I pressed my forehead to the window and shrugged. It didn’t occur to me that shrugs were difficult to hear from the next room.
“Dover.” He leaned against the door frame and put his hands in his pockets.
“Mmm?” I didn’t turn around.
“Is the taxi here?”
“No, sir.” It was November and my breath was making foggy patches of condensation on the glass. I pressed and repressed my nose to them, sitting back each time to look.
“Dover.”
“Don’t talk to me, please. I don’t like you right now.” I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them.
“I understand that,” he started, “And believe me, if that could change the dynamic of what we’ve got here, you and me-- Dover Allen, look at me.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes, but I did turn to look. There are certain tones of voice that are unwise to disobey.
“Just because you’re angry doesn’t make it okay to ignore me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Do you need a spanking this morning? Is that all that’s going to fix this? Because if it is, tell me right now. Dealing with it in a busy airport will be hell.”
I shook my head and dropped it to my knees. Deep breaths, I reminded myself. Deep breaths. That’s what Dr. Spiro said I should do when I thought I was going crazy. Just take some deep breaths and focus on the sound, the feel. I took one and tried hard to pay attention, but the second time, it broke up and scattered into quiet sobbing.
“Oh, monkey,” Nick sighed. I heard his footsteps cross the wood toward me and he pulled me up into his arms. “It’s a hard time, isn’t it?”
I nodded into his neck and kept on crying.
With nothing left in the apartment to rock me in, Nick settled for the radiator I’d been sitting on and plunked there with me on his lap. “It will get better,” he whispered.
I sucked snot back into my nose and coughed. “But I miss Manhattan already.”
“I know you do,” he said. “This isn’t forever. Just long enough to settle down for a while.”
“But I like it here...”
“How many times are we going to have to have this conversation?” he asked, gently. “I want you to be happy, sweetheart. But more than anything, I want you to be safe. And right now, for you, Portland is safer than Manhattan. I have family there who will take care of us and--”
“Babysit me. That’s what you mean. They‘ll babysit me.”
“Is that what I said?”
“Not in so many words...”
“Don't put words in my mouth.”
“I don't want to move...” I kicked the radiator and he smacked my thigh.
“Stop that.”
“Sorry..“ I mumbled.
“Honey,” He sighed and shifted me on his lap. He kissed my cheek and wiped away tears with his hands. “I've stopped considering what you want. It’s too often on the opposite end of the spectrum from what’s best for you. And it’s just not realistic. Right now, we are doing what you need. Going away until you can get your bearings again.”
“But all I did was lose them,” I whispered, squenching my eyes shut. “And I lost them here. You can‘t look for what you lost in a place you know you didn‘t lose it.”
He put his nose to my temple and I felt his warm breath against my ear. “It won't be as bad as you think it will. True, Portland isn‘t New York City, but it's not the backwoods of Arkansas either. There's plenty of culture, art, trees, the ocean's within a few hour's drive.”
“Connecticut is within a few hours drive and Manhattan is IN the ocean...” I was dangerously close to raising my voice.
“Dover, I hear you. And I've listened and considered and deliberated. This is what we're doing now. It's not up for debate. We're going to Portland and that will not kill anyone. Now stand up because the taxi’s here.” He patted my back. “No more about this today.”
My lip quivered, but I nodded and sat up, running the back of my hand across tears in hopes of keeping the rest at bay.
“All right, sweetheart,” he said, lifting me to my feet. He stood up behind me and brushed the last of the tears off my eyelashes, kissing my lips and giving me a sympathetic look. “You take your laptop and go hold the taxi. I'll get the rest of our stuff and be down in a minute.”
I stood there, looking at him. God, I love him and dear GOD, he pisses me off.
“Go,” he smiled. He ran a hand over my head and slid it down my back into my jeans.
I squirmed and leaned against him for a moment until the taxi driver honked again.
“Shh, enough for one day, Dover. Go,” he lifted my head and kissed my lips. “Now.”
----------
“Do you resent me?” I asked.
The airport was crowded and loud. Nick turned his head to me. “Hmm?”
“Do you resent me?” I leaned my head against his shoulder and looked up at him.
“Speak up, honey.”
“Do. You. Resent me?”
“No.” He shook his head.
“Not ever?”
“Not even once. Ever.”
I nodded. It was a good, strong answer with no room for questioning and so I didn’t.
