Omorphi (37 page)

Christy remained silent.

“We can go through them all right now so you never have to worry about me seeing them again or you can show me one at a time when you’re ready. Your choice.”

A few moments passed before Christy slowly raised his feet in the air and pointed.

Michael studied his feet. They looked okay to him. Then he noticed the pale rings around his ankles. “Can I ask what those are from or would you rather I didn’t?”

Christy’s face darkened, and Michael saw an old, bitter rage in his eyes. Michael had seen anger in Christy before, but never the rage or unbridled wrath he saw now. Michael knew then that, given the right circumstances, Christy would be a force to be reckoned with.

Christy set the pad against Michael’s chest and wrote
1. Shackles 2. Tied down
.

Now Michael fought back fury, wanting to cry out to the heavens again. Instead, he petted Christy’s ringlets and kissed his cheek. “Sorry.”

Christy studied him carefully, searching his eyes for honesty, seeming to verify sincerity.

“Any more?”

Christy handed Michael the pad and pen and bent a knee to show Michael the bottom of his foot. Thick white lines scarred the sole of his foot.

No wonder he has trouble running.

Christy bent the other knee to show him the same on the other foot. Michael waited while Christy took the pad and pen and wrote
Tried to run away. Burned with iron so couldn’t walk.

Michael swallowed back more ire. “How old were you?”

“Eight,” Christy said softly.

Eight? Oh my God, eight!
Michael bit his lip and nodded. “Any others?”

Christy stood and pointed to the backs of his knees. A fine white line bisected the back of each knee. He sat and scribbled
Wouldn’t go to knees, cut with knife
.

Michael nodded, fighting to contain his fury at the injustices that had been so evilly perpetrated on Christy. Michael couldn’t understand why Christy’s abusers weren’t in jail. His scars alone told the story of what had happened to him. “What happened to your back?”

Christy wrote
Whip, knife, burned
. Christy paused, seeming to breathe in courage and breathe out anger, and set pen to paper again
. I did some
.

“What do you mean, you did some?”

Christy’s eyes were distant again as he processed the memory. His eyes drifted to his pad, and he wrote slowly, his print small and tight.
Every time burned, I ruined letters
.

“Someone burned letters into you? As in branded you?” Michael was incredulous.

Christy nodded and sat up. With a foot on the coffee table, he pulled the T-shirt away to reveal his inner thigh. It looked as if someone had branded the entire Greek alphabet into his thigh. Michael cringed, imagining the pain caused by burns to such a sensitive area. He couldn’t imagine it.

Christy stretched the skin and pointed to the largest letter. “Beta, Vasilis,” he whispered.

Michael rubbed an eye, hoping to mask his distress. “What does Vasilis mean?”

Christy whispered, “A name.”

Someone’s freakin’ initial?
Michael nodded calmly.

Christy pointed again and whispered. “Pi, Petros, upsilon, Yosef….”

So it went, through no less than twenty initials. Michael rubbed a hand down his face and sat up, pulling Christy into his lap and hugging him tightly. “I’m sorry.”

“It is over now.” Christy buried his face against Michael’s neck.

“I’ll never let anything happen to you, Christy, I promise.”

Christy wreathed his arms around Michael’s neck and hugged him tightly.

“Any more scars?”

“In the private areas, under my hair, and my tongue.”

“Do you want to show them to me now?”

“Why?”

“That way you never have to worry about me seeing them.”

Christy sat up and bent over, bringing his thick mane over his head. He parted the back of his hair to reveal a jagged T scar. He sat up, his face flushed, and reached for his pad and pen. With a trembling hand, he wrote
Tried to starve, frame for head to keep mouth open to feed me
.

Michael fought for calm. This was worse than a Grimm’s Fairy Tale gone bad. People could be so freakin’ sick.

Christy opened his mouth and lifted his tongue to reveal what could only be described as chewed up flesh. “Small ball with barbs, tell no secrets,” he whispered.

Michael fought not to lose it and scream.

