Page 52 of The Woodcarver's Model
They showered together, kissing passionately, then gently. They dried off. Thanks were given. No names were exchanged. The blond left and Rob got ready for bed. He never thought to see if the guy could even find the water taxi stand.
He sat there on the edge of his bed. He should have felt satisfied, like he’d just had a great work out, but he didn’t. What he felt was empty. Emptiness tinged with guilt. It made no sense. Hadn’t Mitch thrown him out of his life?I’m not cheating on anyone. I could fuck a hundred guys, like…whoever that was. I owe nothing to anyone.
He spotted his camera on the dresser. He had dropped it there when he got home.Fuck him. If he doesn’t want me in his life, I won’t have him in mine,he thought, and he grabbed the camera, and powered it up in order to delete the images. But instead of deleting them en masse, he found himself scrolling through the record of his journey. The shots of the kid on the ferry—I should send him the pics of him and his boyfriend— the light-dappled road leading to the cemetery, the church—I’ll hold on to those. I might be able to use them somewhere or sell the rights to them at least. They were good shots—and Mitch. Frame after frame of that beautiful man. His gorgeous broad smile, those bottomless blue eyes. Rob’s heart shattered all over again. And there was that feeling deep inside the pit of his stomach that left him short of breath. He couldn’t give up and pretend he could just walk away like nothing had happened. He had to fix this. He had to find a way to make it better.
* * * *
Mitch walked into the kitchen. He hadn’t shaved in over a week. He had passed beyond the sexy scruffy look into dishevelled. He’d worn the same clothes for several days—grubby jeans and a stretched-out t-shirt.
“Have you seen Rufus?” he asked his brother. They were the first words he had spoken in two days.
“Nope,” Kevin answered, then went back to drinking his beer.
Mitch went back outside and called the dog’s name. “Where are you?” He hadn’t seen him since Rob had left. It wasn’t like the dog not to be there when he needed him. Rufus had the ability to know when there was a problem.
Mitch started walking. He had no destination in mind, but his feet knew where he had to go. They headed him in the direction of the Peak. It was a walk of several hours, and all the time, he kept his eyes peeled. The forest was silent. Too silent.
“Rufus. Here, boy.”
He crossed the road that led to Admiral’s Peak. He had been walking for hours on little sleep or food. Mitch was exhausted. He felt his world spiralling out of control. It seemed that everything he found comfort in was slipping away.
He sat down in the shade of a tall arbutus tree. His eyes drifted off into the distance as he watched a large turkey vulture circling the sky. He wished he could be that bird, way up high above all the cares of humanity, just living for the sake of living. Nothing more.Why do people make life so complicated? Animals have it right,he thought as his eyes slowly closed and he drifted off to sleep.
* * * *
The party was loud and out of control. His twenty-year-old mind revelled in the chaos. The acid had kicked in some time ago—how long ago he didn’t know. Time lost all meaning. Nothing had meaning and everything had meaning all at the same time. What had been Mitchell Carcross ceased to exist. That man’s problems were someone else’s. This Mitchell was free from all cares.
Colours ran. Shapes ran. Bodies morphed into one. There was no thought. No judgement. At one moment he was deeply focused on running his fingers through a girl’s hair, marvelling at the details of each strand. His eyes were microscopes and he focused on the individual scales of each strand. The next moment his lips fused with the lips of another. Was it a man? Who knew? Who cared? He sensed he was safe in this stranger’s lips, soft and sensuous. He felt their tongues merge, their cells intermingle, their atoms pass through each other. They were truly one. Then a voice…familiar?
“You’re still tense,” he said. The voice was a man’s. His features started to come into focus, then blurred into atoms. “You’ll feel so much better if you relax. It’s the only way.”
The first’s lips kissed him again. His tongue penetrated him and he became a cell dividing in two, and two into four. He was multiplying.
“Here,” said the familiar voice. “This will help. Give me your arm. This won’t hurt. Just a small prick.”
And he felt the warmth spread throughout his body, wrapping its arms around him like a hug, lulling him to sleep.
The man with the voice held his arm firmly. A strong man. He could feel his confidence in his every move. For the first time, Mitch stared him in the face. It was Kevin. He felt himself starting to lose consciousness. The last thing he remembered was his brother’s voice saying, “There. You’ll be okay now, Mitchy. I’ll take care of you.” Then, to someone else, “Give him a few minutes, then do what you want. It’s a hundred bucks.” Then Mitch felt himself being turned over and he greeted the blackness.
Chapter Seventeen
Ricky Daniels drove his truck up to the ferry dock on Gabriola Island. He had his instructions.“If the woman doesn’t let you on the ferry, hand her this letter.”He patted the vest pocket and reassured himself that the letter was still there.Why can’t people just let me do my job? Why do they have to make things so complicated?
He pulled his truck forward and a large woman approached. He found her appearance, in both bulk and scowl, intimidating as hell. Ricky was twenty years old with a tidy five-and-a-half-foot frame and weighed in at one hundred and forty pounds soaking wet. He was the newbie on the crew.
“Where you goin’?” she barked.
“Marsh Island. Where else do you go? Catalina?” Frank Peterson, the crew chief, piped up from the front passenger seat. Frank was equal to the woman in girth and scowl and was not in the mood for any bullshit. He’d been up since five and had terrible constipation, something he got any time he had to travel for work anywhere off Vancouver Island.
“What’s yer purpose on the island?”
“Some people are doing some work on their property and we’re just going to do some survey work,” Ricky said.
“Survey work, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t have anythin’ to do with Admiral’s Peak, does it?”
