A fight with Allan leads Roseline into the arms of her two best friends
Warning:
There is bisexual sex, and group sex in this story.
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We fight, my boyfriend Allan and I. We have tremendous fights, often over silly things, and eventually we make up. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, it is. The make-up sex is wonderful.
This last fight, however, was especially brutal. I guess Allan has anger issues. I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is no. Allan has never laid a hand on me in anger and I’m sure he never would. I am most definitely not a battered woman, and if Allan tried anything like that I would leave him in seconds. He knows that, at least on an intuitive level.
So, the fight was not physical, but it was brutal nevertheless. I had suggested Allan seek therapy for his anger issues. I had told him it probably stemmed from his childhood, maybe something about his relationship with his parents growing up and KABLOUIE! I had stepped on a landmine, and I suspect his shouting was heard in at least six of our neighboring apartments. It’s embarrassing, you know.
It was Allan’s apartment. He rented it and I had sort of moved in with him. I still had my own apartment, a few blocks away. I was not ready to commit myself by definitively giving up my apartment and moving in with Allan. I continued to pay rent on my apartment just for the reason of being independent. I was always a bit leery of Allan’s problem with his temper.
Allan stormed out of the apartment. I knew where he was going. Allan is, if anything, predictable. He headed off, no doubt, to his favorite sports bar. I know what you’re thinking: he’d get drunk, get in a fight, and I’d be going either to the ER or to the jail to bail him out, right? Wrong again. Drink makes some people bellicose, but it doesn’t for Allan. Drink combined with the distraction of sports on television calms the man down.
So, I knew Allan was going to be okay. It wasn’t Allan that concerned me; it was me: Roseline. Liquor doesn’t help in my case. Eating doesn’t help. Meds (like Xanax) in general don’t help. None of the usual venues people use to calm down when upset help, in my case, except of course, for time. Typically, I’d be okay in a few days.
Except for this time. This time was different. Allan had crossed a line. People say things in anger at times that they regret saying. It happens. It probably happens a lot. The thing is, when people cross that line, saying things they really shouldn’t, it tells you something. At least, that’s what I think. What they really think, deep down in their inner being, reveals itself, if -- through the shouting and emotional turbulence -- you are aware enough at the time to see it.
Once you see it, though, it’s horrible, because you can’t un-see it. It’s there, and it will stay there, and it will always be there, and you either have to live with it always in your consciousness, or cut bait and run. There are no other options. All this appeared clearly in my head as if it were a blinding flash of light.
It was at that moment, minutes after Allan had slammed the door and left, that I knew we were over. I suddenly realized it had always been there, it had been present in all of our fights, lurking just under the surface. I had never wanted to see it, but in this last fight it had peaked out from under the rugs of nasty verbiage emanating from his mouth and it was said explicitly. It was said only once, fleetingly, then covered up again, but only once was enough.
Allan had contempt and hatred for who I was, where I came from, and in short, my social class. Allan had contempt for me because I was raised poor. I was, too. I grew up in poverty. I wasn’t proud of my background, but I sure as hell wasn’t ashamed of it, either. Allan had shown his inner self, his true id if you will, and it was ugly. More than ugly, it was something I could not live with. Allan was a racist.
More than just being a racist, which is bad enough in and of itself if one is Black, was that Allan’s sexual desire for me was due to my skin color, and all that that represents. He found it sexy that his regular squeeze was black. It wasn’t really fucking me that he liked, even if I always tried to make it as good as possible for him, it was fucking his ‘black sexpot,’ as he called me.
I took my lithe, young body, with my perfect, unblemished skin, and my love box that lubricated on a dime, and my naked body that drove Allan nuts, especially when he drove me to a climax which was every bleeping time, and I dressed myself. I found my few treasures that I had at his apartment, and emotionally said goodbye to my clothes that I kept at Allan’s, which were too much to carry.
*********
I texted Jim and Ally, my two closest friends. We met at Popeyes. They had been urging me to leave Allan for a long time. They were thrilled I was finally doing it.
“Where’s Allan now?” Jim asked.
“At his favorite sports bar, I’m sure. You know the one,” I replied.
“He’ll come to your apartment you know,” Amy said.
“I know; I won’t be there,” I said.
“He’ll find you, you know that,” Jim said.
“No, he won’t,” I said. “Not this time.”
“Look, Roseline. You’re the prettiest black woman in Indianapolis. You’re recognized everywhere you go. Half the men in Indy want to take you to bed. I hate to speak in clichés, but here I go: you can run, but you can’t hide. Not you,” Jim said.
“Jim’s right, Roseline,” Ally said.
“I know you’re both right,” I said, “And that’s why I’m leaving town. When I’m settled, would you be willing to send me my stuff from my apartment?”
“You can’t leave town! What about us and your other friends?” Ally exclaimed, and she really did look upset, and sad.
“I know Ally, but it’s the only way. I’ve thought this through,” I said.
We sat in silence for a while. Jim and Ally, who were just friends, not a couple (well, they were friends with benefits, if you know what I mean), both looked very sad.
“Well, you’re better off without him. Sooner or later he was going to beat you,” Ally said.
“No, he would never have done that,” I said.