The Birth of a Porn Star: Defying Daddy's Wishes (6 page)

“I’d do well to do
what she told me to do. Use my brain as something else other than sausage
gravy.”

I stormed from the
room.
Family first! Shit.
Did he realize what he was asking me to do?
Did he realize that my dreams were completely different? Did what I want matter
at all? The farm was his dream — his responsibility — not mine.

I marched up to my
room and slammed the door. I scooped my Teddy bear, Junior, from his perch on
my pillow. He was my longtime friend and confidant. He always listened.

“They blame me,
Junior. Somehow, selling Blaze is my fault. Like I can control the f’-ing weather.”
I held Junior to my stomach, but somehow my childhood toy didn’t offer me any
comfort. He felt empty to me and the warmth he used to provide during stormy
nights and windy weather was gone. All he did was stare at my chest with his
black, lifeless eyes. I needed someone to talk to—someone who could talk back
and someone who wouldn’t cast all of the blame on me.

Someone who could
think rationally, even though I knew there were no rational answers to my
problems.

There weren’t any
rational
answers, but what I didn’t realize was that there were some
irrational
ones.

I didn’t want
anyone to know I left, so I waited until Bree and my dad were asleep. I climbed
from my window and down the trellis that almost got a boy killed not too many
years before. I headed out, walking through the wooded property behind our
house. Alena’s house wasn’t but a skip away. She always listened as long as I
could get her to shut up.

I grabbed a
handful of tiny rocks from her driveway as I headed around back. Her room was
on the second floor and even though her light was off, I knew she wouldn’t be
sleeping. She never went to sleep early. If there were ever a night owl, she
was it.

It took me several
throws, but I finally nailed her window. She peeked out a second later,
smiling. It wasn’t the first time I snuck over to call her from her room at
night. I didn’t know it at the time, but it would be the last.

Alena snuck
through the back door two minutes later and we headed to our secret spot. It
was a little alcove of trees, tucked away by the creek bed. I sat on a stump
and Alena started gathering kindling for a fire. It wasn’t cold, but Alena
always insisted on having a fire. She says it’s because she likes to see better
and because it keeps the bugs away, but I know better. She’s infatuated with
fire. Her eyes burn almost as hot as the flames whenever she stares at the pit.
I let her build her fire, but for me, it’s because of the bugs.

“It’s been a
while, Dally. I was beginning to think you didn’t love me anymore,” she said as
she planted her butt on her own stump. I can’t help but admire her as the
flames light up her silhouette in the night. Even at midnight, she is stunning
to me. I don’t say that because I’m a lesbian—I’m not. I say it because she
exudes a sexiness that I wish I could possess. Guys flirt with me almost as
much as they do her, but they flirt with me for the opposite reason they do
her. I am ‘the girl next door’ type. Everyone says it. They flirt with her
because she exudes possibility. You can see it in her eyes when she looks at
you. With her auburn hair spilling down to her shoulders, soft curls trailing
about like cascading waterfalls, her eyes shimmer and her smile invites you.
I’m not even a guy and I am not into women. Yet, looking at her makes me think
about sex. Something she’s always dressed for. It’s the middle of the night and
she’s wearing a button up half shirt tied in the front—no bra and jean shorts
cut high. She exudes sex. She is a brunette version of Marilyn Monroe and I
have darker brown hair but I’m more like an intelligent version of
Ellie May
Clampett. So not sexy. Pretty as all get out, but not sexy at all.
It makes
me want to chase the country right out of myself.

I flash a smile at
her, but there’s no heart in it.

“On your period,
sis?” she says with a slight pause. “Oh, shoot. I forgot. Tomorrow’s the day
isn’t it?”

I nod. She knows
what’s supposed to happen.

“How much crop did
your dad lose?”

“Half,” I tell
her. “He lost half and some of the other half looks like it’s starting to water-rot.
We don’t have a choice, I guess.”

