APT Pupil - By Stephen King Page 0,75
a car for the summer (neither was), but his father was working on-site not far from there, and he was able to drop Todd off at a bus stop on his way and pick him up at the same place on his way back. Todd was less than wild about the arrangement; he didn't like riding home from work with his father and absolutely detested riding to work with him in the morning. It was in the mornings that he felt the most naked, when the wall between what he was and what he might be seemed the thinnest. It was worse after a night of bad dreams, but even if no dreams had come in the night, it was bad. One morning he realized with a fright so sudden it was almost terror that he had been seriously considering reaching across his father's briefcase, grabbing the wheel of the Porsche, and sending them corkscrewing into the two express lanes, cutting a swath of destruction through the morning commuters.
"You want another egg, Todd-O?"
"No thanks, dad." Dick Bowden ate them fried. How could anyone stand to eat a fried egg? On the grill of the Jenn-Aire for two minutes, then over easy. What you got on your plate at the end looked like a giant dead eye with a cataract over it, an eye that would bleed orange when you poked it with your fork.
He pushed his scrambled egg away. He had barely touched it
Outside, the morning paper slapped the step.
His father finished cooking, turned off the grill, and came to the table. "Not hungry this morning, Todd-O?"
You call me that one more time and I'm going to stick my knife right up your fucking nose . . . dad-O.
"Not much appetite, I guess."
Dick grinned affectionately at his son; there was still a tiny dab of shaving cream on the boy's right ear. "Betty Trask stole your appetite. That's my guess."
"Yeah, maybe that's it." He offered a wan smile that vanished as soon as his father went down the stairs from the breakfast nook to get the paper. Would it wake you up if I told you what a cunt she is, dad-O? How about if I mid, "Oh, by the way, did you know your good friend Ray Trask's daughter is one of the biggest sluts in Santa Donate? She'd kiss her own twat If she was double-jointed, dad-O. That's how much she thinks of it. Just a stinking little slut. Two lines of coke and she's yours for the night. And If you don't happen to have any coke, she's still yours for the night. She'd fuck a dog If she couldn't get a man." Think that'd wake you up, dad-O? Get you a flying start on the day?
He pushed the thoughts away viciously, knowing they wouldn't stay gone.
His father came back with the paper. Todd glimpsed the headline: SPY TRIALS CLOSER, STATE DEPARTMENT SOURCE SAYS.
Dick sat down. "Betty's a fine-looking girl," he said. "she reminds me of your mother when I first met her."
"Is that so?"
"Pretty . . . young . . . fresh." Dick Bowden's eyes had gone vague. Now they came back, focusing almost anxiously on his son. "Not that your mother isn't still a fine-looking woman. But at that age a girl has a certain . . . glow, I guess you'd say. It's there for a while, and then it's gone." He shrugged and opened the paper. "C'est la vie, I guess."
She's a bitch in heat. Maybe that's what makes her glow.
"You're treating her right, aren't you, Todd-O?" His father was making his usual rapid trip through the paper towards the sports pages. "Not getting too fresh?"
"Everything's cool, dad."
(if he doesn't stop pretty soon I'll . . . I'll . . . do . . . something. Scream. Throw his coffee in his face. Something.)
"Ray thinks you're a fine boy," Dick said absently. He had at last reached the sports. He became absorbed. There was blessed silence at the breakfast table.
Betty Trask had been all over him the very first time they went out. He had taken her to the local lover's lane after the movie because he knew it would be expected of him; they could swap spits for half an hour or so and have all the right things to tell their respective friends the next day. She could roll her eyes and tell how she had fought off his advances - boys were so tiresome, really, and she never fucked on