“So what is it that you needed to tell me that you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”

“Nigga, we live together. Why shouldn’t I have a talk with you face-to-face?” Trina shot back. Brendan placed his cell phone on the counter and took a seat on the ottoman. Brendan’s body language showed that he wasn’t eager to have a talk. Trina sensed it and she immediately caught an attitude. “I mean, it’s not like we do much else together these days. All you do is work and keep your nose up Dee’s ass the rest of the time.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever, my ass. It’s true and I’m sick of it.”

“So what you wanna do about it?”

“I want you to do better. Be more attentive.” Brendan paused before responding. The first thing that came to his mind was a conversation he’d heard in the barbershop. It doesn’t matter if you’re Donald Trump and have a dick made of gold. A woman is but so patient. They want to be paid attention to. You snooze, you lose. He couldn’t remember who had said it but he never forgot the words. As of late he had stopped paying attention to Trina. It was a strange gamble since she had a history of cheating, even when he was doing right, showering her with affection, gifts, and attention. Brendan rationalized that perhaps he was ready for her to drift away, even if it was into the arms of another, or maybe he was beginning to enjoy his new lifestyle of womanizing.

“Trina, you’re never satisfied,” he finally responded.

“That is not true. I have been so happy since we moved in together. I thought that maybe we would be farther along toward getting married by now, but instead…it’s like we’re moving farther apart.” She put her hands over her face then ran her fingers through her hair.

“Well, I don’t know what to say. Just ’cause I been hanging out a little with Dee you wanna give me this drama. It’s not like you haven’t been having your fun.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what the hell it means.” He was finally going to let her have it. In all probability, she had given him chlamydia and had never had the decency to tell him. “Why is it you think that we haven’t had sex in a month?” Her face showed the look of puzzlement. It was obvious that she hadn’t realized how long it had been until he’d said something. She began to count back on her fingers and Brendan finally became disgusted. “Oh, bitch, don’t play dumb,” he finally shouted.

“Who the hell are you talking to?” Trina stood up from the couch.

“You’d better sit your ass back down.”

“You don’t tell me what to do.”

“Trina, sit down,” he said, trying to calm the situation. “I should be the one going off.”

“No, nigga, you don’t disrespect me like that. I will lose it and whoop your ass up in here.”

“You know what? I won’t entertain that bullshit. You are the one who gave me a fucking disease.”

“WHAT?” she yelled. “I know you have lost your mind now.”

“Say what you will, but I went to the doctor’s last month because my shit wasn’t right.”

She folded her arms and a smirk showing disbelief was on her face. “And he told you that you had a disease, huh?” With her finger pointing into his face, she said, “If you did get one, it must have come from one of those dirty bitches that you and Dee have been running around with.”

“I hadn’t been with anyone else.”

“What the fuck do you mean hadn’t?”

“Until you fucked around and gave me this shit I was faithful. And once again I got burned by you, but in a different way this time. So I figured what the hell, two can play that game.”

Trina’s face showed no emotion. She got up and walked into the bedroom and came back out holding a prescription bag. “Last month I went to the doctor’s too and had an abnormal Pap smear.” She threw the bag. “One of those is for a yeast infection, which I never get. The second one is for prenatal vitamins.”

Brendan didn’t catch on.

“Don’t sit there looking stupid,” she said, but he did. “The reason I had a yeast infection was because of a hormonal imbalance caused by pregnancy. Now, if your doctor says that you definitely had a disease…then you got it from someone else.”

“Well, he didn’t say a hundred percent but…”

Before he could finish, she screamed out, “But you started fucking around on me because you thought I did something. You are such a little boy. Why wouldn’t you talk to me?” Trina collapsed onto the couch and the first tear fell.

“Trina, it was just your past…it was easy to see you doing the same thing that you did in the past.”

The next second, she was on top of him swinging wildly. “I hate you,” she was screaming. Brendan tried to cover up as she threw punch after punch. He finally escaped from underneath her and jumped up from the couch.

“Baby, calm down.”

She reached for the first thing she could find. Instantly the universal remote flew toward him striking him in the forehead like a pitch from a major leaguer. Next she yanked a candle from the coffee table and slung it it his direction. It missed and hit a picture on the wall, shattering it as it fell. “I’m gonna kill you, motherfucker.”

“Listen, I’m sorry, baby,” Brendan begged. He was in a defensive stance.

