No More Happy Birthdays

Part 5

The following morning, Bo awoke to find Vincent had cuddled close to his body. Not bothering to wake him and give him a scolding, he carefully detached himself from his brother and rose from the bed. Stretching his limbs as he walked down the hall, he entered the bathroom and pulled his penis out. As he stood there, urinating into the white bowl, he glanced around the room. The half roll of toilet paper had nearly been used up completely. Towels used from the night before had been bunched up into soggy clumps and thrown on the floor. Several of them had visible reddish brown blotches.
“Christ,” Bo mumbled to himself when he thought about how much blood there must have really been. The room looked as though Vincent was currently on the rag. Footsteps sounded to the right of Bo and he looked up to see his brother standing at the doorway, waiting for his turn to use the toilet and still naked. His lack of clothing made him somehow look smaller than he really was.
Allowing the other man in, Bo walked back into his bedroom and lifted the blankets, proving his speculation. Several dark red stains had appeared on the bedspread overnight, some looking newer than the others. Frowning, he tossed the pillows aside on the floor and proceeded to peel the covers from the mattress. He knew it was not Vincent’s fault, so his anger was spared and instead became a mild annoyance. Bunching the sheets and bedspread into one large bundle, he cursed at himself for not thinking to place a towel under Vincent’s backside.
Returning to the bathroom, he looked inside to see Vincent bent over the sink, face hidden by a thin black veil of presently clean hair, persistently scrubbing at one of the bloody towels. The act made him look pretty pathetic to Bo, and he stepped inside the room to make himself known. His brother flinched at the sight of him and hid the dirty thing behind him.
“No, that’s alright,” Bo assured him. He held the bundle of covers higher to indicate it. “How about you clean these and I clean the bathroom? Deal?”
Head still lowered, Vincent made a tiny nod, putting the towel back into the sink and taking the dirty bedcovers from his twin, exiting the room and heading down the stairs for the washing machine.
“And get some clothes on while yer at it, naked-boy!”
Bo hoped his twin could detect the good humor intended in that command.
*
The thought of eating again greatly frightened Vincent, but he sat there at the dining room table that evening nonetheless. Staring at his empty bowl, he contemplated how the dinner would play out, whether he could will himself to eat or not and what the consequences would be of either option. He could feel his pulse quicken as he watched his brother enter the room, holding a small sauce pan in each hand.
Despite a lowered head and shroud of long hair, Bo could guess the look on his twin’s face. He knew what Vincent feared now, and he was pleased he had thought to make something to alleviate those fears. Lifting the lids from both pots, he waved them over the steaming food to cool the surface and guide the scent towards his brother. Vincent detected the smell of broth and meat and lifted his head to see the soup waiting to be eaten.
“This should go through ya easier,” Bo explained, hand out to receive a bowl. Vincent gave his without hesitation and was rewarded with a generous helping of the simmering meal. He could see noodles floating about the broth like tiny white boats in a golden lake. Glancing upward, he saw that Bo paid him no attention, instead devoting his time to filling his own bowl and taking a seat, digging in the second he had a spoon in his hand.
Blowing lightly against his spoonful of soup, Bo secretly stole glances in Vincent’s direction, hoping that the food prepared for the evening would do the trick. If not, he was not sure what would. Milk perhaps, or maybe porridge, grits even… then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the movement of a hand holding silverware. Looking up, he watched satisfyingly as Vincent took a cautious mouthful of soup, lightly chewing on soft noodles and licking a drop of escaping broth from his lips.
Bo took another gulp of his own supper and smiled.
“Good.”
*
“Good, good. Looks like you’re cleanin’ up just fine.”
Vincent turned his head to shyly glance at Bo, who was kneeling behind the standing young man. Pants down to his ankles, the disfigured brother was waiting anxiously as his rear end was inspected for signs of healing. He had just finished using the toilet again, and though it stung him to do so, the pain was not nearly as great as it once had been. He gave a small, timid smile at the good news, but his constant discomfort at the attention paid to his backside still caused him to turn his gaze away once more, waiting for his brother to finish. Bo wet the washcloth he held in his hand one final time and squeezed it against his brother’s healing anus, letting the water soothe the still tender area while rinsing away any wastes. Vincent tried to endure through the experience by focusing on the cool water and how it ran down his skin, gravity leading it downward in between his legs and falling against the inside of his thighs.
