Rival Stepsisters

CHAPTER ONE

I hate her the moment I first see her.

"Oh my gosh,

hey,"

she gushes at my mother, opening her smooth tanned arms out wide. "It is

so good

to meet you!"

It is so good to meet yeeeew,

I mouth at my brother, who laughs a little breathlessly, his eyes glued to the breasts bouncing in her low-cut romper. I punch his arm, but he barely seems to feel it.

She approaches us, her long legs bending forward with confident grace. I want her to trip on those heels. She stops in front of my brother, her huge smile melting to closed-lips, laughing like my brother and her have a huge secret between them. He's never met her before in his life and yet he laughs back. It's so pretentious and disgusting and I put the minimum effort into my expression when she turns to me.

"Mia," she greets me with her teeth. I notice immediately that her smile has tightened. I look into her eyes, and I see nothing but my own feelings wrapped up in a fake bow.

"Hi," I say, giving her a lame one-armed hug. It lasts less than a second and I smell her shampoo, which has a girlish, berry sweetness.

"Love your hair," she says without meeting my eyes, already looking past me to greet my younger sister.

I sweep my fingers through my side-bangs. I dyed my natural ginger hair a fresh apple-red yesterday to reflect my internal crisis at meeting my mum's boyfriend's family. I say, "thanks", but my voice can barely be heard as everyone leaves the foyer into the kitchen.

I meet her dad at the door, whose coming through last. "Hey, Mia!" he says enthusiastically. "Nice hair."

"Thanks Rich," I answer, taking the bouquet of flowers and a shopping bag of ingredients in his hands.

"Have you met Sky yet? She was really excited to meet you." When I don't respond immediately, he makes a

meh

sound, waving his hand in the air, and says, "I guess you're both grown-ups. Too old for excitement. What are you again, eighteen?"

"Yeah," I murmur, following him with a 15-year-old's despondence into the crowded kitchen.

"Sky!" he calls his daughter. "Come and help Mia with the groceries." He lowers his voice and says, "Sky's just two years older." He winks at me. "I'm sure you'll get along just well."

Skylar brushes past her dad with a pretty smile. Then she arrives at the island beside me, and her smile drops as she pulls the first plastic bag towards her. She takes out a jar of passata. "Where does this go?" she asks, her tone light, but her gaze significantly duller as she turns it down me. I notice her take in my outfit, the long, patterned summer dress and brown belt. It goes down to my calves, revealing my golden anklets, while her romper shorts stop just below her ass. Slut.

"Cupboard," I say, pointing my finger over my shoulder. I watch her turn around and reach up to place the jar in the cupboard. Her ass-cheeks hang below the shorts, tight and plump. They shake slightly as she sets back down to her heels.

She gives a self-deprecating laugh, but it's bitter, restrained. "Can't reach," she says. I take the jar from her hands.

We're both about five foot five, not to mention the several inches she has on me with her heels. But I want to be a bitch and prove that she's lazy; that she's making a lousy first impression. I bump her out the way with my hip, rough enough for her to stagger backward, a sharp exhale leaving her glossy lips. "You know what?" she says, juicing her tone into fake niceness. "I got this." She wraps her hand around the jar, her long, manicured fingers brushing mine. My fingers are pale, so pale that my wrists freckle all the way up my arm and shoulders.

"Let me," I insist, staring into her eyes, which narrow with effort as she tries to tug the passata jar away from me. "It's my house, after all." I step closer to her. My breath can ruffle the hairs on her eyebrows. "

My

family."

"Bit old for being a territorial twat, aren't you?" she hisses, the sudden and sharp insult hitting me with satisfaction. The space I've closed between us has stripped back her fakeness. She hates me just as much as I do.

"Bit old for walking around in a tight romper like a twelve-year-old, aren't you?" I spit back at her. Some spittle actually sprays her face, and her green eyes blink with disgust.

"Please," she hisses, still trying to grab the jar from my grasp. "Your brother loves it."

I spit in her face for real this time.

She gasps, the glob of saliva sliding down her perfectly made-up face. "You

bitch,

" she breathes. "You really do have problems."

"What?" I hiss between my teeth, speaking too late to hold back curiosity I didn't want answered.

She rips out three sheets of a kitchen towel--a wasteful amount--and wipes it tenderly down her face, as if it's the most precious thing in the world. "My dad told me you were

troubled.

Smoking and getting into cat-fights at your school everyday."

