Home

There was one time, when they were on one of their so-called fishing trips, that he brought Ennis to a cabin.

It was small-sized, just big enough to live in comfortably enough. About as big as Ennis's house when he'd been with his wife, so he figured he'd have no problem with it in that respect. It was on the edge of the woods, just hidden in the trees, right edging up to a mountainside.

It wasn't Brokeback, but it wasn't a bad mountain by any means. The grass was green and long and it would've been perfect for sheep, or cattle, or any sort of grass-eating livestock.

The lines of the property weren't marked, just the corners indicated each with a post you had to look for actively to find. It wasn't so big that there couldn't be a fence, though, if one was needed. It'd take time and sweat, but it wasn't anywhere near impossible.

He showed him the kitchen, cooked beans and smiled when Ennis laughed; he said it was the first time he'd had any since— since. He didn't say much more.

Jack tried to picture the place lived-in properly: a dog lying against the wall, uncollared and work-rough but loyal. Maybe some more furniture, but nothing real fancy, just wooden and function like what was already there, sparse though it was. Proper food in the kitchen, clothes in the wardrobe, and the bed all covered.

But they just had beans and some other travel-food. The clothes they took with them, mostly just what they wore to the cabin, were the only clothes in the place. Most importantly, the bed wasn't covered, so he took Ennis out just beyond the trees, in the long, green grass, and he stripped them both — Ennis let him, with that amused, indulgent look on his face. He licked up Ennis's thigh, then his other, then teased his cock, half-hard, lightly with his tongue, his lips.

Ennis frowned, and Jack was just glad the amused look was gone when he got pushed into the grass and the dirt, bits of rocks and wilderness scratching at his back. Ennis knelt down, hooked his leg over an elbow, and without much more than spit to slick him up — like most of the time, like back on Brokeback for the first time — he pushed in, groaning all the way.

Jack used to wince at first, to close his eyes and grind his teeth until the pain melted away, but he'd gotten used to it, started to love it, and he could keep his eyes open for one of their rare times face-to-face, watching the sweat bead on Ennis's brow, his teeth catching the inside of his cheek as he concentrating on thrusting just right. He'd figured out, over the years, how to make Jack wail, but it was different at that angle, when he could see Jack's own cock bobbing against him, and he had to stop a few times, readjust, before he got it.

For a moment, it was perfect. Jack pretended it was perfect.

Later, long after they washed up and made bunks on the floor of the cabin, after Ennis left, Jack drove back to another cabin, handed an old man back his deed.

"Didn't work out," he said, and if the man suspected something wrong, which Jack was sure he didn't, he didn't say, just grimaced and complained about having to find another buyer before giving him the money back.

He went on back to Texas and Lureen never suspected a thing either, never even came close to guessing how close Jack had finally gotten to home.