Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Changes
Jinger was about to do laundry when she heard David, her husband, come in through the front door, calling her name. He was three hours early, which surprised her. She had been cleaning all day but hadn’t yet decided what to make for dinner. She needed to go shopping and hoped he hadn’t brought anyone home with him.
It was rare, but he had done so before without calling first. He would sometimes tell her to answer the door naked when he came home from work. She always obeyed—until the day he brought home his boss, Michael, and his wife, Tracie, without warning. Jinger had been so embarrassed that she ran into the bedroom and refused to come out until Tracie walked in with a drink for her. After talking and gossiping for about twenty minutes, Jinger finally calmed down enough to leave the bedroom.
David seemed to enjoy embarrassing her.
She started to worry. Maybe something was wrong at the office. Maybe he had been fired.
David took off his shoes and locked the door behind him, still calling her name as he walked through the house. Jinger’s name was spelled with a J but pronounced with a G—traditional in sound, if not in spelling. Their monogrammed towels even featured a stylish “D + J.”
Jinger was a flawlessly beautiful woman with pale white skin and brilliant red hair that glowed like fire. Her natural beauty was a perfect blend of Scotch and Irish heritage. David, who was English and Italian, appeared white but was nowhere near as pale as his wife. He was tall and handsome but very thin. At 170 pounds, he could have used another twenty, but he had always been skinny. He could eat anything and never gained weight—an ability Jinger quietly envied.
He tried to sound pleasant as he called her name, but she could hear a slight undercurrent of fear in his voice.
When David wasn’t home, Jinger often walked around the house naked with the shades drawn. Today, she quickly slipped on a thin robe and slippers he had bought her for Christmas. She wasn’t taking any chances. She peeked out from the laundry room, confirmed he was alone, and then ran out to meet him in the kitchen.
He kissed her, sat down in a chair, and pulled her robe open. Standing before him, she let him guide her as she straddled his lap. Jinger forced a smile even as she fought back tears. She resisted slightly when he removed his belt—the buckle had hurt her before in a very sensitive area.
“What’s going on, David?” she asked, trying not to sound worried.
“The business is closing,” he said. “Michael is going to sell it off and cut his losses.”
“Closing?” she asked, stunned. “I thought the company was doing great. The last time I spoke to Michael, he said things were excellent—only three months ago. How could things turn so bad so quickly?”
“Everything’s changed,” David replied. “The Internet, overseas competition, new tariff laws… Michael doesn’t want to do it anymore.”
“But Mike built that company from the ground up,” Jinger said. “I can’t believe he would just sell it. I thought he would fight to save it.”
“Well, now he’s bankrupt and wants to do something else.”
Jinger couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What about you and the rest of the employees? You’ve been with him for years.”
“Now we all have to fend for ourselves,” David said flatly.
“Michael’s only 45,” Jinger said. “That’s just ten years older than you. He’s way too young to retire.”
David was 35 and Jinger was 27. She had come from a family with money, but her parents were nowhere near as financially successful as Michael had been.
“I don’t think it’s just business,” David added. “It’s Tracie. They’ve been having marital problems, and I hear she’s planning on leaving him.”
“They’re divorcing?” Jinger asked, shocked.
“Because he’s in trouble,” he shrugged. “He may even have to file for bankruptcy—Chapter 7 or 11, whatever the law allows.”
“Chapter 7? That’s liquidation,” she said. “I can’t believe he got that deep in such a short time.”
David stood up and began undressing. “C’mon,” he said, folding his clothes over the chair. He was naked now.
“Where are we going?” Jinger asked, still in a fog.
“The bedroom,” he replied.
“Wait, David,” she begged. “Can we do this later? Maybe tonight? Right now we need to plan.”
“No, we can talk afterward,” he insisted.
“But I haven’t even started dinner,” she said. “I was going to go shopping.”
“You can go tomorrow,” he told her. “We’ll order out tonight.”
He threw her onto the bed and climbed on top of her. There was almost no foreplay. She wasn’t ready, and it was painful when he entered her without lubricant. He finished in about two minutes, rolled over, and went to sleep.
When Jinger was a freshman in high school, a senior had gotten her drunk at a party and raped her. Sex with David when he was like this made her feel exactly the same way—used, ashamed, and empty.
Afterward, she lay there shaking, trying not to cry. She wasn’t sure what bothered her more: the devastating news about David’s job, or how he had just treated her.
The link to the this book is on my wall, please go.
