The General and the Horse-Lord (6 page)

“And that thing with the big rock.”

“Yes, that thing with the big rock.”

Chapter 4

J
OHN
decided to drop in and see how the deposition was coming. Even the strongest men sometimes needed backup. Gabriel was a kick-ass chopper pilot. He’d flown into the middle of hornets’ nests without blinking in Somalia, Kuwait, Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan. John had seen him drop quiet as smoke into an LZ the size of a dishtowel to pick up a medevac, drop off water and ammunition to troops under fire. When Gabriel was in the zone, he was a rock. But even a rock could be worn down by the relentless drip-drip-drip of water that was quality time with the kids.

Ho Ho’s was late-afternoon quiet. A table near the women’s rest room held a young girl, crying silently, wiping her nose on her sleeve, typing into her phone, then crying again. Juan was wearing a black apron with
Ho Ho’s
on the front, along with their signature logo of an open, hungry mouth. He was wiping down tables and keeping an alarmed eye on the crying girl. Another table along the back wall held the remains of a lunch special. The man sitting there had put his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, one hand holding the Styrofoam container with his food so no one could take it away. He looked unbearably weary.

Kim was sitting with Gabriel, pouring tea like he was entertaining at Buckingham Palace. Gabriel looked like he was drawing on reserves of patience, but his shirt was still crisp white, and he wore it with a red-and-gray tie and charcoal-gray suit pants. John felt a thump in his gut, a little twist of lust, seeing him looking so fine, face smoothly shaven, eyes dark and as deep as the night sky. Gabriel looked a question at him, because John usually guarded the way he looked at Gabriel in public. Sometimes it was just more than he could do, though, wearing his mask, his professional face, cool as an ice cube, and Gabriel could see it on him. His eyes went soft for one long look, color creeping up his neck, and then he cleared his throat and turned back to Kim.

Kim’s eyes were big, and he was grinning and fanning himself with both hands. “Is it just me, or did it suddenly get hot in here?”

“Knock it off.” John looked closer. “What have you got on your face?”

One half of Kim’s face was decorated with a series of stripes and jagged lines in black and white greasepaint, with one small zigzag of bright yellow cutting across the black and white. “Juan helped me do it. Isn’t it hot? Do I look ferocious? Do I look like a Cheyenne Dog Soldier?”

John closed his mouth, bit down hard on his tongue. Kim’s eyes were too bright, and there was a line of damp along his hairline. John thought Kim looked like he was trying too hard to cover up the marks on his face from a man’s fist. He thought Kim looked like he was about to cry.

“I’ve decided I’m not going to be a drag queen. I can’t bear the thought of this greasepaint all the time.”

Gabriel handed John a cup of tea. “I think that’s a good decision, Kim. Your face is plenty interesting without the paint. And you don’t look like a Dog Soldier,” Gabriel said. “That looks like the face paint Crazy Horse used to wear into battle. He was Oglala Sioux, not Cheyenne. I like the yellow zigzag. Like you’re a lightning bolt.”

“Or a lightning rod.” John pulled up a chair. “How’s the deposition going?”

Gabriel sighed and studied the ceiling, and Juan came over to the table to join them. “Kim, can I help make the pot stickers now?”

“Sure. Let me take you back to the kitchen. These two old ladies, they only speak Vietnamese, but just watch what they do and they’ll show you. Can you cut up some green onions really small?”

“Sure! Can you stay too?”

Kim gave Gabriel a long look, trying not to grin, biting his lip. “Of course! I’m the king of pot stickers at Ho Ho’s.”

John drank his cup of tea, watched their retreating backs. Gabriel’s eyes were travelling over his face, down his neck and across his shoulders, down to his flat belly. John had a brief image of himself crawling across the plastic tabletop, scattering noodles and chopsticks, tackling Gabriel to the sticky linoleum floor. What was it Kim had said? When you were fourteen you wanted to find a big rock and fuck it to death? When you were fifty-two, you didn’t go looking for a rock.

“I could eat a steak.”

John looked up, met Gabriel’s eyes. The heat in his eyes seemed to scorch the air. “Yep. Me too.”

The door opened, and Martha came into Ho Ho’s. She looked carefully at the crying student and the sleeping homeless guy as if they were alien life forms; she studied the linoleum and the greasy handprints on the glass serving counter and the teacups on the little table.

Martha Sanchez was a proud, reserved woman. Perfect posture, her hair gathered into a shiny dark bun at the back of her neck, rosy nails perfectly manicured. She looked at Gabriel like he was somehow to blame for the seedy restaurant, maybe for the decline of the Western world, and when her eyes fell on John, they went cold. “General Mitchel.” She held out her hand, and he took it. “How nice to see you.” She tilted her head. “You know, Gabriel just told me recently he named our son after you. I never realized your given name was John. What was it, shared combat? Did you save his life, and I never knew? For some reason I thought it was a family name. Naturally I agreed. It’s the father’s prerogative to name his son, after all.” She studied the surprise on his face. “You didn’t know either? How interesting.”

She dropped his hand and turned to Gabriel. “I’ve come to get Juan. Will I see you tonight?”

“Don’t you always?”

“I meant for dinner.” Her smile was sharp as a razor, but she kept her voice calm.

“No. I won’t be home for dinner.”

