The evening had taken an unexpected turn. It started in the bedroom in front of the open closet, heaps of rejected clothes on the bed and puddling to the floor. From there it went downstairs, where Brandon paced up and down the runner in the front hall like it was the track of a carnival game and he was a moving target. Marbles stood in front of the fireplace in the living room, head cocked, milky eyes unseeing as he puzzled over Brandon’s incessant shuffle. On one of his return trips, he broke free of the jute rug and drifted across the kitchen to the screened in porch. Late sun raked across the room, the elongated, inky facsimiles of the wicker chairs snaking across the floor and up the boot cubbies, where Brandon’s eyes fell. 

Thirty minutes after that, he was cranking the engine of the jeep to life, but not before he had pulled on a pair of Anthony’s baggy cargo pants, plucked two dusty, gray Le Chameau boots from their shelf, and hefted an array of boxes and other detritus from in front of the garage door.  Brandon wasn’t exactly deft with a standard transmission. Though he knew the basics and could propel himself to a destination without too much fear of stalling out, he could practically feel Anthony next him, suppressing cringes and cursing under his breath as he ground gears, bucking and surging down back roads.  

But that’s exactly what he wanted, wasn’t it? To bask in that familiar glow one last time before it was replaced with another.  

In the waning shafts of summer’s last sunset, he brought the Jeep to a final lurch in front of an old picnic ground he had visited with Anthony during their video making days. Beyond a thicket and down a slope lay a fold in the terrain that cupped the water from a nearby creek whenever a downpour caused it to swell.  The stagnant pool’s slow percolation into the clay meant that the ground never fully solidified before the creek breached its banks again, leaving the hollow a gloriously boggy setting that was shielded from onlookers. 

Brandon cinched the belt on the oversized pants one notch tighter and pointed his feet into Anthony’s roomy boots.  A familiar heat already tingled, the flames of an unquenchable desire licking their white hot tongues along his legs and torso as he breathed in the faint scent of his ex on his clothes mingled with the tang of the rubber.  The boots were cool and supple, flopping gently around his ankles as he strode through the underbrush and down toward the murky core of the journey. 

He wanted to drew Anthony around him.  Donning his clothes wasn’t enough. He wanted to be him. To wrap himself in a chrysalis of that trademarked boyish sense of adventure.  And with the rest of the world sunken behind the brow of the hill, there was no reason he couldn’t also assume Anthony’s rugged features—he could practically feel the angles chiseling into his cheeks, the stubble of a squared jaw, a fringe of dark hair shot with icy strands. 

And as the carpet of leaves began to cave beneath his tread and the first of the bronzed mud folded up over the tops of his feet, he channeled Anthony’s detached attitude toward being slowly drawn in and swallowed by the earth.  The mire glistened slickly in the dusk light and was dotted with yellow leaves, a scattering of gold coins on a stilled fountain.  Plodding further toward the center of the pool, Brandon felt himself passively watch the ground claim more and more of him.

He felt his feet trying to leave the oversized boots behind at each step, the cotton of his socks rasping slightly against the neoprene lining of the boot. He looked over his shoulder, past the slowly closing dimples of his progress.  He glanced at the dry, leaf-covered rise as though he was Anthony looking back at himself.  He could almost see himself standing awkwardly on the hill, both outside the clutches of the mud yet in the midst of his own battle, fighting the relentless suction of his nature.  He turned back, facing the pool of listless water that sat at the center of the hollow, mirroring the sky.  

But this time he wasn’t Brandon, giving in. He was Anthony, and he was pressing on.  Testing. Conquering. He lifted a boot caked halfway up the shaft with dark slime, and shrugged.  The more he pretended he didn’t care, the more he ached and seethed.  More steps, each one more labored than the last. A chorus of bubbles began to gurgle around him as the swamp welcomed him with a sloppy embrace. One footfall sent a geyser of black water up the side of his pant leg.  He paused a moment and watched with feigned mild interest, tracing it’s sticky paths down into his boot, feeling it seep through the fabric of his pants to his leg.  He continued on.

