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  When she opened the door, there he was, in breeches and knee-high black boots, a patch over his eye, a sword at his side. The sight of him grinning on her porch was more than she’d ever dared to dream of, and the way his eyes lit up at the sight of her, sweeping her over appreciatively, was more than enough to banish the thought of her stepfather from her mind.

  “Hey there Little Red Riding Hood... you sure are lookin’ good!” he exclaimed She flushed, but she didn’t get the reference to the 1960’s Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs song. Any musical reference would have perplexed her, really, no matter what the decade. The only music she listened to was classical or gospel, and that only selectively, so she didn’t recognize Luke’s “You’re everything that a big bad wolf could want. Owoooooooo!” either, but she thought it was endearing and funny, and she laughed.

  She grabbed her little picnic basket—which also doubled tonight as her purse—

  and locked the door on the way out. The air filling her lungs was night-cold and dark and breathing felt like swallowing black ice. Darkness enveloped them as they moved away from the house toward his waiting car, the only illumination sporadic porch lights and the eerie glow of jack o’lantern faces leading costumed children to neighboring doors.

  Their porch light, she remembered, had only been on once on a Halloween night that she could remember, when Adam had decided to hand out tracts and preach to the trick or treaters who came to the door. Their house had been egged later that night, and Adam had never done that again.

  Lily shivered, looking at the glowing face of a pumpkin shimmering on the porch across the way. They’d always been frightening to her, those disembodied heads, and this one, with its sharp teeth and narrowed eyes, seemed to both mock and menace her for her audacity in being out on this night. Luke’s hand pressed lightly into the small of her back as he gentlemanly swung the passenger door open for her and she closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the sensation.

  Please God, she sent another prayer heavenward. Just this one night. One magical night. Is that too much to ask for?

  Hope fluttered lightly in her belly as Luke pulled out of the driveway, and she smiled shyly at him, liking the slow, easy smile she got in return. How could God ever condemn her for this feeling, she wondered. It was like every light in the world turned on when he smiled at her. It couldn’t possibly be wrong. She slid across the seat closer to him, feigning cold, and he let her.

  —

  Lily glanced over Luke’s shoulder and saw Amy dancing with Chris, her witch’s hat dangling behind her on its elastic band, tangled in her dark blonde hair. Amy turned, sensing her, and smiled, winking.

  Luke pulled her closer, his lean hardness against her full softness, the difference startling and thrilling her at once. His mouth was against her ear, singing low and softly to the song, “I can hear her heartbeat from a thousand miles, and the heavens open up every time she smiles...” She felt as if he were singing to her, for her, and she let herself melt into him. He shifted his weight, taking hers, finding all those places where they fit so easily together. Did everyone fit together like this? She wondered.

  The room was dark, the music loud, and all around them there were people dressed as someone or something else. There were exotic costumes—when they’d first arrived, she couldn’t take her eyes off of the bare and pierced midriff of the girl dressed as a belly dancer. And there were strange ones. One boy was walking around with a lawn chair strapped on his head and his face painted pink—he said he was a piece of bubblegum. There were also scary or gory or just plain silly costumes.

  She’d received compliment after compliment on her own costume, and she sensed many of the girls were jealous, but curious. The boys just stared, or raised their eyebrows. She didn’t know most of the kids, although of course she knew Amy, who lived three houses away and had been her best Barbie buddy since they were four.

  She found herself smiling, remembering that although it had taken many, many pleading and cajoling sessions at Adam’s feet to even acquire one Barbie to her name, Amy’d had hundreds and was always willing to share!

  She was the sheltered, home-schooled weirdo among them—she knew it and felt eyes on her. She found herself tongue-tied while they all talked easily, felt herself awkward while they flowed like water on the dance floor.

  But Luke seemed to have eyes only for her, no matter how many girls had come up to them, laughed gaily, touched or squeezed his upper arm, or more daringly, his upper thigh—he looked back at Lily like it was their inside joke.

  She remembered how he’d found her reading under her favorite shade tree at the park, how he’d smiled his liquid smile, plopped himself down next to her and started talking. So easy…he made everything easy. She could breathe more deeply when he was next to her.

  How many times had he asked her out? She lost count. But here she was. He’d persisted, and here she was, pressed against him, his voice in her ear dancing her across a high school gym floor she’d never set foot on before in her life. The first of many firsts tonight, she thought…she hoped…she fantasized…letting her fingers curl into the blonde hair at the nape of his neck again and again.

  The slow song ended, and she moved reluctantly away from him. Amy gestured, urging her back to their table, and they filed through like the world’s shortest parade of some mixed up fairy tale, witch, wizard and pirate with little red riding hood bringing up the rear. Lily went to sit, but Luke pulled her into his lap, and she squealed, delighted and embarrassed at the same time.

  “You two are so cute together,” Amy remarked again, for probably the tenth time that night. “How come you don’t ever pull me into your lap like that anymore?” she nudged Chris, who rolled his eyes and did something, who knew what, under the table to make her squeal and her eyes widen.

  Lily reached for one of the candy corns strewn on the tables for decoration, but Luke anticipated her, putting one between her lips. She kissed his fingers and smiled a thank you, chewing happily. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d known such sweetness.

  “You sure do love those things,” Luke remarked, looking at her with a little bit of wonder. She sometimes felt as if she were some novelty for him, that every new thing he exposed her to somehow made him come alive, as if he were experiencing it for the first time as well. She both loved and loathed that feeling.

  “Well how come you made me dress up like some old guy from Lord of the Rings just so we could be a matching set?” Chris quipped back to Amy. “The things we do for our women, I tell ya.”

  Luke just smiled, his hand cupping and periodically squeezing Lily’s luscious hip. Her hand found its way to the back of his neck again, unable to resist those curls.

  “Everyone knows a couple should come to a costume party as a matched pair,” Amy insisted.

  “What is that, like some Dear Abby’s Halloween Etiquette Rule or something?” Chris snorted, plopping his pointed wizard hat into the middle of the table. “Hey, you two should match, then...you should have come as a wolf, Luke!”

  Luke shrugged. “Think so?”

  “I know the perfect costumes for you two...Adam and Eve!” Chris howled. Amy nudged him again, but he ignored her, leaning forward with a mischievous look in his eyes. “What was the first thing Adam said when he first saw Eve naked in the Garden of Eden?”

  Lily recognized the beginning to a joke when she heard one. She braced herself. Amy nudged Chris again, harder this time, hissing. Luke just smiled lazily, still rubbing Lily’s hip and bottom.

  “Stand back! I don’t know how big this thing gets!” Chris snorted laughter, delighted with himself.

  Lily hid her embarrassed face against Luke’s neck. It wasn’t that she didn’t know about sex—well, at least as much as Amy had been willing to tell her about it—but it was all a great mixed-up mystery to her, sometimes embarrassing and shameful, sometimes urgently exciting, often both all at the same time.

  “You are driving me to distraction,” Luke whispere
d into her ear, nuzzling her neck. Her eyelids fluttered closed at the sensation, glad her hair hid the reaction. “I want to take you home.”

  “Now?” Lily whispered back. She wasn’t objecting, just asking.

  “Yes,” was all he said.

  “Luke...” His name in her mouth felt thick and full, filling her. She couldn’t say anything else, but he didn’t need to ask. He simply took her.

  They were out the door without another word, just smiles and nods to Amy and Chris. Amy continued to poke and prod Chris, sure it was his fault they were making an exit, but Lily was too shy to explain. The anticipatory tingling in her body which had begun the minute he touched her tonight was now a buzzing feeling like a chorus of angels singing through her whole being.

  —

  “I feel positively wolfish.” Luke confessed as Lily fumbled with her keys. She giggled as they tumbled into the house, and he pressed her back against the door.

  “What big eyes you have,” Lily whispered, playing along and trying to distract herself from the feelings welling up in her. Fairy tales she knew well, as Adam had read her countless, and for her, there was nothing bloodier or scarier than fairy tales, except maybe bible stories.

