Amber Stigmatized

by Viktor Redreich

  In reality, she could do neither.

  It wasn’t fair that the other students out there could laugh at her. They didn’t have any idea what she was going through, what it was like to love someone who couldn’t come to her even when she needed them. They didn’t understand how much she needed her Daddy to tell his little girl what to do.

  I wish he was here.

  Amber closed her eyes. If Daddy was there with her, he’d have his strong arms wrapped around her. She could almost feel his muscles, his broad shoulders as he cradled her against him. He would kiss her cheek, caress her face, give her all the attention she so desperately needed from him. His hot, muscular body would press down on her, making him the center of her entire world. Breathing rapidly, working herself up, she thought she could smell something like cologne. The anonymous scent probably blew into her room from the vent, but in her mind, it was his musk, his fragrance.

  You’re my good little girl, he would say, his deep voice booming in her ears.

  Amber planted her feet on the carpet and lifted her butt up again, imagining Daddy’s hands holding her from underneath, pulling her body closer to his as he moved into position. He would take himself into his hand and guide himself inside her. She rubbed her hands all over the carpet, in lieu of grabbing onto him, stroking his back, encouraging him to go faster, deeper…

  Her hands burned from friction.

  Amber lowered herself back down onto the carpet, feeling her wetness on her inner thighs. She panted, feeling like she would go out of her mind if she didn’t do something.

  Exercising hadn’t worked.

  Maybe she could talk to Daddy, now?

  Amber slid up onto the bed and grabbed her phone. Disappointment rolled through her. Not nearly enough time had passed. He would still be very busy.

  A thought popped into her mind. She could still message him and that way, she wouldn’t have to wait until later. He could text her back as soon as he was able.

  Another thought followed and this one was very naughty. She should send him a picture, give him a great surprise at the end of a long, hard day.

  It would be an even bigger surprise because, in the year since they had been talking, they hadn’t sent pictures of their faces or bodies to each other.

  Amber turned on her phone camera. She spread her legs and used two fingers to spread her kitty lips wide, exposing her inner pink folds. She took the picture and checked to make sure it had come out clearly. A giggle bubbled up inside her. She was glistening in the light, she was so wet.

  Sometimes, Daddy sent her pictures of the world around him, showing her things he thought she would like. His new leather shoes, the shimmery waves lapping against the side of the yacht he was on, a tumbler full of whiskey -single malt- he was sipping on at a sophisticated cocktail lounge. Sometimes, Amber sent him voice clips, and pictures of exams she did well on, and views from the trails she hiked. Neither of them had ever broke the unspoken cardinal rule not to send pictures of themselves.

  Amber struggled with that for a long time, but Daddy had explained to her that it was just easier for them when they had that little bit of anonymity.

  Now she was thinking of breaking that rule. She wanted to show him what he did to her even when they weren’t talking, to let him know he was always on her mind.

  Amber opened up her messages and, grinning to herself, sent the picture to him. She was about to put her phone down and go look for something else to do when a check mark appeared next to her picture, showing her that he had seen it. Her heart jumped and she smiled even more. He must have been taking a break from work or had left early. She waited, watching with eagerness for his response.

  But he didn’t respond.

  Amber texted him. Daddy?

  Another check mark appeared, but he still didn’t respond.

  He must still have been busy, she reasoned, trying not to get upset.

  Daddy hadn’t ever told her what it was he did for a living, but Amber had learned enough about him and the way he lived to guess he was some sort of high-level executive. That meant he would be in his late 30s or early 40s, from what she knew about the time it took to be successful in business. He never hid information from her and always told her about what he was doing and where he was, like the time he had taken the afternoon off to go shopping in Milan. Other times, he had been waiting for takeoff in a first-class airport lounge, or about to put on his tuxedo to go down to a ballroom and deliver a keynote address. On at least one occasion, he’d gone driving across the countryside in a fancy car she couldn’t remember the name of, and then spent the whole night telling her about all the beautiful things he saw.

