“It is horrible. It is the worst feeling. It is my worst nightmare. And I wish like hell that I could just wake up and all of this shit was a bad dream or movie or some shit, you know.” Renee looked down at her toes bared in the flip-flops she wore. A tear fell from her eye and landed on her big toe like a raindrop.
“You yanked her a bald spot, huh?” Aria asked, nudging her with her shoulder.
Renee actually laughed a little, before looking up at her younger and usually feistier friend. “I had enough to make a blond ponytail. O-kay?” she joked, thinking it felt good to laugh.
Aria smiled. “You shoulda kept it. I coulda made me some highlights.”
Renee flung her head back and laughed.
“And how about Jessa and I were asked to leave the Terrace Room after I bounced that bitch’s BlackBerry off her forehead. Put a lot on her mind, you know what I’m saying,” Aria said with her normal sass and spunk as she did a two-step. “I know she ’bout deep as hell in a Tylenol bottle.”
Renee shook her head as she smiled. “I missed you, girl,” she admitted, completely honest.
Aria turned and hugged Renee close. “Me, too, friend. Me, too.”
Renee cut her eyes up to the blue sky, wishing her life felt more like a clear summer day than an April shower downpour. “It wasn’t Kingston, was it?” Renee asked softly, wishing like hell that she knew it wasn’t Jackson. Her mental plate was full.
“No, it isn’t. Wasn’t. Whatever.”
Renee pulled away from Aria’s embrace, stepping back to look at her. “What did you need to talk to me about?” she asked, finally feeling ready to hear the truth.
If Jessa and Jackson were lovers it would just be the crappy icing on top of a shitty cake.
She studied Aria’s expression.
“Renee, you not gon’ believe this shit. . . .”
Some things you never forget.
For all her bravado and stance that her new life was all her own, Jaime had been raised a certain way to live life a certain way.
She made concessions to the rules over the years: her affair, her professional-sexual relationship with Pleasure, and leaving her husband—but most of her mother’s training on what was and was not appropriate was as deeply ingrained in her as her own DNA.
Standing in a living room with your mother when your lover-for-hire walks in with his dick swinging like a bat was just the utmost level of impropriety. In the hours since her mother had stormed out, Jaime had tried calling her, but Virginia Osten-Pine wasn’t having it. Jaime shook her head knowing that was the only other dick her mother had laid eyes on in over forty years. “Lawd,” she sighed, still feeling embarrassed and anxious about the whole incident.
She released a stream of smoke, watching it fan out against the window from where she sat in the club chair beside the front bay of windows. She looked out through the sheer curtains at the children in the neighborhood playing double dutch, running, playing tag, or sitting on the porch with their heads bent down over portable video games.
Enjoying life. No worries. No concerns.
“Hmph.” Jaime picked up her tall glass of white wine and took a deep sip.
The grocery-store brand was a long way from her days of spending a hundred dollars or better a bottle, but it was working just fine to settle her nerves.
Everything had changed in just a little over a month. Everything. Most for the better. Some for the worse.
Like marriage, she thought, but less stressful.
“Hey, Jaime, I gotta go.”
She looked up at Pleasure dressed in a black sleeveless tee and basketball shorts, his dreads pulled back at the base of his strong neck. He was texting away on his cell phone, his eyes not on her. “Busy, busy, busy,” she said sarcastically, flicking the ashes from the tip of her cigarette into the ashtray on the windowsill.
Pleasure cut his eyes up at her before he squatted down beside her chair. “Can you handle this?” he asked, the deepness of his voice seeming to vibrate within the strong confines of his chest.
Jaime allowed herself to take a deep inhale of his spicy and warm cologne. “What is this?”
“Listen, I met you stripping and slinging my dick for dollars. Harsh but real . . . and that’s what I am.” He locked his eyes with hers. “I mean, we ain’t in no relationship so why you been actin’ up?” he asked.
Because I want more.
Pleasure reached up and took the cigarette from her hands. “You shouldn’t smoke. It’s not good for you.”
She laughed sardonically. “Neither are you.”
