Tenebrosity

Chapter Seven: “The Day I Lost Me Too”


Another anniversary of the day that I lost you
It's really very simple, that day, I lost me too.~A Poem of Loss (Anon)

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Monday, October 31, 2016

I jerk awake out of a horrible nightmare and open my eyes to the darkness that obscures all objects in the bedroom. My breathing sounds so loud, covering up the last of the noises from my nightmarish memory. Shit! I think I’m having a heart attack. I have to calm down. I have to calm down or I’m going to get that pity-wish and fucking die, or worse, become a fucking vegetable with a mechanical heart.

“Brian, are... Are you all right?” I feel Justin’s hand searing my cool, sweaty back. I wonder if he can feel how fast my heart is beating? I can’t believe he’s actually fucking touching me.

When I came to bed tonight and saw Justin asleep in it, I stupidly stared at him as though I hadn’t seen him in months. I imagined the sight was a little like when he came back from Paris and we fucked everywhere in the house. Thinking about that made me hard and I jacked off, leaning against the bedpost near his head, staring at him as though he had no clothes on. The intensity of my orgasm had me nearly blacking out. I had to hang onto the post so I wouldn’t fall over as I shot my load. Drops of my come escaped my fingers and dotted Justin’s underwear on his hip. I practically came for a second time when I noticed that and had to fight my body’s natural yearning for more. It was the most satisfying orgasm I’d had in a long fucking time.

“Are you okay?” he asks louder, clearing his throat and shaking my shoulder a little bit as he does.

“No,” I answer, the one word taking scores of effort to produce. I turn on my side to face him and barely make out his body. He’s sitting straight up, against the headboard, closer to me than I remember him being when I came up to bed.

As my eyes adjust, I see tears swim in his eyes. As they connect with mine, they beckon my own to water with repressed tears. Damn him! I think I preferred it when he couldn’t cry.

“I can’t sleep,” he whispers needlessly.

“Your leg?” I ask him, glancing down at the limb that’s practically skin and bones. He got the cast on his leg removed a few weeks ago. His doctor said he’d never seen anyone heal so fast. Justin must have strong bones and luck on his side to have had such a perfect fracture.

How can any fracture be perfect? And Justin, healing fast? Yeah, that’s a lie if I ever heard one. And lucky? Justin?

“I took the pain medication,” he says, “but it didn’t make me tired.”

I move to a sitting position and take a chance with my reply, “I think you could’ve taken the whole bottle and still not slept tonight.”

His head drops and he reaches out to rub his leg, right around the scar. “The scar didn’t heal very well, it’s ugly.”

This avoidance, I have to own it with him. The evasion is the only way that my heart will stop aching as I feel it wanting to tear out of my chest. “All scars are ugly reminders.” I ignore the pinch the words bring forth.

“That’s like the corniest thing I’ve heard you say in a long time,” he teases.

He actually teased me! I want to tell him that that’s the most ‘Justiny’ thing I’ve heard him say in a long time, but I don’t. We’re being civil and even though I’d like to be bitter and mean to him, I begrudgingly admit to needing him. Or, maybe not so begrudgingly, more like pathetically, desperately, which pisses me off.

“I think it’s going to remind me to watch where I’m going.”

For a moment, I wonder if he said that to hurt me but I detect a small laugh under his breath and banish my thoughts. I can barely see it without a light on, but it’s true, his scar isn’t very pretty. “You can use some of that cream,” I suggest, “maybe that’ll help.”

“You wouldn’t want to lick it now,” he tells me, his fingers mapping the imperfection.

I’m surprised by his comment, and it doesn’t take a genius to see why I am. And it takes a psychotic emotionally-stunted fuckwad to see hope in his remarks. “I’ve licked every scar on your body, Justin, and if that leg ever gets meat on it again, I’d lick that one too,” I admit.

He peers at me through his long bangs and bats his eyes, probably trying to stop tears from falling. “Do you want to go for a walk?” he asks timidly.

I glance at the clock and then back to him. He’s fucking crazy to want to go for a walk right now. It’s two o’clock in the morning and though it isn’t as cold as it usually is this time of year, it’s going to be freezing compared to our warm bedroom. However, I don’t want to tell him no. “Are you sure your leg can handle it? Cold weather probably isn’t good for it.”

“Yeah, I’ll wrap it up with an ace bandage and take the cane. We don’t have to go far. Just to the end of the property?”

“All right,” I relent, “get dressed.”

 

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Although I try to find the me that I used to be
I will never find that person now that she is lost to me.

I can’t believe I let him convince me to go for a walk in the middle of the night. Not that he did much to convince me because hearing him actually suggest such a thing warranted all my self-control to stop myself from jumping out of the bed with shock and happiness. I’m not so happy now though; it’s fucking colder than what I thought it would be. My fingertips are threatening frostbite, but Justin doesn’t seem to notice.

