(I was doing some plumbing for an old friend when I accidentally came across a written manuscript hidden behind a wall. It was titled, "My Guilty Conscience." It was signed by the wife of my old friend. I took an hour to read it then photocopied it on my friend's copier before he came home. I figured you might want to read it like I did.)
*****
I mount the steps nervously. In the five years I've been married to Samuel, I've never contemplated anything so sinister as cheating on him before...until now!
I walk through the large double glass doors and stride defiantly toward the elevator.
Derrick's condo is on the ninety-eighth floor, just about as close to heaven as a girl can get without sprouting wings.
My five inch heels click sensually along the gleaming hardwood.
My body is on fire, and my mind ablaze with mental images of Derrick at the company picnic with nothing on but his damn bathing suit. Why I let my best friend Cheryl invite me to her company's picnic is beyond me. Everyone at her workplace was allowed to bring at least one friend or family member. Being a new employee there, she wasn't on speaking terms with a lot of the other employees. She wanted me to come along for moral support. I should have told her no. I should have run away and hid at her offer. But oh no, I just had to be her best friend, the one that she could count on. Only now...only now...I am helplessly hooked on the millionaire company president.
I stand at the elevator and watch a strange fellow black woman admiring me out of the corner of her eye.
I smile. It emboldens her and I know she is dying to say something.
"Girl," she spits out. "You are dressed to the nines, and those wicked spiked shoes, wow. But if I had your fabulous legs I'd be showing them off too, I suppose."
I smile again but don't answer. That is when I gather the thought that she is growing jealous. She would never be able to turn men's heads the way I can.
The elevator doors swing open and she hits the number eleven. She then asks, as the doors swing shut, what floor I want.
"Ninety-eight," I say, regretting it immediately. There were only a few rooms in the penthouse suites passed the ninety-fifth floor. It might make it easy for her to guess who I was going to see on ninety-eight.
"Hmmm, God's country," she responds.
"Pardon?"
"Floors ninety-six through to a hundred. They call it God's county. Built exclusively for high end millionaires. Those each only have one condo occupying the whole floor. Ninety-eight? If I'm not mistaken floor ninety-eight belongs to that Caucasian dreamboat Derrick Wilson. He owns his own fortune five hundred company, you know."
"You know the names of everyone living on every floor?"
"For the top five penthouse floors I do. It's an occupational hazard for busybodies like me. I tend to be overly inquisitive in matters that don't concern me. But had I known that Derrick liked black women, I might have taken a run at him myself, although my boobs and ass look nothing like yours do. You are a real hottie. Hope it works out well for you and that beefcake Derrick. Does he know you're married?"
Her question didn't connect at first, so I said nothing as she stepped off the elevator, then she turned to give my oversexed smoking hot body one last glance. She made me feel embarrassed dressed the way I was as she gawked. I must have given her the bang on impression that I was going up to have sex with the hunky, incredibly handsome Derrick, and steam up the entire ninety-eighth floor, because she pointed to my hand as the doors were about to close and said, "don't forget to take off your wedding ring."
My heart leapt through my throat. I was still wearing my damn wedding ring?
"Shit," I muttered, yanking all my rings off and dumping them into my zippered compartment in my purse. I had told the very handsome and hunky Derrick that I was single, not that guys necessarily cared about such details. A woman going up to spend quality time in a man cave could hardly believe he was going to merely be showing her his comic books. More than likely he was going to be showing her his eight inch woody. And in Derrick's case, the woody just happened to be white. Just like Samuel's. Samuel was my adoring husband.
Today was Saturday, and Saturday's I always went to the gym at noon to work out for a few hours. Only today I wasn't at the gym. Today I was saying good bye to Miss Nosy Parker as she watched me, waiting for the elevator doors to swing shut on her.
I pressed the 'close' button quickly and the doors closed again quickly.
The sensation of being whisked upward in a hurry felt exhilarating. Although I was horrified that the nosy black woman had sniffed me out. I knew I should have been smarter and told her the thirtieth floor, then merely pressed ninety-eight after she had gone. Hind sight is twenty-twenty I suppose. And living and learning is always part of the process. So why wasn't I listening to my conscience now?
At risk was a five year marriage to a really sweet Caucasian guy named Samuel, who through no fault of his own, was unable to satisfy me sexually. He had been cursed with having a severe and untreatable case of erectile dysfunction brought on by premature ejaculation.
A few times he had managed to get his damn cock inside of me without it exploding before hand. And he had been able to do so on a dozen or so miraculous occasions for a full blessed minute or two, but that was only by us having no foreplay and by us not undressing all the way. The efforts did produce two children, a four year old daughter named Melissa, and a two year old daughter named Crissy.
The elevator was getting close to his floor, and I wondered if I was actually going to step through those damn doors once they had swung open on ninety-eight. I tried to imagine myself stopping dead in my tracks a full five yards in front of the large double condo doors. Was I really going to walk to within inches of those damn doors then knock on them? And was I really going to step inside and into the waiting arms of a millionaire beefcake who probably knew as much about sex as any well-worn stud on the planet?
Fooling my husband Samuel was easy, but fooling myself into thinking I'd be able to live with myself afterwards was a lot harder. Ninety nine percent of all erectile dysfunction could be treated. Was it my husband's fault that fate had placed him in the last totally frustrating one percent?
.
The doors suddenly opened and I was starting to sweat like a pig along my neck and the sides of my face. If I wasn't careful then my hair would become sweat soaked as well.
