by Jane Seville
“Hmm. Minute I relax somethin’ awful always seems ta happen.”
Jack knelt down behind him so they were the same height. He left off the backrub and slid his arms around D’s waist, resting his chin on D’s shoulder. He felt the chest beneath his hands expand in a sigh. “I could almost forget about everyone wanting me dead today,” Jack murmured.
“Don’t never ferget. That’s when they find ya.”
“Getting late,” Jack said after a moment. “Come inside.”
“I’m okay.”
Jack sighed. “I didn’t ask because I thought you weren’t.”
“Why, then?”
“Maybe I just want your company.”
D said nothing, but his head tilted just a bit, just enough to rest against Jack’s. “I ain’t such great company. Don’t know no amusin’ anecdotes.”
Jack squeezed him a bit. “I don’t need you to amuse me.”
“What you wanna talk ’bout, then?”
“Whatever we feel like talking about.”
D was silent. Abruptly, he got up and walked several paces away, his shoulders drawing down like a turtle’s shell. Jack rose to his feet but stayed where he was. D shook his head once, hard. “Don’t fuckin’ do this ta me, Jack.”
“What am I doing to you?”
“You know, damn you.”
Jack crossed his arms over his chest. “Suppose I want you to say it.”
D shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at the grass. “Ain’t that I don’t… ya know. ’Cause yer you, and a course I… shit.”
“D, what?”
“I cain’t need nobody. Not again,” he said in a rush. “I cain’t take it.” He turned around and met Jack’s eyes. “It ain’t in me no more.”
“That’s not true.”
“Has ta be. Better be goddamned true ’cause I spent ten years makin’ it true.”
Jack took a few steps toward him. “I know it’s not because I’ve seen you. Not this,” he said, motioning to D’s clothes and appearance, “but the real you.”
“Ain’t no real me. I know….” He looked away again. “Ya think I’m strong but I ain’t. Maybe I’m strong in the world, outside, but….” He chewed his lip. “I am fuckin’ damaged goods, Jack. Ya got no idea how little’s left in here. I can protect ya and make sure ya get that new life yer due. But I cain’t give ya no more’n that. I cain’t be no more’n that ta you.”
Jack closed the distance between them, reached out and took D’s hand. “If you can’t, how come you already are?” he said. D didn’t answer, just stared into his eyes and hung on to Jack’s fingers. Jack nodded. “Okay.” He turned and walked away, tugging on D’s hand and leading him back to the house.
“Where we goin’?” D asked.
“Inside. I’m taking you to bed.”
“Jack, I—”
“Shush. I don’t care if you’re damaged, or if you’re not strong inside. Guess what? Nobody is. Whatever you have left is enough.”
Chapter Sixteen
Crickets still chirping outside, the moonlight slanted in across their bed, leaving the rest of the room darker past its reach. Faint red glow from the corner where D’s cell phone was recharging with its tiny demon’s eye.
Jack was a silvery form above him, his rhythmic breathing bringing D along into the trance as he rocked back and forth, head thrown back so the shadows fell long down his neck and spilled onto his chest, riding D slow and languid like they had all the time in the world, which D guessed they did. He stared up at him, eyes roving over his body; he looked like some kind of prehistoric man-god in a sweat lodge, smoke rising all around him to the hole in the ceiling, drums beating in the distance, caught in the hypnosis of a sex rite and ready to spill his own blood to sanctify them.
Jack’s head lolled on his neck as his hips thrust across D’s groin. His eyes were closed and his mouth open, strong fast breaths like a distance runner, flush rising to his throat and sweat trickling down his chest.
D lay there, unsure what to do with himself since Jack was doing all the work. They’d never done it like this, with Jack on top, and it felt strange. His hands itched to control, to flip Jack over and take him hard, or haul him to his knees and do him that way. That was how it had been for the past three days, each night and parts of each day spent here in Jack’s bed, taking everything out on each other’s body, while the bed in what was supposed to have been D’s room sat pristine and untouched.
