My insecurity continued to grow with each passing day during the next three weeks, as did the insecurities of the other 12 white husbands in our little condo community. Each day during the work week while the husbands worked, the young black stud had all of our wives hanging around him at his soon to be gym.
The white wives continued assisting and preparing for his new workout center business to open, and they readied themselves for this event. None of us timid white husbands had the courage to ask how this business venture we invested in was developing.
Every weekday and weekend, our wives were at the workout center for close to 12 hours. The center had not been opened to the public yet and they were spending so much time there. The preparation for this center appeared far more involved than any of us had ever anticipated.
Each day, I also continued to be coersed and intimidated into assisting Tra'mon with his personal workouts. He was adament about this and I was scared to contest him in any way. I assisted him by holding the heavy bag steady as he pounded and flailed away on it. In complete demoralization, each one of these workouts ended with me quietly and passively cleaning up the black man's sweat and spit from the blue matted floors of the condo gym.
He was rude, stern and mean while during these quick 30 minute workout sessions, which he had suddenly switched back to 6 o'clock a.m., and this caused me to adjust my own work schedule. The young black man's masculine presence and aggressive personality terrified me to no end.
The black stud hardly spoke to me during the next 3 weeks of these personal workouts, except for names and direct orders, and the references to how his new business was coming along. But, during these 3 weeks he also seemed to be "rubbing it in my nose," so-to-speak, in the most subtle "and" the most blatant ways. Often, these little signs of his black dominance over me were impossible to ignore.
His new business was a woman's workout center, and the preparation to get things ready consumed Julie. It consumed the other 12 white wives as well, but not nearly as much as it did my own wife. This fact was a source of embarrassment for me as she seemed to cater to his every whim.
They were gone all day long from around 10 o'clock in the morning when they woke up until late into the evenings. And, their absence was not only a few days here and there but all seven days of the week. This went on daily, seven days a week, for the next three weeks.
Half of these days our wives were back home by 10 o'clock at night, while other days our wives would not return until well into the "wee" hours of the morning, usually between 3:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., and a few times even later.
Julie's rather simple explanations and excuses for these much later hours were always so casual and nonchalant. Often, they were curious and secretive to my admittedly paranoid state of mind. Overall, her late days and nights seemed like no big deal to her. But, it was starting to concern me more than ever.
"Oh, we're all going out for a quick drink after we're finished here, honey." Julie would explain during her quick phone calls or texts.
"You don't have to wait up." she would text.
"My boss told me I need to stay and finished some things." she would say during her brief calls.
"We really worked so hard today. I think we all need a drink tonight." she would explain, innocently.
"I'm going to grab some dinner with Trey. Don't wait up." my blonde wife would text far too often.
"We're all gonna stop for a quick drink after work." Julie would text. "Shouldn't be too long."
Every day there were similar messages and calls, or both. I would receive some form of excuse for her staying out each day.
These three weeks were the most defeating because I knew that she was usually going out to that seemingly insulting club called "The Black Jacques Club" for those after work drink she described. I knew this all too well.
The sight of all those dark inked spade symbols stamped on the tops of her hands every other day felt like a slap across the face to me. She was always "going out for drinks," in her own words, and always going with Tra'mon and the others from the upstart workout center. The group went out after working at the center all day and night.
This was happening 4 or 5 days a week. But, most irritating to me was the number of those one-inch sized black spade stamps placed on her hands, wrists and arms. The number of them suddenly began to increase after the first week, and seemed to gradually increase even more as the days continued to pass.
Initially, there were only two of them with one being on each of the tops of her hands. To me, that was insulting and concerning enough. Afterall, Julie wasn't some 22 year old club girl. She was a mature, married women of 34 who was married to me.
"Why is this no big deal to her?" I asked myself.
One day there was 3 of them. Another day, there were 4 of these black spade club stamps on the tops of her hands and wrists. Then, one other day there were 5 of them running all the way up the length of her left arm.
"Geezuz. What the hell?" I thought to myself.
For some unknown reason, I decided that I had to ask my pretty blonde wife about these ink stamps again. She knew they bothered me, and I knew that it bothered her when I mentioned them. Her annoyed reaction to my inquiries about the blatant ink stamps was becoming more curious to me. For a long time I held things inside like a timid wimp. For awhile I could not find the courage to ask her about them again, but I really needed to.
It was one of those 10 o'clock nights when Julie arrived home looking exhausted, as usual. She was tired from her long day at the new women's workout center, which had still not been opened to general public. There was only about a week left before the grand opening.
She walked in with what would become the workout center's new uniform carrying a half dozen shopping bags. I was still awake and watching the late night news, and feeling incredibly insecure already. I was insecure about not seeing my beautiful blonde wife for more than a couple of hours a day for the past three weeks.
Now, she was suddenly standing there with a fatigued look on her face in this new so-called gym uniform. She looked as beautiful as ever, yet the shock of seeing her in this moderately revealing so-called uniform caused me to swallow the lump in my throat.
Julie stood there in a solid black thong-styled spandex leotard over a pair of solid, opaque white spandex tights. She was also wearing very feminine-looking pink and white sneakers over a pair of white below the ankle socks, which were folded neatly down to her shoes. The low-cut, scooped v-neck of this black leotard revealed a little more of her supple cleavage than I would have liked. Especially for a simple workout center environment. On Julie's left arm was a black band about 4 inches in width. The black band had the new workout center's name across the middle, "Roar."
In the middle of the "O" of the center's name "Roar" was an illustrated picture of a black panther head with the animal's body behind it. It was an attempt to depict some form of 3-D illustration the black panther was leaping out from the letter.
"Look, honey. This is our new uniform." she began.
"It's for all the assistants of Trey's club." she said, excitedly and naively.
"Trey designed it." she added.
"Trey thinks it's pretty and unique for a workout club. Isn't it the cutest?" she asked.
"Trey really likes it too." she continued.
I was speechless as I stood there looking at my wife in this black over white color scheme for the workout center. She set down one of the bags and turned, walking towards our bedroom with the remaining large bags. I could see her solid white spandex-covered asscheeks sticking out from that black thonged leotard. Meekly, I stood up and followed her into the bedroom while she emptied the bags onto the bed.
I gazed at the black band around her left arm with a panther head inside one of the letters again. It confused me. At the time, I did not understand it's intended purpose. My eyes just stared in defeat as I stood in the doorway of our bedroom watching my exhausted and excited wife in that sexy leotard outfit.
She pulled out a total of 7 black thonged leotards, which were reminiscent of those leotards of the late 80's and 90's. Then, she pulled out what had to be at least 40 pairs of those opaque solid white spandex tights that went under the leotard bodysuit.
"Wh-why so many pairs of tights?" I asked her, nervous and confused.
"Oh, well you know. White tights can get so dirty so fast and yaou can never have enough of them." she explained, as she quickly walked back out and into the kitchen.
"But, Trey insisted on white under our leos." she added.
"I think they're cute." Julie gleamed.
