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The trip’s so far’s been good to them. Rutting’s season’s just ended, which would be a downside due to the cold but Ennis was able to get Don Wroe’s cabin, which has a wood-burning furnace and a fireplace. He tried to hide his smile at the appreciative looks Jack gave both amenities when he got in, at the bed sturdy enough for even the most energetic coupling, and the modern bathroom guaranteeing them mostly-warm showers. It’s small–the bedroom and living room are in the same area, and the bed’s the first thing a person will see upon entering. There’s also a sofa bed butted up against the wall that Wroe said was real comfortable and Ennis had thanked him. Wroe hadn’t asked any questions but he’d had an excuse prepared if he had that a buddy of his would be coming up for a couple of days to hunt with him and he’d surely prefer the sofa bed to sleeping on the floor in his bedroll.
Jack wasn’t able to make it up until the afternoon that first day so they skipped trying to hunt in favor of riding their horses, checking out where they thought the game might be bedded down and where the streams and vegetation were, where they could dispose of the waste if they caught anything.
That night largely involved chopping firewood, getting their rifles and supplies–some Ennis had borrowed, some Jack had already bought–into Jack’s truck, knowing there was only so far it would make it up before they’d need to hike the rest of the way with their gear in tow, and then of course putting the bed to good use before settling in for a good night’s sleep and early morning rise to go hunting. With the cabin’s insulation and heat sources Ennis could wrap an arm around Jack and pull him towards his chest as they slept on their sides just because it felt nice, no need to worry about needing to keep warm as well. They didn’t even have to redress and he briefly thought about how he hasn't gotten to sleep stark naked next to the other man in years.
The next morning when Ennis padded into the kitchen before the crack of dawn something about seeing Jack, partially dressed, in a real kitchen for the first time putting on coffee, the domesticity of it, stopped him in his tracks. He thought about the time Jack suggested a little ranch somewhere.
“It’d be a sweet life,” he’d said wistfully, big eyes watching the fire that night, a gentle smile on his face. Twenty-three then and still always the dreamer, looking outwards. All Ennis had been able to picture was a swinging tire iron and one or both of their mutilated bodies tossed into a ditch.
For a split second, though, alone in the cabin, he caught a glimpse of what Jack must’ve seen.
Jack, now less than three months shy of thirty-seven and long since given up on such a thing, looked up from his task to look over at Ennis and while Ennis couldn’t see the look on his own face Jack furrowed his brow and asked, “You okay?”
Ennis couldn’t speak, just crossed the last few steps of distance between them, cupped Jack’s face in his hands, and kissed him. He brushed his thumbs along his cheekbones and felt his stubble rasping against his calloused palms. Jack returned the kiss, bringing both hands into Ennis’ hair and gently caressing the nape of his neck.
Even when the kiss ended they stayed that way for a while, foreheads pressed together, eyes shut, almost swaying in place, hands never moving until the coffee required their attention once more.
That day didn’t bring success when it came to hunting, but they hardly minded; it’d been a while since either of them had gone hunting, anyway. At least now they had a better lay of the land and where the bulls would be bedded down. As morning warmed up they knew they would need to come back tomorrow and once they got back to the cabin they figured they could go horseback riding instead. They took advantage of their privacy first against a tree and then that night in the cabin, where they ended up knocking the headboard back against the wall so hard they could’ve left a dent. The day after that more of the same, but they could exact patience. The time made them even more familiar with the layout, and he was pretty sure that in earlier years Jack would’ve made a joke about how rutting season might’ve just ended for the elk, but they were only getting started. They still tussle and fuck like they did in earlier years, just with more knowledge than they had back then despite how infrequent their times together have often been. It’s been a compelling distraction from the fact that they won’t be able to do this again until at least March and more likely April.
Jack seems just as determined to put the thought out of his mind as well. Just past four in the morning, when Ennis was the one setting water to boil for the coffee, Jack backed him up against the sink, dropped to his knees, and got Ennis’ fly unzipped. Within seconds he got his cock hard and not long after that got his spend pouring down Jack’s throat just as the water was boiling. From the first time he ever did this Jack’s been equal parts fervent and tender and getting better and better at it each time. Ennis has grown to like looking down at his face until he can’t anymore, likes seeing those blue eyes flicker up to meet his from under his long lashes. He likes holding Jack’s face in his hands when it happens, burying his fingers in his thick hair and brushing his thumbs over the tears that prick up at the corners of his eyes when he goes down so deep his nose brushes up against Ennis’ pubic hair. He likes the confident way Jack holds onto his hips not just for balance but to keep him in place, knowing that he can give Ennis what he wants without Ennis needing to ask for it. Ever since the beginning he’s proven that he’s right.
Jack pulled off and smirked when Ennis fumbled, needing to grip the counter for balance for a moment, almost forgetting to put his dick back in his pants before turning off the burner. As he was pouring the water over the grounds he saw Jack get up and said, “Be right back.”
“You don’t want me to…?” Ennis asked, noting that Jack was half-hard himself. Jack still smiled, coy and playful.
“We can make up for it later,” he said before going to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
Today Ennis has a feeling they’ll get lucky. They’re set up and ready over an hour before either the sun or the warm air starts to rise.
If not…he’s in good company.
They have four more days, three full ones to their leisure, a half-one before they need to pack it up and Jack has to drive back down to Texas, morose and silent at his departure.
Jack’s never been happy to leave each time they do this but for the last few years he’s carried a melancholy with him that’s been growing, and each time the days together grow to a close he looks like a man headed for the gallows. Ennis knows this arrangement isn’t what Jack expected or wanted when they first got back together. Sometimes he remembers his incredulity when Ennis insisted that what they had was the only acceptable way for them, and then his doubtful, “For how long?”
“As long as we can ride it,” Ennis said then. They’ve been riding it for thirteen years so far, at least.
Other times he remembers the hope in Jack’s eyes disappearing faster than window shutters closing that day he drove over a thousand miles to see him after his divorce and Ennis had to tell him that it hadn’t changed the nature of what they had going on. He remembers, much as he tries not to, the almost-breathless excitement in Jack’s voice fading within seconds to flat and cold.
