Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

I did sleep in Lovesong’s bed that night.

I did so not to make love, but to feel safe.

We curled up together under the blankets, his arms wrapped tight around me, while Chet curled up at our feet.

Needless to say sleep did not come easy, and when I did drift off, my mind was filled with the blood-curdling shriek of the woman behind the curtains, the sound of Iggy’s spoons, and the angry roar of Lovesong ready to take on Satan himself as he shouted, “Whether you’re the Devil or not, make yourself known!”

At some point before dawn, the weariness caught up with me and I went into a deep, deep sleep.

When I woke, sunlight was pouring in through the French doors.

We had closed them before we went to bed. I had placed the urn and the tape back in my suitcase, and tried to scuff out the muddy words on the floor with my shoe without Lovesong knowing, but now the doors were open again.

There was nothing ominous about the sway of the breeze or the billow of the curtains in the safe light of day.

I felt even safer when I saw Lovesong, standing by his dresser and pulling on his work shirt.

Chet barked to signal I was awake, and Lovesong turned in my direction. “How do you feel? You tossed and turned all night, then finally you went to sleep. I didn’t wanna wake you.”

“I’m… I’m okay, I guess. For now. But what happens tonight? What happens when that thing comes back? What if it doesn’t just go through my suitcase next time? What if it wants to hurt us?”

Lovesong shook his head. “I don’t think it wants to hurt us. I think it’s trying to warn us.” He sat on the bed beside me and pulled on his boots. “Wait here for me this afternoon. As soon as I finish in the fields, I’ll come get you.”

“And take me where?”

He kissed me, then said, “The bayou. I think there’s someone we need to see in the bayou.”

The bayou?

Weren’t there fucking alligators and swamp rats and certain death in the bayou?

Standing out front of Earl’s Auto in the glaring heat of day, I wiped the sweat off my neck and glanced down toward the end of the street, where the cotton fields whittled away, and the plantation landscape morphed into the shallows of the marshes.

“Well, the new timing belt and spark plugs work a treat,” called Earl from inside his mechanic workshop. “If we get the other parts today, your car will be back on the road by tomorrow.”

With my eyes still trained nervously on the bayou at the edge of town, barely anything Earl said filtered into my brain. “Thank you,” I called back, distracted. “That sounds amazing. I’m sure you’re doing your best work.”

I glanced back to give him a polite nod, and Earl wiped his greasy hands down the front of his coveralls. “Not sure my ‘best work’ has ever been ‘amazing,’ but hell, compliments can sometimes be in short supply in these parts, so I’ll take what I can get.”

Without saying goodbye, I ventured out onto the street, looking back to the not-so-distant swamps when I heard another voice behind me.

“Ah, Mr. Van Owen. What fortunate timing.”

I turned to see Reverend Jim and his wife Adeline stepping out of the church, both dressed in black, the reverend’s wife opening a black lace parasol to fend off the brutal sun. The insects of the fields sang a deafening chorus as the pair appeared, as though the mere sight of them was enough to summon a plague.

Reverend Jim shouted over the throng of bugs. “We hope you’re enjoying your sojourn in our dear little town. Are you finding your accommodation at Maybelle’s Manor… adequate.”

I gave a polite smile. “Maybelle’s is more than adequate. As a matter of fact, I’m sharing a room with your son.”

“Oh!” The reverend and his wife said at the same time.

“I do hope he’s behaving himself,” Reverend Jim remarked, trying so hard not to imply what was obvious in his tone.

I struggled to hide my smirk. “Would you expect anything less of your son?”

The reverend said nothing in response, he simply cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Mr. Van Owen, I feel like we may have gotten off on the wrong foot. My wife and I would like to extend an invitation for supper at our place after tonight’s service. We’d be most honored if you’d oblige.”

“Oh. Um. Actually… I think I might be busy.”

