Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (13 page)

“Would you do me one other favor? Before the sun
comes up, your uncle gets back, and you have to watch him whip
me?”

“Yes,” manages the bullfrog in Confederate gray.

“Get down here. Please.”

I can’t move. It’s too unbelievable. The world never
gives me what I want most. Never. I lie in my cot clutching his
hand and staring into the now-complete darkness.

“Please? Ian? I’m cold as hell, and I need some
solace in the face of tomorrow. You said that Achilles and
Patroclus gave one another comfort. You said—”

I drop his hand, roll off the cot, and fall to my
knees beside him.

“I just want—would you just hold on me a while?” Drew
mumbles. “I’m so cold, and I’m scared, and I feel so defenseless,
and tomorrow those men will be laughing at me while I bleed and
break and cry, and—”

Something flexes and swells inside me, something
strong, like birch roots slow-splitting stone. “Roll over,” I say,
nudging his flank.

Drew obeys, curling up on his side, back to me. I
slide against him, tugging my blanket off the cot to supplement
his; I pull the doubled wool over us, tucking it around his bare
shoulders. Then I do what I’ve ached to do for days: I slide one
arm beneath his neck, wrap the other around his bare torso as best
I can, considering my significantly smaller frame, and hold him
close, his broad back pressed against my uniform jacket. Surely he
can feel the physical evidence of my excitement against him, hard
inside my wool pants, but, if so, he makes no objections, and
besides, it’s my heart and not my groin that rules tonight. As much
as I want to make love to him, it’s comforting, not fucking, he’s
asked for, and that’s what he’ll receive. I may be an accomplice to
torture but I still have some honor left.

We lie together at last. No words, just the pattering
of sleet and the rhythms of breath. We would seem ridiculous to
most, a small man wrapped protectively, possessively, around an
enemy soldier twice his size, but there’s no one here to see. I
fondle Drew’s beard, the hair upon his bare breast, the welts
ridging his back. He snuggles even closer against me, gives a
little sob, and commences snoring. I stay awake for a good while,
thinking hard, wondering how I might save Drew, thanking God for
the deep balm of body warmth, before sinking into sleep myself.

_

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

_

I
 
feel before I see or hear.
Pressure against my chest, softness against my face.

I open my eyes to blackness. It’s night’s heart.
There’s the sound of sleet, continuing its impatient tap on the
canvas. And here, pressed against me beneath the covers, is Drew, a
darkness denser than the night’s. We’re lying side by side now, and
face to face. His hands are pressed against my torso. That softness
brushing my face is his lips. Drew’s kissing me and rubbing his
unshaven cheek against mine.

I cup his fuzzy chin in one hand and grip his roped
wrists in the other. Lightly, I kiss him back. He sighs and
snuggles closer. He kisses me again, shyly, tentatively.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want,” I
whisper. His breath is warm on my face, aromatic with whiskey.
“Most men would think that this is sin.”

Drew chuckles. “You think I’m kissing you ’cause I’m
angling to get loose? You think I’m going to brain you in the midst
of an embrace and shuffle off into the sleet? You think I’m giving
up my sweet favors, as the ballads say, to insure your continued
good will?”

“Well, all that has crossed my mind. I’ve made it
pretty clear that I, well, that I love…looking at you, t-touching
you…” I kiss him again, harder this time. “…tasting you. You don’t
need to kiss me to secure my protection, buddy. That’s yours
freely. Don’t do this if you don’t—”

“Give over the guilt, Reb. I ain’t angling for
anything, and I ain’t no whore swapping kisses for favors. I’m
kissing you ’cause I want to, ’cause you’re good to me. Besides,”
says Drew, running a fingertip along the ridge of my nose, “you’re
not the first man I’ve kissed, Private Campbell.”

He reads my silence correctly. “Shocked, huh?” he
snickers. “Guess your Yankee Achilles has a few surprises left.
I’ll tell you a story if you help me piss. That whiskey moved right
through me.”

I toss the blankets back, help Drew crawl outside,
lift him to his feet, and lead his stiff, shackled shuffle to the
wood’s edge. The sleet patters us, sharp little pins. He unbuttons
his trousers and turns away from me. I study the tapered muscles of
his back, a pale blur in the night, then turn away as well. The
dual sounds of our piss drum the ground.

