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2

When your classmates start talking about girls, you go along. It's not

like you have a problem with girls - they're intriguing, a whole mysterious
world of softness and good smells and secret smiles. But when you're
alone, when you think about touching people, being touched… it's not
always girls you think about. When you're asleep, and you have the
dreams that wake you up, sweating and hard, or sometimes past that, it's
never

girls you dream about. You know it's weird, and wrong, but you've

got bigger things to worry about, so you put it out of your mind. It's not
like you can control your dreams, right?

Girls start flirting with you, and it's okay. They expect you to do

things, so you do. That's pretty much the theme of your life anyways,
doing what other people expect, trying not to stand out, so why should it
be different here? You kiss your first girl when you're twelve, behind the
portable at school, and it's mostly a dare, for both of you, but… it's okay.
You get your hands up a girl's shirt when you're thirteen, and, sure, it's just
Annie Daniels, who's let half the school feel her up, but still, you're in the
right half.

When your dad leaves, it's a surprise. Not because you thought he

was happy with your mom, but just because they've been screaming and
fighting for so long, you'd thought that was normal, and couldn't
understand why it was suddenly too much for him. But with him gone,
your mom pulls into herself even more, and what energy she has left goes
to looking after your younger sister. You're left on your own, and the
freedom is scary, but exhilarating.

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You kiss your first boy on the same night that you get stoned for the

first time. Or maybe boy isn't the right word, because he's quite a bit older,
out of high school already, although it's not clear whether he graduated or
just left. Still, for a freshman like you, it seems pretty old. You're not sure
if it was the weed or something else that makes you so bold, but when he
pushes you up against the side of the Carter's garden shed and says that
you've been watching him all night, you realize that it's true, you have
been watching him. His puka shell necklace is white against his golden
neck, and you've been almost hypnotized by the contrast, not just the
colors but the texture, rough shells against smooth skin, and when he
shoves you again you think he's going to hit you, but then his mouth is on
yours, his tongue pushing in, and you're stoned and confused, but you
could resist, you could fight it. You don't, and when his thigh comes up
between your legs, you're hard. He smirks when he feels it, but then there's
a sound, someone walking towards the shed, and he rips himself away
from you to return to the party. When you try to go with him, he pushes
you back. "Stop staring at me, fag."

***

You're more careful after that, at least for a while. Your mom gets

sick, and that takes a lot of your energy, but it also leaves you needing a
release. Pot is good, but when you're stoned your inhibitions are lowered,
and it's hard to keep yourself on track, remember who it's okay to fool
around with. You lose your virginity to a girl named Sherri, both so stoned
it's almost surreal, slow-motion movements that seem to take forever, and
you don't come until you look across the room and see Dylan Scott
watching you.

You're sitting outside with Dylan later that same night, watching the

stars and wishing something would happen to break the heat, and you're
not quite as stoned anymore but you still don't even think to object when
he takes your hand and puts it in his lap, and a few minutes later when he

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squirms a bit and undoes his fly, you let him wrap your hand around his
dick like it's no big deal, and a few minutes later when he groans and
spurts all over your hand, it's not shocking. It feels familiar, somehow.
The next day at school he won't look at you or talk to you, and that feels
familiar too.

When your mom gets too sick to take care of you, there's no family,

no friends willing to step in, so you and your sister get put into foster care.
It's just temporary, they tell you, but when they take you to visit your
mom, she really doesn't look too good. You and your sister get put in the
same foster home at first, but they get sick of you coming home stoned
and giving them attitude; they say they'll keep Krista, but you have to go.
The next two places last even less time, and when you get busted for
possession your family doesn't have money for a real lawyer and you get
sentenced to probation and community service. Your community service is
picking up garbage on the roadside; the rich kid you got busted with gets
no probation, and his community service is coaching basketball for
underprivileged kids.

Your case worker tells you that nobody wants to take in a three-time

loser and you're probably heading for a group home. But there's one more
chance, one more family that might be willing to let you in. When you
walk in the door of the fourth place and see the huge cross on the wall of
the foyer, you wonder if you could set some sort of record for quick
rejections.

But it turns out they're the good kind of Christians, loving and gentle

instead of judgmental, and they have horses. The first time you touch one,
an old black Percheron the family keeps mostly as a pet, there's an honest-
to-God shock that tingles up your arm, and maybe it's just all the religious
talk you've been hearing from the family, but you wonder if it might have
been a message from above. But a few days later you get almost the same
sensation when Soren Rathgard gives you a hand job in his rec room, so if
the message is divine in origin, your foster family needs to rethink some of
the rules they live by.

