by Lynn VanDorn
November, nine years ago
Bridges to Salvation
Springtown, WI
Tyler lay in bed, shivering, and hoped he wouldn't be one of the unlucky ones to be singled out that night. You never knew. They liked to keep you guessing. You would lie there, hearing the muffled sounds the chosen ones made, and hope that your door would be the one that got passed by that night.
He'd been counting the days as they passed, keeping track. His father had paid for three weeks of what this place had the gall to consider treatment. There were eighteen marks in Tyler’s notebook. He’d be able to go home soon. He just needed to hold on a little longer.
The sounds began to taper off, only the low, constant of Trev’s crying remained, and Tyler was so used to the sound that it might as well have been white noise. He started to breathe easier. It was going to be okay. One more night endured, and tomorrow would be one more day to get through.
Then the handle to his door turned and he knew the night wasn't over yet.
–—
Friday, September 23rd, 4:04 a.m.
The bedroom of a very nice hotel suite
Manhattan, NY
“You were raped?” Josh asked, feeling sick and yet unsurprised.
“Yeah.” Tyler’s voice was quiet but steady. “Four times while I was there. There didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it. Some of the boys were never touched as far as I know. There was one kid they… visited… every damn night. Christ if I know why. I've wondered about it for years. There were rules. So many rules, and just as many punishments. Each one was a tool they used to modify our behavior. That was the line they fed us from day one. But the night visits were something else. Extracurricular, if you know what I mean.”
“Not sanctioned by the staff?”
Tyler let out a mirthless laugh. “Depends on the staff. Certainly, the ones who came at night sanctioned it. As for the rest, I don't know if they knew and turned a blind eye or what. Only that I never knew why they came or didn't come. They were a law unto themselves, and they knew none of us would complain. Who would we complain to?”
Part of Josh wanted to apologize for making Tyler tell him any of this, but he decided that if Tyler was willing to talk, the more chivalrous side of himself could go fuck off for a bit. “And that burn on your leg?”
Tyler ran his fingers idly through the hair on Josh’s chest, the touch seeming to provide him with some measure of comfort. “Of course you want to know about the burn.”
“Professional curiosity,” Josh replied.
“Professional curiosity, my ass. You’re just a nosy fucker.” Tyler let out a gusty sigh. “Also manipulative. You think you can manage me.”
“I don't want to manage you,” Josh said. “I want to know you. The real you. Not one of the roles you play: shameless flirt, bitchy diva, charming actor, arrogant smartass, etc. That's just window dressing.”
“You don't want much, do you?” Tyler let out a low, unhappy laugh, but his hand didn't stop stroking Josh’s chest. Josh wasn't even sure if Tyler was aware he was doing it.
“How did you get the burn?” Josh persisted, keeping his tone calm and even.
Tyler sighed. “You aren't going to give up, are you?”
“No.”
“Fine. If you must know, each time they came into my room I fought them. I knew it would've been easier if I didn't, but I had to, you know, even knowing it wouldn't do any good. That fifth time they tried to… I kicked out, blindly, and got one in the kneecap. Matt. As I found out later, I dislocated it. All I knew at the time was that he started to scream and it brought others. The staff who weren't involved in the nightly visits. I thought I was saved.”
Josh could hear the “but” in there. “What happened then?” he asked, his voice not much louder than a whisper.
“They saw I was naked and I was told to put on my pajamas. Then they said I would see the head pastor in the morning.” Tyler gave another of those unhappy laughs. “I didn't have pajamas. To the best of my knowledge none of us did. It wasn't part of the uniform I was given when I got to the camp. I was told by Matt and Greg that very first day I was to sleep naked, that any deviation from that would be punished. I was sixteen, far from innocent in any sense, and not stupid. I knew what that meant. I knew it from the start. I counted myself lucky that they’d only come four times. I didn't know what punishment they would have given out for wearing anything to bed, and I hadn't been willing to find out. But I didn't think either Matt or Greg would be making a repeat visit that night, and it was wonderful sleeping in my clothes for a change. Even with Trev still crying.” He was quiet for a long time, then he said, “I sometimes wonder what happened to some of the other guys there, especially him. He was so broken. I wonder if he got better. If he ever got help, and is okay now, with a nice boyfriend and a passel of corgis. Trev had this thing for corgis.”
