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  “Hi.”

  She smiled. Her smile extended to her eyes. From your eyes to my heart, I thought. Without even knowing her that well, I could see she had a beautiful soul. Before I lost my nerve, I pulled the card from my math book and handed it to her.

  She read the front. “For me?”

  Did she blush? She flipped over the envelope and stuck a fingernail under the flap.

  “Youcanopenitlater,” I said in a rush.

  She paused. “All right.” She smiled again. “Are you taking AP English next term?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I’m glad.” She dropped her eyes.

  The late bell rang.

  “Oops, better fly.” She slipped my card into her shoulder bag.

  “Yeah, me too,” I said. Fly.

  She hurried toward the door. “Have a happy holiday, Logan,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Yeah.” I stood in her afterglow, warm as the sun. I called to her back, “You too, Ms. Winger.”

  On the Floor

  My butt smacked the floor and I slid backward over the foul line. The whistle shrilled. Did Number 14 reach down to assist? Hell no. I would’ve been surprised if she had.

  Right in my face, she exaggerated a grin. Baited me. Then she swaggered back to her team’s bench. Girl, I thought, streaking a silent message across court, watch your ass tonight. Someone extended a hand and yanked me up.

  Her team, the Wombats, was already in foul trouble. Thanks to her. Ref flipped me the ball. I dribbled once, then rotated the skin around between my open palms. It was second skin to me. I’d been shooting hoops with my brothers since I could walk. By the time I was ten, I was beating the crap out of them. It was height, yeah, but instinct too. I was born to it.

  My toe caps leveled the foul line. I shadowed the stripe. Microscopic advantage, if anyone dared to measure. I sighted the net, then rocked back on my right heel and gripped the ball; squared my elbows, gentled the leather, talked the ball in; made love to it; released.

  Hahhhh… An owl swooping through the forest at night. It sights the prey, dives in for the KILL.

  Muffled cheering from the crowd.

  Barracudas up by three.

  I glanced sideways to my left, to check her reaction. She bent over her haunches and tugged at the hem of her shorts. Long, sculptured legs. Hard, like mine. 14 flexed, and her quads rippled sweat.

  At the catch in my lower stomach I exhaled a swift breath. Focus. Don’t get distracted.

  Bonus shot. I dribbled once and spun the ball around in my hands. Calloused palms. Tentacled fingers. As I loaded for release, urging my baby on, 14 straightened suddenly in her stance and twisted her head to bore eyes into me. I couldn’t help looking. She smiled big white teeth.

  My shot sailed left. Chunk. It clipped the rim. Damn. Damn her. It bounced up and out.

  The Wombats rebounded and thundered down the court. 14 scudded to a squeaky halt outside the three-point line and reached both hands up for an incoming pass. I cut in front of her and lunged for the ball. My fingertips nicked skin, but she anticipated my move and jockeyed her body sideways into perfect position, snagging the throw. An inch and I would’ve had it. She spun to shoot, but I planted my feet and mirrored her moves.

  She seesawed. I rocked. I windmilled my arms. She passed off over my head to one of her guards, then bumped me hard on the hip, hooking my ankle and tripping me up.

  I maintained my balance; stayed with her. We closed in on the basket. In the paint, I muscled under her arm and clipped her in the chest. Wicked elbow. She chuffed. She was taller than me, but I took advantage by seeking out her vulnerable spots — gut, throat, ear. Breasts were off limits, much as I wanted to go there. We played physical, contact. Hard, but not dirty.

  She slammed her shoulder into mine and knocked me off point again. The ball arced into her waiting hands. As she laid up her shot, I sprang like a cat and clawed it off course. We both watched it spike in the air and plummet, tipping the backboard. She dove for the rebound, but I got there first and shagged the ball. Squeezing, I caressed the solid mass to my chest.

  Charging up the court, lungs filling, feet pounding, sweat spraying, hair flying, ball, skin, heat, friction, driving, diving, dribble, racing down, down. Ball. Up. In.

