Chapter One

 

The door stood before her a half inch open. Sophie's hand gave the door a slight push. It muttered a creaking sound like something out of the soundtrack of a creepy horror movie till it came to rest at the other end. She took a first tentative step, and then another into the bedroom. The bed was king-sized and it lay before her ready and inviting. To her right was an open window; there was another situated behind the bed, looking directly out to the street on which the apartment building stood. She remained rooted to where she was in the room with one hand holding onto her handbag. There came the sound of footsteps approaching her from behind. Her heart drummed a frantic beat in her chest. She didn't dare herself to turn around to see who it could be. Already she knew who it was-this was his apartment after all, and this was his bedroom that she was standing in. She ought not to be here, but she told herself it was for all the right reasons ... nothing but the right reasons. She felt his breath hit the back of her dress, ruffling the back of her lengthy sandy-blonde hair a second or two before she felt a pair of hands grasping her arms. Still she remained standing where she was, even as a pair of lips inched towards her face and kissed the lobe of her left ear. She muttered a sigh from it.

"I'm so glad you came," a man's baritone voice said behind her, and then one of his hands slid under her arm and grasped her breast behind her blouse. "I'm glad you decided to see things my way."

He kissed her ear lobe once again, sliding his tongue between the curls of her outer ear. Her eyes drew half shut and a slight moan escaped from her lips. She couldn't help it this time as she inclined her face towards his lips, allowing his hands to spurn her around to face him. Her hands seemed to have a life of their own as they lifted themselves up to touch the man's naked chest. She rubbed her hands against the hairs of his black skin. Black like a chocolate candy bar with hers white as vanilla ice cream.

She felt his hands slid down her back to grasp her buttocks from behind her short skirt. She felt her ass cheeks tingle from his touch. The skirt was light-grey in color, and it stopped two inches above her knee. Her husband, Tim, always liked her wearing it. Though she seldom indulged him in such, never thinking it as proper a mode of dressing. Today she had worn it for a stranger. Well, not actually a stranger, but her boss, and his large black hands were right now feeling up her pantyhose. Soon it will stop to discover that she wasn't wearing anything else underneath.

Here she was, being seduced by a black man who as well was her boss ... and the truth of the matter was that her husband barely knew of what she was doing. God forbid if anyone should known of what she was doing. Before coming here she'd told herself it was for the money, for the job promotion she was to be getting ... but now as she thought about it, was that really the right reason?

How had things gotten this far? Her mind went back to Friday morning, two days ago, when that damn alarm clock had rung ...

 

* * *

 

Two Days Ago...

 

Sophie came groggily awake from the sound of the bedside alarm going off. Tim lay beside her snoring away, impervious to the clock's ringing bells. She had to stretch over across his body to slam down her palm on the clock's bell tumblers, killing off the alarm, before dropping back to her side of the bed with a sigh. It was then that Tim rolled on his shoulder and wrapped a hand across her belly to snuggle against her.

"You awake, hon?" he muttered into her ear with a sleep-coated voice.

"We need to get ourselves a better alarm clock," she said. "I can't stand the infernal racket of this one any longer."

His hand felt up her body over her night dress. His hand went up the low hill that was her breasts and then came to the erect summit that was her nipple. Sophie's nipples were so sensitive and even now they both stood to attention like jutting arrows to her husband's touch. Her legs rubbed against her husband's hairy thigh. He could feel the presence of her lingerie stockings that covered her slim legs. In the thirteen years they'd been married, seldom a night went by that Sophie never came into bed wearing a pair of lingerie stockings. Tim too couldn't stop being amazed at just how sexy they made her look ... and yet he was afraid of telling her this, preferring instead to keep it a secret to himself.

He pulled her over towards him and they shared a deep passionate kiss while their hands groped against each other. She reached a hand down his shorts and felt his erection against her fingers.

"Let's leave it for later," she muttered between kisses. "I've got to get up."

"Why?"

"You know why. I've got to take the kids to school and then be off for work. It's getting late by the minute."

"So do I, but you don't see me complaining," Tim mumbled, still kissing her.

"You've got stuff to do, too."

"Can't remember."

"Aren't you meant to be in Denver today? You're going to miss your flight if you keep like this."

At that moment there came a trio successive of banging noise on their bedroom door followed by children's voices screaming to be let in. husband and wife sighed almost simultaneously.

"As if I knew this was going to happen," laughed Tim as he and his wife then got out of bed and went to address the issue of their kids.

An hour later Sophie was all dressed up, making sure the kids finished their breakfast and sipping a cup of coffee with their father who was now dressed in a business suit. His briefcase sat on his chair by the table in the kitchen, and he quickly drained his coffee and then planted a kiss on either of his four kids' cheek, saving one for his wife, before hurrying for the front door, on his way to the airport. He'd told her he would most likely be there till Monday.

Sophie hurried the kids to be done with their breakfast before having them jump into the SUV that was waiting parked in the driveway. It was a sunny summer morning with the sky devoid of thick clouds to hide the sun. Sophie stopped to wave and yell out 'good morning' to several other of her neighbors, all of whom too were just about pulling out of their driveways enroute to wherever. Nearly a half hour later she dropped the kids off at their individual schools before hurrying off to hers-McGrath Elementary, where she'd been working going on four years now.

She was about sliding her SUV van into a parking space in front of the school compound when she recognized the figure who was at that moment stepping out from a light brown Honda Civic. It was Gerald Lamas, the school's chief super, and also her boss. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt with brown stripes on it tucked into a pair of khaki pants. Gerald was in his late thirties and if you weren't close enough to know that, you would have sworn he was much younger than that. He was over six feet, had a thick body frame with a pair of large sturdy hands that when viewed up-close you'd think they could uproot a tree without fuss.

