When the sound of her snoring filled the room, Ethan thought it safe to get out of the bed. Lynne was a hard
sleeper and he knew the workout he had given her would most definitely put her out until the early morning
lights, when she would be craving for more. Picking up the two condoms he had used, he dumped them in the
garbage. The slut hadn't even noticed he'd faked an orgasm. He'd been doing this for the past three times they had
intercourse. He was trying to be the unsuspecting husband, but it was difficult when the stupid cunt didn't even
make an effort anymore to hide her infidelity from him. She just thought he was downright ignorant. Three lovers
he'd found already, and he worried there were more of them well placed with easy access to her open arms.
Staring down at her, he felt an inclination to kill her. He could take the thick king size pillow and cover her
face up so she would never utter another word again and never enjoy being in the arms of another man. The lying
filthy cunt! Damn! Why did she have to be his wife?
Crossing the large bedroom, furnished in black wood and purple - his favorite colors - he picked up her purse
and opened the organizer. Did she purposely write in her lover's appointment times knowing he could look, or did
she think he was just too dumb to look? Either way, he had found out about the many lovers of Lynne Gray-Black
about two months ago. The thought of her sleeping with other men didn't bother him as much as he thought it
would. He had never loved her in the beginning. She was just something to do, but when she became pregnant
three years ago, he was an honorable man and married her. She lost the baby in its eighth month when she decided
to get drunk and crash a brand new Mercedes into a tree at eighty miles per hour. The doctor said the little boy
was practically ripped out of the placenta and the cord around his neck choked him to death.
His son had never had a chance and now Ethan wasn't going to give Lynne a chance. He would find
something to hurt her, just like she was hurting him. Flipping through her organizer, he found the address he
needed and quickly wrote it down. Nanna Gray lived on the west side of town. He knew she owned a
Laundromat, which was being run by a stepson, Marvin Clark. Nanna was old and sick from a recent stroke and
she was basically home-bound for the rest of her life. But, she depended upon Marvin to keep her business going.
Ethan had hired a detective to investigate Lynne's past and he found out a great deal of information on his
wife. Nanna had two daughters, Ecole and Lynne, who were twins. Ecole had been a very bright child, while
Lynne was lazy and slow. Ecole had graduated four years early from middle school and completed high school in
a year, then went on to college. She married at the age of sixteen to Marvin Clark, but then she died while having
a child at the age of seventeen. Marvin was only eighteen and since he had no other family, he stayed with Nanna
to help her with the business. Although from the reports, he was more like Lynne--very lazy. But, Nanna had no
one else to help her.
Meanwhile, at the age of thirteen, Ethan found out that Lynne had a daughter out of wedlock. No one was
sure who the father was, but Lynne didn't care about the child. Nanna ordered Lynne to have the child and give
parental rights to her. Lynne obeyed but soon after the child was born, Lynne left the house for New York to
pursue a modeling career.
Ethan found her there when he attended a construction convention in the city five years ago, working as an
upscale escort. She was great in bed and he convinced her to come back to Detroit and live with him in the
outskirts of the city in Auburn Hills. He had a large house in Detroit, but never used it because he never liked
living in the city.
Even with his powerful stamina, which he was very famous for, it wasn't enough to satisfy his insatiable wife.
She seemed to crave men and he found out through the detective that when he was away at work, she was having
two to three trysts a day. Sometimes, they were with more than one man. Realizing this sickened him and he knew
he would never have any emotions for his wife for the rest of his life.
This also meant that he could divorce her and she wouldn't get a dime of his money because of the prenuptial
agreement his father had her sign. There were pictures, receipts, notes, and witnesses that could attest that Lynne
had not been faithful to Ethan.
Yet, this wasn't what pissed Ethan off the most.
Finding his wife making love to his own brother in Ethan's bed was what had pushed him to the limit. He was
in the opinion that his father planned it, by sending his son home from an Upper Peninsula job two days early.
Ethan heard noises upstairs and strangely, the rest of the house was empty. Going toward the noises, he knew
it was his wife, but then coming around the corner to see the man she was riding was enough to rip his gut out
After this, Ethan had been completely on the outs with his family, including his father, whom he was sure knew
about the affairs long before Ethan caught his brother. Ethan even suspected his father had fallen for Lynne’s
seductress ways, despite how his father felt about black women.
Lynne stirred in her sleep a little, but this didn't bother him. Lighting a cigarette, he wondered how he would
get revenge on his wife. How would he make her so emotionally disabled that he could bring tears to those cold
black eyes, stress that perfect cocoa skin and see her gray from the hurt he put on her heart?
