Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

“Oh, well, we have spares.” She looks at her clipboard, pulling at the gold
and pearl earring on her lobe. “Just a date, not a mate,” she assures. “I’ll send
him up.”
“No, thank you.”
Her gaze flashes to mine, alarmed. There was a time when I wanted to
paint that perfect picture, and perfect girls are escorted by proud young men,
but that desire is now gone. Alone, no white dress…I won’t look like anyone
else, and while I’m not yet happy, I’m no longer trying to be something I
never was.
Wentworth presses her lips together.
“She said no,” my dad reiterates before the woman has a chance to argue.
Her spine straightens like she has a pole up her ass, and nods, spinning on
her heel and leaving. I almost smile. That’ll give the Garden Club something
to talk about this week.
My dad pushes off the wall and turns me to face him. He takes my tie,
and I look up at him under the brim of my top hat as he fixes the knot.
“Now the full Windsor is appropriate for formal settings,” he tells me,
“but I like the Prince Albert myself. It looks good with more slender necks.”
He hasn’t asked about my outfit. I wonder if Mom told him everything.
I guess from the sound of it, they knew long before I did anyway.
He finishes, and I walk to the window, the light inside the stairwell
making my reflection easily visible against the black night outside. “You’re
right.”
I smooth down the slim tie and pop my collar, looking like a British
gentleman from 1912. Fabulous.
But then Liv’s words come back to haunt me as I study the tie. I need a
good handle on you. I blush, hoping she likes it. She can drag me around by it
for as long as she likes, I don’t care.
Dad kisses my cheek and leaves, going to where the fathers stand, and my
heart rate kicks up a notch, because I’m actually kind of wishing I wasn’t
alone, after all. Everyone will be staring, and everyone else will be walking
with their boyfriends or escorts, and I’ll just be standing there, nothing to
distract me from all the eyes.
I could just walk out now. Leave and let my parents deal with the
embarrassment they kind of deserve, but I want to do this. I always did. It’s
tradition, and it’s me coming out to the community as a member of society
who will be working and contributing, and I want them to see that people of