by Tara Spears
Sonya was right though. If I couldn’t leave the Ave, I needed to leave her son before we were both too far into this. I couldn’t think about it right now, with Justin an arms length away. I would need to go home, away from temptation, and see where I needed to be.
It was late, I was tired, and I could see just by looking at him, Justin was done for. Kelly had planned to go home tonight but she had been snoring in kitten’s back seat from the moment I turned the key. We wrestled her out of the back and Justin carried her in, depositing her on the couch where she continued to snore with gusto. The girl slept like the dead... only much louder.
Justin and I shared a smoke on the back deck. Neither of us spoke. He waited until we were in bed, where he could pin me down.
“What did my mom say to you?” he asked. I shook my head. He shoved his palm into my chest hard enough to bounce me into the mattress. “Don’t do that. Damn it, Trey. She said something.”
I wiped the corners of my mouth with a hand as I looked at him. “She warned me not to hurt you.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” He clutched my chin, turning it towards him and stared at me. “That’s not it. What else?” he asked, frowning.
“It is it. She told me not to destroy her son,” I lied, surprised how terrible it made me feel. Even so, I couldn’t get the words to form, my mouth wouldn’t release them. I just couldn’t tell him.
“I don’t believe you,” he said gruffly, turning his back to me and pulling the covers to his chin. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but my tongue created nothing. I thought about leaving but I knew if I did, I might never come back. It was only a small argument, not even that, it was a white lie.
I sighed. That wasn’t true. My lie was black; dark, dangerous, and hurtful. I rolled over, my back to his, and before I could even pull the covers over me, my mind sifted away, too tired to think anymore. Definitely dark... like so much of me.
Chapter Fifteen
I snapped awake in the dark, whimpering when I realized what had awakened me. Willie had my hands wrenched behind my head and held in his big paw, his grip bruising.
“Willie, no. Leave me alone. Pleeaasse, leave me alone...please, please, please.” I started to cry. I hated when he came to me while I was slept. I hated that he could still make me cry. I hated him. I hated my life.
He was trying to get inside me but he couldn’t. I relaxed a little bit when I smelled the booze on him. He never could get it all the way up when he was drunk. He would hump me until he shot off or got angry.
I curled up the best I could, so he couldn’t touch me too much. He was grumbling, getting exasperated. Without warning he wrenched my leg back and started fondling.
“Don’t touch me,” I pleaded. It always hurt when he touched me. He was rough and would get mad because it stayed limp. Drunk would mean a beating if he didn’t feel satisfied, but I couldn’t help it. It just stayed limp. I didn’t know how to make it work, and I didn’t want it to. Once it worked, I would be like him. He was pulling and tugging hard, hurting it.
“Ow...OW,” I cried.
“Shut up!” He jerked my hands roughly, and I whimpered from the ache building down my back.
He chuckled then moaned, as he quit pulling so roughly. He was pushing against my backside, and I could feel him getting hard.
“No, Willie, please, no...” I cried, struggling. “No, no, no.”
He tugged on my hands, and my shoulders screamed in agony. He was all the way hard now, but he wouldn’t let go of me to get inside, he just kept jabbing furiously while his hand kept fondling me.
“Ow. It hurts, stop, it hurts.” I whimpered over and over.
He jerked my hands again, quieting me. I bit my cheek to keep from crying out.
Something was different. My stomach clenched and I was sure I was going to throw up. No, it was lower. It was my belly that went tight. I closed my eyes and wished my mom would wake up. Wake up mom, please help me. She wouldn’t though. She only cared about the needle now. The world she went to, not the world she actually lived in.
I gasped and my eyes shot open.
“Stop, stop, quit, I don’t want this, I don’t want to be like you,” I squealed, and kicked, and fought, as my front and back wetted with cum. Willie’s grip loosened and I tore my hands free, sending my elbow back as hard as I could. He hit the floor with a grunt as I clambered off the end of my bed.
He started laughing. “Oh-ho, my little boy is a man now. How precious, that I got you off.”
