The Preacher's Daughter Read online

  The Preacher's Daughter

  By

  Fiona Wilde

  (c)2011 by Blushing Books(r) and Fiona Wilde

  Copyright (c) 2011 by Blushing Books(r) and Fiona Wilde

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Blushing Books(r),

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  Wilde, Fiona

  The Preacher's Daughter

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-60968-600-0

  Cover Design by ABCD Graphics

  Blushing Publications thanks you whole-heartedly for your purchase with us!

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  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

  Chapter One

  Naomi Kindle sat on the bus station bench nervously jiggling the duffle bag at her feet with the toe of her scuffed Converse sneakers. She tried to stop, but nothing could alleviate the anxiety she felt with each passing moment as she looked across the platform towards the road.

  Any minute her father would drive up in his no-nonsense, no-frills Ford Taurus station wagon. He'd get out, his expression speaking condemnation before his mouth opened to do it aloud.

  Naomi took another drag on her cigarette an exhaled the smoke past the lump that was still rising in her throat.

  She thought back to the day she left nearly two years ago after leaving a terse note on the kitchen counter detailing how her rigid upbringing had left her constantly angry and depressed.

  "I can't live up to your expectation of goodness," she said. "And I'm sick of being told that I am a reflection on you. I'm sick of the scrutiny, both yours and everybody else's. I think it's best if I just leave. Goodbye."

  Stepping on the Greyhound bus bound for what she thought would be the start of an exciting new life in California had been both terrifying and liberating. Although it had been four in the morning she'd been too excited to sleep, and as the day dawned pink over unfamiliar landscape Naomi fantasized of life in some quaint artist colony or commune where she'd be taken in, loved and never told her views were too liberal.

  But her dreams of life in some Bohemian enclave turned out to be far different than what awaited her. What artists colonies she did find were so tight knit that she knew right away she'd never be accepted, especially when she told them she wasn't actually an artist, although she aspired to be one.

  And everything was more expensive than she'd anticipated. She cried herself to sleep the first night in a roach-infested hotel room - the only thing she could afford. A week later when she found herself bunking under an overpass she realized that the room had actually been a luxury.

  Naomi found her way to a Christian mission where she was at least able to get a shower and some food. When the director asked her if she had any family she could call, she lied and said no. As bad as things were, she thought, they couldn't be as bad as going back.

  So she toughed it out, working at the waitressing job the mission helped her find until she found something more lucrative. Exotic dancing had come easy to Naomi, who channeled her anger into movement. And even though she secretly hated every sweaty, leering man who stuffed money into her g-string she took pleasure in letting them look - just look - because she knew her parents would both die if they knew.

  "You put me here," she silently told her parents as she gyrated her hips just inches from the glazed eyes of a man old enough to be her father. "You tried to turn me into an angel. How do you like your angel now?"

  She even had an angel tattooed across her shoulder. It was falling, its lithe body twisted, its arms stretched. Feathers flew from its wings as it plunged. It seemed ironic, just like the cross made of thorns she had tattooed down the lower half of her left calf.

  Fallen Angel became her stage name, but everyone just called her Angel. She'd have to get used to being called Naomi again now that she was back; no one would call her Angel here.

  She heard the sound of a car and looked up as her father guided the Taurus carefully into the parking space and cut the engine. Naomi knew it was his car because of the "Clergy" plate on the front.

  She saw him take the keys from the ignition, tuck them in the breast pocket of his shirt, pat it as if to reassure himself they were where he'd put them, adjust his jacket and then open the door. He hefted his large frame from the car with some effort.

  The Reverend Frank Kindle did not smile at his daughter, not that she expected it. Instead he just stood there looking at her in silence where she sat on the platform. She didn't say anything. Instead, she slowly stood and allowed him to process the difference between the young woman who'd left and the woman who stood before him now with her thinner body, shorter, lighter hair and haunted eyes.

  "Let's get you home then," he said and nodded down to her bag. "Is that all you have?"

  She nodded and picked it up as her father turned back to the car and got in. He didn't open the door for her. He just sat there and reversed the order of his actions he'd taken after pulling up, patting his pocket, taking the keys out, putting them in the ignition.

  Naomi tossed her duffle bag in the back and slid in the front seat beside her father. His hands clenched and unclenched the wheel as he drove, still silent, for the first two miles.

  "This won't last," Naomi thought. And it didn't.

  "I want you to know you just about killed your mother," he said.

  "It wasn't my intention. I just felt..."

  "What?" he cut her off. "Too confined? Too pressured? We got the note, Naomi. We got your three paragraph summation of our twenty one of parenting. You were quite blunt in your rejection of us. And of everything we raised you to believe."

  "It's not like that." "I never said I rejected what you taught me, only that I wanted to figure out on my own if what you taught me was what I believed. I just wanted a chance to.."

