Paradise Lost

The warm soft bed had become a rough stone floor again, uninviting and
cold... At least he could breath again. Little Momaru was kneeling on
the course surface, arms tied to his sides. His scraped and bloody knees
didn't hurt any more, numbed by the icy stone. These were the last
things on the child's mind, however, as the gag had been lowered from
his mouth to around his neck for the first time since the abduction. 

"*Save me, Daddy*!!! *I'm so scared, Mama! Hurry*!!!" he screamed the
words which had been running through his head over and over since he'd
been captured. The tears which he thought had run dry, now streamed anew
down his grubby face, leaving clean tracks on the dirty cherub cheeks. 

The Bad Ones took the phone away from his mouth and put the gag back in
its place. They listened to the phone for a minute, then began to swear
at his father on the other end. Eventually, the taller one slammed the
phone down forcefully. "CHIKUSHO!!!!" he swore and Omi cowered,
wondering why they were so angry with his daddy. 

The Bad Man turned his head up with a sudden wolfish smile twisting his
face. "Your dad said he won't pay, little pup," he hissed, delighting in
the horror on the child's face. 

"LIAR!" Momaru cried, "Daddy...!" 

"I'll teach him a lesson," the shorter Bad One said smoothly, brushing
the back of his hand along Momaru's dirty cheek suggestively. The child
didn't understand, but knew that he wanted to do something bad. 

"You've got some pretty cold parents there, kid. You've been
*disowned*... Why don't you just give up?" the taller one suggested,
stubbing out the cigarette he'd been dragging on nervously. 

"Yeah, lemme make you forget your abandonment, little pup..." the
shorter one said and he brought his face down to the top of Momaru's
head, taking in deep breath, smelling the boy's hair. The child was
confused at this gesture, but was instantly distracted as a callused
hand shoved into the front of his corduroy shorts and started grabbing
at his genitals. 

Momaru groaned in fear and shock and the other Bad One just laughed and
laughed as his comrade tore down the boy's shorts around his ankles.
Momaru began to struggle, but immediately lost his strength from fatigue
and hunger. The man pinned him down effortlessly as he touched the boy
all over. "Just give up, kid," the other man suggested in response to
the boy's feeble struggles, "It won't do you any good. Your parents
don't care about you, they left you. They knew that this would happen to
you and they *wanted* it to happen. So just relax for the time. There's
no one who cares what happens to you any more any way. Besides, it won't
hurt for long, before we put an end to your suffering." He was casually
pushing bullets into the chamber of his revolver while he watched the
child be molested. 

Momaru's struggles slowed and then ceased as the words made a strange
sort of sense. /Why did you leave me to die, Papa? I love you, Papa...
Why don't you love me?/ The man who was bent over and carressing the boy
was starting to hurt him now and his breath was coming harder and
faster... Just "letting it happen" was starting to sound better. It
wasn't as scary if you let it happen... 

The boy was completely limp and motionless as if unconscious and he felt
his mind coiling up into a shell. He didn't want this to happen. He
didn't want to know what was going on, or ever remember that this had
happened... 

His memories were the first to go. It wasn't as painful to bear if he
couldn't remember that he even had a Daddy and Mama who loved him. Then,
even the present was unknown. Momaru could no longer feel the hands
which prodded and pulled at him, but lived only in his own mind.
Somewhere one of the men was grunting as he opened up his own pants, but
Momaru only heard a soft inner voice in the black void... 

/"Why are you letting them do this to you? The Bad Ones should never win
and they will if you give up..."/ The boy looked about in the pitch
black canvas of his own psyche, but found nothing. The voice could be
heard again, more forcefully this time, /"Get up! Be a big boy! Don't
let them do this to you or anyone else!"/ 

"Never... Never forgive the Bad Ones..." the boy whispered, his voice
muffled into the stone floor. 

The man who was bent above him, poised to rape the boy suddenly stopped
a second short. "What did you say?" he asked with a laugh. 

