Title: And That Hurt's The Most

It's some cheap party, overflowing with teens, booze and drugs. Hypos and pills are scattered about like candy and cups overflowing with bitter liquor. The girl standing in front of him is drunk enough that any inhibition she had is gone but she's still aware of what she doing…and he's not drunk enough that he's not aware of what she's planning on doing.

He's trembling under her fingers and he wishes he could say it's because the way her nails are raking down the side of his neck , but he knows he's not feeling delicate finger tips drawing gentle lines down his skin. Instead he feels roughed calluses digging into his skin as fingers bruisingly hold him in place.

The alcove, their partly in, is half hidden from the rest of the party-goers. Teens walk back with their own dates, too high, or drunk to care what's going on and too focused on what they themselves are going to do next. Kirk knows they could move somewhere private, the girl now draping her hair across his neck half-heartedly suggested as much before letting the matter drop. But he doesn't care to be alone in some deserted room with just him and her; it'll feel too much like a cell…and that's the one thing he doesn't need to be reminded of.

He saw her when he first came in….her name's Cassie or something like that.. He can't quite remember, he's better now than he was but most days still pass in a blur as he feigns normalcy.

He's graduated up from being the creepy damaged kid who is just a mess, to the bad-boy with a dark past. It's an improvement, moving from scathing comments and sympathetic glances to flirtatious remarks from his female classmates and somewhat grudging respect from the male ones.

Apparently acting like he doesn't give a care about much of anything, even living or dying is a turn on…except most people don't get it's not an act. He doesn't tell them that four weeks ago he didn't drink enough alcohol that he passed out because it was fun, but instead he did it because he was trying to forget and didn't really care about what the consequences would be. He keeps it to himself after a race on stolen air bikes , in which he emerges the very much battered victor that his insane death defying race to victory wasn't a result of giving it his all to win the race , but not giving a care whether it was his last race ever. He doesn't tell them that the hypos , pills and liquors he now regularly consumes aren't a result of him being the life of the party, he keeps silent because he knows it would be strange to say that he'd rather be the death at the party….curled up in a back room and finally released from his life.

After all if it's an accident then it really isn't taking his own life is it?

But right now he's fifteen and headed fast to nowhere. He wishes he could have seen what was about to happen and stopped it. But he had hadn't been able to say a word. It would have seemed weird, bizarre, abnormal for a fifteen year old male with supposedly raging hormones to push a beautiful and all too willing female away. So instead he pushed away the fear surging through his body at her touch of his thigh and walked away in a wake of wolf whistles and cat calls from his friends, after Cassie had let her intentions be all too clear. He let her hand tug him along to a somewhat secluded corner as he downed the last of the drink in his cup wishing the misnomer of liquid courage actually applied to the beverage scorching its way down his throat.

He was supposed to be enjoying the situation, and he felt it bizarre and sick for finding her body pressed against his and her slight frame grinding against him repulsive. He wanted to push her away, but he knew then he would be labelled.

Things might have changed in the 23rd century but some things among teenage boys never did. A boy who didn't get with a girl wasn't as stigmatized as he would have been years ago, but there was still comments made. It was high school and some things didn't change and who was hooking up with whomever would always be a topic of conversation. He didn't want the comments that would follow if he just pushed her away and left so he endured. After all what was wrong with him anyway that he wasn't finding her attention arousing. Maybe he did have something wrong with him; maybe what had happened on Tarsus had really screwed him up. Maybe somehow all that was his fault. He's refused to talk about it with the therapists and all the others but even though he doesn't—desperately doesn't want to— he remembers every moment.

Cassie whispers something in his ear and then her lips are dragging against his own, fleshy and warm, trying to force his mouth open. She pulls him closer, somehow she either ignores or doesn't notice how unwilling and stiff his body is. If she does she's probably chalking it up to him playing it cool, she'll never consider that maybe it's the opposite of how people would think. Maybe, he's hating every caressing touch and whispered word. Maybe he's the one who feels like he's being taken advantage of and just wishes he could race out without hearing "What a fag." in his ears.

He responds with trembling lips to her eager almost frantic kisses and tries to let himself go. He's gotten better at pretending to be normal. He's practiced what to say when people talk to him, how to walk in class and assembly without freaking out at the noise and excess stimuli, how to sleep without screaming out at the nightmares that still come every night, he's even practiced how to eat lunch without having to stop and puke as a stray memory of a gaunt face mixes with every bite, but what's happening now isn't something he's practiced.