Sometimes he worries that he lost a part of him that day, but it’s still better than losing all of him, and he would’ve if he’d stayed. Anyone in a hundred mile radius would’ve been able to smell on him how Ennis craves Jack with a depth and ferocity that sometimes overwhelms him if he dares think about it. They’d sure as shit know how Jack, who proudly wears his heart on his sleeve, feels about him.
He knows that it’s been tough to get things right sometimes with him, that he used to hope for more than what they can have. He also knows that there’s a lot of other things Jack used to hope for and got in return disappointments, stacked one on top of another like building blocks in his life, that have nothing to do with Ennis. Jack moved down to Texas when he was twenty with dreams of being a rodeo star, after all, not a farm machine salesman.
These aren’t things they tend to talk about, though. Not much point to it, not when they only get to see each other a couple of weeks out of the year if they’re lucky.
In the morning they kill a bull that’s still placid and recovering from rutting season and they have better tools to quarter it and section off the meat this time than they did that first time, before either of them could ever have realized how that summer would turn out. They take turns when bringing down the bags of meat to Jack’s truck, careful and armed just in case a coyote or worse may come snooping around.
In the hours it takes, they talk about safe topics–their kids, mostly. Apparently Alma instilled the strict policy that as far as her jurisdiction is concerned, a knock before entering is a privilege and not a guaranteed right. Both Junior and Jenny have whined about this but it’s Alma and Monroe’s house, not his.
“Shit, Bobby’s goin a be fourteen in three months and I remember bein that age like it was yesterday. If I ever have to go into his room I don’t just knock, I signal my arrival with a five minute warning and an air horn,” Jack says.
Ennis knows his clever little livewire Jenny wants to go to college, and as much as he wants that for her, her options are limited. She’ll likely have to start with community college, probably while working. He doesn’t know to what extent Monroe’s willing to fund her education, what with his and Alma’s boy and another on the way. Junior doesn’t seem to have such aspirations, although she’s a bright girl as well; her grades are good but it’s the almost eerie understanding she has of people that speaks to her intelligence; quietly perceiving without judgement. She has a boyfriend now who Ennis will reluctantly admit seems like a fine enough boy although he’s certain there’s no one out there he’ll ever think is good enough for her.
Bobby’s more of an athlete than an academic and the only things he seems to like about school are his friends, sports, and now, girls. Jack adds that while Bobby’s after-school tutors have helped a lot over the years, he still reads slower than the other kids his age and nearly flunked Spanish because he struggled to apply what he’s learned reading in English. He still studies but he doesn’t seem to actually enjoy any of his subjects other than gym and shop class. Lureen, though, is adamant that he’ll graduate cum laude from U-Tex Dallas like her. A discussion over it led to a rare argument between the two of them with her insisting Bobby won’t be like his high-school dropout father who wouldn’t have a measly dollar to his name if he hadn’t married above his station. She didn’t phrase it that harshly, but she didn’t have to. He knew what she really meant.
Ennis once asked him how he’d managed to convince a girl like her to marry a guy like him in the first place, although he wasn’t surprised she’d gone out with him; he’s sure Jack’s good looks and friendly demeanor endeared him to plenty of girls back in the day. Jack shrugged one shoulder in response, gave a little smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and said lightly, “Got her pregnant.”
They don’t talk about that now. Jack mentions that he never got to play sports as a boy like Bobby does. Like Ennis, there’d been no nearby children his age to play with, what with the country grammar school consisting of other kids on isolated farms and ranches who all lived too far from one another to see much of one another outside of it. Nor was there opportunity for that kind of free time later with the nearest high school nearly an hour away combined with his obligations on the ranch that prevented him from going anymore midway through his junior year.
“Them city boys”--city being a generous term–“goin ‘what kind a boy don’t go out for football?’ The kind a boy that’s gotta be up at four in the morning to feed the horses and back home soon’s school’s over to shovel shit while they’re at the drive-in tryin a get Susie from math class to suck em off while she’s chewin gum.”
Jack’s always had quite the turn of phrase when he gets to talking whether it’s bitching, reminiscing, or casual chatting about current goings-on. They make Ennis smile, those moments Jack’s animated again as he was at nineteen and spoke freely knowing Ennis didn’t mind and that little by little he was coaxing Ennis to do the same.
They fall back into companionable silence for a bit, focused on the task at hand. He glances to the side and catches Jack’s profile as he’s looking upwards, blue eyes bright in the afternoon light, his cheeks and the tip of his nose tinged pink from the chill. It makes him look boyish in a way that Ennis’s pretty sure Jack wants to cover up with the moustache he started growing a few years ago. Not that it’s his place to say, but he doesn’t like how his moustache obscures part of his face. There’s a mole under it Ennis’s often pressed his lips against and he knows it’s still there but it ain’t the same. He almost misses Jack mentioning the bird he saw pass above. A hen hawk, he thinks.
That first night he hadn’t known what he wanted, just knew that he wanted something. And Ennis could neither understand nor explain the combination of relief and exhilaration that flooded him when Jack seemed to answer his unspoken question by abruptly unfastening his pants and turning onto all fours in front of him. He didn’t know what he was doing, either, just going off a vague idea that he’d refused to allow himself to entertain before but, lo and behold, he was doing then and there, spitting into his hand to ease the passage before he was lost to it.
He’d felt feverish then. This was a dream, had to have been, not that he’d ever so much as dreamt of doing such a thing. Ennis Del Mar weren’t no queer. This wasn’t him, this wasn’t them. When he came inside of Jack, his first time coming inside anything other than his own fist, he collapsed, stunned. He was almost able to believe that he was on a separate plane, removed from anything but the sensations of it.
But then he woke up with his jeans unfastened and Jack asleep next to him and realized no, it hadn’t been a perverse dream he could forget. He’d just sodomized the first real friend he’d made in as long as he could remember and that same friend had encouraged him to do it, had fucking led him there. And here he was, sleeping as if he hadn’t upended Ennis’ entire life with one carefully placed hand.
