Cowboy
By J.M. Snyder
Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords
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Copyright 2010 J.M. Snyder
ISBN 978-1-93575-304-9
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Cover Photo Credit: Noltelourens
Used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
Cover Design: J.M. Snyder
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
Cowboy
By J.M. Snyder
Part 1
Kent’s Market is the only thing for miles down either side of Route 83. Rising from the midst of so much desert dirt and stubborn grass, it’s an oasis of greenery and color that makes your heart stop to see it. A small picket fence corrals in the plants and flowers and vegetable carts that threaten to overflow into the dusty road, and above it all the sign, painted to look that cracked and weathered. Kent’s.
Annuals first, right by the road, lines of pansies and wax begonias and nasturtiums, purple and red and orange in the dry air. Then the shrubbery and taller plants, hostas and hibiscus, a potted azalea or two. Old wooden workbenches line the fence, overflowing with baskets of apples and strawberries, tomatoes, green peppers, and at the back of the lot a tent stands tall, its canvas flapping in the hot breeze that blows when a car passes by. Behind the tent, a ways off to deter the shoppers who stop for fresh produce and live plants, is a low, one-story ranch house, its wooden façade as worn and beaten down as Kent’s sign out front. And behind the house, hidden from view, is the field of vegetables and plants he sells.
Kent himself stands at the front of the lot every morning as the sun comes up. Hose in hand, watering the flowers, the plants, thinking things I’ll never know and he doesn’t wish to share. With his black jeans tucked into faded boots, a black cowboy hat pushed down low over his eyes, he looks like the epitome of what I came west to find. A solitary man, a lone cowboy, some nugget of a man’s man that managed to slip sideways in time, straight off the range to me. I’ve always wanted a guy like that, rugged, stoic, lean and muscled and damn fine in a duster and hat. Too many westerns as a kid, my sister says. Searching for a western hero that doesn’t exist, out here in the desert sun.
She never met Kent.
He’s the reason women flock to our meager produce stand, out here a good ten miles from town. Sure, we advertise in the local paper, on TV, but he’s the reason people driving the back road from Laredo to Abilene stop and pick up a pint of berries or a potted geranium to take home. From the road he’s breath-taking in those jeans, that hat, no shirt and a tanned chest the delicious color of chestnuts in season. Strong—you can see that from your car window, how strong he is, how broad his chest and back, how muscled his arms. Narrow hips that hint at a tight ass, abs you think you saw on a NordiTrack commercial, a tiny string around his neck so Marlboro you ache for a smoke.
The women look his way and imagine a slow, shy grin curving into that tanned face, or how he’d tip the brim of his hat just so and say something John Wayne like, “Howdy, ma’am.” They read about him in their historical romances, see him on the big screen—they know how cowboys like him are supposed to act and they come racing in to pick over his irises and cucumbers, nudging each other and giggling when he looks their way.
I know, I fell for it too. Only I wasn’t holding out much hope when I stopped—a man like that usually doesn’t go for a man like me, that’s part of the reason I think I’ve always wanted one. But I was hitchhiking my way north and the couple who picked me up outside of Carrizo Springs were old enough to be my parents, and by the time we drove past Kent’s, I was more than ready to get out. Away from the words of caution, how a young man like myself should settle down with a nice girl, how I need a job like their own son working for minimum wage in the school system over in Dallas, how their daughter would like me but I’m a bit too shiftless for their tastes…
When the missus saw Kent’s bare back, as broad as the sky above, and developed a sudden craving for fresh snap peas, I made my escape. Thanked them for the ride, dug my pack out of their trunk, trotted over to the stand as if this was where I needed to be. It was—I left Jersey looking for a man like Kent. I wasn’t leaving Texas without finding one.
So it was a pleasant surprise when he turned in my direction and I saw in his eyes that all the women in all the world didn’t matter to him none, and when he asked if I had a place to stay, I told him no. He had an extra room in the back, if I was interested? Of course I was.
Been here ever since, going on two years now. Up close he’s not so intimidating—you see the pale flesh where his pants sag a little off his hips, the small paunch that’s begun to distend those abs, the flab that runs through the muscles in his arms. If the wind is right, you catch a whiff of something strong rising from him, tequila or whiskey, something pungent and tart that makes you swoon in the desert heat. There is no “ma’am” or “howdy” or shy, slow smile to brighten your day—most of the time he doesn’t say two words from sun up to sundown, and in the early morning he’s too hung-over to smile.
The cowboy hat, the boots, the lariat chain around his neck, it’s all part of the image, the illusion, the same way his “homegrown” tomatoes are bought at the farm four miles away, or the flats of perennials purchased at the Wal-Mart in town. It’s an act, a way to bring in customers and stay in business…he’s a daydream out there in the sun, hose in hand, watering his plants and I fell for it so hard, I’m still dusting off my knees.
Two years. And even now when I look out from the main house, I can still see the man I thought he was, the cowboy I want him to be.
* * * *
I bring him coffee, black, because that’s the way he likes it. My own looks like hot cocoa, I use so much milk. Two steaming mugs, one in each hand, and my fingers start to sweat from the heat when I step out of the main house and head for the market lot. It’s already close to seventy degrees outside and it’s barely eight o’clock yet—by noon it’ll be almost unbearable for a northern boy like me, and I’ll have to retreat beneath the tent where I have a cashier’s table and a fan set up, and I’ll sit in the shade and watch Kent move through his plants like a mirage in the waves of heat that radiate from the desert sun. How he keeps anything green in this arid clime, I’ll never know.