Back in the tent, we crawl, teeth chattering, under
the blankets. Side by side again, we’re stroking one another’s
faces in the dark, wiping off the melted sleet, shivering till the
warmth our bodies create together builds back up.

“This feels damned good, little Reb. Fine distraction
for me, considering what I’ve got coming to me tomorrow.”

“It does feel fine,” I sigh. “More soldiers ought to
have the sense to try this. Two men’s body heat’s a damn sight
better than one, especially when the blankets are so everlastingly
moist. As for tomorrow, we’ll get through that together. Right now,
don’t you owe me a story?”

“Will you do me one favor first?” Drew’s manly voice
slips into that soft tone of pleading I’ve already come to cherish
after only a few days together.

“Surely, if it’s possible.”

“Oh, it’s possible. Would you strip to the waist and
then hold on me some more? Then I’ll tell you about my wrestling
buddy.”

“I, uh, I, well…” is my less-than-articulate
response. Drew’s one sweet surprise after another, that’s for
sure.

“You read Homer and that’s the best you can do? Come
on, Reb. I’ve been shirtless and shivering for days, ever since you
cut my clothes off me. Least you can do is join me for a time, skin
to skin. Come on, be brave. I’ll keep you warm.”

First my uniform jacket, then my undershirt, both
tossed on the cot. “Damn, it’s cold,” I grunt. Half-naked now, I
burrow against him.

“Now you know what I’ve been going through, or at
least part of it,” Drew says, slipping his bound hands around my
neck and pulling me close, till his beard-soft cheek is pressed
against mine. “How’s this? Comfortable, little captor?”

“Stop calling me ‘little.’ Yes, this is sweet,” I
say, fondling the fur on his face. “Sweetest thing I’ve known in a
good long while. You’re a regular honey-hive, big man.”

“And you’re a beer-cask of compliments. At the very
least, you make me smile in hell. And, by the way, if you can call
me ‘big,’ I can call you ‘little.’ So you want this story?”

We’re joshing with one another like longtime drinking
buddies. Guess this is how we hold off the thought of where we are
and all that’s inescapable and inevitable. Fine with me. “Yep, get
on with it,” I say, nuzzling his neck. I want to touch his chest,
his loins, make love to him like I did Thom so long ago—who knows
how many more days together God has allotted us?—but fear and shame
hold me back even now in the face of his obvious affection.

“So, the wrestler. Back home in Pennsylvania, I was
always winning the wrestling contests. We’d have ’em at fairs,
after church socials, you name it. I’d made quite a name for myself
in the county by the time Rob and his family moved into town. We
were pretty evenly matched, but every now and then he threw me. He
was about my size, about ten years older, with a bushy black beard
already going gray around the edges. I liked the way he looked, I
liked his big build, the hair on his body—he looked like a black
bear when he stripped down, all muscled-up, fierce, and downright
splendid. I used to spend time with him, help him around his farm.
He was a fair companion.”

“So, you and he kissed?”

“I’m about there. Hold on. One October night, Rob and
I were drinking too much cider. His wife and child were abed; it
was late. We were in the stable, checking on the horses…we got to
wrestling around.” Drew breathes deep before recommencing. “We tore
off one another’s shirts, laughing like the drunk bastards we were.
He pinned me on my belly with my arms twisted behind me. I got, uh,
hard. I always got hard when he pinned me. I could feel the hair on
his body as he shoved me into the straw. His hair tickled my bare
back; the straw tickled and scratched my face. Somehow I got out
from under him. But Rob just laughed some more, slammed me up
against the wall…and then he got to kissing me. I kissed him back.
I think he wanted more, ’cause his hands were rubbing me down
there, but…I wasn’t ready for more, and wasn’t entirely sure what
more would entail. I did savor the kissing, though. I savored it a
good bit more than kissing on the silly farm girls my parents were
always after me to court.”

“Did it ever happen again?”

“Naw, we were both sort of bashful and bumbling
around one another after that. We only wrestled a few more times
afterwards. By then I was letting him win, after putting up a
credible struggle, just ’cause I liked the feel of him straining
and sweating atop me, holding me down. Like I said, losing to him
always got me hard. The next summer he busted out his back baling
hay and had to give up wrestling. Got himself a farmhand, so we
didn’t have much cause to keep company after that.