His hangover had nothing on the urgency he had when he realized he needed to get the fuck out of here before Jack could wake up and try to tempt him again. He was up and ready to go until he heard Jack leaving the tent, could make out stiff shuffling, and refused to acknowledge him until Jack said, soft and reticent, “See you for supper” and he glanced down.
He had the nerve to look wounded as he peered back up at him. Ennis didn’t understand how a man could give up his pride like that, offering up his ass, and when he briefly pictured his own jism dried and flaked against Jack’s skin he took off without a word.
When he saw the gutted sheep after that Ennis was certain it had been punished for the sin he’d committed. For a second he thought, never again; he couldn’t imagine even speaking to Jack after this, let alone touching him. He hated him at that moment for making him aware that what had happened was something he could ever have wanted. He hated him for making him get so caught up in the pleasure of his company that he’d forgotten the reason he was here in the first place and how it’d gotten one of the livestock killed. He hated himself for letting it happen. Bile rose in his throat as he moved the carcass away from the herd and found a resting place for it that wouldn’t attract any coyotes to the other sheep. He had no means to bury it. The task reminded him what he was meant to do, but offered no clarity, much as he wanted to shut off his mind like a faucet flooding a sink.
He never once thought about any of that sort of thing, not until Jack fucking Twist came along, but he knew very well what people did to queers, even though he knew he wasn’t one. He wasn’t Earl or Rich. He and Jack weren’t going to go off and live together. After the job was over they’d go their separate ways and probably never see each other again.
From there the thought settled, buried itself in his mind and started taking roots. The isolation of it, the privacy they had that Ennis had never experienced before, must’ve made him go a little stir-crazy. He’d made a friend, and the friendship and the lack of access to women must’ve led Jack to a lapse in judgement and Ennis to go along with it. Maybe that sort of mistake happened when people were alone together for months on end. That didn’t make it queer, just made it an easily-overlooked transgression.
If they did it again, he could close his eyes and pretend it was Alma, even though he hadn’t pictured her last night. He’d barely thought about her in weeks. Instead he couldn’t stop thinking about Jack’s grunts when he breached the tight, hot clutch of him, or how he’d felt the muscles of Jack’s back through layers of fabric and how once he’d properly started thrusting all the way in he’d knocked Jack off his braced elbows onto the bedroll as he gave a sharp groan. He couldn’t picture his docile little fiancée like that. All they’d ever done was kiss, with her shyly asking after they got engaged if he minded that she wanted to save herself for marriage and him telling her honestly that he didn’t, because she was the only girl he’d ever gone out with and she was sweet and patient and never asked too much of him.
He didn’t want to think about how she’d respond if she knew what he’d just done.
Hours passed. He went back and forth on what his decision would be again and again. He knew what he should say, and he told himself that when he saw Jack again he’d tell him–they could never repeat or discuss last night ever again. He would stop spending any more time in the camp than he had to, would stop talking to Jack completely if it wasn’t necessary, and would wean himself off the company he’d found himself enjoying far too much. He couldn’t take back whatever had taken hold of him last night, but he could bury it deep, keep it his burden to bear, and hopefully one day forget it ever happened. No one would ever know, not his brother and sister, not his fiancée, not anyone who could or would kill him for it if they knew that he once committed such an act.
At the same time, he had nearly twelve weeks left up here, and there was no one else around. No one would know if he’d done it at all, let alone more than once. Just so long as if he did, he wouldn’t lapse again into neglecting the sheep. Jack would understand, he needed this job almost as much as Ennis did and he’d done it before. He knew how lonely it could be.
That afternoon he knew what decision he’d made, even as he couldn’t admit it.
He found Jack on a grassy hill that evening, lounging back and watching the sun setting over the mountain. Ennis wondered how long Jack had been waiting around for him as he approached him.
He didn’t speak, and barely moved. A first for Jack, who’d been restless from the moment they’d first glanced one another’s way. Neither of them spoke for a moment until Ennis squatted down beside him and realized that Jack was also waiting for him to talk first–that while he’d made the first move last night, he was putting the decision on what to do next into Ennis’ hands.
The power of it felt unnerving, not that he’d say that. Instead, he said, “This is a one-shot thing we got goin on here.”
Wroe’s cabin is set up nicely for a butchering workstation, the man being an amateur hunter himself. There’s a picnic table just outside they put a clean tarp over so they can cut to the best of their ability into steaks and stew meat, Jack starting and Ennis joining him once he’s fed Rocco and Cinnamon.
“They didn’t miss us too much while we was gone?” Jack asks, smiling when he comes back.
“I think they held up fine,” Ennis says, returning it. As he settles in alongside Jack to help he thinks about how, while it’s been quite a few years since the other man liked to tempt fate with a skittish horse, Cinnamon, a sorrel quarter horse mare, has a certain playfulness that matches Jack’s whenever they do this. Sometimes, as infrequent as these visits are, it feels like Cinnamon belongs to Jack as much as she does him.
As they finish up Ennis sets aside some of the meat for Wroe in the deep freeze that’s kept on the property for this exact purpose, as a thanks for lending the cabin and the hunting gear as well as the other benefits that he’ll never explain. Hopefully the gesture will endear him to a shot at using it again.
Jack says he’ll stop to visit his folks before going home; they’ll like having some elk meat even though his ma’s the only one who will openly appreciate the gesture.
By the time they’ve gotten everything cut up, gotten the fruits of their labors in the fridge and both freezers, and wiped down both the picnic area and their boots, he’s pretty sure Jack’s just as ravenous as he is. It’s been a more strenuous trip than usual, even with the luxury of a cabin, and there are potatoes and canned vegetables, salt and pepper, butter, all the fixings for a nice elk steak dinner, he says as he gets a pot and pan out of one of the cabinets.
Jack considers this before saying, “Hold that thought.” He starts stripping down, taking off his vest and unbuttoning his shirt. “Goin a git the smell a blood and elk off a me first,” he adds.
