Chapter 36 Book 2

Chapter 36

Life Without Embarrassment

Part 1

Friday's are my lazy days compared to the rest of the week, where I wouldn't have to do much, but go to school take a battery of tests, turn in papers that you have spent days on, and best of all I had the entire weekend to do homework. I seldom had to do anything except chores, and lay around in my shorts or boxers filling in time. Being home with my mother was basically the same thing, except I didn't have chores to do, just homework that I had been given, using the honor system when came to taking the tests. What kid would in their right mind wouldn't want to use this opportunity to cheat?

I had learned a hard lesson when it came to cheating, and I am not proud of the fact that I had done it, but I did learn available lessons from it. I had once been given a chance to take home a test or two, and opened my book and used my notes to bump up my score. Sure I have gotten a high score, but it didn't feel that I had earned it. Even more so I took almost the same test a week later and had failed it miserably, proving that I had cheated instead of studying for the exam. I paid the price at home running laps and had gotten a spanking that was almost epic. If I thought Aaron's sunburn was red, all I had to do was look at my bare butt afterward. Don't get me wrong I never said I was a perfect child and gotten into trouble as much as the next kid.

Like then, I once more had given a test, and on the top was a letter that said to my parents, that this test was only allowed my notes and would be open book for the last thirty minutes. It would require my parent's signature, considering I was home. It would require my mother's instead of the Rothwell's. All my teachers knew I was a foster kid, it was no big secret, and I like most kids got teased about it. I could easily forge my mother's signature and cheat, but I am not that kind of kid. If it says what is allowed that is what's allowed. I handed the note to my mother and my books and set the timer, waiting for her to tell me to begin.

Mom had already offered to sign the note before I had taken the test and was willing to let me cheat. I declined the offer telling her if I cheated this time, then it would make cheating easier on the next test, and the next time. By the time the real test came, I wouldn't be able to pass, and it would be my fault for not taking the time to study for it and flunking the class.

I told Mom that the Rothwells and I hold myself to a higher standard, and I am quite proud of the fact that I had earned all my grades and none of them were given to me on a silver platter. I could see how proud she was when she kissed me on the head and set the clock, setting my books on the other side of the table.

When it came to focus, that's when I have a problem even more so when I am living in a home where your sisters think it's alright to make trouble. It bothered them that I was the golden boy who could do no wrong in my mother's eyes since I had taken the limelight from them almost entirely. Even more so because of my father, several times my mother would get into fights with my father, and it was usually over bills and things that hadn't been done around the home. Like dishes piled in the sink, the floors, laundry, and even the yard hadn't been mowed. Aaron and I were always the one to blame, not my sisters. It didn't matter that I had a busy schedule filled with practice or meets.

He like my foster parents expected it to be done. He hated the fact that I was here, he hated the fact that Mom had to drive me back and forth so I could participate in sports that he considered were for sissy. It was also his new favorite word for me and Aaron. Most of all it bothered him coming home seeing me and Aaron spend all day in our boxers or a pair of shorts, without a shirt and running around barefoot wherever we went and most of all the church house, when he noticed it today when had arrived watching us come out of the Bishop's office.

It didn't help matters that Susan and Becky had told him how my mother allows Aaron and I to bathe together or sleep in the same bed. To them, we were gay and immodest, and had told my father that my foster parents like the Downings allowed this type of behavior as the norm. Had told him that they had been exposed to a whole house of boys and their father running around without any clothing whatsoever and my mother thought nothing of it. Instead, she condones it, by allowing Aaron and I to join them and wanted them to as well.

I had no doubt they had told him everything and embellished it. Knowing my father and how he feels about what's improper and what's not. If they had their way swimming would be outlawed and every boy or father on a hot day not wearing a shirt, a pair of long pants, and going barefoot would be put in jail. Hearing them tell him that we practically swim naked in public pools in our skin-tight swimsuits or the fact the boys on my gymnastic team run around with very little clothing and are mostly immodest and should be brought up on charges for indecent exposure.

He had also learned about, how they woke up this morning with another man in the house wearing nothing more than a pair of pajama bottoms. The same man and my caseworker made them strip and stand naked in front of, me as they both roamed their hands over their bodies.

