bamboo doesn't grow in dark spaces. [80K Words / Complete]

chapter seventeen, part one.❤️

He didn't cry the first time. Or the second time, the next night. He'd always heard girls complain sex was uncomfortable, at least the first time when their hymens would break; so the pain must have been normal, something he could grit his teeth through and steel himself against. He was mentally prepared now, knowing what to expect: the stretching of his sphincter, the uncomfortable feeling like he needed to shit. When it was over, the inside of his legs would hurt, there'd be blood when he wiped, and he'd be covered in sweat and shame. But Case was stronger than bamboo. Sir could try and bend him, but he wasn't going to break.

The second night, they tried with Case face down. That made it easier, allowed him to hide the stray quiver in his lip or muffle himself by biting the pillow. But something was wrong. Sir's rhythm was off, his grunts not underlined with exertion but frustration. He stopped, grabbed Case by his hips and flipped him over for missionary.

"That's it," Sir groaned satisfactorily as he reinserted himself. "Let me see you."

In the gray hours he spent alone, waiting for Sir to return, Case thought of his family. His parents weren't looking for him. No one was going to save him, and the longer he took to escape, the more people would forget about him.

He didn't cry the first time or the second. But on the third night, the weight of Sir's body and the cold sliminess of his lubed fingers scissoring Case open became too much.

"Sir—?" There it was. The first time he'd verbalized it as a name; another threshold he'd crossed. "When . . . when this is over, will you let me go home?"

Sir paused, looking up from where he'd been guiding himself between Case's open legs, confused by the interruption. He thought for a moment, before understanding lit his eyes and he smiled. He leaned closer, as if for a kiss—their first kiss. But he stopped short, disallowing that kind of intimacy. He caressed Case's face, whispering, "No," and the head of his penis pushed forward.

Case gave an involuntary gasp, the circle of muscle around his anus pulling open, then winced as Sir's length went deeper. Sir fucked him, hard. Each thrust punctuated with a grunt.

Case stared upward, fixated on the gray ceiling with it's fine cracks and wisps of cobwebs dangling from the wooden beams, barely registering as Sir thrusted into his line of sight.

Sir wasn't going to let him go home.

thrust/grunt.

Case was a fucking idiot for thinking he would.

thrust/grunt

He'd wasted so much time buoying himself with the false hope Sir would fuck him once or twice then be done with him.

thrust/grunt

He was going to die here.

thrust/grunt

He wanted his mom. He wanted to go home.

thrust/grunt.

He wanted to be held by someone who loved him. But no one loved him.

On the third night, Case cried. He cried through the whole ordeal, and long after it was over.

Weeks dragged by. Not that Case had a real concept of days, or whether he was sleeping through morning or night. He knew time was passing because scabs grew inside his mouth, healing over the stitches in his split lip. He couldn't get rid of the taste of rusty pennies even when he ate or brushed his teeth.

Sir said he was bleeding too much. Anal tearing. It was too big—Sir was too big. They had to spend more time preparing him with gentle lubed fingers. Sir gave him pills that numbed him, really numbed him. "It's meant to hurt," he said, "but not this much."

Soon, he couldn't be bothered getting out of bed. He lay in the wet patch, a maroon flower blooming beneath him. If he woke, it was as a lucid dream, even when Sir was there. But Sir didn't like him quiet. He pinched and twisted Case's nipples, bit the raw skin on his neck, until he screamed or cried, begging for it to stop. Case eventually stopped talking, not even responsive via grunts and groans. Even the voice went quiet. His mind was still. Not peaceful, but stagnant like swamp water. Murky, hard to swim through, hard to foresee danger.

Sir removed his stitches from his mouth, picking them out from where they'd scabbed over, making him bleed. Perhaps Sir thought that was the reason Case went mute, why he eased on his need to make Case scream.

When he didn't shower for a few days, Sir surveyed him with a disappointed shake of the head. Didn't even bother fucking him. Just took him by his shoulders, forcing him onto his feet and into the shower cubicle. Wordless, Case complied, letting Sir strip him and guide him into the warmth of the rushing showerhead. Sir stepped into the cubicle, his shirt and jeans darkening under the shower spray as he scrubbed Case clean, lathering him with a bar of soap that had worn down to a sliver. The weight of it all, his deadlump body and the all-consuming need to cry, was too heavy for Case to stand upright. He slumped forward, landing into Sir's large frame. Wet fabric clung to skin, a tiny plastic button pressed into Case's forehead. He didn't intend on crying. He didn't intend on Sir comforting him either. Sir wrapped his arms around Case, pulling him closer, gently shushing as Case's body wracked with hard and silent sobs. Eventually, the water turned cold and Case disappeared again. Sir guided him into a dry change of clothes and toweled his hair dry, warning "Don't make me have to do this again, Casey."

When Case stopped eating, Sir sat on the edge of the bed, coaxingly spoon feeding him as if he were a crippled, damaged thing. "C'mon, Casey. Your skin is starting to look like clingrap across them collarbones," he said, artificially bright and warm. When Case didn't respond, he continued, his charm darkening into a threat. "Case. Don't make me thread a feeding tube through your nose."

Through the dense fog of dissociation, there was a light. A small and faraway one, like the glow from a lighthouse stretching across an expansive ocean. Though it didn't inspire hope; instead, it prolonged his pain. Maybe that was a good thing, for if there was pain there was proof he wasn't entirely broken.

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Hannah saw the videos from the party. Saw him with that other girl. She saw it all, and she went ballistic. She screamed, cried—smashed his guitar—branded him with a slew of insults: Pig. Cunt. Cheater. Liar. Loser. Pathetic. Worthless. Dirty. Whore. That night it all came out in an onslaught, but for the year to come she'd use those words against him with the swiftness and ease of flicking him with a rubber band: when he disagreed with her, when he did something wrong, when he tried to say no. He told her he was sorry, so sorry. He didn't mean it, didn't want to, and every word of his regret was true. Even though he was the one who'd cheated, Case couldn't shake the feeling he'd also been wronged and violated. There was a pressure at the base of his throat, one he couldn't release even when he screamed and cried into his pillow alone at night. He wished he could go back to that night, undo his damage and leave the party when Hannah told him to. Course correct from all the ensuing carnage.

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