Dance With Me
-A Consideration of the History of Sex, Also an Aphrodesiac-
February 1932
Howard and I shared a hard stare over the table we sat at. In the quiet, I could hear the distant sounds of Forrest's voice through the open back door, and the delicate clink of glass. He was hauling crates out of the stone shed out back, directing Jack where to go and what to do with them. One crate dropped a little hard, resounding in a shrill clash as the jars rocked together, followed by a shout of warning from Forrest. It drew my attention to the door and out into the black of the night. The high and frenzied tone of Jack's apologies subsided, and they were stacking crates once more.
When I turned back to Howard, I saw he continued to watch me steadily through narrowed eyes. "Don't look at me like that," I said as I turned over a page of the book in front of me, wrapping my sweater tighter around my frame. I wish we'd sat at the table in front of the furnace, but that was already occupied by customers. I guess the table catching the draft of the open door was second best.
"Ain't lookin' at nothin'," he said, bringing an open jar to his lips for a quick drink. With a grimace, he slammed it back down onto the table. His face was flushed and beads of sweat gathered and dripped down the side of his face. I began to wonder how much he'd drank so far tonight. "Why are you here?"
"Forrest brought me here," I said softly, folding my hands in my lap. It was a question I was beginning to ask myself. If I'd have known the Bondurants were doing business tonight, I would've stayed home. I'd never seen such a thing before, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to.
"Are you fuckin' my brother?"
It must've been the look in his eye when he asked it that had me at such a loss as whether to slap him or collapse into laughter. His dark eyes burned in accusation, but they were wide with wonder. As though he may have already known the answer, but it was just too much to ever consider, like radio broadcasting, or the earth rotating on its axis. Things most of us have just accepted for what they were, without ever stopping to figure out the how or why. It seemed to be dawning on Howard that he saw me so often for a reason.
I think we mirrored expressions. At least it felt like it; I don't really know what my face looked like at that moment. I probably should've been angry or offended with his breaching boundaries in an outrageously crude manner without a second thought. But I think I'd already learned that you had to have a thick skin around Howard, and couldn't put too much emphasis on the things he said. Wasn't any filter in that brain of his, so we had to filter for him.
But that didn't stop my shock. "The hell is wrong with you, Howard?" I hissed, searching for a foot to stomp on underneath the table. "That ain't none of your goddamn business!"
"Sure it is – damn it Edna, ow!" Howard angled out of the reach of my foot. "I got a right to know!"
"Shut your damn mouth, Howard!" I wanted to hit him. Oh, I wished I could hit him. I looked over my shoulder at the card players by the furnace, but they were immersed in their game. It was safe to throw a fist over the table so I did, but the oldest Bondurant swiped it away with a snort. "What is wrong with you?"
"Nothin's wrong with me, I's just askin' – hey!" Howard caught my wrist when I flung my fist at his face, and when I attempted to pull away from him, he tightened his grasp. "He's my brother."
"Then show him some respect!"
Howard's awe had quickly transitioned from annoyance into amusement. He gave a short laugh, a wry smile stretched across his lips as he eyed my burning cheeks. "Naw…" he said quietly, lids narrowing to mere slits. "Naw, I don't think so. Not yet at least."
"Son of a bitch." I ripped my arm from his grasp, but knew I was free only because he released me as I fell back into my chair, shooting him what I hoped was a wicked glare. Howard only chuckled, and grabbed his jar for another drink.
"S'goin' on?"
Neither of us had heard Forrest come in through the back door. He moved out of the shadows and into the light, hat low over his eyes as they swung between me and Howard, wide shoulders swaying with each step he took. The intensity of his shifting stare had me averting my gaze from both brothers, feeling like I'd done something wrong. "Nothing," I said.
Forrest stopped walking about a pace away from the table. I could feel his eyes on me for a long while, but eventually he turned his attention to Howard. "We got them new'uns from Roanoke comin' in," he said. "The cousins. Stay close."
