Going Down, Chapter Three: Family Man
Pairing: Ennis/Jack
Rating: NC-17
Credit: Annie Proulx and Diana Ossana & Larry McMurtry. Thanks also to all the many incredibly talented writers out there who inspired me to finally write something myself--Madlori, Jenna, montana-crows, Cathalin, midwest-girl, debutante9, maidenofthesea, marakeshsparrow, louisev, amtamburo, midget-size, testa-dura, and many others. Finally, thank you very very much to Christine, my friend and beta and fellow ennisjack aficionado.
Feedback: Any and all appreciated, at my lj or at shieldmaid@gmail.com.
Disclaimer: I love Ennis and Jack. Ennis and Jack love each other. Please trust me on this. :)
Chapter Three: Family Man
Two days later, it was over.
Jack stood by the truck, watching Ennis hoist the tent and fishing gear into the flatbed. He felt as though he were peering up from the bottom of a lake, fighting to make himself heard above the mild splash of waves on a distant shore. He couldn’t breathe through the humid sludge that seemed to have replaced the normally clean air of the mountains.
Ennis finished by slinging his knapsack in and tucking down a corner of the canvas tarp that had escaped. He looked at Jack. “When’s that guy comin’ to pick up the horses?”
“Should be any time. He said to wait for ‘em by the crossroads, near the mile marker.”
“Might as well ride down, since we got the horses for now.”
They mounted and rode down the narrow dirt road in single file, Jack ahead of Ennis. When they reached the paved road that led the rest of the way down the mountain, Frank Joliet’s truck was already parked there, the doors on the horse trailer open.
“Whoa, girl,” said Jack, pulling up gently on his reins. He dismounted and went forward to shake Frank’s hand. He could hear Ennis whispering to the horses behind him. “Good to see you, Frank. Thanks for helpin’ us out.”
“Get a lot a fishin’ done?” Frank asked, shaking Jack’s hand.
“Yeah, caught a few big browns, but nothin’ too special. Think maybe we’d have better luck a different time a year.”
Frank looked at Ennis, who nodded to him briefly, his face impassive. “Well, guess I’ll be goin’, then. Gotta get the stock moved out today. You fellas headin’ back soon?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Just gotta get the truck, then we’re drivin’ back to Riverton, where Ennis lives. I gotta long drive to Texas ahead a me.”
Frank nodded, already turning away to look over the animals. He and Ennis settled the horses in the trailer, then Frank was off in a cloud of dust and loose bits of gravel.
They walked slowly back up to the clearing where they had parked, not speaking. Jack glanced sideways at Ennis once, wondering if Frank’s presence had made him uneasy, or if their parting might just be hitting him hard, as it was Jack himself.
When they reached the truck, Jack opened the driver’s-side door and turned sideways to knock mud off the soles of his boots. He couldn’t see Ennis for the time being and figured that he might have walked back into the woods to have a few moments alone before they left. So he was more than a little startled to hear a sudden crunch of footsteps on the packed dirt behind him. Ennis’s hand came down on his shoulder, and he could feel the hardness below Ennis’s belt pressing into his own side.
Jack turned and found himself in Ennis’s arms. Ennis leaned in toward him and kissed his mouth as gently as if he were finishing a house of cards with the last pair of deuces. Jack felt his body rise-cock, tears, and hopes all together-and wrapped his arms around Ennis’s back. With their foreheads still touching, Ennis placed his hands on either side of Jack’s face and looked into his eyes. Ennis’s eyes were a rich golden brown, their depths shining. He blinked a few times but couldn’t stop an errant tear from trailing down the side of his nose.
Jack sat down on the truck’s bench seat and tugged Ennis closer. Ennis reached down under the seat and wrenched on the lever, shoving the seat as far back as it would go. Then he pushed Jack down onto his back and fell on top of him, the hot skin of their bellies kissing when their shirts rode up. Jack heard his own moan as if from a great distance. He pulled Ennis’s head down and ground their mouths together. The house of cards disappeared in a flurry of wet tongues and thrusting groins.
Ennis unbuttoned Jack’s shirt, his fingers fumbling with the buttons and sliding nervously over the worn denim. He ran his hands across Jack’s chest, rolling the nipples between thumbs and forefingers until Jack thought he would go crazy. Ennis’s own nipples punched like diamonds against the thin fabric of his shirt; his hands moved lower to feel Jack’s stomach before cracking open his belt buckle. Jack raised his hips off the seat and twisted to one side so Ennis could push off his jeans and boots.
Jack tried to haul Ennis closer so he could pull off his clothing, but Ennis had other ideas. He stood up and unbuttoned his own shirt with one hand, holding onto the open door with the other. “Want you to . . . hold me,” he said in a low voice, looking somewhere to Jack’s right. He shrugged his shirt off, right into the dirt, and turned his back to Jack. Undoing his belt buckle, he pushed his jeans down and nudged his ass between Jack’s legs.
Jack sat up, his mouth suddenly dry, and wrapped himself around Ennis, his erection trapped against Ennis’s ass. He pressed the palms of his hands flat against Ennis’s chest and moved his hands in slow circles, feeling for the hard beads of his nipples. Trailing his hands down Ennis’s body, he relished the smooth outline of muscles beneath the skin, his rapid, steady breaths. Jack dipped a finger briefly in Ennis’s navel, making him shudder, then rubbed his belly in tender lines just above his groin. Ennis dropped his head back on Jack’s shoulder and groaned, then whispered something Jack couldn’t quite make out.
