A Safe Place By James
Disclaimer
This story deals with sexual as well as romantic situations between teenaged males. Should you be offended by such material, or if you're not of the legal age to read such material, then please find something else to read. Also remember to donate to Nifty so that these stories can remain free to the public.
Chapter 7
"What is Hell?" I ask myself. "And I answer thus: the suffering of no longer being able to love."
Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Brothers Karamazov
Continuing in 2015
0000
Kevin
Bright-red blood gushed from my wrists and I was in the center of the study on my knees watching it as if in a dream. I never knew that it was so red, so thick. I watched it flow down my arms and on to the floor. It had been nothing more than a couple of cuts and it was done.
I remember taking the scalpel out of the bag and first cutting one wrist, then the other. Funny how it didn't really hurt. That's what I thought then. As the blood flowed, I still knelt there watching my life's blood running out of my body. Suddenly though, memories came flooding back in to my consciousness. They came back in a rush, as fast as the blood flowing out of me.
I had memories of when I was a little kid and my mom and dad would hug me after seeing me do something amazing like getting a good grade at school, or when I washed the dishes all by myself when I was eight years old. I also remembered the times between Caleb, Alicia and I. I remembered us wrestling on the ground and a couple of times when our rough-housing in my room when I was 10 almost caused the bedside lamp to be a casualty in the rough playing. Our mom yelled from the kitchen for us to settle down when she heard the raddling of the lamp as it almost fell over. I could hear warning, but a smile in her voice when we stopped and kept the lamp from breaking. I also remember teaching Caleb how to make simple things in the microwave and then I also remembered teaching Alicia how to draw when we were both five.
All of it came back to me. I also remembered the comforting my parents gave me when I would fall and scrape my knees or legs on the sidewalks. I remembered as well, the rides they'd take me on at the fare and how much fun we all would have. I could hear clear as if it was in the room, Alicia and Caleb's laughter when we'd watch some of the magic shows at these same fares.
Suddenly I became conscious in every way possible. For the past few months while with Richie, I felt like I was in a fog and that nothing was actually real. I knew that I was doing things in my life, things like schoolwork and other things, but none of it seemed real. It was a scary feeling and I didn't know how to tell anyone about it. It didn't help that Richie told me after the first time he groped my thigh in his bedroom that first time, not to tell anyone what we would be doing together. Now though, I was fully awake.
I felt my breathing, the blood and the pain. Worse of all, was the pain. It burned and it felt like it was coming in waves. It was hot and felt like fire. I smelled the metal and coppery smell of the blood and I finally understood the reality of the situation. I saw myself clearly on the floor of my dad's study on my knees and with my wrists slashed opened. I saw the room around me and the desk as well as the bookshelves. Strangely enough, I stopped for a moment to scan the titles of the books. My eyes fell upon the titles right in front of me. I saw the titles of books such as The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground and Heart of Darkness. Then I felt fear and a violently desperate wish to live over-take me. I moved over to the phone and somehow, I dialed my dad's personal number at work.
0000
Bill picked up the phone on the first ring. He saw on the caller I.D., that it was the number to his house. He figured that it was any one of the children and instead of wondering if it would be a good call, he immediately wondered if it would be bad news of some sort, especially given Kevin's behavior of late. He felt a sinking sense of dread as he put the phone to his ear.
"Hello?" he said.
At first, there was only silence with heavy breathing on the other end, then he heard a voice. It was weak, but he could hear the fear and terror in it.
"Daaaad," the voice said drawing out the word.
"Kevin?" he asked. "Is that you? What's going on? You sound strange!"
"Daaaad!" Kevin said a little louder this time, but still drawing out the word. "It hurts so bad. I didn't think it would hurt this bad. Help!"
"Kevin!" Bill yelled getting up from his desk. He knew that something was wrong. Kevin! What's going on! What did you do!"
He was raising his voice out of fear now. He was deeply afraid.
"Dad I did it!" Kevin yelled in that drawn out and increasingly weakening voice. "I just cut my wrists! I'''I'''I'''I didn't think it would hurt this bad! Dad, help me, Please! I'm so scared! I don't want to die! Help me!"
"My god!" Bill said beginning to panic. "Kevin! Please tell me you didn't! Please tell me you're not serious!"
"Dad Help!" Kevin yelled, but it was coming out in a much smaller voice now. "I can't stay awake much longer! I think I'm dying!"
"No!" Bill yelled. "You stay with me Kevin! I'm getting help right now! Don't die on me, don't you die on me! I'm coming! It's going to be alright!"
