Chapter 5
A little wind had kicked up today, rustling the leaves on the trees nearby and lifting the silky/rough curls of Aasif’s lovely hair. As they had for several weeks now, the two men sat side-by-side on the park bench they’d claimed as ‘theirs’, with Daniel’s arm resting lightly but firmly across Aasif’s slim shoulders.
Every day the bartender relaxed more and more. And every day it took less and less time for him to do so, until by now his slender body was pressed against Daniel’s side in a decidedly nice way that the ex-soldier really appreciated. He could hear Aasif’s breathing, which was even and steady. It, like many other indicators, told him how very far that the other man had come along the road to recovery. The immersion therapy was a big success. Every day Aasif was more confident, less tense, and less scared.
Improvement had been in slow but steady increments, until now Aasif could nestle against his side trustingly without terror overwhelming him.
For Daniel, these therapy sessions had so far been a pleasurable torture. It was so difficult to touch Aasif, to hold him, to feel him pressed against his side…and to not be able to take it any further than this, lest he scare Aasif back into his state of extreme fear if he moved too soon. Daniel knew that if he took this slow and easy, Aasif might recover almost completely. And then they could get down and dirty together, as often as they liked. But knowing that intellectually and getting his body to understand it on a physical level were two different things entirely. He was always at least half hard during every one of these sessions, and often spent the time holding Aasif with his teeth gritted against the pinching pain at his groin.
Aasif sighed, a slow and peaceful sound. He stirred, and his eyes came back from wherever they were gazing. He turned his head a little. “Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
Another sigh, this one a sharper and quicker sound. He felt Aasif’s slim body tense a little under his hand. “I-I would like to…” Aasif began, then stopped. He looked stricken, his brows gathering together and his large eyes welling up with some darkness that it hurt Daniel to see there.
“What? What would you like to do?” Daniel asked him softly.
The full lips pressed together until they were a thin line, and Aasif’s hands clenched painfully in his lap. “I…” his throat worked as he fought to speak past some constriction. “I want t-to tell you…”
Daniel waited patiently, not trying to push him further. He let Aasif struggle with his inner demons alone, not wanting to upset him any further. He was already tight, rigid as a bow beside Daniel on the bench. Finally Aasif spat out from between clenched teeth: “I want to tell you…what happened…to me!” he cried the last part on a loud, shrilling wave of sound, and his breathing had picked up until he was nearly panting.
Daniel petted his shoulder soothingly, trying to relax the tense muscles even a little. “You don’t have to if it’s going to upset you this badly, Aasif,” he said gently. “You can always tell me later.”
“No!” a violent shake of the head made the long, wavy/curly hair fly. “If I don’t tell you now…I d-don’t think that I’ll…ever be able to…tell you,” Aasif ground out. “And I…want to. I need to t-tell somebody…I can’t stand it anymore…”
Daniel nodded in understanding. “It’s been eating you up inside all of this time,” he replied quietly. “Any good therapist will tell you the best way to overcome any trauma is to talk about it. To get it out in the open. To lance the wound and let it drain so it doesn’t fester anymore.”
“Exactly,” Aasif said, his large eyes meeting Daniel’s. “I’m so glad that you understand, Daniel. I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t…”
“I’ll always be here for you, Aasif, no matter what,” Daniel vowed sincerely. “Nothing you tell me will ever make me think any less of you.”
Aasif’s eyes searched his face, then the bartender nodded a little. “Yes. I feel that I can trust you. It…” he trailed off, looking down, his long lashes falling over his large eyes to hide them. “I was…thirteen…when it…happened.”
Daniel felt his stomach contract inside of him. He had a feeling he was going to hate whatever Aasif told him next. Thirteen! A mere child, not quite a teen yet…and, unfortunately, he already knew that Aasif’s trauma had something to do with at least one American soldier. Witness his reaction to the mere sight of that uniform not so long ago. He braced himself to hear whatever horror had involved his fellow soldiers.
