Winter Heart Page 3

  Howard convinced him that not only were other men no threat to the two of them, but there was nothing wrong with Wyatt being with other men as well. Even on his own. He encouraged it.

  How had that happened?

  “You’re young,” Howard had told him. “You need to sow your wild oats, Wyatt! Try things. Try different men. Experience life. I mean, don’t you ever want to try topping?”

  And he had, hadn’t he? He had found the sexual adventures to be fun. He’d decided that maybe Howard was right—it was stupid to think he could have a Harlequin Romance life (his mother had read those his whole life, and he’d snuck dozens of them late at night). But those stories weren’t real.

  But…

  But now, looking at his friends? Had he been right? Did they have it? Did they have everything Wyatt’s boyhood heart had ever wanted? Did Harlequin love really exist after all?

  “And in a week or so,” Peni said, breaking Wyatt from his thoughts, “I’ll fly out to be with him.”

  Even though the two of you will only be there a week or so? Wyatt wondered.

  “We know it will only be a week or so,” Asher said as if reading Wyatt’s thoughts. “But that’s a week we’ll have together. And besides… come on… Hollywood. I want to show him around.”

  Everyone agreed that was just splendid, and Wyatt managed a smile. Good for him. Good for them.

  It didn’t make the ache go away, though.

  And then…

  …as Wyatt looked around the room, he had a sudden thought.

  It seemed crazy, but…

  When had the trouble really begun with Howard?

  Why… why, it had been the month that Sloan met Max.

  And as the sparks between the two of them turned into a fire and then true love, the fights had begun to turn serious between Wyatt and Howard.

  He would never forget when Howard had ignored their veto rule—the ability they each had to nix a partner’s potential playmate. Wyatt had told Howard in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want him having sex with Chuck (Upchuck) Mueske, a complete gnome, and Howard told him he didn’t care—he was going to anyway. He wound up not doing anything, but not before Wyatt had a complete fit and stormed out.

  Next, when Scott met Cedar out at Camp during the annual Heartland Queer Men’s Festival (an event that Wyatt loved and Scott had always mocked!), things only got worse. Way worse. He and Howard had a huge fight that time—their worst ever. It seemed Howard had practically raped some kid, and word was, he hadn’t worn a condom (not that a condom would have made it okay). The kid—a sweet airhead named Blue—came to admit his part in what happened. And after Wyatt and Howard had their roof-raising fight, Wyatt accepted Howard’s story. That the incident had been a role-playing game that had gone wrong. That Howard hadn’t realized he’d taken things too far….

  Then, finally, Asher had found love.

  Asher—who Wyatt figured would never settle down—fell in love with Peni, and suddenly Wyatt was the only one single.

  How had that happened?

  Well! It had happened when Wyatt had gotten off work early one day and picked up some Nilgiri chicken korma and samosas on the way home to surprise Howard and found his lover in the middle of a bareback party—fucking some guy bent over their coffee table (they’d picked it up for a steal in a little antique shop on one of their trips) while he, Howard, was getting fucked by a man with one of the biggest cocks Wyatt had ever seen (and he’d seen some huge cocks).

  Howard.

  Who did not get fucked.

  When Wyatt got (understandably) angry—started shouting about it—Howard kicked him out. Broke up with him! Told him he was tired of Wyatt’s shit. Slapped him! Howard had never hit him. Close once or twice, maybe (he’d seen it in Howard’s eyes), but never hit him.

  And now for the first time in years, he was single and his friends—every one of them without a lover in all the time he’d known them—were all quite suddenly and happily deep in wedded bliss.

  What if…

  What if there were something… cosmic going on? What if the gods only had so much wedded bliss to go around? What if him being in a relationship had somehow… blocked his friends from doing the same? What if their finding love meant some cosmic balance had shifted, and now he had to be alone?

  Maybe this was some weight he needed to bear so his friends could be happy?

  Would he ever have someone again? Would he ever have what they had? Was Howard right? That no one would ever want him?

  Gods.

  Please….

  No.

  The group began to whoop and holler, startling Wyatt out of his thoughts.

