by Tiana Laveen
“You believe in soulmates? Now excuse me, but I’m truly surprised!” She grinned.
“Yeah, I do. I told you that you don’t know shit about me. I open up when I feel like it, and that’s not often.” Her smile slowly faded. “Anyway, if we were radical with the consequences, it would stop people from jumping into it with such lack of concern.”
“Are you serious? That’s archaic and primitive. What about spousal abuse or adultery? The victim loses a toe, too?”
“No. If someone is a habitual cheater or kickin’ someone’s ass, they are the ones who’ll lose a finger or toe and the survivor gets to remarry—no questions asked.”
“Okay, you are, uh, thankfully not a judge ruling the land,” she quipped. “But sometimes…”
“Wait.” He raised his hand. “You’re really getting your rocks off right now, aren’t you? You love having discussions like this! This is supposed to be a date, and you’ve got me out here talking about this.” He shook his head.
“Yes! I love it! You have no idea, Savage, how many guys aren’t able to just dialogue like this. I realized you’re a pretty good conversationalist when you were speaking with Allison. This is so relaxing and fantastic to me.” She blinked in a flirtatious sort of way. “Thank you for humoring me.”
“I don’t get to talk like this too often… I didn’t think I’d want to. I guess, uh, you proved me wrong.” He quickly looked away from her.
“Okay, what about this? People get married and they find out the person is nothing like who they thought they were. That happens all the time.”
“See, I think you know better than that, Eva… I wanna call you Eva tonight. Is that okay?”
“Yeah… I suppose.” She shrugged.
“All right. I think it’s rare because women pick up things all the time, stuff you know doesn’t make sense.”
“Here we go with the battle of the sexes again!”
“Nah, I’m serious. Hear me out. Look, you all like to ignore shit just so you don’t have to grow some balls and kick the guy to the curb.” The woman gave him the side-eye. “You don’t wanna lose him. You don’t wanna be alone, so you ignore the fact that he turns his phone off all the time, that you can only see him two days outta the week but he blames it on work. You sweep under the rug that he smells like perfume that isn’t yours, that he’s starting arguments with you then disappearing for a day or two, saying he’s over at his friend’s house to cool his head when your instinct tells you he’s gettin’ his dick wet… and not inside of you. He is playing you. He knows it. You know it. Stevie Wonder knows it.
“But then, one day, he’s given an ultimatum. You threaten to leave, bags packed. He then proposes and apologizes, says all the right shit to make sure his security blanket doesn’t walk off. You take him back and before the ink is even dry on the marriage license, he’s fucking his ex-girlfriend so much it’s like his life depends on it. Then, to get revenge, you’re fuckin’ your first husband, the one you had your daughter with, or the dude you told him not to worry about… or the guy down at the gym, or the one that works at that car stereo shop or whatever. It’s always some bullshit. People don’t take marriage seriously at all, and that’s why I’m not hellbent on doing it.”
“Could there be more to this? Could you be less inclined to want to marry because of your parents’ marriage, or lack thereof?”
“Nah, that’s not it at all. Everyone always thinks when someone is against marriage, the parents did it!” He laughed. “It’s the family’s fault! This is exactly why head shrinks are definitely overpaid. It’s not always about that.” He grinned, though she didn’t smile back. “Even though my parents weren’t married, they showed more loyalty to one another than most.”
“But… your mother was sleeping with other men for profit. Now sure, that wasn’t technically cheating if your father knew and he was fine with it, but she was doing it nevertheless.”
“Nah, you got it all wrong.” He waved his hand about. “My father didn’t want her doing it. That was no secret. My mother didn’t want them to struggle though.”
“Financially struggle?”
“Yes. My dad’s income was sporadic. He had a long criminal record so workin’ a regular nine to five was out of the question. My mother felt like he had no room to talk about what she was doing though because his means of making ends meet were illegal. She was allowed to do what she was doing, ya see?”
“So, the rabbit hole gets deeper.” She sighed. “Tell me to mind my own business if you want, but now I want to know what your father was doing. Selling drugs?”
“Nah. My father dealt with arms dealership. He sold weapons, almost anything you wanted, on the black market. I don’t want to get too much into that.”
“I understand.”
“Just want to make it clear he wasn’t a drug dealer, nothin’ like that. Some of his friends were into the heavy stuff, you can only imagine, but he didn’t deal with that. He was too afraid it could put my mom and me in danger. He didn’t keep his stash in the house, for instance, but I’ll leave it at that. He stuck with what he could better control. On the flip side, he also taught boxing and archery at the community center on occasion. He was so good, Eva. He taught me practically everything I know.”
He smiled sadly as he stretched his hands out towards the flames when a chill caught him. It was rather strange, considering the high humidity in the air.
“I take it your mother is no longer in the life, right? She’s much older now.”
“You’re askin’ a lot of questions. A lot of personal shit. Shit that I don’t want to really get into right now.”
