Judith sees her coming.
“Emma,” she calls. “Yoo who, Emma. Down here. Come, on down, join us.”
Emma walks to the table and takes a seat by Judith, directly across from Josh, and puts her plate on the table.
“Looks like you are hungry,” Josh says.
“I guess so,” Emma says softly.
She doesn’t look up.
“Marybelle is so picky,” Judith says, referring to her daughter. “All she wants is crackers and bread. That’s it. Crackers and bread. More, more, more she says. Crackers and bread.”
Judith tries to get Judith's daughter to eat a deviled egg.
“Emma’s momma made these honey. Didn’t she Emma? Try a bite Marybelle. Come on now. Everybody likes deviled eggs.”
“No!” the two-year-old says.
Judith grabs her daughter’s arm, squeezing firmly.
Marybelle cries out.
“Don’t you talk to your momma like that,” Judith says, tightening her grip.
The girl is crying.
“Judith,” Josh says, signaling his wife to take the girl from the table.
“Come on,” Judith says, snatching her daughter from the chair. “We need to cool down now, you hear?”
“She thinks she knows what she’s doing,” says Josh, of Judith. “I don’t know if she was ready to have a baby. No patience.”
Emma keeps eating, taking small bites and chewing slowly.
She feels Josh’s boot brush against her right foot.
Emma turns her foot inward, toward his boot, so the exposed skin on her foot brushes every so softly against the leather.
Emma squirms in her chair. She can feel her pussy pulsing, and dripping.
“Didn’t you graduate this year?” Josh says.
She doesn’t look up, or answer.
“Emma,” Josh says. “Didn’t you graduate this year?”
She looks up. Josh is looking into her eyes. His eyes are green, she notices, and she twists again in her chair while pushing her foot into his boot.
“Yes,” she says softly.
Emma clears her throat.
“Yes. Yes, I’m sorry. Yes, I graduated.”
“I thought so,” Josh says. “Are you gonna go to college? Work? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I mean. I work here. At the parsonage.”
“Do you date anybody?” Josh asks.
Emma blushes, and looks down.
“No, I…” she says, stopping before she finishes the sentence.
Josh moves his foot, the one touching hers, to the other side of her foot. He presses it there, and moves his other foot to where his boot touched before, so that her right leg is sandwiched by his legs and boots.
“Ahhhh,” she mutters softly, twisting in her chair.
She wants to look back at his green eyes, but is afraid she will leap at him if she does.
“Well, that’s a shame Emma,” says Josh. “A pretty girl like yourself not dating anyone. That’s just a shame.”
Emma keeps looking down and doesn’t respond.
“I think they’re scared of your daddy. That’s all. They’re just scared of him.”
“Maybe,” Emma says.
“It’s tough being the preacher’s daughter,” Josh says.
She doesn’t respond.
“I heard you got bitten by a snake, Emma,” Josh says. “What happened?”
“My father said he didn’t let go.”
Josh squeezes her ankles with his boots. She fans herself with her left hand, casting brief glances at Josh as he talks. She touches the scar on her neck with her right hand. Her heart is beating fast. Sweat is beading on her lower back despite the cool day. Juice is running from her groin, and she fears she is making a wet spot on the chair.
“Here,” she says, tapping finger from her right hand on her neck. “It bit me here.”
Josh leans on the table toward Emma with both elbows down for a closer look. He glances in the direction of Judith, walking back toward the table with her daughter.
He looks back at Emma.
“If I wasn’t already hitched,” he says, “I’d ask you out. I’m not afraid of your father. God is my witness. I’m not afraid of your father.”
Emma gazes into Josh’s t-shirt.
"I'm not afraid to fuck you either," Emma says.
"What?" Josh says.
"I'm not afraid to fuck you either."
"Well, I..." he stammers, shifting in his chair and leaning closer to Emma across the table. "I would love to be the first to pierce the preacher's daughter."
“The barn,” she says.
“What?” Josh asks.
“The barn,” she says again.
Emma points.
“There.”
“Meet me there Sunday night, just after the service.”