Broken Mirrors [Standalones]

Naif Malloc

Narration
Thoughts
Other’s speech
What I Say
Exclamations

When the door closed, we were left just the two of us standing in his parlor: me, stark in the rags hanging loosely off my body, and he in his jeans, button down and gray satin vest. He reached into his pocket, and into a glint of light accompanied by a click, click

[/color] signaled the lighting of a cigarette. He took in a long drag, closed his eyes, and exhaled. He took a few steps toward me, the clinking of his boots as they shuffled along the carpet made the hair on the back of my neck stand on edge. There was something unsettling about the smirk on his face, something that screamed for me to run,[/color] that I would have been better off lying in the pig huts and finding a better place to spend the night. But I had nowhere to go, and could only assume that Elias Poers was my savior not the devil.

“You smoke?” He twiddled the thin white paper between his fingers before taking another drag. I shook my head and said nothing. He made a circle around me as he took a few more puffs. “Didn’t think so… didn’t think so…”

He stopped behind me, and faced the window looking out into his front yard. I licked my lips and wiped my arm across my face. My stomach gave a rumble and I became embarrassed—I must have looked a pathetic sight, in rags, mud across my body, unable to speak—but Elias didn’t belittle me. No, he turned from his spot with the same smirk on his face that he’d had before, and finished off the last of his cigarette before dabbing it out into an ash tray onto the old oak table in front of us. He whipped out another, and with a click, click[/color] finally broke the silence between us.

“So you haven’t got any kin left,” He lets the smoke out through his nose and teeth like a dragon. His voice didn’t go up at the end to signal that this was a question, and I waited. “You made it here from District Six, all by your lonesome… mighty proud of it I bet… but you couldn’t help to run into the wrong folk… up there in the Tansy pig houses… you’re mighty lucky she was with Scutcher… else you might have wound up with a cut neck…” The way the smile curled up his face, the way his mustache caught the sweat that lined his upper lip, it unsettled me.[/color] When I usually was ready with a retort, he made me want to back up against the wall—he had a commanding air about him.[/color] “Yessuh, there are plenty of folks in this district you ought to stay away from—Tallow one of ‘em. Fact, I don’t want you talking to anyone as long as you’re working fer me. I don’t want them peacekeepers poking around here, askin’ questions how I got such cheap labor—I grease enough palms as it is… I don’t need to be greasin’ no more…”

I nodded my head and cast my eyes down at the ground. I would have counted the fibers on the carpet if he asked me to, if it just meant I could spend the night and get some food in my belly. I’d survived long enough without talking to anyone that it would make little difference to change that now. In fact, the more I’ve talked to anyway, the more trouble it seems to bring me.[/color]

“Now…” He drew closer, and I could feel his breath on nape of my neck. His tall form draped over mine, his large body just inches from me, powerful, ominous. I could see the two of our shadows morphing together against the wall behind me into a twisted and despicable form. He placed a hand on my back, causing me to snap straight. I cursed under my breath and drew my arms to my chest, feeling the pain in my ribs act up again. His fingertips traveled down my back and along my sides, and he slowed when he reached the point that throbbed. “You ain’t going to be much use hauling around the feed… got some sprains, probably even a few breaks. Going to have to get you nice and rested before I have you doing any of that…”

My heart pounded as he brought a hand up to my chin and turned it. I stared up into his brown eyes, he looking down at me as though he was trying to find something he lost. It wasn’t like with you, when I had wanted it to last forever. And it hadn’t been like with him, when I’d been too little to look away. This is fire, this is dangerous.

“You are going to be…” He moved in toward me, his face hovering close to mine, stinking of dirty tobacco, a touch of top shelf whiskey, and the musk of shaving cream. “Fine… just fine. You’re gonna make a good lil’ addition. Now… I bet you’re real hungry—got to get some grub in you before washing you and getting you to bed.”

