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About the story:
Perhaps three is not a crowd…
Shae & Dylan were married as soon as it was legally possible. The stress of life came crashing down after 20 years. Desperately looking for a job, Dylan’s willing to accept anything to provide for his family. Most of all he desires to make his wife happy.
Zigmund finds himself pulled by the dark erotic beauty & given the chance, he opens himself to something unexpected but sensuously delectable.
Yet, will this be a carnal adventure they want to take forever?
Are you ready to start reading?
Read more: Her Substitute Husband… His Boss Chapter One – Losers don’t deserve a woman like her…Chapter One – Losers don’t deserve a woman like her…
Dylan’s mind drifted off despite the loud noises at the bar. He’d had another argument with his wife, and the growing tension between them was getting larger and larger.
Ronald’s heavy hand slapped Dylan on the shoulder, breaking his daydreaming. “You still aren’t wallowing in that petty shit again, D?”
This wasn’t a question. Dylan had known Ronald since childhood, and most times, Ronald wasn’t the asking kind of person. He liked to tell you what to do and what to think.
Lying, Dylan shrugged off his anxiety and finished off his beer. “Naw, I just wished things would get better so we didn’t have to fight.”
“Aww, Dylan, Shae will stand by you no matter how bad you fuck up. Why are you worried?” Ronald smiled a toothy grin. “That woman has been with you since she was an annoying girl following us all around the neighborhood. She’s been loving you like nobody’s business.”
Dylan thought about all the times when they were young, Shae would be hiding behind a tree or sneaking peeks when she should be studying.
He also remembered watching her when other guys were interested and how she would turn them down, but he couldn’t stop paying attention to how they liked to touch her back, arms, or thighs secretly. Shae would push their hands away and then find Dylan. Before they went together, she’d stand by him, and no guys would bother her.
Shae also believed in him when no one else did, and she sacrificed everything to help him get to where he needed to be. He was almost there, but his inattentiveness, reckless financial spending, and addiction to ridiculous betting when they had nothing started getting to her.
Yet, their last argument was about something other than those things. Giving Ronald his most serious glare, he asked, “Did you say something to her the other night at the Halloween party?”
Ronald’s beady dead brown eyes flickered with mischievousness briefly but then darkened. “What do you mean? I said she still looks good after all these years. What does she say?”
His gut told him Ronald was hiding something. Shae never lied to him. “Did you talk about anything I have said to you, Ronald? About Shae?”
“Naw, man. You know I’d never do that.”
Dylan knew he was lying. Ronald used the beer to hide the smirk he couldn’t stop from coming on his lips.
The crowd in the bar erupted as the game ended. Dylan looked down at the paper he’d gotten after he made a bet.
Five hundred more down the drain, and he knew Shae would be again disappointed in him. Yet, Ronald was right; she wouldn’t stop loving him.
Cursing under his breath, he checked his wallet to see he was short a hundred dollars.
“You believe her, Dylan?” Ronald asked incredulously. “I mean, she’s gotta be jealous of you or scared you might leave her. Women will say anything to pick a fight when they think they don’t have enough to keep you at the table.”
“She was agitated, Ronald. Just watch your mouth around my wife.”
Ronald sniggered, not at all taking Dylan’s threat seriously.
“Don’t try to make this about me, Dylan. You and I know you get Shae riled up because she’s more woman than you can handle.”
Dylan hated that he’d revealed his deep fears to Ronald because his old friend could always throw it back at him. “It doesn’t matter about that,” Dylan lied.
“It doesn’t?” Ronald asked, picking up the betting paper and crumbling it up. “When you ready to let me show you how to fuck her, call me up. Then you don’t have to indulge in wasting your money by betting on things you know you don’t have the money to play.”
Dylan couldn’t respond because the betting guy came around to collect. “Got my money, D?”
Before Dylan could hum and haw about not having them ney, Ronald put five thousand on the bar for the Collector. “That should cover his debt, right?”
“You don’t have to do that,” Dylan said.
“Yeah, I do. Cause you have to go home to that good lady of yours and know you aren’t man enough for her. Sooner or later, you will owe me so much, Dylan; you will have to let me have her for the night.”
