Nathaniel

by Jan Irving

  Samuel looked at him and Aaron felt suddenly aware of how sharp he sounded. He hadn’t spoken that way to his son since before his wife had died. He had worked so hard to shove down how tired he felt, how he didn’t know how to help Samuel, and how sometimes he even resented that Samuel had made things so difficult for both of them….

  It is Samuel’s fault we had to leave our home.

  No. He had once thought that, been ashamed for thinking it, but lately, since he’d lived here on this ranch, become friends with Nate, that dark snake of a thought hadn’t whispered inside him.

  He took a deep breath. “I am sorry,” he said.

  “Samuel….”

  The screen door slammed; he wasn’t sure if Samuel heard him.

  Miserable, Aaron focused on washing dishes. He was still washing the same plate when a knock on the door made him jump. He swung around to see Nate standing at the screen door, hands in his pockets, his smoky quartz gaze fixed earnestly on Aaron, his hair mussed from the cowboy hat he’d left on the bench outside.

  Aaron’s heart gave a big thump. What would happen now? Would Nate tell him what had happened between them was a mistake? Had he pushed Aaron away because… because he hadn’t liked how Aaron kissed?

  “I thought it would be easier if I came by before breakfast,” Nate said. “Less weird than when there are other people around.”

  “Less weird, yes,” Aaron agreed. He put the plate down and after wiping his hands, went to the door, opening the screen in silent invitation. He couldn’t hide from Nate. If he didn’t want to be Aaron’s friend anymore….

  It would hurt.

  “Hey, you look so sad!” Nate exclaimed. He hesitated, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides before he took a half step toward Aaron. He reached up and touched his cheek. “Aaron, it’s okay. We’ll work it out.”

  Aaron dropped his head. “I have not had a friend since I left the community,” he admitted. “People look at me and then away.”

  “You can’t lose me,” Nate whispered. Aaron wasn’t sure how it happened. Whenever Nate came close to him now, there was the scent of his cologne, and the warmth of his body caused Aaron to crush him close.

  “I was afraid….”

  “Me too,” Nate agreed. “I didn’t sleep last night.”

  “I was cranky with Samuel this morning.” Aaron’s eyes were damp, so he squeezed them tight and took a deep breath. “I have been angry with him for a long time.”

  Nate rubbed his back. It felt good, like he found all the places that hurt inside Aaron. “He shut you out and it hurts, Aaron.” When Nate said it, it didn’t seem so bad, so unforgivable that Aaron would feel that way. “Hell, this morning before coming here, I yelled at my poor, dumb horse, but it was my fault I dropped a bucket. I—” He blew out a breath. “I’m totally fucking useless since you kissed me.”

  “I was good?”

  Nate blinked as if he wasn’t sure what Aaron meant but then his expression relaxed into a smile. “So good I nearly… you know.”

  Aaron’s cheeks turned pink. “Yes.”

  “I, uh, better step back. Folks will be by any minute,”

  Nate said.

  Aaron didn’t want to let him go, but Nate said he had to, so he let his hands fall.

  “You’ve had these feelings for other men before.” Nate sounded so certain and his certainty made it possible for Aaron to say it.

  “I tried….” Aaron swallowed.

  “You tried not to.”

  Aaron gave a tiny nod.

  “It’s what you meant when you said you left your community for Samuel, but not for you.” Nate studied him.

  “Last night was… but it was still just an accident. You didn’t choose me, Aaron.”

  AARON’S dark eyebrows came down, and he seized hold of Nate’s arms, shaking him. “My life, I don’t know what it is. It is pebbles and rock sliding down a mountain, so I don’t know where I am going. It is a barn that is on fire, and I can’t put it out!” he rasped. “Most of all, I can’t help my son.”

  “You try so hard.” Nate sighed. “What about Christmas, maybe we can think of something that might be special for Sam. Is it something you celebrate?”

  “We do, but it is simple, not—”

  “Not tons of toys under the tree,” Nate said. His hands smoothed over Aaron’s arms. He couldn’t help himself. He saw Aaron’s eyes widen at his touch, his lips part. He wanted to kiss and suck on those lips. “That’s not what he needs, anyway. I have an idea of something that might be special for Samuel.”