“That’s a nice thought.”
“But not fucking likely. I know the statistics. I looked them up when I got home. I got all kinds of information on how what happened to me was forty flavors of fucked-up, not to mention illegal as shit. I had all these ideas about getting that place shut down, although in the end it came to nothing. You know who helped me with that, who did the most to confirm that what had happened to me was wrong in every way? You'll laugh. My guidance counselor, the one I ended up having sex with. Well, oral sex. I didn't let him near my ass. I didn't let anyone near my ass for a very long time.”
Josh didn't laugh. He made a movement and Tyler stilled him, his arms holding him in place. “Anyway, I was lucky. I had this place I could go to in my head, a place that they couldn't touch, and I never, ever bought into their bullshit. I knew they were the wrong ones, not me. But some of the others, especially Trev, weren't like that. They drank the Kool-Aid. They believed what they were told. Or maybe they were just too tired to fight it. I don't know. They nearly broke me, though. They came very close. And they left scars.”
“Like your leg.”
“Yeah. And…” Tyler stopped, then took a deep breath, “the dreams. Can't forget the dreams, as much as I'd like to. One of these days, maybe my subconscious will get the memo I'm safe. Until then…” Josh felt Tyler’s shrug as it traveled through his body, lifting then dropping his pectoral and external oblique muscles, sliding satiny skin along his bare back. “I've learned to live with it. It's not always this bad, you know. I sometimes go months without having one. It's been a stressful week.”
Josh turned his head to try and see Tyler’s face but Tyler used his unoccupied hand to stop him, holding his head in place by the simple expedient of running his fingers through Josh’s hair. “Do you want to get dressed?” Josh asked, wishing he could see Tyler’s expression. “Put on something besides just underwear?” It occurred to him that when Tyler woke from a nightmare he always got up, and when he came back to bed he'd no longer be naked. Josh had noticed, but hadn't attached any significance to it.
Tyler bent to place a soft, chaste kiss on Josh’s cheekbone. “Sure, but it can wait.”
Tyler was quiet for a few minutes, the only indication that he wasn’t asleep the slow movement of his fingers in Josh’s hair and on his skin. Josh was beginning to think that he was going to have to prompt Tyler again, but then he continued.
–—
November, nine years ago
Bridges to Salvation
Springtown, WI
Tyler followed Mrs. Roth (no first name for her) from his room to Pastor Steve’s office the next morning. He wasn't taken to eat breakfast with the others, but that was just as well because he didn't think he could eat a bite.
They would ask him about those nights when Matt and Greg came into his room. He would have to talk about it and he wasn't sure he could. The words would lodge in his throat and choke him.
“Mr. Chadwick,” the pastor said. “Your time with us is drawing to a close, and I am extremely saddened to be having this conversation this morning.”
It's not going to be a picnic for me, either, Tyler thought.
“Your punishment for your loathsome attempted seduction of two righteous men will be branding. You may take the rest of the day to reflect on your sins. There is still time for you to repent.”
“What…” Tyler was thrown. Loathsome seduction? Branding? Repent? “My what?”
The pastor touched the intercom button on his desk. “Please send them in,” he said.
The office door opened and several members of the male staff trooped in. Apparently, it took six men to subdue one scrawny teenaged boy. He was made to kneel on a wooden prayer bench, his hands secured behind his back, his head held down, and his ankles restrained with his pant leg on the right side rucked up to his knee. Something was stuffed into his mouth and then he heard Steve say, “This is your punishment for being the tempter, like Lucifer.”
Tyler could smell something strange (hot metal, he realized later), then his leg was a screaming white mass of pain. Unbearable, impossible pain. He fainted.
