by Bauer, Tal
Outside, lush gardens meandered beneath them, a half mile of fountains and manicured landscapes, roses and fruit trees and perfectly trimmed grass. Water burbled, so much of it in the center of the punishing desert. Distant city noise seemed muted, the volume of the world turned down. The party, the celebrations, disappeared behind the thick glass patio doors.
They were alone.
Unease prickled his skin. He felt too small in his thobe suddenly. How many times over the years had Uncle Abdul made it perfectly, absolutely clear that Adam was only barely tolerated? Not welcome? Never a part of their home, their family? Every time had seared into his soul, into his DNA. Not being allowed to love Faisal had been a truth he’d set his life to for years.
Faisal had gone against his family each and every time, all the way to marrying Adam.
What would the next moments bring? That hollowness inside him yawed. He was going to fall into it, he knew. Allah, please. Bismillah, I just want to live. I just want to love Faisal. His eyes closed.
“I heard about your problems with the Americans,” Uncle Abdul said. “How they tried to trick you. Trap you.”
Adam’s eyes flew open. Uncle Abdul had never been one to mince words or hide his meaning. He had the luxury of being forward. A senior royal, he’d never had his words, his thoughts, challenged. That power had always intimidated Adam, right up until Adam had personally stormed up to Uncle Abdul in the hallway of Riyadh hospital where Faisal was recovering. He swallowed hard. “I didn’t—"
“I know everything that happened.” Uncle Abdul waved away his stuttering protests. “All of it. How they lied to you and tried to get close to you. How they attempted to use you to get information about us.”
Us. The royal family. His family, supposedly, by marriage. Adam’s breath raced and he squeezed his hands together until his knuckles hurt.
“I know you told them nothing.” Uncle Abdul’s hands clapped on both of his shoulders, a heavy, hearty squeeze. “I know you stayed true to your family.”
The air punched out of him, a slug in his gut that had him almost falling into Uncle Abdul. Your family.
“I know how hard your life has been, ya Adam. The road Allah has laid out for you has not been easy. You have made hard choices and have been pulled between two worlds. But through it all, you have always maintained your love for ya Faisal. You have cared for him as deeply as his own family has cared for him. Even more, at times. And, you have always been loyal to us. You have done everything we have asked of you. Even from the beginning, even when you had no reason to trust us.”
He swallowed. “I fell in love with Faisal. How could I not do everything to keep that love? I knew what you asked of me back then. It was a price I was willing to pay.”
“You chose your love for ya Faisal over your own country.”
Adam’s eyes closed. They were edging close to the things he never spoke of, the past between him and Faisal and Uncle Abdul. A darkness he skirted inside himself, and a truth he hadn’t wanted to face. Traitor. You’ve always been a traitor.
That voice had bellowed loudly enough that he’d left Faisal, once. But he hadn’t been strong enough to stay away.
“Ya Adam, it is as plain to me today as it should have been years ago. You are one of us. You are a part of this family, ya Adam. Allahu Akbar, my nephew could not have found a better person to love or to bring into this family. Ya Faisal has gained the love of his life, and I, ya ibni, have gained a dear son.” He pressed his lips to Adam’s forehead. “Bismillah, your family is here now. You are Adam al-Saud, and you always will be.”
Hollowness filled with light, with sand, with sun, with everything he’d yearned for, every doubt and fear he’d had through the years suddenly extinguished. Belonging flowed into him, surrounded him, filled his lungs and swept through his veins, as sudden and wonderful as if he’d dived into the ocean after a scorching day. He fell into Uncle Abdul’s hold, into his arms, and let it out, the hunger he’d pushed away. Years of yearning, years of wanting. Desperate dreams he’d flogged out of his brain.
Arms wrapped around him, and Uncle Abdul’s soft voice whispered in his ear, Arabic that was more familiar to him now than English. “You are my son now. You are family. Forever.”
* * *
12
Outside Austin, Texas
Ethan’s phone rang in the middle of the morning on New Year’s Eve as he and Jack were drinking coffee and sitting on the back porch swing.
It was an area code he recognized, and a phone number burned into the gray matter of his brain. He answered without thinking. “Hello?”
