Free For A Good Time, Call... by Jessica Gadziala

pattern.
    “And
how is work, Fiona Mary?”
    Work.
Ha. How gratifying would it be to tell her I had masturbated after
taking a phone call from a man who jerked off while he listened to me
slap myself? But that wasn't an option anymore. I was screwed ever
since that one dinner at her table.
    Since
then, I had racked my brain to think of a job she would think was
respectable enough. I couldn't work at a bank because greed was a
sin. I couldn't wait tables because I wasn't allowed to work on
Sundays (never mind that she frequently went out to eat on Sundays
and made people work to feed her). Eventually I had decided that I
work at reception at a dentist's office. Doctors was too risque. Too
much chance of seeing or hearing about something that would be
damaging to my soul. But there was nothing even remotely sexy about
teeth. So I worked with teeth.
    “Things
get busy now that the kids are back in school. Lots of check-ups,”
I said, taking a deep breath.
    “Well
that's good. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Especially with the teeth God gave you. You only get one set so you
better take good care of them.”
    “Right,”
I agreed. Seven minutes down. Thirteen more. I could do it. I could
get through it. You could tolerate anything for thirteen minutes.
    “And
are there any suitable young gentlemen in your life?”
    This
was a trick question that I had screwed up answering at least four
times in the past. The trick was knowing that my grandmother did, in
fact, want me to have a young, respectable gentlemen in my life.
Because I was too old to be unmarried. Because sin was just waiting
for susceptible women like me. The devil and his orgies just waiting
for me to fall victim to my lust. So I needed to get married. Right
way. A virgin in a white dress in a big church. And then I needed to
lay like a dead fish on the wedding night and let my husband screw me
with his half-erect penis and come inside me so I could get pregnant
quickly.
    But...
I couldn't be dating him for too long. We couldn't go out alone. Be
alone. And he had to have a job that she would find acceptable. And
he had to be a good, god-fearing virgin himself.
    So
far, I have dated three of these such men. But it always ended
because...
    One
went into the ministry (HA that had been a fun lie).
    One
had given into sin and I had to break up with him.
    And
the last one went on missionary work in Africa.
    I
was half-tempted to tell her that my sweet little missionary died of
ebola and I was grieving. She would like that. It was good to have
heartbreak in your life. Something about strengthening your faith or
some nonsense like that.
    “No
not right now, Gram,” I said instead, tapping my head on the
brick to the side of my head. “I haven't been going out and
socializing much.”
    “Idle
hands are the devil's workshop,” she warned.
    “I
know, Grams.”
    “Hold
on one moment, Fiona Mary.”
    It
was always my full name. Because Fiona was not an acceptable name.
Fiona was the name my mother had given me because my father refused
to be in the delivery room. Because men were not supposed to be
involved with such an unclean act. And my mother, my poor, poor
mother, had found her spine long enough to scribble a non-biblical
name on my birth certificate. I cant even imagine what the
repercussions were from that event. Because my name was supposed to
be Mary. I was supposed to be named after the virgin mother.
    Little
did they know, I would end up being a lot more like Mary the whore
than Mary the virgin.
    But,
for some reason, they never insisted it get changed: my father and
grandmother. Which I had always found odd. They had the power. My
mother was nothing but an ant under their shoes. But they had left me
with my first name, calling me Fiona Mary every time they spoke to
me, or about me, instead.
    Hell,
maybe they blamed my awful name for the reason I turned out so badly.
So ungodly. Normally they would blame my mother like they always used
to. But