Till Death

by Kol Anderson

  “Take your belt and start hitting him. Don’t stop until I tell you stop. I want to see him bloody.”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  Kevin cocked his gun. “Okay then, you better say goodbye to him.”

  “Stop!”

  “I won’t kill him,” Kevin assured me. “But you need to do this.”

  “Okay, Jesus! I’ll do it okay? Just don’t… don’t shoot.”

  I didn’t have a choice.

  I took off my belt and started hitting Justin with it. I tried to go light but Kevin noticed and quickly reminded me that he was the one holding Justin’s life in his hands. So, I hit him.

  I hit Justin with that belt.

  “Harder,” Kevin said. “I was honestly just going insane and on the verge of doing something really stupid.

  “Harder!”

  I paused when my hand felt like it would give. Justin was in total agony.

  “Keep those hands on the desk Justin!”

  I don’t know how that boy was still upright. I was afraid of the worst happening.

  “Good,” Kevin said. “Now go to the bureau and open the first drawer.”

  I went to the bureau and looked inside. It was a place where my father kept all his old tools. It was just as my father had left it. Almost as though he was still using it. It was creepy. My brother clearly had some problems.

  “Behind all the tools there’s a box,” he said. “Take it out.”

  I rolled my eyes and took out the stupid box. Inside, there was a black leather object. I noticed the black fringe and the handle.

  “I don’t usually splurge on such trivial things,” Kevin said. “But I had to pay a fortune for that thing.”

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a flogger!”

  “Okay...”

  “I ordered it for someone else, it’s not important. I think it’s going to serve it’s purpose at last.”

  I looked at my brother. “Are you telling me you had someone? A guy? And you used to bring him here?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What you don’t realize Trent is these whores will come and go. You see, they play a role in our lives. A supporting role. We’re the main cast, that’s how it’s always been. You were just too stubborn to see it.”

  I waited for Kevin to finish.

  “Take this flogger and make him suffer. Let him pay the price for every one who’s ever tormented you. Don’t let him become another Dominic. Don’t let him have control over you.”

  Dominic.

  My brother’s words opened a lot of floodgates that I wanted to keep closed. I knew Justin will be another Dom. I knew that. You know how they say that no good deed goes unpunished? Well, no love goes unpunished either. I could already picture Justin breaking my heart. I can even tell you what the guy he breaks my heart for will look like, right down to his chinos and his perfectly coiffed hair. I can even tell you what designer cologne he wears. I know that guy’s around, somewhere, waiting to take Justin away from me. It might take him a few years or it might take him a few days, but he will collide with our lives and break us apart.

  “Where does that leave us?” I wanted to know. “If I leave Justin, what happens to us?”

  “We’re going to find a treatment first,” Kevin said. “We need to think about increasing the length of your life. Trent, I know the best doctors and we can afford it. You’re going to need help. And I’ll be there. I won’t leave you like Dominic. You know that I won’t.”

  “I know.”

  Kevin came up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Let me take care of you.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut so I could think. Then, I picked up the flogger and let the box drop on the floor. I held it up. I took a deep breath. “Justin, take your fucking hands off the table,” I yelled. “And pull up your shorts!”

  Justin lifted his body and turned to face me.

  There was still no fear in his eyes.

  Pain and suffering perhaps and a shitload of tears but no fear. It was the most depressing thing I’d ever seen. He was barely twenty-two. It was too early to have no fear of not being around. Too early to think so little of himself. I was the only one who could give him life. I was the only one who could make him realize that he deserved all the things that he didn’t think he deserved.

  I was the only one who could help him be the sort of person who would break my heart.

  For Justin, I was willing to be a stepping stone again, a rung in the ladder.

  For Justin, I was willing to give my all toward a doomed relationship that will end in my misery. I was willing to spend the next phase of my life loving him even when he breaks my heart, even when he finds the real Mr. Right.

  But if I don’t save him today, none of that would happen. He would go back to the streets, get hooked on street drugs and I’ll never hear about his death because the Christiane Amanpours of the world are not interested in the deaths of junkie whores who were born to nonexistent parents.

  I was his only hope.

  With all the strength I could muster, I grabbed a hammer from the bureau and plunged it at Kevin’s face. Kevin screamed. I watched Justin try to find a weapon while I struck my brother repeatedly with that hammer until the gun fell from his hand. I leapt for the weapon but Kevin grabbed my leg and pulled me down with him.

  We were both trying to get one over the other and come on top but my brother got hold of the gun and I heard the loud blast as a shot was fired and I watched Justin’s body go stiff when the bullet hit his back and he fell.

  My brain stopped working.

  I couldn’t think, I couldn’t focus. I blindly forced the gun out of Kevin’s hand and pulled the trigger.

  24

  When I came to my senses, Kevin was dead.

  I didn’t have to check his pulse, I just knew. There was a Kevin-sized hole in the universe. My brother, my only living blood connection was gone and I didn’t even know how to mourn him.

  I got up and ran across the room to where Justin was still on the floor facedown.

  I turned him over. He was still breathing. I tapped his face lightly. “Justin? Wake up, Justin come on. Hey! Justin! Wake the fuck up!”

  He opened his eyes.

  I heaved a sigh of relief. I checked him for bleeding and he was gushing blood from his chest. I read in first aid instructions somewhere that stopping the bleeding could be the difference between life and death. I took off my shirt and held it at the site of the bullet wound. I lifted Justin’s hand and placed it on top of the shirt. “Hey, Justin,” I spoke loudly. “You have to keep this pressed to the wound. I’m going to call 911, okay?” I couldn’t tell if he heard me. “Justin, listen to me. Kevin confiscated our phones, I don’t know where they are. There’s a landline in the den. I need you to hold this right here and put pressure and I need you to not pass out, can you do that for me?”

  Justin gave me a nod. Under the circumstances, it was the best I could get. I rushed upstairs to the den and found the phone. It was working. It was a good thing Kevin hadn’t considered cutting us off from the landline.

  I called 911. I explained how my brother tried to kill me and my boyfriend in the basement. I explained that I shot my brother trying to save us, and that my boyfriend has been shot.

  They asked me a bunch of questions and told me that help was on the way. I put the phone down and ran back to the basement to check on Justin…

  He wasn’t awake.

  And he was still fucking bleeding.

  “No no no no!” I rushed to help him and placed the shirt on his wound. I put pressure on it, and tried to wake him up. “Justin!!!”

  He opened his eyes again. “What the hell, Justin? I gave you an order!”

  He stared at me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Listen to me, okay? Justin, you can’t die. I’m not giving you permission. I fucking gave you this life, remember? I own your ass and I’m not done. I want to force you to complete that film course that you think is stupi
d now. I want to give you many more fucked up orgies and I want you and I to have a home. You and I, baby boy. For as long as we live.”

  “Till death?”

  Till death, Trent? I can’t live without you, I’ll die. Please don’t leave me. We’re Dominic and Trent! Fuck, this can’t just end.

  “Till death, Justin.”

  “What about eternity?”

  I couldn’t keep the tears from stinging my eyes. “Why don’t we just focus on life instead of death, huh?”

  “It’s strange.”

  “What is, Justin?”

  “I never had a reason not to die before.”