"What?"
She'd looked up at him so slowly and had spoken so softly that he began talking faster and backing up.
"It wasn't the Full Monty, boo, like you know it can go down, and uh, what I'm sayin' is, mi tresora, you're my heart and treasure, girl, and you can't be concentrating on a lapse that wasn't really me. Right?"
"I'm cool," she said in a falsely upbeat tone. "It all checks out metaphysically. A dark entity overtook you, it was a spirit attachment, a parasite that made you do things to a lot of people you shouldn't have. The thing is over, so, hey. I'm cool."
He stared at her hard, knowing she was anything but cool. "Then why are you still leaving?"
"Because I've got things to do--like get back to my music? for one. For two, I don't live here and need to be in my own, unadulterated, unblemished, never transgressed by a foul deed, house. My space." She set the shea butter down hard on the edge of the tub and stood, bringing her hands to her hips. "And, three, because I feel like it and I'm grown. Do I need any more reason than that?"
"The Bible says to forgive and forget," he replied quietly, pain shimmering in his tone. "Don't do this, Damali."
"Now you're going to go biblical on me? About this? Puhlease." She shook her head and strode toward the door. "What does it say in the Bible about letting some sister suck your dick on my back deck after you defied a direct order from On High? Forgive and forget? Okay. I ain't mad, and it wasn't sex--so we cool, ain't nothing to discuss. Right?"
He was on her heels as she shrugged away from his attempt to grab her by the elbow. "How you gonna hold me accountable for-- "
"Don't touch me," she said quickly, holding up both of her hands and glaring at him. "Not until I say so."
"Aw'ight, aw'ight," he said, holding up his hands to match her stance so she could pass. "I'm sorry. I just want to talk to you. Okay, baby? There's something dark around you that I just saw come out in this--"
"You can cut the 'baby' crap. My name is Damali."
"Aw'ight, my bad." He had to get through to her, get her mind focused on the, potential threat. "Let's just talk, for real. Let's get this thing worked out, girl," he said, his voice faltering as he watched her cross the room. "I don't want you blaming me for something that I really couldn't control. You've got something trying to attach to you--been there, and I know what I'm talking about. This time, D, you need to listen to what I'm saying." Carlos folded his arms over his chest. "You have to stop blaming me, get past the hurt, and stop thinking this was--"
"I'm not blaming you," she said, snatching up her underwear and trying to step into them without removing her towel.
He just watched her. She was covering her body from him? After all they'd been through and done with each other? Now she didn't want him to see her naked? This was really bad and had kicked it up a dangerous notch. Whatever had come out of her head, had taken something with it.
"Baby, listen--"
"No, you listen," she said, her voice beginning to escalate. "What would happen if I had an aberrant moment and lost my damned mind, huh? What if some tall, fine, ridiculously sexy brother opened my nose for a minute while under the so-called influence, and let's say, I had sex
that really wasn't sex because I didn't go all the way, but would have if I could have--and mighta gotten pregnant, too, if my Guardian brother hadn't walked up on me, and I had nearly busted a nut for him and did it in your house or your lair, and whatnot, and was ready to have a baby for him but didn't have time to really get my swerve on correct, so I postponed that vibe only because of time, not commitment? Feel me?"
"I was possessed, baby, I swear," he said holding his hands out in front of him, imploring her to relent and to give him another chance to explain. "I just saw that dark smoke exit you, so it's got your thinking jacked! That's why I cut that motherfucker's head off, all right? I'd never make a baby with nobody but you, mi corazon. C'mon, now, D, this is me you're talking to. You sound crazy. You ain't making sense, girl; don't go there. Let's just calm down, discuss this rationally. We'll work this out, together, and go see Mar to purge you righteous, and things will be fine."
Damali began walking around the room to put the bed between them so she could yank on her jeans and shirt under the shield of her towel. She gave him her back as she pulled on her tank top and snatched off her towel in one deft move without allowing him to see her br**sts. "Say he was a warlock and put a spell on me, or it was a fine voodoo priest that whipped down some dark ritual that blew my mind. Would you be okay with it when I came out of the haze?"
