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Anything I would suggest, she would just be down with it like it was the way life was supposed to be. On the other hand, my sweet, tender, and loving Shayla was too precious for all of that. I made sweet, tender love to Shayla. Wifey brought out a different energy from me that inspired me to explore her body in different ways than I did with any of my other women. When I got into it with Shayla, it was like I would just melt right into her sweet pussy. I would try to dive in and come out the other side of that thing when I was making love to her. All the veins in my damn forehead would come to the surface, my arms would be shaking, trying to hold me up, and the magic stick would be as rigid as a fuckin’ flagpole.
One love-making session with her, and she would have me ready to giv
e up the whole street game and settle down in between her legs forever. She had that make-me power over me that inspired me to not only give her the best, but to be a better man. That was why I married her, but also why I spent so much time away from her. I wasn’t ready to be a square – cooking meals, painting walls, watching the Home Makeover channel on TV, and eating ice cream sandwiches as the highlight of my day.
Since I’d made it down the aisle with Shayla, I’d been running from the lockdown ever since. For one, I was afraid of the hold she had on me. Afraid I would turn into some random sap, making love and shit all the time. In my line of work, I had to keep it gangster by any means necessary. The streets would eat me alive on some love bullshit. For two, I wasn’t sure I could dismiss the fact that I liked to be out there doing it big, being “the man” to females left and right, getting money left and right, and women jockin’ on me – you know the rest, left and right. I wanted all of that, but I also wanted the security I could only get from my wife. Picking up my phone, I made a quick call home, but got the voicemail.
“Shayla, baby, I’m sorry I missed your calls. I’ve been tied up at my main spot handling a discrepancy all evening. I’m on my way home now, babygirl. I love you.” I said a prayer that she would receive my message before I got there and not be too upset. The altercation with Rhonda was almost entirely tossed to the back of my mind at the moment. I had bigger fish to fry. I looked at the debonair nigga staring back at me in the rearview mirror, and said, “Pimpin’ ain’t easy.”
Chapter 8
Gladys
“If my cell phone rings again, I don’t know what I’m going to do!” I had already gotten a couple of calls from Rhonda the night before, back to back, but I had let them go to voicemail. Her messages sounded as though she was upset, maybe even crying, but I knew that if she had called me, she had also called Shayla. If it was serious, Shayla would be able to go to her a lot faster than I could in Florida. To be honest, if it was some more drama about her family, her latest fling, or some other bullshit that I really didn’t care about, I didn’t want to have to listen to it while I was on my vacation.
I was too ready to get my mini-vacation kicked off, but the constant ringing of my phone jarred my mind back to my disgruntled husband at home and everything I had going on at work, as well. I began to question whether or not I had faxed the last part of my firms’ contractual agreement to Nordec University Hospital. We were slated to go live providing documentation services to Nordec, one of the largest medical facilities in the United States, and I just so happened to be the consultant responsible for making it happen. The thought of not completing one minute detail to get this account kicked off properly was almost strong enough to make me want to check the caller ID and answer the call immediately. The mere chance that I might have dropped the ball on any part of this deal made me cringe. I was one-hundred-percent flawless when it came to executing plans and wheeling business deals. However, lately with all of the shit James had been putting me through at home, I’d been slipping hard at work.
A month ago, he found himself out of work yet again, and with him always at home riding me about one thing or the next when I got home, suddenly my career had found itself riding on the line with this Nordec account. I could sink or swim with this million-dollar client. If I swam, I would be swimming with the big fish and rolling in the pay dirt. On the other hand, if I sank, I’d be in the unemployment line and hitting soup kitchens up within the blink of an eye. All of the stressors that I was dealing with at work and home had burned me out, so I was looking forward to this weekend alone to rejuvenate my mind, body and soul and put me back on the upswing. We all need time to clear our heads sometimes.
