Cainanite

How to Breathe

Chapters 21-26

In that very way, I despise my own memory. It had left me when I needed it most. What had happened to me, remained little more than a blank. An unfinished thought in the story of my life.

After the two men subdued and stored us in the trunk of their car, they drove for a long time. I came awake only for brief moments, from the drug induced unconsciousness. There was no intelligent thought on my part. I merely noticed the glow of the tail-lights, the motion of the vehicle, and was aware of being uncomfortable and unable to move.

I wanted to call out, but I couldn't remember for what reason. I needed something, but my mind couldn't put name to the emotion. The darkness was inviting and warm, it wasn't worth the effort to fight it.

The first real sensation I could recognize came to me incrementally, waking me from my sleep. I was thirsty.

I opened my eyes and tried to roll to my side, but something stopped me. I looked to my arms, and there was something iron there. When the name of that something on my arm came to me, so did everything else.

Thoughts and fear, and memory flooded over me all at once. The memory of the gunshot. Doctor Freidmont lying in a lifeless heap on the pavement. Hanna's screaming, Tex's face. This was a nightmare I was waking up to, instead of a nightmare you wake up from. I kept trying to snap my mind away from the helpless lament of fear taking over all my nerve endings.

It was handcuffs on my wrist. That was their name. The handcuffs were attached to a chain, that was securely fastened to a metal pipe emerging from the wall above my head.

My lap and the front of my shorts were wet. I had released my bladder, and the smell of my urine mingled with the rotting food smell of wherever I was.

The room I was in, was illuminated by a single small lamp with a red bulb. There wasn't much to see. There were old wood panelled walls, a small table next to the bed I was on, and where the window should have been, was a large piece of plywood screwed into place.

The ceiling had a large metal vent, and what looked like a big industrial fan of some kind. It reminded me of the fan we used to circulate air in our sauna, when we needed to dry it out.

There was a chair on the opposite side of the room. I noticed my vest, cape, and Hanna's green tights piled on it in a messy tangle. I was left dressed in only my under-shirt, and the red shorts I had chosen for my Robin costume. It disturbed me to think I had been undressed by whoever had taken me. I felt violated.

There was a light coming from under the door, and I could hear voices from the other side, amplified by the metal venting in the ceiling. They sounded metallic and ominous. The first voice I recognized. It was the man I knew as 'Tex'.

"We shouldn't have taken the girl. He's not going to like it."

"He can eat shit and die for all I care. She shouldn't have fucking been there."

"She saw my face."

"What the fuck does it matter? She'll never be able to identify you. Relax. Even if she could, when this is all over we'll be long gone. It doesn't matter if she got your fucking social insurance number, for all the good it would do her. Maybe next time you'll keep to the god-damn plan."

"You gotta admit, she's a pretty tight little piece of ass."

"If you say so."

"Oh, fuck-you Cawley. You think I didn't see your hands all over that little boy toy in there. You were drooling so bad, I thought you were gonna cum your pants."

There was a sound of some kind of impact, and furniture being hit.

"I don't care what the fuck you thought you saw. From now on, we stay professional."

"So what do you want me to do about the girl?"

"Keep your dick in your jeans, but keep her sedated. We don't wanna give him any reason to fuck us over."

"And your little boy toy?"

"We need him talking if this is going to go to plan."

"How the fuck does this stuff even work? Why can't they just trace us?"

"If I thought you could understand half of it… Look, I'm routing the signal through nine different ISPs. We're rotating through different accounts, and a dozen fake user names. Half of the IP addresses are in countries they can't get warrants for."

"I don't get it."

"That's what I thought. Just chill all right. It's not like the movies where they can enter a code, and bounce a trace around the world. If they get the FBI involved, they'll have to get warrants to track us down. Even if they get the first trace, there are still eight more proxies to go. By the time they track everything back here, it will all be over and done with."

"All right. Fuck you. I ain't retarded you know."

"Go make sure your little girlfriend is still out."

"Yeah sure. Don't blame if I give her a little feel up while I'm in there. I got a thing for blondes, ya know."

"Just don't do anything fucking stupid."

"Yeah, yeah."

The voices sent a chill through me. I didn't know what these men wanted, or what they would do to me. I feared what Tex might be doing to Hanna.

As I strained to listen, the door suddenly opened, sending my heart into my throat. It was the man I recognized as the driver of the sedan. The man Tex called Cawley.

He didn't wear a mask. I wondered what that might mean for my safety.

As he approached I shrunk away. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if by doing so I could erase the memory of his face.

"So, you're up," he said. He sat on the bed next to me. He pulled my chin, and forced my head to turn towards him. "Open your eyes," he commanded.

I did so, not knowing what I'd see.

He had barbed wire tattoos along his neck, and crawling up the side of his face. I hadn't noticed it when he had been driving the car into my birthday party.

"Good to see you awake." His voice was almost pleasant. "Here," he offered me a bottle of water. "Drink it. You got a dry throat, don't cha?"

When I didn't take the bottle from him with my free hand, he put it to my lips. "Don't make me force you. You wouldn't like it. Now drink."

I opened my mouth, and the cool liquid was refreshing. I finally took the bottle from him, and swallowed several gulps, easing the clawing at the back of my tongue.

"That's a good boy," he said silkily. "You're gonna need a clear throat if you're gonna talk to mommy and daddy for me."

"Where am I?" I managed to ask. "What am I doing here?"

As Cawley took back the water bottle, I noticed he looked at me like a bug under a microscope. Interesting, but beneath him. "You don't gotta worry about none of that. You just gotta worry about if you wanna see your mommy and daddy again. If you wanna go home ever again, you're going to do everything I say. You got that?"

I nodded. I felt like I was light-years from everything I knew and understood. I felt a paralysing fear of these men, and their intentions. All I wanted was to be away from this place, and back in the arms of my parents.

"Good boy," he crooned. He looked down at my lap, and noticed the fabric darkened by my urine. "Ahh. Did you have a little pee-pee?" He reached for the top of my shorts, and began to tug them down an inch or so. I jerked my hips and legs away from him. He only laughed.

He pawed at the side of my face as I tried to lean away. "You're really hot in those little red shorts," he told me. "I guess your mommy and daddy know it too. Cut your precious little nuts right off of you, didn't they? Keep you sweet as honeydew. Mmm."

Of course he knew, I told myself. He'd been the one who'd undressed me. For some reason, it stung to have him know.

Finally he stood, and walked away to the door. "You be a good eunuch, and do everything I say, and you'll be home to your big daddy so he can pound your ass again, before you know it." He licked his lips and shut the door.

When he was gone, I felt the tremors take over my body. I was alone with this horrible person. There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could escape to. I was totally under his power.

I trembled, and cried like an infant. I wanted to go home. I just wanted to go home.

I pulled and tugged at the handcuff on my arm. There wasn't enough slack to even let me get off the bed on one side or the other. My one arm, and both legs were free, but there was nothing I could reach, and no position I could take that would give me any advantage. I was completely helpless.

I had nothing but the dim red light to keep me company, a chair, and the sounds of their voices transmitted by the metal ducts in the ceiling.

"How's the little bitch doing?"

"Sound asleep. Like a little kitten. Never even knew I was there."

"You do anything to her?"

"I gave a few good squeezes, but her cherry remains unpopped."

"Better keep it that way. If he gets pissed off, we're fucked."

"I been thinking about that. If he decides to screw us, he screws himself. He'll keep his trap shut."

"I don't need any complications."

"It ain't complicated. Fuck, you think too much."

"It's what I'm paid to do."

"Asshole. Hey, Einstein. Ain't you supposed to be making the call. You said you call back at four. It's five after."

"I'm letting them sweat."

"Just fucking call them. I want this over."

"Fine. I'll get the kid."

My door burst open again, and Cawley sauntered over to my side. "You're gonna be good?" he asked me.

I nodded.

He reached over me, pulling a ring of keys from a retractable cord on his belt. He found the key, and unlocked the handcuff from the chain. He swung my arms behind my back, and closed the free handcuff over my other wrist.

As he checked to make sure both hands were securely fastened behind my back, he pulled me in close and whispered menacingly in my ear. "You do what I say, when I say it. You talk when I tell you to talk, and shut your mouth when I tell you to shut up. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir."

He pulled me to stand on my feet. They felt wobbly under my weight.

"C'mon."

He dragged me from the room, into the space beyond. It was a small space with all the windows boarded over, or blacked out. It had small appliances, like you'd see in a motor-home. It was a crammed space, and felt very claustrophobic.

He led me past the little kitchenette to where he had a computer set up on what should have been the kitchen table. The whole place was messy, with garbage, and dirty dishes. The little fridge was taped shut, but a foul odour was escaping regardless. As he led me along, he kicked cans, and newspapers across the floor. I had to step around broken dishes, pots and pans.

When I came to the computer, he jerked me to a halt.

Tex looked down at me. He was almost as tall as Xolani. His arms didn't even look bare. Entire sleeves of tattoos covered his flesh. I could see even more tattoos peeking out from under the collar of his shirt. "Well howdy there pardner," he said as he saw me. "Member me?"

I nodded.

Suddenly his face was inches from my own. "No you fucking don't. You understand that?"

I nodded, and shut my eyes.

Cawley pushed me towards Tex, who seized my shoulders. Cawley then sat at the computer, and opened a program. As he did, he reached over and hit play on an old tape recorder. The sound of street noise, and random chatter filled the tiny space. He played with the volume, until he was satisfied it wasn't too overpowering.

Finally he adjusted the microphone in front of him, and clicked something on the computer. I heard the sound of a ringing phone. Cawley looked to me and pressed his finger to his lips.

Finally, I heard the voice of a man answer. "This is the Sidney residence," It was not my father.

"Who is this?" Cawley asked. When he spoke, I noticed the microphone did something to his voice. It made his words sound artificial and alien.

"My name is Rashid. I am a friend of the family," came the answer. I had no idea who that was.

"I said no cops."

The voice came back confidently, "I assure you, I am no cop. I belong to no law enforcement community. I am merely a friend. As I am sure you are aware, the Sidneys are very upset. They asked me to communicate on their behalf. They were very concerned they might do something wrong, or say something wrong and endanger the children. They asked me to assure that would not happen."

Cawley sat back and tapped his fingers in thought.

The voice came back, "I assure you my only concern is that this is resolved as quickly and as safely as possible. I want you to have your money, and I want the children safely returned home where they belong."

Finally Cawley leaned forward, "All right, Rashid. Are you authorized to hear my demands?"

"I am."

"I want one point five million dollars, in ten thousand dollar amounts, wired to the account numbers I'll send you. Is your computer on?"

"As you asked. We are ready to receive."

Cawley tapped a few buttons on his keyboard, and an email was sent. I heard a ding come through the computer.

"We have it."

"Good. When you've completed the transactions I'll know. When the last of the money has been transferred, I'll contact you again with where you can find your kids."

Rashid did not sound surprised or unsure. He was all business. "As I am sure you are aware, it will take some time to arrange all that money," he said. "Even when we do, at ten thousand per, you are talking about a hundred and fifty independent transactions. That will take even more time."

"I'm sure you'll figure a way to do it."

Rashid would not be deterred. "I am afraid I cannot agree, unless you can give me proof of life."

Tex pushed me forward. Cawley smiled a Cheshire grin. "I've got the boy here. He can say hello."

I cleared my throat, and somehow found the strength to speak. "Hello," I said.

"Oh, god. Jason is that you?" I suddenly heard my mother's voice. I wanted to dive through the computer to her arms. Tex restrained me.

"Mrs. Sydney please," I could hear Rashid calm her. "I apologise. I need to ask Jason a couple questions, if I may."

"Keep it short."

Rashid asked, "What is the last book you finished reading?"

I had to think about it, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," I replied.

"And who was the villain?" he asked.

It was Xolani's question to me. He must be there too, with my parents, wondering what had happened to me. I was glad to know he was all right.

"It was Tom," I said.

Rashid continued, "Is Hanna there?"

Cawley pushed me aside, and Tex clamped his hand over my mouth.

Cawley answered, "I think that's about enough proof of life for one conversation. Both the girl and the boy are alive for now. Fuck with me, and I'll let you know where you can dig up their bodies. Fill the accounts I sent you, and I'll contact you again. Do it quickly, and you could all be reunited by tomorrow. Do you understand me?"

Rashid came back. "I understand, but I…"

Cawley hit the button that ended the call. When he did, he activated an icon on his desktop, marked 'Cleaner'. I saw IP addresses, and data files being erased. I wondered just how thorough it was.

Cawley turned to Tex, "We'll get our money. They don't really have a choice."

Tex didn't look convinced, "Why in ten thousand dollar amounts? Wouldn't it be better to get it all at once? Wouldn't take as long."

Cawley looked at Tex with pure derision. "Banks don't track amounts that small. Big amounts and they'd be on us like flies on shit." He reached over and turned off the cassette player, and ended the noises of traffic in the distance. "You'll get your cut. Trust me."

Cawley stood from the computer and grabbed my shoulder. He led me back past the garbage and smelling kitchenette to my room. I glanced down the hall. There were only two other doors. One, I knew was the bathroom. It stood ajar, and the smell of human waste coming from that direction confirmed it.

The other door was closed, and I knew what lay beyond that one too. It was Hanna. I felt tears bubbling up, wondering if she was all right. If she was hurt.

I hadn't fought when they took us. I'd just stood there like a stone, while Hanna kicked and screamed. I had failed her. I hadn't tried hard enough.

Cawley shoved me through my door, and nearly tossed me onto the bed. He undid my right wrist, but re-shackled my left to the chain, and pipe above my head. I was back where I started.

Before he left, Cawley pushed his hand into my crotch, wrapping his fingers around where my testicles should have been. I couldn't move from the weight of him. "That was a good little neuter." He growled.

He half bit, half licked my cheek, before he left me. He was laughing the whole while. I noticed the front of his jeans were tenting outward. He was getting off on this.

I curled into a ball, and cried from sheer terror.

I ignored the sounds coming from the two men through the duct work. I didn't want to know what they were saying. I just stayed in my ball, trying to wake myself from this living hell.

Seconds, hours, minutes. I didn't know what those things were. Time stretched out without meaning. I felt no hunger, thirst, or even the need to relieve myself. There was only terror.

Finally the noises from the duct work forced themselves to my attention. I heard a door slam, and boots stomping over the hollow floor.

"Shit, fuck! He's fucking here."

"What?"

"The asshole is fucking here."

"I told him not to come."

"Well it don't look like he listened to ya, now did it?"

"Calm down."

"What are we gonna do?"

"You can start by calming the fuck down. Now let him in."

I heard the door open again. Soon there was a third set of footsteps echoing through the floor.

"Why are you here?"

There was something whispered, I could not hear it.

"No. She's out cold. She can't hear anything."

"Why did you take Hanna? I told you, you weren't supposed to touch my daughter."

It was as though my world snapped in and out of reality for a moment. I recognized that voice. It was the voice of the man who called me 'Slugger'. The voice of David Underwood. The voice of Hanna's father.

"She saw his face. She saw our car. She wasn't going to let us take him. She was a problem, and we solved it."

"You know her mother and I are going through a divorce. If she gets taken, I'm a suspect."

"Well we took em both, and we're only asking ransom for the boy. You're off the hook. You need to leave, now. You'll get her back when they pay. She won't even know what happened. When we get the money, we'll make the hand off. I told you not to come here."

"How the hell am I supposed to get her back? There was never going to be anything to hand off. There's not supposed to be anything they could track back to me. We were never going to give the faggot back."

If I was feeling terror before, this was suddenly worse. This was terror with no hope. They were never going to give me back to my parents.

That was why they were keeping Hanna sedated, but not taking any precautions to keep me from identifying them. I was never going home. As far as they were concerned, I was already dead.

"If you'd done as I said, you'd be keeping an airtight alibi. Waiting with your wife and the boy's folks. Coming here puts us all at risk."

"Why couldn't you give proof of life for Hanna? Is she even still alive?"

"She's fine, she's just out cold."

"I'm not leaving until I see her."

"Show him."

"C'mon, yer highness."

I heard the footsteps move past my door and down the hall. I heard the door open and close. A few moments later, I heard them return the other way."

"Satisfied?"

"She doesn't look good."

"She's fine. You'll get her back, sound as a peach."

"I can't let her stay here."

"You don't got a fucking choice, now do you?"

"This wasn't the deal."

"This is a fluid situation. We're changing on the fly."

"Get out of my way. I'm taking her with me."

"Now just think this through, you'll have nothing. You take her now, you'll be on the run. You can't go home. There'll be no share of the money. If you're lucky, and they catch you, they'll only fry you once."

"This wasn't the plan. I'm getting her, and I'm leaving. Move or I'll…"

There was the sound of a scuffle from just outside my door. I could hear dishes and wood breaking, the thin walls shook as a body was thrown into it. Men's voices raised in physical exertion. The floors actually rocked.

The gunshot brought everything to eerie silence. More shots rang out. Again and again, too many to count, until there was only the pants of heavy breathing. The sound of something heavy hitting the ground signalled an end.

"Fuck. You killed 'im."

"Did it look like I had a fucking choice?"

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!"

"Check his pockets."

"I ain't checking him. He's Swiss-cheese. You shot him. You check 'im"

"Look in his goddamn pockets."