  "...live like the rest of this sinful world lives." He cut her off again, finishing her sentence. "And I can see what it's done to you, too. Just look at you. You smell of cigarettes. You look like a whore."

  Naomi's cheeks flamed at this. She'd purposefully donned her most modest clothing for the trip home - simple t-shirt, blue jeans, lightweight hoodie. It occurred to her to tell him he needed to see some real whores before offering such an assessment. But instead she said nothing. No one won an argument with her father once he got started.

  She leaned her head back against the seat, desperate for another cigarette to alleviate the renewed tension she felt.

  "There's going to be some rules now that you're back," the Reverend Frank Kindle said. "You may be an adult but your crawling back here in seek of help proves that you can't survive like one. Tomorrow your mother is going to take you shopping and on Sunday you'll give your confession to the church and asked the congregation to take you back."

  Naomi looked at him.

  "Father..."

  "Don't argue!" For the first time he raised his voice, the timber of it resounding through the closed chamber of the car like a shotgun blast. Naomi jumped, just
like his congregation jumped whenever he shouted from the pulpit.

  "You've come home in disgrace," he said, his face deepening its reddened shade. "Repentance is the only way to redeem yourself in the eyes of God and man."

  Naomi looked at him. "What do they know?"

  He looked back, glaring. "Probably as much as your mother and I do. Only as much as you've wanted to tell us."

  Naomi turned and looked out the window, fighting back tears. She'd not told him much, only that she'd been moving from place to place, had faced difficulty finding work and was supporting herself through odd jobs. Her parents never asked what those jobs were. She'd never told them. They both knew the truth would be too hard to take.

  "If we're lucky we can get you back in Crandall. You were just a credit short of graduating, you know. With a degree in hand you can build your life back."

  Crandall. Crandall Bible College. The thought of spending any time there made her sick. It was a joke of a school that turned out students with degrees that only made them employable in small churches like her father's.

  Naomi had fought her parents decision to send her there. She'd gotten a partial scholarship to the university, where she'd wanted to study biology. Her father had rejected that immediately. The university was staffed by liberals, and any study of the sciences would weaken her faith. It was Crandall or nothing and nothing Naomi said would change his mind. But she knew an education was her only way out so she caved. Her degree - had she completed the coursework - would have been in Christian counseling.

  "You chose a rather inconvenient time for your homecoming," he said, changing the subject after she didn't address his mention of Crandall. "We have a guest in our home."

  "Who?" Naomi asked woodenly.

  "His name is Eric Feagans. The Reverend Eric Feagans. Our church has grown while you were away and we've taken him in as our assistant pastor and youth minister."

  Naomi could see the church now, its white cross-tipped steeple rising from the solid brick structure. Outside a sign read, "IN HELL THERE IS NO STOP DROP AND ROLL."

  Naomi rolled her eyes, making sure her father did not see.

  "I won't be embarrassed in front of this man," her father said sternly. "He's respectable."

  "And I'm not," asked Naomi. "And here I was thinking God loved all his children."

  Her father pulled into the driveway of the parsonage and turned to her, sticking a beefy finger in her face.

  "Now you listen to me, Naomi," he said sternly. "Adult or not I'm a sorely tempted to take you in that house, put you over my knee and spank the daylights out of you for all that you've put us through. Push me any further and that is exactly what will happen."

  He sat back, his beefy face pinched with irritation. The his chin began to wobble and tears came to his eyes.

  "This hasn't been easy for me, either," he said, his voice cracking as he fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief. "All those long months of worrying whether you were hurt or strung out on drugs or..."

  Naomi felt a new feeling now, an unfamiliar one. Guilt.

  "I had to be strong for your mother. But your just leaving like that. So many times I went to God in prayer wondering what I did to deserve this. Wondering how I let him down."

  Naomi sighed. "You didn't let anybody down, daddy," she said. "I did."

  This too was a lie. Her father had let her down but trying to script her life like one of his Sunday School plays. He had let her down by protecting her from all the harmless thing she's wanted to experience until that protection had become a noose she'd chewed off before running towards everything he'd been fearing in the first place.

  But he was smiling now as he mopped his eyes, and she realized her words had soothed him a little, had vindicated him. He needed to hear from her how right he'd been, how it was her sin and not his rigid parenting that had been at fault. And although she didn't believe what she'd said, Naomi couldn't see any reason not to lie.

  How many times had she gotten extra cash by hinting to a customer that there might be a chance for a date. She needed money. Now she needed a place to stay. Nothing had changed for her, only the setting. She was still doing what she needed to survive.

  And her father, her poor stupid, self-righteous father couldn't even see it.

  "Come on, your mother's waiting."

  He reached now across the seat and picked up her duffle bag.

