Addicted

by Zane

  While I was waiting for my black Mercedes to warm up, I repositioned my rearview mirror so I could take a good look at myself. I wanted to see what a cheating, disgusting, nasty, lying whore really looked like. “ Behold, the whore!” I spoke the words aloud and started laughing. There I was with mascara smeared all over my big brown eyes and tears covering my smooth caramel skin. There I was with ruby lipstick smudged over my trembling lips. I hated myself at that very moment. I closed my eyes and prayed for someone to throw me a life rope.

  “Zoe, where you been, baby?” The dreaded question, and I hadn’t even made it all the way in the kitchen door yet.

  I came into the kitchen, where Jason was sitting at the table with the kids eating a Chicken Supreme pizza from Pizza Hut, and threw my briefcase on the countertop of the island. “Boo, I’m sorry I’m getting home so late. I had a problem with one of my distributors and had to hold an emergency meeting.”

  “You couldn’t call?”

  All sorts of excuses and alibis started running through my mind. I took my coat off and flung it over a stool at the breakfast bar. “To be honest, Jason, I got so stressed about solving the problem, the time just got away from me, and before I knew it, it was after eight.”

  “Baby, you have a cell phone. You could have been considerate enough to take one moment out and call so I wouldn’t be worried.” He got up from the table and started clearing away the dishes, bringing them over to the sink where I was getting a glass of water. “I don’t understand you sometimes. It’s like you don’t even care about whether I know where you are or not.”

  Something snapped. “Peter, take the twins up to their room and put on a cartoon movie for them, please.”

  I watched Peter gather his siblings up and do as I asked. Peter paused just long enough to ask a question. “Daddy, can we watch that new movie you bought us? The one with the black Cinderella?”

  “Sure, go ahead.” Jason was rolling up the sleeves of his white Bali shirt, getting ready to bust some suds. Once the kids were out of earshot, I got back to the matter at hand.

  “Look, Jason, I really don’t need this shit from you tonight. I’ve had a very long day. You keep making it sound like I’m never at home, and that’s simply not true.” He stood there rolling his eyes, his hands on his hips, and that pissed me off even more. “Hell, if you had it your way, I would never leave the fucking house. You want me in the kitchen, barefoot, and pregnant huh?”

  “See, now you’re getting ridiculous.” He cut the faucet off and started walking away, mumbling something under his breath, and I followed him into his drawing room. “I never implied anything like that, Zoe, and you know it!”

  He went over to the compact stereo system on one of the built-in shelves and turned on a Nancy Crawford CD. He always listens to smooth music when he creates his masterpieces, designing some of the most beautiful and breathtaking buildings one could imagine. “You’re crucifying me for expecting a phone call. A simple phone call letting me know what’s up. If I did that same shit, you’d never let me hear the end of it!”

  Jason was right, and I was ashamed. Once again, I was using my own feelings of guilt about my “ alternative” lifestyle as a basis for arguing with him. Before I started cheating on him, we never fought but the little spats were becoming more frequent. The infidelity had to end. A lesser man would have left me, betrayed me, abused me. Thank goodness Jason’s love for me overshadowed his frustration.

  He sat down at his drafting table and began scribbling, breaking the lead tip out of a pencil by pressing down on it too hard in his anger. I walked up behind him and started massaging his shoulders. I could feel the tension in them, and it made me even more ashamed, knowing I was the cause of it all. “I’m sorry, baby! You’re absolutely right. I should’ve called. It was totally irresponsible and inconsiderate of me not to do so.”

  He didn’t say a word, just grabbed another pencil and started drawing again. I slowly moved my hands from his shoulders down to his chest and caressed his nipples through his shirt. He grabbed my left hand in his and kissed it. “It’s okay, Zoe. I just hate it when we fight.”

  “I know, Boo. So do I.”

  Jason twirled the base of his elevated drawing chair around so he was facing me and looked into my eyes. “All I ever wanted to do is make you happy.”

  “And you do! You make me very happy.” I pressed my palms against his cheeks and gave him a long, wet kiss. “I love you, and this is forever.”

