by Kaje Harper
He’d spent yesterday on his garden. It was winter-ready, except for the leaves still waiting to fall. He’d taken a walk around the property, and reviewed his plans for spring. He hadn’t done a quarter of what he’d envisioned here this year. Maybe that was where this lingering sadness came from, this feeling of time slipping away from him. The reason a quiet Sunday felt sad, instead of peaceful.
He headed back to the kitchen, and Ryan glanced over at him. “Just the man I was looking for. Can you pick that pumpkin up off the floor for me? I put it down there, and now I can’t lift it properly. I’m afraid I’ll drop it.”
“Sure.” John grabbed the large pumpkin by its gnarled stem, and then, with a grunt, bent to put his other hand under it. He heaved the thing up onto the counter. “God, how much does this monstrosity weigh? No wonder you couldn’t lift it.”
“Isn’t it great?” Ryan’s eyes sparkled. “Biggest one they had. I about killed myself getting it home.”
“I’ll bet. So why the giant squash?”
“It’s Halloween,” Ryan said, as if that should make it obvious. “I’m going to carve it.”
“I don’t usually make a big deal out of Halloween.” Not when the kids aren’t here.
John remembered past Halloweens. Torey always wanted the most random costumes, like a cell phone or a milkshake. Somehow he’d become the costume designer. The milkshake had been his masterpiece, topped with inflated white-balloon bubbles flowing over the side, and a giant flex-pipe straw. He’d let the kids trick-or-treat longer that year, for the ego boost of having people admire the costume. Marcus generally wanted something dark and spooky. Purchased costumes were fine for Mark. He didn’t have that obsession with being unique.
The kids had still been trick-or-treating the last year they’d all lived together. Now they were probably too old. For sure Mark would be. And it would be different in LA anyway. No crisp leaves, no chill air forcing parents to argue about wearing a jacket over that skimpy costume, no scent of burning leaves. Probably the kids were going to some fancy party, with Hollywood special effects. He’d bet they looked back on their younger days as corny and boring.
“Well, I like Halloween,” Ryan said firmly. “And I’m going to carve this pumpkin, and the other one too if you don’t want it.”
“Other one?”
“Yeah. I bought one yesterday. But then I saw this, and it was just so awesome, I had to have it. So I figured you might do the other one. But if you don’t want to, I’ll do them both. As long as you promise not to laugh at my efforts, mister artist man.”
“I won’t laugh.” John eyed the kitchen knife Ryan was brandishing. “Although I also don’t want to drive you to the emergency room. Is that what you’re going to use as a carving tool?”
“It’s sharp enough.” Ryan punched the blade into the thick orange flesh and began to saw around the top.
John winced. “Hang on. I think I have a better knife, and a small saw blade. Let me get them.”
He hurried out to the studio and dug through his tools for something appropriate. A couple of short, strong knives and a saw-edged blade looked good. When he got back to the kitchen, Ryan had mangled a semi-oval top off the big pumpkin and was slicing the seed-goop from the bottom of the stem into a bowl.
“Here. Try these.” John put the better tools on the counter and took the big knife out of Ryan’s fingers. “Jesus. To think you might be a surgeon one day.”
“Probably not,” Ryan said cheerfully. “Too much standing involved. Can you get a metal spoon out of the drawer?”
John passed one over and stood, hovering, as Ryan began scooping handfuls of slimy pumpkin guts out of the shell.
He really should go do some work. There were things that needed his attention. Or he could put some time in on carving Ry’s cane. It was going to be good. Not five-hundred-dollars good. For that money, he figured he’d be making Ryan a series of canes. But this one was coming out fun. Although, if he was going to carve something… “Where’s the other pumpkin? At least I can fetch it for you.”
“By the back door.”
John trailed through the house and stepped out onto the porch. The warm sun of the late-October Sunday turned the yard to gold and green. No jackets needed for trick-or-treating this year. The day was edging toward dusk, but it would be a couple of hours before the little beggars came out.
