“Believe me, I wasn’t any better at it then,” Richard admitted. He caught himself before saying something stupid to bring his wife into the conversation. There wasn’t enough room in that tub for all three of them so he redirected the discussion. “Hey, you told me at the shop you’d looked me up on the Internet. If I Googled you, what would I find?” Not that he expected to run across articles written about a young salesperson who was more than likely shelling out her entire paycheck on a charming little house, expensive clothes, and a small luxury car to keep up appearances. He’d been wrong before.
Dior shrugged tenderly. “I tried it once myself but nothing popped up,” she lied. “Really didn’t think anything would, since I’m no big-time celebrity like someone else I know.” Dior was such an accomplished liar that it came just as easily as breathing. She could have been up front and told Richard how she’d been arrested more than once for boosting clothes before getting paid under the table by Giorgio to hawk them in his store. She neglected to mention her former employment as a naughty nanny, the mobile escort service she built on her back, or the fact that it got her girlfriend killed when one of the clients went too far during a bout of sexual acrobatics. Dior also could have added how she almost ruined her favorite cousin’s marriage by climbing into the bed with her husband after splitting them up. She merely acted as if her answer to Richard’s question was sufficient and then she left it alone.
He bought it. Without a reason to distrust her, he held Dior close, wrapped snugly in his arms. He’d quickly grown to respect her brand of quality time. He wouldn’t have thought it possible to transcend the awkward sexual phase in a relationship without actually having any. On the other hand, she did take care of that swelling problem of his, which was no small feat.
Lounging intimately like old lovers instead of newly acquainted hedonists out for a sporty fling suggested to Richard there was more to Dior than met the eye, although she was quite nice to look at. She was also deliberate in her actions when pleased and quick to snap otherwise. Dior was unlike any woman he’d ever met: self-assured, outspoken, and skillful enough to back up a gang of attitude if cornered without provoking an all out war. There was definitely more to her than she allowed him to see thus far. Richard was respectful of that. He was a guest in her home, a visitor in her life. She trusted him and asked for the same in return. Unfortunately they were playing with two distinctly different sets of rules, both adequately justified in their own mind.
Eleven
What-ever
During the twenty-minute drive home, Richard had a long time to think about his fledgling relationship with Dior. He leaned on the fact that he hadn’t actually had sex with her much in the way a former president denied having relations with a female intern. Richard laughed at himself because it sounded just as preposterous as when he’d heard Clinton’s flawed rationalization on CNN. Wrong was wrong regardless of how he tried to slice it. Richard spent the last five minutes of his drive deliberating just how far he was willing to go with Dior. He honestly believed he could resolve his curiosity with a taste before getting it out of his system. Unbeknownst to him, steamy bubble baths were only the beginning.
Loud chuckles poured from the family room when Richard closed the front door. His home sounded happy, full of love. Hearing laughter warmed his heart and put a grand smile on his face. The smell of chicken frying in the kitchen snatched it off. “Hello, Daddy’s home,” he shouted over the television. His oldest daughter, Mahalia, sixteen, paused the movie on the big screen. She was a pretty girl with a honey-brown complexion and eyes a shade lighter than that. Mahalia’s slight frame had been a sore spot for most of her life and she’d often complained about being too skinny. Richard hadn’t noticed that her rants of self-pity were now nonexistent; neither did it occur to him that her body had recently undergone several flattering developments.
“Hey, Daddy” she said with an effortless wave. “Mom is almost finished with dinner.”
“Where’s Roxy? I could have sworn I heard her in here with you.” Richard grinned when he felt someone sneaking up behind him. He remembered a time not so long ago when Mahalia tried her hardest to do the same. Now it was his eight-year-old’s turn. Joyful that someone was excited about him being home, Richard played along. “I wonder where that Roxy is. Maybe she’s in the backyard, trying to dig her way to China like she did last year. No, maybe she’s on a magic carpet ride. Trips around the world can’t last forever.”
