Her Pleasure

by Niobia Bryant

  “Unless you want to reconsider buying. You made a great profit off your house,” he reminded her.

  And I put half into a trust for Eric’s daughter when she reaches adulthood.

  “I’m still not sure just where I want to settle down again,” she admitted. “House or condo? Jersey suburbs or NYC? Cash or Finance? No, I’ll rent for now.”

  “Are you ready to sign the lease now?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she agreed as she picked up her briefcase and tote bag before leaving her car.

  “Then come into my office tomorrow... and maybe we can have dinner to celebrate,” Reynold suggested.

  Jaime pictured him. Tall, wide, and solid, his smile was at the ready, and his laughter was infectious. In his looks, he reminded her of Gerald Levert, the late and great R&B singer. They worked together often because he hired her to stage many of his rental and sales properties. He had previously made his attraction for her known. She had previously declined his request with politeness. “I’m pregnant,” she said, ready to end his chase once and for all.

  “Oh,” he said, sounding both stunned and disappointed.

  “Close your mouth, Reynold,” she said to him in a singsong fashion. “See you tomorrow.”

  She ended the call with a chuckle, feeling in a better mood because her days at the house that Virginia Osten-Pine built were dwindling. She’d already purchased new furniture that was stored in her design warehouse. She was ready to take joy in living in Tribeca and preparing for the arrival of her child.

  She entered the house through the side door leading into the spacious chef’s kitchen. With a yawn, she wished Luc had not chosen the wee hours of the morning for a chat on paternity. She was exhausted.

  Margaret looked over her shoulder, pausing in cleaning the stainless Viking stove. “You missed dinner,” the middle-aged woman said in mock reprimand. “And your mother was not happy about it.”

  She’s not happy about very much . . .

  Jaime set her things on one of the dozen stools surrounding the island. “Where’s everyone?” she asked.

  “Your mother had a church board meeting, and your father is in his office,” Margaret said, removing a plate to sit in front of Jaime at the island. Utensils rolled into a linen napkin followed. “He doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  Jaime kicked off her heels—something that would give her mother a conniption—and sat down on one of the stools to enjoy the meal of smothered chicken, mashed potatoes, and sautéed baby corn. She took a deep inhale, trying to quickly deal with the nausea she always felt just before she ate. “Hopefully, Baby will let me keep this down,” she said before saying grace and then taking a bite.

  “When do you find out what you’re having?” Margaret asked as she pulled on her black overcoat over her uniform.

  “In two weeks,” Jaime said.

  “Team Girl,” Margaret said with a wink before leaving to head home.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  Jaime set her fork down on her plate and picked up her phone from atop her things on the stool beside her. She answered the FaceTime call. “Hello, ladies,” she said, already knowing both Renee and Aria were on the line.

  She was right. She leaned her phone against her glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade.

  They were in costumes and Jaime chuckled as she resumed eating her food. “The annual Richmond Hill Halloween party?” she asked.

  “We’re headed to the clubhouse in a little bit,” Renee said, dressed as Supergirl complete with a long wavy wig. “We wanted to check on you.”

  “What did Margaret cook tonight?” Aria asked as she leaned in closer to the phone in her Wonder Woman garb.

  “Smothered chicken,” Jaime said before taking another bite.

  “You sure you don’t want to come to have fun?” Renee asked as she held up a black latex catsuit on a hanger. “We rented you a costume, too.”

  “Rented?” Jaime drawled with a hard look. “Me and my little belly will pass.”

  “You’re hardly showing, Jaime,” Aria said.

  True. Still . . .

  “Kingston is Batman.”

  Jaime chuckled. “Who knew y’all loved comics so much,” she said.

  “I love being sexy more,” Aria said. “Kingston chased me around the house before we left—”

  “Hey!”

  “Hello, Kingston,” Jaime said at his holler of protest at Aria telling their bedroom business.

  They swung the phone in his direction, and she laughed at seeing Batman—mask and all—sitting near the fireplace in Renee’s house. “Mind your cape don’t float into that fire, Kingston,” she teased.

