First, we decided that we weren’t going to keep our relationship a secret. Therefore, when we went to school holding hands, chaos ensued. Our friends called us names, and no one wanted to know me. Derek was really popular, go figure. He was sweet though, and made sure the whole school knew not to mess with me.
“Just thinking about how we’re here together.”
We got married straight out of high school, and I’d gone to college with him while he played ball. Our relationship has gotten stronger with every passing year.
“How’s my little guy?” Derek asked, placing his hand on my swollen stomach.
“It’s a girl, and she’s fine. You’re going to be an awesome father.”
Derek nuzzled my neck and sighed contentedly. We watched the sun slowly start to set, and I rested against his chest. “It’s going to be a boy.”
“You just can’t handle being wrong,” I said.
This was our first time pregnant, and we were both nervous. He tried to pretend that he wasn’t terrified, but I knew he was.
“I can handle anything because I’ve got you, baby.”
Our parents had been shocked, but they’d been there for us. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life, watching my parents talk about how we weren’t related, and how fucked up everything was. After everyone got over the initial shock, they embraced us with open arms.
I didn’t care about Derek’s career, or how much money he’d make, I loved him, and I knew he loved me. To me, that was all that mattered, everything else can fade away.
Derek
Charlotte and I, we’ve got our happy ending. I love her, and I’ll never love another woman. She is my soul mate.
I wanted her, I got her, and now, I’m going to keep her.
The End
CHERRY (A Taboo Short, 3)
1
Sasha
The lights were so bright, and right in my face, that I couldn’t see anyone below the stage. And I had a pretty good feeling they’d made it like that so the women couldn’t see all the men appraising them. But I felt their gazes on me, scanning over my naked body, taking in every single part of me. I should have felt more nervous than I actually was, but the truth was I felt a little high from it all.
I’d gotten the information for this auction by chance, overhearing some people talking about it at a club. They’d been drunken men boasting and bragging about sleeping with gorgeous women, taking their virginities, or on some occasions, dominating them until they screamed for more, begged to come. I admit I shouldn’t have listened, but I was transfixed by the very idea something like that actually took place. It seemed like something out of a movie, or even a book. It was barbaric in a sense: men bidding on women, paying for one night to have them in any way they saw fit.
I was intrigued, curious, but most of all, I was desperate.
After losing my job because of company cutbacks, and going through my savings to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly, I had gone to that bar to drink some of my stress and worries away. That wasn’t the answer, I knew that, but it helped at the moment. I was tired of staying at home crying, trying to find a job, but coming up empty- handed. I was tired of wondering when I’d be evicted.
And so, it was then, for the first time in my life, I found the strength to actually go after what I wanted. I’d asked those men about the auction, gotten the information I needed to “audition”, and here I was, selling myself like I meant nothing at all.
No, you mean something. You’re important, or they wouldn’t have chosen you. You have something of value, and they know that.
I brought myself back to the present, and pushed my thoughts out of my head.
Standing on a stage, naked and waiting to get bid upon like some kind of art piece, was pretty degrading, but I needed the money, and I was desperate enough to do anything to get it.
I followed the announcer’s commands: Turn. Lift your arms up. Bend at the waist. Touch your breasts.
The commands went on for what seemed like forever, but in truth, they had to be only a few moments. This little bit of time was like I’d been sucked into a vortex, like I’d been transported into some parallel place where a woman could sell her virginity—her cherry—to someone who was the highest bidder.
But this isn’t a fantasy. This is reality.
The room seemed so silent, far more silent than was comfortable. Aside from the announcer, the only thing I heard was the occasional shuffle hidden by the lights, and that seemed far from funny.
When my time was finished, I was led off the stage, taken to a back room where other women waited for their turn, or had already presented every intimate part of themselves to strangers. There I waited until the final hour, until a man came in and started taking us girls to the bidders who had won. I was nervous, my hands shaking, my body tense. Every part of me was on alert, and the feeling of being pulled in different directions waged war inside of me.