Skin On Skin

Chapter 14

Santana hummed happily to herself as she set about tiding her small office. It wasn't a real office, although she wouldn't admit that to anyone other than herself, instead, it was the spare room in her apartment that she had set aside for her clients when she worked outside of business hours. Not that it mattered; the fact that Santana had a secure, profitable business, or even a business at all and was self-sufficient was a miracle in itself.

Santana's life hadn't been easy. Her teenage years had been one stream of suspensions from a school on the wrong side of Lima Heights until eventually an unfortunate experience that involved Santana putting another girl through a window resulted in her completing a small stint in juvenile detention. The whole experience at first seemed to only promise a road of more destruction, however, a caring and determined anger management counselor had suggested another path for her to follow.

Not wanting to find herself back in the detention center, or even worse, Santana had taken her counselor's advice and had strutted herself off to nearest natural healing course to help set her off in the right direction. What she hadn't expected was to find that helping others, instead of hurting them, actually drove her in a positive way. Whenever she was stressed and worked up, kneading and rubbing other peoples bodies helped to get her frustrations out, and while others might find the work mundane and repetitive, Santana liked that it allowed for her mind to roam free. Because Santana had a plan; she was going to be famous, and her hours as a masseuse gave her the time to think of just how she was going to achieve this.

For now though, until she found that idea that would actually lead her to fame, being a masseuse was just the right profession to keep her on the straight and narrow… Well, for the most part anyway.

It was still early in the evening and once she had finished restocking her bag for the next day she was planning to head off to meet the pretty, guitar playing blonde she had brought home the other night. A soft smile came to her lips at the thought, but then, all of a sudden, the energy in the room shifted. It was oppressive, sneering and obnoxious. Santana tried to shrug the sensation off, unaccustomed to such a feeling under her own roof. The abrupt shift in the ambience was unavoidable however, and it made her stomach turn. Five seconds later, just as she expected, her front door thudded with a loud knock.

Santana didn't need to open it to know who had just pounded their fist to get her attention. She would know that arrogant, preppy stench a mile off. She took her time, slowly meandering her way back through her house with only a vague indication of the direction she was going. She was enjoying the fact that her actions were only going to make Sebastian angrier.

"Santana, I know you're in there," he called impatiently.

"Oh, Sebastian," Santana answered sarcastically, "I didn't hear you." She finally sauntered over and opened the door, posing with one hand on her hip and the other still holding onto the doorframe preventing Sebastian from entering her home.

He sneered at the sight of her.

"I'm going to get straight to the point," he began, rocking on his feet impatiently.

Santana sighed and turned away as if he was the most boring sight she had seen all day. She left the door open however. "If we're going to have this conversation then at least step inside," she spoke coolly over her shoulder."

Sebastian gave the hallway inside her front door a quick inspection, his eyes surveying it with one clean sweep of the head, his chin held high as if everything inside the room was beneath him.

It couldn't be more opposite to the truth. Santana's apartment, while small, was comfortable with aesthetic and soothing tones. Meticulously cared for pot plants were scattered throughout the place and calming pictures and artwork lined the walls. It was her sanctuary. After everything that she had been through, this was her place to get away from it all.