  “Always has been! Always will be!” We smiled at each other, and then he started kissing me on my neck while I looked up through one of the skylights at the stars.

  There was a long, uncomfortable pause. I was trying to decide whether or not I should even mention Marcella. I decided to hint around and see if the shit hit the fan.

  “I met this cool doctor today. A sistah.” I pushed back a little from him so I could survey his expression. I didn’t see a damn thing except the so-what look. “Her name’s Marcella Spencer.”

  Jason picked up another pencil and started fiddling with one of his blueprints. “That’s nice, honey.”

  I walked over to the stereo and flipped through the CD rack, searching for nothing in particular but seeing if he had bought anything new.

  “What kind of doctor is she?” Jason quizzed. “Maybe I can send her some business.”

  “Umm, actually she’s a psychiatrist.” I waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “Psychiatrist?” Jason acted like I said she was a hooker or something. Like the word was a four-letter one instead of a twelve-letter one. “Where in the world did you meet a psychiatrist?”

  “Through a mutual friend.” That was only a halfway lie—I did hear about her through the lady at the beauty salon. “She’s very nice and down-to-earth.” Jason chuckled like I had said something funny. “Why are you laughing?”

  “No reason. It just amazes me that people like that can even make an honest living,” he stated emphatically, shaking his head.

  “People like who?”

  “Psychiatrists. Shrinks. Head doctors,” he said with an edge of sarcasm. “I mean, really, Zoe. What kind of person pays someone to listen to their silly-ass problems?”

  I was offended but not about to confront him by admitting I was paying, and willing to pay out the ass if I had to if it would help. “Lots of people need therapy for different things, Jason. I can’t believe you’re being so closed-minded.”

  “Well, thank goodness neither one of us is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” he chuckled, laughing at his own half-ass joke. “I would send her some clients if she was an internist or cardiologist or pediatrician or something normal, but a psychiatrist? No freakin’ way! All my friends are sane. Stressed-out, maybe, but definitely sane.”

  I hunched my shoulders and paced to the window, debating whether to run out of the room before I started crying in despair. How was I ever going to tell him I was seeing a psychiatrist?

  “Guess what, baby? I have some great news of my own!”

  I took a deep, restorative breath and turned to face him. “What’s that, Boo?” I asked, forcing a smile.

  He got up, walked over to me and put his arms around my waist. “I got a huge contract today. The city wants me to design the new civic center.”

  “Really?” I was stunned. I knew my baby was the bomb-diggity all along, but he was really hitting the big time lately, having just completed the new YMCA. “That’s great, baby!”

  We shared a long, passionate kiss. I could feel my panties getting wet. Any show of affection from Jason always turned me on. “I have a great idea.”

  “What’s that?” he asked me with a mischievous grin.

  “Why don’t you go grab a bottle of champagne while I go upstairs and slip into something more comfortable?”

  “Hmmm, sounds promising!” He gave me a big, wet one right smack on the lips. “But what about the kids?”

  “You know as well as I do those chaps are probably all passed out on Pete
r’s bed.” We both laughed. It was a regular Friday-night routine for the kids to all fall out from the past week as if they had worked twelve hours a day. “I just want to be with you. I want tonight to be very special.”

  “Every night with you is special.”

  I looked into his eyes, wishing things could be different between us. If only he could be more receptive to my needs. I pranced off like Little Red Riding Hood on the way to her grandmother’s house, grinning from ear to ear and hoping he was about to portray the part of the Big Bad Wolf and eat me, just like the one in the story. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening, but one can always maintain a strand of hope. “I’ll see you when you get upstairs.”

  chapter

  ten

  When I awoke the next morning, Jason had already left to play his Saturday-morning round of golf with his two partners from the architectural design firm. It was after nine. I was surprised all the kids were still asleep—a welcome treat, as normally they would be up at the break of dawn.

