Disc: I don't own Beyblade.
I Love You, I Need You… But I Don't Like You
My parents were so excited the day he arrived.
They had decked themselves out in their best clothes to make a good first impression (Even though they had already met him) and now they were dragging me into their madness as well.
When the doorbell rang my mother nearly jumped out of her skin. It seemed stupid. From what I'd heard the boy had acted like a right bastard when they had visited him at the care home. He hadn't even said a word to them in two whole hours. It was all I needed, a fucking mute!
Mum and Dad answered the door together leaving me alone in the front room and when they can back there he was.
My first thought was that they had lied about his age. Eleven years old had been written on the sheet, but this boy…he was beautiful in an entirely adult way. True he was short, his outfit young, maybe too young for him; but his eyes…I was supposed to be two years older than him. I had prepared myself, I was going to be the tough but worldly older brother. I would teach him all he needed to know about girls, the neighbourhood, school…but now, looking at his face all I wondered about was what he could teach me.
I could see the crowd of neighbours peeking through the window. Nosy, curious at the gift just dropped off at our house. I knew that when they got a better look they would stop and stare when he walked down the street. He was too beautiful for them not to notice. Too mysterious.
I nearly jumped in shock as I saw his lips move, when I heard his voice sound out my name. His voice breathy, deeper than I expected. A man child. They type that would grow up to be what everyone wanted male or female.
Later I would realise that I wanted him too. That I would do anything for him. That I would pay to run my hands through his two toned slate hair, too kiss those slightly chapped lips.
He was the only boy on the street to wear make-up. An absurd design of blue face paint that would only have looked good on him, his nails painted to match their colour; a blue so dark that it was almost black, chipped on his nails obscenely making his hands seem more naked than they ever could untouched.
He also smoked.
He was the enemy of every mother in the neighbourhood without ever having to utter a word. Which made him every boys personal hero…the girls he had won over in the beginning.
The way our fathers looked at him made me feel uncomfortable. They would stand together and joke that he would be a 'hansom lad' when he grew up knowing deep down that he already was and that part of them wanted him.
We all wanted him but he handled us all with such cool detachment that it felt unreasonable to hope.
Soon I would stand at the edge of the alley as he smoked just to be near him. He never spoke a word to me or even paused to acknowledge I was there.
Then one day in the bedroom we shared he turned to me. He called me over with a bored bending of a finger and sat me down before him. I could feel the heat of his hands on my knees as he held me still to stop my fidgeting.
He said my name, it felt like an age since I had heard it and only he could say it right.
I wanted to say something back. All I could was stare at him my lips suddenly dry and eyes starting to ache at my need to blink.
He gave me a smile that was almost a smile and ran a hand through my hair. There was a deliberate slowness to his actions that made me hold my breath and battle to close my eyes.
I jumped when he kissed me, so far back I fell off the bed. He smiled down at me with almost fully fledged amusement and a 'thought so' twinkle in his eye.
I scrambled back up to him in a heartbeat, praying he would do that or anything like it again. But he wore strangers eyes, any of the tenderness the moment may have had gone in an instant.
For countless hours I obsessed about what I had done wrong.
He didn't touch me again for four months.
He was angry this time waking me up at two in the morning hand firmly over my mouth so that I wouldn't scream. There was something desperate about his face. His hands were cold like he'd been outside. He was wearing a coat.
He moved his hand but before I could ask what had happened his lips were on mine. I nearly choked on my half-formed words.
He was harsh; with his lips, with his hands….but I needed it too, and so tried to bite back with equal intensity. every time I tried to match him he would pull me further back, I felt myself sinking through his layers until I hit a wall. He would allow me to go no further.
When he left for his own bed that night I felt as though he had sucked me dry. I had given him everything I had and he in turn had given me his body.
We would never speak of it. I think my silence as all the encouragement he needed. He was always cold when he came to me, always distressed. I would have killed to know what was wrong, but we never spoke a word.
I was afraid that if I did he would get up and leave. I was afraid that he would never touch me again.
Our nights together gave me confidence. I never stopped to consider that he may have been doing those things with someone else.
I began to dress older, to smoke and gel my hair. I wanted people to want me the way they wanted him. As if that would make me worthy of his love.
And people did notice me more. I would receive lingering stares, the girls down the road would whisper my name. Until he walked past and then every set of eyes were his again, every mind and heart ready to bathe in their obsession.
Sometimes when he smoked he would let me join him and we would stand together in comfortable silence. People seeing that he allowed me near him to be worn like a badge of honour.
There were whispers of his dalliances with other men, women, with our fathers even…but I ignored them thinking that he loved me the way I loved him. That I meant more to him that the convenience of sharing a room.
Then one day I caught him.
The vulgar image will forever be imprinted in my mind. I had never seen him look so ugly as he did with his mouth around my fathers cock.
I should have given up on him right there.
I should have drawn the line and walked away, should have at least told my mother.
I told no one.
Just slipped silently away again hoping that I hadn't been seen.
He had seen me though. He was so angry. At fourteen years old I had never seen anger like that. He hit me, swore and pulled my hair, spitting insults like venom. I'd never been on the receiving end of real violence before. I didn't like it. I could practically taste his anger…practically smell his fear.
When he was done I just lay there staring at him, wondering when fighting had turned into something else. Wondering why he would never let me hold him outside of a carnal embrace.
"Your father pays me for sexual favours" he told me no shame evident in his tone, his voice shattering the oppression of our silence. "He feels really bad about it too. Sometimes he cries afterwards…But he doesn't stop. They never do."
I didn't know if I was disappointed in him or myself. Maybe I had imagined too much.
Suddenly the idea that he could ever love me seemed unbelievably silly.
But I still wanted him and although the thought of anyone else touching him made my stomach clench as if to be sick. I knew I couldn't give him up.
I found some solace in the fact that he never made me pay. I began to construct a fantasy that he never charged me because he loved me too. I gripped onto it with white knuckles.
He didn't love me. I realised it months later while I was watching him with a neighbour through the window. It was the look on his face, the exact same look he gave me when we made love. He was being paid. We were all the same to him.
It stung like the day I got too close to a wasps nest. But I carried on with him as if nothing had happened. Because I loved him, because I needed him, because I couldn't imagine life without him, couldn't imagine sex with anyone else.
I thought as long as he remained untouchable I would be fine.
It was not to be. I watched him too closely not to notice the day he noticed someone else.
He was younger than us and like nothing I ever imagined he'd like. He was shorter loud and rude.
But what was most amazing was that he ignored him. He didn't even like him.
I became angry. After all I had done, after how hard I had tried to make him love me!
He would stare at the boy as he stood outside and smoked. I stood with him growing more and more angry. The boy never looked in our direction once. I wanted to shake him, didn't he know what he could have? What most of would kill to have…and the more the boy ignored him the more interested he became.
I tired to ignore him too. But one kiss and I was his again, one sultry look or word…
It had to end. Somehow all of it had to stop. Something inside me snapped and I knew if he wouldn't be mine by choice I would have to make him mine.
Kai would be mine.