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When your mom gets better and you get to go home, you're happy,

of course, happy that she's well enough to leave the hospital. But it's hard
to leave the horses. The family says to come back whenever you want, and
you try to, hitchhiking out a few times a week at least. They let you ride
whoever you want, and you do chores in return, whatever needs to be
done, and sometimes the mom will come out and give you tips on riding.
She loans you a couple books about horses, and you study them the way
the family studies their Bible.

***

One Saturday morning, bright and sunny with the heat already

starting to shimmer off the pavement, you're hitching out to the farm and a
guy in a big silver Mercedes picks you up, and he says he can give you a
ride right to the farm door but he needs to stop somewhere first. You're not
stupid, you know that's a bad idea, but the car's already moving, and it
doesn't slow down until it's turning off the road onto a rough sort of trail,
bumping along for a few hundred feet before it hits a clearing and stops.

You think about running, have your hand on the door handle, but

then he reaches inside his jacket pocket and pulls out a little baggie, full of
off-white powder, and you hope that's all this is about, because the guy's
pretty big, and he looks fit and strong, and you're only fifteen and small
for your age, and you're pretty sure he could outrun you and damn sure he
could outfight you. He snorts some of the powder, and offers it to you, and
you mimic his actions. If things are okay, if the guy's friendly, then it
seems like the polite thing to do, and if things aren't okay, then it might be
best to have a bit of a reality-buffer in place.

Things aren't okay. He gets out of the car to take a piss, he says, but

he comes around to your side of the car and opens your door, and you
know what's coming, in general terms if not in specifics, and the guy's not
that old, you tell yourself, and he's not bad looking, and it really seems
like it's going to happen anyway so maybe it would be better if you

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decided that you want it. You don't want it, not at all, but you don't say no,
because if you say no and he does it anyway, that's something else
entirely, something really bad. You don't want that to happen to you.

He pulls you out of the car, not rough but not gentle, and he turns

you around so you're facing away from him, and he pulls you in snug
against him and you can feel his dick rubbing up against you. He undoes
your pants, and one hand runs up over your chest, holding you in place
more than caressing you, while the other works your pants and boxers
down. He pushes you forward, so your head and chest are resting on the
hood of the car, and your ass is exposed, and it's pretty clear what's about
to happen. You've never done that before, never even been touched there
before, except for your own explorations.

There's the click of a lid being flicked open, and you're a little

relieved, because you've heard that it hurts even worse without lube, and
that makes sense. You wonder what it means that the guy had the stuff
with him, must have been in the pocket of his jacket because you never
saw him fishing for anything in the car. You wonder if that means he
planned this, and you wonder what kind of person plans something like
that on a sunny, already-hot Saturday morning.

Then his finger is there, cold and hard and bigger than yours, and

when you tense up he laughs and pushes in a little harder. Still, he's taking
the time to stretch you, at least a little, so that means it's consensual,
means this is something you've agreed to, and that makes it okay. Or
better, at least. It can't be the other thing.

There's another finger, and you've never done that to yourself, and it

hurts. You squirm, but his other hand clamps onto the back of your neck
and he leans forward, holding you in place with his weight. Then the
fingers are gone, and there's the snick of the lid again, and then there's
something bigger pushing at you, and you don't know why you think of it
as something, you know damn well what it is. For a second you think it's
not going to fit, that this won't happen because it can't, but the guy pushes

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harder and changes the angle a little, and then you can feel yourself
spreading, stretching, and he's inside.

He just keeps pushing, and you've never done this before but you're

sure this can't be right, because people enjoy this, and there's no way you
ever could. The pain is intense, and it seems to be radiating out all over
your body, your back and your legs and everywhere. Maybe he notices,
because when he's in, when he's pushed all the way inside of you, and he's
slumped over you with his hips right up against your ass, he nuzzles in to
your cheek a little and you can feel his stubble, harder than the stubble of
the boys you've touched, and he tells you to relax.

You try to. You don't know exactly what drug you took but you

think maybe it was a mistake, because instead of removing you from the
scene it seems to be insisting that you stay right there, making you feel
everything too much, way too much. If feels like things are maybe getting
better, fading from agony to pain, but then he grunts and starts to move,
quick little jerks that start it all up again. After a while his strokes get
longer, and harder, and the pain changes too, feels more like he's splitting
you open instead of stabbing you. You've been trying to be quiet, you're
not sure why, but now you can hear yourself, a sort of sobbing grunt each
time he thrusts into you. He seems to like it, grabbing your hair and
pulling your head up off the hood.

It's not too much longer after that until he's slumping over you, his

chest resting on your back, and you want to scream at him to get off, get
out, but you stay very still, and finally he does it on his own. You stay
frozen for a moment but once he's a couple steps away you scramble to
pull your pants up, almost crying out at the pain when you bend over to
grab them. The guy's got himself zipped up, and he's heading over to the
driver's side. You wonder if he thinks he's a good guy because he offers
you a ride back to the highway. You wonder what he would have done if
you'd said no in the first place, because he doesn't seem inclined to argue
when you say no to the ride.

