Archive of Our Own

“Uncle’s looking for you.”

Logan glances up from his notebook and peers to his side. He doesn’t even need to bend to see the tawny mop of hair poking up; his brother’s grown so tall this past year that he practically has to duck not to hit his head on the joists of the hayloft.

“And he sent Saint Michael to deliver his wrath for him,” Logan grumbles, turning back to his scribblings. “Fuckin’ typical.” He tacks on under his breath, “Too sloshed or too much of a pussy to do it himself."

“Language,” Ewan nags sharply. “If you go in starting that way, I’ll be shoveling you up off the floor next. Can you at least try to behave this time?”

“I will if he does,” Logan mutters.

“What was that?”

“Nuh-thing,” he sing-songs back at Ewan. Begrudgingly, he sits up from the cozy nest that he’s built himself and crawls over to the loft’s edge. He leans on his elbows and gets a better view of Ewan: Plastered with that same grim, tight-lipped face as usual. Shifty eyes that refuse to meet Logan’s. Wringing his gangly fingers so taut that the knuckles have gone white.

Something’s off—though it’s hard to tell when the prissy fucker always looks so guilty.

“What’s it for this time, anyway?” Logan prods, bored.

“He didn’t say.”

Lying clear as day. Whatever. Best just get it over with.

Logan stashes his notebook in a niche between the rafters, then makes his way to the ladder. He lumbers down and hops off, landing with a thud that causes Ewan to spring back.

Ewan continues to avoid his gaze as Logan passes but at the last minute grabs his shoulder. He presses his thumb hard into a spot that he knows full well is strewn with still-healing welts. A warning.

“And Logan,” Ewan speaks, tone dark, “do yourself some good this time, and listen to him for once. You’ll thank me later.”

It’s ominous, even for him. Pfft, damn drama queen. Logan just shrugs it off.

“Don’t I always?” he snarks, flashing Ewan a cheeky smile. Then he turns and heads for the house.

He takes his sweet time meandering his way back. Runs his palms along the heather and breathes in the brisk September air. Along the way, he stops to help a mourning dove—Zenaida macroura, he remembers from the almanac—tangled in the blackberry bushes. If Logan was half as superstitious as Aunt Vee, he might take it as a sign. But he gave up finding meaning in anything a long time ago.

Across the yard. Through the kitchen. Up the stairs. Down the long, long hall he trudges, until Logan reaches his bedroom. No doubt that’s where he’ll be, based on Ewan’s prophecy; the worst punishments always happen here.

As predicted, Uncle Noah sits on the edge of Logan’s bed—Jesus, this early in the afternoon? Usually he waits till at least after supper for this. Must be what he’s after, though, because there’s no sign of the whip or switch or paddle. Just his large, calloused hands: one resting on his threadbare knee; the other, clutching the flask.

“Come in, Rose”—Logan flinches—“and shut the door behind ya.”

Logan complies wordlessly, standing as near the doorframe as he can and still close it.

“Further, girl,” Noah gestures, then pats the bed, “Over here.”

Logan inches forward until his uncle seems satisfied, then stands there, and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Sometimes the waiting is worse than the punishment itself. Just get to it already.

At last, Noah speaks again: “Now then. I think we need to have a little talk, darlin’”—Oh, he hates, hates, hates this one! Even worse than the fucking name—“about what all you’ve been gettin’ yerself into behind my back.”

Noah stands and steps to the side, revealing what’s been sitting on the bed behind him.

Shit.

A large metal tin. Ornamented all over with hand-painted flowers—oh, the fucking irony—now gone rusty. One of Aunt Vee’s old sewing boxes that Logan had pilfered from the scrap pile. He’d figured that on the off chance that Noah ever did find it—hidden deep in an alcove in the hayloft, behind a loose board—he’d brush it off as ‘women’s work’ and leave it be. And if by some misfortune she’d found it, she wouldn’t dare say a thing; too scared to risk rocking the boat and taking the blame for not raising a ‘proper lady’.

No, couldn’t’ve been either of them.

So—

There’s only one other fucker on the face of the planet who knew exactly where the damn thing was.

Shit.

Shit, shit, fucking—Shit!

He knows. Logan knows that Noah knows, just from his stance and expression. Already knows in excruciating, humiliating detail precisely what’s inside. But that won’t stop his uncle from making Logan confess every single one of those excruciating, humiliating details himself.

“Open it,” Noah orders, then emphasizes, “Now,” when Logan remains frozen.

Trembling fingers unlatch the clasp.

“Now, take it out. All of it. Spread it ’cross the bed.”

One by one, Logan pulls items from the tin and lays out all the damning contents onto his quilt:

Several rolls of linen. Innocent enough.

Several of Ewan’s old undershirts—now all stretched out and misshapen.