  “Exactly,” he drawled in obvious annoyance.

  Kingston was not here for it. Jaime agreed. “Thanks for the invite but I’m good. I had a long day. I just want to climb into my bed for some rest.”

  The phone swung back.

  “Guess who else is here,” Renee said with her eyes dancing with glee.

  The phone swung again. Superman was sitting across the leather ottoman from Kingston. Jaime choked on her food. Chocolate Angel from Grenada.

  Damn, Renee’s pussy talk is a bad motherfucker.

  Jaime waved and forced her confusion not to show across her face. “Hello there—”

  “Sanders,” Renee supplied.

  He waved in return.

  “I have so many questions,” Jaime said.

  He chuckled.

  The phone swung again.

  “He surprised me today,” Renee said. “It’s gonna be one helluva night.”

  Jaime wiggled her eyebrows.

  “At least we won’t hear it this time,” Aria said, lifting a glass of white wine in a toast to that.

  “Wait. What?” Kingston said in the background.

  Jaime laughed. “Okay. I miss y’all,” she admitted.

  “We miss you too,” her friends said in unison with playful pouts.

  “I gotta go. Sleep is calling. Y’all have fun,” she said, rising to scrape the few remnants on her plate into the trash. “Bath and bed for me.”

  “Bye!” they all said.

  She quickly washed her dishes before grabbing her things and leaving the kitchen. She eyed her father’s closed office door as she neared the steps to the second floor. “I’ll just peep my head in,” she said, wanting to see the face of her jovial and good-natured father.

  Unlike her mother, Judge Franklin Pine was nothing but easiness, understanding, forgiveness, and indulgence—unless her mother pressured him to be otherwise.

  She cracked the door.

  “Frankie, I miss you so much.”

  Jaime frowned and paused with just a sliver of the door open at the sound of a woman’s voice. Frankie? Who the fuck is Frankie?

  “We’ll see each other tomorrow, Nance,” her father said.

  Jaime’s mouth fell open and her eyes rounded. Nance? Who the fuck is Nance?

  “If it wasn’t for you supposed to be golfing on Wednesdays, I would never see you,” the voice whined.

  Jaime’s heart pounded as she leaned in to press an eye to the crack. She could just make out her father lounging in his office chair looking at his phone during his own FaceTime call without a care in the world. Slick ass.

  “You know I’m retired now, Nance,” he said. “It’s hard to get out as much.”

  “Yes, but it’s been fifteen years of this sneaking—”

  Fifteen years!

  She eased the door closed and then turned to press her back to it as she closed her eyes, feeling the weight of her father’s façade as a husband, father, and honorable judge fade. At that moment, everything she ever felt or thought of her father—her Daddy—died. The hurt was immense, and her tears came swiftly.

  “Jaime? What’s wrong?”

  She looked at her mother closing the front door and observing her. She forced a smile as she used a trembling hand to wipe away the wet trail of a tear. “Nothing,” she lied, walking away from the closed d
oor that had opened such disappointment inside her for her father.

  Virginia eyed her and then the door as she set her tote and keys on the table in the foyer. A look crossed her face for the briefest moment. “How are you feeling today?” she asked.

  Tell her.

  As much as Jaime judged her mother, she could not deny that Virginia Osten-Pine was loyal to many faults to her father. More than he was being, in that very moment, in the house he shared with her. His happiness was her goal. Her life’s work.

  “A little tired, but I’m going up to bed,” she said, her voice soft as she just couldn’t find the will to fight the deep and profound sadness she felt for her mother.

  Tell her.

  Virginia walked over and extended her hand with a sweet smile.

  Jaime felt like a child as she took it and squeezed it tight as her mother pressed their hands to her bosom of the plaid tweed coat she wore with a silk white tee and jeans with heels and her ever-present pearls—this time Chanel. They climbed the stairs together.

  “When I was pregnant with you, I slept all the time,” Virginia said.

  Tell her.

