“Going through what?”
“She didn’t tell you?’ Parker questioned. “I thought she told her sisters everything.”
“My sisters and I aren’t that close. You’re confusing me for her twin. They are close along with their sidekick, Aretha Franklin.”
He smirked. “I take it you’re talking about Joanie Bell?”
“She still rides their coattail?”
“She’s actually Cheyenne’s administrative assistant.”
Charisse rolled her eyes. “That just lets me know I’m not at the bottom of the bucket yet.”
“Can I ask you a question, Charisse?”
“What? Why I keep trying to kill myself?”
“That’s a good way of asking it.”
Shrugging, she suddenly wanted to not speak anymore and was glad at the same time, he was pulling behind a large building. She easily avoided answering the question by asking, “Where are we?”
“A friend’s place of business.”
“What is it?”
“A spa and salon.”
Suddenly it felt like the whole world was caving in on her and she couldn’t take enough air. “I…I..”
Parker was prepared for this. “It’s fine.”
“They’ll – They’ll touch me.”
“No, they won’t.” He turned off the car and turned toward her. “I’ll be there the whole time. Just trust me.”
“No!”
“Charisse!”
The tone was almost like her father’s voice and she couldn’t help but pay attention to him.
“I know about your condition and the staff is going out of their way for you. Now take deep slow breaths, Charisse, and calm down.”
“They won’t touch?”
“No. Actually you’re going to do everything yourself.”
“But– “
“Trust me.”
A warm sense of calmness filled her and she didn’t know why she should trust him, but for some reason she felt she needed to.
‘You need him. You need his sympathy,’ she reminded herself. She held her arms tight around her waist forcing the anxiety away that was slowly building internally. “I’m not going in.”
“It’s your birthday,” he cajoled. “I figured you needed to do something nice for yourself on your birthday.”
“Who cares if it’s my birthday? I haven’t celebrated it in…” She didn’t want to think about that. The daymares would return if she ever thought about the past.
He got out of the car and came around to her side, opening her door, while reassuring her, “They aren’t going to touch you. I know about your condition and I made them aware.”
“So, how are they going to do anything? I never go to these.”
Leaning down in the car to her, he said, “I can tell. Now let’s go.”
That fatherly tone came again and something in the back of her mind made her get out of the car even though her conscious was telling her to stay where she was.
Parker was surprised she did get out even though her face said something different. He didn’t wait around to question as to why she had obeyed, but hurried to the door to use the private entrance into the business. It was a key code that only special clients could get which lead down into the basement of the building. It was a crème colored room and long hallway in which a tall lithe elegant black woman with short hair walked down wearing a crème colored dress and crème colored heels.
“Good morning, Mr. Mills. You look great as usual.”
“Sophie, I’d like you to meet my sister-in-law I’ve told you about, Ms. Sheridan,” Parker introduced the frightened looking Charisse.
The woman almost extended her hand, but stopped herself and smiled warmly. “Come with me, Ms. Sheridan, while I prepare you for your day.”
Terrified, Charisse didn’t move.
“Charisse, it’s okay,” Parker said. “Sophie’s one of the best stylist and masseuse in the Metro Detroit area,” Parker assured her. “She’s understanding to your condition and she’ll help you out.”
“She’ll touch me?” Charisse asked, gripping her chest and needing assurance.
“I promise,” Sophie said. “I won’t. I’m going to instruct you to do it yourself. You look as if you’re a fast learner.”
The compliment warmed Charisse a little and she took steps forward toward Sophie, who led her away from Parker. Looking back at him, she saw Parker smiling. That look of happiness was in his eyes.
The thought that she had made him happy made her present anxiety dissipate. Quickly she looked away and forced her eyes on the ground as she walked beside Sophia.
“When was the last time you been to a salon?” Sophie asked.
“Never,” Charisse said.
With a bright smile as if she was eagerly looking forward to it, Sophie said, “It’s going to be a long day.”
Chapter 3
Jaelen looked naturally cruel to anyone who didn’t know him. On top of that he was a temperamental son of bitch that could give a shit about anyone else except him, his family and maybe even a couple of people he deigned to call friend. Parker just happened to be one of the honored persons. He was back to wearing his hair in cornrows and looked like D’Angelo, especially when he pursed his lips together in annoyance.
“How’s it feel, Jaelen?” he asked coming in the office.
For his comment derived from the R&B singer, D’Angelo had done that Parker constantly teased Jaelen about, Parker received the pursed lips.
“She’s here and I still want to thank you for this.”
“Thank Sophie. She’s the one putting up with the shit,” Jaelen said turning off his laptop. “I suspect that you just came in here to fuck with me.”
“That and to invite you over for dinner in a couple of weeks. We’ll know by then any results.”
“Oh yeah, if the petri dish worked? I thought God made a more natural way to have kids?” Jaelen snorted. “I try to practice every day on my wife. If I could, I would practice every hour. How about you, Parker? How do you get happy with your wife?”
This was a deliberate hit below the belt to Parker’s attempt at normal.
