Plan C

He's a man. I'm a woman. Nineteen years was long enough to save myself and maybe I watch too much talk television, but in this day and age, is my virginity really my daddy's business once I check out of high school?

Some people would say it is. Fathers, a lot of them, would say that there isn't any part of his little girl that isn't his business, from the day she's born til the night he steps foot into the earth. Maybe that's true and now you can see the sort of thoughts I was wrestling with. It wasn't cut and dry, and nice and neat. It was like layers and shadows, and all the desires to be me fighting with the desires to be what daddy wanted. It wasn't fair and I'd just had my big chance, taken my shot at some independence, real or imagined, and I'd blown it.

"Why me, Johnny?" I asked, laying on my bed and closing my eyes.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"A-1 Plumbing, this is Lonnie..."

"Hey, it's me again, is my dad there?" I was calling because I wasn't going to go to my classes. I wasn't going to stay in my dorm. I wanted to go home and sulk in my bedroom.

"Kylie? He sure is honey, hold on..." Lonnie was an old Korean woman and some of the guys joked she was from North Korea, cause she could be ruthless with running the office, but she and I got along great.

More Mancini.

"Kylie? What's wrong?" My dad always assumed the worst.

"You need better music on your phones." I joked, just to see if I could do it.

"I meant besides that." My dad chuckled, so I guess I sounded okay.

"I'm gonna come back home, I'm not feeling really great and..."

"You're sick?" My dad cut me off. "Do you need a doctor, what's wrong?"

"No, dad..." I forced a laugh. "It's kind of a girl thing, you know?"

"Oh..." and then "...Oh! Right, I see, well sure come on home."

"Uh..."

"Oh yeah, you need a ride...Um, hold on..." My dad said something muffled to someone else. "...I'm gonna start calling this place A-1 Plumbing and Taxi, paint my vans checkered, you know."

"Dad..." I giggled. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah...Okay, oh...Jamie's coming back from the Brooklyn job, going to...Shakopee? Is that right?" He was talking to someone else now. "Who the hell arranged this schedule? We're giving all our profits to the Arabs, driving all the way across town...Sorry, Kylie...Yeah, Jamie can pick you up..."

"Jamie?" I swallowed hard.

"Yeah, why? Something wrong with Jamie?" My dad asked and I wouldn't say he was suspicious, not at all, but he'd heard something in my voice he couldn't identify.

"Huh?" I somehow made myself relax, laughing lightly. "No, I just don't want him thinking he's my chauffer now."

"He might as well be, shoot. Chad's got him scheduled all over creation today. Probably have him turning a wrench in Duluth this afternoon!"

"Daddy."

"I swear, that boy don't know how to read a goddamn map to save his life. Huh?" Dad got a little sidetracked. "Sorry, sweetie. Yeah, Jamie's already on his way, okay? You gonna be at the dorm there?"

"Uh, yeah, but he probably doesn't know where that is." I sighed. "Tell him I'll meet him where he dropped me off."

"Okay, will do." My dad agreed. "Thanks for riding A-1 Taxi."

"Thanks daddy."

"Hey wait!" Daddy caught me. "Are you uh, feeling up for company tonight?"

"What?" I frowned into the phone because my intuition was whispering bad things in my ear.

"You remember that new man I hired? Rodney? You remember him, right?" My dad was pressing.

"Yeeeah." I said slowly. "The accountant."

"Right, right, well I invited him over for dinner and uh, since you're coming home, I thought you might like to give him a proper introduction." My dad cleared his throat. "What do you think?"

"A proper introduction." I sighed. "Like 'Hi, I'm Kylie and I'm available if you want to marry me?' that kind of thing, daddy? Please, don't play matchmaker."

"What? Me? He's a nice boy, college educated and you could do a lot worse."

"I could do a lot of things, daddy."

"So, all I'm asking is for you to say hello and be yourself and..."

"Dad..."

"...See what happens."

"...I'm in the middle of college."

"So?"

"So? So, I don't need a boyfriend right now." I sighed. "I'm a little busy, okay?"

"Well, he's coming over and I'm glad you're coming home. It's perfect." My dad decided for me, like he always does. "I gotta go. Love you."

"Perfect? Love you too, daddy." I hung up, frowning over that word.