“Are you sure?” Well, not that much.
“For leaving school? Do I resent you because I decided to leave school to take care of you? Is that what you’re asking me?” He slipped his hand into mine and laced his fingers through, squeezing tightly. “All that I can say is no, Dov. That’s the most absolute answer I’ve got for you. No. No, never.”
A few more minutes passed and they called for all preboarding passengers on our flight to please report to Gate 7G now. A couple of mothers with small children stood up and started gathering strollers, blankets and bottles of milk.
“What if I’m never normal again?”
“This is an emotional day. Things are being magnified by the fact that you’re so upset, honey.” He stroked my face for a moment with his hand and held our locked fingers to his lips, kissing mine. “Here’s the official mandate of the day--”
“Niiick,” I groaned.
He laughed. “I’m not traveling all day with you in this mood and I haven’t issued any official mandates in a while, have I? So, I’m entitled.”
“You’re annoying, that’s what you are,” I sighed.
“I try. Now, listen. You can be upset about moving and you can feel insecure and mad and thoroughly devastated, but the official mandate is this: You will trust me. No, no, no. Hush and listen until I’m finished. You will trust me. We aren’t going to have lots of time to sit around and be unhappy today. We’re just going to have to get through this. And we can. We will. So, whenever you start getting upset or angry or anything, you remember that you trust me. And that I love you. This is scary and this is hard, but we are doing the best that we can and it will be okay.”
I chewed my lip as hard as I could without making the burn at the back of my eyes worse.
“Don’t do that,” he whispered, freeing the poor thing with his thumb. “Bleeding won’t help. Besides which, it’s against the rules.”
A tear slid down my cheek and I closed my eyes.
“You can do this, Dover,” he spoke into my ear. “You can do this.”
---------
Nick’s parents met us at the airport and fawned over both of us, swearing we were malnourished, under slept and wrought with all sorts of terrifying plagues and disease. They insisted we go to dinner with them and we did, at some little corner café downtown.
I picked until I had the whole table bugging me to eat, so I did. Well, half. But that was the rule. Whatever was there, I was supposed to eat at least half. Nick’s mother still wasn’t happy, but it was the best I could muster.
They dropped us off with kisses, hugs and swears that we would call them soon. And then, there we were. At the foot of our apartment building.
“You will trust me.”
“Come on,” he smiled, turning to reach a hand out for me.
It was kind of a ramshackle little one roomer, Nick had told me, on the top floor of the building. Which, in terms of Portland, meant the third story. But Nick had had most of our things already delivered so that all we had to do was arrange and put everything away.
There was no elevator and if the halls were any indication, this place was either a crack house or a squatter’s lodge. After four thousand flights of stairs, we stood in front of 302 and Nick fished the keys from his pocket.
“Do you trust me?” he looked back at me and the security of him just being there was enough. I decided that it would be enough.
I nodded and took a deep breath.
He swung the door back and tramped inside, dragging the larger of our two suitcases behind him. It was dark inside and freezing cold. Boxes were stacked upon boxes and I recognized a few familiar outlines of furniture against the light from the streetlamp through the windows. But we couldn‘t make anything out for sure.
Then Nick flipped the light on. The fixtures were old and they flickered, flickered… and held.
The floors were old wood, the tiny kitchen had that retro checkered tile. Being on the corner of the building, there was a little turret and window that I hadn’t noticed from the outside. We were standing in an entryway with a little door-less closet to one side and oh, there, so appropriately in the corner of the living room, was my chair.
I looked at Nick whose eyes were full of anticipation for my response and tears spilled over my cheeks.
“Well, are those good or bad tears?” he chuckled, stepping over luggage to gather me into his arms. “What do you think, monkey?”
“It’s-- it’s just like the other one. It’s old a-and it smells right and it’s even fucking freezing, too.” I gulped for air and buried my face in the warmth of the sweater Nicky had on beneath his coat. “How’d you do this? It’s so… perfect.”
He shrugged and kissed the top of my head. “I love you.”
I laughed and stood up, sniffling and wiping tears out of my eyes. “Can we unpack?”
“Now?”
“Please?”
“It’s late. Too late tonight. We’ll start on the kitchen and the bedroom tomorrow. Come here for a minute.” He pulled me to him again by my belt loops and kissed me hard, then divested us both of our jackets, scarves and shoes before dragging me into the big ugly green rocker that was set apart from the rest of the chaos.
