Chapter 1

Crack!I hear the unmistakable sound of a hand swatting a bare bottom.

First there is a throaty moan, and then a muted, “Yes, Miss Baxter.”

“I do so love the color pink,” Miss Baxter says. “Particularly, when it’s laid out in the shape of my hand. And on such a lovely canvas as yours.”

I hear a chuckle and then, “Thank you, Miss Baxter.”

I straighten up and smile, carefully pulling the drinking glass away from Miss Baxter’s heavy wooden bedroom door as I do. I turn to my partner in crime, my girlfriend, who is kneeling in the darkened hallway, right beside me.

“Moona, your mom’s a freak,” I whisper. “But in a good way. It sounds like she’s really enjoying herself. Here. Listen.”

I pass the glass over. Moona sits up straight, cradling the glass in her delicate fingers, rotating it around in her hands and chewing her lower lip.

“Oh, come on,” I say. “Just listen.”

I watch Moona rise up on her knees, carefully pressing the rim of the glass up against the lower panel of Miss Baxter’s bedroom door. For a moment, her expression is unchanged. Then her eyes go wide. There was no guessing as to why. I didn’t need any eves dropping aid at the door to hear that last crack of skin on skin, and the long, husky exhale that followed.

I watch a smile spreading slowly over Moona’s lips.

“See what I mean?”

“She does seem to be enjoying herself.”

I’m not surprised at all. Moona and I had been exclusive for over a year now, and if anyone were to press a glass against my door when Moona spent the night, they’d be treated to much the same. Now I know from which side of the family she inherited her cravings.

I hold my hand out for the glass. Moona hugs it close, in the crook of her arm, like a football player bracing for a hit. She looks at me sideways.

“Jessica, it’s my mom,” she says, her eyes pleading.

I wiggle my fingers. “I saw you grinning. My turn. Hand it over.”

She pouts, but soon the drinking glass is back in my hand and pressed up against the door.

“You’ve always been my girl, Hasiba.” Miss Baxter says. “Throughout the years and the miles that separated us, you never left my thoughts. Or my heart.”

“Thank you, Miss Baxter.”

“And, as my girl, I promise I will always look after you and care for you. But like before, it also means that you have rules. Rules that you must follow. Are you prepared to follow the rules I have laid out for you?”

“Yes, Miss Baxter.”

“And, will you accept the consequences that come from breaking those rules?”

“Yes, Miss Baxter.”

“On your knees, Hasiba. Pull your hair up and lace your fingers behind your head.”

I hear a rustling that in my mind I picture as Moona’s mother climbing down from Miss Baxter’s knee and onto the floor. I motion Moona over with my free hand.

“Are you ready for me to put this on you, so everyone will know you’re my girl?”

“Yes, Miss Baxter.”

I turn to Moona, waving my hand and pointing toward the glass against the door. I’m hoping she’ll be quick enough to hear the good part.

“You need to hear this,” I say.

Then, for whatever reason—maybe it was the excitement of everything, I don’t know—the glass slips from my hand and lands with a dull thud on the hardwood—right at the threshold of Miss Baxter’s bedroom door. I suck a breath and freeze.

A surge of adrenaline has my senses on overdrive, and I don’t need a glass pressed to the door to hear Miss Baxter’s words as she says, “I’ll go check.”

I snatch the drinking glass up off the floor and whip my head around to stare at Moona. “Busted,” I hiss, with my eyes wide. “Go.”

She’s already moving.

I’m guessing Miss Baxter was not entirely dressed and that’s why she’s slow getting to the door. If she had been quicker, she would have been treated to the sight of two of her boarders scurrying away on hands and knees, bolting for the dark shadows like a pair of church mice running from the bishop and his broom.

Except, the mice in question this evening only made it as far as the parlor.

Hearing the creak of a floorboard, I grab Moona by the hand and drag her with me as I leap for the chaise. “Shh!” I hiss and then, with my hand on the back of her head, I mash her lips against mine.