Message from a Mistress (7 page)

“I like him,” Jessa mouthed with a nod and a wink before she turned and breezed back out of the kitchen door.

Aria frowned at the memory, hating that now she wondered if that was the moment her husband and Jessa had sparked their interest in one another. When they shook hands had the current of electrical chemistry gone off?

Who made the first move?

When?

Where?

In my house?

In my…bed?

All through college Jessa and Aria’s friendship was based on competition—grades, clothes, boyfriends. All of it. The whole nine.

But never had Aria thought Jessa wanted to top her badly enough to steal her husband away.

Was Kingston even fishing? Maybe he had already left. Maybe he was already in Jessa’s new house—
their
house.

Aria felt breathless as tears welled up in her eyes. She blinked them away as she pursed her lips and released a deep—and hopefully—cleansing breath. She banged her fist against the top of the island.

“Okay, I need that drink,” she muttered aloud, opening the door to the Sub-Zero. It was empty and as clean as when it came off the showroom floor.

Aria made her way back to the living room and snatched up her drink from the bar. She downed it in one gulp but she hardly felt the fire it burned down her throat and in the pit of her stomach. She was numb.

Jaime accepted the shot of tequila that Renee handed her, but she hardly took a sip. Alcohol was not the solution to the drama unfolding in their lives, but she wasn’t going to stop her friends if they needed it.

Alcohol did not equal answers. And Jaime needed answers. Reaching in her purse for her cell phone, she slid off the stool and walked away from the bar as she dialed the security desk.

“Security.”

Jaime eased her hair behind her ear. “Lucky, this is Mrs. Hall. Listen, did Jessa leave a forwarding address? I misplaced it when she gave it to me and I wanted to send her some flowers to welcome her to her new home,” Jaime lied with ease as she stood by the front window.

“But I thought you ladies didn’t know she moved?” Lucky asked.

Jaime’s eyes glinted. Now this buffoon want to get some sense? “Lucky, she asked us not to say anything about moving and I guess we thought
you
didn’t know, you know,” she said lightly, wanting to strangle his ass.

“Trust me, Mrs. Hall, I know everything about Richmond Hills,” he said cockily.

Jaime bit her lips to keep from yelling: “So did you know that bitch was screwing my damn husband?” But she didn’t. She composed herself. “Lucky, the address?”

“Well, actually she didn’t leave a forwarding, but I do know the moving truck went to Saddle River because they stopped here for directions to the interstate.”

Jaime’s shoulders dropped in disappointment. “Okay, all right. Okay. Um. Thanks, Lucky. Thank you.”

She ended the call, taking a moment to compose herself before she turned around. She walked back over to her friends as emotions she fought hard not to expose nearly strangled her. She fought hard to maintain her composure as Aria and Renee gnawed at the drama like a starving dog would a bone.

“You know, we joked a lot about Jessa, but I never thought she would do something like this,” Aria admitted.

Jaime nodded. “Jessa definitely should be ashamed of herself. You just don’t do this to friends and marriages and homes. It’s not right.”

“Who was this woman we let into our lives?” Renee asked in agreement.

Aria took a sip of her Patrón and winced. “She fooled the hell out of my ass,” she spat.

“No, baby, she fooled us all,” Renee said in anger.

Silently, Jaime wondered if both Jessa and her husband had pulled the wool over her eyes….

Jaime loved Eric endlessly. From the moment she said yes to his romantic moonlit proposal, she knew she would be with him forever and a day in marital bliss. Everything about their courtship had been a dream for her. He had been a perfect part of her perfect plan for her life.

They’d met when he brought his mother to their church for an afternoon worship service. He just happened to sit beside her, and Jaime had found the short and slender man attractive. The attraction was mutual because he returned to their church that following Sunday—without his mother—and asked her out for a date after service.

Jaime smiled as she recalled how nervous he had seemed on their first date at a soul food restaurant. But even that had drawn her to him. That and the fact that he was a handsome, well-mannered, college-educated, churchgoing, home-owning, business-owning man. When she expressed to him her desire to remain a virgin until she wed, he completely understood and even expressed that he respected her decision. What more could she ask for?

And for one year they were nearly inseparable as they slid with ease from dating into a relationship. It seemed only right that he propose one year to the day after their first date. They wed in a beautiful church ceremony one year after that with all of their family, sorors, fraternity brothers, and well-wishers in attendance on a beautiful sunny day.

