Chapter 1

One

Larry crawled into bed, aching and sore. This was nothing new for him, but rather the way he had started to feel was the way it was always going to be. He lay on his stomach and buried his head into his pillow. He didn't cry, he couldn't. He had cried himself dry months before.

"This can't go on," he muttered quietly to himself. He lay quietly, hoping he would fall into oblivion quickly, but, as usual, his mind betrayed him, turning into a movie theatre and replaying the events of the night, and many previous nights, projected onto the backs of his eyelids.

Tonight had been a new low. For the first time it hadn't been just his father who had abased him, but his own body which had betrayed him. He hadn't been able to believe it when his father crowed with delight when his body had spewed semen while he was being anally raped. Although, was it rape when he didn't say no any more? Larry wasn't sure.

The first time had definitely been rape. He had gotten home from a track meet, bearing a silver medal in the 800 meters race, and pride in his personal best time at that distance. He had thought that his achievement would make his father proud. He still couldn't understand why it hadn't. He was too small to play most other sports, but found that short and middle distance running were easy for him once he started becoming fit. His father had played football at high-school and was of the opinion that it was the only sport of any consequence, everything else was 'queer'. All his life, Larry had been mocked for doing 'queer' things like playing chess, being interested in art and not playing any 'manly' sports.

His father's extreme homophobia had begun to make sense to Larry after that first time. His father had been drunk and maudlin when he got home. He had glanced briefly at the track medal, before sneeringly referring to it as evidence of Larry's 'queerness', then a strange expression had come over his face and he had grabbed hold of Larry by the arm and announced that if Larry was going to be queer, he may as well be of some use.

Larry had been confused, and the shocked at the force of his father's grip on his arm, protesting shrilly that it hurt. Unfortunately, he voice was in the process of changing and his protest came out as more of a high-pitched squeal than he would have liked. His father had laughed at him, spun him around and bent him over the couch before ripping his jeans down. The next thing Larry knew, his father's beer-belly was pressing into his back and then he had experience a searing pain as he was penetrated. As much as he had begun hoping to pass out from the pain, he had no such luck, instead staying wide awake to experience every second of the agonisingly painful assault.

His Father had finally grunted his release and pulled out, and then to Larry's complete surprise and dismay, proceeded to beat Larry with his belt while spouting the most incredibly vile filth.

Larry had cried himself to sleep that night, after staunching the bleeding with toilet paper from the bath-room. That night established a pattern for the next four long months, each occasion proceeded by heavy drinking on the part of his father and ending in a beating. Somehow, there were never any visible marks on his body from the beatings, but Larry had retreated completely into himself, withdrawing from all social and sporting activities. He basically went to school and returned home, although he had taken to trying to hide in the woods near his home to out-wait his father. That had back-fired on him however, as the beatings were worse on the two occasions that he had been caught doing so.

Larry lay and replayed the events in his mind's eye over and over, thinking that maybe he should try to steal one of his father's beloved fire-arms and make the pain stop. He wasn't sure whether he was more in favour of ending his own, or his father's, life. Either one would be equally good.