me the bag.”
I set my satchel on the floor and pinned it against the wall with my feet. He couldn’t know. No one could know.
“Fine. Take it off.”
My teeth ground together as I unbuttoned my blouse. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see him, but I couldn’t avoid hearing the way his breathing changed. The way his inhalations hitched, his exhalations growing heavier and wetter with each button that slid through its hole.
“Take it off,” he repeated when I reached the last button.
Eyes still closed, I let the material slide off my shoulders, down to my elbows. His feet shuffled on the concrete floor, and I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. A second later, his fingers were there, greedy and eager. They pushed at the remaining material, shoving my bra up, squeezing, pinching.
I let it happen. I had no other way to pay.
But when his fingers fumbled with the button of my pants, my eyes flew open. “No.”
His hands stilled but didn’t retreat. “It’s not just a can of soup this time, is it? Or a loaf of bread? Whatever’s in that bag today, I think you really want it. I think you need it. Well, guess what I need….”
He tried for the button again, and I shoved him back, then clutched the open halves of my blouse to my chest. “I said no.”
“You want me to call the police?”
I made a decision then. One I couldn’t have made a day earlier. “Call them. I’ll tell them how you’ve been charging a poor, hungry schoolgirl for a year and a half, corroding my morals and defiling my innocence. We’ll see who they arrest.”
His hands fell away and his gaze hardened, staring into mine. Trying to decide whether or not to call my bluff—and any other day, it would have been a bluff, because I couldn’t afford for the police and my mother to meet. But thanks to Melanie’s collection of offenses, they were going to meet anyway, sooner or later, and if picking “sooner” would keep Dale’s hands off me, so be it.
I suffered a minor moment of panic when I realized that if I had him arrested, there would be no more free food. But then, it was never really free in the first place, was it?
“This arrangement is over.” I tugged my bra back into place, trying to forget the feel of his fingers on my skin. I buttoned my shirt while he glared at me, and then I threw my satchel over my shoulder and pushed past him to the door.
I marched to the front of the store and paid for my gum. Ruth didn’t even notice my untucked shirt.
“If I ever see you in here again, I will call the police,” Dale growled through clenched teeth as I reached for the front door.
I stopped with the door halfway open and turned back to look at him. “If you ever see me in here again, you’ll need them.”
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