Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair
I
WHEN Elaine first met Mike Pruitt on that snowy December twenty-third, she’d already heard about the men who lived together on the horse ranch in the upper reaches of the valley, of course. She and her four children had recently joined her husband where he’d finally found work, and so they’d been taken under the wing of the First Baptist Ladies’ Guild. Sally Collins had told her about Mike and Harry the first time she’d come out to drop off a cake and a casserole, confiding the news as if it were the best story their tiny community had to offer. The town boasted no more than five hundred souls, though if you included all the farm and ranch people, that total swelled to at least a thousand. Two gay men, living brazenly within the traditionally conservative country of big sky and branded cattle: Elaine figured that had to be worth repeating in Elk Ridge for a hundred years at least. She listened carefully to all the information about stores and weather and churches and the state of the roads that Sally had to give her, and she was grateful for the help, but especially she listened to word about these men. Her son Danny was just turned sixteen, morose and uncommunicative and unhappy in a way that hurt a mother’s heart, and she worried about him. It might be…. She’d do about anything to get him to talk to her. 2
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Elaine heard more about Mike and Harry the second time Sally drove up to the seen-better-days clapboard house she and Gilbert were renting. Elaine wiped her hands on a towel and went out to meet her in the side yard, not minding one bit this interruption to her day. The early-December wind swirled around her, kicking up her apron because she’d been making burritos for Maudie’s restaurant. The part-time work would make a good Christmas possible for the family, and maybe she could think of something to buy that would cheer Danny up. She shivered against the cold and pulled her sweater closer around her, moving her feet to keep them warm. The rocky ground of their acreage, ten miles outside of town, was covered with a dusting of snow, though the peaks surrounding them had been thoroughly white-capped since she and the kids had arrived two weeks before. Sally had brought Ann Huntington with her, the vice president of the guild, along with a bible and two sacks of used children’s clothes that Elaine received happily. The three of them settled down around the kitchen table and the real visit began. It seemed that the boys, as Sally insisted on calling forty-five-year-old men, had come to the valley five or six years before and had started out by renting a ramshackle place nobody else had wanted. But then they came into some money because they’d bought the Rodriguez ranch, and that surely must have cost a pretty penny, don’t you know? Elaine wasn’t sure which Sally thought was more scandalous, the fact that the two men were living in sin against the laws of God as clearly defined in Leviticus— 3
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair “Though nobody’s ever seen them do anything unseemly,” Sally said regretfully, “not even hold hands or kiss each other. To look at them you’d think they were normal”—or if the problem was that their ranch and the equipment rental business operated by Mike from a lot next to the post office both seemed to be thriving. “It’s a shame, as fine-looking as those two are,” Sally told her, “that they don’t have an eye for a woman.” “I like Mike,” Ann put in as she reached for another chocolate chip cookie from the plate Elaine had put out. Thankfully the children were in school so they had some peace and quiet to talk. Elaine was pleased with the company of other women even if she wasn’t a Baptist and had no intention of attending their church. Unitarian Universalist had always been her flavor, where the joke was that a person didn’t need to believe in a god at all to belong— except it wasn’t a joke. Nobody had ever pressed her on what she held true when she’d gone for services some Sundays that they’d lived in Denver. But there wasn’t a UU church for a hundred miles around, so she’d pretty much decided she’d pray to, or think about, or curse whatever god there was on her own. “Wait until you meet Mike,” Ann went on. “He’s drop-dead gorgeous even if he is showing gray.” “You always have had a partiality for dark-haired, blueeyed boys who talk a blue streak,” Sally said. “All the way back to grade school. Remember Sammy Morrison?” 4
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Ann blushed and broke the cookie in half. “He’s long gone. I saw Harry limping the other day at the gas station.” “You did? What’s wrong with him?” “I asked, and he tipped his hat to me in that way he has. Whatever you might say about their godless way of living, you’ve got to admit, Sally May, they are both real polite.” “I never said they weren’t polite. I said they shouldn’t give the kids bad ideas about the ways a man can satisfy his lusts.” Sally’s lips folded until her lipstick didn’t show, but then she relaxed. “Is that leg of his giving him trouble again? Remember how it took him months after that accident he had before he could walk right?” “You know how getting anything out of him is like pulling teeth. But he mumbled something about a horse kicking him, so I guess that’s the reason.” That seemed to be it for the talk on Mike and Harry. Elaine didn’t know whether to press for more or not, didn’t know if it made any difference to her and her family or not. She’d never known any gay men; they’d never been a part of her life. Sally and Ann went on to fill her in on the principal of the consolidated school and how his daughter was in drug rehab, that the prices at Allsup’s had gone up and it was better to shop at Gordon’s, and how it was amazing that it hadn’t snowed much yet.
