29.

“I wanted a future with you.  That’s why I came to your prom.  I wanted to show you that… and you knew.  You knew that I was choosing you, that I was acknowledging that I had feelings for you.”

“Brian doesn’t do boyfriends, or commitment, or love… you’re just a trick, Boy Wonder.  One who has stayed too long.”

“I told Michael once that it’s not lying when they make you lie, when the only truth they can deal with is their own.  That was my version of the truth, Justin.  I didn’t want to care, but I did.  I do.  I do care that you’re gone; that you won’t let me back into your life.  That you don’t trust me.  I care more than you’ll ever know.”

“None of us ever wanted you to hang around!  We only put up with you because Brian was fucking you!”

“Because I can’t.  Because… more than anything else… more than Michael, and Babylon, …I need you in my life.”

“Brian doesn’t need you to look out for him… he has me.  He only keeps you around because you bend over for him whenever he wants a fuck.”

“…I need you in my life.”

Justin’s eyes snapped open, and he bit back the gasp that pushed against his clenched teeth.  His breath whistled as it slowly escaped, and he turned his head on the pillow to look at the clock.  A headache had driven him into bed early; his dreams, however, kept dragging him out of the sweet oblivion of sleep.  Dreams… nightmares… memories.  They rolled through his brain like a steamroller and left him feeling flattened. 

“Since you’re no longer with Brian, there’s really no reason for you to be around anymore.  Why don't you just do us all a favor, and disappear?”

Justin swore softly as Michael’s voice slithered through his mind; pressing his fingers to his eyes, he squeezed them shut.  Sitting up slowly, he dragged his hands through the sweaty mess of his hair before he reached for his phone.  Just as his fingers brushed the sleek surface, however, he swore softly; Ethan and Sam were in New York.  He knew he could speak to Daphne, but some unnamed emotion kept him from seeking out the comfort of her arms. 

“If you ask me, it wasn't worth it.  Brian should have done himself and the family a favor and just left you lying there.”

Justin shook his head to clear it, but Michael’s hateful words continued to crawl through his mind.  Goosebumps broke out over his body, and he shivered slightly.  The trick who stayed too long.  Boy Wonder.  Teen stalker.  Piece of ass.  Sliding out of bed, he grabbed the first pair of jeans he could find and pulled them on.  Within five minutes of waking up, he was jogging down the stairs of his apartment building and out into the night.  Trying to outrun the voices in his head wasn’t a great plan, but he needed to shut them down.   If he couldn’t drown them out with sleep, then he’d smother them the only other way he knew how. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Hello?”

“Chér, I’m sorry for the lateness of the hour, but you and I had an agreement when it came to young Justin.”

“Shit… how long has he been there?”

“Twenty minutes, and he’s already in the alcove.”

“Fucking?”

“No, Chér; he is the fuckee.”

“God damn it!  I’m getting up.”

“Hmm.”

“Are you watching him on the security monitors, Ari?”

“Hmm… it is hard to observe, Chér, but yes, I am watching over him.”

“Is he… enjoying it…?”

“…”

“Ari?”

“If I hadn’t seen him lead his trick in there by the belt with my own eyes, I would call it rape, Chér.”

“Rape?”

“He’s not an active participant… not in the way that he should be.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s hasn’t got an erection, Chér, and his trick is oblivious to the fact that he is physically hurting your young patient.”

“Fuck… fuck!!”

“You’d better hurry, Alex; if something isn’t done to stop him, other people will soon begin to take notice, and it will only be a matter of time before he tricks with the wrong person and they hurt him too badly for him to come back from.”

“I’m on my way.  Try to stall him, Ari, if it looks like he’s going to leave.”

“I’ll try my best, Chér.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Therapy sucked ass, and not in a good way.  That was the first thought that surfaced from within the thumping ache in his head.  The second was that he wasn’t alone; the arm clamped tightly around his waist was testament to that, as was the thick cock that poked insistently at his ass.  Justin slowly opened his eyes and let his eyes drift around the darkened room.  He had no idea what time it was, but he had a vague recollection of which part of town he was in.  Taking a deep breath, Justin slowly inched out of the embrace he was in and pushed himself into a sitting position. 

