by Various
“That’s not really my style,” Nick said, laughing.
“Come on. I know a place.” Chris stood up, and held out a hand..
“You know a place?” Nick said, archly.
“Hey, this is my train, man. I’ve traveled this route so many times.” Chris grinned.
Nick sighed in mock exasperation, and took the hand that was offered.
At two o’clock on a weekday afternoon, the station was practically deserted. The few passengers left on the small Northlander train variously wandered around, stretched, visited the gift shop, checked their e-mail. There was one bored ticket clerk behind the glass.
“Here.” Chris led Nick around the back of the station house, and stopped at the corner of a passageway.
“The Lost and Found?” Nick frowned. His heart had made its way to his throat.
“Yeah, it’s perfect. There’s never anybody here.” Chris cast a sideways glance at Nick. “Not that I’ve done this before or anything.”
“Of course not.” Nick was beyond caring about such details while his body was already betraying him.
Chris tried the door. “It’s unlocked.” Carefully, they stepped inside. “See? What did I tell... ?”
The words dangled in the air, unfinished as Nick slammed Chris against the wall and effectively removed any lingering doubt. They kissed until they were dizzy. Hands roved over warm skin, fumbling with buttons.
“Nick, Nick... ” Chris gasped. Nick just smiled, and kicked the door shut with his foot.
Reaching down, Nick touched him gently, as he groaned and clutched at Nick’s shoulders.
“Nick, please, I’m yours, just take me... ”
I’m yours. Nick’s heart pounded in his ears and his head was spinning. He was breathing hard and fast. Together, they tumbled to the floor, hands roving over each other’s bodies, panting breathless open-mouthed kisses.
Chris’ breath slowed to a rhythmic huff as he bucked against Nick. A primal grunt from Nick and no more words were needed; he held on until Chris cried out.
“Nick, oh, Nicky, please... ”
Nobody had called him Nicky since he was a toddler. But something in Chris’ voice made it sound so sensual, so personal, so intimate; almost like a secret that only they could share. Nick didn’t need to be told what Chris wanted, what he needed so desperately.
When they were done, they lay on the floor, crumpled and panting. There were no words, just incomprehensible murmurs, the stroking of hair, the fluttering of fingertips, the light touch of lips on earlobe, neck, shoulders, hands. The soft brush of cheek against cheek. Love, made.
Lying in his arms on the floor of the Lost and Found, surrounded by other people’s umbrellas, plaid wallets, and shopping bags, you stretch like a cat and relish the delicious sensation of all the cells in your body tingling at once. You remember his warm lips on yours, his tongue in your mouth, his hands on your skin, the longing for more. And when he took you, you cried out his name.
You run long, elegant fingers over his chest. Blue eyes, swimming pool blue. You flicker your fingertips over his stomach and he sighs. You lean over his face, taking in every detail of his features: the straight nose, the perfect skin, the fair hair with chestnut roots, the long black lashes, the soft lips. He smiles, reaches up, and strokes your hair. You must remember his scent, his taste: vanilla and cigarettes, sandalwood and clean, musky male.
You brush his lips with yours and commit the feeling to memory. You kiss like it’s the first time. He runs his fingers through your hair and pulls you down, against him, into him, through him. You’re a part of him now and you don’t want to let go. Somewhere in the distance, a whistle blows.
“Shit! The train!”
Nick scrambled to his feet, searching for his clothes. Chris picked out jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers from the scattered assortment of unclaimed baggage and forgotten articles that littered the small room. Half-dressed and out of breath, they made the train by the skin of their teeth.
“Fuck!”
“You said it.”
Tripping over each other and giggling, they fell into the window seat. Chris leaned against Nick, and Nick instinctively opened his arms. Chris snuggled down against his chest. “You OK, baby?” Nick had never called anyone “baby” in his life. But then there were a lot of things he’d never done before today.
Nick wrapped Chris up in his arms. They kissed in that lazy way that people do, when all the walls between them have been torn down. Nick breathed in Chris’ scent and stretched languidly, reaching out to recapture a frisson of remembered pleasure.