  “Did you have morning sickness?” Jaime asked, never willing to discuss her pregnancy with her mother before.

  “Just nausea at the smell of food. I hardly ever threw up,” Virginia said as they reached the landing that was large enough to be a bedroom itself.

  “Me too,” she said in wonder.

  Virginia smiled as she opened the door to Jaime’s room and pushed it open. Her mother released her hand and walked in ahead of her after turning on the dome-shaped Swarovski chandelier in the center of the tray ceiling. “All I thought of was giving you a better life than I ever had. That’s all a mother can do,” Virginia said as she picked up a pale pink vintage stuffed teddy bear.

  Tell her.

  But it will destroy her.

  The same way I destroyed Luc.

  No. Worse.

  Jaime set her things on the bed as she eyed her mother softly straightening the bear’s tutu. “Did you have any cravings?” she asked as she kicked off her shoes.

  Virginia set the bear back on the shadow box shelves. “Not really,” she said, touching a photo of Jaime at eight doing a pirouette at one of a thousand dance recitals from her childhood.

  Tell her.

  Jaime turned her back as she thought of her father—her hero—downstairs making plans with his mistress of fifteen years. She felt a deep hurt as if his offense were against her as well.

  But I’m grown and out in the world making my own offenses . . .

  She bit her lips to keep any tears from falling.

  “Jaime.”

  She rushed into her bathroom and ran the water to rinse her face. She shook her head, feeling as if her silence made her complicit in her father’s dirty deeds. Her heart broke for her mother. It was shattered.

  “Shit,” she swore in a whisper into the sink as the water ran. “Damn, Daddy. Why?”

  “Because he’s a flawed man,” Virginia answered.

  Jaime stood up straight so swiftly that she felt dizzy. She reached to grip the edge of the sink to steady herself as she eyed her mother leaning in the doorway with a contrite face. “You know,” she said.

  “About Nance?” Virginia said, coming over to take one of the hand towels rolled and stacked on the corner of the marble sink. “Yes.”

  Jaime couldn’t hide her shock—or her confusion—as her mother guided her chin up with a soft hand and used the towel to pat her face dry. “She was his court clerk,” Virginia explained with eyes that brightened with unshed tears. “Now he pretends to love golfing to get at his little slut. Your father doesn’t have the coordination to properly swing at a small ball.”

  Jaime grabbed her hand. “Does he know you know?” she asked, curious about this dynamic of her parents’ marriage.

  “Of course not,” she said, crossing the room to place the towel in the hamper that was hidden in the wall. “I made the mistake of visiting his chambers and her demeanor—the over-the-top niceties—was enough to make me suspicious.”

  Virginia left the bathroom and picked up a framed picture she insisted was kept on the bedside table since Jaime was small. It was her parents. Not her choice.

  “How did you know that I knew?” Jaime asked as she leaned in the doorway, eyeing her mother continuing to stare at the photo.

  “On your face was the same disappointment I felt to discover the man I love feels I am not enough woman for him,” Virginia said, stroking the photo with her thumb—perhaps feeling regrets.

  “I thought you had the perfect marriage, Mama,” Jaime said. Trying to reconcile what she believed with what was true.

  Virginia turned to face her and did a curtsy of thanks for her performance.

  “Why?” Jaime asked.

  “At that time, your father and I had been married for more than two decades,” her mother said, looking down at her sizable wedding rings. “You were already grown and out of the house. Being his wife and your mother was all I knew. I wondered what did I do wrong. What did I miss? How could I fix it?”

  Nothing, Jaime thought, reminded, of Luc’s perfection and how none of it mattered when she longed to be with Graham.

  “I chose my life—the one I carved out for myself,” Virginia said as tears wet the jewelry. “The one I carefully prepared just the way I thought I wanted it.”

  “Didn’t it hurt?” Jaime asked.

  Virginia looked up at her and there in her eyes that Jaime had inherited was the rawness of her agony. “It destroyed me,” she confessed before she recovered smoothly, had a small laugh, and plastered her smile in place. Perfectly.

