myself over to his scrutiny. I push my hands over my body,
al the curves that scared and annoyed me when they
started forming but I'm grateful for now. Boys like boobs
and ass and even a little bely is okay if you have the rest
of it, too.
He unzips his jeans, too, while he watches. Soon his prick
is settled firmly in his fist and he pumps it slowly as he
watches me caress my body with my hands acting like his.
I have seen him do this before, stroke himself erect, give
himself a few quick pumps now and then. I've never
watched him finish this way. He's always done it in my
mouth, or my hand, or in my body.
"Take off your panties," he whispers in a voice rough-
edged with need.
I can't remember him ever saying that to me before.
They've always just…come off. But now I slide the cotton
and satin down to end up on the floor next to my jeans. I
try not to think about the couch under my bare flesh, or
wish we'd at least put down a blanket.
When he groans, I'm no longer distracted. I can't focus on
When he groans, I'm no longer distracted. I can't focus on
anything but my hand moving between my legs and his
moving on his cock. I'm wet and my fingers slip and slide.
I push two inside myself, echoing the motion he's making.
It's like my fingers are his prick, his fist my pussy. Our
bitten-back moans come at the same time.
My clitoris is hard. Rigid. When I brush it with my
fingertips I want to arch and squirm, thrust my hips. I want
to fil myself deep with something hard. I want to ride his
dick while my clit rubs his hard bely.
I want to come.
My hand moves faster between my legs. My other hand
finds my nipples, which I twist and tug in time to the
thrusting of my fingers. My knees fal open and my head
fals back. The arm of the couch is unyielding, but I push
against it anyway.
The couch dips as he moves closer to me. He's on his
knees, his jeans and boxers tangled on his ankles. He
stops just long enough to pul his shirt over his head, the
sleeves going inside out as it flutters to the floor. Then his
hand is back on his dick and his other is on my hip.
I stop rubbing my clit, thinking he's going to take over.
That he means to cover me with his body and push up
inside me. Every nerve is singing now, and I want that. I
want him to fuck me, but he doesn't.
"Don't stop, Paige," he says. "I want to watch you."
So my hand moves back between my legs and my fingers
stil, going slower even though he's hand-fucking himself
ever faster. I want to draw it out, make it last, build the
pleasure.
My breath is coming in short, harsh pants and my hips are
moving al on their own. I'm so close I could come only by
thinking about it. I take my clit between my thumb and first
finger and squeeze, just gently. Just softly. Just enough.
Everything contracts at once. My pussy, my ass, my clit.
My breath bursts out of me in a cry that's too loud but I
can't hold it back. This time when I bite my lip, I do taste
blood.
My orgasm has taken over. I am steamrolered by it and
left flat. I can't move, though my neck is kiling me from the
awkward angle and something sharp is poking me in the
ass.
ass.
"Ah, God," he cries. "Ah, Paige!"
Hot wetness spatters my chest and belly. It pumps out
of him in three hard spurts. The rest surges over his
hand as it cups the head of his cock and he strokes a
few last times. The scent of him fills me. The couch
beneath me dips again as he leans to put his hand on
the arm behind my head.
Crouching over me, his hand stil on his penis, his face is lit
by the television's moving shadows but I have no trouble
looking straight into his eyes. His jizz is going cold on my
skin and I'm afraid to move in case it drips off me onto the
cushions.
He leans to kiss me with an open mouth, but no tongue.
It's sweet and unexpected. I taste the salt of his sweat on
his upper lip.
which is also unexpected and leaves me uncertain how to
react. He scrubs at the wetness on my bra with his sleeve,
but it's too late. I can wash it, but there wil always be a
stain.
stain.
"You are so beautiful," Austin says when he kisses me
again.
It's the first time he says it and this time, though later I
won't, I believe him.
My fingers had gone stiff from gripping the pen. I hadn't
thought about that night in a long time. Other memories
had crowded it out. Worse memories, actualy, that had
made me forget there'd once been a time when I'd been
young and in love.
"Discipline," I said aloud. I wasn't smoking, but the taste and scent of tobacco smoke filed my senses anyway.
What the hel was going on?
I gave in to the need to let my legs buckle under me then. I
let myself fal onto my couch, where I curled into a bal and
puled the knitted afghan over my head. Through the holes
the stark wals of my apartment glared at me until I closed
my eyes.
I'm no prude. When other kids were watching Aladdin,
my mom was working third shift and leaving me alone in
my mom was working third shift and leaving me alone in
the house from ten-thirty at night until eight in the morning.