“I guess we’re
lucky. My dad says we only lost a quarter. A lot of our land is on the hills
and irrigated.”

I nod again.
“We’re stuck in the valleys. Dad had to sell off the better land the last time
things got rough.”

“Wish I could
help,” Alena says. She reached down and grabbed a stick, tracing circles in the
dirt in front of her.

“Yeah, I know. I
think Bree hates me. They both do. Somehow, they blame me.”

Alena huffs. “To
her, you are Mother Theresa, Dallas. You couldn’t do wrong if you slaughtered
baby bunnies for fun.”

“She thought the
world of my mom too. Dying wasn’t my mom’s fault but Bree still won’t visit her
grave and she leaves the room whenever anyone brings her up.”

“She’s hurt.
That’s all.”

“After I leave for
college, will she leave the room if someone mentions my name? Will she resent
me for abandoning her and give me the cold shoulder every time I visit?”

Alena stares at
the end of her stick as it makes more circles in the ground. She shrugs her
shoulders. “She might. You’re the closest thing she has to a mom now. Have been
for seven years.”

“Don’t say that.
God, why does everyone keep suggesting that I’m the mother now? I’m not!”

The idea of
abandoning my own dreams pricks my heart, and my tears immediately come back
for a reunion with my face, but I know I cannot desert my sister. I can’t and I
won’t. That idea somehow seems worse. The idea of doing to her the same thing
that my mother did, but by choice instead of an avoidable fate, makes me feel
like a creep.

“What am I going
to do, Alena? I blame me too. I know it’s not my fault and yet I keep beating
myself up over it. Blaze is as much a part of my family as I am.”

“There’s no easy
way out of that, Dallas. Let it go. You have no choice.”

I laugh aloud,
causing Alena to give me a weird look, because my laugh isn’t just the kind of
laugh you give when you get a little frustration. It’s a deep and long belly
laugh—the kind nutty people have when they’re feeding on Jell-O with a plastic
spoon.

“What?” Elena asks
me weirdly.

I don’t know how
to put my thoughts into words any more than Petrie did when the same nutty
thought ran through his head. Thinking about telling her what I was thinking
makes me laugh again and Alena throws a hand onto her thigh and gives me an
even dirtier look.

“Nothing,” I say.
“I was just thinking that I could get out of it. If I were desperate enough; I
could help the family avoid selling Blaze and I could save the farm at the same
time.”

“How?”

“Sell myself to
Moran. Essentially that’s what he insinuates every time he comes rooting around
our farm like the fat pig he is.”

“That’s fucking
gross, Dallas—not funny at all! Just gross!”

“I know, right! I
mean, could you picture it? That hefty fuck pushing that fat ass into me with
my legs buried into the bed beneath him?”

“OH, SHIT, Dallas!
Eeeewwww! How could you even say something like that?”

Because I’m
losing my mind, Alena. Because I love my sister so damn much that I would
rather give that cow of a man my virginity than see her cry.

I don’t say those
words, because I can’t bear the thought of really doing something so drastic,
but a part of me is almost that desperate. I know doing that would make the
rest of my life miserable and the thought of letting that pig of a man have a
sense of winning over my entire family makes it even more unthinkable, but at
the same time, knowing that I could save Bree some unneeded pain, would almost
be reward enough. Almost.

I sit silently
without answering and Alena stares at me.

“Is this why you
came to me tonight? Are you thinking about doing that?”

I shrug and my
tears threaten to bring me to the dirt before me, because I’m not far from
doing just that.
God help me!

“Don’t you even
dare, God Dammit!” Alena says to me and for the first time in our lives, I
swear she was about to cry. I never thought in a million years I would ever see
that day, but her eyes begin to quake and her fingers start trembling.

“There’s another
option. It’s crazy and you’re so not the type, but you could do it. I think.”

“Do what?”

“What Marissa
did.”

I screw up my
face, because I was confused. “What, go help a sick aunt for two months?” I
asked her. “Wait, isn’t she going back to help again in a week?”