“Ethan Reichenbach?” The woman on the other end had the drawl that lived in his blood, a slowing of the vowels and a rasp that came from cigarette smoke curling around her words. “That you?”
“Yes ma’am,” he replied automatically. “Who am I speaking to?” He felt his voice answer in kind, the childhood drawl he’d bullied out of himself snapping back into place like it had never left. Jack, at his side, twisted and stared.
“Marion Woods. My grandfather owned the Blackberry Creek ranch in Wyoming.”
“Yes ma’am. Mr. Hollis and his wife, Betsy. I remember them.”
“Well, Betsy passed a while back, and my grandfather passed a few years ago, and we are finally getting around to selling the ranch. I spent Christmas there going through the place, Mr. Reichenbach. And I found some photos, some old trinkets and such. Things that belonged to your daddy and photos of you. I called your consulting business in Washington and your man there gave me your number. I wondered if you was interested in coming up and checking out these things I got? Or, I can trash ‘em? But I didn’t think you wanted anything going up on the internet or the tabloids, or what have you.”
“No, ma’am, I would rightly not.” He sighed. “I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather. Mr. Hollis was a good man.”
“That he was, God rest his soul. We shoulda taken care of this ranch a few years back, but— You know. I didn’t want to face it. I spent some summers up here when I was a kid. You ever remember a pigtailed lil’ girl, lots of dirt on her face and mud on her pink dress?”
“I do remember a girl like that.” Ethan grinned. “Do you remember your first horse ride in the pen? The ranch hands that led you around?”
“No way.” She laughed loudly. “Was you one of those boys? You wearing the big ol’ cowboy hat and sitting on the fence, or was you leading the pony around?”
“I led your horse, ma’am. I kept him eating sugar cubes out of my palm so he wouldn’t get scared with your wild little kicks. You thought you were riding some plastic pony outside a grocery store that first time.”
“Well, Mr. Reichenbach, I thank you for that kindness. That is truly one of my happiest memories of my childhood.” Marion’s voice went smooth, and she hummed over the line. “My, how the world works, don’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Listen, you wanna come up? I’m getting out of here for New Year’s, but I can leave the key for you. Let yourself in, take what you want. I got things set aside for you that I’ll leave out. You lived here with my grandfather more than any of us did. I wish I could track down the other hands, but, you know. Ain’t no one got big and famous like you did, sir.”
“I appreciate that, ma’am.” He chuckled softly. “It’s a kindness. And, I don’t know about big and famous. Maybe infamous.”
“You’re all right. Look, I’ll text you the details. This a good number?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you again.”
“Bye now.” The line clicked.
He blinked, gazing into the distance, the porch, Mary’s garden, the oak tree and the hammock fading away. Time rippled, and he saw instead the old ranch, the farm, the black dirt and the torn-up ground, the herd stamping through the fields and churning the earth. The smell of manure deep inside his skin and his hair. Horses and their hair, their wickers and snorts. His father, cigarette smoke and leather, the scent of early mo
rnings and fog and coffee.
“What was that?” Jack asked slowly. “Who are you and where is my husband?”
He cleared his throat, pushing that part of himself away. His voice cracked. “You’ve never heard my hick voice, have you?”
“Was that what that was? I thought you’d been body snatched for a moment.” Jack shook his head. Bemusement made him look funny, like he’d eaten something weird. “I have never heard even a hint of that accent.”
“I got rid of it.” Ethan chuckled, his face heating. “Or, I tried to. It’s not sophisticated.”
“That’s not true.” Jack kissed his temple. “I was surprised, but it was a good surprise.” He winked. “It was sexy.”
Ethan barked out a laugh and tipped his head back. “Am I going to find some chaps and boots on the bed when we get home?”
“Assless chaps.”
“You city slicker. All chaps are assless.”
“Wearing nothing underneath makes them assless.” Jack waited, letting the lightness linger. He still watched Ethan, his gaze searching, tracking the way Ethan’s eyes had pinched, the tightness he held around his mouth.
He met Jack’s gaze. “Got a call. From home.”
Jack waited. His entire face formed a question mark. He didn’t press.
