The Awakening (10 page)

“Jasmine, you never lost your husband. If you did, he would have beaten your ass, and probably killed the guys you were fucking when you
thought
he was gonna crash at Kane and Mercedes' place
that night, like he usually does when you kick him out.” Candy had just about reached her boiling point. “He still goes home with you, and manages to fuck your brains out when you get home. I know, because you bragged about it all the time. Do you know how many women would kill to have a man like Jay to be married to?”

“All right, ladies, enough,” I finally stated. “Jasmine, after what he caught you doing, I'm honestly surprised Jay even wants to see you right now.”

“But…” Jasmine tried to protest.

“But nothing, Jasmine,” I cut her off. “You've been blasting your husband for things he never did, kicking him out of the house, embarrassing him at parties; the list goes on, and he still stuck by you. Now, you expect him to forgive and forget, come back home to you so you can have your ego intact? You really have to be living in a dream world.”

“Yes. He's my husband. We will get past this. We…we have to,” Jasmine flatly answered, as if she were trying to convince herself.

“Then you deserve your fate,” I stated. The ice in my stare was unmistakable, and I really wasn't in the mood anymore. “You want to control something, buy a damn dog.”

Even Candy took a step back after that comment. I guess my husband rubbed off on me a little more than I cared to admit as well. He usually said things like that, matter-of-factly, and it usually got the point across. By the look on Jasmine's face, I'd say I did a decent job of doing that.

But you know how we women can be.

We had to have the last word.

“I don't control my husband, Mercedes. I let him do whatever he wants to do at parties, let him hang out with his boys. How could you say such a thing?” Jasmine asked.

“Because it's true, you treat him like a child. You want to limit
the people he deals with, and they had better be able to live up to your impossible standards. No wonder my husband can't stand you. What's the term he uses to describe you when Jay's over on Poker nights? Oh yeah, ‘do you need to check in with the warden?' ”

“Mercedes, please, she's had enough.” Candy knew I was bringing out the heavy artillery, and she tried desperately to intervene.

“I'm not done,” I snapped back at Candy before turning my attention back to Jasmine. “I remember when you tried to confide in us, telling us you don't trust him, and I see now you were the one who shouldn't have been trusted the whole time, and probably should have never been. I know the guys you got with that night, and they both told me
you
came at them, desperate as hell to get back at your husband because you thought he was cheating on you and using Kane to cover for him. So, the way I see it, you're gonna have to damn near kiss his ass and hope he wants to work things out.”

“Okay. Okay,” was all Jasmine could say. She slumped on the couch, letting the words that I'd just said to her sink in completely. She'd been busted. Like I tried to tell her, the alternative community was a very small, very close-knit one because there are so few of us who do WIITWD, or
what it is that we do
. I guess the prospect of actually losing her husband was enough to actually humble her for a change.

Jasmine walked out on the patio to try and compose herself, and I needed to cool down as well. I sat down at the bar and put my head in my hands, in a desperate attempt to relax my mind, trying to find a peaceful place. Candy placed her hand on my back, checking on me with the hope of finding out what happened to her best friend.

“What got into you, baby? You would have thought Jay was blood or something?” Candy asked.

He wasn't blood, but he is my husband's best friend, which makes him family. Right now, he needed someone in his corner, and for the first time since they were married, I was concerned that that person was no longer Jasmine.

8
NEFERTERRI

It's been a few weeks since that crazy night, but thankfully things settled down to a crawl. Jay still hadn't gone back to Jasmine, although he did manage to spend a few nights at home for a while.

It wasn't going to be easy, but I had faith things would work themselves out. Blame it on the optimist in me.

But with school around the corner, it was going to be a little more difficult to actually get some “play time” in. Parties happened in waves when it came to this lifestyle. Very rarely was it hot all year, every year.

Candy decided she needed to take a break from hosting at her house, which was fine because no one was planning on doing anything major between now and Amenhotep's party on Halloween. Since the holiday fell on the weekend this year, it's gonna make for one “hell” of a good time. Well, once the kids were done with trick-or-treating of course. Besides, it gave us girls some down time from the summer madness and to do some early costume shopping for the kids. As far as the adults were concerned, the type of shopping for costumes that we wanted to wear couldn't be done in the “regular” stores.

I think we were all stunned when word got out Jay and Jasmine had separated. We still saw them online, and Jay still came over on Poker nights, but no one had really figured out where he had
been staying. Even as tight as he and Kane were, not even he knew where he was. Rumors were rampant he was at an ex's house, but nothing was confirmed until I made an unexpected visit over to Candy's house after leaving work early today.

We usually had long lapses where Candy and I kept in touch, but we didn't physically see each other. I had a key to her place, and vice-versa, so, it was nothing to pop up and hang out, and my excuse this time was the aforementioned costume shopping for the kids. But instead of surprising her, imagine my surprise in seeing Jay's bike covered in the garage.

“Well, I'll be damned.” I shook my head. I didn't know that those two were even that close to begin with. But then again, there were probably things that even best friends don't always share.

