Chapter 14 - Flashback.

Flashback:  A sudden and disturbing vivid memory of an event in the past, typically as the result of psychological trauma.

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Brian's POV

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I can see by the way his eyes are darting around, anywhere but on me, that he's not sold on my proposal yet. I watch, with a growing feeling of dread, as he gets up and walks over to the large loft windows, staring off into the city lights as he muses over what I've said. He presses the palm of one hand against the cold pane of glass, his face a mask of misery and fear, while he works through how he'll respond.  

A good salesman knows when to push his product, though. Anytime you see your target start to waiver, you step in and distract him before he can voice that 'no' that's hovering unsaid on his lips. So, I hop up and interject the first distraction I come across.

"Look. It's snowing again," I say as I point out a few large flakes drifting downward outside the window. "You can't go back out there tonight, Justin. Please. Just stay and let's try this. Please."

I back my plea with a touch. I purposefully come up behind him, place my hands on his slim hips and use my leverage to pull him back against my body. I'm hoping that the contrast between our warm bodies pressed together and the stark, cold desolate picture outside the window will win him over.

I get the impression that he almost longs to be back out there on the street. I can empathize - things are always less complicated when you have fewer choices. On the street, his only choices are where to sleep, when to eat (assuming there's even enough money for food), and how to make enough money to buy the food. There are no complicated questions like, 'should I risk opening up to this virtual stranger and telling him all my secrets'.

Maybe if I start?

"My older sister, Claire, was a mistake. But my parents were Catholic, so there wasn't any question about what my father was expected to do. I've got to give him a little credit for at least stepping up to the plate on that, I guess," I start telling him, whispering my story into his golden hair, though I have no idea why I'm sharing this particular story. "They got married. But things were already going downhill fast when my mother discovered she was pregnant with me less than two years later. Dad wasn't so gullible or so religious or whatever by that point, and he promptly demanded that Joan go get an abortion. Joan wouldn't do it though. And here I am, thirty-some years later as proof.

"But, my father never let me forget how little I was wanted. He must have told me that story a hundred times. It was almost like he was proud of trying to get rid of me before I was even born. I never told him how much it pissed me off every time he told me the story, though. I just sat there and listened and said nothing. I wish now I'd told him just once what a fucking asshole he was for always rubbing that into my face."

"It was my mother," I hear Justin saying after I eventually fall silent. "She used to say she sometimes wished I'd never been born. She wasn't saying it to be mean, though. She was just sad and didn't want me to have to suffer. She would usually be crying when she said it. Usually after my father had done something mean."

"Did he hit you?" I had to ask, even though I was afraid of what the answer would be.

"No. Not really. I mean, I got spanked occasionally just like any other kid when I was little. And when I was older he slapped me once, but I was really mouthing off to him that time - It was right before I left. But other than that he didn't hit me."

I guess that's good." I offer, although I'm not sure what even more horrible shit Justin must have gone through - what was worse than getting hit, that could have caused what I've seen.

"Today at the Diner - you remembered something about your dad, didn't you?" I've got my arms wrapped firmly around him now so he should feel supported when I finally get around to asking him about the incident from earlier. "Can you tell me what you remembered?"

"Did your Dad know you were gay," he asks me, completely out of the blue.

"No. I didn't tell him until a couple months before he died."

"Me neither. At least not at the time. I knew I was gay by the time I was fifteen, maybe earlier. But I knew not to tell my father. He definitely doesn't approve of homosexuality," Justin seems lost in his memory - it's as if he's talking to himself now, unaware of my presence at all. "It's funny that he never figured it out, though. Well, maybe he did but never admitted it to himself. Maybe that's why things kept getting worse and worse about that same time. I wonder."

"Anyway, my best friend was a girl named Daphne. We were pretty much inseparable from the age of five until the end of my sophomore year.  We would always sleep over at each others houses - well, more at her house than at mine. We shared everything: books, music, gossip, even sometimes clothes. We were always together at school and lots of the time away from school too."

"By the time we were sophomores, things at home were getting pretty tough for me. I started falling behind in school, I was falling asleep in classes and other shit. So I got called into the school counsellor's office a lot. I didn't tell her anything, of course - my father would have been really, really pissed off at me for that.

