Chapter Four
~~ Character Flaws, Slips and Falls ~~
…and I accepted the fact that in the end of all this, I was merely left with nothing but insatiable sex with Pucker, minus any traces of guilt, sneaking around, fear, or shame.
The eyesore in that (in comparison my serious life, and something that Santana had all over Pucker) was that Pucker wasn’t very bright or talented, or had any other valuable or useful redeeming qualities outside good sex and his methodical pursuit of me. He was very good-looking, very awkward, and I liked his speaking voice-the way he talked-pronounced his words. He had a real sloppy but sexy walk. And I hated cigarettes but the way he even puffed on a cigarette or a blunt, and smoked his weed while talking and dumping the ashes out in an ashtray was sexy. And the way he would stare at me-I could see his thoughts.
But in my eyes, he blew the bulb in the “bright” department when he opened up that Pandora’s box with Twin a while ago. That was a minus about him to me-a serious one though, with red ink. He lost a whole lot of cool points over that. After that happened, combined with the fact that I learned he was a popular jock; that mishap made me think that other than for his sexual and shallow qualities, he was just a box of rocks dumb jock. But outside of that, I loved him. I loved his “way” with me. His plus was his sex. And in my all my naiveté, that made me respect him and treat him like a “man.” In my world, it served him well and got him respected (and served well) by me. I was happy with him. For like, a whole year, he was perfection-never a dull moment, and totally won me over. But as I was learning him, from being around him so much, no matter how small or large-or whether it was just in conversation where he would be telling me a story; there would always be something about, or in the story that would make me cringe (about how he went about handling whatever we would be talking about).
I even set him up one day-after being challenged to do so.
Well over a year after Pucker’s Pandora’s box opening, and well into this history in the making, I got my second red flag but it was so funny that I just charged it to the game-a naughty little game that myself, one of my homegirls and her sister were playing-that backfired. It was pretty funny. We had been having our usual girl talk-talking about phone sex and our boyfriends and all. My friend got so into it that she wanted to know if I would call her boyfriend up and pretend I was this random girl that knew her boyfriend from someone else who had given me his phone number. I was pretending as though I had been watching him but hesitant, and certainly interested in him or whatever.
We all sat at the kitchen table, I called him up on the phone.
It started off as just…a normal conversation that ended up moving to a sexual conversation that aroused him to the point of “wanting to meet” me. She was pissed! I guess to just be sitting there in my face (at the kitchen table) watching me on the phone get her boyfriend off who by invitation, asked if he could meet me at a particular area (near where he lived). It was too unbelievable that he fell for it. He just totally followed his horniness.
At any rate, she and I rolled up on that fool (a distance away from the meeting spot), only to find that he was really with it and there-waiting. He even started walking around the building that I told him I (allegedly) lived in. We watched all of this laughing our asses off, imagining the horror of some unsuspecting person drawing their blinds back to their basement apartment only to find this horny fool with his dick in his hand; looking for some sexy girl he just got off the phone with that promised to fold and unfold him in to hell and back. We joked and laughed about it but still, she sat and watched: pissed. She wanted to kill him. It took everything in my power to persuade her not to get out that car and it was hard to.
Then she flipped in on me: “Call that mutherfuckin’ Pucker. He’s not exempt! Most of these guys out here would have fallen for a conversation like that. They’re all horny! He’ll do it too!” she yelled.
“But Posh, he knows my voice! There is no way humanly possible I can start in and lead him OUTSIDE like we did Andre! That shit was classic girl!” I laughed.
“Nah, Andre’s been around you and knows your voice too! Just use that same voice in that same pitch you were using with Andre! He and Andre went to the same school. Pucker was popular! Girls wanted Pucker. He didn’t just all off! He probably talks to so many girls-and with all these girls chasing him, he will not know. He’s going to do the same thing! Watch!” she challenged.
That got my radar beeping. That challenged made me rush home to try it.
We sat back at the kitchen table.
Dialed.
He answered.
My heart was beating fast. I figured that if he busted me, I’m his girl, so I could play it off and tell him that I was just curious to see if he would fall for it.
He fell for it.
But he probed and asked more questions than Andre and it was harder to get him receptive to how I was trying to work him, so I worked him slow-a lot of dead air in the phone, but I was getting somewhere, I had his attention. He was enjoying my feeding into his ego about how I used to watch him but he was so popular and was with Soccer, but still-I wanted him badly. Mentioning Soccer was obviously enough to prove to him that I most probably did attend school with him. He fell for that without probing me about anybody we may have had in common. I thought that was pretty stupid. Those lil’ ego strokes started breaking him down to constant “mmm hmm’s” and he was more receptive to me. He was sitting back enjoying me tell him about all the things I wanted to say and do to him that he listened on. His voice wasn’t aroused like it would be when we would cozy up on the phone, but I was dying to know if he had his hands his pants, so I asked:
“Where are your hands?”
He replied mannishly and bluntly:
“On my nuts…” I almost burst into laughter. Posh and sis were watching me intently. I held my index finger up to them, so as to remind them to not let me forget to tell them about that moment.
Next thing I know, my mom picked up the phone from the living room: “Angie come up to the front room and get Lucky and lay him in the bed!”
My eyes stretched wide and I hung up the phone-thinking Pucker would hang up too.
He didn’t. Posh, sis, and me sat at the table looking forty ways to stupid.
I ran to the hallway in the house and listened to my mother down in the living room, still in conversation with Pucker.
He told on my ass.
My mom came walking down the hallway and hung that left to the kitchen: “What the hell are y’all doing playing with the “Lil’ Boy”–a man now, but still, that household name that she had given Pucker long ago, still hadn’t changed with her.
“Mom we were just playing around,” I laughed.
I think we sat at that kitchen table laughing the rest of the night-especially when I reenacted Pucker saying: “On my nuts…”–it was so unsexy and hilarious.
Well, Posh (or me) never got to find out if Pucker would have been down to “meet up,” like her Andre did, but when Pucker and me talked later that night he wanted to kill me. He thought it was pretty funny after I explained why we did it and how we got Andre out the house to follow his horny. Pucker and I laughed all night about that one.
He said he totally had no idea that girl on the phone was me, so I did pretty well.
I’ll never know what would have become of that night but I ended up letting it go and charging that one to the “game.” He lost no cool points. No harm, no foul, so I didn’t bitch at him about it. I had nothing to go on.
I never wanted to seem like I was nagging, correcting, or chastising him all the time because of the way I came down on him long ago about opening our Pandora’s box to Twin. He felt so many ways to stupid about that-that (to protect his heart), I would tread lightly around stupid stuff he would do, going forward. I learned to deal with cringing and just counted it as a character flaw of his that, because I loved him; I would go on and accept…
When you’re young and in your naiveté, there are things that you will accept and continue to entertain and tend to that [when you become sophisticated and seasoned in your thinking and standards], you won’t even give audience to [it or that person] for one iota of a second. Not because you think you are better, but because you are aware of what your standards or boundaries are (and why). Why–because you know that: “No, I cannot deal with a non-thinking man,” (because in the long-run, his inability to use his head will indeed fall back on you at some point, in some way or another, to some great or small degree)…
It’s like, in our naiveté, none of us have the capacity to think ahead about long-term consequences of the things we do or say (or get involved in). Because in our naiveté, we are still in that “promiscuous” in thought (or being) in a way that we don’t have the capacity to be as discriminating as somebody sophisticated and seasoned in their thinking (or being).
But some people, while in their naiveté, do have the capacity to think ahead in short-term consequences whereas other people, while in their naiveté, absolutely, positively do not have that capacity to think ahead about short-term consequences under any certain or uncertain terms whatsoever.