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You kind of want to roll up on the ground and die, but you think

about the guy coming back and finding you, and you start walking, not so
much because you're scared but because fuck him, he didn't hurt you that
bad. You find a way to walk that doesn't set off the pain quite as much,
and you make it back out to the road and realize that you're not really that
far from the farm. You guess you should probably be trying to make it
home instead, but you think of that big Percheron, the way he barely
seems to notice when you hang all of your weight off his strong neck, and
you want to go there and bury your face in his mane.

You start walking, and a couple cars pass but you don't even try to

flag them down, and then one is pulling over anyway. It's the father of the
farm, and he's friendly at first, asking if you got lost, because this isn't the
direction you normally come from. You think you would have been okay
if you could have made it to the farm; you think by then you could have
had yourself under control, and ready to deal with people. But this is early,
this is unexpected, and you're not very good at hiding your feelings. You
know you need to get better at that, need to work at figuring out ways to
keep people from reading your face so easily.

But you haven't got it figured out yet, and it takes about two seconds

for the father to realize that there's something wrong, and his voice
changes, and he's still nice but he's asking too many questions, and when
he asks if you've taken anything, taken drugs, you realize that you have,
and from the disappointed look on his face you can tell that he realizes it
too. He doesn't get mad, but he says he's told you before that you can't
come to the farm if you're on something, and you should go home. You
don't want to go home, you want to see the Percheron, to touch him and
see if you get that tingle again, see if the family's God is still watching
over you. But the father is shaking his head, looking sad, saying that he
can't let you go to the farm but he also can't let you wander around out
here in this state because you could get hurt, and you almost laugh.

He tells you to get in the car, and you do, and you don't think he

notices your gasp when you sit down. But maybe he does, because when

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he gets you home he insists on walking you to the door, and when there's
nobody home for him to talk to, he acts like he's going to sit around and
wait for them. You tell him your stepfather took your mother out of town
for the weekend and your sister is staying at a friend's. For all you know,
that could all be true. You tell him you're just going to go to sleep, and
you're sorry, and thanks for everything.

The next day at school some asshole football player calls you a fag.

He's been doing it for weeks, pushing you around a little, and you've
honestly barely noticed, but this time it's too much. It feels good when
your fist hits his jaw, and you know better than to let someone get to you,
so you deserve the three broken bones in your hand, and you welcome the
pain.

When the farm father calls the house and asks your mother if you'll

be coming back out to the farm, she asks you if you've lost interest in the
place and you say yes. Your stepfather says that's good, because it's
pathetic for a boy your age to be mooning around after horses like a little
girl. Like some sort of fag.

***

Without the farm, you have a lot of free time, especially since you

got kicked out of your old school for the fight and you don't like your new
school enough to show up very often. You smoke a lot, dealing a little in
order to have money for more weed. You start hanging out with some
guys that are into some heavier shit, meth and coke and pills of all kinds,
but you're happy with your pot. They don't mind that because it keeps you
a little less messed up than they are, so they assign you to be the lookout
when they start robbing places. It's mostly houses, and they don't get much
that's worth anything, but then one of them gets a gun and starts talking
about robbing a convenience store, or maybe going for the big payoff and
hitting a pharmacy.

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When your court date comes up for hitting the football player, you're

smart enough to know that it's maybe time for a change, and you don't
fight it too hard when your court appointed lawyer suggests a deal. You
end up pleading guilty in exchange for some time in juvie and community
service when you get out.

Juvie isn't all that bad. There's regular meals and a regular routine,

and you've always liked routine; it lets you shut your brain off. The place
is pretty rough, but you have a roommate, a big guy who watches your
back in exchange for you doing his chores. When the heat picks up a little,
guys targeting your too-pretty face like they always seem to, the roommate
renegotiates. He decides that if he's gonna put so much work into keeping
all your teeth in your pretty mouth, it's only fair that he gets a bit more
benefit from that mouth. You can't argue with the logic.

You've never given a blowjob before, and you know you're not that

good at it, at least at first, but your roommate's happy to give you pointers.
It's not that bad, really. It's kinda hot to have that kind of power over
somebody, to be able to wind him up and keep him there, have him
swearing and begging for you to let him come. By the end of your time in
the facility, you're jerking yourself off while you're sucking him, and if
you're still not done by the time he's come down from the afterglow, he'll
sometimes lend you a hand.

His name is Wilson, and you guess he's your first boyfriend. Not that

either of you would ever call it that out loud. He's got a longer sentence
than you, and on the night before you leave, you kiss him, and he lets you
for a while, but then he pushes you away. When you suggest that he gives
you a call when he gets out, he asks you what for, and you don't really
have an answer.