I screamed, “Fuck you.”
He laughed harder. I didn’t want to be like him. Owhh, I was going to be sick. Turning away, I stumbled across the hall to the bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking it. He had done it— he had finally made me like him. I lurched for the toilet, and threw up.
I was on my knees rocking, and shaking, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I wanted my mom. Why did you have to die Dad? Please come get me, please. I reached for the lever to flush the toilet but only found air. Feeling around in the dark I couldn’t find the tank, the cabinet was missing, and the garbage can behind the toilet was gone too. Something was wrong. I looked up and saw moonlight through the rain splattered windows. Windows?
The room spun into a blur.
I groaned, blinking several times, trying to focus. I looked around, recognizing Justin’s bathroom. I was kneeling on the pewter carpet in front of the garden tub. How’d I get here? I stood up and began to shake. My mouth was foul. My pajamas were hugged down around my hips, and they were wet. Like a car crashing into something unforgiving, my mind lurched to a halt as the memory of my nightmare flashed across my eyes. I began to wail.
You are dirty. A dirty boy. Boomed over the sound of my own hysteria. Just like Willie. Evil. Dirty. Just like Willie, like Willie.
“NO.” The voice, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real! I listened to it chanting over and over. Not my voice, not Willie’s voice. It sounded like... my Dad’s voice. I moaned, shaking my head. No. It couldn’t be... he was dead. Dead. He kept chanting and chanting over and over.
He knew. He knew, and he hated me, he hated me.
“Ah fuck, Trey, give me that!” What? I looked up at Justin’s face. “Damn it, let go.”
I shook my head. Huh? I glanced down and saw him rend a brush from my hand, the short yellow plastic bristles dyed bright red.
“God, how’d you find that? It’s been missing for weeks. Jesus,” he said flinging the brush into the tub. He was squatting down next to me in the shower, the frosted glass door open behind him.
“What the hell is going on?” Kelly said.
“Get out!” Justin yelled trying to block me from her view.
“Jesus, Justin, is that your blood?”
“No. Kelly, get out, go.”
“What happened?”
“Get the fuck out!” Justin yelled at her loud enough I flinched, and came fully out of my stupor. My chest tightened as I choked on a sob, or possibly a gag, when I saw what I had done. My legs, belly and chest were seeping blood in patches, the top layers of skin roughed up like a gruesome red carpet.
“Just tell me your both okay,” Kelly cried.
“We’ll be fine, now go, please.”
Justin slammed the lever on the shower, hard, shutting the water off. He looked at me, his jaw clenched and teeth grinding.
“I... I’m sorry. I should go,” I told him, my voice barely above a whisper.
His eyes pinched. “No... No way!” He blared then softened. “You’re not leaving like this.” His tainted fingers reached out and I flinched. I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t used to anyone around me after an episode. He curled his fingers and retreated.
“You think I’m mad at you.” He shook his head, running his fingers through his hair, leaving wet red streaks across his tousled golden locks. “How could I be mad at you?” He sat down, soaking his pajamas, and pulled me against his side. “I’d like to rip out your stepfather’s throat though.” He let out
a frustrated growl, and the sound made me tense.
“Are you okay? I mean... shit. I’m a little freaked out here. Sorry.” He went to rub his face, saw his hands and stopped. He stared at the blood. “You’re bleeding. I think... I mean, you should... I need to take you to the hospital,” he said, still staring at his hands.
“No, no hospital.” I laughed a little hysterically. “There’s nothing to stitch, and they’ll just try to put me away.” Okay, laughed a lot hysterically, and couldn’t seem to stop. Poor Justin. This was far from my first time living out one of my nightmares unknowingly, but this was a doozy for him to have had to witness. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t! I was actually quite horrified. Still, I couldn’t stop giggling.
“Trey, you’re scaring me, stop!” He grabbed me, and held on as if he could personally smash my flighty emotions.
