God Ain't Blind

Book 4: GOD

by Mary Monroe

Genres: African American Women's Fiction; Women's Fiction; African American Romance

Synopsis

New York Times best-selling author Mary Monroe continues the adventures of lifelong friends Annette Goode Davis and Rhoda O'Toole in this riveting novel. Sensing her husband drifting away, Annette gets a full makeover to recapture his attention. But instead, she catches the eye of another man. Soon Annette is in a full-blown affair - and even Rhoda may not be able to fix things this time.

Release date: October 30, 2013

Publisher: Recorded Books

Print pages: 416

Sample

“If you don’t get yourself out of this vehicle and into that motel room and screw that man, I’ll go up in there and do it myself!”

I never expected my best friend to encourage me to have an affair. I always thought that she’d be the main person who would try and talk me out of it. Especially since she and my husband had been like brother and sister for most of their lives. But that was exactly what she was trying to do now. I knew this sister like I knew the back of my hand, so I knew she was not going to stop until I had stepped out of my panties, stretched out on my back, and opened my legs for a man who was not my husband. One of the reasons was that my girl was having an affair herself. I knew that if I got involved in one, she wouldn’t feel so guilty.

I was still strapped in by my seat belt, and I was in no hurry to unfasten it. “I don’t know if I’m ready to cheat on my husband,” I admitted. Despite the words of protest that tumbled out of my mouth and my reluctance, I was not going to reject Rhoda’s orders. I just didn’t want her to know how eager I really was to jump into bed with another man. I liked to mess with her from time to time, just enough to provoke her. It kept our crazy relationship exciting. “I really don’t know if I can do this,” I mumbled for the third time in the last two minutes. I sounded so weak and unconvincing that even I didn’t believe what I was saying. “So stop trying to rush me!”

“Rush you? Woman, we’ve been sittin’ here for ten minutes—tick-tock, tick-tock. And you rushed me to drive your horny black ass over here.” Rhoda gave me a disgusted look before she unfastened my seat belt like I was a stubborn two-year-old.

“I know that. I just need to think,” I whimpered.

“You need to think about what?” she demanded, slapping the side of the steering wheel with the palm of her hand.

“I need to think about what I’m doing and why,” I replied, wringing my sweaty hands.

Now that the moment had arrived, I was sitting here acting like a frightened virgin, and it made no damn sense. This had been in the works for weeks. And me—with my weak self—I was just as eager to fuck the man who was awaiting my arrival in the motel room as he was to fuck me. He had made his intentions known the moment he stuck his fingers inside my panties in a restaurant booth the first time I spent time with him in public. I’d wanted to throw him down on that restaurant table and fuck his brains out then. And that was exactly what I planned to do as soon as I got up enough nerve to take my ass into that motel room.

“Honey, I can tell you why you’re doin’ this. You need it. Your fuckin’, uh, fuck quota is bankrupt.” Rhoda laughed.

“That’s not funny, and I wish you’d stop making jokes about my personal life,” I snapped.

“I’m sorry, girlfriend,” she said, stroking my hair. “All I want is for you to be happy. I’m gettin’ sick of your long, frustrated face, and of the jealous looks I always get from you when I get mine. It’s time for you to get yours, and I am not goin’ to let up until you do. Do you hear me?”

“I sure do hear you, Miss Pimp,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Excuse me?”

“Rhoda, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you were getting paid for this. And for the record, I am not jealous of you. You can get that notion out of that head of yours right now. You don’t have a damn thing I’d want.”

“Except a man who knows and wants to take care of my needs. Now you move it. Go on now.” Rhoda clapped her hands together twice like a drill sergeant, bumped her knee against mine, and motioned with her head toward the door on my side. “You go into that room so you can get laid like you’re supposed to be. Shoo!” This time she tapped the side of my leg with the toe of her black leather boot.

I still didn’t move. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing toward the motel entrance from the motel’s parking lot, where we had parked. And I couldn’t stop myself from hoping that the “good loving” that the man in the motel room had promised me was going to be worth my while. Rhoda was right. My fuck quota was bankrupt. I had not had any good loving in a while. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t had any loving period in a while now. I was so hot and horny, I was about ready to explode like a firecracker.

The Do Drop Inn was the kind of motel that people snuck in and out of, in disguise if they were smart. It was a cheap, one-story place in an industrial area off the freeway, with a sign that advertised rates by the hour, cable TV, XXX-rated movies, a heated pool, and vibrating beds.

