Authors: Shante Harris
Still punctual I see, Ash.
You’d better know it, sugar. Sweet dreams, Chino.
Sleep well, Beauty.
My pupils stared at the messages for nearly five minutes, before tossing the phone back on the bed. I leaned back, allowing my back to plop on the plush ocean blue comforter as I stared into the mirror above the bed on the ceiling. Thoughts ran rampant, sailing, wondering what it would be like to make love to Ashley. It would've been bliss watching her under that big shiny mirror, staring at our reflection as her fat ass bounced on top of my dick.
I exhaled, crawling backwards on my knees and elbows, flopping my head down on the down pillows. Before I knew it, I found my hand back on my dick again stroking like nobody’s business. I could only bring myself to massage the stress out of the muscle rather than become majorly aroused. Through it all, Starla still had not called or texted back.
I was still going to give her a chance to waltz through that door and express how she lost track of time. Calling the hospitals and morgues right now was out of the question at this point. I refused to believe that she was harmed in any form or fashion. I refused to believe that I had to bury yet another person dear to my heart. No, she was going to walk through that door in one piece, safe and sound at any moment. She had to.
Starla
The sun blazed brightly through the front windshield as it made it crept over the top of my house. It seemed like it was purposefully shining in my eyes to blind me. It was Mother Nature's sick twisted punishment, from my long night of primo smoking and wild orgy sex. I was going to have to talk to Brian about that shit. Even though it was okay and I came a lot of times, that lifestyle was not for me. No matter how hard I tried, I could not for the life of me get the smell of Trina’s pussy off of my lips. Scrubbing with that hotel soap wasn’t enough to do the job.
My pussy was raw and tingling sore from the banging it took from Brian's massive dick. Stepping out slowly, I locked the car from the inside so the horn of the alarm would not wake Chino. It would undoubtedly send him running down the stairs to hit me at the door. I tippy toed to the front door, my heels in hand. Turning the key slowly, I pushed the door open and continued silent stepping inside, setting my heels on the floor next to my purse gently. The house was quiet, a little too quiet.
There were no sounds throughout the entire house and there were no signs of life either, but I was no fool. That man was in this house somewhere. My only hope was that he was in the bedroom still sleeping, which is what he liked to do anyway on Saturday mornings. I continued on, easing to the kitchen, being sure not to touch anything noisy. Carefully my fingers opened the cabinet, allowing me to grab a coffee mug in the same manner. I shot a K cup of coffee into the Keurig machine. That soothing vanilla scent was more than enough to relax me, before I went to sleep in the guest bedroom down the hall. A chilly eerie feeling came over me as I pressed the start button. It was as if someone was watching me, observing me from a distance waiting for the right moment to strike.
“So how was your night?”
“AH!” I jumped back clenching my shirt, almost having a heart attack from the sight of him, as I turned around.
He was a ninja that way, standing in the entrance of the kitchen like he had been there the entire time. His arms were crossed tightly to his torso. He was fully dressed in his favorite Sean John jogging suit as if he was about to leave the house and do just that. But, he did not workout outside of the house and never usually needed to dress down to do a few measly pushups in the basement. He smelled damn good from the Versace cologne that I bought him for his birthday a few months ago. He had even shaved the little stubble that had formed on his face making a very sexy goatee. He never did any of those things unless he was on his way to work. The weekends were his time to chill, catch up on ESPN, and funk out.
“Damn, Chino. You scared the hell out of me.” I paused. “Where are you about to go? You heading out?”
“How was your night, Starla?” He asked evading my question.
“Look, Chino, I just lost track of time last night and fell asleep in the car after I parked at the lake,” I lied.
“Are you shitting me? Do you really expect me to believe that bogus ass story?” If this were a cartoon, he would have fuming lines shooting out from the top of his head.
“I don’t really care what you believe, okay. That’s what happened.”
