Kate resembled her father at heart, and she wasn't really shocked when she was told that he was cheating on his wife -- Kate's mother. In fact, for many years she had wondered why he did not find another woman.
Kate had always been a thoughtful girl, and soon after puberty, she had analyzed her way to not only that there was something wrong with her parents' marriage, but also what was wrong. They were very different. Her father, Brian, was warm and caring. Her mother, Angela, was cold and sober-minded. And because Kate looked so much like her father, her mother soon felt left out -- isolated in her own home. This just made her even colder. The atmosphere was at zero, even though there were rarely any real quarrels, neither between husband and wife nor between mother and daughter.
But that Brian needed to be with a woman he could actually talk to and who appreciated him was clear to Kate early on. Therefore, her tears were more of surprise and emotion than of shock when, a few weeks after her 18th birthday, he sat down with her and told her that he was having an affair. He hadn't planned to get divorced--it was just an affair--but the woman, Leslie, had convinced him that he owed it to his daughter to tell her.
Kate was also, when she had just recovered from, very pleased that her father did not just go behind her back. On the contrary, she was happy that he now seemed to get the warmth and good laughs Angela never gave him. It was all going to work out. Kate felt only a little bit sorry for her mother. Angela would never be the poor, deceived wife left alone, Kate knew. She had too great strength for that.
Kate was more right than she knew. Shortly after, Angela discovered her husband's affair by chance. From here, things went fast. Kate was now told that Angela was also having an affair, that had lasted for years already. She and Brian had only stayed together for Kate's sake, but since she was now basically an adult, and besides, she was so mature and calm facing the facts, they saw no reason to continue the loveless marriage. They divorced, and they had apparently talked about it several times, because it was as if the division of property and everything else practical had been agreed in advance.
After a few weeks, Angela had moved in with her lover, who was rich and had a big house. On that basis, she refrained from going hard after Brian in the divorce settlement. But she couldn't hide a bitterness, both towards him and towards Kate. As she saw it, they had stood together against her, and it was up to her to bear it and put up af brave face. Still, they had now sent her out of the house, as if it was nothing special.
Kate was too preoccupied with her own to really enter into a dispute with her mother. The time was approaching when it was natural for her to move away from home. But for now, she wanted to stay with her father, even though she thought it would be awkward when she had to welcome her new stepmother. It seemed decided that Brian and Leslie would get married before too long.
It became even more awkward than Kate had feared. Leslie was coming to dinner, and Kate had mobilized all her skills in a kitchen to show good will. They all spoke politely and kindly, and on the surface it went well. But Kate had a bad feeling about the woman his father had fallen in love with.
Leslie was 42 years old, a decade younger than Brian. Kate had been greatly relieved when she was told that it was not a young mistress she now had to deal with as a stepmother. But Leslie used her physique as a young woman. She wasn't the most beautiful woman on earth, but with her bleached hair, her ripped jeans and her snappy boots, and especially with her breasts, which were clearly artificial, she knew how to make herself sexy in a way that is primitive, but effective.
Kate, of course, understood that her father had a man's urges. But he was also educated and refined, and she was disappointed that he had fallen for the cheapest tricks you can find in the book about how a woman without much money lands an attractive man.
And that wasn't even the worst part. Although Leslie smiled most of the evening, the smile did not reach her eyes, it seemed to Kate. On the contrary, she sometimes caught Leslie's gaze at her between the smiles, and even if it was only in brief glimpses, this gaze was cold, hard and perhaps even contemptuous.
That night, Kate cried herself to sleep. She was in despair. She hoped she had been wrong about Leslie, and she would do her best to make the relationship with the new stepmother work. But she foresaw that she would soon again become her father's comfort and encouragement when he was in the company of a tough woman who did not possess his fine, human qualities. And this time, the tough woman wasn't even Kate's own mother, nor was she cultured, like Angela was, after all. Leslie, Kate thought, was basically just a brat who had grown up and who knew how to play the game.
Over the next few weeks, Kate had to make an effort to meet her father with a happy face. Inside, she was mournful. She searched for a good solution to everything, but she didn't find any. She couldn't come back to her mother wailing -- that wouldn't be fair. She also couldn't tell her father about her genuine feelings and concerns. It could ruin the new relationship for him.
And, Kate thought, maybe it was so simple that he was attracted to cold women. In any case, he had found two of them in a row, first Angela, then Leslie. And opposites meet, as they say.
Kate ended up calming down with the thought that she had to be there for her father, while at the same time preparing to live her own, adult life. Soon she was graduating from high school, and then she had to go out into the world somehow. Her parents had arranged a solid child savings account for her, so there was something to start with.
And who could know what would happen? Maybe she would soon find a sweet boyfriend herself? However, it was not an area where Kate had much experience. Although she was quite pretty, she had only had a couple of boyfriends, and both relationships had only lasted a few weeks.
