by Kim Fielding
“I can’t drive anyway,” Des said, a grin playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Your license expired seventeen years ago.”
“Never had one. Never learned to drive, actually.”
He said it cheerfully enough, but the words made Kurt frown. Des had spent his childhood in poverty and chaos, his youth homeless or playing lackey to a psychopath, and the rest of his life in a cell. He must have missed out on so many things in addition to the joy of hitting the gas and zooming down the road.
They’d gone another twenty miles when Des spoke again. “You had several nightmares last night.”
“We can get you earplugs if I’m disturbing your beauty sleep.” It had been an especially rough night, made worse because he knew he’d brought it on himself with that little speech he’d given at the Royal Tropics. Jesus, he hated the way Des’s mere presence stirred ugly memories… and unwelcome urges.
Up ahead, an exit sign promised gas and food. Kurt wasn’t hungry, but he took the turnoff anyway.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Roebuck Springs, moderately famous for its mineral waters, had been home to an elaborate spa. People from throughout the Southeast had visited in hopes that they’d be healed of everything from acne to tuberculosis. By the time the Depression hit, however, people had stopped coming, and the town was left to rot into obscurity. Kurt knew all of this from reading the files.
He also knew that the only place to stay was the Roebuck Springs Motor Lodge, which consisted of a small collection of cottages that had once been part of the spa. Aside from that, the town boasted a thousand or so residents, a Front Street with half the shops boarded up, a train depot that looked as if had been out of commission for years, and a scattering of small businesses.
“I remember this place,” Des said as they rolled slowly through town. “Dead boring. But Larry fancied it due to the privacy. My accent was stronger then, and the locals and I had trouble understanding each other.”
Kurt found the motor lodge easily enough—ten cottages and a larger structure containing the office and café. At the far reaches of the little compound were several other buildings in various stages of decay, chain-link fences surrounding the ones that looked most likely to collapse.
“Place hasn’t improved since my last visit,” Des said.
“Which cabin was yours?” Kurt was trying not to show his dismay. If he had to search the entire grounds, he’d be stuck here for days.
“The one farthest from the office. When we first arrived, Larry asked for that one but it was occupied, so we stayed in the next one over that first night. Then the other people left and we moved.”
Lovely. That probably meant Kurt would have to check them both. The good thing was that only two other cars occupied the lot, so the odds of at least one of the units being empty were good.
“Come on in with me. We might as well eat something after we check in.” Their fast-food dinner hadn’t been satisfying, and he hoped the food here was decent. His parents had always claimed you couldn’t find really good fried chicken or decent barbecue outside of the South, and it had been years since his mom had made fried okra or homemade cornbread.
Kurt knew there’d be trouble as soon as they entered the office, where a middle-aged man eyed him balefully from behind the counter. A television set hung on the wall, blaring something with sirens and gunshots, and next to that was a Confederate flag.
“Help you?” the man asked, carefully looking only at Des, as if Kurt might disappear if studiously ignored.
“We’d like a room,” Kurt said in his most authoritarian voice. “Preferably the cottage at the far end.”
The man kept staring at Des, as though Kurt hadn’t said a word. Kurt crossed his arms and waited. The asshole couldn’t disregard him forever.
Des looked back and forth between them and huffed. “Didn’t you hear? We want a room. You don’t seem to be overbooked tonight.”
The clerk’s scowl deepened. He clearly couldn’t claim that all the cabins were taken, so he seemed to be searching for another excuse. When he didn’t say anything after a moment or two, Des leaned over the counter. The man took a step back, and Kurt could see why: Des looked frightening. Not just because he was big and bulky, but because there was something slightly untamed in his aura. He was a lion who’d spent far too long in a cage and might pounce at any moment.
“A room?” Des growled.
Defeat settled on the clerk’s puffy face. “Seventy-three dollars with tax,” he mumbled.
Kurt took out his Bureau-issued credit card and set it on the scarred counter. “We’ll probably be staying several nights. But charge me for only one right now.”
The clerk picked up the card by one corner, as if it were dirty, and laboriously entered information into the computer behind the counter. Des watched with interest, reminding Kurt that Des had probably never used a computer himself. With a moue of distaste, the clerk dropped the card onto the counter and set a key next to it. “Check-out is eleven,” he told Des.
Kurt returned the card to his pocket and dropped the key into another. “Is the café open?” He already knew what the answer would be.
“Café’s closed,” the clerk said to Des.
They fetched their bags from the car and crunched across the gravel parking lot, then climbed the three steps up to the tidy little porch of their cottage. Kurt unlocked the door and switched on the overhead light. Although the interior had a faint scent of moldy wood, it looked clean and surprisingly cozy. There were red gingham curtains and colorful throw rugs. A tiny kitchenette took up one corner, and the rest of the room held a table and two chairs, a pine dresser with an old TV on top, a rocking chair… and one queen-sized bed. Shit. Kurt hadn’t thought about that issue.
Seemingly oblivious, Des spent a few moments poking around the place. “There’s a clawfoot tub!” he called from the bathroom. He peeked his head around the door. “Please tell me I can have a real bath tonight.”
“Suit yourself.” Kurt opened the cupboards in search of coffee and a coffeemaker but found neither. “Can you wait until morning to eat or will you starve to death?”
“Morning’s fine. You reckon the restaurant will be open then?”
“We’ll find somewhere to eat,” Kurt said through tight lips. “Or a grocers.”
Des pulled out one of the chairs and straddled it backwards, staring at him. “What was the deal with that man in the office?”
“What do you think?”
Des seemed honestly perplexed. “Did he think we were going to fuck in his precious cottage? No, that can’t be it because he spoke to me.”
“I don’t think he knew we’re gay.” Kurt tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for comprehension to dawn. When Des only frowned, Kurt held out his hand, palm down. “What color do you see?”
“Erm, brown?” Then he understood; Kurt could tell by the way his eyes widened. “But… I’m the one looking disreputable, the one who sounds like a foreigner. You’re sharp and respectable in your suit, and you’re as American as they come.”
“And my dad’s black. That’s all that matters to people like that.”
“Still? In the nineties?”
Kurt snorted. “Still.”
“Because we’re in Mississippi?”
“Maybe it’s worse or more common here, I don’t know. But there are plenty of assholes like him in California too.”
“Shit.” Des chewed his lip. “You could’ve shown him your gun. Your badge.”
“Incognito, remember? Anyway, it wouldn’t matter. There’s nothing I can do to make him see past the color of my skin. I could be the President and he’d hate me just as much. Maybe even more, in fact, because someone like me is more successful than him.”
“It’s bloody stupid.”
Kurt gave a shrug before removing his jacket and hanging it on a wall hook. He wasn’t in the mood to explain racism to a white guy who’d spent seventeen years in a cell. Honestly, Kurt was
n’t sure he understood it himself. And he was exhausted; although he had no plans to search for the box tonight, he had notes to record. “Go take that bath now, if you want. I want to turn in as early as possible.”
As Kurt sat at the table in a warm pool of light, scribbling out the day’s events—but omitting the bigotry because it was irrelevant to the mission—water ran in the bathroom. It must be nice for Des to soak after so many years of nothing but a squalid prison shower. Kurt remembered Des’s story about the relative who thought she was a mermaid, and it made him smile. Merfolk truly did exist. He’d never seen them himself, but he’d heard Bureau stories of hapless sailors lured to their doom by ethereal singing. Des himself, however, was in no danger of trapping anyone that way—he was crooning over the sound of the water in his decidedly untuneful voice.
