When I get home, I take a few big hits from my vape pen and give myself a little pep talk before getting out of my car.

You can survive the crazy circus. Just a few more months.

Even though my job is boring, sometimes I wish I could stay there forever. At least at the office, I’m free to do what I want: help Jim when he actually needs my help, read my many books when he doesn’t, even smoke weed although now I’m relegated to doing it in my car, which isn’t too much different from how things are at home.

Except at home, I not only have to hide my dirty little weed smoking habit but pretty much everything about myself, too. I’m nineteen years old and I still live with my parents. How fucking embarrassing.

The reason I don’t have many hobbies is that there isn’t much they let me do. Books have always been my best friends before I met Ruby. I also watch movies on my iPad or tablet since my parents don’t believe in TV. And I even taught myself to sew and embroider to pass the time.

Yeah, I’m a regular little house on the prairie dweller. But I need to get out of here because it’s driving me crazy. I just need to save up the money.

Luckily the law firm pays legal assistants— even newer ones like myself— pretty damn well. I started out as a “floater”— a temporary assistant who fills in where needed— and was pretty happy in that position since it was light on responsibility and heavy on free time. 

And they still paid even the floating position pretty well so that I could save my money and get out of my parents’ house. I had no complaints. Life was pretty smooth sailing. Then they promoted me to being Jim’s secretary because no one gets to hang out in the sweet spot of being a floater forever.

At first I dreaded extra work and responsibility— I had no idea what I was doing and was sure I was going to someone commit malpractice even though I’m not even licensed to practice law— but it turned out to be an even easier gig. And it paid even better— much better, in fact— than the floater position had.

So now I’m coasting along in the slightly faster but still slow lane at work. You know, the one where you’re not sure if you should scotch on over to the right to let the cars behind you go faster, or if it’s worth putting pedal to the metal a little bit and joining the cruisers in the far left lane, risking speeding tickets and pile-on accidents.

People keep asking me what I’m going to do next, but change is fucking scary and increases my already- present anxiety, so I usually say nothing, even though I want to say it’s none of their damn business. The next step up would be a paralegal but that seems like way too much work although they’re paid even more.

I don’t even like the legal field. I’m just doing this to save money, get out of here, and figure out what I might want to do next. So, for the time being, I’m happy with where I’m at in life— a concept I’ve found that most other people have a hard time grasping.

If they’re not striving towards the Next Best Thing or working towards some Perfect Vision of the Future they might never have, people just don’t seem content. It takes a pothead like me to have these deep, profound thoughts and to be happy with the here and now, when I’m not freaking out with anxiety or depressed over circumstances beyond my control.

Speaking of circumstances beyond my control, I need to go face my crazy family. I reach into the consul and grab the little bottle of Febreze fabric spray and apply a generous portion of mist all over my clothes and skin.

It’s probably overkill, because it seems my parents wouldn’t recognize the smell of pot if it wafted over to them and said, “Hi, I’m of the Devil.” But if they did find out what I was doing, they would probably make me go give a public apology to the entire congregation. So, I try to stay on the safe side.

My dad is a pastor. We have to live in the parsonage house right beside the church where he preaches. So, we’re always under scrutiny from the congregants. And we’re always reminded of that fact and told we must be on very best behavior. Hence my anxiety.

Anyone in my situation would need to smoke pot to calm down. I can’t even tie my shoe without my dad looking out the window to see if some neighbor is watching and judging how far my skirt rides up my knee as I tie it.

Now, as I walk into the house, my little brothers are running around shooting each other with Nerf guns while my slightly younger sister is practicing her piano lessons. She’s still fully indoctrinated and plays the organ for church services. Obviously, we have nothing in common.

“Hi,” I yell to my mom, who is cooking dinner in the kitchen and who strains to hear me over my sister’s pounding of the keys and production of the music notes.

“Hi honey, how was your day?”

This question comes from my dad, rather than my mom. I didn’t even know he was home. He peeks his head around the corner of the wall separating the living room from the kitchen.

“Tamara, can you please cut that out for a second?” I ask my sister.

She sighs gruffly but stops playing the hymn mid-sentence.

I lift mine eyes up, unto heavens, where does my... plays in my head as I try to answer my dad.

I still know every word to every hymn, just as I know seemingly every important Bible verse. I was Bible quiz champion every year at Good News Camp. I was a teen missionary spreading the gospel throughout Central America.

My parents are so disappointed with how I’ve turned out, which surprises no one. They wanted me off at some Bible college by now, or married with a baby on the way.

“My day was fine,” I tell my dad. “I’m going to go on up to my room now.”

“Oh honey, we’re going to have a family dinner,” my mom says, frowning in disappointment. “Just as soon as this pot roast is ready.”

From my view of the kitchen, I can see my dad walk over to my mom and sniff his nose up in a distasteful manner.

“That’s pot roast?” he says.

“Yes,” she answers hesitantly.

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“It’s not totally done cooking,” she says, already with a note of apology in her voice.

“Well why not?” he demands. “I’ve been working on Sunday’s sermon all day long and you can’t manage to have dinner on the table at a reasonable hour.”

“Mom, Dad, don’t fight,” I plead, something I feel I’m constantly doing.

