Adored in Oman (Book 2 in Teach Me, Love Me Series): Interracial Romance (6 page)

The words “I love you” echoed inside Shan’s head and ricocheted off all her bones, rushed through her blood, filled the house, bounced off the rooftop and were probably heard in Timbuktu. That is how powerfully they affected her heart. She realized her husband was making love to someone she knew, if that voice belonged to who she thought it did. He was doing it in the house they shared, on the sheets she washed and bed they picked out at Haverty’s. He was doing it exceedingly well, too; if her declaration was to be believed.

Her heart was dust. Just dust. She knew herself, though. She knew if she didn’t finish this horror and actually
look
at it, she might walk out quietly and waste time (years maybe) lying to herself. She silenced her phone, enabled the video function and stepped into view of the room.

Carmen could see everything in the hallway because of the mirror on the dresser. She was filled with a sense of extreme triumph and satisfaction when she saw Shan on her knees.

“Good, this will teach that uppity heifer something,” she thought, as she closed her eyes and encouraged Jack in a louder voice. When she next opened her eyes, Shan was standing in the door way. She had absolutely no expression on her face and her phone in her hand. Her head was tilted to the side and she looked Carmen right in the eye.

Carmen smiled at her. Spread her legs wider, put her hand on the back of Jack’s head and said, “I love this, more please.”

He obliged. Shan kept watching and filming.

“Put it in Jack. Make me yours; I need it, just like I always do.”

This whole performance really had nothing to do with Jack. It never did. This was about Carmen bringing Shan down a peg. It was about making her feel weak and foolish. “You think you are better than me? Fine. I’ll take your man, in your house, in your bed, in front of you.”

Shan watched her husband crawl up Carmen’s body, licking her stomach, sucking her nipples, kissing her neck, tonguing her and pulling her leg onto his shoulder. Carmen kept looking Shan in the eye. She kicked the sheets away so Shan wouldn’t have any doubt about what was happening as Jack penetrated her body and started stroking.

“Damn girl. This is some good pussy. Shit. I should be in this every damn day.”

“You are right, you should. You can. Every day you want, as often as you want. You can have it all the time, all you have to do is tell me when and where,” Carmen told him.

It was the strangest contest ever held. Carmen kept watching Shan, waiting on her to react. Shan kept watching her husband stroke in and out of Carmen. She kept watching until he finished. As he jerked and spasmed and groaned out his satisfaction, she finally broke her silence.

“Jack. I am going to leave this house. When I return, I expect you to be gone. Don’t leave one single thing that belongs to you. Those sheets are officially yours now, as is the bed and everything in this bedroom except the jewelry my parents gave me and my clothes in the closet,” Shan announced in a very controlled, firm, emotionless voice.

At the sound of his wife’s voice, Jack jumped up from Carmen and stood on the floor. He was so stunned he didn’t even think to get a sheet. He looked like a shocked chocolate god; a tall, strong, beautiful and semi-erect deity with semen still spitting. He somehow managed also, to look pitiful and small. The expression on his face was equal parts horror and anguish.

“It’s over. I will never see or speak to you again, in this lifetime. If you attempt to return to this house, I will call the police and have you arrested. If you come to my job, you will not be able to find me. If you come to my mother’s home, she will sic Samson on you. Consider yourself free. You can be in some good pussy every day from now until you die.”

With that, Shan turned and left.

Carmen was furious. “How dare this bitch not acknowledge me! We will see about that at work. I will make sure everyone knows I screwed her husband. See if she can ignore me then.”

Shan drove directly to work on autopilot. She had already decided what she was going to do. She hadn’t been unmoved by what she was seeing as she watched the scene that had unfolded before her. She had been devastated. She was sick. Hurt. Confused. She had all the normal emotions any wife would, but she really wasn’t one for being distracted from the primary point.

The primary point was that her marriage of less than three years was over. This meant she would have to move. Her husband had screwed her co-worker, so that meant she would have to quit her job.

It turned out her mother was right, again. She was very glad she had gotten the teaching certificate, for back up. She had spent exactly three years in the classroom since she had done her student teaching. She taught while getting her Master’s degree. She paid out of pocket for the Master’s while living at home and got married in her last semester. Then, she wanted corporate money and left education.

Shan had a college friend, Anise who had also been a student teacher at the same school. Anise was going to Korea after graduation to teach. She was going to teach all over the world and then come home after she had seen the planet; that was the plan. Shan always felt it was a great idea and if she hadn’t been planning to marry Jack, she might have thought about doing something similar.