"Yeah," Carlos said, louder than he'd wanted, "because it wouldn't be your fault!"
"If you saw it, you could just shake the image out of your mind with no problem? It wouldn't take a little while for the impressions to fade, for the thing eating at your brain and your heart to go away?" She nodded and chuckled angrily. "The Carlos Rivera would just be smooth, wouldn't care if his woman arched her back and called another man's name? Gave up the cold-blooded puss--"
"Damali, it wasn't like that and you know it! You're not being fair."
She glared at him, wanting to just unload a full clip of verbal obscenities at him like rounds from a semiautomatic, but was so suddenly enraged that for a moment she couldn't speak. His eyes held a frantic quality that she oddly enjoyed. Let him twist. She knew it was sick, but hurt fury had a grip on her logic that was unraveling by the second. She wasn't sure what about any of it hurt her more, the fact that he'd ignored an angelic command and once again had gotten himself jacked up in a situation that they'd all had to figure out how to live with, or the mere fact that he hadn't been strong enough at the core to not do something to their relationship that would damage the one thing that had been rock solid between them--trust. Instantly she decided that it was all of the above.
"Fuck you trying to tell me about some black smoke coming out of my head. It's probably coming out of my ears, too, from being so damned mad at you, Carlos! If the same thing happened to me, you'd be off in a lair somewhere, alone, licking your male ego wounds, with me having to beg you to come back to me. You'd have me on my f**king hands and knees groveling to make it right, explaining over and over again every detail of how it happened, why it happened, swearing on a stack of Bibles that it would never, and could never, ever, ever happen again."
"No, I wouldn't," he said, now pointing at her, "because that weakness that got me f**ked around in the first place is gone, D!" He stepped toward her, head tilted to the side, ready to go to war over the principle. "I know who I am now, the male Neteru." He pounded both fists against his chest. "No bullshit is ever gonna make me doubt the Light again. I'm not ever gonna be unclear about my powers, you got that? I refuse to go backward, I'm going forward, and this time there's something messing with you--but your ass is too arrogant to accept that just maybe you ain't invincible." He leaned in toward her. "You ever consider that, D? Ever think about the fact that that's how I got messed up? Your best bet is to learn from my big mistake, rather than try to rub my nose in it. I ain't no puppy, or no newbie, D."
She pointed at him and then drew her hand away quickly to press her palm against her stomach while willing her voice not to crack. "You'd be so hurt, Carlos," she whispered. "You'd wanna know, 'Baby, how'd it take your mind like that--how'd it get inside the black box of me and you?' And . . ."
Damali briefly closed her eyes and two huge tears rolled down her cheeks without her consent. "And you'd want to know what was already resident within me that would have allowed it to get its claws under the lid to lift it enough to take me there." She stared at him. "The Chairman and the Harpies couldn't get into it, because at that time, the seal was tight between me and you--unbreakable. But once you felt like I was the team leader, your ego gave the core of us right to 'em on a silver platter. That's what I can't forgive. Juanita being dragged into a trance by a Level-Seven demon using your body, nah," she added, shaking her head. "That ain't what's making me put my clothes on and leave. It's not about her; it's about you. Period. I don't trust how you really feel down deep. So, tell me I'm lying. Isn't that how you'd process all of this?"
When he didn't respond fast enough to her liking, her voice took a dangerously low dip as she spoke between her teeth. "And then you'd make me TWIST, my Scorpio brother, and you know that. Don't try to confuse the issue and get out of this by talking about some black smoke you supposedly saw in the bathroom. Be real. Things would never be the same between you and me again. If we both lived to be a hundred years old, you would whip out your 'right as a man,' " she added, making little quotes around the words in the air with her fingers, "to fling a transgression of this nature in my face whenever the mood hit you. It would be the perpetual ax over my head until the end of time. The blade of Heru!"
She paced back and forth in a tight line, raking her locks. "You'd be telling me that, possession or not, I shoulda loved you so hard that something like this couldn't have happened. Then you'd be telling me some male Latino-based yang about how it's different for a man than a woman, and I'd have to give you time to sort it all out. Tell me I'm lying?"