"Dad? Dad!" Piper shouts, drawing my attention.
"Yeah?" I start listening to her again.
"Avery's so awesome, we should totally have her over for dinner."
"I'm not sure about that. I don't even think you should be going over there."
Do I want my thirteen year old hanging out with a woman who posts videos about sex online?
"What? Why? She's so much cooler than Mrs Coupland."
"Of course you'd say that."
Mrs Coupland was our old neighbor. An eighty-year-old widow who happily watched Piper for me when I had to work in the evenings. When her daughter convinced Mrs Coupland to move in with her, and they sold the house to Miss I-know-everything-about-sex, I lost my free babysitter. At least the move happened near the end of eighth grade.
"She's really pretty, you know," Piper says.
I noticed. "So what?"
She shrugs, "Nothing."
"Want to watch Law & Order?" It's her favorite show. I've come to hate it less since she started making me watch it.
"Yes, but can we watch the original?"
We watch one episode, and Piper yells and talks to the screen through the whole thing. She wants to be a lawyer when she grows up. Which should be a good job for her, given how much she likes to argue.
"Okay, bedtime, kid. Go brush your teeth."
"Night, Dad. I love you," she says as she bounds up the stairs.
"Love you too, sweetheart."
Piper doesn't want me to read her a bedtime story and tuck her in anymore. She says she's too old for that. It seems like my little girl is gone. And I'm supposed to be okay with that.
When she's upstairs in bed, I clean the kitchen. Our supper mess was left because I had to go out. I rinse and load the dishes, and put the rest of the stew in the fridge for tomorrow.
I made the stew from scratch. I make as much from scratch as I can, always one-pot wonders because it's all I have time for or know to do, plus they last for three meals. Chuck shit in a pot, put in a different type of flavoring and let it simmer. Though, in the summer I barbeque Piper and I nice steaks.
Exhausted, I lie on the couch and stretch out my legs. I flick through the channels for a while, before giving up on finding anything to watch and settling on some movie that's halfway through. It had a car chase with shit blowing up when I flicked past, and that was good enough for me.
A '71 Dodge Charger rips onto the screen in another car chase and makes me think of work. Marcus just bought one online for us to restore, I haven't seen it yet and hope there isn't too much wrong with the interior. He promised there isn't, but I don't trust the fucker.
Normally I vet all the purchases, but sometimes with Piper, I don't get the chance. When you buy things at auction you have to be able to move fast.
Marcus does all the bodywork and I rebuild the engines. Though we're both skilled enough to do both jobs. We buy classic cars online, fix them up and flip them for a tidy profit.
It works for me because it's on my own time, and I'm able to rebuild an entire engine in my garage at home so I can be here with Piper. I even get her to help me. Not many kids her age know what a carburetor is, let alone how to repair one.
Marcus swore this Charger is solid, but last time he bought a car without me, the entire inside looked like it'd been lived in by a family of racoons for years.
Fucking Marcus.
The man who apparently needs sex tips.
Curiosity gets the better of me, and I grab my iPad. It doesn't take me long to find her YouTube videos, which she's called Getting Avery's Girls off. Give me a fucking break.
I click on one titled How to Eat Her Out in the Shower. I half expect her to be naked in the shower and demonstrating, but she's fully dressed in what looks like a bedroom.
Avery's dark flowing hair and makeup are perfect. She must be one of these annoying women who take forever to get ready. Though there's no denying she's easy on the eyes. And her voice. She might be fully clothed in her videos, but her voice is rich and expressive enough that it's pure sex.
She's confident and radiant as she speaks about how to get between a chick's legs without making her slip. At least she had the sense to say the guy needs to be strong enough to hold her up.
I sure as hell don't know any women who'd be able to stand after I got through with them. There's no way they wouldn't fall down in the shower. And it'd be a long time before they could stand up and walk out of it.
Watching a few more videos, I'm mesmerized by my new neighbor. I go through An Intro to Clits, Clamping Nipples, and Pulling Her Hair before I realize I'm getting hard.
There's no way I'm even going there.
