Scarred Souls: Second Collection

by TT Kove

  ‘We’re a right pair, aren’t we?’ Too fucked in the head to work or study, hence why we were both on disability. We had all day, everyday at our disposal. And even then, without the stress of work or studies, we were still liable to fall off the deep end.

  He snorted.

  ‘Yeah. Glad I’m not alone though.’

  I smiled widely.

  ‘Me too. You’re my best friend, you know that right?’ I’d never had friends before, and now I had more than I knew what to do with. Chad was at the top though—or second, Damian would always be on top. But did your boyfriend also count as your best friend? Romantic relationship aside, Chad was the one I was closest too.

  It was weird, considering how we’d met. How he’d tried to sexually assault me in his mania. But once he’d calmed down thanks to meds, we’d really hit it off.

  He looked away, a slight flush on his freckled cheeks.

  ‘Yeah, you’re mine too.’

  I didn’t reply because I didn’t want to embarrass him further. But my chest squeezed in happiness.

  I’d always been the friendless loser, ever since primary school. Scared to approach people because I knew what happened at night wasn’t normal. Then scared people would discover my self-harm along with the sexual abuse. Not a single person had ever approached me at school. Not even for bullying. I’d just been all alone.

  I wasn’t anymore. I had Damian, and Silver and Kian, and Chad, and Mum, and everyone else. I had a lot of people around me. Who loved me. I wasn’t alone anymore.

  It was strange how the best thing to ever happen to me was my suicide attempt back when I was fifteen years old. Yes, everything had gone to shit… but Andrew had been arrested, Mum had believed me and we’d started mending things between us, and then a couple years later I’d met Damian.

  And now I had a whole life ahead of me. With family and friends and a boyfriend. I’d never thought I’d have any of this, and yet here I was… surrounded by it. I even possibly, maybe, had sex with my boyfriend to look forward to.

  Life was pretty great.

  21

  Scarred Love

  Damian

  I figured it was best to do some research. And what better way to do research than to go online and search for it. What I wanted to search for… that was another matter entirely.

  Sex.

  Sex between men.

  Gay sex.

  Anal sex.

  Asexual and sex.

  Sex with someone who’s been sexually abused.

  It all brought up pages upon pages of results. Lots of porn sites too, but I wasn’t going to touch them.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Silver leant on the back of the sofa, peering down at the screen. ‘Sex? Have you finally joined the rest of us, huh?’ He nudged me playfully.

  ‘Not really.’ I glanced at him. ‘I just figured I should try it, is all. With Josh.’

  ‘Well, I should hope it’s with him.’ He jumped over the sofa and plopped down next to me, taking the laptop for himself. ‘Here, let me give you some links to check out.’

  ‘What kind of links?’ I glanced sideways at the screen, not trusting him for a second.

  ‘Porn, Damian. And good porn—not the staged shit that’s all about big dicks and moaning loudest. No, real sex. You learn a lot from watching that.’ He typed away.

  I looked the other way. I didn’t want to watch anything; I was fine reading about it.

  ‘The most important thing when it comes to sex, though, is lube. Lots and lots of it.’

  I grimaced. I knew that, I wasn’t a child. Still, lube was slick and messy and… well, sex itself was a messy affair, wasn’t it? Bodily fluids and all that.

  ‘Have you told Josh you’re interested?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Josh had gone out to meet his mother for dinner—just the two of them, as they did a few evenings a month. Mother-son bonding. It was good for him, and likely for her too. He’d be back in a while, and then… who knew what would happen then.

  ‘Bet he’s happy.’

  I frowned.

  ‘Does he talk about this with you too?’

  ‘About sex?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Who didn’t he talk to? ‘He talks to Chad about it, apparently. He laid into me at Harriet’s today. Chad, that is. About how I couldn’t say I didn’t like sex without having tried it first.’

  Silver chuckled.

  ‘He has a point. That goes for anything really, doesn’t it? You can’t say you don’t like… I don’t know… broccoli without first having tried it, right?’ He stopped typing and put the laptop back on my lap. ‘Here you go.’

