Chapter 4

When two people kiss, they create a long tube from butthole to butthole.

-Useless facts that you’ll probably share with your best friend

Hennessy

I found myself counting down the days until the next session with Mr. Tate Casey.

At first, I wasn’t sure that was what I was doing, but as I got up the day that he was supposed to show, four days after the last time he’d come to my office, I found myself looking at my closet with a different eye.

No longer was I going for clothes that said ‘professional.’

Now I was going for clothes that screamed ‘I’m sexy.’

Or at least, that’d been my intention as I stood in front of my closet.

Everything that was in my closet was so new that most of it still had tags on it.

I’d moved from the apartment my father had paid for and into my new place that I now paid for solely on my own a short three weeks prior. The moment that I had, not only had I bought a new wardrobe, but I’d also splurged on makeup and girly shit that I’d never been able to have before.

Like big hoop earrings that my father used to hate.

Those were the first things I slipped into my ear that morning.

And when I say big, these earrings were big. Like the size of an onion ring from Outback Steakhouse.

They hung so far from my ear that if I bent my head over sideways, the hoops would touch my shoulder.

I freakin’ loved them!

The next thing I found were the stockings.

I hadn’t worn this particular pair yet.

I hadn’t dared.

They were too sexy.

But as I pulled them out of my drawer, and held them up with the garters I’d bought to hold them up, I knew that today I’d be wearing them.

I sifted through my pile of lingerie, things that I’d only ever dreamed about wearing, and selected the matching pair of underwear and bra that I’d bought to go with the stockings.

They’d all been online.

When I’d found the stockings, I’d seen the ‘Customers who bought this, have also bought this’ section of the page, and from there, I’d gotten lost.

I had twenty thousand dollars that I’d had left after I’d spent most of my inheritance on a new home and an office in the middle of downtown Hostel—an inheritance I’d received from the death of my mother’s mother—and with that money I splurged.

Five hundred and sixty-nine dollars later, I had every kind of lacy lingerie that every woman dreamed of.

And I’d never once thought about wearing it.

Not until Tate had entered the picture.

Now, as I slipped the thong panties on over my hips, and turned around to examine myself in the mirror, I wondered if a man could tell a woman was wearing a thong through a skirt.

Then, as I looked at myself in the mirror, the same monster that sounded exactly like my father started speaking in my head.

Only sluts dress like this.

High heels are for girls that plan on working their vaginas for a living.

Short skirts scream for a man to rape you.

Yes, that last one was actually said by him, in the middle of a freakin’ church picnic, when I was on the cusp of womanhood.

I’d come outside, a medium length skirt on that was flowy and wispy around my knees, and my father had seen me. Then he’d flipped a freakin’ switch, and had gone from that loving man that everyone loved, to the father and man that only I knew.

It’d been the one and only time he’d lost it in front of his congregation, and come to think about it, I remember seeing Tate there for that one. His mother had forced him to come, I remembered, and he’d been off in a corner, standing under the shade of a tree while all the other teenagers played Frisbee.

I hated Frisbee.

In fact, I’d always hated everything that ever had to do with anything remotely involving me getting sweaty.

So I’d gone to the tree, too. I hadn’t seen him until I was nearly standing right next to him.

***

The heat of the day was enough to cause a sheen of sweat to form along my spine from the moment I stepped out of the back door of the church.

I looked down at my skirt, wondering if it’d upset my father that I was wearing it.

It was white, flowy, and whispered around my knees each time I took a step. Although it looked transparent, it really wasn’t thanks to the white slip that was sewn inside. Not to mention I was wearing black bicycle shorts, so just in case I sat down and wasn’t crossing my legs, then I wouldn’t be showing anything off.

My top was black, covered in sequins, and barely came to just over my shoulders at the top.

The rest of it was tucked into my skirt where a wide bright pink, stretchy belt, also covered in sequins, completed the ensemble.

My sandals were flat, ugly, and needed to be replaced.

Unfortunately, since I had such a small foot, my best friend couldn’t share her shoes with me like she’d done the top and the skirt.

Krisney, my best friend since I was old enough to walk, had grown over the summer, and although we were still the same size clothes-wise, she had a foot that was two sizes bigger than mine.

Meaning we could no longer share shoes like we once did.

“Watch your step.”

Startled, I looked down at my feet, and saw that I was inches away from stepping into a hole the size of a small tire.

“Thanks,” I smiled, looking up at the boy—man.

That short beard and deep voice, as well as multitude of tattoos, screamed that this ‘boy’ by age, but man by appearance, wouldn’t appreciate being called a boy.

“Hello, Tate.” I smiled.

I didn’t know Tate well.

If I were being honest, I wasn’t sure anyone knew Tate all that well except for Tate himself.

He was quiet, reserved, and standoffish on the best of days.

He must be having a good day.

I was convinced that the angry boy was bi-polar. He seemed fine as long as there were no adults around. The moment that someone from the church, whether it be my dad or a freakin’ elderly grandmother, came around, Tate was hiding.

I’d always wanted to ask him why, but that was also another thing I wasn’t allowed to do—talk to Tate Casey.

My father had laid that ground rule out a long time ago, and seeing me here next to him would likely set my dad off into conniptions.

“Oh, great,” Tate muttered under his breath. “The band is coming!”

I snorted and looked over at him.

“You don’t like music?” I asked.

He snorted. “Love music. Journey, George Strait, Garth Brooks, Jimmy Hendrix?”

I didn’t know who any of those men were, but I nodded as if I did. My father allowed me to listen to Christian bands, and Christian bands only. The one and only time I tried to listen to Britney Spears, he broke my radio by throwing it out the second story window.

That’d been one lesson I’d never wanted to repeat.

“Those men are music. The crap that the church band plays? Yeah, that’s all shit.”

I wanted to laugh, but that would be encouraging him, and I wasn’t very sure that I should be talking to him in the first place. Not with my father only a few feet away, talking to his congregation.

“I’m sorry to hear that you don’t like them,” I told him. “Did you get something to eat?”

Maybe a change of subject would help.

“Yeah, had a hot dog,” he answered. “You got a bug on your skirt.”

I looked down, and it wasn’t just a bug that was on my skirt. It was a giant, icky, gross roach.

I squealed and flicked it off, only for it to crawl further up my side and around my backside.

“Get it off!” I screamed, turning around like a chicken with its head cut off.

Tate did, brushing his hand once over my backside, and then stomping on the offending bug.

And that was when my dad rushed over and lost it.

“What are you wearing?” he growled, yanking me to his side with a harsh hand on my bicep.

“I’m wearing a skirt?” I whispered, making it sound as if it was a question instead of a statement like I’d meant it to be.

“You’re wearing so little clothes that every single man here is having illicit thoughts about you. Go inside right now, and stay in my office until it’s time to leave,” he ordered, shaking me slightly.

Tears started to form in my eyes.

“But the game…”

He held up his hand for silence, and squeezed my arm with the other.

“What. Did. I. Tell. You?”

I licked my lips.

“Yes, sir.”

My father growled something low and angry, and then pushed me away. “Go.”

I went.

***

I fastened the final clip, and then smoothed my skirt down my thighs.

After taking one final look in the mirror, I walked out of my bedroom and straight to the front walkway where I kept my keys and phone.

After making sure that I was ready, I walked to the door and opened it.

It was when I was halfway to work, however, that I decided that maybe I wasn’t all that sure about this man. Why did I care if I dressed up around him or not? He wasn’t going to see what was underneath.