Page 13 of Pippin & Nacho

Today, they made me watch a video of a man and woman having sex. It was gross, and each time I tried to look away, someone would force my head to keep my eyes on the screen. I took sex education in sixth grade, but it was nothing like this. If I didn’t react to the video, a nurse would rub my dick. It’s wrong. All wrong. But I do nothing, afraid of making things worse for me.

Obey, smile, agree.

Now, I stand in front of the doctor’s desk. He’s old with rheumy blue eyes and white hair. His face is a mask of wrinkles, and like the others, he never smiles or is kind.

“How was your day today, Sampson?”

“It was good.” It’s a lie, but after being here for four days, I quickly learn to say things that please them.

I wrap my arms around myself to keep warm, but it never helps. My body shivers from the cold and fear.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

I shake my head. No one told me why I was brought here. My parents lied about taking me shopping for school clothes and instead took me to a place far away. My parents scare me. They never hurt me physically, but they’re mean and always yelling at me when I do things wrong or won’t listen. I do listen. It’s just that I forget a lot.

When my parents pulled up to the nondescript concrete building, which had no signs, four days ago, a man in white scrubs helped me out of the car, and my parents drove away without so much as a goodbye or telling me why I was there. Something had been terribly wrong. I’d cried at their retreating car, knowing something bad was going to happen.

“You need to relearn what it means to be a boy and a growing young man. Your parents brought you here to fix you. Do you understand?”

I shake my head again because I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

“No twelve-year-old boy should have inappropriate and sinful thoughts about being with a man or liking boys.”

No, I never had those thoughts. “W-why do they think that?”

The doctor opens a file and scans the papers with glasses perched on his nose. “Your parents said you look at boys too often. The last time you had a dental appointment, you asked for Barbie stickers. You’ve been caught playing with your friend’s sister’s dolls, you refuse to play sports, you watch shows that are for girls, and you’re a bad boy in general, never listening to your parents or doing as you’re told.”

I didn’t know those things were bad. The tears well in my eyes because I want to be good. I tried so hard at home. “I… I’m not into boys.” At least, I don’t think I do because I never wanted a boy for a boyfriend. Then again, I never wanted a girlfriend either. “I want to be good.”

Finally, the doctor smiles, but it doesn’t put me at ease at all. In fact, it scares me even more. My heart rate is beating really hard, and I start to sweat despite being so cold. My mind is blanking out from the fear.

“Excellent. You learn quickly, Sampson. But we need to make sure you never deviate again. For the next four months, you will be set on the righteous path through prayer. We will break you of your sinful ways, but we will lift you back up into God’s good graces. I trust at the end of our program, you’ll be the perfect example of how a young man should behave. We’ve had a lot of success here with other boys like yourself.”

“I… I’ll do my best.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

When someone walks in, I turn to find one of the orderlies. He’s a big man with acne scars on his face and small eyes. He’s always mean and rough with me.

“Time to get your head zapped, little man.”

I look back at the doctor, and panic fills me. What does ‘zapped’ mean? “W-what are you going to do?”

The doctor doesn’t even look at me as the orderly grabs my shaved head with a meaty hand and squeezes it as he leads me out of the office.

As we walk down the hall, my head hurts from his fingers digging into my skull. The sounds of crying coming from the rooms echo through the halls. I don’t like it here, and I want to go home. Living with my parents is better than being in this cold place full of pain.

The nurses and orderlies watch me without expressions on their faces, which suddenly morph into demons with burnt, peeling skin and black eyes. They smile as their teeth turn into sharp points, looking hungry and dripping with poisonous saliva.

They’re going to hurt me.

They want to eat me.

They like to gobble up little boys.

When I walk into the room and see all the demons there surrounding a bed with leather straps, I scream and scream...

My eyes popped open to darkness as my lungs tried to find air. The images of the nightmare dissolved into nothingness as the adrenaline wore off, leaving me with threatening tears. I clawed at my heart because it beat so hard it hurt, and the blood pounding in my ears was too loud.

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