by Mary Monroe
“Huh? Oh! Well, it was just one of those turnaround trips. A lot of people who can’t be gone for more than a day take these mini-cruises,” I said, all in one breath. That was another lie. I didn’t know about any of our rival cruise ships, but the Encantadora never went from California to Mexico and back in one day. “Oh! It was nice,” I said quickly. “Mexico is always real nice!” I didn’t have any luggage with me, not even an overnight bag, even though I’d left the house with one. It was still at the address on Manchester that I’d just left. I realized that as soon as I got back to Valerie’s house. “I am so glad to be back home,” I said, prepared to tell Floyd that I’d left my overnight bag in my cabin on the ship in case he asked.
“Good. Because this is where you belong.” Floyd grabbed my wrist and squeezed so hard, I grimaced; the pain was just that intense. I rose from the sofa and he rose with me, gripping my wrist so hard it felt like I’d been handcuffed. “Baby, you look so good to me. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about you. Even when I was at my lowest.” Floyd paused and glanced off to the side. When he looked back at me, there was the most extreme look of torture on his face that I’d ever seen. He had not looked this hopeless when he was in prison.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed.
“You probably know what jail is like for rapists . . .”
“Yeah, but you didn’t rape anybody. They’ve got proof now,” I said, wondering where this conversation was going.
“Another thing is, everybody in prison is innocent.”
“Well, now we know that at least one convict really was innocent: you. And I am sure that a lot of the others really are innocent, too. Your lawyer even said so.” He glanced off to the side again. “Floyd, I know how bad it must have been for you, but it’s over. And if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine with me.” I knew where rapists and child molesters ranked on the prison hierarchy. And I knew what the other prisoners often did to them: the same things that rapists and child molesters had done to their victims. But I didn’t want that information in my face, especially when it involved my husband. “Let’s try not to talk about that unless we have to.”
He nodded. “I just want you to know another thing on that subject. While I was in lockdown, I got my ass kicked more than once, but that was all. I want you to know that. I am still as, uh, straight as I was before I went in there. Case closed.” He parted my thighs with his knee. Then he pressed his dick against me and humped real hard a few times. Even though it felt good, I was glad when he suddenly stopped. “And before we change the subject, there is one other thing I’ve been meaning to discuss with you,” he volunteered, twisting his lips. I had a feeling that whatever it was he wanted to discuss, it was probably something else I didn’t want to hear.
“What?”
“I know that you heard rumors about Glodine getting jiggy with some of the boys she took in.”
“That? Yeah, I heard the rumors,” I said with a clumsy nod. “Valerie mentioned it a time or two when we were still in school. Why are you bringing that up now?”
“Because I want you to know everything there is to know about me. You’ve always been honest with me, that’s the least I can do for you.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, biting my bottom lip because I didn’t like the way that lie tasted. As nasty as it was, it was sweet compared to the bile rising in my throat.
“It was true.” He paused and held his hand up to my face. “But not with me. It was nothing but rumors and gossip that got started after she had a fling with one of the boys years after he’d moved out of her house. Dude was a grown man by then.” Floyd dipped his head and looked up at me. “I never had nothing to do with that woman, like that. She was a poor excuse for a mama, but she treated me better than my own mama did and I will always be grateful for that. You do believe me, don’t you?”
“I believe you, Floyd. Look, we don’t have to talk about things like this—”
“That’s where you are wrong, Dolores. This is our second chance at a real future. We can’t build much of a future if it’s based on secrets and lies. Now like I said, you love me enough to be open and honest with me. I want to do the same for you. Understood?”
“Understood,” I said, barely opening my mouth. We spent the rest of the afternoon in bed.
Valerie didn’t come home that night. When I checked the voice mail, I was surprised but glad to hear the reason why. “Girl, I’ve met the cutest little ex-sailor boy in the world. His name is Russell and he’s been doing some DJ gigs around town. He was part of that bachelorette party we had here a few days ago. I think he’s the one! Lo, you and Floyd have a good evening. There’s plenty of booze, some new CDs, and everything else you need to enjoy yourselves. I will see you two sex maniacs when I get home—whenever that is!”