  “What?”

  Nate shook his head. “Let me think about it, okay?”

  A long moment passed. Nate could hear his heart thudding in his ears. His gaze touched Aaron’s dark eyes, his flushed cheeks and lips.

  “Nate….” Soft, pleading.

  When Nate did not pull away, Aaron crushed his mouth over Nate’s, bright, fiery, lighting him up where Nate had felt tired and depressed. “I can’t think.”

  “You think too much,” Aaron said.

  Nate dug his fingers into hard shoulders, feeling cloth under his hands when he wanted… God, he wanted to see Aaron naked. He’d wondered about him for so long.

  “Aaron… this is just going to make it worse,” Nate groaned.

  “Worse, better. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Aaron didn’t seem to know what to do with him, other than kiss him. When Nate put his tongue in Aaron’s mouth, he stiffened. Nate paused, aware this must be the first time another man had caressed Aaron with his tongue.

  “All right?”

  Aaron’s tongue came out, a little timid but then sliding over Nate’s so Nate gave a choked sound. The sensation was so sensual, as if Aaron were licking his cock. Oh God, what would that be like? Would Aaron be disgusted by the idea?

  Chapter Six

  “MORE pie, Mrs. Henderson?” Aaron asked Samuel’s teacher.

  She shook her gray head with a smile. Aaron was aware of her green eyes studying him as he poured more coffee into her cup. Samuel had gone off after dinner with a coloring book, this one a gift from Nate featuring horses and cowboys.

  “It was nice of you to invite me for dinner, Aaron,” she said. “I was a little surprised since word in Sylvan is you are a little aloof.”

  Aaron nodded. “It is my fault. Since Nate had to go out of town, I thought… it would be nice to have someone over.”

  “Well, I’m glad I’m the beneficiary of your wanting to reach out and get to know people. I’ve enjoyed the eggs you send me. Those hens are really beautiful.”

  Aaron had given the teacher a tour when she’d first arrived. She’d especially liked his Bantams. “Not as many eggs, but they take care of themselves,” he told Mrs. Henderson.

  She leaned back in her chair, sipping from her coffee.

  After a moment, Aaron blurted, “I want to court someone!”

  Her eyes widened and she coughed. Aaron colored.

  There he went again, the big ox.

  “I’m sure that if you want to do that, you’ll find a way,” she said. When Aaron didn’t answer right away she asked, extra gently, “Is it Nate?”

  Throat tight, heart thudding, Aaron nodded.

  “I felt something between you two when you came to visit me,” she admitted. “He’s a very good man.”

  “Yes,” Aaron said. “But he is a man. I don’t know how to….”

  “You can always look up some things on the web if it makes you feel a little more confident, though be careful to take whatever you, ah, see with a grain of salt,” Mrs. Henderson suggested. “But I think the best thing to do is spend time with Nate. I am sure he can guide the boat, so to speak.” She smiled, and Aaron found himself relaxing for the first time that evening.

  “I miss him,” Aaron admitted.

  “Here,” Mrs. Henderson said, reaching into her bag and pulling out two paperback books. “These are rather entertaining.”

  Aaron took the books fro
m the teacher. His eyes widened as he scanned the back blurbs. “A love story with men?”

  “I have some favorite authors I can suggest if you like it. I wanted to give you something back for all the eggs you sent with Samuel.” Her eyes twinkled. “And I had a feeling before I came here this evening that you might share my taste in reading.”

  Aaron put aside the titles by Mary Calmes and Kim Dare, although he was burning to open them. After a moment he reached out and shyly squeezed her weathered hand. “When I invited you here, I hoped most of all to make a friend.”

  “Then you have succeeded, Aaron,” she said. “Now, you asked about where Samuel was in his reading, so why don’t we talk about that?”

  “THIS is what you wanted to show me?” Aaron asked two days later as he huffed up a steep path on the unused land beyond the ranch.

  Nate nodded, putting his binoculars back into the knapsack slung over one shoulder as he waited on Aaron.

  “You told me how Sam has been looking for tracks from the wild horses. Well, turns out the boss was curious too after I told him that dead animal I found wasn’t one of ours. He wants confirmation a herd has returned to this area.”

