So, I jumped at the offer and never looked back. Then, I made some wise investments with the money, backing some tech startups that a friend of mine who owns a venture capitalist firm advised me to support, and the money grew even more. Soon, I had more money than I even knew what to do with.
Therefore, I didn’t like Harlow’s choice of the word “victim,” either. I was no goddamn victim. I’m Darren King, and I could survive anything. Could, and have. Sure, I have some emotional and physical scars to prove it, but, I wasn’t one to sit around at some support group and moan about my condition— if that’s what Harlow was getting at.
I was someone who knew how to face my problems head on and take action to improve things. I couldn’t change the past but I could damn well make sure my present and future were as good as they could be despite it.
So, this phone conversation that I was having with Harlow was an annoyance that I would rather not have to deal with. Plus, I could risk violating the settlement agreement I had made with Dr. Davis if I said too much.
“Hey, look, man,” I said. “I understand that things turned out badly for us. I really do. But, I finally have some peace and a chance at somewhat of a normal life. I made my home in the mountains, away from the prying eyes of people and I am very happy here. I came here to escape people. I really don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“I know what you mean,” Harlow insisted, “but Dr. Davis shouldn’t be able to get away with what he did to us. If it weren’t for him, you might not feel like you don’t have a place in normal society. He ruined our lives and we need to stand up together to make sure that he doesn’t ruin any more.”
“Hey, man, why can’t you take the hint?” I asked through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to talk to anyone. And that includes you. I work hard every day to try to forget that day that our helicopter went down, so I don’t need you calling to remind me exactly how much my life has been ruined.”
“Hey, we’re on the same side here, Darren. What happened to us isn’t something that you can just easily forget.”
I could hear the hurt in his voice, but I didn’t care. He kept pressing the conversation no matter how many fucking times I tried to get him to shut up about it. I felt he wasn’t respecting my need for space.
“Just leave me alone!”
I hung up the phone before he had the chance to say anything else.
I jumped up from my seat on the deck and began pacing. I was angry and wanted to find a way to relax.
My mind went back to the last time that I’d been able to relax, when I was in bed with a beautiful woman. That had been so long ago. But, my cock still stiffened at the thought.
I walked slowly to my room, my hardening member guiding the way. Once in my room, I closed the door, pulled down my pants, and sat down. I looked down at my dick, veins bulging from my own excitement. I’d been blessed with a big cock but today it looked particularly enlarged, as if reminding me it had been neglected, and trying to thank me for paying it attention.
I spat on my hand and started running my hand up and down the length of the shaft. The quiet smacks from the lubrication of my saliva made me imagine the women that I used to sleep with. I could see their perky tits bouncing up and down as they slammed their wet pussies up and down on my cock. I could hear their guttural cries of ecstasy as our bodies writhed on the bed, sending us into wild fits of powerful orgasms.
But, no matter how much I tried to have my own orgasm, rubbing my dick faster and faster, I just couldn’t cum. After almost an hour of trying, my dick went limp and I gave up.
How disappointing, I thought. I curled up on the bed, thinking about how pitiful I had become. I was angry at myself.
“Even my dick is broken,” I said aloud, to nobody in particular. It seemed like the accident had left every part of me dysfunctional and deficient.
My mind drifted back to that day, the day that had changed my life forever. I could still hear the whirl of the helicopter blades overhead as my fellow SEALs and I sat at the ready, eyes combing the Afghanistani desert below us for signs of life from our fallen brothers, hoping that we could rescue those still surviving, with grandiose thoughts of becoming heroes spinning around in our minds.
Some had expressed fear but I had been too pig headed to feel that. Instead, I only felt the thrill of excitement until it was nearly too late.
All of a sudden, shots rang out and I could hear the pings against the metal of the helicopter followed by the flashing red light and alarm going off.
“We’ve been hit! We’ve been hit!” someone yelled out. I remembered the panic in the eyes of the SEALs sitting in the helicopter with me as we stood waiting for the eventuality of our situation that we expected to result in our deaths.
As the helicopter went down, right before the moment of impact, I sent up a quick prayer that it would all be over quickly. I felt every bit in the impact, and then extreme heat as a fire exploded around us. I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable.
Then, I could feel myself beginning to float. I thought that my soul was leaving my body until I realized that I was being pulled from the rubble of the downed helicopter. I could feel the fire burning my skin. I felt like I was melting.
It turns out I hadn’t died. I had just passed out. Ramsey Bradford had pulled me out and threw me on the ground right next to his brother, Harlow, who had been badly burned and injured, too.
I remembered our eyes meeting and wondering if his would be the last face that I would see before I died. It would seem fitting, since my fellow members of the Navy SEALs had become like my family, my very life. We had trained together, fought together, gotten into some tough situations together. And right now, we might be dying together.
A few moments later, the helicopter exploded with some men still trapped inside. Some medics finally arrived and hauled me off for medical treatment.
