by A. J. Thomas
“I’ve never been climbing. There are incredible climbing spots, I’ve heard, right outside San Diego, but I’ve never been. I don’t have the gear, though.”
“I’ve got a spare harness,” said Doug, beaming. “I think you’d love it.”
Christopher agreed, his mind racing and trying to tell him that a dinner date wasn’t necessarily supposed to last all weekend. “If you’re sure it won’t be an imposition.”
Doug grabbed them each another beer and gave Christopher a tour of the house. The pictures on the walls, all nicely framed, showed four generations of brown-skinned men and women who all had the same square jaw and deep eyes as Doug. One of the only pictures of Doug’s entire family together was a large portrait taken when Doug looked like he was about eighteen. The woman standing behind him in the photo was a short woman with pale, weathered skin and graying blonde hair. The deep laugh lines around her eyes and lips told Christopher that she had probably spent most of her life smiling.
“Your mom liked to take pictures?” Christopher asked.
“How’d you know?” Doug asked.
“This is the only portrait of her. She looks happy. I bet she was the one who took most of the other photos.”
Doug smiled softly. “She was. I’ve always wished I had more pictures of her. I don’t even have a wedding picture, since my folks eloped.”
“That’s a pity. She was beautiful.”
Doug laughed. “I think she was. My folks met in boarding school, on the East Coast. She was upper middle class, and she and my dad got married right after they graduated. Her family learned he wasn’t white and cut her off. Bit of a surprise for her folks when my dad had more money than they did.”
“You keep in touch with them?”
“I've never met them. I guess they tried to visit when I was born. Family was always important to my dad, so he wrote to them about it.”
“They tried to visit? Why would he invite them if he was going to be a jerk about letting them visit?”
“Not him,” Doug laughed. “Her. The story goes that, when my grandfather saw this place, he made some comment about how I might have a chance at a decent future after all, despite being an Indian. By that point, she had become a bit obsessed with the tribe and our culture, even though she still had the same mannerisms you’d find in the Hamptons. She screamed them out of the nursery, out of the house, and then chased them off the property with a baseball bat.”
“Mannerisms?”
“Entitlement, romanticized views of confrontation, old ideas about marriage. She had an East Coast communication style that none of the neighbors ever understood.”
“Hm?”
“People on the reservation communicate differently than people outside of it. Every town has bar fights and stuff, but arguments and debates don’t really exist here. Anywhere else, not looking someone in the eye when you’re talking to them would be considered rude. Here, looking someone in the eye when you’re talking to them is considered rude. When my dad had to face her parents’ racism, he had plenty of responses to their prejudices, but he had been brought up to believe that when you’re speaking to someone, especially someone who’s older than you, you wait until they finish speaking before you make any kind of counter argument. When my dad never interrupted my grandfather to argue with him, everybody got the wrong impression, including my mom. She saw him as being intimidated and mortified, because he didn’t jump into the fight, you know? Here, jumping into an argument while someone else is still talking is a sign that the argument is about to get violent, or that someone had a very bad upbringing. Twenty years down the road, after she’d been teaching on the reservation for years, she realized that my dad really thought her father was some kind of violent psycho and was trying not to rile him up. When she chased her own family away that day, she really embarrassed my dad, as far as the tribe is concerned.”
“That had to be hard. At least in California, everyone tends to embrace the melting-pot culture. There are plenty of mixed-race families, but they all tend to come from the same background. It doesn’t matter what color you are, everybody wants a Lexus, a house with a view, and the best schools for their kids. She looks like she smiled a lot, though, no matter how hard it must have been.”
“She was always happy,” Doug agreed.
Christopher stared at a large bay window in the family room, overwhelmed by the vast emptiness around them. “Doesn’t it get quiet out here?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure I could handle it, living this far from other people,” said Christopher, shaking his head.