Justin’s walking pretty steady in front of me, his head held high, embracing the chilling breeze. Each step we take along the stone path gets us closer to the sitting area and pond in the corner of the yard. A few summers ago, he, Rel and Gus placed large garden stones and a bench they covered in mosaic around the fountain and pond Justin made me hire gardeners to put in. The gardeners kept up the fountain because I paid them to, but I doubt that Justin knows the Koi we had in the pond are still alive. Then again, he might spend his time out here while I’m at work, but I don’t think he does.

I wonder if he’s seeing the same memories that scream out at me with every pair of rounded slabs of concrete and colored glass we step on once we get to the circle area behind the benches. He walks in front of me, his hand squeezing the top of the cane, his other arm pressed tight against his body, still in the cast, under the coat that practically swallows him. Every other step or so his breath hitches; the small cloud that comes from him mixes with mine for a second before it blows away from the breeze.

“They’re still alive!” he gasps, confirming what I thought. He bends over the pond, inspecting it and tilts his head to look up at me. “You put in a floating heater?”

“I told the gardeners to,” I confirm. “That’s what you said you wanted.”

“I didn’t think you were listening,” he admits, giving me a wry smile.

“The gardener feeds them, but if you think you can remember to do it I’ll tell him to put the supplies in the garage for you.”

“I can talk to the gardener and tell him that,” he says in a strangely sure voice as he straightens his posture.

I watch him walk over to one of the benches and he shivers audibly when he sits on the cold stone. His lips chatter as his body is forced to acknowledge the temperature. He closes his eyes, bows his head, and if I didn’t know him so well, I’d think he was praying. He takes deep breaths, quite a few before his lips stop chattering and his frame relaxes. He doesn’t look prepared, guarded, or destroyed.

The moon is bright and there are no trees right above us so when the clouds part a little, moonlight hits us and makes the glass glow around him. “I forgot that a man could be beautiful.”

Shit! I said that aloud. I see the evidence hovering in front of my eyes and I can’t move. I’m not frozen yet, but I think maybe I need to stay out here so my brain will freeze completely so that I can never again say anything like that to Justin. How stupid can I be to put myself…

Oh.

That isn’t a smile. That isn’t a smile. He’s trying not to wince. That’s all.

“Come sit beside me and warm up.”

“What?” I gasp, and half-fucking stupidly, I giggle like a little piss in my pants schoolgirl! I really wish he’d open his eyes so I can read his expression a little better than…

Fuck. Why did I want him to open his eyes again?

Don’t. Don’t look at me like that. Please? Fresh air? Fresh fucking air and goddamn fishies swimming in a pond is what he’s needed? No…no…no…no…NO! He’s cold, his leg hurts and he wants me to be nice to him so that I’ll let him lean on me on the way back up to the house.

Okay. I can deal with that.

I think.

“I feel like I can breathe out here.”

His voice isn’t husky, it’s hoarse from the cold, I repeat to myself as I sit down on the bench beside him, as close to the edge as I can.

“I know you jacked off on me.”

What? “Wh… what?” No, I am not nervous, my teeth are chattering. If I were nervous, I’d have a right to be since his moods change so quickly I can’t keep up with them.

“I wasn’t asleep.” He bumps his shoulder against mine as he scoots close to me and rubs his head against my chin. “I was lying there, trying to let myself get hard listening to you. I thought that if I didn’t see you, I wouldn’t remember everything. I listened to your breathing, the sound of your hand, wet with your pre-come sliding up and down your dick. I know you didn’t mean to do it at first because you muffled your breath and you were whimpering like how you used to when you’d reluctantly let me fuck you. Then you just let yourself go and I listened and liked it. I liked it all, Brian. And I…. still couldn’t get hard.”

 

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I wasn’t going to tell Brian that I knew. But something is changing in me and after my talk with Gus before he went to bed, I realized that I had to do what he said. I had to grasp the strings of change if I didn’t want Brian to leave me. I didn’t think that was a possibility until Gus told me flat out that Brian wouldn’t stick around, waiting forever to feel like I loved him.

Brian has so much guilt inside of him. I still can’t move past wanting him to own the guilt that I own. But he shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting me. I should embrace that. I should love him for still wanting me. I sort of hate him for it, because if he didn’t want me then it would make things a lot easier. I could go back inside myself and not deal with anything. I’m taking the easy way out. Sex is complicated except where Brian and I are concerned. It’s the easiest thing in our lives.

I don’t want Brian to feel guilty about sex; it was so fucking wrong of me to do that to him. Even if I’m jealous of it, I can grasp onto those tattered strings a lot easier than anything else dangling in our marriage.

When he told me that I was beautiful, hearing him say it and feeling the vibration of his shock at speaking those words, words that were so true to him that he wanted, intended to keep them hidden. I was on the verge of allowing eerie memories to enter my conscious mind, but his words stopped them and replaced the building pain inside of me with a building ache of nostalgic hope.

It was enough of a shift to allow my lips to turn into a smile I didn’t realize I was making until I felt my cheeks hurt from the pull of muscles so rarely used. I wanted to give him back something. I actually wanted to give him a part of me and share something with him because I do realize that he deserves it. The only fucking thing I could handle though was talking to him about sex. And now, now that I’ve confessed it, I’m on the verge of crying like a little fool because the truth of the words and the confusion I feel are annoyingly present.

