Starfruits

A young man called Praxis was traveling across the countryside, hitching rides when he could and walking when he couldn't. One day he came to a large, prosperous farm with rolling golden hay fields and glossy cows scattered like black and white game pieces on the lush chessboard of the meadows. He thought to himself that he was tired of walking and this might be a good place to stay for a few days, and he nosed around until he found the farmer.

The farmer looked him up and down, and took his time about it. "I have hired men already, but I guess I could use another hand with the haying. You can bed down in the hayloft in the barn, and I'll bring you your meals."

"But Pa, we have a perfectly good guest room!" The most beautiful young man Praxis had ever seen stepped around the corner and smiled at him. He had hair as gold as the hay fields and large dark eyes and a little vertical scar on both his lips that made it hard not to stare at them. "And let him eat with us--there's no harm in that. He might have news or stories to tell!"

The farmer sighed. "Fine, Abel, he can take his meals with us. But you," he pointed to Praxis, "you sleep in the barn, and you stay the hell away from my son. Or else you'll be hightailing it out of here with an ass full of buckshot, understand?"

"Yes, sir!" said Praxis.

Abel rolled his eyes.

—

Abel's pa worked Praxis hard and watched him like a hawk. They didn't see much of Abel during work that day, because--as the other hired hands explained--Abel's ma couldn't walk after an accident and he had to help her around the house. When Praxis did see the farmer's son, it was from a distance away, although not too far away to make out certain interesting details. Once he spotted Abel chopping wood shirtless; once on the yard hanging laundry, absently chewing on a clothespin; and once in the garden on his hands and knees, struggling to pull up a stubbornly-rooted weed. He punctuated his efforts with distracting little grunts, and his rump twitched violently, straining the seams of his already tight jeans. 

“Get back to work!” shouted the farmer.

"Yes, sir!" said Praxis.

He turned back to the hay, but he imagined Abel rolling his eyes. Then he imagined a few other things that made the time go by more pleasantly, although they didn’t help his concentration.

Praxis felt very large and uncouth when he sat down at the table with its embroidered linen cloth and vase of fresh-cut lavender, but the missus’ gentle smile and friendly manners soon made him feel more at ease. It didn’t hurt that Abel was there, shooting him impish grins behind his pa’s back.

“I could eat an eight-legged horse,” announced the farmer as he sat down. The others laughed uproariously, then saw Praxis’ expression.

“It’s just a little joke we have in our family,” the farmwife explained.

“A eight-legged horse would have even more meat on it,” added Abel. 

“I see,” Praxis said.

“Don’t worry, we don't serve horsemeat at this table.”

Dinner was delicious, and there was plenty of it: grilled sausages in buttered buns, whole dill pickles, corn on the cob, and fried eggplant. He was already full when Abel staggered in under the weight of an enormous domed apple pie, then returned with a large bowl of whipped cream.

“Oh my,” said Praxis.

“You look nervous, boy,” said the farmer, his grim lips twitching. “Big lunk like you, afraid of a slice of pie?”

“No sir, it looks—”

“Maybe Praxis doesn’t like pie,” Abel drawled. “Or maybe he’s too stuffed with sausage already. I know how that feels.” He licked whipped cream off his finger and winked.

“Nonsense!” his mother scolded. “There’s always room for pie.”

—

At sunset, Praxis washed as best he could in the horse trough, dried himself with a horse blanket, and climbed up the ladder with another horse blanket to be his bed. He settled down and said goodnight to the family of owls in the rafters, who were just beginning to stir. 

He awoke to the rusty creak of the barn door. It was so dark that opening his eyes made no difference.

“Hello?” Praxis called.

There was no answer, but he could hear feet on the ladder and felt the floorboards shake as someone climbed up. 

At first, a primal spark of fear: the stranger come to get you in the dark.

Then, a primal spark of lust: the hot stranger come to get you in the dark. Abel! It must be Abel. He couldn’t have mistaken all those signals, could he?

And yet—what if the farmer, watching him stare at Abel all day, had decided he was too much of a threat? What if he'd come here with a scythe to dispose of Praxis before anything could happen? He would tell Abel that the drifter had left after dinner, maybe that he’d tried to get fresh with a hired hand’s wife and been run out of town.

But what would the farmer do with the body? Too many possibilities occurred to Praxis in the next few seconds, and none of them were pretty.

He sat up and threw aside the top half of the blanket, and this was enough movement for the stranger to find him by sound. A weight settled on the top of his legs, and wiry thighs gripped his as hands pulled up his undershirt and slid over his chest. Not murder, then. So it must be Abel. But—

The farmer’s eyes ploughing his body like a field. The farmer never letting him out of his sight. The farmer’s harsh voice ringing out like a whipcrack if Praxis looked at someone else. Could it be that he simply wanted the fresh meat for himself?

Praxis pulled the stranger down on top of him for a breathless, greedy kiss. Did it really matter who it was? As the saying goes: in the dark, all cats are grey.