Uses for Boys Read Free Page B

the school
     to the idling bus. I have my backpack over both shoulders and I’m wearing my best
     blue jacket and my favorite jeans that look like the jeans that all the other girls
     wear. Desmond gets on after me and stops in the aisle next to my seat. His hair’s
     wet and in his eyes and I feel flushed and excited when he looks at me.
    “Can I sit here?” he says and he doesn’t wait for an answer but sits down next to
     me on the small seat and after him Michael Cox and Carl Drier fall into the seat in
     front of us.
    I can picture what it’s going to be like for me now, what it’s going to be like, how
     he’ll introduce me to his friends and how he’ll invite me to parties at Lisa Jenner’s
     house and how I’ll invite Nancy along and when they ask who invited her, I’ll say
     I did.
    I know what I want and this is what I want.
    Desmond moves my backpack to the floor, reaches under my jacket, untucks my shirt,
     pushes his hand up and cups my breast. His position is awkward and angled so he can
     fit his arm under my tight jacket. I don’t expect this quickening, this feeling in
     my chest and I’m not sure if I like it. And I don’t know what to do and it’s a quickening
     like a tightening and I feel this incredible thirst like I need to drink water and
     it’s strange because it’s somehow tied to his hand and the way he’s spreading his
     fingers.
    With his left hand he takes my right one and places it on the front of his jeans.
     I think he’s going to pull me into a hug, but he places my hand on the front of his
     jeans and—it’s his penis—so I pull my hand away and he catches it again with his and
     laces our fingers together.
    “It’s OK, Anna,” he says in a breath. His right hand is still cupping my breast. I
     have this feeling like when I was little and I looked at the stepfather’s dirty magazines.
     This feeling that seems like thirst and I’m staring out the window trying to figure
     it out and I like the way my fingers are laced with his. I never thought he’d want
     to hold hands with me, so I didn’t think about wanting to hold hands, but now I know
     it’s exactly what I want.
    Then he unlaces his fingers and pulls my hand back down on his jeans and covers my
     hand with his. It’s his penis and he’s pushing my hand against it with his.
    I look up and Michael Cox and Carl Drier are watching. They’re turned around in the
     seat ahead of us, their faces just inches from ours. Desmond pushes my hand rhythmically
     against the hard knot in his jeans and I’m surprised by the insistent pressure of
     it, the hard separateness of it under his jeans. Not like a body part, not like a
     limb or a bone, more like a small animal.
    I can’t even rehearse the story of it to tell Nancy Baxter because I know I will never
     tell Nancy Baxter and now Desmond’s other hand is moving and twisting under my shirt
     and he’s pushing on my breast so it hurts and then he makes a noise. His eyes are
     squeezed shut and he’s making a sneezing face and then there’s a wet spot on his jeans
     under my palm and he takes his hand out from under my shirt and for a second it’s
     like a rush of something, like I miss having his hand there, but now there’s a wet
     spot on his jeans and Michael Cox laughs like a bark and I pull my hand away and pick
     my backpack up off the floor and put it in my lap and wrap my arms around it.
    When I get home and turn on all the lights, I picture Desmond in my house with me
     so I don’t have to be alone. I have a conversation with him in my head and ask if
     he wants to eat pizza and if he wants to watch TV and in my imagination we spend a
     lot of time sitting on the couch together. I don’t think about his penis or the wet
     spot or Michael Cox’s bark of a laugh. All my favorite shows are on and I watch them
     in my pajamas and then when I go to bed, I fall asleep right away and I don’t dream
     at all.

 
    joey
    After the divorce, after the