She charged him and with a move from her tae kwon do class lunged foot first into his groin. Brendan wasn’t prepared and when she connected, he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Ohhhhh, bitch, I am going to kill you.” He clenched his fist, but before he could react the effect of being kicked in his nuts took over. He dropped to his knees and a look of anguish appeared on his face. “Arrrgggghhh.” He rolled on the floor trying to stop the pain. His jewels felt like they were in his chest and his breathing became labored. He forgot everything that was going on at that point. He wanted to make her pay. Trina knew that by kicking him in the nuts all bets were off. There was no turning back at this point, so she stood over him, “How you like that? I told you I would whip your ass, you punk. You gonna cheat on a bitch, huh? Well, you shoulda asked somebody, ’cause you picked the wrong one this time. Brendan, I can promise you one thing. I am going to make your life miserable. I’m having this baby and you are going to pay through the nose.” She was ranting and he was in too much pain to pay her any attention. The only thing he could feel was anger as the pain began to slowly lose its grip. “The only way you are going to be able to afford to eat when I finish with you is by having to rob Nordstrom’s blind. In case you forgot,” she said as she swung her foot, “size seven, nigga.” She kicked him in the back. “Michael Kors, nigga.”

Her anger was at the boiling point as she spit on Brendan. He felt the cold wetness of her saliva on the back of his neck and lost it. As she backed away he reached out and grabbed her ankle. She underestimated his strength and tried to pull away. He yanked her ankle as if he was pulling the emergency brake on a train headed for a cliff. When she stumbled he pushed with all his might. Trina quickly lost her balance and fell backward into the CD rack. When she hit it and slid to the floor the rack came tumbling down on her. She gave a new meaning to nonstop music as five hundred discs hit her right in the face seconds before the wooden rack landed on top of her. Her head was banging with pain and the weight of the rack hurt her to the point that she became fearful for her unborn child. She had put her arms over her belly to protect it. Just as her tears erupted, a hard knock came at the door. “Open up, police.”

Nate was in Charlotte for a couple of days, and Dee wasn’t answering his phone. When Brendan called her she had shown up immediately. As they left the county lockup in Upper Marlboro, Tanisha asked him, “Are you going to be okay?”

He didn’t know the answer to that one yet. He was facing charges for aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and for battery as well. When Brendan let the officers in, Trina was the one looking like the victim of an attack. A couple of CDs had scratched her face and she was moving around as frantically as if a pit bull had bitten her. The officers had taken Trina’s side completely and looked at Brendan with disgust once she told them that she had just told him about her pregnancy. They took it almost as if he tried to cause a miscarriage. His complaint on the way down the steps about the cuffs being too tight led to rougher treatment and a trumped-up charge of resisting arrest. He was feeling royally screwed.

As they drove up Brown Station Road Brendan decided to explain the entire situation to Tanisha, everything except the pregnancy. She was silent and listened quietly. Finally she said, “Listen, if you want to chill at my spot for a couple of days, it’s fine.”

He thought about her offer and it didn’t take long to see that his options were limited. Nate wasn’t settled yet and he didn’t want his parents to know what was going on. Dee might have agreed to let him stay but Brendan needed to be somewhere where he could get his emotions in check. “I’d appreciate that.”

“Don’t mention it. Stay as long as you need.” Tanisha was sweet.

“What about your boyfriend slash situation?”

She tuned the radio station. “Oh him, I ended that once and for all.”

Brendan was silent and satisfied for the time being. “Hey, I want you to drop me past my crib so I can grab my car and pick up a few items. Make the second right.”

Tanisha followed his directions until Brendan told her to park. “Do you want me to wait?” she asked.

“No, I might be about an hour getting some stuff together. I may even get a locksmith to come and change the locks,” he said. “I mean this is my crib,” he added boastfully. Just then he turned and headed toward his condo and caught a glimpse of his car. “Oh, shit, no,” he screamed. “Awwwwww fuuuuckkk,” he was repeating as he ran toward his Corvette. Every window was smashed out of it and instead of keyed up, it looked like Freddy Krueger had gone to work on it and scraped the car from front to back. At that point the slashed tires were an afterthought. Brendan fell to his knees right there in the parking lot.

He was in such a state of shock that he didn’t notice Tanisha standing next to him. There wasn’t anything that she could say to make him feel any better, so she just pulled out her cell and dialed the police. “Someone will be here in the next half an hour they said.”

“Thanks,” escaped his lips.

“Maybe you should go take a look inside.”

They headed toward his place and when he reached his front door he tried to put his key into the lock and noticed the lock had a broken key in it. “I don’t believe this shit.”

He tried unsuccessfully for twenty minutes to get the key out of the lock before calling a locksmith. When he finally came forty-five minutes later, he charged Brendan ninety dollars to bang the doorknob off, ruining his door. His problems were only getting worse. Once inside he was amazed to find that Trina had gone psycho. His couches were cut open, things were thrown everywhere, and to top it off, his fish tank was filled with purple water, and all of his fish were dead, floating at the top.