He laughed. “Well, I’m sure whatever it is that’s keeping you busy can wait till tomorrow. As I said, we’d be most honored if you’d oblige.”

I felt like the reverend was going to persist until I agreed, so I decided to save us all the time. “Okay. Thank you. Yes, I’ll come, that’s very kind of you.”

The reverend and his wife smiled. “Excellent. We look forward to seeing you then.”

They turned and walked on, the choir of insects dimming their volume until soon not a single cricket or bug chirped.

Even though the sun was lower in the sky by the time Lovesong returned from the fields and the day was crawling to an end, the temperature only got hotter, the air more intense.

Lovesong quickly changed out of his sweat-drenched work clothes, his naked body shimmering with a sheen of perspiration, and for a moment I wanted to try to convince him to forget about the bayou.

But the thought of the creature turning up again in the dead of night had my stomach in knots, and if there was a way of stopping it from happening again—of even confronting whoever it was—then no matter how nerve-racking the thought of that was, I was willing to do it for my sanity’s sake. Especially if Lovesong was there to keep me safe.

Besides, I didn’t think I had a hope of talking Lovesong out of whatever we were about to do. He had a tense and determined expression on his face, his brow creased with conviction.

“Where exactly in the bayou are we going?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. He simply turned to his bed where he knew Chet was sitting. “Chet, buddy, you need to stay here. There’s gators in the swamp that’ll eat you whole.”

“Gators? You mean there really are alligators out there?” I couldn’t hide my alarm.

“It’s a bayou, Noah. Not a duck pond.”

I gulped and he grabbed my hand. “We can’t let anybody see us. You have to make sure nobody sees us.”

“Why?”

“Because nobody ever goes to the bayou. Except the one person who lives there. Now come on, we need to get there and back before dark. You don’t wanna be in the bayou after dark.”

He hurried me down the stairs, again stepping over the cracks and holes, then out of the manor and onto the street without anyone spotting us. Maybelle was no doubt busy in the kitchen and Leroy was probably stocking the bar.

Side by side we walked hastily down the street, Lovesong’s hand on my shoulder.

The church door was closed. Whether or not the reverend and his wife were inside, who knew.

As we walked past Earl’s Auto , Earl had his head under the hood of Joan Collins, tinkering away at the engine and oblivious to our swift exit out of town.

Within minutes we were skirting the edge of the bayou. The ground became soft beneath out feet. Trees draped in Spanish moss multiplied the farther we went, until they towered all around us.

Lovesong was not leading the way now. He was instead telling me where to turn as I described the changing terrain around us. He tightened his grip on my shoulder, and I noticed his step was slower, more uncertain, as opposed to the surety with which he moved around town.

“How often have you been down here?” I asked. “Do you even know where you’re going?”

“I think so. It’s been a while. I guess I was a kid the last time. Li’l Leroy and me were maybe twelve or so. He dared me to go as far as I could along the old boardwalk, and of course me bein’ as defiant and headstrong as I am, I took him up on it.”

“Why would you do such a stupid thing?”

“Because we thought there was a witch out there, hiding in the trees, lurking with the gators. At least, that’s what my parents raised me to believe.”

“And is there?”

Lovesong shook his head. “She ain’t a witch. But she’s there.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because I met her that day when I was twelve. I cut my leg on a loose plank trying to feel my way along the boardwalk. She found me, took me to her cabin out there in the swamp and bandaged me up, but not before she rubbed some ointment on my leg. God, it stank, but that cut healed within a day. I remember she barely spoke a word, but there was one thing she said that I’ll never forget… ‘The Devil walks among you. Beware, for the Devil walks among you!’”

“What exactly did she mean by that?”

“She never told me. And I never came back. I guess now is the time to find out.”

Through the dappled afternoon light streaming down from the canopy of trees, I saw a dilapidated boardwalk ahead, a rickety structure leaning this way and that into the water, its planks rotten and carpeted with shiny green moss.

