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The water was steaming hot, beads of heated dew moistening the boy’s skin as he lay naked and inert in the bathtub; gently curled hair falling wet and limp in front of his shady blue eyes. He only swallowed once, a small and imperceptible action that had not gone unnoticed by his sharp-eyed father. Is he nervous? The old man wondered as he used the wash rag to scrub at the many stains on the boys back, his leather gloves damp and warm.
“Such a mess son, but don’t worry, I’ll…take care of you,” Geppetto murmured with a gentle sweetness that brought about a noticeable blush to the boys freckled cheeks, who still lay mute in the bath water.
The water had been frothy with soap, once sweetly floral and clean, was now as disgusting as the barren swamp. Just how many monsters had the boy cut down, how much blood and waste and viscera had soaked through his clothing and onto his skin? How many lives had he ended, all just to get to him?
Would Carlo ever go to such trouble to…
Geppetto shook the thought away with a small hum in his throat, wondering briefly why these stubborn dark stains would not wash from the puppet boys back. He scrubbed roughly, the wet scrape of the rag turning the skin a bright and angry red. He then paused, eyes wide in silent astonishment as the rag fell into the dirty water with a quick plop!
These weren’t stains, nothing like the smears one would find on a tablecloth or a napkin after a hearty meal with atrocious table manners. Geppetto swallowed slowly, eyes lacquered with disbelief as he reached out and traced a gloved finger tenderly over the edge of one of the markings, expecting the boy to wince and pull away, but of course he made no such action.
These were bruises.
Puppets don’t bruise, Geppetto thought with a peculiar numbness. To bruise you need blood to pool under the skin, you need to have blood vessels that break and leak.You need to have organs of flesh, a beating heart made of muscle to move the blood hither and thither and…
The boy’s heart, was it the same clockwork wonder that Geppetto neglected food and sleep to craft with his own two hands?
Still, P did not move in the water, breathing lightly like he did not want to be heard, his one arm resting on his knee. Geppetto sighed before leaning in and pressing his forehead in between the boy’s inert shoulder blades, half-expecting the mechanical pulse of the P-Organ, half-expecting something else entirely.
He felt warmth, the dampness of the bathwater steaming his smooth gray hair to his forehead. The light and unmistakable rhythm of a human heart dancing in his ears, faster and faster the longer he kept his head pressed against the boys back.
Still an inventor, a scientist, questions burned on the flat bed of Geppetto’s tongue; notes screamed to be taken, tests to be run again and again. A part of him, the old monstrous part of him, wanted to cut the boy open like some anatomical Venus and study the insides with his usual clinical detachment; cradle each organ in his unlovable hands, to weigh them on a scale to answer the burning questions: how and why?
But no…
No, no, no, no, no.
Geppetto pressed a restless kiss to the boys freckled shoulder,his lips shaking and apologetic. The boys heart beat faster still.
Geppetto’s curiosity did not deserve to be sated, it would be starved instead, chained and beaten and sterilized. He did not know why such a silent yet tremendous change had taken place, nor would he ever know. The questions could burn until they were ashes to be smeared across his face in repentance; for all that he had done to Krat, and all that he had done to the boy.
Just as when Carlo was a child small enough for his love to be bribed and bought, Geppetto wanted to make it up to him.
“Listen to me son,” Geppetto breathed as he leaned back onto his seat, smiling gently as the boy turned to look at him, that faint blush deepening on his freckled cheeks. A naked affection colored those blue eyes to the point that they glistened with asterisms, and Geppetto felt his own heart stagger at the sight.
Gathering his thoughts with a clearing of his throat, he told the boy a lie, a memory built from scratch, gathered up from the sawdust piles in the forgotten corners of his mind.
“When you were very small, we had taken a trip to the zoo and to ride the Ferris wheel one year,” He began. Slowly, the old man painted a picture that the boy seemed to struggle to interpret, squinting and tilting his head in bafflement with each word spoken aloud.
“You were so excited to spend time with me, eager enough to actually forgive this foolish old man of his numerous transgressions. We held hands as we walked through each enclosure, staring at the animals through the bars of their cages. You told me that…” He had to think for a moment, back to years ago when the advertisements for Krat Zoo where plastered over every flat surface of the city. “That the giraffes were your favorite animals, you admired how long their necks were,”
The boy’s eyes seemed to go dark and Geppetto wondered if he had said the wrong thing, but continued anyway; the words web-like, ensnaring.
“You loved the carnival. We rode the Ferris wheel three times, I had to pick you up and carry you away in my arms to stop you from climbing onto it a fourth time,” Geppetto laughed like the memory had actually happened, taking a moment to wipe something wet from his eyes with the tip of his gloved hand.
P thought and thought some more, ignoring the zoo, his mind settling on the snowy festival that came afterwards.The carnival, the balloons floating silent yet whimsical in the cold winter sky. The games manned by harmless stationary puppets that asked for nothing but the glittering gold tokens he had found whilst wandering out and about. Tap-dancing for the approval of a smiling clown puppet that did not hurt him afterwards. The pipe organ playing without a single living soul around to appreciate the melody.
“I have memories of those places. But not the memories that you speak of,” The boy’s voice was stilted and he swallowed the same way Carol did when trying not to cry; his face taught with innumerable unpleasant recollections.
“Forget it, son,” Geppetto said with a stern quickness, his hand warming the boys bare shoulder, careful enough to avoid yet another bruise that marred his flesh.
Forget all of it, please.
The story, the fictitious little lie, was as valuable as a wish, as beneficial to either of them as hope or prayers.
Without saying anything else, his hand moved up and massaged the boys scalp, soft black hair curled through his fingers. He kept quiet as the boy leaned into his touch with a sigh, eyes fluttering shut as his shoulders sagged with unspoken relief. Just Geppetto’s touch, his mere presence, was enough to calm the boy’s nerves.
Geppetto still had to remind himself that this was not Carlo; not the beautiful, bittersweet, dead Carlo.
Carlo would not allow himself to be bathed or nurtured by hands asking for forgiveness. Carlo did not have eyes so blue that simply looking at them would be enough to move a man to tears.
Just what would they do afterwards? The old man wondered.
Nothing monstrous or untoward, nothing disgusting or taboo that would take advantage of the current state the boy was in. Geppetto had reached the age where any arousal would lead to a humiliating priapism, and had long since joined the ranks of priests and monks because of that.
The boy yawned once, and Geppetto smiled at the tenderness of the sound.
Pity the boy, and may God damn the man that fathered him.