“What was that, Ennis?” Jack murmured into his ear.
“Want to feel you . . . inside,” Ennis said softly, his voice forcing its way out of his chest in breathy little fragments.
The fine hairs on the back of Jack’s neck stood up; his balls tightened and drew up. He had to stop what he was doing, grip Ennis’s shoulders and lean his head on Ennis’s back for a moment, to keep himself from going over the edge right then. When he had control again, he slid one index finger into his own mouth and stroked it down the cleft of Ennis’s ass. Ennis gasped and shivered.
“’M I hurtin’ you, Ennis?” Jack asked, his hand freezing in place.
“No . . . please, Jack.” Ennis panted, his head hanging down. “More.”
Jack moistened his first two fingers and stroked them along Ennis’s backside again, parting his cheeks as carefully as he could. Ennis heaved a huge sigh and pushed himself back against Jack’s fingers. Jack eased one inside, alert for any signs of resistance or muscles pushing him back out. But Ennis gripped one of Jack’s thighs with each hand and let out a high-pitched whine-a noise that Jack had never heard him make before. Jack dared a second finger, and Ennis bucked, then began to move his hips back and forth, angling his pelvis sharply toward the windshield. Clearly Jack had hit the spot that Ennis always found in him, from which a kind of shivering electricity shot through his groin and up his torso.
“Should I stop?” Jack whispered.
“Nooo. . . . Can you? . . . In me?” Ennis was fighting to get the words out now, his clenching fingers leaving red streaks on Jack’s legs.
Jack caught his breath, his dick so hard that every brush against Ennis’s back sent fire through his belly. He eased his fingers out, smoothed his hands along Ennis’s shoulders, and kissed the base of his neck. He was ready, more than ready, had been dreaming of this moment since before time began, it seemed.
Jack slipped one hand down to hold Ennis’s hip, took a deep breath. He brushed his lips against Ennis’s neck and, taking himself in hand, found his way inside. Ennis stiffened for a moment, raising his head, then relaxed again, pushing back against Jack and moaning long and low. Jack began to thrust, cautiously at first, then losing himself in the magical combination of heat and compression and Ennis, giving to him in this way. He slid his hand across Ennis’s stomach and down, found his cock and began to stroke him. They moved together for a time that first stretched out into a blue eternity, a perfect, matchless union of body and mind and soul, and then shrank down into nothing but this moment, like the tiny space of days they had been lucky enough to share. Finally, when Jack felt the first screaming edges of his orgasm lifting him out of his seat, he heard Ennis cry out and hot liquid spill over his hand. He grinned, propping his head against Ennis’s back and shaking with the force of his coming all the way through the bottoms of his feet.
After Jack had eased out and their breathing had slowed again, Ennis relaxed against him. Jack encircled him with his arms, and Ennis turned his head to plant a kiss on Jack’s shoulder. They sat wrapped together for a few minutes, Ennis’s hands resting on Jack’s arms and Jack’s cheek pressed against the side of Ennis’s head.
Ennis sighed, rubbing one hand back and forth along Jack’s arm. “S’nice, bein’ here with you,” he said softly. He brought one of Jack’s hands to his mouth and kissed it.
“Ennis,” Jack breathed, closing his eyes and touching his lips to Ennis’s temple. His heart was full. For once, all his gaps and hollow spaces were packed tight, brimming with sensation: warm, slick skin; gradually slowing heartbeats; the tickle of Ennis’s hair against his upper lip; his wilting dick still tingling with the memory of its recent home; Ennis’s unexpected tenderness.
He must have dozed, because a little while later he was surprised to feel Ennis shift against him. “Hey,” Jack said gently. “You OK, cowboy?”
“Yeah,” Ennis said. “Thought maybe we oughta get dressed before someone come along’n find us in the altogether.”
Jack chuckled. “Reckon you’re right, at that.” He squeezed Ennis’s shoulders and slapped him on the butt as he bent over to pull up his jeans. Ennis fastened his belt and retrieved his shirt, brushing at the smudges of dust. Jack found his own clothes wadded on the floor of the truck and took his time pulling them back on.
“Y’know, Ennis,” he said lazily, “We don’t hafta go back today.”
“Whaddya mean?” Ennis asked, his forehead wrinkling.
“Well,” Jack said, considering. “We could . . . stay over a couple nights in town. Then maybe find some work on a ranch somewhere. Help ship stock, clean up the barns for winter. Or . . . hell, I dunno, factories’re always hirin’ round here. Anythin’d beat another day in the dealership with L. D.”
Ennis turned away. “Can’t, Jack. You know that.”
“Why the hell not? I seen how happy you been, these last couple days. Don’t see you missin’ Alma’n the girls too much.”
“Christ, Jack! You got no idea what goes on with me.” Ennis shook his head.
“You got that right.” Jack sighed and leaned back on the seat.
“I gotta job already, Jack. Foreman’s probably pissed I missed these days as it is. Gotta go back and get dug back in, show ‘em I ain’t the quittin’ kind.”
“No, you sure ain’t, are you, Ennis,” Jack said, suddenly exhausted. He scrubbed one hand across his eyes, then reached under the seat for the release lever and moved it forward. “You ready to go, then?”
