I’m shivering. My body is cold. I’m scared. Warm liquid drips down my legs, and that’s when I realize I’ve peed myself.
“You goddamn incompetent boy! Look what you did! Fucking look! That’s the second time you’ve ruined my mattress. Why are you so weak? Why can’t you be normal?” Justine pours the cigarettes out, and all of them land on the bed next to me. He sighs in frustration, rubbing his tongue over his teeth, then fluffs his hair. A bead of sweat drips down the beak of his nose, and his red lipstick is smeared from how many times he has rubbed his lips together. His foundation is starting to crack within the wrinkles in his face, right along the edges of his mouth and forehead.
“You make me do this; you know that? You make me be this person,” he says, grabbing a cigarette and lighting it. “You make me hurt you. Why? Why do you make me do it?”
“I…”
“Oh, I know. Poor Wayne. The wittle baby. So hopeless.” He pats my cheek and digs the burning cigarette against my thigh.
I scream, something I’m not allowed to do, but I can’t help it. It hurts so much.
He lights the cigarette again, even though the stem is wrinkled, and makes the tobacco glow again.
I’m still screaming, but it isn’t for the pain in my thigh. It’s for everything. I hope someone can hear me. I can’t do this anymore.
“God, you never shut up, do you?” he reaches into my mouth and pinches my tongue between his fingers, yanking it from my mouth. I shout the best I can through muted, panicked sounds. I kick my legs and bounce on the bed to try to get away, but he throws his leg over my naked waist and straddles me to stop my legs from kicking. “Always so stubborn, never wanting to listen. How many times does this need to happen before you understand?”
I nod, wanting to do anything and everything to make him stop and get off me. I’ll be good. I swear. I’ll be good. Tears fall from my eyes, and I can see him clearly now. The hate in his eyes has me laying completely still.
We lock eyes.
I’m too afraid to move, to breathe, to make a sound.
“I hate you,” he says, emotion curling his lip. “You look just like her. That bitch of a sister always thought she was better, prettier. Look at me now! I’m fucking beautiful. Me! I make money off my looks, not her, and I’m going to make sure you never can. You hear me?” He doesn’t give me time to react before pressing the cigarette against my tongue.
I arch my back and clutch my hands into fists. I can taste the smoke working its way down my throat. The ashes dissolve against the saliva pooling and mixing with blood. The pain is unbearable. He tosses the ruined cigarette aside and picks up another. I watch in horror as he lights it. It could be a still-image with how many times I’ve seen him light the same cigarette, with the same disinterest on his face, and evil promises in his eyes.
The orange glow sets his face in a sunset hue. I only know of the sunset because he allows me outside once a week to get fresh air, always at night, so fewer people see that he has a kid.
I might be a kid, but I feel like I’ve lived a hundred lives, and I’m ready to be laid to rest. I lay there entranced by the delicate way the smoke string leaving the cigarette billows up toward the ceiling; it tunnels in an invisible chimney, searching for a way out. Justine’s face disappears as he leans into the cloud, and another gut-wrenching burn crackles along my tongue, adding to the circular scars. Justine is smart.
He knows exactly where to put the scars so if we do come across someone, no one can see how ugly my body is.
“Hmm,” he hums, tossing the butt onto the ground and grabbing another, lighting it. He presses it on the underside of my tongue instead.
I know I’m making some sort of noise, but between the spit and blood clogging my throat, and the sobs, I don’t know if I’m screaming. I think I am.
Justine finally releases my tongue and rubs his hands down my bare body, kissing the middle of my chest. “I wish you’d just behave, little nephew. It would be better for the both of us.” He reaches around and grabs my ass, and the touch is all I need to wake up. There’s a single moment of the pain lifting. Through the blood dripping down my chin, the swollen tongue, and the burn marks all over, I realize what he’s about to do.
He’s about to turn me on my side, spread my cheeks, and ruin me in another way. He does that. He’s always done that. Justine has done that for as long as I can remember.
Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way.
Something inside of me wakes up, and I lift my foot and smash it between his legs. I’m not sure how effective it is since I hit him from the back, but it has to hurt because he falls to his side, cupping himself in the front with one hand and in the back with the other.
Scooting my legs up until I’m in a better position, I sit up. The tip of my tongue is sticking out of my mouth since it’s so swollen. Through tears, hate, and disappointment, I roar my agony and kick his face.
And I keep kicking.
All the years of being silent, being in the corner, in the darkness, and being forgotten slam against me. All the years of his abuse, the burns, the unwanted touch, the lessons in his fashion, everything has always been unwanted from him.
His cheekbones crunch, his nose breaks and snaps to the left, and he wheezes a ragged breath. Justine sputters and spits out a pool of blood with a few teeth I knocked free.
I stretch my neck up and push through the pain, then bite down on the end of the scarf. I yank back, untying one knot around my wrist, then wiggle my hand free. It doesn’t take long before I’m untying my other wrist, and I’m free.
I’m … free.
What do I do? I never thought I’d be in this situation.
I push Uncle Jeremy onto his back and see what I’ve done.
Something inside me changes when he licks his lips and groans. At that moment, I’m numb. I scurry off the bed and open the bedside drawer where he keeps all of his toys, including a knife.
Some of his clients like to be cut.
He moans again, and I turn to see him rolling to his stomach. He’s too weak to get up. The blade gleams against the light, twinkling like a star, hypnotizing me. My reflection is mirrored back at me. My face is swollen, wet, the tip of my tongue pushes between my lips. When I open my mouth, I see the black dots from the cigarettes.
Something cold settles in my chest. Something dark.
I grip him by the hair, then turn him on his back. I straddle his waist. I reach into his mouth. I pinch his tongue with my fingers.
I don’t make a sound as I dig the knife down the smokey hole of his throat and cut. This time, it’s his screams that fill the air. It’s his cries that are telling me to stop.
Never.
The knife finishes cutting, and I hold up my prize. It’s dripping with blood, thicker than what I thought it would be, and so satisfying.
Oddly satisfying.
Who’s the one who can’t make a noise now?
Next, I cut his throat without blinking and wonder for a brief second what kind of monster he’s turned me into as he gurgles, drowning in his own blood.
I’ve only done what I needed to survive. I didn’t want him touching me there again. I wipe my knife on the bed, then walk away. I’m in no hurry, but I need to get dressed. I know better than to dig through his dresser. All I’ll find are women’s clothes.