He broke the cigarette in half and dropped it into the ashtray. “You control this, Jaime. It’s all on your demand. Turn it loose,” he said, finally looking up to lock his eyes with hers.
“I can’t,” she admitted softly, her heart pounding fast and hard as hell in her chest. She was ad“dick”ted and knew it.
Ding-dong.
She looked out the window and her eyes widened. “What the hell?” she said, jumping to her feet and rushing to the front door to fling it open.
Aria and Renee both smiled at her as she stepped forward. She couldn’t help but feel and show surprise.
“Don’t look crazy. We called your mother and she gave up the address,” Aria said, stepping past Jaime into the foyer. “And she said something strange about it being a whorehouse over here. I was telling Renee what in the devil’s drawers is Mama Pine talkin’ about.”
Renee stepped into the foyer. “Whatever it is your Mama is fired up. . . .”
Jaime gave what had to be her thousandth heavy breath that day as Aria and Renee eyed Pleasure as he rose to his full height. Both of their heads tilted back a bit to take him all in.
“Oh,” they both said in sudden understanding.
Jaime watched Pleasure smile and give them his intense stripper eyes as he walked up to them with his large and very able hand outstretched.
“Um . . . ah . . . well, hey now. Say what, say who?” Aria stumbled softly as she eyed him.
Jaime’s stomach clenched as he kissed the back of both of their hands.
Renee looked over her shoulder at Jaime with a questioning look.
“I am Pleasure and please remember me, ladies, because I am here for all of your wants, desires, and of course, pleasures,” he said, reaching into his pocket for business cards to hand them.
Jaime’s mouth fell open. No, he is not soliciting business in my face . . . from my friends!
She stepped between Aria and Renee, turning to snatch the cards from Aria and Renee’s grasp, tearing them in half. “Okay, you tripping,” she snapped, grabbing Pleasure’s strong arm and pulling him past Aria toward the door. “It’s my pleasure to show you the door,” she snapped.
Pleasure moved forward but turned to wave. “ ’Bye, ladies.”
Jaime moved behind him to push him to the door, motivated by anger, embarrassment, and jealousy. She hadn’t been that jealous when she’d thought Eric and Jessa Bell’s friendship was a cover for their affair—and that was way before that damn message. What the . . . ?
Pleasure turned on the doorstep and bent down to kiss her cheek. Jaime leaned back like she was in The Matrix and tossed the torn pieces of his business cards against his face before she stepped back and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the doorframe.
Knowing their eyes were on her and their questions had long since formed in their heads, Jaime allowed herself a moment to compose herself—a trick from her days of being Mrs. Perfection.
When she turned to face them, she had a smile on her face. “Haven’t seen you two in a while. What’ve you been up to?”
Renee and Aria shared a long look before turning to face her again.
“What?” Jaime asked innocently, raising her hand to smooth her new shorter tresses.
“If he’s not a walking ‘fuck me’ sign I don’t know who is,” Renee drawled.
“And soooo . . . are y’all fucking?” Aria asked with a comic expression as she t
ook in Jaime’s obvious nakedness under her clinging silk robe.
“Stay focused,” Renee cut in before Jaime could say yay or nay.
“Focused on what?” Jaime asked, her anger at Pleasure still nipping at her even as she tried to hide it.
Renee and Aria shared another look.
“What?” Jaime snapped in irritation.
“Aria saw Jessa today,” Renee began, biting her bottom lip.
Jaime arched a brow as she waved her hand dismissively. “I ignored it. I was . . . busy at the time and I’ve moved on from it. Calling divorce lawyers. Ending the marriage. Eric and I are done. . . .”
The rest of her words faded as she zoned in on the faces of her friends. Jaime’s heart felt like it dropped to her stomach. Jaime frowned so deeply she swore she could see her eyebrows lowered in front of her eyes. She felt like someone had kicked her square in the gut.
Oh. Hell. No.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “Are you . . . are you . . . here to tell me . . . me . . . that it was Eric? Seriously ? Seriously.”