“Temagami, next stop, Temagami.”
The train sped eastward past the rows of little white cottages along the highway that bordered Trout Lake, narrowly missed Quebec, then veered north towards the old growth forests of the Temiskaming shore. Nick stroked Chris’ hair and they nuzzled each other. This is heaven. I’m in heaven, right now, this moment. A deep calm suffused Nick’s body as he listened to Chris’ slow, even breathing, and his head began to nod.
“Nick? Nick Sinclair?” The voice startled Nick awake, and he looked up, blinking.
“It is you! What the devil... ” The speaker trailed off. He was staring, somewhat dumbfounded, at Chris.
“Hey, Duncan,” Nick said, yawning. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“I’ll say,” said the short, middle-aged man in the grey suit with the rather frantic tie. Duncan Travis was the last person Nick would have counted on meeting today. But with Chris sleeping peacefully against him, he felt invincible. Chris stirred in Nick’s arms and looked up at him with a sleepy smile.
“Hey, baby,” Nick murmured. “Oh, sorry, Duncan, this is Chris. We’re um, on vacation.”
“Uh, hi. Pleased to meet you.” Duncan shuffled from foot to foot.
“Likewise, I’m sure,” Chris purred, without even looking. When it became obvious that neither of them were going to move, Duncan started to back away.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got a client meeting in New Liskeard, of all places, so I guess I’ll see you back at the office then, after the long weekend?” Duncan was studying the pattern on his tie.
“Maybe. Or maybe not,” Nick said, shrugging. He was lost in dark brown eyes. Chris smiled, and licked his lips with deliberate slowness. Duncan, flushing to the roots of his sparse ginger hair, stepped backward and sideways at the same time, ducking at the last moment to avoid a collision with the luggage rack.
“I…well. You’ve got company, so I’ll, I’ll see you, OK, Nick?”
“Mmm-hmm. Later, man,” Nick mumbled, not taking his eyes from Chris. With Duncan safely blundering his way into the next carriage, Nick and Chris clung to each other, giggling.
“We’re on vacation?” Chris arched an eyebrow at Nick.
“Just trying to think outside the box,” Nick said with a shrug.
“Nick, you only need to know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“There is no box.”
Nick shook his head in mock exasperation. He stroked the wooden beads around Chris’ wrist.
“Here.” Chris unwound the beads, and slipped them onto Nick’s wrist.
“No, no they’re yours.”
“Not anymore. You’ve earned them. Welcome to the human race, Nick.” Chris smiled. “Besides, I can always make another one.”
“You made this?” Nick fingered the delicately carved and painted beads, strung together on a lace of fine leather.
“Yeah. You’re not the only one with talent, you know.” Chris stretched lazily, and sat cross-legged, grabbing the backpack from under the seat and rummaging for cigarettes.
“I didn’t say I was.” Nick looked out of the window for the first time in what seemed like hours, and found himself staring at a flash rainstorm, pelting in angry sheets against the glass. The sky was black. He tapped the cigarette that Chris offered him and stuck it behind his ear. “So. What do you do for a living?” When you’ve been as intimate as it’s possible t
o be with another person, and then realize that you know practically nothing about them, it can come as a bit of a shock.
“Guess.”
“I couldn’t possibly.”
“Oh, come on. Live dangerously.”
“All right. Um, you don’t work in an office.”
“Duh. You asked what I do, not what I don’t do. See, I should have been the lawyer.”
“You’re a smartass, is what you are. Okay, let me think, you’re a designer.”
“No.”
“A short-order cook.”
“Never. I can’t even make toast.”
“A window-cleaner.”
“Close, but no cigar.”
“Aha! You work outside.”
“Yes. Carry on, Sherlock.”
“You work with your hands.”
“You noticed.”
Nick realized that he had, in fact, noticed the short nails and the slight roughness of Chris’ long, artistic fingers. “You’re a landscaper.”
