Fathers – Part 2

Story by Dave Cohen

This is Part 2 of 2. You can catch up with Part 1 HERE before continuing forward.

You weren’t supposed to be here. My father used to slur that at me after stumbling home from a tavern each night. Your mother said that the stuff she drank would take care of you. We had plans to leave this awful place. Whatever happens in that tower ruins everything. But then you had to kill her coming out of her.

One day he brought a new wife home. Lona didn’t treat me with any warmth but didn’t abuse me either. Father’s rage at me turned into blissful indifference. Lona earned money caring for a herd. When she brought home a dripping sack after gelding day, I said my stomach bothered me, to my father’s laughter. Then he smiled at me for the first time and said I didn’t have to join them in eating the testicles. I began to feel less scared.

Some days I watched the tower, shorter then, not understanding its purpose but awed by it. Watching it on a clear morning I heard Lona being sick, retching in the privy. Over the next month she gained weight. Nothing in my young life had taught me about what a pregnancy did to a woman’s body. When I overheard Lona telling a neighbor about having a baby, it terrified me.

Father never said a word about the baby; I wondered if he even knew. I dreaded a return of his anger, how the mother I never knew gave birth to me and died making him so angry. It seemed to me that a baby lived just below a tummy’s skin. If I made a light cut, I doubted I’d hurt Lona much. She kept her gelding knife in a box under the bed. Father still made trips to the taverns, so I had plenty of opportunity to act. On the night I found the courage to do it, Lona didn’t wake up as I parted the bottom of her blouse. I pricked her flesh and pressed.

Her slap sent me flying to the floor. Lona stood up examining the trickle of blood where I had cut. “What do you think you are, little boy?”

I mumbled that my father hated babies.

“No, just you. Being a father is a magnificent thing.”

She picked up the knife. “Now you take your pants off. Do it now or I’ll tell your father about what you did.”

Tears, piss and sweat moistened my body. I told her I didn’t understand.

She stuck the knife through my shirt. “Take your pants off and lie on the bed,” she hissed as blood spread on my shirt.

I did what she said and quivered as she ran the blade along the top of my thighs.

“Until tonight I used to feel sorry for you, but not after you tried to kill my baby.” She scissored my testicles between two fingers.

I yelled that I didn’t understand and just wanted everyone to stay happy.

“Too late,” she hissed.

Lona gave birth as I stayed in my room recovering. No doctor had been called; I almost died from the bleeding. She had twins, a boy and a girl. On the day the Sire’s wagon came for me, Lona and father stood in a window each holding a healthy baby. At the tower, the wives congratulated me on joining the sacred labor. For months I fought back at the ridicule over my amputation, beating my tormentors into silence or hurling them off the temple. I grew strong while others withered.

♦

I woke up hearing applause. The area below my stomach felt rigid and distended but without pain. Nearby, the Sire’s body lay nude, brown bones piercing the misshapen hips with feasting insects hovering over the destroyed jaw. Beneath his ribs no flesh blocked the view of his spine. When I attempted to stand, my body only allowed me to sway on my back. With a groan, I demanded my hammer.

The wife with the curly hair shook her head. “No more dirty tools for you. Now you are an instrument of our faith, Attis.” She reached down and touched my cheek. “You’ve been healed.”

Hands raised me up like I was a piece of lumber. They held my arms out and draped the robe over me. My fingers wrapped around the staff. A series of snapping sounds made me winch, then I realized they were coming from both my hips, which jutted out like the wheels of a cart. I asked the wife why I didn’t feel pain.

Instead of replying, she bent down until she was level with my ribs. “This one should last at least as long as the last one. He’s sturdy and you seem to fit into him well.” She reached a hand forward, but I didn’t feel anything. A smile broke across her face, and she looked up. “Now we can make new children again.”

Applause broke out that lasted several minutes as I fought to keep my body steady. When it stopped, the sound was replaced by something clapping. Looking down, I saw a wide scalp emerging from my groin. Beneath it two wide flippers continued to clap, the flesh vital and pulsing. It stopped at the sound of a baby crying. The infant Hus had harmed was placed in the flippers, becoming quiet as its father soothed it.

It’s as grotesque as its siblings. The dent on its head healed as the real Sire stroked it.

The wife pushed curly hair away from her brown eyes. “Maybe during your tenure, the temple will reach its home, and you can see the glory before you’re disposed of Attis. I hope so.”

As the wives applauded, I brought a hand down and touched the child’s forehead. It smiled up at me as its true father nodded as best it could manage without a neck. I had no wives or children but finally a place in the world, my body was now a tool as vital as the children and temple.

END