Tell Me That I'm Good: Red
Tell Me That I'm Good: Red
Rating: R
Notes: There's a little bit of self harm in this, just a heads up. :)
It burns. I’ve been twisting my wrists all afternoon, I guess the skin’s finally raw. I didn’t plan it that way but when it began to sting I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach so I kept doing it. The plant is still on the kitchen window sill. It’s a special kind of cactus with thick stems that you break open. When you do, clear gel oozes out. Daddy brought it home after I wiped out on my board, said it would make the scrapes on my elbows heal up faster. I let him smooth it on and I knew he was right, it would help, I’ve read that somewhere before. But then he left, went out for the night. The minute the door closed I scrubbed the gel off with the brush we keep under the sink, turning the bristles red with just a few strokes. I didn’t want to heal faster if he wasn’t going to be there to see it.
The clock on the stove says four-thirty, he should be home soon; maybe I should stop pulling. He’ll be upset in any case, doesn’t really matter what I do now. I don’t even know why I’m sitting here in this kitchen, in this trailer, in this town. He said he’d take care of me but all he’s been doing for the last three days is getting drunk. The first few days were good. We got my room all set up, he even got me a NASCAR blanket for the mattress that sits on the floor. Got me a box for my things and cleared off the table and chair in the corner so that I could do my homework. I wasn’t in school yet so he’d tell me to write one of the stories that I’m always telling myself. Every night he’d watch me from the living room and once in a while he’d ask me questions.
‘What are you doing in there?’
‘My homework.’
‘What kind of homework, you sure you’re not messing around?’
‘…Geometry…History…Life Science…’
‘You understand it?’
‘No, can you help me?’
And he would. When I saw him get up I’d flip my paper over fast and start to draw sloppy shapes, labeling them quickly with angles and degrees. He’d ask me which part I needed help with so I’d write down some made up formula, telling him that I couldn’t figure out the slope. He’d take a ruler out, draw new shapes that looked like mine only a hundred times neater and write a string of numbers, adding them, subtracting them, and once in a while multiplying the whole thing by seven. When he finished he’d ask me if I understood. I always said yes. He’d smooth my hair back and tell me that I just had to ask.
‘Just ask.’
‘Okay’
As he walked back into the living room I’d flip my paper over and keep working on my story, a bunch of ideas filling my head all at once. I’d have to ignore my dick which was always begging to be touched after he’d helped me. When it got late he’d call me over and I’d take care of him, turning my cap backward so that he could see everything better. He’d slide down on the couch, jeans pushed down just enough. Sometimes he’d want me to take my shirt off, but not always. One time he wanted me leave it on but pull it up so that he could see my stomach. Right before he came he pushed me off of him and shot all over my bare skin. I didn’t know what to do so I just unbuttoned, wiped it off with my hand and then used it on myself. I think he liked that. I wasn’t sure if I did. It made me feel like a slut when all I wanted was to be his little boy.
That was last week.
Things changed when his friend Lawrence came over for the first time that weekend. Lawrence isn’t anything like daddy. He’s bigger, he sweats a lot, and his stares makes you want to turn away. I don’t though, that’s one of the things I’m not allowed to do. An hour or so before he came over daddy sat me down on the couch and explained about courteous behavior. How he expected me to act when his friends came over; a whole list of things about what to say, where to look, how to shake hands. Lawrence’s hand doesn’t feel anything like Daddy’s. I wasn’t supposed to disagree with anything an adult said because that was rude, disrespectful. Sitting on the couch, we practiced for over an hour. He said he was proud of how grown up I was getting and tousled my hair. I dropped to my knees and came all over myself for him. It’s strange how something I hadn’t even thought up until a couple of months ago was the only thing that got me off now. A few hours later I was on my knees again, this time in front of Lawrence, not disagreeing because that was rude. Lawrence isn’t anything like Daddy, he’s not trying to help me.
He better come home. He usually does, even if it’s just to leave again; either through the bottle or through the door. If he doesn’t I’ll be in real trouble since I got myself tied down to this chair and can’t seem to get loose by myself. It seemed like a good idea this morning but that was a little over seven hours ago and now I have to take a leak. The slip knots were easy to make, I used to practice in my room all the time when I was a kid. I’m not sure what went wrong. I looped the rope through the slats in the chair and pulled the ends tightly with my teeth, then something gave and I was locked in for real. I tried to get up in the beginning but where was I going to go? I couldn’t reach the knives, he keeps them in the cabinet above the stove. So here I am, tied naked to a chair in the middle of the kitchen which sits about six feet from the front door. When the mailman came I closed my eyes. How long does it take to rustle out our few pieces of junk mail and shove them through the slot? We never get real mail. Could he see me? Could he hear me breathing even though I was trying not to? Could he hear my heart pounding? When he finally walked away I almost pissed on the chair I was so relieved. I had forgotten all about having to go and everything inside of me relaxed in an instant. Holding it, I considered hobbling over to the sink but that would just make a mess. I could wait. I could wait for him to come home. Tugging at the rope, I bit down on my lip, my wrists hurt so much now.