I knew my dad well enough to know he hadn't invited that new guy over, not yet, it had just popped into his mind and he was making like it was all fate or something. I'd found that college was a pretty good excuse to explain my lack of a love life, but even my eminently practical father wasn't going to buy into it forever. Lots of girls dated all through college and graduated just fine. He was probably starting to worry about me being a lesbian, and that thought made me giggle, but not very much.

Rodney was okay, the few times I'd met him, which were brief nods and polite smiles around my dad's office. He was a good looking young black man, tall and a few years older than me, kind of serious and a little shy maybe, or just not extroverted, I should say. He hadn't impressed me much, but black guys never did. They just didn't grab my attention and there wasn't anything I could do to change that. It was the truth of it and if he'd been a handsome white boy, and if my dad would ever set me up with a white guy, maybe I'd have been all over him.

Dad wasn't going to do that though, no way. After Rodney failed to pass muster, there'd come someone else, and someone after that. My dad would make sure his oldest daughter had her chances and my mom would be there too, less vocal, less assertive, but whispering encouragement in my ear. She was just as bad, but in a different way, and fighting off both of them in the vain hope that someday, somehow I might actually explain to them what I was really looking for in a husband...That was a pipedream.

I needed to run away.

And now Jamie was coming, after I'd basically told him that I wanted to fuck him. God. I'd told the man his wife was a bitch, not in so many words, but what else do you call a wife who makes her husband sleep in the back of a van? It was obvious what my opinion was and equally obvious that Jamie didn't really share it. He loved her, as he should, and I'd insulted his feelings for the woman. Now Jamie was picking me up and it was going to be a long drive home.

I needed to run away badly.

This wasn't just another bad Monday; this was like the worst Monday of my life. I swear. I was so conscious of it that I took the stairs extra-slowly, convinced the only thing that could make my day worse was breaking a hip or something. But of course, there are an awful lot of things that can happen to a girl, things that make a little tumble down some stairs seem like great fun, and you're never ready for those.

"Well, well..." I heard a catty voice as I walked through the dorm commons towards the front doors.

"Great." I said under my breath. It was Becky.

"...Look at you, somebody rain on your parade?" She smiled and we really, really didn't like each other.

Becky was a freshman, like me, and unfortunately had a room in the same dorm, so we did see each other once in awhile, but generally avoided talking by mutual and unspoken agreement, no pun intended. She was pretty, with short blonde hair and green eyes and a pleasant body, but it was all wasted in my opinion. Becky was a jealous bitch and the girlfriend of a guy named Will, who was one of my best friends at the university. We'd never fooled around, Will and I, but it was useless to tell his girlfriend that.

"What do you want, Becky?" I turned slowly, not bothering to mask my complete disinterest in anything she could possible say.

"I want you to stay away from my boyfriend, slut." Becky was a little shorter than me and so she kept her distance, just so she wouldn't have to look up so much.

"Excuse me?" I stepped closer. "What did you say?"

"Stay away from Will." Becky said slowly with a long pause before adding, "Slut."

"I do whatever I want." I told her and I was very close now, looking down at her. "And you know what else?"

"What?" She glared at me.

"I let Will do whatever he wants, too." I licked my lips slowly and smiled, giving my eyebrows a tiny lift so she'd just know in her heart that I'd fucked him already...Even though I hadn't.

"You nigger bitch." Becky breathed and her face was turning red.

"Careful." I could feel my heart bursting with adrenaline, and we were both shaking. "That kind of talk will get you tossed off campus, Becky."

"Fuck you." Becky stared at me and for a second, just a heartbeat, I really thought she was going to slap me or something, but she turned and walked away.

I stood there taking deep breaths and working hard to calm myself down. I should have felt good, maybe, not backing down to her, but it was hard to feel good about anything like that. I've never been much for confrontation or fighting, it just isn't in me as a general rule. I like people and under different circumstances I could have even liked Becky, maybe. Or at least not disliked her, you know? So I didn't feel good, I just felt worse because now Will was going to hear about it, and he didn't deserve that kind of trouble.

I almost called Will to warn him, but he'd be in class and his phone would be turned off. It was Monday and I was bad luck all by myself, a black cat walking under one big ladder, that was me. Now Will was going to pay for it, since his girlfriend thought we'd had sex; I'd gone out of my way to make that clear. In reality all we did was talk mostly, he was a friend and a study buddy, one of a bunch of guys I hung out with and yeah, I liked him a lot, I wouldn't mind going out with Will at all, but he'd never asked me.