Was this, then, what it was like to be Anthony?  The only thing that betrayed the illusion was the dampening bulge at his groin, like an internal shriek he could not find a way to contain. At last, he pushed his leg into a pocket of soft ooze that came up to the banded rim of his boot.  It was the precipice he had watched Anthony approach countless times—the one that could send him tumbling over the point of no return—if he decided to step off into the unknown depths.  And let the mud take him. 

What was it like to be immune to the electricity of this moment—to decide if you would disappoint an onlooker or bring them to ecstasy simply based on the direction of your next footfall?  The stark truth was Brandon could never actually know.  He might be able to dress in Anthony’s clothes, drive his car, and even live in his house. But he would never escape the thrum of every nerve being pulled taut in a moment like this, and certainly never experience that special brand of calm control Anthony had always possessed over him. 

The swamp pressed impatiently from all sides, puckering the rubber rim around his leg like a salivating mouth.  Anthony’s Le Chameau boot. Anthony’s tatty cargo pants. It was almost like the real thing.  Brandon dug his cell from his pocket and navigated to his old voicemails where he tapped the most recent one.  Anthony’s voice streamed from the tinny speakers.

“Hey, bro. Just occurred to me that we’ve got a birthday to celebrate. I want to do something for you.  I know you’re here all the time anyway, but how do you feel about coming over so I can make you dinner? It won’t be fancy, but I thought we could fire up the grill. Let me know, okay? Bye.”

I want to do something for you. 

Brandon’s testosterone-steeped mind raced back to the day at the clean fill dump, when Anthony had sunken himself nearly up to his waist just for him.  “Relax and enjoy,”  he had commanded. Then he watched as Brandon had given himself over to the moment.  Given himself over to his obsession with him. 

There had been so many of moments like that. So much bliss that had quickly soured into the familiar agony of self loathing, each one a piece of sweet fruit that quickly turned brown, the flesh becoming mealy. But how much of that had been Brandon’s failure, and how much was because Anthony had pushed him along?  Anthony had always been in control. 

The tension vibrated as a spark of anger danced through his mind. Brandon leaned forward, driving his foot further into the depths. The greedy bog slurped over the overwhelmed rim, clapped wetly to his knee, and drove sticky fingers inside his boot. “So this is what it’s like?” he asked out loud, startling the silence and himself. The choked Le Chameau belched in answer as the swamp wound a cold tendril around his foot, his sock becoming spongy inside the boot. “What would you do now, Anthony?” he demanded. “Would you do this?”  He slammed his other boot in front of the first. Immediately his leg disappeared beneath the surface up to his knee.  Only for a brief moment did a slight indentation indicate the intrusion before the mud encircled him.  Small, chocolatey balloons splatted against his leg as the ooze won the battle for space inside his once dry boot.  

Brandon looked down at his ensnared legs, heart flapping, ears ringing, and the crotch of his pants turning cold with the sticky damp of a dangerous exhilaration he could not pretend away.  Anthony probably wouldn’t stop here. He hadn’t even made it to the center of the mud pool yet. He held his phone to his ear and replayed the message. 

“…Let me know, okay?”

That’s what Anthony had always wanted, wasn’t it? Feedback? To be shown just how much he power he wielded?  Now that he was literally standing in Anthony’s shoes, he could feel the intoxicating pull himself. He dragged an already overwhelmed boot in front of him, barely clearing the surface of the pool before plunging it in a step further. The mire now climbed above his knee. The faded blue twill of Anthony’s old cargo pants stretched spotless across his thigh until it disappeared into the cool mouth of the forest floor. What would it be like to have someone standing over his shoulder, watching him? Furiously rubbing himself because of the movement of his legs? The saturation of his clothes? Of witnessing to his feet descending further and further into unseen depths of wet earth?  He was scarcely aware of his own hand dragging the fabric of the oversized trousers around his aching cock. 

In two more steps, he could only see the short, upside down Y of his crotch and small triangle of fading summer light between his legs.  More than the wet that wicked against his legs, he could now sense the irregular texture of the gelatinous slurry as it squeezed him in a seductive massage.  