Pardon me folks, where are my manners? Let me officially introduce myself. I’m Gladys LaQuinn, a business savvy, twenty-eight-year-old, God-fearing, Spanish chica from el corazón de Caracas, Venezuela. I moved to America with my family when I was fourteen in search of endless American possibilities. Therefore, I have the benefit of speaking both Spanish and English. I’m the proud mother of two beautiful little ninos that are my sunrise and sunset.
Unfortunately, you already know that I’m also the wife of a…. well, we will get back to his trifling tail in just a minute.
Professionally, I’m a kick butt senior software consultant for Naytek Corporation, a Fortune 500 medical documentation firm. The complete contrast in how powerful I felt in my career and how helpless I felt in my home life does not escape me. Currently I live in Valley, Alabama in a nice custom built four-bedroom brick home. I commute daily to Naytek’s thirty-story office building positioned in the middle of the bustling downtown Atlanta. Although my salary does provide for me to live in any one of the best communities in Atlanta, I choose to commute to the smaller, modest community of Valley, because I’ve always enjoyed the countryside. The small town lifestyle the city provides matches my serene spirit and simplistic lifestyle. Okay, enough about me, now back to my trip to Florida.
Traffic was heavy as hell as I breezed down I-85 headed toward Atlanta. I was just about to dodge a truck that was attempting to cut me off when my cell phone vibrated again. Once I was secure in my lane with no cars intruding on my space, I reluctantly checked the caller ID. It was James again, calling for the tenth time since I left home. This time I answered it just to flatter myself. I skipped the formalities and got straight to the point.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I will not be turning this car back around to come back home. So, get that through your thick skull, and enjoy your time with the kids this weekend.” I had the phone glued tightly to my ear, just a moving violation waiting to happen.
He roared off a few vulgar explicatives and called me out of my name, as if that was anything new nowadays. Sometimes I wondered where he got his material? If he was going to be cursing me out every time I talked to him, at least he could come up with something new to say every now and again. I sighed.
Enjoying my newly found cojones, I said matter-of-factly, “If you want to talk to me civil, we can talk. However, you are not going to holler at me or call me out of my name today, because I will not receive or accept it. And you are definitely not changing my mind about taking this trip, so get over that.” I calmly told him, cooler than a cucumber – so cool it even shocked me. Knowing that he was hundreds of miles away and unable to reach out to strike me made me bold.
Despite my warning, he yelled all kinds of curse words into my ear, calling me all kinds of bitches, hos, unfit mothers and motherfuckers. Had he caught me any other day, my psyche would have been so fragile that I would have shattered under the intensity of his verbal assault. But this day I was a woman not easily broken. I had my own purpose and mission, so instead of responding to his fury, I blew a kiss into the phone. Shit, he would be beating my ass anyway, so why should I let him ruin my trip? Like it or not, I had to return home, and once I did, I’d have to face the music. I figured that I might as well make it worth my while.
“I’ll see you Monday, and we will talk then. Take care of my babies.” I told him. Maybe he will see me Monday, I thought. When those actual words had slipped from my tongue, my stomach lurched at the thought of having to go home to him. I knew what would await me there, but I pressed the visions of his fists to the back of my mind.
For too many years, he has been sadly mistaken, always calling me an unfit mother if I decided to do one thing for me that did not include him or the children. He constantly called me a whore and all kinds of bitches. Well, after this weekend, maybe there would be some truth to his claims of me being a bitch. Regardless, there were two people that I always did right by, and they were my children. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for my children, I would have just run away from our sorry excuse of a marriage years ago. It was past time for my not-so-lovely husband of six years to get a taste of what it felt like to be the one left at home caring for our two beautiful children, Nazaria and Kelvin, for days on end with no love or support from his spouse. And to think tha
t I was only forcing him to be responsible for just one weekend. It had been my job ever since we found out that I was pregnant with Nazaria to watch over, protect, and provide for our children while my husband ran rampant in the streets, never assisting, never supporting, and never encouraging. For God’s sakes, the man didn’t even bring his paycheck home when he was lucky enough to be earning one.
