Page 10 of Warrior

My parents told me, the first time we arrived in Sterling Falls, that it was a rite of passage.

It took longer for me to discover that this was something the men in my family had been doing for generations. A way to be wild, yes, but also safe from judgment.

Better to know yourself than figure it out with a girl who could sue. Or worse: end up dead.

Certain proclivities run in the family. Dangerous kinks, one might call them, and without a proper outlet, scandal could fall on the Avery name.

Properdoes not mean legal.

They wanted me to learn myself through Artemis. She, at the time, was just the golden girl my parents bid on for me.

The first time I saw her, I didn’t mean to show such interest. Better than the tall blonde, or the petite redhead, she burst onto that stage without fear. Her gaze didn’t move across the people—she was too smart for that—but she still stood firm.

Her expression said she would be unrelenting.

I didn’t know myself then. I didn’t know that learning her body and her mind was a challenge I’d start to crave. Her name, even. She was a mystery I dug into without regard.

After the first time, I sat in a chair in our family theater and watched my interaction with her. My nose still ached from her punch, but it made me smile, too. Watching it back. My father frowned at the screen. He was there, he saw it happen. They left the room to watch what came next from afar.

I didn’t take her virginity, but she took mine.

Those months were strange, to say the least.

I went to a boarding school on the other side of town, but my parents came to sign me out every Friday. We took the ferry to Sterling Falls, they would bid on the golden girl, and an hour later I would be inside her in some form or another.

And then I’d return to school. I’d flirt with girls, but I wasn’t allowed to touch.

Not until I passed my parents’ test.

I learned that the hard way, bringing a girl back to my room after a movie date. My father burst into the room and dragged me out by my ear, and he beat me black and blue in a vacant room down the hall.

No one stopped him.

The girl never spoke to me again, and I…

I focused on the golden girl. I focused on my guilt at having to do such things to her. The weight of expectation threatened to crush me, because I was at odds with everything I knew.

Consent, for one. Parental approval, another. Societal expectation.

I didn’t have a girlfriend. As far as anyone knew, I didn’t have sex either. There were bands tightening around my chest, the pressure cranked up by the adults in my life.

Do this, don’t do that.

The third visit with the golden girl, three weeks in, was supposed to be about foreplay.

That week was my movie date that ended terribly.

On the fourth meeting, I snapped.

Ten years ago

“What do they inject her with?” I ask my father.

While my mother was more supportive in the beginning, she has since stopped traveling with us. She declined at the last visit, wrinkling her nose at the idea of watching me fumble my way around a girl’s body.

We sit on the upper deck of the ferry, and cold wind buffs at our faces. My nose is colder than the rest of me, but I keep my hands in my pockets. I still ache from his beating, but I am the proper son. Chastised, I have learned my lesson.

They rule my life, even from afar. I know exactly who is in charge—it’s why, when my golden girl’s eyes flashed and she asked who had given me permission to touch her, my gaze automatically went to my parents.

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