The Scent of Winter: A Novella Read online

  “Here?” he asked the driver. They were seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The car was parked on the shoulder of a narrow road. To the east, Kingsley saw dense forest; to the west, he saw dense forest. Behind him there was nothing but winding road, a road that wound into even denser forest north.

  “There’s a path,” the driver said. He pointed at a wooden bridge, the sort people erected in their backyards to span a large drainage ditch or to put next to a wishing will. “You’re supposed to walk down that path. I’ll pick you up at ten in the morning on the twenty-second.”

  Kingsley opened the door and stepped out onto a snowy road and the second he did, a blast of cold air slapped him right in the face. Kingsley wrapped his coat around him and walked in four inches of snow to the wooden bridge as the driver pulled away.

  Kingsley was all alone in the snow in the middle of nowhere and the sun was rapidly setting.

  He took out his phone to let Juliette know he’d arrived safely to wherever the hell he was.

  No signal.

  None.

  Sighing, he crossed the footbridge and found a snow-dusted path that lead deep into the woods. He couldn’t go back, because there was nowhere to go back to. He had no choice but to walk on.

  As he walked, he cursed himself for giving up his boots. While Hessians weren’t the ideal footwear for snow, they were better than his current footwear.

  Thankfully, the trees blocked the wind so that the woods were actually warmer than the road. He’d walked about half a mile down the path when he saw light ahead.

  It was a strange sort of light. Not sunlight. Not electric light. He walked toward it and found a tall iron lamp casting the light. And not an ordinary streetlight sort of lamp, but a gas lamp. He almost imagined if he turned around he’d see a fawn traipsing through the woods, an umbrella in one hand and brown-paper parcels in the other.

  He turned and saw no such creature, but he did see the outline of a house. Not quite a house. That was far too grand a term. A cabin. A small log cabin standing in a clearing. He found it quaint and lovely as he walked toward it. If he had to freeze to death somewhere, it might as well be here.

  He knocked on the front door, but no one answered. He lifted the latch and found it unlocked.

  “Søren?” he called out, slipping inside. No answer.

  Kingsley ran his hand along the wall, seeking out a light switch. Nothing. It was very possible that this cabin had no electricity. He sighed as he walked down the hall and into the living room where a low fire burned in the grate.

  Of course Søren would enjoy staying in a cabin in the woods with no electricity. He’d say it was hygge. It probably reminded him of his grandfather’s fishing village or somewhere equally benighted in rural Denmark.

  Well, fuck Denmark.

  Kingsley was from Paris, the City of Light. Light required electricity. And so did Kingsley’s phone, which was dying.

  He went out to the cabin’s front porch and held his phone up, searching for a signal. He wanted to send a quick text message to Juliette, a quick message reading, “Get me the hell out of here.”

  No signal. And, judging by the lack of telephone poles out here, no landline in the cabin either.

  He shoved his phone into his coat pocket with a sigh. Hopeless. It was hopeless. He was trapped, stranded, cut off from the world. And this wasn’t good because Kingsley liked the world. His small corner of it anyway. He wanted to hear his daughter’s voice. He wanted to tell Juliette he’d arrived safely in Maine. He wanted...

  From a gap in the trees ahead Søren emerged, a kerosene lantern and small ax in one hand. He was pulling a sled behind him, atop of which sat a freshly-chopped spruce tree.

  Søren wore dark jeans, winter boots and a navy blue peacoat with the collar turned up against the cold. Under the coat, Søren wore an off-white cable knit sweater and a dark scarf wrapped around his neck. His hair was slicked back with melted snow. One stubborn strand fell over his eyes.

  And Kingsley could not breathe. He tried but his lungs had stopped working momentarily. He would like to have blamed the cold for that, but it was the heat that was the real problem. The old lust rushed through his veins like a runaway train. And the love, too. Always the love.

  “Like it?” Søren asked as he came to the porch.

  Kingsley could hardly speak at first. He’d had dreams like this before. Good dreams, obviously. Wet dreams, specifically.

  Finally, Kingsley managed a couple of words.