Anger loosens my tongue. "Hm. Funny," I say, leaning one elbow on the marble counter. "My mum

also

told me things. Things that make me surprised that you even care so much about the saliva on your face." I quirk my eyebrows, drop my gaze. She watches me with wide eyes, her tissue in mid-air. "I bet you just

love

having saliva all over your face," I say, deepening my vowels until I sounded like I was moaning. "I wonder which dick you've been sucking while you've been away from your horny town summer." My eyes slide to the door of the living room, full of the noises from our family. I ran my hand between both my breasts, pinching the nipples. "

Oh daddy, please, please come on my face, daddy!"

Her cheeks are tinted with a red, crimson anger, and she looks like she's going to slap me--her hand is uncurling from the tissue. Her dad's voice snapped her out of her speechlessness, and she puts both her hands out on the island table to orient herself. "What, daddy--dad?" she says, shooting me a look of vitriol while I snort and dig into my bag for a smoke.

"You've barely unpacked anything, I said!" He walks into the kitchen and grabs a bag, shaking his head.

Skylar and I don't speak for the rest of that day.

I smoke on the deck of the beach-house while they eat and talk, tickling my younger sister whenever she got too close. "I'm too busy to play, kid," I tell her.

"You don't look busy," she says, pouting.

I stick my fingers under her chin. "I'm people-watching. That's a very demanding task." She runs away before my fingers reach under her arms. After they finish eating, I see Skylar shoot me several looks that she thinks I don't notice. None of them are friendly: they're all the stares of someone regarding some hostile specimen at the zoo.

They go out into the beach a while later. Skylar changes out of her romper into the sluttiest bikini I've ever seen in my life. It's a wonder my brother doesn't have to pick his eyes out of the sand and back into their sockets.

"Yoo-hoo, Mia!" calls my mum, her hand shielding her eyes. "Can you stop being anti-social for a minute and come out here? Richard's kids are leaving soon. I don't know when we'll get to see them all like this again!"

"Oh, in that case..." I respond loudly, swinging my legs off the lounge-chair. I rip off my belt and dress and walk down the steps in my one-piece. It's high-rising, digging up to my waist, showing off the tattoo of a naked mermaid on my hip. I gather my hair to one side and grab someone's sunglasses off the stair-rail--probably Skylar's. I slide into the empty jacuzzi, which is a good distance away from everyone on the beach and push my glasses up to my brows with my middle finger, knowing full well Skylar is watching.

I hear my mother sigh all the way from here.

As everyone is leaving and I'm happier than I've been all day at the sight of it. Especially the loss of brightness and mild disgust on Skylar's face, as if I've corrupted her, which is just

hilarious

given her reputation. She doesn't look at me or say bye as she leaves.

CHAPTER TWO

A year passes before I see Skylar again.

I'm on a bench in our front garden, smoking as I flip through playlists on Spotify.

"Hey, stepsis," a voice with a Californian twang greets me. Images of summer and thick blonde hair and rompers greet me. I squint at her through the sunshine of her appearance, blowing smoke through the side of my lip.

"What?" I say. The first thing I've said to her since last summer.

"My dad proposed. You didn't hear?" she says, taking the seat beside me. She's bolder than I remember. Still a slut. I look down at her bare legs, inexplicably tanned though we're well into autumn. Does she put herself into one of those coffins that stir-fry her skin into a burnt noodle?

"Nope," I said, popping the p. I return to my screen without looking at her.

She leans over to watch me, and her berry scent makes my nose twitch. "Florence and the Machine," she says in an appraising tone. She ruins it by laughing. "Obviously."

I don't grace that with any attention.

"You're a real bohemian," she says, a giggle warbling her words.

"And you're a real fucking barbie," I say to her. "What'd do you listen to, Taylor Swift?" I nod my head at the bag she has clutched in her lap. "Show me." Her fingers are still a perfect manicure, and they flutter at my blunt request. I tap away, adding new songs to a collection I've named

Summer Has Finally Fucking Ended

, not giving a rat's ass that my nails are chipped and bitten and that my keyboard is smudged with grease.

She takes out her phone. The cover is herself and a man with his arms wrapped around her midriff. They both have matching dimples and blonde hair. Hm. Maybe she had finally settled down and signed up to the commitment department. I watch from the corner of my eyes as she unlocks her phone. Her quick gasp makes me tear my eyes instantly away from the screen. The last thing she was doing on her phone is... interesting.