  The game. Play. Bodies clashing, gliding, sliding against each other. Grunting, groaning, crying out. Keening, squealing, primitive animal sounds. The pungent smell, the odor of exertion and exhilaration. The salty taste of sweat — mine and hers. Slick, sticky neck, arms, hands. And always the breathing, huffing, chests expanding. Gorging, groping, cutting, jostling for position. For place, for power. Down, down, deeper, farther. Onto her, into her. Rush.

  The rush. We were on. Giving all.

  For the game. For play.

  We hurtled the space between us; clashing full frontal, we collided and crunched to the floor. We rolled onto each other like wrestlers, soles screeching, stabbing, scrabbling for the ball, knocking arms, heads, bones. Then the ball trickling away out of bounds. The whistle shrilling.

  Ref called, “Jump ball.” We — 14 and me — we looked at each other and smiled.

  Killer smile. She knew the effect.

  I got up fast and thrust out a hand. SLAP, she grasped it. I yanked.

  For a moment she balanced against me, her arm fused to mine. Sizzling skin. Muscle twitch, contraction.

  A slit-eyed sideways glance from her.

  Yeah, girl. Later. You know it.

  We’d meet up, usual spot. Her court. Or mine.

  In the darkness we’d play out the game. We’d thrash in the heat and sweat and rush. Didn’t matter who won or lost tonight. We were taking this game into overtime.

  Stone Cold Butch

  “Seriously?” J.J. arched her eyebrows. “You want to go completely bald?”

  “Shear it off.”

  Maybe the transformation wouldn’t require excessive mutilation. “Okay, leave some stubble,” I said. “Quarter of an inch.”

  She held up her dog trimmers to my face. “Still time to change your mind.”

  “Have I ever changed my mind about anything?”

  J.J. said, “Could be that’s your problem.”

  “Who says I got a problem?” I snapped at her. “Just shave.”

  She didn’t need to know about my problem. There was nothing she could do about my problem. Nothing anyone could do. Not J.J., not me, not Taunia.

  Taunia.

  What did she see in me anyway? I was ugly. Obscene. Eventually I’d drive her away. I’d have to. I watched in the mirror as J.J. buzzed an arc over my ear. I was hideous. The blotchy skin and zits, my lumpy nose from being broken in a fight, my ears, I noticed at this moment, crooked. There wasn’t anything in this mirror, in this person, that Taunia could want.

  So why? “Why?” I’d asked her. That day in the hall, after school. After I stomped out of Thatcher’s class — bastard — when he refused to give me credit for my project. Because he couldn’t understand why I’d chosen to film hunger in America rather than write a report. A boring report on some inconsequential topic. Oh, excuse me. A topic that affected us directly. Hunger affected me, okay. It affected me. No, he meant things like the increase in school violence over the last decade. Maybe not inconsequential, but easily explained. It was the anger. Thatcher was the reason for the anger, if you ask me. His indifference. He wouldn’t listen. He pissed me off. I didn’t want to write my report down because it wasn’t about the numbers, facts, words on paper, charts and graphs. You can’t understand hunger unless you see it. Unless you feel the weakness and the gnaw in your gut.

  “Why what?” Taunia had frowned.

  I’d tuned into her voice — her creamy voice — still reeling from the sting of an F in Sociology. I needed to graduate. Needed to get away from here. “Why would you ask me out?” I sniped at her.

  She smiled. “Gee, I don’t know. Because I like you?”

  Get real. What was there to like?
>
  A clump of hair fell into my lap and J.J. went, “Oops.” She sucked air between her teeth. “I got too close. Your brain is exposed.”

  “Funny.”

  “It’s oozing out.”

  “Apply pressure,” I said.

  “It’s green. It looks like kryptonite.”

  “Call Superman.”

  “It’s glomming up my dog shaver. It’s swelling to twice its size. It’s going to blow. Kaboom!”

  “Shut up and shave.”

  Another clump of hair dropped into my lap.

  Now I’d look completely butch. Because I was — strong, powerful, and defiant.

  Don’t mess with me. I’ll take you down.

  Sure I will. Big talk.