Like…you just don’t step to a bully at your school (for which you have to attend five days per week/six hours a day with) and that bully is known for kicking ass and taking down names just for the hell of it if he got bored enough. A guy who uses his head, wouldn’t try and strike up a conversation with the bully by telling him that you know his sister (who’s a homebody, who has no friends in the neighborhood, has a man and a baby) and think you are going to met with anything less than scorn, caution and a threat. You can’t let the euphoria or the emotion about what you’re feeling about a person (or anything) cause you to want to tell it to someone (or people) who you already know would have no interest or reason to want to share that with you.
Pucker was definitely not in that line when God was handing out those capacities and abilities to think (and apply thinking to any particular situation). And every faux pas that happened throughout the remainder of the relationship with Pucker was the result of his very own inability to think-just…basic thinking.
It was like a lesson that I learned in my innocence with Santana, that whole: young girl fairytale in her head about being swept off her feet, the envy of onlookers, the prom, treated like a princess, first love, happily ever after fantasy (that although I did get) delivered the reality check I needed when Santana first cheated (and didn’t think and use his head). That was my first wake up call about ridding yourself of silly little fantasies by which real people, with real beating hearts cannot fit the mold of-happily ever after. And Santana’s inability to “think” about the fact that he was smack dead in the middle of a relationship with a girl that he loved and adored and who’s virginity he took and shared his with too; wasn’t enough to use his head when faced with the “opportunity,” time, and space to take someone else up on their “offer” to give him their virginity as well.
So when you remove yourself from the fantasy, and the real person and the reality steps into view; then you prepare yourself for realistic standards and boundaries by which [a real person who is with you and wants to continue that] has to “think for the team…” they have to use their head when reality “offers opportunities.” They have step back and decide if in the long run/long term; how is this going to affect me with my girl (and vice versa). So in that experience, I learned (even during my naiveté) to be cautious of men who do not think/use their heads (regardless the situation). Because if a thinker thinks about the long run/long term, they realize that their short-term desires are not even worth it after all. That’s what a thinking man or thinking person knows. And one who doesn’t-does not.
With Pucker, I was no better than a non thinking person either, when I got my red flag early that Pucker too, was most probably not the most thinking-est man. However (from being young, dick-whipped, and naïve-but with the capacity to think in only short-term consequences, and definitely not seasoned or sophisticated enough to think about my long-term consequences) a man like Pucker did stay in my naïve life that (had I had the capacity to act on my ability to think); he would have been avoided.
But life sometimes has to show us better than tell us. (So I learned).
So I was learning…
I always very observant and for over a year now, he and I had been at this thing to the point where everyone in his inner circle knew who I was, knew me, and knew that I was his “other main chick.”
I had a friend named Kris who attended the public school with Pucker and his guys, but she attended the artsy school with me when we were elementary age. She and I remained friends and whenever I could, we would hang out at the club sometimes with our fake ids, and we’d get together on weekends. I would put extensions in her hair, and we would take Lucky out with us to functions at the park and stuff. She was my homie for life: A cute chocolate drop of a girl with a big pretty smile and silly ass hell. She was pigeon-toed and proud about it. It just fit her personality so much that she invented her own walk to sexy it up. Kris would come over and we would get sexied up even if it was to walk to the grocery store. That girl was a mess. She knew that my mother sometimes want to make me feel punished for derailing my life and having a baby, so Kris didn’t want me fighting a battle of being young with a baby alone, so she made it her business to be really inclusive to help me be okay with it-and not embarrassed. Whenever all three of us were together, me being a young mom seemed simpler. As a young girl, all my life I one of those really intense and serious young girls-and if I didn’t know you, I could seem kind of intimidating at first-that’s why all my friends were friends I had grown up in the neighborhood with, and had gone to school with. Outside of that, I wasn’t one for letting people into my world (male or female). So unless you knew me, it wasn’t very easy to bring out my humor or even know that I had any beneath my armor. If anything was a “joke” there truly had to be laughing or a joke really going on. Kris was funny and a “fass” girl [was the nickname old people would call girls like her]: that girl who wasn’t necessarily promiscuous but could be so “common” and loud that you just assumed that she was. But Kris wasn’t. She just liked a good time.
When we would be out walking around and about, she liked to take turns playing mommy. When Lucky would get tired of walking, we would take turns picking him up and holding him on our hip, and when the guys would drive by blowing their horns, if she was stuck holding Lucky she would yell: “Come back, come back cutie! This aint my baby!” and would burst out laughing. All three of us would. I’d be chasing her pigeon-toed ass down the street while she would start running from me to keep me from swinging on her and choking her. We we’re inseparable around this time.
Well, her boyfriend was one of Pucker’s friends from school (not one of the ones in his inner circle). He told Kris everything. He and Kris were theeee most gossiping couple but kept their gossip between each other. Every time she and I would gossip amongst one another, no matter where we were, what we were doing, or how loud she may have been previously talking; when something would pop in her mind that her boyfriend told her, she would stop in her tracks, toot her lips and her voice and say: “Girrrl Bilal told me that [X-Y-Z]” or: “Bilal said that [X-Y-Z and A-B-C!] girl! That’s what Bilal says!” …I’d be tickled to death. They were such private gossips. It was hilarious.
Kris pretty much knew the goings on with Pucker at school and would keep me informed of anything I needed to know-big or small. Even if someone merely licked Pucker and was trying to get on with him, she’d have the 4-1-1. She was my homie-that’s what we do. Luckily, Pucker was a model boyfriend (to me and to Soccer).
I never asked Pucker anything about Soccer. I knew that Soccer was somewhere on that other side of town and in the picture of Pucker’s life still—only because of Kris letting me know. But other than that, it was amazing how she was a non-factor in the relationship we had, even amongst all his friends. Hell. His mother, his sister and his daddy, too.
Pucker and I could carry on-on the phone for hours at a time when he would be at home. I could call his house at whim and get him on his phone or call his parent’s line and reach him there, whenever. And when I couldn’t (which was very rare) he most probably unplugged the phone or turned the ringer down if Soccer was there (I guessed). We never discussed it and she never was a problem (or interruption) in what we had, so, we just carried on.
As far as Santana and me, from Pucker’s view, nothing was any different and there were no riffs between us. Everything was about as kosher as it had always been. I never told him what happened between us-I just wanted things to go as smoothly as they had already been going. Furthermore, I didn’t want him to think that any part of my affection for him was because I was newly single. He’s still a man, and although my affection had been no more or less since my big breakup, telling him Santana was gone would put the ball in his court and it had already been in his court throughout the entire relationship because I could never resist his wanting to be with me-no matter what, even for his emergency quick fix quickies that he would need at whim a few times a day. Whether he wanted quality time, sit in the park or to just get straight at it-I was available to him 24/7/365.
Despite how attracted to him I was, I always stayed true to the situation at hand: He was just damned good-looking and a champion lover who had me paralyzed, passed out and in tears every time we made love. Period. He had an odd, good sense of humor about him and I really was crazy about him. I just never entertained the thought of him being the type of man I would raise a child with-especially not my child. Despite my naïveté, and enamorment of Pucker, I was self-aware and clear that he was no more good for me than good sex itself and useless to me, in my life, otherwise.
