I liked to look at the blood.
That blood was part of my love.
—C.P. Cavafy, “The Bandaged Shoulder”

“Sorry, this is my seat,” I say politely.

A poofy-haired Jennifer, my buddies would call her. She’s about to sit down when I tap her on the shoulder.

She stares at me. “Whatever!” she mutters, rolling her eyes and moving on down the aisle. The smell of her perfume lingers, so strong I can taste it on my tongue. Sickeningly sweet. I’d much prefer smelling James’s pits after a hard afternoon of putting up hay.

There’s a reason I really, really want to sit here: I can study James better. It’s one row over and a few seats behind the spot where he customarily sits. Since his focus is always on the teacher, he’s never caught me harvesting him with my eyes. From this angle, I can see his bearded face in profile, admire the thickness of his arms, and today I even get a peek of his underwear because he’s wearing a tight gray T-shirt that rides up when he bends forward to pull a book from his backpack. I glimpse, above the belt of his jeans, the white fabric of his briefs, and, maddeningly, a tiny strip of his lower back. Just the right place to drip a little buckwheat honey, slowly lick it off, my tongue working through that dark sweetness down to the taste of skin beneath.

Fat chance. I don’t how to get closer to him. We haven’t even spoken. Only reason I know his name’s James is that’s what he answers to when the professor calls the roll. Despite the big curves of his arms and chest—he’s kind enough to wear clothes that show all that off—I never see him in the campus gym. I only see him here, in Introduction to Appalachian Studies. It’s only the third week of class—early September—but being in the same room with James for seven fifty-minute class sessions has been enough to convince me that I’d give up my fucking soul to have him naked in my bed, my mouth and hands all over him.

I think he’s in this class for the same reason I am: because Appalachian Studies is a topic we can relate to. He looks local, somehow, and the few times he’s spoken in class, he sounds local too. Hell, for all I know, maybe we grew up in adjoining counties. Might be that we have a lot in common, though I’m guessing he isn’t gay—the cosmos isn’t kind enough to allow that. Hell, I’d settle for being beer-buddies. Anything to spend time with him. Maybe if I got him drunk enough, he’d even let me suck his dick.

James is scribbling on a piece of notebook paper now, and from here it looks like a list. Then I remember that today’s the day the professor has asked us to hand in a list of topics we’d prefer to do our oral reports on. “Choose five topics from this master list,” he’d directed, “then tell me if you’d like to be partnered with a classmate with similar interests.”

If only, I think, pulling out my list with “Appalachian Ghost Stories” at the top. Similar interests? Like getting really drunk with a guy, then tying him to a chair and sucking on his tits till he screams? Not on the master list of topics? Just my luck.

But even my sad luck can change. James finishes scribbling, stretches his arms—the T-shirt sleeves pull back, revealing biceps bulges so large I’m reminded of the curve and slope of a mountain above my granddaddy’s farm—and then, since the professor hasn’t arrived yet, he strolls out of the room, probably for a cool sip from the nearest water fountain.

That’s when it occurs to me. We’re fatalists, we mountain folk, but I want to give fate a nudge, so I stand and stretch too, show off what muscles I have to no one in particular—I’m pretty well-built, though not half as buff as James—then head toward the door, as if after a drink of water too. As if water could quench this thirst.

That’s when I peer over at the paper on his desk and make a mental note of his list of topics. The word at the top of the list is “Moonshine,” followed by “Harlan County Mine Wars,” “The Dollmaker,” and “Bluegrass Music.”

Passing James in the hall, I meet his eyes and nod. He nods back, solemn, unsmiling. By the time I’ve had my drink of water, the professor has walked in, unpacked his briefcase, and asked for our topic lists. I have just enough time to rip out another sheet of paper and write down the topics James chose.

A week later. There’s some confusion, and, for me, bitter suspense. At first it’s announced that James will be partnered with Britney, who turns out to be the perfumed, big-haired harlot who tried to take The Viewing Seat from me. I figured that being partnered with James in any way, shape, or form would be beyond the realm of happenstance. Goddammit. He looks so hot today, with black hair curling over the collar of his beige T-shirt, like a pine forest impinging on a pasture. I can even see the points of his nipples against his shirt, which only convinces me that I’d take any risk to get them between my teeth.