"Always do," Howard said. The only response to that was a heavy silence and a hard stare from Forrest. The way the oldest brother shifted in his seat made me think he almost regretted his choice words.
Forrest's eyes flickered upward at the sound of a low rumble, and I followed his gaze in time to see the glare of headlights flash through the windows. "Edna, why don't you make some coffee," he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweater as he stepped around my chair. It wasn't a suggestion. I slid out of my chair and hurried behind the counter as he walked over to wait by the door.
I peeked out the window over the sink as I searched for the coffee pot. Cars were slowly beginning to line up around the lot, shadows of men stepping outside to greet each other in low tones. The orange tips of lit cigarettes burned bright in the darkness. I was curious, but I think I was just a little scared too, if my shaking muscles were any indication. I didn't know what to expect. What if something went wrong? If there was a fight, or a shooting, or someone died. How would they explain that to the law? What if they got caught?
But I couldn't forget how a couple of the deputies cozied up to Forrest's bedside on more than one occasion after he was shot. And not one of these men seemed to be the least bit worried about the possibility of getting caught. That had to mean something.
Coffee was brewing when Howard slid into a stool in front of the grill. Several men had filtered into the station, shaking hands and standing by the furnace to warm up while…well I assumed they were waiting for more men to arrive. Regardless, they look prepared to leave at any second, coats kept buttoned up and hats shoved on their heads. Some of the men's suits were nicer than others. I wondered if there was some sort of ranking, a classification of importance in this kind of trade, and if the Bondurant brothers had a higher standing since so many buyers and sellers navigated here to do their business.
I could feel the eyes of some of the men on me, though I tried to ignore it. I brushed it off as mild curiosity; anyone would have it. Maybe they were expecting to see someone else; maybe they weren't expecting a woman to be there at all. Even though not one of them approached me, their lingering stares and quiet conversations had me moving to sit on the other side of Howard and try to hide from their line of sight. Howard spotted and solved my intentions, stopping me with a shake of his head. "Forrest gon' want you to stay behind the counter," he said. His tone insinuated the reason why.
I poured Howard a cup of coffee, and one for myself, and we silently sipped at them as we watched the bootleggers converse. Well I watched. Howard kept his eyes on the wood of the counter for the most part, his head at the slightest tilt and I'm sure he was listening to every little sound around him. Forrest walked in from outside, stopping in the doorway to survey the room. After the pause, his head turned to the right, towards the men near the furnace, and his body followed. He was greeted with smiles and exclamatory welcomes by some, sharp nods by others. He didn't seem to return a gesture to any of them; just stopped walking and a small group would huddle around him for a moment. The men would then disperse, most heading for the door, and Forrest would take another step to form another small group.
Outside, the dull thud of stacking crates and the shouts of men as they directed orders could be heard. Several motors roared to life, doors slammed shut, and rubber skidded over dirt and gravel as bootleggers began to haul their cargo out of the lot. The headlights of the vehicles flashed over the ground and between the trees as they angled back towards the road.
"Howard." The sound of Forrest's voice drew my attention away from the window. He stood in front of a boy that couldn't have been much older than Jack, with a wild tuft of dark hair and a dirty face, but it looked like he wore his Sunday suit for this particular occasion. Forrest's head was lowered and his eyes were on a clump of bills clutched in his hands, but he wasn't sorting through them or counting. I heard Howard sigh behind me, then the scrape of the barstool across the floorboards, and the boy took a step back, eyes growing comically wide. "No, no," he said, with the wavering octaves of a younger man, shaking his head as Howard stepped into my line of sight and grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket.
My mind went blank as I watched Howard drag the boy forward, swing him around, and force his face down into the counter. The boy cried out, a muffled sound as his cheek pressed hard into the wood, and he lifted his hands by his head in surrender. Forrest stepped forward, shuffling the bills in his hands into a neat stack as Howard moved his hands around the boy's body, searching through every pocket, crease, and fold he could find.