Aria stepped up and took Jaime’s hand in hers as she nodded. “I snatched her phone and his numbers—house, cell, all of them—were in her phone. There was a picture text from his cell number and I saw way more of Eric than I needed to see ever. E-ver. Okay?”
“Aria,” Renee snapped, stepping up to wrap an arm around Jaime’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Jaime,” Aria added.
Jaime shifted and freed herself of their touch and embrace. She closed her eyes as anger nearly consumed her like fire from the very gates of hell.
“Jaime, I know you loved Eric very much,” Renee began.
Jaime whirled on them. They both stepped back at the look on her face. “Love him? I used to, but having your husband treat you like a hired sex slave while calling you every disgusting and degrading name in the book killed that love a long time ago.”
“What?” Renee and Aria gasped in unison.
Jaime felt like she was standing deep in the midst of an emotional tornado. “I can’t care less that Eric carried his dead-ass fucking to Jessa or that he lied about their friendship. No, no, no, I am furious that he treated me like shit on his shoes for fucking Pleasure one time—”
“So y’all was fucking?” Aria asked.
Jaime ignored her. “One time. One time,” she stressed, tears filling her eyes, “Y’all don’t know what I went through. What he put me through. What I put myself through to make my marriage work and the whole time I was fighting and dealing and pretending for . . . for nothing ?”
Jaime felt her entire body shake and tears of anger and frustration raced down her cheek. She’d thought she didn’t care. She’d thought it didn’t matter. “I fought hard, I begged, I pleaded, I felt so guilty, I let myself be degraded for his forgiveness and . . . and . . . and—and the whole time he’s fucking Jessa. Like, are you fucking kidding me right now?”
This was wrong. Seriously wrong.
Jaime grabbed her keys from the small table in the foyer and yanked the front door open wide with so much force it slammed against the adjacent wall. She flew down the walkway.
“Jaime, where are you going in your robe?” Renee called behind her.
Jaime didn’t answer them and barely noticed her next-door neighbor, Lucas Neal, waving from his front yard. She hopped into her car and had just one thing on her mind. To hell with everything and everyone else.
Chapter 6
As soon as the front door of the house opened, Jaime swung and landed a hard punch to Eric’s jaw. He stumbled back, more in surprise than from the actual weight of her blow. “After everything degrading and disgusting thing you put me through, punishing me for my affair, you were the bastard fucking Jessa Bell?” she roared.
“Jaime, no, don’t,” Renee said from behind her, running up the stairs to try and catch her.
Jaime whirled on Renee as Aria parked the car and raced up the driveway to rush up onto the porch. “Thanks for the backup, but I got this. I’ll be with you in just a second,” she said, before stepping back and firmly closing the door in their faces.
Her eyes blazed like the fiery bowels of hell as she turned to face him. “After all the shit you put me through you were the bastard cheating with Jessa? After all of your lies that you two were just friends? After your bullshit that you would never fuck your dead friend’s widow?” she roared. “You were the low-down, deceiving, conniving, underhanded son of a bitch?”
Eric shook his head calmly as he watched her closely. “That’s a lie, Jaime, and you know it.”
“No, our bullshit marriage was a lie. From the beginning it was a lie. Everything about it was a lie.” Jaime crossed her arms over her chest to keep from striking out at him again as she eyed this man she’d once thought she loved.
Eric slid his hands into the pocket of his tailored slacks. “There’s no way Jessa told you that and if she did she’s a liar,” he said, his voice and stance hardening. “I don’t have time for this foolishness. Our marriage doesn’t have time for it. Why are you running around the city in a damn robe anyway? It’s not appropriate.”
Jaime’s chest began to fill with hysterical laughter that she couldn’t hold back. As it spilled from her mouth she began to wonder if she was losing her mind. The way he strangely eyed her, she knew he wondered the same thing. “Inappropriate? I’m inappropriate? No, motherfucker. No. I’m not a damn thing but free of your ass.”