When morning came, Ethan had not slept all night. But, he had somewhat of a plan in mind, except he needed
to find out more information.
After getting dressed, he picked up the organizer and looked at her schedule. She was due to go over Nanna's
house to check on her. Every Tuesday she did this. Ethan had a feeling Lynne was just waiting for her mother to
die so she could take control of the Laundromat and sell it off. She had already talked to buyers when Nanna had
her first stroke and this weekly visit was only to make people think she was actually concerned about her mother.
But in truth, Lynne cared more about herself than anyone else. Whenever Nanna died, Lynne would make a small
fortune on the business, which received high traffic due to the location.
Never once had Lynne ever invited him over to see Nanna. She had repeatedly told him he wouldn't be
accepted, because of his color, in her part of the neighborhood. She didn't want anybody to bother Nanna in her
condition when they found out Lynne had married a white man. She was quick to say color didn't matter to her,
but people in the neighborhood wouldn't understand.
He wanted to know what she had to hide over at Nanna's place. Was it the child? It had to be because she
never made the effort to tell Ethan about the girl. He had found this out through the detective he hired.
Driving his custom van to the office, he changed into some casual clothes and a baseball cap. With the dark
tan he naturally sported and the curly hair with a cap, he wouldn't be recognizable in the hood. He borrowed one
of his employee’s '93 Dodge Shadow and drove it to Nanna's block to wait.
About an hour into his wait, he saw a female come out the house toting garbage. Since it was cold out, she
had on a hat and a thick ankle-length brown coat with a fur collar. The hat was pulled low on her face so he
couldn't see her features well. After she dumped the trash in the large black Courville garbage container, she
walked in the opposite direction where Ethan was sitting. From the look of her, she couldn't be more than sixteen.
But then if that was the daughter, she would have to be nineteen.
Ethan had gotten a brief history on the girl from the detective.
She was very sheltered. Mainly, she took care of Nanna, even going so far as to drop out of high school at
fifteen and take care of her grandmother and the home. While getting her GED, at night she worked at the
Laundromat and read insatiably. The detective noted that he once saw her reading War and Peace. When she
wasn't taking care of Nanna or working, she earned extra money tutoring elementary mathematics to children in
the neighborhood. Plus, she started to get a teacher’s certificate without anyone else knowing that she was
sneaking online for a degree. She was a numbers genius according to past teachers. But since she never finished
regular high school, many thought she had gone to waste. The detective said that when she turned eighteen, she
opened an account and deposited money earned from tutoring, without her uncle knowing about it.
Her personality was invert. She didn't go anywhere other than home or work.
The uncle was a different story. He had married Lynne's twin, Ecole Gray, and now stayed permanently at
Nanna's home after his wife died in labor of their first child, who also died. Ethan was positive no one knew about
the man's penchant to visit the city casinos and bet a thousand a night, wasting money and borrowing from the
wrong people. They were carless and almost houseless because of this man. He was slowly deteriorating the
family business by taking money from the business to support his gambling habit. According to the detective, he
owed a lot of money to the wrong people, who would kill him if he didn't pay up soon.
Ethan didn't follow the girl. He waited another hour, when Lynne finally pulled up in the driveway. A man
came out who stood about six feet, very lanky and ungroomed. Lynne got out of the car and gave him a long kiss
on the lips. They laughed together at something he said, and then with a swat to her butt, they rushed in the house.
Putting out the third cigarette, Ethan got out of the car and went around the alley until he got to Nanna's
backyard. He climbed the fence and went around to various windows until he found the one he wanted.
They were half locked in an embrace, desperately trying to get their clothes off, kissing and rubbing each
other all over. She was a nymphet, craving every touch he placed on her body with his hands and mouth. Ethan
could hear their groaning and panting outside the window.
"Damn baby, you so wet!" Marvin moaned as he plunged repeatedly into her. She clutched him as if her life
depended on it.
"Ohh baby, I'm coming," he warned.
"Not yet," she begged.
"Oh shit."
"Not yet."
"Arrrrrrrrgh."
"Damn!"
He collapsed on top of her, his body shaking as if he were having a conniption, and then relaxing. "I'm sorry
baby," he said, panting into her neck. "I'll hold out longer next time. You just so good to my dick, I can't help it."
She cursed again. "You said that shit last time, Marv." Angrily, she pushed him off of her and put her clothes
back on. "Where is she?"
He sluggishly put his clothes on, too. "Nanna's sleeping."