Even in the cold, I’m attuned to the warmth of embarrassment and error as it glides under my skin. I wish that I wouldn’t have said a fucking thing now, but at the same time I want to say more to him, but the cluttering emotions are making me misplace the connection I tried to build with him. He’s not speaking. He’s not saying anything and I don’t want to look at him.

I know it sounds confusing to those that have no clue
That when you lose a child, you also then lose you.
It sounds like one big riddle that I should work on through
But there is not an answer, not one thing that I can do

I am petrified of Brian. Of what he thinks of me. Of what I think about him. Of what I want to think, say and do to him. I’m fucking losing it again!

“Take a deep breath, Justin,” he whispers, wrapping his arm around my waist.

I close my eyes and try to do what he’s telling me to do. I can’t! I’m out of control.

“You don’t have to freak out about not getting a hard on. Even when I looked at you, touched you, kissed you and had you begging me to fuck you, I couldn’t get it up. Remember?”

My eyes pop open even if I don’t want to look at him; something inside me makes me stare at him.

I’m surprised he actually brought that up. Is it wrong that Brian saying this allows me to breathe easier? This is one of those things that we never talked about, not even when we did communicate. The appointments would come and I’d get a text message telling me he was fine and that was it. We didn’t dwell on it and I still got the same text message this year when we weren’t communicating at all.

Or was that last year? I don’t think I got one this year. Oh god! No… He wouldn’t be jacking off and shooting it on me if he weren’t okay. Unless, unless it’s spread somewhere else and that’s why.

“Stop looking so freaked out. I don’t have cancer.”

I let out a deep breath and relief’s diversion soothes everything else. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m surprised you care,” he speaks so softly that if my ear weren’t so close to his mouth I wouldn’t have heard it.

He isn’t wrong for being surprised. Sure, a decade ago, those words would’ve sounded stupid to me, but I’ve become everything Brian was afraid of loving. I don’t know how not to be the half-person I am. I’ve tried. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

I thought that I could at least try to bond with Brian over sex. Apparently, I can’t even talk about it with him. I really wanted to get hard and planned on opening my eyes once I did, braving it and touching him as I touched myself. But there was no desire present other than the desire for desire. I failed at that and now I’m too intimidated to tell him the truth. I’m mentally and emotionally impotent.

“Are you done sitting out here in the cold?” he asks in an impatient voice.

My eyes follow Brian’s hand gently, lazily rubbing along my right arm and I anticipate his skin touching mine the closer he gets to my hand. A lump forms in my throat and I want to open my clenched fist to let his hand slide against my palm so I can clasp my fingers around his, but I’m not strong enough to do it.

Fuck! I’m so tired of this. The claw may be out of commission but I can fucking open my hand when I’m not thinking about it. I can fucking open it now. My body has to listen to me, just a little.

Oh, shit! Work!

“Why are you grunting?” Brian asks, probably worried that I’m about to flip out.

I can’t answer him. I have to focus on what I want. I want to hold his hand, I want him to touch my skin here and I….

“Are you...”

Open. Close. Tighten.

“Oh... okay, Justin?” he stutters, pressing his thumb over my fingers as I hold tight to his.

“I’m fine,” I reply, staring at his beautiful, perfect hand. I’m breathing quick and deep as my senses provoke perspiration on my skin and heat in my loins.

“You look sick,” he replies while tilting my face up toward his.

Our lips are so close and they’re chapped and…

“You’re…. not sick,” he observes, his exhalation immediately absorbed by the sweat on my upper lip.

I shiver, but the heat is stronger than the chill. “N…not…sick, Brian,” I confirm, leaning closer to him.

“We need to go inside, Justin,” he talks almost against my lips.

Oh fuck. I’m hard. Oh my god.

 

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Saturday, October 26, 2013

“Dada, we’re hooooome!” I hear Arella’s yell echo through the house.

“I’m in the kitchen,” I yell back.

Two seconds later Rel rushes into the kitchen, shopping bags swaying in her arms. “Look what I got!” she exclaims.

“Slow down,” Justin admonishes, panting for breath as he enters the kitchen behind her. He looks like he’s about to fall over so I offer him my bottle of water and kiss his wet lips after he takes a long drink. “That was horrible!”

“It was fun!” Arella says, oblivious to Justin’s comment.

I laugh at Justin’s stricken expression. “She wouldn’t decide on anything,” he tells me.

“Daddy let me get lots of costumes,” Arella tells me, giving me an expression I know she learned from me.

I help her sit up at the bar and laugh as she pulls out a dragon costume. “You’re going to be a dragon?”

“I needed new dress-up clothes,” she says and then puts her hand over her mouth. Her eyes become the size of saucers as she slowly looks up at Justin.

Justin’s eyebrows rise. “Really, Rel? You needed new dress-up clothes?”

I try my best not to laugh at the pleading look she sends my way and decide to back Justin up; she obviously ran him over today. “So, you need to get rid of all those other clothes you have hanging in the playroom closet?”

