Clearcut

by Nina Shengold

  Zan’s hands roamed over his body, exploring the gullies and ridges of muscle, the stray black hairs ringing his nipples, the sharp, bony knobs in the groove of his spine. She found the long chainsaw scar on his thigh, and her thumb stroked its edges, as if she were trying to heal the old wound.

  Earley suckled the join of her shoulder and neck. He could taste her burned hair. He blessed Zan for knocking the hurricane lamp over, starting the fire. Fate or accident? It didn’t matter. She’d found her way to him, and he was inside her, was filling her, spreading his seed.

  Zan rose up beneath him, twining her arms around his neck and pressing her mouth onto his as he came. In all Earley’s years of lovemaking, no woman ever had done that before. They kissed you before or long afterwards, as you were getting your breath back, a sort of a thank you note. This was the first time he’d felt someone’s tongue fill his mouth at the exact moment that he filled her, erupting in wave upon wave of sensation, a shuddering, heaving surrender.

  He lay breathing on top of her, all tension gone from his body. I could die now, thought Earley. I wouldn’t miss anything.

  Zan lay beneath him, gasping for air. Earley noticed the tears squeezing out of her eyelids and wondered if she always cried, if she’d done that with Reed.

  Reed. For the first time in what seemed like ages, Earley remembered that they weren’t alone. Reed had rolled to the edge of the futon, where he lay with his back to them, curled in a fetal position. Zan must have remembered at just the same moment. She stretched out a hand and touched Reed on the shoulder blade. He didn’t move.

  Earley rolled off as Zan moved towards Reed, murmuring, spooning, caressing him. He didn’t respond, and then suddenly he was on top of her, pumping with hard, angry thrusts.

  Earley tried not to think of the size of Reed’s penis, whether Zan liked it more than his. He was on overload. He’d never been in the same bed with another man, let alone one who was fucking the woman whose sweat was still glazing his skin. The whole mattress shook with their groans. Earley felt every jolt in his body. He would have given his soul to be someplace else. Anyplace. Deep in the woods. But leaving the bed didn’t seem like an option. Reed had been able to take it; he should do the same. Or should he? There wasn’t a road map for this.

  Zan, he thought. Alexandra. My Zan. All this time he’d been dreaming about her, and now they were lovers. Jesus, the way she’d moved under his body; that heart-stopping kiss as he came. As they both came. He couldn’t imagine how Reed could bring her as much pleasure, just banging away like that, as if he was running the forty-yard dash and the only thing that made any difference was crossing the finish line. Fuck Reed, he thought, squeezing his eyes closed to shut out the evidence that Zan was doing just that, about two feet away.

  I can’t take much more of this, Earley thought, I’m going to kill him. He stared at the cracks in the roof of the bus and remembered the trailer in Waycross, his folks going at it, and later, his sisters Judene and Sue, sneaking home boyfriends, while he and his brother lay wedged in their bunk beds, surrounded by rattling walls.

  Zan cried out, a sharp yelp that could have been passion or pain. That dick of his could do damage, thought Earley. The bastard. Reed moaned and was still.

  Earley stared at the ceiling, his mind flooded with questions. Who were they now? How would they talk to each other? The whole world had changed, changed forever. A clot of dark clouds shifted over the moon, and the shadows of fir branches, wind-tossed, made flickering patterns above his head. He felt Reed roll over, away from Zan’s body. The tape player clicked and turned over, ready to start again. Earley reached out and shut it off, feeling the silence surround them like smoke.

  Zan sighed a long sigh, satiated, at peace, her tangle of hair spreading out on the pillow. She reached out for Earley’s hand, then for Reed’s. Earley exhaled and surrendered. The three of them lay side by side in the darkness, breathing the same air in three different rhythms, until they were lulled into sleep.

  TWELVE

  “So are we swingers now or what?” Reed asked the next morning.

  “Definitely or what,” Earley answered, relieved that Reed had decided to play it light. His eyes ached. He didn’t know whether it was from the stale smell of smoke or because he had barely slept, tossed by strange dreams and the uneven rhythms of two people snoring beside him. Once he’d awakened to find Zan curled tightly against him, her cheek on his chest. A little while later she’d woken him up as she thrashed in her sleep, rolling over to nestle with Reed.

