5.5/18 edited

Chapter 8

The drunken men laughed in delight of their ignorant find, the amorous youth who had no place to sate his needs. Barely able to breathe, I struggled, wrenched my body from side to side until they both released me at the same time and I propelled forward with such force that if there had been air in my lungs, I surely would have knocked it out upon impact. Rocks dug into my ribs as I fell onto my right side and writhed in pain, desperate for a breath so that I could find the strength to run away. Sand and my own tangled hair soaked in saltwater was plastered to my face, which made it almost impossible to see.

My clothes as well as the cloth mask The Shadow had given me were out of my reach, the items discarded at least two dozen paces from where I stood. My fingertips went numb, my vision darkening at the edges as I blinked and attempted to keep my wits about me.

"Look at him, Hans. He's still ready," one man said to another.

"Aye, Don Juan himself."

They laughed again, kicked sand at the evidence of my self-induced arousal. I drew my legs toward my chest and despised my traitorous body for its undeniable state. No longer was there desire in my heart, in my loins, in my soul. Now all I wanted was to disappear, but it would not be so easy. The reflex to stand and fight did not exist within me, and the ability to flee would gain me nothing as the two men stood in front of me on both sides while the third man waited behind me. The moment I scrambled to my feet, they would be on top of me once more.

"You waiting for a woman, Don Juan?"

"Hold her to the sand and pump her hard, eh?"

My voice had abandoned me, although I had no desire to exchange words with them. Prepared only for my father's wrath, I recoiled, turned the right side of my face away. Their presence frightened me far greater than any confrontation with my father. At least I knew his capabilities, but this was far beyond what I had ever known. If they so desired, they could drag me back into town and tie me in the square, a naked and damaged spectacle for all to see.

One man held his hand to his face, which I thought mocked me. He made a V with his fingers and received a hearty laugh when he wiggled his tongue through the opening in his fingers.

I forced a smile, attempted a laugh as though I understood the crude meaning—which at the time was mere nonsense. My hope, however, was to find common ground, a way to relate…and then hopefully escape once they were distracted.

"He doesn't understand," the man behind me growled.

His voice sent a shiver down my spine.

"Of course he doesn't. Look at him, the filthy urchin," the man to my left said. "Damned orphans stealing from our shops and making our streets filthy. We should drown him and be done with it."

"No," the man behind me said sharply. "Too good a death for this one."

My heart felt like it had turned to stone and settled in my gut. Fear rattled through me, and I vowed I wouldn't allow the man behind me to see my face, to know my identity. With the last of my strength I sat upright and decided to flee, to return home at once. I would throw a rock at the man to my left, bolt past him, and not look back. Given how inebriated they were, I doubted they could catch me.

I had barely sat upright when one of the men-and I did not see who it was-kicked me in the chest and drove me flat onto my back. The air was knocked from my lungs, the pain I felt like a coal furnace in my rib cage. Tears unexpectedly popped from my eyes and trickled down my face, not in pain but in desperation to breathe. I thought for certain I would suffocate.

Somehow I managed to turn onto my stomach, perhaps an instinct purely of self-preservation forced me to move. My fingers clawed at the sand as I crawled away, each movement like a rusted machine attempting to work for the first time in ages. The two men on either side of me goaded me to make haste. They spread their legs and thrust their hips toward me as they laughed. I had managed to crawl a yard at most, all the while gasping desperately for my next breath. Numbness crept over me, replacing everything I felt inside and out. My only defense was to shut down, to leave both body and mind for the safe embrace of nothingness. When my father struck me relentlessly, my only defense was to lay still and allow my mind to close itself off from my body. It could have been mere minutes or an hour. I never knew how long I managed to separate from the world.

I was a worthless shell when the man behind me grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my head back. Through glassy eyes and tightened throat, I managed to find my voice. The single word I spoke was a plea, a desperate request for amnesty.

"Father?"

I saw it in his eyes, the recognition followed by his absolute disdain for me. His mouth twisted into a scowl, his eyes like pits as he stared back. I felt as though I were falling, as if the world beneath me would give way. I knew in that moment he wouldn't claim me as his son. He would not even claim me as his dog. Clearly I had misspoken, overstepped a boundary he would kill me for violating. There would be no asylum in my future; there was something much worse and more final.

My father released the tight grip he held on my hair and nudged me in the back with his knee. The other two men stared, their gazes switching between me and my father as though they searched for similarities. Like an animal I crawled away to find my mask and hoped the worst of his anger would wait until I returned home. My hands shook, my body shivering as the night air turned colder and I managed to return fully to my senses. I no longer cared to find my shirt and trousers. To hell with that. I needed my mask to cover the ugliest, most sinful flesh of all.

"A bastard?" one of the men questioned. He grunted, a heartless chuckle. "Is that what this thing is?"

