by Shelly Ellis
The girl quickly rose from the couch and dashed toward the front door. She and Lauren exchanged a meaningful look before she left.
I told you she wouldn’t listen, Aunt Lauren, Clarissa’s sad expression said as she quickly shut the door behind her. Lauren and Cynthia listened as she climbed the steps to the sidewalk above.
“Laurie, I’m only going to tell you this once, and I’m only giving you the courtesy because you’re my sister.” Cynthia pointed down at her, taking a menacing step toward her. “From now on, stay the hell out of my business, all right? She’s my damn child and you have no right to—”
“She came to me for help! What should I have done? Turned her away?”
“She only came to you because you’ve probably been putting bullshit into her head!”
“What?”
“You heard me! You’ve probably been going behind my back all along and telling her that what I do is wrong and dirty, but from now on, you can keep your damn thoughts to yourself, little Miss Hypocrite! Stop trying to turn my daughter against me!”
“Cynthia, you are paranoid and delusional if you actually think I would do that!”
Her sister gave an icy smile. “You’re just jealous! We all know you are. You made a bad choice, a stupid decision when you hooked up with James Sayers, and you’re jealous of all of us for not falling into the same trap! You’re miserable and you want to make everyone else miserable, too! But I won’t let you do that to Clarissa! I won’t let you—”
“Shut up! Just shut up! I didn’t turn Clarissa against you! You’re doing a perfectly good job of that yourself, you stupid bitch!”
Cynthia’s mouth fell open. Her little sister had never spoken to her like that. Cynthia was usually the one who spit venom. Rarely did she get it spit back at her.
Lauren closed her eyes and took a calming breath, silently telling herself to count to ten. She couldn’t reason with her sister if she got just as angry as her, and Cynthia needed a good dose of reasoning right now.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I’m sorry I called you that. Look,” Lauren began quietly, “I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t think it’s right to make a seventeen-year-old girl go out with a thirty-year-old man.”
“He’s twenty-seven,” Cynthia said tightly.
“Whatever! He’s still too old for her and I didn’t have to tell her that. Clarissa came to that conclusion without my help.”
“What’s the big deal? I didn’t tell her to have sex with him! They’re just going out to dinner! Once she gets over her nervousness, she’ll do fine. How else is she going to learn to use her techniques and how to—”
“She told you she doesn’t want to do this and you’re making her do it anyway. You’re putting the rift between you two, not me!”
For the first time, Cynthia didn’t shout her disagreement. Instead, she rolled her eyes.
“She’s hurt and she’s angry,” Lauren continued. “This time when Clarissa ran away from home she came to me. But what happens the next time she runs away? What if she goes someplace where you can’t find her? What if you never see her again, Cindy? Do you want that to happen?”
“Of course I don’t.”
“Then act like it!” Lauren took a step toward her sister. “Please don’t make her do this.”
They both stood in silence for what felt like an eternity.
“I went on my first date with a man when I was seventeen years old, Lauren.”
Lauren nodded. “I know. So did I.”
“I’m not asking her to do any more than what was asked of me. We all had to do it. That’s how we learned. I’m only trying to help her!”
The love of her daughter was apparent in Cynthia’s voice and in her tired eyes. It was a warped love, but it was there all the same. Cynthia now looked less like a snow queen and more like a troubled, heartbroken mother.
“I don’t know why she keeps fighting me.”
“Because when she’s pushed in a corner, she can be just as strong-willed as you are. Come on, Cindy. We didn’t get a choice about what happened to us. We were made to follow that path. Let her make her own choice.”
“She’s just scared now,” Cynthia argued softly. “We all were when we were that age, when we went out there the first time. She’s overwhelmed. But she’ll . . . she’ll come around.”
“Maybe. And if she does come around and tells you she wants to keep learning and training, so be it. Teach her. But if she doesn’t come around, let it go. You have to let her make her own decision on something like this. You can’t force it. It’s not right.”
“I don’t know why I would bother listening to you . . .” She paused and Lauren’s shoulders slumped.