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Then Sally asked how Gilbert was, and Elaine said he was liking the new job as foreman of the McPherson ranch fine. “Not your first husband?” Sally asked delicately. “No, but he’s my last,” Elaine said with a smile. She wasn’t going to get into divorcing her first husband because of the beatings, or how Gilbert sometimes had trouble getting along with her black-haired Danny, who looked so much like his slick-devil handsome daddy it was scary. A little while later Sally and Ann went on their charitable, God-fearing-women way, getting a promise from Elaine that she’d work the community rummage sale that Saturday. Elaine liked them even though she wasn’t much like them. They were older women, busybodies, with their children grown. She was more from the live-and-let-live school of thought, and she had a houseful of kids she needed to make sure adjusted to this new home. A week before Christmas Gilbert came home early because a horse had stepped on him. His calf was tender and purple with welled-up blood by the time Elaine got to him with hot, wet compresses and some aspirin for the soreness. He put his foot up on a stool in the tiny dining room and kept her company, talking, while she worked on her portable sewing machine finishing up some curtains. She loved Gilbert; he was a generous, open-hearted man, had accepted her kids that Charlie had fathered, and he was such fine company that she’d like it if he stayed home all the time. She didn’t mind his big nose or that he was a 6
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Libertarian. But there were some things they didn’t talk about, like Danny. She wished they did. Maybe she could get to the subject that was on her mind in a roundabout way. “I heard that one of our neighbors was kicked by a horse not long ago. He owns a ranch like the McPhersons do.” “Oh, yeah?” Gilbert asked, clearly not paying much attention to her. “Who’s that?” “Harry Sanderson, I think his name is. He owns a ranch up past County Road 20 with—” Gilbert straightened up in his chair. “You mean the faggot?” “Gilbert! I won’t have that kind of language in my home.” He’d known of her liberal views when they’d married. “Sorry. Sure, I know about him. Actually, I’ve met him. He used to have my job. Did you know that?” She stuck a pin her mouth and talked around it. “No, I didn’t.” “Yeah, he was foreman for the McPhersons for a couple years, then went part-time when he bought the Double R, and quit altogether this fall when they found me to replace him. Him and the owners, Brenda Jean and Ricky, they’re great friends.” “I heard he doesn’t talk much.” 7
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Gilbert scratched over his ear. “Maybe he’s a little quiet. He still trains some horses for the ranch, and he was there delivering one he’d finished with.” “How … how is he otherwise?” “You mean the being gay part,” Gil said as if he was wise about such things. “Does he seem….” “He doesn’t make any secret of it, I guess. Seems him and the guy he’s living with were at some old man’s house for Thanksgiving along with the McPhersons and their family, and they were talking about how the other guy, you know, the one he’s living with—” “You mean his partner?” “Is that what they call it?” “It’s 1990, Gilbert. Get with it.” “Okay, okay. Anyway, seems his partner forgot to bring the pumpkin pie and didn’t tell anybody, just left after dinner when everybody thought he was up in the bathroom and went home to get it. Brenda Jean thought that was hilarious, ’cause they were looking all over the house for him and starting to worry.” Gilbert readjusted the compress on his leg. “So, they have friends here?” 8
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair “Seems like it. Why? You not happy with those ladies you’ve met? Want to talk up cooking and housekeeping with those fellows?” She knew he didn’t mean it, not quite. “They run a successful ranch from what I’ve heard,” she pointed out. “And a business in town. I doubt they’ve got time to swap recipes with me.” But what did she know? That’s what she wanted to think, not what she was sure of. Was it possible for men so different to live good lives, happy lives, lives where they’d be accepted? She set the seam in place on her machine and started to sew, the machine making a whirring sound that about matched the whirring of her thoughts. “I’d better oil that for you tonight,” Gilbert said when she was finished. “All right.” She looked up into his honest face, a homely face truth be told, and she didn’t know how to go from where they were right then, comfortable, finally established in a home with a job to support the family, surrounded by what seemed to be fine, welcoming people, to where she wondered if they needed to be. “Honey? What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” she said lightly, and she looked out the window to a darkening sky. A solitary snowflake came down to the ground, with no weight to it. And then she met them. 9
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair It was the day before Christmas Eve, and the bad weather that had blown in the week before was getting a lot worse. It’d started storming during the night and hadn’t let up. There’d already been a foot and a half of snow on the ground, with ice under it, and now another ten inches already glistened pristine white over everything, with a lot more promised by the weatherman. “We’re going to get snowed in,” Gilbert said when he called from work at noon. “Ricky says it’ll be a week before we’ll be shoveled out.” “A week!” Elaine eyed her two youngest playing with Lego blocks in the living room. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Right. It seems everybody around here knows and stocks up for bad storms like this, so we’d better do the same. Make sure we’ve got everything we need.” They didn’t. Not even close. Not enough propane or candles or bread or milk or hot dogs, not for a full week, and Elaine realized she’d have to make the trip into the Elk Ridge stores, weather or no weather. Thirteen-year-old Sean could care for the other two, so she took Danny with her. He was learning to drive, had his permit, and she told him there was no time like the present for him to learn to cope with challenging conditions on the roads. He didn’t mind being pulled from the room he shared with his next-youngest brother, where he’d been hibernating all morning, and Elaine didn’t mind the time alone with her oldest son that she didn’t get very often. There was a Sony Walkman with five cassettes she thought he’d like that he’d 10
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair soon find under the tree, but that wasn’t going to do the trick for what ailed him. She didn’t know what would. She was afraid of what would, or that nothing would. By the time they left Gordon’s, then went over to Allsup’s for what the first store didn’t have, the wind was blowing so fiercely the snow came at them sideways, stinging their faces and making it difficult to see well enough to load the sacks of food into the trunk of the little Toyota. Nobody was on the streets, and they’d been the very last customers at both the grocers. Behind them, the lights of Allsup’s went out and the CLOSED sign came on. “Be careful, Mom!” Danny said as she slipped putting in two gallons of milk, and he grabbed her elbow. He wasn’t a tall boy, but he was sturdy with strong hands that held her while she found her footing again. He didn’t have a girlfriend yet, though Elaine always thought he shouldn’t have any problems in getting one…. Elaine pulled the scarf up over her mouth and talked through it. “I’ll drive,” she said, and Danny nodded. The trip out of town toward home was a nightmare. Nobody else was out driving, and the Toyota went slipping and sliding across the blacktop. At least there wasn’t anybody else to hit. Elaine gripped the wheel so tightly her fingers hurt as she hunched forward in the seat and stared out at the blinding landscape, not even sure sometimes where she was on the road. A fifteen-minute trip stretched to thirty minutes as she dared not go at any speed, then to 11
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair forty minutes, and she couldn’t believe they weren’t home yet. She kept looking for the turnoff through the laboring windshield wipers, but nothing looked familiar in the whiteout. Beside her, Danny stayed quiet, as tense as she was. The heater in the car alternately roasted them or froze them, and clattered. “Watch out!” Danny hollered. Too late, Elaine realized she was headed off the side of the road. She fought the wheel and lost, and a few seconds later the car jolted abruptly and tilted over to the side, right into a ditch that she hadn’t known was there. The motor cut out; at least that meant the heater went silent. “Mom! Mom, are you all right?” Danny’s eyes were huge in the muted, cloud-covered light. Damn. She wouldn’t say it out loud, but damn. Damn that they’d ever left Denver, and damn that they’d have to spend the holiday without her mother and her father, and damn that they didn’t have the money to fix the Toyota if the axle had got bent. It took some effort to get the seat belt off and force her door open, but she did it. Danny had jumped out almost right away and was looking at the car and shaking his head. The snow fell like darts from heaven. It felt like ice against her cheeks, sounded like glass crackling all around her. When she put out her glove, it was ice for sure that dotted against her fingers. 12
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair She wanted to cry, and did, hiding her face in her hand. Danny came over to her and put his arm around her. “Mom, don’t worry.” Elaine sighed and lifted her head. “I … do you hear that?” Thirty seconds later a brown Ford F-150 came chugging up behind them, the chains on its tires making an unholy racket. It slowed even before Elaine raised her hand, beseeching, and stopped. She heard the truck being shifted into park. Out hopped a well-built middle-aged man with a black cowboy hat on, though he had a scarf wrapped around his head under that. He wore an electric blue parka and jeans, and as he came closer Elaine saw that he had eyes to match, with crinkle lines around them showing he smiled often. Even through all the winter clothes, she could tell that he was drop-dead gorgeous. She blinked, then glanced through the falling crystals at the magnetic sign on the door of the truck. Double R Ranch, it said. The man pushed back his hat and surveyed the damage. He whistled. “Looks like you’ve got yourself some trouble, ma’am.” “I know,” she said. “You and the boy okay?” The man shifted his gaze to Danny. “You all right?”
