TWISTS AND STONES (Episode 5)

People talk about how beautiful trees are. An array of yellow, brown and green from the branches. The way they sway in the breeze. The way their leaves flutter down like a bride’s bouquet in the air and to the ground. Colours so vivid. They make the world look dull in comparison to their oversaturation. The crusty, rustling noise the leaves make when they’re stepped on.

I have always wondered why no one talks about the beauty of storms. The bout mixture of anger and pinch of freshness in between. Storms bring a fresh newness to the ground. The air becomes angry and cold. The wind pulling everything that has no grip into oblivion.

Storms are full of beings. Life isn’t a big enough word for storms because with it, it consumes, smoulders, and leaves rough edges. It drowns out the sunlight and colours.

The present storms in my life?

I couldn’t hope to count them even if I started now and never did a single other thing.

And then there are those times in between.

Those times that rays from the sun dance surreptitiously on my path. Lighting it for me to catch a glimpse of what’s ahead, however little. Like when the wind allows the gentle ease of coolness on top of the waters. Or times when the wind blows freely through the long stalks of grass and shrubs, and twirls around like it’s thinking of starting a hurricane.

Me? I’m all those special times in between.

I’m those frozen moments that everyone forgets to breathe. I’m what you reach out for, but just can’t touch. I’m those hours of silence that pull themselves longer and longer until there’s nothing left in me but a faint memory of Once Upon A Time.

But don’t worry – I won’t forget you like you’ve forgotten me.

All these I’ve written, I don’t understand them. Hopefully you’ll help me understand them if you eventually visit me or, better yet, write me in my bondage. I’m sorry for all I did.

I love you.

***

“Charles! Moira!” Mother calls the children from the living room downstairs. “Come see who has come to visit us.”

The eight-year-old twins come tumbling into the room. “Uncle James! Uncle James!” they scream, running into waiting arms of their uncle.

James picks up Moira first and twirls her around the room.

“My little princess is all grown up. I can barely carry you up,” James grunts. “And where is that little imp, Charles?”

“I’m here, I’m here! Carry me up too! Uncle James what did you buy for us?” Charles says all in one breath.

Mother’s voice cuts instantly from behind them. “Young man, have I not taught you any manners? Your uncle just arrived and you are already badgering him for gifts. Next time you try that, I will flog you.”

“Haba sister,” James says with an indulgent smile at his nephew. “Relax, you know he didn’t mean it. Charley Boy is just a very excitable child.”

“Well I try to teach my children to behave better,” Mother says coolly. “Overlook small things like this and they become major character flaws in future.”

“Sister,” James heaves.

“Okay, okay,” she says, raising her hand in grudging surrender.

“Mummy, I’m sorry,” Charles says in a soft voice from James’ side.

“Don’t worry about it, darling,” Mother says. Then she turns to James and continues, “Nna, make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.” And she leaves for the kitchen, leaving behind her children, who are now blowing raspberries at each other, and James who is watching them with a careful expression on his face.

***

“Beeko, are you gay?!” I ask. My voice is laced with horror and mounting irritation as i watch the emotions flicking across my friend’s face.

“I…um…I—”

“Answer me! Are you a fucking faggot??” I bellow, my disbelief squeezing at my vocal chords. I am shocked that Beeko doesn’t know what to say. Beeko always knows what to say.

He cannot be a homo! Beeko, please say quickly that you are not a homo! I beseech him silently with stormy eyes.

***

“Uncle James, no one is around. Moira and Mummy went to the salon to make their hair and left us all alone and now I am bored. Girls are so annoying,” Charles huffs with all the revulsion an eight-year-old can muster.

His uncle chuckles indulgently. “We can’t have you being bored now, can we? Okay, do you want to play a game?”

“Yes!” the boy exclaims, clapping his hands with gusto. “Uncle James, let’s go and play the SEGA you bought for me. I don’t know how to play CONTRA very well.” With this, he scampers out of the sitting room toward his bedroom, expecting his uncle to follow him.

