The Minister's Daughter

Becky was on her fifth Smirnoff Black Ice. Pant Remover. That’s what they called it. Take two, and you want to drop your pants for anything that qualifies to be male, or that would make that waltzing in your pants go away – even if it’s a dildo.

“Ain’t that guy cute?” Becky asked her cousin, Linnet, in a drunken stupor.

“Becky, you need to slow down,” Linnet said, “seriously.”

“Leave me alone, bitch.”

Linnet said nothing. She knew that the alcohol was beginning to take toll on Becky. She had better do something before it was late.

A loud shriek of laughter pierced the din in the club drawing blank stares from every table, even from the dance floor.  

It was Becky. She was taking it to the floor, bottle in one hand, glass in the other.

Seriously, she needed to slow down.

Linnet always took care of Becky. Talk of being her cousin’s keeper, as in your brother’s keeper.

Halfway to where Becky was she saw her wobble, stagger and start going down.

A wave of nausea swept through Becky like a tsunami. She felt everything that had been churning in her stomach jump up to the throat as dizziness invaded her.

In slow motion, Becky felt all her bones melt away and she started going down. She groped for an invisible wall to lever herself only to find nothing. As if it was on cue, the contents in her stomach forced their way through her small mouth.

“I’ve got her,” a male voice said as strong arms caught her before she could hit the hard floor. She was led to a room she recognized by the pungent smell that emanated from there.

“Don’t mind us, ladies,” the voice said. “We’re fine.”

She was bending over at the bowl of the toilet where she emptied all the contents of her stomach. God, she hated herself for letting her cousin down.

Of all people, it was Linnet who didn’t preach to her. Her father, pastor and a self-proclaimed prophet of doom, was the strictest father in the world and her mother came in second with her Draconian rules and her primitive disciplinary mechanisms.

She was regaining her consciousness now, and the nice guy who was attending to her was wiping her face with a soft piece of cloth after splashing cold water on her.

“You shouldn’t be drinking that kind of stuff if you’re not used to, you know.”

Go to hell… what?

She’d heard that voice a million and one times.

“Dad!” Becky said before fading into consciousness again.

Copyright ©Vincent de Paul, 2012.