Rough Canvas (23 page)

shoulders, the network of veins.

A man’s soul was a fragile thing when this close to the surface, very much like a butterfly. Maybe that was why time seemed to stop in these moments, as if it was a protection. Once the winds of time resumed, that butterfly would be blown away, as if blasted by the backdraft of a semi. It had to have time to sink back behind the protective wall of flesh and mental shields.

Some of those walls were built thicker and tougher than others, which perhaps

explained why it came so easily to the surface for Thomas, whose shields seemed almost dangerously transparent at times.

Marcus molded Thomas protectively into the curve of his body at the thought,

holding him securely about the waist, still inside of him as they both got their breath back. Since he had his arm under Thomas’ head, Thomas brushed his lips on the

smooth inside skin of his forearm.

“Wow,” he murmured. “That was something else.”

Marcus rose on one elbow then, sliding from him and tugging him to his back to

look into his face, needing to see his eyes. “Yeah.”

Thomas grinned. “Poets. Both of us.” He cast a glance to the right. “What do you think?”

Marcus moved his attention to the series of sketch pads propped up in tented

fashion so Thomas could show them to him, the pages anchored with clips against the breeze.

The one he’d been working on was this meadow, a bird’s eye view. In the ripples of meadow grass there were the hints of sinuous bodies and limbs. The grasses followed the contours of muscles, as if the meadow held the memory and impression of past lovers.

As remarkable as that coincidence was, the next sketch cinched it. It was the curved back of a man as his male lover knelt in intimate posture behind him, the suggestion of a butterfly’s markings upon his back even as one of the creatures fluttered into the picture with them. Just one…

Had he internalized Thomas’ work in his dreams, during his doze? Logic told him he had, but something deeper, the thing that tumbled inside of his heart with such strength whenever he looked at Thomas, suggested something different. It was a feeling so strong it could be the essence of joy and fury. Perhaps the two together created 117

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passion because it was the struggle to give and take all at once. It told him he would never know if the idea had come from Thomas’ mind or his own.

Maybe what Thomas painted was the melding of both of their desires, fears, dreams and fantasies. Maybe that was the real reason he’d never felt excluded when Thomas painted.

“What do you think?” Thomas’ tone was studiedly neutral, almost making Marcus

smile.

“I think the more free rein you give your talent, the more you’re going to amaze the world.” Marcus glanced down at him. “But if you want me to go on record, my official comment is I should be able to get a decent commission off them.”

“Asshole.” Thomas shoved at his chest and Marcus laughed, let himself be pushed away. He lay on his back quietly then, watching Thomas draw his jeans back on, zip them up. His farm boy negligently left the top button open as something in the sketch pads caught his attention. He hopped one-legged toward them, putting on his shoe, grabbing up his pencil. Marcus swiftly moved to retrieve his wineglass from the sure punt it would have experienced, since Thomas paid no attention to what was between him and his goal.

“Use me for sex and then you’re done with me.” He murmured it, though, not

wanting to distract Thomas’ concentration. He dressed, found Thomas’ shirt, folded it and added it to the pack of their belongings.

When he turned to survey the scenery of the lower level of the field they were in, he found himself eye to eye with another occupant of the same meadow.

“Thomas.”

Thomas glanced back, half irritably, and then did a double take. “Where did they come from?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I think we were a bit distracted when they arrived.”

The large black and gray male goat, complete with curved horns and a shaggy long coat, considered Marcus with an interested eye, or rather his books. He began to nibble at the edge of one.

“Hey, quit that.” When Marcus raised a hand to shove him away, Thomas made a

quick warning noise.

“Not a good idea to push around a male goat. Just take it away, don’t push at his face. He’ll take that as an invitation to butt heads with you.” Marcus heard the laughter in his lover’s voice. “And as hard as your head is, I still suspect you’ll lose.”

“Oh, geez. What is that stench?”

“Him. Male goats piss on their own faces to make themselves more attractive to

females.”

“You made that up.”

“Did not.” Thomas came to his side and gazed down the slope past their tree where the rest of the herd, about twenty-five females and a few kids, late summer arrivals, 118

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were alternately grazing or studying the two men. Marcus was easing away from the male goat, giving him a baleful look as the goat continued to root at him. His lips captured a piece of shirt and Marcus pulled back.

“This shirt costs way more than they get for goat meat, you pushy bastard,” he

pointed out. The goat stepped forward, making a guttural noise followed by a snort.

“Thomas—”

“Is that panic I hear in the great Marcus Stanton’s voice?” Thomas touched his back and burst out laughing when Marcus jumped as if jolted by electricity. “You didn’t seem at all intimidated by Kate.”

“She was a cow. I know cows. Pigs. Chickens. Goats are…not supposed to be this

bloody big. His fricking head reaches my chest.”

“It’s all right. I’ll protect you.” With a droll look, Thomas dipped his hand and squeezed his buttock.

“I am so going to kick your ass in about ten seconds.”

“If the goat doesn’t scare you into scampering back to the car.”

“What the hell are you doing in this field?”

When they both turned, Marcus noted that Thomas automatically took a step in

front of him. Though to Marcus’ way of thinking the goat posed more of a threat than the man, it still gave him an odd feeling to see Thomas do it so instinctively. Enough that he quelled the urge to shoulder him aside for the same reason.

They were quite obviously facing the farmer and caretaker of the goats, for a group of the herd began to move up the hill at the sound of his voice, their steps quickening as if expecting he would be bringing them something interesting to eat. The male goat pushed past Marcus as if he weren’t there, making him jump again and leaving a

malodorous wake that had his eyes watering.

The man was heavy set, in his fifties, wearing jeans stained with straw and dirt.

There was a once white undershirt under his open unbuttoned shirt. His eyes were suspicious.

“We’re sorry, sir.” Thomas turned and scooped up his sketch pads, drawing them

under his arm and extending a hand. “I’m Thomas Wilder, and this is Marcus Stanton.

I’m an artist. We’re visiting the area and I’d picked this spot out for sketch work because of the view. It’s beautiful land.”

The man studied the extended hand, didn’t take it. “Well, you’re trespassing. Get off my land the way you came. If I come back here in ten minutes and find you, I’ll call the police.” His gaze moved deliberately to the mussed blanket, the picnic basket.

“What you do in Boston or whatever big city you came from is your business, but I don’t want it happening on my property.”

“Well, you didn’t have a rest area available for us to molest teenage boys,” Marcus said, his jaw tightening.

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“Marcus,” Thomas hissed, taking his arm. Thomas knew that fired-up look, knew

this was entirely the wrong place. “I’m sorry sir,” he said quickly. ‘We should have asked permission before coming onto your land.”

The farmer nodded, a muscle in his jaw twitching in an ironic mirror of Marcus’

expression as he turned around and strode away, his herd ambling after him. Some of them returned to their grazing, savvy enough to know it wasn’t dinnertime.

“Why didn’t you just apologize for breathing his fucking air while you were at it?”

Marcus snapped, turning to the blanket and picking it up. He shoved the basket away before the male goat could start investigating the contents or nibble on the wicker on the outside.

“We’re on his land. We weren’t invited. It was my fault. I’m used to home where I know all the farmers and they know me.”

“It’s your fault for being gay?”

Thomas set his teeth. “This isn’t about that. Not everything is about that. He’s just tired of tourists trespassing.”

“It isn’t, hmm?” Marcus rolled the blanket into a ball, stuffed it into the duffel, shouldering it and gathering the picnic basket. “What do you think he would have done if we were Joe and Suzie Q sitting here, doing exactly what we were doing?”

“He still would have asked us to leave the property,” Thomas said stubbornly.

“Maybe. But I’ll lay you odds if he did, he’d have chatted them up a bit. Or as he headed back up that hill, he’d get a nostalgic feeling, thinking about him and the missus and their younger days. Sowing wild oats and all that.”

“Getting in his face doesn’t work. You don’t change people by living up to what they think you are.”