“Sure ‘nuff,” Ennis says, watching Jack drop both articles of clothing to the floor and glance behind him as he enters the bathroom. Ennis starts a fire in the furnace, thinking they have enough firewood for the night that one in the fireplace would do them some good as well, alongside some whiskey and a couple of rounds in what’s proven to be a very durable bed.
Then he decides that a shower sounds real good and he should probably get one, too, before the hot water runs out. He takes his boots off first and sets them next to the back door beside Jack’s, then sits back down to remove his socks. When it comes to the rest he follows Jack’s example, stripping off his button-down and undershirt before he so much as makes it into the bathroom while absently thinking that they should get around to doing some laundry tomorrow before he opens the door.
Jack doesn’t look surprised to see him and gives him a half-smile as he turns back to watch him unbuckle his pants and pull them down before stepping out of them and into the shower stall with him.
“Took you long enough,” Jack says and stands back under the stream to give Ennis some room. It’s not a lot of space for two grown men but they make do; they already have before, once, in a smaller shower stall back in ‘67.
He thinks about that night a lot. First time he’d seen him in four years, first time he’d gotten to really get a good look at his face while he was inside him and even as he’d never say it aloud or imagine another man as such, thought him beautiful.
He still does, sometimes struck with the thought–not just during sex but sometimes before and afterwards. Sometimes when they’re setting up camp together. Sometimes when he wakes up first and sees how peaceful Jack looks in his sleep.
Ennis runs a hand along his back when Jack glances down and wraps a hand around him, jerking in slow, lazy strokes. He watches the small, satisfied grin flash across Jack’s face when Ennis brings one hand lower to cup the cheek of the other man’s ass and his other hand to wrap around him in turn. They match each other’s languid rhythm, unhurried as they both come to full rise.
Ennis knew how the rest of the summer would go, even as neither of them brought it up when they got back to camp and had a late supper. They hadn’t had a quiet evening since the first one. Whenever Jack looked at him like he wanted to say something, he usually did. More often than not he’d greet Ennis with a conversation as he was getting off his horse; never had any uncomfortable silence when Jack was around.
The air was thick with it then, Jack looking down except for the occasional furtive glance in his direction and both of them exchanging only the barest of pleasantries. Jack was the one who seemed to give up first, going off in the distance to use the outside lavatory and then saying goodnight, that he was going to bed.
Ennis, unsure if he was more grateful or irritated by the fact that they hadn’t talked about how the nature of their friendship had changed, didn’t know how to discuss it, nor did he want to. He'd hoped, though, that Jack would know what and what not to say, since he was the one who’d gotten them started. Perhaps there was no answer to be found to the questions he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He stared at the fire, wondering if he’d find one there.
As the fire crackled he imagined the sharp cutting whistle of an iron swinging in the air before striking home and shattering a man’s face. Not anything he’d ever heard, but over the past decade-plus-change had become ingrained in him. He remembered his father’s voice saying, “See that, boys? That’s what happens to his kind” and the pressure of a calloused hand on the back of his neck forcing him in place as he stared at the unnatural stillness and pallor of a man he’d seen in town only a few days prior and at the gore between his legs and the crushed tomato in the center of his face where his dick and his nose must’ve been just yesterday. He’d had nightmares about it on a regular basis up until a couple of years ago.
The image of it didn’t go away, but neither did the memory of bared skin last night, just enough that he knew where to go when he guided himself in. Nor did the glimpse he’d caught, after he’d pushed off of Jack and landed on his back but before he shut his eyes to pretend to fall asleep again, of Jack’s naked lower half, his jeans pooling around his knees but his hand between his legs and the shadows seeping in thankfully sparing him a real look at the man’s cock. Jack had been taking in ragged breaths, his eyes shut and his upper body completely sunk against the groundsheet. Ennis had refused to open his eyes again, only heard Jack grunting at the effort as he yanked his jeans back up and reached between them for his jacket, his fingertips nearly brushing Ennis’ arm.
From there he thought of Jack’s laughter these past weeks and the times he’d made him laugh in turn. He thought of his loud, confidently off-key singing and warbling on his flattened harmonica. He thought of the playful, defiant way he’d stay on whenever his mare tried to throw him off and the satisfied looks he’d give Ennis when he’d managed to calm her down. He thought about how, unlike a lot of people who assumed that because Ennis didn’t talk much that he wasn’t capable of thinking much either, Jack treated his silence with respect. He seemed to understand when Ennis didn’t feel the need to speak but always seemed curious to get to know him better, seemed to find him interesting when nearly everyone else who met him seemed to think otherwise. He thought about how he hadn’t expected anything but some cash come mid-September and certainly hadn’t expected the easy companionship of a friend he hadn’t realized he’d made until Jack had burrowed himself in and found a place within Ennis’ psyche. A Jack-shaped entity when Ennis hadn’t realized there would be such room for anyone.
In his periphery he sensed movement coming through the opened flap of the big tent. Jack was taking his shirt off. He was there, vulnerable and open for the taking mere feet away, all while laying in placid wait for Ennis.
It didn’t stop the phantom sensation of his dad’s hand gripping the back of his neck to keep him in place, but Ennis got up all the same.
A maelstrom formed, a cyclone of tire irons, jeering insults, agonized screams, but also Jack’s choked groans and quick smiles. All together, all-encompassing. The cacophony reached new heights when he entered the big tent, crouched down, and glanced at Jack, who was stripped from the waist up and watching him with an expression Ennis wouldn’t have known how to decipher if he had even been able to look him in the eye for more than a second.
He wanted the answer to the unspoken question of it all and that he wouldn’t have to ask. He wanted to fuck Jack again and wanted to be absolved of his desire to fuck him. He knew it was impossible to have both things at once, knew there must be something wrong with him for such a desire but was hurtling towards it all the same. He wanted to fix what was broken and he wanted to keep tearing it down. He didn’t know which way was up as Jack tenderly placed a hand on his wrist. The maelstrom was in full swing then, when Jack tugged his hat out of his grasp and set it down, and when he held Ennis’ face in his hands, kinder than Ennis had been to him these past twenty-four hours and gentler than he probably deserved.
