14. Saje
SAJE
Someone needed to put me on the big fucking screen ASAP.
I deserved to win every best actress award ever created.
The little show I put on in front of my husband was so good I almost believed myself.
Before going to him, I hit up one of my female doctor friends and had her give me a list of reasons why a woman wouldn’t be able to get pregnant.
I went through that list until one of the diagnoses stuck out to me, which was premature ovarian insufficiency (POI).
It sounded good enough, so that’s the story I presented to Reason.
I came close to feeling guilty for lying to my husband when his face went slack and his shoulders dropped. He tried to hide how he was feeling, but I knew him all too well. Before I ended up giving in and telling him the truth, I came up with the lie that I needed alone time.
A part of me badly wanted to tell Reason, “Fuck no, I don’t want a damn baby, let alone a freakin’ surrogate to carry your child,” but I couldn’t tell him that.
How the fuck was I going to get out of this?
Eventually, he would find out I had no motherly bones in my body.
Then what? Would that be the cause of him leaving me?
In his eyes, I could do no wrong. Would it take me not wanting a child to make him change his mind in a heartbeat?
It was my job to never let it get to that point.
If I had to fake it, then that’s what I would do, but deep down, I hoped a miracle would happen, and there would be no baby at all.
Buzz. Buzz.
My phone vibrated on the vanity table, bringing me back to the present.
I looked down at the screen.
Reason.
I sighed because I already knew what topic our conversations would revolve around.
“Hey, baby,” I answered in the happiest voice I could muster.
“Hi, beautiful. How’s filming going?”
“It’s going well, no complaints. We just finished filming a fight scene.”
He chuckled. “I would’ve loved to see that. I know you killed it as usual, tho’.”
I smiled as I looked in the mirror, noticing a lipstick smudge at the corner of my lips. I quickly dabbed it with a piece of tissue.
“You know I’m the best actress on this set, my love,” I bragged.
“Actually, I do know my woman is the best.”
Reason’s support and the way he pumped me up still melted my heart. “Stop. You’re making me blush.”
“You know it’s true. Them muthafuckas lucky to have you on their set,” he continued egging me on.
My man had me feeling myself. I already had all the confidence in the world, but getting reminded always felt good. “Thank you, husband.”
“No prob, baby. Another thing I wanted to tell you is that I had a meeting with the owners of the surrogate agency we’re going to use.”
My smile faded, and my eyes shifted to the back of my head. Here we go again. “Oh really?”
“Yeah, a husband and wife, Nehemiah and Amara Honor. Real decent couple and business folks. We had a three-hour meeting, and they broke down everything we need to know regarding the entire process.” He paused briefly.
“When you’re ready, I’ll give you all the updates.
I took notes for you and had them email me some of the documents. ”
“All of that sounds great, baby,” I said with a fake smile, not interested in probing for more information.
“I wish you could’ve been a part of the meeting.”
I picked at a piece of skin that stuck up from the side of my manicured fingernail. “Yeah, me too,” I fibbed, bored with this conversation.
There was a light knock on the door, and a second later, someone opened it. My co-star, Ezekiel, also known as Colby on screen, strode into my dressing room.
Reason was on the phone, still talking, but I was tuned out and uninterested in anything else he had to say about babies or surrogacy.
“Baby,” I interrupted whatever he was saying.
“Yeah?”
Ezekiel picked up a copy of the script from the stool and read over it.
“I have to go now. I need to practice my lines for my next scene.”
“Aight, see you later. Saje, I can’t wait to start this next chapter with you,” he expressed.
Reason, if only I felt the same way you do. “Same, my love,” was all I could say.
I quickly ended the call.
“Come, come. Let’s practice these lines, Colby.” I motioned for Ezekiel to come near me. Filming would start soon, and I wanted to be on point.
“Okay, Mrs. Colby Lewis,” he responded, getting into character.
I played Ife Lewis, Colby’s wife, in Sins of Miami, the number one all-Black cast soap opera.
Before rehearsing my lines, I scanned over the script, ensuring I remembered everything. For the most part, I knew all my lines. After placing the stack of papers down, I charged at Ezekiel. Our next scene was heated, and I’d just found out he’d been cheating on me with my sister.
