Chapter 3 – Chapter 3

The blond, his spent and battered beautiful body in a heap on the floor by the low-linteled window in the barn's loft, started to stir, and I buried myself deeper in the shadows of stacks of hay bales. He thought he was alone. I couldn't leave him like this, though. I couldn't be sure where this went from here. I needed to know that I'd gotten through to him, and that where he wanted to go wasn't where he had been thinking he wanted to go. He'd been lying to himself. He would never had left the clearing if he wasn't being steamrolled into something he didn't really want by Vince.

I watched him stretch and gingerly uncoil and regretted immediately that I couldn't—or, at least, shouldn't—go back and fuck him all over again.

I heard the burring of the telephone a long time before he seemed to. I panicked at the thought that it could be mine and could give my presence away, but the burring clearly was coming from near the table.

The blond stood slowly, stiffly and then stretched and reached for his jeans. Out came the burring cell phone.

"Hello?" he said in that silky baritone voice of his.

He became more animated. "Vince, Vince. You're alive! I thought." a few moments of silence at this end and then "You were what? Saved and then fucked by a hiker? I don't know. I just don't know what to think . . ." Prolonged silence and the, "I know, I know. I just couldn't . . . can't. Listen, Vince, it's just not going to . . . Yes, I'm sorry I took your motorbike. I'll return it to the apartment, but when I get there, you need to be packed and ready to move on." Another few moments of silence. "No, Vince, no. It's over. I'm making other choices. Just pack and go."

I had the impression Vince was still talking when the blond snapped the cell phone shut and stooped down beside the table and retrieved his clothes and shoes and started to dress.

I waited until I no longer could hear the motor of the motorbike before I climbed down from the loft and walked out into the late afternoon light. I shivered when I walked out of the barn; I hadn't realized how hot it had been in there, how much heat the corrugated iron sheathing captured and held. Once more I thought of the possibility of an internal combustion fire in all of that hay packed into the barn. But I no longer related the blond angel to thoughts of internal combustion. I had hope renewed there.

Before I started out along the ridge of the mountain top, I turned and looked down at the barn, and at that odd window high up on its side, deserted now. No, I wouldn't be forgetting this barn for a good long time.