He’s watering now, like he always is when I first come down. Setting my coffee on one of the veggie stands, I sidle up behind him and snake an arm around his waist—his skin is already damp with a fine sheen of sweat, I taste it when I kiss the back of his neck, and a bitter smell rises from him, a mix of work and alcohol and sex. “Hey babe,” I purr, resting my chin on his shoulder. He’s a tall man, a head taller than me, and when I lean on his shoulder, I fit perfectly beneath the brim of his cowboy hat.
This close I can see his hair, dark and plastered to his head under the hat, and he has a thin mustache that makes him look older than his thirty-two years. It makes him look more western somehow—I think of Dallas and Magnum P.I. and all those old shows I used to watch as a kid, all those shows that made me want a man like the one in my arms now.
From here I can also see his unshaven cheeks, the stubble laced with a gray fuzz that I won’t point out. Instead I breathe in the whiskey that rises up from him like the sun off the road and I hold out his coffee mug where he can see it. “For you,” I tell him. By noon, it’ll hold more alcohol than java. He thinks I don’t see when he spikes it.
Kent grunts, not quite the thanks I would like, and then shrugs out of my embrace. “Don’t hang on me, Marcus,” he says, his voice bleary and gruff. “It’s hot out here.”
No shit, I think, but I hold my tongue. I learned long ago that the best way to deal with a mood like this is to just keep quiet and let it ride itself out. Once he wakes up a bit more, shakes off the drink from last night, he’ll be easier to deal with. He’ll smile for the customers, at least. They’re the ones that matter.
“Your coffee,” I say, holding out the mug like a peace offering. He frowns at it a moment, then takes it and chugs half of it at once—good thing it wasn’t scalding. I doubt he would’ve felt it, anyway. Shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans, I glare at the flowers he’s watering and tell him, “I have that washtub out—”
“I’m going into town in the morning,” he mutters. It’s his don’t nag me tone of voice, one he’s been using more and more around me. The showerhead’s been busted for the past week and I’d swear he hasn’t bathed since then, that’s the alcohol and sweat I smell on him.
The day after the shower broke, I found an old aluminum washtub in the back of the barn, scrubbed it up and hosed it down and it’s so damn pioneer that I find any excuse to strip off my clothes and sink into a lukewarm bath of suds. Out by the barn, the sun hot on my naked body, the soap drying on my skin, it’s as close to heaven as I’ve come so far, and I can’t understand why Kent won’t take me up on an offer of a bath. I’d heat the water for him, on the gas grill like I do for myself—I’d wash him, that could be fun, maybe end up with the two of us entwined in the sparse grass, rolling through suds and water, when’s the last time we did anything like that?
Heh, when have we ever done that?
But Kent always says no. “I’ll fix the damn shower,” he tells me, before I can point out that it’s still clogged. “Just lay off it already, will you? Can you move back? It’s hot.”
As if I’m right up on him. But I do as he asks, mindful of the hose as I step back, and I watch him for a few minutes, before he can tell me to get to work. From the house this morning I leaned over the sink while the coffee brewed, watched him through the kitchen windows, told myself he’s everything I’ve ever wanted.
But in truth he’s only a shadow of the men I see in the magazine clippings my sister sends me, the models in cowboy hats and little else, Calvin Klein and Guess ads that sell what I’m hoping to find. Those cowboys don’t have Kent’s thick waist or his drink-rimmed eyes or his alcohol-pinked cheeks. They don’t have that line where his tan stops abruptly at his hips, everything above a deep Indian red, everything below pasty and white. And they smile, in those ads. Even the cigarette ones, where the cowboy’s riding hard to round up stray cattle, he always has the hint of a smile in his eyes, on his lips. Kent doesn’t smile much, and he never laughs. Once I thought that was part of his appeal but now I’m not so sure.
With a sigh, he looks at me over his shoulder and says, “I’ll pick up a new head when I’m in town tomorrow. I said I’d fix it—”
“Okay.” I kick dirt over the hose so I won’t have to meet his eyes. They’re dark like his hair and bloodshot from drink, and I hate that I can’t read them. I’m good at reading people but there’s something closed about Kent that I just can’t figure out. Maybe that’s what draws me to him. Maybe there’s a part of me that wants to be the one to crack through his rough exterior and find that I’ve been right all along, there’s something deep inside of him that’s exactly what I need. It’s just buried, and every now and then I think I catch a glimpse of it, in a rare smile or a sudden touch, or a wink that will surprise me and take my breath away. I live for those moments, that hope.
Kent frowns at me, then cuts the hose off, downs the rest of his coffee, hands the mug to me. I take it and wrap both hands around its lingering warmth. “Marcus,” he says softly. He can speak so softly when it suits him.
I look up and study his face. He needs to shave, he looks grizzled and old, and his moustache needs to be trimmed, it’s getting bushy. Sometimes he lets me do that for him, after hours when it’s just the two of us, and I’ll sit on his lap and gently clip the hairs above his lip, or shave his cheeks in long, even strokes while he leans back in his recliner, beer close at hand, one arm draped almost negligently around my waist. We haven’t done that in awhile now. I’d suggest it but I have a feeling his response would be the same as it was when I offered to bathe him. Not right this second, he said, exasperated. Can’t you see I’m busy?
