Fearful Symmetry

by Francis Gideon

  “And what?”

  “Why the beetle? And the butterfly? Is there something else?”

  “I wanted her because she was beautiful. So now I have her. There’s no more to the story other than that. Unless, of course, you want science books.”

  Otto moved from his wall to a bookshelf by a table. Each row was filled with leather-bound copies, some red and others dark blue. Many of them looked similar to the ledger books the merchants in the market had, but as soon as Otto pulled one off, Dryden saw how different they were. Diagrams of insects, animals, and some flowers were sketched inside. All the points were documented, categorized, and accounted for. The beetle was absent, but there were a few pages left blank at the end of the book, giving the illusion of an ending to the story, where the beetle could get to the center and win whatever game Otto had been playing with it.

  “Is that…?” Dryden asked, eyeing those blank pages. “All there is? Just labels and anatomy?”

  “What do you mean? You want more stories?” Otto grinned.

  Dryden felt his cheeks flush and the absent place on his shoulder where Otto’s hand had been sting. “No. I mean, I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay to love what your mother has taught you,” Otto said. “Stories can be a very effective way of spreading knowledge. I mean, I assume it’s your mother telling you these things, at least. Mothers tell good stories.”

  “Sometimes.” Dryden sighed. He glanced back at the beetle, then at Otto once more. “Show me more. I want to see all of your house.”

  “All of it?” Otto’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t linger on the open-ended question. “Let us have some tea, first. Tea always goes a long way for conversation between strangers.”

  “Are we really strangers anymore?” Dryden asked. “You know my name and I know yours. I see your house. ”

  “Yes, but we all start as strangers. I want to know you a bit more before we tell tall tales. And before bedtime stories, especially.”

  Dryden swallowed hard, unable to reply, so he followed Otto back into his small kitchen. The kettle that Otto had filled now boiled over the kitchen stove. Otto moved toward the glass jars he kept on the other side of his counter, some filled with black tea leaves, dried berries, and some with white flower petals. Other jars had mushrooms, pale nuts, and small herbs inside. After lingering for some time, Otto grabbed the one filled with bits of white mushroom, pink leaves, and black tea.

  “This is a special mix,” he explained as he portioned off two cups. “A rare bud of flower from the forest. One I cultivate.”

  “Sounds lovely.” Dryden emptied his pockets of the lemons and placed them on the counter.

  “You were busy.”

  Dryden nodded, blushing. After a small nod from Otto, Dryden began to cut away wedges for their drinks. Otto strained the boiling water through a mesh ball filled with tea before he set down glass mugs on the small wooden table. Dryden followed close behind and placed the sliced lemons at the center of the table.

  “You’re the most interesting hunter I’ve ever met,” Dryden stated as he sat.

  Otto seemed pleased by this sudden shift in conversation. “What do you mean?”

  “Most hunters I know are also butchers. They eat what they kill and have that be it.”

  “I don’t just kill to kill. If I’m going to hunt, I want to learn something from my prey. It’s the only way I can keep the world balanced.”

  Dryden paused and set his teacup down. He hadn’t heard anyone speak about the balance of the universe, without attribution to the king, since his mother’s stories. “Surely you don’t believe that?”

  “Believe what?”

  “That the tree of life holds balance in the world?”

  Otto smirked. “I do. I have to. It’s one of the many rules of this cabin.”

  Dryden twisted a lemon wedge on the side of his drink. “I always thought it was just a story my mother told me to keep me away.”

  “Away from what?”

  “Good question,” Dryden said. He thought back to the fox, the lemon tree, and all the small things his mother had been almost right about. Perhaps she was better than he thought, but time had robbed her of the ability to see the nuance in stories.

  “I also like to bake,” Otto added. “I work very hard distilling ingredients from around here and seeing what I can produce. Like the tea, my cakes are a delicate balance. Like the earth itself.”

  From beneath the cupboard, Otto pulled out a small pan that contained a dark, almost chocolate-colored cake with one slice taken out of it. Fruit oozed at the center and spilled out into the blank space of the dish. Dryden could smell, and nearly taste in the air, how rich this dessert was.

