Authors: Blair Aaron
“What's going on? This doesn't happen in other places,” Carter said to Maddox.
“Yeah well not every place has the hicks and bozos you find here in Baggs. Let's go check it out. I have a feeling I know who it is.”
“Who?”
“That damn Jaidon Marsh. He's been riling up the square this past week with the Klan. They're all trying to get control of the county seat, control the judges, and hire all the right district attorneys.”
“Does he know you?”
“We used to be best friends in high school.”
“Maddox you can't be serious. You and that guy were friends? Does he know about you?”
“Hell no. Nobody does. He thinks I'm just like him. He's kind of an idiot.” Maddox finished tying his shoes and stepped out onto the hay, leaving Carter in the darkness of the metal closet. Carter followed after him after just a second, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He couldn't figure out what made him so uneasy about the situation; he felt as if there were an alien electricity in the air, the way cats and birds might feel before an earthquake or electromagnetic storm. It was an incredibly unsettling feeling as he watched the love of his life disappear into the crowd of people. He was moving so fast and far away from Carter, and with every added foot he moved away from him, Carter could feel his ties with Maddox slipping away by proportion.
He followed Maddox into the crowd, which had formed a circle around a black haired guy with evil green eyes yelling and screaming right in the face of a middle-aged woman. The woman held her hand to her face.
“Do you think we want your kind around, nigger lover?”
She wouldn't look at him.
“You better answer me when I'm talking to you bitch. Did you hear what I said?” Jaidon spit a little on the woman in his anger. “Where's your nigger now? He gonna protect you?”
People stood around in a circle like blank animals in the brightness of sunlight, stunned into a frozen state as spectators of the scene. The group said nothing to keep Jaidon from backslapping the woman again. This time, she fell to her knees.
“Bitch I'll break your face open if you don't answer me.”
“Please stop. Leave me alone,” she said, trembling as tears ran down her face.
“Never bitch. If I had my way you'd be in jail for the shit you've done. Tell me, now! Where's your nigger?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying. I'm giving you one last chance. Tell me now or you're sleeping in the ditch tonight bitch.” Jaidon pulled his hand out of his pocket, brandishing a shiny piece of metal.
“Now!” he screamed.
“Dear God don't,” she cried as Jaidon raised the knife into the air, ready to stab her in the heart.
“Put it down,” a voice said from the crowd.
Jaidon turned around in the direction of the voice. Maddox stepped out onto the open area. “In my book, having a knife against a woman makes you chicken shit. Put it down.”
“Well if it isn't the old buddy. How are ya buddy?”
“Put the knife down.”
“Why don't you make me, buddy?”
“Someone call the cops,” a man yelled from the crowd, which had grown three times as large. The noise had dimmed to a quiet so severe you could hear the crickets chirp.
“Say where ya been in the past few weeks. I reckon you hate this bitch as much as I do. Why don't ya help me finish her off?” Jaidon's eyes glowed with hate. He stepped toward Maddox, his knife flashing a glint of light across the crowd. He came within inches of Maddox and poked him in the chest with his finger.
“Don't you remember me?” Jaidon said, as he threw his fist across Maddox's jaw.
Carter, who had been watching from the sidelines with stones in his stomach, stepped forward. “That's not fair! Back off fucker!”
Jaidon turned around to zero in on Carter like an eagle for his prey. “Do you know who you're talking to buddy? I could take your skinny ass in a heartbeat. Are you his friend? You two butt fuck buddies?”
Carter didn't back down when he saw Jaidon come within two inches of his neck with a knife. Somewhere in the recesses of his unconscious, Carter could sense that his life was on the verge of being completely different than it ever had been. He was a billiard ball rolling toward the edge of the pool table, about to bounce right off in an entirely new direction. He swallowed hard.
“Or,” Jaidon smiled, “are you lovers?”
“Just friends, that watch each others' backs.”
“Let's test it and see, then,” Jaidon said as he thumped Carter across his nose. Carter didn't flinch, but as Jaidon raised his fist to punch Carter again, he was pulled back from behind by Maddox. Maddox straddled him and wailaid his face in a quick succession of punches. Maddox wrapped his hands around the guy's neck to choke him off. In his eyes, Carter could see the defensive and possessiveness Maddox had for him. Maddox would protect him at the cost of his life.
The angry expression Maddox changed all of a sudden into a curious look of surprise. He looked down at the switchblade sticking out of his sternum.
“No!” Carter screamed and ran over to Maddox. Right as he reached Maddox, the cops pulled Jaidon away. “I got him. I told you I'd get him.”
Carter knew this would end badly, as the sinking feeling he'd been enduring became all encompassing. He watched as Maddox Stern, the love of his life, died right in his arms that day.
IV
When Lee Ann asked Stetson about bringing along Brock for the ride, he was almost too shocked to be mad. This was the annual trip he and his girlfriend went on in order to have endless amounts of sex, free from the prying ears of neighbouring apartments and interruptive habits of her friends' cell phones. There was nothing between Brock and Lee Ann, she promised Stetson several times over the few weeks leading up to the trip. It was just that Brock needed some space from his girlfriend, and Lee Ann was the only person he was close to that he could trust. So Stetson agreed on two conditions—Brock must not come alone and he must sleep on the other end of the cabin, with whomever he brought with him. There was nothing Stetson hated more than having his privacy breached by another person without his permission, and the thought of that little prick Brock listening to his muddled grunts during orgasm made Stetson irrational with anger.
“Look,” Brock said, taking the rifle out of Stetson's hands, “you've got to shoot like this. Put your trigger finger on the side of the carriage until you're ready to shoot. Like this, see?”
