by Rye Hart
“How many do you have?” I say when he walks into the room. He looks like a larger—only slightly—and wetter version of Paul Bunyan. It’s like I ordered a lumberjack from one of the catalogs that Lacey was talking about. I’d never seen a man look so handsome, while also being rugged at the same time. Being from the city, there were very few men characterized as rugged, unless they were the poor brutes collecting coins at the train station. His moustache was dark and trimmed neatly above his mouth. His beard was dark and only slightly thick.
“How many what?”
“Books! History books!”
He folds his arms and laughs, deep within his chest. Before he can answer the rain comes down in such a torrent that it washes away anything we can say while standing so far apart. So he steps closer. He could reach out and touch me, which seems like the thing I want most, and what I am most afraid of.
Well, I said I wanted a real man. Or was it Lacey who said I wanted a real man? Either way, I had one here now.
“I stopped counting at three thousand,” he says.
“Have you read them all?”
He laughs again. “Afraid not, but as Umberto Eco said, who wants a library full of books they’ve already read?”
I can’t believe I’m thinking it, but this appears to be a man after my own dorky heart. “I don’t know Umberto Eco. I’ll put him on my list.”
“I love him. When he died last year I would have called in sick at work, if I still had a job, that is.” He smiles and turns to look at the books again.
I like the idea of him hearing that an author he loved died and then taking a day off from chopping wood or skinning rabbits or whatever he spent his time out here doing. It showed character.
Another sheet of rain slapped against the ceiling. “Let’s go back in by the fire,” he says.”
“Hey, I don’t even know your name,” I say when I sit in a chair across from his in front of the fire.
“You don’t.”
“I think I should.”
“I believe you. I’m not sure that’s going to happen. But if you think about it long enough, you’ll probably figure it out.”
Wait, what is he talking about? I realize that something about him has been nagging me since I showed up here. There is something familiar about him. Have we met? No, I would surely remember that.
He’s grinning, watching me try to place him.
“I’ll figure it out,” I say.
“I’ve no doubt.” He reaches behind him and when his hand emerges it’s holding a bottle of bourbon. He holds it out to me and raises his eyebrows.
“I shouldn’t,” I say. “I’m on a job.”
“I’m not going to believe you until you tell me what the job is.”
Thunder crashes again and suddenly I’m worried for poor dumb Jarom, stumbling around in the dark. Surely he made it back to the car – I hope. He may have been a complete weirdo, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“He’ll be fine,” says the lumberjack, as if he’s telepathic as well as enigmatic. He tips the bottle back and drinks two big swallows before offering it to me again. Oh, why not? I take the bottle from him and take as big a sip as I can handle. I feel like I’m in high school, trying to impress a boy at a party. Although it took far less than that to impress Owen. He thought it was the thrill of a lifetime when I showed him that I had a slightly double jointed thumb.
Might as well come clean. “I was sent out here from New York to research a story for my editor.”
“Let me guess. You don’t write for The New Yorker?” It would be a hook in someone else’s mouth, but he says it kindly, as if we’re both in on the joke.
“Ah, if only. No, I’m afraid not. Jarom and I are here at the bidding of The Inner Eye.”
He literally slaps his knee, which is something I thought people only did in books and movies. But there’s more. He throws back his head and roars with laughter, making the cabin seem smaller than before. “I knew that someone would find me eventually,” he says. “I suppose The Inner Eye is as fitting as anything. But what’s the story? What does your editor think she knows?”
How are we already talking so easily? I find that I can’t wait to confide in him, gossip with him, to share and laugh with this burly stranger.
“She says that people are talking about an ex MMA fighter who lives out here. Apparently he’s a recluse with a dark secret, or so my boss would like to believe.”
He’s quiet for a few moments. He takes another swig from the bottle and then offering it to me. “What does this guy supposedly want? Or need? What does your all-knowing boss say?”
I take another drink and fight the urge to cough. “She doesn’t know. No one really knows,” I say in a theatrical voice, leaning forward as if we’re telling stories around a campfire. “And that’s the greatest mystery of all.” I sit back, incredibly pleased with myself. Was he this hot when we walked in together? Maybe it’s just the whiskey, but with every passing second I’m more aware that a giant man is in a cabin with me in the midst of a violent rainstorm and it’s all just as cozy as could be.
What would Lacey do?
Well, I already know the answer to that. But what would someone slightly less raucous than Lacey do?
“My name is Hugh,” he says. “And I’m not that mysterious. I just needed to be alone for a while. A while turned into years.” He sets the bottle on the floor, takes up a poker, and stirs the fire, breathing new life into it.
“Hugh,” I say, and now he seems more familiar than ever, although I still can’t place him.
“Yes, and you’re Sam,” he says. “And now, Sam, I have good news and bad news. Which would you like first?”
Is this the part where he takes another ax and I become another naive girl in a horror movie?
“The bad.”
“When it rains like this, it usually doesn’t let up for a few days. You might be stuck here for a bit.”
Could be worse, unless that’s also just the whiskey talking. “It takes time to do a good story, as long as you’re willing to answer my questions. Whether it works for the piece or not, I have to say that I really, really want to know what you’re doing out here and who you are.”
