San Antonio: November 19th, 1996
"And... we're live!"
"Welcome back to San Antonio Ninety-Two-Seven the Slash, San Antonio's number one rock and roll radio station. You've been listening to Morning Slash with Todd Peters, coming off a block of non-stop rock, and that was just Queen of the City by Cashmere. And speak of the devil himself, we're joined in the studio today by a true legend of rock, none other than Mr. Marc Warner himself. Thanks for joining us, Marc."
Marc leaned up to the mic. "Thanks for having us, Todd."
"You've brought a guest with you today, Marc, care to introduce us?"
"Well, Todd, you may have heard about the unfortunate incident in Louisiana."
"I have indeed. For the listeners who might not be in the loop, Roger Thorpe, the lead guitarist from Cashmere, was attacked last week. He suffered... what, serious injuries, right Marc?"
"Well, serious enough, Todd. His hand got cut up pretty bad."
"Jesus. That's unacceptable to me, that's crazy. Cutting a guitarist's hands, that's like snapping all Michelangelo's paintbrushes or chopping off Ron Jeremy's dick or something. Like, you wanna fight with the guy, fine, but you go straight for his livelihood? What's up with that? Twisted twisted guy, man."
"Well... yeah. It's a disgrace, Todd, definitely."
"But he's alright?"
"He's going to make a full recovery, no permanent damage."
"Well, that's good news. But it's not all good news, I understand."
"Unfortunately not. It's going to be a while before he can play again. He's going to stay with the tour, the whole band is committed to seeing this through. But he's not going to be able to perform."
"Which brings us back to our guest."
"That's right, Todd. This is our friend Cal, a brilliant young guitarist we met on the tour."
"And not a moment too soon."
"That's right. Cal's agreed to take over while Roger recovers. Under Roger's supervision, of course."
"Wow. Obviously, so unfortunate, so sad. But what an opportunity for this guy right here. Cal, welcome to the program."
Cal cleared his throat a little and adjusted his headset. He licked his lips and spoke into the microphone, very softly, "Thank you for having me."
"Where have we heard you before, Cal?"
"Well... I don't know..."
Marc took over. "Cal's what you might call an emerging young talent, Todd. We found him first, before anybody else could. He's new on the scene, but we're sure that he'll make a big impression."
"Wow. Wow, that's something. So here we have a brand new guy, untested, basically, stepping into the shoes of one of the all-time greats. What's that like, Cal? I mean, that's gotta be intimidating, am I right?"
"It's... a little intense, definitely..."
"No kidding, that's the understatement of the year right there. Marc, how has the tour been going, aside from all this. What's it like being back in the saddle again?"
"It's been great, Todd. Just like old times. The time away has just made us sharper, tighter. More in tune."
"In tune, huh! Good one! Listen, Cal, you might have the chops, and Marc here assures us that you do, but being a rock star is about a lot more than just skill. It's attitude, am I right, Marc?"
"I suppose you are, Todd."
"So how about it, Cal? Do you have the balls to play Roger's parts?"
Cal laughed nervously. "Well, Todd... I've been listening to these guys since I was a kid. Cashmere's always been a big part of my life. This is a big deal for me. It's a dream come true."
"Seems like a risky move, Marc. Are you worried about how it's going to go?"
Marc looked at Cal. He was fiddling with the cord of his headphones and tapping his foot nervously on the floor. "No," he said. "I'm not worried at all. I believe in him."
Cal looked away, hiding a smile.
"Well. I for one will be there at the show. It's coming up soon, folks, December the third, tickets available now. Marc, a real honor, and it's good to have you back out on the road. Cal, I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do up there."
* * *
Cal looked dubiously at the instrument in his hands. The sleek little electric guitar had a skull painted on the head-stock and lightning bolts on the body. It looked jagged and aggressive and dangerous. There was a reason they called them axes.
"It's not gonna bite you, kid," Roger growled. "You look like you've never held one before."
"Well... not an electric guitar, anyway."
"Wait, are you serious?"
"Um... yes?"
"Jesus Christ. Marc, what have you done to me?"
Marc leaned against the microphone stand. "This was your idea, Roger," he pointed out.
"Fuck it. He'll be fine. Okay, Cal, the only difference is that it's a completely different instrument that's nothing like those toys you've been plonking away on until now."
"He'll be fine, Roger. He knows how to play. He knows the songs. Don't worry about it." Marc tossed the mic impatiently from one hand to the other.
"Yeah," Tony added, "let's just see what he can do."
Joanna tapped her keys idly. "What are we playing? Marc?"
He shrugged. "Let's just work our way through the set-list, I guess."
"Alright. Man With The Black Heart it is then. We ready?"
"I'm ready. Tony, count us off."
"Right. Ah-one, ah-two, ah-one-two-three-four."
