“Even if I told them who I am, they wouldn’t apologize. That would mean admitting what they did. I wonder if they ever discuss it with each other anymore, or if they’ve attempted to block it all out. Maybe they blamed it on the alcohol and drugs, and reasoned that it was a mistake. But it wasn’t a fucking mistake. A mistake is making an oversight on a question on your final exam. A mistake is making salmon patties with a packet of crab cake seasoning because they looked the same. A mistake is putting an empty soda can in the regular trash instead of the recycling bin. But holding me down and raping me, or helping others to rape me, was not a mistake.”

“I agree,” Marcella replied. “It wasn’t a mistake. It was a crime. But there’s this amazing and true quote by Maya Angelou. ‘Hate. It has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.’?”

“That may be your truth, and her truth, but I can’t overcome my hatred toward them, and I need to come up with some sort of solution so I can move on with my life. I’m almost forty and, to the naked eye, I have it all. But that’s not the case. By the way, she also says, ‘If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.’ I can’t say that Bianca or Cherie ever really loved or respected me, but I believed that they did up until that night, and by the time that night ended, I felt like a part of me was dead.”

“Then it’s time for you to resurrect it.” Marcella got up and walked over to close a blind. The sun was shifting and beaming right in on the sofa. She pulled the string and then stood there, with her back to me as she asked, “So how’s your love life?”

I let out a sound that I could not even describe with a word.

She turned around and then sat back in the armchair across from me as I sat up and put my feet on the floor. Then I stared at her. If I was going to tell it, I may as well go ahead and tell it all. Clearly, she knew that I was incapable of having a healthy, normal, loving relationship with a man.

“That bad, huh?”

“Depends on which way you look at it. I haven’t had a string of bad relationships. I don’t bother with having them at all.”

“And why is that?”

“Whew, that’s a list! Take your pick. Gold-digging men who would only want me for my fame and money. Men believing that they are the greater sex and therefore, can fuck the masses and expect women to only fuck them. Not believing in love because I’ve never truly seen it. Grandma never had a man around, Momma was raped and already bat-shit crazy before I came into the world, Daddy would rather run women than allow women to run him, and Hannah never found the look she was searching for. So what would I be basing such a situation on, even if I dared to go there?”

“That’s the case with a lot of young ladies,” Marcella replied. “But it makes no sense to just give up.”

“You don’t have on a wedding ring.” Marcella seemed uncomfortable with that statement. “I’m not putting you down or anything, but I’m just saying. You’re a psychiatrist, which hopefully means you don’t have mental issues, and apparently you’re single.”

“I never discuss my personal life with clients.”

I felt bad about what I’d said. She was right. I had no right to intrude on her personal life. Even though I was spilling my guts to her, it was my choice, and that was her profession.

“Mea culpa. My bad. In other words, mind my own fucking business.”

“I didn’t put it like that.”

“But really, if I had to wrap the entire thing up and put a pretty red bow on it for you, I would say that falling in love to me would mean giving up power to another person.”

“Power to do what?”

“Everything!” I sighed. “I once had a man tell me that he couldn’t be in control of his life and be in love at the same time. I didn’t understand what he meant then, but now I do. Also, the few times that I’ve attempted to date a man, it was always frustrating to me when it came to the intimacy. I wasn’t ready and they weren’t patient. You know what hurt the most?”

“What?”

“A man making me feel special one day and making me feel like a nobody the next. How do people switch up so fast? I see it all the time on the news with high-profile breakups and I’ve seen it in everyday life. One moment, a couple seems like they are perfect together and everyone is commenting on how loving and attentive they are, and how they wish they had that kind of love. Then wham! Next thing you know, they are calling each other all kinds of bitches and whores, they are taking out restraining orders and slanging accusations of cheating, abuse, violence, threats, diseases, and start snatching funds out bank accounts and hiding the jewelry.”

“Interesting description but not far off base for some marriages.”

“Oh, they do it sometimes without there even being a marriage. And that’s another thing. I have some friends who dated men for less than six months, and when they decided they no longer wanted to be bothered with their trifling behinds, the men had the audacity to want to be paid to go away. Like they’re owed something for their time. The Devil is a liar! I’m not putting myself in that situation.”

“You said something about not wanting to be intimate. So you’re not sexually active?”

I smirked. “Oh, that’s a totally different concern. You may want to pour yourself a drink before I go there.”

“I’m fine, but I can make you one if you need it,” Marcella said.

“Give me whatever you have that’s strong!”

Chapter Twenty

I called the house to make sure Nikki was working with the label to get my upcoming tour schedule together. There were certain venues that I refused to perform in, either because I had some kind of beef with the managers or because I hated the acoustics. My ass could actually sing—unlike a lot of the lip-syncing broads—but some places had such fucked-up structure that I sounded ridiculous. I had a reputation to protect. Rarely did awesome performances go viral, other than people posting selfies of themselves with the stage in the background with me on it. But let a singer put on a bad show, have one bad night, and millions of people were spreading it all over social media. Mostly women, but that’s not a surprise. Women putting other women down was like telling the world that they were more worried about the “competition” than their own progress. Silly, really, because how can you compete in a space that you don’t even own any real estate in?

After she ran down the list for me, only one was unacceptable, so they were going to find another spot in Jacksonville, Florida, for me to “set it off.” I was looking forward to touring, as always. That was when I felt most free and could talk shit to the masses through my lyrics and dance. Plus, the busier I was, the less time I had to concentrate on my pain.

Tags: Zane Erotic
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