Chapter 14: SUSIE

The others tease me about the way we are with each other, the way he just looks at me and I mind him without uttering a word of protest. But they don't know the half of it. They don't know about the things he's awakened in me behind closed doors. I would say in the bedroom, but he doesn't relegate all of our dalliances to just one place. In just a short time I have become something I never thought I could ever be.

I was once the girl always telling other females to stand up, to take charge, basically ten steps away from becoming a full-blown feminist. I was made that way because of circumstances. No father; no male influence in fact, except for the commander, who had taken an interest in my brother and I because of his friendship with mom. That, and watching my mother kill herself to make ends meet, kind-of hardened me I guess you can say.

The commander did his best to fill the void, but he was gone more than he was here. So by the time I hit my teens, I was well on my way to hatin