Page 28 of Vandal Unbound

And as Vandal comes in my dreams, so do I. For just a few moments, the world slips away. The struggles, finances, Elsie’s sneakers. I’m able to cling to the person I want to be. The carefree, sexual being who is confident in their own skin. Who is happy and secure.

Fantasy-Vandal holds fantasy-me close as we come together, and I ride out the end of my real orgasm alone. When I’m done, I flop over onto my back. I have a love-hate relationship with masturbation. I love how good it feels in the moment, but when it includes a fantasy as good as that one, I sometimes feel a little lonely afterwards.

Although…oh my God…Vandal.

I need to stop doing this to myself. There is no me and Vandal. No Vandal and I. No dirty sex talk. And no happy families.

Reluctantly, I pull myself out of bed. I’ve been busy with my day off. I cleaned the place and washed and folded and put away all the laundry. Once done, I showered in a sparkling clean tuband even took a minute to put on a little bit of makeup before giving in to thoughts of Vandal.

So, it doesn’t take me long to pull on some underwear, jean shorts, a white T-shirt, and sandals. I also grab Elsie’s ice water before I leave.

It’s a suffocatingly warm ride to the camp building where I park down the street. But it’s worth it when I see Elsie’s happy face waiting for me by the gates.

“Momma,” she shouts when she notices me walking toward her.

My T-shirt sticks to me in places, but I hold the large cup of ice water for Elsie. It’s her favorite. There’s so much ice in there, I’m not sure there’s that much available water.

I sent her out looking half presentable with neat pigtails in her hair, a lilac T-shirt, and a cute pair of denim shorts. Now she’s wearing some rainbow-striped top with sequins that’s two sizes too big, and her legs are covered in dirt. She’s carrying her backpack in one hand and some artwork she created in the other.

“Hey, sweetheart. You look like you’ve had an…exciting…day.”

She beams up at me as she hands me her backpack, and I give her the water. She slurps on it like she hasn’t drunk anything all day. “We did some reading.”

We walk our usual route to the car. Because we live in an apartment where it isn’t super safe for her to just go out and play, I like to park about twenty minutes’ walk from the camp building, so we get a little bit of after-camp fresh air. Today, because of the orgasm, it’s only ten. “Did you enjoy it?”

She nods enthusiastically. “Miss Bradley did all these voices. Some high and some low and some kinda funny.”

“That does sound fun.” But, God, do they have to set the bar so high that I feel like I have to do a stage-worthy readingperformance every night when I tuck Elsie into bed? “I guess you did some art today too?”

She lifts the picture to me. “It’s you, me, and Vandal.”

I almost laugh at the proportions. Daisy and I look like almost stick people, and Vandal takes up half the page. She’s still at that stage where bodies are either triangles or squares with sticks for limbs. But she’s given Vandal two big thick black legs.

“I even painted his gold star.” A yellow blob sits on his black leather jacket.

There’s also a stark reminder that children see everything. While Elsie and I have got scribbled pencil dots for eyes, Vandal’s are red and there’s a childlike series of crisscross lines for scars above his eye.

“Can we go give it to him please?” When she turns her face up to me, she’s got those big eyes that almost always make me want to concede.

It would be impossible to explain to a newly minted five-year-old how my body kinda melts at the idea, but my brain is waving so many red flags, I can barely think straight.

We do not need to go and see Vandal.

I am an adult and more than cable of giving Daisy a hundred and one reasons why we can’t go see him: We need to pick up groceries. It’s too hot. I don’t know where he lives.

Instead, I settle on the one answer I shouldn’t give.

“Sure, sweetheart, we can try and see if he’s at the clubhouse.”

I hope he is, because it will be good for her to see the first man she hasn’t been scared of since birth.

I should write a book titled,The Lies I Tell Myself.

We ride in the direction of the clubhouse, and I end up jacking the volume on the radio and singing raucously with Elsie, because otherwise this whole go-or-don’t-go thing will continue in my head.

“Momma,” Elsie says.

I glance in the rearview mirror. “Yes, hunny bunny.”