“I don’t actually spend a lot of time here,” Doug admitted. “When my mom died, I couldn’t stand it. If I’m not at work, I’m usually out in the woods, hiking or backpacking. The forest is quiet too, but it’s not empty.”
They went through a quarter of the house before Doug pinned Christopher against an old wooden doorframe. “Would you like a tour of the bedroom?”
Christopher relished the feel of Doug’s weight against him, even if he did have to deal with the doorframe poking him in the spine. He loved the freedom he managed to find when he didn’t have to take the lead. He liked not having to guess at his partner’s desires, not having to plan two or three steps ahead, liked it when all he had to do was hold on. It was terrifying and liberating all at the same time, because he knew it was going to hurt until it felt good, and then the pain would become muted and burning, like a spice accenting a delicious meal. All he had to do was enjoy the flavors. Just the anticipation of what was to come made every nerve in his body tingle like he was touching a live wire. It shut his brain down, made the wheels that were constantly spinning grind to a halt, and gave him a taste of peace and pleasure that was beyond delicious. He liked being on top just fine, but he craved this.
As Christopher tried to press tight against him, Doug pulled him through the door. The movement threw them both off balance. Christopher braced himself to hit the floor, but Doug caught him. Christopher flailed against Doug’s arms as his feet left the ground. A moment later, he was falling, then he landed on his back against a soft, worn quilt that smelled of the familiar mixture of Old Spice and pine that Christopher was coming to recognize as Doug. He fell back onto the bed, rolled over, and took a deep breath. He really liked that smell.
He felt the bed shift as Doug crawled over him. He rolled back over and found that the skin he had been so desperate to touch was just a few inches away. Doug was smiling down at him and digging through a pile of things on the nightstand. He pulled out a pack of condoms and lube. Christopher looked at the foil wrappers for a minute, thought about pointing out that there wasn’t much point now, and then thought better of it. Christopher would be leaving as soon as he finished dealing with Peter's funeral, and he didn’t have any right to expect anything from Doug. This might not be a nearly anonymous hookup anymore, but it was still just a casual weekend thing.
“You all right?” Doug asked.
Christopher smiled. “Absolutely.”
Doug groaned and smirked down at him. “You had to go and do that, didn’t you?” Doug pushed himself up. He pulled Christopher’s shirt out of his waistband and then set to work on Christopher’s pants.
“Do what?”
“Use that smile again. If I can’t scream out blasphemies during sex, you can’t use that smile. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Christopher insisted, pulling his shirt off over his head and then easing it off of his right arm before letting it drop.
He swallowed when Doug managed to get his pants and briefs down over his hips. Doug hovered over his cock, so close Christopher could feel the heat and moisture of his breath, but he didn’t move. Doug glared up at him. “If nothing’s wrong, what’s with the fake smile?”
“It isn’t a fake smile!”
Doug dropped his head down until Christopher could feel his breath against his balls. “Oh fuck….” He tried to shift his hips up, tried to get just a bit of cont
act, but Doug held him still.
“It’s fake. What were you thinking about?”
“The condoms,” Christopher admitted, still wondering why it mattered. “I was thinking that we already kind of fucked that up on Monday. But, well, we both know I’m probably going to be gone next week, and you’ve got your own life here….”
“You think I’ve been with someone else in the last three days? Because I haven’t.”
“I think it doesn’t matter,” Christopher explained. “You’re with me now and I want to enjoy it. I figured suggesting we skip the condoms would just bring up all kinds of issues…. Of course, just smiling seems to bring up all kinds of issues with you.”
“You can smile,” Doug said, then dipped his tongue down and ran it up the length of Christopher’s cock. Christopher whimpered and tried to move again. “Just not that smile. Have you?”
“Have I what?” Christopher panted.
“Been with anybody else since Monday?”
“No.”
“So, really, it’s just a question of which you’d prefer. Obviously, it feels better without one, but it’s also messier. So, you can choose.”
