Page 33 of Juniper Unraveling

He shakes his head at first, but then, at what must be an incredulous look on my face, he nods.

After daubing away some of the coffee, I tug his elbow to follow me back up the stairs, into the bathroom. Flipping on the shower sends out a rush of cool water, and I help him lift the T-shirt that carries remnants of coffee.

He takes my cue and removes his pants, dropping them in front of me.

My eyes widen at the sight of his sex sticking out from his thighs. I’ve surely seen the male genitalia before, in the many medical and art books in Papa’s study. Except, Six is more well-endowed than any of the males in those pictures, and I have to will myself not to stare there.

Clearing my throat, I shift my gaze to the red welts across his thighs, where the coffee scalded him. Angry patches of raised skin look as if they’ve already begun to blister, and I usher him into the cool shower to wash the area.

As if completely unaffected by the pain, he sets his hand out beneath the raining spigot, collecting water in his closed palms, and splashes it against his face. Again, he collects the water, splashing it over himself. And again. He does it a fourth time, as if completely enthralled.

It’s hard to keep my focus on his burns when it doesn’t seem to bother him, and my eyes shift back to between his thighs.

I feel like a ridiculous teenage girl for ogling him this way, but I can’t help it. The sight of him, wet and naked, even with his many scars, has a strange effect on my body, and I can feel a tingle between my thighs that begs me to squeeze them together.

He’s a man-boy with a grown man’s penis, an attribute that my body finds inexplicably arousing. The veins beneath his skin draw my tongue against the back of my teeth, skimming the ridges there.

Stop.

I screw my eyes shut and double-blink, to unhinge my stare from what has monopolized my thoughts.

The physician’s daughter in me takes over once again as I scramble for a washcloth set out in a basket beneath the sink, and I hand it to him through the gap in the shower door. As I slide the door closed, he sets the cloth to his arm first, scrubbing away at the dirt and grime still clinging to his skin, and I shake my head, widening the door again.

“Start with the wound. You don’t want to get dirt in it, or it’ll get infected,” I instruct, noticing the dampness of my shirt from the errant sprays of water.

Six scrubs at the welts on his thigh, and I watch with horror as the skin turns redder, creating painful looking streaks across the wounds.

“Stop! Oh, my God, wait. You’re … not that hard.” I can’t decide which is more disturbing, the way he handled himself so roughly, or that he didn’t seem to feel it, at all.

Rubbing lavender soap over the cloth creates a foam that I gently place to his thigh, and with soft, delicate circles, hardly touching him at all, I clean the wound for him. Water saturates the rug beneath my feet and across my T-shirt, adding a thin layer of moisture to my face.

Six stands perfectly still in the shower, while I wash him, and I dare a quick glance to the right, noticing his sex has grown larger than before, curving upward toward his navel.

Don’t look, I tell myself, but when he grabs hold of the shaft mere inches from my face, I peer up at him. My fingers twitch with the curiosity of how the rigid texture would feel against them if I reached out and stroked it, as I’ve read about in some of those erotic books from the library.

I catch the irregular rise and fall of his chest with his hastened breaths, but without a word, he turns away from me, facing the wall of the shower stall, and waves of embarrassment move through me.

My eyes are drawn to his backside, to a purple bruise that sits at the level of his tailbone with bruising across each cheek. Scars mar his skin there, and when my eyes trail up his spine, the wide expanse of his back is covered in so many wounds, only a few patches of his skin remains intact. A glossy irregular blotch at his shoulder blades is puffy and stretched like a burn scar.

The marks of his torture reach deep into my chest, stirring thoughts of guilt and shame.

Rising up from my crouch, I hand him the washcloth, which he accepts over his shoulder, and close the shower door to offer him privacy, while he washes the rest of himself.

Once he finishes, I turn off the faucet for him, taking deep breaths at what has been a somewhat jarring experience. Not a single word spoken the entire time, but he doesn’t have to talk. He wears his words across his skin like braille. A story of pain that I wish I could rewrite for him, and take away the chapters that mark his suffering.

I nab a jar of aloe gel that I keep for my scratching, along with gauze from the cabinet beside the sink, and hand him a towel that he wraps around his waist, covering his lower half. With his manhood out of sight, I lift the edge of the towel just enough to daub the aloe over the wound, which has definitely begun to blister, and tape a square of gauze over it.

“Looks like second degree. Try not to pop the blister. Papa says it bathes the skin while it heals so you …” Don’t end up with a nasty scar, I don’t say, eyeing a poorly-sewn gash above his knee. “Can heal faster.”

Six runs his fingers over the dressing, and I catch the bulge sticking up from the towel, while he examines the bandaging. Ordering myself focus away, the quick shift of my eyes diverts my gaze to the silver band at his throat.

The way his skin curves over the edges, it almost looks embedded there, and my neck tics with a swallow. A keyhole at the side of the collar is an unusual shape—none of the keys I own would fit it. Wide and circular, it appears to require a tubular shaped tip, and I wouldn’t have a clue how to pick it. The protruding silver ring in the band gives away its purpose, and a spasm of anger spikes my blood at the thought that he’s been treated like a dog. An animal.

Maybe Papa can remove it for him—once I muster the courage to tell him about our new guest.

“I’ll go get you some clothes.” I make my way to Papa’s closet and gather a few items, before returning to the bathroom.

Six dresses quickly in a pair of Papa’s snug-fit pants and shirt, as I toss the soiled clothes into the washing machine, along with what little laundry that needs cleaning, so as not to waste the water.