“I’m simply following my desires. I was born with them. I am as I am, how the biology and the environment made me, and the best thing I can do is be myself, please myself, and live without regret. I can’t help being what I am. I didn’t ask to be this way. Nature made me so. But who is to tell me I’m wrong? If I’m wrong, Nature is wrong.”
“You’re making my head spin.” She raised her hand and massaged her forehead.
“With everything we consume, with everything we experience, we rewrite our DNA. I am galvanizing myself …” I paused. “I will be stronger than the rest …” The pain was bleeding through again. It was taking longer to convince her than I had hoped. I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes. This would be a marathon of endurance.
Susan glanced up at me. “How bad is it?” she asked.
“A seven,” I said, using the pain scale I always used with the doctors.
“Do you want more?”
“Please.”
She approached the bed. I knew I must have looked bad. I saw it in her eyes. I knew her worry so well.
“We have to get you to the hospital. I’m still not convinced you haven’t suffered a concussion. You’re going to need reconstructive surgery. I’ll tell them what I did. I won’t be like you. I won’t accept myself as an animal. I don’t care what they do to me.”
“I accept you. I love you, woman who smashed me down. You are perfect as you are. Don’t believe in the lies the world tells you. Don’t believe in the lies you tell yourself. All you have to do is believe in us.”
She looked at me like I was insane, but there was also a hint of fascination in her eyes. I was making progress.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I said simply. “I’d rather stay here and die.”
I was sure that would win her over, but she snapped up.
“Just stop it. You’re messing with my head.” She paced again. “I’m going to call the ambulance, and we’re taking you to the hospital. It’s the only way.”
“You’ll ruin it all. They will arrest you. They will institutionalize me. Just when we’re closer than ever, you will be tearing us apart.”
“You are delusional! What kind of life do you expect us to live?”
“A life according to our own true desires. Susan, don’t you see? We have a love that others dream of. A real love. No lies. No secrets.”
“No secrets ...” she repeated. Her eyes dulled. I knew she was replaying our little exchange in her mind. “What I did … I don’t know what it means, but it frightened me.”
“I saw it,” I said. “You were alive for the first time.”
She raised her palm. “I said stop it, John.”
The windows were black, the sky inky dark now. She fumbled for the lamp switch. The feeble yellow light did little to illuminate the cluttered room. She felt around the surfaces with her hands.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for my phone. I don’t want to entertain this idea any more. I just want to get you help. I mean, you think we’re going to live happily ever after? You think I’ll let you continue this game now that I know?”
“You can help me. You liked it, I know you did.”
She clenched her teeth and roared through them. “No, I did not. I did not like it. Stop saying that!”
“Don’t make the call, Suze. Just hear me out. Let me confess my life in its entirety. You’ll be the only one to ever know how I became like this. Then you can leave me forever.” I knew the end of my story would appeal to the empathy I always counted on. “Trust me, darling. If you want to help me, you’ll need to hear this.”
She sighed and slumped onto the mattress again, the phone hanging in her limp hand. Before she could object, I continued where I had left off.
*
By the time I was sixteen, my sessions with Pete had tapered off. I had become more adept at hurting myself and causing all manner of infections and disease. Only once in a while did I require his help.
One night, while Mother was at one of her mysterious lady’s events and Father was abroad, as usual, I had an idea. I got ready to pay a visit to the garage. I told Greta that Pete was showing me how to fix cars.
“It’s time for you to settle down for the night,” she said. “You know you are delicate. If your mother finds out ...”
“Please don’t tell, Greta,” I said. “It’s the only fun I have.”
“It’s nice you are interested in learning these things with Peter,” she mused. “It’s good for you to spend time with a man.”
Yes, Pete, my replacement father figure. So tender was our bond. I stifled the sarcastic laugh shaking my bruised rib cage. Greta smiled and nodded, and I walked out into the muggy night. Goosebumps spread over my skin at the thought of this new pain. I couldn’t stop myself. Not now. It was like I’d discovered a new world. A special place away from a mundane and lonely life, and I had so much to explore.