Brandon finally understood. 

This act, which Anthony had done so many times, was no solitary thing. The ground that moved around him was a living, breathing, writhing entity.  From the moment he had entered, it beckoned, drew him in further as though it’s entire existence had been to wait for him. He could drag his legs through the dense morass and feel it fold around him, both sliding aside for him and tightening its grip, a gentle undulation rippling all the way to the edges in echo to his every move.  Intercourse. The word winked at the edges of his mind like the flash of a lightning bug. Brandon bent his knees and the bulge of his restrained manhood plunged out of sight.  The bog’s black tongue swirled and probed him, it’s watery needles piercing the twill.  He was close. 

Brandon bent his head back and gazed up at the purple interlocking web of limbs overhead, the highest leaves burning in the fierce gold of day’s finale.  How did that song go? “Back and forth we sway like branches in a storm…”  He rocked. With every thrust, the mud responded in kind. He was so enraptured with this dance that he hadn’t noticed his finger stray across the screen of the phone he still clutched, nor had he seen the word “calling…” illuminate in his hand. 

He arched his back, his entire coiled body unfurling and suddenly defying gravity.  Heat bloomed around him in the murky cold.  A low groan spun in his chest as the searing tide of his orgasm bore him away. And somewhere between the crashing waves, he heard Anthony’s voice.

“Hello? Brandon? You there?”

Brandon pried his eyes open and stared at his phone, horrified, willing himself to breathe.  Thick burgeoning tendrils of semen were still curling from him and mingling with the mud as he shakily lifted it to his mouth. 

“Brandon?”  His voice, though miniature, was a force in the quieting thicket. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” He fought to keep the quaver from his voice. 

“Is everything okay? What’s going on?”

Slack-jawed, he struggled to wrap his lips around the consonants. “Sorry. Yeah, no. Everything is okay. Fine. I’m fine. Accidental dial. Didn’t mean to bother you.”

A pause.  “You sure?”

Brandon swayed. The swamp has wrapped its arms around his legs, where he stayed glued in position. The last drops shuddered from him. “Yep. Sure. Talk soon.”  He ended the call, dropped the phone into his pocket, and let his head loll back, a small sob bubbling up from his throat. 

---

Sam stepped out onto the deck, the glass of the tiny house’s storm door flashing a brief montage of reflected candle flames that glided in then back out of view in perfect unison as it swung.  

“I was right! I have a Cabernet.”

Brandon smiled, folding his fingers into a cradle for his chin and watching as he uncorked the bottle.  There was something deeply satisfying about watching those thick hands. They were working hands.  By day, they wore tough gloves and guided powerful tools.  Tonight they were soft and golden.  They sautéed and chopped and stirred and poured.  And all for him.  They tapered into sturdy wrists and handsome arms that disappeared into the rolled up of Sam’s gingham checked shirt.

“This probably should have had time to breathe.  But I just plain forgot.”

“No regrets.  This is perfect,” Brandon assured him as the liquid swirled into the glass, a scarlet so deep in the dusky light it was almost black.  Sam smiled as he pushed the goblet toward him and sat down across the weathered table.  Brandon felt the bump of a foot accidentally finding his.  He didn’t have to look to know that it was the toe of an incredibly sexy, tan Chelsea boot.  Of course, he had taken note of them beneath the cuff of Sam’s dark, tailored jeans just as soon as he had arrived.

“Shall we toast to the equinox?”

Brandon blinked. “If you like.” He shifted forward to lift the glass, the ache of his exertions from the evening before shredding his thighs. The reminder was an odd mingling of shame and satisfaction.

Sam chuckled. “You sound unsure. It’s a new season today. I just thought it seemed appropriate.  Don’t you think?”

Brandon thought. The first day of fall was an island of balance—the moment before dark and light traded places. A switching of roles. A reversal of what had been. He extended his the goblet over the table toward Sam.  “Actually, I guess that’s kind of perfect.”