  “Love it.”

  “I knew you would,” Søren said. He gave Kingsley a quick kiss on the mouth, and glanced around the woods. “It’s hygge, isn’t it? Reminds me of the village my grandfather grew up in.”

  “I’ve always wanted to go to rural Denmark,” Kingsley said.

  “Come in. Let’s put the tree up.”

  Søren hefted the tree off the sled, shook the snow off the branches and carried it past Kingsley into the cabin.

  Kingsley promptly forgot his phone ever existed.

  Inside the cabin, Søren knelt by the fireplace, building the fire up again.

  “Where are we?” Kingsley asked. The logs in the fire sizzled and snapped and the scent of the burning cedar filled the room like incense. By the light of the fire he saw simple wood-carved furniture and homespun rugs and blankets. Rustic, yes, but comfortable, too. Hygge.

  “Trillium Woods,” Søren said. “A thousand acres, privately-owned.”

  “And...what are we doing here?”

  “One of Eleanor’s clients lent her the cabin. Lent us the cabin. I thought we could use a few days away together before Christmas.”

  “So you had me kidnapped?”

  “I did nothing of the sort,” Søren said. “I had you shipped to me.”

  “You make me sound like luggage.”

  “Call it a special delivery.”

  Kingsley chuckled as Søren stood up and shucked off his coat, tossing it over the back of a chair. Kingsley looked Søren up and down.

  “What is it?” Søren asked.

  “You look like the cover model for Rugged Danish Male Monthly.”

  “Is that a real publication?” Søren asked, slicking back that stubborn lock of blond hair—blond and silver—so that he was once again the picture of perfection.

  “No, but it should be. I’d subscribe.”

  “You already do.” Søren gripped him by the lapels of his coat, yanked him close, and kissed him again, a much harder kiss this time than his simple kissing of greeting. Søren had three levels of kiss, Kingsley had decided.

  1: A greeting kiss.

  2: A heating kiss.

  3: A beating kiss.

  This was the second type of kiss and it was doing its job. All the lingering coldness Kingsley felt quickly dissipated in the heat of the kiss. Their tongues gently met and Kingsley tasted brandy. Well, that was another good way to stay warm. He preferred the kiss, however. They could drink anytime. They only had two nights for kissing.

  As always, it was Søren who pulled back from the kiss first. That was for the best, otherwise the kiss would go on forever.

  “You should change,” Søren said.

  “Into what? I never pack for trips to the city since I keep a second wardrobe at my apartment.” He’d gotten rid of the townhouse two years ago, but he’d replaced it with a small if luxurious uptown apartment he could use during his brief visits.

  “All taken care of,” Søren said. “Bedroom’s in there. Suitcase on the bed.” He pointed at a closed door. “I’ll put up the tree while you change clothes.”

  “Easier said than done,” Kingsley said. “As you have dragged me into the middle of nowhere to a cabin that was built before America was a country—in other words, the good old days—there is no electricity. I refuse to dress in the dark. I only undress in the dark.”

  Søren sighed.

  “I’m simply saying there are cabins in this world that have electricity. Even some in Maine,” Kingsley said.


  “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “It’s somewhere far away basking in the cold glow of unflattering florescent lighting.”

  Søren walked over to the fireplace and picked up a box of long matches. He lit the wick of his kerosene lamp and carried it through the door into the bedroom and set it on the windowsill. By the light of the lantern, Søren lit the two additional lamps on either side of the king-sized bed. Then he lit every candle in the bank of candles on the stone mantel over the wood stove, touching the wicks so swiftly and deftly it seemed the flames came from his fingertips and not the match. The room glowed a flickering yellow and gold. Kingsley saw the headboard of the bed was an elaborately carved forest scene. And the comforter was an old faded crazy quilt and the sheets underneath white and inviting. The room was small enough to be warmed by the wood stove, large enough to swing a flogger. Although rugged, it was also exceedingly lovely.

  Kingsley sighed.

  “Just when I think I’m out,” Kingsley said, “you reel me back in.”

  Søren mimed reeling in a fish.