From the start, he already knew how overprotective I was about my son, my boyfriend, and anything else pertaining to that. I never allowed him to meet my son as yet. I was very private and secretive about my domestic life of single motherhood. My whole “serious” life, for me, just did not fit into the equation with Pucker and his life. For that reason, Pucker just wasn’t a good match for me and my taste in any way near that regard. He was good for the naïve girl in me, doing what young girls like me do with our lil’ “boyfriends”: behaving like young girls with no responsibilities and seriousness about life other than preparing to graduate high school and all else going forward. He was good for me, less my serious responsibilities that too, were none of his business. I was naïve on one end, but seasoned and sophisticated as fuck, on the other when it came to my life and the life of my son and who was in (or around) it…
If anybody rapped best, the inner workings and thinking of a naïve Angie about her situation, Snoop did. “From a young G’s perspective / You never know she could be earning her man, learning her man and at the same time burning her man”
…although there was no burning in the form of an STD, I kept a good hand in with his friends who secretly all had a crush on me and kept an APB out on Pucker, for me. The only burning came when Pucker earned it. Other than that, everything was everything.
During all this time learning him and his surroundings, I did notice that of all his friends, he seemed to be the less brave one. His friends weren’t quite “thugs” but in comparison to him-they could be thought of as “gangsters.” It was kind of apparent that Pucker’s dreams of going off to the big college he would talk about in hopes of going pro; seemed like those plans had fallen through. So I couldn’t decipher if he seemed to be the less respected of them all, or maybe I should say…the lesser valued, or whatever-but it seemed as though his only “power” in his circle was that he had a 2-parent household with sorta well-to-do parents. He had the height and stature and pretty boy looks over and above his friends. He had the newest car, and “way” about him that could snag the girls and bring all their friends to the yard. Other than that, everything else about him seemed to take a back seat, and his friends all stole the show whenever I would be around. So I could tell that it was probably that same way everywhere else, too (when I wasn’t around).
I was learning and earning.
Still, away from my secret little ‘domesticated’ life at home I loved Pucker so much and I felt so bad for how little I thought of him outside of his shallow qualities, plus what little his friends thought of him outside of what little value he provided to the thoroughness of his clique (as compared to all of them). He was pretty much the lame and the weakest link of his inner circle, but his “power” (among them) was me. And little did he know, my power (over him) was them. I was massive to his ego-in every way. With his friends, their girlfriends and such all went to the same school with them or lived in the vicinity and they all grew up together etc. Even when I lived out in the land where they all lived; my only association was with Pucker (and my girl Shana). So I was an outsider who became an “insider” by association with Pucker. And because I (now) lived further away, Pucker had to come out of his way to be with me, which would be for long periods of times, so all that made it seem like Pucker had something “different” [than the rest of them].
Boys will be boys…
Little did anybody in this thing know, I went to an artsy school than not only classically trained me in the arts, but creatively, emotionally and spiritually drained me yet, (inadvertently) mentally trained me in the game of socioeconomic and social politics whereby at the beginning of the day, talent and skill mattered. But at the end of the day (by comparison to social and socioeconomic politics), talent and skill didn’t really mean shit. Because of that, and yet, despite my naivete in some areas, I was a secretly a sophisticated master chess player at positioning, kinging, queening—and pawns. Therefore, knew my position and everybody else’s…
I was learning and earning.
The more I catered to Pucker, I noticed that the more his friends would shine the light on his lameness whether it would be in a joke, or a conversation, or even a gesture, they would do it. The more I would observe it, the more I would cater to Pucker’s male-hood and make him feel special in front of them. But Pucker was such a bad judge of setting, circumstance, and situation; that he lacked the ability to understand what was going on around him-even my part in stroking his male ego. He couldn’t grasp what was really going on-because it was that major (on the surface).
On occasion, around us all; Pucker could be wearing the dunce cap of all his friends and not even be aware of it because “they were his friends.” Sue him. He was an Aquarius. They’re “friends” with everybody. What does he know? And there was no way I could teach him this (chess) game. I would never say anything to him (about my observation) but I would be very demonstrative in my way; my submissiveness and respect that I would give him (in front of them), like-I was the: “honey go get me a beer” winch for him at all times. Because of Pucker’s inability to see that he had the “power,” now (because he really wasn’t the “man” that I was treating him as such); the more I turned up for him. And like the idiot he was, the more he took it to another level (instead of sitting back and enjoying being treated, adored, catered to, and loved the way I loved him). It pumped his ego and went to his head in a way that if he too, wasn’t in his naiveté an instead, a seasoned and sophisticated “man;” he could very well know what to do with a woman who was strictly about all things to keep him feeling powerful, encouraged and strong. But a man still stuck in his own naiveté can do nothing with that, but take it to his ego and head.
At any rate.
Eventually, Pucker’s taking this to another level backfired and messed him up pretty bad-because I hurt him (very bad). And when I realized how badly I hurt him, I was on a quest to put him (his ego, his pride, and his heart) back together again that while doing; spiraled out of control (because he wanted to hurt me back). But it ended up backfiring him in the worse way, and he lost control-and his footing…
He lost control way back from his very own first character flaw-that had nothing to do with me whatsoever: that bad judge of setting, circumstance, and situation and lacking the ability to understand what was going on around him. The same people that he wanted to prove something to, and hurt me back in front of (because they were witnesses to his hurt) didn’t respect him like they did one another. So although he may have been “entertaining” them (because boys will be boys) he still wore the dunce cap during, and through to the end…
You see, “what had-happened was” ‘Slip’:
~~~~~~~
One of the nights while riding with Pucker to come see me, he was prepared. He slipped a folded piece of paper into my hand that had his phone number on it and a note beneath it that read: “Please call me, I have something that I want to, need to tell you. It’s something that I need to talk to you about as soon as possible, it is so serious. I’m serious, please. Please call me.”
It was an unusual sight to see. Slip and Pucker were hanging pretty tight that week, and everyday he would come over to my house tagging along with Pucker. The two of them hanging out together this way was kind of odd to me, because although Pucker would speak of Slip, he wouldn’t speak of him to the extent of his other inner circle of friends [that I knew and hung around him with].
Slip lived in the house right next to Pucker, and his connection to them all was that he attended the same elementary and middle school with them and the all grew up in the same suburb. Unlike Pucker and the rest of his inner circle, Slip was a teen father (active in his child’s life), so that fact he went to a different high school than them all, plus his domestic responsibilities; his dynamic amongst all Pucker’s friend a little different, a little less closer and less loyal to them all (so I would soon find out)…
With Slip hanging tough with Pucker this particular week and my having introduced Slip to Nayba, I thought the plan (and Pucker’s friend’s interest) was in Nayba but it wasn’t.
He was trying his damnedest to get me alone long enough to have this “much-needed” conversation with me about something that he thought I should know (out of respect for knowing Twin), and as well (so he said), out of knowing of, and generally “caring” about me-“like [he] would want the same thing [he] would be doing for me, done for [his] own sister.”
You see, Slip’s sister had attended the artsy school I went to, but she left right before high school to attend another local high school. I knew of Slip from those years ago, from hanging out down at our school sometimes, although he didn’t attend. Our school was the last in the city to let out for the day, whereas most other schools would let out one and two hours earlier than ours did. So people would hang out down at our school if they knew someone who went there. We were artsy school kids like the New York City “Fame” school and everybody liked to congregate at our school when we’d bust through the doors afterschool.
At any rate, Slip accomplished his mission by slipping me that note with his phone number like his life depended on it. He handed it to me with a sigh of relief as if this mission of his was long overdue and finally completed.
That alarmed me, and I couldn’t wait to call him after he and Pucker left.
Later that night, I was on it:
“I’m glad you called me. I’ve been trying to get your number and get next to you alone for a while now!” he said.
I paused and responded:
“I’m confused, I thought you were trying to get on with Nayba. And you know it‘s not that kind of party with me!” I replied.