Jack bore down harder and D groaned, his thoughts flying to pieces, shattered by what Jack did to him, a hard hammer-blow on a slab of ice. It had been so damn long since he’d felt like this—in fact, he couldn’t remember ever feeling this. His hands, worrying at the sheets, let go their safe handholds and slid up Jack’s hips and around to grip his ass, feeling the muscles clench and flex under them. Jack looked down at him, his deep-set eyes hooded in shadow; he covered D’s hands with his own and lifted them away, interlacing their fingers, then leaned forward and braced himself against D’s elbows. The shadows fell from his eyes and the moonlight lit them from behind. D was pinned in place by those blue searchlights.
His jaw clenched as Jack pulled him higher and farther, white knuckles and gasps — all D could feel of Jack was their fingers clenched together and himself buried inside. Dangled over a precipice and held by a few thin threads while he writhed toward the long, long drop. He’ll never let go of me. Not ever.
He came with a surprised cry, startled by its suddenness, the warmth of Jack’s release spilled on his stomach, straining up with planted feet to bury himself deeper, spend within Jack’s body and let it fly. Jack fell forward against his chest. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured into D’s neck.
D didn’t say anything. He just lay there and listened to Jack’s breathing and felt the weight of him against his body until he finally rolled away onto his back. Minutes passed. “Mm,” he said.
Jack chuckled. “Is that all I get, then? A grunt?”
“What, you want I should sing ya a song?”
“If you’re taking requests, I’d like to hear ‘Bei Mir Bist du Schoen.’”
D snorted. “Yer awful pleased with yerself.”
Jack rolled over and tucked close to D’s side, their legs intertwined, Jack’s head in the hollow of D’s neck where it seemed to fit so naturally. D let his arm drape across Jack’s shoulders, his fingers lightly grazing the skin. “Yeah, I’m pleased. That was… damn.”
“Mm,” D said. “Always is,” he muttered. He felt Jack smile, then he ran a hand up D’s chest.
“Still can’t believe you let me do this,” Jack said.
“Do what?”
“You know. This. The, uh… cuddly part. I always thought you’d be one to get off, roll over and go right to sleep.”
“Huh. Didn’t realize you’d given it so much thought ahead a time.”
“Come on. The idea of… this… crossed my mind more than once before it happened.” He lifted his head. “Didn’t it cross yours?”
Did more’n cross, bud. Moved right in and opened a goddamned curbside hotdog stand. “Mmm… well….”
Jack shrugged. “I won’t make you say it. Still… you said I was the first man you ever… you know.”
D nodded. “Yeah. Kinda.”
“Kinda? You mean you wanted to before.”
“Why’s it matter?” D said, exasperated.
“I know who I am, D. I’m still just trying to suss you out. You didn’t put up much of a fight. You couldn’t have thought you were straight.”
“Ain’t no point. Ain’t much a the me that was in who I am nowadays.”
Jack chuckled. “When I figure out what that means I’m sure I’ll feel enlightened.” He propped his head on his hand so he could meet D’s eyes. “You never thought that you might be gay?”
“Who says I’m gay, then?”
Jack arched one eyebrow. “Let’s ask my ass and see what it thinks.”
“Don’t even hardly know what that mean
s, gay.”
“Well, it means that when two boys care about each other very much, then—”
“Shut the fuck up,” D snapped. The teasing light went out of Jack’s eyes, which suited D fine. That light was meant to hide Jack’s insides, where he was just as confused as D was, and he didn’t see the point in hiding that. “I ain’t a little kid. You don’t gotta patronize me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Jack said, quietly.
“Such a fuckin’ smartass, sassin’ off ta me. I could kill ya with my little finger, ya know.”
Jack gaped at him, then burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” he said, choking it back and waving one hand before his face. “Just… where’d you hear that line, a Bruce Lee movie?”
D let a begrudged half-smile curl his lips. “Somethin’ my handler usedta say. Kinda like an in-joke.”
“You keep getting off the subject.”
“Don’t much like it.”
