Chapter Text
Driving rain hit his windshield in sheets as Martin drove. It was the kind of cold downpour that caused fog to roll off the back roads by the creek. He took the route slowly, unable to see the turns until he was right up on top of them. Carelessness would land him in a ditch. While on one hand it would be a relief to miss the meeting, on the other, he needed this.
Being on time was another matter entirely. If he was late, he was late.
As it was, he was only five minutes past the meeting time when he rolled up into a parking space. He didn't immediately kill the engine, preferring instead to watch the twin beams of his headlights illuminate the swirling mist.
He could just not go in. He'd considered this for hours, days, weeks. Nobody would ask where he'd been if he didn't show. It wasn't that kind of group. If you came, you came. If you didn't—well, maybe you weren't in crisis anymore, and good for you. Maybe next month you would be. Trauma recovery rarely moved in a straight line. Right now he straddled the line between okay and not. Some days he seemed like any other twenty-one-year-old making the most of life in this small town. On other days he wondered if people could sense his tainted past and blamed him for it. The life of a survivor was a lonely one. He didn't know if he could trust anyone with that part of him, and in return, they shunned him as soon as they sensed he was hiding something.
He stepped out of the car, black combat boots hidden under black jeans. His black duster jacket covered a black turtleneck sweater with knitted vertical lines that made him look thinner than he was. Black was the color of mourning. The absence of light.
A good color to hide bloodstains. He swallowed, pushing the thought aside and the intrusive images that came with it. Planting a knife between his abuser's ribs while looking into his eyes. Slitting his throat and watching him try to stop the bleeding in vain as he choked on his own blood. It was what Daniel deserved. He fantasized about it on a regular basis, but only because it made him feel safe. Martin Payne wasn't a killer. Just a lost boy who'd grown into a lost man. Society didn't offer much in the way of compassion for male victims of anything, really. Sexual crimes were the worst. There was always the insinuation that he'd asked for it as a hypersexual teenage boy. Worse still was that he wasn't sure if he had. Despite his therapist insisting that a fourteen-year-old boy couldn't consent to sex with a thirty-five-year-old man, he had his doubts.
You've got a huge cock, boy. You were practically made for sex.
He sometimes forgot what day of the week it was, but Daniel's voice lived inside his head rent-free. Images of sex with Daniel swirled around inside his brain, causing terror, arousal, or both. Despite his therapist saying it was okay if he'd been aroused during the act, he didn't confess to it. It wasn't okay in his book. In his eyes, it turned him from a victim into a kind of co-conspirator in his own rape. Sure, Daniel was a predator, but he'd been the perfect prey—gay and horny and willing to go along with it. Could he really call it rape when he'd never so much as uttered the word 'no'?
Consensual sex shouldn't have hurt him the way Daniel had, though. Of course some folks were ashamed of their encounters, but it didn't drag them through the mud for years, breaking their confidence when they tried to make something of their lives. Daniel had left a mark on him, and he couldn't get rid of it.
He entered the community center, leaning his entire body into one door. He'd never been to this one before. Groups in other towns held more appeal: places where he'd never be recognized by colleagues or friends. The fear that someone might find out and spread whispers about him was omnipresent, but the meetings hadn't given him what he needed. The facilitators were lousy, the group didn't allow him time to speak, nobody showed up, or they were canceled at the last minute. Being close to home at least meant he didn't have to invest time in driving to a place only to have wasted his time. If he recognized someone, he only had to act like he was lost and looking for directions to an imaginary class.
The children's art on the walls didn't belong in a place where such things were discussed. The innocence of those children's thoughts repelled him, as did the pastel green carpet in the room where horrors were discussed over coffee and biscuits. He wondered how many of these child would-be artists had been abused like him. Coloring to escape the cruel world they lived in.
Fuck, he didn't know if coming here made things better or worse. Part of him knew if he could just let go of it, life would be easier, but he couldn't.