So I guess I lost the battle then, Lauren thought.
“. . . but I am going to listen to you this time. I’ll let her make her own decision, but I still think it’s a big mistake.”
Lauren grinned.
“I’m only doing it because I love her,” Cynthia said quickly, the hardness returning to her gaze and her voice. “Not because you told me to. Frankly, I couldn’t give a damn what you think.”
Lauren continued to smile, refusing to let her sister dampen her victory and budding good mood. “That’s good enough for me!”
Her sister pursed her lips. For the first time, she slowly let her gaze scan around Lauren’s apartment. She curled her lip in utter disgust.
“God, you live in a dump,” she muttered, making Lauren laugh.
Some things never change, she thought, my sister being one of them.
Chapter 19
“So you two are OK now?” Stephanie asked as she stared down at her big toe with nail polish wand in hand.
She and Lauren were discussing the drama surrounding Clarissa running away to Lauren’s house last night. Stephanie listened to Lauren tell the story while she painted her toenails bubblegum pink. As she wiggled her toenails and gazed at her feet, she contemplated the color. She wasn’t too keen on the pink. Maybe it would be cute if she was thirteen years old. Not so hot at age thirty-three.
“Yeah, we’re OK,” Lauren said on the other end of the phone line. “You know how your sister is. Cindy is quick to get pissed off and—”
“Then act like nothing ever happened a minute later,” Stephanie finished for her, putting her bottle of nail polish aside on the floor. She lay back on her chaise longue. “Yeah, I know.”
“She just wants what’s best for Clarissa. I get that. But Clarissa just isn’t ready for all of this.”
“Ready for all of what?” Stephanie asked with a frown as she reached for a style magazine that sat on the chaise cushion beside her.
“Ready for what all of us have been doing for the past thirty years, Steph. You know . . . trapping and seducing men and taking their money! She wants more out of life, and I support her decision. I told Cynthia that and I meant it. It’s just not a good way to live!”
Stephanie fought the urge to roll her eyes. She hoped she wasn’t going to have to endure another one of Lauren’s sermons. Ever since Lauren had left James, she had been preaching her born-again gospel endlessly, like she was on a mission to save her sisters’ gold-digging souls. Stephanie and Dawn didn’t react quite as strongly to Lauren’s admonishments about their lifestyles as Cynthia did, but all of them were getting wary of her routine. It was starting to get tedious.
Just then, the doorbell rang. Stephanie tossed aside her magazine, relieved to have an excuse to get off the phone before her sister started preaching.
“I mean, just think about it, Steph,” Lauren rambled. “We’ve been taught all our lives that men are just—”
“You’re going to have to hold that thought, Laurie. I have to call you back.” She glanced over her shoulder at her bedroom doorway as her bell rang again. “Someone’s at my door.”
“Oh, OK,” Lauren said. “Well, I’ll . . . I’ll talk to you later this week, huh?”
“Sure. Talk to you later. Bye,” Stephanie
sang before hanging up the phone. She put on her yellow silk robe and pattered in bare feet across the floor, walking on her heels, careful not to mess up her newly painted toenails. She pulled back one of the curtain panels and scowled when she saw who was standing on her WELCOME mat.
Oh, Lord, she thought. Not him again!
She let the curtain close, unlocked her front door, and swung it open. “What the hell do you want, Hank?” she snapped, glaring at the philandering deacon.
She hadn’t seen his lying ass since he brought his family to the house showing a week ago. She had stayed on her best behavior the entire time, pretending as if she had never met him before in her life and only making one tongue-in-cheek comment when his snooty wife remarked that the home’s backyard was a “little on the small side.”
“But it’s the perfect size for Jack Russell terriers,” Stephanie had responded.
“Jack Russell terriers?” his wife asked. “We don’t have Jack Russell terriers.”
“Oh, you don’t?” Stephanie had turned to look at Hank, who instantly looked away, ignoring her penetrating gaze. “My apologies. Someone told me you did.”
