Slow Fires with bonus story Alligators & Orgasms

by Sarah Black

  “I’m okay being alone,” she said. “Maybe I have felt lonely out here, but there wasn’t much I could do about it, so I just ignored it.” She snuggled down into the pillow, and they moved closer to her. “I think I’m going to feel lonely when you two leave.”

  Russ reached for her, and they held her close between them. “But, Mia, we’re coming back.”

  She closed her eyes against the sudden prick of tears. “When do you have to go?”

  “Soon,” Russ said. Kevin sighed and moved closer. “Mia, we’ve got a condom left. You’re not too sore?”

  “No, Russ. I’m good.”

  “Then let me draw you making love to Kevin.” She smiled at him, surprised. “You can use the sketch for a tile.”

  Kevin was leaning up on one elbow. His long hair was spilling over his shoulder, and his blue eyes were as deep and as quiet as a lake in the stillness of her bedroom. He had the strong arms and big shoulders of a potter, the elegance of a cat. She felt her breath catch in her chest. She couldn’t remember ever seeing anything so beautiful. She looked back at Russ and nodded.

  * * * * *

  The guys had only been gone about ten minutes when the phone rang. Mia had pinned Russ’s sketch up on her bedroom wall, and was sitting cross-legged on the bed with a sketchbook and some colored pencils. She couldn’t remember the last time she had wanted to draw this much, but she wanted to surround herself with their lines, the graceful lines of their long legs, the strong lines of their chest and shoulders, the way she felt safe and warm, nestled between them. Safe and warm and complete. She wasn’t quite ready to think about what all of this meant, but she wanted to capture the feeling while she could still smell them on her skin and on her bed sheets.

  She picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Mia.” Kevin was laughing over the phone. “I just wanted to check the number was right.”

  She could hear Russ in the background. “You are such a fool!”

  “I know. I am a fool. What are you doing?”

  Mia felt like giggling into the phone. She was suddenly sixteen again. “I’m drawing pictures of you two. And you’re not a fool.”

  “I’m infatuated,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  “Hey, Russ, she’s infatuated. Mia, we’ll be at your place Friday after school to pick you up for camping, okay? Don’t forget. Don’t forget about us, I mean.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  Mia packed food for the weekend, and pots and pans, and towels and sheets, and her old quilt. It was a double wedding ring quilt, and it had belonged to her grandmother. Russ had sent her an email, saying that it would be like camping out, so not to expect too much and bring warm clothes. Kevin had emailed her, too ‑‑ a breathless snatch of French poetry.

  They were in front of her house when she got home from her last class, and they were driving the delivery truck again.

  Kevin hugged her when she climbed out of her pickup truck. Russ stood behind them, watching the street.

  “Let’s go in,” he suggested. “Your neighbor is very interested in us, Mia.” He nodded toward the house next door, and Mia noticed the curtain move in the living room. She didn’t care. She was so happy to see them. That clutch in the pit of her stomach was familiar, and she thought she might be falling in love. With both of them. With each of them, and both of them together.

  “Why’d you bring the truck?” she asked, unlocking her front door and walking into the house. “I’ve got some groceries and gear, but we could all fit into my truck if you want.”

  Russ laughed. “Kevin bought you a bed.”

  “What?” Once the door was closed, they took her in their arms, and she was pressed close between them, their spicy male scent making her dizzy. “Oh, I’ve missed you guys. What’s this about a bed?”

  “I didn’t want you to have to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. I got us a bed ‑‑ you know, big enough for all of us.”

  She put her hand on his cheek. He was handsomer than a week ago ‑‑ eyes bluer, shoulders broader. Russ looked taller, stronger. She was definitely falling in love.

  “Listen, guys. We need to talk.” Russ pulled them close and put an arm around each of their shoulders. “We’ve got to be careful in public. No more kissing in the front yard.”

  Mia put a hand on his chest. “Russ, no one’s interested in me, or what I do.”

  “Mia, we don’t want them to get interested in you. Or in us. I think,” he looked troubled for a moment, “I think people are less tolerant than we realize. Maybe this is dangerous.”

  She reached for him and wrapped her arms around his chest. “Russ, has something happened?”

