Author's Note: Okay, I am warning anyone who reads this that this chapter is very disturbing. In fact, it's almost bordering on NC-17 so, please be careful. And it has a bunch of ethnic slurs as well as anti-homosexual thoughts. Just know that I don't feel this way; this is a historical fiction piece and these fictional characters feel this way.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I just want to say that, after this chapter, there are only two left. I figured out how I would finish this, so get excited. And enjoy this chapter (as much as you can, I guess.)

Disclaimer: These are always mandatory when dabbling in fan fiction. If there is anything at all that is reminiscent of the 1992 musical Newsies, then it probably belongs to Disney. The characters of Luke/Rip & his family, Caitlin/Spindle, and Jessa, specifically, are mine, as well as others that may work their way into this story. Any others belong to their respective authors and will be noted in individual disclaimers.

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A Virgin's Touch

09.06.06

They say that what men desire is a virgin who is a whore.
Maybe that's what I was looking for. It's what I made her, after all.

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PART XV

Much of that night became tucked away in the dark recesses of his mind, with only flashes of the actual scenario playing out before his eyes. He knew pain – physical pain beyond anything he ever knew before – but not feeling. From that moment on, Rip was the epitome of numbness.

Mack's words, cruelly whispered as a painful taunt, made Rip curious. It's not something that I haven't had before…or won't have again… The second half of his statement was clear; it was a promise – not even a threat – that Mack was making. Over the next few months, Mack came crawling into Rip's bunk more times than he cared to remember.

Rip became very good at forgetting.

No, it was the first portion – It's not something that I haven't had before – that worried him. But, as Rip found out soon enough, Mack was rather in a state of euphoria after he was done. If Rip gave into him early on, and struggled less – which was not a problem; as the time wore on, Rip struggled less, blocking out the occurrences in moments of blackness – Mack was all too happy to speak to him, answer any questions he had.

He kept the most important question quiet for a bit. He would found out the 'Why me?' of it all when the time was right. But the 'What do you mean?' question was the first one on the tip of his tongue.

Mack's response was a laugh. He had leaned in, his breath hot on Rip's ear, as the younger tried to control his facial expression – he was afraid that should Mack see his look of disgust, he might grow offended and (for once) shut his mouth. "Remember my birthday?" Rip did not move. "I found you, near naked, on the steps. You had a bit too much drink, Rip. Didn't even say anything when I led you out of the bunkroom and removed your clothes. In fact, you were quite the willing participant," he added, laughing again.

Rip almost snapped at that moment. But he did not – he could not. Mack was careful enough to make sure that he came looking for Rip when no other boys were in the bunkroom, or when they had all gone to sleep for the night. How would explain it to the others if Mack was hurt (or worse) when in his own company?

That did not mean that he was not planning something. To be repeatedly taken in a violation of human nature – as a Roman Catholic he believed that a man loving another man, a man fucking another man, was a crime against God – to be treated as less than a person by the one boy he thought was his comrade, there was no way that Mack would get away with it. Rip would just have to bide his time and wait.

And try not to remember.

There were the quick squeezes, the painful yanks, the forceful entries. The salty intrusion into his mouth, the sloppy drunken kisses. He drank more during the last quarter of 1894 than most boys do throughout their entire adolescence. Looking back on that dark period, Rip wondered how he survived. At the time, he wanted the drink to take him away, end it all. But it did not. It did, however, make him more susceptible to Mack's advances; the older boy knew when his victim became inebriated enough and attacked. Rip never fought back at night with Mack when he had already spent the afternoon with Old Tom.

There was never the thought that he would turn to any of the other boys for help. For one thing, none of them had ever liked him; the only one to befriend him had been Mack. For another, he was not entirely sure that they would believe he had been forced. To them, a queer was a queer. He would be thrown out on the streets before he could say another word on the subject – if they did not beat him senseless first.

So, rather than deal with any repercussions, Rip remained silent. He went about his business as normal, selling countless papers, looking over his shoulder for any signs of Spindle. She had not visited him since that time in September. After her confession, he had expected her to come to see him again. But the flow of time continued, and she did not return.

Thanksgiving of '94 was similar to the one of the year before. The charitable biddies from the Children's Aid Society threw a feast for the boys; Mack tried his luck with another one of their daughters. This time, however, Rip felt his advances were a sham. Would he follow this girl home and then return to sleep with him? Needless to say, he did not enjoy the meal.

Maria's birthday came about on the 11th of December. She would have been fifteen that year. Rip spent that day out on streets; he would rather have died, taking his chances with the Negroes who snuck around after dark, than let Mack taint him on Maria's birthday. Instead, he hid away in an alley – the same alley he had stayed with Spindle during her brief visit last May – and prayed. He prayed for his sister, he prayed for his family, he prayed for Daisy and he prayed for himself. He asked God for forgiveness. He would need it soon enough.

