Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5654836.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Tom_Hiddleston_-_Fandom, Chris_Hemsworth_-_Fandom
  Relationship:
      Chris_Hemsworth/Tom_Hiddleston, Hiddlesworth_-_Relationship
  Character:
      Tom_Hiddleston, Chris_Hemsworth
  Additional Tags:
      Cowboy!Chris, prostitute!Tom, non-con, Forced_Prostitution, medical
      examination_without_full_consent, Intimidation, Guns, Smoking, Fainting,
      violent_death_of_parents_mentioned_in_flashback, burial, Manipulation,
      intimidating_loved_ones, leaving_a_loved_one_behind_to_escape, Knives,
      wild_west_imagery, western_territories, powerful_horse_sidekick, Gunshot
      Wounds, Knife_Wounds, Blood, gunshot_to_the_head, Drinking, Gambling,
      Kissing, Frottage, Anal_Sex, Rimming, Fluff, Affection, Depression,
      Sadness, physical_beating
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-01-06 Chapters: 11/11 Words: 55605
****** Doves in the Desert Dark ******
by furiedheart
Summary
     Tom loses his parents in a desert ambush and is forced into
     prostitution in repayment to the person who saved him. Chris is a
     cowboy with a criminal past seeking invisibility in a small western
     town.
     "If you view the desert as an opponent, you will lose. No one defeats
     the desert. No one should try."
     ~Chris Bohjalian, The Sandcastle Girls
Notes
     This is based on a tumblr prompt by jordimeryle. I know this was a
     long time coming, but I'm very pleased to present you with what I was
     able to write for your prompt. I hope you like it. You've been so
     patient. Thank you! *hugs*
     **WARNING**
     There is one scene of non-consensual sexual intercourse, followed by
     several vague descriptions of non-consensual sexual intercourse. None
     of the violence and non-con occurs between Tom and Chris. There is
     forced prostitution and violence in this story, murder and blood.
     Please be advised.
     This and this is Chris. This and this is Tom.
     Beta'd by the wonderful duskyhuedladysatan. ilysm.
***** Dead Hearts *****
There was grit in his hair, sand sparking between his teeth. He was unclean.
He couldn’t remember how far he’d walked, or when the blood splotches on his
neck and chest had dried and flaked off, looking now like stained oil and
nothing more. Grime coated his skin, smudged around his eyes as he squinted and
sweated and tried not to die.
But maybe he should die. Maybe he deserved it, when they had not.
Because the memory of huddling under the creaking wagon as his parents were
slaughtered, the steady drip of sticky blood through the wooden boards, his
father’s body thrown to the hard ground just feet from him, it all froze him in
terror and made him so very aware of his breathing chest and pumping heart
while theirs would no longer.
Lips cracked, throat hoarse, the desert a yawning mouth ready to devour him, he
was ready to submit.
Glass eyes. He couldn’t be rid of them, the way his father had stared so
blindly at him, gutted belly, his mother perhaps worse. They were gone now. And
he hadn’t even been able to bury them. He’d kept them out of the sun at least,
dragging their bodies under the wagon where his father had shoved him so
roughly - keep quiet now- and then later that horrifying half-scream before his
mother’s throat was cut. Murdered just feet above him, their flailing limbs in
broken snatches through the gaps in the wooden frame, dust and blood peppering
down to mark his shame.
Lurching wagon, dead hearts. There was nothing like the whistling wind over
vast desert sand and split earth to remind one of their crippling fear.
And now, feet aching, tripping through the brush, he saw neither serpents nor
men and was grateful. Alone in the world, he felt the weight of his parents’
loss like a sack of stones on his shoulders, dragging him lower with every step
he took farther and farther from their bodies. Hunched over, the sun swelling
over the back of him, he wept until he no longer could, until his tears were
streaks of dried salt on his burning face, crooked rivers revealing the softer
rose of him.
There was nothing left, why shouldn’t he just collapse now and give in to the
cracked ground of this desert, its ravishing sun, to the blinding blue of this
sky? He had nothing to give, nothing to live for.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
The road home was thousands of miles to the east, to the coast, to the paved
streets and tall, fragrant trees, abundant green and moisture in the air. Here,
everything was scarred with heat, with drought and dust, spindles and rolling
weeds, with a heaviness that only cruel living could abide. He’d never make it
back.
He couldn’t live cruelly. His was a mind for stone halls and bound parchment,
for pressed suits and schools of thought. What was he doing here? Why hadn’t
his father listened to mother, that there was nothing out west for them, that
they had their life certified and well-cultivated by the sophistication of
polite society? What was this wasteland to them?
But then, just as his knees were about to buckle, to sink down, a feast for
carrion birds, his shoulder nicked the hard edge of a building, knocking him
askew and sending his muddied thoughts spiraling. Stumbling, he blinked through
the crust in his eyes, blurred and dusty, and saw the narrow alley leading to
the main street of a town, roughshod buildings with the look of newness, the
sap still bright. Men on horses rode by, women in bonnets and lacy parasols
strolled at a slower pace, children squealing just behind. Was he dreaming? Had
he already died?
His tongue ached for water, swollen and scratchy and big in his mouth, limbs
trembling, vision waxing and waning like it did sometimes in his dreams. On the
verge of collapse, he managed a few more faltering steps and found himself at
the rickety boards of a pathway.
Eyes suddenly on him, many eyes. He cast his own down, words lost to him. Women
shrank away in alarm, men stared with disgusted, threatening sneers. Sharp
clarity flashed in his mind for a fraction of a second before his thirst
blinded him to all sense of propriety.
“Please,” he mumbled. “Water.”
“Get on out of here, filthy beggar!”
“On with you!”
“Get!”
Something sharp and thin struck his shoulder, stinging through the dirtied
weave of his shirt. Another lash sent him sprawling to the ground, a whimper
caught in his throat, skin smarting.
“The nerve,” he heard whispered somewhere above him. “Approaching people of
decent society.”
You are not, he thought fiercely, decent. They knew nothing of its meaning. But
his head thudded on the wooden boards and he lost track of the speaker, body on
fire, the sky merciless in its glare.
Lying there, breaths ragged, it all hurt so much, his heart a painful racket in
his chest. But then a large shadow loomed over him, blocking the sun, staring
down. The edge of a great skirt brushed his knuckles as the person bent down
and touched his face with a lace gloved hand, tilted his chin up and then down,
side to side, examining him.
“Hmm. You might just do then, won’t you?”
They were the rounded edges of a deeper voice, an older woman perhaps, dusky
and slow, refined and clipped. He hadn’t the energy even to blink, sluggish of
mind and spirit. Will gone, heart panicked and near death, he was ready to let
go.
“Come along, then. You can carry him over to my establishment.”
Strong hands grabbed him up under his arms and he was hoisted into the air.
Carried between two men, head lolling, he hadn’t a clue where he was being
taken, his stomach cramping, throat swelling shut, his mind succumbing to a
blissful blank canvas.
***** Vulture and Steed *****
Tom:
Water lapped at his throat, slim hands working smooth cloths over him in slow,
even arcs. He lapsed in and out of consciousness, his body scrubbed, his hair
washed. Soft, feminine voices brushed his hearing, too low to catch anything.
Gentle hands coaxed him to his feet, water sluicing down his form as they dried
and guided him to a bed, holding him up on his dead legs. Glimpses of
candlelight, dark red walls, lush purple sheets pinned across the ceiling like
billowing waves. They oiled his limbs and massaged knots from his aching
muscles, untangling his curls with a whale bone comb. Cool water flowed down
his throat, grapes pressed onto his tongue, and he moaned, wanting more, a
thousand more of everything.
And then suddenly the room was quiet, most of the candles low and burnt out.
Tucked under heavy blankets, he burrowed deeper into the velvet sheets and was
ready to fall back into oblivion when a laced finger stroked his brow.
Consciousness snapping tight, he started and roused. “Mama?”
The person beside him stiffened, finger yanked back as if it had been scalded,
a short sniff of ill-contained surprise. It took him a moment to realize it was
a woman, the same woman whose deep purple skirts he’d spied as he lay out on
the street like a gutter rat.
A low chuckle resonated through the room, drawing him further round. He rolled
to an elbow and felt his nakedness under the sheets. Curling his legs up to his
chest, he stared up at her and waited.
A tall and imposing woman she was, brown hair elegantly gathered in a twist on
her head, long-sleeved gown of purple satin and black lace buttoned high on her
throat, she stood straight-backed and very still, green eyes sharp and shining
on him.
“Are you simple?”
He swallowed, his thirst flaring once more. Still, he managed a whisper. “No.”
“What is your name?”
“Thomas, ma’am.”
A smirk. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Are you diseased?”
“What?”
“My girls examined you but found no sign of infection. A good thing.”
He didn’t know how to answer, imagining girls peering into his slack mouth,
separating his eyelids or looking between his toes, gazes drifting over him in
search of whatever disease this woman feared he might carry. His parents hadn’t
been ill since they’d begun their journey, and they hadn’t met any travelers
who had taken ill either. But Tom hadn’t properly eaten in days, and all manner
of vicious diseases seemed to take people at their weakest and most vulnerable
states. Surely this is what these girls had been searching for on his person.
And yet, the image of them spreading him, lifting his cock, bringing low his
foreskin leapt into his head. Heat flamed over his face, never having really
touched even himself in such a manner, never thoroughly at least.
“You are quite a beauty, I must say,” the woman continued, “under all that
grime.” Her eyes traced a soft line down his chest and over the thin curve of
his shoulders. He curled the sheets higher on himself and she smiled again. “I
almost left you lying there, as filthy as you were. But with such a petite,
slim bone structure, that lovely nose, not to mention that hair and your golden
lashes, well, I simply couldn’t. Are you feeling better from before? You were
near death. I have saved you.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “Thank you. I can’t ever repay you for your kindness.”
But with the dark air in the room and her gaze penetrating past the film of
decency other folks knew not to cross, he strained his eyes looking for an exit
and found none. A terrible unease settled low in his gut.
“Oh, little darling,” she said, laced hands folding demurely over the silver
vulture’s head of a parasol. “Repayment is of no matter. It will be a simple
thing, you’ll find, all instinct.”
Her words confused him, became matted together in his mind, too tangled to make
out. Where was he?
“Now,” she said, her voice taking on a tone he remembered from when his father
used to talk business and would order him out of the room. “What’s happened to
you.”
In very simple words, he told her of the greatest tragedy of his life,
traveling out west with his parents, their wagon overrun, their things stolen,
his parents murdered right before him. She cocked her shoulders and stared off
to the side. “Yes, well. Ruffians are all the trouble around these parts. No
one’s been untouched by their savagery.” So easily dismissed was his sadness.
“So you were raised back east, then? A cultured boy.” She hummed, appraising
him with a new eye, calculating.
He didn’t answer, just looked down at the sheets, a dark cream, like pus.
“The road to these uncivilized, western territories is not an easy one. Your
parents should have been more cautious, toting around a gem like yourself.
Don’t they know what a young boy like you will incite in others?”
More words that didn’t click, more things he didn’t know. What was she talking
about? Why wouldn’t she speak plainly?
“I was lost,” he said. “Where am I?”
“You’ve stumbled on Silver Dam. You can guess what is mined here. And I’ll
admit that we are still a growing little boomtown, but there are lots of men
here, men ready to work or gamble or drink themselves to an early death with
their earnings, both legal and otherwise. Lured here by the prospects of easy
fortune and a law-less living. It hardly matters to me, for men are the most
predictable beings on this earth.” She bent low and he got his first good look
at her. There were streaks of fine silver in her hair, combed elegantly and to
a fashion, small lines of age around her eyes. But the rest of her was smooth
and unblemished, the smallest hint of rouge on her cheeks and purple powder
above her delicately curled lashes. Her nose was straight and lovely, and her
full lips were tainted with creamy red paste, a blushing frame for her
straight, slightly yellowing teeth. Still beautiful, still terrifying. “Do you
know what men want, little one?”
He shook his head, not entirely confident in his own sense of manhood at his
early age. He was small and slight and hadn’t garnered the attention of many
girls back home. He was confident that would change as he grew older, that he
would fill out and grow taller and catch the eye of a suitable lady companion,
someone respectable, who would please his mother. At the eve of his eighteenth
birthday he was to be prepared for initiation into his father’s insurance
company, having resigned himself to a boring life of paperwork and stubborn
clientele, a comfortable, affluent existence nevertheless. Adamant that he
could expand his business in the wide-open, growing western territories, his
father had packed them up and left the relative luxury his wife and son
enjoyed. But his birthday, that first footstep on the path to his adult life,
was still a year away. Only now it would never happen.
He shook his head again, and the woman straightened.
“They want their drink, and they want their pleasure. And I provide both, with
the added bonus of privacy. This is my establishment, hard earned after years
of cultivating a niche for myself in these vulgar lands where petty atrocities
and cheap insurrections are frequent. My girls, however, are not cheap, my
place is not filthy, and the patrons pay highly for what I provide. Now, I’ve
had a couple of fellas who request a different kind of pleasure, slighter
things, just like yourself. And that is where you come in.”
He swallowed around his growing fear, realizing quite suddenly what this woman
might expect of him.
“M-me? But I’m a boy.”
Turning on her heel, she started a slow march toward a door he’d not seen
hidden in the recessed shadows of this bedroom. She smiled at him just before
turning the crystal knob, shiny teeth sharp in the lamplight. “A boy.
Precisely.”
Chris:
The sun out west was a mean and nasty thing, a snarling cur that bit and burned
you with fangs made of fire. It was an unkind affection the sun held for you,
possessive and unapologetic. You couldn’t escape it. It would find you, always.
Thing about the west Chris loved the most, however, was the heat of these
sands, a rippling blanket licking around the stained spurs of his boots. The
way it followed him snug and tight, beaming around the brim of his hat, casting
the land in glimmering yellow. His horse, Bullet, was also a nasty beast who
thrived in the heat when other horses would flounder. Joke around these parts
was that Bullet was a descendant from a fiery Hell Steed, eyes flaming red,
giant hooves cracking on the ground, long black mane silky and dotted with
brambles. He was a mercurial giant, affectionate with Chris and most women but
often violently defensive around other men and their horses.
Unless a mare was in heat, then God help the mare.
Ever since Chris had found him behind a barn on an abandoned farm somewhere
east of Kansas City, struggling to breathe in a deep quagmire that had formed
after several devastating thunderstorms, Bullet had been his faithful
companion, tailing after him for a half mile, snorting with exhaustion as
lightning and danger-black clouds spread on the horizon before Chris finally
accepted that the animal was his now, to the end. Good with following Chris’s
voice and the slightest turn of his hand or heel, Bullet would push and push to
get Chris where he needed to be, underbelly frothy with sweat, escaping from or
to a place already tingling with rumors of him.
The bloodied outlaw, the deadliest gunslinger since Jonny Lyon.
And maybe they were right, Chris thought, nicking the hammer of his Remington
with a blunted thumbnail, a habit since he was fifteen. Snorting impatiently
beneath him, Bullet kept stock still as Chris surveyed the valley, at the
center of which were the dotted heads of a couple dozen buildings. He would be
known here too, even without having ever set foot in its streets. Blood and
flame followed at his heels, but not always at Chris’s choosing. Sometimes
trouble liked to find him well ahead of itself.
**
Silver Dam was like any other mining boomtown, still growing, buildings
constructed almost overnight, any semblance of law struggling to keep up with
the rampage of strident crime and the free thoroughfare of manifest destiny.
Strike silver and become richer than you ever imagined, with the high chance of
losing it all in the next blink. Such were the trivial fortunes of men who
thought to beat the gods at their own game. But it didn’t work that way. Dice
and cards were entertaining, yes, but steel was the only way to determine
victory, pistols and blades his trade and weapons of choice.
Chris held the reins loose in both hands, a thin cigarette hanging from his
lips. Bullet’s ears were pressed flat, but he was always angry around other
people. A calm rub on his muscled neck placated him easily enough, tossing his
head in mild tolerance, and Chris chuckled, muttering out an affectionate
curse. He got a quick feel for the town, Chinese immigrants clustered on one
end, canvases strung from rooftop to rooftop, creating a patchwork tent that
kept the sunlight dim, like jewels in a mirage. The rich elite, so few of them,
had their own corner of the town, the buildings tall and freshly painted, with
imported jungle plants skewered deep into the earth of their backyards,
fragrant fertilizer dug into parched desert sands to keep them alive.
Such luxury, Chris scoffed. And for what? They should have stayed back east if
they didn’t want what the desert truly had to offer.
Guiding Bullet through the main street, he greeted no one and abided all the
staring in silence. Eyes narrowed from the glare, he kept his hat low, feeling
the heavy quiet in the air as he maneuvered to the stables, people hurrying out
of his path, speaking amongst each other in English, Spanish, and Chinese.
Chris ignored them, trotting past the small lot where a one-room school was
being built. The other horses in the stables began to immediately nicker and
whinny nervously at Bullet’s scent, no doubt edged in brimstone. The stable boy
hopped off a high wooden fence and approached Chris, a flimsy hat doing a poor
job of keeping the sun off his face.
“I need a stable,” Chris said, climbing off. “And he needs water and a quick
brushing.”
“Of course, sir. I’ll see to it right away.” He took Bullet’s reins with a
crooked grin, no fear for the beast evident on his face. Bullet rolled one
black and red eye at the boy and then sniffed loudly before turning back to the
stables, where the heads of several horses were poking cautiously out of their
enclosures, staring back at him. Chris pulled out a dollar bill from his front
pocket and the boy’s face lit up.
“You’ll take good care of him, and there’s another dollar when I come back.”
“Yes, sir! Absolutely! Pa has a couple of stables separated from the rest. I’ll
put him in one of those. He’s making the others jumpy.”
They turned to the other horses, who were stomping the soft ground uneasily, a
quiet, thrumming energy building among them.
Chris nodded. “Good. I’ll be back in a bit.”
He watched the boy guide Bullet away, dwarfed by the giant horse, talking
friendly to him as if Bullet would understand. Chris felt alright by the kid,
softened by the kindness he showed the animals under his care. Others in this
town, like any other town, wouldn’t be nearly so transparent in their inherent
humanity. He’d learned that himself at a young age.
The honest ones were quickly gone, dead or wise enough to leave, sometimes
trapped, which was worse. All the rest, well, Chris could tell their kind a
mile away.
Which is why pretending was the smartest game around.
***** Darks Rooms and Massacre *****
Tom:
Her name was Madame Adelaide, and she was terrifying.
All the other girls fawned and worshipped her, but Tom could tell it was only
out of fear. He’d heard rumors in the weeks after she rescued him – and thus
secured his indentured servitude – rumors of girls who had displeased her,
became diseased, girls who spoke out or showed defiance, a will to live lives
all their own.
They disappeared, a candle snuffed out in the dark, their beds cleared of old
sheets and replaced with new, fresh ones. A new girl would be found soon
enough, washed and oiled as Tom had been, thrown into service as soon as the
Madame witnessed their first bleeding. Pregnant doves held no worth to her,
unless requested by the men, which was probably infrequent. Too much trouble to
wait for the telling belly when that man might be dead the very next afternoon,
a boiling slug in his gut.
Tom had no ability to bleed, but the Madame kept him close by her side
regardless. She petted his hair and corrected his posture with a wooden ruler,
one time smacking his knuckles when she caught him biting at his nails.
“Do you not think that disgusting little creatures won’t spill down your throat
and grow worms inside you? And then where do you think they’ll crawl out of?”
He’d been violently ill after that, every itch and tingle on his skin a
disgusting creature invading his space. Crouched over the toilet in the private
latrine used only by the girls, and now him, he’d become damp and clammy,
falling back on his heels and weeping so quietly, desperate for his mother. His
entire life had been tossed up in a whirlwind, chained to this woman whose
moods switched as easily as the searing desert winds. She was polite and calm
with customers in the main parlor when Tom spied on her from the upper
balconies of the saloon she ran, walking among them with her vulture-head
parasol, her girls paraded in front of the men, sometimes topless, with tassels
dangling from their bouncy breasts.
He didn’t know how he could possibly do anything of the sort, but the Madame
had been steadily grooming him into the idea. And it wasn’t really an idea,
rather an unspoken truth, a command. His repayment for his salvation.
And then there were the moments when her face was as dark as a storm cloud, all
tight lips and delicately furrowed brows. She wouldn’t scream and she wouldn’t
strike, but it was all in the low timbre of her voice that kept Tom and the
girls in careful check. Because no matter the details of their work for her,
she still provided a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, keeping
them clean and relatively safe, apart from the times they spent in private with
the men. Sometimes the girls came back with black eyes or hand marks around
their throats, their hips and wrists bruised darkly. Tom watched as the others
would gather around the injured girl and smooth oils on her skin or press
bundles of ice – a luxury in this oppressive wilderness of heat and sand. Tom
would hang back at the edges of their circle, wanting to be of comfort, unsure
if he would be rejected.
But one of the girls, Evangeline, took hold of his elbow one day and quietly
asked for a basket of cloths from the upstairs linen closet, and just like that
they began speaking to him. They never approached the Madam about these cruel
incidents with the men, but Tom could tell by the hard set to their jaws that
it bothered the girls greatly, and he began to see why some might have chosen
to defy her at the risk of certain banishment. What happened that made them
disappear?
Did she have them killed? Dragged out into the desert to fend for themselves?
Gifted to the last customer to have touched them, however cruel and merciless
he may be? Sold to other houses with worse reputations? Because it was more
than obvious that she owned them, each and every one, that each in some way
owed her a terrible debt, and belonged to her for as long as she found them
useful.
Tom was too afraid to even contemplate what other brutalities of which the
Madame was capable, content enough to be welcomed by the other girls, who
petted his hair and snuggled with him in bed, sometimes three or four of them
wrapped tightly beside him. In all, he’d counted two dozen girls, bunking in
doubles and triples, taking shifts with entertaining the men. Their private
bedrooms were on the third floor, where they could rest and keep themselves
clean. The ‘dark rooms’, as Evangeline called them, were on the second floor,
and they were always occupied, day and night, the girls leading the paying
customers into their shadowy recesses and coming out minutes, sometimes hours
later, eyes glazed, cheeks flushed. But the tears they left for later, in the
soft embraces of their fellow sisters, where they could finally shutter open
their grief and weep for their ruined hearts.
Tom was instructed by the Madame to help prepare the rooms for the next guests.
“Don’t change the sheets unless you absolutely have to. Too much white –,” here
she shrugged and tapped her vulture-head parasol to the scraped wooden frame of
the bed. “—or red, will taint the experience for the next person. If not
stained, leave the sheets and simply reposition the spread. Fluff the pillows.
Refill the oil in the lamps. Light incense if the scent is too disturbing. And
be gone before you hear the creak on the stairs. If you’re not, I can’t help
what any of the men might do to you before you are ready.”
He wasn't sure why the Madame hadn't yet thrown him into the fray of steel-
toting wolves that frequented her establishment, with their stench and dusty
clothes, beady eyes soaking in the girls’ nakedness under wide-brimmed hats,
cigar smoke floating to the rafters like miniature clouds of doom. Not to
mention the many weapons they carried, guns and blades and whips, or just their
great big hands, scarred from wars and fights, were enough to inflict terrible
damage. But he had a suspicion she was simply waiting for the evidence of his
desert sojourn to be gone from his body. His feet had blistered terribly, his
nose and lips peeled of their delicate skin, the back of his neck red as a
lobster. But as the days passed he grew better, his thirst and bellyaches
calming, his skin new and soft and pale as ever. A new dusting of sprinkles
decorated his shoulders, and he touched them sometimes at night, remembering.
She inspected him every morning, ordering that he bathe and oil himself,
instructing the girls to begin dressing him in lace and silks, little slips of
gowns with generous skirts that still left most of his chest and arms exposed.
He would have to wear these garments all day and suffer her sharp but silent
scrutiny, knowing she was measuring how he looked against what her patrons
wanted of a boy like him.
It would be soon, he knew it.
“What will they do to me?” he asked Evangeline one night when they were curled
up in bed together. She had him squeezed to her chest, his head resting on the
swell of her bosom, stroking his hair as the other girls breathed deeply,
shifting in their sleep.
“They will hurt you,” she whispered, words quavering with certainty. “They
might make you feel things you like, good things, pleasant things. But they
will be fleeting. They only service themselves, in the end. But you come right
back to us, yes? You come to us and we will make you better.”
It unsettled him, how young Evangeline looked and how old her mind seemed. What
had this place done to her? At what age had the Madame taken her in? Such pasts
were not often brought up among the girls, and Tom took it as a cue not to ask.
Apart from following the Madame whenever she wasn’t in the open room of the
main floor, where tables were spread out for the patrons to gamble, Tom cleaned
the rooms and helped prepare meals. There was a hallway set apart from the main
paths in the building, a skeletal length of space where the girls and the
Madame’s kitchen staff came and went out of sight from the clients. Tom had
sought refuge more than once in that dusty, low-ceilinged track, the thin walls
doing nothing to mute the bursts of crude laughter and lively organ music. The
saloon was open day and night, and he wasn’t sure when the Madame slept,
finding her entertaining her guests at all hours. Her dresses, always covered
with a dark layer of lace, were of all colors imaginable, just as fine as some
of the gowns he’d seen back east. Once, he spied her on the wide porch just
outside the entrance to her building, a tiny cigarette in a slim gold holder
held delicately to her lips. She wore dark circle sunshades and was watching
the horde of townspeople make their way up and down the main street of town.
Her lips, when not pursed around the cigarette, were snarled just barely. He’d
never seen a woman before bare her true emotions so starkly.
Tom would have run away many nights ago if it wasn’t for presence of the
Madame’s hired men, six lean cowboys with stars for spurs and guns half-cocked
in their holsters. They weren’t allowed to touch any of the girls, and by
extension Tom, but he never allowed for even the slightest opportunity, fleeing
by them on his way up the stairs or skirting the ovens in the kitchens where
they ate. They would let him pass, chuckling shortly around lit cigarettes,
hats sweat-stained, obscuring their eyes.
The Madame certainly made plenty of money to keep them on as hired guns, but
Tom always wondered why she didn’t move on to bigger cities growing along the
coast, take her business somewhere it might grow and wasn’t at risk of disaster
should the mines go dry and Silver Dam become a ghost town. San Francisco held
great promise after the gold rush of 1850, Tom remembered his father
mentioning, or even San Diego, all still new to the Union following the war
with the Mexicans. With all that water and immense hold on land, California
seemed the ripest chance for opportunity and fortune. But when he’d found the
courage to mention this to her, posing his question about why she stayed, the
Madame only smiled and brushed around him with her bulbous skirts.
“I am tied to this land, Thomas. If Silver Dam goes under, it won’t be for
fault of my establishment. If anything, it’s because of me that this little
place survives, should the mines go dark.”
It was true that there were other saloons in town, a good spot of easy rivalry
that the Madame won with her options of girls. Hers was easily the most popular
venue, drawing to it all manner of society. There were drunkards and gentlemen
alike, seated rather severely apart, but with liquor and cigar smoke to assuage
tender egos, most days and nights went by with few fights.
Tom took it as a positive sign – for the Madame, not himself – that a school
and fledgling bank were being built on the side where the stables were. Most of
the streets even had rudimentary signs with names, Florence Street, Sage
Corner, Boothill Turn. Of course no town could be complete without a graveyard,
a plot of land toward the west where crooked headstones rose from the parched
earth. There was even a semblance of post, mail wheeled in months after it had
been sent, but arriving nevertheless. It was with mild jealousy that Tom
watched as some girls received letters from family elsewhere who believed they
were teachers and dressmakers and wives raising children.
It was a generally sad thing to witness.
When the time came, inevitable as the sun setting each day, Madame summoned Tom
to her bedroom on the third floor. This was the same room he had woken up in
after she’d saved him, dark cloths paneling the walls, a low-hanging crystal
chandelier, a canopy bed with a deep crimson spread. He hadn’t set foot inside
since then, and now took care to peek around at every detail he could spy in
the midday gloom.
“Come here, Thomas. Are you hungry?”
On principle, she fed her girls very little, wanting them lean but curvy enough
to be attractive. Tom’s bodily composition had always been slight, delicate he
heard his father say one time to his mother when they thought he’d gone to
sleep. But he was hungry, and often, yet knew not to ask for more than what he
was given.
He gave her a short nod, and whispered, “Yes, Madame, thank you.”
She smiled and motioned him to sit across from her. She lit a cigarette.
“That’s a lovely tone of voice you have. Keep it low when you are with the men,
whispery. They like that.”
Tom kept his head down, taking a single grape and rolling it between his palms.
“And there,” she said, blowing smoke to the side. “Your chin tilted low, your
eyes looking up at them through your lashes. They want a boy who acts like a
girl. Do you understand?”
He didn’t, at least not entirely. He was seventeen and had no experience with
the opposite sex, much less with the same. And even though he had often caught
himself staring after gentlemen friends of his father’s, distinguished in their
crisp suits and assured voices, focused on the dark hairs on the backs of their
hands, the curve of their ears, the twinkle in their eyes when they laughed
gaily, he certainly had no time to contemplate any such emotions that might
have sprung up at instances like those. Men who wanted boys who were like
girls?
“No, Madame,” he finally whispered, and she smirked slightly, letting her gaze
rake down his form. The lace dresses she’d ordered he wear were disturbingly
comfortable, free flowing around his legs, the soft material grazing his skin
at night when cocooned with the girls. But they made him feel terribly exposed,
and he felt a pang in his spirit at the plight all women faced when their
bodies were gauged for worth rather than their minds, what they held dearly in
their hearts.
Surreptitiously, he tugged the dress higher on his shoulders, but his chest and
neck were glaring in the dim light she kept, his long collarbones jumping with
every breath.
“The men ask different things of my girls. Some like for them to be crude and
rough in their speech, goading and, well, spirited. Others prefer the taciturn
tumble of a rag doll, no talking, no noise, just to simply lie there and take
it.” She bit out the last two words and Tom couldn’t help his flinch. There was
an animalistic shine to her eyes, almost pleased with the notion, and he bent
over his food to avoid looking at her. The fruit was fresh, as was the meat,
even if the bread was slightly stale. He still ate as much as he could while
being decent.
“What they will expect of you might be a combination of things, but I know for
sure they’ll prefer you docile, quiet, gaspy.” She shrugged, as if none of
those words weren’t making his cheeks burn. “Submissive. Which you are. I can
tell. And maybe with the right man, you wouldn’t mind a good fucking, but these
are paying customers and you’ll do right by them. All of them.” Puff of smoke,
eyes gleaming on him. “Won’t you.”
Her language scandalized him. He’d never heard a woman speak so bluntly. Still,
it was apparent he couldn’t cross her, none of the girls could, because she got
her way no matter what. Otherwise you were remembered only by a suddenly empty
bed and whispers in the dark, of where you were, what might have happened to
you.
She tapped her cigarette on an elephant ashtray and leveled him a cool gaze. “I
have several men who have shown interest in someone like you. Tomorrow, be
ready.”
Lifting a hand in a quick wave, she dismissed him. Lurching to his feet, Tom
hurried out the door and ran down the hall to the toilet, hunching over it as
bread and crushed grapes rushed up his throat.
Chris:
There was a room available close enough to the stables that Chris felt
comfortable renting out. The closer he was to Bullet the more at ease he’d
sleep at night. The woman was an older Mexican matron, with sharp, astute eyes
and lines of age radiating out from her puckered mouth. She didn’t ask his name
and he didn’t give it, but he figured she spoke more Spanish than English.
There was a bed and a rickety table with a cracked porcelain bowl he could fill
with water to wash his face and hands, which he did immediately. Checking the
grimy window, he surveyed the street below, watched as wagons and men on horses
traveled left and right, others strolling along the planks on either side of
the path. Women in hoop skirts and dainty parasols puffed along at a reasonable
gait, make-believe sophistication in the terrible wild west.
Already, he’d heard rumors about himself circulating. His arrival hadn’t gone
unnoticed, but Silver Dam had less of a structured semblance of maturity that
other towns and cities didn’t lack. Law enforcement was more of an ideal
philosophy, law and enforcement not exactly a priority just yet. It was true
that there was a school being built and a rickety, neglected excuse for a fire
station – and even a makeshift jailhouse that was more a shed than anything
else, no sheriff or deputy to man it much less fill it with criminals like him
– but certain parts of the west, like this one, relied on the respect earned
from a cultivated reputation, good or bad. Traveling thespians, singers, rich
philanthropists with aging hearts, these people were left well enough alone for
the sake of entertainment and free money. Others, the rogue cowboys and thieves
and murderers, the shifty prospectors with questionable morals and motives and
even more questionable land deeds, were the ones no one bothered for their
bloody and shady pasts.
For lack of trying, Chris was one of them.
The Cold Creek Massacre was something he wasn’t proud of, but he did nothing to
discredit the rumors – some true, some false – about his involvement. Him
against a dozen men, defending the honor of a friend, he’d proven himself to be
cold and cutthroat, the fastest shooter in recent times. But his friend had
lived and was now home again in northern Mexico. That’s all Chris cared about.
The coinciding pros and cons of being a person of ill-repute were that he was
generally left alone, or sometimes approached by others who felt they had
something to prove. Citizens with sudden spouts of goodwill who might wish to
be the source of the imprisonment of rogue men like himself. Chris wasn’t shy
on his gun. He used it often, and never missed, but people were made of
something stubborn, something stupid, and he would continue proving them wrong
for as long as he needed. It had been his lot in life to do so.
Silver Dam was his last effort to remain in the Union. If he could settle here,
remain relatively out of trouble until the heat was off his back, he would keep
low and quiet before moving on to more profitable or established localities.
Otherwise, it would be south of the border for him. His friend had a ranch he
could work on, maybe even find someone to keep him warm at night. Maybe not.