“She didn’t visit
a sick aunt, Dallas.”

Marissa and Alena were
close friends. I think Alena was the best friend Marissa had. Marissa and I
didn’t see eye to eye, but I never gave Alena crap about being close friends
with her. If there was an alternate truth about Marissa and her situation, then
I guess Alena would be the one to know it.

“What really
happened then?”

“If I tell you,
you have to die with it. You have to swear on it, Dallas. I mean it.”

“I swear. What
happened?”

“She sold herself
for two months to some rich guy from Florida.”

“Like a
prostitute?”

“More like a
slave, Dallas. You gotta swear, you won’t utter a word. She begged me not to
tell anyone. She doesn’t want her dad humiliated.”

“Wait? Is that why
they didn’t have to sell their farm?”

Alena nodded. “He
paid them a shit ton of money for her.”

“You’re joking,
right? That’s nuts.”

“Is it? Is it any
crazier than what you were just thinking about with Moran? Think about it.
Moran is fucking uber rich, but he’s a gross fuck. Marissa’s master is actually
hot. I’d do him.”

“You’d do almost
anybody… Wait? Have you met him?”

Alena gave me an
evil smile and she nodded like an eager kid.

“You’re serious,
aren’t you? You’re not making this up? She
actually
sold herself?”

Alena nodded,
giving me her most serious,
I’m serious
, look.

I shook my head no
insistently. “Nobody
agrees
to stuff like that. I mean, I’m sure that
there’s an underground sex trade. I’m sure many women that go missing are
because they’re kidnapped for it, but this? You’re suggesting that she
volunteered? It’s nuts!”

“I’d do it. In a
heartbeat, as long as I knew I wasn’t sold to some kind of Jeffrey Daumer or
somebody like that. As long as I knew I was safe.”

“You would not,
Alena. It’s
crazy!
”

“I would and you
know I would. It’d be
kinky!
Assuming the guy was as sexy as the one who
bought Marissa. Kind of wish you could meet him, judge for yourself. My dad
would never go for it, though. He’s not desperate for money like that. Yours
probably wouldn’t either, even though he is desperate. It would solve all of
your problems though.
”

“
It doesn’t sound sexy, Alena. No matter how
hot the guy is. It sounds creepy. What’s he do? Tie her up? Put her in
handcuffs? Make her do whatever he wants? What does she get out of it?”

“According to her,
orgasms. They line up for her like bowling pins,” she said smiling. Her smile
was dreamy and distant. It was the kind of smile that defies reality because
the thing causing it can’t be real. To be fair, her fantasy wasn’t any more
realistic than mine was. In my head, I saw some fancy rich guy swooping down
like a knight, riding in on his own version of Blaze, but white. A white horse
would be perfect. He would come in, hop off his horse and knock Moran’s
oversized cowboy hat from his head, exposing his fat head and come up with some
miraculous plan to save our farm, wiping Moran’s victorious grin from all three
of his jowls. My hero would be good looking too, of course. Why not dream a
sexy guy up to save the day? A girl can make anything up in her head and I
could see how my dream guy would make my panties wet. The idea of a guy like
that saving me, saving our farm … Yeah. I’d give him what he wanted. Gladly. I
guess Alena’s fantasy was no different than mine in some ways. Unrealistic is
unrealistic.

I sat there for a
moment soaking it in.
Nuts! It’s just nuts!
My mind kept repeating that
in my head repeatedly, like strings of jellybeans falling from a candy jar. I
could continue to argue with Alena about whether or not she would do something
so utterly insane, but I could tell that she would really do it. If the reality
matched her fantasy, I could see that she wanted to. I guess that shouldn’t
surprise me. She sexes it up whenever she has the chance. She’s always letting
the knuckle draggers take her for a spin and bragging about how ‘rough’ it was.

“How much did she
get,” I asked, addressing the elephant in the room.