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He finished the dishes and stood in front of me on the other side of the counter, glaring a little. I fidgeted but stopped myself, and he smiled at that.
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Eli. Not even a little, and you’ve gotten… shit, so much better! I think this might work for you now. Maybe you’ll be more open to it, now that you’re not hopping around like a man with an ass full of ants.”
I loved his little way of saying things. “Maybe so. I’m okay with it, I just… bad memories. They’d bring it all up and then the nightmares would come, and they’ve been lessening here, with you, with our play and everything.”
“Doesn’t mean something else won’t bring them back worse. One little thing could set the whole thing off again. I’ve seen it. I’ve had friends in the war, and my own dad was in Vietnam. Never would talk about it, not to me, friends, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be caught dead getting therapy. Not for the times he lived in. But he’d wake up at night sometimes, just screaming. Scared my mom, she said, so bad, until she figured out what the screaming was, and she’d calm him. He drank too much and had a bad temper after, but he was still a good man.”
The more I learned about Noah and his life, the more I loved him. No wonder he could relate to me so well. “I didn’t know.”
“I don’t tell many people. Oh, the folks around here knew he went there and came back. Some didn’t come back. They didn’t know the rest of the issues, though. Families of those men, of men like you, they are the only ones, most of the time, to see it.”
I nodded, knowing how true that was. “I’ll get the therapy, Noah, and I won’t resist it. I’ll… do my best this time. For you, sure, but for me too.”
“Good, good boy.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
IworkedwithJoelthe next day, as Noah was going to be with the cattle for hours and wanted me to have some help. As we worked, I let him ask me things, and I tried to answer without laughing. I guess I was a bit embarrassed, too.
“I read you have to have a safeword, but why? I mean, okay, safety and all that, but doesn’t that take the fun outta things?”
He was lifting a bale of hay like it weighed as much as a small bag of sugar. I watched for a minute, shocked. “You’re strong.”
“Exactly. I could probably take a lot, so why the hell would I wanna say some word?”
Rather than groaning in frustration, like I was compelled to, I tried to explain, “It’s like… a button. You know the kind, like in an elevator, the stop button. Maybe you’re a pregnant lady, and your water breaks, and you don’t want to go all the way to the twentieth floor, then have to come down, stopping a million times on the way. Maybe there’s something wrong with the elevator itself, so you always have that button, even if you never use it.”
“Gotcha. I doubt I will. If I can ride a bronc or bull, I won’t need no pissant word to save me.”
“You do rodeo?”
“Sure. Who don’t?”
“I don’t.”
He smiled at me while he tossed another bale like it was nothing. “You’re from the city.”
“I ride motorcycles,” I tried to counter, but he just laughed more. “What?”
“I like ‘em just fine, but I’d rather ride a dirt bike than that one you ride. It’s big and shiny and pretty, but…”
“But can’t take the hills? I started out on dirt bikes. They’re fun. I used to race my friends.”
That at least seemed to impress him a little. “Nice. Still got it?”
“Traded up.” I caught his arm and pulled him a little before nodding in the porch's direction. “Let’s get a water and chill for a minute.”
We were drinking our water on the porch, and the subject was brought up again. Only the question bothered me more than I thought it would. He asked, “You use your safeword a lot?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but I shut it again. I probably should, but I didn’t. I hadn’t in a long time. “Everyone should use it.”
“That weren’t an answer.”
I thought about telling him he needed to go back to school to learn proper English, but I knew I was striking out at my own insecurities. “No, I guess it wasn’t. I don’t use it a lot. No. I… like pain. It takes me out of my head.”
He chuckled a bit then drawled, “But you can lecture.”
“Yeah. I see your point. I’m… seeing a therapist now.”
