Salvation

by Jeff Mann

  Now Drew stiffens and roars. His seed surges forth in great white gouts, spattering the blanket and welling through my fingers. Inside him, his muscles ripple and tense around my shaft, and seconds later I myself spend, filling his ravished ass with my seed.

  For drowsy minutes, we lie there, breathing heavily. I rouse myself long enough to fumble loose the rope tying Drew’s wrists. I run my fingers through his sweat-damp chest hair, feeling the gradual slowing of his heart.

  “Stay inside me,” Drew mutters, reaching back to grip my flank and pull me closer. “Please, Ian.”

  Nodding, I tug the mess of blankets over us. We fall asleep with limbs intertwined, my softening sex still lodged within my lover’s body.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Drew’s nudging rouses me. He’s rubbing his ass against my member.

  “Ian? I want it again, Ian,” Drew mutters. “Put it up in me again, Reb. Please, Reb, fuck me again. Please, Reb, please.”

  When I reach over to caress his groin, I find his sex fully awake. “You begging, huh?” Chuckling, I squeeze his swollen cock-head.

  “Yes, Ian. Yes, sir. I’m begging you.” Drew’s voice is a low rumble. “I need it. I need it bad. Fuck me. Fuck me hard.”

  “You got it, Yank. Keep still and don’t fight me.”

  Roughly I roll Drew onto his belly, wrench his muscle-thick arms behind him, and bind his wrists together. His neck-bandana I loosen only long enough to knot tightly between his teeth. Now I shove him over onto his back and stretch out on top of him, kissing and tonguing his gagged mouth. When he growls, gnashing the rag and giving me a delicious show of resistance, I grip him by the shoulders and force him down.

  “Keep still and shut up, boy,” I snarl, clamping one hand over his mouth and with the other clutching his collared throat. “You’re caught. You’re my big Yankee prisoner. You ain’t going nowhere. You want it up the butt, do you? Huh, Yankee boy? You want your Rebel captor to take you up the ass, huh? You want it rough? You want my seed again? My seed inside you? Want me to use your sweet asshole hard?”

  Drew’s eyes are a fierce gleam. He nods, thrusting his lean hips against mine. For a long, delicious time, hand still covering his mouth, I chew and bite his blow-bruised chest, my teeth evoking pained winces and rapt moans.

  Hauling him off the bed, I bend him over the footboard. I fondle his crevice. I tickle and probe his grease-oiled aperture. It gives me only a second’s reluctance before welcoming me, enveloping my finger with tight, hot grace.

  “You’re still well-greased back here, boy,” I say. Pulling out of him, I scoop up lard and smooth it over my prick. “I think you’re more than ready to be ridden again.”

  Drew’s hands twist in their bonds. Groaning, he wriggles his rump.

  “You want this bad, don’t you?” I push my prick-head against his hole.

  His nod’s curt with impatience. “Fuck me!” he bellows against his gag.

  Spurred on by his eager need, the doubts I felt during our first coupling dispersed, I penetrate him without hesitation. Drew gives a deep groan as my prick-head eases into him, then, in one long, slow slide, my entire prick-length.

  “There you go, Yank. That want you wanted?” I pull out, only to shove completely inside him again. “That feel good, boy? Huh?”

  Drew nods. Drew grunts. Drew tenses and trembles. Drew huffs beneath my thrusting efforts. I spear him savagely. Maddened and violent with lust, I claw his chest, pull his hair, slap his buttocks, and twist his balls. He sobs and whimpers, his nods urging me on. Within mere min- utes, I’ve finished inside him with a shout and a gasp.

  Panting, I catch my breath. Panting, I pull out. Heaving him off the footboard and back onto the bed, I take his cock into my mouth. I suck him as if I were buried alive and his prick were my only source of air. I suck him till he’s sobbing and jolting, bouncing beneath me. I suck him till Drew releases another muffled roar and my throat’s pumped full of his thick juice.

  For a while, I leave my willing captive bound and gagged. Holding him in my arms beneath the covers, I rock him, whispering love-words, nuzzling his bruised face.

  “Oh, Drew. What bliss. What bliss. Your hole…being inside you…sweeter than honey. Thank you. Fucking you, it—it’s sheer wonder. Lord God, thank you. My sweet, sweet boy. Thank God I found you.”

