Brett
TONIGHT’S nightmares was the worst that I’d had since… well, since ever. Before I’d fell to sleep I’d tossed and turned, and when I’d finally got myself off to dreamland, it wouldn’t last. Like a fuckin’ clock, every hour they’d show up along with them bad dreams: shiverin’ and sweatin’ at the same time (go figure), pantin’, and bellyaches. Finally, I jerked up outta bed; there wasn’t no need for Cory to lose a full night’s sleep on account o’ my mental hang-ups.
But, as Cory always told me, in a kind and lovin’ way, mind you, he couldn’t sleep next to a man with big time stress problems and not realize when something was seriously fucked-up. (Them wasn’t his exact words, but ya get my meanin’.) In fact, last week Cory told me he’d taken a detour from his studyin’ at the library to read up on what he called “PTSD.” Flashbacks, nightmares, and as the book’d said (and I’d pretty much memorized Cory’s words—wrote ’em down and everythin’), “intense physical reactions to reminders of the traumatic event,” which I guess would explain all o’ the sweatin’, shakin’, and barfin’. Uh-huh, them things all fit my symptoms to a tee. There was also “psychological” (yup, another Cory book-word) aftereffects of PTSD too. Not bein’ able to trust, feelin’ real super alone in the world, taking unnecessary risks with yer life, and havin’ sleepin’ difficulties—looked like Cory’d won the jackpot when he’d got himself roped up with me.
But things’d been different with Cory as my partner. Not fuckin’ perfect but so much better.
’Cept for right now, huh?
Already, Cory was holdin’ me against his chest, and truth was, he had been for a while now. Squeezin’ my clammy limbs, smellin’ the sweat that spelled out my sufferin’, prob’ly waitin’ for the barfin’ to start up. Nope, there wasn’t no way in hell that I could hide all of this shit from my husband.
“We need to talk.” Cory’d been awake for so long that his voice wasn’t even sleep-crackly no more. I felt like a piece of shit for inflictin’ this drama on him yet again.
And that there was the very moment that I knew I was gonna hurl. “Bathroom—now!” I made a run for it. A coupla minutes later, when I emerged from outta the bathroom wearin’ only a towel and a real sheepish expression, I stood at the foot of our bed, my head hangin’ low. “I’m real sorry it happened again, Cory.”
“Come here.” Like always, Cory opened up them perfect arms for me. And I pretty much poured myself, like a glass of warm milk into a waitin’ mug, right into his embrace. I snuggled against his bare chest as he rubbed little circles with his fingers onto my damp shoulders. “We have to talk about how upset you got tonight. Are you up to it?”
I nodded against his chest.
“Do you remember last summer when you took me to Maynard Beach, after… after I got hurt?”
I hated like hell to think about that there time, but again I nodded.
“Well, I’d been having bad dreams about what Steven did to me.”
I felt my whole body stiffen, and not in a good way. “Yeah, I remember.”
“And remember how I told you all about what had happened to me on the night he hurt me? I told you how painful it was and how I was so scared.” Cory stopped talking, so’s I nodded again. “Well, after I told you about it, my nightmares went away.”
I pulled outta Cory’s arms and flopped down flat on the bed. “So’s yer sayin’ if I tell you about all of the shit Mama done to me when I was a boy, maybe I’ll feel better?” Before Cory even had a chance to answer, I added, “What if it stirs up more shit in my head?”
“Then we’ll talk about that too.”
I thought on it a moment, real unsure.
“Sharing your pain with me might make it less threatening to you. It can’t be healthy to keep it all locked inside.” Cory pulled himself up so’s he could lean against the headboard. He even crossed his legs like he was gettin’ ready to listen to some kinda long sob story. “You know I’ve been reading up on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—”
“Disorder? That there word makes it sound like I’m a nutjob!”
“Not at all, Brett. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can happen to anyone, from going through any really frightening event. And I think your entire childhood qualifies as frightening, don’t you?”
Couldn’t argue with the kid on that one. “But still, I ain’t nuts, and I ain’t gonna go to no head shrink… ’cause Cory, I-I just can’t do that! Ya see?” I was losin’ my cool. See, I’d do about anythin’ for my boy, I just hoped to hell he wouldn’t ask that of me.
Cory tried to pull me into his arms again, but I shoved him away.
“Listen, Brett, you aren’t crazy at all… if anyone is crazy, it’s your mother. And you don’t have to talk to a professional about this if you really don’t want to, but just, please, talk to me.”
I sat up and dropped my legs over the edge of the bed. “Honestly, Cory, ain’t you sick of wading through this pile o’ shit with me, over and over again?” I knew that I’d sorta rudely presented the kid with my back, but I just couldn’t look at him right then. “If I ain’t sweatin’ and shiverin’, I’m pantin’ and barfin, and usually in the middle of the friggin’ night, when you’re tryin’ to sleep.”
I felt Cory moving to kneel behind me on the bed, and soon his arms was curlin’ down around my shoulders. Felt like heaven, when he done that. “Your feelings are not a burden to me. So don’t think you can get rid of me that easily, bud.”