  “I’m not stripping!” cried Peni.

  “No,” agreed Asher. “He most assuredly is not!”

  “But I do want you to see…,” Peni said.

  See? See what?

  “Be back in a flash.”

  “I can’t wait,” Cedar was saying. “I bet he looks amazing.”

  “He does,” Asher said with a sweet smile.

  “I just can’t imagine the pain,” said Scott. “I looked it up on Google and found some articles that made me downright queasy.”

  “I’ll bet they don’t come close to describing how bad it really was.” For a moment Asher’s face went grim. “I don’t know how he did it. I could barely make it.”

  Oh gods, thought Wyatt. Did they mean…?

  And to confirm Wyatt’s wonderings, Peni came back, jeans replaced by a sarong. No. A lava-lava. That is what Samoans called the colorful piece of cloth tied around Peni’s waist. It flowed around him as he walked and there was no way you could help but see the tattoos.

  The pe’a.

  Magnificent.

  Unreal.

  Almost otherworldly.

  The elaborate tattoos were nothing like what Wyatt had drawn all over Peni’s legs and lower buttocks with a Sharpie last Halloween.

  Nothing.

  Wyatt was quite simply in awe at the sight. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

  The pe’a began at Peni’s knees and rose up his body to his waist and higher, covering every inch of skin with black and line and pattern. Wyatt’s marker art had stopped at the waist, but Peni’s Samoan art did not. In front it did, with a sort of checkerboard just below his belly button and said navel filled with a square of black. But then, in an upward fan pattern, the tattoos swept high on his sides and over his entire lower back. There were great plains of solid ink and then dozens of radiating lines—some straight, some jagged—dots, tiny squares, and daggers spread out like a palm leaf. Peni lifted his lava-lava high, concealing only his groin, to reveal more lines radiating out across his buttocks, some that met at the top of his cleft, which was filled in with even more black.

  He was beautiful.

  Wyatt couldn’t speak. For a long moment, the only sounds around the room were the intakes of deep breaths and quiet gasps. As Wyatt stood there drinking in the beauty of Peni and his pe’a, he found himself feeling… spiritual.

  None of this work had been done with a tattoo gun. Oh no. This ink had been inlaid deep into Peni’s flesh by tools made of fish bone and boar’s tusk. Tools carved into tiny, jagged, razor-sharp combs that were then dipped into the ink and tapped or even pounded in with a mallet. When Peni went to Samoa a couple of months ago to get his tattoos, Scott had called Wyatt, all but freaking out. He’d read what Peni was going to be doing—or having done to him—and sent Wyatt the links he’d found. Reading them had made him squeamish, even dizzy. Looking at the expansive artwork today, Wyatt could only rub at his teddy-bear tattoo on his upper arm and be embarrassed about what a big deal he’d made while getting it. His had taken an hour. Asher—and the online articles—said Peni’s had taken days. Long twelve-hour days. And if Peni had stopped the tufuga ta tatau—the tattoo artist—before it was all done, he would have brought shame on himself and his family for the rest of his life.

  Again, Wyatt could only stare in
wonder.

  “W-well?” Peni asked.

  Around him, Wyatt’s friends each opened and closed their mouths, at first not speaking. It seemed that the tattoos—the pe’a—had affected them all. They looked at Peni. They looked at each other. They looked at Asher.

  Asher nodded once. “I know, right?”

  Wyatt reached out, almost touched Peni’s skin, then jerked his hand back. “It’s… it’s like holy ground.”

  Peni smiled, and his big black eyes turned wet. “Thank you, Wyatt.”

  Then Wyatt was crying and that “thank you” somehow broke the spell that had fallen over the group and they all began to speak.

  THEY CHATTED more quietly after that, though. None of the robust hilarity that often ensued on Porch Night.

  They updated each other as usual.

  Scott and Cedar talked about how they were going to visit Cedar’s mother, the famous rock star Cyan Carrington, for Christmas. She still hadn’t met Scott and wanted to, and Scott was as nervous as fuck about meeting her. Wyatt was agog. “Wow! You’re going to meet Cyan Carrington! You know she wrote ‘Dark Witch,’ right? And ‘Night Birds’? I mean… whoa! And her new one playing all the time: ‘Stuck out on the open road, I don’t know which way I’m supposed to go….’”

