Uses for Boys Read Online Free

stepdad punches me on the arm and says, “Better luck
     next time,” after my mom learns new ways to leave me alone, Desmond Dreyfus stops
     sitting next to me on the bus. It’s so sudden I think maybe I imagined the whole thing.
    When Desmond stops talking to me so does Nancy Baxter, and in the mornings before
     school, before the light is anything but a faint smudge outside my window, I put my
     hands under my pajama top and try to get the feeling back.
    Waiting for the bus, I have long conversations in my head. I talk to Nancy. I tell
     her everything. I talk to Desmond. I tell him how it felt, his hand under my shirt.
     The exploding warmth. I tell Nancy how I feel, like something’s been taken away. Stuff
     I know she’d never really understand anyway.
    I ride the bus every day now. I wait in front of the school with my backpack at my
     feet and this new boy, Joey Sugimoto, stands next to me. He’s from Seattle and wears
     jeans that hang on his hips. His arms are long and thin and he doesn’t talk to anyone.
     He doesn’t know anyone yet, I think, and I like the way he looks. But more than that,
     I like the way he looks at me.
    And since Nancy Baxter won’t speak to me anymore, since she won’t look at me in the
     hall or sit next to me in class and since she whispers to the other girls about me,
     I take Joey home. He can’t believe how big and empty my house is.
    “Where’s your mom?” he says.
    I show him her bedroom with its matching bedspread and drapes. I show him the neat
     rows of her shoes.
    “Where’s your stepdad?”
    I show him where the stepbrothers slept and the balcony where the older one smoked
     pot.
    “Where are they now?”
    I show him the room that used to be the family room.
    “Where’s your real dad?”
    I show him what I look like without my shirt and how my bra attaches in the front.
     He spends a long time just holding and kissing my breasts, one by one, and saying,
     “Oh, oh, oh.”

 
    joey’s my family now
    Nobody’s ever home at my house. That’s what Joey says. He comes over every day after
     school. He’s better than TV. He’s interested in everything. I show him my mom’s jewelry.
     I show him the contents of our refrigerator, our cupboards, the vibrator in her bedside
     drawer.
    We have a bowl of cereal and then I show him the magazines under my mom’s bed. We
     sit together on the floor and pull out the heavy box the stepfather left behind: Penthouse, Playboy, Hustler. We’re shoulder to shoulder against the wall. Joey’s jeans have a wide hole in the
     knee and his brown, bony kneecap juts out. I put my hand in the hole, exploring the
     scarred surface of his kneecap with the lightest tips of my fingers. He lets me. I
     can reach down his baggy jeans and trace the barely haired calf all the way to his
     ankle, or go in the other direction to his thigh, down to his warm cotton underwear.
    Joey chooses a magazine and opens it directly to the center. We unfold the picture.
     The centerfold’s skin is a peachy golden-yellow and watching Joey I can see a tiny
     reflection of her in his eyes. She has one arm over her head and the knuckles of her
     hand just graze the bright blue water of a tropical pool. All of this I see in an
     instant: perfectly round breasts pointing out of the picture at Joey’s bent face,
     shiny blue water, thick brown curls that cover her shoulders and peek out from behind
     her waist. She lies on the thin red sheet, eyes almost closed. Between long, curled
     eyelashes are slits of unnaturally green eyes. She has a small smile. Centerfold girl
     is happy to have us look at her.
    We turn the page. Still on the red sheet, centerfold girl spreads her legs so that
     we can see the naked folds. She has only the tiniest mustache of hair, like a thin
     indicator, and with one pointy, painted fingernail she pulls at her skin so we can
     see the darker parts, like bruises. In another picture, Joey’s finger traces the crack
     between two