This story is about male/male relationships and contains graphic descriptions of sex. You should not read this story if it is in any way illegal due to your age or residence.
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TRAGEDY IN THE BLOOD by Steven H. Davis
Chapter 20
Taine felt so good in my arms. This was a position I could never grow tired of, and I kissed his hair gently as he nestled against my chest. All of the loneliness and despair which I had once felt in my own life had been lifted from my shoulders and carried away by the strength of this moment. I had never felt so calm, so sure that happiness and love were within my reach, literally within my arms.
As I held my angel close, I began to come back to reality, as if being pulled from a deep and wonderful sleep. I resisted, of course, but pretty soon the wheels started turning, bringing with them all my doubts, fears and questions...
Had I pushed Taine into this? Would he now push me away if I had gotten too close? What had brought him to this point?
I felt like I knew what had brought me to this point... it was indisputably true that I needed him. I also felt like he needed me, or at least like he needed somebody. He had never answered my question and I still didn't know what had made him so upset. His breathing had steadied and I hated to break the moment, but I needed to understand him better.
"Taine, please tell me what's wrong."
I whispered it into his ear softly, pulling my head from his shoulder just far enough to direct the words.
His response came in the form of a tightened grip of his arms around my back, sinking deeper against me and trying to escape my request. I returned his strength and tucked my head into the curve of his beautiful neck, offering a silent apology and acknowledgement of his answer.
We stayed like this, locked in a tight embrace, for several more minutes before I felt him loosen his grip and separate himself from me, just far enough to rest his forehead at a slight angle onto mine.
"What isn't wrong?"
The question was also the answer, and I understood it perfectly well.
"Somehow," I ventured softly, "everything will be all right, Taine. I don't know how, but it will."
"No it won't," Taine sighed in despair. "It's too late. Everything will never be all right. I've screwed so many things up. My mom..."
He was openly sobbing again, pressing his forehead into mine so hard that it hurt. My words hesitated for fear of opening a wound so deep that it couldn't be closed.
"That wasn't your fault, Taine. People get sick. People die. It happens to everyone. Why do you think you had anything to do with it?"
As I asked, his fingers clenched together, pinching clumps of my sweatshirt. He wasn't ready to go there and I wished I hadn't asked. It was too much for him.
Eventually, he eased again and began to calm.
Most of the major calamities in his life were well-ingrained. Lives don't get screwed up overnight, nor do they get fixed that way. Taine had showed so much bravery, but he had now broken down. Something had pushed him over the edge... maybe the fight, maybe something else.
"Babes, did something else happen yesterday that upset you, something with your dad?"
"Nothing happened, Rick," Taine sighed after a time. "I don't even try anymore. He just doesn't understand me. I can't explain it. When I'm at home, even when he's there, I just feel so... so alone. If we're not in front of you or other people, it's just so silent and empty and lonely. I don't know what I've done. I must have done something to deserve..."
"NO!"
I shocked him as much as I shocked myself. It was a reflex statement, and was out of my mouth long before I could reel it back in. I took a deep breath and gave him a humble look, my eyes pleading with him to believe me. My hands moved to both sides of his face, my thumbs gently wiping his eyes clear before my hands resettled softly at the rear of his neck.
"No."
Softly this time, quiet, my voice and eyes now pleading together.
"No, Taine. You don't deserve this. You don't deserve any of this. But, look... he's grieving, too. He's trying not to show it, but he's grieving too, like you. It's nobody's fault. But..."
My own eyes refilled with tears so thick I could barely see him, and I had to blink hard to release the flow before refocusing.
"You deserve so much more."
My head was now gently shaking sideways and a tight-lipped, loving smile tried to take grip on my quivering face. There was a look in his eyes that wanted to believe me. But other forces -- ghosts of the past, fears of the present, despair of the future -- were also at work deep within him, pulling him away.
"I'm trouble, Rick," he said flatly. "I don't want you to get hurt, too. So many things are already destroyed..."
He hadn't moved an inch but I could feel him drifting away from me. He was shaking. I felt like I had failed him... or at least my words had.
I decided to just gently lean into him, resting our foreheads back together. I could only hope to soothe him again with my touch. I closed my eyes and softly and slowly stroked the back of his head, gently combing my fingers through his soft, silky hair. His quivering relented, but he felt cold and lifeless in my arms.
He had receded deep within himself -- summoned there by fear, I believed. He didn't want me to get hurt too. I truly believed that he couldn't even bear the thought of hurting me somehow.
How could he possibly hurt me? Was he afraid he would disappoint me? Couldn't he know that he deserved every bit of the confidence and faith I had in him?
I had found it within myself to really believe in Taine. He had been emptied so mercilessly and thoroughly by the many wounds in his life. Did he really feel responsible for all that had gone wrong around him? His beautiful head was filled with lies and truths all tangled together, his mind unable to untie the knots and sort out the difference. I felt completely overwhelmed and under-equipped for the project that lay ahead.
I barely heard him when he said it. He spoke it in such a soft voice.
"Thanks, Rick."
Again, he clenched me tight one last time before gathering himself and pulling back, boring into me with those X-ray eyes just like he had done many times before. This time though, his eyes were in role-reversal, sending an answer to an unasked question.
I felt warm. I felt loved. I also felt reassured, having begun to wonder how Taine would respond to me when this was over. I knew that what we had communicated was real, but I was afraid that it wouldn't be an easy adjustment for him. He may have sensed my unease, but no matter, his reassurance was much welcomed.
As he broke his stare and we lost touch for the first time in what must have been at least an hour, my eyes detected movement in the background through the window, out in the yard.
I tried to sharpen my focus, but was unable to pick up where the movement had come from. My eyes were now sore from their intense efforts. Could they have been playing tricks on me? The rain was subsiding, but the wind was still howling in the dark Texas night.
I stepped up to the window and peered deep into the back yard. Nothing. I decided to keep this to myself. Even if someone had been there, how could they see us if I couldn't see them? There was plenty of wildlife in our yard, too, I thought.
We stepped out of the bedroom and began making our way back to the front of the house. I couldn't help but look back inside, knowing that what had happened in that room would change my life forever.
I felt taller, stronger, even older, and definitely more mature. I was in love and determined to win. I was no longer locked in a petty battle with someone like Coach Keith, though. Or even Kevin. I was already making plans to deal with him.
I was now locked in a much larger and more important battle, to help win back the life of the boy I loved. I didn't know how long it would take, how hard the battle would be fought, or where it would take me. I only knew that I would win or die trying.
I would leave nothing on the battlefield. Whatever sacrifice I had to make, whatever pain I had to suffer, I would do so in the all-powerful name of love. What I had always wanted was within my sights. My life had found new purpose.
When I turned back, Taine was staring at me curiously. I smiled at him, what I hoped was a strong, assuring smile.
"Rick?"
"Yes, angel?"
"Tell me what you're thinking."
I walked him to the front door, never breaking contact with his beautiful, hurt eyes. As we reached the door, I again took his face in both my hands and kissed his soft, perfect lips.
"I'm thinking that I love you," I told him.
He opened the door, looking out into the night. Before he left, he looked back with a pleading, serious look in his eyes.
"More than anything?" Taine asked.
I smiled then, and it wasn't to reassure him or show strength for him. My smile was filled with all the emotion and compassion and warmth in my heart for the love of my life.
"More than everything," I replied.
Chapter 21
When Taine had disappeared down the street, I closed the front door with a new sense of purpose. I had my angel, I knew that now, and he had me for just as long as he wanted me. I was hoping that would be forever, but he didn't have himself, and that was my new mission in life: helping that sweet, caring, wonderful boy to find happiness, and to find himself.
I knew that I would have to serve out the remainder of my suspension before I could help or protect Taine at school, but I figured that I could best spend the week by showing Taine that Sly really did love him, and that what he took as coldness was merely Sly's own way of grieving for his recently-deceased wife, Taine's mother.
Death could bring families together, I knew, but it could also tear them apart. I had heard the statistic about how so many couples divorce shortly after the death of a child... I was hoping that Maggie Maxwell's death wouldn't cause an unbreachable rift between her husband and son.
It was obvious to me that Sly loved his son. No one who had observed the scene in Mr. Towers' office after the locker room incident with Coach Keith could come away with any other conclusion than to realize that Sly Maxwell was a Papa Grizzly, fiercely devoted to and protective of his cub.
