Deconstructing Delilah, page 6
Following him between buildings, I analyze his stature… tall, but not as tall as me. Wide shoulders, but not as wide as mine. There’s a wallet in his back left pocket. He walks on the outside of his feet and shows no concern for his surroundings. He thinks he’s safe, that nothing can touch him. I’d guess he grew up a pampered little rich kid whose Daddy never blamed him for anything, and Mommy still does his laundry.
When we reach a parking lot, a quick glance lets me know there are a few others around, but nobody nearby. As he reaches to open the door of his shiny sedan, I lunge forward, trapping him between me and his car.
“You don’t touch her again,” I say while I move one arm to push against his back, and with my other hand, I pull the wallet out of his pocket, flipping it open to see his license. “Aaron Probst. I know where you live now, you piece of shit. If you even look at Delilah, I’ll visit you in your sleep and start removing the parts you love most one by one. You lay another finger on her and I’ll straight up fucking kill you. Understand?”
“Get the fuck off me, man,” he yells as he struggles to get out of my grip.
“Do you fucking understand me, Aaron?” I purr in his ear, pushing him harder into the side of his car and tossing his wallet on the ground.
“Yes, fuck! Yes!”
“Good boy, don’t fuck up now.”
Taking a few steps back, I let the shithead get in his car and drive off, his puffed-up face glaring at me. I smile and wave, then I immediately send an email to William for a copy of Aaron Probst’s class schedule. After that, I send one to Lucinda to dig up everything there is to know about Aaron and his family. By the end of today, I’ll know exactly how to ruin him.
If it comes to that.
Because of this douchebag diverting me, I’ve lost Delilah. She doesn’t have another class for an hour. Pulling up the interactive campus map, I locate the building for that class and see a coffee shop next to it. That’s where I head and luck strikes because she’s there, sitting with another young woman, smiles on both their faces. The café is set up with a slatwall partition, separating the space which allows me to come in undetected and sit near enough to hear the conversation.
It’s borderline stalkerish. Luckily, I have no qualms about that. She brought this on herself.
“Has he asked you out yet?”
“He did this morning,” Delilah answers. I don’t have to see her to know she’s blushing.
“Yes! Way to go, Joey.”
Joey. What kind of adult man goes by Joey?
“It’s just coffee. I don’t know why it makes me so nervous.”
“Because it’s your first date. It’s okay to have nerves about it. You’ve never spent time with a guy like that. Well, except for he who shall not be named.” The other woman laughs.
“You can say his name. Pope isn’t Voldemort.”
“You don’t know that. Also, bonus points for the pop culture reference. You’ve come a long way, my padawan.”
“Whatever,” Delilah says with a laugh of her own. “I should be an old pro by now. You’ve been schooling me for months.”
“You had a lot to catch up on. Besides, I adore spending time with you.”
“Maybe I don’t say it enough, but I adore you, too. You’re the only peer that has never made me feel like the oddball I am.”
“You aren’t odd, Delilah. You had an odd childhood is all, and that’s hardly your fault. You’re unique.”
She’s special, a diamond that hasn’t yet been shined to brilliance.
“Too unique for Joey to have sex with me?”
My body turns rigid at her question.
“What the hell, Delilah,” her friend whisper-shouts. “You barely know him, and you already want to have sex?”
Yes, Delilah, what the hell?
“It’s not that I want to have sex with him, specifically. It’s more that I want my virginity out of the way.”
“Why?”
“Where I grew up, it was used as a commodity, something of more value than anything else about me. If it’s off the table, I’ll have a better idea if a man is interested in me and not just it.”
“Damn, Delilah. I sort of get that, but also… I’m not sure it’s the healthiest reason to have sex. Have you talked to Dr. Price about it?”
Good question. I like this friend of hers.
“As long as I’m responsible and honest with myself, she understands my reasons. She doesn’t condone it, but she also says it’s healthy for a woman my age to be exploring her sexuality.”