John cleared his throat. “Excuse me. I’ll get Juan.” He wasn’t really sure what was going on, but Mrs. Sanchez had a couple of major thorns in her backside, and he suspected his name was on one of them. Gabriel had stayed late the last time they’d been together. Did Mrs. Sanchez wonder why they had taken so long to eat a couple of sirloins and talk about the glory days? Was that what this was about? No, couldn’t be. Gabriel spent a lot of late nights working with clients or in the law library. Something else? Had Gabriel really named Juan after him? Well, Gabriel would tell him if he wanted him to know. Men had the right to some privacy. From their wives and from their lovers.

Juan looked worried when his mother pulled him out of Ho Ho’s, her lips a thin line, and Kim looked worried when Gabriel carefully packed his briefcase, his face as tight as a mask. “Let’s go.”

John didn’t ask where they were going. “You want me to drive?”

“Please.” Gabriel put his seat belt on carefully.

“Let’s go to my house. I’ve got a bottle of tequila.”

“Fine,” Gabriel said. “Good.”

“You okay?”

He looked over then. “Not really.” He hesitated. “We’re having some trouble. Not your problem.” He stared out the front windshield.

“You’re my friend. I’m always ready to listen to a friend.”

“Is that what we are? Friends? Are we more than friends?”

John didn’t know what to say. Was Gabriel asking him for something, a declaration of his intentions? A declaration of his love? Had they been together too much or not enough? Kim’s comments had been working their way through his mind, working their way down to his heart.
Because you’ve loved him for years. He’s been your lover for years. It just pisses me off that you’re living some kind of half-life, and dragging him into the shadows with you, just to, what, protect your reputation?
“We are friends. Friends and lovers for twenty-five years. Can you believe it’s been that long?” He looked at Gabriel, reached out, and put his hand on his cheek. “You’ve been my only lover for all that time. The only person in the world I trust completely, besides Kim. I never wanted anyone else. Is that what you’re asking me?”

Gabriel picked up his hand, pressed John’s palm to his mouth. “I guess it is.”

When they got to his house, John got the bottle of Patron Silver out of the cabinet and dug around in the fridge for something to mix with it. He found a bowl of ripe oranges on the counter and put them in the juicer with a lime. That would do. He mixed a pitcher of juice and tequila, threw in a couple of ice cubes, and brought it, and a couple of glasses, back to his bedroom. Gabriel was in the shower, his clothes neatly folded over the back of a chair. John got a coat hanger from the closet, put Gabriel’s pants in the press and hung his shirt on the wooden hanger, scooted his own shirts out of the way and made a space for Gabriel’s clothes in the closet. He pulled his tie off and hung it up, then poured a couple of glasses of the juice and handed one to Gabriel when he came out of the bathroom.

Water was beading across Gabriel’s shoulders and chest, and his hair was wet and spiky from the towel. He had a towel tied low around his hips. He took the glass and drank half of it in one thirsty gulp. “Hey, we’re teenagers again. We’re gonna get shit-faced and screw till we pass out!”

“I certainly hope so.” John finished his glass, then refilled both. Gabriel took a long pull, then set his glass down on the bathroom counter and gave John a little “come here” gesture with his finger. Gabriel pulled the shirt out of John’s pants, pulled it down off his shoulders until it was tangled at his wrists. He gathered John’s wrists in one hand, leaned over and ran his mouth down his neck until he reached the edge of his tee shirt. He took the soft cotton in his teeth, tugged it aside. Then he moved down again until he could run his tongue along John’s collarbone. “We’re gonna have to get this off and get down to skin.”

John pulled his hands free, leaving Gabriel holding his shirt, and pulled the tee shirt over his head. Then he reached out, wrapped his hands in the top edge of the towel Gabriel was wearing. The damp hair on his chest was the same sable brown it had been twenty-five years before, still thick and lush where it trailed down his belly. John pulled the towel free, and Gabriel reached for him until they were belly to belly, mouth to mouth. It felt like it took twenty-five years for Gabriel’s mouth to reach down and touch his. Then Gabriel spun him around, pressed John’s back against his chest until they could see themselves in the long bathroom mirror. “Look at us.” He moved his hands down John’s chest, slid his fingers through the hair on his chest until he could move his fingers over a bright pink nipple, then reached down and unsnapped the waistband of John’s trousers. “Look at the two of us together.”

His legs were long, the line of his thigh and hip strong and golden brown in the evening light. Gabriel pushed the trousers down and John stepped out of them, then stepped out of his boxers until he stood naked in front of the mirror. John leaned back against him, rested his head on Gabriel’s shoulder. His skin was paler than Gabriel’s, his hair lighter brown, his eyes gray and quiet as a winter sky. Just an ordinary man, nothing special to look at, until Gabriel looked at him.

Gabriel’s hands moved down John’s chest, down his belly, moving between his legs until he wrapped his hand around John’s cock, heavy and thick in his fist. “Why shouldn’t we be able to look at ourselves in the mirror every night? Every morning? John, haven’t we given enough? Worked hard enough? Fuck it, what if Kim’s right? Why can’t we have this one small thing?”

John turned into his arms, felt the smooth skin and strong shoulders slide around him, buried his face in Gabriel’s neck until he was surrounded by his smell, sweat and spice and dark wood. Gabriel smelled like something precious and rare, and he lifted John in his big arms. “Just this one thing,” he said, mouth moving across John’s nipple. “Is that asking too much?”

John wrapped one leg around Gabriel’s hip, let their heavy cocks slide against each other. “We can have this. Take anything you want. Just don’t….”

“What?”

“I can’t stand to see sorrow in your eyes. It tears me up.”

“I miss you, you know. Every minute when we’re apart. Always have. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy with missing you.”

“Yeah. Me too, Gabriel. Can you stay with me tonight? Can you tell Martha…?”

“I can stay.”

Chapter 5