  “I see you’ve already tried it.”

  “Always,” Otto said. “Had I known I would have a guest tonight, I would have waited.”

  Otto picked up the knife that had been used on the lemons and, without wiping it clean, sliced another section of the cake off. The piece was larger than the one missing, and without asking, he placed it on a plate and set it in front of Dryden.

  “Oh no. It’s all right. I really should go.”

  “Relax.” Otto placed his hand on Dryden’s shoulder again, heavy and insistent. He topped up Dryden’s tea as he stood next to him. “I insist. Eat as much or as little as you like. But never refuse food.”

  “Is that a rule of this cottage?”

  “Maybe one.” Otto winked, before he added more tea to his own mug. Dryden felt fattened, excessive, especially with the food he had bought and eaten earlier in the day from the marketplace. After a long winter, he deserved it. When Otto sliced off a piece of cake for himself—not nearly as big as the one he gave Dryden—and sat down with him again at the table, Dryden felt more at ease. The cake tasted sweet on his tongue, but the longer he savored it in his mouth, the more bitter it became. He learned to take short, quick bites and to smell it before he placed the decadent piece on his tongue.

  “So, can I ask why you don’t believe?”

  Dryden’s appetite waned. “In the tree?”

  Otto nodded. “It’s a common tale. Among others.”

  Dryden noted the lingering pause on the last syllable. He placed his fork down on the plate, more than half his cake still leftover. “I don’t know. I used to think the tree and the balance in life was important. It was why my mother made bad things happen.”

  “What do you mean?” Otto asked.

  “Oh. My mother thought that if bad things happened, then the universe would provide for us. Anytime we strove for perfection, we only left ourselves open to be hurt.”

  “That’s a shame.” Otto glanced at his walls and shelves filled with treasure and beauty, and Dryden’s heart panged. How can someone this beautiful have so many things of beauty? That wasn’t allowed. Shouldn’t the universe have taken it all away by now?

  “What do they always say?” Otto asked, trailing off for a moment before he gathered the right words. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? I’ve always liked that quote because it points out that beauty is not a real thing. It’s a made thing. When we look at something, it becomes beautiful. It becomes real to us. So your mother couldn’t have made imperfections because she would only come to love them.”

  “I know. It’s never made much sense to me. I believed her so strongly until my father died. And then… I found the tree. And I don’t know what to think.”

  “What about the tree made you stop?”

  “Because….” Dryden sighed and folded his hands on his lap awkwardly. “This is going to sound foolish.”

  “Nothing does between friends.”

  Dryden’s heart skipped a beat. From strangers to friends in a matter of minutes. He wondered how far he could push their connection; he wondered where they could end up. “Well, when my parents were married they didn’t have much money. But my mother wanted to make jewelry. So my father said he planted a tree from stones so it would produce jewels for her to make what sh
e wanted.” Dryden paused and realized Otto was still waiting for the ending. “That’s it, though. My mother told me that since she was making jewelry, obviously the tree was real. But how could something so magical happen? I came into the woods to find it. But I found the lemons instead….”

  “It’s not quite the same. But lemons could be jewels to someone else. It all depends on your perspective.”

  Dryden sighed. “So here I am, then. Not sure what to believe anymore.”

  “I understand. Myths are stronger than we’d like to think sometimes because they seem so close to the truth. It tricks us.” Otto paused, a grin on his face, as he reached for one of the lemon wedges. He placed the slice in his mouth, and without wincing at all, ate the citrus from the rind. “Sometimes, I think, people want to be tricked by stories. We want to believe what we have heard over what’s in front of us.”

  “And?”

  “And,” Otto said, finally playing along. His hand stretched across the table, brushing Dryden’s fingers. “I think what we have here is the surest evidence of the balance in the world. You find the tree, and then I find you. Now we’re friends having a drink together. If that’s not balance, then I don’t know what is.”

  “Maybe.” Dryden shifted once he found his words. He reached to push the rest of the cake away, only to have a fork clatter to the floor. His breath caught in his throat as he saw what a mess he had made within only a few seconds. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “No matter,” Otto said. He rose from his chair. “Not as if you did it on purpose.”

