Su come outside for a change, walked stiffly to where I stood alone at the head of the driveway. In the same spot where I’d seen Mom so many times, when she was alive, and after that. A fierce longing come over me. I always wished she was still round, but now it wasn’t because I had questions about hunting or drinking. I wanted to ask her if this was what it was like when she first met Dad. If it was right to want someone so much, you would peel their skin off if you could, open their skull, just to get closer. Had she ever got to know anyone as well as I was getting to know Jesse? It didn’t seem possible that she might of ever drunk from Dad, but she wasn’t there to ask, neither. It was too late. I had waited too long. No matter how old you get, your parents always get there first, and there’s a comfort in that. Like an unfamiliar path through the woods where there’s footprints already showing you someone has gone on ahead. Till the day you come to the place where the footprints stop.
There wasn’t no longer a need to stay up till the slimmest hours of night, waiting on Dad’s snores to carry down the hall so I could sneak out and run the dogs. Most nights in fact I slept like the dead, I could imagine my own snores quaking the whole house. But one night just before Christmas I found myself staring at the dark ceiling over my bed. A craving in me. I got up finally, went downstairs and stood in front of the open fridge, then wandered to the sink instead. I drank from the tap, though I didn’t feel particularly thirsty. When I raised my head, I couldn’t pretend anymore I didn’t know what I wanted. The shed, visible through the frosted window over the sink. Jesse’s light on.
He come to the door soon as I knocked, as if we had agreed on meeting. Can’t sleep? he asked.
The fire in the woodstove sent our shadows flickering up the walls. I stepped inside, closed the door. Touched his sleeve. He didn’t say nothing and neither did I. My tongue would of fumbled over words, but my fingers was deft. They went searching for him, unbuttoning one shirt to find another underneath. Layer upon layer. He pulled the last shirt over his head, under that was the sort of bandage you use on a sprain, wrapped tight round him. Unwound, his breasts was small but obvious.
I stopped. Is this okay? I asked.
He didn’t say nothing, but put his mouth on mine.
After, he said, Come here, and there wasn’t no place to go but the cot where he usually slept alone. It was small, but it fit the two of us fine.
The room filled with the sound of our breathing. He was an undiscovered trail in the woods. A familiar landscape made strange, a mountain new to me, and I shook with my own eagerness to explore him. The paleness of him, all the parts of him that didn’t see the sun. His lips, parting, his eyes, closing. His skin, softer than I expected. His breath, his tongue, the shape and weight of him. I lapped him up without drinking.
Till I come to the place where he was like me and tasted blood, coppery and familiar.
And there was the sweat of the day still on me, my own appreciation for the scent, a manly scent radiating from my own skin, my satisfaction with how the training wheel was turning out, my hunger for this girl, my hesitation round her. A jumble of Jesse that come to me all at once. And then out of the jumble, one clear moment.
There was a sweet scent in the air, something sugary and hot, the sun sending tendrils of sweat down my back, and the glow of the day not from the lowering sun but from how I felt, Tom at my side, his hand holding mine. Shouts and laughter up and down the thoroughfare, Wouldn’t you like to win your girl a prize, one dollar, three chances, everyone walks away a winner, you there, you look like a strong man, step on over. We stop so Tom can swing a hammer, a bell rings, and he tells me to pick out a prize. I look past the stuffed bunnies and bears to the only object worth anything, a burl-handled pocketknife. There’s a chorus of screams from one of the rides, and my stomach drops and soars at the same time as Tom leans over me, we kiss—
Don’t, Jesse said and pushed me away.
I licked my lips. I’m sorry, I said. I didn’t know—
Me either, he mumbled. I wasn’t really keeping track. He tugged his jeans on then settled on the cot again. His face was pink. Did you— he started, then stopped. Did you get anything? he asked.
So I told him what I’d seen and heard, a fair of some sort, and him and Tom Hatch. The barkers and their silly games, the stuffed animals staring at him with their glassy eyes after Tom won at Test Your Own Strength.
That’s it? he said.
I shrugged. It’s all a rush, I told him. It comes quick, sort of washes over me like a current, then drains off. I didn’t add that now I could go looking for it whenever I wanted. That it, that part of him, was part of me. I guess this was before things went bad between you and Hatch? I said instead.
He frowned. Seemed to turn something over in his head. You don’t control what you get, he said, not like a question but like a conclusion he come to.
No, I said. I told you, whatever you’re thinking on—
It doesn’t seem fair.
What do you mean?
That first time, you got one taste of my blood, and you found out the one thing I needed to hide. What if there are other things I want to keep to myself? Personal things? You can tell me whatever you like about yourself, and I would never know what’s true and what’s not. But you can know anything you want about me.
It don’t work that way, I said. You could just—don’t think about what you don’t want me to know.
He give me a look.
Anyhow, I wouldn’t lie to you, I told him.
But his pack was still under my bed. The money mostly gone thanks to the race fees, it wouldn’t do any good to tell him about it now.
You still get to choose, Jesse said.
Okay, I told him.
Okay?
I won’t come here for that. Not if you don’t want me to. I still want to come, if that’s okay. But just because I like being here. With you.
I felt the tension go out of his muscles, his whole body relaxed. I slipped an arm round him and rested my head on his chest. His heart sped up, then slowed. The blood coursed through his veins carrying all the bits that made him up, his whole history. All of it concealed just beneath the skin. Close enough to taste.
Thank you, he said.
There wasn’t no reason to leave after that. Dad had stayed in the village that night, at Helen’s, and both of them had an early shift at the clinic. I didn’t expect neither of them home till the next afternoon. By the time the fire was dead, Jesse was asleep, one arm thrown over me. The air round us grew chilly and I burrowed under the blankets next to his warmth. Never closer to anyone, and not just because of the way we’d wove ourselves together, skin to skin, limbs wound round each other till he felt like a coat I could wear. My belly almost sloshing, it felt so full. I knew it wasn’t the blood but what I’d got from it that filled me up.
Okay, I’d said, quick as you please. Like it was easy not to want to know him. I studied his face, soft in the dark. I wouldn’t take what he wasn’t willing to give. But I hoped he wouldn’t hide himself from me just because he could.
The one exception to the busiest three months of the year is late December. Before Christmas, you take your dogs on slow runs and you look over your lists and plans, what you’ll need for your drop bags. After, there’s a mountain of work that’ll need doing. But for a few days right round Christmas, there’s a lull. Things go quiet, and you just enjoy the run.
That Christmas week, things was even quieter than normal. Old Su had barely ate anything that week, and when she come along on walks she seemed to tire out quick. Christmas Day, she barely moved from her spot in front of the woodstove, even when we filled her bowl with kibble mixed with some cooked hamburger, a treat for the holiday.