  “The better to see you with, my dear,” Luke grinned. He pressed against her harder, his mouth finding hers, and she felt as if she were floating, his lips soft and warm and then his tongue, oh my God, his tongue on hers, so unexpected, like an electric pulse running from the tip of her tongue to the tips of her toes.

  “Oh Luke,” she breathed, her hands pulling at the breeches at the waist. “What a big...” Her words were swallowed with another kiss, and she felt him swallowing her, there was no other sensation but this. “What a big...” She felt him pressing against her, down there, the hardness of him between her legs, but she couldn’t manage to get the word out of her mouth.

  “Yes,” he growled, grinding himself into her. “The better to fuck you with, my dear.” She gasped out loud at the harshness of the word, how it shocked and titillated her—the word, the thought, the act. Her body felt on fire and aching for something. She didn’t even know what.

  They found their way to the living room couch, Luke hungrily kissing her, mouth, neck, the tops of her breasts pushed up in their bodice. He unlaced her easily, and her dark nipples peeked over the top, playing hide and seek as she writhed beneath him.

  She shuddered as his mouth found first one, then the other, his tongue tracing hot, wet spirals she saw when she closed her eyes. His hands moved over her legs, up over her knee socks, pushing her skirt up high on her thighs and pressing himself between them. Her breath was coming too fast, making her dizzy. The room was spinning, and she groped at him for balance.

  His mouth pressed against her belly, his breath hot, and he whispered her name, “Lily, oh Lily,” again and again. It was like music.

  “Jeeeesus,” he breathed when he got to her panties, the sheerness of the fabric showing a moist, dark patch curling around the edges. Lily’s mouth was a small “o” as she looked down at him, pure wonder in her eyes.

  Luke took off his eye patch with a small smile, and then began covering her thighs with kisses, light as dove’s wings, and when his tongue reached the edges of the red lace, he pushed it aside, searching for her soft, red center.

  Lily groaned softly, her head moving from side to side. Something inside her was saying no, no, we can’t, but another part of her was moaning yes, yess, please God, yes!

  His tongue was doing unholy things to her, finding the sweet spot she thought only she knew about, the one she’d found a few years ago with pressing fingers, half asleep, not really waking from a spilling, throbbing dream. This sensation was beyond pleasure, beyond hope, beyond God. This must be heaven, she thought wildly as his tongue lapped at her over and over, the feeling building like the pressure of a dam about to burst.

  “Oh Luke, please,” she pleaded.

  He urged her on with his tongue, making soft encouraging noises in his throat, and the sight of him between her thighs, still in his breeches and boots, his shirt pulled out, sent her over an unexpected edge. “Oh God,” she moaned, “I’m… I’m…flooding...!”

  And she was, like a river of honey flowing over his tongue. Lily shuddered and gasped, her hands fists in his curls, pressing, pressing, and then she lay still, marveling. She welcomed the weight of him, stunned by the taste of herself on his tongue as he kissed her.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured. “My God, you’re so beautiful.”

  Her hand slowly crept and fumbled and found the front of his breeches, rubbing him there, the hardness she felt. She was scared and excited and filled with an indescribable longing.

  He moaned and pushed against her hand, telling her, “yes, yes, good,” giving her courage, and she found the zipper and slid her hand inside. She’d never held anything like it. The heat was incredible, and he thrust in her hand, his breath coming faster, faster. Her whole body flushed at his response as she caught his rhythm, excited by his breath, his eyes rolled back slightly, his open mouth, and especially the shifting, throbbing, swollen flesh in her hand.

  “Wait, wait,” he moaned, but her grip was too firm and too steady now, and she gasped in surprise as he bucked and grunted against her, and she felt an alarmingly hot liquid spreading over her thighs. Lily lay stunned, feeling him go slowly, steadily softer, full of sticky wetness, listening to his ragged breathing eventually return to normal “Sorry,” he murmured against her ear, sounding apologetic. “Didn’t mean to do that.”

