Mala

Chapter One: Step Family

My name is Christopher, but nobody calls me that anymore. These days it’s just Chris. I’ve always preferred being overlooked.

My parents divorced when I was in middle school. My father’s name is Richard, though I stopped calling him Dad years ago. I called him Dick behind his back because that’s what he was—a selfish, controlling bastard who treated our house like a barracks and me like an inconvenience he hadn’t yet figured out how to get rid of. My mother could be cold, but at least she occasionally remembered I existed.

My father only noticed me when I failed to meet whatever standard he had set that week. He never spent real time with me. When he was home, it was just rules and disappointment. Clean your room. Do your homework. Stop wasting time with that guitar. As I got older, the demands shifted to finding a job so I could stop being a burden. He left before I woke up and came home after I went to sleep. The few times we shared the same space, the silence between us felt heavier than anything we actually said.

I knew something was breaking when he started staying out later and later. First it was work. Then it was business trips. Then one night he simply didn’t come home. He called my mother from the office and told her he wanted a divorce—over the phone, like she was a subscription he could cancel. After that, I hated him. Not quietly.

The kind of hate that sits in your chest and turns sour over time. I took my mother’s side without question, even when I suspected she wasn’t as innocent as she pretended to be. Blaming him was easier. It felt cleaner.

A few years later, I heard he was getting remarried. Her name was Tish. She was younger than my mother and worked as a temp at his company. That’s how they met. I didn’t go to the wedding. My mother did and came back quiet and strangely bitter. She didn’t have to say it out loud—I could tell the new wife was beautiful. That fact seemed to sit in her throat like something she couldn’t quite swallow.

Then I got caught at school with weed and cheap vodka. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the time that finally broke something in her. She told me I should go live with my father. She said a boy my age needed a man’s influence. What she didn’t say was that her new fiancé didn’t want a troubled teenager hanging around the house.

My father picked me up two weeks later. The drive to his new house was an hour of pure resentment. He laid down the law before we even left the driveway. No drugs. No drinking. No skipping school. His house. His rules. If I fucked up, I was gone. He’d already raised one kid. He wasn’t doing it again.

By the time we pulled into the long driveway, he had one final warning. “Treat your stepmother like she’s your real mother,” he said, killing the engine. “And treat your stepsister like she’s your real sister. You step out of line with either one of them and I will put you out so fast your head will spin.”

I didn’t answer. I just stared at the house. It was nicer than anywhere I’d ever lived. Two stories. Clean lines. Money that clearly wasn’t his. He was moving into her world, not the other way around.

He was all smiles when we walked through the front door. I felt like I was stepping into someone else’s life wearing someone else’s skin. And for the first time, I wondered how long it would take before that skin started to feel like it belonged to me.

Tish was waiting in the foyer when we walked in. She was exactly what I expected and somehow worse. Early forties, but she carried it with the kind of polished confidence that came from knowing men would still look.

Dark hair, full lips, and a body that still had the kind of soft, heavy curves that made men do stupid things. She smiled at me like we were already family, like she hadn’t helped blow my mother’s life apart.

“Chris,” she said warmly. “I’m so glad you’re here. Welcome home.”

I looked at her and felt nothing but cold resentment. This woman had fucked my father while he was still married to my mother. And now she got to keep the house, the money, and play happy family like none of it mattered. I wanted to tell her I hated her. Instead, I gave her a tight nod and said, “Thanks.”

She gave me the tour like she was trying to convince me this place could feel like home. The house was nice—too nice. Clean, expensive, and strangely impersonal. My father followed behind us, occasionally grunting like he had contributed anything to it. We both knew whose money had bought all of this.

When we reached the top of the stairs, Tish called down the hallway. “Lora? Come meet your brother.”

A door opened at the end of the hall. Lora stepped out, and something in my chest went still.

She was barefoot, wearing an oversized black sweatshirt that slipped off one shoulder and a pair of loose gray sweatpants that did a poor job of hiding what was underneath. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Even without it, she was beautiful in a way that felt almost unfair.

She was short, barely 5′3", but her body was thick in all the places that made my thoughts turn ugly. Wide hips. Full thighs. And even under that shapeless sweatshirt, the heavy shape of her breasts was obvious. She walked with her shoulders slightly forward, like she was trying to make herself smaller. It didn’t work. If anything, it only drew more attention to the way her body moved.

