"Are you asking me to volunteer myself for punishment? The answer's no." Curt wore a hard look, but his insides were harder still. Pity was one thing, self-mutilation at the hands of the fiend was another altogether.
Still crying and wearing his fear-twitching mask, Paul paused clearly listening to a voice within him for the answer he was supposed to give. To Curt he seemed like a major league pitcher shaking off the signs from his catcher.
"No. No...uh-uh...ok," Paul said to himself. "We...I mean, I'm only asking that you give it a try...it's not that bad really and then you can become one of us."
Curt shook his head, firm but with real sadness, "Paul, I can't. But if you can just stop listening to that voice, we can be friends again..."
"I don't want to be your God damned friend, you fucker!" Paul screamed his twitching face a vision of insanity.
Even with the rain, which was a steady drumming on the roof of the house, that scream had been tremendous. Paul knew it and in instant, turned and ran from the room, leaving the air charged with that familiar anger. It was hard to even breathe it in.
Curt and Amber sat perfectly still for a time, letting the house drowse once again. When he felt the time was ripe, Curt asked her, "Has he always heard that voice, or is this something new?"
Amber pulled him back down on the bed and she laid her head in the pocket where his chest and shoulder came together. "Voices, really. I think there might be like three or four in there. They come and go and I can never keep track of them. They are always what gets him in trouble, but he's generally quite harmed...uh harmless and he sometimes like sticks up for me."
Sniffing her hair had a relaxing quality and he breathed her in deeply, feeling the stress of his little encounter with Paul slip out of him slowly. He enjoyed this closeness, it was warm and comforting.
"He stuck up for me also, at first. But now he's so weird."
"I think it's because Paul expected something different from you," Amber said, tilting her head to look up at him. He smiled in confusion.
"Different than what? How would he know what I was going to be like?" She took a long time to answer this and her body stiffened as if anticipating that Curt would become angry
"I think he expected for you to be normal that's all," she had her shoulders hunched a little at this, but her nervousness only made him smile at her.
"I am normal, what do you mean?"
"Don't be mad, it's a good thing. But...you're not normal. You don't break. You don't even look close to breaking. I can see it in your eyes. How? How can you be this way?" she pleaded suddenly, grabbing his shirt in both hands. He became a trifle nervous at this, however she didn't seem to notice and only went on talking quickly with a growing desperation. "How do you do it? You have a secret, I know it...please, you have to tell me what it is. I told you I'd do anything. I will, I'll do anything."
At this, her hands went right to his crotch.
Under any other circumstances, it would have tickled and he might have laughed. However, he had become frightened at her manic behavior and unnerved at how suddenly she reminded him of his mom. It had been seven years, but he could still remember how needy and whiny she would get if she had to wait too long for whatever drug she was taking at the time. Her eyes would go wild and Curt knew she'd be capable of the most vile acts with the dealers that hung around her.
He grabbed her hands, "I don't really have any secrets..."
"Don't lie to me!" she practically yelled, but then her eyes went wide at the sound of her own voice. The two of them paused, feeling the air with the sensitive skin of their necks and trying to hear beneath the rain. "I mean, I won't tell anyone, I promise. It'll just be our secret."
Curt didn't know what to say. His little tricks for dealing with the pressure, he hadn't considered to be actual secrets, but that was all he had.
He gave her a shrug and spoke in a hushed tone, "When the sound of the silence gets, you know, really big, I will go to the bathroom and run some water, or I drag my hand along the wall and listen to the sound..."
Her eyes had narrowed at this and she interrupted, "No...everyone does these things. I'm talking about how you ignore the pressure, dealing with the knowledge that...that the thing could burst in any time...and the teeth..." Her face went as white as it could go and she broke off staring at the floor.
"I don't have any secrets, I'm just new here is all," Curt insisted.
"No. You are a liar," a boy's voice spoke, it was high and loud, full of emotion. It was Matt standing in the doorway. He seemed very big. "You have some secret and you have to tell the rest of us. It's only fair."
