{"id":1557,"date":"2012-06-03T23:41:44","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T04:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theproviso.com\/?page_id=1557"},"modified":"2026-02-23T00:48:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T05:48:03","slug":"freight-train","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/extras\/vignettes-outtakes\/extracurricular-activities\/freight-train\/","title":{"rendered":"Freight Train"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

MAY 2002<\/p>\n

Vanessa: 20<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

VANESSA PRECEDED Knox and Leah into the midcentury modern office building-turned-residence and she stopped, looking around with some trepidation. She knew who Sebastian Taight was; he was all anybody could talk about in her finance classes at school. She had never dared volunteer that she had any connection to him whatsoever, no matter how remote, particularly as she\u2019d never met him.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet a move on, Vanessa,\u201d Knox drawled. Leah chuckled and nudged her a bit when she still couldn\u2019t seem to move.<\/p>\n

\u201cC\u2019mon, sweetie,\u201d she murmured. \u201cSebastian doesn\u2019t bite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanessa moved then and found the four steps that led up to a platform where stood an immense conference room table. To her left was a smallish kitchen and directly in front of her, beyond the table, was a massive living room. There was a man and a woman with their backs to her, sitting on a couch playing very primitive video games on an enormous television, yelling at and pushing each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh so mature,\u201d Knox muttered as he nudged her along and into the living room. \u201cHey. Giselle. Sebastian. Could you please attempt to act a little more refined when we have company? There are impressionable twenty-year-olds present.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanessa snorted and looked around. This place was beautiful. Eclectic. Interesting. Textured in style, design, color, and time periods.<\/p>\n

\u201cVanessa!\u201d<\/p>\n

Giselle jumped up and over the back of the couch to grab her in a bear hug, and she returned it wholeheartedly. She hadn\u2019t seen her mentor since she\u2019d sent her off to Notre Dame with a wardrobe to die for. She hadn\u2019t realized how much she missed Giselle, who had been the one to take her to the doctor when she was sick, for Pap smears, for her dentist and orthodontist and eye appointments; who had taught her about reproduction, sex, taking care of the details of managing a period; who had taken her to Young Women’s and enlisted the church’s help in taking care of her when Giselle or Knox couldn’t.<\/p>\n

Giselle had guided her into womanhood, something Knox could never have done even if he\u2019d been inclined to try\u2014and he\u2019d grown decidedly squeamish as Vanessa\u2019s needs turned more and more \u201cgirly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanessa pushed her away from her a moment and looked her up and down. Where before had been a pudgy-cum-fat woman now stood one with the faintest hint of a six-pack partially hidden by her denim shorts, below which was an old, large gash in her thigh, and above, perky C-cup breasts barely covered by a sunny yellow bikini top\u2014which was not a push-up model.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened<\/em> to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Giselle grinned. \u201cDr. Atkins and Gold\u2019s Gym.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my God,\u201d she whispered, awed at the change in Giselle\u2019s body. \u201cYou\u2019re hot<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank Leah for that,\u201d Giselle replied dryly. \u201cShe gave me the book and kicked my ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

So happy to see Giselle, so shocked over the transformation, Vanessa didn\u2019t pay attention to Mr. Taight until\u2014<\/p>\n

Knox was speaking. \u201c \u2026 Sebastian. Sebastian, Vanessa Whittaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked up. Stared. Sebastian Taight, the man she\u2019d heard about from Knox and Giselle for years, whose genius was dissected and studied in every business class she\u2019d ever taken, was the most gorgeous man she\u2019d ever seen. She hoped no one else noticed her reaction to him, and she managed to shake his hand as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn\u2019t just laid eyes on a Playgirl<\/em> centerfold.<\/p>\n

He<\/em> had apparently noticed her reaction, though, and suddenly, she wished she had enough experience with men to know what it meant when he raised his eyebrow like that.<\/p>\n

The five of them spent the evening together at the conference table eating and chatting. Vanessa didn\u2019t have a whole lot to say except that she was leaving for New York in the fall to attend culinary school. Knox bragged on her grades at Notre Dame. Leah pulled the pictures of her graduation out of her purse and passed them around. After dinner, Knox, Leah, and Giselle wandered off to the library in Sebastian\u2019s living room once they all got involved in a heated discussion over some Shakespearean concept that Sebastian had asked about\u2014<\/p>\n

