by Kizzie Hayes
"Hold up," Monet said, a devilish grin on her face. "I'll be right back."
Janelle reached out for her best friend's arm, but all she grabbed was air. She watched helplessly as Monet walked to the bar, each step bringing her closer to the fine man who'd caught her eye. All she could do was stare, transfixed, full of apprehension. But she was also full of desire and sexual hunger.
*****
She didn't know how it happened. The next several minutes seemed like a complete blur. Or maybe it seemed as if time was standing still and there was nothing but her and the gorgeous man in front of her, a beautiful specimen of a man. He towered over her. She felt so small, so petite, and so feminine. Few men could men make her feel like that. It was something that she treasured. It reminded of the way that her uncle Johnny, her mother's brother, used to make her feel.
She always felt so safe and protected around him. That's why it had been so difficult for her to deal with the news that he had suffered a stroke. These days she did everything she could to help him, which included taking him to his physical therapy once a week.
"My name's Thomas," the man said, extending his large, powerful hand. "Not like Clarence Thomas. Don't worry."
"Okay," Janelle said, not sure what to say next. She extended her hand and held her breath as she felt his strong, powerful hand enveloping hers. It was unlike anything she'd ever felt. But it was a feeling that she wanted to experience again. And again.
"I guess you're a little shy," Thomas said.
Janelle felt an arm around her shoulder and lips pressing into her cheek. It was Monet, of course. She had a big, wicked smile on her face.
"Thomas, she's not shy at all," Monet said. "But I do think that she's into you, though."
"In that case, I'm flattered," Thomas said. "I thought maybe you had a speech impediment or something.
Monet snorted and then covered her mouth to hide her laughter.
She's been waiting a long time to see me in this kind of situation, Janelle thought. She wasn't angry, though. How could she be? She would never have had the guts to walk over to the bar and start a conversation with this man who seemed to be at least a little bit attracted to her. Or at least not completely turned off by her shyness and awkwardness.
This wasn't like her. Not at all. She was never awkward around guys. Never. But maybe that wasn't true. Maybe that was just what she liked telling herself. Maybe she was always awkward with them. Maybe that was the reason why she had struggled to find a man. The reason why she was still single as her 30th birthday loomed on the horizon.
Not only was she single. She wasn't dating. She wasn't on any of the online apps: Match, Grindr, Harmony. She hated when those commercials come came on TV. Guaranteeing first dates. Guaranteeing second dates. It all seemed so hopeless. There always seemed to be something wrong, something not quite right with the guys she met. Either they were too thirsty and desperate to get inside her panties. Or they wanted to let you know that they had ten other girls to choose from and they didn't really give a shit about you.
She didn't know which one of those two types she found more reprehensible. If those were her options, then she would choose to be celibate. Yes, celibate.
"Well, if you're not doing anything this Saturday, I would like to spend some time together.”
Janelle smiled. A warm, pleasurable sensation spread throughout her body. It was like ocean water washing over her, washing away her anxiety and fears. She hardly knew this man. But she felt safe and protected around him. She felt comfortable as if she would be able to reveal herself to him, the real her, without worrying about being judged.
Most successful, powerful alpha males were extremely judgmental, holding the people in their lives to incredibly high standards, unreasonable, unfair standards that they would never be able to live up to.
"I think I would like that," Janelle said. "I think that I would like that a lot."
*****
When Janelle got home that night, she knew that she should have been completely exhausted, but she wasn't. Instead she could feel her entire body buzzing with excitement. She danced around the apartment, Beyoncé playing in the background, “Upgrade You”. Something about that song seemed so appropriate right now.
She didn't know much about Thomas, but she could tell that he had money. And it probably wasn't new money either. There was something about the way he carried himself—so calm and confident. No need to show off. No need to flash. No trying to impress her with superficial things. It was the way he spoke, the energy that radiated from his powerful body that had seduced her.
Janelle wasn't sure what was going on in her life. She wasn't sure where or what she was doing. A few years ago things that had all been so clear. She was engaged to be married. She was sending out applications for law school, confident that she would get into one of the three elite schools that she applied to. She and her fiancé Jason, a junior lawyer in a small African-American law firm, had been incredibly excited to start a family.
But that had all fallen apart so fast. Jason had been accused of sexual harassment by one of his female colleagues. He was fired and sued in civil court. The court awarded the plaintiff almost $400,000 in damages. That was such a blow for Janelle on so many different levels. Finding out that her fiancé was doing inappropriate things with women at his job was bad enough.
But the crushing blow might've been the economic hit that they took. He'd screwed up his first big law job. And he certainly wouldn't find it easy to secure another one. He'd been working in one of the few African-American law firms in town. It was one of the few places where he'd actually be given a fair shot and wouldn't have to overcome the racism of the partners. And what had he done? He'd gone and fucked it up.
After not speaking for weeks, they finally reconciled. They decided that they would give things a chance. He explained that it was only some light, harmless flirting. He that the woman who accused him of sexual harassment was only trying to get him fired, in hopes of replacing him in the hierarchy.
