Violence Begets... (26 page)

“On your knees,” he said as he walked
into my bedroom.

“Sir?” He remained silent. After a few
seconds of hesitation, I slowly pulled myself off the bed and bent to my knees.

“Hands behind your back.” I felt the
cold metal of handcuffs snap around my wrists, then the sound of tape as he bound
my ankles together. I remained motionless. After several moments of silence, I felt
something hard press against the back of my head.

“You were gone for three days. You will
remain like this for three days. You will kneel during the day, and you may sleep
lying down. However, your restraints are not to come off. If I come in and find
you disobeying in any way, I will use the gun I am pointing at your head.” I closed
my eyes.
Does he know? Has he heard yet? Is this it?
My thoughts threatened
my focus. “Understood?” I didn’t know if I should talk or nod my head. I didn’t
want to set him off either way. Before I could make up my mind, I heard the safety
on the gun being released. “Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” I released in a gush of
breath.

“Good. Remember, you are to kneel for
fifteen hours, then you have my permission to sleep for nine. I will bring you water,
you will have no food.” I was glad I had had the presence of mind to shove down
the damn energy bars. He remained behind me, safety off, for several more minutes.
Finally, I heard it click back on and a few seconds later the door to my room shut.
I wasn’t sure when I’d started holding my breath and I doubled over, gasping for
air. He’d never used a gun. What the fuck? He had to know.

I settled onto my heels and sat. Why
hadn’t he beaten me? He had to be up to something. Kneeling was uncomfortable, but
it couldn’t be worse than a beating, or for that matter, the closet. The only times
he’d made me kneel for any length of time was on a broom handle or a pile of rice.
Kneeling on the floor with no threat of a belt was too easy. I knew immediately
he was trying out a creative session, which meant he wasn’t finished with me.

My father couldn’t have known that half
the punishment would be leaving me alone with my thoughts. With no alcohol or drugs
to turn to, thoughts of Charlie and that night tried to fuck up my focus.

Several hours into the punishment, my
arm muscles ached slightly and my hands were tingling from the awkward blood flow.
I tried to roll my shoulders forward to stretch a little. My legs were a little
better off because I could raise myself or settle on my heels, but a dull pain had
begun forming in my knees. After a few hours, my muscles ached. At six hours, they
burned. At eleven, they screeched with excruciating pain. When I did the math and
realized I had sixty-six hours to go, my stomach clenched and I threw up, emptying
what little sustenance remained.

As the pain increased, the panic did
as well. My focus held fairly firm, and even though I was panicked, I managed to
keep the images of Rick and Charlie at bay. I started to feel pain in muscles I
didn’t know I had. I wondered if my ankles and wrists were bleeding from the pressure
of the restraints. It felt like every time I moved, the bindings cut into my flesh.
My neck and then my head started to pound. Several times I almost said fuck it and
stood up. The instinct to rid myself of the pain was increasingly difficult to ignore.
Then I’d remember the feel of the muzzle at the back of my head, and I had no doubt
my father would hold to his promise of using the gun.

I stared at the clock on my nightstand—thirteen
hours in, only two left until I could stretch out and sleep. It wouldn’t relieve
my arms, but perhaps it would allow my legs and feet to get some circulation. My
father hadn’t checked on me yet and I wondered if he was trying to create a false
sense of security. My head dropped down towards my chest, which made it hard to
breathe, but I couldn’t seem to hold it up any longer. I knew I was not well rested
and my body was less capable of coping. The hunger pangs were barely noticeable
next to the fire in my muscles. He must have researched torture tactics. A beating
usually lasted minutes—hours at most. This torment was scheduled to go three days.
And it didn’t help that my mind was at war as well.

As 10:00 PM approached, I couldn’t tear
my eyes off the clock, counting down the minutes. At 9:59 I heard his footsteps
on the stairs, pausing in front of my door. The second my clock switched to 10:00,
he opened the door, gun in one hand, a glass of water with a straw in the other.
I didn’t move.

“You will not sleep in your bed. You
will lie down where you are. You are to remain bound. I do not need to remind you
of the consequences of disobedience.” My eyes flicked to the gun. “Lie down,” he
commanded.

With relief, I started to stretch my
legs from beneath me. The moment I moved, unexpected, searing pain shot through
my body and I bit down on the side of my cheek, instantly tasting blood. The less
he heard from me, the better. I stopped moving. Even if I had wanted to move, there
was no way my body would willingly subject itself to the kind of pain I sensed was
waiting. It would’ve been like asking someone to slowly cut off his or her finger
by running it back and forth against a sharp blade. Most people simply would not
be able to do it.