“You knew I didn’t believe in divorce going in and nothing has changed. I’m not getting a divorce. I don’t want one. My faith does not allow for one. If it did I would have divorced you after your affair . . . but I didn’t,” Eric said plainly, turning to walk out of the living room and toward the kitchen.
Jaime’s anger soared. “If I knew the sex was going to be as dry as dust I wouldn’t have married you,” she yelled behind him. “And I wouldn’t have cheated on your ass.”
He froze.
She steeled herself. She wanted to hurt him, anger him, and get more of the truth from him.
He turned to look at her. His square and handsome face was cold and hard, cloaked by that hate-filled mask that she had come to find familiar in the days after her affair. “Don’t make excuses for being a slut, Jaime.”
Jaime felt that familiar uneasiness in her soul whenever she was alone with him and all semblance of their charade gone. She pushed it aside. That Jaime was gone and like a caterpillar turned butterfly or phoenix rising from the ashes, someone new stood before him. “And don’t make excuses for the sadistic sex freak that you are, pervert.”
Eric nodded as if they dueled and he acknowledged her strike. “Our marital bed was not your problem, it was your fault.”
That stung, but Jaime literally shrugged off the insult. “I was a virgin. A clean slate for you to teach and to mold. You failed. You didn’t step up to the challenge. You didn’t get the job done.”
Jaime arched a brow, chuckling as she thought of the passion Pleasure gave and received. “I thought it was my fault, too . . . until another man with more skill made me come . . . for the very first time in my life.”
Eric nodded again. Another acknowledgement. “It’s funny, but the pussy didn’t get interesting until I fucked you like the whore you are.”
The gloves were off.
“I think I owe Jessa thanks actually because I thought your ass was a closet homosexual looking for a woman to be your mustache as your cover.” Jaime arched her brow and eyed him from head to toe. “Maybe one of them high and holy Catholic priests brought the little fag out of you.”
Quicker than the snap of a finger, Eric took two large steps and grabbed Jaime by the throat, slamming her back against the door so hard that it jarred the mirror from the adjacent wall, sending it crashing to the floor. “Don’t say that. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he ground out through clenched teeth.
As she struggled to kick at him and free his hands from her neck, Jaime flashed
back to the night she’d left him. Same shit. Different day.
Boom-boom-boom.
“Jaime, open this door. What’s going on in there?” Jaime brought her hands up and scratched at his face as she fought to get out the words, “Let me go, bitch.”
“Take it back,” he demanded, not even flinching from the long scratch down the side of his face. “Take it back.”
Boom-boom-boom.
“Open this damn door or I’m calling the police.”
Suddenly she was free and she shoved his chest hard. “If you ever put your hands on me again I will have you thrown in jail,” she told him, her throat hoarse from the pressure of his hands.
Eric sneered. “I gave as good as I got.”
“And so Jessa got better?” she snapped at him.
“She gave better!” he shot back, instantly looking like he regretted his words.
Jaime clapped sarcastically. “Thank you for your honesty,” she said, opening the door. “You’ll be hearing from my attorney.”
He grabbed at her arm. “Jaime.”
Renee and Aria turned to look at them.
“Jaime, are you okay?” Renee asked, her eyes dropping down to Eric’s hand tightly grasping her upper arm and then up to the dark bruises already forming on her throat.
“Let her arm go, Eric,” Aria warned, her eyes hardening.
Jaime whirled on him, pulling her arm free and slapping him across the cheek in one fluid, anger-filled motion.
WHAP!
Aria and Renee both gasped sharply.
“How long, huh? How long were you screwing Jessa Bell behind my back? Huh? How long?” she asked him coldly, her eyes blazing as her fists clenched and unclenched.
Eric just slid his hands into the pocket of his slacks, his expression blank. “I love you, Jaime. I am going to prove that to you.”
Jaime’s anger dissipated and her confusion and disbelief reigned at how quickly he’d slipped into the charade in front of Renee and Aria. Standing there like a stream of blood wasn’t running down the side of his face and dripping onto his Polo shirt. Who was this man she’d married? Tears filled her eyes. “You are crazy and I thank God that I am free of you.”
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