"It's the easiest thing in the world, little brother."
Merle slung an arm around him, propelling them forward. Daryl matched his brother's stride. He could feel Merle looking at him but knew better than to look back. "You put your dick in her pussy and that's all there is to it. Think you can do that, little brother?"
Daryl grunted.
"Well, can you? Or else-" Merle smacked his crotch, Daryl slapped his hand away – "you got another pussy in there, Darlena? Cos that's all you got if your dick don't work right. Tell me you ain't a pussy."
He moved to hit his groin again, but this time Daryl was too quick for him. He dodged to the side. "I ain't no pussy," he told Merle.
"That's right, baby brother. You stick it in her then you're a man." Merle wrapped his arm around Daryl again. "See I had my doubts about you, seems like fifteen's a mighty old age to hit without gettin' no pussy. Started to wonder if you were like one of them fruitcakes paradin' around with their dicks tied together. But Merle's gonna take care of you. Merle's gonna give you the time of your life."
Merle didn't seem to expect an answer this time, so Daryl let himself be pulled along in silence. He knew where they were going, of course. His brother went there most Friday nights, if he wasn't in jail. He'd even picked Merle up there, when his brother had got too drunk or too high or too rough and the whores had thrown him out on his ass. He'd pull up his brother's pants and dump him in the back of the truck, drive him home before Merle realized where he was.
It was a shitty whorehouse, not like the ones in the movies. Just a motel, really, with a different girl behind each door. Daryl hung back while Merle pounded on the door to Number Eleven. He was buzzed but not drunk, just a couple beers on an empty stomach.
The door opened but Daryl couldn't see who was behind it, his brother's frame blocked the doorway.
"Personal favor," Merle was saying. "Get my baby brother's dick wet."
"How old is he?" the unseen woman demanded.
"He's fifteen, beautiful age, I tell ya."
"Aw, Merle," the woman said.
"He'll beg for it if I ask him to. Want me to make him beg?"
"You got any drugs?" she asked.
"I might."
"Show me."
Merle put his hand in his pocket and pulled something out of it.
"Fine."
Merle stepped back and pulled Daryl forward. "Monica, this is my baby brother Daryl. Daryl, this is the lady who's gonna make you a man."
Monica was in her thirties, with brassy red hair from a bottle. She had nails long like talons, painted blood red. Daryl thought she looked like a bird of prey.
"C'mon in, Daryl," she drawled. Merle shoved him forward into the dimly lit room, darker than it was outside under the stars. She had one of those lava lamps, glowing pink from a table. Daryl stood stupidly in the center of the room. He heard the door close and turned round. Merle was settling in to a sagging armchair.
"You stayin'?" he said uncertainly.
"Course I am." Merle favored him with a broad grin. "Don't count less I'm here to see it. Eye witness. You go on now."
Monica was sitting on the bed. She sized Daryl up, her eyes indifferent, and patted the space next to her.
"You go on now," Merle said.
Daryl crossed the few steps to the bed and sat down next to her. He shoulda gotten drunker. He shoulda asked for the cocaine. Cos he wasn't feeling the slightest bit of anything close to arousal and he was gonna fuck this up in front of Merle, who'd call him a pussy or a fucking faggot for the rest of his life.
Monica wasn't doing anything, just looking at him without much interest.
"Do you… am I s'posed to kiss ya or something?" Daryl said at last. He heard Merle guffaw.
"No kid, you don't have kiss me," Monica said. She pulled down the straps of her slip and her breasts, large and terrifying, popped into view. Daryl stared at them. "Those ain't real, little brother," he could hear Merle saying, but all he could do was gape at the tits and wonder what he was supposed to do with them.
Monica sighed noisily. She grabbed his hands and placed them on her breasts, forcing him to squeeze them. Daryl didn't like the way they felt under his hands, cold and unyielding. He let go as soon as Monica let him. She unzipped his jeans and slid her hand inside. He wasn't hard. She began to pump him, and her hand was painfully dry against his skin. Daryl could hear Merle laughing. Pussy. He squeezed his eyes shut and cast his mind about for something, anything… He remembered one of Merle's pornos, the one where it was two girls. There weren't any whips or huge cocks, and he'd liked watching them go down on each other. It worked, finally. His dick, stupid thing, did what it was supposed to do and got hard. Monica didn't waste any time, thankfully. She mounted him and did most of the work, moving up and down. Daryl kept his eyes shut. Whenever he moved, her breasts collided with his head, and he found it was best to keep still.
In the end, the discomfort of it made him lose focus on the two girls licking each other's cunts and he went soft. But he screwed up his face anyway and groaned like he'd come hard. He opened his eyes just in time to see Merle, across the room, furiously jerking off with a glazed expression on his face, come all over Monica's armchair.