And follow him he did.

***

When Beeko finally closes his eyes briefly, takes in a deep breath and upon exhalation, opens his eyes, I see a sudden steely reserve on his countenance that hits me with the awareness of what he is going to say before he says it.

“Yes, Charles, I am gay,” Beeko says, his tone calm. “Gay. Not a faggot. Kindly refrain from calling me that. And now please, leave my house as well.”

His icy reserve circumvents my shock to rage. My hands curl into fists, fists I can imagine smashing into his nose, splattering blood on his walls that are no doubt dirty from all they’ve had to witness.

“I always knew it,” I say in a snarling tone. “You have always had this knack for being too catty, something that is not a manly attribute! I should have known it’s because you spend your time in secret taking a dick up your ass and down your throat, you fucking fag! I bet you’re the woman!”

“Yeah? And how much of a man are you when you are so bad at satisfying your woman, that she has to go find another woman to do the job well?”

I see red! My voice cracks like thunder as I yell, “You bastard! You are an abomination!”

“I’m not the one with a gay sister, but hey, to each his own.”

“Stay away from my sister, you fucking faggot! I’m sure you infected her with your…your –”

“My gay virus?” he supplies in a mocking tone that further infuriates me. “Really? Was that what you were going to say? How was i friends with you for so long and not see how far lacking in common sense that you are?”

“Fuck you, Beeko! FUCK YOU!”

“Careful, I might take that literally and put on the moves on you.”

Even though he doesn’t move, I recoil from him, from the suggestiveness of his words. “Stay away from me, you fa–”

“Faggot, right. Try and be a bit more original, Charles.”

“Tell me, why are you gay? What good does it do you?”

“Look!” Beeko’s voice comes out sharp. “I happen to like boys. It is what it is. If you need an education in tolerance, go back to school for civil studies. You’re drunk. Go home!”

I laugh derisively. “I plan to, faggot!”

I do not see the punch coming.

I reel backward, crashing down to the ground. The explosion of pain on the bridge of my nose where his fist connected shoots up to my brain.

“I told you not to call me that!” Beeko rages, his expression stormy as he stands over me. “Now get out of my house and don’t come back until you’re a better person.”

I rise slowly to my feet, wiping at the blood trickling from my nose and narrowing my eyes hatefully at him. I turn my head to spit at his feet, and instead of turning to the door, I clench my fists and begin to move away from him further into the living room. He moves the other way from me, and soon we begin slowly circling each other.

“How do you do it, Beeko,” I query tauntingly. “How? How do you let another man’s dick go up your ass? Does that not make you feel less than an animal? How do you let another man’s dick go down your throat, eh, you cocksucker? How’s that for another word?”

“You know, Charles, you seem pretty riled up by the thought of dicks. Is there something you want to share?”

“Fuck you!”

“I bet you think about dicks all the time, don’t you? Perhaps my dick? Do you stay up some nights, hoping you’d have some of this sugar right here?”

“You wish!”

“Leave my house, Charles, before this turns into anything uglier than a bloody nose.”

“Just because you caught me by surprise, suddenly you think you can fight? Since when do sissies know how to fight? I’ll kick your ass right now, you bloody cocksucker!” i spit at him again.

Beeko chuckles, and says, “So you usually charge, huh?”

“Fuck you!”

“Right. Leave my house and maybe I can get someone who will!”

Something snaps inside me, and roaring, I suddenly fly at him. My fist shoots out in a broad arc. Beeko sidesteps and the glass table catches me, splintering as I crash to the ground. White hot pain sears through me. I haven’t recovered when Beeko’s kick meets my sides.

***

“Uncle James, what are you doing? Why are you rubbing your wee-wee? It’s hard, do you want to pee?” Charles asks, flicking a curious look of a childlike nature over James. His small hands are clamped over the control pad. “Mummy says whenever my wee-wee is hard at night, it means I have to go to toilet to pee.”