“Noooo. Nooooo. I’m not trying to get with Nayba but I did need an excuse to keep hanging out with Pucker in order to keep coming over there. But it all worked out though. I would have tried to hit it off with a pig with red lipstick if that would have been what it took to get close to you,” he replied laughing.
I laughed.
“Close to me? Alone? You keep saying that-what do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, close like-I just wanted to run something by you that had been bothering me for a while now. Because…I have a family filled with women and I have a sister myself you know. I know how your brother is, and I’m nothing like him—like—I let my sister handle her own affairs. If she gets caught up into some shit-she’s on her own unless it’s really necessary that I get involved, then I’m kicking somebody’s ass. Your brother takes stuff to another level so I’m not going to tell him what I would rather put it in your lap. I already know that your brother would probably kill Pucker for this one. So to avoid that kind of drama, I would rather tell it to you-but it’s gonna get told,” he asserted-carelessly, then continued:
“I don’t care how you choose to handle it and what becomes of it either,” he remarked.
My heart was pounding. He totally didn’t give a fuck. Whatever it was he was eager to tell me had to be pretty big and obviously something that he knew I would be concerned about considering how he was running it past my nose like a delicacy. I couldn’t take the charade anymore:
“Tell WHAT to me!?” I asked eagerly-annoyed.
He started the charade again:
“I just think you are too nice of a girl and you’re so preeeeeeeeetty,” he said-slowly, adoringly.
My leg began to shake as I held onto the phone. Slip began to put his bid in, I guess knowing that what he had to tell me would surely make me sever ties with Pucker:
“To be honest with you, I’m not going to sit here and lie. Let me be honest: I like you. I always thought you were pretty since back when my sister went to school with you. But you had a boyfriend back then-I remembered seeing y’all. So here we are years later, when I saw you with Pucker, I can’t lie-I was kind of jealous. I was very jealous. So yes, I’m not going to front, hell yeah I’m going to tell you the fucked up shit he did. I don’t give shit,” he said.
I replied:
“Don’t you have girlfriend-a girl that you have a kid with?” I asked.
“Yeah, we have a kid together almost two years old now. She and I aren’t together anymore but we do what’s best for our kid, you know?” he answered.
“That’s good,” I replied, so…what’s this news that you want to lay in my lap? I’m all ears,” I probed, ready to cut through his chase.
“Well, I just don’t like what Pucker’s doing to you-I never did,” he said empathetically.
“Pucker would never do anything to hurt me. What are you talking about, what did he do? What is it that he’s doing to me?” I asked.
“Well, I’m going to put it to you like this. We know everything-all of us,” he said.
“Everything like what? About what? Quit dancing around things and say what it is you need to say,” I snapped.
“Well, I know everything that you and Pucker do and every way, every place-everything. I mean, he’s like-“the man” at school-amongst our circle of friends. It’s like all a secret that we all know. Even our friends at school that you don’t know. He has some juicy ass stories to tell, I must say. I mean, I’m not going to lie-it pissed me off and makes me jealous but I wouldn’t want some fool telling my sister’s business and goings on the way he tells us,” he replied.
“Well, if it bothers you so much then why do you allow him to entertain y’all with these stories?” I questioned.
“Look. I’ma be honest the whole way through this. The fucked up parts about this on my part as well. So it’s like this. I mean, I am a guy. Come on man. But I do put him in check…a lot. Everybody else is all ears-clapping and all up in it with him! And he gives them a show, too. You have to understand that a lot of what’s said reaches my ears in the car on route to school before I’m dropped off. The rest of them get the whole day huddle and talk. By the time school’s out, I’m working, or with my kid, and everybody’s working different schedules. So I don’t get as much information as the rest of them do, but I am the only one who will get at him about telling y’alls business, so I’m slowly becoming the outcast and uninvited. They are all getting to the point where when I come around-the talking stops. But because Pucker lives right next door to me, I have more access to him. That’s how I made my way over to your house with him all week,” said Slip.
I admit. I liked not only his honesty, but his style, his awareness of social politics, his tenacity and his strategy. He had my attention.
“Well tell me some things that you know,” I challenged. And my-oh-my, the show began.
He stepped right on up to the plate and knocked any doubt I had in his knowing anything that would hurt me-straight out the park.
He started in by telling me some of the details about me and Pucker’s goings on-intricate details-graphic in nature; the male equivalent of the way a woman would go into detail “romanticizing” intricate sexual details with her girlfriends. My mouth hung to the floor. I knew he wasn’t lying. He practically knew of my every moan, smack up, flip and rub-down—and any thing I said in bed with Pucker…he retained the kind of details that Pucker probably never would’ve entertained the thought that Slip would even retain. To add insult to injury, Pucker really earned his stripes when he presented a nude picture of me for all his friends to see-one that I had allowed him to take of me one afternoon after he and I “made love” and well…he “fucked me” (per his rendition of it).
You see, Pucker’s “way” over the phone before coming over to my house, at the door to my house, before sex, during foreplay, during sex, and after sex while at his home, and on the phone-was always filled with lusty angst and impatience. He was always so knee jerkedly sexually hungry for us on the way to one another that that is where “foreplay’ actually started-at all times. He never could get enough of me. More than anything about him-as a person, that was what turned me on about him, and it would make me let him have his way with me at all times-no matter what, no matter the request.
I liked to fuck. I liked being lusted. I like being taken. And while giving-and being the object of desire and participant in his pleasure-somehow, I felt like I was controlling him, despite him “controlling” me. That is what I knew, and that is what I liked.
One night we were on the phone talking, he was upset that I couldn’t get away to come be with him. And just like anytime that I would not be able to, sounding perverted; he would begin talking as if he was biting down on his back teeth, pouting. From there, I would lead him into phone sex to relax him for those times that I could not get away to be with him.
The times when I could not get away or talk to him on the phone, he would wish that he had a nudie of me to help him “relax” alone. So, I delivered and without much coercion from him or apprehension on my part-because in my mind, we were tight. He was my “boyfriend.” I never entertained the thought that he would use the photo for any other purpose than beating off to it because he had too much to lose: Me x that ass-kicking that Twin already had on the shelf for him, for starters.
With that in mind, and his sexual comfort for when (because of my domesticated duties) I couldn’t talk on the phone with him or be with him; I let him snap the photo-willingly.
I had always had a thing for opening my legs and having my pussy being admired, lusted, stared at, touch, kissed, fucked and sucked. We had already talked about him taking the picture the day he came over to do so. But first, he did what we always did: talked on the phone as foreplay where I’d work him up. From there, he was at my door-dick in hand and I’d fall to the floor and suck him off from the moment he’d shut the door-getting aroused and massively wet from his weakness. I loved sex with him so much that I felt like I had to polish him like gold-with pleasure, like treasure, and he knew that. I was always so eager to do it for him. Being down on my knees beneath him would arouse me-so much so that I would rub it around my face and tease him by devouring it hungrily while he’d be frozen and near tears-then all of a sudden, I would slide off of it and it’d always shock him back to consciousness. I’d like for him to punish me by making him gently bounce it off my face and forehead before fucking throwing me to the floor, couch or bed to fucking me-senseless. That day in particular that he took the picture, per usual, that is what we did.
I was very aroused that day-loving the fact that in broad daylight, right here on the couch; I would be opening my legs and pussy to let him stare right down into it right after fucking me. I forced him out of me and made him kneel in front of me to look at what he had done-how wet and swollen I was. I began to play with it-poking my clit between my index and middle finger while he watched like some teen boy getting pussy for the first time. It aroused me to watch him stare at it in awe; smack dead in the middle of a bright mid-day afternoon. I sat far back on the couch, opened my legs, put my knees up to my chest and thrust my pussy forward while turning my head to the side-covering my face somewhat, and *snap* allowed him to take the photo.