  “I loved it.” Zan smiled, stretching her arms. “I should burn beds more often.” Earley glanced over at Reed, who looked as uncomfortable as he was feeling himself. In the gray light of day it was hard to believe they had shared the same woman and slept in the same bed, one on each side of her body, like mismatched andirons.

  “How did the fire start?” Earley asked, and as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he didn’t want to know what sudden, passionate movement had sent the hurricane lamp flying.

  “I bumped into the table,” said Zan. A teasing half-smile played over her lips as her eyes met his. Earley’s heart lurched. Was she trying to tell him she’d done it on purpose, so she’d have an excuse to get into his bed? Maybe she had. He could picture Zan doing a lot more than singeing a mattress to get what she wanted.

  He glanced over at Reed to see if the same thought had crossed his mind, but Reed was setting the coffeepot back on the woodstove. His bare foot knocked over the book he’d been reading to Zan. They had found it as soon as they got up that morning: a collection of poems by some Spanish guy, splayed open and soaked with dishwater. Reed had retrieved it, blotting its pages and fanning it open in front of the stove as Earley and Zan knelt by the blackened mattress, picking up stray shards of china and glass. Zan reached for a dagger of glass by the pillow, but Earley got to it sooner. She touched his hand, next to the gash he’d ignored last night.

  “You ought to put something on that,” she said.

  “I ’spose.” Earley savored the warmth of her fingers. He didn’t hold much stock with Band-Aids. Cuts healed when they got good and ready. If it still looked bloody the next time he fired up his Husqy, he’d strap on some duct tape to keep out the sawdust.

  Zan’s dark eyes looked moist, like a spaniel’s. “Thank you,” she said, lifting his hand to her lips. Reed came in from the kitchen. He frowned when he saw Zan bend over to kiss Earley’s cut. She’s tasted my blood, Earley thought; what are you going to do about that? He threw the sharp glass in the cast-iron skillet.

  “This thing’s compost,” he said, jerking his head towards Reed’s bed. The long splash of lamp oil had seared a diagonal path through the sheet and into the mattress’s foam core, exposing its heavy coiled springs. “You’ll never get rid of that smell.”

  Reed nodded. “Where am I going to sleep?”

  The question hung in the air, fully loaded. Reed looked up from the mattress to Earley. So did Zan. He could feel both their eyes on him, waiting. Would this be the way that they talked about what had just happened, and where it would go from here? Earley didn’t feel ready to take it on. He needed some pondering time, and a pot of strong coffee. “We’ll figure it out,” he said, rising, his head nearly touching the roof.

  They made French toast for breakfast. Zan cracked the eggs two at a time, like a short-order cook, while Earley sawed raggedy slices of bread with his Buck knife and Reed stewed some apples and berries in syrup, steaming the windows. Moving around in the bus’s close spaces seemed tighter than ever, a tango of arms and thighs brushing against one another, not always by accident. Even when she was doing something as mundane as throwing the eggshells and coffee grounds into the compost can, Zan’s every move stirred the air between her and Earley, still heavy with sexual musk. If Reed wasn’t standing in front of that stove, he thought, we’d never make it to breakfast. I’d bend her right over the table. Zan caught his eye as if she shared his thoughts. Later, her gaze see
med to promise. We’ll find the right moment.

  Reed ladled the steaming fruit onto their French toast. They carried their full plates outside and sat down on the circle of upended cedar rounds Reed had dubbed Woodhenge. The mist was beginning to lift off the mountains in vertical wisps, like ghostly question marks.

  “Looks like it’s gonna burn off,” said Earley. “We might see some sun today.”

  “That’d be a change,” said Reed, chewing.

  We’re discussing the weather, thought Earley. Well, fine. It was easier. Maybe they just wouldn’t get to Reed’s mattress, and Zan would return to his bed by default.

  “Is there someplace in Forks that sells mattresses?” Reed asked.

  Scratch that for a fantasy. “Sometimes they show up at Sally Ann’s,” Earley said. Reed looked confused, so he added, “The Salvation Army.” His mother had called it that, just like the rest of the neighborhood. A way of preserving their dignity, Earley supposed, of pretending they weren’t in need of salvation, cut-priced.