Complete fairy tale for Jaime.

Everything had been perfect. Everything.

Until the night of their honeymoon.

She had been so anxious to finally get beyond heated kisses and lots of groping to make love with her husband. And what better locale than a beautiful hotel suite on a secluded beach in Jamaica.

Seeing Eric naked for the first time, Jaime realized the one downside of not being intimate with a man before the wedding. She had no idea what she was getting—for the rest of her married life. And she had to admit that the sight of his slender dick had made her pause. Then, as she lay there beneath him with her eyes to the ceiling, she wished she was lost in passion and not washed over in confusion. She wasn’t even sure if she had cum before he shuddered, pumped twice, and was done.

So far it was a fail on size
and
delivery
.

As he slept away his satisfaction and left her completely starved, Jaime dressed and went down to the bar. She bought a drink and bummed a cigarette—her first but not last smoke.

Jaime had been hoping for that spectacular explosion of fireworks and passion that her friends told her about. But where was it?

When she returned from her honeymoon, all of her friends and sorors wanted to know about it. And so began Jaime’s life of lies and pretenses as she looked them all dead in the eye and flat-out lied, even embellishing and adding details she could only wish Eric had in his sexual repertoire.

She almost fooled herself as well as she fooled them all. She only hoped things would get better and they would find their groove.

They didn’t
.

Jaime sighed as she looked around their bedroom. Satin sheets and rose petals were on the queen-sized bed. A bottle of champagne, a bowl with plump, juicy strawberries, and a can of whipped cream sat on a tray in the middle of the bed. A medley of Luther Vandross, O’Jays, Isley Brothers, Maxwell, and other sultry slow jams was playing on the surround system running throughout their house. Scented candles were everywhere
.

She smoothed the silk over the bright red crotchless teddy she wore with a serious pair of five-inch “fuck me” pumps. Her make-up was heavy. Her perfume was heavier
.

She followed all the instructions in the dozen different self-help books she’d bought on reviving the passion in your marriage. She had a few more tricks she planned to deliver as well
.

Jaime was ready for a better sex life to match every other aspect of their marriage. Eric spoiled her endlessly—except in the bedroom. Enough was dang-on enough
.

Picking up the cordless phone, she called Eric’s cell phone.

“Hey, baby.”

“Where are you?” she asked as she sat down on the leather bench at the foot of the bed.

“I had to stop at Jessa’s.”

Jaime sat up straighter. “For what, honey?” she asked, keeping her tone calm and polite like a lady even though she felt like cussing like a sailor.

“She needed me to put up some shelves she bought today,” he told her.

“Well, I have something I
need
you to do at home,” she told him, rising to her feet and almost stumbling in her heels as she tried to pace the hardwood floors.

“As soon as I do this, I’m coming straight home.”

Jaime hung up on him and then flung the phone. It ricocheted off the bed and knocked over the champagne bottle and whipped cream can like dominoes.

“Okay, I am sick of Jessa Bell,” she snapped, kicking off the heels because she was sure she was no longer in the mood to fuck.

When Jaime moved into Eric’s spacious home in Richmond Hills and finally met his best friend/neighbor, Jessa Bell, she had taken an instant dislike to the woman. He had mentioned her before, but Jaime hadn’t been expecting a tall, beautiful woman with golden skin and hair.

Her immediate thought as she eyed the woman whose body made an hourglass look like a pencil: “Oh, heck no. What man with a working dick can be friends with this woman and not want her?”

But then the fact that she appeared to be happily married herself had quelled some of Jaime’s suspicions.

But then it seemed that any time her husband, Marc, went out of town for business, Jessa was forever calling Eric to help her with things around her house. Fix this. Mow that. Lift this. Move that.

Well, Jaime wasn’t at all sure just what Eric was fixing, mowing, lifting, and moving when he was at Jessa’s. She understood that the woman’s husband had passed, and Eric swore that he saw Jessa as nothing more than a good friend, but Jaime was no fool.

She bit the bright red gloss from her lips as she paced the floor. When she happened to look up and catch a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror, she actually jumped in surprise. The hair. The make-up. The teddy. She looked like one of those video girls.

Shaking her head to clear it, Jaime thought about what to do about Jessa. And then it came to her. She raced about the room blowing out the gazillion candles before she dressed in one of those velour sweatsuits and cleaned some of the make-up from her face.