Tony started playing, and sound of the swinging bass-line filled the practice room.
Cal turned out to be a natural, just as Marc suspected he would be. He came in tentatively, seeming almost intimidated by the harsh buzz ripping through the amplifier. By the end of the song, however, he was completely in sync, and already finding room to embellish on Roger's usual flourishes with dexterous little trills and riffs.
Dance burst into applause before the last note had even faded from their hearing, swinging her legs back and forth and whistling from her perch up atop the unplugged amplifier stack. "Alright, Cal!"
Joanna laughed. "Uh oh, watch out, Roger. We might just keep this one!"
"Suppose it's only a matter of time before we're all replaced by a bunch of kids," Tony moaned.
Roger rolled his eyes and pursed his lips. "Not bad. Guess we're not completely fucked after all."
Cal shot a look at Marc and grinned. Marc smiled back and lifted an eyebrow. "Okay, guys. We ready for another one?"
* * *
"They're good kids, Marc. I can see why you like him so much." Joanna gave him a little nudge with her elbow.
"Come on, why does everybody keep saying that? Nothing's going on. This is a strictly professional relationship, Jo."
"Sure it is. I see the way he looks at you."
"You think?"
"Come on, Marc, don't be thick."
"Okay okay. You think he's ready though? To perform, I mean."
"He's a natural! It'll be fine."
Marc grinned. "I really thought things had gone off the rails there for a second. Like it was going to fall apart all of a sudden. After things have been going so well."
"They have been, haven't they? It's a little bit amazing. I never thought we'd get to a place like this again."
He looked at her, watching her as she packed up her things into her little purse. The rest of the group had all gone, only the two of them remained in the practice space now. She looked good, just as full of life and vigor as ever. If the cancer was taking a toll on her she wasn't letting it show. She hadn't said another word about it, not to Roger or Tony or anybody. And nothing more to Marc, certainly. She was keeping the information close and private for now. He wanted to ask her if she was doing alright, but he didn't dare broach the subject if she wasn't interested in talking about it.
It turned out that he didn't have to. She glanced up from her purse and caught him studying her. She laughed a little, self-consciously, then frowned. "Oh, come on now, Marc. Don't do that."
"What?"
"You know what. You're giving me the is-she-okay looks."
"So are you?"
"I'm fine." She stuffed the last of her things in her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "I told you that I don't want you treating me any differently."
"Okay, okay. I get it."
She nodded slowly, brow furrowed. Then she relaxed, and let out a soft sigh. "It was a good practice, Marc. The kid's going to do great."
"You think?"
"I do."
"Me too."
"See you tomorrow, Marc."
"See you."
She turned and left and maybe it was only in his imagination, but it seemed to Marc as though her shoulders were bowed slightly, like she was carrying a great weight that only she could bear. The door of the practice room swung shut behind her, clattering as it closed.
The place seemed lonely now, emptied out of all the laughter and music and chatter. And no Cal.
What if they were right? Roger and Joanna... What if they were both right and he really was falling for the guy? He couldn't even begin to imagine what that could possibly mean for him. What did he have to offer someone like Cal? He was famous, sure, and he'd made some great music in his day but...
Cal had a mark of his own to leave on the world, Marc could feel it. Wilderlands could be one of the greats, given the opportunity to blossom. The potential was there, right in front of him just waiting to explode. Was all this helping Cal, or was it just going to swallow that potential? Was he only going to get in the way?
He picked up the guitar that Cal had been playing. The power was off, there was no more thrumming energy contained within the instrument, no more angry electricity waiting to be unleashed. He plucked at the strings, listening to the flat twang of the steel-stringed instrument. He felt like this guitar sometimes. Flashy and showy and ostentatious... but drained somehow. A pale shadow.
Cal deserved better than this, didn't he? He deserved someone with a future, and all Marc had to offer was the past.
He shouldn't do this. He should let Cal go free, go find his own way. Roger was right. The spotlight was going to crush him.
The door swung open. Probably Joanna coming back for something she'd missed. "Forget your lipstick?" he called over his shoulder, not turning to look. Joanna was always leaving tubes of lipstick behind, she carried three or four of them around all the time, clacking in her jacket pocket, and she'd lose them like other people lost pens.
"Marc?"
He turned around. "Cal! Sorry. I thought you were Joanna... What's up?"
Cal stood in the doorway, neither entering nor retreating. He scratched the back of his neck. "Uh... so, they brought the van back."
"Great! Oh, that's good news. Running okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. They fixed it up really good. Thanks again. Dance is over the moon."
