SBF Seeking ...

Chapter 1-3

“Wake up, Triangle, this is Karen and Kareem telling you to get up out of bed and get ready to start your weekend.”

I reluctantly rolled over and turned off my clock radio. Another day in the salt mines. Don’t get me wrong, I like my job, but sometimes I wish I could loll around in bed all day, looking at soap operas and eating popcorn. After getting dressed in a pair of jeans and a nice silk blouse, I spent my usual ten minutes putting in my contact lenses. I recently decided to part with my glasses for a more natural look, but the knack of putting those pieces of plastic in my eyes sometimes escaped me. I started wearing specs in second grade and my collection of frames varied according to my moods. Since I did not want my wedding pictures to capture the glare of my glasses, I decided to transition into a more natural look.

After winning the war to see better, I went outside to crank up the hand-me-down Volvo my mother gave me as a graduation present, otherwise known as Bette Blue. As I drove down New Bern Avenue, I applied my lipstick and turned up the radio. They were playing the ‘Mama I Can’t Breathe’ mix of house music and I was giving it all I got. As I passed my favorite Cajun chicken spot, I considered swooping in to get breakfast since I skipped my usual bagel at home, but I decided not to yield to temptation even though the thought of those greasy potato chunks and that southern liquid crack was making my stomach protest.

Pulling into the office parking lot, I reflected on my time at the magazine. I started there just out of college. Me, a 22-year-old whose biggest choice three months prior was whether to have pizza or Chinese for dinner, had a say in which stories ran in a monthly magazine.

“Hi Yvette, ready for another day behind the computer?” Sandi Artenberry asked as she stepped out her silver Honda Accord parked beside me. True to form, my favorite fellow reporter was dressed in her signature pink, from her ballet flats to her artfully applied eye makeup. In spite of our background differences—she was a Southern belle whose family tree included those who fought in the War of Northern Aggression while mine include those who followed the North Star to freedom—I considered her my closest professional friend. We started at NC Magazine on the same day and shared a love of reporting, vampire novels and the healing properties of pasta.

“Ready as I’m ever going to be. What are you doing this weekend?”

“Andrew and I are going to visit his folks in Knoxville,” she said as we walked into the welcoming embrace of our office’s air conditioning.

“I guess I should get used to the idea of visiting the in-laws myself. The wedding isn’t that far away.”

“Have you gotten your dress yet?”

“No, I figured I will do it next month when I go home and visit my mom for the Fourth of July,” I said.

“Well, have fun. I remember how it was trying to get a wedding dress. It seemed like at every fitting I either gained ten pounds or lost ten pounds. I was afraid on the big day my dress would either fall off or I would burst through.”

“Well, I have seen the pictures and you seemed to have filled your dress nicely.” Sandi smiled at the framed picture of her big day she kept on her desk along with the pictures of her twin angels, Ashton and Ashley.

“So what are you doing this weekend?” Sandi asked.

“I’m going to see Martin. He leaves on Sunday for his two weeks’ Air Force reserve drills, so I figured I would go up and give him a good going away present, if you know what I mean,” I said, giving her a wink.

“Yvette, you are too much,” Sandi said with a slight laugh as her Tennessee twang got the best of her.

“Sugar, is there any other way to be?” I replied, laying on my best Dolly Parton sassiness.

After eight hours of making phone calls, returning phone calls, and typing stories, I picked up my purse and headed down I-40 into the arms of my lover boy. As I listened to the radio, I mentally created a playlist for my big day.

Martin and I met at a party during my first year in college. He was a junior and vice president of the campus chapter of the first black fraternity to established roots on campus. I was young and impressionable. He fit my demographics to a tee; country boy from a big family, a fraternity member, good-looking without being too fine, a hard worker, and most importantly, worshipped the ground I walked on. The fact he was easy on the eye helped keep my fires burning. At 6’1”, he was tall enough to keep me looking up from my 5’6” height, but not so tall that I got a neck sprain kissing him. A coffee-colored brother with strong, cable-like arms and legs, I just knew he would make all my dreams come true.

We kept our relationship going after he graduated and moved to Greensboro. Trust me, I’m sure I helped fund a lot of road projects in Alamance County because I always managed to get a speeding ticket in Burlington while I was rushing up I-85 to see him or rushing back to make it to class. After I moved to Raleigh after graduation, we amped up our together time. Finally, after three years of the back and forth he asked me to marry him. I said yes because I didn’t know what else to say.

