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I know what he’s really asking: was it awful. He’s actually asking me that. Sometimes I honestly think he’s bonkers. I mean, the virginity’s a hell of a clue.

‘It seems like you are on a daily basis, Gabe. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t fuck me into goo, last night. I mean, you must know that you fucked me into goo. I know how smart you are – don’t pretend.’

He smiles, showing teeth. I watch it slowly light up his face.

‘I told you. I know my theory.’

‘You know me, too.’

He seems to sort of shrug, with just a turn of his head.

‘You’re easy. I always thought it would be hard, but there are so many little signs and hints. The way you move your hips or sigh or sometimes you don’t say anything, but I know the words are kind of trapped in your throat. Then it’s good. It’s really good.’

The urge to call him a sexual wizard surfaces again.

‘I knew you wanted me to do it harder, before you asked. Before you did anything. But I didn’t want to hurt you – you felt … really … small.’

‘No – you’re just that immense. I swear – no one would ever guess you’re packing what you’re packing, babe.’

He laughs, at that, but then his eyes get that faraway look, again. The one he often gets when he starts talking about, say, how small my pussy felt. Though this time, it’s something entirely unexpected that comes out.

‘I always thought there was something wrong with me, when I was a kid.’

And I’m not sure how to respond, at first. It’s always so much like he’s peeling off raw skin, when he shares something about his past. Though he seems relaxed, much more relaxed than usual. The words come easy, and untroubled.

It’s simple to go with amusing.

‘Because you had a gigantic monster dick?’

Sure enough, his smile spreads. He chuff-laughs at me, and kind of ducks his gaze.

‘No. No. Well – maybe a little. I got a shock in the changing room showers, I’ll say that much.’

I picture it. Of course I do.

‘But it wasn’t just that. The other boys … they all … you know. I felt so different to them. And I guess they knew I was different, too. They weren’t ever cruel, exactly, but they’d talk about doing stuff and how many times they did it, going into loads of detail – things I’d never heard of. How this girl or that made them get a stiffy, that sort of thing. And I just …’

‘You didn’t pop a boner ’til you hit your twenties.’

He squirms onto his back, and stares up at the ceiling. Though somehow I don’t think it’s a sign of discomfort. He still seems relaxed – no hair smoothing, no fidgeting. Just lost in time and slightly amused, probably by
pop a boner
.

‘No – no. It was before then. But I clearly remember getting to seventeen without ever really … God, I was so worried about it. I used to lie awake at night, wondering if there was something wrong with me – you know, bodily? Like a tumour, or something. I kind of knew I wasn’t gay, because I liked the look and smell of girls. Sometimes I’d feel good, being close to them – though none really wanted to be close to me so maybe it was just that I hadn’t had the opportunities other boys had. Sex was just a formless, physical education thing, to me. No
Playboys
, no
Hustlers
. No secret porn movies.’

I raise an eyebrow.

‘No books?’

He glances at me, eyebrows raised right back.

‘No – God no. My parents would never have allowed it in the house. Until I was permitted to go to high school, I’d never heard of any of this stuff. I didn’t even know books like … like the ones I’ve got now existed.’

‘So when did you get your first … stiffy?’

The word almost makes me giggle, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s looking at the ceiling again, without really seeing it. However, it seems to take him no effort at all to answer. His voice is low, almost like a soothing hum.

‘When my cousin came to stay.’

I poke him, and see his mouth slant into a half-smile. Everything is half, with him. He’s not allowed full measures because his mad parents aren’t going to let him. I think of those words:
permitted
to go to high school. Like ordinary life is a privilege, not a right.

God knows what they taught him, at home.

‘Led you astray, did she?’ I ask, and his smile widens. He knows all the old clichés, all right.

‘No. Yes. Yeah, I guess she did. My parents liked her, so she got away with a lot while she was there. She was allowed to wear short skirts, and she brought books that weren’t manuals or history things into the house.’

He glances quickly at me and then back again, and waits – I think for my laughter. But he’s not going to get any – I’m hooked, now.

‘So she introduced you to –’

‘No. They weren’t erotic – I don’t think even she would have got away with that.’ He pauses. I think it’s actually intended as a dramatic one, too. ‘They were horror books. These boring looking things, with houses on the covers or else nothing at all.’

