29. Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
Xavier
She was crushed against my chest. Her soft breath–something I definitely could not have handled last night–tickled my skin.
The less said about last night–well, the first part of it–the better.
Rationally, I knew we needed to talk about the second part, too.
Both my wrists and other parts of me were sore.
Not unpleasantly so, though, sore all the same.
It was a relief to know that Toni’s unthinking touch no longer made me shudder or flinch.
Bar three people, I was never one for physical affection.
My upbringing didn’t exactly allow for it.
Even when we were young, I didn’t discuss my family’s eccentricities.
Largely, because I didn’t understand them, nor did I comprehend the fact that most families didn’t operate that way.
Perhaps, due to the fact that the only three people I would have dared to discuss it with also came from families that were horror shows in their own ways.
Our perspectives on familial relationships were admittedly skewed.
All physical connections in the Rothberg house were punishments.
Never rewards. And never for me. I was, mercifully, never subject to the floggings or to hours chained on a wooden cross, nor was I forced to kneel on the concrete floor of what was essentially my father’s personal dungeon.
Those were activities reserved for my mother, sister, and any of the other unfortunate females constantly rotating through my father’s clutches.
I was forced to endure their torture from the sidelines.
All of it done in the name of ‘obedience’, the only virtue my father truly prized.
One’s value directly correlated to one’s ability to follow his orders or obey his commands.
It was so ingrained into the order of operations in our household that I never stopped to question why I had no memories of being hugged as a young child.
Though, at some point, I was sure someone must have held me. But what did I know?
It wasn’t until he ordered me to take part in a punishment that I even understood disobeying him was an option.
It was my eighth birthday. Less than a month before he sent me to Agonde that first summer.
He had one of the older girls escort me to room three.
One of his favorite rooms. Our house contained an endless number of rooms, or so it seemed to my young mind.
Now I knew the real number was closer to ten.
One for me. One that now stood as a museum in Rachel’s honour.
One for my parents. And seven in which an endless parade of nameless young women were housed.
That day. Inside room three. I’d expected there to be a girl. I hadn’t expected that girl to be my own mother. Her arms stretched grotesquely by a series of chains that held her against the wall, leaving her back, buttocks, and legs exposed to both my father and I.
On the floor lay several tools. Ones I had never touched, but had seen him use countless times. I waited, trembling with barely concealed terror, for him to pick up just one of those horrible implements and put it to use on his wife. He never did. His command was so much worse, “Choose.”
I stared aimlessly at my choices.
“Choose, Xavier.”
I always hated the sound of my name when it came from his mouth.
“This isn’t just some game. It is our business. Our traditions. Your birthright. So, choose.”
The weight of those commands, of his expectations, of seeing the healed scars on my mother’s skin, had rendered my young body heavy in a way I couldn’t explain then. Nor could I do so now. What I did do, was vomit, in the way that only young children are capable of.
A projectile level of sick, that now, was honestly comical, but back then I remember thinking that my blood would be the next fluid to wash down the drain in that god awful room.
So, I turned and ran, out of the house, down our long driveway and for more than a mile down the empty road that led to our isolated house.
When my knees started to ache, I finally slowed, and I slept outside in the woods that night.
Thankfully, our home in one of Calder’s wealthiest suburbs and its surrounding woods weren’t exactly dangerous. My father was probably the worst predator out there. The next morning, I had dragged myself home.
While I was gone my father had placed an embargo on me. No one spoke or looked in my direction from that day until the morning he took me to the airport. Only as we headed to the car, and only because father was too busy speaking to our driver, did I catch Rachel’s small wave goodbye.
I didn’t really mourn leaving my parent’s house.
Especially not after a day in the woods that changed my whole life.
The day a little girl with wild blue eyes let me press a bandage across her shredded knees.
In all these years, I’ve never told Toni what it meant to me to feel the warmth of another human being’s skin after so long.
She knows I love her. I tell her at every opportunity.
I’ll keep doing so. But as I slid my arm out from under her, I smiled at all the marks on my skin where her long hair had been so embedded overnight as to leave a mark.
