But she fell asleep in his arms and had sweet dreams.
The final visit finished the piece with the most delicate shading and some detailing over areas previously inked. When Wolf put the gun down and massaged the hand holding it he grunted in satisfaction.
The phoenix covered his torso. Claws rose from a pile of glittering ashes that vanished into his black public hair; each taloned foot seemed to be either arching as the bird rose or reaching for his cock. Across his stomach and ribs, the body was outlined in powerful red flames; as the wings rose under his chest, the flames faded in size and intensified in color, with cores in blue. The eyes, centered on his chest, were black with red and gold pupils. Wolf had been very pleased with how they turned out; they were startling and angry, perhaps defiant.
The tops of the wings brushed and covered the scars defining the shape of his chest, and the very tips extended all the way under his arms. When he let his arms down naturally, the flames tattooed on each arm, from just above the wrists to his elbows, flanked the pyre of the torso tattoo neatly.
The years of running, push-ups, sit-ups, boxing and weight training had sculpted him. But this mural in his flesh turned him into something else. Rachel caught her breath at the sight of the whole thing and felt tears well in her eyes. She turned away fast and grabbed her purse. “Wait, don’t bandage it up yet. I want to take a picture.”
“It’ll look neater after a few days,” Wolf said.
“A picture? Really?” Chris frowned slightly as he got up from the table.
“Yes, a fucking picture. You can stand still for a minute, can’t you?”
He heard the tone in her voice and kept silent as she came up with the small camera. His skin glistened with the fresh ink and the thin layer of antibiotic ointment, and he posed carefully for her, straightening his shoulders.
“You’re the first to see it,” he said gently, as Wolf taped down the fresh bandages. “Any of it. I swear.”
She put the camera away, using the moment to wipe away the moisture around her eyes. What’ll I do about you? she wondered. Wait until the next time you need a ride? Wait until she lets you go out to play again? Or wait until you fall in love with the beautiful boy you don’t know you like so much? Because there’s always a new boy, or girl, or new…whatever. Like some restless wind picks you up just when I think I’m back in your arms again.
She made him hurt her that night.
Perhaps he’d known she would, because he brought the knife and held it to her throat while he fucked her, fucked so hard and violently the bandages rubbed off. He used his fists against her back, thumping her into tears and cries of outrage, and then slithered his belt from the loops in his jeans.
She fought against that; fuck, she wasn’t a slave, she was no naughty girl needing the feel of leather to set her right. But he wasn’t interested in her fight; he took it out of her unfairly and quickly, driving the breath from her with rabbit punches. She cried then, as he pinned her and used the well-worn leather against her ass and hips and then up her back, bringing her own tattoos and their cut ridges up in a blaze of heat.
She cursed because that’s what she always did, and he stayed silent under her torrent of abuse. Neither answering nor punishing or even responding in any way except to continue this merciless beating, he forced her curses to become shorter and finally deteriorate into cries of rage, fear and frustration.
And when he stopped and gathered her into his arms, she punched and kicked at him until she cried out how much she hated him and how much she loved him and all he could do was murmur and whisper to her, shh, shh.
Drained of energy and passion, she was quiet under him as he cut into her markings, refreshing the sharp teeth and claws of the cat on her upper arm and shoulder, the rays of the winged disk across her lower spine. For this, she was still; for the trickle of blood he wiped away as neatly as Wolf could, for the warmth of his breath across split, colored and beaten skin. Oh, how she wanted his tongue to lap it up, suck the blood from her wounds so she could be free to take his as well, the blood they used to share along with a banquet of other bodily fluids, a communion of flesh. The coppery smell was overwhelming and satisfying.
It hurt, the fucking, the beating, the fresh cuts, the love. I want to hold you forever, she thought. I saw you first, I loved you first. I saw you right past that baseball cap and cigarette, those big shirts and that crappy old jacket you used to cover everything. I marked you the way you wanted first; I loved you when you cried and when you sneered and when you lost over and over again. When she sent you to schools and doctors and all over the fucking world, I knew the real you before any of them did. And I was first to see you now. Oh, it hurts me so.