“Have you had feelings for men before? Before me, I mean. That is, uh… if you have feelings. I don’t mean to assume that….” Jack stammered, his face flushing. D could feel the heat of his face against his shoulder. “Didn’t mean those kind of feelings, just the sex feelings, you know what I mean.”
“Jack,” D said. “You shush now,” he said, softening his tone. He sighed, knowing he wasn’t escaping this conversation. “Yeah, I had them feelins before.”
“And?”
“And I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“Jesus, you jus’ gotta know everythin’, don’tcha?”
“Yes.”
“I said I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Jack was peering at him with those eyes that sometimes seemed to have the ability to see past D’s defenses. “There was a man, wasn’t there?”
“I jus’ told ya there was.”
“Did something happen? Was this in the Gulf?”
D sighed and shut his eyes. “I’m gonna say this once, I’m gonna make it quick, and I ain’t gonna answer no questions, got it?” Jack nodded. “Was a guy. Knew he was givin’ me the eye, tried ta pretend I wasn’t givin’ it back. Went out together on a recon. Hadta wait two hours fer pickup, ended up… uh, ya know. Jerkin’ each other. Didn’t talk about it. Next day he came at me with a knife, which I took from him with some prejudice. He got court-martialed and sent home. End a story.”
Jack stared, wide-eyed. “He came at you with a knife?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Why?”
“I said no questions.”
Jack laid back down, his arm still across D’s chest. “Jesus, no wonder.”
D tightened his arm around Jack’s shoulders a little, seeing not the ceiling above him but that day, the bright sun, the hard metal smell of diesel fuel and desert sand, and Porter with the knife. The shock of it, first cold up the spine and then heat to the skin and blood to the muscles. The tent flap opening, first Porter’s face, a flush of pleasure to see him, the nervousness of what-we-did and will-we-do-it-again, the heat in his belly, the shame of the act so much greater than the shame of mere fantasy, half wanting to kick Porter’s ass and half wanting to throw him down, all of it cut short by that glint of metal. Then quick, so quick, and had to act, Porter’s clumsy lunge and his mad, twirling eyes and the all-at-once knowing that Porter was crazy. Maybe had been all the while, maybe had been made so by this place. He wouldn’t have been the first. Maybe had been made so by… what they’d done. And there D was (except it hadn’t been D but a man named Anson, this day being the first of many in his long, slow death), the evidence, the proof, the only one who knew. So, the knife. The hands that they’d used to touch each other used then to fight, to ward off the knife, take it quick and efficient, two blows, gut and neck, standing then over his friend, out cold. Explaining to the CO, leaving out the most important bit, no sir he just come at me, no idea why, maybe the heat’s just baked his brain like a damned pot roast and he’s all peas-and-carrots upstairs. Not too many questions asked. Shit happened. Tough old world, tough old war.
Going back then to business as usual. Eyes front, soldier.
He sighed and shut his eyes, seeing that scene again, except now it was not Porter coming at him with a knife; it was Jack. And he stood there and did nothing, just watched as the knife was plunged into his cold, dead heart.
~~~~~
Jack jerked awake. It was still dark. He choked back whatever sound had been on its way up his throat—a cry, a cough, a scream, even. He held his breath and listened; D’s breathing was slow and even. He relaxed, exhaling and blinking away the remnants of the nightmare. It wasn’t the first. As always, it didn’t stay still to be examined but fled back into his subconscious, leaving impressions in his mind like footprints. Blood, and pain, and dark laughter and death, and all of it starring himself.
You’re okay. You’re safe now. If only he could really believe that. He put on a brave face because he didn’t have much of a choice, but in his heart of hearts he didn’t really think he was safe anywhere. The men who pursued him had grown in his mind from flesh-and-blood humans into all-seeing, all-knowing monsters who would bat D aside like a troublesome insect and then Jack would be eviscerated. Slowly.
“You okay?”
Jack jumped, the low voice from behind him jerking the tenuous calm out from under him. “Jesus,” he breathed.
“Sorry. Heard ya wake up.”
“I’m okay.”
“Yer heart’s beatin’ fast.”
“What, do you have mutant hearing now?”
“I can see the pulse in yer throat, dumbass.”
