Chapter 10
Jayden returned home to his mother, Jordan, three days after being admitted to the hospital, and so far, he was out of the woods. Jordan and Ivan were living together now because he and Nicole had agreed to give themselves some time apart to see how they felt and if they could really be apart from each other for a little while, and maybe start dating other people. It was clear that Nicole still didn’t have romantic, sexual feelings for Ivan, that she only saw him as her idol, so Jordan took her only opportunity to at least enjoy his company for a while, before it would slip away forever because once that Ivan was in Nicole’s arms, Jordan would never be able to get him because she’d never take another woman’s man, much less the man of one of her very best friends. Everyone in his family threw a party at Ivan’s house to celebrate his return. His adopted parents were there along with all the family members of his adopted parents, and his immediate family, the Ainsworth family, of course. Bella, the adorable dog, was there to receive him. This time, Ivan didn’t allow her to jump on him the way she would always do because just by doing that, she would be sending him right back to the hospital, and this time, he could die, if her big paws and legs end on his chest. The entire Thornhart family and everyone directly related to them, they were also there to support Jayden. Jayden would need one more operation to ensure that he would live a normal life because it turns out that his lungs were not the problem, like everyone thought in the beginning. The problem was his heart. He was working himself up too hard and playing too much sports, playing too much, period, too much rigorous activity that a child his age couldn’t handle, living too fast, wanting to do everything at once. From now on, little Jayden would have to take medication to keep his heart functioning correctly, and of course take it easy, live one day at a time, and do one thing at a time, and not too much of it, either. He could still enjoy doing the things he loved to do, but he needed to cut back on the work and on the time. He didn’t mind, really. Right now, though he was very young, Jayden had the heart of a sixty-year-old man, and if he didn’t get a heart transplant soon, he would die by age twenty. It was a very sad situation, but Jayden wasn’t willing to let this get him down. No way. He was going to keep living and enjoying his life, and if he only lived to age twenty, then so it was going to be. It will have been twenty years well lived instead of twenty sad, miserable years.
The main living room, where it was now the place to celebrate a big event instead of a normal living room, was like a stage where everyone, good singer or not would put on a show for the honored one. Jayden loved music, and he was allowed to listen to all kinds of music now, except for albums that had parental-advisory labels on them or songs that had cuss words or were way too sexually-explicit, like underground music. It was peculiar because Jayden loved listening to artists like Alice Cooper and those who would sing lyrics like his. Jayden felt that this music had a message to deliver, a moral. He loved protest music, in which the artists would complain about something they thought was unfair or just wrong. He was intrigued by feminist music. He wanted to listen to those lyrics, write them down and analyze them, what it was that bothered feminists about men so much, why they had become feminists in the first place. Listening to them talking trash about men didn’t bother him at all, unless they would talk trash all throughout the song and not explain why they felt this way, what the heck men were doing wrong to drive them to this. He hated listening to chauvinistic music, though, that music in which artists objectified and devalued women, like saying that we were only good for sex or stuff like that, and the things they wanted to do to us. He classified that as underground music, just nasty, although we had the right to freedom of speech, religion and the press, but to Jayden, that music should remain underground. Unbeknown to them, these men were disrespecting their mothers and their sisters, according to everyone in these families that were enjoying this party. Whoever would disrespect one woman for any reason was disrespecting all of them. Everyone in these families thought that women were sacred, that they were created to be the man’s companion, not the man’s sex slave or slave in any other form. All these men that were in this house, they would treat their women with respect and give them their place, and even though Langston used to beat on Diana when he was under the influence of that trash called methamphetamine, or crank, he would never rape her or enslave her. He would only hit her because in reality he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, and when he wasn’t under the effect of any drug, he would never lay a hand on her. Most of the time, he would hit her for no reason. There would be no argument or provocation prior to that. Most of the time, he would see her in front of them and strike her, seeing her as some wrestler or some gang member or thug who was threatening him. He only realized he was hitting his wife that day that the ambulance took her away. All the time, he would hit her and then forget about it a few hours later. Then, when she would throw it in his face, he would ask her what the hell she was talking about, and when the argument started, he would leave her there, with her words in her mind, not able to escape her mouth. Back then, not too long ago, Langston Ainsworth was the most terrible husband in the world. The only thing that would make him the very worst of all was the one thing he’d never done, rape her or humiliate her. Diana didn’t know that he was abusing methamphetamine until one day, while slapping her, he told her that she was a Nazi that deserved to die, and unwillingly explained to her all of the things he was hallucinating about. This drug made him behave like an untreated schizophrenic. Then, one day, Diana talked this over with her doctor and her doctor told her that there was something seriously wrong with her husband, that he was either schizophrenic or under the effect of a dangerous drug.
