Single Husbands (9 page)

Brian enjoyed taking his family on vacations, like his dad had done with him. As Brian grew older, his father began taking
him on business trips, which were pleasurable. That’s when Brian witnessed his father having affairs and one-night stands.
His dad was a good man and his role model.

Sitting in the aisle seat on the last row of the first level, Brian witnessed an incredible game. Monty’s stock increased
when he got MVP of the conference. Brian scurried down the steps, courtside, to congratulate Marcus and Ms. Monty for doing
an awesome job single-parenting Marcus; then he left the arena.

Making his way to his downtown hotel, he used the pay phone in the lobby to call the woman he’d met at the concession stand.
“Hey, I can meet you in two hours,” he said.

“That’s fine. Where’re you staying?” she asked.

“I have to meet a client. Can you reserve the room and I’ll give you the cash when I get there?” Brian recommended the hotel
he was already at.

“Call me back in exactly two hours. I’ll be there,” she said.

“Cool,” Brain said, ending the call. Women who couldn’t afford to rent a hotel room for a night were not worthy of him fucking.

The elevator ride to the bar on the twenty-fourth floor was smooth and fast. He sat at the bar, ordered a vodka martini with
pineapple juice and a splash of coconut rum. Appreciating the panoramic views of downtown Houston, he felt Michelle’s spiritual
energy flow through his body. Four drinks and two hours later… no Brandon.

Brian had a nice buzz flowing. He returned to the lobby, then used his calling card to phone his fuck buddy. She’d already
checked into room 18411. Brian programmed his cell phone to sound an hour after he’d arrived at her hotel room. One hour was
plenty of time to bust a nut or two.

She opened the door; he handed her $200 for the room. She looked more delicious than when he’d met her. Her lips were red,
sweet, and sticky, like watermelon. Her pussy was nice and plump. In seconds, his mouth was all over her body. Turning her
body facedown, he strummed her pussy with his finger, slowly wiggling one of his other fingers into her asshole. Rolling a
condom over its head and down his shaft, Brian put the head of his dick in her ass. She protested, moving away from him.

“Uh-uh, hell no. I don’t do that shit,” she said.

“Don’t or won’t?” he asked, resting on his knees.

“Same thing. You are not putting that big ole thing in my butt.”

“Relax, it doesn’t hurt. I promise I’ll be gentle,” he said.

She glanced over her shoulder, watching him. Brian removed the small bottle of lubrication from his pocket, squirted the gel
over her asshole. Slowly he put the head inside her. She moaned. He eased in a little more. She moved away. Maintaining his
dick’s position, he followed her movements, trying to penetrate her deeper.

“Stop! Move, I gotta go to the bathroom. I gotta shit,” she said.

“No, you don’t. That’s natural,” he reassured her, thrusting a little deeper.

“I don’t want to do this,” she said, crawling away from him.

“Damn.” Brian clenched his teeth, praying she’d shut up. The walls were thin. He heard the couple next door talking. That
meant they could hear her protesting.

“Be quiet,” he said, snatching off the condom.

Easing his dick into her mouth, she gave him the best blow job he’d had in two weeks. Her mouth felt incredible.

Stroking her deeper, he pulled out, then came in a towel. He wrapped the condom, the condom wrapper, and the lubrication in
the towel, folded the towel, then placed it in his pocket. His alarm sounded. Brian dressed, picked up his phone, and said,
“That’s my client. I gotta go. I’ll call you later,” he lied, watching her completely naked body sprawled across the bed.

For the first time, he didn’t care about making a woman come. He was done and he was gone.

S
alvation meant different things to many people.

Most men were chronic idiots when it came to dealing with women and relationships. Herschel Henderson couldn’t vouch for other
men. Now that he was older, he had to try and understand how his childhood adversely impacted his adulthood. Some of the reasons
he didn’t trust or love Nikki the way he should have had absolutely nothing to do with his wife.

Reared by his single mother, abandoned by a deadbeat absentee dad, Herschel was confused and angry. How was he supposed to
treat his woman, his lover, his wife, and his kid? He had no mentors or anyone in his life that cared enough to teach him
how to be a man. His life had not come equipped with an automatic pilot for successful relationships.