He threw the camera back down to the floor before I could lower my legs to the floor. He threw himself onto the couch and shoved his dick into me while I screamed nearly to the top of my lungs and out of sync to his constant and out of control grunting and panting.
He was so happy to get the picture that day just as much as he was happy fucking me. The only difference was, he did not know that I had a thing for opening my legs in full view of my lovers eyes-so that was the only thrill of allowing him to take the picture (for his personal pleasure) and to give him a memory and experience for what happened at that moment, whenever I couldn’t get to him. I was glad that we fucked, and that I got my fetish off. And yeah, after all that, a part of me wanted really wanted the picture back, but the other part of me trusted him with something so scared. I thought it would be good conversation and play for us over the phone. I thought that while he would jack off to it and describe what he was looking at and feeling, I would be masturbating and letting him hear the wetness of what he was looking at-in his ear. I loved him, I wanted to give him a full experience.
Instead, however, according to Slip, their little circle of friends was already in the know of what my pussy sounded like when masturbating for Pucker over them phone. And with picture proof, they could now see what it looked like-to match what they had all heard about too…
That “experience” was theirs, too.
I sat on that phone with Slip, pissed as hell but more shocked than anything. That kind of thing was foreign to me. In my mind, intimacy and sex between two people were big deals, big to-dos. And all things within those to-dos were big secrets between the two and the closest and most connected you could ever be with another human being. I felt it was something that you let yourself be free and uninhibited doing and without a care in the world because once you close that door, turn off those lights (and like when I was a kid, hide behind that umbrella); that meant: “keep out.”
No. Even Slip knew. And listened. And knew the things I’d say to Pucker and what Pucker would say to me when we “fucked.” And heard and saw my pussy, too.
Slip continued:
“Yeah, so…he’s “The Man” within our circle of friends, and he doesn’t deserve you!” yelled Slip. “He’s not even man enough for you and he can’t and won’t treat you right!” Slip insisted.
“What do you mean? He wanted to be with me and wanted me to tell the truth about us back when that big fight happened so that we could be together-but I wasn’t willing or ready to break my family apart for him at that time. He treats me right-always. He’s at my every beck and call-no matter what or where I need to go-anything, anytime. He always makes himself accessible to me and anything I ask,” I defended.
“Yep, I know about that night too. That’s only because he’s pussy whipped! Outside of that, I don’t care what he tells you. He is going the have to marry Soccer. He probably only wanted to put the ball in your court to slip away for y’all to ride out into the sunset together because if he wasn’t man enough to break up with Soccer on his own! He was pussy whipped. That’s all you had over him! All she would have to do was go run tell his and her mom-and they would be right back together! He does not have the balls! They’ve been off again on again since fucking eighth grade! We all went to elementary, middle school and them: high-school together. And she is going to our prom with Pucker in a couple weeks-in case you didn’t know by the way!” informed Slip.
I laughed and replied, “Who said that I wanted to go to prom with him in the first place?”
“I mean, it has been almost a year now that you and him have been ‘to-ge-ther,’ “ he said sarcastically-and lowered his voice to confirm, as if on the other end of the phone he had both of his index and middle fingers serving as quotation marks.
“You and him have been seeing each other long enough that it wouldn’t be out of the norm for you to attend prom with him-this is our senior year, you know? But he couldn’t ask you if he wanted to because even if he and Soccer were ‘off-again’ they would still be going together even if the two of them didn’t want to go together! His mom and her mom are close as hell. Their relationship and everything is practically arranged! It’s all planned and mapped out by his mom and her mom-down to prom and college and beyond,” chuckled Slip.
I defended: “I don’t talk about my life and goings on in and I never ask him about his. If he and Soccer are still seeing each other-I would never know and it doesn’t seem like it because if he is not on the phone with me or at work, he is with me, so, I never ask questions.”
“Well, that may be so-but you can best believe that he has had many conversations with you while Soccer has been in that house. She has fucking key! She walks into their house with a key as if she lives there. She can come and go in, around and out of there like she lives there. And some nights, she even sleeps over there!” he stressed.
An awkward silence crept in while I held the phone to my wanting to cry-because I had always kept my relationship with Pucker in my mind on a day-to-day, moment-by moment basis, but somewhere woven in between there, although I didn’t see him as the kind of man for me-to suit my situation; I couldn’t rule out that somewhere in there, I wanted to be with him, exclusively, forever, maybe, perhaps.
Listening to Slip, for some reason, I began to feel like I was being used to pass time “unless and until.” And during that awkward silence, I processed everything that Slip said and could clearly see myself getting a phone call out of the blue and with no explanation or consideration of preparation on my end: Pucker by phone, saying to me: “It’s been a good ride-this thing we had, but I’m marrying Soccer tomorrow. I love you-click.”
In my mind-at that moment on the phone with Slip on the other end during this awkward silence, I got really sad-thinking about how a scenario like that would really affect me after all this time. My heart wouldn’t know how to handle that.
Slip slit the silence:
“He’s an asshole-and he doesn’t deserve you-regardless of any of this,” he said.
“So what makes you think that you do Slip?” I snapped and challenged.
“ ‘Cause number one, I’m no punk. I’m not scared of your brother. And and I can step to him tomorrow and tell him that I’m crazy about you and have been for a while now, and dare him to step to me trying to punk me out like he already has Pucker punked out: ducking, diving and scared to this day! I don’t play that shit. I’m a man.”
“Number Two-I can prove to you that though I have a child with my baby’s mom, my life is not being dictated and run by my mother and her mother. Granted, I’m going to tell you right now-my baby’s mom attends that high school. And we are going to that same prom that Pucker and Soccer will be attending,” he stressed-again, “yet, unlike Pucker, I can take you to meet my mother and tell her that I’m crazy about you. I don’t have to play cheating games; ducking and hiding and juggling my life like Pucker has to do between you and Soccer. It’s hard for him. But he’s pussy whipped so he juggles it well for you. YOU just don’t know. I, on the other hand, can tell my baby’s mother that I’m crazy about someone else and she would understand-because we’re not even like that. We love each other, but whether we end up together or not, our goal is to keep our child in mind-simple as that.”
Slip was selling himself like an honest car salesman.
I listened on to Mr. “Man:”
“Number Three, what do you need with an asshole like that who would show his circle of friends his girl’s goodies and then demonstrate how you be fucking him and what you be crying out to him when he’s fucking you. What do you need a man like that for?” he defended.
“More importantly, number four-we both have something in common; the interest of and love for our kids-you-your kid and me mine. And outside of all that-I am crazy about you and always have been. All I want to know is if you will give me a chance to prove it, and prove myself to you,” asked Slip-softly.
Awkward silence.
I can’t lie.
After that whole reality of the way things really were and really were not between Pucker and me; in my mind and in that moment on the phone, I considered it-hard. Slip asserted himself in such a way that it kind of turned me on. His way was very manly, honest and forthright to me but I still did not respond.
Slip slit the silence-again:
“Ok. He loves you right?”
I didn’t reply.
“He wants to be with you right? Let me put him to the test then…in the moment and under pressure,” challenged Slip.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Come to my house. Come meet my mom and say hello to my sister. Y’all haven’t seen one another in a while. Will you come see me?” he asked, confidently. Selling me.
“I don’t know about that-because you and Pucker live way too close to one another. That’s too close for comfort to me,” I replied.