Ennis came around to the passenger’s side and got in, shutting the door carefully behind him. “Jack.” Jack didn’t look at him. “Alma Junior’n Jenny . . . they get to missin’ me when I ain’t there. I gotta kiss ‘em goodnight or Alma’s up for hours calmin’ ‘em down. Seems like a man’s family’s gotta be more important than-” Here Ennis stopped, apparently at a loss for words.
“I can’t believe that after what we just done, you can say that. Act like it don’t mean nothin’.”
“Jack, it does mean somethin’. It’s . . . it’s just that-”
“OK,” Jack said. He gripped the gearshift and looked over his shoulder so he could back the truck down the hill. Ennis laid a hand on his arm. “How ‘bout we meet up again soon? Say in January? I got some time comin’ to me then, things’re pretty slow at the ranch that time a year.”
Jack exhaled slowly, then nodded once, looking straight ahead. Ennis brought his hand up along the side of Jack’s face and gently turned Jack to face him. He brushed his hand along Jack’s jaw, then tilted his head in and kissed him. Their tongues met for a long, sweet moment, until Jack pulled away. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”
The drive back to Riverton took a little over two hours. When Jack drove past the incorporation sign, his chest began to hurt. Bile rose in his throat. Ennis’s street was at the third Main Street intersection. He started to turn the truck, then paused, his hand on the gearshift. “I can’t say goodbye in front a your house, Ennis. There anyplace we can go for a minute?”
Ennis hesitated, frowning, one knee bouncing up and down nervously. “Maybe . . . yeah, let’s try that. Back that way, there’s an old ball field. Hardly gets used these days, town don’t got the money to keep it up no more.”
Jack put the truck in gear and headed south. After about a quarter mile, Ennis tapped on the window. Jack saw a small, dusty field with weeds straggling up a rusty chain-link fence. He pulled off to the side of the road and yanked hard on the parking brake. Ennis got out and shut his door, glancing around as he crossed the yellowed grass. Jack followed, kicking the door shut and silently cursing the man in front of him.
Ennis walked around to the other side of the fence and leaned up against it, his hands in his pockets. Jack joined him, his boots feeling as if they were made of lead. At least there were no other cars around, no people, no accidental witnesses to the latest sad chapter in his and Ennis’s strange and lonely time together.
“What’d you wanna say to me, Jack?” Ennis was looking at him with wide eyes, bright with approaching tears. He hesitated, cleared his throat. “Know I’m gonna miss you somethin’ awful,” he mumbled.
Jack sighed, already regretting what he had made up his mind to say. “Just wanted to say goodbye, Ennis. Goodbye for real this time.”
“What the hell’s that s’posed to mean?”
“I ain’t gonna do this again, Ennis. This ain’t how it’s gonna be. Can’t just wait around while you live your life without no thought of me.”
Ennis gasped as if he’d been slugged in the gut. “But Jack-We’re gonna meet up in January, thought you-”
“Can’t, Ennis. I can already see how it’s gonna tear me up inside to drive away from you again. There’s no way I can keep doin’ this. Think on it a second. You wanna spend your whole life turnin’ your back on me, time after time? ‘Cause I sure got better ideas ‘bout how I can spend my time.” Jack stepped back from Ennis and leaned over, his hands braced on his knees. The air in his lungs was as hot and sharp as boiling acid.
Ennis crouched down next to him and reached out a hand. Jack jerked away angrily and straightened up. “You got any idea how I felt after we came down from Brokeback? Watched you get smaller’n smaller in the mirror, turned the corner and thought I was gonna die. Drove 600 miles with a hole in my chest. Cried so hard I almost fell off the road, more’n once. Didn’t sleep for days after that.” Jack shook his head and looked away. “Twice is two times too many. Not again. Not ever again.”
“Jack-I can’t-Wait-”
“No, Ennis. I ain’t waitin’. Not anymore.” Jack looked Ennis in the eye one last time, then turned on his heel and ran across the grass, knowing that if he looked back he would give in to his need to touch Ennis and take away the bitter taste of his words. Might even agree to do what he wanted, meet up at some cold pile of rocks in the butt end of nowhere, just for a few hours of heart’s warmth. Ennis expecting him to give it all, not keep anything back for himself, just like Lureen always had. Damn him. Jack jerked open the truck door, threw his hat onto the seat, and slammed the door. He turned the ignition so hard it hurt his palm, yanked on the gearshift, and the truck shuddered into motion.
The last thing he saw in Riverton was Ennis standing there, looking down at the ground between his boots.
Two hours later, Jack was blazing down Highway 25, not bothering to check in the rearview for cops. His eyes felt dry and stretched, as though glass marbles had been baked right into the sockets. He hadn’t thought much about Ennis-hadn’t thought much about anything, in fact. His mind had numbed into a pleasant blankness that he thought he could endure until Judgment Day. Scenery whipped by, the same collection of telephone wires and distant mountains and ragged pine trees rotating every ten miles or so.
The truck hit a pothole, and Jack was jarred out of his bleak contemplation of the Colorado landscape. He repositioned himself on the seat, listening with a frown to a regular thudding now sounding from the bed of the truck. Apparently something had jolted loose back there. He blew air out between his clenched teeth and pulled the truck over to the side of the road.
