Complacency (Work in Progress) by Shy Ward (best reads .TXT) 📕

I’m not too old for a punch up……or am I. I mean being 21 and punching up with your girls is fine, but 26….I’m supposed to be weening out the corn nuggets from the full course meal. My stomach growled.

“You wanna come,” Diana interrupted my thoughts. I was hungry, but lately Diana has been talking up this Patrick guy a lot and they had been spending a lot of time together. She liked him and could very well label them as dating. I didn’t want to intrude, so I declined the invitation. The phone rang on my desk and I scurried from the doorway to answer it. I couldn’t believe the voice I heard on the other end.

“Hi, Liyah? It’s been a long time. How have you been?”

Terrence Pov

I had made some horrible mistakes in my lifetime. I have deceived women, victimized them with my words, charm, mannerisms. I may be a womanizer but I am also a gentleman. Regardless, I have sexualized them, told them everything I knew I wanted to hear, bag them, use them, leave them. Worst of all, there was one that was a good girl, I did her dirty. I had a lot of good girls, who had something going for themselves. They were faithful, trustworthy and loving. Sweet girls, no not girls, I had come across and had a chance at some good women. I did a lot of them dirty, all of them I did dirty; disrespected them, ran around on them. There were women who I could have married and they would have made great wives.

There was one though that I could never seem to shake. When I left her, I expected it to be just like all the rest. She would bug me, wonder what she did wrong, give up the ass until she forced herself to not be used like a piece of meat, entice me. She did none of that.

She didn’t ever bother me once, and she didn’t let me come trump back up into her life either, once I didn’t get the satisfaction of feeling as though she couldn’t live without me. She let me drop the flag, and then she made a conscious decision to burn it and not tuck it away. RESPECT. Why couldn’t I have gotten myself together and married that girl. She had given up everything and ignored every advice in the world against me to move upstate to be with me. I left her and she still never blamed herself. She found her way and I know for a fact she was doing well for herself now without running back home. She conquered in the Big Apple.

I was good at making women feel like they were in the wrong. Men could make many mistakes and expect women to forgive them, and they usually did. Women had no room in society to make mistakes. Women rule the world, and they don’t even know it. Pussy is everything and could unite nations together or tear them apart. Men know this, but we pull on, hold and then sabotage the very weakness in women, their unconditional love, devotion and nurturing for her male counterpart. That’s the only way to control a woman, pull at her heart strings.

“Olivia, what’s going on, I’m sort of busy right now.”

“Hey Terrence, we need to talk.”

“I told you I’m busy Liv, I’ve got to go,” I pulled the phone away from my ear to look for the button to end the call.

“I’m HIV positive.

”What? I know I didn’t just hear that. I paused and raise the phone back against my ear.“What did you just say to me?”

“I’m so sorry Terrence, I just found out that I am HIV positive.”

“When the…what the fuck? When?”

“I’ve known for about two weeks now.”

“It’s three months since we slept together. So what, you caught it after us,” I depended on this answer from Olivia. She was a good, faithful girl. Once she confirmed that she had unprotected sex with someone else after we stopped sleeping together then I would tell her that I’m sorry, and ask her if there was anything I could do. Act concerned, even though I wouldn’t lay a forefinger on her.

Harsh, well I’d hug her.

I had never been in love with her, but I cared for Olivia. I cared enough to deal with her for about a year and some change. We continued to sleep around once I walked out on her after she caught me cheating after she showed up at my place unannounced one Sunday morning to surprise me.

She didn’t know I lied to her about my business trip and had only left town for a day. She thought I was gone for the whole weekend. The look of shock on her face, man, I thought she was going to kill me. I had been in these situations before, been caught in other women’s beds before with other women.

Olivia, though she was a classy female, she was still born and raised in the hood, and she carried a registered firearm in her glove compartment. Luckily for me, once the chick laying beside me got the piss beat out of her and I broke them apart, I pulled her into me. I held her and told the other woman to leave. I looked Olivia in her eyes told her how I was unhappy and had been unhappy. I was still with her because I was waiting for her to change.

It was a screaming match and did cause me to get the crap slapped out of me, but once she broke down and started to cry and pleading for some answers, I went alpha male. I took the attention off of me and placed it on her. It was her fault I couldn’t be faithful.

Told her she didn’t make me feel like a man should feel, sex was a problem, her male friends she still had saved in her phone, little shit that didn’t make any sense in the first place. Things that after she got over the heart break, she would realize they were just excuses to keep her in love with me for however long it lasted and to keep her from breaking my nose and fucking up everything in my apartment. I had done it, flipped this on her not satisfying me and pushing me away as a way to justify what I had done to her. Women want to please. They question their ability to please you and they beat themselves up. She wasn’t strong enough for a man of my character.

“I can’t be sure. It could have been while we were together, but that doesn’t mean you have it.” she stated hurriedly. “I’m sorry T, I’m so sorry, I just thought that I’d tell you instead of letting the clinic call you.”

“You were sleeping around on me?” I didn’t call women bitches, that wasn’t in my nature. I’m a lover, not a fighter, but she deserved it, I really should have. First, I thought she was a decent woman and I trusted her, and to find out she was cheating on me. I only picked good girls. I looked for qualities like that. Good, clean women. This one had me fooled. All kinds of things were running through my head. Everything but the most important thing. When did she find the time to do it, who, how many. Did she play me instead? I could dish it, but I couldn’t take it?

“You are a whore ass dirty slut! Don’t call me anymore and I’m not playing either Liv!” I slammed the phone down, cracking my iphone screen. I didn’t care.

***

 Mr. Andrews? I heard the nurse call my name. “The doctor is ready to see you now.” I was shaken. It took me two days to make the call to my physician. I got in pretty quick. The doc and I are pretty good friends and without a shadow of a doubt, I knew he would keep this information confidential if I were infected. My nerves were bad. I hadn’t slept well nor answered any calls, texts or even to work. I had called in, told them I was ill and would be in when cleared by my doctor. I stepped in the room. The nurse did not take my vitals, doc told her, he would take care of it and to get the next patient ready. Dr. Jeff Norton, we were old friends and brothers. He was the only white man I ever trusted, and my closest friend.

 He didn’t say a word while checking my blood pressure and temperature. I wanted to break the tension so badly. This was my boy. It was tense, while he was playing nurse all I could think about was what could be going on through his mind. I knew he was disappointed in me. Jeff told me time and time again, “protect yourself, just cause they look clean and act innocent and like you mean the world to them, doesn’t mean they don’t have a past. Women trust men not to hurt them as well when it comes to being intimate. If she is messing with a man like you, who sleeps with multiple women and she doesn’t know it, then she has probably slept with someone else like you. Stop using idealizations and character traits as a form of protecting yourself from diseases man. I see these type of mistakes every day in this profession. “

A phlebotomist came in and drew my blood. I held my breath the entire time. I was scared of what that dark red liquid floating inside that tube was going to tell Jeff about me. I was petrified. When the phlebotomist left, Jeff finally spoke.

“You know, it’s not 100% guaranteed that you will catch HIV from have sex with an infected person. It doesn’t mean you are immune, just means you were lucky this time.” Was he rubbing an "I told you so" in my face? If he is, I’d knock him the fuck out right not.

“Terrence, your test may be negative. If it’s not, well you know HIV is not a death sentence. It’s not AIDS Terrence.”

I looked at him, hopped off the table and walked out. He told me so.

Aliyah

 Ghost from the Past**Aliyah** “Hi, Liyah? It’s been a long time. How have you been?”

The voice on the other line was startling. It was so familiar, but it couldn’t be. How had he found her and what