THERAPY A short story by Sidney Anthony (alias Samuel Grunberger) Note: this story is fictional, any connection with

any persons either living or dead are purely coincidental and not intended. Warning: This story is of a graphic nature and contains scenes and language not fit for children under the age of 18 and might offend sensitive readers. I revisited my childhood home. The dilapidated run down building on Baker Street. Nobody rebuilt it after the fire. I still cant belief I have survived that ordeal. Thinking back to that time is so difficult for me, but I guess I have to if I want to go on with my life. Ive been in counselling for ten years now, and if Im to heal, Im to get it all out. This then is my story. I am Jonathan Jeremiah Carlyle, son of James and Marilyn Carlyle of Jameson Missouri, I was born at two-fifteen in the morning of March 22, 1971 in Nappanee, Ontario, Canada when my parents visited lake Ontario. My mother killed herself when I was two years old. My father used to drink and then beat and sodomize her. She couldnt take it anymore and drank a whole prescription of Vallium and Prozac at the same time, while my father was working night shift at the local factory. When he came home and found her, it was too late. He blamed my mothers pregnancy for the end to his military career. He blamed me for her death. My father provided for my physical needs, seeing that I had clothes and food, and schooling, but otherwise he was distant. Early on I learnt not to disobey my father or to talk back to him. I was five years old when he beat me with his fists for the first time, saying that if I want to disobey like an adult, I could take a beating like an adult. If I didnt eat my food, I would be beaten with a broken broom stick and fed dog food for a week. He said it would teach me the value of a good meal. I was seven years old in school when I first heard the word television and when I asked my father what it was, he told me it was the tool the devil used to corrupt young minds and that all that was on television were fucking blacks murdering the white people and fucking queers spreading their propaganda. By now you should have noticed that my father was a hatemonger. He hated blacks, coloureds, Indians, Russians, Japanese, Koreans, but most of all he hated homosexuals. He told me blacks was worse than dogs and belonged in the bush. He told me the only good queer was a dead queer. My father never used the word homosexual, only the word queer. (I think it is obvious that he had a phobia about homosexuality. I only later, through my therapist learnt that it was most likely because he was homosexual and couldnt accept himself. The fact that he sodomized my mother and what he did to me, as you will see, is proof of this.) Once when I was nine, I asked my father if my best friend Billy could sleep over. He went berserk and I remember his words as clearly as if it was yesterday. Why, are you a fucking queer? Only fucking queers sleep over. Want to be butt fucked? No sir, I answered (I didnt even know what butt fucked meant), and never again did I ask if someone could sleep over. After that my father started talking a lot of homosexuals and that queers are only good to be burnt and thrown on a trash heap. From that day, my father started walking through the house naked. Telling me that a real man never wears any clothes. He had me sleeping in the nude and walking that way when I was home as well and from that time I was also never allowed to play outside. Many times at the dinner table my father would sit just looking at me. Some nights after dinner we would sit in the living room and my father would have me sit next to him and he would start masturbating and cum all over himself and a few times as he started having his orgasms he would turn on me so his cum would fall on me. A few times his cum fell on my face and he would then call me a dirty little cum eater and told me to clean myself the fuck up.