The reason for that was sitting on a brown plastic chair with bright blue eyes, slicked-back black hair, dark stubble, and a charming, plastic smile. Daniel Wallace in the flesh. He paused, needing to be sure he was seeing him and that this wasn't a case of mistaken identity or some type of delusion brought on by stress. Phantom hands still roved over his cock, claiming him, and seeing Daniel brought it all back into sharp focus.
Martin felt a little sick as he hung back in the doorway. Daniel was a handsome, charming devil. He thought age might have twisted him, but if anything, he was more attractive now. He hated it.
Sitting on Daniel's lap. Hands rubbing his inner thigh. Massaging his balls, fondling him with reckless abandon—
Martin knew he should turn back now and go home. Every instinct in him screamed at him to turn back. It had taken some guts to come here, but he couldn't sit down in this room with his abuser and recount his story. Nor was he going to tell anyone that Daniel was a predator. Who would believe him?
"Why don't you come in?" The facilitator was a kindly old woman. Most of the victims were women. She patted a seat next to her. Daniel looked up and fixed him with those eyes, and he smirked, as if a long-awaited friend had arrived at last.
As a gay man, Daniel was unlikely to get his rocks off from hearing young women spill out their hearts, but Martin's arrival had changed things. Martin suppressed a shudder. Trying to figure Daniel out always left him feeling disgusting—tainted by association—and yet he was the only familiar face in this room. They were chained together by Daniel's dirty deeds.
Martin wondered how many other perpetrators were at this meeting, reliving their glory days as told by victims. Martin often wondered if he went home and jacked it to those mental images like the sick fuck he was.
He wondered if Daniel still thought about him. Coming here was a mistake, but his ass was already planted in the chair and it would seem weird to leave now. He barely heard the introductions, his attention hyperfocused on Daniel. The circle reached Daniel.
"I'm Daniel Wallace, forty-one years old." Daniel looked down at his hands as he paused for effect, playing the perfect victim. He'd never been shy about putting his hands on Martin. "My father abused me."
It was a lie. It had to be, and yet Martin couldn't be sure. This stuff was often intergenerational, possibly a broken gene passed down from parents to children and reinforced as normal in early life. It didn't excuse what Daniel was, but it gave him a motive.
You like that, don't you? Getting all excited for me.
Martin swallowed. His mouth was dry. The flashbacks were coming hard and fast as the past and present merged. He was sitting on Daniel's lap, Daniel purring in his ear as Daniel spoke out loud to the group.
"Dad liked to admire my penis. He said it was huge, that it was obscene for a boy to have such a massive sex organ and that it must be that big because I wanted sex. He would frequently grope and fondle me on the couch, and once I was old enough, I got hard."
"It's quite common for victims of sexual assault to have an arousal response. It's a physical reaction," the facilitator reminded them. "It doesn't mean you enjoyed or understood what was happening, or that it was right. Your father was in a position of authority. No doubt you wanted to please him."
Daniel had been in a position of authority, too. As a youth group leader, Martin had wanted to get in his good graces, so he'd give a favorable report to his father and Dad would stop harassing him. He'd been outed as gay by a stack of adult magazines and it had started a shitstorm in his house. With his mother recently deceased, Dad had taken it to heart that it was all his fault, and church youth group was supposed to be the cure. Daniel had done the farthest thing from helping him: he'd taken advantage of the situation. Being fucked under his father's nose seemed like rebellion at first. Later, he felt betrayed by his Dad for sending him to the group in the first place.
There was a reason why they lived in the same town and barely talked.
Daniel started to cry. They had to be crocodile tears. Martin bit his lip. Fuck this guy and his Oscar-bait acting. He was just repeating his greatest hits for kicks. No doubt he'd go out to the car and jerk himself off in the lot, unable to hold back on the high of retraumatizing one of his past victims.
"He made me feel special. Attractive."
