Zane's the Other Side of the Pillow

by Zane

  I was still completely out of it when I felt Jemistry unzipping my pants and pulling my dick out.

  “Ooh, baby,” I whispered. “You’re home.”

  I loved it when Jemistry woke me up with her amazing head game.

  “So now you want to have an end-of-the-year party with me? Do your thing, baby.”

  She didn’t respond. She just took the tip of my dick into her mouth and went to work.

  It didn’t take me long to snap out of it, open my eyes, and push Winsome off of me, and completely off the bed.

  I jumped up as she climbed up off the floor. “What the fuck?!”

  Winsome laughed. “I was only trying to give you what you wanted.”

  “I don’t want you!” I stared at her in disgust as I tried frantically to put my dick back in my pants. “You’re fucking crazy!”

  “That’s a big-ass dick you’ve got there.” Winsome bit her bottom lip. “Now I see why Jemistry’s so sprung. I should’ve known when she gave up both of her fuck buddies so fast. They’d been taking turns banging her pussy out for years.”

  “You’re a dirty bitch!”

  “It’s the truth. I bet you thought she was some kind of innocent and virginal chick when you met her, didn’t you? She had your ass fooled and she has your ass fooled now.”

  “She told me about her past and what she was doing when we met. There’s nothing you can say or do that will keep me from loving her.”

  We both heard the key in the lock at the same time. I tried desperately to beat Winsome to the door but, by the time I got there, Jemistry was standing in the hallway and saw both of us come out of her room. There was no way that we could hide the expressions on our faces.

  Winsome walked past Jemistry and said, “I was keeping that dick warm for you until you got home. He’s like a fucking python.”

  Jemistry glared at Winsome as she disappeared out of sight and then turned her look of utter disappointment toward me.

  “Baby, I promise you, this is not what you think.”

  “Not what I think?” She pointed in the direction that Winsome had gone. “I come home, catch the two of you rushing out of my bedroom, your belt unbuckled and your pants unzipped, and it’s not what I think? It’s exactly what the fuck I think!”

  I tried to move toward her and take her into my arms. She pushed me away.

  “Don’t even think about touching me! I trusted you. It took me years to let the walls of my fortress come down, and you do this to me. You’re like all the rest of them.”

  “No, I’m not. I promise you that—”

  “Stop saying promise!” Jemistry screamed. “It’s a lie! Everything you ever told me was a lie!”

  “Baby, when you said you were running late, I went to lie down.” I pointed to her bedroom. “I woke up with my dick in your roommate’s mouth and immediately pushed her off me.”

  “You are so full of shit! How did she manage to get your dick out of your pants and into her mouth without you noticing?”

  “I thought it was you. My eyes were closed, but the second she started . . . when she put it in her mouth, I could tell the difference.”

  “I don’t believe a word coming out of your mouth. You need to get the fuck out.”

  “I’m not leaving until we get this straight . . . until you understand what happened. Ask her what happened. Can you at least do that?”

  “I don’t even want to look at that bitch in this moment! She’s—”

  Winsome must have been hanging on to every word. She yelled, “Don’t call me a damn bitch because your man wanted some of this!”

  I couldn’t believe that things were going down like that. I couldn’t believe that the love of my life was about to reject me for something that I didn’t do. How could a life already so fucked-up and plagued with disappointment take another fucking blow?

  Jemistry went around the corner and I followed her. Before I knew it, she was on top of Winsome on the floor, pounding her fists into her face. Winsome was screaming for dear life and trying to protect her head.

  I pulled Jemistry off her. “Baby, stop! It’s not worth going to jail!”

  “You filthy bitch!” Jemistry screamed, and started trying to kick Winsome as she got up off the floor. “It’s not enough for you to fuck every Tom, Thomasina, Dick, Daisy, Harry, and Henrietta! Now you want to fuck my man!”

  Winsome wiped the blood coming out of the right side of her lip. “Actually, your man came onto me.”