Not with my next door neighbor. I keep my fuck toys and my real life far apart. And I definitely won't do anything with anyone Piper knows.
When I became a single father at twenty two, I swore I wouldn't date women, only fuck them, until Piper was all grown up.
I close the app, and put the news on TV.
Avery
I'm sitting at my desk in my fake bedroom, getting my thoughts together on what I'm going to say about the video I'm about to shoot.
Today, I'm pimping a product, massage oil. It's a tossup for what type of products I do most, massage oil or vibrators. This one is simply called Love Massage and comes with an instruction pamphlet on how to give a back rub.
The company sent me two samples, as always. One to try out and one to pimp.
Nathan, my ex-boyfriend, would've loved this. He always loved getting – though not giving – massages.
Oh well, fuck him.
My best friend Darla's photo pops up on my screen. She's also a YouTuber. We each started vlogging at the same time, on a whim and a dare.
I hit accept and FaceTime opens. Darla's crazy curls fill my monitor, her face a pale dot in the sea of red hair.
"Hey, how's it going?" I say.
"Same old. Please tell me you've left your house and met someone."
Darla can always be counted on to dive straight to whatever's on her mind.
"Nice to talk to you too."
"Whatever, lady, don't try and avoid the subject. It wouldn't have to bring it up if you'd answer the questions in my texts."
"I've found a yoga class," I insist. I haven't yet, but I will.
"Great. When do you start?"
I know she's only worried about me meeting people in my new town.
"I haven't had time yet, I have to get my house organized, then I'll start."
"Sounds like an excuse to me."
"A valid one."
"Fine. But don't think I'm dropping this," Darla says, pointing at her webcam for effect.
"It doesn't matter anyway, you're only an hour away, come visit if you're so worried I'm a Lonely Loretta."
"I am. Not this weekend, but next weekend I'm coming to see you. Don't say you're busy, Avery, or you have plans, because I know you don't."
My mood lifts a bit and an easy smile spreads across my face. "Good. Come, definitely. And bring a paintbrush. I need to get rid of the dusty rose in my bedroom." I put all my effort into my fake bedroom. My real bedroom still looks like it belongs to a little old lady.
"Sure, I can paint. How hard can it be? I'll bring vodka too. We can get drunk and bitch about Nathan."
"I'm over Nathan."
"I know, but he just got engaged."
My face drops, the smile vanishes. "But I only moved out six months ago."
"Obviously it's a rebound relationship. She'll figure out how pathetic he is."
We talk more, and after five minutes she has me laughing again even though my heart is still heavy with the news of Nathan getting married.
This sucks.
My entire life is talking about sex. But I haven't had any in over six months.
I thought buying my own house would motivate me, but all I can think of is making the mortgage payments.
My heart just isn't in this anymore.
Not that that matters. I now make too much money from this venture to walk away from it. It's taken me several years to build my following, I would never throw it away. It just means I have to get better at faking it.
I can fake it. I am a woman, after all.
It's just my videos seem more and more like lip service, and less and less like something I believe in.
The massage oil video and editing takes a couple of hours. I spend the rest of the day working through my task list.
Around seven, my doorbell rings. I take my time walking down the stairs and opening the door. Piper stands, grinning wide, on my doorstep.
"Hi, Avery. Mind if I come in?" she asks, and pushes her way past me before I can answer.
"Hey, Piper. Need more help with your homework?"
My heart leaps a little, I probably shouldn't be this excited at the prospect of hanging out with a teenager, but she's the first person I've seen in person all week. FaceTiming people just isn't the same.
Darla's right, I really need to make an effort to start meeting people in this town.
The challenge won't be in meeting people, it will be in making sure no one in this town ever, ever, ever finds out what I do. I've created an entire cover story of writing a novel to tell people when they ask. A crime novel with lots of deaths – something as far from sex as I can think of.
"Nope, I just thought you could use some company."
My brow narrows as I try to figure this kid out. "Was your dad angry you were here last week?"
"No, he knew where I was. He just had a hard day at work."
"Do you want a drink?"
"Just water, please. I only drink water, it's cleansing."
"Right. Of course."