James chuckles. “Mummy is partially right. Hard wee-wee does not always mean you have to go and pee.”

“What else does it mean?”

James contemplates him for a moment, before moving closer. In a husky voice, he says, “Let me show you. In fact” – he reaches forward to take the control pad from the boy’s hands, dropping it to the floor – “let’s play another game.” His breathing becomes ragged as his hand flits over his nephew’s crotch.

Charles flinches.

“Relax, Charley Boy…”

“But, uncle…”

“Relax, just relax. It’s a game. You’ll love it.” He leans forward to take the tiny stub of Charles’s penis in his mouth.

“Uncle James…”

“Shhh!”

“Uncle James, please…” the little boy whimpers.

“Don’t be afraid, my dear boy,” the much older man cajoles against the boy’s penis.

 “Uncle James, stop please… I don’t like you touching my wee-wee with your mouth…”

“But aren’t you enjoying it? Don’t worry, you’ll enjoy it soon, especially when you suck mine too while I put my finger in your anus,” James say, already tugging at Charles’s shorts.

“Uncle James, stop please…” Charles’s whimper climbs a decibel or two, gathering the tenor of tears along the way. “I will shout, Uncle James…”

The man snaps up from him, his countenance transformed. Gone is the indulgent uncle, and in his place sits a man with a stony look. His voice is low and menacing when he says, “Shout and I will beat the living daylights out of you. Now turn your buttocks!” he orders sharply.

“Uncle, please, please, I’m sorry…” Charles’s voice begins to shake as his sobs surge.

“Stop crying! And stop telling me please. I told you, you will enjoy this.”

“Please, uncle, please…”

“Hush, my darling. Trust me, you’ll love this,” James reiterates with unholy pleasure.

***

Our fists are flying about, punctuated with kicks whenever we can get away with it, rolling about on the floor as we fight. Because of my inebriation, Beeko gets the upper hand a lot. But I keep my commentary running, jibing him verbally as we punch and kick and scratch like gladiators grappling for the final victory in a fatal match.

“Do you beg when the dick comes at you?” I huff as my right hook glances off his chin. “Do you grab on to it like the hungry faggot that you are?”

Beeko lashes out with knee-jab to my side that knocks the wind out of me. “You sonofabitch! I’ll kill—”

***

“—you, if you ever tell anyone about what happened here. You hear me? I will kill you.” James’s menacing figure looms over the broken boy mewling on the bed before him. “Now go and wash yourself up, before your mom and sister come back, and if you are nice, uncle will buy something else for you.”

He turns to leave, while adjusting his trousers around his waist, then hedges and turns to look one more time at his nephew. A quick expression of guilt fleets across his face, one which he shrugs off before he turns and walks out of the room, leaving behind the tiny body of Charles, heaving on the ground with abject misery.

***

I’LL KILL YOU.

The singular and perhaps innocuous threat bursting from Beeko unlocks a gamut of memories, causing the rush of the locked past through my mind to fill me with a sudden madness. I feel whatever control that my lack of sobriety hasn’t already snapped slip off me.

My fingers scrabble about on the ground, encountering a shard of glass. My fingers instantly clench over it and my hand swings upward to bury the shard inside Beeko’s neck. He stiffens on top of me. His eyes bulge and his mouth slackens as a choked whimper slips out.

My face snarling, I stab him again.

And again.

And again.

Until the red haze that covered my vision clears. His body collapses on me. I wriggle out from under him and look around wildly around. My friend is now lying on the ground, his wifebeater drenched with blood, the flesh around his neck shredded.

Gasping with sudden shock, I clamber to my feet, grimacing at the dampness of his blood on my shirt. I glance at my hands to see the redness smeared all over me.

And then, I hear a knock. I do not answer. The knock is followed by another one, and then some movements, followed by a gasp.

“Charles, what have you done!” someone chokes out those words that become the beginning of my ruin.

“There’s been a murder and I know who he is… Please hurry.”

Written by Vhar & Eros