\u2014and once they were thoroughly distracted, Sebastian looked across the table at Vanessa and murmured, \u201cCome downstairs with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well. She would no more say no to that than she\u2019d say no to a full-ride scholarship and it wasn\u2019t because he was Sebastian Taight, financier.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, you three!\u201d he called out over his shoulder. \u201cVanessa wants to see the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

So involved in their discussion, Knox waved a hand absently and Sebastian rose, expecting her to follow him. And she did. Down the stairs and into a room that looked like a painter\u2019s studio.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake off your clothes,\u201d he said gruffly.<\/p>\n

That shocked her. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTake off your clothes. I want to see what\u2019s under the leather.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

He gestured to the room they were standing in. \u201cI\u2019m an artist. I paint. I think I want to paint you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody at school said anything about you being an artist. Neither did Knox.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSebastian Taight isn\u2019t<\/em> an artist. Ford is.\u201d Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. A wicked grin stretched his face. \u201cSurprise. Now take off your clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did, though shyly. Ford. Her breath caught in her throat. Her artist roommate had taken her to a Ford exhibit and Vanessa had been bowled over. \u201cIt\u2019s said,\u201d her roommate had murmured to her in the darkness on a night neither of them could sleep and just talked, the way girls do, \u201cthat Ford seduces all his models. Oh, what I wouldn\u2019t give to be painted by him. I don\u2019t care if he\u2019s a fat, balding old man. He\u2019s got something good going on down there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebastian Taight. God of the business department at Notre Dame.<\/p>\n

Ford. God of the art department at Notre Dame.<\/p>\n

And beautiful, to boot.<\/p>\n

One and the same, and here, with her, demanding that she strip for him. How could she not?<\/p>\n

Once she was out of her clothes, she stood and watched him inspect her, his gaze running up and down her body. He walked around and around her, looking at her as if she were already a work of art. He didn\u2019t touch her, except to lift her hair away from her body, which made her shiver with \u2026 something. She felt more than a little deprived when he took his hand away.<\/p>\n

Finally, he spoke. \u201cWhat\u2019s your schedule like?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here all summer,\u201d she whispered, watching him warily. \u201cI\u2019m working as a short-order cook at Nichols for the breakfast crowd. Monday through Friday three to noon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are you staying?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an apartment in Valentine, with a friend. It\u2019s a dump, but it\u2019s cheap and we split the bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of Valentine\u2019s a dump,\u201d he muttered absently. He still studied her naked body, and the way he looked at her made her insides all gooey. Suddenly, he took a deep breath through his nose and he grinned crookedly, chuckling. \u201cTomorrow\u2019s Saturday. Whatever you have planned, cancel it and be on my doorstep at nine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo buts. I\u2019m about to make you famous.\u201d<\/p>\n

VANESSA SHOWED UP on Sebastian\u2019s doorstep at nine; he hadn\u2019t told her not to tell anyone, but it was a warm and cozy thing to have an actual secret worth keeping\u2014and from Knox, no less. Her roommate had been disappointed that she was canceling on going to a Ford exhibit at the Nelson, but Vanessa didn\u2019t dare tell her she was going to become a Ford exhibit.<\/p>\n

That was frighteningly arousing.<\/p>\n

What was even more arousing was how he was dressed when she arrived. His big body was mostly bare except for a short pair of cutoff jeans, the fly of which he hadn\u2019t bothered to button. Oh, and was he built. Muscular, cut, six-pack, rock-hard quads\u2014an undiscovered male model. The myriad criss-crossings of thin scars all over his body only enhanced his beauty. Not a fat, balding old man to be found in this house. And she couldn\u2019t catch her breath.<\/p>\n

He painted for hours. She loved that he loved looking at her nude body, but she wasn\u2019t thrilled about the rest of the world seeing it. He ordered Chinese and once it had been delivered and eaten, he hustled her back down the stairs, stopping on the way to do something to the security system.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnox can come and go as he pleases,\u201d he explained once they got back downstairs, \u201cexcept when I\u2019m about to seduce his twenty-year-old ward.\u201d<\/p>\n