Christy climbed off Michael’s lap and stood again. He slipped his lace panties off and slowly showed and explained each scar. By the time Christy finished, Michael wanted to decry the entire human race as the vilest of creatures in existence. Again, he pulled Christy into his lap and held him close.

“Where are your parents?” Christy stiffened, and Michael comforted him with gentle strokes to his back. “Don’t answer that if you don’t want to.”

“My mother died long ago. I was five. My father died last year.”

Well, that answered that question. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Christy said quietly.

Remembering what Christy had written when they were at the self-defense class, he asked, “Why did you have to lick your own blood up?”

“It was the punishment for bleeding.”

And the hits just keep on coming.
Michael swallowed hard. “All the people who hurt you, where are they?”

“Europe.”

“Have they been prosecuted?” Michael asked the question, knowing the answer. He only wanted to see how much Christy would tell him.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Christy sat up and looked into Michael’s eyes. “Until I knew Rob, I did not know what they did was wrong. It was all that I knew from the time my mother died, and I thought… I thought everyone endured as I did.”

Five? Five fucking years old?
“What about your dad? You didn’t tell him?” Christy made a rude noise, and Michael didn’t know what to make of it. “What does that mean?”

Christy waved a hand nonchalantly in the air. “I was always dead to him.”

What?
Michael wanted to scream. “He
knew
what was going on?”

Christy looked at Michael again, weighing his next words carefully. “I was small, weak, thin, and feminine. I was pathetic in his eyes, could never be what he wanted me to be. He did not care what happened to me.”

Michael looked into the beautiful eyes he’d come to love so much. “I’m so sorry, Christy. What about the police?”

“They wish a statement from me.”

“You haven’t told them what happened?”

Christy shook his head. “Rob says he will help me with this and they will make a trial, and I will have to say what happened to me.”

Michael brought Christy into his arms. “I’m so, so sorry, Christy.”

“I am okay now. Rob helps me to understand things. You help me to live, to be unafraid.” Christy stopped for a moment, cleared his throat, and spoke again, his voice a little stronger. “You help me understand things too. For example, I didn’t know you call the way we are gay. I never heard this until I followed you, and Jake called you ‘gay boy’ and ‘queer.’ I researched these words. You were happy and odd? It made no sense to me, so I asked Rob what they meant, and he explained homosexual.” He paused for a long moment, seeming to collect his thoughts, and cleared his throat before speaking again. “This is something I’ve lived all my life, believing women are merely for breeding. Now, I know otherwise, but it is too late for me. I am this thing now. What I don’t understand is why you are gay when you do not have to be.”

Michael laughed softly. “That’s a matter of considerable debate in a number of circles. I was born this way, Christy. I’ve never liked girls.”

“Someone didn’t make you this way?”

Michael shook his head. “I came this way. Honest.”

“You don’t mind?”

Michael shook his head again. “Not at all, especially now that I have you.” This brought a smile to Christy’s lips. “Have you ever liked girls?”

Christy thought about this for a long moment. “No.”

“Then your experiences didn’t make you gay. You were born gay, just like me.”

“I’m like you?”

“In that way, yes.”

“I’m like you,” Christy repeated, clearly pleased with the idea.

“Yep.”

“May I ask another question?”

“Anything.”

“You have three meals in one day. Is this an American custom?”

“Ah, no. That’s how many it takes to grow and be healthy.”

“Perhaps it is why I’m so small. I only ever ate one very small meal per day.”

Michael winced again.

“Another question?”

“Ask as many as you want.”

“Rob says I am to bathe every day, so I do this. Is this normal?”

“Ah, yeah.”

“Not only when I am to receive someone?”

“Not if you want to remain germfree.”

“What is germ?”

“Germs are bacteria. You can get infections.”

Christy sat bolt upright. “You can get this if you do not bathe every day?”

Michael nodded.

“Oh.” Christy was thoughtful. “Okay, this is another question. Rob tells me I am to sleep eight hours in each twenty-four. You say I must get good sleep. Why eight hours and what is good sleep? Can one do it wrong?”