Dylan bustled off his chair, ready to throw his hands on Ronald, but his friend burst out in laughter.
“Ah man, I was just fucking with you, D.”
Deep in his gut again, Dylan felt that Ronald was not kidding. In all, he owed Ronald about a good fifty grand, but he wouldn’t dare sell his wife to pay off his debt. Pretending to check his watch for the time, he said, “I better take your suggestion and get my ass home.” He started leaving, but Ronald followed him to the parking lot.
“I was fucking with you, D. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Ronald said, trying to assuage his friend.
Lying yet again, Dylan said, “Nah, man. I just got a lot on my mind. You know I have been looking for a job cause this minimum wage shit is not cutting it and -“
“I got you! Remember that guy I invited to the Halloween party?”
Dylan had to think for a moment but then remembered his friend walking in with the German-looking man who looked very out of place. “The weird fucking wallflower dressed in a tux?”
Ronald chuckled. “Ah yeah, I convinced my boss to leave his rut and come to a party.”
“Didn’t he only stay for like thirty minutes?” Dylan didn’t know why he’d noticed the strange man from the time he entered.
Ronald had introduced them, but Dylan had been so caught up with Shae, they barely wanted to be there. The guy had asked him about his experience and other career questions, but Dylan didn’t know the guy was interviewing him.
He also remembered the guy watching Shae, who always did that dancing chair thing but would never want to get on the dance floor, so Dylan had stopped asking long ago. Yet, Dylan remembered the guy looking at Shae’s awkward motions in amusement every once in a while when he thought no one was watching them.
Feeling no jealousy because, if anything, Dylan was confident about Shae’s feelings, Dylan tried to explain to the guy what was going on so the German guy wouldn’t think his wife was weird.
“She likes to dance in the chair,” he said.
“You should be jealous of the chair,” the guy replied.
Dylan and Ronald laughed it off. Shae was too consumed in her dancing to hear what they were saying.
Ronald lit a joint in the parking lot and handed Dylan to toke. Of course, Dylan refused because Shae would kill him more if he came home high and was a little drunk.
“Yeah,” Ronald said, “But he said he saw what he needed to see.”
“Which was?”
“You,” Ronald said as if it were obvious. “I told him about you and how your job fired you after treating you like shit.”
Dylan looked shocked. “Seriously, Ronald?”
“Hell, yeah. I told you I would help if you helped me, D. He wants to meet with you tomorrow at ten in his office.”
The tension from the bar faded away, and Dylan hugged Ronald. “Thanks, man!”
“Don’t forget. You owe me,” Ronald said.
Dylan only laughed it off as he got in the car and drove to his apartment building on Detroit’s east side. Two days after Halloween and a chill was already in the air. The two-bedroom apartment was in the basement. It was all they could barely afford.
Although the location of the building was in a middle-class neighborhood, there was still a high crime element, and the landlord barely took care of the property. On top of that, there was faulty wiring and bad pipes all over the building. There would have been a nice fenced-in parking lot in the back, but there was so much junk and garbage back there the tenants had to park on the street.
Parking on the street increased the chances of vehicle theft which was always rampant in the Motor City. Once or twice a window got knocked out because someone thought there was something expensive inside the car.
Dylan was computer literate, but he could go to the junkyard, find another window and replace it in their 2015 Honda. He could also fix all the little things Shae needed to be repaired around the apartment. His father had taught him a few things before he died.
Just as Dylan stepped into the building, he could hear the yelling from the stairway to the basement. Reluctant to coming home, he already knew what he would face.
Opening the door to the apartment, the voices of his wife and daughter hurt his ears.
“Why can’t I?!” Stephanie shrilled. “You’re just saying no ’cause you’re jealous! You’re jealous I have a high school degree and you don’t.”
The insult was a dig at the fact that Shae didn’t have her GED, and it kept her from getting any other certificates, but his wife was brilliant and street-smart. Dylan should have spoken up, but he didn’t.
Tiredly, Shae said, “I’m not jealous, Stephanie. We need the money for the bag. I won’t let you destroy any more of my work or get it stolen. Now I’m tired-“
Screaming hysterically, Stephanie yelled, “You’re always tired.”
