Page 53 of Haze of Obedience

"Ugh," she moans.

"Are you going to tell me why you hate to eat snakes so much?"

"It's gross."

"My snake is seasoned and delicious, I'll have you know."

She grunts. "Doubt that."

I tuck her hair behind her ear and fixate on her face. "What's the real reason?"

"How do you know that isn't the real reason?"

I lock gazes with her and stay silent. I slide my hand under the blanket and her shirt and stroke the skin on her back.

She freezes.

I pause. "Am I making you uncomfortable, Zoe? Should I not touch you? I can stop."

Her lip shakes. "Yes. No."

"You just confused me."

"I'm sorry." She closes her eyes and turns away.

I slide my hand out.

She turns back. "I meant you make me uncomfortable. But I didn't mean you had to stop."

I slide it back up her shirt and place my lips against hers. "Is it a good or bad uncomfortable?"

She doesn't answer me and only furrows her brows.

She regrets having sex. Great.

I decide to change the subject. "Tell me why you hate snakes."

"I grew up poor. We couldn't afford food, so the men in my family hunted. If it moved, they killed it. And we couldn't afford spices, so whatever was put in front of us, no matter how disgusting, we would have to eat it."

"That must have been difficult."

"I've choked on too many snake bones, and one scraped my throat so bad one time that I couldn't sing for a week. It freaked me out, and when I refused to eat snake the next time my father caught it, I got in big trouble."

"What happened?"

"For an entire week, I had to stay out in the blueberry patches for double shifts."

"Your job was to pick berries?"

"Since I was five."

"That's hard work."

"I hated it. So I guess I'm a diva and a horrible person like you think."

I freeze. "You don't believe that, do you?"

"That I'm a diva?"