In The Beginning

Jonathan Winters was a good, kind, and decent man. He was a loving, devoted and caring husband. His wife, Emile, was a pale, beautiful, softly spoken woman, a 'floral artist' and painter in her free time, a simple coffee shop worker whenever else. She and her husband seemed perfect, happy, content. The only thing was that she wanted children but Jonathan wanted to wait; wait until he had been promoted to a better position at work, then wait until he had successfully secured the deal, wait until they had more time, wait. Wait. But Emile didn't want to wait.

When she finally discovered that she was pregnant the last things she imagined she would feel were fear and confusion. But Jonathon was fuming. Furious at her 'betrayal' and her 'dishonesty'. He refused to believe that it had not been planned, that it was an accident. He wanted an abortion but Emile refused repeatedly through her tattered tears and newly forged fears.

So Jay Winters was born. A dark haired, pale and writhing baby who laughed instead of cried. At least that's what Emile admitted... Her little ray of sunshine was perfect, bundled into a blanket and pressed into her arms. Jonathan glowered from outisde the room, refusing to hold his own child. Her dream was his nightmare and he hated Jay at first.

Slowly as Emile became less and less patient with Jonathon's moodiness the father/son bond began to develop. The family became more secure again, Jon even took baby Jay off to the park on weekends. Walking with his child tucked into pram. It was only until Jay was 3 that things stayed that way.

*

"Hello." the little blond four year old toddled up to a smaller, frightened boy that was holding his 'muzzie' close to him for comfort. The blond smiled brightly, trying to make the other stop looking so big eyed and unhappy, "Do you want to play?"

The dark hair boy was sitting on the step, underneath the bar around the sand pit and he looked around, seeing that everyone else was busy and running around, he shook his head, "I dont like playing."

"Come on we can be the power rangers!" The blond insisted, hopping from one leg to the other. But the other shook his unkempt hair and made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat, "Ok we sit here..."

There was a silence then that stretched into an infinite hole of oblivion.... For about two minutes until the blond again became fidgety, "I'm Matt."

"I'm Jay."

"Can we play now?"

"I dont like play."

"Why?"

"Cos daddy and I play games and they're not fun," Jay's small voice became smaller still as he pulled his white raggety muzzie to his face.

"Daddy's never have fun games!" Matt looked at Jay with the incredulous eyes of a child.

"Your daddy plays bad games too?"

"Yeah. Daddy doesnt like me playing fun games." Matt's face broke into a dorky smile, "So we should play here!"

"Ok..." Jay let himself fall in with the strange little blond.

*

Emile had gone o stay with her mother for six months after Jay turned three. She promised she'd be home by Christmas, but the truth was that she didn't know that at all. Her mother, known as Granny Bowo to Jay, was sick with pancreatic cancer at the age of seventy-two, and was dying. Though she didn't want Jay to know that. Grandpa (her father) was trying hs best to look after his waning wife but his strength wasn't what it used to be and had asked for his only daughter's help. So Jay was left with Jonathon.

Jonathon and Jay started out well. Jay was taken sailing on the River Thames and they went to the park to play on the climbing frame and he and his father seemed to be agreeing with each other in a way that had never been expected when considering he circumstances of his birth. But they were. Jonathon was trying his hardest. Jay was trying to be good. But there were some things that Emile usually dealt with that Jonathon couldn't tolerate. Like wetting the bed or having nightmares or having to wipe Jay's bottom after he'd used the potty.

Anger prone already, when the end of Summer came and Jonathon had to go back to work, his temper rose into full heat. He was furious with Jay for every little mistake. He wanted his wife back. Needed her back. His sex life was not used to being put on hold.

But Jay was there. Jay was there to be looked after. Jay was three and four months and was lonely because his father merely gave him to the carerers at work in the morning and put him in his room at night after buying a take-away meal for them both. The little boy adored his father, looked up o him, asked him to play games with him like lego or duplo. And that's when everything changed. Jonathon told Jay that they were going to play a really fun game called 'suck' and that it would make daddy very happy if they were allowed to play it because normally he played it with mummy and he missed her very much.

And three year olds don't understand what it means to have a cock shoved down their throats until they gag or to have their father fuck their faces. Jonathon Winters began to sexually abuse his three year old son. Jay learnt not to choke...

*

Matt was sitting on his own in their maths class. He hadn't been expecting that Jay, the boy he played power rangers and animorphs with in the playground was going to be walking into the room when the bell rang. Smiling he waved and the shy little boy came and sat with him. They were five and a half now and proud of it.

Teacher's watched them both carefully, even as they sat and ate their lunches with each other in the corner of the dining hall because they were reknown for their mischeif making in breaks. Or at least Matt was good at making them both fall into the same bit of trouble. Yet Jay was still quiet and hated it when people other than the blond touched him in any sort of manner. As he sat down and placed his pencils on the table he let Matt start babbling before he relaxed. Something wasn't right with Jay Winters and most people knew it. Different teachers had declared him slow and stubborn only to be proven wrong by the huge leaps in skills like French and reading, others had considered him dyslexic and others thought he was autistic. But he wasn't and as the teacher began to talk, effectively shutting the classroom up the little boy shrank into his friend's side, fearful of the barrel shaped man infront of them. Matt frowned and let the dark haired boy shiver into his side without complaint because between the two of them, they knew that something was going on in both their lives that wasn't going to fix itself.

"Y'ok?" He whispered, not looking away from the teacher who was writing out something he needed to think about.

Jay nodded and began to pull himself together as he lesson progressed. He was scared because the teacher had always said that 'this would not be fun'. And fun was what he and Matt had... But everything else was what he faced at home. Sometimes in the playground they'd just sit and one would ask after the other's bruises. Matt's were often worse because his skin was a lot paler and they were in places like his arms and legs whereas Jay, though still not a healthy colour, had crueller marks scattered about... Today Matt worried because Jay wasn't talking and that meant his throat hurt and he knew it was because of Jay's dad just like his were because of his dad. There would be no sitting and chatting or running around playing silly games today. Jay would want to be quiet so they'd probably go and sit in the music school whilst Matt practised piano and tried to teach Jay what he was playing...

Smiling slightly at his friend they bent their heads into their lesson and waited for this set of work to finish and they could move away on their own.

*

Things began to become worse. Because all sexual matters seem to move one into another... Though he wouldn't talk about it, the sad, disquiet in his solemn eyed gaze became reknown amongst the staff at school. He was still very small and his eyes seemed to take up most of his face at times. Sometimes he missed school entirely but even when he came in he seemed tired and dispondent and teachers began to excuse any poor behaiviour because no matter what they thought was going on with Jay Winters they had no just reason to suspect anything right then.

But things were also about to become a little better. Jay's mother discovered her husband as he left Jay's room one night when she'd been meant to be out at a book group three blocks away. She heard her child's cries from behind the closed door and saw the shame filled face of the man she had married and walked passed him to hold Jay in her arms whispering over and over how sorry she was, how sorry she was for not realising before, how sorry she was for everything. And even as she carried him to the bathroom to clean off the blood and sweat and cum from his father's brutal activities, she decided to stop it happening again... Though she wouldn't leave Jonathon. Not yet... He could change. He had been so gentle and kind before... She cried with her son as the warm water turned pink.

*

Matt didn't know what was going on. They were six and all he knew was that Jay hadn't been to school for a week and that he needed to see his friend more than ever... If only to talk about an imaginary world where they could run away and be happy and play fun games all the time. The world would be easier then... He didn't know that his friend that had been raped over and over again by his father was lying in hospital and that Emile was bent over the broken frame of the little boy as her husband languished in a cell.