Hot Valley (35 page)

I put my arms around her, but she was as rigid as a poker.

“No. No, I'm all right. I'll go up and tell them it's you. Perhaps you had better see them before you go.”

“Go?” I said. “I'm going nowhere. We're staying here until we've all sat down and talked things through.”

“Jack, please don't,” Margaret said, looking terrified.

“Why not? They can't keep pretending I'm dead, just because I choose to live my life the way I want. I nearly died out there, and I'm not going back to being half alive ever again. Aaron and I—”

Margaret put her hands over her ears. “Don't tell me! I don't want to hear!”

“What are you so afraid of, Margaret? Scared of hearing the truth?”

“Don't be cruel to your sister,” Aaron said, in low tones. “She's been through enough. Miss Margaret,”—he held out his hand to her, and she nervously took it—“you and I will talk later, when you've had a chance to compose yourself. Now, Jack, you calm yourself down, and get ready to see your parents. And remember to treat them with some respect.”

Words like these would have sent me flying off the handle before, but now I loved Aaron, and I was prepared to see that he was right. I took a few deep breaths as Margaret climbed the stairs. Aaron and I held hands and waited for a sign.

“Jack?” came my mother's voice from above. “Is that really you? Jack?”

I flew up the stairs, two at a time, and threw myself at my mother's feet.

 

We did not return to the hotel until nightfall, and it was with a heavy heart that I climbed the stairs to our room. I did not even respond to Mick's hearty greeting, or the winks and smiles of Sandy, the porter; I needed to be alone with Aaron.

He understood and held me until I was ready to speak.

“What have I done?”

“You've done nothing wrong.”

“I left them and they needed me.”

“Jack, everyone has to leave home.”

“Margaret didn't.”

“And look what's happened to her. We had a talk, your sister Margaret and I. She has secrets that she's terrified the world will find out.”

“Secrets? What do you mean? She had a baby?”

Aaron laughed. “No! Don't you see? You're not the only one in the family.”

I must have looked very stupid. Aaron grabbed my chin and kissed me. “No, Jack. She's like us. She's…well, she's never going to get married, put it like that.”

“You mean she prefers girls? Oh, my God!”

I had never seriously considered the possibility that others in my family might be as interesting as I was, and I wasn't sure that I liked the competition.

“She told you this?”

“Reluctantly.”

“You mean, you just asked her?”

“I guessed a long time ago.”

“How on earth—”

“Call it an instinct. I knew plenty of girls like that at home.”

“I only ever read about those things,” I said, realizing how ridiculous this sounded, and how angry I would be if someone said it of me.

“On the contrary,” Aaron said. “You lived with it for the first twenty-one years of your life. Now, what about your parents?”

I told him everything I had learned—of the collapse of the business, the shame of bankruptcy, the final blow of Jane's death, and their gradual retreat into the house, which they had not left now for months, becoming entirely dependent on Margaret and occasional visits from my old friend James, who rode down from Montpelier ostensibly to help my father with his accounts, but in fact to make a few discreet improvements to their way of life without seeming to be too obviously charitable. They were egotistical in their misery, ready to blame everyone but themselves for their grief, barely able to listen to anything I tried to tell them about my own life.

“You must understand them, Jack. They suffered some terrible blows.”

“So have I. So have you.”

“But we're young and we're—what shall I say? We're more ready to adapt than they are. I guess that's what comes of growing up as an outsider. You see the world for what it really is—a thousand possibilities, a thousand shades of gray. To people like your folks, the world is a simple picture in black and white. And when something goes wrong, they can't bend with the wind. They fall. You've got to make allowances.”

“Why? Do they make allowances for me?”

“Now who's being selfish? They gave you life, Jack. They raised you, and they didn't do such a bad job. I mean, once you learn to stop thinking only of yourself, you might make a half-decent human being. Now come here and let me see if I can cheer you up a bit.”

