Shame on It All Read online

  Lucky tried to fight him off, to no avail.

  “I don’t mind sharing your little pussy with him. You’re damn sure going to have to share this dick. I’ve got a lot of mouths to feed but none are quite as creative as yours.”

  Lucky spit in his face before he forced her to turn around.

  “Now, now. Don’t fight this. If you value your future as a medical doctor, you’ll do everything I say whenever the hell I say it!”

  Lucky cried as Marvin held her head down on the table, forcing her face onto the linoleum. She cried as he lifted her skirt and ripped her panties off. She cried as he took her from behind. She cried because she wished that Robbie would save her. Most of all, she cried because her promise to her sister had been broken.

  • • •

  “Why are you so quiet, Baby?” Robbie kissed her on the forehead as they lay naked together in each other’s arms in his apartment.

  “Nothing’s wrong!”

  Silence.

  “You’ve been acting kind of strange for the last couple of weeks.”

  “Strange how?” Lucky asked as if she didn’t know the answer.

  “Just different things I’ve noticed.”

  “Like?”

  “You’re not your normal talkative, jolly self. You don’t want to go out anywhere. We had tickets for the Budweiser Superfest and you said you were too tired. Yet, you were about to do cartwheels when I first got the tickets. You don’t laugh anymore. Shall I go on?”

  “Not really.” Lucky had heard enough. She only prayed Robbie would never find out the horrid truth.

  He went on anyway. “When we make love now, it’s like you aren’t even here. You’re physically here but your mind seems to be in another place.”

  “That’s absurd,” Lucky protested. “I love when you make love to me. I love you period.”

  He kissed her lightly on her lips. “Okay, Baby. Maybe it’s me.”

  No, it’s not you, Baby, she wanted to say.

  She looked over his chest to the alarm clock on his nightstand and noticed it was ten minutes to midnight. She jumped up off the bed and started getting dressed. “I have to go!”

  Robbie sat up. “Lucky, why are you always running out of here in the middle of the night?”

  “I told you. I took on another job as a waitress at an all-night diner.”

  “What’s the name of it?”

  “You wouldn’t know if I told you. Just some hole-in-the-wall.”

  “Well, you don’t have your car over here tonight so I’ll get dressed and drive you. That way I can see this hole-in-the-wall with my own two eyes. I don’t want you working someplace unsafe, and you don’t need money that bad anyway.” He reached on the floor beside the bed to get his jeans. “I can help you out and your sister makes big bank. Does she know you’re working two jobs?”

  “No!” Lucky snapped. “And there’s no reason for Harmony to find out. There’s no need for you to drive me either. I’ll just catch a cab.”

  Robbie sighed. “Lucky, I’m not normally the jealous type, but you’re setting off alarms left and right.”

  Lucky finished getting dressed quickly, leaned over the bed to kiss him good-bye, then grabbed her purse. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

  He pulled her close to him and slipped his tongue into her mouth. She was shaking like she was afraid of him and pulled away. “I love you, Lucky.”

  “I love you, too, Baby.”

  No sooner had she walked out the door of his apartment than the puppy started yelping to be walked.

  Robbie threw on his jeans and slipped into a pair of Nikes. He was walking Lucinda through the courtyard of his complex when he spotted Lucky standing on the curb.

  He was about to yell out to her and tell her he was driving her ass to work whether she liked it or not. Before he could get a word out, a large black Mercedes with tinted windows pulled up and Lucky jumped in. It took off before she could get the door fully closed.

  Robbie stood there wondering where he had seen that car before. More importantly, he wondered what the hell was going on with his girlfriend. One thing was for sure. He was damn sure going to find out.

  13

  Chained Souls

  “What are you doing?”

  Zachary looked up from under the hood of his silver Infiniti and was overwhelmed to find Harmony standing there.

  “Just checking my oil and other vital fluids that make this baby go.”

  Harmony lowered her Ray•Bans to look at him. He was covered with grass stains from cutting the grass earlier that morning, and oil was stuck underneath his normally manicured fingernails.

  “That’s cool,” she replied, but he didn’t hear it. He was caught up in her eyes. Something was different about them. They were soft and warm and sparkling like they were when he fell in love with her their freshman year in high school.

  “I’m surprised to see you here, Harmony.”

  “I suppose you would be. After the way I’ve been acting towards you lately, I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me.”