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Danny nodded and Elaine said, “We’re fine. But do you think you could….” She stopped. She’d always heard that country folks were friendly, could be counted on in a pinch, but she didn’t know this man. Except by what she’d been told…. He was shaking his head. “No way we can push her out. I’m not even sure we can pull her out. I’ve got a chain, though, so we can give it a try…. Nope, I forgot.” He slapped his heavily gloved hands together. “Sorry, the chain’s back home. Forgot to put it back in the truck.” “Oh,” she said. The man surveyed the sky, quickly looking up and then down, rubbing at his eyes. “There’s enough daylight left for me to go get it and try to pull you out. You want me to do that?” “Would you? I hate to ask, but…. I’ve got three children waiting for me at home, and groceries….” He looked undecided for a second or two, but then said, “Let’s do it. By the way, my name’s Mike Pruitt. Call me Mike.” He took off his glove and extended his hand. She did it. She shook hands with a man she knew was a homosexual, taking off her own glove to solemnly match him, and then she watched while her firstborn son did the same. She didn’t stop Danny from touching him. Mike Pruitt’s hand hadn’t felt any different from anybody else’s. 14
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair “I’m Elaine Goodman, and this is my son Danny.” “Nice t’meet you, and we better get going if we have a chance of doin’ this. You come along so you don’t have t’be standing waiting for me in the cold.” Mike led the way back to his truck and asked over his shoulder, “So where do you live?” “Over on Huggins Road, past the house with the big yellow weathervane where—” “You must be the ones who took on the Johnson place. That weathervane house, that’s where our friend Floyd lives. He collects animals.” “Oh, we know Floyd Aguilar. He comes by now and then.” The old man was keeping a puppy that Elaine and Gilbert would be giving the kids on Christmas morning. Mike laughed, the sound indistinct in the storm. “That Floyd, he knows everybody for miles around, I think even the birds in the trees. Here you go now, ma’am, mind you don’t slip.” He opened the passenger door and she hauled herself in, pushing over to the middle so there’d be room for Danny next to her. She waited while Mike got in on the driver’s side with a rustle of his parka, feeling acutely uncomfortable that she was noticing how close she was sitting to him and wondering why she should care. She glanced at Danny and wondered if he knew who this man was. Did kids in high school gossip the way church ladies did? Had anybody in
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair school ever accused him of…. He was so quiet all the time, brooding. He’d never tell her. Mike put the truck in gear and carefully eased out. The difference in traction because of the tire chains was noticeable, but even so the pickup crawled along. “We’re only a quarter-mile up the road here.” “What?” Elaine asked. “We’re this far up the valley? I thought…. I must have missed the turn.” “Yeah, you passed Huggins a while back. Easy to do in this weather, especially since you just moved here.” A few minutes later they’d turned and were jouncing down a long ranch road that led to the foothills of the mountains. Soon she could make out a grove of trees near the fold of land before it started to rise, and in that grove was a house. A nice-looking, two-story house that probably had been built within the last ten years or so, nothing like the well-worn relic her family was renting. “This is yours?” Danny spoke for the first time since getting in the Ford, and Elaine was surprised to hear him. “Yep.” “Wow. Cool.” “You should see it in the summertime. We got the best view down to the river, and then in the fall when the aspens on the mountains change…. The back wall is full of double16
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair glazed windows. It gets a little chilly in that room this time of year, but we light up the fireplace and then it’s plenty cozy.” Mike pressed a remote and then pulled into an attached three-car garage. As they finally got in out of the storm and the racket of the ice crystals was cut off, he peered forward and quietly said, “I see Harry is back.” He cut the engine but then turned toward them, one arm up on the steering wheel. “My partner’s name is Harry. We live here together.” He said it with determination, chin up. Elaine had always tried to be an example for her children, not cursing, never screaming at Charlie the way he had screamed at her, facing the uncertainties of the future with courage, and always trying to put the well-being of her children foremost. She took a breath. “And my husband’s name is Gilbert. He took over at the ranch from your partner. I understand Harry is friends with the McPhersons.” The bare bulb lighting up the garage didn’t give out much to see by, but Elaine thought she saw a change in Mike’s eyes right before he ducked his head. “That’s right. We’re both friends with them. Well, come on in and warm yourselves up. I’ll fetch the chain while you do.” They all got out of the truck and Mike led the way through an inside door. “Harry!” he hollered pretty loud. “We got company!”
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Danny grabbed Elaine’s sleeve before she could step into the house, though. “Do you know who these guys are?” he asked urgently. Was he being protective? Was he worried—and why would he be? She wasn’t sure. She patted his hand that held her. “Of course I know who they are. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.” He looked absolutely shocked, and she was somehow suddenly reminded of the day she’d figured out that her parents did indeed have a sex life. “I don’t think we have anything to be fearful of, Dan. Mike seems nice. We won’t come to any harm.” “I didn’t mean that. It’s just that….” She waited, but she didn’t figure he’d ever find the words to tell her what he meant, he was usually so short of the important ones. She patted him again and followed Mike into the house. The passageway led first through a laundry and storeroom and then into a large, warm kitchen. She started unbuttoning her canvas coat while she looked around, not proud of her curiosity but having no choice but to give in to it anyway. It surely wasn’t a room straight from Better Homes and Gardens magazine; there were pots and pans piled in the sink and a haphazard stack of dishes next to it. A cutting board sat on a counter next to a Crock-Pot with the 18
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair yellow cook light on. Something must have been cooking all day, because it smelled pretty good. First impressions counted in her book: If this was the way gay men lived, it wasn’t so bad. Elaine was conscious of her son pausing beside her, not looking down at his feet but checking things out, too. “Harry!” Mike hollered again, but he didn’t a third time, because a man came around a corner from the far doorway, just then taking off his glasses and holding some magazine in his other hand. “I’m here,” he said mildly, and then he looked at Elaine and Danny. She tried to smile but failed; it was one thing to meet Mike, another thing to meet the man that he…. The two of them together was what set tongues wagging, gossiping. He was a little taller than average, she guessed, so lean that she’d almost call him skinny. His light brown hair might have been blond when he was younger, but he looked his age now, his skin touched by the weather and his eyes squinting, as if they were accustomed to gazing through sunlight across distances. This was the look ranchers seemed to have, men who lived their lives outdoors, what her own husband was going to look like in ten years. “Harry, this here is Elaine Goodman and her son Danny. I found them with their car in that ditch by the bend in the road, south of here. Thought I’d let them warm up some and then get my chain from the shed t’try and pull them out.”