  So, she had a pretty good idea about him. If she had to describe him in one word, she’d say he was a gentleman. Allowed a few more, she’d add he was successful, yet modest, refined, and sophisticated. And kind.

  Amber realized she had just thought of a perfectly good reason why he might not be responding. He could be driving! He’d only glance at his phone to see if the messages were urgent.

  That had to be it.

  Amber put her phone down, relieved she’d figured it out. The last thing she wanted was for Daddy to be mad at her, since she had broken two rules, after all. She’d touched herself and sent him a picture of a part of her body.

  She got up and checked the time on her clock. Classes took up so much of the day. She did a quick bit of math in her head. If she showered and then went to get some dinner from the cafeteria, she’d have enough time to study and then talk to Daddy before bed. If he answered. He had to, though. They always talked before bed.

  If he really liked her picture, they’d have some fun before she went to sleep.

  Smiling to herself, Amber headed to the bathroom and turned on the shower. She stepped in when the water was the perfect temperature and grabbed a bar of soap off the wall shelf. She wasn’t really all that wet anymore, but it still felt so good when she rubbed the soap over her mound that she was tempted again. Feeling guilty and naughty, she pressed her soapy fingers deep in the folds of her labia and rubbed. Shocks of pleasure curled through her, making her inner muscles tremble. She wanted to do so much more. She made herself stop though and continued washing. It was a good thing she wasn’t in one of those dorms where the showers were communal, or she wouldn’t even have been able to do that much.

  After her shower, she put on a frilly pink dress and sandals and walked across campus to the cafeteria. She took her cobb salad and fresh-cut fruit cup outside and sat on a bench by the fountain, watching how the sinking sun colored the splashing water. Lawrence walked by and waved at her at once point. She waved back at him and then went back to watching the fountain.

  The sky darkened steadily to a deep purple. Street lamps went on all over campus. Realizing how late it was now, Amber headed back to her campus and checked her phone.

  Her stomach twisted. Still no response from Daddy.

  Panic soaked over her like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on her head. Why wasn’t he talking to her? Was he angry with her? Wouldn’t he like seeing her picture?

  He might have expected more.

  Amber grabbed onto the idea, not knowing what else to think. Daddy was waiting for more pictures. She would send more, enough to please him.

  Amber dove into action, taking as many pictures of herself in as many positions as she could think of. First, herself in her dress, and then the silky pink panties she wore, the thin strip of fabric over her slit. She tossed her dress off, into the corner of the room, and took pictures of her naked boobies; she made sure to rub her nipples until they were pink and pointy.

  Twisting all around at different angles, she even managed to get a picture of her spread butt cheeks, the little pink pucker between them.

  Everything she had, she took pictures of. Dozens of pictures. Afterwards, a little out of breath from all the contortions, she flopped onto her bed and went through them to pick out the best ones to send. She could hardly believe t
hat this was what she was doing. She’d always been so shy and reserved, but Daddy made her want to give him everything she had to offer.

  Finally, after much deliberation, she sent him twenty of the best images. She watched, breath locked in her throat, as each picture went through, and check after check appeared beside them.

  Still, he didn’t respond.

  Amber was shaking. Her thumbs jittered over her phone’s screen. Daddy, please reply.

  Nothing.

  Daddy, please. Did I do something wrong?

  Nothing again. Nothing, nothing, and more nothing.

  Tears prickled hotly at the backs of her eyes. Sniffling, breathing hard, she kept trying, aware she was begging now. I’m sorry, Daddy. Please talk to me. I need you.

  He saw every message, but still he said nothing.

  She lost all sense of time as she sent text after text, begging, apologizing even for things she hadn’t done, doing everything she could think of to get him to talk to her. Eventually, near 1 a.m., the opposite happened. He stopped even reading her messages.