I fuckin’ love him so much.
“But you gotta know, nothin’ I’m gonna tell ya’ll be too pretty—it sure ain’t no picture-perfect fairy tale. Besides, I never really wanted you to know all o’ this shit. It’s fuckin’ humiliatin’.”
“I need to hear the truth; I don’t care if it’s pretty or not. And I’m listening, so whenever you’re ready….”
I didn’t never talk about what Mama done to me so’s it was hard to know just where to start. But here I was, all wrapped up in the lovin’ arms of the man who’d promised me his whole entire future, so’s I guess it didn’t matter one way or the other where my story began, huh? I turned around and moved us so’s me and Cory was sittin’ and facin’ each other. And then I started talkin’.
“First memory that ever got stuck in my head when I was a kid is of what Mama’d call my ‘playpen’. See, when she needed to get somethin’ done without no kid in tow, she’d stick me in the trunk of her car. Had herself this big old sedan, and I fit in there, well, let’s say fer way too many years.” That first little tell-all already had me sweatin’ bullets, but I kept on spillin’. “And then there was our broom closet. It was real dark and dusty—I couldn’t hardly breathe in there.”
“She put you in a closet too?” Cory didn’t appear to be too happy with that news.
“All the friggin’ time.” I swallowed hard, surprised that the nausea hadn’t yet come back to torture me. “But I got why she did them things… you know, she needed to stick me somewhere so’s she could go somewhere else and didn’t have to pay nobody to take care o’ me. Them two places was like my babysitters.” I peeked at Cory, and I gotta say, it looked like my bellyache’d found him, seein’ as he’d pretty much turned green.
But he nodded, like he wanted me to go on with my story, so’s I did.
“There was plenty of beatin’s, and Mama used all kinds of shit to beat on me with, whatever she could get her hands on fast, but when she… when she burned me, well, that was what freaked me out the most.”
Still green as a pond frog, Cory took himself a deep breath and asked, “Was it because the pain of being burnt was so much worse than the pain of the beatings?”
I shook my head. “Nah, that there’s true, but it ain’t the reason.” I couldn’t fuckin’ believe we was talkin’ ’bout this shit—all honest-like and out in the open. “See, when she put me in the trunk or the closet, I could understand why she done it. And when she beat on me, it was ’cause I’d been a little shit, y’know? Like I’d got into somethin’ I shouldna. But when she burned me, there wasn’t no reason that I could figure. I’d’ve been sleepin’, Cory, that’s all I done.”
Cory took a hold on my arm and them fingers traced over my burn scars, one by one.
“I couldn’t never understand why she went and burnt me like that. And finally, it sunk into my thick skull—she did it outta pure fuckin’ hate.”
It was quiet for a minute before Cory asked, “When did she do it? You know, when did she burn your arms?”
This was gonna be tough to say out loud, ’cause sayin’ shit out loud made it so fuckin’ real. So’s I took me a coupla steadyin’ breaths. “I don’t really wanna… don’t wanna talk about this part. But… but I want you to know what I been through, so’s, so’s I can get fixed… and….”
Looked like Cory needed a coupla steadyin’ breaths himself right then, it did. And after he took ’em, he said simply, “Brett, just tell me.”
“Okay… so’s, uh, so’s I didn’t have me no bedroom, seein’ as my bed was the livin’ room couch. And when Mama’d come home real late after partyin’ it up, or whatever it was she’d been doin’, she’d come in the front door and see me sleepin’ there, and I s’pose it’d remind her of how she really didn’t want no kid to care for.”
“What would happen then?”
“Alls I can say is when I got woke up, I was screamin’ out in pain, and she was sittin’ beside the couch on a stiff chair from the kitchen, lightin’ up a smoke.”
Cory wasn’t lookin’ too good; my little song an’ dance was gettin’ the kid all worked up. Don’t know just why, though, but I couldn’t stop yappin’. “I was always scared as shit to go to sleep at night.”
“Maybe that is why you can’t sleep very well when you’re upset.”
Or maybe it’s because I’m a fucked-up looney tune.
Yeah, my lips was motorin’, and it seemed that I just couldn’t hit the brakes. “I ain’t never gonna forget the way she looked at me when she was doin’ it. You know, burnin’ me with them smokes o’ hers. When I woke up, Mama was always fuckin’ smilin’ like it was some kinda sick game… like it was fun for her. And she always burned me in these rows of three. She usually had to light up a coupla times to get the job all the way done, which is pretty fucked-up all by itself.”
“Why three?” The kid’s eyes was puffy and pink, all on account of my loose-lipped ramblin’. “Why rows of three?”
Oh, yeah. Brett Taylor wasn’t nothin’ but a spillin’ machine. “See, number one was ’cause I’d done somethin’ to piss her off, at least that’s what she told me when I woke up screamin’. And number two was ’cause I fought her off when she stuck me the first time. And she didn’t give me no reason for number three, so’s I figured it was just ’cause she fuckin’ hated me.”
