Heavy Blood

2. Tobirama

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. The seconds before were always the worst. My breathing was ragged, shallow, coming out in puffs surrounding my milky white skin like acid. A slick strand of my bleached hair fell onto my face, tickling my nose. I played with my golden lip piercing a little; a bad habit. My bare skin was exposed to the room, nobody but the walls seeing me naked. I felt a trail of sweat running down my face, as well as all over the ugly scars on my back. I tried my best to never look at them, ever, but from time to time I caught sight of them, and they made me shiver. They made showering at the gym very hard, always having to have my back to the wall so that nobody saw.

The room was made of stone, painted in a cream colour and lit by warm yellow lights. It was very cosy, unless you knew what it was for. The only thing giving a hint was the shower-head hanging on the wall, and the metal well in the floor, allowing me to wash the blood away when I was done.

I felt myself starting to tremble in negative anticipation. I tried to think about the feeling afterwards instead; the rewarding sensation of doing something good, almost like a hard exercise that was nasty as you did it but made you feel like a God afterwards. I let my hand tighten around the thick rope. It hung to the ground from my hand, and branched at the end so the rope went from one to five. At the end of each of the five cords was a knot. It was called a discipline, and used for self-whipping. I held my breath, let my underarms muscles play as I lifted it, and let it whack across my back.

"Aaahhhhhh!" I screamed, my lips starting to tremble. I was an extremely pain-tolerant man, but the pain was unbearable, even for me. I knew I couldn't wait to long before the next blow, or I would get cold feet, so before I had time to think, I lifted my hand again and let the discipline slice my back once more. This blow had me to my knees, and I felt the skin on my kneecaps scraping up against the stone floor. It felt like a thousand scorching hot scalpels slicing through my skin, through the muscle and into my bone. Again, I lifted the discipline and let it slice my back. I fell to my hands. Trembling, I forced myself up again. Seven... Only seven more to go... One would think that the pain got easier with each beating, that my skin would become numb, but no. Each beating was worse than the last, as my flesh opened up more and more, blooming up to a bright red flower so that every contact with the rope was made on raw flesh. I forced myself up to my knees again, lifted my hand and beat myself again and screamed. The blood was running down my back like a waterfall and down on the floor, pooling around my knees. The smell of blood pushed me close to the edge of vomiting. I took a deep breath and did a three in a row, until I was a trembling, drooling mess in foetal position on the floor. Four... Only four... I forced one hand on the ground as support, then the other, that was still holding the discipline. I tried to stand up on my knees, but was unable to, so I just sat down. I lifted the malice once more, and let the thick knots rain down on my back.

"AAAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!" I screamed. And I started crying. Through ragged breaths in and out through gritted teeth, I cried, my eyelashes becoming wet by the tears as my back became wet by the blood. Tears kept streaming down my face as I lifted the hand again, but it trembled too much, so it fell back to my side. Again and again, I tried lifting it, but again and again, my hand fell down. Don't be so weak... Stars started swimming across my eyes, and the room started tilting. I really didn't want to vomit. I did that sometimes, which was why I didn't eat for at least three hours before I came here, but I still hated having to clean away the combination of bile and blood afterwards. The stars merged together into black holes, and they seemed to come closer. I could hear ringing in my ears.

"Oh, my God, Tobirama!" I suddenly heard a voice. "That's enough. That's enough now." I felt a couple of strong arms around me.

"No... No, three more. I have three more left." My voice was thick and slurred.

"I said, that's enough for now." The strong arms pulled me up, strong arms belonging to my brother, Hashirama. He inspected my back. "Oh, my God, Tobirama, why do you keep doing this to yourself?"

"Punishing", I slurred. "Not pure like you."

I leaned in heavily, my bloody body soiling his clean priest robe as he escorted me out to the room that was for resting and put me down on the thick mattress on the floor, where I lay down. I let the exhaustion consume me, and fell into a deep sleep, naked still.

I woke up by the sound of the tap on the wall filling the metal sink beneath it. I blinked myself awake, and saw Hashirama standing there, cleaning some towels. I was laying on my stomach, my arms underneath the pillow my face was resting on, my elbows sticking out. The pain from my back was excruciating, but not as bad as it could be, which meant Hashirama had taken care of the rashes while I slept.

"You didn't have to do that", I said.

"Neither did you", he retorted. He wasn't angry with me; I knew he had a hard time accepting what I did to myself, but he never chastised me for it. Just tried to understand. "What was it this time?"

I looked down. "I was thinking... I was thinking how it would be. Having sex with someone again."

Hashirama looked back at me. "You're being too harsh on yourself. It's only normal."

"I know", I said. "But not like this. Not to the amount I think of it."

"Tobirama, I've been thinking, and I wonder if you feel like you need to be extra harsh on yourself because of who you were before you converted and became a priest." I looked up at him. We had both been rebellious children, and while Hashirama had rebelled against our parents, both of them Catholic, by becoming a Protestant, I had rebelled by being an alternative kid who drank and partied and pierced his ears and his lip and fucked men and didn't give a fuck about religion. I absent-mindedly licked my golden ring on my lip again. I could see he had a point. "Think about it", he continued. "Mito is coming to sew what is necessary."

Mito was my brother's wife. They'd married when he was a priest of the Protestant Church, and as he converted to the Catholic Church, he'd asked for permission to remain married, and it had been granted. She was an atheist and a doctor, but they had a respectful marriage nonetheless. I couldn't help but feel a bit of envy towards Hashirama, that he had something I would never experience as I'd sworn myself to a life of celibacy. That envy had caused me to use the discipline on myself as punishment for my thoughts more than once. But sometimes, it was other thoughts; thoughts about sex and men and jealousy.

Mito came, and she was a no-fuss woman who just got straight to work. "It's starting to get annoying, stitching you up like this", she said, not even trying to be polite, but she wasn't angry. On the contrary, she sounded mild, caring. "Tobirama, you don't have to be a priest you know?"

"I know", I said. "But I want to."

"Why?"

"I can't explain it. But I believe in God. Have always done."

"There are many people who believe in God who are not priests", Mito retorted.

"I know, but they don't believe like we do. Like me and Hashirama do. And also..." I looked down. "I need to change things. Or, I'm not naive enough to believe I can change things alone, but I need to start something. I want to show youth that everyone is welcome into my church. No matter your gender or lack thereof. No matter who you choose to love. Or who you happen to love. I can't just stand by and watch us lose so many colourful people because of some rules written by men two thousand years ago."

I felt rather than saw Mito's smile as she stitched behind me. I flinched as she pulled the needle through a particularly harsh piece of skin; she'd used local anaesthetics, but it was still uncomfortable, and the skin was so inflamed that the anaesthetic didn't take well in all places. "You and Hashirama both have good hearts. But how can you help others when you're a mess like this? Think about it."

I sighed. I'd already decided I needed to punish myself tomorrow again for the jealousy regarding Hashirama and his marriage, wishing I had gone past the Protestant Church as well, so I knew Mito's stitches were a waste.

As was her caring for me.