“You are Rhett Butler.” Reed kissed Earley’s neck, in the scruff of his beard.
“No ’count two-timing Southern boy. That would be me.”
“I am so goddamn happy,” Reed said. “I just want you to know that.”
“I do,” Earley said, brusquely setting Reed down on the opposite side of the log. He didn’t like talking about this kind of thing, never had; he felt equally awkward when women insisted on putting a name onto feelings that didn’t belong in words. Things were what they were. There was no need to blurt.
It took them a long time to reach the gorge. They could hear the dull roar of the falls up ahead. A low slice of sun rayed out under the gunmetal cloud mass, striping the trail with the shadows of trees. They passed the steep gully where Reed’s ruined mattress lay splayed across rocks, and turned onto the switchback trail, sending down showers of gravel. The last stretch was steep, and Reed leaned against Earley’s arm. I like how this feels, Earley realized. I like being useful to someone.
The water was high, and the falls tumbled noisily, sending off sheer veils of mist. Both of them stripped, and when Earley looked up and saw Reed’s slender body against a green backdrop of moss and maidenhair ferns, his breath caught in his throat. All this time he’d been holding back, telling himself it was Reed who’d been hitting on him, but deep in his gut Earley knew the desire ran both ways. And desire was the tip of the iceberg. The word for what Earley was feeling as he looked at Reed was much harder to face. He shoved it away. I’m in love with Zan, he reminded himself. You can’t be in love with two people.
Reed turned towards him, naked. “You ready to bag me?” he asked.
Earley dug through his backpack, relieved to have something concrete to do. He set the two towels and soap on a rock, then took out the duct tape and trash bag and brought them to Reed.
“Step in,” he said, flapping the bag open. Reed obeyed. Earley knelt down to gather the plastic around his foot, tying it off at the ankle with duct tape. He unrolled the tape in a slow spiral upwards till he saw Reed’s dick, right at face level, rising to meet him. Reed slid his hand under his stiffening penis.
“Kiss it,” he said.
Earley felt a revulsion well up in his throat. This was a boundary that they hadn’t crossed, for all their feverish kissing and groping. The thought made him queasy.
“I can’t,” he said, standing up quickly.
“You want me too, Earley. Look at yourself.” Reed took a step forward, sliding his hands around Earley’s buttocks and arching his back so their dicks clashed like swords. Earley felt an electric shock race through his body. Was it rage or arousal?
“Suck mine,” he said, hating the harsh note he heard in his voice, the pounding he felt in his veins. He grabbed Reed by the shoulders, pushing him downwards. Reed swung his lame leg to one side, grunting with effort, and lowered himself to the opposite knee. Then he took Earley’s penis in both hands, as if he were praying, and leaned forward, taking him into his mouth.
Earley shut his eyes, breathing hard. I’ve crossed the line, he thought. Now I’m a faggot. Reed spluttered and spat him out, gagging. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and tried again. Earley winced. He could feel Reed’s teeth scraping his skin; he tried not to think of banana slugs mating. Reed seemed to be trying to figure out what he should do with his tongue. He shifted position and Earley recoiled.
This has got to be the most incompetent blow job I’ve ever had, Earley thought as Reed fumbled and chewed. Sure, Reed was new on this side of the table, but hadn’t he ever had one? He ought to have some kind of notion of what would feel good; he’d been serviced by Zan. Earley thought of her lips gliding over his foreskin, and it sent a shudder of ecstasy through his whole body. Reed gagged again, choking.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“It’s okay,” Earley breathed as Reed took him back in, more smoothly this time. “That feels good.” He realized he wasn’t lying; it did feel good. A shiver ran through him. He felt himself gasp.
Lips are lips, Earley thought; tongues are tongues. Male or female, what did it matter? He closed his eyes tight and succumbed to the waves of sensation. When he opened them up, he was looking at Zan.
T W ENTY-THREE
For an instant he thought he’d imagined her, summoning her into flesh by sheer force of desire. But no, there she was, on the edge of the cliff overlooking the gorge, staring at them in stunned disbelief.
