As I’m looking out over the soaked forest canopy, I see a car pull into the driveway. One that doesn’t belong to Baron. It’s sporty but not expensive, and has a vanity license plate:
HNG8NCH.
Wow. You have got to be kidding me.
A guy steps out, not much older than me, wearing shorts and flip-flops and a big grin on his face. He spins his keys around his finger as he trots up to the front door and rings the bell. Instantly, my eyes are on my mom.
She shrugs. “Hey, a girl has needs.”
“Needs, Mom?” I exclaim. “You have a husband!”
A husband who clearly has a sexual appetite.
“Please, Pixie. Your father and I haven’t had sex in forever.”
“Stepfather,” I correct her. Wait, did she just say they haven’t had sex? How could that be possible? It’s clear that Baron has the sexual appetite of a baboon during mating season. How could he not be taking my mom, even if he’s on to the fact that she’s just using him for his money. “Will you let him in, honey?”
“I’m not letting your side-piece booty-call in, Mom.” Normally, I might be in the mood to just shut up and do it, but not today. Today I’m not taking any of her shit.
“Geez, someone’s in a bitchy mood today.”
Thanks, Mom. Way to be supportive.
Grabbing my poncho, I go out the back door and try not to think about what’s going on back at the house. That guy couldn’t be more than a year or two older than me. What an embarrassment. Just when I thought my mom couldn’t sink any lower.
The rain starts pouring down as I walk. I guess the universe really is pissing on me. I realize after about ten minutes that I’m shivering, but I don’t want to turn around. What really is there to go back to? A crazy stepdad and an equally insane mother? I can’t sit up in my bedroom knowing what’s going on in hers. Imagine if I heard something…
I guess it’s not the fact that she’s cheating that bothers me. After what Baron did to me, I shouldn’t give a damn. It’s the fact that she doesn’t seem to care about how what she does affects me. Her life has always been about her. Mine always seemed like an inconvenience.
Why even have a child if you don’t want them? Sure, she made sure I had clothes, food, a cell phone. The norm. But beyond that, I was on my own, and as I stomp through the puddles forming on the edge of the road, I’ve never felt more alone.
Clomp, splash. Clomp, splash. The sound of my shoes soaking up water with each step. My toes are so cold I can’t even feel them anymore. I wonder if you can get frostbite from water?
I keep walking and walking as the rain pours. Thunder rolls overhead as I step off the main road and start trudging up a trail uphill through the woods. I don’t even know who owns this land, but it’s probably Baron. Either way, I don’t care. It’s a trail, and I’m going to walk it.
No one seems to have been here for a while. I brush branches out of the way the best I can, but others grab at my legs and poncho like skeletal hands trying to drag me into the darkness. On any other normal day, I would just turn around and go home. But today is not a normal day.
How could he do such a thing to me? He claims he was protecting me from Harry, and then turned around and did that. If I close my eyes, I can still feel his sticky release all over me.
Obviously, Baron has issues. Maybe he thinks because he owns the rest of the world with all his wealth that he owns me too. He’s obviously much more dangerous and ruthless than I thought, and I’m going to have to find some way to avoid him. Maybe I can move my bedroom downstairs to the guest room where he never goes.
More ideas fill my mind as the rain patters down on my hood.
Maybe I could report him to the police. But for what? There’s no evidence he did anything wrong. Like an idiot, I went and took a shower and washed it all off. He didn’t leave any marks on me or anything – hell, he barely touched me.
But when he did…
How could I have let him bring me to orgasm like that? I feel like something inside of me should have just switched off and prevented that from happening, but in fact, the opposite is true. My body switched on when he pressed his tip against me. He knew right where to go too – right where it counts. And he rocked me.
I don’t know if I’m angrier at him for doing what he did and making me feel good in that moment, or at me for not finding a way to stop it. No one else has ever made me…do that before. Feel that way. Like every girl, I thought about who it would be. Who would I have my first time with? Never in a thousand, million, billion years would I have thought it would end up being my stepfather.
Even if I had evidence and went to the police with it, what good would it do? Baron would buy them off or use his power to intimidate them. He’d get away with
it for sure, and then he’d punish me even worse. How that could be possible, I don’t even know.
I reach the top of the path and emerge onto a bluff overlooking a small valley. The rock beneath my feet is pocked with countless hollows, now filled with the cold water pouring down from the sky. My feet are already soaked, so I kick at them aimlessly as my mind whirls.
What would make Baron do something like that to me? He was so concerned about me hooking up with Harry but turned out to be even worse than him. Well, I don’t know that, to be fair, but it wasn’t as though he was my knight in shining armor, saving me from the angry dragon and bringing me back to a nice warm castle for some soup. No, he’s more like the black knight who saved me once and now thinks I belong to him.