“From Wyoming. From the ranch I grew up on. Old man Mr. Hollis passed away, and his granddaughter is liquidating the estate. She invited me up to look at some things she found.” He swallowed. “Things of my dad’s.”
“Oh my God.” Jack reached for his hand and squeezed. “When are we leaving?”
* * *
13
Moscow, Russia
“Is there one for me?” Sergey pretended to fly the little NASA space shuttle over their bed. A keychain dangled from the plastic thrusters. Inscribed on the spine of the shuttle was I <3 NASA.
There were hundreds of keychains at the gift shop, with hundreds and hundreds of American names: Kelly and Mary and Jake and Brian. There were no Sergeys, though, and there were certainly no Kilaqqis.
“Do you carry keys?” Sasha scribbled another sentence in his letter, writing on a pad of paper balanced on his naked knees. “I’ve never seen you with any.”
“I don’t unlock a lot of doors right now. Or drive.” Sergey landed the shuttle on the top of Sasha’s writing pad. “But does a shaman unlock any doors? Or drive? Does he need keys to get into his yurt?”
“I flew to his summer camp on a helicopter. And there were vehicles in Tura. And snowmobiles. Lots of those.”
“Huh.” Sergey leaned back, watching as Sasha chewed on his pen. Sasha wanted to say more. He wanted to ask about the tribe and Kilaqqi’s family and how their winter was faring. How was the reindeer migration, and the herd?
He wanted to share his own stories. NASA, and training, and Commander Keating. Flying the T-38s.
Sergey had seemed suspicious, asking how he would explain flying into space to a tribesman.
“You don’t know very much about these people,” Sasha had said.
Sergey seemed ready to protest, but he’d backed down. “No. I do not.” He’d laid on his side and fingered the sheets. “But these people, the… Evenki? They are important to you?”
He’d nodded. “Kilaqqi is. He is family to me now.” Family, and more. He’d only met Kilaqqi twice, but both times were more meaningful than any memories of his own father, a contract soldier for the Russian Army, dead in the Caucasus Mountains for thirty years. Kilaqqi was alive, and had helped him, had brought him back to life and had saved his soul. He’d seen the inside of Sasha in a way no one, not even Sergey had.
There was something binding them together, Kilaqqi and him, either on this plane or another. Sometimes it felt like his tattoo had a thread, an invisible string tying him all the way back to Russia, to Siberia, to the Evenkiysky district and Kilaqqi’s camp. He’d looked it up once, connections forged from shamans. He’d emailed the Siberian Federal University, and a cultural anthropologist at the Indigenous Studies Institute. When he couldn’t sleep, he’d devour everything the university sent and then had found more to read.
You could come back, Kilaqqi had said. You will always have a place here.
According to what he’d read, that had been the invitation to start down the shaman’s path, and the beginning of a connection between him and Kilaqqi. For life.
Once he might have shunned that. But the answer was a relief, a physical, actual thing. He had a family again.
“So what are you sending to him?” Sergey flipped through the souvenirs he’d brought, shuttle keychains and postcards of outer space and the Lunar Station and the ISS in orbit. Johnson Space Center. And photos. Printed photos Sasha had taken and a few he’d ordered. His official NASA photo, him in his blue jumpsuit and glaring at the camera. Him in his T-38 at Ellington Field. Him giving a thumbs-up after trying on his first space suit. “These are wonderful.”
“I have copies for you.” Sasha scribbled another few lines about training. He wished Kilaqqi well with the winter and the migrating herd. “Is there anything you want to say?” He flicked his gaze to Sergey.
“Me?”
“Kilaqqi knows about you.”
“Kilaqqi knows about me? A tribesman knows about me? What happened to We must keep this secret, Sergey, and, Tell no one, Sergey—"
“He knows I love a man named Sergey.” He couldn’t keep secrets from Kilaqqi when the shaman rode to the dead lands inside of Sasha’s soul. If Kilaqqi knew who Sergey truly was, he’d never said.
“Tell him… I hope he and his people are doing well…” Sergey trailed off at the end, his voice rising. He sighed. “I don’t know anything about these people, Sasha. I don’t know what to say.”