Monica got off him. "There you go, kid," she said, fixing her slip. "All grown up now." Daryl zipped his jeans as Merle, across the room, did the same. When Merle walked over to him, there were tears in his eyes. "Knew you could do it, little brother. Knew you weren't no pussy." Daryl let Merle hug him tightly.
"Go on home now," Merle said. "Me and Monica got stuff to talk about."
The drugs were back out but Daryl didn't care anymore. He began the walk back home in the dark. He was nearly there when he had to double over and puke violently. Nothing but beer came up but his stomach heaved painfully for another minute or two. He wanted to cry. At least he wouldn't have to thank Merle til the morning.
XX
Before he lit off for good, Merle took him back there, to the whorehouse, a couple more times. But he didn't try to watch again. Usually Daryl paid the girls to keep their mouths shut that he never so much as touched them. There was one girl he sort of liked, Marine she said her name was. She was so skinny her bones jutted out and she had track marks on her arms, but she had the sweetest Georgia drawl and hair like cornsilk. Not much older than him. She was the only one he ever came inside of and she never tried to take his shirt off. One day he went to see her and a different girl told him she was dead, overdosed two days ago.
When he dreamed it was about no one in particular. Couldn't give 'em a face. Hell, he couldn't have said if they were male or female. But it was always soft hands, soft lips, soft voices.
That's what he was dreaming about when he came to on the floor of his room one night. Couldn't remember how he'd got there, might've been smoking weed with Merle earlier. He groaned and arched his back, he was about to finish, if he could just ride this one out before waking up properly…
Something wasn't right. His eyes flew open. Someone was crouched over him, sucking his cock. He shouted hoarsely and tried to jerk away, but a hand was clapped over his mouth. He struggled and landed a punch on the other's face, managing to scramble away and pull his pants up.
It was Roy, one of Merle's dealers, now moaning and clutching his nose as blood ran through his fingers.
"The fuck you doin'?" Daryl snarled. The bastard on the floor kept whimpering and moaning. He was bound to wake up someone, Merle, or worse, their dad. Daryl dragged Roy to his feet. He nearly killed him, there in that moment. Thought about smashing his nose so hard the bone fragments'd drive deep into his brain. He nearly did it, but then his whole body started shaking so hard he barely had the strength to throw Roy across the room, out the door. "I'll kill you," he whispered unevenly. "You come near me again, I'll fuckin' kill you, you son of a bitch." His door didn't have a lock on it so he dragged a chair over and wedged it under the knob. Then he collapsed on the floor, sick and shaking like he had the flu. Son of a bitch son of a bitch son of a bitch…
A bunch of sick fucks Merle ran around with sometimes, assholes who kicked their dogs, sadists who hit their women, and men who'd kill for just one more fix. But never nothing like this. Merle protected him, and his friends learned to leave Daryl alone or risk an asskicking. But this wasn't something he could tell Merle. Nobody. Never.
He wouldn't even dream anymore, not if his dreams gave way to fucked up reality. He'd drink himself blind every night if he had to, dull his mind into submission, never think those kinds of thoughts. It wasn't safe.
XX
"Maybe you oughta join up, son."
It was one of those rare days Daryl had dragged his ass to school. He was seventeen but hell if he knew what grade he was supposed to be in. He was failing everything. Now here he was, held back after math, listening to some old guy lecture him about his future.
"It's obvious you're not made for this," the teacher, Mr. Billings, said, waving his latest math test under his nose. 34%, and all of it dumb luck. "You get suspended one more time and you're expelled, you know that, right?"
Daryl shrugged.
"Trying to teach you is like talking to a brick wall. You're not smart, son, you're the dullest knife in the drawer."
I can track anything for miles, Daryl thought. I can shoot a crossbow or any kind of gun. I can hit a moving target from hundreds of feet away. I can fight. I can hotwire a car. I can rob you blind before you know what hit you.
"You're never going to graduate. Not if you repeated all four years."
"The hell I will," Daryl said.
"Join the army, son. It might be your last chance to straighten out."
"The hell for?" Daryl said. "Gulf War's been over for years."
"Son, do you even know where the Gulf is?"
Just cos he'd never left Georgia didn't mean he didn't know how to read a damn map. But fuck this guy.
"Florida," he said.
The teacher, Mr. Billings, shook his head. "Son, come here."
Daryl took one step.
"Closer."
Daryl folded his arms.
"Son, do you want to pass this class?"
"Can't," said Daryl.
"Maybe we could help each other." Mr. Billings unfastened his belt. "Make it worth my while, maybe you'll even graduate."
Daryl recoiled. He clenched his fists, his temper gone to boiling so fast his head was spinning. But he wasn't going to jail for killing some pathetic bastard. He wasn't. He backed away, one step at a time. At the door he stopped himself.
"The Gulf is in Iraq, you miserable fuck." He forced some saliva into his dry mouth and spat on the floor.
