I couldn’t hear the coyotes but I could sense them. The rustle of the breeze might have been their tails thwapping against the saltbush and the milkweed. It was easy to pin my fear on the animals and the darkness of our queer compound. I wished I were in a place where I wouldn’t be afraid to be alone, to turn in early with a book and a cup of chamomile. But even when I’d lived in such places, in the Jersey City apartment building, for example, surrounded by city lights and the noises of families, even then I had been afraid to be home early, to be sober and unaccompanied as dusk approached.
Very quickly I dressed in a black jumpsuit and my new, stolen heels and drove down the winding road to Froggy’s.
I saw River right away, sitting at the bar, alone in an unalone way. We spoke candidly for a while. I was very attracted to him. I felt safe because I wanted to fuck him more than he wanted to fuck me.
He told me the story of how in grade school he’d been walking home one day with his best friend, Eric. They took the same route as always and it was a bright spring afternoon. Cherry blossoms, baseball season. Eric was wearing a blue sweatshirt his cousin sent him from Hawaii. It said ALOHA HAWAII on the front in rainbow letters and there was a rendering of all the islands.
A white pickup truck drove past, slowed, and came to a stop. A man got out. He had long gray hair, a silvery goatee, jean shorts, and paint on his bare knees. He was flustered and nervous and asked if one of the boys could help, his little girl had fallen into a well on Shroudsbury Road at the old pump house. He was on his way to get help, but he didn’t want to leave her there alone.
—He was looking at me the whole time, River said. And I didn’t say anything. I guess I believed him, but I don’t know, I didn’t say anything. But Eric said, Sure. Eric hopped right into the cab. The old man told me to run along home and call the fire department, tell them to go to the pump house. But he kept looking at me as he backed away. Then he got into his car and they sped away. Eric waved at me out of the window.
That was the last time River saw Eric alive. The next day they found the old truck a few counties over. It was a florist’s van. It had been stolen from a funeral home during a wake. They found Eric’s body in a ditch, naked, a few days later.
—Jesus, I said to him. We were very close to each other in that moment and I looked into his eyes. I suppose, like anyone, I’ve never lost the hope for perfect love to come out of nowhere. River was not brilliant but he was physically perfect and kind and a life with him would be like a Grateful Dead t-shirt.
—I knew, River said, that the man wanted me. I knew I was the one he really wanted. And I’ve been living with that for all of these years.
Despicably, that story was like foreplay for me. I needed to have him; just as I needed to see all the sides of a new town, I needed to feel wanted by a good-looking man. To feel good, to feel as pretty as Alice, to feel potent enough to be near her.
By the time we left, the whole bar knew we were going to fuck. We parked in the driveway of our compound and were about to get out of my car when a long black car drove up. Down! I hissed. And we both shrank beneath the windows.
—It’s probably just Lenny, River whispered.
—Yeah, I said.
—Why are we hiding? he asked.
—I don’t know, I said. I stayed down there until the car took Lenny away.
River led me down the rough terrain from our driveway to his yurt, holding my hand as my heels scraped the rocks. I knew they were getting ruined but I didn’t care; I hadn’t paid for them. I followed him into his yurt and recalled all the times I’d been fucked in creepy places. It was a circus pavilion. Thin balsa beams held the structure up. The beams were in diamond shapes, an accordion; then they straightened and met at the top like the spokes of an umbrella. There was a pellet stove in the center like the one in my home. On the floor were many mismatched carpets. There were Aztec pillows and bright burlap blankets covering arabesque floor couches. His bed was in the back and center, the focal point. Right above it a skylight, a hexagon of navy sky.
He undressed me the way young boys undress a woman. Tentatively they undo one button or tug a corner of the shirt off your shoulder, then they lean back, smile, and wait for you to do the rest. If you never moved, neither would they.
I slipped the jumpsuit off and left my heels on. I wasn’t wearing a bra, so I stood there in just my black thong and those delicious green shoes.
—Do you know what happens, he asked me, when you pour hot aluminum into anthills?
I laughed and said I had no idea what happened when you did that.
—It travels into all the passageways and hardens there, and then you dig it up, and you have this castle, this aluminum castle, with all these doors and intricate hallways. It’s amazing. It’s insane.
—What about the ants, I said.
—Yeah, he replied solemnly.
We began fucking standing up. His body hard and warm. Touching his rear made me self-conscious. After several perfect minutes he laid me down atop his shitty mattress and plunged in and out so rhythmically that it
