by Elin Peer
Magni grew serious. “I remember everything from those days.”
I stopped breathing for a second, all too aware what he was saying. But then I threw in a joke like a diffuser to take the tension out of the moment.
“Well, then maybe you can remember if I got really piss-drunk about sixteen years ago and sneaked across the border for a quickie with a woman named Randa Christine?”
“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell. If you did I wasn’t with you that night.”
“No, I didn’t think so. I’m just so amazed at how much the boy looks like me,” I said and regretted that I hadn’t brought a jacket outside with me. It was cold and when rain started falling, I said, “Look, I promise to check in more often, but I’ve got to get inside to my prison guard and her sidekick, the sparkly turtle. Just tell me before I go, how are the kids at the school doing?”
Magni’s face softened. “I come back as often as I can, but the rebels on the east coast have been giving me grief. I’m telling you, Finn, there’s no better feeling than the hugs I get from those kids every time I swing by the school. It’s like vitamin shots, you know.”
“Magni hung one of the boys upside down in a tree because he teased Mila,” Khan shouted in the background.
“That’s right,” Magni nodded and lifted his chin. “Nobody touches my little princess.”
I chuckled and raised a hand, signaling I was ending the call. “Talk to you soon, my friend.”
“All right, go show that witch who’s the boss.” Magni gave a mock growl and I smiled at him before I pressed end and returned to the house.
We didn’t do much that day, except meditating, talking, and relaxing. Athena kept pushing me to sit down and put my words down on a pad. What she didn’t understand was that I had spent my whole adult life suppressing my emotions and now she was asking me to reflect on my emotions.
It wasn’t that I have no feelings; I had too many fucking feelings and they lurked just under the surface, with the power to drag me down in the darkness with them.
“Here,” I said and handed Athena the electronic pad I had used to scribble on.
“You don’t have to show me what you wrote.”
“Wait, so you’re not going to grade my effort? That’s disappointing. If I had known that I wouldn’t have tried so hard.”
Athena’s gaze lowered to the pad in her hands, and then her eyebrows lifted in perfect arches. “Your favorite moment here was when I rode your…” she looked up at me. “I’m not going to say that word.”
“What, my cock?”
Athena closed her eyes for a second before she uttered a sigh and looked at me. “You were supposed to reflect on what happened these past days, and not on what you fantasized about.”
Lifting my shoulders in a shrug, I said, “You should’ve specified that.”
Athena returned her gaze to her pad again. “What most surprised you in the Motherlands was that we don’t have any eggs.”
“Or chickens,” I added. “But let’s not get caught up in the whole ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg’ debate. I just wish I could have an omelet in the morning, that’s all.”
Athena was running over my answers and was clearly not impressed. “You’re using your humor as a shield, Finn. These are supposed to be deep questions, yet you have answered each one with fewer than ten words.”
“I worked hard on the last question. What was it again?”
Athena read out loud, “What I want my people to know about the Motherlands is this.”
“Yes, that’s the one. I gave a brilliant answer.”
Athena looked down. “You should always check their fridge to look for leftover pie, or you will end up eating disgusting kale for breakfast.” Athena put the pad down on the sofa and got up without a word.
“What?” I asked. “That was solid advice, and it was way more than ten words.”
“Hans,” she called up the stairs. “You want to go out to dinner with me?”
“Sure,” he called back and came down a few seconds later. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a restaurant I’ve been wanting to try for a while,” Athena said, looking only at him.
“Great.” Hans went to grab his jacket and smiled at me. “Then you get to see some of the Motherlands.”
“I’m afraid not,” Athena said in a soft but serious voice. “I was planning for all of us to go, but Finn still has some reflection work to do, and it turns out he prefers leftover food anyway.” She pointed to the fridge. “You’ll find some pancakes and fruit salad in there. We should be back in less than two hours.”
Crossing my arms, I rocked back and forth on my heels. “I see what you’re doing.”
“Excellent, then you’ll appreciate that I’m giving you time to think things through.”
“I’m not supposed to leave him alone,” Hans said and wrung his hands.
“I know, but you will.”
When Hans still looked skeptical, Athena added. “Don’t worry, Finn is an adult and he can take care of himself for a few hours.”
Like the trained puppy Hans was, he followed Athena out the door and left me to reflect on my miserable past.
CHAPTER 17
Human Shield
Finn
The days after Jack died, we were all quieter than usual. Some of us had seen his body being carried back to the school, bloody and eerily limp.
Mentor Johnson had declared it a tragic accident, but the students who had witnessed Jack falling from the cliff, whispered of suicide.
“He jumped,” one of them insisted.
That comment hit me hard in my chest. I had considered suicide a million times myself. Being on Johnson’s list of favorite targets would do that to you.
For me, there was a gnawing guilt that the episode a few months back, when Johnson pulled Jack out to race me, had caused him to jump off that cliff. Being called the most pathetic kid at school had to have hurt Jack’s pride. It had certainly marked him as an easy target for others to pick on.
