Page 78 of The Story of You

We watched TV and for once were alone. After another hour of sitcoms, Shane turned to me. “I’d like to kiss you, Simon. Would that be, okay?”

Would that be, okay? Fuck. Yeah, it would. I’d been waiting forever for him to kiss me. I was an awkward and shy teen though. My face heated to epic proportions. I couldn’t speak. All I could do was nod.

“If I do that, I want to show you something. Or at least tell you if you don’t wanna see. If your, uh, your hand finds its way up my shirt, you’ll feel them.”

I wasn’t even thinking about my hand up his shirt yet, but “yes please” to that too. I figured something out. “Is it why you’re always covered up?”

He nodded. “Somehow I didn’t end up with anything on my forearms or face—‘cept my skull, but it’s covered by my hair—but keeping all my skin covered too adds a layer of protection psychologically. Like maybe I can stop them getting wrecked too.”

“Show me,” I said, not quite knowing what I was in for, but I was all in with him. His pain was my pain.

He gathered courage by taking in a generous breath, his rib cage rising and falling. I could feel his heart jack rabbiting off rhythm against me. Using his strong hands, he sat me up and away from him so he could remove his shirts—he was wearing two.

When scars age, they fade and while you can still see them, they’re background noise after a time. It also depends on how well you looked after them with massage and vitamin-E creams, how the stitches were done, and the severity. These were still new, and no one was looking after them.

They were red. Raised. Angry. Tight. Everywhere. Some long. Some short. Some that were clearly burn marks left by cigarettes. I couldn’t say this then, but I can say it now, lots of the stitches were a hack job.

“They’re everywhere, Simon.Everywhere.” His eyes flicked down to his manhood.

“Jesus, Shane.”

“I know they’re ugly. I’m deformed. You don’t have to worry about me embarrassing you. I’ll stay covered up.” He tried to put his t-shirt on.

He thought I was going to be embarrassed by him? I stopped him. “No. It’s not what you’re gonna go off thinking. May I put my hand on you?”

“Yes. You have my permission to do whatever you want with me.”

I haven’t ever taken that lightly. I pressed my hand to his chest where it looked like someone had tried to carve a patch of flesh away. “Do they hurt?”

“In some places, where they tug. Massaging helps.”

“I want to massage them for you,” I said. I also wanted to seek vengeance on whoever did it to him. “How?”

“My mother’s boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? How could she let anyone do this to you?”

“It’s complicated, but she isn’t well and we were so poor. He kept us fed so I didn’t say anything until … well until.”

Starve or abuse. Those were their choices. Which would I choose? I still don’t know. I’ve heard death by starvation is awful, but is it more awful than this?

“I don’t think they’re ugly or that you’re deformed. I don’t care if you never want to cover up though I understand if you do.”

He nodded, pulling his shirt over his head, and covering himself again. I curled into him, sliding a hand up his shirt—he said I could—and pushed love toward his marred skin. “How do you do what we do?”

I meant the spanking. You’d think someone physically abused would want to stay far away from anything physical, but that’s not always true.

“I like knowing there’s control and that there’s a healthy way to enjoy the physical discipline I crave. It sorts it out in my head. Whatever it is Darius and Asher are doing … that would be too much for me. Lars and Terry go overboard with discipline in my opinion, but it’s nowhere near this so I can get through it, but it’s not how I’ll do things after I’m gone from here.”

Eighteen was everybody’s end date on the farm.

“Do they know?”

He nodded. “Sandy made sure I was set up with a counselor, but Terry made it clear that if I wanted to stay here, I’d abide by the rulesandthe consequences. His advice was to not break the rules. I wanted to stay so I stick to that. They’re not unreasonable rules.”

“Ugh but rule ten.” Even I’d caught it because of rule ten.

He laughed. “Walk away from Darius when he gets trouble about him. You know the signs better than anyone.”