On the whole way back to my dorm room, I feel like I'm walking on a bed of clouds, my head spinning the entire way. I'm not sure why, but I can't seem to wipe this stupid grin off my face. It's not as if this is the first orgasm I've ever had. After all, I've touched myself before. I've even come while thinking about Mr. Gabe. So I don't know why I'm reeling, why I feel sunshiny and light as a feather just because the orgasm came from Mr. Gabe.

If this is what it feels like when someone else gives you an orgasm – without even putting his fingers inside of me – I can't imagine what it feels like to orgasm during sex. I think my head would probably explode.

One of the reasons I haven't masturbated a lot was because I never really felt the kind of desire I've been feeling since Mr. Gabe has come back into my life. My father always ranted about sex in media advertisements and temptation being shoved in our faces every time we turned around, but I'd never noticed before. Before Mr. Gabe, I hadn't known temptation, nothing more than the handful of times when I'd felt a tingle between my legs at night and touched myself to quench the urge.

But now…

I'm beginning to understand the meaning of the word "temptation". I feel Mr. Gabe's touch still lingering on my skin. My rear end still throbs where he spanked me. I'm walking across campus with his cum still sticky between my legs.

I should feel filthy.

After all, I was taught that sex before marriage is wrong. I was taught that I shouldn't even hold a boy's hand unless I was going to marry him, let alone doing… well, everything I just did with Mr. Gabe.

I should feel dirty, after bending over his desk like that. I should feel used, after bending over his lap the way I did, letting him spank me and slide his finger between my legs. I should feel defiled after he stroked his cock until he came all over me.

Except I don't.

I don't feel dirty at all. Instead, I feel like I'm carrying around a delicious little secret that no one else knows about. I feel like I'm suddenly a grown-up, as if I've achieved a rite of passage.

I'm walking on air.

At least, I am until my cell phone rings.

"This is the third time that my calls have gone to voicemail," my father lectures me before he even says hello.

"I've been in classes all week." His voice is the equivalent of someone taking a pin to a balloon. My good mood instantly deflates. I remind myself that it could be worse; at least he hasn't taken the initiative to drive up here himself to check in on me.

That's the undercurrent of fear running in the background underneath everything I do. My constant fear is that he'll decide he needs to check in on me himself.

I don't even want to think about what he would do if he saw me in this outfit I'm wearing right now – or if he found out all of the things I've already done with Mr. Gabe.

"Have you gone to church?" he demands sharply.

Hello to you, too, Father. I'm doing well at school and classes are stressful, but I'm learning a lot. Thank you for asking.

"I haven't had a chance to find a church yet." That's my pathetic attempt to defy him. What I really want to tell him is that I don't want to try out his church "suggestions" at all. But I don't even make that little attempt at standing up for myself.

"I've called one of the churches on the list and let the pastor know to look for you on Sunday."

I bristle at the audacity of him to still insist on controlling me from afar. "You can't just tell me where to –"

"I don't want to hear it, Purity," he bellows. "You'll be there on Sunday. I'll text you the name of the church - and I expect you to make friends there, too. Suitable friends, not like that roommate of yours."

"She's actually really nice –"

"Enough," he snaps. "I have to go."

In the background, I hear a voice I recognize. "Is that Justin?" My stomach immediately twists into knots. Why would he be meeting with Justin? If he's trying to make some kind of arrangement between Justin and I – or send Justin up here to visit me – that crosses a line even worse than my faux engagement to that man.

"Of course not."

"I heard his voice." Why else would he be denying it if he's not planning something? I'm going to vomit. "Why is Justin there when you're talking to me about–?"

My father cuts me off yet again. "It's church business. Make sure you're there on Sunday. I'll text you the church's address."

He hangs up the phone.

It's hard to imagine that I felt so good a few minutes ago, because I definitely don't feel that way anymore. In fact, I feel ill as I open the door to my dorm room.

Mentally, I chastise myself for not standing up to my father. How is it that I can bend over Mr. Gabe's desk and remove my panties without flinching, yet I can't tell my father to go to Hell? Why can't I figure out how to tell him that I don't want to go to the church he's picked out for me, that I won't wear the clothes he wants me to wear – and that I'm definitely not marrying the man he's decided I should marry?

I can pull up my skirt for Mr. Gabe, but I can't tell my father I'm an adult who doesn't need or want his input in my life.

That's irony.

"How are you, Purity?" Luna's mother Jezebel glides toward me in a breeze of patchouli and incense. She's wearing a semi-transparent paisley tunic that flows around her as she walks, little orange tassels dangling from the hemline and sleeves, coupled with a bright orange skirt that sweeps along the floor. She doesn't give me a chance to answer before she takes my face in her hands to evaluate me, immediately frowning. "That bad, darling? Your face is ashen. You don't want to know how your aura looks right now."

Whisking me toward Luna's bed, she gestures for Luna to move a pile of books.

"Mom, leave Purity alone," Luna barks. "Seriously, she's not a stray cat you found roaming around outside. I apologize for my mother, Purity. I apologize in perpetuity, in fact."