"Nothin'," he said, coming out of a crouching position. The boy tried to stand straight, but Howard caught him by the back of the neck and forced him back down.
Forrest gave a small nod, and bent slightly, resting his elbow on the counter as he moved closer to the boy's face. "This ain't enough," he said, holding up the creased fold of bills.
The boy's breath came in shaky huffs as he struggled against Howard's hold. "We was told-"
"You were told wrong." Forrest released a small sigh and quickly glanced up at Howard. "I make my rates very clear, so nothin' like this don't happen."
"Two for the rotgut, four for the whiskey, that's what we was told!"
"That's a load o' shit," Howard growled, tightening his grip on the boy's neck.
Forrest's expression could've been mistaken for disappointment. "Son, we been in the business a lot longer than you. Everyone tryin' to buy for cheaper than they gon' sell. And if you wanna do that, you gotta learn to negotiate. Don't just think we ain't gonna notice."
I almost began to feel bad for the boy and his foolish mistake. His eyes were wide and shining, his mouth agape, words strangling in his throat. He looked fit to cry. "Sorry," he whimpered. "I'm sorry."
Forrest stared down at the boy for a long while. He shifted his gaze to Howard for a fraction of a second, and nodded once. Howard released the boy with a hard shove, and took a step back. He winced, hesitating, and then slowly raised himself off the counter, but he kept his head hung and his eyes to the ground. "I'm gonna keep this," Forrest tucked the fold of bills in the front pocked of his shirt. "Go on out there and tell your cousin to unload. Do your trade, then get the hell out of my lot."
The boy nodded hastily. His expression collapsed when Forrest said he'd be taking his money, but he didn't object to it. He was smart for it. He hurried around Forrest, eager to get away and out the door, and Howard followed close behind. Forrest watched the two men pass him, and lingered only to peek over at me. I was glued to where I stood, silently thanking the Lord that they didn't hurt that poor boy. He had to be the new'un from Roanoke that Forrest had mentioned. No one from Franklin would try to dupe a Bondurant like that. At least not anyone with half a brain. Kid should get out of the business now while he had the chance.
Forrest turned away, and headed outside.
"Forrest, look at this." I smiled to myself as I moved my feet off his lap, shifting them underneath me as I crawled to Forrest's side of the sofa. I shoved the book in my hands in front of his face, pointing down to a picture on the left side of the pages.
We probably should've been asleep. I probably should've gone home. After the bootleggers left the station, Forrest was the only one to return inside. He locked up, and headed to his office for a good hour or so. When I brought him a cup of coffee, I saw a stack of bills lying in front of a log book. He was hunched over that book, scratching numbers into it with a stub of pencil as he thumbed through the bills. He met me upstairs not too long after that. The coffee in our systems promised we'd see the sunrise.
The Doctor had given me one of his old textbooks from university to look through. He said it was from an art history course, and he thought I'd enjoy it. He was right. Some of the art dated all the way back to the times of Ancient Greece. Underneath most pictures was a description of the piece of art, and the meaning behind it, if they knew. I was in the 18th century pieces now, and some of them just left me breathless with how beautiful they were. I had no idea how someone could dream up such an image, and then be able to translate that on canvas, or into marble or stone.
Forrest took the book from my hands and brought it away from his face. "What is it?" he asked, brow creased as he assessed what I was pointing to.
"It's a painting," I said. "Isn't it pretty? It's called The Swing, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard," I attempted my best accent, trying to remember how some people did back home, and it drew a look from Forrest.
"What did you just say?" he asked.
"It's French," I said with a small laugh. "Kinda. But look –," I pointed to a figure tucked away among a shade of shrubbery underneath the swinging woman. "The woman on the swing? That's her lover. See how she's kicking her leg up like that? She's letting him see under her skirts. And that man right there -," I put my fingertip near another figure to the right, seated on what looked to be a bench next to the trunk of a tree. He held on to two ropes that pulled at the swing. "That's her husband."
