The Ex Factor: A Novel Read Free Page B

him hugged up on some bitch and rubbing her pregnant belly. You get mad. The hurt, the anger, and the embarrassment floods back. So you take him to court for child support and when it's all done you walk away with thirty dollars a week. He looks at you as if he never loved you and on the way out he says, “Either go hard or go home.” Instantly you feel like that's what you need to hear, those hateful, hurtful, yet magical words that force you to face reality. So you begin to get your shit together, you get a well-paying job doing customer service for an insurance company, your baby is now three years old, and you've saved enough money to move out on your own.
    As you go to look for apartments, the first person you see is ahoney-glazed and well-chiseled cop walking the beat. You can tell that he's a rookie by his uniform but he seems to be chillin' and the guys you think he'd be arresting, he's kicking it with. You can tell by the smoothness of his face that he's younger than you but he's grown and judging by the bulge in his pants he's been grown for a long time. You try to stop staring but you can't. He reminds you of some of the men your mother has dated: golden brown, nicely built, and strong. He notices you and after you look at the apartment, he's waiting for you outside. You exchange numbers with him and after dating for a month, you bring him home to meet your mother, Starr, and two sisters: Monica and Imani. They all seem to click instantly.
    A year later he asks you to marry him and you feel good to be the first one in your family to actually get married and not just live with your
ole man.
So now you're the Mrs. and the real shit begins. He likes his dick sucked but you can't stand the smell of pubic hairs. He begs you to stick his dick in your ass, but last you remembered sodomy was a crime. He likes Victoria's Secret negligees but they don't sell your size. He's a neat freak; you throw your clothes around. He likes to save money; you depend on next week's paycheck. He's structured and he likes to eat at a certain time but you never cook. He loves your daughter as if she is his own, yet you keep your third eye open. He's strict and assigns her a bedtime, but if she cries loud enough you let her stay up. He doesn't tolerate her acting grown or being in adult conversations, but you try to convince him that she's intelligent and needs a playmate, which is your excuse to get pregnant.
    When you have the baby, which turns out to be twin girls, you talk your husband into moving out of Brooklyn and you find a suburb in Jersey, an hour and a half away from everything.
    At your insistence your husband buys a brand-new, six-bedroom Colonial that neither one of you can afford, but you promise to get a job and help out. Yet before you know it, the twins are four years old, you're still unemployed, Victoria's Secret still doesn't fit,you refuse to suck dick, and fucking you in the ass is out of the question. But now you're up shit's creek, because you feel your husband has found a freak. The possibility of this reality is kicking you in the spine, your knees starting to shake as you stand in the tri-fold mirror looking at three different dimensions of yourself, hating the dull freckles on your face, craving another cigarette, cussing at the air, all while trying to figure out what the fuck is really going on.
    &
     
    CELESTE STROKED HER short red and natural curls, which crowned her round freckled face to a T. She swallowed the rising lump in her throat. “To hell with Sharief.” She walked out of the bathroom, peeked in Kai's room, and saw that she had fallen back to sleep, while Kori and Kayla, who were in their respective bedrooms, looked as if they'd been sleeping peacefully all night.
    Celeste walked back into her bedroom, dimmed the lights, and turned on the radio. Marvin Gaye's “Let's Get It On” was playing softly. She started moving her shoulders from side to side. Sitting down on the bed, she leaned the back of