Mind Labyrinth, Book 1, Chapter 2 (Part 4) (Patreon)

Warnings: An adult rapes a minor, allusions to previous experiences with that, thoughts of cruelty and suicide. No explicit detail, but the act's openly discussed about by the characters.

Vincenzo didn’t think he’d last being Walter’s long-suffering partner, spending day in and day out waiting for him to get home from his day spent playing with kids. It was better for the both of them in the long run if Vincenzo just stole his money and disappeared into the night. He didn’t know what he’d do the minute he stepped out of the hotel and disappeared into the darkness, but it was better than the boarding house, and it was better than death. Vincenzo had a special talent for survival. If those fuckers couldn’t kill him, then no one could.

Before he could set that wheel in motion, he needed a reason to stay in this location before he made his escape. He used every excuse in the book to get Walter drunk so he couldn’t drive. During lunch, Vincenzo asked for a refill over and over, pretending he was inexplicably parched. After their server refilled his water glass, she’d do Walter’s wine too. Walter was so distracted by talking that he didn’t realize how much he alcohol he drank. When they left the pizza restaurant, Walter had grown irritable and frustrated, movements slow and lagging.

They walked along the sidewalk, talking and soaking in the sights. Walter wanted to take him to bookstores and gift stores. He got Vincenzo a giant blue teddy bear, which he didn’t know what to do with, so he gave him a tight, polite smile. Vincenzo was more interested in the sights adults frequented — cafes, bars, museums, and clubs. He insisted they step in for a spell, Vincenzo only wanted a tiny peek, but Walter openly despised these locations and had nothing but the most venomous words to say about the establishments and the people in them. They were coarse, mean, and unbearable, he claimed. There was nothing waiting for Vincenzo inside. Vincenzo listened in on their conversations, and he had to hide his amusement in order not to irritate Walter further.

By the time the sun had set, Walter was too tipsy and too exhausted to drive. He did the proper gentleman thing to do and booked them a room at a hotel — a bedroom with two beds. He claimed they were relatives to the front desk. Vincenzo assumed that one bed was simply too crude for this man. He couldn’t let anyone know they were together, and he himself barely acknowledged it. Vincenzo carried a box of strawberry shortcake and the hefty plush animal to their room.

Of all the places Walter could’ve chosen, he went with the dinkiest, most dated room. The walls were a dusky pink, and the beds had old, floral patterns. It was too quiet here. They didn’t even have a view of the street. He wondered if it was the budget, but Walter said he ‘quite liked’ the decor of this one. It was more like home compared to the sleek, too elegant aesthetics of the bustling metropolitan area. Vincenzo had started to shed his clothes, just leaving his sweater and jeans on while he climbed onto bed. Walter unwrapped the cake on Vincenzo’s bedside, stealing glances at him but too shy to even say anything. Vincenzo sat across him with a small, hopefully reassuring smile.

“Walter, what’s wrong?”

Walter smiled at him sadly. “Oh, nothing, nothing at all, my dear. It’s simply… I noticed that you’ve been rather ambivalent with that fellow I bought you.” They both looked at the stuff animal. “It’s a shame, really. I thought he had the cutest face out of the bunch.”

Vincenzo wrapped his arms around the bear and made a show of hugging and cuddling it up close. “No, I love him! He was a lovely gift. Thank you, Walter.”

Walter swallowed. He reached out to squeeze the bear’s ear and watch it flop around. “Yes! Yes, of course. I know you’re not ungrateful, but… it could’ve been better, couldn’t it? I noticed he was… quite the burden to lug around all over town!”

“I don’t know what this is about, Walter. You’re probably dehydrated. You drank a lot today. Maybe you’re hungry? We could eat some of the cake. I love strawberry shortcake.”

Vincenzo moved to stand up, but Walter placed a hand on his shoulder, urging him to sit down.

“Vincenzo, my darling… we need to talk.”