As I was laying there in the stretcher, I couldn’t believe my life had just replayed itself in my mind as if it was going to be over, yet I was still alive. I had a glimmer of hope. I felt like I was one of the lucky ones. I had survived. I was going to be okay.
But, now that I was remembering all of this, I realized that “hope” was a strong word and reality had not lived up to what I had envisioned. When I considered how everything had gone after that. The way that everything changed. The way that women would gasp and take steps back when I approached. The way that no one ever looked me in the face. The way that the people who I cared about went out of their way to avoid me, I realized that I would never be truly “okay” again.
Dr. Davis had told me that the telltale signs of the injury would fade and soon I would look almost like normal again. But he was obviously a liar and a fraud, so what he said didn’t count. A couple other doctors had expressed similar things to me but it was probably just to fill my head with hope.
I felt certain that everything about my life was doomed for good. And now, laying on my bed with my limp dick in my hand, I knew that that probably included me not ever being okay sexually again.
I couldn’t help but to feel sorry for myself. Sometimes I think it would have been better if I had died on that helicopter. A man with an ugly face and a limp dick has nothing left to live for. Despite all my attempts to push forward with life as I knew it post helicopter crash, I always seemed to be reminded of my limitations. The fact that I was here thinking about it all over again was Harlow Bradford’s fault. I should have ignored his call and thrown my cell phone into the snow so that he couldn’t reach me again.
I had abandoned myself to a life of isolation— and I should have known that would have to include no cell service. If it wasn’t for having to keep in touch with my doctors and housekeeper who also cooked food for me, I would have thrown away the damn technology a long time ago.
It was a good thing I hadn’t tossed it into the woods, since I needed it, but I’d learned a valuable lesson. I should avoid all calls from Harlow. And any non-necessary calls at all, for th
at matter.
I had nothing against Harlow, personally. I knew he felt guilty because he had introduced me to Dr. Davis. Dr. Davis promised to restore the physical appearance and ability of veterans injured at war with his break-through technology that combined plastic surgery, skin grafting and physical therapy. He paraded Harlow all over the country as his example of someone he could fix. He had Harlow sign up other veterans left and right for his revolutionary treatment.
Then, it was found out that Dr. Davis was a fraud, who was using Harlow for his own financial benefit. He was exaggerating how bad off Harlow was when he had first started working with him, and taking credit for Harlow’s own natural abilities in recovering. Therefore, he was over promising and under delivering, and it was schmucks like me who got the bum end of the deal, because we thought we were getting good treatment when it was all just a sham.
That wasn’t Harlow’s fault, though. He was a nice guy who wanted the best for everyone in our unit. I shouldn’t have yelled at him but he couldn’t seem to realize that his way of dealing with things was not the only way. Perhaps I would call him up and apologize to him. But not yet.
The more pressing issue was that I hoped I could get into a better mood soon, and not wallow away in depression. I was determined to continue being a survivor rather than a victim. And when I wasn’t feeling the part, I was used to faking it until making it. This time, though, I just wasn’t sure how long I could keep the act up.
Chapter 2 – Hope
“Wake up!” My mother’s shrill voice broke into my sleep. I had never been a morning person and I didn’t foresee that changing any time in the near future. No matter what my mother had to say about it.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” she shouted louder, shaking my bed.
Rolling over to face her, I groaned, “I’m up, Mom. I’m up.”
Sighing with relief, my mother leaned over my bed, physically exhausted from her mini fit. I perked up a little more and noticed how sickly she was looking this morning.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“No, honey, I’m not so good today.”
Not so good today.
My mother was as tough as nails. This was the woman who had checked out of the hospital with walking pneumonia and went straight to working a double shift, so for her to say that she wasn’t feeling well was a big deal.
“I need you to go do Mr. King for me today.”
Her choice of words made me want to giggle at the thought of me “doing” him, but of course I didn’t say anything to my mom. She would scold me for such silliness. At my age— nineteen— Mom was already married and pregnant, yet working hard every day. Therefore, she thought I should act more mature than I did.
My mom took her work very seriously. My father had died in a car crash when I was very young and he didn’t have insurance. My mother had little support, and only unskilled labor as work experience, but she had three young children to take care of.
At first, she struggled to take care of us. It wasn’t until she had picked up a few regular cleaning jobs that we started seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
Then, mom got sick. It was a mysterious autoimmune disease, causing symptoms ranging from arthritis to stomach pain. The doctors had no answer for her, other than to tell her that she should retire and live out the rest of her days on a beach. Of course, that just wasn’t possible so it couldn’t be her reality. It almost seemed cruel for the doctors to suggest to a woman who was used to working multiple jobs just to be able to make ends meet.
In the months that followed, I saw her, worn out and tired, becoming a shell of her former self, slowly dying in front of my eyes. And my heart began to break. Losing my dad had been hard enough, something that I will never get over.