Then Jack kissed him, and the maelstrom started to grow quiet.
It dissipated entirely after Ennis, wanting to apologize for a thousand different things and not sure which one he wanted to most, said he was sorry and Jack murmured back, “It’s alright, it’s alright,” before gathering him in his arms.
There were no sounds of iron whistling through the air then, nor the crunching of bone. Just the sounds of the ambient night outside and the feeling of Jack’s heartbeat against his ear. He reached out and felt for whatever he could find and shut his eyes, feeling Jack press his lips against his temple. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been held. He wouldn’t have known how to ask nor would he have been willing to; he hadn’t even realized how badly he’d wanted it until he was confronted with it.
He felt like something within him had cracked open and all his reservations had spilled out when Jack turned them over and straddled his hips, kissing him deeper, and Ennis kissed him back, the motion of it feeling more and more natural as they went. He got used to the feeling of Jack’s bare skin under his fingertips, then against his own as Jack coaxed Ennis out of his shirt and undershirt. He thought he might burst, feeling Jack’s erect cock pressed against his that he’d flinched back from last night but involuntarily ground up against now.
I’ve never done this before, he wanted to say. Not just with another man, but with anyone. He supposed he didn’t need to, not after yesterday afternoon when he’d smiled and told Jack that he’d never had the opportunity to sin and Jack merely smiled back and Ennis had wondered but hadn’t asked if it was a high school sweetheart or a buckle bunny that’d been Jack’s first.
He stopped thinking about the idea of Jack fooling around with girls once Jack unzipped his fly and wrapped a hand around his dick. From there Ennis was in freefall, trembling, wondering how they were supposed to go about it like this–last night had been self-explanatory, and their intimacy was growing each passing second.
Jack, fearless in this as he was in all endeavors, seemed to know yet again what Ennis was thinking, and was slow and careful when he unfastened his own jeans and pulled himself out.
Ennis had seen K.E’s thing back when they were both real little when they bathed and it’d meant nothing, him hardly more than a toddler and K.E just three years ahead of him. He’d seen glimpses of a few others when pissing, but only out of curiosity as to what the standard look and size was and when he grew if he’d reach or even surpass it. That, and only that, had been acceptable. He’d been relieved when he eventually deduced that he had nothing to worry about, and that was the end of it. Never even considered looking after that.
And yet, he didn’t throw Jack off him and storm out, like he might’ve last night. He just looked at it, at an appendage that he was only willing to look at because it belonged to Jack and because he’d never thought about it with anyone else, would never do this with any other man. He noticed that it was of a normal size and that there was no foreskin–“dick-clipped” as Jack would later describe himself. He didn’t mind the sight of it, not if it was just another part of the man who was sitting astride his hips and handling him with a kind of tenderness that made his very bones ache.
“This okay?” Jack asked.
It was. Because they didn’t have to talk about it. Ennis didn’t have to think about what anyone would say, because there was no one but the two of them. The first slide of Jack’s bare cock against his made him gasp and clench up. He would've been mortified if it weren’t for the odd spell that seemed cast over the inside of the tent. It felt good, he realized, briefly wanting to recoil but instead rocking his hips up into it. It felt good. His hands clenched on Jack’s hips. Jack spat more into his own palm than Ennis had into his last night and started working them both with his fist. His hips rolled on top of his as he slid them together, ass flush against the very tops of Ennis’ thighs and a few times the friction made Jack wince. Ennis hadn’t realized how rough he must’ve been with him; Jack hadn’t complained. He hadn’t said a word.
Ennis couldn’t stop running his hands over Jack’s hips and thighs, feeling the muscles shifting, and for one shocking moment he pictured Jack naked, taking Ennis’ dick while seated on him just like this. He hadn’t been able to see Jack’s face while he was inside him and now he was trying to imagine it. He wondered if it was the same as how he looked now, when the rhythm between them picked up with his face flushing down to his neck. Jack had one hand braced behind him on Ennis’ leg before bringing it to his chest, fingertips fanning over a nipple as he bore down on him, panting as he worked them both in fist faster and faster.
When it was done but they were still insatiable for one another Ennis tried to apologize for the night before and Jack assured him that he was fine but mentioned that there were ways to make it easier next time. He’d heard about it from a married friend who liked unconventional ways of making love to his wife.
In the shelter of the tent the prospect of there being a next time didn’t scare him. Instead Ennis laughed, freer than he’d ever felt before.
Jack looks back up, blue eyes ablaze with lust. “Here?” he asks.
Maybe next time, Ennis thinks. They have a few more days and for now the possibilities feel endless.
“Bed first,” he says.
Jack raises his eyebrows and steps out, clean enough, and reaches for one of the two full-body towels on the rack and gives a cursory dry-off. He then wraps it around his waist and glances at Ennis over his shoulder before leaving the bathroom. Ennis takes only a minute to finish up himself and when he gets the other towel he only dries himself off and sets it back on the rack, not bothering to be coy and cover up for even a moment.
He comes out to find Jack sitting on the edge of the bed, towel still around his waist, his cock poking out. He’s starting to get a little softer and fuller around the middle and he’s a little hairier than he was when they first met. No one’s ever gotten Ennis going like Jack; he’s as starved for him now as he was at twenty so he wastes no time once Jack slides back into bed and unfastens his towel in getting in and climbing on top of him.
He’s certain Jack knows, not like they’ve ever needed to say it. He kisses him hard, as if they haven’t spent the last few days together. Each time they go their separate ways he misses Jack so bad it makes him sick.
He knows, not that they’ve ever talked about it, not like they can, that Jack misses him back just as fierce. He knows, just as he knows it’s not something they need to talk about, so instead he kisses him with every breath in his body.
He takes the pillow next to Jack’s head and slides it under the towel where it remains beneath Jack’s hips. His body hair, like that which grows out of his head, is thicker and darker than Ennis’ own but fine and soft along his inner thighs that are now bracketing Ennis’ hips. The two slide against one another, mouths finding each other again.
