1000 Words: Oh, Brother
#5 of 1000 Words: Picture Stories
This story belongs to my new series: 1000 Words: Picture Stories. If a picture is worth a thousand words, can I paint a scene with the same limitation? The stories in this folder are self-contained, and not interrelated, other than the requirement that they contain exactly 1000 words.
"Shut up, Bill!" I screamed.
"It's 'Larry the Fairy'!" he continued to taunt.
My brother was SO annoying. I was younger than him by a year, and I was smart. He had to go to counseling in school, but I was in the school's Talented and Gifted program, which I did not hesitate to hold over his stupid head. He couldn't sit still, thought dumb things were funny, and made our father angry. Ever since we were young he picked on me, just because I was a little clumsy and uncoordinated.
It seemed like every two days there was a major fight, either because Bill was pushing my buttons and I went to Dad for help, or because Bill had gotten in trouble again at school. Those were the worst. Dad threw around words like "military school" and grounded him, demanding he behave. Every two days. It never helped. I was amazed that Dad had never hit him, because it was obvious he wanted to.
Rolling my eyes, I walked away from my brother's taunting, not wanting to get Dad involved for something as stupid as my name. We'd had THAT fight before. But I heard something that made me shiver. My Dad's voice echoed in slow, loud anger down the stairs, "LARRY. COME HERE."
He usually saved that tone of voice for when Bill had done something unforgivable. I couldn't remember the last time I heard my name like that. But it wasn't a voice to be ignored, and exchanging a glance with Bill, I walked upstairs.
Dad was in my room, and I walked in. It was dark, the only light from my desktop computer monitor, which eerily illuminated my Dad's silhouette. He was sitting in the computer chair, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at me with the most heart-wrenching disappointment I had ever seen. I almost stopped breathing. What had I done?
I sat on the bed, in silence, and he looked at me, quietly for a while. It was the longest five seconds of my life. He said, "Larry, you need to explain to me exactly what..." his voice was shaking as he tried to stay calm, "what these pictures are doing on your computer."
My eyes widened. He couldn't have found them... I had put them in nested folders so deep that my hand grew sore from double-clicking so much. Had I screwed up with just a couple that he had found? Maybe I forgot to clear my internet history. I prayed that was it, and the pictures he'd seen were just of animals mating. I could claim it was for a school project or something.
Swallowing, I said, "I don't know what you mean," trying to hold off until I knew more.
"DON'T YOU," he started, stopping himself, continuing more quietly, "...lie to me, son. I am not joking around."
I was frozen, so Dad turned to the computer and maximized a picture, and my heart sank. There in the image was a drawing of a human male, grasping a female dog. It was one of my favorite pictures. He stood and held her up, nose to nose, kissing each other. The German shepherd wagged her tail, the man's penis shoved up under it. The emotions were so well drawn, and the subject matter...well, it had spoken to me for a long time. I had masturbated to that image more times than I could count.
Dad brought up another image, this time a colored drawing of a man on a stool, his hands on the roan mare's rump. He and pushed his entire arm into the trembling filly, and her legs trembled, a look of complete ecstasy on her face. Her vaginal fluids leaked out of her and descended onto the man's erection. There was a great followup picture of the two having sex. It was by my favorite artist.
With another click, this time louder as my Dad tried to resist banging his fist on the mouse, a third picture showed up. It showed a golden retriever and a man, but what made this one stand out was that the dog was also male. The man was on all fours, sticking his butt in the air. The dog had mounted, and there was a great view of the dog's red penis spreading the man apart, his knot swollen up inside him. The canine was howling, and the man was spraying spooge all over the ground below him.
Dad turned back to me, and I knew I was dead. There were hundreds of pictures in that folder, and some were even worse. I knew that my father hated gays enough already - he had said as much on many occasions. This would be the end. Not only was his son an animal-fucker, he was a faggot animal-fucker. I had no idea what he would do.
My father said, "Why? Dammit! Why, Larry? I thought I had one normal son. God dammit! I spent too much time dealing with Bill, so you felt you had to go and do this? You're the smart one, great in school. Why do you have to be insane? What the fuck did I do to deserve you two?"
I said nothing. Nothing I could say would help. I loved Dad, but I doubted he would ever love me again.
"I can't even send a faggot to military school! What the fuck am I supposed to do with you, Larry? Get you some liberal shrink who'll just say you're a normal little bee in the forest?"
Bill had been listening from the stairs. I knew he would be, but I was surprised when he interrupted. He knew not to interrupt when Dad was like this. He said, "Dad..."
"STAY OUT OF THIS, BILL."
But Bill said, "He doesn't know anything, Dad. I put those pictures there, as a joke."
Bill saved my ass.