“We’re going to be okay?” I asked as he wrapped us both into a blanket and held me.
“We’re going to be happy.”
“Because we like our apartment and because you like me even though I hate you right now?” I yawned and leaned into him.
“Because we love each other and because I said so.”
I listened through the quiet to the cars outside. It was dark on the streets below but for a few street lamps. It sounded like a couple of men were arguing across the street.
“I don’t really hate you,” I whispered, wrapping his arms tighter around me. “I’m just sad. You know that, don’t you?”
“Hard to miss,” he smiled.
I laughed a little.
“Do you know that you’re my sweet boy?” he whispered into my ear.
The sensation gave me goosebumps and I nodded. “Do you know that you’re my favorite?” I asked, looking up to see him grin and nod.
“Hard to miss.”
------------
Nick grew up fast on account of me. I don't think he expected to have to, at least not so quickly. But he did it without complaint.
When I got back from the hospital, anything remotely sharp had been either thrown out or locked into the cabinet above the refrigerator and everything that was left was immaculate. He must have spent hours cleaning up all the shit in there. Also, he was suddenly a veritable wellspring of information on manic depression.
It wasn‘t until mid-September, when I started asking questions about him going back to school that he told me everything was fine, he’d taken a year off school and we could live for a while on the remainder of the college fund. I didn’t even have sense enough to be outraged then, I just cried.
When I started getting up and going into the kitchen to eat, laying on the couch sometimes instead of always on the bed, that was when he started laying down the law.
He followed me religiously for months. I couldn’t lay on the couch and read a book alone, go downstairs to get the mail or even take a shower without him in the room. He bathed me with his own two hands, refusing to let me help.
I felt like a dog on a leash and I hated it. I yanked and pulled and when that didn't work, I pushed. But Nick stood strong. Through all of it.
I did more corner time than I had hospital time, wrote more lines than words for publication. He soaped my mouth for arguing, immediately grounded me for repeat offenses, and ultimately, spanked me to within inches of my life on more than one occasion for physically endangering myself.
The first time I really got it -- It-It, I mean -- was the first time he caught me scratching my arms in the middle of the night.
My fingernails were the last sharp thing I had and so, when I woke up one night from a particularly bad dream, I just… used them. Thank God I hadn’t gotten very deep before he woke up or who knows what would’ve happened.
“Dover Emery Allen.” That was all he said and then I was face down over his knees. It wasn’t a brutal spanking, or even an angry one. I think it had shocked him and he was more scared than anything. When he finished, I saw him swipe at a couple tears of his own before he sat me, wailing, onto his lap. He hugged me so hard I could barely breathe. “If you ever do that again,” he whispered into my ear. “I mean ever -- as long as you live -- I will take off my belt and you’ll be the sorriest little boy you’ve ever known.”
After that, he’d pretty much created a monster. I didn't leave anything alone until I'd been spanked for it. Maybe it was that I had to try as many ways as I could to get rid of him. Like I felt I had to test him for everything he was worth. Maybe I needed to know he would love me, no matter what, but I didn’t believe there was any way that he would. Or maybe it was because, even though I never did anything consciously to get spanked, it offered a kind of release. Maybe it was a form of masochism I was allowed. Like, if I wasn’t allowed to cut or scratch myself, I would get myself spanked. Things were very primal then and I remember feeling like pain was the only thing to remind me I was alive. I think on some occasions, it was just that simple. And so I pushed and when that didn’t work, I yanked and I pulled.
And when it came, I fought it with little to no conviction. I went easily, gratefully almost. It was just relieving to me, and after it was over, I felt better. Calmer.
Maybe the best way to describe it is like cutting. Pain as a means to an end.
Curbing behavior was a side effect, if you ask me.
------------
The first few weeks in Portland were gory. And, yeah, I guess that is kind of putting it lightly.
I was much angrier than I'd realized about being forced to Portland and I was determined to hate it.
My therapist back in New York, Dr. Spiro, who knew about the more eccentric aspects of mine and Nick's relationship and sympathized to a degree, told me it was misplaced anger. He said that, really, I was angry about something else. But that the Nick thing was easier to pin it on. Or something like that. I got spanked sometimes for forgetting what Dr. Spiro said. I didn't always pay as close attention as I could have -- should have? And Nick said that since he couldn't be there with me all the time, I had to pay attention myself. So, when I didn't, well...
