FIVE YEARS OF FOREPLAY: LET THE GAMES BEGIN
by Fay Faron
June 14, 2026 | Fiction | Let the Games Begin!
I was born a teetotaling virgin. Okay, let’s face it, we all were. The difference is I was expected to stay that way until I married the piano player at church—whoever that happened to be at the moment—and toasted my nuptials with sparkling cider alongside three hundred of my parents’ closest right-wing fundamentalist Christian friends.
Even before I was born, my folks mapped out our family dynasty. Centuries of Faron’s overpopulating the earth in a bid for global domination. And being an essential cog in this imperial takeover, it was my duty to manufacture the next generation.
What they imagined would follow would be decades of bustling holiday get-togethers, children bursting through every room and into the yard, all playing happily in the Arizona sunshine, even as my folks and in-laws argued over what to name my children’s children.
On and on it would go, no one living their own life, just dutifully breeding the next brood. And for what? When would any of my doomed descendants get a turn at living their own life?
But enough about them. What about Me-Me-Me? I didn’t dare ask the question. If I did, Dad would just say I was being selfish and to go out and get him some grandchildren already.
Obviously, I had to get married. And not just because it would crush my parents’ world if I didn’t. My real incentive was that without the sanctity of marriage, I’d never be able to have sex. And I really, really, REALLY at some point in my life wanted to have sex.
Everyone knew there were good girls and there were bad girls in the world. Good girls saved themselves for marriage. Bad girls did not. Good girls lived happy, serene lives. Bad girls had illegitimate offspring, only to have them wrenched from their arms and put up for adoption. Good girls got the guys. Bad girls were shunned by decent men—even the ones who made them bad girls in the first place.
And if you didn’t learn it at church, every movie made under the Hayes Code of 1934 made it clear. There was no rehabilitation for a good girl gone bad. No chance for redemption. Once a lass took that fork in the road, she was doomed. Cursed. Damned.
The problem was, my parents and I didn’t want the same things in a guy. They wanted a boy who could fit neatly into our family. Become a deacon in the church. Go into business with Pops. He had to be malleable enough to fall under their spell, just as I had done.
As for me, I wanted a bit of a bad boy. Someone like Clark Gable in the 1936 film, San Francisco, who when loved by a virtuous woman (aka, me) would turn out to have a heart of gold.
Except heart-of-gold wouldn’t be good enough for my folks. He’d have to get born-again. And then, he wouldn’t be Blackie anymore. And I wouldn’t love him anymore.
But where would I find such a fellow? Someone deceptively saintly enough for my folks, yet rogue enough for me? A boy who not only knew how to play the game, but respected that the game must be played? And, make no mistake, the game must be played. Because I loved my folks, as controlling as they could be. They were as much a part of me as my blonde hair and blue eyes. And if I wanted a harmonious existence, then my life—and my future husband’s—would have to have a clandestine component.
To complicate matters, I had a dirty little secret.
Deep down in my filthy little heart-of-hearts, I sorta, kinda, REALLY wanted to have sex. Actually, I didn’t so much want to do it, as to have it done to me. Like Sleeping Beauty who could claim, “Not my fault!” because she was just lying there minding her own business when Prince Charming planted one on her.
Except her Prince Charming was a gentleman. One kiss and he was out of there. Forget that. I needed a dastardly devil who’d take me against my will. Have his way with me while I was sleeping so I could have all of the fun and none of the guilt. Some faceless, nameless stranger. Someone I wasn’t attracted to. Never wanted to see again. Someone who’d just do it and skedaddle.
A pigmy, perhaps. I couldn’t imagine being attracted to a pigmy. Maybe a whole team of pigmies. All of them marveling at my long limbs, kissed by the sun. My honey blonde hair licking my golden shoulders. Stroking my face, not startlingly beautiful, but pretty enough to get out of traffic tickets.
This might be a fantasy, but I had to be realistic. It just wasn’t plausible I wouldn’t wake up at some point if a bunch of pigmies were having their way with me. They’d have to tie me up. Handcuff me. In a comfortable position, of course. Then, being polite little pigmies, they’d untie me when they left.
A gentleman always leaves in the night.
And then, I’d go back to sleep. And when I awoke, I’d think it was just a dream. A dream that was already vanishing, as dreams do. Leaving me a chaste virgin worthy of a good man.
Or more accurately, a bad boy with a heart of gold.