Marcus lifted a brow. “Have you tried that line on yourself?”

“What do you want, Marcus?” Thomas snatched the basket from him, slammed it

to the ground. “Not everyone accepts people who… like…”

Marcus rounded on him. “You searching for a word, pet? Maybe you should be

listening more closely to your brother. Homosexuals, gay, fags, rump riders, fudge packers, whatever makes it into something nasty and obscene.”

The male goat had retreated to his herd. Despite the fact he applauded the goat’s wisdom, Thomas held firm, his brows drawing down over dark eyes that he wasn’t

even aware were snapping with their own fire. “This isn’t about some farmer’s veiled insult. The way you’re acting—that’s about you and me.”

“Really? You fucking think so? Artists are such brain surgeons, aren’t they? Two seconds ago, I was inside you and you were inside me. Two seconds later you’re

bowing and scraping and asking for forgiveness for being here, for fucking being who you are. Just like you are with your family. As if it’s something to be ashamed of.”

“It’s not that. You know my mother, her faith—”

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“Don’t.” Marcus’ voice was low and vicious, and it brought Thomas up short.

“When I’ve come inside you, lain on you, felt you tremble, felt that silence between us that has everything…you don’t think God is there? If there is a God, I’ve felt It then, and I know you have too.”

”Marcus—”

Marcus snarled at him, hefted the blanket and turned on his heel, striding across the field, his back stiff and straight. He went right through the herd. If Thomas hadn’t been so angry himself, he would have been amused by how the goats parted before him like Moses.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, following. But Thomas kept his distance as Marcus went up the opposite slope, letting him work off his mad. And maybe because he

couldn’t bear for the conversation to continue. They had been…everything had been perfect, just as Marcus said. Was he right? When he’d heard the farmer, all Thomas could think about during his stumbling apology was that the farmer had seen him fondling another man, and how that would color his perception.

But Marcus didn’t understand. He lived in New York City, where prejudice was

simply swallowed in the sheer volume of multinationalism and multicultures, where it could squeak and irritate but rarely roar and destroy. Where ridicule might come from one person, but not become a wall of reaction from the whole community that could impact his family.

Maybe coming out into the country hadn’t been a good idea. He’d sought the

familiar, but it was the familiar when he was playing the role of the hardware owner’s son, in a community where he’d grown up and they knew him. Where his sexual

preference might be suspected because of his looks and absence of a steady girlfriend, but never openly stated.

It wasn’t familiar territory when he was with Marcus. He looked at the stiff lines of Marcus’ shoulders and knew, as he’d known from the beginning, that this was a

mistake. It would always be this way. But he had three more days before he had to walk away and God help him, Marcus was right about his lack of pride. When it came to Marcus, Thomas would take the remaining days because he couldn’t have any more

after that. This was borrowed time as it was.

He’d accepted that, would let it tear him apart. But for the first time, after his revelation of last night, he thought about it from Marcus’ viewpoint. If Marcus was right, if Marcus did…love him, should Thomas be so selfish to take these three days?

Could Marcus be as vulnerable as he seemed to be at times, ways Thomas had never perceived him to be before? If he took the full week, what would that do to Marcus when he walked away?

Geez, he was losing his mind. Marcus had a life that normal, average people who stood in grocery store lines, staring at the glitzy covers of magazines, would envy.

A bleat distracted him. A straggler. Then Thomas heard another note to it, a note of distress, and came to a stop.

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“Marcus.”

Marcus thought about ignoring the call. Actually contemplated driving away,

leaving Thomas here, or at least making him think so. He’d drive just over the hill, around the curve. But knowing Thomas, the Southern redneck streak would kick in and he’d probably pick up a rock and destroy the Maserati’s paint job.

No, that was more his style, not his gentle Thomas. Thomas would stand there and look like an abandoned puppy, making Marcus feel like shit.

He stopped, expelling a frustrated blast of air and turned to find Thomas waving to him from a copse of trees, an urgency to his gesture that obviously had nothing to do with their argument.