I always hated Pete’s expression when I walked in. No matter how many times we did it, he always looked like a dumb, scorned dog about to be beaten.
“Oh Pete, please get that pathetic look off your face.”
“When is this gonna stop? I keep thinking you’ll grow out of it, but you keep walking through that door.”
“Get over it,” I said, pulling my shirt over my head and tossing it aside. “I’m not planning on stopping anytime soon.”
That night I asked him to use the vice. The crushing pressure created a strange burning sensation I had not experienced before. My hand, though fair and lithe, was large now, and the older I got the more pain I could take.
“Keep going, keep going.” It was getting to be unbearable. I felt uneasy. We were missing something. “The record, you idiot.” I said. “How could you forget it?”
“Sorry,” he said, lumbering over to the player and putting on the song.
As I waited for him, I relaxed into the pain. The endorphins rushed into my blood; my cheeks were burning, and I smiled and sank back into the music.
Pete returned and slowly began turning the lever, watching my face with every twist. “Stop looking at me,” I said through clenched teeth. I gulped in some air. “The stick, the stick.” I said. He handed me an old tool handle, already riddled with my teeth marks, and put it in my mouth. I clamped down and signaled to him with a flipping of my other wrist to keep turning the crank. Pete’s astonished stare was ruining my enjoyment, and I thought that one day I would find some pretty lady to do this for me instead of the ugly, stinking fool.
“It’s going to crush you,” he said.
At this point I was shuddering with the delight of this sustained crushing sensation. I panted, and I reveled in it. I laughed at the unbelievable intensity of it. My hand sandwiched in the press was dark purple, but appeared to remain sound. I hadn’t heard the crunch of bone yet, but I didn’t want to go that far. Not tonight. I had to save something new for later. I held up my palm to gesture him to stop. The blood burned beneath my cheeks, and I breathed so violently I began to feel dizzy. The song ended.
I stretched open my mouth and allowed the stick to fall to the floor. “Take it out,” I said.
He spun the crank backward.
“Not too fast,” I said hoarsely.
He slowed his tempo, and I watched as my hand fill out to normal shape. I felt the blood trickle into it, being absorbed into my flesh, and a dull aching settled in with it. I stood up, gently flexing my fingers and rolling my wrists, positively glorying in the relief. At that point, my erection was pressing against my jeans. Peter glanced at it, and I shot him a scornful glare.
“Get back to work.”
I left Pete there under the light scratching his head and mumbling in a frenzy. I stumbled into the darkness, sucking the sweet summer night air into my nostrils and giggling with delirium. I was so aroused I could hardly wait to get into some quiet spot so I could satisfy myself.
I feared Greta would stop and talk to me again if I attempted to go through
the house up to my bedroom. That would surely be a buzzkill. Instead, I walked behind one of the ducklings—the guesthouse, our future home. I rubbed myself all the way with my good hand, waving the injured hand to and fro to keep the throbbing pain going. Once tucked in between two bushes on the far side of the house, I yanked my zipper down just enough so I had room to grip my penis. I stroked myself with the crushed hand. The pleasure combined with the pain radiating from my clumsy digits was a juxtaposition that sent me reeling. As I caught my breath, I jumped at the sound of tires crunching over the gravel.
I fastened my pants and skulked to the corner of the little house to peek at the drive. I saw my mother’s car pull up. Another pair of headlights beamed behind her. I felt giddy and mischievous, like when I used to hide from her as a child. I spied on her stepping out of her car. The driver pulled away, and I was able to see the figure of a tall, erect man exit the sports car parked behind. He straightened his tie before clasping my mother’s outreached hand. Then he pulled her toward him for a kiss on the lips. They laughed and walked up the steps together, swaying as if they were tipsy. I saw the yellow light from the house slice into the night like a scythe and then disappear as they closed the door.
