficult as it was for Sean to heed Lang’s advice, he’d finally learned to abide by it after futile discussions with both of them. Both Aminah and Fame had told him individually and collectively how seriously they took their wedding vows.

  He appreciated their honoring of “till death do us part” but deplored their illusion of “forsaking all others.”

  “Is he expecting you?” Sean asked apprehensively.

  He was not in the mood to get caught up in any part of the Anderson family drama, not tonight with such a good game on. Not to mention, Sean and Fame got along like first cousins who acted like brothers ’cause they were raised by the same grandmama.

  They shared a mutual love for family and basketball. Sean and Fame not only went to the Garden together regularly to watch the Knicks play but drove out to see the Nets and Sixers whenever they could. It was their schedule conflicts, not their personality differences, that prevented them from hanging out more.

  Aminah never answered Sean. She eventually poured herself a third glass of wine instead.

  The Sixers beat the Pacers that night by two points. Aminah fell asleep using Sean’s lap as her pillow. He was stroking Aminah’s head with one hand and flipping channels with the other when Lang arrived home.

  The sight of Aminah’s head in her husband’s lap didn’t bother Lang as much as how natural his hand looked, tenderly stroking her best friend’s hair. She stood back for a few seconds, trying to decipher the energy she’d walked into. Lang wondered if the strain of juggling two men had made her paranoid. It had already, at the very least, compromised the level of intimacy she and Aminah shared. Lang refused to acknowledge that it was actually her guilt elevating her suspicions.

  “Hey, baby,” Lang said, pecking her husband on his lips. “What’s Minah doing here?”

  “Oh, hey, babe, I didn’t hear you come in,” Sean said, gently lifting Aminah’s head like she was a light-sleeping newborn before standing up to stretch. “I’m not exactly sure, but Fame had something to do with it. I know that much.”

  “Damn it, I was hoping she wasn’t listening to BLS this afternoon,” Lang said, wrapping her hands affectionately around Sean’s neck. “I can’t believe she didn’t call me. What’d she say?”

  “Not much really, just that she was tired,” Sean said, hugging Lang around her waist. “What happened on BLS?”

  “Not tired enough, I bet,” Lang said, glancing down at her best friend suspiciously and rolling her eyes. “Fame had his name all up in Cindy’s mouth again. It’s been, like, four months since she last spoke his name, but, still, I could just kill him. How is it that his shit is always on full blast?”

  Sean dropped his hand from his wife’s waist and took a step back from her. “No, the better question is why he keeps taking her for granted like that?” Sean asked, looking at his own wife sideways.

  “Babe, I gave up on that answer years ago,” Lang said, nonchalantly grabbing her husband by the hand and leading him toward the staircase. “You know those two.”

  “She deserves better,” Sean said, glancing back lovingly at a sleeping Aminah before shutting off the lights.

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t want Amir and Alia growing up in a broken home,” Lang said as they climbed the stairs. “You know they’re the main reason she stays. For them and for Fame. Her family is everything to her.”

  “I’ve heard all that before,” Sean said, extending his arm, gesturing Lang to walk into their bedroom first.

  “Then you know better than to even suggest—”

  “What about her though?” he asked, sliding out of his sweatpants and tossing them on the white, linen, button-tufted ottoman at the foot of their bed. “Children can be awfully resilient. It’s adults who usually don’t bounce back too well from shit. Fame’s a good father. But let’s be honest, he’s a shitty husband. That’s my dude and all, but he needs to be single if he still wants to be out there like that. Do something once that requires my forgiveness, shame on you. Keep doing that same shit ten, twenty times, and I still forgive you, shame on me.”

  “So you could forgive one indiscretion?” Lang asked, picking up Sean’s sweatpants and placing them in his hamper right next to his closet.

  “An indiscretion?” Sean asked quizzically. “You mean cheating? Me? Personally? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Eventually.”

  The thought alone was comforting to Lang, considering a quick after-work tryst with Dante was the reason she was late getting home that evening. She smiled with her back to her husband as she carefully hung up her tailored Tracy Reese skirt suit in her closet.

  “I just couldn’t stay married to a cheater,” Sean expounded from underneath their chocolate faux suede comforter. “I’ve told you that. I couldn’t erase the image of it. It would haunt me, but I’m not judging anyone who could.”

  “But you’d want me to forgive you for an indiscretion?”

  “Of course, but I wouldn’t cheat. And while I’d want you to forgive me, I wouldn’t expect you to. That’s just arrogant,” Sean said, reaching for his wife’s naked body. “That’s why I don’t cheat,” he continued as he rubbed his wife’s stomach. “I’d at least feel guilty if I cheated on you. I think what bothers me most about all of Fame’s cheating is his lack of remorse. He has none.”

  “Yeah, but Aminah’s nobody’s doormat,” Lang said, reaching inside her husband’s boxer shorts. “She chooses to stay.”

  “And Fame takes advantage of that.”