“I think I see it. The boardwalk. Although it doesn’t look safe at all.”

Lovesong grinned. “That’s the one.”

“You want us to walk on that thing?”

“I don’t want us to. We need to. She’s visiting us for a reason. We need to know what she’s trying to tell us.”

We stopped at the foot of the boardwalk. My eyes followed the battered path as it zigzagged deep into the bayou, disappearing amidst the trees that grew out of the dark water.

“Who is this swamp dweller anyway?”

“Her name is Henrietta, but according to my parents the only name she goes by now is Hoodoo Hettie. She was there at the crossroads when my birth mother made her deal with the Devil.”

Frogs blurped.

Birds screeched in the trees.

From above I heard a hiss and saw the bright scales of a serpent as it twisted itself around a branch.

And every now and then, something large and alarming swished through the water and I froze for minutes on end before daring to lead us farther into the bayou.

Lovesong’s hand gripped my shoulder.

I was constantly turning back to guide his step, then facing forward to try to choose the safest step ahead, then turning back again to make sure he was treading in my imprint in the moss and not about to step through a hole or off the side of the boardwalk altogether.

“That’s it. Left foot. A little further. Now right. Jesus, how the hell did you ever do this by yourself?”

“I was a kid. Even blind kids think they’re invincible. Besides, I was raised to believe Jesus would always keep me safe. Jesus was always going to protect me from evil, right?”

Bubbles surfaced from under the water nearby. I stopped in my tracks and waited for them to trail away into the swamp. “I hate to tell you, but I’m not sure Jesus is about to jump in and protect you from whatever the fuck that was.”

Lovesong chuckled. “You make me laugh, you know that?”

“Oh good, because we’re heading into the black lagoon… surrounded by man-eating alligators… about to visit a terrifying hoodoo witch who may or may not want to cut us into small pieces and boil us in a cauldron. So, I’m glad one of us can see the funny side of things.”

He laughed even louder.

The board beneath him groaned and part of the boardwalk swayed precariously.

I turned and held him, squeezing him hard so that he might stop laughing and freeze. “Sshhh! Don’t move a muscle.”

He didn’t stop giggling. “Noah, we’re going to be fine. Just keep moving.”

“Are you kidding me right now? No! You wanna fall in the water? I think there’s something down there.”

“I think there’s lots of things down there.”

“Then keep… still!”

I held him tight and didn’t move again till the boardwalk stopped swaying, wondering all the while... Is this what it was like to have faith? To be able to do anything, and always assume someone up there had your back? I could see a real sense of freedom, of fearlessness, in that kind of thinking. I felt a pang of envy. Perhaps he was onto something.

Then again, there I was in a bayou surrounded by gators. Why? Because a blind man told me it was what we needed to do.

Perhaps I had faith and didn’t even realize it.

Only my faith wasn’t in the Lord above.

It was in Lovesong.

As we stood on the broken boardwalk, me clinging to him tightly, our bodies pressed together, I felt the bulge in his crotch begin to surge and grow. Instantly, my cock twitched and started to swell too.

He leaned forward and kissed me. “Thank you for breaking down in the middle of Clara’s Crossing,” he whispered. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

Guilt and anxiety gripped my insides when I thought about the moment I would eventually tell Lovesong exactly why I was there. Had I bargained away my rage for remorse? Perhaps I had. Yet I wasn’t ready to confess my motives to Lovesong, for the simple fact that the moment I did would be the moment I’d have to let him go. So all I said was, “I’ve never met anyone like you before either. Now come on, let’s find Hoodoo Hettie before it gets too dark.”

The boardwalk continued to twist through the bayou, Spanish moss moving in the breeze like the bird-pecked hair of a spellbound woman who had been consumed by the swamp itself, transformed into the trees and cursed to spend eternity in the bayou.

Then, up ahead, I caught a glimpse of a lantern light, then another, dangling from the porch rafters of a tumbledown shanty resting perilously on splintering pylons in the middle of the swamp.