  Zan shook her head. “Sally Ann’s,” she said, “Jesus wept, Earley. Y’all are the genuine article.”

  Earley drained the sweet dregs of his coffee and picked up the pie tin that held his French toast. “Might could do with a couple new plates while we’re at it.”

  “And a new hurricane lamp,” said Zan, meeting his eye again. This time Reed noticed. He pursed his lips.

  “When do you need to get back up to planters’ camp?”

  “Oh, a couple of hours ago.” Zan gave a cheerful shrug.

  Reed looked surprised. “Since when are you planting on weekends?”

  “We missed a few half-days last week when the wind was too high. Just Nick thinks we’re falling behind.”

  “So you need to go back there right now?”

  Zan reached over to spear a fried apple off Earley’s plate and dredged it through Reed’s maple syrup. “Don’t sweat it,” she said. “I think we’re officially outside the rules.”

  Earley and Reed carried the mattress deep into the woods. Zan stayed behind to wash dishes, giving them ground, Earley figured. Neither one of them said anything for a long time, and Earley kept wondering who’d break the silence, and how. He stared at Reed’s back as they crashed through the underbrush, bearing the unwieldy mattress like prey. The sound of their footfalls seemed amplified.

  The mattress was heavier than it looked, with a coiled-spring and batting construction beneath the foam rubber. The smell of singed foam and lamp oil was acrid. That fire was no accident, Earley was sure of it now. Zan had wanted him so much that she’d been willing to burn herself—Reed too, if need be—so they could be lovers. Granted, she probably hadn’t planned to set fire to her hair; the flames had leapt out of control, but the fact she’d been willing to risk her own skin to be with him made Earley feel dizzy with longing.

  “Is this going to biodegrade?” Reed asked as they wrestled the mattress between low-slung branches.

  “Sooner or later. The moss’ll take over.”

  “We’re all gonna turn to moss sooner or later,” said Reed, shifting the weight onto his other shoulder. “But foam has a half-life of three thousand years or some shit. This is going to be here when the rest of this forest is thirty feet under. Or paved. Or whatever they’re up to by then.” He was sounding a bit like Young Nick at the Cedar, thought Earley. Maybe they read the same library books.

  “Sometime in the Upper Paleolithic, mankind took a really wrong turn,” Reed was saying. “We’ve lost touch with the knowledge we had as a species.”

  Probably true, Earley thought, but in cave days, when a man took another man’s woman, they didn’t eat breakfast together and chat in the woods. They went at each other with clubs, and the stronger man won. That was the knowledge we had as a species.

  They’d come to the edge of a steep ravine. The drop was precipitous, as if some giant axe had sliced straight through the earth, leaving tree roots and boulders exposed to the air. The dry gully below wound down towards the creek where they went to haul water. The sound of its waterfall rumbled beyond the trees, low and insistent, like thunder. “Kiss it good-bye,” Earley said, and they heaved the mattress over the side, sending down showers of gravel.

  Reed took a step forward, watching his former bed tumble and crash on the rocks below. “See you in three thousand years,” he said. The toes of his Gore-Tex hikers were right at the edge. One push, Earley thought. Just a brush of my arm, and I’d have Zan all to myself. Accidents happen out here in the woods. Who would know?

  I would, he thought, and turned back towards the bus. Back towards Zan.

  She was heating a big tub of water on top of the woodstove. “Would you cut my hair?” she asked Reed as they came inside. “This burnt stuff stinks.”

  “Sure,” he said, startled. “I’ll do my best.”

  Zan turned to Earley. “Do you have a pair of sharp scissors?”

  “Damn straight,” Earley said. He stretched over Zan’s head and took his tackle box down from the ceiling rack. He set it onto the table and opened the lid. Reed surveyed the twin trays of lures: spin’n’glos, hoochies and spoons, an assortment of flies. He touched a concoction of red thread and duck down.

  “Did you tie these yourself?”

  Earley shrugged. “It’s a long, boring winter.” He lifted his copy of Dot’s Tide Guide (Bigger the Dot, Better the Fishing) and took out a few pairs of scissors, fanning them out. “Choose your weapon.”

