He'd been getting erections for years, but he was supposed to pray it away; he wasn't praying right now and hadn't since his parents died. The sensation in his stomach grew as he moved his hand under the sheets and touched his swollen head. This was about as far as he would get before guilt took over but tonight he wanted to explore more so he rubbed the tip lightly with his thumb and the sensation in his stomach extended to his groin, but he jerked his hand away when he felt a slick substance seep onto his finger. He quickly pulled the covers to his chin and put both hands outside the old wool blanket as he felt his fear rise and erection go down, but the desire to touch it was still strong when he heard the familiar knock at his door.
"Hezron? You up?" The small timid voice belonged to his twin sister. She'd started coming to his room late at night since they were taken to Uncle Shane's house. She didn't want to sleep alone and, in reality, he didn't either.
"Stop using my full name and call me 'Hez'. I told you that, Areli."
"Don't get on to me; I'm not used to it and it's just us anyway. Can I stay with you, Hez?"
"Yea, I guess, but stay on your side. I woke up with your leg on me last night."
She quickly walked to his bed and jumped in to keep monsters from grabbing her feet. He'd only stopped doing that last year, so he kept her secret.
"I was just cold. It's freezing and Uncle Shane says we don't need the heater on all the time. I'm just trying to stay warm." She crawled under the covers and moved close to him, wrapping her arms around his and pulling it into her body. She'd started doing this a month or so ago and it always made him hard when he felt her bre - girl parts, on his arm. They were big now and he didn't want her to find out he'd touched his, you know, and definitely not about the stuff that just came out.
"This night gown is too small and has holes in it. You think Uncle Shane will buy me a new one?" She held his hand, snuggling into him. The threadbare cotton gown was past its time, bursting out in her woman places. Tight on her hips and had a small tear beside her right breast that let him see the soft white skin underneath. (Breasts. He needed to start saying it. He was an adult now. "Girl parts" and "woman places" wouldn't cut it anymore either). He cock stirred again remembering seeing her panty line through the gown one night and the thought of the clear liquid coming out made him move away a little from her, but not far.
"Don't touch me with your cold feet. I hate that and Uncle Shane won't buy us nothing. I think he kept that money the church gave us."
"Well, maybe you can talk to him, Hez. We need clothes and those little computers the school gave us barely work. We need a good one so can study. I wish he'd let us go to school."
"It ain't no real school anyway. Stupid church school again."
"Hezron,...Hez, don't say things like that. We should be grateful."
Uncle Shane insisted they be homeschooled, and he thinks it was because there was more money in it for him since he didn't do nothing to help them.
"Whatever, I'll try to talk to him but go to sleep, it's late."
"Hez?"
"What is it now?"
"You ever get scared about what happens to us? I do." She scooted closer and tightened her fingers over his.
"We'll be okay, Areli. I'll figure something out. Get some sleep."
He closed his eyes and answered her in his head.
He was terrified
.
__________________________
Areli was still asleep in his bed the next morning; she'd kicked the covers off and sprawled on her back, letting her large breasts fall to the side of her body so he could see hints of them under her clothes. The faded gown showed the outline of her nipples under the threadbare fabric making his cock instantly hard with an unfamiliar aching in his groin as he moved his hand under his boxers, feeling the wetness on the tip again and the falling sensation in his stomach.
He wanted to stop but his testicles tightened when he lightly rubbed up and down his shaft as more of the clear liquid came out. It was slick and fell on his fingers as he rubbed lightly, and the urge to reach over and touch her nipple, to feel her soft body, overwhelmed him. He gripped his shaft and lightly squeezed his full erection when she woke up.
"Hez?"
He jumped, almost falling out of bed.
"What's wrong? Why were you staring at me?"
"I wasn't. It's time to get up. C'mon. He doesn't like you sleeping in here so go to your room."
"You sure you weren't staring at me? You were going to play a prank on me, weren't you? That's not fair. I was sleeping." She was pouting making her fair skinned cheeks turn red; It didn't take much to do it. Her blonde eyebrows were scrunched and her large lips pursed together when she crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him.
"Hezron, get in the kitchen. Don't make me wait." Uncle Shane's voice screeched through the small house.
"Go, Areli. Hurry."
She ran out of the small room and leaped across the hallway to hers. Hez threw on his jeans, highwaters now, and a hoodie that was even too small for him last year, but it's what he had. He moved fast to the kitchen as Areli shut her door.
The farmhouse had long since stopped being a farm and the parts of the floor that didn't creak were covered in rugs to hide the holes in the multiple layers of linoleum or whatever flooring was on there at some point in the past. His brisk walk took him past the smoke stained den furniture and fake wood paneled walls that held cracked, faded pictures that must have been put up when the walls were hung sometime in the Eighties. Uncle Shane was at the kitchen table that must have came with the place or someone was insightful enough to find a matching nicotine stained puke green table to match the rest of the home décor.
"Hezron. We need to talk."
"Yes, sir."
Uncle Shane was an ugly man. Skinny, few teeth, and a head of hair that matched the condition of the den furniture. The needle marks on his arms gave the impression he'd been in the hospital but that couldn't be true because no doctor would let something as disgusting as him go untreated. He cleared his sinuses and spit in a small trashcan nearby, missing it mostly and caring about it even less.
"Sir's right. At least those cult freaks taught you some manners. Hell, you lived in that monastery or whatever the fuck y'all called that compound long enough you should know when to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down. Don't matter no way. You'll follow my laws in my house. Now, Your Kool-Aid pals at the church that ain't in jail been saying all the money's dried up but your momma and dumbass daddy had some for you when you turned 18 which we think was last year and I reckon you too stupid to go anywhere on your own so I'm going to need you to start contributing 'round here."
