I would like to thank all the reviewers who have left comments. I wish I could reply to each and every one of you, but I'll have to settle for this group thank-you.
Actually, this chapter (in which nothing much proceeds) is a bit of a thank-you to everyone who's read this story and left me such nice feedback. You've all been so patient, and haven't made any demands, and so I give you this chapter, easily half of which consists of Jack and Ennis making out, having sex, or otherwise going at each other. Don't ever say I never did nothin' for ya.
Liz sat cross-legged on top of the covers, staring at the four legal pads spread out before her. One was labeled "History," another "Relationship," another was "Practical Life," and the last two were "Community" and "Sex Life." Four of these pads were full of notes, scribbles, and written snippets. The fifth was totally blank.
She had to ask them about their private relationship at some point. She couldn't put it off forever. She could certainly write about them without mentioning the existence of their sex life at all, but that seemed somehow cowardly. It stripped them of an important part of their humanity to water down their relationship and impose a veil of chastity upon it. It felt like pandering, making their story easier to accept for the more squeamish reader, and she despised pandering in all its forms. Ennis and Jack weren't a couple of sanctified, asexual, sanitized-for-your-protection gay men to be tolerated only for their value as style advisors or comic relief, they were a pair of healthy, red-blooded ranchers and she knew damned well that they had sex, probably a lot of it, and it would be dishonest to the point she was trying to make (not to mention unfair to them) to pretend that they didn't.
The problem was that she'd left her objectivity in the dust, and that was her own damned fault. She couldn't look at them and see journalistic subjects any more. She looked at them and saw Ennis and Jack, and she was loathe to intrude upon their privacy. She also had a pretty good idea how they'd respond to such queries, and it wasn't an optmistic outlook. Ennis would not want to talk about it. He'd probably get up and leave if the subject ever came up. Jack might be coaxed into a discussion, but only if Ennis was out of earshot, and he'd be wary of sharing too much of something he held dear and precious. She couldn't stand to interview them as she would a stranger, carefully drawing them out and manipulating them with a series of orchestrated questions designed to break down their inhibitions and make them open up to her.
She'd tried to avoid having to ask questions by gathering her information through observation. That approach had been wildly unsuccessful, to say the least, due to the simple fact that they gave nothing away. If she hadn't known the true nature of their relationship, she might have assumed they were roommates, or friends, or even brothers. The physical contact she'd observed between them had consisted of exactly two instances of Ennis's hand on Jack's neck: once when he'd gone out to check the fenceline, and once as they left the Trimble house. She had accidentally observed them asleep in bed, but that didn't tell her anything. They'd just been lying there.
The simple fact was that they were not men who engaged in casual contact...that is to say, not when they could be observed. For all she knew, they were all over each other constantly when they were alone in the house, although she doubted it.
She also had to admit to a certain prurient interest, and it made her uneasy about her own motives. She didn't know the first thing about gay sex. That hadn't been part of the birds-and-bees talk, at least not the one she'd gotten. She presumed people had written books about it, but that didn't help her very much now. But Ennis and Jack didn't exist to satisfy her ignorant curiosity, and would probably not take too kindly to being asked for answers to all the embarrassingly explicit questions that had occurred to her. Who's on top? Is it always the same, or do you switch off? Does it hurt? Do you have to use some kind of product? Can you do it face to face? Is there oral? Do you kiss a lot, or not as much as with women? She felt twelve years old again, learning about sex for the first time and wondering where the penis went. She wished she could conjure up some anonymous, friendly gay man who would just answer all her practical questions so she could stop thinking about it.
The entire topic was just too...unsettling. Thinking about their sex life brought to mind uncomfortable mental images of her handsome male friends doing unspecified naked things together, which made her feel like a dirty voyeur and gave her strange fluttery feelings in her midsection that she was trying to ignore.
Happily, her circular arguments were interrupted by a quiet knock on her door. "Come in," she said, tucking the pad labeled "Sex Life" underneath her briefcase. The door opened and Junior leaned in. "Oh, hello," she said.
"D'you mind if I come in?" Junior said.