“Some people have to resort to extra means to be happy.”
“Spending fifty thousand dollars to produce off spring is crazy. Do you know what I could have done with that money? By this time, I’d have hundred college funds set up for you to donate to some third world child you could have adopted.”
Frustrated, Parker sunk down in the chair in front of Jaelen’s desk. “Yeah, but it’s not the same and you know it, Jae. Look at you. Five kids. Five damn kids.”
“Two are from my wife’s first dead husband.”
“But you’re still a family. You have off spring. You have someone to carry on your bloodline and you’re sharing these moments with the woman you first fell in love with and married. I want that. I want to be you… well not all ornery and mean, but you know what I mean. I’ve been married ten years to Chyna and you weren’t even married to Kim before you were bopping out twins.”
“Well, she raped me to get mine.”
“Let’s not even go into that. I think you just harbor that over her just so you can take advantage of her.”
Jaelen smirked wickedly. “It does make the mundane marriage very exciting when you can tie up your wife and make her beg for you. You should try it sometime.”
“Chyna says it might mess up her hair and hands.”
“If you can spend fifty on a baby, you can spend a couple of hundred– “
“Let’s not go into this.” Parker really didn’t want to expand upon his wife’s shallow behavior.
Jaelen took the hint, understanding in advance this was a sore subject for Parker. “So, this crazy sister-in-law, what’s her story?”
“Nothing I haven’t already told you. Chyna says her sister is so pathetic she can’t even kill herself.”
“How many times has she tried?”
“This last time
makes three.”
Jaelen stopped what he was doing and frowned. “I’m not religious and all that, but she ever thought that it just wasn’t her time, and that she had a purpose in life.”
“You ever thought you’re just saying that shit because you’re an ass and you’re trying to find some hilarity out of a bad situation?” He stood up.
“So I take it you haven’t told Chyna about the boat?”
Parker didn’t answer because he knew Jaelen already knew the answer. He was saving it for the moment when Chyna announced that they were going to have a baby. Knowing that they were going to dedicate eighteen more years together deserved an award and “the boat” was the key.
Yet that moment hadn’t come and he was starting to think it never would. The majority of Parker’s friends were married and those that were had children, vibrant healthy off spring. Their blood running through small versions of themselves.
And what did he have? A wife who couldn’t get pregnant, his sperm not strong enough to procreate outside of natural environments and the ability to buy anything he wanted, but having no real value in life.
He knew the layout of Jaelen’s business like the back of his hand because he had personally done service to the building when he was trying to get his business up and running. Bringing in towels, picking up towels, checking on any other laundry needs and so forth. After six more accounts like Jaelen’s he was able to hire five under him to work the different areas and get things done.
Parker had built a business from the ground up, with a lot of sweat, determination and long nights. He wanted the rewards from all his hard work, which was supposed to be a child. That’s what Chyna had promised him.
‘When we can afford a child, we’ll have a child,’ she had promised when they first became married.
And he had waited. And then they came to the realization it was them. And then the doctors, the tests, the results and now…
Still no baby.
He was a man almost desperate, but not desperate enough to adopt.
When his brother, Winston, and his wife adopted the baby, Parker had seen how their friends looked at them behind their backs as failures. It had been the initial steps that lead to his brother’s death. The failure stigma drove his wife insane and soon she didn’t want to look on his face.
She kicked him out and Winston had come knocking on Parker’s door asking to stay until things cooled down. Chyna didn’t want him under their roof.
“He’s a failure!” she had sneered.
So Parker convinced his brother to go back home and try to reason it out with his wife
“Adopting isn’t so bad, Winston. People do it all the time. And you shouldn’t let the shallowness of some determine what you define as family. Tell this to Jeanie. Let her know this.”
Winston had listened to his brother and what did he get? A bullet in the chest.
Parker received a call the next morning telling him that Jeanie had murdered Winston. And when they asked what to do with the child…
“Hello Mr. Mills,” Sophie said in that slow seductive voice she always used.
He couldn’t begin to count how many times Sophie had propositioned him, but he never took her up on his offer. She was beautiful, except for one thing. He was attracted to thicker women.
“Why are you out here?”
Sophie sighed. “She was dead serious about the touching, wasn’t she? I didn’t think she was that serious.”
“Is it going to be difficult? I could add another zero to that check,” he said worriedly.
“No. I’m just getting more towels. I have Lupe instructing her on how to do her eyebrows. It took some convincing, but once we let her know that uni-brows weren’t even in fashion for third world countries and that it caused a lot of pain, she seemed more receptive to it.”
‘Whatever it takes to keep her busy and better looking, just put it on my bill.”
Sophie chuckled and went inside.
***
Waxing was more painful than she thought, but relieving. Once she was able to figure out how to “sculpture” herself, she was on the fast track to getting rid of all the unwanted hair on her brow.
Lupe was a 4’9” Puerto Rican woman who at first looked like a child, but the winkles on her face told Charisse she had to be going into her forties.
“Now your legs, senorita,” Lupe instructed. “Just like I showed you with the larger ones.”