Staying home was what he wanted, anywhere in these hot lands, anywhere would
do.
Slipping off his boots, sliding his pistol under the pillow, Chris lay back on
the bed and slowly drowned out the signs of life around him – creaking bed
springs next door, a shout in Chinese from the street below, a gunshot and
bubbling, maniacal laughter from the roof.
He would need a drink soon, and wondered what was offered in the saloons in
these parts, and whether trouble would find him there.
***** Searing Sting and Whiskey *****
Chapter Notes
     **This is the chapter where the non-con begins. There is one detailed
     scene, followed by vague descriptions of other non-con encounters for
     the duration of the story. Please be advised**
“I can’t,” he whispered, tears burning hotly under his lashes.
“You can,” Evangeline insisted, quietly, the dark pressing in on them. There
was no one else in the room that night, the other girls servicing men on the
second floor, or spread out in the other vacant bedrooms. It was only he and
her on the bed, clutched in a tight embrace Tom normally would have considered
to be erotic, but he didn’t feel any attraction toward his friend, or any of
the other girls. Was the Madame right in her assessment of him? Was he really
geared toward the touch of men? Had his father somehow suspected, whispering
about him to Tom’s mother, as if concerned?
It was too much to figure and Tom’s current worries were too glaring to
consider anything else.
“It will hurt,” he said wetly, his tears smearing on her chest. “How can
anything…fit? There?”
She sighed and cupped a palm over his skull. “It’s possible. It is. They take
us there too, sometimes. Feels differently, I suppose, for them. But listen to
me, Tom.” She took his head in both hands and forced him to meet her eyes. His
sobs shook his entire frame, lashes heavy with dripping tears, but he sniffed
and curled his fists into her soft cotton gown.
“You will be just fine,” she said fiercely. “They will touch you but they can
never claim you. You hear me? Not until you will it. Not until you are ready.
Your heart is yours, they can never have it. They can use your body but can’t
get that deep inside your soul, where you live, that tender space that’s only
yours. Do you believe me?’
He nodded, trying to remember the steel in her voice for when he needed it
most. “What will they want me to do?”
Here she shrugged and relaxed back against the pillows. “They might want your
mouth on them, licking them like a summer’s treat. You’ll need to play make-
believe, Tom. But don’t be too excited or enthusiastic. From what the Madame
has told me, you should be docile and pure, which you are. My darling.” She
caressed his cheek and lay a kiss on his forehead. “They will want to stick
themselves inside you. I can help you prepare, if you’d like. There’s oil we
use sometimes to ease their violation. We often are not ready when they are,
and so the oil helps. We spread it on ourselves, under our skirts, before we
meet with them. They wouldn’t wait otherwise.”
“Prepare?”
Her brows puckered, as if sensing just then how lost he was, how very much he
would be hurt. “Yes,” she whispered. “With the oil, you can prepare yourself
beforehand. With your fingers.” She took his hand and pressed their palms
together, his long fingers curling over the tops of her own, dwarfing them.
“You are porcelain, Tom.” Her gaze dropped to the sheets. “You should not be
made to do this.”
Rising suddenly, she ran from the bed, her bare feet padding on the smooth
wooden floors like pale wisps of light. At the door she turned. Tom watched her
with a clenched heart, missing her terribly. “We are kept butterflies here.
Strung along in a loose net. If we beat our wings too hard, rise up where we
deserve to be, we are suffocated. Do you understand?”
Gulping around bile, he nodded and whispered yes. Eyes glistening, she dropped
her chin in small acknowledgment and fled into the barren hallway.
**
Procuring for him a small vial of oil, Evangeline guided Tom into the upstairs
latrine and in quick whispers explained what had to be done. Scarlet up to his
hairline, Tom bathed in the scarred wooden basin, dumping water over his head,
scrubbing his hair and under his arms, down between his legs, and then a bit
further. He’d never considered how very warm he was there, and the thought that
another man would feel that, and be possibly cruel about it, set his teeth on
edge. Sitting on the bench by the basin, he let himself dry slowly, the beads
of water trickling down his arms and chest, dripping from his curls. Skin
pebbled, fingers slicking over his thighs nervously, Tom considered where his
life had brought him. Not even of age yet to officially take over his own
father’s business, a moot point, he couldn’t begin to fathom what it would mean
to lie with a man. Certainly in his old life it wouldn’t be an option, unless
he began to entertain the vague, shapeless feelings he had when around his
father’s friends, or men on the street climbing in and out of carriages, their
movements drawing his eye to places his father would be ashamed he paid
attention to.
And yet, now that Evangeline had put a word to what he needed to do –stretch –
Tom was determined to do it. Wiping the last drops of water from his face and
smoothing a hand over his hair to rid it of more damp, he stood and uncapped
the vial of oil. Touching himself was something he’d done rarely and with muted
alarm, glancing at his bedroom door every other second, half expectant that his
parents would barge in and demand to know what he was doing. He’d undoubtedly
never touched himself here, he thought, reaching back and fingering between his
cheeks, never considered it would be important. A tingling spread under his
fingertips and he eased in the first fingertip.
He winced, unused to the sensation.
The oil helped immeasurably as he stood with one leg propped on the wooden
bench, angling his hips back and pushing deeper. First one finger, and then
another, he began panting, working his wrist until it started to ache. Briefly,
he reflected what something heavier, longer, thicker would feel like inside
him, and smiled faintly as his core started to thrum.
“Tom?”
He snatched his hand up, stumbling back on both feet. Trying to keep his voice
from wavering, he said, “Yes?”
It was Evangeline. “The Madame has summoned you. I think you have a customer.”
Well, then. He hung his head and nodded, even though she couldn’t see him.
“I’ll be right out, Eve.”
Her voice soft, “Alright, Tom.”
It was all a terrible blur after that. He was dried and slathered in cream, his
skin slicked and soft. Curls fluffed with sweet smelling oil, a dress of lace
pulled up his slim hips, sleeves falling off his shoulders.
“You’re beautiful,” Evangeline said. “I heard the Madame negotiating for you.
The man is paying three times what he pays for us. She can’t afford you be
damaged. Do you understand?”
He understood quite clearly what she meant, and felt little comfort for it.
You’re worth too much.
Rather than walk around the main parlor downstairs, as all the girls did before
leading their men to the second floor, Tom was told to wait in one of the Dark
Rooms. He had expected the Madame to say something to him before, some words of
encouragement or direction, but he’d seen not even a vanishing swish of her
skirts and he knew it wouldn’t have fallen into her line of character to do so.
He was happy to have had Evangeline’s company before it all, if only for a
short while.
The room’s walls had rich cloth paper of purple and gold. A single brass bed
with deep burgundy sheets, a small matching settee perched in the corner, and a
table on spindle legs with an oil lamp was all the furniture it held. Despite
the Madame’s efforts to convey luxury, Tom could tell the furniture was worn
down, the bed dipping near the middle, the sofa’s arms thinned out and a tad
shabby. Curiously, none of the dark rooms had windows, and he wondered if it
had to do with the space allowed for the secret hallway he and the girls and
house staff used to get around without disturbing the patrons in the main
parlor.
He was just about to sit when the door opened suddenly and a tall silhouette
walked in. The light from the single oil lamp sent a soft luminescence meant to
encourage feelings of romance that were often missing, and it wasn’t nearly
enough light to gauge who the man was, or what he might look like. It was all
shifting shadows under the wide brim of his hat, spurs jangling as he closed
the door behind him and stepped closer.
Tom’s breath caught in his throat, tugging the sleeves of his dress higher on
his shoulders, fidgeting where he stood, but he was still so frightfully
exposed, his bare skin dragging the man’s eyes down his chest to where the edge
of lace just barely covered his nipples, tickling him. Stopping just before
him, the man was only slightly taller than Tom, but might as well have been as
big as the ceiling. Tom wouldn’t cower, he wouldn’t edge away. If this man paid
for him it was because he was interested in him, and this might go well.
Swallowing back his original fear, he focused on the smile beginning to smear
over the man’s lips and reached with both hands to hold his arms, angling his
face up to kiss him – his very first. But the man snatched both wrists and
sneered.
“Turn around, little slut.”
The blood drained from Tom’s face as he was forcefully spun, catching himself
on the bed with both hands. His skirt was flipped up and cool air gusted up his
bare legs, over the curve of his bottom. Face on fire, tears sprang to his eyes
as hands dry and rough took hold of his hips, a cruel grip, a hard squeeze.
“She drives a hard bargain for you, that flaming bitch. But I see it was worth
the price. You’re a precious thing, aren’t you? You’ll be good and quiet?” His
voice had that twang that Tom was still unaccustomed to, most people back east
speaking colloquially in more clipped tones, nothing nearly so curved and drawn
out.
Mute with fear, he winced when the man thrust his thumb down the wet crevice of
his bottom, the oil from earlier still smooth on him.
“All wet for me, yeah? Good boy.”
The loud clink from a belt buckle made a whine slip from his lips, and he bit
down stubbornly, not wanting to encourage the man. But when the man’s dusty
trousers thumped to the floor, Tom’s legs started shaking, no matter his
efforts to remain distanced. Fingers clawed into the sheets, he was ready to
bolt over the bed and scream and scrape at the wall to escape when something
warm and big flopped lazily against him.
It was the man’s penis, he realized, his stomach rising threateningly to his
throat. Before he could even draw another breath to brace himself, the man
shoved himself into Tom, full head and entire length, the burn devastating.
Choking on a scream, lurching forward from the thrust, Tom felt split in two,
his core swollen and torn. Grunting and grabbing at him, the man fucked into
him like a dog, his clothes rasping on his soft skin, dirtying him. Tom’s feet
slid on the floor, his grip lost under the man’s determined strength. Hunching
over him, the man breathed hotly at his ear, tongue sticking out to lick at the
delicate shell. Disgust raged through Tom and he jerked his head to the side
with a small cry of protest, but the man yanked on his hair, twisting his neck
to the side. Gasping in pain, Tom held still as filthy curses were breathed on
his chin, on his throat, hairy balls slapping against him. Skin crawling, arms
trembling, the pain at his entrance only grew sharper the harder the man pushed
into him, and he hoped with all his might that this would be over soon, that
the man would get his pleasure from him and leave.
With another solid push, he was flung flat on the bed, face pressed into the
musty sheets, feet flipped helplessly in the air. With a grip in his hair
still, the man held Tom’s head back, neck arched up to the ceiling as he
snapped into him, the bed creaking and shifting, adding to the scuffs on the
floor. Teeth clenched, feet flipping helplessly over the edge of the mattress,
Tom started a slow count to a hundred, and when he reached that high number, he
added a hundred more. Before long, the man’s hip movements grew frantic and Tom
had the sudden glaring realization that he would spew his seed into him like he
would any other woman.
Propping himself up on both palms, Tom tried to struggle, kicking his legs to
throw the man off but the man only growled and pulled out of him quickly.
The sudden loss of him was painful, a throbbing settling deep inside him, a
searing sting that reminded him of torn and bloody knees. But tangled up in his
dress, which was ripped at one sleeve so that it hung nearly to his navel, he
couldn’t stop as the man took both wrists and tossed him carelessly onto his
back, a wide hand flat on his heaving chest, pinning him.
“Hold still, little slut. And open your mouth.”
There it was, his wet-slicked cock pumped by his free hand, crawling up his
body to straddle Tom. The swollen head, bulbous and enflamed, was mere inches
from his face and Tom’s entire body recoiled at the thought of swallowing this
stranger’s seed.
“Open it! Go on.” His growl made Tom clench shut, eyes, legs, mouth. Angling
his head away with another pitiful whine, more tears escaped as his hair was
wrenched once more and the man slapped him open-palmed, wet from his own body,
a loud, hard smack. Voice frozen, the stinging pain was immediate, a terrible
truth about the world gnawing into his heart as the man resumed working his
cock and then groaned obscenely above him. Hot ribbons of fluid flicked over
Tom’s burning cheek and the long line of his neck, globs of it that seeped over
his skin like runny milk.
And then the weight was off him and he was left sprawled on the crumpled
bedspread, shaking with fury and disbelief and hot, hot shame.
“I like a little fight, but careful with it, boy. Others might be less kind
than I.” Smiling as if he’d just given Tom amazing advice, the man buckled
himself up and promptly gave Tom’s big toe a little squeeze, a disturbingly
affectionate gesture that twisted his stomach into a knot. He snatched his leg
away, the man’s laughter echoing as he left the room, not even bothering to
close the door behind him. Turning from the column of muted light falling in
from the hallway, Tom curled up on his side and covered his face with both
hands, his tears finally falling as he sobbed and heaved in the dirty light.
**
Later, after closing his ears to the distant laughter and chatter from the
parlor downstairs, the smoke wafting up in tendrils that singed his nose and
burned dry his tears, Tom felt a soft hand on his arm, a softer voice just
above him, his name.
Evangeline guided him from the dark room and up the stairs to the third floor
landing. He couldn’t hide his limp, hobbling along beside her, the ache in his
tailbone deep and insistent. With an arm around his shoulders, and a hand
holding his own, Evangeline drew him a bath and helped ease him into the wooden
basin. Without speaking, she scrubbed his shoulders and chest, and then very
gently wiped the crusted remains of the man’s spend from his cheek. Tom’s tears
had slowed but his sadness lay heavily on his brow, his lashes wet and spiraled
wildly, chest jumping with short inhaled sobs.
“How is he?” he heard the Madame ask Evangeline in the hall. There was as much
concern in her voice as a rancher would have querying about his cattle. Door
cracked just enough, Tom lay curled in the tub, pressure building up in his
head as he tried not to hear.
Evangeline, out of sight, kept her tone clipped. “He’s torn.”
“Badly?”
“He can’t take another. Not tonight.”
“Tomorrow?”
There was a pause, and Tom imagined Evangeline cast her eyes down to hide her
frown. “Two days, perhaps. He’s new at this. He needs some time.”
“Fine. Two days to recover. But don’t think I’m affording him any sympathy. You
girls accept your purposes, he should begin to as well. Makes life easier for
all of us.”
Before he could hear another word, Tom curled over his middle and sank under
the water, the loud rushing volume of it flooding his ears and swallowing him
whole.
Chris:
The place was called The Sapphire Raven, and it was scandalously owned by a
woman. Story was she’d moved out west over a decade ago, fleeing a dying
husband who had left her a dwindling fortune. What money she had left she
invested in the saloon he now stood in front of. A towering building of three
storeys, it was recently painted a burnished brown, like copper. There were no
windows along the east end of the building, but any visible from the street
were shaded.
Women and liquor, what anyone would need to turn a successful profit.
Flicking his cigarette to the ground, Chris walked up the steps to the cool
shade of a wide porch. Festive organ music and laughter and the unmistakable
clinking of glass on glass could be heard from inside, but if it wasn’t for the
mystery of the woman Chris would have preferred one of the quieter saloons
closer to where he was bunking.
Brass chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting the entire parlor in pockets
of golden haze. The bar was at the back wall, with tables for pool and poker
just before it. Smaller tables were interspersed throughout, chairs occupied by
men in business suits or worn dungarees, guns and walking sticks
interchangeable in this crowd. Scantily clad women walked about the room,
snatched up at random by men who would deposit money into their small, long-
nailed hands. Chris watched as the women led the men up a side staircase viewed
by all to the second floor, disappearing into an interior hallway. There was a
third floor, with a wrap-around balcony, but the stairwell to it was
inaccessible to patrons.
“Whiskey,” he told the barkeep, angling his hat low, his coin clinking hollowly
on the wooden bartop. He paid the barman for a second shot and soon found
himself at a poker table, cards pressed to his belly. The men eyed him
cautiously enough, as they would any new addition to their table, but Chris
kept with the silence that helped guard against curious shit-starters, and the
game continued without interruption. Ever since he was a little boy, he loved
games with cards, sitting at the kitchen table with his old man and counting
out the decks. Picking up poker and faro was an easy thing when you studied
your opponent long enough, learned all of his ticks.
Taking a sip of the whiskey, he flicked his gaze up at the staircase and felt
his heart speed up as he caught sight of a specter.
There, climbing down from the third floor, in the close embrace of a young
woman, was what looked like a boy.
A very pretty boy. With golden curls and a flushed complexion. He wore a dress
of lace and seemed to be unsteady on his feet, leaning heavily on the girl. She
guided him into the second story hallway and they disappeared from sight.
Keeping his expression clear, Chris took his turn and ordered another drink.
The girl walked out on her own and found the eyes of a man down on the parlor
floor, nodding at him surreptitiously before climbing the stairs again. The boy
was nowhere to be seen.
A thin man with a gun holster and a stained Stetson left his game of pool and
sauntered up the stairs to the same hallway the girl had led the boy into.
Chris counted the minutes, twenty-two, before the man appeared again. He lit a
cigarette, hands shaking, and downed an amber drink at the bar, laughing with
the barman. There were two fresh scratch marks on his neck. The girl didn’t
come down the stairs again, and after a few hours passed, Chris imagined there
was another way to get to and from the first, second, and third floor landings.
Parading the boy out the front, sneaking him off out the back, it all smelled
like shoddy advertisement.
Remembering his lilted gait, his heavy lean into the girl, Chris wondered if
the boy was drugged, inebriate with powders or liquor. Or was he just
exhausted, in pain? After not spying him again, Chris quickly collected his
earned cash and went in search of some food. The woman from whom he rented a
room huffed at him after he tracked her down with a purple and gold parasol he
bought from a lily-skinned woman at a shop along Main Street, but he caught the
smile she tried to hide as she led him into the kitchen, where stew was cooking
and bread was baking.
***** Brink and Shot *****
Tom:
There were several more men, but he wasn’t sure exactly how many. Each was
entirely different from the other, and all terribly the same. Tall, short, fat,
thin, Tom paid attention to none of it. Eyes open, he froze his gaze on the
ceiling, or the wall, or the edge of the mattress vibrating from their
movements. The stench of some of the men was more difficult to ignore, his
stomach roiling from the bitter sweat and burned tobacco and tang of dirty
animals as they heaved and grunted over him. Most liked to take him on his
hands and knees, some preferred to rut wildly between his legs. Some liked to
spank him, and he would give small involuntary cries that spurred them on.
Others liked to choke him, big hands circled around his neck as he rocked under
them, legs flailing uselessly. And then there were the men who tried tugging on
his limp cock, urging him to spill as they had, but he couldn’t – he couldn’t,
he couldn’t.
The majority avoided kissing save for a few who – to his immense horror – tried
ducking down to catch his lips in their pleasurable throes. He adamantly
refused to comply, turning his head to the side, his cheeks and jaw and neck
peppered with ill-received affection.
He would never kiss anyone again, nor try to. The first rejection had been
unbearable.
Most of the men were of insignificant size, a blessing, the ache and sting of
it less than the rare ones that showed up with bigger cocks. He always prepared
himself with oil, leaving smears of it on him even though he was loose more
often than not. Where before his days had felt structured around his assistance
with the girls and the upkeep of the establishment, he realized, rather grimly,
that he was something of a bright star in the Madame’s black sky of greed. She
allowed him rest after every coupling, days he spent dozing in his and
Evangeline’s bed. The shock of penetration made him sweat the first few times,
and he would lay feverish while Evangeline pressed cold compresses to his
forehead, smoothing his hair, telling him how wonderfully he did. But he could
hear the anger in her voice, just barely suppressed, as she tried to revive him
from fogged delirium of the Madame’s cruelty.
But then the Madame would summon him once more, eyes shining with an
insatiability for money Tom had trouble understanding. Then again, he hardly
remembered a time when he understood anything at all.
He was sure he wouldn’t survive. One of these days they would kill him. One
squeeze too hard round the neck, one slap too strong, a gun aimed at him sooner
or later. But for all his customers’ efforts, Tom was a miserable heap under
their attention, tears clogged in his throat until after each man had left and
he could finally sob through his pain. In the bath later on, after Evangeline
would retrieve him through the back staircase and check him for mortal wounds,
he would count the new bruises on his skin, the dark and mottled ones, the
green ones soon to reappear, the ones invisible as of yet, only the bone-deep
ache of violent grips. Even so, as one week turned into two and three and four,
he would catch glimpses of the saloon and see the spoils of his despair.
The chandeliers were brighter, all the crystal pieces cleaned, the splintered
ones replaced. Newer, intricate liquor bottles at the bar, the sofas and
mattresses exchanged, new wallpaper plastered to the rooms. He slept through it
all, eating only what Evangeline brought to his lips, soups and fruit and soft
breads. But his bruised throat and sore jaw – and tender tailbone – made him
cower from anything heavier.
“You must drink water,” she urged quietly, holding a flask to his mouth. And he
would drink, emerging from the mist in his mind only long enough to blink at
her and see the mild horror on her face. What did she see on him that scared
her so? His pale lips? His hollow eyes? His lost will to live? She kept close
to him during his days of rest, the crucial hours after being used by yet
another man. He could feel her eyes on him from the cracks in the doorway.
Sometimes she would come straight to him after servicing a man, smelling of sex
and tobacco and stale perfume. Crouching at his side, smoothing his brow,
murmuring to him with small encouraging smiles, she would bring him back to the
brink of his former self. Nuzzling each other, giggling as she described this
man’s back hair or that man’s missing toe, Tom would remember what it felt to
have a heart.
“You coddle him,” the Madame said one night Evangeline left their room. Tom was
slipping onto the warm spot left by her body, caught once more in the in-
between of eavesdropping and not caring.
“I’m just protecting your investment,” Evangeline replied with just enough
curtness in her voice that told Tom she was playing at the Madame’s ego,
telling her what she wanted to hear. “We wouldn’t want him throwing himself out
the window. In his current state, he’s on a delicate precipice.”
“Delicate simpleton, more like,” the Madame replied, sniffing at the doorway.
“He’s doing fine at this rate. Any more men and you’ll wear him thin. His body
is still strong, but his mind is tortured. And then added to all this? He has
no one, and we ask him for all he has.”
“Don’t get soft on me, Evangeline. You were my first girl. You’ve been here the
longest. You know the rules of this game.” Her voice had gone deadly low, and
Tom strained to hear every word.
“I only know because of you,” Evangeline said quietly, a mean edge to her
words. “Because of you, I can’t leave this game. You, who should have torn me
out—.”
The sudden slap made Tom flinch, the smack of palm to cheek no doubt flinging
Eve’s head around. A rustling, and then more hard words.
“You listen to me, you ungrateful little bitch,” the Madame snarled, still
elegant in all her anger. “One night of opening my legs like you girls do for
my customers left me thrown out in the streets when you started growing inside
me stronger than I wanted. I should have torn you out, gone on with my life.
Lord help me that I didn’t. And if it wasn’t for that slit between your legs,
you’d have rotted in the bloody slime you arrived in. I made the best of the
sad pile that old goat left me, here in this hell’s hole on Satan’s doorstep.
This desert is all we have, Evangeline. This establishment is all we have. Do
you understand? So be a good, sweet daughter and fuck the men like I ask and
keep quiet about one more sweet, unfortunate darling who’s stumbled his way
into our eternal debt.”
Eve’s tears were quiet and shuddering, her voice one octave higher. “Then why
do you throw out those of us who get with child? Why are you so cruel?”
Another rustle of skirts, the Madame sounding more collected. “I made it,
Evangeline. They can make it too. I am but weeding out the weak ones. The world
can’t blame me for that.” Quiet footsteps down the hall, the Madame walking
away, her parasol tapping the soft rug. “Compose yourself, Evangeline. And see
to it that he’s ready tomorrow.”
Eve’s sniffles quieted after a moment before she too left, and Tom, knees
squeezed together, covered his eyes with shaking fingers and prayed the sun
would never rise.
Chris:
She was a tough nut, that much he could figure. After making himself a frequent
visitor at Sapphire Raven he’d spotted the owner several times walking among
her patrons, speaking to them softly, smiling, a generous host. He kept
anticipating that she might approach their faro table, but she would skirt
around them, heading to men he thought were very friendly with her, repeat
customers probably. Judging by the smell of new paint and the shine of fresh
lacquer on the cabinets at the bar and the staircase banisters, she was
improving her establishment and drawing in new customers. Her girls were busier
than ever, a continuous line of them going up and down the stairs. It did
appear like the boss lady granted them some hours of reprieve, noticing a group
of them switch out in shifts, new girls freshly bathed and painted, swaying
their hips and sinking down onto the men’s laps, flirting openly for the shine
of a silver dollar.
“Good day, sir,” he heard one afternoon, and glanced up from his hand to see
the woman herself standing just behind him. She wore a golden dress covered in
black lace, her eyes obscured by dark round spectacles. Hand clutched around
the vulture’s head of a parasol, she smiled at him. “I haven’t seen you round
here before these last few weeks. How is your luck faring?”
“So, so,” he said noncommittally, knowing her eyes were on the bulge of bills
he had in his front pocket.             
“Have you been able to sample all of the services I offer here? Poker?
Billiards? Top of the line liquor imported from the east. One or two from
Europe.”
He hummed, flipping down a card. The men at the table groaned and tossed theirs
down in defeat.
“And my women? Perhaps you’d like a chance at one of them?”
“Buying a woman has nothing to do with chance, ma’am. Money is exchanged, girl
is paid for. That’s about all there is to it.”
“Then would you like to make a purchase? We have nearly every type of girl
available. Gorgeous red hair, blond tresses, midnight blue in some light. I
could bring a few out if you’d –.”
“I’ll find you,” he said, waving another game on. “I’d like to finish my
whiskey just now.”
Her smile, while forced, was gracious. She nodded. “Of course, sir. Just speak
to my men at the bar. Ask for Adelaide.”
She left and he watched under the brim of his hat as the boy with the lace
dress, a different color this time, was brought down the stairs once more and
guided into the dark hallway on the second floor landing. A man rose from the
bar counter and loped up the stairs after him, staying for an hour, and then
two. Stomach twisted in an uneasy knot, Chris pulled out of the game and
quickly downed another shot before hurrying out into the bright glare of midday
sunshine, not wanting to wait around to see just how long the boy would be put
to use.
**
Sitting in Belen’s kitchen – she’d finally told him her name after clucking at
him like a hen when he strode in smelling of smoke and liquor with not a bite
in him – Chris couldn’t help but feel that something was terribly wrong with
whatever was happening in the deeper layers of the Sapphire Raven. The girls
seemed healthy enough, a little on the lean side, but smiling and laughing with
the men who paid them for sex. But a woman’s heart was a thousand leagues deep,
and they were artists at protecting their inner selves, doing what was
necessary to survive. He didn’t blame them for it, but he couldn’t trust
appearances for appearances’ sake either.
The boy was a different story, something irking him about the shuttered look on
his face, even from the distance Chris sat. His feet dragged, his hand clenched
hard around the girl’s, his body language screaming protest and haze. Judging
by the money signs burning behind the Madame’s eyes, she would drive a hard
bargain for the boy, but Chris had more than enough money. He could afford
whatever price she named. The more he thought about it, the better he felt
about the idea. Meeting the boy would put his mind at ease, this sudden and
silly notion about the boy’s safety and wellbeing unnerving him into a
sleepless night. Just as the sky was lightening from indigo to pale pink, Chris
saddled up Bullet and took to the sands, gunning him hard through brush and
nettles, the horse grunting through it, almost a deep giddy laugh, skidding to
a halt at the edge of a steep gutted canyon. Watching the day break, Chris was
beginning to wonder if he wasn’t better designed to fly, his immense love for
the sun making his chest ache, so anchored to the earth.
The stable boy was happy to see him return, Chris usually giving him a dollar
for every day he took care of his steed. Plus, it seemed Bullet had warmed up
to the kid, sniffing at his hairline and munching almost lazily at the apples
the boy kept in his pocket.
“Don’t get soft on me,” Chris whispered with a playful pat at the animal’s long
neck, and Bullet gave his own hairline a sniff, biting at the air by his ear in
warning.
In a few hours he would see the Madame about buying the boy with the lace
dresses for the day, adding enough cash for food and water to be brought to
their room. He would ease his conscience about the kid, hoping he was wrong
about it all and would get a good fuck out of it in the end.
***** Dainty Prince and Bargain *****
Tom:
It came to him in a dream. Escaping the Madame’s clutches would be fairly easy
if he could manage to drag himself out of the terrible wasteland his mind had
become. But sitting bolt upright in bed somewhere around midnight, Evangeline
murmuring and tossing on the mattress beside him, he realized with sudden
clarity that the hidden hallway was his best chance at saving himself. There
was an exit to the alley behind the saloon, where garbage and kitchen slops
were deposited and the servants met to fuck against the wall. If he managed to
slip away while the Madame’s hired guns were at the bar and everyone thought he
was sleeping, as he always was nowadays, he might be able to leave. His
sluggish mind stumbled over the possibility – what were the risks, what were
the risks? He would need to prepare a pack of food, a flask of water, an extra
change of clothes.
Only, he didn’t have clothing for men anymore. His were only lace dresses and
corsets, ribbons and hose for his legs. He hadn’t worn a pair of shoes since he
stumbled into Silver Dam. He would have to run off wearing one of those skimpy
slips or maybe his cotton nightgown, a gift from Evangeline’s own trunk of
clothing, but the more he thought about it the more he knew with absolute
certainty that dressed so inappropriately, feet and skin so bare, the desert
would kill him.
And yet, it didn’t matter as much as he feared it would. Because although it
was a terrifying and sobering thought, each day he survived another cruel
coupling with a man who cared nothing for him but the holes on his body, Tom
thought that death under the sun would be better than this pitiful existence.
He had to steel himself, keep his plan even from Evangeline, his heart breaking
every time he thought of leaving her.
“You heard,” she had said softly, after returning to him that night he found
out she was the Madame’s daughter. Sitting up in bed, he nodded and stood to
face her, but she turned to him with an expression akin to stone, her trembling
chin the only indication of the war in her heart. “You must hate me.”
“No,” he said, reaching for her hand. She clung to it tightly, still holding
back her usual affection.
“None of the other girls know. And I couldn’t tell you, Tom, least of all you.
For who would want to admit to having such a mother?” She wiped at her tears,
furious and quick. “She’s a bitter, malicious woman, and I’m her burden.”
“You are full of heroism,” he whispered in her ear, and her body started to
shake from sobs. Clinging to each other, they rocked and breathed together,
heads tucked against each other. “You are not a burden. She is yours.
Understand? You saved me, Eve. More than she ever did. You have kept me on this
earth with your kindness and your smiles, your soft, gentle touches. You are my
only friend.”
“Oh, Tom,” she moaned, and they didn’t let each other go until the next
morning, when their duties resumed.
If only it were possible that she could leave with him. And maybe she might.
Two out in the desert faced better odds than one. After all she’d done for him,
every kindness spent on him, Tom was loathe to abandon her. Surely she would
leave her mother’s cruel care for a chance to live freely?
It was because of her that he had faltered for so long at his conviction that
he must escape.
Her and the Madame.
There was a menace in her that flooded his bones with acid, filled him with a
terror he hadn’t felt since the day his parents had been killed on a wagon
creaking above him. She didn’t visit with him much after he started his
repayment to her, confident perhaps in Evangeline’s care that he would survive
each atrocious fuck by strange men. But watching her with the other girls, or
with the patrons in the downstairs parlor, her ability to coerce with such easy
contempt made him doubt his faith in the world where decent people scratched
out lives for themselves, while someone like she, a viper, remorseless and
single-minded, gained her riches off the abuse of his and the other girls’
bodies.
“Would you ever run with me?” he asked one night the wind howled at the window,
whistling in through the vibrating glass panes. Eve had told him about the
annual rains that came at the end of each summer, great thunderstorms that
shook the ground and flooded the streets, lightning cracking across black skies
roiling with giant doom clouds. They huddled together against the draft, noses
inches apart, shivering in the cool, electric air.
“Run where, Tom?” she asked sleepily.
“Anywhere,” he stressed.
“It seems so impossible. That big wide world. All that land, its brambles and
gorges, its spindled plants and creeping serpents. And you and me, two doves in
the midst of it.”
He frowned, trying very hard not to pout. “When you say it like that, anything
seems impossible.”
She laughed and pulled him close. “But I’ll tell you this, little darling. If
you see your chance, you go. I won’t say a word if I find you gone. Hear me?
You go, and don’t you worry about me. She won’t do anything to me except sell
me, and that’s something I’ve been doing since I could bleed.”
It was late evening when Tom rose from his bed, limbs stiff and sore, neck
ringed with bruises from horrible kisses and big hands. He was desperate for
water, but Eve was in one of the dark rooms and wouldn’t be back for a while.
Standing made his head spin, his inner thighs spiking with pain from strained
muscles. Slowly gaining his feet, he trailed a hand along the wall to the
doorway and cracked it open.
The hallway lamp sconces were lit and he stepped out lightly on aching legs,
not wanting to be heard. He needed to pass by the Madame’s room to get to the
back staircase that would lead to the kitchens, and just as he tiptoed across
the hall, a servant came out of the shadowy doorway carrying a dinner tray.
Deep in the dark recesses of glowing golden candlelight, he saw her, the
Madame. Her hair was down, soft waves that rested over the curve of her
breasts, her long-sleeved white nightgown accented with a rich velvet robe of a
deep violet. Sitting at a table of dark oiled wood, she was eating a succulent
fruit, juice coating her fingers and sticking to her chin. Green eyes flashing
toward him, she inclined her head in acknowledgement and grinned, teeth stained
blood-red from the pulp of the fruit.
Tom’s heart froze in fear, feet rooted to the plush rug lining the floor as he
felt his very soul submerged in ice cold water.
But then the servant closed the door and he was shut out from her world, from
her.
Spinning on his heel, he ran to the back stairwell and down to the kitchen,
startling one of the cooks when he slammed through the door and collapsed
against the wall, dragging in ragged breaths.
“Are you alright?” she asked, brows lifted to her hairline. He didn’t know how
loyal this person was to the Madame, so he needed to guard his words.
“Fine,” he said, gulping. “I almost fell down the stairs, frightened myself
half to death.”
“Dinner was two hours ago. Were you needing something?” She resumed pounding at
the dough spread on the worktable. Tom hadn’t wanted to eat anything when
Evangeline had brought him a tray, and now he cursed his stupidity. He would
need to start hoarding some of the food that wouldn’t go to waste as quickly.
Bread, fruits, nuts. And water.
“I was sleeping when Eve brought in our dinner. Can I bother you for water and
some bread?”
“You’re the dainty prince, aren’t you? The Madame’s choice cow.” She shrugged
and continued kneading. “The servants whisper about how you’re always sleeping.
But if I fucked as much as you do, I’d want to sleep too. Aren’t bowlegged, are
you?” She chuckled with all her teeth showing, reminding him of the Madame
upstairs.
Eyes on his toes, Tom said nothing, his face burning.
“Alright, little lamb. Here – take this flask to keep water upstairs with you.
You need refilling, just give it to one of the servants and I’ll send it right
back up to you. And take this loaf. Fresh out of the oven.” He accepted the
stoppered jug thrust in his direction as the cook scraped around inside the hot
oven, the bundles of warm loaves making his mouth water. One was pressed to his
chest as she bustled past him, its heat warming him through the thin nightgown.
“Want some fruit, too?”
“Yes, please,” he whispered, cradling the bread in his arms like a newborn.
Back in his room, he shoved the fruit and bread into a pillowcase and hid it
under the bed, going still as he wondered if he shouldn’t leave that very
night. It was as quiet as it would ever be, the Madame dressed for sleep in her
room, Eve safe on the second floor. No one would suspect her in his
disappearance if she was busy servicing one of the men. Nodding to himself, he
dragged the pillowcase back out and searched for some of Eve’s thicker
stockings and a long-sleeved camisole. He’d learned that the desert – the
ornery, ancient thing – was brutally hot during the day and cripplingly cold at
night, harsh winds stinging eyes and ears, drowning one in its fatal embrace.
He hoped it would be enough to protect himself until he could find something
more suitable.
Checking the hallway again, he tiptoed past the Madame’s doorway and down the
hall to the back stairwell, trying not to trip on his way down, karma no doubt
ready to punish him for his earlier lie. He waited a full minute by the ground
floor exit, trying to hear where the Madame’s hired guns might be, but at this
hour of the night they were probably at the bar, observing the remaining
patrons still playing pool or faro. He heard no heavy footfalls or jingling
spurs pacing outside the door. Taking a deep breath, he slipped out into the
back alley, glancing left and right, the smell of rotting trash making him gag.
But just around the corner was the wide street and beyond that his freedom.
Breaking into a run, he ignored the pains and aches in his body, his tailbone
throbbing. The dark buildings stood silent as he dashed past, their windows
dark at this late hour. The alley was deserted and he careened around the
corner into a shorter alley that led out into the main street. He was gasping
on fresh, open air, the moon’s beams shining on him, infusing his skin with a
speed he hadn’t thought possible after all he’d suffered.
The air was buzzing with a building storm, and he breathed deep and hard, lungs
expanding as they hadn’t since he was a child whooping happily through the
courtyard back home. Wheezing, he spun in place, the sky and earth rising to
loom at him with their possibilities.
Skidding to a halt, he cocked his hear, listening. From his right came the
curious nickering of horses. The stables.
His lips fell into an easy smile, something from his youth, a happiness. Maybe
if he stole a horse—.
A gunshot rang loudly from behind him, pockmarking the sand at his feet. With a
broken cry, he spun and fell clumsily to his knees, scrabbling to rise. His
pack of stolen food and water rolled to the side.
Two of the Madame’s hired guns turned the corner from the main street just as
another two stepped from the shadows around the corner from which he’d just
ran. He realized with gutted horror that their spurs were muffled with cotton
wrapping. Laughing at his panic from under their dusty hats, he felt a stab of
hurt in his heart, that it would only ever be his fate to be dragged back into
her hellhole.
One of them lifted his gun again and Tom bolted to the side, finding his
balance and running toward a tall building leaning in over him. He caught
sight, absurdly, of underclothes hanging out of one window to dry, the
moonlight washing everything in pale white. But out of the darkness of a side
alley came two more of her men, snatching at him as he tried to flee, their
long arms wrapping around his waist and knees, rendering his legs useless. A
wide hand clapped over his mouth, cutting his scream short, its echo ringing
hollowly in the dark.
In the shifting breeze of sands, not a whisper from anyone, not a peep through
a curtain, his kidnapping ignored or attributed to something eerie, maybe
paranormal. Such were the superstitions of people in these parts, and his
misery would continue for it. Smothered, he struggled in the arms of these
hired thugs but his efforts were useless against their combined strength. Body
exhausted from malnourishment and abuse, mind anguished at the taste of freedom
so close but kept just out of his reach, he eventually went limp, body sagging
in their tight grips as they sauntered back to the Madame’s saloon, up the back
stairs and to her room.
In a matter of seconds, the glimpse of the moon was snatched from him.
“Tom!” he heard Evangeline gasp, her soft hand on his cheek before being ripped
away, warned by one of the guns to stay back. Dumped on the Madame’s fine,
plush rugs he didn’t bother trying to rise to gauge her reaction. He could hear
her move off her bed where she’d been resting, his heart deflated with grief.
“What is this?” she said calmly, knotting her robe.
“Caught him trying to escape. Was as far as the Chinese quarter. By the
stables.”
Her gaze on the top of his head felt like a stab of glass. “The stables,” she
repeated, voice a whisper. “You would run from me?”
Swallowing around bile rising in his throat, Tom was suddenly wrenched up by
the collar of his sleeping gown, surprise widening his eyes when he looked into
the Madame’s frenzied eyes, her fists clutching him on his tiptoes. He clasped
her wrists, gasping.
“You filthy cur. You bleeding cunt! After all I did for you. Housed you.
Clothed you. Fed you. Saved you from death!” She shook him and he cried out in
fear, trying to angle away from her. But she threw him back suddenly and he
collapsed to the floor, dragged up again immediately by two of the hired guns.
Hands hitched over his elbows, they held him upright as she pointed a long
finger at him, anger making the vein at her temple pulse, her eyes aglow with
hell fire. But words seem to flee her as her mouth twitched and snarled,
spittle flying from between her teeth.
“Take him,” she finally said, turning away. “Hurt him, but don’t kill him.
Understand? And nothing in his private areas.” Furious green eyes landed on
him. “I need him to work.”
Legs wilted under him, Tom could only watch her as the men removed him from her
room, staring directly at her in the hopes that she would remember him when the
time came that she finally died, that he would haunt her even in that terrible
darkness of death.
**
The beating was painful, but short. The men kept their hits to the middle of
his body, shots to his belly and waist, kicks to his back, knuckles cracking on
his jaw, splitting his lip and the skin of his brow and cheeks. Legs and arms
pummeled, he couldn’t fight back, and was left on the ground in the alley out
back, a disheveled heap of bloodied and torn cotton. When Evangeline found him
she gave a loud cry and flew to his side. Eyes swollen shut, nose clotted with
blood, he couldn’t see or smell her, but heard her tears above him, felt them
splash in his hair.
The climb up the stairs was grueling and slow. With patient whispers she guided
him up each step, supporting his weight, pausing with him when the pain was too
much, when his gasps turned to strangled sobs and they needed to rest against
the wall before trying again.
Despite the Madame’s threat of having him work after his beating, Tom wasn’t
bothered for days. His face swelled, his torso turned a disquieting shade of
purple, and his back muscles were so tight he couldn’t uncurl from his fetal
position until several nights later, after Evangeline’s constant efforts to rub
out the kinks with heated oil.
“She was angry with them,” she whispered in the dark, curled around his back.
“They touched your face. She said she was very specific with them where they
could…well.” She sighed and snuggled into him.
“She told them to avoid my private areas. Because it’s obvious that’s all of me
that matters to her.”
“I’m so sorry she caught you, Tom. I feel responsible. I should have gone with
you.” Voice deep and bereaved, she cradled him gently.
The tears slid hotly down the bridge of his nose, and he skimmed his hand down
his belly to hold hers. “You’re the only person I trust. The only person I
love. I can’t think of what she will do to you if she thought you knew.”
She sniffed out a short laugh. “She won’t do anything to me, Tom. She needs me.
And she needs you. This was a warning. We need to heed it.”
Clutching her hand tighter, he kept his gaze on the fat outline of the bulbous
moon through the gossamer lace of the window, wishing it was only a few feet
away. He would hitch a rope to it and swing them away into the sky, away from
the tragedy of their lives, away from her. But it was long passed such
fantasies. He’d been given his chance, and it had withered to ash before he
could fulfill it. He was hers now, entirely.
Maybe it was high time he accepted that.
Chris:
It was the gunshot that woke him, bolting upright in bed to hear a short
scream, cut off by force. He’d heard the likes of those types of screams before
and they’d never boded well, usually followed by death or disappearances. Hand
already on his pistol, Chris was at the window in a flash, peering around the
frame in time to catch the flick of a flailing arm on the street below before
it was twisted away around the side of the building.
Jamming his boots on, not bothering to throw on his over shirt, Chris crept
down the stairs and out the kitchen door, the stove still warm from Belen’s
dinner. Outside, the street was empty, gusted with strong night-winds of sand
and the creeping desert-cold. Whoever had fired that gun or made that terrified
scream was gone. The only thing out of the ordinary was a small bundle lying
crumpled on the ground. The moonlight wasn’t enough to see properly but he was
able to catch signs of a struggle, bootprint gouges in the dirt. Scooping up
the small bundle, he felt its weight and then carefully side-stepped into the
alley and through the kitchen door, bolting it. Back in his room, he studied
the sack and discovered it was a pillowcase, rich and soft with the letters ANC
embroidered in deep green along the seam.
“ANC?” he whispered, pulling out a loaf of bread, two apples, and a shiny flask
of fluid. Sniffing at the rim, he sensed nothing and knew it to be water.
Holding the soft material in his hands, letting it slink through his fingers,
he had a curious wonder at the initials. Something this fine, the pillowcase
had surely come from an affluent person, someone who could afford imported
materials and professional stitching. Sitting in the dark, the gleam of his gun
catching in the moonlight, Chris couldn’t help but think of the one person in
town he knew whose name began with an ‘a’.
“Adelaide,” he said, staring out the window to the distant roofline of the
Sapphire Raven, where a single window was illuminated, the room at the very top
of everything.
**
He went early the next morning, after bathing in the rickety wooden basin Belen
kept for guests. The water was lukewarm and the soap was only a sliver, but he
scrubbed and scratched and made himself clean, his hair dripping onto his
shoulders. Feeling better than he had in days, he belted his gun to his waist
and sheathed a blade in his right boot, sliding on his hat last. A group of
children ran past him on the street outside of Belen’s building, right over the
area where he’d found the pillowcase with its measly scraps of food. The
shifting winds had erased all signs of the struggle he had spotted the night
before, but Chris kept moving as if nothing had distracted him. Lit cigarette
between his lips, he caught the lingering gazes of several men, nodding at them
as they hustled their women out of Chris’s path. Whether or not people
recognized him for what he did at Cold Creek or were just fixated on the
mystique of a new stranger, Chris appreciated when no one started a fuss over
things they didn’t understand.
The saloon was as busy as always, girls working through the crowd, a line of
them going up and down the stairs. He couldn’t see the Madame at first, so he
approached the bartender.
“I need to speak to Adelaide.”
The man nodded and put down the glass he was wiping. He tapped the shoulder of
a man with busted knuckles, leaning casually at the bar, watching the patrons.
Cocking his head to listen to the barman’s whispers, the gunman didn’t
acknowledge Chris, only straightened from his slouch and sauntered up to the
third floor. It was several long minutes before the Madame appeared from a side
door behind the bar, making Chris wonder once more at the passageways hidden
from the patrons.
“Ah! If it isn’t our whiskey drinker,” she said, smiling. “How do you do, sir?”
“Fine,” Chris said agreeably.
Giving him a quick skim from head to toe, she tapped her parasol on the floor.
“How can I help you today?”
“I wanted to solicit one of your—.”
“One of the girls?” she said, smiling widely, eyes beaming. “We can absolutely
serve you today.”
“Actually, I want the boy.”
Something flickered across her face, and she hesitated. “The boy is…indisposed
at the moment. Perhaps one of my girls would be—?”
“No,” Chris said curtly. “The boy, or nothing.” When she remained silent, he
crossed his arms. “What’s his name?”
“Thomas. The girls call him Tom.”
“Let me know once Tom is better. I’d like to try him out.”
“I anticipate he will be available soon. My men will find you.”
“Won’t be necessary,” Chris said, angling toward the bar. “I’ll probably be
right here.” The last thing he needed was this woman’s men scouring the town
for him, finding where he bunked. She might already know, with all the rumors
and news from town circling around her busy parlor, but Chris preferred not to
draw attention if he could help it.
He felt her eyes on him as he joined a faro table, but blatantly ignored her
after their exchange. There was something off about the woman, something
decidedly too sharp about her person that other women lacked. He was happy he
hadn’t gotten too close to her – he imagined she must smell like rotting
flowers. And he was sure that stench had nothing to do with her chosen
profession – it was something altogether more sinister than the flesh trade.
He wasn’t approached again until two days later. Antsy with suspense, he’d
bathed and eaten what Belen put before him, but his thoughts were on Tom and
what could be the matter with him that would keep him from seeing customers for
so long. He stopped his imagination before it got the better of him. Surely
he’d be able to tell once he got the boy alone.
He was five shots ahead, about to take a winning sixth in an easy game of pool
when one of the Madame’s men approached him. Forgoing his final shot and
setting a stack of bills on the edge of the table, Chris immediately hung up
his cue stick and followed him up the stairs, striding purposely in an effort
to conceal the apprehension that had taken up in his gut.
“Third door on the left,” he was told, shown into a cool, dark hallway. He
nodded his thanks and followed the patterned rug. From within the other rooms
he heard the sounds of fucking, loud fleshy smacks, small feminine cries,
grunts that sounded like hogs. Painted a somber lavender, the third door was
closed, but just as he was going to lift a hand to knock the rustle of skirts
drew his eye to another door at the end of the passage.
The Madame and her vulture’s head parasol.
“Payment up front.”
“How much.”
She named her price and he thought the sum a little high for a single hour, but
she was the only proprietor offering this particular specialty, so she could
charge whatever she liked. He fished out the bills and counted them out,
handing them to her without a word. She nodded and promptly left.
Glancing back at the crystal knob, Chris wondered if the boy had heard
everything, how much she thought he was worth. Taking a steadying breath, he
pushed the door open slowly and peered in. The room was dark, only one oil lamp
lit very low on a corner table. Tom sat on the edge of the bed, hand up by his
mouth, looking away from him. Wearing a long slip of a dress, all gossamer,
filmy lace, it barely covered the small curves of his thin shoulders, hanging
low on his chest.
Very quietly, as Chris stood there mute and staring, Tom sighed and touched
carefully around one eye.
“Hello,” Chris said, locking the door and taking a step closer. But he froze
when he saw Tom flinch and shift on his bottom, still refusing to meet his
eyes. The light was too low, the bed was too far, and Chris wanted to drink him
in entirely.
But the boy made no attempt to return his greeting, only sat frozen and pale, a
wilting flower. When another tense moment passed and neither spoke again, Tom
stood abruptly and turned to face the bed, dropping forward on his open palms.
Legs spread, head down, it was obvious what he was offering, what he wanted
over with.
“Wait,” Chris said, retreating a step. “You don’t have to do that.”
Blinking at the wall, Tom stared for a long minute before finally standing
upright again and sitting back down on the edge of the mattress, back stiff as
a board, eyes on the floor again. But there was a wariness about him, an
anxious uncertainty about Chris’s intent, this stranger who didn’t immediately
want sex. What had the boy been put through that these were his standard
reactions to a customer? Walking to the oil lamp in the corner, noting how Tom
turned his body to keep him in his sights, Chris adjusted the lever until the
flame bounced brightly, throwing an even wash of light over the room. Coming to
stand before him, Chris was careful with his movements, sensing the boy was as
skittish as a rabbit.
Seeing him in this brighter light, Chris’s heart dropped. Even though the boy’s
face was no longer swollen – as he imagined it probably had been before – his
delicate, beautiful, elf-like features were discolored darkly with variously
shaded bruises. His bottom lip was split, as was the skin by his eyebrow and
left cheek, inflamed and still healing. It seemed not a spare inch of him was
left untouched by marks of abuse, his wrists darkened, long lines like fingers
sunk deep into the pale skin of his forearms, and his clavicles, those long
delicate bones, were speckled with cruel welts. Chris almost didn’t want to see
what was under the boy’s thin shift.
“I won’t touch you,” he whispered softly, wanting very much to touch him. “Not
until you want.”
With that he sat down at the plush burgundy settee with gleaming dark wooden
feet, and lit a cigarette. Tilting his hat back, he relaxed into the cushions,
keeping his eyes somewhere by Tom’s feet, long and pale. Fine golden hairs on
his toes caught the light. Blinking rapidly for a short moment, Tom was tense,
looking ready to bolt out the door and away from Chris. But instead, he brought
his legs up onto the bed and inched his way between the two pillows, knees
drawn to his chest. At first he watched Chris, bruised eyes flicking over him
as a wild animal might, but when Chris made no threatening gestures, they
softened in exhaustion, lashes dipping low. Curled up into himself, gaze half-
lidded, it was obvious to Chris that this was no regular prostitute. One well-
versed in the ways of persuasion would have straddled Chris’s hips by now,
using voice and squeeze of thigh to tilt his mood for better payment at his
next visit. But the boy very clearly didn’t want anything to do with him, for
the rest of the hour, or ever.
The very next day, Chris paid the Madame again and repeated his previous
promise to Tom.
“I won’t touch you. Or hurt you.”
Tom, wearing the same dress of a different color, only stared at him blankly,
fists curled hard into the coverlet. After making sure Chris stayed put on the
settee, he resumed his position against the headboard again, but this time his
eyes stayed sharp, blinking at Chris from behind the pillow he held to his
chest, a flimsy guard against unwanted touch. His bruises looked worse this
time, darker, but that meant they were healing. Or at least Chris hoped they
were. The Madame’s filthy thugs better not still be beating the boy, he
thought, lighting another cigarette. Not that Tom would confirm any of that; by
the vibe of him Chris was sure Tom would rather speak to a raging buffalo than
him.
“You got a name?” he asked softly, hoping to bring him out of his shell.
Giving in to some hard-engrained lesson to obey, the boy, with lips only
slightly muffled by the smooth pillowcase, said, “Thomas.”
“Is that what you want me to call you?” Chris said, remembering the Madame’s
remark about the girls calling him Tom.
“You can call me whatever you wish, sir.” His head ducked back down, all golden
curls.
“I’ll start with your name.” Another puff of smoke up at the ceiling, a twitch
at the corner of Chris’s lips, and Tom’s head ducked further, hairline red.
The third time he paid to see him, there was a visible energy buzzing around
Tom when Chris walked into the room, standing quickly when he saw it was
actually him and not another man.
“Why are you doing this?”
Clicking the door closed behind him, Chris halted, boot heel lifted. Eyes wide,
dress sheer and lovely on his bruised body, Tom was nearly shaking as they
stared at each other, skin flushing darkly at his neck.
Keeping his hands at his sides, empty, Chris said, “Doing what?”
“This,” Tom hissed, pointing at the floor. “Coming here over and over and
making me go crazy with all these…these thoughts!”
“What thoughts? What are you thinking?”
“Look, I know my place, okay?” Tom said, voice deepening with sudden, brimming
emotion, his pretty face collapsing in grief. “I know my place. I know my role.
Alright? I’ve accepted it. I go away. I go away in here,” he said, tapping his
temple with a cruel, long finger. “But then you come in here and—and.” He broke
away suddenly and turned to the bed, shoulders hitching with a stilted breath.
Chris let him settle first, sinking down stiffly on the edge of the mattress
with a hand to his thin mouth, before finally moving. His boots made low,
hollow thuds on the wooden planks, softened only when he stepped onto the
intricate, foreign-looking rug. Pulling off his hat, he tucked stray strands of
hair behind his ears and placed it on the table. Tom eyed it nervously, a very
male artifact in this house full of women.
“Where do you go?” he tried, hoping to draw Tom into further conversation, but
he was back to being silent, a ticked huff of air between his lips before
casting his eyes down. Barely registering him, something crackled around Tom
that Chris found almost terrifying, and heartrending. But the longer the boy
sat there, naked feet and ankles across from Chris’s stained boots, the more
his thumb tapped a nervous beat against his wrist, eyes darting to Chris’s face
every few seconds before losing ground and retreating into himself again. He
was fighting something, a voice in his head maybe. Chris could liken it to all
the times he listened to a little bell in his own mind that trilled with
warning that second before the hair on the back of his neck rose and he was
spinning, gun already raised, cocking the hammer, finger on the trigger.
Maybe the boy was fighting an instinct to stay low and survive, or reach out
and possibly suffer more. Chris was content to wait him out, whatever his
choice. After a while, just as Chris was standing and reaching for his hat, Tom
stirred from his hunch, blinking up at him as if from a dream. Chris wasn’t
sure but he looked slightly panicked.
“Wh—Has it really been a-an hour?”
Chris put his hat on, adjusting it at the back, tucking his hair behind his
ears. “They’ll come looking for me any time now. I better get going.” He
started for the door but Tom’s tiny shuffle forward made him pause. The boy’s
hands were clasped, worrying at the inside of his bottom lip.
“Oh,” he breathed, eyes bright with fever or tears. “Yes…alright.”
Chris smiled and took another step away, hearing the boy take an immediate step
with him, as if not wanting him to leave, but hesitant to close the distance
between them entirely.
Half-turned, Chris asked, “You want me to come back?”
He didn’t exactly expect an answer – admitting to something like this could be
a sign of weakness in these harsher lands, especially to a stranger like Chris
– but the boy’s dropped gaze, furiously shy, seemed confirmation enough. Yet,
what Tom had said earlier stuck with Chris – about interrupting the escape Tom
forced on himself when visited by his paying customers, Chris’s presence a tear
in the tight weave he’d managed to wrap his mind in, to protect himself and his
sanity – it made him wonder if he was causing Tom more harm than good. Maybe if
Tom kept his head down and didn’t cause a fuss with the Madame, he would have a
long life here in her service. Maybe Chris was being a sentimental wretch
thinking this boy needed his help, even if looking at him now – with his soft
skin, mottled from another man’s hands for some reason or other, perhaps that
cut-off scream in the dark the other night – his doe eyes and their swimming
tears, his pretty feet turned slightly inward so that his toes touched, a self-
comforting gesture – Chris was half-ready to haul him over his shoulder and
steal him away from this place and that she-devil who owned him.
Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted to do. The boy had turned his thoughts
upside down, nearly forgoing caution for a spot of whimsy. Maybe this town was
the wrong place for him.
“I’ll see you around, kid.”
Mouth falling open, Tom inhaled shakily as Chris pulled open the door and let
himself out, standing there in his tempting dress like a pale ghost already
forgotten.
***** Hawk-Eyed Stranger and Kiss *****
Tom:
That night, Tom woke with an erection so painful he almost bit into
Evangeline’s shoulder. Stifling a moan, he rose to an elbow and unwrapped
himself from her, the sheets tented around his suddenly throbbing cock. He
hadn’t felt this need since before traveling west, his parents’ deaths and his
disgusting service to the Madame robbing him of all desire to take pleasure for
himself. Roaring back with a vengeance, the force of it made him stumble to his
feet and limp to the door, pausing to check that Eve was still asleep. The
hallway was empty, surprising as the Madame had started keeping one of her guns
at Tom and Eve’s door ever since his attempt to escape.
A hand over his crotch, he hurried to the washroom and slipped inside,
splashing water on his face and using it to lubricate his hand. It was a
terribly unfamiliar feeling, rubbing himself now after all his experience with
men pushing themselves inside him. No strange, calloused hands trying to crush
out an orgasm from him; this was his own palm, soft and warm, squeezing just
so, thumb massaging the hot, slick tip. His climax was sudden and devastating,
shooting out thick, copious ribbons of white, over and over, the waves of it
stealing his breath, eyes rolling up inside his head. Fingers scrabbling on the
wall, he fell sideways, collapsed to his knees from the force of it, balls
pulsing as it finally began to wane, his sight returning to him.
Apart from one tiny whimper, he’d been silent as a mouse, teeth marks ridged
deep into his already split lip, voice jammed behind his tongue. Gasping, he
rose slowly, trembling terribly, and hurried to clean his mess from the floor.
Just as he was about to open the door, footsteps approached on the other side
and he yanked his hand back, heart jumping to his throat. The voice was
immediately recognizable.
“It’s a terrible pity she’s fallen ill. One of my best girls. But that is the
lot of living in this life. I can do nothing more for her.”
The sound of soft spurs meant she was probably talking to one of her hired
guns. They were the only men allowed on the third floor.
“What do you want us to do?” Definitely a man.
“Get rid of her. Tonight. Before the others find out. Wouldn’t do to have them
simpering over this.”
They stopped a little further down the hall, and Tom pressed his cheek to the
door.
“Where is the boy?”
“Sleeping with his little girlfriend.”
The Madame scoffed. “It’s simple, friendly puppy love. It’s good to find
comfort in others when one is in such a desolation. I’ll let them have that.”
“I don’t get why you don’t just work him day and night. Get the money faster.”
“Spoken by one who so obviously has never been fucked in his asshole.” There
was a brief, terse silence before she continued. “Men cannot recover from sex
as women can, not when used in the only hole south of their navel, so do keep
your mouth shut about matters that don’t concern you and be certain that I will
run my business as I see fit. Now, see to it that you bring a doctor in to
examine the rest of the girls. And the boy especially. I need to make sure
Beverly wasn’t the only one compromised.”
Tom gasped, remembering the girl’s wispy soft blond hair, her lips naturally
red, her voice always calm and reasonable. Would she cry that night, alone,
somewhere in the desert?
“Ain’t no doc gonna wanna come to a whorehouse and check on these girls. And
the boy.”
“Then I trust you will use methods of persuasion that will ensure that one, in
fact, does come to my whorehouse.”
They’d walked off after that and Tom waited several minutes before slinking out
of the washroom, relieved to find their room still unguarded. Sliding in beside
Eve, he took her limp hand and draped her arm over his waist, pushing his back
into her front. He liked being held like this, liked being cocooned in
something, and humming softly in his ear, she obliged him, still asleep.
Wide awake now, it was hard to deny why he’d woken so suddenly in such a state.
Remnants of his dream still flickered behind his eyelids, the blue-eyed
stranger the focal point. Tom still didn’t know what the man had wanted, buying
him three days in a row and not laying a finger on him. It had been a kindness,
surely, but an odd one at that. It made Tom more uneasy, if anything, not
knowing what to anticipate from him. But he didn’t think sex was entirely out
of the picture. The man had looked at him with desire, however muted and at
bay, possibly even respectful. And big enough as he was, Tom was glad that it
hadn’t become physical, certain that had the stranger been the mean type Tom
would now lie broken and torn and irreparable.
Why the gentle prodding? Why the distance, the insistence that he wouldn’t hurt
Tom, wouldn’t touch him unless Tom wanted? At this degree, at this stage in his
new life with the Madame, what Tom wanted was now an entire mystery, a boggling
notion. Yet this stranger curiously, randomly, offered it up to him as if Tom
hadn’t just been beaten within an inch of his life for the attempt to liberate
himself. He couldn’t help being suspicious of the handsome cowboy, with his
tapered waist and long blond hair, eyes squinted but sharp, the brightest blue
Tom had ever seen. And his hands, long-fingered and veined. Rough hands,
working hands. Swallowing nervously, he realized he wanted to know what those
hands would feel like on him, but gently at first, gently.
Still, the first three days had passed so quickly. Tom hadn’t realized how much
he had started to look forward to the stranger walking into his assigned dark
room, knowing there would be no violence, no force. But he didn’t show on the
fourth day, or the fifth, and Tom began to understand that the hawk-eyed
stranger might never return, that Tom’s confusion and defensive attitude might
have scared him off. He might have looked at Tom and seen him for the corrupted
piece of filth he was, and thought not to soil himself with him.
It didn’t stop his heart from fluttering whenever Tom was summoned to the
second floor. He didn’t need Eve’s assistance anymore, but sometimes she still
accompanied him. He would peer around her shoulder into the parlor below,
searching, but he couldn’t spot him in the crowd of men the first few days
after the stranger abandoned him, smoke hanging above their heads. Yet just as
Tom was accepting that he would never see him again, that all the men who
bought him would never be him, he suddenly did, down at the parlor. He was
impossible to miss now that he knew him, his blond hair like stalks of wheat,
thick and strong, visible under his hat perched back on his head, playing cards
or shooting pool, as big as a mountain compared to the others. It was that
daring widow’s peak that Tom couldn’t miss if he tried, like an arrow to guide
his eyes down the tanned forehead to the regal nose, and those lips so full and
lovely. But if he managed to catch in time the man lifting his face to glance
at him, Tom tore his eyes away, focusing on walking calmly down the hallway and
out of sight.
To look at him, and be looked at by him, would be unbearable.
But it did nothing to dismiss the utter disappointment he felt whenever a
customer walked in that wasn’t the blue-eyed stranger. And as Tom rocked
listlessly under this or that man, eyes on the ceiling, pensive, seething, he
was assuaged only somewhat by the brief fantasy he allowed himself that it
wasn’t just some other desert straggler rutting into him.
That if he focused his eyes for just a single moment, he would see the soft
edge of a widow’s peak, and further down, waiting lips.
Chris:
Hanging around the place made him itch, that tingle of anger flaring up the
skin of his back so that he slammed down his cards for every win, or struck the
cue stick so hard it nearly snapped. Not only did the Madame grate on him, her
deep, trickling laugh following him no matter where he sat, but Tom’s frequent
appearance on the second floor landing made Chris’s hand stray to the gun at
his hip, eyes sharp on the men gathered in the place, wanting to shoot every
last one of them for even looking at the boy. It took his all the nonchalance
he could muster to keep his face blank whenever someone followed Tom up the
stairs and out of sight, counting the minutes until they returned, hoping Tom
was unhurt, that he wasn’t in tears.
In the end, the suspicion that he wasn’t unhurt finally got the better of him
and he sought out the Madame the following week. She was at the bar speaking to
a server, but dismissed him when Chris approached.
Trying to keep a low profile, fully aware of the continuous lingering looks
he’d been getting of late on the streets, Chris kept his hat pulled low over
his face. He didn’t want to give in to his feeling of suspicion, but he could
feel something beginning to brew among the other men of the town.
“Mr. Billiards Player, however do you do?”
Chris could have sliced her throat for the stupid nicknames alone.
“I’d like to buy him for the day. And have water and food brought up to us.”
Easy mirth brightened her face, barely masking the surprise that sprung up. She
chuckled. “Are you sure you have the stamina?”
Chris shrugged and gave her a wolfish grin. “Want to test me out on that?”
She very nearly stepped back, clearly uninterested. Instead she said, rather
calmly, “Is he really that good?”
Chris didn’t want her to know the extent of his interest in Tom, so he said
casually, “He’s alright. But I prefer taking my time before and after. And it’s
not good to use a mare too often. It’ll wear her thin. Same with the boy.” He
almost laughed at the flicker of thought behind her eyes, no doubt summing up
the money she could make if she changed up her hours. “I can give you less
money for a single hour, if you prefer that. No difference to me. He’s just
another boy.”
She snapped to attention, her smile all business. “No, let’s not get ahead of
ourselves. A full day. With amenities.”
He was ushered into the dim hallway the very next day, the Madame there to
greet him once more. She named her price and he paid her, passing her a bundle
of bills. After counting it, she smiled. “Food and water will be brought up
later. Three knocks.” With that she retreated into the hidden side door and was
gone.
When he knocked on the lavender door he heard a very timid ‘come in’ from the
inside. The boy was sitting on the edge of the bed again, the light brighter
than it had been that first time Chris had bought him. The gown was different
than before. Still floor-length, still transparent, it gathered in a loose
weave at the waist, the sleeves coming down to each elbow, Tom’s thin chest
exposed with a ruffle of lace. His back was ramrod straight, and Chris could
tell it was from the tight bone-weave of a corset he spied through the gossamer
material. Eyes trained on the door, there was something wide and expectant
about them, and when he saw that it was Chris, they softened slightly, his
relief barely contained.
Locking the door, heart thumping wildly, Chris crossed the room and dropped
into a crouch in front of him. Inhaling nervously, Tom eased away an inch,
still wary. Gulping silently, Chris rested both hands on Tom’s knees, chest
tightening when the boy drew them together, protecting his core.
“Hey. It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”
Tom moved his eyes away, something hardening his jaw, some knowledge of the
world that wouldn’t let him believe Chris. And based on how he had obviously
been treated while under the Madame’s care, it was no wonder. While most of the
bruises that had been so ripe the previous week were healing and fading
steadily, there were new ones still, dark against the mottled green and yellow
of the older signs of abuse. Around his neck and wrists, cruel hickeys sucked
into his chest, his lip bitten into.
“Did one of the men do this? The men that see you?” he asked, reaching for the
edge of the lace dress barely covering two small pink nipples. Pulling it low,
more bruises appeared under the hem just above the stiff edge of the corset,
like a canvas of plum smears.
“Don’t, sir,” Tom said, quietly urgent, closing thin fingers around Chris’s
wrist and tugging. “You won’t like what you see. You can take me with the dress
on, and be less repulsed.”
All rehearsed, every word. He had yet to look Chris in the eye, and it was
making Chris uneasy.
