Nowhere Man - 11. Chapter 11: A Better Man

Somewhere between Wade grabbing my dick, breathing warmly on my neck, and giving me a firm tug and squeeze, I made the decision to follow him out of the bar, to his truck, and eventually a secluded alcove outside of Wellmington, Texas.

In his truly whimsical and carefree way, Wade drove until he felt we were far enough away from civilization, pulled into a barely worn gravel driveway, and leaned over to kiss me.

He didn’t waste any time declaring what he wanted: my hiking stick. As he kissed me like he’d never kissed me before, he rubbed against my rapidly hardening bulge, and moaned audibly into my mouth.

“You have a helluva hot dick, you know that?” he said, scooting over in his truck so that he was practically straddling me. “Let’s take this hot dick to the back, shall we?”

He jumped out of the truck before I had a chance to answer. I took a deep breath, wondered if there would be any fallout for this decision, and followed him anyway. A minute later, I was lying between Wade’s outstretched legs, slowly grinding against his hard pecker. Before I could tell what was happening, my dick was sliding inside of him, and he was bucking upwards into me.

Watching Wade’s face as I fucked him slowly made me wonder what Tyler saw when he fucked me. He wasn’t the kind of lover who looked deep into my eyes as he pumped in and out of me. He was more like a woodpecker, going for the gusto rather than the romance.

Wade, on the other hand, had an incredible energy to him yet still managed a sense of intimacy that surpassed anything I’d ever experienced. It might have been a case of him being my first, but the fact of the matter was that two hours and three orgasms later, I was wondering if it got any better than that.

It took Wade a lot longer to finish than it took me, and when he had finally come, he pulled his Wrangler’s on and jumped back into the cab of the truck. I should have expected him to get depressing after the fact, like the last time, but for some reason, and with no real basis, I figured this go-round would be different. I had been spoiled by Tyler growing more affectionate the more intimate we got. I wanted the same from Wade.

I slowly pulled my clothes on and followed him into the truck. He wordlessly pulled out of the driveway and headed back in to town.

After a sufficient amount of silence, I decided that enduring one man’s mood swings was enough for me.

“What’s with the sullen attitude?” I asked as we neared the city limits.

“Huh?” Wade replied, barely turning his head to glance at me. The sun had faded during our rendezvous and I wished I could see his face more clearly.

“You just… I dunno. You turn all dark after we have sex. This is the second time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“At the bar, you’re all smiles and compliments and now you’re all…” I knew I was nagging and didn’t mind being interrupted. The words sounded stupid, even to my own ears.

“Look, I’m not sure what you’re looking for but I’m not a feelings and flowers kinda guy,” his voice was unmistakably deeper than it had been before. Being with Wade before and after was like the tale of two clowns.

“I’m not asking for feelings and flowers, I just wanna know why you get all quiet on me afterwards, that’s all.”

“Let me tell you something one time and one time only,” he said. The tone in his voice chilled me, and I was glad to notice we were nearing the one stoplight in town. “You’re better off knowing as little about me as possible, you understand that?”

How could I not?

Wade didn’t say another word until we reached the Watering Hole and I slid out of the passenger’s seat, feeling stupid for following him out of the bar to begin with.

“Alabama,” Wade called as I took a couple of steps towards my own vehicle. “Look, I do wanna see you again, don’t get what I said wrong. Can you get away tomorrow night? Meet here?”

I nodded feebly, completely confused by the crests and falls of his moods. I wasn’t a psychiatrist with degrees, but it sure didn’t take a high IQ to know that there was something off balance about Wade the rodeo clown.

As I drove home, suddenly tired from trying to analyze everything that was going on in my life, I thought about the brazen betrayal I’d just committed. Sure, Tyler and I didn’t have a solid commitment towards one another. And if everything else in his life was an indication, I was as disposable as a dull razor.

But something about his gestures towards me lately made me believe that there was an underlying desire between us to be faithful. He’d stocked a new home for me, created a space that was both comfortable and livable—a small gesture, made huge in Tyler’s context. He’d thrown his gun away, indicating he had no desire to hurt me. And for the last few nights, knowing how difficult it was for him to touch another man, he’d slept surrounding me, protecting me.

Loving me.