“But you don’t get rid of your clothes when you go on a shopping spree, Dada,” she huffs, crossing her arms and glaring at me.

“That’s because I leave the charitable contributions up to your Daddy,” I reply.

Justin sighs. “Rel, if you wanted me to buy you those extra costumes to dress up in, all you had to do was ask me nicely. You didn’t have to run around picking out costumes and telling me that you just couldn’t decide what you wanted to be. Dada has a hard time deciding what to wear and throws fits sometimes too so when you cried I felt bad because I thought Dada taught you to act like that and was angry at him. I thought that it wasn’t your fault Dada showed you how to behave badly when it comes to clothes and shopping. But you did that all on purpose to make me feel sorry for you and buy you more than one costume. That wasn’t very nice.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy. I won’t do it again.”

“You’re still grounded,” I tell her.

“From what?” she asks fearfully.

“Well, I don’t think you should get to play with any of these costumes,” I tell her. “Not until after Halloween.”

Her bottom lip quivers and her eyes fill with unshed tears. “But…but I have to wear a costume on Halloween!”

“Then you should choose which one that will be, right now,” Justin cuts in, taking out all of the costumes from the bags and placing them on the countertop.

Her shoulders slump as she looks down at them all. There’s a butterfly, a purple dragon, a cheerleader, a cat, and CindArella. “I want to be a Princess,” she says, not really surprising me.

“Then you can hang up the Cind‘Arella’ costume in your closet but I’m taking the rest until after Halloween,” Justin says.

“Can I dress up in it now?” Rel asks softly.

“No,” Justin and I answer her in unison.

“Not until Halloween,” Justin adds.

“I really, really, really want to wear my Rella princess costume,” she says adamantly. “That’s who I really wanted to be.”

I can just picture her in it. She definitely looks just like that princess and I didn’t realize that she called Cinderella “Rella.” I know that she knows that we got her name from a cartoon character, but I wonder if she thinks we mean Cinderella.

“You’ll get to wear the princess costume,” Justin assures her, kissing the top of her blonde head.

She smiles at Justin and bats her eyelashes at him. “Thanks for buying me the stuff, Daddy.”

“You’re welcome, Rel. But I’m not going to change my mind about letting you dress up in it before Halloween.”

She huffs, “Fiiiine.”

“Don’t be like that,” I tell her. “You’ll get to wear it, I promise, CindArella.”

“Dad doesn’t break his promises,” Justin adds, grinning at me.

Arella smiles at me too and I feel my heart clench tight. It’s hard to be around the two of them. I am in constant fear that I’ll have a heart attack and it’s not because I’m forty-one. Anyone not blind would have a hard time keeping their breath around their sunshine.

 

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Monday, October 31, 2016

Grief is what has come to me and changed me from within
It has burrowed deep inside of me, like it's a second skin.
No one should live on this way but there was little choice
When grief was handed out to me I didn't have a voice.
I often wonder who I am since losing my sweet child

I help Justin up the stairs to the bedroom and even though he is breathing hard the whole way up them, the constant knowledge presses in on me that it isn’t because he’s in pain or is exerting himself too much.

I practically drag him into the bedroom and as soon as we’re behind the door, I release his hand and walk toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower to get warm.” I have to clear my head. I can’t be getting excited, getting a steel-hard erection just because he’s hard.

He’s hard for no reason. He was just telling me that he couldn’t get hard. Then, suddenly something happened and the air outside warmed up, just around us and then it was taking my air and I couldn’t breathe being so close to him. I remained somewhat calm from the moment I stood up from that bench until the second we got in the bedroom where I flicked on the lights and could clearly see all of him.

Now I think I just might embarrass myself and start jerking off without even waiting for the shower to heat up. I’m so fucking pissed off at him for doing this to me! I’m tired of playing the fucking villain; even if I deserve the role, can’t I get a break? I don’t want to feel like I need to be punished for caring about him or for craving his body, even the way it looks now. I don’t want to get turned on by his false hope and desperate whims. I will not let my feelings change direction just because he decides to throw a few breadcrumbs my way.

I’m Brian Kinney and….

“Brian, I need you to help me.”

I step out of my jeans, kick them toward the hamper and slowly turn to face Justin.

He flexes the fingers of his bony right hand and taps them on the brace that holds his arm against his chest. “I can’t get it to slip through the loop.”

I’m Brian Taylor-Kinney and no matter what I say, no matter what he does to me, to us, I love my husband. There was a time that I could control it, bend it to my liking, but that’s so far in the past I can barely recall it.

“Thanks,” he sighs in appreciation as I loosen the strap and pull it through the metal ring.

I turn away and open the shower door, grateful that I thought ahead to start it before I got undressed.

“Wait. Can you help me with my shirt too?” he asks, his voice barely heard over the shower’s spray.

