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“I ’spose it is, too. If you’re gonna mess around on a son of a bitch like me, get a motherfucker better than I am at least, but I know that’s not really the point.

Anyway, she kissed him. A long, slow, passionate kiss.

My greatest fears had come true. This woman was givin’ her body, her heart and her time to another man right in front of me. ”

“Being cheated on is a hurtful thing. Boy, do I know it.”

“I got out of my car after she went inside the room. I walked to that door, pacing myself. I waited outside that room for ten minutes.”

“Why’d you wait so long?”

“I wanted them to get a head start so there couldn’t be any room to tryna explain the shit away…

like, ‘ Oh, we’re just friends!’ , ‘You’re so crazy and jealous,’ that sort of thing.

She used to say shit like that to throw me off the path.

Naw, I couldn’t chance them being fully clothed so she could lie and explain it away.

As hot and heavy as they appeared to be when she first showed up, I knew it wouldn’t be long before they got down to business. ”

“How’d you feel as you were standing there waiting?”

“Huh?” He didn’t understand why she’d ask such a thing.

“How’d you feel as you stood there waitin’ all that time to confront your wife about sleeping with another man?” She stopped working and stared at him.

“Well, how in tha fuck do you think I felt, Poet?” He chuckled incredulously. “I was mad. I wanted to tear some shit up!”

“Yeah, but see, that’s the thing with you men.

Y’all never dig deeper. You have to dig deeper, baby.

You have to dig so deep that you pull out the emotions you didn’t even know you had, and process it.

I can tell you are still angry about this on some lowkey level.

You are still hurt, and that’s okay. It was clearly disturbing.

So, let me ask again in a different way.

What emotion led to that? That anger you were—”

“Heartbroken. Sad. I lost trust in who I thought was my soulmate. I felt like someone that I had sacrificed for had gone away, something I poured everything into, gave my all, but then I realized my efforts were in vain ’cause she shitted on everything we had.

Like that dead bird you got there… she just flew over our lives and took a dump on it.

I did every thing for this woman. I’m not a romantic, but I tried to be.

I’m not always eloquent with words, but I tried to be a better communicator and not shut down.

I had some problems, we all do, but I wanted to be fair with her.

I was closed off emotionally sometimes—my mama said my father was the same way—so I tried to break that cycle.

I wanted to be different from my daddy and grandfather.

I thought she deserved a man who at least tried to be good to her.

I stopped just tryin’ and became that man, yet it still wasn’t good enough. ”

He felt himself getting all hot and irritated.

His gut knotted up like a hot ball of yarn, surprised by his rising emotions as he told the tale.

He meant what he’d said to himself during this discussion about his first love.

He didn’t feel upset about Lorna anymore, so much time had passed, but the way Poet shoved him back into the memory in a different way, much deeper than he’d been in a long time, made everything resurface.

And it hurt. Maybe because here he was all over again…

falling in love… and a small part of him didn’t want to admit that he was afraid she may crush his heart, too.

“You sounded like a therapist just now, Poet.”

“When I asked you to dig deep?” She reached for a tiny pair of scissors.

“Yeah. You been to therapy before?”

She blinked several times, then snipped the thread with a slightly shaky hand. “Mmm hmm. I have. We can talk about that later. So, then what happened?” She threaded a new needle, this one much larger.

“I shot the gotdamn door wide open.”

“Ouch!” She pricked herself. A perfect dot of red blood pooled from the pad of her left pointer finger.

He turned around, grabbed some cleaning wipes out of his work cabinet, and tended to her.

She stood there, looking and smelling so sweet as he wiped the blood, bandaged it, then kissed her boo-boo.

“You good?”

“Yes, thank you.” Her body shook a little, as if she were cold. He looked deep into her eyes. Deep. Then deeper. Just like she’d told him to do…

“Are you scared of me, possum?”

He gently stroked her chin, lifted it high, and stared at her. She took a moment to answer. Those syrupy brown eyes of hers sheened over, and she brandished a gorgeous smile. She slowly closed her lips, pivoted on her toes, and kissed him.

“I wouldn’t call it scared. You make me a little anxious sometimes.”

“Why?”

“…Your energy. Not in a bad way. You’re just… all encompassing. You can see inside of me. I can feel it. That developed 6 th sense of yours I suppose. I wouldn’t call you pushy, but you’re intense.”