My mind immediately goes to those old school horror novels, with giant peeling lettering on the front. The author’s name in ten-foot-high font. I’ll confess I was hoping for secret
Playboys
passed to him under cover of darkness – but this is weird enough for me to want to find out what it has to do with erections. Or feeling different to everyone else.

And he’s apparently comfortable enough to oblige. He’s even – quite startlingly – trailing his fingers back and forth over the hair all over his bare chest. Just absentmindedly, though I can see his cock rising beneath the sheets.

‘I didn’t think anything to them. I wanted to read them, maybe, because I always wanted to read different stuff. But I didn’t ask her. I didn’t talk to her at all. I never had time, really – my parents were getting pretty bad by then. Forgetful. I think that’s why she was sent, from some uncle I didn’t know and never saw again. To “help”.

But she didn’t help. God, she never helped. She used to torment me – all the time. I remember distinctly – feeling
forced
to read these really gory parts of her books. She would force me. I’m not sure how, exactly, but I always felt like I’d better do it, you know? Or else.’

Is it weird that I understand why he’s getting an erection? Because I completely do. Though granted, it’s not exactly the riddle of the sphinx.

‘You were only seventeen, for God’s sake. And you’d had about a millisecond of experience, dealing with other people. Of course you did what she wanted you to.’

But that’s not what I’m thinking, of course. I’m thinking: you were like this all along, weren’t you. You were just waiting for someone to come along, and show you.

‘I was taller than her, too. Much taller. I was six foot two at
fourteen
, with hair all over my chest. But it didn’t matter – I had to do what she asked. And it wasn’t … it wasn’t in the same way as having to do what my parents wanted.’

I’m propped up on one elbow. It’s pretty easy to trail the hand that’s already close to him through his thick and completely unruly hair. I don’t know what product he uses to create the rigid side-parting but there’s none of it here, and without it his hair remains straight, but heavy and all over the place.

When I rake my nails over his scalp, just lightly, he pushes into the touch.

‘Your parents didn’t ask, though, did they. Or even demand.’

‘No.’

‘I bet they just expected you to be the one on top of things, all the time.’

He pushes harder into my hand. I think he might actually be toying with one of his nipples, now, and when he answers he pinches it harder.

‘Yeah. They did.’

He’s silent, for a moment, then. Just still, and pliant under my touch. I run the backs of my fingers over all the stubble he’s managed to produce, overnight, and he lets me. Until some other thought occurs to him, and that almost smile comes back to his lips, and he blusters out, ‘God, some of those things she made me read!’

I think of Kevin Collinson in the playground, trying to get everyone to look at pictures of Freddy Krueger. Couldn’t even look at his face when I hit college.

‘They were gross – they gave me nightmares. Heads being smashed open, zombies eating people … just awful stuff. I was terrified. And I told her, too – I said I couldn’t stand it any more. I know I was seventeen, but I just hadn’t read anything like that before. I hadn’t seen anything like it. So I told her to stop.’

‘Did she?’

He shifts on the bed, and his still hard cock bobs beneath the sheets. I’m sure he’s going to progress to touching himself – any second now. Any second.

‘Yes. For a time. Then one day she just came up to me and said, “Here, Gabe. Try this bit.” And I did.’

Of course I understand what he’s getting at – or what she was getting at. It’s clear, now. But I still want to ask, and hear him say.

‘What bit was it?’

That flush is creeping up his face. He’s moving more often, now – I think because it makes his cock brush against the material covering it.

‘I don’t remember the name of the book. Something was coming to get the main characters, I think, and they were …’

He clears his throat. One of his hands is now beneath the sheets – though not quite at its destination, yet. It’s just pretending it’s on its way to Brazil, for the moment.

‘… they were having sex, oblivious. I remember I had to hide the book and act like I hadn’t read it, after I saw the first words. I acted like that, and wouldn’t talk to her.’

I wait, with baited breath, for him to tell me what she did next. I can’t imagine she let him off so easy, and I unfortunately know this because I wouldn’t have done. I
didn’t
. He doesn’t
want
to be let off easy.