“Fucking hell,” I groan, not able to keep the frustration of this conversation in. I stand and walk around the partition. “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”
“Hebrews,” Delilah says, defiantly lifting her chin. “If the Bible makes the rules, then I guess it wouldn’t have been wrong for me to be married off to a man who already had multiple.”
“According to the book of Isaiah, Chronicles, Judges… to name but a few. Are you admitting the good book is full of shit?”
“I’m admitting that some of God’s messages have been manipulated to mean something they were never meant to be.”
“Because your god is all good, but not all powerful enough to make sure his intentions are clear?”
“Why are you here?” she asks, diverting away from the questions that always end with a deep crease between her brows. I understand how it works now. We can have our back and forth for only so long before it becomes too much for her. But she’s clearly made progress.
“You’ve been ignoring me again.”
“They’re called boundaries, my dude,” her friend says. I angle toward her; she looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place her.
“Pope Blackwell,” I say, reaching my hand for her to shake.
“Cookie Parnell.” She raises a brow and shakes my large hand with her delicate one.
Parnell. Cookie is the daughter of Jasmine and Bradley Parnell. Clients, members of Lupus et Agnes, one-time fuck buddies of mine. I’ve never had sexual intercourse with either, but that’s barely a technicality. Jasmine is probably the most renowned dominatrix in New Orleans. Bradley is a very accomplished sub, and neither mind sharing one another. You don’t exist in the lifestyle without knowing the two of them. Suddenly, I’m no longer sure I like her as a friend for Delilah. The Parnell family exists too close to my world and I’m already finding it difficult to not blur lines where the little lamb is involved.
She looks up at me with her black eyes in a way that says she knows exactly who, or what, I am.
“I’ll respect Delilah’s boundaries, when she shows me the same respect.” Lies.
“Does she owe you that respect?”
“She owes me nothing. But it would be considerate to not make me worry about her,” I direct the statement to Delilah.
“Is she yours to protect?”
“You ask a lot of questions, Ms. Parnell. I’ll allow it because I see how protective you are of our friend.”
“Oh, you’ll allow it?” she asks sarcastically.
“I will allow it,” I say, deeply and slowly. The same way her mother would speak to an obstinate brat. Cookie slumps under the force of it.
Good girl.
“Be nice, Pope.”
“I’m nothing if not cordial, Miss Delilah,” I say to her rolling eyes. “I’d like a moment to speak to you. Alone.”
“That’s fine,” Cookie sighs. “I have to head back to my own campus anyway. I’ll call you later, Delilah.”
I watch her leave, so much dark skin on display. She’s beautiful, like her mother, but I’d guess she’s much more like her father.
“How long have you been friends with Ms. Parnell?” I ask, taking the seat she just vacated.
“A while,” Delilah says, shrugging a shoulder. “We met when I was still at the community college.”
“She attends the community college?” The Parnell’s have the money to send their daughter to any school in the world.
“Yes. Don’t look down your nose at it, she wants to pay her own way through school.”
“Admirable,” I say, but I mean idiotic. Why these young adults won’t take help when offered is beyond me. I fought hard to get where I am. I’d have appreciated any assistance. “What’s this nonsense about Joey?”
“It’s not your business.” She tries to school her features, as opposed to her usual angelic face. It doesn’t work, but I’ll credit her an A for the effort.
“Under no circumstances will you be losing your virginity to a boy named Joey.”
“Unless you’re offering to take it yourself, it’s not your business.” She states it with direct, piercing eye contact, and I feel it in my cock. It’s convinced that it’s the only dick qualified to accomplish the task. The look on her face tells me Delilah agrees.
“I don’t fuck with lambs,” I remind her. Though I’ve never wanted to more, her reasoning for wanting both sex and me is highly concerning.
