15. Shane
15
Shane
T here’s a fire in my head. An unresolved ache I can’t get to. I’m drowning in the echoes of her disillusioned song, sinking further into those feelings I once had for a person who doesn’t even exist. The only thing that had given me some reprieve from the torment was watching as consciousness slipped from her.
I’d given her a special concoction to assist with her mild panic attack, knowing she’d be out like a light in seconds. Afterward, Josiah made his way to Wheeter’s room, feeling ready for some of the “intimacy” he denies. As Montana slept off her high in my bed, I worked on my computer, uploading files throughout the late-night hours and calculating all of my royalties. I’m already getting closer to closing the gap.
Montana had assumed I’d slip her something at dinner, anticipating my madness to break through. She wasn’t wrong in that assessment. I’d find whatever way I could to sabotage the sweet and put-together life she showcases to the world. Montana isn’t a product of the same world as Wesley and the like. She was constructed through trauma and psychological damage, just like me. She just needs to be reminded of that.
Weed is weed. It’s nothing crazy, even to someone who’s never tried it. But laced weed is an entirely different story. My tolerance is practically inhuman at this point, so the MDMA barely touches me anymore. I still get that humming vibration through my body, but it’s not enough to thwart my entire night or send me curling up in a corner, clutching my head.
Sigh and I had both shared a glance, knowing after one look at Montana after that last full drag, she was royally fucked. After he left, I’d taken my time with her, laying her on my bed like my own personal doll and staring at every part of her without touching. Urges came over me, and I stifled out. I wanted my cock between her loose lips, her lax tongue moving at my will. I’m no fucking rapist, but you better believe I’m one hell of a player in psychological games.
Lifting her shirt just enough to expose her abdomen, I brought the tip of a sharpie to her skin and went to work. Sliding her shorts up enough to expose her inner thighs, I added more. I finished by pulling the hem of her shorts down, exposing the very edge of her smooth cunt, and adding a few more choice words and symbols.
I thirsted for her fear like a man starved. I craved destroying her chances at the upcoming audition, but not by causing something as juvenile as missing a bus or sleeping late. Not my style. I wanted to fuck up her mind. I wanted her to show up on time, appearing prepared as ever, her brain fried from the terror of what may have happened in those moments she’d never get back, providing her with the pleasure of anxiously overthinking every single aspect of her official audition. I wanted her shaky and unsure. Nervous and on the verge of implosion. I wanted their assumptions of her ability to perform with the most elite to come to a crumbling end, giving them the opportunity to watch as she crashed her own plane, ruining the new career and the new life she’d decidedly put first. Before me.
To Montana, music is a way out. But she’s a liar in every regard. She wants to be someone else, but I’m here to remind her that ghosts of the past continue to haunt her, and what she’d done to me won’t go without retribution.
She fucked up my future, so I’m hellbent on destroying hers.
After sleeping the rest of the afternoon away, I woke up and enjoyed the sweet sounds of our porno on repeat as Wheeter knocked endlessly for a teaser of whatever distasteful videos I was drowning in, and uploaded some new files to CyprusX. If only he knew I was watching myself fuck my stepsister’s tight cunt from behind. Finally, it was time to head over to my mom’s for the family dinner she’d been preparing.
I hate family functions, mostly because they’re a mirage. We all have our roles, but the people who talk about blood being thicker than water never had a money-hungry slut for a mother.
What we had was never a family. Families are filled with people who at least pretend to give a fuck about each other. When my father left us in the dust, my mother was left scrambling for her next big break, actively pursuing relationships and men like a broke woman seeking a job. That's what love was to her. An advance. Me, her son, just a fucked up byproduct of a broken marriage. Someone I’m sure she’d love to erase without feeling the guilt.
She never cared to assist me with anything in life, and maybe that’s why losing it all cut so deep. Everything I’d been building for myself was by myself—my schooling, my scholarship, the focus of my father’s rage. But I didn't hold it over her head. She had no clue what it meant to be a mother because she was born from a crackhead herself. The fact that I'm even alive says a lot.
She stays out of my life and I stay out of hers, but since Phil came along, she likes to pretend she did it right. Likes to imagine a life where Kathy Sinclair came through on the other side of trauma with her head held high and a martini in hand. I’ll gladly play into her delusional world if it means I get to watch Montana crumble before me.
“Shane, can you grab the door? I think I heard them pull up,” my mother says, turning the burners off the stove.
Heading to the foyer of their small two-story colonial home, I open the door to exactly what I was expecting.
There stands Phillip Rowe with his lovely, eye-bagged, pissed-off-looking daughter in tow. He needed to pick her up since she was without a vehicle, and I sure as shit wasn’t giving her the satisfaction of riding on my bike.
“Come on in,” I say, waving my arm toward the hall. “Please, make yourself at home.”
The backhanded diss goes over Phil’s head as they most often do, but Montana catches my flames and meets them with her own.
The heat of my stepsister’s glare is everything I need. I toss her a sweet smile as Phil ushers himself inside to find his wife.