The boardwalk led directly to it.

“I think I see it,” I told Lovesong.

“Hettie’s cabin? Are you sure?”

“How many hoodoo witch cabins were you expecting to find out here?”

I was being serious, but Lovesong snorted and chuckled again. “Just the one.”

“Good.” There was another swish in the water. “Now, can we please get away from these alligators? I think word has got out that there’s fresh meat in the swamp.”

Quickly, carefully, I led Lovesong closer and closer to the decrepit shack on the water until, from inside, a gravelly, rusty voice called out.

“Lovesong? That you?”

I stopped. There was a dim light inside the cabin, and through the open windows I could see shadows moving.

“Yeah, Hettie. It’s me,” Lovesong called back.

With a sing-song lilt in her voice, like a witch luring two kids into a gingerbread house, she cooed, “Come in, come in. I been waitin’ for you. I been waiting for you both.”

In a worried voice I leaned back to Lovesong. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I think so,” he whispered back.

“What happened to all your courage and conviction? Isn’t Jesus guiding you right now?”

“If I’m honest, I think Jesus stayed behind on this trip. This here is Hettie’s territory.”

“You tell me that now? And here I was, ready to start praying.” I sucked in a breath. “Well, we’ve come this far. No point turning back now.”

With a creak…

And a bow of the planks…

And a slip on the moss…

Ever so carefully I led Lovesong to the buckled, broken porch of the swamp shack.

I peered through the first open window and saw a shadow move like a spirit across the walls of the tiny cabin. The space was so cluttered, and my mind so tightly bound with fear and foreboding that I couldn’t take any of it in, at least not at first. Then the door to the cabin opened slowly, the rusted hinges creaking, and around the edges of the door frame came those spindly fingers once more, the nails uneven, some long, some split, all caked in dirt. They looked like the legs of a giant tarantula creeping around the door frame, and I froze.

“Lovesong, my Lovesong,” said the voice, grim yet lyrical, almost musical, like a demon attempting to sing a child’s lullaby. “You bring me a friend?”

Lovesong seemed much less afraid than me. Was it because he knew this creature, perhaps even trusted her? Or was it simply because he could not see what I could? “Yes, I’ve brought you a friend. A friend you seem intent on meeting.”

With those words, a muddy, hagged woman crept out through the door and onto the porch.

Instantly I recognized her as the intruder behind the curtains, but now in the dying light of day and the glow from the lanterns hanging on the porch, I saw how truly frightening she appeared. Her teeth were rotting, her eyes were wild, and her hair, clumped and matted and twisted in a large bundle atop her head, was filled with dead leaves and broken twigs and for a moment I could have sworn I saw a centipede crawling through the entwined locks. Her back was slightly hunched, her limbs long and scratched. Her feet were bare and calloused, her clothes were little more than rags, barely covering her bony body, and around her neck she wore a necklace of teeth. With a shimmer of relief, I noticed they were too pointed to be human. I could only guess they belonged to an alligator, or more probably, many alligators.

She looked from me to Lovesong and back again, her black eyes so intense it felt as though they were piercing my soul. And then, with a grin and a cackle, she chanted, “You came to me. You came to me. You came to me, came to me, cametomecametomecametome! At last, someone listened.”

Swiftly she turned and plodded back into her cabin.

I looked at Lovesong. “Are you sure—”

“Follow her,” he said, cutting me off. “We need to follow her inside.”

“Oh fuck,” I breathed.

Cautiously I inched my way toward the door and hesitantly stepped inside the swamp shanty. It was possibly even more frightening than the woman who lived there. The walls were covered with hanging beads and feathers tied in clumps, strings of garlic and chillis and vegetable roots, tapestries made from rope and small animal bones, and even a stuffed alligator’s head. On a table to one side sat bowls of sea shells, cast iron keys and roughly stitched dolls sewn together with string and buttons, while precariously angled shelves contained countless jars and bottles, each labeled in large, scrawling handwriting—arnica flowers, bat’s head root, chicken feet, balm of Gilead tears, graveyard dirt, buckthorn, adder’s tongue, betel nut, anvil dust, milk thistle, cat’s claw, cramp bark, hemlock, knotweed, witch’s burr.

