UNRAVEL

Chapter 2: What You Need

Sasha tossed her long hair behind her shoulders as she walked into the small kitchen, and shuffled past her mother to reach for a glass to fill at the sink. She felt her mother's hands on her lower back, and rolled her eyes as she pulled her jeans up by the belt loops with a disapproving huff.

"Go put a belt on or something, these pants are hanging off of you," her mother muttered, her voice still hoarse in the early hours of the morning.
"It's not my fault, I can't gain weight," Sasha shot back defensively, swatting her mother's hands away, and folding her arms in front of herself. She seemed to only grow upwards, and with every inch she gained in height, she became thinner and more waif-like. The nicknames at school never ceased to remind her of it, and the most devoted male attention she received came from an unwanted source.

As if her thoughts conjured him up, her stepfather entered the kitchen, and Sasha reflexively tugged at the hem of her t-shirt to cover her midriff. Still, he brushed against her deliberately as he passed her, and she shuddered as she walked around the small table in the center of the crowded space to avoid his path.

"Get up, Emilio," Sasha jeered as she tossed a balled up pair of clean socks at her sister's sleeping body in the room they shared. She snickered as she put an emphasis on the O in the name in place of the E . Sasha's younger sister dressed like a boy, talked like a boy, and acted like a boy, and Sasha had appropriately given her a boy's name.
"You're making us late for school," she whined when her sister only shifted in her bed, and buried her head deeper underneath the covers. Sasha shook her head as she slipped back into the hallway and into the bathroom, and kicked the door shut with her foot before she stood in front of the sink. The door hit something and swung back, and she winced as her step-father forced his way in, and clicked the lock shut behind him.

"You're not wearing that to school, are you?" Kane gruffed in his guttural tone as he pushed his bare torso against hers, trapping her between the edge of the sink, and his mass of muscle.
"Happy Birthday, baby," he whispered with a chuckle as his calloused hand brought her face to his, and then traveled to one of her breasts over her t-shirt. He had been the first to remember, and Sasha dreaded his idea of a present as his lips travelled to her neck.
Kane was usually more careful in his pursuit of the object of his desire, and always waited until her mother was out the door to do his bidding. But it was her special day, and he wanted her to know he was thinking about her.
"This is all mine, don't you forget," he murmured as he groped her thighs, and she pursed her lips shut, looking over his tattoos to distract herself the way she always did, losing herself in the overlapping images and lettering until it was all over. 
"Put a longer shirt on," he finally ordered as they both heard Emilia shuffling in the hallway. "I don't want those kids at school eyeing you up."
Sasha held her eyes shut as he pressed his lips to hers, marking her with the distinct taste of Newports and liquor. She gritted her jaw as she broke the kiss and pried his hands from her hips, warning him with her eyes that her sister was close by. Her 17th birthday only meant one thing to her that day; she was now exactly 364 days away from getting the fuck out of there.

Sasha blinked the memory away from her eyes in front of the full length mirror in her bedroom, and she knew she was perfection in the flesh in her cream white pencil skirt, white silk blouse, and nude heels that elongated her already enviable legs. The finishing touch was the golden sheen she applied to her lips as she smiled at her reflection, and then shifted her eyes to the framed images adorning the wall. She remembered the day she'd taken the photograph that graced the cover of a fashion magazine, and the mosaic of photographs that surrounded it brought back memories of the modeling career she'd only recently retired from, mostly because it left her better assets under-utilized. She was turning that around today as she stood ready to nail the job interview she was scheduled for. She may as well have congratulated herself already, because Sasha detested failure, and did everything she needed to remain unfamiliar with it.