Chapter 35

Darnell opened the door and I told him I’d be a few minutes before I led her to her door. I kissed her again and then she led me inside. Her father was sitting up, watching TV and got up to greet us.

“You’re early,” he said, surprised and his gaze took in both of our appearances. I should have thought to bring a comb. “I see.” He looked at Tricia and he took in the tousled hair, the slightly wrinkled dress and the dreamy look on her face and I swear he sniffed the air. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get ready for bed,” he suggested. “I want to have a private word with your boyfriend before I send him home.”

“You play nice, Dad,” she warned him, her expression darkening.

“I promise, no knives,” he said and nodded to the stairs.

She pulled me around and kissed me very thoroughly, one final warning to her father to not spoil things.

He offered me a seat on the couch and sat in his chair. He looked at me pointedly and was trying to mull over what to ask so in the end, he just asked. “What did you do to my daughter tonight?” he asked.

I nodded. “I don’t think you’re asking about what restaurant we went to or how many songs we danced to,” I said. “You want to know if you need to worry about Tricia being sore tomorrow.”

He clenched his jaw and nodded, unable to speak.

“The only part of her that will be sore tomorrow is her feet,” I told him. “She’s not used to heels. I did nothing that would even cause her to be tender tomorrow.”

He nodded at that and sighed. I could feel the tension oozing out of him.

“She really wanted to,” I told him. “So did I, but I don’t want it to be hurriedly, at the end of a date. I want us to do it right when it’s time.”

“Then why do the two of you reek like sex?” he asked.

“I couldn’t give Tricia everything she wanted from me tonight, but I did what I could to show her how much I love her.”

“I see,” he said, not happy with the answer.

“Mr. Saunders, I know you don’t like me and I wish that could be different, but I’m talking to you openly because I want you to trust me. That’s important because we both need you to trust me to make her happy.”

“Since we’re talking openly, I don’t think you’re good enough for her,” he said pointedly.

“You’re her father. That means no one’s good enough for her. You’re right. She’s a treasure so precious I sometimes wonder how I became lucky enough to hold her, but I think you could search the world and never find someone better for her.”

“Oh? This ought to be good,” he said dryly.

“I’m a certified genius,” I reminded him. “At fourteen, I’m pursuing multiple degrees in diverse disciplines through the most prestigious university in the country, arguably in the world. I’m already independently wealthy and have enough knowledge of financial planning from my father to grow that wealth to see to both of our futures until we can start our own careers. I’m fiercely protective of the people I love and would put myself in danger for them without hesitation. I’m compassionate to others without any thought of repayment, I’m passably witty and I look cute as the Dickens in this suit.” I shrugged and gave him a wry smile. “So I’m smart, funny, compassionate, loyal, protective, rich, charming and handsome.”

“And you have no faults whatsoever?” he asked dryly.

“Of course I have faults. I overthink things and often miss the obvious solutions. Tricia calls me the dumbest genius she knows. I’ve been hurt by enough people that I suffer some emotional side-effects. When someone hurts someone I care about, I tend to want revenge. I’m slow to anger, but also slow to trust after someone breaks my trust. I’m also fourteen, so I think about sex far more than is probably healthy. I fall in love quickly and hard and it gets my heart broken far too often. Sometimes my solution to a problem is to escape until I can process it rather than face it in the moment. I think those are the major flaws and faults I have.”

“With that list, I should keep you as far away from Tricia as possible,” he said.

“Not really. They’re the same problems everyone has, honestly. I’m just very much aware of them and not afraid to discuss them. My parents decided to get a divorce this summer. That tends to scar the whole family, not just the spouses. Everyone has reasons for their behavior and I see a doctor to talk about my problems every week. I’m probably more emotionally healthy than most kids my age.”

He grunted which could mean almost anything. I’d noticed a pair of bare feet on the stairs, telling me that Tricia was listening to us talk.

“I’m not happy that you’ve done things with Tricia,” he growled softly. “I can tell that she came home happy though, so you didn’t mistreat her.” He seemed to be reluctant to make that declaration.

Tricia came down the stairs and joined our conversation. “He didn’t mistreat me, Dad,” she assured him, pausing to kiss him on the cheek before coming to sit with me. She was wearing a long sleep-shirt and smoothed it out across her legs before taking my hand in hers and holding it in her lap. “Matt loves me, Dad, and I love him. I want him to be my first, but we don’t want you to overreact and try to stop us from seeing each other afterwards. We could lie to you, but Matt doesn’t like secrets. Too many people have kept secrets from him that ruined his life.”

“Then why wait?” he asked sourly.

“Because if you decided to prevent her from seeing me again, it would devastate her,” I told him. “It would devastate me too, but that’s the real reason we wait. I want to do it right with her and that means free of any regrets. I want her first time to be perfect, a memory and an experience that is absolutely free of any negative after-effects.”

“I can’t give you that kind of blessing. Certainly not at your age,” he said firmly.

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” I assured him. “We’re not asking you to endorse everything we do, just to trust us to see it through together.”

He grunted sourly and sighed. “I’ll consider it,” he said finally. “You’ve both worked hard to prove you’re grown up enough to be trusted to a point. I think that you should go for now though,” he told me and Tricia kissed my cheek again and grinned at me.

I stood up and shook hands with him, thanking him again for trusting me with his daughter.

When I got back to the car, a half-hour had passed. Darnell got out and opened the door for me. “I dunno what you and your lady got up to back there, but I hope that it didn’t go too badly for you with the parents,” he said sympathetically.

“I think it went okay,” I said and got in. I lowered the divider since it was just the two of us and when he got in, he could smell the sex in the air.

“Man, I don’t even mind cleaning up the car tomorrow,” he chuckled as we drove off chatting.

When he dropped me off, we shook hands and I pressed a pair of folded $100 bills into his hand. “Not necessary, man. It was my pleasure.”

“Take it,” I urged him. “I’m gonna need a car again a few times before the year’s out. I’ll ask for you by name.”

He grinned. “Always happy to help out. Just give the office a few days notice in case they have to shuffle schedules around some and you’ll be fine.”

I said goodnight to him and walked inside, wondering how the talking had gone. Everyone was asleep and I turned on the light in the kitchen, making myself something to eat. I’d need to do some shopping soon, but for now, I had enough to put together a sandwich. A few minutes later, Hanna came upstairs, clad in her collar and nothing else.

“Hey,” I said quietly, not wanting to wake anyone else.

“Hi,” she said and chuckled. “Had a good night?”

“Tricia’s was better,” I said with a smile. “I was a little distracted. How did everything end up with Zoe? You were all still talking when I called a couple of hours ago.”

She shrugged. “It went. I don’t personally have an opinion about whether you take her back or not.”

I nodded. “Did you get to the bottom of what caused it?”

“We did, but I don’t know if there’s a solution or not,” she said awkwardly.

I put down the half-eaten sandwich. “Alright. Do I get to know what the problem is or is that for tomorrow?”

“Pedophilia,” she said gently. “Technically, she’s right. We’re all raping you when we have sex.”

“Oh bloody good GOD!” I snarled irritably. “Arbitrary laws made by a body of people with less than half of my intelligence between them and none of them young enough to even SEE their own youth in the rear view mirror. Did she say anything that made you feel guilty?” I asked.

She shook her head. “You’re age is just a number. I have no doubt that you want me here and I’m in no way taking advantage of you that I can tell.”

“Good,” I said. “Those laws are stupid. I looked them up this summer. With everything that was going on, I felt the need. I feel free to ignore them for a few very good reasons. They’re unilateral. They put in a cutoff age and don’t recognize that people don’t fit the mold. I’m smarter, more able to understand the consequences of my actions and fully give my consent to any activity I participate in. I’m considering legal emancipation for myself. As an emancipated minor, I can enter into contracts legally, I’m criminally responsible for my crimes and I’m expected to be able to provide for myself. If I can govern my own life to that extent, it should really be my choice how my genitals are put to use. Then there’s the whole fact that the laws shouldn’t even fucking apply to her. She should be covered by Romeo and Juliet statutes, but Massachusetts doesn’t see fit to HAVE a statute for close age exemptions. You’re the only person I’m currently sleeping with that couldn’t claim that distinction and given the nature of our relationship, it can hardly be considered a case of you exploiting me, can it?” I asked dryly, flicking at the O-ring on her collar.

She chuckled at that and shook her head. “You really looked it up?”

“You’ve met the only other woman over 21 that I’ve ever been with. I didn’t want her to suffer for what we did.”

She nodded and asked me if I was coming to bed. “Zoe’s upstairs?” I asked and she nodded. “I’ll be down in a few minutes. I’m gonna finish my sandwich and calm down first.”

She nodded and kissed me on the cheek before she slipped off to give me some peace and quiet. I stewed for a few minutes and shook my head. It was gonna be a long day tomorrow. I went downstairs, undressed in the dark and crawled into bed between my girls. They woke briefly and we exchanged soft kisses with Emma giggling that I smelled like sex before we all snuggled in.

Sunday was indeed a long day. I started off with a light breakfast and a conversation with the three of them while Lilly went next door.

“So Hanna says you’re feeling guilty for committing rape,” I said bluntly when the four of us were seated.

She flinched like I’d hit her. “Well that’s what the law says,” she pointed out. “I’m planning to be a lawyer so I need to learn to live within the law.”

“You DO know you’d qualify for Romeo and Juliet statute protection in most other states, including Pennsylvania, right?”

She shook her head. “That’s two years difference, maximum.”

“Unless,” I supplied. “The younger party is between thirteen and fifteen and the older party is less than four years older. That’s the Pennsylvania law. I looked it up. There’s also a time-honored principle in law. It doesn’t matter what you did, it doesn’t even matter what you got caught doing. It only matters what they can PROVE you did. I for one don’t intend to answer ANY questions related to my sex life on any witness stand.”

“You can be found in contempt of court for that.”

“My Fifth Amendment protections cover criminal proceedings and I really don’t see a set of circumstances in which we’re discussing it in civil court.”

“That’s stretching the Fifth Amendment pretty far,” she said doubtfully.

“Not really. I could be charged with conspiracy for planning out our dates. That makes me vulnerable to prosecution for admitting any wrong-doing that occurs on those dates. It’s a stretch, but a prosecutor trying to make his bones on a high profile case wouldn’t want this to be the one. It’s an uphill battle.”

“I guess,” she said, still unconvinced.

I shrugged. “This is really your issue. I’ve given consent to all three of you without reservations. I’m smarter than anyone currently in government and I’m under constant supervision by a psychiatrist for signs of mental or emotional stress or duress. I feel like I’m able to give consent based on my development and my understanding of the consequences of sex. If someone from government or law enforcement asks me about it, I’ll do the only thing I can. I’ll lie. What goes on in my bedroom is none of their fucking business. They can eat a big bag of dicks.”