Dark Needs

by Maris Black

  “Yeah, it was him.” I sighed, feeling cornered. “Look, I know I promised you I wouldn’t confront him, but he was making comments about us. Suggestive ones. I lost my cool, and I punched him in film lab. That’s why his nose was bleeding.”

  “Oh, my God. You punched him?” Bain squealed with delight instead of getting angry like I thought he would. “I wish I could have seen that. I’ll bet you were fucking awesome.”

  I shrugged, fighting a smile. “He was being a dick, so I put him in his place. But then I thought of my promise to you, and I followed him to the bathroom to apologize. I really didn’t want to start anything with him, Bain. I swear. But then he told me he knew about us, and he basically threatened to tell if I didn’t agree to—” I couldn’t finish, because the memory of our confrontation was pissing me off all over again.

  “If you didn’t agree to what?” Bain pressed. “Was that when he told you he wants to fuck us?”

  I nodded. “Or maybe he wants us to fuck him. I’m not sure exactly what he has in mind. Whatever it is, you can rest assured it’s not something we want to do.” I paused, the old familiar uncertainty creeping in again. “At least it’s not something I want to do.”

  Bain sat up and slapped me on the arm. “I don’t want to do it, either, you idiot. We’ve already been over this. I don’t want anybody but you. The only reason I went out with Leo in the first place was to try to get my mind off of you.”

  “Really?” I nudged his arm with mine, feeling a little shy at his confession.

  “Yeah, really. Jesus, Gavin, do you think you’re the only one who’s been going crazy? You went to England to get a way from me, and I went out with Caleb and Leo to get away from you. I didn’t know what else to do. I was horny for you all the time, you know? But it was more than that, deeper than that. I figured maybe if I went out with someone else, the feelings I had for you would go away. That I wouldn’t be so obsessed with you all the time.”

  I turned to face him, daring to hope that his need for me had really been as strong as mine for him. “I was worried that your feelings were more recent. That all of that stuff you said— the fantasizing stuff— was just… Well, I’ve been afraid that I corrupted you or something. I’m not delusional, you know. I do realize I’m sick.”

  Bain laughed. “Gavin, I wore your hoodie when I jerked off. Is that sick enough for you? I had Serena wash it and put it back in your room just before you got home.”

  I kissed him then. I couldn’t help myself, because I was overcome with pride, with love, with sickness, or whatever it was that my brother and I shared. “I did the same thing with your T-shirt,” I whispered between kisses. “God, I felt like such a perv.”

  A sudden rush of tears came to my eyes. Tears of shame for the awful things I had thought and done. Tears of relief because Bain didn’t think any less of me for it. And tears of joy, because of all of the things I believed I deserved in life, my brother’s love was not one of them.

  “Then we’re both pervs,” Bain said, wiping my tears with his fingertips. “And I’m fine with it. We’re going to be okay, Gav. It doesn’t matter what happens or what anybody else thinks. It’s you and me against the world, and as long as we have each other, we can handle whatever comes our way.” He leaned in and kissed away two errant tears that had spilled down my cheeks.

  It was so strange having him take care of me like that, when I had always considered myself the caregiver in our relationship. But thinking back, I guess Bain had always taken care of me, too. I had just been too blind to see it.

  It was confusing, because he had always been the one to seek comfort in my arms. He had nuzzled me, cuddled against me, and pushed me to the point of madness with his too-intimate touches. All the while, I had thought he was the needy one, and I was the strong one. But now I could see it for the illusion that it was.

  Bain had not only been taking comfort, but giving it— giving me exactly what I needed in the moment. If not for him, I would have been a brittle shell of a person, shying away from human contact altogether and withdrawing into myself until there was nothing left. In drawing me out and forcing me to show my love for him, he had essentially saved me.

  And as much as I hated to admit it, I needed saving again. Especially now that Leo had decided to use that song in our film project. I couldn’t be honest with Bain about that. No one could ever know of my deepest shame. But I felt myself spiraling downward again as the memories I had thought long dead and buried began to surge up again.

  EPILOGUE

  (GAVIN)

  — Ten Years Earlier —

  WE WERE eight years old, fresh out of second grade and enjoying the end of another glorious day without school. Victor’s old record player warbled out some old forties big band tune while Bain pretended to be a pirate, spinning around the attic room and stabbing at the air with Victor’s plastic sword. It was one of many treasures he kept in the worn trunk below the window.