“Straight from the gutter this evening, eh, rat?” I comment to her, enjoying the sight of her pale-looking skin and the bloodshot eyes staring back at me.
She’d tried to get out of the evening dinner, expressing her desire to catch up on schoolwork to Phil, but my mother wasn’t buying it. He’d almost let her off the hook, like a weak man would, but an empty chair at the dining table would be insulting to the woman who’d prepared all day for this little stage, so he was coerced into using another method to get her here.
When you cry wolf one too many times, no one believes you, especially when the ones meant to believe you descend from the woods themselves.
She brushes past me, effectively shoving a shoulder into my chest to knock me back. A mischievous grin toys with my lips, the pure joy on my face more genuine than any I’ve had in the past few years.
I grip her wrist and pull her back to me.
“You were a good time last night,” I say, pressing her into the hallway wall. “Proved you could really hang .”
Her eyes glow red, and her nostrils are practically smoking.
“What did you do to me?” she seethes, grabbing something from her pocket. She grips a tiny silver keychain on her keys and holds it under my chin like a blade. “I woke up with marker all over my body!”
She lifts her white blouse with her other hand, showing a faded FUCK HERE with an arrow pointing to her cunt. She must’ve tried hard to remove it this morning.
“Cum Slut, trash whore, fill me here…arrows to my holes.”
“Damn, baby,” I say with a devious look. “Sounds like you had quite the party.”
“I will fuck you up, Shane Delacroix,” she warns.
“Maybe you already did?” I shrug, tipping my chin. “But if you can’t remember, maybe we can check the tape.” I take her blouse out of her hand and tuck it back into her black skirt.
Her eyes widen, her mouth opening to say something else, but Phil calls from down the hall.
“Dinner, kids!”
W e sit side-by-side, Montana next to me, Phil and my mother practically morphing into one being across the table from us.
“So, how was the audition today, Montana? Phil tells me you tried out for the first chair with the Montgomery Fine Orchestra. That’s just phenomenal. I had no idea you were into that. Phil forgot to mention you played any musical instruments.”
“Phil tends to forget a lot of things about me,” Montana replies, stale as ever.
Phil’s fake laugh assaults my ears, making me wince. I must be making a face at him because my mother clears her throat, pulling my attention.
“I’m sure I mentioned this to you, honey. Oh, you’ve got some…” He takes his napkin and dabs the corner of my mother’s lip.
“What good is a chef if she doesn’t test her own sauce?” My mother chimes in, sharing smiles around the table. “Alright, let’s eat.”
Phil’s eyes don’t leave her. He’s leaning in so close he might as well be sitting on her lap.
I glance over at Montana, who’s just sitting back in her chair, glaring at her father. The tension in her shoulders and the laxity in his tells me everything I need to know about their dynamic. Daddy issues.
“How was the audition, sis ?” I mock. “Think all that hard work is gonna pay off?”
Montana cuts into her smothered pork chop on the plate before her, dipping the piece in as much gravy as she can, suffocating it as if it were my face.
Tired eyes find mine as she pops the porkchop bite in her mouth. She slowly chews, staring at me and lifting her chin, allowing me to watch her swallow. Something about the action makes heat flood my groin and my head fuzzy. My eyes narrow on hers.
“Went fucking perfect.” She taunts, raising a challenging brow at me.
Fuck, I love that dirty mouth.
“Phillip,” my mother scolds.
“Language, young lady,” Phil says to Montana. “We don’t talk like that over your mother’s fine dinner.”
I watch her face shift to anger before slipping into a dead space.
“My mother is in Fikus Penitentiary,” she replies, still staring at me with a look devoid of any emotion.
She’s slipped into that place again. The place where brick upon brick meets silence. It's the closing of mind and emotion. It’s home to someone who knows abuse. I know it intimately.
My mother clears her throat, drawing my focus to them again as she aggressively tosses her fork, sauteed green beans falling onto her plate. “Phillip, I thought we addressed this.”
“We have,” he replies nervously. “Montana, we aren’t to bring her up in this household. We’ve been through this. Is that understood?”
The fake sternness etched into her father’s forehead looks as if it could crumble him at any moment. I peer back at Montana.
“Why can’t we talk about her mom?” I interject, hoping to cause more tension, trying to appear naive to it all.
My mother shifts her upper half to face me. “Because it’s not—”
“We don’t want to spoil this fine dinner with the dirty demons of Phil's past. No, we want to keep everything clean and neat over here in fool’s paradise. Surface level.” Montana interrupts my mother, smoothing the white lace tablecloth with her hands.
This time, Phil coughs and clears his throat. “Why don’t we discuss something else. Shane, how’s the new recruit treating you?”
This piques Montana’s interest enough that she glances my way.
I sit back in my seat, resting my hands on my knees. “It’s going great, Phil. As you know, we just had a new applicant interview who’s actively interested in pushing the company forward in the direction we were hoping.”
My palm slips over Montana’s knee beneath the tablecloth, causing her to jump. She tilts her head at me, and I see her eyes turn to slits in my peripheral vision.