“Elias…” I finally squeaked out, and he’s already in the door of the kitchen. He looked back at me with a grin. I chewed the bottom of my lip. It’s low and quiet, but I’m able to push it out into the air. “I just wanted to say… thank you…”

Click, click.[/color]

“Don’t you worry about it at all… owed Ms. Tansy a favor…Besides,” he’s in the kitchen now, and his voice barely carries out into the living room. “I think you’ll find that I’m more than welcoming…”

The spread on his kitchen table revealed the cause of his girth: a glazed ham, sliced; mashed potatoes heaped onto a plate; carrots; greens that I’d never seen before; ears of corn; dollops of whitish grey gravy lining a plate covered with biscuits. All of it couldn’t have been for this one man—how could he have possibly eaten it all—much less let the people just a few doors down scratch at their empty plates with their forks. Even back in my own district rations had never been so plentiful. We had been happy enough to share a slice of orange in the summer.[/color] I thought it an illusion at first, a symptom of my hunger mixed with exhaustion, but the first slice of ham to my lips and its salty sweetness removed any doubt.

The two of us sat at opposite ends of his long, wooden table. It was dotted with eight chairs, three on each side, and one at each end. I pondered if and when the chairs were filled, but only in-between smothering my slice of ham in gravy and scooping the mashed potatoes into my mouth as though I’d never eaten in my life. I gagged; sometimes taking whole slices into my mouth and forcing them down—I was afraid that all this would disappear in an instant, and that I would never see such a meal in my life again. That all of this would be torn out from under me at any moment, so I had to finish it all, I had to keep eating until I couldn’t possibly force another bite down.[/color] And if any of it came up—to which there were several times where it had felt as though my stomach was screaming as it stretched—I would simply start the process all over again.

He swirled a glass of dark liquor in his hands and glanced from his own plate down to my own. He flicked his cigarette into a stone ash tray and stuck the wiry thing in his mouth. As I ripped apart of a piece of bread I couldn’t help but feel his glare on me. Was I acting like a savage? Was it the way that swallowed pieces whole, not even stopping to chew, that made him uncomfortable? Did he think less of me because I was so hungry, so broken, so desperate?[/color] If he did, there were no words for it. Nothing other than a curious stare and a sip from his glass. At another bite of biscuit I dissolved into a heap of coughs, cursing the pain in my sides as I tried to hack whatever had been lodged in my throat back out onto my plate.

A hand appeared in front of my face holding a fizzy glass of brown liquid. I snatched it greedily and took a drink. It burned down my throat as it went down, but the sweetness stopped me from cringing. I brushed away the muck on my face with my sleeve before giving him a nod. His stare still left me cold—the way that he hovered over me with such determination—I said nothing other than a quiet thank you[/color] before setting back into my food.

“It’s good to see a boy with a healthy appetite,” Elias laughed as he fiddled with his napkin before placing along his neckline as a bib. A bit of gravy drizzled down my chin and I wiped it away with my arm before catching his eye and feeling my face flush. I chewed the remnants in my mouth another moment before scooping in another load with the biscuit. I’d foregone the utensils for heaping whole mounds of food with my hands. F—k him. F—k him if he thinks that I’m uncivilized. Fuck him—I haven’t eaten like this in so long, I might as well use my hands.[/color] But Elias smirked at me from the far end of the table, slowly and gingerly enjoying his own cut of ham. He brought the bits up to his lips with his fork before gobbling them up, his mustache curling down over his lip as he polished off his meal.

I took another long drink from my glass before placing it down empty on the table. I decided it best to ignore him and speak when spoken to.[/color] In another instant he’d refilled my glass, hovering back over me, his bulky form casting another shadow in the light along the wall. Click, click.[/color] The puff of cigarette smoke made me cough as he stood, dragging in and letting go into my face. I’m the boss here. I do not serve anyone. I do not need to help you.[/color] I stopped to watch him take his seat again. He placed his cigarette along the edge of the ash tray. The smoke swirled up and around him, casting a haze around his face.

“How long?” He took a long drink from his glass as he lay back in his chair. He wasn’t unhandsome, really, but the sweat that dripped off his brow and hung onto his mustache made me shiver. That and his ability to hold a stare at any moment I might’ve been looking at him. He flicked his cigarette into the ash tray and took another slow drag, letting the smoke commingle in the air in front of his face.

