-Pasts and Promises
The weekend went by at light speed, from Jason's successful restaurant opening to yet another Sunday with his family; the only difference was that Jazzy and Lea were with me the second time around. Amira had become quite attached to the idea of having surrogate daughters since she met my best friends at the party and insisted that they not only go to her house the following day but that we all had to meet up in the city during the week. Lea felt right at home because she and Amira were a lot alike with regards to their eagerness and enthusiasm in all aspects of life while Jazzy was taken aback by the very same qualities. I thought back to the night that Jay invited me to his restaurant's opening and how skeptical I'd been that we would still be dating when the time finally came; however, although it wasn't that long ago, I felt like so much had changed since then.
It was Monday night and I was stretched across my bed with a heating pad on my stomach while Jason talked to me on FaceTime. He was needed at the new restaurant, so the best that he could do was talk to me on the phone.
"You sure you don't want to sleep? I'll be there later on." Jason said as he looked over at his phone; it seemed as though he had it propped up on something while he did his work.
I shook my head and groaned, "No it's fine, you're lucky that you don't have to go through shit like this." I sat up and tried to get comfortable, but the cramps and excruciating migraine were making the task a difficult one.
Jay chuckled but kept typing. "I bet you're wishing that you had a dick right about now."
I rolled my eyes, "Oh I got a dick; it's just not attached to me." I replied with a sigh.
This time Jason did look at his phone, "Not for lack of trying baby. I would stay inside you all day if I could." He threw a wink in my direction.
I gulped and clenched my thighs together while thanking Mother Nature for giving me a week's break from him and all the stamina that he possessed. "Relax. I called you to make me feel better, not horny."
"Isn't that the same thing?" Jason asked with a serious expression.
"It's time for me to hang up babe, focus on your work." I rolled my eyes as I ended our call; I decided that the best thing I could do for myself was either eat a tub of ice cream or take a warm bath; with the state that I was in, I was leaning towards doing both at the same time.
About thirty minutes later I was soaking in my bathtub while devouring cookie dough ice cream and felt a million times better. Although I loved Jason and my sisters, it felt nice to have real alone time to relax without thinking about anything. I stayed in the tub until the water got cold and then padded my way into the kitchen to retrieve an unfinished bottle of wine.
I heard the front door open as I was changing into a pair of TJ's sweatpants that I'd stolen from his house and a random sweater; it was the outfit that usually signified that I wasn't feeling well. I drank straight from the bottle as I waited for Jason to come in. He tried his best not to laugh when he saw me, but I knew that I looked ridiculous in the oversized clothing.
"Aw baby, you really don't feel good." It wasn't a question. I shook my head and pouted. "What do you want me to do?"
I shook my head, "Come here; I'm feeling really clingy right now."
He chuckled but obeyed me, "That's a new one. My KP ain't the clingy type." Jason sat up next to me on the bed and snatched the wine bottle from me. "You had a good day otherwise?" He asked as he took a swig from the bottle.
I nodded and smiled; "I felt like shit, but we got a lot of work done. I'm calling out tomorrow though; we've got employees now and I can work from home. What about you, is Amira's still packed on a Monday night?" I asked him; Jason was an unpredictable person at times, especially with the direction that he took his brand-new restaurant. When he told me that it would be a soul food restaurant, I wasn't expecting it to be as fancy as it was; although in retrospect it fit his mother's aesthetic perfectly, so I supposed that it made sense.
"Of course, I'm happy at how well it's being received by its patrons. I think that I ran into the girl who tried to argue with you over me. She was waiting outside of Gianni's when I went there to check on my employees."
I chuckled, "That's nice." I mumbled as I downed the rest of the wine. "How many of those girls do you think are planning to do something similar?"
"That's a number that I don't think I'll ever know. I've been having sex for thirteen years and I can't tell you how many of them would care enough to confront the woman I'm with." He said honestly as he played with my hair.
"I don't even want to imagine what your body count is Jason." I groaned as I started doing the math in my head.
"Good, because I lost count a long time ago and I don't even want to estimate it. I don't want to know yours either." He told me. I was slightly offended by that and it made me wonder what he thought of my past.
I scrunched my face up at him, "It's three including you dummy. You're the only hoe in this relationship."