“You know I won’t take you unless you want.”
Distant eyes, no connection.
“Can you look at me?”
Tom’s gaze remained low.
“Please?”
Delicate blond brows puckered, white lashes trembling as the boy finally looked
directly at him.
Chris had to fight the urge to stumble back, never having seen eyes quite so
terrorized, so haunted and aggrieved. The lamp did nothing to animate their
dull lifelessness; two wounds that shimmered with barely suppressed tears. But
he stared defiantly at Chris, giving him what he had asked for, as if daring in
his own quiet way for Chris to be the one afraid.
“Who did this?” Chris asked again, voice a dangerous low rasp. Tom’s hand was
still wrapped daintily around his wrist, and he was pleased that he hadn’t yet
cringed from the touch.
“It’s nothing,” Tom said, voice dead. “I deserved it.”
“I really doubt that.”
Eyes back on the floor, Tom said, “What do you know about it. You’re not from
around here.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because decent people stay far away from this place. Only devils and strangers
come in.” Trying to process this, Chris shifted in his crouch, Tom following
his movements. “Which are you, sir?”
Both, Chris thought, rising to stand. Fingers slipping off his wrist, Tom
stared up at him, nervous again now that Chris so clearly towered over him.
“You…you really won’t hurt me?”
“No.”
Face crumpling in delicate confusion, he asked, “Then why are you here?”
“Because fucking and hurting aren’t always the same thing.”
Gathering his dress in a fist, Tom turned resolutely away, tears once more in
his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was heavy and wet. “Not always?”
Goddammit. Hands on his hips, Chris considered what to do. The boy had clearly
been used over and over by the worst kind of men, apparent property of the
Madame who would run him into the ground with no thought to his safety or
health as long as she got her profits. The skin trade was a dirty business, but
Chris had never seen or heard of a Madame being so careless with her girls, or
boys, in this case. Even in some of the darker places he’d been, and he’d seen
the ugly side of more than a few boomtowns. Such filth was easy to hide behind
the shine of luxury, as was her obvious intent, but this boy had been handled
in a way that made Chris’s blood singe.
“Why are you back?” Tom said, rubbing his brow wearily.
Because I can’t stand the thought of you in here with anyone else. Instead,
Chris said, “I was worried about you.”
“Why?”
“Would you believe me if I said I sorta have a soft spot for you?” He grinned
and the corners of Tom’s lips twitched, but he only shrugged.
“How old are you, kid?”
Blinking at his question, puzzling it over, Tom asked instead. “What month is
it?”
“Late July. Gonna be August soon.”
“Oh.” A short, horrified laugh. “Seems like so much longer than that. If it’s
only July, then I’m still seventeen.”
Jesus Christ.
“What are we going to do then, if you won’t fuck me.”
“I never said I wouldn’t,” Chris laughed, and Tom’s face fell open in alarm.
“But I won’t now. You aren’t in any kind of shape.”
The boy shrugged again. “If not you, it’ll just be someone else.”
“Well, not today they won’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I bought you for the whole day.”
Tom slowly gained his feet, his dress falling in a soft wave to his ankles.
“What?”
Unused to people making him feel stupid, Chris tucked his hands into his
pockets. “I wanted to, well, I wanted to see you again.”
Contrasted with the savagery of his beaten body, the subtle show of innocent
confusion on Tom’s face was tender and endearing, and Chris couldn’t believe
anyone would ever want to hurt this boy.
“What?” he said again, meekly.
“I kept catching sight of you, after last week. Walking down the stairs with
another girl. It’s the same girl each time.”
Something almost like a smile grazed Tom’s lips and he sat again on the bed,
drawing his leg up more comfortably. “That’s Eve. Evangeline. She’s my only
friend here.”
Taking a seat in the plush chair opposite him, Chris kept his voice low. “She’s
the only one nice to you?”
“Well, no. The other girls are kind to me. Sometimes we all sleep together in
bundles. But Eve and I share a room. She’s been…she’s – I’m closest with her,”
he finished shyly.
It was easy to imagine the girls gathered to sleep together, pastel doves in
the dark. “And the boss lady?”
Something shuttered over Tom’s face, and Chris hurried to say, “Seems like a
right bitch. Frosty with greed. She the one that had you beat last time?”
Tom nodded.
“Why?”
Voice a rasp, cheeks flushing under the bruises, Tom said, “Because I tried to
run away.”
Something cold tangled in Chris’s gut, and he leaned forward. “When?”
A deep sigh, eyes flicking around the ceiling. “I don’t know. Time passes
strangely for me here. But before you.”
Chris remembered the cut-off scream in the dark, the flailing arm snatched out
of sight, the pillowcase bundled with food left strewn, abandoned in the dirt.
Adelaide.
And just before Chris had bought Tom the first time, just before being told
that Tom was ‘indisposed’, the man sent to retrieve the Madame had knuckles
busted and bruised. All from beating the shit out of the slim, bird-boned boy
in front of him. Fucking cowards.
“It was you,” he heard himself say, and Tom’s eyes snapped to his. “Out on the
street that night.”
Another frown. “Me?”
“Yeah. You.” Reaching into his back pocket, Chris brought out the carefully
folded pillowcase he’d been carrying with him and handed it to Tom, who took it
in his thin, trembling fingers, mouth falling open as he recognized the creamy
material.
“Oh,” he breathed, two fat tears splashing down his cheeks. His gaze on Chris
was watery and devastated. “Oh, my god, no.” He gave one deep cry and then
buried his face in both hands, the pillowcase crumpled in between. Shoulders
shaking, his weeping muffled, Tom rocked slowly forward and back, all
devastated moans. Cursing quietly, Chris rose to his feet and went to the boy,
sitting down beside him and closing his arms around his slender, shaking form.
Tom stiffened at first, trying to draw away but Chris had only to give him a
gentle squeeze before the boy relented and was sagging against him as much as
his corset would allow, great big sobs wracking his body. But they were shallow
and quick, lungs constricted. Arms around his waist, face tucked into his neck
like a child, Tom clung to him as if his life depended on it, and maybe it did.
Maybe he hadn’t felt a gentle touch from a man in a long time, his first
instinct to cower in fear, expectant of pain and cruelty at the whims of
another person’s pleasure. But that sweet yearning for acceptance was evident
in how quickly he had collapsed into Chris’s arms, and Chris made a dangerous,
stupid vow to himself that he would save this boy, somehow.
“They’ll kill me,” Tom cried, panting. “She will. Or her men. Or the customers.
But they’ll kill me.” Broken little hiccups, gasps that trembled through him,
face shining and wet, Chris held him all the harder for it, like embracing a
tender little sapling from the European trees that grew in twisted grace back
east.
“Alright, it’s alright,” he whispered, rubbing the boy’s back, the hard ridges
of whalebone bumping under his fingers. Heat flooded his neck, unaccustomed to
the burgeoning feelings erupting all over his insides, caring for the boy as
unexpected and lovely as spring rains. “You’ve got to breathe now, or you’ll
faint. Deep steady breaths.”
Tom whimpered and shifted under his touch, a pained grimace on his face.
Hooking a hand around his waist, Chris kept him close, loathe to lose contact.
“What did they do to you?”
Sniffling, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, Tom blinked down at his
lap, lashes dripping. It seemed he couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t inhale
very deeply. But he managed the air it took to say, “Do you want to see?”
No, he thought, but nodded yes.
Pushing to his feet, Tom stood motionless before Chris for a moment, the light
throwing half of his face in shadow. But then he gathered the hanging lace of
his dress and started to lift it by slow inches. Revealed to Chris were long,
pale feet and thin, bony ankles. Higher still, the nervous flex of slim calf
muscles and knobby knees. Light brown hairs reflected off lean thighs marked at
random with fading bruises of various sizes, up, up to the darker gathering of
curls around a limp cock and tight sac, impressive for the boy’s smaller
stature. Keeping his eyes on Chris, Tom dragged his dress up to his shoulders –
the corset cinched tightly over his slim and tiny waist, the dark green of
verdant forests.
Chris swallowed, hand already rising. “Can I—?”
Tom said nothing, only watched him with those eyes devastated with tears.
Moving slowly, eyes trained on the boy’s, Chris reached around the back of him
and tugged the first string free. One by one the loops loosened as he worked
them up and out, Tom’s body rocking slightly. Chris remained seated, knowing
that to stand would spike Tom’s nervousness, and when the corset finally fell
loose he was gifted with an up close view of what the garment had been hiding.
Soft skin indented from unforgiving whalebone, a small navel, and black ribs
expanding in Tom’s first real deep breath. He was very quiet, tiny gasps
falling from his lips, and then he slowly turned, revealing the dark splotches
on his belly and chest, his entire back one giant bruise. The long line of his
spine, each tender little nub of bone, the long young-boy muscles, even his
buttocks were bruised, two ugly contusions with deep centers almost black, like
from the tip of a boot kick.
“They are fading, but…it’s hideous, isn’t it?” Tom said quietly.
Chris had to grit down on his back teeth to prevent his anger from swelling.
“But you aren’t,” he eventually said, and Tom shot a look at him over his
shoulder. He let his dress fall and was once more hidden from view. When he
lifted a hand slowly, Chris held himself still, watching Tom’s fingers uncurl
from his fist, the tips just barely grazing the prickly stubble on his jaw.
“You,” he whispered, lips trembling. “You are not like them. Why are you being
so kind?”
Blinking, Chris shook his head. “I won’t hurt you. Like I said, I wanted to get
to know you.”
Exhaling shakily, another tear spilled. “I am so weary,” he moaned, standing
above him, an angel of sorrow. “So tired. I can’t begin to explain.”
Fuck the Madame. “Come here,” Chris said, reaching to wrap both hands around
Tom’s small waist, but Tom went willingly, buckling into his lap, drawing his
legs up with the lace draped loosely over his soft bare feet. He was softer and
more pliant without the corset on, even more fragile. Both arms went around
Chris’s back, his head once more tucked against his neck, and he gave a
tremulous sigh.
“I’ve not been held like this. My heart is beating so fast.”
Indeed, Chris could feel the knock of it against his chest, could imagine being
able to see the pulse flutter sweetly at his throat under his pale skin. He was
so thin, underfed, it would be so easy to break him. In the warm light of that
small, impersonal room, Chris rocked the boy, a slow sway, inhaling his scent
of apples and milk, and something feminine, like perfume.
“Your customers hurt you badly?” Surely not all of them, Chris thought, surely
not all the men who’ve touched him did so with the intention to cause him pain?
Are we that bad?
Tom shrugged, a warm, moist weight in his arms. With his cheek pressed to
Chris’s shoulder, his head started to lag back, drowsiness funneling into his
blue eyes. “I’m surprised I still have all my teeth,” he said darkly, his words
carving a hole right through the center of Chris.
“Are you hungry? Someone will bring us food in a little bit,” he said, hoping
to quell the fury bubbling up in him.
In his quietest voice, eyes blinking slowly, the boy said, “Yes. Always.”
Heart moved, Chris cupped a hand on Tom’s head, sliding a thumb over the
bruised skin of his cheek. Two apples and a fucking loaf of bread. The boy
would never have survived. “Little bird,” he said, and Tom’s eyes fluttered
open.
“What’s your name?”
Chris grinned, and Tom’s lips echoed it, a reflex happiness. “You wanna know my
name?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Chris.”
“Chris,” Tom repeated, his fingers knotting into the back of Chris’s shirt, a
surprisingly possessive gesture. His head dipped back and he gasped in alarm,
eyes flashing open, sagging closed again. “I’m sorry, I’m…I’m not sleeping
well.”
“You can sleep now. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Staring at him through trembling lashes, Tom hesitated a moment before
snuggling more evenly on Chris, head tucked against his shoulder. Content to
sit there cradling him, Chris kept his eyes on the door and on Tom, flicking
between the two. Occasional voices from the hall made him stiffen, squeezing
Tom’s warm body in his arms, but they moved along quickly, nobody lingering at
doorways to listen at the lewd noises they themselves had just finished making.
Hardly jostling the boy, Chris rose to his feet smoothly and walked around to
the other side. Leaning low to place him on the sagging mattress, he hushed Tom
gently when he startled and whined, clasping at his biceps.
“It’s okay. It’s Chris. You’re safe. You’re okay.”
“I’m not,” Tom said, face crumpling, refusing to let him go. That hazy, half-
sleep look was heavy on his soft face. “I’ll never be safe. She has my life in
her claws.” The fear that he had managed to keep under some semblance of
control beforehand exposed itself in a terrifying wave, his paranoia and
anxiety about the likely chance of his death at the hands of the Madame or her
men seemed like a black cloth unfurling over his heart, face broken open in raw
emotion.
“I’ll keep running,” the boy vowed, a vicious snarl twisting his lovely lips,
fatigue making clear his devastation. “She can’t keep me. I’m not hers. I’m
not!”
“Easy now. Shh.”
Kicking off his boots and unbuckling his gun belt – noting Tom’s unease around
it – Chris climbed in beside the boy’s slight form, his legs stretching out
farther than his lace-clad ones.
“There. Come here.” He thought Tom would refuse, but he wrapped himself around
Chris with no hesitation, shoving his feet between Chris’s ankles, short puffs
of breath at the hollow of his throat.
“Are you real? Am I dreaming? Have they killed me and I’m a ghost stuck in my
own torment?”
“I’m real, little bird,” Chris said, cupping his head, frail, so slight, the
whole of him. “You’re not hers, you hear? You’re not anybody’s but your own. No
one will kill you.” Not now that I know you, and want you safe and unharmed.
“This is nice, you might be nice, but it’s only one day, Chris. There are
always more men. More and more.” He sighed. “I don’t want to be here anymore.
I’m trapped.”
“How did you find yourself stuck here?”
In whispers, fingers twisted in his shirt again, Tom explained about his
parents’ death, struggling through the desert, collapsing on the street, the
Madame finding him and putting him to work.
“The first man was terrible, and then after, well. They’re all one big blur.”
“What does your friend say?”
“She’s angry at the Madame. She hates that I, that all of us, are forced to do
this to uphold some kind of debt we owe her.”
“Hardly seems fair that she gets to say when the debt is paid.”
Tom huffed, wet eyelashes brushing Chris’s throat. “She’s a snake.”
But then he stiffened in Chris’s arms and slowly started backing away, new
terror dawning in his eyes. “You’re…you’re not one of hers, are you? Y-you’re
not here, pretending to be nice, just—just to catch me talking badly about her?
So that she will beat me again? Sweet god, why didn’t I think of it before—.”
Panic widened mouth, distressed.
“No,” Chris said, lowering his voice, locking his hands around Tom’s biceps,
but the boy began to struggle. “No. Take it easy. I’m not here to bust you.”
“No! Oh, god. No! You can’t—please!”
Chris tugged Tom forward, rising to crouch over him, a hand over his mouth.
With a muted squeal, Tom kicked his legs, lace flying everywhere, hitching up
to bundle at his tender waist.
“I’m not, Tom. Okay? I’m not one of hers. I heard them take you that night. I
found your pillowcase. I’d seen you on the balcony and wanted you so badly. I
want you still. But I didn’t know how deep this pain went, how much she’s hurt
you.” Breathing heavily through his nose, Tom stared up at him, pressed flat to
the bed, but he was listening. “I had this gnawing suspicion about her. And
seeing you now, beat to shit, your voice heavy with how much you’re frightened,
I can’t ignore that. I can’t ignore you. So you got me now. I’m in it. Do you
understand?”
Eyes glistening, Tom squeezed them shut, tears leaking down his temples and
into his hair. The kid’s emotions were all over the place, understandable given
what he’d experienced, and Chris couldn’t imagine how exhausting that was, how
draining on his spirit. Letting his weight ease more comfortably on Tom, Chris
could feel the soft trembling in his legs, slim like a girl’s against his
rugged trousers. He removed his hand from Tom’s mouth, the imprint of it white
for a moment before the purple of his bruises rushed back to the surface.
Cupping his head, smoothing back his curls, Chris held his gaze, wanting him to
see the truth.
“Okay? I’m not going to hurt you. Do you believe me, little bird? Hmm?”
Noses an inch apart, soft golden curls under the width of his palms, Chris
could smell his sweet breath, crushed berries and something contrived, like
bitten herb.
“Do you?” He couldn’t bear Tom’s silence, the conflict behind the shade of his
eyes, battling what he knew of the world versus what Chris might possibly be
able to offer him. And then his long throat bobbed as he swallowed, hands back
in the folds of Chris’s shirt, spread wide over the side of his waist, like a
lover might.
“Yes,” he whispered, voice cracking. “Yes, I believe you.”
Chris smiled, letting the tips of their noses brush. “Good boy.”
Shaking his head, convincing himself, nearly cross-eyed, Tom said, “You won’t
hurt me? You won’t?”
“No. I won’t. God, I won’t. I couldn’t. Not you.”
“Okay,” Tom said, nodding quickly. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Sweet bird,” Chris whispered, and then he ducked his head low and planted a
quick peck to Tom’s mouth. Tom gasped in surprise and went still, lips in a
curious ‘o’.
“What?” Chris said, smiling slowly. “No one’s kissed you before?”
Tom shook his head slowly, eyes never leaving his, and in that moment Chris
realized his mistake about the extent of Tom’s experience with men, with
people. It was telling, because how could there have been room for gentleness
in his life here, used only the pleasure of others? His wants and desires
sacrificed for the Madame’s selfish gain, and the customers’ regrettable
satisfaction? But seeing him now, the round, tear-rimmed eyes staring up at him
drove home the point more than the bruises and cold willingness to submit.
Tom’s entire notion of sex was skewed and inaccurate, and it had made him
afraid to live.
“This isn’t a place for kissing,” Tom eventually said softly, eyes downcast.
“Shit,” Chris whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Tom looked ready to say something when there were three succinct knocks on the
door. They spun their heads around, Tom creeping further under him.
“It’s okay. It’s just some food and water. But we gotta make it seem like we’ve
been fucking, okay?”
“Uh-huh,” Tom said, nodding. They scrambled up, Chris loosening his trousers
and unbuttoning his shirt, Tom pulling up his dress and shimmying out of each
sleeve, letting the material gather over his belly, lewd and ravaged.
“Good,” Chris said, voice hoarse. “Good. You look good.”
Tom smiled with a shaky breath, prettily. His eyes strayed down to the parting
in Chris’s trousers, the edge of his balls just peeking out under the hem of
his shirt. Curiosity in his open gaze, careful interest.
Shuffling across the room, Chris threw open the door. “Yeah?”
The servant peered in over his shoulder, and Chris followed his gaze to Tom on
the bed, who was now lying on his side facing away. The round curve of his
bottom was only barely covered by his dress, but the bruises on his back were
clearly visible. The corset lay crumpled on the floor, as good a place for it
as any. Chris put on a disinterested face and turned back to the servant.
“You got my food?”
“Yes,” the man said quickly, indicating a tray in his hands. There was a plate
of meat and breads, with fruit and a type of pink cream Chris had no idea how
to identify. There was also a jug of cold water.
“Go on and set it on the table.” He stepped aside so the man could walk in,
catching how he kept glancing at Tom on the bed, who slowly rose to an elbow,
appearing sluggish and worn out.
“Thank you, sir,” the man said, taking the tip Chris handed him. Chris closed
the door and locked it, turning back to Tom already crawling over the bed to
where the food sat.
“Have it all,” Chris said, smiling, reaching into his back pocket for a spare
cigarette. He lit the tip and inhaled, blowing the excess smoke out of his
nose. Tom brought the tray to the bed and curled his legs under him, taking a
piece of meat and gnawing on it neatly.
“You won’t eat?”
“No. The place I’m bunking, the woman who runs it, her name’s Belen. She feeds
me every time she sees me.”
“She sounds delightful,” Tom said with a full mouth, biting into more meat.
Chris sniffed out a quick laugh. “She is. She puts on a tough exterior, won’t
smile unless she really wants to. But I’m sweet on her, and she’s very nice.”
Smiling, Tom blinked down at his knees. If it weren’t for all those damn
bruises, Chris might have been able to believe that Tom was his sweet little
wife resting in their bedroom after a nice, slow fuck, and not working as a
prostitute for an iron-fisted, she-devil pimp.
“You’ll be able to sleep unbothered tonight?”
Chewing, drinking some water, Tom said, “Yes. I don’t work nights. The girls
cover that shift on their own. Most of the men that want me only come during
the day.” He shrugged and took another bite from the bread. “Must have wives or
something.”
An astute observation, most likely true.
“And you’d never, you know…,” Chris said, taking another drag. “Before?”
Another hot flush of color on his cheeks. “No. Never.”
That bitch, Chris thought, blowing the smoke up at the ceiling. Throwing a
virgin into a den of lions. The boy couldn’t have known what he was in for,
what the men would expect of him, how terribly he would be treated.
“Well, I already figured. You’re nothing like a real prostitute.”
Tom’s eyes flickered low. “That’s all I am now.”
“No, little bird,” Chris insisted, inhaling an acrid burn. “You’re definitely
not.”
Now that he knew he was in no immediate harm, that no one would be forcing
their body parts into him, Tom was quietly radiant. His smiles, while small and
shy, came easily to him. Given more time, more trust, Chris imagined he might
be as playful as a kitten, and it was truly a delight imagining him in a life
after this one, far away from this place.
After Tom finished eating and Chris’s cigarette was crushed in the pearl
ashtray, they lay back down on the bed, a careful foot of distance between
them. And as if a flood of words had been dammed up inside his throat, Tom
started talking, steadily and without hurry, about his life on the east coast,
his duty to inherit his father’s company, attending university.
“Everything was sorted for me, all I had to do was be present, participate,
excel. Every day planned, my lessons, my duties. Now nothing is certain. I
never know if I’ll make it to tomorrow.”
Chris grazed a thumb over Tom’s thin wrist, felt the pulse jump there.
“Probably would have gotten married too.”
Tom rolled to his side, facing him. Arms tucked under his head, he peered
curiously at Chris. “I don’t know. It would have happened eventually, but to a
woman probably. I hadn’t really…” He trailed off, brow bunched in thought. “Any
other choice would have been impossible.”
Chris rolled to the side, mirroring his posture. “You never thought about men
before?”
“Well, I—I certainly noticed them.”
“What did you notice?” It was truly a pleasure watching him blush, watch him
fret, such innocence.
Tender little fidgets as the boy thought. “Their hands? Their laughter. I like
the soft hairs at the napes of their necks.” He unconsciously reached behind
his head. “I wish I could see their legs.”
“Don’t your customers take their clothes off?”
“Not really, no. Even when…some of them go for a long time, it’s just
unbuttoned trousers. And I never look at them anyway.”
“Why don’t you think of the things you like about men with the ones who come
see you here? Just to make it a little easier?”
“I can’t. That would make it too personal. I don’t want to think on any of this
with any kind of affection. I’m here against my will. To me, they are all
monsters.”
Touching his arm gently, Chris gave it a soft squeeze. “It’s good that you’re
angry. You’ll survive this yet.”
Tom glanced at him, doubt written on his face. “I don’t know that I will. I
feel myself falling deeper and deeper into the place I go to hide. I’m sleeping
a lot, but feel so tired. Like my mind doesn’t rest. All these bruises, the
fucking, that beating her men gave me.” He sighed. “I can’t catch up.”
“And she doesn’t feed you.”
“She does. But very little. And I’ve been passing on eating lately because my
jaw hurts. And my tailbone feels funny…after.” He squished his face under an
arm, voice muffled. “I’m sorry. That was too much information.”
Chris took his wrist and tugged his arm away from his pink face. He smiled.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to be ashamed of anything.”
“But Chris, I can’t help it. I feel so ashamed, so pitiful. What would my
parents think?”
“There ain’t no point wondering about that now. You’re living, and they’re not.
You’re surviving when they couldn’t. And it isn’t no fault of yours, them taken
from you. Sometimes these things happen and we are spared, or we aren’t.”
“And you?” Tom said, taking Chris’s hand and touching their fingertips
together, the lightest skim. “What is your story?”
“I don’t have one.”
“You have to.”
“No.”
“You won’t tell me?” That ink of hurt was rising in his eyes, and Chris fumbled
for words to comfort him.
“I’m just a rogue cowboy. Nothing special to me.”
“There has to be something. I told you mine.”
He palmed the side of Tom’s head, noting with cold fury the closed-eyed flinch
the boy gave, expecting a blow.
“Easy,” he whispered, and Tom’s eyes sprang open. “Not from me…remember?”
Licking his lips, Tom blinked quickly. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
Chris eyed the long, lean line of Tom’s body, top knee angled toward him,
giving him that curvy-hipped look of most women, and the sudden ache in his
bones was too much. “Can I hold you?”
Not half-asleep anymore, Tom wasn’t all original sweet instinct, cuddling in
his lap, mind frayed. Relaxed enough, belly full, he was wide awake and mindful
of Chris next to him, eyes darting from one part of him to another, clavicle,
abdomen, legs, feet, crotch (furious red face), hands, lingering on hands.
Chris knew he had big hands, knew the kind of damage he could cause with them,
and perhaps it’s what Tom was contemplating too, no matter his attraction to
them. He’d had more than enough negative experience with men and their hands to
fully trust another pair on his body.
Tom inhaled through his mouth, blew it out slowly through his nose, eyes
closed, whispering almost to himself, “Won’t hurt me.”
Chris stayed quiet, waiting, and then after another tremulous breath, Tom
inched over until their bellies and thighs were flush, squeezing one arm under
Chris’s armpit and the other over the top of his waist, hugging him close.
Folding him against his chest, Chris grazed both hands up and down the smooth,
bare skin of Tom’s back, the sleek muscles, the butterfly-winged bones of his
shoulder blades, the dip in his waist. His hand spanned the entire width of it,
he was so slight.
“That feels nice,” Tom murmured. “But…I know you aren’t real. I’m sure of it.
I’m asleep upstairs, and it’s probably early morning, and I’ll wake and you’ll
be gone.” Letting him ramble, Chris pressed his lips to Tom’s temple, breathing
in the scent of his hair, cupping a hand over his shoulder, hoping it made him
feel bundled and safe. “But the memory of you will sustain me, if only for a
little while. I might tell Eve about this dream. I think she’ll like it…” He
hummed, breathing softly, deep tufts of air, and fell asleep again, fingers
curled in his shirt once more. It was a calm quiet, no intrusive sounds from
other rooms, just Tom breathing and Chris’s heartbeat knocking, knocking on his
ribs. And it was the easiest thing to just drift a bit with him, like white
clouds in the sky, aimless.
Knock, knock, knock.
The hard raps on the door startled them both awake, Tom sitting up fast, eyes
wide, chest jumping.
Shit. How long had they been asleep? Keeping a hand on him, Chris whispered
that it was okay, getting to his feet and inching the door open. A girl stood
there, a little older than Tom, with a tray in her hands. Their lunch with more
water.
“Thank you,” Chris said, about to take it from her and close the door. But she
jerked it just out of reach, smiling quickly.
“My apologies, sir, but I’ll just set it on the table for you.” She tried
flicking her eyes over his shoulder, but he was too tall for her to see
anything. There was a different kind of energy about her than there was with
the previous servant, who just seemed nosey. This girl appeared concerned.
He stepped aside. “Come in.”
Hurrying on small feet, she walked inside, gaze lighting on Tom immediately.
“Eve?” Tom said, rising to his knees on the bed.
“Tom,” she said, smiling wide. Placing the tray on the table, she ran to him
and hugged him carefully, mindful of his injuries. Their embrace was several
seconds long, Chris standing off to the side, waiting. The girl pulled back,
grasping his head, her whispers low. “I’m sorry, Tom. I brought the tray up
from the kitchen because I had to check on you. When I heard that you’d been
bought for the entire day by one customer, I didn’t know what to think, what he
might be making you do.” She glanced at Chris, unsure, before turning back to
Tom. “Are you alright?”
“Yes, Eve!” Tom said, grinning. “I’m fine, I promise.” She stared at him, as if
awed, and they shared a meaningful look, something spoken between them.
“Thank goodness,” she gasped, hugging him again. “I’ve interrupted. I’m so
sorry. Sir, please I’ll leave now.”
“You don’t have to,” Chris said, standing at the table and lifting the plate of
more meat and bread. “Are you hungry?”
Eve looked to Tom, who smiled and nodded. Curious, she kept close to him,
slipping her hand into his as Chris brought the tray to the bed, their behavior
and Tom’s general happy manner confusing her. But Chris kept a respectful
distance from them, enjoying the clear affection between the two. They touched
a lot, Eve’s hand in the crook of Tom’s elbow, Tom’s fingers curling in the
skirt over her thigh. The food was split three-ways, the tray perched in the
middle of their crooked triangle, the water jug passed from one to the other.
“I’m really so sorry to have interrupted,” Evangeline said again.
Leaning back against the headboard, Chris shook his head once. “You were
worried about your friend.”
Evangeline lifted a shoulder delicately. “A constant pastime in this
occupation.”
Tom sniffed thinly through his nose, nodding seriously.
“What’s this pink stuff?” Chris asked.
She dipped her finger into the slop of it on the tray. “Custard. A customer
visiting from California brought it for the Madame as a gift. It was packaged
in ice. Very expensive.”
Incredible, Chris thought, hating the woman even more. “Very cosmopolitan,” he
said vaguely.
“I really should go,” Evangeline said after a moment. “I’ll be missed.” The
tray was empty save for crumbs and strips of fat from the meat, and she
gathered everything up to remove it from the room. She leaned her head toward
Tom and he planted a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you tonight, darling.” With a
decidedly more careful smile at Chris, she left.
“So that’s your friend,” Chris said as Tom stared after her, love so plain on
his face.
“Isn’t she lovely?”
Chris agreed quietly, his eyes on Tom’s profile. “You’re sad again.”
Blinking, Tom sighed and shuffled up the bed to sit by Chris against the
headboard. Curling his legs against his chest, his lace dress tucked around his
ankles, he said, “Seeing her reminds me of how different she and I might be,
happier, if we were rid of her.”
There was no question about who he was talking about. “The Madame.”
Tom nodded, head leaning against the bars of brass, eyes soft on Chris. His
chest jumped in a little sob, jaw clenched. He touched Chris’s wrist, held it
fast. “I’m so sorry, I’m not usually this weepy.”
“Sweetheart,” Chris whispered, and reached for him. Tom rushed toward him, arms
wrapping around Chris’s neck as Chris gathered him close and let them fall to
the mattress. Embracing him was a tender and precious thing, this wisp of a boy
lending him his affection even at the risk of his better judgement. But it
wasn’t only for Chris, this gift, Tom needing a gentle touch like one starved.
Cheek to cheek, his long hands spread tightly over Chris’s back, he was
generous in what he allowed Chris to feel, frigid in what he denied others, no
matter their payment and force.
It couldn’t have been brighter than the sun, for Chris.
“What will I do?” Tom gasped, sliding long fingers into Chris’s hair a little
roughly, his blunt nails dragging through his scalp. Chris caught his groan,
chills erupting on his skin as his groin tightened with interest. “What will I
do when I’m called down here again and it’s not you who walks in? It’s some
other disgusting, dirty, hideous man. Always leering at me, like they know
something I don’t. Like in their head they’re already inside me, hurting me,
holding me down. Chris—.” A sharp, distraught gasp.
“I’m here, babe. I’m here.” He ducked his head and kissed the fat drops of
tears that leaked from the corners of Tom’s eyes, carefully peppering the rest
of his face as Tom panted and whispered, blushing wildly. Already, a kind of
panic was darkening his eyes, hazing them over, closing Chris off.
“What will I do?” he said again, over and over, and Chris took his head in both
hands.
“Hey. C’mon now. Listen to me.” But Tom was fading into his own mind, lips
moving soundlessly, eyes squeezed shut at whatever horrors he was seeing there.
Without another thought, Chris leaned down and pressed his lips to Tom’s, mouth
closed. Jolting underneath him, Tom inhaled sharply through his nose, a tiny
noise vibrating in his throat. If his eyes were open, in shock or fear, Chris
didn’t know, he just held their kiss for a moment longer and then broke off,
peering down at the boy.
Stunned, mouth parted, Tom blinked owlishly at him, a tear sliding down his
temple and disappearing into his hair. Very slowly, shifting his hands up
Chris’s neck, he cupped them on each cheek and pulled him down. They both
moaned at the contact this time, Tom’s leg bumping his hip, a slim foot nudging
the back of his thigh. Heart racing now, body thrumming with new need, Chris
very gently widened his mouth, prompting Tom’s lips to open. They did, shyly,
and when Chris slipped in his tongue Tom’s eyes flew wide. A soft caress of wet
muscle and he all but melted, sagging with a shudder as he twisted fingers into
Chris’s hair, all ragged, vibrating moan. Chris felt the timid stir between
Tom’s legs and eased his hips a little lower, to feel it, to encourage.
Tom broke away, flushed chest and neck, lips red as he whispered Chris’s name
once more.
“You okay? Is this okay?” Chris nudged his pelvis down again and Tom’s eyes
flicked to where their hips were pressed snugly, eyebrows rising in
bewilderment as his erection slowly filled.
“Tom?”
Gold-flecked blue eyes zipped up to his, and Tom swallowed nervously, pupils as
wide as saucers.
His silence was shaken, but curious, and Chris took that as a positive.
“Alright now, this is good. You like this, and that’s good. Want a little
more?”
Tom’s hands were shaking, one twisted in his shirt, the other flopped back on
the sheets, soft fingertips pointed up at the ceiling. Dipping his head, Chris
nuzzled a soft cheek, trailing his lips to the sharp line of his jaw, and then
a little lower, kissing Tom’s neck, burrowing past his ear, mouthing, mouthing,
hot breath and suck. Spine arching, legs falling open, Tom’s moan was cracked.
He rolled his hips and grabbed at Chris with two long hands, tugging at the
material of his shirt until he could slip them in under the hem and finally
touch the wide expanse of Chris’s back.