Three pairs of boxer shorts—not Ewan’s, they both know; the tight-ass wears briefs. Not that Logan hadn’t tried those first, but his hips had already far outgrown them and snapped the elastic clean in two. Instead, Logan had bought these off one of the traveling ranch hands—well, technically blew him for them, but money is money. Originally there’d been five in all, including the pair that he’s wearing today; already one casualty, though—bled out in a massacre some months ago.

After these, he hesitates. Behind him, Noah’s disapproving stare weighs heavy on his shoulders.

“Go on, girl.”

Next, the leather harness. On its own it doesn’t look like much. Ewan had fashioned it out of spare chaps and a bridle. But secured to the base is a long wooden cylinder, sleek and shapely—and there’s no mistaking what it looks like.

Logan hadn’t much practice using it yet. He was still in the process of convincing his brother to let Logan try it out on him—or at least suck it while Logan wore it. No dice yet, but he was getting close, he could feel it. But, just the once, Ewan had tugged him off. Logan had closed his eyes, and for a few blissful moments, it was real.

Alongside it rests a similarly contoured wooden funnel. This, he had been practicing with. Gotten damn good at it, too. Can probably piss straighter than his uncle, leastwise when he’s drunk.

By the smell of his breath, hot and languid on Logan’s neck, Noah’s only half drunk this afternoon. He’s worst when he’s half drunk. Impaired enough to lower his inhibitions, to spur him to do all the things that he’ll rail against on Sunday—after confessing, of course—but sober enough to still be in control of himself. To know exactly what and where and how to punish Logan to greatest effect. The stinking breath swirls through Logan’s hair and in his ears and up his nose and on his tongue as he stands there, cradling the two wooden shafts in his damp, quivering palms, too terrified to let go.

“Hurry up,” Noah snaps.

Onto the quilt they drop.

Unlike Logan, Ewan has always been good with his hands. When they were younger, his brother had carved him an entire ark’s worth of wooden animals, and a sky full of birds. Logan would watch in fascination as the long, nimble fingers expertly wielded the lathe or the needle. The hoe and the spade and the scythe. (The bullwhip. The switch. The paddle…) Gentle hands, delivering a newborn calf or litter of piglets. Cruel hands, twisting chickens’ necks, tanning hides. The very hands that would effortlessly assist in ripping Logan apart could just as easily turn right around and stitch him all back together again, like he was fucking Humpty Dumpty.

Those same hands had meticulously trimmed Logan’s mangled hair the first time that he’d chopped it all off. Had scribed the pocket calendar that he’d urged Logan to track his monthly misery with. (It’s so damn unpredictable that Logan just filled the thing up with bird logs and doodles instead.)

The hands had brought Logan relief from those long, dark hours writhing in anguish.

Month after month.

Night after night.

Outside and in.

And now—

now

—just as then:

There is blood on his brother’s hands.

“Work of the devil’s hands,” Noah spits—no fucking kidding—startling Logan back to himself. “Disgusting, despicable, depravity. And,” he crescendos, “ya roped yer brother into all this, you filthy little Jezebel!”

Right on cue—probably skulking just around the corner the whole damn time—the door clicks open, and Ewan’s lanky silhouette fills the frame.

“Oh, look who it is,” Logan jeers, “fucking Judas! Not enough for you to just watch through the peephole this time? Needed a front row seat?” He knows that it’s reckless and will only make things worse, but he can’t help himself; the rage boils up his throat and spews out erratically: “I’ll thank you later, huh? I’ll thank you, alright. I’ve got a whole lot to thank ya for, don’t I—didja fuckin’ tell ’im who made it all for m—?”

Expecting the fist doesn’t ease its impact as it collides savagely with Logan’s cheek, knocking him backward flat on his ass. His head pounds. Already he tastes blood on his lip—but an appetizer of what’s to come.

“Speak that way again, girl, I dare ya,” Noah snarls down at him. “I’ve been kind up till now, just you wait. Now,” he commands, “Up.”

Still dizzy from the blow, Logan falters. “Up, I said!” Noah booms, and Logan scrambles to his feet. He keeps his eyes on the floor but steals a glance at Ewan from the side and shoots daggers his direction.

“Look at me when I’m speakin’ to ya,” Noah demands and, without giving Logan a chance to obey, seizes his chin and wrenches his head up for him. “Now you listen, Rose,” he begins, “I’ve been patient with you. We all have. Yer aunt ’n’ me, indulgin’ these—these… fancies you’ve been havin’. We let ya keep the hair short”—he grabs a fistful and yanks—“and wear whatcha want”—he seizes the strap of Logan’s overalls, squeezing his breast in the process. He tugs, hard, heaving Logan forward, then shoves him back stumbling onto the bed. “But this”—he gestures wildly, then grips Logan’s hair again and smushes his face next to the menagerie, scratchy quilt grating his already bruising cheek—“this—perversion. It’s too much. Too far.”

