Slow Fires with bonus story Alligators & Orgasms

by Sarah Black

  “What’s on the list?”

  “The first thing is a laundry basket.”

  “Oh.” Kevin looked across the cabin to the foot of the bed. Mia had the feeling that wearing clothes, dumping them in a pile on the floor, then washing them in a big knot saved them the pesky steps of folding and putting them away in a drawer.

  Kevin shrugged. “Where’re your tiles?”

  “They’re packed in a box under the bed,” she said. “I’ve got a couple of the tiles that made it through the first pit firing you guys helped me with, then some of the new ones I’ve done since.”

  Kevin went to the bed and pulled one of her boxes out. He brought the box of tiles into the kitchen and unpacked them. The first ones were small, deep orange earthenware with streaks of black. He put them in a row on the counter. The firing made interesting changes in the clay. The areas of black showed where the oxygen had run out and the atmosphere of the fire had become a reduction atmosphere. She traced a finger over the outlined male nudes. She felt very dissatisfied with them now, though when she had drawn them, and then carved them into clay, she thought they were perfect. They did seem lonely now, sort of sterile, like models in wax. They didn’t convey feeling. It wasn’t the men, of course. It was the artist. She was so isolated. Had been so isolated. From human contact, human touch. She only saw it now that she was flush with life, with fingerprints from two men all over her body. It hadn’t taken her long, either, to get used to them, to having two of them.

  The new tiles were bigger, six by six. Warmer, more complex, stranger, utterly human and very interesting. You could tell the gender of the figures. The central figure was unmistakably a woman, with a woman’s rounded curves. There was a man on either side of her, but she wasn’t just lying there. The woman had the toes of one foot pressing into a calf. Her arm was draped over the waist of the man on her left, fingers spread across his abdomen. The man on her other side was reaching across both of them. And they were all sleeping. She smiled at it, stroking the edge of the clay. “This one’s okay.”

  He looked over at her, smiling. “It’s worth the fire.”

  She flushed with pride. Potter-speak for unbelievably awesome ‑‑ worth the fire. She reached into the cabinet and handed him three plates. “Want to help me set the table? Hey, those are nice plates.”

  “Russ made them.”

  Russ stuck his head in the door and looked at Kevin setting the table. “Wow. You’re working. That’s amazing.”

  Kevin gave her a bad-boy grin. “I don’t know what he’s talking about, Mia!”

  “Really? Don’t try that charming smile with me. The both of you are a couple of slobs, and I’m not your mother.”

  They both cracked up. She handed Russ the plate of hamburger patties for the grill. “Very soon we’re going to be discussing an equitable distribution of household chores.”

  Russ saluted and went back outside with the burgers. Kevin laughed and put an arm around her. “Anything. I’ll even pick up my clothes. Just don’t go.”

  Russ brought the burgers to the table and they sat down together. Kevin had moved a stool over from the studio so they had enough chairs. He pulled a memo book from his pocket and made a note. “I’ll bring you a chair the next time we come, Mia.”

  “Cautious, reasoned thought would tell us that we’re moving too fast to be buying furniture together.”

  Russ slid a burger onto her plate. “Nothing wrong with cautious, reasoned thought,” Russ agreed. “As long as it doesn’t get in the way of what we want to do.”

  Mia laughed. “So you’re the head, and Kevin’s the heart of this beast?”

  Kevin shook his head. “We’re both the heart.” He took her hand. “And you’re our soul.”

  She raised her eyebrows and filled his salad bowl.

  “I think you’re our stomach, too. This is great. Did you make the dressing?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I did. Do you like it?” He had inhaled half of his salad already.

  “Oh, Mia, this is awesome.” Russ was dishing up a second bowl of salad. “Thanks for cooking.”

  She watched them eat, smiling, a warm glow settling in her chest. Maybe she was in love with them because they were good eaters. She picked up her burger and took a bite. Oh, yum ‑‑ hamburgers cooked over a campfire.

  Russ was on his second burger already. I need to watch him when he hits forty. He keeps eating like this, he’s really gonna pack on the pounds. She lowered her eyes to her plate. What am I doing? Planning to be here, fifteen years down the road? But she could see it, just that easily.