Spiro must've been right though, I guess, because I didn't hate Portland nearly as much as I wished I did. Especially not once Nick started taking me around.
On weekends, when he wasn't so enveloped in the couple of summer courses he was taking locally at Reed, we would spend whole days at Powell's. It was one of the only times he’d leave me alone – without him right there, I mean – for longer than a period of 15 or 20 minutes. Those days were heaven.
I'd sit in the Religion section, on the concrete floor and read, never looking up long enough to see anything more than feet as I moved myself away from them to let people pass.
Nick tended toward the poetry and fiction sections. And sometimes I hung out in the kid's books for Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. But even in spite of the massive expanse of literature, we never really lost each other. Predictable, both of us, I guess.
Outside of Powell's however, and the few other places where I could be trusted to stay calm and be at least somewhat happy, I was an unholy terror.
It's.. it’s a little embarrassing to say now.
I dragged my feet and kicked and screamed at the top of my lungs all the way through our first two or three months there. And… yeah, I only mean that sort of figuratively.
Those first two, three months or so, I got spanked at least three times a week and sent to corners on a pretty daily basis. I, in turn, developed more covert means of being defiant and showing my distaste for his decisions.
I think it started to scare Nicky half to death pretty quickly.
----------
It was about a month and a half after we‘d moved in that he found the glass I'd broken in my computer desk drawer. Suffice it to say, he flipped his lid.
We both knew that it was a possibility, breaking glass for me to cut with. But I'd never done it and I don't think he ever thought I would. I don’t think I ever thought I would.
It's not that I'd even planned to really use it for anything. I'd just been furious at him for one reason or another and so when he went down to get the mail one morning, I broke it. In the desk drawer. With a big rock I got from the Grand Canyon when I was like 12. I did it on purpose. But it was just.. in case. It felt safer knowing I had a 'just in a case'. I felt calmer knowing that, if I needed to, I could split my arm or my leg open again.
But I didn't do it!
That should have counted for something.
And... it didn't.
I was in the shower when he found it and I heard him coming down the hall, his footsteps hard and determined. It had been a week or two since I'd actually done the breaking, so that incident in particular didn't spring to mind when I started to wonder what I'd done now.
“Dover Emery Allen,” he said, coming in through the bathroom door that was “always to remain open“. His voice was low and it positively shook with fury. Though, it was the use of my entire name that gave me my first clue as to how irate he was.
I heard him take a deep breath and he pulled back the curtain, all but climbing into the shower with me to get me properly rinsed off before turning off the water, dragging me out of the tub and pointing to a shard of glass on the counter that had obviously come from my collection.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked me, his voice still ominously low. He sounded twice his age when he said things like that and I hated it when he took on that persona.
“I.. I—”
“Did you do this?” he asked me point blank.
And at least I could have had the good sense enough not to lie. Because who else would've done it? Satan? An angry mouse? I was the only other person in the house.
But no, no somehow I manage to dig myself deeper every time. I can't settle for just a grade one fuck up. It has to be phenomenal. If I'm going to do it, I may as well go all the way.
“N-no,” I stammered. “Where'd it come from?”
“Your desk drawer, my friend, and what do you mean 'no'?”
“No!” I said, defensively, trying to shake his hand off my upper arm. His grip was tight – on purpose, I'm sure, as I was still wet and slippery – and it hurt. “You asked if it was mine. I said no.”
“Don't you get cheeky with me,” he said, the tone of his voice starting to rise.
“I'm not, Nicky! It's not mine! What were you doing in my desk anyway?”
“I was looking for a letter, which is irrelevant. What I want to know, right now, is how the fuck this glass got into your desk. We may have the occasional mouse in here, Dover, but no glass-breaking mice. And definitely no mice who have any reason to be in or around your desk, much less carrying glasses from the kitchen TO your desk and I KNOW you weren't drinking anything next to your computer because I would have SEEN you.”
“Maybe the moving men broke it on accident..” I suggested timidly. “Maybe we accidentally left it in there when they took the stuff and it-- it got broken on the way..”
“And maybe Jesus will come back right now and save you before I spank you into next week.” He grabbed my chin hard and gave me a Look the likes of which I had never seen. “Don’t you lie to me. We do not lie to each other, is that clear? You tell me the truth, Dover. And I mean right this minute, or I am not going to hesitate to spank you until you do talk.”
