Page 3 of Choosing the Chief

He’s so predictable. Always wanting to be petted. “Yes, you are. And as my best guy friend, I have a request.” I give Adom a knowing look and scoot closer to him on the couch.

He takes in a deep breath as I settle closer. “What do you need?”

I lean down and grab a magazine from the coffee table before I take a seat next to him on the couch. I do this to give him a good look down the V-neck T-shirt I’m wearing. My La Perla push-up bra captivates him. With the help of this $500 lace number, my breasts transform into full-grown tits. “I need you to help me move this weekend. I am going home.”

He blinks twice before shaking his head. “Maya, you are not going anywhere.” I roll my eyes. His voice is both intimidating and distracted. He isn’t even trying to look me in the eyes. Men so easily turn into infants when tits are involved.

“Yes, I am, Adom. It’s time. My doctors and physical therapists agree. You can’t keep me locked in your mansion forever. Your house is nice and all, but I have a pretty nice million-dollar condo of my own. I’d like to see it and I want my life back. Don’t you want yours back? There used to be a lot of women and sex around here. Since I’ve been living here, no sounds of pleasure have been coming from the Champagne Room.” I nod my head in the direction of his bedroom. I snuck in there one day while he was at work and did the standard drawer check. There was a beautiful ebony armoire with West African carvings, a custom piece, and when I opened it, I wish I had not. He is into some wild shit. I found cuffs, ropes, blindfolds, butt plugs, and even nipple clamps.

Adom leans back on the couch and chuckles. It’s nice to know I can still make a man laugh. Once he laughs his way out of his titty trance, he puts his arm around me and pulls me closer to his toned six-foot-seven frame. The nefarious look on his face makes me regret my sexual banter. “Has it occurred to you that I may fuck somewhere else in this house? Somewhere you can’t hear their moans when they cum for me over and over again? Until I allow them stop?” My mouth now agape, he leans over to place his mouth against my ear and whisper. “If I knew you cared so much about my sexual well-being, I would have rewarded you for being such a goodgirlfriend.”

That’s a proposition. One thing I learned watching Adom in action during our four years of undergraduate together is this: Never give Adom an inch, because before you know it, he will give your body his mile. The talk of reward makes me think of the opposite. Punishment. I’ve heard rumors about his dominant tastes in the bedroom for years.

I move out of range of his lips and shake my head. “You know I’m not interested in the connections your body makes with half of Atlanta. However, I do need to tap your…” His eyebrow raises and I immediately self-correct. “I mean,accessyour strength this weekend, because I am moving out. I need you to help me move all the pretty clothes and shoes you bought for me.” I try to laugh, but Adom’s face becomes serious. He squeezes my shoulder hard enough for me to take notice.

“Maya, you’re not ready.” I lean away from him and smack the coffee table with the magazine I am now clenching.

“That’s not for you to decide.” His body closes the gap I made.

“What about the nights?”

He went there. My night terrors are an internal war I’m fighting with my mind. I don’t need him holding that over me. For the first three months, I dreamt only about the accident. I relived my BMW crashing into an SUV and spinning out on I-85 South. I re-experienced my body flying through glass every single night. I survived because Adom was there. He listened for my screams and rocked me back to sleep every single night.

The next two months were hell. I began to avoid sleep and became an insomniac. There was a brief period I’m pretty sure I abused sleeping pills. I call that the dry spell. Adom took a sabbatical from his office and ensured I never touched alcohol. He swore as long as I took the sleeping pills, I could kiss wine goodbye. He watched me like a hawk. I kicked the habit.

Currently, pain wakes me at night, but he doesn’t need to know that. I never talk about the chronic pain because he’d never let me leave if he knew. I tell the doctors and they help. When I wake up screaming and in a cold sweat, often the new dreams are of me as a cold and hungry kid. I don’t know what to make of them, but they are a constant companion to the pain. I feel the road to full recovery starts with me facing demons alone on my turf. Adom is a crutch. His home is an escape from reality.

