Chapter 22
Tommy
My childhood is lonely, but not because I’m ever alone. I’m not allowed to be alone. He’s with me all the time. Homeschooling me, playing games with me, taking me to museums and parks and the movies. Buying me toys and books and treats. He loves me.
He just loves me too much.
We’re playing soccer together in the backyard. I like the sport, and he likes making me happy.
But today, I fall. Skin my knee, start to bleed. I stare at the wound, watch the red drip out of me. Numb, cold. Because I hate this part.
“Tommy!” He rushes to my side, he falls to his knees and inspects the small hurt. “Oh, my poor baby, let me take care of this for you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding!” he points out. “Stay here. I’ll make it better.”
He goes inside, looking for Band-Aids and antibacterial cream and an ice pack, probably. He always takes my injuries seriously. Pays close attention to them. Makes a show of doctoring me up. Because he loves me.
And he needs me to know it. Needs to show me how much he cares. Needs to prove how much he deserves my love in return.
I’m left alone in the backyard for a brief minute. A rare chance that’s become increasingly common lately, as he starts to trust me.
I look at the gate.
I’m tall enough to reach the latch now. I have been for months. I could open it and run. But I don’t. Because he loves me, and I…well, he says I love him, too. It must be true, because my body always does what he wants it to.
When he comes back outside, I’m exactly where he left me.
He patches me up, brings me into the house.
Like a bear trap closing on my leg, he shuts the back door behind us.
He puts me on the couch, gives me some water and puts on a movie.
And he sits close beside me, fussing over me, until his hands start to wander.
Until he starts whispering about his love, our love, and how much he loves to take care of me.
He makes me say thank you between every declaration, until I say it all on my own, playacting gratitude for his care.
And he goes on and on about how good we are together. How my body proves the way I feel about him.
I don’t try to deny him, because if I do, he confuses me.
He’ll ask me if I don’t love him anymore, even after he just took such good care of me.
He’ll ask me what he did wrong, if there’s anything else I need to be happy; he’ll ask me if he isn’t good enough for me.
I don’t know the answers to those questions.
And he does take good care of me. He loves me.
So I just stay. And despite the churning in my gut and the way my mind shuts off, the way my inner self drifts away to someplace else, I don’t really leave–I stay.
****************
Tommy
Usually I wake up fast, on high alert at the starting line, on it before my eyes are even open. But right now? I’m fucking crawling out of unconsciousness. I know I’m asleep, I can hear someone saying my name, but I can’t open my eyes. My muscles tremble and I manage to groan softly.
“Tommy.” The deep voice is familiar. Young-gi. “Come on, it’s time to eat something.”
My gritty eyes finally squint open and I shakily roll over on his big bed, only to stare up at him, speechless. My mind feels like it’s three business days behind schedule, and I can’t fathom what he’s trying to tell me.
“Come on,” he says again, slipping his big hands under my arms and pulling me to a sitting position. “You need to eat. You’ve been sleeping all day.”
Sleeping all day? How did I get here? What– Then I wince, hissing a bit, as my weight settles on my sore ass, and I remember.
Shit. Right. He kidnapped me and spanked me and I nearly had an orgasm, like it was the most pornographic thing to ever happen to me, and not the premise of a Stockholm syndrome horror film.
I try to roll onto my stomach with a groan, but Young-gi’s hands don’t let me lay down, and instead I’m suddenly pulled up onto my feet. I stumble, but he catches me against his wide chest.
“Fuck,” I croak, scrubbing my palm across my face, rubbing my eyes until I see stars. “What time is it?”
My voice is so rough I barely recognize it.
“Nine at night. You slept hard, but you need to eat something. I don’t think you’ve had anything since yesterday around this time.”
“Ummm…” I trail off, trying to think, but my thoughts fade and my eyes slide shut. I’m falling asleep on my feet.
Young-gi sighs, and my eyes jolt open. With more care than I expect, he guides my tired, sore ass out of the bedroom, walks me down the hall, and brings me to the kitchen. The barstools are pulled out, and there is steaming hot food all plated up for us.
It’s so domestic and unexpected that I stop in my tracks. “Um, you know, I can eat by myself.”
“I need to see if you’re bruised,” Young-gi says, ignoring my remark. I’m stupidly tired so I just blink at him, uncomprehending. He gestures to the counter, and my slow, squinting eyes follow the motion until I see the familiar jar of bruise cream near the sink.
