After another night of hanging out at young Armani’s bachelor pad, the sexual athlete himself, getting smacked up, flipped, and rubbed down, bachelorette Rebe walked away at a snail’s pace under the new morning sun. She wore a royally sexed up look on her face, doing the morning after I got some walk of shame, stepping barefoot to her car with her teal blue high heels in her hands. Her head hurt and her stomach cramped. But she had a smile on her face.
She drove home at ten in the morning, blue skies and zero traffic, listening to the most appropriate song on her radio, “Sexual Healing,” by Marvin Gaye.
Releasing her mind was just what Rebe needed. She was finally able to feel what it was like to go beyond the thoughts her mother had put in her head, or to be more exact, forced into her head, since she was a child, always labeling Rebe a sinner who equated to a whore. Now it was all about Rebe’s own, grown woman sexy healing.
Rebe looked ahead, not worrying about the past, just being whoever she wanted to be and doing whatever she wanted to do, without criticism, judgment, or repercussions. She was a stripper, soon she’d try out a swinger’s club for the first time in her life, and she was having regular fuck sessions with a man young enough to be her son.
Still, she’d made a point of not having Armani over to her place, just because of his age.
Her no’s were now yes’s, on her terms.
And the new medicine she was on didn’t hurt either.
When Rebe arrived home, the garage door trundled up and she pulled her car into the garage, parking next to Trinity’s Mustang. Every time she saw that car it still reminded her of Randall, but nonetheless, she hummed the Marvin Gaye tune, even after turning off the ignition, and walked into the house through the door that led from the garage to the kitchen.
“Trinity,” she called as she entered.
“I’m in here,” Trinity said from the family room.
Rebe followed her daughter’s voice and the sound of the television, and then her eyes leapt. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?” Trinity sat on the micro-suede sectional without looking up.
“What is Chyna doing here?” Randall’s one-and-a-half-year-old daughter was sitting in Trinity’s lap, playing with a toy telephone.
“What do you mean what’s she doing here? She’s your stepdaughter.” Trinity angled her eyes toward her mother, looking as though her own actions were routine. Her tone did have a sly bit of sarcasm.
Rebe noticed, and her antenna went up even higher. “Oh no, she’s not.” She placed her keys in her purse and tossed it onto the sofa chair.
“How can she be my stepsister and not your stepdaughter? Come on now Mommy, did you take your manic meds? Or maybe it’s those new ones your gynecologist prescribed for your low testosterone. And also, you’re on Avitan, right? Did you skip a pill? ”
Rebe wondered if her ears were playing tricks. “Trinity. I’m gonna count to three.” She took a grip of her mind and waited for it to rewind, looking away and then back, as though it made a difference. But her flushed skin said it didn’t. “Trinity, maybe when you get your own place you can make these decisions, and talk like that to whoever is in your house, but this is my home, and as much as I don’t want to feel like this, I do. That is trifling Randall’s baby with the white girl he left me for. Actually, the truth is, he left us for.”
Trinity giggled as she held her sister. “Mommy, please. He didn’t leave me. And that night you went looking for him and found him, if you hadn’t gone off and kicked him out, he’d probably still be here. It’s just that you went berserk.”
Rebe’s blood pressure was rising. She could feel it. “You know what? I did not go berserk. I don’t know what he told you. And I’m telling you now, you’d better be glad this baby girl is here, because I don’t think I’ve gone upside your head in about six years, but today would be just the day. And it just might be if you keep flapping your lips out of disrespect to your mother. I’m not having that.” Rebe stood over them both.
Chyna looked up at Rebe and so did Trinity. “Mommy. You…”
Rebe took a half step closer. “Mommy, you, what? Say it, Trinity. What? Please say it. Because I’m about ready for you today.”
Trinity ducked her head and shielded Chyna’s face with her hand. “Mommy, don’t hit me. I wouldn’t want to end up getting my head split open like your mother did to you. Are any of those bottles labeled chill pill?”
Rebe bit her lip and balled up her fist. Her voice was big, and it was pissed off. “Bitch.” She took a deep breath, looked at Chyna’s on-edge expression, and spoke one tone lower. “Trinity. Put that child in the room and come back in here. I give you two minutes.” She stepped in the direction of the stairwell.
“No.”
Rebe’s jaw was tight. “I give you two minutes to come in my room. And if you don’t, I’m coming back down here and your ass is mine, Chyna or not.” Rebe’s head seeped smoke from her ears. Her mind was on fire. She stomped her heavy feet that carried her heavy heart upstairs into her bedroom, and slammed the door with a force reserved for a WWE wrestler.
All that could be heard from downstairs was evil shouting. “Your own mother’s in jail for killing your brother. My Uncle Maestro, who I’ll never ever meet, other than in heaven. Don’t you think you should learn to curb your temper?”
The three sentence-missiles hit as if seeking a double target. Rebe’s heart and her back.
Rebe’s ears shook. Forehead was sweaty. Eyes blinked like a tornadic wind was in the room. Nostrils flared. Goose bumps formed on her skin, even on her fingers. She could feel the tattoo with her brother’s name on her shoulder bubbling up like it was boiling syrup. Her mind insisted that she sit on the end of the bed, where she found herself panting, forcing herself to breathe normally. Heart arrhythmia was in overdrive. The video in her head shifted from the fantasy of her beating the hell out of her daughter, and the reality of her mother beating the shit out of her. Rebe couldn’t turn it off, and found herself reeling with anxiousness. She leaned forward with her elbows to her knees, and shielded her face into the palms of her hands, and she cried as a voice asked, Where’s that hammer? Get it.
Two seconds later she hopped up and yanked the door open, sprinting back into the family room with a red face and a deep frown, ready to put her daughter in her place. Ready to teach Trinity a lesson for having such a fast mouth.
She entered an empty room. No Trinity. No Chyna. The TV was still on, but they were not there. “Trinity, where the fuck are you?”
Nothing.
“Trinity.” Her words reverberated in her head and it shook.
Nothing.
“Get the fuck in this room, now.” Her own ears popped. With tears still flowing, she ran through the house, looking in every room, and ended up heading out the front door. The garage door was open, but Trinity’s car was gone.
Rebe screamed up toward the sky and felt a rumble in her stomach, suddenly running to the side section of the lawn where she vomited, repeatedly, and violently. She heaved and gagged and remained bent over and waited. Her breaths got shorter. More tears flowed from the forcefulness of her expulsion.
She stayed in place with her mouth open, working hard to catch her breath, her nose running.
While she wiped her lips with her hand, she said the same four words she’d said every single solitary day of her life. “Mother, I hate you.”