Above him, Logan hears the trickle and glug as Noah drains the dregs of the flask before tossing it aside with a clank. He leans down; muggy, acrid breath and jagged stubble assault Logan’s ear as he growls into it, low and menacing:

“You need t’be reminded of who you are, Rose. What you are. And what a girl’s made fer. Ewan!” he calls out abruptly, “Get in here! Come help teach yer sister a lesson.”

The dutiful not-so-little plastic soldier marches over and stands at attention.

“Strip,” Noah instructs simply. When Logan remains huddled to the bed, he repeats, louder, “What, you deaf too? I said, strip, girl. Or yer brother’ll do it for ya.”

Logan rises and begins undressing. First, the overalls. Noah’s face twitches when Logan peels them off, revealing the boxer shorts underneath. The button-down next. His fingers jitter with every unfastening. After these, he pauses. Countless times Logan’s eyes have been opened to his nakedness and shame before his uncle, yet the dread never abates. Unwilling—unable—to continue, he stands in the undershorts and shirt, fists balled at his sides.

Ewan starts to step forward, but Noah raises a hand to hold. Instead, he approaches Logan. Encircles him. Scrutinizing. Scowling. Stalking. Then—down go the boxers—and up shoots hot mortification, creeping across Logan’s neck and flooding his naked crotch.

Noah snatches the shorts from around Logan’s ankles. He rolls and weighs the blue cotton check in his hands, like he’s puzzled by the whole business. “Not befittin’ a lady,” he mutters. “An abomination, dressin’ this way, and, eh what’s—what the devil?!”

Shit!

Doubtless he’s discovered the small leather pouch safety-pinned inside the fly. Filled with beans and perfectly molded into a miniature cock and balls. This, too, Ewan had made for him, out of that god awful squirrel hide blanket that he’d given Logan years ago. When their aunt had found the mangey, tattered scrap, she’d tossed it (along with the teddy bear that Logan always denied was his); but Logan had managed to retrieve them both. He’s far too old now for a blanket (or a bear, goddammit), but there’d been a comfort in having it become a part of him.

“Jesus Christ,” Noah curses. “Devilish girl.” He tears the pin straight out then hurls the pouch to the floor like it’s burnt his hand. Eyes drilling into Logan, he stamps down and grinds it under his shoe, then spits on it. He deliberately maintains the stare as he brings the boxers to his nose and sniffs them, deeply, then rips them right in half.

Just the undershirt now. Logan’s indispensable armor. Somehow it was like having a bit of his brother always with him, next to his heart—though his own bulging breasts and gut are nothing like Ewan’s firm, lean pectorals and abdomen. The bastard continues to stand fast—chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in—watching and doing not a damn thing.

The barricade crumbles. The extra chest panels that Ewan had sewn into the shirt do nothing to protect Logan from his uncle’s rough hands as they roam atop, then underneath, all over his tits. Treacherous as his brother, Logan’s nipples prickle at the ministrations; Noah notices and pinches them harder. He draws the shirt over Logan’s head then continues to grope and squeeze him.

“See now, Rosie,” he slurs, voice greasy with lust, “Growin’ into a fine young woman.” Then he adds brusquely, “Time t’start actin’ like one.”

And without further fanfare, he shoves Logan face down on the bed.

Moments later, there are fingers inside him. Where Ewan’s fingers were slim and deft, Noah’s are blunt and clumsy, poking and prodding and bumping and bruising all along his hole.

“Let’s see where this problem of yers is,” his uncle contemplates as he probes Logan. “Mmhmm. Loose as the shed gate, an’ wetter besides. Don’t you go lyin’ t’me now, girl, I know yer no virgin. Been debasin’ yerself with every God-fearin’ man that comes by this ranch.”

No, Logan thinks bitterly, You know that I’m not a virgin because you’ve been turning me out to every single one of those ‘God-fearing’ men—when you’re not too busy fucking me yourself!

The fingers exit as abruptly as they entered. Then behind him, the ominous clink of a belt buckle.

Logan steels himself—but nothing ever prepares him for the raw agony of being torn open. He bucks and writhes as his uncle’s thick cock breaches him then immediately starts thrusting.

“That’s it, darlin’,” Noah groans, “You take it now. That’s what a man’s made of. None’a this rubbish you’ve been playin’ make-believe with.”

Noah continues spouting insults. They thunder in Logan’s ears, hounding his pounding head as the thrusts hammer his flaccid body. He buries his face in the quilt, biting down to muffle the whimpers starting to bubble past his lips. From the corner of his eye, he steals another glance at Ewan, still at attention on the sidelines. The honeyed light of the waning afternoon casts a long shadow that perfectly silhouettes the outline of his hard dick through his trousers. Fucking prick. The damn thing is wasted on him.