“Yes,” he squeaked, lashes fluttering at Chris’s heavy weight. “Yes, this.”
Smooth and warm, he explored and squeezed, rosy mouth parted, pearl of teeth
flashing, pink tongue and sweet breath.
“Babe,” Chris groaned, strands of hair falling in his face. Looking down at the
boy, a rush of pleasure and pride surged in his chest. Lace shift bundled up at
his waist, Tom’s thighs were pale and long, muscles thin from point of knee
down to the split of his pale bottom – all endearing peach fuzz cleft – and
straining against Chris’s belt his lovely erection, the appearance of which
flushed the boy’s cheeks prettily and dewed his enormous eyes.
“I need the oil,” Chris whispered, beginning to move away, but at the
frightened alarm on Tom’s face, he crowded back over him, palming his head.
“No, sweetheart. Not for that. You’re not ready for that. I won’t do that to
you. Not yet. Okay?”
At Tom’s quick nod, Chris retrieved the ceramic bowl from the table and lifted
its bone-shell lid. The oil swam thickly, gleaming in the lamplight, and when
he brought it over to the bed again Tom sat up on his elbows, peering into the
bowl.
“None of them ever use this on you?”
“No. Some slick themselves with it, but not all. We take care to prepare
ourselves before. Me and the girls.”
“So, you’ve…touched yourself with this before? To stretch yourself?” If the boy
had been allowed to do at least that, then Chris hoped that not all of his
experiences here had been so frighteningly painful.
Lying back again, Tom trailed fingers up and down Chris’s spine, a nervous
gesture, maybe. But at his nod Chris felt a flood of relief, even if the
knowledge of preparedness had not saved the boy from repeated violations by men
he wanted nothing to do with. Swallowing, Chris put the bowl on the mattress
beside them and lay back down at Tom’s side, holding his weight on an elbow as
he leaned over him. “I’m sorry,” he said, trailing his gaze over every angle
and curve of Tom’s beautiful face, so little and fragile and pale next to his
outstretched arm, tanned brown from the sun, golden hairs thick at his wrist.
“Kiss me?” Tom said, chin jutting upward a small fraction. It was that tiny
inflection, like he wasn’t sure Chris would again, that drove a shot of desire
straight through Chris’s groin and he bent to kiss that sweet mouth again, Tom
arching into him, Chris flattening himself, a tug of war between navels and
sighing ribcages. Pecking his cheeks again, flushed with blood, Chris lifted
the hem of Tom’s dress and draped it higher on his hips, exposing his rigid
cock rooted in a soft bundle of dark blond curls. Reaching for the oil, he
scooped some into his hand and leaned his forehead to the boy’s temple, both
watching as he rubbed his fingers on the inside of his palm, smearing the
glistening oil.
“What are you—?” Tom started, but hissed when Chris wrapped slicked fingers
around his erection and squeezed. Dropping his head back, he sighed and gave a
short tremble, muscles turning loose under Chris’s attention. Tightening one
arm behind Chris’s back and wrapping the other around his neck, Tom clung to
him sweetly, moaning in his ear, so wanton and willing it made Chris’s head
spin. Moving his fist down to the base, Chris stretched his fingers to his sac
and flexed, massaging gently through the bundle of hair.
“Ooh,” Tom sighed, hand clenching reflexively on Chris’s skull. “That’s…that’s
so….” But his words were lodged in the hard bob of his throat, casting
despairing eyes at Chris, who closed his fist again and moved it from tip to
base, again and again, rubbing his thumb at the slit, that gleam of dew that
bubbled stickily with every swipe. Nipples peaked, thighs shaking, feet
restless against Chris’s legs, Tom was falling deeper into that coiled void
Chris knew fondly. Kiss, kiss, he heard, hot puff of air in his ear, and he
happily granted Tom’s wish, bending to press their lips together, so eager for
hot tongue and blunt nails scratching.
With a shy and tentative touch, Tom crept a hand down Chris’s arm to his hip,
lower still to the hardened bulge behind the buttons of trousers. Eyes hooded
and hazed, he broke from their kiss to stare at where he cupped Chris,
tightening his thin fingers in curious, determined grips. Gritting his jaw,
trying not to blow too fast, Chris let him explore, adoring the sweet pucker of
the boy’s pale brow, pleasure and interest warring over his features, eyes
flicking shyly up at Chris to gauge his reaction, falling closed as Chris
continued pumping his hand steadily.
Tom whispered his name with just the slightest lisp.
“Yeah, babe,” he groaned, nudging Tom’s cheek with his nose, which made the boy
giggle. Hand moving, heat rising, Tom’s little whimpers grew louder, faster,
causing Chris’s own breath to hitch. Staring wide-eyed down at him, twisting
his wrist and stroking from tip to base, he coaxed and coaxed until Tom finally
crested that precipice and came with a strangled cry. Throbbing under Chris’s
hand, balls drawing up and dropping in rhythmic pulses, Tom gushed a thick
stream that flowed from the tip of his cock over Chris’s fingers to puddle on
his quivering abdomen.
Nails dug deep into his back and Chris arched, jaw clenched. The soft, hot,
moist body of the boy squirmed beneath him, helpless as he fought to regain his
senses through the waves of pleasure crashing over him. And Chris held him,
whispering at his temple, squeezing out those last few drops before Tom gave
another sharp yelp and he released him. Flopping to rest between his clenched
legs, Tom’s cock was dripping and spent, exhausted like him.
“Okay, little bird, you’re okay,” Chris soothed, pressing his forehead to Tom’s
and clasping the top of his head with his dry hand. But giving small little
shakes and whispering nonsense, Tom was anything but fine, eyes nearly crossed
from the strength of his orgasm. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. Come here, baby
bird.” Wiping his hand on the sheet, Chris gathered Tom to him and wrapped him
completely in his arms, smothering him with warmth and kisses, ecstatic when
Tom began responding, clutching back at him with every limb, breathy sobs at
his throat.
“Chris. Oh, my darling. Chris. Chris, please, closer.”
Bound in each other, insistent with hurried, pecked kisses, very quietly they
laughed and sighed, happy and flushed, adoring. That small, deep voice of his,
with his tender little affections and ragged breaths, cut through the core of
Chris and carved itself into the very meat of him, nestled like a coil of
copper, shining and strong, ready to spring up into his heart and squeeze.
“You,” the boy whispered, hand sliding back down Chris’s hip. “Now you.”
“You don’t have to, babe. I’m more than content to hold you here and do
nothing.”
“I have never in my life wanted someone to climax as much as I want you to.”
Big blue blinks, fan of blond lashes, and Chris was gutted.
“Okay,” he rasped, and angled his hips back to let Tom unbutton his trousers,
reach under the edge and take him in hand. He exhaled quickly, abdomen jumping.
“Your hands are really…fucking soft,” he said, curling his fist into the
sheets, Tom’s palms like satin on his cock. Tom smiled, and it transformed his
entire face from tragic beauty to exultant angel. Chris wanted him burned into
his memory, every freckle, every angle and dimple, the perfect curve of his
ears. His fist started pumping on Chris’s length, fingertips only barely
grazing around the width of him. Leaning his chin upward, Tom planted wet
smacks on the underside of Chris’s jaw, tracing his nose through the stubble
there, so enraptured with the fun beginnings of sex he couldn’t have known how
dizzy it was making Chris, that flash of desire at his core like a lightning
strike, the desperation, the instinct to bury himself deep. It had been a while
since he’d come, so in quick, determined jerks he brought his pants down mid-
thigh to best avoid the mess he knew he would make.
Tom’s eyes widened at the sight of him, lingering at his heavy, full balls. His
own leg widened, almost on instinct, and he turned a deep shade of scarlet,
hiding his face against Chris’s shoulder, hand working determinedly at his
erection.
Chris chuckled, and coddled him close. “Sweetheart. I’ll be buried in you yet.
I promise.”
“Yes,” Tom breathed, eyes nearly black. “Yes, okay.”
When Chris came, it was over the sharp point of Tom’s hipbone, spilling thick
and copiously, long spurting ribbons of it, a groan caught behind his teeth.
Inhaling the sweet perfume of Tom’s hair, he fell forward with a shudder, his
hips giving small thrusts against the boy. Pressed flat beneath him, Tom held
him with one arm, mimicking Chris’s gesture and rubbing at his cock until the
very last of it nearly killed him.
“Fuck. Okay. Okay, okay. I give.”
And Tom, supremely delighted, he let him go and threw his arms around his neck,
bumping noses and laughing quietly. He was a decidedly affectionate person, to
the very center of him, and Chris felt suddenly immeasurably sad that he’d been
hidden away in this terrible gilded prison, ripped from showing just how sweet
he really was, forbidden from receiving any true ounce of love in return.
It was anything but just, and Chris was determined to set things right.
Settling in a loose embrace, bunched lace and open trousers, legs twined, they
stared at each other, Tom’s cheeks still flushed. His chest rose and fell with
quick, excited breaths, brushing back Chris’s hair, fingers lingering on his
face. “Everything is different. You felt different, when you came. And your
hand felt different from mine, when you touched me.” Pressing their palms
together, he sighed. “So much larger. Rougher. Scarred.” Brow bent, he studied
the small nicks Chris had garnered over the years, flecks of skin that showed a
lighter color than the rest of him, pale white.
“And it’s like you’re made of porcelain,” he answered, staring at Tom’s smooth,
soft skin. But Tom’s eyes sank low.
“Porcelain that rots with dark.” He touched his collarbone, careful not to
press too hard on the bruises. Chris placed his hand over it.
“I can’t wait for these to be gone. For you to be unhurt.”
“Will you…be around long enough to see that?” He didn’t look at Chris, his
voice lilting just enough to show how interested he was in his answer.
“You know I will,” Chris said softly, looking at him with all of the conviction
he could feel brewing in his belly. “I’m in it now. Like I said.”
Relief softening his face, Tom exhaled and hugged him tightly, lying there on
the very bed where so many of his horrors had been made reality. Chris could
only hope that things would change for them both, that Tom would be free of the
need to use his body as repayment to a woman crueler than the freezing desert
night winds, and that Chris might be able to stop running for once, from a past
riddled with death. After wiping themselves off with a cloth folded on the
table and fixing their clothing, they spent the rest of their time together
cuddled against the pillows. As if yearning for touch, Tom was eager to retain
contact with some part of Chris, liking to hold his hand or curl his toes
against the arch of his foot, an arm stretched across Chris’s belly. He was
clearly exhausted, fatigue throwing itself thickly on his slim shoulders. With
no need to keep his guard up, he nodded to sleep more than once, waking with
slurred mumbles and heavy lids.
“I need to take a piss,” Chris muttered as he lit up a cigarette.
Tom scooted to the edge of the bed. “I do, too. There’s a wash room down the
hall. Come on.”
Checking for stragglers and seeing no one, they stole down the plush carpet.
Tom guided Chris inside, closing the door silently behind him. He relieved
himself first, pulling up his lace shift as Chris watched, taking a long drag
of smoke, blowing it through his nostrils. Eyes on him, Tom exhaled almost
sensually, pupils slowly eclipsing the blue of his eyes. After Chris finished,
they returned to their room where Chris pressed Tom up against the wall and
kissed him deeply, the boy arching up into him, arms wrapping around his head,
as gentle as a girl.
“I can’t wait until I can fuck you,” Chris said a little roughly, and Tom
angled his head back to look him in the eyes.
“You can now, you know. You’re paying for it.”
“Not like this. Not until you’re ready.”
“What will make me ready?”
“When you’re not riddled with signs of abuse and hurt, when your little bottom
gets a rest. When you will it.”
“That will never happen here, Chris. I’ll never get a break from them, or from
her demands.”
“I want to steal you,” he admitted quietly, and Tom laughed, something hard and
dark.
“She would find out. She has eyes everywhere. And you can’t want me. I’m filth.
I’m corrupted. They’ve killed the best of me.”
Chris stood to his full height. It only made Tom cling to him more. “Don’t say
things like that to me.”
“But isn’t it true? Am I not filthy? Am I not changed because of what they’ve
done?” His eyes were round and sorrowful again, and it made Chris’s rage at the
Madame flare once more. Tom’s mood was becoming dark, his emotions clouded by
the ever-present reminder of his life as a forced prostitute, his dependence on
a woman he hated.
Chris took his face in both hands. “You are not filth. You are not anything
unless you want it. They touch you and it’s like drops of rain on glass. You do
not break from something so insignificant.”
Still unconvinced, Tom shrugged half-heartedly, but accepted Chris’s soft kiss
with two small fists curled in his shirt. Their dinner was brought to them just
before sunset, the deep red of evening casting the room aglow, nearly blood.
Eating together on the settee, Tom stared out at the wide expanse of the desert
plains, pockmarked with tall, spindly saguaros, so much more imposing up close,
thorns several inches long, limbs twisted by wind and storms and time. In the
distance, like a black haze of gnats, thunderclouds gathered in a swirl.
“You won’t forget about me?” Tom whispered in the half-dark, eyes on the bits
of food left before them, fingers busy pulling at a loose purple thread on the
sofa arm, damaging it. But anything of the Madame’s could burn for all Chris
cared. As the first strikes of lightning began raining down on the sierras, he
brought Tom’s hand up to his lips and kissed the knuckles.
“When I first thought about seeing you, I didn’t know what kind of set up you
had here. Maybe you were perfectly happy. Maybe she spoiled you and it was a
beneficial relationship for you both. But there was something about the way you
moved, a dragging, like you weren’t even in this world anymore, it gave me
pause. Made me reconsider. And after that first visit, I haven’t been able to
stop thinking…of all she’s put you through against your will. For her gain.
Profiting off yours and the other girls’ sexual exploitation. How she’s hurt
you. I have to be honest with you, Tom. I’ve never taken on these services. I
like the gamble of cards and billiards, and I like a hard-won drink, but I took
the loving of women, and less often men, in quieter and less obvious ways.” He
felt Tom’s eyes slide sideways at him, but he kept his gaze on the brewing
storm. The window faced the barren lands south of town, where no buildings
could be seen, where one might believe they were alone in the world. “I came
back because I won’t be able to live with myself knowing you were still chained
here. I might have left by now, if not for having seen you. I might be just a
fading memory in the lives of these people. Another ghost in the wind.”
Tom swallowed loudly, fingers tightening in his grasp, and Chris felt the
skitter-thump of a pulse over his knuckles. A gust of wind buffeted the side of
the building, rattling the windowpane, making Tom jump slightly. It was all
Chris needed to reach across the seat and pull him into his lap. The boy curled
himself on him, hugging him around his back, lips at the pulsing vein of
Chris’s neck. He cradled his head, patted his golden curls.
“I don’t want you afraid. I don’t want you panicked. And I would never forget
you, my sweet bird, or leave you behind. When I leave, you’re coming with me.”
Tracing the shell of his ear, Tom whispered, “Where will we go?”
Chris wasn’t really sure. “You afraid of horses?”
“Not really, no. I rode fairly frequently back home.”
“Well, my horse is more of a beast than anything else. His name is Bullet.”
“Is he mean?”
“Sometimes.”
“He won’t like me, then.” It was a blunt statement, resigning himself to the
idea.
“Maybe he’ll love you,” Chris replied softly, and Tom nestled against him with
a sigh. “He’ll take us anywhere we need to go. He’s a mountain, and everything
else is but stones under his hooves.”
When their day together came to an end, Chris could tell it took all of Tom’s
will not to cleave himself to Chris and sob at him to stay. It was with quiet,
swimming tears and clenched fists that he extracted himself from Chris’s arms
and stood off to the side while Chris buckled on his gun belt and pulled on his
boots. His hat was last, looking down at Tom from under the brim of it, the
steeled jaw and distant eyes, refusing to meet his.
“Babe—,” Chris started, taking a step toward him, but Tom held up a hand,
taking an equal step back.
“Don’t,” he said, voice warbled. “I touch you again and I won’t be able to let
go.”
Chris dropped his hands. “No kiss then.”
Tom’s face fell, brow softening, lips parting. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to him.
“Oh, fuck it,” he whispered vehemently and strode across the space between
them. Taking Chris’s face, he stood on his tiptoes and crashed their mouths
together, moaning sweetly when their tongues brushed. Gathering him up felt as
good to Chris as those first few gallops on Bullet, tearing away from the
inevitable danger that always found him. And just as he knew that every mile
put between himself and his enemies, every inch he closed between himself and
Tom was just as right, just as necessary.
He broke away and planted another dozen kisses on Tom’s cheeks and forehead,
promising he would return, he would take him away from this place, to wait for
him.
“I will. I will, I will,” Tom gasped, nails digging into his back, lace dress
dragging over the tops of his boots. And before he changed his mind about
hauling the boy over his shoulder and shooting their way free, Chris set him
down as gently as he could, spun on his heel and left.
***** Examination and Burial *****
Tom:
Every turn, every blink, every single step came with the silent threat of a
stab in the dark, anticipating with dread that anyone might be able to read the
secret in his heart like words on a page. But it didn’t stop him from smiling
like mad in bed at night, or slapping his hand over his mouth in the tub to
stifle a sudden giggle, soap suds and water a dripping mess. It was hard not to
let his brimming happiness show when around others, hard not to grin stupidly
at the mere thought of Chris’s body heat and horse smell and clean sweat and
sunshine and the good solid earth of him. It wouldn’t do to have spent an
entire day with a stranger and emerge transformed out of his former gloom. If
Chris was honest in his promise to come back for Tom – and he had to be, he
just had to be – then Tom would lend no help in leaving hints as to what became
of him, when he inevitably disappeared.
The only one who knew was Eve.
“He didn’t touch you?” she asked in a disbelieving whisper the very next night,
helping Tom turn down the bed.
“Well, he did,” he admitted shyly, trying not to become distracted by the
memory of Chris’s hand wrapped around his erection. “But he didn’t penetrate
me.”
She stood blinking for a solid moment before snapping back to focus. “Is he a
eunuch?”
He almost burst into laughter, but stopped himself at the last second. “Heavens
no. I felt him there, too. He’s…” he shrugged with a heavy blush. “He’s
definitely whole.”
Sliding in under the covers, Eve fluffed the pillows and drew the sheets up to
her chest. Her long hair was braided down her back, a coil of dark rope. Chased
by the chill on the floor, Tom hurried in beside her. Turning to him, she
stared at him quietly. “Do you like him, Tom?”
He glanced out the window, pitch black with intermittent lashes of lightning to
blind. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m afraid to.”
“He’s given you hope.”
“The same can be said about you.”
“But I can’t free you. Because where would we go?” Their never-ending question.
Tom sighed and brushed away his doubts. “We would have each other, regardless.”
“Regardless, even here.”
Silent, they lay facing each other, breaths tufting gently. She took his hand.
“Please be careful, Tom. You wouldn’t want to trade one jailer for another.”
He let this sit between them, and then he said, “But Eve, answer me truthfully.
When you were with us in that room…did you sense menace or threat from him?”
The dark was so dense he could barely see the flick of white from her eyes when
she blinked. “All cowboys are dangerous,” she eventually said. “Otherwise
they’d be farmers, or grocers, or any other harmless man that is entirely
capable of great violence nevertheless. But towards you? No, I sensed no
threat.”
Cupping her cheek, he felt the heat of her, the life that kept her with him.
“Would you come with us, Eve? When we left? Would you leave her?”
A longer pause, her mind whirring almost frantically. “A part of me wants to,
if only for the peace of mind to be with you, to know we are together and safe.
But another part, a bigger part, wants to be where she is the moment the light
goes out in her eyes and I know that she’s finally, irrevocably dead.”
**
He told himself not to panic when he heard no word from Chris in the days
following their last visit. He could only assume that Chris was making plans,
preparing for how they would make their escape. Any other thoughts, like how
maybe Chris had already left, were too much to bear.
The Madame, in a surprising move, told him he wouldn’t be seeing any customers
for the next short while – up to a week, she said – due to call from a doctor.
“A doctor?” Tom stuttered, still wary of looking her in the eye after his last
encounter with her before his beating. But then he remembered the conversation
he’d eavesdropped on with her gunman, and he wished he hadn’t been so quick to
question her. He didn’t want to fuel the fodder that woke him from nightmares
of her hellfire eyes.
“He can’t call on us until the end of the week. You’ll resume your duties after
he examines you and the other girls.”
“None of us will be working?” He simply couldn’t believe it.
The Madame turned on her heel very slowly, back stiff as a board, looking down
her prim nose at him. The skin on the back of his neck tightened with fear.
“No, Tom. None of you will be working. Not until I can verify you’re clean. Now
leave me, you bothersome flea.”
He fled her room, nearly colliding with one of the gunmen allowed to prowl the
property, their supposed protection. The man grabbed his elbow to steady him,
but then slowly tightened his fingers, a Cheshire grin spreading his lips.
“Well, if it isn’t the dainty prince,” the man said, and Tom remembered
suddenly the cook having called him that very thing, and wondered if perhaps
she had ratted him out to the gunman. “Shouldn’t you be in your room?”
Which one, Tom nearly bit out, but didn’t. “The Madame needed me for something.
I was just leaving.”
“Won’t run away again, piglet? Bring us a little bit of excitement around
here?” His grip on Tom’s arm was turning painful, a sharp tourniquet around his
thin bicep. Trying to tug free got him nothing but a yank closer and a yellow
sneer. “I’m watching you, dainty prince. One wrong move and it’s me and you in
that alley again.”
What did that mean? That he would beat him senseless again, or was there an
undercurrent of sexual threat there, too? Refusing to budge even an inch, Tom
stared at the man until he was let go, blood rushing back into his arm.
Hurrying down the hall, he waited until he was out of sight before rubbing the
sore spot gently, knowing it would bruise dark before night.
With no customers to see, Tom and Eve kept busy cleaning and sorting the
laundry, helping strip and redress the beds. They stretched their limbs every
morning, washing their faces and rinsing their mouths and kissing each other’s
cheeks very gently before leaving the safety of their room. The downstairs
parlor remained open, music and clinking glasses and rumble of men’s voices
rising to the rafters and seeping into the upper floors, but by using the
hidden hallway they avoided looking at the gambling and drinking fray, even if
it might warrant a glimpse of Chris. Tom was confident he would return. He
wouldn’t risk disappointing himself by not spotting him in the crowd, or begin
to harbor negative thoughts about his last encounter with him. If anything, it
was what helped sustain him in the time after. He slept much easier in the days
untouched by the men, his bruises fading a little more each day, despite the
fresh ones shaped like fingers on his arm.
After their breakfast one morning, the Madame called them into her bedroom, a
few short of two dozen girls and Tom, dressed in their shifts of pastel lace
that hardly concealed some of the more visible marks of their customers’
attentions.
“In just a few minutes Doctor Avery Roebuck will be visiting with each of you
to examine your bodies for signs of disease. You will obey him, and keep quiet.
Now go line up.”
Tom kept his face neutral, knowing that to confess to the crueler habits of the
Madame to a simple town doctor wouldn’t do any of them any good. From the sound
of her conversation with the hired gun the other night, the doctor might not
even want to be here at all, much less help them. Her man must have made good
on her threat to convince the doctor to visit even a well-furnished brothel
without protest – whatever violent means necessary.
They waited single file in the hallway outside the Madame’s door as one at a
time they were ushered back into her bedroom and examined by an older, rotund
man who carried a black medical bag and a scowl Tom took to mean he meant
serious business. One by one the line shortened, the girls staying for several
long minutes, and then slipping back out looking relieved but slightly
clueless. The Madame would no doubt be the only one to receive a full report if
any of them were infected, the removal of any of the diseased to be done in
secret. Evangeline went before Tom, her chin high, shoulders back, long hair
swaying as she strode into her mother’s bedroom and closed the door. Tom waited
with bated breath, nervous about how the man would examine him, if he would
look upon Tom with revulsion, or worse, not even look him in the eye. When Eve
emerged, she went quickly to him and took both his hands.
“He’s kind,” she whispered. “And gentle. He told me I was clear.”
“Thank God,” Tom breathed. She patted his cheek and assured him she would be
waiting back in their room. The Madame was luckily not present during the
evaluation, but the room was vaguely threatening nevertheless. A sheet was
draped over her center table, a makeshift examining bed where the doctor stood
washing his hands in a bowl.
“A boy,” he said rather uselessly when he spotted Tom. “Rather peculiar. But
boys are just as susceptible to sickness as girls are. Come on up here.” He
patted his hands dry on his coat and then went to stand beside Tom, who sat up
on the table. “I’ll check your mouth, penis, and anus. All very quick. No
bother to anyone.”
Except me, Tom thought, but held still as the man took his chin in dry, papery-
skinned hands, turning his head first left, then right, feeling around his neck
and peering into his eyes. It all felt entirely too medical to be even remotely
personal, and he felt his heartbeat begin to slow as his stress abated. He
opened his mouth wide and allowed Roebuck’s fingers to slip in and feel along
his gums, lifted his tongue and then stuck it straight out, all per instructed
by the doctor. He raised his arms and was poked and prodded in the sensitive
pit just beneath, his thin tufts of hair ticklish under the man’s touch.
Putting his full hand on Tom’s sternum, he was told to take a deep breath and
he did, releasing it slowly, the doctor’s ear against his spine.
“Lift your, erm, dress,” Roebuck said a little uncomfortably, but his face
remained void of color, no blushing for a doctor so late in his practice.
Shimmying the lace shift up to his hips, Tom let it gather at his waist, still
holding it over his privates as he stared at the floor and waited for further
instruction. Roebuck indicated the table behind him. “It’s best if you lie down
for this.”
Staring up at the ceiling was moderately better, his every sense fully aware of
the doctor moving near his hips. But when his penis was lifted, he didn’t so
much as flinch. There was no intention to violate him, and he felt himself
relax even further. The man studied the root of his cock and slipped the
foreskin down to stare at the tip, but even Tom could see he was perfectly
healthy, his color a pale pink and clear of sores. Next were his balls, lifted
and rolled around, then placed down again.
“Please turn over.”
It was only now that his heart began a skitter-thump of rising anxiety, but he
slowly turned on his side and used his elbow to brace his weight before lying
flat on his stomach. Cool air rushed up his bare legs and he couldn’t help
clenching his bottom, eyes squeezed shut in anticipation. The doctor patted the
back of his thigh gently.
“It’s alright. Just a quick examination and we’ll be done. Take a deep breath.”
Tom did, inhaling through his nose and exhaling between his lips, face burning
red when the doctor spread him and touched around his entrance.
“Slightly enflamed from overuse. Some tearing, but you are healing. Do you use
any salve, after you’re done working? To help with the ache?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “All of us do. It soothes. Plus I wash myself after
every…customer.”
Roebuck hummed. “Good. I suggest you continue doing that. Alright, you can sit
up now.”
“Am I okay?” he couldn’t help but ask, fearing that the touch of over a dozen
men would no doubt leave him tainted and spoiled, just as he’d told Chris.
“You are,” the doctor said, returning to the ceramic bowl and carrying it to
the window. He flung it open and spilled the water out, not seeming to care if
it fell on some poor unsuspecting passerby. But when no shouts of anger
followed, Tom let out a slow breath. Filling the bowl with fresh water, Roebuck
dunked his hands in and started scrubbing with soap. “You could do well with a
break from it, but considering the voracity of the woman in charge, I’m afraid
I can’t help you much there.”
A sudden thought came to Tom, one that was glaring and ugly, but it filled him
with sudden hope.
“But what if you could help me,” he said quietly, daring to lift his eyes and
meet those of the doctor. Roebuck flicked his hands and dried them with a
towel, turning to Tom with peaked brows. When he said nothing, Tom hurried on.
“What if you told her I was sick? She’ll turn me loose.”
“Son, what you’re suggesting is gross malpractice. I cannot lie about your
health to your employer. Especially the one you’ve got.”
Tom flinched. “She is not my employer. This is indentured servitude.” He didn’t
mean for his voice to warble, but he was suddenly breathless and the edges of
his vision flickered and then he was swaying where he sat. A wide palm cupped
his head and slowly lowered him to the hard surface of the table. The doctor
leaned in close.
“Easy now. Focus on me. Take a deep breath, young man. You’ll be just fine.”
Lifting his eyelids, he peered into each one and felt the heartbeat at Tom’s
throat. “It’s flying,” he said, a little surprised. Sight blurred, head
swimming, Tom moaned and turned his face away, hands coming up to protect
himself. The doctor kept a hand at his neck, two fingers pressed to his
fluttering pulse, until Tom’s vision slowly cleared and he rose up on an elbow.
The doctor moved to help.
“Let’s get you sitting up now.” Hands on his shoulders, he guided him to a
sitting position. “Follow my finger. Good. Take two deep breaths in and out
slowly.” Heart racing, Tom clutched his chest and tried to settle his
breathing, panting through the rush of light in his head. But he kept his eyes
glued on the doctor, determined to settle his nerves. “Easy. In and out. Good
gracious, you’re wound tighter than a drum.”
There was a sudden knock on the door and then the Madame strode in, closing it
behind her. There was a storm on her brow, eyes flashing. “What is taking so
long?”
Doctor Roebuck, keeping a hand on Tom’s shoulder, turned to her. “Madame, this
boy is on the verge of collapse. His heart is as fast as a hummingbird’s wings,
flushed with nerves.”
Stepping closer, she met Tom’s eyes for a brief moment before he dropped them
low. “Yes, but is he diseased?”
Tom searched the doctor’s face, hoping he might do him this favor, but the man
wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“He is not,” he ended up saying, a little stiffly. “But he’s exhausted and
quite near a kind of breakdown. I recommend bed rest and time away from
customers until he sorts out.”
She sniffed out a quick laugh, coming to stand directly beside Tom, wrapping
her hand around his wrist. The gesture was small, but inherently threatening,
and Tom’s every instinct screamed at him to pull away. “And how long do you
suggest he not work?” Words clipped and a little lilting, Tom could tell she
was mightily amused and not at all interested in the doctor’s answer. His heart
fell.
“Two weeks,” Roebuck said, standing his ground. They were nearly eye to eye,
and Tom felt caught like a fawn in the clutches of two growling lions.
“Two—,” she started and then laughed a high trickle, cheeks flushing with
mirth. She waved her hand at the doctor. “You may go.”
Roebuck drew himself up, affronted. “Go? I have more girls to see.”
“I said to leave,” the Madame shot back.
“In this town I am a man of upstanding repute, Madame, and while you may think
that just because your establishment draws the most clientele that you are
allowed to treat the rest of us like dirt, you are gravely mistaken. I was
summoned here by those brutes of yours and I have a job to do, which is to
ensure the workers of this house remain healthy. I would thank you to leave me
to my duties and remove yourself from this room until I am finished so that I
may return to the more respectable side of the tracks and forget you ever
exist.”
Mouth agape, Tom stared at the man as if he had just spewed fire but another
glance at the Madame confirmed just how burning the doctor’s words indeed were.
She was red-faced again, quietly furious, visibly trembling as her eyes flicked
over Roebuck’s face. But the man was smugly distant, already turning from her.
“You’re flushed, Madame. Near hysterical. I suggest you have a lie-down
yourself.”
He might as well have smacked her, her recoil was so great. A terse moment
passed where the doctor bent over his medical bag and the Madame stalked to the
door and tore out, slamming it behind her. Tom jumped, pushing his dress down
over his knees.
“She’ll kill you,” he whispered, slipping down to the floor.
Roebuck scoffed. “What’s that woman going to do? Nothing. But as for you. I am
serious about that bed rest. Your pulse was quite elevated. You’re under
extreme duress here. And listen, I’m terribly sorry I can’t be of more help to
you. I hope she listens to my suggestion and allows you time to recuperate your
strength.”
That seemed to be the end of it, so Tom thanked him quietly and let himself
out. The last few girls seemed bored leaning up against the wall, but all
smiled at him as he breezed by. He hardly noticed. He needed to find Eve.
Chris:
The first thing he needed to do was make sure he could reach Bullet without any
trouble. He found out the kid’s name was Billy, and he happily led Chris down
the aisle between the stalls to the one in the corner, kept apart from the
others.
Bullet flicked his tail in annoyance at the sight of Chris, the stall barely
holding his massive body.
“Don’t get all huffy with me,” he muttered, scratching the horse between his
ears. “You take him out for a stretch?”
“Every day,” the kid said. “He makes the other animals nervous, so I’ll clear
the corral and run him in circles by himself.”
This surprised Chris. “He lets you lead him?”
“Heck no,” the boy laughed, “I’ll just run with him until I get tired, but
he’ll go on his own. Sure’s got lots of energy, this one. I had to move a mare
that was starting her heat because he almost knocked down the walls to get to
her.”
“Sounds about right. Listen, I’m gonna need to leave town here real soon, real
fast. You don’t keep any of the pens locked do you?”
“Sure do. One key for all of them. Keep it right here on my belt.” His eyes got
nervous quickly and he took a step back from Chris. “Hey, mister, you ain’t
thinking of robbing me, are you?”
“What, and steal back all those dollars I’ve been giving you? It ain’t like
that, kid. I just wanna know if I can grab my horse and go when I need to.”
“You want me to leave his pen unlocked? What if someone else tries to steal
him?”
“He won’t let ‘em. But I’m gonna need you to do something for me. From now on,
can you saddle him up at night? That’s probably when I’ll take off.”
“Well, I don’t know, mister. I got nearly a dozen animals to care for—.”
“I’ll give you two dollars per day now.”
“Okay!”
Chris smiled. The kid was good, but he was new at this game. Had he stuck it
out more, he could have wrangled another dollar from him. “Much obliged, Billy.
I’ll be by to check on him more often now. He’s an ornery beast. He ain’t tried
to bite you yet?”
“Aw, he’s a big faker. He’ll snap at the air right next to you. But he’s never
bitten me. Likes to lick my face actually.”