My dad had been my best friend and my hero. He was so fun, always joking and laughing, doing silly things that would make my mother scold him, but a smile always played at the corner of her mouth while she was doing it.
That was back then. Now, I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d seen her laugh.
I started helping her out with her jobs. I figured that because I was younger than she was, yet still old enough compared to my younger siblings, I could help lighten her load.
When I first offered to help her, my mom flat out refused, saying that it was her responsibility to care for the family and that she wanted me to focus on my own life. She wouldn’t even listen as I explained that my family was my life and that I would do everything in my power to make sure that everyone was okay.
Eventually, though, she acquiesced. She had to, because it was too much work for her to be able to do on her own. And once she started to see me as a worker bee, she started giving me lessons in how to grow up and earn my own keep like she had always had to do.
Despite her stern, serious lessons, I didn’t mind the work. I would throw on my iPod and rock out while cleaning. Time would always fly by. Even my mom was surprised at how well things were going at her jobs when I worked them. I told her that I’d learned from the best.
I had helped with all of her jobs, except for Mr. King. She told me that he was very particular and he made certain parts of the house off limits. She didn’t want to risk anything going wrong. We had been struggling just to pay bills for so long that once she started working for Mr. King, she saw that she finally had a chance to change things for us. That was because he paid more than anyone that she’d ever worked for. She cleaned his house once a week and then cooked his meals for the entire upcoming week.
“Sure, Mom, I can do Mr. King. I’ll get dressed and head over now.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” she said, putting her hands up to stop me in my tracks. “We need to go over the rules of being at his house.”
We had been over it so many times, just in case I ever had to step in and help out at his house when she couldn’t, but I didn’t say anything to remind her of that just now. I knew that going over every detail again would help her feel reassured. I just nodded my head and listened as she recited her same speech.
“Now, Mr. King is very different. You can tell that just by looking at him. That is, if ever you get the chance to lay eyes on him. If you do see him, look at the floor, look at the ceiling, look at the wall. Look anywhere but directly into his face. If you need to tell him anything, write everything down on a note and leave it on the refrigerator. You never walk up to him directly. And there’s absolutely no walking into a room where he is if he hasn’t invited you. He spends most of his time in the west wing of the house, so most of those rooms are off limits. You get in, you get out. You clean and you leave. Got it?”
“Of course, Mom,” I smiled at her sweetly, hoping that that would reassure her. “I got it. I can handle it. Don’t worry.”
She looked me over skeptically, then sighed, her shoulders lowering like all the energy had been drained from her. She kissed my cheek and shuffled out of my room and back to bed.
She wasn’t going to listen to me. She was going to worry. But, there wasn’t much I could do about that.
I got up, showered, and ran out the door. I was eager to finally see the mysterious Mr. King’s house. Mom had told me that it was a cabin, but also a mansion. The biggest, most modern cabin she could even imagine.
Pulling up to the front gate, I was blown away by the sheer size of the building and I realized that Mom had not been exaggerating. I’d never seen anything like it, either.
I couldn’t rightfully call that enormous building a house or even a cabin, even though it did look like a log cabin. In my mind, it couldn’t be called anything but a building, because it looked like there was room enough for an entire company of people to live or work in.
I entered the code that my mother had given me and the gates swung open so majestically that I thought that I was about to walk into a castle. Walking through the giant oak doors, I had to catch my breath as I looked around at all the luxurious beauty that laid before me. I had never seen more gold and crystal in all my l
ife.
I had to drive for a long time before I arrived, and looking out the expansive windows, all I could see were beautiful mountain views. The backyard was so wooded it looked like a forest. There were no other houses in sight.
The outside of the house had the wooden logs and cozy look of a cabin, and inside was no different. It featured a wood burning fireplace and comfortable nooks and crannies where one could curl up with a good book.
It was a gorgeous house. And it was amazing to think that only one person lived here. There weren’t very many other people to enjoy all the beauty this home had to offer, and from what Mom said, Mr. King didn’t have visitors over.
What did he do with all this space? And what did he do with all the other rooms? He could only really sleep in one. I couldn’t help but think of how my younger siblings had to share a room in our own small house.
I willed myself to stay focused on the task at hand. My mother had entrusted me with a huge amount of responsibility and I had to stay focused on that.
I could see why my mother had been so careful about how she dealt with Mr. King. But, the more I walked through the house, the less concerned I had become about following the rules that she’d drummed in my head.
I was curious and I wanted to explore the house. I was glad to be helping Mom out with this job, because it was a lot more exciting than anything else I would be doing today.
I’ll just walk around and get an idea of what my work day is going to look like, I justified to myself.
I set off to look around, not quite sure what I would find. But I had a feeling that today had a lot in store for me. And that meeting Mr. King was going to be very interesting indeed.
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