Motherhood

How 18.65 Minutes Can Lead To 18 Years (Or More) of Misery

This is a story about the importance of condom use. Yes, some may interpret is as primarily being the sad tale of a young woman who’s bright future was dimmed over a decade ago – the wretched result of straying from the good and godly path for the sake of dick – but it’s mostly about condoms… Condoms and bad sex.

As your humble blogging servant of 6+ years, I still believe in my sacred duty to use my life experiences as an exemplum from which to draw wisdom or decipher a warning. After all, it worked out quite well for my younger sister. In secondary school, she once told me that her key to success has been to look at what actions I took and to do the opposite. Now she holds meetings at the Pentagon, while I hold side conferences with a man who can barely spell his own name.

The New Year being so young, I wanted my first written offering to be full of blessings and gratitude and gooeyness. Alas, it is not to be so and I have come with a different dispatch. And anyway, what would serve the youth better: saccharin or substance? Substance, I say! And so it is with that mission in mind that I come to you with a message about the importance of keeping certain substances as far a way from your precious cervix as possible, particularly if that substance is semen…semen issued from the loins of the most bottom-feeding of men. Fail to do that, and it will only lead to a lifetime of unnecessary turmoil.

 

Scene 1

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

 

1381947927bored-coupleThere had been two months between the space that I said my final goodbyes to him and the night I ended up back in Douche Bag’s bed. I don’t remember who called whom, but as usual, I was the one to make the long drive to Clarkston to “get some”, as he rarely had gas in his car or couldn’t be bothered to leave his home. Any effort to make our pseudo relationship functional was always inconvenient for him.

That’s how it was (and still is) with Douche Bag. Though well-endowed with an impressive hose, he was repetitive, unimaginative and selfish as a person in general and as lover. Him on top…me on top…ejaculation. That was our routine. I knew instinctively how many strokes there would be before we switched positions. One night, much to his surprise, I wordlessly rolled over for our usual position switch, without request.

He asked, “How did you know I wanted you to get on top?”

“Because we do the same thing every time we have sex,” I replied glibly.

The great tragedy is that I never experienced an orgasm the entire year I spent in sexual sin with Douche Bag. The entire affair was the equivalent of having thrown the best parts of my being down a financial and amorous sewer. Constantly broke and borrowing money, he felt entitled to all of me at 25, offering nothing but what the ancients call “a wet ass and empty pockets” in return.

So how did I end up back in his bed – sans condom, as was our custom – knowing all of this? The only explanation I can think of is that I was young and foolish and a glutton for the abuse. The last time I slept with him, the sex was mediocre enough to convince me I needn’t return for more. It didn’t matter though. At the moment he skeeted, about 18 minutes from the first kiss to the last, we both knew I was pregnant.

 

Scene 2

 

arrearsOver the next 5 years, Douche Bag took on his duties as a biological father with the same enthusiasm with which he approached any endeavor in life: middlingly. With casual indifference. With no thought beyond the next two hours. He paid child support when he wanted to. The first year he provided $1,115 for his child’s upkeep. Over the course of the next four he provided a cumulative amount of about the same…all this while daycare costs, diapering, feeding, clothing and transportation were costing me upwards of $350 a week. In the 6 that followed after he took me to court, the state has forced him to be accountable. (I’ve told you all how he’s conjured the cheek to ask me to relive him of his obligation.) God almighty!

I wasn’t thinking about Jesus the nights I spent sweating and pretending to climax in that man’s bed, but I thought about Christ and His mercy much in those days. I thought about why the Holy Spirit hadn’t whisked me away from those faded stripped sheets or why He had never sent a bag lady to my car window to screech a warning. God was not to blame for any of this, though. I knew that. He had spoken in a still, small voice even at the night of the first encounter – from the very moment the words “Aren’t we going to use a condom?” were uttered in shock – and I had swatted that voice away. I should have insisted on prophylactic use, but niggaz is always wenching about how “unnatural” a rubber feels, or how “uncomfortable” they are or how they are “too big” to wear a condom.

This is all garbage. You know what’s unnatural? Spending your European vacation money on childcare because you weren’t ready to be a single mother. You know what’s uncomfortable? Sitting at a desk at the WIC office while the snobbish caseworker scrutinizes and criticizes every aspect of your life. You know who is too big to go through any of that? You are, woman! A sturdy condom will prevent all of this heartache! Please listen to me!

 

Scene 3

RafikiNow it’s been 11 years since the baby has been born. We’re financially stable. We’re debt free as a family. The kids all have savings accounts. Life is good. We’re ready to make some major moves – including a move out of the country. After years spent answering insipid court orders about surnames and visitation schedules that Douche Bag doesn’t adhere to and putting my life and pursuits on the back burner to accommodate his whims, we’ve made a decision to move out of the country and strive for better things.

I call Douche Bag to inform him of this possibility. He has the audacity to hit the roof. Him. The man who has spent the better part of his 47 years on Earth relying on the financial assistance of women has the audacity to try and stop MY flow? Oh, I wasn’t having it.

I cut him off in the middle of his growling “Oh no, no, no…nuh uh!”

“No! You don’t get to go high and mighty with ME. Who do you think you are?”

“You know, Malaka, I done put up with a lot of mess with you…”

“What?!?”

“…as you have with me, but we’ll talk about this face to face…”

I was livid about the tone he was taking. So supercilious and condescending for a man who’s about to loose another job, has been homeless for almost a year, whom I have fed on more occasions than I care to recall and who only sees his kid because I frequently have to transport her to his house.

“When? How? When are we supposed to speak in person? You’re so unpredictable! You’re unreliable!”

I wouldn’t have started yelling if he hadn’t set the tone for the conversation. He reiterated that he wasn’t going to discuss the matter over the phone, and that’s when I asked,

“Why can’t you ever have a mature conversation for once in your life? What is us talking in person going to achieve that a phone conversation can’t?”

“Now you’re being kind of insulting…” he snapped.

“No I’m NOT. Your immaturity stems back to your refusal to wear a condom, your reluctance to pay child support, the way you conduct your paltry business endeavors!”

 

There. I’d said it. I said it on behalf of all the women on several continents whom Douche Bag had impregnated while in the Marine Corps. For the women who had aborted scores of his babies. For the woman who bore his son who is 4 years my daughter’s senior. For the chick he’s probably going to screw this weekend. I said it for 25 year old Malaka, who’s life got taken off track because of one man’s selfish refusal to bag his seed and flush it down the toilet.

 

Finale

image source: elanneka

image source: elanneka

A wise woman once said, “I’ll consider sex outside marriage when they make a condom for the heart”.

Many of us will enter into new  romantic relationships this year.  (Not me. I’ll be celebrating 11 years of marriage.) Let us do so with wisdom and circumspection. Not all will heed this warning. Some of you will be caught in the fire. Just remember you are not the first and you are not alone. 18.65 minutes (the combined length of a Teena Marie, Aaliyah and some other female R&B songstress that was playing that night) changed the entire trajectory of my life. I will have grandchildren with this insufferable man. Look at the guy who doesn’t care enough about you to wear protection and protect your future and ask yourself if he’s really worth your life? Make better decisions than I did. There is also a heart issue during that 18.5 minutes one has to consider. Although a condom can prevent a pregnancy, remember the heart is also vulnerable.