Should've Been

by Alexandria House

  It was a year into our relationship before my sappy drunk morphed into a mean one, hitting me for the first time.

  That was when I realized his father’s disappointment induced more than sadness in him. There was some rage bottled up inside of Craig that was unleashed that day, and the smack to my face startled me so bad, I actually apologized, because for him to hit me? That had to be my fault. He apologized, too, profusely, and the next day, he bought me a ring. Not an engagement ring, but a ring, and that was a good enough atonement for me. Low bar, remember?

  As the days and weeks rolled into months, there were more smacks accompanied by slaps and punches, and by the time I met Truth at that benefit, me being abused was a way of life. It was my norm, something I believed I deserved. I mean, what other fate was there for a fatherless girl from the gutter?

  “Good evening.”

  I looked up and smiled at Jade, one of my regulars, her greeting pulling me back into the here and now—Wednesday night at The Royale. “Good evening,” I replied.

  As I mixed her drink for her, she prattled on about the day from hell she’d had teaching preschool, and I fought not to glance at the empty stool on the other end of the bar. Another night and no Truth.

  “I love you, Claudette…”

  “You’re still not ready for me, are you?”

  “…I’ma just fall back, give you some more time.”

  Shit.

  *****

  Back home after my shift at work, I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling of my apartment. Sighing, I squeezed my thighs together as my mind kept slipping back to the night of that kiss Truth and I shared outside his wife’s birthday party. Then my mind drifted to a night a couple of weeks after that.

  It was the night I’d caught a ride home with Zara, one of the housekeepers at the hotel. The night before had been a particularly bad night with Craig. His father had reamed him about something or other, and he took it out on me, so I was avoiding him and opted not to spend the night in his suite. As my luck would have it, Zara’s car broke down on the way to my place, and as I stood on the sidewalk with her and waited for her man to come check the car out, a voice almost made me jump out of my skin.

  “Claudette?” flowed like thick honey into my ears and made goosebumps spread across my skin. I didn’t move a muscle or say a word but watched him cross the street to me and come to a stop only inches from my body. “It is you,” he said with a smile.

  Still, nothing from me, and now I could feel Zara’s eyes on me. She knew who he was. Damn near everyone knew who he was.

  Truth shifted his focus to her, offering her his hand. “Truth Ebo.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m Zara Edwards.” She definitely knew who he was, and she worried the shit out of me about me knowing him at work the next day.

  “Nice to meet you, Zara. What you ladies doing out here this time of night alone?”

  “I was supposed to be giving Claudette a ride home, but my piece of shit car broke down. Waiting for my guy to come rescue us,” Zara explained.

  His eyes found me again, and I could read the question in them: Where is your man and why isn’t he rescuing you?

  “There he is!” Zara announced.

  Truth and Zara’s man exchanged pleasantries, and while Zara and her man huddled under the hood, Truth and I stared at each other until I finally asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Visiting my aunt,” Truth answered.

  “Oh.”

  “You cold?”

  Although I was wearing a thin jacket and rubbing my hands up and down my arms, I said, “No.”

  He shrugged out of his suit jacket and wrapped it around me. “Let me take you home.”

  I ran my hand over the headwrap that covered my hair, pulled his jacket tighter around me, and shook my head. “I’ll wait for Zara.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—”

  “Hey, Claudette, this thing is gonna have to be towed, but Kent can run you home in his car,” Zara interrupted me, referring to her man.

  “No, I got her,” Truth said, his eyes still on me.

  Zara said something else to me, her man said something to Truth, and a minute or so later, I found myself in the passenger seat of Mr. Ebo’s car…again.

  When we made it to my place, he walked me to my door and I welcomed him inside, although I had no idea why. Maybe it was that my emotions were raw from the previous night’s altercation with Craig. Or maybe I was just more exhausted than usual. Exhausted from life—a past of poverty and misery and a present of abuse and depression. Maybe just being in Truth’s presence was my therapy.

  He was sitting on the futon and me in a chair when he said, “Why Holman didn’t pick you up?”

  “Why should he have to? He’s not responsible for me.’

  “He’s your man. The least he could do is make sure you get home safely. Hell, why he ain’t bought you a car?”

  I shrugged.

  “I like that scarf you got on your head.”

  I self-consciously slid a hand over my head, letting it rest on a particularly tender spot. “Thank you.”

  “I like you, Claudette.”

  “I figured that.”

  With a smile, he asked, “You like me?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  He stared at me for a moment before standing and making the barely three steps to me. Squatting in front of me and placing his big hands on my thighs, he softly said, “I think about you all the time. You think about me?”

  “Yeah…you and your wife. How is she?”

  “Still a bitch. Still blackmailing me. Still keeping me from the woman I should be with, the woman who should’ve always been mine.”

  I lifted an eyebrow as my heart jumped. “You told her you want to leave her?”

  “I tell her that shit every damn week.”

  “You told her you want me.”

  “I don’t have to tell her that. She knows.”