Going around to the side of the truck, away from the road, Jack was shocked to find Ennis’s knapsack resting against the back of the cab. He’d forgotten to throw it out when he’d roared out of Riverton and out of Ennis’s life. Now he had an all-too-solid reminder of the man left standing alone in a barren field. Jack picked up the knapsack and hefted it over his shoulder, surprised at its weight. He could smell Ennis on it, that combination of sweat and fresh air and the faint tang of horses that sent prickles up his spine every time.
Back in the truck, back on the road, Jack passed his hand over his forehead, fighting for control. He felt shaky and feverish, powerless to stop his eyes from leaking hot tears. He pressed the back of one hand to his mouth, biting his knuckle to silence a sob. The road wavered in front of him, and for a moment he thought about just taking his hand off the wheel, letting the truck go wherever it wanted to. The way he himself hadn’t been allowed to go. Not with Ennis, not this time and not ever. . . . Had he just been dreaming last night? It seemed like he had woken up in the middle of the night and heard Ennis talking. Telling Jack something about his daughter, Jenny he thought her name was, about how wide her eyes had opened as soon as she was born. Had been something else in there, too, about Jack himself. His eyes, and how Ennis missed their color every day. Just one of the things he’d said he loved about him.
Jack shook his head and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. He was getting a hell of a headache, that was for sure, and he had a good ten or twelve hours of driving still ahead of him. Best to think about something else now, focus on what he was going to do with the next fifty-odd years of his life. Because he did have a plan for it, without a doubt. One that didn’t include Ennis Del Mar, who for sure had never said the words I love you to anyone, much less to the busted-up rodeo cowboy Jack Twist. Musta been only a dream.
**********
Jack let himself into their bedroom as quietly as he could. It was 3:57 a.m., and he knew Lureen had to get up for work in a couple of hours, though Bobby would probably be squawking even sooner. He shucked boots, jeans, and shirt, leaving them in a heap at the foot of the bed and grimacing a little at the smell of sweat, smoke, and horses in their wake. Lureen was going to be just delighted at that little addition to her lacy pink boudoir, as she liked to call it. He tiptoed to his side of the bed and slid between the sheets. They were cool against his fevered skin, the pillow was a welcome comfort after the rocky ground of the past few days, and he felt himself slipping into the oblivion his soul craved almost as soon as his body was settled.
His temporary feeling of peace was cut off abruptly when Lureen coughed and turned over. “Jack? That you? What time is it?”
“It’s 4 a.m., honey. Sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.”
Lureen sighed, rolling toward him. “Missed you. Didn’t think you was gonna be gone so long.” She rested her head on his pillow and draped an arm across his chest. Jack covered her hand with his own and shut his eyes again, wishing for a drink, a hammer blow to his skull, anything that would erase the images of Ennis that kept thronging to his brain.
Lureen edged closer, pushing her breasts, loose and full beneath her thin cotton nightgown, into his side. “C’m’on, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Show me you been missin’ me too.” She pulled gently on Jack’s arm until he turned onto his side, facing her. His hand landed on her breast, undoubtedly by design. He was too tired to fight it. And he had a plan for living the rest of his life, didn’t he? This was just one of the many duties he had to fulfill in order to reach the new goals he had set for himself.
Jack slipped his hand down to cup Lureen’s breast more firmly, rubbing his thumb gently over the nipple. Her breathing deepened, and she reached down to grasp the bottom hem of her nightgown, drawing it up and over her head. She was completely naked underneath, as Jack discovered when he slid his hand down her side and over her hip. Her body was still firm and tight, even after the baby; Jack stroked her flat stomach for a moment, then moved his hand lower, to the warm, damp valley between her legs. She bucked her hips with the rhythm of his hand a few times, then pressed herself against the length of his body.
Under Lureen’s warm weight, Jack rolled over onto his back again, sighing as she licked his neck and ran her fingers, their long sharp nails grazing his skin, down his chest and stomach. He couldn’t be smelling too fresh after the three days he’d just spent in the woods, but she didn’t seem to mind. She kissed her way down his torso, wrapping one hand around his dick and beginning to pump gently. Jack’s eyes filled with tears. Ennis’s hands had been the last to touch that part of him, Ennis always sure about the best way to send him out of his mind with pure, toe-curling pleasure. In spite of himself, however, he began to harden, and Lureen moaned softly. She scooted down and fastened her mouth around his cock, sucking and licking with enthusiasm.
Jack twined his hands through Lureen’s hair and stared up at the ceiling. As the first sparks of orgasm began firing through his groin, he remembered that Ennis had never once done this for him. He’d had his head buried between Ennis’s legs time and again, yet Ennis had always shied away from returning the favor, able only to use his mouth on Jack’s belly and hips before he had to bring his hands down to finish the job. Well, that didn’t matter no more. From now on, Jack would be a family man, content to live his life here in Childress, having sex in a bed that belonged to him and his wife like any other normal person. His hips lifted suddenly as the climax hit him full force, and his eyes squeezed shut. Lureen turned her head to the side to avoid the spray, and Jack felt ashamed. She didn’t like dirt or mess of any kind. That was fine, though, because he was here to see that she got what she wanted. She would have the life he had first promised her with one foot out the door, the one with cars and babies and vacations in Florida. Now he was here to stay. Ennis Del Mar had made that much a certainty.
