Her Pleasure

by Niobia Bryant

  “Everything?” Katie asked after a moment of hesitance. “You have the walkthrough of the music hall at nine and—”

  “I know my schedule, Katie,” she said in clipped tones.

  Calm down.

  Jaime pressed her bare feet to the floor and rolled her shoulder before stretching her arms high above her head and releasing a long breath. “Katie,” she said with a calm that she held on to with a hair-thin thread. “Reschedule everything. Thank you.”

  She tapped the screen to end the call.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  She eyed the phone. A picture of Luc filled the screen. She picked it up but did not answer as she left the bedroom and made her way down the hall to the open living space. Finally, the vibrations stopped.

  I love him. I do.

  She lay belly down on the modern sofa and then extended her arm to look at the brilliance of her diamond engagement ring. “Mrs. Luc Sinclair,” she said.

  She frowned remembering how important being Mrs. Eric Hall had once meant to her. Maybe I’ll just keep my name this time. Or maybe there won’t be a wedding at all.

  “Shit,” Jaime swore, closing her eyes.

  And there, against her lids like a movie, so many memories they shared in the last ten months played out. She softly smiled at one remembrance . . .

  “Open your eyes.”

  Luc removed his hands from her face, and she did as he asked to see they were at a racetrack in Las Vegas and standing before a red McLaren sports car. “No!” she squealed in excitement as she whirled to jump up and wrap her arms around Luc’s tattoo-covered neck to kiss him.

  He chuckled as he wrapped a strong arm around her waist. “Happy?” he asked as his eyes studied her face.

  “So happy!” she exclaimed with excitement and looked over her shoulder at the racecar and the driver standing by ready to take her for a ride. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” she said, one of her hands clutching his navy V-neck T-shirt in her fist.

  She had confessed to him once during a late-night phone call her fascination with racecars.

  And he made it happen for her.

  “I remember,” Luc said, sitting her down on her sneakered feet. “Okay, first you gotta register and then do virtual training before you drive your fifty laps.”

  “Drive?” she asked. “I get to drive.”

  With his arms crossed over his chest, Luc nodded as he looked down at her.

  Jaime grabbed his forearms. “I am going to give you the absolute best blow job ever,” she promised in a low voice.

  “I haven’t had that already?” he asked, his voice deep and low.

  “No,” she admitted. “I’ve been holding it back for this very reason.”

  “Tonight?” he asked.

  “To-night,” she stressed with a wink.

  And she had kept her word.

  His roars that night as he filled her mouth with his seed seemed to echo around her.

  That was Luc. Forever making her happy. Forever reliable. Consistent. Constant. Loving.

  And the sex? Pure delicious sexy icing on the cake.

  Luc was the complete drama-free package.

  He doesn’t deserve this.

  11:11 AM

  Jaime pushed the plate of fruit away as she sat in their dining room and vaguely listened to the news playing from the television in the den. She hadn’t eaten all morning, but her appetite was gone and replaced with so many emotions. Guilt above all. Leaving not much room for anything else.

  She picked up her phone and swiped to pull up her contacts. Her thumb hovered over the screen.

  Tell them. No more lies. They are your friends. Your sistahs. They would not betray you. Ever.

  With a tiny bite of her bottom lip, a small reveal of her nervousness, Jaime called Renee’s cell phone first.

  It rang just once.

  “Jaime. Hold on one sec,” she said.

  Jaime rested her chin on her knee as she listened to Renee giving someone succinct instructions.

  “Okay, I’m back. You up for lunch? I’m starving,” Renee said, sounding as if she was still busy as she spoke.

  “Let me add Aria real quick,” Jaime said, before adding her to the call.

  “Hey, Jaime. What’s up?” Aria asked, mumbling slightly.

  “Take the pencil out your mouth,” Jaime said dryly, knowing it was a quirk of hers.

  Aria just laughed.

  “Okay, this is all three of us—”

  “Aria, I’m starving. Are you in the city?” Renee asked. “Jaime and I were just deciding on lunch.”

  “I’m home,” Jaime inserted before talks of lunch could continue.

  “Why?” Aria asked.

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to y’all,” she said. “I have something to tell you. I need to tell you.”

  “Can we do it at lunch?” Renee asked.

  “Renee, eat a fucking Snickers and get over it already,” Jaime snapped. “Sorry. I got a lot on my mind.”

  “What’s going on?” Renee asked, her tone serious and concerned.

  “Yeah, what’s up?’ Aria added.

  Jaime put her foot down and rose to make her way down the hall to their owner’s suite. She eyed the frame sketched on the wall as she came around the bed to stand at the foot.

  “Jaime, you still there?”

  I saw Graham in Grenada.

  And . . . fucked him.

  And . . . and . . . it destroyed my relationship.

  He was there. Unseen but seen.

  Tell them. Share the burden. Release the cage your deeds have created for you.

  “What is it, Jaime?” Renee asked.

  The traits of old resurfaced and she was ashamed to be anything but flawless. Especially when Luc was so damn perfect. So utterly and completely perfect. She closed her eyes and pressed her phone to her face as she turned to sit down on the end of the bed.

