On the Mountain

by Riley Hart

After a few weeks there, I still felt as alone on the inside as I always had. People were friendly enough. They waved on the streets, and held the door open for you, and all those things you heard about small towns, but at twenty-five, I was starting to believe I was the problem. That something inside me was broken and maybe it would never be fixed.

Sometimes it was scary how easy it was to fake it, to pretend you were happy and life was great. Most people didn’t take the time to look, not really, because if they did, they would see most of us were barely hanging on.

It was always so damn easy for people to judge others if they didn’t live the exact same way they did, to judge people for addiction or mental illness or, hell, the color of their skin or who they loved.

He looks as lonely as I feel. Maybe lonelier.

I was known to be hot or cold with people and about things, but when I was hot, I was scorching. While I knew it wasn’t healthy, I still wanted to chase down the feeling.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the beautiful man with the dark hair and broken gray eyes. I didn’t know how to explain them other than that—broken.

I was thinking about the new man in town, this broken man who’d looked at me like he saw me, or wanted to see me, but the thing was, I didn’t want to be seen. Not by him or anyone else.

They wanted to make a lesson out of me, wanted to wield their control over me, and I would kill all three of them before I let them do that. No one would control me ever again.

His hand trembled, and I felt something inside me stir. I wanted him. Wanted to fuck him and possess him, which made me hate him—and hate myself even more.

I liked the way he smelled—like sweat, sugar, and maybe a little bit of fear. Part of my brain knew him fearing me shouldn’t turn me on, but I figured there was always something about me that wasn’t normal.

I didn’t know what I was doing, why I’d brought him to my home. No one else had ever been inside it, not since I’d torn it down and rebuilt it. The walls had only known me, and now I’d brought this man here. I was angry at myself for it, confused at why I’d done it.

“This cabin isn’t very scary-mountain-man of you,” he said, speaking to me in a way no one ever had before. I waited for him to ramble something about it being lonely, but what he landed on was, “It’s perfect,” with a soft wistfulness I’d never heard aimed at something about me or that was mine.

“Tell me where it hurts,” I forced myself to say, head down, my hair a veil between us. The little lamb gasped.

I hated the fact that I loved fucking so much, that I always yearned to bury my cock in someone, because it made me feel like Chosen.

It was one thing to do that with Debra or Bruce, give them money and put my dick in them, but it was something else entirely to have someone here I wanted, someone I coveted. I didn’t want to touch him again. I wanted to touch him everywhere.

Did he know that his gaze bled with sadness? That I could see that he was even more alone than I was? That for the first time in my life, I almost felt like I saw myself in someone else? That made me want to hate him…made me want to possess him too.

I expected him to move, to take a step back, but instead, when I turned the faucet on and began washing, he reached out, brushing my cheek with the back of his hand.

I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into it, nuzzling into him, because this touch felt so fucking different from anything I’d felt before—like he was in awe of me, like he was cherishing me and taking care of me. Like he didn’t feel worthy of me, and that was fucking crazy because I wasn’t shit. There wasn’t and had never been anything special about me.

I had never wanted inside someone as much as I wanted inside him. I had never wanted anyone at all, not once in my life until now, and it had me angry at him, wanting nothing to do with him because I didn’t know how to feel anything after so long, but it also made me want to go into Tranquility and claim him.

the feel of him touching me, the gentle way he’d stroked my face as if I were something precious to him and he didn’t want to break me, though not in a way that made me feel like he thought I was weak.

I needed the space, needed more time to pass where I didn’t have to see him. Where he didn’t try to talk to me and I didn’t have to fight myself so hard to stay away. No good would come of him trying to get close to me. All it would do was hurt him, and deep down, I knew Cyrus had more pain in his life than most people.

I could feel his strength simmering beneath the surface, like a lion stalking its prey. The brave little lamb had spent a lifetime protecting himself, and still stood tall. Had he ever had someone look after him? Care for him?

I wasn’t right. I was…unexplainable. The man who lived on the fringes.

All I could think about was some motherfucker’s hands on him. The fact that he was so low that he’d called that prick, and I wondered if it had anything to do with me, with how I’d treated him. Maybe it was my fault.

His front pressed against my back, his breath hot and hard against my ear, and like the needy slut I was, I pushed back against him, savored his heat, needed to feel something good, something that reminded me I was alive.

His hand came down on my hip, holding, squeezing, so tight that I knew there would be marks, but I didn’t want him to let go. I might die if he let go.

This was a mistake. The little lamb deserved better than to be here with someone like me.

