Love Is Never Painless: Three Novellas - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Zane is the New York Times bestselling author of Afterburn, The Heat Seekers, Dear G-Spot, Gettin’ Buck Wild, The Hot Box, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Nervous, Skyscraper, Love is Never Painless, Shame on It All, and The Sisters of APF; the ebook short stories “I’ll be Home for Christmas” and “Everything Fades Away”; and editor for the Flava anthology series, including Z-Rated and Busy Bodies. Her bestselling novel Addicted is a major motion picture and she is the publisher of Strebor Books, an imprint of Atria Books/Simon & Schuster.

Eilen M. Johnson resides in Louisiana and is also a contributor to Zane's Blackgentlemen.com.

V. Anthony Rivers is the author of Daughter by Spirit, Everybody Got Issues, and My Life Is All I Have. He is a contributor to Zane's Love Is Never Painless.

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INTRODUCTION

Have you ever felt like you have done everything conceivable to make a relationship work and there is nothing but drama anyway? Have you ever loved someone more than life itself, but they disvalue that love? Have you ever sacrificed something for another, only to have them not appreciate your generosity? All of us, as we all have feelings, have experienced something like this.

Life is strange. So many people cross our paths during our predetermined amount of years on earth. Many of them will be in our life from day one to the final hour. Many will come into our lives later and hang in there until the very end. Then there are the "other ones." People who are only in our lives for a minute, a day, a week, a month, a year, or a few years. We cannot understand how the relationships with them can start out seemingly perfect and end in total madness.

Whenever I think of a love lost, I hear the words to "Isn't It a Shame?" by LaBelle in my head. The questions asked throughout that song have always hit home with me. How can two people love each other, create children together, cohabitate, build a life together, and then end up hating each other in the end? No one enters into a relationship or marriage expecting it to fail. No one gives of their heart and soul in exchange for being mistreated, either mentally or physically. Yet, anger happens. Abuse happens. Cheating happens. Death happens.

While all of the above can be devastating, the truth of the matter is that old adage: "It is better to love and have lost than to never have loved at all." No matter what the circumstances, no matter what the outcome, love is what makes life worth living. Love is the center of the universe. Love can move mountains. Love can also tear down walls. Love can also kill. Love is never painless.

I know that from personal experience. I have been hurt by those who claimed to love me. It was disappointing, but it does not mean that I will ever give up on finding the right one. There is a man out there who complements me on every level, who can appreciate what I have to offer more than he craves his next high, who can mirror my ambitions with his own, who can uplift me instead of trying to hold me back. Meanwhile and between while, I have children to raise, challenges to meet, and history to make.

Thanks to V. Anthony Rivers and Eileen M. Johnson for participating in this anthology. If you walk away from this book thinking that you should reevaluate your outlook on love, then we have accomplished our goals. I wish you success, I wish you happiness, but most of all, I wish you love.

Blessings,
Zane
Copyright © 2006 by Zane

From How the Other Half Lives

by Eileen M. Johnson

Jamellah pulled the heavy Persian rug toward the hallway and off the wall-to-wall carpeting. Grabbing the vacuum cleaner and wrapping the thin cord around her slim brown hand, she turned the power on and began the task of cleaning the carpet. Humming an old Commodores tune, she pushed and pulled the vacuum until beads of perspiration formed above her nut-brown upper lip. Not only was today Friday, her usual cleaning day, but she was expecting company. Not just any company, but that of the sexy black male persuasion. Kenny was thirty-three years old, the owner of a small but profitable construction company, and very married.

The fact that Kenny was married did not disappoint Jamellah. All of her boyfriends were married. As she always told her best friend, Fernecia, the more happily married they were, the better. Married men were low maintenance and that was right up Jamellah's alley. Married men required no commitment, you didnt have to deal with them 24/7, and they were usually extra passionate and extra generous. That's the way she liked her men. She had actually started dating married men at a very young age after quickly growing weary of young, inexperienced boys who were in her face constantly. So at nineteen, she had gone out and met Clarence at an after-work happy hour. Clarence was a twenty-eight-year-old dreamboat who already had his own small investment banking firm, the fabled house on the hill, and his own Benz. He also had a very somber and sexually unresponsive wife. This was a disappointment for Clarence but a blessing for Jamellah. She and Clarence participated in a hot and heavy fling that lasted until she turned twenty-one. In those two years, he managed to give her a used but still fashionable Audi, a pair of stunning two-carat diamond solitaire earrings, and a nearly permanent headache from his complaining about how unhappy his home life was. So after getting him to secure the financing on a snazzy little town house and helping her to set up a small but lucrative stock portfolio, she gave him a well put together story. With well-rehearsed but very persuasive tears rolling down her cheeks, Jamellah told Clarence about how she could no longer sleep at night without him and how she wanted him to leave his wife. As much as Clarence wanted to be with the cute and sexually uninhibited Jamellah, he realized that the state they lived in was a community property state, and under no circumstances was he ready or willing to give his tight-lipped wife half in a divorce. After an Oscar-worthy performance, Jamellah told him that she might be willing to get over him in exchange for a few parting gifts. Relieved that Jamellah withdrew her staunch ultimatum and waved the white flag, he presented her with a nice diamond tennis bracelet, tuition for her last semester of college, a discreet and heavy deposit in her money-market account, and grateful thanks for the two years of her life that shed devoted to him. Amazingly, they parted as friends, and would occasionally meet for a drink and a quickie.

Three months later, feeling pleasantly boosted with her car, town house, stock portfolio, and degree, Jamellah was once again on the prowl. Love could definitely wait a few more years. Right now, she craved more security. After landing a job as an entry-level adjuster for a large insurance agency, she soon began to use her huge office building as a hunting ground.

She paired crisp linen business suits with soft, lacy peekaboo camisoles and tall heels for a look that was professional yet sexy. Each morning, she painstakingly applied her makeup and arranged her extension-enhanced tresses to look like she had just stepped out of a magazine. Her good looks immediately drew the attention of several of her colleagues. Pretty soon, both her looks and her strong work ethic drew the attention of one of the company's VPs. In the first six months that Jamellah worked for Southwestern Life and Casualty, not only did she do desk work but she also did her homework. She knew which of her suitors had the most pull within the company, who earned the most, who drove what, who was married to whom, and who could get her where she wanted to be.

After chatting with Hugh McDonough, vice president of operations, at the Christmas party, Jamellah soon made him her prey. From that point on, she always made it a point to look extra sexy at the Thursday afternoon staff meetings that he presided over. It also helped that she was always full of provocative conversation at all social functions.

Within three months of the Christmas party, Jamellah was taking all of the gifts that Hugh presented her with, and he, in turn, accepted all her free time and talent. From her prior research, she knew that his wife, Meredith McDonough, cared only about the Times-Picayune society page and the city's black bourgeoisie.

Although Hugh was a lusty and insatiable lover and much older than she generally liked them, he was definitely the route that Jamellah needed to take.

By the time Christmas rolled around again, Jamellah had been promoted to a competitive yet promising...