  He shook his head. “No ‑‑ just a bad week.”

  “He worries,” Kevin explained. “He worries for both of us, so I can concentrate on my work. We get hassled a little. The other guys mostly, telling fag jokes. Stuff like that. The occasional girl, too.”

  “Let’s leave it for now,” Russ said. “We’re ready to rock, Mia. Are you nearly packed?”

  “I’m finished. I just need to pack the refrigerator food in the cooler. You two want to carry out some boxes?”

  They followed her into the kitchen, and Russ laughed when he saw the boxes of equipment and canned food on the kitchen table. “I’ve got some stuff in the bedroom, too,” she explained. “You know ‑‑ just towels and pillows and stuff like that.”

  They made a couple of trips out to the truck, and Mia finished packing the cooler. She grabbed her sketchbook and colored pencils, too, and stuck them in the front of the truck.

  She slid into the middle of the seat. “How far is it?”

  “About four hours from here,” Russ said, putting the truck into gear and pulling away. “Down in Catron County.”

  “Perfect land for potters,” Kevin said, his hand finding its place on her thigh. “Quiet and still. Our piece is twenty acres out in the middle of nowhere. No neighbors, lots of trees ‑‑ juniper and piñon. We’ve got volcanic rock, too. I think we’re going to build a sauna.”

  “Tell me about your pots, Kevin.”

  Russ glanced over at him. “Kevin’s got magic hands. He can make what his mind thinks.”

  “Bird’s nests, shells, river rocks, like that. Organic. My pots, they feel good when you’re holding them. People want to touch them and hold them. I’m going to try something this weekend, an idea I got from that book by Paulus Berensohn.”

  “You mean, Finding Your Way with Clay? I’ve got that book,” Mia said. “It was my first pottery book.”

  “I want us to make a set of beloved bowls,” Kevin said. “Three bowls pinched out of one piece of clay.”

  “Decorated with the growing things from the land,” Mia said, “like juniper needles pressed into the wet clay.”

  “Ash glaze inside, raw clay outside,” Russ suggested. “Strong walls, fired in the wood kiln.”

  “Big enough we can eat chili out of them, but not so big we can’t wrap our hands around them.”

  They both stopped talking and looked at her, and she nodded.

  Mia woke after a few hours. Kevin was still asleep, his head propped against the door. She had been leaning against Russ’s shoulder. It was getting dark, but he drove the big truck easily, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other arm stretched out across the back of the seat.

  “I’d offer to drive and give you a break,” she said, “but the gears look a little complicated for me.”

  “I’m good,” he said, glancing down at her. “I like to drive on empty country roads. Gives me time to think.”

  She studied his profile. “You gonna stop for coffee or anything soon?”

  He looked down at her. “You have to go to the bathroom?”

  She nodded.

  “We can stop in Quemado, have supper at the Largo Café. They make a good green chili cheeseburger. Good pie, too.”

  “Thanks. Russ, how are things at school?”

  He stared out
the windshield for a long moment, not speaking. She put her hand on his thigh.

  “I’m going to try one more thing,” he said. “And, if it doesn’t work, then Kev and I are going to pack it in, just set up our studio and move on.”

  “It would be good to finish your degree, Russ, for both of you. Things can really get tough for studio artists. I mean, just health insurance, if you’re self-employed ... Well. You know all that already, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “So what we’re going to do is I’m going to fire Kevin’s pots ‑‑ the ones for his MFA show ‑‑ in the wood kiln. And I’m going to make his glazes and I’m not going to let him tell anyone. He’s the one of us going into the art books, you know? Me, I like the fire, the slow fire, and building big wood-fire kilns. And if I don’t get my degree, then I want to make sure he does.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” said a sleepy voice from the door.

  Russ grinned over at him. “We’re going to stop at the Largo for supper,” he said. “See, the only trouble with Kevin is he insists on telling the truth. You can’t imagine the trouble that causes.”

  She laughed. “You’ve been making platters?”