“Lie down,” he commanded again. I hadn’t
let him see my tears in years. As they threatened to break through, I ducked my
head and tried to stretch more. “Look at me.” He knew what this was doing to my
body and to my resolve. It was as if he somehow knew what I’d already been through
and was choosing to break me. Keeping my head bowed, trying to control my emotions,
I felt the coldness before I realized his intent. He placed the gun under my chin
and pulled my head up with the muzzle so I was looking into his dead eyes, and the
barrel was aimed right at my throat.

“I have asked you to do two things.
You have yet to do either of them successfully. I want you to lay down and look
at me, and I want you to do it now.” The safety released, as did my tears. He smiled
as he witnessed my resolve break. In one swift movement, he swept his foot out,
catching my ankles and yanking them straight. My back coiled and my body convulsed
as my vision blurred. I had the sense to bite down on both cheeks but I couldn’t
keep the tears back.

I focused in on his methods, distracting
myself from the pain. I’d suffered many long and agonizing punishments at his hands.
This punishment wasn’t necessarily more painful than some of the worst. It was different,
and with difference came the unexpected. When I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t
know how to prepare. I didn’t know which muscles to relax before it was too late.

The pain, combined with my inability
to keep my head straight, seemed to weaken my mind. Where I once would’ve been able
to remain closed off to my father’s cruelty, I succumbed to it and broke. As I landed
on my arms, the pain ripped me open, and I felt the blackness quickly erase everything
around me.

I awoke, every muscle screaming at me
in outrage. I immediately realized I must have pissed myself. Between not being
allowed to relieve myself all day and the obvious loss of control over my body,
I wasn’t terribly surprised, and I suspected it would happen again over the duration
of the next two days. I glanced at my clock and realized my father had turned it
around, intentionally not allowing me to know what time it was. The glass of water
he’d brought lay tipped over beside me. Even though my body burned in every muscle
possible, it was better while lying down. I didn’t move as it only sent stabbing
pain through my body. My mind fought the battle of time. It was still dark outside,
but how much longer I had before 7:00 AM was out of my grasp.

I must have dozed in and out all night.
At one point, the door flung open, and I jolted upright, shocking my body into a
near blackout again with the sudden movement.

“It’s seven.” He had the gun and another
glass of water. “On your knees,” he said as he set the water down, then turned and
left without making sure I obeyed. I’m not sure how long it took me, but I managed
to get myself back on my knees, feebly grasping onto my focus.

Rick

“I haven’t heard from him. Have you?”
Jeremy asked on the walk to school.

“No, but it’s not unusual for him to
disappear,” I said. In truth, I’d left too many voicemails and sent too many text
messages to count.

“What do you think of all that, you
know, shit that guy was sayin?” Brett asked, lowering his voice a little, almost
as if he were afraid Kevin would appear and lay into him. Days later and we were
still talking about what had happened.

“What, that fag? Total setup, so obvious,”
Mike said.

“I don’t know…” I said, trying to make
it sound like I was doubting Kevin like Brett was. I had to keep them off his scent
so it didn’t get back to Kevin’s dad. The only way I could think of doing that was
keeping them away from our secret. If they thought I was doubting him, then maybe
they wouldn’t figure out what he really meant to me.

With every passing moment I feared the
worst for him. We’d been downtown on Thursday night. When I hadn’t heard from him
the next day, I used the key I knew he had stashed in his shed and snuck into his
house both Saturday and Sunday morning to look for him. I’d been worried I’d find
him locked in his closet, but his room had been eerily silent. I couldn’t wrap my
head around how normal it had looked when so much had transpired since the last
time I'd seen him.

By Tuesday afternoon I knew I had to
go check on him again. The fact that I hadn’t heard from him, that he seemed to
have completely disappeared had me considering calling the cops. I knew he was scared
his dad would kill him if he ever found out he was gay. And after Thursday, I feared
that he might have.

On Tuesday I let myself into the side
door of Kevin’s house, like I had the previous times. When I opened the door to
his room, the curtains were drawn and I was met with the same muted dimness as before.
As my eyes focused, I tried to wrap my head around the figure kneeling in the middle
of the room. He was unmoving, head bowed, and breathing in slow, deep breaths, but
the forward tumble of black hair was a dead giveaway.

“Kevin?” I whispered.

His breathing became more shallow, and
after a few seconds he slowly raised his head. As his eyes came into contact with
mine, I saw the haze of distance.

Closing his bedroom door behind me,
I took several steps towards him.

“Stop,” he said barely over a whisper.
“Does he know?”

“What?” I asked, struggling to understand
his question.