  “Kevin, don’t we have some of that Blackbird clay left?”

  Kevin rubbed his chin. “Yeah, Russ. In a bag under the glaze table. Are you thinking for the beloved bowls? What do you think, Mia?”

  She had seen some pottery when she was in school made out of Blackbird clay. It was dark, organic black clay with a rough texture, rich-looking with a thick, opaque glaze. “How does the clay do in a wood-fire, Russ?”

  “As rich and dark as your hair.”

  “Mia’s bowl, I want it to have the curve of her hip,” Kevin said. “That awesome woman-curve from the waist down over the ass.” He grinned over at Russ. “And yours, my brother. Long and strong.”

  “And Kevin’s bowl should be like that round globe of his biceps when he’s centering a heavy piece of clay,” Mia said. “I love big arms and shoulders. But that ash glaze I made this afternoon won’t be right for the Blackbird. We need an opaque glaze, maybe with tin. A nice, thick white, maybe. Good color and texture contrast. I’ll think on it and check the glaze book.”

  “Russ, how much do we need before we’re ready for a firing?” Kevin asked.

  “We’ve already got half a kiln’s worth, Kev. With this ash glaze Mia made today, we can glaze the bisqued tiles, finish the beloved bowls. Plus whatever big secret pot you’ve been working on all day.”

  Kevin shrugged. “No secret.” He took another bite of his burger. “A bowl for the baby. You know, big enough to wash the baby in.” Mia felt her heart clutch, and he looked up and met her eyes. “Just in case, Mia. I’m not trying to push you. But I can’t help but think about it, and what I think comes out on my wheel.”

  When they finished the dishes they walked over to the studio. Russ took the Blackbird clay out of the bag and started wedging it, his shoulders and arms bulging with muscle as he worked the stiff clay into a spiral. Kevin went back to his wheel. The bowls he was making ‑‑ baby-bowls, Mia reminded herself ‑‑ were wide, rounded, open forms on a pedestal like a tulip, or maybe a uterus. Mia felt her face flush, and turned away. She knew he was watching her.

  She flipped through her glaze book. She could alter a raku glaze for high-fire ‑‑ maybe one of the opaque, white crackle glazes. She pictured the clay in her mind. The white against the black clay would be okay. Pale blue? No. How about yellow? A soft, pale yellow matte, for the inside and lip of the pots, leaving the outside naked dark clay. Oh, that would be good. She flipped through the book. She had a Cone 6 oxidation glaze colored with rutile and nickel that might work.

  “Russ, should we look at an oxidation glaze? Does the kiln reduce?”

  He looked up from the wedging. “We can do either, Mia. Down near the coal bed the kiln can burn up all its oxygen, and that gives us a few places where we can get a nice reduction effect. I like reduction glazes, myself. Always interesting surprises in the clay and the glaze when the kiln reduces.”

  Mia flipped through a few more pages and found what she was looking for ‑‑ a high-fire liner glaze for salt and soda firing. She read through the recipe. “Okay, here we go. Pale yellow matte in reduction.”

  Russ nodded. “Pretty.” He pinched off a piece of clay and tossed it to her, and she quickly shaped some rough cookies to test-fire with the glaze. The clay was smooth in her hands, heavy and dense. Perfect for pinching.

  Kevin looked up from the wheel. “Russ, is it ready?”

  “Almost,” he
said. He broke off a tiny piece and passed it to Kevin.

  Mia cleared off space on the glaze table and laid down a ware-board. She put three pieces of plastic down on top of the board, big enough they could wrap up and around the bowls.

  Russ patted the clay out into the shape of a little loaf, then divided it up into thirds. “How are we going to do this, my beloveds?”

  Mia smiled and shrugged. Kevin twirled his finger counterclockwise. “Look how we’re standing. Mia does Russ, Russ does me, I do Mia.”

  Russ passed a ball of clay to each of them, and they settled cross-legged in a circle on the floor. Mia passed the ball from hand to hand until it was round and smooth. Then she held it in her left hand and pressed her right thumb into the ball. The clay was smooth and cool, and she started turning the ball and sliding and pressing with her thumb and fingers. The clay stretched and lengthened in her hands.

