“Your mama too,” Demi answered. “That will never be your concern. Quit letting other people put ideas in your head. You’re a man, you think for yourself, a’ight?”
“Yeah, a’ight, Dad,” DJ said.
“Give me some,” Demi said, extending his hand and doing the handshake he had made up with his son when he was just three years old. “Get some sleep.”
Demi pumped the bottle of hand sanitizer on his way out of his son’s room, and as he did something as simple as rub his hands together, he wondered if Charlie would ever knowhim as well as Lauren. Lauren’s entire life had been catered to fit Demi. She accommodated his needs, took care of him. Demi couldn’t remember the last time he had touched a load of laundry or cooked a meal. He never even drew his own baths. Lauren was a nurturer. He wondered if his heart was leading him astray. If he was going through a fucking mid-life crisis or something. He was in his early 30s, but he felt every year. He was no longer the young, gunner, mobbing through his 20s, moving weight and getting rich. He was still getting rich, that much hadn’t changed, but most nights he spent in bed, relaxing on thousand-dollar sheets, sipping a sidecar, and watching old episodes ofShark Tankwhile Lauren painted her toenails. That had become their routine. A successful, power couple that was seemingly legit despite his ties to the streets. He wondered if the thrill of Charlie was some kind of self-sabotage. Discipline had stopped Demi from falling victim to beautiful women over the years. Charlie had him moving completely out of character.
He came out of his shirt as he stepped into the room where Lauren sat in bed, headscarf on.
Take that fucking shit off,he thought, suddenly finding a problem with what wouldn’t have bothered him before. He was the one footing the five-hundred-dollar salon visits every two weeks so he shouldn’t have minded her preservation of his money, but Charlie didn’t tie up her hair. She left it out and it had quickly become one of his favorite features. He wondered if this is what he and Lauren had been reduced to, the unfair judgement of comparison. His cologne infected the air as Lauren sat there, applying lotion to her arms and hands, legs hiked up beneath the covers, making a tent for her laptop to rest on.
Demi rounded her side of the bed. When she didn’t look at him, he knew she was angry. He commanded her chin, and she maneuvered her face out of his grasp. He pulled her back.
Her breath was heavy. Her chest heaved.
“You shower?” he asked.
She nodded.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“Turn around.”
Her need for conversation became the back burner as Demi took over. His order was so low and rough, like he was angry, like he was ready to work out the aggression that had built up throughout the day on her body. She listened. Lauren always listened. It was one of the things he loved about her. Her compliance. She never made life hard for Demi. Her breasts met the bed, and as his eyes rode the arch of her back, Demi came out of his jeans. Lauren was familiar. He knew every inch of her body. He knew the smell of her. He knew the routine of her. He slapped her ass. Such a rough lover but Lauren moaned in response.
Demi reached for the nightstand, pulling open the drawer to find a condom. He was hitting Charlie without protection and he barely knew her. No way could he do the same with Lauren. It was insane. It was as if Charlie and Lauren’s roles were reversed. Somehow, Charlie had become a priority in his soul. Lauren didn’t protest. They had opted for condoms a year ago after a bad miscarriage had taken an emotional toll on Lauren. Ever since, she wanted to be careful. That was the excuse she gave but Demi knew that she was simply afraid to take another loss like the one they had suffered. He wondered if it was during that grief that they had lost their connection as well because there had been a time when he would never have stepped out on her. Oh, how times had changed.
“Oh my God,” she whispered as he entered her.
Demi was the type of man you ran from in bed. His dick was lethal, and as he reached for her hands to trap them behindher back, he felt her legs trembling. He was too much for her, but she took it like a champ as he fucked her to a slow rhythm. He hated that the rhythm was of a song he had Charlie sing. He couldn’t get her out of his head. Even in this moment, she invaded his thoughts. It wasn’t even Lauren beneath him. He saw Charlie and his stroke deepened as the tip of him weakened, throbbing.