But then Britney squeals, in high dudgeon—I haven’t heard a sound that unnerving since my uncle castrated a calf—and explains that she wants to be partnered with Jenn and forgot to put that information down. So the professor fumbles with some papers, then says, “Okay, so it’s Britney and Jennifer on Quilting. James on Moonshine. James, did you want a partner?” The professor starts shuffling again, then looks up at James over his eyeglasses.

James shrugs. God, I wish my shoulders were that broad. “Sure. That’d be fine.”

I nudged Fate. Now it nudges me back. I rub my beard, prop one hiking boot on one knee, slide down in my chair a little bit, and open my mouth. I’m amazed. Not only because the voice comes from me, but because it sounds not shaky but strong.

“I’d just as soon do Moonshine, Dr. Kinder,” I say casually. “Sounds like more fun than the topic I have.”

“Hmmm, okay. James and Greg. Moonshine,” mumbles the teacher, making a note: our names, no doubt, bunched up together, with a tight circle around them. Like barbed wire wrapped around a fencepost. Like those heart-bound names that lucky lovers cut together in smooth-gray trunks of beech bark.

“Well, there’s the easy way. Real safe. Then there’s the fun way. Kinda risky.”

James is sucking on a cigarette and mapping out our options. There are scrawled legal-pad notes on the table and a couple volumes from the campus library, including The Foxfire Book, that compendium of Appalachian folklore. We’re sitting in Champs, a sports bar, and drinking some draft Guinness he bought. When he licks beer-foam from his moustache, I want to grab my crotch beneath the table.

This urge is only encouraged by the stained wife-beater he’s wearing. Chest hair tufts over the top of the ribbed white cloth and smoulders out the sides, around the swell of his pecs, like black smoke rolling off a wood-fire. There’s a scorpion inked into the skin of his inner right forearm. Thick gold hoops glimmer in each of his earlobes, and, from what I can see through the cigarette haze and the dim gray light typical of bars, there’s a very small nipple ring in his left tit.

That’s the last detail I need. I fucking love pierced tits. This partnership was a mistake. I want him so bad I’m sick with it. Yet I’ve made my bed. I’ve got to sit here and make conversation and talk about copper stills and worms and sour mash and other moonshine-making jargon.

He’s saying something about risk. Okay, Greg, concentrate.

“Now, we already got enough here for a good report,” James drawls, an accent so much like mine. Grayson County? Dickenson? Tazewell? He’s got to hail from somewhere close. “But I gotta get a real fine grade in this class to pull my GPA up, and I’m thinking that ole Dr. Kinder would be real impressed by personal testimony, instead of just book or online research, and since we got a good month to work on this...”

He’s leading up to something, all right. I take a swig of stout. He crushes out the butt of his cigarette and lights another. I study his face in the brief flare of the lighter. Thick black eyebrows meeting over his nose. Long, ridiculously long, eyelashes. Close-trimmed beard, a lot like mine.

We look a little alike, it suddenly occurs to me: same thick dark hair, same height, same basic build. What am I, a narcissist? Looking for a twin brother to fuck?

James lets out a sigh of smoke and closes his eyes. Then he sits up suddenly and rummages through his backpack.

It looks like pewter, with Celtic swirls across the front of it. James hands the flask to me and slowly I make out the design: two bearded warriors holding between them a flaming cup.

“Give it a try,” says James, and pushes an empty water glass in my direction.

Ain’t much he could offer I’d turn down. Hell, I’d drink his blood, if that was the only option. For just a second, I see myself on my knees gulping down his come. I want my black beard streaked with it: mistletoe berries, spruce boughs rimed with new snow.

I tip the flask and something red runs out into the glass.

“That there’s raspberry moonshine,” James says softly.

I look up at him, unsure. Every country boy knows bad moonshine can kill you. Some cheap bootleggers run it through old car radiators or dilute it with formaldehyde. You’ve got to know it came from a reliable source before you drink it.

“Go on, Greg. Take a taste. It’s safe. I’ll show ya.” James pours a little out onto the table and pulls a matchbook from his backpack.

I know what he’s going to do. Just about everyone who grows up in the mountains knows how to test moonshine. You light it. If it burns yellow, it’s full of impurities. If it burns blue, it’s safe.

