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Charlie sat on the floor among a mess of papers, trying to color the perfect monster. Gnarled teeth, beady eyes, spikes, wings, claws, and scales in every color of a crayon box stared up at him as he worked. He scrunched his face in concentration, tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth. Sitting ignored in the corner of the room was Charlie’s uncle, Jack.
“You’re so good at drawing, Charlie,” He spoke up. “Do you like art?”
Charlie ignored him. It was annoying to have to share a room with him for the past ten months. After too many times of trying to cuddle at night, Charlie drew a line in the middle of his room that uncle Jack was not allowed to cross without his permission. Uncle Jack’s sleeping back was on that side of the room, while Charlie piled all his toys on his own side. Sometimes Jack made weird sounds and it was hard to sleep.
“I like art, too. But sometimes boys are picked on for being artistic,” Jack said.
“Adriano makes me eat bugs sometimes, but it’s okay because they don’t taste that bad. They kinda taste like couch crumbs,” Charlie said, jerking his arm to make a huge crayon thunderbolt.
“The government tried to take away my tasteful art, Charlie. I have to hide it now. Do you want to see it?”
“No,” Charlie said, setting his lightning monster aside and picking a new piece of paper.
For a second, Jack was quiet. Then he said, coyly, “You don’t want to see something so scary the government was afraid? It’s okay, I just thought you were a brave boy.” Charlie froze.
“I am a brave boy,” he said. He turned around and faced his uncle. “I watched Cannibal Holocaust and I wasn’t even scared at all. Mac stayed up all night like a baby after we watched it.”
“Then do you want to see my photos?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. They’re probably lame, though,” Charlie said coolly.
Jack left the room to retrieve the photos, which he apparently kept in a small box under the floorboards of the hallway closet. That is the closet with all of Charlie’s mom’s cleaning supplies, and he wonders if she knows about the box. When Jack appeared at the doorway with a stack of Polaroids in his hand, he started towards Charlie’s bed, then hesitated. Charlie scooted across the line and sat next to Jack’s sleeping bag and Jack joined him there, grunting as he sat on his knees.
“Right here Charlie! What do you think?” Jack asked, beaming with pride. Charlie studied the top photo. It was a boy Charlie’s age, sitting alone on a bunk bed in what seemed to be a cabin. There were other unoccupied bunk beds in the background. The boy only wore tighty whities but made no effort to cover up with his hands, which he placed awkwardly away from his body on the bed. His only attempt at modesty seemed to be crossing his legs tightly and trying to cover up with his raised knee. He stared at the camera inquiringly.
“It’s just some guy…” Charlie said. He felt strange looking at the kid and his ears grew hot. “That’s boring, it’s not scary at all.” He almost scooted back away, but Jack stopped him.
“Exactly!” Jack said, “There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s tasteful, but people act like it’s the worst thing in the world! Here, look at this next one,” Jack said and put the picture at the bottom of the stack. The next picture was the same kid, in the same bed, probably taken just minutes later. But this time, he was naked.
“Ew,” Charlie said, still staring at the photo. He couldn’t look away, despite the nauseous feeling the picture gave him. The boy didn’t cross his legs this time, and his bits were on full display. Charlie avoided looking at that part. The camera was much closer to the kid this time, taken from an angle above him. The boy looked up, past the camera and at the person holding it. His expression was unreadable and almost neutral, even in the weird circumstances. Charlie wondered if he was a model.
“There’s nothing gross about the human body, Charlie,” Jack said, putting a hand on Charlie’s back. Charlie shifted away from his uncle’s touch, and Jack pulled his hand away, using it to show the next picture.
The kid held his bits in his hand, still looking at the camera. Uncle Jack made a weird out-of-breath noise when he saw this one, and couldn’t seem to sit still. He put his arm around Charlie’s waist—quickly shaken off—and said, “Do you like this one, Charlie?”
“No,” Charlie said, uncomfortably. He looked into the kid’s face and the kid seemed just as uncomfortable as he was. But he couldn’t understand why the kid would pose like that and allow someone to take a picture. He felt irrationally angry at the kid as his own discomfort mounted.
“Have you ever,” Jack said, stuttering with excitement, “Have you ever touched yourself like that, Charlie?”
Of course Charlie had. A few years ago, when Charlie was five, he did it a lot. His mom told him not to do that in front of people anymore though, and eventually it got boring. While it didn’t seem like a trick question to get him in trouble, Charlie didn’t want to be honest. While he didn’t understand the point of touching his bits, he did know it was private. He shook his head.
“It’s okay, Charlie, everybody does it,” his uncle said, somehow seeming to catch his lie. “It feels so good. When I look at these pictures, it makes me want to start playing with myself, and then I feel good.”
Ew. Charlie didn’t want to hear about his uncle playing with himself. He made a disgusted face at him, but Jack ignored it and ran his hand along Charlie’s leg. Charlie pulled his leg away, but Jack squeezed his thigh hard, keeping him in place.
“Ow!” Charlie exclaimed, causing Jack to let go. Jack held his hands up nervously.
“Sorry, Charlie! Sorry, buddy,” he said. “But may—maybe you want to try it? And feel good?”
“No! That sounds lame and dumb,” Charlie huffed, rubbing his sore leg.
