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Skin In The Game

A Novel (Mf) (46,546 words) by Fabula Salaxacis - Roland's lust for thirteen-year-old Corinna forces each to make decisions that will set the course of their lives for years to come. Can you ever escape the consequences of those decisions, or are you forever bound by the ropes of past mistakes?

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Table Of Contents: Part I - The Innocent • 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • Part II - The Whore • 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • Part III - The Disciple • 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • Part IV - The Feminist • 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • Part V - The Damned

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Part I - The Innocent

Chapter 1

Roland Nestler could feel the ultra violet rays penetrating the carefully applied SPF 50 sunscreen and mutating the melanin cells in his skin. He sipped at the icy mojito wondering if alcohol would hasten or retard the mutations. As in most things, he assumed the negative. So it seemed just a matter of time before one of the many mutations produced a deadly melanoma and ended his life. It was not his only irrational fear, but the one that plagued him the most now that he was spending so much time in the sun. Others found the gentle breeze blowing from the Caribbean Sea across the pools and the oases of tropical plants punctuating the manicured walkways of the sun-drenched resort relaxing. Contemplating horrifying surgical scars from unsuccessful attempts to excise his cancer did not relax Roland.

Consequently, it required something extraordinary to compel him to lay about with the many oily tourists baking like a potato. Her name was Corinna Buckley. She was slender, with long legs, exquisitely shaped calves, blue eyes and a nose whose turn upward conveyed such innocence it could make him forget his carcinophobia for hours at a time. She was thirteen-years-old.

Fortunately, she had a favorite spot in which to brown her already tan skin, which meant he could position himself near her without having to do something that made him appear creepy. Of course if he tried to talk to her, he would likely do it in a way that was creepy. Roland had never mastered small talk with women, especially if they were smart, or pretty, or young, or female. He had been sitting in the same cluster of lounge chairs with her for the past day and a half but hadn’t managed more than a polite nod. She would be gone at the end of the week and his careful planning wasted if he did not speak to her.

He had a great deal to say, but in spite of a lot of rehearsal and a lot of alcohol courtesy of his all-inclusive vacation package at the Mexican resort Roland couldn’t bring himself to start. His opportunity vanished when an older couple whose skimpy bathing suits could not adequately contain their turd-brown, gelatinously corpulent flesh joined Roland and Corinna. After a round of brief introductions he listened helplessly as the blather of the two wealthy, aging adults filled the warm air. The husband, Sam, was a talker. He spoke at length on any subject, no matter how trivial, or how little knowledge of the subject he possessed. The sound of his voice was as irritating as car alarm and made being in his company unbearable, were it not for Corinna.

She, of the sweet face and charmingly quiet disposition, lightened all burdens and made bleak futures hopeful. She was insouciance in a bikini. She was the cool shade that would protect him from the carcinogens that penetrated the ozone of his life. If he could but start.

Roland had positioned himself so that he looked like he was basking in the sun but could stare at Corinna from behind his sunglasses whenever he wanted. He enjoyed the way the sun glinted on her braces when she allowed them to show. Like his mojito each taste of her refreshed, and like his mojito the more he drank of her, the drunker he became. That was why he didn’t respond to Sam’s question.

“Hey, Roland,” Sam said. “Are you asleep? Am I right? What do you think?”

As Roland stirred from his hebephilic reverie he said, “About what?”

“Young men today have no moral compass,” Sam said. “They follow their prick where ever it points.”

“Sam,” his wife said, “there’s a young lady present. Watch your language.”

The man grunted. “She should be warned about what she’s up against out there. I would hate to see what happened to our Tina happen to her.”

Corinna perked up from her magazine to ask, “What happened?”

Sam leaned toward the girl and in a near whisper said, “He posted pictures of her on the internet because she broke up with him. Not the kind of pictures a parent ever wants to see. If I every run into the bastard, I’ll strangle him.” Sam pointed a cautionary finger at the girl. “You can’t trust young men these days.”

Sam’s wife said, “He seemed like such a nice young man. I never would have expected him to do something like that. Something so… hurtful.”

“That’s the problem,” Sam said looking at Roland sternly. “You can’t tell by the way a man looks any more.”

“Oh, Sam, don’t be like that.” his wife said looking sympathetically at Roland. “I’m sure Roland is a very nice young man. Aren’t you, Dear?”

“Actually,” Roland surprised himself by saying, “I quite agree.”

“There,” Sam said, “I told you so.”

“I think anyone can have a dark side,” Roland said, “well hidden from others, even those closest to them.”

“Oh, that’s so cynical,” Margaret said.

“Just realistic,” Roland replied. “The polite neighbor with women imprisoned in his basement, the Sunday school teacher who is a pedophile, the cop who steals drugs. The news is full of examples every day.”

“Damn straight,” Sam concurred.

“In fact,” Roland said, “maybe we all have dark sides just waiting for the right circumstances to expose them.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” Margaret said. “If you’ve been raised right you will do the right thing no matter what.”

“The right thing is situational,” Roland said. “There was a famous set of experiments in the sixties in which subjects were asked to give what appeared to be very painful electric shocks to others who failed a memory test. They didn’t want to, but they were convinced it was the right thing to do in the context of the experiment so they zapped them, even though they were screaming in pain.”

“That’s horrible,” Margaret said. “I would never do that.”

“I can think of somebody I’d like to give a few thousand volts to,” Sam said.

“What do you think, Corinna?” Roland asked. “Does everyone have a dark side? Or can a good nature hold up against anything?” He was delighted with himself for having the courage to ask. He had to admit Sam’s non-stop blather made it easier.

Roland expected her to falter in her response. What teenager doesn’t think their near continuous masturbation doesn’t reflect a dark side of their evolving personality?

“I think if you really know someone you can tell if they’re a bad person,” Corinna said. “You just have to follow your instincts.”

“I agree completely,” Margaret said. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Dear.”

She has a lovely head, Roland thought. Every aspect of Corinna is as lovely as can be. He sighed.

“You be on the lookout for those punks just the same,” Sam said to the girl. “In my day we used to say you can’t trust anyone over thirty. Now I think it’s just the opposite.”

The conversation took a boring turn after that and Roland sprayed himself with more sunscreen from an aerosol can sending up a mist that was picked up by the breeze and spread over the group. This required an embarrassed apology. He ordered another mojito and settled in for another long stare at Corinna. He wondered how much larger her ‘double A’ sized breasts would be when she was grown. How wide would her hips get? He looked for evidence of fat deposits that would grow over the years into the swaying flab seen on Margaret. He could find none. She would be a great beauty, he thought, perhaps a model. One day he might be able to say he knew her when. No, he would never be able to admit he knew her. It would always have to be a secret.

Suddenly, Roland stood up from his lounge chair, took a step toward Corinna and leaned forward craning his neck as he stared in her direction. Sam stopped talking and Corinna looked frightened, as though Roland might attack her. “Holly shit,” Roland said. “It’s a dinosaur.”

This caused the other three to turn toward one of the large boulders behind Corinna that surrounded their seating area. Perched motionless on the rock was a large reptilian creature, his head elevated and the scaly skin on his tail blending into the vegetation behind it.

“It’s a Black Spiny-tailed Iguana,” Sam said. “They’re all over the place. They won’t hurt you.”

Corinna stood, grabbed her phone and started snapping pictures of the near motionless creature displaying a sideways stare back at the group of people now surrounding it. “That’s so cool,” she said. She thrust her phone at Sam and asked, “Will you take my picture with it?”

“No,” Roland said. “How do you know it’s not a Komodo dragon? They eat people, you know.”

“It’s an iguana,” Sam said. “It’s smaller than a cat. They eat plants, and maybe a few flies.”

Corinna sidled up against the rock and smiled her best closed-lip smile while the iguana looked at her. With the picture taken, everyone returned to his or her seats except Roland. They all stared at him until he sat down and the conversation picked up again. Roland cursed himself for looking like an idiot, but he was genuinely frightened for the girl. None of them seemed to appreciate the danger she was in.

“He was one of those young hot shots,” Sam said as he swerved onto another conversational path he was walking alone. “They all call themselves entrepreneurs these days, but he didn’t want to assume any of the risk. I would have been an idiot to invest in a venture like that. I told him I don’t do business with people who have no skin in the game.”

“What’s ‘skin in the game’ mean?” Corinna asked.

Happy to have an interested audience for his continued chatter, Sam said, “If you are starting a business and each of your partners puts up $100k, they are all said to have skin in the game. The game is the investment and the skin is the money they have put up. It is assumed the partners will all work hard to make the business a success to protect their investment. If one partner puts in nothing of his own then he is not as likely to work hard to make it a success. He has no skin in the game.”

Corinna let loose a charmingly childish smile and said, “That’s such a funny expression.”

“The great Warren Buffet said it first,” Sam said, appearing pleased he had precipitated such a warm response from her. “He is the world’s premier authority on investing, the most successful investor in the 20th century. They call him The Wizard of Omaha.”

“Actually,” Roland said courtesy of the several mojitos he had consumed, “Skin in the game is a reference to a pound of flesh from The Merchant of Venice.”

Sam said, “Huh, never heard that before. You sure?”

“Yes. I know my Shakespeare.”

“What is it you do again?” Sam said.

“I am a writer.”

“Oh,” Sam said disapprovingly. “Tina’s boyfriend used to say he was a writer, too. Wasted a lot of time writing but never published anything. It’s like calling yourself a pilot without ever having flown a plane. You ever publish anything?”

“Oh, Sam,” Margaret said, “Stop being such a grumpus.”

Roland gave the alcohol permission to take over the conversational portion of his brain and he said quite uncharacteristically, “Yes, I have published seven novels.”

“You don’t say,” Sam said with genuine surprise. “Have I ever read one?”

Now Roland regretted giving the alcohol permission to speak as he paused, then asked, knowing the answer beforehand, “Do you play any video games?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I doubt you would have read any of my novels.”

“What do video games have to do with novels?”

“I write novelizations of video games.” Roland could see this made no sense to the man, or Margaret or Corinna. For Corinna’s sake he tried to clarify. “About one to two percent of people who play video games will buy a novel of the game. It’s a way to re-experience the things about the game they enjoyed.” He could tell by their blank expressions he hadn’t created any understanding. Had there been even a glimmer of interest from Corinna he would have gone on. Her determined reading of a magazine convinced him his occupation did not interest her. It was likely nothing about him would interest her. This was expected, but it disappointed him nonetheless. He sank into the lounge and a long stare at Corinna from behind his sunglasses ensued.

Sam and Margaret announced they had massage appointments and left in the early afternoon, which meant Corinna and Roland were alone. He was rehearsing what he wanted to say waiting for just the right moment to initiate a private conversation. She glanced up occasionally to look around the resort and he told himself the next time she did he would begin.

Corinna sat up suddenly and began gathering her towel and magazines looking very much as though she was going to leave. She didn’t look up, not once. Roland could feel her slipping away from him and he panicked. “Where’s your father?” he asked. It sounded accusatory, although that was not what Roland intended.

“He’s attending the conference.” She didn’t seem to take offense.

Roland knew that, of course, but he stumbled out a few more questions he knew the answers to trying to think of something that would make her stay. “Does he like being an accountant? It always seemed kind of boring to me. No offense. He probably makes a good living, though. Is he a good father?” This is why Roland didn’t engage in small talk with women. He always said the most idiotic things.

Now she looked offended, then said, “Of course he’s a good father.” She had gathered her belongings in both hands and stood up. Clearly she was leaving.

“Yes, of course he is. I didn’t mean to imply he wasn’t. It’s just that some people– What’s he like, your father I mean? As a person, and a father?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I’m just curious about people, as a novelist, for my work… writing. I write about people.”

“Oh,” Corinna said as though she had misunderstood his intention and now realized he had asked her an important question for which she could supply a valuable answer. “He’s quiet, he’s funny sometimes, and he works hard. He gives to charity and he thinks it’s important to volunteer in the community. We work at the soup kitchen for our church on Thanksgiving.”

“That’s very admirable,” Roland said.

“Yeah, I’m lucky,” she said.

She smiled in a rare lack of self-consciousness about her braces that made Roland want to let her go. His determination to carry on with his plan won out. “What about his dark side?”

Her smile disappeared into a very disapproving frown. “He doesn’t have a dark side.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said, her lithe frame stiffening in defiance.

“How can you know for sure?”

“I live with him,” Corinna said as though that was explanation enough. In spite of that she followed with, “I would know if he was hiding something.”

“Not if he hid it well.”

“He’s not hiding anything,” Corinna said.

“Everybody is hiding something,” Roland said. “It’s what makes us different from the animals. We deceive, we lie, we have secrets.”

She stiffened in defiance once again, even more than before. “If you knew my father, you would know he is not hiding anything.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you angry,” Roland said.

“I’m not angry.” Her tone contradicted her words.

“Yes, you are,” Roland said. “It’s a natural reaction to a strange man casting aspersions, as it were, on someone you love.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Aspersions? It’s an insult, a disparagement. I accused your father of having a dark side.”

“He doesn’t,” she said. “You don’t even know him.” She turned and walked away.

Roland couldn’t imagine anything more attractive than her svelte, bikini-clad hips in a determined, undulating walk. That old condescension was true for her. She was very cute when she was angry.

Part I - Chapter 2

Her anger made it easier for Roland. Had she been sweet or even just polite it would have been much more difficult for him to approach her. He was on more comfortable ground when women didn’t like him, as though he had nothing to lose. So when he arrived at one of the resort’s restaurants for breakfast the next morning and saw Corinna sitting alone he went directly to her table. He noticed hers was the only place setting so he sat across from her. “I take it your father is not joining you?”

She was not happy to see him, but she was doing a good job of concealing it. “No, he has a breakfast meeting.”

Roland grabbed a place setting from another table, adjusted the chair and placed the napkin in his lap. “Have you ordered yet?” he asked.

Taken aback by his presumptive behavior she said, “What are you doing?”

“I thought we might eat together and you could tell me about your father,” Roland said. “You know, as research for the novel I’m working on.”

“Since when do they have video games about accountants?”

“Oh, this is for a book of my own, an original, or it will be if I ever finish it,” Roland said. “The accountant is forced to take a serum that turns him into a superhero who has to save the world from zombies rising from the grave.”

“That doesn’t sound very original,” she said. “Who’s going to buy that?”

“You would be very impressed if I told how many thirteen-year-old boys love my books.”

“Thirteen-year-old boys don’t interest me at all, so I don’t think I would be very impressed.”

“That,” Roland said, “is the most interesting thing you have ever said. Why do you have no interest in thirteen-year-old boys?”

“I thought you wanted to know about accountants?”

Roland had difficulty letting go of the topic, but he managed. “Right. Back to your father. You were going to tell me about his dark side.”

“No I wasn’t, because he doesn’t have one.”

“The protagonist of my novel lost his family, and although a superhero who saves the world, he has a dark side. It makes him someone everyone can identify with.”

“How do thirteen-year-old boys identify with a man with a dark side?”

“Easy,” he said. “All boys that age have a dark side. It’s where they stuff all of those nasty thoughts.” Roland was pleased to see the slight grin his remark elicited from the girl.

“What’s the hero’s dark side?” she asked.

“I haven’t decided yet. Something that makes him partly responsible for his family’s death. Maybe he’s a drunk. That way it could eat him up inside and his wholesale slaughter of the zombies seem justified.”

“So his dark side is just an excuse to kill zombies?”

“Yes of course,” Roland said.

“Aren’t there any women in this story?”

“Oh, yes,” Roland responded. “There are lots of naked, dead ones who eat flesh, of course.”

“No,” Corinna said. “I mean women the hero can fall in love with.”

Roland’s eyebrows squirmed. “You have met thirteen-year-old boys, right?”

When the waiter arrived she ordered pancakes and Roland ordered eggs, bacon and a mojito. He was delighted to be conversing with the girl as though they were friends. She was something less than delighted, but allowed him to ask a range of silly questions about her. By the time the food arrived she had even asked a few questions of him. It gradually dawned on him that she might be lonely in the exclusive beach resort. He hadn’t seen many kids her age, and she hadn’t seemed interested in locating them. Here was a girl, who with very little effort could garner the attention of any male she wanted. It made him wonder why she didn’t try.

Then she modestly told him how she was starting high school in September a year early because she had skipped the second grade. Roland had a cousin who skipped a grade and he remembered his mother talking about how those kids were often more introverted with other kids but got along well with adults. It made her ease in conversing with him more understandable.

He nourished a little fantasy in which the two actually became friends and she gradually developed a crush on him. Naturally, he would do the noble thing and redirect her affections toward a more suitable target. He would always hold a special place in her heart, however, and she would name her first child after him. Roland sighed heavily as he anticipated what was actually going to happen.

“You think everybody has a dark side, right?” Corinna said bringing Roland’s thoughtful silence to an end. “What’s yours?”

“You don’t want to know,” Roland said.

“You mean if you tell me, you’ll have to kill me kind of a thing?” she said with a grin.

“No, I mean if I tell you, you’ll want to kill me.” His serious tone threw her and he responded to her worried look. “I’m just kidding. No one has to die. I’m not a hit man or anything, or ex-CIA on a mission of revenge against the terrorists who murdered his family. That’s my next book, by the way.”

“Same as the last one. You should try a love story,” she said.

“You have to write what you know. I know more about physics than I know about love, and I couldn’t tell you which way an apple goes when it falls out of a tree.”

“You’re… funny.” Another grin exposed some silver.

That slight praise and grin caused a warm rush of pleasure to surge through Roland. It made him want to say something about how appealing that grin made her that would surely sound creepy. Fortunately, he stuck to the point. “What about your dark side? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

Corinna’s mouth dropped open, then, “Like I’m going to tell you that.”

“Two strangers meet at a resort. We’ll probably never see each other again. Who better to confess your greatest sin to?”

“I’ll probably see you by the pool tomorrow,” she said. “Besides, my sins aren’t that great.”

“The worst thing I’ve done,” Roland said, “so far,” he corrected, “is when I was in college I used to pilfer petty cash from my work study job. I’ve always felt bad about that. The funny thing was I started right after my dad and I got into this weird discussion about right and wrong. He never talked about morals and such. He said when you’re trying to decide if you should do something, imagine how you will feel afterward. If you think you’re going to feel bad after, don’t do it. I started stealing right after that, like I was trying to test his theory. I anticipated feeling bad when I stole, and I did, but I kept doing it.”

It was as though Roland’s confession had opened the lid on the jar of her previous reluctance and her confession spilled out. “I shoplifted at Macy’s once. I put a skirt on under my own and wore it out of the store. The girl I was with got caught later, but I didn’t. I was so glad I wasn’t caught I never did it again.”

“You shared a secret with me.” Roland said it as though amused, but he was actually touched. Uncomfortable with his feelings for the girl getting any mushier, he deflected. He tapped the cell phone in the front pocket of his Aloha shirt and said, “Now that I have your confession Miss Buckley, Macy’s has authorized me to place you under arrest and extradite you to the US where you will stand trial for grand theft skirt.”

The horrified look on her face confused Roland. She turned her head down as she nibbled at a pancake, refusing to look at him. When she used her forearm to wipe away a tear Roland said, “Oh, shit. Did you think I was serious?”

The waiter came and left separate checks and Corinna signed to assign hers to her room. She picked up her room key and started to get up.

“Wait,” he said. “I’m so sorry, it was just a stupid joke.”

“It was mean,” she said, pausing to hold her hands in her lap.

“No, no,” Roland said trying to defend himself. “Mean is when you intend to make someone feel bad. Believe me, that’s the last thing I wanted to do. I’m just stupid. I say stupid things all the time. I’m just too stupid to know when I’m going to say something stupid, or I wouldn’t say it.”

She glanced at Roland as if trying to decide if she believed him. “It’s okay,” she said, drawing a breath. “I’m just kind of sensitive about that whole thing. My dad would be so disappointed if he knew. You wouldn’t say anything to him, would you?”

“Of course not,” Roland said. “Never. I’ll take your secret to the grave. I can keep secrets, believe me. I’m no animal.” When she got up he panicked again and said, “Where are you going?”

“I have a spa appointment,” she said as she stood.

“When will I see you again?”

Corinna looked at him as though he had said something creepy.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Stupid me. That came out wrong. What I mean’t was, I want to continue our discussion of your father, for my novel… about his dark side.” He could tell by her anger he had said something else stupid.

“I told you, he doesn’t have a dark side.”

“Yes,” Roland said softly, “he does.”

“You don’t even know him,” she said.

This was not the way he wanted to tell her, but he was afraid he wouldn’t have another chance, especially if she was mad at him. “I know your father,” he said. She paused and he gestured for her to sit down, and he was relieved when she did.

“How do you know him?” she asked.

“I don’t know him,” Roland began. “I met him, though. It was casual, a bunch of people, we exchanged names. We never talked after that so unless he is one of those freaks who never forgets a face, he won’t remember me, but I met him. Is he?”

“What?” Corinna asked.

“Someone who never forgets a face.”

“No. He’s just a regular guy, and he doesn’t have a dark side.”

Roland could feel the rush of anxiety about the secret he was going to reveal, about what he felt for the girl, about what it would do to her. “I told you, everyone has a dark side.”

Corinna looked frustrated and said, “What are you talking about?”

“We can’t talk here,” Roland said, looking around, then lowering his voice. “Come to my room, and I’ll explain.”

“No way,” she said. “I’m not stupid.”

“I just want to talk,” he said. When she appeared disbelieving, he continued. “I’m harmless. Look at me. Have you ever met a more harmless looking person than me?”

“Everyone has a dark side,” she said.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “But believe me mine is a pale gray compared to the black ink of your father’s.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’ll explain everything. My room number is 342. Come anytime.”

“What if I don’t?”

Roland couldn’t believe he was actually going to say what he had rehearsed so many times. “It wouldn’t be good, for your father.”

Corinna left. Roland finished his mojito and ordered another. When that was done he ordered one sent to his room and retuned to be there when it arrived. He could see the area near the pool where they had sunbathed the day before from his balcony. All morning and afternoon he watched. He saw Sam and Margaret appear but he did not see Corinna. He wondered what it meant. He spent a lot of time rehearsing telling her but no matter what he said it all sounded trite and hackneyed, like something from one of his novels. He imagined she would listen and then ignore him, like you would a homeless person on the street who said something crazy.

The waiting was nerve-wracking at first, but by the time he had completed his room service dinner, he was bored and convinced she wouldn’t come. In all his planning it had never occurred to Roland that she might not even come to hear what he had to say. Perhaps she told her father and he counseled her to ignore him. Perhaps he would come in place of her. The more he thought about it, the more that seemed likely. Roland did not like the idea of confronting her father. He might get angry and decide to beat him to a pulp, or worse. Maybe he would bring Corinna and there would be the further humiliation of her watching him get beat up by her father. Roland was coming to the conclusion that so many things could go wrong that he was not merely stupid, but insane. He sat in a chair, drinking and dozing off and on.

Part I - Chapter 3

The quiet knock at the door came just after midnight and startled him so much he spilled his drink all over his khakis. He swore and tried to mop it up with a towel but a wet spot remained on the front of his pants. He peeked through the door viewer and was relieved to see Corinna standing there alone. He opened the door holding the towel in front of his pants.

She looked wary and leaned in to see if anyone else was there. Roland tried to explain about the spill but gave up. After inviting her in, he asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Like I’m going to let you drug me?”

Roland was appalled. “I would never do something like that.”

“Right,” she said making it clear she didn’t believe him.

“Have a seat,” he said pointing to the single chair in the small room. Corinna skirted the bed and sat tentatively on the edge of the seat. He pulled up a small table and sat facing her. He set his drink and towel on the floor and folded his hands hoping to look friendly and relaxed. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said.

“You said anytime. I share a room with my dad and I had to wait until he was asleep.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’m a terrible sleeper anyway. Always too much stuff rattling around in my mind. I write a lot that way. You know, thinking of plots and bits of dialog to–”

“Why am I here?” she interrupted.

“Right,” Roland said rubbing his hands together like Lady Macbeth. “I knew your mother.” He let the surprise of his words sink in.

“How?”

“We had a drink together once. We talked. We talked about you.”

“When?” Corinna asked.

“Over a year ago, now.”

Corinna stiffened. “My mother died three years ago.”

“Oh, right. I knew that,” Roland said. “I mean’t your step mother.”

“She’s dead, too.”

“Yes, just about a year ago. I talked to her just before she died.”

Corinna looked baffled. “Were you friends?”

Roland waved his hand dismissively. “Hardly. A woman like that? She was out of my league. But we talked for about thirty minutes at the bar. She liked highballs and had had a few too many. She seemed to think I was a good listener. I wasn’t. I was too busy thinking about you.”

“I don’t understand. Why were you thinking about me?”

“Because she showed me a short video of you on her phone,” Roland said. “She showed me a picture of your father, then a video of you working at the computer, doing homework or something. You were surprised when you realized she was filming and you smiled in a charming, embarrassed way. Usually those kinds of pictures are too mundane to be of interest to anyone but family but you’re one of those people the camera likes. You know, always takes a good picture. I’ll bet you even look good when you’re throwing up. That video of you smiling really rattled me.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Roland asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” Roland said. “Even at your age you can’t look like you do and not be aware of the affect you have on men.”

This appeared to be an uncomfortable truth to the girl. It made her angry. “What do you want?”

Roland tried to steady himself against the girl’s anger by taking a breath. “I know why your mother died.”

“My stepmother? Everyone knows how she died. It was an accident”

“I didn’t say how she died, I said I know why she died.”

“They said there were high seas, and she wasn’t supposed to be on the deck, and she was drunk.”

“True. True,” Roland said, still wringing his hands. “It was no accident, though.”

“You think she killed herself?”

“No. She… ah… said you didn’t like her.”

“She was alright,” Corinna said, reflecting back. “It was hard… after my mother died. I couldn’t be Kathy’s daughter like she wanted, but she was okay. I didn’t hate her, or anything.”