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Harry didn’t make a move right away to come closer and shake their hands. It took a few awkward seconds during which Elaine detected so much reluctance in the man that she felt sorry for him. But then he got himself started and walked across the fancy Mexican tile toward them. “Ma’am,” he offered, grave but cautious, with a dip of his head. He transferred the magazine over to his other hand and gave her a palm to shake. Then he turned to Danny, offering the same. “Son.” Danny looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and Elaine frowned at him.
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair
II
I
FROZE. He called me “son,” this Harry. As if he had the
right because of who he was and who I was. Is that how it works? That all of us like this recognize one another? I wouldn’t have recognized him if I hadn’t heard in the school cafeteria about the two queers. He looks a little spooked, like he’s not used to Mike picking up strays from the highway and bringing them home, but there’s nothing about him that screams I’m a homo! No lisping. I guess that’s not what counts, though; it’s what you are inside that sets you off from everybody else. Who you live with. I can’t just keep standing there, so I do what everybody expects of me and shake his hand. It feels warm. Think I feel a callus. I’m not sure what else I should be feeling, him being like he is and me…. God, he’s good-looking. Hot. The way his jeans ride low on his hips, him so sexy-skinny they might fall off. How’d Mike catch him? How does that work, when two men are interested and…. I hope I don’t shake his hand too long. I hope it doesn’t show that I have these thoughts. That I’m like this. Did he mean anything by calling me that?
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair If my dad ever finds out, he’s going to kill me. If Gilbert ever finds out … I don’t know. It sure won’t help things between us. If my mom ever finds out…. I think about it sometimes, telling her. She’s … she’s pretty cool. I almost told her right before we moved, but I didn’t. If the kids at school ever find out I’ve been here, that I know these two men, they’ll destroy me. I can’t let them know. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror. I shave every day now, but even so I worry that I look a little … soft. Maybe a little like a girl? If the other kids at school see that, too, I’m toast. Girls like men, and I like…. I think about it all the time. The way men move, their deep voices, the hair on their arms. That’s what caught me when I was twelve, or maybe it was eleven. Or ten. That I kept looking at the hair on men’s arms. That sends a tingle down my spine, and sometimes I even get hard only from that. When I think of everything else, too, I’m a goner. I jerk off a lot. Harry barely looks at me, so I guess I’m safe. Mom has her pleased face on. She’s always after me to watch my manners, so I guess I passed. Harry turns to Mike and says that they should use the chain in his truck, but that they should both drive up so they can use their headlights to give them enough light to work in. I listen, relieved they aren’t paying attention to me 22
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair anymore. Mike says fine, but he wants a cup of coffee first to warm up. He probably says that because he thinks Mom and me are cold. So we take off our hats and coats and gloves, sit around their table, and drink cups of coffee from their coffeemaker, which it looks like they keep going all day long. It feels weird, like doing this is ordinary, when it isn’t. I keep looking at them, trying not to let them know I’m looking at them, trying to see something in their faces. But there isn’t anything there, just two guys. You can’t even tell they’re, you know, together, except that they both know their way around the kitchen, like it’s really theirs. Mike talks a lot, asking about how we like Elk Ridge, and Mom talks right back. She knows how to share with people. She tells them about my brothers and sister and how we lived in Colorado before, and she even tells them she married Gilbert a year ago. Harry mainly listens, cupping his hands around the mug of coffee. He takes it black; Mike puts a ton of sugar in his. Mom tells them about me, too, how I like music and I get top marks writing in school but don’t take well to numbers. She brags about how I won the essay contest in my old school three years running. Harry raises his eyes and aims a look at me. He says, “You’re staying in school, right?” He has a deep voice, the best. If I was Mike, I’d make him talk all the time and just listen. Or not just listen, I’d jump on him and…. I’ve never even kissed anybody, sure not a 23
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair man, much less do all the things that run through my head all the time. My imagination zooms all over the place, but even so the men in my thoughts don’t have faces, only bodies. I don’t let them have faces, because somehow I think that would mean the way I feel is real, and I wouldn’t be able to think sometimes it isn’t. I look at Harry and say, “Sure, I’ll stay in school.” Then I look at Mike, who’s picking up a spoon. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop the faces from forming anymore. These two…. I bet they fuck. I bet they sixty-nine. For them it’s real every day. I can’t spring a boner right here in front of them all. Harry pushes back from the table. “We better get going.” We get into our coats and stuff. Then Mom asks all of a sudden if they mind if she uses their bathroom. Geez, women are always going. Harry looks startled, like no woman has ever asked that of him, and Mike says, “Uh. Sure. I guess you can use … the one off the front hall. How’s that, Harry?” I guess nobody keeps their bathrooms clean for visitors like in the movies, or maybe it’s that theirs is different. What would go on in a homo’s bathroom that would make it different? I don’t know as much as I want to. Once, when we were on a family trip to see Aunt Linda, I saw a magazine in the back racks of an interstate convenience store. I’m pretty
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair sure it was for guys like me, but I didn’t have the nuts to buy it or even look through the pages. Mom insists I go to the bathroom, too, saying she doesn’t know how long rescuing our car will take, treating me like a little kid. I don’t feel like a kid when I stand there with my willy in my hand, though. I wonder what theirs look like. Touching myself in their house, where the only two people I know who are like me live…. I zip up fast. I ride with Mike in his truck, and Mom goes with Harry. Good thing, ’cause Mike is all right, but Harry with those deep-thinking, brown eyes of his…. Whenever I get one of those magazines, I hope it’s filled with men who look like him. Even in the little time we delayed, the storm has gotten way worse. The wind howls in the way you read about in ghost stories, and the tires slip on the ranch road even with the chains. Mike wrestles with the steering wheel and says, “Damn it to hell!” out loud without apologizing, what I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t do in front of my mom. Once he gets the tires going straight again, he says, “This doesn’t look like it’ll let up anytime soon.” The chains crunch as we move slowly toward the highway. “Do you get blizzards like this every year?”
