Ireceive three official Sin shirts to wear to work—they’re tight and stretchy, scooped low to show way more cleavage than I’m used to, and feature the logo directly on my left boob. I’m told to wear black bottoms of any kind I want, and black shoes, any kind as long as they’re closed-toe.
I have plenty of black tennis skirts, leggings, and track shorts. Shoes are an issue, though—Rev was right about my beloved Converse not being the best choice for the job, but I don’t have any black running shoes, so I go shopping. I half wish I’d gotten Angel’s number so we could go shopping together. I could probably find Miguel’s bar again, but I wonder at the wisdom of that. She did sort of assist me in getting so drunk I nearly needed to be hospitalized. I made the choices, yes, but…
I don’t know.
I end up going shopping alone, because I worry that if I hang out with Angel, I’ll go down a partying road I’m not sure I want to be on.
I quickly find a pair of nice comfy New Balance shoes with great arch support, and I’m about to check out with them when I see a pair of women’s combat boots. They’re not fashion items, but are rather meant for female police officers, EMS workers, and the like. Functional. Black, calf-height, lots of laces.
I’m wearing the very short track shorts I’m going to wear to work later, just with a tank top—one of the rules Inez gave me was to never, ever, under any circumstances ever wear my work shirts in public. Change, or cover it up.
I find a pair of the boots in my size, and I try them on. And…I’m shocked.
They’re crazy comfortable. They take for-freaking-ever to lace up, but now that they’re on, I don’t want to take them off. Insanely supportive under the arches and around the ankles. I look at myself in the mirror—I’d expected them to look goofy with the track shorts and tank top, but actually…the look ends up kind of…cool.
I pay for them and wear them out of the store, feeling pretty good about myself.
I’m on the way out of the mall when I walk by a store and see leather cuffs on display. I’m not sure what I’m thinking, but I buy a black one, and a thick leather black strap for my smartwatch. So now, I’m wearing track shorts, calf-height black combat boots, a tank top, and matching black leather cuffs.
It’s a new look for me, and I’m digging it. Back at my room, I add silver hoop earrings, a bit of smokey eye, and lipstick that’s a red so dark it’s almost purple. I braid my hair on top in a complex pattern that blends in with the rest, which is left loose around my shoulders, wavy and almost feathered.
I barely recognize myself.
Maybe it’s the new job—I made three hundred dollars on half a shift.
Maybe it’s that Revkissedme—twice.
I’m still all aflutter from that.
The second kiss, especially. The hand on my throat? Why was that so hot? It was—it was the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life, by a factor of about a billion and a half.
It was hot for him, too. I felt the evidence against my belly.
And there was aLOTof evidence to be felt. My gosh, so much. I saw the monstrous object for a matter of five seconds, if that, and that was when it was, erm…at rest, shall we say. Even like that, when he wasn’t…excited…you could use it as a melee weapon, were it to be disconnected from the rest of him.
I don’t dare even consider what it would look like at full mast.
My thighs tremble at this line of thought. All of me trembles, really.
I don’t know what I’m doing. Why I’m staying in Vegas—it’s a thousand degrees every day, and I’ve yet to step foot back into a casino or bar other than Sin after my first foray on the Strip. I’ve never worked at a bar, let alone a secret nightclub where people have sex right on the dance floor, where there’s a secret lower level you need a glowing tattoo to get into, where any kind of sinful debauchery you can think of is fair game, where there’s an underground cage fight arena.
It’s not my world—it’s the farthest thing from it. I’m a church girl. A farm girl. I can birth a foal, bale hay, stomp my muck boots through knee-deep cow dung without gagging. I went to church twice a week every week until I left home a few months ago—Sunday church and Wednesday prayer meeting. I don’t swear. I don’t drink—except for that one bender with Angel and company.
I’ve only ever kissed, touched, been touched by, or had sex with my ex-husband. And while I have nothing to compare it against in terms of experience, Icansay I never had an orgasm with him. I always had to help myself out, later, alone. It got to the point where I stopped expecting it and just let him do his thing, which was always super quick, and then went to the bathroom to clean up—which meant a quick and quiet session with my vibrator, sitting on the toilet, biting into a hand towel to keep from letting him know what I was doing…because I was embarrassed and also because I simply didn’t feel like trying to explain.
That was before we stopped having sex entirely—which I now realize was because he was cheating on me.
Shegave him blowjobs, he told me, during our last blowout fight. Alotof them, he said.Sheknew what she was doing, he said. Shelikedit, he said. Unlikeyou, he said.
I had no response to that.
Mainly because I realized, abruptly, like being hit with a ton of bricks, that I had never actuallylikedhaving sex with Darren. Not once. The first time hurt, and the rest of it always felt…like something was missing, at a very minimum. I’d always thought it was me.
I thought that right up until Rev kissed me.
And now…I wonder. Maybe it wasn’t me.
Maybe it washim.