0000
Kevin
The phone fell from my hand and I fell back on the floor. I was growing more and more faint, then blackness over-took me. I wished more than anything that I could take it back. I tried to fight to stay awake, but death was winning.
0000
Kevin was rushed to the hospital. Bill called the ambulance and he as well as several doctors and other medical personnel rushed to the house and he got to the door of the house first. He kicked it opened and ran first to Kevin's room and didn't see him in his bed. He then ran to a couple of the other bedrooms, then someone yelled from his study.
"Bill! I found him! He's in here! It doesn't look good at all!"
Bill heard the horror in the doctor's voice and if the doctor couldn't even keep his composure, then he knew it was bad. Bill ran faster than he had in many years and he was hurling himself through the hall and then he burst in to the study. He saw the blood and worse of all, he saw Kevin, his oldest son laying on the floor as the paramedics and doctors worked to stop the bleeding. Kevin was white as paper and Bill knew that he didn't have long to live.
"Noooo!" he screamed, then fell to the floor.
0000
Later that evening, Bill and Maria were at home once one of the doctors assured them that he would call when they had further news to report about Kevin's condition and any improvements if any. The two parents frantically ripped apart Kevin's room and found first the pictures of naked guys that looked like they had been printed off of the internet, then the drawings that depicted a boy hanging from a tree with the words: "I'm sorry mom and dad." Written above the image and last in the dresser drore, was an envelope with a letter in it. With mounting horror, Bill and Maria opened the unsealed envelope and read the letter. They saw that it was dated a month ago.
"Dear mom and dad:
If you're reading this, then I'm dead. I know I've been really mean to you both as well as to Caleb and Alicia. I feel horrible about that and I'm so sorry it's come to this. I just can't go on living knowing that while I'm alive, that you guys are all in danger.
I've always known I was gay and one day at a family gathering when your guys' parents were talking about how bad homosexuality was, I was afraid that you'd believe them and hate me if you ever found out about me being that way. I figured that you guys would hate me if you and they found out and if you lost your relationship with them. So I kept quiet about it.
What you don't know though, is that that guy Richie that I go to school with, well, he's been making me do things with him. He's been making me give him sex. He implies every time that he'll tell you and mom as well as Caleb and Alicia about me being gay if I don't do what he tells me to do. He also implies that he will hurt you guys, you, mom, Caleb and Alicia. So I can't be around and risk slipping up and telling you guys and having you guys hurt. He really is evil and I didn't know a kid could be that hateful. So goodbye and know that I will always love you, all of you.
Love, Kevin
They put down the letter and just held one another for what seemed like hours sobbing and completely horrified. Eventually though, Bill and Maria got themselves under control and Maria was the first to speak.
"My god Bill! This is what his behavior has been about! This has been what he's been going through all this time!"
She was sobbing again and Bill held her.
"How could we have missed this?" he asked sickened. "I should have seen this for what it was! My god, I work with treating patients, some of whom are victims of sexual abuse!"
"We couldn't have known," Maria said holding him. "We did the best we could."
Kevin
I awoke feeling weaker than I had ever known. My wrists hurt and I was unsure of where I was. I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn't cooperate at first. Then after trying harder, I got them opened and saw the hospital room. I then remembered everything and tried to sit up.
"No, don't," a soft voice said. I knew it was my dad. "Just lay still Kevin. It's all over now, we know everything. It's all over and you're safe now. We're here for you. We'll always be here for you no matter what. You don't have to go through this alone now."
"He's right," my mom said. "You're safe. Just rest and know that we're here."
"I'''I'''I''I'm so thirsty," I struggled to say. My dad held to my lips a cup of water and I began to drink fast and choked.
"Easy Kev," he said softly. "Just take it slow."
I did and the water went down better. I looked at him and I could tell that he had been crying. I then took a couple more drinks, then let him know that I was finished with the water for now. He sat it on the bedside table and then he smoothed back my hair and just sat there.
"Dad," I began. "I'm so'''."
"You don't have to say anything right now," he said and kissed my cheek. "We know what all of your acting out has been about lately and we don't hate you an we're not mad. We just want to help you back."
I learned a couple of hours later when I was more awake, that it was my third full day in the hospital. I had been out for the past two days since I had been taken there to the hospital. I also learned that Richie had been arrested once my mom and dad called the police and let them know what he had been doing to me. At first, the police had listened and when my dad was able to get an officer to talk to him at the station, he told the detective the whole story. From that office, they called Richie's house and talked with his parents and once the parents voluntarily agreed to let the police come and search the house as well as talk with their son, it all came out.