"Fine. What am I looking for?"

"His cell phone."

"Got it."

"Fuck."

"What's the matter?"

"It's one of those mother-fucking smart-phones."

"So."

"So, moron. These things have GPS in em. When they realize ol' Dave there is missing, what do you think they're gonna do? They're gonna start looking for him, is what. You can track these fucking phones anywhere."

"Maybe they won't right away? That Ratshit guy said he wasn't a cop."

"He might not be. But, do you really think they aren't involved? You don't ask for one point five mil, and get a free pass."

"Shit. How long we got?"

"Go check his car."

"Why?"

"To see if its got a fucking GPS in it, you moron. If it's got a GPS in it they can track that too. All its last known positions. They can check it from anywhere."

"It's got one."

"And how would you even know that without looking?"

"I checked out his ride, when we first met."

"Well, that's just great."

"So what? We gotta move shop?"

"No."

"What do you mean, no? If they know where we are, we gotta move."

"I can't set all this up again. We'd have to start over from scratch."

"So, we get a hotel room, and run it from there."

"There's not going to be any fucking money, now. In a couple of hours they'll assume he's in on it. As soon as they do, they'll check his last known locations. They'll check his phone. They'll check his car, and they'll know exactly where we are. And I already said, I can't set this up in some fucking hotel room."

"So it's over? We gotta go man."

"We have to do the kids now. If we don't, they'll identify us, and by this time tomorrow our faces will be all over the place."

"I thought you said we didn't have to do the girl?"

"We didn't if we could have got the money. If we had the money we coulda been on a beach somewhere tropical before they made an ID. Then it wouldn't have mattered."

"Shame to waste a piece of ass like that."

"She saw your face."

"I know. Just sayin'. What did you say? How long we got?"

"Couple hours, maybe more. It's late enough, they shouldn't suspect for a couple hours."

"Where did we put the smelling salts?"

"What you want those for?"

"Sleeping beauty back there. I ain't lettin' that ass go to waste."

"What does it matter if she's awake or not?"

"Cause it's better when they're wigglin'. Oh, don't give me that look. What about you? When are you gonna have another chance to have a real live little eunuch butt-boy like that? C'mon man, we'll send 'em to heaven before we send 'em to heaven."

"Fuck."

"That's the whole idea."

My world had become nothing but sounds. I was frozen. Unable to move, unable to function. Unable to even find the strength to cover my ears.

Cawley opened my door, and stared. I stared back, fear consuming everything that I was. I saw Tex walk past him to the door at the end of the hall.

I heard the door open, and still, Cawley just stared at me.

I heard Tex's voice, a little further off, call out, "Up and at 'em, sweetie pie."

Cawley just stared.

He had a gun in his hands. He looked down at it, as if he didn't know what it was. He held it out at me, and I knew my death was imminent. There was no shot.

Cawley looked down at the gun. The top slide had come back, and he turned it in his hands as he examined it. He pulled the clip from the bottom, and looked there too. Finally he tossed it to one side, as though it was nothing. It clattered nosily across the floor.

Instead, he reached into his boot, and removed a nasty looking blade. It was as long as my forearm, and shone red in the light of my lamp.

I started to tremble. I couldn't even scream.

Cawley walked slowly to the bed, and climbed up beside me.

"You're gonna do what I say, now, aren't you?" He ran the flat of the blade along the side of my neck.

I whimpered.

"I can make this quick, or I can make this slow. If you're a real nice boy, maybe I'll even reunite you with your mommy and daddy after-all."

I felt the tears on my face. This was how I was going to die. From the moment Doctor Freidmont fell to the pavement, this was how I was going to die. There was no hope. I would never see my mother or father again. I'd never see Xolani, or Prince Shahriar. I'd never learn Arabic, or travel the world. I would die there. My story would end.

I would forever be the flawed thing. I would always be the thing that was unworthy, broken, wrong. The child with no value. I had failed Hanna. I hadn't fought. I couldn't even now. There was no worth in me, and I prayed that he would only make it quick, so I could take my shame to the dark place. So I wouldn't feel this fear any more.

Cawley slid off my under-shirt, and my red shorts. I flinched at my nakedness beneath him.

My flinch made him angry. "Don't fucking pull away from me!" and he slammed the knife into the wall-board beside my head. It wobbled there menacingly.

I went limp.

Cawley wiggled free of his boots and jeans, kicking them to the side of the bed. His member was rock hard, and pressing against my belly. I tried to sink into the mattress, become nothing.

He spread my legs, and lifted them, as he found his position. I could feel his heat pressing into my rectum. I didn't want this. Why didn't he just kill me?

From the other room, I could hear sounds growing. The voice of Hanna waking up. First quiet, then rising in pitch.

I wished I was already dead. I couldn't stand such horrible sounds.

I hoped once this life ended we'd be reunited somewhere better. Maybe another life, or another world, where I could try again.

Hanna's voice was unintelligible. Only one sound had any meaning. Her scream carried it to my ears, as though she was right beside me.

It wasn't Cawley that killed me, it was Hanna. Her scream killed the last of what I had ever been.

I can hear it even now.

"JASON!"

The terror and desperation in that sound cut to the very core. It sliced through my mind to the heart of what I really was, leaving all else in shreds.

The creature bubbled up from the darkest cuts within me. It had no name, but I recognized it as it bared its head, even if I had never really known it was there.

Yes. It had always been there.

It was the tantrums I threw as an infant. It was every cruelty I had ever shown another living thing. Every selfish notion I had ever indulged.

It was the force that overrode my good sense, and drove me backward out of my mother's arms, that first night in the hot-tub, and engulfed the shaft of my father within me, seeking a carnal release.

It was the craving that overtook me, when I knew only my body wanted more. It had bared my teeth, and dragged them over Hanna's body, to where it feasted on her essence.

It was the stranger within me that warped every word the psychologist, Doctor Lindsay used to try and help me, and turned them against her. It was the pleasure I felt at seeing her weak. It was the thing that wanted her hurt, and took pleasure from her tears.

It was the thing that dragged me hurting and weak from my place on the couch, to watch my father and Hanna's fight a brutal and bloody contest on our front lawn. It was what took pleasure at the blood, and animal violence on display.

It was the thing that laughed at Xolani and Doctor Freidmont when they shared a tender first kiss.

And it was the thing that shamed the Prince, as he struggled to control his desire, and the thing that laughed when he failed.

It had always been there, but upon hearing Hanna's scream, it had at last become manifest.

It oozed through my shattered mind, and burned away everything it touched. It slid down through my limbs and quieted the trembling, replacing it with purpose.

It was hate and fear, and anger, jealousy, malice, self satisfaction, and carnal desire.

The creature opened up my sphincter to Cawley. It was almost eagerly accepting of his violation of my body. What was left of my own identity, drowning and burning in the pitch, called out for it to stop. I begged to un-summon the darkness that possessed me, and take back control of my body.

It was unconcerned.

As Cawley entered me, the creature moved with his thrusts, squeezed back as he moved in and out.

There was surprise on Cawley's face. He had not expected the child beneath him to so strangely submit to his pleasure. The small fingers that danced over his flesh were uninvited but clearly welcome. The child's legs wrapped around him, and pulled him ever onward. In moments he was close.

The creature looked out through my eyes into Cawley's. They entreated him, and begged him to continue. The creature had no language but its own instinct, and it lured Cawley into that warm embrace.

In a moment, Cawley's eyes began to roll. His body became rigid.

The creature watched with joy.

As Cawley's eyes closed, and his hips thrust, the creature was in its own delight.

Cawley coughed, and sputtered, and his eyes flashed open. The dark of his blood was flowing over what had once been my arms. The knife from the wall now plunged hilt deep into his neck.

The creature twisted the knife, and ripped it sideways through the meat of his throat.

Cawley thrashed, and gurgled for only a few moments, before his body sagged lifeless to the bed.

The creature watched him die with no more interest than I had at seven years old, when I burned ants with a magnifying glass. It kicked him off the side, and reached for his discarded pants with my legs.

It used my limbs to pull the belt ever closer, until it could find the key to work the handcuffs.

In a moment, the creature was free.

Though Cawley was now silent, the room was still filled with noise. It seemed to anger and perturb the creature. Gripping the knife, the creature slid off the blood drenched bed, and onto the floor.

The creature was more stable on my feet than I had ever been. It stalked toward the annoying sounds like a cat.

The door at the end of the hall stood ajar. Tex's back was to the door. He was slapping and manipulating the small white body beneath him. He was trying to flip her over onto hands and knees. The little body screamed and screamed.

Tex was naked, and as many tattoos were on his arms, he had just as many on his legs and back. The tattoos fascinated the creature. They were like a living mural, a masterpiece of ink and blood. So many marks. So many stories being told on that expanse of flesh. The creature longed to make a mark of its own.

Tex's scrotum hung pendulous between his legs as he tried to kick open Hanna's. His scrotum seemed the only spot he was unmarked. It seemed the perfect place.

Just as Tex was pressing himself into Hanna, the creature lashed out with its blade. Not only did that tender pouch open up, but a deep gash spread out across both cheeks, exposing spots of yellow fatty tissue, as well as the red meat beneath the skin.

Tex howled and bucked, and rolled off the little body. He was screaming. His eyes were mad, as he cupped his ruined bits. Tex threw himself at the creature wearing my body.

Tex and the creature crashed down the hallway. There were sickening hits, and impacts that drove the creature's air from my lungs. Tex swung his arm into the creatures side hard enough to shatter bone, and turn what was beneath to pulp. Yet the creature kept coming. The knife oddly missing from its grip, it instead dug my bare fingers into the gash it had opened between Tex's legs, and pulled with all its might.

It threw lumps of flesh torn from sinew, into Tex's face, and Tex howled all anew. His anger melted away to agony. Tex tried to crawl away from the thing, and the pain that had so suddenly engulfed him. As he crawled the creature clawed, and bit.

It used my arms to find something to continue its onslaught. It jammed broken shards of glass from the floor into Tex's painted skin. Threw things at his head. At last, fingers came to grip the handle of a weapon with weight.

It climbed atop Tex as he tried to get away. It brought the frying pan down on his head. It loved the sound the cast iron metal made as it connected with bone. It brought it down again and again.

The sickening sound repeated over and over. The creature ignored the pain in my arms and my side. Each gong of the metal on skull sent a new pleasure through its inky depths.

There was blood everywhere. Blood in the rooms. Blood in the halls. There was even blood splattered over the small appliances, and decorating Cawley's computer.

Tex was no longer moving. The creature was perturbed. The back of his skull had stopped making that delightful sound. Now there was only a sucking thud, and nothing solid to make the metal sing.

It dropped the frying pan, and reacted to a noise behind it.

It was the sobbing of a little girl. The sound made it angry. It wanted to stop that sound. Kill it!

What was left of me, were only shards. Scraps of a mind destroyed. Yet with the sound of Hanna's sob, they flared and tried to contain the creature.

It fought, and writhed at the thought of me controlling it.

There was so little of me left, I didn't know if I could fight it. Yet fragment by fragment, I managed to bring it to heel. I managed to wrap it with the tendrils and broken bits of my self. I dragged it down, kicking and screaming. I formed a cage for it and locked the door.

The creature shook its bars, nearly warping them to nothingness. Only another sob from Hanna sparked more scraps of my ruined mind. I held fast, and at last, the bars did not give.

I could hardly breathe.

Crimson exploded all around me, like the world going from black and white to colour. It was a red too bright for my mind, and full of accusation.

There were bodies beneath me.

The bullet ridden corpse of Hanna's father. The tattooed, and limp limbs of Tex, with the back of his skull crushed in. The hard smell of copper mingled with the rotting food smell all around.

Vomit spewed from between my teeth, putrid and acidic, and all my strength went out.

The pieces of me knew. This was what I really was. This was why I was castrated, and why I would never be worthy. It was why every vile, hurtful, insensitive thing that had ever been said about me was true. It was why I was a disappointment to my parents. All I was, was broken fragments over a rotten core.

I deserved all the pain that came throbbing through me. I knew the infinite ache that was spreading through chest and body, was only what I had coming. I knew that pain, and welcomed it. As it choked off my breath, I knew it would kill me, and it was only right for it to do so.

I would have happily descended into nothingness, taking my vile core with me to oblivion, but for the sobs coming from the back room.

My bare feet slipped on the gore slick floors, as I endeavoured to calm Hanna's pain, and return to her side.

I could die, and it would only be right, but I could not bear Hanna's torment. I could not leave the world until she was safe.

Hanna was fighting her bonds. Both arms were chained, bruises and welts covered her body. Her eyes were wild and unfocused. I reached out to comfort her and quiet her suffering. She cringed away from my blood soaked hands.

When her eyes discovered mine, there was no recognition there. There was only horror. She screamed and strained against her bonds, drawing blood at her wrists.

She had seen the truth that was me.

I crawled away from the room, back to the hole they had been keeping me in. The bed, the red lamp, the chain. Hanna's horror at what I was, was more than I could bear.

Even in the place designed to contain me, there was evidence of my monstrosity. Cawley lay in sprawled repose on the floor. His head hung back too far. His windpipe showing through the gaping hole below his chin.

Trying to avoid the ocean of his blood, I tiptoed around the bed, and found the keys still chained to the belt of his pants. I unhooked them with trembling hands, but I stumbled as I tried to dance away from the deep pools of Cawley's essence.

Falling face-first, a baptism of red renewed the evidence of my crimes. I desperately crawled out of the pool. I reached for anything to wipe the blood from my face and hands. Blindly I found the remains of my costume from the chair, and tried to scrub the witness from my flesh. It only served to ruin the cloth of my clothing, and did nothing for the marks upon me, which had seemed to become permanent, and would never again be cleaned from my skin.

Hanna's screams were ever growing, and they forced me on. I had to get her out of that place. She could not remain there a second longer.

I returned to her knowing she could now see the vile thing I truly was. I returned knowing my presence would damage her, but I knew she could not stay.

She screamed, and pulled away as I approached. I tried not to meet her eyes. When I found the keys that unlocked her and freed her hands, she cowered from me. I couldn't bear for her to see me.

I wrapped her in the sheets from the bed, and pulled them over her head. With her vision covered, she allowed me to help her stand, and lead her from that room.

I tried to keep the sheet over her, so she would not see the red calamity beyond her room. So she wouldn't see her father.

As I walked her out, a stab of pain raced again through my chest, and stole my air. I stumbled, and for a moment, Hanna's sheet fell just enough for her to see the viscera all around.

As quickly as I was able, I recovered her head, and led her out.

We stepped down from the mobile home to black and shattered stone. The gravel was sharp and pained my feet. I felt Hanna flinch from the sensation too. I reminded myself, that Xolani went everywhere barefoot, and though painful, it was a lesser pain than what lay back within that horrible place.

I moved us forward.

We appeared to be at the bottom of some sort of mining pit. By the looks of the black gravel, and the smell, I could only guess it was one of the abandoned coal mining operations common in the Virginia landscape. Derelict mining equipment stood rusting under the night sky. Dim lights illuminated the mobile rescue station that had been our prison.

Except for the lights, everything looked distressed, and on the verge of collapse. I didn't think that until Cawley and Tex had brought us to that place, that anyone but squatters had been there in years. Would we ever be found in such a lonely hole?

All I wanted was to get Hanna as far away from that place as possible. I needed her safe.

With each step, the pain in my chest grew. It was aching such that I felt each breath become shallower and shallower. I knew I had only a number of breaths, before I would be unable to draw another. Yet, still I moved forward.

There were lights approaching from the distance. I didn't know if I could trust them. It could be salvation, or another torture I hadn't yet imagined. I couldn't take the chance.

As they approached, I helped Hanna to the ground. She curled into a ball, wrapped in the sheet I had given her. I faced the lights.

As they came near, my chest throbbed worse than ever before. My hand went to my side. There was something hard but familiar protruding from my ribs.

My hand again wrapped around the handle of Cawley's knife, and I pulled it free. I remembered thinking, "So that's where it went."

I pulled all eight inches of the blade from my flesh, and held the red slick weapon in front of me like a talisman.

My breath was coming now in burbling gasps.

The ominous SUVs skidded to a stop in front of me. Those terrifying men poured out. I stood my ground. I wouldn't let them harm Hanna.

The man who, only a week earlier, had struck my chest, and pushed me away from my friend Shahriar, stepped forward. He reached for the blade I held out at him.

The blade came out of my hand easily. There was no strength in the fingers that held it. The man tossed the knife aside, and knelt in front of me.

I was slightly embarrassed. Aside from the blood that covered me, I was completely naked. I wondered if he thought that was amusing.

I tried to draw a breath, but there was nothing to draw. I tried again, failed, and finally knew, my journey was at an end.

I saw the men gently pick up Hanna and load her into the side of one of the SUVs. She would be safe now. I smiled.

Welcoming darkness enveloped me. It was over. Everything was finished. I could finally stop.

I felt my feet leave the earth, and I was flying.

And then, there was simply, nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Two
Bedside Confessions

The voice sounded lonely, and lost. Filled with tragic loss. It was something I remembered, but not quite. It sounded forlorn, and carried with it a deep sadness I wished I could wash away.

"Come on, baby. Just take one breath now. You can do it. I know you can do it. Oh please, just one breath."