Delilah is everything I’ve dreamed of. She’s gorgeous with her near black hair, her light, shining eyes. But it’s her personality that draws me to her most. She’s stronger than she thinks. Most women, experienced women, don’t stand up to me the way she does. And the way she’s willing to criticize her faith but not give up on it completely, tells me more about how she’d be in a relationship than anything else.
But she’s still eighteen. Much too young, even if she didn’t have the background she does.
“I can’t be anything but a lamb until I’m no longer a virgin though, right? So, Joey it is.” Delilah is so nonchalant about it, as if it’s a given this boy will fuck her. As if it’s not a big deal at all to lose her goddamned virginity.
“Even if you fuck this man-child, I wouldn’t be an option for you, Delilah. I’m thirty-four, I could practically be your father.” She rolls her eyes again, but they glisten with wetness this time. “I’m telling you to take your time. Find someone you care about for your first experience; someone you can trust to take care of you through it. Do you even understand the basics of it?”
“Of course I understand the fucking basics,” she angrily whispers at me. I’ve never heard her curse before. It’s hot as sin. “I’ve been witness to the basics for years. Do you even know how many virgins I saw married off and raped by their husbands who wore expressions of pure glee? I don’t have the number; it was too many to keep count of. It’s not a fate I want for myself.”
“Shh.” I reach up to swipe a stray tear with my thumb. “I wasn’t trying to upset you. I’m only pressing the importance of this decision.”
“Then you do it, Pope, as the only man I trust. It weighs on me like a burden and I want it gone.”
And lead us not into temptation.
Delilah may appear angel, but the words she speaks are pure fucking evil. Never have I been so drawn, so obsessed by any creature as her. My grip on the edge of the table is so strong, I fear the wood will splinter, but it’s all I can do to not leap across it and take her right here on the floor of this café. Like an animal, all my instincts scream to breed her. Here. Now.
She’s mine, she’s mine.
But I can’t have her. I’m not the right man, but taking Delilah is too wrong, even for me. I can’t subject her to another sort of ownership when she’s only just fled that life. And it would be that with me. Rules, expectations, I have so many. She’d drown in them when she needs to be free.
Damn, what a gorgeous concubine she’d be if circumstances were different.
“I won’t do that, Delilah.”
“Then leave me alone, Pope.”
I won’t do that, either.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Wait, really?” Joey asks after I’ve just told him I grew up on a religious compound. This is our second ‘date’. The first was a short visit at a campus coffee shop and I wasn’t yet comfortable enough to tell him too many details of my life.
Now we’re on round two. We’re keeping it very casual at an ice cream parlor, but I thought I should attempt to deepen the conversation. Dr. Price stresses the importance of not being ashamed of my childhood but instead being proud that I found a way to survive it.
I shouldn’t be scared to discuss it with people, especially those that I want to have a meaningful relationship with. Maybe that isn’t exactly what I want with Joey, but I do want something from him, and I need to give in return.
For three nights after the last time I saw Pope, I cried myself to sleep. It wasn’t entirely true what I told Cookie about my conversation with Dr. Price regarding my virginity. She does encourage me to explore my sexuality; she also worries that I put so much importance on it.
Virginity hangs over me like a raincloud and I have no protection to keep me dry. Despite every argument Dr. Price, Cookie, or even Pope has against it… I want it over with. It’s a heaviness that I can’t carry any longer. I am more than that one fact about me, yet I feel as if it’s the only thing people see. As if I can’t be whoever I am supposed to be until it’s behind me.
Perhaps that isn’t a healthy way to look at it, but I already know I’m not mentally stable. Not yet anyhow. I get a little stronger each day, a little more open to possibilities and what my life can be. Noah tells me it’s a journey, not a race. He tries to talk to me more now that I’m not so terrified of him. Now that I trust that he’s a good man, a fierce protector with a huge heart.
It’s the same qualities that attract me to Pope. Even if he tries to hide them behind stern words and hard expressions.
