Big Girls Do Cry Page 5

  I know you must think I’m one sick bitch getting my shit off while listening to my sister and her husband having sex, but what the hell was I supposed to do? As large as this house was, the walls were paper thin. I mean, damn, I’m only human. Here I was in bed trying to get some sleep, and the next thing I knew I was awakened by the two of them trying to break their bed. Rashad’s sexy ass was moaning and groaning like he was about to bust a supernut, and my sister’s screaming was letting the world know she was getting the best dick in three states. The way I saw it, there were only three plans of action: bang on the walls and tell them to keep down the racket, keep listening and let my fingers do the walking, or walk down the hall and join them. In truth, joining them was out, if only because I’m selfish and don’t like to share, unlike my sister, who has been in threesomes before. Banging on the walls was also out because it was only going to get me eye rolls from both of them at the breakfast table tomorrow morning. So, by letting my fingers do the walking, it was a win-win for everyone. They got theirs, and I damn sure got mine.

  Hell, it wasn’t the first time I got off listening to them, and it damn sure wouldn’t be the last. Only problem was, I was getting sick of using my hand. Rashad, although flirtatious as hell, still hadn’t made a move on me yet. Oh, it was coming. I’d taken him down memory lane enough times in the past few weeks to assure myself of that. In fact, my sister probably owed her little lovemaking session tonight to the seeds I’d planted in her husband’s head. Sooner or later, he was going to want the real thing, not the younger imitation, but that wasn’t doing me any good right now. I hadn’t had any real dick in almost two months, and I was about due.

  I picked up the portable house phone and dialed the one person other than Rashad whom I would love to fuck. It was time to get something in motion so I could get my groove on real soon.

  “Hello?” a woman answered on the third ring. I was so taken aback by the sound of her voice that I couldn’t say anything. “Hello?” she repeated. What the hell was she doing answering his cell phone? “I know it’s you.”

  You don’t know shit, bitch, I thought. It’s a fucking blocked number.

  “I can hear your crazy-ass breathing, Isis.”

  Stay calm, girl. Don’t let this bitch get to you.

  “What, did you escape from that nuthouse again?”

  I’ll show you crazy, heifer. Just say one more thing. One more fucking thing.

  “Let me guess. You’re going to attempt suicide again, and you wanted us to know. Well, stop trying to kill yourself, for Christ’s sake, and do it. You won’t get any tears out of me. I’m sick of you calling my husband. Can’t you see he don’t want you? Why don’t you get your own man?”

  “He is my man, bitch!” I couldn’t help myself. I knew he was going to be mad later, but I just couldn’t help myself. “The only person I’m going to kill is you. And if you keep pissing me off, I’ll do it in front of your kids.”

  “Oh my God, you are one sick woman. Stop calling my husband!”

  Her name was Monica. She was a school secretary in some hick town in upstate New York, and I couldn’t stand the bitch—mainly because she was living my life, or at least the life I would have had if her husband, Tony, my ex-fiancé, wasn’t such a lying son of bitch. Too bad for me that I loved him more than life itself.

  “Let me talk to Tony,” I demanded.

  “Are you out your mind?”

  Click. The phone went dead. That wench actually hung up on me. I couldn’t stand when people did that. I dialed the number again. She answered on the first ring.

  “Nobody hangs up on me, whore.”

  “I’m calling the police. This is harassment.”

  “Call ‘em, bitch. Think I care? By the time they get to your house, you’ll be a corpse. Now put Tony on the phone!”

  Click. She hung up again. This wench was really pissing me off. I dialed the phone again. This time it went straight to voice mail. She must have turned off his cell phone. I lay back in my bed, frustrated. I tried to calm down, but I really wanted to kill that bitch. Hell, upstate New York was only an eight-hour drive. I could be there in the morning, waiting for her to come out the door on her way to work. A smile crept up on my face as I imagined choking the life out of her.