“My father? Does he know?” he asked
quietly. I took a few more steps, trying to hear him better. As I got closer, I
noticed first the handcuffs and then the black tape. His wrists and ankles had red
marks that stretched with painful-looking swelling. “Stop,” he said again, and I
looked back to his eyes. The haze was fading, and I started to see his panic.

“Kevin, are you okay?”

“Does he know?”

His meaning finally hitting me, I stammered,
“Umm, no. At least I don’t think so.” His shoulders fell as he let out a breath.
“Let me help you.” My mind scrambled, trying to figure out the best way to free
him.

“No,” he said, his head slowly rising
back up. He closed his eyes for several moments. When he opened them again he seemed
to look past me. “Leave.”

“What?”

“Leave.”

“I can’t. I won’t. I can’t leave you
here like this.” I kneeled down and panic returned to his voice.

“The pain,” he said, struggling for
words. “I have to focus. I can’t focus with you here. It’s too much.”

“Kevin, let me help you,” I pleaded
with him.

“He’ll kill me. Please.” Tears came
to his panic-filled eyes. He stammered weakly. “I can’t focus with you here…he’ll
kill me.”

I stood, taking several steps back,
and his head dropped again. I kept backing out of his room, out of sight and into
his attached bathroom until I ran into the wall, where I slid down to the floor.
His words had burst open the fear that had been playing on the edge of my mind since
he’d run from us, from me. I had broken him.

He couldn’t focus with me near. He’d
been telling me this for months. He’d tried so many times to warn me that losing
his focus was dangerous for him. I hadn’t heard him, thinking he was only scared
of his feelings.

I replayed every time he’d told me that
loss of control was bad for him, why he had to stay focused to survive. He’d been
telling me all along that I distracted him, and in his world, distraction could
be fatal. I was so lost in what I’d done that I didn’t realize I’d been sitting
in his bathroom for hours until I heard his dad come home from work and make his
way downstairs.

“It’s good that you’re learning some
focus again.”

His dad’s words echoed the thoughts
tearing through my head. I scooted myself to the door to peer out. His dad squatted
down in front of him, balancing on the heels of his perfectly polished shoes. I
nearly cried out when I saw the gun held loosely in his hand. He pointed it carelessly
at Kevin as he started talking again. Kevin’s head was still bowed.

 “You’re out of control, Kevin. You
need to get back into the swing of things.” In a swift motion, he slammed the butt
of the gun against the side of Kevin’s head, standing up in the same amount of time
it took for Kevin’s head to snap to the side and his body to crumple to the floor.

The second the door shut, I scrambled
over to Kevin, half crawling, half running. He was motionless, but I immediately
noticed his chest rising and falling. I pushed the hair out of his face and looked
at his closed eyes. I knew if he woke and found me, it would be too much for him.
I bent to him and placed my lips softly on his. Even though he wouldn’t see me again,
I had no intention of leaving him alone. I made up my mind to stay in his bathroom
for as long as his torture lasted.

I knew he had gained consciousness again
when I heard his moaning from the bedroom. He cried out in pain as he pulled himself
upright and moved his body into the kneeling position I’d first found him in. I
watched silently from the bathroom doorway as he took in a deep breath, held it
for three seconds and then slowly exhaled. He continued this routine, every now
and then fighting a muscle spasm. His body was obviously warring with his mind.
I settled quietly on the floor, leaning against the door jamb, watching. His breathing
was nearly hypnotic to me. When I heard his dad coming down the stairs, I sank back
into the shadows.

“It’s ten,” he said as he opened the
door. “Move,” he said calmly.

I couldn’t hear what Kevin said, but
I knew he’d made some sort of noise.

“Pathetic,” his dad said. The word dripped,
almost with boredom, from his mouth and the cry that followed didn’t sound human
to me. I gritted my teeth together and fought back the urge to run. Curling up into
a ball on the bathmat, I drifted in and out of sleep as the hours crept by.

On Wednesday morning, his father slammed
open the door but left without saying a word. When I was sure he was gone, I peered
out the door and saw a fresh glass of water, and Kevin fighting to get into his
kneeling position again. It took everything I had not to rush out and help him.

The next twenty-four hours were excruciatingly
long. I struggled not to interfere with his concentration, but kept a solid watch
from his bathroom door. My heart broke and my fists clenched each time he cried
out in pain. In my mind, I kept telling him I was there, that he wasn’t alone, that
he was going to be okay, somehow hoping he’d sense this, that he’d feel my energy.
I concentrated on the idea that my strength could somehow help him.