Martin hated that those words could have been his, and he wondered if this was Daniel trying to get under his skin. Or maybe it was a confessional, an act of contrition, sharing the real reason why Daniel thought it was okay to have sex with a fourteen-year-old with the very man he'd abused. He should leave, now, before this thing got even more fucked up. Coming here had been a mistake. He didn't need to empathize with Daniel, or he might end up sharing his tainted love. That was his deepest fear, that Daniel had planted some kind of cursed seed inside him that would make him attracted to kids. It bore no scientific basis, of course, but he never let himself be alone with children, even though he'd never had so much as a spark of arousal in their presence.
You're special, Martin. I wouldn't do this with just anyone.
Daniel continued. "He said it was healthy for fathers and boys to have sex and drink each other's cum."
A woman burst into tears. The facilitator cut in. "Abusers often try to justify their abuse, but let's refrain from being too explicit. It can be quite triggering to other survivors."
Daniel did something Martin never expected. He got up and left. Martin was even more surprised when he followed, trailing Daniel through the hallways toward the exit. He caught the wooden doors before they could swing back in his face and followed Daniel to his car, the rain blowing in his face. Daniel got in and rolled the window down.
"I never thought I'd see you again, Martin." Daniel sniffed, pulling a cigarette out of a packet of smokes and lighting up with a cheap plastic lighter. "You enjoyed my little story, didn't you? I know you have an erection."
"Shut the fuck up." Martin was half-hard, partly from the flashbacks, and the fact Daniel could tell shocked him. He felt disgusting the way he had when Daniel had fucked him, like he'd committed an abominable sin. "That story was BS. You recounted what you did to me and you did it because I was there."
Daniel blew out a puff of smoke. It whirled around him as if he was about to vanish in a puff of smoke like a cartoon villain. "You ever think maybe I was just acting out what my papa taught me?"
"Sure. Tell that to all the other boys you've victimized." Martin spat on the ground. He should drag him out of the car, punch him in the face, kick him while he was on the ground, and peal out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell, but he was rooted to the spot, unable to move.
Daniel's voice remained calm and unaffected. "There were no other boys. Only you."
Martin let out a derisive sound. "Sure. Some girls, then?"
"I don't swing that way. You know that."
The rage bubbled out of Martin like bile. "I was fourteen years old. You raped me."
"You liked it well enough, same as I liked what my Papa did to me. You don't have to be ashamed of it, boy. These therapists want to make you into a victim so you'll keep coming. They want to reprogram your own memories and use them against you. If you hated it so much, why'd you keep coming back, eh? Why'd you get hard? Why'd you orgasm time after time? I didn't hold you down. You climbed onto my lap. You came."
Shame only incensed Martin further. "Fuck you."
Daniel chuckled softly, his tobacco-scented laugh kissing Martin's nostrils. He still smoked the same brand. "You want my opinion? I think you'd like to. I think you miss being on my lap. I think that was the time in your life when you felt most attractive."
"What do you know about me?" Martin paled, the blood rushing out of his face.
"I know you show up to all these groups looking for answers you never find. After I spotted you the first time, I looked you up to see what you'd made of your life after me. You dropped out of college. Your profile isn't on any dating apps as far as I can tell. No boyfriend. Nothing to show for your life. Why is that, Marty?"
"You know why that is," Martin growled. "Because of you!"
"I ruined you for every other man, huh? Men these days want a quick fuck and nothing else. They don't want to worship your cock and tell you how special you are. Your dad only wanted to put you down, not admire you. I gave you what you needed, and you're too much of a pussy to admit it. You've invented this rape story to cover the fact that you were a fourteen-year-old slut who couldn't get enough of me."
"You preyed on me, and God help me, you're still doing it." Martin stalked away. He could reach his car in about a minute. All he had to do was get in and drive away. He didn't even have to go home. He could drive to a motel and once he was sure Daniel had fucked off, he could go home then.
He dropped hard into the driver's seat and turned the key with shaking hands. His car roared to life, and he backed out, his tires squealing on the tarmac. Daniel seemed to be making no effort to follow him, but maybe he was giving him a head start.