  Finally, I free his wrists. As soon as I pull the rag from his mouth, he kisses me hard, then slips down to wrap his arms around my waist and to press his face against my chest.

  “Oh, Ian. Damn. I’m going to be hard-pressed to get me enough of that, even if we spend the rest of our lives together. Getting fucked…it’s so much better than I ever imagined. Your prick up in me is nigh unto paradise.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” I murmur, caressing his bushy beard. “That golden-furred ass of yours is paradise regained. Though I doubt that Milton would concur.”

  “Milton?” Drew murmurs sleepily. “I’ve heard of him but I never…well, you know I can’t read.”

  “He wrote Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. And Samson Agonistes. Gloriously muscled as you are, I see so much of Samson in you. I see Samson in chains and wrestling the pillars every time I have you tied down. They’re all long poems, poems that tell stories. I’ll read them to you sometime, once we get home.”

  “Home on Walt Solomon, right? Miss Tessa said the New River was likely to be high.”

  “Yes, Drew. On your grand stallion. I know how much that horse has come to mean to you. We won’t leave Walt behind. He’s one of many gifts God has sent our way. If we ever needed solid proof that our Creator did indeed mean to make us what we are—two men in love, two men who find comfort and delight together—that proof would be what gifts he’s sent our way through all our tribulations and during this long, frightening journey.”

  Curled together, we drift into another long nap. When we wake, daylight’s dwindling, rain’s drumming steadily, fog’s enveloped the cabin, and we’re ravenous, empty bellies all a’grumble. Reluctantly, we leave our nest of nakedness. We dress and head downstairs, ready for some supper. While Drew heads out to feed the horses, I add wood to the cook-stove, then set on to simmer the beans Tessa left soaking.

  “Mighty foggy. No sign of Tessa,” Drew says, stomping inside and shaking rain off his shoulders before removing his coat. “Guess she stayed in Newport. Hope she finds lots of supplies and brings us back some fried chicken.” He heaves a few logs on the hearth’s fire-embers and stirs up the freshened flames while I, after a brief cupboard search, chop and add onions to the beans, then a smoked pork hock. When the beans are simmering, I cover them and pour us out whiskey.

  For a while, we say little, relaxed after our strenuous lovemaking, resting inside quiet contentment. The great trees around the cabin sough in wind. The rain’s rhythms grow faint, then deepen again. Drew sits on the hearth, smoking his pipe. I sit on the love seat, sip whiskey, and pluck at the dulcimore. While the beans cook, we snack on biscuits and sausage we find in the warming oven, careful to save some for breakfast tomorrow. Finding a volume of Renaissance poetry in Lorena Mae’s several bookshelves, I read Drew a few verses.

  Come live with me and be my love,

  And we will all the pleasures prove…

  Coming to kiss her lips (such grace I found)

  Me seemed I smelt a garden of sweet flowers…

  Who will in fairest book of Nature know

  How Virtue may best lodged in beauty be…

  “That’s all beautiful, Ian. I love it when you read to me.”

  “How about I teach you how to read? It’s certainly a handy skill.”

  “I don’t know. I think I’m sort of stupid that way. I only know a few letters.”

  “Nothing stupid about you. We could start tomorrow. I could be your tutor. We could begin with some of these poems. Then, when we get home, we could move on to books we’ve already shared, literature I read you back in camp, material I know you enjoy. The Bible. Shakespeare’s
sonnets. Homer. Whitman. That Milton I mentioned.”

  “Well…all right. But I’d insist on paying you.”

  “Paying me? Certainly not.”

  Grinning, Drew cocks an eyebrow. Releasing a long stream of blue-gray smoke, he pats his rear-end. “Yep. I insist. You got that payment I owed you for getting me out of that Rebel camp, didn’t you? And you liked it right well?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  “Well, now I got to pay my little Reb for tutoring. Only fair. Regular payments.”

  “Hmmm.” I smack my lips and squeeze the front of my trousers. “With that kind of currency, how can I resist? I’d do anything for more of that reward. Lecherous Yank! Sounds like we have a deal.”