Relentless. Unrepentant. Penetrating. Over and over, deeper and deeper his uncle’s body cuts into Logan’s. Over and over, again and again his words cut deeper still:

“Shoulda never come here. Nothin’ but trouble since you showed up. A whore just like’r mother.”

“Yer a filthy little hussy, Rose.”

“Tight as a vise, Rose.” (Make up your fucking mind!)

“Stop strugglin’, Rose.”

“Be a good girl, Rose.”

“Yes, Rosie, yes.”

This, Rose. That, Rose.

Rose, Rose, Rose—

Logan. Logan. Logan, Logan, Logan—it’s fucking Logan!

Rage surges through his veins; he thrashes harder under Noah, desperately—futilely—attempting to wriggle free.

It earns him slaps to both asscheeks, grubby fingernails to his scabbed shoulders, and a chokehold around his neck. “Gettin’ feisty, girl? I told ya you’d regret that. But alright, if yer askin’ for it—Boy! C’mere! Help hold’er down.”

Finally his brother does something useful, advancing and instantly grabbing Logan’s shoulders more brutally than their uncle had. Ewan might be a hundred feet tall and look like a candlestick, but he’s all muscle beneath the spindly façade. Trim. Taut. Strong. Logan bets that he could take their uncle, drunk or sober alike, in a wrestling match—if he wasn’t always so busy kissing Noah’s ass and taking out all his resentment for it on Logan instead.

Nothing like Logan’s feeble, flabby body, which has only gotten feebler and flabbier these past few years. Mounded with great globs of breasts and thighs that jiggle and swing whenever he tries to do anything. Lately Uncle had taken to making comments about ‘milkin’ her udders’, always standing in Logan’s path and leaving too-tight gaps between doorways and gates; Logan couldn’t help but brush against him as he passed. Noah would pinch his fat hips and whisper to come see him later, or he’d ‘find her’.

His mind wanders, only distantly aware of the continued onslaught above him.

How had it all started, anyway…?

Noah had always been a lech, from the beginning, lurking behind his rigorously maintained self-righteous charade. The comments had started much earlier. Followed by the hard, lingering stares in the months to follow. The touching has only been for a few years now, but it feels much longer. Spankings became wandering fingers. Beatings became fuckings. At first Logan hadn’t known what to think. Perhaps it was because he was so small. Maybe he could grow out of it. He started eating more and more, and getting fatter and fatter; so much that he’d eat himself sick, sometimes—never too close to one of Uncle’s visits, he quickly learned, the first few times that he puked all over his cock.

Soon, though, Logan’s body began changing in unpredictable ways. His chest, always pudgy, had ballooned overnight. His hips quickly followed suit. Hair started sprouting everywhere—arms and legs, pits and groin, breasts and face! By now he’s got almost more scraggly whiskers on his upper lip and chin than Ewan does yet. As though God was making some sick joke at his expense: tempting Logan with just a taste of all the things that he couldn’t really have. Transforming him into something large and hideous, neither male nor female. His sole solace remained the hope that maybe, just maybe, turning into a boy would deter his uncle.

But it all only seemed to invigorate Noah. The more Logan pushed away from his impending womanhood, the more his uncle seemed determined to put him in his place. And his place was lying on his back, wool scratching his blistered skin, writhing under Uncle’s hard, sweaty body, thinking of meadowlarks and mistle thrushes, of Dundee and the bandstand, of Mother’s final kiss goodbye, of that deep, dark, endless ocean…

The currents ebb briefly. Logan returns to himself enough to feel Noah leaning toward Ewan.

“Grab that devilish thing, would ya? And bring it over here.”

That ‘thing’ is his cock, dammit. His cock! His!

Ewan rustles beside him, reaching over to retrieve his handiwork.

He must attempt to give it to Noah, who rebuffs him loudly, “Oh feck no, I’m not touchin’ that thing. You hold onto it. Now then,” he hunkers down and growls in Logan’s ear, “Whatcha been doin’ with this thing, eh girl? Been pollutin’ yerself with it? Stickin’ it in yerself, you dirty whore?”

(And so what if he had? That’s beside the fucking point!)

“You only fuck yer cunt with it, or you been sodomizin’ yerself too?”

(He’d fucking love to sodomize someone with it right about now.)

When Noah’s extra drunk, sometimes he loses track of which hole he’s fucking. Today, though, it’s clearly deliberate when he jabs three bone-dry fingers into Logan’s ass, his pulsing cock all the while still crammed tightly in Logan’s front hole.

“Thought so,” he scoffs. “Looser than yer cunny. Demonic harlot.”

He yanks the fingers out and gives Logan’s ass another slap.

“Well, go on then,” he charges Ewan, “Give’r what she wants.”