"That's good." Marc leaned back against the amps. He felt something like guilt, but why? Why did he feel so lost when it came to Cal? Relationships, whether professional or otherwise, had always seemed so simple before. Sure, he'd fucked them up plenty of times before, but even those catastrophic meltdowns hadn't really bothered him. He hadn't ever let it under his skin. Somehow Cal was different. He was inside Marc in a way nobody ever had been before.
"Um. I told you that I grew up in Texas, right?"
"Yeah. The commune, you said something about that."
"Yeah, well. It's just a couple hours away. Since we have some time, Dance and I were going to head over there."
He felt his heart sink at the thought of Cal leaving. Once he was gone, what was there here to make him come back? He might just vanish and be gone forever someday. "Oh. Great. That's good. That's good to hear."
"You wanna come?"
That caught him off guard. Come to Cal's home? Meet his family, his friends? Jesus. "Oh. Uh... well, sure. Yeah, I'd love to. If Dance doesn't mind."
Cal shook his head enthusiastically, a smile breaking out across his face. "Oh no, she won't care, it's great. Awesome. That's great. I mean, there's not much to see, it's pretty bare bones out there, but if you want to..."
"Cal. I'd love to." Why not? What else did he have to do? "When are you leaving?"
"Well... now, actually."
"Now?"
"Yeah, Dance has the car running now."
"Jesus, you don't mess around."
Cal shrugged. "You know... you get used to it. Travel light, move fast, all that."
"Shit. Okay, sure. Give me fifteen minutes."
Cal was practically beaming. "No problem. We're parked right out front. When you're ready."
* * *
Whatever they'd done to the van to get it running again, they hadn't done much to make it any prettier. The beat-up old clunker sat in the parking lot, rumbling and choking and humming away as it idled, spitting out black smoke at random. The thing was so bashed and dinged that it looked like it had been through the trash compacter and then gotten beaten back into the rough shape of a vehicle. There was a decal or logo painted on the back of the van that was by now so worn away that Marc couldn't even tell what it had originally depicted.
Dance flung herself at it, hugging the battered body and grinning. "My baby!"
"You all set, Marc?" Cal slung his bag and his guitar into the back of the van and shut the door, dusting off his hands.
"I guess. As ready as I'll ever be." He'd tossed together a little bag of essentials, though of course he was sure he'd forgotten a few things he'd want later. Traveling in the great fleet of tour buses was very different from puttering around in a little van like this. Cashmere back in the day had traveled without so much as a change of clothing or a bar of soap. He remembered once the whole band had taken over a truck stop bathroom and washed themselves in the sinks with foaming hand soap from the dispensers, letting the water and suds wash across the floor. These days they traveled with enough amenities to make the experience feel almost like they weren't even actually on the road.
"Don't worry, I got the essentials," Dance grinned, and lifted a grocery bag full of Cheetos and potato chips.
"Thank God," Marc said dryly. "I was worried there for a second."
She hopped in the driver's seat. "All aboard, boys, we're on the road to Epiphany!"
Cal took the passenger seat. "Sorry, Marc. Gotta read the map for Dance until we're out of the city. Go ahead and take the back."
"No problem, I'll manage," he said, squeezing himself into the cramped backseat, picking his way through a pile of discarded papers and broken musical instruments.
Cal glanced back and blushed. "Sorry about the mess."
"Cal has the bad habit of adopting crippled instruments. He keeps saying he's going to fix them all." Dance added, putting the van in drive and pulling out onto the street.
"I will! You know. Someday."
"Sure, sure."
Marc leaned back and listened to the thrum of the tires on the road. How much of his life had he spent like this, sitting in car seats waiting to get somewhere? He never felt comfortable when he wasn't on the move. He always thought that he would someday, but it never quite came to pass. When the band broke up he was sure that he'd never travel again, but of course he was already itching to be on his way within a month.
He had felt this way for as long as he could remember, this feeling of needing to escape, needing to see the place he'd been receding in the distance behind him. He couldn't be happy just staying where he was, just existing static in one place. It made him feel trapped, choked. He'd accepted it at this point. There had once been a time when he'd imagined he could still find somewhere, some special magical place that he wouldn't want to leave. Where he could feel whole.
A lonely boy without a home.
He liked the sound of that. It sounded... melancholy. He'd never been one for melancholy before, seemed too much like wallowing. He liked this though, the yearning of it, the nostalgia. Maybe it was old age. There was a ballpoint pen on the floor of the van, but no paper, of course. He patted his pockets, as if expecting to find something there. He scribbled it on the pad of his thumb until the ink came, and he rolled back the sleeve of his jacket to write the phrase on the inside of his arm.
He looked up to find Cal staring back at him, twisted in the seat and looking at him silently. He looked at Cal. Neither of them spoke.
The engine growled low and deep as they left the city and went out into the desert.