***

You're out in time for your sixteenth birthday. It's supposed to be a

big birthday, you know, supposed to be about getting your license and

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maybe even a car. But you can't really get your license, not when the
family only has one car and your stepfather says you can't use it to
practice, or to take the test. You think about saving up and buying your
own car, but you've got better uses for what money you can find.

You're hanging out downtown one day, just killing time, and there's

a demonstration or something, really peaceful, but there's cops there
anyways, just to keep an eye on things. You don't like cops; it's nothing
personal, but they're the enemy, and it never pays to forget that. But there's
a couple of them on horseback, and the demonstration is calm so they're
just standing there, and they look bored and the horses look bored, and
you find yourself drifting over towards them. When you're a couple feet
away, the closest horse looks at you and then lifts his nose in your
direction, and you lean forward and exchange breaths with him, and he
shifts his weight and leans towards you a little.

The cop notices, but he doesn't seem to object, so you take a step

closer. The cop's keeping an eye on you, and you appreciate that. There's
all sorts of crazies out there who like to hurt animals, and it's the cop's job
to keep his horse safe. You wonder what it would be like, to do the cop's
job—being responsible for an animal and at the same time being required
to bring that animal into situations where it could get hurt. You think
about asking the guy about it, but it seems like a weird question, so you
keep your mouth shut.

After a couple minutes, you hear the cop asking if you're okay, and

you look up. You realize that you've worked yourself around so that you're
almost hanging off the horse, his head over your shoulder and bent to
nuzzle your hair, your shoulder under his throat and your hand up high on
the other side. It must look like the two of you are making out or
something. You back away and apologize, and say you're fine. The cop
smiles and doesn’t seem upset, but you're turning away and hurrying off,
and you're careful not to trip or do anything that would make you look
stoned or drunk. You're still on probation, and even though you're not

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stoned, for a change, cops have been known to make things up and there's
no point looking for trouble.

***

You get kicked out of another school, for non-attendance and being

stoned in class. Your stepfather has a field day with that one, wants to
know why you would go to school when you're high, when you don't go
any other damn time. He wants you to get a job, says that you're obviously
not going to get anywhere with your brains so you might as well start
trying to get somewhere with hard work. He's in sales, plumbing supplies,
and your mom suggests that he might be able to get the guys at the
warehouse to find a job for you. He laughs in her face. He says he doesn't
want to be seen in public with you, much less introduce you to the guys at
work.

You've never really been sure what he objects to about you. He

seems to know you're gay, although you're not sure how. You don't really
hide it, but you don't flaunt it, either, don't act swishy or bring guys home,
or talk about guys. You don't talk about anything, really, not with him, not
if you can help it. But he calls you 'fag' a lot, and he seems to mean it to be
a specific insult rather than a general one. But maybe he doesn't like you
for some whole other reason; you sure haven't limited yourself to just one
reason for not liking him.

It's probably not a good idea, but you go down to the warehouse one

day and ask if they're hiring. You've hit a growth spurt, finally, so you're a
good size, and you're not in great shape but you're okay, and you can act
respectful, when you try. You never took your stepfather’s last name, so
there's no connection between the two of you, and you get the job, part-
time after school. It's weird to have an after-school job and not go to
school, so you start going, this time to some Alternative Education
program set up in a storefront. It's got flexible hours and lets you work at
your own speed, so you don't hate it, but it's still pretty damn dull.

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You get your first paycheck and it's not huge, but it's nice to have

some legitimate money for a change. When you tell your mom you've got
a job and offer to contribute to the household expenses, she cries a little,
and tells you to save it for yourself, because maybe you'll need it for
something someday. You're pretty sure you know where the money will
go if it stays with you, so you ask her if she'll hold on to it for you, and she
cries a little more and says yes.

Your stepfather doesn't work in the warehouse, but he picks up

samples there sometimes, and stops by to visit, so it's not exactly shocking
when you see him walk in one day. Well, it's not shocking for you, but it's
obviously a pretty unpleasant surprise for him. He doesn't say anything,
not there in the warehouse, but you've seen too much of his temper to
think that there won't be repercussions.

When you get home that night the house is quiet, but there's a light

burning in the front room, and when you unlock the door and go inside
he's waiting there for you. He's drunk, and angry. You're not sure where
your mother and sister are, but you're glad they're not at home.