“I’ll fix it,” he tells me. He means the shower, and I nod because I know he’ll fix it. He’s going into town tomorrow, he’ll buy the parts, we’ll have a working shower by evening. When I don’t answer, though, he sighs and reaches out for me, his fingers slipping behind my belt buckle to pull me close. “Come here,” he says. I have no choice.
He gives me a kiss, damp and sloppy and tasting of sour whiskey, but it’s his lips on mine, it’s something at least. His cheeks scruff my skin and I close my eyes so he won’t see the flicker of disgust in my gaze. He needs a bath, a shave, mouthwash, something. But it’s a kiss and it’s more than I was expecting, more than I could’ve hoped for this early in the day. If he were one of the cowboys in my daydreams, this would be when he’d whisper he loves me and I’d suggest a quick tryst out by the barn before the first customers arrive, and he’d agree.
But he doesn’t say anything, just pulls away and clears his throat, asks for more coffee. And I don’t offer myself to him—I just nod and grip his mug tight, head back for the house and the pot simmering on the stove. This isn’t a daydream and he isn’t a model in an underwear ad. My sister’s right, that world doesn’t exist.
This is what I got instead. As I trek back to the house, I tell myself this is enough. It’s going to have to be.
* * * *
Afternoon finds me beneath the tent, the fan stirring hot air over my denim-clad legs and a towel full of melting ice tied around my neck. When I first hooked up with Kent, I made the mistake of wearing shorts outside—came in that night with welts up and down my legs, mosquito bites and red chigger trails on my thighs, black fleas like freckles on my ankles and feet. Scratches, too, where the dust blew up against me during the day, I was raw from the heat and the dirt, and I never felt more filthy in my life.
“Now you know why cowboys wear jeans,” Kent told me, and it was as close to I told you so as he’d ever come, but he sat with me in the bathroom as I showered, painted the chigger bites with clear nail polish to kill them, covered me in calamine lotion until I looked as pink as a newborn baby. He can be so good to me.
The customers are here now, women in bright prints swarming around the flowers like bees. They call out to Kent by name, giggling when he turns their way—how much are the petunias? And does he know a good recipe for tomatillos? And what kind of sun should these morning glories get? They don’t ask me—I’m just the boy by the register, my name’s not up on the sign out front and I don’t have my shirt off so they can gawk over my chest, which doesn’t look anything like his. I’m not tan, not buff, and if they weren’t so blind, they’d see that Kent’s color is more of a perpetual burn, his stomach muscles aren’t as firm as I’d like them to be.
But they only see the man they came here to see, the cowboy in the black jeans and black hat who looks like he stepped off a pack of cigarettes. They sigh over him as I ring up their plants—don’t they notice he’s not interested? If one propositions him, he gracefully backs down, and that makes them want him all the more. He’s mine, I want to say as I take their dingy dollars. He doesn’t sleep in my bed but we have sex; that means he’s with me.
A few pay him directly. I watch him stick the money in his back pocket almost absently, like he’s just putting it there until he can give it to me, but somehow it never makes it into the register. He thinks I don’t notice, but I know it’ll be gone by the time he comes home tomorrow, spent in town on beer and pints at the local bar. I know how he is. If I mention it, though, he’ll get indignant and think I don’t trust him, and the air between us will be like cracked glass, threatening at any moment to shatter into an argument. So I don’t say anything, and when he glances at me I look away, as if I didn’t see it. Twenty bucks, maybe fifty, it’s not worth the fight.
When the sky begins to grow dark and the shadow of the house stretches across the yard to reach into the tent, we close up shop. Tie down the tent flaps, cover the stands with tarp, water the plants one more time as the sun goes down. I hurry the few lingering customers along while Kent moves large, sand-filled barrels into place to block our driveway, a deterrent against anyone pulling up to browse our plants at night. Now he tips his hat, as the last couple climbs into their car, and there’s a ghost of a smile on his face when they back out into the road and are gone.
Then it’s just the two of us, alone, and I try not to stare at him as I count out the money in the drawer but he’s beautiful in the setting sunlight, his skin the color of the arroyo, his hat pushed back to reveal his enigmatic eyes. He’s been drinking since before noon, I know because I saw the empty bottles of Killian’s in the trash, but it’s loosened him up and he actually grins at me when he’s finished watering the plants. “Good day,” he tells me, meaning we were busy.
I nod and keep counting. Easily three hundred, maybe four, because he sold the rhododendron in full bloom for a pretty penny, and out in these parts plants like that are scarce, like gold or diamonds in the dust. After the tarp is down, held in place with large stones to keep the night wind from whipping it away, Kent comes up behind me, rubs a hand around my waist, over my stomach, until his thumb hooks onto my belt buckle. His fingers on my zipper arouse me despite the alcohol that rises from his pores, and when he blows on my neck, I giggle and squirm away. I’m as bad as any of those women in here earlier. “Let’s cook out tonight,” he says. That means he wants me to fire up the grill.