  Reed picked a long pair of needlenose shears. Earley opened them, checking the edge with his thumb, and sat down with a whetstone and chamois. “They’re already sharp,” he said, feeling the urge to defend his tools, “but a new edge cuts best.”

  He and Reed hauled the washtub outside, sloshing the front of their jeans with hot water. Zan sat on a stump round, gazing at Earley as Reed draped a motel towel over her shoulders. That wicked half-smile of hers made him feel naked all over again.

  Reed dipped a tin pitcher into the tub, slowly pouring the warm water over Zan’s head. He squeezed some shampoo on the palm of his hand and massaged it into her scalp, drawing her hair up into a froth of white lather. Earley was struck by how different she looked without her familiar mane. Her eyebrows were bristling and black, and her neck looked surprisingly powerful, supple and arched like the throat of a deer.

  Zan closed her eyes, leaning back into Reed’s caress. Earley felt a hot stab of envy. He wanted to bury his hands in that lather, to make Zan his own. He had a brief, vivid image of Reed flying over the edge of that ravine and landing spreadeagled on those jagged rocks. I could have, he thought. We were standing right there.

  Earley headed back into the bus and busied himself with the woodstove. This was no way to be thinking. Reed was his buddy, his partner. He followed Zan all the way up here from Frisco, Earley reminded himself, scraping grease off the griddle; he ought to be throwing me over a cliff. How could he lie there last night with his back turned and just let it happen?

  He looked back out the window as Reed bent down, scooping his pitcher back into the washtub. The sun caught the flow of the sparkling water as he poured it tenderly over Zan’s head. Earley imagined himself in Reed’s place. Go on, kiss her, you moron, he thought, and just at that moment Zan arched her head up to give Reed a kiss. Reed dropped the pitcher and straddled her, thrusting his tongue in her mouth.

  Earley took a step backwards and knocked over Reed’s drying book. He cursed, then crouched down on his haunches to pick it up. Love Sonnets of Pablo Neruda. The pages were still soaked and starting to ripple in front of the heat. Earley hung it up over the clothesline, between pairs of holey wool socks. He didn’t know what else to do with himself, so he took down the rest of the laundry and put it away. He refilled and trimmed all the lamps, replacing the one Zan had broken, and opened the windows to air the place out. He couldn’t resist looking out at the stump. Reed was standing behind Zan, snipping away at the fringe of her hair as if nothing had happened. Earley
picked up the canvas sling and went out to the woodpile to refill the kindling bin.

  Reed stepped back and looked at him. “Does this look straight?”

  “Please say yes,” Zan said without turning her head.

  Earley looked. “It’s a mite bit shorter on this side.” Reed snipped again and he nodded. “That’s good.”

  “All done,” said Reed.

  Zan slid the damp towel off of her shoulders, shaking off stray clumps of hair. “Do you have a mirror?”

  “There’s one on the truck,” Earley said. He couldn’t help noticing how wet the front of her T-shirt was. Zan walked over and bent to look into the side mirror.

  “Christ,” she said, “I look like Arlo Guthrie.”

  Not with those tits, Earley thought, remembering the way they’d swelled under his fingers. He imagined himself peeling off that wet T-shirt and taking Zan right on the ground, in the moss and pine needles. He wanted to see her body in daylight, to map every cranny and curve of her skin. He wanted to taste her, to lose himself in her saltwater essence, to make love for hours. Instead he said, “You look nice.”

  They went back inside. Reed handed over the scissors and Earley put them back in the tackle box. Zan picked up Dot’s Tide Guide and thumbed through its pages. “What day is today?”

  “Saturday,” Reed answered.

  “I meant the date.”

  Reed looked at Earley, who didn’t have much of a clue. He never kept close track of time; weather made more of a difference in his life than numbers and dates. Fridays in Forks were his one indicator of where in the week he was, and more than once he’d rolled into the Cedar on the wrong night. “First weekend in April, I guess. Just after the equinox. Could be a hell of a spring tide. What does it look like?”

  Zan ran her thumb down the chart. “Big dot. The biggest.”