Diary of A. . . Page 5

  Confused, I asked, “What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t know until it was too late, Sheryl. Until… I saw the bruises.”

  Now I sat down next to her. “So Lauren’s telling the truth?”

  “Almost… well, I’m not sure. I didn’t want to exacerbate the situation.” Taking a deep breath, she said, “And he told me he’d never hurt anyone. I believed him at the time because I was so in love with him.”

  “Who? What exactly happened, Momma? E was my father? Start from the beginning.” I wanted to get angry, but I also wanted to know the truth, too.

  “E Heasly was your father,” she confirmed. “We met when I started this new job at a company he also worked for. He was accused of hurting some young employees at the company, but he said they only said this because he refused to play their sexual games. I had heard other rumors, but he was a charmer, so I believed him. He had this beautiful smile and wonderful personality – you’d have loved him… he was so much like you.”

  Nina looked at me, but I knew she wasn’t seeing me. When I was growing up, she often looked at me like that, as if there was someone else there. Now I know that she was looking at my father all this time. I also finally understood why - Nina was still in love with him.

  This was the first time she had spoken to me in depth about him. I mean I knew his name: E, but whenever I asked about him when growing up, Nina would get angry or just avoid the subject altogether.

  “I guess I was missing a lot of things,” Nina continued. “Home and… well, I threw caution to the wind and let E romance me. He loved how young looking I was. He liked that very much and his strange nuances didn’t faze me until one night we were at the state fair and he was looking at this young teenager with this weird expression on his face. Being so much in love, I ignored this because I was pregnant with you then.”

  “You left him when I was two, right?”

  “Yeah. He was having sexual relations with a seventeen-year-old intern at his company. That’s when I learned your father loved fresh young faces. So I told him I never wanted to see him again. But we had children together and he still wanted to see you. So I told him only if he swore to never allow his personal vices be known to anyone and that included you and Lauren especially. He agreed and that’s why you had to visit him like that.”

  “So what made you all of a sudden stop?”

  “One night you came home after seeing him. You had fallen in some mud and I had taken you into the bathroom to wash up. I saw a bruise on your leg. You told me you fell, but this bruise was on the inside of your leg. It was a thumbprint. His. I just knew it.” Nina looked at me dead serious and hurt. “I also knew that I was not going to take the chance of him hurting you ever again.”

  I wanted to scream that she was a lying whore?! That it couldn’t have been true. I couldn’t find this in my memory anywhere. What she was telling me was so unimaginable that I could never ever in my lifetime believe something like that.

  My father had raped me?

  Entry Eleven

  I really don’t know how long I sat there, pondering what my mother told me. I started thinking back on what Lauren had said to me, too. Some things just didn't sit right with me, but if I said something now, I would be telling my mother she was a liar.

  “When Lauren was young, did she ever say she was raped?” I asked.

  Nina answered snidely, “Ha! That girl practically killed to go over to E’s house every weekend. She would pack her clothes three days in advance, while I had to drag you every time.”

  That I remembered. But why couldn’t I remember everything else?

  “And why wouldn’t Lauren want me to ask you about all this?”

  “Because Lauren has always wanted to divide and conquer. You don’t get involved and she can keep you just where she wants you – away from me. That child has been trying to get attention since you came out my stomach. If she can make herself smell like a rose when she really smells like shit, then she’s happy.”

  Even though Lauren had never said it out loud or done anything I could really say was bad to me, I’d always had a feeling that she was somehow jealous of me for the close relationship that Nina and I had. Though I’d never demanded attention, Nina just genuinely liked me better as a person than Lauren, who tried too hard to please everyone. Sometimes I would see Lauren practically do a song and dance to garner my mother’s attention, while I stood there like a rose. I’d get the praise, but my mother would constantly bark at Lauren to sit down and shut up.

  “So I shouldn’t take all of this with a grain of salt. E’s dead, right?” I tried not to make it sound too much like a question, so I didn’t wait for her to answer. I knew that if I waited, it would tell her that I didn’t believe her. “And that all Lauren is imagining is-”

  “Pregnant woman craziness,” Nina cut me off with this suspicious look in her eyes.

  “Do you think E raped me when I was little?”

  “I’m not sure what he did to you, Sheryl.” Nina sighed. “I didn’t take you to the doctor. I didn’t want to ruin the man, but I made him swear never to set eyes on you again. That if he did, I’d run to the police and tell them. I’d ruin him and his business.”

  “He agreed?” I asked quietly.

  “Yes, he agreed and even made the offer to keep giving me child support for the both of you.” She took a deep cool breath. “E was giving like that. He thought of everything. Shortly after, the accident happened and that was it.”

  I left, not really wanting to speak about it anymore. At one point my mother sounded like she hated this man, but at another point it was as if she still loved him. She was torn between her daughters and the truth.

  But had anyone ever asked E what had been done? My mother said she made accusations, but Nina was a lot like me. She probably didn’t ask outright because she still wanted the respect of him.

  If E was still alive, maybe he was just keeping to the promise. Maybe it was better to stay away from what he wanted than to be around what he couldn’t have.

  I was deeply bothered by all this and got very little sleep.

