Maneater (2 page)

“L
ose the weight, or the wedding is off.”

What the hell did he just say to me? The air in my lungs caught in my throat, struggling to escape. Where did his unwarranted demand come from? His words echoed like ping-pong balls, slamming against my temples fast and furious. I took a deep breath, restraining from screaming in his face.
Forget that.
Why should I be the sensible one?

“You didn't say that last night, when I was sucking your dick!”

Casually, he said, “Timing would've been off. Agree?”

I was in shock, a quiescent mime unable to respond.

Ping-pong!
Round after round.
Somebody please stop the ricochets!

Sitting in silence, I prayed,
Give me a sign that this is an April Fool's joke in the middle of October. Someone please drop a coin in the invisible metal bucket perched at my feet, triggering him to say, “Baby, I was kidding. I love you just the way you are.”
Motionless, breath trapped inside my throat, I waited and waited and waited. He didn't speak a word.

Mama used to tell me, “Don't be an angry woman. Be a thinking woman. If you feel pressured, silence yourself, take a few deep breaths, and think about what is best for you.”

As silence filled the air, we emotionally drifted apart.

Swallowing the despair clawing at me, I mustered myself and said, “I can't breathe.” Claustrophobia overwhelmed me, causing me to lose my composure and slump into the sofa beside my callous fiancé.

All I'd done since he'd proposed was joyfully plan our perfect wedding. Two years living together, the last year engaged, and this was his way of calling off the wedding? Sweat seeped between and underneath my thighs, soaking my black Chicago Bears panties. I'd understand his behavior if we'd argued, fought.

Was his love a façade?

I loved this man with all my heart, my being, my soul. But that's my fault, not his.

“Who?” I dreaded asking what I had to know. “Is she prettier? Smaller? Smarter? Is she better than me in bed? I can please you more. Do some other things if you'd like. Anything. I'll do anything to make this…work.” The words strangled me with desperation. Fear of losing the man I loved to another woman consumed me. “Who is she? Please tell me.”

No woman was a bigger freak than me. My big, delicious caramel titties with bubble-gum-sized nipples had easily sandwiched many dicks when I was in high school and in college. I'd done things to make grown men cry like babies. A few women, too. I could prove it to him. Right here. Right now. I called myself being safe. Careful not to scare him away, I'd reserved my best bedroom skills to blow his mind on our honeymoon in St. Barts.

He remained stoic, gazing out of the living-room window, beyond Highway 41, to the blue waters of Lake Michigan. Flatly, Maverick said, “There is no she. All you need to know is you mean the world to me.”

I scratched the brow above my twitching left eye. Maverick hadn't witnessed the best or worst of what I could offer him.
Think, Seven. Think.
“You can't be serious,” I said faintly, lightly strumming my numb jaw. “Something or someone changed you overnight. You don't love me like you used to. Last night, the sex, my updating you on our wedding plans, then our watching the presidential debate, I had no idea. No clue you felt this way. What's wrong with my body?”

I sat up straight, rubbed my stomach, swallowed air while forcing back tears. I nervously tugged a fistful of my long, curly hair. “I thought you liked my body. You've never complained before. There has to be someone else. Is she younger? Older? Or are you tripping off of your father again? He's dead, honey. Stop letting him ruin your life from his grave.”

His parents and mine were deceased. I couldn't imagine any parent being as cruel as Maverick said his dad was to him. We were both only children. I had one best friend, Zena, and he had two close friends from high school. At times Maverick acted more like a child than a grown man. Nothing was ever his fault. I had to think my way out of what was bothering him.

Last night, Obama made me believe change was good and that all things were possible. McCain made me fear four more years of a Republican administration, declining property values, vanishing stocks, bank failures, homes foreclosing, more major companies and small businesses filing for bankruptcy, and diminishing 401Ks forcing retirees back to work.

At this moment, Maverick made me think I'd slept in the same bed for two years with a complete stranger. While the economy was unpredictable, my relationship was supposed to be recession-proof. So I'd thought.
Foolish me.
I wasn't giving up on him.

“Ouch.” I touched my bottom lip, glanced at my finger, and rubbed the speck of blood on my white Devin Hester jersey. Disappointment layered my sadness with disgust. The slits of my lids narrowed, shrinking his six-foot frame to the three inches he made me feel. Scooting to the opposite end of the apricot-tinted Italian leather sofa, I stared at my fiancé. My palms ached to slap him upside his shiny bald head.

His rejection overwhelmed me. For the first time in my life, I felt fat. Miserable. Dirty. Sticky.

Don't slap his selfish ass. Calm down. You are not a violent person. You're just upset. Maybe this is some sort of last-minute pass or fail test from him. The kind that reassures him he's not about to marry a woman who is violent or vindictive.

Finally, he answered, “I'm dead serious.” He pulled from his pocket a pair of my yellow Lycra boy-cut underwear with S
WEETER THAN
H
ONEY
embroidered in gold across the pubic area.

Sideswiped by premeditated premarital sabotage, I tried my best not to look at him. I might go off.

Why'd he have to pick the yellow ones? Any other color would've appeared smaller. Black. Red. Snatching the drawers from him, I threw them in his beautiful brown-sugar face, then watched them fall to his lap. A well-trimmed shadow beard trailed a thin line from his ears to his chin, framing his succulent lips with a perfectly aligned goatee, a replica of G. Garvin's. I shouldn't have prepared so many of Gerry's mouthwatering recipes. Too late to regurgitate any of the carbs from my hips. Fat cells had already doubled, tripled, inviting cellulite to the sides and backs of my thighs.

Maverick's stern demeanor hadn't wavered.

A bottle of tequila would help me through a liposuction procedure, a few hCG injections, laser cellulite treatments, and a series of body wraps. A quick fix might salvage our relationship or keep me from…

Quietly I stood, went upstairs to his library, removed the shoe box from the top shelf. I held Maverick's prized possession in my hand. Cold, heavy like my heart. I placed the gun in my laptop bag, closed and locked the safe, then returned to the living room. Here I was, not married yet, already fighting to hang on to my man. I sat beside him. He was not leaving me. Not alive.

I hate you…Kiss me. Hold me. Please tell me you're not serious. I love you so much. It hurts.

Magnificent crystal gray eyes, dilated black coal pupils sparkled like carbonado diamonds. Maverick was perfection personified. A self-made multimillionaire. The wealthiest, most eligible bachelor in Illinois, according to the tabloids. He'd given me more than any of those housewives of Atlanta and Orange County had combined.

“That's cool,” he said, twirling my drawers on one finger. “But getting upset isn't going to help your case. I spent a half mil on an engagement ring, which is in the jewelry box because it doesn't fit!” Calmly, he continued, “That means the wedding band won't fit, either. You need to get real about your fat ass or get up out of my house. It's just that simple.”

Ooh wee, Seven, don't go back upstairs for the gun.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. Breathing heavily, I thought,
Mama, what should I say to this man?

“I'm not a damn Barbie doll! I'm a woman. I have feelings. For God's sake, can't you see how much I love you?” I didn't know what to do or say next. I struggled to rationalize his behavior but couldn't.

Maverick replied, “True. Barbie is white,” adding no comment about his love for me.

I sat there on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This man was my everything. My friend. My lover. My fiancé. I had to marry him.