Side chic [part 1]

These days, whenever I hear the word “Side Chic” I always hear the terms “A bond is stronger than a title” or “Side chics are winning”…It’s really sad. After 2 years of feeling like somebody’s side chic, a side chic is not a bracket I would want to ever put myself into.
Some women go in with the intention of sleeping with other women’s men. It excites them. I hear “OUR MAN” being thrown around a lot “Sister wives” and women composing these “coming to you as a woman” texts. It makes me skin crawl. Even in my last relationship My first love (part 1) and My first love (part 2) I genuinely felt like I was put in a situation I had no desire to be in . Why didn’t you get out? I hear you ask. I did…many times. My ex crawled, begged, finessed his little way back in. By lying, making fake promises to never cheat on me again. Never in that relationship was I OKAY with the idea of ever being a side chic. Had I of known from day one he was playing us both against each other and swinging his dick from Shepherds Bush to Hammersmith every other day, I would have made the decision for him and checked out that relationship much ealier.

Once I had finally sat down with Rose in the park that chilly Friday afternoon and she told me everything. How he lied and cheated and played us both, I was gone. I didn’t want any more to do with this circus. My self respect, dignity and pride was worth more than fighting for this relationship Richard had torn to shreds by disrespecting us both. I guess Rose felt that she had more reason to stay as they already had a child together and another on the way. Me being only 6 weeks pregnant, I could make my problem disappear and move on with my life. I wasn’t going to have my child fight for their dads attention. Or see me cry myself to sleep every night, or be one of those baby mums who are always trying to get hold of their baby father and screaming “when are you coming to see your child?” I had bigger and better plans. Plus I was still so young. I had my whole life ahead of me.

As soon as I had got over the initial shock of everything and grieved the relationship I was in a much happier space. I was doing great at my new job as a Customer Service and Maintenance Manager at Lambeth City Council (which doesn’t sound as glamorous as my old jobs but paid well).

I had money in the bank, great credit, real hair poppin, edges on fleek, fleeky eyebrows, ass to waist ratio amazing. I was the shit! Nothing was stopping me. I was doing “me”. I had spent so much time, since school days, doing what pleased everyone else compromising my thoughts and feelings.

After a few years at Lambeth, I decided I needed a career break. I had enough money to take a couple months off (if I spent wisely and didn’t go crazy) and try a completely different field; one I actually enjoyed. Maybe go back to Media or Marketing again.

I resigned from Lamberth Council and was now a lady of leisure.

Taking that career break couldn’t have happened at the worse time. THE CREDIT CRUNCH! There were no jobs. 6 months ago I could go into an interview and absolutely smash it. This time, I’m competing for the same role with 20 other candidates. Most of the roles I was even told I was ‘overqualified’ for. I was broke. Bills coming out of my eyeballs. Bailiff and red letters. Not to mention “seizure of goods” letters coming through the door every other day.

After months of pointless interviews, I gave up. I wound into a depression. I spent most of my days on Facebook and less of my days searching for jobs. I had hit rock bottom. A friend request from Mason King popped up. I looked at our mutual friends (just a few promoters and DJs) and examined his pics…..”mmmm….not bad” I said to myself. He resembled a taller Larenz Tate. Carmel completion, gorgeous smile. He looked like he had money.

“ACCEPT FRIEND REQUEST” I clicked.

Immediately a facebook chat pops up on my screen “Yo sexy”. Now I usually would  not respond to such a hood greeting but this guy had something that intrigued me. We spoke a little online and I asked him what made him add me. He said he saw me in a tagged photo on a DJ’s page.

He asked me what I was doing that night “nothing” I said- because that was the truth. I was a jobless bum who couldn’t even afford to go out on weekends.

“Come see me” he suggested.

“What now?”

“Yeah why not”

Now, never in my life have I just randomly agreed to meet a complete stranger. I wasn’t too savy with this internet dating stuff and back in those days it wasn’t very popular. But facebook made it seem less cringe. He gave me his postcode and I drove to Catford. It took forever. I hate South London. The journey time always seems so long. Finally, after an hour, I approached my final destination. I beeped my horn and he got in my car. “Yo, what happened to your side bumper man” he said laughing. “Oh…I mis judged a turning and kinda hit an island…I’ll fix it soon” I lied. Truth be told, I had no idea when I was fixing that side bumper. I had no money coming in and that was the least of my problems.