She hadn't tried sex either; only a little cuddling under blouses and trousers a couple of times. She had the attitude that you should save real sex until you had found the one you wanted to live with. It was not an attitude that was grounded in deep religiosity. That's just how she felt, but now she thought that maybe she should be more pragmatic and quickly find a boyfriend she could move in with. Then it would be less important whether Leslie was one way or the other.
But for now, it mattered a lot, because Brian and Leslie wasted no time. A month after Kate first heard Leslie's name, she threw rice at her and Brian as they stepped out of the town hall door.
The wedding party took place at one of the city's best restaurants, but only the very closest were invited. From Brian's side, that would mean Kate, a half-sister he pretty much only saw on formal occasions, and then some friends and colleagues.
From Leslie's side, the family consisted of her parents and the two children that Leslie had from two different previous marriages. Her son Josh was 23, while her daughter Amy was 18, like Kate. Josh was a muscular man who on the day was dressed in a suit that he was clearly not used to wearing. Amy was also blonde, perhaps obtained through bleaching like with her mother. Her light-colored jeans and leather jacket over a slightly see-through blouse were more suitable for a night at the local bar than for a wedding in the immediate family, Kate thought.
The new step-siblings were nice enough, judging by what they said that day, but Kate sensed that she had nothing in common with them. She also sensed that their conversation was more about weighing and measuring Kate -- figuring out what kind of person she was -- than trying to enjoy themselves with her. Especially Amy looked at Kate all day with a look she couldn't figure out.
The very next day, Brian and Leslie went on their honeymoon. During the week when Kate was alone with her thoughts in the big home, she convinced herself that it would be fine. In any case, it would be six months at most, then Kate could move out without it having to trigger any arguments. It is the natural course of life that a young woman moves away from home one day.
But again, Kate was negatively surprised, because when Brian and Leslie came home, they were apparently very happy together. It was fine, but now it was Kate who was outside, and she wondered if this was how her mother had felt all the years that Brian and Kate had been like too peas in a pot.
That Leslie's warmth and kindness was pretended was no longer something Kate just believed or sensed. It was very clear. As soon as Brian was out of the door, both smiles, courtesy and in general any sign of ordinary good upbringing disappeared.
A lot of the time, Leslie just lay on the couch and looked at her phone, while she had the TV on. She also didn't worry about taking off her shoes before she put her legs up. And she messed the house up. If she drank from a cup in the afternoon, it would still be there the next morning, now with a base of dried coffee. Once she had taken a shower, Kate could find dirty panties and bras thrown on the bathroom floor. Kate picked them up in disgust and threw them in the laundry basket.
Kate also hated that Leslie had a habit of burping. It wasn't even meant as fun. She apparently did it without thinking about it, but she must have thought a little, because she never did it when Brian was in the house.
What Kate hated the most, however, were the sounds from the bedroom at night. Kate had never seen or heard her parents have sex. They probably didn't have much of it either, but when they did, they were discreet.
The word discretion was not in Leslie's dictionary. Kate could hear how she cheered Brian up with lewd talk. It was "cock", "cunt" and "fuck" all the time. As the intercourse seemed to develop, Leslie moaned loudly, and finally she cried out her orgasm. Kate covered her ears and thought again about how bad behavior it was on Leslie's part.
All in all, Kate felt like the adult among them. She was the one who behaved decently and In a responsible manner.
Leslie clearly saw it quite differently. She took the mother-part in stepmother very literally, and as the most obvious thing in the world, she expected that she could decide over Kate.
It came to a head one day when Kate had once again picked up Leslie's underwear from the bathroom floor. This time it had been particularly disgusting. There was a wide, brown streak of dried feces in them, and this stripe lay upwards so Kate couldn't help but see it.
The next day, when Kate came home from school, she sat down with Leslie for a cup of coffee. Kate had made an effort not to make a scene about the disgusting underwear. On the contrary, she wanted to let some time pass before she, in a friendly way, asked her new stepmother to pick up her clothes from the floor.
But this consideration went over Leslie's head. Or she didn't care. Or worse, she had been waiting for an opportunity for confrontation, Kate thought afterwards.
Leslie had sat up on the couch and looked at Kate with squinted eyes.
"Who the fuck do you think you are speaking to, you little brat?" she said, in a harsh tone that brought Kate completely off balance.
She wasn't used to being spoken to like that, and she couldn't handle it either. She had had lots of skirmishes with her mother over the years, but they had always spoken properly to each other. Kate had never really argued with anyone herself, and when she witnessed other people's arguments, she could feel it physically. She felt a pain in her stomach and just wanted to get away.
Now she couldn't get away, and she just had to untangle herself from the argument again.
"I... I am sorry... I didn't mean to...," she said.
"What didn't you mean to?," Leslie asked.
"To offend you... It's okay... I'm sorry."
"I think you meant exactly what you said. You don't want my dirty panties on the fine floor."
"If you could pick them up, then...," Kate tried, but was quickly interrupted.
"Of course I could pick them up. It's not like they're heavy. But that's your job," Leslie said.
