Golden Boy (19 page)

‘Max, stop staring at your tits and chase down that ball!’ yells Mr Harvey.

Matt says nothing, squatting at the sideline. I look over at Matt and make a face when Mr Harvey isn’t looking. Matt nods.

Marc has the kick and taps the ball back to Jim, his best defender, who boots it up to Gary, who has raced ahead and is near the goal. Luckily, Carl is too and sends it back up our way.

I get it, pass it to Big Tom, who passes it straight back to me as Marc tears up to him. I pass back to Pete, who pops it up to Little Tom, who runs with it. Then Jim is all over him and the ball shoots back to Marc. I turn and run after him, then get in front and tackle him. The ball slips back to me, Marc tackles it out from under my feet, then turns, and tries to boot it down to their goal end. I dive in front of it and it hits me right in my chest.

‘OW!’

It rebounds and I see Marc’s feet whip away as I grab myself and bend over.

‘Get it together, Walker!’ Mr Harvey yells.

I try to stand up but my chest is sore. It feels bruised. I look over my shoulder. Marc pops the ball in the goal. We’re drawing.

I stand still, trying to catch my breath.

Matt jogs up. ‘You alright, Captain?’

I nod.

‘What was up with your chest before?’

‘Thought it was bruised,’ I gasp. ‘It wasn’t.’

Matt gestures with his fingers and I let him look down my top.

‘Has he hurt his tits?’ says Mr Harvey, appearing from behind Matt.

‘I’m fine,’ I murmur.

Matt presses on my chest.

‘Ow! Shit!’

‘You’re not fine,’ says Matt. ‘Substitute!’ he calls.

Mr Harvey grumbles and rolls his eyes and I look up at them both.

‘I’m fine, really.’

The school coach shakes his head. ‘It’s your bloody build, Max. I told you, you should bulk up or you won’t survive the try-outs for the under-eighteen squad,’ he says, trying to infuriate me. He turns and walks towards the sideline, getting ready to blow the whistle as Mike Dante comes on as my substitute. Mr Harvey calls to me over his shoulder, ‘Man up, Max.’

I scowl at him.

‘Don’t listen, just come off the pitch,’ murmurs Matt. ‘You don’t want to break your ribs just before Christmas.’

‘He’s a tosser.’

‘Yeah, well, he doesn’t decide who’s on the team or what happens in the game, mate. You do.’

‘Urgh,’ I groan, sitting down on the grass next to Matt as everyone else starts to play. ‘I can’t wait to be out of this school.’

‘How much longer have you got until study leave?’

‘Six months.’

‘Exciting,’ says Matt. ‘You going to St Catherine’s?’

‘Hopefully,’ I say, kind of glumly. I think about the day of the exam, Hunter’s hand touching my shoulder, like it’s his to touch.

Marc kicks the ball wide and I follow it with my head as it flies off the pitch. Across the field I see Sylvie standing over by the fence of the netball courts, apart from the other girls.

I would go over, but I have to watch the match. It’s not polite to walk away from it, especially with Matt here. But I lift my hand, and I wave at her.

‘
H
i, Sylvie!’

Max Walker seems to come out of nowhere as I’m walking out the school gates. It’s Friday, and school has just ended. He waved to me this afternoon, again, like a little kid. He seems in a better mood today. I wave back, smiling.

‘Hi Max, how are you?’ I say casually.

‘Ooo,’ Emma calls out as she walks past. ‘Max Walker rejected but tries it on again with Sylvie Clark! Way to go, Maxwell!’

I turn to Max and roll my eyes. ‘She’s an idiot,’ I murmur.

He grins. ‘My name’s not Maxwell, by the way.’

‘I didn’t think so.’

‘So . . .’ He shrugs, as if building up to something big.

‘Are you going to ask me to hang out again?’

He lets out a breath and looks off into the distance, smiling. ‘Oh my god, how did you know? Am I that transparent?’

‘Like glass.’ I give him a playful push and he gasps. ‘Shit, did I hurt you?’

‘No, sorry. Football injury.’

‘You hurt your tits?’

‘They like to play dirty.’

‘I’ll bet.’ I shoot back a grin and we are caught for a moment in a bubble that is completely unfamiliar to me.
So this is it
, I think.
The golden boy bubble
. We smile at each other like we know what’s going to happen.

Shit. Shit.

I watch his lips. His pretty hair flutters in the wind in front of one green eye.

Shit.

I like Max Walker.

Before I know it’s coming out of my mouth, I say, ‘We could go back to mine.’

Max hesitates, his eyes glancing to the side for a moment, and I guess I must look offended, because he seems to panic, smiles and then says, ‘Um, OK.’

‘Yeah?’ I ask, unsure of what I want, of what I expect to happen, a bit worried about him looking panicked.

‘Yeah, sounds good!’ says Max. He beams at me kind of blankly and heads off in front of me down the path to town.

‘You know where I live?’ I ask, confused.

‘Yeah, you told me.’

‘When?’

‘Like three years ago in swimming class.’

‘What the eff, how do you remember this stuff?’ I say incredulously, and Max giggles at me, and takes the lead, and I follow him, like a freaking lamb to the slaughter, like a horny teenage boy after any breathing girl, like a giggling Emma or Laura or Maria after a golden boy.

Shit.

S
ylvie’s house is a beautiful semi-detached Victorian house that I know my dad would love. Like our house, they have a front door they don’t really use, with a pretty grand stone surround. Around the back of the house, a door opens into the kitchen, again like ours. When we walk in, instead of kicking her boots off like we do the moment we step in the house, she heads through the kitchen, past a massive range cooker and a huge, bare oak dining table, and through to a small set of stairs that serve the back of the house. I later discover a much larger staircase in the front hall, and understand we are walking up what would have been the servants’ stairs in Victorian times.