“How long??” I raised eyebrows at the thought. I don’t f—king keep a calendar, dipshit.[/color]

“Since you left your home. Since you ran out and thought you could make it on your own?” He twiddled the cigarette in his fat fingers and flashed a toothy grin. They were yellowing in a way that looked as though he’d left too much butter on his corn.

“A month, maybe… more…” I tried to think of the number of days I’d spent in the wastes and districts. It was a blur, mostly between the hunger that would leave me sulking underneath the gray and brown underbrush and the terrible sickness that would strike, at any moment, and leave me voiding my bowels in whatever safe space I could find. I’d spent so long trying to start fires, that any glimmer of one left me elated at the chance of making clean water for myself. And I would spend long hours staring off at the horizon, wondering. About what the world looked like before everything had gone to shit. About the people that wandered between the districts but that I never seemed to see. About what it would mean to just disappear forever into the distance, to have to spend my whole fucking life outside of civilization through a self-imposed exile.

“For someone that grew up in a comfortable district, sure don’t seem like you did too badly. Though I suppose you mightn’t have lasted much longer.” He took another puff of his cigarette and smirked. I don’t think you’d last a day out there.[/color] I want to say it, I want to have him fucking know what it was like to have to figure out how to roast a rat, or what it was like eating roots and berries that left you shitting for hours. Or the fact that you[/color] hovered over all of it. That your name was never far from my lips in the time that I wandered the districts. I held out my hand to so many now, all of whom did it for you and your deeds, not for me. Because you had been so wonderful.

“I suppose…” I’m embarrassed now, at last realizing the gravy dripping from my palms and the mess I’ve made of his tablecloth. That I’d not even taken the time to wash the shit from my hands before diving into the feast that had been put before me. My hunger is gone and I wipe my hands on the napkin. Some of the dirt mixes with the remnants of food and I leave brown smudges.

“Yah, but I suppose I would’ve put money on you to, considering…” It’s a thought that harkens back to the games. To the idea that somehow, me surviving in the wild was akin to a game that I’d played. One that I certainly would have lost.[/color] I don’t want to admit it, how close I came to death at my own incompetence, and so I say nothing. I leave my palms flat on the table and look down at them instead of at his fat face. I can hear him take another drink, and in a moment there’s another made for me, waiting next to my right hand. “You don’t talk much do you…?”

“I don’t say more than I have to…” You f—king jerk.[/color] I know that my voice drips with my overwhelming distaste[/color] for any of this. It all is too much: the food, the beautiful home in the middle of a wasteland, the fact that he needs to know so much about me. All of it burrowed underneath my skin. I had no energy to play games with him, to give him the small pleasantries and head bows that he was so firm in asking for from me. My brain swam as I took another long drink from my own glass, this time liking the burn as it splashed down to my stomach, igniting my chest along the way.

“Well now…” The expression on his face was wide eyed, and he set about wagging one of his fingers in my direction. “I don’t know how I like your tone…”

“I appreciate all this… but…” I shook my head, not sure as to why I was even offering him an excuse. I was dizzy and my stomach ached for the first time from being overstuffed. He didn’t let me finish anyway, his face severe and his voice low as he continued.

“Now don’t f—king patronize me… you can think what you want. And you can get the f—k out of here if you want. But you’re damn lucky Tallow found you and brought you here. The rest of the f—king hicks in this district don’t have a pot to piss in…” He was wild, eyes burning and both hands now on the table, gripping onto the tablecloth as though he was about to rip out the plates from underneath me. The smoke from the ash tray made a haze, but the glint from his eyes still caught me. I could feel the sweat drip down my back, and I crouched lower in my seat. “But I got more than most of ‘em can ever dream. And I didn’t do it by acting like a fucking little prick when someone was throwing out his hand for me to grab…”

“I just—“ I opened my mouth but closed it again like a fish, not fast enough for him.

“And while you’re here, you answer me when I talk to you. I don’t need you fucking throwing me glances like you pissed on account of me asking you to do anything.” He growled out at me, and I could feel myself shrink even further.

“But I—“

“Because you know what? You thought Tallow getting you was bad, you ain’t got any idea what I can do. I’ll make you wish she f—king slit your throat.”