Rating: NC-17
Credit: Annie Proulx and Diana Ossana & Larry McMurtry. Thanks also to all the many incredibly talented writers out there who inspired me to finally write something myself--Madlori, Jenna, montana-crows, Cathalin, midwest-girl, debutante9, maidenofthesea, marakeshsparrow, louisev, amtamburo, midget-size, testa-dura, and many others. Finally, thank you very very much to Christine, my friend and beta and fellow ennisjack aficionado.
Feedback: Any and all appreciated, at my lj or at shieldmaid@gmail.com.
Disclaimer: I love Ennis and Jack. Ennis and Jack love each other. Please trust me on this. :)
Chapter Three: Family Man
Two days later, it was over.
Jack stood by the truck, watching Ennis hoist the tent and fishing gear into the flatbed. He felt as though he were peering up from the bottom of a lake, fighting to make himself heard above the mild splash of waves on a distant shore. He couldn’t breathe through the humid sludge that seemed to have replaced the normally clean air of the mountains.
Ennis finished by slinging his knapsack in and tucking down a corner of the canvas tarp that had escaped. He looked at Jack. “When’s that guy comin’ to pick up the horses?”
“Should be any time. He said to wait for ‘em by the crossroads, near the mile marker.”
“Might as well ride down, since we got the horses for now.”
They mounted and rode down the narrow dirt road in single file, Jack ahead of Ennis. When they reached the paved road that led the rest of the way down the mountain, Frank Joliet’s truck was already parked there, the doors on the horse trailer open.
“Whoa, girl,” said Jack, pulling up gently on his reins. He dismounted and went forward to shake Frank’s hand. He could hear Ennis whispering to the horses behind him. “Good to see you, Frank. Thanks for helpin’ us out.”
“Get a lot a fishin’ done?” Frank asked, shaking Jack’s hand.
“Yeah, caught a few big browns, but nothin’ too special. Think maybe we’d have better luck a different time a year.”
Frank looked at Ennis, who nodded to him briefly, his face impassive. “Well, guess I’ll be goin’, then. Gotta get the stock moved out today. You fellas headin’ back soon?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Just gotta get the truck, then we’re drivin’ back to Riverton, where Ennis lives. I gotta long drive to Texas ahead a me.”
Frank nodded, already turning away to look over the animals. He and Ennis settled the horses in the trailer, then Frank was off in a cloud of dust and loose bits of gravel.
They walked slowly back up to the clearing where they had parked, not speaking. Jack glanced sideways at Ennis once, wondering if Frank’s presence had made him uneasy, or if their parting might just be hitting him hard, as it was Jack himself.
When they reached the truck, Jack opened the driver’s-side door and turned sideways to knock mud off the soles of his boots. He couldn’t see Ennis for the time being and figured that he might have walked back into the woods to have a few moments alone before they left. So he was more than a little startled to hear a sudden crunch of footsteps on the packed dirt behind him. Ennis’s hand came down on his shoulder, and he could feel the hardness below Ennis’s belt pressing into his own side.
Jack turned and found himself in Ennis’s arms. Ennis leaned in toward him and kissed his mouth as gently as if he were finishing a house of cards with the last pair of deuces. Jack felt his body rise-cock, tears, and hopes all together-and wrapped his arms around Ennis’s back. With their foreheads still touching, Ennis placed his hands on either side of Jack’s face and looked into his eyes. Ennis’s eyes were a rich golden brown, their depths shining. He blinked a few times but couldn’t stop an errant tear from trailing down the side of his nose.
Jack sat down on the truck’s bench seat and tugged Ennis closer. Ennis reached down under the seat and wrenched on the lever, shoving the seat as far back as it would go. Then he pushed Jack down onto his back and fell on top of him, the hot skin of their bellies kissing when their shirts rode up. Jack heard his own moan as if from a great distance. He pulled Ennis’s head down and ground their mouths together. The house of cards disappeared in a flurry of wet tongues and thrusting groins.
Ennis unbuttoned Jack’s shirt, his fingers fumbling with the buttons and sliding nervously over the worn denim. He ran his hands across Jack’s chest, rolling the nipples between thumbs and forefingers until Jack thought he would go crazy. Ennis’s own nipples punched like diamonds against the thin fabric of his shirt; his hands moved lower to feel Jack’s stomach before cracking open his belt buckle. Jack raised his hips off the seat and twisted to one side so Ennis could push off his jeans and boots.
Jack tried to haul Ennis closer so he could pull off his clothing, but Ennis had other ideas. He stood up and unbuttoned his own shirt with one hand, holding onto the open door with the other. “Want you to . . . hold me,” he said in a low voice, looking somewhere to Jack’s right. He shrugged his shirt off, right into the dirt, and turned his back to Jack. Undoing his belt buckle, he pushed his jeans down and nudged his ass between Jack’s legs.
Jack sat up, his mouth suddenly dry, and wrapped himself around Ennis, his erection trapped against Ennis’s ass. He pressed the palms of his hands flat against Ennis’s chest and moved his hands in slow circles, feeling for the hard beads of his nipples. Trailing his hands down Ennis’s body, he relished the smooth outline of muscles beneath the skin, his rapid, steady breaths. Jack dipped a finger briefly in Ennis’s navel, making him shudder, then rubbed his belly in tender lines just above his groin. Ennis dropped his head back on Jack’s shoulder and groaned, then whispered something Jack couldn’t quite make out.
