“But Mom, Singapore is beautiful, and you never have to freeze again.” Sascha had tried to convince her, to no avail. She was as stubborn as ever. So they found her a place in the local retirement home, where she’d drifted slowly into oblivion, alone, abandoned by the friends of her husband, and visited only a couple of times a year by her sons, who lived their lives abroad, far away from her.
It saddened Sascha when he thought about his mom’s final years, but what was he to do? She refused to move, and within eighteen months of his dad’s death, she had barely recognized them. She had never got to be a grandma, and that was the worst part for Sascha. It killed him to think that his boys never got to know the amazing and strong woman his mom used to be.
Luckily, there was Grandma Joanne back in California. She had raised Dan on her own after getting pregnant at a sorority party that was crashed by some jocks. She never told Dan who his father was, either because she didn’t know or because she didn’t want to share that secret.
Jesus, my mind is everywhere today, it suddenly hit Sascha. Focus, focus, focus. Think of the boys, think of Mike, Aunt Clara, Dan. Focus!
That was just the way Sascha’s mind worked. It darted everywhere. At times, he suspected he suffered from ADD, but he learned in his second semester at the university that, no, he was perfectly normal, at least in that regard. Jung would have had a field day, and in a Myers-Briggs test they had once done, Sascha came out an ENFP big time. Enthusiastic, charismatic, and creative. He was certainly outgoing, much more than Dan, despite his American background. See, here we go again, he thought.
They sat down at a round table in the corner of the restaurant. The waitress brought menus and barely looked at them, old enough to understand their pain, too young to deal with it.
* * * * *
Australia
Sascha’s mind wandered back to his mom again, her frailty, her disease, those painful last years. She had once been such a strong woman, despite her physical challenges.
His upbringing had been good. He had always been loved and nurtured, and there was a time, when Sascha was a little boy, that he believed his mother would always be there for him. Yeah, right! That was before the accident, before Alzheimer’s, before he left for Adelaide. They’d sit together after school, and she’d help him with his homework. They would drink coffee together, horse around, and she’d even share a cigarette or two after she had discovered, much to her dismay, that her firstborn had taken up smoking at the tender age of twelve.
So much for being a role model, eh?
Sascha eventually quit smoking again after discovering other things that tasted much better than nicotine. Even his mom gave up smoking after her riding accident, less by choice, though. Her long time in rehab left her no options. When Sascha came back from Australia, the house had been repainted and redecorated. The smell of forty cigarettes per day had vanished, and his mom along with it. This was a cruel irony; the renovation not only took away the bad smells but his mom as well. He would’ve given anything to get her back.
Sascha had barely left for his year in Australia, to live with kangaroos and wallabies, exploring the outback with his crazy exchange family, when his mother, who had taken to riding just a couple of years before, had fallen off a horse during one of her outings. No one was there to see the accident, but somehow the horse must’ve bucked, thrown her off, and kicked her in the forehead in the process. For a while there, things were touch and go. Sascha spoke on the phone with his dad regularly to get updates. Thankfully, his amazing host family comforted him and did their utmost to get his mind off what had happened.
A week after the accident, Sascha first wandered downtown to one of the gay clubs in Adelaide. It was a fairly nondescript bar. In fact, it could have been a straight bar, except for the flags with the pink triangle, not to mention the X-ray looks from the clientele as seventeen-year-old Sascha walked through the doors.
He was fucked in one of the stalls that night after giving the bloke—What was his name again?—a blow job. It would’ve been nice if it stayed at that. Sascha could barely sit for two days. Back in the bar, he was treated to another Foster’s and a “See ya around, mate.”
After that night, Sascha started to return regularly to the bar, giving hand jobs, going down on college boys, becoming a bit of a slut, really. He shook his head at the thought. I really was a bad boy.
The next thought wasn’t quite as pleasant. He remembered that particular Sunday night his exchange parents were attending a barbie with friends, and Sascha had been more attracted to college boys and sex than kangaroo steaks, lamb chops, burgers, and beer. The bar was fairly empty except for a couple of regulars, a hustler, and Sascha. Sitting at the bar with his Foster’s in hand, Sascha thought of home, missing his mom, missing sharing a coffee and a smoke with her, when the doors swung open and a guy walked into the bar. The guy sat down next to Sascha, ordered a beer, and gave Sascha that look.
Within five minutes, he got up and walked to the restroom. Sascha shrugged, took a gulp from his beer, and followed him. The guy wasn’t exactly his type, early thirties, an old geezer, really, but there was something in his eyes that appealed to Sascha. Besides, he looked well hung.
Waiting by the urinals, his half-erect dick hanging out his pants, the guy was already waiting. He turned as Sascha walked into the lavatory.
Sascha quickly dropped to his knees. He took the awaiting prize into his mouth, sucking, licking, treasuring the salty taste mixed with that last drop of urine and pre-cum.
Man, this is huge, he thought. He had barely adjusted his jaws to the size of the guy’s cock when he was pulled up roughly and shoved into one of the adjacent stalls. There, the guy opened Sascha’s jeans and pulled them down abruptly, almost ripping his briefs. Then he grabbed Sascha by the back of his head, a hard tug on his hair.
