Devin #3
Truth be told, she only owned Tuesday, no other day. Because to her, Tuesday was the best day, it meant she’d made it through Monday. To her Tuesdays represented survival and optimism. It was weird, she was aware, but she never claimed a badge of normalcy.
However, she was proudly wearing chicken socks and snapped a picture as proof and sent it before she could think better of it.
She watched the dancing dots and pulled the pillow over her face and let out a very teenager sounding arrrggghhhh.
“Who sends a grown ass man a picture of themselves wearing chicken socks?” she asked the empty room. She assumed he was trying to sext her and she not only turned it into a joke, she backed it up with photographic evidence.
The dots were still bouncing when she texted first.
DEVIN: Unsend Unsend UNSEND!!!!!
JASPER: That’s sexy as fuck sweetness. I’ve got my cock out and I’m typing one handed.
JASPER: (image)
Devin couldn’t stop staring at the picture he sent.
It was the first dick pic she’d ever gotten.
Not exactly, internet creepers sent them out like candy, and there was one time Scott accidentally sent one to her when he was trying to send it to someone else.
But that was Jasper’s dick and he’d sent it to her on purpose.
DEVIN: Wow. Chicken socks for the win. I’ll have to leave a product review now for sure. These socks are amazing. They look cool AF, keep my tootsies nice and toasty, and even resulted in an unsolicited, but not unappreciated dick pic. 5 stars… highly recommend!
JASPER: hahaha it was a fair exchange… you sent me two feet, I replied with one.
DEVIN: As amazing as your cock is, it’s not 12 inches.
JASPER: It is if you use the correct measurement, well over in fact thank you very much.
DEVIN: ?? Correct measurement?
JASPER: Yeah. The CM side of the ruler. That’s for correct measurement. I’m a solid 17 I’ll have you know. Maybe even 20 if I measure from underneath. You can double check my work next time I have you naked and screaming my name.
Devin laughed out loud. She couldn’t help herself. And not just a normal, dignified chuckle. She was full-on belly-busting snort laughing. Something she hadn’t done since she’d left Omaha.
The person in the room next to her knocked on the wall behind her head.
“Sorry.” She apologized. Knowing they’d hear her through the paper-thin walls if they’d heard her laugh.
DEVIN: You just got me in trouble with the people next door. I was being too loud. I think your 4th grade teacher taught you how to use a ruler incorrectly. Those are centimeters Jasper. Inches are the other one.
Fuck. She just said people next door. Jasper would realize she wasn’t at home. Their neighbors were close, but not close enough to hear her laugh.
JASPER: Shut your lying mouth. LOL My dick is 17 inches long, and I’ll hear no more insults about him. :-(
DEVIN: Fine, but even by the correct measurement, you’re still above average. And … you use it well, so you have that going for you. Even earned you a chick – (en socks) pic.
JASPER: Thank you. Is all this talk about my dick making you hot? Are you touching yourself and moaning my name at the top of your lungs? Is that what made your neighbors mad?
So, he had noticed her slip of the tongue but didn’t seem to puzzle it out. He’d never actually been to Devin and Harmon’s place, so he had no idea. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Before she responded, she scrolled back through their text thread and she blushed. Who had taken over her body? She was being flirty and dirty and so not her. Well, not the most recent her. The text read like her from a few years ago when she’d been at her peak confidence.
Her mother wasn’t in her head all the time. She’d stopped harming herself and was semi-comfortable in her own skin. She’d had a good job, bright future, and then something changed. Her mom started in with a renewed level of hate and she shame spiraled.
When she thought about it, she was more and more angry with her mom over robbing what little joy she’d managed to cobble together after being dismissed and abused her whole life.
Used and discarded. It wasn’t enough that her mother sold her virginity to that asshole.
Nor was it enough that she called her fat at every turn and called her a slut. Not enough to never love her.
No. The second Devin managed to love and accept herself, her mother snatched that away.
That was what she’d stolen from her. The woman who finally loved her body. One who had the confidence to flirt and be a little dirty with someone she liked. The confidence to just believe that a man like Jasper could like her.
That was the sad part. She had not realized that Thom was just another cut to her already scarred heart. A heart that bore the puckered white scars just as her thighs did… from her mother.
Thom became insignificant, she realized.
It was her mother who had stolen that woman from her, not Thom.
That realization was cathartic. It made the upcoming confrontation with Thom that she was dreading just a speed bump to her healing.
She didn’t need answers or atonement from him like she thought.
No, she just needed him to sign the paper. Nothing more.