Achluophobia

Achluophobia:

Fear of possible or imagined dangers concealed by the darkness.

She dragged me to the closet and threw me inside, my tears now glistening silver trails of salted water running down my face and the taste along with liquefied snot was dancing around my taste buds, but I still cried. I banged on the door, but he just told me the more I complained the longer I would have to stay in there. This is what she said every time and I knew she would keep me here until she was ready.

My mother always sticks me in this closet, although she knows I hate the dark, it scares me, and the coldness that envelopes me, makes me feel,… scared, and I close my eyes until she once more lets me out. This time might be an hour, or maybe if I was real naughty I would have to stay in there all night. “Please mum, I’ll be good!” I say with a whisper. I hear her talking to herself again.

“He’s always naughty and he belongs in there, don’t tell me what to do! Yes he is corrupted by the devil, he keeps leering at me in the shower, and he watches me when I get undressed……I caught him, this is for his own good lord”

I hear mother talking to God; he’s the only man she talks to now since my father left us, six months ago. Dad left because as he put it, “your mum is not quite right in the head son, I loved her once but I can’t stay here, I’ll send for you when I get settled” he said. That was six years ago and I have never seen him since that day he left. Mum is as usual dressed in her smartest navy blue dress with a floral apron on, the house smells like scones, I love scones but I will not be having any tonight. I have darkness as my refuge and destiny. I love my mum I think; but she is torn between a love she lost, and me, her reminder of the man that left her and was the cause of so much pain. The pills she took with the bottle of gin in her hand could not be good for her and the bruises I often had on my face were testament of Gods! Wrath she told me. “I channel his authority!” she would say as she hit me or cut me with the belt buckle during her anger and tirades, when in her mind I did something to warrant it.

I know I am sort of immature for my age but I have also been told I have the patience of a saint and am so mature for my years. I know I have issues with people and I will often sit in shadows and wait for mother after church but the trouble is that since I was four years old, this closet has been like my sanctuary, a place of peace. For eight years I have been terrified of this darkness that entombs me but my eyes do not betray me, and I know every scratch and mark in the wood, the coldness of the hinges and the small dart of light that she stuffs with a tissue which is the key hole. My mind is now racing my heart, fit to explode, as I drift back to my reality which is the darkness that permeates my soul, I fear and love it but that scared four year old boy is now a calmer twelve year old adolescent with an attitude that belies my age.

I don’t know when it happened, I can’t tell you but one moment I was tearful, and the next deep breath I was at ease. I noticed the smells all around me, the comfort of the dissipating moth balls, and the musk of winters coats, that must have been a tad wet, when put away. The stale feet smell of her shoes and the red heels I love so much. I felt in the darkness for the cold leather, removed my soiled shoes and socks and placed the still cold patent on my foot. I felt strange, like an alien, but exciting at the same time, and as I stroked the red leather and felt the length of the heel running away from my heel down to a solid metallic tip, I drew a long lingering breath. For the first time in my life I noticed my penis fill with joy as I stroked the leather, I closed my eyes I saw hundreds of red heeled feet dancing around me, but as my mind’s eye looked further up, they were all my mother, and she wasn’t dancing she was yelling at me, stomping on me! The heels were digging into my flesh, blood spots appearing like blood red rose buds all over my body, I screamed a cold dark silent scream in my head, and snapped. I reached for the shoe that was on my foot and as its warmth and weight translated into my hand for me to use on my dream attacker she stopped looked at me and said “you’ll turn out just like your father” that’s when in my mind the heel entered her bulging, almost furious right eye and popped like a balloon as the metal spike forced its way three inches into her brain, and as she fell dead to the floor, I opened my eyes and smiled as I noticed the moisture in my pants where my penis still throbbed but had started to subside.

I sat and waited enjoying the warm leather on my feet, imagining I was a movie star at a gala event, cameras flashing; people all wanting to be with me. I remembered Doris Day, she was beautiful and boy could she sing, mum would allow me to sit with her and watch the midday movies when she was on sometimes. I smiled and at that moment I knew I would never fear the closet again after this day, and I thought about the next time what would I do how I would spend my time. Then the door burst open and she dragged me out spitting bible verse through her numb lips and dragging me to the bed where she used her hand on my white exposed cheeks, they welted and blushed with smack after smack but I did not cry, I laid still, and my eyes closed around the world as my body went numb and withdrew into its own darkness. I met myself there and we chatted for what seemed like hours, but it was fleeting moments in a young mans mind. I smiled.

