Page 2 of The Aries Alliance
“Yeah, girl. Lil’David wants a booty call tonight. I don’t have time for that.”
“Did he send you a dick pic?” Val raised her eyebrows and rubbed her hands together.
I leaned forward and licked my tongue out.
“You know he did.” I spoke in a low voice like I was a dirty old woman.
Val held out her hand and wiggled her fingers.
“Sharing is caring.”
I opened my phone and gave it to Val. She licked her lips and forwarded Lil’David’s text to herself before handing my phone back to me.
“You talk about that fine man with the foolish name like a dog, but he has become a good distraction for you. Without his lovin’, you might be in somebody’s mental hospital.”
I didn’t disagree. Val lived vicariously through me when I shared the magic of Lil’David’s tongue lapping across every inch of my body. Little did he know that he was a contributor to some of her fantasies too.
“Why do I need Lil’David when I have a lesbian lover like you?” I reached out to Val and held her hand, looking deep in her wide-set eyes.
She held my gaze for several seconds until she snorted like a pig. The noise echoed across the room and outside the crackedconference room door. Patrons in chairs near us looked up from their books and laptops and stared at us as if we were unruly school kids. I covered my mouth to hold in my laughter but released a guffaw that echoed across the room. Val raised her index finger to her mouth.
“Shh . . . Don’t get us kicked outta here,” she said with a wide grin before looking around again, fake smiling at the people mean-mugging us.
My being a lesbian was a running joke between Val and me. It started when we were college roommates at Clark Atlanta University. As I took classes about Black feminism and critical race theories in my African American studies classes, I came home each break more aware of the toxicity in my home life.
Those changes negatively impacted my relationship with my mother. Mom threw her venom at me when I criticized her for catering to my deadbeat father. At eighteen, she got pregnant by him and had five kids in six years. She was so busy making my dad a hot plate after his construction job every night and giving him sex on demand that I ended up raising her kids. My teachers called child protective services when I was sixteen years old and showed up for my younger siblings’ parent-teacher meetings more than my parents.
Since then, Mom berated me every chance she got, saying that I had too much testosterone. She swore that my mannish, overbearing ways were why I was still single at thirty-nine. When I told her that being an intersectional feminist didn’t make me a lesbian, she started a rumor among our closest family members that Val was my girlfriend and that I was in denial about what God created me to be.
Even now, my eyes tightened as I thought about our relationship. Like those I worked with at Ember Falls University, she tore me down, treating me like I got what I deserved for being too mouthy.
Despite my stepping up and earning a Ph.D., Mom’s emotional abuse never stopped. She was quick to criticize me for being book smart but not having the commonsense God gave a flea. I’d just roll my eyes and bite my tongue, tucking that pain away as I reminded myself that was her hurt talking. I always took the high road, never picking up her stones and throwing them back at her. With her tissue-paper feelings, she’d probably crumble and tell everyone I drove her to meanness.
Because of the lessons I learned in college and my lived experiences, I vowed to be an advocate for vulnerable people. It came to me naturally, since my entire life, I took care of everyone, even when those who were supposed to protect me didn’t. That was what brought me to my current quest for justice.
“I’m nervous about opening the report.” I spoke the words out loud, biting my nails before taking a big breath.
Despite my fearlessness in calling people out, I wanted to be validated for my work and my beliefs.
Val placed her hand over mine.
“Take a deep breath.” She raised her hands up and down as she inhaled and exhaled deeply, signaling for me to do the same. “You’ve got a paper trail a mile long.”
I closed my eyes and mimicked Val’s actions. I then smiled at my friend, whose gold septum and labret piercings gave her the appearance of a modern African queen.
She was right. My case was rock solid, and I never backed down from a challenge. Persistence in the face of adversity had become my brand. That was why I was the target of retaliation at work.
I was a natural-born leader and manager, organized to a fault. I kept physical and virtual files about work occurrences that were more comprehensive than the average attorney, in my home office. With insider information about anyone whoeven breathed wrong at marginalized people in my organization, I was anxious to find the right time and place to expose wrongdoings against vulnerable people and protect myself in the process.
As the first Black woman tenured professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Ember Falls University, I wasn’t exempt from microaggressions and sabotage. I could have left academia years ago and gotten a job in industry earning twice my salary, but giving up wasn’t in my DNA.
My late grandmother made sure of that. Only in my thirties did I recall how her behind the scenes encouragement kept me going. Because she pushed me to believe that I had something to contribute to the world, I spoke up in a sea of noise, earning tenure and supervising twenty emerging scholars with boldness and clarity.
Even now, I heard Grandma’s withered voice in my head, telling me to press on in the face of adversity. If I didn’t speak up about how those under my care were mistreated, who would?
I took a final big breath and pointed to my computer.
“If they take me down, you know my passwords. Tell everybody what really happened. Pull their shady asses to hell, then resurrect them and take them down again.” I steeled my voice, pissed off as I thought about how so many people at my university shunned and gaslighted me.