I chewed my lip anxiously and stared at my wet toes. I was starting to shiver. And did he care?
“NOW!” He spanked my bottom twice and between the water and his perfect aim, it brought tears to my eyes immediately and I gave up lying.
“I was mad at you! You wouldn't let me go out by myself. You said I had to wait for you to finish your paper. You told me that you didn't trust me to be alone for that long. I was MAD. And you went down to get the mail and... and--”
“Is BREAKING a glass and keeping it around without telling me supposed to make me trust you MORE?!” he shouted.
I shrunk back and my lip started to quiver. I hate it when he yells. More than almost anything, because it means he's really, really mad.
Seeing my reaction, he closed his eyes and took another deep breath. “Did you use that glass to cut yourself, young man?” he asked deliberately, starting to look me over, lifting my arms and turning me around.
“No…” I whispered. “No, sir. No, I promise.”
He nodded. “Dry yourself off. I can't talk to you about this right now.”
He waited while I dried off, took me by the arm and led me into the kitchen where he pulled my chair away from the wall and sat me down into it, hard. He was silent as he started dinner and I watched, still naked and not just a little cold. Once he had both grilled cheese sandwiches on the stove, he beckoned me up again and took me into our bedroom where he put me in pajamas.
“But, Nicky...” I started softly, a little afraid to speak to him just yet. “It's only 6:00...”
“Ohh..” he chuckled in that very angry, very grim way he has. “If you‘d like to dictate things to me, I can play that game and you‘ll get me the belt. But otherwise, you‘ll hush your mouth and obey me because I am severely unhappy with you right now and you both deserve an early bedtime and will be safer in bed than out.”
Safer from myself or him, I wondered.
“Nick, I--”
“I don't care tonight, Dover. I honestly just don't. I am terrified and horrified and so angry with you right now that I don't trust myself to spank you. So, you will eat half of your sandwich, you will go to bed and you will not complain about it, do I make myself clear?”
“Um, yes,” I stammered, a little frightened. “Yes- yes, sir.”
I ate my sandwich and then Nick rushed me through brushing my teeth and combing my hair and put me to bed. He brought in his homework and sat on the floor to do it so as not to leave me alone with myself at all.
I cried myself to sleep and he did nothing to console me, which hurt far more than any spanking I'd ever received. He never ignored me. And when he'd said he didn't care, I believed him. Every other time he'd said it, it had been kind of off-hand, regarding something like my complaining that I was thirsty after a tenth glass of water at bedtime. Those were times when he was supposed to say he didn't care. And those times, I understood. But this... this time he hadn't let me say anything. He'd said he didn't care before he even knew what I was going to say.
I cried hard in a very heartbroken sort of way.
Hours later when I felt the bed sink and his warm body easing up behind mine to cradle me the way he always does, I heard him sniffling and gulping, sounds that I recognize pretty easily.
Sleepy but still upset, I turned over and buried my face in his shirt. I started to cry again too, wailing that I was sorry and that I hadn't meant it and that I just wasn't thinking and would he please, please, please not leave me because I could do better, I would do better, I promised-- and then he started to laugh.
Not mean, not evilly, nothing like that. Just tired and sympathetically and he patted my back and rubbed circles into it.
“I'm not going anywhere, you silly boy...” he sighed. “Stop that now. We're both exhausted.”
But I kept on sobbing. It seemed like something I should cry over, for once. Not just one of those things that broke me for no apparent reason, but something real and traumatizing.
“I'm not leaving,” he said, soothingly. “I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here. You should know that by now. I'm right here. It's not the end of the world, you just scared me. That's all. It was scary, honey. Did I scare you, too?”
I wailed something in the form of a muffled yes and he picked both of us up out of bed and carried me to the big green rocker in the living room.
“All right, all right,” he cooed gently. “I'm here, honey. I scared you, I know. I didn't mean to. Poor baby, I’m sorry. I should have been more careful. I'm sorry, sweet boy. Sweet, sweet little boy...” he rocked back and forth, back and forth.
That's the way my Nick is. I fuck up and scare him shitless so that he cries – something Nicky never does – and by the time he's done being terrified, he's already forgiven me and is sitting there, comforting me for having scared him, actually apologizing to me.
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