  “That’s a fucking lie!” I said. “You came in there when I was asleep and tricked me. Admit it.”

  “I ain’t admitting shit because it didn’t go down that way!”

  I was still holding on to Jemistry from behind. She grabbed at my wrists to try to free herself. “Let me go, Tevin!”

  “Only if you promise you won’t attack her again. I don’t give a fuck about her, but I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  Jemistry started breathing heavily; she was in a blind rage.

  “No, I’m not letting you go. I’m taking you out of here before you end up hurt, or in jail. You’re a principal. Think about it.”

  Jemistry started to calm down some. One thing was for sure: She didn’t want to jeopardize her career. She had worked too hard for it.

  “Let me go. I’m going to leave, and so are you.”

  I released. “Good, we can go back to my place. You don’t ever have to come back here. I’ll get all of your things by tomorrow and—”

  “I’m not leaving any of my shit here, and I’m not going to your place.” She glared at Winsome. “As a matter of fact, you get the fuck out.”

  “I’m not going anywhere!” Winsome proclaimed. “Ain’t no man coming between us! He needs to get the fuck out so we can talk!”

  “Winsome, I swear on every grave of every dead relative that I have, if you don’t get the fuck out of here within the next two minutes, I’m going to beat the living daylights out of you.”

  “Jemistry, this is silly. Where am I supposed to go?”

  “I don’t give a damn. Out of all the people you’re fucking, at least one of them should have a sofa for you to crash on. Or you can just get in their bed and spread your legs like you always do. Tell them that you’ll fuck for three hots and a cot.”

  “Are you really going to put me out of here?” Winsome asked.

  “Are you really going to wait around and find out if I’ll maim you?”

  Winsome went into her bedroom.

  I tried to reason with Jemistry. “All of this started because I discussed moving in together earlier and she flipped.”

  Jemistry turned and looked me in the eyes. “I can’t deal with this right now. I need time.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow morning.” Winsome had put on a pair of tennis shoes and grabbed her purse. “By then, everything should be back to normal.”

  “Back to normal? How about you kiss my entire ass? Let’s get something straight right now. We’re no longer going to be roommates. I decided to share a home with a friend, not a backstabbing whore.”

  Winsome stood there, tapping her right foot, and staring up at the ceiling.

  “I’m not sure what happened between the two of you, but it’s clear as a damn bell that it shouldn’t have ever happened. You’re so hurt and lonely that you want me to wallow in the shit pool of pity with you. Well, I’m not doing it another day.”

  “You do realize that I could call the police because you assaulted me, right?” Winsome asked and then smirked. “My face tells the story.”

  “Yeah, you can call the police and by the time they get here, there’ll be bruises all over your body. If I’m getting locked up, I’m going to make it worth my time.”

  The smirk quickly disappeared from Winsome’s face. Both she and I realized that what Jemistry had said made a lot of sense. That damn Virgo was analyzing and plotting. If she was going to get arrested, she was going to cause more damage on her way there. I could
n’t argue with that logic.

  Winsome didn’t say another word. She left out and slammed the front door.

  Jemistry turned toward me. “Your turn.”

  “I love you. You know that I love you.”

  She went over and opened the door. “Please leave.”

  “Not until we talk.”

  “Look, Tevin, I’m not going to be the typical scorned woman, call the police, lie about you doing something to me, and then put you into the system with a restraining order. So many women do that, that when women really are in danger, people tend not to believe them.

  “But I’m also not prepared to listen to any more of your lies tonight. It’s too painful. If you truly give even an inkling of a damn about me, you’ll leave. You’ll leave right now and let me start to begin healing.

  “The good part—if there is a good part in this cesspool of pure fuckery—is that I’m out of school for the summer. I’m going to deal with getting Winsome the hell up out of here for good. I’m going to drown my sorrows with peanut butter cups and butter pecan ice cream. I’m going to try to understand why my judgment in men is so poor yet again.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your judgment, baby. Not this time. I promise you that—”

  “There goes that word again. Promise! Blah, blah, blah.”