  My cell phone rang. I reached over to the night table and looked at the caller ID. I was going to kill Tony. He was supposed to put my number under someone else’s name, but this bitch was calling me back. I hit the green button, connecting the call without saying a word.

  “Isis?” It wasn’t her; it was him. I was like a deer caught in headlights. I didn’t know what to say or do. All I knew was that I didn’t want him mad at me.

  I’d been in love with only two people in my life. One was Rashad, who, as you know, was now married to my sister, and the other was Tony. I lost Rashad to my sister because of my love for Tony. A few years ago, Rashad and Tony had actually battled it out for my affection. Tony had won not just the fight, but also my heart, with a huge diamond engagement ring and a wedding proposal right in front of a bruised and battered Rashad. I’d finally found my prince charming in the form of Tony—only my prince turned out to be a frog when I discovered he was already married with two children. I can’t begin to tell you how humili ated I was. I’d already begun planning my wedding and had even bought a wedding dress.

  Crushed, I decided to seek refuge with the one man who’d always loved me unconditionally, a man I was sure wasn’t married and would marry me without hesitation—Rashad. Sadly, he was absolutely devastated by my decision to be with Tony and had turned to my sister for a shoulder to lean on. To this day, I still do not understand why Egypt would do it, but instead of a shoulder to lean on, she offered him what was between her legs.

  If you think discovering out Tony was married was an arrow through my heart, it felt like I’d been hit by a bazooka when I found out about my sister and Rashad. Between what was going on with me and Tony and the craziness of finding out about Egypt and Rashad, I had a mental breakdown.

  Believe it or not, it was Tony who got me through it, with a wife and all. By the time I got out of the hospital that first time, I just needed to be loved, and Tony was there for me, despite what everyone else thought. So, I put aside my holier-than-thou attitude about seeing a married man and went for mine.

  For two years, I competed with his wife for his affection. I honestly felt like I was winning for a while, especially since I saw Tony almost every day and made sure that when he did go home to Monica, he was tired and sexually drained. But I had to give it to her; that bitch just wouldn’t give up.

  She actually resorted to what I considered to be some really dirty shit when she started using the kids as weapons against me. She knew Tony loved his kids. They were his one weakness. So, she moved them to upstate New York and made Tony transfer his job so he couldn’t see me. She had him on such a tight leash that I barely saw him once a month.

  I felt like I was going to die inside. One weekend, right before he was to leave, I took an entire bottle of pills. I wasn’t trying to kill myself, just get his attention. I wanted him to prove that he loved me by staying with me and nursing me back to health like he’d done in the past. My plan actually worked that time but failed miserably the next time, which was how my sister ended up taking me in.

  “Isis. You there, baby?” I loved it when he called me baby.

  “Yeah, I’m here.” I knew I sounded like a child. He brought that out in me.

  “Everything okay?” He was always concerned about my well-being.

  “Yeah, everything’s okay. Except for that crazy bitch you’re married to.”

  “What did you say to Monica?” He didn’t sound mad, but there was no doubt he wanted an answer right then and there. “She’s on the warpath.”

  “Nothin’. I just asked for you. I wasn’t expecting Monica to answer the phone. She caught me off guard.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine. Sorry about that. I went out for a while an
d left my phone behind.”

  I sighed thankfully. He could never stay at me for long.

  “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Anything, Tony.”

  “You didn’t threaten my kids, did you?”

  “Hell no, I didn’t threaten your kids. I love your kids, Tony. They’re a part of you.” I’d hated the little brats ever since their mom used them to take Tony away from me, but he didn’t know that and never would.

  “I didn’t think so, but Monica’s talking about getting a restraining order.”

  “Tony, I don’t know why you don’t just leave her. You could move down here, and we could get a place. That woman is crazy, baby. You’ve said it yourself.”

  “You know I can’t leave my kids, Isis.”