She put the picture up with thumbtacks on her wall. She didn’t show it to her lover, any of her lovers. He called regularly now, the body art done, his life going on the path marked for him in Brooklyn while she stayed on Long Island. He didn’t know if he’d ever be back, and she was a fool for expecting he might.
I’ve got your picture, she thought. She’s got you. The cuts ached and itched on her shoulder and back and she stared at the photo, stretching out on her bed.
It took over a month to complete the tattoo, and she realized the words she’d heard each time were true.
Time only adds to the flame.
BIG GIFTS IN SMALL BOXES: A CHRISTMAS STORY
Patrick Califia
It was the second day of my visit home, and I was already regretting telling Pops that I would be there for Christmas. My parents seemed to be shrinking as they got older. It made me sad to see Pops, who had retired as a tool and die maker only ten years before, have trouble doing things that Mom just assumed he would handle. She was a frail old lady now, not the tall and fearsome woman who had dragged me to Mass every week until I turned sixteen and left home.
That was a bad day. I had foolishly left an empty beer can in the trash. Pops had chastised me and then convinced himself I wasn’t showing enough respect. So he lost control. It was not the first time that had happened. But for the first time, I had punched him back. I didn’t know how to handle my newfound strength and anger, so I left. He thought I wasn’t a man. I knew that I was, but neither one of my parents could show me how to become a man who wanted to kiss and hold other men. A summer job had left enough money in my savings account to buy a bus ticket to Chicago. That city slapped me around harder than Pops had ever done, but you learn more from an ordeal that you’ve chosen. After I turned twenty-one, I kept moving west, until I ran out of land and could wade in the ocean. Since I was too lazy to learn Japanese, I stayed in California.
So here I was in my hometown, looking for a gay bar. I told myself that there had to be one. Twenty years had gone by, and it wasn’t that small a place. Luckily, I had brought my laptop, and after some hassles locating an Internet café, I got online and Googled the gay geography of this place that I felt had rejected me for being gay. It was weird. But there was an address and phone number for Brothers, which apparently featured a piano.
And now here I was, feeling almost as out of place as I had in my parents’ trailer, where I was too big and too loud. My folks were happy to see me but seemed almost exhausted by the effort of socializing, all of us wanting to be close but not knowing how. There was just too damn much they didn’t want to know about me, too many years when we hadn’t talked more than a few cursory words said over the phone at holidays.
I was used to living in such a gay city that we had diversified. The dykes had their own places, I guess. The sweater fags (divided into the twinks in their twenties and the “older men”) didn’t socialize with the leathermen, and the bears had their own hangout or two. Brothers seemed to be an old-fashioned kind of place, one that kept its doors open to anybody who didn’t fit in sexually. There was a lesbian corner back by the pool table. A drag queen had been the first person to greet me, and we’d shared a drink. Most of the gay men were clean-shaven and in their twenties, with a sprinkling of older c
ouples. The dress code seemed to involve a “nice” sweater, Dockers and some expensive athletic shoes or loafers. My large self, in engineer boots, jeans, a black T-shirt and a leather vest, did not exactly fit right in. I was sorry I had worn my black ball cap that said PITCHER. These are universally recognized back home as what you buy at the Folsom Street Fair if you forgot to bring a hat of your own and realized halfway through the event that you were going to burn the shit out of your carefully shaved head if you didn’t cover up. The bartender’s sniff hadn’t exactly made me feel like the hot new top from out of town. After staring at all those clean-shaven mugs, I kinda felt like standing on my table and shouting, “Give me some goddamned HAIR!” And if I had one more beer, I might do just that.
So then I had a vision. I literally did a double take. What was that cute little cub doing in a twinkie bar like this? He was shorter than me, which I like, and the opposite of stylishly thin. Instead of a sweater, he had on a down vest, and his feet were shod in boots that were much more appropriate given the six inches of snow that had fallen yesterday on top of the eighteen inches that had already accumulated. So when this hefty vision of rural loveliness sailed by my table with a glass of beer, I looked right in his eyes and said, “Woof!”