“Um… oh.” I can barely think. “Yeah, no, I mean, actually, my back is fine. Everything’s fading so it looks a little splotchy but it doesn’t really hurt anymore.”
“I wasn’t talking about your back.”
And I might be half asleep, but I’d have to be dead to miss the commanding, stern drop in his tone. My eyes, suddenly wide, fly to him; he’s staring at my pants like he can see through them, leaving no confusion about which bruises he wants to check.
“You–you want to put bruise cream on my ass?” I ask, high-pitched. “Because that’s fucking–fucking–I don’t know, weird.”
Young-gi saunters to the counter and picks up the jar. My whole body tenses to run, my brain waking up really fucking fast, but instead of coming at me all aggressive and demanding, he leans his hips against the counter and stares at me from across the room.
“Come here so I can treat your bruises,” he orders. “Then we can sit and eat dinner.”
“I-I-” I stutter, feeling ambushed, weirdly sweaty and scared. My heart pulls itself out of its drug-induced coma and starts to pump again, flooding me with nervous energy. Dissociation hovers at the edges of my memories.
“I can do it myself later.”
Young-gi pauses. Tilts his head, studies me. Stares at me. I shift on my feet and scowl at him. I don’t like being nervous. I don’t like feeling timid or scared.
“Will you actually do it?”
I bristle defensively. “Yeah, fuck, can we just eat? I don’t need you to play doctor with me, damn.”
“You’ve let me put cream on you before, what’s different now?”
“I’m just not in the mood.”
“You did seem a little distressed the first time,” he comments, trying to figure me out like a puzzle. “That day in the boxing ring. But the second time, you were in corner time, having a tantrum that might have eclipsed any other triggering reaction–”
“Dude, what the fuck, stop being such a freak about it,” I snap, not enjoying how easily he puts my pieces together.
“If you need to do this yourself, I’ll let you, but you need to actually take care of it.”
“I already said I would!” But I’m lying. And he must know it, because he gives me a disbelieving look. Maybe he knows I’m just a liar, and no one should trust a word I say.
“Tommy.” My name is a firm warning, and his intense stare darkens. Very deliberately, he starts to open the lid of the jar. “Tell me the truth.”
“You don’t believe me?” I demand, angry. Scared. “Are you calling me a liar?”
I am. I am a liar. But fuck him for calling me one.
“I have no evidence that you take care of yourself to my standards. All I’ve seen from you regarding your own comfort and safety is an attitude of casual unconcern.”
“I’ll take such good care of you.” The echoes of my past make me flinch. My dream haunts me.
“And what would being worried about my health and safety even get me?” I demand, my eyes drawn to the open jar, to the hypnotically slow way he sets the lid down. “There’s no use worrying about what I can’t change.”
“The cream is right here,” he points out. “I’ll give it to you. You could take it and use it, and it’s fully within your power to do so.” He waits, the room thickening with tension, before finally asking me in a threatening tone: “But you won’t, will you? You lied.”
A tingling, scary, vulnerable feeling hits me and I take a step back. His quick eyebrow twitch pisses me off, like he sees my emotional reaction and is confused by it; it’s not fucking fair that he’s a brick wall and I’m an open book.
“I’m lying?!” I demand, throwing my arms wide, trying to be big.
“Me?! You’re the one who put the bruises there, Young-gi.
You’re the one who said you wanted to correct me.
Don’t backtrack on me now, and play all caring and concerned.
My comfort? My safety? Fuck you! You want to beat my ass?
Fine! You want to be rough with me? Then get rough!
But I’m not gonna let you play doctor just to make yourself feel better about it.
You can do whatever the fuck you want, but shit like that?
It doesn’t help at all. It’s fucked up, it’s all twisted.
And I refuse to say thanks for putting a Band-Aid on an issue you caused.
I won’t owe you or anyone else a goddamn thing ever again! ”
Silence. This man uses silences like a lever, pulling on my insides and dragging more out of me than I ever intend to show. I make an inarticulate sound of rage.
“What?! Nothing to say?”
Without breaking eye contact, Young-gi puts the open jar down on the counter. “Why do you think I want to check your bruises, Tommy?”
“You…”
I don’t want to say it, so obvious and ugly; that I think he’s trying to control me, to own me, to manipulate me. That makes me sound crazy; it always made me sound crazy when I tried to tell him, the man who made me this way, that what he was doing didn’t feel like love. It made me sound insane.
“You…” I try again, mentally spinning.