Vincenzo blinked. “Is something the matter? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no. Of course not! You’re as lovely as I ever, lovelier even... It’s just that… I noticed where your interests are going. And they’re not good.”

“What do you mean? Where is it going?”

“I know that the city is enticing because it’s new and you’ve been cooped up at the academy, as it were, so you’re probably fluttering from store to store with all sorts of crazy ideas, but I’m telling you now, they’re not good. The people around here, they don’t care about you. They’re here to seduce you with drugs and cigarettes, and they’ll throw you aside like you’re nothing.” He swallowed. “I know I’m not the most exciting chap on the block, but trust me, I care about you, more than these ruffians ever could. I think that… for the sake of your health and future, you should stay away from these things from now on. You have so much better things to contribute to the world! Think about your art and writing. Or… or your songs. You’re a wizard with the ivory keys. Focus on more meaningful pursuits. Otherwise, you’ll burn like a moth to a flame, and I won’t forgive myself if I just let it happen when I know better.”

Vincenzo flashed him a strained smile. He knew he shouldn’t press on, but he didn’t understand this fear Walter had for these things. “But… wait… I’m confused. Isn’t all of this just a part of growing up? Isn’t having fun and making mistakes part of it all?”

“Why do you want to grow up so badly, my dear? I’m an adult, and I don’t find it to be a very good time. Adults are mean, pathetic, and miserable. Their interests are… not very good. Don’t you want to stay young? I know you’re very clever, but these people are ravenous wolves, and you’re a sensitive soul. You won’t stand a chance against them. They’ll rip you up to shreds! And then you’ll look like a fool for not listening.”

Vincenzo lied back on his bed. He hated this tone Walter kept using with him. Usually it was easier to see when adults were incorrect, but Walter confused the fuck out of him. His mind said he was right, Walter was psychotic, but his heart felt guilty about being on the receiving end of this discussion at all. What did he do to deserve this tone? He scrubbed his red face, trying to snap out of it.

“Vincenzo… Are you alright?”

“I’m just… trying to make sense of what you’re saying. You talk about it all like it’s the devil, but I don’t know what about it is so wrong. There’s nothing about pleasure that should be so shameful.”

Walter and him were polar opposite people. Walter misinterpreted that contrast as similarity. Vincenzo had never, in his entire life, desired to wind back the clock. He despised childhood. The world wasn’t any less complex and cruel, but his mind was too stupid to comprehend it all. At least now, as a proper teenager, he had the mental capacity to comprehend it all and defend himself. He didn’t need to be as gullible to survive. It seemed like Walter had a fantastic childhood, especially with the way he talked about it, all centered around simple pleasures until everything got more complicated with age.

Vincenzo heard Walter’s bed creak as he stood up. He paid no attention to it, and assumed he was going to the bathroom or getting fresh air. Vincenzo’s bed dipped. Walter loomed above him, blocking the warm light overhead. Vincenzo’s eyes fluttered.

“What do you know of pleasure, Vincenzo? You’re so young. You’ve kissed boys here and there, but do you know what sex is?”

Walter was blushing. His eyes were dilated as he followed the curve of Vincenzo’s jaw down to his chest. Vincenzo’s own heartbeat was loud like a cornered animal.

“Sex is one of the most disgusting acts in the world. It’s wet, and hot, and damp, and and and — it smells. It’s all very fun now, until you actually experience it, Vincenzo.” Walter’s hand rested on his lower stomach, pushing his sweater up to reveal soft, pale skin. “And — and you’ll swear that it’s like the devil possessing you.”

Vincenzo gasped sharply, unprepared when Walter’s lips connected his.

This scenario was devastatingly familiar.

He remembered now.

These weren’t the first hands that had touched him in this way.

Glimpses of his childhood home flashed in his mind. He only remembered its rooms and hallways in distant memory, but they were always too dark, as if the thick cement absorbed all the natural light that peeked through the tall, thin windows. The lord of this castle was an ornery man with veined hands and long, delicate fingers. He enjoyed traditional masculine pleasures, like aged whiskey and the fragile softness of young boys. Vincenzo used to stay shock still. He told himself he was lucky to be touched at all.