I was so happy for Valerie, tears flooded my eyes. It was about time. She hadn’t spent the night with a man in more than a year! I prayed that this Russell would make this a very special night for her. On the other hand, if he hurt her in any way, he’d have to answer to me.
CHAPTER 49
Only God knows how I made it through the first month with Floyd in Valerie’s house. Running from that location to the condo on Manchester when Paul came to L.A., then up to Alameda to be with him and back, felt like a game of cat and mouse. I was both the cat and the mouse. Valerie found all of this amusing, but she covered well for me.
I was glad to see that her love life had finally picked up and seemed to be going in the right direction. My girl was so anxious to get married she had already scoped out a Vera Wang wedding gown. “Girl, when are you going to slow down long enough to meet my sweetie? Russell is dying to meet you,” she told me, sounding as lovesick as a schoolgirl.
I couldn’t wait to meet Russell. But as luck would have it, I was always out whenever he came to the house. “Soon I hope,” I told her. “If he’s the one, I need to let him know as soon as possible that you and I are a package deal. I’ve already promised myself that if he makes a fool out of you, he’ll have to deal with me.”
“You are too funny for words! If anybody should be worried about being made a fool of by some man, it’s you, Mrs. Dunne/Watson.” Valerie laughed.
“I just want to make sure you know I’m looking out for you,” I said sternly. “What all did you tell him about me? Does he know I’m married?”
“Of course he knows! I had to tell the man something. He spent two hours playing cards with Floyd the other day while you were with Paul.” Valerie laughed again when I gave her a horrified look and covered my mouth with my hand. “He only knows about Floyd. When you do meet him, just remember to keep things straight. He knows you work on a cruise ship and that you’re onboard when you’re not here. Don’t worry; I’ve got your back, girl.”
Paul had never called me at work. I had told him that the company was very strict about us receiving personal phone calls, unless it was an extreme emergency. That was why we all used cell phones, I’d told him. There was no reason for anybody to call me at work these days, so I didn’t have to worry about that. That was one less thing to worry about, because I quit my job. I had even changed my mind about taking a job in the main office like I had told Candace. There was no way I could do any job and still keep both husbands.
With Paul, I had to come up with something a little more elaborate than the “sick friend in the mental institution” to explain why I had discontinued my once-a-month jaunts to Monterey. The next time he asked about the phantom friend that I’d invented, I was ready. “Oh, Crystal is doing so much better. Her doctor thinks that it would be better for her if I stopped visiting for a while. That way she can regain her independence faster, and more control of her life.”
One thing that my beloved foster mother had taught me was to never let my right hand know what my left hand was doing. Knowledge was power and could be deadly if it got in the wrong hands. What Paul and Floyd didn’t know didn’t hurt them—or me.
The allowa
nce and money for household expenses that I received from Paul and Floyd was enough to cover the rent that I paid Valerie, my car insurance, my ten credit cards, and other necessities. I was doing all right in that area, and as long as I watched my step, I didn’t have to worry.
I still didn’t know the amount of Floyd’s settlement, and he made it clear that that was one thing he wasn’t ready to discuss, yet. Not even with me. But it had to be sweet for him to be able to buy a three-bedroom condo in Beverly Hills.
“This is going to be our dream home, baby,” he told me. Such a huge knot formed in my throat, it felt like I was being strangled. I was overwhelmed. “Baby, don’t cry. Everything is going to be all right now. I keep telling you that, but every time I look up, you crying like a baby.” He was right.
I had been doing a lot of crying lately. Not just in front of Floyd, but the last time I was with Paul, I’d boo-hooed so much he offered to take off a month from work and spend it with me somewhere exotic. “You pick the place, baby. Belize, Cancún, Maui. Anywhere you want to go, we’ll go. And first class all the way,” Paul told me, as we shared a bubble bath together a few nights ago. “The world is yours. Once we get to wherever it is you want to go, I am going to do everything but hog-tie you to a bed so I can give you the loving you need. I don’t have to be a psychic to see that you are feeling neglected. . . .”
