AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She set the card down and retrieved a long-handled fork from the drawer before she poured a large glass of her favorite wine. The food was delicious. Well-seasoned and buttery. So much so that she didn’t allow herself to eat too much, thinking of her waistline. But even as she enjoyed the meal, her eyes kept going to the card, and she was reminded of her inability to comprehend it.
She retrieved her phones from where they were charging and went into her contact list, dialing number three. It rang once and went straight to voice mail. “Call me, Mr. President,” she said, before hanging up and setting the phone on the counter.
She tapped her fingertips against the counter as she eyed the portrait of her parents. Both had been college educated, her mother a nurse and her father a pediatrician.
“Do better. Be better, Desi.”
How many times had he said those words to her when she was a child?
Cha-ching. Cha-ching. Cha-ching.
She looked down at the screen and answered the call, placing it on speakerphone. “Ready for the new school term, Mr. President?” she asked, turning to lean her buttocks against the counter.
“Ready as ever,” he said.
“Good,” she said, with a genuine smile. “And how are you?”
The line stayed quiet for a little bit. He knew what her question entailed, and perhaps the pause was him dealing with a sudden pang of pain and regret.
“I miss her,” he finally answered, his agony palpable even via a phone line.
“I know because it equals your love, Francis,” she said, turning and bending over the counter next to the phone.
“If it wasn’t for my children I would . . .”
His words faded, not giving voice to darker thoughts.
She clearly remembered the short and slender man in his early seventies with a head full of white hair that was once a sandy brown and blue eyes filled with intelligence but also some other emotion she couldn’t name at the time. But it became obvious as he spoke of his beloved wife of more than forty years slipping into a coma after a burst aneurysm that the emotion was grief. Pure. Unbound. Brimming.
For nearly an hour he had sat with her in her boutique, fresh off being vetted after a recommendation from one of her consorts who was a governor and fellow classmate. She listened. She empathized. She tried her best to console him.
Desdemona understood grief all too well.
She’d accepted Francis McAdams as a consort. She’d been surprised to learn that the president of a private college earned seven figures, and he was at the top of the highest earners when totaling his million-dollar base pay, another million in bonuses, his retirement plan, and living for free in a large home owned by the university. He could more than afford her rate, she made sure of that. Before entering the education sector he was a brilliant attorney with a stellar law career.
After meeting with him and seeing his devotion to his wife, she wisely chose a courtesan with a trashier look and less education. Red was someone he would never connect with on a deeper level. That was important, because he was only looking for a physical release. No connection. No communication. Just sex. Once a week for the last year.
“How is Kimber?” she asked.
“The same.”
“I’msosorry, Francis,” she said, the truth of her regret present in her tone.
“I know.”
She regretted calling him, seeming to help nudge him toward his sadness over the loss of his wife. “I . . . uhm . . . I was just . . .”
“It’s been a year and you’ve never called me. It’s always the other way around,” he said, amusement now present. “It must be important.”
Desdemona picked up the phone and unplugged it from the charger before she walked backward into the kitchen to eye her parents in the portrait again. “I, uhm, I could use your help,” she said, hating the way her fear and shame caused her heart to pound. “I . . . I—”
“Yes?”
She looked up to the high ceilings. “I need a tutor to help me study for my GED,” she said, the words rushing together and almost colliding.
Her shoulders deflated, and she exhaled through her open mouth.
If he was surprised by her revelation, he covered it well. “A tutor is not a problem, butourbusiness—”