"He's big," I comment, wanting to laugh at her expression.

She stammers and exits the app. "It's just... this guy. So gross." But she likes it. She probably asked for it. Sent one back. My eyes wander down to her chest, which is hugged by a pale turtleneck. I can see the cups of her bra. Her tits are big, from what I remember.

"Your boyfriend?" I ask, pulling up my leg and wrapping an arm around my knee.

She tilts her head, not meeting my eyes as she flicks her phone. I know what she's about to say. "

No...

it's just. You know."

"Hm." It's an amused sound that leaves my throat. When she looks at me again, her expression curious, I wonder how we've managed to sit here, talking as if our first meeting hadn't put me in her Burn Book. "How'd you get here?" I ask.

"Oh, we're all here," she says, spinning in her seat and looking over her shoulder. "I was told you were out here."

"Looking for me?" I say with a smirk.

I'm impressed by her even expression when she looks at me. "No. They just told me to come out here." She shrugs. "They all assume we're friends."

"Hm," I say again. I pull the cig out and offer it to her, and she ponders for a moment before she takes it from me and takes a quick drag, like she's sucking a lolly-pop. Her pink gloss imprints on my cigarette when she hands it back to me. "As if the last time we met I didn't imply that you were fucking your own dad?"

She sighs and looks into the distance. "Look, can we just start over? I assume that you were, like, going through something and you weren't comfortable with the merging of our families. I was, too, but I'm over it now. I'm literally twenty-one. And you're, what, nineteen?"

I don't respond. I wonder how she could possibly be older than me. I feel like neither of our souls match our age. I imagine us reversed, with me bent over her, pulling down her panties and smacking her with a dominatrix stick. I look away with a laugh. As if. She's hot, but no thanks. I don't even like the dominatrix stuff that much.

"What?" she says.

"Nothing."

"You know, you don't look as tough as you are. You're actually really pretty, even my boyfriend thought so. He was like, 'she looks so sweet. I can't wait to meet her.'"

I laugh out loud this time. I set my leg back down and lean back on my hands, tapping my cigarette against the bench-seat. "Did that make you jealous? Hearing your boyfriend say that about me?"

"What? No." Her expression is sincere. I believe her confusion.

"Since we're talking about appearances that deceive..." I say, leaning closer, my chin pressing down on my shoulder like I'm about to whisper something into her ear. She inches away almost imperceptibly. I make her uncomfortable. Good. "You look like a little vixen. You even dress like one. Like you're just begging to get your ass slapped." I turn my head back to the garden. "But you act like a fucking schoolgirl on her best behaviour."

"Wow, you're really..." She's stumped for words, but I can probably fill them in. "Do you just talk like that to shock people?"

I shrug one shoulder. "No-one really gets shocked anymore." I shoot her a grin and she stares at my mouth. "Just you."

Her phone lights up with a call. It's someone called

Brian.

"Oh," she says. "One sec." She accepts the call and turns away from me, as if that will make me hear her any less clearly. "Hi baby," she says sweetly. Her voice has risen to the pitch of couple-talk. "I'm with my stepsis, baby. I already told you. Do you need something?"

The word stepsis tickles me. I guess we really are about to become stepsisters. I watch her as she speaks. Her neck is exposed, long and curling with brunette strands that betray her true hair colour. She's smiling, and I can see the crease of her dimple from here. She turns to look at me over her shoulder, with an expression like an eye-roll, and I stare at her lips. They're soft and full. My teeth dig into my bottom lip. She said I was pretty. I don't feel pretty beside her. I feel dark. Almost masculine, though I've never desired to act like a man.

I switch my cigarette to my other hand.

"Baby," she laughs. "That's not what her name is. It's Sasha. Yeah, and her daughter's Mia. 'Course you remembered the

daughter's

name."

I think about the dick-pic from a few minutes ago, and the fact that she's talking to her boyfriend who she's shared her family history with now. My hand goes to her knee. I don't even let myself think about it. I just want. She's wearing a little plaid miniskirt with her turtleneck, and she really does look like a schoolgirl.

She freezes and looks down at my hand, which is just above her knee now, resting on her smooth thigh.

Fuck,

I think in my head. They're so perfect. I look at my legs through my sheer dress, which are slim and more knobbly. We look good side-by-side. Really good.