"But, after I got in a fight with someone outside the boy's locker room - because I'd been watching the jocks soap their dicks in the shower and got caught, of course - the counsellor called Daph in to see if she would give some explanations about what was going on with her best friend. Daph let something slip about how I was having trouble with my father - I'm sure it was something relatively innocuous that Daph didn't think would get me into trouble. But the counsellor called my father to discuss it and the whole thing resulted in my father making up some lame ass excuse to justify forbidding me from hanging out with Daphne ever again."

"I had this idea that I could fight him. I wasn't going to let him get away with this. I waited till everyone was asleep and snuck out to go see her. I told Daph a little about what was happening then. We talked almost all night. We had some childish plan about how I would come live with her and everything would be all better," that memory makes me laugh. "My father figured out where I was the next morning and when he and Daph's mom found us, we were spooned up together, in our underwear, sound asleep in her bed. They of course assumed we were intimate. He said the meanest things about her and to her. And to her parents. Nobody listened to anything Daph or I tried to say. See, my sneaking out only helped his plan more. I played right into his hands and gave him the excuse he needed. I was so stupid."

"By the time he was done, Daphne was crying, her parents had insisted that I leave and never come back and my father had accomplished his real goal, which was to strip me of the last person in the world who cared about me. He'd taken my last friend away. After that he even pulled me out of school - said I'd be better off being 'home schooled'. It was like my mother's wish had come true - it was just like I'd never been born, like I didn't exist at all. No one knew or cared if I was alive. No one saw when I disappeared."

"You didn't disappear. You're here now," I say, holding him tightly in my arms to demonstrate my point.

"No. That boy is gone. He's dead. I'm nobody."

No one said anything for a very long time after that. We just stood there together - each one's physical presence supporting the other and reminding us that we were really still here. Justin was so quiet again and so still. I didn't know how he could say what he had without becoming furious. I was - inside I was screaming and raging and I wanted to hit his father over and over again. Outwardly, though, I was almost as calm as he was. I wondered if inside he was just as angry but even better at hiding it than me.

"Why did you think of that when we were at the Diner?" is all I can think of to ask, even though it no longer seems important.  

"It was something Debbie said - when she was arguing with you she used the same words my father said to me that day. 'I don’t care what the hell your dick is telling you . . .'," Justin's imitation of Debbie is spot on. "Isn't that strange? Two such very different people in two completely different circumstances, using the same phrase? What are the odds, huh?"

"Didn't you ever see Daphne ever again?" I eventually ask.

"No. After that he pretty much kept me inside and didn't let me see anyone. I didn't get to see hardly anyone for weeks at a time, sometimes. Not until I finally left."

"What about then. Did you go see her after you left?"

"No. She wouldn't like me. I'm not the person she was friends with for all those years. It's better that that boy just disappeared."

Outside the window the snow is coming down much more thickly now. I briefly notice the way it creates a halo effect around the street lights below. It's going to be another miserably cold night out there and I'm glad my Sunshine will be here, inside, with me, instead.

"See, we can do this, Justin," I say, finally breaking the silence after several long sad moments.  

"But what good does it do? I don't feel any better. Do you?" Justin asks.

"No, I actually feel really shitty right now and I'd like to find your father and beat him to a bloody pulp. That's Jack's influence, I know, but sometimes I'm almost willing to concede he had a point," I snort softly and shake my head at the admission, but I don't want to go there now. "I don't know if this did any good at all, Justin. But it didn't kill us either."

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Justin's POV
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I remove myself from Brian's clasp and walk back to the couch. Every place on my body where He was touching me still vibrates with his energy. I can feel where his lips were whispering into my hair and my scalp, where his fingers gripped my upper arm, where his other hand touched the skin on my stomach, his pinky hooked around a belt loop so his fingers could keep up their constant little motions without losing their place.  

Brian's physical self is so overwhelming and demanding, sometimes it almost makes me forget there is anything outside this room. It's nice to be able to escape from the outside world. And even the bad memories we've been talking about just now feel distant - like they can't touch me while I'm here with Brian.

I can distance myself and escape from the memories, but what I can't escape is the sensation of the bitter cold wind inside me, gusting through that torn place in my gut where my father made a hole in me. The feel of the wind even has a ghost of a sound that I hear in my head - it's a high pitched wailing noise, like you'd hear at the coast on a stormy day, or when a child is crying and rocking himself to sleep alone in his room. I can deal with the memories. But I'd really like to stop the wind inside and the noise it brings with it.

"One week." I say to Brian, as I retreat, for now, back to the comfort and safety of Brian's bed.

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Brian's POV

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We're lying in bed, our limbs loosely threaded together. I wait and listen as Justin's breathing gradually changes, deepens and evens out. I lie awake a lot longer, feeling the rhythms of my body as they gradually slow, matching his.

I hope Ben is right and that we can fix this. Talking about the horrors of our individual childhoods doesn't strike ME as being very productive. It just seems to bring the hurt and sadness back closer to the surface. I'd been able to keep that particular memory of Jack pretty far down in my subconscious for a long time. Now it was right there staring me in the face, so to speak. This is going to help Justin, how exactly?

I do finally fall asleep, Justin's fragile frame still near enough that I'll hopefully know when his demons come back, which they inevitably do in the night. I don't have long to wait, either. I feel him getting restless and hear his incoherent complaints before very long. I'm actually getting rather good at his, I think. I curl my body around him protectively, shoosh him gently until he quiets. And we both settle back to sleep without Justin even coming fully awake.

I really hope Ben is right about all this.

All this mid-day napping and early to bed crap has my body clock really confused. I don't think I've been this well rested since I got my first fake ID. Which probably explains why I'm wide awake at 5:30 am. So what do I do for the next two hours until it's time for me to get up for work?

Justin is lying next to me on his back, his limbs akimbo. I can smell his warm young man scent pervading everything around me and, being so well rested, it doesn't take any time at all for the sight and smell of him to get me incredibly aroused. I made him and myself a promise, though. I'm not going to give in to my desires. I'm going to get out of bed right now, take a cold shower and not think about the boy lying in my bed wearing only a pair of tight, skimpy briefs.

That's what I tell myself. However, as I start to slide out from under the duvet, my movement rouses Justin, who rolls over, pulling my wrist with him as if to use my arm as a cover. This maneuver causes the front of my body to come into contact with his entire length while my innocent right hand just happens to land conveniently on top of his crotch.

And, he's hard. For the first time since he's been here.

The sight and smell of him, the feel of him pressed against me, my cock achingly hard, held between our bodies, and now his hard dick in my hand. I'm not a fucking saint. No one would be able to stop themselves under these circumstances, right?

I grab onto that lovely, thick anchor, through the thin cotton briefs, and start to rub my thumb lightly over the head. There's the tiniest bit of wetness leaking through at the tip and it eggs me on. I can't control that tightening feel in my gut at the same time my own cock twitches a little in anticipation against his thigh. My hand is gripping more tightly now and I let myself stroke him a little more forcefully.

Even that might have been alright if I hadn't lost control even more and let out a gasping moan. "Unh, Justin . . ."

"Mmmm, Brian," I hear as Justin sighs contentedly and moves to snuggle back into my groin even more.  

That's when he freezes. His body becomes stiff and his breathing becomes ragged. I can feel his heartbeat racing. That beautiful handful of boner I had, vanishes almost instantly and he jerks himself away out of my hand. All I'm left with is an armful of trembling blond who is in full blown panic mode already, struggling to get away from me.

"Please, stop. No. I didn't mean to. Really. I'm so sorry. It'll never, ever happen again. I didn't mean to. I couldn't help it. Please don't. Not again, please . . ."

Justin is crawling away from me across the bed. He's begging and pleading with me - to do what, I don't know. I'm still sitting here immobilized with shock and surprise. He doesn't start to quiet until he's all the way in the corner of the room, partially hidden by the night stand. But even then he's still obviously not here in the present

moment. His eyes are focused on something or, more likely, someone who's not here and he continues to mutter while tears stream down his beautiful scared face

I couldn't have just kept my fucking hands to myself?

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Justin's POV

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I'm not even fully awake when he yanks the blankets off me and commences yelling about how I'm an abomination, a sinner, a deviant of the worst kind and not fit to live in a decent home where I'm an embarrassment to my family. What the fuck does he expect? What sixteen year old doesn't wake up with morning wood and his hand on his crotch? He expects me to be able to control my autonomic body responses now too? I wasn't even doing anything. I was asleep for fuck's sake. Fuck this.

I'm just about to finally stand up to the asshole for the first time and tell him exactly what I think of his ridiculous demands when he abruptly walks out of the room. Moments later he returns, my mother now being hauled after him. She's standing there still blinking, still only half awake herself.