  Silence, as I let that sink in. “Truth—”

  His lips met mine, and I moaned. Our tongues collided, and I groaned. He cradled my face in his hands, standing and pulling me to my feet, our mouths connected the entire time, and I whimpered. His hands fell from my face to my arms, to my back, my ass. He touched me everywhere, and I could feel that kiss in my very soul. He felt good, different, perfect. Truth’s kisses and touch were tailor made for me, to reach places I didn’t know existed inside of me.

  He led me to the futon, laid me on it, and before I could fully comprehend what was happening, he’d slid my pants and panties down my legs and his head was between my thighs, his tongue was flicking at my clit, and my legs were trembling. A long, thick finger entered me, soon joined by another as he continued to lavish my bud with his tongue, causing my insides to churn and sweet, tortuous pressure to build in my core. My breathing became ragged as the pressure compounded, expanding inside me like a balloon until one tongue swipe made it burst like a pinprick to rubber. I hissed, my breathing halted, and my body bucked.

  Then he kissed his way up my body, stopping to help me pull my shirt and bra off and staring down at me, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. I closed my eyes and sighed, knowing without following his gaze what he was looking at and silently begging him not to ask any questions. To be sure he didn’t quiz me, I lifted my face to meet his and kissed him, pulling him back into the moment and reminding him of the task at hand. We kissed hungrily, his big body on top of mine, his big hand between my thighs caressing my tender clit. When he stood to undress himself, I took him in. He was so brown and tall and wide and fine, and his dick? His dick was the kind that dreams were made of, long and thick and veiny, and it had my ass drooling as I watched him sheath it with a condom. He returned to me, his face hovering over mine, his heavy dick resting on my mound before he eased it inside me, making me inhale sharply. Truth was a big imposing man with a sordid past, a man known to fuck a nigga up at the drop of a dime if need be. I’d heard tale of him killing a man wit
h his bare hands and shooting another dude who disrespected his mother, so I expected to be fucked. Instead, this man made love to me, slow and steady and sweet. Punctuating measured thrusts with kisses to my lips, neck, and chest, lingering on the bruise at my ribcage as if trying to kiss the pain away, sliding back to my treasure to show it even more attention than before and causing me to quiver with another orgasm. As my entire body vibrated, he eased back inside me, and he felt so good I wanted to cry. As he rocked me to another peak, I held onto him like he’d fly away if I let him go, and I did cry. I cried because he felt so good. I cried because I couldn’t get enough of him. I cried because he belonged to another woman and I wanted so badly for him to be mine.

  An hour later, as we lay on my uncomfortable futon, him holding me in his arms, he said, “I wanna know everything about you.”

  “Not much to know,” I softly replied. “Been poor all my life. Been…sad all my life.”

  “Been beautiful all your life, too.”

  “Beautiful and sad. What a combination,” I quipped.

  “Hmm, you’re like a black rose—rare, mystical, and fucking tragic.”

  I lifted my head. “Damn, I said sad, not tragic.”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t mean it as an insult. I meant tragic as in you not being mine but his. Tragic as in him putting his hands on you.”

  I returned my head to his chest and tightly shut my eyes.

  “He hits you, doesn’t he?”

  I didn’t reply. I just lay there because I didn’t want to talk about Craig. I didn’t even want to think about him. Not at that moment. I just wanted to pretend that there was no Craig or Tiana and that there was only us—me and Truth.

  7

  Truth

  I killed for her.

  As I sat behind the desk in my new office in my city, staring out the window, that was what was on my mind.

  I killed for her, for Claudette.

  I killed for her because I had to, because I didn’t know what else to do, because that motherfucker was hitting her, beating her. That night we had sex, I saw the bruises on her ribs, her stomach, her arms. And her hair? In the middle of our sex, her scarf came off and her hair…plugs of it were missing. After I pressed her, she admitted Craig had dragged her by her hair, pulling some of it out.

  The motherfucker pulled her hair out of her damn head!

  And why? Because he wasn’t shit and decided to take it out on her.

  So I killed the motherfucker.

  Not that night, but after watching him, basically stalking his ass for a couple of days, I caught him stumbling out of a liquor store and followed him to my hood, sat and watched him go into some chick’s house, and when he finally left early the next morning, I jumped his ass. Hell, that was my hood and I knew how to move without being seen in my hood. I put his drunk ass in his own car and drove him to the spot, waited for him to sober up some because I wanted him to know what was happening when it happened. What I initially intended to do was fuck him up, make sure he never put his hands on her again, not kill him, but shit happens just as sure as it stinks.

  The sun had barely risen when he finally opened temperate eyes and looked at me. “The fuck?” he said, rubbing the spot where the butt of my gun had met the back of his head. “T? What the hell? Where we at? What you doing in my car?”

  “You been hitting Claudette? Beating her?”

  “What? Huh?”

  Tilting my head to the side, I repeated myself, “You been beating Claudette?”

  “Claudette? Slim?”

  “Yes, motherfucker! Claudette! You been hitting her?”

  He rubbed his eyes and yawned. “The fuck that’s got to do with you? She’s my woman. I do what I want with her. What? You want her? Well, you can’t have her. Now get out of my damn car.”

  I stared at him. “Break up with her. Today. Leave her the fuck alone.”