No, Richie didn't break down, cry and confess, but they found the video on his phone as well as the pictures he told me he took. They also found other pictures. Not of me, but pictures of boys and girls many years younger than even Caleb, Alicia or I. They also got in contact with all the boys and girls who had been there at the building the night that Richie raped me. Once they were all arrested, their phones were taken and the upshot was that all the videos of us and the pictures of us they took luckily weren't shown to anyone else. The police had gotten their phones in time before they could as Richie so fancily put it, make this fucking movie go viral.
Once the search of the house spread out and down to the basement, the full horror of who Richie was about came in to the opened and in to the light. Over twenty file-folders taking up two levels on a bookshelf were found. One of the detectives opened the first folder and found more of the same pictures of boys and girls. In some of the photographs, the faces of the children were fully visible. Their eyes were full of fear and knowing; they knew what was being done to them and they understood the sick perversion of it.
Others shown the parts in graphic detail of their anatomy in which Richie was truly interested. When all of the other folders were opened and methodically examined, every last one of them had these same pictures, but of different boys and girls. All of the pictures showed the kids as ranging in ages of 5-13 years old, but in the last folder, there were kids from 2-4 years old. When this last folder was found, Ericson, the lead detective looked through it, then slammed it shut.
0000
Ericson slammed shut the folder and put it in the box with the others. He turned to the two other cops beside him.
"We're getting this little Bastard right now," he said just barely keeping control. "I don't care if this little shit is a child. I saw him in one of the most recent family pictures, he's no little baby-face boy. He looks older than 15. He looks like he's almost 20. My point, I won't be saddened if he fights us and I have to shoot this little prick. Also, we're taking every god-damned computer in this house and hope to fuck that the only place these images of the kids came from is the internet."
"You don't think he could have took these pictures himself do you," the second cop asked not wanting to believe it much less think about it.
"There's hundreds, possibly thousands of pictures in every one of those folders," Ericson said. "Unless he got every single kid in front of a camera in the city of Sangger and in the states close by, then they'd have to be from the internet unless he has friends who like the same shit."
They made their way up to Richie's bedroom and Ericson knocked on the door. At first there was silence, then the door opened and swung inwards slowly. Richie stood there looking at them trying to relax his face in to a semblance of calm and peacefulness, but Ericson saw it in the boy's eyes. The boy knew, he knew he was exposed.
"Richie Martin," Ericson asked.
"Yeah, who are you?" he asked smirking.
"I'm Detective Ericson," the detective replied.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"Well, we've been searching around your house this evening," Ericson answered. "We're here, because we're investigating something that happened to Kevin Roberts. I understand that you know him."
"And where do you understand that?" Richie asked.
"Kevin Roberts tried to kill himself four days ago. He's been in the hospital since that time," Ericson explained stepping closer to Richie.
"Well, unless I directed thoughts to him all the way from this house to make him do it, then I don't see what that has to do with me," Richie said without emotion.
"That's not funny you little shit," Ericson said stepping even closer. "What it has to do with you, is this."
He held up the phone and turned it on. The video began and it started with Richie getting behind Kevin and pushing in to him. Richie watched it and the ghost of a smile was on his lips. Ericson stopped the video and looked at Richie.
"I guess he told you that he kept coming on to me," Richie said.
"So even after the video, you're still going to blame him?" Ericson said horrified. He removed his handcuffs and opened them. "Richard Martin, you are under arrest for the rape and assault and battery of Kevin Roberts. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
0000
Kevin
Later that evening, my parents told me that Richie had been arrested. They had been called an hour after I had dinner and I felt relief, but I wasn't ready to celebrate just yet. I knew that things had changed in my life in ways I never could have imagined and I wasn't sure where to go from that point.
Over the next few days, my parents came to visit me, then one day of the next week, Caleb and Alicia came to visit. On that day, they came in and my parents after having them sit on either side of my bed in chairs of their own, left us alone and waited outside.
"How are you guys doing?" I asked watching them.
"I'm okay, just worried about you," Alicia said.
"I hope you'll be alright," Caleb said. They were sitting on the ends of their chairs and they had their arms folded tightly across their chests. They also wouldn't look at me.
"You guys are afraid of me aren't you?" I said. I felt close to tears and I hadn't forgotten how I treated them in the weeks leading up to me almost killing myself.
"You really scared me," Caleb said beginning to cry. "I just want my big brother back."
"I really miss what we had," Alicia said.
I motioned for her to come closer and I held out my hand for Caleb to take. They managed to put their arms around me and I held them close as best as I could, given the conditions. We all three held one another and let out all of our tears for what had happened. Soon though, it was over and I was the first to speak.