“Yeah? That’s great, honey. Good qualifications?” my mother asks, delicately slipping the tiniest piece of green bean past her lips.
“The best. Fully stacked.” I peer at Montana’s full chest before addressing my mother and Phil again. “Amazing work ethic. Really listens to orders. Willing to take on multiple tasks at the same time—”
“And what is it that you do, Shane?” Montana interjects, a muscle in her jaw bouncing.
“Oh, I’m a software developer. For VitaCare Health.” I smirk, trailing my fingers in slow, steady circles along the inside of her knee, slowly moving up her thigh. Her throat rolls, and she readjusts in her seat, attempting to throw my fingers. But they find her warmth again easily enough. “It’s a tad isolating being alone in front of a screen most days, but I don’t mind the solitude.”
My mother grins admiringly at me, and Phil nods in approval.
“VitaCare Health? The VitaCare? As in all the hospitals across the country?” Montana couldn’t look more perplexed. She closes her thighs together tightly, trapping my hand.
“Shane was the lead over the team that set up the new digital program, VitaChart, which allows doctors and clients to more accurately access their health records across the country,” her father adds, earning another glare from her.
“But yes, this new addition has proven to be extremely useful so far. She’s very detail-oriented. Does as asked. Aims to please.” My hand slides further up Montana’s thigh, finding the soft warmth of her panties. She gives in, parting to make room for me, just as I knew she would. Whore.
“Maybe you should look into giving Monty a job? She could really use some stability,” Phil says.
My gaze trails over her delicate face, slowly and precisely. Cataloging everything I now have an insatiable taste for.
“Nah, she wouldn’t make the cut,” I respond, peeling her panties to the side.
Those glowing honey-browns flutter before narrowing on me further.
“Shane,” my mother scolds.
“Sorry. No offense, but it’s true. She’s not good on paper, being that she’s so heavily pursuing other interests. But maybe…if she put in a bit more effort...” I brush my middle finger along her damp little slit, trailing it up to her pierced clit. I flick it, watching as her eyes wince. Fuck, she drives me crazy.
“Well, we’re so proud of you, honey,” my mother continues, gripping Phil’s fist on the table as they smile at each other.
“How could you work for a hospital system if you’ve been to jail?” Montana asks bluntly, a bit of a hiccup in her tone as she allows me to keep touching her. “Do they not do background checks these days? That desperate for new workers?”
She’s wet. Fuck, she’s so warm and deliriously wet.
Phil sighs, wiping his palm over his mouth as I continue my pursuit beneath the table. I push my way in, not giving a fuck what she’s talking about, sinking my middle finger past her tight entrance to the knuckle. The action has my cock lengthening along my thigh. Her eyes close for an extended moment, her cunt practically sucking me deeper, before they open again as my mother joins in on the conversation.
“Shane has been remarkable at giving back to the community since the incident. He’s paid his dues. Done his time. We were all very lucky that he had such a good rapport with the board. They did everything they could to ensure he kept his job after the misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding? Is that what we’re calling felony action these days?” Montana says. “I’ll make sure to let my mother’s lawyer know.”
“Rumors are like cheap reporters, Montana. Useless and void of factual information.”
The statement from Phil fuels her fight.
“I’m sorry,” she shakes her head, focusing back on me, “but didn’t you stab a man repeatedly in the neck with a pencil?”
The directness of her statement catches me by surprise. So much so that I fail to see what she’s doing. Before I have the chance to move, I feel the blade of a knife pierce my forearm, dragging through my flesh to my wrist. I stifle the rumble of pain that threatens to leave my throat. My finger is still lodged within her, but if I move now, they’ll know.
Little shit caught me in her trap. Venus flytrap pussy.
“A teacher, if I heard correctly? Please enlighten me on how that is a misunderstanding .”
“That’s enough!” Phil stands from the table, sending his chair screeching across the wood floor. Montana jumps, causing her to remove the knife, allowing me my arm back. My mother gasps as Phil continues, “That’s enough, Montana.”
I wait with excitement, practically giddy with the desire to witness her tears, her trembling jaw, her body shivering with the fear of her only lifeline finally breaking and yelling at her, even as I bleed onto my pant leg, my finger still slick as ever.
But I see nothing. Nothing at all. She just stares blankly at him, void of all emotion, then at my mother, then me, before slowly getting up from her seat and laying the bloody knife on the white tablecloth alongside her fork and spoon.
“Guess I was wrong.”
They both gasp at the bloodied weapon as it smears across the crease-less cloth.
“Where are you going, young lady?! You weren’t dismissed from this table,” Phil yells, attempting to regain control of the situation.
She pauses near the foyer, her fingers tapping gently on the corner of the wall near a photo.
“Where I always go.”
Then she’s gone, the front door closing softly a minute later as Phil apologizes profusely for her behavior to my mess of a mother. I stare at the door after her departure. I could go after her. Check on her. Make sure she knows she’s not alone.
But I would never.
Because Montana is alone.
Just as she fucking wanted.