Authors: Samantha Forest
One night, Brett was sitting outside with Curtis drinking wine. Brett looked at Curtis, who started to move.
“What’s happening?” he asked. His boyfriend of a year was moving down, and soon he got on one knee.
“I know you’ve had rough luck with marriage, but I want to be yours. I want to marry you, to spend my life with you. Will you marry me, Brett?” he asked.
Brett was shocked, but this wasn’t some sort of political instrument. This was real life, and this was love. He nodded in assent, smiling warmly.
“Of course I will,” he replied.
The two of them smiled at one another before Curtis fitted the ring on. They kissed, and that night the two of them made love all night long. Brett was amazed at how different his life was now that he had the man that he cared for and loved. Everything was good, and Brett knew that no matter what, he found his happily ever after with this man.
*****
THE END
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Alpha Seal’s
C
hocolate Encounter
by Patricia Vanzant
Cody watched the worn black plastic of the luggage carrousel turn and turn, his head filling up with the din of the airport. There were little kids running around his legs, their waning parents carrying plastic bottles, backpacks and looking slightly sunburnt. Cody curled his fingers around the strap of his bag, making a satisfying scuffing noise against the woven fabric because of his calloused hand. It had been so long since he had been in a place like this, harshly lit and buzzing with activity of people completely unaware of his existence. It was strange and a bit disorientating. He felt out of place, like there was something he was supposed to be doing but he couldn’t quite remember exactly what it was. He was used to knowing what he was supposed to be doing at every moment of the day and in this massive chrome and shiny tiled airport, it seemed that nobody really knew what they were supposed doing.
After a longer wait than usual, his bag finally arrived. Cody grabbed the bag, along with a coffee from a nearby cafe and made his way towards the arrival gates. The white paper cup was small with a bitter tasting substance that was slightly watery, but he wasn’t one to complain. He had a splitting headache and the heat from the coffee was distracting his attention from it. Outside, he scanned the expanse of cars and the tall poles, the sun glinting off the metal rooves. It seemed crazy, picking his truck up from long term parking after nearly a year of being on tour for the Navy Seals. His work was so specialised and so highly trained half of him thought there should be more ceremony to his arriving home, but most of him was just excited to see his truck again. He was a huge car nut, had driven everything from sports cars to 4x4s, but his truck was his favorite. Reliable, smooth, and with an engine that sounded like a low roll of thunder, there was nowhere in the world where he was happier than driving along empty roads, taking in the world around him. Just the thought of it got him excited. He hauled his big duffel bag over his shoulder and found his truck, a little dusty after so long by itself.
***
It wasn’t long before he was out of sight of the airport, which was receding like a huge glass mirage behind him. The sky was blue and empty and the air was sharp and clear. It was all so unlike the acrid and dusty climate he had gotten used to. On either side of him were endless fields that stretched out for miles, with little dots of farmhouses way off in the distance. He put the radio up to full volume and allowed himself to be swallowed up by the noise and the beat. It had been a long time since he had had the space to just listen to music without worrying about waking someone or drawing unwanted attention. He appreciated these small things now that he was back. Eventually, he reached the pockets of forest that told him he was nearly home, along with the crisp, fresh scent of birch all around him. He sped up, excited to see his ranch again and to see how Philip had handled it the past year. Philip was a friend of Cody’s. He wasn’t exactly a great friend of his, but he was also not some random guy that he met at a bar. Philip was a skinny and tanned guy, who was full of energy but not exactly the hardest worker (though to be fair, Cody being a navy seal meant that the standards for anyone else were set quite high). He was one of the few people that Cody could even call a friend, as his sheltered nature shunned many away. Philip was initially surprised when he had been offered to take care of the ranch, but he knew that he needed someone to watch over it while he was gone.