The match catches, and then the tiny puddle on the tabletop. We bend over it and watch the transparent blue flame waver between us. “See?” whispers James. I look up at him. His face is only inches from mine. His eyes in this light are a glistening black, like that volcanic glass I saw in geology lab last week. He reaches across the table and gently shoves my shoulder. “Trust me, buddy. I ain’t gonna give you any bad booze.”

I nod and drop my eyes back to the dying flame, unable to hold his gaze any longer. My mouth’s suddenly dry, so I grab that convenient glass of moonshine and take a good swig. It’s surprisingly smooth and not too sweet, sort of like Bacardi’s rum. “Pretty fine,” I mumble.

“Take it all,” says James, and I do.

“Good boy,” he laughs. “Most folks choke up a little.”

“Naw,” I say. “Not me. This is easy stuff. Not like the rusty-razor popskull I’ve had before. Besides, I was born to swallow flame.” Something about the sight of this big scruffy guy makes me want to break some rules, take some chances, run a little wild.

James laughs again, nudges my knee with his beneath the table, and then bends forward. “C’mere,” he mutters.

Again our faces are only inches apart—I can smell the tobacco on his lips—and for a crazy split second I think we’ve suddenly slipped into a parallel universe and he’s going to kiss me, but instead he says, “Here’s the thing. I know exactly where this moonshine was made.”

Essential Steve Earle. Perfect CD tunes for two hillbilly boys four-wheeling up and down the mountains of McCormick County.

The road’s muddy and narrow, and leaves from the surrounding woodland slap the side of the truck. James is driving fast, cursing every time he hits a pothole. It’s a beat-up Toyota pickup he bought off his Daddy, and I’m envious. Four-wheel drive and extended cab. “This bitch can get us anywhere,” he shouts over the music, taking a curve so fast my stomach staggers.

Earle’s singing, “You never come back from Copperhead Road,” which makes me a little nervous, since he’s talking about revenuers who spied on a moonshine still once too often, and spying on a still is just what we’re about to do. On the other hand, James has assured me that the still’s run by a good buddy of James’s distant cousin Steve, so even if we’re caught, we’ll make it back to campus alive. Besides, to get my courage up and to tolerate being in such close quarters with a man I want so goddamn much, I’ve been borrowing sips from James’s flask for the last hour. The moonshine goes down easier and easier, and it’s hard to be afraid when you’re this buzzed.

“He’s pretty good-lookin’, isn’t he?”

I look up, off guard. James has caught me admiring photos of Steve Earle on the CD’s liner notes. Good-looking? With that beard and those full lips and that long black hippie-hair falling down over his eyes? Hell yes, he’s good-looking. But that’s not the kind of thing a straight guy would admit to noticing.

The bagpipe note that ends “Copperhead Road” puts a little shiver up my spine, despite September humidity. “Uh, yeah,” I reply. “He’s handsome.” I hesitate, then say, “Could I have a draw off your cigarette?”

“Sure,” says James. “Didn’t know you smoked.”

“Uh, sometimes,” I lie. I’ve never tasted tobacco in my life, except for one peach-flavored mouthful of chaw my cousin shared with me last year.

“You want your own? I got a few nice hand-rolled ones here.”

“Naw, just a few puffs off yours.” James hands me the cigarette, and I put it between my lips, feeling his mouth’s moisture on the paper. Jesus, I want to kiss him. Instead, I tentatively suck in a little smoke. Don’t want to take too much, then go off on a coughing jag and look like a pussy.

“Very fine,” I say, then hand it back. His mouth would taste like tobacco, booze, and raspberries.

“Shit, it’s hot,” I say, and pull off my T-shirt. We’re both wearing boots and jeans, ready for the spy-hike to come, and James is wearing the same damn wife-beater he’s worn the last couple times we’ve met—I can tell because there’s an oil stain I’ve noticed before just under his left pec. James doesn’t change clothes very often, it seems. He doesn’t use deodorant much either. I can smell him from here, even with the windows rolled down and late-summer air pouring through the truck cab. I want to push my face in his pits, give him a good long tongue-bath.

“You look like him, y’know,” I mumble. I scratch the sweaty hair matting my belly and take another sip of ‘shine from James’s Celtic flask.

“Huh? Who?”

“Steve Earle.”

“Oh. Yeah?” James swerves to avoid a mudhole, hands me back the cigarette.

