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By the dying fire, under the cover of a full firmament of stars, Phil Burbank holds the frail body of Peter Gordon like he has once been held, two strong arms (his strong, capable arms) wrapped around the boy’s torso, pulling him closer and closer and closer. For warmth, only for warmth, not for company, not for the sweet press of the boy’s body against his loins that feel like a wound ravaged by fever, throbbing and hurting. But so the beat of his heart, resonating in every fiber of his flesh, is pressed to the boy’s middle and the boy — he knows. He feels it and just lies still.
The light of the embers is poured out over young Peter. It clings to him like the first light of dawn hovering over the horizon; a red outline that follows the soft curves of his face, ignites the down on his cheeks and pulses with each turn of the wind. The grass rustles. Peter’s breathing is steady, as if asleep, but he is awake, his eyes are wide open and huge, two black pieces of coal sitting poorly fitted in his small face, as if they could fall out any moment.
Suddenly they roll in their sockets and Peter turns his head. And so everything is straining to look at Phil, just to look, to see and witness him. Peter’s eyes are big enough to swallow them both.
If Peter were a little rabbit in a trap, a soft and furry thing so terrified that it twists and pulls and gnaws off his own legs to free itself, Phil would know how to proceed (snap its neck, quick and efficient), but Peter does not tremble, does not fight and the silent knowing in his eyes is unbearable.
Just like one of the pictures in the stash of magazines that Phil guards like the dog guards his dead master’s bones. Peter is not the graceful ballet dancer on page ten, whose thigh muscles have been drawn over with a pen. Nor the broad weightlifter flexing his bulging biceps as he smiles at the camera. Nor Siegfried slaying the worm, nor Theseus with the Hydra’s head, nor Hercules spinning wool. Peter is the image of that lean young man bound to a tree, an arrow buried deep in his soft heaving stomach, the saint who accepts his violation with beauty and grace. Maybe if Phil glued Peter’s lashes shut with his seed like he did to that saint bound to the page, he could bear to look at him.
“Phil,” Peter simply says and it’s the worst accusation in the world, it tears him open to the core and shoves two long finger into the wound to pull out his most intimate workings, take register of each sore spot and prod it with clinical curiosity.
In a flurry of limbs, angry, scared and confused, Phil turns Peter over onto his stomach and straddles him at the hip, pinning him down.
Peter does not resist. Peter came up the mountains to know him like this. Peter gives himself over to Phil. Peter wants this, because Peter is an odd lonely boy and a sissy and that’s what they want, the odd lonely boys and the sissies.
Phil has one hand on Peter’s neck, pressing his face into the dirt to keep him from turning to him, so he cannot hurt him with the weight of his eyes. With the other hand he tries to yank down Peter’s trousers but they won’t cooperate. The inanimate fabric of the world fights his attack, everything resists him, everything but the boy there, flat on his stomach, patiently awaiting his rape.
Phil pulls and shoves and yanks and finally he bares the boy’s ass. He stops dead. He looks at the pale skin, the narrow hips, the lean buttocks. Peter has not grown into his body yet, as if his frame had been merely stretched out, and not given the rest of him time to catch up and now there’s not enough mass on him to fill it in. He looks like he’d bruise under the slightest pressure. Phil raises a hand, reaches out to touch and to bruise. And halts again.
The boy breathes so quietly that Peter can not hear him over the sound of his own body filling the air like thunder; his ragged breath, the beat of his heart, the gurgling of his stomach, the crackling current in his muscle. He does not dare to move, the rustling of his clothing alone shames him. He doesn’t want Peter to hear the beat of his heart and if he touched the boy, he’d feel Phil’s weakness, one vein meeting the other through a thin layer of skin, secrets whispered in blood.
But now Phil is here, having wrestled the boy to the ground, meaning made clear, and the victor must take his spoils or embarrass himself in front of the full assembly of stars. He can hear them laugh. He winces and cowers under it like the beaten child. He does not know what to do, has cornered himself and it’s driving him mad. It is as if the stars are falling down on his head. The sky separates from its fixture and comes drifting towards him, lowering itself over Phil’s eyes like a thin sheet of soft silken fabric.
The smell of the stable fills his nose: hay and manure and grease from a little tin with a smiling woman on it. A great and encompassing warmth lies at his back, a broad chest steadies him, muscles and strength, love and guidance. The heavy hand of Bronco Henry comes down on his shoulders and nudges him forward gently but firmly. Bronco Henry’s big arm moves next to his own, a perfect mirror in the nude. Bronco Henry guides his hand to their purpose and now everything is so easy.
Bronco Henry kisses Peter on his white neck, Bronco Henry spits in his hand and Bronco Henry drives into the boy like a spear. Bronco Henry is a stern teacher. Bronco Henry does not care that Peter pants like a foaling mare or that his thin thighs tremble with each thrust or that his mouth fills with dust and his spit turns to mud. Bronco Henry does not feel the hot tears falling from his lashes. Bronco Henry gifts Peter his seed and remains nestled within him while Peter weeps quietly. Bronco Henry holds Peter in his strong arms, holds him tightly in place. He pets the crown of his head and fills and fills and fills him with love.
Afterwards it is Phil who lies curled up next to Peter, right next to him but unable to touch him again, a thin line of cold empty space keeping them apart. It is Phil who hears Peter pull up his trousers, who hears Peter rise and leave without a word. It is poor, sorry Phil who lies all alone, cold and tired from his labor.
It’s not the rising of the sun but the smell of coffee that rouses Phil the next morning. He opens his eyes, blinks into the sun, turns over and finds Peter seated cross legged at a fire, which he has kindled in the old ashes. He has put a tin can next to the fire, close enough to boil. And he is holding something in his hand, looking at it with great focus. From below where Phil is lying it looks like a flower, but none like that would bloom this time of the year, not around these parts. Peter quickly puts the object away when he notices that Phil is awake.
“Good morning,” Phil says jovially as he sits up.
Peter looks at him and is silent for a while. Then he says, “You cannot keep doing that.”
Phil makes a puzzled face that would certainly make his men laugh if they were here to see him. “Do what?” he asks.
Peter does not reply. The coffee bubbles in its tin.
“Do what, Peter?” Phil repeats, prodding around in the wound that he made. “Speak your mind, Peter, do what?”
“Nothing, Phil,” Peter says.
He pulls a single glove from his pocket and slips it onto his hand. So protected, he grabs the hot tin by the fire and moves it over to Phil so that he may drink from it. The coffee still bubbles for a long time and Phil, who is not patient enough, burns his tongue on it, which he blames on the boy.
They ride home that day in silence, their mouths glued shut, and Rose would never know what Phil had done to her precious boy.