Chapter 9

Before

I was seven when our dad decided to leave. I was too much for him to handle. Money was always an issue but secondary to me. They said I needed to go to therapy and take medication, but we didn’t have the money for it.

I’d say that’s when my abandonment issues started. Mom would do her best with what we had. She was a seamstress, so she’d make all the clothes we wore. People from all over would come to have things made by her. It was like she was a famous designer.

Me and my brother were homeschooled since regular school wasn’t an option. Too many problems at school, and since we couldn’t afford whatever treatment they said I needed, we had to stay home.

“Honey, can you get your brother? I need him to try on this outfit for me.”

“Yes, Mom, I’ll grab him.”

“Good boy, thank you.”

It always made me happy when we got to play dress-up with Mom. I’d say that these were the happiest moments I can recall from my childhood.

The rest of the time wasn’t so great. Mom was sad from the day Dad left us. I hate him every minute of every day for the way he ruined us.

When I was fifteen, Mom started to date again. I hated it. Josh and I would play pranks on the men she’d bring home. One was an accountant—he talked down to me like I was a child, and I didn’t like that. So while he was turned around, I grabbed some of the cat hair off the floor and put it in his food. He started throwing up in the sink, and he never came back again.

Mom was beautiful. Always getting hit on and asked out on dates by guys around town. They were never good enough for her.

Then another guy who was a farmer came over for dinner. He was mean when Mom had her back turned. I told her about it, but she didn’t believe me, so the next time he came over I went to the bathroom and hit my face on the edge of the sink. When I came back into the kitchen, I got right up close beside him and started a confrontation and curled into the fetal position on the floor. Mom came back in and saw me in the state I was in and didn’t want to hear a thing he had to say after that.

I felt bad for her because she was so depressed by her experiences with all the trashy men in our town that she’d started drinking. Josh and I weren’t on great terms either at the time. I think because I was focused on Mom a lot more.

There was one night in particular that changed everything for us.

I was sitting with my mom on the couch watching my favorite show, Victorious. It was a guilty pleasure of mine, but Josh always made fun of me for watching it, but Cat was so hot. I took all his snide remarks and shrugged them off. Cat, with her big doe eyes, her soft squeaky voice, and red hair, was something I dreamed about.

Mom was circling the drain. She was getting worse with the drinking and depression. I was selfish for her love. I didn’t know how to help her, so I just sat with her and watched TV to give her company. Josh didn’t care and stayed in his room with his emo music blaring.

I was watching Cat on the TV, and she was bouncing around in a black dress that pushed her breasts up, and I couldn’t look away. My pants were growing tighter with my dick getting hard from looking at her. I grabbed the couch pillow and laid it across my lap to cover myself. I didn’t notice my mom had sat up and gotten closer to me. My eyes were fixed on Cat but then I could feel Mom’s eyes on me.

I was tense. Had she seen me before I covered myself? She placed her hand on my knee, and I had taken my eyes off Cat. I stared down at her hand. Heat flushed my body, and I didn’t know what was happening. She leaned in, her mouth close to my ear. “What’s this, baby?” She slid her hand up my thigh to my erection straining in my pants.

My heart was racing.

“Do you need help taking care of this? I can show you how to do it.”

I was still in shock. Unable to move, my muscles stiff. This felt so wrong, and I had forgotten how to speak. I was frozen with my mom’s hand squeezing my erection from the outside of my pants. I let out a groan from the pressure.

“Oh, you like that, don’t you, baby?” she whispered in my ear.

All I could do was whimper because this was wrong, but it felt so good. I didn’t want her to stop. She proceeded to stroke me on the outside of my pants. I was burning up, and I wanted to run. I couldn’t though because this was what she needed from me. She was lonely with Dad gone. I felt my balls draw up tight and a heavy pressure settled at the base of my spine. I let out a moan and creamed in my pants just from the friction of her hand. I’d never had someone else touch me like that.

She got up and wrapped her robe tighter around herself as she left me there with no response to what had just happened. I felt sick to my stomach. I would never look at Victorious the same ever again, and I started jerking it to the thought of Mom with her hand on my dick.

***

Now

“Willyou just leave me alone already?” I’m getting infuriated by his incessant nagging. He’s always nitpicking everything I do. “Josh, just fuck off already. I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you think so?”He’s giving me that smirk that downplays my every move. He makes me question myself, and I don’t like it.

I tied Sky up in the basement, and she won’t be happy about that when she wakes up. If only she’d listened, I wouldn’t have to punish her. I wish she could see things my way. My little butterfly wants to fly away from me, and I can’t let that happen. I love her. She is the one for me; she just doesn’t know it yet.

“You’re going to push her further away, you know? Keeping her cooped up like a caged animal isn’t going to make her love you.”

“I wish you would just shut up. I’m in this mess because of you, you know.” My insides are melting. I just want to feel loved and everyone I’ve ever loved has turned on me or lied in some way. I just want her to be different. I want her to save me.

“No, brother, you’re in this mess because of yourself. You were never taught to love. We never were. We weren’t taught the right way to love.”

The heavy weight of his words always brings me down further into this abyss that is my mind. I think he’s supposed to be the good angel on my shoulder, but he doesn’t know what I need. What my heart is telling me to do. I’m pulling my hair out by the roots and screaming. He won’t leave, he’ll never leave me be.

I begin hitting my head against the table in the kitchen, making the whiskey I was drinking fall and shatter on the floor. Nothing I do makes him leave. I just want to drown him out so that I can think clearly. The more I pound my head on the table, my vision starts to blur, and I can’t feel the pain.

He is screaming in my ear to stop.

I can’t.

I can’t.

I can’t