by B. M. Hardin
Reserve My Curves:
Your Husband Chose Me
B.M. Hardin
This book is a work of fiction. All persons, events, places and locales are a product of the others imagination. The story is fictitious and any thoughts of similarities are merely coincidental.
Table of contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all of the sassy, beautiful and curvaceous women out there. Love the skin that you are in! It’s an absolute privilege to be a big girl.
Special thanks to Sparkle Nicole for gracing the cover with her curves! Thank you!
Photographer: Carrie Smith of CCMG (Conceited Curves Model Management) Amazing photos and thank you as well!
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I want to thank my Heavenly Father for my talents and my gifts and each and every story that he has placed in me.
It is an honor and a privilege to be living my dream and walking in my purpose and for that I am forever thankful.
Also to all of my family, friends, critiques, supporters, readers and everyone else, thank you for believing in me and allowing me to share my gifts with you.
Your support truly means the world to me!
B.M. Hardin
Chapter ONE
“You want me to do what?”
“Envy calm down. It’s not as bad as it sounds. You act like it’s the end of the world or something. One of our guests, one of the richest men in the world, specifically asked for. Well…he requested you. He caught sight of you on his way in. Trust me, I’ve been doing business with him for a very long time, and he is a hard man to please. He’s very picky and very selective. If anything you should be honored that he even noticed you. And then again, we both know what it is about you that he noticed. You do have those country, biscuit eating hips. A blind man could see those curves. Anyway, I informed him that you were one of our regular maids, but he insists. I’m sure that you could use the extra money, and I’m talking about a lot of extra money. I’m talking thousands of dollars, just to start.”
I sat back slowly in one of her overpriced chairs.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
If I didn’t know any better I would have thought that she’d just asked me to sleep with one of the hotel guests for money.
No, that just couldn’t be what she was saying.
I had to be hearing her all wrong.
“You can consider all of this as something like a promotion. Of course I know how hard things have been for you lately, not to mention that you are a single mother; so I’m sure that this could help you out. And I’ve heard that once you go up to the thirteenth floor, you’ll never want to come back down here again.”
“Thirteenth floor? I thought there were only twelve floors in this hotel.”
“Like I said, there are a lot of things that regular maids, regular employees and regular guests don’t know about this hotel. But I’m offering you to become a part of our exclusive, executive, group of maids that take care of our top executive guests.”
“What would I have to do?”
“Oh, aren’t you cute? Sweetie, use your imagination. But the short answer is---you’ll do whatever he wants you to do; whatever he orders. You’ll do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Ride a little something. Suck a little something else. Basically it’s like room service; with a twist. Trust me Envy, after a while; making this money will be a piece of cake.”
Okay, so she has officially lost her damn mind!
I wasn’t just a piece of ass on a platter or a steak with a side of pussy!
Apparently, she was confused as to the type of woman that I was.
“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to decline.”
“Envy, think about this. I’m talking about a lot of money here and all you have to do is entertain a guest for a few hours or so. Everyone is nervous in the beginning but trust me, when you start making more money than you could ever imagine, you’ll get over it. They always get over it. But I have a few things to help you along the way. Envy, I can help you get out of your financial troubles, but you have to be willing to help yourself. Think about what I’m saying to you.”
I sat for a second to take it all in.
I could surely use some extra cash.
But if she wanted to help me out, she could give me a few extra hours or something, instead of trying to convince me to sell my ass.
“I thought about it and I would rather be a regular maid. Thanks for the offer, but no thanks,” I said standing to my feet.
“I guess we have some kind of misunderstanding. Maybe I didn’t exactly make myself clear. You see, either you will take the promotion…or we no longer need your services,” Carmen said with a smirk on her face.
Was she serious?
“What? Are you serious? You’re firing me?”
“I’m not doing anything. You’re the one making all of the decisions here.”
You have got to be kidding me!
She was really going to fire me because I wouldn’t sleep around with some rich man for money?
I was the best damn maid this hotel had and she was going to fire me?
Heaven knows, I wanted to smack the hell out of her and knock that shrewd grin off of her face but I slammed my work badge down on her desk instead.
She could have this damn job.
I slammed her office door shut behind me and headed to the employees lounge to gather my things.
She’d known better than to even approach me with the proposition in the first place.
She had to have known that I would’ve declined.
Carmen knew how I felt about men, dating, and even sex, so how dare she approach me with something like that?