  She held the rounded bottom gently in the palm of her left hand, resting the clay. Then she let her thumb stroke slowly up the inside hole, and the little pot began to form, long and strong, just like Kevin had said. When she had shaped it to her satisfaction, she let it rest in her hands. She still had to finish the rim, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to leave it irregular and rough, or cut it until it was smooth and rounded.

  She watched Russ’s hands while he was working his ball of clay. The back of his hands were covered with brown hair. His long fingers were very gentle as he shaped the clay. She watched his strong wrist turn, the muscles in his forearm moving slowly as he turned the clay, thumb stroking inside the pot. He rested the bottom of his pot in the palm of his hand and smiled at her. Kevin had worked his ball of clay into a fat, round pot that looked more like a breast than anything.

  A smooth rim, she decided. She ran a finger over the edge. “We got any scissors?”

  Russ nodded and stood up. He cradled the little pot in his left palm and rummaged around on the workbench. When he found the stubby scissors he handed them to Mia. She carefully trimmed the rim, then smoothed the edge until it was slightly rounded. When it was glazed, it would roll off the lips like a kiss.

  Mia walked around the little cabin after the guys had gone back to work. It was true they were slobs, but Russ and Kevin were always working, and they worked hard. She ran her hands over the walls. The cabin logs were cut by hand, notched with a chainsaw, and chinked with adobe and straw. Looking at the cabin they had built together by hand, watching them at their work, told her just about everything she needed to know about them.

  She measured the space next to the bed. A wardrobe here, maybe a chair. A rocking chair and a couch for the living room. Mia had been to an antique store that she thought would have what they needed. It was a big jumbled warehouse of a place, but she had spotted some nice heavy wooden furniture that would fit beautifully in this cabin. She could get a couple of saddle blankets from a Navajo weaver for rugs, and put them on either side of the bed.

  Mia closed her eyes and rested her forehead against a rich-smelling cedar log, rough from the hand-peeling. This whole thing between them was so improbable it was ridiculous. She knew that, but she didn’t really believe it, didn’t feel it. She was thinking this might be forever. The guys were thinking it, too. Logically, it was impossible. But it felt like the most possible thing in the world. This must be what it was like when people talked about falling in love at first sight. She had never believed in it before, and would have never considered taking the risks she was taking, trusting them. But she believed now. They were like three perfectly matched puzzle pieces that had fallen together from heaven to earth, and now they were one.

  The strangeness of having both of them together wasn’t as strange to her as the way they had moved so fast, from people meeting each other for the first time, to climbing into bed together, to talking about furniture and forever. Just that fast, and everything she knew in her life was different. Her future, her plans, everything was new. Not that she’d had that many plans. Maybe that was the difference. Now she had something to look forward to, someone, a couple of someones, to look forward to getting to know, learning to love. Three seemed just right. Why wasn’t everyone doing this, joining up in threes? It suddenly was the perfect number. Her mind stood up and called her a fool, but her heart shoved that notion into an empty room, and slammed and locked the door. She knew what she felt, and it was real.

  Mia waved at her neighbor as she was getting into her car to go to work on Monday. Mrs. Miller was just being friendly, she decided. She didn’t know why she had ever judged the woman as a malicious gossip. The kids were a joy all day, creative and happy, and her salad and leftover burger at lunchtime were particularly delicious. After work, she took a walk out across the mesa with her camera. The setting sun threw gold and vermilion in splashes across the landscape. The colors were so vibrant they looked otherworldly. She set up her camera on a tripod, and wondered why she hadn’t been out here every evening for the last five years.

  A Navajo man came walking toward her, three friendly dogs running along next to him. He was one of the Navajo language teachers. Mia nodded at him and smiled. He stopped next to her and looked out across the land at the twisted junipers, the arroyos and the tumbled sandstone boulders ‑‑ at the rich reds and golds of the evening sun spreading across the land. She looked through the viewfinder and took a few pictures, but it was so much bigger to see it with her own eyes, so eventually she stood back and just looked at it all. The man sang a few verses of a song in Navajo, very quietly, and the dogs sat at his feet and listened.

