“Hey,” I said soothingly, lowering my voice and laying a hand gently on his knee. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it. We don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for,” I said, leaning forward and laying a gentle kiss on his forehead.
“But I also want you to know that nothing you could tell me—nothing,” I emphasized, squeezing his knee gently, “—can change what I think about you,” I said. Then throwing caution to the winds, “How I feel about you.”
He nodded stiffly, but still didn’t relax, his eyes still darting all over the room, jumping from bookshelf to fireplace to end table, anywhere but at me. I wasn’t even sure he had heard what I said.
“Okay,” I said, “That’s enough of that.”
I turned sideways on the couch and slid an arm under him. Mason yelped as, with one fluid movement, I scooted his body up against mine, my legs along either side of his. Just like I’d held him after his panic attack at the motel. For a minute he stayed rigid against me, then slowly began to relax.
“Better?” I asked, a hint of nerves in my belly.
He sighed and nodded, finally leaning back into me, letting his shoulders fall against my own, his head leaning back against my chest, my arms wrapped around him. With a word of encouragement, he toed off his shoes and put his feet up on the couch. We lay there for a long time in the darkness, his head leaning back against my chest, his hands playing with mine.
“Now, talk to me,” I demanded after a few minutes.
He was silent for a while longer. I could feel the strain zinging through his body, so obvious I could almost feel him forcing the words out of his mouth.
“I-I was abused and assaulted multiple times beginning at age eleven,” he began, his voice low. “…s-sexually,” he added, almost in a whisper. I saw his eyes reflected in the brass around the fireplace, suspiciously bright. I could feel the tension in his body and I knew he was just barely holding it together. I ground my teeth in anger. Though I guessed part of his story, I'd never known details.
“My mom died when I was a kid. My uncle, Ricky, and his friend, Dreyven, began molesting me the same day CPS dropped me off at his apartment.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled shakily, his eyes darting up to mine, and a weak smile played at the corner of his mouth. “That’s… that’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud,” he admitted. “Maybe therapy was good for something.”
I tightened my arms around him. I'd figured it was something like this, but to hear him say it so matter-of-fact-like, just drove the pain straight through my heart. It broke me that this hadn’t been unusual to him because he had lived it. It was the only reality he’d known.
“He pimped me out to anyone that would pay. I begged them for help, the adults, but no one cared. No one would do anything. It… took me a long time to realize that no one was going to help me—there were no superheroes coming to save me. I was a damn stubborn kid though. I figured I had to save myself,” he continued, his hands again picking at the strings on his ripped jeans.
“The first time I ran, he caught me within an hour…” he swallowed hard, continuing. “…he beat me so bad I couldn’t walk for two days. I just lay in the bed. I couldn’t even…” I could see the humiliation washing over him, and I could guess at the reason.
“The second time I ran, his friend-partner-whatever, Dreyven, found me at a homeless shelter. They’d left me with this older woman to watch me. She had been one of his stable in years past, but she was getting older, and wasn’t making much money for Ricky anymore. So, she did other kinds of odd jobs for him – she kept the apartment clean, cooked, washed our clothes, that kind of thing. She was nice enough, I guess. She never hit me, or anything, and would sometimes sneak me candy when Ricky wasn’t looking.”
He swallowed convulsively, and I could see the pulse pounding in his throat.
“Dreyven and Ricky made me watch as they beat her to death with this belt Dreyven always wore that had this huge ass buckle on the end. There was so much blood…” His voice trailed off, and we sat there several moments until his breathing slowed down, and his pounding heart calmed.
“He made me wear that belt for a week afterward and wouldn’t let me wash it. I-I didn’t try to run again until I was eighteen,” he whispered. “I was too afraid of what he’d do to me… or anyone I left behind.”
“I’m so sorry, baby,” I said, wrapping him even closer to me. I looked down at Mason, his eyes bright in the firelight and felt so bad for this man, who had endured things that would have destroyed people far older and wiser. To have had to deal with that monster…I had to force my fingers to relax as I held him. I really wished I'd been faster getting back to that hotel room that day.