“Zan,” Earley blurted, pulling away as Reed twisted to look. She turned and stamped into the woods. “Wait,” he cried, knowing the word was ridiculous, even if she could have heard his voice over the roar of the waterfall. He lunged at the cliff, scrambling up the sheer rockface, grabbing on to bare roots, finding toeholds in gravel. He could hear Reed below, struggling to pull himself up on his cast, but he didn’t look back or hesitate. Nothing mattered but getting to Zan.
Earley came over the top of the cliff near his cabin site. He struggled through brush, dodging blackberry brambles and devil’s club, fighting his way towards the path to the bus. He ran through the trees to the sound of glass breaking.
Zan had yanked his axe out of the chopping block and was slamming it through the bus’s side windows. “Stop that,” he shouted. She swung again. The window shattered and shards of glass crashed into the kitchen and fell in the mud at her feet.
Earley grabbed her right arm at the shoulder and wrist. “Drop it,” he said. Zan resisted, twisting against his grasp. Earley forced the axe out of her hand and threw it as far as he could into the woods. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You bastards,” she said.
“Can I let go of you now, or are you going to kill me?”
“Let go or I will kill you.”
“Okay,” Earley said, backing away with his hands up.
“Not funny.” She glared at him.
“Neither is trashing my bus.” Earley’s chest heaved as he gulped for breath. He had streaks of mud on his belly and arms, with thin stripes of blood where the brambles had grabbed him. Zan stared at him for a long time, as if she was seeing him for the first time. He felt as if she could read every thought in his head, all the shame and confusion and heart-ache that churned through his guts like a whirlpool. Zan’s eyes seemed unnaturally bright. Beneath all her fury, he sensed something else, something he couldn’t identify. He had the peculiar sensation that she was about to break down.
“So how long have you two”— she started, and changed her mind. “Why is Reed’s leg in a trash bag?”
Now that was one question he didn’t expect. “Broke his ankle.”
“When?”
Earley thought. “Tuesday, I guess.”
Zan’s eyebrows knit into a thundercloud. “Neither one of you thought about coming to tell me? I guess you were too busy fucking each other.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What is it like?” she said. “Better than me?”
“No,” Earley said. “Not at all.”
“You know he’s in love with you.” It wasn’t a question. Her eyes were dark, wounded. “If you weren’t so blind you’d have noticed it ages ago. It’s been in his eyes since the first night he met you. I knew I would lose him.”
Earley looked down at the violin curves of her body, so different from Reed’s skinny frame. “Did you know he was gay?”
“Reed isn’t gay,” Zan said bitterly. “It’s you. He’s in love with you.”
“I don’t get it,” said Earley.
“No, you wouldn’t,” she said. “You don’t have a clue how much power you’ve got, just by being yourself. That’s what makes you so . . .” Her voice scraped and broke. She looked up at him, biting her lip, and Earley realized she had just told him she loved him. His heart lurched with pleasure. Zan loved him, enough to smash windows when she thought he’d fallen for somebody else. She wasn’t disgusted, or angry at him; she was feeling abandoned. “I never thought you’d take him up on it, Earley. Guess it serves me rig
ht, getting you both in the same bed.”
“Why is this any different? ’Cause you’re not the only one who gets both of us?”
“Fuck you,” said Zan, lunging at him again. Earley caught both her wrists.
“You shouldn’t do that to a naked man,” he said, pressing his body against hers. “I might get ideas.”
Zan lifted her knee to his groin, with just enough pressure to show him how much she could hurt him. “Don’t pull that brute strength crap on me. I’m not helpless.”
“Who said you were?” Zan was a lot of things, but helpless was not on the list. Even now she was changing her tune. Earley let out a groan. Her knee was still pressing against his balls, but now it was moving in slow, deliberate circles, massaging him, making him hard. He could feel her body heat right through her clothes, the jut of her nipples against his bare chest.
“Can Reed make you feel like that?” she whispered.
