by David Connor
"I feel as though I always will."
"I'm glad so many people attended."
"Vaughn worried he was seen as some sort of spooky outcast," Frank said, "because of what he did. Children might stay away on Halloween, but the adults came. It was nice to see how many people respected him for the kind, gentle man he truly was, for the things he did for the community, for the money he donated to the church and the schools. Everyone in town knew him, really. They had all been to the mortuary at one time or another when someone they cared about passed on. Vaughn made it a bit easier for them, I think. I wish he had known how much they appreciated it."
"Maybe he does. Though it would have been nice if they'd made it known when he was alive. Why do people make a point to come to funerals and not visit the living?"
"That's an excellent question, Liam. But it was nice we could celebrate Marion as well."
"His nephew bears a striking resemblance, don't you think?"
"Eerily so. Vaughn never mentioned him. So much of his life was a secret from me. A nephew means a sibling. I had no idea."
"It is nice to know the bloodline goes on." Liam took a flower from one of Vaughn's arrangements and placed it at Marion's marker. "They were both so wonderful to us, it's a pity they had no children of their own."
"Yes. An immediate heir to carry on Vaughn's medical interests. The nephew is a doctor. That's something, I suppose. Maybe he can bring those advances Vaughn always said Europe has over the US."
Liam seemed pensive.
"What is it?" Frank asked him.
"I understand your worries now." He kept his hand on Marion's headstone.
"How so?"
"About my heart. How I felt in mine for you. How you may have doubted it."
"My feelings haven't changed, Liam. I love you as much as always. I do wonder whose memories you'll have. I wish the bad ones would stay away, those of Renny's father abusing him like I think he did. I truly never see you as Renny… or as Melissa. You're my Liam." Frank smiled.
"Not even a mannerism or a certain phrase?"
"Not really. Everything about you is you. Have I… have I taken on any of Marion's?"
Liam kissed his cheek. "Should you ever try to rap my knuckles with a butter knife, I'll immediately know why."
"I'm sad, for her," Frank said.
"She never wanted to live without Vaughn."
"Vaughn told me that at the beginning," Frank said. "When he first confessed he was sick. I think she was there." He suddenly remembered. "In heaven. Someone spoke to me… called me 'dear Franklin', and told me to be happy. Yes. It was definitely Marion... unless it was the drugs." Frank squeezed Liam's hand. "I hope there's a heaven. I hope they're together."
"Vaughn lived a long life, he told me," Liam said. "Eighty-four years. He enjoyed much of it, but nothing compared to the last ten with his Marion."
"Only ten?"
"He knew you before he knew her, really. Though not by a lot. She told him again that night. In fact, she said as much to me when she didn't know I understood. 'I live only for him, and without him, I wouldn't want to.' Those were her words. Can you even remember how she swung and kicked at that man who…?"
"My attacker."
"Yes. Mother was tireless in her instance, once we knew how badly you were hurt, that we save you. It was her idea from the start. If she was a match, and somehow she was—another miracle, both said—she wanted it done."
Frank touched his chest, where the long scar ran beneath his shirt.
"Your heart had several irreparable punctures. It still hurts mine to say it out loud. She was like me, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"That man Vaughn said cured another of the lightning curse, he made her."
Frank turned. "Really? He never told me."
"He never told her. She knew. She told me. We spent a great deal of time together, Marion and I. I frustrated her so. I am sorry for that. But there was love between us. I never felt as if they were my parents, though. I recognized the ruse as you did. I didn't know what I was. She revealed many secrets, but that was not one of them."
Frank brought Liam's hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles.
"Vaughn didn't know she knew," Liam continued, "not until you died and she offered up her heart. It was so young… from a teenager at the time. So many good years left in it, she said. Years it would only ache if left in her."
"Wow. I would have loved to have known her better." They stopped at Frank's father's grave, where Frank brushed the snow and a few dead leaves away from the words engraved into it. "Do you believe I saw heaven that night, Liam?"
Liam took a while to answer.
"I know Vaughn thinks maybe I saw what I saw when I was coming out of the anesthesia the next day. He believes in souls, though. He told me so. He told me about yours. Why would someone who believes in souls question what I saw in heaven?"
"I want to believe," Liam said. "I'd like to think there is peace on the other side for everyone who struggles here. And good health. I would like to believe Vaughn and Marion are dancing to old Austrian folk songs right now, and that you and I will be together there, maybe in the woods, eating spaghetti sandwiches, like that first day we spent together."
They stopped at Melissa's headstone next, and her brother Richard's. "That poor family… what they've been through." Frank tightened his grip on Liam's hand.
The Baxters had sent Frank a letter, apologizing for their son's actions, the attack. Frank had never even known Melissa had a brother. He was older, and always ahead of them in school, back before the family left town. Melissa had returned, and so had Rich Jr, Dickie, DJ, who had a history of violence and drug abuse that altered his mind in frightening ways at times. He was convinced Frank had something to do with the death of his sister, and his sometime lover—Renny—who pretended to be tied to Melissa instead. The letter didn't go into such detail. Small-town gossip filled in much of it, though, those alleged details of Renny's sex life and how DJ felt sure Frank had put some sort of revenge spell on the pair that night. Frank's reputation as a ghoul was rampant amongst certain people. Maybe Renny had said something. Maybe he hadn't. As Vaughn had once lamented, just by nature of his profession, people would always be weary of Frank.
