Home Wrecker Read online

  Home Wrecker

  Dwayne S. Joseph

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Lisette

  1

  Past

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Present

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  Six Months Later

  29

  Future

  Book Club Discussion Questions

  Conversation with Author Dwayne S. Joseph

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  I’m a writer.

  I’ve been writing since I was thirteen years old. I started out with horror fiction. I moved to mystery/thriller fiction next. As the years passed, I ended up doing relationship drama fiction, or contemporary fiction as it’s also called. The types of stories I’ve told have changed, but one thing has remained the same: my goal to improve and get better with each one that I do. Each book begins a new competition that I have with myself. Can I get better? Can I create better characters? Can the drama become more intense? More importantly, can my writing improve? With each book I set out to answer those questions with a resounding “Yes!” If you’ve been keeping up with me on my literary journey, hopefully you’ve been able to see growth. That’s important to me. People often ask for advice for new or aspiring authors. One piece of advice I have is to respect the craft of writing. By respecting it, you will want to improve on it. You will want to be better.

  That brings me to Home Wrecker.

  For those who’ve read my earlier works (I thank you from the bottom of my heart, by the way!), you are going to notice three things. One: it’s not the usual relationship drama. Two: it’s a much more adult novel, much more intense. Three: hopefully you will feel as though I’ve really grown as an author. Home Wrecker is a complete turn away from anything I’ve done in the past, and that’s because I couldn’t allow myself to be tied down to doing one type of story. Relationship drama was/is fun, but I have much more in my repertoire.

  I’ve never created a character as fierce, sexy, arrogant, or even as cold as Lisette. She walks it like she talks it, and she has no time for anyone that likes to play around. She’ll literally chew you up, spit you out into the middle of a busy intersection and keep on walking as though you never existed. I had a lot of fun with her and all of the other characters in the story. They are a memorable bunch that will surprise you (At least if I did my job right they will). I hope you enjoy their company as much as I did, because we’ve had a lot of laughs together during this process.

  I have to thank God first and foremost for bringing Lisette to me. My writing goes where He takes it. I am grateful.

  Wendy and my rug rats Tati, Nati, and Xavier: your support, friendship, and love mean everything. I appreciate you and love you!! My family: Love you guys! Nicole . . . even though you’re a Cowboys fan . . . you too! Thanks to all of you for being there. Granny and Grandmother . . . the matriarchs: I love you both!! Aleah . . . thanks so much for reading the books. I had no idea!!

  To my friends: The best! ’Nuff said. To the Friday night Xbox 360 crew: Chris, G-Money, Shawny poop, Jay, Rusty, Billy Bob, Josh, Scott (Mr. Incognegro), and Steve . . . I have one thing to say: “Bring your A game, because I have headshots coming!” Eric, welcome to the 360 side of the force! Daren, we’re waiting for you! La Jill Hunt . . . continue to do your thing. Write!!! Perón Long . . . congrats, man. Now the fun really starts. Portia Cannon . . . It’s really time to go to work now!

  To the book clubs: Sweet Soul Sisters, One Book @ A Time, The African Violets Book Club, C.A.T.T.S., African American Sisters In Spirit, Sisters In Spirit II, Brown Sugar Sistahs With Books, Page Turnas Book Club, For Da Sista’s Book Club, Aminia Book Club, Circle of Women, Ujima Nia, Sister 2 Sister, Ebony Jewels Book Club, Sistahs On The Reading Edge, Cushcity.com, Between The Covers Literary Group, B~More Readers With W.I.S.D.O.M., The Woman In Me 2002 Book Club, Cyrus A Webb and the Conversations Book Club, Nubian Sistas Book Club. It has truly been an honor for me to have met with you all. I cannot thank you enough for the great time and honest feedback that you all provided. If you thought we had things to discuss before . . . wait until you finish this one!

  I cannot thank you all enough for your hospitality, your spirited conversations, your friendship, and most of all, your support. Meeting with all of you is always a good time! I’m blessed and honored that you have chosen my books to read, review and discuss! I can’t wait!!

  To Nancy Silvas, Jocelyn Lawson, Lisa McMan-uels, Omedia Cutler, Dana Bowles, Portia Cannon . . . thank you all for the feedback and letting me know that I was on to something! I appreciated the patience as you waited to see what was going to happen next!!

  To the readers and people who’ve hit me up on MySpace, thank you for every bit of feedback that you give. Receiving those e-mails and messages mean the world to me. Please keep them coming. And don’t forget to post those reviews for all of us in the literary game. Michelle Princeluva79 . . . thank you! Poetic Author Casche Russell . . . keep doing it! Sonya Sparks . . . enjoy the ride!

  To my New York Giants: I’m getting my G-Men tattoo soon because I’m a lifer!! Go Big Blue! Ok. Enough. Now get to reading. Peace!

