As “perfect” as Joyce was, I realized she had a few flaws after all. I had been so blinded by love, I hadn’t been able to see them until now. One thorn in my side was the way she reminded me how “lucky” I was because of her. She took credit for me landing the high position I had at the store. But the subject only came up if she was having a bad day. And today was one of them days. She came home from work almost in tears because of an incident with one of the students. He was a rowdy little scalawag. He’d cussed Joyce out and bit her on the leg because she’d whacked his palms with a ruler to punish him for dropping a baby scorpion down the blouse of the girl who sat in front of him. I thought it was funny, but Joyce didn’t. When I laughed, she almost bit my head off.
“You better watch your step, Mr. Man. I’m the last person in the world you need to piss off. If it hadn’t been for my folks hiring you, you’d be back in the cotton and sugarcane fields, or working in another whorehouse,” she blasted. Since Joyce was usually so easygoing, I didn’t let what she said bother me. I kept my mouth shut and slunk out of the room. If I’d had a tail, it would have been between my legs. She was fine and very apologetic when I came back to the living room ten minutes ago with a fresh cup of tea I’d made for her.
I eventually noticed flaws in another area too: my in-laws. Even though they had put me in charge of the business and told me on a regular basis what a good job I was doing, they never let me forget that I was still just an employee. They also let me know that when they passed, Joyce would be the only one authorized to handle their estate. And I’d only be in charge if she died or went crazy. I didn’t think that was fair to me, but I didn’t make a fuss. Shit. My mama didn’t raise no fool. I was not about to bite the hands that was feeding me. Besides, I knew that when Joyce had to take over and control her parents’ affairs, I’d be in an even stronger position because I was controlling Joyce. The only thing I had to do was keep her happy and that was as easy as licking a lollipop. All of that was good for me, but there was times when it made me feel less of a man, and it had a lot to do with me getting even more seriously involved with Betty Jean. That was what I kept telling myself so I wouldn’t feel even guiltier. But the bottom line was, Betty Jean was not the kind of girl a healthy man could ignore. Not only was she too beautiful for words, which would have been enough to make any man act like a fool, but she was also a stone freak in the bedroom. Nothing was too nasty for Betty Jean. I had known a lot of women, but only a couple had enjoyed doing things other than straight sex as much as she did.
“At least I can’t get pregnant by sucking you off,” she told me on my last visit.
“Pregnant? Lord Jesus, girl! Don’t even let that cross your mind.” Just the thought of her getting pregnant sent a chill up my spine. But I knew that if we kept wallowing around in her bed, making a baby was a strong possibility. I had to break off the relationship and I had to do it soon. Matter of fact, I had decided that the next time I visited her, I’d tell her I couldn’t see her no more.
I had never thought too much about Betty Jean getting pregnant. From day one, we’d been careful and I’d pulled out in the nick of time. I’d been too late a couple of times, but so far we’d been lucky.
Until today, the last Sunday in September.
I came straight home from church a few minutes past noon to change out of my new black suit into some jeans and a plain shirt. The house was empty, so I had time to sit down and have a glass of wine and go over in my head what I was going to say to Betty Jean. I wanted to wrap things up as fast as I could so I could put her behind me, and forget I ever met her.
Joyce and her parents had gone to visit some relative in Mobile. They’d invited me to tag along, but I’d told them I needed to go check up on Daddy. He was the best excuse I could use when I needed to get out of something I didn’t want to do. In addition to his other ailments, which included diabetes and arthritis, now he had the grippe. What my wife and in-laws didn’t know was that none of Daddy’s problems was as bad as I made them out to be, so I actually only visited him once or twice a week. All the extra “visits” to him in the last couple of weeks had been to Betty Jean’s house. My “fishing” trips didn’t actually happen as often as I claimed either. I kept my reel, a net, and bait cans in the trunk of my car, so a lot of the times when I wanted to be with Betty Jean for only a couple of hours, I’d pick up fresh fish from one of the markets on my way home and told Joyce I’d caught them. She put up a mild fuss about cleaning the fish, so I eventually took over that chore. But she enjoyed cooking and eating them so much that she even encouraged me to go fishing more often.