  He glanced over at her again, smiling. “I tried something new this week. I drew a sketch of the three of us, just outlines. I got the idea from your tiles. I glazed this big platter in pine-ash glaze, so it should be a very pale gold-green. Then I took some of the glaze and added a tiny bit of copper. I brushed on the sketch with the new glaze. With the copper, the sketch should be just a tiny bit darker green. I think it should come out of the fire almost abstract, like the soft edges of a watercolor where the glaze has run together and fused. The sketch isn’t pornographic or anything. Well, not to me. It’s soft, with our bodies touching and loving. I think the design will be subtle and abstract enough that no one will be able to see what it is, except the three of us.”

  “Russ, I can’t wait to see it. I like the idea of the three of us, our lines fused together.”

  He looked down at her, smiling. “How about you?”

  “I’ve been sketching, and I made a few tiles this week as well. They’re packed in one of the food boxes.”

  “Are they carved?”

  “Yeah, the three of us, like your platter. Maybe we can collect some ashes from the land to make a glaze. Bark and needles collect minerals from the soil. If we make ash glazes with ash from the land, then it will be unique to that place, you know? Maybe we can experiment a little this weekend and develop a glaze for the beloved bowls.”

  Kevin sat up and put a hand to the side of her face. “This is what I want to say to you. You complete us, Mia. You know that, right? The three of us, now ‑‑ with you, we’re complete.”

  She looked at him, stricken. She could feel the pulse beating in her throat. Tears welled up in her eyes and started dripping down her cheeks.

  Russ shook his head. “You cannot tell Kevin to slow down about anything, Mia. I wanted to give you some time to get to know us. But, yeah ‑‑ I feel that way, too. And I know it’s soon, and I know we’re practically strangers to you. But I feel like you complete us. And I want you to stay with us forever.”

  The truck bumped over dirt roads for nearly an hour. “This is it,” Kevin said, as they rounded a last curve in the road. “Look, Mia.”

  There was a little log cabin with a green metal roof sitting in a cleared valley. On three sides the land sloped up and became thickly wooded. A short distance away she saw the kiln, covered by a shelter with another green metal roof, and the studio, made of logs, like the cabin.

  Russ looked down at her and ran a hand back over her hair. “It’s real small,” he said. “We can always add to it later.”

  “It’s perfect,” she said. “Did you two build it yourselves?”

  “Most of it,” Kevin said. “We got a couple of potter buddies from school, Luke and Raphael. They helped us. Now those two are massively strange boys ‑‑ they make me and Russ look like Boy Scouts.”

  “We were Boy Scouts, Kevin. Well, Cubs.”

  “Not for long, big guy.”

  “What happened?” Mia asked. “I bet there’s a story there.”

  Russ started laughing. “A story? Only like the story of our lives. We’re going to be repeating that Cub Scout camp-out disaster our whole lives, Mia. Because Kevin hasn’t changed since he was eight, and I haven’t changed since I was eight. And we’re still hanging tight.”

  They pulled up in front of the cabin and Kevin climbed down and opened the door. Inside was one big room with a kitchen to the right. The only furniture was an old pine table and a couple of chairs. The floor was paved with big, golden Saltillo tiles from Mexico. Mia turned in a circle, taking it all in. Quiet and still. Peaceful. She went back to the truck and started to carry boxes in.

  The kitchen would be hers. She opened a couple of cabinets, decided where the spices would go, where they would put the coffee cups and the canned goods. This weekend only. She wouldn’t think beyond that. It was ridiculous ‑‑ to be a grown woman and be playing house ‑‑ but it felt wonderful, and she was going to enjoy every minute.

  Her guys were bringing the pieces of the bed inside and arguing about where to set it up. “The morning sun will come in this window,” Russ was saying.

  “Yeah? But is this a good thing?”

  “Just think of Mia’s face, with the morning sun coming through the window.”

  They both turned to look at her. “Up to you,” she said.

  When they had the bed put together and the mattress in place, she shook the sheets out and made up the bed, put the pillows next to the headboard, spread her grandmother’s quilt over the bed. Oh, lovely. Their bed. It was starting to look like a home.

  “Come look at this,” Kevin said, taking her hand. Out behind the kitchen was the bathhouse, with a stone shower and a hot tub.

