Punishment with Kisses by Diane Anderson-Minshall Read Free Book Online Page B

resolved than I had ever heard, and I noticed a new sense of determination about her.
    I wondered if I had misjudged her all these years. I loved Father, but even I could admit that he could be a bit of a chauvinist pig. I was making so much about being an adult, a grown woman, but wasn’t part of that stepping out from under Father’s shadow, being my own person and not just one of Father’s lackeys? If I tried to step outside of myself and look at this objectively, didn’t I have to acknowledge that Father had never seemed entirely kind or charitable to Tabitha? In fact, it was almost as though he had pitted her and Ash against each other in competition—for attention, affection, and just plain one-upmanship—for his own amusement. I could never stand the men who enjoyed dog fights, and I could see now that Father must have been a bastard to live with.
    That summer I had been spying non-stop, not just on Ash and her ilk, but on Tabitha and Father, too. Their arguments were vociferous but never logical. I could never grasp what it was they were arguing about. “What happened?” I prodded, sure that Tabitha wouldn’t tell me a thing.
    “Megan, I’m not sure I could explain to you what’s going on. More importantly, I think it’s best you not know. Do know I’m not going anywhere.”
    What the hell? I was flummoxed by an admission that whatever had transpired was so complex it must be kept secret.
    “Is Father leaving?”
    “No. Nobody is going anywhere. Now I need to go speak with Ashley.”
    Of course she did. I’d noticed that Tabitha preferred to wait until I left before she joined Ash by the pool, bringing her cocktails and drugstore paperbacks like one of her flunky followers. It sickened me to see everyone so excited by Ash, even our parents. But then again, why wouldn’t Tabitha, a woman Ash’s age, want to hang out with Ash and her friends just as much as I did? There was something intoxicating about their endless party world. No doubt Tabitha gleaned from those meandering days that she had married too young, had given up too much of herself, had traded in the fun life for a man who was relatively distant, for life with a family that couldn’t ever allow for the fun in dysfunctional. Maybe now she was going to have her quarter-life crisis and divorce Father.
    The idea thrilled me, though I wasn’t sure who I thought it would benefit.
    Although I was certain it would be incredibly awkward and uncomfortable, I decided I had to go out and celebrate this new development, even if it meant going alone. Finding courage in having something, anything, change among my dreadful family dynamics, I resolved not only to go out by myself, but to go to a lesbian bar. Where to find one was a whole other story, of course, but I had the Internet on my phone and I was certain it couldn’t be that difficult.
    I should say this was not my first foray into a lesbian bar. Once, at college, I followed Terra to a queer dance club in the French Quarter where women danced with women and men danced with men and everyone was having a sweaty, debauched good time. I was starting to think maybe I was gay, not bisexual, not experimental, not a slut like Ash, just a plain old-fashioned lesbian. But the thing was I’d never known how to pick up other women, and I didn’t know what I’d do if someone hit on me. The very thought made me so uncomfortable I could feel the sweat drip down my sides. Like, what if my junior high PE teacher showed up at the bar and tried to take me home? Or the wife of my old soccer coach, or even one of those slutty girls from porno movies? I wouldn’t know what to do with any of those women. I didn’t have a Brazilian wax, and I’d never strapped on a dildo, gone down on a girl, or owned a vibrator. I’d still only kissed two girls in my lifetime, including Terra, who frankly, did all the work in the sack.
    Okay, I was in a little better stead now. At least I’d been watching the woman-on-woman