  Aaron joined him on the bluff, the rock spanned by roots and loose pebbles and scrub caught in pockets. The view was oddly intimate. Their perch jutted out over prairie, veiled by the huge bowl sky, the distant purple of mountains.

  “This is a place to feel small, to feel a part of things,”

  Aaron said. The air stung, chilly, but also exhilarating, nothing like the gentle land where he had grown up. “I like it here.”

  Nate flashed a smile at him. “Me too.”

  “So why have you lured me from winter preparations for my vegetable garden today, Nathaniel?” Aaron asked.

  “Partly because we haven’t had time to talk since breakfast last week,” Nate said. He’d left to deliver horses to a ranch out of state, leaving many things unsaid between them. “I, uh, thought it would be a good thing to spend some time alone. I also figured after a few days of thinking time, if you didn’t want to go anywhere with me… you could let me know.”

  “But I desire you,” Aaron said. “I am not going to hide in the cupboard.”

  “That’s the closet.” Nate laughed, but his face flushed at Aaron’s bald declaration. “And I think you’re pulling my leg. You know the expression.”

  “Yes,” Aaron admitted. “I was kidding. But not about the desire.”

  Nate dropped his gaze, looking a little shy. Aaron decided he liked it. He could make the other bold and experienced man feel bashful? “I’m glad you can joke about it,” Nate continued. “I was worried, but I thought… it would be better, time apart.”

  “I spent a lot of time walking alone outside at night. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I couldn’t sleep either. I had a lot of shower time, though,” Nate said. “Thinking of you.”

  “Oh.” Aaron now felt the shy one.

  Nate’s expression sobered. “Aaron, do you ever plan to go back to your community? I mean, what if Samuel…?”

  Aaron shook his head. “I miss my family but shortly after I met you, when we became friends, I knew I would be all right, that I could make a place for myself. And… Mrs. Henderson came by when you were gone. I made her dinner. I think she would like to be my friend also.”

  “I’m glad. It helps to have friends,” Nate said. Then a frustrated look crossed his face and he finished in a rush, “So do you, um, want to maybe try dating?”

  Aaron’s pulse picked up, racing like the wild horses they searched for traces of. “I don’t know how to date you,” he confessed. “I know nothing about how to keep a man like you.”

  “Keep?” Nate’s eyes widened, and Aaron knew this was probably another thing that he would consider quaint. “I think if you kiss me the way you did before, that would go a long way to—”

  Aaron pulled Nate to him, at first hesitant. He had been so awkward before, the way he’d first grabbed Nate. “I asked Mrs. Henderson about how to court you,” he admitted. “I want you to like me, Nate.”

  “W-what?” There was surprise and laughter in Nate’s voice.

  “I did the wrong thing again?” With Nate’s body so close to his now, Aaron felt a primitive satisfaction that the other man wasn’t as tall, wasn’t quite as muscular, but instead had the slim hips and agile body of a natural rider.

  “Wrong, I don’t know….” Nate closed his eyes as Aaron kissed the side of his cheek, near his tempting lips. “I don’t think you’ve ever done anything wrong.”

  “I want you to be mine,” Aaron said. “Is that wrong?”

  “Oh hell no….” Nate’s heavy eyes flared open when Aaron’s palm covered him, touching him where he was hard and swollen. “Aaron, wait.”

  “She told me I could find information online. I used the computer in the bunkhouse and I saw… Nate….”

  Nate gripped Aaron’s wrist, licking his lips. He didn’t exactly remove it, but Aaron knew he’d made some kind of blunder again. He’d seen pictures of men touching other men on their crotch. The thought had made him squirm, and he’d thought Nate might like it.

  “I bet you saw some stuff that…,” Nate said as a dimple appeared in the side of his cheek.

  Aaron knew then it would be okay, whatever blunders he had made. Nate laughing was always okay and there was also something there in Nate’s eyes Aaron was not sure he was ready to put a name to.

  “Had to be a hell of an eye opener. Just what did you see?”

  “There were other people around, so I didn’t look too long….” Aaron blushed, remembering how uncomfortable he’d felt in the common room as if everyone could see his questions, his secret yearning.

  “You didn’t check out my porn stash?” Nate teased.