That was Shan’s new plan. It was time to see the planet. Texas was not big enough for how she was feeling right about now.

She parked her car in a visitor’s spot. She went to her desk and typed a letter of resignation effective immediately. She wasn’t one of those folks who kept personal mementos at work, because she didn’t have an office. She just grabbed her little box of necessities with headache medicine, allergy tablets, lotion, a couple emergency tampons and cocoa butter and put it in her bag.

She knocked on her VP’s door and asked for a quick minute. Melissa smiled and said, “Of course, what can I do for you?”

Shan kept it brief. “My circumstances have changed drastically this morning. I am turning in my notice, effective immediately. I have included the password to my email and computer in the letter. I have a calendar with all pending jobs and their current status, including completed tasks and next steps that I forwarded to the team and you. I will be leaving the country in the near future, so I will not be available after today.”

Melissa leaned back and said, “Wow, Shan! That’s no buffer for us at all. Would you be willing to share even a little bit what has brought you to this?”

Leaning forward, Shan said, “I can, but you are going to be embarrassed if I do. Are you sure you really feel you need to know why I am leaving?”

“Shan, I hate to be a hard ass, but this puts us in a bind, even with your calendar. Accounts are about relationships, not just task lists and you are leaving us very abruptly. I would hate to list you as ineligible for re-hire in the event you ever needed a reference,” was Melissa’s very businesslike response.

Shrugging, Shan pulled out her phone and showed the film clip.

Melissa’s entire face turned red and her mouth dropped. “Is that
CARMEN
?” she gasped.

“Yes. I will never willingly be in the same room with her again. I don’t blame her, I blame him. Still, she knew exactly what she was doing and had absolutely no shame. She looked me in the eye and kept going when she saw me in the doorway. I feel it was intentional. I have no idea why she felt that was something she needed to do and I don’t care. She didn’t swear any vows to me. He did. I’m angry, hurt and out of here. I hate to do it to you, but I have to take care of me,” were Shan’s final words on the matter as she stood and offered Melissa her hand. Melissa stood, came around the desk and engulfed Shan in a hug.

“You can list me as a reference any time. You always have a job here, if you ever decide to come back. However, if you are leaving the country, I have a feeling this place is already a part of your past,” Melissa whispered in her ear.

Shan left and moved on to step two.

Melissa pulled Carmen’s file and started looking at her attendance and performance reviews. She wanted that female out of her company. Melissa was a married woman. She didn’t like that video she saw, not one little bit.

That wasn’t Shan’s intention, but truthfully, she didn’t care. She wasn’t out to get Carmen, but she also had no care about who knew what went down. She wasn’t the one who needed to feel ashamed. She was leaving; she could care less if Carmen kept or lost her job. She wouldn‘t have shared, but Melissa asked.

Shan pulled into the bank and spoke with a service representative. She opened a new checking and savings account. She moved half of the amount from each of their joint accounts into her new ones. She had her name removed from the joint accounts. She looked at their revolving credit balance and paid half. She paid half the credit card balance as well. She was leaving Jack with only half the debt they accrued. She wasn’t about to be in some long, drawn out divorce. She would be free of him in ninety days.

Her next stop was their realtor. She explained the marriage had ended and the house was up for immediate sale. She was informed there would be paperwork. She gave Jack’s work address and her mother’s home address to the realtor. The realtor agreed to send everything to those addresses and communicate via email. She understood that she was never to copy Shan on any email she sent Jack. All correspondence would be separate. She didn’t even want to see his name on a To: line.

Her next stop was lunch. She was starving and it had been a busy morning. She treated herself to her favorite Cajun eatery. She ordered an iced tea and a Swamp Thing. She drank the tea and took the Swamp Thing to go. The last stop was her cousin’s law office.

Lawyer, yes that is his name and was always a little talking point with new clients, ushered her into his office. He knew shock when he saw it and had his secretary bring sparkling water and sweet tea. He listened as Shan recounted the tale, including the fact she had video evidence.

“Good. The fact you have video will make him less likely to fight you. I suggest you file and claim irreconcilable differences. If he tries to start trouble, I will tell him that you can always add infidelity and we will include the video as evidence. That makes it public record and could possibly be seen by someone he would rather not,” were Lawyer’s words.

“We can do whatever you suggest, but I want it filed immediately, today. I want Jack served as soon as possible. One more thing, I want my name changed back to Evans. I want to be Shannon Elise Evans, again,” Shan stated quite emphatically.

