Actions and Consequences Pt. 02

It had been six months since I cheated on my husband. During that time, I had tried to tell him. How do I tell my husband that I had slept with another man, not only another man but a black man. A black man while we were on vacation with our kids, while my husband was in the next room tending to our children.

Every time I got the nerve to tell him, I backed down. I knew it would mean the end of our marriage. Timothy was raised in the deep south, while I was what some people called "city south." I still had my country ways but living in Atlanta was much different from being raised out in the "sticks" as Timothy proudly called his low population hometown.

Now we were living in the outskirts of Atlanta in a lovely suburban house, and we were content on the way things had turned out. Timothy worked for a prominent construction contractor, while I worked in a hair salon.

Our three children went to a lovely school, and things were perfect. That was until we went on vacation. I cheated. I was that woman that slept with another man, let that man fill her inside with his... I couldn't even bring myself to think of it. I literally begged him to cum inside me.

I sat up in bed and looked over at Timothy. He had his reading glasses on as he read one of his new contracts. I couldn't bring myself to sleep with him. I promised myself that I wouldn't until I told him. After being married for the number of years that we have been, it was easy to make up excuses or make myself not available. However, I knew the moment was coming soon. I would have to tell him.

*************

"Fuck that!" Lexis shouted at me from her spot in the corner.

"I am with her," Natalie agreed as she did her client's hair.

"I owe it to him," I said as I washed out the last of the shampoo from my client's hair. "He is my husband."

"So," my client said. "I have been cheating on my husband and my other boy toys for going on five years," she said as I pulled her head up.

"They cheat on us," a woman said from her chair. "They cheat, they lie and then expect us to accept it because they are men. Get the fuck out of here!"

This was the usual talk that happened in our salon. We knew each other most of our clients were regulars. They came in every week wanting the same thing.

"You can't tell me that it wasn't good?" Tonya asked. She was the owner of the establishment.

"Of course," I said, even though I had regrets about cheating. I wouldn't lie to myself that it didn't feel good at the time. Hell, for a week after I was on cloud nine and ready to do it again. That was until I came home.

"Did you get off?" Natalie asked as she came back to her station.

"Yes," I nodded, a couple of times.

"When was the last time your husband got you off like that?" another patron asked.

I looked around all of them was staring at me. "A while," I shrugged as I turned the stool, so it faced the mirror.

"How long is a while, exactly?" Tonya asked.

"A few years," I admitted.

"Well then, you don't owe him shit!" Natalie shouted.

"Actually, he owes you," one of the women said. To which the others agreed. I nodded.

It took a while, but the subject changed to other matters. My mind still lingered on what I had to do. I knew it was time to do the right thing.

"Thanks, Susan," I said as I hung up the phone.

My neighbor was going to take care of the kids tonight. I looked at the table. Everything was set, I had prepared all of his favorites, not that it would matter. I am sure most of it would go in the trash or worse hit the wall.

I heard his pickup truck pull into the driveway. My heart raced, this was the point where I usually backed down, finding an excuse of why I shouldn't do it. I could hear my mother's voice in my head. "Excuses are for those that can't do. It is, or it isn't there is no in between," she always said that to my sister and me anytime we made excuses why we didn't do something.

I heard Timothy talking to the neighbor.

I remembered a time back in high school when I told one of my guy friends that I hadn't had the time to talk to him or call him because I was busy. After I hung up, my mother gave me a look. She turned and walked away. She told me that she had never been so disappointed in me. It was a lie, a blatant lie. I tried to make an excuse for the reason why I did it. She held up her hand and said she didn't want to talk to me. The next day she was killed in a hit and run accident. I never forgot that look.

I sighed and sat down.

"Hey," Timothy said as he entered the dining room. "Where are the kids?" he asked as he sat down.

"Susan has them for the night," I nodded.

"Oh no," Timothy smiled. "What did you do? Moreover, how much is it going to cost me?" he laughed as he began to make a plate for himself.

My eyes began to fill with water. "Come on," Timothy said as he grabbed my hands. "Whatever it is we will work it out, we always have."

I pulled my hands back. "I don't think we can with this one," I shook my head.