“No, no it’s not lame,” Jack said, running his hand along Charlie’s side and ignoring Charlie’s attempts to jerk away from him. “Doesn’t that boy look like he’s having fun? Look, I’ll show you.” Jack sat the photos down carefully next to the sleeping bag and unzipped his pants. He lowered them and his boxers just enough to reveal his penis. It stuck straight out, like some of the guy’s Charlie’s mom brought over. Jack rubbed it with one hand, making quiet satisfied moans as he did. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in his euphoria, and Charlie realized these were the odd noises Jack made at night.
“You try it, Charlie,” Jack said, slowly opening his eyes to look at him, mouth partially open.
“No thanks,” said Charlie. Jack ignored this and pulled Charlie’s hand towards him, giving it a kiss before placing it on his erect penis. He held his hand over Charlie’s and made it move up and down the length. Jack exhaled shakily.
“I love your little hands, Charlie. It feels so good when someone is does it—so much better. Let me show you.” Jack let go of himself—Charlie jerked his hands away too—and reached for his nephew. Charlie froze; on one hand, this was gross and scary, but on the other, he was curious. There were so many fun things that other kids thought were gross and scary. Like horror movies, and ghouls, and playing with bugs. Jack was clearly having fun.
While Charlie sat frozen, Jack unbuttoned his shorts and opened them. He reached down into his underwear and grabbed Charlie’s penis. Charlie’s heart pounded and bile rose in his throat. Jack used three fingers to massage the soft member in his hand. It certainly felt different from when Charlie did it to himself years ago.
It reminded Charlie of the time Adriano and his friends held Charlie down on the pavement and forced him to eat a baby bird that fell off the school roof. At first Charlie fought, biting and clawing everyone in reach, and then at some point his body stopped cooperating and he was a puppet, easily pinned and forced to swallow. Even after all the others got up and left, Charlie couldn’t get up, no matter how much Mac begged him to move. When the nurse wiped up his bloody cheek, Charlie stared ahead and did not respond to questions. He only cried when he got home.
As uncle Jack tugged on his private bits, Charlie just zoned out of the physical experience and looked at the ground. In his peripheral were the photos of that stupid camp kid. Charlie hated him. If he ever met him, he’d bite the shit out of him. At some point, Jack had moved Charlie’s hands to his member, and kept tugging at Charlie’s bits. Charlie hadn’t even noticed his hand’s movement, jerking up and down obligingly.
“How does it feel, Charlie?” Jack asked in a cooing voice, “Do you like big, strong, man hands making you feel good?” Charlie nodded because that’s what he was supposed to do. “Tell me how they feel, Charlie. Tell me how big and strong they are,” he moaned.
“They’re big and strong,” Charlie said mechanically. It sounded nothing like his own voice. He wondered distantly what Jack would do if Charlie didn’t do what he was supposed to do. Jack is extremely strong, which Charlie knew well from their wrestling sessions. It was easy for him to pin Charlie down and then hold him for ages, thrusting against Charlie’s butt until Charlie’s mom said that’s enough. It was worse when Charlie tried to fight back; he would have huge red bruises along his arms and body, while his uncle apologized profusely but then did the same thing the next time.
“Sit on my lap, Charlie,” Jack said. “Sit on my lap and I’ll show you something cool. I can make white stuff come out of it. Don’t you wanna see that?” He easily pushed Charlie to the floor and pulled his shorts off him. He lowered his own pants even further and sat back, making his erect member the center of attention. Charlie was dead weight in Jack’s grasp as Jack pulled him onto his lap. Charlie sat with his back against Jack’s belly and Jack’s penis in front of him. Jack once again used Charlie’s hands to jerk himself off. After Jack pulled his hands away, Charlie heard him rummaging around his sleeping bag for something. A bottle opened with a snap, and he heard a slick oozing noise. Lotion?
Hands pushed Charlie forward, now leaning over Jack’s penis with his butt pushed against his uncle’s belly. Jack put his fingers against Charlie’s butt and whatever was in his hand was cold. It felt less like lotion and more like refrigerated jelly. He massaged around the hole, spreading that freezing goopy stuff around. Then he pushed it in. It did not hurt, but it was supremely uncomfortable. Wrong. Like when you eat a spoonful of cottage cheese thinking it’s whipped cream.
Sometimes people repress traumatic memories. You get a weird feeling around a specific person or whenever you see a certain symbol, you go to a shrink, and then boom. You were raped as a kid. But Charlie unfortunately remembers every detail of this night perfectly, even decades later. Just like the bird incident—he could describe the taste perfectly if he had the vocabulary to do so. He can tell you all about the slick, slimy texture of it between his teeth. How it slid down slowly, with difficulty, like it knew that it had no business there.
He remembers he didn’t cry, even though he felt like it. He went to the bathroom and wiped himself off with toilet paper, but the goop inside him seemed like it was never-ending, more still coming off as he kept scrubbing. Eventually, he gave up and turned the water on. He hated showers, but he needed that stuff out of him. Even though he was already naked, he felt even more so getting under the water. Skinned. Like he was being watched and whoever was watching could see in his head, too.
He felt even more tiny and disgusting than when Adriano called him Dirt Grub and made him eat nasty things. Maybe Adriano was right. Charlie was dirty and disgusting, like a dirt grub. Nobody else ate bugs and trash and dead birds. Nobody else let their uncle touch them under their pants and put things inside them. Except that boy in the photos. He posed for it, didn’t cover up. He was having fun, probably asking for it. Shame turned to fury, and Charlie imaged all his monster drawings coming to life and eating the boy and uncle Jack.