That was a Thursday, the day that I decided to start my silence I mean. I spent the entire weekend in silence, ignoring pretty much everything that Mom or Dad tried to tell me unless it had to do with meals. I figured that the only things they really needed out of me were my life and my ability to have sex with the Nelene kid, so why bother doing anything else for them other than keeping myself alive? And, since Karen was still off at her smart kid summer program thing, I was in the house with two people whose existence I was trying not to notice most of the time.
It was boring, but worth it in a way. I could tell that it was starting to bother Dad by the time I went to bed that Thursday night. Mom was worried, something that I realized almost right away, but she was also in the middle of a project that she just couldn't take much time away from. She was already behind on her deadline, so she had no time to waste trying to get her adult son out of his sulk, and I couldn't blame her. Of course, that left me to Dad, who did have the time to bug me night and day and try to get me to see why it all wasn't really as bad as I thought it was.
I'm not quite sure how I managed to make it through the weekend, now that I think about it. I suspect I might have found some way, which I have long since forgotten, to switch off my brain for the most part and just drift there. Otherwise I'm sure I would have caved in just from the sheer pressure of Dad's almost constant presence. But, I managed to survive it, acting like nothing more than a living doll that would eat when given food, but not do much else.
And then Monday came. Monday was the first day of summer classes at UWGB, and I knew that Dad had a class to teach. He usually did, because he had always claimed to find the summer semester quite a bit more interesting than the regular semesters. But that left me relatively undisturbed, since Mom had switched to a semi-nocturnal pattern of sleep for the duration of her current writing project. She tended to do that when particularly stressed or pressed to meet a deadline, and she was both at that time.
The week passed, for the most part, and we came to Thursday, an entire week after I started my silence. That day, like all the others, Dad was on campus almost all day long, even though he only had one class to teach. Mom slept until about noon that day and then got up to make herself lunch and find something for me to eat. It was while she was preparing her sandwich that the doorbell rang. This wasn't really anything weird, though - Mom had friends who came to visit every now and then, as well as an editor who came to check up on her while she was working - so I just ignored it and continued as I had been for the past week while Mom went to answer the door.
Almost right after the doorbell rang, there came a knock at my door. I wasn't quite sure why she bothered knocking at that point, since for a week she had knocked each time she came to see me, but I had refused to answer her and say she could come in. That, of course, hadn't stopped her from opening my door each and every time that I refused to answer her knock. So the way I looked at it, it made no sense for her to keep knocking if she was just going to come in anyway. I figured maybe she was waiting just in case I wasn't decent when she knocked and was giving me a chance to prepare before she came in, but I couldn't be sure of that, and I wasn't about to ask.
So, again, she knocked. And again I refused to answer, which made her open the door after about a minute of waiting. It really wasn't any different than any of the other times that she had done, it. Or at least, it wasn't until she started talking and told me that I had a visitor. That was a new one, though I managed to keep my curiosity in check enough to avoid turning around to see what she was talking about. After all, I was supposed to be ignoring her, pretending that she didn't even exist.
Just to keep things clear, I'll describe what the layout of the room at that point was. My room at that time was a fairly decent sized one, for a normal middle class family, which was what we were for the most part. I had my bed in the corner completely opposite the corner that the door was in, and my desk and computer were right next to it, on the wall that literally faced the door. So when I was sitting at my desk working on the computer, as I was at that moment, I had my back to anyone who might show up at the door, which was where Mom and my guest were. So if I wanted to continue to ignore Mom, I couldn't turn around to see who was with her, though part of me wanted to know more than anything else at that moment.
I heard her sigh when I refused to turn around, or even acknowledge her presence. "I'm sorry," she said, and I assumed that she was talking to the other person, since she had no real reason to be apologizing to me. (Well, she could have been coming to apologize for not telling me about everything, but I had pretty much come to the conclusion that no one felt really bad about that at that point...) "I was hoping that he might show some interest in someone other than the family, but apparently I was wrong. Maybe if you talk to him alone for a bit?"