I could see him, then. I could see him in the shadow—something of my father—as Elias stood to make himself another drink. It could have been in the creases on his brow, or swagger in his walk. And I could hear it—the grunting, the low sounds—his voice firm and assuring that I was not to talk to anyone. That this was all his[/color] and not mine. That I was lucky. And his form would hulk over mine and I would see nothing but a protector, someone that knew more than I did even if he wasn’t always right. But I would have to trust him because he was all I had. He was the only thing keeping me in this world, and he could certainly take me out of it.[/color] I was brought back to the table at the sound of my glass clinking against the table, full yet again.

“Cyrus was a brave kid,” He pushed out into the air, and I felt it hanging over us. I come to a full stop, chewing and all, as I glance up from my plate. He stares at me but says nothing. His knife scratching against the porcelain sent a shiver up my spine. “Really, you probably get it all the time, but I don’t think most of them held a candle to him. Only that little one from seven, maybe—but he certainly was one of my favorites.”

Whenever they start in on the so brave[/color] or sorry for your loss[/color] line, I can feel them emptying out the drum of gun powder and searching for the matches. It just… it grates[/color] me, it f—king makes me wonder why anyone ever does it the way it makes me feel, to hear their half-assed condolences. And they all pretend as though they know exactly what it must feel like, as though by saying sorry about it that I’m just going to be so pleased[/color] that they brought their f—king sunshine into my life. Because sorry would really bring him back—in a good way—and not just drudge up his mangled corpse from the bottom of the ocean where he should’ve been left.

I want to tell him to keep his fucking name out of his fucking mouth.[/color] I don’t want his sympathy—I never wanted sympathy, I never wanted it then and I don’t want it now—but I can tell that he’s trying his best to give it to me. “Thank you,”[/color] I grumble out before shoving another bit of mashed potatoes into my mouth.

“Yes… I got a few pictures of him too—some trading cards they had with all the tributes. Told me he had a brother, mom and dad. Cute little smile, strong looking body, no wonder he got an eight in training.” My stomach turns, and I’m not sure if it’s from the amount of food I’ve shoved down my gullet or the mention of—he really has pictures of Rus[/color] —but I say nothing. It’s enough that I relive it, why would I want to see him the way the capitol did even if I so desperately don’t want to forget his face.[/color] “You two look so much alike. Could have fooled me into thinking he’d gotten out of the arena somehow, if you were a little bit bigger. Cyrus had more… meat on his bones…”

“Uh-huh…” I’m willing myself not to drift back into the would-haves and could-haves with you. It’s a danger I’ve faced with everyone in this conversation, that I talk about you as though there were things we could still change. Because every time I think of you and the games I get stuck thinking what could’ve been changed. What could’ve been different for you, so that we were back on the porch together and looking at the fireflies?[/color]

“Not many folk from the middle districts are willing to give up what they got to be in the games,” He’s looking at me now, his fork twiddling between his fingers, eye brows raised. Why the f—k does he care?[/color] “Not many folk at all that would just… drop everything they had to just risk life and limb…”

He finds the matches. He finds them in his f—king poking and prodding,[/color] his strange desire to know just why Cyrus was a volunteer. “What’s your point,” I say with a bit too much exasperation. I lick my lips to clear away the gravy, and at once I remember just where I am. Under his roof. In his house. At his table. But what right did he have to share in this?[/color] It was my pain and he was my brother—what right did he have to share in any of that?

“How well did he know that Axelsson boy?” He plopped a handful of biscuit into his mouth, and swirled another into the gravy on his plate. “I read somewhere he didn’t even know that boy, but I know how rumors are when it comes to the games. They like to play things like that up for the drama, so people will send money to sponsor them. Figure the way Cyrus was he needed all the sponsors he could get.”

