Till Death Read online

  I drove with one hand in my pocket. I’d fondle the unloaded gun and think about going on a rampage of some sort. But I couldn’t figure out what kind. Who would I take hostage, what would my demands be? How much money would be enough? Where would I want them to fly the jet? Which of the quirky bank patrons and employees was I going to let go first? The elderly old man with the heart trouble or the pregnant Korean lady? What kind of food would I ask for while the negotiations were going on?

  One after the other, these stories calmed me down. The boy in the back of my car who was constantly in nightmarish sleep would give me courage to keep going. If I could just get somewhere—anywhere—a place that I could stay where I wouldn’t have to face the repercussions of my life choices for one damn day.

  But I knew that place didn’t exist.

  At some point, thunderstorms hit us. I bulled my way through while the rain smashed down. Even with my wipers on extra high they could barely keep up with the torrent. Visibility was practically zero. Maybe I was passing up salvation. Maybe I needed to pull over and find someone nearly as bad off as I was and the opposite of Justin. A guy who wouldn’t know the truth. He’d be a sloppy but fun lay. We’d get wasted and he’d be secretly pleased with my acting roots. He’d think I was the one who would get him out of this town and take him someplace else where he could shine in the bright lights, be a model or be on Broadway.

  We were forced to hole up in a place called the Distee Motel. Justin and I laid together on the double bed and watched cable and ate from the candy machine. There was a diner next door that charged extra for delivery in the storm. We had fried chicken and BLTs and fresh apple pie. The delivery kid was drenched head to foot but looked happy to be getting the extra buck per order. Justin was awake for most of it and he didn’t freak out or try to run even once. I took hour-long hot showers. I ordered pay-per-view movies. I’d forgotten how much I liked to sit back and just watch a flick. Justin started to get better on day two and we were forced to stay in but he didn’t seem to mind.

  Once or twice we tried to pick up conversations and talk like normal people but Justin would just clam up and I’d be left with nothing. I didn’t blame him. I was no longer his savior, I knew that much. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to do just about anything for him. I had a feeling Justin was having the same kind of confusing feelings.

  Our pasts had never seemed to matter in this relationship. I think we were both trying to look to the future and have hope but there were times when we would both end up feeling the brunt of our past lives. I still didn’t know what sort of a past Justin had and how he landed into the business but I was hoping he would tell me. I just didn’t want him to confront something so complex. Maybe it would take him somewhere he didn’t want to go yet. And what would we achieve anyway? Your past doesn’t bring you close, your present does. Even though we are our pasts, our pasts also get in the way of our happiness. That’s something you can’t ignore. That’s something you can’t drive away from or fuck into being false.

  17

  I had seen a picture of my brother on the Google search I did just out of curiosity. I didn't even think there would be much about him on any website but apparently his job required him to have a social networking accounts and a solid web presence. I left Justin in a motel while I went to check out my brother’s place. I had very little money left and I wouldn't be able to continue this way for long but I couldn't bring myself to just land at my brother's place because I felt like I didn't even know him.

  He had kept the place nice enough. It would be an understatement to say that he looked much better than his pictures. Strong, lean, and even though he was about ten years older than me, he was youthful and livelier than me. Around midnight he turned out the lamp and went up to his bedroom, and after an hour he shut out the light and the house went dark.

  I caught a glimpse of him at the refrigerator. In the pale-yellow glow, he appeared dissatisfied and restless. My thoughts kept flitting. I wondered how many photos of us he had in his house. I wondered why I’d called him after my relationship went bust. Or after the cancer diagnosis. It was the last thing I should have done. I crawled into the back seat and got under the blanket and did my best to get comfortable in the cramped space. I wasn’t ready to face him yet. Maybe I never would be. This might be the worst misstep yet.

  I slept a few hours and then got up and turned the dome light on. I pulled out my wallet and looked at the picture of us when we were kids. I was seven, he was seventeen. We’re both grinning like crazy. We’re at the beach. He’s muscular with a resigned air of power and cool. I’m cheesing it up with my front teeth missing. He looks like our father. I don’t look like anybody.