The soldier has his orders, and he follows them to a tee. His brother rams every last inch of the wooden cock into Logan’s ass in one swift, searing stab. Skewered in both holes, stuffed to the brim. The pain is white hot, threatening to knock him out. God knows what they’ll do to him if it does.

By some miracle—or, more likely, God’s continued sick sense of humor—he manages to stay conscious, if only just. Ewan’s spectral voice hovers over him like a nightmarish lullaby: “It’s alright, it’s alright. It will all be over soon. Just let me do it, Rose.”

Logan! Logan! It’s fucking LOGAN!

And then it’s moving. The cock is moving. Tearing his ass to pieces. Probably leaving splinters behind. In and out. Hard and fast. Fucking him ragged and raw.

Fucking him. Fucking him. His cock is fucking him. His cock. His cock. He’s being fucked by his own goddamn cock.

Normally he would even prefer this to the alternative up front, but all together it’s just too much.

Noah picks up the pace again. Combined the motions are cacophonous, hitting Logan in all the wrong spots at all the wrong times.

Beside him, Ewan’s practically mounted his hip now. The weight of his erection throbs against Logan’s thigh. God, he’s surrounded by fucking dicks! And he’s got nothing—nothing—to show for himself! His own pathetic mosquito bite is trapped beneath his fat gut and the rough quilt, too small to get any necessary friction.

Still, the pressure builds and builds inside him. Different—worse—better?—worse, definitely worse—from when he jacks himself off. Too deep. Too thick. Too much.

Deeper.

Thicker.

Harder.

Faster.

Pressure climbing, higher, higher, higher—

Fuck! The climax detonates through his body like those A-bombs, shockwaves rippling and ripping his innards apart.

If only that was the end of it—but Logan knows that it’s not finished till Noah is. And neither his uncle nor his brother show any signs of stopping, now, or ever. Honestly, they could, just—fuck him to death, for all he cares, he really doesn’t give a fuck anymore. He lies there, limp and pliant, as they ravage his holes. Now that the dam has burst, he can’t stopper it. Explosions barrel through his body again and again, monstrous amalgams of agony and ecstasy.

He hates it, hates it, he fucking hates it. At least when Noah shoots his shot—please, please, let it be fucking soon—it’s one and done. (Though he’ll make up for it, with the fingers or the bottle or the belt or the whip or the switch or the paddle or the… if he hasn’t finished teaching Logan his lesson yet.) Usually, thank God, he passes out afterward, falling into a drunken, snoring stupor. It returns to Ewan more quickly; but even he requires a brief respite. Not Logan, though. This fucking black hole between his legs is ravenous. Limitless. Devouring everything. Satisfied by nothing. Bombarding his body with so-called ‘pleasure’ over and over and over. Oh, he should count himself so fucking lucky!

Noah’s thrusts are growing haphazard. An end in sight. “A real man,” he pants out, “coulda handled this. Could take it. Yer nothin’, Rose. Nothin’. Nothin’. But. A. Girl.”

The dwindling sunlight glints off the dresser across the room. Logan catches sight of himself in the mirror, whalish body somehow dwarfed by the warped reflections of his uncle’s bulky figure and his brother, tall and lean, beside them. Overshadowed by the ‘real men’ surrounding him. And himself—tiny, delicate, pathetic. Tears and snot stream down his rouged cheeks. Blood paints his lips an alluring red. He looks like a girl.

Because he is a girl.

He always has been. He should have known, long ago, after everything that his sickness had wrought, what he was destined to be: a hole. A bottomless pit that sucks up all the life around him.

But—but—Noah’s steady rhythm is faltering. And those same self-assured hands that Ewan had used to craft Logan’s pipe dream are now trembling as they clutch his hips and fuck his ass.

Who’s the fucking pussy, huh? Who’s not the real man?!

If Logan was the man—If Logan had the cock—he wouldn’t even hesitate. He’d spear his brother all night long. Fuck him till he couldn’t walk straight. Till he broke those long legs and that spineless back. Then he’d bend his uncle over and do him too, first ass, then mouth, then back again, over and over, again and again, till he bled out in the barnyard dirt.

He doesn’t have the cock, though.

He never will.

His useless fucking body has resigned him to be the hole.

And that’s all he’ll ever be.

Ewan’s prick is leaking through his trousers now, smearing all over Logan’s bare thigh.

Noah grunts, once, twice, then fires inside him, groaning “Oh, Rosie” as he comes.

Shit—what day is it, anyway? (He’d know if he used the fucking calendar.) He prays that it’s close enough not to matter; and if not, oh well…

They both wrench their cocks out at once; Logan’s chafed, gaping holes clench around the loss with aftershocks. Ewan steps aside and resumes formation. Noah stumbles back. At least—thank God for small mercies—he seems satisfied with just the one.

Everything grows hazy.

Logan remains. Face down. Ass up. Legs spread. Holes open. Clammy and lifeless—they might as well have killed him. Around him sounds buzz, muffled and far away.

