Page 21 of Shake the Spirit

“She’s been trapped in her church family craziness. How much is too much? I don’t want to be a greedy pig.”

“Are you asking me because I’m considered sleazy? Judging people is wrong, you overly muscular oaf!”

“No, no, it’s just that you’re sexually liberated.”

“Is that code for whore?”

“I need help!”

“Okay, so what’s the deal? Is she sucking you off through your jeans? Are you unsure if it’s too soon for a money shot?”

Exhaling with frustration, I don’t respond for long enough to get Tuesday to be serious.

“Don’t sigh at me,” she texts. “I’m helping in my own way.”

“She’s so innocent yet also naughty, like a virgin in a rush to lose her cherry. Help me find the line.”

“I fucked Bullet the night we met,” she responds, and I imagine her using that info to get her man’s engine revving. “Just give me a second to channel a virgin’s thought process.”

While Tuesday tries to remember what she was like as a virgin many eons ago, I press my ear against the door to check if Oana is laughing at the “South Park” episode I left on. All I hear is dead silence and occasionally Cartman whining.

“Do not fuck her!!!” Tuesday texts. “Yet. Wait for a day or two, at least. If Roxie was hot for some guy, she might be ready to ravish the meat off his dong. However, I know for a fact she would regret moving so fast.”

I assume Tuesday is reading her texts out loud to her husband’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Roxie. My cousin spends half her day annoying people or amping up the theatrics. However, she’s also loyal and smarter than she looks.

“Okay, no fucking. But can I make her come?” I ask like a kid needing shit dumbed down. “She’s really horny.”

“Her Quaker upbringing left her in need of a good porking. But I still suggest you wait. Say you want to hold off until she’s your wife, so she’ll understand you’re more than a hard dick needing a wet pussy.”

“I’m rephrasing that.”

“I don’t know why. It was fucking poetry, but you do you, Ike.”

“But can I make her come if I don’t use my dick?”

“No mouth or fingers. Just climb in bed together, undies only. Turn off the light. Kiss her until she’s got hard nipples and wet panties. Then, you rub that out for her. Let her go wild without an audience. A girl like that isn’t ready to porn star holler on day one.”

“I feel like you’re both being helpfully descriptive and trying to gross me out.”

“It’s not gross for you to want to slip between her folds and make her come apart.”

“Yeah, but it is gross for you to think of me doing that.”

“Wait, were you raised by Quakers, too?”

Rather than answer her mocking question, I thank her for the advice. I return to the room to find Oana frowning at the TV show.

“Is this real?” she immediately asks me.

“Like how?”

“Those aren’t people.”

“No, it’s a cartoon.”

“It’s not like any cartoon I’ve ever seen before.”

“I can turn it off.”

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