MAD BLACK WOMAN

WANDER

Élan doesn't expect to return home with a black thing lounging on the sofa, but there it is, ruffling its fur in to the couch quite casually before looking up at him and hissing.

Oh the cat doesn't like him but there's no hard feelings because Élan feels the exact same way.

He can tell by the way the house is settled that Nanti is not back home yet which is no luck to him because the dreadful little black pet looks like it wants to attack him. It's baring teeth and sharpening claws, Élan has half a mind to just kick it but he doesn't. He waits at the door, the intruder to his own home and holds his breath.

Élan braces himself before heading to the bedroom but not without the little ball of fur prancing after him to get a whiff (and maybe even a good scratch) out of him. But luckily, after sniffing, it just trots away so he plops down on the bed.

Face to the ceiling, back on the mattress he thinks and suddenly he finds his mind focused. On Barry.

He meets with her, at the hotel, a secretive little "date" if he'd even call it that and it felt very wrong and weird because he already engaged in infidelity and then here he is again with his head turned so violently. If he is being honest with himself, it doesn't seem like he and Nanti are going to get back together but why does he feel so challenged? They are only married legally but not physically, or mentally-they are parted, separated though not quite fully divorced however. However...

Laying in the bed he can remember her scent, her love, her smile, her face and the hurt on it when he told her he was going to move out. All of that pain just sitting on one of the prettiest faces he'll probably ever see in his life. It isn't funny but maybe it is necessary- he loves her enough to know when to let go, right?

Yes, there it is, he is still in love with Nanti.

It is hard not to love the girl, almost as easy as it is for him to hate her but the pendulum is swinging in two extremes and that alone is gravely exhausting.

But Barry, gorgeous, uncomplicated, nice. She understands and gets him- even listens to him instead of waiting her turn to speak. She has an adorable daughter. He's always wanted a daughter.

So he ponders this, rolls it over in his mind like sampling new food on virgin taste buds. His metaphorical flower is there and he picks at it, Nanti, Barry, Nanti or Barry, Nanti, Barry, Banti?

After a while of intense thinking, he decides to just up and leave before his wife returns back home, knowing she'll be able to know he is sort of seeing someone that isn't her. She has a sense like that. She is the God of his world if he did ever know one but not the forgiving kind, the angry, spiteful, wrathful type instead. And he will feel all of that and more if she were ever to find out. This, he is sure of.

His mind wraps around a lot of things as he drives around, all of which involving his usual muses with a heavy emphasis on home. Home. In all its heated and humid beauty, glorious, warm and bright. Again, he can taste the ghost of mangoes, the ache in his bones for cassava. He remembers how happy everything and everyone seemed, and in return how dull it all came to be, moving to America.

Did home seem more glamorous because nothing went right here? Is America just really shitty and has a secret agenda to break the wonderful bond he initially had with his wife up?

How easy it is to blame all but the self. How easy it is to not ask himself where he went wrong. Guilt threatens to swallow him.

"You know," he hears. "I think I like you."

And it's a voice he knows, a voice he will never forget, husky and there, very present no questions asked and a tad bit commanding. Maybe even intimidating to over-sensitive ears. The words drop and splash like raindrops on asphalt, soaking him up, wetting his eardrum, his wife talking to a guy that isn't him, saying she likes him.

Élan is doing this exact thing with Barry, flirting. Teasing even. Extending touch in miniature gestures, a tap to the wrist, a graze of the elbow. Eyeing the lipstick one the edge of her glass, wanting to be that apple cider mimosa so so bad so she can drink him up quickly. Eyes snapping back to trace every word that falls out of her mouth like his life depends on it. Élan has literally been there and done that but he doesn't remember.

Just like he doesn't remember exiting his car or walking down the street, or thinking about home, all of it is erased or condensed because the only thing that concerns him now is Nanti.

She looks amazing and gorgeous and absolutely delicious like she always does, a striking color against her deep dark skin, heavy cleavage for display, hair super short and framing her face so she looks even more modelesque than she already is. The guy is unremarkable to Élan, non-threatening and definitely not Nanti's type but none of this matters because he watches her flirt with him, hand tapping ole boy's palm to emphasize exactly how funny he is. Élan doesn't laugh. She can't see him since he's damn near hidden in the shadows but it only makes him question what it is that possessed her to get outdoor seating at a restaurant for any and everyone to see.

He doesn't bother to ask himself why it hurts him so much when he has done this twice over now. All he wants to hear is the shattering of his heart.

It's obnoxious and consuming and above all, embarrassing.

But now he knows how it feels.