  “I figured as much.” Drew turns to the fire. “I’ll just stoke up the fire with this poker,” he says, giving me one of his flirtatious winks. “Just like you did all afternoon, with that big poker of yours.”

  I guffaw. “Mercy. What lewd language. One good fucking, and you’re insatiable.”

  “Two good fuckings, my friend. Remember? Two,” he says, stirring embers and jostling logs. “Let’s just say that, after today’s fine frolic, you’ve awakened a new need in me, a deep hunger to join all those already present. And, having been the author of that need, you’re duty-bound to fulfill it.”

  “Gladly.” Rising, sex stiff in my trousers, I stride over to Drew and sit beside him on the hearth-seat. We kiss, groping each other’s crotches and laughing softly. Then I stand, shake my head in gratitude and wonder, and head into the kitchen to stir the beans.

  By the time Drew has finished his pipe and I’ve plucked through a few verses of “Dixie” on the dulcimore, the beans are finally tender. I dole out big bowls of them, covered with the flavored broth. When we’re done with supper, we share the love seat, listening to the wind and watching the flames.

  “This is the kind of evening I want,” Drew sighs, resting an arm along my shoulders and blowing pipe smoke from his nose. “The kind I’ve dreamed of ever since I left Pennsylvania. Far from killing. Far from war.”

  “This is the kind of evening we’ll have once we get home. We can stay with my parents for a time, but…”

  “Got to find our own place. Far up in the woods. So I can roar and moan as loud as I want while you plow me like a spring field every night.” Drew chortles and releases another long stream of smoke. “I don’t know what you hit up inside me, but, buddy, it felt wondrous. After that first pain—felt like you’d pushed a burning stick up in me”—he waves at the hearth, indicating the fire—“well, that faded fast, and then, oh, the sweet feeling of being filled up with you, and then that spot inside, your cock kept bumping it, and…then to reach completion, to spend with you still inside me… I thought I knew before what bliss was, but now I know for sure.”

  “Thom and I never discussed what we did—as I told you before, he wouldn’t speak to me afterwards, too full of shame, I guess, and then he left town—but he seemed to feel the same things. Pain at first, when I entered him, then slowly the look on his face changed, and soon enough he was begging me to ride him harder.”

  “I know I wasn’t your first, but I’m sure glad you were mine. You’re my first. And my last, God willing. You look tired, little Reb. Why don’t you stretch out and put your head in my lap?”

  “Tired? We’ve slept away the last two days. I used to get up for reveille at dawn. For four years.”

  “We’ve slept and fucked the last two days away. About time. After that beating George gave us, Tessa’s right, we need to rest and rest long. We’ll get back on the road soon enough. Now stretch out.”

  “Bossy Federals. Always telling Southerners what to do. No wonder we seceded.” Even as I use the language with humorous intent, the passions that drove me to volunteer so long ago flare up in me, a familiar heat, then fade. My homeland’s in ruins. Why couldn’t those sectional conflicts have been settled peaceably? Why did so many men have to die? Again it occurs to me, what a long string of fated and fortunate accidents saved our lives, apart and then together, leading us to this moment here and now, this foggy night in late March near the head of Craig Creek.

  I turn and stretch out, resting my head in Drew’s lap as requested, my feet propped on the side of the love seat. For a long time, we simply gaze into each other’s eyes while Drew strokes my hair.

  “Another couple of days, I think, and we should be moving on. If we take the roads instead of the river, we should be home in less than a week.” I stretch my aching limbs and yawn, suddenly groggy despite all our recent time in bed. “I wonder what’s happening in Petersburg, if General Lee is still holding out.”

  “I’m wondering too. Close as you and I have gotten, Ian, I suspect we’re still rooting for opposite sides, though at this point—God, ain’t everybody suffered enough?—I just wish the whole terrible conflict were over and everyone could just go home. I surely hope my brothers are still hale and healthy. Maybe you can write a letter to my parents for me when we get to West Virginia? Maybe they’ll have gotten some word.”

  “Sure, Drew. Maybe we can write it together. Good practice for you.” I yawn again, mind wandering. “Oh, Drew, what will happen to the South if we lose this war? Perhaps Tessa will have news when she returns. I hope my parents are still safe and whole. God, what will they say if I tell them the truth about deserting? And how will they react if we tell them you’re a Yankee? Where will we go? If they accuse me of dishonor? Of being a coward? What if we get home only for home to renounce me?”