“She thought you didn’t like her,” Roland said.

“Are you saying she killed herself because we didn’t get along?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then what are you saying?” she asked clenching her fists in frustration.

“I’m saying I saw your video, and I told her how beautiful you were. I had had too much to drink and I went on and on about you and… and she cried. She agreed. She said you were smart, and pretty, and mannered, a little adultified, but everything you could want in a daughter. There were just a few tears, enough to know that it was eating her up inside. She said she couldn’t look at you any more without wanting to cry, and she wasn’t going to do it any more. She couldn’t do it one more day. She had made up her mind.”

“About what?” Corinna asked.

“Your father didn’t want any more kids, right?”

Corinna’s expression turned dark. “Why do you say that?”

“That’s what Kathy said. The two of them agreed. No children. Only it wasn’t so much an agreement as a requirement from your father. He wouldn’t get married unless she agreed to no more children.”

“Kathy said she didn’t want any children,” Corinna said. “She told me that.”

Roland shrugged. “Maybe. All I know is that night she couldn’t stand hearing how wonderful you were any more. She wanted another child of her own.”

“Another child. What do you mean?”

“She had a daughter before, when she was in high school. Never married. Her name was Carol. Carol died when she was only three. Malformed heart, Kathy said. That day, the day we shared a few minutes in the ship’s bar, during your father’s and Kathy’s honeymoon cruise, was the anniversary of the day Carol died.”

Corinna started to cry. Roland wanted to do something kind and supportive, but he knew anything he did would come across as creepy, because his intentions were creepy. He handed her the towel. She gave him a look like the towel was an unsatisfactory substitute for a tissue. Perhaps she smelled the booze. She used her forearm instead.

When Corinna had collected herself a bit, she said, “It was me. I told Dad I didn’t want any brother’s and sisters. He said he didn’t either, but I made him promise. He said she was fine with that.”

“Why didn’t you want any brothers or sisters?” Roland asked.

“I missed my mom, and I didn’t want a whole ’nother family. I was afraid it would make me forget her, forget what our family was like. It was stupid, I guess, but I missed her so much.”

“I was an only child,” Roland said. “I didn’t want any siblings either.”

“If I’d known about her daughter, I wouldn’t have made her promise. That must have been really hard on her. She never said anything. Dad never said anything. Did he know about Carol?”

“It’s not clear,” Roland responded. “Like I said, I met your father, but I don’t know him.”

“Then it’s my fault she killed herself,” Corinna said.

Roland began shaking his head and quietly repeating, “No.”

Corinna kept talking and grew more agitated. “If he knew about Carol he wouldn’t have made her promise to not have any more kids. He’s not like that. That would be mean, and he’s not mean.”

Roland’s chorus of no’s grew louder but she kept talking.

“He’s not the one with the dark side,” Corinna said. “It’s me. It was my fault because I didn’t want Dad to get married again. I didn’t want him to forget my Mom. I am the reason Kathy killed herself.”

 Frustrated she wasn’t attending to his soft no’s Roland yelled, “No you’re not!”

“How can you say that?” Corinna asked through her tears.

“Because,” Roland said loudly to interrupt her crying. When she paused he steeled himself for what he was about to say. “Because she… she… Kathy that is, didn’t kill herself.”

Corinna’s face went blank. Roland had never seen someone look so dumbfounded before. It pained him to see it, and he knew it was soon going to hurt even more.

Eventually she managed to ask, “Then it was an accident?”

“No, it wasn’t an accident either.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“Kathy didn’t just fall off the ship because she was drunk and there was a big wave and she didn’t jump overboard to kill herself,” Roland said. “She was murdered.”

“But that’s not what the police said.”

“They had no reason to believe otherwise. There was no obvious motive, no insurance policy, no financial gain to be had. But she was murdered.”

“Why do you say that? Are you some kind of detective?”

“No, I’m a drunk who was in the wrong place at the right time.”

Corinna fell silent, which surprised Roland. He couldn’t imagine what was going on inside her head. “Well?” he said.

“Well what?” she asked tentatively.

“Aren’t you going to ask?”

“Ask what?”

Roland was incredulous. “Aren’t you going to ask who killed your stepmother?”

“Who?”

“Yes, who?” he said sarcastically. “That is the question. That is the point of everything I have been doing for the last six months, of my going to all this trouble to get to know you, of this secret rendezvous, to reveal who murdered your stepmother. But I am guessing you know by now.”

“No, I don’t.”

Roland stared at her. He couldn’t tell if her ignorance was feigned or real. He didn’t want to say it. When he said it, there would be no turning back. He would be committed. “It was your father. Your father murdered Kathy.”

“No he didn’t,” she said matter-of-factly. “The police said it was an accident. Or maybe she killed herself. You’re making all this up. You have some grudge against my father, or you’ve had too many mojitos, or you’re insane.”

“I have proof,” he said. Roland stood and opened the laptop on the desk. He started the video and began narrating. “There were big waves that night, lots of people were sea sick. I wasn’t. I was just a stumbling drunk. That’s the bartender picking up my phone that fell out of my shirt pocket and flew across the room when I fell. He sticks it back in my shirt pocket after he helps me up. I didn’t realize until later the screen was cracked.”

The video shows an image of the back of a woman’s head at the bar then the back of the bar as the camera moves closer. “This is your stepmother. You can hear our conversation pretty clearly. The bartender must have inadvertently started the video recording when he put the phone back in my pocket.” Roland fast forwards saying, “Let’s cut to the chase.” The video resumes with a view of the deck of the ship at night. “Apparently, when I left the bar I went out on deck and fell into a chair. They closed access to the deck during high seas, but there had been a leaky hot water pipe so people were taking detours around the wet carpet. This is your stepmother, drunk and hanging onto the rail. There’s the couple walking by who said she looked drunk. She could have easily fallen overboard with a big wave, but she didn’t. This is your father, like maybe he’s been looking for her. Police said he had gone to his room earlier and was there all night, but there he is. They start fighting. You can’t hear the words but I know it’s about having children. He starts to leave, she grabs his shoulder, he turns and backhands her, she falls face first over the railing. He grabs for her, gets her left hand but he can’t hold her and she slips into the ocean. You see him staring, like he’s trying to decide what to do. He looks around, doesn’t see me. Apparently I’m on the deck in a corner, in the dark, and your father leaves.” Roland stops the video.

Corinna’s head drops, and Roland retrieves a few tissues and hands them to her. He sits on the table again and waits. Eventually, she looks up, her face ashen, and asks, “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“Because I didn’t know anything. The next morning when I woke up in my room I could see my phone was cracked and it didn’t work so I threw it in the suitcase and got a new one when I got home. About six months later I ran across it and decided to recycle it. I charged it up and messed around with it until I got it to work, transferred off the photos from the trip for my mother, and discovered the video. It was so large it had consumed all the space on the phone.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police?”

Roland took a breath, wondering if he could do it, then said, “I wanted to show you first.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to give you some… options.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can show this to the police, explain what happened, and your father will go to jail. Or,” he paused, “I can forget I ever looked at my old phone.”

“What do you want?”

“I would like you to be my friend,” Roland said softly, each word carefully chosen. “I would like you to be my companion as I take advantage of all the money I spent on this overpriced resort, and my… intimate.” He took a breath. “I would like you to be my lover.”

Corinna’s head fell to the side, her stare blank, as though she could no longer process what was happening.

“I know, horrifying isn’t it?” Roland said. “But, there it is. If you do what I ask, the world will never know your father is a murderer.”

After a long pause, her head rose and she said, “I… can’t.”

“Well, I certainly don’t blame you. I would rather shoot myself than allow someone like me to do all the things I want to do to you to me. I certainly don’t want you to shoot yourself, though, far from it. I think once you realize that killing yourself won’t prevent your father from going to jail, you’ll select the more life affirming option.”

Corinna resumed her blank stare.

Roland felt truly sorry for her, but he had to suppress a giggle that he might actually get what he had been dreaming of for months. Then he felt bad for his glee. “I bath regularly, I don’t have bad breath, and I’m not mean or cruel, if that helps any. I would like to make our time together as pleasant as possible. You don’t have to act as though you like me, although putting on a pleasant face while secretly reviling your partner has been a hallmark of many great marriages.”

“You mean I have to do… everything with you?”

“Yes, everything I can think of. Feel free to make suggestions yourself. I’m flexible.”

“And if I do it with you,” Corinna said, “then you won’t tell the police?”

“This is not a one time thing. It will require an extended effort on your part.”

“What kind of effort?”

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to marry me, or anything. That would make you suicidal for sure. What I’m proposing is a yearly get together for, say, a week at a time. Just until you’re eighteen. That way you could have a normal life, mostly, and only have to put up with me for short periods. No one can stand being around me for long periods. I’m quite tolerable in small doses, though. I suggest the annual accounting conference your father always attends. That would give us a week together in which I can… indulge my desires.” Roland realized he was probably looking very creepy to the young girl and tried to amend his face.

Corinna stood suddenly. “I can’t do this.” She started walking toward the cabin door.

“It’s a lot to take in, I know,” Roland said. “Think about it and come by tomorrow evening and we’ll get started. If you don’t show up, I’ll assume the answer is no, and I’ll post the video and we’ll see how long it takes for your father to be recognized.”

As she reached the door and grasped the handle, she turned and said, “My instinct about you was so wrong.”

The comment made Roland’s heart sink. It made him think she might have liked him. She might have genuinely liked him in the way that a woman likes a man, maybe even be attracted to him. Ridiculous, he thought. Never in a million years would a young girl like her find a thirty-two year old idiot like him attractive. Would she? He shrugged and Corinna left, letting the door click shut after her.

Part I - Chapter 4

Roland slept very little that night, giddy as he was with anticipation. When he finally got up the next morning he ordered breakfast and mojitos and decided to stay in his room. He was sick of the sun and he didn’t want to face Corinna. He told himself it was to give her time to think, but he didn’t think he could stand another of her withering looks of disappointment in him. It tortured him that she might have liked him. He didn’t think she could look that disappointed unless she cared, at least a little.

He left his room once in the early afternoon so they could make up his bed. He found a secluded spot in the shade and drank until he could go back and nap. After dinning in, he cleaned up and waited. He couldn’t write and was too restless for television. He watched the baking potatoes lying in the sand from his balcony. A young couple played table tennis looking unreasonably happy. He poured out the rest of his mojito. Enough alcohol was required to be talkative but not so much as to say something stupid, or to be unable to perform. Wouldn’t that be a disaster? Go to all this trouble and not be able to get it up. How would she react to his lovemaking? His first time was with a girl in college was bizarrely unsatisfying.

That look on Corinna’s face when he last saw her gradually became all he could think about. It was the kind of look his mother would don when she was disappointed in him. Like when he announced he wanted to be a writer rather than a dentist. Like when he broke up with the only long-term girlfriend he had. Like when she assured him there was nothing wrong with being gay as long as you have children and don’t hop around from partner to partner like a rabbit.

Roland eventually convinced himself Corinna wouldn’t come. She was too young to take on the responsibility he was foisting on her. How could she handle keeping the secret that her father was murderer. She was a good kid, not some psychopath. She cried about shoplifting. You don’t feel so remorseful about shoplifting that you cry. You cry about going to school with a gun and killing all your classmates. She would call the police, and quietly explain all she knew and identify the moron who tried to blackmail her. Her father would go to jail and Corinna would go to live with a favored aunt. Roland would spend twenty-four hours a day waiting for trial in a tanning booth until he had a melanoma on his cheek the size of a papaya. The doctor’s would declare it couldn’t be excised without removing his entire head. It would infect his brain and he would die alone in prison in a puddle of his own urine. A well-deserved fate, he thought.

She was just so fucking darling. Why was he cursed with feelings for teenage girls? Why couldn’t he be like other men who get married and have affairs with secretaries, or regular appointments with hookers who make them lick their boots? He would lick Corinna’s boots, or anything else of hers. He was sure she would find that disgusting along with everything else about him. No, she wouldn’t come. He was insane to think she would. He was relieved, in a way. The guilt and anxiety coursed through him in waves.

It was nearly one A.M. when he glanced at the clock. He started packing his suitcase thinking he would leave first thing in the morning. If he had to go to jail, he wanted it to be an American jail. He didn’t want to become the plaything of some Mexican drug cartel member. If he got a good lawyer he might avoid jail long enough to grow that melanoma.

He froze when he heard the knock. His heart began pounding. Shit, that was fast, he thought. He considered jumping off the balcony and making a run for it. Pointless, he thought. He hadn’t run since high school and he wasn’t sure he still knew how. He took a deep breath and opened the door.

Corinna was standing there, alone. He could tell his mouth was hanging open, but he was too shocked to move. She gave him an odd look. Roland said, “What are you doing here?”

He recognized the look. He had seen it on women before. It was the ‘How fucking stupid can you be?’ look. When he still didn’t move Corinna walked past him into the room. He found the wherewithal to close the door. Corinna turned and looked at him. She seemed nervous, maybe angry.

He was stunned that she was there, without the police. Which could only mean that she was agreeing to his proposal. She looked fantastic. Her brown hair with streaks of blond was neat and pulled back in a ponytail. She was dressed in long pants and a semi-fancy top. Roland wondered why it was semi-fancy instead of an old tee shirt. He didn’t think she had dressed in anything special for him. That would be absurd. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she had rolled around in dog poop before coming so he would be as disgusted with her as she had to be of him.

She looked around, turned, then sat on the bed holding her room key in both hands.

Roland wished he had ordered another mojito. He reached into the minibar and retrieved a diet soft drink. He held the door open for Corinna and said, “If you pick your own you don’t have to worry about me drugging you.”

She shook her head.

Roland sat on the other end of the bed and popped open the can and gulped. He missed the sting of tequila.

“Can I see it again?” she asked. “It’s just so hard to believe he did something like that. I never–”

“I don’t recommend it,” Roland said. “It’s like a bad accident. It gives me nightmares and I hardly know him.”

“Please,” she said.

He shrugged, grabbed his laptop from the desk, queued the video, and handed it to her. She watched her father slap Kathy, grab for her, and lose her to the ocean. She closed it after and Roland returned it to the desk. Her face was filled with pain, then she took a breath, raised her head, and said, “Thanks.”

Roland sat on the bed again, and took another drink of soda. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her.

“Do you have any diseases?” she asked.

“What?” Roland said, then, “No, of course not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” he said, more than a little offended. “You think I would…that I would infect you with something?”

“You might not know,” she said, “if you haven’t been tested recently. Have you?”

Roland couldn’t believe a little girl was grilling him like one of the surly nurses at his doctor’s office. “I was tested a year ago, and I was clean, very clean, if you must know.”

“A year is a long time,” she said as though he was an imbecile.

Roland was completely frustrated. “Not if you… haven’t needed to be tested… since then… because you didn’t… need to be.”

“Oh,” she said, cramming all of her disdain into the one syllable. That subject seemed to have been settled in her mind, so she broached the next one. “What do I have to do?”

He made several meaningless gestures with his hands in preparation for a detailed description of every fantasy he had indulged in for the last six months, reflected on how pathetic that was going to sound, then said, “I’ve, ah… changed my mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you don’t have to be here,” Roland said sounding annoyed. “I’m not going to do anything to you. You can go, just forget the whole thing.”

“I don’t understand. I thought–”

Frustrated she didn’t appreciate what he was doing he said, loudly, “I’m not blackmailing you.”

Corinna sputtered, “But… you said… you said you planned it for a long time.”

“I was drunk when I thought it up and I’ve been drunk ever since. It was a stupid idea. I know that now, so just… go.”

“What about my dad?” Corinna said. “I don’t want him to go to jail.”

“I’m not going to say anything. He’s your problem. If you can live with him being a murderer, then I guess I can, too.”

“Why would you do that?” Corinna asked.

“Consider it a favor.”

“Why would you do me a favor like that?”

“Jesus Christ what’s the matter with you?” Roland yelled. “I’m trying to do the right thing, or at least not do the… the bad thing.”

After a long pause Corinna asked, “What about the video.”

“I’ll destroy it.”

“Oh,” she said. A few seconds later she asked, “How can I be sure?”

“How can you be sure? You can’t be sure,” Roland said raising his voice again. “You can’t be sure about anything in life. You can’t be sure your father isn’t going to murder his next wife, or you, for that matter. Now get the fuck out of here, and be happy I’m not taking advantage of you.”

She fiddled with her room key while remaining on the bed.

Exasperated, Roland said, “What are you still doing here?”

“I thought you liked me. You said you wanted to be my lover.”

“Don’t you get it? You’re a fantasy. A girl like you would never be interested in a dweeb like me so I decided to force you. I drink too much and I spend all my time dreaming up clever plots for novels and I was dumb enough to try to act one out. But I can’t go through with it. You’re a nice kid who loves her father. You don’t deserve to be taken advantage of like that.”

“So you’re a nice guy, all of a sudden?”

“No, I just started thinking about what my father always said. If you think you’re going to feel bad after, don’t do it. I wouldn’t feel very good about…” his shoulders jerked up, “what I was going to do.”

Corinna continued fidgeting with her key.

“I don’t understand how you cannot be happy about this,” Roland said.

“I’m not.”

“Why?”

Because,” Corinna said, “I had already decided to do it. When you first told me… it was awful. I knew I was not the kind of person who would do something like that; have sex with a… strange man, protect a murderer. Then I thought about my dad going to jail. The more I thought about it the more I decided it wasn’t that big of a deal, at least the having sex part. And my dad… it was almost an accident. He didn’t set out to… to do it. So why not do what you wanted?”

“Yes, but now you don’t have to do it, why aren’t you happy?”

“Because,” she said, the frustration thick in her tone, “I am the kind of person who would do that. Even if I never do it I know I would have. Just knowing that changed me. I’m not the kind of person I thought I was, and I can’t go back.”

“You’re a kid,” Roland said. “Kids make mistakes. It’s like shoplifting. You did it once and never again. You can’t keep thinking of yourself as a shoplifter for the rest of your life.”

“Aren’t you going to feel bad for wanting to blackmail me?” Corinna asked. “Can you just pretend that never happened? Won’t you always know you were this close to doing something really wrong?”

“Look, I agree it’s a moral dilemma,” Roland said. “But moral dilemmas are much better than actual, real world dilemmas with horrible consequences. So get over it. Get on with your life. You’re young, you’re beautiful, you have your whole life ahead–”

“Oh, fuck you,” Corinna said.

He had never imagined her saying that, and he shook his head. “What do you want from me?

“I want to go through with the deal,” she said.

“Are you crazy?”

“No. I don’t want my dad to go to jail and… I don’t trust you to not say anything.”

Roland was stupefied. “You don’t trust me?” He slapped his chest, “I’m doing the right thing here.”

“It’s like Sam said. You don’t have any skin in the game. I can’t count on you to work hard to make the deal work if you don’t have something of your own invested.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If you drink too much and start feeling guilty you could turn in my dad,” Corinna said, “but if you have sex with me you can’t turn him in without going to jail.”

“Holy shit,” Roland said. “You’re a thirteen-year-old Machiavelli.”

“What’s that?”

The implications of what she was saying began to sink in. “You’ll have me by the balls for the rest of my life.”

“I am going to spend time with you so you can have your fantasy,” she said, “and you’ll keep quiet about my dad. We’ll both have skin in the game.”

He could see just the upper silver band of her braces through her grin. Roland shuddered at what might have caused those lips to pose so devilishly.

Part I - Chapter 5

“I’ll take that soda now,” Corinna said.

Roland motioned toward the refrigerator and finished his drink. After selecting a soda she opened it and returned to her place near the foot of the bed. She didn’t look at him as she drank. He didn’t know what to feel. She was so cute it made him want to swoon, but looking at her poised figure he saw more composure than anyone her age should have. It made him afraid of her.

“What now?” she asked, finally turning to look at him.

He couldn’t believe he was going to get what he had been dreaming about for months. He could throw her out, go home, and forget the whole thing. Then she wouldn’t have any hold on him. There was that grin, though, and the possibility, however remote, he felt before that she might like him. He needed to think. He needed a mojito. He stood up. “I’m going to brush my teeth.”

In the bathroom, he leaned on the sink and looked into the mirror. His heart was racing, and he gripped the edge of the sink tightly. He gargled, splashed water on his face, brushed his teeth and gargled again. He thought about shaving again, but it was only a few hours since the last time. He closed the door and peed, then washed his hands and looked in the mirror again. His father’s words echoed in his head. Roland knew he was going to hate himself after, but he grabbed a couple of condoms, turned out the bathroom light and opened the door.

When he saw she was in bed his heart started racing again. He locked the door and checked the lock on the balcony doors, then dimmed the lights and sat on the bed with his back to her. He had fantasized this moment a hundred times, always with clever dialog and smooth, confident moves. He was silent and jittery now. Leaving the condom nearby he removed his deck shoes, shirt and pants. Wth his boxers still on he tried to get under the covers as gracefully as possible.

Corinna was folded and had the covers tucked around her neck leaving only her head sticking out. She looked like a mouse being stalked by a cat.

They were silent for about a minute. He turned to her, “Have you ever…”

“Yes,” she said.

“Really?” Roland found this surprising. “With who?”

“A boy.”

“Good choice,” he said, nodding. “How was it?”

“I stepped on a sea urchin once,” she said. “It was a lot like that.”

Roland grimaced in sympathy.

“What was your first time like?” Corinna asked.

“It felt good, physically, but it messed with my head. She was Jewish. It was my first year of college, we had been going out for couple of weeks, her first time, too. Right after we began she started crying. I thought I had hurt her, but she said she was happy, but she was crying. Not little sniffles either but like she was at the Wailing Wall mourning the holocaust. She said it was one of the most important acts in her life, a right of passage that made her a woman ready to bear the fruit of her womb. I was wearing a condom but I started to worry she was going to pull it off me and suck my sperm into her fruity womb, get pregnant, and I would be stuck to her for the rest of my life producing fruit like a Florida orchard.”

Corinna was trying, unsuccessfully, to suppress a giggle.

“There’s more,” Roland said. “Right afterward she called her mother and described every thing we did in great detail. I had to listen to her describe my graceless lovemaking and how she didn’t have an orgasm, but she was sure she would be able to with someone else. I felt like a broken tool that needed to be replaced.”

“That is so strange,” Corinna said, her giggles subsiding.

“I saved the best for last,” he said. “When I got out of bed I saw blood on my penis. I have a thing about blood. It makes me nauseous, or dizzy, or both. I passed out, bit my tongue and chipped my tooth when I landed. They took me away in an ambulance because my tongue was too swollen to explain. She called my mother and described all the gory details to her. It was a long time before I tried to have sex with someone again.”

“I don’t blame you,” Corinna said, still amused.

He appreciated what seemed like genuine sympathy. “What about the sea urchin?” Roland asked. “What was he like?”

Corinna fluffed her pillow, stretched out a little, and said, “He was in high school. I didn’t really like any of the boys my age and I thought he would be cool, and know what he was doing. He didn’t know anything, and it hurt.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

“So, anybody since?”

“No.”

“I’ll probably be a disappointment, too,” Roland said. “You shouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“You don’t have to thrill me,” she said. “You just have to have sex with me, to seal the deal. So we’re both committed.”

“Right,” he said. Roland stared at the ceiling. What I’m about to do is so wrong, he thought. He was certain he would end up in jail somehow. It wasn’t like one of his game-based novels where if you could shoot straight you always came out a winner. He couldn’t control this ending. He wanted her so much, though. He could always kill himself when he got caught. Still staring at the ceiling, he took a breath and reached his left hand in her direction. He bumped into flesh and determined it was her arm. His fingers drifted down her arm until he reached her hand. As she reclined on her back with her eyes closed she clasped her hand around his. Corinna’s simple gesture signaling an acceptance of him moved him so much he wanted to cry.

It emboldened him to turn and move closer to the girl. His other hand discovered what he had suspected was true. She was naked. Without being able to see for the covers he explored her stomach with his fingers, then dared to move upward until he encountered her beginning breasts. His penis hardened as he took his time blindly exploring her lithe figure. It reminded him of a science exhibit where you reach your hands in a dark hole and try to guess what you’re feeling. Grazing over her tight skin thrilled him and he trailed down one leg to her foot and up the other to her stomach again. If he did nothing else he would have been satisfied with her willingness to let him caress her.

The only hair he encountered was just below her stomach, a patch quite probably shaved into some shape. As he trailed across her skin he half expected she would tell him to stop, that she had changed her mind and couldn’t bear to have an oaf like him touch her any more. Instead, as he touched the lips between her legs she gave the hand she was still holding a little squeeze. Emboldened even more he pushed himself down the bed and motioned for her to separate her legs. Still holding her hand he ducked his head under her knee and kissed along her thigh until he reached the moist flesh of her vulva.

Roland had been slow and cautious but as his tongue entered he became voracious. He was delighted by her lubriciousness and lapped up her secretions like ice cream. Corinna had a flavor, a taste like something exotic and rich, the taste of youth, he thought. When he located her clitoris he heard her first involuntary noise, the slightest of gasps, and her hips moved.

At the heart of every fantasy about Corinna was him making her come. Since she seemed to be responding he dared to try to bring about her orgasm. He was methodical, focused, attentive to her movements and noises, and as she responded more he increased the tempo of his strokes and licks. He was ecstatic that her climax seemed to be getting closer and he lapped and licked and tweaked her clitoris with the tip of his tongue. Her firm body stiffened and twisted under him. Tremulous noises escaped from her lips then staccato puffs of breath pushed past her teeth. There was a final flex of her entire body, and she fell still and quiet. Roland halted, rested his head on her thigh so he could inhale her aroma and listened to her slowing breaths.