Stupid Becky. Stupid me. Stupid Mondays.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Hi again." I was already blushing as I climbed back inside Jamie's van. "Sorry about this."

"Hey, Kylie." Jamie gave me a smile I wanted to fall into. "Nothing to be sorry about. Going home, huh?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "I'm not in much of a mood for school, I guess."

Jamie gave me a little nod of his own and picked up the mic for the radio, calling the office to let daddy know I was safe and sound.

I had no idea what to say, of course, or even what to do. I mean, I didn't want to ignore Jamie, but I didn't want to look at him because now I figured every little look would seem like I was making eyes at him, or something. I was just really self-conscious. I wished it was like it was before I'd opened my big mouth, when I could look at the man all I wanted and not feel guilty about it, or worry that I was embarrassing him. A secret crush should remain secret, and now I knew why.

Traffic was bad, I swear Minneapolis has the worst traffic in the world, although everybody who's ever lived anyplace else thinks it's great. It wasn't great on this particular day and we were crawling, which was just making things even worse, you know. We were stopped behind some construction when Jamie looked at me and I kind of caught it from the corner of my eye cause I was looking at him too, without trying to.

"I guess that's my fault, huh?" He said with a sigh and I leaned towards him a little.

"What's that?" I asked, thinking he meant the traffic or something.

"Your mood." Jamie said. "Look, I'm sorry I was being such a dope, Kylie..."

"You weren't." I said quickly. "Not at all, it was me. I shouldn't have said anything. I know you're married and Brenda is nice, so..."

"It's not that." He cleared his throat. "Not, uh, not totally."

"Oh." I reached for those imaginary bangs and ended up playing with my cornrows.

"I've known you since you were little." He looked around, but we weren't going anyplace. "Not, little, but...Younger, I mean."

"Yeah." I swallowed hard.

"So, when I see you, part of me is still looking at a fourteen year old girl, see?" Jamie spoke gently and I was nodding. "And you grew up so...Beautiful. Yeah, I see you now and you're like a dream."

"Really?" I was blushing and my black skin must have been glowing I felt so hot.

"I don't want to hurt you." Jamie said. "I love my wife; we're just going through some..." He lifted his hands with a shrug, "...Hard times, that's all."

"You won't hurt me." I breathed, trying to slow down my heart as it picked up speed. "I know you love her."

"Even thinking about...You, Kylie, that's so much trouble waiting to happen." Jamie's blue eyes looked so fragile.

"Not if nobody knows." I promised.

"Secrets are like scars." He glanced at the road. "They never go away."

"I won't want it to go away." I said, but he was making me feel like that little girl Jamie remembered.

We were quiet for a long minute and the traffic moved just far enough so we had to stop with the flagman staring thorough the windshield at us. He was big and black and he just kept looking at me until I turned away.

"I've never cheated on my wife." Jamie finally said and we were staring at each other now.

"I've never had sex." I admitted softly. "Not all the way."

The flagman waved us through, turning his stop sign around so it read 'slow' and I was glad to leave him behind. He reminded me of my dad.

"But I want to." I said, trying to sound strong. "I want my first time to be special, with someone I really like."

"It should be with someone you love." Jamie told me.

"Yeah." I licked my lips. "That's what I mean."

He was fighting his desire and I was trying not to push too hard. Jamie could have me, all he had to do was ask, or not even that much. All he had to do was pull over and stop the engine. He didn't have to say a word and I'd give him anything he wanted.

Jamie was a good man though, which was why he was special, the reason I was attracted so strongly to him. He was handsome and white and nice to look at it, but that just got my interest. It was who Jamie was on the inside that really hooked me. He didn't want to cheat on his wife, no more than he wanted to hurt me, and yet he wanted me so badly. I could feel it in the air, our mutual desire. It was all I could do to sit there a few feet away and not try to touch the man.

"I could blackmail you." I giggled, because the air felt heavy and we were driving faster now, on my way home.

"Heh." That got a chuckle and a smile. "I wish you would."

"Alright." I grinned at him. "If you don't make love to me, I'll tell my dad you tried to rape me."

"Great." He laughed.

"See? Now you don't have to feel guilty." I stuck out my tongue a little. "You don't have a choice."

"Uh...Kylie..."

"What?" I asked innocently.

"Blackmail doesn't work if I don't believe you." He shook his head sadly.

"Oh, you don't have to believe me, you just have to..."

"What?"