  It’s a good thing everyone’s past and secrets aren’t out on front street to be judged so easily. Glasshouse and all that. You know.

  Her own words mocked her as well.

  “I . . . uh . . . was thinking about a business move,” she lied with a wince. “But let me work out some more kinks before I run it by y’all.”

  “You sure?” Aria asked.

  Not at all.

  She hung her head. “Yes,” she lied once more.

  “Okay well, let me get to lunch,” Renee said. “I got an afternoon meeting after that.”

  “I’m working from home, Renee, so no haps on a meetup,” Aria said.

  I fucked up, y’all. Help me.

  A tear fell.

  Long after they ended the call and hung up, Jaime sat with her regrets that she didn’t have the strength to confide in her friends.

  5:08 PM

  Jaime opened the double glass doors and stepped out onto the balcony. The day was beginning to turn to night. Rush hour traffic sounded and bounced off the towering buildings with the unique timbre of the city.

  Luc had texted her hours ago to say he would be home before midnight. No studio. Straight to her. And she knew as surely as she knew even a broke clock was correct twice a day, that he would be there just as he said. If not earlier. That made her smile as she gripped the wrought iron railings and looked up the length of the street. She was thankful for the time as she grappled with revealing her truth.

  But I don’t want to lose him.

  I can’t.

  The thought of hurting him, hurt her. And he would be hurt. And angry. And betrayed. And she could have prevented that if she had stood strong in her love and respect for him that early morning in Grenada instead of getting lost in the haze of lust.

  Or was it more than that?

  She looked down at her toes.

  Lust was easy.

  The truth was Graham had silently been in their relationship long before Grenada. Even one of her fondest memories of Luc’s had Graham’s unseen hand in it . . .

  “As a
kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

  Naked and sitting astride Graham’s muscled thighs, she looked down at his face. The moonlight cast him with silvery-blue shadows from the large windows of his penthouse apartment where they lay on the floor in the living room in front of the fireplace. Rain poured outside, keeping them inside from the bad weather.

  “No one has ever asked me that,” she admitted as she trailed her finger through the grooves of his abdomen and up to his chest to circle one brown nipple.

  It tightened to a bud.

  “I feel blessed to be the first,” Graham said, his eyes on her as the blazing embers of the fireplace were reflected in the dark brown depths.

  Jaime sat up straight as she looked into the fire, drawing a blank. “I don’t remember,” she said, looking down at his handsome face again. “That can’t be. Every child has dreams and wishes. Right?”

  He sat up straight and gave her a wink before he raised his hands from her hips to gently close her eyes with his thumbs. “Go back to it. That time. Remember. Because it’s important. She was important then and you’re important now. She’s still there and wants to be heard.”

  Jaime opened her eyes and rested her forehead against his. “You have no idea about growing up with my mother. She is . . . all-encompassing,” she whispered to him, feeling the sadness of her childhood rise. “She eclipsed me. Her wants. Her demands. I love her . . . but I also—”

  Jaime’s eyes widened in shock as she pressed her mouth closed, not wanting to give voice to that feeling as a tear raced down her cheek. She shifted the hand that stroked his back to lightly press to her lips as she shook her head.

  Graham kissed her lips before shifting his mouth to her ear. “Stand up for her now like you couldn’t then,” he said, deeply and with meaning. “It matters. She matters.”

  She shivered.

  “Find her,” Graham said as he closed her eyes again with his thumbs.

  As he massaged her shoulders and then her back, Jaime forced herself to relax and remember the dreams of a little girl before the wants of her mother could outweigh them. And then it came to her and she gasped slightly.

  His hands fell away from her body as if leaving her free to feel every bit of the memory.

  Hers rose to her cheeks as she remembered at age six when she found her beloved racecar missing from beneath her pillow to be replaced by a Barbie doll and a crown. “I had loved that car,” she said in a whisper. “My grandfather gave it to me. I would push it around my room for hours imagining I was driving it.”

  “You wanted to race cars?” he asked.

  She opened her eyes and theirs held.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling as something she tucked away resurfaced like a bloom. “Even after the car disappeared, I would use shoes and pretend.”

  Graham crossed his legs around her and settled his hands on her buttocks. “Have we found the secret of why you speed?” he mused with humor.

  She shrugged one shoulder and then looked off a moment in wonder. “I forgot all about that,” she said, surprised by the feeling of nostalgia.

  “Look at that smile,” he said, nuzzling her jawline with his nose.

  Jaime leaned back to eye him. “She thanks you,” she said.

  “Nice to see you,” he said with emphasis.

  An evening wind rolled past, sending her hair back from her face and lifting the edge of the shirt around her thighs. It could have exposed her panties and she didn’t care because she was facing—and accepting—an indelible actuality. Graham had seen her—made the effort to know her—deeply. Completely.

  And forced her to find every part of herself that she forgot or denied. For that, she would always have love for him.

  Always.

  5:55 PM

  “What you doing, Mother?” Jaime asked as she lay atop the area rug in between the low-slung massive coffee table and the sofa.

  As a kid, she loved being on the floor. Sitting. Playing. Napping. Pushing her little red racecar.

