instead, she heard the male’s voice again.
“I heard you, Chris!” he said. “You sounded like you were damn near having phone sex!”
“Cut it out,” Chris’s voice returned. “I was talkin’ to a customer!”
“A customer? So do you ask all your customers to spend Valentine’s Day with you? Is that some kind of special you’re giving out?”
There was a brief silence.
Then the male’s voice said, “Uh-huh! See, Chris, I caught ya ass this time! I was standin’ right outside that door! You really did it with this one! You hear me?”
Chris finally broke his silence. “Baby, it wasn’t like that at all. I’m tellin’ you. You caught the conversation wrong.”
Dior’s mouth dropped open as she realized what was going on at the other end of her phone. She felt like she had to throw up. She ended the call and hurried to the bathroom. Inside a stall, she sat down on a toilet seat and held her hands over her face. She was trying to gather her thoughts and calm her stomach. She was disgusted. Thank God she hadn’t violated her golden rule of never doing it without a condom. But even still. She stood up quickly and leaned over the toilet, retching until it felt like the lining of her stomach was going to make an appearance in the commode.
After a while, she left the stall and went up to the sink to rinse out her mouth and wash her hands. She looked at herself in the mirror, and the feeling of her having to throw up returned. She leaned over the sink waiting for something to come out, but nothing happened. She patted her face with warm water and wiped it afterward with a paper towel. She finally got herself together and went back to her desk.
She picked up her phone to call Chris and curse him out and she noticed she had a missed call from him. She opted to check her voice mail first before calling him back.
“Dior, I’m sorry about that. My roommate and his friend were arguing. Call me back when you can. Bye.”
Dior pressed 9 to save the message, then hung up and dialed Chris. Who did he think he was fooling?
“Chris, hi, it’s Dior.”
“Yeah, my bad about that,” Chris started off.
“Chris, there’s no need to drag this on,” Dior said. “You called me back by accident and I heard your whole conversation and I know it was you arguing and not your roommate and his friend.”
Chris didn’t say anything so Dior took it upon herself to go on.
She rested her head in her palm and said, “I should have known you were gay.”
“No, no. See, you’re wrong! I’m not gay!” Chris all but shouted.
“Yeah? Well, is it called something else in New York?”
There was a long pause before Chris finally said, “Dior, I am bisexual. But—”
“There are no buts, Chris,” Dior said.
“Listen,” Chris pleaded, “I know I should have told you up front, but it wasn’t like I was planning on messing with you while I was messing with a man. I’m very considerate when it comes to that. If I’m dating a woman, then I’m straight and monogamous at that time. And when I’m dating a man, I’m gay, but still monogamous at that time.”
“Even if that was acceptable, and it’s not, but even it was, I don’t trust that it’s the truth,” Dior said.
“I’m telling you—” Chris started to beg.
“What you’re telling me and what I heard are two different things and I prefer to go with what I heard. Good-bye, Chris.”
Dior hung up her phone and put it on her desk. She rested her head beside it. She couldn’t believe how wrong she was about Chris. She had misread men before, plenty of times actually, but good grief, this topped them all. She was hurt, but more confused. A million questions twirled in her head and she didn’t have an answer for one of them.
She felt so shitty she actually wanted to call out sick the next day, but she managed to drag herself into the office two hours late. But try as she might she couldn’t concentrate on her work. Everybody who walked by her desk asked her what was wrong, even Candace. She told them that she was just a little tired, but that was it. She wasn’t one to tell her business, especially to coworkers. It would be all over the office if she did. She shuffled papers around for about an hour or so, then gave up on even trying to put on a pretense.
She logged on to the Internet and immediately went to MySpace to see if there were any new messages from Mr. Good Black Man 2008. She was so disgusted and disappointed with Chris that she needed somebody to talk to immediately.
Hey, she started her message, I’ve been a little busy with work. My campaign is being run and a lot of finishing touches had to take place in the past few days. Anyhow, I’m freed up again so you have my undivided attention. What’s been up?
She waited anxiously for Mr. Good Black Man to reply, but he wasn’t online so she didn’t expect it to be soon. Dior was restless, looking for things to do to take her mind off Chris. She walked to the front lobby to see if Larissa had gone and got the time slots that indicated when her commercials would run. It turned out that Larissa was at lunch. She started walking back to her desk, deciding to hell with it, she’d just go home after all.
“Okay. What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m fine, just a little tired.” Dior stuck to her story.
Gordon crossed his arms and gave Dior a full up-and-down look before continuing in a more gentle tone.
“Tired of what?” he asked. “What did he do? You can tell me, I won’t say anything.”
Dior was suspicious of Gordon’s persistence, but for some reason she felt comfortable talking to Gordon more so than any of her female counterparts. Plus Gordon was gay and maybe he would have some advice for her pertaining to Chris.
“You have to swear to me you won’t say anything to anybody,” Dior said.
Gordon touched his forehead, his chest, his left shoulder, then his right shoulder, making a cross with his finger. Dior trusted in his gesture and gave him the spill. His lips were tight and his eyes were intense as he hung on to Dior’s every word. When Dior finally got to the punch line, Gordon fell back into his chair and put his hand over his mouth as if he had heard the most shocking story in his life.
“Girl, no!” he gasped.
“I am in shock, Gordon,” Dior said, shaking her head despondently. “I was really feeling something for him. I didn’t see that one coming at all.”
Gordon sat back up and leaned forward on his desk. “Well, let’s take it back some. You said when he first came to your house to deliver the furniture, he looked real nice?”
“Yeah, you know, put together nicely.”
“Okay, I can understand him being all dolled up when y’all went on your date. But coming to deliver sofas and stuff, I don’t see a man getting shitty sharp for that. So that there, Ms. Dior, should have told you one of two things about Mr. Chris—either he was a playboy whose sole purpose of being a delivery boy was to entice his lady customers and see how many of them he could end up in bed with, or he was gay.”
Dior smirked at Gordon’s snap analysis, but then shrugged. Hell, who was she to disagree with him? She was the one who had just been played for the fool. “You might be right.”
“Damn right, I’m right.”
Dior sighed. “I wish I had this talk with you much sooner.”
Gordon grinned. “Well, you got me now, so put me to use. What else you need to know, girlfriend?”
Dior chuckled and then she had an idea. “Well, I do have one other prospect. I should let you read his profile