  He was definitely on a porn site. And a video had just started up. Two young men, dressed thankfully, snogging on a bed.

  ‘Silver, really—’

  ‘Just watch the damn thing,’ he interrupted me. ‘Get some pointers.’

  My face burned.

  ‘I don’t have any interest in watching other people get it on.’

  He grinned wryly.

  ‘Oh, yeah? Could’ve fooled me—you’ve walked in on Kian and me enough times.’

  I shot him a glare.

  ‘You should do it in your bedroom if you don’t want people to walk in on you.’

  ‘Who says we don’t want people walking in on us? Maybe we like a bit of voyeurism, huh?’

  Oh god.

  They had sex on the sofa, or in the bathroom, or in the kitchen… on purpose?

  ‘Relax.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘We get carried away. Sorry. But you’re extremely uptight about it, too. Whenever Josh walks in on us, he only laughs. And that’s the guy who’s been abused.’

  ‘Yeah, well, he likes sex anyway,’ I murmured. ‘I don’t think I would’ve if I’d had to endure what he had for ten years.’

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe not.’ He cut his gaze to the screen, where the guys had started pulling off their clothes.

  They were currently in a position mirroring what Josh had done to me earlier—shirt bunched under one bloke’s arm while the other sucked on his nipples.

  Except this guy, as opposed to me, seemed to really like having his nipples licked. The moans could attest to that.

  ‘You watch a lot of this shit?’ I grumbled, trying to look away from the screen, but my gaze was drawn back every damn time.

  Fuck.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘What does Kian feel about that?’

  Did Josh watch porn? He’d never said. I’d never caught him at it either. Then again, I’d never caught him wanking either and he said he used to do that.

  ‘Kian watches it with me.’ He leant over slightly, bumping our shoulders. ‘We start off watching porn, get excited, then forget all about the porn as we get down and dirty ourselves.’

  ‘This is exciting?’ The guy who’d been sucking nipples was moving downwards, unzipping the jeans of the guy on his back. He mouthed the hard dick trapped under white briefs, taking his time. ‘How is this exciting?’ I didn’t feel anything. Besides embarrassment anyway.

  ‘It is. Just watch. This is a good video—completely vanilla, no kink. Good for beginners.’

  Beginners?

  Well, that’s what I was. Twenty years old and still a virgin. I could’ve gone on being a virgin for the rest of my bloody life if it wasn’t for Josh and for other people shoving sex in my face.

  And it wasn’t just people either. Sex was everywhere. On the telly, in advertising…

  ‘Maybe I should just go all the way with him tonight. Get it over with.’ I dreaded it though. It was going to be mortifying.

  He snorted.

  ‘“Get it over with”? Wow, Damian, way to be enthusiastic about having sex with your boyfriend. I’m sure he’ll love to do it if he hears you right now.’

  ‘But I don’t really have any interest in this.’ Underwear was being pulled down on the screen now and saliva played a major role in what followed. It was messy. ‘I want to do it for Josh. And just to see what it’s l
ike because I am a little curious, but… It’s terrifying. I have no idea what to do, what’s expected.’

  ‘Just leave all the work to Josh, mate,’ he said. ‘He knows what to do, he knows what he likes. He’ll show you.’

  The guy on screen could take the entire length of the other’s dick in his mouth. And it wasn’t a small dick.

  I can’t ever do that.

  Could Josh do it?

  Probably.

  And he likely didn’t learn it willingly.

  ‘Why are you freaking out?’ Silver asked, amused. ‘This is the most natural thing in the world. You’re really going to make Josh’s day that’s for sure.’

  ‘Am I really?’ I wondered aloud. ‘It’s been years since he’s done it. What if… what if he flashes back to him? What if having sex with Josh now brings all those bad memories back to him?’

  ‘Josh has wanted to have sex with you ever since he met you,’ Silver pointed out drily. ‘Just trust him. He’ll tell you if he’s not up for it, right?’