"How you know that?"
"Says right underneath it. Kinda funny, you think? Scandalous behavior wasn't anything new, even back then. The world was just as crazy then as it is now. But they make it look so pretty." I sighed, resting my head on Forrest's shoulder as I looked down at the picture. "I bet her dress is white in real life. It looks like it would be. Maybe pink. I wish I could see it, and all the colors."
The husband in the picture seemed to be an afterthought. He was in the shadows and hard to see for a reason. We were supposed to be looking at the woman and her lover. The flirtatious look in her eye as she kicked her foot out, the longing in his. He reached for her, the fingers of his other hand straining in desperation for her touch. There was a passion, a desire, and an obvious teasing about the whole scene, yet a lightness to it that made it all seem appropriate. It felt okay to step into their world, outsiders looking in at such a private spectacle. We root for them, and their chance to be together. Lust and love were as much a part of history as anything else. When it is so beautiful and so undeniable, how could it be wrong? It should be something to embrace, shouldn't it?
I glanced up at Forrest. He stared down at the pages, eyes roaming over the images and words. His brow was furrowed. He needed a shave. His lips pursed as he read silently, and as he turned a page I bent low and kissed him hard.
He wasn't expecting that, and I took a little pleasure in catching him off guard. But he regained his bearings, inhaling deeply as he pulled me into his lap. I heard the textbook fall with a thump onto the floor as I shifted a knee to the other side of his legs. What I could only describe as desire pulsed through my lower belly, forcing me to tear my lips away from his at the dizzying sensation. I grasped his shoulders and opened my eyes, trying my hardest not to move against him despite what my body felt like it wanted to do. He stared up at me, eyes wide and shining with a rare anticipation. They were so bright at that moment; I'd never seen so many specks of blue in the gray before. He was waiting for me to move, to act, to make the decision. He was trying his hardest to be patient.
I didn't know what to do. What did I want?
His hands were warm and unmoving against my hips. I wished they'd move. I wished I could feel that warmth all around me, on me, inside me. My God, what was I thinking? What did I want? People did this all the time. It was natural; it made the world go round. Howard made it seem like it was nothing. But it was up to me. I knew Forrest would wait for my decision all night, right there underneath me if he had to. If I decided against it, he wouldn't think or say anything of it. He was a good, decent man in that sense. He was a gentleman. What did I want?
I shifted a little, sitting back on his lap as I watched him. That small move alone had him tightening his hold on me, and the quietest moan caught in his throat. He swallowed hard with a slow blink, and I slid my hands up his shoulders to grasp the back of his neck. So warm. So safe. Gentle. Patient. So unlike his public perception. I wondered how many others have been able to see this side of him. What did I want?
I wanted him. All of him. Always.
"Forrest wanted to stay light on her body, to hold her softly like you might hold a bird in your hands, and on his chest he could feel the warm, thrilling beating of her heart." The Wettest County in the World, Matt Bondurant, pg. 108.
I think I've been watching too much Boardwalk Empire. That's all I have to say about that.
I advise you to look up the painting in this chapter, if you don't already know it. It's breathtaking. Probably my fifth most favorite work of art! The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard, Oil on Canvas 1766, The Wallace Collection, London.
This early (ish) update is my thank you for all the kind words I've been recieving. You have no idea how much it means to me. Your words and your feedback and support for this story constantly and continuously make my day and keep my passion for writing alive. Also, I swooned a little after TC Stark promoted my story in her Lawless fic. Huge, incredible honor. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! If you haven't read any of TC Stark's work, go check it out! Highly recommended.
So, I'd like to make the next chapter from Forrest's point of view. But I don't know if that would disrupt the flow of the story or not. Let me know what you think about that possibility, so I can get to writing it! One way or another. Love you all, thanks for loving this story!