They don’t discuss it–-they hardly need to, at this point. They don’t often get the opportunity to undress completely, and so rarely have they ever had access to a real bed. Countless times they’ve found it easier to maneuver it if they put their hands and mouths on one another or if he takes Jack from behind. When they get the chance to strip down all the way, though, he likes it best when it’s face to face, always inside the other man. Such rules have gone unspoken and unchallenged since that first time when they’d barely said a word.
Once or twice back in ‘63 Ennis had almost asked if a finger–-and only a finger to start–-really felt that good. Sure, Jack went crazy for it, but that couldn’t really mean he’d like it? He’d shut that train of thought down faster than he could consider it, and never really entertained the notion in the few and far between times they’ve gotten together since. He’s always been too eager to fuck him and he doubts Jack can hardly complain about it, at least not once they figured out how to do it properly.
Anyways, it’s not like Jack’s wife can do to him what Ennis can.
He descends, mouth leaving Jack’s own to focus on his neck, and then his chest, his hands trailing along Jack’s sides, plush and warm, and when his lips brush over Jack’s stomach he senses Jack tense up and wince.
“You alright, cowboy?” Ennis asks, breath rustling the dark trail starting at Jack’s navel and going down to his pubic hair. The first few times they go at it whenever they do this there’s a nearly frantic urgency to it–right now he wants to savor it.
“Yeah,” Jack says brusquely. “Just…” he reaches for the KY Jelly on the nightstand and passes it to Ennis, who sets it on the bed beside him. It’s another unspoken agreement; Jack’s the one who comes prepared with what they need; first Crisco then Vaseline and now this, which he’d never heard of until Jack showed it to him. Ennis is glad Jack knows what to buy and is willing to go out to buy it because he wouldn’t go out to a store to buy lube if there was a gun to his head.
Ennis stared at it that first time and recoiled when he realized that it had one singular purpose and thought Jack must’ve lost his mind, going out in public to purchase such a thing. Jack, exasperated, told him, “You know plenty a guys do their girlfriends and wives in the ass, too.”
He knew. “So your wife lets you…?” he started.
Jack scoffed. “Fuck no. She’d probably shoot my dick off if I even suggested it,” he said.
The first time they ever fucked Ennis had been too overwhelmed by the heat of it, the squeeze of it ‘round his cock, the feel of a solid, strong body under him, to realize how painful it’d been for Jack, who may’ve heard of how to ease the way from a married friend but hadn’t stopped Ennis from entering him with nothing more than a paltry handful of spit. Must’ve known even then that any hesitation on his part would’ve spooked Ennis off.
The second time was several days later, after multiple shared jerk-off sessions that hadn’t been daunting once Ennis had gotten used to seeing and eventually touching Jack’s cock. It’d felt almost impossible how much he wanted to touch him once he knew that he could; he found that it was often hard to stop, but with them alone and unseen he didn’t have to. As long as he forgot that they were on borrowed time, he could imagine that he’d never have to.
Ennis got the hint when he rode in early one evening and Jack had given him a significant look before picking up a can of Crisco–-apparently useful in more ways than one–-and slinking off into the big tent.
He’d joined him and they’d kissed, removing hats and jackets and tugging shirts out of jeans and Ennis shifted to get behind Jack but Jack hesitated and turned to look at him over his shoulder. For a second Ennis wasn’t sure if Jack had changed his mind as he watched him pick up the Crisco and drum his fingertips along the side of it.
“I wanna try something,” he said. His voice was soft, eyes wide. Nervous, when Ennis at the time hadn’t thought he’d ever seen Jack look nervous before.
“How d’you mean?” he asked, weary. If he was about to ask to reverse what they’d done that first time–no fuckin way. He’d never allow it.
Jack decided to show Ennis rather than tell him as he stripped from the waist up and unfastened his pants, tugging them down until they fell on their own to his knees, before he opened up the can of Crisco and dipped two fingers in it. Ennis didn’t quite understand but thought he might have an idea what could come next and stripped from the waist up as well just in time to see Jack move just a little further away and lower himself onto his stomach before shifting his hips a little into the air. Ennis almost reached for his own fly before he saw Jack spread his legs a bit, much as his jeans would allow, and bring his hand to his ass, pressing a slicked finger to the crevice of it.
Ennis inhaled sharply and knelt over Jack’s knees, stunned as he watched him press the tip of his middle finger inside of himself and probe, prodding around in there. He didn’t know how such a thing would have ever occurred to Jack, but his mind was a mystery. It never would’ve occurred to Ennis to fuck that first night but Jack went off of every impulse with unwavering certainty, somehow knowing without knowing that the first night it was the only sort of touch Ennis would’ve allowed.
Ennis stared, transfixed, as Jack began to thrust his finger in and out of himself.
Jack had a mole on his back; Ennis circled a thumb over it and for a split-second thought about putting his mouth there before he noticed something else–a faint scar on the back of his neck that could only have come from a cigarette burn. That he didn't and wouldn’t touch. Instead, he trailed his fingers over the knobs of Jack’s spine and then his sides, pressed his thumbs against the dimples at small of his back and cupped his hips. He wanted to raise them up further and replace Jack’s finger with his own cock, but refrained, wondering how it would progress between now and when he’d let Ennis inside him again, and wondering if it’d feel even better than the first time.
Jack switched between sighs and sharp breaths as his index finger joined the middle, prodding and curling, his brow furrowed in concentration and his long eyelashes fluttering. Ennis hadn’t really allowed himself to pay attention to Jack’s profile before now as he lay his head against the groundsheet. His face flushed and his lips parted open in a gasp as he paused, like he’d just found something he’d been searching for in the dark, and pressed his fingers further in and down.
This was obscene; he shouldn’t be seeing Jack touch himself like this. This was the most erotic thing he never allowed himself to imagine. Without thinking Ennis moved his hands from his back to his buttocks and squeezed, parting them to get a better look. Jack gave an encouraging sigh as he angled his hips up. There was so much to look at–the salacious arch of Jack’s spine, the sinewy muscles in his back and shoulders working as he steadied himself, finally pushing up to his knees and forearms. By the time Jack reached for the Crisco and passed it behind him, Ennis was straining so hard against his jeans he thought he’d tear the fabric. There were no verbal instructions but he got the idea, taking off the lid and smearing some on the tip of his cock.
