Read the Excerpts

            Everything went dark.

            When I struggled back to consciousness, I was really worried.  I was hearing an incessant ringing in my ears, and that couldn’t be good.  After a few seconds, I realized that the ringing had an outside source, outside of my own aching head.  My cell phone still sat on the bathroom counter, next to sink, where I had left it before he had come home and surprised me.

            Pushing myself to my hands and knees (I didn’t think I would be able to get all the way up without falling back down), I reached up blindly for the phone.  I couldn’t open my left eye at all, and I knew it was swollen shut.  If I didn’t answer the phone, I would definitely have some answering to do when he got back.  Sean hated it when I didn’t answer by the third ring.  Heaven forbid I should let the voicemail pick up.  I silently prayed that he hadn’t called me while I was out on the floor – prayed that I didn’t miss his call. 

            I felt the phone, and quickly pushed the TALK button by memory.  I hoped I had pushed the right one.  My words sounded disturbingly slurred when I muttered a soft, “Hello?”

            “Jackie?”  The sweet voice at the other end entreated.

            “Patrick.”  I said his name as calmly as possible, willing myself not to break down with relief.  In the end, I lost the battle.  I sobbed, my body finally reacting to my perilous situation.

            “Baby!  Shit, what has that mother fucker done to you this time?”  Patrick’s voice was outraged, and I could picture him standing there with his hands balled into tight fists.

            “Where are you?”  I managed to say around my puffed up lips.

            “About two minutes from being there with you.”

            “You can’t, Patrick!”  I gasped, trying to pull myself to my feet, using the bathroom counter to steady myself.  “He could come right back!”

            “That’s bullshit, Jackie, and you know it.  That bastard always does this shit to you and then doesn’t come home until the next day.  You know how he feels about seeing you after he does that shit to you.  Who knows who he’s fuckin’ tonight.  He ain’t coming home.  If you’re lucky, he won’t even be there tomorrow.  You know that, after seven years married to that nigga, you know his routine.”  Patrick ranted, then when he was met with silence, he realized that he may have hurt me with his words.  “Aw, baby, I’m sorry.  He just pisses me off.  I’m on my way.  You hold on.”

            “Okay.”  I sighed, and let my fingers guide me to the END button to hang up.  I tried to pry my right eye open, and when I did, the dizziness almost overcame me.  I clutched the counter with all of my strength.  Looking in the elaborate bronze framed mirror over my sink, I saw the result of Sean’s last tantrum all over my face.  The entire left side looked like a map of some hostile alien planet.  Purple and blue continents stretched over the plain of my skin from my cheek up to my eyebrow.

            “Fuck.”  I touched my eye on that side and winced at the bright flash of pain.  Sean’s hands were so large that his fist covered nearly my whole face.  He had only actually punched me twice during this last fight, after grabbing me tightly by the throat so hard and so long that I had nearly passed out from lack of breath.  Remembering that, I lifted my head to get a better look at my neck.  Shit, the hand print was still a bright red where he had nearly squeezed the life from me.  Unbelievably, there was no blood.  That was good.  My carpet was a soft cream color in the bedroom, and I couldn’t risk staining it.

            It sounds awful, but sometimes I got a sick satisfaction from the bruises and marks that Sean would leave on me.  The fact that my body could take so much punishment and still function amazed me.  I had lost teeth (Sean always got those fixed and replaced immediately by a dentist on his payroll), had black eyes, broken an arm and a leg (both reset by our family doctor who asked no questions, of course), and even cracked a rib, narrowly missing a fatal puncture to my lung, according to good ole Doc.  I always wondered what it would take to actually kill me or put me into a coma.  I had discovered personally over the last several years how much pain the human body could actually withstand.

            Carefully, I stepped into the adjoining master bedroom.  I carried my cell phone with me.  I gingerly stepped over to the oversized California king bed.  Managing to crawl into it, I hoisted myself up onto the pillow top mattress.  The golden comforter yielded to me, and I sunk into it’s plush softness.  I must have slept there for quite a while. 

            The ringing was so close to my ear that it felt like someone was hammering into my skull.  Half awake, I pressed the TALK button again.

            “Hello?”  I attempted to sound as though I was awake.  Then I thought I heard the doorbell, and it sounded so far away.  Even though Patrick was right about Sean never coming home after he’s hit me, he would often call me to make sure I was at home and not foolish enough to run to the police.  You would think that after seven years, he would know me better, as well.