  I never won this argument, so it wasn’t worth going down this road. Best I kept to the subject at hand—getting some dick. “I know you can’t leave your kids. But how about for a weekend?” I crossed my fingers. “Can you leave them for the weekend to come see me? I miss you, baby, and so does Miss Kitty. You wouldn’t want me to have to give her to someone else.”

  “I know you ain’t planning on giving away my pussy.” Tony was one jealous motherfucker. Despite having a wife at home and not hitting this in almost two months, he still considered this his pussy. He couldn’t stand the idea of anyone else getting some of this.

  “Well, then you need to handle your business before the job is given to someone who can.”

  “Don’t play with me, Isis. I’ll be down there this weekend.”

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about. I heard my sister say they were going to New York for the weekend. We’ll have the house to ourselves.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll see you on Friday.”

  “Friday it is.” I could hear Monica in the background. “You gotta go, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said sadly. “Don’t wanna piss her off too much. Last thing I want is for her to block me from coming down this weekend.”

  “I know that’s right, baby. Just call me tomorrow.”

  “Aw-ight. Love you.”

  “Love you too.” I hung up, wondering if he was going to keep his promise or not show up because of his wife like he’d done the last two times we were supposed to meet. Well, if he didn’t show up this Friday, I damn sure was going to show up at his house on Saturday.

  Loraine

  7

  “He’s home,” Jerome blurted out in disbelief, as if he were reading my thoughts as we pulled into the driveway of my Southside Richmond home. The “he” Jerome was speaking about was my husband, Leon, whose tricked-out black Mercedes was impossible to miss. Leon had been missing in action for the better part of a week. He’d walked out of the house after we had yet another argument over money.

  Leon was a very prideful man, and he was having a hard time adjusting to me being the breadwinner in our house. I just couldn’t seem to make him understand that we needed to save. He’d lost plenty of money trying to get in on so-called ventures that never went anywhere. I didn’t know where the hell he spent the rest of it, but he was never able to keep money in his pocket. Considering I was making the majority of that cash, it was pissing me off how careless he was. On top of that, he was asking me to give him his interest in the public-relations firm so he could invest it in Rashad’s hedge fund. Because I wanted more details about the investment before I said yes, he got pissed off, said I needed to stop trying to control him.

  In the heat of the argument, he’d smacked the shit out of me on his way out the door. Of course, I was pissed at first, but once I calmed down and thought about it, I realized I had pushed him too far. I had said some pretty belittling things to him, and I guess he had just reached his breaking point.

  You see, it takes two to argue, and I’m a sister who is used to making her point, so I say whatever is on my mind and let the chips fall where they may. It seems that with my husband, I had made one point too many, and he decided to end the argument by picking up his keys and heading for the front door. You just don’t walk out on me, so I snatched his keys from his hand and blocked the door. That’s when he called me a bitch.

  I’ve heard that saying: “Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” That’s crap. Don’t nobody call me a bitch to my face and get away with it. I slapped the shit out of him, and trust me, I’m a big, heavy-handed black woman, so I know that shit hurt. What I totally forgot was that even though I’m big and heavy-handed, I’m still a woman. When his hand came across my face, I slid down the door and the pain reminded me that he was a man. I didn’t try to stop him from leaving after that.

  “You should have changed the locks,” Jerome said.

  After Leon left that night, I’d called Jerome for some comfort. I tried to convince him that the whole incident was my fault, but he wasn’t having it. He’d been trying for the longest time to get me to leave Leon. To him, there should have been no question about kicking Leon out after he put his hands on me.

  “You want me to put his ass out, Loraine? ‘Cause I will,” he said as I unfastened my seat belt. “All you gotta do is say the word, girl, and his ass is gone. Ain’t nothin’ but a thang.” Jerome tried his best to stay calm, but I could hear the anger in his voice.

  I understood how he felt, but that didn’t change the fact that I loved my husband and still wanted my marriage to work. In truth, as I looked at his car in the driveway, all I could think about was whether he was home to stay or just picking up some clothes to leave again.

