Prophet's Pass

by Chapman Brown

  One airport was much like any other. Salt Lake City International had a few concessions to Western flavor at least: planters of domesticated-looking cacti, and a bar festooned with wagon wheels and bison skulls. Four thousand feet above sea level, the air felt dry and thin. Aiden wandered until he found his car rental desk, unsure of what he’d been expecting. Some gilded Mormon relics, maybe, or the Tabernacle Choir serenading people in baggage claim. The clerk at the car rental took his New York license and corporate card, looking him over critically.

  Her peach manicure rattled across the keyboard. “Aiden McCabe? New York Times?”

  “That’s me.”

  She studied her screen disapprovingly. “You’re forgoing the insurance,” she warned.

  Aiden shrugged politely. “Whatever they said.”

  “The insurance is very comprehensive.”

  “I think they have their own,” he said, feeling for sure he wasn’t in New York anymore. A line of people was forming behind him. If this had been LaGuardia, he’d have been shanked by now.

  The woman looked at him and sighed. “And snow chains?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Snow chains.”

  “Do I need them?”

  “Where are you driving?”

  “Zion National Park.”

  “Well, we had a bit of snow last week. That’s early ’round here, but if it comes down again those canyon roads get pretty slippery. And if the warning goes out and you don’t have them it’s a $1,000 fine.”

  “Sure then,” Aiden said, thinking she might’ve started with that.

  “Snow chain rental is $14.99.”

  “That’s fine,” he promised. By the time she printed off a sheaf of documents for him to sign and pointed him toward the garage and toward his generic blue Chevy, he would happily have taken the fine and an icy death crashed in a blizzard over any more Utah hospitality.

  At last he drove out of the airport and headed downtown. He had an appointment with the archivist at the State House in the morning to go through the hard-copy records of Orson Jensen’s governorship. He supposed there might be some waiting insight hidden in the dusty files and boxes, some secret scandal or shocking revelation, but the reading he’d done on the plane hadn’t left him hopeful. He had good intuition about politicians after his years trailing them around, and something told him Orson Jensen was as shiny, reflective, and lifeless as one of those brine pools he’d flown in over. The man was a mirror, reflecting whatever political moment he happened to find himself in. In the ’90s, he’d tried for moral crusader; ten years later, he was calling himself a compassionate conservative; a decade after that, and he was the elder statesman, a figure of consensus and old-school congeniality in a country fraying at the seams. One of the unexpected realities of Aiden’s work was that most politicians were boring. For every Trump or Kennedy, every larger than life emblem of an era of an ideology, there were a hundred dull managers and bureaucrats. Most politicians weren’t schemers or ideologues or even that ambitious. Most just wanted to be left alone to tinker with their own favored corners of policy: tax rates or inflation or soy bean imports. Constituents were an irritant and elections an ordeal. No wonder marketing consultants and pollsters made millions trying to give these people personalities. As far as Aiden was concerned, the larger you loomed in public life, the less likely you had any private personality at all.

  The hotel was nice enough, in a corporate kind of way. He was hungry by now and only half listened as the receptionist explained the intricacies of his keycard, the wonders of the business center, and the complimentary fitness facility. Over her head, a TV cycled through images of multiethnic people having an implausibly enjoyable business meeting. His eyes drifted to the overpriced snacks on sale in the corner. He hadn’t eaten anything but a stale airport sandwich and a bag of pretzels on the plane, and as soon as he dumped his bags, he headed out again.

  It was only a short walk from his hotel to Temple Square, and he wandered the perimeter for a while, past pilgrims and evening foot traffic. It was dark now, the mountain air crisp and dry. Illuminated against the night, the Salt Lake Temple was undeniably impressive, a great white rectangle, each corner topped with a towering spire. Taking in the intricate carvings and stonework, Aiden started to understand why it had taken forty years to finish. Even he had to have some respect for the faith of people who camped out in a desert and built a cathedral in the middle of nowhere. With its tall flanks and alabaster coloration, Aiden thought it looked like the lovechild of a castle and a wedding cake. The result was striking, but not particularly pretty. The Temple and the ten-acre complex of buildings around it served as the religion’s global headquarters, the Mormon Vatican City. Non-Mormons weren’t allowed access to the Temple, wherein lay the Holy of Holies, the most revered site in the Mormon faith. In fact, not even all Mormons were. They had to receive a Temple Recommendation, like passing a Mormon driving test, before they could even cross the threshold. Aiden had to chuckle at that. The whole thing seemed patently ridiculous, but the Temple looming overhead reminded him it was very real, and to some people, very important. He wondered if Orson Jensen had his Temple Recommendation. He probably did. In Utah, the Church hierarchy was hand in glove with political power.

