Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 980(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 980(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Chastity never did her TV show. Instead, she wrote a series of children’s books about Robinson and Crusoe the frogs. They are in the fifth printing now along with a couple children’s cook-along cookbooks for parents and children to do together.
I step outside in the July heat and our two Saint Bernards come lumbering over panting and drooling.
“Go in the house dum-dums. Or in your house. You have an air-conditioned doghouse for Christ’s sake.”
I still run some of my philanthropic ventures but I’m only a silent investor in the other companies. I sold off most of my interests over the years, and there’s enough money to fund us for another three generations at least.
Chastity is still in heat most of the time which is good, because I’m a rutting dog for her twenty-four seven. She’s done being a baby making machine. We had some trouble during her pregnancy with Evie and it scared the shit out of me.
As much as I’d love to have twenty babies with her, without her I’d die.
She is my baby girl. My princess. My love. My best friend. My wife. My dirty slut and my little girl.
We still play, have our little secrets and I can’t wait to be ninety-years old. She will only be seventy, but God willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll still be fucking her like she’s nineteen.
Telling her what a bad girl she is. How she needs to be quiet and take it because she asked for it.
And I’m going to give it to her.
I understand what Dorothy meant when she said, ‘There’s no place like home.’
Thanks to those fuck heads from Houston, I found Chastity, and she is my home.
VOLUME FOUR
DEEPER
1
I rolled the warm cup of Turkish dark in my palms, staring at a young twenty-something boho couple chatting and smiling, wishing I could lose the sky-is-falling feeling I’d been carrying around for weeks.
“I don’t know,” I said, as I shrugged. “He’s just acting weird.” I sighed the clinking and hum of The Corner Caf Coffee Bar swirling around me.
Larissa, one of my few close friends, frowned. “Maybe it’s work? What does he say when you ask?”
“I tried to talk to him last night. He just said he was tired. This IPO thing. Then, when he doesn’t want to talk, I just get bitchy, and he pulls away more. I think moving in together was a mistake. Things were going so well. Maybe…” I lifted my cup pausing it on the way to my lips considering my statement. “Maybe it was too fast. It was two weeks after our first date that Adam moved my stuff into his house while I was at work. Seemed romantic at the time. So, saying everything was going well up until we moved in doesn’t give much of a track record.”
“I’m gonna be blunt here,” she said, giving me her best motherly smile knowing there’s some dart-sharp words about to be delivered. Larissa is a cut to the chase sort of gal and I love that about her. She’s calm but clear. Doesn’t let things build up. Doesn’t throw needless drama around. So, I waited, cup in the air then she took her shot at the bullseye. “Are you guys still fucking?”
Her question didn’t exactly catch me off guard. That was Larissa’s way. It worked for us because I’ve never been all that fabulous in the keeping friend’s department. I don’t know what it is, but I get close to people fast, then sort of deliberately—but in a backhanded way—fuck it up. Pushing people away is my superpower.
But, when I pull that shit with Larissa, she just stands her ground, let’s me throw my tantrum, tells me I’m being a brat then invites me out for some retail therapy. All is forgiven. She’s a better friend than I deserve and when it came to her question about if we were having sex still or not, the answer wasn’t that easy.
“Yes and no.” I answered as I dropped my chin and my neck cracked. I exhaled louder than necessary and explained, “I mean, see, that’s the other thing. We used to fuck, like, constantly. At least twice a day if not more. And by fucking I mean any and all sort of activity if you get what I’m saying. We were a firestorm. Now, it’s like the warm coals under the ash. I’m just so pissed all the time. I can’t completely give in to it like I used to. My head is just not all there, ya know? And I’m waiting for him to ask me what’s wrong but he doesn’t. He used to be so attentive.”
That wasn’t completely true. Adam had asked me probably fifty times in different ways what’s going on with me, but instead of being an adult and figuring out what’s wrong and discuss it, I do this shitty passive-aggressive, nothing, I’m just tired bullshit.