Read Online The Heart is Deceitful above All Things by J. T. LeRoy - Free Book Online Page A

scrunches up. He sighs, rolls his eyes up, and says like he’s bored, ‘If any man’s seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh in water and be unclean until the even.’ He licks at the beads of sweat above his lip. ‘Leviticus.’ He shakes his head. ‘Come on.’ He reaches out his hand. All he has on is white boxers. His chest is bare and covered with a light film of sweat. I take his hand, and he leads me to the tub. Its edges are covered with small black cracks that look like bloodshot eyes. His hand is warm and moist. ‘Let’s go,’ he says softly. He leans over and slides off my robe and underwear, his hand brushing against me as he does. He smells like salt and chlorine. ‘Here, I’ll help you in.’
    He clasps his arms around my waist. I feel his breath against my neck, and it tickles and I laugh. ‘You’re a light one.’ He lifts me up and holds me over the tub. I leanmy head back against his chest. ‘OK, here we go . . .’ He lowers me down fast. It takes me a few seconds to feel the heat of the water. I yell and grab for the edges. ‘No, you don’t!’ He grabs my hands with one of his and covers my mouth with the other. ‘I ain’t gettin whipped ’cause of you. Now, come on, shut up,’ he says in a low voice into my ear.
    My vision is blurred with tears. I scream into the hand across my mouth. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he says. He reaches past me to a thick bristled scrub brush resting on an edge of the tub. ‘But ye are washed . . .’ He reaches into the water and rests the brush against the skin of my lower stomach. ‘But ye are sanctified . . .’ He presses the brush into my flesh. I smash my lips against his palm, trying to escape it. ‘But ye are justified in the name . . .’ He begins to move the scrub brush slowly across my stomach. ‘Of the Lord Jesus . . .’ His eyes close. The brush moves down lower. ‘And by the spirit . . .’ His eyes open and roll around in their sockets. He moves the brush in deliberate strokes between my legs. My teeth press against his palm. ‘Of our God . . .’ I bang my head in small stiff bounces against his chest. He leans his mouth against my neck. ‘Amen,’ he whispers.
    He lets go of the brush, wraps his arm around my hips, and, while still covering my mouth, lifts me out of the tub. He stands me next to him. ‘If you scream or cry, you’ll go back in.’ I nod. ‘So be quiet.’ I nod again. He removes his hand, and I gasp. He stands over me. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ My body feels numb. I look downat myself, a bright pinkish red with blood pinpricks and scratches marking my skin where he scrubbed. I feel the burn between my legs. A towel is dropped around my shoulder. He begins patting me dry.
    At seven A.M. I stand in a hall downstairs, outside my grandfather’s thick oak door. Aaron lines up behind me, other boys behind him. They all look unnervingly familiar, like seeing a mirror cut up of parts of my face stuck on different people. They’re all dressed like I’m dressed, like Aaron, in a blazer, tie, and soft black pants. Aaron whispers in my ear, reminding me, again, to sing my songs and to complain about the tub being too hot. My skin still aches, and I’ve left off my underwear because of it. ‘Tell him you’re not wearing them, tell him!’ Aaron said when he saw me getting dressed. His skin was red, too. He didn’t seem to care.
    The door opens and an older blond boy dressed like I am walks out slowly, wobbly. His face is turned down. He doesn’t look at me. I watch him walking carefully down the hall like he’s on a tightrope. He puts his fingers out against the wall to balance himself now and again. ‘Jeremiah,’ my grandfather calls from inside his study. I jump and then press myself