* * *
They got gas at a station on the outskirts and Cal moved back to sit beside Marc, gingerly ordering his broken instruments to make room for himself. He promptly pulled out a paperback book from his back pocket and slouched down low to read. They drove for about two hours before Dance declared that she was thirsty, and Cal realized that they had no water in the van with them.
"You were supposed to pack the water, Cal!"
"Since when?"
"Since always. I get the snacks, you get the essentials. That's our standard, what do ya call it, division of duties."
"Well, I forgot it, okay? Sorry."
"Maybe if you weren't so distracted by your new boyfriend, you could have remembered," she said, not angrily but with more than a little note of recrimination in her voice.
Marc broke in, "Don't worry about it, guys. There's a service station in just a few miles. Probably a convenience store. We'll stop for whatever we need, no reason to argue."
"Who's arguing!" Dance snapped, "I'm not arguing, everything's fine."
They drove on, a tense silence filling the vehicle for a few minutes, before it slowly dissipated. Cal noticed a misspelling on a road sign and Dance made a joke about it and things went back to normal.
Marc leaned over a little. "Boyfriend?" he whispered, nudging Cal gently and grinning.
He blushed. "She's just... being Dance," he replied, whispering just as quietly.
"Yeah, but is she right?"
"Right about what?"
"Am I your boyfriend?" he laughed softly. As he had been speaking he'd been moving slightly closer, putting his arm on the back of the seat behind Cal.
Cal turned, laying his head back in the seat. Their faces were only inches apart in the confines of the van. His blue eyes were piercingly bright and full of trembling uncertainty. "Well..." he said, and licked his lower lip, "do you... want to be?"
Marc let his arm fall across Cal's shoulders, and he pulled himself ever so slightly closer. He nodded. "Yeah..." he said, "I think I do. Is that okay?"
Cal swallowed. "It's okay," he murmured. "It's really okay."
"I was hoping it would be." Marc found himself locked into Cal's gaze. It felt like the whole world was spiraling down, everything circling in on them and only them, everything else fading. He could feel the heat coming off Cal's body, could feel the muscles of his arm tensing, could sense the warmth of his breath. He felt himself starting to shift forward, leaning closer, leaning against the other man, his lips parted ever so slightly.
"What are you two muttering about back there?" Dance said, grabbing the rear-view mirror and adjusting it so that she could see into the backseat.
"Nothing. Nothing." Cal jerked away, coughing, and he focused his attention back on his book.
Marc leaned back. His heart was still pounding in his chest, thumping hard and fast. He could feel it in his throat, in the tips of his fingers, in his whole body. He let out a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding and he glanced up at the mirror. Dance was watching him, one eyebrow lifted. She turned slowly back to the road when she saw him looking.
There were words in that look, and Marc could read them easily enough: don't fuck with my brother, rock-star.
He looked out the window and tried to breathe slowly.
There did indeed turn out to be a convenience store attached to the gas station. Cal bought a bag of salted almonds and Dance picked up two jugs of water. Marc offered to pay when she went up to the register, but she just sniffed and told him that she could take care of it just fine by herself.
They all drank, sharing the same cup, a mug with the words Take on the day! written on the side in sparkling letters.
"A coffee mug?"
"Ah ah," said Dance, "that's Bev the water mug. She used to be a coffee mug before she transitioned, and she's still a little sensitive about it, so please be careful what you say around her."
Marc took a sip, then handed the cup to Cal. "Gotcha."
They piled back in the car and kept on driving. Dance switched on the radio, twisting the knob around for a good ten minutes before she finally found a station that came through, though a bit faint with some static. She turned up the volume and started humming along to the music. Cal took his book out again and went back to reading. This time when he sat down he leaned over a little, resting his weight on Marc. As they drove he very gradually shifted closer, until his head was nestled against Marc's shoulder.
Marc glanced at the book in Cal's hands. It was a tattered paperback that looked like it had been passed through a dozen hands before it came to be here. The paper was yellowed and discolored by age-old water stains. He saw strange words on the page that he didn't recognize, references to countries and peoples he'd never heard of before.
"What are you reading?" he asked softly.
"It's a fantasy novel."
"Fantasy?"
"You know, knights and dragons and all that."
"I wouldn't have expected that."
Cal snorted. "Why not? Too juvenile? You think I go walking around with my nose stuck in Proust and Joyce all the time?"
Marc shrugged. "You seem so serious."
"Only when I'm playing... that sounds funny, doesn't it? Only serious when I'm playing..."
He seemed different to Marc. More relaxed, more calm. There had always been something withdrawn about him, hidden and mysterious. It was still there, but lessened somewhat. He wondered if it was because he was going home. Marc reached up and brushed Cal's dark hair back from his face. He let his hand graze against Cal's cheek, then fall. "Well... I guess I don't really know you that well yet."