When I first realized I was trapped and that I wasn’t going anywhere for awhile I followed through with my original plan and stared at myself in the mirror for a long time. Sean stared back. I had spent a lot of time shaving and my hair was still damp from the shower but without the cap and the jeans it wasn’t working. Where there should have been sharp bones there was flesh. I was thin but not thin enough. He’ll notice if I don’t eat, maybe I could start throwing up. No, the trailer’s too small, he’ll hear. The skin on my face wasn’t as smooth as it was in the dim bathroom light. I bet I could lift something at the drugstore, that would make it better. I can’t get caught. If I get caught things will be worse and they’re pretty bad already. I looked down at my dick laying between my legs. It was too big, almost as big as his. That’s when I started crying and by the time I was finished my face was really fucked up. It was no use, he couldn’t see me in broad daylight, that was all there was to it. Pulling myself up I hobbled over to the couch where my clothes were and picked up my jeans with my teeth. Sitting down, I dropped them into my lap, covering myself up. That’s better at least. Leaning back in my chair I close my eyes and think about how I want it to be, how it could be.
His key rattles in the lock, it sticks every time. I’m so fucked he’s going to kick me out for sure. Why do I make everything so hard? I should be sitting in my room pretending to do homework, pretending to get stuck, pretending that I haven’t been devising ways to get him to hit me with the belt again. Standing in the middle of the kitchen he just stares down at me.
‘I got stuck.’
I’m glad when he takes his eyes off of my face and focuses on my wrists.
‘Chris, what’d you?’ His voice is a whisper, my wrists must look bad.
‘I was trying to get loose.’
‘For how long?’
Kneeling down he looks at the knot closely. My whole body jerks when he touches me there. He stops for a moment and then quickly pulls the rope away from my skin, it slides off and drops to the floor immediately.
‘Since this morning.’
Shaking his head he kneels down and picks the rope up off of the floor. I look at my wrists, the skin is all rubbed off and they are so red.
‘They hurt.’
‘Like your elbows?’
I stare into my lap, grateful for my jeans. At least they spare me a little humiliation. All I can do is nod.
‘Alright, stay right there.’ Getting up he goes over to the miracle cactus and breaks off three large stalks. I need a lot more this time. Splitting them open he lets the gel coat my wrists, never touching my skin directly. When there is nothing left he pulls me up gently into his arms, wrapping his arms around me.
‘Why do you do this?’
‘I wanted to know how I would look, how I would look to you.’
His arms tighten and I press my face into his chest. I wish there was a way that I could crawl inside of him and just live there.
‘You could have gotten loose.’
‘I couldn’t…and, I…I didn’t look right. Could you stay home tonight? It still hurts.’
‘Yeah...alright.’
Letting me go he steps backwards and starts cleaning up, putting the chair away, picking up the rope.
‘Go get dressed now, gonna catch a cold.’ The trailer is warm and stuffy from the afternoon sun.
When I come back I’m fully dressed in some jeans that need to be held up with a belt, the Black Flag t-shirt that I wore to the motel the day I met him and pretty much every day since then, and my beat up Converse, a strip of rubber on the side starting to peel away. My Indians cap is pulled low and my clothes smell like me. I haven’t washed them since I got here although he makes me take a shower everyday. He’s real neat, keeps everything put away. Kind of surprised he hasn’t said anything about my clothes yet. Maybe he likes the way they smell.
‘You got homework?’
‘Nah, got the best grade in class for the story I turned in so the teacher said I didn’t have to do any homework tonight.’
‘Oh yeah? Well that’s real good Chris, I’m real proud of you.’
My chest feels tight, gotta think of a good science project I can tell him about next time.
‘Truck needs some work, you wanna help me out?’
‘Yeah.’ Oh my god, thank you.
‘Let’s wrap your wrists up so nothing gets on them.’ Cutting up an old clean dishcloth he wraps the pieces loosely around my wrists and ties knots at the ends to keep them in place. It hurts but I stay as still as can watching his fingers work quickly and carefully. ‘There you go, that should do it.’
Outside he lifts the hood of the truck up and tells me to get his tools off of the front seat. We stand out there for more than an hour as he explains how the engine works and which tools we need to use. I know all of this already so it’s easy to ask good questions. He answers all of them right. I’m relieved, thought he might not really know, might make things up. That’s okay for geometry but I want him to be good at things he takes pride in, I want to be able to trust him. When the sun starts to set we go back inside and wash up. I’m careful to keep my bandages dry. I should probably take them off and let my skin breathe but I don’t want to. He made these for me. I want to keep them on forever.
