With that, he unhooked the rope and let us enter the club in front of all the others. “You ladies have a nice time.”
I joined Brina in saying, “Thanks, Snake!”
Once we found two stools at the bar, I got all in Brina’s business. “I take it you come here a lot?”
She lit a cigarette. I desperately wanted to take a pull but refused to even go there. “Gurrrrrrrrrlllllllllll, have I got some shit to tell you!”
“Well, I could use some good news, so tell me.”
The bartender came over and took our drink orders. “I started coming here about two months ago. A sistah from work turned me on to this bitch. Anyway, about the third time I fell up in here, I met this fine-ass nucca named Dempsey. We’ve been talking ever since.”
“You go girl! I didn’t know you had a new man. Tell me everything. I want all the details, and of course all the dirt.”
The bartender returned with Brina’s rum and coke and my banana daiquiri. For the next fifteen minutes, we sat there chatting and giggling while she told me all about her new love interest. Little did I know then that the Mr. Wonderful she was describing would end up beating her ass as a recreational sport in the near future.
I was a bit tipsy. Okay, I was tore the fuck up! I started looking around the club and decided it was a badass club. They had these cages with scantily clad dancers in them, both male and female, and they had live animals such as birds, raccoons, koala bears, and even a silver-back gorilla, all locked up in cages.
They were playing mostly reggae, and the dance floor was packed to the brim. The club had wall-to-wall fineass men in it. My ass had no business looking, but there was one who stood out from the rest like a black man at a Ku Klux Klan meeting. He was too damn fine but was surrounded by a shitload of woman trying to get in his pants, so I ordered another drink and just admired his fineness from afar.
He was tall, real tall, just like my husband, give an inch or two, dark like licorice and looked just as tasty. What really attracted me to him was his pearly-white smile, his dimples, and his round, muscular ass. I imagined his ass muscles contracting while he pumped his dick in and out of me. My mind was truly in the gutter.
“Brina?”
“Yes, Sis?”
I decided to come on out with it. “I met this guy. A really famous African-American artist named Quinton Matthews.”
“Cool, what kind of art? Sculpting, painting, what?”
“Painting. He’s most famous for his murals, though. You know that mural we walked to from my office that time?”
“Yeah, the one at the MARTA station?”
“He did that one.”
This guy came up, interrupted me, and asked me to dance. He was a true countrified bama so I said, “No thanks!” Besides, I really wanted to come clean with Brina.
“That’s great. So how old is he? What does he look like? Hook a sister up, Zoe!”
She was so far off base, it was pathetic! “Brina, you just got finished telling me all about your new man like two seconds ago. Dempsey. Remember him?”
We both giggled. “Hell, yeah, I remember him, but you know us bachelorettes need to have at least one man riding the bench at all times for backup purposes.”
“You’re silly!”
“I’m just telling it like it is. All of us can’t be lucky enough to find true love like the kind you and Jason have.”
Damn, why did she have to say that! I lost my nerve. I was about to tell her I was having an affair, but how could I after she said that? Everyone on the outside looking in has always thought my life was perfect. Little did they know my life was barely satisfying at the best of times and pure agony at the worst. I was about to come on out with it anyway when this pimp daddy wannabe came up to us.
“Hey, lovely ladies. ’Sup now?”
I didn’t answer, but Brina did. “ ’Sup with you?” “Chillin’, love. Just chillin’.” I pegged him to be one of those brothas who was chillin’ twenty-four hours a day. “Wanna dance?”
Brina looked at me as if she needed my permission. “Zoe, you mind?”
I couldn’t believe she would stoop that low for a dance, but I responded, “No, go for it!”
“Aight, girl. Hold my purse for me.” I took her purse, and she made her way to the dance floor, after having a hell of a time even getting up off the bar stool with that damn hoochie dress on.