I worked to rein in my hysteria. He looked over my bloody body and went to inspecting my leg. I didn’t even glance at it. I knew my legs would be the most damaged.
“Kelly is better at this than I am. She can patch up anything.” He took his hand off my leg, sighing grievously.
“I thought you were the nurse.” I said.
“She’s better at figuring out bandaging.”
“She’s going to ask questions. I don’t know if I can answer them right now.” I looked down at myself. “I don’t have anything to wear,” I said, my voice stupefied.
“I have a pair of red flannels. They should fit. They’re an ugly color on me so I never wear them. They can be your backup, and they’ll hide the blood,” Justin rambled, then stood up, offering down his hands. “Come on, let’s get you somewhat cleaned up then I’ll go beg Kelly for help,” he said, and I looked up at him apprehensively. “I’ll figure out something to tell her. Night terrors or some shit. It’s pretty close to the truth.”
He waggled his fingers at me and I took his hands, letting him haul me up off the cold grey tile. He let go once I was on my feet, then wrestled the door up against the linen closet.
“You broke the door down?” I asked appalled, as I stared at the splintered jamb.
“Fuckin’ right I did.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, his eyes narrowing down to slits. “You don’t know what you sound like... what you say and do—”
“I have a fair idea,” I said, halting what sounded like an angry tirade.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think you do. Trey, you were screaming... I was terrified you were hurting yourself and...” He messed with the door some more then kicked the bottom, and I noticed he was shaking.
I laid my hands carefully on his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Justin. I don’t... I guess I don’t know what I do, only what’s in my head.”
He stilled. “You remember everything don’t you?” he asked quietly, leaning his hands against the busted door.
I dropped my forehead to his back and nodded. How could I ask him to go through this over and over? I couldn’t.
Justin found a few big gaudy beach towels, and threw them across the floor, and toilet seat. He went off to hunt down supplies, and wrangle Kelly, while I cleaned last night’s Italian sausage and penne out of the tub. It smelled much better the first time around.
As I sat on the draped toilet waiting, I realized Justin had pulled me back with very few side effects. Minor hysteria and major fear aside. Or maybe that should be; major hysteria and minor fear? I couldn’t be sure. What I did know, was that somehow, someway, Justin calmed me and could push the darkness back. But at what cost to him? It would be selfish of me to put Justin through this over and over. I wasn’t a selfish person, and I knew I just couldn’t do that to him.
Kelly and Justin returned to find me with my head in my hands. Miraculously I wasn’t crying. Justin came over and squatted next to me, adjusting the towel on my lap before running his fingers through my hair. His face was haunted, and it almost broke me to see him like that because of me.
“Kelly’s going to patch you up. I’m going to change the sheets, and make us a drink. I think we need something... I know I need something. Then I want to talk,” he finished in a subdued tone.
I glanced sideways at him and nodded slightly. He stood up, running his hand across my shoulder before turning to leave me with Kelly.
“Take off the mattress pad... please,” I said quietly. He hesitated, turning his head sideways, then dropped his chin and left to strip the bed.
Kelly came over, her face stiff and panicky, but she relayed a remarkable calm as she set a bowl of gauze rolls, Telfa pads and other items down. She didn’t say a word to me. Not one. The only noise she expressed was the occasional hiss through her teeth as she sprayed stingy stuff on my ragged skin. She taped pads where she could and secured them with rolls of co-adhesive bandage, and when she was done, I looked like I had been in a wreck.
“Thank you,” I said.
She offered me a grave smile, squeezing my knee as she stood. She said something to Justin as she walked out, but I couldn’t hear it. He brought me the dark red pajamas and I slid the bottoms on. I deposited the beach towels in the laundry basket then sat down on the edge of the bed, now clothed in soft ochre sheets.
Justin returned a few minutes later and kicked the bedroom door closed. He handed me a clear glass mug of Irish coffee as he sat down next to me. When I took a sip I found it was very heavy on the Irish.