“Well then, we can stop.” She tossed up her hands. He could’ve sworn she smirked, as if she’d won something, a prize for making him sweat.
“Nah, it’s too late now. Pandora’s box is already opened. I’m no pussy. You walked in, so we’ll go the distance together.”
“You have nothing to prove. If you want to pull out, that’s fine. Obviously this is too painful for you.”
“It’s not that I don’t wanna talk about it because it’s too painful. It’s because it belongs to me, Eva. This is my life.” He pointed to himself. “It’s like having some boxes in a room, with lids on them. You point to one box and say to me, ‘Savage, what’s in there?’ I then walk over to it, lift the lid, and you see it’s a bunch of dirty laundry or something. But you don’t stop there. You point to another box, then another. These boxes are mine, and you’re invading. You’re doing it because you’re nosy. Because I intrigue you, and because you’re interested in me as more than just a one night stand.”
“Bull!” She laughed. “It’s just that—”
“Stop it.” He lifted his palm and glared at her. “Just stop lying. I can’t stand that.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You are. You just don’t know you are.” Silence webbed between them. “It’s all right to be interested in someone, even if you don’t know ’em all that well. You’ve got all these silly ass, fucked up rules in your head for how this should go. For how relationships should go, period.”
“Excuse me? Let me tell you something. I graduated top of my class and—”
“So fucking what?” He shrugged. “I never questioned your ability to memorize facts and figures from other people and take them as truth and then walk across a stage in your cap and gown with nothin’ to show for it!”
“I have an award-winning podcast. I have been featured in countless periodicals and have received a myriad of awards. You’re intimidated by intelligent women!”
“Ahhh, for fuck’s sake! Not this shit again! Your ol’ standby… I must hate women. I must resent women. I’m intimidated by women. Next, it’ll be, I wanna secretly cut off my balls and sew the remaining space into a fuckin’ vagina! Maybe then, and only then, will I truly be at peace, right?” He slapped his forehead. “Cheeseburger in fuckin’ paradise. You’re nuts, lady!”
“You don’t respect higher educati
on, all because you didn’t have the patience, stamina, and wherewithal to do it yourself.”
“Wrong again, Professor Smitty. I do respect higher education, as long as the person earnin’ it understands they don’t have some sorta impenetrable Superman cape just because they’ve got it. It’s like this, Eva. Let me break it down for you since you’re not getting it. You’re not more intelligent because you and a bunch of other sheep went into a few buildings on a daily basis for four plus years, paid thousands of fucking dollars to get into debt before the age of twenty-five, only to come out and regurgitate other people’s ideas. Then, the cherry on top is, most of the time all you poor saps can’t find a damn job in your profession and have stress comin’ out of your ass like smoke because you owe Uncle Sam your first-born child. Just because you’ve bought into this scam.”
“I have no idea how we got on this topic, I forget, but it’s not a scam. It’s a stepping stone.”
“The American dream of ‘work hard, go to school and everything will be all right!’ is a scam, a scam, a scammy scam scam. Do you know how many fuckers with PhDs are homeless on the street or workin’ for minimum wage just to keep food on the table? Do you know how many high school drop outs, that I personally know, have more intelligence in their baby finger than some of them? See, you’ve bought into the hype. You look at simple shit and make it complicated, baby.”
The woman’s lips pursed. She had the kind of stare as though she thought him scum on the bottom of her shoe… but he knew she was getting a kick out of this. Debates made her feel good all over, from her head to her toes. She wanted to not only dig into his business, get him talking, but to see how he expressed himself.
I can go hood to boardroom in a nano second. You’re fucking with the wrong man. You don’t want to see how badly this can end…
CHAPTER EIGHT
Star-Crossed Lovers
“Fuck it. I can see you’re getting upset. Let’s talk about the Gummy Bear fetish. That’s more your speed,” she snapped.
“I’ll do ya one better. Let’s have a séance and instead of tryna find out about Cookie Monster being an implant for the Devil, let’s summon the ghost of common sense because you need to be possessed by it like the fucking plague. No ‘fuck it’ here. You opened this door, so we’re going in. Like I said, we’re going the distance now with these questions you’ve asked. I’m not a quitter. You should know that by now.” He shook his finger in her direction.
“I don’t know what you are, Savage.”
“I don’t know you, you don’t know me, but each second that passes, we know each other a little bit more, right?”
“Yes, I suppose you could conclude that.”
“We have an attraction, it’s mutual, and believe it or not, a healthy respect for one another is forming. I knew this would happen before this weekend was over. I just didn’t know when.”
“You knew what would happen?”
“That you’d test me one final time… See if I could go toe-to-toe, if I’d fit, be worth the aggravation.” Her cheeks deepened with color. “When it’s my turn, I’m going to pull your entire soul out of you,” he said, fixing her with his piercing gaze. “And I’m going to enjoy every agonizing second of it.” Her eyes widened. “So, back to what you asked,” he stated cheerfully, shoving his hands into his pockets. “My mother stopped selling herself once she got sick.” He dropped his head and took a few deep breaths.
