Aviane. Leah Martin Strauss somberly fingered the blister of pink pills from it’s nondescript white and pink wrapper with a resigned sigh. For a soon to be sixteen year old young girl, getting on birth control for the first time is usually an exciting, transformative occasion but Leah had a far more pessimistic outlook: She might just need it to protect herself. She gingerly peeled the small pill out of the blister and ingested it; just one week from that day, she could very well be happy to have taken this precaution.
Leah had some history to her. Both her parents died in a car wreck when she was seven and since then she had paddled from one foster family to the other, drifting in and out of undiagnosed depression from a very young age. The Martin’s, the family she finally seemed to have found a definitive home with had been her guardians for the past four years. Apart from one uncle, Leah had no blood relatives left after her parents passed and that man exactly was the root of Leah’s deadlock and consequential melancholy. See for the past few years, ever since the Martin’s took her in and offered her a real, permanent home Leah had really picked herself up: she made friends at school, her grades improved and she generally became a happy teen. Where her biggest concern had always been where she was going to end up next, the Martin’s had given her the opportunity to grow into a regular teen, with teen trivialities and teen issues like everyone else her age. Except for summer.
During summer, when Leah’s classmates and friends went on vacation with their parents or hung out at the beach or the mall, Leah spent roughly eight weeks with uncle Dominic, the sole remaining Strauss she was related to. After the accident it was assumed that Dominic would become Leah’s legal guardian but child services measured the man up to be unsuitable to take care of a seven year old. Uncle Dominic was a retired soldier living in a decrepit cabin in the Wyoming Wilderness, at least half an hour on the back roads by car from the closest town barely large enough to be on the map. If not for off-trail hikers and the hydroelectric dam which could be heard right up to the cabin if the wind blew in the right direction the area wouldn’t be worth mentioning at all.
With her feet pulled up and her back against the headboard of her bed, Leah checked her phone for updates on her social media profiles; The phone had a ninety-eight percent charge, it was likely not going to be have to be charged until September as not only was cellular reception in the area uncle Dominic resided in spotty at best, he also disallowed her to bring them saying that charging them was a waste of power.
Twelve updates, most of them likes and thumbs up. The recent picture she posted of herself wearing a sexy Star Wars themed outfit garnered the expected success; It was the internet after all: show a bit of skin and you’re praised all the way up to the clouds. Leah’s eyes brightened a little as she perused her notifications; She was going to miss this life.
Leah was into geek fandom and popular culture, not too uncommon these days. When she wasn’t playing online video games, she would spend weeks sewing and crafting genuinely impressive costumes out of discarded clothes and whatever she could get on the cheap at the thrift store. It was called cosplay (short for costume play), and even though Leah didn’t drag herself from one convention to the other she enjoyed the process of making her own getups and subsequently showing them off on social media. Leah was popular too, albeit it among her friends and friends of friends, she was definitely not a big name. She packed a small sewing kit to take with her, in case she had a little spare time.
In case, because the assumed dullness of the venue wasn’t the most disheartening prospect of her upcoming vacation in the woods, if only it was. Her Uncle Dominic was what terrified her, and it was certainly justified. If any of her so-called vacation — a outing made necessary both by the Martin’s careers and the convenient availability of uncle Dominic — resembled that of years passed she would spend half her time doing chores and genuinely hard work her uncle had saved up all year and the other half being punished for doing it poorly, even if that wasn’t so. Uncle Dominic didn’t spare the rod, or his belt, or anything else he could find to chastise her with and last year… well last year punishment had really advanced to be inherently more sexual, with him making it clear that not only he was enjoying it, he was also looking forward to it. He made her a promise that year: that next year — this year — when she turned sixteen, that he was finally going to break her in. He quite literally told her he planned to rape her. Which brings us back to the birth control pills. Aviane. Leah wasn’t sure if he was merely scaring her, which he loved to do, or if he was genuinely prepared to take her virginity. That’s why she needed the pills. She needed them to protect herself just in case.
Leah had some history to her. Both her parents died in a car wreck when she was seven and since then she had paddled from one foster family to the other, drifting in and out of undiagnosed depression from a very young age. The Martin’s, the family she finally seemed to have found a definitive home with had been her guardians for the past four years. Apart from one uncle, Leah had no blood relatives left after her parents passed and that man exactly was the root of Leah’s deadlock and consequential melancholy. See for the past few years, ever since the Martin’s took her in and offered her a real, permanent home Leah had really picked herself up: she made friends at school, her grades improved and she generally became a happy teen. Where her biggest concern had always been where she was going to end up next, the Martin’s had given her the opportunity to grow into a regular teen, with teen trivialities and teen issues like everyone else her age. Except for summer.
During summer, when Leah’s classmates and friends went on vacation with their parents or hung out at the beach or the mall, Leah spent roughly eight weeks with uncle Dominic, the sole remaining Strauss she was related to. After the accident it was assumed that Dominic would become Leah’s legal guardian but child services measured the man up to be unsuitable to take care of a seven year old. Uncle Dominic was a retired soldier living in a decrepit cabin in the Wyoming Wilderness, at least half an hour on the back roads by car from the closest town barely large enough to be on the map. If not for off-trail hikers and the hydroelectric dam which could be heard right up to the cabin if the wind blew in the right direction the area wouldn’t be worth mentioning at all.
With her feet pulled up and her back against the headboard of her bed, Leah checked her phone for updates on her social media profiles; The phone had a ninety-eight percent charge, it was likely not going to be have to be charged until September as not only was cellular reception in the area uncle Dominic resided in spotty at best, he also disallowed her to bring them saying that charging them was a waste of power.
Twelve updates, most of them likes and thumbs up. The recent picture she posted of herself wearing a sexy Star Wars themed outfit garnered the expected success; It was the internet after all: show a bit of skin and you’re praised all the way up to the clouds. Leah’s eyes brightened a little as she perused her notifications; She was going to miss this life.
Leah was into geek fandom and popular culture, not too uncommon these days. When she wasn’t playing online video games, she would spend weeks sewing and crafting genuinely impressive costumes out of discarded clothes and whatever she could get on the cheap at the thrift store. It was called cosplay (short for costume play), and even though Leah didn’t drag herself from one convention to the other she enjoyed the process of making her own getups and subsequently showing them off on social media. Leah was popular too, albeit it among her friends and friends of friends, she was definitely not a big name. She packed a small sewing kit to take with her, in case she had a little spare time.
In case, because the assumed dullness of the venue wasn’t the most disheartening prospect of her upcoming vacation in the woods, if only it was. Her Uncle Dominic was what terrified her, and it was certainly justified. If any of her so-called vacation — a outing made necessary both by the Martin’s careers and the convenient availability of uncle Dominic — resembled that of years passed she would spend half her time doing chores and genuinely hard work her uncle had saved up all year and the other half being punished for doing it poorly, even if that wasn’t so. Uncle Dominic didn’t spare the rod, or his belt, or anything else he could find to chastise her with and last year… well last year punishment had really advanced to be inherently more sexual, with him making it clear that not only he was enjoying it, he was also looking forward to it. He made her a promise that year: that next year — this year — when she turned sixteen, that he was finally going to break her in. He quite literally told her he planned to rape her. Which brings us back to the birth control pills. Aviane. Leah wasn’t sure if he was merely scaring her, which he loved to do, or if he was genuinely prepared to take her virginity. That’s why she needed the pills. She needed them to protect herself just in case.