"I truly am sorry for everything I did to you guys," I said. "What all do you know about when I tried to kill myself?"
"Mom and dad told us a little about how Richie was hurting you somehow," Caleb said.
"We don't know too much though," Alicia added.
"I'll wait until mom and dad are around to tell you what actually happened, if they want me telling you the whole story at all," I explained. "I'll just say for now, that Richie is a sick little Bastard and I want to do what I can to help the police and the courts lock him up in prison so he can't hurt me or you guys."
In the coming weeks, my parents allowed me to tell Caleb and Alicia what Richie did, but without any vulgar terms. They were horrified and they came closer to me and while I finished the story, they sat with their arms around me. Once the story was told, we finished letting out our tears and we talked a little more. They understood what my rage had been about and I once again, gave them my word that I would never treat them the way I did before it all came crashing down. They accepted my promise and at the end of that week, my mom and dad talked to me about seeing a counselor to help me with skills I could use to recover from what had been done to me. I agreed and I began seeing Michael Williams.
He too, had been through rape of his own at one time and he knew some of the symptoms with which I was suffering. Once I got back to the house after being in the hospital for the rest of that week, I would be at home and have bad dreams about what had happened, both what Richie did and when I tried to kill myself. The sessions with Michael helped a lot and I continued seeing him until I was 15.
While all of this was going on, I also would get many STD tests over those couple of years. They all came up negative for all of the diseases, even HIV/AIDS and even though they were clear, I continued to get the tests even a year after what had happened to me just to be sure. I figured that in the next couple of years after they continued to be clean, I could finally relax and not have to worry about it. I eventually stopped getting the tests when I was 16 and for the most part I was living life again, but without friends, but I wondered if that would change now that Cody was in my life.
Richie was sent to prison for what he did. So were the other guys and girls who were with him that night he raped me that final time. Michael got me to the point where I could call what happened to me for what it was, both in my mind and out loud. He really was a gift in my life and his husband Josh was wonderful as well. I would see him sometimes when Michael was unavailable, but mostly it was Michael with whom I had my sessions. Everything was turning out well.
Author's Notes
I'm sure that many will find Kevin's story sad and more than horrifying. I know that everything I've posted to Nifty, that is the story Deep Love and now this story contains many scenes of abuse. It contains, verbal, physical and sexual abuse. This isn't an accident; I intentionally make these stories dark and troubling.
In our society, we treat symptoms. /We hardly ever get down to the source of a problem. This is especially true for Children. When children act out, we spank them, cuss at them, send them to counselors who give them fake diagnoses or we send them to jail for either a day or a night and let the inmates scream and cuss at them. We refuse to recognize the acting out of children for what it is. Children do not begin acting out and rebelling in negative ways at the beginning of their teen years because that's just what they do as some intellectually lazy people try to put it. They act out and rebel in unhealthy ways, because something is wrong. The Kevin Robertses of the world don't talk disrespectfully to their parents nor do they become abusive to their brothers and sisters, because they just feel like it. Usually when one digs deeper, they find that these kids are being abused secretly in some way. It seems though that the most damaging form of abuse is sexual. Sexual abuse is little more than murder of the spiritual part of who a person is. They change over time in to something that's no longer close to who they once were. If they're very young children when the rape begins, then the possibilities of who they could become later in life with respect to someone or something positive is destroyed or at least it could be destroyed. In its place, there is eventually formed an angry adult. These angry formally abused adults sexually victimized earlier in childhood can grow up to go one of two ways. They can either be deathly afraid of sex and become a potential victim of hate groups such as The Christian Right and become a magnet for the abstinence-only policies of which the group is so enamored. They can also go the other way and be extremely irresponsible when it comes to sex and have many sex partners; they may or may not use protection and even if they do, protection or not, they're still at high risk for pregnancy if it is a woman who's an unrecovered sex abuse victim or at risk for STDs if a man and woman are of the same background. I would also include women in the risk groups of having heightened chances of contracting STDs or even spreading them in addition to being at risk for unplanned pregnancy.
The bottom line though, is that unless we really work with and have patients as well as listen to children who are in the positions of kids such as what Kevin had to go through in this story, then our children will be lost. We can continue to be the society of child haters which we are right now, and continue to put kids in Scared-Straight programs. We can continue to beat kids, yell at them as they might yell and scream at us, we can cuss at them or we can use our empathy to understand and help them out of the darkness and help them to, or back to a life that's worth living. Should we fail at this, then we sentence them to living in Dostoyevsky's Hell of either never learning, or no longer being able to love.
All that being said, take care and I'll see everyone in Chapter Eight.