The rustle of trousers.

The clink of the belt buckle.

The plop of something deposited onto the quilt beside him.

A pat to someone’s shoulder.

“Good work, boy. You take care’a yer sister now—or maybe take a turn with’er, eh? Listen to the little slut”—the fingers resurge suddenly, toying with his slimy holes; Logan can’t contain the squeal when the hefty palm lands a final blow to his asscheek—“still whimperin’ fer more.”

He can’t see it, but he’s sure as shit that his brother salutes.

“And,” the disembodied voice continues, “make sure she gets rid’a that trash.”

Heavy footsteps.

The creak of a door.

Light shifting as it opens, then closes again.

Silence.

Emptiness.

Nothingness…

Something-ness?

Something. Something big.

A dense, looming thundercloud.

A slender hand barely grazes his shoulder—

Logan springs up, whips around, and smacks it away.

“DON’T! Touch Me! Don’t you dare fucking touch me, you fucking bastard!”

“Logan…”

“Oh NOW he says my fucking name! Fucking—NO! Don’t you fucking ‘Logan’ me!”

He blinks the dampness from his eyes and gets a better look at the traitor: Ewan’s flushed and sweaty; hair mussed; clothes wrinkled; a big wet spot on the fly of his trousers. His eyes are vacant, bloodshot, glistening—oh, boo fuckin’ hoo! What the hell does he have to cry about?

They stare at each other for some moments, then Ewan tries again, voice small:

“At least let me help you clean up.”

“Oh, and he wants to help clean up now, too,” Logan almost laughs. “Bring the Lysol and the hanger, didja? Be sure not to miss this jizz stain on my thigh, just here”—he prods himself theatrically—“You wanna lick that one off? No, no, no fuckin’ thank you, I’ll take care of my damn self. Besides, I don’t want your fuckin’ charity anymore, ’specially when you’re just schemin’ to sell me out later!”

“That’s not what—”

“I don’t wanna fuckin’ hear it!”

Ewan steps toward him; Logan flinches on instinct.

“Be reasonable and use your head for once, Logan!” Ewan rasps. “You understand why I had to do it, right? Right? Why I had to tell him, and to-to… It only would’ve made him angrier if I hadn’t.”

“You told him because you’re a goody two-shoes kiss-ass coward who just wants to lurk on his good side—and you’ll do fucking anything, anything, to stay there! How many pieces of silver’d he offer ya this time, anyway?”

Ewan pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing, “This isn’t about money, Logan.”

“And what the fuck was it about, then, huh?” Logan gripes. “Never mind! I don’t give a fuck! Greed, wrath, pride, lust—it’s all the fucking same with you!”

“I had to,” he argues. “You know that I had to. I’m sorry, Logan, but you—”

“You’re ‘sorry’? You’re ‘sorry’! Humpin’ me like a dog and you’re fuckin’ SORRY?!” All the fury from earlier gushes back and boils over. Logan lunges toward Ewan and starts throwing punches at him. First half-hearted, then real. “That what you been planning t’do with it the whole time, huh? Fucking sicko, made me a dick just so you could turn ’round and steal it for yourself. One not enough for ya? ’Cause I know you already got one that works just fine and dandy, proved that today didntcha?! But no—you gotta fuckin’ take mine too! Then you go and fuckin’ use it against me, for some twisted game of yours. And he says I’m the fuckin’ slut!”

Rage after rage.

Punch after punch.

“Were you planning it the whole time?!” he demands again.

(No answer.)

“Were you, huh?!”

(Silence. Emptiness. Nothingness.)

“Tell me. Tell me! You fucking were, weren’t you?!”

Ewan dodges Logan’s blows easily, then seizes him by both shoulders. Logan squirms about in the grip. Spasms of hatred rack his entire body, causing all his loose flesh to jiggle wildly.

“It was for your own good,” Ewan insists, digging in his fingers.

“Ah, fuck you! You wouldn’t know good if fucking Gabriel himself flew right over your head and took a massive dump on your face! You and him both, thinkin’ you’re so ‘good’. And you—you’re fuckin’ worse than he is, ’cause you actually believe it!”

Fighting. Flailing. Falling. His brother has the high ground and wrestles Logan back down to the bed.

“It was getting out of hand, Logan. He would have found out anyway.”

A knee to his back. An elbow to his shoulder. Long, nimble fingers around his neck.

“‘It was getting out of hand’?!” Logan chokes out. “Gettin’ outta hand, that’s what you’re goin’ with?! And who put it in my fuckin’ hand in the first place, huh? Out of hand—I’ll show you fuckin’ ‘out of hand’.”

Ewan’s face grows redder and redder as he spits out excuse after excuse.

Logan’s face grows hotter and hotter as he gasps for breath.