I pretend I don’t hear him, I know he can do it himself if he tries. I walk inside the shower and close the door behind me. I put my face in the tallest, strongest spray of water and hope the glass will fog up so that Justin doesn’t see that I’m shaking even though I’m getting warm. I resign myself to the fact that Justin is going to probably get in this shower with me and start to lather up my body, sighing aloud as I feel the shakes subsiding.

I’ve just rinsed off and I’m turning to grab the shampoo off the shelf as he enters the shower a few moments later. Take care of me, Justin, I think to myself. Even though I know it’s not the right thing to do, it doesn’t stop my mouth from speaking. I keep my back to him as I ask, “Can you rub my shampoo in one-handed?”

“Yeah,” he answers sounding unsure.

I squirt it into my hair and get the lather started before widening my stance so he can reach my head easier. His fingers don’t feel like they used to, they fumble and tug my hair a little but I barely notice because every other second his dick brushes against my ass. I grit my teeth the whole time and I’m relieved when he declares that he’s finished.

I rinse the soap out and when it’s gone I open my eyes and see his back is to me. “Do you want me to wash your hair?” I ask him, because I don’t want to deal with him freaking out about me touching him if he suddenly doesn’t want me to.

“Th… that’d be nice,” he stutters.

I pour the shampoo into my palms and begin to apply it to his hair; it feels so good to touch him and have him react to me. I bite my lip when my cock betrays my sanity and pulls my hips forward. I grind against him a few times, the feel of his skin burns, igniting goosebumps birthed from my resistance and anticipation for less and more of him.

“Brian,” he moans, leaning into me.

Hearing my name on his lips in that way, echoing around the stall, startles me. I step away from him and turn away so quickly I nearly slip. “Rinse your hair out and I’ll wash you.” I convey words that go against any rational actions I’m trying to push forth. I get under the water, brace my hands against the stone wall and wonder when exactly it was that I became a pansy for sharing space with him.

“I’ll do it myself,” he speaks with a disappointed sigh.

You don’t know what it’s like to be disappointed, Justin. Do it. Do it all yourself. You wanted to live the last three years alone. Live this day alone. I want to tell him all of that. My lips form the unspoken words but the water washes the unspoken thoughts away, falling invisibly down the drain, away from us.

“Ahh, fuck!” Justin yelps.

He’s in pain. He can’t do it himself.

“Brian, can you please help me? I… I’m not feeling steady. Please, I need you.”

I wish he’d stop surprising me with these kind words that I learned once again to not expect. I face his turned back and take the soapy loofah from his hand. His cock is still rock hard, still looks perfect. It’s the only thing about Justin’s body that’s the same. I try to let the ball of mesh be the only thing that touches him.

I don’t like that I have to see him looking like this. He feels like a stranger, but déjà vu caresses my thoughts too as I map this new body with my sight and touch. The glimpses I’ve had of his naked body haven’t been for very long and when I have seen him naked I’ve relegated myself to barely acknowledging him, knowing that the attraction and pull I’d feel would not be accepted or returned so I didn’t allow my eyes to appreciate his form.

There isn’t much to appreciate now. He looks anorexic, which he is. He threw out the peanut butter and jelly he was living off of the day after Gus moved in. Now our fridge and cabinets are stocked with food, he’s even made a few dinners for us. Still, he barely eats. He may not have an eating disorder because of a body image issue, but it’s there inside of him all the same. He can hardly chew anything without it being a herculean effort.

No one said a word at Carl’s birthday dinner when he only filled his plate with a spoonful of red jello, a thin slice of ham and tiny piece of corn bread. I don’t recall if he had any cake but I doubt that he did. Pitiful eyes dart away from him when they notice his portion size is what someone would put on a child’s plate. It makes sense though because he probably weighs no more than a pre-teen.

His stomach sinks in, he practically has no ass, his vertebrae and shoulderblades look like they’d pierce his skin if he moved the wrong way. Patches of coarse spots and acne from malnutrition and lack of care mar his once unflawed pearlescent skin. No wonder why his hair felt brittle and he has trouble getting it up, not that that’s the case this second, but all that shit, they’re all the obvious signs of someone who is malnourished.

The thing is, I don’t even think he realizes these changes or cares that they’re there and that I’m feeling them and seeing them. Yes, he knows that his body is wasting away but I don’t think he realizes he has the power to stop it. I’m sure he thinks that my body is much more disgusting than his though, so it must not bother him for me to see him like this.

His need to hide at home I know isn’t because he’s hiding this. Justin goes to the occasional family dinner or party reluctantly but without much fuss as long as he has notice. He doesn’t work at hiding it, he wears smaller clothes, and he just looks sloppy in them and has to wear his belts on the first notch. If anyone says anything to him about him being thin or needing to take better care of himself, he acts as if he listens.

Justin and I ran into Daphne’s mom at a gas station about six months ago. She freaked out about his weight and appearance and the sad thing is, he’s even thinner now. Practically the moment she saw him she tried to talk to him and then me about it, but we both blew her off. I’ve only met the woman a few times and Justin doesn’t like her at all, he always said she was a bitch while growing up. Justin and I ignored her concern and neither of us felt the need to be polite to her. Daphne and Justin haven’t been on good terms for years, so it wasn’t going to be her mother’s opinion that we would’ve listened to. I was still in a daze, thinking that he’d come back to life on his own without any interference from me, the one at fault for it all.