She had better been glad that I wasn’t a thing like I used to be or otherwise I wouldn’t have even hesitated to whoop her ass.
But for now, I would simply walk away with my dignity.
As soon as the glass doors of the hotel closed behind me, reality pissed in my face, as I started to walk down the busy streets of Charlotte, NC.
Panic and worry made their presence known, and immediately I started to evaluate my situation.
Did I really just get fired from my job?
I was already up to my neck in bills. I couldn’t afford to be unemployed.
What in the hell was I going to do for money?
Envy, what were you thinking?
I knew that declining Carmen’s offer was the right thing for me to do, but it didn’t feel that way.
Maybe I should have at least considered it.
No, considering to become a whore just sounded stupid.
Maybe I should have at least tried to reason with her and explain to her how much I needed my job.
But then again, she already knew that.
She already knew that I was struggling.
She already knew how much I needed money.
But she hadn’t cared.
Turning around and begging Carmen for my job back would only be a waste of time since I was sure that she wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about my pleas.
But now what?
What was I going to do?
I only lived about a block and a half away from the hotel so I was home in a flash.
I checked the mailbox and as always I
pulled out a hand full of bills.
I wondered how many of them I would piss off if I sent them checks that I already knew were going to bounce.
But then again, a bounced check would lead to additional fees, and hell, I already didn’t have enough money to cover them as it was.
Bills were of the Devil!
Frustrated to the max, I tucked the bills under my arm and prepared to enter the house.
“Damn Envy, only you can make a maid outfit look so damn sexy,” my married neighbor, Rodney, bellowed in my direction.
I absolutely hated a married man who cheated on his wife or even flirted with another woman.
I mean it literally made my ass itch!
If you don’t want to be married…don’t get married!
Damn, it’s just that simple!
Yet, some men could care less about the wife that he had at home.
Instead, he was out looking for his next nut.
For the life of me, I just couldn’t understand.
And Rodney, my neighbor, was the worst husband on the planet but his wife walked around as though she’d hit the jackpot or something by marrying him.
I couldn’t count the number of times that he’d come out his mouth with something perverted or disrespectful towards me, right in front of her, and she would pretend as though she hadn’t heard it and say nothing.
But I would say enough for the both of us.
I cursed him out, faithfully, but he acted as though it was all a game.
But it would be a cold day in hell before his old married ass would ever lay a hand on me.
With the last thought running across my mind, I frowned in his direction, stuck up my middle finger, and then turned the knob of my front door.
Cheating bastard!
“Mommy!” Horizon, my daughter, screamed as I entered the living room.
This was always the best part of my day.
Coming home and seeing my beautiful, smiling three year old meant the world to me.
I loved her more than words could ever express and I wanted nothing more than to give her the world.
But the truth was that I could barely give her a roof over her head most of the time.
I never imagined having to carry the load of raising her all on my own.
Her father, and my first love, Keymar, died when Horizon was only two months old.
The doctors were unsure as to the exact cause but one morning I rolled over to a cold, dead body.
Overnight, just like that, he was gone.
He’d gone to sleep for the very last time and unfortunately, neither of us had been able to say goodbye.
He was a man in his prime, healthy and in good shape and since the doctors couldn’t really explain it, the only logical reason for me was to believe that for whatever reason, it was just his time to go.
So, suddenly, I was forced to raise my child all on my own and it just hasn’t been easy.
Keymar and I had been together since our high school years, and because he was raised by old, country folks, he believed that the man was the one who worked, not the woman.
He was the provider, the bread winner and always had been.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
My only job was to stay home, clean, cook and wash his drawers.
And of course, give him the goods whenever he asked for them.
But abruptly, all of that had come to an end.
And with a baby to take care of, I had to do what I had to do.
I had to get out and find a job.
For a woman who had never worked a day in her life, finding a job hadn’t been easy for me.
Sure, I had a high school diploma but that was it.
I hadn’t bothered to go to college.
I hadn’t bothered to gain any type of special skills.
I hadn’t bothered to do anything except make sure that I took care of home.
And to think that all of those years of lounging around the house when I would have nothing to do, I could have at least gotten a higher education or something, whether on campus or online, but I hadn’t.
And to this day, I was paying for it.
But someone, somewhere, must have been praying for me because before becoming a maid, I had a few employers actually take a chance on me and hired me although I didn’t have one bit of experience.