His head was warm from her skin and being covered and he lifted the covers with his free hand just enough for some fresh air. When she let go of his hand he mourned the loss of connection to her. Would her expression be pleased, neutral or disgusted now that she had allowed him such liberty with her body? He was afraid to come out of hiding to find out. She smelled so good he stuck his tongue out for a small lick, then he licked longer and more forcefully. She remained still and he feared she didn’t want him to continue. He couldn’t stand the thought of abandoning her sweet cunt so he clutched her hips and licked as he had before. She didn’t respond until he found her vagina and forced his tongue inside the smallish hole and was surprised by a sudden swelling of her breath and a thrust of her hips.

Since her murmurs and movements made it clear she liked it he continued using his tongue like a dick and plunged in and out of her stretching his tongue to the limit. His cock was so hard he was afraid he would come prematurely if he didn’t fuck her soon. As he carefully kissed his way up over her stomach and ribs he gaged her body’s reaction to what was clearly about to happen next. She didn’t seem to dislike what he was doing so up he went. He stopped at her breasts, his lips enveloping the small, puffy mounds that were the essence of beginning womanhood. Roland’s excitement grew feverish and he had to restrain himself from sucking too hard. He wanted to see them so he pushed the sheet back and gazed. It was looking at her unmistakably youthful breasts that told him she was too young for him to fuck. No matter her actual age, her maturity, or her psychological readiness the size and shape of her breasts told him he was going to fuck a girl barely out of childhood and it aroused him. It inflamed him to an emotional and physical state he had never experienced, never imagined possible.

Roland stood on his knees suddenly, grabbed the condom, tore open the package with his teeth and rolled it on. She looked away, as though watching him put it on was akin to watching him pee. He settled between her legs again, propped himself on his elbows, and looked at her. Her hair was tousled, her face flush, her lips open, and her braces reflecting the dim light. He had imagined kissing her a thousand times since he first saw an image of her. He moved slowly toward her lips and she stared wide-eyed at his approach, as though she didn’t know what he was going to do.

At the last instant he chickened out. It was bad enough he was forcing her to fuck him. There was no reason to torture her by making her do something so intimate as kiss him. He nudged his cock into position, the tip gently centering on the entrance. At his short thrust inside her breath caught in her throat. Another thrust in forced another breath, then another. The feeling in his cock was exquisite; hot, pressed tight from without and bursting from within. He pushed in, thrusting gently at first, then harder and farther as she admitted him. He was finally fucking her. All the research, the planning, the rehearsing, the sleepless nights and the money spent was all for this. He was fucking the most beautiful girl in the world. He felt like a God, and then he came. Roland twitched and flexed and grunted each squirt of his seed until he was wrung out.

And then he felt the guilt surge through him like a second ejaculation. He had just raped a thirteen-year-old girl. He would surely spend the rest of his life in prison for this one, brief, extraordinary, blissful, manipulative, cruel theft of her innocence. She was not looking at him, no doubt waiting for him to get off so she could get out of there as fast as she could. Roland rolled off and pulled himself alongside her, close but not touching. She didn’t move away and it allowed him to look at her as she looked toward the window. He wanted to comfort her, to console her for having to do something so disgusting. Ridiculous, he thought, since he was the one that made her do it. Yet, she did not leave. “Is it okay if I hold you?” he asked.

Corinna looked at him as though she didn’t understand his request. Then she said, “Okay,” and turned, putting her back to him. Roland scooted close trying to touch as much of her as he could. He managed to press into the entire length of her from head to foot. When he wrapped his arm around her stomach and pulled her closer, she said, “Too much.” He pulled back a little, a smile taking over his face at being allowed so near, and they both found a comfortable position near each other. As he took delight in her warmth he cleared his throat, then asked, “Ah… how was it… me, that is?”

“You want a grade?”

He wanted to hear that she didn’t hate him, but was afraid to ask so directly for fear of the answer. “Well, sure, I guess.”

“I don’t have much experience,” Corinna said, “but better than a sea urchin.”

Roland always preferred pass-fail classes in college so he allowed himself to feel proud. As he thought about it, he was quite sure he had never been happier. He made her come, she didn’t cry, and she was letting him hold her like a lover. This was the best idea ever, he thought.

“Do you think you could kill someone?” she asked.

The question stripped the good feeling from him. The guilt returned with her mention of the reason he got to fuck such a fabulous girl. He answered reluctantly. “No, I don’t think so.” He waited, then asked, “What about you?”

“I don’t know anymore,” she said. “I never thought I could do what I’m doing. It’s all so wrong.” Corinna started crying, then sobbing, and to his surprise, she let the one who caused her pain hold her closer as she cried.

“It’s your father’s fault,” Roland said, trying to spread the blame and ease his own guilt. “You can’t blame yourself. He put you in this position.”

“No,” she said, her anguish interrupted by anger, “You put me in this position. You made me choose between him and… this. Why didn’t you just go to the police like a normal person? Why did you have to make me the one to decide?”

Roland shrank away from her, sensing she no longer wanted him near.

“And what was all that bullshit about having a dark side and asking all those questions. Why didn’t you just come out and say it instead of driving me crazy trying to understand what you were getting at.”

“Well excuse me for not knowing the best way to tell a girl her father is a murderer,” Roland said allowing his own anger to flourish. “It’s not a topic covered in any of the etiquette books. Would you have preferred a greeting card: Congratulations on your father becoming a felon.”

“You weren’t trying to be nice to me,” she said, “you just wanted to have sex with me.”

There was no defense against that accusation, so he said nothing as she pulled away from him and got out of bed. He turned and got up on one elbow to enjoy watching her naked form stroll to the bathroom, then collapsed as she closed the door. It was wonderful while it lasted, he thought. He wondered if the memory would be enough to make going to jail bearable. He recalled how he felt when she held his hand, as though she liked him. And it was certainly the best sex he had ever had, and she came. She must like him if she had an orgasm. Although, he had read once that women sometimes have orgasms while being raped. Maybe it was just the novelty of having someone lick her. Maybe she was just a horny teenager and she would have come being fingered by a monkey. It didn’t mean she had any special feeling for him.

Corinna returned a minute later, and dressed. She couldn’t help doing it in an alluring way, at least to Roland, so he watched until she finished and picked up her room key. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

She gave him a devastating look of disgust, turned and left, letting the door close after her.

Part I - Chapter 6

Roland was exhausted from not sleeping having spent the night worrying if he was going to jail soon. The images of prison life alternated with the impression of Corinna’s flawless form still on his fingers. He went as early as he could for breakfast deciding that no matter what happened he wanted it to happen on a full stomach. She was not there, of course. Teenagers sleep until noon, he remembered, even when they weren’t up all night. He took his mojito back to his room and sat on the balcony. He tried unsuccessfully to write, fell asleep while they were cleaning the room and was awakened around eleven A.M. by a knock. He entered the room preparing to be pounced on by a squad of Mexican police with machine guns and opened the door.

“What are you doing here?” Roland said.

Corinna brushed past him saying as she turned, “Why do you always act surprised to see me? This is what you wanted isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“To spend time with you, all week. A week every year until I graduate. Well, here I am.”

“But after last night, I thought–”

“I’m keeping my end of the deal and I expect you to.”

“So you’re going to…  spend time with me?”

“Yes. I can only be with you when my dad is at the conference, which is most of the time. He always says he wants me to go with him to these things every year so we can spend time together, but he never has any time to do anything with me. I wish I’d never come this year.”

Roland didn’t like to see her upset. Anger he could handle. Women were often angry with him. They rarely cared enough to be upset. “Look, you don’t have to be with me. If you want to do something with your dad…”

“He’s busy,” she snapped. “So what do you want to do?”

Roland could think of a dozen things he wanted to do with her thirteen-year-old body. He had said he wanted to spend time with her, and he meant it, but he hadn’t actually thought of an activity they could do together that didn’t involve genitalia. He had never thought past getting her into bed. “I don’t know.”

Obviously frustrated, she sat on the bed and turned her key in her hands.

“Is there something you’d like to do?” he asked.

“We could snorkel,” she said.

“We could?”

“Sure, there’s a boat going out at noon.”

“You mean out there?” he pointed toward the ocean over the balcony while giving it a hesitant look. “On the ocean?”

“Yes,” she said, trying to understand why this was such a difficult concept for him. “You know how to swim don’t you?”

“Well, of course I know how to swim,” he said as though she was an idiot for asking. “I can swim like a fish, in a pool.”

Corinna stood up. “I’ll get my stuff and meet you at the dock at 11:45.” She left the room quickly, leaving Roland breathing quick, shallow breaths. He dressed, finished his mojito and walked very slowly to the dock. The boat was a large, motorized catamaran and half a dozen people were already on deck. He was greeted by a Mexican captain and a chubby female first mate and welcomed aboard. Corinna was nowhere to be found and he contemplated being in the sun all day, on the ocean, without her to distract him and he felt suicidal. He decided if she didn’t show he would feign illness and get off. A minute later he saw her walking toward the dock with Sam and Margaret. He was greatly relieved.

He was on the prow and she and the older couple were in the back when the boat pulled away from the dock. He sprayed himself with another coat of sunscreen and tried not to look at the vast blue of the ocean. Eventually, Corinna came forward and sat next to him as they were motoring to the dive spot. After a brief exchange of greetings she said, “Are you okay? You look kind of green. If you’re seasick they have a patch…”

“I’m not seasick,” he said.

She was not at all convinced, but she let the subject drop, and returned to sit with Sam and Margaret. When they anchored and the guests began putting on their snorkeling gear and jumping in, Corinna did the same and waited for Roland. He slowly put on his flippers and mask and finally stood at the aft landing next to Corinna.

“Are you ready?” she asked looking at him through her mask.

Roland wouldn’t speak or move.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t,” he said.

“Why not? You said you could swim.”

“I can swim, just not in the ocean.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too… big.”

Corinna gave him one of her withering looks of disgust. She inserted her mouthpiece and shoved him with both hands on his back. Roland plunged into the water and Corinna jumped in after him. Roland panicked and tried to get back to the boat, but Corinna grabbed his hand and began swimming sideways toward the other guests. He wanted to pull away but she was holding his hand and he didn’t want to let go of her.

As she snorkeled he floated and kept an eye out for sharks, deadly jellyfish and large waves that would capsize the boat and splatter them on the rocks near the shore. He grew convinced he could feel a rip tide trying to whisk them all out to sea. Periodically he could distract himself from his fear by dipping his mask in and observing her cute form under water. He had to look away frequently so that he didn’t get an erection.

They sat together on the way back. Corinna stretched out her lanky legs to catch the sun and Roland used his towel as a tent.

“If you’re afraid of the ocean,” she asked, “why did you go on a cruise?”

“What does it matter?” Roland asked, sounding defensive and annoyed. He could still feel the residual embarrassment from her seeing his fear of the ocean.

“Just curious,” she said.

“What do you know about me so far?”

Corinna said, “You write books about video games, you’re afraid of blood, and the ocean, you don’t date much, and you drink too many mojitos.”

“And if somebody told you those things about a man and asked if you wanted to meet him, what would you say?”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at,” Corinna said.

“I’m saying the more you know about me, the less you’ll like me. Trust me on this. I speak from experience.”

“Just tell me,” she said, looking like she might push him in the water again if he didn’t answer.

Roland sighed. “I agreed to go with someone on the cruise, as a favor.”

“Who?”

Roland was grateful the sound of the motor and the wind meant they couldn’t be overheard. “My mother.”

Corinna said, “Oh,” and managed to wrap her lips around her braces in a sneer.

“I tried to warn you,” Roland said.

“Why?”

“The woman she had planned to go with died two weeks before. I didn’t want her to go alone, so…”

“That would be sweet, if it didn’t sound so gay.”

I know what it sounds like and you’re not the first to say it. My mother announced to all her friends I was gay long ago. She thought it would help me come out of the closet.”

“Your mother thinks you’re gay? Are you?”

“Would a gay man go to all the trouble I did to meet you?”

“Then why don’t you just tell her?”

“My mother is 78 years old and believes she has inherited the wisdom of the ages. Once an idea takes hold in her head it cannot be knocked loose with a sledge hammer.”

“It shouldn’t be hard to prove to her you’re straight. Go out with a girl once in a while.”

“You don’t know my mother. Facts are like flies that she swats away lest they land on one of her pristine revelations and detract from its beauty. Besides, I prefer she think I’m gay.”

“Why?”

“Because being gay is better than what I am.”

“What are you?” Corinna asked.

“You’re kidding, right?” Roland said,

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you think I’m a little old for you?”

“Oh, you mean you’re a… a pedophile.”

“Of course not! Those people are disgusting. Trying to have sex with little girls. They should all be hung.

“I don’t understand. What about me?”

“You’re not a little girl. You’re a… a young woman. I’m not doing anything with you you haven’t done already.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t have done it with me if I was a virgin?”

“No, I’m saying you were ready for it, because… because I could tell you were… ready.”

“How could you tell I was ready?”

“I was attracted to you, so I knew.”

“So if you want to have sex then the girl must be ready? Doesn’t the girl have any say if she’s ready?”

“Well, of course. I’m not some creep who would do something a girl didn’t want to do.”

“Isn’t that what blackmail is?”

“Look, I’ve always thought about girls your age, since I was your age. Not little girls, that’s just sick. I’m not a pedophile. The correct term for… appreciating young women your age is hebephile. That’s what I am, but I have never done anything with any girl, of any age. Despite what all the ‘experts’ say there are a great many men, and women, who have these feelings about younger… people, but don’t act on them. I have never acted on them.”

“What about me?”

“Well, yes, of course, you are the exception for which I am sure I will rot in hell. All because I think you’re…” Roland wished for a mojito, looked out over the ocean, then muttered, “…wonderful.”

Corinna grunted her disagreement. “I don’t think you go to hell for thinking things. You go to hell for doing things. My father and I will be there with you.”

“You’re a kid,” Roland said. “You’re not going to hell.”

“If I’m old enough to have sex with a man to protect a murderer, I’m old enough for hell.”

The two were nearly silent for the remainder of the trip. Corinna walked back to her room with Sam and Margaret, and Roland to his. He cleaned up, ate dinner in his room and tried to write, but fell asleep. The knock at the door woke him. It was after midnight and he answered feeling groggy. He must have looked surprised because Corinna look annoyed when she walked in. Roland checked to make sure no one was lurking in the hall observing, then closed the door.

She was holding something in her hands, and then hesitantly held it out to him. “I forgot to show you this. I found it on the beach yesterday. It’s kind of cool.”

Roland turned the shinny, pointed shell in his hand. “A conch shell. Very cool.” He returned it to her. “Nice find.”

“Thanks,” she said turning the shell a few times. “So, what are we doing tomorrow?”

“Ah… I don’t know.”

“There’s a bus into town. Playa del something. We could look around, shop. If you want?”

“Corinna,” Roland said, “You realize that if we are seen together a lot people will get suspicious. Sam is already giving me dirty looks.”

“He doesn’t trust young men,” she said. “Don’t worry. I told him you were harmless. I said you were kind of a father figure to me.”

“He’ll never believe that,” Roland muttered.

“We don’t have to go,” she said heavily. “It’s no big deal.”

The way she said it made Corinna sound like his mother. ‘It’s no big deal if you’re gay and never have children to carry on the family name and bring some measure of joy to me in the last few years I have on this earth. I can be perfectly content seeing my friend play with her grandchildren and watching them grow and wrap their little arms around their grandmother and tell her how much they love her.’ Roland sighed, “Right. No big deal. We’ll go shopping.”

Corinna smiled at that, showing her braces, then covered them again and sat on the bed. “Thanks,” she said, “and thanks for snorkeling today, too. That was fun.” She set the shell on the desk.

Roland grinned at her youthful joy in recalling the experience. He admired the fresh excitement young teens could muster for what the world had to offer, before their souls were crushed when they realized what they could actually have.

After a pause Corinna spoke. “Are we going to… I mean, I don’t know how often you need to… so you feel I’m keeping up my part of the bargain. And the bus leaves early, and it’s an hour ride, so…”

A tsunami of guilt washed over him at her trying to excuse herself. “Let’s just skip it for tonight. That way we can both get some sleep.”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “You probably need your sleep.”

“I don’t sleep much these days.”

“Oh,” she said, then after another pause, “Last time, you asked for a grade. But you didn’t give me one.”

Roland looked up, “You were great. You were all I could have ever asked for. Better than any of my fantasies. Just terrific.”

Her lips remained covering her braces but he saw the hint of a grin. “Thanks,” she said, retrieving the shell from the desk to handle again. “How often do you… you know, need to?”

“Need to?” Roland said. “I’m not a volcano that blows away the mountain if it doesn’t erupt regularly to relieve the pressure.”

“Really?” she said. “I thought that’s what it was like for guys.”

“No,” Roland said. “Well, maybe it is for some guys. I don’t know. For me it’s like… it’s like being one of those pools of hot mud at Yellowstone. You never explode, you’re just steamy all the time, and sometimes you bubble hoping you’ll get a chance to erupt. Eventually, you realize that you’re not a geyser, and you never will be. So you just… bubble. No one even knows. Unless you do something stupid, like… this.”

“I guess we’re both doing things we never thought we would.” Corinna stood, set the shell on the desk again, then sat next to Roland on the bed. Without looking at him she said, “So, are you bubbling now?”

Roland thought she wanted to get out of being with him, but now he was confused. “Always,” he said.

She shrugged, then said, “It’s not like we can undo what we’ve done, and once you’ve done it, I don’t think it makes much difference if we… do it again.”

Roland stared at her trying to believe what he heard is what she meant. It was the timid glance she gave him that convinced him. It overwhelmed him, and he fell to his knees on the floor and placed his head in her lap. As he clutched at her hips he nuzzled between her legs soaking in the warmth and inhaling the scent of her youthful sex. His pants were bursting and he fumbled to pull down her pants as she leaned back holding herself up with her hands behind her on the bed. When her pants were off he went after her panties, then spread her knees and dove into her cunt. She fell to her back and spread her legs even wider. He was thrilled with her accepting gesture and he was determined to be the best lover possible and make her come a dozen times.

It didn’t take long for her first one, just some steady licking of her clit and a little thrusting of his tongue inside and she erupted like Old Faithful. After thoroughly licking his fingers he inserted two and began doing what he had read about in a book on how to make women come. He never thought he would have a chance to practice on such a young, tight cunt and now that he did he was determined to take advantage. He thrust with the fingers of one hand and massaged her clit with the thumb of his other hand. Corinna writhed beneath him choking back dirty words as though she shouldn’t allow herself to say them. Roland was delighted when she turned to her side and pulled her knees up, emitting several petite shrieks a few minutes later.

He watched her panting, eyes closed, her ponytail draped over her face as though to hide her enjoyment. After removing his clothes and putting on the condom he nudged her knees apart causing her to face him. He was stunned to see her look at him with desire. In all of his fantasies he never imagined she would look at him as though she wanted him. As though she wanted him to fuck her. Yet, there it was. She turned away and closed her eyes as he pressed at her entrance, but he remembered the look, savored it, and held it in his mind as he sucked her breasts. When her nipples had stiffened on her snow-white puffs of breasts he pulled himself up and entered her. She groaned as he fucked her, polite, girlish groans of desire. He wanted to hold out longer but he wanted the joy of releasing himself inside her. Could she feel his spurts? Was that what was registering on her face when he came; part surprise, part satisfaction?

He rolled off and pulled her into position with her back against his chest, his chin in her ear, his knees behind hers, and his hand on her breast, gratified she allowed him to be so close. He couldn’t remember a happier time. Roland had never been in love before but he recognized the exuberant idiocy he was feeling as the primary symptom. There had certainly been girls her age he had encountered, became fascinated with, even obsessed about for a while. There had been nothing from them in return however, not the slightest interest. It was like going to a museum, an interaction solely between his mind and the art.

Corinna let him fuck her, and she looked like she enjoyed it. He knew the look because he had seen it on the really good porn actresses. So his urge to profess his love for Corinna was strong, but he had the good sense to keep it to himself. No girl in her right mind, or woman for that matter, would want to hear his pathetic confession of love. It would be like saying out loud how much you like the art as you walk through the museum. The art doesn’t care and it would annoy the other visitors.

Roland didn’t want to move or speak for fear she would decide to leave. He was content to feel his love for her, listen to her breathe and enjoy the rhythmic swell of her warm breast in his hand.

“Roland,” she said some minutes later.

“Yes.”

“You don’t kiss me. Is that because of my braces?”

“What?” he said. “No, of course not. I just never imagined that you would want to… That is… because I was making you, so…”

“Isn’t that what people do when they have sex, kiss a lot?”

“Well, sure. Normal people. But we’re not… At least I’m certainly not normal, and I didn’t think you would want to… kiss me, that is.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to kiss you?”

“Some women don’t like the man to… kiss them.”

“What woman doesn’t want to be kissed when they are making love?” she asked.

“Well, professional women. Sometimes they want to keep it… professional, and kissing is not… professional.”

“What are you talking about?”

Roland sighed, then explained. “I went to a hooker once, a long time ago. I was younger and the younger you are the more… desperate you feel about not being… normal. It was terrible. The whole thing was just awful. She started off with a bunch of rules and the first was no kissing. I could do anything else, fuck her… anywhere, but if I tried to kiss her she said she would slug me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting that. It threw me. After that, I couldn’t even… well, you know.”

“Are you comparing me to me a hooker?” she said sounding annoyed.

“Oh, God no. I just mean’t that since you don’t like me, that I was making you do this, that you wouldn’t want to kiss me, and I didn’t want you to slug me.”

“You are the strangest man I have ever met.”

“Sorry,” Roland said.

“Well it makes me feel like a hooker when you don’t kiss me. So from now on, I want you to kiss me.”

“I would love that. Really. I would,” Roland said, snuggling closer. He tentatively kissed her neck, then her cheek. She turned slightly to see what he was doing and he kissed a little closer to her lips. He squeezed her breast then dragged his hand along her hip. She turned more allowing his kisses to land on her lips. He kissed politely at first, then pressed harder, then snaked his tongue out to feel her braces. She was letting him kiss her, letting him stick his tongue down her throat. When he stopped her breath was heavy and hot, and he kissed her again. He didn’t think it had been long enough for him to get hard again so he slipped his hand past her rear and between her legs. Roland wormed his thumb around until he found her vagina and slipped inside.

Corinna gasped as he began manipulating what the book had told him must be her G-spot. It seemed to be working because she was writhing and moaning as he thumbed the spot and flicked her clit with his fingers. After she came he kissed her like they were in a movie. Her resulting expression was troubled. It was the perfect time to tell her how much he loved her. She would tell him how much she loved him, they would promise to stay together forever, and have children to make his mother proud. Then he looked at the thirteen-year-old girl in his bed, her troubled expression suggesting she was not pleased to have enjoyed herself with him. He worried that finally getting to do what he had wanted to do all these years had made him delusional. Roland wondered which was worse; spending the rest of his life in an asylum or a prison.

Part I - Chapter 7

Sam and Margaret sat across the isle from Corinna and Roland during the bus ride to Playa Del Carmen. Roland was uncomfortable with Sam’s occasional evil eye so he ignored their animated conversation and stared out the window. He wanted to appear as uninterested in Corinna as possible, which was hard because she was right next to him and bumping him all the time with her elbow. He reminded himself that he would seem more suspicious not talking than talking, but he was afraid he would say something stupid.

The four of them strolled the streets with Corinna and Margaret yakking non-stop while they shopped. Corinna had a wad of money and she bought freely and seemed to be having a good time. Roland enjoyed being with her in between the pangs of guilt he felt for molesting her the night before. He imagined Sam finding out what he was doing to the cute high school girl and taking out his revenge against Tina’s boyfriend on Roland. No one would blame him.

The four of them stopped at an ice cream shop. While Sam and Margaret were ordering Corinna asked what he was going to have. “Oh, nothing for me, thanks.”

“You don’t like ice cream?” Corinna asked.

“No, I love ice cream, but it’s not good for me.”

“Are you lactose intolerant?”

“No, it’s just that some things are too good, and if you let yourself have them a lot… you’ll be… sorry.” He shrugged.

“So how often do you let yourself have ice cream?”

“Oh, never,” he said.

Corinna eyed him suspiciously as she licked her cone.

They came upon another shop with a young man in front holding a baby tiger. The four were astounded as the adorable and obviously sleepy cat stretched out in the man’s arms. They were told the cat was only a few months old and for twenty dollars they could hold him and have a picture taken. Corinna was in love with the idea and swooned at the lovable appearing animal as a crowd gathered around. A young couple paid the man and his wife held the yawning cub, petted and nuzzled its soft fur while her husband took a picture.

“I want to do it,” Corinna said excitedly. She handed her phone to Roland and asked, “Will you take my picture?”

“What?” he said. “No! You can’t do that.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“It’s a wild animal,” he said. “You could be eaten.”

“Is this another one of your crazy fears?” she asked. “Like the iguana?”

“No, this is a fact-based, rational regard for the true nature of animals. The big cats are apex predators who feel completely justified in consuming anything else on the food chain.”

“It’s a baby,” she declared. “And they’re doing it.” Corinna pointed to another couple as the woman accepted the cat into her arms while her husband fumbled with his camera.

Sam offered, “He looks pretty drugged up, Roland. I don’t think there’s any–”

“No fucking way!” Roland said loudly. He wasn’t about to be pushed into the water by Corinna this time. “You are not going near that thing.”

Corinna looked like she was going to hit him. “You’re not my–”

The snarling sound was distinct and the four of them turned instantly to see the cat holding the woman’s face and biting her nose. She screamed and the handler tried to pull it off as she fell to the ground slapping at the animal. Eventually the owner was able to grab it by the scruff of the neck and ran into the shop with it leaving others to attend to the crying woman. Roland saw the blood on her face, staggered toward a building, fell against the side, and slid to the ground.