“That’s the point. I wanted to just sit outside on the porch with you until he comes home and sees you sitting there. If he is half the man you say he is and he wants to be with you like he says he does,” stressed Slip, “then hopefully Soccer will be there to watch him bawl out over you and at best-his mom. She’ll definitely be there. Let’s see if her son will at least bawl out over his tucked away girlfriend and defy her. No pressure. You do not even have to come into my house if you don’t want to. I’d love for you too-to spend time with me. I want to make you like me as a boyfriend because I really fucking like you. And we know each other, shit,” he said.
Awkward silence.
“Don’t let him use you up until that one fateful day comes and he drops you to keep it in the family. Bounce now-before you get your heart into it any further. Be sensible. Be with somebody who really wants you, respects you and is willing to fight for you-who knows your situation and can identify with it just the same. We aren’t getting any younger. Don’t waste your time on Pucker-he’s not even worth it and I’m gonna show you how much of a sucker he really is. Let’s make him put his money where his mouth is since he says he wants to be with you. Are you down?” he asked.
Still, no reply from me.
“At the very least, if I can’t convince you of anything, if nothing else, you can at least see if you are wasting your time with him-if he buckles under the pressure. And at the very least-watch and see if he’ll bawl to at least show his mother that he was interested in someone else past knowing you over the phone. You really don’t have anything to lose in this but everything to gain,” he upsold.
It was a day in April. The test was to take place outside on the porch of Slip’s house-right next to Pucker’s house. Slip met me at the bus stop, which was about a five-minute walk to his house.
We began walking up the long street and got about mid ways up, when we heard music blasting from a distance. It caught Slip off-guard. He turned around and squinted his eyes then turned to me and said: “Ah shit-now. You are not going to believe who is coming up the street-headed right this way too, I can tell you that, right now.”
My heart started pulsating to the beat of the bass rumbling from the distance.
“Where can I run? Where can I hide Slip?” I said.
The long street we were on was filled with houses only-no alleys or apartments built such that I could run and hide in the hallways. There was nothing but private homes and gardens in plain view. The only place to run was into somebody’s yard, which wouldn’t have been a good idea.
Frightened as hell, totally unprepared for this moment and about five-minutes away from the original plan and place-all I could do to hide myself while standing on the sidewalk of the wide-open main street was to ask Slip to remove his Ralph Lauren jacket and throw it over my head.
He looked at me like I was crazy but I didn’t care. That’s all I could do. Pucker’s car was getting closer and closer.
The next best thing was to taking off running up the rest of the long, wide-open residential street, where anyone walking the sidewalk stuck like a sore thumb. Either way, I would look just as stupid, so I figured I may as well stand there with a jacket over my head and look stupid-just the same.
He threw it to me, and I put it over top my head where it hung like a red, yellow and blue Cher wig. I must’ve looked like Cousin It.
I stood stiff as a board with my right ear tuning in to the sounds of the bass now upon Slip and me. I could hear the music being gradually turned down to low, as I stood there face-forward, beneath my colorful Cher/Ralph Lauren do-hanging longer in the back and shorter in the front. Although my body and face stood facing north, from my peripheral, I could still see the bottom half of all the goings on: Slip’s feet, cars driving down past us-headed south-and Pucker’s car opposite the line with it’s front end turned as if he would soon be busting a U-turn to get out and pull my colorful Cher inspired hair and yell: “I GOT YOU BABE!”
When his car made its way to our side of the street, instead of busting the U-turn for his front end to face south-the direction it was supposed to be facing-I could see the bottom end of his car rolling in reverse and hesitating. Instead of pulling next to us the correct way, he pulled up and rolled it in reverse so that his side of the vehicle could get a full-view of this nightmare before him. He was blocking south side traffic and didn’t give a shit:
“Take it off your head! Take it off your head! Take it off!” Pucker yelled, with all kinds of hurt in his voice.
I didn’t respond.
“TAKE IT OFF YOUR DAMNED HEAD GIRL!” he yelled louder-sounding like Mel Gibson in Ransom yelling: “GIVE ME BACK MY SON!”
I was terrified under that jacket.
“Hey Slip. Take the jacket off her head, man. I already know who it is. I just need to see for myself. I need to see for my own eyes, man-please,” begged Pucker, desperately-in a low, respectful voice.
Slip’s feet moved closer to me.
My heart grew closer to the concrete as I’m looking down from my Ralph Lauren Cher hair.
I could hear Pucker nearly gasping for breath. He said slowly: “I know it’s her. I know it is Angie. I know it’s her from the tear in her jeans, come on man-I just need to seeeeeeeeeeee! That’s all. I need to SEE!” he grunted, growing impatient-hitting what sounded like his steering wheel.
My knees were trembling and knocking.
Each car that blew at Pucker in anger, for being pulled over and facing the wrong side of the street, made the heartbreaking scene bigger than I never imagined. We had horror theme music.
Slip flip my wig and revealed my natural color. He pulled the jacket off my head without even warning me. Pucker yelled: “ANGIE! ANGIE! ANGIE! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME DAMMIT! LOOK AT ME!”
I refused to. I kept looking down to the ground—sorta like Sordid did that day.
My eyes would buck from left to right occasionally averting them over at him but I was too scared to move my head. He had the most torn up look in his face-one that I can never forget.
“Look at me Angie. Look at me,” he said-exasperated, sounding as if he was not going to believe this farce of a scene until I looked him in the eyes-first.
I took my chances and turned my head to the right, to see if the look on his face was going to match the sound of the heartbreak in his voice.
It did.
“Angie…Why? Why Angie?” he yelled, sounding exasperated.
Of course I didn’t respond. I just kept standing there looking at the ground and riding the sides of my shoes while playing with my fingernails-chipping the polish from them.
Right hand man and his usual circle friends were all in the car with their mouths hung open shouting: “Hell naw! Hell naw!”
Slip turned to Pucker with his hands confrontationally: “So what’s up? What’s up? You want something man? What’s up?” he challenged.
Pucker didn’t respond to Slip. He simply put his hand up as if this hand nothing to do with him. He just kept looking at me while I watched him from my peripheral-watching the cars go around his.
He then looked at me from head to toe as if he was examining me. He had the look on his face as if the thought in his mind was that never in a million years would he have expected something like this. There was no indication that I had it in me to do him this way-we were much too busy loving all on one another like excited horny young newlyweds-on a daily basis.
I had the look on my face with the thought in my mind that though this scene was hurtful to him, it was really serving me no purpose right there. Because the truth in what he felt about me (like the hurt he was going through at this moment) needed to be exhibited on Slip’s porch-right in the vicinity where either Soccer and/or his mother would see him bawling this way.
That, and the reason that had me standing there in the first place (the thought that every guy in that car knew what my entire nude body-legs open-looked like as well as what I was like in the sack) gave me the strength to look him straight into the eye. To him, at that moment, it probably looked as though I had no remorse. Because he slowly put his car in drive and hugged the wheel and dropped his head like he was holding someone.
He drove up the hill some-then put his car back in reverse to position-right back across from me to look me in my face one more time…as if he needed to see if what he saw was really real.
Slip challenged him again: “Do you want to fight or something Pucker. I mean….What’s up man?”
“No man. I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want any trouble,” Pucker repeated.
He kept looking at me.
I just kept glancing over at him and his friends in the car-all looking like startled little boys. This moment was a movie for everybody.
Pucker then drove off really fast. I watched the tread of his tires damned near making a fire.
I turned around to look at Slip.
He was smiling as if he had won first place in something.
“I’m ready to go home now Slip. I’m just ready to go home,” I said.
“We didn’t even get to my house yet Angie,” he replied.