Folding the money into a deposit envelope, I ask, “Burgers?” That’s about all we have right now—he’ll pick up groceries tomorrow when he’s in town, and put this money in the bank, and get a showerhead, I have to remind him about that. “One or two?”
He leans against me, heavy and sweaty through my thin t-shirt. “Two,” he says, and I know he’ll only eat one but I nod anyway, I’ll cook two. Rubbing his hand against my crotch, he murmurs, “And maybe later…”
He lets the thought trail off but a thrill runs through me all the same. It’s been almost a week since we’ve had sex, four days and three hours and I’m counting here, I am, because at twenty-eight I should be getting it more often than that. I’m in my sexual prime, right? I have to settle for my hand in the washtub because most of the time he’s too drunk to get it up. But he’s promising a little loving now and I’ve been waiting for this all damn day. I shove the rest of the money into the envelope, I’ll count it later, and turn away from the register so fast, I almost trip over the fan and send us both to the floor. “Careful,” he warns, grinning again.
“Can you tie down the tent?” I ask, turning in his one-armed embrace. This close he’s intoxicating, but I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the man, and right now I don’t care. “Two burgers. You sure you’re up for dessert?”
So he won’t mistake my meaning, I poke at the front of his jeans, where he’s already hard, I can feel his erection through his pants. Sometimes beer will do that to him, and tonight I’m loving George Killian and his Irish red lager if it’ll get me a piece of my man. “Just make it quick,” he tells me, and I’m already stumbling for the house, thank God we have a gas grill and I don’t have to wait for charcoal to light. “I’ve got to leave first thing in the morning—”
“Already halfway there,” I say, breaking into a jog. Vaguely I’m aware that I’m no different from the women who drive all the way out here to see him, but what’s it matter? He’s with me, remember? Let them dream of a cowboy in black because this one’s mine.
* * * *
I cook three burgers and leave one of them on the grill—I’ll have it for lunch tomorrow, I know Kent well enough to know that he won’t eat it tonight. He sits at the picnic bench we have out back, between the barn and the main house, and watches me through the amber bottle in his hand. More beer, at least that’s all he’s drinking tonight. He’s not a mean drunk, not bitter or hateful or angry like some men, but the alcohol dulls his senses, makes him sleepy, makes him brood, and he’ll fall asleep in his recliner, wet snores filling the house until I could smother him to shut him up. And in the morning he’ll wince at the sun and the sound of my voice, and he’ll tell me to keep off him, it’s hot, and keep it down, I’m too loud.
But he’s not a bad drunk, he doesn’t hit me, doesn’t yell, doesn’t tell me what I’m doing wrong or how I can be someone more to him, something better. Sometimes I think if I could figure that out then maybe he wouldn’t drink so much. Sometimes I wonder what kind of man he’d be without the alcohol, if he’d be like the men in my sister’s magazines, the ones she tears out and sends to me with little Post-It notes stuck on the pictures. How about this one? she’ll ask. Have you seen one like this down there yet?
I don’t bother to write her back. What would I say? Unfortunately…
Kent wolfs his burger down in four bites—sometimes beer gives him an appetite, but when I ask if he wants the second burger, he shakes his head no. Instead, he gives me a smoldering look across the picnic table, and there’s a fire in his eyes that the alcohol can’t dim, he wants me. Me. Finally, he wants me. I gulp down the rest of my meal as fast as I can and take the third burger off the grill so it won’t burn. I set it on my plate and pick up his when Kent stands over me, his hand curving around my ass, rubbing along the seam of my jeans. “Leave it here, Marcus,” he tells me.
I nod, suddenly famished for him. “I’ll get it afterwards,” I say, my voice cracking like the desert ground. His fingers fumble between my legs and I lean on the table, arch up into his hand, moan at his touch. From the corner of my eye I see his belt already unbuckled, his other hand rubbing at the front of his jeans. I hope we at least make it inside.
We do, but just barely. He drops his pants the minute the screen door slams shut behind him, and I can’t seem to get my belt to work, I want it undone, I want it open and I want my pants gone now. Kent’s already working himself hard, another few minutes and we’ll miss this, it’ll end in a rush of thin, beer-laced cum on his hand and the floor and I’ll be out of luck.
Somehow I manage to get my belt loose enough to shuck my jeans down my narrow hips, and my boxers follow suit, I don’t think we’re even going to make it as far as my bedroom because he won’t be able to get it up again if we miss this now. “Kent,” I sob, I want him so bad, it’s been too long and I want someone in me, holding me, loving me, anyone at this point. “Babe, do you think—”
That’s as far as I get to asking if he wants to hold on until we get to my room, because he touches me and that’s it, that’s all I really wanted, his hand on me in places that quiver for another’s touch. His hands are large, calloused, rough, but they turn me on when he cups my balls, strokes my hard shaft, caresses the smooth skin of my ass. He eases inside of me, one finger, two, and then he presses his thick cock in, I swear it’s as rough and large and calloused as those hands.
I have to grip the back of the recliner and spread my legs to get him all the way in, and the way I’m standing makes me giggle breathlessly. We never do it lying down. Sex is standing up in this house, and it’s usually against the foot of my bed but this in the living room, that’s new. It makes me think maybe we’re not as settled into routine as I feared. God, if any customers pulled up now and dared to creep around the back of the house, they’d get an eyeful through the screen door. Kent shoving into me as I lean over the recliner, his breath coming in quick huffs that reek of beer, his dark hands on my hips and his white ass probably gleaming in the dusk. He’s that pale below his waist. The image makes me laugh as he pushes further into me. “What?” he wants to know.