“How incredibly bourgeois of you.” Chris made a face. “I’m a gardener. I pull other people’s weeds for a living.”
“It’s a decent job.”
“Bullshit.”
“Smoke?”
“About damn time.”
The dining car was empty. Nick took the cigarette from behind his ear and fumbled for matches.
“So, where are we headed now?” Nick plunked himself down on the arm of Chris’ seat and ran idle fingers through his soft black hair. Chris pushed back against Nick’s hand like a contented cat.
“Temagami.”
“Ta-ma… what?”
“Temagami. It’s Ojibway for ‘deep water by the shore’. How long until we get to where we’re going?”
“Four hours.”
“Plenty of time to get to know each other even better.”
“You are so full of shit, Nick.”
“I know.” The rainstorm had wrung out its last drops as the train pulled into Temagami station, and the world appeared rinsed, with a fresh scent like young pine. There was woodsmoke on the wind. Nick leaned out of the window, watching as a couple with a baby in tow stepped down from the train. no-one got on.
“Cobalt, next stop. Stand clear of the doors, please.”
“I think we’re alone,” Nick said, glancing over his shoulder at Chris, who was gazing at the sky.
The espresso-dark eyes were impassive. “Alone, yeah.” The voice that answered him was as unknowable and unreachable as the distant hills that rolled in a blue-green ribbon across the endless horizon. Nick dragged down the last of his cigarette and flicked it out of the window. He turned to look at Chris, but something else caught his eye.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Someone left their laptop.”
“Must have been one of the suits who got off at North Bay.”
“It’s still on.”
“Leave it, man.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t turn all ethical on me.”
“Hey, it’s your karma, not mine.” Chris shrugged.
Nick walked over and sat down, gingerly opening the laptop. He tapped a key and the screen sprang to life, then pressed another key and the Internet browser opened with a jolly flourish of sound.
“What are you doing?” said Chris, curiosity getting the better of judgment.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never Googled yourself?”
“Is that even a word?”
Nick suddenly had the oddest sensation, that he had become Chris and Chris had become Nick. He shook himself, and typed his own name into the search engine.
“You put your name into the Google search. You’d be amazed at what pops up.”
“I can’t begin to imagine.” Chris chewed on already ragged fingernails.
“Nicholas Cameron Sinclair III.” Nick read out what he had typed. It used to be something he was proud of, but now it just sounded ridiculous.
“Fancy. Sounds like a Restoration monarch,” Chris said, with the faintest trace of sarcasm.
“Three generations, all named after each other,” Nick said, looking up at Chris. “But Nick will do just fine.”
“So what does it tell you about yourself, that you don’t already know?”
“Okay, let’s see.” Nick read out the first few search results. “Graduate, University of Waterloo, B.A. Honors; Osgoode Hall Law School, Class of 2002; called to the Bar, September 2004; second year associate, Cooper Michaeljohn, Barristers & Solicitors, Toronto.”
“Wow,” Chris said. “You really are somebody. What the hell are you doing on an empty train with me?”
“Oh, wait a second. I didn’t do this just to brag. It’s your turn anyway, what’s your name?” He looked up at Chris, the brown eyes were sad.
“Chris.”
“I know that, your full name.”
“No.” Chris said abruptly, and snapped the laptop shut.
“Chris, I didn’t mean …” Nick jumped up, but Chris was already slamming open the door to the next carriage. It slid shut with a heavy clunk, leaving Nick alone.
“Fuck.” Nick slid the laptop onto the next seat and ran after Chris, losing his footing and grabbing at the luggage rack as the train lurched wildly from side to side. Chris was standing at the far end of the last carriage, staring out of the rear window. A sudden shiver of fear sliced at Nick’s mind like an ice-cold knife. He ran up behind him and stopped. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, please forgive me. I’m a complete and utter jerk, and I have no excuse. No excuse at all.”