“It was just after the War started…” Aasif said on a mere breath of sound. Daniel had to strain to hear him. “We lived in Baghdad. The Americans had taken the city, and my father wouldn’t let me go outside. He didn’t want me wandering the streets when there were still bombs dropping everywhere. I started to get restless because I was bored. I was just a kid, and there was nothing to do inside. I was used to running the streets with my friends. I got angry with my father, and I was sulking. I didn’t realize how serious this all was. I didn’t think that the Americans would do anything to me. After all, they’d come to liberate our country, right? Surely a young boy would be safe on the streets with armed American soldiers patrolling them.”
He stopped talking, his throat working visibly. Daniel closed his eyes, his mouth tightening. But he kept his hold on Aasif light, and merely rubbed his shoulder and arm comfortingly while he waited for the bartender to pull himself together enough to go on.
“I snuck out,” Aasif said after a bit. “In the evening, when my parents were busy. My mother was cooking, and my father was talking with some of his friends. I crawled out a back window and went looking for my friends, and also to see if I could come across any Americans. Like any boy, I wanted to see their big guns and the tanks. It was very exciting. But I couldn’t find my friends, because their parents were keeping them inside, too. I finally gave up and started for home.”
“As I was walking through a part of the city that had been heavily shelled, with lots of destroyed houses, I heard a voice call to me in English. I knew how to speak some English already, because my father is a scholar and linguist and he had been teaching me. I turned to see some American soldiers coming toward me.”
He stopped again, his body beginning to rock in a defensive motion. Daniel cast him a worried glance, wondering if Aasif was strong enough for this. Finally, the bartender choked out: “There were five of them. They were smiling, and they looked friendly.”
Daniel felt his stomach heave and twist inside of him. He felt cold. ‘There were five of them’. Jesus. He had a very, very bad feeling about this.
Aasif was trembling now, like a leaf in a high wind. “One of them…held out a candy bar,” he said, his voice so thin and full of distress that it was almost inaudible. “He said: Here kid. For you.”
“I hadn’t seen anything like that for a long time, for months. I knew not to take things from strangers, but this was an American soldier. Surely he meant me no harm? I took the candy bar,” Aasif’s breath was panting and whistling in his throat. “They all smiled at me while I ate it. I thought they were so kind,” Aasif nearly wailed, his whole body jerking in Daniel’s grasp. He tightened his hold at last, to try to keep Aasif from breaking apart.
He should put a stop to this, but he wasn’t sure what would be worse for Aasif. Maybe he just needed to get this out, no matter what. So he held onto Aasif with both hands, held him tight, and let him spill out the horror and darkness that had been locked away inside of him for so long.
“One of them grasped my arm,” Aasif choked. “I didn’t know why. I tried to pull away. Another one laughed and said that they should have some ‘fun’. I didn’t understand what he meant. Then the one holding me began to pull me toward one of the burned out buildings, and I started mot struggle. But he was so strong…I couldn’t get away. I started to get very frightened, but I still didn’t know what they intended I was afraid that they meant to kill me…” he stopped again, a shudder passing through him. "I wish that they’d killed me,” he said thinly.
“No, don’t wish that. I’m glad that they didn’t kill you, Aasif, though they put you through hell,” Daniel told him.
Aasif’s eyes slid to his again. The wounded expression in those big orbs smote him to the very heart. “I’m glad to be alive now, Daniel,” he said softly. “And here, with you. But then…I would have been happier if they’d just killed me once they’d finished with me. Because they d-dragged me into the burned out building, and one of them ripped off my shirt and stuffed it into my mouth, while another one pulled my arms behind my back and tied my hands with my own belt so that I couldn’t move. I struggled and tried to scream, but I couldn’t do anything to stop them. Then they pulled my p-pants down, and I began to realize what they meant to do to me. But by then it was too late, one of them was unbuckling his belt. He was grinning. They were all laughing. I heard them,” his voice had gone dull and lifeless, and Daniel did some shuddering of his own as an amalgam of rage and horror raced through him.
