Her Pleasure

by Niobia Bryant

  “I know.”

  She refrained from letting her know that upon the sale she would split the money with Delaney, Eric’s daughter with Jessa Bell. She knew that neither Aria nor Renee would agree, but Jaime felt Eric owed his only child something in this world regardless of what Jessa was able to financially offer her. With the house being valued in the high six figures it would be quite an inheritance for Delaney one day.

  At the echo of a car door, they both looked down the winding street just as Renee’s first ex, Jackson Clinton, pulled off in his silver pickup truck. Jaime and Aria’s eyes widened as they looked at each other and then back down the street at Renee in a blue caftan watching her first love drive away—back home to his wife.

  Uh-oh.

  “Say what now?” Aria quipped, already headed in that direction and tugging Jaime by the arm behind her.

  “That is none of our business, Aria,” she insisted.

  “Says who?”

  “What are you going to do when I move?” Jaime asked as she finally fell in step with her friend.

  “Video call to fill you in on all the Richmond Hill drama.”

  Jaime frowned. “Did people used to chit-chat about all our drama years ago?”

  “Please. We made the newsletter . . . several times.”

  Jaime’s frown deepened. Some old habits of wanting privacy were hard to break. “See, that’s why I’m moving,” she said.

  “Maybe moving isn’t such a bad idea.”

  Jaime stopped, suddenly causing Aria to get jerked back as she held on to her arm. “What’s going on?”

  Aria turned her head to eye her and Kingston’s Mediterranean home. Gone was the wear and tear it had begun to show with its need of fresh paint and landscaping. Two years ago, they had done a major renovation and now it sparkled with new windows, shutters, paint schemes, and a sun porch. “I wanna go home,” Aria said with sadness.

  “Okay,” Jaime said, giving the other women a peculiar look at the melancholy in her voice as she released her arm. “You go ahead home. We can jump Renee on her business another time.”

  “Not home,” she said, motioning her hand toward her house across the street. “Home. Newark. Brick City. I miss my Moms. My family. That vibe and energy. The burbs are for the birds, Jaime. Now you’re leaving. Renee is on some sort of dick crusade. My kids barely know my side of the family. Kingston is busting his ass to make sure we never fall in the hole about money again. If we move to Newark, we could buy something the same size, much cheaper, and a little closer to my crazy ass, fun ass, ready to fight ass family and... and... I can get my husband back.”

  “Back?” Jaime asked, feeling concerned.

  Of the fallout in 2010 by the vindictive words of Jess Bell, only Kingston had been proven to be free of any misdoings with her or any other woman. It was the marriage of Aria and her sexy Black doctor that gave Jaime hope that happily ever after was possible. They were couple goals.

  Aria released a heavy breath. “He works so much. The kids and I don’t really see him until Sunday and even then, he’s charting or planning or catching up or . . .”

  “Or?” Jaime led, deciding to give her the push she was hesitant to give in Grenada.

  “Not fucking me,” Aria said in a rush with the words almost blending.

  Jaime winced. “At all?” she leaned in to whisper.

  Aria gave her a hard stare. “Don’t be silly. It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality. More of the wham and bam and less of the licking and flicking. You know?”

  No. Not at all, Jaime thought, not making matters worse by admitting she and Luc did the dirty twice that morning. Back to back.

  “Quickies before kids wake up just ain’t getting it,” Aria said, her face serious. Very serious.

  Jaime knew Aria’s past dealings with men left a lot to be desired. Her teenage and college years had been wild. Real wild. So much so that she feared she was infertile because of it. Two babies later that myth was finally debunked, but Jaime worried if Kingston didn’t step up his dick game that Aria would find a side-boo who would.

  Wait. Who am I to judge?

  First, she cheated on Eric, and then she cheated on Luc.

  And both times—more than a decade apart—with the same man.

  She remembered Graham burying his face against her neck as he moaned her name. The memory echoed, both mocking and titillating her.

  “Jaime. Jaime. Jaime.”