  “Look at the time, Jaime,” Virginia said.

  She did.

  “Dinner is always at six,” they said in unison.

  Virginia chuckled.

  Jaime rolled her eyes.

  “How’s Luc?” Virginia asked.

  She stiffened. “Mother, I’m here. I’m calling. I’m on the phone. Ask me how I am.”

  Virginia sighed. “Jaime, must everything I do lead to a confrontation between us?”

  Nice to see you.

  “I just want you to see me,” she said, feeling as if she gave voice to the little girl she used to be and the woman still hungry for her mother to accept her importance in the world.

  “See you? Then hang up and call me on FaceTime,” she said.

  Jaime turned her lips downward. “Not what I mean, Mother,” she said, sitting up to press her back to the seat of the sofa as she picked up the remote and flipped through the channels on the television over the unlit fireplace. She paused at a replay of the NASCAR race from the weekend at the Bristol Motor Speedway. She upped the volume to hear the roar of the engines as the racecars circled the track at high speeds.

  “What’s that noise?” Virginia asked.

  She smiled. Her mother would faint to know she watched NASCAR races on television and had even driven a racecar herself. “Why did you throw my car away?” she asked, as she lowered the volume.

  “Your what?”

  “Granddaddy gave me a little red racecar that I loved when I was five or six,” she explained.

  “I don’t remember that.”

  Possible. It meant nothing to her so why would she?

  Jaime eyed the car of Bubba Wallace, the most successful African-African NASCAR driver to date. She was #Team-Bubba. “I loved that car. I slept with that car under my pillow. I took it everywhere.”

  “Jaime, did you really call me right before dinner to talk about a toy?”

  No.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something—”

  “Hold on, Jaime. Your father is calling my name to the heavens.”

  Jaime’s shoulders slumped as the landline phone was set down.

  I need you, Mama.

  The phone rustled when it was finally picked up. “Jaime, your father is ready for dinner,” Virginia said, sounding rushed. “Call me tomorrow and we’ll talk.”

  “Tell Dad I said hello,” she said.

  The call ended.

  She let her head fall back on the seat as she released a breath that was heavy with her disappointment.

  10:04 PM

  Luc or Graham?

  Graham or Luc?

  Neither?

  Both?

  Don’t be silly.

  She hit the home screen on her phone and looked at Luc’s picture. “Good dick. Good job. Good heart. Good man,” she said, before going into her photos and looking at the picture of Graham she screenshotted from his website. She twisted her lips as she went back and forth between their photos.

  “You can get with this or you can get with that,” she rapped.

  She froze and lowered her phone realizing the lyric from Black Sheep’s “The Choice is Yours” had come out of nowhere. And it didn’t fit because the choice was not hers.

  Or is it?

  “You can get with this . . .” she said, looking at Luc’s picture . . .

  Luc gripped her neck with one hand and her ass cheek with the other as she bent over the back of the sofa as he delivered deep stroke after stroke inside her.

  “Harder, Luc. Fuck me harder,” she begged into the cushions of the sofa.

  He delivered as the front of his thighs slapped against the backs of hers.

  “Yes!” she screamed, feeling the slick back and forth motion of his inches against her walls.

  “You want this nut? Huh. You want it.”

  She rolled her hips. “Yes, give me that nut. Gimme.

  Gimme. Gimme.”

  “It’s y-y-y-y-yours,” he roared.
<
br />   “Whoooo,” she said at the memory before swiping over to Graham’s photo. “Or you can get with that . . .”

  “What’s my name?”

  “Pleasure.”

  “And what do I give?”

  “Pleasure.”

  He laughed huskily as he pushed his dick deep inside her with one swift thrust from behind on the floor of the private room in the strip club.

  Jaime felt the pressure of him against her walls. She felt the heat of him deep inside her. “Fuck me,” she ordered, hardly believing her words or her actions.

  “My pleasure,” he told her thickly as he stroked deep and fast inside her before switching up to a slow grind.

  Her pussy walls throbbed against the length of him as her juices drizzled around his dick and down to wet the cleavage of her buttocks.

  “Say you my nasty bitch,” he ordered.

  “I’m your nasty bitch.”

  And she was.

  That was Graham when he was Pleasure the stripper and she had gladly paid him two hundred dollars for the service, but that was also the past Graham felt they couldn’t overcome. Those days when she wanted his sex and paid the price for it.

  She shook her head. “How did we think we could make it more?” she asked aloud.

  But they had, for six months. He’d given up the sex game for her. He made her feel loved. And seen. He did the work to convince her that she was special to him.

  “Our past together is the very reason I just don’t believe we can have a future.”

  Jaime swiped over to Luc’s picture. “I’ll think I’ll get with this, ’cause this is where it’s at,” she said.

  Decision made.

  With a heavy breath she unfollowed Graham’s Instagram account and then deleted his picture from her phone—and her life—once and for all.

  11:24 PM

  Jaime took a deep inhale of the steam in the charcoal slate shower before turning off the water and opening the fogged glass door. She jumped when Luc suddenly appeared in the doorway. “I didn’t know you were home,” she said, taking in how sexy he looked in all black.