Truth or Dare

by Dwayne S. Joseph

Genres: African American; African American Urban

Synopsis

Jess Roberts thought she had a good life with Esias. Despite all the chaos of their kids and her taking classes, they still seemed to keep it together, even if she does feel neglected and a little trapped in her life. Then fellow student Jayson Winston comes into the picture … and rocks her world.

Jess finds herself tangled up in an innocent game of email truth or dare with the alluring Jayson, which heightens with every exchange and finally explodes in a massive affair. Jess soon realizes she needs to save her good marriage and tries to cut all ties with Jayson—and that’s when the real truth comes to the surface. He’s not willing to let Jess go without a fight, and her daring to leave him could mean losing everything she loves …

Release date: October 24, 2011

Publisher: Urban Renaissance

Print pages: 243

Sample

Jess was stressed. She’d missed the deadline to withdraw from her classes for the semester, and now she was a week behind in both of her programming classes. She groaned and ran her hands through her short, Halle Berry-styled hair. She needed a haircut, but that was the last item on her laundry list of things she had to take care of.

She looked at the seventeen-and-a-half-inch screen on her MacBook and groaned again as she listened to her online professor speak, while her classmates furiously typed comments and questions that prompted the professor to babble off more technical jargon that she didn’t understand.

She ran both hands through her hair and scratched her scalp, not because it was itching, but, rather, just because it was as close to driving a knife through her heart with her own hand as she would get.

Chicken, she thought. Just go and get the damn knife. It would be a hell of a lot easier to just end it that way, than to sit through a frustrating semester with high blood pressure while you die slowly. Chicken!

Jess took a breath and released it heavily. She wasn’t ready for this. Mentally, she was already at the beach, Six Flags, the park, or just on her couch with her legs stretched out and her Victoria Christopher Murray novel in her hands. Stress still existed, but it was just the typical work-related stress; the bills-that-needed-to-be-paid stress; and the two, overly dramatic and all-too-whiney-little-girls stress. She could deal with those stressors with no problem. What she couldn’t deal with was another eight weeks of mundane seminars, mandatory participation sessions, quizzes, weekly assignments due at the stroke of midnight, and most important, the sleepless nights.

Mentally, she wasn’t prepared for that, which is why she’d tried to take the summer off to recharge her battery that had long been drained. But, she’d read the e-mail from her academic advisor giving her instructions and withdrawal deadlines incorrectly and now she was two assignments, four seminars, and six class partici-pations behind.

Jess let out another wounded moan as she scratched her scalp again, and then pulled down on the back of her neck. She was exhausted. Work was as stressful as ever, the kids were becoming increasingly more demanding, and her husband was becoming more unavailable, leaving her virtually no chance to relax in the evening before she sat down in front of her laptop. She took a glance at the time in the bottom right corner of her screen. It was a quarter to eleven. Fifteen minutes to go before she’d begin to tackle attempting to get herself caught up. Fifteen minutes before she’d begin the ritual of going to bed well after one in the morning, only to get up at five to get ready for work.

She wanted to cry.

And perhaps she would have, had an AOL instant message window not suddenly appeared on her screen.

R u as lost as I am??

Jess looked at the message with the strange font, bunched her eyebrows together, and then looked at the screen name of the person who’d sent it. Jayson Winston. The only reason she had downloaded the instant messenger was because it had been a requirement for her classes. If and when it was used, which was rare, it was only during class. She looked at the name again. Jayson Winston. She recognized it from her PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) class. She thought about closing the IM window. After all, she and Jayson had never exchanged words before, but the question had been a comforting one because, for the first time, she’d felt as though she weren’t alone. She nodded her head, let out an “Uh-huh,” and then typed a reply.

She hit send with a smile.

Seconds later, Jayson replied.

There was a pause of messages for a few minutes, and when creaking and closing doors began to sound— indications that students were logging out of AOL—Jess wondered if Jayson too had called it a night. She looked at her friend list and saw that he was still logged in. She didn’t know why, but she smiled.

A few more creaking and slamming door sounds went off as the professor told everyone good night. Jess sighed. “Nice talking to you, Jayson,” she said with soft disappointment.

She scrolled her arrow to the AOL menu and clicked on the drop down, giving the option to click to sign off.

Hey, Jess ... u still thre?

Jess’s index finger had been inches away from going down on her sensory pad to log out of the messenger. The corners of her mouth curled upward.

Jess frowned as she thought about her husband, Esias. Hectic schedules, her online classes, and his side career as a budding producer had them at a disconnect for the past year and a half. She didn’t reply.

After a few seconds, Jayson sent another message.

The sounds of keys rattling announced themselves.

Jess looked up. Esias was home. She shouldn’t have, but she sighed, and then typed quickly.

Jess closed the messenger window before Jayson could reply, and then signed out of AOL just as Esias walked into their home. Her heart was beating heavily, and beads of perspiration had formed on her forehead. Why? she wondered. It wasn’t as though she were doing anything wrong, just casual conversation. Yet, despite the rationale, the guilty feeling remained. She logged out of the classroom, and then closed her laptop down. As she did, Esias walked into the living room.

“Hey,” he said, his voice weary.

“Hey,” Jess replied.

