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Taking Chances, by E. L. Van Hine and L.H. Nicoll
MaineWriter:
Chapter 82:
Ennis smiled, feeling a pang in his chest, wondering how Junior would feel when he got in his truck and moved away from her, down to Laramie? “Be home soon darlin, you take care now.”
“Love ya Daddy,”
“I love you too Junior, see you soon.”
Ennis set the phone down slowly, that pang spreading in his chest, and looked up to see Ellery pulling off his boots on the sofa. “Daughter misses me...” he said softly.
“Feels good ta be loved don’t it, sweetheart?” Ellery replied, standing up and approaching him slowly, holding out a hand, sliding it over the back of Ennis’s hand as he drew in close.
Leslie
belbbmfan:
chapter 83
By the time he had finished ironing his shirts, folded his socks (one of which he put under the pillow where he had been sleeping), he put in a load of Ellery’s clothes, including one of his uniforms. As he picked up the clothes, he held them to his face, the slight spice of body odor, the lingering sweetness of his cigars, the scent of his body stirring him, and he remembered picking Jack’s shirt out of his closet in Lightning flat, holding it up to his nose, breathing it in, trying to catch a whiff of the man who no longer was... the scent, gone. He had a wild desire, then, sorted through the shirts, selecting one with just enough of the odor of him, scented with the sweet taste of the cigar, and folded it, putting it in his gunnysack with his own clean, folded clothes. He sat down, suddenly, leaning against the radiant heat of the dryer, putting his head down on the top of the sack.
“Jack... why did ya have ta die? It coulda ... been good, like this. I woulda.... changed....” he stopped speaking, then, putting his hands over his face. Would he have? Without the shock of that loss, without the months of solitude, sitting and staring at those shirts hanging on his wall, followed by the crushing unemployment and inactivity, the last winter blowing savagely through the drafty cracks in the trailer before the last hopeless season at the ranch... would he have changed?
He sat, suddenly inert, tears of grief falling once again, echoing that grief he felt at the moment of orgasm the night before... the pain of separation from the one he loved... the man he loved.... how many separations... more time saying goodbye than ever saying hello, more desperate, last minute partings than joyful reacquaintances... one more than he really needed. He sobbed, his guts twisted into a semblance of that feeling of hopeless loss, and could not tell if it was Jack he grieved, or this day’s departure. Maybe it was the same thing, after having refused to acknowledge all of those partings, refused to acknowledge that first love and loss, each parting from Ellery seemed like a death.
louisev:
--- Quote from: brokebackjack on December 20, 2006, 06:51:04 am ---If anybody on here visits DCF, do yourself a favor and check out Louise's Photocaps. they are the simplest, most apt, funniest damned things around, I'm still LMAO from Jack's Speedo
--- End quote ---
Actually the er, Classic Collection are in the Bettermost Lighter Side forum! No need to travel across the pond to see "No Jack I haven't seen your damn blue Speedo."
MaineWriter:
Also from chapter 83:
Ellery rushed in the door a couple of hours later. “Thought I’d miss ya. Carol said you’d called but I never got back to the office. Everythin okay?”
Ennis pointed at the window where a robin was presiding over the bird feeder, and a bright blue hummingbird hovered nearby. “Look at em. Been watchin em all afternoon. It’s relaxin.”
“You been watchin birds?” Ellery laughed. “They are pretty, I admit. An there’s a whole herd of em out there.”
“Flock, Ellery.” He rose, stretching slightly, and the hummingbird flitted off, perhaps scared by the movement on the other side of the glass.
“Flock. Yer truck ready?”
He nodded. “All ready ta go, except for pickin up the truck an payin em.”
Ellery threw his arms around his neck, breathing into his ear. “An yer goodbye kisses a course,” and fastened his mouth on Ennis’s before he could object.
When they let go of each other, Ennis gave him a wink and a smirk. “I like kissin ya better when yer wearin that uniform.”
“I’ll have it on when ya get back.”
“You better.”
L
MaineWriter:
from Chapter 85:
Ennis opened his mouth, then closed it, facing the rage and pain written in his daughter’s face. “An I wouldn’t a done it if I could a helped it, neither, darlin. An I never meant ta hurt nobody neither.” Tears stung his eyes. “That wasn’t why I done it, an your momma never did nothin wrong ta deserve it. Is that what ya want me ta say?”
“I thought you mighta changed yer ways!” she gasped, overwhelmed by her boldness, and turned away from him, turning off the tap as if doing so were an admission of defeat.
“Ain’t no changin this Junior. Only reason I stopped goin away campin was because he died. My man died. Never told no one that, an now ya know.”
She put a hand over her face. “Now you got a new one,” concealing her eyes if she dared not look.
“Didn’t spect it. It just happened. But yeah. He got a good job an a house there an asked me ta stay, an I am goin back, too.” There. He had said it. He saw his daughter tremble behind the concealing hand. “Got offered a job trainin horses, an goin back ta work out the details, move my horses down there soon as we get it settled.”
“Daddy…” she murmured, disbelieving, looking up at him from behind that concealing hand, her eyes bright with tragedy and loss. “Yer goin away…”
“Save ya the trouble a kickin me out for bein queer, I suppose,” he said, picking up his fork, forcing himself to eat to still the growl in his guts.
“I’d never kick you out!” she denied, taking the defensive. “You don’t got ta go all the way ta Laramie ta…”
“Yeah I do. I want ta be with em. Lived a long lonesome life already, an I’m sick of it. Got a good job, doin somethin I know how, workin for good people. Got a good man an I want ta be with em.”
L
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