Read Thursday's Child for Free Online Page B

smile. “ Right . Algebra class.”
    â€œYeah, I remember.”
    â€œCan I sit here with you?”
    Beau just nodded. She looked like all the girls at school—tanned, blond, and casually perfect. Beau felt sweaty and clumsy whenever they looked at him, which wasn’t that often, of course. He supposed that his reaction was just hormones, but with so many other things on his mind lately, who had time to think about sex?
    Anyway, his actual experience in that area had been limited to solitary jacking off, and even that seemed like too much trouble these days. It probably didn’t say much about the quality of his social skills that an occasional wet dream was as close as he could get to an interpersonal relationship.
    Kimberly sat down too close to him; apparently the concept of Personal Space, something that his parents had always stressed, was not an idea that she was familiar with. He couldn’t help inhaling the cloying scent of her perfume. She gave an expert toss of her head and the golden curls tumbled cheerfully. “You’re a real mysterious figure at school, you know?”
    â€œMe?” He wiped at his sweaty face with the sleeve of his new jacket. “Why would anybody think I’m mysterious?”
    â€œWell, you know,” she said, smoothing the front of her light cotton dress, “the way you lived all that time in the jungle or whatever. Like Tarzan, sort of.”
    â€œIt wasn’t like that,” he said sharply. “I wasn’t in fucking Africa swinging from the trees.”
    â€œOkay,” she agreed willingly. “But it was something like that, right?”
    He didn’t bother to argue anymore; what the hell did he care what they thought about him anyway? He sipped some of the spiked Coke.
    â€œWell, anyway,” she said, “I think you’re real cute … in a sort of … interesting way.”
    He had absolutely no idea how to respond to that.
    She wriggled even closer. “Can I ask you something really, like, personal?”
    Her breath was hot against his cheek. “What?” he said warily.
    â€œHave you ever, you know, done it?”
    â€œDone it?” He wished fervently that she would just go away and leave him alone.
    But she didn’t. Instead, she lifted a hand and touched his hair. “Don’t you think I’m pretty? Most boys do.”
    â€œYou’re pretty, yeah.” His voice sounded funny to him. He cleared his throat.
    Beau wasn’t quite sure who kissed whom first, but all of a sudden they were both stretched out on the grass. There was a roaring in his ears. She fumbled with his belt as he, absurdly, worried about grass stains.
    When his hand touched the wet warmth between her thighs, the feeling was like an electric shock through his system. The next jolt came when he felt her hand wrap around his growing erection.
    A memory shot through him: Jonathan and Rachel and he had always lived in the same small wooden house. A little house with thin walls. The sounds of his parents making love had been a familiar and comfortable part of his childhood. When he was old enough to think about it seriously, he wondered why, at their age, they still bothered. But they did, and what was even more surprising to him, they still seemed to enjoy it.
    Even the night before they died, he recalled suddenly, they’d been at it.
    Beau tried to put together the sounds he recalled so clearly—the sighs and laughter and muffled cries—with what was happening here and now to him. Two figures, one sweaty and awkward, the other seemingly cool and only minimally involved, scooted around on the grass silently. The music from the party could be faintly heard, but otherwise they might have been all alone in the world.
    Wasn’t this supposed to be fun?
    He was inside of her for only a few seconds when it was all over; apparently hormones knew what to do even without much cooperation. As he rolled