“I never imagined before that that anything could hurt so much,” Aasif’s voice was soft. His eyes were empty. He was reliving that day, far away in space and time from this park. “I screamed and screamed. But they didn’t stop. They didn’t care. They kept saying things like how tight I was, how good it felt, how I was the best piece of ass they’d had in months. I wish that I hadn’t understood enough English to know what they were saying,” he went on dully. “They laughed as they raped me, all five of them. When the last one was done, another said something about ’going another round’, but the one who had just finished with me said that they had to get back or they’d be missed. That it was too bad. He slapped me on the ass and I would have fallen, but another one of them caught me and held me up. They got dressed, and one of them pulled my pants back up and took the shirt from my mouth. They untied my wrists.”
“Finally, they were ready to leave. The one who’d offered me the candy bar seemed to have realized that I spoke some English, because he said to me: If you tell anybody about this, kid, we’ll hunt you down. We’ll kill you and your whole family. Got it?”
“I got it. I believed him. After what they’d just done to me, I believed they were capable of anything. I nodded. They left then, left me there with blood on my thighs and my shirt wet from spit, left me to try to get home as best as I could on my own. I could barely walk. I thought I’d never make it. I didn’t want to make it. I wanted to die. I wished that some of their fellows would come along, mistake me for a terrorist breaking the curfew, and shoot me. Before that happened, I didn’t even know that two men could…with each other. For a long time afterward, I was terrified that my yearnings for other men started that day. That I liked it and I wanted more. Only the fact that I couldn’t touch other men, not even my own father, let me understand that I wasn’t some kind of twisted kink who got off on gang rape. I was simply gay. Coming here to America helped, because it is so open here. I was able to accept myself at last, but I could never move past the crippling fear. Until…now. Until you. You’ve saved me, Daniel,” he said simply, his voice full of emotion.
Dear God. Daniel felt like he’d been dipped in ice water. After that horrifying confession of what had happened to him at the hands of American solders, how the hell was he supposed to confess to Aasif about who and what he’d been even a few months ago? What if telling him sent Aasif back into his state of total fear? Yet lying to him would be even worse, because if the bartender ever found out the truth from some other source his trust in Daniel would be totally shattered. Somehow, some way, he was going to have to muster up the same courage that Aasif had just shown and tell the other man about himself. But not now. For now, he simply held Aasif cradled in his arms as the other man found some measure of peace in the wake of his terrible confession.
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A little wind had kicked up today, rustling the leaves on the trees nearby and lifting the silky/rough curls of Aasif’s lovely hair. As they had for several weeks now, the two men sat side-by-side on the park bench they’d claimed as ‘theirs’, with Daniel’s arm resting lightly but firmly across Aasif’s slim shoulders.
Every day the bartender relaxed more and more. And every day it took less and less time for him to do so, until by now his slender body was pressed against Daniel’s side in a decidedly nice way that the ex-soldier really appreciated. He could hear Aasif’s breathing, which was even and steady. It, like many other indicators, told him how very far that the other man had come along the road to recovery. The immersion therapy was a big success. Every day Aasif was more confident, less tense, and less scared.
Improvement had been in slow but steady increments, until now Aasif could nestle against his side trustingly without terror overwhelming him.
For Daniel, these therapy sessions had so far been a pleasurable torture. It was so difficult to touch Aasif, to hold him, to feel him pressed against his side…and to not be able to take it any further than this, lest he scare Aasif back into his state of extreme fear if he moved too soon. Daniel knew that if he took this slow and easy, Aasif might recover almost completely. And then they could get down and dirty together, as often as they liked. But knowing that intellectually and getting his body to understand it on a physical level were two different things entirely. He was always at least half hard during every one of these sessions, and often spent the time holding Aasif with his teeth gritted against the pinching pain at his groin.
Aasif sighed, a slow and peaceful sound. He stirred, and his eyes came back from wherever they were gazing. He turned his head a little. “Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
Another sigh, this one a sharper and quicker sound. He felt Aasif’s slim body tense a little under his hand. “I-I would like to…” Aasif began, then stopped. He looked stricken, his brows gathering together and his large eyes welling up with some darkness that it hurt Daniel to see there.
“What? What would you like to do?” Daniel asked him softly.