  “Ahoy,” Bain cried, jamming the tip of the sword into my shoulder blade. “Get up and walk the plank, you scurvy dog.”

  “Stop it, Bain.” I grabbed the sword half way up the blade and glared at him. “Come help me put this puzzle together. I’ve already done all of the edges. And put that thing away before Victor gets back. He’s gonna get really mad if he finds out you’ve been in his trunk.”

  Victor had gone on his afternoon walk around the gardens, during which he usually talked to himself in hushed tones. I’d always wondered what it was that he said to himself as he contemplated the shrubs and watched bunnies and squirrels scamper around. Bain thought maybe he had an invisible friend like that weird girl in our kindergarten class, but I told him adults didn’t have invisible friends.

  “I said walk the plank,” Bain growled in his little boy voice.

  “I don’t want to play pirates. It’s boring.” I turned my attention back to the puzzle on the floor and tried to ignore my annoying brother. Everybody always thought Bain was so sweet and cute, but he had always been the rule breaker. I was the one running around after him, cleaning up his messes and getting blamed for stuff.

  “That’s a girl puzzle,” he said. “Fairies are stupid girl stuff.” He flicked the tip of the sword at the empty rectangle of puzzle pieces and broke an entire chunk of it out, sending several pieces flying across the room.

  “You jerk,” I yelled, snatching the sword’s blade again and trying to wrench it out of Bain’s hand.

  He held fast. “Stop it, Gavin. I had it first. It’s mine.”

  “It’s Victor’s sword, and if he finds you with it we’re going to get in trouble.” I jumped up from the floor and started chasing Bain around the room, trying to get the sword from him, but he was always just out of my reach. We did three laps around the room before I finally hemmed him into a corner.

  “Give me the sword,” I growled. “And then get over there and put those pieces back together. I worked hard on that.” I lunged for the sword, hoping to use the element of surprise to my advantage.

  “No,” Bain screamed, spinning around and ramming his head straight into the slanted knee wall. He rebounded, instinctively trying to use the sword to break his fall. The cheap plastic met the hardwood floor, and it buckled, bending the blade down low near the hilt and dropping Bain onto the floor with a thud.

  I stepped back in shock, surveying the damage. Bain appeared dazed but okay, and I reached down and helped him up. The sword had not fared so well. Its blade drooped to one side, a bright white crease marring the gray plastic where it had bent. My heart started tripping out a frantic beat, because if there was one thing I knew, it was that Victor was going to be really mad.

  “Can you fix it?” Bain asked, his eyes pleading. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  I took the sword from him and tried to bend it back into place, but it didn’t work. The blade was still slightly crooked, and that white line on the plastic wasn’t going anywhere. We had destroyed the sword.

  “What is going on h
ere?” Victor’s nasally voice came from behind me, and I spun around, trying to hide the sword behind my back until I could sneak it into the trunk.

  Victor wasn’t buying it. “Show me what you’ve got behind your back, Gavin.”

  I drew the sword out slowly, wincing. “It was an accident,” I said.

  Victor walked toward us, a fresh cup of coffee clutched in his spindly fingers. “What have you done to my sword? My dad gave me that for my sixth birthday, and now look at it. You’ve ruined it.”

  “I— I’m sorry,” I stammered. “It wasn’t—” For a split second, I considered selling Bain down the river. I didn’t want to get one of Victor’s spankings, and knew this one would be the most brutal yet. This was the first time we had damaged one of Victor’s beloved toys, and I knew he wasn’t going to let us off the hook for that.

  But then I thought of the last time I had seen Bain take a spanking, bent over Victor’s bed with his pants around his ankles, whimpering every time Victor brought his thin hand down on his bare bottom. As much as I hated to receive a spanking, watching Bain get one was much worse.

  And the sounds. The slap of flesh against flesh, and Bain’s anguished cries… He couldn’t keep quiet like me, and hearing him like that was too much for my little heart to bear.

  It wasn’t the first time I kept my mouth shut and took the blame.