  Our falling out was still a few years off. When I became a teenager his affection for me faltered. He grew hypercritical. He became domineering, overbearing, teasing and down-right nasty. He seethed and hissed at me. I wasn’t athletic. I couldn’t catch a football. I didn’t lift weights. When we played basketball in the driveway he was always eager to throw an elbow into my bulging gut. He talked about making me stronger and healthier. He acted like an angry, frustrated parent. I brought home straight As but they weren’t straight enough. I didn’t get outside enough, I read too much, I watched too much TV, I wasted money on kid stuff like comic books. I still didn’t know why it had gone so wrong. Maybe he had his own premonitions and visions too. Maybe he saw what lay ahead of me and hated me for it. Or himself. Maybe he’d been warning me all along, and I just hadn’t listened.

  The sky began to lighten to a purple blur. I pulled away from the curb and drove through town. It looked familiar but didn’t feel that way. I had that same nervous feeling you got whenever you were lost in some unfamiliar city. Everything put the shits up you. You looked at the faces on the street and wondered which one of them might make a sudden dash for your car and smash the windshield with a brick. You wondered if you might be reading the street signs wrong or heading down a one-way going in the wrong direction. You read about assholes driving the wrong side of the expressway for miles and miles until smacking head-on into a freightliner. Everybody’s always stunned that it could have happened, but all you have to do is come home to find out how. It’s the same feeling. That you’re doing something wrong but you can’t put your finger on it.

  The sun climbed. I passed my neighbor’s house. I spotted a few moderate changes here and there but was surprised it still looked practically the same after all this time. I remembered things. My brother in the driveway fixing my neighbor’s old junker, his head under the hood of the car. Few drops of oil splashed on his tight T-shirt. Thick black veins twisting up his powerful forearms. Every so often a car full of girls would drive by and stop at the curb. They’d wave and call to him and he’d trot down to the street and lean in the window and smile, cool as could be, hip, virile, in charge, and the girls giggling, and he’d pinch one of their chins between thumb and forefinger and leave a dash of oil on her face. They’d drive off to some party and he’d finish up on the car, slam the hood shut, wash his hands, put on a fresh T-shirt, and then follow after.

  I was there in front of the house long enough for an angry face to appear at the front door. I remembered it as belonging to our neighbor. He’d been freshly married then. He and his wife were ecstatic about buying their first home. Now he looked like he was ready to defend the place with his life. If anyone dared to step foot on his property he’d grab up a shotgun. His eyes burned like twin lakes of flaming gasoline. He’d hold the bankers at bay, the police, the SWAT teams, the communists, the alien hordes, the barbaric populace of disintegrating cities. I thought I should’ve done it myself for my own home. I should have mined the yard. I should have held out at the front window with a rifle in my hands. I should have protected my home. I should have fought for it. I should have died for it.

  He glowered and rushed out and started to run at my car. I didn’t know what troubles he had on his mind but there must’ve been plenty of them. Maybe
he thought I was a bill collector or a process server. Maybe his wife had left him and was sending her lawyer around. Busted water pipes, termites, damp rot. County taxes, hazard insurance, backed up cesspool. I stomped the gas pedal and ripped out down the street. He fell in behind me and sprinted a hundred yards before he finally took a tumble and lay on the asphalt sucking wind.

  I drove to the motel.

  18

  We fucked and slept and fucked and slept and slept and fucked again.

  Around evening, Justin gently reminded me that I was trying to avoid the confrontation with my brother. "You realize we're still in a motel, right?" he said. "We were supposed to be staying at your brother's place."

  "I'm aware of that, Justin."

  "Just think maybe you need a little push."

  "Look, it won't kill us to stay here one more night."

  "No, but it might kill the little money that we have... you have."