.
Rating: R
Notes: There's a little bit of self harm in this, just a heads up. :)
It burns. I’ve been twisting my wrists all afternoon, I guess the skin’s finally raw. I didn’t plan it that way but when it began to sting I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach so I kept doing it. The plant is still on the kitchen window sill. It’s a special kind of cactus with thick stems that you break open. When you do, clear gel oozes out. Daddy brought it home after I wiped out on my board, said it would make the scrapes on my elbows heal up faster. I let him smooth it on and I knew he was right, it would help, I’ve read that somewhere before. But then he left, went out for the night. The minute the door closed I scrubbed the gel off with the brush we keep under the sink, turning the bristles red with just a few strokes. I didn’t want to heal faster if he wasn’t going to be there to see it.
The clock on the stove says four-thirty, he should be home soon; maybe I should stop pulling. He’ll be upset in any case, doesn’t really matter what I do now. I don’t even know why I’m sitting here in this kitchen, in this trailer, in this town. He said he’d take care of me but all he’s been doing for the last three days is getting drunk. The first few days were good. We got my room all set up, he even got me a NASCAR blanket for the mattress that sits on the floor. Got me a box for my things and cleared off the table and chair in the corner so that I could do my homework. I wasn’t in school yet so he’d tell me to write one of the stories that I’m always telling myself. Every night he’d watch me from the living room and once in a while he’d ask me questions.
‘What are you doing in there?’
‘My homework.’
‘What kind of homework, you sure you’re not messing around?’
‘…Geometry…History…Life Science…’
‘You understand it?’
‘No, can you help me?’
And he would. When I saw him get up I’d flip my paper over fast and start to draw sloppy shapes, labeling them quickly with angles and degrees. He’d ask me which part I needed help with so I’d write down some made up formula, telling him that I couldn’t figure out the slope. He’d take a ruler out, draw new shapes that looked like mine only a hundred times neater and write a string of numbers, adding them, subtracting them, and once in a while multiplying the whole thing by seven. When he finished he’d ask me if I understood. I always said yes. He’d smooth my hair back and tell me that I just had to ask.
‘Just ask.’
‘Okay’
As he walked back into the living room I’d flip my paper over and keep working on my story, a bunch of ideas filling my head all at once. I’d have to ignore my dick which was always begging to be touched after he’d helped me. When it got late he’d call me over and I’d take care of him, turning my cap backward so that he could see everything better. He’d slide down on the couch, jeans pushed down just enough. Sometimes he’d want me to take my shirt off, but not always. One time he wanted me leave it on but pull it up so that he could see my stomach. Right before he came he pushed me off of him and shot all over my bare skin. I didn’t know what to do so I just unbuttoned, wiped it off with my hand and then used it on myself. I think he liked that. I wasn’t sure if I did. It made me feel like a slut when all I wanted was to be his little boy.
That was last week.
Things changed when his friend Lawrence came over for the first time that weekend. Lawrence isn’t anything like daddy. He’s bigger, he sweats a lot, and his stares makes you want to turn away. I don’t though, that’s one of the things I’m not allowed to do. An hour or so before he came over daddy sat me down on the couch and explained about courteous behavior. How he expected me to act when his friends came over; a whole list of things about what to say, where to look, how to shake hands. Lawrence’s hand doesn’t feel anything like Daddy’s. I wasn’t supposed to disagree with anything an adult said because that was rude, disrespectful. Sitting on the couch, we practiced for over an hour. He said he was proud of how grown up I was getting and tousled my hair. I dropped to my knees and came all over myself for him. It’s strange how something I hadn’t even thought up until a couple of months ago was the only thing that got me off now. A few hours later I was on my knees again, this time in front of Lawrence, not disagreeing because that was rude. Lawrence isn’t anything like Daddy, he’s not trying to help me.
He better come home. He usually does, even if it’s just to leave again; either through the bottle or through the door. If he doesn’t I’ll be in real trouble since I got myself tied down to this chair and can’t seem to get loose by myself. It seemed like a good idea this morning but that was a little over seven hours ago and now I have to take a leak. The slip knots were easy to make, I used to practice in my room all the time when I was a kid. I’m not sure what went wrong. I looped the rope through the slats in the chair and pulled the ends tightly with my teeth, then something gave and I was locked in for real. I tried to get up in the beginning but where was I going to go? I couldn’t reach the knives, he keeps them in the cabinet above the stove. So here I am, tied naked to a chair in the middle of the kitchen which sits about six feet from the front door. When the mailman came I closed my eyes. How long does it take to rustle out our few pieces of junk mail and shove them through the slot? We never get real mail. Could he see me? Could he hear me breathing even though I was trying not to? Could he hear my heart pounding? When he finally walked away I almost pissed on the chair I was so relieved. I had forgotten all about having to go and everything inside of me relaxed in an instant. Holding it, I considered hobbling over to the sink but that would just make a mess. I could wait. I could wait for him to come home. Tugging at the rope, I bit down on my lip, my wrists hurt so much now.
