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    The Art of Sex and Stealing
    The Art of Sex and Stealing
    The Art of Sex and Stealing
    Ebook65 pages1 hour

    The Art of Sex and Stealing

    By Holly Glass

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    About this ebook

    As a kid, Gaby Evans saved herself from a repressive household by indulging in one little sin: the art of burglary. Years later, Gaby reawakens her favorite vice in order to make ends meet after her husband walks out. But when Gaby walks in on a crime during one of her break-ins, she’s pulled into whirlwind of danger and lust. As the mystery pulls Gaby ever deeper, she quickly discovers that she can’t resist her darker impulses or her deepest desires.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBryant Street Shorts
    Release dateMay 7, 2020
    ISBN9781094409962
    Author

    Holly Glass

    Holly Glass uses romance to explore the complexities of gender identity, the joys of sexual fluidity, and the possibility of personal liberation in a highly gendered world. Her goal is to cultivate intimacy and health by telling stories that are authentic to life and love outside of the hetero-norm.

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      Book preview

      The Art of Sex and Stealing - Holly Glass

      Part 1: How to Catch a Thief

      Only a criminal knows what remorse really is.

      Other people, normal people, think they have a clue, but their best guesses are really worlds away. It’s not the feeling that comes from taking the wrong route to work and ending up in a traffic jam. It’s not the revulsion that creeps up your body when you realize the guy you’ve been dating voted for an asshole.

      I’m talking about remorse that’s a matter of life and death, the moment when you see that your choices have ruined everything that’s ever mattered to you. In an instant, all that stuff is gone, and it’s all because you’re hiding amidst a stranger’s smelly old running shoes. One minute you were hoisting yourself through a window and pawing through their kitchen drawers for cash. The next minute you’re standing in a closet next to their winter coats, listening to their footsteps, waiting for someone to open up the door and ruin you, like light on film.

      Trapped.

      No getting out.

      Your life is crashing down around you, and it’s all your fault.

      The remorse flashes through me like the adrenaline that’s surging through my veins. I have a sudden impossible urge to take it all back as I listen to my victim’s footsteps. Then again, how far back would I have to go? To the decision to break into this house? To the moment I chose to be a cat burglar?

      To be fair, I didn’t get into burglary on purpose. If anything, it stole my life from me.

      My first theft was an honest accident. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, just the other kids who went to our small church and were also homeschooled by their zealous, spirit-filled parents. Public school meant a secular education, a training in the ways of the world, a poisoning that my parents didn’t want to subject us to.

      One day my mom allowed me to play with another little girl from the congregation. Our mothers sat in the living room, talking about what the Lord was doing in their lives, complaining about the trials of the devil and how he sometimes tempted them into dreaming of more than husbands and homemaking. They consoled each other. They prayed for each other.

      Upstairs, Sarah and I played with biblical paper dolls, dressing up Queen Esther and Deborah the prophetess. At first I ate that shit up hook, line, and sinker. Sarah, however, had the good sense to feel dissatisfied with our two-dimensional versions of womanhood. I remember how she put her hand on mine and giggled with excitement when she asked me if I wanted to see something cool.

      We crept into her older brother’s bedroom, where she showed me his hidden stash of porn and condoms. I remember how I reveled at the loot, entranced by the women who showed off their bodies. I picked up one of the wrapped condoms, marveling at the rubbery contents that slid around inside. The sensation alone made me feel alive and smart, even though I didn’t totally understand what the thing was for.

      At that moment my mother shouted my name and we bolted out of Daniel’s bedroom. It wasn’t until I got back home that I noticed the squishy condom that was still in my little fist.

      At first I was mortified and I had the impulse to confess my accidental sin to my mother. More horrifying still was just how satisfying the whole thing felt. Growing up, I never had a thing of my own, not really. I shared a bedroom with my older sisters and wore their old clothes. I spent my days with my mom, never getting the simple solitude of walking to school and back. At just eight I already had a sense that even my body was not my own. There were places that I wasn’t allowed to touch, things I wasn’t allowed to do lest I tempt my brothers in Christ. When I was a kid, the women in those magazines looked so free, like they were in control, and I realized that I wanted what they had.

      I found an old shoebox and hid it inside one of the vents in my bedroom. That was where I hid the condom, and where I would hide all the other things that I’d come to steal. At last I had things that were truly mine. It was more than the small figurines and pens and plastic jewelry that I stole from other kids or from stores. It was the feeling of power, the sense that I could control something and possess it fully.

      From inside the closet, I hear the whine of a front door’s rusting hinges. Through the slats in the closet door, I see a woman walk into the house, and I know that I have mere moments until she takes off her coat and reaches for one of the hangers that are currently next to my head.

      Even though my heart is pounding and I’m hating the hell out of myself, I know damn well that stealing kept me alive for years. When I was a kid, stealing made me feel like I had something of my own, but as I got older, it became my ticket to freedom. When I was fourteen, I started sneaking out of school at lunchtime

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