Free Cut To The Bone by Sally Spedding Page A

snapped back.
    "'Cos I don't. I fibbed."
    "Right."
    "Best hide that fuckin' box and knife over there." Louis pointed to a clump of nettles by an alder tree. "Yer Mum mustn’t see our special gear, must she?"
    The ginger let out a yell as the nettles burned his skin.
    "Shurrup, ye twat!" Louis barked. "Someone could 'ear. C'm on. Let’s shift."
    So they parted. Jez up Wort Passage then turning left towards the underpass, still sucking his fingers. Louis to the right, back to his green shirt and blazer then the footbridge with the bus blundering its way up the hill.

12
     
    "Why
did
you get my dick cut?" Louis demanded during supper that evening. The Fawn had placed a slice of chicken pie and carrot salad on his plate. They lay untouched.
    “You mean,
penis
?” his not-real Dad then loaded his mouth with pastry crust.
    "Yeah. Was it because you’re a Yid?" 
    The Maggot stopped chewing, while she picked up the peppermill and rained black dust over her meal. "Yid's such a horrible word. We don’t want to hear it again in this house. Dave is Jewish by birth, but not by religion. OK?  And it’s for hygiene reasons.” Now, eat up and stop worrying."
    "How can I? Louis addressed The Maggot. "I'm the only one in my class with no foreskin..."
    Both adults downed their knives and forks. The Maggot finally swallowed.
    "Well that means a lot of kids must have trouble keeping clean down there. Think about it."
    But it was Jez's dick which came to mind.
    "Let's see yours then." He said instead. "Did your folks do it to you?"
    The Maggot pushed back his chair. "I think, Jacquie, this is going beyond." He leant over the boy whom he'd impulsively taken on over thirteen years ago. "And
you
are off to your room.
Schnell
!"
    Instead, Louis began dismembering his pie, separating the pale chicken cubes sealed in a sauce that looked like cum.
    "
Jetzt
!"
    A slap stung his ear.
    "You shouldn't do that," Louis retorted. "It’s unlawful."
    The Fawn held her head in her hands while Louis eyed The Maggot for the next hit.
    "And you wonder why I’ve stopped doing Games. I had my pants pulled off in the showers so everyone could stare.” he pointed to his groin. “How would
you
have felt?"
    He'd actually given up on pants. He liked touching
It
too much through his pockets... But they believed his story and that was all that mattered.
    "I'll write a note this minute." The Fawn got up and made for the study.  "We don't pay fifteen hundred pounds a term to have our child tortured."
    "
We
?" The Maggot shot her a look.
    "I mean
you
, of course." Her neck reddening.
    "So what’s replaced Games?"
    Louis was ready. "Library studies.
And
I learnt a new word on Friday."
    "Which was?" 
    "Runt."
    The Maggot watched a wasp settle on Louis' pie crust. "Off you go. We'll chat later."
    I’d rather you just died…
    *
    When he’d gone, neither spoke. Sounds of the Zellers mowing came through the back door. Then another delivery van scorching through the development.  Probably Ocado, thought Jacquie, sealing the envelope on her letter, or maybe Speedi-Press ironing for the Linbergs in number 9. He was a pilot with Virgin, she a solicitor commuting to Birmingham every day. Super smart. Super rich. She felt sick. Not because of them, Mr and Mrs Bloody Perfect, but because Louis seemed to be drifting further and further away.
    His violin case lay in the hall exactly where he'd dropped it on Saturday evening. Normally he'd have practised at least four hours of scales by now, with or without Dave tinkering alongside. Normally he'd have helped empty the dishwasher. Normally...
    As for that odour which had hung around him and the clothes he'd strewn on the washing machine, it was semen and something else... Just like in his bedroom.
    "I think you should have a man-to-man chat with him." Jacquie re-corked the Paul Masson and took her empty glass to the dish-washer. "I think he's fiddling with himself a lot. I can smell it."
    "For God’s sake, woman,