  Otto winked before he knelt on the ground. The fork and cake had spread between the chair legs where Dryden was sitting. As Otto’s large body brushed up against his, sudden desire bloomed in Dryden. It had been so long since he wanted someone, since he was in love. Not that he loved Otto—but the mere possibility that they could go from strangers to friends gave Dryden hope. Love was another story his mother used to tell him, and maybe he could believe in it again.

  As Otto picked up the fork, his eyes seemed to catch something else. He pointed gingerly toward Dryden’s wrist. “What’s this?”

  Dryden turned his arm down, covering the stone on the bracelet he wore. The item had already caused him more trouble than it deserved. “Oh. Nothing.”

  “Not nothing.” Otto’s fingers grazed his skin. Dryden’s arm went weak as all the blood drained away from his face. Delicately, as if he was inspecting a fine jewel, Otto looked at the center of the stone. The red heart seemed to glow inside the cabin.

  “It’s beautiful,” Otto declared.

  “Yes?”

  “Of course. It’s something, if not belonging to you, I would ask to keep. I would want something this gorgeous inside a frame.”

  “You can keep it,” Dryden said, barely above a whisper. He swallowed, tasting the hint of sugar on his tongue.

  “I can?”

  “Yes.”

  Otto smiled, and Dryden could see his dimples beneath his thick black beard. Otto’s fingers went to the clasp of the bracelet and undid it. The heavy stone fell away and into his palm. Otto held the jewel in his hand, examined it, and then placed it on the table. Dryden’s wrist felt odd without something covering it, so he was relieved when Otto’s hand reunited with his own. Their fingers clasped, and Otto continued to stare into Dryden’s eyes.

  “I like this,” Dryden said.

  Otto’s grin grew wider, his dimples deeper. “Good.”

  When Otto’s free hand went to the back of Dryden’s neck, he didn’t move. He allowed Otto’s calloused fingers, so rough they were like bark, to touch his hairline, down to his ear, and then over the collar of his shirt.

  “Do you wear anything else?”

  “Jewelry?”

  Otto nodded.

  “No. Just that. I’ve made others, though….”

  Otto’s fingers danced on the buttons of Dryden’s shirt. “If you have no more jewelry, can I take this off?”

  Dryden swallowed hard. He was sure Otto saw the visible rise and fall of fear in his throat.

  “I’ll be gentle. I’ll only take one button after the other. Then….” Otto’s hand moved down Dryden’s chest, over his waist, and to his thighs. “I can remove these too. Is that all right?”

  Dryden wanted to scream yes. He felt the former places where Otto had touched him like a shadow. He knew the sun would be rising soon—and they would be out of time to spend together. His mother would notice Dryden was gone, and then what? Could he go on making jewelry, only to sell it to someone else? He wanted to give everything he had to Otto and have that be the end of it. Dryden owed Otto. He had saved him from the fox, and he had shown him that beauty—real beauty—was still possible. Dryden would give anything to stay here for another night, another lifetime.

  “Yes,” Dryden said. He leaned forward and grabbed Otto’s collar, their lips almost touching. “Yes, take off everything, but only if I can take this off you.”

  Otto grinned and glanced down at Dryden. “Of course. That only seems fair.”

  OTTO LEANED forward and pressed a tight kiss to Dryden’s mouth. Dryden opened with a gasp. Otto was hot, warmer than he had expected inside the cabin. The cake’s bittersweet taste lingered on both of their lips. When Otto’s tongue came forward, Dryden accepted it eagerly, wanting to lick the inside of his mouth. Otto’s fingers splayed out against Dryden’s chest, pressing hard into him before he pulled him forward. Otto’s strong movements were a reminder to Dryden of who he was with and what he was about to do.

  “Otto,” Dryden murmured, pulling away. Otto’s thumb went up to Dryden’s mouth, pressing into the center of his lips. Dryden felt the gnash of his teeth against Otto’s finger and moved into the sudden pain.

  “Shh. Shh.” Otto kissed him again, quickly. “I’m here. There’s no need to worry.”