  “Oh, don’t pretend you’re a real man,” Kingsley said, glaring at him. “I would bet money you’ve never fished in your life.”

  “Does putting metal hooks into the mouth of defenseless animals make one a real man?” Søren asked.

  “Yes,” Kingsley said as he unlocked the suitcase on the bed and found it neatly packed with a new winter wardrobe. Juliette’s doing, no doubt.

  “I’m a fisher of men, if that counts for anything.”

  “Ever catch one?”

  “I once spent an evening in a fishing shack and caught a very good-sized French whore.”

  Kingsley smiled. “You know...I was thinking about that very night on the way here,” he said. “Getting lost. You finding me. Breaking into the hut. Kissing in the woods. You remember that night?”

  “No.”

  “You mentioned it five seconds ago.”

  Søren’s eyes glinted.

  “You’re lying, aren’t you?” Kingsley asked.

  “Probably.”

  As Søren brushed past him on his way out the door, he yanked hard on Kingsley’s hair.

  Kingsley instantly melted at the sudden burst of pain.

  “Is it time for bed yet?” Kingsley called out after Søren passed into the other room. Kingsley started stripping out of his clothes.

  “It’s not even seven o’clock.”

  “Feels later. Probably because you dragged me into the fucking Arctic Circle for some unknown reason.”

  “I want to brutally beat you and mercilessly fuck you in peace and quiet,” Søren said. “How’s that for a reason?”

  Kingsley froze, his hands on his belt.

  He may or may not have whimpered. If he had whimpered, he wouldn’t admit to it. Grown men did not whimper.

  “That’s a good reason,” Kingsley said.

  “I thought as much,” Søren called back.

  Kingsley changed into thick dark trousers, wool socks, a heavy cotton t-shirt, and wool turtleneck sweater, and he stuffed his feet into winter boots that laced halfway up his calves.

  “Well?” Kingsley asked, displaying himself in the open doorway between the bedroom and the living room. “Do I look like a cover model from Rugged French Male Monthly?”

  Søren glanced up at him. “You look presentable.”

  “Are we going somewhere you have to present me?”

  “You never know who you’ll meet in the woods,” Søren said.

  “Lions? Tigers?” Kingsley paused, gave Søren a knowing look. “Bears...?”

  Søren glared at him from behind the Christmas tree.

  “No,” Kingsley said. “Not bears. Neither of us has nearly enough body hair for that.”

  “What are the other options again?” Søren asked.

  “Cubs. Otters. Dolphins. Blouses.”

  “What on earth is a blouse?”

  “A feminine top,” Kingsley said, tossing one end of his scarf dramatically over his shoulder. He’d learned that one from Griffin.

  Søren only glared at him as he steadied the Christmas tree in the stand. It was almost as tall as he was, but not quite. Søren still had a good four inches on the spruce.

  “Very nice. A little naked,” Kingsley said. “No decorations?”

  “I have lights and lights are all we need.”

  “You have lights? You recall we have no electricity in this cabin. And if you tell me we’re going to be old-fashioned and adventurous and put actual candles on the tree, I will see you in New Orleans in a week. If you don’t accidentally self-immolate before then.”

  “Have you never heard of batteries?” Søren asked.

  “I have. Juliette and I go through a package of D batteries once a week.”

  “Box,” Søren nodded toward a wooden box on the floor. “Lights.”

  Kingsley opened the box and found two strings of clear white lights in the box. He pulled them out and unwound them, feeding them foot by foot to Søren as he wrapped them around the tree. It was quite nice—the fireplace bright and warm, the scent of the spruce tree mingling with the burning wood, the quiet pleasure of putting lights on a Christmas tree with the only man Kingsley had ever loved.

  Without any fanfare or counting down, Søren switched on the tree lights.

  And just like that it was Christmas.

  No gifts. No music. No crèche. Only lights. That’s all it took. The push of a button. It shouldn’t have been that simple, but it was. A little more light where before there was darkness. A little more beauty where before there was emptiness. All the bad things that were there before were still there, but at least there was one more small good thing in the world.