"Look at it like, I need your help." I was feeling silly now, working to lighten us up. "I have a little...Plumbing problem, see?"

"Oh God." Jamie made a face. "You haven't been hanging around with Stan and Carl, have you?"

"What?" I giggled. "God no! Those guys are bad!"

Stan and Carl weren't really bad, but they knew every dirty plumber joke anyone ever thought of, and they could be seriously nasty. I'd heard a few bad ones, but the worst I only got indirectly, by overhearing when the guys didn't realize I was around. Most of them involved women with plumbing problems...Between their legs, of course.

"Good." Jamie looked honestly relived.

"Okay, okay...Plan C then." I decided.

"Plan C?" Jamie tilted his head. "What's that one?"

"It's foolproof." I promised Jamie, trying to think of one quickly.

"Okay, so...What is it?"

"Plan C is when you pull over...Go on, pull over..." I smiled and Jamie was looking at me uncertainly, but he did it. "...Now, stop the engine. Just turn it off."

Jamie did as I suggested and we were sitting there quietly all of a sudden, parked on the shoulder with traffic going past.

"What now?" Jamie asked.

"Now..." I undid my seatbelt and moved out of my seat, getting close to him. "I'm going to kiss you..." I started putting my arms around him, kind of kneeling in the empty space between the bucket seats.

"Kylie..." Jamie was staring into my eyes and he licked his lips.

"...And then we'll know if it's going to be okay." I said softly, bringing my mouth close to his.

It was a slow kiss, a shy one, with my arms loose around Jamie's neck and my body pressed against his right leg and thigh, my breasts against his chest as he sat there. I touched his lips with mine and let him feel how soft they were, how moist and sweet, and I used the tip of my tongue to tease him, running it between Jamie's lips and coaxing him to relax and open up. It was an awesome kiss, like a very first one, and when my tongue slipped into his willing mouth that's when I tightened my arms, feeling Jamie's hands come to my back and head, pulling me against him as his tongue found mine.

I moaned softly and thrust my body onto his, rubbing my tits against Jamie's body as if I were melting. My nipples ached and blood rushed through my head. I could taste his mouth as our tongues entwined eagerly. When I retreated his followed and I sucked him like a small wriggling cock, flicking the tip of my tongue across it. My eyes were closed and everything I'd ever wanted was right there, all my hopes and suspicions, it was everything I'd imagined, just kissing the man. He was the one I wanted to give my virginity to.

Jamie's hand on my head felt so good too, his fingers playing in my cornrows, close to my scalp. He was groaning, as if starving for my attention and I could feel his strength. He wasn't going to let me go and I didn't want him too. His other hand was on my back, finding the curve of my spine through my sweater, sliding up and down and finally finding my firm round ass. He cupped me there, squeezing my ass and I could feel the tips of his fingers pressing deeply into the crevice beneath my denim jeans. It made my pussy throb with desire and I gasped into Jamie's mouth when he felt lower, finding my sex through the dense material, the heat of my arousal plain as he massaged my black virgin cunt.

We broke our kiss reluctantly, both of us panting for air and smiling. I felt dazed and desperate somehow, like I knew I was dreaming and didn't want to wake up. Jamie was looking into my eyes, testing me perhaps as he moved his hand from behind me, around my left thigh, and cupped my sex deliberately from the front. His big hand forced me to spread my legs and I offered no protest, but merely sighed and thrust my hips forward, grinding myself against the man's touch.

"Plan C..." Jamie breathed.

"...It never fails." I giggled, turning my face against his hand. "Make love to me now. Please."

"You're really a virgin?" He asked me and I kissed his palm.

"Yeah."

"You don't want to lose your virginity in the back of a plumbing van." Jamie chuckled.

"I don't care." I told him. "As long as it's you."

"Kylie." Jamie sighed, taking my heart shaped face gently in both of his hands, stroking my high cheeks with his thumbs. "We can only do this once."

"I know." I smiled at him, stroking his chest with my hands. "I understand. It's okay."

Jamie was worried because he was married. He couldn't promise me anything and I didn't want him to. I knew this was probably just a one time thing, once in a lifetime and never to be repeated, but it was ours. It would be a memory and a secret and a scar. I wanted that and he wanted me, if only once, to satisfy his desire to be with a beautiful woman, or a black woman maybe; or possibly, just to see me happy in his arms. Jamie did love me, not the way he loved his wife, but the feeling was there and he would have me in his heart forever.