The full lips pressed together until they were a thin line, and Aasif’s hands clenched painfully in his lap. “I…” his throat worked as he fought to speak past some constriction. “I want t-to tell you…”
Daniel waited patiently, not trying to push him further. He let Aasif struggle with his inner demons alone, not wanting to upset him any further. He was already tight, rigid as a bow beside Daniel on the bench. Finally Aasif spat out from between clenched teeth: “I want to tell you…what happened…to me!” he cried the last part on a loud, shrilling wave of sound, and his breathing had picked up until he was nearly panting.
Daniel petted his shoulder soothingly, trying to relax the tense muscles even a little. “You don’t have to if it’s going to upset you this badly, Aasif,” he said gently. “You can always tell me later.”
“No!” a violent shake of the head made the long, wavy/curly hair fly. “If I don’t tell you now…I d-don’t think that I’ll…ever be able to…tell you,” Aasif ground out. “And I…want to. I need to t-tell somebody…I can’t stand it anymore…”
Daniel nodded in understanding. “It’s been eating you up inside all of this time,” he replied quietly. “Any good therapist will tell you the best way to overcome any trauma is to talk about it. To get it out in the open. To lance the wound and let it drain so it doesn’t fester anymore.”
“Exactly,” Aasif said, his large eyes meeting Daniel’s. “I’m so glad that you understand, Daniel. I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t…”
“I’ll always be here for you, Aasif, no matter what,” Daniel vowed sincerely. “Nothing you tell me will ever make me think any less of you.”
Aasif’s eyes searched his face, then the bartender nodded a little. “Yes. I feel that I can trust you. It…” he trailed off, looking down, his long lashes falling over his large eyes to hide them. “I was…thirteen…when it…happened.”
Daniel felt his stomach contract inside of him. He had a feeling he was going to hate whatever Aasif told him next. Thirteen! A mere child, not quite a teen yet…and, unfortunately, he already knew that Aasif’s trauma had something to do with at least one American soldier. Witness his reaction to the mere sight of that uniform not so long ago. He braced himself to hear whatever horror had involved his fellow soldiers.
“It was just after the War started…” Aasif said on a mere breath of sound. Daniel had to strain to hear him. “We lived in Baghdad. The Americans had taken the city, and my father wouldn’t let me go outside. He didn’t want me wandering the streets when there were still bombs dropping everywhere. I started to get restless because I was bored. I was just a kid, and there was nothing to do inside. I was used to running the streets with my friends. I got angry with my father, and I was sulking. I didn’t realize how serious this all was. I didn’t think that the Americans would do anything to me. After all, they’d come to liberate our country, right? Surely a young boy would be safe on the streets with armed American soldiers patrolling them.”
He stopped talking, his throat working visibly. Daniel closed his eyes, his mouth tightening. But he kept his hold on Aasif light, and merely rubbed his shoulder and arm comfortingly while he waited for the bartender to pull himself together enough to go on.
“I snuck out,” Aasif said after a bit. “In the evening, when my parents were busy. My mother was cooking, and my father was talking with some of his friends. I crawled out a back window and went looking for my friends, and also to see if I could come across any Americans. Like any boy, I wanted to see their big guns and the tanks. It was very exciting. But I couldn’t find my friends, because their parents were keeping them inside, too. I finally gave up and started for home.”
“As I was walking through a part of the city that had been heavily shelled, with lots of destroyed houses, I heard a voice call to me in English. I knew how to speak some English already, because my father is a scholar and linguist and he had been teaching me. I turned to see some American soldiers coming toward me.”
He stopped again, his body beginning to rock in a defensive motion. Daniel cast him a worried glance, wondering if Aasif was strong enough for this. Finally, the bartender choked out: “There were five of them. They were smiling, and they looked friendly.”
Daniel felt his stomach heave and twist inside of him. He felt cold. ‘There were five of them’. Jesus. He had a very, very bad feeling about this.
Aasif was trembling now, like a leaf in a high wind. “One of them…held out a candy bar,” he said, his voice so thin and full of distress that it was almost inaudible. “He said: Here kid. For you.”
“I hadn’t seen anything like that for a long time, for months. I knew not to take things from strangers, but this was an American soldier. Surely he meant me no harm? I took the candy bar,” Aasif’s breath was panting and whistling in his throat. “They all smiled at me while I ate it. I thought they were so kind,” Aasif nearly wailed, his whole body jerking in Daniel’s grasp. He tightened his hold at last, to try to keep Aasif from breaking apart.