But guess what; no sooner than I would get comfortable, I would get fired.
Mostly because finding a stable babysitter for my daughter was like open heart surgery…one hell of a task.
I couldn’t exactly afford to put her in a real daycare, so I found myself depending on undependable, money hungry, family members and family friends.
And as a result of it, I would end up terminated and on the hunt for employment once again.
Currently, my youngest sister was home from college for the summer, so she’d agreed to babysit for me, for free of course, for the entire summer.
That was one less thing that I was going to have to worry about, but hell, now I was unemployed so it didn’t really matter.
The job at the hotel had sort of fell into my lap.
I was literally walking down the street one day, and Carmen stopped me and asked me if I knew anyone looking for work.
I couldn’t speak up fast enough.
She’d put me on the schedule the very next day and I’d been at the hotel ever since.
Though it hadn’t been the best job, it was something.
And now I’d been fired from there too.
“You’re home early,” my sister Tia pointed out.
I was the oldest of four girls.
Two of the girls were married and lived in different cities, and Tia, the youngest, was on her way to her last year of college.
I was so proud of her.
Mama passed away her senior year of high school, but she stuck it out and hung in there like a champion.
Now, she was only a school year away from having a degree in Business and I was her biggest fan.
Though she was on a scholarship, and tried to pick up a few work hours as a hostess when she could, time to time I had to make sure that she was okay.
She still needed things and she didn’t have anyone else to depend on, except for me, so I had to make sure that I could do little things for her here and there.
I was her big sister and it was my job to look after her.
But trying to take care of her, my daughter and myself on a maid’s salary wasn’t easy.
I ignored her comment and focused on my daughter for a while longer.
I smiled at her.
She was everything to me.
She was my rainbow after a thunderstorm; my sunshine on a cloudy day.
Had it not been for her, I would have given up a long time ago.
After small talk, a few forced laughs and hesitant giggles, I headed to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
At least food was one thing that I never had to worry about.
Food stamps were the best thing since cooked crack if you asked me!
Seriously, they were one heck of a blessing.
I couldn’t speak for those that misused the system, or for those that received them but didn’t actually need them. I could only speak for myself and this sista’ right here needed every last one of them.
If we didn’t have anything else we had food and I found comfort in knowing that my baby was going to get a good, hot meal every single night.
I couldn’t even imagine how the struggle would be if food was another expense that was on my shoulders.
Things were already tight enough.
“You got fired didn’t you?”
“Why are you so nosey?”
“Why are you so secretive?”
I got that a lot.
Everyone always said that I was a very private person and that I was very good at keeping a secret but they had no idea how right they were.
“I’ll be just fine,” I said to my sister with a sm
ile but the truth to the matter was that I felt like crying.
I had about two weeks before everything would be officially due and I had no clue as to where to begin looking for work.
I’d been at the hotel for about two years, and though I hated cleaning up after grown ass people, it was a job and it was better than having no job at all.
Things were always tight, and things sometimes went unpaid or on a pay arrangement, but it was more than having nothing.
I couldn’t pay bill collectors with nothing.
I guess I could go apply for extra assistance.
But they were so stingy with benefits these days that I wasn’t sure if I would qualify for much of anything but it was worth a try.
I received a small check for my daughter from Social Security every month, on behalf of Keymar and as a result of his passing, but that would only cover a minor bill or two.
I was going to need a hell of a lot more.
We lived in the house that my parents left behind.
Daddy died a few years before Mama, and it wasn’t until he died that Mama learned that the house that she’d thought had been paid off years ago…wasn’t.
Daddy had a secret gambling problem that none of us were aware of and he’d taken out a loan on the house to pay off his debt.
He’d kept it hidden from Mama for years and had just been paying the bank back as if nothing was wrong.
Mama retired as a teacher and Daddy had retired from the military, so they both received a decent amount of money each month.
That woman trusted him with every ounce of blood in her body so she never even questioned him about the few hundreds of dollars that he was taking and paying off the bank with on a monthly basis.
She’d said that she assumed that he was simply putting something back for a rainy day or extra to leave behind when he’d reached the end of his road.
But Daddy hadn’t left behind a thing but bills and a small life insurance policy.
So, once he passed, Mama paid half of what he owed the bank with the life insurance check that she received, and she took over making the rest of the payments.
And now that she was gone, I didn’t have a choice but to try my best to save their home.
It was all that we had left of them.