Biting his lip against the thumping ache in his ass, he rose to his feet and silently got dressed as he peered over at the guy who had taken him home.  He was a mountain of olive skin and muscle; thick, dark hair, and if the pulsating in his ass was anything to go by, a massive cock.  He’d known what to do with that cock, too; he’d fucked Justin at Boytoy, and then twice more in quick succession after they’d gotten back to his place.  And as Justin stared at him, the guy opened his eyes and smiled when he saw that Justin was watching him.  Lifting up onto his elbow, he raked his hand through the mess of curls on his head, and smiled again.

“You are fucking amazing in bed,” he said, and Justin flinched slightly as the guy sat up. 

“Yeah… I’ve gotta go,” Justin mumbled as he balanced his weight to tug his shoes on. 

Tugging his other shoe on, Justin picked his jacket up off the floor and then reached out to open the bedroom door. 

“Hey, Justin, when can I see you again?” the guy asked, and Justin shook his head slightly.

“I’ve gotta go,” he repeated, and slipped out of the room even as the trick called out after him. 

The sky was still dark as Justin stumbled out of the apartment building.  Glancing at the street signs to get his bearings, Justin sighed and started to walk.  Each step he took shot a spear of pain across his hips, and down his thighs.  But he forced that pain to ground him; at least his insides matched the mess of emotions that he had been choking on since the previous day when he had been forced to sit through a therapy session with Brian. 

To have listened to what Brian had to say… Justin shook his head as he wrapped his arms around himself.  He didn’t know how he felt about Brian’s confessions.  To know that Brian had come to his prom with the intention of showing him how he felt, only to then change his mind and hide those feelings?  That hurt on a level that Justin didn’t fully understand.  If he’d known - if Brian had actually explained that he cared - maybe he wouldn’t feel as disconnected from his ex-lover as he did now. 

Brian had said that when he hid his nightly visits from him, it had nothing to do with what Justin had looked like after Chris Hobbs had tried to kill him, and more to do the with the fact that Justin had the ability to hurt him.  But Brian himself was the master of wielding a sharp blade; he had never hesitated to slash through Justin’s feelings like tissue paper.  Had he ever done that to Brian?  Knowingly or unknowingly?  God, he hoped not.  He knew he could cut people with his words; he knew he could make people question their very sanity.  But had he ever actually done that to Brian?   

How was he meant to get over him when the man was determined to not let go?  It had been easier when he thought that Brian didn’t care.  But he’d said he did; he’d said he cared far more than Justin would ever know.  What exactly did he mean by that?  You cared for your pets.  You cared for your friends.  Is that what Brian meant?  And how was he meant to deal with that?  Brian cared… Justin was stupidly in love with the man, and he cared…   Justin sighed; he had once thought that he was fluent in Kinney-speak.  He had thought that he could read between the lines, and decipher what Brian meant with his half-spoken sentences, and hidden meanings within his actions.

But he’d only been kidding himself.  Brian had always told him that actions spoke louder than words.  He knew what he did and didn’t mean to Brian.  Because if Brian had cared about him as much as he said he did, then he wouldn’t have deliberately set out to hurt him as often as he had.  Not that he wasn’t complicit; he had bitten his tongue and tried to hide the fact that Brian had hurt him.  He had twisted himself into the person that he had thought Brian wanted him to be.  When had he lost sight of who he was as a person?  When had he handed his balls to Brian, along with his courage and the firm belief in who Justin Taylor was? 

Even those stupid fucking rules had been about Brian.  He’d naively thought back then that if Brian only kissed him, then it made him different.  It really didn’t.  If he’d had any brains back then, he would have told Brian to fuck off when he had come looking for him at Babylon; he would have said that he wasn’t willing to put up with the shit that Brian had been dishing out.  But instead of saying all of that and more, he had handed his balls over, and had put up with what Brian had done, even as Brian’s behavior had escalated.  He really had no one to blame but himself.

A solid bolt of pain tore through his stomach, and Justin staggered to a halt.  But when he looked up, he could have quite willingly curled up in a ball and cried.  Brian’s building was directly across the street from him; lost in thought, he had walked thirty minutes out of his way to stare up at the place he had once thought was his home.  Sinking down onto the steps of the building across from Brian’s with a painful wince, Justin stared up at the darkened windows of the loft.  Brian was either asleep in the bed he had once let Justin stay in, or he was out searching for the next conquest to fuck on the rumpled sheets.