“Excuse me?” The hairs on my neck are up again. What did he say? What did he f—king say? I’ll kill him. It cuts deep to hear him speak of Cyrus like this—no one was allowed to criticize the way that my brother had played the game, least of all someone so comfortable as Elias. What could he possibly have known about life inside of the arena? The fact that he faced death with such courage, the fact that he had spent five long days in an unforgiving place, only to be taken down by the worst of the worst creations of the capitol… What right does he have to even know about your struggles?[/color] I try and down the rest of the drink but it’s too much for me and my cheeks puff up as I try to swallow.

You had been a terror as a child. The constant fits of crying, the horrible mood swings, it was as though you were never satisfied with anything that we could do. I remember my mother rocking you to bed, and you wailing, crying, reaching out and grabbing for something that would take away whatever it was that bothered you. And the schools—they saw you as a troublemaker—they didn’t understand why you were so difficult for them. You never did anything the way that they wanted, like coloring inside the lines or understanding how to sing and dance the special capitol songs. No, you were a difficult little boy that needed to be whipped into shape. A boy that came home with welts and bruises, and the one the bigger kids would chase down the street and scream at. And all the while you would turn to me[/color] to be strong, because I was the one that understood. I was the one that took you in my arms and held you until you stopped shaking. I was the one that pressed my lips against yours, our bodies together… the one that helped you understand so many things…[/color]

He took a long drink of whiskey from his tumbler before setting it back down on the table. “It wasn’t water on the brain, he talked well enough. Just kind of,” He reached into his breast pocket to withdraw a silver case and another stringy cigarette. “Like he didn’t really know how to talk. Didn’t get what people were saying to him. Kind of mopey. Kind of… innocent in a way. Don’t think he ever attacked anyone first, did he? No… too good for that… like he didn’t realize… strange, that was… most tributes get pushed past that point…”

Click, click.[/color]

My brow is furrowed and I can see him holding the match toward the powder, pushing closer with a grin. “He was different… yeah… he had a lot of trouble with people… got anxious all the time…” Which made him all the more brave in the arena.[/color] “But it was just something he was born with… he couldn’t help it…”

I wasn’t there to hold you. I couldn’t tell you it would be okay. I couldn’t stop you from getting anxious and making bad decisions. Like your choice to follow all those fools to the cornucopia. Or fighting the beast that killed you.[/color]

“He was mighty handsome, I thought that maybe one of the girls in the games might have at least thrown him a bone—imagine if I ever got into the arena I would at least f—k someone before I got a knife in my chest.”

It’s like a powder keg. The click, click[/color] started off the powder, and the flame had wound its way around while Elias flapped his gums about Cyrus. Suggesting that any of them—any of the whores in the arena, any of the unsavory, idiotic, pathetic excuses for tributes would ever been enough to lay a finger on Cyrus—I drop my fork and grit my teeth. The flame settles in at the base of the firework and I can feel my anger edging upward.

Pop.[/color]

“Why the f—k would he have wanted anything to do with them!” I can see him now, his beautiful face in the tribute parade. The scream of the crowd as the boy dressed in a silver with swirling bars from his neck down to the base of his body—to represent the trains between districts—and on his arms rivets to make it look as though they are steel girders that shot out sparks when he raised them above his head. Even with Fawn—the pathetic wench that didn’t even last more than a day—he still managed to look strong. His body exuded power.[/color]

Pop.[/color]

“He wasn’t f—king theirs anyway. He never would have wanted any of them,” I hiss out at him. None of the girls had been good enough for Cyrus. Whether they were vicious and cruel as Stark Harper or ditzy and useless like Penelope Libertine, there wasn’t a single match for him. They would have never lived up to his perfection,[/color] that’s what it was. He might have had his moments—not knowing how to speak to some in a way most others did—but he was good and sweet and kind. Nothing like the vicious women of the arena. “Those whores got what they deserved, anyway. Every last one of them.”