They were deer hunting, sitting in the cold wooden cabin tied to a tree, watching a deer meander through the forest. Lee Ann came along, because she had no one else to hang out with. Plus, perhaps unsurprisingly, Brock's date had back out at the last minute.
Brock pulled the trigger, and the deer ran off under the wooden explosion caused by his richoeted bullet. Stetson jerked the rifle out of his hand, without saying what he really wanted to say, which was, “Listen you little piss ant. What I'd like to do with this rifle is blow your fucking brains out.”
“Yeah man it was the wind. I know it was.”
“Yeah sure it was,” Stetson said. He adjusted his cowboy hat, letting the cold mountain air run across his thick brown hair. “Move aside.”
“OK man, let's see if you can do any better,” Brock said.
They waited for several minutes as a deer miraculously came into a clearing. Stetson raised his rifle, turned off the scope, and sat there.
“Take the shot now man,” Brock said. “Take it.”
Stetson stared through the window at the deer. The deer moved behind a clearing and in between two trees, obscuring most of its body.
Stetson looked over at Brock to give him a warning.
“Boy you've got one chance to keep your hole shut or the next thing I'm gonna shoot after this here deer is your dumb ass.”
Brock wouldn't meet Stetson's gaze. “Yes sir.”
Stetson looked one moment out the window and pulled the trigger. The deer feel instantly.
“Hot damn,” Lee Ann said.
Brock chuckled. “Was a fluke.”
—
They were driving back in the blue pickup on the way back to the cabin in silence. Brock was intimidated by Stetson and he showed it. But what's more is that Brock clearly wanted to impress Lee Ann, and Stetson was in the way of that. Stetson couldn't ignore anymore what he'd known to be true. Brock wasn't just a friend to Lee Ann—maybe she truly thought that, innocent as she was—but he wanted in her pants. Maybe he was playing the long con and hoped Lee Ann would see something in him that she had missed before. Maybe he was competing with Stetson today when they were hunting. The bottom line, though, is that Stetson trusted Lee Ann with his life; she had earned that trust through years and years of constant and subtle tests Stetson gave her—in the way she treated his father on his deathbed, how she warmed up to Stetson's German sheperd. He loved Lee Ann, and Lee Ann loved him. That much he was sure of. As he pulled up into the gravel driveway of their weekend cabin, he decided to let his love for his girlfriend diffuse the anger and rage he had for Brock once again. He just let it go.
They stepped inside the cabin, cold as ice. The living room was bare and musty because they hadn't been to the cabin in over a year. A few rats ran back into their holes in the wall, and Lee Ann immediately went over to the heater to turn it up full blast. Brock walked back into the hallway.
“Hey where's my bedroom. Is it this big one, Lee? Why don't you take a nap with me?” Brock was clearly busting Stetson's balls. He laughed.
Stetson walked to the closet near the back door and opened it. “This here's your room.”
“No way man. No way. I can't sleep there.”
“There ain't any other rooms. It's either this here cupboard or you sleep outside with the wolves.” Stetson walked out onto the porch.
“Where you going Stets?” Lee Ann asked.
“This deer is going to ruin if he don't get him slaughtered tonight. Temperature's going up for spring. We'll be dead if we eat him next week.”
“OK well what time you coming back?”
“No less than four hours. You guys play checkers or something since that there t.v. don't work anymore. I took baseball bat to it a year ago.”
And with that, he shut the door to the cabin. There was an awkward silence between Brock and Lee Ann. They stood staring at each other. They watched as the blue pickup disappeared down the driveway, shrinking to a small blue dot in the distance.
“God this place is cold,” Brock said.
“You're telling me.”
Brock walked over to Lee Ann and put his hand on her elbow. “How long you think he'll really be gone? Didn't you say he came for you early the other day?”
“Yeah, but that has happened only once, and I know he's telling the truth about that deer. It's always taken him at least four hours to harvest his hunt. Mostly more.”
“Well then our little plan worked out great didn't.” Brock took off his shirt.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she said.
“The real question is, are you?”
“Of course. I need this, there's nothing more exciting than almost getting caught. I know he doesn't suspect a thing because he tells me all the time how much he trusts me. He's completely clueless trust me. Let's do it.”
Brock was much smaller in build than Stetson, and he would almost undoutedly lose in a physical fight. He did have a nice shape to his torso though. His chest muscle stood somewhat farther down his body than normal. He planted a wet kiss on Lee Ann, then ran his hand up her blouse.
“Where do you want to do it?” he asked.
“His bed, of course.”
In the bedroom, Lee Ann stood fully clothed but made Brock take off all this clothes. He was standing naked against the bed, fully erect and shivering and she unwrapped her bra from behind.
“Let me see you totally. Turn around,” she said. He turned around to show her his ass, which was medium sized with a little peach fuzz running along his cheeks. He had a single mole near his waist.
“Aw come on, I'm starting to feel vulnerable here.”
Lee Ann took her pants off, revealing the fact that she wasn't wearing any underwear.
“God that's a sight for sore eyes,” Brock said as he hopped on the bed and began performing oral sex on her. She wasn't wet to begin with, but once Brock started licking her pussy, she got lubed up pretty fast. Brock grabbed her thighs with his hands and lapped her up like a hungry puppy, while sat on his elbows and knees, his dick dangling down between his legs, waiting for a nice glove to slide into.
He could taste her juices, like a love potion that energized his own member once they hit his tongue. Pleasure. Ecstasy. Joy, they felt all these emotions run together like melted wax on a tie-dye shirt. Lee Ann grabbed Brock's hair and pulled his head toward her lips for a kiss. Their lips met just at the same time as Brock's penis met her vagina, which had the effect of enhancing each other. It was simultaneously the most sexually charged kiss and emotional thrust Brock had ever performed on entering a woman.
—