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“I want to,” I said, contradicting myself. I ran my fingers over my forehead because my brain was spinning. “Daniel, despite what I led you to believe by my actions last night, I can’t do casual. I can’t… have a little fun. It can’t be without value. I won’t sleep around.”
“You’re a virgin. You don’t sleep around,” he said, not as a reminder to me, but it seemed because he was lost and trying to keep up.
I pressed my head against the stack and stared up at the ceiling. The building was old, an original Carnegie library, and had a high, stucco ceiling. At one time, the paint had been white or cream but was now more of a gray from age.
“I’m not a free spirit,” I explained, or perhaps warned. “I’m not an interchangeable receptacle of pleasure.”
“Interchangeable what? I don’t even know what the hell that means,” he said, almost frustrated.
“My mother is… pretty much, a hippie. A free spirit. She givesallof herself to others. Openly. Too openly. She tried to push that concept, and men, on me.”
“Your mother,” he repeated, his tone not a surprise. Who mentioned their mother when talking about sex?
“Valerie Price.”
“Valerie Price.Valerie Price.Oh. OH.”
And he figured it all out as if I’d been hoarding the last piece of a puzzle and finally gave it to him.
“Yeah, oh,” I muttered. Someone coughed and I lowered my voice. “I don’t want to call her a slut because there’s nothing wrong with a woman embracing and exploring her sexuality with many,manypartners, but everyone in Hunter Valley probably thinks the name fits her.”
“Um…” Now he was afraid to say something that might bother me.
“You know my mother,” I prodded.
“Of her,” he clarified. “The stories. The mayor and how she broke up their marriage and had him kicked out of office. She slept with the school superintendent too, right? I may have seen her last year at the grocery store in the produce section.”
He was probably right.
“Probably, she has a thing for penis-shaped vegetables. I don’t see her that often either. Maybe once or twice a year whenever she’s between men and needs a place to crash. That’s alwaystonsof fun.”
“I hear sarcasm.”
“Oh yeah. She also calls occasionally when she’s got a guy but well, we aren’t close. Not since I was eighteen and decided to return to Hunter Valley and live with my grandmother.” We weren’t close. At all. Not since I turned down Creepy Carl and fled Idaho. I dreaded when she randomly showed up. “I won’t be like her,” I told him. “Not with sex.”
“I’m leaving town on Saturday, Melly. This isn’t going to turn into a relationship,” he reminded. Yes, he was headed to Scotland to wear a kilt and toss cabers. If there was something that made a woman’s panties wet–at least mine–was that visual. “It can only be casual.”
I nodded, but he couldn’t see me. “Yes, I know. I don’t want one. A relationship. That’s not what this is about.”
My grandmother had been married for twenty-five years when my grandfather died. That was before I was born and she never met anyone else who could ever compete with him, so I never saw her in a relationship. The only relationship role model I had was my mom and that was find a guy with some money who she could fuck and keep happy until he got tired of her. It sounded like a sugar daddy situation, but it wasn’t like that. It was casual, a mutual exchange, an easy trade of sex and companionship. No legalities like a marriage license or even a shared rental agreement.
It was… weird. And included no love. I didn’t think my mother knew what real love was.
“Then what do you want? Sex is fun, Melly. It shouldn’t be anything else and if something happened to make you not think that, then, well, I’ll kill the guy and then prove to you it can be fun… with the right person.”
“I want like last night.” That hadn’t been fun. That hadn’t been anything like what it would have been like with Creepy Carl. With Daniel, I’d felt safe and protected. Taken care of. I hadn’t had to think or be worried or do anything but feel, even in a bar’s storage room.
“It willalwaysbe like last night. Better.”
Better than last night? How was that possible?
“I need to know I’m safe and while I feel that with you, what we’re going to do is… unfamiliar. I’m not scared of you, I’m scared of the unknown. Unlike my mother, I need to know the rules.”
“Rules?”
“Yes, guidelines. Agreed upon expectations even though you’re leaving. I need walls. Boundaries.” God, all that sounded awful. Boring. Right. Boring Melly Harwood. “See? That makes me uptight and not fun.”
“You want a contract,” he replied. He wasn’t laughing, but he sounded amused. “Like my business has with Arlo for the deck extension. Agreed upon expectations so that when the contract is over, we’re both happy. For him, minus the sex, of course.”
