by Adams, S. C.
Thankfully, it’s Saturday, so I don’t have to go to work. It would be a disaster if I was late to work because I’d slept in some guy’s apartment.
I take a minute to appreciate what happened. I spent the night with a guy! I’ve never spent the night with anyone before, not even a parent-approved friend from church. My parents expect me home and in my bed every night.
My parents are probably freaking out right now. I find my phone on the nightstand and check the messages. My voicemail box is totally full with messages from my parents. I don’t have to listen to them to know Mom and Dad are pissed at me.
There’s no excuse I can give them that will lessen the blow. They’ll probably disown me! I shoot Jenna a quick text.
911, it says. Accidentally slept at Sean’s. Going to tell Mom and Dad I was with you all night.
I’m your alibi, Jenna responds immediately. I guess it went well with Sean?
I send back a bunch of winking emojis in response. A girl doesn’t kiss and tell!
Jenna’s response is about a thousand gasping emojis.
I shoot a quick text to my parents with the Jenna excuse and immediately turn my phone off. I doubt their response will be as enthusiastic as Jenna’s was. They hate my best friend enough already. Telling them I fell asleep at her apartment accidentally will probably lead to a permanent ban on my talking to her. Not that I’ll listen, but still. I probably shouldn’t throw Jenna under the bus when I wasn’t with her last night.
“Come back to bed,” Sean mumbles into his pillow, blissfully unaware of how awful this situation is.
Instead of listening to his command, I pull on my jeans without the thong. Going commando is better than putting that moist fabric back on. At least my parents won’t notice this part of the situation.
There’s no way I can take the subway without a bra, so I’m forced to squeeze that on. Now, where is my shirt? I definitely had one on when we got to the penthouse last night. I lost it at some point between the couch and the anal sex. This room is not that big; I should not be having so much trouble finding it!
I toss a few throw pillows to the side, hoping to find it underneath them, but my shirt is nowhere in sight. Thankfully, New York has very lenient nudity laws. I might have to go home without a shirt on. That would be a million times better than taking one of Sean’s! My parents would never forgive me for coming home in a man’s shirt.
“Sean, I have to go. I shouldn’t have stayed here last night.”
“Come on, Maggie, let’s sleep for a while longer. The bed is so cozy!”
I can’t help but laugh. “This is serious. My parents left me, like, a hundred messages.”
“Who cares? They’re already mad. They’ll still be mad if you get home an hour from now.”
Ugh! Sean just isn’t getting it. I thought after our long conversation yesterday that he might finally understand what it’s like to live in my house, but clearly, he doesn’t. Mom and Dad are going to go nuclear on me as it is. The last thing I need to do is make them angrier by staying at Sean’s longer than I already have.
“I’m leaving. I’ll see you whenever my parents un-ground me.”
He finally sits up. His bare chest glistens with sweat. “You’re twenty-five, Maggie. Your parents can’t ground you.”
He’s right, but they can do much worse. I try to think of what kind of punishment they might be cooking up right now, but I come up completely empty. My parents are capable of horrible things when they’re angry. I’ve never made them quite this angry before, so I’m in for a huge surprise when I finally get home.
“At least have breakfast with me,” Sean tries. “I’ll whip us up some eggs and bacon…”
“Sean!” I finally scream. “You just don’t understand. My parents are crazy, as we’ve established. My only chance of leaving the house ever again is to go home right now.”
He flinches at my raised tone. “I understand you’re upset, Maggie, but freaking out won’t help. You’re already late. Take a few deep breaths.”
I know Sean is trying to be helpful. He thinks that if I’m calm, everything will be fine. Maybe that’s how things worked in his house growing up, but it’s not how things work in my world.
“Please, just help me find my shirt!” I yell. Where did he toss it last night? This is getting ridiculous!
Sean reaches between the bed and his nightstand and tugs my shirt from its hiding spot. He tosses it to me without looking, hitting me perfectly in the chest.
While I put my shirt on, Sean climbs out of bed and stretches his arms over his head. My goodness, the man is gorgeous! How does he look so good after a night’s sleep? He must go to the gym to keep his abs looking so fantastic. And those arms! Was I really wrapped in those all night long?
I would give anything to go back to before I woke up, back when I was still blissfully unaware of the trouble I was in. Sean and I could curl up under his soft comforter and sleep the day away. Unfortunately, that’s not possible now. I’m too freaked out to do anything but worry about my parents. I have to get home and face their wrath.
“Thank you,” I mumble to Sean once my shirt is covering up all of the goods. “I was worried I’d have to go home naked.”
“I’d never let you do that,” he says. He closes the space between us and kisses my neck. “Only I get to see what’s under these clothes, remember?”
His dominance is an absolute turn-on. It’s one of the many things I love about him! It’s also one of the many reasons it could never work with boring, submissive Randall. I like a guy who takes charge and knows what he wants.
It’s nice to know that what Sean wants right now is me. I can feel it in the erection poking my leg.
My jeans are damp in the crotch area. The subway ride home is going to suck! It’ll definitely be full of tourists this morning. I think that might be worse than busy city workers. Tourists tend to be more judgmental. To a regular New Yorker, a girl doing the ride of shame back to her apartment is a normal weekday morning. To tourists, it’s yet another reason to think New York City rivals Vegas as Sin City.