Jaime zoomed down the stairs and out the house to walk the short distance to Jessa’s. Her back stiffened to see her husband’s Lexus parked in her drive, but she forged ahead, knocking on the door.

It opened.

She barely spared Jessa a glance as she eyed Eric on the floor surrounded by all the components of a shelving unit. He looked confused but smiled at seeing her. “Hey, baby.”

“Hi, Jessa,” she said, shifting her eyes back to the beauty.

“Hey, Jaime, come on in. I had to borrow Eric again. I wanted to surprise Marc with this shelving unit for his birthday,” she said in that soft and husky voice of hers.

“Yes, Eric is Mr. Fix-it,” Jaime said with a big fake smile as she looked at her husband. “Actually, I thought I would come over and help since I was home doing nothing.”

“Come right on in. The more hands the better,” Jessa said, stepping back to wave Jaime over.

Jaime didn’t usually fool up with Jessa, but she had suddenly decided that perhaps it was good to keep friends close, but it was even better to keep enemies closer.

In time Jaime went from hanging out with Jessa to watch her to just enjoying the woman’s company. Her suspicions had faded away and they had become close. Jaime had truly considered the woman a reliable friend.

But now in the light of this betrayal—be it of Renee, Aria, or herself—Jaime wished she had stuck to her original judgment of the woman and kept a close eye on her with her husband.

W
hen you look for shit, you find shit.

After nearly an hour of searching Jessa’s house, Aria now believed that was not always the case. Nothing. Not one clue. Not one hint.

And so the torture and the waiting continued.

She walked out of the study and followed the sound of her friends’ voices to the foyer.

“Maybe they met at hotels or something,” Renee said, running her hands through her hair. “Maybe they never fucked…here.”

“Maybes…what-ifs…coulda, woulda, shoulda…
shit!
” Aria threw her hands up in the air before she walked over to the bar and grabbed their purses to then walk back and hand to them. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“I agree,” Jaime said, turning to give the house one last look.

Aria breezed through them to rush out of the front door, and once she stepped outside, she breathed deeply of the smell of suburbia—where more drama swelled behind closed doors and facades.

Jaime and Renee walked out of the house. Aria used her key to lock the door. “I shoulda fucked Malcolm,” she told them as she gave the house one last long look before she turned to face them. “At least by now I would be somewhere knocked the fuck out and sex funky.”

“Who the hell is Malcolm?” Jaime asked as she popped several pieces of gum into her mouth.

“The cabbie,” Renee offered.

“Oh, please.” Jaime blew air through her teeth and waved her hand dismissively. “Besides, having an affair is so beneath you, Aria.”

They all fell silent. No one moved. A car went slowly driving up the street and they all lifted their hands to wave briefly.

“It’s so funny that life goes on but ours is stuck in this stupid-ass limbo,” Renee said as she looked at the neighboring houses, at women on their knees gardening and husbands mowing lawns. Children playing. People leaving and arriving home. “I feel like time is stuck at the exact moment we got that stupid-ass message.”

“I’m so sick of this shit,” Aria admitted, her strong stance weakening as the effects of the liquor made her emotional.

“Aww, baby,” Renee cooed as she pulled her younger friend into her arms and held her tightly as she rocked her.

“It’s me. I know it’s me,” Aria said in a whisper as she stared down the street at her house as a telling memory came to her. She wondered how the hell she had ignored her instincts….

Aria smiled into her goblet of sangria as she stepped out of the kitchen out onto her deck. Their spacious lawn was filled with nearly a hundred friends and neighbors enjoying good music, good drinks, good barbecue. The bartender was set up in the corner. The deejay was in an opposite corner serving up good music. Kingston’s father was at the grill putting some fire to ribs, chicken, pork chops, and quail. Tables ran along the side filled buffet style with all types of side dishes. People talked, danced, mingled, ate, and just were having a good time under the welcoming cool of night and the large fans stationed in the four corners of the yard.

She shook her head thinking what a different set it would have been back in her hometown—just as fun, but different as hell.

Every summer since they moved into Richmond Hills three years ago, Aria and Kingston had thrown a huge three-day barbecue that everyone looked forward to. It was the jam.