The four were quiet on the bus ride back. Corinna checked constantly to make sure Roland was okay. He was embarrassed that he had garnered as much attention as the woman who was attacked by a tiger. When they stepped off the bus they all said good-bye and Roland trudged off to his room.

Around seven that evening there was a knock at Roland’s door. It was too early to expect Corinna so he opened it expecting his mojito delivery. He was thunderstruck to find Corinna and her father. The man looked the same as he did on the cruise, tan, handsome, with traces of gray on the temples. His smile was engaging, his teeth perfect, and his voice mellow as he stuck out a hand and said, “Scott Buckley. I hope we’re not disturbing you.”

Roland was too disturbed to move or speak. Corinna looked uncomfortable. Roland imagined the stress of almost being eaten had frayed the child’s nerves and she had told her father everything. Now she was waiting passively for her father to beat him to a pulp.

Confronted with Roland’s silence Scott had no choice but to continue. “We’ll be leaving in the morning and I just wanted to make sure I had a chance to say how grateful I am. I understand you were there today and kept Corinna from getting mauled by a tiger. Sam and Margaret told me all about it at dinner.” He threw his arm casually around the girl’s shoulders. “I can’t stand the idea of anything happening to her. “You showed very good judgement, and for that I thank you.”

The lack of response from Roland was making Scott uncomfortable. He gestured to his daughter, “Corinna does, too, don’t you, Dear?”

She reached out her hand, and said, “Thank you, Mr. Nestler.”

Roland trembled as he shook the girl’s hand, staring at her too composed expression, the top wire of her braces protruding between her lips hinting at her amusement. All he could think about was that it was just a while ago when those fingers were tugging at his hair as though it was a joystick for his tongue. When he released her hand he tried to find a few words, but he couldn’t imagine what to say to the murderous father of the underage child he was blackmailing for sex.

“She usually has such good judgement,” Scott said, “but like they say, good judgement comes from experience, and good experience comes from bad judgement.”

The man found an appropriate quote for the occasion, how fucking great was that? Roland tried to think of a quote. Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes, or Experience is a wonderful teacher, but one whose lessons come too late. His was better, damn it. Without words, the best he could do was smile, at least he hoped it was a smile. It may have been more of a gob smack. At least he didn’t say anything stupid. In any event, it signaled the end of Scott’s attempt to be gracious, and he thanked him again and turned to leave. Corinna turned also.

“You’re so welcome,” Roland yelled as they walked down the hall. They turned in an awkward acknowledgment and waved. As Roland was closing the door he heard her father in a low voice say, “What an odd man.”

Roland called room service to ask about his order and asked them to bring two mojitos. When Corinna knocked later that night, he had to place one hand against the wall to steady himself and hold onto the door as he opened it with the other. She dipped under his arm and entered, waited for him to close the door, then said, “What’s the matter with you?”

“It was very… upsetting to see your father at my door, thanking me for my good judgement. But my judgement concerning you hasn’t always been so praiseworthy, has it? No, I think he would have said something quite different if he knew I had been boning his little girl.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Not enough,” Roland said. “I can still hear him saying– You know your father is a very charming man– I can still hear him saying– What the hell did he say? Bad judgement comes from good experience– or Bad experience comes from– Shit, I don’t know, but it was damn charming.” Roland wobbled to the bed, sat, and then fell to his back.

“You’re not going to say anything, are you,” Corinna asked hovering over him. “About Dad? About the video? I hope you’re not one of those drunks who can’t keep their mouth shut.”

“No, not me,” Roland said as his head rolled around on the bed. “Even if I wanted to who would I tell? I have no friends, no girlfriends, no co-workers. Just my crazy fucking mother who wouldn’t believe it anyway because she thinks I’m gay. I only have… you.”

“You don’t have me,” Corinna said. “You get to… be with me, for a week, once a year. That’s the deal. And if you blab I will make sure you end up in jail for longer than my father. And don’t try to contact me in between either. Just show up at the conference next summer. I’ll be there.”

“You will? Really?” Roland said sitting up to look at her. She always dressed so neatly. Teenage girls are very neat. And that face. “You’re so… beautiful. You’re the most beautiful girl in the world.” The mojitos had finally turned his muscles to jelly and he fell back once more. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world because I get to… look at you.” The room began spinning around him and he closed his eyes to make it stop.

“Yeah, well I guess looking is all you’re gonna do tonight. Just remember I was here willing to do my part. It’s not my fault you were too drunk.” Corinna pulled open the door, and said, “See you next year. And keep your mouth shut.”

Roland heard the door slam. I’ll bet she had that withering look of disgust, he thought, then he passed out.

Part II - The Whore

Chapter 1

The cover band was playing oldies Roland’s mother would have loved. His generation’s band started at eight, after the retirees crowding the famous Waikiki beachside restaurant went to bed. The band Corinna would enjoy wouldn’t start until ten when Roland would look out of place in the midst of the young crowd. The sunset was casting an orange glow to the horizon at the ocean’s end. It matched the slice of orange in his sparkling water.

He wondered again what he was doing here. The weeklong trip was more expensive than Roland could afford, even if it hadn’t been in Hawaii. Was it a manifestation of some deep-seated need to self-destruct? He had already committed enough of a crime to spend the rest of his life in prison and yet, he was back for more. As if he hadn’t already done enough to disgrace himself and his mother. He was probably going to end up in jail even if Corinna never told anyone how he had abused her.

The waiter came by and Roland passed on another sparkling water, paid the check and left. The hotel was next door to Duke’s and he scanned the lobby for Corinna on the way to the desk. He concluded her flight must have been delayed and he left a message for her at the front desk under his pen name with the address of where he would be and left. It was a short walk to his hotel and he fidgeted in the slow elevator ride up to his floor. He was tired from the flight from Seattle and he fell asleep.

When he opened his eyes the sun was blasting through the curtains. It took a few blinks until he heard the knock. He got up from the bed, still dressed in his now wrinkled street clothes, and opened the door.

Corinna stood there in sandals, shorts and a tight fitting top, her hair cut short. There were no more blond streaks. She looked different. The image of her that played frequently in his mind over the past year was that of the last time he saw her. It was still her, the same youthful teen whose cunt he had worshipped, but she was different.

“What the fuck, Roland?” she said plainly. “You look like shit.” She didn’t wait for a response before she brushed past him and into his room. Roland closed the door and stared at her. She looked around as though confused, opened the glass door, and went out on the balcony. When she returned she said, “I can’t believe this room is in the shape of a slice of pie. Why aren’t you at the Hilton?”

“There was a mix up, overbooked or something, this was the closest hotel I could find when I got here. It’s comfortable.”

“The Waikiki Circle Hotel?” she said with a loud laugh. “You poor bastard, it’s a dump.” She bounced as she sat on the bed.

“It’s fine,” he said.

You got something to drink? There were always mojitos lying around before.”

“Too early,” he said.

Reaching for the mini bar door she said, “Not for me.” She extracted a small bottle. “Vodka, now we’re talking.” She tossed the bottle to him and he fumbled but caught it. “Pour me one.”

Annoyed with her smile at making him look clumsy, he said, “You’re too young to drink. It’s not good for you.”

“Well, that’s a laugh coming from you,” she said placing her hands behind her and leaning back on the bed. “You were dead drunk the last time I saw you. And where was all this concern for what’s good for me last year when you were fucking me.”

Roland felt his stomach churn, and his head cloud with guilt. This is why he shouldn’t have come. How could he have been so stupid?

“You remember, don’t you? Mexico, me in your bed, your cock in me?”

Roland felt too ill to respond. He needed to sit down but there was no chair, only the bed.

“I remember you saying how much you liked fucking me,” she mused. “I don’t remember you saying it wasn’t good for me.”

Roland was so tied up inside he could only stand there with his chin on his chest.

Her tone changed from abrasive to serious. “I’m starting to feel crazy here,” Corinna said. “You’re not trying to deny it happened are you?”

Roland wanted to yell for her to shut up but he held it in and remained motionless.

She stood, lunged toward him and slapped him on the chest. “Are you?” she demanded again.

“Stop it,” he said. “I not an idiot. I know what this is about.”

Corinna shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to deny it. You don’t need to trick me.”

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.

“You want me to say it out loud because you’re wearing a wire. You don’t have to make me look stupid, too.”

Corinna looked at him with her mouth open. Her expression was thoughtful for a few seconds then she pulled off her top, unfastened her bra and dropped them on the floor. She stared at him until he was looking at her naked breasts directly. Then she pushed down her shorts and stepped out of her sandals. She stepped toward him stopping when she was almost touching him and stretched out her arms to the side. “See any wires?” She placed her hands on his chest. “Wanna check my orifices, too?”

Roland was staggered by her words and her naked figure so close he could smell her flowery hair. It made him burn with desire for her, and burn with shame for his desire. She wouldn’t be doing this if there were police outside the door waiting for his confession, would she? He fell to his knees in front of her still waiting for the door to burst open and the room to flood with police. Carefully laying his hands on her hips, fuller than they were a year ago, he reached slowly for her vulva with his tongue. When the tip dipped in just between the lips and he tasted her liquid his dick went hard. He lapped at her juice and sawed at her clit with his tongue. When he had gulped several mouthfuls he lifted her and threw her on the bed on her back and pushed his face between her legs. He slavishly drank of her juices.

“I remember this,” Corinna said. “You were a good cunt licker.” She fell open for him, and stretched her arms above her head and clutched at the blankets. She rubbed the sole of her foot on the wrinkled shirt covering his ribs and Roland clutched at her fuller breasts as he ate her. Corinna’s noises were different. Last year they had been unsure, sometimes quavering, high pitched, but soft. Now her voice was huskier and it made her emanations seem more salacious, more wanton. She didn’t shy away from swearing anymore, either. When she came she said, “Fuck,” half a dozen times.

He wanted to make her come again. He wanted to make her come so many times she passed out from pleasure. Could he kill her by making her come too many times? That would be devastating, but quite an accomplishment. Corinna wasn’t in the mood to be murdered by orgasm, though.

“Get up here and let me grab that thing,” she said.

Roland obeyed, crawling up on the bed and flopping on his back until she grabbed his dick and wrapped her lips around the tip. He was surprised by the enthusiasm with which she embraced the activity. She worked him vigorously, but he wasn’t sure if it was to please him or herself. The mouthful of braces was gone and dangling rings hung from her now pierced ears. Naked, she looked younger than the fifteen she would be in two months than she did earlier with her clothes on. It was a delight to look at her, to watch her breasts jiggle, her smallish hands stroke him, and her mouth suck him.

Corinna stopped abruptly, crawled upon him placing her hands on his chest and grabbed his cock to insert it.

“What about a condom?” Roland asked.

“I’m on the pill, now,” she said, “and I prefer bareback.”

“Wait a minute,” Roland said holding his hand up. “What about disease?”

“You’re willing to risk going to jail for fucking an underage girl and probably be murdered by righteous drug dealers and you’re worried about a little STD?”

Roland pushed her off, got up, and went to the bathroom for a condom. “It’s for your protection,” he said lying down on the bed again and putting it on.

“Oh, is it?” she said snidely. “So you’ve been having unprotected sex with lots of crack whores?”

“Of course not.”

Corinna climbed on him again sitting on his thighs. “Then it’s to protect you from me?”

“It’s to protect both of us,” Roland said.

“Take it off,” she said.

“What?”

“I said, take it off, Roland. Live or die, we’re in this together.”

Roland was terrified by her fearlessness, and mesmerized. How could she be so cavalier about her life? About his? How could a girl her age, how could anyone, be so willing to risk it all. He admired her fortitude in spite of its madness. When he started to remove the condom she pushed his hand away, centered his cock on her vagina and settled on his latex covered tool.

“It’s nice you’re willing to die with me, Roland. I like that.”

Lost in the sensation her warm cunt was producing in his cock Roland forgot about dying. As he thrust upward she closed her eyes and began gyrating her hips in a way that maximized the sensations for them both. Her breasts were fuller but still appeared as though they had just begun growing.

He had replayed every instance of their previous lovemaking a dozen times each while masturbating. Before Corinna he had a variety of teen fantasy objects, but since last year she was front and center in his sexual imagination. He knew every inch of her; every freckle, the mole just below her bra line, the scar just below her knee when she fell off a skateboard, how her second toes were longer than her first. He even recognized the scent of her sex, as though it had been seared in his mind by the strength of his craving.

He was about to explode when she rolled off and said, “Do me from behind.” He watched as she positioned herself on her knees with her face dug into the pillow. The way she presented her cute ass to him was intoxicating and he mounted her with a grin. It was hard fucking and she loved it. The loud noises she made proved that. She was so different than before. Instead of a girl allowing him to do things to her, now she was a happily being fucked by a man, and he was amazed. He couldn’t hold back any longer and he came in her making embarrassing gushing noises as the air rushed past his teeth. He kept thrusting mechanically until his dick started going soft and he pulled out and sank back on his calves.

Corinna looked back at him. “I’m good for another. Finish me up with your thumb,” she said.

With her still on her knees Roland pulled himself into position, inserted his thumb from behind, reached around with his finger and massaged from without and within until she came growling into the pillow.

They collapsed together, side by side, but not cuddled. It gave him the opportunity to gaze at her face up close. Her nose was a little straighter, her eyes more knowing, her smile more captivating without braces. The most striking change was her demeanor. Before she had been not shy, but deferent. It was as though her teen self-consciousness had been stripped from her. Now she was full of herself. “You’re… different,” Roland said.

“No shit,” Corinna said. “I was such a nerd a year ago. I can’t believe you wanted to do me.”

“You were… wonderful then.”

“Oh, and I’m not now?”

“I didn’t mean that,” Roland said quickly. “You’re still wonderful, but different.”

“Yeah, I learned a few things. I used to think it was important to be a good student, a good volunteer at my church, a good daughter, a good friend. Now I know it’s only important to be one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“A good fuck. The world is your oyster when you’re a good fuck. And I’m a good fuck. Plenty of guys have said so.”

Roland hesitated, “I think a good fuck is someone you care about.”

“OMG, you are like a dinosaur. Have you fucked anyone else besides me in the last year?”

“No.”

“Why not?” she asked.

Roland had a harder time looking at the new Corinna. “I didn’t want to.”

“I’ll bet you wanted to,” she said. “What’s the matter? Couldn’t find any thirteen-year-olds in your neighborhood you could blackmail and turn into whores?”

Roland’s was aghast. “Is that what you think? That I… did that to you?”

“Well, I never wanted to do it again after the sea urchin.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“Bullshit!” Corinna said, looking directly at him again. “That’s exactly what you meant to do, steal my innocence and make me your willing sex partner. That’s what all you pedophiles want.”

He turned away again. “I’m not a pedophile.”

“Oh right, you have a name for it, don’t you? What is it?”

“Hebephile.”

“Yeah,” she said, “like the label makes a difference.”

“It does!” He said it definitively, but for the first time he wondered if it was true.

“Well, you got what you wanted because I like fucking, a lot.”

“I never wanted you to be a–”

Corinna waited then said, “A whore? I like being a whore. It’s very freeing. Drives Scott nuts, though. He keeps trying to get me to see a shrink. His latest thing is he wants me to talk to the pastor at the teen ministry. He’s barely older than I am and he wears a knit cap. Thinks he’s the next Jesus.”

“Maybe you should?”

“Do you really think someone is going to talk me out of liking sex?” she asked. “Do you think anybody could talk you out of liking barely teen girls?”

Roland had no response to that. Instead he asked another question. “Who have you had sex with?”

“You want a list of names? That would create a real shit storm,” Corinna said laughing. “But I’ll tell you about my latest, just last week. I finally got my braces off. It’s been like, forever, and I was in this convenience store near where I live. It was late and no one was around and I asked the cashier where could I stand so the security cams couldn’t see me. ‘Why do you want to know that?’ he asked. I said, ‘So you can come and kiss me.’ I wanted someone to kiss me without my braces so bad. He did, and I liked it so much I sucked his cock, too.”

Roland wondered if he had turned her into a whore. He wanted her to enjoy sex, but with him, not some creep in a convenience store.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” Corinna asked.

“You look… older.”

“Duh. It’s been a year.” Corinna got up, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked out the ninth floor window. “I read where pedos don’t like the kids they molest anymore when they get older. Guess it won’t be long before you start looking for a younger one, huh?”

Roland was hurt. How could she think that? “You’re the only girl I have ever been with, or cared about. I will always care about you.”

“Listen to you,” she said turning a disdainful look his way. “You’re supposed to say that kind of shit before you fuck me. Afterwards it just sounds… lame.”

“I love you,” Roland said softly,  “I have loved you since I first saw your mother’s video.” He had hoped his confession would stir something besides the anger he saw.

“Step-mother,” Corinna said, standing to get a better view. “That fucking video. I didn’t want Kathy to take it. I thought it was weird she wanted to carry around one of her stepdaughter-to-be. If I had known she was going to show it to some drunk who would make her feel sad about losing her daughter, and confront my father who would go crazy and knock her off the boat I never would have. How could I have been so stupid?”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Well, whose is it? It can’t just be my father’s. We all had a hand in killing her. And we’re all taking advantage of her death aren’t we? You get to fuck the teen you always wanted. I get to be the heroic daughter who tragically gives her all to save her father.”

“You’re not a child. You’re a young woman, and your father created this. No one else.”

“That’s too easy, Roland. It just isn’t that easy.” Corinna stood saying, “I’m going to take a shower. Then I want to learn to surf.

Waikiki beach is so gradually sloped an adult can be out a hundred yards and only be waist deep. Roland spent the afternoon sitting on a surfboard in three feet of water watching a pre-cancerously tanned man formerly from Ohio give Corinna individual surfing lessons. He especially liked to be on the same board with her and help her stand by holding her hips as they glided in on a gentle, late cresting wave. Roland wondered if she really was a whore.

Part II - Chapter 2

The next morning Corinna knocked on his door around eleven. She had a big cloth bag over her shoulders and she saluted comically saying, “Private Buckley reporting for blackmail duty, Sir.” She laughed and slapped at him with the back of her hand as she entered, set the bag carefully on the floor and flopped on the bed. “So do we fuck before we snorkel, or after? I’d prefer after because I’m still a little sore from last night, if you know what I mean.”

“Please don’t talk so loudly,” Roland said closing the door.

“I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “Everybody in this crummy hotel is probably doing something illegal. Who’s going to pay attention to a little underage sex?”

“Stop talking like that,” he snapped.

“Okay, okay, cool your jets,” she said. “For a guy who gets to fuck his fantasy girl all week you don’t look very happy. Why’re you so grumpy?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just… am.”

“So what is it?” she said. She looked critically at him, and then asked, “You’re not thinking of pussying out on me are you? You haven’t done something stupid with the video have you? Have you?”

“No,” he said clearly. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind. Why don’t we go?”

She got up and picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder. He picked up a towel and they left and caught a bus to Hanauma Bay. They rented snorkeling equipment and Roland mostly watched as they swam around until she had her fill. He enjoyed her childish excitement at seeing the multicolored fish. It was the only time he had smiled in as long as he could remember. It reminded him of last year, of the joy he felt in watching her, in holding her, in fucking her. They walked down to the beach and he covered himself with a thick layer of his aerosol sunscreen. There was a breeze that kept it from getting too hot as they lay quietly on the white sand in the sun.

The subject hadn’t really left his mind since she first mentioned it in the morning and finally he brought it up. “Was it the surfing instructor?”

“Was what?”

He knew she was being deliberately obtuse. “The one who made you sore, last night?”

She glanced toward him in an annoyed way. “What do you care? You’re still getting what you want.”

He closed his eyes again trying to block out the primitive feelings surging through him. It nearly made him ill.

“I’m not your girlfriend, you know,” she said. “I’m the one you blackmailed into fucking you. Remember? I’m here on this beach because I have to spend time with you. You think I would be here, with you, a boring man old enough to be my father, if I didn’t have to?”

The bitterness of her tone made him want to wretch. “I’m not old enough to be your father.”

“You’re closer to his age than you are to mine.”

“How old was the instructor?”

“Don’t go there, Roland. You won’t like it.”

“Where?”

“Details. You’re going to start asking about the details of my fucking. And I’m not going to protect you by saying that it wasn’t that great, or his dick was smaller than yours, or that I didn’t come. So unless you want to hear why I am enjoying my soreness, don’t go there.”

“He’s about my age isn’t he? And the convenience store clerk, how old was he?”

“What’s your point?”

“Why not guys your age?”

“Because they’re dumber than shit, that’s why.”

“They can’t all be dumb.”

“Just great. Now you sound like Scott.”

Roland was taken aback. “Your father knows you date… men?” He had assumed she kept it a secret.

“I made sure he knows,” she said. “No details, of course, but you should see the look on his face when I start bumping up against one of his accountant friends. That’s why he wants me to see a shrink. He thinks I’m out of control.”

Roland thought he was probably right. “Maybe you should, see a shrink that is.”

“Oh sure,” Corinna said. “And when he asks if there anything stressful going on in my life, like being teased at school by some mean girls, I’ll be sure to mention that I found out my father is a murderer and I have to fuck someone twice my age so he doesn’t go to jail.”

Her words made it hard to enjoy watching her. He sat up and sprayed sunscreen on himself, but found himself gazing at her now ‘A’ size breasts cupped in a bikini. He let his eyes wander down her perfectly shaped legs, still free of any trace of fat. Another couple walked by and he felt suddenly obvious looking at Corinna. He sprayed sunscreen on her feet, then said by way of response to her surprised look, “Your feet are getting sunburned.”

“I could use a drink,” she said. She sat up and reached into her bag, retrieved two hotel glasses and a large bottle of vodka. “It’s not tequila and mint leaves, but it’ll do the job.” She poured two fingers in each glass, and handed him one.

“No,” he said sharply, refusing to accept the offering. “Where did you get this?”

She sipped and lay back on her towel, setting the glass between her breasts. “Scott and I have adjoining rooms and he checks the mini bar in my room every day. So after he left I went into his room and ordered a bottle of vodka through room service asking them to deliver it to the room. He won’t know until we leave and he pays the bill. Too late, Scott. Outsmarted again. He used to be proud of how smart I am. I don’t think he is any more.”

She drank three glasses of vodka in the few hours they were on the beach, which didn’t seem to have any effect on her, and then explained she was meeting her father for dinner, and said they should leave. The two returned the equipment, boarded the bus and returned to Roland’s room. She set her bag down and flopped face first on the bed. She looked at her watch, “Better get to it. After dinner with Scott I have a date.”

Roland was disheartened to hear she was going to be with someone else, again. When he looked at her bikini bottom sticking out below her tee shirt he was aroused, then furious as he thought about her fucking the sleazy surfing instructor. He hated how she flaunted it by telling him how sore he had made her.

“Do that thing where you stick your thumb in me from the back and rub my clit with your finger.” Her face pressed into the covers muffled her words.

Roland removed his shirt, dropped his shorts past his hard cock, and kneeled on the bed behind her and jerked her bikini bottoms down and off her feet.

“Hey,” she said. “What the–”

He dropped onto her back and pressed his cock into the soft space between her dry lips and shoved it in. It took only a few strokes for her to become liquid and he could slam home, which he did with force. He grabbed her wrists and held them above her head and pressed his cheek into hers. She grunted in surprised pain at first, then fell quiet, her eyes wide open in fear as he pounded her. The image of her fucking the instructor, of her on her back on a surfboard enjoying fucking the instructor made him want to drive her into the floor. He was mad with the desire to possess her in the only primitive way he could. The bed squeaked rhythmically, then erratically as he huffed his release only a few minutes later. Then all was quiet except for his breathing. He rolled off and they were both still.

She got up slowly without looking at him, took a shower, and returned. Roland was sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxer shorts, his head down. Corinna took clothes out of her bag and dressed. When she had fixed her hair, picked up her bag, and started to leave, he spoke, “Corinna, I’m sorry. I should have used a condom.”

She turned to him, her anger barely contained. “That’s what your sorry about? I would rather you gave me AIDS than be mean to me like that.” She slammed the door on her way out.

Roland sat, ashamed, and cried. He had done a lot of stupid things in his life, even more in the last year, but that was the worst. Her look of disgust, the look that always carried a hint of her caring, hung before him like a specter all night.

Part II - Chapter 3

It was before eight in the morning when he was aroused from a fitful sleep by the knock. He scrambled from the bed and pulled open the door as quickly as he could. Corinna, bag on her shoulder, said nothing as she entered. She let the canvas bag slide to the floor and sat on the bed. “Are you going like that?”

Roland gleaned that she was referring to his boxer shorts, but little else. “Going where?”

“The big island. Remember? Volcanoes and shit.”

Roland rubbed his eyes. “I… I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

“Why not?” she said coolly.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“You mean about the condom?”

“No!” His words stumbled out of his mouth. “I mean, yes, that too, but for being– ”

“An asshole?”

“Yes,” he said, dropping to his knees in front of her. “I hurt you, and I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I’ll never do anything like that again. I promise.”

“Yes, you will, Roland,” Corinna said, “because I’m not a person to you. Just your teenage fantasy fuck that you’ll do anything you want to, because you can. So you don’t need to apologize to your victim. It just makes you look more pathetic.”

“Corinna, I’m so–”

“If we don’t go soon we’ll miss the plane,” she said. “Unless you plan to keep me here and rape me all day long.”

Roland could tell his pleas were not going to assuage her. He got up, quickly showered and they taxied to the airport, caught the plane to Hawaii, and boarded the bus. There had been few words between them since they left, but Roland was grateful just to be with her. They toured and listened to the docent at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park museum on the mountaintop and observed the lava lake. Around midday they journeyed down the mountain to where the road ended. They got off the bus where the pavement was buried under three feet of lava, long since solidified into porous black rock. They walked over the jagged, pockmarked surface of the rock several hundred yards and approached the lava tube flowing down the mountain. A huge cloud of steam could be seen where the lava flowed into the sea.