Cal licked his thumb and turned the page. "You will."
The van hit a pothole and they were jostled together. All the equipment and instruments rattled. "Oops, sorry everybody," Dance said. They were well off the beaten track by now, away from the highway and heading south into the untamed wilds of the Texan desert. Sand dunes stretched out for miles in all directions, like a great red sea that went right to the horizon where it met the pale blue sky. The road ahead looked like it was only going to get rockier from here on out. Marc reached back and pulled his seat-belt across his chest, buckling it in with a click.
"So why fantasy? What's the appeal?"
"Do you read, Marc?"
"Of course I can read."
"I don't mean can you read, I mean do you read. For fun, I mean."
He shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes. Every once in a while I'll pick something up. Not very practical for the road though. Never make it back to the library, you know?"
"Sure, I get it. For me though... for me, when I'm reading it's like... it's like it takes me somewhere. After a while I stop seeing the words, I don't think about it. I'm just there, you know? Inside the story. It's like I can feel everything, and everything can feel me too. With fantasy books I get to go somewhere outside this world, somewhere nobody's ever been before. It's like..."
"Escaping," Marc finished.
"Yeah. I guess it is."
"What do you think you're trying to escape?"
Cal looked up at him, and his clear blue eyes caught the Texan sun and seemed to glitter, like two pale diamonds. "I don't know."
Marc leaned back. He liked the feeling of Cal against him, his body pressed close to Marc's. It made him feel... God, he didn't even know the words for it. Safe? Something like that. Something like safe. "I have something like that too," he said.
"What is it?" Cal asked.
Marc looked down at him. His hand found Cal's hand - he honestly didn't know how, he hadn't consciously reached for it - and their fingers entwined. "It's you..." he said, "you and your music. When I first heard you, that night in the bar in New York... I felt like I'd gone someplace else. A place that I'd never been before. That's why I knew I had to find you."
"And you did. You found me."
Marc squeezed his hand tight. "I did."
The radio signal faded and the music vanished into a whirl of static, like an explorer wandering into a snowstorm. Never to be seen again.
* * *
They were about three and a half hours out from San Antonio when Dance suddenly declared, "This is it!" and turned off the road.
Marc pressed his face against the window. "This is what?" He saw nothing but desert stretching out. Dusk was settling in, and the heat of the desert fading to a cool blue that matched the sky. Quite disconcertingly, Dance just kept driving, the van jostling and rattling over the hard earth. Marc was quite sure that what they were no driving on didn't even qualify as a path, must less a road. He tried to look out the windshield, but he saw nothing but the desert stretching out ahead.
Cal grinned, tucking his book away. "Just wait," he said, "it's there."
They drove for maybe fifteen more minutes and then, out of nowhere, they crested a little dune that Marc hadn't even realized was there and they were overlooking a sprawl of little clay houses clustered around a little lake. Neatly ordered gardens stood beside every house, following the path of a little trickling river that wound through the red soil. A little plume of white smoke rose from the chimney of one of the larger houses. Between all the houses was a complex web of clotheslines, and from each line hung all sorts of brightly colored clothes. Men and women were working in the gardens and by the river while children ran laughing through the maze of houses and gardens. Further down the river was a stand of sparse trees, now bare and gray but for a few clinging autumn leaves.
Dance stabbed the gearshift and put the van in park just on top of the ridge. She sat back, grinning with the grim satisfaction of one who has just finished a rather long car trip. "Welcome to Epiphany," she said.
Marc leaned forward between the seats. "This is where you grew up?" he asked.
Cal shrugged. "Well, we used to move around a lot, just tents and tepees and stuff. We ended up settling here a couple years ago. Pat bought the land and gave it to the commune and we've been here ever since."
"It's incredible."
"Well... it's home."
The three of them walked down into the little village. Someone spotted them coming and by the time they were down among the houses the whole place had turned out to see them. There were maybe fifty people there, and everybody was deliriously happy to see Cal and Dance back. From the way everyone acted you would have thought that they'd been gone for years instead of months. Without even having been introduced, Marc found himself swept up into the waves of excitement, receiving great bear hugs and wet kisses on the cheek from total strangers.
They were a warm and earthy group of people, tanned and tawny, with rough hands and gentle expressions. The men and women both dressed in gaudy silks and brightly colored outfits off all sorts. Flowing skirts and dresses, bandannas and clattering jewelry, tattoos and body paints and sashes of every shade. In this little corner of the world the sixties seemed to have never ended.
Marc found himself passed swiftly from one embrace to the other until he was almost dizzy. Someone, he wasn't even sure if it was a man or a woman, grabbing his face and pulling him close to give him a big kiss right on the mouth that left him a bit stunned. The riotous welcomes for Cal and Dance seemed to come all at once, overlapping and chaotic. Then somebody started singing, someone else pulled out a fiddle, everybody began dancing and just like that an impromptu welcome home party burst out.