She swayed to the sounds of Frankie Beverly & Maze’s “We Are One” as she took a look around to make sure everyone was happy. “Awww,” she sighed at Renee and Jackson in the center of the dance floor holding each other close as they swayed to the music. She was particularly pleased because she knew her friend’s recent entrance into the workforce had led to tension. Jackson wanted a stay-at-home wife and Renee thought she would go crazy if she had to continue staying at home—especially with her youngest child in school all day.

Her eyes sought and found Jaime and Eric. She wasn’t at all surprised to see them sitting together in a cozy corner with their heads bent as they talked. Aria fought the urge to mock throw up because they were the most sickening affectionate couple she had ever met. Everything about them was just perfect, and that usually gave Aria a perfect damn headache. She laughed a little as she pictured them smiling through their whole fuck session.

She saw Marc over by the grill, but her eyes searched the crowd for Jessa and she didn’t see her anywhere. Aria frowned a bit
. Maybe she went to the restroom,
Aria thought
.

“Ooh, that’s my song,” Aria exclaimed when Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” came on. She threw her drink up in the air as she searched for Kingston to dance with her
.

When she didn’t see him she turned and walked back inside the house. “Kingston, where you at, baby?” she called out, setting her glass on the island
.

Aria went into her living room. “Kingston,” she called out again
.

Lights flashed against the wall as a car turned into the driveway. Thinking more guests had arrived, Aria glanced out the window. She saw her own vehicle. The door opened and when the car light came on, she saw Jessa in the passenger seat. “They must have made a store run,” she said
.

But she paused when they climbed out of the vehicle with nothing. No packages. Not nary a nothing in sight that could have been purchased at a store.

Aria stood back from the window a bit and watched as they stopped to talk and laugh. Jessa’s hand lightly landed on Kingston’s arm and Aria cocked a brow. When Jessa walked around to the back of the house, Kingston turned to watch her leave before he turned and cut across their lawn to enter the house through the front door.

No, Aria, don’t trip,
she told herself as she turned on her heels to face the door, surprised at her own thoughts of something foul going on between her friend and her husband.

Kingston walked in looking like her loyal and faithful husband in his orange polo and khaki cargo shorts. He paused in surprise to see her standing there. “Hey, baby,” he said, walking over to pull her into his embrace.

Aria hated that she smelled him for some hint of Jessa. “Where you been?” she asked. “Our song is playing.”

“Awww, you was looking for Big Poppa, huh?” he teased as he used his hands to jiggle her buttocks in the strapless sundress she wore.

Aria leaned back to look up into his eyes even as her heart pounded crazy as hell in her chest. “Where you been?” she asked again, bringing her hands up to massage his shoulders the way that he loved.

“Your mama sent me for some cards,” he told her, releasing one of her ass cheeks to reach in his side pocket for two decks of cards.

“You know Mama loves to play pitty-pat,” she told him, only feeling a little less suspicious.

“Damn, you smell good, baby,” he whispered against her neck as he planted soft kisses in the soft hollow above her collarbone.

Aria shivered but she wasn’t even trying to get played, she didn’t care if the feel of his mouth was making her moist.

“Baby, you should check on Jessa too,” he said in between kisses.

Aria stiffened as her pussy juices dried up. “Why?”

“She was just sitting up front by herself looking down,” he told her. “Maybe something’s up with her and Marc, so I made her ride with me to the store.”

Aria brought her hands up to his face and leaned back to look up at her husband, her lover, her friend, her confidant. She started to third degree his ass about their car ride, but she passed. There was more than one way to skin a cat. She was a journalist, and she’d learned early that sometimes to get to the truth it was best not to ask direct questions. Sometimes you found other ways to get to the bottom of shit.

She kissed him deeply as she kept her eyes locked with his. She flickered her tongue against the tip of his before she sucked it intensely into her own mouth with a moan.

“Damn,” Kingston swore, his hands working her dress up around her waist.

But she brushed his hands away as she reached between them to undo his button and zipper. With her eyes still locked with his, she roughly jerked his shorts and boxers down around his muscled thighs. She squatted before him and took his semihard dick in her hand.

“Baby, someone could walk in,” he said, not sounding remotely concerned.

“So?”

Kingston held his hands up in surrender as he leaned sideways a bit to look down at her.

Aria smelled him without him knowing. The curly hairs of his crotch smelled lightly of sweat and his cologne. Not pussy. Not soap used to clean off the scent of pussy. She ran her tongue along the length of his hard pitch-black inches before she circled her tongue around the caramel-colored tip that was thick and smooth. No taste of pussy or soap.