He undressed me slowly, taking his time, kissing every inch of my skin. Gradually I relaxed, saw the sense of his
words, and responded to the pleasure. This time, he sucked me dry and swallowed every drop. The sensation as he entered me, my cock still hypersensitive from my recent orgasm, my ass still twitching, was like nothing I had ever experienced. My troubles were washed away in an overwhelming, almost unbearable sensation of surrender.

 

Over the next few days we faced some tough decisions. My parents were glad I was alive, but after the first flush of relief wore off it was replaced by a grim refusal to accept my decision to live openly with another man as my lover. “Couldn't you tell the world he's your servant?” my mother suggested. I realized that she was trying, within the limitations of her understanding, to be helpful, and I said only that I thought, on balance, that I could not.

The financial situation was not as dreadful as I had feared. Windridge had been apprehended in Georgia, whither he'd fled to join some hard-core slave owners whose idea of fun was to drink a skinful of liquor and go out nigger-hunting. The police caught up with him in Savannah and confiscated all his funds. Much of that money made its way back to my parents, and although it was clear that they would never go back into business—my father's spirit was broken, and he saw himself as an old man—they had more than enough to live comfortably, either in the house at Bishopstown or anywhere they chose.

Margaret was torn between a sense of duty to our parents and a very natural desire to get out of Bishopstown, as I had done, and start living her life. Aaron, whom she respected far more than me, suggested that she might do worse than to travel with us for a while. She refused at first, out of a sense of decorum more than anything, but day by day the seed grew in her mind and soon she was asking us when we thought the snow would have melted enough to allow for our departure.

But where were we to go? I had no desire to stay in Vermont, beautiful as it was, even in its winter mantle. The town where I had grown up was no place for me. Mick and Sandy might make a go of it; Mick had a sound business sense, and had profited from the impermanence of wartime to establish himself as a trustworthy manager and a bold entrepreneur; he would soon become one of the leading citizens of Bishopstown and nobody would remember the days when he hung around at the White Horse, fucking boys in the shithouse. But for Aaron and me? Vermont may have been the most liberal of states, but I suspected that it was not yet ready for a mixed-race same-sex couple living openly, as we were determined to do. Where could we go, to live without shame or fear?

Aaron, as ever, was ahead of me. While I was recovering from fever in the hospital at Richmond, he had reestablished contact with his former employer and lover, Captain Chester, who had survived the war and returned to the Alhambra Theater, with Billy at his side. The theater had been burned down, but out of the ashes (and the insurance money) they had built a “cabaret,” or so they called it, where the Captain served liquor and Billy, who was now living permanently as a woman, provided a program of entertainment. Aaron showed me a letter form the captain which described in great detail just how talented and charming Billy was, and how much they satisfied each other in bed—and how he was convinced that they were going to be run out of town any day soon. “Virginia is too backward for the truly advanced theatrical arts,” he said. “We're going to try our luck in California. Why don't you join us?”

California—and specifically San Francisco—had a laissezfaire reputation that appealed to us both. And, as we sat in my parents' sitting room, sipping tea and trying to make polite conversation, watching the melting snow dripping from the eaves, we began to think that relocating to a sunnier
climate might not be such a bad idea. “I'm sick of having to unwrap you from all these layers of clothes,” Aaron said when he stripped me for action in our hotel room that night. “I want you naked all the time.”

 

We had to say a proper farewell to Bishopstown, to Vermont, my family, the East, and everything that it meant, and the opportunity came when James arrived in town as soon as the roads were clear to visit my father. Margaret had written to tell him of my arrival, but he had not responded, and I feared that my former friend had turned into a prim little Episcopalian. When I saw him getting down from his horse, I suspected that he had not. James had always been a good-looking boy, shorter and darker than me, with a slightly meek air about him that belied his passion in the dormitory. He wore gold-rimmed glasses to correct his short sight, which gave him a studious air. Although we had only been lovers for a short while, and had never done much more than some mutual masturbation and cautious sucking, I well remembered his tight, athletic body, his marble skin, and his strong, hairy legs; I used to joke that he had the legs of a coal miner grafted onto the body of a ballet dancer. The man who stepped up to me with his hand extended was altogether more confident, although the glasses were still in place, and there was something endearingly boyish about the smile.

