Page 133 of What Boys Learn

I feel stupid. For thinking he just wanted me to have sex with her. I was so nervous about that part I couldn’t see past it, and part of me thought she might even want to. It was a remote possibility, anyway. I never planned to let Dr. C watch. That’s gross. And even if Lenora and I only fooled around a little, I knew I could tell him lies. Heapprovesof lies.

“We can bring her back. She won’t remember. She’s too drunk,” I say, trying to sound confident, even if I’m not feeling it. Instead, I’m feeling the way I get at school when I’m in a class and I hear people behind my desk, whispering about me. I’m feeling the way I get at night when I can’t sleep, and I just need to walk. I just want to go. Leave. Before I do something I’ll regret.

“No, she’s not going to remember,Dennen. That’s the point.”

“But I don’twantthis.”

“But you do,” he says. “And if you do it on your own terms, you’re going to get too excited and fuck it up. It’s like losing your virginity.”

Iwouldbe losing my virginity, but that’s not what he means, because he seems to care less about the sex part than what comes after.

He shows his white teeth again. It’s not even a smile. It’s a pretend smile, and I know he’s stressed, unless that’s just how he shows his excitement. His disgusting appetite for whatever this is—being in control of her but also me. Making us do things so he can watch and play teacher.

More quietly, he whispers my real name. “Benjamin. Get the first time out of the way. Trust me. First times are tricky. Even my first time was. You’ll enjoy it more after that.”

I grab for the small serrated knife in my pocket and I lunge forward, knee on the cockpit bench, sharp point against the hot sun-reddened skin of his neck. He leans away from me but I just press harder.

“Well, this is a surprise,” he whispers.

“Don’t move.”

His left hand drops limply into his lap. His body untenses. Now his mouth is at my cheek, our breath mixing. I don’t like being this close to him. His smell makes me sick.

Calmly he says, “And what do we do now, Benjamin? You’ve ruined my shirt.”

I push the tip in and hear him sigh, like it doesn’t even hurt, and my hand starts to cramp from the pressure even as I feel wetness dripping down my forearm.

“You wouldn’t even know how to get this sailboat back to land,” he says quietly.

“I’d figure it out.”

“With no one to teach you?”

Everything is a boring lesson with him. The Asylum Lighthouse and how many people were mistreated there. This boat and how it shows you can do what you want and get what’s coming to you—boats and cars and girls. If he’s so happy and so popular, why does he need me?

“I don’t want you to teach me,” I tell him.

“But you need me to. You’re friendless and fatherless. Your future is bleak, and it would have been even bleaker if I hadn’t covered for your stupid mistake giving Izzy those pills.”

“Stop talking!” I say, pushing the tip of the blade in, just a little more.

When he swallows hard, I feel his Adam’s apple move. His pulse beats against the damp side of my hand. I like it, feeling his blood and heart in my hands, the softness of his neck. One big push and he’d stop talking, finally. That would feel good.

He asks, “You know what Lenora asked me, about you, just before we got on the boat?”

I move my left forearm against his chest, finding a better position for pushing him into the hard backrest of the cockpit bench, cutting off some of his air, so he has to fight for each word.

“She asked if you were autistic. Isn’t that cute? In just a few minutes she knew you were different. They’ll always know, Benjamin. They won’t get the right diagnosis, but they’ll know there’s something wrong.”

“I’m not what you think I am.”

“So you’re the better diagnostician now. You’re not like me, after all.”

“I can’t be. Because I don’t want the things you want.”

His voice sounds shaky but his smile looks real. “You’re starting to get a taste.”

I do want it. The thing I didn’t want with Lenora, but with him—absolutely. Maybe that is myextra. For me, it’s not about girls. It’s about something else. The ultimatefuck youto anyone who just keeps talking and talking and talking.