With out love

Red Turtle

Chapter 2:

Caught between awkwardly watching my brother cry and awkwardly doing something about it, I took the least uncomfortable recourse available. I hugged him. This had two advantages; one was that if I was hugging him I wouldn't be able to see him cry, which was worse than anything, even with him being covered in our hoods. Two was so out of character for me that it gave him the shock he needed to get a hold of himself.

"What's her name?" I asked him. Because of his insistence that we not speak of them, it seemed like the very subject we needed to discuss here.

"I don't know", he sniffed.

"Do you know any of their names?"

"No."

I really wished now that I had more experience talking to him, because I had no idea how to proceed with this. My curiosity was piqued, not to mention my pride wounded. I had to know why he gave them $20 and let them beat me up, and it had better be a fucking good explanation.

"Why?" I asked simply. It was a blanket-why. If there was any "because" that had anything to do with this situation, I wanted to know about it.

Donatello took a moment to examine his dagger. That seemed like a great technique of avoiding eye contact. Since we were in for a long, possibly awkward, discussion I took out my sai and played with it until he was ready to talk.

"Raph."

"Yes."

"If I tell you this...you can't tell anyone else. I don't think I could..."

"Would you rather we go back and talk to Leo or something?" I offered.

"No", he answered quickly, "I defiantly couldn't tell him. I think you're the only one I could ever say this too."

"Okay. Shoot."

I braced myself. I had trouble fathoming Donatello telling me anything this secret, and already my mind raced to try and guess what it was. A mini-day-dream began, maybe he had come across them last night, maybe they were being attacked, and maybe he jumped in to help them. In the course of this fight, somebody was killed. They couldn't go to the police, so they begged Donatello to help them hide the body. He agreed, because he likes the girl and couldn't refuse her, and now was overcome with guilt at what he had done.

This story could only have taken about ten seconds to play out in my mind. Donatello still hadn't spoken when I shook myself out of it.

"I saw them performing last night." he finally said.

He glanced over at me. I nodded.

"They were singing that same song, the one with the dog barking. I liked their singing, and, since I was covered up like this, I decided to stay and listen for a while."

I nodded again. He seemed to need me to nod in order to continue.

"I must have stayed there for an hour. It got really late, and they started gathering their things to leave. One of the boys approached me with the hat, so I gave him $5, since I had been there so long."

I sensed the need for another nod.

"I started to leave, since it was so late, and one of the other boys came up. The one that was playing the drums. He started talking to me, where am I from, what songs would I like to hear, did I come to see the temples..."

Nod.

"Then he asked me if I wanted a blow job."

At this I raised an eye ridge.

"I said no", Donatello assured me, "Because I didn't."

I nodded.

"Not from him."

Now I raised both my eye ridges. Donatello briefly glanced in my direction, and then refocused his attention on his dagger. My sai lay ignored in my hands.

"But, his sister...I...she..." he stammered.

"You want one from her" I filled in. This made sense now. Donatello's all sensitive and young and shit, and this guy put this idea in his head and now he's all angst-ridden about wanting a blow-job. In our position, its very hard to deal with these feelings knowing we can't ever act on them...except maybe with April...but only if she-

"Raph...I got one from her."

"What?"

"I went into an alley with them, and she...did it..."

"Are you sure?"

That was a pretty stupid question, I know, but the only thoughts my mind would allow on this was that, of all of us, Donatello's the last one who should be getting a blow job. And, frankly, I would be the first. I've had so many offers I couldn't count, and it was just a matter of time before I finally acted on one. But here my little brother, even though he's technically the same age, he's my little brother and here he's...actually...

"I know what's involved, Raph." he told me, "At least, physically."

"But..." I supplied, after a moment of awkward silence.

"I didn't know what was involved mentally. They talked me into it, I told them I was deformed, and I didn't want anyone to see me, and they said they were all deformed too, from radiation, so they didn't care. I thought, I thought, what the hell, I'm never going to get a chance like this again, it'll be, like, a milestone in my life. But it was...not like that. The whole time I was only thinking about myself, but...I wasn't even really thinking about myself, in the long run, doing something as unsafe as this, with diseases and everything... And as soon as it was over I hated myself. Do you realize they must spend their whole lives doing this? And I just took advantage of that."

He blinked back some more tears.

"Donnie, you didn't take advantage of them. I mean, they're pretty capable of taking care of themselves", I pointed out, remembering my aching jaw.

"Raph, if they could take care of themselves they wouldn't be offering blow jobs to strangers for $5. They wouldn't be singing for spare change in the street. They're really in a bad place, and I just made it worse."

"Well, you did give them our $20", I pointed out, "I'm sure that will help."

He narrowed his eyes.

"I don't want to just give them money. I want to take some responsibility for them."

"Responsibility? Like how? We're leaving tomorrow."

"Maybe...they could..."

"No", I stated firmly.

He looked down. I could see this wasn't a battle he was trying to win, but still...

"It's just that I'm probably never going to have an experience like this with a girl again. And, instead of just...using her, I want her to know that she meant something."

"Write her a note", I suggested.

"I don't write really well in Thai script. And she probably doesn't read much English."

"Use pictures."

He smiled faintly, and then went back to staring at his dagger.

This conversation wasn't done yet. It needed a good morality speech to give it a solid conclusion. The kind of thing Leo was really good at doing. Or Splinter.

Course they're not here right now and will probably never know about this. Which means...

I sighed.

"Listen, Donnie, everyone does things they regret. We all are going to make big mistakes, just like humans. It's part of growing up. But the four of us contribute a lot more to making things better in the world than most humans, so you can cut yourself some slack here. Everything's going to be okay."

He looked me in the eyes a second, maybe trying to tell if I was being sarcastic. But I wasn't. It needed to be said, and I was the only one around who could say it.

Having determined that I was being non-sarcastic, Donatello stood up and hugged me. I gave him a brief pat on the back to accomplish the brotherly-bond thing, and let go.

"You want to head back?" I gestured towards our temporary home.

"I'll draw her a note tonight, and get it to them before we leave tomorrow."

"Are you going to be alright then?"

"Yeah", he assured me, and started walking back.

Good, I thought to myself as I followed him. I wanted to get back home too.

I needed to take a cold shower.

$20 would buy a lot of blowjobs.

I had all night and tomorrow morning to suppress that thought.