  “Daddy,” she sobbed, burying her face in her pillow. Her tears soaked into the fabric. Her mind swirled as she wondered where she had gone wrong, what she had done to cause all of this.

  Somehow, at some point, she fell asleep.

  When she woke up in the morning, Daddy was the first thing on her mind. Amber jolted upright and dug around for her phone on the bed. Her cheeks were sticky with dried tears and her head ached.

  Finding her phone, she fumbled the power button and went straight to her texts.

  Daddy had read them all.

  He had said nothing in return.

  Chapter 4

  Special date

  Amber tried, and tried again, texting Daddy for days, begging him to respond. He never did. Her heart broke every time she looked at her phone and saw that he hadn’t said anything. She wasn’t sure how there could be anything left to break. She was certain that at some point the pain had to stop, but it just kept coming and coming. His absence was a heavy boot grinding down upon her, crushing her to itty bitty pieces.

  She felt so fragile that if anything more happened, she was certain that she’d crumble to dust and be blown away on the wind.

  She eventually stopped trying to reach out to him. The message was all the clearer for the lack of one. He no longer wanted anything to do with her, for some terrible and unknown, unfathomable reason. Nothing she said or did would get him back.

  He was out of her life just as he had come into it: without warning.

  She stopped going to even her single class. No one bothered to check up on her, and she had no roommate to think of. Day in and out, she lay in bed, occasionally getting up to use the bathroom or take a shower. Even such small and ordinary tasks drained her and she would wind up crawling back into bed again to start the whole process over. She stopped even thinking and would just lay there, regarding the ceiling with blank disinterest.

  Had she really thought she was living a life so much better and happier than the other students? She hadn’t known how quickly it could all be taken away from her. She would have cherished her time with Daddy even more…

  A month passed. A whole month. She didn’t keep track, but her phone did, constantly updating her with the passage of days and the steady decline in the temperature. Fall was on its way, not that she cared.

  She lay on her back in bed, as she always did these days, not thinking or sleeping, just existing.

  A sudden knock on her door disturbed the routine she had developed. She almost didn’t register it as being real.

  The knock came again and was this time followed by a familiar voice calling out her name. “Amber? Amber, it’s Lawrence.”

  What’s Lawrence doing in the girls’ dorms? she pondered. It was the first time she’d cared about anything in days. She was almost scared of him, of what it meant for him to be here. She’d have to talk to him. She’d have to find the strength to get up and… Ugh.

  “Amber? You’re in there right?” Lawrence sounded nervous. He spoke at a lower volume, growing muffled, like he had his mouth right up to the door. “I’m not really supposed to be here. Let me in, would you?”

  “Go away!” Amber yelled, suddenly agitated. Why did he have to come and bother her?

  “You are in there! C’mon, Amber, can I just come talk to you for a minute? I’m… I’m worried about you,” he finished, now almost muttering.

  Amber pushed her hands down on the mattress and sat up, hardly able to believe her ears. “Huh?”

  “Huh?” Lawrence echoed.

  “You’re worried about me?” she asked. Saying it herself didn’t make it any more real.

  “What? Of course I am! We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  Tears sprang into her eyes, her sinuses burning. Amber slid her legs off the edge of the bed and then stood up. Her legs were shaky after so much time spent immobile. A friend. She still had a friend. Not even Daddy could take that away from her.

  “Amber? I think I hear someone coming. I need to go.”

  “Hold on!” she cried. Tripping over her own legs, she dashed the short distance to the door and flipped the lock. She threw the door open and reached out, grabbing Lawrence’s muscular bicep. She didn’t see or hear anyone coming like he had said, but now she had him, she wasn’t going to risk losing him. She pulled him into her room and shut the door hard enough to make a poster pop off her wall.

  Lawrence crept into the room, his back stooped. His posture reminded Amber of the way he walked on their hikes when they explored underneath a rock shelf or in a shallow cliffside cave, all scrunched and hunched. She started to smile and it felt so good she just had to smile even more.