He tells you that he won't have you destroying the family, says that

his income is important and he won't let you fuck it up. You say you got
hired with your own name and the company has no idea you're connected
to him, and you're not going to fuck up anyway. He laughs at that, and you
lose your temper, say that from what you've heard around the warehouse,
he's doing a pretty good job of fucking up all on his own, with his long
lunches and swearing in front of clients. That's when he really loses it, and
he calls you a worthless fag and punches you in the side of your face, and
it would have hurt a lot more except that he's drunk and slow so you were
able to mostly dodge it, but it still hurts a lot and he's coming at you with
more. It’s far from the first time he's hit you, but you think maybe it'll be
the last.

You've hardly been smoking at all lately, and all the lifting at work

has given you the start of a nice set of muscles, and you're young and
quick and sober. You side step the next swing easily and send your fist

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sailing towards his face. You remember the pain of your hand breaking on
the football player's jaw, so you aim for somewhere softer, and it's
satisfying as hell to feel your stepfather's nose squish and flatten beneath
your knuckles. He falls back, in pain and surprise, and you follow him,
just because you can. You give him a hard slap, your hand cupped and
rigid, the way he hits you and Krista most of the time, and damn, you can
see why he does it, because it feels good. It feels good to be the one in
charge, the one giving the hits instead of taking them, and you hit him
once more and he falls backwards, sprawling on the floor.

You move to stand over him, and your feet itch to kick him, to turn

this from a fight into a beating, but then there's a sound in the hallway and
you turn and realize that your Mom and Krista weren't out at all, they were
just in bed. Your mom gives you a furious, disappointed glare, and she
rushes over to where her husband is lying on the ground. You remember
all the times that he hit you and she was there and she didn't rush over to
give you comfort, and all the triumph flows out of you, and you realize
that you can never win. Not this, and probably not anything else.

***

While your mother cradles her husband’s in her arms and makes

soothing sounds, Krista stares at you in shock. You need to get out of
there, need to get as far away as possible, and you head for the door. On
the way there, you see the car keys lying on the hall table and without
even thinking you reach out and pick them up. As far as you can tell, there
isn't a moment of thought between the time you take the keys and the time
you pull up to Dylan Scott's house. You and he used to be friends, before
you jerked him off, and lately you've been hanging out a bit again. You're
not sure whether you're being friends or trying to be something else, but
after last time you've been pretty damn careful to not make anything that
could be seen as a first move. Not that'd you'd made the first move last
time, but still.

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He sees you pull up and comes to the door, and maybe your

stepfather connected harder than you thought, because Dylan seems to be
able to tell that you've been in a fight. He opens the door wider, and you
stumble inside, feeling stupid and clumsy as the adrenaline wears off.
Your stagger brings you up closer to him than you would normally get,
and you hear him inhale a little in surprise, but he doesn't move away, and
you are done with being careful and trying to walk the straight and narrow.

You grab him by the collar and shove him backwards, and when he

hits the wall you're on him, your body pressed up against his, pinning him
to the wall, your mouth biting, searching, devouring. He lets it happen and
then he's kissing back, and it's the best thing you've ever felt, him wanting
you, even though he doesn't want to. You're rutting against each other, but
that's not enough, and you lean back enough to give your hand room to get
to his pants. You undo the fly and shove your hand inside, and he bucks at
the contact, his whole body arching to get more pressure, more friction on
his cock, and you undo your own pants and grab one of his hands and push
it in the right direction. He catches on and you stand there in the front
hallway of his family home, jacking each other off, kissing wildly at first
but just gasping into each other's necks toward the end.

He comes first, and his hand goes loose on your cock, so you reach

down and wrap your own hand around his and keep the motion going until
he's able to take control again, and it's not much longer after that you're
coming so hard it hurts. Now it's your turn to slump, and you rest your
head on his shoulder until he shrugs it a little, and so you lift it up and find
his mouth again. You're a little afraid, because he's already come, and
maybe he just wants you to leave, and go back to ignoring this, not talking
about it, but instead he welcomes you, wrapping his tongue around yours
almost lazily, as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

Eventually, you pull away. "Please tell me your parents aren't home."

He laughs and says they aren't, and then you both pull up your pants and
clean up a little, and he takes you by the wrist and leads you into the
kitchen. You sit at the table and he looks at you inquisitively, but you just

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shrug and he asks if you want a drink. You say yes, not so much because
you do as because you don't want to leave; if you're drinking, then you've
got a reason to stay.

You'd forgotten how hard Dylan hits the alcohol, and it's not long

before your head is spinning. He's ranting about some problem at school,
how some teacher is accusing him of cheating, and you're not following
the story too closely but you're pretty sure that he did cheat, and that
makes it kind of funny that he's so pissed off about the accusation, but he
doesn't seem to see the humor so you try to stop laughing.

Dylan doesn't calm down, and for some reason he wants to go over

to the school, and it's not far and you have nowhere else to go, so you go
with him. He's got a mostly-empty bottle of Jagermeister still on him, and
when you get to the school he swears and throws the bottle at the building.
It's pretty surprising, considering how drunk he is, but somehow the bottle
hits square, right on one of the windows, and both the bottle and the
window smash. There's a moment of stunned silence from both of you,
and then Dylan is whooping, and you wish he'd quiet down a little because
there are neighbors, but then he staggers over to you and gives you a
boozy, adrenaline-soaked kiss. You don't really care about the neighbors
anymore.

He staggers away from you, searching the ground, and you think

maybe he's dropped something, but then he bends down and picks up one
of the rocks that's been used to line a pathway, and he hands it to you and
nods at the school, says it's your turn.

This place is probably four or five back on the list of schools you've

attended, and you don't remember having anything seriously against the
place when you did go there, but Dylan is smiling at you, waiting. You
imagine what his mouth will taste like, think that maybe after you can go
down to the creek or back to his house and just make out, lie down and
explore each other's bodies, and you heave the rock and hear the glass
shatter. You don't have time for your celebratory kiss, though, because
that's when the siren blats and the lights flare from the parking lot, and you

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both turn in the opposite direction and see another set of lights from over
there. Dylan's face has gone white in the red and blue glare, and you
remember that his dad is a cop.

You grab his arm, try to get him to run, but he looks like he's in

shock, and then he's bending over and throwing up, and you're not sure if
it's from the alcohol or the situation, but either way you can't just leave
him there, and the cops are coming and you try to get him moving, push
him a bit and he's staggering away, and you put yourself between him and
them, hoping you can at least slow them down and give him a chance.
They grab you first and you struggle, but there's two of them and you're
drunk, and they pin you to the ground fast, and as they're cuffing your
hands behind your back you look up and see Dylan just standing there,
staring at you. He hadn't even tried to get away.

They take both of you to the station, and you see your stepfather

there and he's yelling at you, telling you not to bother coming home, and
you find out that he's pressed charges for the fight and for taking the car.
You doubt you have to worry about coming home, because you were
already on probation and this is your third arrest in as many years. You
think about saying that he hit you first, and you know you've got the bruise
on your face to prove it, but then you feel the other bruises there from
where you'd slammed your face into something or another when you were
struggling with the cops, and you don't say anything.

They leave you in a hallway, cuffed to a bench, and you see Dylan's

dad come in with some woman who looks like a lawyer. After a few
hours, your court-appointed lawyer shows up and you read the statement
Dylan made. He's saying that it was all your idea, that you'd gone to the
school and broken both windows, and he'd been there trying to stop you.
You don't know if they're his words or his dad's or his lawyer's, but you
guess it doesn't really matter. You don't say anything, and he walks out of
the police station that night with his dad; when he walks past you, he
doesn't lift his eyes. You get sent to a pre-adjudication youth facility, and
you don't get out of the system for another eight months.

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You try not the think about Dylan, and then when you can't stop

thinking about him, you try to hate him. But you remember the
desperation in the way he'd moved against you, the hunger too long
repressed, and you think of the fear in his eyes when he'd seen the flashing
lights of the cop cars. Your life was already messed up; you don't blame
him for trying to salvage his own.

***

You're shipped to McLennan, the same place you were before, but

this time your sentence is longer, and they're not going to keep you there.
You're not sure where you're going to be sent, and you're not exactly
looking forward to it, but you're not scared either. You're older and bigger
now, tougher, and you think you know what to expect. Turns out you're
wrong, but for once, the surprise isn't unpleasant.

You get to McLennan and have to sit through some orientation

presentations that were boring the first time you heard them, and then
you're sent to a small, dingy office to meet with your counselor. It turns
out to be the same guy as before, a pudgy, tired-looking guy with a beard.
You can't remember his name, and he doesn't give it to you. He knows
yours, but you're pretty sure that's just because of the file in front of him.

He goes through the usual crap, how it's not good to see you back,

and he'd really hoped that you'd gotten things under control last time. It's
like you're supposed to care that you've disappointed him. You think about
telling him how far down the list of disappointed people he is, but you
don't bother. The truth is, the list isn't all that long, because there really
weren't many people who gave a shit about you in the first place, but he's
definitely at the bottom of it.

That's when the surprise comes. He hands over a brochure, and some

forms, and they're for some place called the Rocky Path Ranch. You
glance at the brochure and then back up at the counselor, waiting for the
punch line. He sees your look, and shakes his head. He tells you that it's

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not an easy program, that they expect a lot more of the participants than
anywhere else you could be sent. There's hard work to do, and you're
expected to go to counseling, and stay completely away from drugs and
alcohol, and keep up with your school work as well. And he says it's a
one-strike-and-you're-out program; they don't put up with any crap out on
the range.

You just nod, and then you ask why. Why are you getting this

chance? He glances at the file, then back at you, and smiles a little as he
flips it around so you can read it. You figure out that you're looking at a
report from your last foster family, the one on the farm, and you recognize
the father's strong, tidy penmanship. There's a lot of technical stuff, dates
and program requirements, but at the bottom there's a space for notes, and
there's only one word, but it's all in capitals, and it's underlined four times
- "HORSES"

You look back at the counselor and he shrugs, and that's it, that's

how you end up spending the next eight months at an outdoor education
and corrections center instead of locked up inside. The counselor was
right, it is a lot of work, but you like that, and the rules make sense. It's not
fair to the horses to be drunk or stoned or anything but your best when
you're around them. The counseling takes place on horseback as often as
in a chair, so even it isn't so bad, and the school work… well, after a full
day of working on the ranch, you're too tired to do anything but sit around
anyway, so it doesn't kill you to sit around with a book in your hands.

There's usually around ten other kids in the program, sometimes

more, sometimes less. There's one week that's in between a bunch of kids
leaving and a bunch of new kids arriving and it's just you and the staff,
and most of them have taken the weekend off, so during the days you
work hard, doing all your chores and trying to fill in for the people who
aren't there, but at night it's just you and one of the counselors. You’ve
seen him watching you, and you think you know why. It's been months
with only your own hand and that makes you brave, or bold at least, and
when he's chopping up vegetables for dinner you stand close to him, and

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lean in a little. He inhales sharply and then freezes, but then he scrambles
away. But you caught the pause, you know he was torn, and you move
after him, and you feel predatory and powerful as you see the warring
emotions in his eyes.

You tell him it's okay, tell him that you want to and can tell that he

wants to, and he's backed against the wall and has his hands out in front of
him as if to hold you off, but when you close your fingers around his
wrists and push, there's hardly any resistance as you move his hands up
and hold them against the wall over his head. You move in, rub your
whole body up against his. You don't kiss him because a lot of guys don't
seem to like that, but you use your mouth, nuzzling and biting into his
neck, and he groans a little and arches his head back, and that presses his
body up against yours and you like that a lot. You shift your hands so that
just one of yours is holding both of his, still above his head, and you take
your free hand down to the small of his back and pull him in even harder
against you. It's good to be in control, great even, and you feel strong and
sexy and safe. But when your hand leaves his ass and goes to his belt
buckle, he gasps in a much less pleasant way and pulls his hands free, and
he says no, Dan, I can't, and you think how easy it is for some people to
say no. He pushes you off him and almost runs down the hall to the staff
office and locks the door. He doesn't come out until one of the other
counselors arrives to take over the shift. The other counselor asks if it was
something he ate, if they need to worry about food poisoning hitting the
whole facility, and you say you don't know.

The next batch of kids comes in on Monday, and the counselor

comes back to work. He's obviously told his supervisor, and they call you
in for a joint counseling session. You hate counseling at the best of times,
and this, two of them against you, stuck inside the stupid office when
there's horses outside and work to be done, this is far from the best of
times. They talk about a lot of stuff, about how it's not a rejection of you
as a person, but it would have been criminally inappropriate for the
counselor to allow anything to happen, and they talk about abuse of power

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21

and protecting potential victims, and for a second you think they're talking
about you, that you had the power and he had to be protected, and you
don't want to think of yourself as a bully but at the same time it's nice to be
the one with power for a change. When you figure out what they're
actually talking about, it seems odd; you wonder if the counselor actually
felt that he was in charge that night or if he's just going along with what
his boss says.

You keep your head down for the rest of your stay, and at the end of

eight months, you don't want to leave, and the staff say they don't want
you to leave either, and you think you believe them. But you can't just
refuse to be released. You think about committing another crime, but
you're pretty sure they wouldn't send you back to the ranch. When you
leave, the head of the program gives you a sheet of paper with names and
phone numbers on it. He says they're people he knows who work with
horses, up around Dallas, and they might have a job for you. He says you
should tell them to call him, and he'll give you a good reference.

It's a long bus ride back to McLennan, and once you're there the out-

processing takes a couple days and it sucks to be locked up again after the
freedom of the range. You keep the sheet of paper with the phone numbers
in your pocket, and you look forward to getting out.

***

When you get back to Dallas, you’re not supposed to be released

until your parents show up, but nobody comes, so your case worker drives
you out to the house. You get out of the car and she seems to be waiting
for you to go inside, but you're pretty sure that you're not going to be in
there for long before you're kicked right back out, and it will be easier for
everyone if she isn't there to witness that. So you go to her car window
and say that the hide-a-key is around back, so thanks for the ride, and see
you around. She looks reluctant to leave, but you twist around the side of
the house and out of her sight, and it's not long until you hear the car

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pulling away. You wait a few seconds to be sure, and then walk back
around to the front door.