He should put a stop to this, but he wasn’t sure what would be worse for Aasif. Maybe he just needed to get this out, no matter what. So he held onto Aasif with both hands, held him tight, and let him spill out the horror and darkness that had been locked away inside of him for so long.
“One of them grasped my arm,” Aasif choked. “I didn’t know why. I tried to pull away. Another one laughed and said that they should have some ‘fun’. I didn’t understand what he meant. Then the one holding me began to pull me toward one of the burned out buildings, and I started mot struggle. But he was so strong…I couldn’t get away. I started to get very frightened, but I still didn’t know what they intended I was afraid that they meant to kill me…” he stopped again, a shudder passing through him. "I wish that they’d killed me,” he said thinly.
“No, don’t wish that. I’m glad that they didn’t kill you, Aasif, though they put you through hell,” Daniel told him.
Aasif’s eyes slid to his again. The wounded expression in those big orbs smote him to the very heart. “I’m glad to be alive now, Daniel,” he said softly. “And here, with you. But then…I would have been happier if they’d just killed me once they’d finished with me. Because they d-dragged me into the burned out building, and one of them ripped off my shirt and stuffed it into my mouth, while another one pulled my arms behind my back and tied my hands with my own belt so that I couldn’t move. I struggled and tried to scream, but I couldn’t do anything to stop them. Then they pulled my p-pants down, and I began to realize what they meant to do to me. But by then it was too late, one of them was unbuckling his belt. He was grinning. They were all laughing. I heard them,” his voice had gone dull and lifeless, and Daniel did some shuddering of his own as an amalgam of rage and horror raced through him.
“I never imagined before that that anything could hurt so much,” Aasif’s voice was soft. His eyes were empty. He was reliving that day, far away in space and time from this park. “I screamed and screamed. But they didn’t stop. They didn’t care. They kept saying things like how tight I was, how good it felt, how I was the best piece of ass they’d had in months. I wish that I hadn’t understood enough English to know what they were saying,” he went on dully. “They laughed as they raped me, all five of them. When the last one was done, another said something about ’going another round’, but the one who had just finished with me said that they had to get back or they’d be missed. That it was too bad. He slapped me on the ass and I would have fallen, but another one of them caught me and held me up. They got dressed, and one of them pulled my pants back up and took the shirt from my mouth. They untied my wrists.”
“Finally, they were ready to leave. The one who’d offered me the candy bar seemed to have realized that I spoke some English, because he said to me: If you tell anybody about this, kid, we’ll hunt you down. We’ll kill you and your whole family. Got it?”
“I got it. I believed him. After what they’d just done to me, I believed they were capable of anything. I nodded. They left then, left me there with blood on my thighs and my shirt wet from spit, left me to try to get home as best as I could on my own. I could barely walk. I thought I’d never make it. I didn’t want to make it. I wanted to die. I wished that some of their fellows would come along, mistake me for a terrorist breaking the curfew, and shoot me. Before that happened, I didn’t even know that two men could…with each other. For a long time afterward, I was terrified that my yearnings for other men started that day. That I liked it and I wanted more. Only the fact that I couldn’t touch other men, not even my own father, let me understand that I wasn’t some kind of twisted kink who got off on gang rape. I was simply gay. Coming here to America helped, because it is so open here. I was able to accept myself at last, but I could never move past the crippling fear. Until…now. Until you. You’ve saved me, Daniel,” he said simply, his voice full of emotion.
Dear God. Daniel felt like he’d been dipped in ice water. After that horrifying confession of what had happened to him at the hands of American solders, how the hell was he supposed to confess to Aasif about who and what he’d been even a few months ago? What if telling him sent Aasif back into his state of total fear? Yet lying to him would be even worse, because if the bartender ever found out the truth from some other source his trust in Daniel would be totally shattered. Somehow, some way, he was going to have to muster up the same courage that Aasif had just shown and tell the other man about himself. But not now. For now, he simply held Aasif cradled in his arms as the other man found some measure of peace in the wake of his terrible confession.
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