Enemy Dearest

Chapter Seventeen

August

* * *

“Aug, check out my new driver.” Dad is polishing his golf clubs when I get home Saturday morning. “Top-of-the-line Hartford. Custom made. Look, they even engraved my monogram on the grips. Nice, eh?”

He attempts to hand it to me, but I ignore the gesture, making a beeline for the door.

There are few things on this Earth I hate more than golf.

My father must have paid for hundreds if not thousands of hours’ worth of golf lessons over the course of my childhood, always desperate to be the best on the green. If only he’d put that kind of effort into parenting, maybe I’d have taken more interest in his hobbies.

Though I will give him credit—he allowed me to accompany him to his favorite course once. When I was ten. Though I could only watch. After four hours in, I was growing restless and thought it’d be funny to drive off in our cart. My juvenile brain was convinced he’d find it hilarious, that we’d be laughing by the end of it. Instead he had me escorted off the grounds like a fucking criminal and made me wait in the back of his SUV for two hours while he finished his eighteen. After that, he never invited me golfing again.

“What, can’t say hi to your old man?” He chuffs, clearly insulted. Though he’s never struck me as a person capable of feeling anything. “Where were you last night, anyway? Who’s the lucky lady?”

“Oh, hey, August.” My father’s girlfriend, Cassandra, emerges from inside. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How have you been?”

Cassandra’s as fake as the double D tits hanging out of her unbuttoned, hot pink golf polo. That or she’s literally an imbecile. They’ve been together nearly a year, and I’ve yet to decide if she sucks at making conversation or if she’s just stupid.

Knowing my father, probably both.

God forbid he dates a woman smarter than him, or a woman my mother would’ve approved of. She was educated and eloquent. Fluent in three languages. An avid reader and a lover of the arts. At least from what I can glean from home videos and a handful of stories people used to throw around at the annual family reunions we used to host. She’d roll in her grave if she saw the kind of women keeping him company these days. Honestly, it’s embarrassing.

“August, a little respect, please. Don’t ignore Cassandra,” my father says. “No need to go shitting on someone else’s day just because you’re in a pissy mood.”

“Vince, it’s okay.” Cassandra’s breathy voice reminds me of a cheap Marilyn Monroe impersonator. I’m convinced it’s all some kind of act she uses to hook men. Like Hilaria Baldwin pretending to be Spanish when she was Boston born-and-raised. I suppose, if my father were with her because he found her interesting, it would matter. But she’s quite literally a bed warmer, a social accessory, and a human pocket pussy all rolled into one—much like the woman before her and the one before that …

My father checks his glimmering Patek Philippe timepiece. “We should head out if we’re going to make our tee time.”

It’s not like they’d turn him away if he showed up late. They’d rearrange everyone else’s tee times before they did that.

“Oh, wait. Let me grab my visor, baby …” Cassandra disappears inside, and I cringe on the inside because a man of his age should never be referred to as baby. I don’t care who you are.

“Any productive plans on the docket for this afternoon?” he asks while he waits. “Or are we planning to laze around the pool.”

“It’s a Saturday, so …” I shrug, smirk, and insert a sarcastic undertone to my words. “Definitely lazing.”

He peers down his bumpy snout at me. Thank God I took after my mother in the looks department. “I’d expect nothing less.”

“And I’m happy to meet those expectations.” I head inside before he can get the last word—a dick move, but I am my father’s son.

I finish the breakfast plate Clarice left for me in the fridge, hit the shower, and take care of the nasty case of blue balls I’ve come down with courtesy of the Rose girl. Only something’s … off.

My usual mental rotation of bukkake fantasies, nine person trains, and squirting pussies seems to be doing—quite literally—nothing for me.

I stroke myself faster, tighten my grip just a little more, pinch my eyes shut, and bite my lip, conjuring an image of my favorite cam girl. My cock throbs for a moment … before deflating.

“God damn it,” I mutter, rubbing faster.

Eyes shut tight once more, I visualize another tried and true classic—a farmer’s daughter getting railed on the back of a tractor by the hired hand. (I never said I was creative). And still—nothing.

Unsatisfied, I let it go, pressing my forehead against the shower tile and take a break. I didn’t sleep last night. Could be that. I stared at Sheridan for hours, my mind ruminating into the darkest corners, remembering things I’d once forgotten, fantasizing about things only a monster would be proud of.