Dylan followed their voices to walk into the kitchen. Shae hadn’t changed out of her cleaning uniform. Her full-size fourteen filled out the uniform nicely, and he loved how her creamy chocolate skin complimented the pink. The raw cotton of the uniform broke her out along with the cleaning chemicals she most likely had been around all day, so the splotches of red here and there told him he had a hard-working woman on his hands. Her eyes were this dull brown instead of the cinnamon amber when she was happy—happy days had been few and far between for Stephanie, a younger version of her mother, who still wore the same clothes she’d been wearing around the house for the past week.
“Daddy!” Stephanie said, relieved as if this was the answer to her prayers. “Tell Momma to give me the pink Chanel. I promised I would have it at the party tonight. Daddy, please.”
Dylan was too tired to take sides and looked at his wife. “Come on, Shae; it’s just a party. She’ll bring it back.”
Shae pulled out the hair tie holding her shoulder-length natural curly length in the sloppy bun, and scratched her scalp. “Oh, like she brought the Hermes back? I hadn’t seen that one yet, and then when she borrowed the Dior, she brought it back with the handle ripped. I could barely repair it and had to knock off three hundred from the price to sell it.”
“That wasn’t my fault!” Stephanie defended herself. “Daddy, please.”
Dylan looked at Shae. “She’ll bring it back, Shae.”
Shae looked defeated and walked to their bedroom. They kept the door locked because they kept most of the expensive bags Shae fixed up, and when they found out Stephanie was going in there and taking the bags to use at her leisure, Shae demanded a lock.
Stephanie rushed into her father’s arms. “Thank you, Daddy. I knew you’d make everything better.”
Perhaps Dylan gave in to her because he knew he could never make Shae this happy.
Shae returned to the room with a beautiful pink Chanel bag and set it on the kitchen table. Stephanie snatched it up and ran out without a word of thanks.
Dylan started to speak, but Shae put her hand up to stop him.
“Don’t.” She turned around and began cleaning up the kitchen, which looked like a hot mess.
He knew Shae had not been home all day, and he’d been at his job before going to the bar. There were half-cooked and half-eaten dishes all over the counter and floor.
Coming up behind his wife, he moved his arms around her waist and kissed her neck. His wife always smelled so sweet. That spot behind her ears was his favorite, where he loved to nuzzle his nose and revel in her essence. “When I find that big job, I’ll buy you all the purses you want.”
She rolled those eyes around and for a good reason. Dylan had made those promises for a couple of decades, and even he was getting tired of his empty promises. “Those purses aren’t for me, Dylan. You know I sell them after I fix them up. It’s our supplemental income because I can’t take another job to help with all the money we need.”
Dylan pushed away his inadequacies of not being able to make more money. “Shae, I’m trying.”
She pushed away from him to grab a broom to sweep up the sugar and powder all over the floor.
“Why is the kitchen a mess?” Dylan asked, confused as to why Shae was cleaning up the mess.
“Your daughter decided to make herself breakfast while she was home all day,” Shae said tiredly. “I can’t cook dinner until the kitchen is clean.”
Dylan was about to call for Stephanie to help her mother, but then he heard his daughter yell right before the front door slammed, “Bye, Daddy!”
Shae looked up at Dylan. He didn’t know her eyes could go duller.
“I’m going to fix up my resume. I might have a job interview in the morning,” he said and walked out of the room, knowing he was ten times wrong.
As always, his wife never said a thing.
As always, Dylan felt like a prick.
He shuffled into their bedroom, sat down where the shared laptop was, and worked on his resume. An hour later, he could smell southern fried chicken, gravy, mac and cheese, and sweet honey cornbread from the kitchen. It was going on ten o’clock, but Shae was a good wife, always ensuring her man had a good meal before bed.
Returning to the kitchen, he saw she still hadn’t changed out of her work clothes, and he’d calculated she’d probably been on her feet for about a good eighteen hours. “Hey, honey, I’ll get the mac and cheese out of the oven. Can you go check that resume out for me?”
Shae sighed but nodded and left the kitchen.