  “Any regrets?” Jaime asked.

  “Enough to build a house if they were bricks.”

  Jaime felt disturbed that for her mother the heartbreak of her husband’s infidelity was a price she was willing to pay for her lifestyle and to save face. A trait she inherited that showed up in her marriage to Eric. And then, in a way, with Luc.

  “Does he know you know?” Virginia asked.

  “No,” Jaime said with a shake of her head. “I overheard him on the phone with... with . . .”

  Virginia shook her head, offering her reprieve from saying the name of her husband’s mistress.

  His Jessa Bell.

  “I just shut the door,” she admitted. “I was so . . .”

  “Disappointed,” mother and daughter said in unison as they looked at one another.

  Jaime left the doorway of the bathroom to sit down on the side of the bed. She looked at the photo of her parents. “I should have burst in the room and read his ass for filth,” she whispered with anger.

  “No.”

  Jaime looked up at her mother in surprise. “Why not? Why won’t you say something? Call him out. Make him stop. Trust me, discovery is a hell of a thing to end shit down in the dark,” she said, thinking of her debacle on the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

  “Letting him know at this point that I was aware of his affair all this time and allowed it—am complicit in it—may cause too great a shift in my marriage for me to bear,” Virginia explained. “I prefer the charade and, at times, I am amused at watching him think he’s getting away with something.”

  Jaime fell silent. She felt weary and it was more than just her fatigue.

  Virginia reached to stroke her chin before she turned to leave the room. “Say nothing. Let me handle this in my own way,” she said, pausing in the doorway.

  “Mama—”

  Virginia turned as she smoothed her updo, wiped the tracks of her tears, notched her chin higher, and settled her hand on her hip. Perfectly posed and poised. The façade back in place.

  “Okay,” Jaime agreed.

  And then Virginia turned again to leave the room.

  Long after she bathed and climbed into bed, naked and raw with emotion, Jaime thought of her mother’s unhappiness. The price she paid. More than ever, she was resolved
to have happiness. To seek and find her pleasure in life.

  I will not sacrifice that to make anyone happy again. Had I just been truthful with Luc, Graham, and myself . . .

  It was time to choose and accept nothing but the truth. Always.

  “Graham. Fight for me. For us. Please.”

  He tensed at the sound of Jaime’s voice near his ear. He shivered as he turned his head to capture her mouth with his own as he grabbed her body to pull her atop his. She was nude and the feel of her softness against the hard contour of his body caused his dick to match the rest of his form.

  She licked hotly at his lips before she sat up with her hands hoisting her full breasts up with her taut brown nipples poking through her fingers as she circled her hips slowly. “You can’t turn me loose. Stop fighting it, Graham.”

  He pressed his hand to her chest to lower her upper body to the bed as she spread her legs wide atop his. He raised her hips and she settled each of her soft and thick thighs on a shoulder. “I love eating you,” he whispered against her pussy before sucking each of her plump lips into his mouth.

  Jaime teased her nipples as her hips seemed to arch with a life all their own at the feel of his intimate kisses. “Yes,” she sighed.

  Graham sucked her clit into his mouth unhurriedly. Back and forth. In and out. So slowly. He had to fight to take his time and keep the pace as his dick hardened beneath her quivering buttocks. He wanted to savor and not just feast. Not yet. Self-control was everything.

  He licked the plump and throbbing bud with the tip of his flickering tongue.

  The back of her feet tapped his back as she circled her hips against his mouth and released an impassioned cry.

  He moaned—deeply—as he eased his tongue inside her. Deeply.

  Jaime’s cries seemed to be a mix of pleasure and torture. It fueled him. With a drizzle of his spit, he wet her before he sucked her clit again. Deliberately slow. His dick ached to be inside her. He fought it and it felt like going to actual war would be easier. Feeling almost crazed with his desire, he slid his thumb across her soft buttocks to ease inside her rear.

  “You like that?” he whispered against her flesh, already knowing the answer, as he eyed her roll her body like a snake and bring her core against his mouth.