Page 112 of Unexpected Hero

“Flattery will get you nowhere. You’ve shown your true colors, and they are putrid.” She turns to the bearded dragon devil creature, holding out a leaf of kale for her to munch on. “Isn’t that right, mama’s sweet angel?” The lizard chomps on the leaf.

I may never eat salad again.

“So tell me everything about your first night as a working girl.” She narrows her eyes at me, skewing her head to one side. “You look happy-adjacent.”

“Before we get to the good, the bad, and the confusing, I have something to share. And I think you’ll be exceedingly proud of me.”

One of her brows arches. “You have my attention.”

A metaphorical fist grabs my stomach and yanks it upward to the back of my throat as shame attempts to steal my moment of personal growth. But I pry myself free of its grasp.

This is something to be celebrated.

“Last night—” I cut myself off with a correction. “Well, technically, this morning,” I close my eyes and blurt out, “I watched porn.”

My eyes remain fastened shut, so I can’t see her response.

“Well, well, well. So the club was so stimulating you had to pop your porn cherry, huh? How brazen.”

I open my eyes and squeal with embarrassment. Shamelessly, Stella waggles her brows at me while shimmying her shoulders. A beaming smile spreads across her face.

“Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t the club so much as it was the book I was reading.”

She nods three times while flashing wide eyes at the screen. “Dish the details, baby. Which book? Why did you need to watch porn when you were reading it?”

My head flops backward, and my cheeks burn. “There was a scene where the main dude tied his sub to a contraption I’d never heard of.”

“Naturally,” she interjects, pointing out my inexperience.

“Yeah, but with the other books, I could more or less figure it out. Or it didn’t matter enough for me to care to look it up.”

“And this one?”

“This scene was so fucking hot steam was coming off my screen. Although I couldn’t picture exactly what was happening, I still had to,” my hands fly to my face to cover my eyes, “take care of business before I could look it up or keep reading.”

“Oh my goodness gracious, Lettie.” Glee lights up her voice.

I can’t resist seeing her expression, so I peek between my fingers. She has the crazed look of a serial killer. Eyes huge. Upper lip curled. All that’s missing is a hacksaw, rubber gloves, and some black garbage bags, and she’d be ready for an episode of CSI.

“Wait, wait, wait,” she says, her eyes narrowing.

Sensing an interrogation looming, I cringe. “Yes?”

“You watched porn for the first time and played Clitar Hero while reading a smutty book? Isn’t that a first as well?”

Returning to my cozy hideout behind my palms, I nod, far too ashamed to speak.

“Lettie! I love this for you. It’s momentous. Do you feel the chains of religious imprisonment loosening?”

Her mention of the cause of my shame seems to smack me out of needing to hide. I drop my hands, finally brave enough to face her.

Swallowing, I nod a few times and finally agree. “I do.”

I was raised thinking that masturbating is unclean and would sully my body, making me unfit for my future husband and unworthy of God’s love. And pornography of any form — written, visual, auditory — would have been far worse.

Over the last few years, my deep-rooted shame of pleasuring myself has been challenging to deal with. It’s taken a concentrated effort to work through the discomfort enough to enjoy it, but I have. Mostly. At least until it’s over when the guilt sets in.

But the idea of doing it in response to pornography of any type? I never thought I’d be able to tackle that.

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