Justin wiped impatiently at his face when he felt the first tear roll down over his skin.  He had fallen in love in that building; lost his virginity and his heart to the man who lived on the top floor.  And when he’d left, he’d been what Brian had wanted him to be.  He needed his true self back; the thing that made him Justin Taylor.  He wanted nothing more than to cross the street and pound on the door until Brian answered, so that he could regain the things that he had lost.  But the mere thought of setting foot inside that building made him want to vomit.  He had seen the best of times within those brick walls.  He had also seen the worst. 

Pressing his hand against his stomach, Justin breathed out unsteadily.  The dull ache in his gut and ass was slowly turning into a throbbing pain.  It hurt to walk; and having choked on the guy’s cock after he’d shoved it down Justin’s throat, it hurt to swallow.  Justin let out a weary sigh and closed his eyes.  After he’d been discharged from the therapy unit the first time, he had made the decision to visit Brian.  To see if their… they… were salvageable.  But when he had arrived at the loft, he had seen Brian escorting two guys through the front doors; one guy had had his hand buried down Brian’s pants, while the other one had twisted his hand through Brian’s hair and tugged the brunet down so that he could press his lips against Brian’s. 

The pain that had shot through Justin at the sight of his former lover had been indescribable, but it had literally bought him to his knees on the sidewalk.  Justin knew at that moment what a heart breaking felt like – and as he had turned away from his former home, he had enclosed the shredded mess of his heart behind a solid wall, where it still continued to sluggishly beat.  He hadn’t said anything to Daphne when he had eventually returned home, but he had kept the memory of those tricks in his mind as he had slowly but surely hardened his heart against the man who had once meant everything to him. 

It had taken time, but eventually he was able to speak to his friends about Brian without wanting to cry at the mere sound of his name.  It was why he had refused to speak about Brian in therapy; why he had stopped saying his name aloud, and started referring to him as a pronoun instead.  It had been the only way that he felt he could survive the loss.  In the end, he had turned to tricking in an effort to feel something other than the bone-deep pain that was a constant presence.  The first time he’d been able to maintain an erection, because he was the one who was topping.

The guy he had been fucking, however, had told him that he was looking forward to seeing why Brian had been so overzealous about how and who Justin tricked with.  Justin hadn’t understood what he had meant; that had been cleared up quickly enough, though, when the trick had told him that it had been common knowledge on Liberty Avenue that his ass was off limits to anyone but Brian.  Humiliation by proxy - even when he was out of Brian’s life, he was still reminded of how little he had meant to the other man - unless he was bent over.      

It had been that mortification that had caused Justin to pull out of the trick; the guy had looked at Justin in surprise, but when he had turned around, the guy’s exclamation of ‘fuck, yeah!’ had echoed loudly.  He’d pushed Justin face first into the wall, and fumbled for a condom.  He’d grasped his hips with damp hands, and like Brian had done so many times in the past, he had pushed into Justin’s ass with nothing more than a grunt.  It had hurt, just like it always had.  And as the man thrust into his ass with increasingly loud grunts, Justin’s erection had slowly flagged until his cock had gone completely soft. 

The trick hadn’t noticed, and Justin had bitten his lip and closed his eyes as the guy had fucked him with deep strokes and his groans echoing in Justin’s ear.  He’d made a desperate grab for Justin’s cock as his orgasm drew close, but Justin had been able to deflect his hand with a sharp slap.  After the trick had come, he had tried kissing Justin; he’d been pushed away firmly with one hand, while Justin had dragged his pants up with the other.  And after walking out of Boytoy, he had vomitted in the alley he ducked into; humiliation complete, the last of his romanticisms had been left in a fetid, watery puddle.  The young man who walked out of that alley was the one who now stared up at Brian’s loft.

For the next few months after that, he had been able to get hard if he was the one topping.  But the minute someone turned him around and bent him over, he lost his erection.  Every single time.  He had loved bottoming for Brian; had loved the feeling of his cock splitting him open, and the sounds that Brian had never been able to hold back spilling out of his lover’s mouth.  But bottoming now hurt.  Every single time.  And when the pain inside him had reached out to strangle him with every breath he took in the following months, he had used tricking to try and counteract the mental pain he was suffering along with the physical.  It sometimes worked.   

“I care more than you’ll ever know.”