  “And she allows it,” Lang said, annoyed. “Now can we just drop this and talk about something more pleasant?”

  “Exactly whose side are you on?” Sean asked weakly as his wife’s warm mouth enveloped him.

  “I’m on your side,” Lang said between oral pulls. “Can’t you feel that?”

  Chapter 16

  “How low must I think of myself to even indulge you and torture myself with this conversation?”

  Aminah woke up at three AM refreshed and determined. She refused to fall apart. She refused to pity herself. And she refused to let Fame slide again. She gazed at her Locman watch. Good, she thought. I can still catch him at the studio.

  Aminah used Sean’s bathroom to fix her face, rinse out her mouth, and smooth down her hair. She slid her pink Polo rain boots back on and grabbed her pink Coach umbrella. She disarmed the alarm system and then set it back—Lang had long since given her the code.

  The heavy rain was no deterrent for Aminah’s will or her Range’s all-wheel dri
ve. Aminah sped over the Manhattan Bridge, rushing over to Fame’s studio in midtown, hydroplaning a couple times with both Rebekkah’s and Lang’s words looping in her mind throughout the entire ride.

  “…Cheating is the ultimate disrespect.”

  It is disrespectful, Aminah thought, agreeing with Rebekkah as she gunned through a yellow light. Aminah struggled with respect. She commanded it so effortlessly from her children and her community yet couldn’t buy it at a discount from her husband.

  “Doesn’t it bother you that he sleeps with other women?”

  “I do mind!” Aminah yelled, banging on the steering wheel. “I hate it. It infuriates me. I hate myself for putting up with it. I hate myself!”

  The sound of the taxicab’s horn snapped Aminah out of her screaming fit. She’d been pounding her fist and ignoring the green light.

  “…Why sell yourself short? I don’t get that.”

  “I don’t get it either,” Aminah admitted out loud to herself as she blew through several red lights. Well, no more, she thought to herself.

  “…You’ve allowed him to get away with so much without any sort of repercussions for his actions, it’s not even Fame’s fault anymore.”

  “Well, I’m more than willing to take full responsibility for my actions or inactions right now,” Aminah said as she pulled up in front of the building. Aminah’s conversation with herself gave her all the strength and confidence to do what she needed to do. She checked her face and dabbed on a little lip gloss.

  Aminah popped open her umbrella and stepped doggedly out into the pouring rain. She pressed the number 12 button.

  “Yo!” an intern yelled into the intercom.

  “It’s Aminah, buzz me in,” she commanded.

  The intern did as he was told and then frantically ran down the hallway, attempting to alert his boss that his wife was on her way up. However, Daisha was in the middle of recording “I Don’t Care ’Bout the Other Girls.” So Fame put his hand up, signaling the intern to wait.

  Aminah walked out of the elevator and waved for the receptionist to buzz her in.

  She did.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, full of attitude.

  “No, you may not,” Aminah replied, curtly tossing her wet umbrella in the corner and striding right past her.

  She glanced inside the A room. No Fame.

  He wasn’t next door in the B room either.

  She strolled calmly down the long hallway, staring dead ahead at the C room. She could see the back of her husband’s head nodding through the glass. She walked right up to the glass and stood with her arms folded.

  Daisha’s mouth was open, but no lyrics were coming out of it.

  “What’s wrong with you, girl?” Fame asked, irritated. “You can’t just stop midsong.”

  Daisha pointed toward the glass behind him.

  Fame swiveled around and literally jerked backward when he saw his wife glaring directly at him with one raised eyebrow and no smile on her face. She looked good in spite of the rain—hair slicked back in a smooth, long, sleek ponytail, a pair of diamond studs in her ears, and her Fendi frames above her head.

  Fame ordered everyone out of the room as he opened the door for Aminah to walk through.

  “Minah, baby, what are you doin’ here?” Fame asked with a barely detectable hint of nervousness as he touched his wife’s shoulder.

  Aminah pushed Fame’s hand off her shoulder, pulled her hand back, and slapped Fame clear across his mouth.

  Daisha, the intern, and the receptionist standing just outside the door all let out an audible “ooh” simultaneously and grabbed their mouths in shock.

  “Have you lost your fuckin’ mind?” Fame yelled, slamming the door shut and quickly sliding the blinds down, preventing his staff from witnessing whatever was going to happen next.

  “No, have you lost your fuckin’ mind!” Aminah asked with her nostrils flaring. “You came home to me, ate me out, and fell asleep between my legs like everything was fine, and me, like your usual dummy, actually thought everything was.”

  “Calm the fuck down, Minah,” Fame said, rubbing his mouth. “You sound like a raving lunatic.”

  “You have a lot of fuckin’ nerve, Aaron Famous Anderson,” Aminah said, pointing her index finger at his chest. “You have the gall to give me head after getting head from some ho at the club. You’re the fuckin’ lunatic. I’m just the crazy-ass bitch who has put up with your shit for too long. To soothe my nightmares, Fame? Have you no decency?”