"Should we return to the house or the trailer?" Liam asked.
"I'd love to see the woods," Frank responded. "I'd love to snuggle with you for warmth against our tree before the snow gets too deep again and the bitter cold sets in in earnest."
"In earnest?" Liam teased. "I will always love it when you talk like that."
"I want us to lie together in our bed in the trailer and make love for the first time with nothing between us, with nothing covering our bodies so that I can feel the prickle of every hair on your body and the warmth of one part of you and the heat of another. The wait has been torture. Four weeks, Vaughn told me. Four weeks. They're finally almost up."
"I am as thankful as you."
Frank fixed Liam's hair, tossed about by a cold wind off the mountains. It was still long, so yellow and beautiful. "That first day… how badly I wanted to do this." He played in it much longer than necessary to flatten it down. It wasn't about to stay put anyway, the snowy wind was too brisk. "Let's go home."
They paused in front of the business on their way to the trailer. Hellier and Sons Mortuary — Frank Stone and Liam Hellier Proprietors. The new sign had only been hanging a week. "Vaughn ordered it the day you first awoke, the day I held your hand for the very first time." As they entered the woods out back, Liam paused. "Will it be sad here now—frightening, maybe?"
"These woods are life, Liam." They continued on. "I've laughed here. I've cried. They're overwhelming if you look too far ahead, but quite intimate if you find the perfect spot to share with one special person. I want to make love to you when the weather warms again there. Yes, they can be scary, yet nowhere else is so peaceful and serene. A happy place, a sad one, they are constantly changing, yet the oldest o
f trees are a touchstone—always there—a constant. That oak we sat under the very first afternoon we spent together, I can always find it no matter how lost I feel. It's the center of the woods for me, the heart. These woods are my life, Liam. Now they are ours."
Epilogue
"We should take down the Christmas tree."
The pair was in bed. It was a clear, cold mid-January morning. They were in the trailer. The furnace hummed and chugged, and the Christmas tree was nothing more than a large branch cut off a lush scrub cedar in the woods. Weeks after Christmas, it was starting to turn brown, and was, quite possibly, a fire hazard. Adorned with one string of large, colorful lights and strands of silvery icicle tinsel, the scraggly thing had been quite pathetic even when still deep, dark green. It definitely paled in comparison to the majestic one that had risen almost ten feet tall at the Hellier home, but was special none the less.
"Already?" Frank complained. "It's the first one I've ever had with lights."
"It will soon be Valentine's Day," Liam said. "Come on." He tapped Frank's bare bottom beneath the covers and urged him to get up.
"You do it. I'll watch."
Liam pulled him by the arm. "Come on, Lazy Bones."
"I don't believe it's a two man job." Frank continued to resist.
"Fank…"
Frank smiled. The nickname was no longer common place, but rather saved for special occasions. "Okay. Okay." He finally budged, though Liam had already unwound the lights. The job was nearly done.
"Come here." Liam crooked a finger.
Frank stood there a moment, just taking in the manly, naked beauty, but then the urge came to embrace his Liam again, to press their nude bodies against one another and never part.
"Mmm."
"Yes. I will never tire of this," Frank said, becoming aroused.
Liam gently pulled away though. He held up the lights.
"What is that look in your eye?" Frank asked.
"Nothing." But Liam was wrapping Frank in the strand of holiday lights, around his neck, one arm, and several loops around his thickening manhood. "Shall I plug you in?"
Frank chuckled. "Just for a moment. These things tend to get hot quite quickly."
Liam did, and Frank glowed all festive and pretty. "You light up my life," Liam told him. They kissed. "Oh. They do get warm." Liam quickly pulled the plug.
"Yes," Frank said. "And you light up mine as well."
"Come on." Liam pulled on Frank's wrist again.
"Now what?"
"We have to take the tree outside." Liam slipped on his boots. He had put on nothing else, just his boots and a grin.
"Are you serious? It's no more than thirty degrees. We'll freeze."
"Thirty degrees is warm for January, according to the weatherman on the television. We'll be fine, as long as we don't stay out any longer than we stayed plugged in."
"Brr." Frank wrapped his arms around his already chilly, bare body.
"I'll keep you warm against me."
Frank balked without words, just a scowl and a shiver.
"You claimed you'd never tire of that," Liam teased with a pout.
"I never will." Frank took Liam's hand. "Not indoors, where it's warm."
"I remember a man I first met on the lawn outside the mortuary… one who wanted to poop daffodils. He'd run naked in the snow through the woods with me."
Frank smiled. "Yes. I remember him too." He slipped on his shoes, but paused with his hand on the door.
"Three, two, one," Liam counted.
Frank flung open the door, and out they went, into the frosty morning chill without a stitch of clothing.
"I think I have shriveled to nothingness," Frank said, barely off the small porch.