It comes out like a grunt, and his fingers dig into my skin. I arch back into him and close my eyes, savor the fullness inside, my muscles working to hold him in even as he tries to pull back out. “Assume the position,” I say, just to be silly. I can be silly right now if I want to—I’m finally getting him, he’s finally mine.
He’s a selfish lover, only works for himself and when he’s done, he thinks I should be, too. Not one for foreplay, doesn’t like sucking or kissing or hugging or anything like that. No, just a fuck for him, just sex, and it’s always me on the receiving end because he says it just doesn’t do anything for him to get it up the ass. He can be crude when he’s sober, and it makes me laugh because he’s so quiet, you don’t expect it from him. The first few times we had sex, he would pull out just as he started to come and I’d end up with his juices trickling down my ass cheeks, hot and wet and so damn nasty that it was enough to get me off, as well.
Only now I know he pulls out because he can’t come, that’s the beer in him, it makes him hard and he can go all night long if he wants, but there’s no release. He thinks he’s slick when he moans my name and bucks into me ten, fifteen minutes later, and suddenly he’s finished. What the—? I look over my shoulder and he’s already tucking himself back into his jeans. One hand is fisted like he came in it, but I know he didn’t. I know he can’t. “Kent,” I sigh. I don’t bother to pull up my own pants. I’m not done yet.
“You’re good,” he tells me, like that’s a consolation. It doesn’t make my dick any less hard, it doesn’t make the dull throb that has settled into my balls go away. With a slap on my ass, he heads for the kitchen and I hear running water when he turns on the sink to wash his hand off. Does the pretense go that far? Does he think he’s gotten off from this?
I stand there, naked, clutching the back of the recliner, and I look at him incredulously when he comes into the room. “Babe,” I start. I’m still looking for more.
He doesn’t like it when I call him that. He says it always sounds like I’m whining, babe, like I’m trying to wheedle something out of him. “Don’t start with me, Marcus,” he says, weary. “I’m tired. I can’t keep it up all night like you—”
“All night?” I ask. Who’s he kidding? We’re talking barely a half hour here. Is it so bad to not want such a rush job? From my lover, no less?
“I’ve got to get up early in the morning,” he tells me as he heads down the hall to his room. When I start to say something else, he holds up one hand to stop me. “A showerhead, I know. I’ll pick it up.”
I’d like to pick this up, where we were a few minutes ago. My hand trails down my stomach almost absently, heading for the erection that still stands up from the patch of blonde hair at my crotch as if refusing to believe we’re through. That’s it. And he called this dessert? Heh, this was a spoonful of whipped cream, one strawberry, maybe a bite of cake, nothing more than a mouthful, if that. Neither of us got off on it, despite whatever lies he wants to tell himself. I’m aching here and I know he held nothing in his hand, nothing at all.
Down the hall his door closes softly, almost like an apology, and I’m left with my dick in hand, staring around myself in disbelief. I got worked up for this? I cooked him burgers on the grill, two of them, for this? My sex life with him is like rain in the desert, a scarce occurrence that is barely-there and brief when it does happens. And those women earlier, our customers, they seriously think they want in on that?
Disgusted, I kick my pants off from my ankles and head for my own room, my long t-shirt covering my ass and cock and the hand that works at my crotch. Beneath my bed is a folder of all the magazine clippings my sister’s sent, all those underwear and cigarette and cologne ads, all those cowboys in their Stetson hats and bolo ties, flannel shirts, spurs and chaps. I kneel on my bed, the folder open in front of me, and my own hand has to squeeze and knead as I flip through the pictures, imaging those boys with me. I picture their lips on my skin, their hands on me, their fingers doing the delicious things I have to do myself while Kent sleeps off the booze in the room next door.
Finally I come in an embarrassed spurt that slicks my hand and belly and I wipe myself clean with my shirt before putting the folder carefully away. Those are my men in there, those are my boys, not the snoring cowboy who stuck it to me tonight.
Until tomorrow, of course, when I see him from the window, his skin bronzed by the sun. If only he could love me then, at that moment, when he’s everything I want him to be and more. If only that man came to me after the market closes. That man has to be in him somewhere, right? That man is who I love about him, right?
* * * *
Later, when I remember the plates on the table outside, I move through the house quietly so I won’t wake Kent, unashamed of my nakedness. In the living room, I pull on my boxers and leave the jeans on the floor, then push through the screen door out into the cool night. It’s almost cold out here—the temperature drops once the sun goes down—and I hurry across the stony ground, telling myself I don’t feel the gravel biting into my feet. The grill is cold now and I close its cover, working quickly because it’s chilly and I’m wearing next to nothing. It’s odd how a body grows used to things, after living with them for so long. In Jersey, this would’ve been a balmy summer night, I would’ve thought nothing of running down to the beach in shorts thinner than these boxers I have on now. But after two years I’m almost shivering here, and I bet it’s not below sixty degrees. How did I ever survive before?
