DAISY
Two days later, the buzz of my little pocket-sized vibrator is an audible reminder that I am terrible at keeping my word. Because not wanting a fixer-upper of a man is way harder to put into action than I thought.
A glance at the clock on my phone tells me I have to leave to collect Elsie in ten minutes but given how good the vibration pressed up against my clit feels, it won’t take more than five.
I close my eyes and press my head back against my pillow, trying to block out the images of me and Vandal from my brain.
But they’re so hot, it’s impossible. I’m chained to hooks in the ceiling, hands overhead, wearing nothing but a red bra, while Vandal holds me by my ass cheeks, my legs around his hips, as he rails me.
Who could possibly look away from that?
“There’s my brave girl,” he says between grunts. “I knew you could take it for me.”
I’m outside my body, hovering around the scene rather than in it. I shift my perspective so I can see the way his cock thrusts deep inside me while I stretch to almost tearing to accommodate him.
“Mmm,” he mutters, pressing his lips to my neck. “Just what I needed. Your pussy squeezing my cock. You feel that, Daisy?”
“Do I ever?” I mutter out loud in my bedroom as my hips twitch and the duration I can leave my vibrator over my clit shortens in length.
I don’t want to come yet. But I roll over, face down in the pillow as I shift to hump my vibrator. “God,” I mutter.
In my fantasy, we’re in some kind of cellar. There’s a chair. Handcuffs. I’ve always dreamed in vibrant kink, even if my life has never quite delivered. But I’ve always been able to rely on my imagination.
“Ah, can’t fucking hold back,” Vandals says, and there’s pleasure written in his eyes. His jaw is slack, his breath fast. “It’s too good. You’re gonna make me come. Ah, fuck, Daisy, here it comes.”
And as Vandal comes in my dreams, so do I. For just a few moments, the world slips away. The struggles, finances, Elsie’s sneakers. I’m able to cling to the person I want to be. The carefree, sexual being who is confident in their own skin. Who is happy and secure.
Fantasy-Vandal holds fantasy-me close as we come together, and I ride out the end of my real orgasm alone.
When I’m done, I flop over onto my back.
I have a love-hate relationship with masturbation.
I love how good it feels in the moment, but when it includes a fantasy as good as that one, I sometimes feel a little lonely afterwards.
Although…oh my God…Vandal.
I need to stop doing this to myself. There is no me and Vandal. No Vandal and I. No dirty sex talk. And no happy families.
Reluctantly, I pull myself out of bed. I’ve been busy with my day off. I cleaned the place and washed and folded and put away all the laundry. Once done, I showered in a sparkling clean tub and even took a minute to put on a little bit of makeup before giving in to thoughts of Vandal.
So, it doesn’t take me long to pull on some underwear, jean shorts, a white T-shirt, and sandals. I also grab Elsie’s ice water before I leave.
It’s a suffocatingly warm ride to the camp building where I park down the street. But it’s worth it when I see Elsie’s happy face waiting for me by the gates.
“Momma,” she shouts when she notices me walking toward her.
My T-shirt sticks to me in places, but I hold the large cup of ice water for Elsie. It’s her favorite. There’s so much ice in there, I’m not sure there’s that much available water.
I sent her out looking half presentable with neat pigtails in her hair, a lilac T-shirt, and a cute pair of denim shorts.
Now she’s wearing some rainbow-striped top with sequins that’s two sizes too big, and her legs are covered in dirt.
She’s carrying her backpack in one hand and some artwork she created in the other.
“Hey, sweetheart. You look like you’ve had an…exciting…day.”
She beams up at me as she hands me her backpack, and I give her the water. She slurps on it like she hasn’t drunk anything all day. “We did some reading.”
We walk our usual route to the car. Because we live in an apartment where it isn’t super safe for her to just go out and play, I like to park about twenty minutes’ walk from the camp building, so we get a little bit of after-camp fresh air.
Today, because of the orgasm, it’s only ten. “Did you enjoy it?”
She nods enthusiastically. “Miss Bradley did all these voices. Some high and some low and some kinda funny.”
“That does sound fun.” But, God, do they have to set the bar so high that I feel like I have to do a stage-worthy reading performance every night when I tuck Elsie into bed? “I guess you did some art today too?”
She lifts the picture to me. “It’s you, me, and Vandal.”
I almost laugh at the proportions. Daisy and I look like almost stick people, and Vandal takes up half the page. She’s still at that stage where bodies are either triangles or squares with sticks for limbs. But she’s given Vandal two big thick black legs.