It hadn’t worked tonight.  He’d fucked up; he knew it, deep in his gut.  He’d been in pain after the guy had finished fucking him at Boytoy.  But Brian’s voice had still been echoing in his head; whispering that he cared.  He hadn’t wanted Brian to care – he’d wanted him to love him.  And those had been the thoughts that had caused him to follow the guy out into the night, and onto his knees at the trick’s shitty apartment.  The second time had hurt, too.  The third time… Justin had buried his face in the pillows and wept the entire time the guy had ridden his ass for all it was worth.

Taking another deep breath, Justin pushed aside the voice in his head that was whispering he was only good for being fucked, and slowly climbed to his feet.  Turning away from the building, and the memories that threatened to tear him apart, he stumbled his way towards the bus stop.  He let his mind blank out as he walked, and tried to ignore the fact that he was a few twinges away from agony.  Cold; he was bitterly cold.  While the early morning was still, the chill came from deep inside himself, and it made him tremble as he gingerly sat down to wait for the bus. 

The scent of stale sex rose from his skin when he huddled deeper into his jacket, and he jerked his nose out of the little pocket of warmth he had been seeking.  He stank; the desperate need for a shower rose, and made his skin start to crawl.  It had taken him an hour on the bus to get home; an hour during which he had finally lost the battle with his nausea.  It left him gagging after he had emptied the contents of his stomach onto the sidewalk a block from the apartment he shared with Daphne.

Glancing down at his phone as he turned onto his street, Justin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  He was home on time; he was still following some of those stupid fucking rules.  He’d never kissed the guy who had so thoroughly fucked him.  Had never asked for his name.  Climbing the stairs out to the main door of the apartment building, he pressed his hand to his stomach and winced.  The elevator took forever to arrive, and the hallway to his front door had never seemed as long as it did right then.  But the need to shower, to be clean, was overwhelming.

Letting himself quietly into the apartment, he sighed; the apartment was lit up.  He truly didn’t want a lecture at 3 a.m., and he hoped like hell that Daphne would bite her tongue until he had gotten some sleep.  But when he walked further into the apartment, his eyes darted to Daphne in disbelief when he saw Alex sitting on the couch.  The betrayal he felt must have been broadcast on his face, because Daphne held her hands up and quickly shook her head even as a look of dismay crossed her face.

“Justin…”

“Save it,” he said firmly as he tugged his jacket off.  “I’m tired, and I need to take a shower.  You can show your… guest out.”

Stomping past the couch, he tugged the thin top he had been wearing up his body and over his head; he heard the sharp intake of breath that Alex took, but he ignored it as he continued down the corridor towards the bathroom.  He had to brace his hand against the bathroom sink to get his socks off, before leaning into the shower to turn the water on as hot as he could possibly stand it.  As his hands drifted towards the buttons on his jeans, the bathroom door was pushed open and Alex walked into the room and closed the door behind him.  Justin’s gaze snapped upwards, and he didn’t bother trying to hide the scowl that twisted his face when he met Alex’s eyes.

“Get out!” he hissed, and Alex raised his eyebrow as he ran his eyes slowly over Justin’s upper body.

“Nope; what are you trying to do here, Justin?” he asked, and Justin snorted.

“Uh… have a shower?” he said mockingly, and Alex shook his head as he took a step towards Justin.

“Come on, Justin,” he said quietly, but Justin shook his head.

“I said, get out,” he repeated firmly.  “I need to have a shower… I stink….  What I don’t need is a fucking audience.”

Alex stilled as Justin spoke, and his eyes darted towards Justin’s face.  Justin was unable to stop the twitches that caused him to jerk slightly.  When Alex made no move to leave the bathroom, he cursed viciously, and with a sneer on his face, he shoved his jeans down his thighs.  It wasn’t like Alex hadn’t seen it all before; nearly every fag on Liberty Avenue had.  Turning his back on his therapist, Justin climbed into the shower and let the hot water stream down over his skin; he closed his eyes to block out the look of disgust he was sure would grace Alex’s face.  He didn’t need to see that look – he’d seen it on Brian’s face before and didn’t need to see it aimed his way again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Alex leaned against the closed bathroom door and tried his best not to lose his shit.  He’d missed Justin at Boytoy by ten minutes.  Ari had left him in the office, where Alex had silently watched the security footage.  Ari had been right – the encounter he had watched was akin to rape.  Justin had braced himself against the wall, but even hidden in the shadows, Alex had been able to see the flickers of pain that had crossed Justin’s face with every thrust.  Alex had fought the nausea he had been feeling and forced himself to watch the footage.

