A Death, Baked Bob, and the Personal Ad
(F/F, oral, anal, exhibitionism, jewelry, drugs, tattoos, piercings, food, bad accents)
DISCLAIMER – This is a fictional story to be read and enjoyed. If you can't read, stop reading. If you can't enjoy, stop reading. If you don't like any of the story codes mentioned above, stop reading. If you can't stop, it's not my problem.
Part 1 – Death and Addiction
There was complete silence for almost the entire car ride. At first I wasn't sure if Greg wanted it that way or if he was uncomfortable and unsure of what to say. We were stopped at a red light when a woman walking a Dalmatian crossed in front of us. She was wearing a white fur coat with black spots and looked like the human twin of her dog. Greg broke the silence by saying, "If I were that pooch I'd be mighty offended."
I didn't respond and kept my eyes forward. Greg turned to me, and out of the corner of my eye I could see that he was smiling. He shrugged and said, "I can't tell who's walking who."
That's when I knew he was uncomfortable. I didn't say anything. Greg's smile slowly dropped. If there was a slight amount of tension in the car before, it had just doubled. A horn behind us honked because the light was green. Greg hit the gas and didn't say anything else for the rest of the ride.
It wasn't that I was trying to be a bitch, I was just holding in my emotions. I'd wanted to cry all day. But I didn't want to do it in front of Greg or any of his family, didn't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me vulnerable. I wanted them to see a woman who was standing tall, not ashamed of who or what she was and able to take tragedy without turning into a puddle of tears. Especially after the way they'd treated me.
I wasn't sure if Greg's offer to give me a ride home came from genuine sincerity or if someone had dumped the responsibility on him. I should have left with my friends when they took off, but something – pride, stubbornness, or most likely spite – made me stick around until almost everyone was gone. Very few of the family talked to me or even acknowledged my presence, which seemed to make it all the more important for me to stick around, so they would remember that I had been a part of her life too.
When we pulled up in front of my building I uttered a thank you, figuring I should get out quickly and save us both from any more uncomfortable time together. But before I could open the door Greg said, "Keisha?"
"Yes?" I responded, without looking at him.
"I'm sorry," he said, "for the way my family behaves around you."
It should have cut the tension in half, yet somehow it didn't work. I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to respond to his statement, but Greg continued before I had the chance. "They're a conservative bunch of people. And with Monica being the baby of the family, well, that just made it worse." He paused for a moment and I realized he couldn't look at me either. "They just wanted to think that it was some kind of phase she was going through."
"It was not a phase," I spat out with anger, "and she was twenty-seven, not a baby."
"I know," Greg said. Then he turned to look at me. "And I know it wasn't just some phase. I think I knew it since we were teenagers. Just one of those things you kind of sense, you know?" Greg waited for a response but I offered none. He continued, "Anyway, I'm not trying to excuse the way they behaved, in fact I'm telling you I know it's not right and I'm sorry I played along with it." He turned and looked out at the street. "My cousin really loved you and we should have understood that. To tell you the truth, I don't think Monica had half as much of a problem with the family accepting her for who she was as she did with how we treated you."
There was a long silence after that, but the tension was gone, at least for me. I realized I needed to ease it for Greg, but couldn't think of how.
Finally I said, "When I came out to my dad...he laughed."
Greg turned to me and I looked at him. "Not the kind of reaction you'd usually expect, but if you knew my dad," I smiled, both for emphasis and the thought of my father. Greg smiled too. "He was such a joker," I continued, "and a wiseass. He laughed at a lot of things in life. But it was the kind of laughter that came as a reaction to how horrible and twisted life could be, because if he didn't laugh the only other options were anger or depression. So when he was done laughing he told me 'Honey, you're a woman, you're black, and now you're gay. All you need is a disability and you'll be the Minority Queen.'"
Greg laughed outright and so did I. When we finished I shook my head. "And in that wonderfully fucked up way of his I immediately knew what my dad was saying. That I'd better prepare for having a hard time with people accepting me."
Greg's smile faded and so did mine. We both looked straight ahead. Greg said, "You're father sounds like a wise man."
I took a deep breath. "He was. And he was right about a lot of things." I turned towards Greg again. "But it's people like you that prove he could be wrong sometimes." I leaned over and kissed Greg on the cheek. "Thank you."
I got out of the car before he could say anything else.