“I know.” He swallowed. “I ’magine that bothers some folks. You want to hear the rest of what happened, or do you want me to stop? Maybe we should just—”

“Of course. Continue.”

“I shot the door wide open. Then, she got tuh screamin’.

I walked in with my rifle, and she was in bed, pullin’ the sheets up around her, trying to cover her naked-as-a-jay-bird body.

A naked body with my name tattooed on her fuckin’ titty.

The curly-headed man lunged for his duffle bag, and I shot the wall right above it.

Guess he was goin’ for a gun or knife. Maybe his phone to call for help.

Little weasel. She started cryin’. Talkin’ about she was sorry, and all this shit.

I was this close to blasting a hole in that man, but then, I looked at her.

She looked pathetic. I went from being madly in love and heartbroken, to being completely disgusted.

“The fact that this woman, who’d said her vows to me in front of her mama and papa, swore before God to love me, in sickness and in health, had my dick in her mouth earlier that same gotdamn mornin’, I might add, and was guzzling my cum like a gotdamn Slurpee from the local 7/11, was now with another man.

She turned her two-timing ass right around and was about to let this emaciated, Skeletor faced motherfucker with pubic hair for a mustache and beard fuck her, too.

I don’t slut shame, ’cause I’ve done my share of whorin’ around, too, but it wasn’t while I was married to her; this was my motherfuckin’ wife.

My jizz was probably still in her belly from that blowjob, lookin’ for an egg they’d never find, but ol’ boy’s swimmers were gonna join the party, too.

Looks like I almost had a threesome without my consent.

Guess they were almost on their way to a meet-and-greet.

A little punch bowl, some chips, and a map to her uterus.

Confused looks on their tiny, microscopic lightbulb shaped faces.

Welcome to Whoreville, boys! You traveled the Throat-Train.

You ain’t fertilizin’ a damn thing. You’ll be shitted out in a few hours.

Greetings from Anus Avenue. Hurray! Now don’t that just beat all? ”

Poet paused and placed her hand over her mouth. He could see her cheeks plumping as she shook her head.

“Go ahead and laugh. I don’t mind. Some of what happened, when ya look back on it, is kinda funny. It just wasn’t at the time.”

“I’m sorry!” She chuckled, turning colors.

“It’s not what happened that is funny, it is just how you explained it, Kage!

Why are you like this?!” She laughed louder.

“I’m not minimizing your pain or this traumatic experience.

Please believe me! You just tell a tale in such a way sometimes that I can’t help it.

You’re a card, Kage. My Lord!” Took her a minute to get a hold of herself.

“Like I said, I can see the humor in the way I described it. I know how it sounded. What really chaps my ass, Poet, is that I would have never cheated on that woman. It didn’t matter if Scarlett Johanson, Sanaa Lathan, Amanda Seyfried, Beyoncé or whoever would have wanted me.

Coulda been the most beautiful woman in the world.

I would’ve turned them all down, I swear before God!

” He raised his hand. “I gathered myself. Calmed down. It took everything in me to muster the strength to not kill that man. I told her that I was going home, but she better not show up that night at the house. I told ’er that she might as well stay there and finish what she started, ’cause I didn’t want her no more.

I let her know I was going to work in the mornin’, and that was the time to come get her shit.

When I got off work, she bet not be there, either.

I wanted all of her shit packed up, and her outta our apartment.

“She tried to talk to me as she was quickly gettin’ dressed, begging me not to go, but I just walked off.

Besides, I was sure the police would be there soon due to all of the ruckus.

I didn’t want to go to jail on account of her.

I did as I said. I went home. And uh,” he shook his head, “for probably the first time in years, I got in the bed with a bottle of beer, a cigarette, the box fan blowin’, and my blues music playin’ on low. Then I… I cried like a fuckin’ baby.”

She stroked his cheek. Nothing but love in her eyes.

“I was drunk by the time I fell asleep. I woke up, showered, packed up most of her stuff and set it by the door, then went to work. Apparently she’d tried to come to the house that night, I found out later, but I had put the chain on the door and shoved a chair up against it.

Anyway, when I got in from work the next day, her shit was gone, and so was she.

We didn’t talk for a few weeks, then she came by the crib unannounced. ”

“She didn’t read the room, huh?”