He had left Boytoy afterwards and headed to Justin’s apartment, where he had awakened Daphne and explained in hushed tones why he was there.  And as each hour slipped past, Alex had grown more and more concerned.  When Justin eventually walked through the door, Alex knew that the kid was in pain, both physically and mentally.  The encounter at the club had left Justin with a scraped and slightly bruised cheekbone from where the trick had pushed him face first into the wall, and his gait was uneven when he made his way down the corridor to the bathroom. 

And as Justin tugged off the top he had been wearing, Alex had seen the hickies that were marring the pale skin of Justin’s shoulders and back, and the finger shaped bruises that dotted the back of Justin’s arms.  It had been those bruises that had made Alex tell Daphne to head to bed – he would stay and make sure that Justin was okay.  Standing in the bathroom, however, Alex was left wondering just how badly Justin was hurting on the inside to allow the trick to do the damage he could see on the outside.  The bruises on his hips stood out in stark contrast to the pale creaminess of his skin.  But worse than the damage had been the look on Justin’s face before he had climbed into the shower. 

Shame had caused his bottom lip to visibly tremble, and Alex had wondered if the boy was even aware of the tears that were spilling down his face.  Silently opening the bathroom cabinet, Alex found the tube of topical ointment, and placed it on the bathroom counter before he scrubbed his hands clean.  Glancing at the distorted image of Justin in the shower, Alex sighed again.  If he scrubbed his skin any harder, he would end up taking off a layer.  Picking up the soft blue towel that hung behind the door, Alex stepped closer to the shower and held the towel out.

“Come on, Justin,” he said softly, but Justin shook his head.

“No… I’m not done,” he said, and Alex bit back a curse, the desperation he heard in Justin’s voice causing him to open the door. 

But when he saw the tinge of red run down the back of Justin’s thigh, something inside Alex cracked open as he reached past the blond to turn the water off.  Justin’s head snapped up, and he bared his teeth at Alex as he reached for the hot water tap.  Alex shook his head silently, and stepping into the steamy enclosure, he gently wrapped the towel around Justin’s trembling shoulders.  Using the edge of the towel, he wiped it briskly over Justin’s face, and briefly ignored the fact that the moisture that ran down Justin’s cheeks didn’t come from the taps. 

Justin’s lower lip continued to tremble, and Alex stepped out of the shower and drew the kid to him.  He kept his touch clinical as he rubbed the towel over Justin’s body.  By the time he had finished, Justin’s hair was clouded up around his head like damp fluff, and his skin was pink, both from the heat of the water and the brisk nature of Alex’s touch.  And as those crystal drops of pain continued to spill down Justin’s face, Alex compressed his lips together before he gently turned Justin towards the bathroom sink. 

Justin’s whole body locked up, and the look that crossed his face spoke of more than betrayal; there was fear in those blue eyes, and Alex was left with the knowledge that the fear rode hand-in-hand with Justin’s compulsive scrubbing in the shower.  Locking eyes with the boy in the mirror, Alex shook his head slightly.

“You’re bleeding.  I need to check how bad the damage is, Justin.”

Justin shook his head frantically, even as he tried to twist out of Alex’s grip.

“I’m fine,” he whispered, and when his voice cracked, Alex closed his hands over Justin’s shoulders and shook his head.

“You’re not fine, Justin.  You’re hurt.  I swear to you, I don’t want to touch you for the reasons that you’re thinking.  Please, just trust me.”

Justin closed his eyes; Alex could see the humiliation that spread over his face as he turned around to face the sink.  Bracing his hands on the counter, Justin’s shoulders sagged even as he moved his feet apart and bent over.  Crouching down, Alex kept his touch firm and clinical as he touched the inflamed skin.

“Did he use a condom?” he asked softly as he glanced upwards, and Justin nodded, a sharp jerk of his head even as his face turned bright red.

Compassion washed over Alex like a wave, and rising to his feet, he picked the tube of topical ointment up and handed it to Justin. 