“Means he likes you.” Billy and Bullet, Chris thought, amused. Unlikeliest of
friends.
The kid’s smile was big and sweet, and Chris hoped life out in these parts
didn’t turn him into something mean and broken. He wondered suddenly how Tom
had been as a child, and the thought alone tightened his chest. Slender little
thing, maybe, great bubbling laughter, soft flushed cheeks, knobby knees,
freckled from the sun. Wasn’t much different from how Tom was now actually,
save for the deep despair running darkly on his brow.
Not for long.
Over the next several days, Chris kept close to the boarding house, leaving
only to procure items he knew he and Tom would need while traveling through the
desert. A pair of fresh blankets, a spare change of clothes – big enough for
him and small enough for Tom – a box of matches, an extra canteen for water,
salve for burns. Belen watched him with narrowed eyes whenever he returned to
her building carting supplies, not saying much whenever she fed him, but
watching always. Apart from that time he overheard some runt cowboy get
aggressive with her when she requested her rent money – Chris ended up slamming
into the man when he started getting physical with her, throwing him bodily
into the street, crouching over him to warn very quietly that he better not lay
his hands on a woman like that again, much less the one that houses and feeds
him – Chris hadn’t really heard her talk. But she thanked him that day, heavily
accented and a bit shy, but hard-edged as she eyed the man on the street,
dusting himself off and scowling in their direction.
She was calculating and determined, and hadn’t made her way alone without a
good amount of grit, and for that he respected her.
“You leave?” she said when he came down for lunch on Friday. He sank heavily
into a chair by her rickety table, his legs splaying out the other side.
Removing his hat, he hung it on the peg of another chair and sighed.
“Yeah. Real soon.”
She pointed her spatula at him. “You stay and work for me. I pay you.”
Chris smiled. “What, like a bodyguard?”
Belen shrugged. “Protect and no rent.”
It was honestly a pretty decent offer. Live and eat free of charge in exchange
for clearing the place of troublesome tenants and generally making himself as
threatening a presence to anyone Belen needed him to was something Chris really
had no problem with. He liked Belen. Underneath the hard shell of her
personality, she was kind enough, her smiles rare but warm. And she shared her
smokes with him. But if he would ever consider accepting her offer, she would
have to know about Tom.
He tipped back on the hind legs of his chair and brought out his blade to
whittle at the stick of wood he’d picked up from the kindling pile outside.
“You know, I can’t say just now that I won’t do that for you. It’s mighty nice
of you to offer, and I thank you. But if it turns out I can stay and help you
out around here, you’ll need to know that I’ll be bringing someone in to live
with me.”
She stirred the pot on the stove, but cut him a high-browed glance. “Wife?”
“Something like that. Only, my wife is a boy.” He raked off a thick layer of
bark, letting it drift loose to lie curled on the floor. He met her eyes.
“Understand?”
Humming, she shrugged and nodded. “Some boys very pretty. Make good wives. Yo
no juzgo.”
Chris grinned. He loved it when she broke out in Spanish. “What’s that mean
now, darlin’?”
“Mean, I not judge.”
Chris’s eyes flickered low, carving the blade deeper into the bark, outlining
the wings. “All right, then,” he murmured, smiling faintly. She started up her
humming again and bent to take out the bread baking in the oven.
No. He didn’t just like Belen. He adored her.
**
Tom’s soft words about how he’d ended up in the Madame’s grip stayed with Chris
in the days following their last encounter. Especially his confession about how
his parents had died, and how helpless he’d felt having to abandon them in the
desert to save his own life. Borrowing a shovel from Belen, Chris took Bullet
out just before sunset and followed the direction Tom had said he’d come from.
He scanned through several acres before he finally found the metal spokes
sticking out of the shifting sands. The wagon was a broken heap on two
remaining wooden wheels, buffeted by winds and storms.
The sun had laid its claim on the skeletons he found beneath the wagon bed.
Strips of hair and skin still clung to the skull, but nothing too disturbing.
He dug into the ground for the better part of an hour, until the hole was good
and deep, and then he pulled the remains out from under the creaking wagon.
Examining the bodies for anything that might mean something special to Tom, he
eventually found a necklace tangled in the blond hair of Tom’s mother. The
clasp was broken, torn perhaps in the struggle that had preceded the woman’s
death, and hidden from the scavengers that had picked the corpses of all other
valuables. He pocketed the necklace and buried first the father and then the
mother, laying them side by side. Covering them with the pebbled sand took less
time than removing it had, and he was back in his room just after dark. Working
by lamplight, he untangled the gold chain and reattached the scuffed gold
figure of a delicate bird. He wasn’t sure if there was a jeweler in town who
might be able to fix the broken clasp, but he would look into it the following
day.
First came the issue of the men guarding the Sapphire Raven.
There were six of them, the savvy pistoleers the Madame hired on for protection
of herself and her building, and by extension the charges in her care. He
avoided going into the saloon itself, afraid of seeing Tom escorted to the
second floor landing and knowing what other men would be doing to him. But he
didn’t want to spend too much time away from him for fear that Tom would
believe he’d been abandoned. Staking out the place meant a lot of visiting the
buildings around it, quieter saloons and shops that offered storefront windows
where he could gauge the interior of the Sapphire Raven without drawing too
much attention to himself. Just because there was no formal police presence in
town at the moment didn’t mean things couldn’t turn ugly in the space of a
second. It wasn’t helping that he kept catching other men around town looking
at him strangely, with barely veiled recognition, staring just an instant too
long without nodding hello or touching their hat in greeting. The last thing he
needed was to be identified and cornered by a bunch of people who thought they
were doing the world some good by approaching him with wild – albeit it,
accurate – accusations. But he needed to focus solely on Tom.
The more he studied the Madame’s building, the less sense it made. He knew the
inner parlor well, the dimensions fitting with what showed from the street out
front. But the alley behind it revealed a depth to the building that made him
wonder if there weren’t passages not visible from the main room.
Staring up at it, he was caught in contemplation when the hair on the back of
his neck rose in warning, the scratch of a footstep behind him.
“Go on and turn, nice and slow,” a man’s voice said. Keeping his hands open,
Chris turned to face the same man whose knuckles had been busted just before
Chris had found out about Tom’s beating. Anger flared to the center of his
chest, but he kept his breathing steady, his face calm.
The gun was cocked and aimed right at the center of Chris’s chest, level and
impressively still.
“It’s you, then,” the man said. “Mr. Billiards Player.”
Chris nearly scoffed. How typical for a lackey to take on his mistress’
obnoxious nicknames as his own.
The man jutted his chin behind Chris. “Entrance is up front.”
Chris still said nothing.
“Thinking of sneaking in? Stealing one of the girls? But wait a minute. You
ain’t interested in one of them now, are you? You want something a little
more…tight.”
The muscles of Chris’s middle finger twitched, but he still made no movement.
The man grinned, all yellow teeth and red gums.
“Too bad they ain’t working this week. The boss is cleaning shop.”
Chris’s brow tightened just fractionally. What did that mean? Tom wasn’t seeing
customers? None of the girls were?
“Works out just fine for me, ‘cause I’ll take that pretty little prince of hers
and fuck him mys—.”
Quick as a blink, Chris’s hand shot down to his holster and took hold of his
gun, bringing it up in one smooth motion, his left hand rising and snapping the
hammer back just as he squeezed the trigger. It took less than a second, but
the shot was true.
The man’s neck cracked back, a dark hole blooming red in the middle of his
forehead. Legs buckling, the body thudded to the ground, gun clattering
uselessly to the side. Red mulch and bone splattered the ground in a wide arc.
Chris took a look around and saw no one. Good. He left the man and his gun just
as they’d fallen, holstering his own and strolling out of the alley as calmly
as he could. He was uneasy about what the man had told him. It seemed out of
character that the Madame would cease her skin business for any reason at all.
From what he could tell, the downstairs parlor still serviced liquor and games,
but no girls? Was Tom safe? Fisting a hand, he felt the knuckles pop as he
ambled down the street, thinking to visit Bullet before returning to his room.
The horse always soothed him in ways he was unable to describe.
On the wooden sidewalk across the street from the Sapphire Raven, he nearly
collided with a heavyset man carrying a black bag. Skirting around him
distractedly, the man hurried on, muttering on about that ‘damned lady boss’
and her ‘insulting manner’.
“Excuse me,” Chris said, and the man blinked around at him, silhouette studded
in dust and buzzing gnat wings. The sun was setting, making him squint
suspiciously at Chris, drawing his bag tighter against his leg.
“Yes?”
“You just been in the Raven?” he asked, inclining his head to the building
across the street. The man, a doctor judging by his bag, spared it the briefest
of glances and then continued on his way.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Chris caught up to him and fell into step. “Can I ask why? Is someone sick?”
“What’s it to you? Got a woman in there you filled with child?”
“No. But I am hoping you could tell me if you saw the boy.”
The man stopped and studied him seriously, eyes taking on more of an interest.
“Who are you?”
“No one. I’m just asking about the boy. You know who I’m talking about, don’t
you?”
“Yes…yes I attended to him. The only boy she has in her service.”
Dread filled his belly like black stones, but he drew himself up and tried not
to show it. “Is he alright? What’d he need seeing for?” He was seconds from
storming into the place and tearing it apart to locate Tom.
The doctor sighed and started back up the path, slower now that Chris was with
him. “Normally I wouldn’t speak of my clients’ business with the likes of
people like you.” Chris shrugged, not easily put out. “But I personally could
care less what happens to that woman. You, on the other hand, seem to have some
interest in the boy, so it’s no skin off my nose if her dirty laundry makes its
way around town. She dispatched her ruffian thugs to persuade me to visit her
establishment and check her workers for disease. I wasn’t expecting a boy, but
suddenly there he was. In a dress of all things.” Chris felt his heart actually
twist with yearning. “I checked him. He’s healthy enough, has good lungs and
teeth, and he’s not diseased. Though he has some slight tearing from, well,
overuse.” He shook his head and dabbed at his temple with a handkerchief. “I
told that woman the boy needed bed rest for at least two weeks. Who knows if
she’ll listen to me.”
Chris turned to him, startled. “Bed rest? But you just said he was fine.”
The doctor stopped under a striped alcove erected between a shop of women’s
clothing and children’s toys. The shade threw his wrinkles and heavy jowls into
sharp contrast. “Look, young man. That boy is frightened, and rightly so.
Practically fainted on the table. I’ve never seen someone’s heart beat so fast
who wasn’t moments away from a collapse or in a blind panic. He’s able to
recover more or less now, but I’m not sure what kind of health he’ll be in,
physically or mentally, should he remain there much longer.”
Heart racing, Chris turned to look at the distant Sapphire Raven. Somewhere in
there was Tom, scared and distraught, thinking perhaps that Chris may have
abandoned him. Beside him, the doctor watched him closely, fat fingers fiddling
with his dusty handkerchief.
“You’re going to go in there and what, bust him out? Save him? Give the Madame
a piece of your mind? Take care, young man. Those men of hers, they’re
ruthless, above the law.” He scoffed. “Not that we have any here. They catch
you in their sights and you’re good as dead.”
Chris pulled out a half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear and struck a match
to light it. Out on the street, voices were beginning to rise in excitement, a
few people rushing off toward the far end of the street where the Sapphire
Raven threw a growing crowd of people into shadow. Dragged out from the back
alley looked to be a body. Exhaling a plume of smoke, Chris shook his head.
“No, doctor. It’s really the other way around.” He met the man’s startled eyes,
flicking between the scene down the street and to Chris with newfound
awareness. Chris patted his shoulder in gratitude and then continued up the
sidewalk, boots thudding hollowly on the cracked floorboards as others ran past
him to stare at the newly dead.
***** Wooden Dove and Note *****
Tom:
There really wasn’t anything as terrifying to Tom as the raised voices of men.
Now that he’d had some distance from the physical touch of men, his ears were
opening up to the other sounds in the Madame’s establishment. The second floor
was quiet as a tomb, every door flung open to air out during their
intermission. But below, in the smoky parlor, the crowd of men grew. Shouts at
the billiards and faro tables were often heard, winners or losers making their
success or plight known. Any day now and someone would draw their gun, he was
sure of it. It was a miracle that nobody had been shot so far, but it seemed
that taking from the men the means to slake their lusts with the women had only
served to agitate them, a sort of electric and menacing air brewing just
beneath the spotless chandeliers hanging from the ceilings.
But now that he and the girls had been examined, Tom imagined they would be put
back to work soon. So far nobody had been thrown out. Perhaps they’d all been
determined free of illness. It was a relief for them all, in any case, most of
the girls bundling blankets and pillows on the floor of his and Evangeline’s
room that same night after the doctor’s visit, as if sleeping together would
shore up their belief that no one could steal them by force.
The Madame hadn’t spoken to him again since the day of her little spat with the
doctor, her doorway at the end of the hall always closed but he could feel her
heavy presence just beyond, her anger palpable even from inside his and Eve’s
room. He couldn’t help but wonder if the commotion – shouts and clamor about a
dead body – heard outside earlier was the reason for the sudden influx of
customers in the parlor downstairs. Word was that one of her men had been
involved in a street fight and been gunned down. But that seemed the wrong way
to phrase it, he thought, remembering two of the servants whispering about how
her gunman had only one bullet hole in him, straight between the eyes. The
remaining five men were visibly on edge, prowling the upper floors with rage
purpling their brows, hands braced on their pistols as if their friends’ killer
was sleeping under their very roof. Tom tried not to let it show, but he was
secretly pleased the man was dead. Not only having beaten him to within an inch
of his life, but always menacing Tom with his sickening leer and painful grip,
the danger in his eyes coming close to a boil until one day he might have truly
harmed him. Still, he kept quiet, like all the girls, eyes down whenever he
passed the other men, hoping not to incite their wrath. Even if she hadn’t
specifically given him permission to follow Doctor Roebuck’s orders, Tom stayed
close to his and Eve’s room, taking naps and focusing on his breathing as he
stared at the ceiling and tried to recall the scent of Chris’s neck. Just as he
thought the monotony would split his brain in two, Eve slammed into their room
on the fourth evening, startling him from his doze.
“Christ, Eve! What is it?”
She stood with her back to the closed door, chest jumping with frantic breaths.
Her braid was coming undone, wisps of her dark hair framing her face like
spider webs. But it was her grin that frightened him the most, almost manic,
eyes bright with a fever borne of excitement and not sickness.
“Tom,” she gasped, racing across the room and pulling him to his feet. He took
her face in both hands, feeling the pump of her heart in the hot blood just
beneath her porcelain skin.
“What, darling? Are you alright?”
“He’s here,” she said breathlessly. “Blow out the candle. Now.”
“Who’s here? The doctor? What are you doing?” Busy fluffing the pillows and
billowing out the sheets so that they laid flat, she went on in quick pants.
“Your cowboy. He’s here.”
His blood sprang to life. “What? Downstairs?” He took a step toward the door,
but she snatched his wrist.
“No, Tom! He’s outside, climbing up. I told him where our window was.”
Disbelief clenched his jaw, his words a hissed whisper. “He’s climbing the
wall?”
She giggled. “Yes! It’s only three floors, Tom. The man is plenty capable.
Plus, I spied all five of the Madame’s men in the parlor downstairs, conferring
with each other at the bar. Stewing, more like. Are you ready?”
He gulped. Was he? To see Chris again would be a joy, but their proximity to
the Madame sent up a flare of warning. “It’s too dangerous. Your mother is just
down the hall. How will he get down again? What if—.”
“Shh, my darling. Don’t you worry about any of that, especially her. I was just
in to see her now. She’s complaining of a headache, so I gave her some
laudanum.” She took his hands, her face lit brightly. Excited for him, he
realized. “This is a perfect time for you, Tom. It’s serendipity, really. I was
out back helping toss the garbage and I see a tall shadow shift just beside me.
If he hadn’t moved, I would never have known he was there! But I recognized him
immediately. He’s desperate to see you, Tom. And I will help you. I will make
sure you have your time alone with him.”
“B-but what if tonight’s the night? What if he wants me to leave with him?”
“Then you go, sweetheart. You go with him, and you find a way to send me word
that you’re happy and safe.”
“Oh, it’s all so sudden. My heart is racing—.”
There was a noise by the window and they both gasped, turning in time to see
the low rise of a shadow through the lace curtains. There was hardly any moon,
and thank heavens for that. Eve gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and then
rustled off to the door. “I’ll be back at midnight. I love you.” And then she
was gone, the quiet click of a turned key in the knob the final noise of her
departure.
“Love you,” Tom murmured, walking as if in a dream to the window, pulling aside
the curtain and staring right into the eyes of his cowboy.
“Mine,” he whispered, smiling, hating the damnable tears that rose in his eyes.
But he unlocked the clasp and raised the window wide, reaching for Chris just
as he lifted himself silently over the windowsill. His ears were cold, his
shirt stiff but fresh, the smell of sand and horse rising off him. Falling
against him, Tom wrapped him close and breathed his name. Bumped chins and
tumbled steps, window forgotten, Chris hitched Tom around the waist and bent
low to kiss his lips, soft and waiting and flush with heat.
“You found me, you found me,” Tom whispered, yanking Chris’s hat off and
letting it fall to the floor, carding his fingers through hair soft and cold
with moonlight, rasping their cheeks together just because he could.
“I missed you,” Chris said softly. “Been thinking of you since I left. This
pretty little face, your smile, how warm and soft you are.”
“Darling, it’s too much. We’ll be caught.”
“We won’t. I’ll be out right quick if I need to. And I wanted to give you
something.”
He pulled Tom to the bed, which would have been threatening enough, but Tom’s
usual fear evaporated in the presence of this man, his excitement and growing
feelings acting like a sponge for his anxiety and suspicion. If Chris had
wanted to force sex on Tom, he would have done it already. And besides, Tom had
never truly allowed himself to feel this kind of electric magnetism to someone
before, and without fear of injury he found he really liked the bubbly
sensation in his chest whenever Chris so much as looked at him. He followed him
willingly to the bed.
“Here,” Chris said. “Sit.”
Tom sank down beside him. Chris reached into his back pocket and brought out a
small item that fit snugly in his big hand. It was dark and smooth, and
surprisingly heavy. It felt large in Tom’s palms, cupping it and holding it to
his face.
“It’s a dove,” he said with awe, rubbing his thumb over the patterned wings
folded closely over the bird’s round body, it’s tiny beak tucked almost
demurely to the side. “You made this?”
“I did,” Chris said quietly, eyes never leaving Tom’s face, which he felt grow
hotter.
“For me?”
Chris grinned and cupped the back of his head, leaning forward to peck his
forehead in a small kiss. “Yes, little bird. For you.”
“I’ll keep it always,” Tom promised, holding the carving close to his belly. In
the webby mesh of laced moonlight, Chris looked contemplative and hungry, his
eyes edged with a sharpness that made Tom’s spine straighten, chest poked out
toward him, breathless all of a sudden.
“Babe,” Chris said, and Tom scooted closer, sliding their palms together. Face
softening, Chris wrapped an arm around his back, giving him a squeeze. “It’ll
be soon. I have nearly everything ready.”
Tom sat up, excited. “Where will we go?”
“Anywhere. There are towns popping up all over, places where I’ll be invisible
and you’ll be free. Where we can live quietly. In peace.”
Smiling, Tom tucked a strand of hair behind Chris’s ear. “Will you become a
farmer, my darling? Toil and bring from the earth what we need to survive?”
“I would do anything,” Chris whispered. “To secure for us a good future. But I
was thinking the coast. I think you would do well around water. You would bloom
under the touch of sea winds.”
Something rosy and tufted with wings erupted behind Tom’s ribs, and falling
into Chris took no hesitation, not any longer. Temples brushing, noses nudging,
chin lifted to meet the other’s lips, Chris pulled him under the wide bulk of
his body and pressed him to the pillows, the dove carving rolling between the
sheets. More kisses, and more moans, but the heat magnified each rasp of skin,
each breath smothered by eager lips and stifled moans. Hands on hips, pulling,
tugging, arch, hush, hush.
“Chris,” he gasped, mouth sliding on silk-wheat hair, Chris’s hips pumping
dryly between his legs. His lace shift was bunched around his waist and he felt
the enormous length of his handsome cowboy. Rather than shrink back in horror
at the pain he knew a large man careless of his girth could no doubt cause, he
hugged Chris closer, knowing, inherently, that sex with him would be vastly
different – and possibly what he had timidly imagined it would be. Ever since
allowing himself to feel for Chris, Tom’s body had been ripe for opportunity to
prove it. Hard almost instantly, there was no room for shame or trepidation in
that cave in his heart, the fear pushed out by the first flowerings of his
desire. Hips lifting, nails digging in, chin bouncing up for kiss after kiss,
he behaved in a way perhaps the men he’d thus far encountered had wished he had
moved and moaned and yearned for them.
No, he mouthed against Chris’s temple, delighted that he even could, and did
again. I’m not theirs. I’m his. His.
“I can’t get enough of you,” Chris whispered, dragging his lips from nose to
ear, chills erupting over Tom’s skin so that he gasped and bent up, and they
rolled to the side and embraced each other tightly.
“And I can’t tell you how unfamiliar this giant sunburst is in my chest,” Tom
said, just as quietly. “What is this, Chris? What is it?”
“Sweet darling. It’s your heart.”
They lay in bed together, long legs hanging off the edge, soft-soled feet
nudged between cracked and dusty boot heels. He wanted to give more of himself
to Chris, to let his erection rub and rub until he fell over that swelling
crest, but he couldn’t rid his mind of the anxious itch that the Madame was
only down the hall. There was no relaxing with so close a viper. But that
didn’t stop his kisses, and Chris didn’t stop him from giving them, bending
over him and accepting each one with the full and heavy weight of his warmth.
He liked the taste of Chris’s mouth, faintly of liquor and a twist of tobacco
and something sweet, like peaches – the way he hauled Tom tight to his chest
and ran his big hand up his flank to squeeze his bottom.
The door cracked open a foot and they broke apart, scrambling up just as
Chris’s hand snapped to the gun at his waist. It was out of the holster and
aimed at the door in the blink of an eye, robbing Tom of his breath. But it was
only Eve, clicking the door closed quietly before rushing to their side.
Tom sat up, pulling down his dress. Was it really midnight? “Eve?”
She drew in two deep breaths and then said, “One of the gunmen is on his way
up. He broke away from the others, and I was close enough to hear that he’s
coming to check on ‘the dainty prince’. I came up the back staircase. But he’ll
be here any second.” Pushing back the strands of hair that had fallen loose
from her braid, she stared wildly at them, her eyes finally falling steady on
Chris.
Standing swiftly, Chris took her by the elbow and guided her to the bed. “Sit
here. Tom, you too. You keep quiet, alright?” And then he slipped into the
shadows just to the left of the door, directly out of sight.
A solid minute passed, in which he and Eve sat nervously on the bed, hands
clasped, eyes wide on the doorway. Any parlor sounds were usually too faded by
the distance from the second floor, and the silence only amplified the solid
boot thuds in the hallway outside, a leisurely gait, one self-assured that all
would be just as it should.
Tom could barely see Chris’s outline along the wall, tall and completely still,
leaning in toward the door, but he could still feel his whiskery kisses and
heavy weight like a phantom on his limbs, and it made a shiver race through him
at the suspense of waiting, wondering what Chris might do.
He’d kill the man, that’s what. And it suddenly occurred to him that Chris
might have killed the other one that very afternoon, a single shot to the
forehead.
Eve felt him tremble, and squeezed his hand, shot a quick smile at him before
opening her mouth to speak in a voice that belied her fear, and his.
“Honestly, Tom, it’s just like I told you. It’s best to brush before bed or
else you’ll wake with all these tangles that take forever to pull out.”
The doorknob clicked round and then the man was stepping in, tall figure
outlined in the lamplight pouring in from the hallway. Eve gasped and turned
around with a look of indignation.
“You call for impropriety now, in addition to the threat of physical violence?
Where’s the agreed upon knock?”
The man chuckled, a thin stick of wood rolled over his teeth by a busy tongue,
the wet gleam of it in the low light. “I like when they’re riled up a bit.
Makes the taking a little more fun, wouldn’t you say?”
Eve huffed, hiding the hand fisted in Tom’s dress behind their turned bodies.
Tom said nothing, just stared at the man, hoping to pass unnoticed.
“We’re a man short. One of us has to take his rounds, lest something happens
and the dainty prince thinks to run again at the first opportune moment.”
“I won’t run,” Tom whispered, but the man only laughed a little louder.
“Oh, we know a runner when we see one. The fight isn’t out of you yet, so quit
your fakin’.”
The floorboard behind him creaked, and the man straightened with a flick of his
eyes to the side. But Chris was too fast, the surprise too solid, and just
before the man could reach for his gun Chris was at his back, a dark and
looming presence that reminded Tom of images from old books in his father’s
study, angels and demons, and the shadows and bursts of light that loomed at
their heels.
The man’s neck snapped to the side, bone cracking loudly from the naked power
of Chris’s hands. But Chris kept the body from sagging to the floor, catching
him and holding him so the body wouldn’t thump and give them away.
“Open the window,” he instructed quietly, and Tom and Eve immediately scrambled
to their feet, hurtling to the window and throwing it open. Giving the ground
below a cursory glance, Chris deemed it sufficient and then tossed the body
over the window ledge without a moment’s hesitation. The distant thud still
made Tom and Eve flinch. Chris turned back to them, and they inhaled nervously.
“Little Bird,” he whispered, and Tom fell easily into his embrace, the feel of
firm chest and long arms all he needed to be exorcised of any trepidation.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, the both of you.”
“Oh, hogwash,” Eve whispered, reaching forward and clasping Chris’s wrist.
“They are bad men and we aren’t safe with them around. Thank you, Chris. But
how will you get rid of the body?”
“Leave that to me. You two bolt this window once I’m gone and get into bed,
pretend you’ve been sleeping for hours now. Can you do that?”
They nodded.
“Good. Now who has more access to the house?”
“I do,” Eve said.
“I’ll leave a note for you, in the alley out back. There’s a loose board in the
wall just behind the door.”
“A note?” Tom said in a hush, eyes crinkled in worry.
“For when I’ll come get you, little bird. For good.”
With a quick kiss on Tom’s mouth and a gentle nod to Eve, Chris climbed out the
window and started his descent. Once he was on the ground, white face cast up
at them one last time, they locked the window and hurried under the covers,
both shaking from what they’d witnessed.
“He had to do it,” Eve said, finding Tom’s hand between them. “They’ve been
getting more and more aggressive. He had to do it, or else the man might have
hurt either of us, or both.”
“Do you think he killed the one from this afternoon?”
“Yes,” she breathed, her straight nose bobbing as she nodded. “Now that you
mention it, that’s exactly what I think. And the funny thing is, I don’t feel
afraid of him for doing it.” She turned to face him, her eyes twinkling in the
dark. “Are you, Tom?”
“No,” he whispered sincerely, grateful he wasn’t alone in this. “I’m not afraid
of him.”
The night passed with little sleep, both falling into fitful spurts that left
them breathless with every jolt into consciousness, eyes wide on the dark room.
When dawn finally broke and cast their tired faces in a shawl of gray, he and
Eve were strangely calm. They simply gazed at each other, and with a simple
nod, stood to face the day. The commotion didn’t immediately break out. After
resuming their normal morning duties of straightening beds and bathing, they
did their best to look just as startled and confused as everyone else when the
first shouts came from the street level about another killing in Silver Dam.
Neck snapped, twisted limbs, perhaps the man had fallen? Yes, perhaps he had
but really, we would never know.
The Madame was a silent storm of fury as she emerged from her room dressed
severely in dark green and black, called her remaining four gunmen up in a
voice sharp like a dog’s bark, and then retreated once more. The girls and Tom
slipped back into their own respective rooms as the men advanced down the hall,
eyes slit in danger, hats low on their brows. It had been days since the
doctor’s visit and not one of the girls – or Tom – had been called to entertain
customers. It was all very strange and unlike the Madame, ominous even,
although he appreciated the time away from the men, his body recovering truly
for the first time since he’d landed in this terrible place. His tailbone felt
almost normal.
Every morning thereafter, Eve checked the loose board but there was never a
note, and Tom’s stomach began to cramp with unease.
It was with a darkening gloom that storm clouds began gathering every evening,
clusters of black and grey so dense it was hard to imagine the blue sky behind
them, the stars hidden from him at night. The rain would pound on the roof and
windows, winds gusting the sides of the building so that the walls heaved and
rocked, making the girls who’d crowded into their bedroom scuttle deeper into
the blankets and pillows nested on the floor.
“She hasn’t suspected?” Tom whispered into Eve’s ear, the thunder masking his
question from the others. In his hand was Chris’s dove carving, stroked to a
near shine by Tom’s anxious fingers.
“If she has, she hasn’t told me a word. But she’s been meeting with the four
men left. They’re trying to figure out who killed the others.”
“They can’t suspect him,” he said, refusing to say his name when in the company
of others. Eve followed his lead.
“I don’t know why they would. There are so many cowboys who pass by these
parts. New faces every day. I think he’s safe.”
But it was difficult to say when he couldn’t keep in contact with Chris. With
the flesh services on pause, there was really no reason for any of the girls or
Tom to be speaking with any men, and so their means of digging out information
was severed. And maybe that was the Madame’s entire goal, to strip one from the
other, and perhaps root out a culprit. Still, the nightly storms kept most
business to a minimum in the parlor, and bad airs were beginning to brew.
Several fights broke out, loud crashes and breaking glass that caused the girls
to gather at the lip of the hall and peer down through the balcony to the fray
below.
And still no Chris. Was he alright? Eve, with eyes pinched with worry, had no
answer to give him.
Chris:
He wasn’t able to leave a note under the wooden board until almost a week
later. There was something suspicious afoot, several men staring at him just a
bit too long, recognition making their faces cold. It was prudent to lay low,
keep to his bunk, an eye on the comings and goings of the main street. The
Sapphire Raven, when he was able to sneak out around dusk, seemed less
frequented than before and he wondered why. It was true that the streets were
mucked with fresh mud from the rains, and travel by foot was inconvenient to
most. Which is why those out and about were the harder looking men on
horseback, scowls and sharp eyes and half-cocked guns at their hips. Men just
like him.
At the foot of his bed he whittled a new piece of wood, the skin on the back of
his neck tightening with fear, one of the few times in his life. Not for
himself, but for Tom. Fear that he might not be able to get him out of that
place where he was so basely abused, and for what? So some lady could collect
shiny coins off his suffering? Chris would kill her before the end of it all,
he was sure of it.
He hoped Eve found the note this morning and delivered it to Tom. It had been a
simple thing, really, and more fanciful than he’d intended, like out of a fairy
story. Meet me here at sunset.He couldn’t remember a time when writing
something like that would have ever crossed his mind, but meeting the boy had
shifted something in the thicker-lined vault of his mind, no less his often
ignored heart. A soft embrace, deep inhale at the crook of a long, pale neck,
warm snuggles in a bed all their own, chasing away the chill of dawn on a bit
of land that they might tend to, the ocean surf a sound constant and soothing
in their lives – it suddenly seemed like everything he’d been fighting for his
whole life, the wandering and the hustle inevitably leading him to this exact
juncture, this exact boy.
And he wasn’t about to let that snake get in his way.
***** Escape *****
Tom:
There was nothing much to do except sit around and wait with bated breath for
the Madame’s ire to lessen and for Chris’s letter to appear. But when it
finally did he didn’t know what to do with himself. Eve’s ecstatic grin when
she bolted their door and slipped him the crumpled piece of paper – black
scrawl like beetle-leg lines telling him to meet Chris in the alley that sunset
– spurred his own giant smile and he hadn’t been able to stop since. He’d
packed in a small canvas sheath a pair of dresses, warm stockings, two scarves
to guard himself from the blowing sands, and the wooden figurine Chris had
carved for him.
“I won’t dare step foot in the kitchen this time,” he vowed, still angry about
the last time he’d tried to escape.
“No,” Eve said gently, “I doubt he’ll take you away only to let you starve.”
They ate a light lunch of fruit and thinly cut bread, but Tom drank water more
than anything, knowing the parching thirst the desert would deliver to him if
he wasn’t properly hydrated. Chris had assured him that he had everything
prepared, but Tom’s experience at the brink of death was a hard thing to
dismiss. He and Eve tried not to be too blatant about their burgeoning
affection, so as not to arouse suspicion, but it was hard not to touch her
knowing they would be separated possibly forever before the day’s end. And when
the time came, they embraced and cried in their bedroom, whispering their love,
Eve making him promise he would find a way to let her know he was okay.
“You hear me?” she said in a hush, cupping his head and peering at him with
soaked eyes. “You let me know. Somehow.”
“I will,” he said, and accepted her kiss on his forehead.
The sconces were lit low in the hallway when Tom slipped out of his room that
evening. He could see the sun’s glare through the curtains – a seeping red,
nearly extinguished – but time was running short and he needed to make sure he
was ready when Chris arrived for him. Eve was positioned on the balcony
overlooking the parlor and very carefully, from behind the flow of her dress,
she waved at him to go. Clutching his small bag of spare clothing, Tom slipped
down the passage, his bare feet noiseless on the plush rug, and stole into the
doorway that led down the hidden staircase. His heart thudded painfully, chest
tight with panic, imagining her men – or the Madame herself – close on his
heels, ready to snatch him back into their midst. But he made it to the lower
level and pushed through the door to the alleyway and into the wet, electric
air that burst to life at the start of every rainfall and right into a pair of
arms.
