Take Me Away

by Jerry Cole

  Finally, he spoke, his voice very nearly a whisper.

  “Isaac.”

  Perhaps it was the Texas courage that spun through Isaac’s veins that caused Isaac to react very little, at least initially. His head spun toward Wyatt, who emerged from the sunburnt bushes. He clucked his tongue. His face was difficult to read, unsmiling, yet not necessarily void of emotion.

  “Wyatt,” he returned.

  The men stood, a kind of stand-off, in the style of the old west. Wyatt’s imagination ran wild, imagining Isaac ripping a gun from his back pocket and pointing it directly toward him. He brought his palms skyward, giving himself over.

  “Isaac, I came to speak to you.”

  “Well, I didn’t imagine that you came all this way to rob me. Although at this rate, I don’t know what I can trust about you,” Isaac said.

  The words were gritty, charged with emotion. Wyatt nodded.

  “I know. You have every right to be angry,” Wyatt returned. “I know it doesn’t matter at this point, but when I first wrote that article, I didn’t know that the man in the story was your father. I couldn’t have possibly known. You didn’t tell me.”

  Isaac’s shoulders drooped. It was at this point that Wyatt noted just how wretchedly tired Isaac looked. Tiny wrinkles formed between his eyebrows.

  “You couldn’t have possibly known,” Isaac returned. “And I know. I know you were just trying to do what you could for your career. I don’t mean to be selfish about that. It’s just. My father. I have a million reasons to be upset about him. Our relationship has never been entirely stable, you know? I guess it’s probably pretty apparent. A gay son in the middle of Texas.”

  Wyatt hummed with the story that Marcia had just told him, regarding Zane’s immense love for Thomas, which Thomas could never fully return. He felt the story had to come at a different time.

  “My sisters, they detest me,” Isaac murmured. “They won’t stop holding it over my head, me abandoning them in Texas. But I didn’t think I had a choice. I had to figure my life out. They—they didn’t bother to figure anything out, you know? They just kind of pushed out children. They just did whatever it was you’re meant to do. And they belittle me for not doing that.”

  “You’re better for it,” Wyatt said.

  “I don’t know if I am,” Isaac returned.

  Wyatt took the few extra steps toward Isaac. He reached up, drawing Isaac’s black curls around his ear. Their eyes held onto one another. In the distance, the Venus 50 continued to holler, to sing, but it felt as though they were several counties away, rather than half an acre.

  “I could love you, you know,” Isaac whispered.

  “I think I already do,” Wyatt said.

  They kissed, then, beneath the bright Texas moonlight. Wyatt’s hand cupped Isaac’s head, drawing him tighter against him. Isaac’s chest pressed along Wyatt’s, and his heart bumped wildly. His kisses grew increasingly ravenous. Isaac’s tongue snaked along Wyatt’s lower lip. Suddenly, Isaac bit his lip. The motion was severe, charged, titillating. Wyatt drew back, his eyes filled with water from the quick pain.

  “Where can we go?” Isaac murmured, his voice hungry. He reached forward, drawing his lips along Wyatt’s neck. “I want your cock in my mouth. I want to taste you.”

  Wyatt snaked his arm across Isaac’s shoulder. They fumbled with one another, kissing wildly. Sweat poured down their necks and backs. They eased against the side of the house, in the shadows, far from the eyes of the cult and the light of the windows.

  “I haven’t fucked outside since college,” Wyatt whispered.

  “And just after we fucked in a car,” Isaac said, laughing. “It’s like we’re fifteen all over again.”

  “Ha. If only I would have known you at fifteen,” Wyatt said. “I would have been completely obsessed with you. That little southern accent. Those black curls.”

  “I can assure you, I was pretty impossible,” Isaac said. “I was depressed and obsessed with, like, the Cure, and—”

  “That was exactly the way I was,” Wyatt laughed. “We would have gotten along swimmingly.”

  Isaac pressed Wyatt against the ranch house, drawing his fingers along Wyatt’s chest. He unbuttoned his shirt quickly, casting the fabric to the ground. Danger flickered in Isaac’s eyes. There was a fear permeating over everything. They couldn’t be sure if the reporters would find them. They couldn’t be sure if Monica or whoever else was in the house wouldn’t run out on the porch looking for Isaac.

  But the allure of this danger kept them going.