Last month, during Memorial Day weekend, when a sister from my church was checking into this notorious love nest with her white lover, her husband was checking out with his lover at the same time. All hell broke loose that night. The husband, an avowed racist, seemed more pissed off about his wife having a white lover than he was about her having an affair. Not only did the cops have to be called, but an ambulance, too. The two sisters ended up in the hospital; the husband went to jail. And the only reason that the white man escaped injury was because he had fled the scene before the husband could get his hands on him. It was the kind of scandal that the people in Richland, Ohio, sunk their teeth into. Especially when it involved somebody in the church.

As a member of the Second Baptist Church—even though I attended services only about once a month now—I knew that if I got caught entering or leaving a motel with a man other than the one I was married to, my goose would be cooked alive. My dull husband would die. Not because I’d kill him in self-defense, but because he’d be so shocked and disappointed, he’d probably drop dead. And knowing my mother, she’d probably come after me with a switch. Given all these facts, why the hell was I doing this? If I had an answer to that question, it was hiding somewhere behind my brain.

I shaded my eyes and scanned the parking lot, sliding down into the passenger seat of my girl Rhoda’s SUV each time I thought I saw somebody we knew. “Is that Claudette who owns the beauty shop coming out of the liquor store across the street?” I said, with a gasp.

“Shit! Where?” Rhoda asked, jerking her head around like a puppet. We slid down into our seats at the same time and stayed there for about a minute. Rhoda eased up first, peeping out the side of her window like a burglar. “No, that’s not her. Claudette never looked that hopeless from behind. Whoever that sister is, her ass is draggin’ on the ground like a tail.”

I exhaled and sat back up in my seat. “I just wish Louis had picked some other motel. One with a little more class and one where we didn’t have to worry about running into somebody we know,” I complained, speaking more to myself than to Rhoda.

“What’s wrong with you? This is the only one of the few motels in this hick town that employs people we don’t know. You go to the Moose Motel out on State Street, and I assure you that Sister Nettie Jones, who works her mouth more than she works that vacuum cleaner when she cleans the rooms, will blab so fast, everybody we know will know about your visit before you even check out.” Rhoda let out an exasperated breath, rubbed her nose, and shook her head. I looked away from her. “Lord knows, this is one straight-up, low-level place, though. I wouldn’t bring a dog that I didn’t like here. If Louis was a real man, he’d take you to his place.”

My breath caught in my throat as I whirled around to face Rhoda again.

She leaned to the side and gave me a puzzled look. “What’s wrong now?”

“I’d rather get a whupping than get loose in Louis’s apartment,” I declared.

“Well, other than it bein’ located in a low-rent neighborhood, two doors from the soup kitchen, what’s wrong with Louis’s apartment? Why don’t you do him there?”

“I can’t do that. I’m not the kind of woman who hangs out in a strange man’s apartment,” I answered. When I realized how ridiculous that statement was, we both laughed, but only for a few seconds. I cleared my throat and got serious. “Please don’t mention Louis’s apartment to me again after today unless you have to. I want to keep this thing casual.”

“Well! All I can say is, this man better have somethin’ good between his legs,” Rhoda retorted through clenched teeth. “If he doesn’t, I’ll help you slice it off with a dull knife and feed it to a goat I don’t like. But I still feel that he ought to be ashamed of himself for plannin’ a romantic evenin’ in a dead zone like this,” Rhoda said, looking around the area.

I didn’t like the look on her face, and she didn’t have to say what was on her mind, because I already knew. On one hand, she approved of me committing adultery, but she had a problem with me doing it with a broke-ass man like Louis Baines. But since she’d introduced me to him and did business with his struggling catering service herself, she usually didn’t harp on his financial status that much.

“You know that he is putting most of his money into his business. You are the main one who keeps talking about how you want to see a black business succeed in this town,” I said in Louis’s defense. “I don’t expect him to take me to the Hilton . . . yet.”

“I know, I know,” Rhoda replied gently, giving me a smile and an apologetic look. “I just wish that he could afford to take you to one of those nice hotels near the airport, like my gentleman friend does for me. Did I ever tell you about that?”

“You’ve told me everything there is to know about you and your lover, Rhoda,” I said, my eyes rolling around in my head like marbles. “Year after year after year . . .”

“Oh. Well, a real nice hotel makes it seem, uh, less illicit, I guess. I like to be with my sweetie in my house only when I have no choice. Believe it or not, I still have some respect for my husband. It’s the least I can do. He’s a beast, and his dick gets about as hard as a slice of raw bacon these days. But as long as he keeps his nose out of my business and hangs on to that six-figure-amount-a-year job, the only thing I’d leave him for is to go to heaven. Shit.” Rhoda sniffed loudly and tapped my shoulder. “Well, what’s it goin’ to be?” She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “I’ve got other things to do, you know.”