The plates are where I left them, but the bag of chips is gone, the extra burger, gone. I look beneath the table, under the benches, around the darkened yard for as far as I can see, but they’ve simply vanished. The scarce dirt is unmarked, no prints from a coyote or bobcat or weasel, and there aren’t any feathers scattered around from vultures, but that doesn’t mean anything. The worse thing is that whatever ate the burger and made off with the chips will probably come back tomorrow looking for more, and Kent hates animals prowling around his garden, he’ll take the gun down from over the stove and heaven help us then. He’s not a good shot when he’s not drunk, and I’d hate to see him when he’s been hitting the booze.
I gather up the plates, the cups, the tongs I used to turn the burgers on the grill, and head for the house. I won’t mention it, then. Maybe ask him to pick up some poison in town tomorrow, tell him we have rats, I’ll take care of it myself. He doesn’t need to know anything more than that.
* * * *
I wake to the slap of the screen door—Kent leaving, and a glance at the clock beside my bed shows that it’s not even six AM yet. I pull the blankets over my head and wish the warmth that surrounds me wasn’t just my own. Some mornings I would give anything to have the memory of his body lingering next to me. But he goes to bed before I do, wakes up too damn early, tells me that he likes a separate room because it keeps me from rousing him when I turn in at night. The explanation doesn’t make my own bed any less lonely.
I’m almost back to sleep when I hear tires spin to a stop in front of the house, the truck door slam shut, heavy boots on the porch and then he’s back inside, muttering to himself because he’s forgotten something. Through half-closed eyes I watch the hallway beyond my open door. He troops by, stomping in those cowboy boots like he doesn’t care if he wakes me or not, and the glimpse I get of his tan arms, his bare chest, his black hat and jeans, it makes me catch my breath.
Come here, I want to say—I would if I thought he would listen, if I thought he would let me soothe away the anger that’s bunched his brows together, let me make everything alright. I hear him in the bathroom, fiddling with the showerhead—something hits the tiled floor, he curses and throws something else down, I’m going to have to clean that up when he leaves. Then he passes my room again, heading for the door and his truck outside, and whatever chance I might have had to convince him to join me has passed.
So I wait. Until the sound of the wheels fade away in the morning sun, until the house has settled around me like a troubled pond growing still, until the clock reads a little before seven and I just can’t stay in the bed any longer. In the bathroom I find the small aluminum tubing that holds the showerhead in place, it’s tossed to the floor of the stall—no tub for Kent. Just a shower stall, a toilet, a sink so battered and dingy that I can never get it clean. The shower rod is askew, the curtain pulled free from a few of its fastenings.
He was probably pissed to all hell that he left without the head this morning, the one thing he’s going into town to get. I should’ve been up to remind him, but then he would’ve acted like forgetting it was my fault, and he’d be grumpy and ill-tempered for days. I won’t mention that I know he came back for it. Not if I hope for a little loving when he returns.
Like last night, I think sourly. Heh, that wasn’t loving, that was a few good thrusts and then poof, nothing. I shouldn’t put up with that shit. I need more than that to survive.
I pull on jeans and a t-shirt, a pair of cowboy boots because that’s all we wear around here, a thin flannel shirt that covers my arms. But as I tug my blankets onto my bed, I catch a whiff of rank sex, alcohol, sweat, Kent on me, that man needs to bathe. When he gets that showerhead installed, I’m throwing his lily-white ass in the stall myself. We’ll do it in the shower if we have to, anything to get him cleaned up. Is that what those boys in the ads smell like? That raw mix of man and beast? I have to get it off of me.
The washtub’s out in the barn. This early, I can get a quick bath in before the first customers arrive—not that I’m expecting many, because Kent’s not here to pimp in the midst of his Eden, no one’s going to see me from the road and stop with a sudden taste for berries. But a few regulars will come by, a few cars passing will stop, we’ll do a meager business, and I’d much rather be fully dressed and waiting by the register when the first car pulls into our lot than crammed naked into that tiny tin tub out back. A bath, breakfast, then I’ll open shop. It won’t be at Kent’s ungodly hour, but I can make it before eight, at least.
As I push through the screen door, I look around the backyard, which is nothing more than a run of stunted grass and cobbled dirt between here and our barn. Away to the right I can just barely see the road glistening in the already hot morning sun, and to the left our fields start, row after row of plants and vegetables that Kent somehow manages to eke from this soil. Remembering the lost burger last night, I eye the garden rows warily, sure that something’s hidden among the leaves, watching me, waiting for more food. It’s quiet, too quiet, but it’s also the heart of Texas and I just might be the only living thing around for miles, I can’t expect more than the silent line of crows that sit like black dots on the telephone wires lining the road.
Crossing the yard, I notice that the barn door is ajar. I’m fairly certain I didn’t leave it that way—I always close it when I’m done, after the time a possum was hit on the road and managed to drag itself into our loft. I found it dead the next morning, blood everywhere, the heat making me swoon from the stench, and I stumbled from the barn gagging as Kent watched with impassive eyes. “Road kill,” was all he said, but he took the rake and cleaned out the hay, disposed of the carcass, didn’t mention my moment of weakness—I can’t help but love him for that. Since then, I make sure to pull the barn door tight behind me whenever I’m through in there, latch the rope toggle lock across the doors, check it before I go inside. I know I didn’t leave that door open last night.
A coyote then? The rope isn’t chewed, though, I don’t know how an animal could get inside. Kent did it, I tell myself, easing the door open as I peer in where it’s dark and cool and silent. This morning, whatever reason, he came in the barn for something and forgot to latch it closed, that’s all and you know it. The rope’s intact and he’s probably hung-over so you know he wasn’t thinking when he left. He forgot the showerhead, didn’t he? True. So he forgot to latch down the barn, too. In the dirt beneath my boots are shoe prints—no animal paws, no blood. He forgot to latch the door, is all.
The hinges creak as I push the door open further—I wince at the sound, impossibly loud in the quiet dawn, and slip inside the barn. My heart is hammering in my ears. Maybe Kent did open the door this morning, but who’s to say something didn’t slip in after he left? Coyotes are bad out this way. Kent used to keep chickens but he couldn’t stop the damn dogs from getting at them, and even now one or two will prowl the old coop, out at the far edge of the field.
Sometimes when he’s really drunk, off the tequila usually, he’ll take his gun down from the wall and head out that way, claim he’ll put a stop to those rascals once and for all, and I swear one day he’s going to come back with a hole shot in his foot, he’s foolish when he gets too far into the bottle. But what if those coyotes are hanging around now? What if one of them slipped into the barn after the truck left, and it’s watching me from the loft, or the empty horse stall, or the bundles of hay piled against the wall, just waiting for a chance to jump me?
A shaft of sunlight slants through the partially open door, slicing into the darkness, and I try to look everywhere at once. Jesus, but I can get worked up over stupid shit, and in another few minutes when that washtub’s outside and I’m filling it with the hose, I’ll laugh away my fears, but right now, right here, they’re palpable and real and pressing in on me like the musty scent of hay that tickles my nose, the faint stirring of bats in the rafters. The tub’s against the horse stall, the sunlight cuts across it with a silver promise, two steps and I’ll reach it and I’ll turn and run, no one’s here to see me, coyote or no—
There’s a leg in the horse stall.
A human leg, denim clad, ending in a strong, bare, pale foot. For an instant I think it’s Kent but he’s gone and the jeans are a faded blue like the sky above, not his signature black. I think of the possum, the blood that time, staining the hay. I wonder if coyotes will drag a body to hide it. I wonder if coyotes attack humans and what the hell am I going to do if there’s a big-ass dog sitting on a dead hitchhiker in that stall? Where the hell is Kent when I need him?
Before I can take a step in either direction, the leg moves, I hear the rustle of hay, the slight moan of someone asleep. Asleep. Relief floods through me, asleep. Cautiously I cross the barn, lean on the washtub as I peer over the side of the stall, and on the hay spread out along the floor lies a man. A boy, really, all angles, much thinner than Kent and slimmer than me. A cowboy hat hides his face and he huddles into his shirt, his knees pulled up to his chest, his jeans ragged around the ankles and shiny with wear across his butt. Sneakers half-hidden in the hay, socks tucked in them to keep out scorpions and snakes, and the missing bag of chips rolled shut against them. A boy.
As I watch, he takes a shuddery breath, hugs himself tight, mutters something and falls silent. Still asleep. Quietly I edge around the washtub and into the stall, tiptoeing so my boot heels don’t wake him. He’s long and thin, and there’s something about him that makes me think he’s been on the road awhile. I have pictures of boys like this, their belongings tied in a bandanna slung over one shoulder, shirts open to show bare chests beneath, the band of their briefs snug at their waists while their jeans droop down, thumb out to hitch a ride. I’ve dreamed of boys like this, with these narrow legs, these slim hips, these sinewy arms holding me tight. He has thick ankles, I like that, and long toes that I want to thread my fingers through. Nice feet. I like that a lot.
And nice hands, I can see the one gripping his elbow where his arms are crossed—long fingers, an artist’s hands, even nails despite the dirt rimmed beneath them. Dusky skin, a farmer’s tan, nothing like what Kent has but darker than me. He probably has dark hair, then, and dark eyes, hidden beneath that cowboy hat. Reaching out, I pick up the brim of the hat, just to see…
Purple eyes like pansies stare back at me.
Startled, I drop the hat and skid back into the corner of the stall, heart racing. Holy fuck, he’s not asleep—
Like an animal waiting to pounce, he’s up, scrambling for his sneakers as he scurries for the door. “Wait!” I call out. Those eyes burn in my head, the deep color of violets in bloom, purple. “No, wait, don’t go—”
He stops and sulks back against the opposite end of the stall, hat pulled low to hide those amazing eyes and shoes hugged to his chest like a shield. “Wait,” I say again, gently, oh so gently. Please, I pray, holding one hand out towards him. Please don’t run away. “It’s okay,” I murmur. He stares at me balefully and my hand closes into a useless fist before dropping to the hay. “It’s okay.”
He glances at the door and sniffles, rubs his feet together with a dry, soughing sound that makes me think of limbs lying twined together in bed. I want to say something to make him come closer so I can see his eyes again. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “Believe me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You snuck up on me,” he mutters. He sounds like a little kid. I can hear the pout in his voice.
“I didn’t mean to.” I start towards him but he moves for the door again, so I stop and he does, too. “What’s your name, boy?”
