Epilogue

Grace

Cal and I got married a month later. All of Grasskiln came, of course. I was the first to marry my accepted suitor, but Frannie and Al, and Cora and Jeremy, were going next, the two following weeks. Lisa and Rosa hadn't hit it off with their first suitors, so they sat with their foster parents in the church, but I had heard from Shelly that both of them had new suitors, and both their first dates with them had gone well.

Cal and Jeremy had grown up playing baseball together, so Cora and I had gotten a chance to know each other better when the four of us hung out. She and I had become pretty close friends, and we had—reluctantly at first, of course—opened up to one another about everything that went on with our suitors.

Jeremy didn't talk dirty, it seemed, but that worked for Cora. His silent dominance, and his tenderness after whipping her for the little bits of sass she said she couldn't seem to keep from coming out, got her as wet as a waterfall, she had confided with a deep blush. She confessed she didn't really want to stop sassing him, and didn't intend to, though she'd noticed that the frequency of her talking back had gone down quite a bit.

I knew the feeling. Since the night Cal had taken every one of my virginities I had had a kind of love-hate relationship with my defiance. It earned me the paddle on a fairly regular basis, but since every paddling gave way to absolutely mind-blowing sex, I didn't think I wanted to stop disrespecting the man I loved, from time to time.

Even being put back in my training panties the next day only seemed to make things more ambiguous. As far as I could tell, the way they signaled Cal's authority over me only made him likelier to bend me over and take them down—not for punishment but for the sort of helpless pleasure only he knew how to give my needy pussy.

I walked down the aisle on Jake's arm, with lacy white lingerie under my dress rather than that thick cotton. I had the chance to look each of my fellow naughty-girl-bus-riders in the eye. Of course they blushed with me, thinking of all the strange, dark, shameful, wonderful secrets we shared. At the end of the aisle, Jake put my hand in Cal's, and I looked into the ocean blue eyes of my stunningly gorgeous bridegroom, his handsomeness taken up to eleven by his tux.

"You ready?" he murmured softly to me.

The old Grace Franklin, I thought, would probably have tried to hide her smile. The reformed me did not: I beamed up at him.

"Oh, yes," I said.

The End