            “Baby, I’m at the door.  I been pounding and ringing this door bell for fifteen minutes.  Are you okay?  Come let me in.”  Patrick was worried; I could hear the sincere concern in his tone.

            “Okay.  I’m sorry… I fell asleep.  Can you just use your key?” 

            If Sean would have ever found out that I had given another man the key to his home, I definitely would have ended up in the cemetery rather than back in Dr. Johansen’s office.  The thing was, this scene had played itself out over and over again, and after one of Sean’s attacks, I was rarely in the condition to trek over six thousand square feet of house to answer the front door.  I knew Patrick would never come uninvited, so I wasn’t worried about Sean finding out.

            “Yeah, I’m coming.  Baby, you don’t sound so good.”  Patrick said, and suddenly I could hear him in stereo, over the phone and in my other ear.  He had made it to the bedroom so quickly.  I looked up to see him in the double French doors and managed a small smile.  Hanging up the cell phone, I laid my head back tiredly.

            “Oh, I’m okay.”

            Patrick locked the door to the bedroom – I heard the click.  He might have sounded so sure about Sean not coming home, but no harm in a little extra time being bought just in case he did.  He rushed to the bed, and I closed my eyes.  I could hear him taking his shoes off, and then the rest of his clothing.  Patrick never wasted much time in getting nude when he came over.  He believed in being comfortable.

            Comfortable.  That was the nice thing about Patrick.  I could be completely at ease with him around.  Patrick had seen me at my very worst.  He’d been there to mop up the snot and blood from my nose and face with tissue after tissue, towel after towel.  He’s seen me crying, my hair a rat’s nest.  He had seen me bruised and naked, or bleeding with a lumpy sweatshirt on, make up smeared across my face.  I didn’t have to put on airs with Patrick. 

            When my husband put on his famous parties, I spent hours as his showpiece.  I would wear the finest designer gowns, or the skankiest designer ho-wear, depending on what type of guests he had invited.  He always picked the outfit I would wear.  He even picked out the colors of my eye shadow and my lipstick for the night.  Sean would tell me what to do with my hair, whether to wear it up or down, the part on the left, the right, or center.  He’d send me to the manicurist and tell me what colors to use on my toes and hands, and how long my acrylic tips should be.  It was always about how beautiful I was, and never how smart I was.  Sure, when he had met me, I had just gotten my break doing some runway modeling for a big name designer in Manhattan, but I was also going to college.  I had planned to open my own fashion design company one day.  I sighed, remembering when I used to have dreams.

            That was almost a decade ago, and seemed like more than a lifetime away.  I had gotten caught up in the wonderful world of Sean Grambling, just like everyone else always did.  What was my husband’s job, exactly?  That’s a very good question, something I still can not answer fully to this day.  He was a social “connector”.  He had all the connections.  Sean was responsible for many of the Hollywood couples ever meeting in the first place.  It was at his parties that most of the directors, actors, musicians, and agents would network.  How did he receive the money that he loved to spend?  Another mystery, and he never cared to fill me in on it.  Did I think he ever dealt in illegal drugs or weapons?  I’d bet my life on it. Patrick, on the other hand, wasn’t a mover or a shaker in the industry.  Patrick was an essential nobody.  But to me, he had become the world.  He acted like a janitor who made it his job to clean up Sean’s mess.  He was the one who kissed my wounds and wiped away the tears.  If Sean had run into Patrick on the street, he wouldn’t have even looked up.  Patrick wasn’t anyone important, no one who Sean should pay any attention to.  Sean wouldn’t give him the time of day. 

            Patrick was my only friend from high school.  We had been so close in those days, when I was growing up in the seedy section of Las Vegas, Nevada.  Everyone always assumed that we were a couple, which ensured that no one else ever messed with either of us.  But we never got romantic back then.  We just loved each other’s company.   We were both into fashion, and I thought that he might be gay.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

            We lost touch when I traveled out to New York to follow my dreams and subsequently married Sean.  Then there was the summer of 1999. 

            I had just married Sean, and he was still being fairly nice to me.  He agreed to send me back to Las Vegas to visit my mother and little sister, who I hadn’t seen in a year since I had moved to New York.  This was obviously before he started pushing me away from my family and causing a rift between us.  Back then, I could still visit them.  My sister had just had a baby girl, and I was dying to see her.  At the time, I remember thinking how sweet it was that Sean would send a jet to bring me back home.  Now, I know that it bought him a week alone with whatever bitch he was screwing back then.  Funny how hindsight is always 20/20.