  Awaking Monday morning, I trudged into work with a lot on my mind and plate. Cassandra arrived on time and brought my coffee while reminding me of all the appointments. I made very little changes to the schedule before handing her some reports to correct and some to retype.

  “Can I ask a question?” she asked.

  “Sure.” I sipped my coffee, looking at her over the brim of the cup. Today she was dressed in this flowery vintage dress that reminded me of Carol Brady, except more contemporized.

  Cassandra tilted her head to the side, which meant she was about to get personal. I had picked up on all her vices on her first day. I was like that with people.

  “What’s the deal with Lisa?”

  I rolled my eyes heavenwards. “Well, my last assistant got the story from the office gossip pool, so I’m not sure how it is because I rarely believe office fodder.” I put my coffee down and pointed to the chair in front of my desk. “Lisa was the boss’s secretary for a long while when he was here in Detroit.”

  “Have you ever met Earl?”

  “No. I was hired by the Florida office manager actually, and although I’ve gotten correspondence from him, I’ve never personally met him. I’ve even done conference calls in meetings, but …” I drifted off in my thoughts for a moment because that suddenly seemed strange to me.

  I think everyone in the company has had direct contact with Earl, except me. With me it has always been non-face-to-face. I never paid much attention to that fact before probably because I was always rewarded for my success and for being a good employee

  “Any way, Lisa overstepped her bounds once or twice and Earl had to show her who was boss,” I continued. “When he decided to move the head office to Florida, she was left here while he hired a new assistant.” Internally I also noted when he moved the head office down there that was when I was offered the position up h
ere.

  Very strange.

  “A lot of people said she was about to get fired, but for some reason Erin kept her. They have this hate-hate relationship. Lisa does the work, but she hates Erin,” I went on to say.

  “So why doesn’t she quit?”

  “She likely has few prospects outside of the company, so it’s probably better to just stay since she can’t go anywhere else. Plus, no one wants to work for Erin.”

  “You can say that again. She has something against you.”

  “How do you know, Cassandra?”

  “Because when I came here over the weekend, she was here, too. She decided to take me to lunch since we were the only ones working.”

  I was shocked. “Why’d you come and work over the weekend?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. It was on my own time. My husband was out of town, so I decided to stay out of trouble and straighten up the files. There were a lot of things that needed to be boxed away from last year that were completed.”

  “Thanks, Cassandra. That was so sweet of you. Okay, so what did Erin say about me?”

  “Well, she first wanted to know had you told me anything about how you’d gotten the job. I told her no, but I would assume just from the short time of knowing you, that you knew what you were doing and could do it very well with your arms tied behind your back.”

  I giggled and thanked Cassandra for the compliment.

  She smiled. “So she says she can’t figure the damn thing out. One moment Earl was in a piss ass mood about things not going right with the big auto show project. The next thing she knew he was talking about moving the head office down to Florida and bringing you up here for this position. She thought he was going half–crazy, bent on ruining his own company. But it worked and that seemed to piss her off.”

  I was amazed that Earl, who’d never met me personally, had so much confidence in me. Certainly enough to leave me responsible like that.

  Cassandra continued, “I told her of course it would work, because you’re damn good. She was sick of my praise and changed the subject to find out my experience. Anytime the subject went back to you, she quickly avoided it and would say flip remarks.”

  Erin’s deep-seated animosity towards me was strange. What the hell did I do to her?

  An hour later, Cassandra delivered my tickets for New York on my desk. I was to leave Wednesday and return Friday. Just in time for Brian McKnight! I was going to ask Mack to the concert.

  I had Cassandra call Seldom Blues in the GM Headquarters and order a four course dinner to be delivered to my home, while I arranged with a private service to spruce up my place. This way, when I picked up Mackeroy from the airport, we could come straight to my place and have a great night together.

  I went over to Peter’s office before lunch. He was just getting off the phone with Earl. I locked the door behind me because if things were like I bet they were, there’d be some loud talking in here and I didn’t want people to just walk in to distract Peter.

  “Hey! Earl and I were just speaking of you,” Peter said.

  I raised a curious brow. “Oh really? I thought he’d be offering congratulations to you.”

  “For what?” he asked confused.

  “The birth of the baby. What was it? A boy or girl?”

  “A boy.”

  “How much did it weigh?”

  He chuckled nervously. “You know that’s women’s stuff, Sheryl. I’m just happy he’s healthy.”

  “Funny ‘cause I saw Lenecia on Saturday and she didn’t look like she’d had the baby at all.”

  The smile on his face faded. If I was wrong he was supposed to say something like, ‘Who’s Lenecia?’ or ‘What are you talking about?’

  Peter didn’t say any of those things! He just looked at me like he had farted, but was hoping I didn’t hear.

  “Can you tell me why you really wanted me to meet Mackeroy?” I asked, sitting on the desk next to him.

  “Okay, Sheryl. Lee had false labor pains and I just didn’t want to sound foolish that I had blown things out of proportion.”

  I leaned close to him. “Oh really?”

  “Yes.”

  I decided to pull his card to see if he was still lying. “You aren’t a good liar, Peter.”