Before I knew it, I had downed a whole cup of steaming hot coffee as I stared at the bottom of the empty mug. I turned back towards the counter searching aimlessly. Where were the rest of the fucking K-Cups? I snatched an old bag of Folgers from the cabinet. Ignoring his presence, I focused on pouring the coffee into the filter, after frantically looking for more K-Cups again and coming up short. I usually did the shopping, so I couldn’t blame the outage on anyone but myself.
Studying the machine, I continued to pour the grounds when the bag was abruptly whisked out of my hand. Tiny dark pebbles of coffee flew across the room, as I looked up distraught by what the hell was going on. Chino had grabbed my forearms and jolted me around, facing and shaking me like I was a two-year-old child who had done something bad. The anger in his eyes read of an irritated parent ready to scold, as I yanked trying to get away from his grasp.
“You are a fucking liar, Starla! You’ve been lying ever since Kenya died. I can’t take this shit anymore. Now either you’re gonna talk to me so we can work this out or I’m…I’m filing for divorce.” His words were stern.
“Filing for divorce? You’re an ass. You sit there and try to judge me about cheating when you were cheating all along! Yeah, you didn’t think I knew about those hoes in the beginning of our relationship?”
“Starla, we were fresh in a relationship then. I didn’t think we were serious since we were only together a few weeks. But, as soon as our feelings were established they were gone.”
“Really? Well, what about all of those so-called reservations and meetings that I made for you to the hotel suite downtown? The suite that you still have, mind you. Do you honestly want me to believe that it is all business with you?” I argued finally snatching my arms out of his grasp.
“Yes. Meetings and golf. That’s all I was doing. I don’t have to cheat on you Starla. I love you. I love this marriage. But, I refuse to be the only one trying to make this shit work,” he paused, as I walked off before he grabbed me tightly by the arm again. “You’re either in or out.”
We stared into each other’s eyes for what seemed like years. I did not know what I wanted to do. He was asking for too much of me too soon. He demanded of me to make a decision right then and there, which was something that I wasn’t prepared for. Before last night, I knew what I wanted to do. I was going to leave him and tell him to shove his money up his Crocodile Dundee ass.
But since then, I had been thinking about a lot of things and especially, rethinking Brian. I was in love with him but the things he was having me do I was no longer down with. He wanted me to be his simple ride or die bitch and I was in no mood to be either anymore. What a difference a day made. Cutting my eyes to him, my thoughts only yielded the reasons why I hated him in the first place.
“You are the reason why our daughter is dead. I can’t forgive you for it and that’s what makes it hard to look at you everyday.” I poured my heart out right there on the kitchen floor trying to open up to him.
“Me? How the hell can you put something like that on me, Starla? You know I took that really hard.”
“Did you? It sure didn’t seem like it. I was the one crying and not eating. I was the one wide-awake not sleeping. You were going back and forth to work as usual like nothing affected you.”
“I was burying myself in my work because I couldn’t deal. God forbid I was able to talk to you about it!” Chino’s voice raised an octave. “But, you still haven’t told me why it’s my fault.”
“Because you knew that the disease Kenya died from ran in your family. You knew that your family had a bunch of sickly people and you neglected to tell me that until it was too late.”
“How was I supposed to know that our daughter would get that? Not everyone gets it, Starla.”
“But, you knew! And, you neglected to tell me leaving me helpless. If you had told me this before I got pregnant then maybe I would have had a fucking choice not to have kids with you!”
My hand seemed to have a mind of its own, when it reached up and slapped him across the face. It barely even seemed to faze him, although I could see his tanned white skin turning redder by the minute. He lowered his head as if he was trying to cool down from the blow he had received. A short laugh ran across his lips behind his tongue. If he were a different type of man, I wouldn't have been able to breathe anymore.
If he were Brian, I would've been dead. Nevertheless, when he raised his head up haunting me with his eyes, I was beyond scared straight. I had never seen Chino so damn angry, but I had a right to be angry too. He should've been walking away like he always did. It was his way of getting the message, needing time to blow off steam and process the conversation.