Because how could he ever practice enough to forget another's body claiming his as their own—using him over and over for their own sick pleasures no matter how many times he begged, fought or pleaded for them to stop.

He feels like a freak for not feeling Cassie's soft hair against his cheek but instead dirty stubble from an unshaven face. He feels sick at not smelling the scent of her flower perfume but instead stale sweat, liquor and body odour. He nearly stops breathing as her slender frame is suddenly transformed into a heavy rough body pinning him against a wall.

He wishes he could like her like he's supposed to …after all he had liked what happened over a year ago before hadn't he? He's read that the body sometimes responds differently than the mind. He knows that some responses are involuntary and something he has no control over.

But it still feels wrong as he remembers screaming, crying, begging, his mind in torment as he body silently betrayed him by giving contrasting reactions to the stimuli.

His stomach is churning now, thick summersaults in his insides and creeping bile trailing up his throat. She's oblivious to his discomfort. Her hands are drifting lower. She's pulled off her own shirt. His belt is unbuckled and his jeans become unzipped, starting to sag . His shirt is pushed up, her nails gripping his bare back just above his waist and that's when he losses it.

"Get away." He starts to say except it to comes out as "g-g-g-get, 'way." The words are almost gibberish as he panics. The words may be almost indecipherable but his actions aren't as he pushes her back. His voice is to loud and people come closer . He can feel their eyes on him. Cassie looks hurt and confused a half formed question spills out. "But—we, I mean—I thought you—"

"N-n-no—" He swallows, and manages to gasp out over heaving breaths. "I don't—not—you—not now—I-I"

He stops too confused and panicked to continue. Whispers are starting as people watch, it's voyeurism of his anxiety filled rambling and actions. He knows the comments that will be coming next. If it was different circumstances and he was a different fifteen year old he might say similar things himself. After all there's only a few things to say about a teenage boy standing there in terrified horror, clutching his undone jeans in one hand looking like he's about to be sick at what almost happened as a very attractive girl stands opposite, confused and now angry by the refusal.

Kirk knows he should leave. His hands are trembling as he tries and fails to do his zipper up. Instead he gags and with one hand holding his jeans up he pushes past the crowd of teens watching the freak show that is him.

Everywhere he goes it feels like someone is watching him. He tries to make it to the front door so he can just leave. But the exit is blocked by a crowd of dancing teens who all are starting to stare at him. He knows his face is ghostly white and his stomach is twisting so much that any moment he going to lose it and disgrace himself even more by throwing up on the hardwood floors of whoever's house this is as people watch him and snicker. He'll be back to being the freak again.

Somebody touches him on the shoulder and he can't help but flinch back. Worried eyes seek his own. "Hey you okay?"

He almost can't speak but manages to shake his head and adds. "I don't feel so good."

Or at least that's what he thinks he says. He's sweating and the faces are flashing past too fast. His heart is thudding in his chest and a line of sweat drips down his face stinging his eyes. His hands are still trembling and now his whole body has joined in. The faces of the crowd are blurring and more like a grainy movie than reality, flashes of another time and place are starting to invade.

Past and present are intertwining and people are staring at him even as he tries to get away. He's moving without thinking, trying desperately to find an empty room, somewhere—anywhere , where people won't be witness to him falling apart in his own mind. He's digging his nails into his palm trying so hard to hold it back. He reaches a half deserted bathroom, the couple who has taken it over for a make out session leaves as he lurches in. Maybe it's because he looks like he's about to throw up. Maybe because they think he's high as a kite and having a bad trip. But mostly it's because his lips are moving in the half-forgotten now remembered words of a long ago conversation, and his eyes are half-crazed like a feral animal wanting to kill, wanting to destroy, wanting to die...

He slams the door behind himself and turns on the water. Then he sinks down his back pressed against the door and his breath coming so hard he feels like he's suffocating. He gives in...

You want to tell me...

Please, just—just kill me...he's begging for his own death with parched blood-cracked lips. He wishes he could just die ...anything but what's about to happen.

His wish isn't granted...it's never granted. He's only fourteen, naked, hurting and scared, trapped in a cell with a sadistic guard and no matter how many times he screams or cries or begs, it still happens. He wishes they would just beat him, burn him, whip him, the pain he can take. But what's about to happen next—this is something very different; it's something that breaks him in a way that nothing else could.

He's flung against a wall even as he tries to escape. He bites down on the man's forearm and takes a savage pleasure when the guard has to slam his head against the wall to release the grip his teeth have made.