“You should be grateful!” his brother barks. “It could have been much worse.”

“Worse, ha! ’D like—t’see—worse! Why don’t—two-a-ya—come back—later t’night—Show me—fuckin’—worse—”

Gentle hands, cupping his sweat-drenched forehead.

Cruel hands, cupping his mouth shut.

He bites down, hard, and Ewan reels back.

“After all I did for you, you miserable little brat!” He towers over Logan again, assailing him from on high. “After everything! Everything I did, I did for you!”

“Everything you did, ya fuckin’ ruined my chance is what you did! You made it all, and gave me hope, then fucking took it all away!”

“And what would you have done next, huh?!” Ewan bellows. He stops, takes a deep breath, then repeats, more level: “What would you have done next, Logan?”

“I woulda figured something the fuck out,” he sniffles. Hatred morphs to despair. Rage to sobs. He can’t hold back the tears any longer.

“Sure you would have,” Ewan mocks mildly. “You’ve got your head in the clouds, Logan. Full of ideas that are too damn big for your own good. These hopeless fantasies of yours were only ever going to hurt you in the long run. I did what I did to protect you. You need to eradicate this—this—sickness—or whatever it is. Do whatever you have to do to get it out of your system. And accept that things are the way they are.”

“Says the bastard who stopped eating meat on a fucking cattle ranch,” Logan blubbers. “Who at barely thirteen was talkin’ ’bout runnin’ off halfway ’round the world to play soldier, and help some—What’re they callin’ ’em down at the paper? Gooks?—who don’t even want it, while your brother’s gettin’ gang banged every night back at home. Missed yer chance, this time, but there’s always another one brewin’. Why dontcha just go, now. Now that you’ve fucked everything here. Go getcha some choo-choo san coochie since mine’s gone too stale for y—”

The slap lands directly where their uncle’s punch had earlier. Noah hits harder, but Ewan’s always do sting more. It reopens the cut on Logan’s lip, smearing red all over the palm.

(And now, just as then: there is blood on his brother’s hands.)

“You shut your damn mouth,” Ewan seethes. “That’s not the same and you know it.” His tone is all the more sinister in its quiet. His eyes flame fiercely, but it’s a controlled burn now. Keen. Honed. Ruthless. His arm hovers in midair, raised for another blow. Poised to strike at a hair’s trigger.

Logan could pull it, if he wanted to. He knows exactly what to say, exactly which buttons to push, to make his brother snap. To compel him to make good on the threat—the promise—of Uncle’s sloppy seconds. He’s far more terrifying than their uncle when he’s like this, anyway. They both know it. And, despite himself, the pit of Logan’s used cunt flutters in anticipation. The sodden crotch of Ewan’s trousers twitches, the very same.

They stare at each other, eyes locked in fury and fear, just as they had all those years ago.

Do it. Do it. Fucking—Do it!

In the end, per usual, Ewan chickens out. The arm falls impotent to his side. He speaks again, thick and strained: “And how much good did any of that ever do, either?” He turns for the door. Walks about halfway before swiveling around to face Logan one last time. “Things don’t change, Logan,” he declares curtly. “You need to accept that.”

“Stop fuckin’ callin’ me that!” Logan shrieks. All the shrillness of his pitch that he normally tries to disguise is squeaking its way out. Beyond exasperated, he fumbles around the bed and grabs up the stinking, sticky wooden dick, then hurls it toward his brother. Ewan ducks, and it slams against the doorframe, cracking in the process. Logan snatches the funnel next and flings it too. Another miss. “Don’t fuckin’ call me that anymore!” he howls. “You want me to go back, I’ll go back! You won’t have to say that damn name ever again. Logan is dead—you fucking killed ’im!”

“Lo-Ro—”

“Fuck off! Just leave me the fuck alone!”

Ewan about-faces and storms out without another word.

Finally.

Finally.

Everyone is gone.

Logan flops face down on the bed again. Bunches up the quilt. Buries his head in it. And screams.

And screams.

And screams.

A high, harsh, blood-curdling scream.

A little girl’s scream.

He screams until he runs out of breath. Until his throat is as raw as his holes. Until he’s expelled all his hopes and dreams and rage and hatred and fear and shock and shame and everything else along with them. Until there’s nothing left inside.

A pleasant numbness wafts over him, lulling him like that boat stranded in the deep, dark, endless ocean…

Who knows how long he lies there. At some point he stands. Wanders over to the dresser. Faces the mirror. Peers at his reflection; a big, sad, ugly girl glares back at him.

He sways his hips; she follows suit. He waggles his fingers; she mimics the motion.

He closes his eyes.

He spreads his arms, like the crucifix, palms open in embrace. Then flaps his hands rhythmically. Slowly, at first. Then quicker, quicker, quickest. Air rushes by and pleasure floods his limbs. Just like flying. Just like he used to, when he was much younger—before the constant admonishments and beatings to sit still. Even Ewan had called him foolish for it. He only ever does it when he’s by himself, now.