That night, him and Merle robbed the Billings house blind. They took candlesticks, jewelry, a TV. Merle got carried away and wanted to take Billings and his sad wispy wife hostage at gunpoint, but Daryl talked him out of it. Not worth going to jail. Let them wake up and find their house stripped. He took a piss on the living room carpet for good measure, though. Never went back to school.
XX
A few days after Merle left for good, his girlfriend – or whatever she was, the girl Merle went back to most often – came round the place looking for him.
"He ain't here," Daryl said, blocking her way past the porch. His dad was asleep inside, and Daryl meant to keep him that way.
"What do mean, he ain't here?" she, her name was Jodie, asked.
"Gone. Said somethin' about Florida."
"You mean he ain't comin' back?"
"Nope," Daryl said.
He watched her face crumple. He didn't mind her, Jodie, she had a loud laugh and could drink him under the table. Pretty, too, though he tried not to notice those things so much anymore. She didn't look so pretty now though, crying like that. She had her kid, Ellis, strapped to her back and he took up hollering too. Lungs like a fucking trumpet. Not Merle's. She'd got knocked up one of the times Merle was in prison. Merle hated the little bastard.
She just stood there crying.
Daryl swore. He lifted the kid off her back and held him like he'd seen her do. Little bastard screamed and pounded his fists against Daryl's shoulder, but Daryl shuffled around and bounced him a bit, and to his immense surprise Ellis shut up. Just lay there looking at him with big wet eyes. "Crazy little bastard," Daryl muttered.
Jodie wasn't crying as much now but she had snot running down her face so Daryl got his rag out and handed it to her. "Got a bottle or something?" He rummaged in her bag till he found the formula and managed to get the bottle in Ellis's mouth.
"You're good with him," Jodie said. "Sure you ain't got a kid somewhere?"
"Yep."
She wandered off towards the perimeter of the woods, resting her back against a big tree. Daryl followed her, keeping a tight hold on the baby and the bottle.
"He didn't say goodbye."
"That's Merle."
"He don't do goodbyes, huh?"
Daryl shook his head. The bottle was empty and Ellis's eyes were closing. He maneuvered out of his vest and laid it on the grass, then plopped the baby down for his nap.
"You ain't like your brother," Jodie said.
"I'm like him," Daryl said at once. "He's my brother. We're the same." He pulled out a cigarette, looked at the baby, thought better of it. He sat down next to Ellis and found a long stem to chew instead. She sat too, perching awkwardly and tugging at her skirt.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Seventeen."
"You thinkin' 'bout leavin' home soon?"
"Any day now," Daryl said. "Go after Merle. Travel round some."
"Yeah." Jodie stared off into the distance. "You wanna fuck me, Daryl?"
"Huh?"
"You heard me."
"I…" Daryl fumbled stupidly. "You're Merle's girl. I don't-"
"I'm not Merle's anything. I'm tired and I'm angry and I want you to fuck me."
Daryl swallowed. She was pretty, but he knew better than to touch anything belonging to Merle. He knew better than to touch anyone, and he sure as hell didn't want anyone touching him.
And yet.
He hated himself for it. He hated himself for walking over to her and standing there like an ape. But when she stood up and grabbed his shoulders her hands were soft. He hadn't had anyone touch him with soft hands since the dead girl at the whorehouse and when he rubbed his face into the crook of her neck that skin was soft too.
She undid his belt. She reached under her skirt and stepped out of her underwear. He couldn't meet her eyes so he took her from behind, bracing them against the tree. He was afraid to hurt her but she slammed herself back against his thrusts so violently he nearly lost his balance. She dragged his hands to her neck and clamped them around her throat.
"…you doin'?" he gasped.
"Choke me," she panted. "Hard."
Shocked, Daryl disentangled their hands and stopped moving.
"Don't stop. Hit me," she demanded. She looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes wild and unfocused. "Grab my throat and slap me like your brother used to do."
"I ain't gonna hit ya, you crazy bitch."
"Slap my ass," she commanded. "Show me you mean business. Hit me!"
Daryl stumbled away from her. "Fuck's the matter with you?" he rasped. "I ain't never hit a girl."
She turned around. "'S what I like."
"Can't hit you," Daryl said, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He was dizzy, he couldn't get air into his lungs. "Can't hit you, can't-"
"Okay, okay, forget it." Jodie found her underwear and pulled them on. "Calm down, will ya?"
Daryl couldn't look at her. His knees buckled and he sat down heavily. He heard her approaching but he flinched anyway when she rested her hands on his shoulders. "I'm sorry, okay?" she said. Daryl squirmed away from her, locked into a sort of blind terror. He looked at the baby, who was blinking at him with wide, worried eyes. Daryl wanted to pick him up, but his hands were shaking too badly.
"BOY!"
He looked up. In the distance, he could see his father shambling out of the house, a bottle in his fist.
"Get outta here," he told Jodie. "Quick now. Go."
Head bowed, he walked back towards his father. The scars on his back burned in anticipation.