When I was twelve I had my first wet dream, my father beat me with the broom stick, and had me lick the linen and then lay on it and told me to jerk off before I could washed it. I did as I was told and after I came he jerked off and came on me too, he then spread it all over me and told me that now I was his and his alone and that I should get cleaned up. I never again told him when I had a wet dream. When I was thirteen I accepted that I was indeed as my father so quaintly put it a queer. I didnt dare tell him or anyone. Many a night I cried myself to sleep wishing it wasnt so. Queers burnt in hell, didnt they? Thats what father always said. When I was fourteen, I came home with my report card. I got As for every subject except history. I had a B plus for that. My father took me to the bed room and had me pull my pants down. He hit me with the broom stick on my dick saying that this was the reason that I got bad grades. Thinking of girls all the time. When I said that Im not thinking of girls he started accusing me of being a queer and taking it up the ass. I didnt dare tell him he was right. That night he masturbated over my food and told me that if thinking of girls wasnt why my grades slipped then I must get used to eating cum since it was obvious that I was a queer. When I threw up he beat me so I couldnt go to school for a week. Many times during the nights I would feel a sudden wetness somewhere on my body and I knew my father had ejaculated over me again. I always pretended to be asleep and when he went to bed would just wipe myself off. When I was fifteen, I had a friend, Mark was his name. He was the most beautiful guy you ever could have seen. He had pitch black hair and eyes the colour of emerald. He was sixteen and you could already see traces of chest hair. I used to love handing him a towel after gym. He was always last in the shower and I always kept one towel for him, otherwise with all the other boys, he would have had to use a wet one, or that was my excuse. One day about six months after I first handed him a towel, he actually spoke to me, thanking me for keeping a dry towel for him. About a week later, after he showered, he came to my locker with only the towel around his waist. He didnt say a word, just looked around and then he kissed me. It was my first kiss, and immediately I felt exited and by the look of the towel, so did he. We became friends at first and later we made out whenever we had opportunity. He showed me that love could be a beautiful thing and didnt have to be the dirty thing my dad made it out to be. Our favourite make-out spot was at his house, after school. His mom didnt seem to mind me visiting almost every afternoon. Marks father died in a car accident when he was fifteen. While his mom thought we were studying, we used to make out. I would tell my dad we had football practice after school and even though I wasnt on the team, I was the mascot and had to be there. (I was the mascot, I always had to dress up as a silly beaver, the schools team were the Oakridge Beavers, Mark was a quarterback, so it was easy to say we were at practice, even when practice ended an hour or so earlier.) I came home from school one afternoon and found my father in my room, lying on my bed. He told me to undress and lay beside him. He told me to take his dick in my mouth and when I refused he started beating me. I begged him to stop, but the more I begged him, the more he just hit me. He then tied my hands and feet to the bed with me face down and started masturbating and came over me. The next morning he phoned the school saying that I wouldnt be in for three days. Those three days, he kept me tied to the bed and repeatedly masturbated and came over me. He said that if Im a good boy and play with him, hed let me go. He took the broomstick and pushed it up my ass, and jerked off to my pleas for him to stop. After he came, he would beat me again, and leave me like that and left to I dont know where. The third day he untied my feet and pushed my legs up under me so that my butt was in the air. He then pushed something big into my butt, I dont remember what it was, but I remember that it hurt. After that he untied me and said: You are a filthy son of a bitch, a dirty fucking cocksucker, go clean yourself up, and go eat. I was in the bath for almost two hours and I remember that I scrubbed myself raw. After that my father had us wore clothes in the house again, but I tried not to be in his company if I could help it, which was difficult, since we didnt have television or radio, and there is only so much homework a person can do.

One afternoon in July, my father was out of town on business. Mark came over and I showed him my room. I used to make my bed military style since that was how my father taught me. Mark mocked me about it, but I knew he didnt really mind. He walked in my room and actually called it sterile. I was not allowed to put posters on my wall or have anything lying around. Father used to say: Everything in its place and a place for everything. Mark stood in front of my mirror and smiled at me. I started unbuttoning his shirt and pulled it off him. I placed my mouth over his nipples and felt it harden on my tongue. I undid his pants and let them drop and felt his buldge through his briefs. I felt him grow harder as I rubbed the outside of his briefs and finally I took his dick out and placed my mouth over it. After a while he lifted me up and planted a kiss on my lips. He then whispered in my ear that he has a condom in his pants pocket if I want to go all the way. I guess I was totally excited and scared, because I remember how much the broomstick hurt. We had never gone all the way and I wanted him so badly. I thought Mark could take my hurt away. Funny enough for those moments with him, I could forget the hurt in me, oh I was scared, I truly was, but he gave me courage. Mark took the condom from his pants and I placed it on his throbbing dick. He lubricated himself and gently inserted his dick inside me, soothing me with his words. His voice calm and trusting. First I experienced a slight pain, and I thought of the broomstick, but soon it turned to pleasure. I was so caught up in the moment that I didnt hear the bedroom door opening. You fucking queer, you dirty horny little fucking shit. I knew you were a fucking queer. Ill show you what happens to queers, my father screamed and stormed Mark. Before Mark could even extract himself from me, my father started beating him. He beat Mark till he was unconscious, I tried to stop him, but he tied me to the bed. He was so angry that he didnt do a very good job. Ill show you how to be a real queer, he said and undid his pants. He raped Mark while he was unconscious. He lifted Marks unconscious head by the hair and while he was pumping his ass told me that is what you should do with a queer: Beat the shit out of him and then fuck the shit out of him. After he finished with Mark, he sat on the side of the bed looking at me. You betrayed me, Jon, he said. I offered myself to you and you swore to me that youre not a queer, and here I found you, butt fucked by someone I dont even know. My father then started sucking me off and against my will, I became excited and after I came in his mouth he said: Thats fathers big boy. He untied one hand and foot and turned me on my side and then started to have sex with me. You should have told me you wanted a dick in your ass. I would have given you mine. For the first time I could remember I actually cried. This angered my father and he pumped so hard it felt as if my ass was going to tear into a million pieces. After he satisfied himself, my father left the room and came back with a can of gasoline. I told you queers burn in hell, Father, please dont, Im your son, I shouted My son, the fucking queer, Ill see you in hell before I see you a queer. He poured gasoline over my room and all around me and Mark, who was still unconscious (I guess we were lucky that he didnt pour it on us). I was scared that Mark was dead. I have already untied my other hand, since my father never re-tied the one he untied so he could rape me. He lighted his lighter and turned his back to walk to the door. I hit him with my bedside lamp and he fell. The lighter, still burning fell on a patch of gasoline, and the room caught fire. I was choking and coughing as I dragged Mark to the window, I opened it and pushed him out. With the open window the fire grew quickly, the oxygen feeding it. I tried to go back for my father, but couldnt. I jumped out of the window and ran to the other side of the house. I found some clothes on the wash line and dressed myself and Mark. Only then did I hear the sirens. The firemen found me with Mark on my lap outside my window. My hands were burnt and so was my face. I thought Mark was dead, but he wasnt. We were taken to hospital and I had to tell the police what happened. I told them Mark and I were studying when my father came home from his business trip. He didnt act like himself. After studying, Mark and I were in my room talking about football when my father burst in and started beating Mark, and then tied me to the bed (I still had the scuff marks to prove it). I told them that I didnt know what had provoked him. I also told them that Mark was the Beavers quarterback and I was the mascot.