  He ate at Café Molise a few blocks south of Temple Square, the Italian menu standing out amid the Middle American chain restaurant fare. After he ordered, he flicked through the notes he’d made on the plane, trying to make a mental list of documents to pull in the morning. The waitress put down a carbonara and Coke in front of him. His phone vibrated, and he looked down to see a message from Patrick.

  How’s Utah?

  Aiden thought about it. Okay, he typed, before sending back a picture of the pasta. Living free.

  <3, Patrick replied. Any hot Mormons?

  Not yet, Aiden said.

  Saw Chris at the gym tonight.

  Aiden felt something heavy settle in his stomach, and it wasn’t the carbonara. It had been seven months since they’d broken up, which was seven months longer than he felt justified feeling this way every time someone mentioned his name. Certainly, it was seven months longer than he’d ever wanted to feel this way. Coexisting in the city was hard. Maybe there was still some magical place out there where exes never saw each other again and didn’t have to deal with the fallout, but it wasn’t gay New York. Not when there was Instagram, Fire Island, and Equinox, and 600,000 queers sharing twelve bars.

  How was he? he texted back eventually. He ordered another Coke as the server passed, suddenly low in blood sugar.

  Fine, Patrick replied. Just Chris.

  Just Chris. The phrase seemed simple for someone Aiden had come to know so much about, all the depths, quirks, and contradictions that made up anyone, all the loveable parts and the scars and rough shapes too. For the first time in a while, he really thought about his face. His hands. His body. He thought about the rattle of his keys on the table when he’d come home that night, that unaccustomed, hanging pause in the hallway while Aiden sat in the kitchen, knowing from the quality of silence that they were over. It had faded to a fact, healed and filed away.

  Right, Aiden texted. Did you tell him I was in Utah?

  I told him you were on your new billionaire boyfriend’s yacht.

  Aiden chuckled.

  Thanks.

  He walked back to the hotel after dinner, taking the long way to avoid the Mormon Temple glowering over him. Salt Lake City seemed young and cosmopolitan; squint a little, and you could mistake some parts for Brooklyn. There were hipster bars and fancy coffee shops, and he made eye contact with a few gays along his path. In fact, they said Salt Lake had one of the biggest gay populations in the West. It all made the juxtaposition of the Mormon mothership even more disconcerting. He wondered if the Church elders felt under siege in their compound, wondering how they’d lost their grip on their own capital. These days their influence was just as likely to backfire as to succeed. Good, Aiden thought. It didn’t
make the thought of Orson Jensen running the country seem like a step forward.

  He got back to the hotel, showered, and finalized his notes for the archivist. His eyes kept drifting to his phone on the desk, thinking about what Patrick had said. Thinking about Chris again, which was the danger in opening the door. Was he seeing someone? he wondered. Seven months was a perfectly respectable interval to be seeing someone. He shook it out of his mind.

  He wanted something, though. Maybe it was the travel or the hotel, but he had a semi under his bathrobe. He reached for his phone and flicked on Grindr. He put it down again, screen down, and pretended to ignore it until it buzzed against the desktop. SLC had sent four photos. Twenty-eight, good-looking, blue eyes. Slightly self-conscious beard, carefully trimmed. One photo was at a weird angle, awkwardly cropped. You could still see the eye of the girl he was standing next to, floating in a disembodied slice of head. The phone buzzed again.

  What’s up? SLC asked. Nice pic.

  Aiden’s thumb hovered over his screen. Thanks, he typed. You too.

  Thanks, SLC replied after a moment. Visiting?

  From New York. U?

  From here.