  My thoughts drifted back to yesterday. She’d waited. Taunia. For an answer. Standing there, gazing into my eyes, attempting to hold my attention. So sweet.

  A twinge in my belly, then… nothing. The dead seeping in. Empty. Hard.

  “I can’t,” I’d told her. I’d walked away.

  “Cam.” She’d caught up and grabbed my belt loop from behind. “Why? Why won’t you go out with me? Don’t you like me?”

  I’d crimped my eyes closed. Don’t let her know, I thought. She’d never understand. “No.” Gruff voice. “What made you think I would?”

  She’d released her hold on me and stuttered a breath.

  Good. I’d hurt her feelings. That’d teach her. That’d show her who she was dealing with. I’d left her there, demolished.

  The power fed me.

  Then, not three hours later, she called me. “Hi, Cam. Know who this is?” Her voice was all teasing and sexy.

  The girl I just pounded into dog meat?

  “We don’t have to go any place public, you know. We could just, like, meet somewhere and talk.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  She hesitated. “Doing what?”

  I didn’t answer. Why didn’t she get it?

  “I told you, I like you. I want to go out with you and get to know you better. I think you’re brave —“

  I slammed down the phone. My breathing came in rasps, like an asthma attack. Except I don’t have asthma.

  “Who was that?” He hollered from the hole, otherwise known as our family room. Family. You’d have to defile the name to call us a family. Families cared about one another. They cherished and respected one another. Families provided safety, security, refuge. I can’t remember one day in my whole entire life that I ever felt safe.

  “Cammie, who was it?” He bellowed.

  “No one,” I called through the doorway. “Wrong number. They hung up.”

  “Come in here,” He said.

  No. Please no.

  My stomach rots. The space around me shrinks and fades. It shrivels gray.

  “Cammie?” His voice sugars. “Honey?”

  I go, because I have to. He’s my Lord and Master.

  He’s my Father.

  “Hey, baby.” He coos it. From behind the greasy recliner, I see His hand reach out to me. I clench my teeth. His fingers spread. I place my hand inside His. He squeezes, holds on, leads me around to the front of Him. “Hey.” His lips curl up at both ends. It’s not a smile. More a leer. “Take down your hair,” He says. “You know I like it down.”

  The bile rises in my throat, but I choke it back. I’m starting to shake. He lets go of my hand and I remove the elastic band from my ponytail. He waggles His index finger for me to lean over. Cupping His hand around the back of my head, He kisses me. On the lips.

  The pressure on my head increases. It shifts. Pushing me down. To His lap; to my knees.

  I know what’s coming. I shut myself off.

  Cold. Hard.

  “I had a lousy day,” He tells me. “My boss is a jerk. One of these days…

  “… I wish I had the balls to leave. Just up and quit.” He scoots forward. He unzips his pants. “That’d show ’em.”

  I fade, fade, fade away.

  Last night. Last week. Last year. As long as I can remember, back when I was six, eight, before Mom skipped. He never said, “Don’t tell.” Or if He did I don’t remember. No, it was “This is what daddies and their little girls do.” It was “Baby, I love you so much. You please me so much.”

  I wanted to please Him. I had to. He was my father. I knew if I told He’d be mad. They’d take Him away, or me. With Mom gone, I’d have no one at all.

  It went on for years. Every night. At first I cried and He’d say, “Shut up. That didn’t hurt. If you want me to hurt you, I will. Get on your knees.”

  Too long, too late. No one could save me now. This is what it is. This is who I am.

  Stone. Butch.

  Stone cold butch. That’s me. Dead. Inanimate. Object. You could take a sledgehammer to me, crack me down the middle, and all you’d find inside would be dirt. You wouldn’t want to get your hands dirty. Don’t break me.

  I needed to be more butch. That was all. I needed the power.

  I tried a couple of times to melt the magma. With Reina, my first girlfriend. It was good in the beginning. As long as I did her. But when she wanted to reciprocate, I couldn’t. I could not go there. She started getting this need, this mission to bring me. To share in her ecstasy. She wanted it so bad, to love me, that I learned to fake it to make her happy. And it did for a while. It satisfied her. But the deceiving made me feel like shit. Lying together afterward, her telling me how happy it made her that I felt good. Me saying, “I’m glad.”