She gasped, her mouth open, and he took the opportunity to pin her against his big, hard body and kiss her, long, deep, with \u2026 a something \u2026 that had never been present in any other kiss she\u2019d ever shared with boy or man.<\/p>\n

Experience.<\/p>\n

Knowledge.<\/p>\n

Certainty.<\/p>\n

He broke the kiss, bent, and hooked one arm under the backs of her legs. He carried her into the alcove she hadn\u2019t been allowed to explore, and then she knew why. She gasped yet again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome to the Den of Iniquity, Vanessa,\u201d he said, and dropped her on the bed, then walked away. She knew this was wrong\u2014oh, not that she was a prude\u2014but she didn\u2019t know this man or his proclivities.<\/p>\n

Don’t be stupid.<\/em><\/p>\n

At Young Women’s Vanessa had learned about chastity, though Giselle had stopped just shy of telling her to save herself for marriage no matter what. She had, however, warned Vanessa about strangers, about the emotional tricks men used, about getting drunk to lose her inhibitions, about disease and abuse and coercion and rape and drugs designed to enable rape. She’d taken her to the doctor to get her on birth control.<\/p>\n

Frat boys are pigs. Just don\u2019t be stupid. If you want to have sex, wait and be very careful about who you choose. Do it sober, while you have your head on straight. When you\u2019re out, always make sure your drink is covered. Whatever you do, don\u2019t have sex without a condom and don\u2019t forget to take your pill. Ever. Remember this: Men use love to get sex and women use sex to get love. Don\u2019t ever mistake sex for love because that\u2019s when girls start getting stupid. And whatever else you do, don\u2019t lie about your age. That should be enough to put most men off until you\u2019re eighteen, and it\u2019s not like you don\u2019t know what happens to men who fuck underage girls, right? <\/em> <\/p>\n

Of course, Sebastian wasn’t a stranger, was he? And he certainly was no college boy, frat or otherwise. And Vanessa wasn’t sixteen anymore; she was a college graduate at twenty. Nothing Giselle had told her really applied in this instance, did it? Sebastian was her and Knox’s cousin and they loved him, but Vanessa was pretty sure they wouldn\u2019t know every.single.thing about him\u2014and especially not what his sexual appetites were.<\/p>\n

He was almost three years older than Knox and she had never thought \u2026 A man that age \u2026 Thirty-six \u2026<\/p>\n

She trembled.<\/p>\n

Sebastian turned up some lights, turned down others, lit candles, and somehow, magically, started music playing. Classical music, sensual, lush.<\/p>\n

He looked at her then, from across the room as he stripped off his shorts. Her mouth dropped open when she saw his hard, long, erect penis\u2014and she was afraid.<\/p>\n

But not. Excited.<\/p>\n

But nervous. Did he know\u2014?<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cNormally, I\u2019d take another couple of hours to seduce you, but I could tell you were aroused last night and I know you\u2019ve been aroused all day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a virgin,\u201d she whispered as he came nearer, a Celt warrior bent on claiming what was his.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m about to relieve you of that burden,\u201d he purred as he climbed into bed with her, alongside her, his bare body touching hers, his erection skimming along the top of her thigh. His attention was caught by one of her nipples, which had hardened and he pounced, nipping it, drawing it into his mouth and Vanessa shrieked with shock and sensation, her back arching. Sebastian\u2019s mouth sucked at it; his tongue licked; his teeth nibbled.<\/p>\n

And Vanessa died, her head back, her eyes closed, her mouth open and gasping in great gasps of air. She found her hand wandering through Sebastian\u2019s hair, holding him to her, and she felt his smile against her breast.<\/p>\n

Sebastian\u2019s body pressed against hers until she was lying on her back, Sebastian\u2019s mouth still torturing her nipple and his arousal still pressed against her leg. He swept his hand down her body until he found her most sensitive spot and the entrance she hadn\u2019t exactly been guarding, but hadn\u2019t felt the need to let anyone in, either.<\/p>\n

Now she felt a need.<\/p>\n

His fingers, slicked with her juices, tickled her from back to front before they explored more fully up inside her and she was panting.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, no,\u201d he whispered, letting go of her nipple and sliding up her body until his mouth was at her ear. \u201cNo coming until I\u2019m inside you. Not for your first time. Nothing beats coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n