Stephanie had assumed Hank had embarrassed himself enough and that would be the end of their short-lived affair, but here he was, sniffing at her door again. Some people were gluttons for punishment.
Some men are just too stupid.
“I bought you a gift,” he said, holding a small shopping bag toward her.
The bag was Tiffany blue, and even in the dim evening light, Stephanie could spot the unmistakable TIFFANY & CO. emblem embossed on its side.
Oh, no, he didn’t! How did this man know her Achilles’ heel? She had never in her life been able to turn down a gift from Mama Tiffany.
Stephanie cocked an eyebrow and yanked the bag out of his hand. She lowered her gaze and looked inside its depths. “What is it?”
He gave a tentative smile. “Open it and see.”
She reached inside, pulled out a leather box, removed the cardboard belly band wrapped around it, and flipped the box open. A yellow-gold bangle bracelet sat in the center of the box. It was embedded with diamonds.
Nice, Stephanie thought. She put on the bracelet, held up her wrist in the air, and admired the jewelry in the light from the doorway lamp. Very nice!
“Can I come in?” he asked quietly, looking at her pleadingly. “Can we talk?”
Stephanie lowered her wrist and narrowed her eyes at him. She should probably tell him “no.” Any man who showed up at a woman’s house unannounced at eight o’clock at night didn’t come just for conversation. The Honorable Deacon Montgomery probably had a lot more than talking on his kinky little mind. But he had just shown up at her house bearing what looked like a three- to five-thousand-dollar gift. (She planned to Google the bracelet later to confirm the exact price.) Stephanie had no plans to drop the panties, but she’d let him stay for a while. A bracelet like this had at least earned him that courtesy.
She waved him inside and Hank smiled eagerly before stepping over the threshold.
Neither of them noticed the car parked across the street or the woman sitting in the driver’s seat wearing dark sunglasses who looked alarmingly like Hank’s snooty wife. The woman sank lower in her car seat just as Stephanie shut the door behind Hank.
Stephanie led him into her daintily decorated living room and sat down on her off-white sofa. “What did you want to say?” she asked expectantly.
“I just . . . I just wanted a chance to explain myself.”
“What is there to explain? You’re married and you were trying to cheat on your wife. Seems pretty simple to me.”
“But it’s not!” he argued, pacing in front of her. “Look, I . . . I prayed on it and God . . . God wanted me to explain myself to you. He wants me to make amends.”
She laughed. “Oh, He does, does He?”
Since when was God in the business of encouraging men to go out and cheat on their wives? God does work in mysterious ways, she thought. This was turning into one amusing night.
“God said to me . . . He said, ‘Hank, you’ve got to explain yourself to this woman. You’ve got to tell her that you weren’t trying to fool her. You just . . . you just couldn’t tell her that you were married because you weren’t sure how she would react. But you have needs . . . needs like any other man has. You were just trying to cater to those needs. That’s all you were trying to do.’ ”
Hank stopped pacing and looked at her.
“My wife, Penny, she just . . . she just doesn’t understand me, Stephanie. She won’t do what I like . . . in the bedroom, you know. We do the same position once a month on Saturday evening like clockwork. She wears the same ol’ pink lingerie set. We always have to wait until the kids are in bed and fast asleep. If I try to do anything a little different, she looks at me like I’m crazy. I tried to get her to do it . . . you know . . . doggie style once, and she said I must have had the devil in me!”
He started pacing again.
Stephanie sighed, propped her elbow on her knee, and dropped her chin into her hand.
This was the other downside of being a mistress. If it wasn’t dealing with paranoid husbands and crazy wives, it meant listening to endless ramblings about boring stuff like this. What made these men think you wanted to be their shrink? Stephanie should probably get a Ph.D. in psychology for how many men she counseled through their depressing marriages.