There was no Ladies Club. No garden parties. There never was. She was always with him. This mystery man.
I was so angry I didn’t feel the pain anymore at all. Hot tears wetted my face, stinging the rims of my eyes. Of course she couldn’t love me. She had someone else. I wept like I had when I was younger, and that made me even more furious. That man had taken what was mine. I wanted to confront them, but I had to regain my composure. Whoever her lover was, I didn’t want him to see me cry.
I waited, minute after minute, trying to let it sink in. Part of me, the boy, wouldn’t accept it. Little John had some innocent explanation, but the new adult that had bloomed within me knew without a doubt what happened between a man and a woman who touched like that. I struggled to close my feeble hand into a fist and then pounded the brick wall until the pain flooded me again. I cried out, cursed, hit the wall with one final, powerful blow, and then staggered from the bushes toward the house.
Safe in the darkness, I walked freely outside the house, trying to find a clear spot in the shrubbery so I could get a look through the immense white-paned windows. I heard them in the sitting room. So strange it was because I never heard my mother laugh. It was like I was observing a completely different woman. Not a rigid, angry woman. A soft and yielding woman with a seductive laugh. Then there was a playful scream and a moan.
I had to see with my own eyes.
My chin reached over the windowsill when I stood on my tiptoes, and I saw the man’s body covering her. His hands slid up her pantyhose, pulled up the hem of her dress, and nested between her thighs. The back of his head rolled as he suffocated my mother with his face and body. She made a soft, womanly sound that was alien to me. No, it couldn’t be her, I thought. I was mistaken. It must be some houseguest come to stay, I reasoned, one of father’s business associates who came to have a prostitute while away from his wife. My brain thought of many ludicrous scenarios, even though I knew I was not mistaken about seeing my mother’s silhouette exit her very own car and enter our home as only the owner of a house would.
I crept around the side of the house to the side door. The kitchen was empty and dark. It was very late, and Greta had long gone to her room. I slipped off my shoes and left them outside. I stepped into the house, leaving the door open so as not to risk making a sound and disturbing them. I slid on my socks over the marble, out of the kitchen and into the shadowy silence of the hall, until I was able to clearly hear their voices.
“Stop it,” she said. Her tone became more serious. “We have to talk about a contingency plan. What if he leaves the company to you-know-who.”
“That’s highly unlikely,” the man said. I noticed something familiar about his voice.
“He despises me,” Mother said. “He’ll never forgive me for what happened to her.”
“That was a long time ago,” the man said. “And the boy is still too young to take over. He won’t leave little John without a provider. It’s the least he could do for you, taking care of his son all these years.”
“Is that why you’re still with me? In case I get the company, you won’t be left out?” She scolded, but in jest.
“Absolutely not. I love you. God, so many years, and you doubt me now?”
“Honestly, I can’t stand it anymore. I spent my whole life in the same house with a sickly boy, taking care of him. I can’t endure it any longer, not when he’s so hateful. You must see it too. There’s something malevolent about him. I’m afraid of him now.”
I deduced that they could only be talking about one person. I tried to quickly test all other possibilities in my mind. But no, they were talking about me. Scenes from throughout my life flashed through my mind—her aversion to my touch, her contemptuous stare, the plain hatred that I refused to believe. Why? What had I done?
The couple stopped and jerked their heads toward me. Then I realized they jumped because I had been making a horrible humming sound.
“Johnny,” my mother breathed. I saw her clearly now with disheveled hair and smeared lipstick.
“It’s late. What do you want, Johnny?” the man said in the same stern tone as my father. He even looked like my father, the same shrewd brow and tall build, but it wasn’t my father. It was Uncle Richard.
I couldn’t stop humming. It just came out of my chest, and I unconsciously squeezed my injured hand in intervals. It pacified me.
My mother removed the terrified look on her face. She mindfully composed herself: stood up, straightened her skirt, smoothed her hair, and walked up to me. “This is an adult matter.”