The fires was stoked beside the river and everybody started rushing back and forth with pots and pans, chopping and dicing and stirring and simmering this and that until a whole feast had come together.
Marc found himself separated from his travel companions, swept away in the rush and clamor of the crowd. Someone sat him down in the sand and thrust a bowl of stewed vegetables in his hand. The singing and dancing carried on as night fell. Marc felt a little dazed. He sat there eating his stew, which was surprisingly good, and similar to the dish Pat had made for him back in North Carolina.
He watched the flickering flame reflected in the shifting water, and the shapes and colors of the dancers whirling around the fire. Everybody was singing and crying and cheering. He saw Dance whirling around in a circle, her arms linked with two other people, a man and woman about her age who kept shouting out "Stardancer's home! Stardancer's home!" over and over again while she giggled and was lifted up off of her feet.
Cal dropped down to the sand beside him, panting and out of breath. He was grinning.
"Do they go this crazy every time you come home?" Marc asked, half shouting over the din.
"I don't know, I never left before!" he laughed, and was whisked away again by more well-wishers.
A man with a long white beard offered him a toke, "Hey man, take the edge off, we're celebrating."
Marc had a drag. "You grow this here?"
The old man laughed. "Mostly beans and corn, but we keep a little patch in the herb garden for its medicinal properties. And occasionally for celebrations," he winked, and went dancing off into the crowd.
A slender blonde woman, maybe fifty years old with crow's feet and a huge beaming smile, came and sat down beside him. "Hello, traveler," she said.
"Hi," he said, not sure if this was his formal greeting. Somehow he doubted it.
"Where do you come from?"
"Oh, you know. All over."
She seemed to like that answer. "You came here with Calliope and Stardancer?"
"That's right. We met on the road."
"And what do you do?"
"Uh... I'm a musician."
She lit up at once, "Oh, lovely! So am I! Where do you play?"
"We tour around."
"That sounds very nice," she leaned over and gave him a big hug.
He laughed. "You're all very friendly to strangers here."
She laughed back, "There's no such thing as strangers in Epiphany! We're all family here, and now you are too." She kissed him on both cheeks and then she left.
He had similar conversations with about a dozen different people. Nobody seemed to recognize him or, if they did, they didn't make a big deal about it. Finally, Cal returned, taking him by the hand and drawing him away from the group a little.
"Sorry," he said, grinning broadly, "they go a little crazy sometimes. Any chance to throw a party."
"No, it's great. They're very welcoming."
"Come on," he squeezed Marc's hand, "I wanna show you something."
It was dark now, though the moon was full overhead and all the stars were blazing in the sky. Marc looked up in wonder. "I've never seen so many... Is it always like this?"
Cal glanced up, "Yeah, pretty much. It's because you've never been this far from a city, all that light and smog and stuff blots out the sky."
Marc turned his gaze earthward again. They were moving between the little clay houses, further and further away from the fire and the light. "Is one of these houses yours?" he asked.
Cal shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Any of them, really. People just sleep in whatever house they like, for the most part."
They went out beyond the houses and gardens and clotheslines, following the river towards the little stand of trees. The sounds of revelry and merriment behind them gradually faded, though not completely. The moon was like a great shining beacon above them, so that they could easily see their path forward even without a light. They passed through the copse and into a thicket of tall grass. Marc could see a lonely stone structure standing beside the river, like a little watch tower that had fallen into disuse.
"The old mill," Cal explained as they came up to the abandoned building. "Epiphany used to be a frontier town, back in the eighteen hundreds, I think. We find all sorts of stuff when we're digging in the gardens, pans and bullet casings and tin soldiers and things. All the old buildings were made from wood back then, except for this one. They're all gone now. Just vanished with time."
They walked through the doorway. It was dark inside, and it took Marc's eyes a while to adjust to the gloom. It was a little circular building just beside the riverbank, with a set of stone steps leading upwards to a second floor that had all rotted out long ago. Somebody had laid new boards down, however, making something of a little platform up there. Cal led him up the steps to the loft. There was a rusty old lock-box against one wall. Cal flipped the lid open. There were blankets inside and a few pieces of sheet music, as well as a little battery-powered flashlight. He switched it on. The light was dim, but serviceable.
"This is where I used to come to be by myself," Cal explained. "I wrote all my songs in here. I had this little radio and I'd play cassette tapes on it, listen to all kinds of music, then I'd make up my own. Here, check this out," he handed the flashlight to Marc and pointed at the wall. Marc shone the light.
