Total Eclipse of the Heart

“Two reasons, Patrick. I want to have a purpose to my life.” I used the word purpose because Damon had used it earlier that day. His purpose was Able Minded Dating, and I had to have a purpose as well.

  “Okay, so you want to have a purpose. What’s the other reason?”

  “If I ever allowed you to take care of me completely, that would only signify control to you. I may not have your economic stature and I probably never will, but I do have pride and I won’t be controlled. Not anymore.”

  “Are you trying to say that I’ve controlled you in the past?”

  I sat down on the sofa and he took a seat beside me, glaring at me; I could tell that he was trying to hold back his anger at my implication.

  “Yes, Patrick, in many ways, I allowed you to control my mind and my actions in the past. Catching you with Mandawhore changed all of that for me. It made me realize that your love for me can be easily penetrated. It made me—”

  “I have not talked to Mandy. Not Mandy or anyone else.”

  “I want to believe you … I really do. Once trust is lost, it does not come back on autopilot. It has to be regenerated, and all I can say is that I’m trying. I’m making a serious attempt to have faith that I’m woman enough for you.” I paused. “No, I take that back. I am woman enough for you; I am woman enough for anybody, but I am not for everybody. Now I have to determine if I am for you.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Brooke.” He shook his head in dismay. “We’ve been a couple for a long time. I take you around my friends, my family. We live together. I want to marry you. I adore—”

  “We don’t live together. I’m staying here temporarily.”

  “Whatever, Brooke!” Patrick got up and walked over to the wet bar to fix himself a snifter of brandy. “You’re here every night and have been for months. If it makes you feel better to perpetrate by keeping some items at Destiny’s, so be it. As long as you’re here, that’s all that matters.”

  “Your friends and family think that I’m beneath you. You take me around them, but I don’t want to be there. I tolerate it, for you.”

  “Maybe if you were friendlier toward them, they would open up to you, but you don’t even make any effort. You run around telling everyone to kiss your monkey and roll your eyes at them.”

  I suppressed a laugh, thinking about how I had had to explain the term monkey to Damon earlier. When I mentioned my pussy, he seemed uneasy. I wondered what kind of lover Damon was—surely nothing like Patrick. I was willing to bet that he didn’t attempt to fuck his wife’s skull and call her a bitch. He was probably tender, slow, and took his time with a woman’s body, making sure that every fiber of her being was catered to.

  “Did you hear what I said, Brooke?”

  I pulled myself out of my wet dream. Damon was at home with Carleigh, and I was at Patrick’s home—not mine—with him.

  “I heard what you said and I never started any of the drama with your people. They prejudged me before I could ever open my mouth. But we made a decision to be together, and you knew, from jump, that it was going to be an issue. Maybe you should have left me where you met me.”

  “This is silly.” Patrick started walking off to the bedroom. “I’ll go run you a bath.”

  After my bath, I lay there in Patrick’s arms, feeling his chest rise and fall against my back as he slept. He was making a sincere effort to work things out with me; that point couldn’t be denied. But could a man really change overnight? Could his train of thought, his tendency to troll for pussy, his need for complete control, all evaporate into thin air in the name of love?

  My mind wandered to Damon. I wondered what he was doing at that very moment. I imagined him sitting at a computer—maybe in a home office—logged on to the administrative back-end office of ablemindeddating.com, watching the membership numbers increase by droves. I prayed that he was not in bed with his wife, making sweet, passionate love to her. Then again, how was that any of my business?

  I sighed and stared up at Patrick’s face. He seemed so peaceful having me there. I realized that his behavior was not all his fault. Hell, all of us are simply culminations of everything we have ever been taught, experienced, or observed. His parents had money, true enough, but money damn sure couldn’t buy happiness. They were living proof of that. So were Patrick and I. People don’t realize that they can live in the biggest palace in the world and have all the riches, but sooner or later, after entering big iron gates and driving up a winding driveway hundreds of times, complacency sets in and it’s no longer a big deal.