Sasha said nothing as he scribbled Sergey’s simple message and folded the letter. He had a thick envelope ready, addressed to Kilaqqi in Tura in the Evenkiysky District, and he dumped the souvenirs and pictures and postcards and letter inside. “This should get there in about a month.” Maybe longer. Mail only flew out to Tura twice a week and the pilot was drunk more than half the time.
Sergey grabbed his hand. “If you have any books on the Evenki, anything to help me learn, I will read them.” He kissed the back of Sasha’s hand. “I want to know more about what is important to you.”
He tossed the envelope aside and pulled Sergey close. Sergey straddled his lap, their naked crotches pressing together. He felt Sergey stir, and felt his own morning come still seeping down from between Sergey’s thighs. He moaned as he kissed Sergey and as his cock swelled, pressing between Sergey’s legs again.
“You are incredible,” Sergey said, chuckling softly.
“You do this to me.”
Sergey flushed, crimson running from his cheeks to his neck to his chest, splotchy patterns between his skinny pecs that Sasha had to press his lips to, had to kiss. Sergey pulled his head close, holding him tight, and rocked in his lap. His hips pushed, rising, and then falling, and Sasha hovered at Sergey’s entrance for the second time that morning, ready to slide in again, return to where he’d been hours before.
“Are you ready?” He bit gently on Sergey’s nipple.
Sergey threaded his hands through Sasha’s hair. He kissed Sasha’s head, pressed his cheek against his blond strands. His hard cock throbbed against Sasha’s belly. “Always for you.”
Sasha ran his hands up Sergey’s back as their lips met, as their breaths tangled, and as he slid home.
* * *
Everything the Americans called Christmas—the tree decorating, Santa’s arrival, gift exchanging, and fancy parties—happened in Russia on New Year’s. Christmas, a week after New Year’s, was a more subdued event, and mostly religious.
You see, comrade, Sasha thought. In Russia, the biggest night of the year is the first night of the year. Get your high expectations out of the way quickly before reality returns. He’d have to tell that one to Commander Keating.
Right after sundown, fireworks started.
Crowds flocked to the squares of Moscow, bringing their own fireworks and setting them off in groups and clusters. People cheered and clapped as sparklers burned, as glitter rained, and pops and snaps and booms echoed around the capital. From inside the Kremlin, it sounded like a war was going on, albeit a very happy war. Laughter filled the city, cries of excitement, drunken songs and cheers.
Sergey threw a New Year’s Eve party, as was Kremlin tradition. It was the most glamorous event in Russia, the invite everyone wanted. Putin had cut his infamous deals at his New Year’s Eve parties, and even though those days were gone, anyone who was anyone wanted to be within the Kremlin walls and rubbing shoulders with the president and the elite in attendance.
Sasha propped up a wall in the back with Ilya, sipping champagne as Sergey greeted his guests.
“This is our thing now, huh?” Ilya spoke around a cigar cloud, his voice chewing through the thick smoke. “We watch as he does his bullshit?”
Sasha smiled tightly. “Apparently.”
“You know, I have never seen you smile in public. No, I have never seen you smile when you’re not staring at him.”
He tried to glower, glare, turn menacing and mean. He failed. His lips twisted again, a tiny grin. It was hard to be miserable these days. Not when everything he’d ever dreamed of was coming true. That voice inside of him was still there—caution, careful, be on guard, never, ever, slip—but…
But he was happy. It was strange, like seeing color after a lifetime of gray. How his thoughts were lighter. How he looked forward to his days, and even more so to his times with Sergey. How deeply he loved Sergey, deeper than his bones, than his blood. Their love was something on an atomic level, something imprinted on his base elements.
His gaze lingered on Sergey shaking Oleg Ostrovsky’s hand near the front of the ballroom. Sergey pointed through the crowds to Sasha. Oleg waved. Sasha nodded and lifted his champagne flute. Svetlana Shevchenko glowed on Oleg’s arm, wreathed in ruby silk and furs, white gloves running past her elbows, diamonds dripping from her neck and ears. One hand rested delicately on her swelling belly. So that was why she hadn’t been in public recently. She and Oleg made quite a pairing.