Christopher’s imagination reminded him of the dripping, slick feeling of Doug’s come leaking out of him in the shower. It probably wouldn’t be quite such a turn-on when everything was dry and sticky, but his libido didn’t seem to care.
“I take it you like the idea of going bareback?” Doug asked, watching as Christopher’s cock jerked up beneath him. “Tell me what you want—anything you want.”
“You’re going to think it’s gross….”
“Doubt it.” Doug grinned. Christopher screamed when Doug took his entire length into his mouth. He sucked him deep, and then slipped off him again. “Tell me.”
“You bastard,” Christopher said, laughing. When Doug hovered over him again, Christopher gave in. “I want to feel you. I want to feel it, when you come inside of me. I even want the mess. I want to feel it running down my thighs, over my ass as you fuck me. I know it’s gross, but— Hey… what are you doing?”
Christopher squirmed as Doug dipped his head low. He felt Doug’s tongue circling around his entrance, then pushing its way inside him. Christopher wasn’t sure if he was squirming to get away or to get more contact as Doug worked the tip of his tongue inside his body. Doug slipped his tongue out and replaced it with a single long finger. He licked his way up to Christopher’s cock and sucked him deep, swallowing around him until Christopher came with a scream in his mouth. Doug kept swallowing, and Christopher couldn’t take his eyes off him. When he finally slipped his finger out of Christopher’s ass and let go of him, all Christopher could do was stare.
Doug smacked his lips together and climbed up over Christopher’s body. “I don’t think there’s a single inch of you, inside or out, that is gross.”
Doug forced a deep kiss on him, despite his own protests, and Christopher was surprised when that same tongue attacked his own and all he could taste on Doug’s tongue was his own come. That alone was mind-blowing.
“There are some kinks out there where I draw the line, but I don’t mind getting a bit messy. But if we’re going to hang out,” Doug said as he touched the tip of his nose to Christopher’s, “you’ve got to tell me what you want. Even if you think it’s gross or if you think it’ll freak me out.”
Doug rolled off him and relaxed on the bed. Christopher stared at him for a minute, wondering why he was acting as if they were finished.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” Doug yawned. “I’m still going to fuck you until neither of us can move, but I need a minute.”
“You need a minute?”
“I do. Watching your cock jump as you talked about feeling my come leaking out of your ass was nearly enough to finish me by itself. Hearing you scream did the trick.”
Christopher buried his face against Doug’s shoulder, absolutely determined not to let Doug see him smiling. The last thing he wanted was for Doug to think he was making fun of him.
Christopher woke up sticky and ridiculously happy hours before dawn. Doug’s body was still entwined with his own. The sticky mess he was expecting had fused skin to skin, rather than sticking either of them to the sheets. It was still gross, but it was also more intimate than he ever imagined waking up next to someone could be. For once, Christopher’s brain was content to be still in the morning. He wanted to stay in bed and be lazy. However, he wasn’t sure Doug would be quite as enchanted by, or as turned on by, the mess they’d made as Christopher was. He tried to shift his hips so he could escape, but as soon as he moved, Doug jerked awake. The arm trapped under Christopher’s shoulders jerked upward in a reflexive movement.
Christopher caught Doug’s hand before it slipped under his pillow. Doug moved his knee up into Christopher’s gut. Christopher had to roll Doug over, bringing the arm he was still holding with him, and lock Doug’s arm behind his back.
Christopher held Doug down as he fought. He caught a few random Spanish swear words. Christopher had gone through flashbacks until he was nearly twenty. He knew what they were like. He knew that until the flashback passed, Doug wouldn’t realize where he was or who he might be trying to pull a gun on. The only way to deal with him was to keep him from hurting himself or Christopher until it passed. It wasn’t long before Christopher felt Doug relax. Last time this had happened, he had been too turned on by feeling Doug beneath him to really think about what Doug’s flashbacks must mean. Now, after Doug had held him all night on Monday, and after he didn’t say anything when Christopher broke down and started to cry in the shower, Christopher couldn’t imagine being turned on when Doug was obviously terrified. He wanted to soothe that terror, not reinforce any link between the nightmares in Doug’s past and sex. He would have to apologize about that when they were both awake.