Luna doesn't have anything to apologize for, not really. Jezebel is a little kooky, but she's really very endearing. I don't tell either of them how incredibly nice it feels to be cared about – or, as Jezebel slides her arm around me and pulls me against her – to be hugged by her mom. When you grow up without a mother, a mother as warm as Jezebel is a treat. "It's okay," I assure too-cool Luna, who still looks incredibly embarrassed by her mother. I can't help but giggle a little bit at Luna's discomfort, which momentarily helps me to forget my irritation with my father.

Luna doesn't know how lucky she is. Her mother is as far opposite of my father as you can get.

"Sweetheart, tell me everything," Luna's mother insists.

"I'm fine, really," I reply. "How are you, Jez?"

"I'm always the same," she says, letting go of my shoulder and turning to face me. Taking my hands in hers, she looks into my eyes. "But I came to hear about how you girls are doing – and you're upset, Purity."

"Boundaries, mom," Luna warns. "Remember what the family therapist talked about? Boundaries and being appropriate?"

"Oh, hush," Jez says. "My boundaries are perfectly fine."

Luna snorts. "Feel free to tell her that she's in your personal space, Purity."

Jez ignores her daughter. "Why are you upset?" she asks me.

"It's not a big deal," I tell her, rolling my eyes. "I just got a phone call from my father."

Jez wrinkles her nose like she smells something bad. "He had a black aura," she declares, shaking her head.

I don't know what that means exactly, but the way she says it makes it sound like something really bad.

I exhale heavily. "He wants me to hold the same values he does, I think. The thing is, he's never really asked me what I think about, well, anything."

"Man, that must be awful to have a parent who bulldozes right over your opinion about things," Luna says pointedly.

"Do you recall what the family therapist said about passive-aggressive comments, Luna Moon?" Jez asks.

I have to suppress a giggle at Jez's mock outrage.

"My comment was hardly passive," Luna says, giving her mother a glare before directing her gaze to me. "I'm starving and my mom is taking us out to eat, Purity. Where do you want to go? Mom, you'd like this little pizza place that Purity and I went to before –"

"No!" I blurt out, louder than I intend. "I mean, um, what about that vegan restaurant you went to before together? Didn't you say that was good?"

Jez wrinkles her nose again, and Luna makes a gagging sound. "It was actually horrific," Luna replies. "A total travesty."

Her mother nods. "A train wreck," she agrees. "Pizza does sound good."

The last thing I want to do is run into Mr. Gabe anywhere in public right now, especially after how I left his office. It's not like there was even any closure between us, not with the English Department assistant interrupting like she did. He might regret everything; after all, he's a professor and I'm a student. Doing anything with me could cost him his job.

If I ran into him with Luna and Jez at the pizza restaurant, I'm sure Jez would be able to tell everything that happened between us just by looking at the expression on my face. Luna's mother can read my aura, after all.

"Oh, honey, you're looking faint again," Jez says. "Are you okay? Maybe pizza is a bad idea. Are you having your period? You might be anemic. You probably need iron in your diet. How does steak sound, Luna?"

"I thought you were vegan," I reply.

"Because we went to the vegan restaurant?" Jez asks, shaking her head and laughing. "Or because of the whole hippie thing I've got going on?"

"Um… both?"

"Oh no, honey," she says. "I was born and raised in Texas. I can't help but love a good steak. Does that sound good to you, Purity?"

"I do like steak," I admit.

I'm much more comfortable with a steakhouse than the possibility of running into Mr. Gabe at the pizza place, that is, until I'm putting a piece of steak in my mouth later at the restaurant, and Jez sidelines Luna and I with, "So are the condoms I left you with being put to good use?"

The bite of steak lodges right in the middle of my throat and I can't breathe. So now, a question about condoms is probably going to be the last thing I hear before I choke to death.

I try to cough, gesturing frantically at my throat while my eyes seem to bug out of my head.

"Holy shit! Mom, she's choking! She's choking!" Luna races behind me, wedges her fists under my ribcage, and performs the Heimlich maneuver on me right there at the table. The cube of steak lands in the middle of a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Luna calmly walks back to her side of the table and sits down beside her mother while I gasp for air. A waiter rushes to my side, asking if I'm okay, but I'm more embarrassed than anything else. Everyone in the restaurant is staring at us, and my cheeks flush warm from a combination of humiliation and adrenaline. Putting up my hand, I declare, "I'm okay!" loud enough for several tables nearby to hear before I lean back and wish I could disappear into my seat.

"Nothing like a side of public humiliation to go with my steak," I mumble.

Jez snorts and covers her hand with her mouth while Luna looks at her mother, horrified. "Mom, are you laughing?? She could have died!"

"I'm sorry, Purity," Jez says, giggling. "Sometimes I laugh at inappropriate times – you can ask Luna, she'll tell you. I didn't know the condom question would cause Purity to have a near-death experience!"

"Death by condoms," I say flatly. "Seems like a fitting way for a preacher's daughter to go out."

Jez hoots even louder.