I couldn’t figure out why, but for some reason, I had to stall a little more. Even though I knew that I was going to go through with my first indiscretion since I got married ten years ago. “I have to think about this some more, Rhoda. I shouldn’t have come here yet. Maybe I should get to know Louis a little better.”

“Better than what?”

“Better than I know him now. Other than the fact that he’s the best caterer I’ve ever dealt with, I really don’t know everything that I’d like to know about the man.”

“What do you think sex is for, girl? What better way is there to get to know a man? Look, you know him well enough to do business with him. He wants you. You want him. What else do you need to know? How big his dick is? How long he can keep it hard? Well, there’s only one way for you to find that out.”

Rhoda’s words amused me. I shook my head and let out a gentle laugh. “I know you are not going to stop until I do what you want me to do. But I shouldn’t have let you talk me into doing this. I shouldn’t have even told you about this man. I should not have let him get close enough to me for him to think that I’d . . . What’s wrong with me? I’m a happily married woman.” I put a lot of emphasis on my words. I was now at a point where I couldn’t tell if I was trying to convince myself that I shouldn’t be having an affair, or Rhoda.

“Happily married, my ass.” She guffawed. “You show me a happily married woman, and I will show you a woman who has at least one spare. And I don’t mean a spare tire.”

“I’m glad most people don’t think that,” I shot back. “That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard you say. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“If you are so happily married, why are we sittin’ in this motel parkin’ lot, havin’ this conversation? Why did you ask me to lie to your husband about where you were goin’ tonight? Is that what you call bein’ happily married?”

“You know what I mean. Having an affair could ruin my life.”

“I’m married, too! I’ve been havin’ an affair with my husband’s best friend for almost twenty years. Do I look ruined? And for the record, I am about as happily married as a woman can be.”

“I should go back home before it’s too late.”

“Look, Annette, if you’ve come this far, it’s already too late. Now stop actin’ like this is your first day of kindergarten. Get a grip. You’ve got four hours to play with. And from the looks of that young stud, you’re goin’ to need every last minute of those four hours to satisfy him. Shit!” Rhoda laughed as she looked in the rearview mirror to check her makeup and hair, something she’d do even on her way to her execution. “I hope you douched with some vanilla extract, like I told you. I noticed his tongue, and it’s long enough to make a woman very happy. He sure seems like the type who likes to do a little grazin’ in the grass. And he should. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen a tongue that length since I saw Godzilla.” Rhoda laughed some more.

I didn’t like the fact that she was getting such a kick out of this. Now I really was sorry that I had ever told her about Louis and the fact that he’d been trying to get into my panties for weeks, tongue and all.

“You’re making me nervous, Rhoda.”

“You’re not nervous. We’re both way too old to be gettin’ nervous about fuckin’. You’re just confused.” Not looking away from the mirror, she fished a Kleenex tissue from the beaded purse in her lap and blotted her plum-colored lipstick. “This is just, uh, jitters. But you’ll get used to that. I did.” She paused and gave me a thoughtful look, then a quick but weak smile. “I am so happy for you. You’re finally goin’ to get what you need after sufferin’ for so long.”

“I am not suffering,” I protested.

“Whatever you say,” she said with a sigh, balling the tissue and tossing it into a litter bag hanging from the dashboard. “I don’t know how you’ve managed to last this long without mountin’ the pizza delivery guy and humpin’ the hell out of him. Almost a whole damn year without some dick is not normal!”

“It is for some people,” I insisted. “And what’s so bad about going without sex for a year, anyway? Some women go their whole lives without it.”

Rhoda nodded. “They are called nuns, invalids, and freaks. Of which you are neither. Or we wouldn’t be sittin’ here.” Rhoda glanced at her watch, then gave me an exasperated look. “I’m too through. Are you goin’ into that motel room or what?” She started her motor and adjusted her rearview mirror.

“I’m going,” I said quickly, opening the door on my side.

“I’ll pick you up around eleven fifteen. I want to be home in time to watch at least part of Jay Leno!”

The woman who had been my best friend for most of my life gave me a hearty push with her hand. I practically slid out of the front passenger seat of her SUV and onto the ground, landing on my feet like a panther. She sped off before I could even catch my breath.

Despite all the shit that Rhoda had said, I couldn’t determine what she really thought. And I couldn’t understand how she could pressure me into having an affair and still grin in my husband’s face. This was one of the few times that I wished they were not friends. But no matter what she thought or said, this was my call. I wanted to have an affair with Louis Baines. It was nothing for me to be proud of, but I had to pat myself on the back for attracting such a young, handsome brother in the first place. And he was the one who had come on like gangbusters, not me. That was something that had rarely happened to me, even when I was young.