  Otto moved quicker now. Dryden’s shirt was unbuttoned in no time, flung over his shoulders, and then onto the cabin floor. Dryden soon forgot his qualms. He melted into the chair, into the warmth of Otto, and almost forgot to undress him, too.

  When Dryden moved his hands to Otto’s shirt, the thick fleece fabric felt scratchy, as if it had been burned. When Dryden undid the vest and shirt Otto wore, Dryden's palms were almost too tender to touch Otto’s skin. Otto’s arms held patches of dry skin that spread taut like leather over his chest, which was also covered by hair. Otto’s beard bristled against Dryden’s chin with each growing kiss. Dryden knew all of this was normal; men were hard, and men who worked for a living in the woods through winter were even harder. That was why Dryden liked men over women. Women were too round at the edges, when Dryden preferred people who looked as if they had been chiseled from stone. That was what Dryden had cultivated in his tastes, and that was what Otto gave to him.

  “Come,” Otto bellowed. His fingers had reached Dryden’s pants, the strings half-undone and discarded. Dryden’s cock pressed against the loose fabric, aching to be touched. He nuzzled his face against Otto’s shoulder and pressed his hips forward. Otto seemed to laugh eagerly at how pliant Dryden was—and yet, he did nothing to touch his cock.

  “Come with me,” Otto bellowed again, before he lifted his hands to Dryden’s waist and picked him up. The movement was so simple to Otto, as if Dryden was nothing but driftwood on the beach. Otto carried him three paces down the hallway and into a bedroom. A small fire burned in one corner where a bed was placed right next to it. Otto deposited Dryden down on the bed with a drop and began to unbutton the rest of his own shirt.

  “I have to do the work?” Otto asked in a playful tone. He shucked off his shirt, exposing the thick ring of his abs and then his biceps.

  “I owe you one,” Dryden stated. He held his hand over his cock inside his pants and rocked his palm into it, all without losing eye contact. Otto’s smile quirked again.

  “You sure don’t mean…?”

  “I do. I mean every word.”

  Otto stood, still smirking, his hands on his waist. “Show me,
then. Touch yourself. Do as I say.”

  Dryden shuddered, then smiled. He grabbed his cock through the fabric of his pants and moved up and down it.

  “No. Show me,” Otto insisted.

  Another shudder of anticipation ran through Dryden. He shucked off his pants, then his underwear, and lay naked on the bed. He could feel a chill in the air, but as soon as his hand touched his cock skin to skin, he was better. He moved back and forth, before spitting into his hand and then returning to himself.

  Otto watched him, eyes glowing incessantly, for a long time.

  “Are you close?” he asked, leaning in. “Do you want me to take over?”

  Dryden leaned up and met Otto’s mouth. They kissed, long and hard, as Otto’s hand eclipsed Dryden’s own. His grip was so much stronger, the pressure he gave unyielding. Dryden gasped instead of breathing; he moaned instead of speaking.

  “All right.” Otto took a step back and finally removed his own pants. He took his own cock in his hand, thicker than Dryden had ever seen. Dryden allowed his eyes to linger on the girth, especially as Otto’s hand gestures lured his gaze in.

  When Otto had decided the show was enough, he kissed Dryden. Now that there were no clothes to hang onto, Otto’s hands became rougher against Dryden’s skin. He looped his palm behind Dryden’s neck, tugging on the base of his hair. Not the tips, but the roots so it didn’t hurt as much.

  “Lie down. Is this good?”

  Dryden nodded, still feeling the tug of hair. He arched his back off the bed. As Otto also moved onto the blankets with him, he spread his legs on either side of Dryden. Otto pressed his lips into Dryden, opening his mouth again. Dryden thought their actions would be easier now, so his body relaxed into Otto’s. Their hips rocked together, their cocks rolling next to one another. When Otto grabbed them both together and moved back and forth, Dryden lost all of his composure. He forgot, for a moment inside the blinding pleasure, where he was.

  “Are you scared?” Otto asked, lips by Dryden’s ear and hand still on his cock. “Are you all right?”