  “What’s wrong?” Aria asked.

  Jaime blinked hard before focusing her gaze on her. “Huh?”

  “You looked weird just now. You good?” Aria asked.

  Jaime swallowed over a lump in her throat and nodded. “Gas,” she said with a weak laugh.

  Aria leaned back.

  “Anyway, what does Kingston think about the move?” Jaime asked.

  “I haven’t told him yet that’s what I would like for us to do.”

  Jaime spotted Kingston’s black BMW Roadster coming up the street. “Right now, seems like a good time as any,” she said, nudging her.

  Aria’s eyes took on laser focus. “To do what?”

  Jaime smiled as she smoothed her finger across her shaped brow. “Whatever you want,” she said. “What we want in a relationship matters.”

  When she said the words, she envisioned the look of horror on her mother’s face that it would cause. Virginia Osten-Pine was of the old guard of dutiful wives whose main priority was her family—both husband and children equally as long as the children did not disobey whatever was needed for the father to thrive.

  Aria turned to look at her with wide eyes. “Well, Jaime Pine, where is Jaime Hall?” she asked.

  “That fool is dead and gone,” Jaime said. “Now hopefully I don’t lose myself again when I become Jaime Sinclair.”

  “That’s up to you,” Aria advised. “And this fuck session I am going to have is up to me.”

  “You want me to watch the kids for a little bit?” Jaime offered.

  She went stiff and pointed at her. “An offer to babysit? You done fucked up now. Hold that thought,” she said before turning to fast walk across the street to meet her tall and handsome husband as soon as he climbed from the low-slung sports car.

  Jaime smiled and continued down the street to reach Renee’s home three houses down from Aria and Kingston. As she climbed the stairs she glanced back just as Aria pressed Kingston against the now open front door with a deep—almost inappropriate kiss—before leading him inside the house and giving Jaime a thumbs up.

  God help Kingston.

  She rung Renee’s doorbell as she waved to her new neighbors. A young Latino couple, the Hernandezes, who were expecting their first child. And from the look of her belly, it was any second now.

  “Hey, Jaime,” Renee said around a yawn.

  Jaime eyed her. “Girl, stop faking like I woke you up. We saw Jackson just leave here,” she said, bending her frame onto one of the lounge chairs on the porch before she crossed her legs in the green linen pants she wore with a crisp white V-neck tee and gold wedge sandals.

  Renee sighed as she closed the front door and claimed a seat as well. “Go ahead. Let me hear it,” she began as she tapped her fingernails against the arm of the chair.

  Jaime hid a smile. “I’m moving,” she said.

  Renee’s facial expression quickly cycled through relief, shock, confusion, acceptance, and then sadness. “Jaime,” she said softly as she settled back against her chair and crossed her arms over her chest as she looked down the street at Jaime’s house in the distance.

  She remained silent and let her friend—the analytical chief executive officer—process that bit of truth.

  “We did not think this one through,” Renee said with a shake of her head.

  Jaime chuckled.

  Renee’s eyes shifted over to her. Hard. “What’s funny?” she asked.

  Jaime held up her hand as she continued to smile. “Aria said the same thing. I mean word for word,” she expla
ined.

  Renee mustered a grin. A brief one. “Everything is changing,” she said softly before she held her caftan out enough to pull her knees to her chest beneath its cover.

  “Hey,” she called over to her, worried that Renee had renewed her affair with alcohol. “You good?”

  Renee shrugged one shoulder. “I should be,” she began. “Kieran is firmly settled in Atlanta with her husband, and Heather is living the life she always wanted in Cali, but I miss my kids. I . . . I miss my life the way it was... before everything. But that makes me a horrible mother. Right?”

  “No. It makes you human,” she said, leaning forward to set her elbows on her knees.

  Jaime was well aware that Kieran’s pill addiction and Aaron’s full transition to become Heather had taken a toll on her friend years ago.

