“Well, he knows, I’m sure, but I have not officially come out of the closet to him. God, I haven’t figured that part out yet. This was kind of spur of the moment.”
“Wow, I can’t believe you just called everyone out of the blue like that.”
“It’s not out of the blue for me. I’ve been dealing with this for years, you know.”
“I know. Are you okay?”
“I’m good, just tired. Well, to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel right now. I think I just want to chill.”
“Well, call me back if you need to talk.”
I hung up the cell phone and continued to pace while I smoked another cigarette. It was late and the streetlamps attracted swarms of bugs. I watched them swirl and bounce around each other, completely disoriented.
I couldn’t relax. My thoughts circled my head like the moths in the light. I finally sat on the curb to smoke one cigarette after the other as I shut off my phone and didn’t get up until my throat hurt from smoking too much. Eventually, I went to bed tormented between deep thoughts and numbness.
The next day I called Mandy after classes. “I came out of the closet to my family last night. I’ve done it now. There is no turning back at this point, Mandeesa. How did you come out?” I asked.
“I never did, really. I just dated women. My family never asked either. I don’t have a coming out story, girl.”
“Well, I have, like, three of them, and they all suck. Technically four, if you count when I hung up on my mom. You can have one of mine.”
We said our goodbyes and ended the call.
My search for something to write on began the moment we ended the call. It was time to tell my story.
An unused yellow legal pad and a pen that only worked half the time came of my feverish searching. My first written line was an attempt at being a smart ass: Ode to the mighty dry hump; the godsend to any little girl’s clitoral repertoire.
About twelve handwritten pages into the story, Zelda phoned. I had to step outside to get reception. “I am going to write a book,” I told her.
“About what?” Zelda asked.
“My life. Check this out. This is the first line.” I read it to her and waited for a response, you know a giggle or something, anything.
“What the hell does that mean?” Her self-proclaimed lack of education was apparent.
She once yelled at me when I said I was “humble” about my artwork. She screamed at me to get off my high horse and called me vain. I tried to explain what the word meant, but she yelled even harder for treating her like she was an idiot. It took much restraint to remind myself that she was phenomenal in bed and was willing to show me her pussy at the club; otherwise, I would have told that dumb bitch to kick rocks.
“What do you mean, which part, Zelda?”
“That’s not funny. What’s an ode? I don’t get it. I heard ‘dry hump’ and ‘clit.’”
“Forget it. The point is I’m writing a book.”
“For what? Listen, I called because I got tickets to come and see you with the money I won.”
“Why don’t you pay your bills off first, and then come see me?”
“I did.”
“No, Zelda, I mean like pay three months in advance so you don’t have to worry for a while.”
Our conversation seamlessly blended from being responsible with her money to something vulgar and sexual.
Within minutes of finally hanging up, Private Marche, my easy listening station, text messaged me her request to stay the weekend. She was a welcome relief from everything that was going on in my life. By the time she arrived on Friday evening, I was well into thirty handwritten pages of an autobiography. She encouraged me to use her computer for the next week to help the creative process.
That’s all I needed to become dedicated to the cause. My butt was glued to the wooden chair in my room, which was laden with several pillows and two blankets. I became a recluse, perfectly content listening to the same song on repeat for six and a half hours. My breaks were utilized to urinate and perform a deep groin stretch when my ass went numb. Food was delivered and eaten as I typed and stared at the blinking cursor on the screen. The focus was pure and somewhat animalistic. Like how a lioness must become when she zeroes in on her kill at a watering hole.
My story didn’t need to be told; it had to be told. I felt compelled and convinced this book was my calling.
Unbeknownst to me, a week had passed by the time Marche visited again. Excitedly, we scrolled through pages of text to exploit the work I had been committed to while she was training.
“Can I read it?” she asked. Her interest made me proud as she read my unedited draft. Her facial expressions morphed through each emotion. She giggled out loud a few times, smirked a lot, and then her face went serious before she finally finished with a soft sigh. “It’s good. I want to read more. It kind of made me horny.”
With laughter and delight, I bounced on the corner of the bed. “Would you buy it?”
“Yes, I’d buy it.” She swirled around in the shitty computer chair to face me.
“Good. So, you’re horny, huh? Maybe we can fix that.” She caught my suggestion without hesitation. Marche was becoming less timid with each sexual encounter. The dynamic was certainly getting stronger, but the chemistry with Zelda far surpassed what Marche was able to bring.
Infatuation is an understatement when it came to Zelda. It was more like one hundred percent lust. Her visit was less than memorable, but we shared some good times before her return to Vegas. Her presence lingered beyond her stay and became a nuisance to my friendships. She was the topic of every conversation because I was still in heat, a Zelda-heat, days after she left. Mandy and Marche suffered through each idolizing speech about her with glazed, disinterested eyes.
In a last-ditch effort to gain my undivided attention, Marche asked me to take her out for her twenty-first birthday.
Private Marche, try as she might, could not match the heavy drinking standards to which Mandy and I were accustomed. Her attempts to match our shots ended in a parking lot vomiting session as we waited for our cab to arrive.
She crawled onto my lap and rested her head on my shoulder as the driver shot me a warning look from the rearview mirror. I rubbed her back, occasionally kissed her forehead, and hummed a song the entire trip back to the barracks. She apologized the next morning on the phone and was quite upset that the last night we shared together was wasted in a drunken stupor. “I just wanted to be with you one more time before I went back to Illinois.” Her voice was tired and scratching at my ear through the phone.
“You had fun, right? That’s what twenty-first birthdays are for!”
I heard a smile through her attempts to lick her lips. “I really did. I had so much fun with you, thank you. I just…wanted to be with you and I fucked it up.”
“Aw, I’ll miss you, Squishy. Remember to go forth and be bold! Don’t let any more women walk all over you.”
Marche laughed at the nickname. “Got it. I’ll miss you too.”
We said our goodbyes and Private Marche returned to her home state the next afternoon.
We’d met at a crossroads where I needed her as much as she needed me to teach her independence. Giving her advice was easy. Following my own words of wisdom would prove to be more challenging.
CHAPTER 14
In the week prior to my return home, my nerves unsettled me into a constant state of nausea. My stomach was constantly churning with worry and anxiety, and it became difficult to eat.
Zelda, Douglas, and Patty called daily with questions about flight information and to ask about my general well-being because they loved me. I’m afraid, however, this description oversimplifies things. It doesn’t register as a problem until you realize that this was a minimum of three separate phone calls typically lasting thirty minutes apiece, which would have been fine had they left it at that. But, it was multiple calls from each individual person who just wanted to chat, verify flight details, or simply say goodnight. Between the truth that needed to be told and the calls, my anxiety level peaked for the entire seven days. Guilt over everything weighed heavy on my shoulders. I prayed for an impossible prayer to be answered—more time.