“So after a while, I started to get tired of it, you know?” Hank continued, oblivious to her growing boredom. “So . . . so back in Georgia, I started to . . . I started to see other women. I didn’t do anything wrong, at first. I just went on dates with them. I’d have dinner and maybe kiss one or two of them. It was innocent, completely innocent! Then . . . then the next thing I knew I was seeing five women at a time. I’d meet them at church or at the grocery store or at the post office. Now I was having sex all the time,” he said gleefully, “and I was doing it any way and anywhere I wanted! I’m doing it doggie style in the shower and I’m . . . I’m getting my dick sucked in the backseat of cars . . . and sometimes . . . sometimes I’m even fucking two women at a time . . . and I loved it! I loved it!”
Stephanie wondered if he realized he was salivating. “Then one of the women I met was into . . . into . . . you know . . . that bondage stuff. Her name was Leslie, but she wanted me to call her . . . to call her Mistress Candy. She used to wear a leather mask and these spiked high heels. She’d blindfold me, bend me over the bed, and whip me until I cried or I came, whichever happened first.”
He stopped and slowly shook his head.
“And I knew . . . I knew after that, I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t go back to sex once a month on Saturday evening after the kids go to sleep. I couldn’t go back to just missionary style and sex with all the lights off.”
He fell into one of her armchairs.
“But then . . . but then Penny found out about what I was doing. She found a text message from one of my girlfriends. She wanted to take the kids and leave me, but I promised her I would be true to her. I would change. So we moved here to Virginia to start all over again. Stephanie, I haven’t cheated on my wife in over a year. But we’re back to the way things were before, and now I can’t help myself. It’s a . . . an itch I gotta scratch, and Penny won’t help me scratch it!” He closed his eyes. “So I lied to my wife and I lied to you, too . . . and I’m sorry about that. But I don’t have the devil in me. I don’t! I’m just a man . . . just a man with needs.”
Stephanie watched as he sat silently with his head bowed and in his hands. He looked so damn pitiful. She glanced again at the Tiffany gold bangle bracelet on her wrist, then at the hairbrush she had left sitting on her glass end table when she was brushing her hair earlier that day.
All right, she thought. I’ll be nice and throw him a bone.
Hank was about to get an early Christmas present.
“Enough with the whining,” she sneered, grabbing the silver hairbrush and ri
sing to her feet.
He raised his eyes and looked at her, completely baffled. “Whining?”
She took off her robe and let it drop to the living room floor. He sat slack-jawed as she stood in front of him in her boy-cut panties and lace bra with her legs spread shoulder-width apart. She slapped the flat side of the brush against the palm of her hand, filling the living room with a loud thwack.
“Yes, whining, Hank. Because that’s what it is. You expect me to feel sorry for you? You cheated on your wife. You lied to me!” She rapped the brush against his thigh, making him flinch, catching him by surprise. “You’ve been a very, very bad boy, Hank.”
She could see a gleam return to his eyes. He loudly swallowed. “I . . . I have?”
Stephanie leaned toward his face so that their noses were mere inches apart. “Yes, you have, and what happens to boys who are bad . . . when they don’t obey their mistress?”
“They get . . . they get punished?” he asked with a smile.
She nodded and stood back, gesturing with the hairbrush. “Exactly! So drop your pants and bend your ass over!”
She didn’t have to tell him twice! He quickly rose to his feet, unbuckled his belt, and lowered the zipper of his pants. He let his Armani slacks fall to his ankles and then braced his hands on both arms of the chair. He bent over, revealing his boxer brief–covered behind.
Stephanie resisted the urge to burst into laughter. She knew she had to stay in character if this was going to work. She pulled back her arm and then swung, loudly smacking his ass.
“And the next time . . .” Thwack!
“. . . you even think about . . .” Thwack!
“. . . lying to me . . .” Thwack!
“. . . you better damn well think again . . .” Thwack!
“. . . because I will beat . . .” Thwack!
“. . . the hell out of you . . .” Thwack!
“. . . all over again!” Thwack!
When she heard him grunt and saw him shudder, then go slack, she knew she had accomplished her goal. Deacon Montgomery had finally gotten what he needed and she had gotten a nice bracelet out of it, too!