  Dwayne S. Joseph

  [email protected]

  www.myspace.com/DwayneSJoseph

  Lisette

  1

  I’m a home wrecker I tear families apart with seduction. A subtle smile somewhere between innocence and raw sex. Home wrecker. C-cup breasts. Twenty-five inch waist. An ass that Beyoncé would envy. That’s what I use to lure men away. Call me the pied piper. Or better yet, the pied pipestress. Home wrecker. I’m good at what I do. I’m not a whore. I’m not a woman desperate for affection. I’m not a friend with benefits. I’m not a mistress. Breaking up marriages is my profession. Wives pay me to set up their husbands. Pay good money.

  Thousands for a few hours of my time. That’s about how long it takes me to get a man to forget about the ring on his finger and say to hell with the vows he made. A few hours and then he’s lost it all. In most cases, it’s his money, his home, his car, his family. In other cases, it’s his manhood.

  And I don’t mean that he becomes John Wayne Bobbitt’s distant cousin.

  Most women have their men set up because they’re tired of being disrespected. They spend their days and nights catering to their men. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, sexing when it’s required. They do all of this, yet they’re constantly having to deal with lies, deceit, physical and emotional abuse. They suffer day after day, wondering why a man they gave their all to would hurt them the way they do. They suffer until they can’t take it anymore.

  Then they call me.

  They want the son-of-a-bitch trapped. Caught on tape. They want pictures. Sometimes they want to be in the room, watching, getting a firsthand view of their men doing what most of them knew they’d do. Of course, some still hold out hope that their men will change their minds at the last minute because they love their wives just too much to betray them. But that never happens, because I don’t allow it to happen. In the end, the bastard’s caught and papers are served.

  Game over.

  That’s wh
en a man loses it all.

  They lose their manhood, however, when their women have them set up strictly for power and control. These women never have any intention of divorcing their men. See, instead of presenting the evidence and taking half, they hold that evidence over their men’s heads. Whatever they want, they get. Whenever they want it, it’s theirs. No complaints about how much the piece of jewelry or a new pair of shoes cost. No put downs. No mouth at all, because while their men are doing or spending whatever it takes to keep from having to give up their houses or cars, or to avoid shelling out thousands in child support (millions in some cases), the women get free reign to go and fuck the pool boy, the gardener, or the sexy gym instructor with the tight ass.

  Flip the coin and the side’s the same. Either way you look at it, my services provide financial stability. Most of all, I give back what most of my clients should have never lost: control.

  Some prefer the other option, but for a lot of women—at least the ones that deal with me—replacing that is better than getting half any day.

  Past

  2

  Setting up men for a living was never in my career plan, but when I look back on my past, it’s obvious that I was always headed down that road. See, at thirteen years old, I understood I had power over men.

  Equipped with a seventeen-year-old’s curvaceous and fully developed body, I realized back then that all it took to get what I wanted was a subtle, seductive smile, a sexy gaze, or a you-know-you-want-it stance.

  My father was the first man I learned to control.

  Most people assumed I had him wrapped around my finger because he loved me unconditionally. I was his daughter, his princess, but I knew better. My father was a pervert, who was always taking side glances at me and looking me up and down. He used to love to accidentally walk in on me when I was showering or getting undressed. But instead of excusing himself and leaving right away, he would take long, lingering seconds to admire “how grown” his little girl was. He never touched me improperly, but I could see in his eyes that he wanted to fuck me good.

  I should have been uncomfortable and disgusted by the fact that my own father had sexual thoughts about me, but I never was. I was amused, actually. I mean, there I was, a thirteen-year-old girl getting a rise out of a grown man—hell, my own father!

  Toying with him, I learned the art of seduction and garnered a true understanding of the type of power I possessed then. With an inviting look, a seductive smile, a sexy stance, I realized I could get whatever I wanted.

  Through my father, I understood just how weak men were. I learned that if you teased them just enough, their imaginations would run wild, their dicks would swell, and they’d become puppets doing whatever it was you wanted them to.

  My mother saw the power I had over my father and tried time and time again to stand in my way. But although I was young, I’d been too in-tune with my sex appeal. By the time I was fifteen, she left my father and me. She never admitted it, but I think she was jealous of the fact that, up until his fatal heart attack, I could have still manipulated the hell out him.

  Manipulation.

  Break it down.

  A woman must have come up with the word.

  I continued to learn and love the power of manipulation through my teenage years and on into my early twenties. There was just nothing as intense to me as pulling a man’s strings to get what I wanted without having to give up anything in return. And that was always the case. Boys and men bought me things, took me places, and did anything I told them to, and unless I wanted it to happen, they never even got a whiff of my pussy. Manipulation.

  Control.

  The words are synonymous.

  Playing men was always like a game to me, because I never really needed them.

  I came to the realization in my early teens that in order for me to truly have control over a man, I had to be independent and successful. A woman that could play a man, but didn’t have her own shit got no respect from me, because in my eyes they were weak-minded. They may have had the tits and ass and knew how to use them, but they lacked intelligence, because if they were truly using their brains, they would realize that a woman who had her own shit was far more desirable.