  “Nice room,” Lawrence said.

  “Thank you,” Amber murmured. She went and sat on her bed and looked over at him. “Why are you here? Why did you sneak into the girls’ area?”

  Lawrence ducked his head, doing that scrunching thing again. “I was really worried about you. I thought maybe you’d dropped out, but then no one had even seen you leave your dorm. I had to check on you. We’re hiking buddies. I miss you.”

  “At least someone does.” Amber put her face in her hands. Her brief joy at seeing Lawrence couldn’t stand up to the pain inside her.

  Lawrence shuffled over and sat down on the bed beside her. “What happened? You sound depressed. You look depressed. Like, I think you’ve lost ten pounds.”

  “It’s really hard to explain,” Amber murmured into her hands. She recalled that Lawrence hadn’t come to her defense against Cherry until after the whole debate had ended. “You might not understand.”

  “Well, you won’t know until you try, right?” He shrugged, making it seem so easy. “But hey, I have an idea. You’ve been all cooped up in this place for ages. Come out with me and have dinner. Olive Garden? We can just have fun and if you feel like talking, then we can talk. Or we can just eat way too many breadsticks.”

  Amber lifted her head and looked at him. She liked Olive Garden breadsticks as much as the next girl, but there was something else about what he’d said that had caught her attention. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  Lawrence rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, well, like, yeah. It doesn’t have to be a date, you know, but yeah.”

  She sat there, stunned at the offer, even more stunned about what it meant for her personally. “This is the first time anyone has ever asked me out.”

  “Really?” he exclaimed. “A girl like you?”

  She nodded, her cheeks starting to burn from embarrassment. “That sounds really dumb, doesn’t it? I’m 19 and I’ve never been on a date. Not even the kind where your mom drives you to the movies and then sits a few rows away while you hold hands with your date.”

  Lawrence laughed and startled her by slinging his arm around her shoulders. It was really, really nice to be held, she discovered. She leaned into his muscular frame and it was like leaning on a rock wall that molded t
o her shape. A warm rock wall. A rock wall that breathed and held her tighter. “I’ve been on a few dates like that. You aren’t missing much. I can’t say going to Olive Garden with me will be the greatest date, but it’s better than sitting around in here being sad.”

  What will Daddy think when he finds out I went out on a date with a boy?

  Amber nibbled on her fingernails and then shook her head. It really didn’t matter what Daddy thought. He would never know. It only mattered what she thought now. And she thought that, if she had to pick someone to go on a date with, Lawrence was a good second choice.

  “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

  “Great!” Lawrence leaped up off the bed, pulling her along with him. “Meet me down in the parking lot in half an hour?”

  His excitement stirred eagerness in her stomach and she nodded with enthusiasm. “I’ll be there! I’ll take a shower and get dressed.”

  Lawrence looked her up and down. Amber winced, wondering if it was a bad idea to tell other people you were going to shower. Lawrence might be imagining her all naked and stuff. But he laughed and lightly tapped her on the shoulder with his knuckles. “Probably a good idea. Your hair looks like a bird’s been nesting in it.”

  “Does not!” she squealed.

  “Maybe a mouse?” he amended, laughing.

  “Oh, you!” Amber grabbed his shoulders and pushed him towards the door. “I don’t think that’s the right way to talk to someone you’re going on a date with.”

  Lawrence put his hand on the doorknob and flashed a white, toothy grin at her. “Okay, I’m sorry. You can say something about me in return if it makes you feel better.”

  Amber looked Lawrence up and down. He grinned at her from under his sandy bangs, his smirk challenging her to find something wrong with him. He was tall and muscular without being beefy in a gross way like wrestlers and bodybuilders could be, and he had the kind of boyish features that would make him stop aging at 35. His t-shirt fit over his muscles like a second skin and he was rocking a pair of skinny jeans that might as well have been painted on.