Esias put a stack of blank CDs he’d been holding in his hand down on the dining table, and then walked over to her. He was still dressed in his business attire: black slacks, white dress shirt, baby blue tie undone. She always liked when he dressed up. He leaned down and gave her a kiss on her lips. “I didn’t mean to take so long, but I was in a zone. Sorry.”

Jess shrugged. “This was one of those rare nights I was able to get Jeanette and Jas in bed before my seminar.”

Esias gave a nod of approval, and then stood erect and stretched. “Are they asleep?”

“Yeah. But, you need to wake them up to go to the potty.”

“OK,” Esias said.

Jess pushed her chair back and stood up. “So, you got a lot done?”

Esias nodded. “Yeah. Got three tracks done, one hip-hop, one more of a Linkin Park kind of a track, and then a throwback baby maker one. Anxious for you to hear them.”

“Can’t wait.”

“How was your seminar?”

Jess groaned. “Frustrating. I’m so completely lost.”

Esias raised his eyebrows up and down. “You’ll catch up.”

Jess sighed. “I don’t know. With the other classes, I at least felt like I could when I got lost. This is the first time I feel like I might fail.”

Esias walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “You won’t,” he said.

“I can’t,” Jess said. “We can’t afford to pay the school any money right now. Speaking, of which, our turn-off notice for BG&E has to be paid by this Friday.”

Esias nodded. “We’ll take care of it when I get paid on Thursday. How much is it again?”

“Four hundred twenty dollars.”

Esias snapped his head up in her direction. “What? How the hell is it so much? I thought you paid last month’s bill.”

“I didn’t do the whole thing. I only paid what we owed from the previous month.”

“So we’ll pay what we owe from last month again.”

“I tried when we got the notice. But we’ve been behind for too long. They want the whole thing now.”

Esias slammed the refrigerator shut. “Goddamn,” he said. “Do you get paid this week?”

“No.”

“Shit. That’s most of my fucking check.”

Jess sighed. “Yup.”

“Goddamn,” Esias whispered again. He dragged his hand down over his face and pulled down on his chin. “Goddamn.” He planted his hands on his hips, dropped his chin to his chest, and stood still for a few seconds.

Jess frowned. They both made decent money, had relatively little debt, yet they couldn’t seem to get ahead.

A minute or two passed, and then Esias turned to her. “I have to get this demo done,” he said. “I have some people interested in hearing more of my music. The sooner I can get it in their hands, the sooner I think I can get a deal and get some more money in here.”

“That would be nice.”

“So does that mean you won’t be giving me any grief about needing more time in the studio?”

Jess shook her head. “As long as you’re back before my seminars begin, and you know that Mondays and Tuesdays are off-limits, then handle your business.”

Esias turned his palms up to the ceiling. “How do you expect me to handle my business when you’re giving me restrictions like that?”

“Why do you have to look at it like that, Esias? I’m just asking for some give-and-take.”

“Didn’t you just say it would be nice if I brought more money in here?”

“Yes, I did.”

“So how do you expect me to come home before your seminars? And how could you say I can’t have Mondays or Tuesdays?”

Jess curled her lips. Unbelievable, she thought. “Esias. . . I need you home before my seminars because nights like tonight don’t happen often. And I need you here on Mondays and Tuesdays because those are the nights my assignments are due. It’s not about restricting you. It’s about you compromising with me.”

Esias let out a heavy breath. “Compromise, compromise,” he said, tossing his hands up to the ceiling. “I’ve been compromising ever since you started taking your classes. Honestly, I could have been done with a demo by now if I didn’t have to compromise so damn much.”

Jess closed her eyes a fraction. “Esias, all I’m asking for is some consideration. Work is stressful enough as it is. I don’t think it’s unfair of me to ask you to compromise.”

“Work is stressful for me too, Jess, but I need time to handle my business.”

“Esias ... I am behind in both of my classes, and I’m struggling to catch up. I know you need your time, but I need your time too. The kids don’t act the same when you’re not around; you know that. So yes, on Mondays and Tuesdays I need you here to help me get them together so I can complete my assignments.”

“I need to get this demo done, Jess.”

“And I need to pass my classes!”

Jess stared at her husband, while he stared back at her with a set jaw. This was a constant battle between them. One that neither side ever really won. One that was helping to widen the disconnect. Jess took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and as she did, she found herself wishing that she could rewind the clock to twenty minutes earlier when she had been chatting with Jayson Winston.

Jayson Winston. A stranger she’d never met. She shouldn’t have been thinking about him; shouldn’t have been wondering where he lived, what he was doing, or what he looked like. She shouldn’t have been at all, but she was.

She took another breath, let it out as a sigh, and said, “I’m not in the mood to argue, Esias. I have too much to do.” Without waiting for him to reply, she opened her laptop, flipped open her textbook, which really was useless, and pretended to get back to work.

Jayson Winston.

He shouldn’t have been, but he was on her mind.

It was Wednesday night. Seminar night for PHP class. Usually it was a seminar she dreaded. Now it was an hour-long session she thought about and looked forward to.

All because of Jayson.

Their first chat had occurred during class. The second time they spoke had been during seminar as well, but when the professor said, “Good night,” and all of the other students logged off, she and Jayson continued to converse. Only when she finally gave in a. . .