Preface:

"You filthy piece of shit," he screamed down at him as he laid there on the cluttered floor of the tool shed, tattered and torn shreds both physically and mentally. He was lying on some old burlap sacks they used to cover the bushes around the property in the winter months. They were scratchy and uncomfortable against his soft young skin, but still he laid there unable to move, speak of even think as the all too familiar tang of his own blood filled his taste buds from where his teeth would almost be forced through the inner lining of his mouth at the way his face had been pressed into the rags beneath him while all he could do was lay there and pray that it would all be over sooner than usual along with his usual request to whatever power that was above, that this would be the last time. But neither of those hopes ever came about as his agony from the pain of his tender backside being ripped apart yet again seemed to go on and on, only to be repeated some times on the very next day.

"So help me," the older scruffy man said rolling his shoulder as he pulled his shirt back on continuing to nurse it, "if you ever try and buck me off like that again, I'll rip you damn heart out through your damn spleen You hear me you little bastard?"

The boy with the big sad brown eyes and dirty dark blond stringy hair hanging over them looked up at him with a scowl of distaste. He wanted to tell the man what he thought, but even as much as he hated him and wanted him dead, a part of him still feared to speak knowing that whatever he said, would be wrong and the next thing to set him off. He knew this, because they always were.

"I should just bust your head open right here and now for all the trouble you're worth," he kept scolding as he button up his flannel shirt over his amble belly and un-showered hairy chest with his dirty fingers as his long greasy graying black hair, just touching his shoulders permeated the air with his sweat and recently discharged body fluids. "All you need to do is behave like a nice little bitch, but now all you want to do is fight me when you already know you ain't going to win."

"Go to hell," the teenage boy finally willed up enough courage to speak with a sneer as he clutched to cover him self with the tee-shirt and shorts he had been wearing only a short while ago when he had arrived.

"Getting pretty brave in your old age there," the older man laughed but it sounded more like a taunt to his ears. "Don't you think if I could find myself another better piece of ass I wouldn't get rid of you in a heart beat you little bitch, but right now you're cute little face is all I have," he leaned over cupping his chin hard pulling his face up to meat his with a mocking grin of few teeth and all of them yellow. "You belong to me until I say so."

"Not if I finally tell my parents what you are doing," the boy, trying to cover his nude form as best as he could attempted to square his shoulders but coming up short, did his best to maintain a strong stare back into his bloodshot eyes. "Then you'll be the police's problem."

The dirty man laughed again with a sneer before bringing his free hand up and slapping the boy's face free from his other with a brute force knocking the boy further into the corner and his head into the work bench on the back wall of the shed.

"Don't try and threaten me you little shit," he snarled as his very nasals began to flare. "I've been the handy man in this crappy little bed and breakfast your folks own longer than you've been alive." He warned as his eyes seemed even more bloodshot. "Try and get me fired or even taken away, but I'll be back 'cause I know more ways in and out of these grounds and building than you can even imagine." He took a step forward and hovered over him, "And when I do, I'll be coming for a little pay back from you and your folks."

"Go ta hell," was all the boy could think to say again as he screamed in his assailant's face with saliva coming from his nose and mouth while the tears he tried to keep bottled up streamed down his tender slightly round thin face and pouting lips.

"Just what I thought," the man wiped a thumb, hard, across his tear ridden face. "You don't have the balls to do anything about it."

The boy fell back into a lump, half on the bags half on the dirt floor weeping into his own arms balled up as best as he could into a fetal position wishing that the larger brute would just go away and leave him to die.

"Damn," the man looked out at the setting sun in the dingy skylight over their heads, the only light in the small space. "I've wasted too much time nurse maid-ing you trying to get me a little, half the day is gone and I still have the damn second floor porch railing to paint so this dump will be ready for when the guess start arriving."

The boy didn't say anything but just laid in the corner hoping against hope that he could just turn invisible or die on that very spot at very moment. But as much as he hoped and prayed and had been doing so for almost a year now, this was his life for the foreseeable future as the handy man's handy play thing.

Opening the door, the older man picked up a small pair of white under briefs off the floor by the entrance where they had been thrown, still covered with specks of dry blood from one of their earlier afternoon encounters and tossed them at him.

"You might want to wash these a little better next time," he groused with a hiss in his voice. "And quit your bawling already, cause we both know you like our play time as much as I do you little queer. Now finish sharpening the blades on the lawn mower like you mom asked so I can start on the back lawn in the morning." And with that said, he was out the open door walking across the wide lawn back to the large bed and breakfast hotel without so much as a glance.

The teen boy, sensing that it was finally safe again, sat up and began retrieving his cloths rushing to put them back on before anyone else was to accidentally walk in on him and expose his dirty little secret. He stopped for a second looking at his cleaned underwear with the dried blood as tears continued to flow. Reaching under himself, he winced at the pain he felt touching his sore bottom again and retrieved his hand again for inspection. Just as he thought, with a sob, there would be more new fresh blood added to the previous stains. Carefully he lifted his aching body, slipped them back on, then his shorts and tee-shirt. He grimaced as he had to lean forward to slip his sneakers on over his anklet sock, the only clothing not ripped from him, and when he was finished, he again leaned over his knees, like so many times before and wept at the lost that was his life.

The Beginning

Coming soon: When a romance novelist and her teenage son move into the family bed and breakfast for the summer, Jeremy's life is thrown into a whole new world of discovery and self awareness that he never thought possible, and maybe just maybe, he and his new friend can save themselves and each other.