In wanting to soothe the sadness in that voice, the spark of what I remained strained to reach it. My spark reached back through the black, through pain and terror, to my broken body so far away.

Air rushed into ruined lungs, and pain exploded all anew. Light and focus were impossible tortures. I felt a small and shattered body, spasm and cough thick liquid. My spark drowned in agony and effort.

"Ma'am. We need you to move aside now," came the voice of something else. "We'll take it from here."

"Oh, thank-you baby," cried that infinitely sad voice. "Just breathe, baby. Just keep breathing for mommy."

Reality then became only pain, jumbled and as fragmented as my mind. Somehow I could not return to that dark place. Even if I could, the sadness in the voice that called me back would have been too much to bear.

Hands and lights and stabbing barbs filled all the spaces of my thoughts. Finally, the pain melted away to an orange glow, and I slept.

I dreamed of warm water, the clean smell of soap, and laughter that pealed like the tinkling of small bells.

"Just breathe," the voice asked, and I had.

The hospital staff were kind and professional. No one commented on my castrated state, or even raised so much as an eyebrow as they tended to my catheter and other bodily needs.

I did not know what justification they were given for my emasculation, but they did not let it interfere with their work. They went about their business as though it was a natural thing. Like it was normal for a little boy to be neutered. Almost as though they saw it every day.

Bit by bit, they put my body back together. They called me lucky, and praised my strength to endure their treatments.

Every step of my recovery, my parents were there. They tried to be strong for my sake, and only words filled with positive meaning passed their lips. I was grateful they still loved the broken thing that was their son.

I suffered the agony of my healing and surgeries, knowing the pain was only something I deserved. I welcomed every stab of ache, and embraced every discomfort like an old friend. Even when given the option to administer my own level of pain medication on my IV, I refused it.

Though my body was exhausted from the effort of enduring, I let it rage on. I wished that pain would kill the creature caged within me. Drown it in agony, so I could be free of it. The creature only bathed in delight as I suffered.

If I could not kill it, then it would be better that the pain killed me.

I was unaware of what my internal struggle was doing to my family. For every twinge I felt, it seemed they felt it double. I didn't understand what a parent feels for his child.

Once, I awoke to find my father kneeling at my bedside. His eyes were red, and filled with tears as he looked, not to me, but to the heavens. "Please, God," he said. "I know I am not worthy. I've done so much wrong. But, please don't punish him any-more. I'm the one you should hate. I'm the one who should suffer. I don't deserve him, I know that. Please don't make him hurt any-more. I'm the one who's wrong. Please, God. He's innocent."

I had never heard my father pray before, let alone for me. I felt ashamed that I was putting him through this. I placed my hand on his, wishing I could take on his pain too. He smiled at me, clasped my tiny hand in his, and wept into my side. He stayed beside me all through that night.

I swore to myself that in the morning, I would accept whatever pain medication they would give me. I could endure my own suffering, but not theirs.

I knew that the pain and torment my family was feeling was something they didn't deserve. I would live, and I would heal, because the tears my family shed were finally too much for me.

I made the choice to go on, not because I wanted to live, but because my death would have caused only more pain to the people I cared for.

That night as my father prayed for me, I finally decided to stay alive.

The day came, I was finally allowed to use the wash-room on my own. I was allowed to walk around a little, feed myself, and sit-up.

I sat looking out the window of the hospital to a view of the Chesapeake Bay. All the drains and shunts had been removed, and only a brace around my chest remained to hold me together.

During my time in the hospital I felt even smaller than before. I'd seemed to shrink, and the world had seemed to grow. I felt like one of those boats, out there on the water. I was surrounded by an ocean too deep and too vast. One great wave, and I might go under. Yet, somehow, I was still afloat.

I endured many visitors, and was becoming tired of answering the question of how I was doing.

Xolani had come to see me, and I told him how sorry I was that Doctor Freidmont was dead. If he cried any tears, he did so where I could not see them. He only told me he had been happy to know him for the little time they had together. I found myself in agreement on that point.

Xolani passed to me the well wishes of the Prince. It was his resources my parents had used to find me. I was grateful, and told him so. Xolani assured me, he would let the Prince know it.

Friends and family came in and out. They left me flowers, and teddy-bears, and cards with get-well wishes. I thanked them all, and tried to be a good host while they were there. I didn't want to spoil anyone's visit, by letting them know how I really felt.

I was small, and broken. I was a monster with a rotten core.

I was almost happy when the time came for me to confess.

Detective Jacobs let me stare out at those bobbing vessels upon the water, while I collected my thoughts. Finally, I looked back at him. He had a kind face, and an easy manner. His rumpled coat reminded me of a detective my dad liked to watch on TV. He looked like a guy who always got his man. He was a good guy, and he deserved to know the truth.

"I'm ready," I said.

"Are you sure you don't want your parents here for the interview," he asked.

I had decided they had pain enough, and shook my head. I didn't think I could tell the story if they were there. They had heard enough of it, and had suffered because of it.

"Okay, Jason," he agreed. "We can take it slow." He took out a pad, and pen, and found a comfortable spot on the chair by my bed before he began. "I'm trying to understand some things that don't make sense to me. Whatever you can tell me would be a big help."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you remember much of what happened to you?"

"Yes, sir. I think so."

"That's good." he wrote something down on his pad. "Can you tell me what the men who took you looked like?"

I explained that Tex was covered in tattoos. He was covered nearly neck to ankles in intricate marking. He was tall, and muscular. I described Cawley's tattoo of barbed wire, and though he was smaller than Tex, he was clearly in charge.

Detective Jacobs nodded, and wrote as I described, pausing only to clarify a detail, and remind me how well I was doing.

"Do you remember when Mr. Underwood came?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did Mr. Underwood come into your room?"

"No, sir."

"He didn't?"

"No, sir."

"He didn't unlock you?"

"No, sir."

"I'm sorry, Jason," he stopped. "How were you freed if Mr. Underwood didn't let you go?"

I swallowed, feeling a renewed fear of my words. I couldn't stop though. "He didn't let me go," I went on. "I had to free myself. Mr. Underwood only came to get Hanna."

"Came to get…" the detective repeated my words. "What happened when Mr. Underwood arrived?"

I described the argument he had with Tex and Cawley, and that Cawley kept telling him to go home, or he'd ruin everything.

Detective Jacobs was writing furiously. "Did they fight?" he asked.

I nodded. "That's when they shot him."

Detective Jacobs stopped writing, and put down his pen and pad. "They argued, and then they shot him?"

"Yes, sir."

"Jason, are you absolutely sure? Could you be remembering wrong? You've had a very tough time. It's okay if you don't remember. Are you sure he didn't free you, then the fight began?"

Tears were coming to my eyes, and I couldn't fight them. I remembered everything. I couldn't forget if I wanted to. Every time I closed my eyes it all replayed in every horrible detail. "I remember what happened." I told him. "They argued, and then they killed him. He was dead before I got free."

Detective Jacobs was starting to stand then. "Jason, I'm sorry. I think we should stop. This is clearly very upsetting for you."

"No, please," I begged. "Please don't go away."

Detective Jacobs sat back down, but didn't pick his pad back up. He let it fall to the floor. He pulled his chair closer, and said, "It's okay, Jason. I'm not going anywhere."

I had to tell it all. If I didn't, it would burn me up, and that thing would be free again. I needed to share what had happened to me, or there would be nothing left.

As Detective Jacobs leaned in, I told it all. I didn't spare one terrible detail of what had happened, or what I had done.

When I was finished telling him everything I had to give, Detective Jacobs stood up. It seemed like there was something trying to escape at the back of his throat. He ran through the bathroom door and pulled it shut. I could hear the sounds of him being sick in the toilet. I heard the water in the sink running. It was several minutes before he came back out.

When he did, he sat back down, and stared at his hands until he found his words. "I believe you," he finally said. He nodded to himself several times before he could look back up at me. "I believe you," he said again.

"Are you going to arrest me?" I asked. I knew that was what happened to murderers like me. I was ready for it.

Detective Jacobs actually looked surprised. "What you've gone through. What you've done… I've never heard of anything like that in my life." He picked up his pad from the floor, and tore off the top pages and began to rip them into little pieces. "No, Jason," he said as he reduced the paper to scraps. "No one is going to arrest you. You haven't done anything wrong."

I was stunned. "Don't you have to arrest me? I'm a killer. It's the law." At that moment I only wanted to be punished for the evil thing that was within me.

Detective Jacobs shook his head, as he clutched the torn pieces of his notes. "There is the law, and then there is justice," he told me. "People like you don't go to jail. They should build statues to people like you. I don't know how you did what you did, but you don't ever need to worry about it again."

He stood, and there were tears in his eyes. "I'll make sure no-one else bothers you with this. You don't need all that." He patted my arm. "You're an amazing person, Jason Sidney. I don't ever want you to worry about this again. I'll make it right. You can count on me."

He tossed the ruined scraps of his paper into the trash, as he walked out the door. He briefly smiled back at me, then I never saw him again.

He left me stunned and alone. Even after I had confessed, there was to be no resolution. I would have to live with what I had done. Living with it was worse than any punishment I could imagine.

I hung my head into my hands, and sobbed. The thing in its cage only laughed at my weakness.

I felt guilty when she came to see me.

Doctor Lindsay joined me at the chairs by my window. She watched me watching the boats go by.

"Your family thought I might be able to help you, Jason." she told me. "That's what they want, and why I'm here, but I don't think I can."

As she sat across from me, she removed her brown sweater and tossed it on the bed.

"Do you remember the last time we talked?" she asked.

I nodded guiltily. The thing inside me had hurt her. It had twisted her words, discovered where it could damage her, and inflicted injury when it discovered a crack in her armour. I didn't want to remember that.

"I know that talking about what happened to you is the last thing you want." She spoke softly, and not as she had in our meetings before. "Frankly, I hope you'll never have to think about that again. I hope you'll heal from this and forget. So, I won't ask you to speak, only to listen."

I turned away from the window and looked at her. She didn't look quite the same as before. All her professional demeanour had gone. There was a kind of sadness in her eyes. I damned myself for being the one who put it there.

"When I was a girl, not much older than you are now, I loved a boy." She smiled at the remembrance. "He was handsome, and athletic. He was smart, and everybody loved him. He was exactly what every little girl dreams of when she thinks of who she will marry and spend the rest of her life with."

When we had last talked, I had asked her if she had ever loved, and finally she was answering that question.

"I wanted to be with him wherever he went. I would do whatever he asked. I was his, and I allowed myself to think he was mine. He was a few years older than me, but still a boy. He was arrogant, and self absorbed, but I didn't let myself see that part of him."

She fretted with her hands as she told me her story.

"That boy I loved betrayed my trust. He was only using my trust to lure me, and abuse me. He took advantage of me in a way I wasn't ready for. I never thought he could do that to me. I didn't really know who he was." She paused for a moment, as she decided if she would tell me the true nature of his crime. At last she simply said it. "I didn't know he had it in him to rape me.

"Afterwards, he laughed at me, and told me I was nothing to him. No-one believed me. They called me a tramp and a slut. They said I was asking for it, and it was my own fault. He laughed at me with all his friends. He broke me. He took everything I was, and tore it to pieces.

"You were right when you said I don't know love. Not real love. You were right when you said I was looking for answers in all the wrong places. I thought my work was the answer. I was focused on the development of boys. I was focused on how they went from sweet children to cruel men. I wanted to find out how it all went so wrong. What makes an innocent child, like the boy I loved, turn so cold?

"But also, I was trying to understand how I could let it happen. When he raped me, I didn't do anything. I just lay there wanting to die, not understanding how the one I loved could inflict so much pain. How could he have so much power over me?

"I blamed myself for letting it happen. I didn't fight. I didn't scream, and I didn't understand. I thought that when they said it was my fault, that they were right."

Doctor Lindsay was becoming more herself as she spoke. Like telling me the story was bringing her back from somewhere far away.

"I let my prejudice and my pain cloud my judgement. I thought I was being professional, and that I was helping. I thought I knew life, but how could I? I'm so sorry for my part in what happened to you. I know I can never be that person again. I can only ask you to forgive me.

"I know what happened to you, and I don't know how you survived it. I know you are a stronger person than I am. There is nothing inside of me that can help you now. But I wanted you to know how much I admire you, for doing what you did.

"I can't help you now, because I didn't know how to help myself. I can't make you forget, or take away your pain. Though I'm praying you find a way to make it back on your own. I never did, and I'm not sure I ever will.

"Instead, I'm here to ask you to help someone else. There is someone else who is broken and confused. She doesn't understand what happened to her, any-more than I understood what happened to me. I don't know of a way to reach her, but I know, if you can find it in yourself to try, that maybe you could.

"You told me that I couldn't help you because I didn't know love, and you are right. I'm hoping that the love you spoke of is real. If it is, then I think your love might find her, where I can't.

"I don't know if asking you to do this is right. I don't really have the right to ask you to do anything at all. Yet, I believe your love is real. I believe you have the answer, and I needed to try. Will you think about it?"

The love I felt seemed to be far out of reach, but I could remember it. Something bigger than myself. It was like being in a blizzard and seeing a far off fire. I didn't feel the warmth, but I could remember what warmth felt like.

Doctor Lindsay hugged me. She held me carefully, so not to interfere with my brace. She was very human, and tender in her touch.

When she stood, she was a different person. She was neither the professional doctor I first met, nor the sad eyed woman who had sat down only minutes before. She was someone new. Impossibly, she was a whole person again.

"I believe in love, Jason. I finally do. Thank-you for that." She pulled a paper from the pocket of her sweater as she picked it up.

I opened it as she handed it to me. It said only '702'.

"She's one floor up. She needs you." She smiled a peaceful smile, not a trace of worry, or sorrow any-more. "When you are ready."

I sat staring at the paper for a long time. She needed me? I didn't know if that was true. She had seen the horror of what I really was. I didn't know if I could face those eyes, or risk the terror from another of her screams.

I also knew, I had to try. If she was hurting, and I could help, then I owed it to her.

I looked up to thank Doctor Lindsay, but she was gone. I was alone in my room.

All alone, and only I could decide.

I looked back down at the paper. It still said only, '702'

I lingered outside that door for a long while. I didn't know if I could go in. I didn't know if I could face the eyes that had seen the real me.

I stood there in my paper slippers, my hospital gown and shorts. I felt tiny and unworthy. I felt unformed and incomplete.

The door did not resist as I pushed it open. I took one small step inside, and then another.

She seemed not to notice me enter. Her green eyes stared blankly ahead. Her blonde hair hung limply around her shoulders. It had lost all of its perky curl. Even her once pink skin seemed like parchment, faded from the sun.

I forced myself to go to her side. I stood there staring, hoping for a spark. Hoping even for the terror that had lived in those eyes when last she had focused them on me. There was nothing, and that nothingness broke my heart.

I collapsed to the floor beside her. I had done this to her. I had killed the only one who had ever truly loved me. She had seen the monster beneath my flesh, and it had killed her.

Doctor Lindsay was wrong. I could not reach her.

"I believe in love," Doctor Lindsay had said. But love was dead. There was nothing left.

I gathered all that remained of my wits, intending to leave. It was so much worse than I had imagined. I had thought seeing her terror was more than my mind could withstand. Seeing her emptiness was infinitely worse.

I stood from the floor, and dared myself to touch her hand. "Good-bye," I whispered.

Either through an involuntary reaction, or something reaching out to me, her fingers slowly closed around my own. I looked down at her hand in mine, and started to cry.

If I left now, I would never have another chance to hold her hand. I would never have another chance to thank her for all she had given me. I'd never again be able to tell her all that was in my heart.

As the last of my selfish tears subsided, I sat on her bed, still holding her hand. Without even trying, it all came pouring out. If this was goodbye, I wanted her to know all she meant to me.

"Do you remember when we first met?" I asked her. "I think we were five or so. I can't remember exactly. We were at that dance class, and I was terrible. I'm all left feet, and you know how clumsy I can be. I guess my mom thought it would be good for me to meet other kids, and maybe learn to not fall on my face all the time.

"You were there too, but I didn't know you yet. While the teacher was trying to get us to figure out our right from our left, I remember there was a sunbeam coming in the window. You suddenly ran away from the teacher, and stood in that sunbeam. You lit up like you were on fire. You spun and you spun in that sunbeam. You were dancing.

"I was jealous of you. You danced so beautifully. I wanted to be you. I'd never seen anything like you. I was jealous of your blonde hair, and your pretty dress.

"I remember I ran over to you. I was going to push you out of that sunbeam. I was mad because you were so beautiful, and could dance so well, when I was so clumsy. I was going to be mean and push you down. I was going to be cruel. Did you know that?

"Do you remember what you did? When I came over, you grabbed my hands and spun with me. I was going to push you down, and you pulled me into your dance. The sunbeam was warm, you were on fire, and we were dancing.

"I've never understood how you did that. How I was going to be mean to you, and suddenly we were spinning. I didn't know your name. I didn't know my right foot from my left foot, but I knew I wanted to be you more than anything. I knew that if I couldn't be you, then I just wanted to be your friend.

"I don't know if you remember that, but I think about it all the time."

My torrent of words didn't stop. As I sat clutching Hanna's hands, all the times we were together came back to me. I struggled to keep up with all those little moments. Every time we played, every time we fought, and every time we forgave each other like nothing had happened.

I reminded her of when we had played doctor, and when we played with her dolls. I told her about our game of 'Mommy, Daddy, and Baby', and what it meant to me.

I told her about the time our parents had taken the trip to the glacier lakes, and how we dared each other to plunge into those icy waters.

I told Hanna about every moment, and all the joy it gave me. Soon I was telling her even about our recent history. Our board games, and the songs she sang while I practised on the piano.

I remembered our swim on that cold September day. I told her the moment I knew I loved her, as we held each other under that warm shower, her kiss still tingling on my lips, my body still afire with the sensations she had given me.

Every moment of our lives together came pouring out of my lips. I smiled, I laughed, and I cried as I told her it all. All the while her hand held mine.

When I finished all I had to say, I crawled into her bed. Somehow I overcame the pain in my side, and the awkward way my brace held my ribs to lie beside her. I placed my arms around her, and gave her a final kiss farewell.

Somehow, I felt as though she was kissing me back. I knew it was impossible. I knew I'd never again feel her pressing into me as she once had, yet it seemed so real.

When I opened my eyes, I realized she really was kissing me back. Her green eyes were again filled with her self. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she managed a smile.

My breath caught as she looked at me.

"Hanna?"

"Jason," she said in a small voice. "What happened to you?"

Tears of joy choked off my answer. I collapsed into her chest and cried. Her hand stroked my hair. At last I looked up again to meet her eyes.

When I looked up, I saw her question was still there. "What happened?" she asked again.

"Don't you remember?" I asked. I felt myself shaking, and I froze in her embrace.

I could see her eyes working to find her memories. Whatever she found, I could see it force a sob into her throat, her tears formed and rolled down her cheeks.

"Oh, Jason," she cried. "I think my dad is dead."

I held her, and cried with her. That was one memory I could not force on her.

Hanna had returned from a nightmare, and I was thankful. I thanked the god my father prayed to. I thanked Doctor Lindsay, and I thanked the universe for giving me one such as Hanna.

If I had my way, she would never remember.

It was the creature within me, that knew it was a wish that would not last. I pushed its cage deeper down, and thanked all that I knew, that I had been given a reprieve.

For that moment, Hanna had returned to me. For however long it lasted, I would be grateful.

Chapter Twenty-Three
The Truth

There wasn't a word in the papers about his involvement in our kidnapping. He went to his grave, and the world would never know what he had done. For any records that existed, he had merely followed the kidnappers, and had been killed trying to free us. I had sustained my injuries while he effected our escape. Detective Jacobs had seen to an iron clad story. The press never questioned it.

"There is the law, and then there is justice." he had told me. This was what he meant. No one would ever know what I had done. No one would ever know the blood that was on my hands. Only a handful of people would ever know my true sins.

Despite the brace around my ribs, Hanna held onto me as her father's coffin was lowered into the earth. She trembled and wept. She wept for the father she had known. For the love he had given her. She wept for his loss.

Though she had emerged from her stupor, as she quaked in my arms, I knew she was still broken. She was fragile. What had happened to her was so enormous, she might never be free of it.

Hanna was my life, my everything, but I couldn't help her with this. There was no truth in me that could heal her.

She didn't remember much of our ordeal. She only remembered scraps. She remembered being chained. She remembered nearly waking to the sounds of gunshots, and she remembered the blood that covered the floors. Though she had those memories, there was no order to them, no sense. And, she didn't remember me there, or what I had done.

Instead, she had accepted the story that was told to the papers. A lie as much for her benefit as it was for mine.

For the first time in my life, I found something I couldn't tell her. There had never been secrets between us before. I hadn't thought I could keep a secret from her if I tried. This time, though, I had to.

How could I tell her that her father had orchestrated everything, and he had set those men upon us? How could I reminder her of nearly being raped by Tex? How could I ever let her remember that I had been the one who's knife had ended one life, and who's bare hands had ended another?

That within me lived a monster capable of killing, I couldn't admit. I didn't want her to remember. I told myself she didn't need to.

I felt I had nothing that could help her heal, except my silence.

There were only a few of us at the graveside. It was a lonely affair. A few kind words of comfort were spoken, soil filled the hole in the ground, and our flowers were laid to rest with the man.

It was a long, silent ride back to our home.

As time passed, life slowly came back to us. My physical wounds healed, and my scars faded. On my outside, you might never tell what I had lived through. I again looked like any other little boy, tender and innocent, even though I wasn't.

Little by little Hanna re-emerged from her shell. I made sure I would be with her every step of the way. Her well being had become my own.

There would eventually be parties again, and friends, and even laughter.

Carol sold the house that she and David had owned, and she and Hanna made living in our guest house official. Our nights would never be lonely. We would be together. There were little joys to celebrate.

Despite the terrible loss of Doctor Freidmont, Xolani made his decision to move permanently to America. He took up a private practice not far from our home. He dropped in to see us regularly. He still took trips from time to time, to see to his true life's work of helping boys like me, but we saw him often enough.

He came weekly to work with me on my language studies. Holding true to his promise to Prince Shahriar, he taught me Farsi, Arabic, and French. The beautiful, illuminated book of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, slowly revealed itself to me. I came to appreciate all the culture and music in those words. Once meaningless scribbles, they had come alive for me.

Xolani also made sure over the following years, that I had my regular injections of LSH, the drug to halt my growth. The injections continued for a year extra, even after we knew my bones had capped, and further growth was impossible. Despite everything that had happened to me, my path had already been set. I came to accept that I would never grow. That all I was, was all I ever would be.

Hanna grew, and I did not. In a year, she was already a head taller than me. Despite her height though, she was still frail. She saw Doctor Lindsay once a week, but her visits never seemed to help. For years she suffered from nightmares. I could only hold her through the night, when they took her.

Finally, when we were fourteen, came a night I had been dreading. She suddenly put down the school paper she had been working on, and faced me.

"How did my father really die?" she asked me.

It had been over three years since we had spoken of it. The secret had lain on my chest like a growing weight. I didn't want to hurt her. I didn't want her to live through it all again, but that secret had been eating me from the inside out.

"He was shot," I told her, hoping it would end with that.

"Before, or after he saved us?" Her green eyes were clear, and fixed. I knew she wanted it all.

My tears began to burn. "Don't make me," I pleaded. "Please."

"Tell me." There was no derailing her.

"He was shot before," I admitted quietly.

"He didn't come and get me from that room, did he?"

"No," I told her. "I did."

"I have nightmares," she confided to me. "In them, I see you covered in blood. It's you, but it's not you. It's a dead thing with different eyes. It's a killer. It tears that man apart, and even after it should be dead, it keeps coming. I don't want it to touch me, but still it comes." she paused as she collected her memories. "Was that real, or just a nightmare?"

I felt myself trembling as I answered. "It was real."

"You killed them?"

"Yes."

"My dad was already dead."

"Yes."

"He didn't come to save us, did he?"

"He loved you," I tired. "He came to save you."

"But not us?"

I shook my head.

"He was in on it, wasn't he?"

I quietly nodded. There was a lump in my throat. I felt my world was shattering to pieces all over again.

"How did you do it?"

"I - I just wanted you to be safe."

"Tell me all of it," she demanded.

I pooled all my strength, and I told her.

As I told her, I could almost feel the warm rush of blood from Cawley's throat run down my arms all over again. I could feel Tex's flesh part under that same blade. Worst of all, I could feel the beast inside me still raging in glory and blood-lust, while I brought that frying pan down on Tex's skull as he tried to crawl away.

I was crying from admitting to the beast that was within me. I was Hanna's nightmare with dead eyes. I cried for my shame, and for keeping the truth from Hanna for so long.

Hanna didn't cry though. She held me, and she kissed the top of my head when I had given her all I had to tell.

"It's okay," she said quietly. "I understand."

"Hanna. I'm a monster."

She released me then, and stood. "I need some time, Jason."

I watched her stand, and I felt the ties that bound us together for so long, slip and dissolve. That which had been unbreakable, had turned to gossamer, and evaporated in the light of the lie I had been keeping. A feeling of profound emptiness spread through me. The finality of it.

"I knew all along," she said. "I knew it and I couldn't admit it to myself. I knew it was you who saved us. I just couldn't face it."

"I didn't want to lie to you."

Hanna nodded. "I know." She silently collected her books, and made her way to my door. "I'm going to spend the night with my mom."

"Will you come back?" I already knew the answer, and it was breaking my heart.

"I don't know," she told me. She took a deep breath, and opened the door. Before she left, she stopped and looked back. "You are not a monster, Jason. You saved me. I'll never be able to thank you for that."

As she left, I managed to croak out, "You don't have to," but she was already gone. "You never have to thank me." I said quietly to the empty room.

As my room drained of oxygen, I remembered lying beneath Cawley, his sweaty body pressing into me. All my hope had gone, and I was ready to die. I remembered hearing Hanna crying out. My pain, my death I could have accepted, but not hers. Her pain reached out to me, and brought me back to life in that hopeless moment.

I had given myself over to instinct and the creature within me, not because I wanted to live, not because I wanted to kill, but because I needed Hanna to live. Because her cry of terror and pain was more than I could bear, did I give myself to rage. Because of Hanna, I unleashed the terrible thing I truly am.

It was the flawed and rotten thing at my core, that killed the men who meant to rape and kill us. I had let it loose, because I had no other way to silence the pure horror that threatened to consume the only person who mattered to me.

When we walked into that cold night, it wasn't concern for my life that pushed us on. I already knew then, that what I was, wasn't fit for this world. There was only one reason we made it out of there.

I hadn't saved Hanna. She had saved me.

Chapter Twenty-Four
My Last Night in the Hot-tub

While she was yet without the memory or truth of that terrible night to haunt her, Hanna had remained eager to join our family parties whenever they took place.

She was always more confident than I, and more willing to experiment. Her imagination, and her love of attention drew her to that room. Despite her fragility, and the way she quaked in the night, she still needed it.

She went, and I went with her.

In that room, she had sought comfort in my arms, and when I alone wasn't enough, the arms of other men. I could deny her none of it. I thought only of her happiness.

I discovered, that even remaining small as I was, I was desired. So, I went with whoever would have me, when Hanna wasn't an option.

There were those who appreciated my unformed body. They told me I was beautiful. They used words like 'delicate', 'special', and even 'sexy'.

Women cooed and cuddled me. They took joy in telling me how my castration had made me so much better than complete males. They traced lines around my invisible scars. I was exotic and desirable, and totally safe. Useful for their pleasure, without the risk.

Always, those who used me, paid intense attention to my empty space. I didn't see the appeal. There was simply nothing there. Why nothing should be fascinating, I couldn't comprehend.

They touched and stroked and sometimes even sucked my little member. It never stirred, and I did not feel as I once did. That explosive wave of feeling was lost to me.

When the men penetrated me, I felt no electricity. There was nothing but a hollow ache. I didn't feel the delight they felt when they released inside me. It was as if that part of me that could feel pleasure had been cut out, along with my testicles.

I wondered, where did it go? I blamed myself. Hadn't I felt it once? Eventually, I decided, only people of worth could feel pleasure, and I wasn't worthy.

When those who wanted me were disappointed in my lack of reaction, I learned to pretend. I could not offend a guest.

I'd scream out happily. I'd laugh, and I'd even purr if they wanted me to. I learned a false smile would be accepted, when my body was all they craved. When I smiled, they didn't explore deeper. It was only the skin I wore that they wanted anyhow. No-one was curious of anything beneath it. If I was smiling, then I must have been happy with what they did to me.

I felt like nothing more than one of those colourful bobbles in the cabinets by the door. I was a sex toy, to enhance someone else's pleasure. I was not my own.

I pushed all those feelings down, and fed them to the monster in the cage. That rotten thing was always hungry for more. It thrived on my suffering.

I needed to stay happy for Hanna. She needed me. Whenever she returned to me on those nights, I gave her the smile I knew she wanted.

She was the only one who wanted me for myself. She didn't delight in my emasculation, or my stunted growth. Only Hanna cared what I thought. Only she was concerned for what I could become, and not simply for what I was.

With her, there was no pressure. It didn't matter to her, if how I performed might reflect badly on my family. There was no desire for my body simply because I was a rare item with smooth skin, or a forbidden sexual treat. Only with Hanna was it ever honest.

I didn't realize I would lose that.

After she learned the truth of what I had been keeping from her, she stopped going to those parties.

Those parties continued on regardless.

Despite my shattered heart, I was still expected to attend.

But, it wasn't the same.

I smiled as I trained myself to do. I welcomed everyone, and played the innocent little boy for them. It had always pleased them.

I pretended this was something I wanted.

As always, there were the hands, and the groping. There were the comments on how special I was.

I was passed from body to body, and felt nothing.

Soon I was immersed in the hot-tub. Flesh moved and ebbed in that unusual ballet.

He was new to the group. I didn't know who'd brought him. He had the slightest of deep southern accents. When he was introduced to everyone, he'd actually used the word, 'howdy'.

It was his hands I felt all over me as I floated in the bubbling water.

"Look at that," he said to no-one in particular. "Ain't he a sight?"

He pulled me close, feeling the space between my legs, tugging at my minuscule endowment.

"Damn," he said. "Mommy and Daddy sure made the right choice with this one. Look at those eyes. That face, that hot little ass." He was pulling me close, already panting with his excitement.

He manoeuvred me in the water, raising my legs, and pushing into me.

The thing inside me was clawing and gnashing, reaching through its prison in my mind. I was shaking as I fought it.

"This is fucking awesome." he called out. "I never had a sweet little eunuch boy like this before."

It was the thing he said next that unleashed it.

"Mmm, mm. Sweet as honeydew."

In a moment the creature had lashed out. I was unable to control it. Once again, I was drowning in pitch as it consumed me.

The creature raked my fingernails down his face. It bit and clawed.

As he tried to get away from the child who had suddenly gone berserk, and climb out of the pool, my fingers found the tender spot between his legs. The creature wrenched and pulled and twisted on his tender meats.

His howl of surprise and agony pleased the thing. It was feasting on the pain, and the creature wanted to inflict so much more.

It took half the men in attendance to finally control me. It took my mother's voice pleading with me, and my father shaking me, before I could finally contain it… push it back down into the dark, and cage it.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" my father shouted.

No voice escaped my lips.

"Jason? Honey?" my mother had my face between her hands.

I looked around.

The man I had attacked was at the bar, holding ice intended for drinks to his groin. He scowled at me through the claw marks on his face.

Everyone had stopped. Everything was frozen. The signs of my struggle… my attack, were everywhere. Men had bruises, and cuts. Breathing came heavy. Women held their breath in shock. Eyes were wide in terror.

There was blood in the water. It wasn't mine.

They all knew what I was. At last, they could all see the rotten thing beneath my skin. I couldn't take it, and began to sob.

My father helped me to my feet, and I found my clothes shoved into my arms. "You need to leave now," he told me.

I didn't hesitate.

As I ran out and up the stairs, I heard the door close, and I heard it lock behind me.

I didn't go to my room.

Instead my feet carried me outside and into the night.

There was no-one who had not seen it. There was nothing left for me.

I sat next to the pool when the strength in my legs went out. I stared out onto the starlight reflected on its surface. Tears and snot and sweat poured out of me as I tried to contemplate if there was anything for me to hold onto.

The lights in Carol and Hanna's house were dark. They had chosen to be somewhere else for that evening. I didn't know where they were.

I thought back to that brisk September day when Hanna and I had sat in that same place, wondering if we were brave enough to jump in. I had only done it because she had held my hand.

There was no-one left to do that for me. I was finally on my own.

With even the basement barred to me, I was without purpose. Not only was I a eunuch, someone unfit to breed, I was forever a child. I was someone to be looked down on with disdain. I would be forever incomplete.

I was broken, and vile, and now everyone knew it. I wasn't even a sex toy any-more.

I cried until my tears ran out. It wasn't weeping. This time, the tears did nothing to settle the storm inside.

In the morning my parents informed me I would not be allowed to attend the family parties again.

They sat close to me at the kitchen table.

"Do you want to tell me what happened last night?" my father asked.

"It's okay sweetheart," my mother tried. "You can tell us anything. Believe me, we'll understand."

I had no answer for them.

"Did he hurt you?"

I shook my head. He'd been no worse than any other. He had been trying to be gentle.

"We only want to help you Jason. If you're hurting, you need to let us know. We only want to stop the pain." The compassion in my father's eyes was more than I could take.

I couldn't bear my parents pain on my behalf. The truth was, I felt no pain. Only emptiness.

"I'm not in pain," I told them.

They tried again and again to get me to open up. I simply couldn't. I couldn't face their worry or their concern.

Instead, I put on my false smile, and assured them I was fine.

Inside, I felt impossibly far away and alone. I was an alien in the very world I was born to.

They were disappointed in me. I saw that.

The basement room would stay locked.

I nodded. I understood, when they told me. I knew I no longer belonged there.

Chapter Twenty-Five
Sugarcane in the Desert

On a spring day, Carol and Hanna finally moved out. They moved into the city, and Hanna enrolled in a local high-school. She was eager to explore herself outside the Kinseyan community, and to define herself without me.

When they were gone, our home seemed truly empty. Our country estate no longer held any warmth. I felt I was living as a ghost of who I had been.

I was no longer welcome at the family parties.

It didn't matter. As a eunuch, an eternal child, and a living spectre, I could find nothing in what seemed a hollow exercise. I had no drive for sex as others do, and I never would. I had participated for the connection I felt with only one other person, not for any release. Without Hanna, there was no longer reason to return. That human connection no longer had any meaning for me.

With my reaction to the last time I had been in that room known to everyone, I knew it would be a long time (if ever) before I would be invited again.

On a clear day in early summer, Xolani came to see me. He sat me down on the couch in our living room, and began to tell me what I needed to hear.

"You must let her go, brothah," he told me. "Ah warned you dis would happen. She needs to find her own way in the world. As you should find your own."

"I'm trying." I said. As I said it, I knew it was a lie.

Xolani considered me for a long time before he went on. "Bin Kali has been asking after you. He wants you to visit him in his country."

I had no will to accept such an invitation. "I don't want to go." I told him.

The slap I received from Xolani sent stars through my vision. As my cheek stung and reddened, I snapped my head to confront him. I was drawing air through my nostrils in time with my quickened heartbeat. The creature inside me clawed and shook the bars of its cage, begging me to release it. When I met Xolani's eyes, it was clear he saw it too.

"You still have a fire inside you brothah," he said. "You need to learn to use it, or it will use you up."

I stood and paced away from Xolani. As I crossed the floor, I dragged air through a cleansing breath, trying to control emotions that had gone suddenly sharp and angular in my mind. I tried to control my heartbeat, and silence the thing in its cage. I placed a hand on my cheek, and felt the heat from the impression of Xolani's large hand.

"You will meet Bin Kali in Dubai." he stated. "You will leave dis house, and you will learn to control your emoshuns."

I tried to hold the reins of my inner self as I looked back at my tall friend. "I don't want to go," I said again.

Xolani stood, and there was a dangerous element in his eyes, full of fire and ice. It was a look I had not seen since he had broken up the fight between my father, and Hanna's, years before. "Dis is not a discussion," he said coldly. "You will go. You will master yourself. Your parents have already agreed."

"Why?" I demanded. "So I can be some spoiled prince's butt-boy? So I can be his little white eunuch? A little white boy who'll do as he is told and suck his royal cock?"

Xolani lurched toward me, and I had to dance back out of his long reach. The anger in his eyes was white hot.

"Bin Kali has done nothing to you, but shown you kindness and friendship," Xolani growled. "You will not dishonour him so."

"Done nothing?" I mocked back. "He had sex with me when I wasn't even eleven years old. He sent you to castrate me. I'm practically his slave."

Xolani straightened in shock. "You know dis is not true."

"Isn't it?"

"Ah have known Bin Kali for many years. If ah ever thought he was like you say, ah would kill him mahself."

"You're as much his slave as I am."

Xolani's face went cold as black glass. "Ah am nobody's slave."

"Aren't you?" I demanded.

Xolani turned his back to me. I watched the tall slim man regain his composure. When his breathing had calmed, he turned back to me.

"You have been as my brothah. Ah have cared for you and wept for you. Ah have nevah lied to you, or spoken to you as you have jus done to me. Ah know you do dis out of grief, and ah can forgive you." He looked down on me from all his height. I felt small and unworthy in his presence. "But you must take back what you have said. You must do now as ah tell you, or we are finished. We will no longer be brothahs. Ah will leave you now, and that will be the end of it. You can live the rest of your sad and tiny life, alone."

Xolani's words tore me apart. With Hanna gone, I already felt alone and isolated in the world. If Xolani left too, then I would truly have nothing. I couldn't bear it. I slumped down onto the couch, and buried my face in my hands.

"I'm sorry Xolani." I said. "I'm so sorry."

Xolani settled on the seat beside me. His large hand draped over my shoulders. His voice lost the edge, and returned to the soft and light tones I knew so well. "I forgive you brothah," he said. "Will you do now as ah say?"

"Yes," I said. All my need to fight was gone. I was aware of the rotten thing that was my core, pulsing beneath my skin. My shame at letting it loose on Xolani drained the last of my will. "I'll do whatever you say."

It was a fifteen hour flight to Dubai. Though it wasn't the first flight I had taken, it was by far the longest. I arrived tired of body, and exhausted of spirit. It no longer mattered to me where I was, or where I ended up.

My weakened spirit was compounded by the humiliation of having to wear one of those day-glow "Unaccompanied Minor" tags around my neck the entire way. It not only singled me out among the airline staff, that I needed "special attention", which basically meant I wasn't given a moment of privacy or rest the entire way, but also seemed to identify me as nothing more than a piece of luggage that needed to be signed in and out at either end of my flight. Not a real human being, but an item to be tracked, and accounted for.

Even though at fourteen I would have had to wear the "Unaccompanied Minor" tag regardless, it still served to underscore that I looked at least three years younger than I really was. It highlighted that the world saw a young child when it looked at me. I was something small and unfinished. Knowing that made me feel all the more helpless, and useless as well.

I held out small hope that my Sahib could do anything to change that. Dubai was as alien a place as I had ever been, yet I was more alien still.

Dubai International Airport was filled with the sounds of strange dialects and accents. People dressed strangely, acted strangely. Though clean and modern, it was even filled with strange smells, exotic and powerful. The very air was different from what I had known.

Though even at the mercy of such a strange place, I felt no less out-of-place than I had felt in my own home. Once I had lost my purpose, every place felt the same. I was always somewhere I didn't belong.

When I was finally processed through security, it wasn't Prince Shahriar that met me, but one of his men. It was one of the guards that I remembered from the Prince's fleet of SUVs, always ready to do his bidding. I was disappointed the Prince hadn't deemed fit to meet me himself.

I tried to greet the man in dark glasses with some of the Arabic I had learned. He didn't bother to respond, but collected my luggage, and indicated I should follow him. I was too tired and beaten down to try and carry on a conversation anyway.

In the back of the SUV, I sulked, not even bothering to try and take in the new sights around me. The man who collected me drove smoothly and carefully, but never once did he look into the back seat to see how I was faring. The situation made me feel particularly lonely.

After what seemed like an overly long time of driving, I began to become concerned. Looking out at the surroundings, I realized we had long left the city behind us. Outside the main city, we were passing small fields, and disintegrating housing. The further we drove from the city, the further we were travelling from the area of wealth, and civilization. It wasn't long before we had even left the civilization of paved roads, and instead bounded over rock and bare dunes.

A sense of fear began to grip me.

After several hours, the SUV pulled into a small walled enclosure in the desert. The stone walls were cracked and old. Where they could find purchase, grass and other plant-life had come to live in those cracks, their roots further distressing the already crumbling structure. At the gate, the SUV finally stopped.

Keeping his silence, the man in dark glasses, stopped the engine, climbed out, and walked around to the back where he retrieved my luggage. He then came to my door, opened it, and indicated I should step out too.

When I did as instructed, the desert heat blasted my face. It was thick and choking. The man in dark glasses handed me my luggage, and motioned for me to go forward to the gate.

By this time, I was becoming dreadfully concerned. This was no place I would ever expect Prince Shahriar to be. I had been kidnapped once before, and I wondered if I was about to suffer that fate again. I wondered how much they would demand of Prince Shahriar or my parents for my return. Would they even pay it? If I were killed here, would they ever find my body?

Before I could go more than a couple of steps forward in the heat, I heard the car door slam, and the SUV start up. I dropped my luggage, and scrambled for the door handle of the air conditioned vehicle. It was locked, and my small fingers could do nothing to open it.

Despite my desperate attempts to stop the SUV, it kicked up a cloud of hot sand and gravel as it pealed away. I watched it bound over the dunes and into the distance. The driver never looked back.

The reality of my situation was overwhelming. I was totally alone in the cruel desert. If I were to try and walk out of this place, the heat would surely kill me. When the man in dark glasses had claimed me at the airport, the security personnel had given him my passport. He hadn't given it back when he left. Even if I did survive a walk out of this scorching place, I had no identification, no money, and nowhere to go. I was at the mercy of whatever this was.

I was betrayed.

I felt every bit the child I knew the world saw, when it looked at me.

After a few tries, I finally caught my breath, picked up my luggage, and went forward to the gate of the compound. Feeling terrified, and alone I reached up my hand and knocked. I was rewarded by the sound of someone on the other side.

I tried my Arabic, "Min fad-lak?" Hello?

After a few moments came a response, "Meddha torridu?" What do you want?

"As mil a'Jason," I tried again. My name is Jason "Ana um phhathuan a'Amir Shahriar Bin Kali." I am looking for Prince Shahriar Bin Kali.

Through the clattering sound of chains being unlocked, the gate suddenly opened, and I was greeted by a gruff and muscular man. He was not Arabic as I had expected, though I had noticed something wrong with his accent through the door. Instead he was clearly of Anglo Saxon decent, though deeply tanned. "Kinaj a'Jason? You are Jason?

"Nah'ma" Yes.

"You speak English?" It came out in a Russian accent. "I speak better English than Arabic."

I sputtered in the heat for a moment before I answered. "Yes, sir. I'm Jason Sidney." I held out my sweaty hand in greeting. He didn't take it.

He regarded me studiously at the threshold of the compound. He looked me up and down. He seemed to not be pleased with what he was seeing. Finally he motioned for me to enter. He didn't offer to carry my bag.

As I struggled to walk with my heavy suitcase and follow the man, he shouted out. "Look what they send us. Is embarrassment. They send us baby."

I was not immediately aware of who he was shouting to. There were a cluster of buildings in the centre of the small compound, the largest of which was only two stories tall. From the balcony of the second floor, another man appeared, looking duskier than the first, but still not Arabic.

"Be nice Peotr," he called down. "The boy is what he is." I though I detected a hint of a Spanish accent. Spanish or Mexican, I wasn't sure.

As the man came down from the balcony, he called over other men to meet me. They emerged from the broken buildings in the compound, and they surrounded me in the courtyard.

They were all significantly different from one another. They were all nationalities, some big, some small. There was no discernible uniform amongst them, though they all dressed lightly for the heat.

I was told their names. There was Peotr, the hulking Russian, José (he pronounced it Hosay) was the one from the balcony. There was Sammir, Rijeka (pronounced Reeka), Kristus, Tovenaar, and a half a dozen others. I was not told any last names.

It was Peotr and José that took the lead.

"Well Peotr?" asked José as they looked me over.

Peotr motioned to my tiny body with his meaty hand. "They send us baby," he said again. "Is insult."

José nodded as he looked me over. "He's not the smallest we've had."

Peotr spat at my feet, and I jumped back a step from the steaming gob. "Why am I here?" I asked.

Peotr laughed loud and deep. "He does not know," he chortled. "Is not just baby. Is stupid baby."

José stepped past Peotr, and looked down at me. He was tall and slim, not an ounce of fat on his body. There was something familiar about this man. Perhaps it was something in his eyes, but I couldn't place it. "You are here to be trained," he answered.

"Trained?" I had a terrible feeling wash over me. I felt the sick of my airline food coming up again.

He said Trained. As in a slave? Trained, as in a toy for the Prince? I remembered how Prince Shahriar had told me of his harem, and the eunuch concubines he kept there to watch over his wives. He had told me they were free men, respected for their sacrifice. The story of them had led me to agree to be castrated. Now I sensed the lie in that tale. I again felt the wash of betrayal.

I would never allow that. I would die before I let that happen.

"And if I refuse?" I asked, trying to straighten my small frame as bravely as I could muster.

José motioned toward the gates. "Then by all means. Go."

I looked over my shoulder to the open gate, and dunes beyond. They knew I would never survive the walk out of this place.

I drew in the heavy air, and still shaking in my shoes, made an attempt at defiance. "I won't be the Prince's toy."

It was now José who was laughing. "Toy? Oh, ho. You think this is something sexual." He was shaking his head, and all the other men were suddenly laughing with him. "You will not be a toy, young Jason. We do not train free people to be toys. We train free people to remain free."

I was confused, and still scared. "What do you mean?"

"We train the Prince's men. This is true. But our true purpose is to train people like you, and people like us."

I still didn't understand. I began to speak, but José continued, and I shut my mouth.

"We are the Ushindi. The ones who overcome weakness. We train each other to fight, and to be strong. We train each other to kill if we must. Above all, we train ourselves to be free."

My poor head was swimming with fear, the desert heat, and a severe case of jet-lag, so it was taking me longer than normal to catch up. "This isn't something sexual?"

The men laughed at me again.

José continued when the amusement died down. "That, young Jason, would be quite impossible."

I almost didn't want to ask, but I needed to, "Why not?"

José simply undid the belt of his pants and lowered them for me to see. I was surprised when all the others followed suit. I was shocked by what I saw.

Among almost a dozen men, not one had a pair of testicles hanging down. They were all eunuchs, like me. Their flaccid members hanging limply in the desert air. I suddenly thought I knew why José had looked so familiar to me. Though he had a darker edge in his eyes, he had the same body type as Xolani. He even moved in much the same way.

José and the others recovered themselves before José went on. "We are all brethren here. You have nothing to fear from us."

"Did Xolani train here?"

José nodded. "He did."

Because I had been so without purpose, I thought, perhaps I could do this. Maybe they could give me the direction I was so without.

Xolani seemed to have purpose. Xolani was respected. He was strong. If he had learned to fight there… If he had learned to be more than just a eunuch in that place, then perhaps I could too.

I suddenly wanted to be in that place, more than anywhere else in the world. My heart clung with desperation to the idea.

"Okay," I found myself agreeing. "When do we start?" My fear and exhaustion were inextricably replaced with a powerful excitement.

José shook his head as I looked to him. "I cannot decide that," he told me. "That is up to Peotr to decide."

In answer the big Russian laughed dismissively, "I will not train little baby," he said, then walked purposely away from the rest of the group.

I looked to José for help. He shrugged. "If he won't train you, then he won't train you. That is his decision. None of us will contradict him. You can stay until someone comes to claim you." He told me simply. "I should warn you. It may be many weeks or many months before the Prince sends his men for you. Until then, I will have Rijeka show you where you can sleep and eat."

I couldn't comprehend what had just happened.

With a simple proclamation the eunuch men around me dispersed. Only Rijeka remained. He politely picked up my luggage, and said in a very clear American accent, "C'mon kid. I'll show you where you can hang your hat."

As I struggled to keep up with him, I was hating my short legs, and how my lungs refused to adapt to the heat of the desert. I just couldn't get a clean breath of air.

Forcing myself to keep up, I tried my hand at conversation. "Are you American?" I asked.

"Yeah," Rijeka replied. "Born and bred in the wilds of Montana."

"I don't think I've heard of too many people with your name," I told him.

"No," he admitted. "I guess you wouldn't. It's not the name I was born with. I earned it. They gave me the name when I passed my initiation."

I was still confused, and my head was sluggish in the heat. He had to earn his name? What did that mean? "Why Rijeka?" I asked. To me, it kind of sounded like a girl's name.

Rijeka looked at me solemnly, "I'll tell you sometime," he said simply, but it sounded like it wasn't a topic I should be picking at.

"Why won't Peotr train me?" I went on.

"Dunno," he admitted. "But he decides who to train and who not to train. If you really want to be trained in combat like the rest of us, or like your friend Xolani, then you're going to have to convince him."

"How do I do that?"

Rijeka stopped at a slat wood door. He looked over my tiny body, and shook his head. "I really don't know. Maybe when you're bigger."

I felt my heart sink. "I won't get any bigger," I admitted. "This is as big as I'll ever get. They stunted my growth."

Rijeka seemed to be genuinely sorry for me. "Tough break kid. I don't know how you'll change his mind. Peotr only respects strength. Maybe if you're really nice to him, he'll take pity on you, and teach you how to shoot a gun or something."

"Why would I be sent here if you people won't train me?"

Rijeka shook his head and didn't answer. After a moment, he simply shrugged.

Leaving my question unanswered, he opened the slat door to reveal little more than a closet with a small mattress on the floor. It was a room foul with disuse. Dust and cobwebs covered everything. Until my arrival, it was clear this little room was used for storage, and little else. Broom handles, sticks, and even a mop were still leaning in the corner. Rijeka placed my suitcase just inside the door.

"Shitter's up the hall," he told me. "We can take hot baths once a week, but you gotta get on the rotation. Otherwise just sponge off in the sink. It's better to do that in the heat anyhow." He motioned the other direction down the hall. "That way is the mess hall. Meals are when you hear the bell sound. Don't miss meals because there won't be any leftovers. Think you can find your way?"

"Uh," I looked around the hall, and the small closet that was about to become my new home. It didn't look too complicated. "I think so."

"Good," he proclaimed. He stopped for a moment before he left. "Look, It's not the Hilton, but it's all right. The guys are all good people. Even if you're not being trained, I'm sure we can find some things for you to do. Cheer up, huh?"

I forced a smile, as I stepped into my broom closet bedroom. "Thanks Rijeka."

Rijeka smiled down at me. "Welcome to the circus kid."

When he left, I went over to the dusty mattress on the ground. Despite it being old, and probably full of mites, it looked inviting. I fell face first into it, and finally let myself feel the exhaustion that had been plaguing me since I touched down in Dubai.

In a few moments I would be sound asleep. Before unconsciousness took me, I had time to decide I really wanted to be trained like the rest, like Xolani was trained. Somehow I had to find a way.

I would cling to that hope, until it killed me.

I sought him out the first thing when I awoke. Peotr would not be moved. He wanted nothing to do with me.

Through the day, the others in the compound took turns on the shooting range, both with handguns and rifles. I was amazed with their accuracy. Almost never did a bullet go wide of the target.

They also ran hand to hand combat drills. Some of the men moved like poetry. Some like Peotr, moved like wrecking balls. All of them were clearly deadly dangerous men. Each blow seemed intended to kill or cripple their opponent. How none of them got injured in the melee, I couldn't discern.

I was little more than a buzzing fly amongst them. When I got too close, Peotr would curse at me, and shove me away. More than once, I ended up on my backside in the dirt.

Once, I tried the sweetness angle, and attempted to bring him water when I knew he was getting thirsty from the effort of so much physical activity. In gratitude, he spat a thick gob into the glass, and upended the spoiled liquid on my head.

"Go away, little baby." He said mockingly, as I dripped in shock and shame. He crowed at my expense, "Look at wet puppy. Useless thing. Go piss in corner." Several of the men joined his laughter.

I crawled away from the humiliation.

Later on, but true to his promise of finding me something to do, Rijeka led me to a little library on the grounds. The books were old, and of no particular topic. I guessed many of the books were merely bits of random reading material left there by past recruits. Of great interest to me were the personal diaries and journals that remained. Some of which looked hundreds of years old, and ready to crumble to dust.

Books had always been my escape. Reading a book was the only time I didn't feel like the broken thing I was. Rijeka had found me the perfect distraction.

In those books, I learned there was a reason none of the Ushindi were Muslim. Muslim males are forbidden to become eunuchs, though eunuchs of other cultures were often revered and even sought after.

The Ushindi I knew, were the inheritors of the eunuch generals of old, who trained the soldiers of the historical Sheikhs and Sultans. Men who stood above all others, except for the Sheikhs themselves.

The Ushindi were a proud history going back hundreds, if not thousands of years. They were soldiers, and guardians of peace. In the last hundreds of years their numbers had dwindled to the dozen or so men left in that compound. Yet their pride in service was undeterred. They had come from all over the world looking for purpose in who they were as eunuchs. Who they were as people in their own skins.

The history of those men were truly fascinating. It made me long all the more to be one of them.

When Rijeka realized I had a knack for language, he encouraged me to translate some of the tomes from French, Farsi, or Arabic to English. He found me some clean paper, and journals to write in, and I found it kept me busy and out from underfoot, when I wasn't buzzing around Peotr and the rest while they trained.

Reading and translating old documents could only hold my attention for so long though. Each day over the following weeks, I tried again to ingratiate myself with the stubborn mule of a man, Peotr. None of my attempts had any success. He mocked and punished my every attempt.

Dinner time was especially difficult. Everyone was expected to attend meals in the mess hall. There was no avoiding Peotr's mocking me, and no avoiding the jabs he seemed to take such pleasure in dispensing. When he wasn't shoving me away, he was humiliating me in front of the other men.

During supper, he would steal food off of my plate, and dangle it just out of my reach. "Jump puppy," he'd taunt me. "Little baby, jump for your supper."

Because we weren't allowed seconds, and our food was strictly rationed, his meaty fistful of my meal could mean I would go hungry until morning. Trying to ignore it didn't help. If I ignored him, he would contaminate my purloined food with something disgusting, or simply eat it himself. Even allowing this, there was no guarantee he wouldn't just wait until breakfast to repeat the process.

I was amazed by the cruelty of the group. Like Rijeka, individually they could be okay sorts of people, yet no-one stepped in to stop his cruel antics. If anything, they actually egged Peotr into humiliating me, and laughed whenever he succeeded.

After weeks, when I felt there was no end to my torment, I found José on his balcony. "Can't you make him stop?" I pleaded to him because he seemed to be the head of the men in the compound. I was sure if anyone could bring Peotr to heel, it would be José .

José considered me on his balcony as I laid out my complaint. When I finished he said simply, "No."

"What do you mean, no?" I asked, stunned by his indifference.

"You may have noticed," he explained, "there isn't much to do out here, except to train, and look at the sand dunes. These men have already denied themselves their sex to become what they are. They find entertainment where they will. If that means mocking and humiliating a spoiled little rich boy for a few weeks, I don't see the harm. If you want it to stop, then you are going to have to do it yourself. Frankly, I don't have time to babysit a self absorbed little emo brat, so he doesn't get his precious feelings hurt."

His words were a horrendous slap to what little there was left of my innocence. I was on my own.

No-one would come to save me. José had already told me, it could be weeks or even months until someone might come to get me. In the desert compound, there were no phones, no computers, and supplies were infrequent at best. It was an isolated island of crumbling buildings in the desert. It didn't appear on any map. I could not cry out for help. I was trapped, with no hope of escape.

As deserving of punishment as I was, I couldn't take it.

The creature in the back of my mind was again shaking the bars of its cage. I felt very close to the edge of losing control. It was all I could do to slink away to my broom closet without letting it control me, and further embarrass myself by throwing a tantrum like a toddler.

Once there, I took out some of the writing paper Rijeka had given me for translations, and began to pen a letter. I had no idea if, or how, I would ever send it, but I used it as a lifeline to pour out my soul. I had no idea why, but I addressed it to the only person who was ever on my mind, Hanna.

When I was finished writing, I heard the dinner bell sounding. I hung my head for a few moments, before making my way to the mess hall. I left my letter to Hanna on my bed. I had said all I needed to say.

In the mess hall, I was surprised to see that neither José nor Peotr were there. I wishfully allowed myself to think José had taken Peotr aside, and was telling him not to bully me any-more, after-all. Then I saw the two of them come in. They were laughing with each other, and José was slapping Peotr's back encouragingly. It took me a moment to realize what they were laughing about.

Peotr had my letter.

"Listen to this," Peotr announced to the group. "This is funny stuff, here." As he read my words, he raised his vocals to mock my little boy voice. "My Dearest Hanna, how I miss you."

The men all crowded around Peotr, as if he was reading from Moses' stone tablets of the ten commandments. I felt my face go white hot.

He went on, "I miss your touch and your kiss." He made kissing sounds, wet and sloppy. "I was wrong to lie to you, and wrong to keep the truth from you. It is the greatest regret of my life." Peotr mimed wiping a tear from his eye. "So Touching," he said, before going on. "You are the Sun and stars to me, and I am in darkness every moment without you."

My attempt at poetry provoked huge guffaws from the men. Peotr was nearly breathless from laughing so hard.

As he ploughed through my words, I felt the world go hazy, and before I knew it, I was running from the mess hall to my room.

As the slat door closed behind me, and the hot tears burned tracks down my cheeks, I began to draw my breath deeper and deeper. With each burst of warm oxygen I felt my emotions cool and settle. I rested my hand on scar on my side. It twinged.

"Remember to breath." I heard my mother saying, so long ago, and so far away. I try to use her words to calm myself. Slowly, I more-or-less get myself under control.

Despite my calm, the creature in my mind, the monster I truly was, still shook and gnawed at the bars of the prison I had made for it. It would no longer be ignored. For the first time, I spoke to it.

"You want out?" I asked it.

In response it seemed to pause, and go silent in its cage.

Yes, it wanted out.

"All right then," I told it in my mind, "You're gonna get your wish, you piece of shit."

From the corner of the room, where the old broken broom handles were leaning, I made my selections. A short cane of hardwood was my first choice. The weight felt good in my hand.

Other bits of sturdy wood, I chose for their length, and my ability to conceal them under my clothes. I aligned the sticks just under my pant-legs and sleeves, tied along my shins and forearms with bits of cloth. I stood, and was content they did not show.

It only took me a few moments to prepare myself. Cool of head, and full of purpose, I strode back into the mess hall. Peotr was still reading from my letter, encouraged by mocking laughs from all the rest.

"I am lost and all alone here," Peotr filled my words with over-dramatic emphasis. "I feel like a ship without a rudder on a churning sea."

Almost unnoticed, I walked directly to Peotr's side. He glanced up at me. "Oh look." he announced, "Baby Shakespeare returns for his encore."

When I saw his eyes, I opened the door to the cage, and let the thing with no name run free. It didn't disappoint.

My short cane came down squarely on the bridge of Peotr's nose. There was a sickening crack and blood sprayed from his nostrils like a fountain. He spilled over backward in his seat. I was on top of him in a heartbeat.

Even surprised by my attack, Peotr was heavily trained in hand to hand combat. As I landed atop him, his great fist shot out for my sternum.

With the creature free, I felt I had ages of time to watch what was happening, as though the entire world was in slow motion. As soon as Peotr's fist began to clench, I reminded the monster within me of the many times we had watched him sparring. I knew exactly where his fist was about to go.

Responding to my slightest thought, the creature raised my knee to block, and Peotr's fist instead impacted on the length of hardwood along my shin. I could hear his knuckles cracking as they hit something unyielding.

Peotr's sudden kick would have sent a larger man to the floor. Being light and small, his kick had a different effect on me. I and the creature moved with it, launching into the air, and coming down on Peotr with even more force. The cane, and my full momentum connected with his forehead, and a terrible gash opened up.

Peotr rolled, and threw me to the side. I rolled with it, as easily as if I had sprung off the swing in a playground. I was on my feet, ready for my next attack, as Peotr made it to his hands and knees.

"Look," he managed to say as he straightened up on his knees. "Baby's got a temper."

As he straightened up I threw myself to him. The beast inside wanted only to leap back into the fray, but at the last moment I altered my trajectory. Instead of leaping as though to do injury, I threw myself at him with no attempt to do harm. The way that, as a little child, I might have thrown myself into my mother's arms.

The action caught Peotr off guard, and some paternal instinct compelled him to catch me. As he did, I again unleashed the rotten thing at my core, and both elbows, concealing rods of hard wood came crashing down onto his skull. He sprawled backward, and I again rolled off of him. Blood from his face and head were running freely. In seconds the crimson river had occluded his vision. His great hands pawed blindly at empty space.

Again, instead of simply allowing the beast to rage unchecked, I remembered the hand to hand combat I had witnessed so often the last weeks. I knew the spots the men aimed for. Kidneys, throat, knees, across the ear, the back of the neck. Knowing where to strike, the beast was unerring.

Though I was less than a third of the man's weight, I had speed on my side. Neither his arms nor his kicks could connect. Even when they came too close to me, I could simply ride the momentum out of harms way, only to dance in to deliver yet another blow.

Though it seemed to last ages, it must have only been a few seconds of real combat. In those seconds, Peotr was lying sprawled on his back, copious amounts of his blood staining the floor. He was panting, unable to draw breath through the pain I was unleashing on him. With one arm he was shielding his head, with the other he was imploring me to stop.

"Spassiba," he was saying, as he pleaded for me to stop. "Spassiba."

José was suddenly between me and my target. His hands were up, and he was trying to hold the attention of my wild eyes with his cool ones.

"Calm Jason." he said. "Calm. You have won. Do you hear me? You've won."

Cooling enough to again understand the words that were being spoken to me, yet unwilling to re-cage the creature within, I growled, "What is he saying?"

José glanced over his shoulder to the mound of bleeding flesh that was Peotr. "He's saying, thank-you."

"Thank-you?" I threw it back. "Why the hell would he thank me?"

José's face became serious, "Because he didn't know if he could continue to be so cruel to you. Because you finally fought back. He's thanking you because it is finally over."

"What are you talking about?" I was slowly becoming aware of a thousand tiny aches spreading across my body. As the adrenaline drained, I could feel the beast slowly retreat to its cage. This time, I didn't lock the door.

"You are here to be trained." José explained. "But we couldn't train you until you were willing to fight for yourself."

José paused to see that the other men tended to Peotr's wounds. He managed to stand unaided, and they walked him out of the mess hall. Once he was gone José sat down and motioned for me to join him. I did so cautiously, ready to unleash the creature again if needed.

"Our brother Xolani told us about your suffering. He said you were no longer yourself. You had lost the will to be yourself. He sent you to us so that we might help you see your own worth. But we can't do that until you are willing to stand up for yourself."

I was dumbstruck. "This was a test?"

"I'm sorry it went on for so long." José admitted. "We didn't know it would take so long for you to come out of your shell."

I was staring, horrified at Peotr's blood on the floor. "I was going to kill him."

"I know," José agreed. "We know what you were forced to do. We know how you were forced to kill to save yourself before." His eyes were full of a familiar darkness. "I know what it is to kill. I know the thing that forever lives inside you once you are forced to take a life. It is a terrible burden for a child to bear."

Despite the heat of the evening, I felt something cold slide down my spine. He knew the creature that was within me. By his eyes, I knew there was such a creature living within him too. I finally recognized the real reason I thought there was something familiar about the man when I first met him. I thought it was his similarity to Xolani, but it was my own reflection he was most like.

"You needed to learn how to control the thing inside you, or it would destroy you. Believe me, I know. You needed to use it… to choose it. Not for someone else's sake, but for yourself if you were to ever be truly free."

José's arm was around my small shoulders, and it was all I could do not to cry. Breathing helped.

"Tell me," he asked. "Is it still there?"

I nodded.

"Does it control you, or do you control it?"

I felt the rage and hate and darkness lurking ever present in my mind. The bars of its cage stood open, but it made no move to escape. For the first time I felt it would remain there until called. That it was ready and willing to do my bidding. It didn't feel so much like I was in control, but that we had an agreement. It would not be chained, but it would serve me.

"I don't know." I said.

José smiled. "That is a good answer. For you to truly be free, you must accept the part of you, you are hiding from. It is a part of you, and it can be your strength if you let it. It doesn't need to be your destruction. It only wants to be your salvation."

This time, I no longer held myself from crying. I fell into José's arms, and for the second time in my life, I truly wept. José held me tenderly, and I think I was aware that he wept with me. He shared my tears in a way no one had ever done before. For the first time since Hanna left me, I no longer felt alone. He wept with me until my storm finally settled.

At the end of my tears, José released me, and I stood briefly before sitting down again. I ached all over, but I knew I was in much better shape than Peotr was. I wondered if he would live.

When it was clear that I was again myself, José called to the door. "You can all come back now."

All of the Ushindi filed back into the room, even Peotr, who looked a lot better with his cuts bandaged, and the blood washed off his face and clothes. Peotr came over to me, and embraced me in a massive bear hug. When he released me, there were tears in his eyes. They streamed down around his mashed nose.

"I'm so sorry." I told him, grateful he was going to be all right.

The big man wiped his tears, and patted my shoulder. "Don't be sorry." he said in his booming voice. "Never be sorry. I am proud of you."

All the men sat around myself, and José. José looked them over and announced. "Tonight we have a new member. Another Ushindi is born." As he spoke he took on an air of great solemness. "With a birth, comes the name." He looked at me. "Ushindi, will you please stand."

I did so feeling unsteady on my feet.

"I hereby name you…" He paused as I saw his mind working. Suddenly a light came on in his eyes. "Delacaña."

I didn't understand him at all. How had he arrived at that name for me? Though Spanish wasn't one of my languages I was pretty sure it meant, delicate.

José explained. "In my language delacaña can mean sugarcane, or something sweet. But, also de-la-caña means of-the-cane." José looked to me, and drew my attention to my own hands.

I was still gripping the cane I had used to beat Peotr bloody. Sticks of wood. The Ushindi were laughing, and I finally knew why. The sticks I had concealed under my sleeves and pant legs, were showing through now. The weapons I had chosen had decided my name.

I saw myself through their eyes. On the outside I was an eleven year old child. I looked like any other prepubescent boy. Something innocent. Something sweet. Underneath, though, I was something different. There was something unyielding. Of-the-cane. Delacaña. Delicate, with something hard below the surface.

In that moment I became who I really was. Not a child. Not a monster. Not something flawed and unworthy. Not a monster in a cage, but simply myself.

At long last I was Jason again. But Jason had become something more. I was something that could sustain myself, and be free.

I had become Delacaña.

At last, I began my training in earnest.

The Ushindi worked with me to hone a style all my own. Not the broad angular strokes that Xolani used, or the wrecking ball style Peotr used, but short defined jabs and hits meant to take down a foe quickly and safely. They worked to design a fighting style that used the asset of my looks and size to draw an enemy in close, so I could deliver an incapacitating strike.

I had to use the part of myself I had so long tried to cage. Delacaña was a part of me. It needed to be free for me to do what they taught me. I learned when to call it, and when to put it away. It was as José said, it was a part of myself. It was like an animal, but an animal that only wanted to please me. The more I called on it to work for me, the more obediant it became. Also, the more confident I became as Delacaña, the more the Ushindi challenged me.

They taught me close-up weapons. Dagger, knife, garrotte. Items that best used my speed and small size to maximum advantage.

I learned firearms too. Long shunned by my family as too violent, I had had little experience with such things, other than to fear them. Yet, now I took to them straight away, and without that fear. I became particularly deadly against coke cans in the desert. As long as I had a decent scope, and there wasn't too much wind.

At the end of my summer, I was perhaps not yet truly deadly or proficient, but empowered, and self confident.

I felt strong.

When at last, the time came to leave, I shed tears of brotherhood with my fellow Ushindi. Peotr embraced me, and cried rolling tears that he told me were most manly. I didn't believe him for a second.

