HAVE YOUR CAKE & EAT IT TOO?: Side Chick Horror Stories

We hear about her all the time: the side chick, the mistress, the other woman. From media headlines to chick chats with our girlfriends it seems like there’s always a story about someone creeping! Some ladies have no problem playing number two, while others have had their worlds shattered by the revelation that their man is cheating. In the latest installment of our “Sexcapades” series, read the juicy confessions below that fall on each end of the spectrum.

Happily Waiting In The Wings

When I met Az, I knew she had a girlfriend. Yes, she. She and I had been friends for about three years and as we grew closer, our feelings went from platonic to hedonistic and romantic. I wanted Az and she wanted me, but her girlfriend was in the way of our happiness. Or at least that’s what Az wanted me to believe.

During our friendship, I watched on social media as she tweeted (this was before Instagram) cryptic messages that I could easily apply to our relationship, but also could have been for Az’s girl. (Let’s call her Erin.) Erin hated my guts. She knew about me. Az was honest with her and told Erin about the last time she was in a relationship (with someone else) two years prior and I ended up stealing Az from her girlfriend; so Erin always watched me with a close and side eye. She had every right to. She was Az’s girlfriend and I was Az’s friend, slash happily waiting in the wings to stake my claim…again.

I know, it sounds dumb on my part, but Az promised she was leaving Erin, the same way she promised me she would leave the girl I stole her from the first time around. And she did end up leaving Erin once their relationship got way too volatile. I remember my phone ringing at 2 a.m. “Hello?” I groggily picked up.

“Danielle!” The voice on the other end of the phone was high-pitched and worried. “Tell Erin that we have NOTHING going on,” Az begged.

Still half sleep, I followed instructions, knowing that Az had prepped me for her “crazy” girlfriend calling me in the middle of the night. Hindsight is 20/20 y’all. Looking back, I’m like, “You idiot! She’s playing you!” but when I was in the middle of it, I was high on faux love, “Yeah, there’s nothing going on. We’re just friends,” I lied, tricking myself into thinking that my lying was loyalty to the woman I wanted to be with.

I heard Erin scream at Az, calling her every name in the book and then a click. The line went dead. I rolled right back over and fell asleep as if Az just called to tell me goodnight and her current girlfriend wasn’t just on the line trying to find out the truth.

Az would tell me that Erin was crazy and that she’s going to breakup with her, but because she’s so unstable, she has to be strategic about it. Hence her prepping me to lie on her behalf. “I don’t want Erin to come after you baby, she’s crazy.” I took her lies as a warning and faithfully listened.

Any time I would ask Az about her Facebook status, IM away message or tweet, she’d say, “Of course that’s about you baby. I can’t put your name or @ you because Erin stalks me online. If she finds out that you’re in my life as more than a friend, who knows what she’ll do?” Az warned. “Ok,” I would always agree, sometimes hesitantly. But I knew what I wanted, so I did what I had to do to get it. That’s what we’re supposed to do when we love someone, right?

I was 22 years old when this went down. I have since grown and learned. I would never, ever play the side chick in my mature age now, but when I thought I knew what love was–I happily made myself loyal for someone who was completely opposite of that. Nothing came of being Az’s side chick turned girlfriend because guess what? The cycle repeated itself! Az ended up dating someone as we were together, then dumped me four months into our dramatic love affair. You lose ‘em how you get ‘em. Side chicks never win, unless of course, they’re Joseline Hernandez.

The Side Chick That Almost Was

I promised myself I would never place myself in a position to develop feelings for anyone in a relationship. Friends of mine would tell me stories about men they dealt with who already had women and I’d chalk it up to them getting caught up. I thought I’d never make that mistake. Too bad I never thought I’d meet Jason.

I met him two summers ago at a newspaper job that fulfilled me professionally and socially. I tagged along to so many networking events, parties and interviews that I hadn’t really thought about that “summer fling” I was known to have just about every year. Just as I was coming to grips with my seemingly single summer, my boss introduced me to Jason. I instantly felt butterflies.

I told myself to take it light and not think about him as much. We didn’t even work in the same department—I worked in editorial, while he was in circulation. But, before I knew it, I was wearing figure-flattering sundresses to work, checking my makeup in the back and finding every excuse to go up to his department. Our exchanges became a little flirtier as time progressed, going from casual second glances to shoulder touches that took a little too long to settle. We definitely had sexual tension and people at work took notice.

One of my coworkers pulled me to the side one day to tell me something that Todd failed to tell me during my many department visits: he had a girlfriend.

“Wait, he never told you?” she said with one of those loud whispers.

“Well, no. But, I’m pretty sure he’s going to tell me eventually. He’s probably just trying to find the right time.”

“Girl, it’s been two months.”