Des continued the song after shutting off the tap, but he let it drift into humming before it stopped. In Kurt’s imagination, the warmth of the tub soothed Des into a stupor, his head lolling back against the cast iron, the ends of his hair trailing into the water. He was too big to fit completely, so his knees were likely bent, the pale skin slick, the light hairs darkened by dampness. His hands would be submerged and curled loosely beside his flanks. Maybe he’d be wiggling his toes a bit out of pure sensual pleasure. And his cock would be—
As far away from Kurt’s imagination as possible, dammit.
Growling at himself, Kurt focused on the notebook. But within moments he found himself distracted again, this time by the slim volume Des had taken out of prison with him. Although he had a new stack of things to read, he spent some time every day with this book, slowly turning the pages.
Kurt began to read. When he was a kid, he’d devoured books. His parents would take him to libraries and bookstores, and he’d gobble everything and demand more. But that had gone by the wayside when he reached his midteens and decided getting high with his friends was more important. And hitting on girls, because back then he’d been firmly in the closet, even to himself.
Nowadays he read newspapers and an occasional magazine—and a lot of Bureau briefings—but rarely picked up a book. Certainly not poetry. And Des hadn’t struck him as the poetry type either, yet he’d certainly taken a shine to this one.
The more Kurt read Wilde’s words, the tighter his stomach grew. The poem was about a man sentenced to hard labor—was about Wilde himself, according to the foreword—who’d seen another inmate executed.
I know not whether Laws be right
Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
Is that the wall is strong
Kurt knew that too. He was part of that wall.
“Midnight always in one’s heart.”
Kurt startled violently. He hadn’t heard Des get out of the tub or come up behind him, hair dripping and a thin towel around his hips. “Wh-what?” Kurt stuttered.
“I like that line. When you read that, you know the poet truly was a prisoner. I’d never be able to say it so well myself, but it’s true.”
“It’s true for some other people too.”
“Like people who drink too much?”
“Sometimes.” Kurt closed the book and pushed it away. “Or sometimes even before they start drinking too much.”
Des moved nearer, so close that Kurt could smell his soapy cleanliness and feel the bath-warmed heat of his body. So close that Kurt could have leaned over and licked droplets from his skin. Kurt should have drawn away but didn’t. God help him, but he couldn’t.
“What do you think of this line?” Des asked, opening the book to a page near the end. He didn’t look at it, however, when he recited. “For only blood can wipe out blood, and only tears can heal. Do you reckon that’s true?”
Kurt shivered even though the room wasn’t cold. “I’m no expert. Ask a priest.”
“I’ve never had much use for priests.”
Kurt remembered Townsend’s confusing meanderings about redemption. The chief truly seemed to believe redemption was a possibility; and perhaps it was, but for every crime? Weren’t some offenses so terrible that the only possible expiation was through the suffering of the offender? Through his blood and tears.
“Do you think it’s true?” asked Kurt, remembering that same line used by the shrink the Bureau made him see before he started training.
“Dunno.”
Des set down the book but remained in place, his bare, muscle-ridge torso only inches away. He turned to face Kurt, who stayed seated and resolutely stared across the table at the pale yellow wall.
“I had a lovely bath. We had a big tub when I was a boy, and mam used to bathe all of us at once—me and my brothers splashing one another until she yelled and threatened to drown the lot of us.” His smile was evident in his voice, even if Kurt didn’t look up to see it. “My oldest brother, Brady? He’d convinced us that sea monsters could come up through the drain, so we all used to jostle to be farthest from that end.”
“Sea monsters can’t travel through drains.”
“Met one, have you?”
“Yes, recently.” Kurt glanced at him, and that was a mistake. Des was ethereally handsome in the warm glow of the overhead light. A few days of Florida sunshine had reduced his pallor and added rosiness to his cheeks. He’d gained a few pounds from good and plentiful food, and he wore them well. His eyes seemed to see all of Kurt’s secrets and weaknesses, but they held no judgment or malice. They held, in fact, something considerably hotter than that, which made Kurt want to squirm in his seat.