The lucidity of this current experience added a new, demented depth that sharpened the semi-repressed memories into contrasts. Hands bound, mouth gagged. Walter’s eyes were teary, but the scope of his lust was unapologetic and the smell of the alcohol made it all even more unbearable. Vincenzo wasn’t some pure, angelic virgin who didn’t understand anything that was happening. He knew what this was. He was being consumed. 

I’m doing this for your own good, the pathetic, garbage disposal excuse of a man said. You need to be taught why the things you seek are so ugly. If you experience it, you’ll know. It’s better if I’m the one to do it. I love you, and I’m not going to leave you to waste at the hands of beasts.

Get an orgasm free with your Happy Meal, huh?

Cocks were brutal things, conceptually. Just the act of attaining pleasure required the parting and destruction of what was in its immediate path. Rip it open. Tear it apart! Vincenzo had his own cock, and he understood it, he really did. He stared at handsome men and lovely women far too long when he saw them. He’d wonder if they were as appealing to touch as they were to look at. But being beautiful was a drastically different from experiencing beauty. The dynamic was turned into its  You turn into communal property. You become the fantasy, and should you be so unlucky, the defiled. There was nothing wrong in the sexual destruction of beautiful possessions. Men should be free to break and cum inside what their strength and their trickery earned them. Vincenzo was just the fool that existed within that radius.

It was then he understood something so shocking, so fundamental to the laws that governed everything. Morals, philosophy, God’s commandments, and the court of law were nothing compared to power. Physical prowess was the rawest, earlier version of power, but social, financial, intellectual, and emotional dominance were forms of power too. Walter tried to teach him about the ugliness of that truth, to present it in its full horror, but it only cemented its importance in his mind. Vincenzo didn’t need to find it fair or right or easy. It was the truth.

When the brutality subsided, Vincenzo stared at the pitch black ceiling with dead eyes, trying to piece together how he felt about himself.

In the simplest, most surface terms, it was easy: he felt awful. There was nothing to love or celebrate about himself, the things he did, and the things done to him. Past that, beyond the simple and through the deepest bowels of his self-image, he found himself in the company of a monster. He didn’t know if it was always there or if it was self-created, but its only desire now was to inflict hurt. All this time, he rearranged his insides in the name of survival and justified reasons to do what he wanted, but when he looked back to face the wolves that hunted him in the darkest corners of his mind, he saw for himself how completely and utterly pathetic they were. There was no elegance or logic to the way they hurt him. They were ravenous animals that gnashed their teeth and rubbed their paws at objects that offered them eternity. If they were even halfway better — better men and better people — they wouldn’t be touching him so clumsily. They would be attracting things to their radius instead of scrounging up the worst of the worst because no other man or woman dared to even touch them.

Vincenzo was worse than them all, but simultaneously, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was better. Even without power, his sharp eye and sharper words ripped them up into ribbons, and they sought to destroy him with whatever power they possessed over him to salvage their wounded pride. If Vincenzo had power, he wouldn’t be pathetic with it like these idiots.

In his most delirious state, he recalled meeting a strange man at the town, a detective, who saw brilliance in him, one that rung true to Vincenzo’s heart. The fellow tried so desperately to teach Vincenzo how to preserve it, but Vincenzo recalled being frustrated by it all because he didn’t think he should be viewed so well when everything else felt so horrible. Whatever spark that man saw in him during that innocent, untainted point in time was, it was dead now. He never even got to know it better. He couldn’t help but weep as he mourned himself, and the optimism to live he tried so badly to preserve. 

Vincenzo drank all the poison in the world, and last night was the last drop in the bottle. Instead being killed, it turned him into poison too.

