My sensual criminals

ARIANA

"Ariana?" my father mutters from the head of the table with his mouth full of food. I shiver as if I've scraped a chalkboard with my fingernails. I hate it when he calls me that. Once I tried to tell him I want him to call me "Aria " like my friends do,

but he looked at me so dangerously that I was dissuaded from ever asking him again. Then he told me that anyone who called me by any name other than my birth name would never be welcome at home.

"Yes, Father?" I forced myself to answer, not taking my eyes off my plate. Calling Harrison "father" is easy: it feels appropriately cold and distant. Calling him "dad" or "daddy" would be strange. It would be too warm and cozy, like I belong here, when I don't.

"You'll look at me when I talk to you," he says arrogantly as he continues to eat, and the tone of his voice forces me to look up to meet his gaze. But Harrison doesn't look at me because he never does. It used to hurt and make me feel invisible and unimportant, but that was when I still cared about earning his affection and when I still wanted to make him proud. I gave that up a long time ago.

"I heard you got an A on your math test this week," he announces in the same arrogant tone as he continues to eat nonchalantly, not looking at me. My gaze instinctively turns to my mother: has she told her? Melisa is sitting across from me, but our gleaming mahogany table is so large that I can't see her expression. But I don't need to; her body language says enough. Her slender, graceful body is taut, as it always is when my father is around. She wears her blond hair, long and thick, pulled back in an elegant bun; her black dress reveals her tanned shoulders; and her perfectly manicured hands rest too still on either side of the plate she hasn't touched. He avoids my gaze, keeps his green eyes on his wine glass as he begins to touch the stem.

With my curly brown hair, brown eyes and curvaceous body, I look nothing like Melissa, and it's something I don't think she's ever forgiven me for. I look enviously at her small round tits, so manageable and so beautiful. They are nothing like my huge breasts, which are accompanied by a round, wide ass. These body parts make it hard to be so discreet and elegant because they are so out of place. I look like the women in my father's family, which my mother has made no secret that she finds "unfortunate."

"Explain yourself," my father continues, cutting into his steak. "How did you let them give you an 'A'?" I clear my throat.

"I studied, father, as usual. I only got one question wrong, but...". I try to explain, but Harrison abruptly interrupts me.

"But what?" he asks, cleaning his teeth with his tongue as he puts down his fork and knife to stare at me. He's challenging me, and I'm not up for a fight. I swallow my saliva, trying to find the courage not to back down, but I struggle. "But I...," I continue in a low voice, "I'm still top of my class."

"Are you now?" he asks.

"Yes," I say almost whispering.

"Yes, what?", his voice starts to sound dangerous now.

"Yes, Father," I reply, trying to remain calm. I sense my mother's discomfort from across the table, but she does nothing to help me.

"And you think you're going to stay at the head of the class by being lazy?" she barks at me.

"Lazy?" I repeat sheepishly, though I am unable to entirely hide my surprise. I work very hard to stay at the top of my class. My father and I have never gotten along, but he's never called me lazy before, so why should he now? "You're clearly losing your touch. It almost seems as if you don't care about going to college," he insinuates coldly. What a ridiculous statement. College is what's going to get me out of this ice palace. "Maybe you're finally giving me an excuse to stay home." I turn my gaze back to my mother, unable to hide my astonishment. This time, she can't help but protest.

"Harrison," Melissa begins, her voice a little hoarse from years of smoking Vogues, but in a way that has a certain class to it. "Don't you think-?" but she interrupts herself.

"I think you'll talk when you're spoken to, Melissa. Shut up." To my horror, but not to my surprise, Mom shuts up, turns her attention back to her wine glass, and avoids eye contact. It disgusts me. It never ceases to amaze me how my parents talk to each other. Not that I'm particularly fond of my mother, but I wish she would at least try to stand up to her.

For me, if for no one else, but she never has.

"I've been thinking, Ariana, that college seems like a huge waste of money to me," my father announces as he returns to his steak. "Everyone knows that nowadays degrees are worthless. It's not like in my day, when a degree assured you a job."

"But I'm at the top of my class! I'll get into a good university," I protest faintly.

"That's what worries me. The good colleges are the most expensive. I'm not paying that tuition for four years, Ariana, period. You just have yourself to thank for it. I might have thought again if you hadn't had a slump in grades this week. But you clearly don't care as much as I thought you did, so I don't see why I should."

"But Father-," I start to protest, but he interrupts me again.

"I said it's definite, Ariana. I'm not going to be questioned about how I spend my money. It's not going to go for a worthless degree you'll never use. You're staying home, at least until you find some other poor sap to take money from."