The Man Handler

“We had an arrangement. One I thought was working out fine until he wanted to change it up. I was content with the sex, ’cause the man can put it down in the—”

“I get the point,” he says, cutting me off.

I spare him the rest of the details and say, “I told him I didn’t think we should continue seeing each other.”

“Oh, I see,” he says, shifting in his seat. “And there was no room for compromise?”

I shake my head. “No, not as far as I was concerned.”

He smiles, shaking his head. “Still the same ole Bianca, I see.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, feigning insult.

“Spoiled rotten,” he says, laughing. “Still gotta have everything your way.”

I fold my arms defiantly across my chest, pretending to be hurt that he would say such a thing. “Well, what’s wrong with that? I’ve always gotten my way. I have a mother and father and six overprotective brothers who have always given me my way.”

“That’s because none of us wanted to deal with your nonstop tantrums.”

I laugh. “Whatever.”

He gets up. I stand as well. “Listen, beautiful, I gotta get going. I had really hoped you and Garrett would have hit it off. I wanted him to be the one for you.”

“Well, I’m not sure if anyone is the one for me.”

He studies me, furrowing his brow. “What are you so afraid of?”

Honestly, Tyler’s question takes me off guard. I hadn’t expected him to ask me that. And I definitely didn’t expect to answer it, not in truth, anyway. But I do. I take a deep breath, and say, “Commitment, and getting hurt.”

He slowly nods, knowingly. “You gotta face your fears, baby girl. And be willing to take some risks. You won’t know love unless you open up your heart and mind to it.”

“I’m not ready to.”

He gives me another big bear hug, holding onto me for what seems like forever. I don’t know why I am becoming so emotional, but as soon as he pulls away, I feel myself tearing up, not wanting to let him go. “I love you, Sis.”

I force a smile, fighting back tears. “I love you, too, Tyler.” I open the door for him. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Anytime, baby. You know I’m here for you. Day or night, anytime you feel like talking, about anything, you call me, you hear?”

I nod.

“Good.” He kisses me on the forehead. “Now, get back in the house before I have to arrest one of these peeping toms in your neighborhood for staring too hard at you.”

I giggle. “Bye, silly.”

He starts to walk off, then turns around. “Oh, one more thing, I think you should call him.”

“Call who?” I ask, feigning ignorance.

He grins, wagging a finger at me. “You know who, fool. Garrett.”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

He throws his hands up in the air, walking off, shaking his head. “See you at Mom and Dad’s for Thanksgiving,” he says over his shoulder.

“Can’t wait.”

I watch him get into his SUV, and wait until he backs out of the driveway and pulls off before shutting the door.

Thirty minutes later, I am in the bathroom hugging the porcelain bowl with my face inches from the toilet water, violently throwing up my guts. My head feels like it’s ready to explode into tiny pieces. A film of sweat forms across my forehead. Oh God, I think, heaving, I’m pregnant.

I practically crawl up the stairs, and pull myself up in my bed. I reach for the phone, and call out sick from work. Though I don’t need anyone to tell me what I already know in my heart, I call my gynecologist’s office, anyway, and leave a fierce message for someone to call me back to set up an emergency appointment. Although I ride the pro-choice and pro-life fence, I am very much aware of what I have to do. There’s no other recourse. I can’t have this baby, I think, drifting back off to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

After three days of being out sick, I’m finally back up in this bitch. Although I’m still not feeling one hundred percent myself, I’m not throwing my guts up as much. And, despite some tossing and turning, I was able to get a few hours of sleep last night.

I’m sure most of my restlessness is due to the fact that my gynecologist did confirm that I am pregnant. A situation I don’t feel like thinking about, or discussing, right now. And another contributing cause for my sleeplessness was the dream I had last night. I was being fucked by Derek (of all people!). He was my first dick suck, my first fuck, my first kiss, my first love. And now, after all these years, he was in my dreams, opening and exploring my pussy with a new found appreciation, savoring every inch of me. In my dream, he recognized, and appreciated, the fact that I wasn’t that same naive little girl he had fucked on my twin bed all those years ago. He acknowledged I was a woman with a pussy that devoured dick for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And he fed me his big, thick, black dick that seemed to have grown and had gotten thicker from the days of our youth. He understood I was a woman with needs and wants and desires; a woman who knew her body like the back of her hand; a woman whose pussy ached for and begged for and cried for dick. He sensed this and embraced my womanly curves, adored my full titties and large nipples, kissed my hips, my thighs, the back of my knees, my ankles and feet. He sucked on each of my toes, then dragged his tongue along the center of my thighs until he reached my paradise. Then he mounted his lips around my pussy and clit, and sucked and licked and slurped until my pussy exploded in his mouth.

After that, he crawled up over me, kissed me with his pussy-stained lips, started sucking on my lips, then stuck his tongue into my mouth, twirling his around mine. We became tongues and hands and mouths and lips and bodies colliding against each other. Tasting and touching and wanting and feeling desire until he slid his dick inside of me and stretched my pussy to capacity, hitting its bottom, knocking its sides, causing its walls to expand and contract and erupt into a sea of sweet, sticky juices.

I reached up underneath him, reached for his balls, touching them, stroking them, spreading my legs wider so that he could get lost in my pussy, bury his dick in my pussy, and never want to leave my pussy. I felt for his dick while he humped and pumped and banged and grinded and thrust in and out of me, feeling his hot, thick cum creeping out of my wet pussy, trickling down the center of my ass. Then…I woke up!

Gazing out of my office window, I squeeze my legs shut and wonder why I would dream about Derek—of all people, after all this time. I haven’t seen or heard from him in years. Haven’t even given him any thought. The last I had heard, he was married with six kids, living somewhere in Houston. Damn, six kids, I think, shaking my head, remembering how good he stroked my pussy. I suppose if things had been different between us, if we hadn’t grown apart, I would have been the one bogged down with a house full of whining-ass brats. I shudder at the thought. I don’t know how some of these women do it. Pop out a bunch of babies like bunny rabbits.

I wonder to myself what’s worse, not wanting to have a baby by someone you love or not wanting one by someone you have no emotional connection to. For either scenario, I come up with no logical answer. Is there really a difference?

Someone taps on my door, disrupting my reverie. The door slowly opens before I can invite whoever is on the other side in. Everett peers his head in. “Hey there,” he says, smiling. “You busy?”

“No, not at all,” I reply, motioning for him to come in. I silently watch him as he shuts the office door, then glides across the room towards me.