Christy’s questions were of the basest of things. In a way, his knowledge was not only stunted, but his comprehension lacked relativity.

“As with three meals a day, eight hours of sleep a night is what keeps you healthy.”

“Who decides this?”

“The sleep gods.”

Christy took him seriously, and Michael silently chastised himself when he remembered that Greeks had a pantheon of gods. He backpedaled fast. “I’m only kidding. There are medical panels that review research and set standards. Rob or my dad can explain it to you better than I can.”

“What is good sleep?”

“Sleep free from anxiety, bad dreams, thorough rest for your body. There are certain stages of sleep, and each one is important. Rob or my dad can also explain this better than I can.”

Christy digested this information. “I began to read the literature and do not understand some things.”

“We’ll look at it together.”

Christy hopped off Michael’s lap and went in search of the paperwork. He’d forgotten all about sex and was, once again, a man on a mission.
Interesting
.

Christy set the literature on the coffee table and parsed through it. “This one. It speaks of broken boundaries and rebuilding. How can a thing that has never existed be broken?”

Michael took it from Christy’s hand and read a few lines. Christy had a point. If a boundary never existed in the first place, it couldn’t be broken. “This literature is based on a person having been raised according to normal, socially acceptable standards. I think you should tell Rob that you need to back up a little. Maybe… have you sat in on any of Darien’s counseling?”

“No.”

“I think it might help. You need to start at the beginning. Go back to when you were young. Do you remember your mom protecting you? Maybe pulling you away from someone at the market? Like she didn’t want you to go near that person?”

Christy frowned. “I do not have many memories from before. They are like empty spaces for me. Rob says the memories will return as I get better. One time, I think, my mother pulled me from my father. The same with Sophia.”

“Sophia?”

“One night at a party, she took us from my father and cursed him. It was very public, and my father became very angry.”

“Do you remember why she took you from him?”

Christy shook his head. “I only know that I didn’t see Sophia after that.”

“Not at all?”

“One time we went to my aunt’s home in Corinth, and I saw her. Then my mother died, and I didn’t see her for many years after that.”

“When was the next time you saw her?”

Christy rubbed his forehead, as if to wrestle with the blank spaces in his mind. “A dinner. A very important one. My aunt came with Sophia, and I came with my father. They permitted us to go into the gardens, and we played a game of chase through a wonderful maze. Then Sophia left with my aunt. I was, perhaps, twelve.”

“All right. Your mom tried to protect you. Even though she didn’t explain it to you, you learned that some people were either dangerous or not good for you, right?”

Christy nodded. “She died.”

Michael put an arm around him and kissed his head. “Yeah, she did. She died before you were able to learn boundaries and develop reasoning skills. I think it would help if you learned what the boundaries should have been before you try to work with this information. I don’t think it will make sense to you until you have a foundation.”

“Rob believes this literature is good for me.”

“It is. I just don’t think he knows how much foundation you’re missing.”

“So, I shouldn’t read this?”

“Read it, but with Rob’s help. Show him what doesn’t make sense to you. Let him show you what you never had a chance to learn.”

“Can you help me? With the sessions? The meetings?”

Michael kissed the tip of his nose. “Absolutely.”

“Okay, now you love me.”

Michael paused. Did Christy think his willingness to help proved something as profound as love? “Christy, my willingness to help you doesn’t mean that I love you.”

Panic flashed in Christy’s eyes. Michael could almost feel it zing his own spine. He quickly cupped Christy’s face. “Stop.” Christy tried to pull away. “Don’t pull away. Listen to me.” Christy eased. “Any good friend would help you. Jake would help you. What I meant was that many things make up love. Not only helping you, not only great sex. It’s being there, tried and true through thick and thin, over time. It is friendship and trust first, and then all the other good and sexy things. That’s all that I meant to say.”

Christy’s frown deepened. “I meant to say now you can make love to me.”

Oh. Well, isn’t that just a communication glitch of monumental proportions?
Michael smiled. “Sorry I misunderstood.”

“You like to lecture.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. Stop talking and love me.”