“What was that, Ennis?” Jack murmured into his ear.
“Want to feel you . . . inside,” Ennis said softly, his voice forcing its way out of his chest in breathy little fragments.
The fine hairs on the back of Jack’s neck stood up; his balls tightened and drew up. He had to stop what he was doing, grip Ennis’s shoulders and lean his head on Ennis’s back for a moment, to keep himself from going over the edge right then. When he had control again, he slid one index finger into his own mouth and stroked it down the cleft of Ennis’s ass. Ennis gasped and shivered.
“’M I hurtin’ you, Ennis?” Jack asked, his hand freezing in place.
“No . . . please, Jack.” Ennis panted, his head hanging down. “More.”
Jack moistened his first two fingers and stroked them along Ennis’s backside again, parting his cheeks as carefully as he could. Ennis heaved a huge sigh and pushed himself back against Jack’s fingers. Jack eased one inside, alert for any signs of resistance or muscles pushing him back out. But Ennis gripped one of Jack’s thighs with each hand and let out a high-pitched whine-a noise that Jack had never heard him make before. Jack dared a second finger, and Ennis bucked, then began to move his hips back and forth, angling his pelvis sharply toward the windshield. Clearly Jack had hit the spot that Ennis always found in him, from which a kind of shivering electricity shot through his groin and up his torso.
“Should I stop?” Jack whispered.
“Nooo. . . . Can you? . . . In me?” Ennis was fighting to get the words out now, his clenching fingers leaving red streaks on Jack’s legs.
Jack caught his breath, his dick so hard that every brush against Ennis’s back sent fire through his belly. He eased his fingers out, smoothed his hands along Ennis’s shoulders, and kissed the base of his neck. He was ready, more than ready, had been dreaming of this moment since before time began, it seemed.
Jack slipped one hand down to hold Ennis’s hip, took a deep breath. He brushed his lips against Ennis’s neck and, taking himself in hand, found his way inside. Ennis stiffened for a moment, raising his head, then relaxed again, pushing back against Jack and moaning long and low. Jack began to thrust, cautiously at first, then losing himself in the magical combination of heat and compression and Ennis, giving to him in this way. He slid his hand across Ennis’s stomach and down, found his cock and began to stroke him. They moved together for a time that first stretched out into a blue eternity, a perfect, matchless union of body and mind and soul, and then shrank down into nothing but this moment, like the tiny space of days they had been lucky enough to share. Finally, when Jack felt the first screaming edges of his orgasm lifting him out of his seat, he heard Ennis cry out and hot liquid spill over his hand. He grinned, propping his head against Ennis’s back and shaking with the force of his coming all the way through the bottoms of his feet.
After Jack had eased out and their breathing had slowed again, Ennis relaxed against him. Jack encircled him with his arms, and Ennis turned his head to plant a kiss on Jack’s shoulder. They sat wrapped together for a few minutes, Ennis’s hands resting on Jack’s arms and Jack’s cheek pressed against the side of Ennis’s head.
Ennis sighed, rubbing one hand back and forth along Jack’s arm. “S’nice, bein’ here with you,” he said softly. He brought one of Jack’s hands to his mouth and kissed it.
“Ennis,” Jack breathed, closing his eyes and touching his lips to Ennis’s temple. His heart was full. For once, all his gaps and hollow spaces were packed tight, brimming with sensation: warm, slick skin; gradually slowing heartbeats; the tickle of Ennis’s hair against his upper lip; his wilting dick still tingling with the memory of its recent home; Ennis’s unexpected tenderness.
He must have dozed, because a little while later he was surprised to feel Ennis shift against him. “Hey,” Jack said gently. “You OK, cowboy?”
“Yeah,” Ennis said. “Thought maybe we oughta get dressed before someone come along’n find us in the altogether.”
Jack chuckled. “Reckon you’re right, at that.” He squeezed Ennis’s shoulders and slapped him on the butt as he bent over to pull up his jeans. Ennis fastened his belt and retrieved his shirt, brushing at the smudges of dust. Jack found his own clothes wadded on the floor of the truck and took his time pulling them back on.
“Y’know, Ennis,” he said lazily, “We don’t hafta go back today.”
“Whaddya mean?” Ennis asked, his forehead wrinkling.
“Well,” Jack said, considering. “We could . . . stay over a couple nights in town. Then maybe find some work on a ranch somewhere. Help ship stock, clean up the barns for winter. Or . . . hell, I dunno, factories’re always hirin’ round here. Anythin’d beat another day in the dealership with L. D.”
Ennis turned away. “Can’t, Jack. You know that.”
“Why the hell not? I seen how happy you been, these last couple days. Don’t see you missin’ Alma’n the girls too much.”
“Christ, Jack! You got no idea what goes on with me.” Ennis shook his head.
“You got that right.” Jack sighed and leaned back on the seat.
“I gotta job already, Jack. Foreman’s probably pissed I missed these days as it is. Gotta go back and get dug back in, show ‘em I ain’t the quittin’ kind.”
“No, you sure ain’t, are you, Ennis,” Jack said, suddenly exhausted. He scrubbed one hand across his eyes, then reached under the seat for the release lever and moved it forward. “You ready to go, then?”