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair “We’ve only been here six years. But, yeah, our first January here, it was about this bad. We went without power for five days, couldn’t go anywhere.” “What did you do?” He gives me a sidelong look, this weird light in his eyes as if he’s trying to show he’s serious but inside he’s dancing. I suddenly think how maybe that question could be taken the wrong way. Shit. I feel about as tall as a mouse and want to hide, but at the same time I really want to know the answer. I bet they had hot monkey sex in every room of that big house. “We weren’t living here then,” he tells me as if he’s reading my thoughts, and it creeps me out. “We had another place closer t’town. We spent part of each day caring for the horses, of course, though we didn’t have nearly so many back then. We played a lot of cards. Harry listened to me complain. We didn’t have a fireplace then and it got colder than a witch’s tit.” “Oh,” I said. I don’t care about anybody’s tit. “I won gin rummy from him four out of five days.” He smiles. “Isn’t he good at cards?” “He stinks,” Mike says cheerfully. “He’s the best with a rifle, though, and beats me at pool all the time. We got a pool table in that back room, but I guess you didn’t see it.” 26
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair My dad only ever mentioned faggots one time to me, during the last time the court gave him a visitation. He said that all faggots were rich because they didn’t have children the way he had four of us to support. I’ve never known a house with a pool table in it, and that house is pretty nice, so maybe he’s right. “So Harry likes to play pool?” Mike looks at me sideways again, and I worry that I’ve said the wrong thing a second time. I’m trying to make conversation. I know I’m not so hot at it, but I’m trying. “Yep,” he says. “You play much?” “A couple times. The rec center where we used to live had a table.” “There’s one at Stubbie’s bar in town,” he offers, “but I don’t suppose your mom would want you goin’ down there. Hey, looks like here we are.” The wind about knocks me off my feet when I get out of the truck, and it whips Mike’s hat right out of his hand before he gets it settled on his head. “Goddamnit!” he says. The Toyota is half-in, half-out of the ditch, canted on its side. Mike and Harry stand there boot-deep in the snow and argue about how best to tackle the job. I don’t hear most of what they say—it’s hard to make it out in the storm—but they don’t seem to be agreeing. Mom slogs through the drifts
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair to come over and stand next to me. She says something, but the wind gusts even more right then and I can’t hear her. “What?” “I said, are you all right?” I hunch my shoulders in the coat we got from the church. Why shouldn’t I be okay? “They’re nice, aren’t they? Not at all what I expected.” I don’t know what to say to that. Harry grabs the chain from the bed of his truck, so it looks like they’ve decided how to do this. I’m glad for an excuse to get away from Mom, ’cause I’m not a mama’s boy no matter what. Maybe I can help here. I’m strong, and it’s our car after all. I stand on the side of the ditch next to Mike while Harry sidesteps down into it, holding the chain up so it doesn’t drag. “Be careful!” I hear Mike say. “You stubborn son of a bitch.” But I don’t know if anybody else hears him. Harry makes his way along the ditch, moving carefully, because the worst thing that can happen is if the car slides down on him. Mom won’t be left out of it, and she comes next to Mike. “Oh, dear,” she says. “I had no idea we were so stuck. Maybe we should—” I don’t know for sure what happens next, but it looks like Harry’s leg caves in or buckles. Anyway, he lurches like he’s 28
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair going to fall. He puts one hand out for balance, and it lands with a smack on the side of the car. And our old Toyota starts to slip farther down the bank it’s lopsided on. Straight toward him in slow-motion, aimed for where he is. Harry is backpedaling fast, his arms flying like a windmill, trying to scramble out of the way. I run over to where the ditch is narrower, jump over it to the other side, lean down and grab his hand, and haul him up. He helps by foot-stepping up the frozen side, or trying to, but with his feet moving and me pulling, and a couple seconds later Mike pulling, too, we get him out of the way about the time the car settles where only a certified tow truck will be able to rescue it. All three of us stand there in the spotlight aimed from the headlights. I hear them both heaving in air and Mom making some sort of screeching noise from the other side, and my heart is pounding. Under the coat, I’m suddenly hard as a rock. “Jesus!” Mike says. “Are you okay? You hurt your leg more?” Harry looks mainly ticked off and embarrassed. “Nah, I’m fine, just too dumb t’get out of my own way.” He looks at me. “Thanks.” The three of us go back to Mom and Mike admits “your car’s a done deal for now,” and Harry apologizes to her as if he’d deliberately pushed it over the brink. 29
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair “I guess we better drive you back home, then,” Mike says. For a reason I don’t understand, Mom doesn’t look happy about that. She bites her lip and looks at me. I guess she doesn’t like the idea of fighting through the blizzard in the dark, because the night has come on us fast. “It will take forever for you to get us home,” she says. “Maybe so, ma’am, but we can do it.” Mike’s the one saying that. Harry mainly looks unhappy and stares down at his boots, what can be seen of them anyway. “And then you’ll have to come back up the valley to your home. More traveling in these bad conditions.” She looks around and scuffs a boot in the slippery stuff underfoot. “I think it’s too dangerous to travel right now.” I can’t believe what she’s hinting at. My mouth goes dry and I don’t know if I hate the idea or love it or what. I see Mike swallow, his Adam’s apple moving. Harry raises his head and aims an eye-crinkled look at her, as if he’s trying to figure her out. And over the next couple of seconds, it’s clear he does. “Well, now, ma’am,” Mike starts out, “I don’t think—” but Harry interrupts him. “Come on back to the house, then. We’ll put you up for the night. Maybe it’ll be safer t’drive t’your place tomorrow.”
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair “I hate to put you out,” Mom says, but I can see that she’s got what she was aiming for. For some reason she wants to make friends with these two, and I remember how Grandma, her mom, always has told us kids that the best way to make a friend is to ask for a favor. “We can do it, we got the room. You can call your family and let them know you’re fine. C’mon, Mike, let’s get goin’ before we turn into popsicles.” A lot of hours later—hours spent in Mike and Harry’s home, eating with them, watching TV with them, spying on them every second—the storm is still going strong outside, but it’s even stronger inside me. I’m in a big boat of a bed in one of their spare bedrooms. On the other side of the wall next to me is their master bedroom. Damn, this is torture. I’ve been tossing and turning for what seems like forever, listening, my face hot because I’m listening, wanting to hear…. But I haven’t heard anything except the snow hissing against the window and the wind rushing up the side of the mountain. Once I heard voices, I think, past midnight, but maybe not. Not what I wanted to hear, anyway. I’ve never been this hard. An hour ago I touched myself for maybe three or four strokes, and just that almost brought me off. I don’t know how I stopped myself, but I slapped the sheet with both my open hands. That made a big noise—at least to me it sounded loud—and I cringed to think that maybe they heard me.
