Charlie
The room smells like mildew and old wood and fear.
I am on my knees again, the floor bruising my skin through the thin pajama pants they make us wear. Brother Mark stands behind me, one heavy hand on my shoulder, the other pressing down between my shoulder blades so I cannot lift my head.
“Feel it, Charles,” he murmurs, voice low and holy and wrong. “Feel how unnatural it is. This is what the devil put in you.”
Another boy—older, one of the “graduated” ones they bring in for demonstrations—kneels in front of me.
His pants open and his dick out. His hand is already on himself, stroking exactly how they tell him to while they watch.
Brother Mark’s grip tightens as the boy grows hard and stiff in his own grip.
“Touch him,” he orders. “See if your body betrays you again tonight.”
My fingers shake as I reach out. The second I make contact and feel his silky smooth shaft beneath my fingers, the shame floods in so thick I can’t breathe. It gets worse when the boy moans. They are all watching. Two more counselors in the corner, murmuring prayers and crossing themselves.
“See how your body is reacting?” Brother Mark says, almost triumphant, when my body betrays me despite the tears streaming down my face. “That’s the demon fighting to stay. We have to drive it out.”
Cold hands shove past my waistband. Clinical. Probing. Seeing exactly how hard I am, before they grab my balls and squeeze until I cry out.
“Getting hard is a sin when you are touching another man.”
I try to leave my body. I try to float somewhere above the room where none of this can touch me. But they keep pulling me back. Pain and then forced pleasure.
One of them pulls my bottoms down, forcing me onto my hands and knees, and I beg them.
“No. Stop. Please don’t. I don’t like boys.”
It doesn’t stop them.
The nightmare doesn’t stop.
It never stops.
I wake up sobbing.
The blankets are twisted around my ankles like restraints, trapping my legs. My chest heaves so violently I can’t pull in air. Tears burn down my face, hot and endless, and the broken sounds ripping out of my throat don’t even sound like me.
“No—please—stop—”
My voice cracks, small and terrified, the same voice I had at seventeen. The nightmare is still wrapped around me. I can still feel the weight of those hands, of the body behind me, violating me in the worst way.
I curl into a tight ball on the mattress, back against the wall, arms locked around my knees, rocking myself, unseeing.
Sofia launches onto the bed and presses herself hard against my side, purring frantically like she can vibrate the demons out of me.
I pick her up and bury my face in her fur, but the smell of mildew and old carpet still clogs my nose.
“It’s not real,” I choke out. “It’s not real. I’m not there. I’m here. I’m safe.”
But my body doesn’t believe me.
My skin crawls like invisible hands are still on me and a pastor is trying to fuck the demons out of me. My stomach heaves with the phantom taste of shame. The ache between my legs is not arousal. Fresh sobs tear out of me as the memory refuses to release me.
I stay like that for what feels like forever, curled so tight my muscles scream, Sofia’s small warm body the only thing tethering me to the present.
Eventually the sobs quiet into ragged, hiccupping breaths.
I untangle the blankets with trembling hands and yank them up to my chin, but I can’t stop shaking.
The nightmare is still too vivid when I close my eyes.
Their hands. The forced pleasure. The pain.
The way they made me hate myself for reacting at all.
The painting in the corner catches the light from outside, and my gaze locks on the face of my newest obsession. I know that it was allowing myself to paint his face that brought on the nightmares.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block it out.
It doesn’t work, and I open them again.
Hunter’s hazel eyes stare back at me from the canvas, raw and hungry, and for one sick second, the nightmare and the painting bleed together.
The weight of hands on my shoulders holding me down becomes the memory of him towering over me, voice low and cruel.
He doesn’t look anything like Brother Mark.
But the anger in him is almost an exact match.
I press my face harder into Sofia’s fur, whispering the same words over and over like a prayer I don’t believe anymore.
“I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.”
Sofia purrs louder, her tiny body now vibrating against my cheek, but I can’t shake it.
Every time I blink, I feel the rough carpet again, the clinical hands, the whispered scripture he used to make it seem right—Obey your leaders and submit to them—and more still—He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
It was all sick. Those words stuck with me and turned my own body into something shameful.
Now my head is twisting it more.
Hunter’s voice overlays the memory, low and mean: What about you, twink?
The way he leaned in close, broad shoulders blocking the light, hazel eyes burning like he wanted to punish me for daring to be soft in front of him.
The scripture loops louder—submit, submit, die to sin—until I can’t tell if it’s Brother Mark or Hunter speaking.
Until the imaginary clinical hands on my thighs feel like his hands.
Until the forced pleasure and the shame feel like something I might actually want from him.
Fresh sobs tear out of me.
I rock harder, Sofia clutched to my chest like a lifeline, but the images won’t stop. Hunter towering over me in the circle. Hunter’s hands pinning me down instead of the pastors. Hunter’s voice whispering scripture while he breaks me open and calls it righteousness.
I hate how much the thought makes my stomach flip with something darker than fear.
I’m broken.
Maybe I’ll be that way forever.
Sunlight pours through the second-story window, bright and unforgiving, slicing across the room. It only hits this hard after ten. Way after ten.
I jolt upright, heart still hammering, the blankets tangled around my waist. Sofia yowls in protest as she’s dislodged from my chest, shooting me a betrayed look before stalking off to the windowsill to glare at the world.
“Shit.” I don’t even remember falling back to sleep.
My eyes are puffy and my throat sore from the snot that probably slid down my throat from sobbing so hard. The clock on my phone reads 10:47 a.m. Pole class starts at eleven. I’m already late. Even if I catch the next train, I’ll be there a half hour late.