  Victor didn’t tell me to lean over the bed and drop my pants, though. Bain and I stared at each other in silent disbelief as Victor carried the sword back to the chest and placed it reverently inside, as if it was some valuable artifact rather than a dollar-store toy. Then he closed the chest and went back to his reading chair, cracking open a book and reading quietly for the rest of the evening. Bain and I made ourselves scarce, going to play in my room rather than staying in the attic.

  When Victor came to announce that it was bedtime, we didn’t even argue. Something was not right, because Victor should have hit the ceiling when he discovered his bent sword. His calm demeanor was even more terrifying than if he had flown into a rage.

  “Bain, get to your room and close the door,” Victor said. “I don’t want to hear a peep out of you tonight.”

  As nervous as we both were, I knew Bain would not resurface until morning. No sneaking out to play with flashlights under the covers or watching movies with the sound turned down. Like me, he was trying not to cause the eruption of anger we both sensed was coming.

  Victor left the room, and minutes passed. I had almost begun to think I had escaped punishment when he returned, a thin shadow creeping toward me in the glow of my Spider Man night light.

  “Come with me,” he said with no malice, as if he were just going to show me something cool. But I knew better. I’d been waiting for my spanking all evening, and I was pretty sure I was about to get it.

  Victor led me up to his room, where the only light was a dim bedside lamp. He closed to door and locked it, then pointed to his bed, a silent communication I understood all too well. I knew the drill. I approached his bed on shaky legs and dropped my pajama pants to the floor, followed by my Hulk briefs.

  “Lie down on the bed,” he said, his voice as emotionless as his face.

  I frowned in confusion, but I did as he said, climbing awkwardly onto the bed and stretching out on top of the ugly patchwork quilt. Heat rose to my face, and I cupped my groin to hide my nakedness.

  Victor retrieved his shaving kit from the bathroom, an old-fashioned black leather bag that had also been left to him by his father. I knew this, because I had once asked him why he used that weird long razor thing to shave his face instead of those little disposable ones my dad used.

  “Real men use straight razors,” he had said.

  Now he pulled the razor from the bag and placed it delicately on the bed beside me, followed by a little bottle. I couldn’t read both words on the bottle, but one of them was powder.

  Victor placed the shaving bag on the bedside table and sat down on the bed beside me, finally looking me in the eyes. “You know you were a bad boy, right?”

  I nodded, wishing I could tell him it wasn’t me. It was Bain. My brother was the bad boy, and I was just trying to get him to stop playing with Victor’s sword. He was annoying me, and he shouldn’t have been in Victor’s things. I knew that. I was a good boy.

  But the thought of Bain lying naked on the bed with Victor looking at him the way he was looking at me made my stomach hurt. Bain was a good boy, too. He was just trying to have a little fun. He didn’t mean to break the sword.

  “You’re eight years old, Gavin. It’s time for you to learn to be a man. You can’t keep acting like a little baby.”

  I wanted to cry and to call out for my mom, but she wasn’t home anyway. And crying would have made me seem like even more of a baby. I didn’t want Victor to think I was a baby. If I could just act like a man, maybe he wouldn’t have to punish me.

  I nodded.

  Victor got to his feet and walked over the record player. He set the needle down on the beginning of a record, and after the static cleared, I heard the unmistakable single string melody of She’s a Rainbow. His favorite song. Victor closed his eyes and swayed in time with the music for a long moment, the corners of his mouth tipping up into a little smile.

  Then he opened his eyes and set his sights on me again, as if he had only just remembered I was there. I didn’t want him to come back to me. I wanted him to keep dancing. Maybe he would get lost in the music like he usually did and forget all about punishing me.

  But he didn’t. He came back to the bed and sat down again. I could still remember the weight of him as the mattress depressed, and the way I had to tense to keep from rolling to the side. Toward him.

  “Are you sorry you touched my sword?” he asked, still calm.

  “Yes.” The word came out in a rush of air, followed by a sob that sounded much too babyish. I squelched it and lay there in paralyzed silence, barely breathing as the music surrounded us.

  “She comes in colors everywhere…” Mick Jagger sang about love and beauty while I lay there like a lamb, small and naked and cupping my privates, and waiting for… what? What was he going to do to me?

  Victor picked up the razor, and the glint of lamplight on metal made my heart stutter.

  “Move your hands, Gavin,” he said quietly.

  And I did. God help me, I did.

  To be continued in…

  DARK LIES

  by

  MARIS BLACK