“No problem, I will get the ball rolling before you are out of the parking lot,” Lawyer agreed.

As Shan left, he got on the phone and started giving his paralegal the information she needed to get it all started today. He told her to mark it hot and nothing else on her desk took precedence over getting his cousin away from this fool. Only a fool took his girlfriend to the bed he slept in with his wife.

The next stop was the gas station. She bought a four pack of sauvignon blanc, a pack of menthol Newports and drove five hours to Galveston. She smoked half the Newports en route. The wine was sitting in a little cooler she had also picked up when she stopped at Woody’s Smokehouse off the highway. There was an additional four pack of wine, cheese, crackers, summer sausage, turkey jerkey and coffee, cream and sugar. She had bought a cute ceramic mug that said, “Free To Be Me” in bold letters.

She was driving through Houston and saw her favorite eatery and thought, “Twice in one day? Hell yes! I am leaving the country soon.”

She ate a tasty shrimp salad accompanied by crawfish bisque. She also did the sweet tea to go trick and stashed not one, but
two
Swamp Things.

Satisfied, she made her way on out of the big city and coasted into Galveston about 8:30. The sun had long ago set. Shan drove to her favorite hotel on the Strand and got a room. One hour later, after a shower and a Swamp Thing, melted, but still potent and tasty with just a little ice from the bucket delivered by room service, Shan called her mother.

“Hey Daughter!” Katy Evans sang into the phone. She hadn’t expected to hear from her only chick. They had talked just the previous day.

Hearing those two words, the greeting years old and a reminder of every warm and familiar thing she loved, Shan finally broke.

“Mommy,” she whispered.

In Longview, Katy stopped moving. Her whole body got tight. She knew that sound. Her baby was in distress. Not sad or upset or even angry. She was hurting in her heart and mind and body.

“Where are you?” Shan’s mother demanded.

In a tiny voice, lost and quivering, Shan said, “I’m on the Strand in Galveston.”

“Oh baby, why are you in Galveston? What happened?” Katy entreated. Galveston was where Shan went to lick her wounds. It was the closest beach and Shan had always loved the ocean, since she was very young. It soothed her.

In a halting voice, the words seemed to be jerked from her throat, “I went home unexpectedly and found my husband with his tongue on my co-worker’s clit and then he slid his favorite appendage inside her body and proceeded to screw her in our bed.” This was followed by a harsh, barking laugh. “I’m
so
stupid.”

“There will be
none
of that!” Katy snapped at her daughter. “I can’t even pretend to have a word for this, but you are not stupid. You never have been and you aren’t now that you have discovered your husband is not the man his mother raised him to be.”

In a gentler tone, “Now, what have you done? I know you did something! You have driven all the way to Galveston. That means you are making plans. 45 South is your break up highway.”

A more natural laugh made its way through the phone, bounced off cellular towers and into Katy’s ear. She relaxed a bit.

“You know that’s right, Mama!” Shan agreed. Lighting a Newport, not really caring if her Mama could hear her falling into a habit believed long dead, Shan responded on an exhalation.

“I left him. I quit my job. I took half our monies, opened new accounts and took my name off the joint accounts. I paid half our debts. I told the realtor to put the house on the market. I went to see Lawyer and he put that frighteningly efficient paralegal of his to work. I am changing my name, effective immediately. I am getting divorced, effective sometime in the next ninety days. I am spending the rest of this week in this hotel drinking and smoking cigarettes.”

Still smoking, Shan sat with her feet on the rail and looked toward the sea wall. “When I return, I am coming to Longview and I will apply for teaching positions in Korea, Thailand, and the Middle East. I am leaving the States on the first thing smoking. Then, I am going to forget I ever saw my husband,” she paused here, her voice faltering, “doing the things I caught him doing and I am
never, ever
getting married again.”

Shan was true to her word. Jack never saw her again and she never spoke to him again, though he tried on a number of occasions to make contact and had sent her many letters. He tendered his apology through her mother. By this time, she was working abroad. She wasn’t mad anymore and she told her mother she was happy to receive the apology and would forgive him.

When her mother asked if she should tell him that, her only response was, “I’m not sending Jack any messages. My last message was signed in Lawyer’s office. He’s forgiven. You can say I told you that I forgave him. Or, you cannot. I don’t care if he knows or not. It’s not about him. It is about me not being emotionally crippled.” She wasn’t mad. She was just uninterested to the nth power.