  I realized that I was fighting a losing battle.

  I walked toward the door and paused in front of her. She looked away from me. “You’re not even going to look at me?”

  “No, it’s too hurtful.”

  I did as Jemistry wished and left. When I got into my car, I saw Winsome across the parking lot in her Toyota Camry, going off into her cell phone. Bitch!

  How could planning a romantic dinner and a proposal turn into such a horror story? Someone was playing a sick joke on me!

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Hate is easy. Love takes courage.”

  —Unknown

  Many claim that there is life after death. I guess there is some truth to that because the biggest part of me died that night in Jemistry’s apartment when she dismissed me from her life. My heart failed . . . it flatlined. I was like a zombie from The Walking Dead TV series. Sure, I was a functioning zombie, walking among a sea of functioning alcoholics, functioning gamblers, and functioning drug addicts. I went through the motions every day, even managed to stay on top of my game in the operating room, but once I left the hospital, all I did was go home, sit in the dark, and sink into a state of depression until the next morning.

  I tried to call Jemistry but she blocked my numbers. She also blocked my email addresses. I staked out her parking lot a few times, but I never saw her enter or leave. Her car was never in the lot, which made me wonder if she had moved after all, or had left town.

  After everything in her painful past that she had told me about, the last thing that I wanted on my conscience was her thinking that I was the kind of man who would do anything to disrespect or hurt her. Yet, that’s exactly what she thought. In her mind, I was a liar and a cheater, one who would sink so low as to do something sexual with her own roommate.

  To make matters worse, she had also lost her faith in her best friend that day. Even I was shocked that Winsome would do such a thing, especially considering I barely knew her. Whether Jemistry believed that I came on to her or she came on to me, either way, the blow had to feel just as bad.

  Floyd showed up at my house two Fridays later, with a pizza and a bottle of Crown Royal. When I opened the door and saw him standing there, my heart sank. I had hoped that it was Jemistry.

  “Don’t look so happy to see me,” he said as he brushed past me and entered.

  “Floyd, I appreciate you coming by, but I wouldn’t be much company right now.”

  “So we’ll eat all of these carbs and get drunk and pass out in silence. I know you’re off for the weekend, as am I, so it’s all good.” He put the pizza down on the coffee table. “I can camp out for a couple of days, if you want. Courtney’s used to my long hours.”

  “What part of me wanting to be alone don’t you get?” I asked sarcastically.

  “What part of ‘I’m no longer going to sit back and watch you sink into a state of depression’ don’t you get?”

  I sighed and plopped down on the sofa. “What amazes me is the irony of it all.”

  “What irony?”

  “I warn you that you’re going to lose Courtney when she catches you cheating, and I lose Jemistry instead, even though I wasn’t cheating.”

  Floyd shook his head and opened the pizza box. “See, sometimes it pays to do the wrong thing. Courtney’s at home vacuuming and doing laundry after an afternoon of getting a pedicure, a manicure, and a facial that I footed the bill for. If and when I go home, she’ll be in bed freshly showered and ready to please her husband in every way imaginable.”

  “It still doesn’t justify what you’re doing.”

  “No, there is no justification for what I’m doing. I’m a dog and there’s no doubt about it. I even know what kind of dog I am. I looked it up.”

  I couldn’t help but ask. “Looked what up?”

  “I went on the Internet and researched the traits of different breeds of dogs.”

  “Are you for real?” I sighed. “You have too much spare time on your hands.”

  “I don’t have any spare time on my hands, but I wanted to know. Think about it. From childhood, both of us have heard about all men being dogs. Hell, chicks started calling me a dog before I even caught a good whiff of a pussy.”

  I chuckled. “That’s true. Girls in middle school were calling us all dogs.”