He had to get away. Had to clear his head, which was full of obscene images now. Daniel kissing him. Daniel sucking his cock, taking it down to the root. It was wrong, and he knew it, but the erection tenting in his pants didn't. The load he'd shot into Daniel's mouth hadn't known that, either. His was just a body reacting to remembered touch.
He pulled into a dingy roadside motel and put down cash on the counter. He didn't want his credit card coming up here. After tonight he was leaving town. He needed a fresh start, away from this small town and the marks it had left on him. Why had he stayed so long? Did he really think life owed him closure? All he'd managed to do was tear open an old wound and now he was bleeding out.
He sat on the bed, unable to disrobe. His erection wouldn't go the fuck away, and he didn't want to see it. He tried to think soothing thoughts, but nothing was working. He couldn't concentrate on his phone as he tried to read something normal. He flicked to porn instead, hoping to find something that would get him off so he could stay soft for a while.
He was barely on the landing page of his favorite adult site when a knock on his door jolted him back to full awareness. Terror gripped him, traveling down his spine like lightning. It was Daniel. Had to be. Daniel had come to rape him for real this time, all hands holding him down and cock forced into his hole as Martin screamed. He'd do what he'd been accused of.
His body seemed to respond on its own as he got up to answer the door. At least he had the foresight to put the chain on before opening up. Martin could only hope that it was someone else—anyone else—but he knew it was Daniel, and he wasn't shocked when those startling blue eyes fixed on him.
"Go away or I will call the cops," Martin yelled. "I will tell them everything, and I will make sure you rot in a jail cell. You will end up on the sex offender's register and good luck ever getting a job then!"
"Why would you do that?" Daniel said, hurt reflected in his eyes. Did he honestly not accept that he'd done wrong? Had his father truly corrupted him to the extent he didn't understand that having sex with a minor as an adult was a crime?
"Daniel. I was fourteen. You know what your father did to you was wrong, or you wouldn't have been at that meeting. You have to accept what you did to me wasn't right, either."
"It doesn't matter what the laws say. You know it. I know it. Just let me in, Daniel, so we can talk about this in privacy and not out here where everyone can hear." He gestured to the room next door, and while Martin couldn't verify he was telling the truth, he had raised his voice. He didn't want everyone to know. It was shameful to be a victim, only marginally better than it was to be a perpetrator.
He unhooked the chain. Daniel entered and closed the door behind him. Martin reached for the light, but Daniel grabbed him from behind and clamped a hand over his mouth. Martin struggled, but Daniel already had his other hand on Martin's cock, caressing it through his slacks. It grew fully hard, shameful tears leaking from Martin's eyes as his body betrayed him yet again.
"You don't have to be ashamed, Marty," Daniel whispered into the shell of his ear. "Let yourself want this. Put aside the notions of what you think I am and what society thinks you should be, kick aside their nonsense about age gaps and predation and get to the core of what you really know to be true: you enjoyed what we did and on some deep level, you wish it had never ended." He eased his hand off Martin's mouth. Martin thought he would scream bloody murder, but he didn't.
He moaned as Daniel caressed his cock, stroking it like a favorite pet. His tears dried on his face as Daniel steered them over to the bed. He sat down on it and pulled Martin down on his lap, where his ass rubbed up against a sizable erection.
"Did your father really do those things?" Martin asked.
"Every word I said in there was true. I know what you're thinking: that I'm fucked up for liking it. Your judgment is why you're so afraid others will judge you. I was engaged in incest, society's biggest taboo, and it was my own father touching me, having me suck him off, fucking me when I was older… I should have been repulsed, shouldn't I? Truth is, when he died, I was lost. The sex I had with my father brought us closer than any father and son I knew. I wanted to recreate that relationship with you, but you left me behind."
"You need professional help," Martin said. "I know a good therapist, I can give you his number. He won't judge."
