Weathering the Storms Box Set

Chapter 1-3

My Thomas, he claims to not share the desires I feel for him in tender places behind my ribcage and at my groin. Is it fear, is it God, is it nature, or is it denial? The body, it tells us what we feel. It is only the mind that tries to argue. If I take my dying breath on the battlefields of Georgia, will I have ever tasted a man on my mouth? Will I never have felt one against my nakedness or inside me?

Civil war erotica! Jefferson Eaves was getting me hard.

I will go to Thomas tonight, before my departure, and will myself to break his, to test whose will is stronger. I will conquer those fears and press his lips to mine and then put mine to his manhood, hot, erect, ripe, and musky.

“Damn, yo!”

I will inhale that glorious stench I have only afore devoured on my own fingers, from my own places kept hidden, except in the privacy of intimate moments when all inhibitions are lost to sensual urges untamed and untamable, under darkness, under the covers on my bed.

Thomas, Thomas, Thomas! If I am finally gifted with a taste of the secretions of your milky s****l climax, will it satisfy me for any duration, or simply make me mad to experience more of it again and again? The answer is worth the conundrum which may follow, as my mind is now fixated on those two things only; life in its glory, a part of which is the carnal urge to be sticky with that which comes from inside of you during a sweaty, breathless encounter in my bed; and death, that which might come as exhausting, but only as pleasurable once it has taken over the fear and pain that might precede it.

What tale will these pages tell? One of days, of weeks, of months, or of years? One of living, filled with conquests of the romantic and ribald kind, or will they be only of suffering, horror, and eventually an unsatisfying ending, where my writing just ceases, because my hand has been stilled in fatal permanence or by deformity?

That answer will unfold another night. I am about to sneak from my window into the fields under cover of night, not for war, but for love and desire. Thomas’s house is far enough away my legs will be weak by the time I arrive. The hours we have together are few now, not quite enough to make up two days. Shall I march into battle on legs even weaker, barely able to hold me up after the coming together of Thomas and me? That is the hope. That is the hope.

“Mine, too,” I said. “Mine, too.”

The next page included a crudely drawn map. Five lines created a house in each corner, rudimentary representations, with two square frames and triangles for roofs. The path between them was a curvy line that reminded me of the wavy, uneven pattern I created whenever I mowed the lawn. It used to drive my ex mad.

“Jesus. Can’t you do anything right?” he would grouse.

I tried to imagine what filled all the white space on Jefferson Eave’s hand drawn map. It was summer, he’d said. Was it grass with wavy lines? Cornfields? Wheat? What would Massachusetts farmers have been growing in the 1860s?

I Googled my question and found an agriculture report. Because of the terrain, wet fields, and an abundance of rocks, many local farmers gave up on trying to cultivate food beyond their own family’s needs and opted to use their land for feed and pasturing of cattle and sheep, the site stated. Those who did keep growing produce planted tomatoes, onions, and potatoes. Tobacco, hops, beeswax, and lumber were some nonperishable items exported regularly from the area, I learned.

I wondered how Jefferson’s family would survive with him gone off to war. Farming—life in general—must have been really tough back then. I wondered if there had been any siblings left behind to help, or if Jefferson might have had some brothers who would have also been called into battle.

There was only one way to find out. I was going to have to keep reading.

“Did you get old Thomas to bend you over and let you shove your nineteenth century c**k up his—”

“What are you doing in here?”

I shot up off the couch and stood at attention, as if the pharmacist who was leading our reenactment was an actual general.

“Just looking around,” I said.

“It’s a fascinating place. I’ve been here dozens of times and never tire of it. Anyway, I wanted to let you know, I’ve made up the roster, random draw, and you’ll be fighting on the front lines.”

“Ah. Good to know. No starving to death, I might just take a bullet.”

“It’s a roll of the dice.”

“Isn’t that true of life in general?”

“No,” Patrick said. “It’s literally a roll of the dice, like in Dungeons and Dragons. I roll to see who lives and who dies.”

“Wow. The power.” I smiled. Patrick didn’t.

“I’ll know your fate before the skirmish commences,” he said.

“Do we get to know, or is it all left a mystery?”

“As it happens, soldier. As it happens.”

“Ah. See you on the battlefield, then.” I had the urge to start singing Pat Benatar.

“Midnight.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Be careful in here,” Patrick ordered, the smile I’d been waiting for tempering his tone.

“Yes, sir.” I saluted.

“I know it’s tempting, but they get a bit of an attitude when they come in on Monday and my guys have pawed their antiquities.”

“I’ll behave.”

“You look like a man who can be trusted.” His eyes shone behind the lenses that helped him see my trustworthiness. “Look, but don’t touch.”

Good thing I’d stealthily hidden the diary behind a pillow.

The moment Patrick was gone, I was back on the couch with Jefferson, flipping to the next page to see if he was able to consummate his love for Thomas.