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair I’m still hard under both the heavy blankets Mike threw on the bed when he showed me the room, leaking I’m so excited, and I can’t make it go away. If I do it here in this bed, they’ll see the sheets, won’t they? Know what I did. I bet their sheets are stained all the time, bet they get soaked with come, bet they have to wash the sheets every day. Bet they do it every morning and every night. Bet they do it more than once each time. I know I would, if I had a brown-haired man next to me in bed. I give up the fight, and my hand grabs my naked dick sticking out through my briefs. I skim out of them and put them to the side before grabbing myself again. If I can’t hear, I can still imagine what they’re doing in the room next door. I know they’re doing it. They’re coming together in the middle of their mattress, fumbling down their pajama pants, their big, big cocks springing up. I know they’re big, men like that filling out their jeans, hands on cocks, lips on cocks, but I don’t know what a mouth on me would feel like even though I want to know so bad, so it’s got to be hands on cocks, and one of them, Harry, oh, yes, Harry, Harry is crying out here I come, I’m close even though I haven’t heard him cry that out, but just the same I know what his deep voice would sound like. I imagine he’s in the bed right next door and Mike’s hand is jerking him off strong, and it’s more than he can stand, that man’s hairy arm moving so fast, the man’s fingers that I saw over the beef stew dinner curled around Harry’s fat, purpleheaded cock, and Harry presses his head back against the 32
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair pillow, I can see it, his eyes are squeezed shut and he gasps and jerks his hips up and comes all over Mike’s hand. I shoot right after Harry does, right up against the sheet, soaking it through to that nice blanket because I can’t think of anything but that man’s cock spurting like a volcano, and I forget to grab my briefs to soak up the spunk. Did I cry out when I did that? I never do at home, can’t with my whole family around. I don’t think I did, but even so I listen while I gulp in air and my heart pounds for a while. Finally I calm down, my heart isn’t going like a jackhammer, and my cock gets soft at last. I feel … I don’t know. Not like I normally feel after I jerk off. I feel like it isn’t enough, that I want more. But what more is there for somebody like me? I roll over in the bed and tuck my hands under my cheek. I’m gay. Can I still be gay when I’m alone? I wish I had somebody so I could find out what kissing feels like and what a mouth on me would feel like. Wish I had somebody to fuck, too. I’ve figured it out, what they do, cock up an ass. I don’t know which I want more, to screw somebody like that or to be screwed. Does it hurt, to be screwed? How am I going to find out? I can’t talk to anybody about this, can’t pick up magazines in a place like Elk Ridge, for sure they aren’t sold in a Podunk town like this. And I don’t think there’s anybody in my school who’s like me, not many kids there anyway. If we’d stayed in Denver I might have had a chance, but not here.
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Half an hour later I give up, because I know I’m not going to sleep, not with everything swirling around in my head, visions of cocks and cocks and cocks and questions about cocks. And asses. I get up as quiet as I can, put on my clothes, pick up my shoes, and crack open the door. There’s a nightlight on in the hall, lighting the way down to the stairs, and I frown at that. Seems sort of pussy for two men to have a nightlight. But it helps me find my way downstairs. I put on my shoes while sitting on the bottom step, and then I wander through the rooms, not touching anything, just looking. It’s a ghostly light that’s coming in around the edges of the windows, but my eyes adjust pretty quickly. I go through the living room that looks like it isn’t lived in much and next to an office where there are two desks. I stand in the doorway and wonder if they’ve fucked there, Harry leaning over the papers with Mike behind him…. There’s a Christmas tree in the big back room with all the windows, and they’re open to the dark bulk of the mountain and the hint of full-bellied clouds. I can make out how the drifts have come up even higher against those windows since everybody went to sleep hours ago. We’d watched TV on the side of the room where there’s a sofa and one nice recliner and one ratty old chair. The room’s so big it runs the whole length of the house, plenty of space for where the pool table stands. I flick on the light between the chairs because the embers from the fireplace aren’t near enough to see by. I go over to what I’d been curious about all that evening as we’d sat 34
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair around making conversation. Under the tree there are some gifts. Not that many. I go down on my knees and pick one up; the light is enough to read what the tag says. To: Mike From: Harry That doesn’t sound very exciting. I shake it, and there’s the sound of cloth moving, and that’s pretty disappointing. Damn, do they get each other shirts? I pick up another one, a big, heavy one that clunks. Maybe it’s a toolbox inside? That isn’t any better. What would I get a man I lived with, somebody I fucked morning, noon, and night? The tag has some stupid-looking elf on it. To: The Light of My Life From: Mike “Ahem,” comes the sound of a throat being cleared from right behind me. I drop that box like it’s caught on fire, jump up, and whirl around to see Mike standing there. “I … I … I….” Fuck, my face is flaming the way the fireplace had been earlier. “I bet you couldn’t sleep,” Mike says, sarcastic. He’s wearing gray sweatpants and a navy blue sweatshirt and slippers, and his hair is all messed up from sleeping. He doesn’t look anything like the men I expect to find in the 35
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair magazines, or how he’d looked a little while ago in my mind. All of a sudden I realize he’s old enough to be my father. He’s probably older than Dad is. I shove a hand in my pocket. “Yeah. I couldn’t sleep.” He comes over to where I’m standing by the tree and bends down to pick up the package I’d dropped on its side. He’s right next to me; I can see the short hairs on the back of his neck as he does that. He puts the box back where it’d been and straightens. “Lucky there wasn’t nothing breakable in that.” Fear rushes in on me. “I … I wasn’t going to take anything!” “No?” He eyes me strange, not exactly like he doesn’t believe me. “Then what?” I should never have gotten out of bed; this is the worst thing ever. I stare at him. He’s the gay man I want to be. “I … I was curious,” I blurt out. “I wanted to know….” I can’t tell him what I wanted to know because I don’t even know myself. How had I thought rooting through their gifts would do me any good? Mike nods abruptly. “You want some hot chocolate? We can’t have coffee or we’ll never sleep. You stay here while I get some.”
