by Sarah Black
“This is a genuine Native American enterprise,” Quanah Parker said. “Plus I get my jollies measuring people’s feet.”
David froze, and Quanah Parker stood up and came around the other side of his sock machine. “Feeling a little freaked out?” David nodded, and Quanah Parker opened his arms and pulled David in against his chest. “We’re okay. I always feel good making socks. It really calms the mind. You can look around if you want.”
David studied the spinning wheel set next to baskets of fleece—roving, Quanah Parker called it—and the long workbench where moccasin designs were sketched out on paper and pinned up to a long corkboard. Quanah Parker was going with Northwestern native designs, like totems—eagle, raven, bear, salmon. David could see the different leathers, some soft as silk, others thick and dark, cut out as soles. There was music on a little CD player in the corner, a lonesome wooden flute. The floor was hardwood, the curtains were checked yellow gingham, the woodstove was warm, and the light was bright. And electric. David pulled a chair up next to Quanah Parker. “Can I watch?”
“Sure. These are simple socks. The design is already dyed into the alpaca. See the colors, all those shades of purple? So when it knits, the design is sort of abstract. Each one is slightly different, but they’re clearly a pair.”
David sat quietly, watching Quanah Parker’s big hands move quickly and delicately over the sock-knitting machine. When the second purple sock was finished, he knit a few rows of white, then started another pair with the purple yarn. “I want to have lots of purple on hand. They’re very popular at Christmas.”
“You sell them in Ketchum and Sun Valley?”
“Yeah. I have tiny little shops, but they’re in really good locations for foot traffic.” He looked up at David and winked. “Foot traffic—get it? I know lots of foot jokes. I make some of the stock myself, and I have some ladies on the rez knitting socks for me and sewing moccasins. I have a couple of ladies who work as clerks in the stores, and I go up there a couple of times a week. I used to have the knitting machine set up in the Sun Valley store, but I never got any work done. People were so interested in watching and talking to me about how it worked. Coming into Christmas, I’m going to work on baby moccasins, which are really quick and popular, and lots of brightly colored socks. They look good in the window. I’m thinking about trying some shearling slippers for babies this year. I’ve got some shearling that feels like curly lamb; that might be a good fit for baby mocs.” David had the feeling Quanah Parker was talking out loud, mulling over plans, while his busy fingers knit purple alpaca socks. “Hey, you want to cut out some leather?”
“Sure. Just show me what to do.”
Quanah Parker showed him some thin black and green and red leather pieces on the workbench. “See the templates? These are for the designs on the vamp. All of them have a couple of layers. Black usually on the bottom, then red and green on top.” He handed David the small templates made out of thick plastic. “Trace the designs on the back of the leather; then cut them out with the shears. Don’t worry if you mess them up—I’ve got bags and bags of leather scraps I use for designs.”
David settled at the workbench and pulled a light over so he could see what he was doing. He traced the raven first and cut it out carefully, using a pair of heavy shears. He set the pieces aside in a stack and cut out a couple more. It got easier with practice, and he could feel his mind settle down, feel the warmth of the room, the light, the music, the calming, strong presence of Quanah Parker, and before he knew it, some lines were drifting into his mind, some lines of poetry, and he reached out and wrote the words on a piece of elk in front of him: Marble lips don’t warm with a kiss, but Pygmalion toes bunch and flare in ticklish delight, scrabbling in soft mud…
Quanah Parker smiled at him. “I’ve got a spare notebook,” he said, rummaging in the drawer and then holding out a little memo book.
“Sorry.” David took the notebook and wrote for a while.
Quanah Parker took the little piece of elk and slipped it into his pocket.
“That’s not a poem,” David warned. “I just collect scraps, images and lines, and while I’m doing that, the poem takes shape in my mind. It’s a lot more work than it looks.”
“I like watching you work, David.”
“I like watching you work too, Quanah Parker. Maybe some haiku,” David mused. “Toe haiku.”
