The Boy I Am

by K. L. Kettle

  For Maud - K. L.

  The Boy I Am contains content some readers may find triggering, including sexual aggression, trafficking, murder and surgical procedures.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  The House of Boys

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  The House of Wards

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  The House of Beauty

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  The House of Sacrifice

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  The House of Peace

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Reading list

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  My name is Jude Grant and I am alive.

  Centre stage, I face the deafening crowd.

  And I smile.

  “Tonight’s final lot!” Mr Walker, Head of the House of Boys, introduces me over the theatre’s loudspeakers. “Number one hundred and fifty.”

  Pinned in the spotlight, I squint. I shade my eyes with one hand and wave with the other. Cheers from the audience smack into my chest hard, skewering skin through to stomach, stomach through to spine, spine through to sparkling scenery behind me. Can’t tell if it’s the floor or my knees that are shaking more.

  Smile number one we call gracious-without-being-smarmy. That’s what I’m aiming for, to hide my locked jaw. Sweat crawls from my hairline. As I adjust my collar, cold dread snakes down my neck.

  Pose. Wave.

  Offstage, Walker reads out my stats. “Age sixteen,” his disembodied voice hums.

  Too old, drones the voice in my head. These days it always sounds like your voice, Vik. Are you trying to make me laugh?

  You’ve lasted longer than I did.

  “Five foot nine,” Walker says.

  Too short. Your voice. I was taller.

  “One hundred and forty pounds.”

  Too fat.

  Shut up, I want to say and I laugh like the ghost of you is right there, thinking you’re so funny, and proud you got me to react even if it was in my head. My performance slips; for a second, I’m not in the mouth of the Great Theatre, being sold for the dark-hours to the highest bidder, reserved for purchase at the auction. For a second, it was the two of us, back in the kitchens below ground, laughing. For a second, you were alive.

  Smile one makes my face hurt but it’s easy to hide behind.

  Squinting into the darkness, I look for her – the Chancellor. Remembering the vast layout of the underground theatre, how it’s not so scary with the house lights up. The endless rows of frayed red chairs, ancient, worn carpet, dusty chandeliers and her balcony, now in the dark, in the centre of the dress circle. Dead ahead. Above it all. Is she there yet?

  A woman in the audience drops a glass and the theatre goes awkwardly quiet. My silk-slippered toes curl, squeaking against the rubbery stage floor.

  Walker coughs. “Yes, so, lot one fifty is a fourth year at the House of Boys. Last year available for auction.”

  After I turn seventeen, they’ll pack me off to the mines. There aren’t many boys who survive even a year working down there – the heat, the hate, gangs scraping for minerals, fighting over food, water. That’s a few weeks from now.

  Walker keeps going. “No previous reserves on the books so I’m pleased to announce the House of Merit can offer a discount on request.”

  “Oooooooooooooo,” goes the audience.

  “A much-improved lot on his previous years, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  The audience laughs and the spotlight moves forwards, a cue for me to follow. There are bugs that thrive in the dorms below. They fizz and pop in the blue lights they chase.

  In the glow of the limelight, low-lit tables in front of the stage swim into focus as I step forwards and bow. The women lean closer. Hungry shadows. Their faces completely hidden behind blank white masks. There must be hundreds of them in the stalls, thousands in the surrounding seats. Rumours are that the richest of them, the ones that live on the top floors of the Tower, get the front tables. They pay the most merits for a spot to judge us best.

  Time to deploy smile two. A-little-bit-defiant.

  Bad choice. The masks retreat, disappointed, into the darkness.

  Another drop of sweat slides between my eyebrows, along the inside of my eye socket. It’s salty. Stings like needles.

  Pull it together, says the part of me that sounds like you, Vik. And it’s strong like you were, brave like you were. It’s the voice of the boy I want to be. You owe me, it says. You’re still alive.

  Wiping my eye, before I turn to find my place among my brothers upstage, I make sure the women see the kind of smile you said would make them all reach for their merit books. Number twenty-nine. You called it the I-just-need-you-to-fix-me smile.

  “Awwwwwwwwwwww,” goes the audience.

  See, you can do this.

  I know.

  All I have to do is kill the Chancellor.

  Upstage is stacked high with glittering platforms. The band plays me to my mark: the furthest platform, back row. There’s that familiar push and pressure behind my head. I’m holding my breath, my teeth locked. I’m doing this for you, Vik, for freedom I remind myself. If I count the beats in the music, focus on that, there’s some relief. Tapping my thumb against my index finger, hoping they don’t see.

  My place is last in the line-up behind 149 other boys displayed, choir-like, on sparkling stage terraces, in matching grey suits. Our outfits were designed by students at the House of Expression again and I swear this year the theme must be discomfort. Whoever made them has never worn a suit. With high-necked collars, jackets with boning in the back, every one of my brothers seems taller they’re standing so straight. It makes for a strong jawline, the House Fathers said, complementing the look.