  Rays of sunlight invaded the haven of our bedroom through the skylights in the ceiling. The sun is the only major drawback to having a house with dozens of skylights. It’s beautiful but can become a nuisance sometimes. As long as I get to see my stars at night, it’s all good though. When it rains, it’s so sexually stimulating. Then again, most things are sexually stimulating to me.

  Unfortunately, after Jason and I proclaimed our undying love for one another in his drawing room the night before, it was followed by yet another sexual disappointment. After he fell asleep, I snuck into the bathroom, sat on the countertop, and masturbated with the dildo I kept hidden behind the cleaning supplies in the lower cabinet until I came.

  Lying there thinking about it was bringing on an episode of depression, so I decided to get up and get moving. I called Brina, my partner in crime, and asked if she wanted to take the kids and hang out someplace for a little while. As expected, she was wide awake and down for whatever. We decided to hook up in about an hour at her place. I took a quick shower and got dressed. I woke the kids, who had all been bathed the night before, got them ready to go, left Jason a note on the fridge, and headed for Brina’s.

  When we got to Brina’s, her ass wasn’t ready. I could hear the shower running in her apartment as I was knocking. I opted to retrieve the key she always hid on top of the emergency lamp in the building corridor rather than wait for her to finish. The loafers I had on were killing me, and I wanted to rest my feet for a while. The kids and I bumrushed into her place. I turned on some Saturday-morning cartoons for them and went into her bedroom just as she was drying off.

  “Girl, hurry your ass up!”

  She jumped, obviously unaware we were already inside. “Damn, Zoe, you scared the hell out of me!”

  “Sorry, Sis. I didn’t mean to freak you out.” When she dropped the bath towel to the floor, I was staring at her body. Not because I thought she was sexy—lawd knows I’m strictly dickly—but because her arms, shoulders, and rib cage were all covered with bruises. I quickly shut the bedroom door, anticipating the highly emotional conversation we were about to have.

  “Brina, are you out of your freakin’ mind? You’re still letting Dempsey’s skank ass beat on you?”

  Brina started throwing on clothes faster than a runway model changing clothes between appearances on stage. “Zoe, he doesn’t mean it. Sometimes he just has a rough day at work, and shit happens, you know?”

  “Yeah, shit happens, and when I catch up to his ass, he’s going to find out what kind of shit happens when he messes with my best friend!”

  I was fired up. I couldn’t believe she was letting his limp-dick leprechaun midget ass beat on her. Dempsey was this little trick Brina met at a nightclub, which was hint number one she didn’t have any business with him. Add to that the fact he was unemployed 90 percent of the time, drank more vodka alone than a Russian football team can drink altogether, and had five kids by four different women, and you have a shitty-ass excuse for a man, one of those scrubs TLC is always singing about: a Sexually repressed, Childish, Raunchy, Useless Bastard!

  Brina was almost completely dressed in a black sweatsuit, comparable to the jeans and cardigan I was bumming around in for a Saturday escapade. I turned on the TV in her bedroom, hoping to drown out our voices even more so the kids wouldn’t hear us. Then I got medieval on her ass.

  “Brina, let me tell you something. You’re too good for that trick. He’s a fucking waste of oxygen.”

  “Zoe, look, let’s not start this shit again today. Let’s just go hang out like we planned.”

  “Hang out? We need to be hanging at the damn emergency room! Look at your ass!” I walked over to her, attempting to console her, and she flinched due to all the pain the bruises were causing. I took my index finger and pressed it against one of her ribs, and she collapsed on the bed, bent over in pain. “Sis, I think your rib is fractured.”

  I reached for the telephone, but she grabbed the receiver out my hand. “Who are you calling? Jason?”

  “Hell naw! Jason’s playing golf, and he can’t help you anyway. I’m calling an ambulance, and then I’m calling the police so you can file charges against his trifling ass. This shit stops right now. Today!”

  Brina and I started having a tug-of-war over the phone and I almost accidentally knocked her upside the head with it before I wrestled it away from her. “No, Zoe! You can’t call the police! He’ll kill me, Sis!”