Tonight was the night to leave all of that behind and celebrate the survival of a little angel. That little boy got on the podium they had right in the middle of the living room and said a few words. “I would just like to thank everyone I didn’t know before I was admitted to the hospital for being here to support my mother and me. I’d like to thank the twins, Ivan and Langston for being a shoulder for my mother to cry on in this difficult time, and Mr. Daniel Thornhart for his financial support, and I would also like to thank the twins for being father figures for me when I don’t really have a father. My father’s alive, my real father, alive and well, but he’s just not here with me.”
Mark was outside the window, crying. His friends had just told him that instead of going home with his mother, Jordan, Jayden went home with a guy named Ivan Northwood who was now wanting to be a father figure for the child and give him everything that Mark had never given him. He was not about to let that happen. He wanted Jordan and his child back. He’d never had doubts about being Jayden’s father. He was just not ready to be a father. He was young and he wanted to enjoy life the only way he knew how--by sleeping around. Now he was ready to do the right thing. He wanted Jordan all to himself, and no other man could have her. He knew that eventually Ivan and Jordan would be more than friends and he could take her away from him for good. He was going to kill him.
“I would also like to thank God for giving me another chance. I realize now that this was my fault because…”
Jordan interrupted him. “Don’t say that.”
“Because I played too hard and worked too little. I didn’t want to do the only chore my mother asked me to, wash the dishes, which was easy for me. All that had to be done was for me to get on a two-foot ladder and it would be done. I even know how to wash the dishes right. I didn’t want to do my homework. I just wanted to play, and run, all day and all night. I’ve been in kindergarten since age three and despite not doing my homework, the only reason why I haven’t failed is because my teacher always gives me another chance. That’s going to stop. I promise to change and become responsible, be the person I was always meant to be. I’m still going to play, but after doing my homework, and not too much.” He got down from the podium, left and everyone applauded him.
* * * *
Meanwhile, Jordan was in the bathroom, washing her face to reapply her makeup. Jayden’s speech made her cry the moment it started. Just when she was reapplying her foundation, the makeup she would put on first, someone knocked on the door. Ivan had to go to the bathroom, and all of the other bathrooms in the house were occupied. Everyone had too much soda, milk, water, and juice, to the point where now Ivan’s refrigerator was empty for the first time in his whole life. He didn’t mind. He liked going shopping for groceries any time after midnight. There would be much less people at the store and lots more parking space. Jordan said, “I’ll be right out!”
“Oh, shit, another woman!” screamed Ivan doing the I-want-to-go-to-the-bathroom-dance. “Guess I’m going to have to go pee outside!” He walked the hallway to go outside. When he said something, even in a moment of desperation, he meant it, it wasn’t just theatrics. She opened the door and as he walked the hallway, she said, “Wait, wait!”
He turned around.
“I wasn’t doing anything important, just putting makeup on! I don’t need it anyway! I’ll take everything off. It’s almost time to sleep anyway. Come on. Come on in.” She went into one of the guestrooms with her makeup removing pads and her makeup kit and finished removing her messed-up makeup and putting on her new one, lipstick and everything.
In the meantime, Ivan did what he had to do in the bathroom, the number one. Then he got fixed up again, flushed the toilet, and just as he was going to get out of the bathroom, Jordan had to go back in to get her left earring, which had fallen off and she didn’t know about this before.
“My earring.” She got it from the sink.
“This is awkward,” he said, getting out of the bathroom and cleared his throat.
Minutes later, she found him again in the family room. Everyone was gone by now. They knew they couldn’t stay without constantly getting something to eat, they were full, and there were no drinks, so they just left. “Oh, my god, not you again.”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“Something weird is going on.” His laptop was on that sofa. “I really think you’re doing this on purpose.”
“Doing what on purpose? It’s not my fault that we keep bumping into each other and when I come to get one of my belongings you are right there, in the same room, now is it?”
“I don’t know. It seems you’re doing it on purpose because this has happened twice already.”
“Why are you so anxious about it? Don’t you like me? And no, that is not what I mean. What I mean is that I thought you were my friend. What, did I do something wrong?” She sat on the sofa.
“Jordan…”
“Talk to me! I am not leaving this house until you tell me what I did that made you so damn angry all of a sudden. You can pull me by my hair and throw me out, and I will be standing in front of your door.”
“Jordan, don’t…”
“My car will not leave your driveway. I will sit right in front of your door, sleep in front of it, in the clothes I’m wearing, if I have to. Eventually you’re going to have to talk to me, and if you keep ignoring me, no matter for how long, I will be right here, and if you get the police to make me leave, I will come right back. And if you get a restraining order against me, I will violate it and go to jail. I will do whatever it takes, but Jordan Polo will not be ignored, much less by a man, by a man who promised to be my friend. Friends talk when they have a disagreement or when your friend does something that bothers you. Friendship is not just about doing good things for your friend. It’s about communication. If there’s no communication, if two people don’t have good communication, there is no relationship whatsoever. Think about that.”
