Page 52 of The Intimacy of Skin

Facing the past had never been my strong suit. It made me spiral, causing me to act on pure panic and misguided instinct, akin to a caged animal. So when Tobias explained that we knew each other, and more importantly, how we knew each other, I acted on instinct. I ran.

I ran with nothing but my jacket and whatever was in my pockets.

Once I remembered who Tobias was, the memories wouldn’t stop.

They rushed over me, forcing me to drink them down and taste the poison before it slowly killed me from the inside out.

Demonic claws squeezed my neck, getting tighter and tighter until I was panting into the cold, frigid air.

It hurt to breathe in. Icicles trapped themselves at the base of my throat, choking me over and over until I was heaving on the side of the snow-covered sidewalk.

Christmas decorations and music mocked me as I threw up the meager bites of lunch I’d eaten with Tobias. I retched until my stomach was empty, nothing else coming up despite my muscles lurching anyway.

Large, curious, scared eyes came to me in relentless flashes.

Tobias’s small hands were shaky and pale as they tugged on my arm.

He’d tried to get me to leave, to help me understand something incomprehensible in my fifteen-year-old mind.

He wasn’t much younger than me, but I guessed he had a better life than I did if he knew what was happening.

I wondered if he was taught that these things were bad. Tobias knew he wasn’t at fault—so fucking wise for such a young kid. Unfortunately, it was too late. I thought nothing of it. It was my job, my calling.

Jesus, I was a fucked-up kid. Bringing another kid, only to explain to him that something awful and life-altering was about to happen and tell him that it was fine.

I thought it was. I thought I liked it. I thought I deserved it .

I forgot about Tobias. He was only there for two lessons. If I forgot about involving him, I could pretend it didn’t happen. Pretend I didn’t lure him into something so awful that it made me ruin my skin, my life, and my body for years and years.

We never brought another kid in after Tobias, anyway. He was the last one. I was the chosen kid, always doing what was expected of me. Always fucking obeying his orders, no matter what they were, because I was dirty. I deserved it. I had to be punished. That was the only fucking way to keep going.

The snow started to pick up pretty bad after a while. My feet were freezing, and my shoes weren’t thick enough to trudge along this much snow. I didn’t know it was supposed to be this bad.

I didn’t want to go home. Willow would take one look at my face, and she’d just know . She’d ask me a million questions I couldn’t answer.

I didn’t want to see Price because it would mostly be the same, except he wouldn’t pepper me with questions. He’d be there for me, all gentle and kind as he held me in his arms and whispered sweet words into my ear.

Neither of those was what I deserved. The kind patience from both of them would be too much. I wanted to slice my skin open. Bleed until nothing mattered anymore. Force my regrets to spill over in the presence of no one except myself and God.

I looked down at my feet, realizing just how high the snow had gotten. The sun was starting to set. My phone kept buzzing in my pocket, though I made no move to look at it.

Maybe that made me an asshole. I couldn’t stand the idea of facing the two most important people in my life, all while knowing what I’d done.

The guilt of ruining Tobias’s life, alongside my own, was too much.

It weighed heavier than the ice coating my jacket, settling down my spine.

It hurt more than my hands, which were stiff in my pockets from the cold.

I wasn’t even sure where I was anymore. I passed Moe’s Ass Shack, as Price liked to call it. I knew I’d gone past the hotel on Cross Street, too. I wasn’t paying much attention after that, letting my feet take me anywhere they wanted to go.

It was getting harder to walk as the snow piled up.

I couldn’t feel my face anymore. At some point, I ended up roaming the few streets I was most familiar with, which were hot spots for sex workers.

No matter what, clients could count on a few of us being there, waiting to be used for money.

I knew that because, at some point, I was one of them.

Could I even consider myself one of them anymore? Was I ever one of them in the first place? I wasn’t sure if I’d earned the right to consider myself anything but a nuisance to the others who worked the sidewalks.

The contradicting memories of the two times I’d met Jesse twisted in my mind. How angry he’d been at first. I’d caused destruction, not only to myself, but to everyone around me. He’d said I had a choice, which I did if we wanted to get technical about it.

