The shower pummelled his body with spikes of icy water but he didn’t reach for the controls. He’d set the temperature to its lowest setting the way he always did when he was ready to rinse the suds from his body.

Cold was his friend. He much preferred it to heat. Too many times in his life, he’d suffered because of heat, and now he made sure that he never felt heat in the wrong way again.

Drinks and meals were allowed to cool until they were tepid before he consumed them. His home was always cool, and when the sun blazed from the sky, he’d slather himself with sunblock so his skin didn’t burn.

His body was covered with scars, but he’d never been into battle. At least, not in a physical sense. The battles he fought were psychological. For too many years he’d been dominated by a vicious dragon and had endured all manner of punishments.

Every scar on his body told of a lost battle.

His combatant was the person who should have cared for him. Giving birth to him may have turned a wife into a parent, but it didn’t mean it turned her into a good one. And after his father’s death, his mother had grown more vicious with every passing week. Complaints became criticisms, which became punishments.

When he turned seven, the punishments were no longer delivered with an open hand. On the day of his eighth birthday, he was made to stand in silence while his mother stubbed out a cigarette on his chest. His crime – a missed full stop in a ‘thank you’ letter he’d written to an aunt for the football he’d received as a birthday gift.

As he aged, the punishments became worse. His mother would blow her cigarette smoke in his face at every opportunity and when she wasn’t lashing him with her viperous tongue, she was stubbing out cigarettes on his body.

She was careful to concentrate on his torso, until his back and chest were a patchwork of scars both old and new. He’d been made to stand and endure the punishments in silence. His lips and inner cheeks became scarred from his attempts to not cry out or plead with her to stop. He’d learned the hard way that begging and pleading with his mother had no effect other than the hardening of her resolve. When he swore at her aged thirteen, she’d put out her cigarette on his tongue then made him wait until she smoked another so she could repeat the punishment.

Like any normal teenager, he’d developed an interest in sex, and when she caught him looking at a girl from the local village in a way she deemed unacceptable, three cigarettes had been extinguished on his scrotum.

When he’d managed to get himself free of her, she’d remained in his thoughts.

He never showed his scarred body to anyone. He didn’t build any relationships with women as he couldn’t bear the idea of them seeing the results of his punishments. Even if he insisted on keeping the lights off, caressing fingers would have found the scars.

He’d considered visiting a prostitute on several occasions, but had always found an excuse not to do so. He knew it was a form of cowardice, but he’d rather die a virgin than expose himself and see pity in a woman’s eyes.

As he towelled himself off, he thought about the day ahead of him and all the things he must do. Some were more appealing than others, but that was the way of his life.