On his dad’s final visit Thursday morning,
I could hear him roughly removing Kevin’s bindings. He howled out in exhausted pain,
which caused my eyes to sting with tears and frustration again. I heard his father
dismiss Kevin’s punishment, praising him mockingly for handling it like a man. I
actually felt the bile rise in my throat but choked it back. When it was clear that
he had gone for the day, I crept quietly to Kevin, now curled up next to the bed,
his body in nearly the same position the restraints had kept him in for days. I
didn’t want to frighten him, so I whispered his name quietly, but he didn’t move.
After several failed attempts, I reached out for him, not able to resist the urge
to help him any longer. As my fingers came into contact with his scarred shoulder,
he flinched, which sent his body into a spasm of pain, and he cried out in misery
as his muscles fought the onslaught of agony. As he writhed and sobbed on the carpet,
I felt desperate to stop his pain. Without thinking, I knelt on one knee next to
him and tried to pull him to me, bracing myself with my raised foot. I didn’t know
if I was doing more damage than good, but all I could think about was covering his
pain with my body, trying to get closer to him to somehow absorb what radiated from
him. He resisted against me, crying out until his eyes flashed open briefly. In
that second, I didn’t see Kevin looking back at me—rather a stranger with two black
empty holes. Then there was a flash of recognition in his face and he closed his
eyes again, curling into me, still convulsing slightly, but he rocked with my arms
instead of against them. After several more minutes, I was able to position myself
behind him, my back to his bed and him fully in my arms, my legs straddling either
side of him. I held him and tried to force every bit of love I felt for him through
my arms and into his crumpled form, hoping it could somehow heal him.

Kevin

I woke in my bed. I couldn’t remember
moving off the floor, but then I didn’t remember much past the first twenty-four
hours of my father’s punishment. There were moments of searing agony that I couldn’t
block out, but most of it just bled together. Flashes of Rick being in my room seeped
in like a haze, but I wasn’t sure if he was a dream or real. I took a deep breath
and winced at the pain that coursed through me. Glancing at the nightstand, I noticed
the clock had been turned back around, reading 11:13 PM, but I had no concept of
what day it was. Behind the clock, barely visible, sat two pills that I immediately
recognized as oxys. I knew I wasn’t stupid enough to have left them there but didn’t
question it. I slowly turned my body, going with the hurt rather than trying to
fight it. I swallowed the pills without any water and allowed them to overtake my
consciousness.

The next time I surfaced briefly, there
was a glass of water next to a new set of pills. As I faded in and out, I repeated
the routine countless times. Eventually a grilled cheese sandwich was added to the
nightstand, which made me certain it was Rick who was caring for me, but this left
me questioning his absence. I wasn’t hungry, but knew well enough that I had to
get something in my body. In one of my half-awake hazes I saw a shadow walking away
from me into my bathroom. Another time I woke feeling dampness on my skin, the smell
of soap and clean clothes.

While I was sure I had vague memories
of painfully stumbling to the bathroom a few times, I still fought against the urge
to take a piss. My mind was becoming clearer and I felt reality start to ease back
in, but, with reality, I recognized that my most recent dose of oxy hadn’t muted
the throbbing yet, and I dreaded moving. Finally, my need pushed me to move. I rolled
off the bed, using the edge to slowly stand up and catch my balance. After several
agonizing steps, I made it to the bathroom where I nearly tripped over something.

“What the fuck?” My voice came out hoarse
as I fumbled for the lights. Rick sat up, pushing himself into a standing position
quickly and blinking furiously at the light.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He looked at me and
then to the door of the bathroom. “I didn’t hear you get up. You should be in bed.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry, I’ll leave.”

“Wait, no. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s okay, I gotta go. My dad…”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Does my
father know?” I asked, the familiar sense of panic invading my body.

“No,” he replied simply.

I leaned slightly against the door for
balance as the panic eased and the pain continued. He took a step toward me, then
thought better of it and stepped back.

“How long’s it been?” I asked.

“Since?”

“Since Charlie.”

I watched him count the days in his
head. “Ten.”

“Fuck,” I said, feeling tired again.
The room started to spin, and I closed my eyes.

“Easy,” I heard him say as I felt his
fingers gently touch my elbow. He started to guide me back towards the bed, and
even though I still had to piss, I let him because I was afraid I’d pass out. As
I drifted off into a painful haze again, I was sure I felt his lips brush my forehead.
The next time I woke up, there wasn’t a sandwich on my nightstand.

Rick

I could see the old Kevin in his eyes
and felt he could take care of himself without my help. I knew the only way to make
sure he stayed okay was to stay away from him.

When I walked in my front door that
afternoon after leaving Kevin’s house, I shouldn’t have been surprised to find my
dad waiting for me.