“Chris!” he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Little bird,” came the answer, and he nearly sobbed, giving in to the shudder
he’d been suppressing all day. Chris peppered the side of his face and neck
with hard kisses, his big hand fisting in his hair, not painful, but with a
sweet possession that made Tom’s toes tingle and curl in the dirt to lift
himself higher and closer to him. After another quick kiss on the lips, Chris
dipped his head to the side and reached for his hand. Hitching up his dress,
they sprinted down the alley and into the street leading away from the Madame’s
building. His feet became caked in dark mud, the hem of his dress spackled and
stained, but his heart was flying! He was running in the near-dark with a man
he felt comfortable placing the safety of his life in, away from the place of
his dreaded captivity, toward an unknown that would be brighter and more filled
with love and light, where no one would touch him unless he wanted.
“No horse just now,” Chris whispered, guiding him off the main street and
behind the back edges of the buildings leading from the Raven. He kept Tom
tight to his left side, his right hand hovering over his holstered gun. “We’ll
hole up at Belen’s until I get a feel for how things turn up.” The desert
yawned to their right, vast and daunting in the cooling dark, and Tom squeezed
Chris’s hand, angling closer. The shadows shifted with every cutting breeze,
the moon a sliver and no good to anyone. Specters began taking shape, of his
mother, of his father, gutted and bleeding, the wagon creaking somewhere he
couldn’t see, cruel men and their gleaming teeth grinning and ready to snatch
him away.
But he shut his eyes tight and trusted Chris to lead him out of the mess his
life had become, to where ghosts and vultures held no power. They came around a
corner and Tom recognized the building he’d ran up against the first time he’d
tried escaping, with its lines of drying laundry and hollow windows. Chris
pulled him to a door near the back, small and thin, a service entry, and just
as he was guiding Tom through the opening a loud blast sounded and something
pinged off the wooden jamb right next to Chris’s head.
Tom yelped and turned back, but Chris shoved him through the door and slammed
it closed, leaving him shrouded in darkness.
“No!” he gasped, reaching for the knob. But then a hand slipped over his mouth
and he was tugged away from the door. A scent of old roses flooded his
nostrils, and he managed to stifle his scream.
“Shh,” came a voice directly before him. “No talk.” She sounded much older than
he and Chris, and he realized it was probably Belen, the proprietor of the
building Chris had been staying in. Outside, voices rose and Tom shook free of
her to listen at the window.
“You’re the one, then,” a man was saying. Through the curtains he could see a
group of maybe six of them, their figures too blurry to make out in the dark.
Chris’s hand was just inches from the glass, held open in midair, and Tom
swallowed down his whimper, hating the glass separating them. What did they
want with Chris? Calling him ‘the one’? What did they mean?
When Chris said nothing, the man at the front waved a hand forward and two of
the other men took cautious steps in Chris’s direction. Still, Chris didn’t
move, eyes trained on the group of them.
“Your massacre won you a bounty on your head. Almost forty grand. We’ll keep
you in the jail until the nearest Deputy can arrive. Split it ‘mongst
ourselves.”
“A bounty?” Tom whispered, nose pressed to the lace. Massacre? Belen was
tugging on his elbow, whispering to him in Spanish.
“We know you live here. Ain’t nowhere you can go now. Come with us nice and
quiet and we won’t make the life of your Mexican lady friend a living hell.”
Chris shifted his head a fraction of an inch, and Tom stared at the dark
outline of his face, the long stretch of thick lashes. Two of the men were
closing the distance between them, reaching slowly for each of his arms. For as
afraid as they seemed of him, Tom expected Chris to kill them with a single
blink of his eyes, but he allowed the men to grab his arms and twist them up
behind his back. Their leader kept his gun trained on Chris, while Chris’s own
gun was forcibly removed from its holster and tossed to the ground, too
dangerous for him to be near. Without a fuss, Chris was led around the side of
the building and out of sight, Tom following him with his eyes as much as the
windowpane would allow.
“Where are they taking him?” he asked, turning to Belen, but the woman was
striking up a match, the flame illuminating her wrinkled face before the end of
her cigarette glowed red and the flame snuffed out. “He just let them take
him!”
“He protect you,” she said in her low, raspy voice. “You like wife.”
Now that his eyes were adjusting, he could make out they were in some kind of
kitchen, the outline of a cold stove and shuttered cabinets rising to the side,
a small wooden table up against the corner, a whittling knife on its scarred
surface. The last image of Chris being hauled away lit brightly in his mind and
he hugged his arms over his chest, despair crashing over him. Just as they were
nearly free to live together, more deadly men had come to ruin his dreams once
more. How would he get word to Eve? How would he get Chris out of the jail? He
walked up to Belen, the acrid scent of her cigarette smoke burning his eyes.
“Where is the jail? Please, I need to find him.”
“You stay here. You like wife. Cannot go out there.”
“I will go out there. He’s mine and they think they can just take him!” Anger
welled up in his chest and he tried to keep his voice down. “Can you take me to
his room at least? Where he keeps his things?”
Her eyes squinted. “You rob him?”
“No! I—.” He swallowed, not sure he was ready to voice what he felt to anyone
but the one he wanted most to hear it. “I just want something warmer to wear.
To sleep where he sleeps.”
She nodded and then pinched his ribs quickly. He gasped in pain and jumped
away. But she just smiled. “Too skinny. I make you something.”
He nodded, careful with his distance from her. Before he followed her from the
kitchen, he opened the back door and peeked out cautiously. Not a soul in
sight, the night nearly pitch, but glinting in the dirty like a star fallen low
was Chris’s gun. He stepped out on dirty feet and stooped to pick it up. It was
heavier than he thought, and much bigger than in his hands than was safe, but
he cradled it carefully and retreated inside, bolting the door behind him.
Belen showed him to a room midway down a corridor on the second floor, using a
long skeleton key to unlock the door. Tom slipped inside, eyes wide on the
small space his giant cowboy had been using to live in. Small bed, small
window, small bowl with a low puddle of water at its base. How to seal in the
sun?
Placing the gun on a short table with spindle legs, Tom caught sight of rumpled
cloth satchels pushed under the bed. Dropping to his knees he loosened the
drawstring of the first one and peered inside. Chris had packed his belongings,
folded trousers and soft, worn shirts, a jacket of softened cow hide. But
deeper down were more garments, smaller and newer, clothes he instinctively
knew were for him. Smiling, he set that bag aside and opened the next one,
gasping at its contents, eyes widening at the stray bullets and sheathed knives
gathered there, not to mention the snub-nosed shotgun he was afraid to touch.
The scarred and dull metal reminded him of what the men had accused Chris of, a
massacre. Had he really killed so many people as to warrant a bounty? But Chris
surely couldn’t have done that. He had been nothing but gentle with Tom, voice
low and calm, his hands never once hurting him. And yet, Chris’s silence under
the weight of such an accusation could only mean affirmation, and it made Tom
wonder what had truly happened before Chris rode into town.
The third satchel held food and water, ointment and sun salve, bandages and a
spare blanket. Tom took his own small bag of belongings and included it in with
Chris’s clothing, grateful that Chris was more prepared than he could ever be,
considering his options. When he turned to look, he saw that Belen was gone and
the door was closed. Shuffling up on the bed, he sat cross legged and hugged
the thin pillow to his chest. Chris had said he was bunking by the stables. If
Bullet was nearby, Tom might be able to break into the jail with the help of
the animal’s brute strength. And with nearly no moon, his way would be cloaked
in darkness. All he would need was an abundance of fearlessness.
His doubts about Chris were flimsy at best, wanting to trust in his heart what
he knew of the man versus what these strange men had said about him. Ever since
losing his parents in the deep desert, Tom had had no one but Eve, and she was
as chained to the Madame as Tom had been. Chris was the only other person, and
a man of all things, that made Tom feel that special kind of spark that
reminded him of home, of safety and love, of a bridge out of all this darkness.
If Tom had learned anything living in this town with these people, it was to
trust his gut, that tug behind his navel that told him when something was right
or wrong. And his interactions with Chris, even at the beginning when fear and
suspicion clouded most of his judgment, had always felt different – good –
compared to other men.
If anything, he would wait to hear what Chris had to say about it. He wouldn’t
be able to share his side locked up in the jail and Tom cowering in his room.
Right now Belen was probably downstairs cooking him food, which based on his
growling stomach, he would regret foregoing. But he needed to act now, or else
lose his courage. Pulling free the first satchel, he searched until he found
trousers that would more or less fit him. He slipped his lace dress off over
his head and let it fall into the open satchel, not quite ready to part with it
just yet. The trousers were loose at the waist, but Tom had lost weight while
under the Madame’s roof, maybe they would fit him in a few months’ time.
Lastly, he removed a dark blue shirt of Chris’s, soft cotton and thin pearl
buttons, sleeves long to protect from the sun. The cotton was form-fitting,
most likely used as an undershirt, but still too big on him regardless.
Tucked under the mattress frame were a pair of smaller sized boots, scuffed and
spotted with use, and Tom half-wondered if Chris might have stolen them off of
someone. Didn’t matter now, he thought, yanking them on and scrunching his nose
at the slightly tight fight. They would loosen as he wore them.
There were voices in several of the other rooms along the corridor, and Tom
kept his footsteps light as he crept to the stairwell so as not to rouse
anyone’s attention. Snug against the base of his spine was Chris’s gun, a cold
weight, unfamiliar but comforting. He wouldn’t know how to use it if the time
ever came, but he hoped the sight of it would be enough to discourage any
others he might encounter. The scent of food wafted up to meet him, making his
stomach growl once more. Picking his way down the stairwell, he hesitated as
his foot sank low on the last creaking step.
Breath caught, he listened for any sounds indicating Belen had heard the
traitorous noise, but her soft humming continued on the other side of the
kitchen door. Taking a deep breath, he tiptoed to the front door and eased it
open, slipping out into the dark. Up the street he could see the roof’s edge of
the Raven, enough to set his heart pounding in renewed panic. It was on this
very patch of dirt that the Madame’s men had found him in the dead of night,
stealing him back. It was impossible to have known that Chris had been only a
short distance away, had even heard his short scream, had found his sad excuse
of an escape satchel.
To think, he might have been safe by now, had they only just known each other
sooner.
Tom snapped to, steeling himself and heading in the opposite direction. It was
no use to anyone thinking of such things. He was free now, and he only had to
remain free until he could locate Chris. And then they would be free together.
That was a thought he was willing to think again and again, to sustain himself.
Several windows in the buildings along the street were lit, throwing squares of
yellow he could follow, sticking to the shadows as he kept an eye out for
anyone. He heard voices on the far side, some muted laughter, and even warbled
singing from high above where he could not see. But the scent of animals led
him along, spotting the metal rails of the stables after another minute. Chris
had said that Bullet was a beast, probably in size and manner, which meant he
might be kept apart from the other horses. There were fewer lights this far
from the center of town, but he managed to climb the rail and hurried down the
aisle without tripping in the porous dark. Most of the horses were lying on
their sides, curled up in sleep, but some were on their feet nickering in
curiosity as he fled by.
“Bullet,” he whispered, not wanting to raise his voice. “Bullet.”
A deeper snort came from the end of the aisle, the stable kept angled into the
corner, door faced away from the other horses. Slowing, Tom had the inherent
sense that the animal inside the private enclosure was the biggest he would
ever see, Chris’s comments about the horse whispering through his mind.
He’s a mountain, and everything else is but stones under his hooves.
“Please don’t crush me,” he said under his breath and then stepped before the
barred doorway of the stable.
It was dark inside, no small windows to let in light as the other animals had.
This was a space for the most difficult beasts, no glimpses of the outside to
tempt a temper outburst. And judging by the behemoth outline of the horse
inside, Tom seriously doubted the small four walls could hold the animal if he
really wanted out.
“H-hello, Bullet,” he gasped, eyes drawn low to the thud of giant hooves on
packed dirt. “I’m Tom. I know Chris.”
Another deep snort, the wet flash of a blinking eye.
Glancing back up the aisle, Tom saw the heads of several horses peering out of
their enclosures at him, motionless. Reaching for the metal clasp, he eased the
gate open, surprised when it didn’t creak in protest. First one step, and then
two, he walked into the horse’s space, its heat and musky scent rising to
engulf him.
“Oh….gracious,” he moaned, backing into the corner and grasping one of the cold
iron bars. He felt as small as a mouse, the horse taking two heavy steps and
turning to face him head-on. Heart hammering in his throat, he craned his head
back and held very still, the horse’s breath washing over his face as it leaned
close and prepared to bite his face off.
Instead, the soft velvet of Bullet’s nose sniffed at Tom’s hairline, digging
through his curls and dragging across his face to huff loudly at his ear. Tom
jumped, body taut with tension, imagining sharp teeth were about to scrape into
his skin and chew to his brain. But Bullet angled lower and sniffed at the
collar of his shirt, rooting around the front pockets as if Tom might have a
treat there for him.
He sighed out a shaky, terrified breath, a smile tugging at the corners of his
lips.
“Do I smell like him?” he said quietly, lifting his hand and carefully stroking
the horse’s long mane. He let the horse breathe on him a bit more, better to
let his eyes adjust and take stock of what he had to work with. Surprisingly,
Bullet was already saddled, smelling of oiled leather, scuffed and worn smooth.
“We have to go get him. He’s locked away and you’re going to help me break him
free. Yes?”
The horse nudged his head and Tom laughed low, skimming his fingers over the
saddle’s pommel, wondering if he dared attempt to mount him. The only way out
was through, he figured, and very slowly inched his foot up to the high stirrup
– higher than any horse he remembered ever riding, leg muscles stretched as he
strained to reach. If the horse stiffened slightly, head lifting in muted
surprise perhaps, Tom ignored it and swallowed back his rising scream before
hitching himself up into the saddle. Frozen, ears cocked back in a definitive
show of mild contempt, Bullet stood stock still as Tom settled himself into the
saddle, winded even from that short burst of movement. Locked away in the
Madame’s establishment had weakened his lungs. He would need to learn how to
breathe properly again.
“It’s alright now,” he said, still breathless, fighting back a short spike of
panic at being so high aloft, his own equestrian experiences murky and distant
memories from another life. “I won’t hurt you. Will you take me to him?” He
gave the soft underbelly of the horse a gentle prodding, but it wasn’t until
Bullet cast him a short side glance did he realize that had the horse willed
it, he’d be a broken heap on the ground right now. “I know,” he whispered. “And
thank you for not killing me.”
Very slowly, the horse maneuvered itself in the small space and pushed the gate
fully open, stepping out and gaining a quick trot down the aisle. The other
horses let out panicked nickering as Bullet sped past them, shifting restlessly
in their stalls, eyes rolling wildly. Tom hoped they wouldn’t attract the
attention of the stable master, but his worry was quickly replaced by something
bigger and more daunting. Bullet was speeding faster and faster down the aisle
and toward the far fence adjacent to the town’s outlying streets.
“Bullet!” Tom gasped, heart tripping several beats. He tightened his hold on
the reins, but Bullet shook his head free, an angry snort gusting from his wide
nostrils. The reins snapped in the air, twirling violently, and Tom bent
forward to grip the horse’s black mane, careful with the bucking neck, hard
muscle that would easily break his nose if he got too close. He knew what the
horse’s intentions were the closer they got to the fence without slowing.
Hunkering down, he closed his eyes at the last second and felt his stomach flip
as the horse launched over the gate. They were airborne for a solid four
seconds before landing hard on the other side. Skidding, the horse gathered its
feet under him and huffed excitedly, massive hooves kicking at the dirt,
sidestepping in a circle. Grabbing the reins again, Tom sighed out a tremulous
breath, eyes wide on the area around them. All was dark and motionless. Perhaps
their escape had gone unnoticed after all.
“Let’s go!” he whispered and Bullet shot forward again. As far as where the
jail was located, Tom only had a vague idea, but Bullet seemed to be operating
on some inner tracking mechanism, galloping confidently forward to wherever his
master was being held. Tom had never seen an animal as strong or big as Bullet,
and it seemed fitting that the horse held its most unyielding devotion to
Chris, a man of the same qualities, just as fiercely and dangerously beautiful.
They complimented each other quite well, an intimidating pair. How Tom would
fit in with their daring company was something he was slowly beginning to
accept as uncanny serendipity, a chance at adventure and love – and safety,
above all – with the unlikeliest of them all.
By the time Bullet turned a quick corner, muscle memory was only barely
returning to Tom’s legs. Heels down, back straight, hips loose, he was
beginning to flow well with Bullet’s movements when the horse slowed to a stop,
ears flat as he faced them toward a low-topped building, aluminum sheets nailed
across the roof, a shuttered porch angling the entrance to a single middle
doorway.
It was deserted, he thought, curiously unmanned. Until the burning eye of a
cigarette end lit brightly in the dark, and his courage took a flagging dip.
Chris:
He lay on the dirt floor of this shit excuse for a jailhouse this town had,
wrists shackled at the small of his back to a solid stone spike buried deep
beneath him. The night was steadily turning over, cold seeping up from the hard
ground and into his shoulders, sore and knotted from being twisted back. But
his blood was hot with fury, eyes slit in calculated thought.
Tension had escalated too quickly, his capture sooner than he’d anticipated.
Laying low hadn’t been enough. At the first sign of unrest, Chris would have
taken to the desert with Bullet and a well-stocked satchel, running from this
exact kind of trouble. But he couldn’t leave without the boy, not now after
having known him. He didn’t want these men who’d accosted him to know of Tom.
Knowing of Belen was bad enough, as his friend she’d done right by him and he
wouldn’t abide by her ruin on his watch. But Tom. That sweet boy. They wouldn’t
touch him. They wouldn’t know of him at all. Chris had every intention of
breaking himself out here, he was just waiting for the last of the men to head
home. They’d stood around outside congratulating each other rather heartily,
their voices flowing in through the high window. But the chill drove off all
but one, stepping around the perimeter of the shack, his spurs the only
indication he was still around. That and the cigarette smoke.
Chris had tried squeezing his wrists out of the shackles, cutting himself on
one hand, bruising the other. It was pitch black inside, the wispy moon doing
nothing to illuminate his surroundings. At one point something crawled over his
forearm, something long with tiny legs – a centipede. Shuffling to his feet,
jaw gritted to hold back his shout, he stamped on the ground until he heard the
telltale crunch of the vermin’s squirming body, chills racing up his back as
ghost vibrations of the horrid thing whispered over him still. He could only
hope there weren’t any rattlers curled up in here with him, waiting to strike
at him.
Goddamn busybodies thinking they could stick their noses where they don’t
belong. He was stuck in here while Tom waited back at the boardinghouse, scared
and nervous, his taste of freedom marred by this petty inconvenience. What
Chris was wanted for wasn’t petty – that he knew. He’d killed those men at Cold
Creek to save his friend’s life. He’d do it again. To save himself. To save
Tom. Self-preservation and love did that to a man.
Love.
He hung his head in that heavy dark and grinned at the floor. That slim
turtledove had snared him right, and Chris had let himself be taken. Damned if
he had. It wouldn’t make a lick of difference if he didn’t free himself from
this cage before the night’s end. If he managed to—
“That’s far enough,” a deep voice called from the outside of the four walls,
and Chris froze. It was the voice of the one of the men who’d caught him, the
one who remained. But who was he talking to?
“I’m here to free him,” another voice said, one he would recognize among a
thousand. Low and sweetly soft, Tom’s words were rounded with a warble of fear,
but he kept it strong enough to carry across the way and between the cracks of
the walls imprisoning Chris.
The man outside chuckled. “You’ll not be taking him any—.” But he broke off
sharply and the silence left behind was pocked with the crack of fast-moving
hooves on dirt, the rumble like claps of thunder. Chris straightened, arms
straining. Was that—?
An eternity of a second passed before the deafening ricochet of a gunshot
sounded and Chris scrambled as close to the wall as possible, his wrists
hitched high behind him, metal biting into his flesh. His heart tripped to a
dreaded halt.
“Tom!”
Something heavy fell to the ground just outside the wall before him, a horse
snorting and stamping and sounding entirely too much like Bullet – but that
couldn’t be. It didn’t make sense. Boot tips gouging deep tracks into the dirt,
knees bent, Chris strained at the chain spiked deep, grunting, jaw clenched,
praying that Tom was unhurt. Whether anyone would investigate the gunshot was
hard to say, as most folks kept indoors come dark, but the man’s friends might
come looking. These damn shackles were tearing into his wrist bones, blood
dripping to the sand. But he couldn’t pull hard enough, couldn’t free himself
soon enough to check on the boy.
There was a sudden clattering on the wooden planks outside, and then the door
was blown open. Shuffling back, Chris stared at the hellfire vision of Bullet
standing on the rickety porch, hooves clacking as he backed down the steps and
huffed a cloud of steam into the cool night air. Peering as far around the
corner as he could, Chris whispered, “Tom?”
All was motionless for several eternal moments, but then he heard a quiet
shuffling, a shadow unfolding and lengthening in his view. Tom limped into the
doorway, dressed as a makeshift boy in the clothes Chris had stored away for
him, trousers big at the waist, cinched with a belt, Chris’s own shirt tucked
in messily, blood soaking the material black along one arm.
“No.” He tried rising to his feet, but the chain yanked him back again. “No,
no, babe, no. Goddammit, Tom.”
Tom’s face was pale but beaming, his free hand clutching the wound on his arm.
“I did it!” he whispered, and hurried toward Chris. He collapsed on his knees
before him, both tucking their heads against each other, Chris breathing at his
neck, a sob swelling in his throat.
“Babe. Christ, you didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh, hush. Yes I did. They took you from me, those bastards!”
Chris actually smiled, relief running through him. But the blood spilling
sluggishly down Tom’s arm sobered him fast. “He shot you.”
Tom glanced down with a wince, fingers shaking. “Skimmed. It’s not deep. I
honestly don’t think I’m feeling it right. Not really.”
“You will soon. And we need to be gone when you do.” Chris motioned his chin to
Tom’s foot. “You’re limping?”
“When I fell off Bullet. Hurt my ankle. Twisted it, I think.”
“Okay, babe. Is the man dead?”
“Yes. Bullet trampled him. He’s in a piled mess outside.”
“Alright. He’ll have some keys on him. Keys that will open these shackles. Go
on and—.”
But Tom was already thrusting his good arm forward, a rusted key glinting
silver in his bloody palm. Cradling his wounded arm against his chest, he knelt
behind Chris and fumbled with the key in slippery fingers until he was able to
turn the lock. The shackles fell free and Chris pivoted on a knee to face him.
Checking his face quickly, he examined his bicep and found Tom’s words to be
true. It was a superficial wound, cotton and a top layer of skin torn open.
Still, he reached for the tail of Tom’s shirt and tore a wide piece of it clean
off, Tom’s small gasp making him smile, albeit a small one.
“Your wrists,” Tom whispered, touching a finger to the mottled and abused
joints.
Chris shrugged. “Nothing that won’t heal. Are you ready?”
Tom nodded. “Wait. Your gun.” He pulled the weapon out from under his shirt and
Chris took it gratefully, concealing it in the band of his own trousers.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and ducked his head to kiss him, full and well and
deep. Gasping through his nose, Tom remained frozen for a quick moment before
crushing himself against Chris in a way that revealed a trust and affection
that hadn’t been there at the beginning of their acquaintance. That it had
bloomed so easily now in this dark shed of dirt and wormed wood, both bleeding
and shaking with fatigue and nerves, made Chris’s confidence build a
hundredfold, sure in the knowledge that what they were doing was right.
Wrapping an arm around Tom’s waist, Chris helped him up and guided him outside.
He wanted to take a look at Tom’s ankle, but it was best if he didn’t remove
the boot just yet so that the swelling wouldn’t worsen.
Bullet was standing out on the street, long neck turned behind him, ears flat.
“Hey, good lookin’,” Chris said and Bullet turned his head. Tom leaned away a
little uneasily, as if he thought Bullet might bite at him or Chris, but Bullet
only stuck his tongue out and licked a stripe over Chris’s eyebrows.
“I’m surprised he let me on him,” Tom admitted in a rushed whisper. “I thought
he was going to kill me for a second there back at the stables.” Chris gave a
soft laugh.
“He likes women, the rowdy thing. And you are as like a woman as a man can be,
my sweet dove.”
Tom smiled, his face flushing prettily in the dark. “Plus I think I smell like
you.”
Nuzzling his hairline, Chris murmured, “I like that you do.”
Chris gave him a boost into the saddle and then took the reins to lead Bullet
away. No one apprehended them in the two minutes it took them to arrive at
Belen’s building, but Chris kept his ears sharpened for any sound of approach,
glad to have his gun back just in case. He hustled Bullet into the alley out
back, and then told Tom to stay put. Belen was in the kitchen, stuffing bags
with food still warm from the pan.
“He sneak out. Your wife. Just like you. Perfect for you.”
Chris grinned and gave her a hard peck on the temple, stealing a tortilla from
the stove. The stairs creaked as he rushed up to his room, but he couldn’t
afford to be cautious, chewing the warm flour tortilla in pieces that unspooled
like a cloud on his tongue. The small space he’d been bunking in still smelled
faintly of Tom’s perfume, the ghost of his presence just as soothing as the
thought of him out on the horse waiting for him. Pulling the duffel bags from
under the bed, he strapped on another gun belt and loaded the shotgun. Hauling
everything down again, he found Belen outside with Tom, two bags in her hands.
They were talking quietly, but he missed the last of their conversation.
“Everything okay?”
Tom smiled. “Yes, love. Belen was telling me that you will protect me from
anything, and that I should pinch your ear if you get too rough with me.”
Belen nodded seriously, her black eyes squinted in that scrutinizing way of
hers. “I be back. Get water for you.” She walked into the kitchen through the
small side door, her slippered feet glowing like white moths. Chris inched
closer to Tom, a hand on his knee.
“We’ll leave in a minute, sweetheart. How’s your ankle? Let me see.”
He was reaching to remove Tom’s boot when, out of the corner of his eye he
caught Bullet’s ears twitch, hooves shifting nervously before Tom jerked hard
on the saddle, and then disappeared over the other side.
“Tom?”
Removing his gun and slapping Bullet’s rump in one quick move, the horse
skittered out of the way and left the view open of the far side of the
clearing. Tripping to his feet, wincing at the twist in his ankle, was Tom with
a blade to his throat, eyes wide, chin arched high to best avoid the sharp bite
of the knife. Behind him, hair in wild curls down her back, was the Madame. She
wore a simple white shift, a sleeping gown Chris saw, with bare feet and eyes
wide with paranoia, or insanity. She must have snuck into the clearing through
the bushes lining the back end of Belen’s property, great big shrubs so green
and thick, they were practically black at night. Cursing, Chris leveled the gun
steadily between her eyes, thinking of lightning strikes.
“You, then,” she said, her deep voice cut with anger. One palm fisted in Tom’s
shirt, the other trembling at his neck, Chris was honestly not surprised she
had the strength to pull him down from the saddle. There was a rage in her that
she kept tightly coiled and manicured behind her fancy east coast fashions and
her tamed shark smile, but pushed to her limit and she was a ferocity he’d
never seen in a woman, or as often in men. “It was you all the time. Mr.
Billiards Player.” She snarled the nickname, digging the knife deeper into the
soft skin of Tom’s neck. His pained gasp was like a spike of ice in Chris’s
chest, and his finger inched over the trigger, aimed directly at the foul
woman’s brow.
“Let the boy go.”
“No!” She hauled Tom closer, and a bead of blood trickled thickly down the
hollow of his throat and into the collar of his shirt. The gun in Chris’s hand
vibrated, his fury funneling into the tight grip of his palm. “This boy is
mine. I saved him and he owes everything to me.”
Teeth gritted, Chris slid a boot an inch closer to them. “He’s not like some
goddamn cat you took in off the street. He’s a person and he doesn’t belong to
you.”
“But he belongs to you?” She sneered easily, a mad gleam to her eyes. “What a
happy coincidence that it should work out that way.”
“I’m not trying to keep him locked up in a bedroom, chained to a bed to service
every cowboy that bustles through this town.”
“You’re not taking him. And you’ll pay for the lives of the men you killed. My
men.”
Chris was wondering where her remaining guns were, and why she was out here on
her own as opposed to sending her lackeys after Tom for her. She seemed frayed
enough that she might just answer him if he asked, so he did.
She scoffed. “One fell down the back staircase just this morning. A deed I
don’t entirely believe was accidental, and something I suspect my spiteful
daughter was behind. With that one’s broken neck, the other took off across the
sands toward the sierras and now there’s no one.”
With tears flooding his eyes, it didn’t appear as if Tom was listening to the
conversation, instead he was stretched high on his tiptoes to avoid the blade’s
sharp edge. In the corner, Bullet strode in quick, agitated circles, long tale
flicking as he watched them. The Madame was a tall woman, imposing at her most
put-together state. But her panic and rage only reduced her to a rabid specter
in white, face pale, teeth clenched, eyes shifting to Chris and beyond him as
if seeing things that were really not there. Rather than honing her focus, the
Madame’s anger and frustration and loss of control had pinpricked her attention
to something dangerous and dark, the threat of death an easy thing.
What was she willing to lose? Her lifestyle? Her ownership of the girls and
their bodies for her personal gain? The role she’d carved out for herself in
this harsh world of men through the pitting of female imprisonment and abuse?
And she would use Tom as her crutch? Her shield? Her anchor to ensure that
nothing changed?
Shifting his gun a fraction of an inch to the right, Chris decided she wasn’t
about to have her way anymore, not at the price of another’s suffering,
especially Tom’s.
“You won’t do it,” she said quietly, confident in her knowledge of what Chris
would and wouldn’t risk. “Not with him here—.”
He gave the trigger a gentle squeeze and felt the gun erupt with its booming
firepower. The Madame’s head snapped back in much the same way the head of her
gunman had in the alleyway behind her establishment, the first life he took in
this town. It was too dark to see the blood spray, or the gaping wound that
would be the back of her skull, or the chunks of brain that he knew were
scattered on the ground behind her, like pink pebbles in the dirt. There was
the stilted buckling of her legs and the heavy collapse of her body, Tom
dragged to the ground with her. His cry was short and pained, the knife loosely
drawn over the thin ridge of his clavicle as her hand dragged crookedly to the
ground, another wound to heal.
Bullet neighed nervously, snorting and dancing closer just as Chris hurried
forward. There was a mist of red splattered on one side of his face, tears
streaking through and turning the blood pink. He was struggling to rise from
beneath the Madame’s weight, tangled with her legs and long cotton shift,
sobbing brokenly in his distress. Chris skidded to his knees beside him and
threw the Madame’s limp arm off of Tom, who launched himself against Chris, his
face pressed to his chest, trembling.
“You’re safe. You’re okay. Oh, my sweetheart, you’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Tom’s voice was blurry with tears, his hands twisted in Chris’s shirt, clawing
closer. A long shadow fell over them and Chris startled to the side, but it was
only Belen, brown eyes narrowed on the Madame’s body.
“You kill?”
Heart pounding hard, Chris nodded, holding the boy tightly in his arms.
“She hurt wife?”
He nodded again.
With a curious hum, she bent forward slightly and spit on the Madame’s body.
Chris nodded a final time and collapsed backward onto the hard dirt, Tom
cradled in his lap. Knees creaking, Belen knelt beside them and cooed something
in Spanish.
“Dejame ver,” she whispered, and gently tugged Tom’s arm down from his chest,
curled in on himself protectively. His neck was soaked with blood, shirt dark
with it, but he let her check the wound. Forehead pressed to Chris’s throat,
Tom was slick with sweat, fingers shaking from his cold brush with death.
Chris’s own limbs were drenched in ice water, the realization of how close he’d
come to almost losing Tom, yet again, too much for his heart to bear. He felt
like weeping, he felt like screaming at the moon, he felt like clawing his way
deep into the earth and living with Tom there, safe and forgotten, just the two
of them, but he swallowed back the lump in his throat and blinked away his
tears, cupping Tom’s face with a palm.
Tom’s eyes flitted up to meet him, wide and shining with tears. His lashes,
clumped together and moist, were like spikes. He whispered his name and Chris’s
heart swelled painfully, this boy so precious to him, so loved.
“I do,” he whispered hotly, “I love you. No one will hurt you. I fucking
promise it. Not while I live.”
Tom’s face collapsed in renewed tears and he reached up to embrace Chris fully,
their bodies clenched tightly. Belen patted his shoulder and whispered again in
Spanish, her words cracked with age and wisdom, and he knew that whatever she
was saying would be just what they – and Tom – needed to hear. He took her
elbow gratefully, and she nodded with a wrinkled smile, the beautiful old
crone.
Together they helped Tom limp inside the building, setting him on a chair in
the kitchen. Belen didn’t have ice but she wrapped Tom’s bare ankle in a tight
cloth, the slender joint swollen and purpling darkly. Chris worked to clean the
cut on his clavicle, wiping it down and drizzling a spot of liquor on it so
that it wouldn’t fester. Tom screamed into a dishtowel, but remained upright.
Chris ran outside to Bullet and pulled out the first garment he found in one of
the duffel bags. He didn’t realize it was the dress Tom had been wearing when
they’d made their escape from the Madame’s brothel until he shook it open. Tom
waved away his concern, saying it was okay. They removed his blood- and liquor-
stained shirt and pulled on the dress. It fell to his ankles in wispy, gossamer
waves, but he cinched it at his waist with a determined tug and made to stand.
“Easy, babe,” he said, taking Tom’s waist as he tottered like a woman heavily
pregnant, just the thought tightening Chris’s groin.
“We have to leave,” Tom whispered. “She’s dead and they’ll soon discover you’re
not at the jail.”
“But you’re hurt.”
“I don’t care. I’ll be with you. I have nothing to fear.”
His confidence was heartwarming, and contagious. “Fine. I’ll check Bullet for
anything missing, and then we’re gone.”
They cleaned and bandaged Tom’s bullet wound and the cut on his chest, Tom
looking paler by the minute. Once finished, Belen took Tom’s other side and
they hobbled back outside. The air was dropping in temperature, turning colder
by the hour. Chris draped a jacket over Tom’s shoulders and then lifted him
onto the back of the horse. Their supplies were as complete as they could make
them, extra clothing, water and food, weapons and a shovel, should they need
them. It was lucky Bullet was so large; the extra weight would burden a smaller
horse.
