Inner Sorrow - Part 42: The Boy No Man Would Touch

Part 42:
The Boy No Man Would Touch
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“Brad?” Pal asked, setting a hand on the threshold that led into the living room. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course you can,” Brad said, lifting his head from his drawing. “Come here, bud.”
Nodding, Pal crossed the room and settled down beside his cousin. He looked down at the piece of art paper to find an image of a woman emerging from the sea from the waist up—naked, her head thrown back to toss seawater from her hair.
“A mermaid?” he smiled.
“Yeah,” Brad said, nudging the drawing toward his cousin. “I’m getting paid to do it digitally.”
“Why not just draw it on the computer?”
“Don’t have a tablet,” he chuckled.
“Oh.” Pal paused. “Sounds like a birthday present.”
“I guess,” Brad shrugged. “What was it you wanted, bud?”
“Since you and Dean were going to go out, I was thinking… could I, uh…”
“Could you… what?” Brad frowned.
“Nevermind,” Pal sighed. “It’s nothing.”
“What is it? Tell me.”
“It’s stupid—and besides, I’m grounded.”
Settling an arm across Pal’s shoulders, Brad turned the younger man’s head toward him, then tilted his chin up with the other. At this vantage point, Pal could see directly into his cousin’s smoky-grey eyes. The determination—bold, though not unquestioningly bold—made him shiver.
“Tell me, buddy.”
“Can Angel come over?”
Brad frowned. He released his hold on Pal’s head and chin.
“Did he get home today?” Brad asked, pulling the drawing back to where he could look at it.
“Yeah. I… I kinda broke one of the rules by answering my cell. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” the older man said, standing. He switched the desk lamp off, lifted the sketch, and slid the drawing pencil into a schoolboy’s case. He patted Pal’s shoulder a short moment later. “Me and Dean can drop you off at Angel’s house.”
“You’ll let me go?” Pal asked, standing, the excitement nearly making him shake.
“Yeah,” Brad grunted.
Pal pushed his hands into his pockets, trying as hard as he could not to smile and give his true happiness away. He caught Dean looking at his reflection in the stove.
“Baby, who cares if you’ve got a little stubble,” Brad said, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Dean’s waist from behind. “Besides—it makes you look hot.”
This time, Pal couldn’t help but smile when Brad nibbled on the end of Dean’s ear. Dean smiled and pushed Brad away, gently slapping his chest.
“Come on, bud,” Brad said, turning to look back at Pal. “Let’s drop you off.”1

“Hey,” Angel said, pressing his mouth to Pal’s the moment he stepped up to the door.
“Hey,” Pal replied, making sure to wave goodbye to both Brad and Dean before they drove off.
“It’s good to see you again, babe.”
“It’s good to see you too,” Pal sighed, leaning into Angel’s embrace. “I’m just glad they let me come over.”
“Why wouldn’t they... Oh. That.”
“Yeah. I… I shouldn’t have tried to get attention that way.”
“It’s not your fault,” Angel said, taking Pal’s face in his hands. “God, Pal—look at you. Out of everything you could’ve done, you did that. I know I’d be a little messed up too if I had to deal with all the shit you’re going through.”
“I guess,” he shrugged, pushing the door shut behind him. “Is Tom here?”
“Uh huh. How come?”
“Just wondering.”
Angel shrugged, slipping a hand behind Pal’s back. He followed the curve of Pal’s spine with his thumb until his hand came to rest at the hollow of his back.
“You want to talk about what’s been going on?”
“I… I don’t know, Angel. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to, babe. I’m just saying—I’m here to listen if you want to talk, you know?”
“I know.”
Pal closed his eyes and took a deep breath, not sure what to think about the sound of his heart beating in his chest. Adam mentioned that the heart beating in the head—palpations, he’d called them—could be caused by stress, anxiety and depression, but didn’t say to worry about it. Pal figured that, if anything, it would pass as soon as his troubles started to lessen.
If they lessen.
He expelled another deep breath and settled himself on the old, green sofa. Angel sat down in the recliner opposite him shortly after.
“The counseling’s been going ok,” Pal said, setting his hands between his knees. “It feels good, having someone to talk to. It especially feels better knowing that it’s a man who’s been to school for this kind of thing.”
“Definitely,” Angel agreed.
“Anyway… I… I’ve been having some bad dreams lately.”
“It’s ok, babe—take your time.”
“I just don’t know how to say this,” he sighed, taking another deep breath. “So I guess I’ll say it the easiest way I can. My dad molested me when he was drunk, Angel. Before the middle of last year—when his drinking started to get really bad—he didn’t even come into my room. Hell, he said he hated going in there, because it was always ‘so dirty’ and ‘smelled like shit.’ Well, for one, my room wasn’t dirty—it was spotless. And for two, my room smelled like old blankets, because that’s all he ever gave me.”
Angel said nothing. Pal swallowed a lump in his throat.
There I go, he thought, trailing away from the original topic.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Anyway, like I was saying, he didn’t come into my room until the middle of last year, after he started bringing home a twenty-four pack and drinking it all in one night. There’s really no way to describe how it feels to be touched by someone you don’t want to touch you. I guess… I guess it feels… well, dirty.”
Again, Angel kept his silence, but nodded for Pal to continue.
“It made me feel like it was wrong to be gay,” he continued, balling his hands into fists. “I don’t know why it made me feel that way, but I guess when your drunken dad is running his hands up and down your chest and sometimes your legs, it gets to you after a while.”
“Was your dad ever screwing around with any guys?”
“No,” Pal laughed, standing. “He called me a fairy for Christ’s sake. He’s… was… as straight as a line.”
Angel, too, stood and followed Pal into the kitchen. While Angel settled down into a bar stool—most likely expecting his boyfriend to do the same—Pal walked to the window and looked outside.
Just a moment before, Dean’s maroon-colored car had sat in the driveway, right next to Tom’s white truck and Angel’s brown station wagon. Now, though, the lack of the familiar vehicle scared him, almost as if its presence ensured that he would always have a home.
I’ll always have a home, he thought, just as long as I stay with Brad.
“It made me feel dirty,” he continued, looking over his shoulder at his boyfriend. “It made me feel like no man would touch me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because people who get molested or raped are marked. It’s like they’re dirty, Angel—it’s like someone’s dumped cake on the bride at her wedding and everyone knows the most important day in her life has been ruined.”
“I guess,” the older man murmured.
“When my dad touched me, it made me feel like every single part of me except my mind was in a glass box. I kept expecting someone to throw stones at me and having the last bit of my sanity tore away.”
“How did you deal with that, babe?”
“I don’t know,” Pal said, tilting his head down. “It… it helped to know that if I wanted to run away, I’d have someone to go to, despite whether or not he knew or remembered me.
“Do you think you made the right choice?” Angel asked, pressing his chest against Pal’s back. “And do you still think no man will ever touch you?”
“No,” Pal said, lacing his and Angel’s fingers together. “I know I made the right choice, and I know that as long as I have you, I never have to worried about not being touched.”