When Doug relaxed enough that Christopher felt safe releasing his arm, Christopher rubbed Doug’s shoulders and then down his back. He kept rubbing him and listening to Doug breathe until Doug’s deep breaths turned into quiet snores.
“I guess we’ve both got our share of baggage,” Christopher whispered.
He slipped out of bed, braved the cold night air long enough to get his things out of the car, then went to take a shower. When he dug through the bag to pull out the last of his clean clothes, he found the tape-covered envelope his lawyer had handed back to him. He would have to read the damn note eventually, so he might as well get it over with while he was alone.
He popped the envelope open and pulled out the ragged sheet of notebook paper. He scanned the handwritten words quickly, and then read it again, and then again. He had to force himself to keep breathing as he read the words over and over, trying desperately to convince himself that the words meant anything other than what he knew they meant. “A new Man of God,” he read aloud. As his heart began to race, he shut his mouth and tried to slow his breathing down before he ended up hyperventilating. “The bluffs west of town….” The bluffs where Peter had hanged himself.
A Man of God—that was what Peter had always called him. It meant a pedophile who was so trusted by the community, so influential, so powerful, that nothing short of being caught in the act would ever convict him. A new Man of God meant that, somewhere in Elkin, there was a predator who had scared even Peter.
Christopher sank to his knees, wishing that he could crawl back into the peaceful oblivion he’d found in Doug’s bed. However, he was already awake, his mind was already racing, and there was nothing he could do but brace himself. His mind threw up the obvious connections, and the observations he should have made from the start. The fire burned down Peter’s home the day Christopher arrived, before he had a chance to search the house fully. Whoever Peter’s new Man of God was, he must have known that Christopher would be taking possession of the house. The only reason to burn the house down would be to destroy any evidence there, and it didn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out the crimes that fire had been set to conceal.
Suddenly, Christopher felt like an idiot. He shut his eyes and tried to stop his brain from spinning, tried to stop it from pointing out things that should have been obvious to him on Monday. Four years in Homicide had apparently not twisted his thoughts severely enough that he could focus with Doug around. He kept thinking back to the smell in the house, trying to deconstruct the scent, to filter out the stench of however many cats Peter had owned. What he ended up with, though he hadn’t recognized it at the time, was the smell of old death. It was the smell of very old death, in the last stages of decomposition, just before the body begins to dry. Christopher had seen one or two bodies that had been found between two and eight weeks after death, when the best way to guess at the time of death was by analyzing the life cycles of the flies and maggots that nested in a fresh corpse. It had been that smell. Christopher remembered that the house had been filled with flies.
The FBI dog teams were looking for human remains.
Peter had hanged himself three weeks ago, apparently right after he got out of a halfway house, on his way home from a six-month prison sentence. Had he killed himself to avoid going to prison for murder? Another part of Christopher’s mind, one so contaminated by his job that it never trusted anyone, wondered if perhaps Doug had more to do with the smell than Christopher wanted to believe. If Doug hadn’t told him that the smell was from the cats, if he hadn’t offered him that VapoRub, he might have recognized the stench immediately. Christopher’s subconscious came to his rescue then. Doug had only had access to the house since Peter’s body was found two weeks ago. It was possible for a body to decay faster than normal in warm weather, but it hadn’t been hot enough for a body to reach the stage of decomposition Christopher had smelled in two weeks. If nothing else, the freezing temperatures in Elkin during the spring would have slowed down the decomposition process. The victims could have been killed before Peter even returned to his home.
The only way to know for sure would be to go up to the bluffs like Peter had instructed. To see whatever it was Peter had wanted him to see. He would have to warn the FBI that the man they were looking for wouldn’t be some outcast kid in a biker vest, but a man the entire community trusted—a man like the Reverend John Liedes.