His head dropped back as a new wave of nausea claimed him.
Juanita had left Jose's arms and moved forward on her hands and knees. "When she had to leave you, and I took her place," she said quietly. "She was devastated."
"For every woman you burned. Every heart you played with. Every hope you dashed. Every man you left feeling some type of way, because his woman was marked by you, feel it," Marlene whispered harshly against his temple. "A woman's mind is not a playground, Carlos, whether you love her or not. Her body is not a jungle gym... her heart not a roller-coaster to take on spiking highs and plunging lows. Noooo... baby, you gonna get this straight today. You took Damali and Juanita on the tilt-a-wheel, honey. Let's go there now."
A new wave of sobs invisibly split Carlos's chest wide open, carving at the soft tissue from the inside out. "I know . . ." he choked. "I know."
"The look on her face," Marjorie whispered, her eyes distant as the vision entered her mind. "When you came back from the ashes . . .
"Don't tell me, don't tell me," Carlos pleaded, but Krissy was now touching his shoulder.
"The way she would look at you every time you entered the room... oh, Carlos, she loves you so much. Why would you think otherwise?"
"I don't know . . ." he wailed, finding Marlene's shoulder to bury his face into it.
"Now do you understand what's at stake? What's at risk? What you were about to throw away?"
He fervently nodded against the older woman's shoulder, so completely exhausted all he could do was breathe.
"Do you understand," Marlene said, "how your actions, no matter how justified you think they were, still hurt her... still sent her to a place no lover should go?"
Again, all he did was fervently nod.
"She could forgive your transgressions. But what continually ate at her until it broke her down was that you wouldn't take part ownership, wouldn't validate how she felt. You could only see your side of it, how you felt. But in all these changes you've gone through, she was the injured party. She was the one holding the line while you learned and bumped your head against life. But you never acknowledged her sacrifice to regally hold the line on behalf of something greater than her--your relationship, and you never called her a queen--which is what she is! That was the crux of it. She instinctively knew that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts... old mathematics, ancient wisdom of synergy. Women invented it. It comes from beyond Kemet. We gave it to them."
A sheen of sweat had formed on Marlene's brow, but she wouldn't relent or release Carlos from her tight grip as she spoke slowly, with purpose and definition in every word. "It's not that she couldn't forgive what happened several times for various reasons, but your acknowledgment that she had a right to feel the way she did about it never came from a true place of contrition within your soul--and she felt that, too."
Marlene's warm hands continued to pet his back, rubbing the purification salt of truth into the freshly opened wound, making him wince with every stroke across his sweat-drenched shirt. " That is how another man got into your household, baby. It wasn't because of anything she hurled at you on the beach."
When new sobs overtook him, Marlene's voice became gentler, but also more firm. "If your fortification was strong... you could be blind, crippled, poverty stricken, disease ridden, and no knight in shining armor could have ever breached your barriers. He didn't seduce her. You abandoned her heart. He didn't pull her, you pushed her away. He didn't have more power, you relinquished yours. It is just that simple, honey."
"Marlene, I didn't know... I didn't understand," Carlos whispered harshly, unable to even lift his head. His body went limp against hers. His size normalized and his fangs retracted. All the energy within him felt like it had spilled out onto the terra-cotta stone floor.
"That's how a woman's mind works," Marlene murmured, now stroking his hair. "And she would have had your babies, fangs and all. Would have raised her Isis against any encroachment of disrespect to your kingdom. And would have died fighting to protect your dignity, your ego, and your honor... but you didn't validate how she felt--you did that. Not Cain. He didn't pull her