She thought I was asleep when she left, and it was true I
was in bed. I never told her how anxious I was when she
left, or how hard it was for me to sleep knowing I was
alone in the house al night. I'd creep downstairs and
console myself with hours of cable television. I saw a lot of
things I probably shouldn't have, but it also taught me a lot.
Even so, these notes. The commands. What had seemed
fairly innocuous at the start couldn't be confused for
anything innocent now.
The lists had been specific. Detailed. And now, explicit.
What sort of woman wanted someone to tel her how to
live her day? What sort of woman needed someone else to
tel her to be beautiful, to be strong? What sort of woman
craved the commands of someone else dictating her life?
I put my hand between my legs, on the damp cotton of my
panties, and felt my clit pulse.
What sort of woman?
I thought I knew.
I thought I knew.
Chapter 13
Here's a funny story made humorous by time, since it
wasn't funny when it happened. I was nineteen when my
mom had Arthur, which means that when she got pregnant,
I was eighteen. A senior in high school and screwing my
brains out with Mr. Popular Jock.
My mom had always been up front about sex and
protecting myself. Too up front, in my opinion, since my
sex life was the second-to-last topic of discussion I ever
wanted to share with her, the last being hers. Austin wasn't
the first boy I'd fooled around with. He wasn't even the
first boy I'd slept with, though the previous few times I'd
had sex had been so unremarkable and meaningless I
mostly forgot it had ever happened. I'd been on the pil for
a couple years already, but I made him use condoms, too.
There's nothing quite like being an ilegitimate child to
make a girl fear pregnancy. There was no way I was going
to end up the way my mother had.
Stil, when a condom broke I wasn't too worried. At least,
not until my period was late. Not even a warning cramp to
announce its pending arrival. I counted the days and when
we'd had sex—easy enough to do because it was pretty
we'd had sex—easy enough to do because it was pretty
much every time we were together, which by that point
was almost every day.
I didn't tel Austin what I suspected. I didn't tel anyone. I
went to the drugstore on the far end of town and bought
the first pregnancy test I could find. I came home and
drank a quart of water before I went to sleep so when I
got up I'd have plenty of pee to use for that first morning
urination. I read the instructions four times. I peed on the
little stick and watched with my guts cramping from fear,
not PMS, for the lines to show up. One or two? Safe or
caught?
One line.
I hadn't been raised a regular churchgoer, but I got on my
knees there in front of the toilet and I sent a prayer of
thanks so fervent I was sure any God who'd listen would
forgive me for my past sins. Then I wrapped the test in a
handful of toilet paper the way I usualy wrapped my
tampons and shoved it to the bottom of the garbage can.
I got home from school to an empty house, my mom at
work as usual. And, as usual, I was already flying through
my homework and my chores so I could spend the rest of
my homework and my chores so I could spend the rest of
the time with Austin until she got home. When I went into
the bathroom to clean it, my heart stopped. Literaly. The
world grayed out in that two seconds before it started to
beat again, and I clutched the sink to keep from faling.
There on the counter was a pregnancy test. The same
brand I'd used that morning. Only this one had two lines in
the little window. A positive result.
This time when I got on my knees it wasn't to pray. I put
my head in my shaking hands and concentrated on
drawing in breath after breath. I could smel the bleachy
cleanser I'd meant to use on the shower wals, which never
wanted to come clean from the soap scum no matter how
hard I scrubbed. I could feel my breath whistling through
my fingers.
I got myself under control and onto my feet to stare again
at the test. Hadn't I left enough time for the results? Had it
turned positive after I'd thrown it away and gone my merry
way to school, secure in my un-knocked-up state?
Had I been pregnant al day and not known it?
Normaly I wouldn't touch the garbage without rubber
Normaly I wouldn't touch the garbage without rubber
gloves, but I dug through the layers of used tissues and Q-
tips without even a gag, though my stomach had risen in
my throat. I found the box I'd wrapped as carefuly as the
test, but before I could tear it open to reread the
instructions to see if it was possible a test could turn
positive later than the three minutes I'd given it. And I
found, stil wrapped tightly and hidden, the test I'd taken
that morning. Which meant, of course, the one on the sink
wasn't mine.
My thanks this time were louder and more fervent than
they'd been that morning, but shorter. Because if it wasn't
mine, that meant it was my mother's. I didn't want to think
about that.
Thinking of this now, I puled up in front of my mom's
house. The one she'd lived in with Leo and Arty for the
past three years, not one of the many in which she'd raised
me. A brick row home sandwiched between two others
and within a stone's throw of the railroad tracks, it wasn't
anything like my dad's house. Yet inside the good smels of
something baking tickled my nose instead of expensive
scented candles, and the hug I got from my mom felt
natural and not forced.
