Behind Drawn Curtains

Chapter 5

As the moonlight shone in through the crack in the drawn curtains I knew I wasn’t dead, which was a pity. From the moment I moved even the slightest, feeling the throbbing pain in my lower body I knew that not even death could have hurt this much. At least if I died somewhere while everything was black and I only relived my own voice screaming I did not have to come back and face the terrible pain that lingered like a sleeping dragon in my body.

I used my arms to drag me over the carpet. Not minding the burns it made on my forearms when my body was too heavy for just my arms to drag. There was no way that the burns would be as painful as the pain in my body when I tried to move my legs. I did not dare to look down at my body. I did not want to see the sticky substance I could feel clinging to my legs, still dripping down, reminding me of everything that had just happened. All I wanted to do was get under my bed, the one place where I might still be safe and might not be out in the open where the moonlight could see me. I needed to be somewhere in the dark… And as I crawled under the bed that was covered in dust, reminding me of my mom telling me it was time to clean under it, I drew the bedding down lower, hoping it would be like curtains. Hiding me from the outside world. Believing that if I could not see out, nobody could see in.

There I cried my heart out. I cried because of the pain and the feeling that my insides were about to fall out of me. I cried because of my life. I cried because my mom never saw what he did to me. That she could not guess why he disappeared from their room for up to an hour every single night. I cried because Chris liked me and probably wanted to do the same things to me than what James had just done. I cried because I lost Chris as a friend. I cried because there wasn’t some god that could kill James in a flash for what he did too me. I cried because I have now officially lost every single part of myself that could have still been sacred. I cried because I was crying and nobody was listening or caring enough to do anything about it. And above all I cried because I did not die. I cried because I wasn’t dead. I cried because I was too sore to pick myself up and walk to the kitchen to get a knife and kill myself. I cried until I could not cry anymore. I cried until the sticky mess on my legs were dry. I cried and rocked myself until the sun replaced the moon in shining through the crack in the curtains. I cried when I heard James having a shower, and getting ready for work. I cried because he left the house with the slam of the front door, not even caring enough to see if the thing he almost f****d to death was still alive. Only then did I cry myself to sleep.

I woke up with a shock going through my body. As I jerked my head around to see the red thing making the vibrating sound I could feel the pain shooting through my legs and up my body, trying to hide myself deeper under the bed, but the vibrating had already stopped.

It was only on the third time that I heard the vibration that I did not try and climb through the wall behind my bed and noticed that it was not the sound of the big red monstrosity.

It took every ounce of strength I had left in my body to crawl from under my bed and retrieve the phone that was still in the pocket of the pants I dropped yesterday when James told me to take it off.

It took me seconds to flip through the 17 missed calls and countless of messages that Chris had left, reading through them but not registering a single one of them. It was useless to give a damn what he wanted to say when all he wanted was to hurt me for his own pleasure in the future as well. I threw the phone onto my bed and then tried to finally stand up out of the position I was in, hoping that I could trust my legs enough to carry my weight. After two failed attempts I was finally standing and taking inventory of my room. The red thing was still there on the ground, staring at me, telling me that it would see my insides again. Something I was sure would never happen again. I would not let it happen. But then, on the other side… Why not? Why not just lay here day by day and let James have his way? I wasn’t worth anything. Not anymore. I had lost everything. I was nothing more than James’s little w***e now. So with a limp walk I picked it up and put it in the top of my closet where I knew that James would not look, but where I would not see it either. Then I started picking up my clothes from the previous day. My shirt went directly into the trashcan next to my desk. The rest went into the laundry hamper. And then with a towel around my shoulders I limped my way through the pain to the bathroom across my room.

When I got into the hot water I could feel everything burning as the dry blood started to mix with the water turning it a light shade of pink. And again I wished that I would just pass out from the pain again, slip underneath the water and never come back up. I could die the way I lived every day of my life. Being dirty, humiliated, degraded and naked. Yet, I did not die. I lived long enough to scrub my body vigorously, trying to get him off me. Doing my best to mask the smell of his cologne that clung to me with lavender soap. I did not try and touch the bottom half of my body. It was still too painful and tender and I could already see the black marks on the inside of my legs forming where he bruised me.

When I finally got out of the bath I felt better, although the pain was still there and just as bad. I did not dare to dry myself, leaving my body to dry by itself while I looked for the biggest clothing in my closet with the hope that if I did not have any clothing clinging to my body it would maybe hurt just a little bit less.

