Darkest Sin

by Ashton Blackthorne

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Michaelson, your son is a pervert.” I could hear my mother wailing as they pushed me into the patrol car.

  “No, he’s a good boy, really he is.”

  All this was over some stupid girl who said I’d been ‘peeping’ at her through a hole in the locker room wall.

  The girl who was named Brandy was in the same grade as Amber. She was a pretty thing with long curling brown hair. She was built much like my sister with an incredible rack and a round ass. Other than my sister, she was the most sought after girl at school.

  I figured if I couldn’t have Amber why not her?

  Brandy had stayed late after school for cheerleading practice. I’d watched from behind the bleachers all the cheerleaders went into the locker room. Then I’d slipped inside a space I’d discovered between the guys’ and girls’ locker rooms.

  Taking my tool kit, I’d drilled a small hole. As soon as the girls began filtering in, I had a front row seat to see some of the prettiest girls in school stripped down to their bras and panties.

  My cock was hard as I stared at Brandy in particular. I imagined her and my sister getting it on touching each other breasts. As Brandy slipped off her bra to get into the shower, I cried out too loudly as I came.

  Unfortunately, that alerted her to my presence. She screamed and everyone came running. I tried escaping through the boys’ locker room, but Principal Neely caught me. I tried fast talking him claiming I was only ‘curious’, but once he read my ‘Peeping Tom’ history he called the police.

  And now my mother was trying to bargain with the police into not hauling me into the station. She pleaded and cried begging the officers not to let her boy be charged with such a ‘shameful’ crime.

  She just couldn’t accept that I did it. I looked because I wanted to plain and simple. But looking at Brandy didn’t excite me nearly as much as looking at Amber. I didn’t see Brandy as evil. My sister was evil.

  It was her fault I was in trouble.

  In the end, the police felt sorry for my mother and let me go.

  As I walked home from the subway, I heard a radio announcement.

  “Amber Michaelson, girlfriend of business tycoon, Ashton Blackthorne, will be hosting her first runway show next weekend to debut her new lingerie line, Owned by Ashton.”

  My heart raced as I heard those words. So my sister was going to appear live on stage. Finally, the whole world was going to see what a filthy slut she was.

  Thunder roared across the sky as I walked up the stairs to the dingy apartment. I looked up to see the purplish black sky. Looked like a storm was coming.

  And none too soon.

  Eighty

  Ayden

  After I came, I collapsed on the bed next to Sasha. I ran my hands over her soft hair. She was becoming very important to me.

  And I wasn’t sure if I liked it.

  There was so much about Sasha I didn’t know. She rolled, over stripping the foil off the package of cigarettes. She didn’t really care for smoking, but right now, she needed it. Flipping a Bic lighter out of the nightstand, she inhaled deeply.

  “Since when do you smoke?”

  She exhaled letting the smoke pour from her lips. “I just need one right now.”

  I leaned on my elbow studying her. “What would you say if I told you I’m going to ask Sinister to leave?”

  “When?” She inhaled deeply.

  “Soon. I don’t want him here anymore.”

  She flicked her ash into an empty soda can. “I don’t either.”

  I felt relief wash over me. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why don’t you tell me anything about yourself?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  I nodded.

  Sasha

  I was born in a small Texas town about thirty miles outside of Houston in a trailer park. My father had slaved most of his adult life away in a mechanic’s shop repairing old cars and trying desperately to make extra money on the side.

  Money that he spent on drugs.

  My mother, Lorraine had worked as a housekeeper for some wealthy people in the city. She was forever after me to ‘marry rich’.

  “Don’t ever marry for love, Sasha. Love will be the death of ya. Learn from me. I was so in love with your father I never stopped to consider what kind of life he could give me.”

  When I was a pre-teen, I would sit and listen to my mother wax poetic about her regrets as we did the dishes together. “You always say that, Mom.” I sighed as I continued to dip my hands in the cold, soapy water. The gas had been shut off again due to non-payment. My father had spent the gas bill money on several bags of heroin.

  “It’s true, Sasha.” The air conditioning wasn’t working either and the day was quite warm. My mother wiped her soapy wet hand across her forehead.

  “You must’ve seen something to make you want him, Mom.”

  She rolled her eyes as she placed the dripping glass into the dish drainer. “Of course, I did, Sasha. You’ve seen pictures of him. Your dad was quite the looker and a charmer. Oh, all the girls in town were wantin’ and waitin’ for him to get into their pants.” She laughed.

  Her laughter sickened me. I was tired of hearing my mother berate my father. It was true my dad had a major drug problem, but he was still my father and I loved him. I picked up the green Scotch Brite and scrubbed a plate covered with the sticky remnants of last night’s cheeseburgers and macaroni.

  “Sasha, feel the water you’re washing those dishes in! It’s freezing. Your fucking father used the last of our money to buy drugs again!” My mother gritted her teeth as she dried a plate from the dish drainer and stacked it into the cabinet. My mother was so meticulous placing the plate in the cabinet so precisely yet none of the plates had a matching pattern.

  I shrugged. “So, what are you going to do about it? I’ve listened to you bitch about him ever since I can remember!” I tossed the Scotch Brite into the water. Grabbing a dish towel, I dried my hands.

  My mother spun around and took me by the shoulders. Her brown eyes bore into me. I squirmed beneath my mother’s firm grasp. “Look, Sasha, I can’t do anything about it. If I could, I would, but I have you and your sisters to think about. How the hell can I survive on my own with three daughters?”

  I winced as I felt my mother’s wet hands soak through the thin cotton of my pink t-shirt. I could smell a bit of booze on my mother’s breath. I sighed. My mother had been drinking again. “I don’t know, Mom. I’m only twelve. All I know is that if you’re unhappy do something about it.” With that, I wriggled from my mother’s grip and ran to my room slamming the door knocking my favorite poster from the wall.

  My sister, Charmaine turned over on her bed. Charmaine was my younger sister. At only ten years old, Charmaine had followed in my footsteps developing large breasts while still in elementary school. Every time I came home from school crying that everyone was teasing her, I ached for her. Even in her sleep, Charmaine slept with her arms crossed over her breasts desperate to hide them.

  “Sasha, you woke me up!” Charmaine pulled the pink flowered sheet over her head.

  “Sorry, kid.” I sat down on my own twin bed on the other side of the room. A quick view of the room revealed a typical pre-teen girl’s room complete with massive amounts of pink and rock star posters.

  Charmaine sat up in bed revealing she was wearing her bra beneath her nightshirt.

  That must’ve been very uncomfortable, I thought. Still, I understood why she was doing it. When I was only ten wearing a C cup bra, I was desperate to hide my sizable cleavage as well.

  “What time is it?” Charmaine rubbed her eyes. Her long light brown was curly unlike my straight locks which sported several huge knots.

  Secretly, I envied my sister’s head of shiny luxurious curls. Charmaine, however, was constantly fighting to keep her hair free of knots and longed for my straight hair. “It’s after 10.”

  “I must’ve f
allen asleep doing that stupid book report.” Charmaine gestured to her dog eared copy of Where the Red Fern Grows.

  I smiled looking at the book. “I remember reading that. It’s so sad, isn’t it?”

  “What? Why?”

  I rolled my eyes. “The dogs die at the end. Haven’t you finished it yet?”

  Charmaine picked up the book and tossed it at me. “No, I haven’t. Thanks for the spoiler!”

  I shrugged.

  “If you’re doing a report on it, you should’ve finished it by now.”

  Charmaine stood up and grabbed a clean nightshirt off the dresser. “I guess I’ll take a shower before bed.”

  I shook my head. “Not unless you want a cold one.”

  Charmaine threw her shirt on the floor. “You mean they didn’t pay the bill again? What am I supposed to do?” She wailed.

  “It was Dad.”

  “You think? Of course, it was Dad. He always spends all the money.”

  I grimaced. Truth be told, I wasn’t mad at my dad. I was just confused as to why he just didn’t stop using. “I’ve already heard all about it. Mom was bitching while we were doing dishes.”

  Charmaine collapsed back onto her bed. The mattress springs squeaked loudly in protest. “Have you ever just wished they’d get divorced? Then we could go live with mom.”

  I swallowed hard. I pulled my knees to my chest. I never thought about who I’d live with if it came to that. “I never thought about it,” I whispered.

  Charmaine shrugged and rolled over.

  Several days had passed and there was no word from my father. The tiny trailer felt even more confined without him there. My mother seemed to be delighted he hadn’t returned.

  “Mom, where’s Dad?” I would ask several times a day.

  “I don’t know. And it’s good riddance.” my mother would reply.

  Still, I felt a sense of unease about my father’s uncharacteristic absence. True, he went off on benders, but he’d never been gone for a week straight without any phone calls home.

  One night I was helping Charmaine and my other sister, Charlotte with their homework when a knock came at their door. The tiny trailer had been wracked with high winds from recent storms and at first, I didn’t hear it.

  My mother pulled a blue robe over her nightgown and threw open the door.

  Two uniformed policemen stood there.

  “Does Doug Steele live here?”

  “Yes, he does. Why? What has he done now?”

  “Ma’am, I hate to tell you this—”

  Instantly, she pushed the policemen out onto the porch and slammed the door shut.

  My sisters and I scrambled to the window to peer out. The two policemen were talking to my mother and she was sobbing.

  “Sasha, what is it?” Charlotte, only eight, pulled at my sleeve.

  “Shut up, I don’t know.”

  The door squeaked open and my mother entered the room. Her face was dead white and she was shaking.

  “What is it, Mom?” I raced to her side.

  Immediately, my mother collapsed to the floor screaming.

  “Mom, what happened?” My sisters ran to her.

  I’d never seen my mother hysterical. Over and over again, she screamed clutching her long dark hair and pulling clumps of it out in anguish.

  “What do we do, Sasha?” Charmaine jabbed me in the side.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s Dad, isn’t it?”

  My mother gazed up at us with bloodshot eyes. Her face was red and blotchy. Her voice emerged as a whisper, “Yes.”

  A sick feeling was building in my stomach. I could barely bring myself to utter the words. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  My mother nodded numbly.

  “How?”

  “He OD’d a few nights ago. They found him in his car. They think it was a speedball that killed him.”

  I closed my eyes as the tears ran down my face. My sisters began to cry.

  “What’s a speedball, Sasha?” Charmaine asked.

  “Cocaine and heroin,” my mother replied dully.

  “So, Ayden, do you see why I can’t stand for you to use? I can’t go through that again. Ever.”

  I drew a long, shuddering breath. Every time I heard stories about people overdosing, it sickened me. I saw Trish’s face flash before my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sasha.”

  Sasha stood up from the bed and began to dress. Then she picked up her pink bag and began filling it with her belongings. “Ayden, I don’t want to leave you, but I can’t watch you die. It would be like losing my dad all over again.”

  I reached out to seize her wrist. “Sasha, I don’t do speedballs. I’m safe. Hell, I don’t even use enough to get high just to keep from getting sick is all.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t care, Ayden.” Sasha continued stuffing her bag full of clothes.

  Dully, I watched her feeling helpless to stop her. I knew she was right. The sad thing was I was the one with the power to stop her, yet I couldn’t.

  The urge to use was too strong.

  “Ayden, we’ve been together for nearly six months, yet I feel as if we hardly know each other.”

  The rain was beginning to fall outside pelting the sides of the cottage. I heard the waves crashing onshore. I glanced out the window to see the sky darkening. “What do you mean, Sasha? Of course, I know you.”

  Sasha dropped her bag and walked over to me with her hands on her hips. “No, Ayden, you only know me carnally. You don’t know much about me as a person.”

  Sasha

  Standing around the smoldering ruin of the burned out trailer, I stared in disbelief. My little sisters stood next to me clutching at my tattered blue nightgown. Tears coursed freely down their faces.

