Chapter 3

Jalen looked naturally cruel to anyone who didn’t know him. On top of that he was a temperamental son of bitch that could give a shit about anyone else except him, his family and maybe even a couple of people he deigned to call friend. Parker just happened to be one of the honored persons. He was back to wearing his hair in cornrolls and looked like D’Angelo, especially when he pursed his lips together in annoyance.

“How’s it feel, Jalen?” he asked coming in the office.

For his comment derived from the video the singer had done that Parker constantly teased Jalen about, Parker received the pursed lips.
“She’s here and I still want to thank you for this.”

“Thank Sophie. She’s the one putting up with the shit,” Jalen said turning off his laptop. “I suspect that you just came in here to fuck with me.”

“That and to invite you over for dinner in a couple of weeks. We’ll know by then any results.”

“Oh yeah, if the pitre disc worked? I thought God made a more natural way to have kids?” Jalen snorted. “I try to practice every day on my wife. If I could, I would practice every hour. How about you, Parker? How do you get happy with your wife?”

This was a deliberate hit below the belt to Parker’s attempt at normal.

“Some people have to resort to extra means to be happy.”

“Spending fifty thousand dollars to produce off springs is crazy. Do you know what I could have done with that money? By this time, I’d have ten college funds set up for you to donate to some third world child you could have adopted.”

Frustrated, Parker sunk down in the chair in front of Jalen’s desk. “Yeah, but it’s not the same and you know it, Jae. Look at you. Five kids. Five damn kids.”

“Two are from my wife’s first dead husband.”

“But you’re still a family. You have off spring. You have someone to carry on your bloodline and you’re sharing these moments with the woman you first fell in love with and married. I want that. I want to be you… well not all ornery and mean, but you know what I mean. I’ve been married ten years to Chyna and you weren’t even married to Kim before you were bopping out twins.”

“Well, she raped me to get mine.”

“Let’s not even go into that. I think you just harbor that over her just so you can take advantage of her.”

Jalen smirked wickedly. “It does make the mundane marriage very exciting when you can tie up your wife and make her beg for you. You should try it sometime.”

“Chyna says it might mess up her hair and hands.”

“If you can spend fifty on a baby, you can spend a couple of hundred-“

“Let’s not go into this.” Parker really didn’t want to extol upon his wife’s shallow behavior.

Jalen took the hint, understanding in advance this was a sore subject for Parker. “So, this crazy sister in law, what’s her story?”

“Nothing I haven’t already told you. Chyna says her sister is so pathetic she can’t even kill herself.”

“How many times has she tried?”

“This last one makes three.”

Jalen stopped what he was doing and frowned. “I’m not religious and all that, but she ever thought that it just wasn’t her time, and that she had a purpose in life.”

“You ever thought you’re just saying that shit because you’re an ass and you’re trying to find some hilarity out of a bad situation?” He stood up.

“So I take it you haven’t told Chyna about the boat?”

Parker didn’t answer because he knew Jalen already knew the answer. He was saving it for the moment when Chyna announced that they were going to have a baby. Knowing that they were going to dedicate eighteen more years together deserved an award and “the boat” was the key.

Yet that moment hadn’t come and he was starting to think it never would. The majority of Parker’s friends were married and those that were had children, vibrant healthy off spring. Their blood running through small versions of themselves.

And what did he have? A wife who couldn’t get pregnant, his sperm not strong enough to procreate outside of natural environments and the ability to buy anything he wanted, but having no real value in life.

He knew the layout of Jalen’s business like the back of his hand because he had personally done service to the building when he was trying to get his business up and running. Bringing in towels, picking up towels, checking on any other laundry needs and so forth. After six more accounts like Jalen’s he was able to hire five under him to work the different areas and get things done.

Parker had built a business from the ground up, with a lot of sweat, determination and long nights. He wanted the rewards from all his hard work, which was supposed to be a child. That’s what Chyna had promised him.

‘When we can afford a child, we’ll have a child, she had promised when they first became married.’

And he had waited. And then they came to the realization it was them. And then the doctors, the tests, the results and now…

Still no baby.

He was a man almost desperate, but not desperate enough to adopt.

When, his brother, Winston, and his wife adopted the baby, Parker had seen how their friends looked at them behind their backs as failures. It had been the initial steps that lead to his brother’s death. The failure stigma drove his wife insane and soon she didn’t want to look on his face.

She kicked him out and Winston had come knocking on Parker’s door asking to stay until things cooled down. Chyna didn’t want him under their roof.

“He’s a failure!” she had sneered.

So Parker convinced his brother to go back home and try to reason it out with his wife

“Adopting isn’t so bad, Winston. People do it all the time. And you shouldn’t let the shallowness of some determine what you define as family. Tell this to Jeanie. Let her know this.”

Winston had listened to his brother and what did he get? A bullet in the chest.

Parker received a call the next morning telling him that Jeanie had murdered Winston. And when they asked what to do with the child…

“Hello Mr. Mills,” Sophie said in that slow seductive voice she always used.

He couldn’t begin to count how many times Sophie had propositioned him, but he never took her up on his offer. She was beautiful, except for one thing. He was attracted to thicker women.

“Why are you out here?”

Sophie sighed. “She was dead serious about the touching, wasn’t she? I didn’t think she was that serious.”

“Is it going to be difficult? I could add another zero to that check,” he said worriedly.

“No. I’m just getting more towels. I have Lupe instructing her on how to do her eyebrows. It took some convincing, but once we let her know that uni-brows weren’t even in fashion for third world countries and that it caused a lot of pain, she seemed more receptive to it.”

‘Whatever it takes to keep her busy and better looking, just put it on my bill.”

Sophie chuckled and went inside.

His Substitite Wife... My Sister Chapter 3 (c) 2008 Sylvia Hubbard