“Jack,” he said, as we shook. “Where have you been, you rogue? You broke my sister's heart when you disappeared like that. Mine too, I might add.”

“I was sidetracked.”

“And this must be Aaron.” He took Aaron's hand, and any fears I may have had that James would ignore or patronize him—as many New Englanders did—were washed away.

“Pleased to meet you, James.”

Their hands stayed joined for a little longer than was strictly necessary, and I could see that James's eyes were sparkling.

“How is your family, James?” I asked.

“Fine, just fine, thank you. I have a wonderful wife and a fine young boy.”

“I'm delighted to hear it.”

“You'll dine with us tonight at the hotel, I trust,” Aaron said.

“It would be my pleasure.”

I bet it would, you dirty little bastard
, I thought, experiencing a rare stab of jealousy. Aaron gave me one of his special looks, and I bit my tongue.

I watched James that afternoon, talking cheerfully to my parents, allaying their financial fears, saying how pleased they must be to see me alive and happy, and once again I felt that nagging worm of jealousy gnawing at my heart. Why could James, a relative stranger, enjoy their trust and respect when I could not? Well, he was married, a respectable banker, what my father would call “a pillar of society.” I longed to tell them that he used to suck my dick, that he was gagging to get his lips around Aaron's rod, that we were as likely as not to spend the night fucking each other's brains out—but to what end? To chip away at another of the fragile props of my parents' wrecked lives?

We drank too much tea, and left the house at six.

“I think I owe you a huge debt of gratitude,” I said to James as we walked down the road, our breath steaming in the cold night air.

“Think nothing of it.”

“But I do. And I must also apologize for being such a thoughtless fool. When I left home I didn't know—”

“You don't have to explain. Come on, I'm hungry.”

“But I want you to understand. I want to pay you back for everything you've done for my family.”

“As you wish. But let's eat first.”

I was about to reply, but then I noticed that James was grinning, and Aaron even more, and I realized that sometimes the best way of expressing your gratitude is to share your blessings.

 

That last night in Bishopstown was the end of one part of my life, and the beginning of another. Mick seated us in a chambre privée, the sort of place where businessmen would entertain their secretaries without fear of discovery. The table was set for three, but I insisted that Mick join us. He said it would be his pleasure, but he could not in all conscience leave Sandy out—they shared everything else, he said. And so we were five at the table, and a fine, jovial crew we were. Mick's staff was discreet and efficient, leaving each new course outside the room with a light tap on the door, after which they withdrew.

And it was just as well that they did, as our enjoyment could not wait until the meal was served. We managed, I think, to get through the soup without incident, although I wondered if it was necessary for Aaron to spend quite so long helping James with his napkin. And then, when the entrées arrived, all hell broke loose. Aaron, in helping himself to potatoes, “accidentally” allowed one yellow, buttery spheroid to fall into his lap. He pushed his chair back and said, “God damn. Look what I've done.”

“I'll help you, sir,” Sandy said, jumping up and rushing to Aaron's side. He knelt, retrieved the errant vegetable, and started dabbing at the butter on the front of Aaron's pants.

“You'd better get those pants off, Mr. Johnson,” Mick said. “We can have them sponged clean and ready for you by morning.”

In response, Aaron extended one booted leg and rested it on Sandy's knee. Sandy knew his place and started drawing the boot off. He was a freckle-faced, red-haired boy with a crooked smile and bright blue eyes—and I could imagine how much Aaron was enjoying his attentions. James's eyes were fixed on Aaron's crotch, like a rabbit staring at a snake, and I could see that there was no point in getting upset about other men wanting a piece of the action. There was plenty to go around.