Humph
.

Closing her eyes, she took all of his hardening dick into her mouth until the smooth tip kissed her tonsils. His body tensed and she felt his knees weaken as his hands clutched her hair in his fist
.

Aria sucked her husband’s dick like she was trying to give him life and then take it away by draining him of every bit of cum his nuts could muster. She knew his dick in and out. Soon she felt the pulse of his dick against her tongue as he cried out with each spasm of cum exploding into her mouth. He fell back into an armchair and Aria moved with him on her knees to stay with the dick, still sucking him deeply and swallowing his seed as he cried out in a chorus of sopranolike high notes, shivering and weak
.

It was a reward and a reminder
.

She was
that
bitch who didn’t leave room for another bitch to take care of her man/her dick
.

Period.

Renee was stunned by the weakness she felt in Aria’s body. In their friendship, everyone had her role. Renee was the Mama Surrogate, Jaime was Mrs. Bourgeoisie, Jessa had been the Life of the Party/Queen of Gossip Control, and Aria had been the Hard Ass who didn’t take shit off no one.

To feel her friend completely shaken by Jessa’s bullshit made Renee just as angry as the thought that it was indeed her. Renee was not a fighter, but in that moment she knew if she laid eyes on Jessa Bell the Jezebel, she could wear her ass out easily.

Because of the drama, because of the hurt still to come for one of them, because she felt like a fool. She’d invited the spider into her lair….

Renee strode out of the building with her car keys already in hand. She deactivated the alarm of her SUV and then opened the door to slide into the driver’s seat as she tossed her briefcase on the leather passenger seat. She felt completely overwhelmed but she was determined to get her shit together with a quickness.

Easier said than done.

She leaned back in her chair and eyed the phone. She felt dread to call her husband even to tell him she was on the way home. She didn’t feel like arguing again. She didn’t have time to argue. But rest assured, they would argue.

That’s all we seem to do lately,
she thought as she massaged the bridge of her nose with her hand.

Knock-knock.

Renee looked over at her assistant, Darren, tapping on her driver-side window. Turning the key in the ignition, she lowered the window with the power button. “Yes, Darren?” she asked, looking up at the young man whose skin was as dark as chocolate.

“You left the CD with all of your press releases, and I know you said you were going to work on them tonight,” he said, handing the plastic case to her.

“Thanks, Darren. I’m trying to rush home and I forgot,” she told him as she took it from him. “What would I do without my assistant?”

He smiled in pleasure. Darren was a college senior with well-expressed desires to get into nonprofit work with the use of his business degree. He was young, eager, ready to learn, and beyond ready to work.

Sometimes Renee wondered if he was gunning for her job.

“Thanks again, Darren,” she told him.

“Have a safe ride, Mrs. Clinton,” he said, stepping back from her SUV.

Renee gave him one last smile and wave before she pulled out of her reserved parking spot.

As soon as she settled in her seat for her twenty-minute drive home, Renee wondered what the atmosphere would be like when she got there. She was truly afraid for her marriage.

Jackson wouldn’t or couldn’t understand that once the children were in school all day, sitting around the house all day washing clothes and cleaning was slowly driving her ass insane.

She was a college-educated woman who wanted to use the brain God gave her. She wanted to put on her shoes, get the fuck out of the kitchen, and not have any more babies.

Renee found charity work of attending social events, posing for pictures, and writing big checks to be superficial. After a photo-op trip to CancerCure, Renee had truly taken an interest in the foundation and the work they did for cancer research and awareness across the country. She stopped putting in frivolous hours wearing pretty suits and big hats to luncheons with her Women’s League and started volunteering directly at CancerCure.

Now she was the vice president of marketing. When the opportunity arose to apply for the position she couldn’t pass it up. Combining a chance to use her skill, vision, and degree with such a worthy cause? She had to apply and then accept when they offered it to her.

She had to.

Jackson hadn’t spoken to her for weeks after she told him she was going to work full-time.

She wondered how long he would stay mad because she was going to be late to the business dinner at their house tonight. CancerCure had a huge benefit concert planned for next week with some of the top artists in the country, and it was her job to get with the various teams and work out last-minute details. Her bosses wanted everything done today and Renee knew she wouldn’t be done by three to get home in time to supervise the caterers.