  He stopped, hearing the voice of Howard in his head shouting, “Don’t give up your day job!” every time he sang. “You sound like a cat in heat!”

  “Why do you think I’m so damned nervous?” Scott cried.

  Sloan talked about how he might be flying out to New Hampshire for a few months to open another call center and how he didn’t like the idea of being away from Max for so long. Max didn’t like the idea either. They hadn’t even been together a year, but the opportunity was incredible.

  Asher told a few tales of Hollywood and what it was like to film a movie. Peni talked about all those weeks he spent recovering from getting his pe’a and how different island life was. But it had allowed him to find out even more about his heritage.

  There were polite but cautious inquires as to how Wyatt was getting along.

  Then, while Wyatt went to refresh several cocktails, Peni followed him into the kitchen and asked for a couple himself.

  “I thought you didn’t drink,” Wyatt said.

  “Not really. Especially after that drunken night when we all went to The Male Box.” Peni rolled his eyes. “But I think I would like one tonight. Experience what you made. The ‘lead-free’ version is pretty good.”

  “Well, as long as you understand the lead-in version packs a little more punch, no pun intended. So be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “And Asher? He’s drinking?”

  “We’re experimenting. We had a glass of wine with our dinner last week. It went just fine. He drank it slow and told me he couldn’t remember actually enjoying a glass more. So I thought we could try one of these.” He pointed at the decorated cooler.

  “Okay.” Wyatt nodded. Poured the fruity cocktails into the plastic tiki goblets, stopped about midway, and asked if perhaps he could half-and-half them with the nonalcoholic version. Peni thought that might be a good idea. Then just as he was about to hand them over, Peni was suddenly hugging him—holding him—in his arms. It felt so good. To just be hugged. Even by a friend. Maybe especially by a friend.

  “Thank you, Wyatt,” Peni whispered into his ear.

  He was taken aback. Thank you? For what? “For what?” he asked aloud.

  “For being you. I love you so much. I thought of you….”

  “Th-thought of me?”

  “When I was getting my pe’a. Sometimes.” Peni got a faraway look on his face. “The pain….” He trembled. “It took me to this other… plane. I don’t know how to explain it. There were times that I sort of… rose out of it. Like I wasn’t in my body. Like I was… not drunk exactly. I don’t know how to explain it. Strange thoughts would come. One time I was thinking of Tangaloa—the highest Samoan god—and then…. Well. I heard you. I heard your voice in my head—talking about your Lord and Lady and the Queer Ones. And that day, you were what got me through it all.”

  “Wow.” Wyatt didn’t know what to say. What did you say to that?

  Peni pulled back. “When you said my pe’a was holy ground, I knew you understood. Maybe more than Asher—and I know he gets it.”

  Wyatt sucked in a breath and for some reason felt like crying.

  “It reminded me of something. The other day I was thinking about us. You and me. About the paths we’ve chosen to walk. The not-Christian paths. And suddenly I remembered something. Don’t you have a holy day coming? Isn’t it really soon?”

  Wyatt sighed. Felt that deep ache again. “Yule,” he replied, remembering years of celebrating with Howard. And circles of friends, standing—hand in hand—celebrating the defeat of darkness and the triumphant return of light. “The Winter Solstice.”

  “What are you going to do this year? I mean… since….”

  Since he wasn’t with Howard anymore.

  “I don’t know,” Wyatt said. “I guess I’ll skip it. Just celebrate Christmas with the guys. It’s not like Asher celebrates Chanukah, right?”

  “But it seems wrong,” Peni replied. Then something happened in his dark eyes. A determination. “Come here.” He took Wyatt’s hand in his own, ignoring the drinks, and led him back to the living room. “Hey, guys. I want to ask you something important.”

  They all stopped talking and turned, curiosity clear on their faces.

  “What is it, baby?” Asher said.

  Peni looked at Wyatt. “When is Yule?”