“Colby, how could you do this? My sister?” I pounded his chest, careful not to actually hurt him.
His tall, chocolate frame towered over me. “It ain’t what you think, Ife. We were drunk, and it happened once.”
“Drunk? Is that the best excuse you could come up with?” I forced myself to fake cry, something I’d learned how to do on cue. “I can’t do this anymore, Colby! Why didn’t she walk away… Why didn’t you? How could y’all?”
“I don’t know, but she ain’t you, Ife.”
The next part of the scene was me running toward our nightstand and grabbing a fake gun from the drawer. I acted like there was a nightstand in my dressing room and rushed back over to Ezekiel, waving an invisible gun in his face.
“Are you going to answer my questions, or should I go over to my sister’s house and force that bitch to tell me herself?”
“Calm down, Ife. Gimme the gun, baby. Let’s talk about this like civilized adults.”
“Civilized? Funny, I don’t remember you being so civilized when I caught you in Lettie’s bed. Fuck this! That bitch gotta answer to me!”
The rest of the scene consisted of me storming out of the bedroom, still waving the gun around. Ezekiel would chase me and pull me back into the room, where we would wrestle as he tried to pry the gun out of my hand.
We briefly practiced that part, but we didn’t put much energy into the physical part of this scene because we were trying to preserve our energy for when we started our actual filming.
TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP.
We broke away from our characters when we heard the knocking. I glided over to the door and swung it open. It was the production assistant (PA), Wynn. There was no greeting, no smiles, only a “Here, these are for you.”
I stared at the colorful bouquet of roses and a medium-sized holographic color box that had a note attached to it. “They’re from your husband,” she added.
“Thanks,” I said dryly, taking the gifts from her hand. Reason loved showering me with presents, but he was always extra when he thought I wasn’t feeling my best.
Wynn turned around to walk away, but just before she disappeared from sight, she glanced back.
I could’ve sworn she smirked.
I brushed it off.
Everyone knew she’d auditioned for Sins of Miami and didn’t make it. She already had PA experience, so that’s where she ended up instead.
So, yeah. She was bitter. Whatever.
I read the note on the box. Open outside, Beautiful.
I smelled the roses as I stepped a few feet away from the dressing room.
The velvety petals grazed my nose, tickling me.
Reason knew how much I loved roses from Khésha’s floral company, so these gifts were always a delight.
I set the bouquet on a nearby lunch table and unlatched the lock on the box.
The box popped open, and a flutter of butterflies danced around me. The sight was dreamy. Romantic.
Man, he’s so thoughtful. I smiled. My heart warmed, and my kitty purred. Shit, maybe I should give him a baby.
I picked up the note after noticing something was written on the back.
My wife, my lover,
You haven’t been yourself these past few weeks. I see it all, baby, even when you try to act like everything’s fine.
On your worst days, you’re still everything good to me. Even in the moments that try to break you, I need you to remember who you are and how much light you bring into my life.
I’ll do whatever it takes to brighten your world. Every day. Even if that means finding a hundred butterflies just to lift your mood and see you smile.
I love you, Saje.
Your Husband.
A single tear slid down my cheek. Why am I so lucky?
I dried my face before turning around and running into Ezekiel. I jumped. “Shit, you scared me.” I brushed past him and walked back into the dressing room.
Ezekiel entered and closed the door behind him. He stared at the roses before tossing them into the garbage.
“Ezekiel! What the fuck. Why did you do that?” I glared at him, suddenly feeling overheated.
“You know the drill. I ain’t fuckin’ you next to a bouquet of roses the next nigga gifted you.”
I cocked my head to the side. “The next nigga? He’s my husband.”
“Is that right? I thought you forgot you had a husband. I’ve been the one dickin’ you down before and after rehearsal.”
I swallowed before speaking. “You get on my damn nerves, Ezekiel.” The nigga was right, though; he was the one fucking me when we had downtime on set. It all started with us helping each other study for the first time to us fucking each other for the first time the same day.