“I’m ready to go home Slip, I’m sorry, I don’t feel very well,” I asserted.
“Angie, it’s going to be about another two hours before another bus comes out here. But I could get my uncles car to take you home,” he apologized.
I knew he was not lying about the bus arriving so far away because they lived out in the burbs, and public transportation on their street did not run that often. I knew I had no choice but to go to the house to wait on the ride home.
Sitting on his porch as planned however, was out of the question for me at this point because as well as I knew Pucker, from behind a curtain in his house, he most probably went straight home to watch for Slip and me to arrive. There would be no way in hell Pucker would step out of his house from behind those curtains even his house caught on fire. The plan for that reaction to occur in front of his house in full view of his mom or Soccer was now folded. Though his reaction was classic of a man who had his first real heartbreak, nothing would have said “I really do love you Angie” like getting that same reaction in front of whom it was intended.
~~~~~~~
We arrived at Slip’s house.
His sister was watching television when the two of us walked in.
Slip slammed the door, startling her and laughing aloud-telling her what had just happened. She opened her mouth wide, covering her hands with it, laughing at the thought of this scene that sounded better than whatever channel she was watching.
She and Slip seemed to be laughing like two twins in sync.
I broke this crescendo by demanding that Slip place that call to his uncle to come take me home, already.
His face dropped. He looked me in the eyes as if I totally said something he did not expect to hear.
“Come upstairs Angie, so I can talk to you,” he said-in this whiny, annoying tone of voice he would take on whenever he wanted to convince me of his sincerity in something.
I followed him up the steps and we sat down.
He squatted beneath me:
“Angie, seriously. Please stay, will you? I really like you and I want to be with you. Please stay. I did all of this because I want to be with you. I just needed to show you that Pucker did no deserve you. Believe me when I tell you, had that happened right outside in front of Soccer or his mom, he would have driven away from the scene. He sure as hell would not have had that sucker attack that he had around the corner-where it counted: in front of his mom and Soccer. I mean, I’m not going to lie-I know now more than ever, that he really did like your ass,” he laughed.
“I didn’t know he was gonna be hurt like THAT. And I know now-he and I will never be friends again. I don’t even care THOUGH. I want to be with you more than I want to mend fences with him,” he said.
I sat there and thought it over, replaying the hurt on Pucker’s face from when he pulled up on us.
I knew that Pucker and Slip would never be friends again just as much as I knew that it was definitely over between Pucker and me. And without proof of his display of affection where it counted, I would be Plan B, considering the “family way” Soccer was-to Pucker’s household; I saw no reason at this point to even care about Pucker anymore, or what hurt he felt.
The fact of the matter was-any chance of mine and Slip’s plan working out as originally planned was null and void and this point. So, in my mind-so was Pucker and I.
I relaxed and looked down at Slip on his knees at my feet looking hopeful.
At this point, the power was in my hands.
I knew that I didn’t love Slip at all, so I could take him or leave him.
As far as Pucker was concerned, I already knew what it was like for a guy’s heart to be broken, and what kind of dance was probably going on inside of his mind and heart at that moment.
I sat there reminiscing about those same feelings Santana had that day he dragged me down the steps and almost killed me out in the parking lot that day-the hurt he felt. The tears he cried as he held me that night. Yet, he woke up the very next morning and in less than twenty-four hours, was right into the arms of his bitch-all out in public, down at “The Spot” as if we never existed, or any important factor that bonded us together: A whole as, beautiful baby that we went we half on—looking exactly like the both of us.
Hmm.
With that in mind, knowing how Pucker and Soccer really were an item in the eyes of who mattered: his parents and hers…and with no bond between Pucker and me, I stopped giving a fuck in that moment. I snapped out of my empathy and remembered how I was left with a bigger bond and responsibility than some mere dick and good sex.
In that moment, I traced Slips face with my fingers.
I’m in charge now.
I looked at him with a different set of eyes-then kissed him to let him know that I would receive him. He took a deep breath and sigh of relief as if he had been holding that baited breath since the day he slipped me his phone number.
He was so eager.
His kisses and touches were so well rehearsed as if he had studied the details of everything that Pucker told him about where I like to be touched and sucked. The only thing different was how he caressed my breasts. It was way better than Pucker’s awkward touch and caress that although did turn me on, had nothing on Slip making me cum harder than a good masturbation session alone. That never happened with his mouth of my tits. I knew that Slip knew what he was doing and well, I liked it. He was grateful-and it showed…
Into the night, he worked hard trying to convince and next to hypnotize me into dropping whatever feelings I had for Pucker. Though I liked Slip as a friend, and loved his touch even more; I was not going to give him that kind of security.
He tried hard-repeatedly. I could tell that it would really mean a lot to him to hear me say to him that from the moment I exited his doorway, a Pucker in my mind would be no more.
By the time his uncle arrived with the car-he wasn’t satisfied with my response, so he did not want to do the driving. Instead, he asked his uncle to drive while we sat in the back seat –me: quiet and looking out of the window, him: whining his annoying whine and working hard to convince me that he was the better choice between he and Pucker.
I never said anything back to him during the entire ride home-but I did listen to him for all the miles leading me to my house.
When I got out of the car, he walked me up to my door:
“Angie, can I have a kiss? Are you going to call me? I’m going to call you as soon as I get in the house okay?” He was filled with a million questions soliciting reassurance.
He was so nervous, hoping so badly that his words worked like the magic in his caress.
I still could not respond to him. Instead, I kissed him back-empathetically, never saying a word.
The minute I turned the key and walked into my house-my phone was ringing as if it had been ringing the entire time I was gone.
I threw the keys down on the counter and answered:
“Hello?”
On the other end of the phone was Pucker-sounding like a runaway slave looking back, checking to see if his escape route was safe:
“Uh Uh. Uh. Uh, Angie, you know how close Slip and I live right?
I know you know that!
I know you know that!
I know exactly what time you left.
I know how you got home! And I even know who drove y’all to your house!
I also know how long you stayed over his house too, Angie.
I know! You know that I know, right?”
…sounding deranged and like he was in charge.
I did not respond back.
He then began to yell into the phone: “I know that you know! Why did you do that to me Angie? WHY?”
At that moment, any sorrow for him that I felt about the day had gone down the drain.
I began to feel like he had some nerve to drill me in this manner as if we were the item and his mother knew and loved me Soccer-like.
As if I would be going to the prom with him in a few short days.
As if his circle of friends didn’t know what my whole ass pussy and nude body looked like.
The nerve.
I’m in charge!
His drilling me, and desperate grunting in the phone began to turn me off. My anger with him would not allow me to empathize with nothing that he was feeling. As bad as some part of me felt for him, I remembered the emotional night Santana was in this same state of pain and then shitted all on me (and our child) in less than 24 hours.
Nah.
At that moment, none of his emotions on that phone mattered to me, seeing as though I did not get the one I came way out there for: The bawl-out, knock-down drag out, tear-fest that I needed to see him exhibit in front of Soccer and his mom. Had I gotten that; his anxiety, angst and anger over the phone in this moment, would have so mattered to me and I would have been all in-emotionally. Slip and me would have just had to shake hands and consider the mission accomplished.
Fuck him and the theatrics! I’m in charge!
I broke my silence:
“Pucker. I do not appreciate what you told all your lil’ friends, your lil’ rah-rah conversations about all things you and me-what we do and all. I know about the picture as well.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Angie! I’m sorry!” he yelled.
He paused and lowered his voice and mumbled with his teeth tightened, trying to scold me:
“Angie. Tell me exactly what happened tonight and how. Why would you do something like that with him when you’re supposed to be in love with me Angie? I love you girl. I love you. You love me. Do you love me Angie?”