He tried to take his time when he started pushing in, but that first night had nothing on the warm slick glide and Jack’s shuddering groan when he made it past the head. Ennis was sweating by the time he buried himself in Jack the rest of the way; nothing had ever felt so good, and he couldn’t imagine anything ever would. He tried to keep his composure better this time, didn’t want it to end when he started thrusting for real and felt Jack’s trembling back against his chest and felt the reverberation of his moans and realized this was how it sounded when the act felt good for him. He held on as long as he could before he was coming, overwhelmed, barely aware of Jack’s free hand reaching between his legs to pull himself off and thought that next time he should help him out with that.
He didn’t last as long as he wanted to, but it took him quick enough to get hard again and this time with passage was easier, and he clung to him afterwards as he caught his breath. When they detangled he was certain his legs had stopped working and it took a while for them to collect themselves enough to clean up and put supper on. That night, Ennis still couldn’t keep his hands to himself; his dick came back to life just looking at Jack tending to the fire and he went at him, pulling them both out and stroking frantically, rutting against him like an animal.
The next time he got to enter Jack a couple of days later he worked up the nerve to open him up with his fingers himself and watched as his efforts were rewarded when Jack went from wincing to making the same noises as when he’d done it to himself. He’d even given a breathless laugh as if stunned that Ennis would be willing to learn how his body worked.
And so the summer continued; both of them eager and imbued with the vitality of their surroundings and the company they kept. They laughed a lot, wrassled and roughhoused, went about each day itching to spend as much of it together as possible. They were untouchable, unstoppable, and completely unfettered, as long as they didn’t have to remember that the summer would end.
“C’mon,” Jack mutters, frustrated, as if the luxury of them having all night and a bed isn’t part of the appeal. Ennis decides to take it upon himself to remind him as he brings his head lower, enjoying the smell of soap and the faint promise of musk. He’ll have Jack sweating soon, guaranteed.
He gives a soft hum as he wraps his lips around him; he allows himself to enjoy it just so long as Jack’s prone on his back because while he doesn’t think any less of Jack for being willing to do it, Ennis would never in a million years allow a man to put him on his knees. He’s not quite as good at it, either, but he’s pretty sure he gets the job done; Jack’s body speaks for him when he cannot. Touching and tasting Jack south of the equator was something he started that summer when he first got to experiment with and explore Jack’s body and Jack was more than willing to satiate his curiosity, reciprocating with great enthusiasm but also respect, knowing without them having to state aloud the boundaries Ennis had laid out in barbed wire.
He likes it like this, with Jack spread out for him. He almost uncaps the KY when a thought strikes him. It’s perverse and he can hardly believe that he’s capable of imagining it, but the thought lingers and grows.
Ennis avoids crude conversations when they arise; he does not want to know what the other guys on the ranch get up to in their spare time and he’d rather kill himself than divulge anything of his own. Still, he knows what it means to fuck a woman with one’s tongue and that it’s very close to something else.
It’s not something Ennis would’ve ever considered, even if the thought’s occasionally popped up, unwarranted and ignored. He’s considering it now, though, while framed by the warmth of Jack’s inner thighs. He wonders what noises he’d make if he did, wonders if he’d even like it.
They also haven’t eaten in hours and Jack’s just showered.
He pauses, and tries not to let himself worry about the minutiae of it anymore before moving his thumb just behind Jack’s balls and then lowering his head to swipe his tongue where his thumb’s just been, along his taint, to get a feel for the skin there.
Jack jolts and gasps, back arching.
You like that? Ennis wants to ask before pressing the flat of his tongue there again, licking again, and then licking lower, making contact with Jack’s entrance and noting the resulting full-body shudder and stunned, desperate-sounding “Ennis.”
Emboldened, he works up a bit of spit that he dribbles down to Jack’s entrance and presses the tip of his tongue inside.
Jack, rarely ever as verbose during sex as he is the rest of the time, curses, cock twitching. “Jesus fuck, when’d you learn t’do that?” he pants.
Never? Ennis doesn’t say. He doesn’t know and doesn’t care to know any of the queer shit that occurs in places he wouldn’t dare seek out. Alma didn’t like it when he put his fingers and cock in her backside, only tolerated it when she wanted something else from him. He’d never entertain the idea of putting his mouth there, except he’s doing it now, because it’s Jack and Jack’s always had an uncanny ability to compel him to do things he would never have dreamed of. He presses his legs back and the taut muscle twitches. Jack gives a strangled moan when Ennis spits into him and works him open further. Jack’s spread thighs tremble as his hand clutches the back of his right thigh–the more flexible leg–and the other holds his cock in slow, tentative strokes. The left leg Ennis hoists over his shoulder and runs his hand back and forth along the outside of it, as if to gentle him even though he must say he’s enjoying the reaction.
“Is’t really that good, bud?” he asks when he pulls away long enough to speak.
Jack laughs, sounding delirious. “Yeah, friend. Really that good,” he says, and breaks into another moan once Ennis spits into him once more before lapping at him.
After a minute Jack tugs gently at his hair to pull him away. Ennis looks up to see Jack’s flushed face and parted lips, still red from Ennis kissing them.
“C’mon,” Jack murmurs, hand pawing blindly for the KY. Ennis gets the message, spreading some over the tip of him and over Jack’s entrance–his tongue did some of the work already making Jack pliant and ready for him, but he figures it couldn’t hurt to slip a couple of fingers in him for good measure.
“Won’t break,” Jack says, even as he gasps when Ennis’ fingers breach him. “You ain’t broke me yet.”
Ennis curls them in him anyway, thrusting his fingers a few pumps before withdrawing them and wiping them on the towel below–they’ll get around to washing it later. He has one hand holding Jack’s left leg as Jack keeps holding the other and his free hand he slicks up before lining up and sinking home, watching Jack’s mouth fall open, his back arch and his head fall back.