“What about all the other accidents?” Jacob said in a strained voice. “I wonder how many of the kids killed themselves over the years.” We were doing the log drill, which I hated because it involved carrying large logs in a group of four. With me being the shortest, I couldn’t lean the log on my shoulder as well as the others and I had to compensate by using my arm muscles, which hurt like a bitch.
“Come on, move faster,” Jacob shouted at us. “Magni’s group is winning, and I swear if I have to run another five miles because we lose to them, I’ll fucking kill you all.”
With a grimace of pain and determination, I ignored the acid burning in my arms, and moved my feet as fast as I could. All four of us put everything we had in it, pushing our sore muscles to the max. But it wasn’t enough.
Magni’s group won this round, and his three teammates were raising their fists in the air in relieved excitement. Our group and the other four groups stood panting on the muddy field, bent over with hands clutching at knees, clothes and hair drenched from the heavy rain.
I looked up when the first round of thunder set in, counting in my head until the lightning struck. “It’s close,” I called out to the others.
Jacob lit up. “Maybe Johnson will make us run tomorrow instead. It’s getting dark, and with the lightning we could get hit.”
I shrugged. Not expecting any kind of softness from Johnson, I looked around to see where he was. My heart skipped a beat when I saw little Martin being dragged toward the office. We were at the other end of the school grounds, but I could still see the fear on the kid’s face. Martin was a newcomer and with his disability, he was a prime candidate to take Jack’s place on Johnson’s dreaded list.
I liked Martin, but then I was a sucker for all underdogs. With a speech impediment that made him stutter, and a clubfoot that made him slow, Martin was never going to be the best student at this school. But he was kind and had the ability to laugh at himself, which counted for a lot
in my book.
The other ten-year-old kids that Martin had been with stood paralyzed with fear, as their friend was being half dragged, half carried to Johnson’s office – also known as the torture chamber.
“What the fuck, Finn, why are you ignoring me? I asked you a question, man.” Jacob smacked my shoulder and almost knocked me on my ass.
With another quick glance in Martin’s direction, I came up with the only plan I could think of to help the younger boy.
“Don’t you fucking hit me,” I shouted at Jacob as loud as I could, and hammered my fist into his right shoulder.
Just like me, he was already tired and grumpy from being out in the cold rain all day.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” he roared and with the strength of a large fourteen-year-old, he charged me – this time knocking me to the ground.
Our peers were quick to circle around us, chanting the words “fight, fight, fight…” with exhilaration.
I took four punches to my stomach and two to my face before Jacob was pulled off of me by a red-faced Mentor Johnson.
“What have I told you about fighting?” he shouted at us.
Jacob pointed an accusing finger in my direction. “He started it.”
Johnson didn’t ask me if it was true. He just pulled me up by my now muddy hair, and spoke to me with a voice sizzling with anger. “What’s your problem, boy? How is it possible for one kid to be this retarded?”
Another round of thunder and lightning lit up the sky.
“All of you get in the shower,” Johnson ordered all the boys around me, and released his painful grip on me with a sneer. “You’re such a fuckhead.”
My eyes shot to Martin in the distance. He was backing away from the office, but it was only a matter of seconds before Johnson would turn around and channel all his anger onto the small boy.
The only way I could protect Martin was by taking his place. Pushing my fear away, I put on an attitude that I knew would set off Johnson in another fit of rage.
“Can I go too?”
Sure enough, he narrowed his eyes, and his spit landed on my face when he sneered, “You can go when I say you can go. And right now the only place you will be going is to my office.”
Hiding the fear I felt, I gave a small shrug, before I started walking. If I could keep Johnson distracted, at least Martin wouldn’t be suffering tonight. No more kids would be jumping off cliffs, if I could help it.
Johnson slammed the door behind him, and shoved me to his desk. “You know the drill, smartass,” he said with a mean smugness.
Standing in front of his desk, I removed my shirt, and stared at the painting on the wall in front of me. It was a picture of a woman, and with all the times I’d been in this position, I had learned the importance of having a fixed point to focus on. The woman had kind eyes, and I would make up stories about her in my mind. Sometimes I imagined she was my mother, and that she was singing to me and comforting me when the pain was unbearable. Other times, she was my cheeky sister and we were coming up with insulting names for Johnson. My favorite was vomitrocious motherfucker.
Johnson was getting out the long stick he always used to whip me with. I didn’t want him to have the pleasure of ordering me to bend over, so I did it before he could say it.
“I’m starting to think that you like this.” Johnson took his position right behind me and let his hand slide over my back. “Why else would you provoke me constantly?”
I hated his touch, and when he slid his hands around my waist and opened my pants, I hardened my jaw and looked straight into the eyes of the woman in front of me.
“There was a time when I could have made this feel good for you,” he said and lowered my pants. “I think you would have liked it.”
I didn’t answer. The rumors that a boy had bit off Johnson’s dick had reached me in my second year here. I doubted they were true, but I couldn’t know for sure since I’d never seen him naked.