When I first realized I was trapped and that I wasn’t going anywhere for awhile I followed through with my original plan and stared at myself in the mirror for a long time. Sean stared back. I had spent a lot of time shaving and my hair was still damp from the shower but without the cap and the jeans it wasn’t working. Where there should have been sharp bones there was flesh. I was thin but not thin enough. He’ll notice if I don’t eat, maybe I could start throwing up. No, the trailer’s too small, he’ll hear. The skin on my face wasn’t as smooth as it was in the dim bathroom light. I bet I could lift something at the drugstore, that would make it better. I can’t get caught. If I get caught things will be worse and they’re pretty bad already. I looked down at my dick laying between my legs. It was too big, almost as big as his. That’s when I started crying and by the time I was finished my face was really fucked up. It was no use, he couldn’t see me in broad daylight, that was all there was to it. Pulling myself up I hobbled over to the couch where my clothes were and picked up my jeans with my teeth. Sitting down, I dropped them into my lap, covering myself up. That’s better at least. Leaning back in my chair I close my eyes and think about how I want it to be, how it could be.
His key rattles in the lock, it sticks every time. I’m so fucked he’s going to kick me out for sure. Why do I make everything so hard? I should be sitting in my room pretending to do homework, pretending to get stuck, pretending that I haven’t been devising ways to get him to hit me with the belt again. Standing in the middle of the kitchen he just stares down at me.
‘I got stuck.’
I’m glad when he takes his eyes off of my face and focuses on my wrists.
‘Chris, what’d you?’ His voice is a whisper, my wrists must look bad.
‘I was trying to get loose.’
‘For how long?’
Kneeling down he looks at the knot closely. My whole body jerks when he touches me there. He stops for a moment and then quickly pulls the rope away from my skin, it slides off and drops to the floor immediately.
‘Since this morning.’
Shaking his head he kneels down and picks the rope up off of the floor. I look at my wrists, the skin is all rubbed off and they are so red.
‘They hurt.’
‘Like your elbows?’
I stare into my lap, grateful for my jeans. At least they spare me a little humiliation. All I can do is nod.
‘Alright, stay right there.’ Getting up he goes over to the miracle cactus and breaks off three large stalks. I need a lot more this time. Splitting them open he lets the gel coat my wrists, never touching my skin directly. When there is nothing left he pulls me up gently into his arms, wrapping his arms around me.
‘Why do you do this?’
‘I wanted to know how I would look, how I would look to you.’
His arms tighten and I press my face into his chest. I wish there was a way that I could crawl inside of him and just live there.
‘You could have gotten loose.’
‘I couldn’t…and, I…I didn’t look right. Could you stay home tonight? It still hurts.’
‘Yeah...alright.’
Letting me go he steps backwards and starts cleaning up, putting the chair away, picking up the rope.
‘Go get dressed now, gonna catch a cold.’ The trailer is warm and stuffy from the afternoon sun.
When I come back I’m fully dressed in some jeans that need to be held up with a belt, the Black Flag t-shirt that I wore to the motel the day I met him and pretty much every day since then, and my beat up Converse, a strip of rubber on the side starting to peel away. My Indians cap is pulled low and my clothes smell like me. I haven’t washed them since I got here although he makes me take a shower everyday. He’s real neat, keeps everything put away. Kind of surprised he hasn’t said anything about my clothes yet. Maybe he likes the way they smell.
‘You got homework?’
‘Nah, got the best grade in class for the story I turned in so the teacher said I didn’t have to do any homework tonight.’
‘Oh yeah? Well that’s real good Chris, I’m real proud of you.’
My chest feels tight, gotta think of a good science project I can tell him about next time.
‘Truck needs some work, you wanna help me out?’
‘Yeah.’ Oh my god, thank you.
‘Let’s wrap your wrists up so nothing gets on them.’ Cutting up an old clean dishcloth he wraps the pieces loosely around my wrists and ties knots at the ends to keep them in place. It hurts but I stay as still as can watching his fingers work quickly and carefully. ‘There you go, that should do it.’
Outside he lifts the hood of the truck up and tells me to get his tools off of the front seat. We stand out there for more than an hour as he explains how the engine works and which tools we need to use. I know all of this already so it’s easy to ask good questions. He answers all of them right. I’m relieved, thought he might not really know, might make things up. That’s okay for geometry but I want him to be good at things he takes pride in, I want to be able to trust him. When the sun starts to set we go back inside and wash up. I’m careful to keep my bandages dry. I should probably take them off and let my skin breathe but I don’t want to. He made these for me. I want to keep them on forever.
.