Watching Jack Twist.
Characters belong to Annie Proulx and Brokeback Mountain.
Some evenings after he'd argued with Alma – they did that a lot - Ennis would sit outside on the stairs above the back entrance to the Laundromat and smoke a while.
At such times there came winging back to him clear memories of Jack on the mountain.
Mornings after they'd made love, Jack would sleep while Ennis dressed again to go out and get his breakfast which Jack had prepared for him. Although Jack was heavy on the sarcasm about his own cooking that young fellah was a good cook – satisfied Ennis no end…..
While Jack slept Ennis would watch him as he dressed – one morning came back to him: Jack lay naked with a film of sweat on his sweet skin, stretched out like a cat he was. Ennis had never seen such long eyelashes on a man – his eyelids twitched as though he dreamt. His hair was dark brown, almost black, glossy, curled around his ears. There was a rose flush still upon his face.
Slowly and gently Ennis stroked Jack's soft cheek, eliciting a gentle moan from his darlin. Slowly he ran his forefinger along Jack's back- bone from above his lovely ass, slowly slowly to his elegant neck – how he loved him!
Ennis drew the smoke in from his cigarette, exhaled and looked up to the sky. Earlier, silver clouds with flat bottoms and billowing tops had skimmed along like ships in sail, now looking up to the star filled zenith Ennis saw many shooting stars, one after another - somewhere, maybe, his darlin watched these too.
Ennis sobbed and lowered his head, extinguished his smoke. Behind him he heard Alma shouting at the girls. There came to him then a sense of something wonderful and beautiful lost – that something had a name, was a person: his own, his darlin - Jack Twist.