I squalled like a panda just listening to him talk about the romantic rendezvous he wanted to arrange. As tempting as it was, there was no way I could go. After practically pouring a few glasses of wine down his throat, and a two-hour session in bed after we got out of the bathtub, I talked him out of that notion. There was only one way to do it at such short notice. I brought my bogus friend Crystal back into the picture. I told him she’d had a sudden relapse when she’d heard that her ex-husband had remarried and now she was back in the institution. I needed to be close by, in case she needed me. “Baby, I’ve told you before, but I’ll tell you again, I hope your friends appreciate all you do for them.”
“I hope they do, too,” I said.
I knew at least one friend did. Valerie appreciated everything I did for her. And there was nobody I felt more comfortable with than I did with Valerie. I had just run into her house in such a frantic state of mind, I had on two different shoes. I had just dropped Paul off at LAX. As much as I loved that man, he had driven me to distraction the night before. He’d stayed two days longer than he’d originally planned. While he was shampooing the carpets, I’d slipped out to go spend a couple of hours with Floyd. He had surprised me that night with a filet mignon dinner that he had prepared by himself. I ate as much as I could, sexed him up for a few minutes, then I was out the door again—going to work “to attend an emergency security related meeting and to cover an overnight cruise to Mazatlan for a sick co-worker.” Now that Paul was out of my hair, I could concentrate on Floyd. But first, I needed a break.
“Valerie, please fix me a very large, very strong drink,” I said, plopping down on her living room sofa, rubbing my sore thighs. I groaned from all the pain I was in. I wondered how prostitutes could fuck several men a day and still walk. I kept my legs spread open so much these days, I was getting bowlegged. Just fucking on a regular basis had taken a heavy toll on me. And in my case, both of my men were good in bed, so I usually enjoyed it as much as they did. My sex life had become a double-edged sword. “If I live through this shit, I will become a nun and spend the rest of my life douching with vanilla.”
“Lo, I can’t tell you how to live your crazy life, but as your best friend, I have to tell you that you need to do something about this. You can’t go on like this too much longer. You are coming apart at the seams, girl. I can see it happening right before my eyes. And to be honest with you, these two husbands of yours must be some stupid-ass motherfuckers to believe all the shit you tell them. I’ve never seen a woman shove as many lies down a man’s—two men’s—throats the way you do and get away with it. Are men really that fucking gullible?”
“They must be,” I said with a shrug. “But I do love them both, and that’s the important thing.”
“I don’t know what this world is coming to. But I still worry about you. . . .”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, even though there was a noticeable tremor in my voice. Valerie handed me a large glass of white wine and a shot glass filled with tequila. I gave her words some thought. And I sincerely appreciated her concern. But that didn’t change anything.
She shook her head and gave me a worried look. “You might think you are fine, but at this rate you won’t make it to your thirty-fourth birthday coming up next month,” she told me.
“At this rate, I won’t make it to next week. Girl, I don’t know what I was thinking! Shit, shit, shit—I’m covered with shit! How the hell did I get myself into this mess?!”
“That’s what I’d like to know. I’ve been meaning to ask you, what the hell were you thinking? Did you honestly think that you could get away with being married to two men at the same time?” Valerie sat on the arm of her sofa, sipping from a glass of red wine.
I gave her a thoughtful look. “All I ever wanted in life was to be happy. I wanted Floyd to be happy. We deserve to be. I promised him when we were kids that I’d marry him.” I sighed and drank the entire shot of tequila in one big gulp. It burned like hell going down my throat, but that didn’t even faze me. I handed the glass to Valerie for another shot.
“But you didn’t count on him going to jail. And when he did, that cancelled out your promise,” Valerie told me as she got me another drink.
