Playing Hard To Get

Tamia and Tasha looked hard at the navy blue silk blouse Troy was wearing. Every woman in the city had been admiring the whimsical peasant chemise for days as an ivory mannequin donned it in the window at the midtown Bloomingdale’s.

Troy nodded sheepishly and thanked the bartender for her glass of Diet Coke but when she looked back at Tasha and Tamia, they were still studying the blouse.

She started, “So, Tamia, what’s going—”

“Now, that damn blouse is $795.” Tasha flicked one of the perfectly tailored sleeves.

Tamia nodded.

“So, it’s not a big deal. Just a T. Burch. We all gotta have it. Right?” Troy tried to chuckle the attention off, but she felt like their eyes were digging into her, asking questions and forcing answers in the way that only friends’ knowing eyes can. Kyle saw her clothes every day, but to him they were just articles of fabric. He had no clue as to the value or volume. But these two bystanders were runway connoisseurs. They studied fashion shows the way other humans watched football on Sunday afternoons.

“Yeah, I gotta have it, and Tamia gotta have it, and even the old Troy I used to know had to have it.” Tasha paused and looked to Tamia for a cosign.

“Sure did,” Tamia confirmed.

“But not,” Tasha went on, “the newly saved and sanctified First Lady of First Baptist, Troy Helene Hall. I thought you were supposed to be on some kind of new Christian wife budget, cutting your parents’ money off and only living on what your husband could afford—Payless and Pay-what-nots. Now, I know he’s got a little bank, but Burch? Come on. And I know that Kors skirt anywhere. It’s a spring favo!”11

Troy was trying so hard to come up with a lie to tell her friends, but while she could keep her secrets, which seemed to be tripling these days, from the rest of the world, she couldn’t keep anything from the women sitting beside her. The pressure she’d felt in her gut earlier in the day at the meeting was twisting itself in tight knots in her mind now. The pressure was big, was growing so strong, she knew she had to let it out. Troy closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and started letting those knots loosen.

“I have the shirt in three colors—magenta, yellow, and blue. I have every skirt Kors put out last season. Thirty-two…thirty-seven pairs of shoes, and I preordered every Be&D Hobo for the summer—I haven’t even seen them yet. I spent $7,000 this afternoon in three hours and went by my parents’ place to hide some of the stuff in my old closet.” Without inhaling or looking at either of her friends, Troy reached into her purse and pulled out her little prayer pad. “It’s all there. Everything. Every sin I need to pray for. But I can’t stop it. I can’t.” She finally stopped and looked at Tamia, wiping a tear from her eye as she banged on the bar emphatically. “I can’t stop sinning.”

“Whoa, Christian chica,” Tasha said as she caught Troy’s arm from hitting the bar again and attracting more attention. “No need to put us all to shame. I still have a reputation in this city. The only sin you’ve committed is wearing Tory Burch with Michael Kors. They don’t go together. Kors can only go with Kors. No mixing.”

“Stop it, Tash,” Tamia said. “Troy is serious.” She broke off a bit of chocolate she was eating and gave Troy a piece. “What’s going on up there in Harlem?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, let’s start small,” Tamia said. “You said you spent $7,000 this afternoon. What made you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Troy answered. “It was just like most days. I was at the church and I had a meeting with the Virtuous Women, and…” What little relief Troy was feeling after releasing the secret she’d been hiding for months was erased once she recalled the discussion about the incubus and succubus—the demons in the bedroom.

“Oh no, not the Virtuous Women again!” Tasha rolled her eyes. She’d run into the circle the handful of times an invitation from Troy and Kyle had forced her to attend a function at the church. While their smiles were big and welcomes came by the dozen from members, she found them completely suspicious and ridiculous. Then again, she’d found everything about every church she’d ever been in suspicious and ridiculous. A Hollywood baby with Hollywood principles, growing up she’d trusted only one church—the one on the set of her mother’s soap opera. Now she felt every church in the world was reading from the same silly script.

“Do you guys think sex is a sin?” Troy asked, ignoring Tasha’s disgust. “Not like the sex you have with your husband, sorry, Tamia”—she stopped and patted Tamia on the shoulder sympathetically—“but like wild sex…like wild sex.” Her voice was lowered to a whisper, though no one else in the bar was listening to her.

“Who’s having wild sex?” Tasha perked up. “Somebody’s having wild sex?” She squirmed around in her seat. “I knew Pastor Hall would be tapping that ass in no time flat. He doesn’t look like a missionary man. How does he like it? Downward Facing Dog or Pigeon?”

“Those are yoga poses?” Tamia asked and they all laughed.

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. So, what kind of wild are you talking about, Troy?”

“Everything, anything. He has a penis ring…and this mask…I don’t even know where the mask came from.”

“Oh, he’s a fucking freak,” Tasha said, laughing.

“Oh no.” Troy bowed her head and began to pray.

Tamia and Tasha looked at each other.

“Troy, stop it. Just stop,” Tamia said. “There’s nothing wrong with what you said and you know it.”

“I’m so ashamed. I’m just so ashamed!”

“Of what?” Tasha asked. “That’s your husband. Shit, he was a virgin when you two got married. Can you imagine that? He’s just playing out all of the frustration he lived with for years. Shoot, there’s nothing wrong with a little freakiness in the bedroom. You need to be happy he feels open enough to be that way with you. There are too many husbands out there taking their freaky sides on tour—if you know what I mean.”

“I just feel like maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I made him this way,” Troy said. “Before he met me, he was so focused on his relationship with the Lord, and so pure. Such a good man. And here I am, just corrupting his soul.”

“You sound crazy,” Tasha said flatly.