“Use it; inside and out,” he said gently.  “And if you find fresh blood, I’ll take you to the hospital.  When you’re done… we’re talking this out, Justin.  I can’t in good conscience allow you to continue with this behavior.  You’ve fought too hard to let whatever it is that set you off drag you back under.  I’ll make us some tea.”

Justin swallowed but nodded silently all the same.  And as Alex left the bathroom, he saw Justin lower his head, but not before he saw the look of trepidation cross his face.  Alex’s insides clenched at the look, and he wondered briefly as he headed towards the kitchen if he would be able to soothe the boy, or if making him talk about this was only going to add to his pain.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“I can’t shut them out.”

Justin’s voice was hushed as he cradled the mug of tea that Alex had made him.  His hands had trembled badly enough when Alex had handed him the tea that he had waited until Justin had nearly finished the hot liquid before he had asked what had caused him to seek out physical pain for the first time in several months.  The surprise on Justin’s face had been telling; Alex had gently reminded him of the therapy session they had shared several months ago, just before Brian had found out about Justin’s suicide attempt, where Justin had told Alex that he didn’t understand why the phycologist was pretending to care.

Now as pre-dawn began to lighten the sky, Justin sipped the tea Alex had made him before he made his confession.  Alex shifted his weight on the couch and reached out to lightly touch Justin’s knee.  He had been incapable of maintaining a professional distance tonight; he’d been unable to view Justin as just another patient since almost the first time the young man’s pain had bled through his words.  But when Justin set his mug aside and reached for the hand Alex had rested on his knee, Alex was relieved he had crossed that line.

“Who can’t you shut out?” Alex asked softly, and Justin bit his lip before shrugging.

“The voices.”

“Which voices?” Alex asked, and Justin’s face twisted briefly.

“Brian’s voice.  Michael’s voice.  The voices that whisper that I’m only good enough to be fucked,” he said as his voice briefly trailed away.  “The voices that tell me I’m nothing.  It’s all I hear, Alex.  Michael telling me that I’m nothing to Brian but a trick who stayed too long, while Brian’s voice is telling me that he cares.  They won’t shut up.”

Alex tightened his grip, and when those lost eyes met his own, he gently squeezed Justin’s hand again.

“Do you mainly hear them while you are dreaming, Justin?” he asked, and Justin shrugged.

“Yeah.  Also, sometimes when I am awake; when I’m trying to concentrate.  I’ll be looking at what Murphy wants me to do, and I’ll hear something Brian has said to me.  Or I’ll be walking down the street and see someone that I used to know from Babylon, and I’ll hear the things that guys used to say to me at the diner.”

Alex sighed softly and turned his body slightly so that he was sitting face-to-face with the blond.

“The voices that you hear, Justin, are a combination of two things.  One, they are memories.  Things that you don’t want to deal with.  You don’t want to deal with Brian and the tangled mess of your relationship.  You don’t want to deal with the man himself.  He has hurt you in the past; deliberately, and knowingly.  By pushing him away, you are subconsciously trying to protect yourself from further harm.   

“You are hearing Brian’s voice in your head, because he doesn’t want to go away.  He wants you to talk things out with him, something that you seem hell bent on ignoring.  The memories are rising up in your brain, because you’re burying the things that have the potential to hurt you.  You need to address these things, because if you don’t, you will fall back into that pit you have clawed your way out of. 

“The second thing they represent is a manifestation of your fears.  After Chris Hobbs bashed you, you lost the ability to deflect the hurtful things that people like Michael said to you.  Instead of brushing them off; instead of knowing that they were bullshit, you took them to heart.  You began to believe them.  That is why you are having such a hard time believing what people, meaning Brian, are saying now.  Because when he says that he cares about you, you remember hearing him say that he didn’t care.   

“You believed what people were saying to you.  Instead of deflecting, you are trying to use physical pain to ignore the mental.  You can’t do that, Justin; not when your actions tonight will only add to the mental pain you are still holding back.  Not when it will only be a matter of time before the wrong person picks you up, and they destroy everything that makes you the young man that you are.”

Justin’s breath escaped his mouth with a wheeze, and he flinched when Alex reached out to lightly press against the bruise on his face.    