  I really wanted to work things out with Patrick. For so long, he had meant the world to me, and I had put a lot of time, sweat, and emotion into our union. There was another problem. My feelings for Damon. What on earth was I going to do?

  Brooke

  May 4, 2008

  I WOKE up the next morning with Patrick’s dick trying to part my lips.

  I turned my head slightly, so that I could speak. “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Come on, Brooke. I need my medicine.”

  I decided to get the ordeal over with, positioned my head in place, and started sucking him off. After he came in my mouth, I tried to make a beeline for the bathroom to brush my teeth and gargle with mouthwash; he wouldn’t let me.

  “Give me a kiss.”

  “I don’t want to,” I protested.

  “Baby, you agreed that you’d be more experimental when it comes to sex. That’s the only reason that I …”

  “That you what? Fucked Mandy?”

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he started lifting up my nightgown, then moved my panties to the side so he could ram two fingers up my pussy.

  “Patrick, you don’t have to remind me of how Mandy broke your ass off. I witnessed it, remember?” I pulled his hand out my monkey. “If you’re implying that you might cheat on me again since I won’t kiss you with your sperm in my mouth, then commence to cheating. I am not doing that shit—today, tomorrow, or ever!” I jumped off the bed. “What kind of freak are you, anyway? Why would you want to taste your own semen?”

  He followed me into the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth like I had six months of plaque buildup.

  “Actually, I was thinking, maybe we could try some new things.”

  I paused and stared at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. “Like?”

  “I was talking to this friend of mine, another attorney, and he told me that he eats his woman’s pussy and lets her cum in his mouth.”

  I shrugged. “And? You eat my pussy all the time and I cum.”

  “Yeah, but once she cums, he doesn’t swallow it. He holds it in his mouth and then kisses her and feeds it to her.”

  I stood straight up, with toothpaste hanging out of my mouth and drizzling on my chin. “That is the most disgusting shit I’ve ever heard!”

  He folded his arms across his chest in defiance. “See, that’s exactly what I mean. You refuse to experiment.”

  I rinsed my mouth out and gargled twice before I responded. Then I turned to face him. “That’s not an experiment, Patrick. That’s a travesty to mankind. News flash: the human race has evolved since the days of barbarians.”

  I brushed past him on my way into the bedroom to get dressed. I put on some deodorant, body spray, and lotion, all the while listening to him rant.

  “This is the twenty-first century, baby. You need to get with the program. People today are different.”

  “What’s so damn wrong with regular, old-fashioned lovemaking? Why does it have to be dipped in perversion and kinkiness? I don’t mind different positions, Patrick. Hell, I’m the one that bought that book about sex positions, and the one about erotic massage. I’ll do the Kama Sutra; I’ll do a bunch of shit.” I finished getting dressed and grabbed my purse and keys. Then I glared at him. “But we won’t be swapping spit-and-cum mixtures in this lifetime, and if you don’t like it, you can kiss my monkey and my entire ass!”

  Patrick glared at me. “I’m going to pretend like you
didn’t say that. I’m going to head over to the firm. I have court this afternoon and need to prepare some documents.”

  I chuckled. I was the one dressed and about to haul ass. Yet he tried to make it seem like I was suddenly holding up his day.

  “Well, I’m going to head on over to the diner and serve breakfast and lunch, and then I’m going to spend the night at home.”

  “Cool. I should be back around six.”

  He didn’t get it. “Have fun then. Destiny and I are going to watch some classics on AMC.”

  “This is your home, Brooke. No matter how much you deny it. Home is where the heart is. Remember that.”

  Patrick walked off into the kitchen to make his morning pot of coffee. I stood there for a moment, then headed out. I was so confused. One minute I wanted him—truly wanted him—and the next I wanted to get as far away from him as possible.

  Destiny came to the diner for lunch. I waited on her at the counter after she took the last stool near the restrooms. She grimaced as a man exited the men’s room and a stench came out behind him.