My marriage had become a stale joke. My husband had already put me out to pasture, like I was a Guernsey cow that he had milked bone dry. Louis had come to my rescue just in time. His actions had done wonders for my ego. At least that was what I kept telling myself. But before Louis entered my life, I had almost convinced myself that my sex life was over at the age of forty-six.

I looked around the parking lot some more. Summer was just around the corner, so the weather was nice. But the wind was howling in a way that made me even more nervous. This was a rough neighborhood, so nosy acquaintances were not the only people I had to be concerned about. A couple of months ago somebody had attacked a man from behind and robbed him in the same parking lot that I was in now. A few weeks before that, somebody had dragged a woman between two cars parked behind the motel, sexually assaulted her, and taken off with her purse and jewelry.

I coughed and tightened my grip on my purse. One thing I had learned from growing up around rough people was that it was stupid to look too prosperous. The woman who had been raped and robbed had had the nerve to come to this neighborhood in a fur jacket, wearing diamonds on everything but her toes. She had to be either stone crazy or suicidal, because that was like waving a piece of raw meat in front of a wolf. I was sorry about what had happened to that woman. But like everybody else, I felt that she should have known better. I had some very expensive clothes and jewelry, which I never wore to this part of town. I rarely carried much money or more than two or three credit cards in my purse in this neighborhood, or anywhere else. I had a large can of Mace in my purse, which I prayed I would never have to use. The air was foul. It reeked of gasoline and oil, dust, and despair. I sucked in some of that air, anyway. Then I looked around and checked my surroundings one more time.

At night when the Do Drop Inn sign was turned on, some of its letters blinked on and off; some didn’t light up at all. And if that wasn’t tacky enough, the molelike Pakistani man who owned this motel had had it painted pink last year and had propped up some plastic flamingos in front of the entrance. There was a truck stop a block away. Tired hookers brought their tired truck driver tricks to this motel.

A huge buckeye tree loomed over the building like a gigantic umbrella. In the fall, the buckeye nuts fell off the tree and covered the motel roof like brown rocks. I knew about the buckeyes because my mother used to clean the rooms in this dump thirty years ago, and I used to help her.

Louis had told me that he’d be in room 108 and had warned me that he’d already be naked. “I just hope you can handle this dragon in my pants, baby,” he’d also said. “I’ve got something that has made some women weep from joy and others weep from pain.” You would have thought that he had a footlong brick between his legs, the way he was talking. But I knew better.

“I hope I can handle it, too,” I’d replied, rolling my eyes. I didn’t know why Louis, or any other man for that matter, felt the need to brag about the size of his dick. As a former prostitute, I was pretty sure that I’d seen it all when it came to sex. For one thing, there was probably nothing left that could surprise or scare me. I didn’t think that there was anything that could top the trick that had a two-headed dick, which I’d encountered one rainy night. But Louis didn’t need to know all that, though. As a matter of fact, he already knew more about me than I wanted him to know.

The way I was dragging my feet, you would have thought that I was on my way to a job I despised. I was glad that the room was on the other side of the motel, so I’d have a few more minutes to compose myself. However, before I could do that, a pay phone on the corner in front of the motel caught my attention. Before I knew it, I was rooting through my purse for some loose change so I could make a call.

“Hello,” my husband answered on the tenth ring. Even though one of the four telephones in our house was never more than a few feet out of his reach, he always took his time answering one when it rang. This was just one of the things he did that had irritated me for years.

“Hi, baby,” I began.

“Who is this?”

I gasped so hard, I almost dropped my purse. I couldn’t respond right away.

“Hello? Who is this callin’?” Pee Wee asked, sounding truly annoyed.

“I want you to tell me how many women call you up and address you as baby, fool,” I demanded, anger rumbling inside me like gas. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with that husband of mine! No wonder I was about to have an affair.

“After all the years that we’ve known each other, don’t you know your own wife’s voice by now?” I snarled. This was not the first time that my husband had not recognized my voice on the opposite end of a telephone in the last few years. I usually gave him the benefit of the doubt, because I wasn’t as sharp as I used to be, either. But this time it angered me. In a strange way I was glad. It made it that much easier for me to justify the reason I had come to the Do Drop Inn.

“Oh, it’s you. Hi, baby. Where you at?”

“Uh, I’m with Rhoda on our way to the bowling alley. I joined her bowling team, and I’ll be bowling with them every Thursday night, starting tonight. Don’t you remember? We’ve discussed it several times. Even this morning.”