“It’s nothing. Bad dream.”
“Mmm.” D fell silent, but Jack knew he wasn’t going back to sleep. Jack felt D’s hand touch his shoulder, lightly. “C’mere,” D said, the word barely a puff of air. Jack turned over and was drawn into D’s arms. He sighed and relaxed a little. “Better?”
“Yeah.” He stayed where he was for a few moments, the steady thump of D’s heart in his ear, D’s hand on the back of his head. “I’m scared,” he finally whispered.
“I know.”
“I keep telling myself everything’s okay, and I should be brave—”
“Bein’ brave don’t mean not bein’ scared. And we don’t know if everythin’s okay.”
“Gee, that’s a comfort.”
“I ain’t got much comfort ta give.”
Jack burrowed closer to him, sliding his arm around D’s waist beneath the sheets. “Feels like enough to me.”
“You got good reason ta be scared,” D murmured.
Jack sighed. “You aren’t scared, though. It’s embarrassing.”
“Who says I’m not?” Jack could feel D looking down at him.
“Well… you never act like it.”
“I wouldn’ta got far in my business if I wore it on my face.” His arm settled around Jack’s shoulders. “I ain’t scared fer myself. Haven’t been in a long time. Now, I’m jus’….” He hesitated.
Jack lifted his head and looked at him. “What?”
D met his eyes, then looked away quickly. “I’m scared I won’t be ready if they come fer you. I won’t be fast enough, or smart enough.” He shrugged and harrumphed. “Scared I won’t be able ta protect you.”
Jack didn’t know what to say to that. He let his head rest on D’s chest again. They didn’t speak for a long time.
“What were you like as a kid?” Jack finally asked.
“Huh?”
“What did you like to do?”
“Hell, I dunno. Was like any other kid, I guess.”
“No, I want to know.”
“Know what?”
“Anything. Whatever.”
D sighed, exasperated. “What’s this about, huh?”
“D, I sleep with you every night and I hardly know anything about you.”
“What I did as a kid ain’t gonna tell ya the important stuff.”
“The unimportant stuff�
��s what I want to know, though. What was your favorite kind of candy?”
“Hmm. Hafta think about that.”
“I used to love Pixie sticks.”
D chuckled. “Paper tubes a delicious straight sugar, huh?”
“That’s the stuff, man.”
“My grandma always had chocolate-covered cherries,” D said, his tone curled at the edges, like he’d surprised himself with the memory. Jack slid up a little so he could watch D’s face. “Usedta love them things. The way they’d kinda bust open when ya bit ’em, and that syrupy stuff inside, then the cherry. I’d bite off one side a the shell real careful-like, so none a the syrup spilled, then suck all the gooey out, then fish out the cherry with my tongue, then I’d just have the chocolate shell left and I’d nibble on it ’til it was gone. She’d only let me have one or two so I hadta make ’em last.” He glanced at Jack, who was just staring at him, his mouth open. “What?”
“That is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
D flushed and fidgeted. “Aw, hell.”
“Seriously. Ask me how much I want to go get some chocolate-covered cherries right now just so I can watch you eat them.”
“Shut the fuck up,” D said, but Jack could tell he was a little pleased. D always got uncomfortable when Jack told him he was sexy, or commented on his appearance.
“Hey, you’re the one who had to say it all sexified like that.”
“My arm’s goin’ ta sleep,” D said, changing the subject.
Jack rolled away onto his back and held out his arm. D just looked at him. “Well? Come here.”
“I don’t, uh… umm—”
“What, you’re too macho to be cradled in my manly embrace?”
“Ya gotta say it like that, huh? Goddamn, you ‘n’ yer smartass comments.”
“The fact that I get snarky when I’m uncertain should no longer surprise you. Get over here. We’re having intimate bed conversation and I won’t do it with a foot of mattress between us.”
“Shit, yer gettin’ bossy.” D slid over and turned into Jack’s side, letting Jack embrace him. His protestations notwithstanding, the tension seemed to gradually leach from his body the longer he laid there, his arm draped across Jack’s midsection.