  ‘I guess, yeah.’ This was complicated. ‘What if I can’t do it anyway?’

  ‘Tell him upfront, so if it happens, he’ll know. That way you won’t hurt him.’

  How come Silver always had answers for everything? Damn… he wasn’t like me at all. I bet he never turned Kian down for sex. They were compatible in every possible way.

  ‘Look, Josh knows you. You’ll soon have been together for two years. You should be comfortable enough with him by now.’

  ‘I am.’ I was comfortable with him. I was. ‘It’s just this…’

  A loud moan brought my attention back to the screen, where the two guys were both naked and sucking each other off.

  ‘Do you need lube?’

  ‘What?’ Now the blush was back with a vengeance. ‘No—thanks—Josh’s got some,’ I mumbled before he could repeat the damn question.

  ‘He does, huh?’ Silver grinned wryly. ‘He been waiting for this?’

  I was not going to tell him about the dildo. I so wasn’t.

  Someone walking in the door made sure I didn’t blurt it out anyway.

  ‘Hi!’ Kian greeted.

  Another loud moan came from my laptop, where the guys had moved on to the main course.

  I froze for a brief second—then slammed the screen closed, shutting off the squishy sounds of sex.

  Kian lent over the sofa to kiss Silver—and I saw my moment to escape. With my laptop cradled close, I left the living room to lock myself in my bedroom. I deposited the laptop on the desk, then threw myself on the bed.

  Damn.

  You don’t have to do this.

  But I want to do it.

  Or… well. I don’t know.

  I wanted to try, I wanted to make Josh feel good. After this long together, it was time. I couldn’t keep being afraid of it. What was the worst that would happen? That I didn’t perform?

  Josh’s list was on the bedside table. I grabbed it. He hadn’t made a schedule like he’d first talked about, but instead a list of things we could do.

  Kiss (with tongue)

  Cuddle (naked?)

  Get naked together

  Masturbation

  Mutual masturbation?

  Oral sex

  Receiving oral sex?

  Anal sex (me as bottom)

  Anal sex with me topping? Never done that before

  Receiving oral sex?

  He wanted me to—

  I drew in a sharp breath. That was sex too though. Was that any worse than contemplating doing the whole penetrative sex? In oral sex I only had to use my mouth, after all, not another part of my body, but… That made me panic even more.

  I had no idea how to suck cock. I’d never wanted to do it, never had a single little urge to get near anyone else’s genitals. But Josh… Sweet, broken, scarred, emotionally unstable Josh… I loved him so much. I wanted to give him this. At least this once… if I hated it in the end… well, then at least I’d tried doing my best for him.

  He loved me no matter what. He wouldn’t have stayed for almost two years if he didn’t.

  ‘Josh…’ I closed my eyes, imagining his happy smile from earlier. Thinking about how well he’d been doing lately. Maybe it was just a build-up before he tumbled back down, but… he was doing well. No new cuts for weeks now—or was it over a month already?

  It would soon be two years since I walked home from work a rainy night and saw him sitting in the park. Crying because his stepfather’s trial had just ended and he hadn’t even got double digits in years behind bars. Two years since I brought a stranger home and somehow fell into a relationship with him…

  It was strange how much my life had changed, yet it hadn’t really changed much at all. I still lived in the same flat, still went about my day like usual, school and work and home. The only new addition was Josh, who lived here now, shared my room with me. He still had a room at home with his mother, but he never stayed there anymore.

  Josh…

  What if I ever lost him? What if he figured out he wasn’t happy with our current arrangement and just walked out on me one day?

  My chest squeezed tight and I bunched a fist in my shirt over it.

  I can’t lose him. I just can’t.

  The door opened and Josh stepped into the room.

  I sat up quickly, still clutching the slightly crinkled paper with his notes on them to my chest.

  ‘You’re back already.’

  ‘Um, yeah.’ He smiled tentatively. His gaze fell from my face to the list, eyes widening slightly.