Tanisha was standing behind him in shock. “Yo, this chick is crazy, Brendan.”

“Who you telling,” he replied. He walked to the back of his condo and surprisingly it was intact. All the dresser drawers were open and it was apparent that Trina had taken all her belongings. Then as he took a seat on the bed to let everything digest, he notices a container of bleach on the floor near the closet. He jumped up and took a look inside. “You bitch,” he yelled out.

“What?” Tanisha asked.

“This bitch ruined all my clothes. She put bleach on everything, even my shoes.”

Tanisha covered her mouth in shock and took a look into his drawers. “Looks like she did your underwear and socks too.”

Just then he heard a knock at the door and he ran to see who it was. When he answered he saw the same police officers who’d arrested him the previous night. “Oh great,” he mumbled. “You’re here to take the report on the car, right?”

“Yes, sir. The Corvette, right?”

“It looks like that’s the only vandalized car in the parking lot from what I can tell,” he spat out sarcastically.

“Brendan, don’t get like that with them. They’re here to help,” Tanisha commented.

“It’s okay, ma’am,” one of the officers responded. “We understand that he might be upset.”

“Upset? Nah, a nigga is past upset.” Brendan pointed at his living room. “Look at this. I want that bitch arrested. Just like you dragged me up out of here and filed those bogus charges…resisting arrest, my ass. You need to go find her, and you better do it before I do.”

“Sir, I don’t think you want to make threats like that. We might have to take you in again.”

“Man, fuck you.”

“Brendan,” Tanisha said before grabbing him. “Look, you go in the back, try to calm down, and I will handle this.” She began explaining everything to the officers and headed out to the parking lot. After a glass of ice water and punching the walls a couple of times, Brendan walked out to join the officers.

“So are you guys going to issue a warrant for her arrest?”

“Well, sir, we don’t have any witnesses, but we will question a couple of the neighbors to see if anyone saw anything that will help with the investigation.”

“So the fact that she had a key and there was no forced entry isn’t enough proof? The fact that she attacked me doesn’t serve as motive?”

“Well, sir, according to her statement you attacked her once she told you that she was pregnant with your child. Does she have brothers or friends who may have taken issue with you over that? We can’t just accuse her without any solid evidence.”

Tanisha had a quizzical look. “Pregnant?”

There was silence. “Man, I don’t believe this. Thanks for nothing.” Brendan turned and headed back into his building.

“Sir, you’re going to need this report for your insurance.”

Once he reached the top of the steps he turned back. “Screw you and your reports, you probably lied on those too.” Then he slammed the door.

Brendan exhaled the smoke and passed the joint back to Tuesday. She either felt sorry for him or was actually starting to dig him. He’d spent three nights in a row at her house. Tanisha had been avoiding his phone calls since the officers had spilled the news to her that he was an abuser and, even worse, to a woman carrying his seed. He’d called Dee and immediately he insisted that Tuesday would come through for him and she did. His insurance company hadn’t even cut the check, and Tuesday had already burned up two stolen credit cards and an assortment of bogus gift cards from Saks, Macy’s, Best Buy, and Circuit City replacing all the items that Trina had destroyed.

All in all Trina actually did him a favor. His claim was for fifteen grand but Tuesday had gotten him twenty thousand worth of clothes and appliances. She was charging him half his insurance check and it seemed like an unlimited supply of head. He wasn’t complaining. Tuesday was a superfreak in bed and the only thing that beats a superfreak is one with access to stolen credit cards. Brendan wasn’t even mad at Trina anymore, except for the issue of calling the police on him. He had gone to her parents’ house looking for her the day after she’d trashed his place only to get “She hasn’t been around here.” Her job claimed that she was on vacation. He gave up the search for the time being, though the pregnancy was on his mind nonstop.

“I really appreciate all that you’ve done for me Tuesday.” He was high and feeling real sentimental. “I just want you to know…”

“Yeah, yeah nigga.” She smiled. “Just put on your scuba gear and get back to diving.” She hit the remote. Raheem De-Vaughn’s CD came on as she spread her legs and leaned back on the couch. As soon as his tongue hit the spot, she shivered and purred like a cat. “Come on, let’s take this to the bedroom.”

Brendan got up and felt the effects from smoking. He was already stripped down to his underwear. He watched as Tuesday moved past him and headed for the bedroom. He watched her ass as she swished her naked bottom. All the sexing between him and Tuesday was helping him forget his problems. As he approached the bed the only thing he remembered was to keep his shirt on.