“You are not about to put this on me.” Chino began calmly. “You have issues dealing with the death of our first child and I get that. But, you are not about to stand there and make me the bad guy for something that I had no control over. I didn’t say anything about the disease because honestly I forgot about it and our child getting it was the furthest thing from my mind.”
“Chino—“
“Don’t think for one second that I would purposely try to endanger the life of a child of mine.” Chino punched the kitchen sink, leaving the marble countertop unscathed, as his green eyes appeared to turn fiery red to me.
“It is your fault just as well as it is mine, Chino. We should have never had kids and you know it.”
He leaned into my face grabbing my cheeks firmly squeezing them in a fish face, before meeting my lips with his. I did not want to kiss him, but his hands went wildly all over my body. The more he frantically pressed and held me close to his body the more I tried to push him away. His hands searched all over my body, reaching around digging the large boats into the crack of my ass, attempting to cavity search me. I managed to move my face so he could not taste my lips again. That only prompted him to pull me closer so that he could bite the shit out of my neck. He was as persistent as a hungry ape desperately reaching for bananas off of a tree he knows he can't reach. That doesn't deter him from trying though.
“Stop! Let me go. Stop it,” I said steadily struggling to push him off of me.
“I love you, Starla. I love you baby.”
“Get the fuck off of me! Stop.”
"I love you, Starla. I love you baby."
He stuck his hand down into my jeans trying to finger my already swollen sore pussy. His fingers struggled to get in there to reach my clit, and with the first flick of his finger I kneed him very close to his dick. Chino jumped back so that I would not try it again, then abruptly let me go all together, shoving me in the process. He sent me hurling across the kitchen sink; my torso bent hovering over the bowl. We were both breathing heavily, hawking each other down waiting to see the next move of the other. His stare only plagued my thoughts on what he was thinking. What was he trying to accomplish by doing that?
Chino shot a serial killer like smile at me, as he reached up stuffing the pussy juice drenched finger in his mouth. He stuck his tongue out, teasing his fingers sucking off any and all drippings that were on it. Once he was done, he blew me an air kiss before waving me off, grabbing his brown leather wallet off the kitchen counter and stuffing it down in his pocket.
I thought about stopping him, telling him that we needed to talk about this especially before he tried to use sex to fix it, but my pride would not allow it. Instead I let him storm off, snatching up his gym bag from off the floor near the kitchen entrance and heading out slamming the front door behind him. He shut it so hard that the glass window in it almost shattered.
If I were paying more attention, I would have noticed the gym bag on the floor earlier, the dirty breakfast dishes in the sink, and his wallet on the counter. His gym bag though? So he was going outside to workout. He hated that sort of thing. People watching him sweat was something he loathed. I poured a nice hot freshly brewed cup of coffee, mixing it with just the right amount of sugar and cream before easing slowly into a seat at the table to enjoy it.
My pussy was so sore that not even a hot bath would calm the throbbing. I needed time to heal but I knew Brian would be calling soon, not allowing that to happen. The turmoil that my life had become played in my mind like a bad unforgettable movie. Sometimes I wished I had a fairy Godmother to wave her illustrious magic wand and make everything okay. My chest rose and fell rapidly, as my mouth erupted a sea of wails. The tears dripping from my eyelashes fell, making a nice addition to my coffee. I had to fix my life and fast. Thing was, I had no idea how I would do it especially with Chino and I at war.
I took out my phone and searched the Internet for someone to talk to. Typing into Google, very general keywords to keep my results as broad as possible. The only thing I was looking for was a sign, any sign that who I found was worthy enough to take on a task as fucked up as me. I didn't need any quitters. I had almost given up on myself, so whomever I chose would have to be much stronger than I.
Chino was not right about everything, but he was right about one thing. I needed help dealing with the death of our daughter. I needed help coping with the fact that I lost the one person in the world, who would love me unconditionally regardless of my mistakes or flaws. I lost the one person that made my heart sing, who came from my womb and belonged to me. My finger scrolled down a list of professionals that I found, who could quite possibly provide their expertise to get me my life back. She caught my eye because of the motto written underneath her website address.