  It’s hard to be graceful while weaving between my brothers. But that’s the second I get to turn my back, to slip a finger between my neck and the stiff collar, stretch my jaw and try to loosen the knots in my stomach. That second is everything.

  Walker’s deep voice continues. “Ladies, when Chancellor Hyde asked me to host this year’s auction, I did what any sane gentleman would do…”

  Walker is normally onstage but usually one of the madams actually hosts the auction events – choosing the theme, the showcas
e event, stuff like that. It was meant to be the Gardener – Madam Dunn – hosting again this year. Did that change last minute?

  A man, even Walker, hosting alone – it’s not normal. Something’s wrong.

  Clunk! Up go the stage lights, full beam, swinging, sweeping over the boys surrounding me, all grinning, waving and cheering like their lives depended on it.

  “I said to myself: one hundred and fifty handsome young men?”

  Slicing my own smile into place, I wave too. I should come up with my own numbers and names for the smiles now you’ve gone.

  “I picked out my outfit and I said yes please!”

  All you have to do is…

  Swoosh! Spotlights move from us and into the crowd.

  You ran, they said. You attacked the Chancellor and then you ran. You gave in to your urges, your base animal instincts. More likely you were scared. There’s no air in my lungs. I wonder if they’ll say the same about me?

  There, ahead, the distant silver fabric drapes of the Chancellor’s balcony gleam. All I have to do…

  Walker was the Chancellor’s only ward last year, when she reserved you. No one ever believed she’d take another ward but she took pity on you they say.

  Who says?

  Everyone. But you were a bad one, corrupt. You must’ve just broken, the ladies say. They hear that can happen and it’s been happening too much, they say. It’s our hormones; we just can’t help ourselves.

  Bitter bile jumps in my throat. Before I can even try to swallow, snap, the view is gone. Spotlights creak, flooding the stage as the silhouette of Walker sashays between us and the audience. They all coo at the sight of him. That’s Walker: perfect smile. Perfect poise. Perfect man. In the light, his sleek silver pinstripe gleams. The Chancellor’s man.

  Next to me, lot 149 leans close. “Is it true you know him?”

  “No,” I lie.

  Walker leads the applause. “Let’s give a big hand for this year’s boys.” His painted nails shine black but his hands are starting to look old. If I’ve noticed, so have the women. Two in the front row whisper to each other, giggle. The Chancellor bought him to be her ward when they were both my age. Reserving another ward may have surprised the ladies last year, but not the House Fathers who care for us. Perfect as he may be, they say she’s been looking for a younger model to replace Walker for years. She’s never settled on one, though.

  Until now, you say.

  I can’t do anything stuck onstage. I have to get the Chancellor on her own. She has to bid on me. I lose my grip on smile three: patient-not-too-bored. It’s not going to work. I’m the final lot, like you were. But there are cuter, hotter, taller, thinner, more muscled boys with better skin, squarer jaws.

  I’ve a powerful need to scratch my neck but I’m meant to stay still so I clench my fists. She’s never going to bid, not after last year. This is a stupid idea. Could I run?

  I ran.

  Walker’s still going, of course. “So, ladies, you know the drill: tonight you get one evening with your personal favourite.” The women whoop and whistle at his classic this-one’s-for-the-girl-at-the-back wink. “Generous bids, please. Your merits tonight set our gentlemen’s opening dowries at auction.”

  Walker jokes. “I have to say, the rumours are true: the Gardener and the House of Life keep breeding our boys cuter. Where is she?” He looks into the audience as the light searches the seats for the head of the scientists who made us all.

  “Oh well, I’m sure she’s busy planting up a new batch. Let’s hear it for the House of Life, our ladies of floor one ten.” He stops. The audience cheers and whoops as the spotlights catch something else in the dark aisles.

  They’re the shadows that the shadows hide.

  “Why…” Walker pauses. Is he trying to be dramatic? “They’ll be giving yours truly … a run for his … merits soon enough.” He has a habit of odd pauses but he never, ever fluffs his lines.

  There are Lice in the dark. That’s what you called the police. You said they made you itch.

  The audience laughs, but not as much as before, as Walker draws the light round the stage, tidying the corners of his slender moustache as he goes. He does that when he’s thinking.

  “A show of hands – how many debutantes do we have here tonight?” he asks.

  The house lights go up. Hands lift above a sea of bright dresses, smart suits, identical masked faces, but I don’t count. Surrounding the hundreds of women in the stalls, the circle, the gods, there are swarms of Lice. They’re at every exit. Wrapped in black fabric and strapped into scales of armour. The fog mask air filters they never take off hang like stretched snouts.

  Walker coughs. “Well, aren’t you just gorgeous?” he says as the house lights go down. Clank.

  “So what are we waiting for?” Walker coughs again, stalling because of the Lice. My fingers pick and scratch at my nails. There’s a metallic ache in my throat. If I run, they’ll catch me, like they caught you.

  No way out, you say.

  There are Lice in the wings too, watching, their filtered air sucking in, pushing out.

  The women aren’t cheering. They know. They see. They’re expecting something.

  “Oh yes!” Walker clicks his fingers, full of confidence, as if he’s just remembered the most important thing. The masked faces of the women snap back to his razzle-dazzle as he cups his hand to his ear. “You want me to announce this year’s programme?” He side-smiles, pretending one of our potential guardians has asked him personally. A wink. “Well, after tonight’s Reserves, there’s your favourite talent show…”

  Pause for effect. Drum roll.

  “Swimwear!”

  No one cheers, someone coughs, but Walker doesn’t blink. He continues full tilt.

  The stage screens light up with pictures of past events and words I’ve never been taught to read. Images of a thousand boys of the past fly by, yours too. Your scarred face. The pucker in your cheek below your right eye, through your top lip, that you wore because of me.

  I want to crunch my eyes closed, imagine myself fighting the Lice dead, standing on top of piles of them, triumphant. I’d bow, then run. Into the desert like we’d always planned. “Ha ha!” we’d cry and fight monsters, survive on our wits. And the Chancellor would find us in the desert and apologize and offer us anything we wanted. And we’d take all the other boys into the desert and start a new world.

  But the light’s on me now and I have to smile, an it’s-OK-this-is-OK-I’m-OK smile. Call it number thirty-one.

  “Next week we’ve the Unmasked Ball for those gentlemen lucky enough to get reserved tonight!” Walker lays it on thick as if any of this is a surprise, as if it’s not the same schedule every single fogging year.

  Reserves, talent show, ball, auction.

  Thanks to last year’s disaster, when Madam Bocharov cancelled my reserve, I’ve never made it to the talent show, let alone the rest of the events. Now I never will. Neither will you.

  Truth is I do know Walker. Today’s the only day for months I’ve not had his company, preparing for tonight. I wanted freedom, I said. Not fake freedom being warded off to one of these faceless women. Real freedom, like you and I dreamed of, Vik, remember? Outside in the desert. Walker said he can’t give me that. No one can. But when I kill the Chancellor it’ll make that ache in my head better, that urge to kick and hit the world until the pressure behind my skull goes away. Revenge, Walker called it. It’s the only freedom on offer.

  It’s still there, pounding, as the audience applauds and Walker turns towards us, tidies his suit, his silver-sided dark hair – Saints preserve him from having anything out of place. Now he catches my eye, checking I can do this.

  He nods, slight and deft, cranking up his speciality smile. Number ten, his this-is-the-best-thing-ever-and-it’s-even-better-because-I’m-pure-charm-doesn’t-it-make-you-squirm? smile, before he spins back towards his audience.

  If you were still here, I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt anyone, let a
lone the Chancellor. But she had you killed. That’s what I’ve got to hold on to. She’s a murderer.

  There’s a flicker of light in the silver-swagged balcony dominating the dress circle above. Movement, I think.

  She’s here.

  The Chancellor. ‘Top Floor’, the Single Most Important, Most Merited, Most-Most at Everything EVER. But why should that matter? We all live; we all die. Sure, she didn’t grow up in the tunnels. Sure, she’s seen the sky. Sure, she’s a woman, in charge, and I’m just a boy, but … I bet she bleeds the same as us.

  Despite the heat, the bones in my spine shiver.

  Not knives, Walker and I decided. A fall. It’s the cleanest way. She has to fall, which means I have to push.

  There’s a sign above the stage we can’t read but we know when it flashes there’s applause. The women clap as lot one twenty is led from the stage, some kid from B-dorm. We all shuffle forwards.

  Despite the ache prickling behind my eyes, I maintain smile eleven, my best. Walker calls it my butter-wouldn’t-melt smile. He gives them names, like you did. Did he pick that up from you, or maybe it was the other way round? The reserve bidding’s almost done: boys led one by one from the stage for their ‘interviews’. We all know what that really means.

  With each bid, my guts tighten. What if the Chancellor wants someone else? What if the Lice arrest me before she decides?

  Walker reaches the last row in record time. Less than twenty of us left winding our way into the spotlight.

  Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…

  One of your old dorm gang steps up. In all his muscled glory, Toll says, “My name is Hector Dent,” as he slicks his hand through his dyed golden hair. Side-smiling and winking like a pro. Roids brush up OK for the auction events. ‘Roids’, that’s what your old friends have taken to calling themselves, on account of the pills they get slipped in their appointments by the women who favour them.

  No one has ever given me drugs in my appointments. Every day, from lights-up to dinner, it’s the same. Hours of tuition in dance, decorum, deference. Except for when the women pay the House of Entertainment for our private services. Of course we’re not allowed to see them, so – with a lot of practice – we learn to serve tea, dance the old dances, ask them about their day and make them feel special, beautiful, interesting, all while blind to the world. Apparently, it’s a real privilege to spend time with us, costly too: only the top-floor women can afford it. A luxury. Tell that to the boys who come out of their appointments crying or bruised in places the House Fathers can hide.