Page 54 of Baby Girl

I grabbed my phone and sent Kelli a text:

Baby Girl: What are you going to do when I tell you to do something?

I placed my phone on the table, and took a drink of coffee. The phone beeped. I picked it up, and looked at the screen.

Baby Girl: Do it, and smile.

I read the text and smiled. I typed another text, and pressed send.

Baby Girl: What are you willing to do for me? To make me happy?

I held the phone in my hand, and turned toward Warren. He looked up from the espresso machine. Warren knew who he was. No different than Kelli or I, he enjoyed pleasing others. By serving them the best coffee in town. He embraced his inner being, and loved who he was. He returned the smile.

The phone beeped.

Baby Girl: Whatever you tell me to, Big Daddy. I will do anything for you to make you happy. ANYTHING.

I typed one last message, and pressed send.

Baby Girl: I own you, Baby Girl. I own you, and I am proud. Know that.

The phone immediately beeped. I looked at the screen.

Baby Girl: :)

I read the message and smiled. Warren looked at me and smiled.

“What are you smiling about, Erik?” Warren asked.

“Oh, this girl I’ve been seeing,” I responded.

“Baby girl?”

“Yes, baby girl,” I responded, smiling.

“What about her?”

“Well, just trying to decide what to do with her, Warren,” I responded, looking at my phone.

“Do with her what you do with all the girls, Erik.”

“I’m thinking not, Warren…not with this one…” I responded.

KELLI. My lease agreement was up in two weeks. As always, I had procrastinated as long as I could to consider moving out, making arrangements to move, and getting ready for grad school. I needed to make a decision about grad school, and I needed to do it now. I know my father would just die if I didn’t go to school and take over the family dealership. I didn’t want to disappoint him, and I didn’t want him to be upset with a decision I had made.

I feel like Erik and I can be in a relationship and make it work if he would consider it. I know we won’t ever be in a relationship if I go to grad school at Columbia. He wouldn’t be able to, nor would I expect him to wait.

So much has changed this summer. I have spent my entire life, sexually, needing no one. I have always felt like I could just roam from one man to another, using them for what I wanted from them, and that want was sex.

I have always said, being single is smarter than being in the wrong relationship.

Being with Erik wasn’t wrong. What I want a man to provide me isn’t typical of a woman. I know now, after talking to Erik in the coffee shop, that I am not broken. I am not weird, or strange. There is nothing wrong with me. I am just me, and I need to accept myself for who I am. I need a man to sexually treat me the way I like to be treated without exposing myself to the dangers of abuse. When I find that man, I need to hold onto him like he is my means of survival, because he will be.

Erik Ead is that man.

When I was a little girl, my dad would sleep with me. I held his finger in my hand. I didn’t hold it because he was my dad, I held it because it gave me an assurance that he was there, and that he loved me. I told myself that as long as I had his finger in my hand, we were connected, and that he loved me. I never told him why I held it. I kept it a secret.

When I would wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes it would be gone. I would reach around in the dark and find it, and grip it in my hand. Squeezing his finger was my way of telling him I loved him, and knowing that he loved me.