  “Let’s get in the hot tub,” he said, pulling his sweatshirt over his head and dropping it on the floor. His jeans were low on his slender hips, and his long hair fell over his shoulders.

  Russ came to the door and leaned in, watching him. Kevin slid his hands down over his stomach, unsnapped his jeans and pushed them down his hips. No underwear. Mia felt a little weak, and reached a steadying hand for Russ. He pulled her up close until she was leaning against his chest. Russ leaned over and spoke in her ear, the laughter bubbling up in his voice. “See how good-looking he is? The girls are all over him. The boys, too. I don’t know how he gets any work done.”

  Russ walked into the bathroom, pulled his sweatshirt off, and dropped it on top of Kevin’s. Kevin reached for him and pulled him close by the waistband of his jeans.

  “Let’s show her something hot, Russ.” Kevin was naked now, slender and lithe. “You don’t worry, Mia. We’re gonna keep this all in the family. Our family,” he continued, unsnapping Russ’s jeans and sliding the zipper down. “Just us three.”

  Russ stepped out of his jeans. Kevin held him and pulled his boxer shorts over his hips. Mia leaned against the doorframe. She could feel the heat traveling through her body, and she wanted to put her hands between her legs and touch herself. She could feel the dampness seeping through her underwear.

  Russ smiled at her. “Just watch.” Kevin grabbed one of the sweatshirts and knelt on it. They were both erect, beautifully strong and full. Russ had his cock in his hand, and then Kevin took it and put it in his mouth.

  Russ had his legs spread for balance. His hands moved down through Kevin’s hair. Mia walked over to them, knelt behind Kevin, and wrapped her arms around his waist. His cock was turgid and heavy, and he groaned when she took him in her hand and started moving back and forth.

  Russ was grinning down at the two of them kneeling at his feet.

  It seemed like just seconds until Mia could see his stomach muscles clench, the long muscles in his thighs tighten, his hands grip Kevin’s head.

  He pumped his hips, groaning, spilling his seed into Kevin’s mouth. Kevin swallowed him, his fingers di
gging into Russ’s hips.

  When Russ was finished, he knelt and pulled Kevin up and over into his lap. Mia ran her hands up the inside of his thighs. His legs were sprawled apart, and his cock was dark and hard. She put her mouth over the velvet tip, sucked hard, sucked as much of him into her mouth as she could, one hand cupping his balls.

  Russ wrapped his arms around Kevin’s chest. “Let it go, Kev,” Russ said. “She wants you. She wouldn’t do it if she didn’t want to taste you.”

  She wanted him, all right. She wanted to eat him alive, swallow his come, swallow his young body and golden beauty and his fine, strong heart.

  He tensed, and then she could taste him on her tongue, a little sweet and musky, like bittersweet chocolate. She swallowed, but she didn’t let him go. She moved her lips and her tongue along his skin, not wanting it to end.

  “Mia.” Kev groaned out her name, then Russ leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. Mia could feel Kevin’s body relax under her hands, her mouth on him, Russ’s mouth on him, people touching him with love.

  When Mia woke in the morning, Russ was still wrapped around her, one big arm draped across her stomach. She could smell coffee. Kevin was sitting on one of the chairs, pulled up close to the bed. He was sipping his coffee, watching her. She smiled and stretched like a cat, and he got up and poured her a cup.

  Mia sat up against the headboard and pulled her knees up. The cup he handed her had a rusty brown Shino glaze. The inside and lip were pale, as smooth and cool as the moon. The outer surface was as rough as granite. The cup had no handle, but the roughness and thickness of the clay kept it cool and easy to hold. Mia smiled at it, running her hands over the surface. When she sipped, the lip of the cup was like a kiss against her mouth.

  “This is one of yours?” she asked him.

  “Ours,” Kevin nodded. “I threw it. Russ fired it. Did a wood-fire with soda. What do you think?”

  She turned it around and around in her hands, put her mouth on the edge and rubbed it against her lip. “Complicated and interesting,” she said. She liked the feel of the roughness against her palms. “This is a long-term relationship of a cup, not a one night stand. It’ll take some getting used to, but the immediate first sensation is sensuous and delightful.”