Sophie turned off her car engine and got out and wasn't surprised to find that he was standing by her door waiting for her, with a twinkling smile on his lips while his eyes gave her a going-over like a pair of helicopter search lights.

"Good morning, Sophie," he said to her, closing her door for her and then shaking her hand. Sophie watched as his hand evidently swallowed up hers. "Nice to see you're looking ever lovely as always. Your man sure is taking care of you good."

Sophie was double-minded as always whenever she ran into him, never able to think up a quick and witty answer that would shoo him away from her presence. Obviously she could guess what was going on inside his head whenever his eyes fell upon her, but what she couldn't get was why he'd decided out of all the grade teachers in the school, most especially the few younger females, he'd decided to set his sights on her. Gerald was a divorcee, and for the past couple of months he'd been making obvious flirting passes towards her. Time and time again she acted flattered but coyly pushed his advancement aside. There really was nothing wrong about him. He was a rather handsome black man, and she knew all too well that several of the female teachers had been whispering about him a lot. Still she couldn't help but wonder-why me?

"Good morning, Mr. Lamas," she said after a moment. He'd put it through to her time immemorial to call him by his first name, but figuring that would seem more like him wanting to have an angle in seducing her more, she decided instead to stick to her guns. Besides, it felt more ... polite this way, she reckoned. "Nice meeting you here."

Together they walked away from the parking lot and towards the school yard which already was filling up with bunch of little kids dropping off from the school bus. Inside the building, Sophie exchanged greetings with several of her other colleagues before then climbing up the stairs and down the lengthy corridor towards her classroom. Gerald and his flirting habits were far removed from her mind ... at least she felt like that for now.

The rest of the day seemed to go without a hitch. During lunch break hours while Sophie was at the cafeteria eating, her phone started to buzz. Her first thought was that it was Tim calling from the airport, no doubt wanting to tell her that he'd either missed his plane or that his office had called and said his going to Denver wasn't necessary any longer. But it wasn't Tim that was calling but Gerald. She answered her phone and he told her to please hurry and meet him down at his office. She wondered what it could possibly be about as she made her way down the lengthy corridor towards his office, her shoes making loud sounds on the tiled floor. She knocked on his glass door and heard him say for her to come inside, which she did. He offered her a seat, which she took. He had a bulletin paper in his hand and his face appeared serious as he spoke to her.

"Sophie," he began. "Are you happy with just being a simple teacher?"

She thought about the question for a second or two before voicing an answer. "Yes, I guess I do. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing serious. Just that something new has come up-a new job offer here at McGrath Elementary. Nothing to interrupt your teaching schedule, but more like something extra on the side. Anyway, your name was the first person that I ticked off for you. The pay is good, and it'll add some extra ounce to what you have going for you. Though I don't know if you'll be interested or not."

"What's the new job about?"

"Assistant Superintendent," he said it straight-forward. "You know the school board has for some time now been wanting to create the extra space in the curriculum, but wasn't able to meet the constrains of the budget until now that is. You and I will be working closely together from hence forth if you get it."

"Okay. How much does it come with?"

He smiled. "You see for yourself." He stretched across his desk and gave her the bulletin to read. Sophie did scan through the jargon of words, but her eyes did draw to a halt when they captured the pay rise of the assistant super's job. A hundred and fifty grand a month! The sight of the figures was all she required to give her heart a slight bump.

"Is this for real?" she returned the bulletin paper back to Gerald.

"Yes, it's as real as it is alright. Though now that I come to think of it, I don't know if you're better suited for the job."

She frowned. "What makes you say that?"

"Frankly speaking, you don't look like you're hungry for it," he stated. "I watch you come in here almost every working day, and I see nothing but smiles on your lips. Obviously this job isn't what you're looking for ..."

He dangled the bait before her eyes, and Sophie, unaware of what was coming next, fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

"But I do want it, Gerald," she practically blurted. "I do want to have this job. Please, I'll do whatever it is you ask of it ... just don't pass it over to someone else." Then she had to ask, "Am I the only one you've shown this to?"

"So far you are. But I'll soon need to put it up on the bulletin board-"

"Please don't do that," she said. "I mean, not yet. I'd really like to have this job, seriously I would."

"Good. Have dinner with me this evening, and maybe then we can talk more about it."

Sophie felt as if she'd just swallowed a rabbit whole. "This ... this evening, you say? I don't think ... I don't know if that would be ... proper."

"Oh yes you do, Sophie. I have been keeping my sight on you for long, as you should know. This evening is going to be more appropriate for you with the fact that it's the start of the weekend, and your man Tim is right now flying out of state. Am I wrong?"

Sophie felt numb. "How did you ... how could you know that?"

Gerald smiled cunningly at her. "I'm a super, Sophie. It's my job to find out such things. You know the Lobster Grill down by the dock?"

"No ... but I think I can find it."

"Meet me there this evening at eight. And wear something sexy, and don't be late. And if I sit there for ten minutes and your ass isn't there yet, consider the job offer cancelled."

Cancelled!

That word bounced back and forth in her brain long after she'd left his office and returned to her classroom filled with energetic little tots. Still she managed to get through the day alright and pushed everything about the conversation to the back of her mind even later in the day when she drove off to pick her kids up from school and drove back home.

However an hour after she'd returned home the question came nagging at her like an unwavering traffic red light: what should I do? Call Tim and tell him about it? No, that would be the very wrong thing to do. She loved her job ... but this new one that her boss was offering would make a whole lot of difference. The pay would go an extra mile, plus it'll allow her and Tim enough leverage to save up for this kids' college tuition when that comes along...

The choice was made then-she had to accept Gerald's dinner offer. Nothing can be done to talk him out of that. And besides it's just going to be dinner, she consoled herself. What's the worst that could happen?