“We’ll talk about your injuries in a minute.  What I want to know about more than anything tonight, though, is something you said in the bathroom.”  Licking his lips when Justin continued to look at him, Alex took a deep breath and pressed forward.  “Why did you say that you needed a shower when you came home?”

Confusion crossed Justin’s face, and Alex felt Justin’s fingers flex within his own.

“You’ve said it before, Justin, during a therapy session after you had a panic attack.  You asked me not to touch you, that you needed a shower.  I asked you back then why you needed a shower, and you said it was because you stank.  You said the same thing tonight.  Why do you think that?”

Alex tightened his grip when the color abruptly drained from Justin’s face and he swayed on the couch.

“I… I was dirty, Alex… I could smell him all over me…”

Justin’s voice trailed off, and Alex reached out with his free hand to cover the hand that he held.

“You weren’t dirty, Justin.  You’d had sex.  Other than how you use sex as punishment towards yourself, the act itself isn’t dirty.  The way you were showering, Justin… you can’t reach inside yourself to where you believe the ‘dirt’ is.  Those are emotions that you won’t deal with.”

Justin shook his head, but Alex continued to talk over his protests.

“No… I could smell him, Alex… I could smell him, and I…”

“Of course, you could smell him, Justin.  That doesn’t mean you stink,” he said firmly, and he tilted his head when Justin shook his head frantically and pulled his hand free from Alex’s.

“No…it does… I could smell him, so I needed to shower.  I needed to be clean… I wanted to shower, Alex… he said I had to… I… I need to…”

A cold feeling rose from deep within himself, and Alex rose to his feet when Justin stood up and backed away from him.  Jamming his thumbnail between his teeth, Justin’s eyes darted between Alex and the corridor that led towards the bathroom, and Alex stepped into his line of sight.

“Justin.”

Alex reached for the blond when he went to walk past him, and he caught Justin in a loose embrace.  But when Justin struggled to pull free of his arms, he held his hands up as those tear-stained eyes turned towards him.

“Don’t… I need to take a shower, Alex… can’t you just go?”

Grabbing Justin by the hand, Alex firmly pulled him back to the couch and made him sit down.

“Who told you that you smelled, Justin?” he asked firmly, and Justin shook his head again.

“It doesn’t matter,” he began, only to have Alex tighten his hold on Justin’s hand when he went to stand up.

“It does matter, Justin, because this is a real problem,” he said.  “You are using tricking as a way of hurting yourself, but this compulsive need to shower afterwards?  That is hurting you even more.  Who told you that you stank?”

Justin lowered his eyes to the floor, and when he shook his head again, Alex reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Justin… I have seen rape victims act this way,” he said softly.  “The compulsive showers… the belief that they are dirty… these are symptoms of a sexual assault.  I need to know; were you raped before all this started?”

Justin’s eyes flew up to meet Alex’s; the shock on his face was as clear as day, and he spoke so quickly that his words tripped over themselves.  “Brian would never rape anyone!” he said.  “Never!”

That cold feeling inside Alex turned into a block of ice, and he kept both his touch and his voice gentle as he reached out to brush the soft blond hair out of Justin’s eyes.

“But he told you that you stank?” he murmured, and Justin swallowed as he looked away.  But when he finally nodded, Alex had to fight to school his features.

“What happened?” he asked, and Justin’s lips parted slightly before he pressed them together into a firm line.  But when Alex said his name, Justin finally closed his eyes.

“I’d… I’d been out.  It was the second time that I hooked up with Sam and Ethan.  I could smell Sam all over me; the scent of his cologne… the smell of his skin and Ethan’s cum.  When I got home, Brian was there.  He wanted to fuck, but I said I wanted to shower first.  I hated it when he would come home after tricking and want to fuck me.  All I would be able to smell was some other guy all over him…  He came up to me and kissed me… I said no… I wanted to have a shower. 

“He said he didn’t care… he didn’t want to smell soap on my skin, he wanted to smell me.  He was… we ended up on the floor, and I… I wanted him.  I always wanted him, and it was like he couldn’t stop touching me… he hadn’t touched me like that for so long, but then he stopped.”  Justin swallowed as he lowered his eyes, and when he eventually started talking again, his voice was so low that Alex had to lean forward to hear him.  “I asked him why he’d stopped, and he looked down at me… The look on his face…  He said I stank… to go take a shower.  Then he got up and left, and I… I did as he asked, and then I went back to Ethan and Sam’s.”