He tried to get away, which only egged the guy to force himself violently in between Sascha’s ass cheeks.
Sascha almost passed out, incapable of screaming or putting up a fight. He had never before felt such intense pain in his life, from his toes all the way up his neck, his knees and legs incapable of supporting him, as the guy fucked him violently, with no mercy, as if he was enjoying the sobs and small cries coming from the young boy in front of him. Luckily, it didn’t last long before the guy spent himself into Sascha’s ass. He withdrew, pulled up his pants, and left the lavatory and the bar.
Sascha fell into a sobbing heap over the toilet seat and remained there for what seemed like an eternity. He was eventually found by one of the boys tending the bar, who helped him up and into a back office, where the manager of the bar looked uncomfortable, knowing full well what the consequences would be for him and his establishment if word got out to the authorities that he was serving liquor to minors, not to mention allowing sex in the lavatories.
He offered Sascha a job if he promised to shut up and not mention what had happened to anyone, implying not so subtly that it had been his fault for being so easy. Besides, he figured it would be a lot cheaper to have Sascha clean up the bar before opening, paying the kid a few bucks before he eventually returned to Europe, than having to deal with the authorities.
“I’ve been watching you. This is all your fault,” he said. “You have quite a reputation, young man. I don’t think there is a gay student in this town you haven’t done yet, so pull yourself together and get your ass home, take a hot shower. See you tomorrow at five, okay?” With that, Sascha was dismissed, his ass sore, his soul in distress.
He never told his family in Adelaide what had happened. As a matter of fact, he never told anybody, ever. They were still at the barbie when he returned, fleeing into the shower and staying there until there was no more hot water. He froze, shook, cried, and barely slept that night. Sascha had grown up sheltered, unaware of the consequences of unprotected sex. It never struck him that he might catch anything.
Only when he returned to Switzerland, after graduating from high school and after meeting
a guy for a date at the university in Zurich. Only after, talking about unprotected sex and HIV, more than two years after that night in Adelaide, it dawned on him that he might have been infected.
Man, was I naïve.
He had been lucky. He was healthy. But he never had anal sex again, always steering away from it, much to Dan’s chagrin.
* * * * *
Dan
Why did this man ever choose to spend the rest of his life at my side, Sascha often wondered. I mean, I’m not ugly, but I’m not nearly as attractive as Dan. How did I deserve him?
Thoughts like that often plagued Sascha, not just when he was sitting next to his husband and family at a funeral banquet. As a professional, he understood the chemistry and psychology of “love” all too well, and was able to rationally explain how it was possible for Dan to fall in love with him and move, first to Switzerland, then to Singapore, and then to start a family. Then again, science, nature, and hormones were one thing; Sascha’s mind was quite another, and at times, his battered self-esteem really got to him, making it difficult not only to fully trust his husband, for fear he’d lose him, but to trust himself to be “good enough” for Dan.
When the twins had been born, Dan and Sascha spent as much time at home as they possibly could. Dan took time off his work as a teacher and skipped an entire semester. As Singapore doesn’t recognize rainbow families, he had no choice. Applying for paternity leave wasn’t on the menu, although he, biologically speaking, was the boys’ father. Sascha also took time off from work. For him, it was easier, as he worked on his own, but having to cancel so many new appointments and seeing only some of his regular clients meant a significant loss in income. Luckily, they had set aside enough money to make it through that period.
After the boys had turned one, they hired a nanny, Lakshmi, who looked after them while Dan and Sascha were working. That worked out fine for a few years, but when the boys started school, the two of them were able to manage on their own.
* * * * *
The Restaurant
Sascha felt a tiny hand on his knee.
“Daddy, can I have another hot chocolate?” Shane looked up at him.
“Sure you can. Pascal, do you want another hot chocolate, too?” He smiled at Dan, who was shaking his head, not dismissing the boy’s request, but at the mustache of chocolate and milk on Shane’s upper lip. “Maybe you should wipe your mouth first, eh?” Sascha took a napkin and dabbed the chocolate and milk froth from his son’s lips.
Across the table, Mike sat quietly, deeply in thought, and Aunt Clara looked around the room, her mind miles away.
“How are you guys holding up?” Sascha tried to break the silence, while Dan ordered two more hot chocolates for the boys.
It made Sascha feel uncomfortable to see his aunt distracted and his brother so silent. Maybe they were grieving more than he’d thought. His professionalism and empathy kicked into gear the minute he noticed them.
“I’m fine, Sascha, thanks,” Clara responded. “Just thinking back of all the memories we made in this place, your father, your mother, and I.” She had to dry a tear from the corner of her eye as she continued. “You know, your parents had their engagement party here, all those years back. We sat right over there, in that corner. It was only the three of us and a few friends. But you know all that, don’t you?”
Sascha looked at his aunt, puzzled. He had never heard of any engagement party. And why would there only be the three of them? Not his grandparents? None of the other siblings?
“Actually, I haven’t,” he said. “How come Grandma and Grandpa weren’t there?”