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair I sit myself down on their brown striped sofa and listen to him warming up the milk in the microwave, and then when he brings me a mug I watch him stir up the fire again. I’m numb. He sits down in the nice recliner and takes a sip of his drink, then he curses. “Fuck, I made this too hot.” He blows on the surface for a while, and I feel like I’m a prisoner in a jail, like Dad is. “I understand that you’re curious about Harry and me,” he finally says. He puts the mug down on the table where the lamp is and hitches forward in the chair. “Everybody is, but nobody but the bigots have the courage t’ask us much. Or maybe folks think they’re bein’ polite with their silence and their stares.” I tuck my chin down into my chest. “I don’t know,” I mumble. “Kids today,” he says, “they got t’be careful ’cause of this AIDS thing. They can’t sleep around with just anybody, and they got t’use rubbers. You know about rubbers?” I think my blood stops moving when he asks that. AIDS? Oh, shit, he knows. He knows! “Well? Do you?” “I guess,” I say real quiet. It isn’t easy to move my lips.
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair “Good,” he says. “Make sure you use them. The world’s different than when I was your age. You better drink your hot chocolate before it gets cold.” I manage to pick up the mug without spilling it all over myself. The milk scalds my tongue but I hardly notice. It’s a lot easier to stare at the drink than to look at him. What’d I do to show myself? How’d I slip up? Does it show for everybody to see? How does he know about what’s in my mind and all through my body, this need I have to touch somebody with a dick, when all my classmates have their tongues hanging out over pussies? The wood he put in the fire crackles loud, and I jerk my head up to look as sparks flare and a log breaks. That’s how it feels inside me, like I’m on fire all the time. I burn and I burn, and sometimes I wish this feeling would burn me into ashes, but it never does; it’s always there. “When Harry and me went lookin’ for a house together, for this house,” Mike’s voice is low, “we wanted a fireplace. It was one of the things on the list. When we first met twentyfour years ago, we spent a lot of hours around a fire. I remember what his face looked like in that light, and I wanted t’see it again.” I sneak a glance at him. He’s not looking at me, but inward. I guess he’s remembering. It’s hard to imagine him so young, harder to imagine Harry young. Harry is so strong, like his roots go down to the center of the earth. Nobody like that was ever like me, all confused and fearful. Was he? 38
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Mike leans back in his chair, and he’s still not talking to me, but his face has gone soft. I feel like somebody hit me in the stomach, and I turn my head away because it’s such a private look. I want … I want…. I want a man to look like that when he’s thinking of me. I want that, and I want to know everything else, too. Mike gets up and walks over to the window that looks out onto the mountains; they’re so close because the property goes right up into the foothills. He sticks the fingers of both hands in the waistband behind him, so his elbows are stuck out wide. “You ever camp out, Danny? Out in the wilderness?” “Uh….” We’re city kids, which is why I don’t fit in here. But I’ve always wanted to go camping, have thought about it a lot. “Not really.” “You should try it sometime. You wake up in the middle of the night and you’re surrounded by nothin’ that man has made. You look up into the sky and there’s a million stars, and there’s a million trees all around, with a million ways a man could trip up somehow and get himself lost. Nobody would know, nobody would care, and there’s nobody there t’help you if you need the help. It’s a tough world out there.” He turns and aims his eyes at me. With his arms stuck out like that he looks like a giant bird about to take off into the sky, maybe an eagle. “The best thing ever happened t’me was meeting Harry, but it was a long hard road before we 39
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair actually got together. I damn near died inside before it happened. But now I get t’see him with the firelight on his face. He likes to read the U.S. News and World Report magazine right there,” he nods over toward the brown chair with ripped upholstery, “every Sunday night. With his glasses on. I usually get us beers. He likes Corona.” I wait for him to go on, but he doesn’t. He stands there looking at me, and it’s like his gaze weighs me down. “I’m going back t’bed,” he says. “How about if you rinse out these mugs and put them on the counter.” And then Mike goes up the stairs. I listen to him climb each step. The bedroom door opens, and then closes. At least he doesn’t think I’m going to steal anything. I never would, unless it’s Harry I stole. But that’s not going to happen. I get up and go into the kitchen as if I belong there. I can easily figure where things are, anyway. Somebody’s forgot to turn their dishwasher on, so I find the detergent and put it in and start the cycle going. Tiredness comes on me while I do that, and my yawn fills the room as soon as the machine starts rumbling. Back in bed I turn over onto my side and slide my hands under the pillow. The pillowcase is soft against my fingers, the blankets keep me warm, and in this private darkness I let what Mike said sweep over my thoughts. He has the 40
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair hottest guy I could imagine in his bed, but he sees him so different from how I do. I’ve been looking at Mike and Harry together ever since Mom and I got here, but I hadn’t seen anything except what I wanted to see, all the fucking and the sucking and the kissing and groping. But what Mike sees is Harry in their back room, reading, with his glasses on. Is that the way it really is? Maybe they don’t do anything with each other at all. Or maybe I’m the one who needs glasses. My eyes drift shut, though if there was anything sexy going on in the next room I would have woke up fast. But instead, over the constant shush of the white falling from the sky, I hear another sound: somebody’s snoring. I guess it’s safe for me to sleep, too.
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair
III
IT was Christmas Eve night, and all around the tiny community of Elk Ridge most of the villagers and the farmers and the ranchers and the gays were tucked in their beds. The long, curving bowl of land between the mountains looked like a picture postcard with the deep cover of newfallen snow. All that was needed to complete the scene was a full moon to illuminate it, to illuminate everything, even the tiniest crevasses, even the most deeply buried secrets, but there was only a crescent hanging in the sky. It showed just enough for anyone looking out their window to know the night was beautiful, except maybe here and there where man’s hand had wiped nature’s imprint away. That beauty: it had to be enough. Sally Collins let the curtain drop on the view and went back to where her husband waited for her in their bed. She already wore the gift he’d given her: a diamond pendant shaped in a heart. She did love him so. Ann Huntington was smiling in her sleep. Her daughter and grandchildren with son-in-law in tow had arrived right before the storm struck. She didn’t care that they were all cooped up in her small widow’s house; she was already enjoying the best visit ever. Family was everything.