As Cody approached the ranch, he could already see there was a problem. The driveway up to the house wasn’t swept and there were several stray planks and bits of metal all over the front lawn. The windows were dusty, the grass was scorched, and overall the place looked abandoned. Cody’s heart dropped. He loved his ranch. The house was his pride and joy, and he always kept it in perfect order. He didn’t have a lot of stuff, but what was there was always neat and orderly. He believed in functionality and durability. A lot of what he owned was picked up from scrapyards, because he enjoyed the iron and the wood, and how solid and heavy it all was. He also figured that if it had lasted so long as to get to a scrapyard in one piece, it was probably of good quality. He parked his truck, the gravel crunching underneath the wheels, and slammed the door behind him. Climbing the steps of the porch and feeling the warm wood of the bannister in his hand, his head spun in the confusment of what he was seeing. What had happened to the ranch, and Philip for that matter? Did he get sick? Did he fall off a horse or get lost? Suddenly his thoughts went to the horses, since they were his pride and joy. How had they possibly survived if there was no one here to take care of them? He sprinted around the house, his feet making heavy slamming steps on the hard dry ground. The stable was red corrugated metal, and was surrounded by weeds. Not a good sign. He hesitantly opened the door of the stable, peering inside the dusty dark area. Instantly he heard a gruff whinny, and he turned to see both his horses in a shard of sunlight. They both looked glowing, in perfect health, with glossy black coats and shiny eyes. He rubbed their muzzles, and they rubbed their heads into his hand, happy to see him after such a long absence. Once they got reintroduced, Cody’s thoughts turned back to the house. Where was Philip, why was the house and the stables in such a mess, and why had the stable gate been left unlocked?
He ran back to the house, fuelled by an emotion he couldn’t quite distinguish as either anger or worry. The dust rose up in clouds around his boots, which was caused by an unkempt ground. God only knows how long it would take to get it back to how it was, he thought to himself. He climbed back up the porch steps and put his hand on the doorknob, feeling it click heavily in his hand. It was locked, so at least that was something. The house hadn’t been left completely undefended since he’d left. He pulled his keys out of the pocket of the duffel bag and unlocked it, initially struggling to remember which one was the front door key after so long away. When he pushed open the door, the house was quiet and warm, the curtains pulled up on top of the poles letting light pour over the kitchen. He stepped forward carefully, his whole body hiked with anticipation as though he felt himself readying for a fight. Moving towards the kitchen table, which was wooden and backed by the worn leather couch he’d picked up second hand a few years ago, it instantly struck him that it was clean. This was a dusty part of the world, even though the land surrounding him was trees and fields, often winds would bring red sand to him from the deserts far south of his ranch, dusting everything with a faint burnt glow. If the kitchen table was clean, someone had to have been there recently. He looked over towards the kitchen counter, which was grey slate and attached to which was a white porcelain sink. They were both clean as well, causing a enormous amount of confusion. There was still no sign of Philip, as Cody looked through the other rooms on the ground floor. He was beginning to relax his tense body by the time he decided to go upstairs and check out the bedroom. The stairs were oak and very narrow, to the extent that Cody always found that the heel of his boots were almost falling off the edge of the steps. The upstairs of the house was darker, the shutters were all closed, and most of the furniture in the bedrooms were still covered in the sheets as he had left them. The house had originally been his grandparents and before that his great grandparents. His grandmother had always been particularly careful about the furniture upstairs, constantly trying to buff out scuffmarks and stop fabrics from bleaching in the sunlight’s. She could be a holy terror that woman, but she reserved her feminine touch for these bedrooms that Cody and his brothers had shared. They weren’t out here much, just mostly during the summers when they had come to help out with the animals and to swim in the lake. Cody used to joke that he kept the house as tidy as she had because he was afraid her ghost would come back to haunt him. He listened to the creak of the floorboards underfoot as he examined the worn threads of the carpets that lined the halls. His mind was beginning to settle that Philip had only left recently, perhaps overwhelmed by the amount of work involved and not wanting to face Cody after letting the ranch fall into such a state of disrepair. He got to the master bedroom at the end of the hallway, and leaned himself onto the windowsill to look out across the landscape. He watched through his little square glass panels, which cast latticed shadows all across the bed. He sighed, trying to breath out the built up of aggression in his body that would have served him well in combat. He pulled off his blue shirt, threw it on the bed, and laid down for a few seconds, his head still throbbing. He tugged his white tank top to straighten it and as he was doing so he turned towards the door, seeing a tiny movement out by the stables. He pivoted, instantly recognizing the quick movements of someone trying to hide. He leaped downstairs taking two steps at a time, working on pure reflexes and instinct as he ran back out to the backyard where the stables and outbuildings were. The sun beat down on his muscled shoulders, and his breathing was shallow and rapid. Almost silently, he edged his way around the corrugated metal building which held the water tanks and tools. As he crossed the sharp line of a shadow, he saw who he was looking for and instantly slammed him up against the wall. It took him only a few seconds to realize who he was looking at or what was happening.