Lynne smacked him on the back of the head. "I'm not talking about the old bat, you idiot. I know Nanna
sleeps all day. I want to know about the brat."
"When you called and said you'd be here in five, I sent her to the Laundromat like usual. You said you didn't
want her around when you're here."
"I know what I said," she snorted, combing her thousand-dollar weaved, waist-length light brown hair. "I
talked to the doctor and he said Nanna's not going to make it past the New Year without a transplant. But he
didn’t think he could push her up on the list anymore than what he had already done. In any case, I talked to the
lawyer and she hasn't changed her will either. Me and you still get everything and we can push the brat out the
way easily once the old bat is out the picture." She lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly. "Did you stop the
aspirins?"
"It's pretty hard when the kid is around. She takes care of the old lady out of habit. It's like if Nanna's sick, she
don't function well and until Nanna's out the way, we need her for the business. The better the books look to the
investors, the higher we can sell. The kid keeps everything running smoothly."
Lynne poked him in the chest with her hundred-dollar manicured nails. "You'll just tell her to concentrate on
keeping the business running while you take away those pills. Those are about the only thing keeping that bitch's
blood from clotting. If we can get one more stroke by the end of the year, we can have a nice New Year's Day
funeral."
"What about your husband?"
"What about him? He has no clue about anything, and I do mean anything." She put the cigarette out and took
out her organizer. "He's got a big meeting downtown and he won't be back to the Hills until a week from now. But
who cares. I got people to see and places to go."
"You gonna tell me that rich cracker gives you all that shit and money, then don't give a shit what you do?"
"I got him wrapped around my finger, lover. Just like I got you." With that, she gave him a very generous
tongue bathing with her mouth to his. It was disgusting to watch, but Ethan watched anyway, interested in how
the lovers interacted. The man was clearly pussy whipped with Lynne, just like his brother and the other men she
slept with. He was glad that he had awakened to smell the bullshit Lynne dealt out, and it didn't smell pretty at all.
"You want some more?" he asked amazed.
She went over to her purse to fix her lipstick. "Later, I got to spend some of my husband's money. Then I'll be
back later to say hello to the old bat."
Ethan ducked when he saw her coming to the window.
"When you come back baby, I'll be already for you," Marvin promised, following her to the window.
Ethan pressed his large body against the house, praying she didn't look down as she opened the window to air
out the smoke and the smell of sex. He didn't move until he heard their footsteps move away from the window.
Then he ran to the back and leaped over the fence. His long thick legs carried him down the alley in a hurry.
He was so intent on getting back to the car that he didn't see the person coming up the alley to duck into it.
They bumped so hard into each other; Ethan fell back hard on his butt. When he was able to gain his balance and
stand up, he looked around to where the other body had fallen. It was a female he bumped and when he looked
down at her, he gasped, not believing he was looking into a younger more beautiful version of Lynne.
She scrambled up and took his hand, pulling him to the side of the garage belonging to the first house on her
corner. A car was coming toward them, but before he could look to see if it was Lynne, the girl was pulling his
face down so he could kiss her.
The feel of her lips against his was a rush to his system. The thrill of her sweet innocent taste on the tip of his
tongue made him forget where he was and the cold biting at his ears. Her fingers moved up his nape and wrapped
in his hair as she deepened the kiss, parting her lips, inviting his own tongue in to taste her. The soft moan
escaped her throat as he pressed closer against her receptive body, wrapping his arms around her slim waist. She
teasingly licked at the corners of his mouth, creating a totally new sensation for him, taunting his manhood to
come alive.
The feel of his arousal against her stomach must have made her aware first of their surroundings, because she
broke the kiss breathlessly trying to push him away.
Reluctantly, he let her go. "What the hell did you do that for?"
"My mother was coming around the corner," she explained. "I didn't want her to see me and I didn't know
what else to do." She looked him up and down. "You aren't from around here, are you?"
He wiped his mouth, as if the taste of her disgusted him. "That's none of your fucking business," he sneered.
"If kissing me was that bad, why didn't you stop it?"
"Shut your mouth, little girl."
"You're the one out of your neighborhood, cracker." She started walking in the opposite direction from her
home.
He watched her walk away, wanting to say something, but too upset at himself for acting like a child to call
her back. Had she been spying, too? Did she know about what they planned on doing to Nanna? Marvin said the
kid was protective of the old woman and the detective had said the child had a lot of smarts.
He wanted to know more about her.
Love Like This by Sylvia Hubbard