Aunt Clara sighed. “Well, those were different times. As you know, your mother was Catholic, and your father a Protestant. My parents did not approve of your father marrying a Catholic, so they stayed away, never condoning the relationship. It was only after you were born and then Mike, that they even tolerated her. And since your father was the firstborn, his siblings, still living at home at the time, were not allowed to attend either. I actually had to sneak out, which got me into a lot of trouble afterward.”
At that, Clara laughed and shook her head. “Oh, the memories.” She wiped more tears from her cheeks.
Next to her, Mike seemed absent. He barely listened, and Sascha got the distinct feeling that something was amiss. His brother was normally not the emotional type, but still, something seemed odd today. Sascha knew that Mike wasn’t very close to their mother—nor their father, for that matter. Even during their dad’s funeral, Mike had cracked jokes and told stories. So why the sullen face today? Sascha wondered.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay, just thinking.”
“Sure? We can go for a quick stroll if you like?”
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”
That last sentence didn’t really persuade Sascha that everything was okay, but then again, he didn’t want to push it. He had never really been that close to his brother, and if he didn’t want to talk to him about what was bothering him, fine. Maybe it really was “nothing.”
* * * * *
Nothing
Nothing. That’s what he used to tell himself after the rape. It had been nothing. Yet deep inside, he knew, way back then, that it wasn’t nothing, that he had been violated, that he had been taken forcibly, and that something inside him had broken that day.
It was as if all humans had this precious thing inside their bodies, almost like a vial of glass, thin glass, and when they were hurt the way Sascha had been hurt that day, the vial broke. The shards of glass cut into the surrounding tissue, the heart, making it bleed. It cut the lungs, making them strain to breathe. There was no scientific basis for this. It was just the only explanation Sascha had for how he felt. Something in him had broken that day, something that could never be fixed, ever.
He never sought out help, never spoke to anyone about it, not even to that one guy back in Switzerland who helped him get tested for HIV. Especially not to Dan, who would never understand, could not forgive, and who would leave him.
Besides, how do you share the emotions of being raped? How do you tell of the shattering of your self? How do you explain how it breaks into a million pieces, never to be whole again? How do you convey the pain of being robbed of your self-determination, that fundamental right to decide what you want and what you don’t, when you want it and when not?
On the other hand, the amazing person he was, Dan might just understand, but Sascha couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t take the risk.
No, it was a lot of things, but it certainly wasn’t nothing.
Sascha looked up at his husband, his gaze filled with the love and affection they shared, and he watched how Dan helped Shane and Pascal with their hot chocolates. He was such a sweet man. No need to disturb him with such an ugly secret. Better to just stay silent.
* * * * *
Metronome
Tic tac tic tac tic tac.
It beat at a regular interval, supposedly helping Dan keep a steady beat as he sat on a chair in front of his piano, rehearsing the latest piece of music his teacher had put in front of him. Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” a gentle piece, yet difficult to master, due to the subtleties of the harmonics. At times, it felt to Dan as if the metronome was more in the way than actually helping him improve his playing.
His teacher had insisted on always using the metronome, claiming that he was often not in time with the music. That was how it had all started, and Dan would never again be able to forget the sound of the dreaded thing.
The first time it happened, he had been alone at home after school, his mother out working. The piano teacher would come by the house after three, twice a week for their lessons. Dan had started to play the piano when he was six years old, and by the time he was ten, he was pretty good at it. So good, in fact, that his mom had decided to invest in private lessons. And so, Mrs. Johnson, the teacher who also taught at school, would come by their house for one-on-one tutoring. Dan was looking forw
ard to those lessons. He had always liked his teacher. She may have been old but was always kind and gentle to her students.
When Mrs. Johnson arrived, Dan let her in. In her fifties, she wore her gray and brown hair in a tight bun, and she looked more severe than she really was. She was one of those “pillars of the community,” married to a Presbyterian minister, always volunteering, and heading up various local charities. She was also the music teacher at one of the local middle schools where Dan was currently enrolled.
Their first lessons had been uneventful, but today would be different.
“Dan, I brought along a metronome,” she said. “Do you know what that is?” She displayed the cone-shaped object with the pendulum. “I’ve noticed that you’re struggling with keeping the pace of the music, and I figured the metronome might help you.”
She placed the object on the piano and sat down on the bench, next to Dan.
“Here, play this.” She turned on the metronome at the given speed of the music: tic tac tic tac tic tac. “Now play.”
Dan started playing the piece, something he’d learned months ago, a simple nursery tune. Listening to the gentle rhythm of the metronome, he played the piece intact, much to his teacher’s enjoyment.
“Very good,” she said. “Now again, from the top.” She gently placed her left hand on Dan’s thigh, pressing it in sync with the metronome’s gentle tic tacs. Dan played and hardly noticed as the hand slowly moved up his thigh. “You’re so tense, boy. You need to relax.”
With that, she started to open Dan’s jeans and pulled down his fly. “Keep playing. I’m just trying a new technique to help you relax.” Her left hand was caressing Dan’s belly, making him feel strange. Round and round, she caressed him, gently, slowly, to the rhythm of the metronome, and Dan kept playing.
Family Ties Page 4