A Painted Smile Read online

  I couldn’t go but a few hours without seeing him and barely an hour without hearing his voice.

  And I was sure that he felt the same way.

  This was the real deal.

  I’d never felt this way about anyone before, not even Simon.

  I couldn’t control myself around him. The love that I felt for him was overwhelming and I was going to do anything that I had to do to keep him.

  The fact that he was an officer drove me crazy because most of the time he had a crazy work schedule and funny hours that I had to deal with, but I didn’t want to. I wanted him all to myself.

  “Happy birthday baby,” Jasper chimed and he pulled out a small black box.

  Was six months too soon to propose?

  Hell no!

  Well, at least not in my book, especially when it comes to true love and being with a man like Jasper.

  But I was disappointed when I opened the black box, only to find a pair of diamond earrings.

  “What’s wrong baby? You don’t like them?”

  “I love them. Thank you,” I forced myself to smile. I’d never been one too eager for marriage that had always been Mama’s job.

  But here, now, I just couldn’t wait to officially be Mrs. Jasper Armstrong.

  I’d been having so many dreams about that day and it was so close that I could taste it.

  “Well, I wanted to know if you would go out of town with me this weekend. I have to go do a training a few hours away. I figured we could ride down there together and then make a little mini vacation out of it.”

  “I can’t I have my parents anniversary party this weekend remember?” I said to him, feeling disappointed about the fact that he wouldn’t be able to attend.

  Both of my parents had the pleasure of meeting Jasper and they both adored him.

  Daddy loved him. Mama couldn’t stop talking about him and future grand babies. They both thought that we were a good fit for each other and I definitely agreed.

  Jasper and I enjoyed the rest of our dinner and headed back home for a night cap.

  Jasper pretty much lived at my place now.

  I’d never lived with a man before.

  Even though I’d been engaged and in other relationships I’d never felt the need to live with a man before we were married but I just couldn’t get enough of Jasper.

  We entered the house and to my surprise there were at least fifty candles lit and rose petals were all over the place. I immediately spotted the champagne and the chocolate covered strawberries on the coffee table.

  “When? How?”

  “I left my key under the mat and Todd set it up for me. I hope you don’t mind. Hell, I’m surprised at how good of a job he done,” Jasper smiled and grabbed my hand.

  As weird as Todd was, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d snuck and made himself a copy of my key. I don’t know what it is about him but I just didn’t trust him. But this wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

  Nevertheless, I was happy that Jasper had thought to do something like this. I’d definitely turned him on to the game of romance.

  I was a woman and we lived for those special wow moments and not only had I expressed that to him, I’d showed him on many occasions how it was done. I was glad to see that he’d been paying attention and that he was a fast learner.

  Jasper poured us both a glass of champagne as I took a seat. I hoped that he would have a few glasses too many because sex with him was a lot better when he was drunk. He was more at ease and I liked it.

  “This is a toast to the smartest, prettiest, woman that I’ve ever met. Loving you has been unexplainable. I find myself falling in love with you over and over again. You make me better. You make me complete. You make me happy. Happy birthday baby, I love you.”

  Our glasses touched and we both took a sip.

  Yes, it was my birthday, but he was the one about to get a gift.

  I reached for a chocolate covered strawberry and took a small bite.

  Strawberries were my favorite and I cooed as I savored its distinct taste. I teased the remaining piece of fruit with my tongue as Jasper watched me with a grin on his face.

  After a few seconds, I reached him the remaining piece of strawberry and he devoured it.

  As he reached for another one, I stood and started to unbutton my blouse. The black lace bra caught his attention and he froze as if he was standing outside in five degree weather.

  Letting the strawberry fall from his hands and hit the floor, he stood and inched closer to me.

  He attempted to kiss me but I stopped him.

  I was running this show.

  The birthday girl was calling all of the shots; he was just lucky enough to be coming along for the ride.

  And trust me---it was going to be a long, freaky, dirty ride.

  I continued my strip tease as he simply stood there and watched. Slowly, piece by piece I removed my clothing, except for my heels.

  As I danced, naked, without any music, I could hear his breathing as it became heavier and heavier.

  “Either you’re going to give it to me, or I’m going to take it,” Jasper finally spoke up.

  I giggled playfully and turned around, walking toward the bedroom.

  It didn’t take long for Jasper to get the hint.

  Happy birthday to me!

  ***

  The weekend came all too soon and I kissed Jasper goodbye as he prepared to hit the road.

  I was still a little upset that he was going to miss out on meeting the bulk of my family, but hopefully he would get to meet them soon---preferably sooner than later.

  “Be careful and call me once you get there,” I said to him and he nodded and drove away.

  I headed inside to get myself together.

  As soon as I walked into the house, my phone started to ring. I smiled, assuming that it was Jasper but I was wrong.

  It was Zara.

  “Hey.”