“What-ever,” Mahalia scoffed. “I don’t have time for this. I’m getting back to my movie.”
“Boo!” yelled Roxanne, plowing into him from the side. “I’m right here, Daddy!” Roxanne giggled as he hoisted her over his head. “I scared you. I finally did it.” She giggled gleefully through a gaping hole where two teeth used to be.
“Uh-uh, you didn’t,” he debated playfully. “I ain’t scared of nothing.”
“Uh-huhhh, you got scared when Mama thought she was having a baby.” Richard lowered Roxanne to the floor after the wind had suddenly been let out of his sails.
“She got you there, Daddy,” Mahalia seconded. “When you overheard Mama telling Auntie Rose about it you looked like you just ate a bug.”
“What-ever,” he said, mimicking the same annoyed tone she’d used earlier. “Y’all ought to be ashamed, double-teaming your old man like that.”
“It’s okay, Daddy, fifty isn’t so old,” Roxanne offered on his behalf.
“Fifty?” Richard howled humorously. “Who’s fifty? Tell her, Mahalia, I’m barely forty.”
“Yeah, and that won’t last forever either.”
“I think I liked it better when you didn’t have time for us. Nadeen! Come in here and whoop my oldest child please.”
“Go on and do it yourself, I’m busy!” she snapped from the kitchen. “And get it done before the dinner rolls come out of the oven.”
Richard began to creep toward Mahalia just as Roxanne had done to him. When she heard her younger sister snickering, she peered over the back of the sofa. “Stop, Daddy,” she said, inching away from his tickling tentacles. “I’m too old for this.” Richard chased Mahalia around the den, to Roxanne’s delight.
“Catch her, Daddy!” Roxanne yelped loudly. “Catch ’Halia and tickle her until she pees her pants. Pee pants, pee pants, pee pants,” she chanted.
“I’m just the man to do it, too,” Richard threatened.
Mahalia leaped over the love seat to get away. “I’m not playing with y’all. This is not funny.”
Roxanne frowned miserably when it was clear her sister had no plans of giving in. “It would be if you peed your pants.”
For the first time, Richard realized that Mahalia was no longer the darling little girl who craved his attention and his indefatigable tickling. She scowled at him, fled from his affection and, more so, his desire to keep her forever young. “Let’s get washed up for dinner,” he asserted finally, “before it gets cold.”
Assembled at the rectangular kitchen table, Richard sat across from Nadeen with the girls on either side. He said grace over the food, giving thanks for blessing and health, then forked three helpings of vegetables onto his plate. When he neglected to remove any of the chicken from the meat platter, Nadeen questioned it. “Is something wrong with the way it looks?”
“It looks scrumptious like always,” Richard answered.
“You used to love my pecan-crusted fried chicken.”
“I still do, Nadeen,” he replied insistently, to strongly suggest she drop her passive-aggressive assault. “Fried chicken will always be my favorite but I could stand to lose a few pounds.”
After he’d eaten an extra helping of peas and a second salad, Nadeen started up again. “Richard, that’s barely enough food for a child. Since when are you eating like a rabbit?”
“Since today. I’m forty, a hard age for a man. Taking account of my life up until now made me realize I’m on the other side of the bridge. I need to look and feel the best I can from h
ere on out.” Mahalia opened her mouth to crack on him until Richard cut his eyes at her, stifling the opportunity.
Roxanne built a pyramid out of corn in the center of her plate, oblivious to the tension mounting around her. Nadeen felt that Richard’s reaction toward Mahalia was a bit harsh, then she determined his restrained animosity was misguided and meant for her. “You’ve been a forty-year-old for five months, and I think you’re making the best of what you got. It’s good enough for your wife.”
“Thank you, sweetheart, but it’s not nearly good enough for your husband.” Richard cringed when his self-assessment came out like one of her slick snipes previously leveled at him. “I need to do better when I can. It wouldn’t hurt me to get fit and fine.”