They had been cautioned not to get too near the sea or the lava tube as the rock surface, while appearing solid, can collapse under the weight of person walking on it. Roland was nervous and kept suggesting they turn back, but Corinna ignored him and meandered up the mountain. He had a hard time keeping up with her as she nimbly jumped from one rock footing to another. She finally stopped and he labored to climb up to her and was stunned by what he saw.

They were within a few feet of the lava tube. A skylight had opened up revealing a yard wide stream of molten lava flowing quickly past them and down to the ocean. They could feel the heat of the orange liquid from ten feet away. Corinna found a raised portion of rock to sit on, and pulled a bottle of vodka from her bag.

Roland pleaded to go, but she took a drink from the bottle and ignored him. He looked around, then sat next to her, trying to keep from being poked by the sharp edges of rock. They sat there for a long while as the sky clouded over and Corinna pulled from the vodka. Eventually she asked, “How fast do you think we would die if we fell in that?”

“Jesus Christ, don’t even think about it.” Roland shuddered, then considered the question. “Ten seconds, maybe fifteen at the most.”

She nodded, “Not a bad way to go, then.”

“What are you talking about?” Roland said, realizing this was more than idle speculation. “It’s a terrible way to die, catching fire, your skin melting. Awful.”

“But quick.”

Roland placed his hand on her knee. She looked disapprovingly and he trembled and removed it.

“Do you ever think about it?” Corinna asked then taking another swig.

“What?” Roland asked, pretending ignorance.

“Suicide.”

Roland didn’t answer. He was afraid talking about it would encourage her.

“I do,” she said. “I get really tired sometimes. So fucking tired I can’t stand to think anymore. I just want to stop… thinking.”

“Please don’t say that.”

Corinna glared at him. “Well, that sucks.”

“What?”

“That’s the best part of our relationship, Roland.”

“What is?”

“I can say anything to you,” she said. “You’re the only one I don’t have to worry about slipping up with. I used to have dreams about showing up for class without my homework. Now I have dreams about accidentally telling someone Scott is a murderer. I feel like I have to be on my guard every second. I’m afraid to even say the word murder around anyone else. It’s fucking exhausting. So don’t tell me I can’t say things to you, Roland. If I can’t say what I’m thinking, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Roland loved that she needed him, even a little. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me everything about killing yourself.”

She took a long drink of the vodka. “No, you tell me about you killing yourself.”

Roland tried to fan away the heat from the vent. “I guess I think about it sometimes.”

“You guess?”

“I used to think that if I had to go to jail… for you… I would kill myself. Now, well, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Too scared I guess,” he said. “It would kill my mother, too.”

“You don’t have to worry about going to jail,” Corinna said. “I won’t be talking.”

Roland nosed around trying to find some cool air to inhale. “I may have to go anyway.”

Corinna snapped to attention. “What for?”

“Four months ago I crashed my car, DUI. I didn’t hurt anybody but I scared some pedestrians pretty bad. I was really drunk. My lawyer says I could get as much as ten months.”

“Damn, Roland.” She took another mouthful from the bottle. “Is that why you haven’t been drinking?”

He nodded.

“I thought you were getting all righteous on me. Why didn’t you say something?”

Chagrined, he said, “I’m not enough of a loser for you?”

She laughed, the first real laugh of the day. “Yeah, you are.” She laughed more, hysterically, slapping her knee. “You are such a fucking loser.”  Her laughter sputtered, then ceased. “No more than me, though,” she said, her face now grim.

“You’re not a loser,” Roland said. “You’re… fine.”

“I got arrested for shoplifting,” she said. “Not by the cops, just some seven dollar an hour store security jerk, but I can’t go to the mall any more. And I flunked most of my classes this year, was suspended twice for drinking, I’m a major slut, and I generally made Scott’s life miserable. The last part was intentional. The rest of it, well, I guess we are both fuck ups.”

Roland realized she was drunk. It seemed to have come on as suddenly as her laughter then he realized she had probably been sipping from the bottle all morning. He looked at his watch, stood and said, “We’d better go. The bus is going to leave soon.” He pulled her up and she stumbled toward the vent forcing him to wrap his arm around her waist securely as she stared at the liquid rock. “We could both do it,” she said slurring the words slightly. “The two of us. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”

“You’re about the right age, but I’m too old to play Romeo to your Juliet,” he said slinging her bag over his shoulder with one hand, still holding her with the other. He picked up the bottle of vodka and tossed it into the vent. The glass cracked and the vodka puffed as it evaporated before the roiling lava swallowed the pieces of bottle.

Roland escorted her down the hill worrying the whole way she would fall and get seriously hurt. He explained to the bus driver she wasn’t feeling well and helped her onto the bus. Corinna slept on the ride back to the airport and the plane trip to Oahu. She was tired but mostly sober when the taxi let them out at the Hilton. Roland walked back to his hotel alone.

Part II - Chapter 4

They caught the first boat of the morning to the memorial. It was overcast and the mood of their fellow passengers was somber as they stepped off and onto the staging area. Many wore evidence of their military service, a couple from World War II, most from more recent conflicts. A lot of the history was familiar to Roland from a video game that was the basis for one of his novels. Corinna said her grandfather on her mother’s side was a pilot stationed in Hawaii during the war, and spoke often of the Arizona Memorial to her mother, and her mother had told Corinna, and that’s why she wanted to see it. “Mom said he was a real hero.”

They observed the oil still bubbling up from the sunken hull, watched the video of the bombing, and gazed at all the pictures of the air raid on Pearl Harbor. “I miss my mom,” she said. He tentatively put his arm around her shoulder when he noticed she was tearful. When she relaxed into him he sighed, grateful to be allowed to hold her. “I was named after my grandfather, Cory Masterson,” she said.

“Corinna is the perfect name for you,” Roland said. When she asked why, he explained that she was a character in a famous epic poem by Ovid, a Greek poet. “Corinna was from a high ranking family, gracious, beautiful beyond compare, and thus unobtainable by the humble protagonist.”

“Why is that perfect for me?” she asked.

“You are beyond the reach of any mortal man. Like a goddess.”

“Have you forgotten I suck the cocks of convenience store clerks?”

“Your beauty blinds me to all else.”

“You’re just trying to make up for being mean to me, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“It’s not working, Roland,” she said pulling away from him, trying to hide a smile. “What’s your name mean?”

“Roland was a paladin, a heroic and noble knight in Charlemagne’s army. I did a whole novel with him as the hero. He wins the battle and the girl, of course. Don’t you think my name fits me perfectly?”

Corinna laughed, “Sorry, I can’t see you as a knight.”

“Me neither. That’s why I write fiction where my achievements are not limited by my capabilities.”

After returning from the memorial Corinna decided she wanted to do something fun. They each went to their rooms to change then met to take the bus from Roland’s hotel so they wouldn’t run into any of her father’s friends from the conference. Then they headed for the Wet ’n’ Wild Water Park. The park consisted mostly of water slides of various lengths and configurations. It took him a few rides before he let himself relax and enjoy the rush of a slippery descent into the pool. There was splashing, teasing and laughter between them making it the most fun he had had all week.

“Never seen you laugh so much,” she said when they were drying off and looking for a table to have lunch.

“I used to have more fun, when I was your age.”

“Really?”

“No, not really.” Roland waited while she purchased hamburgers, fries and sodas, and brought them back to the table. He had turned glum by the time she arrived.

She dumped out half of her soda, reached into her bag and pulled out a plastic water bottle. She opened it and poured into the cup. She took a drink, set the cup down, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s been a bad year,” he said. “I missed a deadline. In my business if you miss a book delivery they stop giving you work. That and my lawyer fees are killing me. I could barely make the trip, and… now you’re paying for everything, the excursions, the food. I fee like a–”

“I’m not paying for shit,” Corinna said. “Scott is paying for everything. He won’t know it until we check out and he sees what I charged to the room, but by then it will be too late.”

“What are you going to say?”

“If I’m in a good mood I’ll tell him I was lonely because he was always at the conference and I met a girl to do things with. Or, I’ll let him suspect I’m running around with one of his accountant friends. That will send him up the wall.”

“Isn’t that going to get you into trouble?”

“Oh, for sure he will be pissed, and he will yell at me, beg me to see a shrink, think about what I’m doing to myself, blah, blah, fucking blah and then he will just shut up.”

“Why?”

“I think he’s afraid of me.”

“Why?”

“Guilt, I suppose. Scott killed someone,” she said. “How do you tell someone to be good when you know you’ve done the worst thing you can do?”

Roland shook his head. “This is my fault. I should have gone to the police. Look at what it’s doing to you? The stealing, school, you drink like a fish, you don’t even call him Dad any more.”

She finished her burger, washed it down with another gulp of her vodka and soda and said, “You did the right thing, Roland. Scott is an asshole, but he’s my asshole. I’m only fourteen and I need a father to get me around, sign for things, buy me clothes, feed me, and all that other adult shit I can’t do. If he goes to jail I’d have to hit the streets.”

“There must be family you could live with?”

“Not with my reputation. They’d put me in one of those hospitals for crazy kids.”

Roland stared at her. Did he create this? Did her father? Was it in her genes and she would have always turned out like this? None of this had played out like he had imagined. He thought he would fuck her every day for a week, then so long until next year. He didn’t think he would care what happened to her in between.

He didn’t think she would have a bigger drinking problem than his own and become a whore. He had planned to teach her how to be a good fuck, make her learn every trick and practice on him. She became a good fuck without him, with someone else, with lots of someone elses. He didn’t plan on falling in love with her, either. The urge to tell her how he felt again was strong because he didn’t think she understood him the first time. Roland bit his lip to keep his mouth shut.

Everyone knows the child molester can’t love the child, Roland thought. They are sick people incapable of real love who manipulate and coerce the child into feeling something for them. When the child says she loves the molester that is not genuine love, but mere conditioning to say what the molester wants to hear. She would know that whatever Roland said to her would be a lie.

When she had finished her burger and her drink, Corinna asked, “Why were you mean to me?”

“You mean when I…”

“Yeah, why’d you rape me? I would have done anything you asked. When I first agreed I thought about all the things you might make me do, stuff I’d seen on the Internet, kinky weird shit like being tied up or spanked. Did I ever get an education that night trying to discover what I was in for. I figured a guy like you could be into some strange shit, but I agreed because you said you weren’t mean. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to believe you when you said you weren’t mean or cruel. I would have done anything you wanted as my part of the deal, and I knew I could take it as long as you weren’t mean.”

“I’m so sorry–”

“That surf bum was just a fuck,” she said. “We didn’t say three words to each other. How could you be jealous of him?”

Roland paused, “Because I don’t deserve you. Even a surf bum would be better for you than me. I’m like a lousy boxer who has been knocked down and the count is almost up. I’m never going to get up in time, and maybe never get up at all. And you are… so much more.”

“Is that why men are such assholes, because they can’t have the girl they want?”

“Yeah,” Roland said. “That’s why they fight wars. They need to do some damage because they are so pissed about not deserving someone like you.”

“I don’t get it,” she said. “You make raping me sound like an act of love.”

“You should see it from this side. It’s even less understandable.”

She made another drink, sipped, stared at him, then said, “You weren’t mean last year and you drank the whole time. This year you’re miserable, mean and sober. Maybe we’d both like you better if you had a drink.”

“I shouldn’t,” he said.

She pushed her cup toward him. “You’re an evil fucking bastard, Roland. But if you’re nice about it, we both might have some fun.”

Roland shuddered at the invitation her words implied. Was she just saying what he wanted to hear? Could she have real feelings for him, or was she simply a whore who has had too much to drink? He took a pull from the glass and looked at her. She was so incredibly beautiful in her tiny bikini top and her tan arms and white teeth and her hair in wet ringlets. And she was so young. Roland finished the cup, and she made them both another.

They took advantage of the park rides all afternoon and Roland tried desperately to pretend he was going on fifteen and deserved to be with the girl of his dreams. The more he drank the easier it was to pretend, particularly in the midst of all of the other kids. Corinna was alcoholically affectionate on the bus back to Honolulu, which caused Roland to keep pushing her hands away for fear they would attract attention. It didn’t help that she kept sipping from her water bottle filled with vodka.

When they got off the bus Corinna said, “Your bed sucks. Let’s use mine.”

Roland halted so quickly he almost fell over. As he recovered from his drunken stumble he laughed, then said, “Are you crazy?”

“It’s the last night of the conference,” she said. “He’s gone to the big luau. Be there all night. I have my own room, anyway. Come on,” she said pulling on his arm.

“No way,” Roland said.

“Oh, come on, Roland,” Corinna argued. “Don’t be such a pussy. I want you to do that thing with your thumb where it gets way up in there.” She grabbed his arm and cooed mockingly, “Nobody does that like you.”

He wanted to believe she meant that and tried unsuccessfully to shush her and eventually agreed as long as they pretended not to be together. He ignored her giggling as they waited separately for the elevator and then rode up with another couple. They both got out at the same floor but Corinna turned right while Roland turned left until the doors closed. Then he reversed and caught up to her and they slipped into her room.

As she peeled off her clothes Roland looked around nervously. He was quickly mesmerized by her naked form when she leaned over and placed her hands on the desk, spread her legs slightly, and raised her butt in the air. “Do your thing, Roland. Lick me first, then let me feel that fat thumb of yours.”

The man kicked off his sandals, fell to his knees behind her, grasped her perfectly shaped ass, stuck his nose in her anus, and licked her cunt. He was instantly hard and wanted to fuck her but he wanted to please her more. Before the trip he imagined throwing her on the bed on her back for a good, rough fuck. Now, in her presence, he wanted to be her slave and forced to please her all day long. At least as her slave he would feel like he deserved to be with her.

In the less than thirty seconds it took for her to get wet he was able to work his thumb into her vagina and massage the anterior wall. He tweaked her clit with the finger of his other hand and licked her ass with his tongue trying to bring as much pleasure to her young body as he could. It didn’t take long and his heart swelled as he heard her moan, and felt her cunt flex around his hand. She sat back in his arms and he laid her on the floor and began licking her clit. Corinna whimpered as she concentrated on his tongue flicking. He loved this position because he could see the pleasure-pain twist her face with the anticipation of another orgasm.

Her first orgasm was always easy. The ones that followed were more difficult to achieve. He believed she resisted these out of some sense of propriety, or perhaps she told herself ‘Roland is too old. He is too ugly and weird, and he is abusing me.’ Roland liked the idea of her fighting to not come, of overcoming her reluctance, of her having to acknowledge that he could please her like no other. If she came a second and a third time she would have to admit there was something about their relationship, a chemistry, perhaps, created out of the shared secret of something evil, that made her want to give herself to him. And in the afterglow she would come to understand she loved him, profoundly, deeply. Or maybe she was just a drunken whore.

Either way Roland remained attached to her vulva, swallowing her savory juices like she was a fountain, rubbing her clit with his tongue until his lingual muscles were burning. She didn’t beg. She swore and moaned and whimpered and pulled at the hair on his head until it hurt, and then she came. She didn’t thank or praise him, just huffed her exhaustion. Proud of himself, Roland took the condom out of his pocket, slipped it on, and plunged into her. Roland fucked her. Glorious, rug burning fucking that went on and on, from the front, from the back and everywhere in between. He thought she came again, but perhaps she was too drunk to give it full expression.

Her head was rolling from side to side and he grabbed it with both hands, held her still and kissed her. When she finally returned his kiss he was so moved he raised up long enough to explode inside her thinking no matter what happened to him, the feeling she gave him was worth it.

After he got off he picked her up and placed her on the bed. She rolled comfortably against him and nestled in his arm. Roland felt better than he had all week, better than he had all year. He wanted her by his side always. His bright mood faded as the post tumescent reality dawned on him and he admitted that was an impossibility.

Roland awoke to a knock at the door. At first he thought it was Corinna come to start the day’s activities. Then he jerked himself up as he realized that could not be the case. Apparently they had both dozed off and Corinna got out of bed as a voice sounded on the other side of the door. “Corinna, it’s me.”

“Shit!” she whispered pulling on her bathrobe. “It’s Scott.

Fear coursed through Roland like lightening. He grabbed his clothes and tried to dress.

“What do you want?” she asked loudly.

“I want to talk to you. Open the door.”

“Hang on,” she said. “I’m getting dressed.”

Roland needed to pee in the worst way but Corinna pointed to the closet. He finished putting on his shirt, buttoned his pants and closed the sliding closet door behind him. All he could think was that his action was so clichéd he could never put it in one of his novels.

He heard Corinna open the door and ask her father what he wanted. They argued and apparently he insisted on entering because his voice grew louder suggesting he was in the room. Scott said he had been looking for her and wanted to know where she had been all day. He heard Corinna yell at him, “Leave me alone. I’m tired of these random acts of parenting.” Roland heard him pause, then ask, “What’s the matter with you?” Before she could answer he asked, “Whose sandals are those? Who’s in here with you?”

Roland took a breath and waited. He could hear the man thrashing about the room, the balcony and the bathroom. He couldn’t believe her father looked in the most obvious place last. When the door slid open he appeared to Roland as he had previously; neatly dressed in deck shoes, khakis, and a polo shirt, and a graying temples easing into a tan face. He looked much angrier, though.

“You!” he finally said. “You’re that guy– the one from last year.” He turned to his daughter. “What the hell is going on here?” Corinna clutching her bathrobe to keep it closed must have suggested the answer to his question, for he turned and grabbed Roland around the neck with both hands. “You son-of-a-bitch.”

Roland grabbed at the man’s wrists as he was swung out of the closet, pushed onto the bed and pounced upon by her father. Roland’s eyes felt like they were bulging and he placed his hands on the Scott’s chest and tried to push him off so he could get a breath. His vision was blurred but he saw Corinna pulling at her father’s arm and heard her say repeatedly. “Dad, stop it. Leave him alone. You can’t hurt him.”

Scott released one hand from Roland’s throat, looked at his daughter and drew back as though to strike her. Corinna stopped tugging at him, stood, and fixed him with a glare. “Are you going to kill me, too?”

The man froze. “What? What are you talking about?”

Roland felt the hands around his throat relax and he could take a complete breath for the first time since being dragged out of the closet.

“I know you killed Kathy,” Corinna said.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said weakly.

“Spare me the bullshit, Scott. It’s on video. I’ve seen it. Twice.”

“What?” he gasped.

“Roland videoed it,” she said pointing at Roland. “So you’d better let go of him before he decides to give it to the police.”

Roland was grateful for his release and he sat up and assessed his condition. His heart was racing and he had to quell the impulse to run, and to pee.

Scott sank to the floor like a dropped doll. “What’s he doing here?”

“He’s fucking me,” Corinna said. “That’s the price I pay to keep you out of jail.”

The man looked at Roland, his expression one of disbelief. “How could you do that… to a child?”

Roland felt the guilt the statement was intended to provoke. It was not a new feeling for him, yet he had no adequate answer. So he said, “Not a child. A young woman, really. And… and at least I didn’t kill anybody.”

Part III - The Disciple

Chapter 1

Puerto Rico was hot, wet, and lush. The conference hotel in San Juan looked luxurious and Roland was in a good mood when he arrived at the front desk. His room had a terrific view of the sandy beach dotted with blue umbrellas and the blue-green Caribbean Sea. He noticed the blinking light on his phone and he analyzed Corinna’s voice as he listened to the message about where to meet him in the morning. She sounded good, if a little subdued. He had thought of her often in the intervening year, some would say too often, most would say obsessively. He had been good and not tried to contact her as she requested and he was proud of himself for that. Hearing her voice made him crackle with excitement, though, and he knew he would have trouble sleeping.

He found a meeting to attend that night and spoke briefly about the perils of seeing old drinking friends. He didn’t speak about seeing old victims of blackmail and abuse. Roland remembered the phrase often heard in meetings and put it to use. It’s okay to look back, just don’t stare.

He spotted her immediately as he entered the restaurant at dinner. She was sitting alone at a small table and her head was down as she fingered her phone. His heart raced as he approached slowly, almost afraid to see her face. She put down her phone and looked up. Her hair was longer, ending at the shoulders and caressing the straps of a simple sundress. Her smile was formal as she greeted him. “Hello, Roland.”

Roland nearly tripped getting into his seat staring as he was at her. She had changed again, somehow even more beautiful than before. She looked more mature, more composed, even more confident. Not innocent like the first year, but not street savvy like the second, either. Her voice was still husky. He had imagined what he would say to her a hundred times over the year and yet he was silent. She still made him gasp with desire. Finally, he said, “Hi.”

The waiter came and watched while Roland found something on the menu, took their order and left. “You seem happy, Roland,” she said. “That’s a new look for you.”

“Yes, actually, I am,” he said. “It’s been a good year.”

“I wasn’t sure I would see you. Last time you said you had a DUI.”

“After we last saw each other I got into AA and I’ve been working the program. I am six months sober.” Roland waited for a congratulatory comment then moved on when it didn’t come. “I caught a break when they lost my sobriety test and the charges were dropped. But I have been on the straight and narrow anyway. I have a new book coming out next month. It’s based on a television show. That’s where the real money is, novelizations of TV series and movies.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” he said, and again, “Thank you. And what about you? How are you? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to get in touch with you to make sure you were okay. I didn’t, of course. No stalking or anything, just like you said.”

“Thank you for respecting my privacy, Roland.”

“I didn’t want to do anything to make you… dislike me… more than you probably already do. I wouldn’t blame you, of course, for hating me. I did a terrible thing and–”

“I forgive you, Roland,” she said calmly.

“You do?” he said, the surprise evident in his voice. “Why?”

“I must forgive the inexcusable in others because God has forgiven the inexcusable in me.”

“Oh, right,” Roland said. “That’s… that’s… well… I don’t know what to say. I’ve been worried sick you would hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Roland,” she said. “However, I will warn you that I no longer drink, or sleep around or get into trouble like I did before.”

“That’s great,” he said. “I don’t either, not that I slept around much, or at all, except with you, because I had to. I didn’t have to, of course. I wanted to. I shouldn’t have wanted to, but I did, and I did a terrible thing to you because of it, and if you never wanted to see me again, I would understand. That’s why I came this time, to tell you, you never have to see me again. I don’t want to ruin your life, any more than I–”

“Roland stop,” she said evincing a calm but pleasant tone. “All is forgiven. With God’s help I am a different person now. I take responsibility for my actions and I don’t blame others for my difficulties.”

“Right,” he said still surprised by her reaction. He had prepared for a lot of groveling and long conversations about how he had pulled himself together, stopped drinking, was trying to stay positive because Attitude is 80% what happens to you and 20% how you deal with it, and how the program had helped him, and might even help her, if she needed help, which she didn’t seem to. He shouldn’t be disappointed she didn’t need his help. That’s just selfish. He wanted to be the one to turn her around though, now that he knew how, to make up for what he had done to her by helping her get into AA and get on the road to recovery so she didn’t throw her life away. The fact that she didn’t seem to need his help now stung. “That’s good,” he said. “Good for you.” Roland licked his lips and recognized a familiar feeling. Thinking about drinking.

Her phone buzzed and she picked it up and began fingering. There was a smile on her face, a broad smile as she answered a text message. Corinna tried to swallow the smile when she put down the phone, unsuccessfully.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“That was Dean.” Her smile bloomed again.

Roland gave her a questioning look.

“He’s from my church. Actually, he is the pastor of the teen ministry.”

“The young one with the knit cap?”

“Yes,” Corinna said with delight, “How did you know?”

“He’s the one your father wanted you to talk to. You mentioned him once before.”

“Did I?” she asked. “I didn’t want to talk to him, but he wouldn’t let up. He kept chasing me around. Finally, I listened. He said, You can curse God for putting thorns on roses, or praise him for putting roses among the thorns. Isn’t that beautiful? The things he says are so helpful.”

Roland found the dreamy-eyed way she talked about him discomforting. “Your father must be very relieved, now that you’ve… got it all together.” For the first time he saw dismay creep into her face.

“I think my dad feels abandoned by God,” she said. “He doesn’t understand that it is we who abandon God, not the other way around. We always went to church but he never prayed. He should have prayed more to strengthen his faith so that it would be there when he needed it.”

“I’m not sure praying would have done it,” Roland said. “I think an anger management class would have been more to the point.”

“God answers every kneemail Roland.”

Roland didn’t understand, then said, “Oh, I get it; kneeing, praying, email. A Biblical turn of a modern phrase. Let me guess, you heard that from… Knit Cap?”

“His name is Dean.”

“Yes, now I remember. Dean.”

“He’s made a big difference in my life. Saved me, really. Saved all of us.”

“All of us?”

“There are about fifteen of us, kids around my age.” She smiled again in a sickly-sweet way. “We’re called ‘Dean’s Teen Team.’ We get together several times a week and talk about what God has in store for us.”

“Really?” Roland said. “I think there’s another, older word for what you are. Hmm, what is it? Oh, yes; disciples.”

Corinna had not lost her ability to evince disdain with one of her looks, only now it was also infused with a sense of righteousness. “Don’t be blasphemous, Roland.”

“Oh, no, I just have this image of the Dean Teen Team of fifteen convened around a table eating a cuisine of… sardines, I believe, a good protein, and saltines, and jellybeans, some caffeine, so you can all glean a little of God’s plan, which I’m sure you’re all very keen to hear–”

“Sarcasm is not welcome in the Kingdom of God,” she said glibly.

“Doesn’t that depend on which God you believe in? For example, I happen to believe in Momus, the God of sarcasm–”

Her phone buzzed and he lost her attention to a quick smile, and her rapidly fingering of a response. Roland swallowed thinking of the sweet taste of a mojito. She set the phone down again, but she couldn’t let go of her smirky expression.

“He tweets inspirational messages to us at least once a day. Would you like to hear it?”

“No, thank you.”

“I thought you were in a good place,” she said. “Now you’re all moody and… and…”

“What?”

“Jealous,” she said.