“Don’t tell you the truth about me? I’m a whore and a drug addict, Crow.” He was trying to rile me up, to get a reaction out of me because…because I’d made him feel like a whore. Because I’d used him and then walked away, and all that had done was reinforce the negative feelings he had about himself.

“I know…I see it in you. The sadness. It clings to you even when you smile.” Cyrus’s chin began to shake, his gaze darting away. “No one else sees it. I can fake it well.” Not to me.

“Will you stay with me?” he asked. The words filled me up, were more than I deserved. “Yes.”

😭😭😭😭😭

I wasn’t sure what it said about me, but it gave me a content feeling that he cared enough to check, that my comfort and health meant something to him. No men had cared before.

“I liked it,” I told him. “I fucking loved it. I felt…owned, possessed.” And no one had ever truly wanted me.

“It’s not the same thing, Crow. I wanted what you did to me. Eddie hit me because I didn’t want to give myself to him. I like your marks on me. I want more.”

“I’ve never had a…friend. Or a partner. Even before…” He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. It was clear he didn’t like to talk about his time in the cult. “It was different. I don’t know what this is, don’t know how to do it. I don’t understand some of my thoughts…desires. It gets tangled up inside me.”

No one? What about the people he’d slept with? “The woman…” “I didn’t let her. I got out of bed quickly.” “The man?” “No one, little lamb.”

You don’t get to throw me away and then try to take care of me. You can’t pretend you care if I eat, then want to send me away.” I didn’t want to send him anywhere, but I needed to. Couldn’t he understand that? Didn’t he see I’d given him more than I ever would or had anyone else? There just wasn’t more inside me to offer.

I liked Cyrus in my things, wanted him to wear something that smelled of me and for my things to smell of him too, like I could scent both of us on them. I was getting more obsessed with him, wanted him to belong to me, though what I would do with him, I had no idea.

“Need.” The one word came out broken, and grittier than I’d ever heard from him, like it had taken everything inside him to get it out. He started to shake, like he was struggling to contain himself, like he didn’t belong in his skin. “Yes or no,” pushed past his lips, clueing me in. “Yes. God yes.”

“Crow? It’s me. I won’t hurt you.” He hadn’t been afraid of me. Despite everything and who I was, he’d worried I would be afraid of him rather than fearing for himself. I didn’t have inside me the words he deserved, but I picked him up and went toward my room.

Cyrus understood what I needed and began running his fingers through my hair. I hadn’t known something like that would feel so good, hadn’t even understood what made me silently ask him to do it, but now I wanted to melt into it, could live in this moment with his hand in my hair. “I won’t ever let anyone lock you away,” he told me.

Crow was letting me stay. He’d gone to get my things. He’d promised not to lock me in, and now this…trusting me, lowering some of the barriers he’d built around himself. For me. It was mind-blowing, and honestly, made me feel seen and important in ways I wasn’t sure anything in my life ever had.

I chuckled, and we both froze, our gazes snapping together as if neither of us could believe it. I knew I couldn’t, couldn’t make sense of the sound that had come out of my mouth even though I knew what it was. When was the last time I’d made that sound? Here or there at myself if I did something silly or saw an animal do something funny, but not where someone else could hear. Not since I was a child. “I like the way your laugh sounds,” Cyrus told me. “I appreciate your sharing it with me.”

Hearing him say that made me want to do it more. I wanted to please him, wanted to make him feel good in ways no one ever had before. “I like yours too,” I admitted. “But mine isn’t something special.” “Maybe it is to me.”

“Taylor is my girl.” He did a shimmy thing that made my dick harden. You’re my boy, flittered through my head, and I didn’t shut down the thoughts.

“When I asked if you’re queer, you said you’re nothing.” “Because I’m not. It’s different for me. I don’t use terms like that. It’s men I want to fuck, but there’s nothing beneath it. No emotions attached.”

Was there anything in this world I wouldn’t give this man? I didn’t think there was.

He needed care, my little lamb. He needed to feel wanted and comforted, and something about me did that for him.

“Because they’ll be yours,” he unleashed right back. Okay, that hurt. He could share his house with me, but God forbid we made something that would be mine? “Fine. Whatever. I’m going to take a bath.” I started to walk away but didn’t make it far. Crow boxed me in, my back against the wall, his hard body against mine, his forearms braced on the wall so I couldn’t escape. “Because they’ll be yours. One day you’ll leave, and they’ll still be here. And when I look at them…”

Crow had never sucked dick before, but he had his mouth on mine. This was Crow trying to give me something.

Deep down to the bone, something about us is connected. I feel it, Crow.” I sighed because I felt it too. Part of me wanted to evict it, to incinerate it because no good would come of it, but the other part wanted to hold tight, to fucking imprint it into myself.