I drag myself out of bed on shaky legs, muscles screaming from being curled so tight all night.
I stumble to the bathroom, splash cold water on my face until my eyes stop burning, then throw on the first clean leggings and cropped hoodie I can find. No time for makeup. No time for anything except grabbing my dance bag and shoving my feet into sneakers.
Sofia winds between my ankles the whole time I’m prepping her breakfast, meowing demands like she knows I’m running late. I scoop her up for one quick squeeze, pressing my face into her fur again.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’ll be back soon. Promise.”
She headbutts my chin once, hard, then lets me go.
The walk to the subway is a blur of too-bright sunlight and too-loud city noise.
Every step jars my sore muscles. Every flash of a tall, broad-shouldered man on the sidewalk makes my stomach flip with that same sick mix of fear and heat.
I keep my hood up and my eyes on the pavement, trying to outrun the images still crawling under my skin.
By the time I burst through the studio door, the slow playlist is already playing and bodies are moving around the poles like liquid. I’m twenty-five minutes late.
Lucy spots me instantly from her usual spot. Her grin falters the second she sees my face.
“You okay?” She drops from the pole mid-spin and crosses to me.
I nod, swallowing hard. “Yeah.” I lift my shoulders in a shrug. “Nightmare.”
She doesn’t ask for details. She never does. Instead, she pulls me into a quick, sweaty hug, her neon sports bra bright against my dull hoodie.
“Go change. Slow playlist today. You can just breathe if you need to. No pressure, okay?”
I manage a small, shaky smile. “Thanks, Luce.”
In the changing room, I strip down fast, pulling on my fishnets, tiny shorts, and heels. When I step back into the studio, the lights are low, the music slow and heavy.
I grip the pole, cool metal under my palms, and pull myself up.
Every slow spin, every controlled drop is a quiet fuck-you to that mildew-scented room in Texas.
Every time my body moves the way it wants to, I feel a little more like me and a little less like the boy they tried to break.
Class ends with the last slow notes of the playlist fading out.
My arms are burning, my thighs ache in the best way, and for the first time since I woke up, my head feels a little quieter.
The movement always helps. Even when the demons are loud, the pole gives me something to hold onto that’s mine.
Lucy drops down from her pole and wipes sweat from her forehead with a small towel. She grins at me, bright and easy, like she can see I need normal right now.
“Alright, princess. You survived. Barely. Let’s get food before I pass out. I’m thinking that little Thai place on the corner—the one with the mango sticky rice that makes me want to propose to the chef.”
I laugh, the sound still a little hoarse but real. “You say that every time. One of these days you’re actually going to do it, and I’ll have to be your witness at the wedding.”
“Only if you promise to wear your eyeliner and the fishnets under your suit. Deal?”
“Deal.”
We change quickly, then step out into the bright midday sun.
The city feels loud and alive again, the way I love it.
Horns, street vendors shouting, the smell of fried dough and spices drifting from food carts.
We walk the two blocks to the Thai place, shoulders bumping, Lucy chattering about nothing important and everything at once.
Once we’re settled at a tiny table by the window with bowls of pad thai and fresh spring rolls between us, she steals a piece of mango from my sticky rice and points her chopsticks at me.
“So. Serious question. How’s the gallery hunt going? You said you were going to submit to that little spot in East Village—the one with the exposed brick walls and the owner who looks like she hasn’t slept since 2017.”
I twirl noodles around my chopsticks, smiling despite the leftover heaviness in my chest. “I dropped off my portfolio last week. Three new pieces—the big abstract with the gold leaf and two smaller ones from that series I did after I first moved here. The owner said she liked the texture work, but she’s got a waiting list six months long.
Still…it felt good to hand them over instead of just keeping them in my studio. ”
Lucy’s eyes light up. “That’s huge, Charlie. You’re getting closer. One of these days some fancy curator is going to walk in, see your stuff, and lose their mind. Then you’ll be too busy with gallery openings to come to pole with me, and I’ll have to find a new gay bestie.”
I snort. “Never. You’re stuck with me.”
“Even if you become some big artsy asshole?” she teases, stealing another piece of mango from my sticky rice with zero shame.
“Especially then,” I say, laughing softly. “Who else is going to remind me to eat something besides hot dogs and street food? Or threaten to stage interventions every time I look at a tall, damaged man for too long?”
Lucy grins, wide and wicked. “Exactly. That’s my job. Permanent emotional support bestie and professional cockblocker of bad decisions. The position is non-negotiable.”
We both laugh, the sound easy and familiar, cutting through the heaviness in my chest like sunlight through clouds.
She launches into a ridiculous story about her latest shift at the coffee shop—some guy who tried to impress her by quoting poetry but kept mixing up Sylvia Plath with Dr. Seuss—and I let myself sink into it.
No nightmares. No Hunter. Just sticky rice and the kind of friendship that feels like family is supposed to be.
By the time we finish eating and split the bill, the afternoon sun is warm on my face as we step back onto the sidewalk.
Lucy bumps my shoulder with hers. “Seriously, though…keep submitting. Your work deserves to be seen. And when you finally get that big gallery show, I’m showing up in the loudest outfit possible and telling everyone I knew you when you were eating hot dogs for breakfast and crying over sad boys.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I say, smiling.
She pulls me into one last quick hug, squeezing tight. “Text me later. And don’t stay up painting until dawn again. Love you, princess.”
“Love you, too, Luce.”