Well, another month went by, and Jason still never told me about his girlfriend. In fact, he never told me about her during our walks along the bridge, phone conversations and nights dancing in the club.

The tension exploded when he dropped me home one night after a long day at work. It was 3 ½ months at this point and there was still no conversation brought up about his girlfriend except the one my coworker and I had. I could’ve brought her up myself, but just as much as he didn’t want to bring up his relationship, I felt the same way of not wanting to hear it.

“Alright, have a good night,” I said and went in for a hug. This time, though, our hug was a little bit different. We hugged each other a little tighter and held each other a little deeper. I felt my heart beating through my chest as our eyes locked. I knew I could’ve asked him to come inside and he would’ve agreed, but I stopped myself. Although he didn’t mention her, I think he knew I was familiar with his girlfriend situation and doing anything physical—anything that tangible, real and intimate—would’ve made it hard for me to look at myself the same.

Although nothing ever serious happened between us—no kissing or making out—that summer, I still felt as if our emotions could’ve put us in deeper trouble. I may not have been his jumpoff, but I was certainly becoming his emotional sidepiece. Someone who he felt he “could talk to for hours,” “open up to and tell everything to.” There was no evidence of nudies from me on his phone, kissy faces or flirty exchanges; nothing concrete.

As much as I still remember every feeling, I knew that succumbing to them would’ve haunted me later. Jason may not have been in a perfect relationship, but he was still in one and I didn’t want to be the cause of its demise.

I Found Out The Truth About The Dog On Facebook

I love dogs, so when I went over to my boyfriend’s apartment one day and he had a pit bull puppy I thought it was adorable. Little did I know something so cute could expose the ugly truth about our relationship.

Ryan told me that it was his friend’s dog and that he was keeping him for awhile while his boy was out of town. The dog ended up staying for weeks — much longer than I expected — and every time I went over to Ryan’s apartment it felt crowded. For the year and a half that we’d been dating, Ryan’s place had practically become a second home. He like having me over and I liked playing house, but this dog situation was starting to get crazy. Dogs usually love me but the puppy was a beast whenever I was in the room! He would growl at me when I walked by, he tore up two of my favorite pair of shoes (of course all of Ryan’s kicks went untouched) and he’d always run in between me and Jason if we were getting close. It was like the dog had it out for me! Not to mention he cried all through the night and always had to go on walks or be fed, so Ryan never wanted to leave him. It was annoying, but I thought it was cute to see Ryan be so nurturing (“Aww maybe he’ll be just as good with babies one day!” I thought. smh). So I tried to be a good girlfriend and suck it up.

One week Ryan went out of town and I was stuck at his apartment on dog duty. Instead of going out, I found myself bored, half-watching movies, half perusing his Facebook profile, looking at pictures of us. I had a moment of longing for my boyfriend and wrote on his wall, “I miss you! And so does puppy! The apartment is too empty. Can’t wait until you’re back.”

Twenty minutes later, my uneventful night turned upside down when I was hit with a Facebook message alert. I didn’t recognize the sender’s picture or name, but the girl knew me. She said as much in her message:

“You don’t know me, but I know who you are. Ryan has told me all about you, but he told me that you two have been having problems and that you were about to break up. I can see now from your message on his wall that you’re still together. And that’s funny, because for the past 5 months, he’s been spending lots of time at my apartment, he drives my car and he’s even been taking care of my dog…the one you’ve obviously seen.

I just want to talk about all this woman to woman and clear some things up. Will you give me a call?”

And the chick really left her number! As tempted as I was to call and unleash my anger on this girl who admitted she knew my man had a girlfriend and she knew who I was (stalker!), she was irrelevant to me, so I went to the person who really needed to give me some answers: Ryan’s a**.

MUST READ: She’s A Homewrecker: Why Publicly Shaming ‘The Other Woman’ Isn’t Productive

Like the true $*%$#* #*@&$* that he is, this fool tried to explain everything away. Our “problems” that he told the girl about? “She happened to call once after we had gotten into a fight and I was mad,” he said. Driving her car, the one that he told me was a rental after his car went to the shop: “I was just using her,” he said, as if that made the situation any better. “I needed to drive something and she offered.” And that damned dog that was supposed to be his “boy’s!?” “I mean she was giving me money. I did what I had to do and took care of her dog for her when she needed. That’s it.” Then came the grand finale to this BS explanation: “I just didn’t want you to worry that anything else was going on, that’s why I decided not to tell you. But she’s a bi*ch for trying to start sh*t and contact you! I’m going to go deal with her!” he screamed in anger. So now it was all her fault? Where do some men come up with this logic? And who’s really falling for it?