“Is your family like a bunch of super religious freaks?”
“They’re all religious. I wouldn’t say they are all freaks,” I say, my hackles raised by his humorous tone. People in my life have challenged how I believe, but not one of them has laughed at the fact that I’m a woman of faith. While I fully understand the criticism of my father and the men like him, the ranch is full of girls like Olivia and women like me. It wasn’t a choice to be born into it or brainwashed to believe such horrific things.
“So, you still believe that shit?”
“I,” I start, then pause to collect my thoughts without getting overly defensive. It’s not Joey’s fault that he doesn’t understand. “I believe in God and the scripture. What I’ve learned to not believe in is the abusive, polygamist life that was pushed upon me.”
I’m distracted by a figure awkwardly exiting a car that has just parked outside the window Joey and I are seated at. Aaron Probst, the annoying guy that, for weeks has pestered me to try and go out with him. He’s been pushy, overbearing, and scary in how relentless he is. At least now I know I can outrun him, because he’s on crutches with what looks like a broken leg. A man, I assume his dad, helps him hobble to an office next door.
I shouldn’t revel in his misfortune; it isn’t virtuous of me. Maybe it was God’s will to make him as uncomfortable as he has made me. Though a broken leg hardly measures up to sexually harassing me.
“You really think there is some magical being in the sky that created us all and is answering prayers of everyone on the planet?” Joey gestures around the ice cream shop with his hand, the smirk on his face becoming more prominent.
“I do believe in God, in creation. I don’t think He’s a magical fairy or anything.”
“But what about evolution and the science behind it? You don’t believe it?” Joey takes another lick of his ice cream. He ordered a cone, one scoop of birthday cake flavor, another of something called cookie monster that is an unnatural shade of blue. He laughed when I didn’t know what birthday cake tasted like, as I’ve never had one. I ordered simple strawberry, in a dish. The look he gave me says he thinks my choice was boring.
“I don’t honestly know enough about it to have an informed opinion.” It’s the truth, I feel stupid admitting it, but I’m not a liar either.
“If you did learn about it and saw that the science backs up evolution and basically disproves that we humans were not created in god’s image, or whatever, would you stop being religious then?”
Joey asks me a question I’d expect from Pope. Except that the way Joey asks it doesn’t come across as wanting to challenge me to think more critically. Instead, I think Joey’s intent is to make me feel dumb for my beliefs. He’s condescending and snide, making me feel small.
His hit lands. But I am not feeling stupid about my faith, I’m feeling stupid for agreeing to this date at all. Maybe I’m not ready for Joey, or maybe he’s not ready for me. All I know is that every day I struggle to be in my own head and sort through my own thoughts. A difficult task on its own, I don’t need anyone else in there with me. At least, not without knowing they have good intentions of being there.
“I can’t say for certain,” I say, quietly, no longer interested in this conversation. Or any conversation with Joey. Which is a feat all on its own. A year ago, I would have succumbed to this type of pressure from a man. “I wouldn’t want to guess at the outcome.”
“Isn’t that all religion is? A bunch of guessing shit a bunch of old dudes wrote a long time ago?”
“No, it’s belief in, and a love of something greater than us. It’s a moral compass that helps us make the best decisions for our own humanity.”
“How’d that work out for you in your cult?” He laughs.
Cult. I looked up the word once. People having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister, the definition read. Since I am not sinister, it labels me strange. I feel it every day, a difference about me, an awkwardness that not even the most awkward people I meet possess.
Then I remind myself that Lorelai isn’t strange from coming from the same beginnings. She’s made a life for herself, she’s strong, she’s self-aware, kind and loving. She’s my greatest role model. Lorelai is what I strive every day to become. Not the same, but alike.
Lorelai wouldn’t abide this mocking.
“I think I should go,” I tell Joey.
“You don’t have to go, Delilah,” he says, finally seeing the full effect of his words. “I can lay off; we can be friends.”