Chris turned to Belen. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You give him nice house. With garden. Don’t leave him with nothing and no
one.”
Chris had a suspicion she spoke from personal experience, and nodded. “I will.
We’ll write you. Let you know we’re safe.”
She smiles. “Good. I wait for letters.” Nodding at the Madame’s body, she
shrugged indifferently. “I get rid of her. I know how.”
He gave her a hug and held it tight, pleased when she finally lifted her arms
and returned the embrace. Her eyes were misty when they pulled apart. “Go,” she
said, voice hoarse. Chris lifted a foot and hoisted himself into the saddle,
Tom scooting up behind him. Belen reached up and squeezed Tom’s hand. “So
pretty. You live many years.”
Tom smiled and ducked his head. “Thank you, Belen. I’ll miss you.”
She waved a hand easily. “I live in moon. Look there and I be bright for you.”
Tears filled Tom’s eyes again, and he nodded, throat closed to any remaining
words. Wrapping himself close to Chris, he waved once more at her as Chris
clucked his tongue. Bullet turned a tight circle and clattered off down the
alley. Tom watched her as they rode away, a small figure in the murky light of
a young moon, her long gray braid swaying in the breeze.
Chris spurred Bullet into a fast clip, the horse pounding the earth as if
having yearned for a stretch of hard land beneath his hooves. Their route takes
them west by night, sticking to the snaking veins of dry rivers and creek beds.
Tom clings to him but moves well with the horse, making Chris think he’d been
on horseback before, maybe when he still lived back east, when he was happy.
I’ll make him happy yet, he thought, for the rest of my days. It would be his
sole reason to live.
After a few of hours, Tom whispered that his ankle was throbbing too much and
Chris thought it a good time to camp down for the night. He found a copse of
gnarled mesquite trees by a short cliff outcropping, as good a hideaway as they
would be able to find this late at night. He climbed off the horse and tied the
reins to a low branch before reaching up to help Tom. Shivering from the cold,
Tom was stiff, grimacing as he took hold of Chris’s shoulders to slowly slide
from the back of the horse. He groaned in muted pain as he placed his weight on
both legs, thighs sore, ankle swollen. Leaning him against the rock
outcropping, Chris was quick with their bedrolls, searching the ground for a
flat spot against the rock. He snapped a branch from the tree and swept it in
wide arcs, hoping to scatter any critters from the area. The last thing he
needed was a centipede or tarantula crawling over them. Bullet’s presence would
keep all other wildlife away, except for the larger mountain cats, but those
were rarely seen so low in the valley.
“Chris,” Tom whispered, swaying where he stood, his dress catching the cold
breeze, the sewn-in beads clacking gently.
“Coming, babe,” he whispered back, overlapping the edges of their bedrolls and
standing from his crouch. He hugged Tom under his arms, clasping him loosely to
pull him over to their makeshift bed. “Okay, here we go. Easy now, love. Down,
bend your knees.”
Tom complied easily, his legs like noodles as Chris lowered him to the ground.
Squeezing his knees together, Tom whimpered and touched his inner thighs
carefully, no doubt painfully tender. But he curled himself comfortably and
looked to fall asleep almost immediately, arms folded under his head like a
pillow. Chris tended to Bullet next, removing the saddle but leaving the under
blanket on just in case they needed to make a quick escape. The horse moved
away on his own, no doubt scenting out water. Chris let him go, knowing Bullet
would return shortly. Kneeling beside Tom, he removed a salve from one of the
satchels and hitched Tom’s leg up on his thigh, slowly removing the cloth from
his foot. The skin was swollen and ridged with deep lines from the bandage,
colored dark purple. He’d twisted it badly falling off of Bullet, but Chris was
relieved to feel around the joint that nothing appeared to be broken. Stirring,
Tom sat up and blinked his eyes blearily. His voice was rough and dry.
“Where are we?”
“Still too close to Silver Dam for comfort.”
“Will they look for us?”
Chris wasn’t sure. But with the Madame’s death soon to be revealed, one
outlaw’s escape from town might not mean as much. Unless people believed he’d
killed her, which he did and would never regret. But Tom didn’t need to be
reminded of her. “Maybe.”
In the darkened shadows, Tom’s face was a pale orb, but Chris could feel his
eyes on him. “Am I really with you? Have we survived this?”
Chris put his leg down gently and crawled over Tom, noses hovering an inch
apart. “We survived. But we’re not through the worst yet.”
Tom’s hands slipped up over his ribs and curled around to press along his
spine. Chris eased his weight lower, not fully resting on Tom, but eased with
comfort regardless. He missed the boy’s warmth, wanted him in every possible
way, yearned to hear his laugh and gasps of pleasure. They would indulge
themselves with kisses yet.
Tom seemed content to simply be held by Chris, running his straight nose over
the bump of Chris’s throat, sniffing him there and kissing the skin gently.
Happy to let him explore, Chris cupped his head and held still until Tom
shifted and stretched his foot with a grimace. They drank water and chewed on
some peppered jerky, and Tom collapsed back with an exhausted huff, moaning as
Chris massaged his leg from knee to toe, the salve wetting the skin
comfortably.
“You’re alright, baby. You’re alright.”
Tom nodded sleepily. “I’m alright.”
Once Bullet had returned, snout wet from whatever creek he’d found, Chris tied
his lead to a branch and settled down beside Tom. The wind gusted in short
whistles beyond the outcropping, rustling the shrubs and keeping Chris’s teeth
on edge. Wrapped in a shawl, Tom was shivering. He turned to Chris and pressed
himself against him, and Chris held him close, rubbing his back for warmth,
murmuring at his brow, tugging the scarf tighter around Tom’s head to guard him
from the chill. They slept, Tom deeply and Chris fitfully, closing his eyes for
short minutes before startling awake, shushing Tom’s murmurs, eyes sharp on the
dark surroundings. Bullet had curled himself on the ground by the tree, a large
breathing mound of heat and cracked open eyes. His presence gave Chris comfort
that they wouldn’t be ambushed.
By the time the horizon was ringed with pale pink, he was anxious to leave. He
left Tom bundled under the blanket while he saddled up Bullet and followed him
to the creek he’d found. The horse drank deeply and Chris refilled the
canteens, washing his face and rinsing his mouth. Tom was barely rousing when
he returned, responding to Chris’s gentle kisses. Chris wrapped his foot in the
bandage once more and then carried Tom to the creek, where Tom splashed his
face and relieved himself in the brush, wincing as he hobbled on his one good
leg. Chris tugged him close and he rested against him gratefully, lifting his
arms and hugging him, sharing a soft kiss until Bullet nudged his shoulder
impatiently and they parted with a little laugh. After a small breakfast of
tortillas and cold eggs, they climbed onto Bullet and set off once more, the
pace fast as they chased the sun.
It was late September, and the days wouldn’t be as burning as the middle of
summer, but Tom kept his face buried against his back for most of the day
anyway, his head scarf trailing in the wind behind them. When they stopped to
rest, it was only to water the horse and stretch their legs. Tom would smile
and touch Chris’s cheek, whispering, “Sun burned,” before kissing his stubbled
face sweetly. Tom’s own cheeks were pink from the heat, his skin much more
delicate than Chris’s own.
They rode for four days, resting most of the night, Chris’s fear of pursuit
lessening with every mile he placed between them and Silver Dam. He was worried
about Eve, and the future of the girls who had been working for the Madame; he
was worried about Belen, even though he knew her to be perfectly capable of
protecting herself. If any fire rained down on her because of his actions he
would never forgive himself. He wondered what she had done with the body.
***** Sandstorm and Home *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Chris:
Their passage through the desert had gone smoothly up until the sand storm.
Chris had felt the swing in the wind’s currents, strong gusts that kept pushing
Bullet from his steady path. With one of Tom’s scarves wrapped around the
bottom half of his face, Chris tried to peer into every direction but found
only dust clouds, thicker by the minute. Bullet’s eyes were wide with panicked
anger at the violent wind, slowing to a step and stomping at the ground,
turning this way and that, but there was no escaping it. Grit and sand were
piercing their eyes, grinding between their teeth, tumbling down their parched
throats. He would need to stop them or risk falling into a ravine. He
dismounted and stumbled up to a dry-barked mesquite, its flailing limbs covered
with inch-long thorns. Pulling Tom down first, Chris removed the scarf from his
own face and wrapped it over Bullet’s eyes before shouting at him to get down.
The horse’s legs buckled immediately, curling up on his side as if to sleep. In
the saddle bags, Chris found another scarf and tied it over his head, checking
that Tom’s was as secure. Last was a blanket.
Sinking down beside Bullet, Chris guided Tom to the ground and pulled him into
his lap, throwing the blanket over their heads. Bullet’s body exuded warmth,
but they curled themselves close to the animal, blocked in by most of its bulk,
arms wrapped tightly around each other, heads bent cheek to cheek. Chris could
feel Tom’s labored breathing, the harsh puff of it on his neck, his hands
clawing into his shirt as if the storm might carry him away. But Chris embraced
him hard, wanting all of Tom’s fears banished, cradling him in a way Tom should
have been cradled from the beginning of his experiences with men. The wind
roared around them, and Tom clung to him sweetly, and Chris breathed his
breaths and kissed his ear, and kissed his neck, and kissed him, because he
could and they were free.
The storm abided after an hour, the wind’s quieting to soft breezes. Bullet’s
rump was covered with sand like a large dune, his and Tom’s legs hidden even
deeper. Throwing off the stifling blanket, Tom tore away their scarves and took
Chris’s head in both hands, staring at him. His lashes and brows were dotted
with sand, more raining from his growing curls, but he grinned and said, those
words that swelled Chris’s heart to bursting, reaching for him to kiss.
Bullet found them another creek and they drank greedily. Tom sat on the bank
and dipped his long legs in, pale stems that glowed brightly in the sun. He
bathed and scrubbed the dust from every bit of skin he could reach, splashing
water on his neck and behind his ears, soaking his hair and shaking it clean.
Chris stood enraptured on the hill just behind him, drinking in every one of
Tom’s movements, admiring the lovely curve of his neck, the widening length of
his shoulders, all bone-wings and knobby joints, soft, so soft. Bullet nudged
him for more oats, and Chris blinked stupidly, holding out his palm and
clearing his throat.
They rode again, further across the desert lands, watching the landscape change
from brittle brush to giant saguaros, loping mounds to sifting grasses, and
finally the harder rocky terrain of ocean land.
They could smell the shift in the air on the fifth day, the wind scented with
salt. Tom smiled at him over his shoulder, squeezing his waist excitedly.
Bullet led them down the craggy face of the sea cliffs and to the beach itself,
the surf coming up to lick at his giant hooves. He tossed his head and snorted,
and Tom laughed prettily.
“Is this California?” he asked.
“It is,” Chris said. “Mostly uncharted territory. San Francisco is farther
north. We’re by the southern waters.”
“It’s beautiful. So different from the ocean back east.” He pressed his cheek
to Chris’s shoulder. “We will be happy here,” he said, contentment etching his
words, eyes on the wide plane of water.
“Yes,” Chris said, Bullet tiptoeing in a soft circle in the sand. “We will.”
He started by renting them a room in one of the boardinghouses lining the main
street of town further east. Once Tom was safely indoors with his leg propped
up and his bandages changed, Chris stabled Bullet and went in search of any
person selling or renting private lodging.
The man’s name was Horace. With a handlebar mustache and a gut that bulged over
his belt buckle, he looked ever the gruff frontier businessman, but he was
soft-spoken and reacted kindly to Chris’s explanation of his and Tom’s
expectations for living quarters.
“I say nothing about a person’s lifestyle. You like your men, I like my women.
I don’t force my beliefs, and I expect others to grant me the same courtesy. I
sure despise proselytizing.”
“And I sure appreciate that,” Chris said seriously, pleased he didn’t have to
fight someone so soon. His life with Tom wouldn’t be a point of contention, and
if someone insisted on making it one, Chris was ready to defend it. Horace had
several properties, but showed him only one, a two bedroom house down by the
bay.
“Haven’t been able to rent it out because it’s so far from the center of town,”
Horace admitted, giving the doorjamb a gentle kick. “Was about ready to sell it
off, remove it from my listing. If you and your boy wish to avoid some of the
more scandalized gossip around town, this might be the place. Or I can
recommend you to a friend who has other properties.”
“I’ll take it,” Chris said, peering out the front window to where the surf
crashed against the white sand, the stalks of the grass whistles swaying and
singing a soothing tune. There were dunes that rose to the side of the house
that obscured the structure from immediate view of the valley to the west,
which is probably why Chris hadn’t seen the house when they’d first arrived.
That and he was tired as all hell. He’d hardly slept in the time it took to
escape Silver Dam, and he was ready for privacy and quiet. This little house
just might do it.
It had no furnishings, but Chris had enough money to procure the bare
necessities – like a bed, some receiving couches, and a table with a set of
four chairs – to make the beginning of their stay comfortable. Tom became
enamored with it, giving a little happy exclamation at the charming house, and
its location.
“Right by the sea!” he smiled, limping from room to room and returning to Chris
in the kitchen. “I love it. Is it really ours?”
“I’m renting it for now. But as soon as I start to save up more money I’ll talk
to Horace about buying it off him. We’ll be good, clean tenants. I’m sure he
won’t put up a fuss. He seems reasonable enough.”
Tom kept busy decorating their house, putting up drapes of white and blue
flowers, arranging their pantry and fixing their bed with fresh sheets. Chris
kept to town the first couple of days, looking for employment. His background
in criminal activity and murder wouldn’t draw him any good favors, except with
the numerous gangs he took note of around the butcher’s end. He ended up
inquiring at the stables where he had kept Bullet the first few nights. The
man, Nicholas, agreed that he’d observe Chris as a horse handler for a day or
two, and would consider a proposition for employment by the end of the week.
Chris shook on it, knowing he would win the man over, his horsemanship skills
second to none.
Returning to Tom at their home, he would stop at the crest of the hill and
watch him move about the fenced yard out back, putting up a line of rope for
clothes and laundry, talking to Bullet in a nonstop sentence, the horse
following him from corner to corner, out to the front yard, or he waited for
Tom by the door should Tom need to go inside for a moment. If Chris wasn’t
around to protect Tom, he knew Bullet would.
Settling into their home, they spoke of themselves, of Tom’s life on the east
coast, of Chris’s past. He told Tom his criminal history, the many deaths he
was responsible for, what he did in order to save his friend.
“It weighs heavy on you,” Tom said quietly. “But know that I don’t judge you
for your past. It is the man you are now, how you treat me, how we are
together, in love and respect and kindness, that matters to me.”
At night, Chris did nothing more than hold Tom, who seemed as exhausted as
Chris felt, the journey through the desert, recovering from his multiple
injuries, and settling into their new home draining him of any extra energy.
The fear and anxiety Tom had shown the first day they met under the Madame’s
roof was nearly gone, only showing itself in the late, late hours when the room
was dark and Tom would wake from his dreams with a panicked gasp, jumping out
of Chris’s arms and whimpering as he scooted away, fearful that Chris was
another man, a hurtful man, who would force himself on him.
But Chris would slowly bring him round, taking his wrists gently, lowering his
voice and speaking to him quietly, reminding him of who he was and where they
were. Tom’s tearful apologies would break the silence of their house by the
sea, muted pleas for patience, for forgiveness. But there was nothing to
forgive. Chris would wait until the end of time for Tom to be ready. It was
after moments like these that their kisses and affections turned the most
passionate, Tom clawing himself as close to Chris as possible, their kisses
smacking loudly in the dark, his legs winding around Chris until they moved and
burned long enough to come together on a joined tidal wave of release.
Those beautiful minutes, when Tom’s skin was flushed with heat and his heart
beat a tattoo against Chris’s chest, when his smiles were breathy and his
fingers lax in his hair, Chris would memorize the scent and feel of him,
committing it to a place in his heart that reminded him of home.
Still, Chris kept his gun belt hanging from the corner post of their headboard,
other weapons scattered throughout the house should he need them at a moment’s
notice. He wasn’t of the trusting nature, and having his weapons nearby eased
some of his trepidation.
The night it happened, Tom was all shy smiles. They had just sent off letters
to Eve and Belen, hoping the post made it to Silver Dam under their false
names. Based on the content of the letters, both women would know who they were
from. They’d eaten a simple dinner of roasted fish and rice, with a serving of
vegetables Tom chopped and cooked himself. Outside, Bullet was pacing the yard
calmly, munching at the apple cores Tom always left him at sunset. The lamp was
lit low, golden light washing the lower half of the room like pollen in the
air.
Chris had had a successful few weeks working for Nicholas at the stables, in
charge of the horses and their upkeep, earning a respectable dollar. He always
came home smelling of hay and oats, at which Bullet would snort derisively and
give Tom a lick on the cheek for.
“He’s just jealous,” Tom would say, laughing, rubbing Bullet’s velvet nose.
Chris would grab the horse’s neck in an affectionate hold and plant a kiss on
the broad cheek, knowing Bullet would never bite or kick him for his necessary
decision to work around other animals.
“It’s for those oats you love so much,” Chris would call over his shoulder as
he headed inside for a bath.
Both clean and fresh for bed, Tom adjusted his dressing gown – a simple cotton
sheath that tempted Chris with the gossamer exposure of his long body – and
knelt beside Chris on the bed. Chris, lying back on the pillows, put down the
newspaper he was reading and settled a hand on Tom’s hip.
They stared at each other a moment, Tom trying his best not to fidget.
“Chris,” he said, a whisper.
Chris rubbed his hipbone. “Yes, love.”
“I’m…” He paused, and blinked down at his lap. “Will - ?” But rather than
finish his sentence, his words tangled somewhere on his tongue, he lifted a leg
and straddled Chris’s tummy, planting both hands on each of Chris’s nipples,
pressing down softly.
Chris’s heart almost jumped out of his ribcage, his eyes widening. “Babe - .”
“I want to,” Tom said quickly. He shifted his hips forward, and Chris could
feel the soft bulge of Tom’s balls against his abdomen. “I’ve been ready, I
amready, and now I’m letting you know. Because I truly feel like you are my
husband, and I love you. And I would like to try feeling what I’m curious about
with you. And no one else.”
Ever since finding Tom and discovering what he’d been forced to do with other
men, Chris had been battling a kind of rage and jealousy he’d never experienced
before, moments when thoughts of Tom with another man became so disturbing he
actively avoided those mental pathways lest he crack something in two with his
bare hands. It was part of why he avoided the Sapphire Raven in the days after
they’d truly committed to their escape plan, both unable to ignore their
feelings for each other. Disgusted by the involuntary prostitution into which
Tom was forced was only made worse by the thought of the other men who were
allowed to touch him, be with him, feel him. Chris hadn’t realized how consumed
he’d been by it until the threat was no longer there.
That Tom was ready to join with him physically, that his heart had made its
precious choice, was an honor and a privilege and a victory of the sort Chris
had never tasted.
He sat up on his elbows. “I won’t hurt you.”
Tom’s teeth shone brightly when he smiled. “I know you won’t.”
There was oil in a container Chris had procured from a Chinese lady at one of
the shops in town. He’d kept it under the bed wrapped in an old pair of boots,
and now reached for it, letting it tumble onto the bed. Tom eyed it a little
nervously but lay down against the pillows as Chris rose above him. Chris
usually slept in the nude, but he’d been keeping a pair of flannel pajama
bottoms on so that Tom wouldn’t feel even a flicker of nervousness around him.
He tugged them down now, watching as Tom’s gaze fell low to his crotch, low to
his thighs, all the way down to the tips of his toes, swallowing loudly. Tom’s
ankle had healed nicely, the swelling gone and only a faint lavender tint to
his skin that would soon disappear entirely. The bullet graze and the cut to
this clavicle were still scabbed but shrinking with each passing day. Soon they
would be only lines of pale pink on his white skin, forgotten.
“Lift this, babe,” Chris said, taking the hem of Tom’s nightgown and tugging it
up. Tom helped him, raising his arms and letting the garment fall to the floor
like a tuft of cake cream.
“Kiss me,” Tom whispered, lifting his chin, hands curving over Chris’s
shoulders. They rested back against the pillows, Chris blanketing him evenly,
their bodies pressed from thighs to lips, noses bumping. Roving his hands down
the silky skin of Tom’s waist, Chris pecked and nipped and left a trail of
kisses from Tom’s chin to navel, adoring the thin patch of hair on his chest
and the freckles that lined in crooked constellations Tom’s bare skin, a canvas
for which Chris could trace his way to the stars.
Lying nude, lean and long, Tom watched him through the thick brush of his
lashes, his own fingers skimming faintly over his jumping chest, tiny breaths
that showed how excited he was, how nervous. Chris left warm, moist kisses on
each hipbone, dragging his lips to the soft inner meat of pale thighs,
breathing there and gazing as the fine brown hairs that trembled in chills.
Tom’s scent rose from his core, his cock filling and rising. And when Chris put
his mouth to the lightly furred sac, Tom’s back arched delicately, eyes stuck
to Chris as if he were the sun and Tom’s entire life was cast in darkness. He
mouthed and moaned and inhaled, tongue flicking out to tease and roll the balls
into his mouth, sucking at them and letting them drop with a delicious bounce.
Tom’s hands strayed to his nipples, where he pinched at them and gently
kneaded, almost subconsciously, so entrenched in his pleasure that he moved and
reacted on pure instinct, in a place with no room for doubt or questions or
fear or anger or pain. Those days for him were done. Here he would drown in the
love Chris could give, and the pleasures with which their bodies could burgeon.
With a hand, Chris lifted Tom’s leg at the thigh, scissoring his legs open and
exposing him utterly. Tom’s eyes widened, but he said nothing, only took a
measured breath and let his leg fall open on its own. Chris ducked his chin and
sought the hidden warmth deeper between the cleft of Tom’s bottom, the hole
smooth and pink and sweetly hairless. Long fingers crept low and wrapped around
the balls hanging heavily, Tom cupping himself, massaging, watching. Chris’s
blood lit with flame and he bent to close his mouth over Tom’s entrance.
Tom hissed, hips undulating, his other hand sliding into Chris’s hair and
tugging. From the light of the lamp, Chris could see tears glistening in his
eyes, one slipping free and disappearing into the pillowcase.
He was clean and he was vibrating, his body opening up to Chris through kiss
and tongue, gentle prodding, an offering. By the time Chris dipped his fingers
in the oil, Tom’s limbs were loose and pliant, spread wide on the bed. Still,
with one finger and then two, he stretched him and nibbled, slathering him wet.
Three fingers, four. Tom writhed and moaned, gasping with every plunge, eyes
shooting open as if sparks lit within.
Hard and leaking, Chris rose from his crouch and crawled over Tom, planting
himself flat and smothering him in more kisses. Tom found the oil and almost
blindly, smeared more on Chris’s cock, his small, soft hand nearly bringing
Chris near to bursting.
“Hold still, love,“ he said, angling his hips low and keeping Tom’s thighs
open. Broad tip, spongy head, he pressed in slowly. Brows gathered, fingers
clawed into Chris’s forearms, Tom whined. Neck strained high, he kept his eyes
on where their bodies were slowly coming together, teeth set in a hard edge.
“Easy, little bird,” Chris whispered, nudging his hairline, embracing him with
one arm, the other holding Tom’s knee wide.
“I’m okay,” Tom moaned. “I’m okay, don’t stop.”
Letting him gather his breath for a moment, Chris pushed in again, inch by
inch, absorbing the sporadic trembling Tom’s body endured. His skin was so pale
and creamy, not a single bruise evident.
“You’re so beautiful. Can I call you mine? My little bird?”
“Yes,” Tom breathed, voice thick with tears, peppering Chris’s face with
kisses. “I thought you knew, since the beginning, my darling. Haven’t it? That
I’m yours?”
With one exhalation, Chris moaned his named and pressed himself the last
crucial bit, filling Tom to the root, a steady pulsing deep inside him. Propped
up on both arms, Chris tried to quell his shaking but it was hard to hear past
the ringing in his ears, his vision winking at the tight sheath of Tom’s body,
the heat.
“My darling,” Tom said, carding his fingers through Chris’s long hair. Chris
grunted and snapped his hips forward still, embedded completely. But Tom shot a
smile up at the ceiling, head tossed back, all bobbing throat and Chris’s name
like a prayer on his tongue. Dragging his hips back, Chris started a slow and
measured rhythm, memorizing every gasped word, every eye roll, every flutter of
long lashes. Awash in the sensations, Tom began to moan a little louder, hands
clawed at his back, hips moving forward as Chris moved back, forward and back,
again, a pattern they were happy to sink into.
So many kisses, so many bites and giggles, reddened skin, love bruises rising,
hair matted with sweat. Here, the wind whistled against the house, the surf
crashed and abated, and the stars rose like birds in flight, like doves in the
desert dark they’d left behind.
Tom’s climax was loud and monumental, the flush of blood screaming under his
skin, spine arching, arching, colliding with Chris, both pushing and pulling, a
violent elegance and consummation, a joining of spirits.
Floating, eyes rolling into his head, Tom bounced limply under Chris’s thrusts,
trembling fingers only barely managing to hold Chris by the forearms, all
slicked skin and soft hairs of spun gold.
Tummy coiling, balls rising, Chris pumped into Tom a little harder. Dipping his
head, he kissed the sensitive skin behind Tom’s ear and felt his orgasm burst
over him, his seed spilling into sweet warmth of Tom’s body. He groaned and dug
his nose into Tom’s curls, snapping his hips in again, deep, he wanted deep.
Their bodies began to cool, the sweat to glisten in the golden light of the oil
lamp, and Tom worshipped him with his name. When Chris slipped out, a puddle of
spend spilled to the sheets. But they hardly noticed, crowding together under
the blanket and folding themselves in as tight a knot as possible. Outside, the
wind began to howl a little louder, the moon disappeared behind a gathering of
clouds, and the stars ringed themselves a little closer.
Tom:
In the blissful months that followed, Tom learned where to buy the freshest
groceries, which tailor would mend their clothes cheaply but expertly, and how
long winter lasted before the first seagulls returned from the northern climes
to summer in the south. Chris had made love to him every night and day since
that first time, on every surface in their home, with both aggression and
gentleness, his love the most profound truth Tom had ever known. Panic would
set in less and less frequently, even if certain positions sometimes made it
spike – such as when Chris took him from behind. But while other men had hurt
him cruelly, Chris saturated him with affection and simple, exquisite pleasure.
The Madame was dead.
In his more distraught moments, those times he would wake at night thinking it
was some other man holding him, or worse, that the Madame was only a foot away
ready to spear him with her vulture-head parasol, Tom would think on his time
at Silver Dam as if under the cloudy blanket of a dream. A terrible one, yes,
but something he wasn’t entirely sure had happened. It was his mind trying to
protect him from the worst of the pain, he figured, his memories of the men in
the dark rooms no more than flickering shadows on a wall. All of his physical
memories were being eclipsed by his experience with Chris, whose body and scent
and weight and heat were as familiar to him now as the patch of skin on his own
wrist, that smell we remember from our childhood. With every coupling, Tom
forgot the ones he’d been forced to endure under the abuse of the Madame, his
memories of the acrid scent of smoke and tobacco, of unwashed bodies, of cruel
words and threatening fists – they began to scatter with the seawind that
graced their home every morning.
The Madame was dead, and he was finally beginning to accept the role she’d
played in the last half year of his life. In a way, his lack of control had
prepared him, quietly and subtly, to exert the kind of control he could feel
beginning to grow in Chris’s presence and the environment of their new home.
Before, he had been under the tutelage and command of his parents who, without
being cruel or spiteful, had still owned him to an extent. That ownership had
transferred to the Madame, in the sobering and terrifying world she had ruled
over in the Sapphire Raven.
She had been about to kill him, and Chris had taken the chance to end her life.
Tom could never fully express his gratitude. If Tom had escaped and she had
continued living in Silver Dam, he would have worried about the fates of the
girls in her charge would have been a dark cloud over every day in his new life
with Chris in California. But his fears were luckily unfounded as Eve’s letters
began to arrive, explaining just how much everything had changed at the
Sapphire Raven. The Madame’s disappearance had indeed been noted, but her body
had never been found. Most presumed she had left one night and never returned,
taking her fortune to start anew elsewhere. Eve, in her intelligent and kind
way, had taken over the affairs of the business almost immediately. She still
ran the saloon and the card tables, but was slowly whittling down the flesh
trade from the establishment. The girls had taken on a different sort of
entertainment, performing dramas on the stage Eve had instructed be built where
the side staircase had led from the main parlor floor to the second floor
rooms. In order to acclimate the patrons to the lack of sexual services, the
girls performed semi-nude, songs and skits that had the crowd roaring with
laughter, bristling with quiet tension, every single girl blushing rosily with
surprise at the thunderous applause every night. Eve hoped she would be able to
incorporate fully clothed dramas in the near future, but she was careful with
the delicate hold she had on the business. The dark rooms were washed and
scrubbed and converted into rooms where the girls would learn letters and
numbers, everything secret. Educating the girls would be scandalous enough, but
stopping the flesh trade entirely was a serious adjustment that required time
and delicacy.
“’I’ve searched out your Belen,’” Tom read from one of Eve’s letters. “’She is
a stalwart little beauty, isn’t she? Invited me right in and sat me at her
kitchen table and fed me. She smokes like a man and spits out the window, but I
can see just why you love her. She is a storm, and I feel safer knowing she’s
just down the road.’”
“She’s a storm, alright,” Chris agreed, chuckling as he whittled another
figurine from a bleached piece of driftwood Tom had recovered one afternoon.
There was a collection of them scattered through the house, adorning every
windowsill, birds and butterflies and slender little deer.
“She’s the moon,” Tom said softly, remembering what Belen had told him the
night they escaped Silver Dam. They’d exchanged several letters with the old
boardinghouse owner, where she admitted that she’d been somewhat adopted by the
girls from the Sapphire Raven, inviting her to the shows and visiting with her
in her warm kitchen, where she was teaching them to cook. “I’m so happy they
have each other. I didn’t want to leave them. And I wanted to bring them all
with us away from that place. It seemed so impossible.”
“We all have our corners in this world,” Chris said softly. “Supporting each
other, you know they’ll be just fine now that the Madame isn’t there.”
Tom nodded glumly, missing Eve so much. He still wore her scarves, and some of
the dresses that she’d given him just before he left. He didn’t want to forget
the way she smelled.
He fingered the necklace hanging down his chest, a gift Chris had presented to
him shortly after settling in their new home.
“I buried them,” he had said softly, rocking on a twinset of chairs he’d
purchased off the weathered old carpenter who kept his shop just off the main
square of town. Tom sat right beside him, their hands dangling between, fingers
laced.
Tom’s heart gave a little jump. “Them?”
“Your parents. I followed in the direction you said you’d come from. And I
found them. And I buried them.”
Tears rose in Tom’s eyes, blurring Chris and the fluttering red eye of his lit
cigarette. He swallowed and sat up, turning to face him. “Were they…?” Okay?
Destroyed? Was there anything even there? “How were they?”
Chris gave a soft sigh, eyes on the shoreline. “They were decent, love. But
they were bones. Clothed still. They’re in the earth where we all belong.”
Wiping at the falling tears, Tom nodded and thanked him quietly, his guilty
grief at their passing lessened now that he knew they’d been properly buried.
At the time, he hadn’t had the strength to do it himself. And it had cut him a
little more each day knowing they were out there under the ravishing sun.
“I found something,” Chris said, digging into his pocket and pulling out a gold
chain. Tom recognized it immediately.
“It’s my mother’s,” he whispered, reaching for it. He had thought the last he
would see anything of hers was the day he nearly died in the desert.
“It was tangled in her hair. Broken and hidden from the scavengers. I was able
to get it mended. It should hold.” He nodded gruffly and turned back to the
sea, casting Tom a nervous glance, as if anxious for his response. “Thought you
would want it.”
“I do,” Tom said quickly, nodding fast. “I do. I have nothing of theirs. And
she wore this every day. A gift from my father when they first started courting
years ago. He called her his dove, and this was supposed to signify their
love.”
His face crumpled and he jumped from his chair to where Chris sat, curling on
his lap and whispering his thank you’s, kissing him hard, gold chain dangling
from his clenched fist.
And now he wore it every day, its cool weight dangling under his shirt as he
washed their clothes and cooked their food and rode Bullet down the beach and
back. And Chris was always there, helping him with the meals, carrying the load
of clothes as Tom hung them up to dry, kneeling beside him on the ground where
Tom had started to plant seeds of flowers and lines of tomatoes in the dark,
rich fertilizer they’d packed into one side of the yard. The flowers started to
bloom, and the tomatoes to ripen and redden, and white shells to dot along
their beach as the seas shifted. Summer was winding to a close.
“We’ll freeze!” Tom laughed as he jumped under the covers and twisted himself
into a ball.
“Where’s my little bird?” Chris said, pawing through the sheets after him.
“Where’s my bird? Hiding in his nest? Where is he?”
Tom’s face appeared in the bundle, grinning wide, already reaching for him.
Chris dragged him up and they collapsed in a tangle, lips slotting together
like the most familiar thing.
“You’ll keep me warm, won’t you, my darling?”
Chris hummed at his throat, already mouthing down past the scar at his
clavicles and down to his navel.
“Yes,” Tom breathed. “The cold will do nothing to us.”
Rising, Chris caught his mouth and pinched his bottom lip with his teeth, a
sure way to speed Tom’s heart.
“Not anymore, my bird,” he whispered.
And Tom clasped him close, squeezing him hard, with adoring relish. “No, not
anymore.”
 
End.
Chapter End Notes
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