It's going to be worse this time because he's fighting, and this one doesn't like it when he fights. Some of the others do. Some find it funny...more enticing, but not the one pinning him now. Kirk bites his own lips until blood runs down his chin; he's trying to keep quiet, partly because every fibre of his body is screaming to just tell the man what he wants and partly because he wants to yell until his throat is hoarse from what's happening.

Rough skin is moving against his own, a piece of a phaser holster digging into his bare hip. Grunting breaths blowing out foul breath against his hair and silent tears dripping down his cheeks. Hands caressing his body harshly front and back. Then it's over as suddenly as it started. He still hasn't told and he should feel some satisfaction but even that doesn't feel like a victory. Instead he feels numb as he hears a belt being buckled and his cell door slamming shut again. He doesn't feel anything; in fact the only thing he wishes is that somehow someway he could get clean.

But the grime of this encounter like all the others clings to him; he lets himself cry and the tear streaked paths are the only clean parts of his body...he feels so dirty.

He pulls himself upright, and tastes blood in his mouth. His bottom lip is shredded and only now does he realise that the metallic taste in his mouth wasn't only a memory. The memory still clings to him sullying him with every moment. He rakes his nails down his own skin, wishing he could just rip it off. The phantom feeling of rough hands dragging against his body is killing him.

He raises his eyes and spots the shower stall halfway across the room. Before he knows what he's done he has flicked on the water setting. He stands under the hot spray letting it burn his skin through his clothes. He grabs soap and strips and scrubs away until his skin is red and raw and still it isn't enough.

Tears start streaking down his face intermingled with rivulets of water and the scrub brush falls from his hands as he starts gagging which quickly turns into full blown heaving. He's crying and throwing up and screaming. Between the shower and the loud music he's mostly unheard. The water turns cold and eventually he's left ineffectually still retching but bringing up nothing but acid. Mucus and sour bile coat his throat and he feels like there's no more tears left in his body.

It's another few minutes before he manages to turn the water off and get back into his now sopping wet clothes. When he unlocks the door and walks out of the bathroom, a small crowd is gathered in front of the door and he can tell that his screams weren't all drowned out. He knows the picture he must make—eyes reddened, face blotchy, clothes dripping wet, and smelling faintly of sick.

He moves past the now frozen onlookers and walks down the stairs and out the house. Somebody calls his name, but he ignores them and continues on into the night.

XXXX XXXX

He gets home late , much later than he should be. His mother looks up from a data Padd she's reading as he walks by. By now his clothes have dried off. She doesn't fully glance up so she doesn't notice his face or his expression. He can tell she wants to lecture him on curfews but she breathes in and drops the remark before she speaks again. It's because she doesn't really know what to say...how can she lecture him that he shouldn't be out late at night when he was out alone in a lot more dangerous situations for months...Riverside , Iowa can't be half as dangerous as a war zone.

Instead she asks. "How was the party?"

Kirk has to force himself to speak. The words sound rusty and false. "It was fine."

"Really?"

He doesn't answer, just nods and continues past to his room. He can't tell her what really happened; he's already decided to forget it. None of it was real if he refuses to remember it. Tomorrow he'll go to school like he's fine. They'll think he had a bad trip of drugs or something, eventually the rumours will die down. But he's not telling his mother, there's nothing she can do anyway.

At the kitchen table Winona finally raises her face completely; she brushes away the tears that have been falling on her data Padd since before she heard her son walk thru the door. Some kid told their parents what happened and the parent called her. They were talking about drug consumption and liquor, but she knows that not the real problem, at least not totally. She knows she should have pressed Jim farther, she knows something is very wrong and it's not just the nightmares or the scars she sees. Something's broken inside. She has a vague suspicion of what's caused it. But she can't bring herself to talk about it or accept it, and after all there's nothing she can do anyway...

And that hurt's the most.

This story was written in part after thinking about all the male survivors of sexual assaults. One out of every ten sexual assaults is of a male. But in many cases they are the hidden quantity. There's a stigma to male sexual assault that in many cases far overreaches the perception of female sexual assaults. Males are often blamed for the crime almost as if they were willing accomplices. They reduced and belittled for not being man enough, or not being able to fight off their attacker or even that they somehow were acting in a way that brought it on. Even the healthcare community needs to recognize male SA survivors and offer them support. This problem is an issue that affects many of all nationalities ,occupations, socioeconomic background, and ethnicities.

Thanks for reading ...until next time.