The pumpkin was on the ground, leaning against the siding beside the door. It was no runt either. John grunted as he hefted it up in his arms, and lugged it back to the kitchen. “You had this one, and you needed bigger?” He slid it onto the counter a couple of feet down from Ryan’s.
Ryan stepped back and compared the two for a moment. “Well, that one’s not shabby. But this one’s fucking fantastic.” He dug back into the slime.
“So what are you making?”
“Making?”
“Yeah. On the pumpkin. What are you carving?”
“A face.” Ryan gave him an exaggerated grimace. “That’s why they’re jack-o-lanterns, because they have a face.”
“I liked to do other stuff,” John told him. “One year, I made a pumpkin with cats all over it, in front of a full moon.”
“You would. I’m making a face. If I’m lucky, the teeth won’t fall out from being cut through too far, and it will have the right number of eyebrows.”
“And what about this one?” John laid a proprietary hand on the big pumpkin he’d set down.
“Another face. My best pumpkins have cool faces. My worst pumpkins have kind of screwed-up faces.”
“You don’t want two the same, though. Maybe I could…I guess I could do something with this one, so we wouldn’t have two the same.”
“If you like,” Ryan grunted, hauling slimy strings from the bowels of his squash.
John looked at the tall rounded shape of the squash, considering. Bats, perhaps. He’d had a design he didn’t use once, for bats hanging in front of the opening of a cavern, and then flying off, silhouetted against a moon. Like the cats, but even better. Pondering, he hauled out another mixing bowl. He’d need to scoop it out first. That would give him some planning time.
He lost track, working with the firm orange shell. It was much easier to carve than wood, but you had to be careful about strength. He made the last bat’s wing wider. It overlapped the rim of the moon, providing the free-flying shape with its anchor point. Too narrow, and the bat would break off. He should’ve scraped the wall of the pumpkin down thinner, for fine detail work, but he’d been impatient.
Then he shuddered and yelped as something cold and slimy went down the neck of his shirt. He jumped back, digging the pumpkin guts out of the back of his hair. Ryan eyed him from a safe distance, a hint of a smile on his face.
“What the hell was that for?” He wiped his fingers on the edge of the sink.
“Fairness. Take a look. Your pumpkin. My pumpkin. I figured a little slime down the shirt was required to balance the equation.”
John glanced at the two pumpkins. Okay, so his had a cluster of slit-eyed bats with taloned wings hanging from stalactites, while two more soared off across the moon. Ryan’s had… a nose, two eyes, fangs, and was that one eyebrow, all the way across?
John snorted involuntarily. “Um, it’s very nice.”
“Right.”
“Halloweeny.”
“Do tell.”
“I think it will take more than pumpkin guts to even the score.”
Ryan laughed. “You think?”
John’s bowl was still on the counter. He was between Ryan and the door. His fingers slid toward the bowl as he spoke. “Really, we should save the pumpkin seeds and roast them or something.”
“Except the ones in your hair.”
“And the ones in yours.” It was only one long step, and the handful of slime made a satisfying squish on Ryan’s head.
Ryan blinked, and brushed a seed off his nose. “You know this means war.”
“Just don’t hurt the pumpki
ns. They’re non-combatants.”
It turned out that there was enough goo in two pumpkins to liberally coat two men, a counter, a table, and half a kitchen floor. John had Ryan pinned down, a final handful of guts held suspended over his face, before Ryan cried uncle. John was laughing almost too hard to get off him.
“God, that’s disgusting,” he said, trying to dig a seed out of his ear.
“But fun.” Ryan lay back on the floor, grinning. “My brothers and I used to do that all the time, once the pumpkins were carved. That’s one of the reasons to have the biggest pumpkin, you know. More ammunition.”
“Your mother was a saint.”
“She made us wash the kitchen after.”
“And your clothes?”
“My mother was a saint.” Ryan laughed and sat up. “Your pumpkin is freaking fantastic. It will be embarrassed to be seen with mine.”
“I like yours. The spirit of Halloween at its purest.” John stood and pulled his beslimed shirt away from his chest. “I need to shower and change before the kids start ringing the doorbell.”
