Today just could be the day, because I knew I didn’t want to see them again, even in this small amount of time. I’d grown. I was happy, to an extent, and had a life. I didn’t want them to tarnish it by their bullshit.
“You may sit up front,” Mom said at the car, which had me stilling. She never let me before, why now? Suspicion dipped my brows. However, I was probably being an idiot. Maybe they were trying to change.
“Thank you.” I smiled and slipped into the seat that Dad held the door open to. He closed it and walked around the front to the driver side. I wanted to be anywhere but here. Shit, I’d even take a dentist visit or a waxing over being there.
Dad started the car and backed out of the space while I strapped my belt in. “There’s a nice restaurant not far from here. I could give you directions,” I suggested, since they’d never come to visit me before.
“I don’t need it,” Dad replied. He gripped the steering wheel. “You didn’t call your mother for the monthly check-in.”
Shit. I hadn’t even realized it had passed.
“I’m sorry. Study and work have kept me busy.”
Dad grunted.
“We were worried,” Mom said from the seat behind me.
“I really am sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.” I could have slapped my own forehead for forgetting. I should have known they would come to see me when I didn’t check in. It was my own damn fault they were there, and now I wanted to kick myself as well.
“You’ve been a bad boy, West,” Dad said.
I laughed. “What?”
“Do not laugh,” Dad bellowed. His hands kept gripping and releasing the wheel over and over again.
Shit, he was beyond pissed.
“It was one time I missed,” I said, suddenly annoyed.
His upper lip raised, he sneered. “I’m not talking about that.”
Fuck. “W-What are you talking about?”
Dad said nothing; instead, Mom did. “Your father and I have been in town for a while, West.”
I stilled. My stomach churned, and I wanted to throw up. “Really?” I managed to get out through a breath.
Mom hummed, then said, “Yes. We have witnessed a lot.”
Bile raced up my throat. I cleared it and swallowed thickly. “Like what?”
“Your sins,” Dad snarled.
No!
“It’s time for you to be cleansed, West,” Mom said.
A sharp pain touched my neck. I tried to turn, but Dad’s hand shot out to hold my head in place.
“What are you doing?” I slurred. My limbs, I couldn’t lift them. I couldn’t fight. Terror filled me as fatigue like I hadn’t experienced before washed over me. “W-What’s happening?”
“We’re going to purge your sins out of you, West” was the last thing I heard before sleep dragged me under.
Groaning, I went to roll over but realized I couldn’t. My body ached and my knees hurt. I shivered from the frigid air, and a headache pounded in my head.
Had I been out drinking?
I blinked again and again. Slowly, I lifted my head, waiting for my eyes to focus. When they did, I gasped.
“No, no, no, no.” I was naked.
Naked.
I reared back, only to cry out and fall forward. Chains rattled, tears blurring my vision, but I still saw and felt them. Cold steel wrapped around my wrists, the chains bolted to the ground, keeping me in place.
“Please, please, no,” I begged the silent room.
I glanced around at the shelves, the food on them, the bench next to it, the only light shining down in the dingy, cold room.
Why?
Why the fuck was I chained naked in my parents’ basement?
A basement I had always been scared of because my father used to lock me down here when I’d done something wrong. He made me read from the bible over and over until my throat hurt.
“Mom? Dad?” I yelled. Anger filled me, warmed me. They’d gone too far. Way too fucking far. They were crazy. I didn’t want anything to do with them. Never again.
I heard footsteps. A door opened and closed before the one to the basement opened. More pounding footsteps down the stairs. I tried to glance over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see who it was.
I rattled the chains. “You’re nuts. This is fucking crazy. Let me go,” I yelled.
“You will be cleansed,” Dad replied, almost robotically.
“What are you talking about? Is this because of my job? I don’t do anything with those men.”
“Lies,” he screamed. “You let them touch you.”
“I didn’t!”
“You did. It’s wrong. You’re wrong. We can’t have that. God won’t allow something like you in Heaven until your sins are purged from you.”
“What are you talking about? Working isn’t a sin. Being gay isn’t a sin. You’re the one who’s wrong. I’m not. I’m normal. I’m fine the way I am.”
“You repulse us. We will make you clean” came Mom’s voice. I hadn’t heard her approach. She moved beside me as she placed a tray on the bench.
“Mom, no, what are you talking about? Please, please stop this.” My voice cracked, tears welling.
I wasn’t wrong.
I wasn’t a sin.
My actions weren’t sins.
I just wanted to be accepted. I wanted a happy life—one filled with love.
I was normal. I was.
“Stop, please. There’s nothing wrong with me. There isn’t.” A sob tore out of me. I thumped the ground with the chains. “I’m normal. I am!”
My heart cracked. It dripped blood from an old wound. One my parents had inflicted. One I had healed by being away from them, but it was the same one they were opening again. They were breaking me.
“You will be clean. You will be after we’re done with you,” Mom stated.
I glanced up to a mother who never loved me—a mother who only saw faults.
“Don’t do this, please, Mom. Please.”
Her upper lip raised in a silent snarl as she watched my tears flow down my cheeks. “You’re dirty, boy. God won’t have you the way you are.”
“He will!” I yelled. I believed it. I may not be devoted, but I trusted God existed. “He will have me. He will shine down on me. He will love me for who I am. But can you really say this is what God would want you to do to your own son? Doesn’t what you’re doing go against God and his ways?”
She shook her head and glanced over me. “God doesn’t shine on those who sin.”
“What you’re doing is a sin!” I shouted.
“You’re wrong. God trusted in us to take care of our problem. I am doing God’s work, and you will repent. Hold him.”
My head was forced back with a hand in my hair and one under my chin. I shook my head over and over, moved, wiggled. Dad gripped my hair harder, nearly ripping it from my scalp.
“Still,” he ordered.
Mom turned back from the bench with a jug in her hand. “Vinegar is a good tool to cleanse with.”
Vinegar.
She didn’t. She couldn’t want to pour that down my throat.
“Open,” she said.
I shook my head, clamping my lips closed. More tears fell. My whimpers came thick and fast as I pulled on the chains, skin scraping against the cold metal.