And that, dear Lord, was before Des licked his lips, soft pink tongue gliding along tender flesh and making it wet and slick.
“Something occurred to me while I was bathing.” Des’s voice was a soft purr.
“What?”
“I was thinking about our conversation when we first arrived here tonight—when we were talking about that twat in the office.” He waited for Kurt to take the bait, and when that didn’t happen, Des quirked the corner of his mouth into a grin. “You said we.”
Perplexed, Kurt blinked at him.
Then Des crouched, allowing the towel to fall the floor, putting his face inches from Kurt’s. He lay his hands gently on Kurt’s shoulders. “You said we were gay.”
Oh. That. Kurt didn’t drop his gaze. “We are.” He hadn’t intended to make a big announcement, but he also hadn’t censored himself. He had been well into adulthood before he opened the closet door and stepped out, and he had no intention of going back in.
“We’ve only one bed.”
“That doesn’t—”
Kurt didn’t get a chance to finish, because Des kissed him. Nothing aggressive about it—in fact, it was almost tentative, a gentle press of mouth to mouth. But that kiss worked some kind of magic, setting Kurt’s nerves on fire and turning his brain to mush. He stood, dislodging Des’s hands. Des rose, bringing their lips back together as Kurt wrapped his arms around the naked man before him.
Des returned the embrace, pressing their bodies together firmly. Already hard, Des’s cock felt urgent even though Kurt’s clothes. God, they must have made a pretty picture: Des only lightly tanned and bare, Kurt dark and fully clothed, a sort of yin-yang of bodies melding toward a universal whole. As their kiss deepened, Kurt moved his hands up and knotted his fingers in long, damp hair, tugging firmly in a losing effort to ground himself. To ground them both.
This was nothing like the rote, perfunctory foreplay he and Vaughn engaged in before their efficient fuck sessions. Nothing like the backroom gropes from Kurt’s drinking days or the furtive encounters with other soldiers in Vietnam. He felt as if his soul was opening to Des’s in the same way his mouth was, as if something both ferocious and beautiful had wrapped around them like a shining snake, squeezing them, compressing them into their inevitable fate.
And Kurt wanted that. Wanted it more than he wanted to breathe.
Then Des emitted a low, broken moan, and Kurt remembered the reality of who he held. He
pushed back and away, almost toppling the chair in the process.
Des panted, wide-eyed and rampant, cheeks and chest deliciously flushed. “You wanted that.” More a question than a statement.
“I….” It didn’t seem right to lie to him. “I did. But I can’t.”
“But why? I want it too. You see?” Des gestured at his jutting cock. “It’s been such a long time, and you’re…. Jesus. I don’t know. I think I’ve wanted you since I first saw you.” His brogue was especially strong.
Kurt put the chair between them, as if that would make a difference. “I can’t,” he repeated.
“You think I’m seducing you so you’ll set me free. I’m not. I know you can’t, you won’t. I’m just so desperate, you see, and you’re so…. I’d go back to my cage willingly in the morning and never complain again if it meant I got one night with you. One night, Kurt.” His pleas looked and sounded genuine, and perhaps they were, with all those hormones still rushing through his bloodstream.
Kurt tried to sound cold and detached. A Bureau agent on a mission. “I don’t know whether to believe you, but it doesn’t matter. We can’t do this.”
“Why not?” Des wailed. “You like men. And I think you fancy me, at least a bit. We’re alone in this cottage for the night with no need to answer to anyone.”
“Look at the thing on your wrist.”
Frowning, Des lifted his arm. “Is it going to do something to us if we fuck?”
Kurt barked a laugh. “No. But as delicate as it looks, it’s a heavy chain, Des. It’s as strong as the walls in your prison. You remain a prisoner and I have power over you. I could call the Bureau and have you hauled back to Nevada where you’d never see daylight again. I could abandon you at a roadside and let agents hunt you down like a wounded deer. I could shoot you dead and I’d barely be questioned.”