  “They’re my kids. I loved and supported them through it all and they both hauled ass once they got their shit together,” she said, pursing her lips and releasing a long breath as she blinked away rising tears. “I want them here with me.”

  Jaime sat back in her chair again. “Or,” she began slowly. Softly. “Are you afraid of being alone?”

  Renee looked reflective. Her eyes dropped to take in the Hernandez couple walk by with a wave as the wife, Leela, splayed her hands on her round belly. “Maybe,” she said with the hint of a smile that spoke to remembering her days of carrying her babies in her womb. “Or maybe I’m more afraid of being forgotten.”

  A tear broke free and raced down her cheek.

  Jaime jumped up and quickly took the steps to sit on the arm of the chair to pull Renee’s head to her chest as she rubbed large circles onto her back. “Is that what Jackson being here was all about?”

  Renee scoffed as she swiped her tears away with her thumbs. “I’m just paying back the bitch for what she did to me,” she said, speaking of the mistress who became Jackson’s wife and the mother of his outside child. “Fuck her.”

  They shared a chuckle. “Isn’t it more like fuck Jackson?” Jaime drawled.

  “That, too.”

  That caused a belly laugh that echoed through the quiet neighborhood.

  Renee released a long sigh as she clutched Jaime’s hand. “What are we going to do without your bougie ass around here making us all step up our game?” she asked.

  “Take a moment and think, ‘What would Jaime do?’” she suggested.

  Renee leaned back to eye her. “That is not what ‘WWJD’ means!”

  Jaime shrugged a shoulder and held up her hands. She gave Renee one last hug around her shoulders before moving back across the porch to reclaim her seat. A door slammed. They both looked up the block and their mouths fell open as Aria marched across her porch and stomped down the steps before eating up the distance between the two homes with long strides down the middle of the street that spoke of her annoyance. Her ’fro bounced up and down with each step and the fading summer sun highlighted the brown tips.

  She looked glorious, even if she was fueled with frustration.

  “What’s going on here?” Renee asked as she rose to her bare feet.

  Jaime rose as well and leaned against the banister. “That was quick?” she said to Aria.

  “Exactly!” Aria snapped as she stepped up on the curb.

  “What was quick?’ Renee asked.

  “Kingston’s nut,” she replied as she climbed the steps.

  “Oh,” Renee said.

  “I thought I was babysitting,” Jaime said lightly.

  Renee arched a brow. “You? Babysit? That’s not WWJD. Okay?” she said with a chuckle.

  True.

  Aria’s children, beautiful ten-year-old Nehru, and handsome six-year-old Nyheim were her godchildren, but she kept her duties to encouraging conversations, keeping their secrets, and buying them expensive gifts for birthdays and holidays. The kids loved it that way and so did she.

  “I already breastfed and put the biggest baby in my house to bed,” Aria drawled with an eye roll.

  They all laughed.

  “How about dinner out somewhere? My treat,” Jaime offered, not ready to end their time together for the night.

  “I have some quarterly reports to read through for an early morning appointment,” Renee said with obvious regret.

  “I gotta get back to the kids and finish an article I’m editing about the current state of police reform,” Aria said. “I just wanted to see what Renee had to say about the news.”

  “Disappointed,” she offered. “At least we have until the house sells.”

  “Right,” Aria agreed, using her phone to check the nanny cams in her kids’ room.

  Better now than later.

  “Actually . . .” Jaime began.

  Renee and Aria shared a look.

  “Luc asked me to move in with him,” she admitted smiling as if showing her teeth to her friends would make it great news. “We’re not waiting for the sale of the house or the wedding.”

  Renee and Aria shared another look.

  “When are you moving?” they asked in unison.

  Jaime slid her hands into the pockets of her pants. “I’m going to try to sell the furniture along with the house and the movers are coming this weekend to get my clothes and things,” she said.

  The women shared another look before Renee opened her arms and motioned for both of them to step into an embrace. They did, with Jaime weaving her arms around Renee’s and Aria’s waists with all three of their foreheads touching.