Janelle didn't find that explanation all that believable. She wanted to believe it. She really did. So they decided to live together again and keep the wedding on. So many people in the family told her that she was crazy, that she would be much better off leaving. One of those people was Monet.
Janelle was stubborn, always had been, always would be. And there may have been more to it as well. She didn't want to throw away a six-year relationship because of a hazy case of sexual harassment that might have been totally caused by Jason.
*****
When they got back together it wasn't the same. They could laugh and spend time together, cuddle, and go on trips. But it wasn't the same. They could go out to dinner. They could make out under the rain. But it wasn't the same. Sometimes when she'd look at him out of the corner of her eye, she could sense that she would never be able to forgive him. She also sensed that he hadn't forgiven himself. He still carried a deep sense of shame and embarrassment.
That catastrophic series of events had destroyed any sense of direction that she had in her life. She was left broken, disillusioned, depressed. But she carried on in the relationship even though she could feel things slipping away, and Jason surely felt it.
Many times, he had tried to make love to her and all she did was push him away, pat him on the head, and tell him that she was too tired, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a couple days. She was on her period. She didn't want to get pregnant. There was always a different excuse, a different alibi for her disinterest. But it was all rather simple. It all came down to one thing. She didn't feel that burning sense of attraction and desire for the man that she'd been planning on spending her life with.
And how could she possibly feel any sort of attraction for him, when he had so deeply hurt her and let her down, squandered both of their dreams, nearly destroyed their lives? Now they were forced to pick up the pieces, to pull themselves up. It seemed impossible. It seemed like everyone was against them.
But it would get worse. It
would get much, much worse for Janelle. She should've listened to her friends. She should've gotten out before he could deal her ego the ultimate deathblow, a blow that she still hadn't recovered from two years later.
She could still remember that Thursday afternoon. The day it finally ended. She'd been out of town for a few days, visiting old friends from college in Atlanta.
It was a great trip, for the most part, but one of her friends had fallen ill, food poisoning from some burrito place in downtown Atlanta. It was weird. Nobody else had gotten sick. Just her. But she’d been really sick, so sick that they had to take her to the hospital one night. After their ER visit, the girls had decided to call things off a day early.
Janelle came back to Brooklyn a day early. She hadn't bothered to send a text to Jason that she was coming home. Why would she need to do that? She didn't need for him to have anything ready for her, so there was no need to alert him ahead of time. But if she had, she might have saved herself the shock of seeing Jason in bed with two women, two Asian women that looked like twins. All Janelle could do was stare at the two petite women as they giggled and wrapped themselves in the covers. This is what she got for staying with him, for trying to believe that he would be able to get his life back in order, to help build that foundation, the family that they had dreamed of building for so long. This was her recompense.
Some women, many women perhaps, might've screamed, might've ranted and raved, might've attacked the two women—these aliens who had invaded her bed who had traded sweat and saliva and cum with her fiancée—who had soiled and violated her bed. The matrimonial bed, the bed in which they were supposed to make children. She could never sleep in that bed again. She would've loved to set it on fire. She would've loved to light all three of them on fire.
While she stood in the bedroom doorway, trembling with rage, too shocked, traumatized and overcome with emotion to say anything, the women shifted their eyes in Janelle's direction.
If Janelle had wanted to do something to them, harm them physically, leave marks and scars and wounds and bruises all over their bodies, beat them black and blue, beat them until they cried out for forgiveness, she damn well could have. That's how much energy she felt pulsing through her veins. That's how much hate she felt for the man who’d violated her and these women who had been complicit in the violation.
She spent the next several days curled up on the couch, never once lying down on the bed. She never would. She eventually ordered a new bed. But those days she spent on the couch, she was supposed to be preparing her applications for law school. There were all due in a couple of weeks.
There was still so much work to be done. There were several essays to write but she couldn't bring herself to open her laptop. The apartment was too filled with memories, painful memories of her and Jason, good memories as well. At any moment, she could be flooded by emotion. They tears would well up in her eyes and before long they were gushing down her cheeks.
Nothing made sense to her anymore. What was the point of going to law school? She wondered. It had all been so clear just a couple weeks ago.
Jason was a lawyer. They'd both always wanted to become lawyers. They would be a power couple. Their names would ring out in Brooklyn and across the country. But all that was over now. There was no power couple. She just felt like a lonely, lost woman. Another woman who'd been let down and betrayed by a man. She was beginning to lose hope. When would she find her knight in shining armor? Would she end up being another statistic? Another single black woman? Where were all the men?
That question made want to scream out in anger, to pound her fist against the walls of her apartment. But she knew that would be pointless, or maybe even dangerous. If one of the neighbors called the cops on her, who knows what could happen. She didn't want to be another Sandra Bland. Another Rekia Boyd. Another statistic.
Forty-eight hours before the application deadline, for all three of the schools that she wanted to go to, the best law schools in the country. She got a surge of adrenaline, a great rush of inspiration, possibly divine. She'd worked so hard for this moment. She’d been preparing for so many years to go to law school. To be a lawyer. She couldn't throw it away now.