‘Are your parents home?’ I ask.

‘Nah,’ she says. ‘But in case they come in, his name is David and her name is Bennu. They’ll probably both be at the uni until late, though. Dad’s doing a post-grad in Egyptology and Mum’s an Archaeology professor.’

‘Are your family Egyptian?’

‘Um, yeah, my mum’s family. But my dad’s doing this super big research project on Ancient Egypt. He’s obsessed with it.’

‘Cool, what is it about?’

‘The, um, role of Ma’at in Ancient Egypt applied to modern-day philosophy about democratic society.’

‘Wow.’

‘Ma’at is the concept of fate and universal balance. It’s not an actual mat.’

‘OK.’ I grin.

She grins back, then frowns. ‘Well, I
think
.’

We go into her room and I look around, before remembering not to be nosy. I take off my shoes and coat, then sit on her desk chair.

‘You can sit on the bed,’ she says.

‘Oh, thanks.’

‘You’re just a nice, simple boy, aren’t you, Max?’ Sylvie says, smirking weirdly.

I smile, although I’m not sure what she means. ‘You think I’m simple?’ I say, and laugh.

‘I didn’t mean stupid,’ she replies.

Then her eyes go misty and she leans towards me like she’s about to kiss me and I say, ‘Have you got any alcohol?’

‘Huh?’

‘We could play a game,’ I say, looking around the room for a bottle of something. ‘Like we have to drink every time Meg speaks in
Family Guy
. Do you have cable?’

‘That could be a long game. I’ve seen you really wasted at parties. Do you drink a lot?

‘Not really. Just I . . . can’t drink much.’ I shrug, grinning. ‘I’m a lightweight.’

She raises her eyebrows. ‘I’m trying to cut back. But I love dark rum. I’ll go get some.’

‘OK,’ I say, in an overly-cheery way, and she says,

‘Wait there,’ and leaves the room.

I put my arms around my knees and sit patiently, obediently on her bed.

It’s a really nice room. The walls are the dark red of a cherry, with wood almost the same colour. It’s not big but it’s not small either – it’s a good size. She has a double bed, which makes me slightly worried, and two windows: one over her desk and one the other side of the bed. That one has a window seat. She’s got loads of poetry books and tons of clothes, all hanging on a rail. A black sphinx sits in the window, watching me.

I’m kind of anxious. I’m all healed up down there, that’s not the problem. It’s . . . obviously it’s still weird. There’s no way I would do anything, so that’s OK, but it’s just that girls always look so disappointed when we get into a situation where we should maybe be going for it, and then I pull away, or move their hand or don’t let them kneel down, or whatever. That’s happened a few times.

When I first started to get off with girls, sex and oral sex weren’t a problem, because we were fourteen and no one was doing it. We would just kiss. I had a nice girlfriend called Anna for a whole year, and then she moved away and I went out with another girl called Lee for a couple of months. Then, about six months ago, everybody started to expect more.

Lee was so nice and funny and really quirky. She liked surfing and had long, hippy-like brown hair with natural light blonde streaks at the front. We used to go hang out a lot at the park, or the doughnut place in town, or at the Kinema, Hemingway’s independent cinema. She also liked to play computer games. She swore all the time, and we weren’t allowed to at home, so of course I loved that about her. She was great with Daniel too.

I was in the park with Lee on a February night. It would have been pitch black if it weren’t for the light from the houses nearby. We were kissing as usual, and as usual, it was great, when suddenly she grabbed my hand off her breast and put it up her skirt. Naturally, I thought this was brilliant. We’d been going out for a while and I was ready. I tried to be really gentle. I’d never touched myself like I was doing to her at that point, so it was a surprise and so sexy. I got hard. Before I knew it, she had unzipped my pants and was pulling down my underwear. As her hand reached around my penis, I yelped and leapt away from her.

‘What the fuck?’ Lee said, her hair floating in the breeze, her breath visible.

I couldn’t say anything. I wouldn’t let her touch me, find out what was down there, find out what was missing. I had no way to explain it really, no terminology. At that point I had never even thought about how it would affect life with girls. All I knew was that I was intersex, but I didn’t know what that meant.
I still don’t, really
, I think, with a frown.

So Lee asked me again.

‘What the fuck, Max? Did I hurt you?’

I shook my head.

‘You don’t want me to touch you? Say something.’

I couldn’t meet her eye. I was so embarrassed. I was thinking,
Lee, if you knew what was down there, you would never have gone for it. It would gross you out
.

Gay people get ridiculed in school, transvestites get ridiculed, boys who wear tight tops and girls that do sports are ridiculed. What would they do to me? I trusted Lee, but if I told her and somehow word got out, I’d have been dead. My life would have been over. No one would look at me the same way. Lee wouldn’t. Her parents wouldn’t. They’d hate me.

Lee was so angry.

‘You know, this makes me feel really shitty,’ she hissed at me. ‘That was a pretty fuckin’ intimate thing I was gonna do for you and you’ve just had your fingers up me, and now you don’t want to fuckin’ talk at all?’

I put my hand to my forehead to shield my eyes. I shook my head again, in a silent apology, and turned around and zipped up.

When I turned back, she was at the locked gate to the park, climbing over it, and landing outside.

After Lee, I decided to just fool around with people. I didn’t want to break anyone’s heart again, so I’d act friendly and then kiss the people I absolutely fancied so bad I HAD to kiss them at the end of the night. When I started to do this, I’d tell them, ‘let’s take it slow’, but what I didn’t realise was that that implied that I was a stud who’d been there, done that, and it was no big deal so I could wait. Everyone knew I’d been with Lee, so this made me look experienced. This was problematic on two counts: