Page 14 of Rigid

“Yeah. We used each other. I was horny, he was horny. We used each other. I kicked him out when we were done.”

“What do you mean?”

“As soon as we were done, I asked him to leave.”

“Oh wow.” She took a drink of her tea, and then looked up. “He didn’t ask you to give him a lap dance or anything, did he?”

I worked with Lex at the seafood restaurant during the day, and worked nights at the local strip club. I’d been contemplating quitting, but the amount of money I made was difficult to walk away from.

“I didn’t tell him I danced. Did you?”

“No, I didn’t tell him. Did you quit the club already?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

“Are you going to?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“Is all Smokey’s worried about is protecting his daughter from meeting someone? I mean, is he willing to like, go out as long as that’s all it is?”

I wondered about how we left things, and if he’d be receptive to such a suggestion. If it included sex, I was sure he’d see value in it.

The thought of fucking him again bothered me. Not because I wouldn’t enjoy it, because I knew I would. My problem was that I feared I’d want it over, and over.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think so.”

“Figure out when your next night off is, and then why don’t you ask him. Maybe we could all do something together.”

I knew I’d have to make the promise of sex to even think about luring him into a night out with another couple. The thought of doing so wasn’t as exciting as it should be. Maybe it was because I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to continue fucking him without developing feelings.

After struggling with it for a moment, I decided I could fuck him one more time and walk away safely.

I gave her a look of reassurance and grinned at the thought of it. “I think I can talk him into it.”

FOUR

Smokey

Contentious matters seemed to be handled in the kitchen, and that’s where we were. I stood on one side of the island, and she on the other. It was a good thing there was something separating us, because she looked like she wanted to choke me.

“We’ve been over this and over this for the last year,” I said. “You know damned good and well that I’m not going to change my mind. You’ve got another month, and then I’ll agree to it. Now, I won’t.”

She pressed her hands to her hips and glared at me. “He’s not going to wait a month. He’ll find someone else to take out.”

“Then he’ll find someone else.”

She shot me a sideways glare. “You don’t care?”

Upsetting her was the last thing on earth I wanted to do. It hurt me to see her upset, but it would hurt me much worse to see a boy take advantage of her. I wanted to prolong her single status for as long as possible, and the rule of our home was no dating until she was seventeen.

“It’s not that I don’t care, because I do,” I explained. “I want you to be happy, but I don’t want you to get hurt. The rule is you can date when you’re seventeen. Not sixteen. Not sixteen and a half, and not sixteen and eleven months. Seventeen. That’s the rule.”

She tossed her hands in the air. “A rule you made up.”

“All rules are made up.”

She let out a long sigh, rolled her eyes, and then looked at me. “I want to go on the record as saying that this is the stupidest and most sadistic rule you’ve ever conjured up.”