Page 52 of Wrath

He was good.

Because he has his own dick, Miller.

Fucking fuck. I came in his hand!

He jerked you off.

My stepbrother played me like a fucking flute.

There’s nothing wrong with it from your perspective.Hedid everything.

I fucking camein Ezra’s hand.

I come again into my own, inhaling steam in big gulps.

After getting out, I wrap a towel around my waist and stand at his door for a long time. Listening and thinking. Wanting to go in and ask…so many fucking things. Wanting to suck his dick—because I’m fucked up. Clearly.

I lie on my back in bed and cup my semi. When my balls start feeling full and my dick’s hard enough to throb, I jerk off again, thinking of his hand around me. Sleep comes fast, and there’s no dreaming. When I open my eyes, I find I’m up before my alarm.

Morning wood’s got me too hard to walk without that just-kicked-in-the-nuts feeling, so I jerk it again, still hearing his raspy whispers in my head.

Shit—I should have reached around to see if he was hard, too. That would answer lots of questions.

I step slowly into the bathroom, half expecting to find him waiting for me. But the room is empty. The shower is dry. Dickface must not be awake yet.

In the bathroom mirror, I find a bite mark on my shoulder. I run the sink water so he won’t hear me taking a leak and take a lower-body shower since there’s jizz on everything. I throw on some basketball shorts and an old T-shirt that makes me look more cut than I am, plus Adidas slides. Then I’m down the stairs. I’ll wait in the kitchen for him, get the upper hand.

But Ezra never comes down. I notice his cooler missing from the island, and when Mom comes in to set her empty coffee cup in the sink, she tells me he left early.

“Maybe something with football,” she says.

Maybe something with my dick.

Ezra’s late to homeroom. When he finally arrives, my eyes snap to him like magnets. I tear them away, but not before I note he’s in a navy hoodie, battered khaki shorts, and shoes I can’t see since he’s sliding into his desk, stretching his legs out in front of him.

Today we have to watch a video on emotional regulation. He shifts in his seat as the lights go out, and then again as the projector starts. I keep hearing his voice right there by my ear. The pervert things he said. Was he just fucking with me?

He rolls one of his shoulders, and my dick twitches. I rub my temples, leaning back in my desk. I try not to look at him—which is impossible given that he’s right in front of me, running a hand back through his hair.

The video is boring, so my mind circles back to last night. He woke up and just…went at me. Maybe lashing out because I saw him in a weak position. So he did the same thing as when we were on the roof: he wrestled me down onto my back—metaphorically—and made sure that he felt on top. He fuckingbitme. When I left, he said, “You’re welcome.” Like he’d done me a favor.

The more I think about that, the more it pisses me off. My dick is not a toy for him to play with. Howembarrassingthat I let him. What’s wrong with me? By the time the bell rings, I feel fucking violated. Okay, not really. But I’m mad at myself. Am I so desperate I’ll take any hand that wants to grab my dick? Even a stepbrother hand?

I’m not doing that shit again. I’m not going into his room. If he has another one of those psychotic nightmares, I’ll—I don’t know what. Maybe I can turn the light on. Turn some music on or something. I’m not sitting down by him and staying. Even if it felt fucking amazing. Even if I want to know if he’d get hard, too.

In second period, I have a new thought: What if he tells someone? What would Marcel think if he found out I’m gay? What if Ezra tells Brennan? Fuck, he’d be offended as hell to find out second-hand. I’ve told Bren before that I could see why someone would mess around with a guy in prison or on a desert island, but that’s not coming out. Not by a long shot.

I’ve told Jenna, this girl named Emily that I sat by on the busfor a few years in middle school (she’s gay, too), and Arnie knows because I guess he sensed it. I’m about ninety percent sure he told his hipster friend Cierra—she’s in my grade, so still here at FHS—because she smiles at me sometimes as if she knows a secret. But that’s all. At least that I know of.

If Ezra isn’t gay, or wants to tell himself he isn’t, and he wants to offset his discomfort at being attracted to me by telling people how gayIam, it would really fuck me over. I’d like to try for college soccer, but Coach McGee goes to Truthsong Church, and they’re the really evangelical ones. If he finds out about me, there’s no way he’ll get those coaches he knows from University of Montevallo to come check me out.

I’m head-fucked by lunchtime, so I grab a slice of pizza, put it away in three bites behind a column near the soda machines, and walk to the office to sign myself out for SP—Senior Privilege. We seniors are allowed to walk down to the gas station, which normally has a Fairplay BBQ truck parked out front. And even though it’s technically against the rules, sometimes people walk through the woods behind the school down to the beach.

I’m not sure why nobody else seems to be doing SP this year. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen the BBQ truck there in front of the Texaco…so maybe that’s why. Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll walk to the gas station and buy some Cheetos. Keep me from having to look at his smirking ass.

I move across the cafeteria with long strides. It’s a massive common area, the center sunken and dotted with tables and the eating area surrounded by long walls of lockers. Hopefully none of my friends notice me bouncing.

Shit, it’s nice out. Cool for late summer—maybe eighty. Smooth blue sky with one big, fluffy white cloud. There’s a breeze, too. I start through the parking lot, looking down at my shoes as I walk, and thinking.

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