Daniel laughed. "They all judge, son. They claim to be professionally detached, but their job is to bring you in line with society's morals so you don't rock the boat. They don't get it."
"Maybe it was your way of coping, but it's not right to victimize a child. You had no choice but to do as your father said, but you didn't have to follow in his footsteps."
"Gosh, I guess by that metric, doing my homework was also abuse." Daniel laughed, but his fondling hadn't stopped. He cupped Martin's balls, squeezing them gently, and Martin hated that nobody else knew how to please him like Daniel. The gasp that left his lips was genuine.
That wasn't why he didn't date, though. He didn't date because he didn't know how to have a healthy relationship, with normal boundaries. He'd given up. He was too clingy, or he was too horny, or he was too demanding. He wanted someone to desire him so much it set them on fire; they wanted to be partners or friends with benefits. He didn't want to sit on the couch on a Friday night and Netflix and chill. He wanted thick hands caressing the shape of him through his pants, making his cock leak when it shouldn't forcing every gasp and cry out of him like a prayer. He wanted forbidden lust and repressed desire. Nothing else was good enough.
"There you go. That's a good boy. You've always been such a good boy for me, Marty. Now I'm gonna unzip your pants—like this—and take out your cock. I see you don't wear underwear, just like I told you. Good." Daniel's hands were warm on his cock, despite the cold night outside. The texture of his palm—callouses and all—felt just right against his skin, and a sob left his lips. He shouldn't be liking this. This was nothing more than self-harm. Down here, at his lowest ebb, Daniel was taking advantage of him again.
And Martin was letting him. One 'no' might have stopped things—or it might not—but he didn't have the chance to find out. He came all over Daniel's hand. Shame coursed through him almost immediately, his spasming barely at an end before post-nut clarity hit. He leaped off Daniel's lap and rushed over to the desk, putting some space between him and Daniel as he pulled his pants up. He was trembling.
"Get. Out," Martin growled. He didn't turn to look at Daniel, unsure if he'd have the will to throw him out if he did.
"As you wish." Daniel didn't even have the good graces to look surprised or hurt. His boner stood out against his jeans. "I know you'll come back to me, Marty. Like it or not, you know I'm right. It might be wrong for other people, but for you and me, this is how we tick. Hell, the shame of it might be what gets you off. Just couldn't orgasm in a nice, clean, loving little relationship now, could you? You need what I have to offer." He had the balls to grin as he opened the door, and if Martin hadn't been struggling to hold himself together, he might have given Daniel's face the punching it so richly deserved.
Instead, he listened to the door slam. He waited until he heard Daniel's car start and drive away before he locked the door, sliding the chain across. It wasn't like it mattered—he wasn't safe here, anyway. Not with the smell of semen in the air and Daniel's hands all over him, not with his unmistakable musk on his lips. He staggered into the little bathroom and turned on the shower, stripping himself down. He'd wash until he was clean, even if that meant scrubbing his skin off as he had as a teen while Dad yelled at him from downstairs about the water bill.
He was still washing Daniel off him, but Daniel never left. He'd impregnated him with a seed that never came to term, and he was poisoned by it, corrupted by it into liking things no man should like. Daniel was a monster. There was a good chance nothing he'd said tonight was true, and yet Martin mourned the loss of him as if every flashback was a fantasy of someone he missed. Was it? What if it wasn't PTSD but simple yearning?
He wouldn't miss Daniel. He refused to. Daniel was a predator, a sack of shit dressed in human skin, and if Martin had slipped back into old patterns it was because Daniel knew the right strings to pull, not because he'd done anything wrong.
It didn't seem very convincing to him as he sat in the shower drain, letting warm water pelt him and wishing he could drown in it. It was a shame this room didn't have a tub. He could stick his head underwater and see if he could forget about breathing long enough not to have to worry about it anymore.
I know you'll come back to me, Marty.
Martin knew it, too, and he knew nothing he could do would let him slip free of the net Daniel had drawn him into, because on some level, Daniel was right about him.