Page 16 of Shining Through

Pathetic.

Rod and Blondie were naked now, and Blondie took his enormous, well, rod, into her mouth. He thrust deep, grasping her hair in his hands. Tabitha couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

Then the room door opened. Samara and Xtina sauntered in and Tabitha lunged for the remote. Instead, she accidentally knocked the damn thing on the floor.

“Holy shit! The World’s Oldest Virgin celebrates her bronze medal by watching porn!” Samara dropped her shopping bags and whipped out her phone to snap a photo.

Flopped on her stomach, Tabitha groped for the missing remote. “Samara, if you post that, I swear to God, I will murder you!”

“Instagram?” Xtina asked.

“Not even Snapchat. Relax, Sis.” Samara tossed her phone to Tabitha, then retrieved the remote and took a seat at the foot of the bed. Tabitha scrolled through the photos. Thank God, the incriminating one was gone.

Xtina joined them. She fished a large, colorful canister from one of her shopping bags, and scooped out a handful of caramel cheese popcorn as she stared at the screen. “Emo Boy kind of looks like that hot Russian guy we saw in the lobby.”

Tabitha jerked her gaze away from the movie. “You saw Daniil?”

Samara narrowed her eyes. “You know him?”

Her face flushed hot. “He’s a skater. I talked to him at the reception.”

“And?” Samara pinched caramel corn from the tin.

“And nothing. He left and went to a bar with two women. Who look kind of like her.” Tabitha nodded at Blondie.

“So you came up here to watch porn all by yourself.”

“I know. I’m pathetic.”

“No you aren’t! He is! I mean, he was talking to you, and then took off with a pair of skanks?”

“It wasn’t like that. They were just employees from one of the vendor booths. And he invited me to come to the bar with them.”

“But you said no?” Samara’s voice rose. “Why?”

Tabitha sighed. “You wouldn’t understand.” They turned back to the TV. Rod and Blondie were going at it hard.

“It’s not too late,” Samara said. “Do you know the name of the bar?”

Tabitha nodded. “But one of the women said it wasn’t my kind of place. I’m sure she’s right. I’m the Ice Queen. The World’s Oldest Virgin.”

“Hey.” Samara put a comforting hand on Tabitha’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have said that. You’re after something so much bigger than just hooking up with random dudes.”

“And after you win your gold medal, the dudes will be there,” added Xtina.

“I suppose.” It was small consolation for how lonely she felt tonight.

Then Samara rose from the bed, and studied Tabitha, her brow knitted. “What if you went to this bar, not as you, but as someone else?”

“Like in disguise? Are you insane? What if someone recognized me? They’d put it online, it would go viral, and I’d never live it down.”

“No one will recognize you. Xtina was the best student in our class at Wilshire Beauty Academy. And even though I dropped out, I still do a kick-ass cat eye.”

Her sister’s dark dramatic eyes were proof of that. Xtina dug a new anime wig from one of her shopping bags. She settled the synthetic electric blue hair piece on Tabitha’s head and arranged the heavy fringe of bangs over her eyes. “White shimmer lipstick?” Xtina asked.

“Definitely,” Samara agreed.

Tabitha rose and went to the mirror, pushing the stray locks that had escaped from her bun out of sight. Samara’s black leather jacket hung on the back of a chair. Tabitha slipped it over her silk blouse. With her hair hidden, and someone else’s clothes, she looked nothing like herself.

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