  “No, Jerome. I can handle it.” I forced my voice to sound confident, but deep down, I was hopeful at best.

  Jerome shook his head. “You gonna take his ass back, aren’t you? That man put his hands on you, and you’re taking him back.”

  I stared blankly at my friend before speaking. Maybe it was because he seemed to have no problem jumping from one lover to the next, but Jerome just didn’t get it: I loved Leon too much to give up on our marriage. “I’m going inside to talk to my husband, Jerome. It’s not his fault he hit me. I hit him first.”

  “If that’s your story.” Jerome locked his eyes on mine. “He still shouldn’t have put his hands on you. He don’t got the right. Not after all you’ve done for him. That man wouldn’t have a roof over his head if it wasn’t for you.” Jerome looked disgusted. “That man doesn’t deserve you, Loraine. You’re too good for his no-good jealous ass. Sooner or later, you’ve got to let go, or he’s going to drag you down with him.”

  “Will you stop it? He’s not jealous, and he’s not going to drag me down. He’s just going through a hard time with the construction industry in such a slump. Now’s the time I’ve got to support him, not knock him down.”

  “Well, next time he blackens your eye, don’t call me—unless you want me to go to jail for knocking his ass down a flight of stairs.”

  “There won’t be a next time.”

  The way he looked at me said, Sure there won’t.

  Ignoring his eyes, I leaned over, wrapping my arms around his two-hundred-plus–pound frame and giving him a kiss on his cheek before reaching for the door handle. “I love him, Jerome. Just remember that I love him.”

  “I know you love him, sis. That’s the only reason he’s not wearing these size fourteen gators in the crack of his ass.” Jerome blew me a kiss. “I swear that must be some really good dick.”

  “Don’t you wish you knew?” I smirked as I stepped out of the car.

  “We’re friends, Loraine. That’s not something you want me to pursue. Or have you forgotten my track record with married men?”

  We both burst out laughing. “Don’t even try it, Jerome. If I catch you near my husband, we gonna have a problem.”

  “Hey, don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m just teasing, girl. You know he ain’t even my type.”

  “Please. Your type is anyone with a big dick swinging between his legs.”

  “Hmm, you’re right about that. But anyway, listen
, are you sure you don’t want me to come inside? Just to make sure everything’s aw-ight? I mean, he has gotten out of hand before.”

  “No, no, I got it, okay? I’ll see you at work in the morning.”

  “Are you sure?” He leaned across the passenger seat and looked in my eyes. I knew what he was doing. Jerome was very good at reading people’s faces. But I wasn’t lying; I wanted him to leave so there wouldn’t be any confrontation.

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “Aw-ight, girl, I’ll see you in the morning.” He sat back up in his seat. “Keep your head up. Remember, tomorrow’s the big meeting.”

  “How could I forget? Good night, Jerome.”

  I walked to the door, preparing myself mentally before placing my key in the lock and turning the knob. I had no idea what to expect from Leon. Truth is, I was glad he was home but was afraid of where things might go.

  As I entered the foyer, I noticed him in the living room situated off to my right. He was sitting in the love seat by the window with a drink in his hand and a bottle of Hennessy resting on the end table next to him.

  Is this his first drink, or one of many?

  Suddenly, I wished I had taken Jerome up on his offer to escort me inside. Leon had never been too much of a drinker, until a few years ago when his construction company fell upon hard times after he lost a government contract. I couldn’t tell how many drinks he’d consumed, but a drunken Leon was not the person I wanted to deal with tonight. I was hoping he’d be sober so we could talk. I missed talking to him; lately all we did was argue.

  “Where you been?” he asked without emotion as I entered the room.

  He had some nerve asking me that after being gone all week, but I answered him nonetheless. “Jerome and I went to—”

  “So, you been hanging out with that sissy again?” Leon let out a disdainful laugh. “What the hell is it about that faggot you like so much anyway?”