She jumped up from the floor and slapped a set of handcuffs on my wrist and read me my rights. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say, or do, can and will be used against you in a court of law…”
Ain’t this bout a bitch, I shook my head as I was lead out into the crisp night’s air.
Chapter 25
Gladys
There was another secret that no one else knew about me. When they found out that I had experienced physical abuse from James, both Shayla and Rhonda asked the same questions, “Why didn’t you tell us sooner? How could you put up with all of that mess? I think I’d go crazy.”
Well, what they didn’t know was that I’ve always had a bad habit of daydreaming. I don’t mean the kind of daydreaming that you do when you’re bored or the type of daydreaming that you do when your mind just seems to get away from you for a second. I’m talking about full out escapism. The imagination is a powerful thing, and mine is ten times more powerful than most people’s, because it’s had to be.
It was the consequence I paid for living with James for so many years and having to deal with his horrible unpredictable temper. I found that it was only the times that I was able to escape into a dream that I could find some sort of happiness. That was the way that I coped with the pain. Getting away from the reality of the moment was my one solace. I had gotten really good at creating a safe place inside of my own head.
Music has always been an important part of my life, too. So, it should come as no surprise that my daydreams always centered around dancing and one or two of my favorite melodies. I could lose myself completely in the music. I would dance with my memories. After a sweet daydream, I’d feel compelled to sing songs of sweet poetry as I danced around my house doing my chores, imagining that my vacuum cleaner was my invisible dance partner. I’d use my feather duster as a microphone and my broom served as my mic stand.
On this particular day, I was using the adrenaline rush to push me to close another power deal at work. Ever since I had reconnected with Maverick, those songs in my daydreams had been sang to the tune of, “Hey DJ, keep playing that song, of mine, all night. On and on and on…” I was getting ready to make a major move with one of my most important clients, and my secretary, Linda, and I were working late to get everything prepared for the next week.
With thoughts of Mav on my mind, I’d found myself trapped in a fantasy world with him, dancing to the beat of our own drum. I sat at my desk in my office with the door closed. Closing my eyes, I rested my head on the back of my leather executive’s chair and began to fully relax. I knew that Linda was preoccupied with files that I had dropped off on her desk before I had made myself comfortable in my own secluded chamber. I planned on taking advantage of the few extra moments to let my mind roam free.
Suddenly Maverick and I were singing our special songs, carrying notes sweet enough to resuscitate a lover's dying heart. The mental and physical energy that was generated within me as I melted into his strong arms in my dreams was unbelievable. That was the effect that I was looking for. I felt a surge of vitality shoot through my body, and I let out a shaky sigh of ecstasy. I was fully aware that if anyone was to walk in on me during these moments, I would look completely loca, but I didn’t care. This was exactly what I needed in order to get the job done. I was a business powerhouse, but in his arms, I melted like a little girl.
After he dipped me and swung me around gracefully to the enchanting words of Always and Forever, my mind would be caught in a whirlwind of wander. As the rhythmic vibrations threatened to fade away into the winds of indifference, I attempted to speak, but I was barely able to exhale the words, “Baby, don’t let this song come to an end.”
When I could no longer hear Luther Vandross’ vibrant voice in my head, I sent up a silent prayer to the only person I knew that could create a miracle and make this dream a reality – God.
"Jesus Cristo, please let this groove continue to move me for as long as possible. I don’t want to wake up yet. Amen, así sea…” I didn’t want the sweet song to end. My hips were not ready to stop their sway underneath the desk, and my feet were begging to be let loose to be free on solid ground. They rocked left to right and then right to left in front of my chair. I thanked God above when the beautiful melody continued until I reached the pinnacle of the high I had sought. I’m almost there, baby, I thought.
That trip down memory lane was so real that I could feel myself attempting to shake it. I opened my eyes briefly to glance at the office door, making sure that Linda hadn’t knocked or called for me. Subconsciously, I heard a whisper, begging, “Please, don’t disturb this groove.”
Honoring that whisper’s plea, I closed my eyes again and crossed my arms on my desktop. We continued to groove as electricity shot through our wanting bodies. Mav and I gently slid across the floor doing our own sacred rendition of the e-e-electric slide! I slid further into ecstasy when he dipped me again, like a skilled performer, and guided me through this heated dance. He was truly the commander of this symphony.
With my eyes rapidly reading the back of my eyelids and my hands tightly clutching the arms of my chair, I’d sat at my desk for a full fifteen minutes recapturing our precious past times together. Much to my dismay, the decibels began to come to a simmering halt, and the soles of our feet stood still. Yet, the souls that lived within us continued to seek each other out, taking on a life of their own. They intertwined beautifully until locked, and I imagined our tongues doing the tango so well that I knew when I saw him again in real life, our next kiss would surely be the start of something explosive.
I imagined that we continued to move. He allowed me to continue this dance, even though only
in my dreams, and he never held back. I allowed him to take me to a place I had never been and proceeded to give him something he could feel right back. The real world disappeared completely as I left my physical body behind to join Maverick completely in this dream world. With his spirit and my soul, we became one in every possible way. Our groove thing produced the most sensual creamation known to man. Given the chance to grow, I knew that what we had would shake even the firmest foundation.