No, Earley thought, and neither can anyone else. Talk about helpless. He looked down at Zan, wondering what she would do to his balls if he kissed her. I love you too, he thought, feeling the unformed words scrape at the back of his throat. Say it, he thought. Just say it out loud. You can do it. He took a deep breath.
“Earley? Zan?” Reed called from the path, his voice tense and anxious.
Earley groaned, cursing under his breath. Zan slipped out of his grasp, turning towards Reed as he limped to the edge of the clearing.
“What’s all that glass?” Reed asked. “What got broken?”
“Your ankle,” said Zan. “A few windows. Few promises.”
Reed stopped walking. He had Earley’s backpack slung over one shoulder and their towels and clothes heaped up in his arms. Earley’s irritation surged at the notion that Reed had picked up after him. Like a wife, he thought. Though Reed’s hard-on wasn’t especially wifely. He noticed Zan looking from his dick to Reed’s. A defiant half-smile played over her lips. “All right, then, if that’s how it is. Both at once. I’ve been wanting to try that.” She walked to the clearing beside Earley’s truck and kicked off her boots, testing the cushiony moss with her toes.
“Either of you want to join me?” Zan crossed her hands at the hem of her T-shirt and peeled it off slowly, her arms rising over her head so her breasts strained against her lace bra. She reached back to unhook it. Earley felt the roof of his mouth go dry. A minute ago she’d been threatening him with a knee in the crotch, and now she was acting like some kind of stripper. I can’t figure her out, he thought. Maybe that’s how she does it. Keeps changing the rules until you surrender and follow her blindly.
Reed dropped the clothes he was holding and went straight to Zan, kissing her with a sudden ferocity. Earley was struck again by how easily their bodies fit together, no bending or stooping to bring mouth to mouth. They looked made for each other, like Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve with a Hefty-bagged leg on the male of the species. Earley watched as Reed spread his palms over Zan’s breasts, kneading the soft flesh like dough as he rammed his tongue into her mouth. He’s not looking so gay at the moment, he thought. And I’m missing out. He took a step towards them.
Zan and Reed turned to him at the same moment, wrapping their arms around him in a three-way embrace. Earley felt hands running over his back and caressing his ass. Were they Zan’s or Reed’s? He lowered his face and felt both their mouths rising towards his. He closed his eyes, lost in a landscape of tongues, lips and fingers.
“Isn’t this better?” breathed Zan, sliding her hand around Earley’s cock. He looked down to see she had Reed’s in her other hand.
“Handlebars,” she said, pulling them closer.
That was the last thing that anyone said. Earley had no idea how long they made love to each other, rolling over and over in all that lush moss, trying every conceivable coupling of body parts, sticky with sweat-brine, insatiable. He lost track of all boundaries. Their bodies flowed into each other like tidewater. Earley’s mind swam with images, wordless and fluid. He thought of the ocean, the wet, shifting places where surf and sand merge, of anemones, clustered in tidal pools, sucking and pulsing together as if they were part of the same organism. As if they were one.
Earley lay on his back in the damp moss with Zan and Reed nestled on top of him. Somebody’s fingers were still tracing slow, lazy arcs on his belly. He didn’t know whose and he didn’t care. He looked up at the crowns of the trees, the granular shafts of light filtering down through the canopy. The sky had a strange golden clarity, as if the whole world had been varnished. The spiraling trill of a thrush filled his ears. I’m part of this world, he thought. I’m connected to all of this life.
He could hear sounds of an animal thrashing through brush, somewhere down the access road. Probably a deer. He remembered the Roosevelt elk on the Rainforest Trail, how the bull had made way for him, letting him into the herd. This is joy, Earley thought. This is what people mean when they talk about joy.
Zan let out a sigh of contentment, resting her cheek in the damp patch of fur on his breastbone, right over his heart. Reed lay next to her, wrapping his arms around both of their bodies.
“I’m staying,” said Zan.
“Well, I hope so,” said Earley.
“I don’t mean this weekend. For good.”
Reed raised his head. “What?”
Zan toyed with his ponytail, twining the hair around one of her fingers. “The tree-planting season is practically over. It’s getting too warm. I can be Earley’s splitter till you get your cast off.”