You ring the doorbell, and you hear heavy steps on the far side—

must be your stepfather. He has to unlock all three locks, one of which is
new, and he doesn't usually lock the door when he's at home, so you figure
maybe they got the letter from the Texas Youth Commission after all.
They knew you were coming, and it made them buy a new lock. The door
opens and he's glaring at you, and he doesn't say a word, just reaches
down and grabs something bulky off the floor. It's your dad's old duffel
bag, and it's packed full. Still wordless, he shoves it out at you, and you
take it, and he steps back and shuts the door. You crane your neck, trying
to see if your mother or Krista are even in there, but the inside of the
house is in shadows.

You turn and start down the path to the street, but when you get to

the sidewalk you realize that you don't know whether to turn left or right.
You sit down on the curb with your duffel beside you, and you try to
think. You guess you should have had a plan for this, but having a plan
would have meant you were giving up on the fantasy, the world where
your mom had picked you up when you got off the bus, and given you a
hug and looked at your work-broadened shoulders and said something
hokey about her little boy being all grown up. In the fantasy, she would
have taken you home and there would have been a banner or something,
like you've seen on TV, and a cake and some people to greet you and
welcome you home. You knew better than to expect that, but that doesn't
mean you were tough enough to have given up hope entirely.

You've got to hand it to your stepfather, really. If there had been

some big scene, yelling and slamming things, maybe your mother crying
in the background, then at least you would have gotten an adrenaline burst,
gotten enough energy to tear you up off this curb and off to do something.
As it is, there's nothing. It's mid-afternoon in early September, and the
street is deserted, kids still at school, adults at work or inside. You guess
your stepfather must have taken the day off in order to execute his plan.

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23

It's hot, the pavement melted and wavy, and the heat is weighing you
down, making you feel like you've melted into the sidewalk.

From down the street, you hear the tinkling song of an ice cream

truck, and you wonder what it's doing here, in this ghost town. There's a
school a couple blocks down and it's almost dismissal time, so you guess
maybe it's heading over there, but as the truck drives towards you, it's
going slow and playing its song, as if the driver expects kids to come
rushing out of the houses to greet him. You think of your own unrealistic
dreams and can't judge him too harshly, but as he gets closer you put your
head down on your knees, avoiding eye contact, not wanting to look at the
face of another misplaced loser. You hear the truck move up beside you,
and then stop, and you wonder just how crazy this guy is, and have a quick
flashing vision of the truck being driven by Pennywise, that monstrous
clown from some Stephen King movie, and the clown stepping out of the
truck and standing over you, and then stabbing into your hunched
shoulders with his razor-sharp fingernails, pulling you open, splitting you
apart.

You're not seven years old, you know that's not going to happen, but

all the same, you know you need to keep an eye on the damn driver, so
you pull your head back up and the driver is getting out of the truck, but
he's not a killer clown, just a tired-looking guy in a sweatstained white
shirt. He doesn't really look at you, just walks over and stands there, and
he's holding out a wrapped ice cream sandwich. You're not sure what's
going on but you reach out and take it, and then he turns around and walks
back to the truck, and he climbs in and puts it in gear and heads off down
the street; you're left sitting there staring after him. You're not quite sure
what's going on, but you like ice cream and if you don't eat it it’s going to
melt all over the place pretty damn fast, so you tear the wrapper off and
eat the sandwich in about three bites. It's good, and you think about
chasing after him and seeing if you can get some more, but that seems
pretty pathetic.

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Of course, it's pathetic to stay sitting on the curb, too, so you stand

up and grab the duffle bag and start walking. You're not planning to catch
up, but you go in the same direction as the ice cream truck. As directions
go, it's as good as any other.

* * *

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Kate started writing at about the same time she got back on a horse

after a twenty-year break. She’d like to think that she’s far too young for it
to be a mid-life crisis, but apparently she was ready for a few changes!

Kate’s writing focuses on characters and relationships, people trying

to find out how much of themselves they need to keep, and how much
they can afford to give away. She tries to find that careful balance between
drama and humor – she wants readers to have an intense experience and
feel drawn into the book, but she also wants them to enjoy the time they
spend reading.

Kate started writing in the m/m area of Romance, and she’s spent

some serious time trying to figure out why that is… if you’re interested,
her reflections on why m/m fiction appeals to one straight woman can be
found at her blog (http://kate-sherwood.dreamwidth.org/). Kate definitely
plans to continue writing in both sub-genres, and is drawn to YA, as well.
And maybe some women’s fiction. And urban fantasy. Possibly sci fi.
Thriller? The possibilities are endless!