Then he looks at me. “You know, you do too.”

Our eyes hold for about three seconds, then he clears his throat and turns up the music. Earle’s singing, “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied.”

The truck’s parked off the road, a good ways down the mountain, half-hidden by rhododendron thickets. James and I have been trudging up the hill for a good half-hour, through stands of white pine and tulip tree, where no one’s likely to spot us.

The trees end with the hilltop, and now we’re looking over a sloping pasture. The sun’s low in the sky, tangerine-colored. The distant mountains are purple with humidity haze. There’s a little house on the pasture-edge, with a cinderblock foundation and modern-looking glossy log sides. Reminds me of a hunting cabin my uncle used to have. There’s an SUV parked in the muddy yard in front of it, underneath a scraggly cigar tree.

We check out the cabin for a while, hiding behind a big oak and looking for any sign of people or guard dogs. Then James puts his finger to his lips and we creep closer. He’s a brave boy: he even slips carefully up the steps and onto the porch to peer in the windows. “Empty,” he mouths silently, then gestures and we head over the other side of the hill and down into a high-grass meadow.

The slope’s very steep. I can hear the purling of water, and sure enough, here’s a brook, which we follow through low bushes and orchard grass. After ten minutes of descent, the sound gets louder: dull splash of a waterfall as the stream disappears over a ledge. We crawl down slanted rock alongside the cascade, careful on the slippery stone. James is solicitous, steadying me, his hand on my shoulder. “Careful!’ he whispers, grinning.

When the land levels out, James grabs me by the hand and tugs me under the rock ledge and into cool air behind the waterfall. He points. “Check this out!” he says in triumph.

There, propped up on gravel, is a still, its copper gleaming in the gloom behind the rushing band of clear water. I recognize the basic set-up from The Foxfire Book: still-kettle leading to worm and over into barrel, where cool water condenses vapor into ‘shine. There’s no fire going, which is a good sign. Despite the SUV parked up at the house, hopefully there’s no one around.

“Gotta get some pics,” says James, pulling a digital camera out of his backpack. “Dr. Kinder’s gonna love this.”

I examine the still for a few minutes, touching its copper gleam here and there, enjoying the cool created by the falling water. Then, leaving James to take his photographs, I stride out into the sloping meadow, where the heat recoalesces around me. There’s a bobwhite calling somewhere. The shadows are lengthening.

Suddenly I’m nervous. “Hurry up, James,” I say. “Light’s running out.” He’s angling around the still, snapping shot after shot. I tug at a piece of broomsedge, tug off a few silky seeds, watch them drift slowly off on the warm breeze. Will it never cool down? A trickle of sweat slides down my side. I wish James would take his shirt off: I want to see that nipple ring glowing in the dying light.

Finally he’s had enough. He strides over to me, camera strap over one shoulder, a happy grin on his face.

That’s when we hear another voice. Not the waterfall, not the bobwhite. Someone says, “Keep real still, boys.”

There’s a chubby man with a red beard standing only a few feet above us, on one of the rocks alongside the waterfall. He’s got a shotgun, and it’s pointed at our heads.

He hops down a rock or two, surprisingly agile for such a large man. “Why’nt you boys just put your hands in the air?” he says, with the tone of an old friend offering advice. “And keep yourselves real still, ‘cause there’s an unfriendly serpent about two feet from you.”

I grab James by the shoulder, and we look around frantically. Yep, there it is, a fucking snake right behind us. Copperhead, without a doubt. I push James behind me, start looking for a rock or stick.

“Now, y’all heard me, right? Hands up, if you please.”

Great. Hands up, and a poisonous snake at my feet. The copperhead’s curled up, poised to strike. I back up into James, my bare back against the wet fabric of his undershirt, and he mutters “Holy shit” into my ear.

“Now, don’t you all worry about Matilda here,” says the fat man, who’s only a few feet from us now. With the barrel of his gun, he gently nudges the snake. A few half-hearted strikes at the metal, and the copperhead disappears into a stand of milkweeds.

“Now, all y’got to deal with is me,” he says, pointing the gun at us with one hand and rummaging in his back pocket with the other.

“You, boy,” he says, nodding at me.

“Me?” I croak. My throat’s dry with fear. God, I don’t want to look like a coward in front of James.