When he is standing right behind you, so close you can almost taste him, the pain is so intense you can’t let him in, and you can’t even tell him why; why in your loneliness you reach out to strangers in subways, at bus stops, on trains. You throw out a slender thread, a lifeline, and wait. If only someone would notice and grab hold – pull you back from the edge. You angrily blink back the tears that you didn’t even know were streaming down your face. The ever-present blackness opens before you like a deep well and you stare it down. “Please, Chris. I’m sorry. Baby, please.” The softest of touches on your shoulder, and the blackness recedes. You don’t get me today. Not today.
“Nick?” He’s still here.
“I’m here, it’s OK. It’s going to be OK.” You fold into his arms and hold on tight.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” They sat together in the last car, watching the late afternoon sun dip behind the tree line. Tom Thomson’s white pines had changed to spindly black spruce and tamaracks. The landscape looked parched and sparse. Bull moose ambled unseen through dank muskeg.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. It matters to me.”
“It’s just, it’s almost the end of the line,” Chris said.
“I’ll still be here.”
“Will you?”
“Count on it. I’m a lawyer, remember? We’re not allowed to lie.”
“Cochrane, next stop – Cochrane.”
“There’s nobody left on the train. Just us.”
“How long until we get to Cochrane?”
“Two hours.” They kissed, like it was the last time. Making out in the dining car of a deserted train could be construed as a metaphor for something profound, but it was just sex. Chris backed Nick up into the buffet table, sending plastic plates and flatware flying. Once on the floor, it became evident that this time, Chris had the upper hand.
The slender body pinning Nick down was light enough for him to flip with ease, but along with the realization that he really didn’t want to, came the unfamiliar sensation of complete surrender.
Nick let Chris kiss him until he was dizzy. There was something about giving up control to another person that was intensely liberating. To allow another human being to break down the barriers to your secret self; to let him see you at your most vulnerable, is the true meaning of trust. It took the rest of the journey for Chris to teach Nick how to let go, how to accept the gift of pleasure, and how to cut aw
ay the bonds of other people’s assumptions.
He looks up at you with those insanely blue eyes. You can still taste him. He resisted for as long as he could, but in the end, you taught him to surrender, and you buried your face in his hair as he cried out your name. Now all you have to do is hang on, just hang on and don’t let go. Don’t let him slip away.
“Cochrane, this is your final stop, Cochrane. This train is now out of service. Will all passengers please leave the train.”
“End of the line, man.” Chris' eyes searched Nick’s face.
“Grandma?” Nick arched an eyebrow.
“Grandma.” Chris grinned. They collected their bags and stepped off the train. The platform was deserted except for an elderly man and his dog. Inside the station, a ticket clerk sat behind the Plexiglas, playing solitaire on his computer. He nodded at Nick.
“See, we even have technology up here,” Chris remarked.
“I want to see the polar bear,” Nick said, feeling a little like a six-year-old on holiday.
“All in good time,” said Chris, pulling Nick by the hand. “First, you have to meet grandma.”
They crossed the street, walked a couple of blocks, and rounded a corner. Chris led Nick up to the front door of a small cottage with white siding and blue wooden shutters. There was a basket of marigolds hanging from the porch. A gust of wind blew one of the shutters from its hook, and it flapped frantically.
“Go on. Ring the bell and ask for Rose.” Chris hung back, arms folded.
“No!” Nick protested. “She’s your grandma. She doesn’t know me from Adam.”
“Humour me.” Chris’ expression was intransigent, and Nick knew there was no point in arguing.
“Fine. But you’d better jump in and introduce me.” Nick gingerly opened the storm door and rang the bell. The indignant yelping of a small dog, the sound of a chair being scraped back, then the shuffling of feet, and the front door swung open. A short, grey-haired lady in her sixties stood in the doorway, looking Nick up and down. Her dark brown eyes regarded Nick with suspicion.
“Yes? Can I help you?” She looked past Nick, and he turned, more to elicit a little assistance from Chris than to follow her gaze. But there was no-one there.
Nick ran down the path, around the corner, and stared down the deserted road. A street light flickered into life against the gathering dark. It was cold.