A flight of butterflies took off and swirled about his insides at the sight of Matt filling the doorway. "I don't have any secrets...I swear," Curt asserted. "When I feel the need to talk, I go and be around you guys and when it's too quiet, I make little noises. I read or daydream the rest of the time, that's all I do, I swear. I don't have any se..."
"Don't give me that. Like Amber said, we all do these things, but the difference is, we break and you don't." Matt walked into the room and shut the door behind him. At this Curt rolled off his bed, and stood up, preparing himself.
"Look, I'm just new here and I..."
"Cut the crap. I was new too. And Amber and Paul and Beth...we were all new and the kids before us were new. We all broke and after that we broke some more. Amber, how many times did you break in your first week?"
She pursed her lips at this, refusing to speak, so Matt spoke for her, "Three times she broke. It was awful for her. The rest of us broke twice in the first week, but you...like she said, you aren't even close. You look like you are on vacation strutting around here, cuddling with your new little bitch."
Amber hopped up into his face quick, "Just because you are jealous..." He shoved her hard onto the bed.
Anger warped Curt's handsome features and he took a step forward, coming between the two. "Matt get the hell out of here."
"Sticking up for your girlfriend? How manly. What happens if I don't want to leave?" Curt wasn't exactly nervous about the situation, Matt had proved himself a chicken on too many occasions. He thought that as long as he kept Matt in front of him there wouldn't be a problem. He was quite wrong.
Stepping up to Matt, Curt was about to tell the bigger boy to leave again, when Matt attempted a sucker punch. Curt dodged it easily, having expected it and assumed a fighting stance, anticipating this to be the end of their confrontation, but Matt attacked in a head on charge that Curt wasn't expecting in the least.
Later he realized that he should have known better. The rain and the fact that it was the first day gave Matt a courage he wouldn't normally have had. The older boy threw himself into Curt and they fell to the bed in a swirling melee of arms and legs. Unfortunately, Curt's couldn't benefit from his natural advantage in quickness and was soon pinned by the much bigger boy. Matt then began to pummel Curt mercilessly in the face and rapidly the younger boy's world started to grey.
In great pain, and bleeding profusely, he did the only thing he could think of. He lashed out and kicked the wall as hard as he could. Thump!
The vibration could be felt throughout the entire house, including the basement.
2
Matt let up his attack immediately and froze in position, listening with all his being for the dread sound of footsteps on the stairs.
"Get off or I do it again," Curt threatened.
"You don't have the guts to," Matt whispered, but when the younger boy drew back his foot, Matt rolled off him in a hurry. "You're an idiot! Protecting this girl, calling the monster. I should..." He let off in midsentence and Curt, whose vision was a bleary red from the blood that poured into his eyes, missed the look of sudden excitement on Matt's face.
And by the time, Curt had blinked away the blood, he was surprised to see Matt had left the room. And at first he thought that Amber had as well, but turning, he saw that she had backed herself into a corner and stared at him in fear.
"Are you and the monster...uh, al...uh, together, like on the same team? Is that it?"
The pounding in his head, made comprehending her question difficult. "You mean are we allies?" he asked, moving to sit on his bed. Dizziness had him swaying slightly and he feared he would fall over.
"Yeah, allies."
"Uhhh," he groaned as he lay back. Feeling his face gingerly, he discovered a cut above his right eyebrow and another across his nose. "Of course not, that's stupid," he answered uncharitably, his pain making him irritable.
She kept to the corner, "It's not stupid. First, you're out of bed at night and you don't get punished? That has never happened, and then you try to bring the monster here... were you going to have it attack Matt? And...and also you never break, and... and you aren't afraid of it."
"Uhhh," he groaned again, not wanting to deal with this at the moment. Yet seeing no choice, he said, "I am afraid of it, very, very afraid of it. And I would have been punished last night, I know it, but Paul yelled out with the thing right there. And about this breaking business. Why is everyone so hung up on me breaking? It doesn't make any sense."