*
Walking up the stairs to my apartment brought back memories, specifically of that day, six months ago, which was the last time I could remember feeling any kind of happiness. A day when I was running up those stairs with only joy and excitement coursing through my body because I'd just found out I'd landed a promotion at work, something I had been working on and sweating over for months. Monica kept telling me I'd get it even though I worried and fretted, so I was dying to tell her. When I burst through the door she was sitting on the couch.
"You will never guess what happened!" I yelled. And that was exactly the last moment of happiness I had. The look on Monica's face told me there was something wrong, very wrong. She was home early because she had an appointment with the doctor and suddenly I put the two together in my head.
Yeah, that was the last moment of happiness I can remember.
It was cancer, and it was long past the doctor's ability to do much about it. Sure, there were some last ditch efforts and the possibility of taking part in a new experimental drug. Lots of researching on my part with everything from doctors working on the extreme edges of science to holistic and natural remedies to positive thinking therapy, but nothing worked and here I was six months later, walking through the door to the apartment again.
And this time she was gone. Forever.
Crying should have been the first thing on my agenda, I'd been holding it in all day, but I was so tired that I went to the bedroom and laid down on the bed and passed out. When I woke up the sun was setting. I went into the living room and saw there were some messages on the machine.
My fingers went to touch the play button, and that's when it happened. A flash of memory from when Monica and I bought the machine – we got into an intense argument about whether to get it in silver or black (I won). It was one of those stupid arguments that started over something small and blossomed to the point where it's more about anger than the small thing that started it. After spending the entire ride home bringing up every single thing that bothered both of us about each other, we got into a screaming match in the parking lot and finally ended up apologizing for everything we ever did to piss each other off in the stairwell. The makeup sex started as soon as we walked through the door when she pushed me against the wall and started kissing me. Now I was alone with the stupid silver answering machine. Somehow I wished I could go back and let her win the argument. I shook my head and chalked it all up to not eating anything all day.
More memory flashes came in the kitchen. The microwave was the second one we owned together, only because we dropped the first on the way up the stairs. The utensil drawer held two sets of silverware that didn't even come close to matching – the cheap stuff from my college apartment and her grandmother's ornate set that was older than our building. The Liberty Bell salt and pepper shakers were from a romantic weekend in Philadelphia where we spent the entire time having sex in our hotel room. We realized we needed something to remember the trip and picked them up in the gift shop after checking out. I made food quickly and left the kitchen.
Eating and watching television kept my mind busy for a little while. But once all the food was in my stomach I started noticing how every damn story on television has a romance blooming, in trouble or ending. Don't these stupid writers have anything else to write about? Then I remembered when Monica wrote a poem about the first time she saw me. I could recall some of the lines and started reciting them to myself and suddenly I started crying.
I turned off the television and curled up on the couch. My nose was buried in the cushion and I smelled the same scent I'd smelled all those times we spent curled up here. Monica would usually lay behind me and start by kissing my neck, soft, light kisses that made me moan. Then she'd press her lips against one spot and let her tongue come between them to touch my skin. Her hand would slide slowly up and down my side until she finally got under my shirt and...
No, no. I wasn't going to do this to myself. I needed to keep it together.
But the more I told myself that, the more I felt myself slipping. I looked around the room for some kind of help, but all I saw were things that brought back more memories of Monica. The computer she always screamed at, the do-it-yourself cabinet that we put together backwards, the desk lamp we both hated but kept around, pictures of us every place we'd been. My eyes fell on the picture of us at her uncle's cabin. I walked over and picked it up, staring at the two of us with wide smiles on our faces. That was what did it. I started into an outright bawl and dropped to the floor, clutching the picture to my chest and calling her name several times. The picture reminded me that at twenty-nine years old I was already a widow.
I had to get out of the apartment. Jumping to my feet, I barely stopped to grab my jacket and keys before I was out the door. When I got to the street I looked both ways, unsure of where I was headed. I realized I needed to do something extreme to get my mind off of things. Suddenly I knew what that was. I walked the three blocks to a local bar, but I wasn't there for a drink. Alcoholism runs in my family, so I always avoided using booze to ease my pains. I used something else.
When I walked in the door someone grabbed my arm. This was no surprise since most of my friends hang out there. But the person on the other end of that arm was Asian Andy. When he was a baby Andy was abandoned on the steps of a church, and since he doesn't know his exact ethnic background he just calls himself Asian Andy. His hair is down to his shoulders and he wore one of the six hundred heavy metal T-shirts in his wardrobe. For a laid back guy, Andy always has a serious look on his face and tonight was no different. If I didn't know any better I'd think he was waiting for me to walk in.