Someone, Cal perhaps, had painted something on the stone, a great swirling multi-colored design that curved along the wall. There were posters hung up of musicians and rock stars. Bob Dylan, Blondie, David Bowie, Janice Joplin... and there at the end, a glossy and tattered poster of himself. Marc Warner.
He knew the image, had seen posters like it before. He was wearing leather pants and a loose silver shirt open in the front, standing with one leg up on a monitor at the edge of the stage and pointing towards the crowd, a microphone in one hand and the other on his belt. The outline of his cock was extremely visible through the tight leather. He'd heard of rock stars sticking rolls of quarters in their pants before, but this picture was one hundred percent Marc. He looked up at himself, himself from nineteen seventy-eight, nearly twenty years ago. Almost like seeing another person.
"So this is your sanctuary," he said, touching the smooth wall, running his fingertips over the warm stonework.
"I guess it is," Cal said, looking suddenly self-conscious, sticking his hands in his back pockets.
"Seems like a special place."
"I wanted to show you when I had a chance. Never know when I'll make it back down here."
"This whole community seems special. To be honest, I was worried that you wouldn't want to come back to the tour. Thought you might not want to leave again once you got back to this place."
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay with you."
Marc shone the beam of light upwards, looking at the dark roof of the mill far above them. When he looked back down he found Cal staring at him. "How did this happen, Cal? This is crazy."
"How did what happen?"
Marc moved closer. The floorboards creaked. They were spaced irregularly, roughly hewn. "How did I fall in love with you?"
"I don't know. I... wasn't really ready for this to happen to me."
"What about now?"
"Now I'm ready." Cal crossed the distance between them in two steps and wrapped his arms around Marc. Marc held him back, one hand on Cal's shoulder and the other on the small of his back, clutching tight at him. Marc's leather jacket creaked as Cal squeezed him close. Cal's lips found his own, and their mouths pressed together, warm and soft and open. He kissed Cal deeply, hard and desperate. He felt something inside himself that was far beyond sexual desire, something yearning and desperate and primal. He felt passion like he'd never felt before, an all-consuming passion that seemed to burn inside him like fire.
Cal's entire body was pressed up against him, moving slightly. His slender and muscular body seemed molded to fit against Marc's, as if they had been made for each other from the very beginning, two halves of the same broken whole, united once more. Cal kissed him fully, his hand coming up to touching Marc's smooth cheek. Marc did the same, feeling the soft scruff of Cal's jaw. He felt like he could never touch him enough, could never adequately explore the shape of his body. Every inch of him was filled with fascination and wonder, his every molecule a miracle and a gift. He caressed Cal's cheek, his neck, the curve of his ear. His hand slide up into his long black hair, holding the back of his head and pulling him close.
They broke apart for just a moment. "Oh my God," Cal murmured. Marc took a deep breath, stroking the sides of Cal's face. He could taste the other man's mouth on his lips still, and he was hungry for more. He leaned in, and Cal shifted back a little, teasing him, holding his gaze, lips slightly parted and the tip of his tongue moving between his teeth. He leaned in closer, and pulled Cal to him and he kissed him again.
"I've been... wanting to... do this..." Marc whispered, kissing Cal softly between words, "since I first... heard you play."
Cal's eyes were half-lidded. He moved slowly, languidly in the gloom. His breathing was slow and deep to Marc's panting desire, his motions languorous to Marc's urgency. "And I've been wanting to do it," he replied, forming the words slowly, "since the first time I saw that poster." He nodded at the wall.
The flashlight had fallen unnoticed to the floor, where it lay on the dusty boards, its weak beam pointing at the Cashmere poster hanging in the gloom of the abandoned mill. "Forget that," Marc murmured, "You've got me... for real now... the real thing..." Marc shifted it with his foot, tipping it off the ledge and sending it plummeting soundlessly to the floor below. Moonlight poured in through the little window, and Cal's pale skin glowed like milky pearl.
They sank together to the floor, boards groaning under them. The sound of Marc's jacket zipper coming down seemed to fill the great open space. Marc's fingers trembled as he fumbled at the buttons of Cal's flannel. Cal pulled the jacket off him and broke their embrace just long enough to pull the shirt underneath it up and over Marc's head. Marc undid the last button and he grasped the flannel in both hands, using it to pull Cal back against him. Cal's skin was hot and smooth on his own, and Cal put both arms around Marc's neck, holding him.
"I want to touch you," Marc murmured.
"I want you to touch me..."
Marc's hands shook even more violently as he undid the button of Cal's jeans and pulled the zipper down. He reached into Cal's loose boxers, and he felt it, warm and hard and smooth, like polished marble come to life. Cal moaned into Marc's mouth as Marc cupped him fully in his palm, caressing the shape of him with his thumb, wrapping his fingers around it.
"God," Marc groaned, "God, you're so beautiful..."
"Touch me, Marc, please touch me."
