Chapter 4

I never saw Tamara again. She didn't respond to my one text congratulating her. After thinking about it, that probably wasn't what she wanted from me.

Mother pouted. Dad had actually laughed in public. It was like she'd never known the man, and she blamed me. In a bizarre form of punishment, she started wearing lipstick. It was blatant. She applied a deep red pigment to her cumulus lips, weekdays while Father was at work.

One day, her father caught her wearing it. I was given twenty dollars (to see a movie), excused from the house, and locked out. The only thing I wanted to watch was what happened between them. I put my ear against every curtained window. From the bathroom, I heard sharp blows against flesh. I didn't hear mother cry out. She must have been gagged. I was out of sight enough to risk masturbating. My cum sprayed against aluminum siding. Her father was still whacking mother as my dick shrank back to out-of-the-way size. I realized then that Grandpa hadn't said a word. It wasn't as if he had been gagged. My imagination said that he had built a psychic link to emotionally abuse Mom while he beat her. My imagination made me want to paint the house siding again.

It was a ridiculous thought, in so many ways, but I enjoyed every minute of it. Actually, from the time I first heard them, to when mother's dad stopped her punishment, less than five minutes passed. I returned two hours later. Mother's lipstick looked fresher than ever. She wiped it off before Father returned. The next morning, her deep red lips cradled my cock between them and rocked, in my mind. My dreamy wank soaked three tissues.

I learned early that getting off by myself was the best way to deal with seemingly constant sexual arousal. Once I'd cum, my mind could be rational for a few hours. I could be the power I hoped to become. Desire is the downfall of domination, until you learn to harness it. I was still learning, and it was a lesson made harder, after Dad had gone to work, when mother deliberately waited for me to wander by the kitchen before she picked up her lipstick and slowly stroked that oxygenated blood across her lips.

I took the auto sales job. It paid minimum wage plus commission. My percentage was probably half of what the other sales staff earned. It would be short term and wouldn't pay enough for a year of textbooks. But it would get me out of the house for the summer.

"No, I want the young guy." Said a blond in a blue tube dress covering her, neck to ankles. It was as if a sunlit sky had tracked me down. Her naked arms were bronze like her face that was framed with a 70's fluffed, golden mane. Said speaker twisted in her woven silk skin, away from the point salesman, my boss, and slinked up to where I stood like a cardboard poster child for suicide prevention.

"Gina sent me." The sparkle in her eyes hinted something between crocodile and supernova. The energy inside this woman, maybe 30, crackled louder than the florescent lights flooding the latest model cars destined to a junkyard in five years. Maybe it was the sound of her skin stoking static into her dress. In darkness, she would have lit up like a Van De Graaff generator.

"Well, Mmm-"

"Miss," She interrupted - her smirk intact. "Corrin."

"Miss Corrin, how may I help you?" I took a deep breath. Gina, huh. I decided she wanted to break me. I also decided this woman probably would.

"Sell me car to me." Her eyes, a hair higher than my own, suggested a gargoyle's disapproval. She waved a naked arm as if in a breeze and teetered. The ax fell to her right. "That one."

"I can sell that to you." I didn't look. I was new to the showroom, but the beast she wanted was unforgettable, an ex-military vehicle converted to commercial standards. "But you'll be back in a week, returning it."

"I don't mind the loss. What will I buy when I return?"

"The family sedan, in gray."

"I hate gray."

"Only the gray model has premium leather."

"I'll get leather from a third party, for my pick." Miss Corrin was ready to dismiss me. Her eyes withered from boredom. I didn't care as much about hers as I did about the eyes my boss drilled me with. I had to sell this woman for all she was worth.

"They won't cheat you as much as I can."

Everyone in the room heard a pamphlet drop.

Miss Corrin dripped, blond dye to green toenail polish. "Where do I sign?"

"I'll phone our financer." I didn't dare leave the woman or even her fixed gaze. I had to voice dial, to keep from glancing at the screen.

"Helen, here."

"I have a customer ready to write a check. Bring the sale slip for the Lurch floor model. She's willing to pay 128 thousand."

Maxed out, the Lurch XL Extreme, carried to your doorstep by vestal virgins, cost 114k brand spanking new. This floor model had languished for seven months, with nine hundred test miles on it (mostly from staff joyrides).

Helen's high heels were M-80s exploding across the floor tiles, until she reached the showroom. She clicked up to us and presented Miss Corrin with a clipboard. "We'll fill out your information, later." She took a picture of the customer's drivers license. She accepted the signed check. Helen clicked out of the room.

"What a dreary, little old lady." Miss Corrin turned to examine her purchase.

"I'm sorry. I can't sell this to you." I pulled the paperwork from Miss Corrin's hand and tore it in half. "We are a fine team of professionals here. I can't accept abuse against one my mates." Halves swooped to the floor.

"Allow me, Mis-" My boss launched himself between us.

But she had already turned away. "See that that boy gets a bonus." Her sensible sandals shuffled off like a blues 45 in a Wurlitzer.

My boss gave half a syllable of firing me. "Yyyy."

"I'll leave now." I exited quickly.