"AAAAAAAAAARH!" Momaru roared and leaped upward like a puma. The
molester staggered back with a bloody nose from the boy's head crushing
into his face. The other man stared agape, freshly lit cigarette
dangling dumbly from his lip, and was bowled over as the little boy
plowed past, a cannonball of pent-up rage and fury. The boy tasted
freedom, but at the price of his mind which now was devoid of a past and
a family... Devoid of memories. 


Omi was screaming and crying when he came to. His flailing limbs had
flung the twisted sheets from the bed and his face was sweaty and
deathly cold. He gulped in the fresh night air gratefully, trying to
slow his heaving breath and stop his river of tears. "Oh, God..." he
sobbed, but he didn't expect Him to hear. 

Aya was standing at the edge of the bed with a robe loosely wrapped
around him, staring in horror at Omi as if he'd seen a ghost. In a way,
Aya knew that he had. "Ohhhh..." Omi moaned through his tears. He moved
to the edge of the bed and flung his arms around Aya's chest. "Why
didn't you save me, Daddy?" he cried to no one into the terrycloth robe,
burying his face in his lover's chest. 

Aya only stiffened in awkwardness, suddenly unsure of the relationship.
He could tell by the nightmare that Omi had pantomimed that he had been
molested when he was kidnapped, and speculated that it might have been
the event that had pushed the boy over the brink and triggered his
memory loss. It had been Aya's own sexual administrations which had made
him recall the experience and the thought sickened him. /God; Omi is so
young! Are my advances any less perverted than that of some sick-o who
raped him 10 years ago?/ 

Aya removed himself from Omi's frightened, clinging arms and closed his
eyes, turning his face away from the large teary eyes and flacid naked
body in disgust. He took a step away from the boy who so deperately
wanted to be held and stared out the window instead. Aya had known that
Omi had a messed-up past, but this was too much to bear. /I can't handle
this. I have enough problems of my own and I don't know what to do about
this!/ Aya's mind raced. He didn't want to coldly dismiss the boy after
he had invited him up here in the first place, but he realized now that
it had all been a mistake. He couldn't help this boy, he had his own
sister to protect, his own demons to face. He couldn't do or say
anything to change the situation... And he was NOT a pedafile! Aya's
brow creased with anger for letting himself get caught up in the moment
earlier, and he tried to think of something to say... 

"I'm sorry, Aya-kun," the meek voice piped from behind him, "You don't
think any differently about me, do you?" Omi's voice trembled with new
tears of hurt from being rejected in the time he needed Aya most. He
longed to hold Aya close against him for comfort and have Aya hold him,
too, but the best that the boy could do was wrap his own bare arms
around himself. He felt so vulnerable; naked both mentally and
physically and Aya wasn't saying anything. /Please, Aya-kun! Say
something... Anything.../ 

/I don't know what to say to him. This is a mistake./ Aya thought to
himself darkly. /Don't say anything to push me, Omi... I don't know what
I'd do.../ 

The room stood in profound silence for an endless thirty seconds.
Finally... 

"Aya-kun?" Omi whispered. 

"Hn?" came the stiff reply. 

"I... I love you." 

Aya stiffened at the worst possible reply at the worst possible moment.
His fingers clutched at the sheet which had been thrown over a chair and
he tossed it behind him to cover Omi's nakedness. "Don't misunderstand
me," was the cold reply. 

Omi's mouth dropped open in silent agony at the words. He felt his heart
grow numb and he could feel an all-too-familiar sensation of his mind
turning in on itself to escape the unbearable pain. "A--" he barely
breathed out, "Aya..." 

"Please leave," the redhead ordered, fists clenching. 

Omi couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He just stared in
utter devastation as his dream slipped away before his eyes. Aya had
refused his love, rejected him just as his father had all those years
ago... 

When Aya realized that Omi wasn't going to leave, strode to the door and
walked through it himself. 

Omi was left in the dark.