Wow! What a climax! I rubbed my arms with my hands, savoring the feeling. I loved it when I daydreamed about Maverick, because the way he held me in my daydreams was a blessing straight from above. The fact that sometimes memories were meant to be just that – memories – made me want to be sure that when Maverick and I did get back together, it was truly love. Daydreaming about him behind closed doors in my office was once thing, but making it real was a whole other thing.
I wanted to make sure that I was completely in love with him and the idea of rekindling our love. Our precious memories were captured and held steady in mi corazon and my spirit, which were replayed over and over, but I had to be sure. With an aura of happiness all around me, I was two seconds from snapping out of my day dream and getting back to work when I heard a loud object banging down onto my desk.
“Bitch! I know you heard me calling your dumb ass name.” My daydream began to fade around the edges, and just like that, it was gone. I hadn’t even heard my office door open, let alone the footsteps approaching my desk. It took me a few seconds to focus in and see that Linda was standing beside James looking as if she feared for her own life. James, on the other hand, had one fist on my desk and his free hand looked like it was itching to wrap around my neck. I sat there frozen like a deer caught in the headlights.
“James, what are you… I mean, what is it that you want?” I had left home over a week ago. It had been a Saturday when I backed a small U-Haul up to the house and loaded up everything that I could get inside of it in less than two hours. The rest of the things he could keep. I chose Saturday, because that was his day to whore around with his girlfriend. I knew that this would be the day that he would least expect me to make a move. The one thing I had not expected was for him to be able to clear security in this building, since he had been put on the list as a person who should not be allowed into the building for any reason whatsoever.
Linda interrupted, “I… I’ve already called security, Mrs. LaQuinn. I tried to tell Mr. LaQuinn that he didn’t have clearance to be in here.” She clearly was afraid, but it seemed like she was more afraid for me than she was for her own safety. She attempted to calmly take James’ hand, and he yanked away from her roughly.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’d get your little skinny bitch ass back behind your mothafuckin’ desk. You don’t know what kind of brother you’re messing with!” He then walked around to stand behind my desk beside me and turned his venom back towards me. Yanking me clean out of my chair, which I was still stuck to from the moment I had first heard his first B-word, he said, “Come here, woman! I know you didn’t think you could just up and leave me. I told you that I would kill you first… ” He raised his closed fist in the air, and I just knew that I’d be getting wheeled out of my office into somebody’s hospital before the evening was over.
With tears streaming down my face I felt the epitome of shame and pity. The fact that he would invade this sacred space was inconceivable. This was my office – the place where I ruled the roost. He was showing his ass in front of Linda, who looked up to me here at work. All of my emotions fought for precedence within me – anger at being violated in this way, fear and anxiety over what James was about to do, and shame and humiliation at having this all occur in front of one of my subordinates. I swallowed the large gulp of air that was caught in my throat, and as my trembling voice managed, “Please, James, don’t do this here,” a fear that I could never escape him overtook me.
“Please, James, don’t do this! Look what you are doing to us,” he mocked me. I realized that his fist was still cocked and loaded. I just couldn’t bare the thought that he would not let me out of his twisted hold. There were so many possibilities for Maverick and me in the horizon, but with James nipping at my heels, constantly dragging me down, I didn’t know how I was going to manage to get away. Closing my eyes, I shrunk into the bottomless pit of sorrow that James had dug for me all the years that I’d been his wife. They snapped back open when I heard the impossible voice of light pierce through the stormy cloud of despair that had formed around me.
“If you don’t get your punk hands off of my lady!” Maverick said, coming through the door just as security arrived to apprehend James. My handsome savior tossed the flowers he had in his hands onto the floor and reached James before security did. He punched him square across the jaw. James’ neck cocked back, and he hit the floor like a ton of bricks.
“You have no right to put your hand on a woman like that. You are less than a man. You’re dirt! And if I ever catch you around her again, you’re going to smell my cologne, dude. You don’t have anything in this office anymore, as far as I’m concerned.” He walked around the desk and came to my side as security pulled James to his feet. He tried to place his hand tenderly on his jaw, but they stretched his hands behind his back and cuffed him. Maverick put one arm around me and said to James, “This is me right here. Pay attention long enough, and I’ll show you how to treat a woman and your kids.”
With the mention of the kids, James started squirming around trying to get out of the hold of security. Instead of directing any of his venom toward Maverick, he just continued to call me all sorts of bitches and hos and told Maverick, “You can have her nasty ass. She never was nothing, and she’ll never be anything. Everything that she ever was, I made her. Everything she ever had, I gave her. You want the headache? Take it! See if I gives a fuck about that trifling ass, cheating ass bitch! She’s with you, right? Don’t forget that she was still married while she was out spreadin’ them legs for you and who knows who else! If that bitch will cheat on me, she’ll cheat on you, playa!”