Chapter 3
THREE
“You’re fucking kidding me!” Katie exclaimed as she spooned cheesecake into her mouth.
Yazmine, who dubbed herself the third tip of our triangle of friendship, stood at the foot of my bed, mouth agape.
I set my empty wine glass on the bedside table and unsheathed a fork from a paper napkin.
“I wish I was kidding,” I said.
I stabbed into the decadent dessert we’d splurged on from room service. I didn’t care about the contemptible price. This bed-top picnic in my hotel room was what I deserved after what happened at the airport.
“I bet if you look up buzzing airport shlong on TikTok right now you’d see my horrified face,” I grumbled.
Katie pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. The movement sent the salmon sperm-infused mask she was wearing sliding down her delicate face.
“Just how big was it?” Yazmine flung her long black braid over her shoulder before filling her own glass with the boxed wine she’d procured.
“Big. Big.” I cupped my hands together around the phantom width of a large plantain to prove the girth of my tragic vibrator.
“Damn, girl,” Yazmine said. “You really were planning on letting loose this trip.”
“It’s been over three years since I had . . . fun.”
“Three years?” Katie repeated.
“Alanzo was never in the mood toward the end of our relationship. No surprise there. And I wasn’t in the mood after the divorce.
Plus, I’m still sleeping in the same bed we shared.
The twins are always running in and out of my room.
They’re fifteen but the way they shriek and play-fight, you’d think they were still toddlers.
So, coming here, having a room all to myself, I thought this would be my time to shine. ”
Katie gasped. “I have an idea.” She put her spoon down and clapped her hands. “Why don’t we catch an Uber and go to a sex shop!”
Yazmine brightened at the prospect. Shopping, especially for naughty toys, was one of her favorite hobbies. She grabbed her phone and started typing frantically onto the screen.
I shook my head. “I think I’m dildoed out for the day. I’m honestly exhausted from traveling across the country to see your asses.” I plopped back on my pillows. “I’m not the party animal I once was.”
“Yeah, well, old age will do that to you,” Yazmine said.
“Only if you let it.” Katie tapped her temple. “It’s all in the mind.”
“My mind has had enough. Let’s call it an early night,” I suggested, already feeling my eyelids growing heavy from the red wine. “The opening keynote is at nine in the morning, and we’ll basically be going hard the rest of the day. Then there’s the costume party after—might as well rest up.”
Yazmine clicked her tongue. “Take one giant dildo away and she’s suddenly too tired to have any excitement.”
I snorted. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of excitement in my sleep. I’ll be dreaming of giant dildos chasing me through the airport for the rest of my life.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Yazmine offered.
“A girl went live and recorded the whole thing,” I deadpanned.
“She probably has a small following.” Katie scrolled on her phone. “I’m sure no one has seen . . .” She clapped a hand over her mouth.
My stomach dipped.
Yazmine plopped onto the bed beside Katie, and her jaw dropped. The girls looked at me, then at the screen, then at me again. Shock and awe battled for dominance across their expressions.
“See? It is that bad!” I complained. “I can never show my face at the kids’ school again.”
“It’s not that bad. I promise.” Katie flipped the screen toward me.
Relief flooded my body at once. The clip did show me, but it was of my side profile, and my hair was covering most of my face.
“Turn up the volume,” Yazmine ordered.
Katie did, and the video replayed. I watched a panicked version of myself flinging that veiny dick-imposter into the trash.
Someone had dubbed over the original audio with the sound of a scoreboard buzzer going off and an imaginary crowd going wild.
I snorted, which gave the girls the last bit of approval they needed to lose control.
I couldn’t even describe the sounds coming from my friends as laughter. It was more like two hyenas cackling.
With a chuckle, I clicked on the search bar and a few other videos popped up from different angles.
My face was a little distorted in each one.
There were comments from women cheering me on for even trying to bring something on board that was meant to bring me pleasure.
The more I watched, the more I found myself not caring if I was seen or not.
Sure, my boys would be horrified, but that was life.
I wasn’t only a mom. I wasn’t only someone’s ex-wife.
I was a woman who had needs. There wasn’t anything wrong with that.