“What is all this?” I breathed, my voice barely audible, but loud enough for Lovesong to hear.

“Hoodoo,” he answered, his voice just as hushed. “This is the home of Hoodoo Hettie.”

“Looks more like a witch’s kitchen.”

“That’s exactly what Hoodoo is. It uses herbs, roots, metals, bones, things from the natural world to make spells and potions.”

“Heal you, protect you, save you,” said Hoodoo Hettie, rummaging through the broken drawers of a cabinet in a corner. “That be Hoodoo.”

As her busy hands fished things out of drawers and tapped their way along shelves like scampering crabs, her eyes darted back and forth, scanning her labeled jars before swiping several into her arms. She found matches, a bowl, and eventually a bottle of whiskey.

“Peril be upon you,” she muttered as she began emptying ingredients on the table. “Death be near.”

She pulled out a large kitchen knife, rusted and chipped, and I gasped.

Quickly I took a step back, ready to push Lovesong out the door, grab his hand and run.

But Lovesong was the one who grabbed me, gripping my forearm tight, stopping me from fleeing. “Don’t run. She ain’t gonna hurt us.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if that’s what she wanted to do, she woulda done it by now.”

Lovesong was right. The knife was not meant for us. Babbling to herself, her words indecipherable, Hettie began chopping herbs and flowers, hacking up leaves and pounding seeds with the blunt handle of the knife.

As she began sprinkling ingredients into the bowl, her words became coherent once again. “Amaranth seed, heal broken hearts. Black pepper, protect from evil. Oak moss, give luck. Wood aloe and white bark. Sulfur and snapdragon. Radish and rue.” She then lit a match and holding some grassy reeds over the bowl she set them alight, letting the cinders and ash fall into the bowl. “And cattail,” she cackled. “To bring two together as one.”

She mixed the ingredients together, then poured a good slosh of whiskey into the bowl.

“And what’s that for?” I asked.

Hettie gave a gleeful giggle and replied, “Because everything taste better with whiskey.”

She stirred everything together with the knife, then tapped it on the side of the bowl, picked up her concoction and walked toward us. She offered it up to me first, a maniacal look in her wide eyes. “Drink! Drink now!”

I wasn’t sure whether the pungent stench was wafting from the bowl or from Hettie herself. I screwed up my nose. “Is it… is it safe?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Lovesong said. His hands reached for the bowl, his fingers feeling for it till he gripped it. He raised it to his lips, a wrinkle of unpleasantness on his face, before taking a long gulp.

He swallowed, then grimaced. “Oh God, that tastes awful.”

Hettie cackled again, then took the bowl from him and offered it to me once more. “Drink! Drink it all!”

Reluctantly I took the bowl.

I raised it to my lips and the stench made me want to barf.

I tried not to breathe, and quickly tipped it into my mouth.

It slid down my throat in chunks, the roughly chopped herbs and seeds and flowers and weeds lumpy and sharp. I thought I was going to throw the whole thing up, but suddenly Hettie pinched my nose hard with her grubby thumb and forefinger and I had no choice but to gulp it all down or choke.

When it was all gone, I spluttered, coughed, and inhaled sharply. “Oh fuck. What was that?” Instantly my head started to spin, and the entire cabin seemed to tilt like it was about to slide into the swamp. I overcompensated, leaning too far the other way, and lost my balance. As I began to fall, I grabbed for a shelf, but it wasn’t enough to hold me steady and I ended up pulling the shelf and all its contents down on top of me as I hit the floor.