  "What's mine is yours, baby boy."

  "Heard that before!" Justin said playfully and poked me in the chest. He had to practically force me to put some clothes on and then we proceeded to check out. He was adamant that we leave right away so we got in my car and I drove to Kevin’s place.

  By midnight, we pulled into his driveway. It was time to face him. As I crossed the yard he nodded to me without expression, but he still managed that smug grin of self-righteousness. I smiled pleasantly. He gave me the first of the sad, slow once-overs. I knew more would be coming. He didn’t even so much as acknowledge Justin.

  “That’s Justin,” I introduced him. “Justin, meet my brother.”

  Justin, ever the people person, held out his hand. “It’s good to meet you, sir.”

  Kevin made a huge deal out of the simple handshake with a kind of a frown that would have been visible for miles. Some people hide their real feelings, but not my brother apparently. If Justin noticed it he didn’t show. “What do you do, Justin?”

  “Come on, Kevin! You’re not going to do the interrogation right here?”

  "I'm sorry, Trent. Didn't realize you don't want to tell me what he does for a living."

  "He doesn't do anything, Kev. He looks after me."

  "Usually it’s the parents who take care of the children," my brother joked but we all knew it was meant to be a jab our age difference.

  Justin was smirking and I wanted to give him a serious pounding.

  Finally, Kevin gave up. "Anyway, let's go inside and we can talk some more. Justin, I'd love to hear more about you."

  Justin eyed me skeptically and I shrugged.

  Here goes nothing.

  19

  Justin was sitting in the tub, blowing at bubbles and playing with foam . “How could anyone be that juvenile and still call themselves an adult?”

  The grin that appeared on Justin’s face made him look even more childlike. But I pretended to be offended. “It’s not supposed to be funny,” I said, sipping on the wine I stole from Kevin’s expensive stash.

  Justin pressed his foot between my legs. “It’s not Daddy?”

  I couldn’t keep myself from grinning like an idiot and I knew Justin would count that as a win. He was more drunk than I was but I always lose my inhibition and the first sign is the uncontrollable laughter.

  “Why didn’t you hand me to the cops?” I wanted to know.

  “What’s the matter, Daddy? Getting a guilty conscience?”

  “Why haven’t you done it?”

  Justin sipped more of the wine. “You know why.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Daddy. Stop it.”

  “No.”

  “In retrospect,” Justin began. “It’s the hottest thing that happened to me.”

  I stared at him. “Being raped and almost murdered? You found this hot?”

  “Don’t judge me.”

  “I’m not… fuck. What did they do to you?”

  “They?”

  “The people who gave birth to you.”

  “How should I know! I never knew them.”

  “You never knew your parents?”

  “No. Just the foster parents. Moms and Dads who’d try to fuck me and worse.”

  “They all did that?”

  “Is this turning you on?”

  “Justin.”

  “Come on Daddy,” Justin moved that foot all over my chest. “I’m so fucking horny,” he said. “I want you to tear me apart.”

  I finished my wine. I couldn’t drink anymore so I set the glass on the floor and stood. I took Justin’s glass and tilted it a little, until the red liquid was falling on Justin’s face. “You’re filthy,” I said. “I can’t fuck you if you’re filthy.”

  For once, Justin was silent. I picked up the washcloth and dipped it in the foam. “Get up.”

  Justin stood and almost slipped but I caught him. I placed the washcloth on his chest. I started cleaning him up, gently but firm. I ran it all over his shoulder, and the chest, and I kept going lower. I used the cloth to rub his cock. There were a few traces of semen around the head. I went on my knees on the tub floor and checked thoroughly. “I’m sorry, son if this is uncomfortable,” I said. “But you can’t be truly clean if you have even a single trace of sperm.”

  Justin seemed speechless but by then he was getting into it, especially when my ‘cleaning’ produced an erection. “Yes, Daddy.”

  I took ample time around his balls just to tease the little fucker and then stopped. “Looks like your front is finally clean,” I announced. “Why don’t you turn around?”