“Whatever,” I said, shaking my head and staring at the refilled shot glass in my hand like it was a magic wand. “I just thought of something. I know a way I can straighten out this mess.”
Valerie looked at me like I’d just sprouted a beard. “After all the stupid shit you’ve already done, I’m afraid to ask what,” Valerie told me in a stern voice, shaking her head.
“What if I up and disappear?” I asked sharply. “I don’t have any family who would come looking for me. I could even go to another country and assume a new identity.”
Valerie gave me a stunned looked. “That’s just as crazy as everything else you’ve done. In case you didn’t know, husbands are considered family. And you’ve got two. They’d both report you missing and there’d be newspaper reports. It would be just a matter of time before Paul found out about Floyd, and vice versa.”
“There is more than one way to disappear. If I wrote a farewell letter to each one and then took off, neither one would have any reason to come looking for me. I could even say that I’m dying, or that I’m in love with another man and running away with him.”
“Now you listen to me! Don’t ever mess around with death. Faking something like death is not something to play around with,” Valerie scolded. “That would open the door to bad karma so fast your head would spin off.”
“Well, what about a story about me running away with another man? Somebody I met in one of the ports I went to. A foreigner.”
“I don’t know about that,” Valerie quipped, a thoughtful look on her face. “It could work, but is that what you really want to do? These two men love you. You’d be hurting them. Probably as much if not more than you would if they found out the truth.” Valerie fanned the air with her hand. “Uh-uh. I advise you not to go there. A lie about a disappearing act to be with another man could create even more problems. You can always divorce one and stay with the other. If you do it right, neither one will ever know about the other. Which one do you love the least?”
I blinked and thought about what Valerie had just said. But I couldn’t answer her question, because I didn’t know the answer myself.
CHAPTER 50
I had a comfortable life with Paul, but it could not compete with the life I suddenly had with Floyd. Because of his sudden wealth, thanks to his settlement with the state of California, the man was able to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous and he wanted me to share
that lifestyle with him.
I had never considered myself a gold digger. However, now that wealth was there for the taking, I wanted to enjoy it, too. And I deserved it. I had bent over backward to support Floyd. As far as I was concerned, that support had also been an investment. Now it was time for me to reap the benefits.
Other than his dedicated lawyer, Brian, I was still the only close friend Floyd had. However, once some of his former “homies” from the hood got word of his windfall, they all started trying to crawl back into his life. None of them had his new address or phone number, but when Floyd finally paid a visit to Glodine, she handed him two sheets of paper with the names and numbers of “friends” who wanted to hear from him.
I was disappointed when Floyd told me that he had visited Glodine. “I just wanted to tie up another loose end. As mean as she was to me, living with her was better than what I had before. She never let me forget that, and it bothered me. Besides, if she hadn’t took me in, I wouldn’t have met you. I greased her palm with a few thousand dollars, but it was more to clear my conscience than it was to finance her latest shopping spree or a trip to a casino. My debt to her for raising me is paid in full, as far as I’m concerned.”
I admired Floyd even more for compensating that heifer. Glodine hadn’t done such a lousy job, after all. I was glad that he had no intentions of breaking off any of his former friends with a dime, though. After most of the excitement had worn off, I even felt a twinge of guilt about taking money from him. But I reminded myself that if anybody deserved to share his windfall, it was me. However, this new development was so bittersweet, I really could not enjoy it like I thought I would. And I wouldn’t, as long as I was living the double life of a bigamist.
In addition to a lot of new clothes from some of the most exclusive boutiques on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Floyd wanted to replace my aged Honda Civic with a brand-new BMW, or something more appropriate for our Beverly Hills address. He was the proud owner of a brand-new champagne-colored Jaguar. We’d been in the new condo for only a month. Under normal circumstances, I would have jumped at the chance to own a luxury car. “Only if I can keep my Civic,” I told Floyd. We stood on the terrace that night looking out at all the bright lights below, wondering what celebrities were hiding behind the tinted windows of the many stretch limos crawling down our street.