It is obviously the wrong thing to say. Something dark flickers across his face and he gets to his feet. “I’ll show you where you can sleep,” he says roughly. He grabs my suitcase and heads up a small staircase by the doorway. I have no choice but to follow him unless I want to go back out into the rain.
By the time I get to the top of the stairs he is already exiting the room where it looks like I’m going to sleep, or try at least. “Good night,” he says, walking down the hall and shutting a door behind him. He doesn’t quite slam it, but it’s close.
I sit on the edge of my bed and check my phone. Still no service. What have I gotten myself into?
Who is Hugh?
I lie back on the bed, sinking into the flannel covers and the soft mattress. Sleep finds me before answers do.
CHAPTER SIX: HUGH MADDOX
I am such a fucking idiot.
What is wrong with me? I come all the way out here to hide, to get away to forget what happened, to make sure no one can ever bring it up again, and here I am almost daring some stranger to guess who I am. Need a clue? Here’s my name! I offered it up as soon as I could tell she thought she knew me from somewhere!
Time to dial it down. Easier said than done around a lovely woman of perfect proportions. Not just that, her personality! It was like someone had made her for me in a lab! The look on her face when she saw my books was priceless. I never understood where the stereotype that strong and tough men couldn’t also be brainy bookworms came from. Even when I was fighting in New York, it’s not like the guys finished sparring and training and then went home to their Xboxes. Most of them craved something mentally stimulating after a day that took such a brutal toll on the body.
Andrew in particular had been a brain. He made me look like I barely
even knew how to read. That was the fine line I meant when I talked about inspiration versus intimidation. I would probably never have caught up to Andrew’s formidable intellect, but I was sure as hell going to try.
Then came the fucked up day when he died and there was no way to chase him anymore.
Fast forward a few years and I’ve got some beat reporter in the bed down the hall, falling all over myself to answer my questions. Did I want to get caught? Found out? Revealed? Whenever I stepped out of the octagon I prided myself on how analytical, objective, and empirical I had trained my mind to be.
It’s not doing me much good tonight. All I want to do is rush down the hall, crawl into that bed with her, and take my chances. Maybe she would kick me out, but maybe not.
It’s been so fucking long. It’s an old cliché: I’m a man. I have needs. Boo hoo. Still true, though. Clichés don’t spring up out of nowhere and they sure as hell don’t stick around for centuries because they’re completely false.
There are other ways to meet my needs. I’ll see whatever happens with her tomorrow, and the day after. She really can’t go out in this storm, and it looks like it’s going to be a historic screamer. All I have to do until I can get her out of here is keep my mouth shut. She wants a story? I’ll invent one for her.
I realize that, whatever story she writes, if it gets published, people are going to know someone is out here. The folks down in Wahay already do, of course, but they respect privacy and there’s no way any of them are going to put people on my trail, not without my consent. Consent, which I am now basically giving this beauty by the name of Sam on a silver platter!
Again, I am a fucking idiot.
Before I knew it I’m wrapping my wrists, the old familiar criss-cross pattern that I have done a million times. I’m opening my door and heading down the hall, down the stairs, out onto the back porch in the rain where the heavy bag is hanging from the rafters.
I settle into the old violent rhythm, something I’ll never forget, even if I never threw another punch in my life. Boom, boom, boom. In time with the rain, the thunder, the tumult of the night. Within a minute I’m sweating so badly that I take off my shirt despite the cold.
There is always peace in familiarity. I’ve spent my whole life trying to find out what I should be doing - what I was born for. When I found fighting I knew that was it. Time to call off the search. Even now, I know it as my fists pummel the bag. I begin to mix it up, elbows, knees, shins, palm strikes. This is elegance and mastery of the most brutal sort. But, where I once practiced my art in front of thousands of screaming fans and attracted sponsorship offers like blood attracts sharks, I was now a shirtless no one in a forest, trying, forever trying, to drive the thoughts away.
Andrew stepping into the octagon for the first time, smiling as his name was introduced.
I punch faster and faster. My wrist wraps are coming undone and my wrists are going to be unsteady if I don’t ease up, but I can’t.
Andrew taking the center of the octagon as soon as the opening bell blew. We had prepared for nearly a year for his debut fight. He was more than ready.
I feint, bob, weave, and then slam a shin into the bag so hard that it swings up and nearly hits the rafter to which it is chained.
I can’t think about Andrew anymore. It never leads anywhere good, although it did lead me here to whatever this is...my so-called sanctuary. But I’m still haunted by it, every fucking bit of it. It is hard to find refuge from yourself …. unless you have someone to take you out of the shit hole you created for yourself.
Now this is a welcome train of thought. Sam. Upstairs in bed. I slowed my pace and focused on her. On the way her body had looked as she had twisted her way out of the poncho. On the delicate movement of her throat when she tipped the bottle back. On her insistent but somewhat unsure flirtiness, and how good it had felt to know that she was both interested in her story and in me.
I have everything I need. Money. A home. Solitude. Talent.
Almost everything.
She is so close and it has been so long.