I wondered why Taine couldn't see that.
Maybe Sly was distant at home when there were no guests present, retreating like his son into his own solitary cocoon of mourning. Maybe Taine was still holding Sly responsible for the frequent absences from home during his youth. Or maybe, Taine just missed his mother and no one else would do.
Whatever it was, I felt like I needed to fix it.
For all the death and tragedy that the Maxwell family had endured, Taine still had a father, and Sly still had a son. Well, Sly actually had two sons, but that other family bond was long-since severed.
I just knew, deep down, that it wasn't too late for the one that remained.
I wandered into my room and turned on the stereo, planning to lie down and read for a while before turning in.
It was then that I noticed the darkened backyard again through my bedroom window. It reminded me of the strange movement I had seen out there while embracing Taine earlier.
*When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide/
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride/
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again/
Yeah yeah yeah hey*
Curious, I went back down the hall to the living room, opened the sliding glass door to the patio, and peered out into the yard.
I didn't see anything out there in the darkness, and the only sounds were those of my stereo and of crickets chirping their raspy songs.
That was when I realized that I hadn't seen Foxy in quite some time.
*Do you, don't you want me to love you/
I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you*
"Foxy?" I called, somewhat softly as not to disturb the neighbors.
No answer.
I frowned in puzzlement and called out again, a bit more loudly.
"Foxy!"
There was still no response, so I flicked on the patio light and stepped outside.
That was when I saw him.
*Tell me tell me tell me/
Come on baby tell me the answer/
Well you may be a lover but you ain't no dancer*
Foxy was all twisted up in Tynah's rope-hammock, which hung between two tall trees in the yard about twenty feet away.
The ropes around him were red with blood, and his guts draped downward from his body through them.
I gasped in horror and ran to what was left of my dog.
My gasp rose to a wail as I got closer and saw what had become of him. Foxy hadn't stood a chance. It looked as if he'd been stabbed dozens of times. His guts weren't hanging open because whoever did this had slit his belly. They had spilled out simply because there were so many stab wounds that his abdomen had just given way like a perforated postage-stamp covered in fur and blood.
Now... Helter Skelter!
"Foxyyyyy!" I screamed, and I felt as if I would never stop.
My dog's cold, dead eyes looked back at me as if to ask how I could have let this happen.
That's when I saw the note.
Helter Skelter!
It was just a small piece of notebook paper, stained in blood and tucked into Foxy's open mouth, held in place by his dangling tongue.
I took the note from his mouth, my eyes dimly registering the way that the smears of blood highlighted his tastebuds. I knew I would never feed him again, and I began to cry as I looked at the note, which was –- of course -– written in my dog's blood.
It was misspelled, and said: YOUR NEXT.
*Helter Skelter, yeah!/
Ooooohhh!*
-----------------
Rex was furious when he got home.
Not at me, of course, but at "the sick sons of bitches who could hurt a poor dog."
He had owned dogs all his life, and still kept photographs of all of them.
"Sometimes dogs are better than people," he was fond of saying.
It was certainly true in this case.
Of course, we had a pretty good idea of who might have been behind this gory late-night creepy-crawl through the yard. If it hadn't been Kevin Gorman himself, it had been one or more of his friends.
The rest of my suspension was spent with Rex at a local shooting range, learning how to use his army pistol safely and with maximum accuracy. On Wednesday, a security company visited the house to install a state of the art system. Tynah didn't take a day off until Friday, but she finally had to stay home because she was so distraught that she kept bursting into tears every few minutes. She had loved Foxy so much, and I wondered –- selfishly - if her grief over that dog was even greater than her concern for my safety.
Linda and Taine both came by the house often that week, and over the weekend. Taine kept me up with my assignments, delivering homework and kisses with equal care and concern. Linda was kind enough to tutor me a little in math, which –- due to my absolute cluelessness in Algebra -– we ended up working on more than our Duet.
We buried Foxy on Wednesday afternoon at a local pet cemetery, at Tynah's insistence. Rex was probably more broken up over Foxy's death than Tynah was, but he wore a pained expression through the whole procedure as if he found the whole ceremony to be a load of horseshit. I must say that I agreed, but Tynah was Tynah.