***

Morning came, and it brought with it a sense of dread and outrage. It was another day, life moved on, and he was expected to go through it when his entire being felt like it had been forcibly rearranged. He hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. His mind played the events and his memories over and over, mocking him at every turn. Time dulled his struggles, but it also seeped bitterness down his sticky skin and into his bones. The dawn brought light back into that dark hotel room. Everything was washed with a dull blue. He could see Walter’s figure to his side, sleeping like a baby. The seconds tick tick ticked on the wall clock above the television. Vincenzo thought of all the awful ways he could kill him and himself in his sleep. He would’ve done both too, were his wrists not restrained to the bed post.

Walter woke up at 9:05am, stretching his limbs and yawning. When he turned to look at Vincenzo, there was a flash of something in his eyes — shock or guilt, he didn’t know, but it disappeared just as quickly. He sat up and removed the gag he put in place.

“You’re still angry,” he said, in an exasperated sort of tone. “You need to get rid of that bitterness, you know. You’re only hurting yourself.”

“You’re absolutely right, Walter. Silly me! I hadn’t thought of that. Everything is better now. Thanks you so much for your concern and wisdom regarding the matter.”

Walter looked outrage. It was a wide-eyed pout, and he pulled his head back, as if he was surprised Vincenzo would think to be so rude to him. Whatever his first thoughts were, he changed them to something softer. Vincenzo wished he wasn’t a pussy, and said what he really meant.

“I understand that…” He swallowed. “…how I chose to teach you last night isn’t a method that would be appropriate anywhere else, especially as your v — former vice principal. You’re perfectly justified feeling uncomfortable about it, but I still thought that it was necessary. You needed to learn things the hard way. You’ve filled your heads with all sorts of bad ideas. They’re no good for you, you know. Maybe you’ve been sheltered in the boarding school for too long, but in the real world, mistakes aren’t casual. They — they — they can cause you your life, your reputation. It’s really no good.”

“How you… chose to teach me, huh? Uncomfortable, but necessary? What the fuck are you talking about?” Vincenzo huffed in surprise, eyebrows raised, smiling in that way where people smiled by instinct when they witness a car crash. He raised his leg and kicked Walter off the bed, then kicked the top of his head, too. “You raped me, motherfucker! You tied me down and gagged me! Do you think, if you tell anyone your little story to anyone, that they’ll believe you’re the good, well-meaning party here? Do you think that anything you’ve done to me has ever been okay!?”

“Please,” Walter said, voice breaking. “I understand now that perhaps it wasn’t the best method to take. But it’s not fair, making me sound so cruel. I had nothing but good intentions when I did it. It’s just not right to paint me in that way.”

“Good intentions… You stupid, unbearable, pathetic son of a bitch. You think that good intentions can fix this, any of this? You think your pure-hearted feelings lets you touch my genitals with a get out of jail free card? Everybody has good intentions, shitbag. Everybody thinks all their actions are justified. That doesn’t mean they’re always fucking right. Your good intentions broke me open. Deny it however you want, but the seal’s broken open” Vincenzo stared at him directly in the eyes. “Maybe this is just a crazy fucking idea. But I’m of the opinion that I can call my rapist whatever the fuck I want.”

This set Walter off. He mumbled his outrage ‘this is no good, no good, can’t believe how bratty’ and started dressing himself up. He only looked at Vincenzo once, right when he was in front of the door to leave.

“I’m going to get some air,” he told Vincenzo. “I will be gone for thirty, or perhaps forty-five, minutes. I’ll bring us proper breakfast. You’re delirious with bitterness and hunger. I promise you’ll feel much better when you get something in your stomach.”

“What, besides your cum?”

Walter huffed. He closed the door all proper. Vincenzo hated the demeanor with which Walter handled this, like it was just a regular lover’s quarrel and it could be smoothed over by patience and time away from each other. 

He hated this, this abominable good intentions. Cruelty was at least honest when it was right in front of him, but good people can do the most horrid, unforgivable things and still paint themselves as the hero of the story.

There was no justice in the world.