“I even painted his gold star.” A yellow blob sits on his black leather jacket.
There’s also a stark reminder that children see everything. While Elsie and I have got scribbled pencil dots for eyes, Vandal’s are red and there’s a childlike series of crisscross lines for scars above his eye.
“Can we go give it to him please?” When she turns her face up to me, she’s got those big eyes that almost always make me want to concede.
It would be impossible to explain to a newly minted five-year-old how my body kinda melts at the idea, but my brain is waving so many red flags, I can barely think straight.
We do not need to go and see Vandal.
I am an adult and more than cable of giving Daisy a hundred and one reasons why we can’t go see him: We need to pick up groceries. It’s too hot. I don’t know where he lives.
Instead, I settle on the one answer I shouldn’t give.
“Sure, sweetheart, we can try and see if he’s at the clubhouse.”
I hope he is, because it will be good for her to see the first man she hasn’t been scared of since birth.
I should write a book titled, The Lies I Tell Myself.
We ride in the direction of the clubhouse, and I end up jacking the volume on the radio and singing raucously with Elsie, because otherwise this whole go-or-don’t-go thing will continue in my head.
“Momma,” Elsie says.
I glance in the rearview mirror. “Yes, hunny bunny.”
She smiles at that. “Can we see Vandal tomorrow too?”
“Oh, I’m sure Vandal is very busy. He might not even be there when we go see him today.”
She looks out the window, and I see her mouth the word Vandal over and over.
Does it make me a horrible mom that I let my daughter associate with a man with a name like that? The fact I’m asking myself this question suggests I am.
When we get close to the clubhouse, I realize my palms are slipping on the wheel because I’ve gripped it so tightly, everything has gotten sweaty. And sweaty, although completely natural, is not a good look for anybody.
I slide them one at a time over my shorts, but as we reach the gate, I slow, and then speed up again, driving straight by.
I’ve driven past the clubhouse a few times since we moved.
It’s an interesting construction. It looks smooth and grey like a concrete bunker.
But it’s elevated off the ground, which is clever to avoid the flooding this part of the state gets.
Some parts of the lower level are garages; some are open-water boat docks.
The building has a decent-size paved lot and is surrounded by a tall fence wrapped in barbed wire. Tall bald cypress trees flank it on either side. I bet the view out the back is beautiful. One day, I’d love a water view. Freshwater or salt water. I don’t care.
Nowhere with alligators though. Not while Elsie is still so young.
But then I remember that the chances of us ever being able to stay in one place for the rest of our lives are low.
The concept of a forever home isn’t something we can think about until Elsie is older than eighteen.
Because I’m determined otherwise to keep her out of the hands of the man who created her.
No matter how hard he has people look for her.
Thankfully, Elsie is too distracted by the way the sequins on her shirt send sparkles over the roof of the car to notice that we passed the clubhouse by.
“You’re being a coward,” I mutter to myself and do a U-turn at the very first opportunity. “Just explain…” The words are muttered, but I practice the speech in my head.
Hi. We’re looking for Vandal if he’s around. Elsie drew him a picture.
Because who would be mad about a child with a smile like Elsie’s drawing them a picture?
But, somehow, as I slow down, my foot hits the gas, and we ride on by.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter.
“Did you say a bad word?” Elsie asks.
Shit.
“I did. And you have very good hearing. You can only say that word when you’re eighteen.”
She gets her fingers out and then looks at me. “That’s seven years.”
Yeah, those finger sums are tough when you’re still little. “It’s thirteen, sweetie.”
Elsie goes back to her fingers, recounting, but it’s enough to take her mind off the fact I said the f-bomb in front of her. I pull the car over on the side of the road. Indecision is the worst.
“You okay, Momma?” Elsie asks.
I lean over to the glove compartment. “Sure. I just wanted a mint. Do you want one?”
“Yes, please.”
I slip her a mint and pop one in my own mouth. There is no way I’m going to be able to look myself in the bathroom mirror tonight if I don’t do this.
So, I turn the car…again. And pull up to the clubhouse…again.
But this time, Havoc steps into the road and puts his hand out, telling me to stop. He dips his head, and a smile replaces his scowl when he sees it’s me and walks to the window of the vehicle. “Everything okay, Daisy?”
I take a deep breath. “We were looking for Vandal.”
His eyebrows rise, and I can’t decide if it’s the use of the word we or the fact I’m here to see his friend.
“We?” he asks, answering my question.
I point into the back. “My daughter, Elsie.”