Christmas, as did much of those chilling months, passed by him in a drunken blur, punctuated by periods of self-loathing and pain. He, it seemed, was Mack's present to himself that year. But, still, Mack refused to leave the bunkroom alongside Rip. Maybe he was smarter than he let on; maybe he knew that, once they were far enough away from the Harlem House, Rip would snap and he would get his comeuppance for his sadistic treatment.

Either way – whether it be a lapse in Mack's cleverness or just plain dumb luck – Rip finally succeeded in luring Mack Turner away from the sanctuary of the House one night in January.

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Spindle had visited him again that first day of 1895. She came bearing a gift for Rip – a sleek, steel blade of his own. He almost could not accept the knife, considering his disgust towards stab wounds, but eventually thanked Spindle. She did not expect anything in return for her gesture – it was an expensive knife, he knew, but she just said that is was to commemorate the holiday as well as his sixteenth birthday – but he gave her something more than she had expected: he told her he loved her.

The words were foreign and were said without much feeling but, when Spindle left that next morning – the pair had returned to 'their' alley and, in the dark, she could not see the bruises and marks inflicted by Mack – she was glowing. She promised to return when she could and he nodded. By the time she came back, Mack would not be a problem and they, as long as she stayed away from Cecilia Rayner's brothel, would not have to sneak around.

Rip felt much better about himself after Spindle had left. She had visited him with one thing on her mind. He had been reluctant, at first, to give in to her advances but he felt the need to prove himself – prove that he was not a queer. It was following their tryst in the alleyway that Rip uttered those fateful three words to Spindle Scott. In a way, he did so just to prove that Mack would not break him.

It would be Rip that would be doing the breaking.

It was on his birthday, the day after Spindle started her trip back to Queens, that Rip had the opportunity to exact revenge on Mack. It had been near four months since that night where Mack first began to violate Rip and the older boy assumed that there were no hard feelings between them both. He was aware that the 3rd of January was Rip's sixteenth birthday and he was eager to make it as special as his birthday was – at least for him.

When Rip told Mack that what he wanted was to take a walk and go somewhere 'private', Mack readily agreed. It may have been the liberal amounts of gin and whiskey that he consumed – Rip drank water from a gin-marked bottle to give himself the upper hand; if Mack was drunk while he was sober, Mack's size would not be an advantage any further - that knocked any lingering suspicions out of his mind but he followed the younger boy out of the Harlem House.

Mack usually was one to hold his liquor but Rip had offered glass after glass to him and he was effectively drunk. He stumbled down the road, his hazel eyes squinting against the setting sun, his shaggy brown hair flat. It was chilly out and, because he had been prepared to go after Rip, he had not worn a union suit. But Rip seemed unaffected by the cold and when he grabbed at the crotch of Mack's pants, Mack effectively warmed up as he grew aroused.

They continued walking a bit until the erection made it too painful for Mack to wait any longer. While he normally had control over himself, the liquor was playing with his sense. He began to grope at Rip's shirt.

Rip gently pulled his hands away. "Not here. Someone might see and I want privacy." He looked around, his icy blue eyes pretending to look for a perfect spot; as he had already planned the whole night out, he knew where he was going to bring Mack. He made a slight sound of surprise before grabbing Mack's arm. "There," he said, pointing at a small and empty building on the corner, with slabs of wood over the windows. The door had already been opened thanks to a kick from Rip's boot earlier that morning; he left the door propped closed so that it appeared locked. It would not do well to his plan if any squatters had taken residence inside. "Let's go in there."

Mack followed Rip. If he had been sober he might have been suspicious of the circumstances. But he was not sober – he was drunk and horny. He was busy with the top buttons of his slacks as Rip opened the door to the empty building. They were almost undone by the time Rip shut the door behind him.

Rip's face remained passive as he applauded himself. The hardest obstacle – getting Mack inside the building without getting defensive – had been cleared. Now he just had to get the boy to talk.

The older boy, it seemed, was not eager to talk. He was clumsily trying to remove his slacks without taking his shoes off first. He had not worn anything below the outermost layer of clothing – it was an unseasonably warm day, considering it was the beginning of January; unlike the year before, the snow had not arrived yet – and was exposed entirely. Rip fought the urge to stomp on Mack's erection. He deserved it, certainly, but it would not do to go after him until his questions were answered.

Instead, as much as it upset him, he took Mack into his hands. Mack's jaw hung open slightly, his eyes were only half opened, as he let out a moan. Rip had never reached for him before. It felt good.

Rip kept his focus on his hands. As they moved slowly, stroking the hardened flesh below his fingers, he imagined the blood draining downward, covering Mack entirely. He smirked and his grip tightened. "Mack?" It was time.

"Mmm?" He was enjoying Rip's touch.

"Why did you first fuck me?" Simple and to the point. He had finally gotten the chance to ask the question that had been haunting him.

He received a nice short answer in return. "Because I fuck anything and everything."

Rip drew his hand away. He wanted more of an answer than that.

Mack shuddered as the younger boy's erotic touch disappeared. He opened his eyes and glanced at Rip; he saw that he was serious and sighed. He lifted his hips off of the ground that they were sitting on so that Rip would return to business. "Seriously, Rip. If you haven't noticed by now, I lay with anything. Girls, boys, it don't matter to me as long as it's hot and wet."