"You're the best I've ever had though." He smiled at me with his hand on his heart.
I scoffed and hit him in the face with a pillow. "Stop talking Jason." He opened his mouth to say something, but I held my hand up to silence him. "Don't say anything else." I got up and went to brush my teeth; as soon as I was done, I went back to bed and crawled under the sheets. Jay mirrored my actions and held me close to him as I drifted off to sleep.
I woke up feeling even worse than I did the day before; my migraine had intensified as I slept and so had my cramps; when I did get my period, it was the most painful and uncomfortable time for me. I stared at Jason as he slept with a scowl on my face; I knew that he'd been promiscuous before me but I couldn't help but wonder about how many women he had to have sex with before he lost count. I wasn't jealous and probably only gave a damn because I was hormonal, but the unknown number plagued my thoughts even as I dreamed. It wasn't a big deal; I was raised to think that it wasn't a big deal so why did it even bother me in the first place? I shook the thoughts off and got out of bed.
I was fully dressed and ready for the day by the time that Jason had finally woke up. I was sitting next to him in bed while I replied to several of the emails that I'd received over the weekend and made sure that I didn't have any important meetings during the day so that I could stay at home.
"Good morning; are you going in to any of your places of business today?" He had a habit of picking a couple of his places and working out of whichever location he wanted to for the day, although I hoped that he would take some time off after the success of his most recent launch.
Jay stretched out in bed and half yawned half groaned as he properly came to his senses. "Nah, I'm your bitch today because you don't feel well. I'm trying to be more hands off at work these days." His gravelly voice rumbled out as he propped himself up on one of his elbows.
I smirked, "Since when?"
He shrugged, "Since I feel like I upset you last night."
I shook my head, "It's fine and I know who you are. You told me that you usually had sex with women then left them in your first ten minutes of knowing me." I shrugged, "The fact that it was so many that you lost count is kind of cringe-worthy to me but it's all good."
He sighed, "I'll estimate a number if it'll make you fee--"
I cut him off with eyes wide open, "It's a no from me; it caught me a little off-guard but I honestly don't care about it Jason. I know what that was, and I know what this is." I kissed him on the cheek and shut my laptop down.
"You sure?" Jason asked. I nodded and smiled; I wouldn't let his past touch us in any way.
We were solid, our bond caused both of us to go out of our comfort zones just so that we could be together; his past was shocking, but it wouldn't change the way that I looked at him. Of course, it was crazy to me that if I'd told him the same thing that he said to me the night before he would have been horrified. That in itself was funny to me because men could stick their dicks in whores, but they couldn't date them; wild.
"I'm sure; as I said it made me cringe to think about it, but it doesn't have any bearing on our relationship. But if you still wanna be my bitch, you can give me a foot rub and do face masks with me all day."
"I ain't puttin' no shit on my face Kira!" He said sternly.
Two hours later we were laying on the couch watching She's Gotta Have It on Netflix, "This shit supposed to tingle like this?" Jay asked as he touched the tea tree oil and mint julep mask that he was wearing.
I smacked his hand away from his face, "Don't touch it Jason! And yes, that means it's working." It was nice to just lay around and do nothing with him; we were always either out on dates or having sex, but I had a newfound appreciation for just hanging out with him and enjoying a lazy day.
"Whatever you say ma, Nola's friend really got the motel butt shots huh? That's crazy." Jay said as he watched the show. I had already seen all of the episodes, but I had no problem re-watching it. "Girls really be doin' this shit?"
I nodded and laughed, "It's not funny but yes. Blame society and their expectations." I paused the show so that I could hear his opinion.
"That's wild, is that shit healthy? It can't be healthy right?" Jay asked as he turned his head to the side to look at the "shots" that Shemekka was getting.
"Fuck you mean? Of course not but she did what she thought she had to do to make more money at the club. I don't even have anything against surgery as long as it gets done by a professional." I laughed internally; it truly was impossible for us to talk without getting serious.
"Nah that's crazy. Ain't it wild insecure to be changing your whole body because of someone's opinion?" Jay asked, not in an offensive way but rather like he was genuinely curious.