* * *
Mr. Running Bear called them for dinner, and they followed the smells of spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread to his cabin. After dinner, David walked to the paddock with Quanah Parker, watched the alpacas race around, flee in delight, reach their fuzzy heads to Quanah Parker for a pet. They filled the water troughs and put out some hay, and then he and Quanah Parker walked back down the road to his cabin. “I’ve got to go tuck the poet into bed,” Quanah Parker told his father, and James Running Bear winced and held up a hand.
“You don’t have to tell me every detail, boys,” he said. “In fact, I’d much rather you didn’t.” And Quanah Parker laughed out loud. “I’ll expect you two for breakfast.”
At the cabin, they didn’t head for the hot tub or the bed. Quanah Parker pointed with his chin to the woodpile. “You’re making good progress,” he said, then went to study the propane tank. David set about emptying and filling the woodstove for the hot tub, thinking there was no way he would be able to wait two hours for it to heat up. Quanah Parker studied the hand pump next, stuck his head under the sink, and walked slowly around the outhouse.
David hauled some wood into the cabin and cleaned out the stove, then took the ashes outside.
“You want to make sure there aren’t too many coals before you dump the ash in the outhouse,” Quanah Parker said. “I would hate to see this thing burn down.” David stared at him in surprise. “It’s not that great an outhouse, but a fire would spread to the cabin, and it’s made out of dry twigs, my friend. It would be gone in ten minutes.”
“I guess there isn’t a fire department out here,” David said, and Quanah Parker silently pointed to the hand pump and dangling bucket.
Quanah Parker took up the ax and started splitting wood. “I’ve been sitting on my ass too long today,” he explained. “There are only so many pairs of purple alpaca socks a man can knit before he has to gut a deer or set something on fire.”
“I’m too used to sitting,” David said. “I’ve only been finished with school and started teaching for a year, but seems like my work is all done sitting down. Then for fun I get up and go running. I’m not sure how healthy that is. I was already starting to get a cramp in my neck from too many hours staring at the computer.”
“Not healthy,” Quanah Parker agreed. “When I decided to find a business instead of doing graphic art, which is all done on the computer these days, I looked around for something that I could make with my hands. It’s…good. It feels real and honest.” He shrugged. “Maybe I won’t be in love with it forever, but for now I love making socks and moccasins.”
David got up the nerve to ask Quanah Parker something he had been wondering about. “Listen, do you…I mean, do you have a foot thing going? Like, what do they call it…”
“A foot fetish? I don’t know. I’m not sure what that means, really. But I love feet. I love to rub sweet-smelling cream into feet and suck on toes, and I really love a soft foot on my dick. Is that a foot fetish?”
“A soft foot on my dick”? David tried to phrase his next question carefully. “Is there other foot…stuff that you would like? I mean, what do you want me to do?”
Quanah Parker put down the ax, and when he wrapped David up in his sweaty arms, the curtain of his black hair fell over David’s face like a shield, like a magical shield. David clung to him, his knees suddenly shaking. “Just be yourself. Just be with me. I like you, David. I like being with you.” And Quanah Parker didn’t say another word when David’s tears fell hot against his neck.
Quanah Parker enjoyed his own beautiful body very much, David thought l
ater, watching him pull his clothes off. He was a man who was happy in himself, and he enjoyed the effect his body had on men. Probably on women too, David thought. “Have you ever been with a girl?”
Quanah Parker stopped for a moment, his sweatshirt half-pulled over his head. “Um, I would have to say not successfully.”
David wasn’t sure if he wanted to pursue this line of conversation further. Maybe he would just watch Quanah Parker get undressed.
The sweatshirt got tossed toward the end of the bed, where David’s clothes were piled up in a cardboard box. Then Quanah Parker unsnapped the button at the waistband of his jeans, slid the zipper down. His belly was flat and brown, with a few sparse black hairs that David suddenly wanted urgently to touch. Quanah Parker skinned his jeans over his hips, stepped out of them, then slid his boxers off and kicked both toward the end of the bed. He leaned over to open up the gym bag.