  Aiden swiped up and sent a few of his own saved pictures. Grindr pictures had a certain knack to them, a genre consistency. You needed cute, obviously, handsome even, but nothing too unapproachable. Nothing that made you look fake, or like a prostitute. He followed a dumb sequence Javi had told him once: smiling, smiling, shirtless, suit. Too many smiling you looked desperate, too many shirtless you looked trashy, too many suit and you looked boring. He supposed it was still in his head. Maybe it wasn’t so dumb after all.

  Handsome. Bttm here. You?

  Thanks. Top.

  Nice. Horny now?

  It was that easy. He’d feel bad about it later, some part of him said, but he didn’t feel bad about it now. Could be. U?

  Yeah. Where r u?

  Aiden sent his GPS location.

  Hotel? his new friend asked.

  Yes, Aiden replied, and typed the address.

  Room number?

  Aiden felt his pulse quicken in his neck. It was a thrill, fucking a stranger. He supposed that was why people kept doing it. Often he’d get to this point and back out. His dick was hard enough, he could jerk off and go to sleep. But then he remembered how he felt at dinner, talking about Chris, and he wanted to follow through for once.

  ?, SLC had said in response to his quiet.

  Room 409, Aiden replied.

  Cool. See you in 15.

  Aiden put his phone away.

  The waiting was the awkward part. He realized he had nothing to give the guy if he wanted a drink or something. There was a minibar, but he was loath to open it on the paper’s tab. He didn’t even know his name. What are you doing? he asked himself more than once, but his dick was still reassuringly solid. He put his clothes back on—it seemed creepy to open the door in a bathrobe—and eventually someone knocked quietly at the door. He opened it.

  “Hi.”

  He looked like his pictures at least: chocolate hair, pretty blue eyes, slightly shorter than Aiden had expected. He was wearing a baseball cap, slightly furtively.

  “Aiden,” Aiden said, as he stepped aside to let him in.

  “Jesse,” Jesse replied. “Pleasure to meet you, man.”

  Aiden thought that was a very Utah thing to say. Jesse sat on the edge of the bed and looked around the hotel room politely. Aiden got the sense this could go on indefinitely unless he did something, so he sat beside him and kissed him. After a moment’s hesitation, the stranger relaxed into it. He tasted nice, of beer and heat. Their tongues slid together, and Aiden reached up and knocked his hat off. He brought his hand down through his warm hair, across the curve of his shoulder, the muscles of his back. He slowly pushed him horizontal, enjoying the quiet sounds he made as he put his weight on top of him, breaking their kiss at last to lick from the lobe of Jesse’s ear down the hot length of his neck. Aiden’s tongue traced the beating rhythm of his pulse, the bone of his jaw, and he ground their hips together until he could feel Jesse’s hardness beneath his own. He pulled open his shirt and continued his kisses downward, finding a broad, well-muscled chest dusted with hair. Jesse smelled of old soap. When Aiden came up to find his lips again, he had such an expression of flushed lust that Aiden really did want to fuck it out of him.

  “I should shower,” Jesse said.

  Aiden smiled. “No worries.” He rolled off him and pointed to the one other door in the room. “Through there.”

  Jesse slinked off the bed, went in, and closed the door. Aiden adjusted his throbbing hard-on in his jeans, before deciding to take them off. He heard the shower running. Shit, he thought suddenly. Did he have a condom even? He hopped off the bed and scurried quickly through his suitcase. His fingers found foil, and he breathed a small sigh of relief.

  Jesse appeared in the doorway with an uncertain smile. He was naked, and dripping. “…wanna come in?”

  They pulled off Aiden’s clothes as they staggered, kissing, into the shower. Aiden’s cock finally got free as Jesse kissed down the muscles of his chest. Jesse had a handsome, thick dick, and Aiden enjoyed the groan he elicited when he tugged on his balls with the slightest squeeze. He guided his guest to his knees and sunk his cock into his mouth.

  “Fuck,” Aiden breathed, fist clanging against the glass of the shower as he threw it out to steady himself. Jesse looked up from throating his dick with a smug expression that almost made him cum then and there. His mouth was velvet, hotter than the water coursing down Aiden’s shoulders. Belatedly, he remembered they were supposed to be freshening up, and reached for the soap.