  Hungrily, Wyatt tore Isaac’s pants to his knees. Isaac’s massive, rock-hard cock sprung forward, drawing a line of cum across Wyatt’s pants.

  “I love the smell of you,” Wyatt whispered. He dropped to his knees and parted his lips, licking them. His mouth found the tip of Isaac’s cock and traced the very edge. His hands wove over Isaac’s ass, gripping the perfect, taut muscles.

  Isaac let out a smooth moan. Wyatt took this as a cue. He moved closer, drawing the entirety of Isaac’s thick cock into his mouth. The salt and heat of it mixed along his tongue. The cock was heavy and hard at the very front of his throat, totally filling him. Isaac’s fingers traced through Wyatt’s blond locks. His own cock pulsed heavily in his pants, dribbling its own cum.

  He sped up, moving his lips up and down, up and down the veins of Isaac’s rock-hard member. His brain went elsewhere, no longer churning with all the anxious thoughts from that day. Isaac had heard him. He’d heard his apology, and he’d accepted it. All would be all right.

  Isaac seemed about to cum when he sprung back, dropping to his own knees in the dirt. He kissed Wyatt, murmuring, “I want to taste myself in you.”

  Wyatt smiled, biting Isaac’s lower lip. “Go down on me. I want to watch you take my cock.”

  Isaac did as he was told, obeying with glittering, wild eyes. He unlatched Wyatt’s pants’ button and tore them to the ground. Wyatt stepped out of them, standing bare footed in the desert sand. Isaac followed Wyatt’s footsteps, placing both hands on either side of Wyatt’s thighs. Wyatt gazed down as Isaac’s mouth found his cock. His tongue traced over the veins. Slowly, he inched his right hand toward his balls, cupping them tight, allowing one of his fingers to draw toward Wyatt’s asshole. His body grew limp, occasionally convulsing. Wyatt felt he might lose his grip on reality. He swayed back and forth, lost in pleasure. When Wyatt allowed a moan to escape his lips, Isaac grinned up at him, allowing his cock to fall.

  “You have to be quiet,” he affirmed, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “My sisters will hear us. They have ears like cats.”

  “I’ll try. But you’re making it pretty impossible.”

  They both stood. Isaac spun Wyatt around, forcing him to grip the railing of the porch staircase from the side. The paint spit off in his hands. There was the lurch of the lube into Isaac’s hand, and moments later, Wyatt felt his soft finger tracing his asshole, widening it.

  “Yes. Just like that,” Wyatt murmured. “I want you inside me.”

  Above them, the moon burned down brightly, casting them in an eerie light. Isaac eased the tip of his cock along Wyatt’s asshole, then cut his hand across his back, rubbing at the muscles. “I’m going to fuck you, Wyatt. But you have to be quiet. You have to keep your hand over your mouth. Like this.”

  Isaac reached for Wyatt’s hand and drew it across Wyatt’s own mouth, being almost forceful with it. This pushed Wyatt to a limit. He felt ordered around, latched down, captured. And he was surprised to sense that he adored it. He and Isaac were on the brink of something enormous, poised to leap over the cliffside on the other side of their lives together. They could do nothing more but trust one another completely.

  Isaac’s entire cock pulsed within Wyatt’s asshole. He felt him far inside. Isaac’s hand wrapped tightly around Wyatt’s cock and he began to jerk him off, while pummeling him from behind. The motions grew volatile, charged. Wyatt found it difficult to breathe. When he did
find the energy to, he gasped, unable to hold the noise in a moment more.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” Isaac ordered, although Wyatt could feel the smile behind his lips. Nothing about him could ever be fully menacing.

  Lost in the chaos, feeling completely filled by his cock, Wyatt felt he could feel each of his cells exploding with electricity. Isaac’s belly whacked against his back with each thrust. He gripped the staircase railing with white-knuckled hands, knowing they were both approaching orgasm, complete release.

  Isaac’s cock began to pulse wildly. He grunted, thrusting a final time. Wyatt’s body felt charged, and his cock sprung forward, taking the cue that it was time. Isaac’s hand moved tightly toward the tip of Wyatt’s cock, forcing it to spasm into orgasm. Wyatt came, biting down hard on his lip, casting cum across the railings of the staircase and across Isaac’s fingers.