“Wait!” Ryan held up a hand for a lift off the floor. “I get to go first. I’ll be fast. Promise.”
John clasped Ryan’s warm, gooey hand and hauled him upright. They stood chest to chest, smelling of pumpkin and sweat. Ryan wavered, and John shifted his hand to Ry’s arm. I hope I wasn’t too rough on his leg. He looked at Ryan’s black hair, falling forward over those sea-green eyes. There were slimy seeds stuck to the strands. John found himself reaching out to pick the bits away from Ryan’s face. “I could promise to be quick,” he said. His voice was hoarse, for some reason.
“I wouldn’t believe you. You’re not one for a quickie.” Ryan choked. “All right, not the way I meant that to come out. You take longer in the shower than anyone I know. I have no knowledge of…other things.”
John let go of Ryan’s arm as if it burned him. Because the words, the closeness, were reminding him how long it had been since he’d had sex of any kind. Too long, if wrestling on the floor with a guy could make him hard. Damn, he needed that shower.
“Okay, you first,” he said. “I’ll start cleanup here. But you will do your share.”
“Yes, Mother.” Ryan left the kitchen, limping a little more than usual, and headed up the stairs. From the sound of his footsteps, he went into the bathroom without pausing in his own room. In ten minutes, he’d be coming out of the bathroom draped in just a towel, skin damp from the shower. As he’d sometimes done before. John knew how Ryan’s chest and arms would look, sparse dark curls over hard muscle, rounded biceps and strong forearms, flat lean stomach. John shook his head quickly to get rid of the image of a half-naked man upstairs.
Jesus, he needed to get out of the house.
Although not tonight. There was a bowl of candy waiting by the door, for the visiting munchkins. And he should find candles for inside the pumpkins. He thought there were a couple of tea lights above the stove.
He located the candles and dug out a lighter. The pumpkins weren’t as heavy, now that they were scooped out. He set his by the door and Ryan’s by the top of the steps where it would be seen first. It wasn’t really that bad. It had a kind of rakish charm.
John centered a candle inside each one, and lit them. The sky was losing its color. The youngest trick-or-treaters would be out soon. The candles flickered, casting a homey glow on the yellow paint of the porch. John went down to the walkway and turned to consider the placement, his head tipped to one side.
The house looked like Halloween. More than just the pumpkins? He peered closer. Yes, that was a rubber bat hanging from the porch light, and a pipe-cleaner spider above the doorbell. He couldn’t help smiling. When he was a kid, a house with cool decorations was a good bet for plentiful candy. He hoped he’d bought enough.
The front door opened and Ryan limped out. He wore a fresh T-shirt and jeans with bare feet, and his hair was wet and clean. He came carefully down the steps to join John, and turned to gaze at the pumpkins. “Okay, now I’m really embarrassed.”
“No way.” John stepped closer. Ryan smelled of soap, and lemon shampoo. At least as far as John could tell over his own pervasive raw-pumpkin cologne. “It looks great. It looks like home.”
“I like Halloween. I guess I’m just a kid at heart.”
John touched a muscled forearm with one finger. “Pretty big kid.”
“You’re bigger. It’s been a while since I lost a pumpkin-guts battle.” Ryan’s eyes were colorless in the deepening gloom.
For a moment John just stood and breathed, his lungs filled with candle smoke and dried leaves and lemon shampoo. Something was moving, changing inside him, but he didn’t know what. Then Ryan laughed and headed back up the steps. “You go shower. I’ll listen for the doorbell, and work on cleaning the kitchen. Although you haven’t done much, as far as I can see. You will do your share.”
The return quip wouldn’t come. John trailed after Ryan into the house and headed up the stairs two at a time. He needed a shower. He needed to get the drying goo out of his hair, needed the warm water cascading down. And maybe he needed his own hand, in the wet rushing darkness. Because there was no inviting woman in this home that he and Ryan were making, and his body was feeling that lack acutely right now.
****
The Copper Stein was crowded on a November Saturday night. Ryan took a quick look around the barroom. His beer glass was half empty again. He would’ve sworn it was full just a moment ago. Across from him, John sipped from his own glass and licked the foam from his lips. Ryan blinked and then looked away. Not watching a guy lick his mouth.