  “Where’s Jasper?”

  “He just left why?” I asked her.

  Zara exhaled loudly

  “I think you should sit down.”

  *********

  ~Life is never easy but everything that a person endures is for a reason. It’s for a purpose. Be careful not to “curse your crisis”, you just never know what it’s meant to teach you~

  ~Anonymous

  Chapter Three

  “Why are you sitting in the dark? Why haven’t you answered any of my calls all weekend? I thought something had happened to you! I left as soon as I could. I sent Todd over, he said he knocked for a while but you never came to door. What’s wrong Storm?” Jasper asked.

  I looked at him with my glass full of vodka in one hand and with a cigarette in the other.

  I hadn’t smoked in years but at the moment, I could have cared less about my back pedaling or my lungs.

  I continued to stare at him through the tears that were burning my eyes.

  “You and Todd can both go to…well, you know where you can go,” I said and took another sip of my drink.

  “What? Storm what is your problem?”

  “My problem is that you’re married. Next question please. And this time, ask me one that you don’t already know the answer to,” I said and took another sip.

  Zara called the other day to tell me that she and Todd hooked up again.

  She’d said although he had an infant sized penis, she was bored and lonely, so she called him up one night and had been keeping in touch with him.

  She’d said that he was very nice to her and seemed to be genuinely interested in her. So, against her better judgment, one night he asked her to come over, and so she did.

  She’d said once they fooled around, well, basically once he’d teased her, Todd fell asleep and she decided to snoop around the house.

  Zara stated that she was more than surprised when she came across a wedding photo.

  Jasper’s wedding photo.

  At first, she’d said that she assumed that maybe it was a previ
ous marriage and maybe I’d even known about it and just hadn’t mentioned it, except underneath the photo was the wedding program that confirmed that the wedding had taken place only three months ago.

  Imagine my surprise to find out that for the past three months, I’d been in a relationship and in love with a married man. And three months before then I had been dating a man engaged to be someone else’s husband.

  What?

  Jasper walked closer to me and touched my leg.

  “Don’t touch me. You will never touch me again!”

  Jasper pulled his hand back and then sat down beside me.

  “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”

  His words pierced my soul and I began to bawl.

  “She was the woman that I’d been with on and off again since we were teenagers. We’d been through a lot together. On and off for years. I’d proposed to her way before I’d met you but I figured that we would never make it down the aisle. I was just doing it because I thought that maybe she deserved it or that inside maybe she secretly wanted it. But for the most part, I figured that we’d be off again before we would even get that far but it didn’t happen that way.”

  “And so you married her? You got married while you were dating me? When Jasper?”

  “The wedding was the day before we made love for the first time. You assumed I’d worked all day and night but…”

  “So that’s why you were so uncomfortable touching me? We’d made love that very next day?”

  “I felt guilty. I just wanted to blurt it out but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. I was already in love with you. The blind date that night, was supposed to be just for fun. I was just filling in for a friend. Never did I think that it was going to be you. Never did I plan to meet someone as amazing as you. I fell hard for you. I’m crazy in love with you Storm.”

  “You’re in love with me? Really? You’re in love with me, yet you stood there and married someone else?”

  “It was out of obligation…I think. I don’t know why I did it. I guess it seemed harsh to pull out after she’d gotten it all together. I was stuck. I didn’t know what to do. Every excuse I gave her, she had a solution. But I knew her. She was as unsure as I was but not nearly as bold enough to say it. And on the wedding day, I tell you, nothing on that day seemed to be going right. Everything was ruined. Things just kept happening. The church was a mess, her dad got the flu, the pastor was dealing with diarrhea, the wedding cake fell, they lost our honeymoon reservations, and everything else that you can think of went wrong. We both kept calling each other from different rooms, asking if it was best to call it off. Though we both thought it was clear signs of disasters up ahead, we went through with it anyway.”

  My ears felt as though they wanted to bleed.

  They were burning, stinging as they listened to the words coming out of Jasper’s mouth.

  My heart was breaking, slowly, into a thousand tiny pieces. The more I cried, the harder it became to breathe.

  Jasper was supposed to be the one. He was supposed to be my only one.

  My last one.

  “On day twenty-nine, we both realized that the choice that we’d made was the wrong one, and we got the marriage annulled.”

  I looked up at him.

  Huh?

  “I know there’s no excuse for what I did. There’s no excuse for lying to you. I wanted to tell you so many times but I just didn’t know where to begin. So once we handled it and got it annulled, I figured it wasn’t worth mentioning.”

  Truth be told---I was thinking about killing him.

  I wondered if there was any way that I could do it and actually get away with it.

  If there was such a thing as dying from a broken heart, killing because of one had to be more than valid. Yes, temporary insanity, or a crime of passion, could definitely work in my favor at the moment.

  You just don’t hurt people that love you.