  Slowly, Isaac moved away from Wyatt, drawing his cock out from between his ass cheeks. Wyatt turned, so that his chest was only an inch away from Isaac. They remained like that for a long moment, gazing into one another’s eyes. Their curls were filled with sweat. Finally, Isaac grinned, shaking his head. His cock dribbled with what was left of his cum.

  He shrugged, looking sheepish. “That’s it. I think I do. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Wyatt whispered.

  They kissed a final time, both feeling that the moment would flee all too soon. Wyatt’s thick fingers gripped the back of Isaac’s neck. He yearned to kiss his every inch, to fall into bed with him, to rise in the morning with the sunlight and the chickens.

  But it couldn’t be tonight.

  Wyatt dotted his nose against Isaac’s and whispered, “What do you say we get the hell out of here?”

  Isaac grunted, looking somber. “My daddy says he doesn’t want to leave his home.”

  Wyatt pondered this. He reached for his pants and dragged them over his legs. Isaac did the same, concealing his perfect frame. So often, during the clean-up of the act, Wyatt felt strangely sad, like a kid the day after Christmas. How he longed to maintain the magic.

  Suddenly, the door was thrust open. A call rang out.

  “Isaac? Isaac, are you out there?”

  The voice was different than the other one. Wyatt peered at Isaac, expectant. What would he do?

  “Hey, Trudy,” Isaac said. He hopped toward the steps, his shoelaces still untied.

  The sister named Trudy blinked down at Isaac, seemingly non-plussed. “I thought you’d gone for good,” she said.

  “Naw. I’m in this too deep, now,” Isaac sighed.

  “You didn’t run into any of those damn reporters, did you?” Trudy demanded.

  Wyatt shuffled from the side of the house, taking his stance alongside Isaac. He slipped his fingers through Isaac’s, wondering if this would draw them too far over some sort of line. Trudy’s face grew shadowed.

  “Oh, Isaac. What did you do?” she demanded.

  Isaac took a first stomp up the steps, then another. Wyatt followed suit, although half-assing the stomping. This wasn’t his battle to wage.

  “Trudy, I’d like you to meet Wyatt,” Isaac said.

  “I’m here to help you guys get out of here before more shit goes down,” Wyatt offered.

  Trudy cast her eyes back toward the other side of the house. “I guess you better take that up with Daddy. He says he won’t budge from that bed.”

  In the distance, they heard increased hollering from the Venus 50. The air filled once more with the smell of smoke. Trudy drew back, rushing to the side of the house. She let out a little shriek, one that chugged Isaac and Wyatt the rest of the way into the old ranch house. Wyatt was surprised at the hominess of the decorations—the lace tablecloths, the bookshelves along the walls.

  But before he could acknowledge it a moment more, he dropped down to the windows, gazing out at the field. Only perhaps a football field away, an enormous fire had once again begun its maniacal burning. This time, it seemed generated from the Venus 50 themselves—with Everett McLean holding a bright torch off to the side. His other hand traced a line through the sky, pointing to the stars.

  “That fucking idiot,” Trudy muttered. “He’s really going to kill all of them, isn’t he?”

  “Well, the last fire made them all believe him even more,” Wyatt offered. “I guess it’s only appropriate to think he’d need another and another. But this one… It looks a bit more out of control.”

  The three of them watched as the fire grew to waist-level, casting itself over the last of the cult’s supplies. Wyatt shivered. The wind hadn’t yet whipped the fire in either direction—not toward the ranch house, nor toward the ghost town. But he felt sure that there was a time limit on this strangely frozen reality.

  Suddenly, a shadow was cast over the three of them. An image of the old man—Thomas Baxter himself—glowed in the window, a reflection. Wyatt sprung upright, turning around to face the tall, stoic-looking cowboy. The man wore only a white tank top, a long pair of pajamas. His eyes were alert, orange with the light from the fire.

  “Those bastards,” he said, his voice sure of itself, seemingly without any sort of madness, without any sort of old age or illness attached. Only his body seemed to be giving out on him. From where Wyatt stood, his mind was still very much intact.

  “What should we do, Daddy?” Trudy asked, sounding like a much younger version of herself.