"Trust me," he smiled. "Come on tell me."

I took a deep breath then looked into my husband's eyes. Then I let it out and told him. I told him everything, not leaving anything out. He sat there and stared at me, not saying a word until I was finished. Then there was silence. Ear-splitting, nauseating silence that seemed to last hours. I knew it was only a minute or two but watching him look at me and say nothing made it feel like a day had passed. Slowly he stood up and walked towards the garage.

I listened to the amount of swearing that could make a sailor cringe. There were words I never thought I would hear my husband say about another person. Other words he had promised he would never say again. Then things began to fly and hit the walls. Timothy had a temper. He had never beaten the kids or me. He always went out to the garage.

I sat still not moving, not attempting to go out to him like I usually did. Then I heard the door open, and he walked back in. He sat across from me as I stared at the floor. "You can't even look at me, can you?" he asked.

I shook my head. My long blonde hair was hiding my face from him. "How?" he asked. "No, Why?" he corrected himself. "You know what, I don't want to know."

"I am taking the kids to my mom's place for the week," he said as he stood up. "When I come back, I want you gone."

I nodded. Timothy slammed the door as he went out and I began to cry.

***********

A week isn't a long time. Sure, on a calendar it looks like a long time. When you have to pack and get most of your belongings out of a house, it goes by in the blink of an eye. That wasn't the hardest part, the hardest part was explaining to your fourteen-year-old son, why his mother wouldn't be home when he got back. The young girls didn't understand or wouldn't understand for a while, but he knew why his father was mad. Also, he had questions many questions most of them were about him.

I couldn't believe my life was crashing down over twenty minutes. Twenty minutes from the time I went into that other hotel room, to the moment I left. That's all it took to crack the foundations of my life.

"I will send for the rest," I told Timothy over the phone. He had called to make sure I wasn't home before he left his mother's house.

"Fine," he replied. "The papers?"

"As soon as I get them, I will sign them," I nodded as I got into my car.

"Good," he said.

"I still want visitation rights!" I said, I knew I had done a horrible thing and I had no right to be a full-time mother, but they were still my children.

"We will see," Timothy said as he hung up.

"We will see, my ass," I said as I put the car in gear and left the house.

My new place was a dump. It was all I could afford, and it was in a bad part of the city. Luckily, I had nothing valuable to steal. Most of my things were in storage.

I looked up at the hideous monstrosity that hovered over the area where I would be putting my bed.

"The last tenant was, to put it mildly, let's just say she had a lot of gentlemen callers," the landlord said behind me as we made the final walk through.

It was a full-scale mirror. "It will do," I shook my head. I didn't intend on living here too long. When he left, I got to unpacking most of the smaller stuff. Lexis and her boyfriend were helping me with the larger things.

"Wow," Lexis said staring up at the mirror. She looked around the small room. "There really is nowhere else to place a bed, but right here."

"Yup," I nodded.

Her boyfriend Jackson was all smiles as he stared at Lexis. "Don't even," she shook her head at him. "It's hideous."

"It could be fun," Jackson smiled.

"If you can get it down, it's all yours," I said as Lexis, and I pulled the bed out of the way.

Jackson and his friend both started to look at it as they planned on a way to take it down. Lexis joined me in the small living room.

"So," she said looking at me.

"It was the right thing to do," I nodded.

Lexis had been a good friend to me the moment I came into the salon. While some of the others were friendly to me, I knew they said many things behind my back. Lexis, on the other hand, was the type to tell it all to my face.

"What are you going to do?" Lexis asked, her long bob weave hanging to one side.

"I was going to ask for extra hours," I said sitting on my couch.

"Well, you know that won't happen," Lexis snapped back. "All of us have been looking for extra hours or extra clients. People are doing their own hair now, looking online for help videos and shit."

I nodded. Lexis was right the number of new clients was dwindling, even with Tonya lowering the prices on everything.

"I was also thinking about doing one of the rideshare apps," I shrugged.

"In this neighborhood?" Lexis looked at me like I was crazy.

"No," I shook my head. "Thinking of driving into the city close to the airport, early mornings and afternoons. No late nights though."

"It's not coming down," Jackson said as he came into the room.