  You don’t just break someone’s heart because it’s convenient for you or because you want your cake and you want to eat it too.

  You just don’t get married while you have a girlfriend or have a girlfriend while you’re married.

  Who does that to somebody?

  I tried to get my thoughts together but all I could think about was why he had chosen to do something like this to me.

  So, I asked him.

  “How could you do this to me? And how did I miss it? I mean, you were staying over here, around all the time, calling non-stop. Where was she? Where was your wife?”

  Jasper stared at me as though he was the victim or as though he was begging for my understanding.

  It was as if he thought that he deserved my sympathy, when the truth was he deserved to get his ass…

  “Do you really need to ask that question?”

  As soon as he made his remark I knew what he meant by it.

  He was a cop; meaning that his work hours were never definite or set in stone. And even if they were, crime never sleeps, so things are always subject to change, and whoever the lady in his life was would not only have to understand that, but expect to go to sleep some nights alone.

  So, basically, on some of those long work nights and double shifts, he must have been with her…his wife.

  And I was sure that on the flip side, he had been giving her the same excuses that he had been giving me.

  Oh the betrayal!

  “But she never really cared where I was or what I was doing. She wanted out just as much as I did. What can I do to make this right? I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I love you.”

  Hearing him utter those words made me feel as though I wanted to die.

  Love is something that I took very seriously.

  You don’t say the words unless you actually mean them.

  And as far as I was concerned, Jasper didn’t mean those words or anything else that he’d ever said to me. Our entire relationship had been one big fat lie after the other.

  But the lying stops now.

  “Jasper get out. Get out and I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  I cried as I ran to my bedroom and locked the bedroom behind me.

  After a while I heard the front door open and then shut.

  I cried just a tad bit harder but my mind was made up. I’d meant every word that I’d said.

  Whatever it was that Jasper and I had was history.

  I guess he wasn’t the one after all.

  ***

  “Baby, talk to me. What’s wrong?” Mama questioned me, but I didn’t respond.

  It had been two weeks since finding out that Jasper was or from what he says, had been married.

  Today, I was still as miserable and emotional as I had been the day that I’d found out.

  I couldn’t sleep.

  I couldn’t eat.

  I literally felt like I wanted to die.

  I hadn’t felt this way since…

  Though Simon and I met in college, we became friends first and lovers second.

  There were times that we’d go through a few things together that caused us to take a break from each other for a while.

  On one particular relationship break, I’d met and began dating a guy named Nolan.

  Nolan was charming and sweet and to date, the best sex partner that I’d ever had. Of course I saw him as a potential mate though we’d never made anything official.

  He introduced me to what having fun in a relationship or situationship, actually meant.

  We would have so much fun with each other.

  I’m talking big kid, chasing each other around the house, locked inside with board games, karaoke singing type of fun.

  It definitely hadn’t taken much for him to sweep me off of my feet.

  But I was definitely the only one on that cloud because I soon found out that to him I was just another notch on his belt and what we’d had was nothing special, at least not to him. What we’d had was a joke or one big game.

  I walked into a restaura
nt one evening with a co-worker. I spotted Nolan with a few of his friends, or maybe they were colleagues but when I approached him to speak, he completely denied knowing me.

  I mean he looked at me as if I was a crazy lady and even came out of his mouth with a mountain of disrespect. He and his buddies laughed in my face and he turned his back to me as if we hadn’t been dating and sleeping with each other for all of six months.

  Though the situation with Jasper is different, I still felt horribly bad in the inside. I felt used and played and emotionally scorned and confused.

  The heartache and disappointment had initially been what drove me right back into the arms of Simon again.

  Luckily Simon was now married and I didn’t have that luxury of going backwards, not that I really even wanted it.

  But back to Jasper, though he hurt me to the core, for some reason my heart had already forgiven him.

  And that pissed me off!

  I wanted to hate him.

  I needed to hate him.

  But no matter how much I wanted to I just couldn’t seem to keep the fire of hatred burning in the inside.

  Strangely, and for the most part, I just missed him.

  I missed him like crazy.

  “We both know that it’s something to do with Jasper. You haven’t said much about him lately. Did you guys break-up? What happened? Do you want to talk about it with your old Mama? Maybe I can help you. I’m known for my good advice you know,” Mama smiled and I smiled back.

  That she was but even her words of wisdom couldn’t help me.

  Nothing could fix what had been broken.

  Except….

  “Mama, I’m fine.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Did you and Jasper call it quits?”

  “Mama, what do you think?” I answered her and before she got a chance to comment, or judge me, I walked away.

  I walked past my Daddy, who was hammering away at something in the living room and I headed out the front door.

  Immediately, the sun kissed my cheeks with its warmth, and I almost wanted to run back inside to the comfort of the air conditioning.

  But I needed to take a walk.

  I needed to clear my head.

  “Storm.”