“Yeah, you. What’s your name?” He smiles. Sixty or seventy pounds ago, he was a hot guy, I can’t help but think, even as I’m trying not to piss my pants. His chest and arms are even bigger than James’s.

I clear my throat. “Greg, Sir,” I say. Always be polite, I hear my mother advise.

“Greg, I’m Keith.” He’s holding something metallic toward me. Not a flask. Handcuffs. “What say you put a pair of these on your buddy? What’s his name?”

“Uh, James, Sir.” Tiny, cowardly tremors are running up and down my thighs.

“James, turn around and put your hands behind your back. Greg, cuff him.”

Keith steps up to me, the barrel of the gun in my face. He stretches out his arm, I stretch out my arm, and the cold metal slides into my palm.

I turn, and James is staring at me. His eyes are hard. He wants to rush this guy.

“James, turn around,” says our captor, a little less friendly.

“Do it, James,” I say. “Remember, you said your cousin would help us.”

James nods. “Yeah, right. He’ll show this asshole who’s boss.” Holding onto that likelihood, he turns his back to me and puts his arms behind his back. I fumble with the cuffs just a second—never handled cuffs before—then click them around one wrist. James sighs, hangs his head. I click on the other cuff. The thick muscles of his arms flex and relax, flex and relax. He looks beautiful this way, and suddenly I realize I have a hard-on. We might die here on this mountainside, and I have a fucking hard-on.

“Tighter,” commands Keith. “Good and tight.” I click the cuffs up a few more ratchets. James sucks in air and winces.

“All the way, boy,” Keith is sounding impatient. Another couple of ratchets, till there’s no room left, till James’s back stiffens and he groans.

Keith chuckles. “Now that sounds about right.”

The gun taps my spine. “Your turn,” says Keith.

I put my hands behind my back. There’s a rustling of boots through broomsedge, then metal on my wrists, then pain, as Keith tightens the cuffs till there’s only a millimeter or two of hair and skin between the steel and the bone.

“I’m from over Kentucky way, actually. New around here. I never heard of your cousin.”

Keith is sipping on a Miller Lite, making himself comfortable in a big armchair, the gun resting across one knee. James and I are sitting side by side on the cabin’s leather couch, trying like hell to talk our way out of this. My hands are very, very cold. My fingers are tingling. James’s must be too. How long after blood flow stops does gangrene set in?

“Listen,” James tries again. “Cousin Steve has been helping Mr. Martin run this operation for years. You just got to call Martin and check my story. He can call Steve, and he’ll vouch for me. We ain’t here to turn you guys in. We just were curious. Had some of your all’s good ‘shine and wanted to see the still.”

He’s said all this once before, but Keith isn’t too interested. He finishes his beer and says, “You’re fulla shit, kid.”

“Fuck you,” says James.

Keith looks at him and smiles. He gets up, walks over to the fridge, lays the gun on the kitchen counter, pulls out another beer, and pops it. He tips it back and swigs. We watch his throat pulse as the beer runs down his gullet.

Then he takes the beer can and throws it at James. It hits him just over his left ear.

“You big, dumb, fat motherfucker! You pig-fucker!” James shouts, on his feet. In a second and a half, he’s got Keith pushed up against the counter and is butting his head into the fat men’s chest.

Keith grabs James by his thick hair. He slams him against the fridge and holds him there with the bulk of his belly. He commences to punch James hard, once in his stomach, once in his side, and twice in his handsome face. By the time I’ve pushed through the paralytic shock and am on my feet, Keith has tossed James on the floor, kicked him in the gut, and then drawn a Bowie knife from his boot.

“You just set down, Mr. Greg,” Keith says, rubbing his belly and waving the long knife blade my way. He kicks James again. James doubles up and moans. Then Keith’s boot crashes against James’s head, and James lies still.

I’m shaking so hard it’s hard to speak. I can’t feel my hands at all now. There’s blood all over James’s face.

“Sir,” I say, as calmly as I can. “You’d better check out our story. If you kill us and later it turns out that we were telling the truth, there’ll be hell to pay. James’s cousin Steve will track you down. He’ll feed your liver to his hogs.”

Keith strides over and backhands me hard. I stumble backwards, shake my head, and marigold petals drift across my vision. He slaps me again, harder. My lip splits. I fall to my knees.