  See, men are simple. They do all of their rationalization with their dicks, and think that because God gave them chest hair, they’re supposed be the dominant ones.

  A woman that needs nothing is a woman most wanted because she’s viewed as a challenge. Bring your own car into the relationship—a man will want to buy you a better, more expensive one. Have your own home—a man will want you to move into his. Have your own money and he’ll say to hell with the price and empty out his own wallet.

  Men are driven by the need to impress. Women who understand this are the ones that get the most respect from me.

  My mother, as beautiful as she was, never brought anything to the table, which is why my father never truly respected her. She always used to complain about how I was just like my father. I guess she’s been right, because I didn’t have much respect for her either. To this day, we still don’t have much of a relationship.

  Like I said, I never intended on becoming a home wrecker.

  Prior to my career change, I was the head buyer for LeVor Fashions—an up and coming urban fashion company that was bringing some serious heat to the powerhouses like Sean John and Rocawear. On a day-to-day basis, I met with established designers as well as new, fresh ones and basically said yay or nay to the ideas they’d come up with. LeVor was doing great before I got there, but I can’t lie—I had a lot to do with the company’s growth over a four year period.

  I always had a keen eye when it came to fashion. I just knew what did and didn’t look good. What would or wouldn’t work. To me, style went hand in hand with the power a woman possessed. It was all part of the package.

  During my junior year in college, I was able to land an internship with LeVor, starting out as an assistant for the head buyer at that time. While I did the minute tasks like making copies, putting away files, and running errands, my mentor would allow me to get into the thick of things by seeking out my opinion, which actually mattered. Under her, I learned the do’s and don’ts of the industry, and I got a true understanding of trends and how to recognize what they were and when they would happen.

  During my senior year, I was given my first major task of choosing the design for a pair of jeans the company was going to kick off their summer line with. The pair I chose was supposed to be the teaser, but it turned out to be their biggest seller for the season. Impressed with everything I’d done during my internship, LeVor hired me as a junior level buyer after I graduated.

  I did that for three years and enjoyed great success in my role, until I was suddenly propelled to head buyer when my mentor quit unexpectedly and went to work for the competition. So there I was at twenty-six, the youngest person in the company, with an executive position. I had a six-figure salary, drove a Mercedes, and owned a luxurious condo overlooking the city. I was a single and successful bad-ass, honey complected black woman, and the men loved and hated me. They loved me because I had the beauty and the brains. They hated me because I couldn’t be tamed.

  Remember: control was what it was all about for me.

  Life was good for me back then. Shit, life was great. Especially my career. I was respected. I was envied. I never expected my career to change.

  But then I went to Texas.

  3

  Houston, Texas. Sofitel Hotel. At the bar in the lounge, sitting with the VP of marketing, Marlene Stewart.

  That was where my career changed.

  We were having drinks. Me, a Cosmopolitan. Marlene, white wine. We were in Houston attending the fashion show of one of the country’s hottest female rappers—XXXstacy. Like P. Diddy, Jay Z, and other rappers with huge followings, XXXstacy decided to expand her tiny empire and step into the world of fashion. She didn’t design shit, but with her name, XXXstacy Wear was destined to blow up.

&nbs
p; Some top people at LeVor received insider information about XXXstacy’s desire to get into fashion and with relentless pursuit, the company managed to work out a deal with XXXstacy that would be beneficial to both sides.

  Houston was XXXstacy’s hometown, so it was naturally the site for the premier showing. I’d designed some and approved much of what the public was going to see. Marlene had been responsible for the buzz. Countless hours put in, XXXstacy Wear was more our baby than XXXstacy’s herself. After one too many last minute meetings, we were in the lounge winding down before the big showing the next day.

  Marlene was an attractive, older, white female in her mid-forties that could have easily passed for mid-thirties. She was an obsessive woman. Obsessive about her work. Obsessive about her body. Obsessive about her husband.

  “Fucking asshole.” Marlene snapped her cell phone shut.

  I looked at her, but didn’t say anything. That was the fifth time in the past seven minutes that she’d done that. I took a sip of my Cosmo and waited for her to curse again.

  “Fucking asshole. He’s probably fucking her right now.” Marlene angrily passed her hand through her shoulder-length brown hair.

  I took another sip of my drink, blotted the corner of my mouth with my thumb and index finger, and said, “Why don’t you just divorce him?”

  Marlene frowned. “And deal with the scrutiny from friends and family? No thank you.”

  “But he’s fucking his secretary.”

  As I said that, a man sitting on the stool beside Marlene looked in our direction. I told him to mind his business with my eyes. He got up and left.

  Marlene sipped her wine and gave an irritated smile. “Yes, he is. Unfortunately I’ve never been able to prove that.”

  “No e-mails? No text messages?”