Gnarled roots and several fanged snake skulls came tumbling down, as well as a large jar of alligator feet soaking in spirits, which smashed and washed all over me.

Lovesong was already feeling his way toward me. “Noah! Noah, are you all right?”

I shook my head, trying to steady my seesawing vision, and said, “Yeah, I’m okay. Just a little punch drunk, I guess.” I moved to pull myself up and my hand rested on something hard and metallic. I looked down to see an ornate old pistol with a wooden handle and a long silver barrel tarnished with age had also fallen from the shelf.

I picked it up, letting it dangle loose between two fingers, and looked at Hettie. “You have a gun?”

“A gun?” Lovesong repeated after me, unable to see the weapon.

Suddenly Hettie snatched it out of my hand like a possessive child and dumped it into one of the drawers in the cabinet. “Is mine. Is my gun,” she snapped. “In case I’s ever sees the Devil again. I’s put an end to that evil once and for all.”

Lovesong was already helping me to my feet as I stammered, “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I was barely on my feet when Hettie’s mud-caked fingers curled around the front of my spirit-soaked shirt and yanked me close. “Keep no secrets,” she hissed. “You wants be safe, you wants to live? Then tell him. Tell him everything. He needs to be knowin’ the truth.”

She released me with a shove, and I stumbled back against Lovesong.

“Begone now!” she shrieked.

“Begone! Begone. Begonebegonebegonebegonebegonebegone! ”

From the scowl on Hettie’s face and the fiery look in her eyes, I knew we’d well and truly worn out our welcome. Swiftly I grabbed Lovesong by the hand and pulled him out of the cabin.

With Hettie’s shrill voice echoing through the swamp, I led Lovesong hurriedly along the rickety boardwalk, fleeing the bayou as fast as we could in the dying light.

Through the trees, the red glow of the sinking sun was fading by the second.

I slipped on a mossy plank and regained my footing.

“Slow down,” Lovesong said.

But I only tightened my grip on his hand and pulled him along faster. “We can’t. The sun’s almost gone. Soon neither of us will be able to see our way out of here.”

The boards creaked and bowed as we hurried over the black waters, startling the small swamp creatures while the larger ones watched our reckless flight eagerly. In the last light, the eyes of alligators appeared on the surface, moving stealthily toward us.

Up ahead I saw the end of the boardwalk. “We’re almost there.”

I glanced ahead at the forty feet or so of water left to cross.

I looked back to make sure Lovesong was okay. “Step further. Short jump. Then a long one. Then—”

I was so busy focusing on Lovesong’s steps that I wasn’t concentrating on what was ahead.

I stepped on a plank that was almost rotten through.

It snapped under my weight.

I plunged into the water, breaking another half dozen boards on the way down.

I still had Lovesong in my grip and I dragged him down into the bayou with me.

The water wasn’t deep, but we both tumbled in over our heads before finding our footing and coming up splashing, gasping and coughing up swamp water.

Quickly I looked around and saw several ripples, tell-tale signs that we were in big trouble.

The water level was just above our waists.

The edge of the swamp was only thirty feet away.

I grabbed Lovesong’s hand. “Run! As fast as you can!”

Pushing through the water felt like wading through molasses.

I glanced over my shoulder and something large was coming up fast.

The water level dropped to below our waists.

I shoved Lovesong ahead of me, pushing him blindly forward.

We splashed up to our thighs, our knees, and sprinted up to the edge of the bayou, bolting onto land just as an enormous alligator emerged from the swamp, opening its jaws and clamping them shut, missing my heels by mere inches.

With an angry growl, it spun about and disappeared back into the bayou.

I didn’t stop running, pushing Lovesong along in front of me until I looked back and could no longer see the dark waters of the bayou behind us.

There I pulled him to a halt, nudging him safely backward against a tree where we both stood, puffing and panting.

When we finally found the breath to speak, Lovesong grinned. “Wow, you sure do know how to show a boy a good time.”