“You’re probably right,” he says. “Now where’s my goddamned cell phone?”

James starts coming to about the time I’ve finished tying his hands behind his back and have started into wrapping rope around his boots. I’ve convinced Keith that he wants us neither dead nor permanently damaged till he’s discovered how true our story might be. He’s let me beg for a good while before agreeing to replace the cuffs with less cruel restraints. He’s released me, let me uncuff out-cold James and rub the color back into his hands a bit, before several tossed lengths of rope hit me upside the head, and Keith directs me on how to bind my friend.

James is lying on his back. His knees are bent. There’s dried blood on his forehead. One eye is swollen half-shut. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth, blood stains his undershirt. Even here and now I want to kiss him, I want to lick the blood from his face. Maybe because of here and now, since I don’t know how much longer we have to live.

“Tighter,” growls Keith over my shoulder. I cinch the rope around James’s ankles as tightly as I can. James grunts, opens his eyes, and shakes his head. He looks up at me.

“What you doing, Greg?” he mumbles.

“I’m tying you,” I say. It’s hard to talk with a busted mouth. “We gotta stay here tonight.”

“What the fuck?” James says. He struggles a little, finds his hands bound, rolls over onto his side, and says, “Let me loose. Please, man. My head hurts.”

He sounds like a little boy. My eyes are suddenly wet. Goddammit. I clear my throat. “James, we gotta stay here tonight. Keith’s cell phone don’t work. He’s gotta leave us here and go talk to his boss.”

A silver-gray roll of duct tape skids across the bare floor. “Okay, Greg, think it’s time to add a good bit of this.” The gun nudges me again, bumps down my backbone. “Don’t want you boys to get loose and get bitten by snakes, now do we? Them copperheads hunt after dark, y’know. Mountainside’s crawling with them.”

“James, we’re gonna be all right. Your cousin will probably be back here in a few hours, and he’ll make sure we get home.”

James licks his lips. He nods. “Yeah, okay.”

“Get to the tape,” Keith says, tapping the gun barrel on my head. “Wrists, then ankles.”

“Roll over, James,” I whisper. “Please roll over.” James nods, rolls over on his belly, and gives a long sigh, the way he does when he’s exhaling smoke.

When I pull off a length of tape, the sound is loud, like metal ripping, or a tree branch torn off by high wind. I wrap a three-feet piece around James’s roped wrists, and James arcs his arms up to help me. I can feel him trembling.

“More,” says Keith. I tug off another piece of tape, and there’s that tearing sound again, so sharp in the cabin’s silence. Countryside is so dark, so quiet. When you get used to that, you just can’t abide cities with their lights and their noise. I wonder if Keith will do the digging, or untie me long enough to do it. Will he bury us in the woods or in the cellar?

“Nice. Now his ankles. About six feet worth. I got another couple a’ rolls if that one gives out.”

When James is finally secured to our captor’s satisfaction, Keith opens another beer and swigs. “Want some?” he says.

I’m on my knees beside James. I look up at Keith and nod.

“Take the rest,” he says, handing me the half-empty can.

“May I give him some?” I ask.

“Yeah, sure.”

James is lying on his side. I pull him up into my arms. Who would have ever thought that a man could look this handsome with so much blood on his face? He smells like cigarettes, iron, and freshly-plowed earth. He’s really shaking now. Or is that me? I hold his head in the crook of my arm and give him small sips. “Thanks,” he mumbles. I pour a little too fast, and James chokes a little. Beer foams up over his split lip, drips down his bearded chin and onto his wife-beater. “Sorry,” I say, and wipe the beer off his chin, brush some crusted blood from his cheek.

“Cute. You look like brothers. Or morphodites,” Keith laughs. “One other thing, Greg, then you can relax, ‘cause it’s about time for you to be tied.”

I look up at Keith. He’s smiling. It would be a great smile without the cruelty in it.

“Tear that undershirt off him,” Keith says.

I look up at him, confused. I sure as shit have been wanting to see James bare-chested for weeks, but I doubt that Keith is arranging all this to cater to my fantasies.

“Go on.”

I tug at the top of the undershirt, curve of white against black chest hair, wet with blood, spilt beer, and fear-sweat. It doesn’t give. My eyes meet James’s. I love you, I want to say. I’m only twenty. I’ve never said that to a man before. Now I’m wondering if I’ll ever get the chance.