“Where do you wanna go?”

“There’s a new shopping centre that’s just been built near my house. I’ve not been there yet, wanna go?”

“Westfields?…yeah lets go”

I drove all the way to West London again and we circled round the shopping centre. I don’t know why I suggested shopping when I had no money. We had a look around The Village and looked around some other shops but we didn’t stay long as the shops were closing.

“Lets go”

I drove Mason all the way back to Catford. We spoke in the car for hours. He kissed me on the cheek and went inside. I drove home back to West.

We spoke on the phone and saw each other almost every day. I practically moved into his house. I cooked, I cleaned. I washed his clothes. We were official. He introduced me to all his friends and they were all mad cool.

It wasn’t hard to figure out that Mason was a trap boy. He had two phones, he drove rentals, he had nice clothes and jewellery and he raved and popped bottles every weekend. He would make sure there was money for me to buy food and petrol in my car and the odd occasion he would give me money to buy clothes.

This wasn’t enough for me. This wasn’t my life. I have never had to depend on anyone for money. I needed a job. I needed to get back to work. I’d do anything. I didn’t care if it wasn’t a managerial position or if it had no car allowance or no perks. I needed an income. These bills weren’t going to pay themselves.

I started my job search again and got a part time temping job at Transport For London. I was basically the real life “route planner”. People would call up and ask how to get from A2B or want to know what line “Bond St” was on or what time the 283 bus was coming or if there were any delays. It’s amazing how we had to access information before google and apps. The job paid well considering it didn’t require much brain power; still not what I was earning at Lamberth but better than job seekers allowance.

I was still able to see Mason. I worked 7am-2pm so still had the whole day to myself. I would drive all the way to Margate to collect Mason (his trap house) then drive all the way back to South. He kept my petrol on full tank and the time alone in the car was great.

Everything was great for the first few months. Our routine was great. I had a decent (enough) income coming in. Mason was topping me up from time to time. Bills were slowly but surely getting paid. I was in a much happier place.

Mason had a habit of falling asleep at the most random times. Probably because he was up all night trapping. He had a hard time staying awake in the day.

One late afternoon/ early evening Mason had passed out on my lap during us watching Hollyoaks. One of his phones were ringing. I assumed it was either one of his workers or his clients wanting “food” i purposely didn’t wake him because I didn’t want him to have to leave the house. I was happy with him just lying on my lap.

The phone didn’t stop. It buzzed back to back. I decided to look at who was calling “Sugar” flashed on the screen.

“1 text message received”

I opened the message:

“I swear to god Mason, if you’re fucking cheating on me again we are done. I can’t take this anymore”

My heart sank. Who the fuck is Sugar and what does she mean by cheating? And again?

Part of me wanted to hit him upside the head with his phone and ask for an explanation, the other part wanted to just walk away. “I’m not doing this again” I said to myself. I’m not fighting no more girls or competing. I’m done.

I gently placed Mason’s head on the sofa while I gathered my belongings. I put them in my oversized handbag and closed the door. I ruffled through my bag trying to find my keys “FUCK”. They’re in the house. I rung the door bell for 10 minutes straight. He finally answered. I pushed past him and grabbed my keys.

“What’s the attitude for?” he asked pissed off and half awake “Dont fuckin be ringing my door like the feds. What are you doing with all them bags?”

He was firing questions at me I didn’t feel like answering. I mentioned “Sugar” and he tried to do reverse psychology on me. “Na, fuck all that. Why you fuckin disrespecting my house for? You’re in a hump and you leave my house without saying bye, you got no fuckin manners”

He was trying so hard to deflect from the real issue and he knew it. I was in no mood to argue with his lame ass anyway. “I don’t have time to be fuckin around with drug dealers. You’re not even worth it”

“But you weren’t saying that when you was riding this DICK” he shouts.

I laughed. This guy had some cheek. I left his house and drove home in silence trying to think of how the HELL I missed this.

My head was all over the place. I needed to get away…from London. If money was no issue I would of gone out of the country. Taken a holiday somewhere hot. But money wasn’t flowing like that. I called my friend Kyra who lived in Nottingham and asked if I could come to hers for a few days to clear my head.

To be continued…