Chapter 6: The Currency of Touch

Our parents climbed out, and the station wagon’s doors slammed shut with a final, hollow thump, sealing us inside with the view. Beyond the windows, the horror was swallowed by the vast, diesel-charged evening of the Dixie Truckers Home. Sodium-vapor lights bleached the world into a stark, shadowless tableau, turning the sea of parked rigs into a silent, metallic forest. The neon diner sign buzzed like a trapped insect, casting a sickly green glow over the pavement. Near the far end of the lot, past the last row of trucks, the blue and yellow Super 8 sign promised a normalcy that felt like a cruel joke.

Awareness returned in a sickening rush: the damp chill on my skin, the crumpled khakis and boxers around my ankles, a puddle of cloth on the gritty floor mat. I’m the clothed one. The parental mantra echoed in my skull, a rule from a shattered world. I needed to fix this. To reassemble the costume of the compliant son.

I bent down, fingers fumbling for the waistband of my boxers.

Megan’s hand closed around my wrist. Her touch was cool, firm, not a caress but a restraint. “Sam.”

I froze, looking up. Her face was pale in the light, her expression one of eerie calm. Ashley, pressed close beside her, finished the thought, her voice a thin, strained whisper. “Sam, you’re wearing all of our clothes.”

The statement hung in the air, nonsensical. I was wearing my clothes. The polo, the khakis. They were bare.

Megan’s eyes held mine, translating the cryptic logic. “Allow us to decide when and where we are all clothed or not.” Her gaze dropped meaningfully to my discarded pants. “Right now, we are not.”

The understanding that clicked into place then was cold and terrible. My clothing wasn’t my privilege; it was their covering. A collective fig leaf. By being dressed, I carried the modesty for all of them. My state of dress was a group decision, a resource they controlled. Their nakedness dictated my attire, and my compliance in wearing it was part of their sentence. I didn’t just have clothes; I was their clothes.

I understood it now, at that moment. But back then, in the buzzing aftermath of the car, with the taste of confession and violation still on my tongue, the logic was a hall of mirrors. All I knew was a desperate, childish need for the normalcy of fabric, a barrier between my skin and the judging world. Clothes would only cover my skin, not theirs, that was the brutal, simple math. My comfort was irrelevant.

Our parents, silhouettes standing outside waiting, hadn’t moved. They weren’t helping. They weren’t speaking. They just waited. They were curators, watching the exhibit arrange itself.

I straightened slowly, abandoning my attempt. Megan released my wrist and knelt. Her movements were efficient, impersonal. She pulled my boxers up my legs as I lifted, her knuckles brushing my penis with her fingers. Claire moved in next, guiding the khakis up over my hips, her fingers deft on the button and zipper. Then both of them slipped back on my shoes and tied them. It was a silent, solemn redressing. I was their mannequin, being prepared for display. The hierarchy was palpable: they, naked, were dressing me, the clothed facade of the family. My body was their project.

As Claire finished, crouched before me, I looked down at the crown of her head. A question boiled up, born of the horror in the backseat, of her scripted degradation. My voice was a dry rustle.

“Why did you ... Make me do that?”

I didn’t need to elaborate. The towel over your hair. The pushing. The counting.

Claire sat up, meeting my eyes. Her face and hair were wiped clean of the earlier fervor. What remained was a flat, chilling emptiness. “I wanted to see if you were as numb and stripped ... as the rest of us,” she said, her tone clinical, as if reporting the results of a lab experiment. “We were testing you, Sam. The clothed one. To see if the act of forcing ... of being forced to force ... would break through. To see if you were just as exposed, just as raw, underneath the polo shirt.” She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shrug. “You didn’t resist the request. You pushed down. You passed.”

You passed, those words detonated inside me. It hadn’t been about her degradation, or even about extracting the secret. It had been a test of my humanity. To see if I could be made to perform cruelty on command, to become an instrument of their punishment willingly. My compliance in that vile act was my final initiation. I wasn’t a witness anymore. I was a participant. And in their eyes, my ability to follow that terrible script without breaking proved I was now as numb, as hollowed-out, as they were. The clothing was a lie. Underneath, we were all the same raw nerve.

Before the full weight of it could crush me, Megan touched my arm again. I had moved toward the door, the old instinct to exit first, to shield, to lead.

“No,” she said softly. “Ashley exits first. She will stand and walk with our parents.” She pointed through the windshield. Our parents were deep in some conversation setting outside the diner, waiting for us. They looked like any couple resting after a long drive. “Sam, you will grab the towels for us to sit on. You exit last and lock the door.”

I reached in and grabbed three of the clean clothes, coarse evidence of their constant exposure. My duty as custodian continued.

Ashley, at the mention of her name, took a shuddering breath. She reached for the door handle, her hand trembling. She slid it open, and the cacophony of the truck stop flooded in: the growl of engines, snatches of laughter, the distant clatter of dishes. She stepped out, bare feet on the oil-stained asphalt, and walked with stiff, tiny steps to stand on our mother’s left side at the table. She didn’t look at them. She just stood there, a pale, shivering statue beside our mother’s floral print blouse.

Megan nudged me. I gathered the towels and clutched them to my chest like a shield to provide a layer to their exposed skin. Claire exited next, then Megan. I followed, sliding the heavy door shut behind me with a hip-check, the towels in my arms.