Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
TUCKER
Iwatch out the dusty window, knowing that I shouldn’t. Knowing that if Forest should look up, he’d see me too. Maybe then he’d do the smart thing. Maybe then, he’d run the opposite way, back down the mountain before it’s too late.
There’s something about watching someone, something about watching him specifically. I wonder what—who—he’s thinking about with one palm held against the trunk of a tree and the other pumping his cock.
Those of us born to this place, our souls are connected to it.
The rest of them are intruders, dancing on land that does not belong to them.
They’d never understand this deep-rooted entanglement that keeps us here.
Never understand the way the wilderness courses through our veins. Watching us. Guiding us.
The amount of times I’ve laid on my back in the dirt, naked and free, edging myself to release under the harsh light of the morning sun… The amount of times I’ve given myself to the Wilds, planting my seed in every corner of this mountain. In every river. In every creek.
Forest fought and clawed his way from this place, always denying the animal within.
But as he strokes his cock one last time, shooting his seed onto the bark of the tree, I’m reminded he can never outrun that of which will always break free.
He hunches forward, bowing his head against the tree, and pulls his wet shorts up the curves of his ass that’s unburdened by ink.
Perhaps the only part of his body that’s still clean.
Some would say the most important part.
“I don’t appreciate what lying does to my soul.
” I close the curtain and turn around, arms folded over each other.
“Some people are born liars and corrupt everything they touch.” I take a seat on the antique rocking chair beside the bed.
An eerie silence falls over the room. “You did this to me, to them, to us, to yourself.”
Filo doesn’t say a word, lost somewhere between a quiet sleep and leaving this world. He’s on his back, his arms nestled over the chocolate-brown covers pulled to his chest. Every breath he takes is labored; his chest rising and falling. Every gasp inches him closer to the last.
I begin to rock slowly, the wood of the chair creaking over wooden floors, and stare at the painting on the wall of Filo and his last wife, my mother. She’d be proud of me, standing in the place she left behind. I check the clock on the wall, a little after six.
Time for the good stuff.
My knee cracks as I stand up, step around the bed, and grab a brown glass bottle from the nightstand.
The word Nirvana is scribbled in ink over a white label.
I pour a tablespoonful of the concoction and lower it to Filo’s mouth.
It takes a little force to pry open his dry lips, but he swallows every last drop.
“Your son is home, but he’s not coming to save you.
” I grab a cloth from the nightstand and wipe the medicine from his lips and facial hair.
“He thinks you’re out on one of your retreats up north.
” I trace my hand over the side of his face and down the front of his throat.
Wrap my hand around his throat, but don’t squeeze.
Not yet. “They weren’t ever real, though.
Were they?” My grip tightens, the muscles of his throat flaring beneath my touch. “Answer me!”
He doesn’t, because he can’t.
I blow out the candle on the nightstand, shrouding the room in a shadow of darkness as the only form of light splits through the drawn curtain. I pull the brown covers to the side, climb into bed beside him, and place a hand on his beating heart.
“When did you abandon your faith?” I ask in a whisper. “The Wilds give and it takes, and it appears as if your time is running out fast.” I nuzzle my head into the crook of his neck. “This place is mine now. You can’t stop me from taking it.”
There’s just one small hitch—the untimely return of the true heir. A return that my cock welcomes. A return at the exact wrong time, nonetheless.
I kiss Filo on his reddened cheek and climb back out of bed. When I leave the room, I lock the door behind me with a skeleton key shaped like a wolf.
A few hours after Forest retires to his room, I use the same skeleton key to unlock his door and sneak inside.
I take a seat in the chair in the corner of the room and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The only way he’s ever been able to sleep is under pitch-black conditions.
It’s why his room is the only one without a window.
The light of the moon was his biggest disturbance, as if it had the power to lure him from the deadest of sleep.
I watch him for hours, curled up on his side with his legs pulled high.
And I remember all the things he pretends he doesn’t.
The way he used to touch me, and the way I’d touch him back.
Remember the way I felt inside him on that very bed, when he awoke me from a dead sleep—just the way we planned.
I’m sure there’s a word for it out there, the desire to be awoken in such a manner.
I think I lasted about fifteen seconds once I awoke, and then I fucked him again.
And again.
And again.
He’d always howl, scrape his nails across the skin of my back.
Some of these scars are his.
And he proclaims that he doesn’t remember any of it.
He tosses in his sleep, his feet kicking out the bottom of the blanket. His head turns to the right, violently folding onto the pillow. Thrashing.
I wonder what he’s dreaming about.
Just before the sun rises in the morning, I awake from a short nap. Like clockwork, I always wake at the same exact time, not a moment too soon. Not a moment too late. Always just before the sun rises.
Forest awakes right after me, his eyes flashing open. He jolts up in bed, clutching the covers on either side of him. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Did you dream that you were running through the wilderness, naked and free?”
He exhales, breath hitched. “I dreamed of male strippers and coconut cream pie.”
He’s lying because he knows I’m right. It’s the same dream I have every night.
I nod. “Why are you still here?”
He leans over the side of the bed, his bare ass peeking out from beneath the blanket. He grabs his underwear and shimmies into them under the covers. “I’m waiting for my father to return.”
“You might be waiting a while.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world.”
“Get dressed,” I say as I rise to my feet. “We’re going to the village.”