On Thursday, Sly Maxwell came over to talk to Rex. They agreed that it might be a good idea if Taine accompanied us to the shooting range on Saturday, just to be safe. This being Texas, I guess no one really considered the implications of having angry, gun-toting teenagers around, one of whom had beaten a much bigger upperclassman senseless and just had his dog murdered.
Since Tynah stayed home on Friday, I did end up doing my share of chores and cleaning. I edged the yard, moved some furniture around so she could vacuum, and washed and waxed her car. Meanwhile, she did yoga in front of the television and watched game shows. I caught her crying a few times and tried to console her, but was turned brusquely away.
Rex didn't blame me, but I'm pretty sure Tynah did.
I finally got some time away from the `rents on Friday night, when I went to see The Burning with Taine. Considering that I had just seen my dog butchered in the backyard hammock, I don't know why we decided that the bloody slasher film would be a good choice, but I made it through just fine, admiring Tom Savini's gory special-effects wizardry right along with Taine.
I guess it helped that our hands were clasped firmly together between our seats throughout the film.
---------------
Taine came over at ten on Saturday morning, and Rex took us to the firing range. I could tell that my boy was distraught and not concentrating very much, so I took him aside while Rex was taking a bathroom break. I led Taine down an empty hallway where we could have some privacy, then took him in my arms gently and hugged his thin frame to mine.
"What's the matter, angel?" I asked with concern.
He looked at me wearily, and I realized just how exhausted he was with his own emotional turmoil.
"I always wanted to learn to shoot," Taine said, leaning into my shoulder as I stroked his hair. "I always wanted Dad to teach me. Now I'm learning to shoot, but..."
"But it's the wrong dad," I finished for him. "I know, Babes, I know. But we're here, and your dad is meeting us for dinner right after his interview."
I tried to sound cheerful for him, but didn't embellish any further with something dumb like "and I know he can't wait to see you!" I wasn't Tynah, after all, and Taine wouldn't have believed me anyway.
"Yeah," Taine said sadly.
The hopelessness and longing in that one word broke my heart. Taine merely sighed and hugged me tightly with his head against my neck. I raised his face to mine with a slight touch of my hand, then kissed him slowly and tenderly, stroking the light fuzz along his dimpled chin.
"You know I love you," I said. "I will always be here for you, and you'll never be alone again."
He hugged me fiercely then, burying his face in my chest, and I was surprised by his strength. For a slender kid, he had some serious muscles in his arms. He pulled away from me reluctantly and jerked a thumb down the hallway toward the range.
"We better get back before Rex worries," he said. "I like your dad, Rick."
"I'm glad," I said happily. "He likes you too. He hasn't called you a snot-bubble yet, but he likes you."
"He called me a Whod," Taine said proudly. "That's better!"
I chuckled and threw an arm around his shoulder as we began walking down the hall.
"I like your dad," Taine repeated quietly, looking at the floor. "But I love you."
I was grinning from ear to ear at his soft proclamation of his feelings for me. I could see that his ears had flushed bright red from the effort, and knew how much it took out of him. Still, I couldn't resist a tease.
"More than anything?" I asked expectantly.
He stopped walking, then, and turned so that he was looking me directly in the eyes. The look on his face, although as sad and serious as ever, was full of love, and his voice was thick with emotion.
"More than everything," he said, and kissed me softly once again.
We went back to the range, where Rex was waiting for us with an impatient look. Taine didn't do any better at shooting this time either, and I could tell that he was still despondent and distracted. I supposed that protecting us both would be my own responsibility, so I landed my entire clip in the target's black circle, and Rex clapped me on the back in a rare show of pride.
I wish I could say that I felt confident and ready after my display of marksmanship, but I didn't.
One haunting thought kept running through my mind.
How was I going to protect myself and my Taine...
...when I couldn't even protect my own dog?
Thank you for reading Chapter 20 & 21. To be continued...
"Helter Skelter" written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Performed by The Beatles. c 1968 by Apple Records.
Once again, I'm always happy to hear from readers at DJAkeeba@aol.com. You have all been so supportive and encouraging, and I thank you all for your e-mails, and there's plenty more of this story to come.
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