I promised to return every summer from then on. I would have stayed, but being Delacaña meant I also needed to be Jason. I had to live that life too, or I would never be complete.

Prince Shahriar himself came to collect me. He embraced me, and begged my forgiveness for the ruse. He had truly desired to be with me all that summer, but had been overridden by Xolani and the other Ushindi. He had been forbidden from even seeing me, should my love for him have proven too much for him to abandon me.

He admitted that if I had begged him not to leave me with the Ushindi, he would not have been able to refuse me.

I forgave him instantly. They'd handled everything exactly right.

I spent the last lazy weeks of my summer with him, lounging on his yacht in the Mediterranean. He told me he was pleased with my progress, noticing that I seemed to have finally found my center.

He was right.

Coming to terms with myself and what lived inside, I found I could even allow myself to feel passion for the powerful man who meant so much to what I had become. It had been a long time since I had been able.

During a quiet night on a calm sea, I found him in the ship's lounge stretched out on a large couch. As he valued knowledge, he often stayed up late to read. I'd seen the light, and I'd known I would find him there.

His servants, and the ship's crew were all asleep. The yacht was anchored in a secluded cove, far from civilization. We would not be disturbed.

I was wearing the light Arabian robes he had provided for me. They were better in the heat, and more suited to the humidity of the seas all around. One didn't have to wear anything underneath. The soft fabric left room for the air to circulate, and the body stayed cool and comfortable.

He was leaning back on his couch, fully engrossed in his tome. He was as I always pictured him, still wearing his immaculate suit and tie.

I cleared my throat.

He looked up at me from his reading. His face was full of concern and compassion.

"Sahib," he asked, "Did you have a nightmare?"

I shook my head. Nightmares were behind me.

Shahriar had been nothing but a friend to me. He had collected me from the Ushindi, and continued to treat me, not as though we had once been intimate, but simply as dear friends.

He would walk with me, with an arm around my shoulders. He would give me hugs and give me praise. He complimented me on how grown-up I had become. He was parental, and reserved. Though I could tell he wanted me, he never made an unwanted move. I accepted his praise and his love, finally willing to recognize a portion of my own worth.

There was nothing special about that night. We had talked through the day as friends. We had shared extravagant meals that never seemed to end. He had told me jokes and stories, and I didn't have to force my laugh. There was no reason, other than I knew I needed it.

As he stared at me from over his book. I dropped my robes.

He drank in the sight of my small and hairless body. I could see him stiffen with attention. He put the book aside.

I stalked closer, and his attention remained fixed. I could see the longing in his eyes.

The creature inside me tingled with want, and I moved with it.

That thing inside me, that had once had no name, was no longer chained. Delacaña responded to my needs and desires. It wanted only to protect me. It wanted only to please me. We were as one.

Shortly, I was atop the prince. I removed his tie, and unbuttoned his shirt. He was as hairy as I remembered. I ran my fingers through his curls.

His hands hesitated before he touched me. I gave him a nod, and he proceeded. He was quiet. He was respectful.

Whenever he hesitated, the creature pushed forward. It entreated us both to action because it knew I needed it.

I knew if I asked the creature to withdraw and stop, that it would. I could put my robe back on, and walk away. Delacaña would not be chained, but it would do what I asked of it. We were no longer imprisoned by each other. We shared a singular purpose.

The prince became ever more emboldened. What he had been afraid to damage or to corrupt, he now embraced. He hadn't wanted to push me. He would have been content if I had refused him.

In moments, his fine clothing soon found itself on the floor with my robe. The last of his doubts fell away to his desire.

He didn't ask me or take me, I simply gave myself to him. I wasn't his slave, and never could be, but I could enjoy our time together as we once did. I could indulge in the passion of being close with someone who cared for me.

It was unconditional. It felt so good to simply share the pleasures of another body. Though I didn't love him as I loved Hanna, I loved him nonetheless.

There was no electricity, and no detonation for me. Yet, at long last there was real pleasure. It was still small and far away, but not as far out of my reach as it had been.

His gratitude after was humbling. He promised to give me anything my heart desired.

I told him only that he should always be my friend, and that would be enough. I'm sure if I had asked it, he'd have given me his entire fortune. For me though, his friendship and our connection was worth more than any monetary reward, or any elaborate demonstration the prince was capable of.

I was grateful to again know the pleasure of sharing contact with someone who loved me. I was alive and no longer fully broken.

The prince dismissed his crew and servants for the remainder of our time together. We stayed secluded in his cabin for a long time, only rising to eat, or bathe, or take care of bodily need.

Though my peace was incomplete, what was missing would no longer destroy me.

Becoming Delacaña had placed me on the path I needed to be on. It wasn't the end of my journey, but a new path. It was a path I thought I could finally endure.

Chapter Twenty-Six
Finding My Balance

Shahriar, my dear friend, my Sahib, took every advantage my parents would allow to have me travel with him. He expected nothing in return but my friendship. He exposed me to cultures, and thoughts, I never would have otherwise envisioned.

I treasured our time together.

Never once did he force himself on me. He was always patient. He always waited for me to make the first move. I did so often, knowing it was not expected of me.

For two months a year, I continued my training with my Ushindi brothers. After my fourth summer with them, they declared my training complete. There were new members to train, and new tests to give. I hoped Peotr could withstand them. He was really more gentle than he appeared.

Over the years the numbers of Ushindi rose. Their ranks swollen to almost three dozen strong. One by one they came. Each in some way broken, each in their own way trying to be free. None were turned away.

I was aware that an acceptance of eunuchs was slowly pervading the world. They were becoming more common. Or, if not common, more were choosing not to hide any longer. Though change was gradual, it seemed the world was slowly shifting to accept people like me.

I was hearing rumours of the practice even becoming more accepted for children. Here and there, minds were opening to the reality, that not all people are not suited to puberty and its pitfalls. I doubted it would ever be common, but the truth I already knew was at last being shared. Some people are not fully whole until they sacrifice a small part of themselves.

In the fall before my eighteenth birthday, I returned home, feeling as though Delacaña and Jason were finally in balance.

It was purely by accident I saw her.

My parents were taking me through a local mall to purchase new clothes, and books for the upcoming year. We happened to pass the food-court, and she was there.

She was dressed in a trendy leather and lace, that made her look like a pop singer from the nineteen-eighties.

All the teenagers had been wearing such styles lately. I didn't know if it they were wearing the styles ironically, or not. Either way, I didn't understand teenagers or their sensibilities. I was something different. Not a child, and not an adult either. Teenagers made no sense to me.

It had been over three years since I had seen her. In that time I had envisioned that she had stayed just the same as I remembered. It was a shock to realize my mental image was so dated.

She was draped around some young stud, and absent-mindedly played with his earlobes. He was paying her almost no attention at all, as he jabbered with his friends.

The vision of her suddenly unhinged my world. She had developed breasts and hips. She was the very image of sexual health, and budding maturity. Her blond hair remained as stunning as ever. Her green eyes were just as piercing.

No matter how much strength I thought I had found, seeing how much she had changed reminded me how much I had not. I was forever frozen as a child, something to be dismissed, and ignored. Something not completely formed.

I felt my steps falter, and my mother caught my arm.

"What's the matter sweetie?" she asked.

Seeing Hanna across a food court, draped on some other guy's arm wasn't the way I envisioned seeing her again. I lied to my mother, "I'm not feeling very well. I think I'd like to just go home."

Whether they bought my lie or not, my parents didn't argue the point. They simply helped me out of the mall, and back to our car.

Though they loved me and cared for me, they allowed me to keep some parts of myself private. They did not intrude.

Back at our home. I felt myself in pieces. After so long, why was it she could still have such an effect on me?

It wasn't but a few minutes before I was tearing my room apart in dismay. I emptied drawers, and dumped out boxes from the back of my closet until I found it.

The pages were somewhat yellowed, and there was still the marks of a fine spray of dried blood from Peotr's nose across the bottom of the sheets. It was my letter to Hanna, written during my time in the desert, in that loneliest of moments.

I took a breath, and began to read;

My Dearest Hanna,

How I miss you. I miss your touch and your kiss.

I was wrong to lie to you, and wrong to keep the truth from you. It is the greatest regret of my life.

You are the Sun and stars to me, and I am in darkness every moment without you.

Of all the people in my life, you are the most important. You, who crossed a city, and defied your parents to save me. You, who never laughed at me for what I am, who loved me despite my flaws, and never once made me feel like the broken thing I really am.

I can never thank you enough for what you have given me.

I must confess one final truth to you. I didn't save us that night. That night, I was ready to die. All my hope had gone, and I could feel that everything I was, was about to be extinguished. I was too weak to fight, and I knew it.

It was your voice that called me out of it. It was your voice that gave me the strength. You only said one thing. In your screams I heard my name. I heard you say, "Jason".

When you called to me, I ceased to be my own, and became eternally yours. One word from you, and what I was, was ended.

We survived that terrible night, only for one reason.

You called my name.

When you called out to me in the darkness, I knew nothing was impossible to me. I knew I would save you. I knew we would walk out of that place.

It was you who saved me.

Even with a knife in my side, and my lung collapsing, it was you that were my breath. I couldn't die until I knew you were safe.

The need to know you were free from harm has been the only thing that has kept me going. I have been a ghost of myself without you, but I continue to haunt the living world, only because I know you are in it.

But I feel that is finally at an end.

I am lost and all alone here. I feel like a ship without a rudder on a churning sea.

I'm not good enough to even be accepted amongst my own kind. I don't think I can survive this, and I no longer want to.

Without your voice to call my name, there is no meaning.

I will never stop loving you. You are imprinted on my soul, and I only hope I can take your imprint of love to the next life.

Remember me fondly if you can, and know that should I take my last breath in this world, that breath will be your name.

I love you Hanna,

Jason

Before that terrible Halloween night. Before the death of Doctor Freidmont, or her father. Before all our innocence was dashed to pieces, we had shared a moment of true happiness.

No longer locked to me, I walked into our basement room. It was unchanged. Everything was where I remembered to be.

It wasn't the sex toys, or the jacuzzi, not the big bed in the back, or the lounge chairs, but the piano I found myself at.

I opened up the seat, and brought out the songbooks I found there. I flipped through them one by one, until I found it. The Nat King Cole Beginner Play-book.

A dozen melodies, but only one we had shared that night. Such a funny little tune, that my dad had called 'the monkey song'. I remembered us playing it, and I knew as I remembered, that I still wasn't over Hanna.

It was the final piece of myself I was hiding from. I would never be complete until I faced it.

I still loved Hanna.

I could almost see her standing next to the piano as I trembled, afraid to be playing in front of so many people. She had been fearless, and wouldn't let me chicken out, or ruin the performance.

"Smile." she said to me, as she elbowed my ribs. "Just smile."

It was her upbeat attitude that gave me the courage to play. And when I did, I was lifted away into something truly wonderful. Something I hadn't felt since.

As I remembered that little moment, my finger fell to one of the songs near the back of the book. It would have been too advanced for me when I was eleven, but it seemed appropriate now.

I lay my letter to Hanna on the piano ledge, and beside it, I opened the songbook.

Somehow, my fingers made their way to the keys, and I began to play.

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking

That's what I had been doing all the time since I had first chosen to hide the truth from Hanna. It was what I had done to survive.

When there are clouds in the sky,
you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through
for you

Was I still just hoping she'd come back to me? Was I doing nothing but pining for something to come back, that was gone for good?

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear
may be ever so near

Was I living my life just so I didn't have to face the reality? Was the lie, the balance I had found, when deep inside, there never could be balance?

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

I had never stopped loving Hanna. I couldn't let her go, even if she had left me behind, and moved on. Her love was still a part of me. Her love had made me what I was, and I refused to accept that it was love that was destroying me.

I refused to be destroyed by love.

Hanna's love had been my strength. If she never remembered that. If she never returned to me, I could take it. I had found a way to live for my own sake, and would continue to do so.

As I played the instrumental part, I felt the warmth of true peace come over me.

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

And in spite of myself, I found at the end of the song, I was in fact smiling. It was an honest smile, from deep within.

I had loved Hanna. I would always love Hanna. Miles, or years apart, my love for her would never diminish.

What had been a locked door to me was opened because I loved her. Of all the moments in my life, the most important were only because of her.

The simple act of a ten year old Hanna touching my shrinky-dink on that cold September day so long ago, had unleashed feelings that brought me closer to my mother and father. It had brought me to my lifelong friendships with Xolani, and Shahriar.

It was that love that sent me across vast oceans to meet my brothers the Ushindi, just so I could learn to live again. It was that love that had kept me alive when all else seemed at an end.

I knew it couldn't go on. My love for Hanna could never unbalance me again. I accepted the reality.

I played the last few refrains of the song on the piano, then finally stood, and put the music away.

The letter, I took outside, and burned. I watched the flames begin to consume it on the stone walkway around the pool. The very spot Hanna and I had once sat, daring each other to dive into the cold. I hadn't really written the letter for Hanna after all, I had written it for myself, at a time when I didn't even know my own mind.

As the letter burned and turned to ash, I inhaled the smoke, and let the words of it linger.

And then I knew it.

What mattered was the time we had shared with one another, and the strength we had given one another. Her story had briefly become tangled in my own. For a brief while, I had known her story as well as I had known my own. None of that would ever leave me. None of it could. I would always draw my strength from the love I remembered. I didn't have to let her go.

Hanna was my balance.

I felt the pleasure in that knowledge ignite inside me. I felt the last thing that I had been needing, reawaken. I enjoyed it as it coursed through my body. Electric. It was a sensation I had not felt, for almost too long to remember. My every nerve finally alighted to that simple truth. It coursed through every limb, and exploded like lightening out my fingertips. I found myself panting from the release.

She had saved me again. She would always save me.

If she never knew it, that was all right too.

Like the part of me that was Delacaña, I could not cage my feelings or be free of them, I could only accept them. It was that truth that finally, truly released me.

Before I left the room to burn the letter, I had paused, and pulled the door shut behind me. I knew I wouldn't return to that room again.

It wasn't because I thought what went on inside was wrong. Quite the contrary. I wouldn't return because simply, I had learned all I needed from that room. That room was for experimenting, and trying to find oneself in the arms of another. I no longer needed to experiment.

The door once locked to me, I finally pulled shut on my own.

I didn't need what went on there for validation.

I knew who I was, and that all I needed, I already had. Even without Hanna in my life, with Hanna in my heart, I was whole. At long last, I was content with that.

It wasn't because I thought what went on inside was wrong. Quite the contrary. I wouldn't return because simply, I had learned all I needed from that room. That room was for experimenting, and trying to find oneself in the arms of another. I no longer needed to experiment.

The door once locked to me, I now pulled shut on my own.

I didn't need what went on there for validation.

I knew who I was, and that all I needed, I already had. I was whole. At long last, I was content with that.

Epilogue

True. I still look like a boy of about eleven, maybe twelve or thirteen in the right light, and depending on whether I am sitting or standing. It's why Professor Venkhoff will never accept me. I still look like the precocious child I was so long ago.

How can someone who looks so young know anything? How could I possibly have worthwhile life experiences to share? He thinks I am a child, simply because he can't get past what he sees in front of him.

It was what I myself had been unable to look past. I was unfinished, incomplete and worthless. I couldn't see that I had any value. I still wrestle with that, and Venkhoff constantly reminds me of it.

In my own way, I have taken control of my life. I have accepted who I am. I should never have let him get to me. His opinion doesn't matter.

I can still find pleasure in my body, and the bodies of others. I have no insatiable drive like all those who've gone through puberty, but though I haven't, I'm not dead. Each day may not be an adventure, but I can own it. I can possess the day and seize it with both hands. With each breath I confirm I still have hope and something to reach for. I am my own.

I find as I type, that I have sat here in the shadow of this old oak tree an entire night, and it is now a new day. My thoughts drove me further than I imagined possible. Once I started to put my thoughts into words, I found so much needing to be said. So many words I'd held onto all this time, begging for an outlet.

I finally stand out of my nest of grass and roots. I stretch. I feel my muscles complain and protest. Even with a lack of sleep, I feel excited and ready for anything.

I look over the English landscape. I see the sun climbing into the sky past the thick clouds that meander through an endless azure dome. Hedge-rows and thickets dot the green earth. There are birds singing, and the rustle of leaves tells me the world is good.

The thought of Professor Venkhoff is no longer bothering me. Though he thinks I am a child with no life experience, and is desperate to expose me as such, I no longer care.

He can't invalidate my life. Only I can do that, and I choose not to.

I still don't much like him, but I can forgive him. He's forced me to face it all. Look back as an adult and see my childhood, and all I lived through, with new eyes… Adult eyes.

Was this all just another test?

No. I'll never be an adult in my body. I'll never feel a need to thrust my hips and conquer sexually as others do. I do not need to shave. My hairline does not recede. My shoulders have never broadened. I've managed to stay thin, but I have never been overly muscular. I am a small and insignificant thing on the outside.

My mind however, is mine. My decisions are mine. The air I breathe belongs to me. Each new breath is something I cherish, and I am aware of my choice to draw another, and then another. Life is precious.

What greater mark of adulthood could there be, but to choose to be alive?

