Damon Knight – Age 15

The basement reeks of mildew and old violence.

I kneel on the concrete floor, hands bound behind my back with zip ties that cut into my wrists. Blood drips from my split lip onto my expensive school uniform—the one Uncle Victor bought me last week, starched and pressed, now ruined. He'll make me pay for that too.

He circles me like a predator. The leather belt coils in his fist, and I know what's coming. I've known since the moment he called me down here an hour ago.

"Your father was weak," he hisses, and his voice bounces off the concrete walls, multiplying into a chorus of condemnation. "He let a woman destroy him. Loved her. Trusted her. And what did it get him?"

The belt cracks across my back.

White-hot pain explodes through me, but I don't scream. Screaming only makes it worse. I learned that lesson years ago.

"A coffin and a bastard son I have to fix."

Another strike. The leather bites through my shirt, splits the skin. I feel warm blood spreading across my back.

"You will never be weak like him, boy. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, sir." My voice comes out steady despite the agony radiating through every nerve.

"You will never kneel for a woman."

Crack.

"You will never let pussy control you."

Crack.

"You will never—" Crack. "—become—" Crack. "—your father."

My mind fractures between the pain and something darker forming in the jagged pieces. A vow. A promise to myself that feels like the only thing I can control in this moment.

I will never fuck a woman. Never taste one. Never kneel.

Those acts will be sacred. Reserved. For the one girl who might deserve them—the one who could make me feel something other than this emptiness, this cold void where my heart should be.

But until then, control is everything.

Women will get my fingers. My toys. My detachment. Nothing more.

Uncle Victor delivers the final blow, and my vision swims. Black spots dance at the edges. I taste copper and salt.

He drops the belt beside me with a wet slap. "Clean yourself up. Dinner is at seven. Don't be late."

His footsteps echo up the stairs. The door closes. The lock clicks.

I stay on my knees, blood pooling beneath me, and make my unbreakable rule.

Never.

Not until her.

"One day," I whisper to the empty basement, my voice raw and broken, "I'll find her. And when I do, I'll make her my exception to every rule. But until then..."

I cough, blood spraying across the concrete in dark droplets.

"I kneel for no one."