It’s pointless. They don’t listen and come Sunday morning they will forget all about their fighting, just in time to act like a big fake happy family in front of the congregation. And I’ll have to play my role as the good little oldest daughter.

I’m used to it, but it still sucks.

“I would just like to sit down to a nice meal and a clean house for once,” my dad says, fighting more instead of less and obviously not listening to me. “I don’t even understand what it is you do all day.”

I don’t want to hear him berate my mom any further. I wish I could pipe in that I don’t understand why she stays with him all this time— especially after everything he’s put her through— but I know that would only make things worse instead of better.

I’ve learned a long time ago that there’s nothing I can do to make anything any better for either of them. I can only make things better for myself by removing myself from the situation. And I have a certain boyfriend waiting for me to spend time with him— William Faulkner. The Sound and the Fury isn’t going to finish itself.

“Well, I’ll be in my room until dinner’s ready then,” I say, as I head for the stairs that lead up to my room.

“See, now Katie’s home from a long day of work at the law firm and you don’t have anything for her to eat,” I can hear my dad tell my mom. “I’m sure she’s starving.”

“I’m fine, Dad,” I say. Except for having to deal with you.

I’m a grown woman and can and should make my own dinner. But I also learned a long time ago that it’s pointless to tell that to my dad, too. He still sees me as twelve years old.

I’m happy to slip out of my work clothes and into comfier clothes. I can’t help but look at my body in the mirror and that immediately makes me think of the guy who bumped into me at work today.

Damien. He’d told me his first name and then Ruby later told me he’s Damien Hudson, owner of a bunch of different lucrative companies.

He’d approached the firm to help him pro bono— for free— on some sort of venture in which he makes toys for kids with disabilities. But Ruby had done some of her sharp online detective work and found out he’s worth a fortune so since then the firm has been charging him and now plans to charge him more.

I haven’t been able to think straight since that happened and it’s not because of the weed. I’m a lot more used to vaping than I am being literally plowed into by a super-hot guy I had just been ogling from afar.

I can’t get over the way he looked at me. Like he thought I’m as attractive as I think he is. I look at my large but kind of saggy breasts in the mirror and wonder if he liked them. I run a hand over my nipples, which are getting harder just by thinking about him.

Then I touch the hair down between my legs. Should I shave? Does he like a bush? Trimmed? Bikini wax? Bald?

I can’t believe I’m even thinking about these things, involving this stranger of all people. It’s not like I’m really going to sleep with him.

Is it?

But why did he look at me that way?

How could I lose my virginity to someone who looks old enough to be my father? Even if he is dashingly handsome and powerful and filthy rich?

I have leggings and a long, comfy shirt to put on but I decide to slip under my sheets naked. I’ll just read for a little bit, I tell myself, in the nude before getting dressed for dinner.

But I can’t concentrate on any of the words. I know I’m in too deep already, if a guy in real life makes me swoon more than Faulkner’s words do.

My hand returns to where it just was— my nipple. I twist it a little bit and wonder if that’s what Damien would do to it. He seems to be the type to like it rough. A real alpha.

I don’t know why —I never thought that would be my taste— but I think I’d like it. I lay the book down on my bed and slip my other hand between my legs. My fingers travel up and down my clit before deciding to rub on it just a little bit.

Yes.

It feels really good, but I wish it was Damien. Not just in my mind but here with me in person.

I bet he would know what to do to make me feel even better. I begin to rub myself harder, faster, opening up my legs a bit to be able to play with myself better.

I imagine his mouth on my nipples, and then on my clit. I feel myself getting so wet as I massage myself and think about Damien all over me. He would know how to get me off even better than I’m doing right now. But just thinking about him is making me feel so good.

I lean back on the pillow and allow a wave of pleasure to roll over me as I think about Damien bending me over and taking me from behind. I imagine he has a huge cock and knows what to do with it— both of which are things that I know must be true. I can just tell from looking at him. He exudes confidence, decisiveness and power.

But he wanted me too. I could tell that I had an effect on him. And thinking about his dark brown eyes looking at me as he has his way with me makes me give way to a full on orgasm.

Oh, my God, I think, but try not to say out loud. I don’t moan, although I want to. I don’t say a word. I just give in and let myself go to the thought of complete abandonment and surrender.

To Damien Hudson. The guy with the power to make me have the best orgasm I’ve ever giving myself, just by thinking about him and playing with myself.

“Katie!” I hear my name being called at the same time I hear the knock on the door.

“Just a minute!”

It’s my little brother Brad.

I jump out of bed and reach for my leggings.

“You can stop reading your boring old book now,” he says and laughs. “It’s time for dinner. If Mom didn’t burn the pot roast too much.”

Oh great. Now Brad thinks he can moan about Mom’s cooking as meanly as Dad does.

I need to get out of this place. But first I need to get myself together.

“I’m coming,” I tell Brad, and I can hear him walk back down the stairs.

Except I already came. And it was great. As I scamper to put my clothes on I wonder when I can see Damien again, and if he’s thinking about me right now the same way I’m thinking about him.

And I wonder if he’ll really do to me in person all the things I just thought about him doing to me right now.