He thinks that this is why he likes it best this way, when they’re face to face. He prefers seeing Jack’s face when he hits just the right angle even when from behind he can feel him writhing. He likes when Jack’s astride him and grinding down on him and he’s got his hands on Jack’s hips to thrust upwards like he’s one of the bulls that threw Jack but Jack never wavers, his moans becoming breathy gasps for air. He likes when he can get Jack’s right leg over his shoulder and get his eyes rolling to the back of his head, or when he comes and it paints his pale chest. Memories of those times have gotten Ennis through a lot of lonely nights. Once he’s fully inside of him he takes his time at first with smooth rolls of his hips. They’ve got all night, and he wants to ease him into it.
After a few minutes, though, Jack has other ideas as he squirms beneath him.
“Fuck me, fuck me,” he grunts as he gets a hand back around his own cock, and Ennis can’t say no to him, not when he’s had to say no to him for too many things already. He makes sure to deliver now, pushing both legs further back and cinching in, pistoning in him, chest heaving, satisfied that he’s giving it to him just as he requested.
Yeah, I’ve got you, Ennis thinks, half-crazed, thinking about how he’s one lucky sonofabitch, getting the exclusive privilege of railing Jack Twist and seeing him come undone. A rock-hard panting mess of sweaty limbs is what he is, the best sight in the world.
Ennis isn’t thinking when he pushes his left thigh back just a little further. Jack winces again, this time a pained grunt pulled out of him and the leg spasming–it happens occasionally; he once had a bad throw that busted that leg in two places and he hadn’t realized the extent of the damage until later. Sometimes still if he bends it too far or for too long it feels like it’s seizing up. Ennis lowers it and strokes his thigh, pulling out for a moment to bend down far enough to press a kiss to the inside of his knee.
“You alright?” he asks when he looks back up.
Jack nods, shutting his eyes and clenching his jaw as he brings his left leg towards his chest again, only to flinch a second time. “Shit.” He grimaces, like he’s embarrassed or something. He shouldn’t be; hunting elk is hardly a leisure activity, after all. He shifts, angling towards his side, and Ennis understands what he’s suggesting.
“Alright,” he says, tugging the pillow away from under the towel, and moving back so Jack has enough room to turn over the rest of the way, crawling onto all fours.
Ennis sinks back into him, feeling the reverberation of Jack’s moans when he brings a hand around front, over his heart, down his chest and stomach until he’s got a hand wrapped around him. A position they’ve gone at many times and still not as often as they both would’ve liked, and he makes sure that, for now, he’ll make up for the time and distance they’ve often spent apart.
In times since that very second time, he has put his lips on the mole on Jack’s back. He doesn’t now, but he knows he will again.
Measure by measure he coaxes Jack fully onto his front, laying him out again, draping himself over his back and resting his forehead against the nape of Jack’s neck.
He slows down when he does, huffing as Jack grunts and arches his hips up trying to buck back against him, and holding onto him as he rocks into him. He can’t deny him when he wants to be fucked rough but he can’t deny himself when he wants to give it to him a bit kinder. He presses Jack into the mattress with his own bodyweight, thinking that if he could he’d live in this exact moment and never have to be anywhere else and wishes there was a way he could be even closer to him. Jack reaches behind him to grab at Ennis’ thigh with one hand while the other clutches at the sheets before Ennis grabs it and twines the fingers with his own.
Jack’s not much smaller than he is, so the term of endearment might seem absurd or insulting to anyone else, coming from anyone else, but times like this it just feels right. “Little darlin,” he murmurs against the shell of his ear.
Jack gives a wet gasp as he shuts his eyes. When it comes time, Ennis shifts up, rocking into him faster, overtaking Jack’s movements rutting against the bed until Jack’s spilling onto the towel beneath him. Ennis isn’t far behind, his pulse pounding, blood rushing in his ears. He leans down over him again, chest against back, shuddering, gasping against the back of his skull, when he comes.
He thrusts in a few more times, rocking in slow and deep, clutching at him as the last of his jism spills into the man below him and resting on top of him until he catches his breath. As he stills he sees Jack’s eyes are still shut, his breath still ragged, hands still gripping the sheets under him.
He kisses Jack’s shoulder, kisses the nape of his neck where his old scar’s faded into near-nothing. Kisses one of his shoulder blades and then the space between them. He nuzzles the warm, sweat-damp skin and thinks Jack must’ve gotten him cock-drunk even while he’s been wrung out when he wishes they could merge more ways than the one they are right now. He’s still jutted up against him when he pulls out and feels his spend trickle down Jack’s balls. It takes a few moments, silent except for their breathing and the crackle of the fire, for Ennis to get up. Sometimes he feels like a wobbly newborn deer trying to walk afterwards. He has to brace himself on the bed as he slides off of him and rises to stand, reaching a hand out to caress Jack’s back as the other man doesn’t move, his breath still coming heavy and his head still resting against the bed.
“Be right back,” he says, thinking that while Jack’s always been the more adventurous sort between them he doubts that he wants to kiss Ennis on the mouth right now considering where it’s been.
When he gets back from the bathroom after brushing his teeth and tongue Jack’s still prone, lying on his front, only starting to shift his body when he senses Ennis’ return. He rises and wipes himself off with the towel that he drops unceremoniously to the floor when he’s done; cleaning it is a task for later when he isn’t spent.
He turns his head as he turns onto his back and sits up. Jack looks at him like he did back in ‘67 after Ennis had kissed him for the first time in years. Unguarded, devastated as he draws one leg up and reaches for Ennis’ hand to guide him back into bed. As soon as he has him where he wants Jack surges up and kisses him hard, burying a hand in his hair.
Ennis kisses him back, and they settle onto their sides, legs tangled and hands roaming; it feels like the years have melted away, times like this. He swipes a thumb over Jack’s brow and cradles his face in his hands.
Yeah, c’mon, cowboy. We can still ride this.