Bad at Love

Georgina“Hey honey, I’m home. I took a half day because you weren’t feeling well. I felt so bad leaving you this morning. I stopped and got you some chicken noodle soup from The Flying Noodle.” Silence. “Babe?” More silence. “Poor thing, must be sleeping,” I patted my belly. I put away the groceries that I stopped to get and put the soup in the microwave for a few seconds, to re-heat it. Once everything was put away and the soup was warm, I grabbed a spoon and started up the stairs. “Sweetie, I’m home,” I said, in a low voice at the top of the stairs. I didn’t want to startle him awake. As I got closer to the bedroom I heard muffled voices. He must have fallen asleep with the TV on. I opened the bedroom door, my mouth fell open, the soup went flying everywhere and the spoon clanked on the floor. “Holy s**t! Omigod Alonzo! What’s going on?” That was a dumb question, it was obvious. “What are you doing?” Again, another dumbass obvious question. “Fuck.” “Who is she?” “s**t. Babe, it’s not what it looks like?” He pushed “her” away and grabbed the blanket to cover himself. “You limp d**k bastard! Are you f*****g kidding me right now? So, you mean that wasn’t your black ass, just all up in that skank ass b***h?” “Hey!” She shouted. “b***h, not now,” I held up my finger to warn her. She huffed and balled her fists, then thought better. He caught the look of recognition crossed my face. “This is that i********: ho, Golden Grahams, you’re always double-tapping on, isn’t it? You brought this b***h into my house?” “It’s Goldi Compton.” “b***h. I’m about two seconds off your ass.” “Babe, what are you doing here?” “Here? Oh, you mean in my house? I waddled my pregnant ass home and up these stairs because your trifling ass said you were sick. Trying to be the sweet loving wife, I brought you chicken soup. No, you know what, f**k that. This is my house, I don’t need a reason to be here. What the f**k is this?” “Babe, I promise. It’s not what it looks like. She means nothing to me.” I snorted in disgust. “Nothing my ass. You might want to leave now before they need two body bags for you. I’m seven months pregnant, there’s not a jury in the world that will convict my hormonal ass.” “Babe.” “Get out!” You could say that was the day my life changed drastically. Walking in on your husband balls deep in an “i********: model” will do that I guess. That was four years ago. Things have changed since then. I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. I got a new job, since I had given my notice at the old one, to be a stay-at-home mom. I ditched that bastard and life has been perfect ever since. Okay, so maybe it hasn’t been all cake and cookies since then, but it’s been pretty good. To be honest, it’s been pure s**t. My love life, to be more precise I hadn’t had s*x in four years. My ex-husband didn’t want to grant me a divorce at first. He fought it for a little over a year and since I was pregnant and unemployed, which turned into new mom and unemployed, I was stuck. Fortunately for me, after the doctor told me that I had high blood pressure from stress, he at least moved into his own place. After the birth of Anya aka Ani, I waited the mandatory six weeks, then once I had the okay from the doctor, I immediately went back to work. Not because I wanted to, but I had to. Initially, I just planned on being a part-time receptionist at this real estate office, but it morphed into something else, something much better. I became the official listings photographer. It all started because in my down time, I would take pictures of Anya and post them online. That lead to people asking me if I would take pictures of their kids, which I did for a nominal fee. One of those people happened to be the managing broker of the real estate office I worked at. She wanted photos of her granddaughter. After seeing the photographs, she was so impressed with them that she created a position for me as the official listings photographer. All it really meant was that instead of the agents taking half-assed pictures on their cell phones and posting them, I would go out and stage the houses and apartments and take professional pictures for the agent to use instead. I’d never heard of a property listing photographer before, but who was I to argue. I was making great money and only working a few hours a day. I decided it was time to cash in on the free time I had and opened my own photography studio. I converted the home office, that was rarely ever used, into my photography space and in time things were off and that’s how Georgina Mason Photography was born. I had tried dating a few times in the years right after Ani was born, but once they found out about her, it dwindled pretty quickly, so, I gave up on the idea and just focused on Ani and my photography business. Chapter 2