I shake as I bang another fist down onto the table. “And the boys, the boys were all f—king pansies, whining and crying and saying they were sorry. All of them! They weren’t real men. They weren’t real men for Cyrus, they weren’t…” I’ve let it slip out into the air, something that I shouldn’t have, and Elias drops a fork onto his plate. He and I look at one another and I clench and unclench my fist. That’s right, Cyrus Malloc would probably boff a boy if he was good enough for him.[/color] At least, he’d been willing to spend time with me, inside of me. “Not even Pandora… didn’t even last long enough… no… none of them…”

Most of the people that I’ve come across since I’ve left district six tend to sour on my language. And I know Cyrus would wrinkle his nose when I used it, since it didn’t sound smart.[/color] But I was wickedly smart, and I could do as I pleased. I’d always done what I pleased.[/color] Elias dabbed at his mouth with a handkerchief and licked his lips. He tapped his cigarette against the ash tray and let out a sigh. I hovered in front of my plate, still heaving. He was f—king with me. He had to be f—king with me.[/color] It made me cringe that I was so easily pushed to anger. He scratched his chin and rubbed his nose as he looked me over. The f—k is he looking at?[/color] It’s all I can do to not get up from the table, though his gaze is enough to keep me in my chair.

“You’re going to learn to watch that mouth of yours…” Elias raised his eyebrows and looked down at the table. He drummed his fingers against the hard wood and glanced back up toward me. “It’s going to get you into trouble… and I think you’ve had just about all the trouble that little body of yours can handle…” He stands from his place and begins to collect some of the dishes for the sink. He turns on the faucet and starts putting things away into the large white refrigerator—bigger than the one that we had even in our home for four people—as he cleared his throat and continued on. “Now… I can’t just let you get the sheets in the guest room dirty. And I know under all that dirt and grime, you’ve got a few injuries that need some attention…”

“I’m… I’m fine…” I grumble. It’s a lie, almost every f—king part of my body hurts.[/color]

“I know… you want to be strong… you don’t want to take any charity or any s—t like that…” He’s beside me now, and he leans in with his cigarette. The smoke swirls around my face and I burst into a coughing fit. I grab at my chest and yelp. There are tears in my eyes and I’m gripping onto the table with my hands to stop myself from tumbling down to the ground and rolling into a fetal position. Elias just sits, with that same f—king[/color] grin on his face. He shakes his head and draws his hand in mine. My coughing settles and I stare at him. “You’ve got to get clean… gotta get that dirt and grime and s—t off of you, so you don’t get sick. Can’t have my little servant—hem—assistant laid up in bed.”

My head is woozy from all the brown fizzy drinks that he’s poured, and there’s something nice about the warmth of his hand on top of my own. He’s got such a dedication[/color] to me, even though he doesn’t have to, I can even forgive him a little for his f—king questions about my brother. He pulls me up by my arm and places it over his shoulder to help support me as I stand. My legs are wobbly, too, and it’s a hard walk out of the kitchen. We reach the base of the stairs, and I look to Elias. I’m swaying side to side as I try to put a hand on the bannister, and let out a grunt. My legs shake and the pain that shoots up through my arm and into my chest makes me hiss. “No… can’t…” It’s all I can mutter, and I try to wave him off when he pushes himself closer to me.

He lets out a shush,[/color] and I feel his arm go underneath my legs, and then it’s me against his chest. My arms are up around his neck and I look at his face. The stray hairs the poke out from places he’s missed shaving, and I rest my head against his shoulder. He’s strong enough to get me up the stairs, without much huffing and puffing, and he doesn’t bother to look down at me. He stares straight ahead, hands firm on my body, certain, manly, and strong. He reaches to top of the stairs and in another few steps, he pushes the door open to the bath.

The blue tiles on the floor and the soft white curtains in the window remind me of home—even though we never had tile, or even such rich curtains—but my mother had kept our bathroom nice. She would’ve loved this. [/color] The little pieces were a woman’s touch, perhaps his mother, the same one that must have put up the engraving on his wall or the needlepoint that hung above the commode. He plopped me down onto the cushioned navy bench against the wall before starting to fiddle with the brass knobs on top of the tub. The white of the porcelain reflected the light from the lamp overhead, and I blinked slowly, smiling as Elias set about making sure the water wasn’t too hot for me. My head swam, and I thought of you, and me, together.[/color]

The steam fogs up the mirror. You always liked your showers hot, hot enough that you could see the red on your skin. You were washing away the dirt and the sweat from your time welding in the factory, from the very same job that dad had given you to escape having to speak with anyone about anything. It’s late, after your shift, long after the both of them have gone to sleep. But I’m always awake when I hear the door close and you set about taking off your steel toed boots.[/color] And when I hear the water turn and the pipes hum, I’m out of bed and slowly creeping out into the hall.