"Okay, bye, honey," she says, hanging up her phone. She doesn't say anything as she closes her phone app and pretends to be busy checking her other messages.

I finally let my hand go, and ask, curiously, with the cruel intention of making her second-guess my motives, "Do you wax your legs?"

She breaths out a little--it's just a hitch of her breath, her breasts pushing out. She turns off her phone. "Um, no. Just a razor-shave. But I've been going to get them lasered too."

I make a sound that I'm listening, that she's interesting. Truthfully, she's not. She's everything I hate about my sex. But she's also everything I love to have sex

with.

"I'm gonna go inside," she says.

"'Kay."

"My dad probably wants to meet you."

"Alright. Will go and say hi to Rich in a bit."

She laughs a little. "You're the only one who calls him that. Not even your mum or... my mum... call him that."

I don't say anything as she leaves, but I do watch her walk away. And she looks back, watching me watch her. Her eyes are narrowed. I don't care. I imagine myself shoving her against the screen door and slipping my fingers through her panties from the ass crease.

I laugh again to myself. I swing the other direction, facing the house, and load PornHub on my laptop. She looks a lot like Ryan Ryans, who is coincidentally my favourite star, and I torture myself with her naked tits without touching myself at all.

CHAPTER THREE

Skylar and her family move in to our home. She's only going to be with us for a while, and tells us so with an anxious self-consciousness: "Only until I get a job and can afford to move out," she reminds us every two fucking seconds.

I don't see her much, or anyone, for that matter. I work late at the music shop and drive around to different bars for a girl to pick up and take home with me. During the day, I'm reading, creating new music playlists, and smoking. From what I understand and care, Sky is with Brian every other day and loves our pool. She's half-naked every single time I see her.

One time I pass her and I actually give into the impulse of slapping her ass. It bounces in my palm, and I watch it even when she stares at me. We barely speak, you see.

"Hot," I say.

"Well..." she splutters, watching me take cereal out of the cupboard. Evidently frustrated at how badly she responded, she says, drawing herself up tall, "Are you, like, a lesbian or something?"

"Are you, like, fucking

twelve

?" I scoop out a handful of crunchy flakes.

"'Cause if you were," she says, watching me munch loudly, "that would count as sexual assault."

I snort, which makes a mess while I'm shovelling cereal down my throat. "That wasn't sexual," I say.

She crosses her arms across her chests, pushing her breasts up in their tiny top. I slow down my munching. That action was totally and completely deliberate. I'm a girl. I can see the intent in her eyes, the way her mouth drops slightly down as she appraises me. "Yes, it was."

"Did it feel good?" I ask her as I step closer, tucking the cereal box against my hip. I let myself stare at her breasts. God, they're so lovely. I bet the areolas are as pink as her lips.

"Yes," she says, with a stubborn shake of her head, as if she's entitled to admit her pleasure. "Which is why," she continues, and I see her licking her lips as I ogle her, "it's sexual. Sexual

assault

."

"'Ain't assault if you liked it, baby," I say, dropping my mouth down to her tits. I don't touch them, but I coast my breath over them. "Mm," I moan quietly, looking up at her. Oh, she's into this little lesbian seduction act. Then I hug my cereal to my chest and leave.

A week later is when she introduces fucking Brian to everyone. He's super tall and has to bend under the doorways and blah blah blah. I'm surprised by his grin when he sees me. "Mia, right?" His voice is deep and musical. I wonder if he's a singer. "I've heard so much about you!"

"Really?" I deadpan, letting myself be hugged by two big arms. He smells of deodorant and aftershave and every manly good thing. I wrinkle my nose with disgust. This is what Skylar smells when he's on top of her, railing into her tight little body.

"She's a little misanthropic," says the devil herself, twining herself around his arm and poking her head out like she was a vine growing on her tree of a man.

Brian laughs. "What does that mean?"

I give him my joker smile. "It means I

love

people. So nice to meet you, Brian."

Skylar is shooting me a glare while I walk off. When I find her after she's kissed her boyfriend goodbye, clinging onto him to delay being clipped off his branches, I instantly smack her ass in her booty-shorts and say, "Doesn't seem fair that Brian's name can be respelled to Brain, given that he completely lacks one."

She catches my wrist and shoves me away roughly.

"Woah." I grin at her. Her cheeks are flushed. It wasn't me that got her this riled up. Or is it? "Easy, tiger. I'm just kidding. He's the brightest candle in this room of chandeliers."