"Yes it does," she said, casting her face to the floor. "If you don't break, that means there's a higher per...percenter?"
"Percentage," he suggested.
"Yeah, a higher percentage that I will be punished, ya know what I mean?" she asked.
"I guess I do. But what do you want me to do? Get punished on purpose?" Her eyes changed levels at the notion and Curt shook his head tiredly. "Would you do that for me? Would you get punished for me?" At this, her eyes went down to the floor.
"No," she whispered clasping her hands to her chest. She looked small and vulnerable. It made Curt's heart break a little.
"I wish I were strong enough to be able to do that for you," he said blinking largely. When he blinked, there was a pain in the bone of his right cheek. He worried that it was broken and he began testing it wriggling his face.
"I think that you are strong," she murmured from the corner. "You're stronger than anyone here."
"Did you have your eyes closed when Matt beat me up just now?" He meant it as a joke, but he didn't know if it came across that way. Thankfully, she smiled.
"Not that kind of strength," she finally moved from the corner to sit beside him on the bed. "I meant like spear...uh in your soul, spirit. That part of you. That's the part that counts in this house. You have a good soul."
"A good..." His mind jiggled while it boggled and he laid there snorting back blood for a time before he decided to tell Amber just how wrong she was. "I'm not good at all. I didn't tell you this before, but I lie...a lot and I'm a thief."
"We've all done little things like that..." she started to say.
"No you don't understand. I'm really a thief. I don't live in foster homes like you guys. I live where I want to and get money by, you know stealing...breaking into people's houses, pick-pocketing, that kind of thing."
"You don't need to eg...eg...exaggerate," she said with a cloudy look of disbelief about her. "No kid lives like that."
"No kid lives like this either, but here we are," he replied with his arms out indicating the whole house. She still looked skeptical and so he added, "Do you remember what Darla...your caseworker said to me? She called me the 'Famous Curtis Regis' and it's because they know I'm a thief."
"That's right she did," Amber eyed him dubiously. "You're really a thief? Can you pick a lock and uh, hot...hot," she looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember a word. "Uh, hot-wire! Can you hot-wire a car?"
Curt rarely spoke to anyone about his being a thief, but as he told this secret to Amber, he felt a glowing boastful pride that had him forgetting the pain in his face. However, her last couple of questions deflated him.
"I can only a pick a few kinds of locks, simple ones and I haven't stolen a car yet...well actually I did, but I stole the keys first, so I don't think that counts."
Her eyes popped at this, "Wow, you stole a car. Can you drive? Is it hard to do? From what I remember it looks very hard." She took on a dreamy look as if recalling something long forgotten. Curt enjoyed the look. Her worries and her very real fears dropped away, revealing a much prettier girl beneath. She was the kind of girl that outside this house would've looked down her nose at a boy such as Curt.
"It was hard at first," he said and smiled at his own memory. "I kept running into the curbs, back and forth like pinball! And I couldn't figure out how to turn the lights on or how to work the seat controls or nothing. Part of the problem was that it was this huge long Cadillac and I couldn't even see the front of it. But the next car that I stole was this 'rice-burner.' That's what all the guys call these little Hondas, anyways I could see better in that and I crashed it a lot less."
"Whoa, how many cars have you stolen?" she no longer seemed impressed and her brows knit together looking suddenly a trifle disgusted with him. He remembered now why he rarely told anyone of his career choice.
"Just the two...I was trying to teach myself how to drive," he added defensively.
"That doesn't make it right. You can take driver's-ed, you know." Because of her tone, which he thought of as 'snotty', and the way she looked upon him then, with superiority, he only nodded knowing she would never understand him. She would never understand his life or where he came from, or how his mind worked, or the fact that he wasn't the same as everyone else.
"I gotta clean this up," he pointed at himself. Getting up, he went to the bathroom and once the layers of dried blood had been washed away, he was surprised to see that his face wasn't nearly as awful looking as it felt. The cuts were small and the bruises were in the early stages of blooming, but they would heal just fine.
This wasn't his first time on the wrong end of a fist. Life on the streets was not always fun and games, he had been cut before, pegged with rocks, kicked in the face and very nearly stabbed as well. He peered closely and could see the tiny white scars that marked many of these moments of his tumultuous childhood. The mirror captivated him and for some time as he looked at the boy framed within it.
He wasn't like everyone else and that was just fine with him.
Upon leaving the bathroom, he nearly collided with Amber, who was standing very near to the door. Curt had expected her there, after all where else would she have gone; he just hadn't thought she would be so close.
"Look, I didn't mean to be all like high and mighty, ok? I'm really sorry," her voice a notch above a whisper. He had expected this as well, she could count on no one, not even herself when things would get rough. The only thing he hadn't counted on was her hushed tone and he cocked an ear at the ceiling of the hallway.
The rain had begun to slacken already.
He sighed, feeling the first weight of depression. Amber seemed to think it was about her and moved in very close, her new state of neediness, unmistakable.
"I'm sorry... I looked down on you. I know kids get into all sorts of trouble. Will you forgive me?" Her whispering was very warm against his neck and her body leaned in, touching his. She began kissing him and he kissed back, feeling the warmth where their bodies touched become heat.
During the long kiss, he started to understand that indefinable word passion and soon his thing had pushed itself out. He didn't care then if she knew, he was too caught up in the kiss. However, he was so caught up that he didn't see Miss Feanor coming up the stairs until she was practically on top of them. Her face was a steady neutral at the sight of the two kissing, but when she glanced down and saw the obvious bulge in his pants, her eyes narrowed. Feeling his ears go hot, he stepped a little to his right and hid himself behind Amber.
Amber hadn't noticed his thing yet and the light pink color that slipped into her cheeks, had only to do with the fact that they had been caught kissing. The older lady ignored her and only pursed her lips irritably at Curt, and was just about to head toward the attic door, when she noticed Curt's battered face.
With a touch of concern, she moved i
n close to inspect the small wounds.
Curt was absolutely mortified. His thing refused to go back down and it stood just an inch or two from Miss Feanor's belly. He couldn't look her in the face and so he turned toward Amber, but she had noticed it as well.
It was hard not to miss.
And it seemed hard not to look at as well, at least for Amber, who stared at it with her mouth gaping as if her jaw had become unhinged. Her cheeks were the color of ripe apples and her eyes were huge with embarrassment.
"Humph," Miss Feanor said, turning his face this way and that so the light could catch the lacerations there. She seemed content with what she saw, and with one more look down at him, she turned away.
The moment Miss Feanor took a single step, Amber, giggling like the child she was, pulled him to his bedroom where he immediately went to his bed and sat a pillow on his lap. Amber snorted with suppressed laughter.
Soon she was rolling about on the floor, tears streaming from her very red, red face. Her entire body couldn't seem to stop quivering and she gasped for air in between holding down her laughter. Curt began laughing as well and finally this caused his thing to go back down. The heavy laughter inside them eventually diminished, but they still chuckled weakly for many minutes after this.
"Is it safe to join you?" Amber asked from the floor, giving his crotch a quick look.
"Yes!"
They cuddled again and every once in a while, they would giggle for a moment, but for the most part, they just sat back and stared at the ceiling.
"You never answered my question from earlier, what's going on with you. You seemed different," he asked her.
Air blew hard through her nostrils, "Beth was in your room yesterday before dinner...don't deny it. I saw her coming out with my own two eyes."
"Mmmm," Curt mused, wondering if the mouse had been searching his things, looking for her papers. They had been so dusty, that he had assumed that she had forgotten them in her insanity.
"Well?" Amber's voice had risen.
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