“Oh, for God’s sake. Get to it!”

The wife-beater rips straight down, like the scar a lightning bolt leaves in an oak. “Here,” says Keith, handing me a pocketknife. “Cut off the rest.” Carefully, I slip the blade under cloth and sever the straps running over James’s shoulders. I pull off the undershirt and stare at his bare chest, the wave-swell of hairy pecs I’ve been wanting to see, touch, and taste for weeks. The nipple ring glitters like gold dust, brightness rimming a lunar eclipse.

“Stuff half of it in his mouth.”

I look up at Keith. My knees are aching. “No one will hear us all the way up here,” I say.

He slaps the slide of my head. “Just in case. I don’t want any confabs in the basement while I’m gone.”

I stare at James. His eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. He’s panting a little, starting to panic. He licks his split lip and shakes his head.

“Open up.” Keith presses the gun’s mouth against James’s forehead.

“C’mon, buddy. Your cousin’ll be here soon,” I whisper.

James opens his mouth and closes his eyes. I push the fabric in, inch by inch, till his mouth is stuffed full and his cheeks are bulging.

“Looks like a greedy goddamn squirrel!” Keith guffaws. “Now finish him up with tape. I’d say about five, six feet worth.”

Four layers of tape cover James’ mouth by the time I’m done. He gives a muffled sob, his chin pressed against his bare chest. His shoulders start to shake violently, he’s right on the edge of tears. I grab one arm, tip his head up. His beard is wet in my palm. Not now. Not with him here, I say with my stare.

“Sweet,” says Keith. “Now, put the rest of his shirt in your mouth.”

James takes a long breath, and his trembling eases up. I pick the other half of the wife-beater up off the floor, ball it up, and push it between my lips until it’s packed in tight. My split lip throbs.

“Tape yourself,” Keith says, handing me the silver roll.

There’s that sick ripping again. What kind of sound does a knife-blade make entering or leaving a man’s chest? Does a body make tiny noises when it rots in the ground? I press the end of the tape over the left corner of my mouth, then pull it across my lips, then over my ear, then across the back of my head. This is gonna hurt like hell when it comes off our beards, I think.

It’s not till later, when I’m gagged as tightly as James, when I’m bent over the back of the couch and getting my hands roped behind me, that I realize that the duct tape may never be removed.

This is my world now: James’s face, the cinderblock wall behind him, and a small window at the top of that wall, full of blackness broken occasionally by flickers of what must be heat lightning.

We’re lying side by side, face to face, on a mattress in the basement. Before he left, Keith dragged each of us down the stairs, then taped us together at the feet, knees, waists, and chests. Once we heard the car drive off, we struggled for a good while, cursing and rolling around. But the thought of rolling off the mattress and having to spend the rest of our time here on the cement floor has occurred to both of us, so our struggles have been as circumscribed as our limbs.

I can’t see much, but my other senses are swamped. James’s bare torso is pressed tightly against mine. Our chest hair and sweat mingle, his rank scent fills my nose, his gagged mouth bumps mine, his frustrated groans fill my ears, and, occasionally, if I keep very still, I can feel his heart beating against me. My mouth is stuffed full of the taste of his undershirt: salt of his torso sweat, rusty taste of his blood mixed with split beer. If I have to die, I’ll die with the taste of James on my tongue.

It’s surprising how much two men can communicate with their eyes, especially when those men are only inches apart. My right arm, the one beneath me, has gone numb. I grunt, cock my head, and we roll slowly over until we’re resting on our other sides. We’ve been rotating like this for hours, trying to get as comfortable as our situation allows.

Thunder in the distance. The window lights up. In the brief flash, I can see James’s face clearly: hair fallen over one eye, black beard bristling over the edges of gray tape: it’s like looking into a mirror. But there’s an added urgency in his eyes, something I don’t understand.

“Uhhh!” James says, pushing against me. We roll, but this time only half-way. Now I’m lying on top of him.

He closes his eyes and shakes his head again and again. He’s cursing softly, I think.

My cock has been hard for hours, needless to say, ever since Keith taped us together, but in this position, stretched out on top of James, I feel like I’m going to come any second. I know that James can’t help but feel my erection jammed against him, and that mortifies me, but there’s nothing I can do about it, feeling his warmth and his helplessness pressed against me in this forced intimacy.

