Meeting You Halfway.... The Dark Side of Night
Hey guys... I considered writing a more in-depth author's note to accompany this posting, but I've decided against it. I will leave you to read it and come to your own conclusions. This and the chapter following mark the official end of this short not-a-story story. Thank you for all of your comments and support of this piece. I'm pleased with the way it ended and hope you will be too. I always appreciate your feedback, and if you would like to discuss this with me at all, please leave a comment and I will make every effort to answer back. Thanks. Hugs to all... S!
The Dark Side of Night
Ennis was almost asleep, the tiredness of his body overcoming everything, even the restless confusion of his mind, when the door slammed again, jerking him back to where they were. He lay still in the dark, listening... heard Jack’s boots stomping across the wooden floor, the squeak of the bathroom door. He heard the toilet flush, heard the shower running, then the sudden quiet when it stopped. The scrape of the curtain rings on the metal bar, and he could see Jack standing there, wet and naked, and it made his dick hard and he wanted him regardless of what he’d done.
Ten minutes later, he heard Jack’s boots again, clonking around the living room, and he wondered for a minute if he might decide to sleep on the couch, but then he heard them on the steps, ascending, and he could breathe again.
It was almost pitch black in their room. There were two dormer windows, but the moon wasn’t high enough to matter yet. Ennis watched as Jack’s outline came into view.
“Jesus Christ it’s black as the ace a spades up here!” Jack grumbled, walking slow and uncertain towards the bed. Ennis didn’t speak, just watched and listened, tried to get a handle on the emotions that were running rampant inside of him, things that would make him blow fire if he gave them free rein.
Jack dropped his shirt on the floor and sat down heavy on the bed, pulled off his boots and threw them noisily into a corner, then stood up and shucked his jeans. Ennis watched, and since his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he was able to make out the pale glow of Jack’s ass, familiar after all these years, but still just as mysterious as that very first time. Mysterious and seductive.
Jack tossed the covers aside and crawled in, fought with his pillow and fidgeted like a Christmas eve kid for a couple of minutes, jostling the bed with every turn, before he finally settled on his back with his hands behind his head. Ennis watched it all out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t speak, didn’t move, the war that was raging between his brain and his heart and his dick still in control.
Jack sighed. “You asleep, Ennis?”
He thought about not answering, but that seemed pointless, so he lied instead. “Yeah.”
Jack chuckled and the bed shimmied some more as he rolled over onto his side. Ennis could just see him through the gloom, a pale outline against the darker blackness behind him. “You know, you’re a really bad liar.”
“Guess that makes one a us,” he said, fightin’ words out before he could stop them.
“Goddamn... here we go again,” Jack groaned, fell over on his back and slapped his hands on his chest. “What the fuck did you want me to do, Ennis? Tell you? You really think you wanted to know about that shit?”
In the darkness it was easier to say what he felt somehow, so Ennis answered from his heart. “Hell no, didn’t wanna know about it! Didn’t want it to be happenin’ neither!”
“I didn’t like you fuckin’ around neither, but it didn’t make a goddamned bit a difference to nothin’! You still did it!” Jack shot the words at him, loaded with hurt.
“Ain’t the same,” Ennis fired back, but he knew that wasn’t totally true. He didn’t like thinkin’ a Jack being with nobody else, man or woman.
“How come? Fuckin’s fuckin’!”
Since he’d said it, he had to back it up. “Well I sure as hell ain’t never fucked no other guy! Ain’t never even thought about doin’ that shit!” Ennis shouted, and it hurt too much to stay still, so he pushed himself up out of bed and stalked away. There was no place to go and he was naked anyway, but it was dark so he was covered, and now at least he had room to breathe.
“Well you ain’t me, Ennis,” Jack shouted back from the bed. “Don’t forget, Cowboy, there’s a reason I don’t look at Playboy magazine.”
“Shit!”
The bed creaked as Jack surged off it. “You don’t like that, huh? You don’t like findin’ out that the man you been fuckin’ for the last twenty years is a queer!?!” Jack came up behind him so close that Ennis could feel his heat. “Well fuck you if you don’t like it! I ain’t doin’ this pretendin’ shit no more... not for you, not for no damned body! If you don’t like who I am, that’s just too fuckin' bad!”
Ennis clenched his fists but he knew that wasn’t smart, so he thrust his fingers behind his head instead, linked them up and held on tight. “What about the rest of the fuckin’ world, Jack? Queers ain’t real popular around these parts, in case you ain’t noticed yet!”
“I ain’t gonna start dressin’ like a damn woman, Ennis, or makin’ a public spectacle a myself. But I ain’t doin’ this sneakin’ around shit no more neither. I spent my whole fuckin’ life livin’ one thing and wantin’ somethin’ else. I fuckin’ hate it, Ennis. May as well be dead,” he said, defeat creepin’ in at the last.
Those words and the way he said them slammed fear right into Ennis chest, broke his control wide open. He spun around and grabbed Jack hard around his bicep. “Don’t you say that don’t you even fuckin’ say that!” he spat at him.
“Well what the fuck do you want me to say?” Jack yelled back. “You brung me here to talk, so I’m talkin’. Tellin’ you what I shoulda told you ten years ago if I had the fuckin’ balls God give a mule. I ain’t doin’ this no more!”
“So what are you gonna do, Jack? You plannin’ to leave Lureen and shack up with some guy somewhere?” Ennis squeezed tighter on Jack’s arm. There’d be bruises there tomorrow.
Jack jerked away from his hold. “Me and Lureen ain’t been happy in years. Be doin’ her a favor if I left.”
“Yeah, I got no quarrel with that, Jack.” Ennis turned away from him, walked back to the bed. Even though it was dark, he didn’t want to take a chance on Jack gettin’ a look at the bleakness he was feeling. “But what you gonna do next, huh? Your neighbor leavin’ his wife too? That what you got goin’ on?”
“I told you... I ain’t done nothin’ yet.” Jack came back to bed too, dropped down heavily on his side. “Guess maybe that’s part a why I’m here. Wanted to see where we was at before I made up my mind.”
“He talk to you about this then?”
Jack sighed. “Yeah.”
“Fuck!” Ennis balled his fists, wanted to hit something, needed desperately to release the vicious jealousy that was poisoning his soul, but he was afraid once he got started he wouldn’t be able to stop, and he’d be fucked for sure if he showed up at work on Monday with broken hands. So he just sat there and swallowed it down.
Jack sighed again. “Yeah.”
They were back to nowhere, because Ennis was too keyed up to say anything else, and it was pretty obvious, even to him, that the ball was in his court. But even if he could say something reasonable, he had nothing to go on - didn’t know what the other guy had to offer, what kinda life Jack was hopin’ to make for himself. This new job was gonna pay more, but not much more... Even when his child support was done next year, he still wouldn’t be able to do much. Jack was used to a whole different life now than when they first met, back when they were both piss poor and equals in hell. Maybe it’d be best for both of them if they said goodbye and meant it.
Ennis looked over his shoulder at Jack, lying on the bed watching him, a pale ghost of a man in the scant moonlight that was finally finding their windows. In spite of everything that had happened, everything he knew that was ripping him up inside, Jack was still the most beautiful person Ennis had ever known, and the only lover he’d ever craved. How could he possibly find the strength to let him go?
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