The ice that sat so solidly in his gut turned into molten anger so quickly that Alex had to briefly press his hand against his stomach.  Biting his lip to keep back the force of that anger, Alex kept his touch gentle as he spoke.  “How did he look at you, Justin?” he asked, and Justin’s eyes fluttered briefly.

“Like he hated me.  Like I’d hurt him… he was disgusted with me, Alex.  I knew that he didn’t want me anymore, but I didn’t… I didn’t understand why he was so angry with me.  I mean… he tricked all the time, you know?  And the one time I tricked alone, he… he hated me for it.”

Shuffling forward slightly, Alex reached out to cup Justin’s face briefly.  And when those troubled eyes met his own, Alex smiled gently in reassurance.

“You did nothing wrong when you had that encounter with Sam and Ethan,” he said firmly.  “Not a damn thing.  What you are doing wrong, though, is continuing to trick the way you are; I know that you don’t get any pleasure out of it.  I know that you didn’t get an erection when you were bottoming for that trick tonight.  Now I need to ask: you told me the last time you got an erection was when Sam topped you.  Have you had one since?”

Justin’s face flamed, and he looked away.

“Tell me,” Alex insisted gentle, and when Justin’s shoulders sagged, his embarrassment came through loud and clear.

“I can sometimes get it up if I know that I’m the one who is going to top,” he said eventually.  “But… I have trouble keeping it up.  I can… I can get the other guy off, but… I haven’t… finished… since that night with Sam.”

Alex nodded silently as he went back over what Justin had said during the last hour and his therapy sessions.  And when he looked back towards Justin, he swallowed hard and then spoke.  “You told me that the last time you got hard was with Sam.”

Justin nodded as he chewed on the corner of his lip, and Alex tightened his grip on Justin’s knee.

“What about later when you went home to Brian?  Did you get an erection?”  Justin gave a tiny nod, and Alex licked his lips briefly.  “Did you reach orgasm then?”  And when Justin closed his eyes and then shook his head, several pieces of the puzzle that had been missing fell into place with a thud.  Blowing out an unsteady breath, Alex spoke quietly.

“As your therapist… and as someone who has come to care for you a great deal, I’m going to be blunt, Justin.  You can’t trick, okay?  You’re doing more harm to yourself than you realize.  You and I are going to discuss your memories and the voices in our next session.  But I want to focus on your tricking, and your lack of erection.  Have you had an orgasm at all since Sam?”

Justin tilted his head slightly before he sighed and then shook his head.  “I came close once; but the trick I was with blew his load, and got hypersensitive, so, I pulled out.  He offered to suck me off, but I was already… I was already going soft, you know?”

“Okay,” Alex said as Justin’s cheeks heated up again.  “What I recommend is this: stop tricking.  I want you to concentrate on masturbating instead.  I want you to watch porn… chat online… whatever it takes to get an erection.  Then try to achieve orgasm.  I want you to write it down in your log; it doesn’t have to be detailed.  Just a simple yes/no on the days that you do it.”

“Why?” Justin asked, and Alex sighed.

“Because Justin, this is all physiological.  You need to find your self-worth again, which is tied to your sexuality.”

Justin’s eyebrows drew together slightly in confusion, and Alex pushed the words out of his mouth.

“Justin… you were abused by the people you loved.  Your father.  Your mother.  Brian.  That abuse leaves scars that we can’t see.  This is one of those scars.  So, until you find the things that you’ve lost, you will never be happy.  You will always feel isolated and alone.  Do you understand?”

Justin nodded as Alex rose to his feet.  Looking down at Justin, he reached out to ruffle his soft, blond hair, before he reached for his jacket.

“Now, I suggest that you go to bed; you have class in a couple of hours.  I’ll come back later tonight.”

Justin stood up, and he winced as he shifted his weight.  But when he looked at Alex, his eyes were finally clear.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” he said softly, as the other man shook his head.

“It’s not you who needs to be apologizing, Justin,” he said, and with a small smile, he let himself out of the apartment.  But as he headed down the stairs, the smile on his face faded.  No, it wasn’t Justin who needed to apologize.  But there were apologies that needed to be made to the young man, if he ever had a hope of recovering.  And it was high time those people were held accountable for the mess that Justin’s mind had been reduced to.