"No, please." Liz cleared the rest of the notebooks away and motioned to the end of the bed. "Have a seat." Liz had liked Junior almost at once. She was quiet like Ennis, but far more willing to be drawn into conversation. Once the topic had been brought up, she'd had a lot of questions for Liz about city life and her job as a reporter.
What had been more interesting to Liz was to observe the dynamics between the three of them. Ennis sat next to Junior, his body language communicating his ease with her. Jack sat nearby on the edge of a chair, leaning forward, silently telling Liz that he wanted to be included in their family bond, but wasn't quite sure of his place. Junior seemed easy enough with Jack when they interacted, but when he and her father spoke to each other, no matter how innocuous the exchange, she withdrew just a little, her eyes cutting away and her arms drawing in.
Now, Junior climbed up on the bed and crossed her legs, mimicing Liz's own posture. "It's just a new thing to have another girl in the house," Junior said with a shy smile. "Daddy's gone to bed, and I'm wide awake yet."
"Me too. I was just organizing some of my notes."
"Oh! Can I see?"
"Sure," Liz said, pulling out the "Practical Life" legal pad, the one that seemed the safest to show Ennis's daughter.
Junior flipped a few pages, her eyes scanning Liz's chicken scratches. "All this just about Daddy 'n Jack?"
"That's one of five notebooks."
"I can't imagine there'd be this much to write about."
"This life is new to me. I have to write down everything I find out, not just about them, but about the ranch and the town." Liz cocked her head. "Can I ask you a few questions?"
"Sure."
"You seem very accepting of your dad's choices now, but it can't have been easy for you at the beginning. Do you feel comfortable talking to me about that a little?"
Junior nodded. "Thing is, I didn't know for awhile what had happened. I just knew he'd moved away and started a ranch. I didn't know about Jack. Then when I did find out, I didn't really understand what it meant. When I finally did...well, it was bad for awhile."
"I can imagine."
"It was like my dad had died, and there was this whole other man in his place. Then come to find out that maybe who I thought was my dad never existed, and it was always that other man, all the time, and that the dad I knew was just some mask he put on to hide the man he really was. I felt jealous that Jack had known his real self all that time, and maybe I'd only known the mask." She sighed. "But then after the first coupla times I came out here to visit, I could see that it was my same old dad, except...happier." She stared at the bedspread, her hands toying with one of the yarn tie-offs on the crazy quilt. "I don't say this to Daddy, but...I still have my troubles."
"Like what?"
Junior glanced up at Liz's face, then lowered her eyes again and spoke quietly. "I pretend they're just friends," she murmured. "In my head. I know they're not, but it's just easier to think of it that way."
"I can see how it would be."
"I don't like to think that they're...you know. Like that. I try and keep it in my head that it's just my dad, and his friend Jack, and they just live here together, and that's all." She frowned. "Does that sound mean?"
Liz laughed. "Junior, kids have been telling themselves the very same thing about their parents since time began."
The house was full of the heavy stillness of summer midnight when Liz got up to answer the call of nature. Half-asleep, she shuffled to the bathroom and did her business, yawning mightily. She went to the mirror and peered at her reflection, observing that she'd gotten some sun since she'd been here. The freckles were rising on her cheekbones.
She sucked in a breath as she caught a quick movement out of the corner of her eyes. She went to the window, her heart pounding, and looked out to the backyard just in time to see Ennis, in his pajamas, skulking across the yard from the house. Liz frowned. Why on earth would Ennis be sneaking out in the middle of the night? The only reason people did that was...she shook her head. It couldn't be. Ennis could not possibly be meeting some illicit lover on the side. She refused to believe it. He wasn't the type to cheat.
She slipped into the hallway, fully awake now. She could see the closed door to their bedroom, and she could picture Jack inside, blissfully asleep and unaware while Ennis was out there doing God knows what. Ire rose in her throat on Jack's behalf, and before she could stop herself she was out the back door and silently hurrying across the yard in a half-crouch, the white splotch of Ennis's t-shirt guiding her. She kept to the shadows cast by the greenish halogen night-lights on the outbuildings and watched as Ennis ducked into the stables.