  “Or what? What you gonna do? Kick my ass and take her? Whatever, nigga. Her pussy ain’t even that good. Believe me.”

  “Naw, her pussy is definitely that good.”

  This crazy look crossed his face and then he smiled. “So you finally fucked her, huh? You been sniffing in behind her long enough.”

  “Look, just leave her alone. Let her go.”

  “No. She’s mine and I need her.”

  “For what? A fucking punching bag? Leave her, Holman, because if I even think you laid another finger on her, I’ma—”

  “Fuck you! That’s my woman and I ain’t leaving shit! You want her but you know she ain’t going nowhere regardless of what I do to her, don’t you? That’s why you coming to me with this bullshit. That’s what I like most about Slim, the fact that she’s so fucked up in the head she thinks she deserves that shit. She thinks I’m supposed to beat her ass. I’m beginning to think she likes it when I kick her ass. Stupid bitch. But you’re right. She got some good pussy, though. I can’t lie about that. Some good head, too. My favorite thing in the world is kicking her ass and making her suck my dick afterwards. Ain’t nothing like that shit. Sometimes I kick her ass just so she’ll suck it real good. When you get out of my damn car, I’ma drive over to her place and beat the dog shit outta her, make her suck whatever my other girl left on my dick just because.”

  He’d barely finished that statement when I punched his ass in the nose, making blood spew everywhere, and then I kind of just blacked out and kept hitting him. I hit him until the muscles in my arm locked up. Yeah, I hit him until I couldn’t, and then I sat there in his car staring out at the open field—the spot, the place where a lot of shit had gone down in my past. I had changed my life, thought I’d left that shit behind, but I guess my past environment was only partially to blame for who I was. Maybe I was just inherently fucked up, because I had just killed a dude who at one point was at least my fake friend with my bare hands over a woman other than my damn wife, a woman I barely knew but wanted. Hell, I needed Claudette, needed her as badly as I needed oxygen and fucking water, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t understand what I felt for her or why it was so strong, why she had such a damn pull on me.

  Night had fallen again before I finally stepped out of the car, shedding my bloody jacket and disposing of Craig and his car. When I made it home, Tiana wasn’t there, so I took a shower and climbed into bed with Claudette on my mind.

  Claudette

  He killed Craig…for me.

  Truth killed him for me, and it freaked me the hell out when I realized it. He didn’t tell me. He didn’t have to. When I saw him at Craig’s funeral, I knew. I just knew.

  After Craig went missing, no expense was spared searching for the heir to the Holman empire. His car was eventually found in the bottom of a lake several miles outside the city with his body inside. The cause of death was listed as: head injuries. In short, he was beaten to death. Everyone, including me, thought he’d had a drunken run-in with someone and was robbed since his credit cards and money were missing. But then I saw Truth at the funeral, and it clicked.

  After we were together, as I lay in his arms, he persuaded me to share my shame, how Craig abused me, degraded me, hurt me, and how I just took it. I told Truth things I’d never told anyone before.

  “I got teased in school because I never had shit. I mean, we were all poor, but my mom was so religious, I could only wear dresses, Goodwill dresses, until I started babysitting for some of our neighbors and had money to sneak and buy myself some better clothes. My hair was always a greasy mess until I learned how to do it. I know my mother did the best she could, but I got bullied, got jumped on even after I started fixing myself up. I didn’t have any friends…so Craig? I never thought I’d be with someone like him,” I told him.

  As I talked, divulging secrets that belonged between me and Craig, rehashing damn near every blow, every punch, every belittling word he’d ever directed at me, I could feel Truth’s rage build stronger and stronger, and maybe…maybe I wanted him to get angry enough to hurt Craig, to kill him.

  I
wasn’t sure if it was a conscious thought or intention, but when I realized what Truth had done and that he’d done it for me, I avoided him, practically ran from him at the funeral, but he knew where I lived.

  When he showed up at my place that night, he was quiet. So was I. We sat side by side on my futon, silence settling between us until I finally asked, “Why?”

  I didn’t look at him but felt him move closer to me and grasp my hand. “Why what?”

  “I know you did it. Why?”

  “Why you think?”

  “I…”

  “I didn’t mean for shit to go that far. He pushed me, said some shit that I just couldn’t let slide.”

  My eyes finally met his. “About me?”

  “Yeah…”

  “I don’t know how to feel about this or what to do with it. His…his blood is on my hands. This is…it’s my fault.”

  He gently grasped my chin as he held my eyes. “No, it’s not. This is on me. It’s all on me.”

  “But…why for me? You barely know me.”

  “Because I care about you, and I wanna be with you, Claudette.”

  I shook my head as tears filled my eyes. “I…”

  “You scared of me now? You think I’d hurt you?” he asked, his voice sounding tiny, rather than the cavernous timbre I was accustomed to.

  “No…I’m just…I’m fucked up, Truth. I was too fucked up for Craig. I’m too fucked up for you and you have a wife and the police could figure out what happened, and you could get locked up and I don’t think I could take that. Why would you put yourself in this position for me? For me?!”