Message from a Mistress (2 page)

B
eing a housewife was important to Jaime, but doing the actual labor of keeping a nearly four-thousand-square-foot house clean was a definite no-no. Especially when there were plenty of women who were willing to be paid a fair rate to do it for her. And once a week, while Eric was at work and completely out of the loop, Jaime had a professional maid service send someone else to come in and do all of the grunt work she disdained, leaving nothing but tidy work for her throughout the week. It was one of her mother’s tips for a happy marriage that Jaime had actually found useful.

And the list of those tips was endless and had been drilled in her head since she was a preteen.

Too endless to count.

Too endless for her to truly care, although she played by every rule.

And I did them all…so why is my marriage in trouble?
she thought, studying her reflection as she sat at her ornate dressing table.

She felt a gradient of stress across her shoulders and the back of her neck. The thought of a spa day with her good friends sounded all the more appealing to her.

Ding-dong
.

Jaime thought the sound of that doorbell was an annoyance. She really was not in the mood for company of any kind. She just wanted some “me time” until she left for her midmorning appointment. More and more, the way her life was plated was becoming hard to swallow, and it was in those moments when she needed to be herself…like now.

Ding-dong
.

Releasing a heavy breath, Jaime rose from the dressing table, her silk robe billowing out behind her as she turned to leave the room.
Who could it be?
she wondered as she descended the stairs.

Ding-dong
.

She passed the large, framed oval mirror on the hall wall and doubled back. She’d forgotten that her hair was still tied up in her silk scarf, she was make-up free, and she wore nothing but her silk robe. Her own husband had never seen her without some sort of make-up on—another of her mother’s marital rules.

She continued on to the door and looked out one of the ornate side windows as she pulled her robe closer around her slender frame. “Jesus, take the wheel,” she drawled, deeply massaging the bridge of her nose before she placed a smile on her face and opened the door wide. “Morning, Mama. Hey there, Daddy,” she greeted them, sounding more like a Southern belle than a city girl.

Her parents lived just thirty minutes away in another subdivision and that meant random drop-ins like this happened quite often.

“Good morning,” they said in unison as they walked into the foyer and presented themselves for the customary air kiss to her mother’s cheek and a big hug for her short, round, and completely loveable father.

“Do you normally answer the door in such attire?” Virginia asked as Jaime led them across the hardwood floors to the family room.

The question was filled with judgments…which was normal when it came to Virginia Osten-Pine, the self-proclaimed wife, mother, socialite extraordinaire.

“No, I wasn’t expecting company,” Jaime said politely, catching her mother drag her finger across the top of the large leather ottoman serving as the coffee table.

Jaime’s home was a showpiece. Pristine, stylishly decorated, and the envy of many of her neighbors. In fact, it had been showcased in the realty section of a small local newspaper. Most people walked in and paused at the first sight of it with its high ceilings, dozens of large windows, dramatic art pieces, and décor.

Not Virginia Osten-Pine, or rather, Mrs. Franklin Pine.

“What brings you to this side of town?” she asked.

“We just thought we would treat you kids to breakfast at our country club,” Franklin said. “Where’s Eric?”

Jaime turned to face him because not to do so would be rude and she knew her mother would’ve called her on it. “He went deep-sea fishing with Kingston and Jackson. They’ll be gone all day, Daddy,” she told him.

“Now, that sounds like a fun day out for the fellas,” Franklin said, folding his hands atop his rotund belly.

“Yes, dear,” Virginia said.

Jaime eyed her mother for a bit before she turned and continued up the stairs. She knew for a fact that her mother hated her father’s passion for fishing, but Jaime would bet her last dollar that Virginia had never questioned her husband about it. She saved her opinions and judgments for anyone and everyone else
except
her husband.

Jaime couldn’t recall one time her parents had argued. Ever.

Franklin spoke and Virginia obeyed. Chocolate-covered June and Ward Cleaver.

