Xylophone by K.Z. Snow Page B

shivering
    weakness that would suddenly sweep through me?
    I figured it was some sign of grace, of infusion by
    the Holy Spirit. That’s what it felt like.”
    Dare’s lips twitched, but he couldn’t muster a
    smile. “For sure.” He couldn’t remember his first
    orgasm—that kind of thing could happen awfully
    early in a kid’s life; it was just a physiological
    response to a stimulus, after all—but, hell yeah, it
    had been incredible. It had seemed like a gift from
    God. Dare remembered that much.
    How savvy the monsters were, to use that as
    yet another snare. Damn, they had so many.
    “I’d never even heard the word for it,” Jonah
    went on. “Nobody’d ever explained that sensation
    to me. All I had to go on was what Reverend Clay
    said, and how my own childish mind interpreted
    how the Holy Spirit moved in people. I figured
    everyone who crumpled to the floor during
    worship was feeling the same thing. Belief was a
    hands-on
    experience
    in
    Reverend
    Clayton
    Wallace’s church. I’d seen that demonstrated week
    after week.”
    “So that was how he reeled you in, huh? With
    a Bible and a bathtub.” Dare hadn’t meant to sound
    flip, but those were the material emblems.
    “Pretty much. Of course the real lure was
    making me feel like a Chosen One.”
    “And then he relied on pleasure—”
    Jonah’s head jerked up. His face had
    tightened. “I wouldn’t call it ‘pleasure’. I was too
    confused and embarrassed to feel genuine
    pleasure. And later, as I got older”—almost
    imperceptibly, his chin quivered—“Clay took
    things further. There was pain. But mostly… there
    were feelings that were worse than physical pain.”
    Dare was thunderstruck. “Oh Jesus. He raped
    you?” Just voicing the word made his insides
    twist. Realizing it had happened repeatedly almost
    made him double over.
    Pankin had never gone that far. Maybe he’d
    sensed a streak of feistiness in Dare. But Jonah, it
    seemed, had been more timid and naïve than he,
    more compliant. He’d been a true innocent.
    Without any forethought, Dare covered
    Jonah’s left hand, lying motionless on his thigh,
    with his left hand, and Jonah absently turned his
    hand over. Their fingers loosely interlinked.
    “Come here,” Dare whispered, dropping his
    right hand to Jonah’s shoulder, sliding it behind his
    back as Jonah rolled toward him.
    They held each other. Dare brought up his
    legs to lean in closer as Jonah nestled his head
    beneath Dare’s jaw. Jonah was shaking—minute
    spasms trembled through his body—but he made
    no sound save for muted intakes of breath, abrupt
    quiet gasps as he tried to maintain control.
    “Please forgive me,” Dare said into Jonah’s
    fragrant hair. He’d rested his face in it without
    thinking. “I didn’t mean to imply you enjoyed it.
    God, no, never.”
    After a brief hesitation, Jonah nodded. “I
    know that’s not what you meant.” The fingers of
    his right hand curled and uncurled against Dare’s
    chest until the soft friction made a patch of warmth.
    “He hurt you?” Dare didn’t ask because he
    doubted Jonah but because he couldn’t fathom it.
    And because he cared. To the core of his soul, he
    cared. He loathed the thought of physical injury
    being added to the scorching of a boy’s spirit.
    “Sometimes,” Jonah said, “but not badly.” He
    sounded more composed. Maybe too composed.
    Wooden. Slowly, he pulled back and sat up. “I
    was older when he did it, was about to turn or had
    just turned fourteen, I think. And he was…
    careful.”
    Dare gaped at him. “That doesn’t excuse it!”
    Don’t get angry with him, you jackass. Don’t
    give him even more reason to be ashamed.
    Goddamn, this was a complex dance. Not
    stumbling over that fine line between empathy and
    outrage was the hardest part. Dare tried to distance
    himself from the outrage, soften the edges of his
    voice. “How often did it happen?”
    “I-I’m not sure. I always tried to put myself in
    a