His eyes faraway, Mason didn’t seem to notice as he continued his story.
“I finally got up the courage to run again right around the time I think I turned eighteen. I was smart this time. I stole and hid some money and— and other things. It only took him three days to find me this time, but he still found me.”
A sigh escaped his lips, almost, but not quite, a gasp. I waited to see if he mentioned the little girl he had saved. She must have been the “other things” he mentioned he’d stolen, but he continued his story without stopping. “When he found me—he videotaped when he—” a sob caught in his throat, and again had to pause while he collected himself. “He recorded my ‘punishment’. He said he was going to use it as a warning to any other whore that tried to run.”
My eyesight ran red as I listened to him casually refer to himself as a whore. The tears were streaming down his face now, but it was like he couldn’t feel them and now that he had started, he couldn’t stop talking. “He and Dreyven raped and beat me, broke my arm and then Dreyven told Ricky to get rid of me.” Mason’s voice choked up finally as he told his gruesome tale.
I still remembered how he had looked that night: pale as a ghost from blood loss, his hair matted with blood and other bodily fluids, his skin an angry purple just about everywhere I could see. It had been his eyes that had captured and captivated me, the same gorgeous eyes that stared up at me now.
He searched my face for a moment, watching the emotions race across. I was so angry on his behalf. Hearing him talk about how Ricky had treated him, I silently wished the men in hell. If they had done any permanent damage to Mason’s arm, the world could have been deprived of Mason’s art. Not for the first time, I regretted my wounds from Afghanistan, but this time for a whole different reason. Had I been just a few minutes faster, or even just carried my sidearm with me that night, I might have had the chance to kill Dreyven, too.
“They raped me and would have killed me, but someone… someone intervened,” he paused a moment.
“You’ve read my book, right?” he asked, looking up at me from where he now lay snuggled against my chest, our hands still together. I nodded at the non-sequitur and used my thumb to smooth the skin along the back of his hand.
“The ending… the ending to the first book, that really happened. He… Ricky… was getting ready to kill me and my… my very own Dark Angel saved me.”
I tightened my hold on him and it seemed to comfort him. He relaxed even more against me.
“Dreyven had left before my Angel got there. To this day, I don’t know what happened to him. He could be in jail. He could be dead. I just don’t know,” he shrugged. “But my rescuer shot and killed Ricky, then got me to a hospital...
“He saved my life.” I felt a tremble run through him. As he turned his face, I saw his cheeks were wet with tears. “Not a euphemism. Not an exaggeration. He treated the worst of my wounds as best he could. He called the cops, got an ambulance to the hotel, then he disappeared…
“Sounds magical, huh?” He said, looking up at me. “I never saw him again. Sometimes… sometimes I hope to meet him again, to thank him. Other times…” he sighed. “Other times when I’m afraid to leave my apartment to get groceries and run in terror from a handful of people at the ma
ll, I wonder why he bothered.”
“Hey now…” I whispered, pressing soft kisses gently into his hair. “None of that. That’s bullshit.”
Mason shook his head and didn’t say anything for a while but eventually seemed to gather himself.
“I never really found anyone… any guy… that I felt… comfortable, enough, with to share my history, or explain my special type of crazy.” The corner of his mouth twitched as he tried to grin self-deprecatingly.
“No one—else? Not in all the years since…?” I had to stop speaking, my voice choking as I thought of how horrifyingly lonely that must have been.
“No. So, I guess the answer to your earlier question is, yes and no. Yes, I’ve had sex. No, I’ve never had a lover.”
We sat in the darkness for a few minutes, the weight of Mason’s words sinking in.
“Well, then I’m happy and sad for you.” I said softly, quoting one of my favorite Val Kilmer movies. I sobered though, thinking I might come across as too flippant. “Seriously, though, if we get to that point… if, not when… it will be your decision, Mason. And I would be… honored… to be your first lover.”
Even as I spoke, doubts plagued me. How would he feel if he found out I was the one who had rescued him that night? Or rather, when. There was no way I could or would keep that from him forever. Wasn’t this the perfect opening? I could tell him what happened and why… but what would happen when he had another panic attack? I had no illusions that it was only a matter of time before he had another one. I’d seen what Bishop and Kaine had gone through growing up. This would not be a fast process. And how in the world would we navigate the whole sex thing?
As confused as I was about how to proceed, at the same time, I was completely awestruck by his strength. The things he had survived would have killed a lesser person. Instead, Mason was more than surviving, he was thriving. As my emotions whirled, my mind latched on to something he’d mentioned.
“You mentioned the agoraphobia before,” I began. “Sounds like you’ve had counseling?”
He chuckled.
“Yep. I’m on the frequent flyer plan. Two more visits and I get a toaster oven.” We both laughed as he quoted “Real Genius” back at me, the joke lightening the mood, as I was sure he intended.
“Seriously, though, I only just recently found a great therapist. She specializes in dealing with all kinds of trauma. Physical, emotional, all of it.”
“How’s it going?” I inquired, suddenly serious.
Mason grimaced and sighed.
“Honestly? I hate it. I hate feeling so damn… broken, all the time,” he said, his hand tightening on mine. “But I also realize, it’s helping. If I’m careful about avoiding my triggers, or acting quickly enough before things become too overwhelming, I can go weeks without a panic attack.”
“But then… someone says something. A random word. A strange smell… I see someone who reminds me of my past… or I get too crowded in an elevator,” he paused. “And I wake up in the hospital. Or police station. Or, once, the women’s restroom.” Oddly, he laughed as he said that last.
“What’s so funny?” I asked. “Women’s restrooms are scary places, full of mysterious vending machines that instill fear in the hearts of men everywhere.” I waggled my eyebrows at him dramatically.
“That’s how I met Lizzie,” Mason explained. “She’s my best friend and my agent. She has never let me feel sorry for myself and has always been ready with a swift kick in the ass, when needed.”
“I definitely have to meet this woman,” I said, my hand sliding from his shoulder to his neck, then resting in his hair. He hummed in appreciation as I began stroking my fingers through his silky mane. “Lizzie sounds amazing,” I said.
I was doing my damnedest, but with Mason literally laying his head in my lap, I was having a really hard time keeping the semi in my pants from going hard-core steel rod.
“She is,” he agreed, dragging my head back into the conversation. “She has a mobility disability and uses a wheelchair. Don’t you dare call her disabled, though,” he chuckled. “She has never, and I mean ever, let it stop her from doing something she wanted or needed to do.”
I’d had my share of access challenges after I’d come home from the military. I knew how frustrating it was for me, and that was when I was just using crutches or a cane, and knew my own mobility issues could resolve in time. “Remind me not to piss her off.”
“Will do,” he nodded. “I spend a lot of time trying to avoid pissing her off,” he grinned, then grabbed a pillow from the couch and hugged it to his chest.
“So… that’s me,” he concluded. “Warts, psychoses, and all.”
“Hmmm… I think I like your warts,” I teased, digging my fingers into his hair, gently massaging his scalp. “As far as psychoses go… I get it.” I said, simply. “I’ve got my own shit I’ve dealt with – am still dealing with. Some of the stuff I saw, or that happened to me overseas… I guess, I really just understand what you mean about wanting to not be considered sick anymore,” I said, then it was my turn to sigh.
Mason slid down on the couch until his head was lying in my lap. He looked up at me, the firelight glinting in his eyes.
“Tell me,” he said simply.
It took me a few minutes but once I started talking, the words tumbled out of me.
“I’ve known I was gay pretty much my whole life,” I began. “So, I really didn’t have any major trauma in that regard, unless you count the trauma of walking in on my parents having sex when I was five.” Mason giggled at that.
“Poor kid.”
I grinned at him.
“I know, right? I knew who I was, and what I wanted, but I had to make the decision not to live openly, at first. I’d always wanted to be in the military. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was still in effect. It didn’t really bother me, at first, keeping that part of my life hidden. I was focused on my career and had already made peace with the fact that I’d need to stay in the closet for now. Then… Then I met Mack,” I smiled at the thought of my partner.
My chest tensed, waiting for the pain that almost always occurred whenever I remembered our life together. I was more than a little surprised when the accustomed sharp ache didn’t happen, just a hint of heaviness weighed on me.
“We met on our first deployment. We became best friends. We did everything, went everywhere together,” I laughed.
“I loved him so damn much,” I sighed, tears threatening in my own eyes. Mason nodded at me, encouraging me to continue.
“I remember the day I first realized he was gay. He was always acting really funny about his phone. We weren’t supposed to have them with us because of security concerns, but he was always taking it everywhere with him, never leaving it unattended for a moment. He’d hole up for hours in his bunk with that damn phone and it was driving me crazy trying to figure out what he was doing, or who he was talking to. It wasn’t like there was cell service in most of the places we were stationed, so, I kind of figured I knew what he was doing.”
Mason looked up at me and quirked an eyebrow. “Hours? That’s a lot of stamina.”
I grinned back at him. “I know, right?”
“One time he’d been hanging out in the bunk and I knew he had his phone on him. The sergeant had shown up, calling him on the carpet for some infraction or another. He was always getting in trouble for something,” I said, grinning.
“Sarge must have startled him because when he came to attention, he had dropped it on the bunk behind him. I don’t even remember now what it was he was getting in trouble for. I just knew he’d get busted even worse if they caught him with the phone, so I snuck it into my pocket while he was being dressed down. Sarge ordered him out to run laps or something and I got a peek at his phone.”
Mason chuckled. “Racy?”
I fanned myself. “Racy doesn’t even begin to cover it… By the time he made it back from the showers I was in my bunk and hard as rock. I remembered looking up fro
m that damn phone and seeing him standing in the doorway, naked except for a towel slung low on his hips. He had that damn, smug look on his face.
“ ‘I always hoped you might play for my team, Dev,’ he’d said as he shut and locked our door. ‘Glad to see it confirmed.’
“He was my first lover. I’d only ever kissed a few guys in high school, maybe fooled around a little, just enough to really know for sure that it was men that I wanted. But Mack… Mack changed my world…
“When we knew our enlistments were coming to an end, we’d privately exchanged rings. We came home to Ohio on leave, found this property and had construction started on the house, and started making plans.” I said, looking around the living room. “Mack designed it. He wanted to be an architect when we got discharged.
“I tried talking him into going to the Netherlands and getting married, but Mack wanted to wait. He figured the political climate in the US was changing, and he thought maybe we could hang in there long enough for America to catch up with us.” I sighed, remembering our long-standing arguments for and against leaving the US to get married.
“We were on our last deployment in Afghanistan, just a few weeks before the end of our tours when we were ambushed. Mack took a bullet to the chest. I was working on him when a mortar exploded nearby that destroyed my hip and leg. I came home with a medical discharge, and Mack came home in a casket.”
“That must have been… awful,” Mason whispered. “I’m so sorry, Lee.”
“It wasn’t the best time in my life,” I admitted, taking a deep breath. “I crawled into a bottle for a while. I even tried…” My voice trailed off. I still remembered waking up in the hospital with Sonny and Hicks by my side. I didn’t remember trying to kill myself, but I could still recall that aching emptiness in my chest the loss of Mack had left.
“I still have issues. Loud noises, explosions and vibrations still get me. Something about it just takes me back to that moment. I just… freeze. I know what I should do. What I need to do. But it’s like I can’t make my body move.”
Mason's Run Page 18
