Chapter 2: Chapter 2
I was still more slender and petite than the other boys I saw around town. Even the scrawniest of them had at least some muscle definition. I’d never lifted anything heavier than a book and had no muscle tone at all. I noticed my complexion was paler and smoother than theirs, too. The sun hadn’t had much opportunity to tarnish my skin. I was indoors too much. Used to creamy smooth skin and thinking the fine hair that appeared above my top lip ugly, I shaved daily, close to the skin, double and even triple shaving the same area until it was as silky as it had ever been.
My mother continued to home school me until just before I turned eighteen. Mostly she’d give me classics like Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist, and modern classics like Catcher in the Ryeand then expect me to write discursive compositions about what I’d read. She’d give me topics like “Pompeii” or “World War 2” or “The Vikings” to research on the internet and then she’d quiz me on them. I’d watch documentaries on television and online, and somehow, despite this hotchpotch method of teaching, I arrived at the eve of my eighteenth birthday an educated man.
“Man?” Dennis snarled. “You call this a man?”
He’d been drinking, a pastime he’d been cultivating over the past year or two.
“Leave him alone,” said my mother, who was drying the dishes she’d just washed.
“I’ll leave him alone if you stop calling him a man. Bloody faggot!” He went to the fridge and retrieved another beer. “You’ve raised a faggot!” He slammed the fridge door shut.
My mother indicated that I should leave the room with a discreet nod towards the double doors leading into the hallway. It wasn’t discreet enough. Dennis caught it.
“What are you doing behind my back?” he bellowed. “Secret signals!”
He was right in my mother’s face. She wore an expression of terror.
“Wh-what are you talking about? There weren’t any secret signals,” she said, managing a weak smile as she braced herself against the kitchen sink.
I started for the door, but Dennis saw me.
“Get back here, faggot!”
He stormed towards me. I continued for the door, sliding it open and making it into the hallway before I felt him grab the back of my neck. I gasped as I was yanked backwards.
“What are you doing?” screamed my mother.
“Seeing how much of a man he is.”
I felt faint. Numb. I didn’t know what Dennis had in mind, but a whole slew of wickedness passed before my eyes on a conveyor belt of horror. My heart was racing and I felt as though I was going to throw up. Whatever he had in mind for me, I knew I was no match for him.
He slammed me up against the wall. “Come on, boy! Fight back! Show your mother what sort of man she’s raised!”
He stood at six foot and was an ex-football player. His muscles were like steel. He had alcohol and aggression on his side. How was any man, let alone me, going to defend himself against all that?
His fist connected with my jaw with such force that my face had hit the wall before I felt the pain of his blow. I glimpsed a line of crimson on the painted plaster and noticed the salty, metallic taste of blood invade my mouth.
“What are you doing?” I heard my mother scream. I saw a flurry of movement—my mother rushing to my aid and being thrust back by Dennis.
“Come on,” he said, his bottom teeth bared as his eyes bored into me. “Be a man.”
I could barely focus. I saw his hand come towards me. I flinched. His fingers grabbed my crotch.
“Just what I thought. A cunt!”
He removed his hand then hit me again, his fist pounding my face into the wall. I felt a brief explosion of white hot heat and I think I threw up a little bit. I fell forwards. It felt as though I were falling into a void. It seemed like I’d fall forever. 2
I woke up surrounded by the night; above me, the canopy of a large tree, in front of me, a bejewelled sky, and beneath me, a carpet of soft, fresh-smelling grass. There was a breeze dancing through the leaves and setting some of the smaller branches bobbing. It was a mild summer night and I felt strangely at peace. My jaw didn’t hurt and when I pressed the palm of my hand against it, I felt no swelling. With the tip of my tongue I checked each and every tooth and could account for them all.
Only when I stood up and realised there was not an electric light in sight did I wonder how I had come to be wherever it is I was. Had Dennis and my mother thought me dead and dumped my body? It was possible. Astounding as it was to me, my mother loved Dennis deeply and would do anything to protect him, even, it seemed, aiding in the disposal of her own son’s dead body.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone