Page 47 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

At best, I might get a baloney sandwich from home. Or a stale glazed donut in a baggie. Or crackers and margarine.

I’d never had school pizza, but I’d eaten this pizza, made by Ruth and other cooks, a time or two before. Never knew to call it anything other than plain pizza. Now I did.

But I didn’t want to explain or think about that anymore. I wanted to stand in line behind Dalton with my fingers tugging on the back of his button-down shirt, as though I was guiding him through some pretty rough territory rather than just following him down the buffet line.

I piled my tray with my usual double helpings, and Dalton, taking half as much, was kind enough to slip two small plates that held squares of ginger cake onto his tray. And two small bowls of vanilla ice cream. I doubted he’d want any dessert, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to offer him some of mine.

After dinner, in the warm, still air and the slanted sunshine, we went for another walk along Snow Creek. He led the way right up to the glade of cottonwoods at the bend in the river.

I knew what he wanted. I wanted it, too. But while the grass was drying some, it was still a tad damp. I was gearing myself up for a discussion about him putting his knees in the dirt when he smiled up at me like I’d answered all his prayers.

“I came up earlier,” he said, and bent down to pull a sturdy blanket from behind a rock. He pulled the small bottle of lube out of his pocket. “And I came prepared, as you can see.”

That tumble in the tall grasses in that glade was another piece of magic I wanted to keep close and carry with me always. I stripped him to the skin and made love to him slowly. Stroking all over his body. Sucking him off until he arched his back, crying out.

That I was still dressed seemed to fascinate him—or maybe he was reaching out and tugging on my shirt, the waist of my jeans, because he wanted me bare to the skin. Like he was.

In the open air, I was shy. But at that point, there was nothing I would refuse him. He’d seen most of my scars anyway. I pulled off my t-shirt and added it to his, a pillow for his head.

Then I sat back to shuck off my boots. Tear off my jeans. My white boxers. I sat there, knees bent, arms back, propped up on my hands, wondering what might come next. Anything he wanted was fine by me.

“What happened there?” he asked, pointing.

I looked down.

The breeze made me cold, suddenly, where before it had made me warm. There, next to my once hard, now failing cock, were the trio of parallel lines. Thin. Rough red when I was warm. White when I was cold. Always shiny.

The lines were at the top of my right thigh, starting along the side and ending where my groin began. I’d come that close to getting gelded. But as luck would have it, I knew how to roll away from danger. From pain.

“Uh.”

Dalton moved close and covered the better part of the lines with his palm. Soft, like he was petting a troubled animal. “Those are burn marks,” he said. Looking stern. His eyes narrow. “Who did this to you?”

The details of everything that had happened to me weren’t what I typically shared, so I wasn’t sure how to.

Walter had known, because he’d talked about it with the social worker when he’d stormed down to Denver to rip someone a new asshole after he’d seen the scars. Since then, I’d kept them covered as best I could.

Jesse knew of them but never asked. So I was at a bit of a loss. I didn’t want Dalton doing what Walter had done—to little effect—and besides, it was years ago. So I said that.

“It was years ago.”

“I can see that,” he said, looking unhappy when only moments before, he’d been blissed out and satisfied. “There’s the marks on the back of your legs?—”

I wouldn’t say no to him. But neither did I want to tell a lengthy tale about one of the fathers and his heavy-handed use of the buckle end of a belt. “Belt,” I said.

His eyes widened.

“And that one?” He pointed to my shoulder.

“Blame that on a fence post,” I said. “And my lack of skill with a green mare named Bella.” After a pause, I added, “Malcolm trained her up, and she now belongs to a lovely young woman who’s winning blue ribbons with her.”

“Oh.” Then he asked, “Green?”

“Untrained.”

He paused, eyes cast down, dark lashes on his cheeks. Like he was searching for how he felt about me and my torn-edged childhood.

I was beginning to fear he might decide I wasn’t worth all this trouble, and he’d be getting dressed now, to stalk back to his own bunkhouse and reject the idea of any additional trysts in the woods—or anywhere else.