I honed my skills in the darkness over the next three years and all the time my mother would try and make me do what she wanted but I grew into a man, now six feet tall and full of testosterone. She would see me pleasuring myself and watch curiously from the door and I would hear her sobbing between moans of lust in her room later. I now had everything I needed from my mother and it was time to put my new found lust for life to the challenge. I was sick of tormenting the local dogs and cats, especially cats I hated them so much because like me they lived for the darkness creeping around unseen and silent of footfall, but I also admired as much as never trusted one of them. You see a cat can make you think they love you want to be petted, cuddled and snuggled but all the time they are using you to get that which they want, its unbridled requiring to take for personal pleasure is just so pure and when they want to leave they will. If you have ever tried to move a feline that was comfortable then you know the results, hissing scratching even a bite, but they will often lay in wait and hurt you when you least expect it, and they make it feel as if you deserved it.

My sixteenth birthday was upon me and my drunken god fearing mother as always forgot and was lying in a pool of her own malt sputum. I helped her up and sat her on the kitchen chair; I had assembled just for her, at the head of the table. I washed her face and mouth with a cold wet wash cloth, and placed her best red heels on; I then ran the brightest red lipstick she owned around her thin, pursed and slightly mumbling lips. The belts I fastened to her wrists and ankles I told her were for her own good to hold her upright as we had cake. My depleted and completely out of it mother sat drooling into her lap and I sat patiently for hours I turned the light off and sat watched and observed her sleep, recite passages from the bible, fight with herself and my long gone father. Then the realization hit her that she was sobering up.

“What are you doing to me” she spat at me with the vehemence of cobra.

I sat looking watching, “it’s my birthday and I just thought you would like to help me sing happy birthday and watch as I blow out the candles” I replied with abject ease. She watched me as I walked to the fridge door and removed the banana cream sponge I had bought that day.

“Oh my dear god, you’re a pervert, a fag” the words drifted out of her moist opening with indifference and a hint of “I told ya so’ on them. The red heals I was wearing were patent leather, four inches tall and amazing, they made my calves taught and terrific, just like Doris’s. I did a twirl and placed the cake on the table and smiled back at her while I put some of the same bright red lipstick on.

“no mother I am no fag, nor a queer, I love women and this is my way of showing them I adore how they look and feel” I said as I lit the candles on my cake. “Do you even know how old I am mother” I said as she was mumbling bible verse and pleading for god to help me.

“Mother I am just fine” I said as I blew out the candles giving light to the cold dark room.

“Untie me, why am I bound anyway” she screamed at me now to take the belts off of her wrists and ankles. I moved behind her and slipped the gag I had fashioned out of a dog toy ball and some twine into her mouth to shut her up.

“now mother lets all just play nice on my birthday, see Mr. Burns is being quiet” I said as I pointed to the teddy I loved as a child that she burnt and disfigured in one of her drunken rages. Her eyes now understanding the gravity of what was going on she almost pleaded with the dark bag filled orbs to be let go. If her eyes could talk they would have said, “Please let me go I’ll be nice now I promise” but it was just a little too late for that now. I moved to her right shoulder and sang my song to myself all the while she was crying and sniffling beneath me. I leant forward and placed my cheek next to hers and blew the candles out. As I made my wish I slid the blade of the cake knife across her throat so hard I felt bone at the back of her spine and heard the scrape of metal on bone and my jaw was so tight I cracked a molar with the force of my release from her. My pants were wet with jubilation and her death in my arms was so, so exquisite.

“Go with your god now mother” I whispered into her ear and I placed her in the pantry cupboard and closed the door. Enjoy the dark place mother, for I now know who I am, and I am a product of my own making, but with a little help from my father’s genes and my mother’s madness and hatred.

I am the one who craves the darkness!