  I put the damn piece of paper on the bedside table again.

  ‘I’ve been thinking… Let’s do it. Now.’

  ‘Now?’ He blinked. ‘Right now?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I nodded to emphasise it. ‘Why wait?’ Waiting would just freak me out even more. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else, because I’d be so preoccupied thinking about sex.

  Damn it all, but I’d never thought I’d ever spare so much thought to something I had no particular interest in.

  ‘Umm…’ He was lost for words, gaze flickering. ‘You’re for real?’ He seemed awfully young where he stood, hope and scepticism warring in him.

  My heart just broke right then and there.

  ‘Yeah, Josh, I’m for real.’ I was going to go through with this. To sate my own newfound curiosity—but mostly for him. To make him feel good.

  The corners of his lips tilted up slightly.

  ‘Okay, I—I’ll just go take a shower then.’ He put his shoulder-bag down next to the desk, smiled somewhat shyly, and then he was out of the room again.

  I fell back on the bed, dragging my hands over my face.

  So it’s happening.

  Sex.

  I’m having sex with Josh.

  After all this time together…

  He was taking a shower beforehand. Should I shower too? I’d showered this morning, but was it best to be freshly out of it for sex? Or didn’t it matter? If it didn’t, why was Josh taking a shower now?

  Well, obviously, because he’s going to be the one penetrated, so certain parts needs to be clean.

  Shit, it was embarrassing even thinking it. Yet it was happening. Josh was in the shower and when he came back… we’d have sex.

  What the hell have I agreed to?

  ‘We don’t have to,’ Josh said as he sat down tentatively on the bed. His hair was wet and ruffled, as he clearly hadn’t bothered to brush it after he’d towelled it as dry as possible.

  ‘I want to,’ I assured him—and I hoped it sounded assuring to his ears, because it didn’t to mine.

  He let out a breath, then smiled again.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m so nervous, but I am. I mean, we’ve been together for so long! But—this is our first time doing something like this and I really want to and I don’t want to disappoint you.’

  ‘You won’t.’ What was there to be disappointed about? I didn’t have any great expectations to begin with. S
aying that out loud wasn’t an option right now though. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or pull him down.

  ‘So how do you want to do it?’ He looked me in the eye. ‘Should we just get straight to it, or—I don’t know, foreplay? You didn’t like it when I—’ He motioned to my chest. ‘So maybe I should…’ Now he pointed at my groin. ‘I’m good at that.’

  ‘Are you, huh?’ I huffed, dragging a hand through my hair as I glanced away.

  Fuck, but this is nerve-wracking.

  ‘Maybe we could start by taking our shirts of?’

  He’d dressed in a baggy T-shirt and baggy joggers after his shower.

  I kind of hadn’t expected that, but then again… what had I expected? That he’d show up naked? Or in only a towel?

  We shared a flat for gods sake. All of us wore clothes at all times outside our own bedrooms or the bathroom—mostly, anyway. Silver and Kian tended to forget they had flatmates from time to time.

  ‘Okay.’ He pulled his shirt off, revealing even more scars than what had been visible in the short-sleeves.

  Josh didn’t just cut his wrists, after all, like they liked to portray on the telly if someone ever struggled with self-harm. His entire arms were full of scars, there weren’t a single piece of unscarred skin left—not until his shoulders, and even they had scars scattered across them.

  ‘You too,’ he said then when I just sat there staring at him.

  ‘Oh. Right.’ I whipped my own shirt off, feeling more self-conscious than he ever did… and I only had the one scar. But it was big and ugly and… I hated it.

  ‘If I can sit here and not care about all my scars, then you can do the same.’ He scooted in closer so we sat right in front of each other. He put his hands on my knees, moved them up a little to grip my thighs, thumbs stroking the inside.

  That’s easy for him to say. It’s not so easy for me to do.

  ‘I have no idea what to do,’ I admitted instead, ignoring the issue of our scars. We had them, we’d never be rid of them, so we’d have to live with them. It was the way it was.