  He huffed angrily. “Dammit, Sheryl. Earl was on my ass to get Mackeroy’s account and I knew a pretty face like yours could sway him.”

  I didn’t expect him to come out like that. When I didn’t say anything, Peter kept on talking.

  “Earl was on my ass like white on rice about getting the account and I couldn’t disappoint or I’d be on his shit list. He was already pissed about not being able to fire Lisa, so he was looking for anyone he could toss out on their asses. I had to not make myself the target. I knew when he left this office, he had depended upon me to get the Mackeroy account. I also knew I was losing. Mackeroy didn’t seem too enthused on account of how damn uptight I was. So I thought if I sent you in, you’d show him that incredible brilliance and beautiful face, and he’d think of going with us.”

  “If you wanted to use me, why didn’t you come and ask?” I asked insulted.

  “Because I knew a woman like you would say no.”

  I would have. “It was wrong and I’m going to tell Earl.” I started to get up from the desk.

  He grabbed my arm and fell on his knees in front of me. “NO! Please, Sheryl!” he begged.

  I was angry with him for his deceit. Son of a bitch cracker tried to use me like a whore.

  Dammit!

  His hold on my arm was tight as I tried to wrench away without causing any bruising to myself.

  “Sheryl, please don’t.”

  “Let me go!” I said angrily.

  “Anything, Sheryl. Anything. I swear I’ll do… I’ll do anything.”

  I had almost gotten my arm free, but he pressed his face against my stomach. He was a desperate man.

  “If you say anything to Earl, he’ll fire me. I can’t lose my job.”

  Peter was now officially on my shit list and I really wanted to hurt him.

  “Too fucking bad,” I sneered.

  “Please!” he begged. “I’ll do anything!”

  I stopped trying to wrench my arm and then really looked down at Peter on his knees. I remembered his wife’s words. ‘I never said he wouldn’t, he just doesn’t like it that much.’

  “Anything?” I asked.

  He nodded eagerly.

  I smiled evilly and relaxed a little to throw him off. “Well, lick your lips, Peter, because you’re going to do a lot more than ass kissing to keep me from telling Earl what you did.”

  Entry Twelve

  Peter looked downright perplexed at the triumphant look I had in my eyes.

  I placed one of my hands on his broad shoulders and said, “I think you have to make me very happy, Peter.” With my other hand, I raised my skirt until my garter showed.

  He looked down at my exposed thighs and then back up at me again, still confused.

  I raised my skirt even higher. “You’re going to have to pay a lot of penance and you’ll do it until I say stop.”

  His mouth dropped open in shock. He started to move away, but I gripped his shoulders firmer. “I-I can’t.” There was disgust, but agony dancing around in those eyes of his. I got a thrill out of seeing his distress.

  Serves you right, asshole! Damn, I could be a real bitch sometimes!

  “You want me to keep my mouth closed, don’t you?” I said.

  He stopped trying to move away and nodded miserably.

  “Then you’ll have to keep your mouth open for me.”

  “Sheryl, this is-”

  “Please don’t get a conscience now, you deceiving asshole,” I sneered. “Do it and do it until I say stop.”

  Agonized, he looked down again. My red underwear was now showing. If he looked close enough he could see my fat pussy getting excited. I could just imagine it seeping honey, waiting for him to kiss it.

  “We don�
��t have all day,” I said, leaning back on the desk and spreading my legs more. “Just move my panties out the way and dig in. It’s lunchtime.”

  I thought he was going to throw up, but hell if I cared. Payback was a bitch.

  He leaned his soft thick head of hair towards my pussy and gently pulled my panties out the way. His tongue slowly came out and touched my thick swollen feminine lips.

  “Come on, Peter, I know you can do better than that.”

  He looked up at me and I really thought he was ready to cry. “Please don’t make me.”

  “Don’t start begging. You should have been doing that when you wanted me to see Mackeroy. I might have changed my mind, but now you gotta pay the piper and I want you to suffer. So eat me good, little man, and you’ll do it whenever I say so.”

  In a voice that was almost a sobering whisper, he said, “I-I don’t know how.”

  “Then I’ll tell you.” I placed my finger in the groves of my nether lips and pulled up so that my clitoris almost waved to Peter’s mouth. “That’s my sensitive spot. Your job is to make her scream in glory without directly touching her. You’ll know if you’re doing the job, by how wet I get.” I tenderly placed a fingertip to catch some of my dripping honey and then held it to his lips. “Open up!” I ordered.

  Reluctantly he did and I rubbed my honey on the tip of his tongue. “Suck it off.”

  He did.

  Gawd, the power was orgasmic.

  “You can lick wherever you want, but you can’t touch or taste her until I say so.”

  “T-That’s it?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Before I could move my hand away, the white man leaned his head and began to lap around my lips, down my grove and even suckled the honey from my warm womanly cavern.

  “Slow down, sugar,” I said, trying not to sound like it was affecting me. I closed my eyes and concentrated on his actions. First it felt like he was licking a Popsicle. Once he slowed down, he’d go from base to apex and then back down again all the way to the perineum.

  “Slower,” I ordered and then bit my lip as his tongue seemed to flutter as he tried to go very slow. “Now vary the licks.”