Packed and Ready to Go by Jacki Kelly

stamina.
    “ I was going to ask you the same question. Minus the profanity of course.” She patted the sofa next to her and offered me a glass of wine that had been sitting on the coffee table.
    I continued to stand in the middle of the room and watched while she took a long swallow from her glass.
    From the lacy gown she wore, the food cooking, the dim lights, I knew what she had planned, and my heart twisted in my chest. All I wanted to do was go to bed without hurting her again. I felt like a jackass. I should have been cooking her dinner and serving her wine. I wished I could be the man she saw when she looked at me. And even with her full breasts, curvy hips and skin so lush it invited me to touch, I couldn’t perform.
    I was willing to betray Tracy, but I couldn’t betray Sasha. Not on the same day—that was Sasha’s rule. Somehow Sasha could accept the fact that I made love to Tracy as long as I never made love to the both of them on the same day. And this morning before leaving for work, Sasha had wrapped her lean legs around me and I surrendered, so happy she wasn’t upset by my reaction to the news.
    I crossed the room, accepted the glass of wine from Tracy, and sat on the sofa beside her. “I’m so exhausted.” I sipped the Merlot and began my Oscar-winning performance.
    “ Like hell you are. Before you go to sleep, maybe you need to tell me where you were all day and night.” She stared at me, her eyes were as cold as the polar ice cap and about as welcoming, too.
    She was looking for some telltale sign I was lying, so I focused on the part of my story that was true. “Don’t start any shit with me, Tracy. I left you a message.” I averted my eyes and rubbed the cleft in my chin.
    “ The hell you did. I checked the messages as soon as I got home today and the phone hasn’t rung once since I’ve been here. There weren’t any messages on the recorder and I checked. I called you nine hundred times on every phone listed to you.”
    “ You didn’t get the one I left for you at work?”
    “ At—you left a message for me at work? Why the hell would you leave one there? I don’t work on Sundays.” Her eyes narrowed. “Come on Walter, even you, the master prevaricator, can do better than that.”
    “ Why would I lie to you? You know what I’ve been going through at work,” I kept my voice level. “I left a message as soon as I could this morning.”
    “ Umm humm,” she said. But I knew she didn’t believe me.
    “ Dammit Tracy, you know what a mess the company is in. We are meeting night and day to figure out how we can…how to save jobs.” I raised my voice. “Every time something comes up, I can’t stand up and say wait a minute I need to call my wife and get permission first.” I set the glass on the table so hard wine spilled. “I’m under enough pressure trying to prove myself as the only black VP. I have to demonstrate leadership and guidance—how would it look if the CEO calls an immediate meeting and I can’t show up until I clear it with my wife?”
    “ All day, Walter. All day long and you couldn’t tell me where you were? You couldn’t reach me? I went to your office and no one was there.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “I drove down. There wasn’t any meeting going on. You must think I’m some kind of idiot.”
    “ The meeting was in the board room on the tenth floor. I got a message to you as soon as I could. I didn’t want to call you here at home during the night and wake you up, so the first opportunity I had this morning, I left a message for you where I thought you could get it. In your office.” I picked up the phone from the base and shoved it into her hand. “Check it now dammit. Check it!” My excuse was flimsy thin, but I was pulling it off. A bead of sweat rolled down my chest.
    She didn’t take her eyes off of me while she dialed the number. The cold stare was eerie. I picked up my glass, and took a sip of wine, hoping to disguise my nervousness.