That there arm of mine Cory was holdin’ onto got pulled up to them pretty lips, and he rained down tiny kisses all over it like I was somethin’ precious. Or more likely he was tryin’ to take away all of them fucked-up memories with them sweet kisses. Which I gotta say, kinda worked.
“There was too many beatin’s to count, but they didn’t scar me none, at least not scars you can see on the outsida my body.” I could see that this here chat was really takin’ its toll on Cory, but, of course, Cory already knew the truth: there was plenty more scars on my heart and soul than I had on both o’ my arms put together. “It ain’t too hard to figure, really, Cory. I wasn’t never s’posed to be born, but I got born anyhow, and I fucked up her whole life. So’s she made me pay fer it.”
At first, Cory didn’t say nothin’ to my pathetic little “Once upon a time there was a boy named Brett….” story. After all, what the fuck could he say? But I loved him and trusted him, so’s I knew he’d make it okay for us. Finally, after a real deep breath, my boy said, “No one deserves that kind of treatment, especially not an innocent child.” What Cory said next really shocked me, ’cause Cory didn’t never say no swear words. Never. “You didn’t ‘fuck up’ anything, baby, because it was your mother who was already ‘fucked-up’ long before you were even conceived. She just blamed her misery on you.”
“Well, sure looks like I gone and spilled enough shit for now, huh? I got my sweet boy cursin’ like a sailor….”
“No, Brett, I want to know everything—I mean everything!”
The kid really seemed to mean it, which was super considerate and all, but my belly was startin’ to nag at me to make a return trip to the can. And since I wasn’t up for spendin’ the next forty-five minutes hurlin’, I decided we was all done with discussin’. At least, for now.
Sometimes enough is just plain old enough, huh?
“She can’t hurt you anymore. Now that you’ve started to share it, you and I will just grow closer and stronger than ever.” My face got pulled real close to Cory’s by them determined little hands. “And right now I want to be as close to you as I can possibly be.”
Oh.
Time for a bit of good news, ain’t it?
That there sweet, husky voice of my husband wasn’t cryin’, no, sir; it was wantin’. So’s I placed my lips real soft onto Cory’s, and I swore to God that I tasted the flavor of carin’, with plenty of passion mixed in too. And yeah, we’d already done the deed twice on the couch before we hit the hay, but I wanted more. Guess I kinda needed more. “Wanna make love to you again, baby.”
As soon as I spoke, that there wriggly little body started humpin’ and grindin’ on my leg, and I knew that he was up for it too. The time for talkin’ was done. I drove right on into his sweet mouth with my hungry tongue, and my hands started touchin’ and squeezin’, and, Christ, suddenly I realized that Cory’d been right. I felt a whole hell of a lot better after sharin’ my fucked-up story with him. You know, lighter, like a Mack Truck’d got lifted up offa my shoulders. And even more fucked-up than that (but at the same time amazin’) was that Cory seemed to feel better too, now that I’d spilled out some of the shit that’d been stuck insida my head for so damned long. At least, that’s how I was readin’ the crazy passion he was showin’ me right about then.
Before Cory got himself too overexcited down there beneath his belly, I pushed him offa me, not unkindly, and said real soft into his ear, “Now, you gotta slow down a measure, boy. I got me some plans.” He breathed real deep a whole buncha times, and I could tell he was tryin’ to drive his desire in reverse.
Ya see, Cory knew that sometimes I liked to take him from zero to sixty-five, sexually speakin’, that is, without no help from them humpin’ hips of his. I liked to start things up when his male part was soft as a pillow, and then I’d kinda tease him and coax him along, all slow and thorough-like, ’til he’d give up his right arm if I’d just let him fire one off. And once I got him to that point, I liked to keep ’im that way for a good long while, just so’s it’d build up real nice. Then when he was turned into nothin’ but a rollin’-around, moanin’, horny mess of a man, he’d know that sure as shit, I was the one who’d made him into that. All of Cory’s burnin’ need was there by my doin’.
Yup. Brett Taylor done that to you, baby.
And Brett Taylor’s the one who’s gonna ease that there burn, as well.
I can’t explain to ya how them types of thoughts made me feel—but sayin’ somethin’ like “real hot for my boy” might be a good way to start.
And tonight was one of them “zero to sixty-five” types o’ nights for me, it was. Needed to know that I still had me some power, I s’pose. So’s when the kid’d cooled down a measure, I made my move. This time I used both of my hands, one at the front door and one at the back, to get him, um, let’s call it “all hot and bothered,” and once I’d got the kid just exactly how I wanted him, I somehow managed to put words onto all o’ them questions that was swirlin’ in my brain. “What’d I ever do to deserve the likes o’ you?”
Cory was breathin’ real heavy so’s I knew I was gettin’ him good in just the right spot, his release just a moment away, so’s he didn’t answer me. And I ain’t fuckin’ with ya when I say that no brilliant explanation shot into my own mind neither, ’cause them little hands of his was slippin’ underneath that there towel I wore, and they was surely distractin’ me.
Sometimes talkin’ is the right way to go, but other times there ain’t no need for more words, huh?