The cry of surprise suddenly given by Vincent caused Bo’s own heart to skip a beat. He stood, eyes wide, as he witnessed his twin retreating into the bathtub, bent over and hiding his front.
“Vincent, what…”
Bo’s vision however quickly detected the starting place of his brother’s anxiety. Hidden behind trembling hands was the beginning of an erection. His expression clearly of shame, Vincent cowered in the tub, partly obscured by a curtain and obviously expecting a severe beating, or worse.
Glaring, Bo did not move, watching how his fairy of a twin brother hid his ugly face and curled up against the corner of the bathroom. Bad enough was it that God made Vincent out to be a crater-faced freak, but this? Bo figured he might as well not be surprised at the notion. After all, the boy was already an abnormally shaped mama’s boy, why not a queer as well… but Bo nonetheless wondered if he was at fault for the way his brother turned out, from their early years of what their father regarded as disgusting and immorally indulgent. Brow furrowing deeper, the fine featured man looked away from that fearful, disfigured face and headed downstairs, his destination outside to smoke a cigarette and think things over.
Hours passed before Bo finally returned inside, and he only did so to warm himself from the night cold. The moon had risen over the horizon, round and yellow, shrinking and going pale as it ascended higher into the black. Yawning, he locked the front door and headed upstairs, assuming that no sign of Vincent meant he had returned downstairs to the cellar. Probably for the best anyway… Maybe now that the worst was over he would return to what he did best, creating more people for Ambrose and its wax museum.
Bo’s hopes were spoiled as he stepped into his bedroom and discovered his bed already in use. Curled up in a spot used for a second time was Vincent, half heartedly covered by a sheet, snuggled up against a downy pillow and fast asleep. And confoundedly enough, he appeared to be naked again. The outline of his body was perfect under the wrinkled linen, gooseflesh covering Vincent like scales on a lizard. He had clearly been sucking his thumb, the fucking infant, and Bo could tell by the way the young man’s jaw hung open and the digit he had suckled so dearly stuck out from his limp hand like a ninety degree angle, still lingering next to his parted lips. Bo had thought his twin to have broken himself of that habit, but clearly he had guessed wrong. When placed in foster homes, Vincent would suck his thumb at night, a habit which would keep a teenager’s rear end sore thanks to other foster children, but Bo’s wrath in reciprocation to the cruelty often ended in the Sinclair twins being moved once more to a different home.
Bo shook his head at the memory. For someone so smart, his brother was surely capable of returning to old ways most people grew out of and forgot.
He thought to kick the boy’s ass out the door and order him to his own room, if not the basement. Waking Vincent and being angry with him would have been appropriate, as Bo had given similar reprimands before for similar behavior. Vincent’s weeping half face flickered in his mind, purple with bruises which stubbornly refused to dissipate. The face became blood and shaking hands. Sighing with less noise than a leaf falling, Bo undressed and walked over to his own side of the bed. He could have been his usual self, but he was too tired and Vincent was far too vulnerable. Lying down beneath the covers, he pulled a blanket onto his twin’s immobile form and shut his eyes, letting sleep find him.
Once he knew his brother was fully asleep, Vincent turned over to face him, having been awoken by the feeling of the warm blanket. He never moved more slowly in his whole life as he did now, creeping like a snail towards the unconscious figure and stopping with every sign of movement or awakening. Once he was at a proximity which satisfied him, Vincent settled back down against the mattress. There in the darkness, he stared at the motionless features of his sleeping brother. He admired the perfection, the mere wholeness of that face, and it was then that he came to truly appreciate every detail. He was tempted to reach out and feel the visage which he had so cruelly been cheated out of, but his outstretched hand paused inches from Bo’s cheek. Though called an idiot by his brother, Vincent was certainly not idiotic enough to forget what had happened hours ago in the bathroom. He had already narrowly avoided Bo’s wrath then, and he did not need any reminders of why he deserved punishment.
Leaning back to resume sleep, Vincent pulled his hand away from Bo and instead kept his vision focused on the sleeping twin’s face, letting the sight of symmetry and familiarity soothe him into a world of dreams. And there in the dreams alone was where he would keep his secret, and awake he would only admire in quiet. He knew that Bo could never know what had happened within those few weeks, how Vincent had discovered his love for his kin had ran deeper than that of brothers.

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To be continued...