It wasn’t so obvious at home, where she was constantly taking precautions to keep Joel fooled.
But at work, she was different. Her mannerisms and her tongue were looser, more carefree and vulgar. She had girlfriends at work that she gradually confessed to. They knew months before Joel found her out and left that she was being a cheating, reckless slut.
Her friends were divided on this. A few of them started avoiding her. The others were split between tolerating her and occasionally bad-mouthing her, even to her face, to a smaller group that just enjoyed her lurid stories.
She shared, as women are want to do.
And women love gossip, even more so if one amongst them is willing to be the fool for their entertainment.
But after Joel left, Leila was a bore to all of them. She spontaneously wept. She would often get up from her desk and fast-walk to the bathroom and sob, come back red-eyed and call Joel, who never answered.
She left pathetic message after pathetic message for him at his workplace, on his cell and at his mother’s house.
Then she got served. A lawsuit processor walked up to her desk one day with the divorce petition and she was so distraught she left work early and screamed and shook tears off her nose in the parking garage. She tried to find Ace but he was nowhere to be found and she ended up buying a bag of cocaine on the street.
She started to drive to the house, but couldn’t face that lonely place and pulled into the parking lot of a bar, snorted in her car then went inside to drink. It didn’t take long in there for a horny man to notice her. He was older, in his forties by her estimate, with a round paunch and balding. She didn’t care.
They talked for a few minutes and then Leila asked, “Wanna go to your place?”
It was meaningless sex. She was stoned and drunk, but she managed to suck cock and balls and take a pounding to her cunt while he stood at the edge of his bed, looking down at this screwed up lady who just seemed to really enjoy opening her legs.
He tried to hold a conversation with her afterward, but she mostly stared into space, at what he knew not. Still, he was a decent enough fellow to let her sleep the night. In the morning, he showed her the door.
Leila struggled constantly with being alone, which was happening more and more.
Ace was tiring of her blue funk and had begun avoiding her. This made everything worse for Leila and she resented his lack of empathy.
“It’s your fucking fault!” she would yell into the phone when he’d make some excuse to be somewhere else. “You’re with that little bitch again, aren’t you? Fucker! It’s your fault this all happened to me! Please, Ace. I want to come over. Be there for me, why can’t you fucking be there for me when I want you, I did it for you!”
None of this made Ace feel any more sympathetic. If anything, he was also getting more short-tempered.
Everything came to a head between them one night. Leila stalked Ace from his house and followed him to his sweet young girlfriend’s place. After he went inside, Leila pounded the door and Ace came out.
“What the fuck? Hey, bitch, you can’t be here,” he warned her. The girl came out and stood behind Ace and Leila tried to attack her.
“Fucking whore!” Leila screamed. “You don’t do anything for him, fuckin’ whore, you ain’t shit.”
Ace had to hold onto Leila tight and push her back, but she kept coming and the girlfriend got into it, taunting her and telling her, “Who’s the whore? Look in the mirror cunt, you fucking cum bucket!”
It was a scene and Ace held Leila down. He had to, she wouldn’t stop. The girlfriend called police and Leila ended up spending the night in lock-up for trespass, disturbing the peace and assault.
But the cop that took her in wasn’t so noble that he would pass a chance to make a move on some fucked up hot piece of ass that no one seemed to give a damn about. So three-quarters of the way to the jail, he pulled into a railroad yard, took her handcuffed to the back bumper of his squad car and ordered her to her knees.
Leila, resentful of all that had transpired, feeling herself the righteous victim, refused to open her mouth.
“Suit yourself, honey pot,” he said.
He leaned over and looked in her eyes and watched her muscles twitch.