Marc withdrew Cal's cock from his underclothes. It stood up straight and firm between them, the soft tip brushing against Marc's bare chest. He wrapped his hand around the shaft and he started to move it slowly up and down, stroking it gently.
Cal moaned again, a little shudder running through him. Marc slipped one hand inside Cal's open flannel, cupping his strong back and holding him close as his other hand moved with long even strokes. Cal clung to him, moaning and shivering with pleasure.
Cal was long but slender down there, smooth and hairless except for a little thatch of dark hair at the base of the shaft. Marc broke off their kiss for just a moment to look down at the cock in his hand. It was beautiful, smooth and uncut and pale. Cal took his chin in his hands and lifted his mouth back up to press against his.
Marc started going faster, moving his hand more and more quickly. Cal gasped, clinging to him. Their kiss parted as Cal started to pant, his mouth open and his eyes closed, his forehead pressed against Marc's.
"That's so beautiful," Marc murmured, "so beautiful, Cal... does it feel good?"
"Uh huh..." Cal groaned, wincing a little as a flood of pleasure moved through him, "it feels so good..." he bit down hard on his lower lip, squeezing his eyes shut tight. "I... I think I'm going to... y-you should stop, I don't want to get you messy..."
"Shh... I'm not stopping. I'm not stopping. I want it... I want it, baby... Will you do it for me?"
Cal nodded, his fingers squeezing tight as he clutched at Marc's arms and shoulders. "Yes... yes, I want to do it for you..."
"Come on, come on, come on," Marc whispered, stroking faster and faster. Soft wet sounds started to emanate from below as Cal's precum started to spill down the shaft and onto Marc's hand.
"I'm going to!" he groaned, fingernails raking into Marc's skin, "I-I'm going to!"
Then, with a groan low in his throat, he did.
Pale spurts of milky cum spilled up onto Cal's tight belly, spangling over his skin like a web of caught starlight. He crumbled with a moan, still clinging to Marc, shaking and twitching a little as the spasms of pleasure moved through him.
Marc let Cal sink onto him; he wrapped his arms around the younger man and held him close and tight. He reached, and it was quite a stretch, and he grabbed the folded blanket by the corner and tugged it out of the little lock-box. He drew it over Cal, and he kissed him softly on the forehead, and he cradled him close.
Within minutes, cuddled close under the toasty blanket in the warm desert night, Cal drifted off to sleep. A little while later Marc joined him.
* * *
He woke at dawn, with the sun filtering in through the narrow window and spilling over them like pooled gold. Cal was awake, but hadn't moved; he remained close against Marc.
"Is this you?" Cal asked, tracing his fingertip along the inside of Marc's arm.
Marc glanced down. He saw the words that he'd scribbled there with the ballpoint pen. A lonely boy without a home. "I don't know," he said, "the words just... came to me. The other day. They sounded almost like they belonged in a song, so I wanted to write them down."
"You have a home now, Marc," Cal whispered against his chest, his eyes closing. "Right here..."
Marc kissed the top of his head, reaching up to stroke the long thick dark hair. "I know," he said.
* * *
They washed in the river before heading back to the commune, where they were greeted by a feast of a breakfast.
Dance eyed them suspiciously across the handmade wooden table, but didn't say anything.
They stayed until late in the afternoon, and Cal kept him busy introducing him to just about everybody in the compound. A few had heard of him and were largely impressed, but most hadn't, being either too young or having stopped listening to new music around nineteen sixty-nine. They were all friendly and kind and intelligent.
At the urging of several of the older members of the commune, with some encouragement by Marc, Dance and Cal put on a little show, playing music under the shade of a wicker pavilion. Cal kept looking at Marc as he played. His expression didn't change, but there was something in his eyes. A kind of charge that seemed to leap across the distance which separated them.
They drove back afterwards, each of them taking turns behind the wheel this time. Driving back into the hustle and bustle of San Antonio after their time in the peaceful desert was like coming out of a dream.
They went to bed as soon as they got back at the hotel, each in their own hotel rooms.
Marc ached to have Cal beside him again, and found himself tossing and turning restlessly, long into the night. The clock glowed in the darkness. 1:26.
Then he heard a timid knock at the door, so gentle that he almost didn't register it.
He stumbled up and opened the door.
Cal stood in the hall, his eyes down and his hands in his pockets. He looked up, and met Marc's gaze. "Hey, Marc..." he said quietly.
Marc reached out and took him in his arms and pulled him back into the room.
They only slept, wrapped in each other's embrace and surrendered to the night. In the morning they would have another long band practice, and another the day after that. The show was coming up in only a few more days, and they both wanted Cal to be ready.
So they slept, together in the darkness in their room above a glittering city, and Marc felt sure that he would never feel alone again.