My father’s voice from the car came back to me, sharp and clear. Treat her like your real sister.

I already knew I wasn’t going to.

She stopped a few feet away and looked up at me. Her eyes were soft, almost tired, but there was a quiet wariness in them that I recognized. She didn’t trust this situation either.

“Hi,” she said quietly. “I’m Lora.”

“Chris,” I answered.

She was even prettier up close. Soft mouth, delicate features, and a body that didn’t belong on someone I was supposed to think of as family. When she shifted her weight, the sweatshirt pulled tight across her chest for a moment, and I had to force my eyes back up to her face.

Tish smiled between us like everything was perfectly normal. “Lora, why don’t you show Chris his room?”

Lora nodded and turned without another word. I followed her down the hallway, my eyes dropping the second her back was to me. The sweatpants were loose, but every few steps the fabric clung to the round shape of her ass.

She was barefoot on the hardwood floor, and for some reason that small detail made my thoughts turn darker. There was something intimate about it. Something that made me wonder what else she walked around without.

She stopped in front of a door and pushed it open. The room was almost empty. Just a bed and a dresser against freshly painted walls. It smelled like new carpet and someone else’s life.

“My mom said you could pick out your own furniture,” she said, still not looking at me. “Sorry it’s so bare right now.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

She lingered in the doorway, one hand resting on the frame. I could smell her from where I stood—something clean and faintly sweet. Vanilla and warm skin. She shifted again, and the sweatshirt slipped further off her shoulder, revealing the thin black strap of her bra and a stretch of smooth collarbone. I stared at it longer than I should have.

“If you need anything,” she said, “my room’s just down the hall. The bathroom is between us.”

“Thanks.”

She finally looked at me again. For a second, we just stood there. Then she gave me a small, awkward smile and left, gently closing the door behind her.

I stayed where I was for a long time. Sixteen. Sixteen now. Not a kid. Not protected by the excuse of being “too young.” She was an adult, living under the same roof as me, walking around barefoot in clothes that did nothing to hide how thick and soft her body was. And my father expected me to look at her and feel nothing.

I dropped my bag on the floor and sat on the edge of the mattress, staring at the wall. This was going to be a problem. Because the second I saw her, something cold and hungry had settled in my chest. And I already knew I wasn’t going to be able to ignore it.

My dad had started me on guitar lessons when I was twelve. It was one of the only decent things he ever did for me. I stuck with it and got good, but even that came with conditions.

He warned me early on that if I ever plugged in my electric guitar and made too much noise, he’d break it over my head. So I mostly played acoustic, keeping the volume low like I was still trying not to disturb anyone.

Besides the guitar, I didn’t bring much with me. My laptop, a small practice amp, and whatever clothes could fit in one suitcase. That was it. Everything else had been left behind with my mother.

Lora’s room was down the hall from mine, with the upstairs bathroom sitting between us. Our parents slept downstairs in the master bedroom. I’d overheard them talking about possibly moving upstairs so they could be closer to us, but the rooms were too small once you put actual furniture in them. Still, they clearly didn’t like the idea of us having bedrooms right next to each other. I wondered if that was more about me than it was about her.

I didn’t know all the details of their wedding, but I found out later that Tish had cheated on Lora’s father with my dad. When Lora’s father found out, he didn’t try to fix it. No counseling. No second chances. He just left. I sometimes wondered if Lora hated my father as much as I did. She never said it out loud, but there was a quiet bitterness in her whenever his name came up.

One night, not long after I moved in, I was sitting on my bedroom floor playing guitar when I heard it. Retching. It was faint, but unmistakable. The sound of someone throwing up. I stopped playing and listened. It came again, followed by the sound of the toilet flushing. I checked the time. It was almost one in the morning.

I told myself it wasn’t my business. But the sound had been too close. It was coming from the bathroom between our rooms.

I set the guitar down and stepped into the hallway. The house was dark and quiet. I walked to the bathroom door and hesitated, then pressed my ear against it. Another wave of retching hit, followed by a soft, miserable cough.

I knocked gently.

The door opened almost immediately.

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