  “I….” What? “It’s in a couple weeks. On a Sunday.”

  Peni turned back to the group. “Yule is in two weeks. Big deal from what I understand for our friend here. And Wyatt doesn’t have anyone to celebrate with. I think I’m going to. No. I know I’m going to. Does anyone want to join me? Join us?”

  Wyatt almost gasped. What? What was Peni saying?

  “Yeah,” said Cedar immediately. “I’m game.” He looked at his lover. “Scott?”

  Scott smiled. “Sure. Why not? You mean like a circle, right? Like we did at Camp? I’d love to.”

  Wyatt’s mouth almost fell open.

  “You know you can count on me,” Asher added, further astonishing Wyatt. Asher and Scott? In circle? Sloan he might have imagined but….

  “I think that sounds fantastic,” Sloan said.

  Max, ever-practical Max, nodded. “I’m willing. It’ll be educational. To see another spiritual approach to this time of year.”

  “Seriously?” Wyatt asked.

  He looked around the room, and they were all nodding. Including friends that had—at least at one time—called what he did “witchy-woo-woo.” Of course, one of those people had been Scott, and now he might as well be witchy-woo-woo himself. These friends. They had all changed so much. It wasn’t just their love lives. It had been a year of transformation for all of them. And now? Now they were willing to celebrate a pagan ritual with him.

  The tears came back to his eyes. “You guys…. You won’t think it’s too weird?”

  “Not me!” proclaimed Scott. “Not after some of the things I saw this past summer.”

  “And I dig it big-time,” added Cedar.

  “I’m excited,” said Peni. “I mean really excited.”

  “Oh gosh,” Wyatt whispered, a tear threatening to roll down his cheek.

  “Does it have to be Sunday?” Asher asked. “If we did it Saturday, I could fly in that morning and then go back to Los Angeles on Sunday.”

  “No!” Wyatt smiled. “Saturday is fine. We mostly do that anyway. Celebrate on the Saturday closest to.”

  “That works great,” said Peni.

  Everyone agreed. Wyatt couldn’t believe it. The tears were building.

  No! No tears. He had to fight them. This was wonderful. A time of joy!

  And then! Inspiration struck! The night would be complete!

  “He
y,” Wyatt cried. “I got a joke.”

  Would wonders never cease, no one moaned!

  “What do you call a bear with no teeth?”

  Everyone shook their heads. Apparently no one had any idea, although he was sure someone would have guessed.

  “A gummy bear!” he exclaimed.

  There were groans. And a few giggles.

  It wasn’t a very good joke. But considering the circumstances, it wasn’t bad at all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  KEVIN OWENS sat up in bed the minute the alarm clock went off, neither hitting the slumber button nor even considering going back to sleep. He was awake. Time for the day to begin.

  Not that he had anything to do.

  He stood up, scratched his underwear-clad balls, stretched, heard his back pop. It felt good.

  He turned and looked out the window, seeing the silhouette of the New York City skyline. He never tired of it. He loved the city. Loved the old familiar buildings—was proud of the new. He loved the people. And that often reminded him of a line from one of his favorite books…

  …to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death….

  But to call Kevin a city boy would be wrong. He loved the country as well, and this morning—already—he was hearing the call of the Land. He’d been hearing it, feeling it, for a week. At least.

  He could see it all in his mind’s eye. The sun on the lake, and the great blue herons flying over it. Feel the grass beneath his bare feet, the sun on his skin, the soil sifting through his fingers as he weeded Hesperides Garden. Smell the earth and growing things. Almost hear the cicadas and the wind in the trees. He couldn’t remember if there had been a time the call had come so early. He wasn’t going to go to Camp for another seven months.

  Of course, at this time of year Camp Sanctuary wouldn’t look anything like he was used to. Not anything like what his senses remembered. He’d only been there once when it wasn’t lush and green, and that had been for a memorial service for a dear friend late one fall a few years back. The trees hadn’t been thoroughly bare—with some red and orange and more brown leaves stubbornly hanging on—but wow, quite a difference. And that had been in November. What would it look like now?