  “Shush. Close your eyes, Reb. Don’t worry about all that now. Just rest,” Drew murmurs, stroking my hair. “The more we rest, the sooner we’ll heal up, and the faster we can get on to journey’s end.”

  “Yep,” I mutter. “You’re right.”

  Rolling onto my side, I draw my knees up, in the curled position Drew assumed so often while he was my frightened prisoner back in camp, and fall asleep, head still snuggled in Drew’s lap.

  I wake in Drew’s arms. He’s cradling me like an infant, carrying me up the stairs.

  “Drew?” I complain, squirming. “Put me down.”

  “Shhh, Reb. Shhh. Be easy. I got you,” Drew says, pulling me closer to his chest.

  In the bedroom’s darkness, Drew strips me and tucks me into bed. After pissing in the chamber pot, he undresses and slips beneath the blankets beside me. He wraps me in his arms. Nuzzling the ruff of hair in the pit of his neck and the steel collar warmed by his body, I drift toward slumber.

  “We won this war, buddy,” Drew is whispering. “You’re no deserter. You didn’t desert me. No matter what happens elsewhere, in Petersburg, with Grant and Lee, we won this war. You and me. You and me.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  I wake just after daybreak. Light’s pouring through the windows. Quietly I rise, leaving my Yank to sleep. A thick lock of yellow hair covers his eyes; his shoulders are exposed to the room’s chilly air. I pull the blankets over him, then dress, my ribs and face still dully aching from George’s abuse. I descend the stairs, pull on my jacket and cap, and step out onto the porch.

  The rain’s stopped. A wet breeze moves up the valley. Sun slants through the trees surrounding the cabin. The corpses beneath the boxwood hedge are all three sprawled on their bellies, as if Tessa had arranged them carefully, so as to spare me the sight of their faces. I sit on the porch steps for a moment, studying them, wondering what kind of man George would have been if he hadn’t been gnarled by a desire he couldn’t bring himself to face. Rising, I limp across the muddy yard, over tufts of greening grass, and into the stable. Walt Solomon greets me with a low whinny, nuzzling my hand as I pour out feed for him. When his companions, the white stallion and sorrel gelding, snort, a message clear enough—“What about us?”—I feed them too.

  Stepping outside, for a few moments I stand at the edge of the woods, listening to the distant gurgle of the bridge-spanned creek and the sough of wind in spruce trees looming over the cabin. There’s
the woodshed from which Sarge’s pocketknife helped free Tessa. There’s the apple tree from which George planned to hang Drew and me, its boughs covered with swollen, as yet unopened buds. Here, near the stable, the twigs of the tulip poplars display tiny yellow-green leaves, and, in a shaft of sun, a sarvis tree is blooming, just like that one back at Purgatory.

  The winter seemed so long, but spring has finally come, even in these lofty mountains. I bury my face in the white, faintly perfumed flowers of the sarvis, remembering loved ones both living and dead: my brother Jeff, my campfire friends Jeremiah and Rufus, and Sarge, and my parents, and Aunt Alicia and Aunt Ariminta. My earlier life seems strangely dim, like a path disappearing into a fog bank. I have a new life now, a bright and vibrant one, with Drew. The last few days together, the lovemaking we’ve shared, have sealed that union. Our bodies have completed what our souls began.

  “You’re my first,” Drew said to me. “And God willing, my last.” Yes, God willing. Considering the way we feel about each other, and after all the terrors we’ve endured together, how can our bond be anything but unbreakable? Short of some unexpected tragedy that visits mortals without reason, justice, or warning, we’ll spend long years together. And, it occurs to me, there’s one other gift I can give Drew to match the precious ones he’s graced me with.

  I visit the outhouse. I lug in a few armloads of wood, then a bucket of water from the well in the yard. I break a twig of sarvis bloom, then enter the cabin and climb the stairs.

  Drew’s still sleeping, his battered lips parted in a faint smile. I strip and bathe at the washstand. Then, container of lard in one hand and sarvis flowers in the other, I climb upon the bed. Kneeling astraddle Drew’s loins, I kiss him into wakefulness.