Ryan felt restless, itchy. Med school was smoothing out after midterms, from overwhelming to doable. The house was becoming a familiar haven. Stepping in the door was coming home. He didn’t know why he felt so discontented. Maybe he was missing the excitement of fighting fires. There was no denying that sitting in class looking at slides didn’t compare to climbing into his gear and walking into the smoke.
And yet, he no longer missed his buddies from the firehouse quite as much. John was good company. Sure, there were a couple of the guys he’d started e-mailing again. It was nice to keep in touch. But none of them had been as easy to be with as this man across the table. The firefighters’ lives were different from his now, and their e-mail exchanges were superficial. With John, he could joke about deer stopping traffic on the parkway, or discuss the ethics of using embryos for research, and get a matching response. Or he could sit in silence, like tonight, and feel at ease.
Except tonight, he didn’t. Lately, there were just times when his skin felt too small for his body. Or he would wake up from the weirdest dreams, so hard he was aching, and not remember which girl he’d been dreaming about. He’d decided he needed to get laid. It’d been over a year, after all.
Which was frickin’ unbelievable, for Ryan Ward, playboy of the SDFD. There’d never been a shortage of willing women around the firehouse. Ryan hadn’t been the biggest sleaze in the place, but he’d definitely taken what was offered when he was in the mood. Not as often as his thank-God now-ex-roommate Jason, but enough.
He’d even had a few girls who came back for more, for a week or a month. Until he started to detect clinging. At which point he’d always shrugged them off, and gone after the next new thing. The old Ryan did sex. He didn’t do relationships.
That meant he hadn’t had the right to complain, when Marla, his current flavor of the month when he was injured, took one look at his hospitalized corpse and said no thank you. He hadn’t wanted her around anyway. At first, he didn’t want anyone to see the pain. Then the work of healing and rebuilding had taken all his strength. He hadn’t had energy for anybody, not even family. And then there’d been the scars.
Ryan flushed, remembering, and drank deeply to cover it. The waitress was passing by, and he grabbed her arm to order a refill. She smiled perfunctorily, but the new glass arrived promptly. He tipped her well.
Turning t
he glass in his hands, he drank again, slowly. Once, when he’d nearly healed, he’d thought he might try dating. He’d wanted to be sure everything… worked. But the girl he’d hooked up with had been too lightweight for him to go through with it. Even Ryan had his limits, and… he closed his eyes. Not remembering. Not thinking about that. He’d been the one to get up out of the bed and leave, after all. He clung to that.
“Are you okay?” John asked.
“I’m fine.” Ryan opened his eyes and looked around again. He was looking for someone a little older. Older but hot, of course. Someone who’d be up for a little recreational activity without making too much out of it. A woman intelligent enough not to be fixated on appearance, even in a hook-up. You could add wealthy to that list, owns a Ferrari, wants to put you through med school. Not asking too much, right?
He shook his head. Shut up. I just want to get laid. “So,” he said to John, “who do you think is the hottest woman in here?”
John looked startled. Ryan realized that, for all the stuff they talked about, he and John seldom discussed sex. He wasn’t sure why, they just didn’t. But John looked around willingly enough and then pointed discreetly. “Over there in the red dress.”
“Her?” Ryan took a closer look. “Jesus, she’s a kid half your age. They should card her twice.”
“You said hottest, not the one I would go for,” John pointed out mildly. “I still have eyes and she still has…um.”
“Tits.”
“Oh yeah.”
“So who would you go for, if you were looking for a date?”
John took a longer look. “Maybe the blonde with the blue blouse. She looks cute but smart. Or did you mean just a pickup?”
Ryan winced, which annoyed him. This was obviously why he didn’t talk about sex with John. Because it somehow came out too… significant. “Yeah, a hookup for the night.”
“Hm. Hard to judge if a woman is the type.” John frowned. “Over there, the three woman at the corner table. All fairly cute, the right age, a little drunk and egging each other on. One of them might go for it.”