“Jordan, I just…”
“Tell me what I did.”
He set the laptop aside and sat beside her. “Jordan, that’s just it. I have nothing to tell you because you’ve done nothing wrong. On the contrary, you’ve been wonderful. It’s just that when I’m around you, I feel like…”
“Like what?”
“Like a man alone on the desert feels when he sees a bottle of water in the middle of the desert.”
“You’re telling me…”
“Yes, that’s what I am telling you, and I want you to stay away from me because I don’t know if you feel the same way about me and I don’t want to do something that I will regret.”
She started taking off her dress and sat there, almost topless. “What if I told you I feel the same way about you?”
“Jordan, are you doing this just to calm me down?”
“No. If I did this every time a man got horny around me, do you have any idea of how many sex partners I would’ve had?” She finished taking her top off and then her dress. She had underwear on. Sexy underwear, and he drooled without realizing it. Damn, what a body! “I sleep with whom I want to, not with whomever wants to sleep with me. I don’t give it up just like that, just because the man is horny. I’d have to be horny, too, for him, and frankly, that’s what’s going on right now.” She got up and got on her knees, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I want you just as desperately but I thought you’d turn me down because you’re in love with Nicole and you’re not the kind of man who would sleep with someone he doesn’t love.”
“You’re right,” he said, caressing her hair, “I never sleep with a woman if I don’t have feelings for her. My past one-night stands have been one-night stands on the parts of those women, because they decided I was only a one-night thing, the man they wanted for tonight, not because I wanted it that way. I don’t use women because they’re not objects. If it turns out the woman used me, then I don’t fret. I say, ‘You know what? If you used me only for one night, I hope you enjoyed it because you ain’t ever getting this again. Ever.’ You don’t pick up from the trash something you threw in the trash. I am a man. I am human. That explains everything.”
“And you never sleep with those women again?”
“Never. Some of them have gotten the message and I have never seen them again, but some of them come back and beg me to take them to my bed again. I said no and I meant no, so I kick their asses out.”
“What do they do? Do they cry?”
“Yes, they do, and then they do something to get back at me for turning them down. I even had to put some of them on jail because some of them slashed my tires, trashed my whole car, some of them vandalized my house, some of them called my workplace, telling my superiors I raped them…it’s just crazy.”
“But your superiors know you’d never do that.”
“They just ask where the police report is and hang up on the bitch.” Jordan burst out laughing. “I mean it doesn’t make sense to get raped, not file a police report, and then going and telling someone that can do nothing for you. First you file the report. Then you go around telling everyone if you want to. What I want to know is what makes you think I would turn you down because I’m in love with Nicole Ward.”
Surprised and serious now, she asked, “Are you not in love with Nicole Ward?”
“Yes, I am, but I wouldn’t turn down a woman who loves me for that reason. I mean Nicole can be my platonic love. Everyone has had or still has a platonic love, even people who are married and have kids…they always fantasize about a movie star or a rock star, or just an Average Jane they’re crazy about. Not all my platonic loves are celebrities, you know? Why can’t Nicole Ward just be one more? You know, I don’t throw out the bird I have in my hands to go get a bird that’s flying out and I can’t reach. That just doesn’t make sense.”
“So we’re going to have a little adventure? I mean, come on, Ivan,” she said, caressing his neck and then unbuttoning his shirt, “we both know that Nicole is only your platonic love for a while. She was born for you. No other man’s going to have her, and I do have feelings for you, but I don’t love you like I will the man I’m going to marry. I just love you as a friend, a friend I want in my bed, nothing more, and we both know I can’t help you get over her. No woman can, not even one of those scorching-hot celebrities all men are in love with.”
He laughed. “Are you just saying this to make me feel better, or can you really predict the future? Everybody knows I can’t have Nicole Ward. If I want her this bad and she doesn’t want me back, it’s obvious that she’s never going to be mine. Granted, she’s always going to be there because Nicole never abandons someone she cares about, but she’s not going to be in my bed. Ever. She’s too wonderful for me. She’s a Bentley and I am my Kia Rio.”
Jordan laughed her ass off. “It’s funny, that’s exactly the same way she feels about you!”
“Oh, really?”
“I bet you anything you’re the only man that makes her wet her panties, just like you’re making mine wet right now,” she said with a devilish grin.
“Oh, really?” he repeated, this time, altered. “Well,” he then said, “Why don’t we take care of that problem right now?” Next thing they knew he threw her on the sofa, the laptop fell, breaking in two, but he didn’t realize it and he banged her like he was going to die within the next ten minutes.
* * * *
The next morning, she woke up in his bed after going at it all night, dizzy and disoriented. She had never made her body work this hard. “Oh, my god, I guess you’re going to be a one-night stand for me, too, because I think you just killed me, you bastard.”