Are you really doing this? Yeah… I’ve got nothing to lose.
“Oh… I didn’t know she was ill.”
“Nah, she’s fine now and doing well.”
“What was going on?”
…Another box being opened.
“She was passing out, having big migraines and dizziness. She went through a lot at that time. She calls it her wake-up call. Anyway, she retired for good after that and my father was happy about it. The way she explained it, it’s not that she wanted to prostitute herself, per se. She just wanted to make sure we had what we needed. She didn’t want us to struggle. My mother grew up having nothing, Eva. Eating only a few times a week, dirty, cold. Her biological parents—she never knew them. When she came here to America, she wanted a new life. She realized she could make a lot of money, that men would pay her for her beauty, her body, little bits and pieces of her soul.” He bent down, picked up a pebble, and tossed it into the fire. “That’s the only reason why my parents argued according to her—it was over her being a whore.”
“Why do you call her that?”
“Because that’s what she was. Doesn’t make her any less human, any less lovable… any less my mother.”
“I’m speechless.” Zaire exhaled loudly. “I find your background so fascinating… how challenging that must’ve been. Let me ask you something else.” She must take me for a joke. I’m going to break her in two. “It’s something we touched on earlier regarding morals… ethics.”
“Yeah?”
“Was there… what’s the word?” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Like rules your parents had about her prostituting, for lack of a better word? I mean, I know it’s legal in Las Vegas, but I’m talking about their relationship. Their partnership.”
“Yeah, there were some rules actually. I’m sure I didn’t know all of them, only a few. At the end of the day, it was none of my business. But sometimes I overheard stuff which gave me some understanding, I guess you could say. For example, when she was tricking, there were guidelines they’d agreed upon soon after getting together, before I was even born.”
“Do you remember them?”
She’s planning to talk about this on her podcast, write it in a book or some shit… Hilarious.
“Yes. Number one, she couldn’t fuck any of his friends or relatives, no one he knew. Ever. Secondly, she couldn’t tongue kiss. That was reserved for my father. Third, she had to use protection at all times or the deal was off, no matter how much money the guy offered. Fourth, my father or one of his guys had to be with her or at least nearby, so she didn’t get hurt by some lunatic. Fifth, no gangbangs. She got sick right after she was considering getting out of the life anyway, so it worked itself out. Funny though, I guess my mother being seen as some exotic type due to her naturally tanned skin, height, long jet black hair and accent, she didn’t have to try very hard to get the ballers. She only had a certain clientele. She charged very expensive fees, so only a specific type of guy could afford her.”
“Millionaires?”
“Yeah, usually the millionaires, billionaires, and Arab guys from wealthy families… most of them married.”
“Doesn’t the mind get warped when you think about your mother’s sex life, especially with strangers?”
…Another box. She’s opening everything. Not a single fuck given. This feels like an consultation. I suppose first dates usually are. I don’t usually take women out though. Maybe this is the norm nowadays.
“What do you mean? Obviously my mother isn’t a virgin. No one’s mother is or they wouldn’t be their mothers in the first place.”
“You know what I mean…”
This woman just didn’t let up. “It doesn’t sound normal. I know what you’re driving at. I already said that earlier though.”
“This… this doesn’t sound normal, Savage, because it’s not.” The woman’s tone was full of sorrow, and so were her eyes. In that moment though, he didn’t feel judged; he felt as if she were genuinely concerned about him, fearing for his mental well-being. He burst out laughing before turning back to the flames. “What’s so funny?” she asked softly.
“Nothin’. It’s just that anything that’s wrong with me because of any of this, well, it’s too late to worry about that now, ain’t it?” He shrugged. “What’s done is done. I don’t hate my mother. I love ’er, and I mean that. We just don’t have a conventional relationship is all. I don’t have to have experienced a conventional childhood, a normal one, as you say, to feel okay. I’m all right being just how I am.”
“Fai
r enough.”
He lit a fresh cigar and puffed on it a while as silence stretched between them. He inched closer to her until they were both sitting on that boulder, side by side.
“Your turn,” she offered.
“Indeed it is. So, uh, what about you?” He released smoke from between his lips, then passed her the cigar. “What was it like being in your household as a kid?”
The woman took a toke, her eyes turning to slits as tiny ringlets of smoke came out her mouth. She was pretty damn good, especially for someone who showed no signs of being a smoker. She’d watched him smoking though, with the kind of gaze one has when they miss an old habit. Seconds grew into minutes, and he knew she was stalling, maybe reminding herself of his warning regarding lying… opening up, digging deep. It seemed like a simple question, but he knew instinctively it was one that she didn’t want asked. Yet there it was, lying at her feet…
“Well.” She took a deep sigh, staring briefly at the sky. “I’m the youngest of three. I have an older brother and sister. My parents are still together, still married.” She took another taste of the cigar then handed it back to him. Spirals of smoke eddied from her luscious lips.
