ares "angel" barlow {district six}

a  n  g  e  l

"Fuckin' loud mouthed whore!" The sound of his palm against my cheek hits me before the pain, mere force sending the back of my head crashing into a nearby wall. He throws me onto the floor, knees kissing the tender spots in my stomach. Regret tastes like iron down my throat, meaty hands forcing red marks onto my arms- ones that are soon to turn purple and black as these minutes stretch on. He is breaking me, every blow grinding me into finer dust beneath him.

I should just learn to keep my fucking mouth shut. The mantra sticks in my head- gets stuck on repeat every time this happens. Every time my words turn to cattle irons and sear embarrassment into prideful men's hides. And I know better than to insult them, to laugh at the looks of a man so fucking pathetic he is willing to pay out of pocket for sex with a complete stranger. With a fourteen year old boy.

They all think I will be submissive, will bow my head and stroke their egos with high pitched begging and breathy moans. They think that is a clause in tiny print in the contracts they sign with bright green bills when in fact- they get only what they paid for. A cheap fuck. I never claimed to be sweet, I never claimed to be good. I am a street rat born and raised in dark alley corners, a child who looked down the barrel of a gun before his sixth birthday and who learned never to so much as blink in the face of a man who could kill you. Fear gets them off just as much as sex. So I close my eyes and I wait for it to be over. For the fire in his fists to fade and for the world to be nothing but ash for a long, long time.

When I wake, the man is long gone. Bruises cover a body left otherwise exposed, hot liquid pooling beneath heavy limbs and I feel like death. I feel like he has killed me a thousand times over and I should have kept my fucking mouth shut. There's no point swearing that this is the last time, that I will learn from this mistake because I never have. Ares Barlow is nothing less than irredeemable and I wouldn't have it any other way. My greatest sin is the pride I wear upon my sleeves, sewn in with the clumsy patches in cheap fabric.

Christened after the god of war I was born upon sick-spattered cement. I was born to a goddess treated as anything but. She never wanted me- true to my name I am a child born from violence and greed. The betrayal of a man named 'step-father.' I could only catch the story inbetween her screaming every night in our forgotten alley, when I was five and she was twenty. She begged him not to touch me, to keep away from the only good thing he ever gave her.

Her mother wasn't much better, kin to the cockroaches I squashed beneath bare feet as a toddler. As soon as I began to grow inside of her my mom was stripped of all dignity, thrown onto the streets and abandoned by a woman supposed to love her more than any man ever could. I know because that is all my mother ever was to me- kind and sweet and full of warmth. She made me feel at home even without four walls to keep me company.

I sit up slowly, pressing my face into bruised knees and trying not to scream as the world spins around me. By the time my eyes find the clock hours have melted away, time turning to sand within my palms. Freedom wasted with meaningless tears. It's been so long since I cried like this. One hour. One hour before my next 'appointment'. One hour to clean my blood from the cracks in worn wood and to look something close to presentable. Not that this next one will care either way- he is an animal. A beast who could care less about how good sex feels. Power is his heroin and I am his needle.

The water is warm, burning away at the open seams of my skin. Bloodstained diamonds crawl down the drain, the sins of my last customer forgotten with a towel wrapped snug around my hips. I won't be seeing him again, the keepsakes he pressed into my flesh will fade given enough time. I don't let it bother me. I can't.

The motel's door swings open and I plaster a smile onto my lips, dropping my towel and sitting back on freshly turned sheets. "Hey baby."

His hands are around my throat in an instant.

I close my eyes.

"Mom, it's me." I pull her close, tracing the weathered lines in her tired palms. It's been three months since she's recognized me, saw something more than the monsters that crawl beneath fluttering eyelids. She's sick- very sick. The nurses are sweet, explaining to me that her mind has been taken over by a delusion stronger than any personal bond. They insist that while she doesn't know me by name anymore, my visits make her happy. She smiles and tells anyone who will listen a thousand times over. They say she can go on for hours about me.

It helps knowing that I've paid for such a good home. "Oh it's the angel again!" her smile is bright but her teeth are turning yellow and black. She is only thirty-one summers but this disease has taken its toll- my once beautiful mother looks as though twenty years have passed in between my visits. Four weeks to the date. Excitedly she tugs at one of the nurses sleeves "The angel has come to bless me Mary! Isn't he the sweetest?" Her fingers work themselves through my hair, tugging worridly at the knots. "You've lost weight, angel, what are the mortals doing to you out there? What are these bruises!?" I'm upsetting her again. Part of me wants to cry, the other is too overcome with selfish guilt. "I've told the nurses they should let you stay here with me. I must keep you safe, dear angel. Keep you away from nasty people outside our sanctuary."

My heart sinks into my stomach and somehow I don't think it'll ever fit right in my chest again. "It's my birthday Mom. I'm finally sixteen." I hold her hand to my chest carefully, her panicked breaths slowing as my heartbeat forms beneath willowy digits. She likes to feel that- the doctors say that the sane parts of my mother like to know I am still alive. Little does she know just how 'barely' that alive may be, some nights.

She began to deteriorate soon after my eleventh birthday, screaming at people i couldn't see- convinced that demons hid within the shadows, their claws laiden with both fire and poison. I had to do something- I couldn't watch her wither away, turn to nothing beneath my fingertips. She was all I ever had- she gave her everything for me.

My body was the only thing I've ever truly owned, there was nothing else that I could give for her.

On my twelfth birthday I sold my virginity for fifty bucks. Four months later I raised enough to buy my way into an assisted living facility- leaving my mother in capable hands and leaving myself completely and utterly alone. Most of my customers were old or dangerous- you can't be a stand up guy if you're willing to fuck a thirteen year old for twenty bucks, I guess.

If I didn't stand up for myself they would have killed me, taken and taken until I was nothing but bones upon concrete and I suppose I never got around to kicking the habit. It'd be destroying the last piece of me that is still me. That is Ares. As much as I dread becoming something i'm not, it's damn near inevitable.

I'm sure I'll get around to it some day.

I've already started, after all.

("Kid, what's your name?"

"Angel.")