He was furious when he heard about it and the fact that and Aaron was still not wearing a shirt or fully clothed when the temperature outside was ninety-plus degrees and hotter still inside the house when he came home today, it made him even madder. Yelling at my mother and ordering us to put on some clothes, or he was going to take his belt to us.

Mom stood her ground telling me to take Aaron and go to my room and lock the door. The walls are thin compared to my soundproof room at the Rothwells' s, where here you could hear her telling him. "Just because you are afraid of stripping down into a pair of shorts every once and a while, or to remove your own shirt on a hot day like today or in public. Just because you have more hair than most men or boys.

"Gives you no right to tell others or enforce what you consider to be immodest. Because you feel embarrassed about your own body when there is nothing to be embarrassed about." And said. "There are plenty of men out there that have the same hair covering their bodies that you do, and they don't feel one bit ashamed about like you do."

Yelling at him, loud enough to hear them clear across the street. "If my sons have chosen to run around the house naked as well as their friends, are comfortable about doing it. I am not going to make them feel embarrassed about it. When there is nothing wrong, or immoral about it. And as far as sleeping in the same bed or bathing together, You can go jump in a lake," stating a fact. "I have slept in the same bed with my own brothers on numerous occasions. Well before I was in my early twenties, and would do so until I am old and gray if I and they felt like it."

And added that. "Her own brothers had been known to become quite comfortable in nothing more than a pair of shorts or boxers, and to this day they still do so as well as their own children. In fact, if you must know I remember going skinny dipping with them on numerous occasions and had bathed with them well into my early teens," which shocked me, and Aaron trying to imagine our mother doing it gasped.

"Mom went skinny dipping?" We both whispered at the same time.

"Until you can accept it, you can spend every night on the couch."

I heard loud and quick footsteps charging down the hall. I could hear Mom yell. "Run boys! Run!"

I was grateful for the escape ladder letting Aaron go first. Hearing my father's body slam against the door, I turned long enough watching the lock break and the dresser slide, I jumped and rolled and grabbed Aaron's hand and high-tailed it to Officer Kenly's house. I heard my father cuss, but something stopped him from chasing us down the street. Officers Kenly wasn't home yet, seeing his wife's car in the driveway.

I followed my instructions opened the door and closed it sliding the deadbolts and we both slumped against the door. Seeing his wife and daughters walk in he saw us after hearing the door open and slammed shut.

Like Mom and my foster parent's, they weren't the least embarrassed to the fact we were only dressed in our boxers. I was surprised that not even Aaron blushed, well why would he? He had nothing to be ashamed about, it's not the first-time girls or a mother had seen him so exposed. His wife quickly came to us and put her arms around us as if we were her own children. Aaron sobbed in her arms, shaking in terror. Telling her our father was angry again, was going to hurt us.

She simply called her husband and told him we were here and told us he was on his way, and he would be here in five minutes. I tell you the truth, it was the longest five minutes of my life, but he did show great concern when it came to my father. Mom had called just before he pulled in the drive asking if it was alright if we stayed there until they could decide what to do about my father.

I knew it wasn't going to be a problem, but hearing her tell her that was no trouble, and we could stay here as long we needed too, made me feel that we had a second home here where Aaron and I would be welcomed. Even their daughters were polite and caring. I was beginning to wonder if Susan and Becky were the only ones that hated having brothers, and wasn't or the last time I had wondered about it.

Officer Tom Kenly, is a tall man standing at almost seven feet tall with broad shoulders, dark brown hair, and brown eyes. With his wife Amy Jane Kenly a mother of two daughters Jane aged nine and her sister Rebecca aged twelve and a seven-year-old son named Tony and one in the oven.

All had the same brown hair and brown eyes as their father, his wife was a small woman at five feet four but had a large heart when it came to children. She taught primary and was a stay-at-home mom. Over the years she became a second mother to me, and Aaron, and we were as much of their family as their own children. If wasn't for the Kenly's opening their hearts and their home. I don't know how Aaron and I would have survived.

I knew right away that my father and sisters wouldn't like them seeing their son Tony dressed only in his boxers and, his mother and sisters were all barefoot, made me all warm and fuzzy inside. No wonder none of them weren't embarrassed, to them it was just the standard norm of another warm loving family, and I knew that my sisters and father would hate anything and everything about it.

