One Toe Out (A Complicated Love Story) (16 page)

Barrett McKenzie pushed the shopping cart through the grocery store, it was eight o’clock on a Friday evening, the worst time of the week for her to shop. The grocery store was filled with single people hoping to find something to squeeze in the produce department that didn’t spoil in fourteen days, people running in to get last minute items for dinner and families like herself who always forgot about the Friday evening crowd and think that they could run in and out in ten minutes. Three years ago, she would’ve been in and out so fast that she would’ve left skid marks. But no more, her two-year-old, daughter, Kelsey, and six-month-old, son, Tavis Junior, T.J., changed all that.

Barrett had made the mistake of going down the aisle with the miniscule toy section, however; no matter how small, her daughter found it and picked up a Hot Wheels car.

“
Put it down,” Barrett said softly. But instead of returning it to the shelf, Kelsey got down on her hands and knees and began pushing the car on the dirty floor. Barrett’s grip tightened on the nylon strap wrapped around her hand. “Come on Kelsey. We need to finish shopping.”

Kelsey looked over her shoulder at her mom. “No!”

“
Put it down Kelsey,” Barrett murmured. Her daughter ignored her and continued playing. Barrett tugged discreetly on the leash that was attached to a harness buckled around her daughter’s torso. She didn’t want to draw too much attention to them; she had already gotten the usual looks from other shoppers. People pointed and giggled at her, some scowled and made her feel like she was treating her daughter like a disobedient puppy. She had seen it all.

You don’t know how hard it is, she wanted to yell. Over the last two years she had gone through fifteen different nannies. She caught one yelling at Kelsey and one hitting her daughter. The beating was so bad that it left bruises. There were the ones who never showed up on time, some who showed up for a couple of days then stop coming and some who never showed up at all. A couple of them even tried to hit on her husband.

“
Put it down,” she repeated.

“
No!”

Barrett sighed, rounded the cart, pulled Kelsey up and wrestled the car out of her hand.
You either have supernatural strength or I’m tired.
Kelsey wailed loudly as soon as the car was returned to the counter. Kelsey’s screech cut through every nerve ending in Barrett’s body.
Damn you Tavis.
He had to work late again at the hospital. She debated whether to stick her daughter in the buggy, but the two twenty-four mega roll packs of toilet tissue took up the majority of the room and she still had more shopping to do. She imagined wedging her daughter between the toilet tissue, but decided against it when she imagined the hateful looks she’d get from strangers.

Barrett knelt in front of her daughter, cupped her chin and forced her to look her in her eyes. “You’re going to stop that crying and behave yourself.” Kelsey paused and looked her mother in the eyes, they had a stand-off. They locked eyes, both stubbornly eyeing each other, neither backed down, until T.J. burst out crying.

Barrett pointed her finger at her daughter before she stood up. “You didn’t win this, and you’d better behave yourself.” Kelsey laughed and stood still. T.J. was sitting in his carrier, in the seat of the buggy, exactly where the stores discouraged parents from putting the carrier. But Barrett ignored it. “Try shopping with a toddler and a baby without using this, then come talk to me,” she’d mutter every time she’d put the carrier in the buggy.

Barrett stroked T.J.’s cheek, normally he was a quiet baby. “Are you okay, sweetie. What’s wrong, you just ate.” T.J. wailed. “It’s okay, Mommy got you.” She unbuckled T.J. from his carrier and pulled him into her arms. His screams grew louder and Barrett gently bounced him while patting his back. She heard a loud burp. “You had to burp.” She pulled him away along with a string of spit up. “Oh crap!” He’d destroyed her suit jacket.

Just then she heard Kelsey’s laugh. “Oooh!” She looked and saw her two-year-old daughter jetting down the aisle leaving behind a wake of laughing adults. Barrett held up her hand, the one that was gripping the harness’ strap, it was bare. “It must’ve slipped off when I picked up T.J.” She quickly returned T.J. to his carrier.

She wanted to cry. At least once a week she argued cases in front of judges, other lawyers and juries, but none of them ever came close to making her want to whimper and roll up into a little ball to escape it all, like her daughter did.

“
Come back here!” Barrett roared. “This is why I use the harness!” she yelled as she raced after her daughter while pushing the shopping cart. Shoppers jumped out of her way and a couple good hearted ones really did try to catch her daughter, but Kelsey wiggled out of their grasps as though she was covered in baby oil. For a two-year-old she had feet like roller skates, she zoomed along the aisles, squealing loudly. “Kelsey come back here!”

But having her mother chase her while yelling, made Kelsey think they were playing a game, so she ran even faster. She turned the corner and out of Barrett’s sight, a wave of despair washed over her. Adrenaline propelled her forward, she rounded the corner, narrowly missing a Pepsi display.

“
Is this what you’re looking for?” A familiar lady was holding her wiggling daughter.

Barrett skidded to a stop. “Sage?” she croaked.

Saturday Love -
$.99

Drew Atkins logged into her profile on www.ineedaman.com. She grinned when she saw the number of messages waiting to be read. Thirty. She already knew that more than eighty percent of them were either from sixty-year-old men, married men or men so disgusting looking that they made her ill. Ten percent was usually bi-curious women, she wasn’t ready to go that route yet and the remaining ten percent were actual possibilities.

And for the last six months she had been dating those possibilities. After a few dates or for some it took only one date for the maybes to become actually nos. She liked the system she devised. Round one started off with coffee. Only a few moved on to dinner, round two. And only a lucky man made it to round three, dinner and sex. That had been Darius. He had sexed her and kept a smile on her face for a whole month. They were inseparable, that was until his wife showed up at her house threatening bodily harm.