"Arty's upstairs getting ready," she said. "I told him he couldn't wear his Batman costume to the movies, but…
wel."
"I don't care if he wears his Batman costume."
My mom sighed and shook her head. "You're sure?"
Once upon a time I'd have been appaled at the thought,
but distance seemed to have melowed me. Or time,
maybe. I shrugged.
"What's it to me if the kid's happy?"
I couldn't decipher her look, which only lasted a second as
she turned to shout up the stairs. "Arty! Paige is here!"
"Where's Leo?" I'd always liked him, even if he did laugh
too loud at truly stupid television shows and wear offensive
novelty T-shirts.
Again with the look I couldn't interpret. "He's not home."
"Obviously." She didn't return my smile, but before I could ask her if something was wrong, Arty bounded down the
stairs. "Hey."
stairs. "Hey."
"Pow!" Arty leaped in front of me with his hands on his
hips. His brown eyes glinted from behind the mask.
Clearly he'd had no intention of listening to our mom. "I'm
Batman!"
"I see that. Are you ready to go, Batman?"
He launched himself into me, his arms and legs wrapping
around me. "Yay! Yes! Yay for Paige!"
"Good luck with him. Today was somebody's birthday at
school. He's had a lot of sugar."
"Oh, joy. Put a sweatshirt on, shorty. The movie theater
might be chily." I squeezed him back, tight. He smeled
like baby shampoo and candy. I could handle even a
sugar-infused Arty.
My mom tried to press a ten-dolar bil into my hand as
Arty struggled into his jacket, but I refused to take it.
"Mom, no."
"For popcorn."
"I said no." I'd been taler than her since seventh grade, but
"I said no." I'd been taler than her since seventh grade, but looking down at her now it seemed strange to be staring at
the top of her head. She'd starting graying early but had
always kept up the color. Now I saw half an inch of white
here and there along her part.
I noticed lines in the corners of her eyes, too, when she
looked up at me. My mom had never looked old to me, I
guess because she wasn't, but she looked tired. Her
eyeliner had smudged a little as though applied by an
unsteady hand, or as if she'd been rubbing her eyes. She
did that when she had a headache.
"You okay, Mom?"
"Fine, baby." She pressed the folded bil toward me again,
even though I jerked my hand away. "Take this."
"I said no. C'mon. It's my treat."
She frowned. I looked like my dad most every other time,
but now I saw myself in her face. "Paige. You can't tel me
that fa
ncy apartment's not expensive."
"And I have a good job, remember? You don't have to
worry so much. Realy. I'm happy to take Arty to the
movies. I'm fine."
movies. I'm fine."
With a sigh she tucked the bil into the pocket of her jeans.
"As if you'd tel me otherwise?"
She had me there. I merely grinned and shrugged. She
shook her head and bent to help Arty slide his arms into
his sleeves. Considering how much Arty was bouncing up
and down it was no smal feat. I reached a hand to help
her and she stepped back with a strangely defeated sigh.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go!"
"Chil, little dude. Chil," I admonished with a hard look at my mom. "You sure you're okay?"
"Just tired, baby. Go have fun. I'l see you when you get
back. Not too late," she cautioned for Arty's benefit and
not mine. "School tomorrow."
Arty, stil bouncing, grabbed for my hand. "Let's
goooooooo!"
Like me, my little brother looked like the man who'd
fathered him. Personalitywise, though, he was almost
entirely my mother. Nonstop chatter from the backseat
entirely my mother. Nonstop chatter from the backseat
kept me entertained on the ten-minute drive to the mal.
Growing up, I'd had to go al the way to Palmyra to hit a
multiplex, but now Lebanon had its own stadium-seating
theater fancy enough to rival anything in Harrisburg. The
prices were cheaper, too, a reminder there were some
minor advantages to life in the town where I'd grown up.
Halfway through the movie, my phone vibrated against my
thigh. I flipped it open with a sigh when I saw who it was
from…ignoring the fact that not only did I recognize the
number on sight, but that I had, in a fit of insanity, assigned
it a photo. I shielded the glare of the backlight with one
hand as I read it.
Where you @?
I didn't reply, just flipped the phone closed and slid it back
into my jeans pocket. The movie went on and on. And on.
And on some more. I never knew an hour and a half could
last so long, but since Arty stared slack-jawed in wonder
at the cavorting cartoon figures I figured he, at least, was
enjoying it.
I blame the cartoons. If the movie had held my interest I
would never have puled out my phone again. I'd never
have answered Austin's text. I know better now, but that's
what I told myself at the time.
I'm watching a movie.
Cool. What movie? The answer came within seconds.