Rip went back to work. "Why me?"

"I've wanted you since that day we saved you but I waited until you were ready. Call it initiation… if you will." He was panting now, with small grunts breaking into his sentences. "I've had most of the older boys in the Home. Why do you think they hate you, Rip? I only take in new meat when I get a hard on for them and some of the boys was jealous. I never touched another of them since cause I was waiting for you. I just spent more of my time at Cecilia's instead."

Rip was silent just then, digesting Mack's words. He was feeling ill, knowing that Mack had lusted after him for over a year, but Mack's next words made him feel sicker yet.

"Some of them watch us, you know. You think they're sleeping when I come crawling in with you but, when I get inside your ass, I can hear them. They get off to watching the good little Catholic boy getting fucked by a man. It's like they're watching you go to Hell."

"I'm already going to Hell," he answered, moving his hand faster. He did not want to hear any more of Mack's excuses. He wanted to get to the next stage of his plan: the part where Mack was not feeling pleasure but pain.

Then, just as if he had not been spouting words that justified his attacks on the boys younger than him, he released into Rip's hand. Rip did not flinch; he just leaned over wiped the fluid onto Mack's chest. The older boy was breathing heavily, his eyes just slits in his face. However, as Rip leaned in, he saw the cross that hung around his neck. "You know, something. Staring at that while you was getting me off, reminded me. I remember that cross, now…" he panted slightly, trying to lift his hand to reach for it. Rip let him, surprised. This was not the first time, nor the second time, that Mack had mentioned his jewelry. He always, when he saw it, laughed and said he remembered staring at the little Jesus hanging there, staring at him. Could it be?

Now, Rip's plan had been to hurt Mack as much as he could. He would beat him, kick him and, then, violate him in the same manner that he, himself, had been violated. He had never fucked another boy before but to show Mack how it felt, he would.

But the best laid plans could hit a snag. As Mack sat there, sweaty and slick with body fluids, his hand reaching out and fondling the gold cross that hung around Rip's neck, Rip changed his plans. He had still been leaning forward; he moved closer, nearly an inch separating his and Mack's mouths. "What did you say?"

Mack seemed to enjoy the proximity between the pair of them. At least, he answered Rip's question. "I remember a cross like this. We had gone out of Harlem a year or so ago to meet up with some boys on the…uh…Lower East Side, in Manhattan, I think, when we found ourselves amongst the wops. Little Italy, full of a slimy bunch of asses. Damn dagos."

He was reaching the breaking point. The emotions that had lain dormant ever since that first night with Mack were stretching taut. Rip chose to overlook the Italian slurs in order to prod Mack further in his story. There was a knot in his stomach; he had the sick suspicion that he knew where this was going. "Yeah. But what about the cross?"

Mack's eyes opened a little wider. Rip had all but crawled into his naked lap. He was touching his bare chest as he spoke. Rip was never affectionate; this struck him as odd and his eyes began to open a bit wider. Despite his drunken state, he was beginning to question Rip's motives. "What's so important about that shit?"

"I'm just… curious."

"Alright." Mack was still out of it and accepted Rip's simplistic answer. "It just all happened so fast. It was me and a couple of the boys and some pretty little wop girl comes running across us. All in white. Real nice. But she didn't talk too nice. All I wanted was a little kiss and she called me a 'stupid mick'. But I ain't Mick. I'm Mack. So I hit her. After she fell, I got on top of her and reached for her dress." He stopped in his explanation and grinned. He looked incredibly goofy. "I was gonna fuck her, right in front of my boys. Show her who's boss, you know, Rip? Well, she started to cry and I stopped. When a girl cries, I feel a bit bad. Then she took out her fucking cross, like that was gonna stop me. But I couldn't get it up when she was crying so I left her alone. Stupid tramp. So now, when I see a cross, I think of her. She would have been a nice lay, too."

He laughed just then. A sick laugh. Mack really did believe that he could take anyone he wanted. He had tried to take Maria. Just like he had done to me. Maria…

There was no doubt in Rip's mind that Mack was referring to his sister. A year or so ago… Little Italy… A girl in white… The cross… Mack had been with Maria – had tried to take her innocence – before she died. But had he killed her? "Did you happen to hurt the girl?" He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice. He did not want to give anything away.

Mack looked confused, almost as if he could not comprehend what Rip was asking. Finally, he shook his head. "Nah. Just left her in the park we found her. I can't touch a girl when she cries," he answered, shrugging his shoulder. Then, with his grin back in place, he reached out and pulled on the waist of Rip's slacks. "My turn."

He did not pull away just yet. Rather, Rip snapped; he did not believe Mack. He reached behind him with his right hand and pulled Spindle's gift to him out of the back pocket. Mack did not even see the movement. The blade was lifted and buried to the hilt within his side before he knew it. "No, Mack. It's my turn."

Riposi In Pace… Mack.

His hands were a bit bloodier now. His prayers grew a bit longer.