“Me? You’re the one who took us into the swamp to drink some magic potion that’s probably gonna kill us. This could very well be our last night on earth, you know.”

His smirk widened. “Well if it is, we better make it count.”

With that he grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me into a kiss, firm and forceful.

Above us, thunder rocked the darkening skies, and suddenly a downpour began.

Within seconds we were drenched, the rain so heavy that our already swampy clothes were completely sodden.

I pulled out of the kiss for a moment and gazed longingly at the shirt clinging to Lovesong’s chest and stomach, every curve and contour of his body now visible through the soaked, transparent fabric. Lightning lit up his clouded blue eyes.

I wiped the mop of wet hair away from my forehead, then took his face in my hands and kissed him again, even more ravenously now.

The rainwater ran into our mouths as our lips parted and our tongues delved deep.

Urgently I clawed at Lovesong’s shirt, but my wet fingers slipped in my effort to unbutton it.

Lovesong swiftly took control and ripped his shirt open, sending buttons spinning into the rain. He pulled his shirt off and let it slap onto the drenched earth.

Then he flicked the buttons of my shirt undone, yanking at the wet fabric and throwing the shirt to the ground.

He unbuckled my belt and pants and roughly pushed them, along with my underwear, down my legs where I clumsily stepped out of them.

Before he unbuttoned his own jeans, Lovesong pulled something from his pocket. He held it up and showed it to me—a condom in a wrapper—then smiled. “I hope you don’t mind. I came prepared.”

I grinned and watched as he pulled off his jeans, then rolled the condom over his hard, pulsing cock. The rain drenched it, a natural lubricant, and for a moment longer we stood there, naked and erect in front of each other, before Lovesong lunged toward me.

He kissed me then spun us around so that I was the one with my back against the tree.

He reached his arms around me, clutching my ass cheeks in his large strong hands and lifting me off the muddy ground.

I wrapped my legs around Lovesong’s torso, kissing him passionately.

The wet, mossy trunk was cool and soothing against my skin.

Between my legs I felt his cock.

The head of it nudged against my balls.

It slid up between my ass cheeks.

Lovesong took one hand off my ass and reached lower, taking hold of his dick and guiding it to my crack. He pushed the head of it against my hole and I clutched my breath in anticipation.

“I want you,” he breathed, raindrops glistening on his lips.

“Then take me,” I told him. “Take me now.”

Thunder cracked, but I barely heard it, my heart booming loud in my chest.

Lovesong couldn’t wait another second.

Stepping up onto his toes, he pushed the head of his cock up into my ass.

I dug my nails into his shoulders and felt his body tense with delight, his back muscles flexing as he lifted himself higher, pushing his cock all the way inside me.

My breath caught in my throat, then slowly I released it as his dick slid into me…

Then almost all the way out again…

Then in all the way once more…

Again and again.

I kissed him hard, biting his lower lip and drawing blood which ran away in trickles of rain.

Lovesong didn’t even register the bite as he thrust his cock in and out, building up a pounding rhythm.

The rain pummeled down.

It cascaded over our shoulders and coursed over our heaving chests.

Lovesong’s stomach muscles flexed as he pushed himself inside me time and again.

I grunted with bliss as my body slid up and down on Lovesong’s shaft, his manhood filling me, the two of us becoming one.

My back rubbed against the mossy tree, my thigh muscles burning as my legs tightened their grip around Lovesong’s waist.

When his lips left mine, we both knew we were about to come.

The grinding of his hips against my ass—the thrust and lunge of his large cock swelling inside me—took me swiftly toward the brink of orgasm.

It was enough to make me quake with rapture.

Thunder rumbled and I threw my head back against the tree, gripping Lovesong as tight as I could as cum launched from my cock and splashed over his muscled, rain-soaked abs.

At the same time, Lovesong whispered against my cheek, “I’m coming… I’m coming…”

He followed those words with a short, sharp cry.

