South Row by Ghiselle St. James

blocks.”
    I don ’t tell him that my apartment is shit. I have a crappy apartment for a reason. The same reason I have a piece of shit car and the same reason I work in a strip club. Call it cliché, but I am paying for college – culinary school. I love cooking. Food uplifts me when music fails. Creating a masterpiece from a few ingredients always gets me. It’s one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
    I learned to cook when I was ten by my mother. She was such a sweet soul, beaten down by a monster. I…I don’t even want to talk about them. But, my aunt further reinforced that creativity when I went to live with her. She loved to cook. She was a chef at her old diner in Nebraska. When I saw Collin that night ten years ago, I wanted to tell hi m goodbye. The odds were that I’d never see him again; but my mom gave me specific instructions not to tell anyone where I was going and I followed them to the letter.
    When I left home after that night, I got on a bus and headed to my Aunt Adeline. Aunt Addy was my mother’s older sister and her only living relative. For years they had each other and were as close as close could be. But after meeting my father a few times, Aunt Addy stopped coming by to visit.
    Aunty Addy didn’t have any children. So when the courts saw that she was fit to take me, per my mother’s last will and testament, she took me in and treated me like I was her own. She changed my name to hers – Tate – and showed me the ways of a culinarian. I always felt that my aunt’s talent was wasted in that Podunk town, but she loved that place and loved to create for the people around her. Only problem was that, although they loved her cooking, they hardly ever paid her; which piled on the debt, and unfortunately, the stress.
    My aunt died just after my high school graduation. I took the few thousand dollars she left for me in her will, hitched a ride to San Francisco and enrolled in cooking school. When I realized I wouldn’t be able to finish because of my lack of finances, I decided to get a job. McDonald’s, as much as it gave me cooking experience, was not cutting it. Stripping was out of the question for me, so that’s when I met Trace, and the rest is…cliché. Yeah, yeah, the rest is history.
    I have made my crappy apartment as much of a home as I can make it. But I really don't want them to follow me home like I’m some kid.
    Then it hits me: Collin still probably se es me as a kid; his kid brother’s kid friend. Disappointment ricochets through me like a bullet at the thought, but a new resolve kicks in.
    Collin will see me as more than just his brother’s kid friend. He will see me as a woman and devour me as such. You wait, Collin Danes. You won’t know what hit you.
     
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    I’ d gotten home that night and immediately taken the coldest shower I could manage. Seeing Collin after all those years did nothing to assuage my feelings or my reaction to him. I was so turned on throughout our reunion that I wondered how I didn’t spontaneously combust. I saw that in a porn parody once.
    Still heated and turned on after the shower I laid in bed, kicking off the sheets because they were clinging to my already sensitized body. I had squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force myself to sleep, but images of Collin between my legs – with various parts of his anatomy – filtered through. Now, I have never received cunnilingus before – who even calls it that? – bu t I have seen it in porn, and I’ve watched those…a lot. Okay, don’t judge me.
    Butterflies flitted through my belly and I found myself skimming my fingers down into my panties. I was already slick down there so I slipped my fingers further down my waxed pussy to my swollen clit. My night subsequently ended with me throwing my vibrator across the room and me crying myself to sleep in frustration, because even after two orgasms, I was still so fucking horny. My last thought as I drifted off to sleep,