  “Seems like it felt nice,” she whispered, wanting to reassure him, and he chuckled, nodding against her neck. She felt full of him somehow, satisfied and content, even relieved it hadn’t gone further than this, and it was in that sweet, soft-focused moment she heard the most terrifying thing she’d ever heard in her life.

  “SINNERS!” Adam’s voiced boomed louder than she’d ever heard it during any hellfire and brimstone sermon. “You will burn in hell! Get off my daughter!”

  Lily’s whole body went stiff, paralyzed with fear, her breath disappearing. Luke’s eyes flew open in panic and, fumbling with his clothes, moving quickly off her, he began mumbling apologies.

  Then Adam had him by the scruff of the neck. He was a large man, over six feet tall, and he towered over Luke, shaking him like some naughty puppy. “Get out of my house! Don’t you ever, EVER come sniffing around here again! Do you understand me?!”

  Luke nodded, glancing briefly at Lily, whose eyes pleaded silently with him. There was nothing he could do. He let himself be tossed out the front door, down the porch, and made his way to his car. It was pouring down rain and from her vantage point still frozen on the couch, Lily saw the jack o’lantern across the way blazing like a vague threat in the night before Adam slammed the door.

  Lily couldn’t breathe. She thought she might have forgotten how. Thoughts raced, tumbled—what was he doing home early, how had this happened? She closed her eyes, unable to comprehend the change, the difference between the indescribable sweetness she’d experienced moments ago and the terror and disgrace she felt now. She smeared a sticky hand over her thigh, disgusted and suddenly shameful, and the movement brought her breath back, and then her hot tears.

  “Whore!” The word breathed over her face, dark and deep and full of scorn. She wished she could make herself disappear. She couldn’t face this, she simply couldn’t, but she knew he would say it. “Open your eyes!” She obeyed, looking up into Adam’s angry face, but the disappointment she saw there pierced her even more deeply.

  “Daddy, I’m sorry,” she whispered, not knowing where her voice was coming from—it seemed very small and far away. “I’m so sorry, I...” and there were just no more words. Nothing, nothing she could possibly say would have redeemed her, this. She was simply going to have to bear it, whatever humiliation and punishment was to come.

  “Lily, what have you done?” He shook his head, and she saw tears in his eyes. She was truly remorseful now
, feeling the weight of her trespass pressing into her. She just shook her head, her own tears streaming down to her temples.

  “What is this?” He pointed to her dress, still pulled up over her hips, her cape hanging askew. “What in the world are you wearing?” He sounded genuinely confused and she watched the recognition come over his face with dread. “Is this...is this a... Halloween costume?” He choked on the words.

  She nodded reluctantly, biting her lower lip and, suddenly aware of how exposed she was, attempted to pull her skirt down.

  His face changed suddenly, from disappointment and despair, to absolute righteous fury. “You went to a costume party?” he fumed.

  She nodded again, tugging at the hem of her skirt.

  He slapped her hand away, sneering, “Don’t you dare cover yourself. You deserve to be exposed for what you are! Do you realize what you’ve done? Do you?”

  She didn’t answer the rhetorical question, just winced and nodded.

  “I come home to take care of you because you said you were sick, and what do I find? Sick! Yes, you are sick! Heaven help you, girl! You have eaten the forbidden fruit from the tree, Lily. You are no longer innocent! ‘And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that were naked!‘” His voice shook with feeling, and she cringed again, quailing at the looming figure above her.

  His eyes closed for a moment and she waited, her breath coming in hitches. When he looked at her again, he was resolute.

  “Stand up,” he demanded.

  She obeyed, quieting the urge to pull her skirt down further.

  “Get me the wooden spoon.”

  She stood motionless, incredulous. The wooden spoon? He hadn’t used it on her in years! She couldn’t remember the last time...oh, yes, suddenly she did. She was thirteen, and he’d caught her with a teen magazine in her room, one filled with articles about rock stars and teen heartthrobs. She now remembered it very clearly.