  I finally broke it off with Reina; I told her I was doing someone else. Someone better, who could make me come a hundred times faster. That hurt her. It hurt her bad enough she’d never want me back.

  Mission accomplished. Then there was this girl at the homecoming dance, the party afterward at someone’s house. I was so wasted, she got as far as taking off my bra. I remember watching her as if I was sitting in a dark theater, mesmerized by a movie. A movie starring me. The way her tongue played with my nipple, sucking me into her mouth. I watched from the front row, scene after smoldering scene, flickering across my stone face, my glassy eyes. I felt nothing. Direct stimulation and I couldn’t feel a thing. Because what I saw in my movie was Him. Doing it to me.

  He ruined me. He turned me into stone.

  I let Him.

  J.J. and I walked to school and she left me at my locker. Taunia appeared at the end of the hall. She waved at me, like, hi. Here I am if you were looking for me. She was obviously brain-dead. No, she wasn’t. She was smart and nice and sexy. She smiled, all hopeful. The thing she was hoping for, I could never deliver.

  “I don’t give up easily,” she said.

  That is your fatal flaw, I thought. I tossed my backpack into the bowels of my locker and yanked the skullcap off my head.

  Her eyes expanded. “Oh wow,” she breathed. “You buzzed it. I love that.” Not the reaction I expected. I wanted her to think I was bad, hostile. Same way I need Him to react — to not want to touch me ever again. To be afraid. Because maybe, maybe I looked like a guy now. That would repulse Him. I’d look strong. Able to resist.

  She reached up to feel my scalp. I don’t know why I let her touch me. I knew I wouldn’t feel. “It’s soft,” Taunia whispered. Her fingertips pressed lightly and she ran her palm along the side of my head, down the back, caressing my ear. Nothing. No shiver of pleasure. I had the most compelling urge to lean into her and let her hold me. Hold me up. Because the crust was crumbling under me and I was disintegrating.

  Taunia’s face closed in on mine and she said in this sincere voice, “I loved your film. It really spoke to me. I was so moved, Cam. All those sad and hungry people at the soup kitchen, they just made me cry.”

  My eyes wanted — needed — to fill with water. I wanted the water to spill over and stream down my cheeks and striate my face. I wanted it to furrow a canyon and dig deep into my heart to carve a safe place for her.

  But I couldn’t. Tears were weak. Tears would be letting go;
giving in.

  “The way you stood up to Mr. Thatcher. Wow.”

  Yeah, I thought. Look what it got me.

  “Please,” she said. “Go out with me once. If you have a terrible time, we don’t have to do it again. But you won’t. I promise.” She touched the tip of my ear. Traced the arc of it. She looked into my eyes.

  I summoned all the strength I could muster to match her gaze. She was hopeful. It was the expectation in their eyes I could never resist.

  I let out a long breath.

  Butch. It didn’t mean bastard.

  I’d allow her this dream. The movie she saw with a co-starring role. But she’d predict the ending long before intermission. Taunia would find me out. Word would spread.

  Cammie is cold. She’s a stone cold butch.

  Abstinence Makes the

  Heart Grow Fonder

  We had to copy ten reasons off the board why we should practice abstinence.

  1. Birth control. The only 100% effective method.

  Duh. Any nine-year-old could’ve figured that one out. Birth control didn’t exactly apply to me.

  2. Prevent the spread of STDs and HIV.

  Okay. Sexually transmitted diseases might be a valid concern. HIV? Not likely. The chances were slim, and not because I wasn’t having sex.

  3. Personal responsibility and self-control.

  Give me a break. Who has self-control?

  4, 5, 6: All this moralistic crap about respecting your body and your partner’s; protecting your reputation. I respected my body. You had to earn a reputation first, didn’t you?

  Problem with the abstinence theory was the answer to the question Chad Bennett had asked. He must’ve used up his one brain cell to formulate an actual intelligent question. “Mrs. Errasco,” he said. “What if we don’t plan on getting married?”