Ennis came around to the passenger’s side and got in, shutting the door carefully behind him. “Jack.” Jack didn’t look at him. “Alma Junior’n Jenny . . . they get to missin’ me when I ain’t there. I gotta kiss ‘em goodnight or Alma’s up for hours calmin’ ‘em down. Seems like a man’s family’s gotta be more important than-” Here Ennis stopped, apparently at a loss for words.
“I can’t believe that after what we just done, you can say that. Act like it don’t mean nothin’.”
“Jack, it does mean somethin’. It’s . . . it’s just that-”
“OK,” Jack said. He gripped the gearshift and looked over his shoulder so he could back the truck down the hill. Ennis laid a hand on his arm. “How ‘bout we meet up again soon? Say in January? I got some time comin’ to me then, things’re pretty slow at the ranch that time a year.”
Jack exhaled slowly, then nodded once, looking straight ahead. Ennis brought his hand up along the side of Jack’s face and gently turned Jack to face him. He brushed his hand along Jack’s jaw, then tilted his head in and kissed him. Their tongues met for a long, sweet moment, until Jack pulled away. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”
The drive back to Riverton took a little over two hours. When Jack drove past the incorporation sign, his chest began to hurt. Bile rose in his throat. Ennis’s street was at the third Main Street intersection. He started to turn the truck, then paused, his hand on the gearshift. “I can’t say goodbye in front a your house, Ennis. There anyplace we can go for a minute?”
Ennis hesitated, frowning, one knee bouncing up and down nervously. “Maybe . . . yeah, let’s try that. Back that way, there’s an old ball field. Hardly gets used these days, town don’t got the money to keep it up no more.”
Jack put the truck in gear and headed south. After about a quarter mile, Ennis tapped on the window. Jack saw a small, dusty field with weeds straggling up a rusty chain-link fence. He pulled off to the side of the road and yanked hard on the parking brake. Ennis got out and shut his door, glancing around as he crossed the yellowed grass. Jack followed, kicking the door shut and silently cursing the man in front of him.
Ennis walked around to the other side of the fence and leaned up against it, his hands in his pockets. Jack joined him, his boots feeling as if they were made of lead. At least there were no other cars around, no people, no accidental witnesses to the latest sad chapter in his and Ennis’s strange and lonely time together.
“What’d you wanna say to me, Jack?” Ennis was looking at him with wide eyes, bright with approaching tears. He hesitated, cleared his throat. “Know I’m gonna miss you somethin’ awful,” he mumbled.
Jack sighed, already regretting what he had made up his mind to say. “Just wanted to say goodbye, Ennis. Goodbye for real this time.”
“What the hell’s that s’posed to mean?”
“I ain’t gonna do this again, Ennis. This ain’t how it’s gonna be. Can’t just wait around while you live your life without no thought of me.”
Ennis gasped as if he’d been slugged in the gut. “But Jack-We’re gonna meet up in January, thought you-”
“Can’t, Ennis. I can already see how it’s gonna tear me up inside to drive away from you again. There’s no way I can keep doin’ this. Think on it a second. You wanna spend your whole life turnin’ your back on me, time after time? ‘Cause I sure got better ideas ‘bout how I can spend my time.” Jack stepped back from Ennis and leaned over, his hands braced on his knees. The air in his lungs was as hot and sharp as boiling acid.
Ennis crouched down next to him and reached out a hand. Jack jerked away angrily and straightened up. “You got any idea how I felt after we came down from Brokeback? Watched you get smaller’n smaller in the mirror, turned the corner and thought I was gonna die. Drove 600 miles with a hole in my chest. Cried so hard I almost fell off the road, more’n once. Didn’t sleep for days after that.” Jack shook his head and looked away. “Twice is two times too many. Not again. Not ever again.”
“Jack-I can’t-Wait-”
“No, Ennis. I ain’t waitin’. Not anymore.” Jack looked Ennis in the eye one last time, then turned on his heel and ran across the grass, knowing that if he looked back he would give in to his need to touch Ennis and take away the bitter taste of his words. Might even agree to do what he wanted, meet up at some cold pile of rocks in the butt end of nowhere, just for a few hours of heart’s warmth. Ennis expecting him to give it all, not keep anything back for himself, just like Lureen always had. Damn him. Jack jerked open the truck door, threw his hat onto the seat, and slammed the door. He turned the ignition so hard it hurt his palm, yanked on the gearshift, and the truck shuddered into motion.
The last thing he saw in Riverton was Ennis standing there, looking down at the ground between his boots.
Two hours later, Jack was blazing down Highway 25, not bothering to check in the rearview for cops. His eyes felt dry and stretched, as though glass marbles had been baked right into the sockets. He hadn’t thought much about Ennis-hadn’t thought much about anything, in fact. His mind had numbed into a pleasant blankness that he thought he could endure until Judgment Day. Scenery whipped by, the same collection of telephone wires and distant mountains and ragged pine trees rotating every ten miles or so.
The truck hit a pothole, and Jack was jarred out of his bleak contemplation of the Colorado landscape. He repositioned himself on the seat, listening with a frown to a regular thudding now sounding from the bed of the truck. Apparently something had jolted loose back there. He blew air out between his clenched teeth and pulled the truck over to the side of the road.