“I wish you would stay,” Sean says for the millionth time this morning. “My parents’ plane lands in a couple of hours. You could come with me to the airport…”
“I wish that, too,” I admit, even though the idea of meeting his parents is almost scarier than going home to mine. “But you know I can’t.”
“At least let me take you home in the limo. It’ll be faster, and I can help subvert your parents’ anger. I’m actually quite good with parents. Mine seem to like me fine!”
Is he trying to be funny? He has to be joking if he’s saying he could actually talk to my parents after I just spent the night with him. Not a chance! “I’ll just take the subway, but thanks for the offer.”
“Come on, Maggie. Let me take you home.”
“Sean, stop. I’ve already told you my parents are going to be pissed. I don’t want to drag you into it, too!”
He wraps his naked arms around my clothed torso. “I’m telling you, it’ll be better to face them together.”
“I’ve already told them I was with Jenna. If you come home with me, they’ll be triply pissed. First because I lied, second because I was with you, and third because you showed up at our apartment!”
Sean kisses up my neck to my earlobe. If he keeps this up, I might end up right back in that bed. That absolutely can’t happen, no matter how wet his kisses are making me. “Let me take you home. We can have some fun in the car, and your parents might surprise you.”
“My parents have never once surprised me in my entire twenty-five-year existence. I don’t think they’ll start now.”
“Maybe this time will be different!”
“Sean, enough!” I’m forced to yell again. “You really don’t get it. My parents are super conservative. To them, this is basically prostitution.”
He backs away and goes completely silent. Ugh! I’ve hurt his feelings. I want to take it back, but I
have no time. The next train leaves in seven minutes, and if I sprint to the station down the block, I might just make it.
“I’m sorry. I would never want you to feel like a prostitute.”
“Sean,” I start, but he steps farther away from my reach.
“You should get going,” he says sullenly. “Your parents are waiting.”
After such an incredible night together, this is not how I had expected to leave things. We should be kissing and hugging, not hurting each other. Why did I have to say that?
It was true, though. My parents would think I’d slept over at Sean’s penthouse for money. There’s no other reason a guy like him would spend time with a girl like me. Mom and Dad have spent my entire life training me to think like that. I never minded it until I met Sean.
Tears spill from my eyes as I jog to the subway station. A crying girl in New York is more common than a naked girl in New York, but I still attract a lot of attention. But no one asks me if I’m okay, not even the tourists.
It takes me six tries to get my MetroCard to read properly because my eyes are so blurry that I can’t see where to slide it. I finally get through the gate just in time to miss my train. Another one comes in seven minutes, but that’s seven more minutes for my parents to concoct an evil plot to ruin the small amount of life I have.
When my train finally arrives, I’m thankful to get a seat. No one sits near me. They don’t want to catch whatever has the crying girl so upset.
I sob into my hands for the few stops it takes me to get home. I should have been all cried out by the time I reach my station, but I’m not even close. All I can think about is the hurt look on Sean’s face when I’d compared our night of blissful passion to what one might do with a paid companion. That’s not what it had felt like at all!
A few apartments down from mine, I stop to send him a text. I’m sorry, I write. I didn’t mean it.
I turn my phone off again and take the last few steps to my fate.
Steeling myself, I open the door and prepare for the worst.
19
Maggie
I’m hyperventilating when I walk through the door and find my parents red faced and waiting.
“Magdalena! Where on Earth have you been?”
“I was at Jenna’s,” I answer meekly. The lie is sour in my mouth. I can feel Sean’s semen dripping from my pussy!
Dad stands silently by and stares with a stony expression on his face. Mom studies my face carefully.
“You’re lying!” my mother shouts. “Where were you really?”
I shake my head. “You’re crazy, Mother. I was at Jenna’s. You can ask her yourself!”
Quicker than I can react, Mom snatches my phone from the back pocket of my jeans. She won’t let me have a password on it. I usually delete incriminating conversations, like the ones I’ve had with Sean and Jenna, in case my mom ever looks through my phone. This time, I didn’t have a chance to clean things out before she got ahold of it.
My mom begins to cry. “Who is Sean?” she screams in her shrill voice. “Is he one of Jenna’s friends? I knew that girl was corrupting you!”
Mom falls to the floor in a heaving sob.
“Jenna didn’t introduce me to Sean,” I say calmly. “I met him at Havisham’s.”
Mom screams. “I knew it was a bad idea to let you have that job! What was I thinking? Now you’re ruined!”
“Ruined?!” I sputter. “Mom, this isn’t the 1700s.”
She doesn’t respond. My father drops down beside her and pulls her into his arms. For the first time in my life, I wonder if my parents love each other or if their relationship is simply convenient. Dad looks uncomfortable as he tries to comfort my mom. Had their parents set them up like they tried to do with Randall and me?
My parents never talk about their lives before me. It’s quite possible that their marriage was arranged for them. However, I doubt either of them had a relationship like I have with Sean. They were probably perfect children, obeying their parents’ every command. How unfortunate that they ended up with a daughter like me.