He rolled away from her for a moment. She heard the tinny whisper of foil and knew what he was doing. Thank God.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAh, yes,\u201d he whispered as he rose above her, kneeling between her legs and nudging them wider than she thought they could go. \u201cNo glove, no love.\u201d<\/p>\n

He slowly lowered himself over her and kissed her then, hard, hot, urgent. \u201cAh, Vanessa. Do you know how beautiful you are?\u201d<\/p>\n

And with one thrust, she became Sebastian Taight\u2019s lover for an entire summer. She moved in with him. Every weekend, every afternoon and evening, he made love to her, seduced her again and again with things she wasn\u2019t sure any mortal man knew about. He taught her things she didn\u2019t know existed. He taught her how to drink absinthe\u2014something she\u2019d never heard of. He taught her that food wasn\u2019t only for eating, or at least, that eating it wasn\u2019t its primary purpose for its existence.<\/p>\n

Knox was stymied why his security code wouldn\u2019t work but Giselle\u2019s did.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiselle lives here,\u201d Sebastian murmured into her ear very late one night when Vanessa was startled out of her languor by the sound of footsteps overhead. Then she heard Knox\u2019s voice, Leah\u2019s voice, and she gasped. \u201cNot to worry,\u201d he soothed as he snuggled her deeper into his arms and into the feather mattress. \u201cGiselle knows you\u2019re here and she knows what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, no! She \u2026 knew?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to Giselle to know,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo late for that. Why do you care?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019ll be disappointed in me. She took me to Young Women\u2019s and \u2026 She said it was important to save it until marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is unfortunate for her<\/em>, but she\u2019s under no delusion that you had a choice in the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

That made no sense. \u201cI could\u2019ve said no.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could\u2019ve. It would\u2019ve made no difference. Trust me. I always get what I want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her eyes widened and she gulped. \u201cYou would\u2019ve\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGoddess, no. I wouldn\u2019t have had to.\u201d He cocked that eyebrow at her again. \u201cWould I?\u201d<\/p>\n

She sucked in a deep breath, but said nothing. He grinned that wolfish grin again that made her heart speed up.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Knox\u2014 My car\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the garage, which I\u2019ve also locked him out of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWon\u2019t he figure it out?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKnox doesn\u2019t pay attention to a whole lot of things, so no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanessa smiled, but it faded when Knox and Giselle began to argue, their voices floating down through the vents. Sebastian covered Vanessa\u2019s mouth with his and she ran her fingers through his hair.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnox would kill me if he knew you were in my bed,\u201d Sebastian murmured as he kissed her and what he said, the fact of it, aroused her. \u201cAnd I like that. I like fucking you right under his nose. I like that you\u2019ve moved in with me and he has no clue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanessa murmured, \u201cI don\u2019t believe you\u2019ve actually fucked me at all, Sebastian Taight.\u201d<\/p>\n

He drew away from her then and looked at her. \u201cOh? What does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKnox told me fucking was different from making love, but he wouldn\u2019t say how.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebastian laughed. \u201cOh, he gave you the speech, did he? And you\u2019ve automatically assumed that everything we\u2019ve done is making love?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, good for you. That is, in fact, true. Now I\u2019ll show you what fucking is.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he did and oh, she liked that just as much as making love, especially up against a wall. Or on her knees. Or over a chair.<\/p>\n

Knox never did find out. She\u2019d paid her roommate in Valentine very, very well to keep her affair a secret from him\u2014though she never told her roommate with whom she was having an affair.<\/p>\n

She left him on her twenty-first birthday and he\u2019d sent her with a bottle of absinthe, a set of antique bowl glasses and antique silver drip spoons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will never speak of this again,\u201d he whispered as he kissed her for the last time in the heat and sunlight of an August day at noon. His ice blue eyes sparkled.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d she whispered back. \u201cThank you, Sebastian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, thank you<\/em>, Vanessa.\u201d<\/p>\n

★<\/p>\n

20260222<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MAY 2002 Vanessa: 20 VANESSA PRECEDED Knox and Leah into the midcentury modern office building-turned-residence and she stopped, looking around with some trepidation. She knew who Sebastian Taight was; he was all anybody could talk about in her finance classes at school. She had never dared volunteer that she had any connection to him whatsoever, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1545,"menu_order":4212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1557","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23566,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1557\/revisions\/23566"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}