What he did have growing up was religion; not beliefs, but principles. King James. Ecclesiastes. From Genesis to Revelation,
to the First and Second Chronicles, Corinthians, Peter, and John. From sunrise service to fellowshipping as a child every
Sunday afternoon, Herschel was too young to realize his mother’s salvation was not his, until he’d moved out of her house
and temporarily stopped going to church. Sitting in church eight hours on Sundays, praising the Lord’s name to the top of
his baritone voice, being baptized at the age of five—well before he understood why—hadn’t made him a saint. No amount of
Bible study, ushering, or participation in church plays could save him or the congregation from sin or deliver them from evil
… a chasing after the wind.

Repentance.

What was the point in asking, seeking, or praying for forgiveness yet not changing one’s ways? Or taking on bad habits that
were sinful. Everything was meaningless. Nothing much mattered to Herschel when he was a child, except survival. His mother
convinced him they had to fast three days a week, when in reality they didn’t have a choice. There was no bread to break.
There wasn’t enough food for her to feed them seven days a week. The clothes on his back, the shoes on his feet, were hand-me-downs
from his older brother.

Growing up in the Wild Magnolia, or what some New Orleanians called the Nolia, taking his first trip on his tenth birthday
to the Audubon Park Zoo with his mother and two siblings—no father—walking to Booker T. Washington High School four years
straight in tennis shoes with worn soles, Herschel knew he had to escape poverty, or die trying. As a young boy, what he didn’t
know was how. How dare those who hadn’t known him stand righteous in judgment of him.

“Suck my dick, kid, I’ll give you twenty bucks,” a stranger in the French Quarters had propositioned him. No one was watching.
No one would know. And his brother and sister could eat seven days that week. So he did what he wasn’t proud of to help his
mother. “Let man lay with man” wasn’t God’s plan. That wasn’t Herschel’s plan either.

He never told her or anyone else what he’d come to do more often than he’d wanted. The money was more than a motivator; it
was his and his family’s salvation. New clothes. New underwear. New shoes. Would God punish him for putting food on his family’s
table? That was a chance Herschel willingly took every weekend when he ventured to the back alleyways of “the Quarters.”

Since the age of twelve, Herschel had worked out five days a week so he’d be able to hold his own if he got into a fight.
Staying physically fit and playing football in high school allowed him to escape the backseats of NOPD police cars, avoid
long nights of sitting on project steps drinking, gambling, telling lies, selling weed, or getting some teenage girl pregnant.
In high school, having a better body meant he attracted older women, who owned their own homes in places like New Orleans
East, Gretna, Uptown, or Metairie. He traded in sucking dicks for cash for sucking clits in exchange for a well-lighted, warm,
quiet place to lay his head at night.

Being kept by a woman was better than sharing the ragged bunk beds that he’d outgrown before graduating from F. P. Ricard
Elementary School—named after a notable professor who, in the early 1900s, at the YMCA on Dryades Street, instructed boys
and men on the fundamentals and skills needed for gainful employment.

High-school graduation day at the Municipal Auditorium, Herschel had a diploma in one hand and a one-way ticket to Miami in
the other in search of gainful employment opportunities. He’d heard South Beach had great weather year-round and incredible-looking
women, so he hugged his mother good-bye, promising her he’d do good for himself, move her out of the projects, and make her
proud of him.

Herschel’s first real job—working for the largest cruise line in the nation—may not have meant much to some, but considering
where he’d come from, it meant a lot to him. He’d worked his way up from clerk to management, bought his mom a shotgun house
off Napoleon Avenue, above Claiborne Avenue in a good neighborhood, before proposing to Nikki. His wife wasn’t impressed with
how nice he treated his mother, nor had she cared about what she considered his menial occupation.

His great looks and big dick attracted her like she was game fish and his dick was the jerk bait that hooked her. There was
so much more to him than the bedroom skills he mastered as a teenager or his ability to make every woman and man he’d sex
have multiple orgasms. Herschel had an invisible bleeding heart. Emotionally wounded and all. Sometimes he believed Nikki
married him because she felt sorry for him. She shouldn’t. No one should. He’d kept his promise to his mother and made her
proud, and unconditional love temporarily stopped his bleeding. His recollection of his father was vague. All Herschel knew
was he didn’t want to be the type of father or man that his dad had been. That was, if he could call his father a man. Apples
didn’t fall far.