“Oh really?” I said. “My uncle and my mother?”
Her expression became worried for a moment. She reached out to me. “Please don’t speak of this.”
Uncle Richard leaned back into the leather coach and lit a cigarette. “He’s practically a man,” he said. “You understand, right?”
“No, he doesn’t,” my mother hissed at him over her shoulder.
“He’s not stupid, Lyla.” Uncle Richard looked so sure of himself that I wanted to tackle him. He had taken her away from both my father and me, and he sat there smugly like he owned the place. “He may be weak in the body, but not in the mind. No, he’s a clever one. Don’t be fooled.”
I was still humming, shaking, and squeezing the bones in my fingers with my good hand.
“Stop that sound,” Mother said to me. She looked down and then scanned me. Her gaze paused when she saw my hand with its fingernails purple with blood. “What happened to you? What happened to your hand?”
“Whore,” I said. “Whore. Whore.”
Her eyes filled with rage, and she slapped me across the face.
I laughed. “Hit me again, you whore.”
She slapped me repeatedly.
“Yes, yes, do it again. Whore! Whore!”
Her slaps came harder and faster.
“Lyla,” Uncle Richard said, looking concerned.
“No, no. He deserves it. The little freak.” She continued to slap me, and I started laughing so hard I couldn’t stop myself.
“What’s wrong with you? Stop laughing!” she shrieked. I tasted blood on my teeth.
“Lyla. He’s not well,” Uncle Richard stood up.
“He’s perfectly fine. You’re right. He knows exactly what he’s doing. And it’s time he knows the truth.”
“Don’t,” Richard warned. He extended his arm, but seemed reluctant to touch her while she was stiff with anger.
“You call me a whore?” she screamed. “You’re a bastard! You’re a little bastard!”
Something about the way she said it, yelling it with such finality and such vehemence, made it resound within me. I stopped laughing and stood straight.
Richard lowered his arm. His jaw was clenched, and he avoided my eyes.
“She’s just angry,” Uncle Richard said.
My mother breathed hard, her chest rising and falling like a bellow, her eyes seething.
“Calm down, darling.” My Uncle Richard finally grabbed her wrists. She looked at his tender gaze, and her eyes cleared. She somehow shrunk, looking vulnerable. “I’m sorry,” she said to him. I could see she felt safe with my uncle. She let her guard down completely with him.
As if suddenly remembering I was there, that she was emotionally naked in front of me, she looked up with unsure eyes. I felt I was witnessing something secret, this unknown side of my mother. She was human and weak with emotion. She was suffering, and even though I didn’t know why, for a moment I wanted to know. The way Uncle Richard soothed her—it was a tenderness I’d only read about in books and seen in movies. She truly loved him. Loved him and loathed me. Could she hate my father so much that she couldn’t love me simply because I was part of him?
I looked down at her trembling figure. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again to him, not to me. Richard guided her toward the sofa, poured Scotch into a heavy crystal tumbler, and secured it in her shaking hand. She dabbed her eyes with his kerchief between sips of liquor.
Once she was settled, Uncle Rich approached me. “Johnny, we need to talk.”
“Not now,” my mother said. “I can’t handle anymore tonight.”
“Everything is blown wide, Lyla. We might as well lay it all out on the table.”
She sipped her drink again and gazed at the floor in front of her as she waited for Uncle Richard’s words.
“You’re father is dying,” he said.
“What?” It was the last thing I expected to hear. As far as I knew, my father was indestructible, made of cold steel.
“He has stage four renal cancer.”
I felt disappointed. I always pictured him dying in some noble way. Cancer was so plebeian, but I thought of how Father had been acting lately. He avoided me more than ever. If I caught him at home, he never made eye contact with me. He would ask a few obligatory questions and then dismiss me as if I was the last thing on his mind. I felt a certain anxiety in him, as if now his life depended on avoiding me. In fact, we hadn’t spoken in months.
SICKER: Psychological Thriller Series Novella 2 Page 5