“Do you like it when I touch you?” he asked and let his finger slide down between my cheeks.
When I was alone in my bed after nights like these I always swore that the next time he did it, I would fart on his hands, or tell him what a sick pervert he was. But the man was a sadistic psychopath, and I was scared of him. All I wanted was to have it over with, so I could go back to the dorm and lick my wounds.
“I asked you a question,” he repeated. “Do you like it when I touch you?”
I knew he wanted me to say yes and that I would be punished more severely if I said no, but my molars were pressed so hard together that I couldn’t get a word out.
“Relax, and it will feel good,” he said, “or maybe you just want me to get to the pain part.”
Leaning back, he let the blows rain down on me. For every blow of the stick, I blinked and groaned in pain. But I centered myself by looking into the woman’s kind eyes, this time imagining her as my lover. In my fantasy, she was caressing me, kissing me, and whispering sweet words into my ears.
“I’m getting tired of beating you,” Johnson said, out of breath. “Today I think I’m going to give you a special treat. A memory so that you will always remember me.”
My nostrils flared. I pressed my lips together, suppressing all the hateful words I wanted to shout at him.
“Look at this beauty.”
When I didn’t turn my head, he kicked me.
“I told you to fucking look.”
Turning my head slowly, I saw Johnson grinning, with a knife in his hand.
“I’m going to carve my initials into your skin.” He licked his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Just as a reminder that I fucking own your little ass.”
My whole body stiffened, and my Adam’s apple bobbed when I swallowed hard again and again. “No, not that,” I said and held up my hand.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make it feel good.”
“No,” I repeated in a panic and tried to pull up my pants.
Johnson moved fast, pinning me with his larger body, and growling into my ear. “Do I need to tie you down again, like when you were younger?”
I struggled to get free from his hold, but he was too large and strong.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had my cock buried in a tight little ass like yours. Not much excites me anymore, you know.”
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed in desperation, with my face and neck flaming red from my panicked attempts to buck him off of me. Based on his heavy breathing in my ear, it only enticed him further.
“Keep wriggling like this, it’s making me hard. I should turn you around and see your pretty little eyes when I stuff your….” He grabbed my head and slammed it down on the table. Turning it, he pressed my ear to the surface of the desk, covering the other side of my face with his large palm. “I told you to stay still, you fucking little cunt. I’ve tried being nice to you, but we both know you want this. You’ve always wanted my attention and now you’re going to get it.”
With the pressure on my jaw, I couldn’t protest.
“Remember that kid Ben Hur? He used to be my little distraction but the fucker made the mistake of biting me.”
My heart was already racing too fast, but it sped up when I remembered Ben. He had been one of the oldest kids when I started at the school and he too had died in an accident. My nostrils were working overtime trying to breathe and I was screaming with only muffled sounds coming out.
With his chest weighing down on my back, Johnson used his hands to unfasten his own pants. Something hard was poking at my ass.
“No,” I shouted and started crying in panic. “You can cut me, but not that.”
“Oh, I’ll fucking cut you alright, I always brand my little bitches.”
Spreading my cheeks with his hands, Johnson groaned and panted. But I squeezed my ass together as tight as I could, screaming my lungs out.
CHAPTER 18
Compromises
Athena
It was Finn’s third night at my house and he was being d
ifficult again.
“I’m not sleeping next to Hans,” he said and crossed his arms. We were in my upstairs bedroom and Finn had just come out of the bathroom. “Why can’t I sleep next to you like I did the other nights?” he asked.
“It’s not really up to you, and you’re hurting Hans’ feelings.”
Hans looked down, shifting his balance.
“Hans, I’m sorry to hurt your fragile feelings, but I’m sleeping with Athena, so you might as well go downstairs,” Finn ordered.
“Okay,” Hans said and hurried down the staircase as if he’d just been waiting for an excuse all along.
I turned to Finn, giving him the stink eye. “You don’t make the rules here.”
“Look, honey.” He held up both hands. “Enough is enough. You go out to dinner without me, and you make me sit down and write thirty things that I’m grateful for. Then you bring me back a salad that I wouldn’t even feed to my goat.”
I sighed. “You don’t have a goat, and that was a really nice buckwheat salad.”
“The point is,” Finn said and lowered his brow, “you can only push a man so far, and with the way you clung to me last night, I’m not taking any chances with Hans.”
“He won’t touch you,” I said in a low voice and walked over to close the door, hoping to spare Hans’ feelings.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Finn said. “All you Motlander people are so touchy-feely, and I don’t want to sleep with one eye open.”
“What exactly are you afraid of?” I asked.
“Nothing, I’m just not interested in sharing a bed with another man, that’s it.”
At first I had thought Finn was saying it because he was hoping to be physical with me. But there was something about the tone of his voice that set off my nurturing instincts. “Did something bad happen to you?” I asked.
“No,” Finn said and gave me a hard stare. “And I’m done discussing this. Either I sleep next to you in the bed or I sleep on the floor.”
“Are you willing to let me tie you up?” My voice was soft.