  “This will not be the last time we see each other,” she said.

  Neither Renee nor Aria said anything, but their doubtful faces spoke volumes.

  * * *

  Luc took a sip of his cognac on the rocks as the bright, colorful lights of the strip club played against his face and the bass-driven music seemed to thump against his body. Over the rim of his glass, he didn’t watch the gyrations of the dancers in their booth. He was with a group of well-known rappers who had tons of money and tons of fans, and the dancers wanted both. Strip clubs were not his scene on the regular, but he knew from his days running the studio that the wild environment was one the best gauges if a song was a banger or not. So his focus was on the men in the crowd.

  Their eyes might be on the nearly nude women, but their heads and shoulders rocked to the music while their lips mouthed the hook.

  “I told you it was hot.”

  Luc fought not to frown at the whisper close to his ear. His nostrils were assailed with the hot smell of weed and liquor that tinged the breath of his rap artist Blaze as he raised his glass in a silent toast to him. “So, is this the new single?” he asked.

  “Told you,” Blaze said, his mouth filled with diamond-encrusted gold teeth. “The streets already love it.”

  Bzzzzzz.

  Luc reached for his cell phone in the back pocket of his sweatpants just as a stripper removed her bikini top and leaned in to jiggle them in his face. He leaned back from one of her nipples almost poking his eye as he checked his phone.

  A text from Jaime.

  She was at his—their—apartment. He was ready to get home to her.

  “Lonely,” he read.

  The next text was a picture of her naked in the middle of his—their—bed with her legs spread wide. That stirred his dick to his life. “I’m out,” he said to Blaze who nodded as he ogled two nude dancers twerking for their life to get his attention.

  He eased past the eager dancer and left the VIP section, shaking hands or giving daps to those he knew as he made his way toward the door. When he was finally standing outside, he took a deep breath of the fresh air, glad to be free of the smell of body oils, weed, fried food, and dude sweat.

  Luc dialed Jaime. “On the way, baby,” he said as he climbed behind the wheel of his Bentley.

  She laughed softly. “That’s what I thought.”

  He smiled broadly and accelerated out of the parking lot toward home.

  * * *

  Graham couldn’t sleep.

  He sa
t up in his king-sized bed and looked out the large bay windows of his massive loft condo in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. The moon was full and high and lit the front half of the space with a silvery blue haze. Naked, he climbed from the bed in the center of the loft and walked over to look over at the Manhattan Bridge over the East River and then down at the cobblestone streets below.

  It wasn’t a desire to see the city nightscape that kept him awake; he was used to that.

  He turned and look to the rear of the loft where dozens of his paintings and framed sketches leaned against the wall. Far more than that had been sold over the years and one even hung on the wall of the Museum of Fine Art. Never had he imagined when he turned to art during his stay in rehab that it would become his life’s work. He did it for love, but the acclaim and the wealth were nice.

  Very nice.

  Thoughts of his art career weren’t on his mind either.

  He turned and crossed the room to flip through the stacks until he found the one he sought. A large realistic drawing of Jaime he sketched during his days using the rear room of the Bedford Community Center in New York as his studio. He’d painted her from memory months after they said goodbye on that rooftop. His love for her was in every stroke of his charcoal to paper. His longing in every shadow. His regret that love was not enough in every smudge.

  That was his sketch of both his love and his heartbreak.

  As he held it in his hand, remembering how his thoughts of her had plagued him in the two weeks since he returned to the States, he knew it was time to let Jaime—both the painting and the woman who served as its muse—go for once and for all.

  Chapter 5

  One week later

  Jaime tapped the stylus against the iPad as she studied the mock-up for a kitchen redesign in a mansion in Alpine, New Jersey. She used the tablet to reconfigure the layout of the custom cabinetry. “What do you think of this instead?” she asked, turning the screen to hand it across her desk to Hamilton Fuqua, one of the three design consultants at her firm.

  She shared a look with Madison Archer, her head design consultant and her second in command.