Page 64 of Doug

He had one memory he could share that actually made him proud. “My room was little more than a closet at the end of a hallway with a cot inside. But when it rained, my space took a nasty hit. It was…almost unlivable. I took matters into my own hands—knowing that any complaints I made would go unheard—and begged a pile of shingles off the foreman of a construction site in town. The man was great, and let me have a good-sized pile. Without Lotus’s knowledge, I patched the roof above my room. It became the only dry place in the house.”

“Advocating for yourself when you were still little more than a baby.” Pixie’s eyes remained filled with tears, but she also looked proud. Her empathy however? She needed to save it. His story was only going to get worse.

“When I turned thirteen, I had a growth spurt. I shot up from a puny kid to an impressive five-ten, pretty quickly. That’s when things changed. I became aware of my body in a whole different way, and recognized that certain parts had…all new functions.”He remembered when masturbating had been an amazing new adventure, but almost as quickly, his mind had learned to equate it with disgust and shame.

That was something Will had worked on with Doug for a long time. And it had been years before Doug had felt even remotely comfortable putting his hands on himself, again.

Dammit. That bitch had stolen so much from him. But if he gritted his teeth any harder over the long-ago memories, he was going to crack some enamel, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good.

“Is that when the…sexual abuse started?” Pixie finally whispered when the silence had apparently gone on too long.

“Yeah.” How was he going to get this out? It was a nasty bit of business, and it had continued for almost a year before he’d finally taken matters into his own hands.

Just spit it the hell out, Doug.

He grimaced.

“At first, I’d wake up in the morning, and…all the clothes in my room would be gone. Not that there were many,” he shuddered. “I slept in my underwear, so every morning I’d have to go searching throughout the house, half naked, looking for my things. Lotus and the other ladies would always be hanging around, watching as I made my way, methodically through the house to find my stuff. They’d laugh and point and…it was beyond humiliating.”

“That’s…awful, Doug.” Pixie’s eyes lost their sheen, and now they might as well be shooting sparks. She was incensed on his behalf but…she hadn’t heard the worst of it.

“It wasn’t long before the women started…grabbing me; my ass when I’d walk by, or other parts if I wasn’t quick enough to duck their hands.”

Doug watched Pixie’s throat convulse, and was afraid she was going to be sick. But he couldn’t stop now.

“I thought I was smarter than them, so I began sleeping in my clothes at night, which meant I’d no longer be vulnerable. But they’d already had a taste of what they wanted, and things escalated.”

“Even Lotus?” Pixie rasped.

Doug heaved a deep, disgusted breath. “Lotus was the instigator. I began having…night visitors.” His mouth went dry, and he attempted to conjure saliva to continue. “And…if you know how an adolescent boy is with sex, it doesn’t take much to wake up with a…” he couldn’t finish that sentence. “Uh, you get the picture.”

“I do,” Pixie snarled, now. “They assaulted you. Took advantage.”

“They did,” he agreed, his anger, fomented by hers, rising to the surface. Anger was good. It was easier to deal with than the shame he’d once felt; the guilt Will had managed, over many years, to persuade him wasn’t his cross to bear.

“I became their boy-toy, and there was nothing I could do about it. When I fought, they liked it. When I was docile, they…played until they grew bored. There seemed to be no way I could win. I’d been brought up by a man who taught me good, honorable values, and even though these women were debauched pieces of shit, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt them, but that’s all I wanted to do. I dreamed, constantly, of…killing them. And I hated myself for it.”

“I wish you had. Killed them, that is.” Pixie growled deep in her throat, sounding like a mother cat protecting her young. “Are they…all still alive?” There was fire in her eyes, and Doug appreciated it. Given the level of her rage, he wouldn’t be surprised if she tracked them down and did murder on his behalf.

“As far as I know.” He’d ignored that part of the county for a very long time. “They spent some time in jail after everythingcame to light, but nobody seems to think…” He had a hard time saying the word, but it needed to be used. “Nobody seemed to think rape of a male was that big of a deal. I know,” he held up a trembling hand. “Too often a woman isn’t taken seriously, either. But with me… You can’t believe the things I heard while my situation was being sorted.” He sighed. “But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Doug did some of the cleansing breaths Will had taught him, and continued. “When I finally got the guts to run away from Lotus’s house of horrors, I ended up in the woods a few miles away. I’d been doing a little gopher work for that construction GM I mentioned earlier to earn pocket money, and he let me haul away as much scrap wood as I wanted. I built myself a sweet treehouse, far enough outside of town that no one would notice, but close enough that I could still ride my bike to school. I wasn’t dumb. I knew that an education was the only way I was going to get out of the life I was living.

“I had one teacher at school. A man. Mr. Jenkins. I really trusted him. Lord knows by that point I’d developed a mistrust of allfemales.”

And how sad was that?

Doug cleared his throat. “Mr. Jenkins knew from our conversations that things weren’t great at home, even though I never went into detail. Still, he kept an eye on me, and often brought me clothes, food, and books. After I’d been living in the woods for a few weeks, I must have looked really rough and smelled even worse, because he sat me down to ask if everything was okay.

“I don’t know why I chose that moment to spill, but the words started coming out of me in a great rush, and before I knew it, he had the whole story, and my uncle was there, even though he’d been denied visitation for all the years I’d been with Lotus.”

“The chief believed you,” Pixie stated with certainty.

“He did. And he never once intimated that it was my fault,orgave me the line I soon would become closely acquainted with.Thatwas total bullshit; what I got from some of the men who became involved in my case as my supposed advocates. They’d joke about sexual prowess, and elbow me about getting all the pussy I wanted at such a young age.”

Doug shook his head disgustedly at the memory.

“I take it that’s when MECASA got involved.” Pixie’s disgruntled voice brought him back from the edge.

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