I had undeniable feelings for Tyler. A better man wouldn’t have made off with Wade in order to find out, but I clearly wasn’t a better man. Now that I knew how I felt about Tyler, I knew what I had to do with regards to Wade.

Tyler was already in bed when I got home, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“You up?” I asked as I undid my jeans and crawled in next to him. I didn’t know how late it was, but I figured if he was ready for bed, so was I.

“How was your day?” he asked as if someone had told him to.

“Alright,” I replied. “I still don’t have a job.”

I crawled in next to him with a big stretch. I studied his face as I situated myself. His gaze never left the ceiling. This was going to be my life. Coming home to Tyler. Having one word conversations with a man who’s idea of a full day is 24 cans of beer and a haiku. He was making an effort and I was pulling back. I knew that the reappearance of the rodeo clown had to do with my ice cold attitude, and I vowed to melt it.

“If I tell you something private, will you not get weirded out by it?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I missed you today,” I half whispered.

He turned his head and glared at me. He squinted his eyes as if he was trying to assess how truthful my words were. I leaned in close to kiss him but he turned his head towards the ceiling and made a face like he smelled bad milk.

“I think the job thing is a bad idea,” he mumbled quietly.

I don’t know why I expected him to say he’d missed me too, but clearly he hadn’t. The only thing he missed was having a warm body around. If what he wanted was a lap dog to sit around all day and watch him breathe, he shouldn’t have left Pete behind.

“Why’s that?” I asked, my mood growing sour again.

“You’re on the run now. You don’t want to develop a profile.”

“How long are we going to be here?”

“We’re about to go to sleep, right?”

“Yeah.”

“At least till the morning, then.”

I took a deep breath, trying not to let my frustration with him show. I’d come in and told him how I felt and he’d responded by building a brick wall. Why was I putting up with this? Maybe I did need a little more Wade in my life.

“It’d be nice to know what the plan is,” I said slowly, turning over so that I was facing the ceiling as well.

“Come up with one.”

“Can you answer a question, ever, just once, please?” I lost control of my voice.

“I answered everything you--”

“Till morning isn’t an answer, Tyler, sorry.”

“Trav, if I knew how long we’d be here, I’d tell you. I don’t know. I’m not used to having to account for someone else, okay? Remember, I’ve been doing this operation solo for a year now.”

“How could I forget?”

The image of him sending copper shots through a naked woman and her naked lover ran through my brain. I’d grown to trust a man whose body count exceeded what any normal human being would be comfortable with, and yet here I was, feeling for him.

Loving him.

I’m sure the dagger in my voice was responsible for the shift in Tyler’s body. For the first time since I’d started this journey with him, he slept facing away from me.

When I woke up, Tyler and the truck were gone. It was a little disconcerting not knowing what his next move was or if I was even included in it. For all I knew that morning, he’d packed up his share of the belongings and was headed to another remote highway town.

Being frustrated had put me in a bad mood. I scrounged around the fridge and made myself a sandwich, still wondering where all of this stuff had come from. He had picked up cheese and ham, mayonnaise and mustard. How did he even know that I liked mustard? I poured a glass of grape juice and sat around, waiting for a man who could have been anywhere, to come home.

Boredom is an indescribable feeling. To truly do a description justice would be twice as boring. Having nothing to do and no clock to check how long I’d been doing nothing, I found myself growing increasingly restless. I cleaned the trailer twice. I rearranged the contents of the cupboards. I thought about moving the furniture around, but decided since we’d found it like that, it’d be better to leave it. I washed my clothes in the kitchen sink and watched them dry. When they were finally dry enough to put back on, I locked up the trailer and went for a walk.

The center of town wasn’t far from the park and it took me an hour to get there. The sun wasn’t far from setting and I thought about heading right back once I saw the stoplight and the bar.

I knew I was approaching a raging fire. Wade would be at the Watering Hole. He’d made it perfectly clear that he wanted to meet me there again. And yesterday, I wouldn’t have been drawn to going. I had decided on my drive home that I was going to be a better man. As I approached the Wellmington stoplight, I realized that I didn’t know how to be a better man. Instead of going home and waiting for Tyler like I knew I should have, I went to the Watering Hole, found the rodeo clown charming a group by the juke box and ordered a mug of beer on tap.