"Whoever put it on there bolted it to the ceiling," his friend said. "Only way that thing is coming down is if you took part of the ceiling with it."

"That's what the landlord said," I nodded. "Thanks though."

The three of them stayed for a little while. Terry, the friend, offered to stay later, but I knew why he wanted to stay and I just wasn't in the mood for his advances. I went down to the grocery store to get some things for the rest of the week. It had to last until my next paycheck.

When I came back, it was dark, and some men were hanging out at the bottom of the stairs. "Hi," I said as I approached them.

"Ah, you must be the new tenant," one of the men said as he got up. The smell of weed and alcohol filled the air.

"Yeah," I said quietly.

"That mirror still up there?" one of the other men asked with a smile on his face.

I pretended not to hear as I walked up the stairs. "Stuck up bitch," one of the other men said as I made it up to my landing. I walked across the landing to my apartment. Opening the door, I went inside and closed the door.

"I can go for the rest in the morning," I said as I began to put things away. "Shit!" I shouted as I realized the Ice cream and some other frozen items was still in the trunk of my car. I took a deep breath and opened the door. I had dealt with guys like this before when they came by the salon. Lexis was the best at dealing with them.

"Back again, huh?" one of them said as he got up.

"Yeah, forgot a few things sorry," I said as I passed them.

"You didn't answer the question," one of them said as I opened the trunk.

"Yeah, the monstrosity is still there," I smiled with a nod.

"Told you," one laughed at the others.

"That Debra was a freak," one of them said as he looked at me as I came back. "A real white skinned, blonde haired freak!"

"Too bad, my name isn't Debra," I said looking back at him.

"Hell nah," one of them laughed. "You're much better to look at than she ever was," he said as he looked at my chest.

"Can I get by or do I need to pay the troll toll?" I asked looking at all of them.

They all stared at me, and for a moment I thought I had pushed my luck. Then they began to smile. "Of course, go on, we are just messing with you," the larger one of them said as I walked past them and up the stairs.

I closed and locked the door, breathing a sigh of relief. I put the items away and sat on the couch. I could still hear them talking. Curiosity got the better of me, and I silenced my television. The conversation went from their jobs to new music versus old, and then it went to sex. It seemed that Debra was always giving them turns or freebies.

"You think that new chick will be up for some?" one of them asked.

"Nah," another one said. "She won't be here long. I give her three months tops."

"Them tits are out of this world though," another one put in. "Think she got the real ones, Deb's were fake and felt wrong."

"Hell yeah, those fuckers are real, did you see how they bounced as she came down?" another one added.

Hearing them talk about me, made me smile. It was also making me horny. It had been months now since I had gotten fucked, I wasn't going to go down there and get screwed by four men on my first night in this place. I would never live it down.

"Now that ass," one said. The others made a grunting sound. "Didn't know a white girl could have an ass like that, it should be illegal."

I stifled a laugh, even though I knew they wouldn't hear me if I laughed out loud. They stopped talking as I heard someone approaching. "Hey Leon," one of the men said.

"What's up?" a new voice said as it got closer.

"You seen your new neighbor?" one of the men asked.

"Nah, pulled a double today," the new voice said. "Tired as fuck. Got to go back in a few hours."

"I hear ya," one of the others said. "Got to make that paper. We will head out so that you can get that rest though."

"Appreciated," the new voice said, I guessed that was whom they called Leon I heard a door close below me, then a car started up and left. The door next to me opened and closed, and the place went silent.

My neighbor was named Leon, and from the sound of it, the others respected him. That was good to know.

**********

The days flew by and before I knew it. It was the first time I got to visit my kids. I was thrilled that my oldest wanted to see me. Although the stipulation was that they would be accompanied by someone Timothy trusted I had agreed to his conditions.

"Hey there," I smiled as my son came into the park.

"Hey Mom," my son greeted me. I stood up and hugged him. I looked for my two daughters. "They aren't ready yet," he shook his head.

"Of course," I nodded. I knew they had heard terrible things about me from the lady standing a few feet away.

Teresa was Timothy's older sister. To say she was a snob was an insult to all snobs, add on to that she was highly religious and could recite the bible from cover to cover without looking it made her even worse.