"Sir, Areli and I do chores and we cook."
"Shut the fuck up, runt, and don't look me in the eye or I'll beat your ass, boy." Shane stood up with his skinny drug addled arms bowed out and the remnants of a black and gray beard flaring out at his cheeks.
"You don't want a piece of this old muscle, do you, son?"
"No, Sir."
"What? Louder."
"No, Sir."
Hez was strong and could take him but then what? The Church told them about prison and the Sodomites there.
"Fuck yea. No, sir is right. Now, I'll be a charitable brother to my sister's kids, God rest her ignorant soul, and take y'all in for another year to finish school but I'm going to need some of that money. Understood?"
"Sir, Areli and I need some clothes and some things so I was wondering if..."
Shane walked around the table and Hez braced himself. He never fought back. What would happen to Areli? He saw the punch coming before Shane ever threw it, so he clenched his stomach and took it. Skinny or not, it hurt and Hez went to his knees as Shane got down in his face.
"You don't ask me for nothin' until I tell you it's beggin' time. And when is beggin' time?"
"When...," Hez coughed, unable to finish the sentence.
"Say it, you little cuck. When is it?"
"When..., when you say it is, Sir."
"Fucking right, you little mouthy shit and now you won't get beggin' time this month. Get up."
Hez held his stomach but he stood, just to show him he could.
"Now, you don't want to go back to those people, do you? Your damned Waco wannabe comrades. Hell, the way that sister of yours is fillin' out I'm sure those boys would find a good use for her."
Locking eyes with him was a mistake. He could handle a lot, but not him talking about Areli. Shane was the worst in the morning and he couldn't handle anything he deemed a challenge to his authority. He was ready for the punch but not the table slamming into stomach, sending him backwards, head first into the nicotine stained wall.
"Enough!" Areli was there, crying. Scared. Her voice was so far away he could barely hear her but he saw her standing in front of a stream. It wasn't a place he could remember being before but she was there with her long blonde hair, really long blonde hair, it fell just below her butt now and it was beautiful, he thought, as his eyes went in and out of focus. Shane never touched her but he knew how to use her to touch Hez. Wow, she was pretty. Her skin was so soft against his last night and he tried to focus on how she felt when the darkness closed in on his vision. His long haired princess.
"Please, Uncle Shane. He didn't mean it. It's my fault. I wanted a new night gown." The desperation in her voice hurt him, but he was so far away and couldn't run that far to save her. The buzzing started around his head.
"You have the prettiest hair, Areli." He was in the floor and a warm stream of blood rolled from his ear. She looked down at him, frightened, and then he didn't see her at all but heard the buzzing, louder now, as Shane focused his anger on her.
"You need a haircut, Rapunzel," Shane said, moving back to his seat. Thankfully he wasn't close enough to kick Hez which was a common continuation to these episodes. "You look like one of those freak cultists you grew up with, having that mop on your fucking head and this boy needs some manners. Get out, both of you. I don't want to see you until dinner and we'll get that money next month once the paperwork clears so remember you're here because I allow it. Go on, now."
Hez was groggy but he was able to get up with Areli's help and limp out the front door and down the front stairs into the cool November day as the start of winter touched the tall grass that reached their waists on the way to the woods. He wasn't sure how long they ran but he recognized the nearby trees. It was their safe spot; theirs alone.
"Hez, are you okay? I'm so scared. I don't need nothing that's worth him doing that to you. I'm so sorry." She wiped the blood off his ear with her hoodie sleeve.
His stomach hurt but the fog in his head wasn't as dense; he was more clearheaded. "You deserve nice things, Areli."
"Well, you don't deserve an ass whoopin no matter what so don't worry about it. Okay? Don't ask for nothin' no more. Did you hear that buzzing sound again? He said he wouldn't hit you no more after the police showed up last time. You want me to call them? I'll steal his phone when he passes out. I think you're hurt and need a doctor. You were bleedin' out of your ear, Hez."
He knew what a concussion was and he'd been hit before. The church. Here. The buzzing started about a year ago but it would always go away. No police were going to help them. Not on this mountain in the middle of nowhere. His head spun in the buzzing noise and he laid it against the tree and slept.
She was getting some firewood together when he came to. They'd come out here to get away from Shane so they started collecting wood and actually convinced themselves that they could build a shelter but neither one of them knew how. Areli could start a fire, though and they kept matches and snacks out here when they couldn't be home.
"Here, I got this beef jerky from Shane's cabinets last week and I took some muffins last night so you get one and I do too." Hez was sitting against the tree as she built the fire, still too weak to move much. Her hair was loose, blowing everywhere, so she put it up in a twisting ponytail thing he could never figure out. Her jeans were tight on her round butt and the pale skin on her lower back showed when the pink hoodie crept up as she bent over the fire. He watched her work, admiring her breasts pressed against the thick, faded fabric when she turned around and he smiled at her cheeks, red from the cold. She sat next to him by the tree.
"Why you smilin' at me?"
"Just glad you were there?"
"I'm always there, okay. Don't move a lot. I have some aspirin for your head so take them. What'd he mean by money for us, Hez?"
"I don't know, but I wish I could just get it and us go somewhere."
"Not back to the church?" She held his hand as she said it.
"No, never back there. I think they're in jail now, most of 'em, at least."
"What do you think happened to Ezra or Dara or our friends?"