“So, you ain’t the first man I’ve brushed lips with.
You ain’t the first man I’ve slept with, either: back home, we
brothers all had to share beds. You are, however, the first man
I’ve snuggled with like this. Also the first man to rub salve on my
back, to feed me with his fingers, and to help me shit in a stream.
Not that I’m complaining. The devil might have sent me your uncle,
but the Lord surely sent you. You’re indeed a boon and a treasure.
I won’t forget it. If I survive your Sarge and this war, I’ll
reward you yet.”

We leave off words for a time, beard nuzzling beard.
Encouraged by his blessed amorousness, I finger his thick chest
hair, the hair coating his flat belly.

“That feels mighty fine,” Drew sighs. “I do
appreciate how you touch me.”

“For a guy as shoulder-broad and chest-deep as you
are, you’re certainly thin,” I say, patting his lean middle. “Every
boy in the company is half-starved by now. At least Sarge has
agreed for the nonce to let me feed you what little we can
spare.”

“Belt’s been pulled in two notches since I joined the
army,” Drew says. “I used to have me a little bit of a gut when I
joined up. All that pork and pie I told you about. Long gone now,
goddammit, though we Feds sure eat better than you skinny
Confederates.

“So, Reb…your turn,” Drew says, dropping
feast-nostalgia for inquiry. “Did you ever kiss a man before?”

“There was…yes, I have. His name was Thom.”

“That guy you mentioned to me before? Your friend
from home. Was he as handsome as me?”

Even in a night this dark, I can see the pale
crescent of Drew’s grin.

“Just about. You’re damned full of yourself, buddy,”
I reply, grinning back.

“Would you be treating me so good if I weren’t so
handsome?”

The pale crescent expands. It’s a gift to laugh
together on the eve of tears.

“Hell, no,” I say. “Or so strong.” I use the latter
confession as an excuse to squeeze the dense flesh of his right
arm.

“You Southerners surely have honied tongues. I
suppose I’d be dead by now if I were homely or puny,” Drew says.
“Now get on with your story.”

“Not that much to tell. He and I got stuck in the
barn one evening during a hard rain, ended up spending the night
sacked out in the hayloft. First man I kissed. Last man I kissed.
Before you.”

“Was kissing all you did?”

“No,” I say.

“So you do know what ‘more’ is, then? The ‘more’ that
Rob wanted and I wasn’t prepared to give?” Drew’s fingers play over
the back of my neck.

“Yes,” I admit. “I found out a good bit that night.
Don’t play so innocent, Yank. Every man’s got a cock, a mouth-hole,
and an asshole. Think hard, and you’ll figure it out.”

Drew snickers again. “Yeah, I think the asshole was
what Rob was after. Wasn’t going to give that up.”

“Thom did.”

“Really?! How did you…?”

“After we both used our mouths—”

“You mean you and he…? You sucked…?”

“Yep. Sure did. The doing of it wasn’t half-bad, and
the receiving of it was damned grand. After a long while of that, I
bent him over a bale. I used spit. I went real slow. He hurt for a
while, and then he started to…well, it gave him pleasure.”

“Really? And it gave you pleasure too?”

“Hell,
yes
. What do you
think? He was hot and tight there. It was like my own hand, but
twice as fine.”

“I ain’t ready for anything like
that
,” Drew says. The fingers grazing the back of my
neck stop their roaming. “I don’t need no more pain right now.”

“You aren’t ready just yet? Or never?” I say, patting
his flannelled butt.

“Are you saying I owe you that, after all the things
you’ve done to help me? I told you I ain’t no whore.”

“No, I’m not. I’m saying taking Thom like that was
wonderful, and that…yes, I’d like to take you that way too, but I’m
not going to force you just because you’re my prisoner. I’m not
going to do such a thing just because I can. Sodomizing the
unwilling is not the kind of suffering I savor. If you’re ever
ready, if we get a chance to be somewhere safe…if you were to give
yourself to me that way, it would be a gift and a rapture. Right
now, this is enough,” I say, licking his chin and lower lip.

Drew’s wet lips mash against mine. Our tongues roll
together. Another long silence, as our mouths lose themselves in
wordless pleasures. Finally, breathless, we pull away.