Back then he hadn’t even minded the dresses; the ruffs and frills were like his own personal plumage. Besides, as he would persistently remind his brother with pride, the boy birds were the most beautiful ones anyway.

But that was all a long, long time ago. Long before all the leering and the growing and the groping and the…

He opens his eyes.

Stares at the wide expanses of his body, now painted mauve by the sliver of dusky light.

Observes the carnage:

Busted lip. Bruised cheek.

A ring of purple petals ’round his neck.

Florid bruises blooming on his fat tits, too. Etched with half-moons. Plowed with furrows.

Hips and thighs, the same.

He dares not even bother checking his back, but the telltale crunchy ooze speaks volumes.

Slick seeps between his legs and down his inner thighs, tinged a rusty pink. All caked in his pubes and asscrack too. A worse mess than when he’s on the rag.

It is what it is.

He floats over to the door to retrieve the carvings. The cylinder had split along its entire length; the funnel, blown clean to shrapnel. Just as well.

Back to the bed. All four pairs of boxers, including the ripped ones. The undershirts too. His small leather cock, now mashed beyond recognition. The tangled harness.

He gathers up each item, one by one. Caresses them. Cradles everything lovingly in his arms—

Then tosses it all into the box stove.

Embers glow. Flames lick. Smoke swirls. Combusting. Consuming. Consigning.

To hell, where it belongs.

To hell, where he belongs.

That’s it.

He quits.

It’s fucking over.

He’s not Logan Roy, anymore.

Logan Roy is a fucking nobody.

She doesn’t sleep. (Even if she could, she doesn’t trust Uncle not to come creeping back in during the blackest hours.) Instead she sits up all night in front of that damn mirror.

Inspecting. Inventorying.

Surveying. Scrutinizing.

Feeling. Fondling.

Every lump and bump. Every bulge and ridge. Every snaking, silvery stripe. Every bubble on her gut and pock on her ass and dimple on her thigh. Every wiry hair on her arms and legs, pits and groin, breasts and face. She pets the parody of a beard and mustache, far coarser than the blackberry bramble against her palm. Twists each minuscule thorn between her fingertips. Then—out—she plucks one. A satisfying pinch. She pulls another. And another. And another. And…

Hours later, perhaps, she’s finished the whiskers, moved onto the chest, and anywhere else that she can manage. There now, isn’t that better? Smooth and babyfaced again.

Some time before dawn, she goes rummaging through the trunk that’s long been gathering dust in the corner of her room. Extracts the slippery contraption that her aunt had sewn her. Silk and lace. Ribbing and elastic. Straps and snaps. Hooks and clasps.

After a near endless labor of shimmying, squeezing, squashing—at last she finagles herself into it.

She returns to the trunk. Probes deeper still. Bottoms out. Unearths one of the hand-me-down dresses. Mother had sent them in several sizes, hoping eventually that they might befit her daughter.

Even the largest one barely fits, but it will have to do.

Next, she sneaks out to the linen cupboard. Finds Aunt Vee’s secret stash of five-and-dime cosmetics. (Uncle denounces them as vain, licentious, exorbitant… but always complains if ever she goes without them.) A smear of cream, a sweep of powder, and Abracadabra the bruises disappear. Some rouge for good measure—just a dash; she’s not a whore.

There’s not much to be done about the hair. But she tries her best to comb it neatly. Then licks her fingers to wet the edges into a soft curl.

Before the mirror again, she poses and takes stock of herself:

She could almost be beautiful, in the right light?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not bad. Not half bad at all.

He’d fuck himse—er, She’d fuck herself.

Well…

At any rate, it’s good as it’s gonna get.

Down the staircase she descends, dainty as a princess. This contraption’s straps are digging into her scarred back, forcing her to stand straighter; she takes it in stride. (Chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in…)

She enters the kitchen.

Aunt Vee stands at the stove, frying eggs. Noah and Ewan are already seated at the table.

Staring her uncle head-on, she wordlessly pulls back her chair, sits, smooths her skirts in her lap, and crosses her ankles delicately.

Noah stares right back at her, haughty vindication blazing in his eyes. He smirks as he speaks, voice sobered up from yesterday, “Morning, Rose. Nice to see you lookin’ presentable for once.”

Rose Roy plays her part expertly:

She smiles.

Nods.

Lowers her lashes demurely.

(From beneath them, she steals one last glance over at Ewan. He’s gone white as a ghost, mottled with patches of ugly red flush. Looks like a candy cane about to cream himself—serves ’im right.)

She allows the natural lightness of her tone to break through the growl that she’s been affecting for months—oh, that does feel better on her throat—and replies:

“Thank you, Uncle.”

“That’s my good girl.”