Dylan had already started fixing his plate. By that time, the mac and cheese was perfectly brown. He watched the highlights of the game on ESPN.
They couldn’t afford cable, but Shae traded weekly cleaning services with their upstairs neighbor for cable and internet to their basement apartment. Also, they kept their rent low because she kept the hallways of the apartment building clean.
Tomorrow this interview would rock, and he’d be able to give his wife everything she needed and everything he’d never delivered from promises after twenty-one years of marriage. Shae would be thirty-eight soon; he’d known her since they were twelve.
They’d fallen in love at first sight, and although everyone thought it was puppy love at the time, they knew it was more. When Shae became pregnant at fourteen, she didn’t hesitate to leave school to care for the baby while encouraging Dylan to make good grades. She would help him with homework, read books, explain them, and even complete his college scholarships. They married at sixteen with their parents’ approval because he knew he could do anything with Shae by his side, but the only person who could marry them was far away from their city. Seeing the difficulty of getting married, their parents thought they should wait, but they didn’t want to and eloped.
Being book-smart in the hood was frowned upon, and many guys made Dylan feel studying computer software was silly. They encouraged Dylan to get a factory job or do some hard labor.
Yet, Shae believed in him and encouraged him to do what he loved, and she would support their life.
“All those guys are jealous of you, Dylan,” Shae said. “They want what you have.”
Shae was the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, and damn if she weren’t the most hard-working woman he’d ever known.
Shae was a ride-or-die chick, and Dylan was the luckiest man alive to have her.
Now all he had to do was finally prove to her; she was the luckiest woman to have him.
He attempted to put the food up by jamming all the pans in the refrigerator and putting his dishes in the sink. He knew Shae would wake up early and wash them.
Going into their bedroom, he looked a little disappointed. Shae was knocked out on the bed, snoring loudly into the pillow, and her GED homework was on the computer screen.
Yet, when he pulled up his resume, he saw she’d made corrections to the document and even put an excellent header at the top, printed off two copies, and put them on top of a plastic envelope with a post-it note that read, “Good luck tomorrow, Dylan.”
He smiled appreciatively at the bed, but his wife still snored loudly to see it.
After undressing and tucking her under the covers, Dylan jumped in the shower to prepare for bed.
Stepping out of the shower, Dylan looked his body over. After 37 years, he had kept in shape; even with Shae’s good cooking, he woke up daily at five am to work out; Two hundred diamond pushups, two hundred squats, two hundred various hamstring workouts, and two hundred lunges. Between these, he’d do two-minute planks with different variations. Shae would join him twice a week, but she didn’t need as much as he did with all her movements on her job.
On top of that, Dylan had come from a family of overweight people. His father had been eight hundred pounds before dying at age forty from heart failure. His mother had followed shortly at seven hundred pounds. His older sister weighed over three hundred pounds, and his little brother tipped the scale at six hundred. Dylan loved to eat, but he vowed never to become obese.
He kept his hair short with a goatee with a small mustache over his lip. Shae didn’t like the beard he’d grown one year ago. Facial hair had been something she hated, but she didn’t mind the little he kept as long as he didn’t let it get out of control.
Dylan was a little darker in chocolate than Shae but still considered close to the paper bag color. The only detriment about his skin he hated was because of his profession; there weren’t many black people involved. Trying to be a Quality Assurance Analyst, getting all his certifications on his own, and working at a job for fifteen years that wouldn’t give him a raise or a promotion had been difficult.
When the company was being bought out, Dylan had been promised a full-time position with benefits, a raise in pay, and a promotion if he helped fix all the bug issues and cleaned out the old database to get it ready for transfer. Dylan worked his butt off day and night to ensure this was done, but the promise had been a lie. Once the company was sold, he was let go the next day – the day he thought he’d be walking into the office to prepare for his new life.
Telling Shae had been the hardest because, yet again, she sacrificed and worked hard while he gave away hours and hours without being paid.
Pulling his woman in his arms, he knew he was the most blessed man in the universe to have a wife like Shaenae Persephone Raven.
Copyright 2002 – Her Substitute Husband… His Boss -Sylvia Hubbard – All Rights Reserved.
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