Fucking and fucking over someone was easy. Without a Global Positioning System, a compass, a road map, role model, or father
figure, Herschel had to blindly navigate how to love and make love. He knew infidelity was a sin. He’d spent enough days listening
to sermons preached by married and unmarried sinning preachers, who’d slept with members of the congregation, to know that
sodomy and fornication were equally detested in the Bible… damnation. What he didn’t understand was how could something
as blissful as sex be sinful, and why didn’t the pastors practice what they’d preached to him? Regardless of what others thought
or taught, as long as Herschel was alive, he’d continue to share his body with whomever he desired. No one else could die
for him, so why should he live his life for them?

A physically fit, well-dressed, intellectual, working black man was a blessing and a curse. Women who didn’t know his last
name was Henderson lustfully stared at him, like his dick was stamped USDA Prime beef. They wanted to fuck him. Suck his dick
with A1 Steak Sauce. Take him home to their mothers. Buy him expensive gifts. Marry him. Men propositioned him with the same
things too.

Herschel’s tight ass, thunder thighs, and six-pack abs didn’t translate into him treating the better-looking men and women
whom he attracted any better than he’d treated his wife, his mistress, or his male lover.

Parking his car in downtown Miami at the athletic club, Herschel hurried inside, hoping the awesome abs class wasn’t full.
Afterward, he’d stay in the same room for the Brazilian beat class. One day soon, he was taking his dream trip to Rio to showcase
his body and his salsa skills. His tight body, impressive dance moves, and deep pockets would guarantee him first pick of
the sexiest women in the world. He’d read the book by Jewel Woods,
Don’t Blame It on Rio,
but nothing could be further from Herschel’s truth. His premeditated, promiscuous fuck-a-thon would all be blamed in the name
of Rio de Janeiro. The main reason Herschel participated in the abdominal class was most of the women in the class were maintaining,
not attaining, gorgeous bodies.

Placing his mat on the floor next to the woman he’d invited to his house the night Nikki showed her ass up at home early,
he greeted her, “So where’ve you been? How’ve you been? What’s up?”

Herschel had no reason to display anger toward her for him getting caught by Nikki. That was his fault. They wouldn’t get
caught again, not in his house. The woman’s pussy was good, but the fuck wasn’t worth the relentless fight with his wife.

Spreading her legs wide, like she’d done while fucking him, she smiled, then said, “Looking for you. I’m glad you came.” She
winked, then asked, “What are you doing after class? Is your wife home? My pussy could use another one of your big-dick tune-ups.”

Herschel frowned, scanning the room to see if anyone had overheard her. Nodding, he replied, “Why wait until after class?”

She stood, rolled up her blue mat, tucked it under her arm, then cheerfully said, “Ready when you are,” waiting for him to
get up.

Damn, was she that easy all the time? He was joking. She was serious. She positioned her pussy directly in front of his face.
He grabbed his mat, tossed it on the stack of other mats. “Leave your car here, I’ll drive. Meet me out front in fifteen minutes.
I need to take a quick shower.”

“I’ll park—”

“No, leave your car here. I’ll drive,” he said, shaking his head. Women sure made it easy for married men to cheat.

Herschel entered the locker room filled with naked and half-naked men. Herschel sneaked peeks at a few big, succulent dicks.
Staring at another man’s dick was not tolerated. A few memberships were revoked for complaints about homosexual activities
in the steam room and Jacuzzi. Fortunately, he wasn’t one of the guys management had caught. Herschel removed his hygiene
products from his assigned locker, showered, brushed his teeth, then hurried to put on his black wife-beater, baggy shorts,
and sandals.

Parking in front of the Financial Center, Herschel waited for his sex mate. He couldn’t call her a friend. He barely knew
her. But what he did know was she was incredible in bed, and that was enough information about her for him to fuck her again.

Miami was a great place for him to work and play. No business or personal income tax. No state personal income tax. And corporate
tax was only 5.5 percent of net income, which was why Nikki had declared herself a corporation as opposed to a sole proprietorship.
Herschel was 100 percent certain if Nikki could, she’d list him as a dependent.