  “I forgive you,” Kingsley said.

  “For what?”

  “For dragging me to a cabin with no electricity.”

  “Our hermitage didn’t have electricity,” Søren reminded him.

  “When you’re seventeen, that’s romantic. When you’re fifty, it’s annoying.”

  “Are you annoyed?” Søren asked, obviously attempting to suppress a smile.

  “Not anymore,” Kingsley said. “Ignore my moods. It’s been a rough few weeks.” Kingsley sat down in an armchair covered by a wool striped blanket. “I’m not supposed to be fifty years old. I should never have lived this long.”

  “You know, I’ll be fifty-one as of midnight tonight.”

  Kingsley stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles.

  “You’re a priest. Priests are born in their fifties. You were fifty-one when you were seventeen,” he said. “I have a two-year-old daughter. A man with a toddler should be thirty, not fifty.”

  “I’m recalling your thirtieth birthday party,” Søren said. He sat down on the ottoman directly across from him, and lifted Kingsley’s feet off the floor and put them on his lap. “And I’m using the word ‘party’ loosely. Orgy would be a more accurate term. And not a pleasant sort of Bacchanal either. People ended up in the hospital. Many of them.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  Søren stared at him, not speaking.

  “Fine, it was that bad,” Kingsley said. He hadn’t ended up in the hospital, although he probably should have gone. He’d drunk so much that night and smoked so much pot that he’d vomited until blood came up along with everything else he’d ingested. Søren hadn’t spoken to him for two weeks after. Kingsley had broken his promise to take better care of himself.

  “Would you really go back to being thirty again if you could?” Søren asked.

  “I thought about that,” Kingsley said. This was a hard conversation, but resting his legs on Søren’s thighs was making it a little easier. “And the only reason I would is for Nico. Except I wouldn’t, since I know how much he loved his other father. As much as it kills me, I couldn’t in good conscience take those years he had with his father away from him.”

  “Spoken like a true father. You pass Solomon’s test.” Sø
ren pinched his thigh. “I thought you’d be happy to be here with me.”

  “I am. That’s the problem. I’m suffering from a parental guilt complex. I’m thousands of miles from both my children. I shouldn’t be this happy.”

  “You’re allowed to enjoy your time without them.”

  “I know I’m allowed. Juliette even encourages it. I thought having children would be it, though—that I would need nothing, I would want for nothing ever again,” Kingsley said. “I hate that I still need things they can’t give me.”

  “It’s the parent’s job to give children everything they need. It’s not the child’s job to give the parents everything they need.”

  “I need you,” Kingsley said.

  “And me you have. So stop complaining.”

  “I think it’s my liver,” Kingsley said, poking on the side of his stomach.

  “That’s not your liver. That’s your appendix.”

  “No wonder I’m having liver trouble then. It’s in the wrong place.”

  Søren rolled his eyes to the heavens. “God save me from the French and their obsession with their livers,” he said. Then, to Kingsley: “Come on. You need to walk in the woods. It’ll be good for your liver.”

  “Or you could beat me and fuck me.”

  “How will that improve your liver?”

  “It won’t. But it might improve my mood.”

  Søren dumped Kingsley’s legs off his lap and onto the floor. Then Kingsley found himself being hauled out of the chair and onto his feet.

  “Out. Now.” Søren pointed at the door.

  “Going. Going.” Kingsley returned to the bedroom and pulled his new black winter coat and gloves out of the suitcase. He found Søren already standing by the door wrapping his scarf around his neck. “Ready. You?”

  Without warning, Søren shoved him against the hallway wall and kissed him. A rough kiss, the sort that leaves the lips slightly swollen and the recipient panting. Oh, and there it was, the teeth. Kingsley loved the teeth, that vicious nip Søren always gave his bottom lip when in the right mood.

  Søren ended the kiss but didn’t pull away. He put his mouth at Kingsley’s ear and whispered.

  “I need you, too.”

  “Now?” Kingsley asked.

  Søren kissed him on his neck at the point his jawline met his throat. “Always.”