  “For the life of me, I don’t know why restaurants put any seats so close to the damn bathroom.”

  “Destiny, please, look at the size of this place. The only other place they could put them would be outside, and how nasty is that?”

  Destiny swatted at her nose with her freshly manicured fingernails.

  She had a valid point; the bathrooms at the diner gave a new meaning to stanky. I would often wait until after my shift to even take a piss. That was not healthy though. I heard about one woman who refused to use public bathrooms and ended up with a bad appendix. Our bathrooms were disgusting, but I was not about to make a comment to Hank. He would have tried to make bathroom cleaning one of my duties, and that shit was not happening.

  “Can you take a break now?” Destiny asked, scanning the menu she had seen a hundred times. The selections hadn’t been updated in years.

  “Not officially, but I can talk. What’s up?” I poured her a glass of sweetened iced tea from a metal pitcher.

  “How did it go yesterday? At Damon’s event? Sorry I couldn’t make it. You know how I love soul food.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “So all you were worried about was the food?” Destiny shrugged, and I leaned on the counter with my elbows and grinned, ignoring her selfishness. “Yesterday was great! Damon’s really doing something powerful with that site. It’s funny how you never recognize the needs of others unless you can directly relate to them.”

  “True. I guess having a disability himself gave him a reality check. This man who works with me is going to join. He’s in a wheelchair.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Car accident, last year. His wife left him and is already remarried. That’s fucked-up.”

  I sighed. “Love is supposed to be unconditional, but it rarely seems like it.”

  Destiny pouted. “Tell me about it.” She closed the menu and stuck it back into the metal holding bracket. “He was with her for almost fifteen years and they have three kids. That tramp still rolled out on him in her car, leaving him to roll around in his wheelchair alone.”

  “What do you want for lunch?” I asked, deciding that the topic was depressing me.

  “I’m going to be good today. Give me the chicken-strip salad with low-fat ranch dressing.”

  “Grilled or fried chicken strips?”

  “Fried.”

  “Then you’re not being too damn good,” I said, chastising her.

  She laughed. “Whatever, hooker. Harold and I are going out to eat tonight so I don’t want to overdo it.”

  “Speaking of tonight, I lied and told Patrick we were having movie night at your place. You mind if I crash there?”

  “Of course not.” She took a sip of her tea. “Sick of his ass again, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  I walked away for a second to stick the order sheet on the revolving clips so they could start preparing Destiny’s salad. After catering to a few others seated at the counter—with fresh coffee and one slice of key lime pie—I came back over to her.

  She continued like we hadn’t missed a beat. “Something like that, huh? What happened this time, Brooke?”

  I was getting irritated, even though I realized Destiny meant well. “No one is perfect. Not Patrick and not Harold.”

  “Okay, forget it. I don’t want to play tit-for-tat relationship drama with you. I’ll stay with Harold tonight so you can meditate on some things. Cool?”

  “Thanks, Destiny.”

  “You’re welcome.” She nodded toward the heat counter where her salad was waiting. The cook must have thought we were playing that Diner Dash video game because he broke a record making it. “Now go get my shit so I can eat and get back to work on time.”

  We both laughed.

  After Destiny was gone and the lunch crowd had slowed down, I made a mug of hot tea, leaned onto the counter, and observed people. One couple in particular caught my eye. They had been in the diner for a good two hours and were seated in Tony’s section. Normally, they would have been asked to give up their booth by now, but since they didn’t seem homeless or like they were using the seats as a waiting room, no one had bothered them.

  They were obviously having a deep, heated conversation. Drama recognizes drama, and I’d had enough arguments with Patrick to recognize one. I wondered which of them had fucked up the relationship first. Was it intentional or a mistake? Had one cheated on the other? Or were they both caught up in a toxic situation because they were trying to hang on to each other?

  “What are you staring at?” Tony asked, walking up behind me at the counter.