“We did? Hmm.”

“We did, Pee Wee.” The more I talked to this man, the more his credibility plummeted.

“Oh! If you say so, we must have. I sure enough don’t remember nothin’ about givin’ you permission to join no bowlin’ team.”

Permission? Oh, he must have been entertaining a death wish. Had he said something like that to my face, I wouldn’t have been responsible for my actions.

“Look, goddammit, I don’t need permission from you or anybody else to do a damn thing,” I hollered. “My damn daddy lives across town, and I don’t even ask his permission to do what I want to do.”

“Hold your horses now, baby. You know I’m just talkin’ off the top of my head. I didn’t mean no harm. You don’t have to be gettin’ all loud and ghetto on me. Did you take your pill today?”

“What damn pill?”

“Them change-of-life pills I heard you and Rhoda talkin’ about the other day.”

“I think we need to end this conversation immediately, if not sooner,” I suggested.

“That’s a good idea. I can see that you ain’t in no good mood.”

“All right. Like I just said, I am going bowling with Rhoda and her bowling team tonight. I will see you around eleven or eleven thirty. Understand?”

“What’s there to understand? I ain’t no dummy. You goin’ bowlin’ with your girls. I understand that.”

“I’ll see you when I get home, Pee Wee,” I huffed.

“Listen, if you ain’t too mad or too tired when you finish bowlin’, would you stop by Al’s Rib Shack on Patterson Street on your way home and bring me some ribs and coleslaw? And tell them stingy Negroes not to be so scarce with that slaw.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“Have Al throw in a few pieces of chicken, too. All wings. I keep tellin’ you and him that I do not like nothin’ on a chicken but the wings.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I complained.

“Huh? Then what did you mean?”

“Nothing,” I said in a tired voice. I took a deep breath and continued. This time my voice was full of vigor. “I might go with the girls to have a few drinks after bowling. And I’m not asking for your permission. I’m just letting you know in case you need me to come straight home for something else.”

“As long as you drop off my order from Al’s first, you can do whatever the hell you want to do.”

“Don’t worry about that. I will make sure you get everything you got coming,” I quipped. The sarcasm was lost on my husband. Just like so many other things lately.

“And another thing, get me some mild sauce. As long as we been together, you ought to know better by now. I only like mild sauce. Last week, when you came steppin’ up in here with that hot-ass sauce, it danced through my bowels like James Brown. And every time I peed, my dick felt like I’d struck a match to it. I was useless for days.”

Useless was right. As far as I was concerned, my husband’s dick was the most useless appendage on his body these days. No matter what I did, he didn’t want to do it with me. I ate and slept alone most of the time. And even when we were in the house at the same time, it seemed like I was alone. It saddened me to know that after ten years of an almost perfect marriage, it had come to this: my husband was no longer attracted to me. Well, he didn’t have to be now! There was a handsome young man waiting on me in room 108, with a dick that had my name on it.

“I’ll see you when I get home,” I said in a weak voice, knowing now what I had to do if I wanted to hold on to my sanity.

“You’ve been lookin’ and actin’ mighty gloomy these days. So you need to go knock yourself out, baby. You need to go have some fun. Y’all go drinkin’ after you leave that bowlin’ alley and have at least one on me.”

“Oh, you can count on that,” I said with a smirk. I hung up so hard and fast that the coins I had dropped into the slot dropped into the hamper. I sniffed as I scooped them out and dropped them back into my coin purse. Then I marched back across the motel parking lot, itching to get my hands on the hard, young body reserved for me in room 108.

Louis must have been peeping out of the window, because he opened the door just as I was about to knock. “Hey, baby. It’s so good to see you. Girl, every time I look at you, I get an instant hard-on.”

I was taken aback by his comments, but I tried not to show it. I was so cool and calm, you would have thought that handsome men said things like that to me every day. The truth of the matter was, Louis was the first man to be this bold and frisky with me. “Thank you,” I managed. “I needed to hear something like that, Louis.”

“Let me tell you one thing, sweetheart. Now that I’ve got you where I want you, you will be hearing everything you ever thought you might want to hear from a man,” he vowed.

He took me by the hand and pulled me into the semi-darkened room, with its dull furniture. He kicked the door shut with his bare foot and wrapped his arms around my waist. Then he cupped my face in his hands and stared into my eyes. I couldn’t figure out how he was able to look at me for several moments without blinking. I was blinking like a railroad signal.

“I am so happy,” he said, swooning.

I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I just blinked again.

Louis was as naked as the day he was born. I could feel something rock hard between his legs, pressing against my hip bone. It didn’t feel li. . .