I stayed with Martin because I didn’t think I could find someone who could give me what I wanted in a relationship. He was the poster boy for stability and based on the widowed household I grew up in, his way of life looked attractive.

“Hi Muffin,” Martin said as I walked into his apartment. He was in his usual Friday afternoon position, sitting on the couch with a remote in one hand and a beer in the other. Despite my best efforts, Martin’s apartment looked like a typical bachelor pad; an obscenely large TV was mounted on a wall, facing a seen-better-days couch. Copies of sports and men’s magazines lay scattered on the coffee table. The faint whiff of day old pizza clung to the furniture.

“Hey baby, you missed me?” I asked, leaning over to kiss his forehead. One thing about me is I’m a sucker for a smell-good man. Catching a whiff of the residual Cool Water he wore each day to work, I felt myself getting a little weak at the knees.

“Yeah baby, whenever when we aren’t together, all I do is think of you,” Martin said, using the same words he used every week.

Sitting beside him on the couch, I asked, “Well, what do you want to do tonight?”

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“Martin, why do I always have to make the social decisions for us?”

“Because you are the one who likes going out all the time; all I need to be happy is a beer, a game and some food.”

“Well I’m sorry, it takes more than that to make me happy. And when I’m happy, you are happy.”

“Don’t I know it?”

“So what do you want to do tonight?”

“I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

I just sat there. We went through this every f*****g week. Would it kill him to have a plan for once? Finally, I suggested we go out to eat and catch a movie. Then we, or rather I, decided what we were going to eat. Though I enjoyed being able to make decisions about our social life, I hated Martin always giving in to me. Some people would say he was being accommodating. I would say he was being weak-minded. After dinner, we headed to the theatre. He saw an action flick and I watched some film set in Spain in the 1950’s. My friends thought it strange; when we went to the movies, we rarely saw the same one. I saw it as seeing two movies at the same time since we always described the movies to each other afterwards.

As we headed to his apartment, Martin commented in between shifting gears, “You would have liked this movie, Muffin. The hero’s girlfriend went both ways and he was cool with that.”

“Now why would I have been okay with girl on girl action?” I asked, cutting my eye as we crossed over Battleground Avenue.

“Remember when you said in college you saw nothing wrong with a little c*********s between friends. I just figured you would have enjoyed that part of the film.”

Usually Martin found it hard remembering what I tell him from day to day, but that little comment I made while slightly intoxicated ingrained itself into his memory banks. I always felt there was nothing wrong with being gay and empathized with my gay and lesbian friends in high school and college. Mind you, there were no lesbian experiences in my closet, except once during a sleepover when I was fifteen years old. It did not count. Well, not really.

“Well dear, I’ve always said whatever a man can do; a woman can do better and with less fuss.”

“Humph,” was all Martin said. After we got back to his apartment, he took it upon himself to hold up the banner for men everywhere by partaking of my goodness and mercy. With him, s*x usually lasted twenty minutes. Martin lived and died by the clock. Three minutes kissing me, two minutes to suck my left breast, two minutes for the right, seven minutes to perform oral s*x, then the remaining six minutes was spent thrusting inside of me. By the time I got wet enough to enjoy what was going on, it was over. s*x with him was like running to catch a 5:10 bus and getting there at 5:11; sometimes the bus driver saw you in the rear view mirror trying to get there and wait for you. Sometimes the bus driver pulled off just as you slowed down to catch your breath.

As he fell asleep as if drugged, I laid beside him questioning if I could stand being slightly satisfied sexually for the rest of my life.

The next day, we decided to compromise on our entertainment options. We spent half the day at the mall and the other half at the bowling alley. After we left the bowling alley, I managed to drag him to a formal store to look at tuxedos. Of course, he agreed with whatever I showed him.

I guess the frustration was showing on my face, because after he changed back into his regular clothes and walked out to where I was sitting he announced, “Everyone, the most beautiful, smartest, funniest, sexiest woman that ever came from Pitt County has agreed to marry me and as God as my witness, if I have to try on every tuxedo in the Triad area to make sure the day I say ‘I do’ is special as her, I will do it gladly.” As he concluded, it seemed everyone in the store stopped and applauded. Even though my cheeks burned with embarrassment, his declaration turned me on.

Even though some days this man frustrated me to death with his set ways, he really did love me. Still, I needed to see what else is out there.