Several months later she’d received the bad news. Her burst of energy just before the deadline had been in vain. She’d been rejected by all three schools that she applied to—Yale, Harvard, and Stanford.
*****
The next day Janelle woke up early to take her uncle to PT. That was their Thursday ritual. Her uncle Johnny had been a big part of her life, especially after her parents had split. He was such a kind and thoughtful man, always trying to give her good life advice, always so proud of her achievements. Maybe more than anyone else, he wanted her to become a lawyer. He most likely wanted that because of his sister. She would be so proud. Life had been rough for her since the divorce. So rough.
"Stop it. Stop fussing with me. I'm fine," her uncle Johnny said, getting out of the car and preparing to walk the 25 feet across the parking lot into the physical therapy building.
Being able to walk 25 feet was something that he could no longer take for granted, not since the stroke that he suffered seven months ago. Recovery had been hard. Very hard. His will, his strength, his courage, his determination to live, had been tested, but he'd come through it all. Throughout that difficult process, he'd never lost his stubbornness.
Janelle stood close behind Uncle Johnny as he limped through the parking lot, still favoring his right side. It was clear that these sessions were having a good effect on him. A month ago there's no way he would have been able to make it across the lot. He would've tried, of course. But at that time, she would have had to wrap both her arms around him and then she would help him take slow and cautious steps.
"Good morning, Mr. Jenkins," a plump, brown skinned nurse with a Jamaican accent said.
Charlene was her name. Janelle gave her a hug. She was very helpful, kind, thoughtful, and caring with the patients. All the nurses were really stressed out, running around, dealing with sometimes old, sometimes grumpy, almost always difficult people—people going through tough circumstances in their life.
For the first six months, scraping and saving everything she had, Janelle had managed to pay Uncle Johnny's PT bill: $465 a month. She winced every time she wrote the checks. But at the same time, she felt a deep sense of guilt. How could she be so selfish? This was actually a good thing that she was doing with her money. A really good thing.
Johnny had meant so much to her, and so much to her mother. He was one of the really upstanding men in the family. Sure, he'd never been much more than a journeyman carpenter and plumber.
But, unlike a lot of men, he'd always managed to keep his character intact. When she had children, she would want him to be in their life. But there was a burden that she was willing to deal with for a long time. Thankfully, after paying five of those damn near five hundred a month bills, taking the money directly from her savings account, Obamacare became the law of the land, after much useless and mean-spirited rhetoric on the part of the republicans. It was so damn ridiculous the way that they carried on, messing with people's lives, just so they could score an extra check or two from the unscrupulous drug lobbyists.
Almost overnight the copay dropped to a much more manageable $120 month, which she had no problem paying.
It wasn't something they talked about much. Johnny was probably a little bit embarrassed. Men can be foolish and prideful like that. That wasn't her concern, though. She just wanted him to be okay, wanted him to get back on his feet, back to feeling like his energetic self again. He was only 54. He had much more living to do.
While her uncle worked out with the physical trainer in one of the centers backrooms, Janelle sat in the lobby, scrolling through her phone, checking her Facebook account, ignoring friend requests and spam.
When she told her bosses that she might be a half-hour late one day week because she needed to take her uncle to physical therapy, they had been
immediately impressed. Right after she told them all that, she was actually given her more hours. She had herself a lot of goodwill in the company. It pained her to think that she had lost that goodwill. But she probably should've known better.
She'd heard the stories before. She'd heard the whisperings about those very low ceilings for African-American employees. She'd always wanted to ignore that. But after a while, it became impossible to ignore the things that were right in front of her. It became impossible to ignore the fact that people she had trained, people who, after weeks of training, still didn't know their head from their ass. People of European descent, whom she had trained, would end up being her superiors. Superiors. Masters. That's what they were.
But she should've known. This was the plight of black men and women in corporate America, but she didn't want to worry about that right now. She closed her eyes and thought of the long day that she had ahead of her, trying to figure out where this job was going, how much longer she would be able to do this work. It seemed to be wearing her down. She couldn't see how she would be able to do this for much longer. It would have to come to an end eventually.
She raised her head, then froze, her eyes open wide. An electric sensation shot through her body. It was much like what she'd experienced the day before. There was a tall, powerfully built man standing in front of her. He had on a tank top, which allowed him to display his inked up, incredibly muscular arms.
She trembled as her eyes scrolled down his body, as she imagined the hard muscles underneath his clothing, the beautifully sculpted arms, ripped abs, and then her eyes went down lower to his gray gym shorts. She held her breath for a moment, brought her hand to her heart, closed her eyes, and sighed deeply.
Without thinking about what she was doing, completely entranced by this spectacle of masculine beauty she licked her lips and leaned her head back. She could've stayed in that position for hours. She like she was laying on a tropical beach somewhere, very close to the water, the tide washing over her body. Jamaica. Turks and Caicos. Barbados, the Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic. She would've loved to have been transported to any of those places. A two-week vacation was just what she needed. Unfortunately, there was no chance that she would get that opportunity.