Maybe, one day, I would tell her exactly how much it meant to me to patch her up that day.
Pressing up, I moved slowly so as not to wake Toni.
It was only then that I realized there was someone notably absent.
Last night, without realizing it, I’d fallen asleep with Brennon at my back.
His limbs long enough to hold both Toni and I at once.
The lanky fuck. My vision flickered as I blinked the sleep from my eyes and looked around the library.
It was just the two of us. No sign of Brennon anywhere. My stomach plummeted.
After everything last night, everything we’d told him, he still left.
He left us. He left me. He was really and truly gone.
One and done, as always. Everyone except my wild girl.
I stared down at Toni, knowing this would hurt her just as much as it was crushing me.
But I would do everything in my power to cushion the blow.
Last night, the tenderness and the care he’d shown. I thought Brennon finally understood.
An empty, hollow feeling crept from the newly formed pit in my stomach, but its progress was halted by a creak from the door that had my head snapping up and my hands reaching for the blanket, so I could ensure Toni was covered up.
My wild girl was just that, mine. Not her fucking brothers or fathers, despite what the ugly carving on her chest indicated.
We needed to get that looked at sooner rather than later, or at least get it bandaged properly.
But it wasn’t Francis or any of the other, many, threats we faced.
Just a very sheepish looking Brennon, who upon realizing I was awake, shoved his full arms out in my direction.
“I went to the Village to get us all some clothes, seeing as none of us can wear any of the shit we had on last night.”
Our still-damp clothes lay in a heap in the corner of the room.
They all looked just as wet as they did when we stripped them off.
I stripped. God, I did more than strip. My face turned warm, and my fingers started to fidget.
I let Brennon tie me up and use me. And I loved every minute of it. Even the pain.
Being interested in men, being interested in Brennon, neither were new feelings for me. But actually having sex, that was definitely, totally new. And just like the first time I’d sucked his cock, my whole world felt a bit unsteady.
He handed me a pair of clean boxers, a pair of running shorts and my favourite hoodie. I looked up at him from the couch, “You went to my cabin?”
Even more sheepish than before, he ran a hand through his hair, “Well, I, um, didn’t think you’d want to wear my…”
“And you got my favourite sweatshirt?”
He gulped and nodded. Unknotting myself from Toni, I stood to get dressed while Brennon laid the clothes he’d brought for her beside her.
He’d brought one of his loose band tees, black with ugly pink graffiti scrawled across it that read ‘DreadKnots’.
But I noticed he’d also brought her a pair of my grey sweatpants. She’d be dressed up for both of us.
He lightly shook her–or, okay, eventually he gave her a small shove–“Birdie, you need to wake up.”
Classic Toni, didn’t budge. Neither of us could blame her after the night we’d had. In fact, we probably all needed a whole other days’ worth of sleep to catch up but that just wasn’t an option. Finally, she grumbled, “What time?”
“Seven,” Bren answered her, kissing her forehead softly, “I brought you some clothes.”
His eyes flicked down to the cuts on her chest, “We need to go get that looked at sooner rather than later, sweetheart.”
How we were going to explain her wounds to the camp nurse, I had no idea, but we’d worry about that when we got there. Toni looked down, too, her still-sleepy blue eyes turning glassy. She winced as she touched the cuts lightly with her fingertips.
“I know it’s vain,” she sniffled, “But at least before, I could hide what he, what they, were doing to me. Now, everyone is going to see this.”
More tears threatened to fall, but Brennon brushed them away with his thumbs, “We will make sure no one sees, baby.” I rushed in at his side, and together we helped her get dressed.
Brennon swept his t-shirt over her head, while I knelt at her feet, gently easing her panties off, and replacing them with my sweatpants.
She hiccupped, she always hiccupped when she cried too hard, usually right around the time she stopped crying.
Both Brennon and I smirked at the sound, and even Toni couldn’t help but chuckle at the pathetic sound.
“That’s the spirit, Birdie. Besides, you’re going to need your sense of humour.”