            I used the opportunity to show off to Mom and Tammy just how much money my new husband had.  That week, I bought my new niece more clothes, toys, and knick knacks than she ever would have needed.  I brought them to every nice restaurant I could think of, and paid my mother’s mortgage payment for the next six months.  One night, my mom decided that Tammy needed a break from the baby and offered to baby sit for her while we went out.  We went to Club RA on the strip and lo behold, who should I run into?  Good old Patrick.

            He was looking as fly as ever, just as I remembered him, and it all came flooding back -  all of our late night sleepovers, giggling in my room watching School Days.  My mother had even assumed that Patrick was gay.  She never got any type of sexual vibe between the two of us, because it was purely non-existent!   When we were alone, she would ask me about him, and whether I’d like to start thinking of him as a boyfriend.  I would roll my eyes, stare at her, and we’d both bust up laughing.  It was a ridiculous notion.  Patrick was as gay as the sky was blue.

            Well, Patrick wasn’t very gay at Club RA that night.  Tammy had hooked herself a fine ass dark thuggish looking thing, and they were concentrating very hard on dancing as close as possible without being inside each other’s skin.  Patrick whispered to me that he always hoped he would meet me again.  He told me how he was always a shy and awkward kid, and never had the nerve to tell me how he really felt about me. 

            “Patrick, I thought you were gay!”  I had giggled.

            “Girl, please.  I let you and your Mama think that so that I could sleep with you in your fluffy pink bed every weekend.  Holla at a playa – that’s how I roll!”  He had laughed.

            We kept in touch any time I traveled back home, and I told him about my new husband and all of his money.  We made a plan.  I would secret away some money each time Sean would give me my spending allowance, and soon I had enough to help Patrick move to Manhattan.  He quit his job with a very well known bank and decided to work with another mortgage broker close to my home.  At this point, we hadn’t begun sleeping together at all.  We had fired up those old flames of friendship, and I longed for that companionship again.  My husband knew how to show me off, fuck me until my intestines ached, and shower me with diamonds and furs, but Patrick knew how to please my mind and my spirit.  A woman needs more than a hard dick and a full wallet to be happy.

            Now, Patrick lay on his back, and pulled my head over onto his chest so that I could cuddle with him.  He rubbed my hair lovingly, and I could hear his heart beating rapidly.

            “Are you okay?”  I asked softly.

            “Huh?”

            “Your heart… it’s beating so fast.” 

            “I’m alright.  Just pissed, Jackie,  that’s all.”  He sighed, still rubbing my hair thoughtfully.  “You really should let me off this bitch.  Sean needs to be taught a lesson.  I know people, man… this shit ain’t gotta continue, you know what I’m saying?”

            “Shhh… Patrick, don’t talk like that.  I would never let you ruin your life just because I decided to ruin mine so long ago.  You promised that you would do things my way if I let you move out here.  You have to keep your promise.”  It was an effort for me to speak.  I reached my arm across his body and squeezed him tightly. He warmed me to the core, and I felt so safe.  That was ironic – feeling safe nuzzled up to a man other than your husband in your husband’s bed.

            “Yeah, that’s what you keep telling me.”  Patrick sighed again, and I felt his chest rise and fall underneath my head.  A tear trickled from my eye, falling on him.  “Baby, don’t cry, okay?  You know how that makes me…”  He reached down and wiped my tear away with his finger.  I looked up into his soft brown eyes.

            Patrick pulled away from me, and suddenly I knew that I had lost him.  He’d leave me.  He’d get up from this bed right now and walk away, and I would never see him again.  His family was in Las Vegas.  He would return there.  I couldn’t blame him; he’d had enough of my pathetic whining and pleading.  He wanted me to do something, just like my mother and my sister did, but it was never that easy.  You don’t just leave a man like Sean Grambling and live to tell about it.  It just wasn’t something you’d do.

            I knew I had blown it, and I would never get the chance to kiss those tender lips again.  His lips were my favorite feature.  They were so perfectly shaped, as though God had stopped running the world for a moment to form them personally.  When he kissed me, I forgot my troubles and melted into his mouth.  And when he used those lips in other places, I completely disintegrated. 

            “Patrick…!”  I pleaded, ready to beg him to stay with me and not leave me here alone with this monster that I lived with.

            “Yeah, beautiful?”  He said in a low voice, catching me off guard.  Patrick positioned his body over mine and held himself up on his hands, push up style.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  He wasn’t leaving!  He wasn’t going any where!  God had granted me another few precious moments to share with him.  I planned to make the most of it.

            “Mmmm… “  I purred, as Patrick ground his pelvis into me.