Mrs. Chanders’ outburst is the largest amount of flack Justin’s received about his weight. I thought Justin being skinny was just another symptom of his living hell but seeing him now makes me see that it can’t be excused any longer. I’ve lost weight too, there are days I don’t eat a fucking thing. I justified it and admittedly, there were moments that it worried me but then I would remember how little he cared for me and whatever feelings arose from those thoughts shielded my concern.

No one in our family has made a serious issue of Justin’s weight. They must know he rarely leaves the house, and they feel content with seeing him and don’t want to rock the metaphorical barely-afloat boat. I don’t think he’s ever puked up anything of those meals, but maybe he does. I’d like to say that someone would surely say something if they noticed him doing it, but I can’t bet on that.

Maybe they think I’m just as fucked up as he is and don’t know what to do with the show Justin and I put on for them. It’s hard to believe that they’ve grown silent but I think they’re just as frozen as I feel inside. It could be that they're just as delusional and resistant as we are and can't accept that Justin and I are disintegrating. We're long past the time when turning the hourglass over would let us start anew.

“That feels so nice,” he whispers, disturbing my thoughts.

I’m practically supporting all of his weight as he leans against me, his head on my shoulder, eyes closed and mouth open and breathing heavily. I am fucked up because touching him, no matter how little there is of him to touch, feels so good to me too. I don’t want to stop. I’m the only one who knows the hypocrisy of my thoughts, but that doesn’t make me feel any less guilty for thinking them. My erection has practically deflated but Justin’s accepting my touch. He wants me and this thrills me.

Jesus. I’m a desperate faggot.

“Ohhhhh,” he whimpers when I grasp his cock.

A mix of groans and whimpering sounds pour from his lips and tug my cock to hardness. I press my dick between his ass cheeks and slide it up and down them, dangerously taking pleasure from him, wanting to take more. “Touch yourself for me,” I encourage him, taking my hand off his cock; I wrap my arm around his chest so he doesn’t have to worry about falling or favoring his good leg.

He tilts his head down and opens his eyes as my other hand cups his ball sac, making him groan loud and throaty. “You like me doing this? You like me touching you?”

“Y…yes,” he answers, moving his hand to his cock.

His hand starts shaking as he opens his clenched fist but I know his whole body is trembling from pleasure too, so I’m not worried he’s going to stop this. This act of shy apprehension makes me want to fuck him right here and now, but I won’t even dare to think more about that happening. I watch his movements, still slightly gliding my cock up and down against his slick skin and whisper, “Get yourself off for me. Wrap your hand around your dick and…”

“I can’t,” he gasps, interrupting me.

“I’ve seen you do it a million times,” I say taking his hand in my own. I try to card my fingers through his but his whole body gets stiff and he pushes himself forward. His casted hand holds his free one against his chest. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t….” he grits out, turning away from me. “I can’t open my hand,” he explains.

I can hardly comprehend what he’s just said to me. “What?” I ask, turning off the shower.

He limps out of the stall, grabs a large towel, and tries to wrap it around himself. “I used it too much today.”

“Are you serious?” I ask, following him and taking his fumbling hand.

He turns to me, keeps his head down and turned to the right so he doesn’t have to look at me. Yeah, I know that he didn’t spare my front one look in the shower and I accepted it when I was in there, but now it just pisses me off. If I have to be subjected to the way his body looks then…

“I used to do almost everything with my left hand so it didn’t matter too much. But now that I’ve got this fucking cast on I have to use my right hand!” He gives up trying to dry himself off and starts to limp away into the bedroom.

I grab the sling for his cast and the towel and use it on myself as I follow him. “Why in the fuck haven’t you been using your right hand? When did this start?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Brian. It’s four in the fucking morning.”

I catch up to him easily, turn him around and begin to pat his body dry, the anger I feel causing me to be rougher about it than I should be and even more pissed to see that he still has a fucking erection when I don’t! I make sure all the water is off his cast and strap the sling onto him before I demand an answer. “When?” I ask him again. “When did it get bad?”

He squeezes his eyes shut and stands stiff. “You know when.”

That’s all he has to say. “So, just because you don’t paint or draw, you stopped going to therapy? You fired Jake?”

“I don’t go anywhere!” he screams and pushes me away from him and limps toward his side of the bed. “I didn’t fire him, he quit when I wouldn’t… couldn’t let him touch me.”

This whole time I thought that at the very least his physical therapist was coming out to the house and working with him during the day as he always had. I can’t fucking believe that I’ve just now found out about it! “Do you know what you look like, Justin?” I ask him.

“I rarely shave and that’s the only time I care enough to look in the mirror, Brian. I know you think that I’m disgusting,” he says snottily, getting in the bed and pulling the covers over his head. “Do you want to hear more about how much I don’t care about myself?” he mutters.

