In this home, where babies were scavenged from slums' rubbish dumps and grew into societal litter, everything had to be won by blows – food, bed, playing s.p.a.ce, water, clothes. And the Supervisor, a grim-chinned, narrow-lipped cadaver, remained safely coc.o.o.ned in her grey oblivion.

The only time a slice of light ever happened into her eyes was on 'Selection Sundays' when strange men, flamboyantly-attired, with something uncannily dirty in their eyes, visited the home, their stained eyes touching every part of your body as they inspected you in consideration of adoption.

That is how we happened to end up in the cold custody of our foster father, my brother and I.

Our foster father, Pappy, was a wifeless kind-faced man who did not delay in his dispensation of evils.

On the first day, my brother was stripped and whipped to near lifelessness by this tall, sad-mouthed man, Pappy's 'visitor,' for whom the whip seemed to be a p.e.n.i.s, the way he handled it and groaned with each thrust; and lash by lash, scream by scream, he inched towards an o.r.g.a.s.m which was an exclamation mark on his face when he arrived at it.

And as this other man's whip chewed deeper into my brother's flesh and his back began to scream blood, our foster father took my hand, gently – too gently, considering the violence that was being witnessed – and guided the hand through his open fly and down into his trousers.

His thing was a monstrous thing, a throbbing beast. My b.u.t.tery fingers shook and melted around it out of fear. It nodded in appreciation when my grip tightened a little, while its owner smiled his climax in my face as the brick dissolved into a liquid – sticky – softened, and died away. It quickly became just a piece of cloth, still.

Everything around us was also still – the air, the whipping man (who had collapsed into a nearby couch), my brother (curled up on the floor), my breathing . . .

Small sighs escaped from both men at intervals; then they exchanged a look of post-o.r.g.a.s.mic satiety, like lovers.

Pappy put us in separate rooms.

And every other night this performance was repeated, with a different whipper every time.

* * *

It was the night of The Party.

Our foster father didn't tell us anything about it; he just came to my room, gave me new clothes to wear, girls' clothes – a tutu-like skirt, a gypsy blouse, and even a thong and red wig – and a blindfold.

When he had secured my darkness tightly, he said, in a voice that was a draught, Do whatever you're asked to.

It was the only time I had heard his voice since he adopted us. I was more familiar with his sighs and grunts. This voice, the icy blade of a sword, hung in the air throughout the night, holding a threat over me.

I could not see anything, not even a sliver of light; but I could tell we were pa.s.sing through the party, even though it did not have the festive sounds of a party, but you could tell that the room was filled with people, and they all seemed to be men – the low hum that throbbed beneath the surface of the atmosphere had a masculine hue about it; like the murmurs of mourning men.

I wondered if my brother was in this room, or if he was dead. The last time I saw him, at the last performance, he looked almost gone; there was almost nothing left of him but his sh.e.l.l – his eyes were dead, nothing inside them, only the black and the white, sitting in their holes in his gaunt face; his back had become a gaudy pattern of caked blood and sores. He had reminded me of the Crucifixion story.

Then, as if in mockery of this appearance, that night's whipper had brought a cross along and asked my brother to hold it during the whipping. The man kept chuckling, pleased with himself for this ghoulish ingenuity.

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Pappy was obviously not enjoying the blasphemous insinuation of this picture. He winced, and s.n.a.t.c.hed my hand out of his trousers before his thing became liquid. He fingered the small gold cross just below his neck and gritted his teeth while that night's whipping lasted . . .

Tonight I was being led through darkness. It felt like being led to your death. You knew neither path nor destination.

I felt the weight of a cross on my shoulder . . . It was a hand, a heavy hand; it steered me through the labyrinth of the mansion's belly.

From the weight of this hand, the weight of Pappy's voice, you didn't need to be told that this was a big, important party, with big, important men. Men with big, important desires and fantasies, and sicknesses.

The weight of the hand fell from my shoulder with a Be on your best behaviour, and I heard a door shut behind me, and a Hmm roll out in front of me. I took one small step back and another voice laughed – Don't run away, he doesn't bite. I hope you don't either . . .

hahahaha . . . Chips, you go first . . .

The Chips answered with his Hmm.

A zip hissed open. A hand, a soft hand, took my hand, and drew me forward – Come on, go to him, he has a gift for you . . . Good boy. Open your mouth . . .

Sir?

Your mouth, yes . . . open it . . . Goooood –

Hmm.

Meat, raw, cold, moist meat, grazed my bottom lip and lay

on my tongue – Now close it . . . Your mouth . . . Close, yes . . . yes, yes . . . Yes, close it around it like that . . . Goooood . . . Chips, that feels good?

Hmmm, the Chips moaned.

The meat began to grow and fill my mouth, expanding my cheeks, so much that I thought my small mouth would burst!

Then it began to touch the beginning of my throat; a cough blocked off by this chunk of meat became a gag and choked me . . .

My eyes began to water behind the blindfold, and in that moment of my dying, the white realization hit me that my foster father had actually led me here to be killed; I had come to the end of my usefulness. . .

The water behind the blindfold became tears and soaked the cloth.

Was this how it would all end, in darkness, in silence, words and screams blocked off . . . Was this how death was? That a person didn't know they were dying until the point of death, the point where the dying has reached the end . . .

I stopped when I heard the moans above me turn to anguished screams and I tasted blood in my throat, on my tongue – LET ME GO! LET ME GO!

I knew that voice! I knew that voice!

Somebody broke the door open. And it wasn't until the big slap unlocked my teeth that I realized they had been holding on to the chunky piece of meat in my mouth.

The cough finally escaped, throwing out a spray of red with

it.

ARGHHHH!

Yes, I knew that voice.

Fists and boots were already scattering all over my body with malicious enthusiasm.

I began to slip away, from the scene, through the floor of the room, falling, slowly, into another darkness, a darkness deeper than the one behind the blindfold, deeper than the one in the room I was kept. . . a darkness like death; warm, soft, sweet . . . I had never known a darkness like it.

But through this approaching darkness, s.n.a.t.c.hes of what seemed to be a distant exchange penetrated:

Where the f.u.c.k did you get such a wild f.u.c.ker? I didn't ask for an animal!

I don't know . . . He had always been a good boy . . .

f.u.c.k you, Pappy! I paid for a good mouth not a good boy! Yes, I knew the voice!

I'm sorry, man. I have called the doctor . . . Meanwhile let's get you out of here, away from this mess . . .

Arghhh . . . f.u.c.k.

I knew the voice; knew it as a milky voice, not how it is red

and hot like this.

The exchange continued as my father was carried out of the room, away from the mess . . .

His cries followed him out of the room. I held mine down in my throat as I fell deeper, out of my body – into nothing.