I've always been a free-spirited type of bitch. The type who always had different options depending on how I was feeling. The type who loved excitement a little more than the average person. Being this way always led to me getting into shit I had no business doing. I thought settling down and getting married would slow my ass down, but that only lasted so long. If you asked me, being married only intensified my need for trouble. The danger behind being sneaky turned me on in ways I couldn’t explain.
Reason was the perfect husband, so why couldn’t I be faithful to the man who would cross the ocean for me? The man who does anything to keep a smile on my face? The man who protects and keeps my heart calm. And I couldn’t forget the man who made my pussy wetter than any other man ever could?
He paid all the bills and allowed me to freely use the money I made on anything my heart desired. The millions I made a year were mine to keep. Reason let me be me, because he trusted that in return, I would be his beautiful, thick, doting wife.
I was all those things, but he didn’t know his wife wasn’t only being a freak with him.
My work husband, Ezekiel, and I took our acting roles a little too serious, but how else would the chemistry come off looking so real on screen? I mean, we were good at our jobs, but there was always room for improvement, and that’s what we did.
No one around us suspected anything.
I had too much to lose. My secret could never get out.
I felt the safest with Reason. But I couldn’t run from temptation, danger, living life on the edge, and good dick. My husband’s dick was the best I’d ever had, but I still strayed.
I’d tried to sit alone and ask myself why.
Why was I like this? The only thing I could come up with was that I grew up sheltered.
Maybe that was the excuse I wanted to believe.
As a teenager, I saw all my friends fucking, partying, and living out their teenage days doing what they wanted while my parents tried to keep me away from it all.
When I turned eighteen, I promised myself I would make up for all the things I missed out on. When I moved on my own and started acting school, I had men at my disposal. That life came with a different caliber of men that I couldn’t stay away from.
I couldn’t believe I’d missed out on good loving. My parents sheltering had turned me into a female beast when I was finally released into the world they tried so hard to keep me hidden from.
It was easier to blame something or someone else for my whorish ways, as society would call it.
But could I really call it that? Free-spirited sounded much better.
Some would say if I wanted to live this lifestyle, I should’ve stayed single and never got married.
My response to any naysayers would be, “I’m not fucking stupid!
Reason St. Pierre is the best of the best. A top-notch nigga.
A sought-after man. The greatest catch of them all.
” He was my muthafuckin’ husband, and I was never letting up off him.
“Saje, turn that ass around,” Ezekiel ordered, breaking me from my thoughts.
He snatched my pants down, exposing my naked ass.
I knew the routine: bent over, leaning on the vanity table for balance, back arched, and ass tooted.
Ezekiel groaned before even entering the pussy. He slid on a condom he retrieved from his pocket and didn’t wait another second to enter me. A moan slipped out, and I tightly closed my eyes, enjoying the sensations his tool created.
“Yesss,” I hissed in a low tone, careful not to be heard.
He had the side of my face pressed against the glass.
Next to my head, my phone vibrated. I struggled to look at the screen and see who texted me.
When I saw Reason’s name, Ezekiel fucked me harder; he must’ve seen his name too.
He released the restriction he had on me, and I speedily picked up my phone while he continued to pound into me.
Hubby: I got a notification that your gifts were delivered. Did it make you smile, baby?
“Throw that big ass back on this dick, Saje,” Ezekiel demanded through gritted teeth.
I did what he asked, causing him to hit it faster. I knew whenever he was on the verge of nutting from the pace of his strokes.
Me: Yes, my love! Thank you. Everything was beautiful. OMG… You’re really the best husband in the world. Reason, I love you so much.
Ezekiel was going crazy inside me. My head rocked back and forth, and my fingers glided all over the screen as I struggled to type out each word.
Reason: I love you too. Glad you loved it. You know I’ll do anything for you. After you finish filming, hurry home. I need to feel that pussy.
“I’m finna fuckin’ bust. Shittt…” Ezekiel growled. His body and dick stiffened as warm cum filled the rubber.
Me: I can’t wait…. I’ma rush home to you daddyyy…
I never thought I’d ever say this, but damn, I hope God doesn’t strike me dead.