Anger Management [Meloghia]

Chapter 22: The Apple Doesn't Fall Far

TRIGGER WARNING SEXUAL ABUSE

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Melone carefully placed Fugo on Ghiaccio's bed. He was still unconscious and would probably sleep for another hour.

"He doesn't like being touched," Ghiaccio said leaning in the doorway. "His professor abused him. He almost killed the man for it."

Melone looked at Fugo's face again. He remembered Isabella's words:

Some people are very uncomfortable with touching...Past trauma could lead to a person not wanting anyone to touch them...Or...confused with how they feel, they may lash out against another's touch.

It all came back to touch. A sense so simple and basic, and yet held so much power, the perceptions of the physical. Most of Melone's interactions with people had always been entirely physical whether it was the giving over of his body or a simple laying on of hands. He had very few personal interactions of the mind alone. Ghiaccio was as close to that as he'd ever had with another person. His emotional intimacy with his partner was growing at an alarming rate and Melone didn't know how to properly navigate the new terrain. As he looked at Fugo, his mind drifted back to the one who had taught him the pleasures of the physical and their weighty importance in relationships. Memory quickly fogged over his brain and he found himself back in his own childhood bedroom.

"Melone."

Mela had the book open on the bed before him. The Kama Sutra. She would frequently take it from their mother's shelf when she was away. Ever since their mother had divorced their father, Mela and Melone were left home alone more often than not. Melone was twelve and Mela was fifteen. She flipped the pages delicately with her painted nails. He really liked how the pink gloss shone on her toes. Melone always loved how they looked and wanted to paint his nails too. She'd even done it for him once, but his mother smacked him in the face later when she saw his fingers. Now he made sure they only ever painted his toes which were easier to hide. He loved it when Mela would paint his toes, it excited him. Sometimes, she even let him paint hers. That didn't happen very often because the excitement he got from it caused his hands to shake, making him mess up the paint job. Those were some of the times when Mela would hit him. She would always use her left hand to do it so she'd hit his right eye.

"When a girl touches her lover's lip with her tongue and, having shut her eyes, places her hands on those of her lover, it is called the 'touching kiss,'" she read from the book and then looked over at him. "Have you ever kissed someone, Melone?"

He shook his head. He'd seen it many times and always wanted to himself, but girls usually avoided him. She took his hands in hers and leaned in close.

"Why don't we practice, so you'll be good when you finally meet a girl you like?" Mela had been his first kiss then. She had also been his most frequent kiss as well. By the time Melone had made out with his first girl at sixteen, he'd become a pro and knew all the tricks to make a person melt in his hands.

After that, they would often peruse the book to learn more. There was more than just kissing techniques and sex positions. There were listed all different ways in which to please another, and all the proper ways to communicate in bed to bring two souls closer.

"'But pressing with the nails is not a usual thing except with those who are intensely passionate, i.e. full of passion. It is employed, together with biting, by those to whom the practice is agreeable,'" Mela read. "Y'know, Mom used to bite Dad a lot. Remember those spots on his neck?" Melone's eyes widened remembering the mornings his dad would come down to breakfast to have marks on his neck and chest that looked like he'd pissed off their cat in his sleep. She continued reading.