A moment later, I felt a rush of heat inside me as Lovesong clenched his jaw, pushed himself high onto his toes, and unleashed a flood of cum into the condom.

He hunched his shoulders into me.

His entire frame quivered.

And as the rain washed over us, we let the throes of ecstasy ripple through our entwined bodies.

When the rain dissipated and the crickets began chirping, Lovesong dressed himself then me, pulling on my pants and feeling his way up my shirt, buttoning it back up, his fingers taking care to get each button in the right hole.

His own shirt hung loose, wet and open over his muscled frame, having lost all of its own buttons.

But Lovesong didn’t seem to give a damn at all.

Through the parting clouds the moon revealed itself, its pale blue light peering at us through the trees.

I watched Lovesong’s handsome face as he concentrated on the buttons, his eyes unseeing, his perceptive fingers doing all the work.

“How does it feel?” I asked, my voice gentle, curious.

“How does what feel? Your shirt? It’s kinda swampy if I’m honest.”

I laughed. “Not the shirt. How does it feel, not being able to see.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I ain’t ever been able to see, so I guess it don’t feel any different to everything I’ve always known.”

“What do you see?” I suddenly realized how intrusive that question sounded. “I’m sorry. That’s rude of me, I shouldn’t—”

“It’s not rude at all. I don’t mind you asking questions. If someone’s curious, I’d rather them ask than just assume, or worse still, look down on me with pity without bothering to know what it’s like.”

“I just don’t want to—”

“Upset me?” He leaned forward and lightly kissed me. “I think it would take a lot for you to upset me.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed, considering the secret I was keeping from him.

The tape…

The reason for Joel’s death…

The reason I was there in the first place.

I tried to push it all out of my mind and quickly returned to our conversation. “So, what do you see? Do you see darkness? Is everything black?”

“I don’t really know what black is, I’ve never seen it. I know you’re going to say that it’s like the night sky or a deep hole. Those are things I know you see as black, Leroy described them to me once when we were kids. But I’ve never seen those things either, so I don’t know.”

“What do you see then?”

He sighed as he pondered the question. “It’s a sort of… nothingness.”

“Isn’t that the same as the night sky or a deep hole?”

“No. Night skies are full of stars, or so I’m told. And all deep holes have a bottom. Nothingness is different.”

“But what does it look like?”

“It’s hard to describe. It’s like me asking you to describe what you see behind you.”

I turned, and instinctively he reached out and stopped me, knowing it was exactly what I would do. “No, I mean, what do you see behind you without turning around.”

“Nothing,” I said.

“What do you see with your toes? What do you see with your elbows? What do you see with your nose?”

I went quiet.

He smiled. “It’s okay. I sense things that you don’t.”

“Like what?”

“Like… the rain before it comes. Or the cotton before it blooms. And sometimes I sense bad things, just before they happen. It sounds strange, I know.”

I shook my head. “No. It doesn’t sound strange. It sounds… lonely.”

He paused. Then quietly said, “It is. Except for when there’s someone there to take your hand.”

Without a second’s hesitation, I reached forward and took him by the hand.

He squeezed my hand in return and smiled. “You’re a good person, Noah Van Owen. Where have you been hiding, huh? Or maybe it’s my fault for not seeking y’all out in the first place. If I was a braver man, maybe you and me might have bumped into one another on a New York sidewalk. Maybe someday I’ll finally find the courage to leave Clara’s Crossing. Although I can only imagine what my folks would have to say about that.”

“Oh shit. Speaking of your folks, I’m supposed to be having supper at their place after church.”

“You are? Why?”

“They asked me. I don’t know. It seemed impolite not to say yes. I need to get changed out of these clothes.”

“Me too. My father will definitely not approve of me turning up to church stinking like a swamp rat.”

“Come on, then. Let’s get cleaned up, you and me both.” With a firm grip on his hand, I led him out of the trees and onto the road back to town.