Quanah Parker’s bedroom moccasins were soft white buckskin, and the design on the toe was a giant red and black leaping whale. David felt himself flush from the chest up, watching him walk to the woodstove, dressed in moccasins and long hair and nothing else. Quanah Parker opened the door, put a piece of fragrant wood on the fire, and blew out the candle on the pine plank table. “Get undressed, David,” he said. “I’m cold.”
Quanah Parker stretched out on the bed, and David could see the whole beautiful length of him—broad chest, black hair, long legs. His penis nestled against his thigh, and David was fascinated at the rich brown color, the length of it, the coarse hair it nestled in. Quanah Parker lifted his arms over his head, sighed, and snuggled into the down quilt. “This is soft, David,” he said. “You can touch me if you want.”
David slipped out of his jeans and flannel shirt, got his bedroom mocs, and put them on, his toes stretching against the soft elkskin. He could touch Quanah Parker anywhere he wanted. He moved up the bed until he was settled between Quanah Parker’s longer legs. His belly was hard with muscle. How did he manage to stay in such good shape making socks all day? He was hard, but the skin was so velvet soft, David had to lean over and taste it with his lips, touch the warm skin with the tip of his tongue. He moved down just a bit, let the black hair that led down Quanah Parker’s belly tickle his nose. He smelled musky and warm, and David suddenly wanted, more than anything in the world, to bury his face deep between Quanah Parker’s legs, to nudge his balls with his nose, to rub his face against the stirring heavy, long cock that belonged to Quanah Parker, and let it kiss his cheek. He took a shaky breath, felt a big hand settle gently over the back of his neck.
“Go ahead,” Quanah Parker said. “Anything you want.”
* * *
Later, David drowsed against Quanah Parker’s large brown shoulder, thinking in five and seven syllables. Toe haiku. He would write some beautiful and erotic poetry as a gift for Quanah Parker. The Pygmalion idea came back into his mind. He could picture himself hard and cold as marble. Then Quanah Parker was there, running his big hands down David’s marble sides, the cold flanks turning warm and pink under his hands. No feet in this picture, and David wondered for a moment what it meant—“a soft foot on my dick.” They would be in the hot tub, and Quanah Parker would be sprawled out opposite him, long arms along the wooden edge, long legs relaxed and spread. And David would reach out with his toes, walk them up the inside of Quanah Parker’s thigh, roll the ball of his foot until Quanah Parker’s dick was snuggled up against his arch. Then he would just roll his foot back and forth until Quanah Parker got whatever he was going to get from it. David smiled and shook the sleeping shoulders underneath him. “Wake up! We need to get in the hot tub.”
Toe Haiku #1
toes flare in delight
a spasm and arch moving
up the lovely foot.
Chapter Seven
David awoke with Quanah Parker curled warmly around him, fingers stroking his scalp and combing his curls. “Hey. Let’s get up and go fishing. Have you been on the river since you’ve been back?”
David stretched a little, turned into his arms. “I’ve been down to the river to hang around, you know, looking at the rocks and stuff.”
“Do you have any gear?”
David shook his head. He wanted to curl up and be a pet rock and live in Quanah Parker’s pocket. “Your turn to make the coffee.”
“No, it’s not,” Quanah Parker said, hand sneaking around to pinch David on the ass. “It’s your turn. I’ve already gotten up to put more wood on the fire.”
David wiggled his toes inside his bedroom moccasins. His feet felt softer and warmer and somehow more pampered than the rest of his body. Like they belonged to a king. David wondered about this while he climbed out of bed and pulled on his jeans. Was this feeling the result of being cherished? Flooded with attention? Would this royal foot feeling gradually creep up his legs and his chest and his head until he wouldn’t even recognize himself?
He pulled the door of the cabin open and carried the bucket to the pump. It was stiff this morning, hard to move, and there was a fine dusty sprinkling of snow on everything. The snow had started while they were in the hot tub, the tiniest, driest flakes David had ever seen. He thought it looked like powdered sugar drifting down to frost a cake.