When he woke, he was in his room. His bandaged leg burned like a million molten needles pierced it. At other times, it burned with what felt like electric current. At others, it was like a paradoxical freezing, bitter cold seared him. In between was blessed numbness.
Tyler lay on his bed, involuntary tears leaking out of his eyes, and endured. Two more days. Instead of marking the days, he started marking the hours.
–—
Friday, September 23rd, 4:25 a.m.
The bedroom of an expensive hotel suite
Manhattan, NY
“It's a snake,” Josh said, “isn't it?”
“The serpent that tempted Eve,” Tyler confirmed. “Always there so I can't forget it.”
“That’s just bullshit. How is that place not shut down?”
“Of course it's bullshit!” Tyler’s voice was as sharp as a cracked whip. “Even at sixteen I knew it was bullshit. That it was fucked-up and evil. And my parents sent me there. Twice.”
“Your mother…”
“Look,” Tyler said fiercely, his fingers tightening in Josh’s hair. “I love my mother and she let that happen to me. I don't like to think about it much, because I love her, and she loves me, and she was stuck. She tried to stop him, I know, but yeah, I wonder if she could have tried harder. I wonder why she didn't leave and take me with her earlier. But it doesn't do any good, you know? If I blame her, too, what do I have left? Nothing.”
Josh rubbed his head against Tyler’s shoulder. “It's okay,” he said. “You can blame and forgive whoever you want. Okay?”
Tyler was quiet for several minutes. “I guess,” he said eventually. “Anyway, I came home, sick, feverish, the burn on my leg infected. Mom and Dad argued the whole drive home. She wanted to take me to the hospital. Dad said I could go to our family doctor in the morning. Mom called Brad, and he came over and took one look at my leg and said if they didn't take me to the ER then he would and fuck them both. His actual words. It's one of my few clear memories from that day. So, that was another hospital visit, and Dad made up some story about how I burned my leg. Some fictional accident that happened on a fictional vacation. It's always some accident, isn't it?”
Josh thought back to his residency, the one that had ended with his own ass in the ICU. It was indeed amazing how many accidents you saw. And wondered about. Wondered and worried and agonized and second-guessed until you started vomiting and found you couldn't stop. “Yeah,” was all he said. His mouth felt dry.
“I told Mom and Dad, later, that I would kill myself before ever going back to Bridges. When I found myself back there and was handed my uniform—and still no pajamas—by Greg, I knew absolutely I couldn't do it again. Not when Matt looked at me and told me that I already knew the rules and he better not see anything covering my ass that night. And how I better not fight them, either.”
Josh was afraid to say anything. He just gave Tyler’s fingers a slight squeeze.
“I’d smuggled in a razor blade. By that point I'd been cutting off and on for a few months. Mostly off, because I almost died that Christmas, on accident that time. But since I nearly died not trying, I figured it wouldn't be too hard if I was going to give it a real go. So, I had my plan in place, and I’d decided that if I was going to go through with my threat, there was no point in killing myself at home. Especially since everyone would think it was because of Mr. Koenig, and this had nothing to do with him. No, I was going to do it at Bridges, because I was pretty sure even they couldn't hide a dead body. Maybe there would be an investigation. Maybe they'd get shut down. Maybe… I don't know. I was a kid, and a big grand gesture like leaving my dead body around to inconvenience people seemed like a good idea.”
“But you didn't really want to die,” Josh said.
“No, not exactly. I was trapped and felt there was no way out for me. Dying in a spectacular fashion was the only escape I could think of. And if I was going to go, I was damned well going to try and take those fuckers down with me. Anyway, that night I sat on my bed, clothes still on, and slit my wrists.”
“What happened? Since you didn't die.”