"An hour," Teresa said as she looked at me. "I will be right over there Jacob."

"Thank you, Auntie," Jacob said as he watched her walk to a bench.

"How are you?" I asked. Jacob sat down and told me everything. Timothy had told them the truth, even though my girls were young, they knew mum had done a bad thing which made Dad mad at her. I accepted that it was the truth. Then he told me that his father planned to move them to another city. That made my blood boil, but I hid it well and said it would be something that the two of us would discuss in detail.

"It's time," Teresa said as she came over.

"What, did you have a stopwatch?" I asked as I looked down at my phone.

"Anna," Teresa said looking down at me. "You agreed to the time, don't make this a big deal."

"It's okay," Jacob said. "I will text you later?"

"Of course," I smiled with a nod.

I watched them go and sat in silence as I contemplated what I had to do to make things right again. I sent a text message to Timothy. It was how he wanted to communicate. I thanked him for letting me see my son and told him to tell my girls hello.

"I will," Timothy sent back.

I began to text him about moving the children, but I thought better of it. I needed a stable job and a better place. Hopefully, he wouldn't be moving them anytime soon. I knew a phone number of one of his coworkers.

I sent a quick message hoping I would get a reply. I then turned on my rideshare app. I got a drive right away and proceeded to pick them up.

The day turned into an endless tour of the city as people needed to be driven everywhere. My phone chirped just after six p.m. It was from the co-worker. I called him back.

"Stephen?" I asked.

"Anna?" Stephen replied.

"Yes," I smiled hearing a friendly voice.

"Timothy told us what happened," Stephen said.

"Shit," I whispered.

"Anna is it true?" Stephen asked.

"Yes," I nodded. "I..."

"I am sorry," Stephen said. "I can't talk to you, Timothy is my friend, I have to be on his side. You had a good life, Anna. I hope it was worth it."

"I understand, I just wanted to know how long I have until he plans to move, that is all. I won't bother you again. I promise." I blurted out in a quick breath.

"The transfer is final in three months," Stephen said as he hung up.

"Three months," I said nodding my head. I had time, not a lot but it was a relief that it was months not weeks.

When I got to my apartment, the same four men were sitting by the stairs. I smiled as I walked up to them.

"Sorry," they said as they stood up.

I began to go up the stairs and then stopped. "My name is Anna," I said as I turned to look at them. They all smiled and looked back up at me.

"Chris," the sizeable tall man said.

"Devon," the small skinny man said.

"Tony," the large plump man said.

"Dru," the last one said, he was built like he never left the gym.

"Nice to meet all of you," I said as I sat down on one of the stairs.

They talked a lot. Even for me working in a salon. They all worked at the distribution center a few miles away from here. Dru and Devon were roommates in the apartment directly below me. Tony lived with his mother, which the others made fun of daily. Chris lived in another apartment complex with his wife.

A small white car pulled up, and another black man came up. "Hey Leon," Dru said as he stood up.

"Hey," Leon said as he walked up.

Leon looked younger than all of them. He looked like he was in his late twenties, early thirties. He looked directly at me and smiled. "You must be the new tenant?" he asked.

"Anna," I said as I stood up to shake his hand.

"Nice to meet you finally," he said.

"Well, we better be going," Chris said as he looked at his watch.

"Yeah," Dru said as he stood up.

I walked up to the landing with Leon behind me. "They were right," Leon said as he got to his door.

"About what?" I turned to look at him.

"You do have a nice ass," Leon said as he put his key in the door.

"For a white woman?" I smiled back.

"For any woman," he said as he tilted his head. I playfully turned slightly so he could get a better view.

"Damn," he said as he shook his head and entered.

I laughed as I entered my apartment.

****************

I couldn't believe I had got turned down again for another job. I had applied everywhere. If I didn't know better, I would think the whole city had turned against me. Then it hit me. I went downstairs and knocked on Dru and Devon's door. It was Saturday, and I hoped one of them would be home.

Devon opened the door. He was standing in only his boxers. I smiled slightly as I tried not to stare. "I heard you guys the other night saying one of the bookkeepers was leaving?"