I shook my head, "Not really. Think about it like this: both men and women but women especially get told from a young age what is attractive right? And that information gets backed up by the media and their peers. Then at some point during puberty they may discover that they either have too much or too little of these 'attractive' features; some people may learn to love themselves just the way they are or they may look to improve their appearances by surgery. There's nothing wrong with that."
He contemplated everything that I said and nodded, "But still if you a person with mad plastic surgery and you have kids, how are you gonna teach your kids to embrace the features that you changed? I still think it's kinda crazy to change yourself like that because the person you love after isn't even you anymore."
I understood his point, "In that case face stuff is crazier to you than getting implants and fat transfers?"
Jason shook his head, "Nah that's still crazy; if you as a woman made your tits and ass all huge, wouldn't you be continuing the cycle of those insecurities when your daughter starts to hit puberty and wonder why she don't got the curves like her mommy?"
"No Jay and I don't think that wanting to change certain things about your face or body necessarily means that you wouldn't teach your kid to love themselves. There are a lot of people that can appreciate features in other people that they can't appreciate in themselves." I shrugged, "Like I said, as long as you go to a qualified professional then I think you can do whatever you want."
Jay stroked his beard and nodded, "I feel you, we just not on these motel butt injections."
I chuckled, "Exactly, we support people being happy with themselves not dead with a back road booty."
"All Imma say is that nobody should do no shit like this Sha whatever broad is doin'. You can't ever think one thing like that will make people love you or that it'll change ya life so drastically."
He wasn't wrong about that, I chuckled at him and how serious he sounded with the green face mask on his face. "You ever thought about getting something done? That ain't an insult or anything you just seem...passionate about the topic."
"No not really; this face of mine is the closest I can get to my mother so I wouldn't want to change anything about it. As for my proportions? I'm happy with them too." I reassured him as I got up off the couch. "Come on, it's time to wash off the mask." I stared at Jay when we were completely rid of the masks; everything about him was perfect and I wondered if men ever felt the same pressures to be perfect as women did. "Have you ever been insecure about anything?"
He looked at me like he was waiting for me to ask and chuckled, "Nah but I never felt like I had to be anything for anyone; at least appearance wise."
"So you're not hiding a whole lotta ugly under that beard?" I teased him as I looked for another tampon.
"Act like you know that I'm sexy as fuck." He straight faced me.
I laughed loudly at him and sat on the toilet, "Are you planning on watching me change my tampon?"
Jason shrugged in response. "Aye, we bout to get close close, feel me?"
"Heard you Jason, I'll even let you pull it out." I tested him.
He balled his face up, "Aye chill, ain't nobody sign on for allat." He chuckled as he covered his face and watched me through the spaces in his fingers. "This is some wild shit." Jason whispered.
The man was crazy but I was arguably crazier for letting him watch me. I washed my hands when I was finished and we returned to the couch; we never got back to watching the show, instead we talked. There was still so much for me to learn about him. By the time the sun set, his promiscuous past had become a distant memory.
"I talked to Jaheim last night, nothing major but I needed to know that he was okay." Jay said after a lapse in conversation.
I turned to him, laying on top of him. "Why didn't you tell me? Was he okay? Is he cleaning up his act."
"Not yet, he still sounded angry, but he misses us." Jay's voice broke mid sentence.
My arms wrapped around him tightly, not wanting him to feel sad. "I'm sorry baby, I'm even sorrier for wasting time talking about pointless body counts while you held this in your heart. I hope that he'll come around, it might take time but don't give up on him."
He nodded, but didn't say anything else as he ran his fingers through my hair.
"I'm about to say something and I think that it might scare you." Jay said cautiously as he massaged my scalp.
I turned to face him and looked at him expectantly, "What is it?"
"I want you forever. I've been thinking this since you met my family. I want everything that we didn't see ourselves having on our first date. That's why body counts, psycho exes, thirsty hoes and whatever else could happen; none of that shit could make me leave you." He spoke slowly yet eagerly, making sure that I digested everything that he was saying.
I felt tears prick my eyes as I looked at him; in a way I felt like I created a monster but it the best way. "I feel the same way Jason. I'll always love you." I assured him. I left it at that because I never liked to make promises; I believed him though, or at least I believed that he believed what he was saying.
"I'm gonna marry you one day; not right now because I know that you would run for the hills but just know." Jason kissed me on the forehead. "You're mine for life."
If you say so....