But he’s distracted by something else, and the sudden warm wetness spreading against my crotch lets me know what. He’s pissed his pants.

“Uh uh uh!” I’m sorry.

I bump his chin with mine. He opens his eyes, shame-faced. I shrug my shoulders and roll my eyes. Big deal, man. What else could you do? Excuse yourself and head for the outhouse?

Under this latest humiliation, James finally breaks down. He shouts once—“UmmmMMMMmmm!”—and then starts to cry. I rub his gag with mine, but that doesn’t help. I nuzzle his ear, his blood-stained, tear-wet cheeks, and then my own tears begin. The only good thing about having our mouths taped is that we won’t be reduced to calling for our mothers, the way dying soldiers are said to do sometimes. I push my face against his and let the sobs break out of me like a spring flood.

We’re still crying when I start grinding my hard-on against him and rubbing my chest against his. I wish I’d had the guts to tell him how I felt about him, and now I can’t tell him anything with any clarity. But, by God, this side of the grave I can show him. I push my mouth against his as if we were kissing through the tape, I rub my mouth against the blood on his cheek as if I could lick it off like raspberry moonshine.

James couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to, but he apparently doesn’t want to, because he’s nuzzling my face now, and I can feel not only his piss moistening my jeans but his own hard-on bumping against mine. He sobs harder, arches against me again and again. The window glimmers once, twice—a summer storm must be moving in—and in that intermittent illumination our eyes lock. You’re beautiful, I want to say, try to say with wet eyes. You’re strong and wild and brave, and you’re beautiful beneath me. If we have to die, it’ll be side by side, and that’ll be a better death than most.

It doesn’t take either one of us very long to shoot. Our crotches grind together for only a couple of minutes before James starts jerking spasmodically beneath me and moaning. Our foreheads slam together painfully, and then I feel my come cresting, filling my briefs with hot spurts. James is right behind me, apparently, because now he roars against the tape, shakes his head back and forth, slams his hips into mine, and then goes limp.

I lie there for a full minute, tears finally run out, watching his face lit by lightning. He looks exhausted, I feel exhausted. Beneath all those layers of tape, he seems to be smiling. But then it occurs to me how heavy I must feel on top of him, so I grunt and cock my head, and we roll onto our sides.

We lie there for a few minutes just staring at one another. Then I gently bump his tear-moist chin with mine.

“Um umm um,” I grunt. I love you. I wish he could hear me clearly. It’s important that he know.

James arches one eyebrow. Then his eyes fill with understanding. He nods, nestles his face against my shoulder, sighs a few times, and soon his breathing slows with sleep.

For a second I think it was the light that woke me. It’s orange-red sunrise, a shaft of it slanting through the basement window and stroking James’s bruised and sleeping face.

But then I hear more car doors slam outside, and footsteps on the porch.

James’s eyes are open now. He groans, and we both start to shiver.

I don’t know which it will be. A circle of men around us. Knives? No, bullets in the head. Wrapped in tarps, hauled out into the woods. Buried together. The slow rot melding, feeding weeds and trees. Bones spending the long night nestled together in one grave. Let it be one grave.

Or Cousin Steve tromping down the stairs. “Jesus Christ, James! You dumb bastard! You’ve got yourself in a fix, boy. But we’ve talked it all out. Once y’all are cut loose, I got some sausage and egg biscuits upstairs and some decent coffee.”

After that, anything’s possible. What I want’s a house together, some old farmhouse with lots of sugar maple trees that turn orange-red in autumn, or red maples with leaves the color of raspberry moonshine. Tying James up gently and making love to him for hours. Sucking his cock in the shower. The fresh-baked bread my Daddy taught me to make, and pots of brown beans. Watching fireflies and heat lightning out on the porch, James’s head in my lap, his soft beard beneath my fingers.

A key rattles in the basement door. James takes a long breath and rests his face against mine, brow to brow, mouth to mouth. Our eyes lock and hold like clasped hands. The door creaks open, a light’s clicked on, and heavy boots sound on the stairs, descending into the earth.

 

© 2007 Jeff Mann - Contributor's Bio

Read an Interview with Jeff Mann by Shane Allison