Page 2 of His Virgin Vessel

But Dad went on. "Just until you've matured a bit."

"I'm twenty-three!"

"Only in years," my dad said unhelpfully. "In behavior, you're still about sixteen."

"Dad!"

"How many apartments have you been through now? And it always ends the same way."

The first I had lost because I just ran out of money. I think it happens to a lot of people having to pay rent and bills on their own for the first time—you just lose track. The second one I lost when I held a party and a stray cigarette fell down the back of the bed.We put the fire out before it had done any real damage, but the landlord still threw me out. The third time, I moved in with a boyfriend and, a week later, found him in bed with someone else. Actually, that happened the fifth time as well. The fourth wasn't really my fault; the work dried up. It was hard to make a living as an artist, especially out in the country. That was why I kept trying to move to the city, but, of course, then the rents were more expensive and there were more of what my father referred to as 'temptations.’ Which basically meant boys and booze, which was what the sixth and seventh apartments were lost to, respectively. The eighth, as you already know, was down to a jackass called Logan.

"I have bad luck," I said.

My dad nodded. "Yes, you do. You have the bad luck to take after your mother."

Anger flashed through me. It was hard to say what actually made me angrier, the fact that he was taking cheap shots at my mom, or the fact that he was comparing me to the irresponsible adulteress who abandoned me along with the rest of her family. There were always complex feelings to deal with when the subject of my mother came up.

"I am nothing like Mom!" I yelled back at my Dad.

"Then stop acting like her. And stop shouting. While you're living under my roof, you will treat me with a bit of respect."

"I'm twenty-three!"

"That's a reason to be more respectful, not less. Behave like a grown up, damn you!"

"This is why Mom left!" I snapped at him. I knew that this was the weapon that always struck home. We all knew that Mom had been a loose cannon, that she had cheated on Dad, and been pretty disinterested in her two daughters. Yet there was always a fear in Dad, packaged away somewhere towards the back of his mind, that he had somehow driven her to it. And I wasn't afraid to use it against him. "You wouldn't let her live the way she wanted, and it broke her spirit."

I saw my dad's face flush and knew that I had hurt him. I had also angered him. "How dare you?" His voice was low and thick, as it always was when he was really furious. "How dare you defend her and take her side? I'm the one who raised you."

"And what a brilliant job you've made of it! You must be so proud!"

Dad drew himself up. "You may think that you're too big to be put across my knee, Corinne, but I'll prove that wrong if I have to."

Before I had a chance to answer, Risa stepped back into the room, judiciously putting herself between us.

"I don't want to interrupt but, you know, it's Corinne's first day back, and you want to save something for tomorrow. I mean, she hasn't even got out of the doorway yet."

I glanced down at where my bags lay by the door, where Dad had put them when I came in. We'd gone from arrival to arguing in less than five minutes, picking up pretty much exactly where we'd left off when I moved into apartment number eight a month ago. I hadn't yet even had the chance to unpack the bags, which contained the majority of my worldly possessions (except my underwear which, slightly worryingly, Logan had taken with him).

Inasmuch as I took after Mom—I certainly looked like her—Risa took after Dad. I wasn't all Mom—or at least, I certainly hoped that I wasn't. Likewise, Risa wasn't all Dad. She was sweet and funny (which Dad could be in his day), and she was a natural peacemaker (which Dad was too, when dealing with anyone other than his own family). Unlike Dad, though, she tried to see the good in everyone and every situation. That was perhaps why she always went to bat for me, which otherwise would have been a little outside her nature, because where Risa took after Dad the most was in her adherence to, and belief in, The Rules.

You could actually hear the capitals when Dad talked about The Rules, just like when he talked about The Law, and Risa was the same. Mom was, by nature, a rule-breaker and a rebel. I guess it was a measure of how much she and Dad loved each other that two such different people were able to make things work for long enough to have two kids. I took after Mom in that respect—as soon as someone told me what I wasn’t allowed to do, or what I wasn’t allowed to have, then that was the thing I wanted to do or to have. Words like ‘don't' or 'prohibited' made my palms itch and gave me a hot little tingle inside, and don't even get me started on 'forbidden'. Perhaps it was childish, but that was how I was wired.

A lifetime of enforcing the law had made Sheriff Brian Dugas (aka Dad) a stickler for The Rules, ably assisted by his own dad (dear old Pops), a properly hard bastard who drummed respect and obedience into his son with his belt. Dad was never like that, and I sometimes wondered if he regretted going too easy on us because of his own upbringing. But then, Risa and I were raised the same way, with the same rules and the same discipline, and look how that turned out.

I used to think that Risa was lucky. Unlike Dad, she didn't have obedience of The Rules instilled into her by force, nor did she believe in it as an article of faith the way he did. She was born obedient. It made her happy to follow the straight and narrow and do as she was told. Like I said: lucky. What made Risa happy made me infuriated, and what thrilled me scared the pants off Risa. We couldn't have been more different in that respect, one of those cruel tricks that genetics from time to time played. All Risa had to do to please Dad was to be herself, while, conversely, nothing made him angrier than me being myself.

Despite all this, Risa was my best friend in the world. She stuck up for me in everything and encouraged me to be myself and follow my own path. The fact that following my own path was in direct contravention to everything she believed never bothered her. She just wanted me to be happy. The world would be a better place if everyone could be a bit more like Risa. Come to think of it, our house would be a better place if I could be a bit more like her.

"You know what I think?" said Risa, bright as ever. "I think Cor could use some cheering up."

"Cheering up?" Dad looked as if Risa had just suggested robbing a bank.

"She's lost a boyfriend and a home all in one day."

Dad rolled his eyes. "Well she's had plenty of practice at it. How down can she be?"

"Let's have a girls' night out!" Risa said, ignoring my dad.

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