Elias starts to take my shirt off and lifts my arms over my head. It’s painful again, but I let him have his way. He’s so careful—he doesn’t want to hurt me—and in another moment he’s gotten my legs out. My pants are off, exposing the sad truth of traveling for weeks on the open road. I’m nude now, and if my head wasn’t swimming, I might’ve tried to hide my shame. But he’s smiling—I don’t suppose he thinks it’s funny—and I let out a laugh. He scoops me up again into his arms, and in another instant—

The hot water is against my body, and I can let out a laugh as you shout. It’s my turn, it’s my turn![/color] Because the shower is where you went to think. You had to get clean; you had to scrub yourself almost raw before you were satisfied. But I move to press you against the wall and grin, the tight little cube of our shower just big enough for your muscled body and my smaller one. You look up at the ceiling as I press past you, moving to grab the soap. It’s not the first time—it won’t be the last—you know as much. I know as much. I can’t help myself, and I move the soap across your back. At first you’re rigid. but in another moment you let out a soft moan[/color] of approval. And it’s enough for me, because when I move—

The water is hot against my skin, all of it like a pit of lava as my cuts and bruises all ignite. I let out a yell as I feel it seeping into me, and I thrash about some. But Elias is gentle—he grabs onto an arm and starts to smear soap across it. I cry out again, as though there’s nothing that can be done to sooth me, but the clucking of his tongue gets me to clamp my mouth shut. I shudder as he pushes me up out of the water and places some of the soap on my shoulders. The dirt and grime commingles on the surface, and I stare at my own face in the water. It’s the first time I’ve seen it in some time—

I’m smiling, because I press down further and you let out a little giggle. You like that, right? That’s one of your favorite things, you’re ticklish. I know you Cyrus, I know you so well. Inside and out.[/color] You move under the shower head and the water washes away my handiwork. I sputter as some of the water splashes into my face, and I can hear you giggle. It’s little things, like this, I never want to forget.[/color] And there’s your body, sheen with water, puffed red from the heat. I turn you around in my grasp and you stare down at me. Your big, blue eyes, the smile on your face, the way the water collects in rivulets underneath your chin—I feel unworthy of it all. And I move to place my hands up on your chin. I draw you close to me—

Because it hurts, badly, even though he’s fixing me up. The closer the two of us are together, the less hard it is that he’s scrubbing. It’s worst on my back. But his strokes are gentler, and I relax. He wipes away whatever’s there with ease, and dips the sponge into the bath water. “Got to get you clean…” He mutters with a smile, and I turn to look at him. I do want to help him. I want to help him and give him whatever it is that he needs.[/color] It’s enough of him to have fed me, to have given me a place to stay. But part of me wants to show him my appreciation, to show him that I’m not such an ungrateful bastard. Even if I always have been.[/color] But he’s disinterested in me—more interested in his sponge against my body, and I lean back in the water. He’s so wonderful that I just want to—

Kiss. We kiss, mouths together, lips together, underneath the running water. And it’s a wicked thing—I know it’s a wicked thing and it makes me sick to the pit of my stomach. It’s always been wrong, it’s something that I want so badly that—and the look on your face is so empty, I know I’ve done it. I know that I’ve got the gears in your head turning. You want to please me. You want to make me happy.[/color] And I could’ve stopped. I could’ve gone from there and forgotten that this was wrong. But I am fourteen. I am fourteen and I don’t know any better, or any worse.[/color] And so I close my eyes and pull you tight, our tongues together, our bodies close. My hand is against your chest and I push you back against the cold tile of the wall. I pull away to look up into your eyes—