Even though Mom hadn't called to give the all-clear sign, Mrs. Kenly set two extra plates for dinner. My foster mother would have had a cow when it came to boys not wearing shirts at supper time. At first, I thought she did it because we weren't dressed properly, but after a few months during hot days, it was part of the norm. Sometimes when it was really hot her husband too went without one, almost the second he walked in the door from work protecting our small town of Santaquin. Like my foster parent's prayer was an important factor, having us all take hands around the dinner table. They didn't go to the extreme of praying every morning, noon, and night, but prayer was important at each meal and at bedtime before climbing into bed.

They weren't rich by any means, like most homes including my parent's home. Everyone had swamp coolers running day and night, but swamp coolers can only do so much and seldom cooled the entire home like central air does now. Sometimes small portable cooling fans were placed in the areas where the cool air had a hard time reaching, when it was hot and humid, it made things hot and sticky which made the swamp cooler unaffected. I was getting concerned as late as it got, and my mother still hadn't called to tell us to come home.

It was almost nine before she called asking if it was alright if we spent the night so she and my father could have some "alone time." My sisters had been sent to a friend's house nearby. I feared my mother had been hurt and was hiding something. So I asked Mr. Kenly to check and pick up my night meds. He didn't hesitate just hopped into the car. It seemed like a very long time as I paced worrying about what that monster had done to my mother.

Mrs. Kenly had set up a bed for me and my brother on the living room floor, even though they didn't have a problem with me sharing the same bed with my brother, and had even allowed me and Aaron to bathe in the same tub together before we went to bed. Aaron was even comfortable having her dry him off and rub him down afterward with calamine lotion. I couldn't believe he would allow anyone besides me, Grandma, and my mother to see him naked or even touch him. In some ways, it scared me that he became so unconcerned about exposing himself to almost anyone in such a short time.

When I asked him about it said it wasn't a big deal. After watching me letting Mom bath me and being there when Officer Kenly and my caseworker searched my person for injuries. Seeing my foster parents and family interact, when came to my brothers and my sisters. He figured if it didn't embarrass me or them then there was no reason why he should be scared about it. It shook me to my core hearing it, but I didn't want him to know that I had been scared more times than not, and more often than not, but he was right it was no big deal.

All those years I had no reason to be embarrassed when I had parents and a family that loved me, and I trusted them. Not right away, but in the end, it did become easier after I learned that I trusted them to care for me as any parent should, When that happened, I stopped being embarrassed about them seeing me in my weakest moments. Instead, I let them in. I let them care and love me, as one of their own.

I had lost count over the years of how many times I had been afraid to let people in. Afraid they would hurt me and embarrass me like my parents had done all through my childhood. Thinking there was something wrong with me and repulsive. I hated myself, I hated looking at my body in the mirror. I hated touching it, I wanted to scrape my existence away so I wouldn't have to look at it.

It was their love that made my life worth living and began to see that it in their eyes I was somebody, they loved from the inside out. It was my parents that hated me, I embarrassed them by being me and felt I needed to hide who I was and what I looked like, afraid to show them any part of me. My body was beaten and bruised to the point I didn't want anyone to see it. Knowing if they did… it would repulse them every time I took my shirt off when it was hot, and the other boys and fathers had theirs off or dared to wear a pair of shorts in public and at home.

For the longest time, I would wear long-sleeved shirts and wear a coat and hat or hood and gloves all day just so people couldn't see me even though the weather was nice, and I was sweating I didn't dare take it off. I even wore my shoes and socks to bed and would remain fully dressed under the covers. Afraid if they saw any part of my body, it would repulse them and want them to beat me like my parents did every day. I remember screaming while they removed my clothes by force, just so I could take a bath. If they even touched me, I screamed trying to cover up my exposed skin. It was years before I became comfortable enough at home not to wear layers upon layers of clothing.

It was the Frys and their son Jeff when I started to trust people enough to see me without a coat, or hat and gloves. A month after month it got easier when I knew I could trust them not to hurt me. Every time I went home and came back. I was back hiding behind the layers of clothing, and once more they would have to gain my trust.

 So when Aaron said because of me I had shown him there was nothing to be embarrassed about or ashamed of. It really meant a lot to me. I hugged him tight against me feeling the tears run down my cheeks. That, he would never experience what I had gone through to get to the point I am now. It also made me want to trust my mother more and thank her for showing she really wanted to be our mother and not someone we feared like my father.

Continue on to Book 3