The fields were thick with dew and my manhood was thick with arousal, using just my imagination.

“Hello!”

The chirping crickets would be as melodious to our encounter as the finest composition by any musical master. I don’t even mind if those stars that twinkle and the creatures about watch as it happens. It would be my joy for the whole world to know that Thomas and I are one together for always, in the most intense and intimate way.

Writing by moonlight and walking concurrently is difficult, so alas my recollection will next be at the end, when it’s done. When I awaken in Thomas’s arms with his essence still salty on my taste buds, twitching where he once brought pleasurable pain and ecstasy beyond what I was able to conjure in my young, uninformed mind, I will record from memory with flowery words and exclamations.

“Damn. I was hoping for a play-by-play.” I turned the page. The afterglow, post-orgasm recount would have to do.

What a fool. What a simple, childish fool.

“Uh-oh, Charlotte.”

Thomas rejected my love. He ridiculed my emotions and was sickened by my amorous advances, sickened and violent, pummeling me, stomping on my body and my soul.

“f**k you, Thomas.” I touched my chest and recalled the pain, the bruises on the outside and the invisible scars no one knew were there. I never spoke about either, and never would. “f**k you.”

I want to believe he’s afraid. I want to believe he would come around in time. I don’t have time. We don’t. This might have been my one chance. The way my heart aches right now, I almost wish it would simply stop. Upon every star that sees my tears, every one, I ask for the confederacy to take my life. I don’t want to live with this emptiness and rejection inside me. “I don’t want to live!” I screech it at the sky, like a howling beast, in the hope that God will just take me now.

“Aww, poor young Jefferson. Screw Thomas.” I stood up and tossed the diary. “There are other fish in the sea.” I had to wonder how one went about meeting them in a century without Grindr or Craigslist, not even Match.com. Or gay bars. “Maybe someone in your regiment will be interested in your body and your sweet, poetic soul.” I snatched up the book. The book was Jefferson, not Thomas. I brought it to my heart. “I’m still hoping I might. I’m an okay guy. Sure, I find myself occasionally whispering to moths and smutty journals. Some people might look down on that. Not you, I bet.”

I heard a noise then, a door opening, maybe. The creak of a hinge. I looked around for Patrick, or maybe Rip.

“Hello?”

Even Charlotte was still where she’d lighted, beside the torch-style wall light glowing against paper that felt like fabric.

The lights flickered. All of them, and I jumped.

“Not funny, Jeff.” I knew it wasn’t him. “Stupid storm.” It had quieted for a bit but seemed to be coming around again.

“There you are.”

This time, I jumped higher than Simone Biles. “Jesus, Rip. You scared the crap out of me.”

“What, you thought I was a ghost or something?”

“Maybe.” I stuck the diary down the back of my shorts. “Actually, I thought you were sleeping.”

“I got worried about you.” Rip looked down at his shoes.

“You don’t have to do that. Really.” I looked at his shoes, too. They were ugly—slip-on black walking shoes with white socks and cargo shorts. I couldn’t take him anywhere.

“Patrick said you might be in here.”

“Ah.”

“You should sleep,” Rip said. “We’re going to be awake over twenty-four hours straight.”

“Unless I’m killed.”

“Always looking on the bright side, Goose.”

“That’s me.”

I gave in, though, and we headed back to the basement together. There wasn’t enough brightness down there to read, so I pulled my sleeping bag up over my head and used the little flashlight on my phone, like I used to do with a blanket and my favorite books when I was a kid, and later porn as a teenager.

I have heard much about this war we will be fighting, none of it from anyone who has actually been a part of it. It is my first time on the rails as I make my way south, and I am still sore from the savage beating Thomas inflicted upon me. Which hurts more, I try to decide, my body or my heart?

Always the heart, I thought.

The countryside, visible through my window, might be more beautiful were my destination one of pleasure. My conscription made my mother cry. My father was proud. I am, too, proud and willing to fight for my country and the freedom of all men and women. I never understood why the color of one’s skin made them anything less than anyone else. We do not apply such ignorance to the flowers in summer. They come in all colors. The black rooster is no less than the white one. The brown eggs one hen lays are not tossed out for only the white. The white cow and the black one give the same milk. I am truly baffled why this does not apply to all living things.

Sometimes, after writing, Jefferson would cross most of the paragraph out. I found his logic simple and sweet, also intelligent, not only ahead of his time, but also, quite sadly, relevant in the present.

My comparisons are as stupid as the entire debate. Human beings are not flowers, nor chickens, nor eggs, nor cows. This is all the more reason none should be enslaved or treated as if they are less than even these things. I get angrier and angrier at the people who feel, with every fiber of their supposed God-loving soul, fellow humans should be lessened based on flesh. With every bit of mine, I feel the injustice. We are all free or none of us are free. I will fight for that with everything I have.