“So I’m going to…going to…” Jaime paused because if she said anything about a spa day she knew her mother might invite herself along. She loved her mother, but the woman could be so overpowering with her thoughts and opinions at times. Jaime had enough on her shoulders to bear without topping it off with her mother’s crap. “I’ll be cleaning all day and preparing a nice home-cooked meal for my husband.”

“Well, you have time to go to breakfast with us,” Virginia said.

Although Jaime didn’t want to, she acquiesced. “Excuse me while I finish getting dressed,” she told them, turning to climb the stairs and to be free.

She figured she could eat with her parents and then head straight to the spa. She shouldn’t be too late. Her friends, unlike her parents, would understand.

Renee felt completely overwhelmed. A major marketing proposal was due on her boss’s desk first thing Monday and she discovered she’d left important files at the office. Her seventeen-year-old son’s room smelled of corn chips and puffy cheese doodles. The hampers were overflowing with dirty clothes, which equaled doing laundry to the fullest. The entire house could use a good deep-down cleaning—including eradicating the dirty dishes in the sink. Her kids wanted to go to Jackson’s parents’ and needed a ride. Side dishes for the fish fry/card party still had to be made. And she was looking forward to the spa day with her friends—she refused to cancel, especially after the “we need to talk” bomb Jackson had dropped in her lap before he left. She absolutely refused. Shit.

In the couple of hours since the men piled into Jackson’s dual-cab pickup, Renee had tried not to think or imagine the worst. But it was hard. “We need to talk” were not the words a woman wanted to hear…especially when her marriage had been teetering on the edge of ruin. Nevertheless, she forced herself to believe that the conversation was all about making things better…and not worse.

Still, her original plans of focusing on her proposal until she left for the spa were out the window. The last thing she needed was for Jackson to come home to a dusty house reeking with dirty clothes.

Prioritize, Renee. Prioritize. Get your shit together
.

She was a mother. A businesswoman. A multitasker. A problem solver.

“I can handle this,” Renee told herself as she ignored the doubtful glance Kieran cast in her direction as she sat atop the island, now dressed in a cute T-shirt with a ruffled denim skirt.

She picked up her BlackBerry and dialed. “Darren, this is Renee. I hate to bother you on a Saturday but I need a big favor.”

“Ask away, boss.”

“Good. I need you to go into the office and pick up the files I left. I think they’re in my chair, actually,” she told him as she started dish water in the deep double sink.

“I know exactly the ones you’re talking about.”

“Good. Call me when you get them because I might not be home and I’ll have to give you directions to where I am. Okay?”

“No problem, boss.”

Renee sat the BlackBerry by her briefcase as she pointed to Kieran. “You. Dishes. Go,” she ordered over her shoulder as she made her way out of the spacious white kitchen to the laundry room in the finished basement.

This hustle and bustle of trying to juggle her career and her family was the major point of contention in her marriage. Renee always looked and felt like she was one step in front of the eight ball. Nothing came easy anymore, but she saw it as a challenge while Jackson saw it as a hindrance.

“We need to talk….”

She pushed that away, determined to find the balance and make everyone—including herself—happy. She planned to do everything on her recently revised to-do list—including blowing Jackson’s mind with a great “talk” on bettering their marriage and then blowing his dick to top it all off right.

Renee hated to think back to the last time she’d sexed her husband. They had gone from sex at least once a day to barely once a week. And Jackson’s sexual appetite was voracious. She shivered at the very thought of how they used to get down…absolutely
nothing
was taboo.

And she missed that….

Shaking off a far too distant memory of a steamy night complete with scented body oil, handcuffs, and anal beads, Renee started a large load of whites and headed back up the stairs. She barely stopped when she reached the top to walk down the hall to the staircase leading to the top level.

She didn’t try to fool herself into thinking that busywork was keeping her mind distracted from that talk. As she neared her son’s room at the top of the stairs, she heard the sounds of video games echoing against the wall. She knocked on the door twice before she opened it and walked in.

“Mornin’, Ma,” Aaron, her seventeen-year-old, greeted her.