  Something glinted in the smoking pyre. I reached down to retrieve my sister, Charlotte’s favorite teddy bear. He was mostly unscathed just full of smoke and ash. His left ear, however, had taken a terrible blow and was burned off.

  Lovingly, I brushed the ashes off of him.

  “You found Bear-Bear, Sasha!” For the moment, the tears in Charlotte’s eyes subsided as she held out her arms.

  “Well, he needs a new ear and a good washing, but I think he’ll survive.” Happy that I was able to make my sister feel better, I threw a glance at my mother who was standing off to the side weeping into her hands.

  “How did it happen, Sasha?” Charmaine, who had seen a lot more than the majority of girls her age, spoke with the curiosity of someone older than her 10 years.

  I shrugged kneeling to pick up what was left of my pink sleeping bag. The thing had almost been entirely melted by the intensity of the fire. Still, my father had given it to me and the gift constituted one of the last good memories I had of him. “Ask her.” I cast a look of disgust in my mother’s direction. She was still walking around the smoking ruins in a daze sobbing.

  Detecting the anger in my voice, Charmaine looked at me with eyes full of fear. “What do you mean, Sasha? She was asleep just like the rest of us.”

  I shook my head. Vomit rose in my throat thinking about just how the fire might have started. Seeing my little sisters’ pain, I just couldn’t allow myself to speak the terrible truth about my mother.

  For months, I’d been noticing my mother become more and more despondent. She’d been sleeping more and calling off work. I was left to care for my two younger sisters. I often came home to find my mother crying.

  I had expressed my concerns to her, but she simply walked away from me. “Sasha, what the hell do you want me to do? I can’t do this anymore. Your father’s death, you and your sisters, I just can’t.” My mother wrung her hands. Her normally youthful face was deeply lined with worry.

  At the tender age of twelve not yet thirteen, I knew my mother was suffering from depression. I looked up symptoms of depression at school and brought pamphlets home from the school counselor.

  Then, a few months later, I arrived home from school to witness a terrifying sig
ht.

  It was a day like any other. Being in middle school, I got home earlier than my sisters. I walked into a silent home. “Mom?” I called out walking through the house.

  I heard water running upstairs so I knocked on the bathroom door. “Mom?”

  A low murmur from the bathroom led me to throw open the door.

  There in the bathtub lay my mother. The water was spilling out all over the bathroom floor. I turned the faucet off. To my horror, the water was tinged red with blood.

  My mother’s wrists had been cut and her arms were hanging over the sides of the tub.

  “Mom! Oh my God!” I screamed.

  My mother’s head rolled to the side.

  Falling to my knees, I grabbed towels to wrap my mother’s wrists to stop the bleeding.

  Tears spilling down my face I raced to the phone to call 911.

  As I came back to the bathroom, she was moaning softly.

  “What, Mom? The ambulance is on its’ way!”

  Her words emerged as a whisper, “It’s all over. I tried.”

  “What’s over, Mom? What?” Desperately, I held her wrists. I hoped that the ambulance would arrive and save her before my sisters came home. They just couldn’t see the brutal scene it would scar them for life.

  “Everything,” her words slurred as she sank back against the wall. I looked behind her and noticed a crumpled paper on the counter.

  The paramedics burst through the door and retrieved her. They loaded her up into the ambulance and carried her off. A policeman tried to get me to come with them, but I insisted that I stay to retrieve my sisters. They relented when my grandmother arrived.

  As I tried to clean up the bathroom to wash away any blood, my gaze fell on the crumpled paper. I smoothed it out. It was a foreclosure notice. The note was demanding my mother pay the balance on the loan or be forced out.

  That must’ve been what set her off. I felt helpless as I assisted my grandmother in cleaning up the mess.

  That had been months ago.

  My mother had recovered quickly as the wounds to her wrists weren’t life threatening only superficial cuts. She had been given anti-depressants and she’d been taking them.