As I stretch and take in my surroundings, I see… No, that is not right. First I hear a familiar sound.

There is a trademark grinding of gears I have come to know quite well. It is coming closer. Once I recognize the sound, only then do I see it bouncing into my proximity.

She's really not a terrific driver.

When I first arrived here in England, I had come alone. I was a friendless child in an alien land. It was something I had never done before.

Sure, I had travelled through the Middle East. I had taken advantage of all those invitations to travel the world with Prince Shahriar, and I was far from defenceless. Wherever I went though, I had always had a chaperone. There was always someone looking out for me.

Deciding to take my university classes at Oxford was something I wanted to do for myself. I needed to try a place in the world where there wasn't someone waiting to rescue me, guide me, or house me. I needed to be free of my parents and their friends. For the first time, I needed to prove I could make my way in the world myself.

Accepting a scholarship in England seemed right. I'd thought of it as a way to take those adult steps I needed to. Living in a country entirely on my own, where each experience was something of my own making.

My first weeks were lonely, and I was terribly uncertain.

Then, she found me.

Overly gregarious, afraid of nothing, she had inserted herself into my life without being asked. I had met her at a café in the small South-England town I was exploring. I think the café was called The Lemon Tree.

I had been reading my latest notes from my classes when she suddenly sat down, uninvited, at my table. She sussed me out completely before she had even finished sitting.

"You're one of those boys who's had the thing done so he can never make it with a girl." She said it as a statement, not a question.

"P-pardon?" I stammered.

"You've had that thing done to your privates, so you can't ever make a baby," she rephrased it confidently, and none too quietly.

I swear, the Brits sure do have a way with wording things.

"Uhh…" Despite castration becoming more accepted in the world, it still wasn't something I chose to broadcast.

"Oh, don't worry," she told me. "I know lots of boys like you. It's not so uncommon any-more."

I put down my reading and finally assessed her. She was eighteen or so, and as forward a person as I had ever met. Beautiful, dark haired, and opinionated. I'd come to expect the Brits to be subtle and subdued. Subtle, she was not.

"No," I agreed quietly. "I guess it is not so uncommon now-a-days. But how did you know?"

She adjusted her mini skirt, and I got a flash of black panties. I felt my face go hot.

"I'm what you might call a horsey person," she replied mockingly. "I take pride in being able to spot a gelding."

I rolled my eyes.

"It is all in how you cross your legs," she explained. "Intact boys can't cross them that tightly." Her eyes were dancing mischievously. "Well, that, and boys with balls don't have the concentration to read seventeenth century French literature."

She was absent-mindedly playing with the spine of my book with the tip of her fingers, fingers with nails painted candy-apple red. "Too much testosterone muddling their brains," she explained. "They can't even concentrate long enough to satisfy a girl. All they wanna do is stick it in, then it's all, oooh, uuugh, and it's over. Tragic really."

I put my books away, out of her reach, and self consciously uncrossed my legs. "Keep it down, would ya?" I told her.

She waved my concerns away with a flip of her hands. "Lighten up. No-one cares. Say. You're not a Brit are you?"

"No," I admitted. "I'm American."

"I thought as much," she noted. "Knew from that accent you had to be from cross the pond. How long have you been in Jolly ol' England?"

"Two weeks."

"Oohh," she gasped. "Where are you staying?"

"Oxford." I admitted. "I took the train down here. I thought I'd do a little exploring."

"Oxford?" she pondered. "You are at Oxford… University?"

"Well, yes. Is that a problem?"

She considered my child-like form for only a moment. "Are you some kind of Wunderkind?"

"Something like that." I admitted.

"Anyone showing you around?"

"I'm kind-of on my own."

She suddenly grabbed my hand and hauled me up. I struggled to grab my books and bag, as she dragged me out of the café to the street.

"Congratulations, little mister America. You've found yourself a guide."

I struggled pathetically to compose myself, and catch up as she hauled me along. "I don't even know your name," I protested.

"Oh." She stopped in the street, and looked down at me like I was a moron. "I'm Melanie. Melanie Scott-Hamilton."

From that day, almost a year ago, Melanie had inserted herself into my life. She became my confidant, sharing in my secrets. She helped me find my apartment. She even appeared one day to present me with my yellow Vespa moped, so I could be a bit more independent. I could hardly get a thing done without her showing up, and taking control. I didn't mind though. She turned out to be a fine friend.

A friend was something I had been sorely needing.

It's her Land Rover I now see bouncing down the British back roads. Clutch burning, gears grinding. How the hell has she found me?

When the Rover stops, I hear the clutch slip and it lurches forward almost taking down the ancient stone wall beside where I parked my Vespa. There is another sound of grinding gears, and I can smell the burning of the solenoid. Finally the Rover bucks to a stop, and the engine at last goes silent.

Melanie springs out, and fluffs her hair. She hollers up at me, "There you are. We've been looking around for you for hours."

"How did you find me?" I shout down the hill.

"My boyfriend has some mates who are wizard on computers. They hacked your tablet, for the GPS signal."

I look back at my tablet resting on the tall root. Almost the last of my words for my memoir have been saved to its memory. Traitor, I think at it. Figures, she'd find a way to track me, even into my solitude on the English countryside.

"Well," I demand, as I walk down the grassy incline. "What's so damn important?"

Melanie looks pointedly back at her Rover. She tilts her head in its direction. "Someone was worried about you."

The passenger side door opens quietly, and a blonde angel steps out. She's not as tall as Melanie, but she is more gorgeous to me than any other person I have known. Her green eyes are reddened from crying, and I feel my heart nearly pound out of my chest.

We fly to each other.

Hanna is crying, and I'm not sure if they are tears of sorrow or joy.

"Hanna," I speak, when she releases me. "I thought you were in Atlanta, visiting your mom and your grandma."

She grips my hands tightly, and I feel the electricity in her touch. "I had to come back right away. Jason, I just had to tell you the news."

I am momentarily lost in her eyes. I know instantly, hers are tears of profound joy.

Hanna and I are never parted for very long. We had tried. Oh, how we had tried. When she left me at fourteen, so many people had told me to let her go, and that it was over. I moved on with my life as best as I was able. I tried to live Xolani's words and set her free. In my heart though, I never could. Nor had Hanna ever been able to truly set me free, either.

What I hadn't said in the last chapter of my memoirs, was that three years after she left me, she had returned.

In her time away she had tried valiantly to be all those things the world expected of her. She had tried to date normal boys, and tried to be a normal teenager. She had tried to put aside all the trauma, and terror of her childhood. She had tried to love again. But like me, her heart was already filled.

Her childhood was a part of who she was, and eventually she had to stop running from it. Once she came out of the tumultuous time that was her teenage confusion, she returned.

There had been no great romantic gesture for our reunion, no heroic situation for two lost souls to conquer. It almost seemed there was no great story to tell about how we got back together. It was simple. One day just before my eighteenth birthday, she merely showed up at my door.

She had seen me from across the shopping mall days earlier, and all those memories came flooding back to her. When she saw me, it was as if no time had passed at all. Foolish clothes, and foolish boys instantly held no meaning for her.

In that brief moment she saw my face across the crowd, she remembered everything. She even remembered the moment when the world seemed ready to swallow her up, and she had cried out for her only lifeline, the only one that mattered.

She remembered calling my name.

It took her several days to find the nerve to come and see me.

We had stood in the doorway of my parent's house and stared at each other. Time stopped. I held my breath as she worked up the courage to speak.

She asked quietly, "Do you still love me?"

I answered her with what was in my heart, what would never, not be in my soul, "Forever and ever and always… no matter what."

Like the two of us coming up from under water, we finally took a breath, and felt the sunlight again. Our embrace was full of tears, and full of passion.

After that, we were seldom parted. An odd pair surely. We were often mistaken for brother and sister, with her the elder. What the world saw, we didn't care. Every day we were together was bliss.

It had been hard for Hanna to let me go to England on my own. She had fretted, and called almost every night. It was three long months before she could arrange her college classes to finally join me at Oxford.

They were three long and lonely months for both of us.

If it hadn't been for Melanie, I might have relented and returned to America for missing Hanna. Fortunately, Melanie wasn't one to suffer fools lightly. More than once she had had to set me straight. Once, she had actually hidden my passport, to keep me from booking a flight.

When Hanna finally arrived in Britain, she and Melanie became fast friends. There was a little tension at first, but Melanie soon put that to rest.

"Don't worry, Hanna," Melanie had said when they first met. "He's still your boy. I might be a slut, but I know better than to ride another girl's gelding."

Melanie wasn't a slut. That was her word for herself. She might be overly dramatic, and none too subtle about topics best left not discussed, but she was faithful, and most certainly not a slut.

Since Hanna's arrival, the two had become like sisters. It isn't at all surprising that Hanna should use Melanie and her connections to find me. Why though, is another question entirely.

"You're supposed to be gone for another week yet," I ask, "What on earth happened? Why are you back so soon?"

Hanna grips my hands. She is practically vibrating. "Do you remember Doctor Freidmont?"

She hasn't mentioned him in years. I glance back at my tablet, thinking of all the words I have just written, and all he meant to who I have become. "I remember him."

"Oh, Jason, he did something wonderful for us."

A heavy tear rolls easily down her cheek. I wipe it away, and contemplate the warm drops of water on my fingertips.

She is struggling with her words. "He… When you were… you know… cut. Did they ever tell you what they did with the, with your… bits?"

She is asking me if I know what happened to those tiny lumps of gristle that had been my insufficient manhood.

"No." I admit. "I assumed they were thrown away."

"Oh Jason, they weren't," she tells me breathlessly. "Doctor Freidmont saved them."

Now, I'm confused. What good could those bits of flesh be to me? I've spent more of my life without them than I remember with. Even when I had had them they were little more than dangling annoyances between my legs. I imagine those two little lumps floating in a bottle of formaldehyde, long dead and collecting dust. It all seems a little creepy, and hardly worth getting worked up over.

I ask hesitantly, "So?"

"Soooo," she draws it out. "He had them frozen at a fertility bank. He never got around to telling anyone. The bank called your parents to see if we still wanted to keep them stored. Apparently they wouldn't stay good much longer."

I don't understand why should I want them.

"Hanna," I tell her softly. "It's not like they can reattach them. I can never be a man. They're no good to me, frozen or not."

Hanna's eyes clear and I see determination there. "Jason," she says in her voice that tells me I have to listen. "Your parent's called me when they couldn't get a hold of you. Oh, why don't you ever leave your phone on? I had to make the decision for both of us."

"Hanna, please tell me what's going on."

"They couldn't store them any longer or they wouldn't have been able to get a good sample. Jason, they were able to grow your sperm."

Hanna's news hits me like a tidal wave. I feel myself swoon and fall backward. I sit down hard on the grassy hill. Hanna sits with me.

She goes on, "They were only able to make a little. Not enough to freeze, but with a little help, they could use those sperms to fertilize an egg. Jason, that's why your parents called me."

"Hanna, what did you do?"

"I gave them the eggs, silly."

My world becomes a tunnel, and it takes as many breaths as I am capable of not to lose consciousness.

"Hanna?"

"I had to act quickly, because we could only try to fertilize the eggs once. If we didn't act quickly there would never be another chance."

"And now?" I ask. I am shaking like a leaf. Trembling like the child I was so long ago, facing things too much for me to understand.

"Now," she guides one of my hands to her belly, and smiles. My hand quivers as I contemplate my future. "If it doesn't take, we have two more fertilized eggs waiting for us at the fertility bank. Enough to try two more times. But the doctors say this one looks good."

"Oh, Hanna." I am uncertain, and lost in a wash of unexpected emotion.

"Tell me you're happy. Tell me I made the right choice." she implores me.

All my once conquered fears spring back to life, and come out in a rush. I am unable to control myself. "What if it works? What if we have a son, and he's… Oh Hanna, what if he's like me?"

All the terrible things I've tried not to think about come boiling to the surface. A child like me. Someone unworthy of breeding. Someone flawed. Someone who can't be trusted with going through puberty. A frail child so different from the rest of the humanity. Never fitting in. Always an outsider, never valid.

Can I live with myself by bringing another me into the world?

Hanna holds me for a moment, almost motherly in her tenderness. She is resolved. "If he's like you?" she asks almost wistfully. "Oh my precious Jason, I pray to the sun and stars that he is exactly like you. What better man could our child ever hope to become?"

"How can I be his father? Hanna, just look at me." I stand to my, not quite five feet of stunted height and motion to myself. "How can any child call this, 'Father'?"

"You will be his father. I've never known a better man, or a more loving human being. I can't think of anyone better. Yours is the only child I could ever want, and you will be there, and your child will love you just as I do. It doesn't matter what you look like."

She stands in front of me, but a little lower on the incline so we can be eye to eye. "You have never backed down from anything in your life. You've never let an obstacle get in your way. You have always found a way. Jason, look me in the eye, and tell me you don't want this."

I look, and I know. There couldn't ever be any question. "Oh, Hanna." I exclaim. "I've never wanted anything so much in my life. Yes, for the love of god. Yes, I want this baby."

She embraces me, and forgetting herself, swings me around in her arms, lifting me off the ground, spinning me in her glee. I don't mind though. She loves me, and I love her. A child of our union will be truly blessed, however it looks to the rest of the world.

It is the fulfilment of a dream I haven't let myself have since I was ten, almost eleven years old. That far off game of 'Mommy, Daddy and Baby' we played when we were little, no longer seems such an impossibility.

Melanie clears her throat to remind us she is still there. "Well, I'm beginning to feel a bit of a third wheel. I should be trundling off."

Hanna and I thank her, and hug her for her friendship. "You know, little papa-to-be," Melanie addresses me with a candy-apple red fingernail to the chest. "You're gonna have to be getting a job to support the family."

"I guess so." I admit.

"If you're still thinking of doing that whole author-writer thing, I think I can help."

"Oh, yeah?"

"You know my boyfriend?"

How could I not? I'd never met him, but if I choose to believe even half the elaborate and bragging stories Melanie tells about him, he's practically a young version of James Bond. "Simon, right?"

"That's him." she nods. "He's looking for someone to put together some of the more interesting interviews of all the alumni from his school at Southdown Hall. There'd be a good market for it, and he'd pay handsomely."

"I'll think about it." I say. The tales of some stuffy English boarding school don't really appeal to me, but I try to sound interested nonetheless.

I look back at Hanna, and realize the future is never what one expects it to be. There is so much more to life than appears on the surface. Where things start isn't always where they end up. I can't afford to judge anyone. I certainly can't afford to turn down any opportunities.

"All right!" I finally shout to Melanie as she climbs into her Rover. "Set up a meeting. It won't hurt just to talk to him, I guess."

"You won't regret it." She shouts back happily. She pauses before she pulls the driver door shut. "Leave your bloody phone on this time."

I assure her, "I will."

She leaves us in a cloud of kicked up grass, and the smell of burning gears. Even several kilometres down the road, we can still hear her riding the clutch, and fighting with the manual transmission.

Hanna is holding me gently. I hold her too. Together we survey the landscape, and let the silence linger. Words mean little now. We fall back to the grass, and lay looking up into the canopy of leaves.

I find my small hand resting on her still flat stomach, contemplating what might be growing there. Hanna sees the tears in my eyes, and it is her turn to wipe mine away.

She kisses me gently. A kiss so delicate, but conveying so much meaning.

It isn't long before the silent English countryside is interrupted by the sounds of our lovemaking.

It is not the penetrative, release demanding exercise so many others take for granted. It is the union of two souls, where simply touching and feeling the other beside our own skin is magic. Where what the body needs is tenderness. Where a kiss on the nape of the neck, or the caress of fingertips along the cheekbone is more than an orgasm could ever fulfil.

Yet still, with Hanna, I experience electricity through all my limbs. My insides explode in harmony with her body beside mine. Dazzling lights, and the detonations that had once been lost to me, can now only ever be for her.

For the briefness of our passion, our two souls become one. We are two spirits entwined. Two fires burning brighter as they come together in the darkness of the world.

For Hanna, it is the same. Her eyes are happy, and she is satisfied.

In the end, we dress, collect our things, and return to my little yellow Vespa by the old stone wall. I give her my helmet, and retrieve a spare set of goggles from under the seat for myself. Hanna climbs on behind me and wraps her arms around snug.

A little too snug.

"Hanna," I choke. "Don't hold on so tight. I can't breathe."

She relaxes her hold a bit, and I draw clean air into my lungs. It invigorates, and restores me. It is as precious a breath as all those I have taken before, all those that had led me to this point. It is a breath as precious as all those yet to come.

I start my moped, and we head out across the country side. I'm both going back to the life I've known, and travelling to a country never before explored. It is daunting, and exciting.

I can face it though. There is always another challenge. There is nothing in this world I cannot face if I choose it. I can choose this. I can make this my own.

That's the real secret I've learned, no matter what happens, good or bad, you can choose to accept it, or let it destroy you. I choose what happens to me. In choosing, I can make it better. With all my heart, I choose this.

I am one of the Ushindi. One of the ones who overcome. I am Delacaña, and I am Jason. I have found my balance. With Hanna at my side, nothing is impossible.

Despite all my faults. Despite all the ways I tell myself I am unworthy, I can always face tomorrow, whatever it brings. With each new breath brings a new beginning.

You just have to remember to breathe.

The End