The other person didn't say anything, though I assumed that he, or she, nodded or something like that, based on what Mom said next. "Well then, I'll just let you deal with him. I'll be working in my study if you need me for anything." And then she left the room, closing the door behind her. I assumed that the other person stayed, though my pride and determination to stick to my ignoring everyone who was involved in that situation kept me from turning around to see if I had guessed right. I wasn't quite sure if the person actually was associated with all of it, but I figured better safe than sorry.
Of course, that was how I was thinking before I heard quiet footsteps approach me from behind at a rapid pace. That was how I was thinking before the person left in the room suddenly hugged me from behind, as best as was possible with a chair in between us before I could turn around in surprise at the footsteps. That was how I was thinking before I felt a chin rest on my shoulder and heard an all too familiar voice whisper right in my ear, sending a slight shiver down my spine at the same time as I started to panic.
"I hear you've been giving everyone the silent treatment," that voice said as I desperately squashed down the urge to try to run as fast and as far as I could.
Mark.
They had sent Mark, not that that surprised me in the end. As much as I could hope that he would stay firmly out of it, that I could keep from having to let the relationship between us change any more than it already had, I think I realized from the start that there was nothing I could do to stop that. Michal had made his decision, that Mark would be far better in his role than he would now that the magic part was no longer necessary. But I could still mourn a little that he had actually agreed to play along with them without putting up the biggest stink possible.
I was good and stuck to my silence, despite my slight surprise. I think this bothered him, since after a few moments of quiet, he let go of the hug and spun my chair around forcefully, which was not difficult because it was a wheel chair on a smooth imitation wood floor. This put me face to face with him, which made it much harder to pretend that I wasn't listening and that I wasn't even aware of his presence, though I still tried.
"Why are you ignoring me too?" he asked, but I didn't respond. I just pointed my eyes downward, at my lap, so that I wouldn't have to try quite as hard to make it seem like I was ignoring him. Finally, after almost an entire minute of this, he sighed, and went to flop down on my bed.
"Do you know what my dad said to me last night?" he asked, lying stretched out on my bed with his head propped up on one arm. I didn't answer, but he continued anyway after a bit. "He asked me if I wanted to fuck you. Seriously, he just came out and said to me, "Mark, do you want to sleep with your friend?" I asked him what friend he was talking about, and he told me your name.
"And do you know what I told him in return?" More silence on my part, though I was fairly sure that I knew the answer already. "I said yeah, since I'm not gonna lie to my dad. And after that...after that he told me to present myself here and tell your mom or dad that I came to train you. I don't know why, but he said that I would get what I wanted if I said that, so here I am."
As much as was trying to ignore him, it was difficult right then. After all, I was about ready to kill Michal at that point, for doing pretty much the same thing to Mark that he had refused to do to me. When I had been sent to him without knowing anything, he had refused to continue with the lessons until I knew what was going on. But he was sending Mark to have sex with me and "train" me without knowing anything about what was going on, except that he would get to have sex with me. And since that was what he wanted, apparently, he went along with things.
"So you're really going to ignore me as well?" he asked. Of course, I still didn't reply; I just continued to stare down at my lap, trying my hardest not to show any sign that I was fully aware of everything he was saying and doing. Unfortunately, he seemed to have different plans, as he tilted my head up by force and tried to look me in the eye. I didn't turn my eyes away when he did this. Rather, I just let my eyes go unfocused and stared more or less right through him.
And then he kissed me. It was a short kiss, barely lasting a few seconds, just the merest touch of his lips to mine. I think he did it more to try and get a response out of me, maybe something like what happened when he tried to kiss me not too long before that. But I suppose I was expecting something like that by then, especially given that he had specifically come in order to have sex with me. So the kiss barely caught me by surprise at all, and I managed to keep perfectly still while he did it. Of course, normally, even if I hadn't been expecting it, I would have reacted somehow. But by that point I was hoping that maybe if I refused to do anything when he tried things that he might get fed up or bored and leave me alone.