‘So she told me – she said – God. I’ll never forget what she said as long as I live. She said
if you don’t read your book assignment, Gabe, I’ll have to punish you
. To this day I’ve no idea if she really meant it … the way I later found out people sometimes mean it. She never got to the punishment, whatever it was going to be. I was too terrified of her telling on me to let it go that far.’

He swallows, thickly.

‘But I wanted it to. That was what was worse about the whole thing. I knew inside that I wanted her to punish me. I wanted her to punish me
for
reading what she’d asked me to. Because I did – read it, I mean.’

He glances at me, all over me, eyes bright and sort of … confused. It takes me a minute to realise why – it’s because I’m rolling my hips. I’m rolling my hips and squeezing my thighs together, and it’s as much for this story he’s telling as it is for the way he looks.

‘You like hearing this, don’t you,’ he says, soft as anything.

‘Do you mind me liking it?’

His expression fades into bemusement.

‘Why would I mind? You know it’s turning me on, too. It always does, I can’t help it.’

His flush deepens, when he gets to that part. He looks off to the side, at nothing.

‘Finish telling it, then. What happened next?’

‘I told you. I read it.’

Now
he’s going to withdraw? Get awkward, close himself off? It’s a bit late for that, my lad.

‘And what was in it?’

‘I don’t remember.’

I can’t resist. It’s so obvious, I have to wonder if he’s pushing for it. He’s tensed up, a little, but he’s not exactly pulling the covers up to his chin and smoothing down his hair. So I go with what I want to most, ‘Tell me, or I’ll punish you.’

His eyes flash to me, bright with an emotion I can’t identify. It looks like a mixture of around seventeen feelings, all at the same time. His breathing roughens, almost immediately – like I cocked a trigger at the back of his head.

‘Well? What’s it to be?’

At first I’m sure he’s going to refuse. A tight pulse of arousal blooms outwards from my sex, just thinking about it. I’ve no idea what I’ll dole out punishment-wise, if he does refuse, but man alive does it excite me thinking about it.

Only the tension holding fast between us melts, and his eyes flick down, and he says in this breathless sort of voice:

‘I recognised what they were doing – in the book, I mean. They were having sex, but it wasn’t like in physical education. It wasn’t like anything I’d heard other boys talking about.’

He pauses, when I curl right down next to him, and kiss just below the curve of his jaw. Lower still, on the stretch of skin beneath his ear – at which he makes a contented sound, before continuing.

‘It was … schlocky and messy. I don’t know, I – is this my reward? One way I get a punishment, the other way a reward?’

I like the sudden puzzling tone to his voice. Like his need to work things out breaks through all the memories and arousal and fuck knows what else.

‘Why don’t you carry on and find out?’ I say, between wet kisses. He definitely enjoys it, when I suck his earlobe into my mouth.

‘Hm – oh. Maddie, if you’re going to do that I’m going to stop making sense.’ He brings a hand up, then seems to consider whether he should put it on my bare shoulder or not. Desire wins. ‘ And then I guess … I guess he kissed her, between her legs. I always remember that part the best. He – you know. He went down on her.’

This story is turning out
really
good. And he’s definitely getting back into it, now.

‘But I’d never heard of anything like that before! I couldn’t believe it. I had to keep re-reading it. And then – Jeez, the most terrible writing. It said something like “he popped just the thick head of his cock into her slick love tunnel” and I – I don’t know what happened to me. I guess it started with her, telling me … that. But it got really strong when I actually read what she’d told me to.’

It’s getting strong, now. He moans, when I slide my hand under the sheets, over his already jumping belly.

But I don’t touch his prick. I wait, until he carries on.

‘I remember thinking: there’s nothing wrong with me, there’s nothing wrong with me – I’m just like the other boys – and being really happy about that. But it was shameful, too. She knew that I was reading this part, and probably getting stiff, and she’d made me do it.

‘Which just made it worse. I know I thought: how am I ever going to be able to stand up, and leave my bedroom? I knew that my body was doing the right thing, but it felt really wrong – massive. And like I couldn’t think straight. Usually, everything in my head was calm, and right. This was just … I know I wanted to touch myself. I knew what to do – in school, they’d all talked about it.