Being “careful” of her condition, they used the cold wax pads that didn’t need heating. Before this, after Charisse had taken a very hot shower to open her pours, Sophie had gone down everything they were to do today. After this, they were going to do her hair.
Sophie entered the room and said something to Lupe in Spanish.
“She’s almost a natural, Sophie,” Lupe commented in English to whatever Sophie had said. “We’re almost done. She’s finishing up her legs now. All that’s left are the thighs.”
Confused, Charisse looked at her legs and frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with my thighs.”
“Look higher,” Lupe said.
She did but didn’t see anything.
“Higher,” Lupe and Sophie said.
Charisse looked at her crotch and blushed. “Who looks there but me?”
Sophie chucked. “It doesn’t matter. My father always said never smell like a bear, eat like a bear, or look like a bear. You are not doing this for any man’s pleasure, Ms. Sheridan. You do it because you are woman and your power is drawn from what people don’t see.”
“My crotch hair makes a difference?”
“It’s sanitary and keeps you smelling fresh longer,” Lupe said.
“Plus, that much hair makes it look like you have Don King between your legs,” Sophie stated simply. “We might need to get the shaver first, Lupe.”
Lupe went to prepare the equipment for the area, while Sophie said, “I’ve drawn a bath in the next room, but I wanted to get the perm in your hair and then get the conditioner to soak it before we get you to the milk bath.”
“Milk bath?” Charisse asked. “With actual milk?”
“Nutrients for your skin along with milk,” Sophie said.
Once she was done, as Lupe instructed, she placed the oil on the areas she had waxed and then let Sophie guide her over to a beauty chair. Sophie only instructed her how to put everything on and even showed her how to mix the home perm mix.
“I had to run to the beauty store, while Lupe was with you because we only have professional strength here. I didn’t want to take a chance on you applying it wrong, so these are safer,’ Sophie explained.
Through her explanation, Sophie was amazed at Charisse’s aptitude.
“I’m not stupid,” Charisse snipped at one over the boat compliment as if she were a five-year-old figuring out a complex algorithm. “I left college to take care of my dying mother. Not because I was stupid. I was a straight A student until then.”
“I didn’t mean to– “
“I know,” Charisse said cutting her off. “I’m just touchy. But everything you are doing is appreciated.”
Sophie changed her instruction immediately and Charisse was still able to get things done. Once the perm was in and then washed out, Charisse caught sight of herself in a mirror and couldn’t believe the reflection she saw staring back at her.
“What is it?” Sophie asked worriedly.
With her eyebrows toned down and her hair coming down past her shoulders, she saw a different woman instead of the dull face she was so used to. Maybe it was the cleansing they had done early to her pores or the cucumber mask applied, but she looked very different from the face she had been looking at for over twenty years.
“Nothing,” Charisse lied because she knew there was no way she could explain this to this woman.
Sophie placed a huge jar of conditioner in front of her. “Apply and then wrap it in the plastic like I showed you earlier.”
When she was done, she followed Sophie to anoth
er part of the room where behind a silk crème curtain one could almost see through was a large standalone tub filled with a milky liquid.
“Hang your robe and rest comfortably for an hour. Every five minutes, rub your hands firmly all over your body to soak the nutrients in.”
Lupe burst in the room as if she had run from the border and back. “Sophie, Ms. Tibble is back. Can you please come do that thing you do to her? She’s in a lot of pain and needs it bad.”
Sophie looked distressed. “Can’t she wait?”
“She’s demanding it.”
“Can you watch her?” Sophie asked.
“I’m in the middle of another customer. I can’t.” Lupe said.
“I am not a baby,” Charisse said.
“But Mr. Mills’ words were specific and I do not want to disobey him,” Sophie said. “On your way back up, Lupe, can you send Mr. Mills in, please?”
Lupe left.
“I’m taking a bath! He’ll see me,” Charisse protested.
“The water is thick enough to hide your body parts,” Sophie stated. “Plus he’ll stay on the other side of the curtain where he can see only your figure. I’ll be back in thirty no less. Don’t forget the instructions I told you to do when the timer goes off.”
He walked in filling the doorway with a look of concern in his eyes. Charisse wanted to duck under the water very aware of her nakedness.
“I have an emergency for a moment, Mr. Mills. Could you please keep an eye on your sister-in-law until I get back?”
“That’s fine,” he agreed and Sophie left out.
Parker immediately sat in the chair and glanced over at the curtain. All he could see was her head. Turning away so it wouldn’t look like staring, he reached inside his jacket to pull out his PDA/phone to busy himself.
A small beeping noise sounded to indicate she was to start rubbing herself, but she was so embarrassed, she didn’t even move. By the next beeping noise, she knew Sophie would get upset with her and just know she had not done as she was instructed to do.
To keep her nerves calm, she decided to talk while she started at her feet and rubbed the milky water into her skin.
“Why haven’t you thought about just adopting?” she questioned.
His Substitute Wife... My Sister Book One Page 3