A familiar urge overtakes me and suddenly I’m not hitting the bag anymore.
CHAPTER SEVEN: SAM WASHINGTON
The sound of thunder wakes me shortly after I fall asleep. Then it comes again, and again, but I realize it’s happening too quickly to be thunder. The entire house is shaking. A smattering of dust leaves the rafters and drifts down onto my upturned face. What in the world is going on?
It’s dark in the room and I have to struggle to remember where I am.
And to remember who is downstairs.
Boom. The house shakes again just as another bolt of lightning splits the sky outside the window. I go to the pane and look out, expecting to see nothing but darkness.
It’s Hugh. Downstairs on the back deck, pivoting and weaving as if he is a fighter. He’s throwing punches at nothing. No, in a new burst of light I see that it’s a heavy bag. His pale skin glows against the dark and even though I am the greenest novice when it comes to fighting, I can tell that this is a man well-practiced in his art. He hits the bag so hard that I wince with the impact. Then he backs up and throws a kick that lands near the top of the bag where it is fixed with a chain. That’s when the house rattles.
Good Lord, what a brute. I think of his books downstairs, of him throwing the ax, and the thoughts are all punctuated by the spectacle unfolding on the deck as his muscles ripple and flex. But this looks like more than a workout, more than blowing off steam, and more than simple practice.
Hugh looks as if he is trying to fight something he can’t see. Trying to get away from something that is chasing him.
That’s when I realize who he is. Holy shit!
I’m about to run downstairs and confront him with my microphone when he slows his pace and puts his hands on his hips. Just watching him breathe makes my heart race. A crazy thought comes to my mind. I think of Owen 2.0, nearby in my suitcase. Maybe if Hugh just stands there for a bit I have time to grab my trusty gadget and see if I can make it work even better than last time. This seems like it would be the perfect visual aid.
Or so I think until Hugh suddenly reaches below the waistband of his shorts and pulls them down slightly, exposing his cock. But the light was poor and I almost laughed at how disappointed I was in my poor view. I had never felt like this with Owen. It had been odd to tolerate his body, to have it on my own, inside me, but never to know what it was like to crave it.
I’m not sure I’ve ever craved anything the way I’m craving Hugh’s body. It’s making me feel like an animal, unmoored, uncaring, nothing but appetite and a burning need.
Obviously, it doesn’t help matters when he starts to stroke himself and I can almost literally see him getting harder and longer every second. I can’t stop myself. I open my suitcase, sacrificing the view for a few precious seconds so I can take Owen 2.0 out of the suitcase.
Back at the window, Hugh is still working on himself. I wonder what he’s thinking about and decide that it has to be me. Now there’s a story I couldn’t write. I pull down my flannel pajama pants and touch myself. I’m so wet that it surprises me. Again, something that I didn’t experience in the past.
Now it’s like I can’t touch myself hard enough, or fast enough. I grind myself against the vibrator, check the settings, and am surprised to see that it’s on the highest output. Still it’s not enough.
There is another flash of lightning and I can see the muscles standing out on Hugh’s neck. I start giggling, punctuating my gasps with little yips of laughter as I get closer and closer. Between the rain and my wetness and his hardness and the pane of glass out in the middle of nowhere between us, not to mention who I now know he is, it is impossibly hot and surreal. There is a feverish dreamlike quality to the whole thing. But when I start to climax, there is nothing dreamlike about it. It’s like an earthquake combined with a volcano. As I come, I fight to keep my eyes open so I can watch Hugh.
His back is arching with the
power of his own orgasm. The tendons are standing out on the backs of his legs. His mouth opens as if he’s yelling, it is swallowed by another thunderclap.
When I finish, I fall backwards onto the floor. The vibrator hits the floor with a thump. I don’t know if I have ever felt so emptied out. A horrified thought crosses my mind.
What if he knew? What if he looked up and saw me when I wasn’t looking?
I don’t recognize this version of myself, but I laugh again when I realize that I wouldn’t be ashamed if that had been the case. Maybe tomorrow in the cleansing night of day. Maybe after the whiskey wore off.
But not tonight. Hell no.
Tonight has been filthy in the best way. I can’t wait to tell Lacey. But even more than that, part of me is hoping that I get a chance to share some of myself with Hugh.
But I’ll think about that tomorrow.
CHAPTER EIGHT: HUGH MADDOX
Ironically, since I had spent the night doing nothing but beating off and punching a bag, I wake up this morning feeling like I’ve been in a fight and then gotten run over by a train. I came so hard that it nearly knocked my fillings loose, something I wouldn’t have been happy about. I take good care of my teeth, but the Wahay dental services are nothing to throw a parade about.
I also wake up hard. Less surprising, I mean, that’s the way it usually goes, but I’m harder than ever. Sam’s presence in the house has gotten me all stirred up in a way that is not at all surprising or unwelcome, but I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m glad she’s here but I have no idea what today is going to be like, or how things will have changed by the time the sun goes down tonight.
It’s still raining like mad, but maybe she left. That would make things simpler and saner. But also far less horny. And no one likes less horny, not even a pseudo-lumberjack brute like yours truly.