  “Exactly. So I decided to finally investigate and see what the hell they were talking about. Most dogs are loyal, sit up underneath their owners, protect them, and will even lay down their lives for the people who feed them. Yet, we’re called dogs like it’s a bad thing. If you ask me, dogs get a really bad rap.”

  “Like I said, you have too much time on your hands.”

  Floyd grabbed a slice of pizza. He was the only man that I knew who liked pineapple on pizza. That always seemed like a female thing. One day I had asked him about it and he said that he ate a lot of fruit to counteract the other ingredients so his ejaculate wouldn’t taste fucked up when chicks sucked his dick. Couldn’t argue with that rationale.

  “So what breed are you?”

  “I’m proud to say that I’m an Alaskan Malamute.” He pointed at the pizza. “You’re not hungry?”

  “Floyd, you know I’m not into pineapple on pizza. You should’ve brought me a meat lover’s. That’s my shit.”

  “Well, you can pick the pineapple off, but I suggest you eat it, and you already know why.”

  “I’m not having sex with anyone right now. I don’t want anyone but the one I can’t have.” I paused. “I must be bored to ask this. What are the traits of an Alaskan Malamute? Never heard of it.”

  “Good question. And dig this. Alaskan Malamutes have natural hunting instincts. They’re independent, resourceful, and highly intelligent. They’re difficult to train but if an owner understands and keeps them motivated, a successful situation is possible. They rarely bark, but when they do, it comes out as more of a woo-woo than a bark.”

  “You’re crazy, man!” I chuckled. “How many breeds did you have to go through to find that one?”

  “It only took me about fifteen minutes to define my character traits. Don’t you think they fit me?”

  “I have no fucking idea!”

  “Well, let’s break it down. I definitely have hunting skills. I can smell desperate pussy from a mile away. I’m independent and resourceful. I’m a wealthy doctor. I’m definitely hard to train. You’re always saying how I don’t let Courtney run all over me.”

  “I never suggested that you let her run all over you. I suggested that you allow her to walk beside you.”

  “Yeah, whatever. As long as Courtney keeps me motivated, the next trait on the list, our marriage will be successful. And I
don’t exactly woo-woo when I bust a nut, but it’s definitely not a bark.”

  I nodded my head. “Like I said, you’re crazy!”

  “I’m not crazy. I’m the shit and so is my dick.”

  “Keep your dick out of this conversation. If I take mine out, this entire room will go dark.”

  * * *

  Floyd and I joked around for most of the night. I even ended up eating some pizza—after picking the pineapple off. We downed the entire bottle of Crown Royal. There was no way that I was letting him drive intoxicated. I sent Courtney a text from my phone—so she would know that he was really with me—and included a photo of him passed out drunk on my sofa. It was a “proof of fidelity” shot since so many men would lie and say that they were with a friend when they were out trolling for pussy. This was one time when Floyd was where he claimed he would be.

  A lot of women did the same thing, though. One time, one of the nurses at Sibley asked me for hotel recommendations out in Northern Virginia. When I asked her why she was trying to pay for a hotel so close to DC, she said that she needed to get lost for the weekend because her best friend was going out of town to cheat on her husband and told him that they were vacationing together.

  I couldn’t decide whether it made her a good friend or a bad friend to agree to go hide out in a hotel. She said that her friend was going to foot the bill for the room, including room service, through her business account. That was an attempt to make it sound more kosher.

  At the end of the day, I couldn’t think badly of her. She wasn’t cheating on her man and she was only trying to be supportive of a friend. Besides, I couldn’t talk since Floyd was cheating and I was smiling in Courtney’s face every time I saw her.

  Still, it was getting to the point where women would soon not be able to talk a bunch of shit about men. They were on the brink of being at least as trifling as we were. But I couldn’t really blame them. A lot of them were simply adapting to the environment around them. They had developed an “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality. The only problem was that it meant the imminent demise of the nuclear family and it meant becoming bitter, and thus even more conniving. We were in serious trouble, though. Women used both sides of their brains while we used half of our brains and our dicks to guide us.