Was the situation hilariously embarrassing? Absolutely. But oh fucking well.
Laughter bubbled up and out of me. I cackled with my girls until I got a stitch in my side.
When we were spent, I swiped at the joy-filled tears gathering at the corners of my eyes. “I’d gladly endure that again to be here with you two.”
Yazmine, Katie, and I had planned on going to this very book convention two years ago to finally see each other in real life.
But Alanzo had other plans. Plans––meaning one of the moms in my neighborhood walking group.
She’d gotten the time and date of me leaving all wrong and showed up at my back door wearing nothing but a hideous peacoat.
Instead of meeting me for the first time in this very hotel, surrounded by books and authors we adored, Yazmine and Katie found me hunched over on the floor in my half-empty bedroom closet. My friends picked me up and cleaned my house and fed my children while I sobbed all the pain away.
It wasn’t that I was so shocked by him cheating, or that I thought our marriage was even good. We hadn’t had sex in a year by then. But I had thought he cared enough about me as a human being, as the mother of his children, to end our marriage with some dignity.
Now, he was getting remarried. At least it wasn’t to the bitch that I once thought of as a friend.
Alanzo looked happy. He looked loved—more than I had loved him since the boys came.
I had loved him once . . . We were high school sweethearts, and I used to think he was my everything.
But our passion died slowly. It wasn’t a knife to the back that killed us––it was the gangrene.
Dozens of small cuts left untreated and festering over the years until there was nothing but a rotting shell.
A front that made sure no one in our lives saw what was actually going on.
To everyone around us, we were the perfect pair.
He was the head of our household. Always out and about.
Always charming anyone he met at the office, the gym, the kids’ school, or on the golf course.
When he’d invite people over, sometimes without even telling me, our home was perfectly clean and meals were hot on the stove.
I did my best to make him look as good as he wanted, to do anything he wanted, because that’s exactly what his mother had done for his father.
The worst part of our marriage, though, was the fact that I had let him convince me that I was the one always in the wrong.
When we were in bed, alone, he had to be the one calling all the shots as if my sexual needs were an assault to his manliness.
I prioritized his delicate ego and insecurities over myself.
I gave up trying, and our lovemaking––if that was even what I could call it––became a chore rather than a release.
I looked at Katie, who would never go without dick for three years.
Then at Yazmine, who was very vocal about the importance of having her needs satisfied by the woman she was dating or one of her many toys.
A long sigh slipped out of me. I should have cared for myself that way, too.
But I thought Alanzo’s needs were more important. That made me feel sick for myself.
I deserved someone who fought tooth and nail for my happiness; someone who was brave enough to let me lead. I needed a warrior—valiant and strong and full of honor. Instead, I got a damn dog.
Yazmine squeezed my thigh and offered a warm smile. “You’re right. We should take it easy tonight.”
“After we finish this cheesecake,” Katie added.
I sat back up and grabbed my empty glass. “And the box of wine.”
Clanging bells blared in my eardrums. Groaning, I burrowed my head under the pillow, but the bells persisted. In the groggy recesses of my mind, I remembered my vibrator. Remembered the constant buzzing and that horrified TSA agent.
I shot up.
The room spun in sickening circles. I grimaced and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Turn your alarm off,” Yazmine moaned. She lay sprawled at the foot of my bed. Katie, unsurprisingly, had made a nest for herself on the floor. She had the energy and sleeping habits of a squirrel.
My alarm continued to scream. I searched through blankets, pillows, and color-coded Excel sheets Katie and Yazmine made that mapped out every author, vendor, and panel we wanted to see until I found my phone.
After I hit stop, I checked the time. Wincing, I bent over and slapped Yazmine on her bubbly ass.
“Hey,” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow her nose was buried in.
“It’s eight. Time to get ready for the best day of our lives. You two need to go to your room and shower. I can smell the wine oozing out of your pores from here.”
Katie’s head shot up. “Oh my god. It’s really happening. We get to see all our favorite authors in one place!” She scrambled up and snatched the crumpled spreadsheets from my bed.
She bounced up and twirled in a circle. “Get your asses ready, girls, we’re finally doing this!”