My walk home was interrupted. An Italian job that put the Lurch's price into a toy catalog, passed me, huffing its pipes. Its soft tires ground against asphalt. The carbon fiber body thrust a gull wing door up. A hand reached out and offered a middle finger. I walked past, head forward.

"Dreary? Really? I wouldn't have cared, if you'd called her a hag."

"Get in."

I stopped walking. "Get out."

The rumbling hum expired.

"I never expected to see a rental tag on one of those." I nodded appreciatively.

"Specialty rental. My company can afford it."

"You probably couldn't have afforded the sedan with vinyl seats."

"Give me some credit, young man. I'm debt free."

"And Gina is just a name my mother told you."

"Fuck."

"Gina wouldn't have recommended the dealership she works at." It had occurred to me during my walk.

"Call me Corrin, please?"

"Your first name." I stepped into the car, where I had to nearly lay down to fit its low profile. "Call me Walter. And how do you close this door?"

She entered her side and flipped a switch. The door chewed its way down. The tinted windows left us in gloom. "There's not enough room in here." Her breasts rose and fell. Static electricity tinkled around them.

"There's room enough to slap your pretty face." I told her politely.

"But not to take your arm up my ass."

"That's a thing?" I almost gasp at my stupid words.

"Walter, why do you think I'm here?"

"Because Mother is testing me."

"She's afraid of you."

"She's not afraid of her father, and my father is afraid of him."

"Your father is ... not quite what you think."

"Oh, is this where Lord Vader says my grandfather is my father?"

"Really?" Corrin stiffened.

"I guess not." I can't say I was disappointed. I love my dad.

She smiled then. "Your father is a charlatan."

I ignored her. "Why are you here?"

"Because Lisa said you would amuse me."

"Why do I not believe you are the rich trash bitch you've been playing at?"

"You haven't amused me yet." She snorted a laugh. "That was funny, though." She started the car and drove me to her house on top of a hill in the city. We spent most of our time together discussing appropriate lubrication.

Before dinner, she dropped me home, eyeballs still sweating. My arm was a bit bigger than she was accustomed to. Amuse. Abuse. They might as well be the same word.

Mother's lips were plain and cold. "Thank you for phoning that you would be late."

"Walter, my food is getting cold." Father called from the dining table.

Mother and I seated ourselves. She seemed disappointed. She did enjoy the food she had prepared. I thought it was her best meal ever.

Father, his plate empty, rose and carried his dishes to the sink. He ran water over them and placed them into the dishwasher. "Lisa, Walter, please hand wash and dry the rest.

Dad sat in his chair, reading Dostoyevsky. We clinked china and glass and bumped elbows.

"Has Father lied to you?" I whispered.

She shook her head. I think she might have worried that I was being indiscreet. Whispering in the house was a federal offense.

I waited until the soapy water had drained and the faucet sang with clean flow. "Cheated?"

Mother handed her drying towel to me and left the room.

"Mother, you should finish what I asked." Father pounced.

She didn't return to the sink.

He left his book beside his chair, stood up, and pounced again.

I did not see them again that night.

Corrin texted right as I was drifting off to sleep.

"It still hurts."

The next day I learned I was not fired. I walked to work. Helen was waiting for me in the sales office.

"Thank you, Walter. In all my years, I've never heard a decent word from our lamprey."

"Careful, maybe I'm trying to suck some of your blood."

"It's not doing me much good, these days."

Helen was not old. Maybe she was fifty something. Her hair was colored white, but thankfully without the blue tint that keeps elderly husbands up all night. Pudgy, short, smart as three crows, Helen could account for 1000 ships. Her blood was more iron than plasma. "Did the check bounce?"

"I didn't bother with it. Here." She handed it to me. "I signed it over to you, as a momento."

I'd been to Corrin's house. She just might have $128,000 dollars in her checking account.

"Here's the one I cashed." She held up a photocopy. It showed the price of one gray sedan with premium leather.

My boss had sold it to Miss Corrin at the crack of dawn. I was listed on the bill of sale as an assist. "I insisted." Helen barked. "Son of a bitch! He would have left you hung to dry."

"Maybe I deserved that."

"You deserved this." An assist commission was a tenth of what the primary salesperson earned.

I didn't sell a car that day. Not for a week.

Corrin picked me up at the end of the week and took me for a spin in her new car. The right fender had a scratch. "You?"

"With a picture nail. Can't get too proud; might loose my reputation."

"With who?"

She was silent for a moment. "Your arm is too big for me."

We found something else that fit her better. I came in her ass three times that night. Whenever she pulled the vibrating Pocahontas from her pussy and begged me to fuck her proper, I pushed the device back inside her. I decided then and there. I was saving myself.

She decided, if I wasn't going to play fair, I shouldn't be playing at all.

I sold two cars the following week. I tried not to boast when I told father.

"Shitty job, Walter. You're wasting yourself."

"It's just a summer job. I have enough saved for college."

"Have you decided which?"

"Yes. The state university."

"So you'll move to the capital? You won't be able to afford rent."

"Not the first year. I'm mean, Sir, I won't move until the second year. I'm going to take classes locally, ones that transfer, but I'll be fully signed up for State."

"If you continue to live here, I'll require you to stop working. I want you to study not waste your time."