“Mahalia got a crush on a fine boy at her school,” Roxanne sang, as if it was her turn to contribute to the discussion.
“Mahalia has a crush on a fine boy at school,” Nadeen corrected her.
Mahalia growled at her sister. “You little snitch.”
“Skank!” Roxanne fired back.
“Excuse me,” Nadeen huffed, taking offense at the conversation and to Richard’s apparent decision to stay out of it.
“Oh, not you, Mama, I was talking to Mahalia,” Roxanne apologized, as if that made what she said any easier to take.
When Richard passed on another opportunity to discipline the children, Nadeen jumped in again. “Hush up with all of that vulgar talk. Where’d you pick up such a dirty word anyway?” Everyone’s eyes were glued to the eight-year-old, who couldn’t muster up the gall to tell them. Instead she pointed at Mahalia.
“I heard her say that Trevy Dempsey was a sk — one of those, for kissing two boys behind the building after a basketball game.”
Mahalia jeered at Roxy as if she could have strangled her. “Ooh, I can’t stand you. You run your mouth too much.”
Richard wiped his lips with a cloth napkin once he’d had his fill of dinner and their assault on one another. “That’s not nice, Mahalia. Apologize to your sister. And next time watch the name-calling.” He dismissed the girls with a soft suggestion that they try harder to get along. Nadeen began to collect the dishes from the table. Richard appeared puzzled about something. “I could be wrong but last I heard Mahalia and Trevy were best friends.”
“Yes and maybe one of the boys that skank kissed was the fine boy Mahalia has a crush on,” Nadeen surmised. “Then all of this would make perfect sense.”
“You think Gloria knows about her daughter Trevy being with boys? She couldn’t be sexually active? Could she?” he asked as an afterthought.
“With too many of the girls in the congregation growing up too fast, I’m surprised Mahalia isn’t.”
Nadeen continued puttering around the kitchen as if she didn’t just drop a bomb on Richard’s head. He wasn’t ready to concede that she liked boys or happened to be turning into a vibrant young lady, although both were transpiring right under his nose. “What makes you think she’s halfway mature enough to run behind boys, kissing and all that?” he questioned frantically.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with maturity, Richard. It has everything to do with hormones. Young or old, it really doesn’t matter. Hot in the pants is hot in the pants.” Richard’s eyes fell toward the floor. “I don’t know why people get all bent out of shape over sex. It’s been a problem since before Genesis and more than likely will be long after Revelation. Some folk can’t seem to do without it and others can’t give it away.”
Richard wasn’t 100 percent certain that was a dig at him but it stung nonetheless. “Are you suggesting that I’m getting it somewhere else because I wasn’t in the mood one time?”
“You tell me what was behind it. I couldn’t reach you at the church today. Nobody could remember seeing you, then you come strolling in the house with liquor on your breath, Brother Pastor.”
“For your information, I was buried in my office behind closed doors and a pile of papers. I left early to hit the gym then stopped by Chili’s for a bowl of low-fat clam chowder and a glass of wine.” Richard’s explanation sounded credible enough so he remained on his soapbox. “Need I remind you that according to the Word: First Timothy, chapter three and verse eight: Leaders of the church must be reverent and not given to much wine. I only had a glass of merlot.” Richard cleverly omitted the part about not being double-tongued. “Besides, Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine. Obviously, he didn’t have a problem with it so why should you?” His indignant attitude bothered Nadeen. She set the dishes on the counter and stared at Richard.
“Okay, so you want to put this on Jesus? You really want to take it there?”
“Where’s that, Nadeen?”
“To the cross,” she spat venomously. “First off, there’s not one mention about Christ taking a nip for himself. And secondly, Jesus never once came home smelling like Bath and Body Works.”
“I can explain that.” The bubble bath with Dior, he thought. I’ve got to be more careful. “That’s nothing but your imagination. I told you I went by the gym to work out. I showered afterwards with some of that citrus bath gel they’re always trying to sell you when you sign out.” Richard was thinking quick on his feet and plucking lies out of the air just as fast. He forged ahead, playing on Nadeen’s insecurities. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous. It’s kind of getting me going too.” He snuggled up behind her and wrapped his hands around her thick waist, thinking how Dior’s was much slimmer.
