Nervous

Her left eyebrow went up in the air. “How can you have sex and not know it?” she asked incredulously.

I knew all of it was too much to believe. Hell, I could barely believe it myself and I was living it. “Momma, it happened and it’s going to continue to happen if I don’t do something to stop it. To stop her.”

Momma let my hand go. “Her?”

“Apparently, she calls herself Jude.”

“Jude?”

“Yes. Jude.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because Dr. Spencer met her. She “came out” in her office when I was contemplating about reaching out to Daddy.”

Momma laughed uneasily and ran her fingers through her hair. “Came out?”

“Took over. Took control.” I took her hand again. I needed that connection, even if she didn’t. “It seems that she hates Daddy for some reason and that was the trigger that made her show herself.”

Momma looked confused. “Why would she hate Henry?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because he wanted to get help for me when I was younger and she was all about self-preservation.”

“So how long has this Jude person been around?”

“According to her, since damn near the beginning.”

A look of revelation shot across Momma’s face. “Then since she hates Henry so much, do you think it’s possible . . . ”

It suddenly hit me at the same time it hit Momma. “She could’ve been the one who set him up.” I let her hand go, jumped up and started pacing the floor. “That’s it! That’s why I don’t remember anything about Thanksgiving Day. Jude was in control and somehow, she did it. She planned the entire thing. Now that I think about it, I had some money stashed away in my sock drawer and when I searched for it the following weekend to go clothes shopping, it was gone. That must have been what she used to pay the woman.”

“She probably paid that whore money to show up and say she was screwing Henry,” Momma said, jumping up also. “Oh my God, that means our marriage ended for nothing. All these years wasted.”

Momma broke down in tears. I held her tightly in an embrace. “It’s okay, Momma. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

She looked at me with glazed-over eyes. “So what do we do now?”

“We get help. All of us.”

32

jude

I seriously needed to relieve some stress. This was just getting to be too much. I had seen a late night infomercial for an online dating service several times, after returning to Jon’s apartment from a fuck hunt.

I sat down at Jon’s computer and signed on to her account. The computer was slow as shit because she refused to get a DSL line or a cable modem. I clicked on the internet and signed on to my free account that she knew nothing about. My latest screen name was DurtyDeedz.

I made a quick stop by Blackgentlemen.com to see if any new bachelors had been added. All I could say was, “My, oh my!” The commercials for the website are what motivated me to check it out. I was shocked to see the way it was laid out. It was a free site, but I didn’t want to join. I rather decided to tour the site as a guest. They had me check two boxes; one telling my sex and the other telling which sex I was searching for. I checked female and then male and hit continue. Then they asked if I just wanted to hang out and meet people, seek out a committed relationship, or just try something wild and freaky. Of course, I chose the wild and freaky button. It then asked me what age group I was interested in, what my zip code was, and what my sexual interests were. I entered 30344 as my zip code and selected the domination and submission button. What the fuck!

I was surprised to see a ton of matches come up with pictures included on the site. Now being on a bachelor or bachelorette site is one thing, but being on a site and announcing to the world that you are into domination and submission is another thing altogether. It was cool by me because it just made me hornier to know I wasn’t the only freak of the week. The real trip was the fact that at least half of them were married. It’s a small world and I could imagine the beatdown some of them must have gotten when their wives, or worse, one of their wives’ friends spotted the ad and then spread the word to all the other friends, associates, and family members.

I scanned the ads, mostly checking out the pictures, since most of them were jacked up and easy to eliminate. I finally spotted a thirty-nine-year-old male named DickinUDown. He said he was five-eleven with a muscular body and that he didn’t smoke but he drank sociably. He also said that he was open to conventional sex, sex with a couple, sex with no intercourse, and domination and submission.

He was looking kind of fly in his picture, even though it was sort of blurry. I decided to email him and get straight to the motherfucking point.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]