Going around to the side of the truck, away from the road, Jack was shocked to find Ennis’s knapsack resting against the back of the cab. He’d forgotten to throw it out when he’d roared out of Riverton and out of Ennis’s life. Now he had an all-too-solid reminder of the man left standing alone in a barren field. Jack picked up the knapsack and hefted it over his shoulder, surprised at its weight. He could smell Ennis on it, that combination of sweat and fresh air and the faint tang of horses that sent prickles up his spine every time.
Back in the truck, back on the road, Jack passed his hand over his forehead, fighting for control. He felt shaky and feverish, powerless to stop his eyes from leaking hot tears. He pressed the back of one hand to his mouth, biting his knuckle to silence a sob. The road wavered in front of him, and for a moment he thought about just taking his hand off the wheel, letting the truck go wherever it wanted to. The way he himself hadn’t been allowed to go. Not with Ennis, not this time and not ever. . . . Had he just been dreaming last night? It seemed like he had woken up in the middle of the night and heard Ennis talking. Telling Jack something about his daughter, Jenny he thought her name was, about how wide her eyes had opened as soon as she was born. Had been something else in there, too, about Jack himself. His eyes, and how Ennis missed their color every day. Just one of the things he’d said he loved about him.
Jack shook his head and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. He was getting a hell of a headache, that was for sure, and he had a good ten or twelve hours of driving still ahead of him. Best to think about something else now, focus on what he was going to do with the next fifty-odd years of his life. Because he did have a plan for it, without a doubt. One that didn’t include Ennis Del Mar, who for sure had never said the words I love you to anyone, much less to the busted-up rodeo cowboy Jack Twist. Musta been only a dream.
**********
Jack let himself into their bedroom as quietly as he could. It was 3:57 a.m., and he knew Lureen had to get up for work in a couple of hours, though Bobby would probably be squawking even sooner. He shucked boots, jeans, and shirt, leaving them in a heap at the foot of the bed and grimacing a little at the smell of sweat, smoke, and horses in their wake. Lureen was going to be just delighted at that little addition to her lacy pink boudoir, as she liked to call it. He tiptoed to his side of the bed and slid between the sheets. They were cool against his fevered skin, the pillow was a welcome comfort after the rocky ground of the past few days, and he felt himself slipping into the oblivion his soul craved almost as soon as his body was settled.
His temporary feeling of peace was cut off abruptly when Lureen coughed and turned over. “Jack? That you? What time is it?”
“It’s 4 a.m., honey. Sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.”
Lureen sighed, rolling toward him. “Missed you. Didn’t think you was gonna be gone so long.” She rested her head on his pillow and draped an arm across his chest. Jack covered her hand with his own and shut his eyes again, wishing for a drink, a hammer blow to his skull, anything that would erase the images of Ennis that kept thronging to his brain.
Lureen edged closer, pushing her breasts, loose and full beneath her thin cotton nightgown, into his side. “C’m’on, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Show me you been missin’ me too.” She pulled gently on Jack’s arm until he turned onto his side, facing her. His hand landed on her breast, undoubtedly by design. He was too tired to fight it. And he had a plan for living the rest of his life, didn’t he? This was just one of the many duties he had to fulfill in order to reach the new goals he had set for himself.
Jack slipped his hand down to cup Lureen’s breast more firmly, rubbing his thumb gently over the nipple. Her breathing deepened, and she reached down to grasp the bottom hem of her nightgown, drawing it up and over her head. She was completely naked underneath, as Jack discovered when he slid his hand down her side and over her hip. Her body was still firm and tight, even after the baby; Jack stroked her flat stomach for a moment, then moved his hand lower, to the warm, damp valley between her legs. She bucked her hips with the rhythm of his hand a few times, then pressed herself against the length of his body.
Under Lureen’s warm weight, Jack rolled over onto his back again, sighing as she licked his neck and ran her fingers, their long sharp nails grazing his skin, down his chest and stomach. He couldn’t be smelling too fresh after the three days he’d just spent in the woods, but she didn’t seem to mind. She kissed her way down his torso, wrapping one hand around his dick and beginning to pump gently. Jack’s eyes filled with tears. Ennis’s hands had been the last to touch that part of him, Ennis always sure about the best way to send him out of his mind with pure, toe-curling pleasure. In spite of himself, however, he began to harden, and Lureen moaned softly. She scooted down and fastened her mouth around his cock, sucking and licking with enthusiasm.
Jack twined his hands through Lureen’s hair and stared up at the ceiling. As the first sparks of orgasm began firing through his groin, he remembered that Ennis had never once done this for him. He’d had his head buried between Ennis’s legs time and again, yet Ennis had always shied away from returning the favor, able only to use his mouth on Jack’s belly and hips before he had to bring his hands down to finish the job. Well, that didn’t matter no more. From now on, Jack would be a family man, content to live his life here in Childress, having sex in a bed that belonged to him and his wife like any other normal person. His hips lifted suddenly as the climax hit him full force, and his eyes squeezed shut. Lureen turned her head to the side to avoid the spray, and Jack felt ashamed. She didn’t like dirt or mess of any kind. That was fine, though, because he was here to see that she got what she wanted. She would have the life he had first promised her with one foot out the door, the one with cars and babies and vacations in Florida. Now he was here to stay. Ennis Del Mar had made that much a certainty.