But then I thought back to Tiger Claw Camp, and I remembered exactly why I didn’t.

At the ripe age of thirteen, I’d learned the importance of “getting what you deserve.” He called them lessons.

Lessons on life, or how to show gratitude to the only man who’d ever paid attention to me like he had.

Sometimes the lessons were about the obvious deviance that festered beneath my skin and how it could be absolved if I let him.

His reasoning changed often, confusing me over and over until I just did what he wanted and stopped thinking too hard about it.

“Were you kind to your mother?”

“Why did you yell at that kid today? You know that’s not nice.”

“Did you just talk back to me?”

Everything I’d ever done wrong was cataloged in his mind and added to the tally of my mistakes.

“I’m doing this for your own good, Crew. Tryin’ to toughen you up, turn you into a respectable man that’ll make your mama proud.”

“I think that one over there needs a bit of help, too. He seems the unruly type, just like you. How ’bout we teach him a few of the lessons you’ve learned?”

“Tobias needs me just like you do. Did ya know his dad walked out on him too?” He made a tsk sound with his tongue.

It was as quiet as the crickets that were chirpin’ outside.

So why did it make me jump like a bomb had just gone off?

“Young boys need someone to step up to the plate in their life. Show ’em what’s right ’n wrong. That’s what I do for you, ain’t it?”

I nodded, ’cus yeah, he was always right. He was helpin’ me since I ain’t got no one else around to do it for me. I knew my temper was causin’ problems, and I knew I coulda been better for Mom. It was just hard to be perfect all the time.

He said it’s ’cus I ain’t tryin’ hard enough. Bein’ good should be easy, he said. It’s all right, the lessons will make me better. And if he says Tobi needs ’em too, I believe him.

Sharp, ugly pains stabbed me in the stomach as I desperately hung on to the bile threatening to rise. One of his favorite sayings played on an echo, repeating endlessly as I staggered against the wall behind me.

“Punishment teaches a lesson, kid. Bruises just remind ya of the lesson you learnt.”

My head hit the wall, cold, hard, and painful. I wanted to open my eyes. See where I ended up. I couldn’t, though. Not with Tobi’s face, all sad and scared, haunting me from when we were kids. Not with his face from just a few hours ago, all sad and anxious as he helped me remember.

I could feel eyes on me. I’d gotten good at understanding that feeling—the one where the hair on the back of my neck starts to stand, and shit starts crawling up my arms. Awareness that something dangerous is lurking just around the corner, waiting to pounce on me.

Snow crunches and slushes beneath the boots of someone else’s footsteps. I heard it parting ways for them. Closer and closer until it stopped right in front of me. Only then did I slowly start to open my eyes. I glanced to the left and then to the right.

For some fucked-up reason, my feet had taken me to the same spot Price had picked me up the first time.

I was in the middle of a few other sex workers, most of them huddled inside their meager jackets for warmth.

A nauseating spark of sadness hit me for a moment.

I could go home right now, lie down in my warm bed, and drift to sleep.

They most likely didn’t have that option.

A man stood in front of me, wearing a long trench coat that hung just above his ankles.

I looked everywhere except his eyes, looking up and down his body to see if I recognized him.

Most of the clients I met with, I never saw their faces for long.

It was easier to pick apart their bodies the same way they did mine.

“Hey, cutie. Seen you around a few times. How much?”

I plastered on my best bitch-face, scowling at him. “I don’t do that shit. Fuck off.” I puffed out my chest the most I could, hoping to look larger than I was. This, I could do. Pretend I was someone different, someone stronger than I was.

The man growled at me. An angry, heaving growl that misted with the snow falling around us. “The fuck you mean you don’t do that shit? My buddy was one of your regulars.”

I huffed in his direction, putting a foot to the left to try and get away. “Well, he was wrong. I’m not in the business anymore. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” I tried to move away. I really did. But it all happened so fast. A cliché I hated hearing but now understood.

Until then, I had never been face-to-face with anything close to an angry tiger. A large, predatory, wild beast with nothing but blood on its mind. The closest I’d gotten was the rare bobcat growing up. They’d stalk along the woods on the path I had to take to my favorite creek.