Before I can react to this new development, he stomps over to where I'm sitting, grabs a handful of my hair in one hand, yanking my head back and towing me to my feet, while he clenches the waistband of my pajama pants with his other hand and literally tears them off me. I'm half standing, half cringing, completely exposed in front of my parents, with an involuntary hard on and my father ranting about my deviant behavior. I watch, horrified, while my mother drops to her knees, crying, her hands trying to cover her face to hide her own embarrassment.

My father uses the painful leverage he has on my hair to force me to my knees and then throws my head down, releasing my hair finally. I try to catch myself with my hands, but he kicks them out from under me with one easy motion of his foot, causing me to fall flat on my stomach, my chin knocking painfully on the hard wooden flooring at the same time.

'See what you're doing to your Mother, you ungrateful little piece of shit,' he's screaming at me, pointing at my weeping mother. 'I've told you before, boy, that you will not abuse yourself in my house. How many times have you been told? Huh? Answer me! How many times have I told you that this behavior will NOT be tolerated?'

'Many times,' I answer, my head bowed in submission the way I know he expects, no longer in the mood to try to stand up to him.  

'And you're not repentant at all, are you? Well, we'll see what another day of prayer does for you. Get up and get the belt.'

'Father, please, I wasn't doing anything. I was asleep. Really. Please. I've already learned my lesson and I never ever do anything inappropriate like that anymore.'

'Are you calling me a liar, you little son of a bitch? Are you going to try to deny what your mother and I just saw with our own eyes?'

'Craig, please, calm down,' my mother tries to intervene. 'I think you're overreacting. Can't we just . . .'

'You think I'm overreacting, do you? Do you know what this little pervert is up here in his room doing all the time, Jenn? Do you want to know? Well I'll show you, and then you can tell me if I'm just overreacting, hmm.'

Then, father stalks over to me and hoists me back up to my knees. 'Show your mother what it is you're spending all your time up here doing, boy. GO ON! I want her to see just what it is her precious little boy is doing with his dick all day. Then we'll discuss exactly what punishment is appropriate.'

'Craig, this isn't necessary.'

'Do it, you little pervert. NOW!'

'Father, please. I don't want to do this. I promise I'll be better. Please.'

'Don't you dare disobey me on top of everything else, young man. Either you do what I say right this minute or you won't eat again for the rest of the week. I swear to god I'll lock that door and I won't open it again till its time for church on Sunday.'

Oh god! It's already been two days since the last time he let me out to eat. My stomach clenches painfully at the thought of going even another day, let alone the rest of the week, without food. I have no choice.

Closing my eyes to try to hold back the hot angry tears that refuse to stop, I reach down and begin fisting myself. I lost my hard on about ten seconds after he tore my clothes off, but he doesn't care. I'm expected to put on a show to prove how depraved and perverted I am. That's what he demands. Whether or not I'm in the mood for it really doesn't come into consideration. So I keep pumping, ineffectively, while he goes on about MY indecency.

'Open your fucking eyes up, boy. I want you to see what you're doing to your family. I want you to see just how hurt and humiliated your mother is by your actions. This is all your fault and until you learn to control yourself, boy, you'll keep hurting her like this.'

So I open my eyes and watch my mother crying while I jack off in front of her at my father's direction.  

All in the name of decency.

"Justin. Sunshine. Please talk to me. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I had no idea . . . What can I do? . . ."

I'm confused. It sounds like Brian's voice, but it can't be. Brian wouldn't be kneeling on the floor next to me crying. My head is pounding and I can't seem to focus my eyes very well. But the person kneeling next to me, talking to me, sounds like Brian. I need to figure out what's wrong and help him, but I'm having trouble concentrating.

This damn migraine makes everything seem fuzzy, as if the whole world was wrapped in a thin layer of cotton. Thankfully it's dark in here or I'd be in even more pain. I try to slow my breathing and focus my thoughts - that typically will help push the headache pain away far enough that I can get to somewhere safe and quiet where I can rest till its gone. So I try to ignore the sounds of fear and crying and focus on breathing for a few minutes.

I do manage to reach out my hand and find His, which seems to cause the sounds of panic to stop. Once that distraction is gone, it's remarkably easier to concentrate. He's sitting next to me, now, squeezing my hand but thankfully not otherwise touching me - I get so sensitive to even the slightest touch when I get these headaches, so I'm glad Brian isn't trying to comfort me in his usual manner.

"Justin, can you please just tell me what I can do to help you. You look like you're physically in pain. What can I do?" Brian says in a much calmer voice.

"Aspirin. Not Tylenol, though, please. Just plain aspirin," I manage.