Liz slipped past the barn to the far side of the stables so she'd have a better vantage point. Ennis was standing in the doorway to the groom's quarters, which went largely unused because Billy didn't live at the ranch. He was looking out to the yard, like he was waiting for someone. Liz hunkered down into the shadows...she could see him, but there was no way he could see her.
Ten minutes went by. Ennis waited, pacing now and again, mostly just watching the yard. She saw him take out a cigarette, stare at it for a moment, then throw it away. Finally, at length, she heard a quick whistle from somewhere out in the shadows. Ennis perked up, and she heard him exhale in relief as a figure detached itself from the darkness and came into the stables to join him. Liz's jaw tightened as Ennis stepped forward and embraced the man (for it was, indeed, a man).
How could he, Liz thought, all her rosy pictures of Jack and Ennis's grand, fairy-tale passion for each other falling into shambles around her. Jack trusts him...and I would never have thought him capable of... Liz's jaw dropped open. Ennis had taken a step back and turned, the man in his arms coming into view, a shaft of light falling across his face.
It was Jack, of course. Who else? Liz slapped a non-metaphorical hand to her forehead. Had she actually thought that Ennis had a little bit on the side? Yes, she had, but given the circumstances she thought she could be forgiven. Why would a man sneak out of his house for a secret rendezvous with his own partner when he had a perfectly serviceable bed in his very own bedroom...right across the hall from where his teenaged daughter was sleeping. She nodded. All was now clear, it made perfect...
Oh my. Liz blinked, her eyes riveted to the sight of Ennis and Jack kissing the hell out of each other. She'd never seen two men kiss before. All her experience with kissing, both observing and participating, had been of the hetero variety. In those situations, there always seemed to be a kisser and a kissee, usually the man and the woman, respectively. Here, there were two kissers, and it looked like they were engaged in some kind of contest to determine who was the alpha kisser. Happily, this seemed to be the sort of contest in which everybody won.
I shouldn't be watching this. This is private. I'm intruding. I really ought to be leaving now. I can't believe I'm...
God, that's hot.
Liz clapped a hand over her eyes, stood up, and backed away from her hiding place. She looked away from the stables before she lowered her hand, then scurried back to the house as fast (and as quietly) as her legs could carry her
Ennis stared at the cigarette. It was calling to him. "Come on, Ennis. Just one. It'll taste so good, you know it will. He won't notice." The hell he wouldn't. He'd get within five feet and his nose would wrinkle right up in a way that would have been cute if it hadn't meant that he wasn't coming any closer. "God, Ennis," he'd say. "You stink like an ashtray." And that would shrink Ennis's chances of getting any tonight to a tiny little nothing. He threw the cigarette away.
He looked at his wrist, but his watch wasn't there, of course. He'd just pulled on a t-shirt over his pajama bottoms. Jack was supposed to follow in ten minutes, but he'd been known to draw it out just to punish Ennis for making him go through this cloak-and-dagger routine every time Junior came to visit.
He amused himself by picturing Jack lying in bed, waiting for it to be time. He'd have one arm tucked behind his head, his chest bare...Ennis closed his eyes, wishing he was there instead of out here in this drafty old stable. He could look at Jack forever, a fact that had taken him a long time to assimilate into his idea of himself. Ennis Del Mar was a tit man. He liked the swell of a woman's hips and the curve of her waist. He liked long hair and smooth skin and soft lips. Soft lips were a particular favorite of his, in fact. He liked women's bodies. Right?
Well, that was what he'd always thought. Which was why it had come as such a surprise to him back on Brokeback to feel a little flutter in his midsection whenever Jack smiled, that wide grin full of white teeth that hit him like a dive into a cool lake on a hot day. How could he be a man with an eye for the ladies when those same eyes kept straying to admire how Jack filled out his jeans, and how he looked up on that jumpy mare, his legs flexing to keep himself on her while she did her damnedest to buck him right off?
And then...oh, and then when it had happened. If he liked women so much, how was it that when speech deserted him, leaving him grunting and gasping from the feeling of being inside Jack's hot tightness, all he could think was God, how did I live without this? That whole next day, astride Cigar under the first sun that shone upon an Ennis Del Mar who'd known another man's body, his feverish thoughts had melted from how did I live without that? into how did I live without him?
By the time he'd returned to camp that evening, Ennis was sure of nothing except the need that flowed through him like blood from a wound, the need to touch Jack again and feel that ease and lightness that came to him when Jack smiled. They'd sat at that fire for hours, not speaking, the questions they weren't asking poisoning the casual intimacy they'd known before. Ennis had come within a hair's breadth of saying to hell with it, and heading back up to the sheep. He didn't like to think what his life might be now if he'd done so then. He'd never know where he'd gotten the guts to get up and go into that tent, but his reward for his nerve had been the unexpected release of being cradled in Jack's strong arms, of letting go of the world and all its expectations and giving himself over to the feeling of Jack's skin and his kiss and that nameless thing that had somehow been created between them.
Now, of course, it didn't trouble him to know that while he might still have an appreciation for a pretty woman's curves, he had an even greater appreciation for the strong cords of Jack's forearms and that ridge of muscle that ran around his hipbone. But not everything had been an adjustment. As he'd found out that second night, when he'd felt a strange new emotion that he now knew to have been love touch his heart for the first time in his life, Jack did have awful soft lips.
He heard a quick whistle from outside and straightened up. Jack came out of the shadows, a half-smile on his face. He didn't waste any words, just came into Ennis's arms and kissed him hard, those soft lips so recently in Ennis's thoughts attacking his own as if to show him who was boss here. As far as Ennis was concerned, Jack could be boss if he wanted to, so long as his person was still available for Ennis's ongoing appreciation.
Ennis held Jack's head in his hands and coaxed his lips open with his tongue, feeilng Jack's breath rushing into his own lungs. Jack was murmuring something, Ennis had no idea what and he didn't much care, he was too taken up with that feeling of Jack opening himself to him, a feeling that he never got tired of. Sometimes, especially in the earlier days of their relationship, just knowing that Jack loved him enough to give himself over to Ennis's desire was a powerful aphrodisiac. By now he knew that Jack was getting as good as he was giving, but it still moved him to know that as much as he wanted Jack, he himself was wanted just as much in return.
"Ennis." Jack finally managed to form the words. Ennis could feel him grinning. "Whoa there, cowboy. You're powerful revved up tonight. You get started without me? That ain't very sportin' of you."
Ennis smiled. "Naw. I was jus' thinkin' 'bout you while I waited, is all." He harrumphed. "Mighta got myself a bit het up."
The smile faded from Jack's face. "You always get me het up," he said, his voice a low purr that communicated directly to Ennis's spinal column. With a growl, he yanked Jack's mouth back to his and steered him blindly backwards into the groom's quarters. He could feel Jack's erection pressing into his hip; he grabbed the hem of Jack's t-shirt and yanked it up over his head.
Jack seized Ennis's shoulders and spun him around, then pushed him back until his legs hit the bed. God, he's a wild man tonight, Ennis just had time to think before Jack dropped to his knees, yanked Ennis's pajama pants down and dove in without preamble. "Christ, Jack," Ennis moaned. He steadied himself with one hand on the wall, his other twining through Jack's hair. The first time Jack had done this (which had been ridiculously late in their relationship) he'd been amazed to find that he found the sight of it almost as exciting as the feeling. The precious few times Alma had been persuaded to oblige him, he'd shut his eyes and immersed himself in the sensation, but with Jack, he couldn't bear to look away lest he miss a single moment. He had to see himself sliding into Jack's mouth, the way his lips looked wrapped around his shaft, and the image that always undid him, as it was about to do...Jack always chose just the right moment to cast his eyes up to Ennis's face, and the sight of him looking up from beneath his lashes was like a jolt that short-circuited Ennis's brain.
Ennis came with a cry, his knees giving out and pitching him onto the bed. Jack pulled his pajama pants the rest of the way off and crawled up over him, shucking his own in the process. Ennis curved his body into the whole length of Jack against him, naked and warm; he wrapped him up and maneuvered them both onto the bed, wriggling out of his t-shirt and winding his legs through Jack's as they kissed, all the clothes landing where they were tossed.
Ennis angled his hips into Jack's, sliding his hands down to his ass to let Jack know what he wanted. Jack drew back. "Really?" he whispered. "You sure?"
"Yeah," Ennis said, nodding. He started to turn over, but Jack stopped him.
"No," he said. "Like this. I wanna watch you," he said, ducking his head to kiss Ennis again. He didn't let up, just kept kissing him while Ennis reached between their bodies, smoothing over Jack's hardness from the jar they kept hidden behind the headboard. Ennis clutched at Jack's back as he entered him, gasping and willing himself to relax, knowing it would be worth the effort in the end. He still wasn't terribly accustomed to this. It had been two years into their residence here at the ranch before he could even work up the guts to attempt it. Jack had never pressured him, but Ennis felt vaguely guilty about always being on top. He could admit to a desire to know what it felt like to have Jack inside him, to watch Jack's face and see how he was making him feel.
The first time had been...not good. A bit like being reamed out with an axe-handle. Afterwards, Ennis had spent a good ten minutes apologizing to Jack for their first time while Jack laughed and reassured him it hadn't been that bad, which Ennis privately doubted.
But now, that first time felt like long ago as he laid there looking up into Jack's eyes, watching the twitches under his skin as he pressed forward until he was fully sheathed. Ennis swallowed back a groan at the potent sensation of being filled, being taken, being claimed that always came to him at this moment. It was the perceived powerlessness of this act that had frightened him for so long, but once he'd actually done it, he found that it had quite the opposite effect on him. Giving himself to Jack made him feel powerful, in some ephemeral way that he didn't really understand but couldn't deny. Jack exhaled and propped himself on his elbows, pressing the flats of his hands to the sides of Ennis's face. "You okay, cowboy?" he whispered.
Ennis grinned, wrapping his legs around Jack's hips. "I will be if you do me right, darlin'," he murmured.
Jack groaned and dropped his head to Ennis's shoulder. "God, you drive me crazy," he muttered. And then it was all breath and heat and Jack inside him and then he just wanted it harder and faster. He urged Jack on with his hands and his lips and Jack obliged him, and then he was coming again and Jack kissed his moans away before pushing his thighs back and letting loose, muscles flexing under Ennis's hands until he finally sailed past the edge, crying out and collapsing into Ennis's arms with a dopey grin on his face. "Christ almighty, Ennis," he panted. "One 'o these days, I swear I'm gonna blow out my ticker in bed with you."
Ennis smiled and kissed his forehead. "Well, there ain't no way I'd rather go."
They got under the covers in the groom's quarters once the night air chilled the sweat from their bodies. Jack's hand idly stroked Ennis's hair where his head lay on Jack's shoulder, his other arm wrapped around Ennis's chest. He was still reeling from the sex they'd just had and from the fact that Ennis had wanted him on top. That was not a frequent occurrence, and when it had happened before, like as not Jack had asked for it.
Ennis sighed. "Tell me somethin'."
"Sure."
"You ever had sex this good before?"
Jack nodded. "Oh, yeah. 'Course I have."
Ennis's head popped up, an almost comically perturbed expression on his face. "You have?"
Jack couldn't keep it up and broke into a grin. "Hell, yes. Last Tuesday, when we did it in the shower. I was seein' stars for half an hour."
Ennis's frown deepened and his eyes narrowed, but a smirk was flirting with the corners of his mouth. "That ain't what I meant and you know it, Jack fuckin' Twist, and you know I was thinkin' I might just want to go again but now I ain't so sure."
"Then if you got a question for me, ask it proper."
Ennis sighed wearily. "You ever had sex this good with anyone else?"
Jack shook his head. "No, 'course not. You?"
He let his head fall to Jack's chest again. "Not even close," he mumbled. They just laid there for a few minutes, touching each other and enjoying the afterglow. Jack felt Ennis's breath warm on his neck and the beat of his heart through his own chest. "Earlier, when I was waitin' for you," Ennis said, "I was thinkin' about that second night on Brokeback."
Jack smiled. "Yeah." It was a memory he took out and examined often. How hesitant Ennis had been, how he hadn't even been able to meet Jack's eyes, and then once he'd surrendered to it, how Jack had felt all the tension leave Ennis's body and mold to his, his hands on Jack's bare chest. The night before might have been their first fuck, but it was that second night that stayed stronger in Jack's memory. That had been the start of it, for real. That was when it started to be more than just a fuck. Jack sighed. "I love you, Ennis," he murmured, kissing his forehead. He felt Ennis smile against his chest and burrow closer into his arms. He didn't expect him to say it back. He'd said it a few days ago, and then he'd heard it secondhand from Liz (somethin' fierce) and that would hold him for a long time.
"I got a funny feelin'," Ennis said after another long silence.
"Your leg asleep or somethin'?"
He chuckled. "No, about Liz."
"Ennis, if you are thinkin' about Lizzie when we're naked in bed together, then we have got a problem."
"Shut up and lemme finish."
"Fine, go ahead."
Ennis shifted. "I think she's fixin' t'ask us about this."
Jack frowned. "About what?"
"You know. Our...private life."
"You mean our sex life."
"Well, yeah."
"You're prob'ly right. She's a reporter, and reporters are nosy by nature, and if she's gonna write about us and our Big Gay Ranchin' Lifestyle then I guess that's part of it, ain't it? Plus she's prob'ly curious."
Ennis harrumphed. "What we do together in private ain't none 'o her affair."
"Nothin' is, but that don't stop her askin'. Nor us tellin', to judge by how much we both been flappin' our lips of late."
He rose up on one elbow to meet Jack's eyes. "What're you sayin', you think we ought to tell her about our sex life?"
Jack shrugged. "I ain't suggestin' we describe our favorite positions in detail, but what's the harm in talkin' 'bout it in a general kinda way?"
Ennis flopped onto his back at Jack's side. "I won't never be able to look her in the face again."
"Right, I forgot. I am talkin' to a man who cain't stand to have sex in his own house when his daughter's visitin'."
"Christ, Jack, she's right across the fuckin' hall! She's like to be traumatized for life if'n she were to hear...something..."
"Well, Lizzie ain't your daughter, and I think we oughta to talk to her 'bout it. Last coupla days I seen her eyein' us like she's got somethin' on her mind she don't know how to say. We could spare her the trouble 'o workin' up the nerve to ask us and just sit her right down and have a chat 'bout it."
Ennis grunted. "I don't feel right tellin' someone our private stuff, Jack." He raised up again. Jack was surprised by the tender expression on his face. He reached up and laid a hand on Jack's cheek, letting his thumb run across his lips. "That stuff's special. It's just for us."
Jack nodded. "I don't want to lay it all out for the world to see, neither. But we could at least hear what she wants to ask, then decide. You don't have to say nothin' if you don't want to." He turned on his side and nuzzled his head into Ennis's shoulder. "I don't wanna talk 'bout Lizzie no more," he murmured, kissing his neck. He felt more than heard a rumbling start low in Ennis's chest.
"What do you want, then?" Ennis responded, his hands roaming down Jack's bare back, a smile in his voice.
Jack drew back. "I gotta spell it out for you, lover?"
Ennis claimed not to care for most endearments (he called Jack "rodeo" most of the time, using "darlin" when he was feeling especially emotional and one other term in very rare and intimate occasions) but Jack knew that secretly, for some reason, it revved Ennis's engines when Jack called him "lover." This had been accidentally discovered when Jack had once used the term in jest. Ennis had immediately stopped laughing, his dark eyes glittering, and asked him to say it again. Jack had, all humor gone from his tone, and Ennis had attacked him with renewed vigor.
It worked its magic once again that night, and Jack could do little but hang on and enjoy the ride.