I’m not going to lie, a part of me fantasized about going D’Angelo “Sh*t, Damn, Motherfu*ker” on both of them (if only he hadn’t ended up in handcuffs at the end), but what would dragging this unknown woman further into my life really accomplish? As much as I thought she was an idiot for falling for the age old “I’m breaking up with my girl soon” line, I couldn’t help but think about how I too had been played by all the lies. The obvious rage from being cheated on, aside, I was probably even more insulted that Ryan would lie dead in my face even after he was caught!

I could’ve easily tore up all his stuff and blamed it on the dog, but instead of acting like a complete animal, I packed up all my stuff and let that puppy handle his bathroom business all over the apartment a day before Ryan was scheduled to return (hey, I’m only human). The least he could do was clean up the crap after creating this colossal mess.

And wouldn’t you know that years after I dumped his trifling a**, Ryan still calls me full of apologies, talking about I’m “the one that got away” and trying to get back together? Meanwhile, I heard he’s moved in with some other chick and they’re expecting a baby. I feel sorry that she’ll have to deal with a newborn and a dog.

Shawn was the popular, handsome and well-dressed guy at high school and somehow, out of all the girls who dreamed of being on his arm, he noticed me. I was aware of his relationship with Sandra. Maybe it was my immaturity that played a pivotal role in my decision, but it didn’t matter me that had a girlfriend. I never considered her feelings or thought she would even find out.

There was something so intriguing about Shawn, that even if I wanted, I couldn’t surpass his advances. Since we lived close to one another, our romance snowballed into a love affair my heart and body had never before encountered. He was amazing at sex, surely more advanced than my previous two partners and I became addicted to his stroke among everything else he had to offer.

Shawn and I snuck around for months. I no longer had control of my sweet spot, it belonged to him. He locked it down and kept the key nestled in his pocket so no one else could have it. If I dare mess with someone else, he’d unleash a verbal lashing that brought me back to reality–”No one knows how to f**k like me,” he’d confidently say, and it was no short of the truth. But that was all apart of what made him so intriguing. He was passionate and in control and I loved it.

I’d suffer occasional snickers from Sandra in the hallways. She was aware that I was sniffing around her man, but I’d never admit to it if she asked, because I knew my place. I was in love with Shawn’s personality, the way he kept me laughing, fluttering in places I could not scratch and infatuated by his stamina, power and sexual superiority. I would never put him in that predicament.

Shawn was good at everything. He was the master manipulator, he juggled Sandra and I like a professional. I was loyal to his rules, never revealing our secret (well besides to my friends. A gal’s gotta have something.) There came a point, that point that every side chick comes to (it happened to Joseline Hernandez and Amina Buddafly), when being second just doesn’t cut it anymore. It wasn’t because one was more deserving of his time, it was because I just didn’t want him with anyone else.

That’s when I began snooping through his stuff, because every little thing tugged at my emotions. Shawn went by a nickname around his hood. I’d see it scribbled on the walls of the apartment complex where he lived. I began noticing the writings on the wall when his nick name appeared in hearts with Kenya’s.

One morning, after our typical AM romp, he fell asleep and I found a Valentine’s Day card on his dresser. Heart beating at illegal speed levels, I mustered enough courage to open it up and peek inside. It was addressed to him, “the man she loved” and had her name signed at the bottom with a date that I believed was their anniversary. Even though I was the other woman, I thought we had a closer bond. I was certain I was working my way up the ladder, boxing out the competition with deadly throws of my elbows. But at that moment I became third in line. I didn’t say anything because I was a wimp for him and scared to walk away from what we had.

Shawn’s new chick held down the “wifey” title at home while Sandra held down the title at school, and there I was playing side chick to both. Then there was Donna, a straggling of a female who too enjoyed sex with me, Sandra and Kenya’s man. She was on to me though, simultaneously stalking me and trying to etch her way in to the drawing. I’d ask Shawn about her and he’d deny it which led me to believe she wasn’t that important. Shawn and Sandra eventually ended their relationship and I just knew it was my time to rise to the forefront, but he had other plans…Stacey–a well dressed chick who perfectly matched his swag. It was a blow to my confidence but Shawn and I were so good when we were together that the memories cradled my soul when I thought of him with other chicks, and I rarely did that because it hurt too much. He and Stacey didn’t last long but Kenya was in it for the long haul–so it seemed. Another straggler had come along, Tina, and she just ate off of whatever leftovers Kenya and I left behind.

Shawn got himself into some serious mess by senior year and was about to serve some time. While we were at one of his court dates (me and his “wifey”), a woman in tacky red knee-high boots sashayed through to the back of the room where she sat patiently. She must be here for Shawn, I thought and I was right. The three of us watched Sean fave the judge and at that moment we all found out about each other.

Have you ever been cheated on? Ever been the woman on the side? And what would you do if your man ever cheated? SOUND OFF in our comment section!