"I still see plenty," Liam countered. He chucked the tree as far as he could throw it, and then held open his arms. "For just a moment, to enjoy the singing birds and the beauty of the sunrise, all pink against white."
They stayed for more than a moment. In one another's arms, the cold was not too much to bear. They kissed. In truth, Frank still wanted to kiss Liam a thousand times a day. How wonderful the feel of his warm skin was against Frank's. The only thing better was having Liam inside him. "Let's go back to bed."
Lying atop Liam, Frank was reminded of the first time he had done so with all of the coverings between them. "This is so much better," he said. After several minutes just used to warm up, Frank kissed his way down Liam's torso, savoring the heat and the taste, the different textures of the flesh on his neck versus that of his nipples. Frank was not finished yet when it came to discovering and cherishing the tactility of his lover's body. He hoped it would never get to feel like routine.
"You're beautiful," Liam said.
"You told me that the first time."
"And it hasn't changed."
Frank rolled to the side, nearly off the not so large bed. He coaxed Liam on top of him, and twitched and shivered—not from low temperature now—as Liam settled his weight and their excited organs touched and came together. Frank could feel Liam breathing, his gut moving up and down. He could feel his outline again, where the arms and legs were. He could feel his excitement halfway down the bed, the same as before, but oh so different. "Mmm." Frank ground his into it, lifting his head up to cradle in Liam's neck up, his already sore. "Can you feel me?"
"Of course I can."
"And I can feel you," Frank said. "And it's heavenly."
"Turn over for me." Liam quoted the dialogue from the past, only now in reverse. "So I can take you in the way we are finally able."
It wasn't their first time, but it was sexy reenacting what actually was in the bed they now shared. Frank rolled over, parting himself with his hands, offering his opening to Liam. "I'm ready."
Liam kissed his way up, beginning all the way at Frank's feet. He wet every curve and concave along the way, kneading deeply when he arrived at the one most pronounced. Liam separated the mounds even more, working the orifice with his mouth to ready it, then priming it with fingers, just as Frank had done for him the night before. If ever Frank was asked which position he enjoyed more, it would be impossible to come to a conclusion.
When Liam mounted him, pressing his hardness against the rim and then slightly past it, Frank hissed with pleasure. He could feel the wetness, the warmth, the girth, and even the prickle of hair. As Frank rubbed against the sheet—the one beneath him, not one between them—he was close to orgasm in no time at all. There were sounds but no words. Still, Frank knew Liam was about to climax too.
Grinding into the mattress, Liam grinding against his buttocks and deep down into him, Frank left a wet mark on the pillow from his mouth just as Liam flooded his insides with wetness as well. Frank threw his head back, clunking it against Liam's skull. "Ow." But even the pain was magnificent, Frank thought, a non-deadly kind, as two more body parts touched, all be it a bit too hard and unplanned. Frank wet the bedding more then, with an explosion of thick, semen fluid that was warm against his hairy bareness when he collapsed atop it. "Did you come?" Frank asked, though he knew Liam had—though he'd felt it, mostly inside, but also some on the outside skin of his rear end.
"Yes," Liam told him.
"It was the most pleasurable doing so has ever been for me," Frank said, continuing to replay their first. It was as true now as then. "The most meaningful—every time."
"Because we are so in love."
They switched positions again, so their lower halves were side by side, but Frank's head could meet up and lie upon Liam's hairy chest. As Frank's breathing started to slow, as Liam's heartbeat did as well, Frank just listened. The room was so quiet, the woods were so still outside, he could pick up the wondrous, glorious thump—that of not one, but two loving, beating hearts.
FIN
About the Authors
DAVID CONNOR
David lives in a small, rural town in New York with a cat, Molly, and his vivid imagination. It refuses to shut down, even when he sleeps. "Penn's Woodland
" started as a dream–literally, as do many of David's works. David can be found on Twitter at @DannyCinicic and has a Facebook page with his writing partner:
https://www.facebook.com/mmromcomsinprint
E.F. MULDER
E. F. Mulder has been an avid reader and storyteller since childhood. Whenever a book was assigned for class, E. F. would be thrilled, even as other students grumbled. Soon, that love of a good story expanded to creating them herself. E. F.’s mother received a ton of catalogs in the mail and E. F. would spend many a lazy summer afternoon or quiet Sunday envisioning the goings on of the men and women—or men and men—in pretty clothes or decorating their Christmas trees when the holiday books showed up in late fall. This creativity also came in handy when playing Barbie with her sister and sometimes her brother. Since E. F.’s mother was a soap opera fan, sitting down for half of Another World and General Hospital daily after work, E. F. came to appreciate that sort of storytelling as well, where love could be a struggle, but also a miracle that conquered all. This sort of yarn spinning later came in handy writing romance novels where the road to happiness has plenty of bumps. To this day, E. F. and her writing partner, David, love to throw romantic soapy twists into their tales.
E. F. also enjoys rainy days, crisp autumns, Christmas decorations, her four kitty cats, and working on a virtual farm when not writing. It’s so much easier to clean under the fingernails when done digitally. A love of QVC means the kitties have a fresh rotation of new boxes to play in and the cute UPS man visits often. Maybe there’s a story there….