  He turned and placed his hands on the wall. I dipped the washcloth in water again and used it everywhere but his ass. I could tell he was getting impatient and it made me laugh but I stopped myself. “Justin, will you do me a favor and let me see your hole?” I said. “So I can clean it up?”

  It took him some time to bring down his hands and they were trembling. I didn’t think much of it. “Go ahead, son. Nothing to be embarrassed about,” I said. “Everyone does this. Now open up. Let me see you.”

  Justin used both his hands to open himself up. “Yes, Daddy.”

  I placed the cloth to his hole but I needed to get in deeper. “You need to open up more,” I said, and he complied.

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  I started using the washcloth to rub him gently, going all over his puckered hole and my dick was hard and I badly wanted to ram that in instead of the cloth. Thinking that was enough foreplay, I stood, my entire body behind his, my cock hardened as it touched Justin’s backside. I pushed him and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “You’re clean now,” I said. “Let’s test out that hole of yours.”

  Justin was breathing hard. His eyes were closed. I placed my cock near his ass and instead of enjoying it, he freaked out. “Stop, please.”

  “Justin, what’s wrong?”

  He practically pushed me away and got out of the tub. “Justin?”

  “I... uh… it was too much.”

  “Justin, you’re shaking.”

  “It’s cold in here.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  And then it dawned on me. “Did something like this actually happen?”

  He looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I’m being dramatic.”

  “No, Justin, tell me what happened. Everything.”

  “Come on, Trent!”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me.”

  He knew I was stubborn so he spilled. “One of my foster fathers,” he began. “Used to say I needed to be ‘clean.’ That God was watching and if I didn’t want god to be angry, I should always be clean. But the thing is it didn’t matter how much I cleaned myself, there would always be surprise inspections. I never passed them. Never. The sick bastard just wanted a reason to touch me.

  “Well, one day he comes in my room, middle of the night. I can’t say no to him, so I think what the hell, just get it over with, right? It’s just touching! But when I get to the bathroom, he’s got his dick out. It’s like this huge fucking th
ing and enormous balls just hanging there… I was fucking twelve! I didn’t know what the fuck to do.

  “I couldn’t fight him, he was too big and strong and I was always small. I mean I know I could have done something. But I… I froze. I… I couldn’t… and he… he started fucking me, right? And it won’t even go in and he uses spit… then he’s able to fucking get it past the opening but he says that his cock feels constricted. So, he just… he… tore me up. Literally, like I passed out and everything.

  “They had to take me to the hospital. His wife woke up and saw us. He must have panicked so he took me to the emergency room.”

  “Jesus. Justin. Did he at least get jail time?”

  “Are you kidding? No. His wife and him, they covered it up. Told me to keep quiet or I’d get in trouble. I was terrified of them. I just wanted it to be over. So I told the cops a stranger did it. I mean, I was in pain from the surgery they did to fix me. It was horrible. I just wanted to go home.”

  “You continued to live with them?”

  “It would have looked suspicious otherwise. But they told me I could leave after a year by then the whole incident would have been forgotten.”

  “Did you?”

  “The guy never touched me again. So, it wouldn’t have made sense. I’d been with other families, they were no better.”

  “Fuck Justin,” I cursed. “Come here.”

  He hesitated, but then walked up to where I was standing. I hugged him. Hard. Like I was about to squeeze the life out of him. I hauled him off his feet and held him over my shoulder and he kept struggling and laughing. “Stop it, Trent!”

  I dropped him on the bed and he stopped laughing. He looked confused and probably trying to figure out what I was thinking.

  “I don’t think I could love you anymore,” I said.

  He started to cry. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Trent. I’m such a fuck up. I never wanted to screw assholes for a living. But I was broke and living on the streets. It’s not like I have any other qualifications. This was the only job I couldn’t screw up. Everyone else I ever worked with they made me feel stupid.”