Golden Boy Read Free Page B

the frost on a car window in winter. They become opaque.
    ‘Hunter,’ I whisper softly. ‘I’m sorry.’
    He looks at me, then reaches for my throat with his hands and grips my neck. It’s not really aggressive. It’s intimate, like we’re the best friends we used to be. His eyes are set on me – primal, feral. I watch Hunter like an animal, like prey gauging the intentions of a predator. He stares back at me. My eyes flicker down his chest. Taking in how much bigger than me he is.
    ‘I’m not the freak,’ he growls. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. There’s something wrong with you and you’re making me feel this way.’
    I look down and feel my bottom lip bump out, embarrassed to have him bring my condition up.
    ‘You’ve always made me feel this way,’ he says. ‘You’re a little cocktease. You’re the freak. I’m not . . . I’m not . . .’
    ‘Gay?’ I murmur.
    ‘No, I’m not that, because you’re not even . . . because you’re . . .’
    His eyes roam over me. He looks like he’s trying to prevent himself from having a panic attack.
    I raise my arm and put a hand on his shoulder to calm him, and he takes advantage of this to move his arm below mine, wrap it around my waist and pull me, with one quick, easy move, from a sitting position to flat on my back, on the mattress below him. He moves forward and kisses me again briefly, before mumbling, ‘You’ll like it. I swear.’
    He looks towards the door, rises slightly, unbuckles his belt and hops up onto the bed, leaning on my right leg so it’s pressed down and pushing the other leg down with his arms. It happens so quickly I’m still feeling sorry for him as he does it. The tone of my voice flips from consoling and soft, to sudden panic.
    ‘Hey! Wait, wait! What are you doing?’
    ‘Shhh.’ He hisses a warning. ‘Your brother.’
    He is referring to Daniel, who is almost ten, and asleep in the next room. No, I don’t want Daniel to wake up and hear us and walk in right now. While I think about this, Hunter has cleared the duvet away from me in one quick swipe. It lands between my body and the wall to the right of me, pressing against my leg. He kneels painfully, right on my thighs, holding me down with his weight.
    ‘Shit!’ I cry out and cover myself with my hands. ‘What the fuck? Hunter! Get off me!’
    ‘Shut up.’ Hunter comes forward, puts one hand on my mouth and one hand on my neck and shakes me hard, my brain feeling like it’s thudding up against my skull, until I’m quiet and my head is aching. He leans low to my face and his lips brush against my skin. ‘Shut up,’ he says again, looking, even as he says it, unsure.
    He takes his hands away and I lie there, unmoving, my hands still up by my face where I tried to break his hold on my neck. I cough gently, the air coming back into my lungs. I’m not scared. This is Hunter. I can remember what he looked like when he was five. In my head, he’s five.
    I lie still. I feel like my physical self, my ability to move, is floating above my body. I feel dizzy and light. Inside my head, my brain-self yells at me to come back.
    Then the sensation of being within my own body returns. I breathe it in with two short breaths and realise I have been staring at the ceiling; hands up like a convict in front of the police, not breathing, for about thirty seconds. Some fumbling is going on further down the bed. I look down to my waist.
    ‘Jesus,’ I murmur in complete disbelief, as if I’m watching something awful on CSI . Hunter’s penis is pointing at me. He takes his hands and rubs around my crotch roughly.
    ‘Is this your pussy?’ he whispers, shocked. ‘Fuck.’
    ‘No!’ I regain my voice. ‘Stop it!’ I try to sit up but he leans forward and pushes me back, easily, with a hand on my chest.
    ‘Don’t move, OK? Please,’ he mumbles. ‘Just don’t move.’
    This is when the shock dissipates, and I get what’s coming. It seems a long time to take to comprehend the