I almost jumped into the closet when I heard the vibrating sound again, only to feel stupid when I remembered that my phone was still on silent. With aching legs I moved over and shook my head as I saw Chris’s name on the screen.

“Hello,” I answered, my voice sounding like that of a stranger to myself.

“E.J… You have no idea how worried I’ve been. Are you okay?” Chris said and I could actually hear the concern in his voice.

“Yeah,” I answered, wanting him to get to the point. I still had a lot to do before James came home from work.

“Am I still coming over tonight?” Chris asked. “Please, I really need to talk to you.”

I weighed up my options. If Chris came over it meant that there was no way that James could touch me, but then again, after what Chris had revealed to me, what was stopping him now from doing the same thing that James had done.

“Uhm… I don’t know,” I answered.

“Please E.J… Things are getting a bit rough at home. My mom is on a drinking binge again and I need to talk to you. I can’t stand you being mad at me,” Chris said, practically begging.

“Okay,” I heard myself answer. If I probably had to choose who would be raping me tonight with my sore body, Chris was probably the better option I decided.

“So I can come over?” Chris asked.

“Yeah… Come now?” I asked knowing that if James beat Chris to the punch in coming home I would have to do both of them in one day, and there was no way that I was doing two guys with the way my body felt.

“I’ll be over in an hour.”

For the next hour I tried my best to clean up my room and even sprayed some of the perfume that my mom had given me for Christmas with the words; “Even men have to smell nice every now and again”. When I was sure that I could not smell my own blood and James’ s*x I finally drew open my curtains and allowed the sunlight into the room so that I could be sure that you could not see the blood on the carpet in front of the bed. Satisfied when I saw that the stain was only lightly darker on the grey carpet I threw down one of my pillows on top of it to cover the evidence. In a few hours it would be replaced with a mattress for Chris and everyone would be none the wiser. Not that it mattered if Chris with his perverted nature wanted to do the same thing to me.

An hour came and went, and by the time the doorbell finally rung and I struggled down the steps to open up the door for the very late Chris my nerves were shot. I kept on expecting James to be home before Chris came, and I just did not have the strength to look him in the eye just yet. I needed James to just be the normal dad for a few nights while my body had time to heal from the brutal attack that I just had.

“Hey dude. Thanks for letting me come over,” Chris said. Obviously he was still right on track with our original plans, because over his shoulder was the bag he normally used when he needed to pack for a week or two, rather than his smaller backpack he used for weekend overnights at my place.

I waved him in without greeting and closed the door behind him. There was no way I could muster a smile, knowing what was most possibly going through my best friends mind.

“Why haven’t you called me back? Was it about what I said in the toilets?” Chris asked, a frown appearing on his face. “You know it doesn’t change anything between us. We can, like, keep going on like nothing ever happened. Just forget I said anything you know.”

“Let’s go to my room,” I answered, not wanting to discuss Chris’s s****l preferences any more than what I wanted to be caught standing here when James got home, forced to look him in the eye and act like nothing ever happened.

After Chris I struggled up the stairs and to my room, hoping that he would not see me limping, but he did.

“What’s going on? Why’re you limping?” Chris asked as we entered my room and he fell down on my bed, leaving me to close the door behind us.

“Nothing…” I answered, knowing it would not be enough, but also hoping that Chris would catch the hint and not ask me about it.

“That doesn’t look like nothing,” Chris said as I limped over to the bed, only to try and get into the most comfortable position as I could without flinching.

“I fell. Yesterday. Down the stairs.”

“s**t! Are you okay? Don’t you need to go and like see a doctor?” Chris said, worry plastered over his face. “You could have broken something.”

“Nah,” I said, a smile breaking over my lips. At least there was someone that still cared and wondered if I was okay. Even if he was gay.

“Are you sure? ‘Cause I can call Freddy and ask him to take us to the hospital? Does James know you fell? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind driving either,” Chris said, his concern being almost comical.

“Really. I’m fine. James already took care of everything,” I said, not wanting to tell Chris what happened and not wanting him to mention anything to James either.

“Sure?”

“Yes Chris. I’m sure.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Then how about a game of League?” Chris said as he whipped out his laptop and grabbed mine from the desk.

Within minutes we were battling and defending, and above all forgetting for just a little while all the problems and pains and James coming home way too soon for my liking.