A slow fall

Chapter 17 - Caleb

Sometimes you do something stupid and it doesn't hit you until after the fact. You don't even realise until someone points it out. In my case I didn't realise until it came back to bite me.

At the time I never considered the implications. I never questioned that such an innocent action could be misconstrued and used against me.

Though none of this surprised me at all, not really.

Not when my father barged into my room a while after we'd returned from Church, red faced with rage simmering beneath the surface. Not when tears glistened in my mother's eyes as she questioned once again what she had done wrong and asked how she could fix me. Not when my explanations and protests were ignored and overlooked, my words lacking weight.

I should have been surprised when he grabbed me; when I was dragged to the living room and he heated up the fire poker. I should have screamed, shouted and begged for him to stop when the hot metal touch my now unclothed skin. But I didn't.

A prayer was recited by the pair, familiar words easily leaving their lips, and I took my cue when it arrived. We were actors in a well rehearsed play, ours lines so ingrained that they could be spoken without much thought, I uttered my line, an "Amen", when it was needed.

My mother carried on speaking words of the Lord, her attempt at casting away the devil. My father reheated the poker.

I stood, shaking in pain with tears silent falling down my cheeks as they preached about the sin of homosexuality. I listened to their scolding and words of hate as they branded my skin, forever marking this moment on my body.

As much as I tried not to, their words, the incessant spouting of disgust, found its way into my body. The fresh wound on my abdomen allowed them easy access into my bloodstream and my body was too weak to fight.

The words began to feel like truth, though I suppose they always had.

All because I was seen getting out of a car belonging to a boy. A boy who was not Marcus or Shane.

My truth - the truth - was ignored. Our neighbour Sandra's words placed higher than mine: the car was unfamiliar, our bodies too close together and the boy was no one she knew. In conclusion, I was up to no good. I had lied so that I could sneak around and do ungodly things with a boy. I had learnt nothing. I was not better.

So I stood in shame, my mutilated torso exposed as I received the first of my punishments. Harsh lines finding their home on an already littered canvas.

After my second branding the poker was set aside. My father forced me to the ground and his hands stayed resting on my shoulders, his firm weight holding me down until my mother returned with a copy of the Bible. She passed it to my father before taking a seat on the couch behind me. I remained knelt on the ground.

"James 4:7," my father announced before beginning to read out said passage. "'Submit yourself, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

Several short readings later, all reminding me of the importance of resisting the devil, the power given to us to do such a thing and the need for a pure heart, it was my turn.

My father once again turned the pages in the Bible, carefully flitting through until he reached that which he searched for.

"Leviticus 18:22." He announced.

A large portion of my free time had been spent reading the Bible. My parents used it as a way to educate me; to help guide me on the right path by teaching me the way of the Lord. That way I could live life accordingly.