  When he finished his song he gave her a little wave and left, walking out across the mesa toward home. She watched him for a moment, wondering if she could bring Kevin and Russ here, wondering what they would think of this landscape.

  Mia was starting to get the uneasy feeling that her sense of isolation over the last few years, her feeling of having failed to find a place for herself, was rooted inside her. She had been lonely, and blamed it on the school, and the reservation, and the taciturn and quiet nature of the Navajo she lived with, and the way they interacted with white people on their land. What if it wasn’t any of them? What if she had isolated herself, made herself unhappy by not reaching out? She packed up the camera and tripod and headed home.

  Mia put a pot of vegetable soup on the stove, as much for the enjoyment of chopping up piles of fresh vegetables as anything else. She would freeze some of it for the guys.

  When she called their apartment, Russ answered the phone. “Kevin’s working. He’s at the school studio.”

  “You got any kiln-building jobs coming up?”

  “Not until after graduation. I’m going to fire the big Noborigama in another week, though. You think you can come up for the weekend?”

  “Yeah. I’m looking forward to seeing one of those big wood firings again. That’s the first time I met you, and I thought you looked like a potter. Quiet and still inside with big, sexy shoulder muscles.” Russ laughed. “How long does the firing take?”

  “Fourteen or fifteen days, usually. I’ve got enough volunteers to stoke the fire and keep an eye out for the cones. I’m going to put your tiles inside. Listen, can I use some of your ash glaze on a pot up here at school?”

  “Sure, Russ. Of course.”

  “I made a couple of bottles and a big garden pot with a fat, round belly. The ash should be good on it.”

  “Sounds good. And pregnant. I should never have mentioned babies to you two. For the garden at home?”

  “Yeah.” She could feel his smile down the phone line, and realized she had called their place home. “I loved your plates and garden pots at the cabin, did I tell you? You’ve got an elegant hand. It’s nice to have beauty and quiet in the things around you everyday. So what’s Kevin working on?”

  “Still the baby-bowls. Now he’s decided to trash the ones he’s already made and try porcelain. I should have just left him down in New Mexico. It’s hard for him to concentrate up here at school. The girls keep tr
ying to get his attention. Some of these chicks, I swear, get in more studio time when Kevin’s at the wheel than the whole rest of the semester.”

  “Has he ever dated any of them?”

  “There was this one girl, Jessica. She’s in our program. Intense. You know what I’m saying? Implacable. She had her eye set on him. So they started seeing each other, but it wasn’t what she expected, or wanted.”

  “Like what?

  “He’d ask her if she wanted to go eat Thai. And she’d think they were going on a date. She’d show up dressed to fuck, smelling good, fingernails clean, and me and Kevin would be there in sweatshirts and jeans, eating dumplings. So she’d be kind of bitchy, and make some pointed comments about going out with him alone, and he’d explain we were a package deal. I told him to give it a try, you know, the usual way. Just him and her. He wasn’t into that. She’s not as open-minded as you, Mia. About two years now she’s been trying to convince Kevin I’m some sort of sexual predator who enslaved him as a teenager. And if he would just stay strong and stand up to me, he could go on to live a normal life.”

  Mia giggled into the phone. “She doesn’t know him very well, does she? I can just see his face, listening to someone tell him that.”

  Russ sighed. “That wouldn’t even matter so much if she was a decent artist, Mia. He won’t have anything to do with Jessica because of her art.”

  “He doesn’t think she’s a good artist?”

  “She’s not. Jessica’s all about flash, not substance. Splashy surface decoration. She uses those low-fire commercial glazes ‑‑ the bright, shiny ones. Fires in an electric kiln. She doesn’t care about the form. Kevin thinks she’s lazy and dishonest. She doesn’t dig in deep. She cares about how things look, not how they feel or what they mean. Now you ‑‑ you’re something different. He thinks you’re our kind of artist. The kind of artist whose work is going to last, and means something. I think so, too.

  “I keep telling him to go easy on the truth, to be gentle with her. Jessica, she’s not right where Kevin is concerned. I think with her it’s turned from good obsession to bad obsession. She’s always watching him, staring at him like she’s hungry and wants to eat him alive. But you can’t tell Kevin anything. He’s as hard-headed now as when he was a kid.”