  "I'll get that," she said with a little smile and possessively took the satchel from him. Once in her room she'd hide the things that needed to be hidden - the rolling papers, the little pipe, the tiny bag of pot she'd stashed in her extra pair of sneakers.

  The house looked the same, its white siding sparkling clean thanks to the annual pressure washing paid for with church funds. It was warm already, and the ugly roll out windows on the front were already cranked half-open. The pecan tree shading the yard was larger, the tire swing for visiting children swaying slightly in the breeze.

  Naomi followed her father along the sidewalk to the back door and into the kitchen. Again, she had the impression she was walking back in time. Her mother had obviously remained content with the decor. The kitchen curtains with their border of chickens still hung over the windows and the pale yellow linoleum smelled faintly of Pine Sol, as it always did on Wednesday mop day.

  "We're home!"

  Naomi heard her mother's footsteps before she saw her and then watched as she entered the doorway between the rooms. She was wearing her favorite style of cotton dress, modest with small floral print, belted in the middle.

  Lilly Kindle was as small as her husband was big, but somehow managed to cast a larger presence when she smiled. Or cried.

  "Please don't cry," Naomi silently thought.

  "Baby?" Her mother's voice was strangled with shock and again Naomi remembered how odd she must look.

  "Yeah, ma," she said. "It's me!"

  Her mother stood there.

  "Baby?" And then she dropped the dust rag she was holding and her eyes welled with tears and she rushed forward to embrace her only child. "Baby!"

  "Mommy!" Naomi let herself be squeezed and hugged her mother back. It was harder, seeing her mother cry, for she sometimes felt that if Lilly Kindle could grow a backbone she'd be a different person, a more daring one, perhaps even one who would have stood up for her against the fire-and-brimstone father God had been so cruel as to give her. And she dared to wonder if, perhaps, her note had made her mother think a little bit about the price of trying to stuff children into such rigid, religious molds.

  "Praise be to Jesus. You're home," her mother said.

  Nope. Not a chance. Naomi sighed. Her mother hadn't changed a bit.

  "I am," she said.

  "Where's Eric?" her father asked.

  "He's gone down to the lake with a group of kids," her mother replied, and Naomi heard her father breathe a sigh of relief.

  "Well thank God," he said. "That gives us time to get Naomi cleaned up and into something decent."

  Her mother stood back and surveyed her daughter, shaking her head.

  "Yes, we'll have to see to that right away."

  Naomi wanted to say that she could dress herself, but she didn't want to raise her father's anger again. She'd not shown it, but his threat to spank her had rattled her, even if he didn't mean it. The Reverend Fred Kindle had never been one to spare the rod. Or the switch. Or the paddle. And growing up, Naomi had gotten her share of spankings and had hated each and every one of them. In fact, she often thought that was one of the reasons she'd rebelled so dramatically once she'd gotten a chance to do it. She was quite eager to show that rigid rules - and discipline - simply did not work.

  Her mother guided her down the hall to her room as if she'd forgotten the way. Here things were different. All the little mementos of her high school and early college years - the pictures taped to the mirror, her stuffed animals, her posters - they were all gone. Even the bedspread - a bold yellow one with geometric shapes that she'd bought with
her babysitting money - was missing. It had been replaced by a baby blue one with a lace overlay.

  "We put your things up," her mother said. "They just raised too many questions when visitors peeked in and saw them. They always wanted to know if we had a daughter, and where she was."

  "And you were too ashamed to answer," Naomi replied. "Wow."

  "Not ashamed." Lilly Kindle walked to the closet and opened it. "We just considered it a private matter that we didn't want to discuss with strangers."

  "I see." Naomi tossed her bag on the bed as her mother fretted over the dresses in the closet.

  "Ah, here," she said, pulling out one of the modest, high-necked dresses Naomi had been required to wear when she lived at home.

  "I have my own clothes, mom," Naomi said, opening her bag.

  "Perhaps so," her mother said firmly. "But there's going to be standards for dress here. Your father and I already talked about it. No blue jeans. They're improper for young ladies. We've always thought that and you know it."

  Lilly Kindle's mouth was set in a grim, determined line.

  "At least it's sleeveless," her mother said. "You don't have a lot of warm weather dresses in here. Well have go get you some this week."

  "Yeah, dad told me we were going shopping," Naomi said.

  Her mother stood there as if waiting for something, then the doorbell rang.

  "That'll be Rev. Feagans," she said. "He's here for lunch. We told him you were coming but didn't tell him much about you. Only that you had left and that we'd prayed for your return. He's had the church praying with us recently. So you can thank God and him for helping you find your way back."

  Naomi thought of the day she'd gotten robbed on the subway, of how her landlord had accused her of lying when she told him the rent had been stolen. He'd kicked her out, leaving her with no place to go. Calling home had been her only option. She'd asked her father for a loan, but he'd refused. He'd help her, he said, but only if he came home.