"No, he is not mine. He's a damned liar," my father said under his breath. He continued to follow me as I crawled, and though I did not look to him again, he smelled of fish and alcohol. I wondered if he'd been to sea. Perhaps his absence was due to work and now he had returned. "A worthless, cowardly liar lookin' for a name. Whore's son, no doubt, but it ain't mine."

In his eyes, I was not a person, but a thing. It, he called me. His words stung worse than his fist. I wouldn't have cared if he had hit me there on the beach,as long as he said yes. Yes, this is my son. This pathetic monster is mine, the product of my loins, the flesh and blood of my body. Despite how he had treated me for as long as I could recall, I wanted to belong to him. I didn't know why. My loyalty was given without question. I suppose I knew nothing else.

"Bjorn?"

"I said he's a damned liar! Look at him! My son died as an infant. This thing must've seen the headstone and came up with a story." He drew his hand back as though he would strike me, and instinctively I shielded the left side of my face and held my breath. Once he saw me flinch, he gave a humorless chuckle. "What do you want, boy? Money or sympathy?"

Fear and despair gripped me in a maddening vice. Was I dead? Perhaps I was a living corpse, a being too vile and disgusting to sleep in a casket in the ground. My thoughts, as erratic as they were, justified his words. He didn't want a dead son. He wanted a live son, a beautiful child. Any parent who had seen me at birth would have been disappointed. I was fortunate my father had allowed me to stay beneath his home and had not suffocated me as a newborn. Rather than try his patience, I should have been grateful.

I found myself teetering on a very thin line between insanity and salvation.

"I-I apologize," I said under my breath.

"Are you his son?" one of the men asked.

I hesitated far too long before I shook my head. My chin touched my chest, my eyes respectfully averted from the three of them. Out of love, I felt I disowned my father.

Their amusement vanished, their alcohol-induced mirth slipping dangerously into intolerance. They did look at me, silently criticizing—scrutinizing—my existence. I was on display, laid bare before their eyes. With my legs tucked beneath my body, I bowed my head and placed my hands over my lap.

To my horror, my erection had grown, painful and obvious beneath my spread fingers. Despite my attempts to shift I was immediately discovered, and their mocking laughter was far worse than the void which accompanied solitude.

One of the men stooped down at my side. "If you want to touch it, then touch it. See what it does when you hold it." He made a lewd gesture with his hand and laughed as he looked me over.

I shuddered, mortified by his words and ashamed of myself for something I could not control. The man spit on my chest and tossed a handful of sand onto my quivering stomach. My body heaved with a swell of sickness, but my belly was empty. Stomach acid filled the back of my throat and I spit. All three of them stood over me, violating a frightened boy without laying a hand on me. I would have much rather been beaten senseless than sit naked before them.

My father laughed the loudest. "It seems our Don Juan doesn't know what he wants for his little worm. Cal, go find us a drunken, blind bitch and tell her we've found her a man to teach a thing or two."

I had no idea what he meant, why I would ever allow anyone—woman or man—to see me in my present state. I wanted to be left alone. For once I wanted to be alone. I hated every inch of myself, both inside and out, and I feared the lump in my throat and the sting in my eyes. If I could not control my body from the waist down, I would be damned if my emotions betrayed me as well.

My father slapped the back of my head. His actions angered me but I couldn't find the strength to retaliate, couldn't grasp hold of the one emotion which had brazenly led me to the seaside. Anger pulsed through me, but it was not enough. Fear won out as it had most every day of my childhood. If I retaliated against one man, two more would most assuredly beat me down without mercy.

Their patience wore thin, and one of the men flicked his wrist out. He belched loudly, the stench from breath hitting me in the face. "We should castrate him," the man suggested. From the corner of my eye I saw a dirty blade, the edge caked in food. "Protect our wives and daughters from this beast with no self-control."

My father shook his head and looked me in the eye. It was as though he stared through me as he had no emotion on his face. Once I lowered my gaze, he spoke.

"They'd never be foolish enough to come near him. No woman, even a blind woman, would lower herself."

His words were the flint which divided fear from anger. My muscles tightened, my sanity unraveled. I wanted to kill him, though for years I would maintain that my desires were not out of hatred, but love. I wanted him as my corpse father as I was certain the only way in which he would accept his corpse son was to join me in death.

"I ain't talking about them coming to it, I'm talking about it raping my girls."

The man's words were not meant in jest, and I knew as the two of my father's accomplices stared at me, they genuinely feared I would harm their daughters and wives. I had not hurt anyone, not even when someone hurt me. Their assumptions threatened to make me physically ill.

"Father," I said once more, my voice low. I once again considered reaching out to him, but I feared he would push me away. I only wanted him to hear me, the smallest bond between parent and child. "Father, please protect me."

He would not, I knew. Ignorantly I hoped he would see past my face and claim me as his own. I held onto my hope well after he stepped away and the man who held the dirty knife towered over me, a sickening look of perverse pleasure in his eyes.