“Because it’s different when you’re in the hands of a man.”

“Show me.”

I didn’t answer.

“Please,” she purred, and this time she managed to glide her bikini-ed groin over my training shorts. Fuck, I wasn’t sure if it was the ocean or her, but something there was damp.

That’s when I lost it.

I closed the distance between us, allowing her to grind on me freely, like I was a fucking stripper pole, while playing with both her tits, watching her as my dick grew impossibly hard. Already, the strain in my balls felt like too much. I‘m not much of a foreplay guy, but here I was getting hot slowly and steadily, being led by the fucking cock to something that wouldn’t materialize.

“I’m coming,” she said, her legs clenching around my thigh. My cock poked at her inner thigh, and she knew it, because she goddamn rubbed against it even more, the friction making a little pre-cum leak. It made my crown stick to my briefs and this really was getting out of control.

“Tell me why you need twelve thousand dollars a month, and I will let you,” I hissed in her face, careful to leave enough space for her not to try to kiss me. She whimpered, riding my thigh like a fucking rodeo, rubbing her clit on my quad, her eyes shut. She was inside the moment, in a bubble, and didn’t want me to burst it.

“Answer me, now.”

“Trent…”

“Who is giving you trouble?” Who the fuck am I going to need to end? “Why do you need to come up with this kind of money?”

Nothing.

She was getting close. Her thighs were quivering, and now I knew it wasn’t the fucking ocean. It was her. “Spit it out.”

“No.”

“Edie.”

“No.”

I withdrew from her in a hot second, leaving her to fall to the sand, panting and aroused. Her hair was all over her face, her bikini bottoms had a small spot of arousal and her nipples were so hard she could probably cut me to a bleeding point with them.

I frowned. “One last chance, Edie.”

But she knew as well as I did that the moment was gone. I couldn’t touch her after this. After breaking that drunken spell. My cock was still pointing at her furiously, demanding her attention, but my mind was starting to catch up with reality.

“Fuck you,” she said, again, just as she had when I’d caught her stealing.

“Not happening,” I said, again.

“Maybe next time.” She laughed, getting up from the sand and walking over to her backpack, retrieving her earbuds, hoodie, and shorts.

I smirked, turning my back on her, making sure I was loud and clear. “Cling to the memory of dry-humping me, Van Der Zee, because that’s where it ends.”

THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THAT morning that had felt rotten even before I opened my eyes. My intuition proved to be right as I walked into the kitchen to find my mother crawling on the floor, gathering bits and pieces of…what? What in the world was she holding? It fell between her fingers, like molten gold.

Hair.

It was her hair. My eyes darted from the floor to her.

My mother had cut it all off.

Every inch of wispy blonde hair was gone. The lonely patches of yellow hung from her skull reluctantly, uneven in shape and length. Her eyes were red. And the blonde beautiful hair she took pride in…it was everywhere.

“I need it back.” She snapped her head up to look at me. “Oh, God, Edie. What have I done? Now he’ll never want me. I just…I need to fix this.”

I made her tea. Shoved her pills down her throat. Told her I would get it all fixed, even though we both knew there was nothing I could do. Then it was time for me to face the music and her husband.

I stood at the front door, my father outside, his monstrous Range Rover already purring. He stuck his head through his window, obviously annoyed at how his driver had called in sick that morning and now he had to do the journey from Todos Santos to Los Angeles using his precious hands and holy feet. My car was still at the shop so it made sense to carpool, even though the idea of spending time with him in a confined space sent uncomfortable shivers up my spine.

“Come on, Edie. It’s time to go,” he barked.

“Mom,” I said, gripping at the doorframe and feeling myself losing balance, “do you need me to stay with you today? Please be honest, because I will. I totally will.” She was getting worse. So much worse. But not as bad as she’d been when she’d been hospitalized for a year because she’d completely lost it and tried to slit her wrists. She didn’t cut too deep, fortunately, which meant I wasn’t orphaned at the age of twelve. But I still remember what my father had told her two months after she got back home from the rehabilitation center.