  He lathered them up for as long as he could stand it, but eventually pulled Jesse up, tasting his dick in his mouth as they kissed, and murmured in his ear: “Turn around.”

  His soapy fingers were in Jesse’s crack already, working apart the fuzzy globes of his cheeks, their tips finding the smoothness of his hole and pressing. Jesse gritted his teeth as Aiden made first claim, groaning into the grouting. Aiden pulled his finger out only to push it back again. The muscular coil of Jesse’s ass clamped and flexed around his knuckle.

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  “Good,” Jesse breathed. Aiden’s hands were away from his ass now and at his shoulders, turning his body, kneading the muscles beneath the slick skin. Jesse stood with one hand braced in the corner of the shower, head bowed against the tile, and the cascade of water ran down his back. Aiden pressed himself to him, so Jesse could feel the jut of his erection in the small of his back, before he dropped down behind his ass.

  He licked slowly. His first mouthful was all soap, but he sucked hungrily on Jesse’s hole until it was him he was tasting, hot arousal. The slickness of Aiden’s tongue traced every crease. Jesse softened with each of his strokes, his hand twisted behind him and fastened to the back of Aiden’s head urging him deeper. Aiden moaned with him, which only tightened his grip. Under the shower’s barrage, Aiden felt water going up his nose, but if this was how he drowned, he didn’t care. A dry breath was secondary to working Jesse’s ass, feeling the ring of his muscle flex its welcome, knowing it was Aiden he wanted in him, Aiden buried in the hot heart of his body. The next stroke of his tongue pushed it as deep into Jesse as there was tongue to push.

  Aiden straightened up. There was a viscous drip at the end of his cock that was nothing to do with the shower. He whispered in Jesse’s ear, dragging his chin down the side of his neck, feeling the bite of his stubble against his wet skin, the shivers of sensation it sparked across his shoulders and spine.

  “Can I fuck you?”

  “Yes,” Jesse whispered, voice swallowed by lust, barely audible over the running shower. He gasped as Aiden’s fingers slipped out of him. Aiden reached for the condom, ripping it with his teeth and spitting the wrapper onto the floor. He wound the rubber down the hard curve of his dick and lubed up with the hotel lotion before wrapping himself around t
he younger man’s body, damming rivers down his back. He soothed his back with kisses, burying his nose in the damp softness of his hair, his hands steadying his hips, finding his entrance. Jesse gasped as his body fought for a moment, but Aiden kissed him over his shoulder, the heat of their tongues opening another inch, and then another, until they were fitted together like they were made for it. Jesse groaned around his new fullness, Aiden steadying against him in case his undulating tightness finished him off too soon. Jesse looked beautiful, his eyes closed, the white of his teeth clutching his flushed lip, riding the sensation. Aiden found his pace, retracting slowly, pressing forward, building to a tempo where all was blind but the feeling of their bodies together and the drumming of the water.

  Jesse’s moans built to a crescendo. “Oh, shit,” he gasped.

  “Do it,” Aiden growled, grinding into Jesse’s ass as it clutched tighter around him, watching Jesse splatter his orgasm over the tile. Aiden’s climax followed a second later, blazing bright, as he bit Jesse’s bucking shoulder. They both fell gasping onto the wall.

  “Fuck,” Aiden said, once he’d found his voice. He pulled out as gently as he could and turned off the water. Jesse turned and kissed him. He looked like a drowned rat, albeit a well-fucked one. He grinned.

  “Got a towel?”

  Chapter Four

  AIDEN DROVE out of Salt Lake City in a far better mood than he’d arrived in. As far as sex for validation went, it had been good sex. He’d certainly enjoyed himself, and he hadn’t even minded when the Capitol archives turned out be as sparse as he’d expected despite the assistance of a kindly librarian who seemed genuinely excited to be sidekicking a reporter from the storied Times. He wrapped up around lunchtime, carrying a thick manila folder of photocopies back to his car. The Utah State Capitol stood on a hill above Salt Lake City, a handsome civil palace with a tall, copper-sheathed dome. The day had come in bright and crisp. Aiden put on his sunglasses and climbed into the car. Nice day for a drive.