Renee pinched her nose. “Aaron, this room makes no sense and it reeks. How can you lay up in this pig sty like this?” she asked, stepping over a pile of sweat-funky football gear to reach his full-sized bed. His room was disaster central. Clothes, dirty and clean, mingled on the carpeted floor.

“It’s just self-expression, Ma,” he said, never taking his eyes off the bright graphic images on the television screen.

“The ability and right to self-expression has a cost…and it’s called a mortgage, which you don’t pay,” she drawled. “Go take a shower and then you have thirty minutes to get this room back to being habitable.”

“Uh-huh.”

Renee did a double take. “Now, Aaron,” she told him in her best prison warden tone.

A second later he reached forward to turn the console off.

“It does smell pretty bad, huh?” he asked with a dimpled grin that truly made him the spitting image of his father.

Renee hugged his slender frame to her side and kissed his cheek.

“Ma,” he complained as he made his way to his private bathroom.

Renee could only shake her head. She hated to admit that this was another example of how little time she spent at home anymore. In the past, Aaron wouldn’t have even tried her by keeping his room this junky. She hardly had time to come in his room and check up on him anymore.

She pulled the football-motif comforter from his bed, planning on washing his linens. She froze and leaned in a little closer. The crusted white spots splattered on his sheets looked a lot like…

Evidence of Aaron’s encounter with Mrs. Palm and her five daughters.

Renee gasped and made a horrid face as she hurried to put the cover back on the bed. She turned and flew from the room, trying to erase the image of her son—
her baby
—masturbating beneath the covers.

“That is Jackson territory,” she told herself as she headed to the guest bathroom to wash her hands.

Renee had way too much on her plate to tackle Aaron’s puberty. For now all she could do was shake her head.

Aria stretched her nude frame beneath the cool cotton sheets of her bed. After Kingston’s sexy good-bye by the door, she’d headed straight back to bed to sleep off the mini adventure.

She smiled into her plush pillows before turning over onto her back and looking up at her reflection in their mirrored ceiling. It was so eighties but they both loved being able to see the motion of the other’s body as they rode.

Aria flung the covers back and hitched her full breasts higher as she lightly stroked the top of her plump and bald pussy. Kingston loved when she got a Brazilian wax, and Aria always recommended it to her friends because there was nothing like a clever-tongued man licking circles on top and inside a woman’s pussy.

Rolling off the bed, Aria grabbed lingerie from her nightstand drawer. She had to hustle. Her impromptu nut nap had eaten into her work time. Working from home as a relationship columnist and freelance writer was her life’s dream…except when her procrastination kicked in and she was running late on a deadline. It was during those long hours into the night that Aria longed for a day job and a clock to punch.

Overall, Aria loved her life, especially when her career led her to the city. New York was so her vibe and pace. She didn’t mind suburbia, but she craved the city. Still, she would have followed Kingston into the bowels of hell, and Richmond Hills was far from that.

The hospital where he worked as a surgeon wasn’t far from their home, and NYC was just a thirty-minute commute. And he always pointed out that they were more at home in the ’burbs than they would be in New York.

Aria looked around their bedroom and she was amazed that this was her home. It was a long way from the Weequahic section of Newark.

Hell, her life as an Ivy League graduate, wife of a prominent doctor, and successful journalist was far removed from her upbringing. Her past. She felt and appreciated her blessings every single day, but she never forgot where she came from and those still there that she loved and cherished. Never.

Aria took a bath in their black Jacuzzi tub and for now dressed in terry cloth shorts and a cut-off wifebeater. Kingston loved when she wore things like this around the house. It never failed to get his attention—her husband would drop whatever he was doing to do her. Period.

She padded barefoot out of their room and down the hall to her office. Although it was morning, she flipped the switch to bathe the comfy but functional room with light. The chocolate and pink décor clearly spoke that this was her zone and her zone alone. Like Kingston had with his own office downstairs, Aria had decorated it just the way she wanted. They each had their own space within the unisex décor of their home.