‘WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING ON MY RANCH?!” he yelled, his face right up against the other man’s, who had a strong and muscular frame, even though that wasn’t as evident due to Cody’s lifting of him up off the ground.
“WHERE IS PHILIP? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!” Cody wasn’t giving the guy any time to respond, but he also wasn’t trying to retaliate. Cody threw him to the ground, hoping that it would shock some sort of an answer out of him. The black man’s skin glistened in the hot sun, and the fall caused the two to be surrounded in a massive cloud of sawdust.
‘Look man I don’t know who Philip is. There was no one here when I got here’
‘You expect me to believe that?’ Cody responded.
‘There was a letter on the table when I got here, the front door was open with the keys under the mat, and I needed some place to stay. I was here delivering feed for the horses when I found the place was empty. I wasn’t just out looking for homes to break into’
The guy seemed a bit nervous, but not afraid, which Cody wasn’t used to. He had built his whole career on being able to scare the shit out of some fairly terrifying people.
‘So where’s this letter? Did you open it?’
‘No, I put it in one of the drawers in the kitchen, I’ll show you’
‘You fucking will show me’ Cody growled as he grabbed the man’s hand and yanked him up harshly. He followed the man back into the house
‘My name’s Wes by the way’ as he pushed the letter into Cody’s hand. ‘I’ll assume you must be Cody’.
Phillip had written his name on the envelope, but he was still put off balance by the fact that this man knew his name and was still relatively unworried by the whole situation. He grabbed the letter and read it quickly. As he had expected, Phillip said he’d found the ranch overwhelming and found another job knowing Cody was returning soon. He didn’t bother to read the rest. He was pissed at Philip, but looking at the date on the letter he had to assume that Wes had been the one taking care of the horses all this time. Phillip had been gone for weeks, and had listed no phone number or way to contact him.
‘So how long have you been here?’
‘About 6 weeks…maybe’
‘Well look, thanks for looking after the horses and all but you’ll have to go’
Wes picked up a backpack from beside the front door that had been hidden under a blanket. He looked pissed, but frankly Cody couldn’t give a shit. He liked having the ranch to himself and he didn’t plan on sharing the place with some random guy he’d never met before in his life. As he shut the door Cody listened to his steps go down the porch and then watched him walk out past the driveway. He put on some coffee and tried to settle his nerves, sitting down at the table making a list of jobs he’d need to complete, and pieces of the ranch that he’d need to fix. After finishing the list, he sat there looking at a full page worth of tasks. He had hoped for a few days to relax before settling back into ranch work, but thanks to Philip that was now off the table. He rubbed his eyes and balanced his head in his hands, appreciating the quietness of the house. It was nearing sunset now, so he decided to move out to the stables and feed the horses before heading to bed. He had missed getting to hang out with them, and very much so preferred their company as opposed to other humans. This had been exacerbated by spending so long in a career based around being mistrustful of others. He went to bed and struggled to sleep, still unsettled by his meeting with Wes earlier. He couldn’t get over how confident and relaxed he had been about the whole thing. For all Wes had known, Cody might have had a gun and could have shot him. This image was stuck in Cody’s mind and it was hours before he managed to finally get to sleep.