He bit down on his bottom lip to stop himself from calling out. Lauren had always been amazing in bed. Since he had met her during her freshman year of college, and had talked her out of her panties on New Year’s Eve after a party she was too young to be at, and he was too gangster to be in. He had been inside her since and Lauren had been running from dick ever since.
Lauren came in minutes. He always outlasted her, and she became a lazy lover after she got hers.
“Oh my God,” she moaned again. “Babyyyyy.”
He hated that Charlie was in his head while Lauren was beneath him. Thoughts of how she clung to him in bed, hell, how she clung to him all the time because Charlie didn’t give a damn about his boundaries. He came home to fuck his wife and remind himself that she was whom he should be loyal to. That whatever other nigga that was in Charlie’s life was not his concern because his concern was here in this home, in his bed, sliding on his dick. It didn’t work, however. Nothing worked. Demi had tried to get her out of his system. He had attempted to stay away, but distance only drove him crazy. Jealousy had sent him home to Lauren, but as looked down at Lauren, guilt seized him because he wanted to be somewhere else. Sex was just sex with Lauren. It was physical, and as he watched his dick split her river, he acknowledged that it was phenomenal, but sex with Charlie had been mental. It was so emotional it choked him. It was intimate and filthy because there was no controlling the room, there was no pinning of her hands.Charlie touched him... everywhere, inside and out. Now that he had experienced her, he wasn’t sure if he and Lauren had ever done anything more than fuck. It was always about the orgasm at the end of the road. His OCD gave him a preference. He always chose to hit her from the back, so that her hands couldn’t take liberty over his body. One night with Charlie and he had given her the key. They switched positions so many times he had lost count and her hands were everywhere, leaving fingerprints on his soul like he was made of glass. He was dirtied up and traces of her were all over him, even in this moment.
He put bawled fists into the sheets as his last strokes went so deep that they leveled Lauren.
“Demi, what you do to me,” she moaned as he pulled out orgasm number two. It wasn’t unordinary. Demi was masterful in bed. They were excellent together in every aspect of their lives, but it was a muted feeling, a comfort that had kept them steady over the years. She was the roots to his tree and Demi felt like shit for straying. She hadn’t done a single thing to deserve it. He met her at the finish line and then disposed of the condom before moving directly to the shower. Maybe he could wash off his guilt. Maybe the water, the heat of it, could sterilize the wrong, flush his sins down the drain, but as soon as it hit his skin, he thought of her. The shower was like their bedroom. They had sex there more than the bed and images of her doing the same things for another man caused Demi to bite down on his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood.
Lauren entered the steamy box and he turned to her.
“You’ve been different, Demi. Something’s changing and I don’t like it. I don’t want it. DJ got into a fight today at practice,” she said.
“He did what?” Demi stopped washing his body as he locked in on her. His son had never been in a fight a day of his life.He wasn’t even that type of kid, so the news rocked him. “Who the fuck touched my son, Lo?” he asked. His voice held no amusement. He had spent most of his childhood fighting. His son would not. He’d put hands on some kid’s daddy to drive the point home before he allowed anyone to hurt his kid.
“He started the fight, Demi,” Lauren informed as she dipped her hair under the stream of water.
“He did what?” Demi asked, angered at the thought of his son bullying someone else. DJ knew better. Demi had taught him better. He wasn’t raising a punk, but he wasn’t raising an antagonist either.
“He wanted you there Demi. He was pissed because you missed his practice. You’re not checked into this family lately. What’s going on with you?” Lauren asked. “It feels like I need to be worried. There’s this nagging feeling in my gut and I can’t ignore it. When it gets to the point where my son is feeling it, I have a problem with that.”
Demi didn’t blame her. In fact, he loved her for it. A mother who would stand up for his kid even when he was the enemy. He loved the fuck out of her for that. He took her chin between the tips of his fingers. Her eyes misted a bit, and he knew she was holding onto her pride, trying her hardest not to be weak for him, for anyone because Lauren prided herself on being strength wrapped in femininity.
“What is happening to us?” she whispered. “Do you not love me anymore?”