Hoping for approval. But Elias says nothing, only working out all the dirt and grime. And at one it seems he’s finished, hand in the tub, grabbing the stopper and releasing all of it—my adventures, my sins, my anger—down into the drain below. And I feel surprisingly empty as I sit there watching the water swirl down below. But he’s watching me, too, and I look away. Suddenly my hands are over myself and I want to get out of there. I’m not strong enough to push out of the tub, and try as I might, I fall back down again onto my butt. Elias rolls his eyes and grabs me again, this time a little more forcefully, until I’m back on my feet. The towel he uses is coarse and I let out another yell. And I yell—

“You’re going to have to hold still…” Elias dabs splotches of iodine on my skin and I let out another groan. My head still swims from all the alcohol and the heat of the bath. I look to him and wonder, am I really worth it?[/color] Was there ever really a good enough reason to take me in? Surely all that he’s had to do wasn’t enough to justify my keep? But then it didn’t seem as though Elias was hurting for money. His gentle dabs against my skin became rougher as I tried to shirk away. I let out a little f—k[/color] and he held down his cotton swab onto a patch of skin, causing me to yelp. He sneered at me as he watched me squirm. “You know what I told you about language, boy.”

It’s a change then, from the gentleness of the bath. It’s enough for me to sit up straight and to listen,[/color] because of his about turn. He throws down the cotton ball and moves to get me a pair of pajamas. They’re soft and fuzzy, and a lily white. I wonder how long they’ll last before I get some sort of stain on them, and he lifts my arms before forcing them down my head. He grins as I slides my legs through the bottoms. He steps back to survey his handiwork, as though I’m one of his prized stallions. It makes my skin crawl as he moves his hand up and down my thigh.

“Getting late now, should get you off to bed…” He wraps my arm around his shoulder once again, and we’re on our feet. We limp along the hallway and into a little room near the end. There’s a big old canopy bed with gray pillows and a satin bedspread. I feel as though my jaw might spring off and onto the floor, but I don’t have time before Elias is helping me up and into the bed. He stands at my side as I adjust myself into the covers. I look from him to the bed, and in another moment my arms are up around his neck. I’m practically in tears—it all just feels too good to be true.

“I’m glad you like a feather bed. Most folk prefer geese down to what I’ve got.” He says it with a smirk and I take in the smell of cigarettes and whiskey as though I want to remember it. I want to savor the musk, to remember that this was the smell of the man that was going to change my life. I don’t need any of them—I don’t need my mother, my father, not even Cyrus[/color] —for I’ve got Elias Poers to look after me now. I’ve got a man that is willing to give me everything I’ve ever dreamed of, if only out of the goodness of his heart.

“Thank you…” I mutter out but he clicks his tongue. I lay back against my pillow as he takes a seat at the foot of the bed. He places a hand down onto my leg and strokes it back and forth. I watch as he looks me over, his hand playing with my leg as though it were some kind of toy. I move it some and he looks up at me with a grin.

“You don’t have to worry about nothin’, Naif… not as long as you’re here…” His voice is low and I can see him stare back from my leg to me. “Just as long as we get done what we need to… you listen to everything I say… I think you’re going to find that I’m quite agreeable.”

I don’t move from my spot under the covers. I don’t say a word. I only watch as he plays with my bedspread some and looks me over. I feel something sick in my stomach—because it feels as though he’s watching me.[/color] But that must all be in my head, because he’d never… he wasn’t just… he hadn’t just…

My heart races some as I think to the bath, of him undressing me, of him touching me. Of him[/color] and the quiet start of it all. Elias is not him,[/color] he’s not. He only wants to help me, he wouldn’t ever put me away like that. Not like you. He is not my father.[/color] But my heart races all the same as he stands from the edge of the bed.

[color=026475”You won’t tell anyone…”[/color] It’s how it starts.

“You won’t be speaking with anyone, ‘cept for me.”[/i]

”Because they wouldn’t understand.”[/color] They aren’t allowed to know.

“Because it might get the both of us into trouble.”

He’s at the doorway and flicks off the light. Light streams in from the hall, casting his shadow up the wall. He stands there for a moment to watch me. I can see his eyes—I can see his eyes too—and I mutter a goodnight. He stands, for another moment before closing the door behind himself. There’s the sound of the lock—trapping me inside—and the return of the [/color]click, click.[/color]

I close my eyes, desperate for sleep.
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