“No, I didn't die, Captain Obvious. What happened is that my dumb ass did it wrong, which you already know, because I cut across, not down. But I sat there, and watched my blood well up and flow down my arms and it was… hard to explain. Beautiful. Terrible. Powerful. Mine. Those two asswipes came in to mess with me and found me giggling my ass off while I watched myself bleed. Apparently, it freaked them out. Can't imagine why. Anyway, I ended up at the hospital and then in more therapy, but of the conventional sort, with a psychiatrist. There was an investigation, but nothing happened. Bridges is still open. Pastor Steve is still there. But Mom decided I was more important than whatever had kept her chained to Dad, so there was that. I cut myself and everything got better. You see?”
Josh shivered. He couldn't help it. “Yeah.” It seemed that was all he could say.
Tyler leaned his head against Josh’s. “So now you know. Does it help any?”
“No. Yes. Tyler?”
“What?” Tyler buried his nose in Josh’s hair and breathed in. “God, I love the way you smell,” he said.
“Like sweat and sex?”
“Mmm,” Tyler agreed. “Sweat and sex and you. I could bottle it and make a fortune.”
Josh doubted that. “Tyler, I know I'm being all Captain Obvious again, but sleeping naked has got to be a trigger for you.”
“Maybe. Probably.”
“Well, don't do it, then. I mean, if putting on some pants keeps you from having a nightmare, put on the damn pants. Okay?”
“You’re oversimplifying things. I'm still going to have the nightmare. I'm still going to have the urge to cut. Telling you my sad and pathetic story didn't fix dick.”
“No, you're wrong, there.” Josh moved so he could look into Tyler’s eyes. “Things are different because now I know and you don't have to wonder: what will Josh think? He thinks you're brave and amazing. He thinks that you’re strong and you’re always selling yourself short.” Josh made himself stop. Too many dangerous words wanted to fly out of his mouth. “He thinks that you should probably put pants on so we can both get some sleep. I still want to go to the museum in the morning. There's a statue I want to show you.”
Tyler smiled. It was small and tired, but it was better than nothing. “Okay,” he said. He got up, padded to his suitcase, then found a pair of drawstring cotton pants and put them on, then threw on a t-shirt as well.
Josh scooted over to his side of the bed, leaving room for Tyler to get back in. Tyler turned off the lamp, and instead of staying on his side of the bed, he burrowed into Josh’s side.
“Come on, Rosen. Snuggle me. You know your clingy gay ass wants to.”
Josh was too pleased he wasn't getting the cold shoulder to mind any teasing. He folded his body around Tyler’s. “I think you secretly kinda like it,” he said into Tyler’s neck. “You’re a closet snuggler.”
As he held Tyler, Josh’s brain churned. That Tyler had been raped he found terrible, but not shocking. He knew there'd been trauma in his past, he just hadn't realized the extent. Josh wished there was something—anything—he could do. Feeling helpless and a little lost, he tightened his grip on Tyler and thought that, while he couldn't change the past, he could be the absolute best fake boyfriend that money didn't have to buy. It was the very least he could do.
Chapter 25
Tyler Regrets the Existence of Siblings
Friday, September 23rd, 2:36 p.m.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Manhattan, NY
Tyler looked up at the statue of Perseus Josh had been bursting at the seams to see all day, “because it reminds me of you,” and felt something resonate in his chest like a warning. Careful: proceed with caution. Rocky shoals ahead. Josh thought he looked like this beautiful statue, depicting a warrior, no less, holding an unsheathed sword and Medusa’s severed head. He was also virtually naked, wearing nothing but a helmet and sandals, which struck Tyler as a poor choice for battle.
“My dick is much larger than that,” Tyler said, pulling Josh’s head down so he could whisper in his ear.
“True,” Josh agreed, and led him around the thing so they could look at his posterior. “But the rest of his anatomy is pretty spot-on. Especially that ass.”
“It is a great ass,” Tyler agreed.
“You can say that again,” said a middle-aged woman as she took a picture of said ass with her phone.
Josh tapped his lip with his finger. “Your hair isn't curly and your face is prettier. Or maybe just less vapid,” he said. “Still, I think it's a decent likeness.”