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One
Riley
Thirteen years old
“Hey kid, you hear me? Hey, hey.”
Two light taps to the side of my face punctuated the last two words, and I swivelled to face the owner of the voice, blinking the daze from my eyes as I cleared my throat.
His hairy midriff folded over the top of his pants, the bulbous flesh jiggling as he jammed a meaty hand into the back pocket of his faded jeans. When it emerged with a few crumpled bills, he shoved them at me, smirking around the cig hanging from his lips. What the heck did she see in them?
“Go on then, piss off.” His brows raised expectantly, and I glanced down at the princely sum of... eleven dollars residing in my palm. Ah, that’s right, I was being paid to make myself scarce. Again.
Wow. How much time did he think this would buy him? Sucked to be Mom if this was enough. Even if I'd considered injecting my thoughts into the not-so riveting conversation Mom's latest fling and I were having, the flimsy door to our single-wide trailer was already hitting him on the proverbial ass as he slammed it closed behind him. Shrugging, I walked to where my bike leaned against the lidless trash can that stank like all hell and hopped on. I was quick for a girl, as Leon would begrudgingly admit, but apparently not as quick as some fat dude who wanted to get laid. The trailer was rocking before I got both feet on the pedals, Mom’s girlish squeals ringing out through the shaded windows.
I gagged as I pushed myself into motion.
You'd think I'd be used to it. He was boyfriend number who-the-hell-was-counting or could-even-keep-up-if-they-were. Come to realize, though, sharing a one bed trailer with a mother who viewed casual sex as a fun pastime wasn't something you ever really got used to.
To her credit, she always made sure I wasn’t in there while she was doing… whatever she did, hence the paid absence. My mom was painfully honest with me in every regard, some people—every person on the face of the Earth—might say too honest. She’d been like that since I hit eleven and she sat me down for the talk. But seriously, I did not need to know when my mother was having sex. Ever. Not even if it was her choice, and she was, and I quote, super comfortable with her sexuality.
She’d have to be, since she worked in a strip club; kinda came with the job description.
Physically, it was hard to separate us. I got her eye and hair color, body frame and size. I did not inherit her propensity to dance semi-naked around a pole or engage in casual sex like she was taking part in a Spring Break sex contest.
“So… just do it, Ri.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Why, just because it looks weird?”
I winced. He’d taken offense to that, even looked a little hurt. Note to self: do not insult a boy’s… thing. Looking into Leon's pretty face, I wondered why he wanted me to touch it, so I asked him.
“You shitting me?”
Shrugging, I glanced away. His fingers caught my cheek and tugged my face back. Big wide eyes stared intently into mine. I held his gaze, unblinking.
A crease emerged on his brow and his eyes narrowed as he tilted his head in question. “You're fourteen tomorrow, right?”
I nodded, my gaze steady, face impassive.
“This is what girls do when they're fourteen. Especially the pretty ones. And you're the prettiest I know.”
I sucked in a breath. My eyes dropped to the thing in question between us as my teeth caught my bottom lip, gnawing with uncertainty. I wasn't stupid. I knew more about sex than most kids my age, more than I ever wanted to, courtesy of the oversharing and brutal honesty supplied by my mother. What I didn't get was how Leon had gone from appearing to hate me and everything I stood for, constantly tripping me or sticking twigs in my bike spokes, to now wanting my hand on his fairly inconsequential and slightly floppy penis. Mom said you could lead a man anywhere by his penis. I just thought it was the men she knew. The kind who frequented strip clubs.
“And that's why? You think I'm pretty?” I asked, peering up at him through my lashes. “That's all it takes?”
He laughed, a deep, throaty laugh. It still surprised me. Although we were both in the same grade, I’d skipped kindergarten and went straight to first grade, which made Leon almost an entire year older than me, placing him at that awkward stage on the cusp between manhood and boyhood. His voice was toying with the idea of fully breaking, so sometimes he sounded like a full-grown man, yet his pretty face, with those sky-blue eyes and smooth jaw, was still so boyish. It often caught me off guard.
The advice he gave me on the day I touched a penis for the first time should go down in history as the worst piece of advice ever given to anyone. Ever.
He smirked, reaching to take my hand. I watched, unresisting, as he brought my palm to his body and pressed it into the soft flesh. Opening my fingers, I cautiously trailed them down the length of him, cutting my eyes to his face when he groaned out loud. I watched his head fall back and his eyes roll into his head before squeezing shut. His mouth opened on an extended moan.
“You use that pretty face and body on them, I'm betting you'll get any man to give you any damn thing you want for the rest of your life, Ri. Just like that, just keep rubbing like that...”
I did as he asked, fisted hand moving up and down methodically, but I couldn’t stop my mind from sliding off somewhere else.
Two
