Page 4 of The Sound Of Us

When you’ve been stripped of every teenage dream of love and romance, every hope for a happy future, stripped of every shred of the person you were and thought you’d become, all you have left are the splinters, embedded deep enough to be a constant reminder of all you’d lost even before you could have any of it.

It’s a dangerous place we’ve come to, me and Frank. Me, especially. These days, I’m suspicious about his erratic behavior. Some days he’s nice, but most days he’s just… monstrous. And the nice days have been getting fewer and fewer. Now is nothing like then, when we first met.

We had what people would call a whirlwind romance. Frank was large and grandiose about how he felt about me, telling everyone who’d listen how much he loved and wanted me. Big promises of loving me for the rest of his life were declared to the church members every Sunday during Personal Testimony time:

—“What are you thankful for this week, Frank?”

—“Well, I’m thankful for my wonderful husband, whom I love with all my heart. Taking care of him is such a privilege.”

Then the gifts, big and small. His unwavering dedication to me while I underwent treatment. My mother had been dead for six months. My father was on his umpteenth promise he’d come home after he suddenly disappeared one day when I was ten and I was just… so fucking alone.

No one had ever loved me like Frank did, so big. Frank had loved me big. I’d been love bombed and I couldn’t get enough.

The town adored Frank for how much he loved me. How much he’d sacrificed for the sick love of his life, even marrying me when I was given a death sentence with the cancer.

Once or twice, I’d wondered if Frank was more in love with the admiration he got from the people around town than he was with me.

But how ungrateful does that make me sound, right? I made the mistake of making a casual joke about it once, and Frank ripped into me about being ungrateful. And after slamming my head into the headboard, he went out and bought me a forty-eight pack box of Ferrero Rochers, which we couldn’t afford. All I could think about was the sacrifice he’s made to get me the chocolates and I remember how grateful I’d been for that sacrifice.

Two weeks later he bashed my head into the headboard again and reminded me about how much he does for me, and didn’t I remember the chocolates he’d gotten me two weeks earlier? You’re so fucking ungrateful, Axel. You could have at least made an effort for all I do for you. I’d just completed chemo, and sex had been the last thing on my mind. I couldn’t even get it up for a few weeks because of the meds.

Then there was the issue of faith. In the beginning, when I was eighteen and on fire for The Lord and I knew I would sacrifice my life for Him the way He sacrificed his life for me, it seemed a small expression of my gratitude to agree to marrying Frank.

You see, Frank wasn’t the first man I’d been with. And as a devout Christian, I understood the importance of ‘remaining pure’.

Here in our own little forgotten part of America, only two things were intolerable: promiscuity and painkillers. Both were problems we, as a town, were struggling to keep under control. We had a special Thursday night spiritual warfare prayer meeting for these two sins alone.

Gay rights were well received, as long as you remained pure: have only one partner until death do you part, no premarital sex (marriage is encouraged as soon as possible after the engagement), no extramarital affairs (immediate shame and disgrace).

Poor Olivia Dawson, who cheated on her husband with the deacon from the church, ran away in the middle of the night after the whole town found out about it. The deacon stepped down, went on a six month Daniel Fast and returned ashamed, but forgiven, and on fire for The Lord. Abstaining from meat and alcohol and generally every good thing you could eat was apparently a great way to get closer to God. Consecration they called it. We never saw Olivia Dawson again.

Sometimes, I think about her and wonder if she’s happy. Then I wonder what it would be like if I just left one day, never to be seen again.

It didn’t matter the iciness sloshing through my blood the day Frank asked me to marry him, turning my body cold as death. I knew that since I was no longer pure, it was best that I get married quickly, while someone was still willing to have me.

It was that, and the fact that, at eighteen, I was truly alone in the world. Frank’s attention and declarations of love and forever meant I’d never be alone again.

Back then, I never knew your body could speak to you in certain ways. Could warn you about impending doom with icy goose bumps and rocks inside the bottom of your belly. I just knew to look for the still, small voice of The Lord. I’ll never have the courage to admit it out loud, but all I ever heard was my own voice inside my head screaming at me to run as fast and as far as I could. Of course, the flesh is weak and can’t be trusted, so I banished those thoughts, sending them right back to the pit of hell where they belonged.

Before Frank there was James Hubble. And James Hubble was one half of the reason I was no longer pure.

He was one of those bad boy types—cigarette-smoking, class-skipping, rough, loud and popular kind of bad boy. I didn’t even really like him to begin with and I don’t think he felt any deep connection to me, either. We hooked up in junior year, before the cancer.

I didn’t know it at the time, but James had made a bet with his friend, Donny (who was only slightly less bad-boyish than James) that he’d get that cute little twink with the gray eyes before Donny did. I also didn’t know at the time that being bet on wasn’t exactly the way to start a relationship.

Anyway, James and I began dating during the summer. It lasted one-hundred-and-twenty-seven days. And by the end of it, I was so deeply in love with James I became convinced I would die from heartbreak when he broke things off. Looking back, the only thing I was in love with was the idea that someone was willing to sit in the park across from school and just talk to me for two hours and then kiss me sweetly for a few minutes. James was a good kisser. I loved every minute of kissing him. That, and the other things we did together.

But hold on. I’m digressing.

James had an older brother named Kenny. Kenny worked at the lumber store across the river with Frank. And one day Kenny told Frank that James had told him I had the biggest dick he’d ever seen and even though he topped in every single hook-up, he’d wanted to bottom for me just to experience my cock.

And that my cock was still too big for his mouth, even though he didn’t even have a gag reflex. Also, that no one had sucked his dick the way I did.

I didn’t even know that I was that good. I mean, it hadn’t been that difficult to give a little head. I didn’t—still don’t—get the whole big hoo-haa about it.

Frank and I weren’t even together at that time (we knew each other from church and just barely, too) but Frank never lets me forget I was already ‘second-hand-goods’ when he ‘accepted me’. You remember that time you were sucking James’ cock in the park like some whore?

In my head, I tell Frank it’s none of his fucking business the things I did before I met him but, on the outside, I just hang my head and hope he drops it. You see, the butt of Frank’s illegally acquired gun is harder than it looks when it’s connecting with your cheekbone.

---