“Go on now, Richard, don’t start anything you aren’t willing to finish. I can’t take rejection twice in one week.”
Richard said he was sorry about that then lied about being mentally drained at the time. “My mind is pretty clear now though,” he whispered in her ear. “There’s only one thing on it: what I want to do to you.”
“Can you do that thing I like?”
“You know I can.”
Nadeen quivered when she felt a twinge shooting up her thighs. “Well, what about the girls?”
“Don’t get so loud, they won’t hear you.” He convinced her to leave the kitchen in disarray, which was extremely uncharacteristic. Then he locked the bedroom door and turned the television on just in case the girls came snooping around for them.
In a ravenous display of passion, Richard practically tore Nadeen’s clothes from her body. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so desirable. Richard ran his fingertips along the ridges of her breasts, tracing his fingers with tender kisses, just the way she liked. Even though Richard envisioned Dior’s body instead of his wife’s every step of the way, he put his all into their early evening rendezvous.
Nadeen bit down on the pillowcase when she could no longer battle the fervent cries welling up inside of her. She sank her nails in his back as a renegade scream roared from her mouth. “I can’t get enough, baby!” she panted loudly. “Shhhh, the girls will hear us. Okay, okay. I’ll be quiet. Ooh! Here comes another one!” Nadeen kept on panting until Richard was convinced she’d been pleasantly persuaded to drop her suspicions and alter her attitude about the night before.
“I love it when you take your time and drive real slow,” she cooed afterward. “I’m going to take a shower before I fall asleep. Richard? Richard?”
He pretended to have dozed off already. At least one of us got what they needed, he thought. Driving slow? I hate cruising in the geriatric lane. Dior, that girl’s a freak. I know she can keep up. I’d bet on it. Shoot, I’d be willing to pay for it too.
Twelve
Deep Dug Ditch
Richard stayed up half the night thinking. He lay in bed, next to the wife he loved but didn’t care for her like a good husband should. Sure, if Nadeen had fallen ill, he’d have been there day and night by her bedside praying for her full recovery. Sympathy wasn’t what she needed now and he couldn’t find it in himself to shower her with adoration the way he used to. Dior was renting space in his head, in every available room. Although they hadn’t known each other
for any substantial length of time, his best was hers for the asking. Deep down inside, Richard never stopped thinking about having a woman on the side, a younger woman at that. He couldn’t believe it was now staring him in the face. He’d counseled couples on the mend after the husbands thought they were handling their business on both ends. In time, the affairs grew out of hand and too much to manage. He knew what it would take to sustain a full-fledged romance. He decided against the strain of pleasing two women simultaneously. Someone had to get the short end of the stick. Someone had to lose out. There were no two ways about it: heartbreak and misery traveled the same roads with cheating spouses. He’d seen enough upheaval in rocky marriages to know that pain and suffering was the cost, to be paid in full every time. Once Richard had thoroughly evaluated the magnitude of adultery, hanging out near the fringes was as close as he was willing to get. He smiled to himself when it made perfect sense. Dior was extremely tempting but not worth eating the whole apple. Nibbling around the edges, as long as she allowed him to, felt like a safe and satisfying alternative. Confident that his after-dinner romp was a satisfying deposit in Nadeen’s quality-time bank, Richard determined he deserved a couple of days off for good behavior.
Richard was up and out of the house at six o’clock the next morning. While en route to the health club, he diagrammed the next forty-eight hours of his life. Allocating every spare minute to seeing Dior was his top priority. He hoped she’d be willing to reciprocate by setting aside time for him too. She agreed to meet him on her lunch break after he sent a third text message. “So when can I see you?” he asked, once she answered his sixth phone call.
Sinful Too Page 9