The word did not settle well with Roland, although he knew it was the right word.

“The last time you were jealous you raped me,” she said.

“So much for forgiveness,” he said, now burning with humiliation.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was unnecessary. I don’t want to fight with you, Roland. I try to never fight, except against difficulties.”

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “I only came this year to see how you were doing, to make sure you were … okay, and to offer my help, which you clearly don’t need, and I’m glad for that, really. It’s a great relief to know you’re doing well. I thought I had ruined you forever, and… you look good… very…good and you seem… happy and I wish you the best, truly.”

“You make it sound like a good-bye.”

“Well, yeah, I guess it is,” Roland said.

“So you’re saying good-bye to me? Now?”

Roland shrugged, “Yeah.”

“How long is your reservation for?”

“Uh, through the rest of the week.”

“Why?” she asked. “If you’re saying good-bye to me now.”

“Well, I thought it would take a while for me to… to help you, you know, straighten you’re life out. I thought you would still be drinking and I could get you into AA and find you a sponsor and be… encouraging… and not be just a lecher. I wanted you to think I really… cared.” Roland pondered Corinna’s expression for a few seconds, but it was inscrutable.

Eventually, she said. “I travel with God now. His is the only help I need.”

“Yeah,” Roland said swallowing hard. “I get that.”

They spoke of the weather until they finished their meal. The topic was covered in considerable detail, more detail than the mild, relatively unchanging climate deserved. A great silence arose between them. An awkward smile from Corinna was met by one of his own.

She said, “I’m going to spend the day on the beach. What are you going to do tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. See about a flight back to the states, I guess.”

Corinna laid her napkin on the table, stood, and said, “Maybe, I’ll see you out there, if you haven’t left.”

Roland sat back to look at her standing in the afternoon sun streaming through the window. Her hair glinted as she turned to brush it away from her face. Her breasts were a ‘B’ cup now, her figure matured with only a few traces of her thirteen-year-old form left. His heart swelled with her beauty. He considered that it might be the last time he ever saw her. “I don’t like the sun that much,” he said.

“That’s what the umbrellas are for,” she said, and left.

Roland was ashamed for feeling sad that Corinna was doing so well she didn’t need him. It was to be one of his amends, perhaps the biggest one, certainly the one most in need of amending. It was his desire to help Corinna that got him into AA. His sponsor spotted that right away and made it clear you can’t work the program for someone else. And Roland tried to remember that, wrote it in his book, talked about it at meetings, but his desire to be worthy of her love was too strong. The fantasy that he would be the one to save her, instead of Knit Cap, was one of those notions that hid in the back of his mind and he only glimpsed occasionally, but he knew it was there. When he returned to his room he reviewed a list of meetings but that night’s appeared to be a good distance away, so he didn’t go. Instead, he watched television and fell asleep with the oft spoken words of his sponsor, “Meeting Makers Make It!” echoing in his mind.

Part III - Chapter 2

Roland surveyed the white sand beach and found it pleasing to look at and uncrowded. The mid-morning sun had already made the sand hot on his feet. He had used so much sun screen that he felt like he was covered in plastic wrap and was afraid he might make a crackling sound when he moved. Corinna was not hard to spot on a towel by herself not far from the lapping waves. He threw an umbrella over his shoulder and trudged across the sand to her. When he arrived she looked up from eyes shaded by her hand and said, “You made it.”

He stuck the umbrella in the sand, got on his knees and tried to open it. He struggled successfully then sought to orient it so that it offered the most protection. This put him facing Corinna and, because the umbrella didn’t cast a shadow long enough, he had to curl up his legs to stay completely in the shade.

“You look very uncomfortable,” she said.

“I’m good,” he responded. The position reminded him of that first day in Cancun observing her by the pool. He still savored every glimpse of her.

“I don’t like that you’re staring at me, Roland. Why don’t you sit beside me like a normal person?”

“Oh, sorry.” He got up and rearranged the umbrella so that he was parallel to her, only a yard or so away, but almost entirely in the sun.

“I’m sure you’ve got enough sunscreen on to protect you all week,” she said.

There were many reasons Roland was uncomfortable in his close proximity to Corinna, but he voiced only one of them. “Your father isn’t going to come along and try to strangle me again, is he?”

“I doubt it,” she said. “He’s a little unpredictable these days, though, so it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out.”

“Great,” Roland said. “Just how unpredictable is he?”

“As unpredictable as you can be when you’re doing coke.”

“I feel so much better knowing he might pounce on me at any minute in a drug induced mania, beat the shit out of me for molesting his daughter, and then send me to jail.”

Corinna chose to ignore his sarcasm. She said, “After last year, when we went home, do you know Scott cried? I had never seen him cry before.”

“You mean about being responsible for Kathy’s death?”

“No,” Corinna said. “That’s what I thought, too. He cried because he was afraid of going to jail. He was so afraid of what would happen to him there he cried like a baby. I lost a lot of respect for him after that. Do you think that’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Roland said. “I don’t know what I would do if I had to go to jail.”

“I know you’re supposed to honor your parents. I’ve prayed like crazy about it, but I haven’t gotten any answers. I’m sure Dean could help, but I can’t tell him about it, of course.”

Roland was troubled by her words. He thought that finding God had eliminated all her problems. Isn’t that what is supposed to happen when you accept God? In AA they call it surrendering to a higher power. Roland had tried, but he wasn’t there, yet. So far his higher power was Corinna.

“Only you,” she said.

“What?” Roland didn’t understand her meaning.

“You’re the only one I can talk about this stuff with, and God, of course.”

“Of course,” Roland replied.

“I appreciate it, you know. It’s a small thing, but I’m glad for it.”

Roland smiled. He tried not to enjoy the feeling her appreciation engendered in him too much. If he did, he would start to want her, yearn for her, fantasize about her, masturbate thinking about her, feel ashamed for what he did to her, and drink to blot out the shame.

“Tell me about yourself, Roland,” she said. “I know surprisingly little about you considering what we’ve done together.”

“I think you know everything worth knowing, and a lot that isn’t.”

“You’re very down on yourself, sometimes. You can learn to love yourself by loving God.”

“I think I saw that on a bumper sticker,” Roland said. “Right next to one that said, How is my driving? 1 800 EAT SHIT.”

“Our faith is a shield against mockery.”

“Stop, I surrender. Turn off the platitude machine.”

“How’s your mother?” Corinna asked.

“Roland sighed. Not well. She’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She’s in this retirement community but she needs more. I’m going to have to put her in a home soon.”

“Is Alzheimer’s the one where they can’t remember who you are?”

“Yeah. She doesn’t know I’m her son half the time but she always knows I’m gay.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Roland,” Corinna said. “I’ll pray for her.”

Reluctantly, he said, “Thanks.”

“Any women in your life,” Corinna asked, “besides your mother?”

Roland sighed. “I was seeing someone for awhile. It didn’t work out.”

“Oh, goody. You have to tell me everything.”

“Why?”

“Because I tell you my darkest thoughts,” she said. “Because we’re friends and that’s what friends do.”

Roland stared at her, his mouth open.

“What?” she asked.

“I guess I’m surprised you think of us as friends, after what I did to you.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot,” she said turning her face to the sun. “I really don’t know how to describe what you are to me. It’s kind of a jumble, but whatever we are you need to tell me about your girlfriend.”

Roland liked the idea that they might be friends, sighed and began. “Sandy was a game programmer, a little younger, nice woman. A little weird, of course, really normal women avoid me like a two-headed insurance salesman. I was surprised when she asked me out. It went reasonably well, for a while. She tolerated my eccentricities, she actually liked reading my books, and the sex was… not humiliating. So I felt pretty good being with her.”

“So what happened?” Corinna asked.

“She had been keeping something from me, and when I found out, I had to end it.”

Corinna got up on one elbow and stared, waiting for Roland to continue.

He didn’t want to, but he knew she would prod him until he did. “She had a child,” he said. “She had gotten pregnant very young, married, and divorced after few years. Her ex had always had custody because, she said, he wanted the child more.”

“You didn’t want little kids?” Corinna asked.

“I don’t have anything against little kids, but she wasn’t little. She was twelve, and she looked like she was going on twenty. Sandy’s ex was injured on the job and couldn’t take care of her so Sandy’s daughter came to live with her.”

“Did you molest her?” Corinna asked.

“No!” Roland said. “Of course not.”

“Oh, then why’d you break up with her?”

“I could see it all playing out. Sandy and I would move in together, Sandy would be at work most of the time. I work from home so I’d be there when her daughter got home from school, we would spend a lot of time together, and eventually I would do something, or go insane thinking about doing something.”

“So you dumped Sandy, to protect her daughter. Does she know that?”

“I wasn’t about to confess my true nature to her.”

Corinna looked perplexed for a few seconds, then said, “That’s kind of noble, Roland, in a weird way. Like a vampire who starves so his victim can live.”

“Yeah, for once I lived up to my name.”

“That’s right!” she said. “Roland means knight or something, right?”

Roland nodded.

Corinna laid back down and closed her eyes to the sun. A minute or so later she asked, “Am I the only one who knows you like young girls?”

“Not young girls, teen-aged girls, and yes.”

“What makes you think Sandy’s daughter would have let you molest her? You’re not exactly the type young girls swoon over. Maybe she would have called the police right off.”

“She was kind of needy,” Roland said, “but I’m sure you’re right. I would have been thinking about her all the time, though. That wouldn’t be good for my sobriety.”

Corinna turned to him looking amused. “And here I thought you only had eyes for me.”

Intrigued by her half question Roland stared at her. Eventually, he said, “I do only have eyes for you, but my dick has an eye of its own.”

Corinna’s phone buzzed and she quickly grabbed it, smiled broadly, texted something and put it down before easing back onto her towel with a satisfied grin etched into her face.

“Another missive from the master?” he asked.

“Be nice, Roland,” she said. “I’m having a good time here. Don’t ruin it.”

They lunched together, kept the conversation light for the remainder of the afternoon and parted before dinner. Roland was in a quandary about when to go home. There was no reason to stay. In retrospect, his fantasy of being the good and helpful friend she needed was idiotic. She didn’t need Roland. She had found someone younger and more attractive to help her. He imagined Dean with a soft face, a sparse beard, sandals and a knit cap counseling Corinna. How could Roland compete with the next Jesus?

The longer he was around her without a purpose the more he would want her, and the more he wanted her the more he would want to drink. He vowed he would go to a meeting that night, and check for the next available flight when he returned. Instead, he stayed in his room and watched television.

Part III - Chapter 3

Roland woke up late and was looking at flights when his room phone rang. He trembled picking it up.

“Go zip-lining with me,” Corinna said.

“Ah… why?” he said.

“Because I don’t want to go alone.”

“Isn’t that dangerous? You could fall… in the jungle… there are animals–”

“You can protect me. Keep me from being eaten by a baby tiger.”

“Corinna, you don’t need me…”

“Are you going to make me beg you?”

“No,” he said, the resignation conveyed clearly in his voice.

“Good,” she said. “Meet me in the lobby in half an hour for the bus. I bought you a ticket.”

“Oh, wait, you don’t have to pay for me anymore. I’m making good–” Roland heard the click of her hanging up.

It was a long bus ride and Roland felt such elation and such longing sitting next to her. He thought back to the times they had sex together; her little gestures of surrender, how wet she got, how sometimes she kissed him in a way that made him feel like more than a extortionist. How he would suck her cunt until she came several times, then when he thought she was done he would fuck her until he was done, and as she was lying next to him she would say, “Maybe just one more,” and he would diddle her again. Fucking Corinna was the most useful he had ever felt in his life. He wished he had got her pregnant so there was something to bind them together forever. The prospect of never seeing her again filled him with the desire to drink himself into a state of permanent oblivion.

“Do you remember the volcano,” he asked, “watching the lava flow running down the mountain?”

“Sure,” she said. “I was pretty drunk, but I remember how the bottle sounded when it went in.”

“You suggested we could both kill ourselves by jumping in, together.”

“Really?” she said. “I must have been drunker than I thought.”

Roland tried to smile, not knowing what he wanted to say. He was sure it wouldn’t be appropriate, what ever it was.

“I did a lot of stupid things back then,” she said, “before I let God into my life. I was so afraid God couldn’t love me because of what I had done that I gave up on myself and did even more terrible things. Dean helped me to see that God never gives up on you. I didn’t need to hide from Him by stealing, or drinking or having sex. His arms are always open and His love can restore your faith, and your dignity, even your purity.”

Roland looked askance. “How does that work? The purity restoration part?”

“Virginity is not a physical thing. It’s a spiritual thing, and it can be restored with prayer and devotion. We are all reclaiming our virginity.”

“You mean the Dean Fifteen?”

“Yes,” Corinna said. “We pray on it together every week, pledge our celibacy, and our purity, and are faithful to God.”

“So you don’t drink, or have sex, at all?”

“That’s right,” Corinna said. “Sometimes it’s hard but One should not pray for lighter burdens, but for stronger backs.”

“So, no masturbation?”

“There is nothing wrong with that as long as it is spiritually oriented, Corinna said.”

“Really? God must have changed the rules since I was your age. How does one masturbate in a spiritually oriented way?”

“By thinking about God, of course.

“You mean thinking about doing an old guy with a beard in a long white robe?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I think about ascending slowly through the clouds to heaven and as I am close I see his face and then he reaches out his hand and blesses me.”

“And that makes you come?”

“Yes, his love flows through me and I shiver in gratitude.”

“So how long since you’ve had sex? Not with God, but with someone who eats?”

Corinna’s cell phone buzzed and she fished it out of her bag, smiled at the contents, and fingered a response.

“His master’s voice?” Roland asked.

“He’s not the master,” she says showing her dislike of the term. “He’s more like a shepherd who watches over us. Would you like to hear today’s inspirational message?” Before Roland could decline she said, “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.”

“Keep your face to the sunshine,” Roland mused, “and you’ll get a melanoma on your nose.”

When they arrived and got off the bus they were subjected to a ten-minute orientation on zip-lining. It seemed to Roland a catalog of ways you could die; falling into the water where you could drown, be bitten by a poisonous snake, or falling into the jungle where you could break your back, be attacked by wild animals, contract a disease or gangrene. He was not eased by the release he had to sign for himself and Corinna as her parent, holding the operator blameless for any and all injury.

Corinna gave him a hard time about his reluctance to zip-line as he was putting on the harness and helmet. “You can’t come all the way here and just sit by the pool all day.”

“Did you know that someone was attacked by a mongoose by the pool at our hotel? Vacations are dangerous. You should see the statistics.”

“You are such a paranoid pussy,” she said as they arrived at the first zip line. “You go first.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to chicken out. Besides, I want you take pictures of me so I can post them for the team.”

Roland took her phone, allowed himself to be harnessed in and pushed off by the guide. He closed his eyes the whole way waiting for a fall into the depths of the jungle below, never to be seen again. The sudden stop jarred him senseless but he recovered just in time to capture Corinna screaming for joy and flying in like Peter Pan. This was repeated for five more zip lines. By the last two Roland was too tired to close his eyes and worry, so he hung like meat on a hook and awaited his inevitable fall. On the seventh Corinna went first and Roland saw her taking pictures of him as he came in. When he was unharnessed he asked, “What are you doing?”

“Taking your picture, of course.”

“What do you mean, of course. You’ve never taken my picture before.”

“About time, wouldn’t you say?”

“Why now?”

“Relax. I’m not going to have it put on a wanted poster.” She flummoxed at Roland’s continued discomfort. “I’m having fun. You’re one of the people I’m having fun with. It’s just a picture,” she said. “How come you’ve never taken a picture of me?”

“I didn’t think you would like that,” Roland said. “Besides I don’t need a picture of you.”

“Nobody needs a picture. Pictures remind you what the person looks like so you don’t forget. I wish I had more pictures of my mother.”

“I don’t need a picture of you,” Roland said, “I… I can see you, anytime I want, in my… mind.”

“That’s a bullshit line if I’ve ever heard one.”

Roland shrugged.

As they walked past zip line number eight, which was closed due to an equipment problem and toward the bus, Corinna asked, “I have a scar. Where is it?”

“Below your right knee, skateboard when you were ten.”

She kept looking at him not sure if she believed him.

“How’s that mole under your left breast?” Roland asked. “It’s about a quarter of an inch, the color of milk chocolate. You should check it to make sure it isn’t changing colors, or getting any bigger. That’s the first sign of–”

“Fine,” she said. “I believe you.”

He caught her grinning as they boarded the bus. About halfway to the hotel her phone beeped and she hurriedly pulled it out, then her face twisted in confusion.

“Eenie, meenie, jelly beanie, the master is about to speak,” Roland said snidely.

Corinna didn’t respond and her eyes remained fixed on her phone.

“What fortune cookie did he plagiarize this time?” Roland continued in the same tone.

“It’s not his daily tweet,” she said. “It’s a text message, but I don’t think he meant to send it to me.”

“What’s it say?” Roland asked glancing at the screen then reading the message for himself.

“It says, ‘I loved knowing you last night.’”

“I’ll bet he did,” Roland smirked. “Who do you think he meant to send it to?”

“I don’t know,” she said, still weighing the possibilities. “Last night wasn’t a regular meeting night so it must have been… a…”

“Secret rendezvous?”

“He’s a pastor. He isn’t having secret anythings with anyone,” Corinna said, “Probably just providing support for one of the people on the team.”

“It’s lonely out there all night, watching over the sheep. Even shepherds get cold and like to snuggle up to something warm and fuzzy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You do know what shepherds do to their sheep, don’t you?” Roland said.

“If you’re suggesting what I think you are, that is disgusting. Dean would never do something like that.”

“Maybe not with a sheep, but he just admitted doing it with someone, and he enjoyed it,” Roland said.

“All he said was, ‘I enjoyed getting to know you.’”

“He didn’t say I enjoyed getting to know you. He said I enjoyed knowing you.”

“What’s the difference?” Corinna asked.

“He’s using knowing in the Biblical sense,” Roland said.

“What’s that mean?”

“I can’t believe you don’t know this with all that Bible study. We used to giggle about this kind of stuff in Sunday school.”

“What stuff?” Corinna asked, still confused.

“Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived,” Roland said. When she still didn’t seem to understand his meaning, he said, “Dean is fucking somebody.”

“He can’t be fucking somebody,” Corinna said, her face filling with disappointment. “He said he…”

“Would only fuck you?” Roland asked.

“No, of course not. He said when I was old enough, and had reclaimed my purity, we would…”

“So many sheep,” Roland said, “So little time.”

“You know,” Corinna said, her tone angry. “Your cynicism is my least favorite thing about you.”

“Your naiveté is my least favorite thing about you,” he said.

Corinna slumped into silence for the remainder of the ride back to the hotel. When they arrived she seemed to have accepted that what Roland was saying was true, and she wondered aloud, “Who could it be?”

“My money is on the one with the biggest tits,” Roland said.

“Mary,” she said, and wandered off to her room without saying good-bye. Roland returned to his room as well, and booked a flight home for the next day.

Part III - Chapter 4

Roland was packing the next morning when he heard the knock on the door to his room. Corinna stood there with her arms folded, and her face splotched from crying. He stared at her until she looked up and asked, “Can I come in?”

Roland stood aside as she walked in, looked at his open suitcase, then said, “You’re leaving?”

He nodded.

She sat on the bed, sighed and said, “You were right. I talked to Mary and Dean last night. They both denied it at first, but when I told her he had made promises to me, and probably other girls, she admitted it. I’m going to tell the head of the church when I get back.”

“I’m sorry,” Roland said.

“I feel so stupid,” she said throwing her hands up and letting them land on her knees. “I believed him, I believed everything he said, about how I was… special, and we would…”

Roland sat on the bed next to her, and she continued. “I wanted to think my life could be different, that I could be different, that I could make up for the things I had done by doing the right thing. He gave me strength, you know? I was about ready to tell him everything so he could go with me to the police and I would tell them about Dad and Kathy, and you, all of it, and put it all behind me.”

Roland’s head drooped as he contemplated for the hundredth time what he had long feared would happen.

“I’m not mad at you,” she said. “I don’t hate you or anything. I hope you understand that. I just didn’t want to carry it around any more. It’s too much.” Corinna burst into tears at that, and Roland’s stomach churned. He gently rested his arm around her shoulder. Slowly, she leaned into him and his embrace grew stronger. After a minute she straightened, stood and retrieved a tissue from the bathroom to blow her nose. “Here I am again talking to the only person in the world who understands,” Corinna said. “Don’t you ever want to talk about it with someone?”

“AA is all about facing up to the terrible things you’ve done. I feel like confessing every time I go to a meeting. I’ve left meetings early because I was afraid I would talk about what I had done to you.”

“I knew I was right to worry about you spilling the beans,” she said.

“You didn’t have to worry,” Roland said. “I would never confess.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would mean I would never see you again.”

Corinna looked at him through pained eyes. Roland couldn’t tell if it reflected her pain, or sympathy for his own pained expression. She climbed onto the bed and propped herself against the headboard with pillows. Roland was afraid to look at her, but he did eventually, and she patted the bed beside her. He moved, stretching out next to her with his head on a pillow. She scooted down and onto her side until her head was level with his chest. She cuddled against him as though he was a familiar, comfortable piece of furniture.

“He used to call at night and take me on a ‘spiritual journey’ as part of reclaiming my purity,” she said. “He called it giving myself to God. He said I was ready for a spiritual awakening and if I could teach myself to come when I saw the face of God I would be pure again. Not just pure, but innocent as a newborn, with all my sins washed away. I really wanted to that, to feel… new. I tried like crazy and I told him I saw the face of God on top of me when I came, and I felt God filling me with the seed of His love, but it was always Dean’s face I saw. Almost always his face, anyways.” Corinna glanced up at Roland, sighed and continued.

“I wondered if he was jerking off. I even asked him once, but he denied it, and I believed him. How stupid is that? I thought it was more… so much more, but it was just phone sex. Turns out he was taking a few of the girls who were ‘ready’ on spiritual journeys. It was just his way of getting us ready to fuck. You should have heard the bullshit he told Mary when he fucked her.”

“I’m sorry that didn’t work out for you?”

Corinna glanced at Roland again, her look skeptical. “You hated the whole thing didn’t you? You hated Dean because you were jealous of how I felt about him, and you hated that my belief in him meant I wasn’t going to have sex with you any more.”

“I didn’t hate it…” Roland said. “And I said I wasn’t going to make you be with me any…”

“Dean wasn’t the only person I thought of on my spiritual journeys,” Corinna said, cutting off his feeble denial. “I read that abused children often masturbate thinking about their abuser for years after. Sometimes it’s the only way they can get off. It was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one. I didn’t feel so crazy after that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Get a clue, Roland,” she said. “If I wasn’t thinking about Dean on my spiritual journeys I was thinking about you.”

“You were?”

“You don’t have to sound so pleased with yourself,” she said. “Its not like I’m fondly remembering you. I can’t help it. I certainly don’t like the idea of having you stuck in my head every time I want to come for the rest of my life.”

“Oh,” Roland said, decidedly less pleased. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said. “We are both a couple of sorry fucks. It’s a good thing we have each other.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Corinna. “I’m the one–”

“Oh, please, Roland,” she whined. “I don’t want to talk about it any more. I haven’t been laid in eight months, so let’s just do what we always do.”

“What? No!” he exclaimed sitting up. “I’ve changed. This past year I’ve stopped drinking, I haven’t done anything I shouldn’t. I’ve been writing well, getting more jobs. I’ve been trying to make myself a better person, for you. I want to help you, not make it worse by continuing to take advantage of you.”

“It’s too late, Roland,” she said with exasperation. “It’s too late for both of us. We are what we are and we are never going to be able to get away from it.”

“I’m trying,” he pleaded. “But… but you won’t let me.”

“That is such bullshit,” she yelled. “I haven’t tied you to the bed, have I? You could have left two days ago. You know you only stayed because you wanted to fuck me.”

“I wanted to help you,” he said as though trying to convince them both. “Sure I wanted to fuck you. I want to fuck you every time I see you. I’m sick like that, but this time I was trying. My intentions were good.”

Corinna sat up and stared at him, her face twisted in anger. Roland didn’t know what she was going to say next, but he knew he wouldn’t like it. “You dumb shit!” she yelled, slapping at his shoulder. “Don’t you see? You’re never going to be the hero in my life. You can’t save me. Nobody can save me. I don’t even want to be saved.”

Roland hated what she was saying. For a year he had devoted himself to getting into a position to help her. Everything depended on that success. If he couldn’t help Corinna, what good was he? “You’re upset,” he said, trying to calm her. “I don’t want you to be upset.”

“You blackmailed me into fucking you when I was thirteen and now you get to live with the consequences. Me. As I am now. Upset. So you want to help? Make me feel good. Make me feel like you still want me so bad you’re willing to risk going to prison for it. Fuck me like I’m the last woman you’re going to see for before you go away for the rest of your life.”

Roland became aware of his erection as he stared at her angry, plaintive face. He wanted her more than ever before. He wanted her enough to give up trying to save her, and himself. He grabbed her face in both hands, pulled her toward him and kissed her. Roland could feel the press of her lips in return, cautiously at first, then more forcefully as they slowly infused with passion. When he broke with her he pushed her back on the bed, grabbed the waist of her shorts and thong and pulled them down and off of her feet. He stood, removed his shirt and pants, spread her knees wide and plunged his face into her cunt. He couldn’t save her, but he knew how to make her come.

Corinna’s legs thrashed, her back arched and she pulled at his hair until she gasped, “Sweet heavenly Father.” It sounded like thanks for a prayer granted.

Roland put on a condom and entered her. Holding himself above as he rammed her he saw her face mold into that tortured desire he knew so well. Pleasing Corinna was his greatest ambition, his greatest creative act, and his greatest accomplishment. He felt he was stealing her from God and he reveled in the victory.

She clasped her arms around his neck and whispered, “Roland?”

