How can you not?! How can you even survive without sex, Laine?!
I survive just fine. I don’t usually even think about it that much. I’m too busy with college, and keeping the house clean, and planning a future. Some kind of future.
I’m too busy trying to be a grown up, because my mother is pretty much incapable of being one. Always has been.
That’s what I didn’t tell Nick, when he asked why childcare. It’s because it’s the only time I’m really happy, when I can disappear into a magical imaginary world with children and live there with them for a little while. When I can forget I’m a big girl who has to clean up after her mother because her mother’s never been much of one for taking care of herself. When I can forget that I spent my evenings after school trying to cook myself dinner and do my homework and tidy the house up.
When I can forget about the noises coming through the wall from my mum’s room every night and how they made me feel.
I sigh and it sounds loud in the room.
That should have been my birthday wish. I wish I could live here forever.
I think about it. Living here. Being Jane. And the thought makes me smile.
I think about Nick being my daddy, and making my breakfast in the morning and ruffling my hair.
I think about Nick holding my hand and telling me I’m a good girl. Kissing me on the head.
Kissing me.
I think about Nick’s mouth.
His big hands.
I think about him touching me.
I think about him making the noises I heard through my bedroom wall.
I think about how it would feel. If it would hurt.
I rub my clit and it feels so naughty, touching myself in his daughter’s bed while he sleeps down the corridor. It feels naughty and wrong, and maybe it’s the combination of adrenaline and relief, but I can’t stop, not even when I hear footsteps on the landing and realise he’s not asleep. Not even when I reach that place where I breathe so quickly I make little gasps, and my heart races, and my toes curl.
My breath is so loud when it’s over.
I roll onto my side and pull my knees to my chest and realise that Jane’s bed creaks.
I convince myself that Nick definitely won’t have heard me. Definitely not, no way. Not one little chance. Not even one.
Until I hear his footsteps move away from the bedroom door.
Oh shit.Chapter ThreeNickI tell myself I always leave the bathroom door open when I take my morning shower, that’s one of the advantages of living alone. I tell myself I’ve always preferred the shower in the main bathroom — the one on the landing that opens directly across from Jane’s door. I tell myself that Laine is asleep, that she’s probably exhausted and I’ll be long finished and dressed by the time she surfaces.
I wish to God I hadn’t heard her last night. I wish I hadn’t lingered, hadn’t pressed my ear to her bedroom door to hear her exploring Jane’s toys with curious fingers. Only those toys aren’t Jane’s toys. I never got a chance to give most of those beautiful toys to my little girl.
I wanted to make sure Laine went to sleep ok, that’s what I tell myself. I wanted to be sure she wasn’t still scared, wouldn’t lie awake all night fretting over the piece of shit who tried to molest her in an alleyway.
My cock definitely wasn’t hard. It definitely didn’t take all of my restraint not to jack myself off like a cheap pervert outside her door.
I definitely didn’t want to hear her touching herself.
My shoulders feel tight until the hot water works its magic. The girl shouldn’t even be here. This is reckless. Ridiculous.
I don’t make stupid rash errors of judgement. That’s something I learned from my father.
Every decision has consequences, he’d say. Make sure you’re well aware what they are before you subject yourself to them.
He subjected me to enough consequences that I still bear the scars across my backside. Brutal, but fair, and he made me a better man for it. A smart man. A calculated man. A determined, responsible, powerful man.
Just like he was.
A man who doesn’t pick up vulnerable young women and put them to bed in his little girl’s room. If he wasn’t already long in his grave, my father would tan my backside afresh for my stupidity. I smile to myself at his memory and lather on some bodywash. I scrub hard, working the suds into my skin as though they stand a chance of cleansing my impure urges.
I’ve worked hard to keep my impulses under control. Worked hard to express my desires in an acceptable way. Now really isn’t the time to be thinking about them, not with temptation personified sleeping soundly across the landing. I shampoo my hair, working my fingers into my scalp, trying to get my head back in the game.