“You will quit your job,” Mom says when she finally catches her breath. “You will never set foot in that store again.”
I nod. I assumed I would lose my beloved job today. It was a price I’d expected to pay for staying out all night.
“I understand.”
Mom stands with my dad’s help. She can’t meet my eyes. It’s like I’m so shameful to her that even eye contact will contaminate her soul.
“You are never to see or speak to Jenna again.”
Once again, a punishment I knew was coming. While keeping my job without my parents’ knowledge will be impossible, I’ll have no trouble remaining friends with Jenna. This is the fifth time my parents have tried to ban me from seeing her. It has obviously never worked before. I don’t know why they bother to keep trying.
“This boy, either. You will never see or speak to him again.”
“Mom, come on. You’re being ridiculous!”
Her eyes widen. I’ve never spoken to her that way before.
“How dare you!” she shouts. “You’ve disobeyed our rules, and you will pay the consequences.”
“I’m twenty-five, Mom. You don’t get to decide who I date!”
More tears escape her eyes, but she still won’t look at me. “You will never date anyone again! Who would have you now that you’ve ruined yourself? Certainly not Randall! How could you do this to me?”
“Do what to you, Mom? This isn’t about you! I really like Sean. I don’t like Randall. I’m sorry that you’re angry with me, and I’m sorry that I stayed at his apartment without calling, but you can’t take everything away from me!”
“You’ve taken it away from yourself! Randall would have been a perfectly good husband for you, and you threw that away for a one-night stand with some heathen!”
This time, I start to cry. I can’t believe she has the nerve to talk about Sean this way! She doesn’t even know him. “Sean is a great guy, Mom. I think that if you met him…”
She holds up her hand to stop me. “I will not meet the man who has ruined your life. I can’t believe you’d even ask me to do it!”
“Come on, Mom, please. You have to let me grow up eventually!”
“What is this man like? Is he rich? He must be if you met him at Havisham’s.”
Where is this line of questioning coming from? Is it possible my mom is starting to open up to the possibility of me dating Sean? “He’s amazing, Mom. He owns his own company. He has a lot of money, but he’s really down to Earth…”
Mom scoffs. “How much did he pay you for last night, huh? What’s the going rate for a prostitute like you?”
“I am not a prostitute!” I cry out. Sean should be here with me. Not only would he defend me to my mother, but he would understand that my comment from earlier wasn’t personal. It was a learned behavior from growing up with a mother like mine.
“So he didn’t even pay you for your services? I didn’t realize my daughter was so cheap!”
“Mom!” I say. “Stop that!”
“If you can’t handle the title, don’t take the job,” she yells.
I sob into my hands. “You’re cruel! Sean is a great man who would never pay someone to sleep with him. What we have is real!”
“You wouldn’t know real,” my father finally says. “You’ve lived in this house with our rules your entire life. How can you know what a real relationship is?”
“I feel it!” I say. “And that’s my point. I can’t live with you breathing down my neck all of the time. This isn’t a life at all! I need a chance to be my own person, to spread my wings. I want to be a designer, not a housewife. I want to go to college. I want to leave this house!”
My mother raises her hand as if to slap me but pulls it back quickly. “You will never leave this house!” she screams, blocking me in. She and my father force me up the stairs. “You are a slut and a prostitute. You are lucky to still
be living under our roof after the stunt you pulled!”
“This doesn’t feel like luck; it feels like prison!”
Mom laughs an angry, pitiful laugh. “You don’t know prison yet, girl. Get in your room. You’d better get extra comfortable in there because you are never leaving again!”
“You can’t just lock me in my room!”
They continue to push forward until I’m standing in the center of my bedroom. Mom quickly closes the door before I have a chance to react. I try the knob, but it’s locked from the outside.
My parents have actually locked me in my room! I’m literally a prisoner in my own house now.
“We’re calling Reverend Jacobs,” Mom calls through the thick wooden door. “He can’t fix all of the mistakes you’ve made, but he may be able to help. Perhaps with his assistance, you’ll be a girl worthy of seeing the world again.”
I fall onto my bed in tears. How could my parents do this to me? I know it was a mistake to stay out all night. I understand that I broke their rules and their trust. Does that mean I deserve to be locked away like some princess in an old fairytale?
Jenna has always called my parents the wardens, and now the term fits more than ever.
Jenna! She can save me! I reach next to my bed to grab my laptop, but it’s not there. That’s where I left it last night when I left for my date with Sean! Where could it be?
I search my entire room and come up empty. A few minutes later, there’s a knock on my door. It opens slightly, and a plate of food is slipped through the small crack.
“Breakfast,” Mom says.
“Where’s my computer?” I ask in response.
She laughs behind the now closed door. “You don’t deserve technology. It is locked in the safe along with your phone.”
“So I’m stuck in my room with nothing to do?”
“There are plenty of books and a deck of cards to keep you busy.”
Mom’s quiet footsteps retreat down the stairs, leaving me alone. I consider jumping from the window, but I’m on the second floor and below me is concrete. I wouldn’t survive the fall.