“You’re going to take over my job?” Reed’s voice sounded sharp.
“You don’t think I’m strong enough?”
“It isn’t a question of strength,” said Reed.
“What’s it a question of? Balls, beard, testosterone?”
Reed turned his face towards Earley’s. “What do you think about this?”
“Sssh,” Earley said. While they were talking, the sounds on the road had grown louder and closer. Those aren’t hooves, Earley realized; those are footfalls. He twisted his head to look past his truck.
“What the fuck?” Harlan Walkonis was standing by Earley’s right fender, his face red with sweat and exertion. Zan froze at the sound of his voice. Harlan was gaping at them, and Earley realized what he must look like, splayed out on the ground with a nude man and woman lying on top of his body. He scrambled an arm towards Zan’s T-shirt, but he couldn’t reach it without exposing himself and the others. Harlan smirked, eyeing Reed’s and Zan’s buttocks, the black plastic wrapped around Reed’s broken leg. “Kinky shit, Ritter. No wonder you live in the middle of nowhere.”
Earley could see Reed’s face color and Zan flinch from Harlan’s view. He decided to brazen it out. “I do what I want, asshole. Why’d you come tiptoeing up here like some goddamn spy?”
“Very funny. It’s gonna take more than some Volvo parked sideways to keep Royalton off your ass.”
“Volvo?” Earley looked at Zan’s face, which was inches from his.
“I got stuck in a ditch on the way up.”
“What’s this about Royalton?” Reed demanded, twisting his head around. Harlan looked startled, and Earley realized that he’d assumed the blond ponytail belonged to a woman.
“I’m serving you papers. You hippie fucks are evicted.”
“You can’t evict us,” said Reed, rolling over to face him. “We have a legally signed stumpage contract with access rights.”
Harlan eyed his crotch, glowering. “Your contract’s on A-46. You’re squatting on Royalton land and we’ll bulldoze your bus if you don’t drive it out of here.”
“Let us get dressed and we’ll talk, okay?” Reed covered himself with his forearm and struggled the rest of the way to his feet.
“I’m kind of liking the view,” Harlan said, his eyes roaming hungrily over Zan’s breasts. “I could do with a bit of that free love myself.” He reached for his belt.
Earley stood up. He could feel his cock and balls swinging, exposed,
as he loomed over Harlan, his voice low and dangerous. “Get the fuck out. If you ever set foot on my land again, I’ll blow a hole right through your waterbed.”
Harlan paused. “How’d you know I have a waterbed?”
Earley looked at him, caught. He hadn’t meant to get into the whole Margie thing, even though it was fanning the flames of his hatred. He looked Harlan right in the eye. “Stay home for a change, you might know what goes on there.”
“You son of a bitch.” Harlan’s hand reached for something on the back of his belt. Earley leapt on him instantly, twisting his wrist till it snapped. Harlan screamed in pain, dropping a handgun into the mud. A white-hot, blind rage tore through Earley’s whole body. His hand drew back into a hard, swinging fist. He was his old man. He was little Earl, diving over his brother to save his hide, taking the blow like a punching bag. And he was himself, Earley Jude, here and now, with his full strength and fury unleashed, pounding Harlan’s red face till his fists turned to meat.
“Stop it,” yelled Reed, hanging on to his back. Earley shook him off as a bear shakes a hound and kept right on punching.
Harlan staggered and sank to his knees, reaching out for his gun. Before he could touch it, Zan grabbed a crowbar from the back of the truck and swung it down hard on the back of his head. Harlan fell like a tree.
Earley stepped back. All three of them stared down at Harlan’s still body.
“Jesus,” Reed whimpered. “Oh Christ.”
“He was trying to shoot you,” said Zan, her voice shaking. She took a step backwards. “He isn’t dead. Tell me he isn’t dead.”
Earley knelt down next to Harlan. “Heart’s beating. You just knocked him out.” He laid his palm over the matted brown hair on Harlan’s scalp. It came back up bloody. “I better get him to the hospital.”
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