I was scared, but it seemed that they believed me. Since Mark used a condom the only semen they extracted from me and Mark was that of my father. Mark later awakened and told the police that the last thing he could remember was my father shouting in the door and then starting to beat him. My father died in the fire. Smoke inhalation, the fire chief said. He died before the flames got him. At least for that Im thankful. But the thing that caused the most guilt for me was that I was actually glad my father was dead. Was I psychologically programmed to be homosexual by what my father did to me? I dont think so, because I knew I was different long before my father started to walk naked in the house or started jerking himself off over me. I only truly accepted it when I was thirteen and by then, I blocked out a lot of what my father did or thought it normal. If that is all you are exposed to as a child, then for you that is your reality and for you that is actually normal. It wasnt till I met Mark and started visiting him that I realized it wasnt normal. I never told Mark about what my father did or that it was because of him and his mother that I survived it. Marks scars healed. Physical as well it seemed as mentally. We talked about what happened and I couldnt believe the support he gave me. He stood by me through the inquiry. His mom told child services that she would look after me, and I moved in with them. Mark and I became like brothers. We never had sex or talked about having one another again. We were brothers. I eventually started calling his mother mom, and for the first time in my life, I knew what unconditional love was. I received it from Mark and his mother. After my fathers death, my grandmother on my mothers side told me some more shocking news. It seems that I was never my fathers son, not biologically anyway. Shortly before their marriage my parents were at a swingers party. The host and hostess were both homosexuals in a marriage of convenience and the hostess would normally go with a man and a woman for a threeway. My dad and the host would pair off. My grandmother said that my mother did not want to participate. The only man left was a lanky fellow that promised her he would not harm her and offered her a drink. When she awoke she was home and felt sore. That night her maidenhead was broken and a few weeks later she found she was pregnant. My father married her, but also resented her. My grandmother said that my father never had normal sex with my mother, only anal and thus I couldnt be his child. The fact that he normally beat her before he did have sex and that he would also tie her to the bed and have sex with other men in front of her, sometimes with as many as three at a time was also a contributing factor. Mostly she was then abused and raped while tied up, and that, I guess all of that, was the reason she committed suicide. She just couldnt stand the abuse anymore. Once when my father was still in the military, she went and saw the base psychologist and told him what happened to her. After an investigation, my father and four other men were dishonourably discharged from the military for practices unbecoming and officer of the US Armed Forces. He made my mothers life a living hell until she died a year later. Then I understood, or at least I thought I understood, why my father blamed my mother for the end to his military career, although he was to blame himself he always passed the buck so to speak. Somehow I also understood why my father resented me the way he did. That my father was homosexual is evident, the fact that he wasnt my biological father made what he did to me, seem even worse. It took me a long time to understand why a man who was clearly homosexual himself would hate us with such a passion, and I still dont think I understand fully. Child services send both of us to counselling and when we told Marks mom the truth about that day, she only hugged both of us and said it doesnt matter. Whats passed is past and the future is what we must look to. I still call her mom and still see her every week. Mark is living with a man in San Francisco and calls once a week. Im still single, although one of my close friends, Alexander asked me to move in with him. I told my therapist about it and she told me to be honest with him, that if we are going into a relationship he has the right to know about my fears and what caused them. I thought Alexander would run the other direction when I told him. He didnt, he just took me in his arms and held me close and told me that he would stand by me, no matter how long it would take. That was five years ago.

I walked through the ruin and picked up the pieces of my life as I was doing so. As I got into the car I looked again at the ruin that was my house and thought at least the ruin that was my life will be rebuilt. I sold the yard and now someone will built upon this ruin too. No more evidence would exist of that dreadful time in my life. I have survived an arduous ordeal. Ive climbed above my hurts, anger and fear and Ive conquered it. Finally Ive put the past behind me and as we drove away Alexander asked: Are you OK? and for the first time ever, I actually felt it as I said it: Yes Alex, finally, Im more than just OK. The end