  “Your customers over there.” I nodded and cut my eyes toward him. “They’ve been here for a minute.”

  “I wish they would get the hell on,” he said in his high-pitched voice. Tony was openly homosexual and I could appreciate his not playing games. “I’ve refilled their damn water glasses a hundred times.”

  “Stop exaggerating.” I slapped him playfully on the arm. “They’re into something heavy over there.”

  “Don’t I know it!” Tony smirked. I looked at him and he raised a brow. “What? So I may have overheard a word or two.”

  “Okay, spill it.”

  Tony sighed. “Well, Miss Thing wants to take their relationship to the next level and move in together, but Mr. Player is not even having it. He wants to be free to roam and eat a variety of cookies.”

  “Is that so?” I asked, prodding Tony to continue.

  “She thinks he’s cheating on her, and that’s a safe bet. Shit, he’s even been checking me out.”

  “Be for real!”

  “I’m serious, Brooke. You’d be surprised how many men who look like him really want some of my ill na na.” Tony started gyrating his ass cheeks while he had a coffee urn in his hand. “I might slip him my number when he pays the check and see what’s up.”

  I took a long look at the man in the booth and couldn’t believe that he’d have sex with another man. Then again, what the fuck did I know? I didn’t think Patrick would have sex with another woman and cheat on me.

  “This world has truly gone to shit,” I said to Tony.

  “True, but I’m going to enjoy my time here. And if that brother over there wants some of my goodies, I’m willing to give them to him all … night … long.”

  Suddenly, the man got up from the booth and walked toward the bathroom. Tony smiled at him, and I will be damned if the man didn’t blush. As he passed us, Tony sniffed the air to inhale his cologne—which did smell good—and then whispered to him, “Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?”

  The man blushed even harder and continued on to the bathroom.

  Tony put the coffee urn down and straightened up the folded apron around his waist. “Forget about waiting to slip him my number on the check. I’m about to make my move.”

  As he walked around the counter, I was stunned. “Tony, wh
at are you doing?”

  Tony glanced at me and winked. “Just keep an eye on my section for a few, especially that floozy.” He looked toward the booth where the man’s girlfriend was seated. “Keep a lookout for a brother.”

  I couldn’t believe what was happening. Not in the diner! Not in the nasty-ass bathroom! Yuck!

  Sure enough, Tony and that man didn’t reappear for a good fifteen minutes. I kept an eye on Tony’s section and even poured the poor woman another cup of coffee while she waited for her man. Hank was busy in the kitchen yelling at the cook and the dishwasher, who probably didn’t understand a word he was saying. They understood limited English, but not all of that bullshit Hank was spewing.

  Finally, the man emerged from the bathroom first, zipping up his jeans, with a big old grin on his damn face. I watched him walk over to his girlfriend, but he didn’t sit back down. He threw a twenty on the table and told her, “Come on, let’s jet. I have a meeting.”

  She said, “What took you so long in there? Are you feeling okay?”

  He chuckled. “I’m feeling great. Just needed some relief, that’s all.”

  Relief, my ass, I thought.

  No sooner had they walked out of the diner and pulled off in a white Lexus than Tony was coming out of the bathroom, wiping his bottom lip and then licking it like it had honey on it. Yuck!

  Once he was back behind the counter beside me, I said, “Please tell me that you didn’t do what I think you just did.”

  Tony giggled. “I got me a little sample. It was good, too. Tasted like sweet cream.” I shook my head in dismay as he added, “Byron’s going to call me later. I wrote my number on his dick so he wouldn’t lose it.”

  I whispered, “You wrote your number on his dick?”

  “Yes, and I wrote it big. All over his ten inches.”

  “Ten inches! Damn, what a waste!”

  “Ain’t a damn thing going to waste around me. Bank on that.”

  As I watched Tony switch off toward the kitchen, I shook my head again. Out to lunch with his woman and that man went into the bathroom to get a blow job from another man. The world had truly gone to shit.