Stacy stole through the quiet house with her spike-heeled boots in her hands, padding across the hardwood floor in her stockinged feet. Despite it being three in the morning, the heat remained oppressively humid. Her frazzled hair was stuck to her sweaty face. She brushed it out of her eyes with her free hand, ditched her boots then opened the fridge to bask in its yellow-blue glow and its waft of cooled air.
Having returned to the family home during the Summer break from college, she was conscientiously quiet when returning in the wee hours from a night out, creeping like a thief to the kitchen to raid her parents' food and drink. The riffs from the rock club still rang in her ears and she murmured tunes to herself as she scanned the white shelves for goodies. The silence of the house was suddenly pierced by whining shouts, the unmistakable voice of her drunk mother in a rage.
Stacy cocked an ear to the raised voice transmitting across the dead of night as she improvised a sandwich by the light of the open fridge. From the other side of the house, she heard a door open and her mother and step-father arguing.
"I can't believe you did that!" Her mother bellowed.
"I didn't do anything, you're imagini-"
"I can't believe you TRIED to do that!"
"I didn't! You mad, drunken mare!"
"Pervert!"
"I didn't do anything, I was just giving you a cuddle!"
"I've told you before, if you wanna do that then find yourself a little boyfriend and you can be bum-chums. Just leave me out of it!"
Stacy chuckled as she heard their bedroom door slam. She bumped the fridge door shut with her hip then exited out the back doors with her loaded sandwich on a plate and a bottle of juice. The baked air still vibrated with solar energy, even in the pre-dawn darkness. She plonked herself on a patio chair and awaited her grumbling, dejected step-dad. They often sat out together in the garden at night after her mother had drank herself into a coma or had stormed off in a huff; they'd chat and share a spliff or two.
Stacy was feeling nicely sozzled by the many cheap gins and rums she'd sipped that night but she always (because of her mother's propensity for alcohol abuse) kept an eye on how much she was drinking. Munching on her sloppy sandwich, she was just fancying how a little of her step-dad's weed would be a fine culmination of the night's activities. Sure enough, Dan shuffled out of the open double-doors dressed only in a tee-shirt and boxer-shorts.
"Stupid fucking bitch." He mumbled.
"Bit harsh, that, Dad."
Dan, startled, peered into the darkness. Stacy pressed the screen of her phone and was illuminated by the neon glare.
"Jeezus, it's an apparition from the grave."
Stacy nodded, "That's the look I'm going for."
She was wearing a tight, short, black dress decorated with punky zips and chains and blood-red roses. Her black pantyhose were laddered in tantalisingly situated places. Her lips were painted a ghostly blue and her thick mascara and eye-shadow was smeared into two panda-like smudges. Dan flipped on the patio light. In the remorseless orange glare, Stacy looked a happy, hot mess.
"You look like Lily Munster had a scrap with a rose bush." Dan said, flopping on to the opposite chair.
"I'll take that, she was a hottie!"
Stacy grinned and took a slobbering bite of her sandwich. Dan produced his cotton bag of hash, tobacco and rolling papers and began to put together a joint.
He spoke without looking up, "I suppose you heard all that?"
"Me? Didn't hear a thing. Not a word did I hear about you trying to slip the ol' sausage up Mum's-"
"I didn't. She's just, you know?" Dan mimed glugging from a wine glass, "I wouldn't even attempt it. She's made her views of, of..."
"Anal msfex?" Stacy, muffled by her food, raised her eyebrows tauntingly.
"Yes, well, she's made herself perfectly clear about how she feels about that particular sexual variant."
Dan sparked up his spliff and they sat in silence, passing it between them.
"I've said it before," Stacy smiled, "If you got Mum into this stuff..."
"I know, I know. But what can I do? She just happens to have a taste for the one thing that turns her into a..."
"Infuriatingly disagreeable cunt?"
Dan and Stacy laughed. He reached over and swigged from Stacy's juice bottle. He gestured to Stacy and they shared that too.
"No," Dan sighed, "I don't get infuriated, just annoyed sometimes. You know? When she's nice, she is sooooo nice. And she IS nice most of the time. She's an angel, really, it's just that wine is her..."
"Kryptonite?"
"No. Whatever the pop culture word is for something that turns you into the worst version of yourself."
Distant sounds of traffic, even at this un-Earthly time of the morning, were carried over the sizzling atmosphere. Nocturnal bugs went about their business of harassing the patio lamp.
"I don't know what her deal is. I don't mind it, you know?" Stacy said, picking at her food, "Most girls my age don't. I think."
"What? Wine?"
"Butt-fucking."
Dan took a few moments to allow for his cotton-wool brain to confirm what she'd said.