  “I could never hate you. You know that.” He wanted to take her in his arms but didn’t want to push it. “So, what brings you here?”

  “I wanted to see you. We need to talk.”

  He slammed his hood down. “Yes, we do need to talk. Then again, that’s all I’ve been trying to do all along. I’d expected you to call me shortly after I saw you at Georgia Brown’s, but the call never came.”

  “I needed some time.” She looked down at his freshly paved driveway. “I see you finally did something about the asphalt. Looks great.”

  “Not as great as you.” He leaned on his hood and wiped his hands with an oil cloth. “Let’s go inside where it’s nice and cool. The sun is kickin’ today.”

  “I think it’s a pretty day. In fact, that’s the reason I stopped by. I was wondering if you wanted to take a ride with me?”

  Zachary looked at her, happy as hell to finally be given a glimpse of hope. “I would follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  “Well, I don’t think we can get that far on a tank of gas, so how about Annapolis instead?”

  He blushed. “Sure! Come on inside for ten minutes while I hop in the shower and get cleaned up.”

  While he was in the shower, Harmony took a quick survey of his house and immediately noticed something extremely bizarre. Everything was exactly the way she’d left it the last time she was there months before.

  The blazer to her red suit was still hanging on the back of the chair in the kitchen. The Essence magazine she’d been reading was still open to the same page on the coffee table, and the coffee cup she had used the last morning she was there was still sitting in the same spot on the counter with her mocha lipstick on the brim.

  Tears came to her eyes as she realized that Zachary loved her so much, he couldn’t even let the slightest remembrances of her go. She had been almost afraid to come over here this morning, expecting to find another woman had taken her place. What a fool I have been!

  “Ready to go?” Zachary asked as he popped his head in the kitchen, smelling like expensive cologne and dressed in neatly ironed khakis and a crisp, white cotton shirt.

  “Ready when you are!”

  “Then let’s roll. You want me to drive?”

  “Sure, but let’s take my car. We can leave the top down and I have a surprise for you in the trunk.”

  “Hmmm, you’ve piqued my curiosity.”

  “Have I now?”

  “Yup. I just hope it’s not the body of Jimmy Hoffa. They never found him, you know?”

  Harmony slapped him on the shoulder. “Silly ass.” She chuckled.

  An hour later, they were sitting on a blanket on the private beach they used to frequent almost every weekend the year they both moved from California to attend college. They had been inseparable for many years until Harmony had distanced herself from Zachary without an explanation.

  Zachary pointed to the pavilion up on the
hill that overlooked the ocean. “You remember how we used to talk about getting married in that pavilion?”

  “Of course, I remember.” Harmony took a nibble off one of the turkey-and-Swiss sandwiches she had prepared for them.

  Zachary had been surprised when he’d opened up her trunk. Instead of finding Jimmy Hoffa, he’d found a lovely basket full of all his favorites. Strawberries and cream, turkey and Swiss on croissants, sparkling apple cider, and chocolate cheesecake.

  “Baby, I still can’t believe you wanted to see me today,” he remarked. “I feel like I just won the D.C. lottery.”

  Harmony stared at him. “I’ve been so horrible to you and there’s no way to really make it up to you. I realize that but I can try.”

  “You’re wrong about that.” Harmony gave him a perplexed look. “There’s one way you can make it up to me.”

  “Tell me and I will do it.”

  “You promise, Harmony?”

  “I promise.” She took a finger and crossed her heart to validate the statement. “Anything you ask of me, I will do.”

  Zachary took her delicate hand into his own, kissing her fingers one at a time before holding her palm up to his cheek and feeling her pulse emit her very essence into him.

  She closed her eyes for a brief moment, bit her bottom lip, and waited to hear his request. She was so sick of holding back everything from the people who truly loved her. Zachary was the only man she had ever loved in return.

  “I know that you love me, Harmony. I never doubted it for a second.”

  “I do love you.” A single tear flowed down her right cheek.

  “I always have.”

  “In that case, grant me one wish. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  There was silence while they stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

  “Please,” he added. “For me! For us!”

  Harmony got up off the blanket, kicked off her sandals, and pulled the bottom of her red sundress up around her waist. “I’ll race you to the water!”

  Harmony ran into the ocean fully clothed with Zachary right behind her. It was there that she told him the truth.

  Five minutes later, he came back ashore, fell down on his knees, and screamed, “Nooooooooo!”