“No, I don’t,” I say, my voice breaking as his despair chips at my anger. I don’t want to speak to him at all. There have been far too many revelations for me to handle tonight.

I shut off the overhead light but turn on the lamp on my nightstand. There’s no way I’m sleeping so I might as well grab the book I’ve been reading and try to lose myself in it so I don’t have to think about everything else I’ve lost.

“You’re reading a book?” he huffs, peeking out from under the covers for a quick second as I get under them.

“Would you rather I turn on the fucking TV?”

“No,” he says, rolling onto his stomach and pushing his face into his pillow.

I open the book to the page I marked and I’ve only read two sentences when I feel movement beside me. I turn my head to see a completely unexpected sight. Justin is humping the bed. What in the fuck? “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Go back to reading,” he hisses, stopping his movements for a moment. “You jacked off on me while I was sleeping so this shouldn’t bother you,” he tells me as he begins to move again.

I peek under the covers and see that he has his right hand still in a fist but his dick is gliding against it as he pivots his hips up and down. It’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen and the cast digging into his chest probably doesn’t feel too good but I doubt he cares. And I would maybe, possibly think it was a little amusing if it wasn’t so sad. If the reason he can’t open his fucking fist wasn’t partly my fault.

Justin turns away from me so he doesn’t notice that I haven’t gone back to reading. How could I? I just can’t believe he’s doing this in front of me. Our relationship is so obviously not where it should be, when Justin’s openly getting himself off, and it worries me as much as it turns me on. I’ve always been easy for him.

I roll toward him, fling the covers off us, wrap my arm around his waist and pull him on top of me before he has time to register my actions and stop me. He keeps his eyes closed and remains still and stiff, other than the trembles that pass through his body into mine. His body isn’t the weight I remember but it feels good to have him on top of me and in my arms. He makes a noise that sounds like a cross between a cough and a sigh as I spread my legs and pull him up so our dicks brush against one another’s. His pre-come and heated cock coaxes an instant reaction from mine.

I run my hands up and down his back and tell him, “Do what you were doing, Justin.”

“I… I disgust you,” he speaks, his lips brushing against my right nipple.

It’s the other way around. “You know that you don’t,” I tell him, palming his ass. I thrust up so he feels how hard he’s already made me. Our bodies slap together, his bony pelvis jars mine, and I know that we’re both going to have bruises after this but I don’t care. I grab his pillow and position it to brace his cast against my side. “Do it, Justin. Make us come.”

He begins to thrust slowly at first and I don’t react to the stimulation as much as I do to the sounds passing from his lips and vibrating against his skin. I’m just starting to really get turned on when he starts to slow down his movements.

“My leg hurts,” he mumbles in frustration.

“Fuck that,” I tell him, lifting my hips up and sliding his hips back. “Work for it, Justin,” I urge him. “You started this tonight. You want to get off, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he gasps, pivoting his hips against me again a few times. “But it hurts.”

“But it feels good, doesn’t it?” I ask, trying to take his mind off any discomfort he’s feeling. “It feels good to have you on top of me.”

“Mmmm…” he moans and bites my chest, probably spurred on by thinking about all the times he’s fucked me he starts to thrust harder and in shorter jabs against me.

His pubic hair coasting over my cock mixed with the feeling of his slippery silky-hard dick is driving me wild. “You wish you were fucking me right now, don’t you.”

He keens and starts huffing, “Yes,” repeatedly.

“Fuck your cock against mine; show me that you can get us off.” I help guide his hips, gripping them tightly in my hands as he starts to move faster and the heat builds up between us. I can feel his pre-come heavily coating our cocks and slicking our pubes. “You’re getting so wet. You love feeling my cock rubbing against yours, don’t you?”

“I missed it,” he groans and then his body starts shaking. “Ahhhhh fuck!” his whole body drops down on mine suddenly.

“What?” I ask, trying to tilt his chin up to look at me. “Are you okay?”

He rolls off me and onto his back. “My leg…” he gasps, sitting up to rub it with his knuckles. “It cramps if I put too much pressure on it. I’ve been on it a lot today.”

“Lay back.” I sit up beside him when he does as I’ve told him, grab his leg and begin to massage it for him.

His lips form an ‘o’ and he sighs appreciatively.

“Is it better?”

“Yeah, except now…” he groans in frustration, rubbing the tips of his fingers against his cock.

“Does it hurt to spread your legs?” I ask him.

“No, it feels better to keep them bent like this.”

I suck in a deep breath when he shifts his body and I get a glimpse at his hole. I could probably come like a teenager just from looking at it. I thought he was pathetic? I shake away my thoughts, position my body over his, and brace my right arm beside his head as I lower my body against his. “Open your eyes and look at me, Justin.”

“Don’t make me, Brian. I…I don’t want to lose the first hard-on I’ve had in three fucking years.”

“W…what?” Yeah, I knew he said he couldn’t get it up, but… THREE FUCKING YEARS!

He squeezes his eyes shut even more and takes a deep breath as he pushes his hips up so our dicks slide together. “Please, just…”

“Three years?” I interrupt. “You haven’t had an orgasm in three years?”