He jumped. The brew spilled over the edge of his glass as he came to a sudden stop. Then he looked over his shoulder. There was nobody behind him. I had to laugh. Then I saw that he was blushing and pissed, and something else. Hurt? Jesus H. Cricket.
“I’m not makin’ fun of you,” I said, feeling as awkward as a newborn calf. “Sit down.” One of my feet had moved of its own accord and shoved a chair toward him.
He sat, examining my face as if he’d never seen a man before. “Can I get you a new drink?” I asked, recalling my etiquette.
“Uh—no, I can, um, I can finish this one,” he muttered. His voice was husky. Did he have a cold? I decided I didn’t care.
“Is this your regular stomping ground?” I asked, indicating our fellow imbibers with a sarcastic wave of my hand.
“I don’t know, I guess so,” he said, staring at the table, making rings on it with the wet bottom of his glass. Then there was a long, awkward pause. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve dreamed about this happening so many times. And now here you are, and I’m just messing everything up. I should probably go.”
“You should probably stay right the hell where you are,” I retorted. I put a paw on his shoulder and gently pushed him back into his seat. “I won’t bite you. Much.”
There it was again, that blush that took over his whole face. I’d bet if I could have examined the top of his head, it would be blushing too.
“Dude, how young are you?” I finally thought to ask.
“Old enough,” he replied, finally finding a little grit. “I drive and vote and drink. Just look like jailbait. Wanna see my ID?”
Something was off, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I thought about how little sex I’d been able to scrape up in this place as a kid. It was twenty years later, but a young gay man who wasn’t fashionably skinny might have a lot of trouble hooking up. Still, I didn’t want to be anybody’s first time. People got married young around here. There was no wedding ring and no shadow of one, but everybody’s tan had faded by now. I just didn’t like the idea of cheating, even if the person I was deceiving was somebody else’s wife. A promise is a promise. “Well, good. Just so long as you know what you want. You’ve been with another man before, right?”
“Yeah,” he said defensively. “Yes, I have. Well—sort of.”
That was when a firm tap fell on my shoulder. I looked up to behold the bartender. “I have to talk to you,” he said, casting a disapproving look upon us both. I thought there was something wrong with my credit card, so I got up and followed him to the cash register.
“Do you know who you are talking to?” he hissed indignantly, once he’d gotten four feet of polished wood between us again. He was scrubbing at a wet glass with a dry towel, sanding the shine off it. I was afraid he was going to break it.
I leaned forward, expecting him to out my potential trick for being poz. “Well, I was finding out, before you interrupted us,” I said, none too politely.
“She’s a girl,” he said with complete contempt. We were no longer discussing a human being, his tone of voice indicated.
I looked back at my table. The cub gave me a hopeful wave. He also looked sick to his stomach.
“Come on,” I said. “What are you trying to do, pull the wool over my eyes? Look at him. No way any girl grew a beard like that. He’s cute as can be. What is your problem?”
The guy on my right swiveled to face me, and burped. “Georgie is right,” he said. “That’s no gentleman.” He groped my ass. “Neither am I,” he giggled. “Leon barged in on him when he was tryin’ to use the stall. There’s nothin’ down there, dude.”
I brushed his hand away and got ready to stomp off. Old gossips. They sure didn’t know much about bears. Or about what it meant when you had your keys on the left, apparently.
I must have looked mad because my nameless trick had gotten up and was bolting for the door. Which wasn’t that far away. I dug my neoprene heels into the cracked linoleum floor and ran after him. My body just seemed to make that decision for me. I didn’t like the idea of anybody being run out of a gay bar—of all places—for what he looked like. Still, I am large enough that I lumber rather than sprint, so the kid was halfway down the block before I caught his arm and spun him around.