“Justin, I—”
“Don’t... I know what you’re going to say. Just don’t. I’m... I need you. And I think you need me too. I just... I need to talk about what happened even if you don’t want to.”
I grimaced, but said, “Okay, I think I... I’ll try.”
He shifted so he was facing me. His fingers played with the seam of my pajama bottoms for a few moments before he looked up, his expression stark.
“Now that I’ve been through this, your active nightmares, I can better handle them. When you told me you had interactive nightmares I expected you to wake up screaming or crying or... I don’t know.” He shook his head, “Not this. Trey... your voice... it changed. You sounded like a little boy. I don’t know, maybe ten or eleven. It was freaky.” He stopped, drawing in a quick, sharp breath.
“I was twelve,” I said, surprised I wasn’t shocked to hear what Justin had just told me. I studied the pillows unable to look at him. “It was the first time—”
“I figured it out pretty quickly. You talked through the whole thing... I heard everything you said when it happened. Saw everything. It was almost like being there. I was stuck inside a horror movie unable to do anything to save the victim.” He lifted his mug, it was shaking so badly he had to use both hands to bring it to his lips.
“I, um, wasn’t sure I should wake you, so I just held you until you quieted. I don’t know, I guess I fell back to sleep, and then...” He glanced towards the bathroom. “I didn’t even feel you get up.” He grimaced before staring down at his coffee. “You were saying these horrible things, then you started screaming...” His hand came up, and covered his face.
“Justin. This is hypothetical of course. Neither you nor I can see the future. But hypothetically, if we stayed together... what if I never improve?” I looked at him earnestly as I peeled his hand away. “Can you live with this for the rest of your life?”
His bright blues focused on me for what seemed a long time, his face a tumble of emotions. Finally he opened his mouth.
“If I have to answer that to prevent you from leaving me, then right this second the answer would be yes. But if I am going to be honest, I don’t know. I can’t answer that truthfully until we have gone through this a few times, can I?”
It was a straightforward answer. Now my question to myself was; could I put him through this over and over? Was there any hope for me to get better— well— normal... or at least normalish? Like Justin, I couldn’t answer that honestly right now either. However much I’d like to say yes.
He looked up at the ceiling. “Can we at least have a few weeks? See where this goes?”
He tipped his head to me. His face had softened, and was pleading.
I wanted that time too. I nodded as I leaned over and kissed him. He kissed me back.
I didn’t sleep well. I think I was afraid to fall asleep. So I laid there dozing, wrapped around Justin, listening to him breathe. About an hour after the sun had begun to chase the night over the horizon, I was stiff, and sore, and needed to move. Crawling carefully out of bed so as not to wake him, I headed to the kitchen to make coffee.
While it brewed, I headed out onto the back deck for a smoke. The morning was shrouded in mist, but upon looking up, I saw the sky was silver-blue streaked with dawn’s pink glow. I knew it would be a beautiful day regardless of what the night had wrought.
I was halfway through my smoke when the door creaked ajar. Kelly was pushing it open the rest of the way with her pink and green alligator clad butt. Where does someone find baby-pink flannel pajamas with alligators all over them? We really needed to talk about her shopping habits. I grabbed the door for her, and she turned then frowned.
“Oh Trey, you’re already seeping through your bandages.” She handed me a bright yellow mug then carefully touched one of the pads along my ribcage.
“Thanks.” I held up the mug then took a sip. “I’m okay,” I told her. “Thanks for your help by the way,” I added sincerely.
She nodded distractedly as she sipped her coffee. She wandered over, leaned against the railing and looked into the garden.
“I don’t have any right to ask... and you can tell me to mind my own business, but what happened?” she asked, continuing to stare straight ahead.
I watched the mist floating into the trees and I was about to tell her to mind her own business when it just strolled out over my lips.
“Justin told you I have night terrors but he didn’t tell you why.” I shifted my eyes towards her, but she hadn’t moved. Her hands were clasped around her mug and her eyes were still on the garden. I turned my attention back to the trees. “I was abused by my stepfather for years.”