  “Those fuckers,” was all Thomas Baxter could say, cutting his fingers across his greying beard. “They think they can just come on my property, in the middle of MY town…”

  The camera crews of the various stations seemed even to step back, apprehension about Everett McLean’s power. Several reporters had sprung back into their vehicles. Some camera workers sat alongside them, recording the fire behind them while they spouted information into the camera.

  Suddenly, there was a wild knock at the door. Upstairs, there was a shriek, as though one of the children had awoken. Then, there followed a second shriek, then another. Three sets of footsteps eked across the floorboards upstairs. The world was topsy-turvy. Wyatt wouldn’t have been surprised if the Venus beings HAD arrived just then, taken them all in their spaceship. It seemed only fitting. The world was falling apart, crackling to pieces.

  “Who do you think it is?” Monica demanded from the bedroom. She held onto a blanket, as though she’d been in the midst of making up a bed. “Is it a journalist again? And what the hell is that smell?”

  “They set fire to the field again,” Trudy responded.

  “I’ll get the door,” Wyatt returned. He strutted toward it, imagining himself telling one of the journalists to get the fuck off the stoop. How he longed to right his own wrongs, to tell them that this was a private affair—not for the public’s eyes.

  But as he ripped open the door, he discovered Marcia on the other side. He blinked at her twice. She cut him a wry smile, before saying—with the air of someone without a single care in the world, “Wyatt. Do you mind getting the hell out of my way?”

  Wyatt did as he was told. He hunched to the side, allowing Marcia to tap in. She had a little overnight bag strapped to her, filled to the brim, bulging a bit from between the zippers. It was as though she’d hurriedly packed, but her face gave no such panic away.

  Isaac frowned at her, incredulous. Neither sister seemed to know what to say. Monica mentioned something about putting on water for tea, but Marcia waved her hand to this—saying, “Clearly, there are far bigger fish to fry, so to speak.”

  Thomas’ eyes were enormous. Marcia matched his gaze. The tension in the room was thick, easily cut with a knife.

  “I reckon you’re making a big fuss about getting the hell out of here, aren’t you, Thomas?” Marcia asked.

  Thomas crossed his arms over his chest. He arched his brow. “Marcia, you know I can’t leave Rhode’s Pike. I aimed to die here.”

  “No, you ain’t never aimed to die here,” Marcia sighed. “Just because Zane died here, don’t mean y
ou have to. You’re sick, sure. But you don’t have to die.”

  “I’m on my deathbed, Marcia,” Thomas shot back.

  “You don’t look it to me,” Marcia returned. “You were always so dramatic, Thomas. It was something Zane kept you in line for, but even he sometimes said you were a bit much. You know it’s true. Some of the fights you boys got into.”

  Thomas’ face grew shadowed. Wyatt felt heavy with the information Marcia had lent him at the saloon. He watched the three siblings exchange glances, clearly flummoxed. There was so much we could never understand about our parents.

  “Zane was an idiot,” Thomas returned. “He never knew what was best for him.”

  “Well, neither do you,” Marcia said. “You never really owned up to what was at the root of you and Zane, and now you’re sitting here—all but dying—at this ranch house, wondering what it is you could have done to change it. But I’m telling ya, Thomas, there ain’t nothing to do but move forward. You know it.”

  “Forward motion ain’t the sort of thing we in Rhode’s Pike are all about,” Thomas said, his eyes darkening. “Ain’t we all here to just get the hell away from the world? Let it go on without us?”

  Marcia grinned. She flashed her hands toward Isaac, toward Monica, toward Trudy. Then, she pointed toward the fire, still brewing outside the house.

  “Thomas, if we don’t join the rest of the world, the rest of the world will take us down. Maybe this cult thing has made me start thinking a thing or two about it. Anyway, I’m getting the hell out of here with Isaac and Wyatt, and I think it’s best you do, too.”

  After a long, strange pause, Marcia added, “Plus, Thomas, you and I both know I’m the only girl in the world who could possibly love ya. If you want love into old age—someone to care for ya—then here I am. My bag is packed. I’m finally—finally—ready to leave this godforsaken town.”

  It was difficult to assess what would happen next. Wyatt ducked back toward the window, taking brief stock of the field. The fire had begun to consume several of the RVs near the far end. Reporters ducked away from the chaos. Wyatt could see the cameramen slotting their cameras into the backseats and pointing firm fingers forward, seemingly screaming, “GO! GO! FASTER!”