But, just like a few moments before that, he seemed to have other things in mind. While I stared straight ahead, eyes out of focus so that I wouldn't have to actually be watching his face so near mine, he reached up to remove my glasses and proceeded to kiss me again. This time it wasn't the fleeting, barely touching kiss that it had been just before that. This was a "real" kiss, deep and involved.
And I sat there the entire time and just let him do what he wanted. It wasn't that I wanted him to be kissing me, though a certain part of my body that lay below my belt reminded me rather forcefully that it was enjoying itself even if I wasn't. Rather, it was that I had come to the realization that there was absolutely nothing I could do to get out of it. And if I couldn't get out of it, why bother reacting at all? Why not just sit there like some lifeless doll and let him have his way, hoping that he might get tired of an unresponsive partner before he could get too far? So that was my attitude going into the kiss, and that was why I let his tongue between my lips so easily, as well as why I didn't protest when he snaked one hand up my shirt to tease at the nearest nipple.
That was how it went... He did more and more things, and I just let him do it. I didn't say anything, except to moan and gasp a few times when he found a particularly sensitive spot on my skin. My body was rather pleased with the entire situation, particularly the not having to do anything but react to what he was doing to me. But I...I sort of detached myself from reality more and more the further into it he got. By the time he had my pants and boxers shoved down around my ankles and was sticking a couple of fingers up my ass, stretching and preparing me for the invasion to come, it was more like I was watching two unrelated guys screwing each other in my bedroom. The person that Mark was shoving down on the bed wasn't really me, though every now and then a wave of pleasure that ran through my body pulled me back to remind me that that person was, in fact, me.
I think maybe something inside of me broke that day, and that was why I sort of detached from reality for a while. I wasn't quite sure what was going on anymore when I finally returned to "normal." I just knew that at one point it was me watching two other guys having sex on my bed, and the next moment it was me lying on the bed, Mark thrusting up my ass over and over again, bringing me closer and closer to the edge with each movement. And then, before I ever really realized it, I came, letting out a wordless shout, of the pleasurable sort, and he joined me mere moments afterward.
We laid there for a few moments, the both of us panting heavily from the exertion of the act. Then, about a minute later, he rose from the bed to go after my box of tissues and work at cleaning up my mess the best he could. He was careful as he wiped me off, doing so in a way that wouldn't stir up the passions that had just been spent.
And while he was on the other side of the room, throwing out the soiled tissues, it hit me. I had been so adamant earlier about not wanting to have sex with Mark. He was my friend, not one of the participants in the damned situation that everyone else seemed to be involved in. He wasn't supposed to be crossing the line between the two, but he just had. And there was no possible way that we could go back.
By the time he made it back to the bed, I had curled up into a fetal position and was sobbing. Normally I didn't cry, but for some reason at that point, I just couldn't stop the tears. And though it was more of a reaction than anything else had been, except for my body's reaction to his ministrations, I barely even noticed as he laid down in bed next to me and wrapped his arms around me. I just lay there, sobbing, until I cried myself to sleep.
I woke up later that day for a few minutes, sometime in late evening after the sun had already gone down. I shouldn't have been so tired, but there was something in my system that just wouldn't let me stay awake. And, during the little time that I was awake, I heard the door to my room open. I was facing away from the wall at the time, so I managed to slit my eyes open just far enough to see Dad standing there in the doorway, looking in on the two of us laying there, Mark with his arms wrapped around me and clutching me to his chest like a treasured stuffed animal. After that, Dad nodded, looking slightly happy with himself, and shut the door, leaving us in the dark.
And still I just lay there, not really even able to cry anymore.
END PART I
1. Or, how to ignore an entire family worth of people without breaking a sweat...