  I hesitated for a brief moment, letting the words sink into my head, and then I replaced the receiver on the cradle. My voice suddenly went from a holler to nearly a whisper as I sat down on the bed beside her. “Kill you?”

  She started sobbing, and I got her a tissue off the nightstand. “Brina, has he threatened to kill you?” No reply. She blew the mucus out her nose and pretended she didn’t even hear the question. “Where is he anyway?”

  “Dempsey caught the bus home to Alabama for the weekend. It’s homecoming at his alma mater.”

  “Oh!” I didn’t know what to say. I was worried about Brina, and at the same time I wanted to kick her ass my damn self for being so stupid as to stay with him. Part of me wished I knew a voodoo priestess I could call and arrange for Dempsey to be fatally bitten by an Alabama black snake. That would have put an end to it all.

  “Zoe, gurl!” She jumped up from the bed, walked over to the dresser, and looked in the mirror while she applied some lipstick. “Let’s just get out of here and enjoy ourselves. It’s a beautiful day out, and the kids don’t need to be cooped up in here.”

  I picked up the phone again and started dialing. “Zoe, I thought I asked you not to call the police. I’m denying whatever you tell them, so it’s a waste of time.”

  “I’m not calling the police. I’m calling Jason at the country club and telling him to come pick up the kids so I can take you to the hospital.”

  The line was busy, so I pressed down the reset button and started dialing again. “Zoe, I’m not going to the hospital either.”

  While it was ringing, I got pissed off for real. “Listen, Brina, you may have convinced me not to call the police, for now, but your ignorant behind is going to the hospital if I have to rope and gag your ass to get you there.”

  I had Jason paged and I was waiting outside Brina’s apartment building when he pulled up in his hunter green Land Rover. After we got the kids buckled in, Jason followed me back up the walkway to the entrance so I could fill him in. He was more anxious to get his hands on Dempsey than I was, but I told him the trick had beat Brina’s ass and run like all punks do.

  We kissed each other good-bye, said I love you, and I watched him pull off with the kids before I went back inside to get Brina.

  “So, where are Jason and the kids going? Home?” We were in my car en route to the hospital, and Brina was trying to discuss any and everything but the matter at hand.

  “No, he took them to Family Adventure Fun Park, that place over in SW that has the balls to jump in,
crawling tubes, arcade, and all that.”

  “Cool!”

  The sun was irritating my eyes, even with the sun visor down, and I was nursing one hell of a migraine. “Brina, you do realize you have to end the relationship with Dempsey, right?”

  She rolled her eyes, smacked her lips, and turned the radio volume up to a ridiculous level. “Can we just talk about something else, please?”

  “Hell no, we’re going to talk about this!” I turned the radio completely off. “That fool has got to step. He’s nothing but bad news. When does this all end? When he uses you as a punching bag one time too many, fucks around, and kills your ass?”

  “You’re trippin’ hard. You just don’t understand my life, Zoe.”

  “Then enlighten me! Please!”

  I almost ran a red light but was able to screech to a halt just in time. Good thing, too, because there was a police car right behind me. “You and Jason have this fairy-tale life. You always have had. Shit doesn’t come easy to me like that. A good man is hard to find.”

  “And you think Dempsey’s a good man, Brina? Chile, please!”

  “He may not be perfect, but he’s all mine, and he loves me.”

  “How can you come out of your face and say he loves you when he gives you a beatdown whenever the hell he feels like it?”

  “Think what you want, Zoe. He loves me, and I love him back.”

  The entrance to the emergency was dead ahead, and I could see the flashing lights on an ambulance that had just pulled in. “You need help, Brina. Serious help, and I don’t mean the physical kind either.”

  I pondered over Brina’s situation as well as my own while I waited for her in the crowded waiting room in the emergency wing. It was flu season, so people were hacking and sneezing all over the place. They almost sounded like a snot chorus. It was disgusting, not to mention unhealthy.

  To most people, I guess Jason and I were living a fairy tale, but they were on the outside looking in. Then again, Jason thought we were living a fairy tale too. I was the only one who could distinguish fantasy from reality.