No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

Quitting Another Job

“You quit again? What the fuck, Sally-Anne! That’s the second job this month. How are you gonna contribute to bills if you can’t hold down a job?”

Pa was really mad. He was hollering at me from just an arm’s length away, spittle flying from his lips. He was fit to be tied when I came home early from my job at the gas station. I tried sneaking in the door, but he was always around and watching for intruders, when he wasn’t watching my younger sister, Lulu. She didn’t need watching, but he kept his greasy eyes on her anyways, and sometimes his hands, too.

Pa tried that with me a few years ago, starting when I was Lulu’s age, or maybe younger. When I filled out at 19, he started staring at my boobs. I took to wearing loose sweatshirts, and never wore a tight top again. The last time he’d stared, I told him I’d pour sugar in his gas tank if he looked at me like that again, and he laid off. He loved that car more than me, it seemed. Lulu started getting her figure around the same age, too, and Pa noticed. The women in our family were late bloomers, said Ma, but when we did, we bloomed big. Big boobs, big hips, big ass. Not a model figure, we were too full everywhere for that, but we weren’t huge, either. It sure got us a lot of attention, but neither me nor Lulu wanted any part of it. We’d talked about that a few times, and we both felt that if boys didn’t notice us before, when we had no figures, they obviously didn’t care about us as people. They just wanted to bury their faces in our tits. We were happier keeping out of all that, so neither of us had ever dated.

I just wanted to get a job that would let me move out. Pa said it wasn’t right for a girl to live on her own. He said either I lived with family, or a husband.

He couldn’t stop me, though. If I hid enough money, I’d move across town and he couldn’t do nothing about it. I’d…