“They told you, didn’t they?” he spat. He wasn’t too far from tears. I knew if I let him weep, he’d always feel humiliated in front of me. Unmanned. So I grabbed his other arm, pulled him toward me (see why I like ’em on the small side?) and kissed him. Our beards mushed together, one of my favorite sensations, then our moustaches intersected with a brief tickle, and I could taste his mouth. The flavor of fear and excitement on his lips got me excited too. I tipped his head back and gave him my best tongue. A car drove by and tried to splash us with slush. “Faggots!” I heard somebody yell. I came up from the kiss long enough to yell, “Damn right!” and then went back to his mouth for a second kiss. This time, he let me know the attraction was mutual. There was enough desire and heat in that kiss to keep me hard all night long. Which I hoped to be.
“Look,” I said, “let’s get a six-pack and go someplace where we can talk. I’m visiting my folks, unfortunately. Do you have a place where we can be alone, or should I rent us a motel room?”
“Yeah, I got a place,” he said, leaning back against the building. “But I didn’t exactly plan on bringing anybody home when I left. So it’s kind of a mess.”
“Yeah? Well, let’s see if we can mess it up some more.” I threw my arm over his shoulder. “Did you bring your own car?”
“That’s my truck, over there in the lot,” he said, pointing to a restored Harvester. “Do you want to follow me home?”
“Can we ride together?” I asked, afraid he would talk himself out of taking me home. “If you don’t mind dropping me back here. I don’t really want to let you out of my sight.”
“Afraid I’ll vanish?” he teased, grabbing at my vest.
“Yes,” I replied honestly.
“Well, I ain’t going anywhere,” he assured me, and got up on his tiptoes to bite my neck. Ouch! That was promising. Did he scratch, too?
“Then tell me your name,” I replied, grabbing his jacket. I kept him up on his toes and gave him a hickey.
“Owen!” he screeched. “Ouch, oh, damn it! What’s your name, you big brute?”
“Glenn,” I replied. I got us moving toward his truck. “Nice work,” I commented. “What shop did you take her to?”
“Did it myself,” he said shortly. “Always used to work on cars with my dad. Time hangs a little heavy on my hands. She’s a hobby. Some guy offered me fifteen thousand for her at the county fair.”
“You’ve put more money into her just in labor alone,” I replied, preten
ding I knew something about it and watching the snowy streets go by. If I was to live here again, would time hang heavy on my hands? What would I do to keep myself from going stir crazy? Start building little birdhouses like my old man? Tie my own flies for trout fishing? Collect rodeo belt buckles? We drove past a lot of sad, unkempt houses, some with boarded-up windows. There were many small businesses, but only the grocery stores and the gas stations looked busy. Stained signs for produce and fishing worms for sale hadn’t been taken down after summer’s end. Layers of dirty snow, ice, mud, and a sky that was the mixed-up colors of all of these things, threatening more storms soon, was trying to put a damper on my mood.
I put my big mitt over Owen’s hand as he shifted. He had calluses on his palms and long fingers. The air in the cab of the truck was cold enough to make my breath visible, but his hands still felt warm.
“So what did they tell you about me?” he demanded after a silence that I had thought was a comfortable one. Apparently not. He was still worried.
“Some bullshit about you not being a guy,” I replied.
“What if I’m not?” he asked, giving me a sidelong glance. “Or not the kind that you’re used to?”
“How do you know what I’m used to?” I asked. “I’m from San Francisco, remember? We, uh, we’re used to just about… aw, hell, Owen, I’m a terrible liar. I don’t know what I’m doing here. But I think you’re handsome as all perdition, and I like you besides, so I figure that ought to be enough for us to figure out something we can do that’s more fun than not.”
“You think?” he said grimly.
I threw up my hands. “I can’t keep on being cheerful if you are going to be Mr. Scrooge,” I said. “Stop saying bah humbug. Let me be the Ghost of Christmas Present.” We were at his house. I could see why he wanted a truck. The driveway up to his place was only partly paved, and there were some sharp curves, then a fairly steep climb up to the house. The old-fashioned house and a few outbuildings were set back into the trees so you couldn’t hear the highway noises. But you could hear a dog, barking its head off.
Take Me There Page 24