Even with all of that, instead of running around town cheating with different men - like James often does with his skanks – I was simply taking a ‘me time’ break in Miami, Florida. A three-day vacation full of rest and relaxation was just what I needed. My reservations were made weeks ago when I took Brenda Jackson up on her offer to attend the reunion. I immediately planned my getaway upon receiving the impressive gold invite without a second thought. I had always said, “If you are going to do something, Gladys, do it big with no regrets,” and that was exactly what I was doing on this highway to M-I-A.
My spirit was empowered, because today I was finally taking a stand. That thought alone made me smile so big that I thought the corners of my mouth were going to crack. Affecting a change for me, starting today, felt great. Yeah, sure, James continued to scream into the phone, but I was a woman on a mission.
“What the hell has gotten into you, woman? You can’t just jump on the highway and leave home without discussing taking a trip with me! Oh, you just wait until I get my hands on you, you disrespectful little cunt. You thought you were hurt before… You have no idea what I have planned for you! The longer you stay away, the worse it will be when you get here, Gladys! Now, I’m telling you to get your spic ass back home right now, bitch, and I mean now!” In my mind, I could see James pacing the living room floor furious and wishing he could knock a hole in my head. He would probably punch a few holes in the walls of the house once he realized that nothing he would say or do could change the way the wind blew this day. The winds of change were pushing me toward Florida. Unlike nearly every other week, I would not be waiting up for him until I was too tired to hold my eyes open this weekend, and I could care less how he was taking that news.
These were my final words to him before I dropped the device down into my purse. "You and the kids have fun, babes. I am turning my cell phone off now." James would just have to understand the fact that I’d wanted to break out of the four-cornered rooms of our house that have all but smothered my livelihood minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day for six years.
When I fell in love with him, I knew that his love had awakened new things inside of me. The last thing I would have ever expected was that a few years later, the part of me that he had awakened would shrivel up and die of unrest. Once that part of me had perished, he kept right along living larger than life, as if he hadn’t recognized the corpse sleeping beside him. Perhaps he hadn’t.
James’ mind must be baffled beyond confusion right now. Not sweet ole homely Gladys running away for the weekend! I didn’t even confront him about the email from his trashy whore, so undoubtedly I would be the talk of the town by tomorrow morning.
I bet he already had his mother on speed dial. Well, they could have their little bitch session. The two of them taking turns blasting my name through the telephone was the least of my worries right now, while I had the hot Florida sun shining on my face through my car’s front windshield. That woman never liked me anyway, and quite frankly, I was a day past tired of faking like I liked her trifling tail, too. I had a sneaking suspicion that she was well-aware of the way that James was treating me behind closed doors (who knows, she may have been a punching bag for her own husband before he left her). You would think a woman would have some solidarity towards her son’s abused wife, but no. She took every opportunity she had to verbally bash me just as hard as he did.
I had spoken to Kelvin and Nazaria the night prior, and I told them that I would be gone for the weekend, so I wasn’t just abandoning my babies. To my surprise, they both were happy to know Mommy was going on a trip. As little as they were, they were all for me doing something that would make me happy. I hated to admit it, but I was sure that they knew about the beatings their father bestowed upon me. I tried to keep sunglasses on around them if I had black eyes, and I attempted to hide the bruises the best way possible. You just can’t keep things like that from children. They knew when Mommy was hurting, and I was sure they’d heard my cries in the middle of the night. My babies were as awesome as the sun, and I wouldn’t change one thing about them for the world – not even conceiving them with their bitch ass father. At least, James was good to them, doing whatever possible to avoid showing them his hatefulness. I had to give him credit for that much. He would never think of touching either of them. They had his blood coursing through their veins, and that was precious to him.
I took another look at the golden pass to Fontainebleau Resort to spend three days and two nights, at no charge. I was anxious and excited about the masquerade party Brenda was throwing, my free hotel nights, and just the entire weekend getaway. I reached inside of my purse, pulled out my cell, put it on silent with no vibrations, and dropped it back down into my purse.
