And that wasn’t anything to worry about, now, was it? As a prospect.
Crap, Morrow thought, knowing damn well he was doing nothing but repeating himself, as ever. Of all the bone-head moves to go and damn well pull, Goddamnit. . . .
But here the words faded to white, ’cause Chess was kissing him again — grinding into him groin-first, his pretty little piece polishing itself industriously on the sweat-slick fur of Morrow’s belly. And Morrow felt himself spring immediately back to full attention; more hexation-overspill, probably, not that he was complaining. Felt his slick head butt up hard once more against Chess’s ass, like the dumb beast just couldn’t wait to cram itself back up into a space so tight, it was just as well that part of the body didn’t have no bones.
Cry ’bout it in the morning, if I have to, Morrow decided, knowing he wouldn’t. And pulled Chess back down once more, to where he could get at him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Stay with me, Chess’d ordered Morrow, after their fun was through. So Morrow had, though he mostly ended up just watching him sleep, all sprawled out, absinthe-dazed and snoring aniseed.
Even his damn scars are pretty, Morrow caught himself thinking, wondering just how God expected to get away with letting anything be so fair and yet so unrelenting foul at once.
But here Chess yawned wide and stretched, breaking Morrow’s reverie. He opened one lazy eye, winced at how the morning light pained him, and demanded — “Where in the hell’s that damn bottle?”
“They only had the one of them left, Chess, remember? And you drunk it already.”
Chess pulled a face, which seemed to hurt him in an entirely different way.
“I feel justabout the same, if that helps,” Morrow offered.
“Oh, do ya? That’s a comfort. . . .”
He levered himself standing, and stood there rude and proud as ever, though moving just a tad slower than he usually did, ’specially in and around the nether regions. Continuing, as he did: “. . . but if you really don’t got any liquor handy, then what I want’s a bath . . . so call me one, and get the hell out. ’Less you’re thinkin’ of comin’ in with me.”
And with this last part, he shot Morrow yet one more of those lash-veiled glances, causing him the now-requisite hot stab of equal parts shock and shame. I ain’t like that, Morrow would’ve been able to tell himself, up to only last night — but here it was at least an hour past dawn, and that once-fine certainty had gone the literal way of all flesh.
Now Chess was legging it over to the wash-stand, wincing slightly with each step. Casting back, over his shoulder — “Just so we understand each other, by the by, I ain’t sayin’ this didn’t happen — just that the Rev don’t need to know unless it’s from me, and me alone. You take my meanin’, Mister Morrow?”
“Oh, no damn fear, Mister Pargeter — you think I’m gonna tell him? I got at least as much to lose here as — ”
“No. No, you don’t.”
They paused a moment, Morrow studying Chess closely — not the full spread of him, so much, as the far more telling details.
“Hell, you feel bad, ’bout what we did — you ’n’ me, last night. Don’t ya?”
“Don’t be an idjit. I done a lot worse, with a lot of others. You think you’re special?” Chess shook his head, reaching for his trousers. “Second after Rook gets back, I won’t even recall that horse’s-ass face you make when you’re in your sin — that’s the damn truth.”
Morrow kept on staring, then shook his head in turn, grinning slightly. “If that don’t beat all,” he declared.
“If what don’t, Goddamnit?”
Feel bad for killin’ a man . . . feel bad for doin’ — that — with another one. Hell, it’s kinda like you ain’t the Chess Pargeter I heard tell of at all. Like you’re a whole ’nother man, entirely.
But: “How you really must love him, after all, strange as that might seem,” was what Morrow said out loud, instead. “That you even can.”
Chess ground his teeth at that, audibly, so loud it almost made Morrow take an actual step backwards — but let out his held breath a moment on, his anger set aside for the nonce: cooled, if never truly banked. “Yeah, I guess I do, at that,” he allowed.
Didn’t sound much of a happy insight, though.
“Okay, then. But love ain’t so bad, Chess. Is it?”
“My Ma always said love was a trick and a trap; took her oath on it, more times than I can count. Not that she ever kept her oath.”
“Well . . .” Morrow began, uncomfortably. “Might be . . . she wasn’t really the best authority on the subject.”
Wasn’t sure what to expect, by way of response — anything from a sob to a punch seemed just as likely. But Chess simply looked at him once more, eyes suddenly considerably less forlorn — sniffed like he’d heard better jests from gut-shot men slow-dyin’ but didn’t necessarily want to say so. And answered, “Oh yeah, that’s right, I forgot. You met her.”