River

Samuel Duncan

I am beginning to despair of ever finding him. Issoba has been carrying me at a trot, maintaining a steady pace, all day. I really feel like I should have overtaken him by now. I am starting to fear that I must have passed him somehow. Maybe he was resting off the road and I didn’t see him. I am starting to wonder if I should wait until tomorrow and try again, hoping he’ll be back on the road and easier to find in the morning.

But I keep going as the light grows dimmer, passing people walking north, staring backwards at them after I get by just to make sure that I didn’t fail to recognize Ben from the back.

A fellow walking apparently hears me coming and moves to the right side of the road to let me pass, but doesn’t turn to look at me. I think - could it be? I urge the horse to go faster, I am so eager to overtake him and check to see if it is him.

I look down to the side as I am passing and my heart soars. It is him. I have found him. He isn’t looking at me, is just staring at the road as he walks.

I have to rein in Issoba to get him to stop, and I probably do it too hard, for he rears backwards, stopping so suddenly I have to hang on for dear life to avoid being thrown. Gregor wasn’t kidding when he told me how responsive this horse is.

Ben lunges backwards in alarm. I don’t think he realizes it is me until Issoba has settled and I say his name.

“Ben?”

He swivels his head and stares at me, and I still am not sure he even realizes who he is looking at. I am completely out of context. He wasn’t expecting to see me here.

I swing my leg over the saddle and dismount. “Ben,” I say again.

Now he sees me. I watch the recognition come into his eyes, followed by astonishment, followed immediately by such an obvious crash of emotions that he looks ready to collapse. He actually staggers to the side, appearing woozy with shock.

I reach out to him, but he shakes his head.

“Wha - what…?” He can barely speak. I know how tongue-tied he gets. I have to explain.

I am reveling in the ability to actually look at him. Even in the dark twilight, barely able to make out any details, it is marvelous. I haven’t let myself do it since that day, and my eyes have been deprived of this sight. The sight of him, his short beard, his strong face, his broad shoulders, his warm brown eyes. Eyes that are currently wildly emotional.

“I had to come and find you,” I tell him.

He shakes his head again, and manages a brief phrase. “But… why?”

All the time I have been riding up the Trace I have been trying to think of what I will say when I find him, but it all flies out of my head and I suddenly feel as unable to talk as he usually is.

All I can do is speak the truth of my heart.

“Because… because I love you.”

A sob tears itself loose from him. He takes a step towards me and his hands lift in the air, but then he freezes, as though he can’t believe he might really have permission to touch me again.

I do it for him. I close the distance between us, and in a moment I have crushed him to me, feeling the glory of his chest against mine. In another second his arms are around me, and he is pressing his face to mine, seizing my mouth almost violently with his. I melt into him, wanting nothing so much as to be devoured by him.

Time loses all meaning.

It is an eternity, or perhaps only seconds, before we break apart, breathless.

Issoba nickers at us, seemingly in congratulations. Ben glances over at the horse and I am delighted to see a slight smile come to his face, a slight chuckle pass his lips.

He does not let go of me, but he swivels his head around to look at the area beside us, off the Trace. “Come with me,” he says, and taking my hand begins leading me off the road. I grab Issoba’s reins to lead him. We walk in silence.

In a few minutes we have gotten at least half a mile off the road, and he stops in a little glen. It reminds me of the grove where we have shared so much ecstasy.

I have so much to tell him, so much to explain, and I know he does too. But I agree with him - this isn’t the time for talking. He obviously has other things on his mind.

He takes the time to grab Issoba’s reins from my hand and loop them around a tree, then he turns to me with such desperate love and passion on his face that it makes me feel weak.

We can’t even wait to disrobe. We fall on each other like we are starved animals, land together in a heap on the ground, our limbs entangled, violently wrestling our way closer to each other. I know again the delight that only Ben can bring to me.

Ben

I still can’t believe that he has returned to me, even after the hours that just passed by in a frenzy of passion and delight and fulfillment. I feel the most pleasurable aches in my body.

Finally, we both somehow seem to be sated. I didn’t know if it would ever happen, the way we kept wanting more and more, grabbing each other over and over again.

We lie, breathlessly, together on the narrow bed roll that I finally paused long enough to extract from my rucksack. We are so close together that there is room for us both. I am on my back, he is pressed up against my side.

The night is cool, and the chilly air feels glorious against my heated skin, wherever Samuel is not pressed against me.

Despite two days of walking with little sleep, followed by hours of other vigorous activity, I am not the slightest bit tired. I feel energized, giddy with excitement.

I think that Samuel feels the same. After he finally catches his breath, he wants to talk.

“I’m sorry, Ben,” he starts, but I put my hand gently over his mouth to stop him.

“I’m the one who is sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have kept it from you. I should have been honest.”

I feel his lips beneath my hand, kissing my palm, and it makes me chuckle. I lift my hand and use it to caress his hair as he lies against me.

“Did you know the whole time?” he asks.

I sigh. “Every moment. The first second you walked up to our poker table, I recognized you from the Trace.” I move my hand lower, trace my fingers across his jaw. “I could never forget this gorgeous jawline.” He laughs softly and lifts his hand, his fingers covering mine. “I think it was the angle. You were standing up over me at the table, and when I looked up it was just the same angle that I saw you on your horse that day.”

“Huh,” he says, apparently amused.

“I never forgot you,” I confess. “I used to think of you all the time, wishing that I had managed to actually meet you that day.” I am amazed to hear the words flowing out of my own mouth. I have never been able to talk as easily to anyone as I can to Samuel. Not even David.

“So love at first sight, eh?” he jokes, but he’s right.

“Yeah, basically.”

“Hm. I wish I could say the same. It took me much longer. I wonder if it would have been easier if I had remembered you?”

“I doubt it. That’s what I was afraid of. I wanted you so much, but I thought it was lucky that you didn’t remember, since I figured you’d never accept me if you knew what I had done. So I just kept the secret.”

“Well,” he says, “I don’t think that was the only reason. Gregor told me that he suggested you keep quiet about it.”

I lift my head and look down at him. “You talked to him about it?”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m here. And here’s a shocking thing - he totally knows about us, Ben, and he’s fine with it. I guess he just figured it out on his own. He assured me that you never said anything about it. Apparently he is very observant.”

What? Gregor knew about us? I guess we weren’t being as discreet as we thought. Although, it is also true that he seems to have an unusual way of knowing about things without any real explanation. I’ll never understand how he suddenly knew that he had to drop his rope and run up the hill the day that Mason made his move.

“Anyway,” Samuel goes on, “Gregor said that he thought you would have told me about the Trace if he hadn’t advised you to remain quiet. Everything just came clear to me, and I realized how wrong I had been. I had convinced myself that since you were lying to me, our relationship was never real. It tore me apart.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say, holding him closer. “I might have told you eventually, but I don’t know whether I would ever have found the courage, to be honest. I tried, over and over, and always chickened out. I was terrified for you to find out. Terrified that you would react the exact way that you did. I thought I had lost you forever.”

He sighs, leans up to kiss me gently, then lies back down again. “I should have had more faith in you, Ben. How could I have ever thought that this -” he waves his hand over our joined bodies - “wasn’t real?”

I know what he means. There has never been anything more real to me. I’m never letting him go again.