  “Minah, what in the hell are you talking about?” he asked with his hands splayed open, genuinely confused.

  “Answering a question with a question, huh?” Aminah asked, pacing back and forth. “That means it’s true. But you know what? I knew it was true when I heard it on the radio. I’m running around the city trying to make you the perfect home for the perfect Thanksgiving dinner and get you the perfect Christmas gift, and you’re getting head from your club jump-off and paying cash for her car service.”

  Fame was stunned that his wife and Cindy Hunter knew so many details. How the fuck…? he wondered to himself.

  Suddenly Aminah stopped pacing and stared at the leather sofa, picturing Daisha’s head bobbing between her husband’s legs. Aminah let out a scream so guttural, so animal-like, it frightened Fame.

  “Minah, baby, calm down and listen to me,” Fame said soothingly, walking his wife over to his chair and sitting her down. Fame wasn’t his usual confident self as he’d been all the other times Aminah had confronted him. While this wasn’t unfamiliar territory for him by any means, there was something different about his wife this time that he couldn’t quite figure out, and not having a full grasp of the situation had him nervous. He jangled his keys in his pocket. “Most of the time…” Fame paused to gather his thoughts. “Look, it was just some head, just oral sex. That’s it.”

  “Why can’t you come home and get head from me, Fame, huh?” Aminah whined. “Don’t you like the way I do it?” Her voice cracked.

  “Come on, baby,” Fame said, gently rubbing her back. “You’re making me feel bad. It’s not even about that. Of course I love the way you do it. You do it best.”

  Aminah shook her head and leaned forward in the chair.

  “My God!” Aminah suddenly screamed, holding her stomach. “How low must I think of myself to even indulge you and torture myself with this conversation?”

  “Minah, it meant nothing to me,” Fame explained, still unsure of whether to comfort or chastise his wife. “It was just something physical. I’ve never, ever been involved with any other woman. C’mon, Minah, we’ve been through all this before.”

  Aminah glared at Fame in disbelief.

  “Okay, so occasionally they get some dick,” Fame admitted. “There’s so much more to me than dick, Minah, and you get all of it, all of me.”

  “What about respect, huh?” Aminah asked, wiping her nose. “Do I get that, Fame?”

  “Minah, baby, of course,” Fame answered, gently stooping down in front of her and holding her face. “I have the highest regard for you. I respect you more than any other woman on the planet. You’re the mother of my children, baby. You’re my wife.”

  “How come you’re not thinking about the fact that I’m the mother of your children and your wife when you’re getting your dick sucked, huh? Are you thinking about me when you make the conscious decision to sleep with another woman? I don’t ever not think about you, Fame.”

  “C’mon, Minah,” Fame said, impatiently standing back up. “The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Be logical for a second and put your emotions in check.”

  “Okay, okay, you want logic?” Aminah asked, furiously jumping out of her seat. “Let’s try logic and reason. How would you feel if I sucked another man’s dick? Huh?”

  “Aminah, don’t play,” Fame said, pointing his finger in his wife’s face. “Now you really sound crazy.”

  “I do it best,” Aminah said, mocking Fame. �
�Well, I don’t trust you or your fuckin’ opinion. I think I need to find out if my head game’s tight enough for my damn self.”

  Fame grabbed Aminah by both her shoulders and shook her violently. “You do some stupid-ass shit like that, and I will break your fuckin’ neck.”

  Aminah jerked herself away. “If you ever put your hands on me again, Fame, as God is my witness, I will blow your fuckin’ brains out. I’m always strapped with that little twenty-two you bought me. I keep it loaded, and I know how to use it,” Aminah said, looking down purposefully at her Marc Jacobs bag.

  Fame could not believe that his wife had not only slapped him but threatened his life, and to give another man head all in the same night. Must be a fuckin’ full moon, Fame thought. The night had definitely gotten out of hand.

  “Okay, Minah, baby, you need to calm down,” Fame said, walking toward Aminah, feeling more confused than nervous.

  “No, Fame,” Aminah said, patting her purse with one hand and putting up the other, signaling Fame to stop coming any closer. “I’ve been too calm for too long. That’s the problem.”

  “Minah, baby,” Fame pleaded.

  “No more, Fame. You need to start thinking about a life without me. You make me so sick,” Aminah snarled and then spat in her husband’s face.

  She carefully wiped the corners of her mouth and then calmly strutted out of the C room with her chin up and her back straightened.

  Daisha, the intern, and the receptionist all pressed themselves against the wall, getting out of her way. Aminah took her time strutting up the platinum-plaque-filled hallway and out the lobby. She pushed the down elevator button, and the doors opened immediately. Aminah drove off in the torrential rain feeling like one of Amir’s chessmen, the queen in fact, torn between sacrificing herself on the chessboard to protect the king yet again or forcing the king to be cornered, possibly resulting in checkmate.

  “…I can’t tell you to leave your husband and the father of your children…Only you can make that decision.”