He softened his grunt.
I softened my edge.
I had never heard him say that to me outside of phone sex and during sex. That was a first.
Now he’s in charge:
“Yes Pucker I do. I really do love you. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” I replied.
Before he could get his next word in, my other line buzzed.
I already knew that it would be Slip.
Pucker already knew that it was Slip because I’m sure he watched him enter his house.
I pretended to ignore the interruption.
Sounding deranged, Pucker grunted:
“You already know who it is Angie-don’t you? You already know! I just saw him go in the house!”
While he rambled on, grunting. I hurriedly clicked over to answer the other line.
Before I could finish the word “hello?” to receive the call-Pucker was calling back on the other line-to interrupt.
Before I knew it-I was clicking back and forth listening to two different men with the same emotion: one-grunting and yelling: “Don’t this to me!”
And the other whining my name and asking: “Why are you doing this to me!?”
I wanted so badly to get off the phone with the both of them. All I could do was click back and forth repeating the words: “hello,” because both refused to hang on and kept calling back when I would click over. It was almost turning into a game of “Pick Me! Pick Me!” …back and forth-driving me crazy.
I did not want to hurt either one of them.
I wanted to erase what happened with Slip because I never thought Pucker had it in him to break down so badly. I had never seen him like this, so I knew he must have been hurt.
I got them both off the phone by forcefully telling each one that someone else needed to use the phone for the night, and that I was going to bathe and then to bed.
‘Nuff said.
I’m in charge…
~~~~~~~
For a while, it was so hard trying to juggle these former friends/neighbors who grew up together, but I was trying to work it out.
Outside of the fact that I did not want to hurt either one of them any more. I did not want to give Pucker the security of thinking he was completely forgiven for what he had done to me, but by the same token, I did not want to give Slip the security of thinking that he won in this either.
The fact still remained, that both of them had other goings on in their lives before I met either one of them-and that despite my being in charge, those goings on were still going on-so to hell with both of their comfort with me from that regard.
After some time, it had gotten to the point where I would go mute whenever one would ask about the other-as if I had no idea what each were talking about.
What I did know for sure was that the two of them had no words for one another and the audience that once was entertained by Pucker’s many stories about us was the same audience who pulled up on Slip and me on that fateful day.
The wedge had been drawn between Pucker and his juicy conversations.
The wedge between the friendship with Slip and Pucker had been drawn.
Despite of Slips whining to win his way, he was brave and bold, unlike Pucker. Their friends seemed to have more respect for Slip than they did for Pucker, so although Slip stabbed Pucker in the back, none of their friends isolated him either.
It was just something that we all knew had happened.
His friends treated me with care and respect-just the same.
The only change was the wedge in the juicy conversations as well as the friendship of Pucker and Slip.
With all that as a fact, my going mute on the both of them when one would ask about the other-to see if I was still seeing the other, forced them both to eventually quit asking.
I was safe because I had complete confidence that Slip wouldn’t kiss and tell-he just wanted to be with me, not to prove anything.
Although I didn’t have complete confidence that Pucker wouldn’t bring anything “us” up anymore, I knew that he would rather live in bliss-rather that to know for sure that I was juggling the both of them.
Two tears in a bucket-fuck it.
I technically was not either one of their exclusive girlfriends-nor did either one of them or their friends disrespect me. So, with that-as far as I was concerned-everything was cope-a-static.
After a while, it became kind of fun, the constant attention and all: one-trying to outdo the other in every way. Both knowing in the back of their minds, I was seeing the other but both afraid to ask anymore at this point.
They’re in charge (for the time being) now:
Both of them had already made plans to attend their senior proms: Slip-with his baby’s mother and Pucker with Soccer.
I dealt with it. I really wasn’t mad because I was in the know that these events were routine with the both of them since before my time with either of them, so, showing jealousy even if I was jealous would have been nothing but ego boosters for the both of them .And I far as I was concerned, I was in charge. They were only in charge for the time being and until the time leading to their lil’ festivities that was soon to come, but until then, I’m still in charge.
Although I knew the plans-on both their ends-some part of me would not allow me to not upset their plans. I enjoyed this little power I had. The three of us were already in an awkward situation that neither of us dared to discuss. And although his friends still had nothing but respect for me through it all, some part of me felt like if I just took their pre-planned festivities without incident, I would somehow lose my power over the both of them and eventually, they’d both think they could treat me like a whore and eventually start giving each other dap.
I didn’t start this-Pucker did, with his mouth and trying to be a show-off.
I never got my truth out of this, mine and Slip’s test of Pucker’s true devotion to me never occurred in front of whom would have been concerned. So this didn’t end, as hoped and planned.
Pucker knew where he went wrong in this. I was the only one in this with a nude photo under some asshole’s pillow to jack off to-with lots of hot stories to set the scene-thanks to Pucker. So fuck what he was going through.
I didn’t start or end this.
Slip knew from the start that I was crazy about Pucker, it was his decision to stay in on this thing.
So now here we are: Me, He and He; pretending that no one knew about the other and therefore, no one was the wiser, or the winner. I was just on some player shit.
I’m in charge!
Because of the situation itself-I refused to let either one of them treat me like some expendable and convenient whore. So I began to complain about the soon to be event and how lonely I would be on that night. I began to stress both of them out by challenging their true devotion to for not canceling the festivities altogether. I didn’t care about the money already spent or whose moms and dads and girlfriends and baby mommas were going to be upset. I wanted to know which one would rise to my challenge by falling back on the occasion.
Both of their excuses, explaining and apologizing began to sound about as annoying as Pucker’s grunting and Slip’s whining; reminiscent of that back-and forth conversation on the phone that fateful night that everything unfolded.
There was nothing they could do, but I felt that I applied enough pressure on the both of them to keep them in my emotional debt and I charged them both.
I’m in charge!
They both came to see me the day of the prom-different times, both fresh haircuts, booth looking so damned good. Both of them promised not to stay long after.
I didn’t care. I was tired and in need of sleep and a much-needed break from the both of them for the duration of the evening-finally.
~~~~~~~
By this time, I not only had my love life on lock with me holding the key, with options, choices and two men fighting to win my affection and exclusivity as if ours was a romance novel brought to life and I was the damsel to impress.
After my setback, I had begun to put my “to-get-a-life” workout plan into action, by attending night-school that spring and summer-school that same summer.
I was a busy girl and my schedule was full and
NOT YET PUBLISHED☝
Sequel – “Angie Situation (NAIVETE)☟
Prequel/Book1- “Angie Situation (Innocence)” published☟
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE 5
- The Roots of Picked Fruit 17
- The Precocious Ripening 33
- Ripe & Ready. Gangs, Bangs & Pangs 39
- The Queen Bee in Me 63
- Another Level. Blossoming. Beautiful. 80
- TGGF, Male Model & Me 101
- TGGF & Me 112
- Divorcing Dad 124
- You Know Who 130
- First Flings First 139
- In the Lion’s Den 170
- Cold Shoulders and Frozen Dancing Feet 195
- Pills & Frills 204
- You Know What: I Told You So 209
- Dichotomies & Dazes 228
- Situations, Decisions & Transitions 241
- Up, Out & Away 244
MEET the AUTHOR Q & A 254
READING GROUP GUIDE 257
SNEAK PEEK into book2
(“Angie Situation NAIVETE’” )’s CHAPTER ONE 260
OTHER BOOKS BY ANGELA SHERICE 269
ABOUT the AUTHOR 270
Spitfire .
Media Maestro .
Writing Rhinoceros .