He laughed. “You can’t be serious. When women tell me this, they don’t say it like that, they say, ‘Thanks, but it’s over’, and then they leave.” He was still smiling. “I think you’re exaggerating.”
“No!” she said, getting up. “I am not exaggerating. Now I know why those women dumped you.” She covered her body with his sheets. Fortunately he was still wearing his boxers, having put them on after the last round to make sure it would be the last round. “I bet you a million dollars they didn’t intend to make it a one-night stand and they did want you, and they just couldn’t handle you, got scared and ran off.” She walked into the bathroom but he could still hear her. “If that weren’t the case, none of them would’ve come back. Like you said,” she got in the shower, “women have evolved, and we don’t pick up something from the trash after throwing it out. When you’re a piece of gum, you’re a piece of gum, honey.”
He got up from the bed.
“There’s no changing that. I mean I am going to try again because I am not a fan of one-night stands, and I don’t use men, either, but man, you have to take it easy or one of these days, you’ll really kill me.”
He came into the bathroom to talk to her for a minute. He wanted to take a shower, but he would go to another bathroom. He wasn’t even going to wait until she got out because the mere image of her naked, and then her coming out naked, or with a towel wrapped around her body would make him jump her again--and he weighed 250 pounds in pure muscle, while she only weighed 125 pounds. He was no longer the normal-looking man he used to be six months ago when he’d just met Nicole. He’d become a lot more muscular and he’d even grown a few inches taller, and the same thing had happened to Langston. He accomplished these monumental muscles without the help of steroids. He just worked out at the gym and lifted weights, a lot, more than the average guy, not to be bigger or look better, but to take out his frustrations. Exercise and lifting weights were the only things that would make him feel better after an upset with a patient or a coworker, before going home and reaching his entertainment media. Before going home, he would just have to change his clothes and work out. “I just wanted to let it out, you know? I didn’t think I’d be way out of line. That had never happened to me before. When I want it, I get it, but only once, not five times in one night. That’s just crazy. And don’t blame it all on me, because you couldn’t stop either!”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess sexual desire is more powerful than any other drug.”
“I guess so. I’m going to take a shower in the guest bathroom.”
She opened the curtain. “Why don’t you take a shower here?” She was sore as hell, but she didn’t think it would happen again.
“Oh, no, no, no,” he said, getting out of the room. “No way!”
Ivan went to the guest bathroom and took a quick shower, but he forgot to get his change of clothes and bring them to the bathroom before getting in the shower. This wasn’t his day. He was lucky that he always put a towel in the bathroom for all his guests, and provided them with hygiene products in case something happened and they needed to take a shower. He grabbed that pine-green towel, put it around his waist and raced out of the bathroom. Then he raced into the room, and Jordan was hiding in his bed sheets. He didn’t see her under the white sheets, and she’d seen him get into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. She uncovered her head and grinned like an evil little girl, watching him get dressed. He was very muscular, but since he was six feet and six inches tall, it wasn’t as overwhelming as it would’ve been with a shorter man, but the huge muscles in his arms, chest and back were impossible to miss, especially when he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Right now he was putting on a white, long-sleeved, button shirt, a sleeveless gray jacket and elegant red pants. It was a suit, but he wouldn’t wear the long-sleeved jacket that would complete the outfit today. He turned around and saw her. She’d been watching him the whole time, smiling. His mouth flew open. He felt so invaded, so stripped of his privacy. He thought that she was somewhere in the house ready to leave, but not still in his bedroom.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’ve got the nicest buttocks, not too big or too small, but firm?”
“Jordan…”
She got up from the bed. “Relax, nothing’s going to happen now. I need a rest. A long rest. I just can’t help telling you how hot you are. It’s no wonder why you’ve got your ex-lovers and flings pining after you.”
“Please don’t remind me about that. It scares me. It makes me think that…never mind.”
“And what it makes you think, that’s the truth. I mean I finally discovered your secret. I am not going to tell anyone because it’s just going to make your little situation worse.”
“Thank you, Jordan,” he said, embarrassed.
She hugged him. “You know that, when this little fling we’ve got going on, when it ends, I’m not going to get out of your life, right?”
“Ah…”
“After we end this, I am not going to touch you ever again, but I am not going to get out of your life. A promise is a promise, my dear, and you have to keep the promise you made to me, to be by my side no matter what, at all times, and always within reach.”
“I don’t forget or break my promises.”
“Just wanted to remind you. I’m not going to let another man turn his back on me. I’ll be damned.”
“That’s not going to happen with me, Jordan. You can count on me. I have to tell you, that if this has consequences, even though we won’t be together at the time, I will take full responsibility.”
“Don’t you want me to take the emergency morning-after contraceptive just in case?”
“No way. If you’re m