The pickings of men in her hometown were slim, and unfortunately a lot of them had the personality of a bull toad. Drew quickly scanned an e-mail. This sounds interesting, she thought. She returned to the beginning and slowly reread the message, it had piqued her interest. He had called himself Blkman1972, he liked jazz music, went to church regularly, drank socially, never married and no kids. She crossed her fingers before clicking on the link to his photo. By now she had downgraded her look requirements from drop dead gorgeous to presentable. “Please be decent looking.” Her excitement dimmed when she saw his picture, her heart sank. The picture was dated, at least fifteen-years-old, she decided after looking at the hair style and clothing.

She knew then that he was probably another older guy looking for a young piece of ass. She wasn’t looking for a Sugar Daddy, she deleted the message.

Drew occasionally peeked over her shoulder; keeping an eye out for, Mr. Tumblesome, her supervisor.

She took a bite of her donut and washed it down with some coffee, then moved on to her guilty pleasure, the Craigslist’s, Missed Connection, section. She chuckled softly to herself while scrolling through the messages, occasionally opening up messages with snappy headlines that caught her attention.

Suddenly she let out a little yelp and her best friend, Taylor, glanced up from her computer. "What's going on?" Taylor asked.

"I'm a missed connection," Drew answered excitedly. “Finally, I’m a missed connection!”

Taylor shot up from her desk and hurried over to her friend's cube. "Really?" She knew that her friend read Craigslist religiously, sometimes up to five times a day.

Drew re-read the message for the fourth time. You: sexy, statuesque, Black lady, wearing denim shorts, men's suit jacket, pink camisole, a straw fedora and four-inch sandals. Your tits were jiggling with every step. You were strutting through the Target parking lot yesterday. You looked so hot!

Me: A twenty-five-year-old White man, with blond hair and green eyes. I'm six feet three, I work out a lot, I have a killer body, and the best thing is that I'm nine inches long. Please email me at
[email protected]
.

"OhmyGod! Should I e-mail him?"

"You have to. He sounds so cute."

Drew paused, then: "I don't know."

"Well, why do you spend so much time reading this?"

Drew shrugged. “For shits and giggles.”

“Yeah right. I think you’re doing it because you were hoping someone would write about you and now they did and you’re scared.”

“Am not!” Drew protested.

“Yeah you are.”

“You’re right,” Drew said then giggled. “But I never thought it would happen,” she sheepishly admitted.

“Well it did. Now you have to do something about it.”

“I don’t know.”

Taylor nudged her friend. “Move.”

Taylor and Drew had a stare down. Drew won when Taylor reluctantly averted her gaze and she smirked when Taylor pulled a chair over and settled next to her friend. “So what are you going to say?”

Drew shrugged and bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know.” Drew had already started a new e-mail and put Hello in the subject line. “This is all I have.” She nodded at her monitor.

“Ask him for a picture.”

Drew grinned. “That’s a good idea. He knows what I look like. It’s only fair that I know the same. This will get us on an even playing field.” She typed in her request then hit the send button. “Well I did it.”

They stared at the screen as though willing a response. “I don’t think it’s going to come any faster if we keep staring at the screen.”

“I guess I’d better get back to work.” Just as Taylor was pushing herself up from her chair, a new e-mail came in. “This is it!” she screamed excitedly. “He sent a picture. Click on it!”

Drew clicked the attachment and a hairless sun kissed torso filled her screen. Speechless she stared at the image, then she reached up and ran her hand over her computer monitor. He had flexed when he had taken the picture, as his pecs were lifted and she counted four rows of muscles in his stomach.

Taylor pointed to Drew’s monitor. “Wow! Look there’s another one.”

“Oh God, I don’t know if I can take another picture, I’m still recovering from the first one.” With shaky hands, Drew clicked on the message. And this time an ass filled the screen. “Oh my,” she breathed. She dared a furtive glance over her shoulder. Everyone was still working and hadn’t looked in their direction. “It’s perfect,” she said while imagining licking it and biting it softly. “It’s hairless, smooth and so taut.”

Fortunately, Drew and Taylor were such good friends that Drew felt comfortable enough to be so free with her, they were as close as sisters.

Send me another one, Drew silently begged. Her wish was answered when a dick, the size of a medium size banana, filled the screen.

“Oh my.” Drew pressed her legs together, her pussy began to throb. “I want to taste him, I want to swallow him and I want him to fuck me,” she whispered. She shoved the thought of going to the bathroom and masturbating to relieve herself out of her head. “I wonder what he looks like.”

“You’re right. I’ll ask him.” Drew immediately sent another e-mail. She crossed her fingers and nervously waited. “Come on, come on.”

Three minutes later she got the e-mail. She instinctually reached out then hesitated, she looked at her friend. “I’m scared.”

“Relax, relax, I’ll do it.” Sexy green eyes stared back at her, she scrolled down to take in the whole face. “He cannot be real,” Drew whispered. “He can’t be.” She could’ve sworn she was looking at a model. Drew noticed that he had included his name and phone number. “He’s so gorgeous. Why would someone who looks like him want to date me?” she muttered.

Taylor wanted to slap her friend, sometimes she barely had enough self-esteem to fill a shot glass. “You’re gorgeous. Men are always trying to talk to you.”

“Yeah,” Drew acknowledged, “but none who looks like him. Look at him, he looks like a model for Abercrombie and Fitch. He is fine…but maybe that isn’t him, maybe this is someone else’s picture.”