Being cherished, he decided, was the deal. It was transforming. Maybe even physically transforming. His face felt changed, like it was falling into lines more relaxed and tender than it had been used to the last few years. He rubbed his chin. His beard was coming along—a bit scraggly, but coming along nicely. Was there a difference, he thought, his mind wandering along a meandering path while his hands made the coffee, between being temporarily cherished and being permanently cherished? Was it simply a function of time, or was there a difference right from the beginning? And why was Quanah Parker cherishing him? What was the deal? If he, David, was so precious and cherishable, why had the entire rest of mankind treated him—he was forced to acknowledge the truth of this—as if he was forgettable and not very interesting and not really lovable at all? Was there something Quanah Parker would discover in time to make him realize that he had been wrong? David suspected that he was not strong enough to survive being cherished, then having it taken away. But Quanah Parker had known him since he was a child. Didn’t that argue that Quanah Parker knew him best?
“What are you thinking about, David? Your face looks like you’re having a debate with yourself.”
“I was, I guess. Thinking about what causes one person to cherish another.”
Quanah Parker studied him some more. “Did you reach any conclusions?”
“Nope.” David smiled at him. “Just enjoying the debate.”
“I would enjoy some breakfast, a hot shower, and a day on the river,” Quanah Parker said, throwing back the covers. “All of which we can get down at my place. When we built it, we put a nice bathroom in. And I have some waders that’ll fit you, I think. I don’t want you to wear your bedroom moccasins into the river, though.” He was pulling on his sweats. “We need some fishing moccasins. As luck would have it, I was working on a pair for you before you came down yesterday. Just in case I could talk you into going fishing.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to talk very hard,” David said. “I can fix us some breakfast here.” He gestured toward the mountain of food, and Quanah Parker laughed.
“Um, no, thanks, Jeremiah Johnson. My dad loves to cook. He said he would see us at breakfast, remember?”
David filled a coffee cup and passed it to him. “That’s right. I forgot.”
Quanah Parker dug through David’s clothes and dressed him in layers, with a promise of appropriate footgear back at his place. They walked together down the dirt road separating their houses, and Quanah Parker scuffed his boots in the snow. “I feel like we’ve been playing in the woods again, and now we’ve got to get ready for school. Something about your cabin reminds me of the forts and villages we used to build along the river when we were kids.”
“I wonder if that’s t
he feeling I’ve been working toward,” David said. Their cups of coffee were steaming in the cold morning air. “Maybe I’m trying to recreate that feeling. Is it safety? Or is it the familiar I’m trying to recapture? Seems like most people who try to recreate some time from their past end up failing.”
Quanah Parker shrugged. “Does it matter why you’re here? I notice this about you, that you think things through until you discover the why behind the things you do. Is that important to you?”
David was surprised. “I don’t know. Doesn’t everyone do that?”
Quanah Parker shook his head. “I don’t. I’m not sure I know anyone but you who does.”
“Can I ask you something?”
Quanah Parker set his coffee cup down. Then he pulled his hair back behind him, twisted it into a ponytail, and wrapped an elastic holder around it. “Sure.”
“What have you been doing all these years? I mean, with men?”
They studied each other, and Quanah Parker took a sip of coffee, his eyes narrowed.
“You know you do this thing, David. One question leads to another down some twisty paths. You sure you want to walk down this path?”
“You don’t have to answer.”
He sighed. “I’ll answer anything that does not get in the way of a shower, breakfast, and fishing in peace all day. What have I been doing? I’ve been sleeping with men I wanted to sleep with. I’ve been mildly infatuated a couple of times. I screwed around drunk a couple of times when I was a teenager. I was in love once with someone who didn’t want to live in my world. Is that what you meant?”
“Yeah.” David studied the snow.
“No, it’s not. You want to know where you were in all of this screwing around with other men. Was I thinking about you? Was I waiting for you? And why didn’t I come and find you, take you captive, and tie you to a tree if I’ve loved you for years and years? And if I haven’t loved you for years and years, why am I acting like I have?”