He stopped abruptly.

“Dean used to say, ‘God comes in the front door. The devil always sneaks in the back.’”

“Do I really have to listen to his nonsense now?”

“He made such a big deal about it, talked about how we had to make sure we protect ourselves from the devil, and make sure we never let him in… from behind.”

“What are we talking about here?”

“Anal intercourse.”

“First of all, I am not a great person, but I am not the devil, and I have never tried to have anal intercourse with you. I may have licked a few times, and nudged a little, but I…”

“I want you to,” Corinna said.

“What?”

“He talked about it so much, it got me thinking,” she said. “Have you ever done it?”

“No.”

“Would you like to?”

Roland swallowed hard to push down the excitement the idea stirred in him. “Yeah, we can give it a try, I guess.” He extracted himself from her and she reached for her bag and handed him a small bottle. “You’re supposed to use lubricant,” she said, then turned on her hands and knees with her butt in the air.

Roland lubricated himself with oil from the bottle, and centered his dick on her wrinkled orifice. The fact that she was letting him, inviting him, to be the first was almost too much for Roland to comprehend. She squirmed as he pushed past her sphincter, and then held. She worked her butt backward, enveloping him, making slight noises as she did. Roland pushed in again and was gratified by her response. As he picked up the pace her sounds grew steadier and louder. Roland hung over her back like a dog to penetrate as far as he could, and eventually he reached around and stroked her clit. Corinna came in waves of gasps interspersed with swearing that sounded like she was summoning demons. Roland came a few seconds later feeling every bit the devil.

Part IV - The Feminist

Chapter 1

Roland was on the mailing list for the accountancy conference and received the particulars each year as soon as they were announced. He arranged his schedule accordingly, made his reservations well in advance and waited for the single text message from Corinna confirming their meeting. She always waited until the last minute, as though she was still making up her mind. Did she know what turmoil the waiting raised in him? It was his only communication with her since the previous summer and although it was always the same three syllables, ‘C U there,’ it carried the weight of a year’s worth of anxiety, dread, longing and elation.

Each year he told himself he wouldn’t go, or that he shouldn’t go. His resolve on the matter usually faded quickly. The reason was simple. He wanted to see her, to hold her, to love her in the only way he could, through coercion. This would be the last opportunity now that she was finishing high school and after this week they would part and try to forget.

Forgetting was the last thing Roland wanted to do, of course. Corinna was constantly in his thoughts, masturbatory fantasies, even his writing. There was always a female character in his novels with a mole under her left breast, a scar on her knee, or a voice husky beyond her years. It was not unusual for him to have conversations with her over a quiet dinner at home. Or on one of Seattle’s a rare warm spring days he might even sit in the backyard on a chaise lounge under a towel and imagine Corinna next to him. So when the message finally came his heart filled and his conscience flooded.

The convention was being held at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. It always amazed him that accountants were so extravagant in their choice of convention locations. Roland arrived the morning of the first day and waited. The knock on his door came in the early afternoon. He trembled as he answered, saw her face, smiled gleefully, and let her in. She had changed again. Corinna was two months from being seventeen but she didn’t look any younger than most of the college kids he saw every day in his neighborhood in Seattle.

“How are you?” Roland asked. “You look great.”

“I’m fine, Roland. And you?”

Roland was so preoccupied with taking in her appearance it took him an awkwardly long time to respond. “I”m good.”

“How’s your mother?”

He paused, “There’s not much left of her. At least, not the parts of her I knew.”

“Does she still think you’re gay?” Corinna asked.

He smiled. Corinna was the only person in the world who knew enough about him to ask that question, and he loved that he shared that with her. “Probably. She usually won’t speak to me, but I think that’s what she whispers to the staff whenever I visit.”

Corinna looked around the room, and eventually sat in one of the two chairs, leaned back, crossed her legs and looked at him. She was wearing 3/4 length pants that clung to her lithe figure, and sandals. Her hair was pixie short. She wore no makeup, as though she was making a point of it. Once again he felt lucky just to be in the same room with her. Roland sat, leaned forward, and couldn’t help but grin as he stared at her. “I’m really glad to see you.”

After her smile she said, “So, here we are again. I can’t believe it’s been three years since we… met.”

“You put the origin of our relationship very politely,” he said dropping his head. “Thank you.”

“No need to be bitter, is there?” she said. “Dean used to say, Trials are supposed to make us better not bitter.”

“How is Dean?”

Corinna shrugged. “No idea. He took off before I got home last year. Told everyone God spoke to him and told him to go build homes in Guatemala for the poor. No one’s seen him since. Cops are looking for him, though. I hope they shoot him.” Corinna paused, then said, “That sounds bitter, doesn’t it? I should be thanking him. I was really doing some shit back then and he helped turn me around. So, it all worked out.”

“I’m glad you’re doing well,” Roland said.

Corinna smiled politely and thanked him. “You never seem to change, Roland. You look the same, sound the same. How do you do it?”

He shrugged wondering if that made him more or less likable to her. That was the criterion by which he always evaluated himself around Corinna. He stood and retrieved a small plastic bag from his suitcase and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“Two thumb drives with the only copies of the video in existence,” Roland said.

“Oh,” she said accepting the offering. “What do I do with them?”

“Whatever you want. I didn’t want you to think that I would try to use them, any more, to make you… do anything… with me.”

“Huh,” she said. “It never occurred to me that you would do something like that. That was kind of naïve of me, wasn’t it? After all, you did it once…” She halted, and then handed the bag back to Roland saying, “Thanks. Can you get rid of them for me? Make sure they will never be found?”

Roland said, “Sure.” It made him swell with pride that she trusted him to do something so important to her. “How is your father?”

Her expression turned sad, “He’s full of coke, most of the time, at least. I don’t know how he has managed to hang onto his job this long. These conventions are just an excuse for him to get wasted. Sometimes I wonder which is worse, losing him to drugs or to prison. This whole thing with you was me trying to save him, but I think I’ve made it worse.”

“It’s not your fault, Corinna,” Roland said. “You–”

Corinna interrupted him, “Let’s not go there. Let’s just do what we came to do, and move on.” She stood, turned, dropped her pants and removed her top and bra. He was always amazed by her lack of modesty.

Roland stumbled to his feet and clumsily removed his shirt. She turned and looked at him staring at her naked form. “Do I look different?” she asked.

Roland closed his mouth, then said, “Yes.”

“Not too mature for you? After all you are a– What’s it called?”

“Hebephile.”

“Yeah, a pervert. Not too old for your tastes now that I don’t have braces and tiny tits?”

He missed her previously youthful figure, her less husky voice, her nose that curved up, and her breasts like two freshly baked cookies just having puffed up in the oven. “Of course not.”

She looked askance at him as she got into the bed, and then waited. When he realized she was waiting for him he quickly finished undressing and got in next to her. They sat looking straight ahead for a few seconds.

“I’m applying for colleges now,” Corinna said trying to reduce the awkwardness they both felt. In response to his question Corinna answered, “I’m not sure what I want to do yet. The programs in Women’s Studies look interesting. I don’t know what you do with a degree like that, though.”

“Teach, I suppose,” Roland said. “Or write.”

“I don’t think I’m a writer like you.”

“That’s a good thing,” Roland said. “The world doesn’t need another hack writer rehashing the body count of video games.”

“I feel bad I’ve never read one of your books. Seems like I should have.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re not my target demographic.”

“Thirteen-year-old boys?”

“And men whose brain stems were disconnected when they were thirteen.”

Corinna laughed. “Kind of like you?”

Roland swelled with pride that he was able to make her laugh, then said, “You have to write what you know.”

“Any women in your life?” she asked. “I don’t want to hear about it unless they are grown women.”

“No women, of any age.”

“But you still think about barely teenage girls. Don’t you ever grow out of that?”

“I don’t think so.”

Corinna’s tone turned crisp. “I hope you’re not one of those who has a collection of videos of girls getting molested.”

“No,” he said. “Of course not.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t want to watch anybody get hurt. I don’t want a girl to do something she doesn’t want to do, or that doesn’t feel good.”

“God, Roland,” she said bitingly. “Don’t you see? Even when it feels good, you don’t feel good about it. Believe me, I know.”

“I’m sorry, alright?” Roland bit back. He took a breath and his voice softened. “I can’t help what I… feel.”

“Just stay the fuck away from young girls,” Corinna said folding her arms across her breasts.

Her sudden flashes of mood change were familiar, if disconcerting. “If you feel that way how can you stand to be near me?”

She shrugged as though she might say something, paused, then said, “It’s complicated. I feel differently about it at different times. It drives me crazy sometimes that I go back and forth so much. I’m trying to accept that it’s okay to feel so… mixed about it. I mean, you’re a nice guy. You’re not mean, usually. You never hurt me. But you blackmailed me into fucking you. How am I supposed to feel about that? But if you hadn’t my dad would be in prison. So am I supposed to feel grateful, or disgusted for satisfying the needs of a pervert. And it felt good, usually… always. How sick is that to enjoy doing something so wrong? I felt like such a slut sometimes for having orgasms with you.”

Roland turned away.

“Don’t you dare get that pleased look on your face,” Corinna said. “I know you like it when I come for you, like I’m a gum ball machine and all you have to do is put in a nickel and turn the handle to get your prize. You like being able to make me come even when I don’t want to, like you know my body better than I do. Just because I come doesn’t mean what you’re doing is right, or that you’re doing me a favor, even if I come a hundred times.”

I get it,” Roland said. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you? How the fuck could you get it?”

Roland had said he got it without having a clear understanding of how. Eventually he came up with, “I had an uncle I never liked who used to tickle me,” Roland said. “He would corner me and tickle until I laughed. I hated that he could make me laugh. He thought I loved it because I laughed, but I hated him for it. I know it’s not the same, but I see what you’re getting at.”

“Fuck!” Corinna said shaking her head. “That’s the worst part. That’s the part that makes me so mad I want to slap your face every time I see you. It’s bad enough that you’re the only person I can talk to about this, that you are the only person I will ever be able to speak a word of this to for the rest of my life. And now you understand. It makes me think you are more than a pervert, that you are capable of really caring. It would be easier if you were mean, told me to shut up and raped me.”

Roland shrugged helplessly. They sat in silence for a few minutes until Roland said, “We don’t have to do anything.”

“This isn’t a date. I’m not here because I love you, or am even attracted to you. I’m here because we have an agreement that meets both of our needs, so stop trying to be such a nice guy and fuck me.” Corinna turned on her side away from him.

Roland knew he wasn’t going to be able to get hard after that hostile invitation. He contemplated how he had ruined Corinna’s life, felt the weight of it, and wished he had never been so stupid as to blackmail her. Young girls should be treated like great art; silently admire them for their beauty, but from a distance so you don’t loose perspective, and never touch.

Yet, she was the most important person in his life, more important than his mother if you considered the amount of time consumed thinking about her. He hardly ever saw Corinna or communicated with her, yet she was his motivation for staying sober, for working, for writing, for trying to have a life. He hoped if he were successful enough she would fall in love with him. Roland knew that was less like likely than the second coming of the Messiah in his lifetime, but like waiting for the Messiah one must keep the faith. Faith that he would have her one day was the only thing that made not having her now bearable.

“Well?” she said impatiently.

“I’m not in the mood,” he said.

“Since when? You were always in the mood for me before.”

“It’s hard,” he said, “when your angry with me.”

“Well, which is it?” she said turning to him, her tone glib. “Is it hard or not?”

He couldn’t help but snort at her poor joke.

“Roland,” she said quietly, “Why don’t you just imagine it’s our first time. I was thirteen, with braces, and all nervous thinking it was going to hurt, and you were about to get what you had dreamed of all your life; sex with a barely teenage girl. Just imagine that and you’ll get in the mood, and we can finish this.”

Corinna was saying good-bye. She had come to conclude their agreement and this was her way of helping Roland accept the ending. He could sense a profound grief in the back of his mind that he was not ready to feel. He sighed. “We’re never going to see each other again after this week, are we?”

“No, Roland,” she said. “We’re both going to go on with our lives. We have to let go of all the past shit we have endured, every stupid thing we have done, forgive ourselves and… just be normal.” She turned to him, placed her hand on his dick, and smiled. It was a bleak, forced smile, with just a hint of actual caring in her eyes, enough though that it made him melt.

Roland kissed her and his dick grew stiff in her hands. He slid his hand between her legs, feeling for her clitoris and she said softly, “No. Just get a condom and fuck me.” Roland hesitated, but obeyed, and he was soon inside the only woman he had ever loved. She responded slowly, but soon the grimacing desire he had seen so many times before filled her face. As always, he never felt more worthwhile than when he was making Corinna come. He did everything he could to trigger her orgasm and, although she wormed desirously under him, he did not succeed. When he could hold back no longer, he filled the condom with his first release into a woman in a year, and she hugged him.

After a few breaths he slid out and down knowing he could make her come with his tongue. He would make her come until she begged him to stop. The taste of her cunt came to his mind, the sweet taste that he loved, that he knew as well as the scar on her knee, but she held his shoulders and said, “No. I’m good. That’s enough.”

Roland was desolate that she didn’t have an orgasm. She didn’t want him to give her an orgasm. If he had any hold on Corinna at all, if she felt anything for him it must be due to his ability to make her come. He wasn’t attractive enough for her, young enough, or famous, or rich or charming enough to overcome his deficits, but he could always make her come. He attributed it to the result of some freakish animal chemistry between them like when cats and birds become friends. Or maybe she was born a whore who could come with anyone, but she always came with him. Now she didn’t even want him to try. He rolled to her side and waited, hoped for her to cuddle against him, but she didn’t. He craved a drink. Roland longed for the fluid buzz of an alcohol high.

Corinna left a short while later and Roland took a cab to a meeting in Old Town near the convention center. He had attended more meetings than he could count since struggling for sobriety and the stories were strikingly similar. Only the names and faces changed. He listened again to variations of his own story and heard the pull to drunkenness summed up neatly by the phrase; Under every dress there is a slip.

Part IV - Chapter 2

Roland waited most of the day for Corinna to contact him. He day-dreamed about her throwing her arms around him when she arrived, planting a big kiss on him and the two of them falling into bed together where he would make her come a dozen times. So he was disappointed but not surprised when Corinna didn’t show up in the afternoon as they had discussed, Roland tried to work. It wasn’t until late that evening when the knock came at the door. He rushed to open it and there was Corinna.

“I need your help,” she said looking panicked.

“Sure,” he said as he watched her come in. “What kind of help?”

“Dad’s in trouble, I think. He didn’t come home last night and he hasn’t been responding to calls or texts. He’s done it before when he’s using, but this time I’m scared. Can you help me find him?”

“Where do we look?”

“I finally got a call from him a few minutes ago but he doesn’t know where he is. He says he’s hiding in a shed somewhere and he thinks they want to kill him.”

“Who wants to kill him?”

“I don’t know. I can’t make sense of him when he gets paranoid like this.”

“Can you get him on the phone?” Roland asked. When she nodded he said, “Call him and let me talk to him.”

Corinna was able to reach him but he still couldn’t tell her where he was. Roland took the phone and instructed him how to use the map application on his phone to find his coordinates and text them to Corinna. A small child could have accomplished the task more quickly but eventually he did it. They caught a cab and gave the driver the location to what turned out to be a very expensive-looking estate near the hotel. As they walked through the wrought-iron gates tipped with spikes painted gold they could hear loud music playing. It was coming from a mansion set back on the lot with every window lit and the front door open to the warm evening air.

Inside was a throng of college age kids dancing, drinking, and carousing as though on spring break. From the disregard for property evident in the house the party was clearly taking place while the owner was away. It took them some time to find Scott in the back yard cowering in the pool shed. He yelled in fear from his crouched position when they opened the door blasting him with light from around the lush gardens. It took Corinna a while to get him to stop yelling, “Don’t kill me,” before she could get him to stand up and leave the shed.

When he was outside in the light she asked, “What are you doing here?”

Scott looked around at the partygoers, smiled and said, “They like me.”

“I thought they wanted to kill you?” Roland said.

As Scott turned to Roland a look of recognition came upon his face and he yelled, “You!”

Scott stumbled toward him but Roland easily sidestepped his roundhouse swing. He started blathering about how Roland should hang for what he did to his daughter and several young guests gathered around. One of them asked, “Where’ve you been, Scott? We’ve been looking for you. That’s some good shit, Man.”

Scott pulled himself up and smiled pridefully at the college student.

“He’s leaving,” Corinna said, trying to encourage him toward the house.

“Hey, Scott.” A barely dressed young girl stepped up to block his progress. “Can you leave us some of that blow?”

“He’s leaving,” Corinna snapped and tugged on her father’s arm.

“God, what a bitch,” someone said.

Roland followed the two as they walked then halted when they got into the house and Scott said, “I need to go to the bathroom.” They led him down a hall until they found one. When Roland saw him reach into his pocket and retrieve a small, plastic packet full of white powder he grabbed it from him. “Are you crazy?”

“I need that,” Scott started yelling but he stopped when he saw Corinna crying. As Scott tried to console her Roland searched all of Scott’s pockets thoroughly pulling a dozen packets from various pockets.

“What are you doing with all this?” Corinna said.

“Why do you think he’s so popular with kids half his age,” Roland said as he dumped all of the packets in the toilet and flushed.

Scott looked disheartened by the loss and Corinna looked disgusted through her tears. One on either side they resumed escorting him out of the house. Scott was trying to persuade Corinna that she didn’t need to cry and he would be okay soon.

As they approached the front yard a squad of policemen were walking up the lawn. When the officers got near a sergeant told the three to freeze. He informed them they had reason to believe there were illegal drugs on the premises and they were going to look around. He told one of the officers, a woman, to arrest them if they were carrying, and keep them there until they decided what to do. The sergeant and others began herding people back into the house. The woman asked for ID’s, perused them, and then searched Scott. She looked at Corinna and asked, “Do I need to search you?”

Corinna shook her head and explained how she was trying to take her father home while the woman searched Roland. The officer resumed staring at Corinna while Roland explained that he was eighteen months sober and that it was his intention to get Scott into a twelve-step program and, in fact, if they were allowed Scott had agreed to go to a meeting tonight. The woman stood with her hands on her belt and looked to Scott for confirmation. When he remained silent the officer said, “I think it might make do him more good to spend the night in jail.”

Corinna said, “I just want to get my dad the help he needs.” Corinna reached out and touched the officer’s hand saying, “Please.”

The officer smiled warmly, reached into a pocket and pulled out a business card and handed it to Corinna saying, “Okay, beat it before the sergeant decides to take everybody in.”

As soon as they were able to get a cab Roland suggested an NA meeting. Scott began trying to talk his way out of it and Corinna resumed crying. Roland tried to encourage him to attend but this angered Scott and he turned on him. “You lousy piece of shit!” he yelled and started trying to strangle Rolland. The driver pulled over and told them all to get out of the cab or he was calling the police. Roland paid, looked around wondering where they were and swore. Then he yelled at Scott, “Why is your first instinct always to kill someone?”

This caused the man to shut up and Corinna to start crying again. Roland checked his phone and said they were close enough to walk which started Scott protesting again and soon hurling epithets at Roland again.

Finally, Rolland yelled for him to shut up and said, “I’ve still got the video and if you don’t go to a meeting tonight I’m going to turn you in myself.”

Scott halted, thought about it briefly, and agreed. Corinna and Roland waited for two hours while he attended a meeting and all three caught a cab back to the hotel.

Part IV - Chapter 3

The next morning Corinna called and asked him to meet her for brunch. He went to the gym early, then met her in the cavernous restaurant. Amidst the clatter of diners they ordered then Corinna said, “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For helping me last night, and getting Dad to go to a meeting. It seems to have made a difference because he is skipping the conference to go to another this morning.”

“Good,” Roland said. “I’m glad for you.”

“I didn’t think threatening him like that was okay,” Corinna said. “I thought they have to want to get help.”

“They do. But lots of times they don’t want to get help until they have been to a few meetings. So you get them there any way you can.”

“Would you have turned him in, really?”

“No, I may be named Roland but I am noble enough to hang myself.”

“What made you stop drinking?”

Roland drew a breath, “The usual, I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

“Is it hard, not drinking, I mean?”

“Some days it’s easiest thing in the world, and some days I have to stay in bed because I know if I get up I’ll drink. The hard part is knowing which kind of day it is when I wake up.”

Corinna looked at him agog. “Wow,” she finally said softly.

“You’ve stopped drinking, haven’t you?” Roland said. “What made you stop?”

“I stopped feeling sorry for myself, mostly.” Corinna put on a long face. “Oh, poor me, my dad killed someone and I’ll never be like the other kids.” Her face returned to its previous beauty. “I did a lot of that. I want to do something with my life, you know? Make a difference. Maybe make up for what he did. At least try.”

“Trying to make up for what your parents did wrong is a lot to take on. A burden like that will make you want to drink.”

Corinna grunted politely. “Someone else said the same thing.”

“Who?”

“Oh, just someone I met.”

Roland could tell she was hiding something and he couldn’t resist pursuing what. “That’s a pretty deep conversation for someone you just met.”

“Some people you just connect with and you can talk to,” Corinna said with the slightest of smiles. “Like I talk to you.”

It was clever how she tried to throw him off the track by complimenting him, but Roland wasn’t falling for it. “Who is he?” Roland demanded.

Corinna dropped her utensils and put her hands in her lap. “I am really not in the mood for another one of your jealous fits, Roland.”

Roland tried to keep his mouth shut by stuffing it full of eggs, but eventually he continued. “Did you meet him at the conference?”

“I don’t want to discuss it.”

“Why not?” he said. “I thought you could talk about anything with me.”

“When it comes to jealousy you are worse than a child.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

“No, Roland,” Corinna said. “I haven’t slept with anyone here, except you. So give it a rest.”

“But you wanted to?”

“So now I have to defend feelings I have? I don’t ask you to defend your feelings for little girls do I?”

Roland halted, tried to check himself before he went so far he ordered a drink. “I don’t have feelings for little girls.”

“Whatever age it is it’s wrong, but I don’t attack you for them.”

Rolland grudgingly tried to let go of the jealousy. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll shut up.”

“Besides,” she said, “if you must know it wasn’t a he, it was a she.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Roland said with happy relief. “I wouldn’t have– Wait a minute, you mean you have feelings for a girl?”

“Woman, actually.” Corinna seemed annoyed by his stare. “You like ‘em young. I like ’em older.”

Roland gasped with his mouth open, then stuttered, “That cop. That fucking cop. She was kind of hot, and you… It was her?”

How did you guess?” Corinna asked with surprise.

“You think I don’t notice how people look at you? And the way you touched her. She came on to you didn’t she? How did she run into you again? The business card… You called her. That lousy bitch.”

“I thought you would be less jealous of a woman, not more,” Corinna said. “Don’t you have fantasies about going to bed with two women?”

“No, I do not,” Roland said firmly.

“Two girls, then.”

Roland was still trying to grapple with the new information. “So are you a… a… lesbian? I turned you into a lesbian?”

“Jesus, Roland, what an ego. You didn’t turn me into a lesbian. You turned me into a criminal. I became a lesbian when I started realizing what assholes men are.”

“But I was the main asshole that turned you, right?”

“You didn’t exactly live up to your name, but you’re no different than the others. Whatever makes you assholes comes with the Y chromosome.”

Roland believed Corinna would fall in love with him eventually in the way you have to believe what is too painful not to believe, but how could he maintain that belief if she didn’t even like men. He couldn’t lose her more completely if she died. “How long have you been–”

“I’ve been experimenting for a few months,” she said. “It feels… right.”

Roland’s brain was muddled. He had done more damage to Corinna than he thought. He knew what he was supposed to feel about homosexuality but he couldn’t escape the feeling he had wounded her beyond repair.

“I’m glad you know,” Corinna said.

“What?”

“You’re the first person I’ve told. For some reason I wanted you to be first. Weird, huh?”

Roland was still without a meaningful response.

“I was kind of hoping you would say something… positive, or something,” Corinna said.

“You didn’t have an orgasm,” Roland said. “You didn’t want me to… That’s why, isn’t it?”

Corinna shrugged. After an uncomfortable few seconds of Roland’s preoccupied silence she said, “Hey, they have surreys you can rent and peddle around the beach. Wanna go with me? You know, have some fun, like before.”

“Sure,” Roland said absently. He would have agreed to anything to be with Corinna. He always did.

Part IV - Chapter 4

Roland was having a large bowl of ice cream for dinner in his room. Before his brunch with Corinna he might have told himself he had earned the extra calories from all that peddling along the beach. Now, there was no need for excuses. There was no point in being concerned about his health. At least he wouldn’t have to waste any more money on gym memberships, or slog up mechanical hills like a Sherpa, or worry about not fitting into his pants. As if Roland’s lack of fitness was the one thing that kept Corinna from loving him. She wouldn’t love him if he looked like Adonis now that she was in the cult of Sappho.

There was no reason for him to remain sober, either, or be a successful writer, or do anything productive at all. There was a drink he had once in college that had ice cream in it. What was it? Oh, yeah. A Blue Velvet. He would order a string of those and get fat, drunk and stupid at the same time.

There was a knock at the door. Roland immediately hid the ice cream under a napkin on the tray. No need to let Corinna know he was going to binge eat and drink himself into a state more demented than his poor mother. This would be their last day together and he wanted her to remember him at his best, or at least as good as he got these days. He tried to smile and appear cheerful as he went to the door so she didn’t chide him for being morose like she did the day before.

Seeing Scott at the door was a profound disappointment. “What do you want?”

“Can I come in?” he asked politely. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“Where’s Corinna?”

“I wanted to talk to you alone. It won’t take long to say what I have to say.”

“Does it involve you strangling me?”

“No,” Scott said. “I give you my word.”

Roland had been observing him carefully, warily, and he didn’t appear to be using, so he let him in. The man entered and turned to face Roland who had folded his arms and leaned back against he wall.