For a moment I don’t think he’ll answer. He glares at me like I’m evil, waking him like I did, as if this isn’t my barn but his and I’m the trespasser here, not him. But then he sniffs again, rubs his nose so hard that I think he’ll rub it off, and he mumbles, “Luke. And I’m not a boy.”
Bullshit, I think, but I’ll bite. “How old are you, Luke?” I ask. I wonder if Luke’s his real name.
“Twenty.” He pushes the hat back and I catch a glimpse of light brown hair cut short across his forehead before I’m lost in his eyes again. Royal and deep, the color of kings. Purple. Beneath them his nose is a little too big for his face, his mouth a little too wide, his cheeks pinked with excitement or fear and his lips full and red and pretty like a girl’s. Kissable lips. Suddenly I want to kiss him. “Who are you?” he wants to know.
“Marcus.”
I’m staring at his lips, I know I am, and I shouldn’t because I have a lover, I have Kent, I don’t need to be wanting for this boy. It’s one thing to ache for the guys in the magazine ads because they’re not real, they’re models and I’m in no danger of actually meeting up with them…but these eyes watching me, this boy, he’s real, he’s here, watching me because I can’t stop looking at him, and I’ll be damned if he’s a day over seventeen. Twenty my ass. He’s jailbait, plain and simple, and he’s on the run from someone, his folks or the law, boys like him don’t just hole up in a barn for the night for the hell of it. I have Kent—
“Why are you sleeping here?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Just passing through,” he whispers. Picking at the laces on his sneakers, he frowns and doesn’t look at me when he asks, “Are you gonna tell him?”
“Who?”
“That guy.” Luke nods at the door, then glances at the bag of potato chips and sighs. “The one you live with? I saw you two last night. Him.”
“Kent.” When I say the name he looks at me and nods, and I shake my head. “He’s gone into town.” I see the way he eyes the chips again and ask, “Are you hungry?”
I get an indifferent shrug in reply. “I can make you something to eat,” I start, rising to my feet, but he skitters against the wall and I stop, half-erect. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m not going to hurt you, it’s okay.” At the disbelief in his eyes, I add, “Kent’s gone all day. I can make you some eggs, how’s that sound?” I creep closer—he watches me, wary, but doesn’t bolt this time. He’s waiting to see what I’m going to do. I’m curious about that one myself. When Kent finds him…I won’t think of that. I keep talking as I move closer. “And some toast,” I say, yes, toast is good. “I have some juice, fresh fruit, too. What do you say we take this inside, okay? I’ll fix up something for us to eat. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
His gaze shifts from my face to the chips, then back to me again, and this time the fear is gone, his eyes lighten and his lower lip trembles as he nods. “A little,” he tells me. “All I’ve had was that burger last night.”
Another step and I’m in the middle of the hay, still tamped down where he slept. “I figured that,” I say, giving him a bright grin that he doesn’t return. I’d love to see him smile. Holding my hand out, I prompt, “Come on, Luke. Breakfast, then.” When he looks at my offered hand and doesn’t take it immediately, I whisper, “I’m just as scared as you, kid, trust me. I thought you were dead—”
Now he laughs, and his smile is everything I thought it would be, wide and beautiful, and his laughter fills the barn until the bats above flap their wings in disgust. “I did!” I laugh, too, and he lets me take his elbow, help him to his feet. His arm feels thin and strong in my hand, delicate like an eagle’s wing. “I found a possum in here once,” I tell him, just to fill the silence between us. “And I saw your legs and was like oh please Jesus, don’t let him be dead, you know? The last thing I need is a dead body in the barn and Kent in town. What the hell would I do then?”
Luke lets me lead him to the door and the bright sunshine beyond. “He your partner or something?” he asks, holding his sneakers close to his chest. I notice the gravel doesn’t seem to bother him as we cross the yard and head for the house.
The way he says partner makes me wonder if he means what I think of when I say the word. “This is his place,” I say carefully. In my mind I hear Luke’s voice, I saw you two last night, and then, All I’ve had was that burger…did he see us through the open screen door? Me gripping the recliner, Kent thrusting into me, did he see that? “He runs the produce stand,” I tell Luke, “and tends to the fields. I sort of do everything else.” And sometimes we fuck, I add silently. Not as often as I’d like, and God knows it’s not much.
But I don’t tell him that.
* * * *
He eats like he hasn’t had food in days—leaning over the plate, shoveling eggs and toast and pancakes into his mouth as he looks around the kitchen with wide eyes. Every time those purple depths pass over me, flames of desire lick across my groin. I’ve never seen eyes like his, ever, and I find myself wondering what they look like first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Without his hat, I see that his hair is short and an almost mousy brown, bleached colorless at the top from long days in the sun, but it’s getting shaggy near the back, curling over his collar and around his earlobes. Luke. I like that name. As he eats, I ask, “How old are you really?” When he looks up at me, surprised, I grin. “Twenty? You’re joking.”
“In two months,” he says, indignant. Swallowing another mouthful of food, he tells me, “It’s soon enough. How old are you?”
I laugh—he shifts the conversation away from himself so easily. “How old do you think I am?” I ask, suddenly coy. He makes me feel young and flirty again. God, has it been so long since a boy’s looked at me the way he does, with such openness in his face, such unabashed interest? Or am I just so unused to kindness that I’m reading too much into him?