cHiLd PoRnO
"I'm home!" Angel called, dropping his coat on a kitchen chair. "Louis?" He got no answer. "Louis?" Angel was getting worried. he pulled his gun out of his waistband and advanced slowly into the house, holding the black pistol out in front of him. He could hear noises coming from the bedroom he shared with his lover. it sounds like he's having sex! he thought. impossible. he slowly, quietly pushed the bedroom door open. "Louis, what are you—" Angel nearly choked when he saw the tall, elegantly dressed black man lying in the bed. Louis, the strongest, most stoic man Angel had ever known, was crying. Not just crying; he was weeping, his shoulders shaking and tears streaming down his face. He was trying to hold in his sobs, trying to covertly wipe the tears from his face.
"Louis, baby, what's wrong?!" Angel cried, darting to the bedside and putting his arms around his crying partner.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't-I mean, I couldn't-please, don't be-" Louis couldn't seem to get his words out clearly through the lump in his throat.
"It's alright, baby, whatever it is it's alright," Angel said, trying to comfort his lover.
"It's not, it isn't alright, it will never be alright, I'm so sorry," Louis lost control and began sobbing again, pressing his head into Angel's shoulder.
"Sweetie…" Angel didn't know what to say. He and Louis had been dating for nearly 7 years, and never once, in all that time, had Angel seen him cry like this. Once, when Louis had lost his cousin Alice, Angel had seen him shed a single tear and he had thought that that was the most he would ever show his sorrow. something absolutely horrible must have happened!
"Tell me about it, honey, tell me what happened." Angel cooed softly. "just tell me."
"Please, please don't hate me, please," Louis cried more softly now, his red eyes looking for solace in his partner.
"I won't hate you," Angel said softly, horror in his eyes at the thought, "no matter what's happened, I can't ever hate you, sweetie, I swear."
Louis couldn't speak anymore, his voice overcome with sobbing, so he settled for pointing at the television. Looking over, Angel saw that the screen bore a large green "STOP" in the corner. Louis had been watching a DVD and something had upset him. He's cryin' 'cause of a damn movie? Angel reached for the remote, but before he could hit the play button, Louis grabbed his wrist.
"Don't baby, please don't, you don't want to see it, don't," Louis kept muttering.
Angel ignored him and hit play.
"No, no, no, no…" Louis kept repeating it in a small voice, but it was too late; Angel had already seen what was on the TV, and he felt sick.
"Where. Did. You. Get. This?" Angel said through clenched teeth.
Louis seemed resigned now; he was still crying, but now there were only silent tears streaming down his cheeks. He was no longer shaking.
"Mrs. Bondarchuk brought it up," he said softly. "I didn't know what it was at first, I couldn't; it was unmarked."
Angel stared in horror at the screen; it showed a very young boy with black hair, chained to a stone wall and being taken from behind by a hulk of a man, wearing a white shirt. as Angel watched, the man threw his head back and cried out in pleasure as he came. the video came to a stop with a blue screen.
"Why?" in that single word was all of Angel's pain, all of his betrayal, all of his fury at the things being done to this boy. "Why would you watch that far? Why would you watch that much once you saw what it was?"
"Rewind it," said Louis. he seemed to have given up any hope of hiding the content of the video.
Angel seemed to be in shock. He felt cold and numb, the fire of his fury put on hold. Silently, he pressed rewind.
"Here. Hit play," Louis said, his tears drying up.
Angel hit the button and his eyes widened as the man began moving in and out of his young victim.
"I don't want to watch this," Angel said softly. "Louis, I don't want to see this."
"Just watch," Louis said, "you'll see."
Tears started sliding down Angel's cheeks as he remembered times when these things had been done to him. And then the boy turned around. And Angel gasped and cried out.
"Now do you see?" Louis asked. "I just wanted to see a face, or hear a name spoke. I never meant to do this to you, sweetie."
Angel began to shake, and then he started to cry, and before Louis could blink, he had thrown himself into his lover and was sobbing out his pain. Louis reached over and paused the DVD player. The young boy's face was on a closeup. His curly black hair was matted with sweat, and his light blue eyes were bright with tears. Angel was barely 9 years old in the video, and the man behind him had to be 6 feet tall and 200 pounds.
"That's…me." Angel said, his voice quivering, and he pressed his head harder into Louis's shoulder.
"I know," Louis said, "I recognize your eyes."
"Who?" Angel said through his tears. "Who on earth would have this and send it to us?"
Louis had no answer, so he just turned off the DVD player and hugged more tightly to his weeping lover.
Eventually, Angel cried himself out and fell asleep in his boyfriend's arms. Louis didm't think, for a moment, of putting Angel down; he simply held him, letting him feel that safe, comforting feeling that he had never had when he was younger. While Angel slept, Louis thought about the things that had been done to his beloved partner, and how this tape must make him feel.
He knew that Angel hadn't told him nearly all of what had happened to him; some of it was just too humiliating for Angel to talk about, even to his lover, but Louis knew enough to understand some of what Angel was going through.
Angel had been abandoned by his mother before he was even old enough to walk, and his father had rarely, if ever, shown him any affection. At the age of eight, Angel's father had sold him to a man for five hours for a case a whiskey. From that point onward, Angel had been sold more and more frequently, to increasingly vile customers, for decreasing amounts of pay. When Angel had finally, finally gotten away, he had been put in prison long before he had had time to heal. Once there, the young, thin, and then very handsome man had been victim to many predators, including the guards. That was Attica, and Angel got out in three years, but it had been enough to extenuate the trauma he had experienced. After that, Angel had learned to fight and gotten surprisingly strong for someone his size. The next time that he was in prison, he had bashed in the head of the first guy to try to get it on with him, and hadn't been bothered since. Louis knew that Angel had been virtually asexual since then; he wasn't aroused by women, and after everything he'd been through, he couldn't bear to think about men that way. Once the two had met, Louis had begun to draw Angel out of his shell and become a sexual being.
That was what Louis knew, but there was plenty more that he suspected. He thought, though Angel had never said, that his father had done things to him as well, even when there was no money involved. He suspected that Angel had been sold to BDSM predators, and that he had been tortured multiple times, but Angel had never told him about that. Louis had a lot of theories, but he never brought them up; Angel didn't like to talk about his past. He would rather let his memories slip into oblivion, pushed out by the love and happiness he experienced with his lover. It tortured Louis that he hadn't been able to punish the people who had hurt his beloved, and that he hadn't immediately thrown the video out and spared his lover this pain.
He thought about who would do this. Who would even be in possession of pornography with Angel in it and know who it was and where to find him? The only person they knew who even knew what they did and where they lived was Parker, and Louis knew that he would never do something like this. He wondered if Mrs. Bondarchuk could have anything to do with it, but he highly doubted that; she was an old lady who refused to move, it was doubtful that she would be in possession of child pornography. Louis had made sure that very few people knew where he and his boyfriend lived, so as to avoid precisely this kind of thing. I'll have to look into it…he thought. As he held the warm shape of his lover, he began to ease into peace. I will keep you safe, baby, he said silently to Angel's sleeping form. He will never harm you again. And slowly, Louis slipped into sleep and the two of them stayed that way for the rest of the night.