  “No! Mrs. Henderson did give me some books to read. I have enjoyed them.” Now Aaron was as red as the tomatoes he’d harvested before meeting Nate, piling their remains on his compost for the next year. “And I did see some pictures, very briefly….” There had been one of a naked man kneeling at another’s feet. He’d been sucking the other man, a cock buried deep in his mouth. Thinking of that, Aaron shifted, painfully excited. He’d been unable to get the image of Nate doing that to him or him doing that to Nate out of his mind for two days.

  Nate leaned close. “What did you see, Aaron?” he whispered, his voice challenging, gently taunting. He treated Aaron like the man, like the equal he had always treated him. Hearing that, Aaron felt reassured. Here was his friend.

  “I saw men, men together. Men… sucking.” Aaron’s hand gently squeezed Nate. Nate gasped, and his head fell back.

  “Okay, shit! Shit, we’ll have to take care of that right now, or we’ll be lusting all afternoon.”

  “Lusting….” Oh, yes.

  Aaron looked to Nate for direction. He was as much lost here as he would be up in these woods without Nate’s guidance. “It’s okay, baby,” Nate said.

  “Baby?” Aaron wasn’t sure how he felt about being called such a name. “I am not.”

  Nate gently pushed Aaron’s hand from where it had been warming his crotch. There was high color in his cheeks, his eyes slightly wide, sparkling like a gray lake under sunlight. Aaron picked up on his mood, feeling buoyant, as if they were about to play some kind of game together.

  “I want to see you. I know how shy you are but… damn, I want to see you! Will you take off your clothes for me, Aaron?”

  Aaron’s eyes widened and he looked around. “Here in the woods?”

  “We might moon a couple of bunny rabbits up here,”

  Nate said dryly.

  “Very funny.” We. We meant that Nate would take off his clothes as well. Aaron wanted to see him, wanted to touch.

  He pulled his suspenders from his shoulders.

  “Hang on.” Nate pulled his knapsack off and tugged out a small blanket, only a little larger than a towel. He flipped it out, spanning some rock shaded by an elderly pine tree.


  Aaron looked at that tree, thinking he’d like to come back here again, to this place, to where he first looked at Nate.

  His attention snapped back to Nate when the other man tugged off his blue T-shirt, his muscles undulating under browned skin. His nipples were smaller than Aaron’s, tightly puckered from the chill.

  Aaron couldn’t resist reaching out and brushing the pad of his thumb over one.

  “Oh fuck!” Nate cursed. He covered Aaron’s hand, holding it to his chest.

  And that easily, he stopped worrying about what to do because Nate pulled him into a kiss. At the first brush of that warm, wet mouth, he lost his head. He groaned as Nate’s lips parted and his skillful tongue came out to play, stroking Aaron’s, making a kind of red, misty haze veil his thoughts. It was just like the other two times they’d kissed, when one moment he was Aaron and the next moment he became this beast, brought to life by Nate’s touch.

  “Easy,” Nate whispered, putting a hand on Aaron’s shoulder.

  Could Nate feel him shaking?

  “I want…,” Aaron husked.

  “Let’s get this off you.” Nate was unbuttoning his shirt.

  It reminded Aaron of that first time, when he’d been healing Aaron. Aaron’s shirt fell open, and they both pulled it free.

  Nate’s lips parted as his hands smoothed over Aaron’s big shoulders, and then he dipped closer to Aaron’s chest with his tongue teasing a nipple.

  “Ah!” Fire, Nate had fire inside him, and when he touched Aaron, he burned.

  “Oh, yeah, you are so hot for it,” Nate praised. He couldn’t seem to stop touching or tasting Aaron’s bare flesh.

  One of his hands reached down to Aaron’s belt, and Aaron felt it tug impatiently even as Nate sucked his nipple deep into his mouth, pulling hard. Aaron’s eyes rolled back. “Stop! Or I’ll… I’ll get off, shoot, come before we….”

  Panting, Nate pulled away. “Race you,” he said, his smoky quartz gaze deadly serious now. His hands went to his own belt and tugged it free before Aaron caught on and did the same, falling out of his underwear and his pants with a groan, shoving away the constricting material, his socks, his boots….