400 Days of Oppression

IV

The movie had just begun when I could feel Kenyatta’s hands slide down between my legs. He masturbated me to orgasm as we watched March of the Penguins in the back of the theater while a classroom of eight-year-olds sat up by the screen enraptured by the sound of Morgan Freeman’s voice. I collapsed into a fit of giggles as I came and hugged Kenyatta tight, smiling from ear to ear as I snuggled against his chest.

“Don’t fall in love now.”

It was like a splash of cold water in my face.

“What?”

“We’re just having fun. Don’t fall in love. I’m the wrong guy for that.”

“I-I’m not falling in love.”

But I was, and I was hurt and embarrassed that he had caught me at it. This was only our fifth or sixth date. Too early to be thinking about marriage and kids. Too early to start thinking that maybe he was the perfect man for me, the one I had been waiting for all my life. But I was thinking those things. Me—white-trash tough, jaded, street-smart. I had fallen for a man I barely knew in less than two weeks.

“Yes you are.”

He winked at me, then turned back to the screen as if he really gave a fuck about those damned penguins.

“Fuck you, Kenyatta. You’re an asshole!”

“Yeah. I may be. But you’re still in love with me.”

I didn’t know what to say and so I continued to stare at the movie as the penguins marched across the screen and some little kid in the front row spilled his popcorn and began to cry. I knew how he felt. I wanted to cry too. I also wanted to laugh and shout and make love again. I was in love!

And I still was. Even as I served this evil bitch her bacon and eggs and watched her drink her coffee, I still loved the man who had placed me in this awkward, uncomfortable position.

“These eggs taste like shit!”

Mistress tossed her entire plate onto the floor and I quickly, obediently, snatched a washrag from the sink and knelt to clean up her mess. I noted that she’d eaten most of the food on the plate before mounting her dramatic display of displeasure. She scowled down at me as I scrubbed the tile floor.

Kenyatta entered the room, dressed exquisitely in an athletic-cut black Brooks Brothers suit and a pink shirt with a black knit tie from J-Crew. He looked from his ex-wife to me, on my knees, sweeping cold eggs, bits of bacon, and shards of porcelain into my hand. Then he walked past me, over to his hateful ex-wife, and kissed her on the lips. Not a long, lingering, passionate kiss. Just a peck, but my heart sank immediately and I felt like a fool.

“Goodbye, Angela. You have a great day. I’ll see you after work.”

I stood up, trembling, preparing to storm out, wondering if now was the time to scream the safe word at the top of my lungs and fearing what the two of them would do to me if I did. I knew Kenyatta would have simply thrown me out, but Angela, his bitch of an ex-wife, may have attacked me. Then Kenyatta leaned in close to me and recited a few sentences, obviously memorized from the book. He whispered them to me, meaning them solely for my ears, as if we were co-conspirators or adulterers engaged in some scandalous and clandestine affair.