  Harmony sat down behind him and cradled him in her arms while he cried. They stayed there on the beach, in that position, until sundown.

  They went back to her house that night instead of his. He fixed them a light pasta dish while Harmony took a long, hot bath.

  Zachary brought the tray of food upstairs so he could feed her in bed. All Harmony could think was the pity has already begun.

  He was brushing her thick brown hair when he asked, “Why haven’t you told your family and Fatima?”

  She didn’t hesitate to answer. “Because they’ll only treat me like an invalid. Just like you’re doing right now. Besides, I haven’t talked to Fatima in a while now. She’s all caught up in her divorce proceedings.”

  “I’m not treating you like an invalid! I’m simply taking care of the woman I love.”

  “You really want to take care of me, Zachary?”

  “Do you even need to ask that?”

  She got up from her vanity bench, untied her robe, and let it fall to the floor. “Make love to me!”

  He wanted and needed her so badly but he didn’t want to cause her any physical harm. The firmness of her breasts and the roundness of her ass made him flash back to all the times they had made love and crave the times they would never get to make love.

  “Are you sure it’s okay to do that, Harmony?”

  “I’m sick. Not contagious.” She ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. “I knew this would happen.”

  Zachary pushed the door open, unable to control his need for her any longer. She was looking in the wall-length mirror over the double sink when he walked up behind her and started caressing her nipples.

  She surrendered to him and turned around to offer her tongue to him. They made love on the bathroom counter, then he laid her down gently on the bed so they could do all the things both of them had been dreaming about in the months they had been apart.

  “You know, the resemblance between you and Bryce is uncanny,” he remarked as they lay in bed afterward. “You two look so much alike, it’s almost scary. If not for the different hairstyles and a couple of other things, you could pass for twins.”

  Harmony leaned up on one elbow, her caramel skin glistening in the moonlight from the skylight above her bed. “I know what you’re thinking, Zachary. I could never ask her for such a sacrifice.”

  “Even if it means saving your life?”

  “Yes, even if it means that!”

  She turned over on her side, facing away from him. He kissed her on the shoulder, then watched her fall asleep in his arms, hoping that in due time she would reconsider.

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  Harmony, keep your head up, chica!

  We now return to our regularly scheduled program, Shame on It All, already in progress.

  Part Three

  The Shit Hits the Fan

  14

  Hell Naw, You Can’t Come Home

  Javon stormed into the living room after waiting more than five minutes for the maid to answer the door. He’d been standing out front banging so hard on the cherry-wood that his knuckles were practically bleeding.

  His eyes narrowed with malice when he saw Fatima and Harmony lounging on the expensive furniture he’d p
aid for, drinking cocktails and eating Gouda cheese and club crackers. The seventy-inch high-definition television was blaring as Waiting to Exhale played in the DVD player. It was at the part where Angela Bassett was putting her husband’s clothes in his car about to set it ablaze. Fatima and Harmony were laughing hysterically at the scene, refusing to even acknowledge Javon’s presence.

  Javon walked over to the television and cut it off. “Fatima, don’t you think you’re taking this entire situation to the extreme? A man shouldn’t have to knock to get into his own castle.”

  Fatima reached for the remote on the coffee table and clicked the television back on. “And a woman shouldn’t have to lie down with a mangy, dishonest pit bull every night either.”

  “I already explained this. Harmony threw herself at me.” Javon pointed an accusing finger at Harmony. She rolled her eyes at him and bit into another cracker. “I felt sorry for her. You’re the one that kept saying she was depressed over her breakup with Zachary.”

  Fatima and Harmony glanced at each other and cackled.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, anyway?” Javon asked, leering at Harmony. He turned his attention to Fatima. “Fatima, what is this?”

  “What does it look like?” Fatima replied sarcastically, taking another sip of her Blue Hawaiian. “Harmony and I are having a girls’ night in.”

  “So I get kicked out of the house and she gets to lounge all over my furniture and eat my food?”

  “Yes, she does.” Fatima held up her palm so Harmony could slap her a high five. “As a matter of fact, we’re both exhausted from spending the entire afternoon packing up your things. Will you be arranging to have them picked up or shall I have them delivered someplace?”

  “This is insane!” Javon blared, turning the television back off.

  Fatima stood up and walked over to him, poking her index finger into his chest. “No, you’re insane to think I would continue to be your wife after all of your dirt.”