“Yes,” he whispers in a desperate tone.

“Open your fucking eyes,” I order, grabbing his right hand. I uncurl his fingers and jam mine in between his before they snap back down tightly.

“No.” His lips tremble and he starts breathing quickly in panic.

“It’s just me.” I make his hand touch the scars on the left side of my neck and down over the ones on my shoulder and the smaller ones that dash across my left pec. “Open your eyes and look. You have to.”

“No, Brian. Just… please… get me off and then I’ll….”

“Fuck you!” I hiss and hold his hand tighter to my skin as he tries to dislodge my grip. “I’m not going to get you off when you can’t look at me.”

“I’m getting soft,” he whines desperately.

I thrust against him a few times. “Fight it, Justin. You have to overcome what gave me these scars. Open your eyes.”

His eyes snap open and he looks into my eyes and then darts a glance to where our hands are on me. “Brian….no,” he protests and closes his eyes again.

“When you’d draw me, you would look at me so intensely sometimes that it scared me. Even if I hated how you captured every fucking emotion that I’ve ever tried to hide and you went and put it on paper for the world to see, I still loved it. I loved the way you’d look at me and I’m not asking you to look at me as you did before. I doubt you ever will again. But I won’t be married to a man who is so disgusted by me that he won’t look at me when I pleasure him.” When I make love to him.

“Brian, I’m scared of them,” he confesses, opening his eyes and locking them with mine. “I’m scared.”

“I’m scared of what my life is going to be like when I leave you,” I say honestly.

His eyes dart around for a minute and he closes them again. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“Then don’t let these scars be what stands in the way of the one thing that we’ve always done right.” I drop his hand back to his chest and though I’m still achingly hard and needing him in ways that I wish I wasn’t, I have to get away from him.

“Brian, I love you,” he gasps, opening his eyes and pushing his hand up against my chest.

My vision actually fades in and out because of the intense pain and pleasure that sear my insides from his words and touch. He’s looking right at them, the reminders of it all and as his fingers graze over the thinnest skin above my pulse point I feel like I might actually pass out.

He lifts his hips up and his dick pushes against mine, he’s getting hard again. The boy is definitely not impotent. “You’re still the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen,” he tells me in a throaty promise.

His shaky fingers trace my skin and now I think that it’s me who can’t face them. I grab his hand, hold it beside his head, and begin thrusting against him. We move in recognized motions and in just a few thrusts he starts making the whining noise he does when he’s almost about to come. I haven’t heard that sound in so fucking long that I think I emulate it to a ‘T’ as I come, seeing fucking stars and all the other clichés of passion that people use to try and describe what bliss feels like. All words are wrong though for what happens when Justin and I find pleasure with one another. They’re all too sweet, too little and too common.

It was like that the first time.

There’s need for more just seconds after the last drop of come gets squeezed out from my dick into his pubes. I move so that I wrap my arms under his back and move us to our sides because my body feels like jello and I don’t want to crush him and I know I can’t hold myself up. I move his bangs away from his eyes and tell him, “You did it.”

He smiles a little and clears his throat. “Don’t leave me, Brian. Don’t… threaten to leave me no matter how crazy I am, okay?”

“In good times and in bad,” I say, my throat barely allowing the words to tumble out.

“I fucking couldn’t go to physical therapy or have Jake come here because…I…I couldn’t even allow you to touch me. After the bashing, I was scared of everyone, but then, I at least let you hold my hand or put your arm around me; even when I couldn’t let you inside me. But… I … I’m fucked up, Brian. I couldn’t let my own fucking husband touch me for three years. After what we just did together, I’m still fighting the need to push you away from me.”

I knew this would happen. I knew that he’d fucking freak out as soon as he got what he wanted. He doesn’t love me anymore, no matter what he says. “Then I’ll give you what you want, Justin.” I untangle our limbs and try to roll away but he stops me.

“I don’t want this feeling to take over me, Brian. I want to try holding you. I didn’t get bashed in the head, I got my fucking heart ripped out and I didn’t feel a fucking thing for so long. I know that something is horribly wrong with me. I know that I was hardly alive and I didn’t want to be. I still don’t know if I want to be. I’m fucking mental, Brian.”

I’m not going to tell him he’s not, because honestly, he does need some fucking help. I wouldn’t have ever thought I’d think such a thing, but he does. So I just pull him closer and bury my face in his neck and inhale his scent. The image of the first time I held Arella flashes in my mind. “You still smell like her,” I whisper. It isn’t the exact same smell, but there were parts of her that smelled like both Justin and me. I don’t know how exactly that’s possible since none of my DNA was inside her, but that’s how it was.

“So do you,” he answers back in a shaky voice. “Do you still love me, Brian?”

I lift my head, look him in the eyes, and answer honestly, “I don’t know who you are anymore, Justin.”

I am a father that has lost a child, on a tragic day
With that loss it took my dreams and visions far away.
I would have chosen to leave instead, for life is not so good
For all that ever mattered was my daughter and fatherhood.

TBC in Chapter 7 Part 2

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