Page 32 of Elijah's Hope
“What?”
“What if I snore? What if I’m a horrible snorer? Worse, what if I fart in my sleep?”
I laughed at that. “I can deal with a little snoring and some farting. I’ve slept in barracks with over twenty men. You have no idea the things I’ve heard that people do while they sleep.”
“Yes, but they’re men! They’re supposed to do those things. I’m a lady! I would be so humiliated, and I wouldn’t even know it.”
“Okay, how about this,” I said, settling her back down on me. I liked how she felt tucked into my side. “If I do hear any noises throughout the night, we’ll pretend they came from me. Fair?”
“Fair. I like this,” she said, snuggling closer against me and resting her leg across my thighs. I could feel my dick becoming fully hard, but I ignored it. “I like having someone to hold and talk to while I’m in bed.”
“That’s fine, but you know eventually you have to sleep.”
“I will, but not yet. Tell me a secret. Something you would never tell anybody, but here lying in this bed with me, away from everyone, it’s safe.”
I had no idea where the words came from. I had never told another person this secret. But Shelby was right. I felt incredibly safe with her.
“I told you about my mom. How things were with me growing up. What I didn’t tell you was that to earn what little we had my mom…stripped. She was a stripper. When I was a little kid, she would take me to the club all the time because she couldn’t afford day care. I saw my first full-on naked woman when I think I was, like, six or seven. Had my first kiss when I was ten because one of the girls my mother worked with thought it would be funny to teach me how to kiss.”
I felt her get tense. I expected it. A girl who grew up like Shelby did wouldn’t understand being in the kind of circumstance that left a woman with no choice but to use the last thing left to her. Her body.
However, to know me, to truly understand me, she had to know this part of my life, too.
Then she squeezed me with her arm and her leg. “You didn’t like her doing that.”
Her perception didn’t surprise me. It was odd, but I had almost come to expect it from her.
“No,” I said roughly. “I was ashamed of her. The worst part, though, was she knew it. She started to resent me for it and I couldn’t blame her. Like I told you, she was tough. A survivor, I guess. We always had an apartment, we always had food. She had a car. All of that she earned doing what she did. But I know it made her feel like she was less of person because of it. I didn’t help that, which was why I left as soon as I could.”
“That’s why you don’t like guys talking trash to women. They talked that way to your momma?”
“I don’t like it because it’s rude, crude and small. But…yeah. I had to hear a lot of men say shit to my mom. Now, if I hear it, I do something about it.”
She was quiet for a time, as if processing that and maybe what it meant to her being with me.
“Where’s your momma now?”
“She’s in Portland. She’s…well, obviously she’s too old to strip. Now she works as a waitress at a diner. Without me there, plus what I send her, it’s enough for her to get by.”
Shelby sighed and nuzzled her nose into my chest. “Do you talk to her? Visit her for holidays and stuff?”
“No. Hardly at all.”
“Hmm. I think you should try and talk to her about it. How you felt about her job. How you felt like she resented you for that. You were a kid. You might not have understood everything she was going through. It might help both of you.”
I thought about the last time I had seen my mother. Six years ago? Seven, maybe. I had been on leave and wanted to check in on her. Neither of us knew how to talk to each other after being apart for so long. It had been awkward for both of us.
No, I thought. The distance worked for us.
“I don’t think she would want that.”
“I don’t know about that. I think you looked at her through the eyes of a boy who wanted better things for his momma. And didn’t like what she had to do for those men who wanted something from her. Now, you can see she was doing what she had to do for you. You could tell her that, forgive her for it. It might ease her burden.”
It was an old argument I’d had with myself over the years.
“Yes, but did she? Did she have to strip? She always said it was the only way she could make the kind of money to support us, but there are other jobs. Other things she could have done. Waitressing at a nice restaurant or working two crappy jobs instead of one. I started working when I was fourteen. I was contributing to the household bills. Covering at least what I ate. Did she still have to do what she was doing?”
That earned another squeeze from Shelby. “Maybe she could have found a better job, but sometimes people get ideas stuck in their head like they are only good for one thing. Enough people tell them that and it just reinforces it. Your momma knew she could make money doing that one thing, and maybe that’s all she thought she could do. Don’t be too hard on her for that.”