I stand up and prepare to give him the speech I practiced all day long. I knew this would not be easy. Before I can start my diatribe, he interrupts me.

“Maya, sit down!” My eyes fly wide at his high-handed tone and the depth of his Ghanaian accent. He usually hides it. The world gets the British side of him. “Before you tell me I cannot tell you what to do…let me inform you, I can, and I will. To keep you safe, I will pull you down to my lap and bend you over my knee. I will slide those sweatpants off of you and bypass the thrill of being greeted with your bare ass barely decorated with black silk. Then I will spank you into submission. Sit. Down.”

I do it. Maybe it is the shock of his tone. He never talks to me this way. Maybe it’s the warm puddle between my legs from his promise to spank me. Maybe it’s just the fact that Adom has told me what to do and provided what I wear for the past eight months. He knows my ass is barely covered by black silk because he buys my panties. He is in charge.But not for long.I’m getting out of here.

I take a seat against the corner of the couch away from him and cross my arms. “I am sitting. Now what?” He allows me my space on the couch. However, his gaze invades every inch of me.

“You cannot live alone. I do not care what the doctors say. They are not here with you day in and day out. I see the absent stares. I hear the jumbled speech. I know the nights you awake with no screams, only pain. I smell the liquor on your breath. I will not allow you to kill yourself. It is my duty to take care of you. You are mine.”

Fuck. When did this happen? It is too much too soon. I’m no one’s possession. In my current state, I can’t even possess myself. Against my wishes, tears fall. Adom doesn’t move. He doesn’t console me. He just watches. “Adom. You know that I cannot handle this right now. I need to find my way back to Dr. Maya Taylor, the professor and independent woman. I cannot do that here with you. You are everywhere I breathe. I can’t think. I need space to heal.”

He stands from the couch. The look he gives me is intense. I imagine he is walking over here to implore me to stay in his arms. I think I want that. I want him to touch me. Instead, he walks away toward his bedroom, stopping at the entrance of the hallway.

“That’s bullshit. I am not stopping you from healing. I am stopping you from going back to the shitty life that brought you to this point. You can go to your home when you finally see one of the therapists I presented to you. Until then, you can find Dr. Maya Taylor right here. Good night.” He continues down the hall without another word.

I continue to cry alone and I fall asleep on the couch. Eventually I wake up and walk back to my cell. I open the drawer to my gilded nightstand and look for more medicine to take the oncoming pain away.

Chapter Two

Consolation

Adom

My jaw twitches with anger. I need a drink and a shower to calm the fuck down. Maya’s behavior is maddening. In what world does she think I’m letting her out of my orbit? The accident changed both our lives forever. With Ella in Africa, Maya was broken and alone in Emory University Hospital Midtown with no one to vouch for her. Fate intervened. We had texted the morning of the crash. It was her birthday. I messaged:I love you sister. Have a blessed and beautiful birthday. It’smy standard greeting for her or Ella’s birthday. When the doctor saw the message, they called me assuming I was her brother. The rest is history. I decided she would never be alone again.

I made my home hers. Her 23 excruciating days in the hospital gave contractors and decorators a hard deadline to make Maya a home within my walls. There are several advantages being a rich hedge fund founder. When my money speaks, all ears listen. Now she wants to leave—leave and go back to the empty house and life of solitude that landed her in the hospital. She doesn’t know that I know the real reason behind the accident. She thinks she has secrets. She may hide from the rest of the world, but she can’t hide from me. I see her, open and bare.

Maya is hardened by 18 years of foster care. She thinks no one understands, but I know what it’s like to not have anyone who loves you unconditionally. I’m the product of an extramarital affair between a king and his wife’s sister. For the first ten years of my life, I thought another man was my father. After I outed my mother to her sister, I lost everything. My mother hated me and stopped parenting me completely. My favorite aunt fell victim to madness and suicide. My cousin, the current king, blames me for his mother’s death.

So, I get it. She wants to go it alone. She thinks it’s easier that way. She may be right—people suck. But I decided to take care of her. Neither one of us gets to hide.

---