Second Time Around Read Free Page A

behaviors; behaviors that often had high consequences. Jayna had been blessed that she hadn’t been raped, killed or given an STD. These were three very real things that could have happened to her at any time. Things she never thought about until after she had an orgasm.
    Korie didn’t think that Jayna was a whore or whorish, but she did think her girlfriend was sometimes too eager to give away her goodies. She knew that Jayna needed help, and was happy that she was seeing a professional.
    Korie’s worst nightmare would be for her longtime friend to come to her crying one day because she got the big disease with the little name. If that should ever happen, Korie was sure that Jayna would gladly trade places with their friend Eula, who recently lost her leg to a different disease—diabetes. Korie worried often about her friend. Every night she prayed for her. Even with counseling, that didn’t stop Jayna from having the high-risk behaviors. It didn’t stop her from inviting many men into her bedroom.

    The more money and more potential stability a man had to offer, the greater his chances were of taking Jayna to bed. She’d slept with very powerful men around the city of Chicago. She slept with them in their offices, the homes that they shared with their wives, and in many of Chicago’s best hotels.
    All the men Jayna bedded were handsome and were all considered pretty good catches professionally. Some were clients, some were colleagues. All of them were men who could make things happen. The problem was none of them ever made anything happen with Jayna, outside of sex.
    Nothing serious ever developed from any of those relationships and because of that, Jayna was down on herself. She would sometimes come to Korie complaining about how trifling men were, even the professional ones.
    There were times that Korie would listen to her girlfriend and say to herself, what did you expect to happen?
    When Jayna was upset about a man, she shopped. She bought the finest clothes, drove luxury cars, and traveled often. The thing was, many times she was doing these things alone. If not alone, then she would have one-night stands with men she barely knew. The men were always wealthy, but they were almost always married.
    On the outside Jayna looked like she had everything together. She had a great job, two great cars, and great looks. On the outside she was damn near perfect. On the inside, she was a mess. Still, being friends means sometimes that you don’t judge. That was the lie that Korie used to tell herself.
    Korie loved Jayna like a sister and today the sisters were going running. When they ran, they weren’t professionals, they weren’t judged by the world and its shallow expectations. When they ran, they were just two women hanging out with one another. Two beautiful black women, hanging out with one another.
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    Korie grabbed her warm-up gear, which was always neatly folded on the edge of her bed. She grabbed her running shoes, her full-length outfit, bra and panties, and headed to the bathroom. She ran the shower and turned on her iPod.
    Korie quickly got undressed, brushed her teeth, and examined herself in the mirror as she brushed.
    Like Jayna, Korie too had made a considerable amount of progress in these past four months. She went from a size ten to a size six. Her abs were also beginning to show and her breasts, which were just beginning to sag a little, began to firm up.
    With all the water she was drinking, Korie’s beautiful Hershey chocolate–colored skin began to look flawless. Once upon a time Korie’s butt rivaled that of Jayna’s. Now, with the weight loss, she was beginning to look like a model; not like a music video model, but a model who you might see in a magazine. Korie had the killer looks and Jayna had the killer body.
    She looked in the mirror and was satisfied with what she saw. Before stepping in the shower she quickly thought to herself,