“Let’s put some hair on that chest, Alabama,” Wade said, noticing me and excusing himself from his group. I weathered a couple of looks from the guys he had been talking to. “Let me get two hicks and spick chasing a turkey down a goldmine, pretty lady,” he said to the bartender. “And your number if it’s on the menu.”

“We’re all out of that, Wade,” she said with a smirk on her face. Two days in town and he was already friends with half the town. “But here you go, guy. And stay out of trouble.”

“Here’s to hoping I get into a little bit more.” He lifted his shot glass towards me and gave me a wicked grin.

This time around, I knew exactly what I was doing. I wasn’t caught off guard by this sexy drifter. I wasn’t raptured by his charm and charisma in an uncontrollable way. I’d chosen. I chose to walk to the bar and seek him out. I chose to get drawn to his magnetism like a moth gets drawn to the flame. I chose him, because that night, he was a better man than the one I had at home.

So it was no wonder that an hour and four beers later, we were driving down a familiar path to do a familiar act.

I was addicted to the power that Wade gave me over him while we had sex. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced, not with Tyler and not with the anonymous Johns I’d become accustomed to sucking off behind a holey wall. He was present, passionate and connected. He had energy for days and sexuality to spare. He let me drive into him like a Ford F150 down a highway drag, and I dug it up. In a way, he was the anti-Tyler.

That night he showed me the sheer pleasure hidden in the neglected coin sized buttons on my chest. No one had ever played with my nipples before, not with their mouth or their fingers. I came the first time with his lips around my nipples, biting down softly and him barely massaging my rock hard dick. The second and third time, I was toast before I was even hard. There was something incredibly hot about being in the back of a pickup truck with a guy named Wade.

And as quickly as our passion built, it faded. Again, he was silent on the drive home. Spent and exhausted, smelling faintly like sex, he blocked me with a wall thicker than the great one in China. It was almost as bad as a déjà vu, only this time, I didn’t call him out. I endured the trip back to town quietly, speaking only to ask him to take me home instead of the bar.

“I walked there tonight,” I explained.

“To see me?” he sounded surprised even though I couldn’t fathom why. Of course, to see him. I shrugged a ‘yes’ as we neared the new park.

“Stop here,” I said before he pulled in. For some reason, I felt the need to be discreet. Maybe it was to protect Tyler from seeing me get out of another man’s car. Maybe it was to protect me from Tyler catching me in another man’s car.

I climbed out and walked down the drive, trying hard to forget the complete 180 that came over an otherwise perfect man after intimacy. Instead, I considered Tyler’s feelings. What would he think if he knew where I’d been? Would he consider my actions as a betrayal? We had no commitment. I was young and oversexed and there was a guy who enjoyed touching me, and not just tolerated it.

Tonight, I’d proven I couldn’t be a better man. I was a man with flaws and Wade was my biggest one.

As I cracked the door to the trailer open, I knew immediately that something was off. The place felt stale, as if the air hadn’t moved since I left. But I knew someone had been home. The familiar smell of Marlboro Reds hit me as soon as the door clicked shut.

I took in a deep breath, shook off my paranoia and walked to the bedroom. Tyler was lying on his back. Naked. Eyes closed. Breathing slowly.

I stripped down quietly, not wanting to wake him up. I lifted my corner of the covers slowly and in an instant, Tyler’s hand shot for my neck.

The pain of feeling his grip around me was jarring, but not nearly as jarring as the pain in his eyes. They were bloodshot. Red.

Fire.

I couldn’t tell if he’d been drinking or crying.

I writhed under his grip for a second, unable to scream. I knew right then that he would kill me.

I was unable to speak. He rose slowly. The fire in his eyes melted and the grip on my neck loosened only slightly. When he was an inch away from my face, I smelled the whiskey and the saltiness of a tear.

“Do whatever the fuck you want, Travis,” he croaked slowly. “And I mean that. Leave, stay, whatever the hell you want.”

I tried to choke out a response, but my throat was still closed. I blinked; the lack of air to my brain had caused my eyes to water uncontrollably.

“Do whatever you want, but do me one favor,” his voice a tense whisper. I remember the words as if they’d been seared into my brain with a hot knife.

“Stay the hell away from Wade.”

Tyler hit the sheets and before I could fathom what had just happened, he’d rolled away from me and had fallen asleep.