10. Chapter 10
Led
T he clock reads stupid late next to me at the desk.
I've done it again. Worked half the night without noticing. Strange thing is, I don't feel like I'm any further ahead. It's an all-too-common feeling. It’s a struggle, but I talk myself into trying to get some sleep. There’s no use in working all night, as I’ll be a basket case in the morning, and I’ll be a major grouch with everyone.
Like I need an excuse to be difficult. As I lay my head down on the pillow, I try to think of pleasant things, but my mind, of course, wanders.
When I finally fall asleep, instead of my work and the present, it’s my past that comes back to haunt me. ..
Her hair lays on the pillow as I thrust into her, trying so hard not to finish too quickly.
They’re away at some retreat for whatever shit her father is into.
Kristy’s father hates me. He knows that I come from a rich family, and he thinks that I’m no good for his precious daughter, who is as hot as fuck, and making it with every guy in school.
He thinks that she’s still a virgin, which, by my calculations, was lost about twenty guys ago, and more than two years ago, too.
I’m not into easy chicks or anything, but Kristy’s really nice and friendly, and she came on to me.
I didn’t want her to be my first. I wanted Jinny to be, but Jinny’s shy, like me.
The first time me and Kristy made it was a month ago, when her parents were away for the weekend, which they do a lot.
This weekend, they left her with her older sister, who was supposed to be at some senior rally, but she cut it so that she could throw this party at home.
We’re at the party, technically, but we were told to stay the hell upstairs and out of the way, because, well, what would be more embarrassing when you’re a senior, than having your younger sister tag along at a party, even if it’s at your own house?
We don’t have any condoms left, so I have to pull out, and I keep running that through my mind, willing myself not to forget.
Kristy has so much more experience than me, that she can show me what she likes and what she doesn’t like.
And I'm getting her off pretty easily, feeling myself almost ready to come, trying like hell to time it just right. And that’s when I hear it.
We both hear it. The music downstairs has come to an abrupt halt.
And it sounds like a stampede of elephants a second later.
“Shit! My parents are h—” She’s about to say, but she’s cut off by her bedroom door flying open and her father storming in.
I barely have my dick out of her when he comes at me, throwing his beefy fist at me, forcing me off her.
My cheek feels like it’s going to explode, and I almost pass out, and trying to fumble for my clothes is impossible, since he’s kicking me while Kristy shrieks at him from the corner of the room.
The only defense that I have is to curl up into a ball, but that only seems to spur him on.
He kicks me so hard from my backside that it feels like my balls have been jostled up to my throat.
That's when I pass out. I wake up in the hospital feeling like I've been thrown down a flight of stairs. My parents are at my bedside. “What day is it?” Is the first thing that I ask. My voice is so gravelly I barely recognize it.
“It's Tuesday, son.” My dad answers.
By my calculations, I don't remember the last three days since the party.
“You had to have some surgery.” Mom volunteers.
There's a large bandage running from one side of my abdomen to the other, it feels like there's a boulder sitting between my legs. “What did I have done?”
I'm in a private room, likely thanks to our wealth and dad’s fantastic benefits.
Other than an intravenous drip, there is nothing else hooked up to me.
It feels like I've got some broken ribs, maybe a slight concussion, but none of this adds up to the forlorn look on my mother's face.
“A specialist had to come and repair...your…um…private area.” Dad replies.
Mom stares blankly at the wall. “Not much good it's done.”
Dad raises a hand. “Now, let's not trouble the boy.”
My face scrunches slightly. “What happened? I know that Kristy’s dad kicked me pretty bad.”
Dad nods. “The man lost control. Went into a fit of rage when he caught you and his daughter in bed together. He was out to do damage. Permanent damage. That's exactly what he did, son.”
“What does that mean?”
Mom interjects. “It means that he wrecked you, Led. He made it so that you can't have kids.”
Dad lifts a hand. “Your mother and I just need to know one thing. Did you know that that young girl is only fifteen?”
I shake my head quickly. “She said she failed a grade, dad. She told me that she's sixteen, just like me.” I pause, feeling bile come up my throat. “Why do you wanna know that?”
Dad licks his lips before speaking. “I went after him with a lawsuit for what he did to you. But the bastard came back to me with a countersuit for statutory rape.” He pauses for emphasis.
“He says that he'll drop the charges if I also drop the charges. But we may have a leg to stand on if she lied to you about her age.”
That’s when I wake up in a cold sweat. Just like I always do after reliving that nightmare.
Sure, it was just a nightmare when I was a kid, but then I had the added bonus of more when I realized that I would never be a father.
That women would never want me because I couldn’t give them children.
They never knew that, of course, because I always push them away before it gets to that, but that’s why this time is particularly troubling.
That’s why I never went for Jinny. That’s why I never went for anyone worth going for, because I knew that I would only ever be the guy that they fucked.
The guy solely for fun. The guy that could never be anything more than a roll in the hay.
Sure, the legal battle was dropped. Simply because there was too much at stake.
Kristy’s family had less to lose than ours did, and with the looming libel that Kristy’s father threatened us with, it would muddy our family name so badly my parents could never recover from it.
I was beaten so badly her father murdered any chance I would ever have of furthering my family line, but the alternative would be that the world would see me as a rapist. And in my eyes, in my parent’s eyes, in my family’s eyes, it wasn’t worth it.
I wasn’t worth it. After all, I have other brothers and a sister to further the family line.
One less Lawson kid was something that we could live with.
I just couldn’t live with myself. I still can’t.
I lie there, heart pounding, gut wrenching, just like it was when I first realized the true levity of this situation.
It feels like it was just yesterday that I was sitting in class in my senior year, listening to some girl gush about her older sister’s new baby, and some of the other female students went on and on about how sexy it is to watch a man care for his baby.
They kept discussing the romance and the perceived bliss associated with starting a family, and that’s when my heart sank.
That’s when I knew that I would always be half a man in the eyes of any woman that dared to love me.
That’s also when I decided that I would never let myself love.
I would never let myself feel that heartbreak and pain when they would find out that I could never give them that.
My mom always said that I could adopt, but everyone knows that that isn’t the same thing.
Not in a family where no generation has ever been less than five biological kids deep.
My siblings never found out. I made my parents swear that nobody was to know about this.
Not a soul. They respected that. Mom offered to send me to counseling, but it was too humiliating.
Kristy forgot all about me a week later, before I was even out of the hospital, but my dad warned me that that would happen.
He told me that girls like Kristy never lasted.
Which is why I continued to go for girls like her, despite the fact that my dad never understood.
It was never any of anyone’s business. The girls that went between my sheets wanted nothing more than that.
This thing with Jinny is very disconcerting.
I’ve never slept with the same woman, except for Kristy, more than once.
The trouble is, I want to more. I can’t want more.
I can’t give more. I want to. Oh, God, do I want to, but I can’t.
It’s impossible. It was confirmed impossible by doctors.
Not just one. Kristy’s father literally ruined me.
Sure, on the outside, I look completely normal.
Scars are hidden naturally by hair. Underneath it all, neither of my testicles work properly.
They were damaged beyond repair. Essentially, I shoot blanks. And even that’s been confirmed.
The clock reads five fifteen, so I decide to get up forty-five minutes early and do an extra workout.
It’s funny how working out takes it all away.
Sometimes I lose myself in my home gym, literally.
My brothers think that I work out at an overkill pace to impress the ladies, but they’re wrong.
I do it for my own mental health. That’s the same reason why I don’t drink or smoke.
If I can’t be a whole person, then the least that I can do is be the best person that I can be.
It’s just too bad that most people think that I look perfect on the outside. Distance is key there.