My Daughter's Boyfriend by Cydney Rax Read Free Book Online

should ask, but just doesn’t want to hear the details right then. I just didn’t want to know.
    Moving my hands from my temples, I stood there looking at him yet not really seeing him, but he waved his arms at me rapidly as if to say, “Do you mind?”
    Appalled, I spun around, heard him slipping his legs inside his trousers, zipper zipped, and he brushed past me like a whir of light once more. I didn’t say good-bye, didn’t want to. He didn’t say anything either. I followed him to the door and locked it behind him. And in his departure I sniffed again, battling the unsettling feeling he gave me, then taking in a long, deep breath.
    In Aaron’s absence, and with the settling down after all the drama that just happened, I noticed how my body ached, how my muscles felt tender and sore, how my throat was parched, and how it felt like everything hurt, on the inside and out. I stepped back inside the doorway of my bedroom and it seemed all my movement came to a complete stop the second I detected the tantalizing scent of a man’s cologne
talking to me.

Tracey 6
    “Mom, how old was you when you started having sex?” “Hmmm. I know where this is going, and the answer is no.” “But, Mom—”
    “ ‘But, Mom,’ my butt, Lauren. We’ve been over this far too many times for us to even be having this discussion, and I just don’t wanna talk about it.”
    It was Saturday evening, and Lauren and I were in the car on our way home from shopping at the IKEA on the Katy Freeway. Recently my collection of books had been growing, growing, growing. I had some extra cash and decided to pick up two sets of bookshelves. But soon after writing the check, I thought about how I just wasn’t in the mood to assemble them.
    “But, Mom, this isn’t fair. You started having sex with Daddy when you were fifteen.”
    “I wish I’d never told you that,” I said, trying to fuss and drive at the same time.
    “And I’ll probably be on Social Security by the time I find out—”
    “Believe me, it’s overrated. These music videos and movies and
Dawson’s Creek
stuff makes your little hormones think they’re missing out. But you aren’t missing a thing.”
    “Oh, I’ll bet you weren’t thinking that when you and Daddy conceived me.” I could feel her staring at me from the corner of my eyes.
    “Look, Lauren. Only reason I’m telling you this is because I’ve been there and done what you think you want to do. Now, I hope you and Aaron haven’t gone there yet—”
    “No, we have not, thanks to you.”
    “You ought a be thanking me. I’m trying to save your life, girl.”
    “I don’t need my life to be saved.”
    “Lauren, at this point you don’t know what you need and I’m not down for you crawling in some guy’s bed when you’re just a teenager.”
    “So it was good enough for you to know about sex firsthand at a young age, but not me?”
    I didn’t say anything. What could I say? I’d already told her a thousand times how it was for me. How my body was never the same after I’d had a child. Belly puffed out like a loaf of bread, no amount of sit-ups ever making any worthwhile dents. And all those nights my mother and I were forced to rush Lauren to the hospital because her four-year-old self would be running around and boom—she’d slam into the corner of a table and then yell, scream, and suffer scrapes and bloodied gashes on her forehead. Just little things here and there which advertise the fact that you’re a youngster raising a youngster and trying to survive in a grown-up world. As far as I was concerned, I only wanted to tell my daughter about those types of experiences; she shouldn’t have to live through them herself.
    “Mom,” she said, with hope lifting her voice. “What if we use a condom? I don’t even think you and Daddy used one.”
    “Now hold up. You can whine and state your case all you want. The bottom line is, safe sex isn’t even an option for you. No sex is more like