Candy opened the door and acted like she'd seen a ghost. She knew I'd caught her, but the question in her mind was how much did she think I knew?

“Damn, is it five already? So, what are you gonna be for Halloween this year?” Candy asked nonchalantly.

There was no sense in beating around the bush, so I came out and asked, “How long has he been staying here with you?”

Candy acted like she'd been slapped. “Are you gonna hear me out, or are you gonna blast me?”

Well, since she put it that way, I sat down on the couch to hear my girl out. “All right, baby, talk to me, because you know this doesn't look right.”

“Jay needed a friend. Someone that he could talk to that wouldn't try to play marriage counselor. He's really confused right now, baby,” Candy explained. “He needed to lay low for a while, and he knew my place would be the last place that anyone would look to find him.”

“Wait a minute,” I responded. “You can't be serious. After the way you lit into Jasmine a few weeks ago, what would make you think she wouldn't think to come by here?”

“Baby, you know Jasmine has been—and would have been—calling over at your house, waking up the kids, looking for him. You know I'm right, Mercedes,” Candy said, reading my mind. Everyone knew that Kane and Jay are tight. “And I wasn't the one who ripped her to shreds at my house, Mercedes; you were.”

Candy had a point. The last few weeks, Jasmine had been so convinced that Jay was with one of his ex-girlfriends she literally went to the one house where she suspected him to be and confronted the poor woman about it. Last I heard she took a restraining order out on Jasmine to get some peace. After the blowup that we had with her, this would have been the last place Jasmine would think to look. Even if she did, she wouldn't have the guts to take the chance in finding out.

“Okay, so what's going on? You can trust me not to blow the whistle, right?” I asked.

“Jay has been careful not to have Jasmine find out where he is. So, yes, I'm asking you to keep this under wraps for now, baby,” Candy replied, and then braced for the impact of the next statement that she was about to make. “Especially considering that we've gotten close over the past few weeks.”

“Close?!?!?!?!”
I yelled. My mind raced, but I tried to keep my promise to stay calm and not blast her. “Okay, what the hell are you thinking?”

Candy sat down next to me. “Jay and I have always been cool. But over the last year, I'd taken notice of how Jasmine mistreats him. Everyone has. So, when all this went down, he naturally gravitated towards me. This wasn't planned, Mercedes, I swear.”

I really needed to concentrate, but it wasn't an option at that moment. Candy and I were close, too close for some who were on the outside looking in, but that's their opinion. Right now, my best friend needed me, and I was not turning my back on her. “You know I got your back, baby, if this is what you want to do, but this could get sticky.”

“If it will make you feel any better, we haven't slept together, period. Now, I won't lie, I might catch feelings if I'm not careful, but karma's a bitch that I'm not messing with right now,” Candy reassured. “Jay and I are friends, for now. Besides, you know that you and Kane are my first option if I need sum, and I know I'm not supposed to do anything without your permission.”

I admit, it did feel good to hear her say it, but I also knew that some shit was gonna go down because of the decision my best friend had made.

9
NEFERTERRI

Let's get ready to rumble…

Somehow we were able to get Jay and Jasmine to sit down and talk without yelling a couple of days after I'd found out about Jay's whereabouts. Jasmine was still being stubborn about the whole episode, trying to blame Jay for her cheating on him. I gave her a dirty look when she tried to pull that stunt, and after what I informed him about the two “gentlemen” that were involved in this whole mess, he cut his eyes at her, too. This was a nightmare waiting to happen, but something had to give, and they needed to get things handled, one way or another.

Ramesses had gotten to the point where he needed to stay out of the line of fire and let them work things out, regardless of the outcome. Candy and I joined him to give them some privacy. A few moments later, Jay came outside to get some air. He looked exhausted.

“You cool?” Ramesses asked him.

“Just memories, that's all. Things have changed. Can't live off the past,” he replied. He put his head in his hands. He needed to hear himself saying the words.

“It doesn't have to change, dawg. I know what she did was fucked up, but you've had time to cool off from it, right?” Don't ask me why he was playing Dr. Phil at that point, but he wanted to do something to keep his partner from hurting so bad.

“Look, K, I know I've told you before, you're like a brother to me, but after what Jasmine did to me.” He felt himself getting upset all over again, but then calmed down to ice-cold calmness. “It's over, Kane.”

“What the…?” He wanted to ask why, among other things, but Jay beat us to it.

“There is no one else, if that's what you're thinking. When I sat down to think, I realized Jasmine never loved me. She loved the control that she had over me. When we jumped into this lifestyle, her rules were restrictive, to say the least, until she got with you when we were at your birthday party,” he said to me. “Then the rules changed for her, but she still had to see what I was up to at all times. When the women weren't feeling her vibe, her control over me started to slip, especially after Candy cussed her out at one of her house parties.”

It became clear to me. Jay was tired of being put in “time out” every time “mommy” was mad at him. Meanwhile, mommy was out playing and breaking the very rules that she was trying to hold him to, while using the time-honored parental cop-out of, “do as I say, not as I do.”