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Elaine and Gilbert Goodman were tucked in their bed but they weren’t sleeping. Freed at last of four sets of young ears listening, they were discussing what they would do for the Toyota, and if Elaine had done the right thing in staying over with two men they didn’t even know, and how Elaine approved of Gilbert pressing a bottle of Jack Daniels on Mike as a thank-you for caring for his wife and oldest stepson, when conditions had finally allowed them to be very carefully and very slowly driven home that afternoon. Gilbert kissed her good night and turned over for sleep, but she stayed awake for half an hour more thinking about Danny. She’d have to find time to try and talk with him. He’d been more open than usual during their whole little adventure. She sighed, wondering what she’d done wrong with him, or if it was all just a cosmic mischance that made one man a responsible, loving husband, another a brute who beat his wife, and another a man who turned to other men. Danny was down the hall from his mother and stepfather, in the bed he shared with his brother, remembering. He’d walked Mike back out to his truck before he left and shook his hand. It had felt different from the first time he’d done that. He felt a lot older this Christmas Eve. Mike had said, “Don’t you forget what I said now, about usin’ the rubbers whenever you get yourself in that situation. No hurry on it; it’ll happen at the right time.” His smile had faded then. “Not that long ago I buried a friend who wasn’t careful that way, and I’d hate to have your folks lose you. Your mom’s a good woman.” 43
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair “Yeah,” Danny admitted, “I think so.” “She loves you a lot, I’d say.” “Uh, can I ask you something?” “Sure.” “How’d you know about me?” Mike hadn’t answered right away but had climbed into his pickup, took off his hat in there, and rolled down the window where Danny was waiting. “It was the way you looked at Harry, I guess. I remember feeling that way. I still do. Well, so long. Merry Christmas.” Up toward the far reaches of the valley, right before the land rose up and up to become nothing but mountains, Mike Pruitt and Harry Sanderson were in their bed, too, making love. The blankets had been thrown back. There was a fireplace in their master bedroom, the one feature of the house that had sealed the deal for them when they’d been looking, and the light of the flickering flames glowed golden against their skin. They’d been naked together in a measured, sensual dance for a while already, and now they moved without words until they were mirror images of each other on the bed, head to toe, taking each other in hand, pausing to look, to touch, to rub thumbs over glistening cockheads, and then finally to taste.
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair It was the sound of what they did together that Harry couldn’t get enough of: the slick sucking of Mike’s mouth on him, that first moment that sent chills up his spine, then down into his dick as he ached for more right away. He always had a moment of panic that Mike might stop when he couldn’t stop: Mike had to go on and on. Harry was tempted to roll onto his back and selfishly just let it happen, but even more he wanted to hear Mike moan when he was sucked in turn, and that’s what Harry did. It was the taste that moved Harry to the core: the intense burst of flavor against his tongue, bright like Mike was, bright like a fire, lighting up Harry’s days and in truth his life. It was the touch that Harry couldn’t do without: the slick moving of skin against skin as they heaved against each other, because who could stop from moving when Mike’s hand came up between to heft his balls? So close, they were so close when it used to be they were miles apart, but he was taking Mike in now, Mike’s cock was jammed down his throat as far as he could get it, Harry was sucking it and swallowing around it, reveling in the feel of that man’s bulk, the weight and the warmth and the movement of him, and their arms were wrapped around each other’s butts, pulling tight, pulling tighter, straining smack up against each other. Mike’s hand abandoned his balls, strayed across Harry’s ass cheek and down his leg, until his fingers rested on Harry’s new-healed scar there, a wound that had cut him to the bone. 45
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair You got t’be more careful, he knew Mike was thinking as he stroked the mark of the horse’s hoof. I can’t lose you. Mike wasn’t going to lose him. He was going to stick like a burr for years and years, here where they were building a life. No horse, and no sliding car either, was going to take him away. Harry pulled back and began to suck on the head of Mike’s dick, taking in air around it, giving Mike what he liked best, what was sure to start him on the road to the high point. Harry heard Mike gasp and felt him stiffen. Harry knew what was coming next; his asshole flexed in anticipation. The next thing there was Mike’s finger toying with him and then sliding in. Curling up to hit the nub inside that sent shivers through him. And now they were almost there, almost there together, the way that had come to be natural for them, hard at first to match their lives, their bodies, their thoughts and their comings, but they’d done it, and they were going to do it now, too. He could tell Mike was close like he was since he was straining, pushing his dick in, not patient anymore, that was Mike all over, so Harry took him in the way he always wanted to take Mike in deep. There was that warning growl from Mike, he did that every time, and the fire was building in Harry’s belly, his toes curled, and then he couldn’t help himself, he ignited, he jerked, pouring his first spurting down Mike’s throat, and a second later the burning of Mike’s hot come filled his own mouth. 46
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Later, after they’d dozed in their upside-down embrace, the chill released by the dying fire woke them, and they matched their heads again on the pillows, cleaned themselves, and pulled up the quilts that had been Mike’s mother’s peace-gift to them. Mike turned over onto his side, offering, and Harry took him up on it, came up close behind him to fit them together, because outside it was cold and the stars looked down on them unforgiving, the trees were indifferently bent under their load of snow and ice, and there were a million ways for a man to live alone and be unhappy. Mike reached behind and took his hand, pulled it over his waist, and they were set for the night. “Merry Christmas,” Harry whispered. Mike squeezed his fingers and pressed them up against his chest. “Merry Christmas.” Hours later the morning dawned, and all over Elk Ridge the kids woke up their parents for the gift unwrapping. In the Goodman house, the puppy was a big hit. Danny thought his Walkman was cool, but he liked better that his mom seemed to love the story he’d written for her. Those ten pages he’d labored over during study hall in school for weeks, they’d been harder to write than anything else he’d ever put together, but he thought they’d turned out pretty well. It was a story about two friends who went out camping and got lost, how they helped each other find their way back home. 47
Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair Elaine sat there on the floor by the tree and read it once the last package was opened, even with the younger kids running around and the dog barking, and when she finished she lifted a proud, shining face to him. Danny helped clean up all the mess, the ribbons and the crumpled-up paper and the empty boxes, stashing it all into a black plastic sack. He walked with the bag through the kitchen where his mom was getting her special holiday breakfast ready, the same one they’d had year after year as far back as he could remember. “Merry Christmas, Mom,” he said, and he kissed her on the cheek. Then he stepped outside into the frigid weather to take the trash to the bin. He spared a glance north, to where him and his mom had been marooned the other night, and he wondered what had been under that other tree, what Mike and Harry had given each other for Christmas. Then he took in a breath. It burned going down, so cold that it felt like fire, but he guessed that was the way of things. “Mom?” he asked when he got back inside. She turned around, wiping her hands on her apron. “Yes?” “When you’ve got a minute sometime today, there’s….” He had to do it. She’d understand. “There’s something we need to talk about. Something I want to tell you. Okay?”
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair He watched the sudden understanding spring into her eyes. She came over to him and took him in a hug. “Oh, Danny. Yes. Okay.”
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Gifts of the Season Jenna Hilary Sinclair
©Copyright Jenna Hilary Sinclair, 2008 Published by Dreamspinner Press 4760 Preston Road Suite 244-149 Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover Art by Dan Skinner/Cerberus Inc.
[email protected] Cover Design by Mara McKennen This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ Released in the United States of America December, 2008
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