“First of all, I have to thank you.”

“For what?”

“Well,” he stumbled vocally as though his gratitude was a hairball he was having difficulty coughing up, “I was in a bad place and that… that meeting was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Oh,” Roland said.

“Corinna says you’re in AA. I never thought I would have anything in common with you. It’s like someone at a meeting said. The good news here is that you never have to use again even if you want to. The bad news is that we're your new friends.” Scott chuckled uncomfortably. “Anyway, thanks.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Roland said. “I went with her that night because she asked me to. I tossed the drugs you were carrying so she didn’t have to see you get arrested. And I sent you to a meeting because Corinna was crying and that was the only thing I could think of that would make her stop.”

Scott looked ashamed. “Well, I’ve been listening, and talking some, and learning a lot in the those meetings. I’m a changed man. I have a purpose to my life now and for that… I’m grateful.”

Scott sounded sincere with a touch of the zealousness often seen on the newly converted. Roland remained suspicious, however.

“Secondly, I’ve come to a decision,” Scott said momentously, then stood waiting for Roland to ask.

Roland didn’t ask because he didn’t want to hear it, and he didn’t like the smug look on Scott’s face. The silence between them was broken by a knock at the door. When Roland opened it Corinna stared opened-mouthed at the both of them, then said, “What’s going on?” As she entered Roland said, “Your father has something to say.”

“Corinna, I’ll talk to you later,” Scott said. “Just leave us alone, please.”

“Hell no,” she said. “I want to know what’s going on between you two.”

“Fine” Scott said. “Might as well tell you now.” He took a breath, and then said, “I’m going to turn myself in.”

“What?” Corinna said. “What do you mean?”

Roland’s initial fear was confirmed and his body coursed with shame, and then relief. The boulder that had been sitting on the precipice of his life was finally going to roll down and crush him. The long anticipation of its fall had taken a bigger toll than he thought.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time,” Scott said looking at Corinna. “And I’ve decided I can’t go on like this, hurting the one person I love. It has to stop. When I get home I’m going to get a lawyer and tell them everything and hope for the best.”

Corinna appeared numb. Roland couldn’t think of a response.

“It’s going to be hell on me, I know, but I am so tired of being afraid of what’s going to happen to me that I just want to face it, and get it over with. That’s why I’ve been using, and ignoring the only important thing in my life; you, Corinna. I’m doing it for you.”

Corinna finally looked up from her numbness.

Roland knew the expression and he held his breath at what was coming.

“Bullshit!” she said. “You’re not doing this for me. You would have done it four years ago if you were doing it for me. You’re doing this because you are tired of holding onto the guilt for what you did to Kathy. And now you want to pussy out and turn yourself in? How do you think I’ve felt all these years protecting you? Knowing my own father killed a nice woman who only wanted a family because he was too selfish to have more kids. Don’t you think I wanted to tell someone? Don’t you think I wanted to scream it out loud so I didn’t have to feel bad for Kathy every single fucking day? But I didn’t. That’s what you do when you love someone. You keep your mouth shut because your pain isn’t as important as theirs.”

“Corinna, I don’t understand,” Scott said. “I thought you’d be proud of me for doing the right thing.”

“It’s a little late, Dad. It’s so fucking late I don’t care about you doing the right thing because the guilt finally got to you. Now I care about what you’re doing to me. What the fuck is going to happen to me when you go to jail? Where am I supposed to live? What about college? Did you give one thought to the one you say you love but have been ignoring for as long as I can remember?”

“What are you talking about?” Scott said. “I haven’t ignored you. I know this past year with the drugs and all has been hard on you, but–”

“Oh, please. You haven’t been paying attention since long before you started using, not to me or to anyone else.”

Scott put his hands on his hips in the universal gesture a surprised parent. “I had no idea you were so bitter.”

“If you had been paying attention you would have noticed,” Corinna said, so frustrated she was on the verge of tears. “It’s not like I hid it.”

“Corinna, I really don’t understand why you’re so angry. I thought you would be sad. I could end up in jail for a long time.”

“It’s all about you, isn’t it?” she said shaking her head. “Well excuse me for not feeling sad for you. I exhausted all my sympathy for you a long time ago. It bled away all those nights I cried myself to sleep, drank myself sick or fucked older guys looking for one who cared. And don’t forget I’ve been withholding evidence,” Corinna said. “Turning yourself in is going to make me a criminal, too.”

“They aren’t going to do anything to you,” Scott said as his face wrinkled with anger not unlike that of his daughter’s. He looked to Roland. “They are going to hang this bastard,” he said pointing a finger and working up his anger. “This son-of-a-bitch is going to jail for what he did to you. That’s the best thing about all of this,” he said as his smile turned maniacal.” You’ll be in prison longer than I when I tell them how you took advantage of her when she was only thirteen, you rotten piece of shit.”

The door slammed, and they both turned realizing that Corinna had left.

“What’ the matter with her?” Scott said.

Without Corinna to keep him in check Roland feared the man was about to explode. “You’d better go,” Roland said.

“Not until I say what I’ve been wanting to say to you for a long time.” He showed no difficulty coughing up his anger. “You are the worst human being ever. You stole a child’s innocence.”

“What does that even mean?” Roland said. “You act like her lack of sexual experience is a trophy I took from you. It was a trade. A bargain she made to protect you.”

“She wasn’t capable of giving that kind of consent,” Scott said, his energy winding up more.

“Oh, yes she was, because she did, willingly, for you. There is no higher expression of maturity than self-sacrifice, especially for one who did nothing to earn it.

“You are despicable,” he exclaimed. “And you can’t rationalize away what you took from her.”

“If you were so concerned about her innocence why didn’t you tell the police when you found out about us?”

“I was… using, and confused,” Scott said. “But I’m clear now and when I think of the things you’ve been doing to her I just want to…”

“What ever I did to her I did with more caring than she ever got from you.”

“How dare you!” Scott yelled while stepping closer. “All you cared about was having sex with her.”

“I loved her,” Roland said strongly. “I still love her.”

Scott’s face filled with blood and he lunged at Roland, his fingers grasping for his throat. “You twisted fuck.”

Roland tried to fend him off and was able to use his back against the wall to keep Scott from applying much pressure to his throat. They gradually slid down to the floor as Roland’s fingers tried to rearrange Scott’s face.

“There’s a special level of hell for child molesters,” Scott said as his feet kicked out against the table knocking the tray and bowl of ice cream to the floor.

“Maybe,” Roland said worrying that Scott was getting the upper hand, “but it’ll be a dozen levels closer to heaven than the level for murderers.”

The two grabbed shirts and collars, pushed, pulled, grunted and groaned on the floor like two elementary school wrestlers. Scott maneuvered himself on top with his forearm pressing into Roland’s throat and, spitting into his face, said, “I hope you get what you deserve in prison when they cut your balls off,” he said.

“They should cut your dick off for murdering a beautiful woman like that,” Roland spit back.

“It was an accident,” Scott yelled.

“It was no accident when you swung at her,” Roland countered trying to gouge Scott’s eye. “Everything comes easy to you, good looks, money, athleticism, even beautiful women.” When his thumb slipped off of Scott’s eye he grabbed Scott’s hair and pulled. “You think you’re entitled to the best of everything so you toss women away like so much wrapping paper.”

“What do you know about beautiful women?” Scott said grabbing a hank of Roland’s hair. “You’re a creepy loser who can only get sex with children by blackmailing them.”

Roland managed to grab his cheek and gave it a good pinch. “I know how to treat them. I know you do whatever it takes to make them happy and you’re grateful for the opportunity.”

“No woman wants some sniveling toady licking her ass all the time,” Scott said pulling on Roland’s ear like he was removing wallpaper. “You’re pathetic.”

“Oh, yeah?” Roland said. “Corinna likes it when I lick her ass.”

Scott’s eyes began to bulge like those on an iguana. “I’m going to kill you.” He renewed his effort and managed to get on top again and get the fingers of one hand on Roland’s throat.

Roland was able to pry Scott’s fingers away, and then began looking for something he could hit the man with. “That’s the real you, isn’t it? You’re a selfish, mean, rage-aholic who doesn’t deserve a daughter like Corinna.” Grasping around the floor Roland clutched the only thing he could reach. “You’ve been nothing but a disappointment to her since the beginning. No wonder she’s gay.”

Scott paused in his effort to strangle Roland, long enough for Roland to slam the blob of ice cream in his face, mash it around some, and twist out of his grip. He crawled away and leaned against the wall trying to catch his breath.

“Corinna’s gay?” Scott said, his mouth hanging open in surprise, the ice cream dripping from his face. “How do you know?”

“Because she told me. She tells me the important things going on in her life because I pay attention.” Roland said it proudly. She didn’t love him, but she talked to him.

“I had no idea,” Scott said.

“You could fill an ocean with what you don’t know about Corinna.”

Scott pulled himself up, found a napkin from the tray, wiped his face and left. Roland sat for a long while contemplating a long prison term and never again seeing Corinna.

Part IV - Chapter 5

The knock on the door that night as he was packing for home made Roland cringe. He didn’t know if it signaled another fight with Scott, being handcuffed and arrested, or a final glimpse of Corinna. It was bittersweet to see the girl of his dreams standing there with her arms folded, her expression morose.

“Hey,” she said.

As always, he welcomed her in.

“We’re leaving in the morning. Didn’t seem right to go without saying good-bye,” she said plainly.

Roland was about to choke on his own despair so he could only nod in response.

“Plus, I didn’t want you to worry,” she said sitting on the corner of the bed.

“About what?”

“Going to jail,” Corinna said. “I told Dad if he wanted to turn himself in, fine, but if he dragged you or me into it I would never visit, write or speak to him again, even after he gets out.”

Roland was stunned. “Why would you do that?”

“I’m just tired of men being in control of what happens to me.” She shot a knowing glance at Roland. “I don’t want to deal with a bunch of cops and lawyers and relive every minute of the last four years of my sad life for somebody else’s benefit. It certainly isn’t going to do me any good. I just want to move on.”

“Thanks,” Roland said quietly.

“I didn’t do it to save you,” she said. “I did it to save myself a lot of hassle.”

He nodded. “So he’s still going to do it… confess?”

“I think the main reason he wanted to was to send you to jail. When I took that away from him, he started having doubts. We’ll see if he still has the balls. Then we’ll see if he cares enough about me to keep his mouth shut.”

The two avoided looking at each other. Then Roland said, “I’m sorry for the other day… when you told me about being gay and I didn’t say anything positive. I mean, I’m glad that you… found your way.”

“Thanks, Roland.” A smile followed. “I’m glad, too.”

More stilted poses ensued amidst the uncomfortable silence. “You know,” Corinna said, “of the three of us, you came out the best. You’re not going to jail, you didn’t loose a parent, and you got to fuck your fantasy girl.”

Roland faced her, heaved up his chest, and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, at least someone didn’t get completely screwed.” Corinna bounced on the bed slightly. “Reminds me of the first time I came to your room. God I was scared. What a funny little girl I was; all dutiful, and noble, and proud of myself for saving my poor misunderstood father. I was so… so…”

“Wonderful,” Roland said.

Corinna smiled reluctantly. “Only a hebephile would think a skinny nerd with braces and a squeaky voice was wonderful.”

Roland tried to smile but failed.

“So,” she said, “we each did what we agreed, kept our part of the bargain. We no longer have a hold on each other. I guess our agreement is concluded.”

Roland nodded again. “I’ll make sure to destroy the video, in case he doesn’t confess. That way you’ll know I won’t ever have a hold on you again.” He looked up to catch an odd look on Corinna’s face. He didn’t know what it meant.

Corinna seemed to realize she was being scrutinized and whatever feeling had taken expression in her face vanished. “I never doubted it,” she said, then smiled and stuck out her hand. Roland shook hers, grateful for the opportunity to feel its warmth once more. She said, “So long, Roland,” and left without turning back.

Part V - The Damned

It was one of those days when Roland wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to get up. The last five months of sobriety had been full of days when he didn’t leave the bedroom. Even those were better than the days during the first seven months when he got up and drank. He ventured out and tried to slip into a routine that he found helpful. He started coffee, chewed on a piece of biscotti, and sat immediately at the kitchen table to review what he had written the day before.

Roland heard the doorbell just after he had poured himself a second cup and sat back down to his work. He glanced out the window through the pouring rain but didn’t see the expected delivery truck, the only plausible cause of the mid-morning interruption. He went to the entry and opened the door. The dripping wet figure on his porch was slumped over in a heavy parka with a hood. Two slender hands retreated from the pockets and pushed the hood back from her face. Roland was awestruck. “Corinna,” he said.

“Hey, Roland,” she said smiling and brushing the rain off of her coat. “How are you?”

Lightening flashed in the murky gray sky behind her causing them both to look until the thunder rumbled a few seconds later. He held the door for her and she entered. After hanging her coat in the wet room Roland offered her some coffee. She tried to fluff her wet hair, longer than when he last saw her, as she sat on a small couch in the living room. In the kitchen Roland’s hands trembled as he poured her coffee. Now he was sure he shouldn’t have gotten out of bed that morning. Upon returning from the kitchen with two cups he handed her one. She accepted and held it with both hands like a mug as he sat in the chair opposite her.

“Nice place,” she said. “Very cozy.”

“Thanks,” he said eying her warily while feeling the same thrill he always felt when he was close to her.

“Live here by yourself?”

“Yes,” Roland said. “My mom is in a nursing home, now, so…”

“No girlfriends? No teenage girls hiding in the closet?” she said, trying to make a joke of it.

“No,” he said, his face grim at the reminder of his failure to have a normal relationship with a woman. “No one else.”

“You look and sound exactly the same as the first time I saw you,” Corinna said changing the subject. “I like that you never change. You are the one constant thing in my life.”

She was being polite about him not changing. He hadn’t yet lost all of the weight he had put on while drinking. Corinna didn’t dispense superfluous compliments and he wondered why she was making the effort. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Thought you were rid of me, huh?” she said. Her manner was uncharacteristically fidgety.

He never imagined he would be rid of her. Corinna was a constant presence in his thoughts, but whenever he imagined her appearing on his doorstep she was always accompanied by the police. He felt sure she would eventually write a memoir detailing her experience and identify him as the one who gave her cause to write it. “Is everything okay? Are you all right?”

She sipped from her coffee. “Things haven’t been okay with me for a long time, but you know that. If you mean am I dying or something, no, nothing so dramatic. Although, you would probably be relieved if I was.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“I just meant after last time you probably thought I was out of your life for good and now… I’m not.”

“You said I would never see you again,” Roland said feeling the loss once again as keenly as before. “I believed you.”

The girl smiled in the way she used to when she had braces, lips mostly closed as though afraid of revealing too much of herself.

“Corinna, what do you want?”

She shrugged as casually as she could. “I knew you lived in Seattle, and I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I would look you up.”

“Oh,” Roland said, flummoxed again by mixture of feelings she always stirred in him. “Why were you in the neighborhood?”

“I start next month at University of Washington. I think it was my essay about learning my father was a murderer that did the trick. Anyway, it’s official, I’m in. You’re really close to the campus, huh?”

Roland’s breath caught in his throat at the prospect of her being in the neighborhood. He tried not to let his anxiety show. “That’s good news. I’m very happy for you.” His mind flooded with thoughts of seeing her around town, with girlfriends, of the pain that would cause him. He anticipated another series of days in bed.

“Yeah, it’s pretty great,” she said sipping again, and looking around the room. “I applied to a bunch of places, but this was my first choice?”

“Corinna, you sound weird. What’s going on?”

“Really?” she said as though surprised. Then her face went serious. “I guess I’m not very good at this. You were better. It’s harder than I thought it would be.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” she said. “It’s just that there is kind of a complication with college, sort of.”

“What kind of complication?”

“See, when Dad confessed Kathy’s parents sued him. They’re going to take everything. The house, all his savings… my college fund.”

Roland sighed. “Shit. I’m sorry, Corinna. That really sucks.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Say, I saw your pen name on a book. The one where the girl is kidnapped by terrorists and rescued by the accountant. What’s it called?”

“Reconciliation,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s it,” she said. “Are all the thirteen-year-old boys buying it?”

“Actually, yes,” Roland said sitting back and enjoying the pride his most successful book yet had given him. “They might even make a movie of it. Low budget, but still.”

“That’s great,” she said. “I guess you’re a real writer now.”

He loved the praise from her, but he knew there was something behind it. “Corinna, you never once tried to get a hold of me in between our times together. You forbid me from contacting you. So you didn’t just come by to see how I was doing.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she said. She took a breath then said, “This stuff about the lawsuit… the thing is, I can’t pay for my tuition. I was hoping you could help.”

“How?”

“Well, by paying for it.”

“Holy shit, Corinna. That’s a lot of money.”

“I know, I know,” she said. “My life’s a mess and that’s not your fault, although you did push my dad into NA, and you knew all that talking would make him want to confess. If he had kept his big mouth shut I wouldn’t have to do this. Ask you for money, that is, and… threaten you.”

“You’re threatening me?”

“I told myself I would never do to another person what you did to me, but here I am, doing the same thing. Funny, huh? They have a really great Woman’s Studies program here and I want to be able to understand things. I’ve been through a lot… and I figure I could use that to help others, maybe write something, you know? At least, that’s what I said in my admission essay. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do.”

“Yes you do,” Roland said. “You could go to a cheaper college, get a student loan, work. That’s what I did.”

“Well, yeah, I could do that, I guess. But sometimes you want something so bad, you’re willing to do something… wrong to get it. Do you understand?”

Roland sipped at his coffee then looked away. “You know I do.”

“You won’t hate me for it will you?” Corinna asked. “I don’t hate you for what you did to me. Plenty of girls would. I know a girl who was only flashed by a wino on the subway and it made her so mad she still wants to kill the guy. I actually liked being with you, mostly. I don’t understand why I don’t hate you, but I don’t. I get mad at you sometimes, but I don’t… hate you.”

“Do you even care if I hate you?” Roland asked.

“Of course I do,” she said accompanied by a convincing look.

Roland couldn’t tell how much was real and how much was show to win him over. He never could be sure of what she felt toward him.

“I mean,” she continued, “I’m not some heartless bitch who doesn’t care if a guy loves her.”

Shocked, Roland said, “Who said anything about love?”

“You did. When I was fourteen. You were the first guy who said he loved me. You are the only one who has ever said they loved me, or acted like it.”

“You never said anything. I didn’t think… it mattered.”

“A girl doesn’t forget when a guy tells her he loves her, no matter what else happens.” Corinna looked at her cup, then up at Roland. “Do you still love me?”

“Corinna, is that why you told your dad not to turn me in? So you could use me when you needed to?”

She shrugged. “I knew if he confessed I was going to be on my own, and I thought I might need someone… to help. That’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

“I don’t get it. You don’t have to commit a felony like I did by blackmailing me into helping you. You could just pretend you love me a little, convince me I’m something a little more to you than a ride to college, probably wouldn’t even have to sleep with me, and I would do whatever you want. I always did.”

She looked hurt. “I never lied to you about how I felt,” Corinna said. “That would be mean, Roland. I would never be mean to you.”

Roland could feel his insides melting. Somehow her minuscule regard for him was filling him with joy. “I guess it’s good to know blackmailing someone isn’t considered being mean.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” she said. She drew a long sip from her coffee. “So can you afford it? I don’t want you to go to the poor house.”

“Doesn’t really matter, does it? I have no choice.” He sighed heavily, “Fortunately for you my needs are modest and I don’t have anyone else to spend money on.”

She smiled broadly. “That’s great. Thank you,” Corinna said. She twisted in her seat slightly. “There is one more thing?

“What?”

“I got up here too late to get a dorm room. I need a place to stay. How would you like a roommate?”

“Corinna, paying for college is one thing. But having you around, all the time… that wouldn’t be good for me; for my sobriety.”

“Lot’s of things you like aren’t good for you, Roland. Like ice cream, and alcohol, and sex with teenage girls. But the heart wants what the heart wants.”

Roland’s face twisted in disapproval. “Tautologies are okay for poets, but writers should avoid them, especially when they have become clichés. Look, I’ll pay for you to get a place. I’m sure there are lots of student roommate situations around.”

“Thanks, Roland. That’s very generous. But I’d rather stay with you.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “So I can remind you from time to time why you’re putting me through school.”

“I thought I was putting you through school so you wouldn’t send me to prison.”

“Well, yeah. But I mean, we both have to contribute something to make the deal work, don’t we? We both have to have some skin in the game.”

“I’m contributing a shit pile of money,” Roland said. “What are you contributing?”

She smiled a satisfied, almost smug smile that was alluring and at the same time devilish.

It took Roland a few seconds to decipher her intended meaning and it filled him with surprise. “I thought you liked girls now?”

“I do,” she said, “but it turns out I still like guys sometimes, at least some guys, guys who don’t make me feel like I stepped on a sea urchin.”

Roland stared at the young woman who had grown more beautiful each time he saw her. The longing he felt for her since her arrival was barely in check and her veiled invitation made the cup of coffee shake in his hands. He set it down so it didn’t spill. Sick with desire, Roland eased out of the chair to the floor. Somehow, he knew that standing and walking to her would be too bold, so he crawled to her until his head was in her lap. He inhaled the ripe smell of wet denim.

Corinna’s knees were together and his face rested between her thighs. Close as he was he detected the rich scent of her sex under that of the denim and it gave him a hard on. She didn’t move at first, which made him think he was wrong about what she was offering. Then he felt her warm hand brush the back of his neck and her legs part, and she pulled him into her. It was so satisfying to hear her slight gasp as he pressed his face against her cunt through the thick material of her jeans. He wanted nothing more than to please her again.

He quickly undid her pants and pulled them down and off while Corinna clutched the arms of the chair to prepare herself for his invasion. His nose pushed into her vagina as far as it would go and he began lapping at her ass, breathing through his mouth, eventually moving up until he was licking as though he was trying to tear off her clit with his tongue.

“Damn, Roland,” she said as she spread her legs even wider and slid closer to press even harder against his face. “How did someone so bad with women learn to suck cunt better than a dyke?”

Encouraged by her praise Roland licked even more diligently, her familiar taste making him gulp at her juices like she was a water fountain.

“I often think about our first time,” she said pulling her fingers through his hair, her dreamy voice suggesting she was no longer attending to his eating of her. “You did a terrible thing to me, and that makes you a terrible person for doing it, doesn’t it?”

Roland suddenly stopped licking, unsure if the question was rhetorical or required an answer. He hoped it was the former.

“Doesn’t it?” she repeated.

“Yes,” Roland said rising up a little. “I’m… terrible.”

She pulled at his head forcing his face back into her cunt and he resumed his attack. “I told myself that no matter what sick thing you asked me to do I was going to just close my eyes and wait until it was over. I could do that because I loved my father and I wanted to protect him. But then you did an even more terrible thing, didn’t you?”

Roland halted again and asked with surprise, “More terrible than forcing you to have sex with me?”

“Much worse,” she said, her tone still calm, her fingers still twirling in his hair. “You told me that story about your first time with that girl in college, and how she told her mother all the details about what a lousy lover you were, and how you fainted when you saw the blood on your penis and ended up in the hospital.” Corinna chuckled softly. I still laugh about that when I think of it.”

“Why was that terrible?”

“Because, Roland,” she said pulling a hank of his hair sharply. “It made me think you were not the face of evil I had imagined, but just a harmless dork. It made me think it was okay to not grit my teeth while you did disgusting things to me. You used your tongue to make me feel the way no thirteen-year-old girl should be made to feel by a man. And that stupid story let me believe I wasn’t such a bad person for feeling it. But I was. I was just as terrible for liking what you did as you were for doing it.”

“We talked about this once,” Roland said. “It was liked being tickled. You couldn’t help it, right?”

“I didn’t have to come back, did I? But I did. I finally figured out I could have just not showed up and you wouldn’t have done anything or you would have gone to jail yourself. Yet, every year I came back for more. And here I am now. You are a sick compulsion with me, Roland. You’re in my head every time I come. Sometimes thinking of the things you did to me is the only way I can come. So I finally accepted that if you’re going to be in my head so much you might as well be in my cunt, too.”

Roland’s face was dripping with Corinna’s juices so he licked his lips before saying, “So I’m just… a bad habit? You don’t… you don’t have any feelings for me?”

Corinna laughed, “I have nothing but feelings for you, Roland. More feelings than I know what to do with, but probably not the feelings you want. Not the love you seem to think I’m capable of.”

“It’s my fault isn’t it?” Roland said. “I’ve… ruined you.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I do bad things because my father did. I don’t know. I only know that once you’ve done a bad thing it is so much easier to do another bad thing. I used to shoplift, then I protected a murderer, then I became a drunk and a slut, now I blackmail men for money. You don’t just wake up one day and discover there is a part of you that is always in shadow. You create the shadow by stacking up the bad things you’ve done until your dark side expands and there is more dark than light. Makes you wonder doesn’t it?”

“Wonder what?”

“What we’ll do next,” Corinna said. “Rape another thirteen-year-old? Blackmail somebody for sex or money? Maybe we’ll kill someone, together this time?” Corinna laughed. “We could rob banks and become a couple of famous killers on the highway to hell. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”

“No,” Roland exclaimed. “We’re not going to do any more bad things. You’re going to go to college… and become a professor and study things that help people, things that help women. And I’ll keep writing and stay sober and I’ll… be with you, only you, always, because… I love you.”

“I don’t think bad people can really love, Roland. They just use each other until there is nothing left. You’ll use me until I am too old and it doesn’t thrill you anymore when I come. And I’ll use you to make me feel good until you’re out of money.”

“We’re not that bad… are we?” Roland asked.

“Suck me, Roland,” Corinna said pulling his face deep into her cunt once more. “Suck me, and fuck me, and lets forget what we are, at least for a little while.”

∞

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