The Braid - akablonded
~~~~~
Note: Blair's 'hair-speak' was more or less adapted from Edmund Leach's "Magical Hair," originally published in Myth and Cosmos, Natural History Press, 1967. Sorry, if this isn't footnoted correctly.
The website for the Fubar Society: http://www.cafeshops.com/fubarshop
~~~~~
"A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it." ~~George Moore
I knew that Borneo wasn't the end of it. Neither was the dissertation fiasco.
Someone as smart as Blair Sandburg wouldn't let the world beat him down. He's a fighter. A warrior, really.
And, even when my "unofficial" partner decided not to become an "official" cop, he might still have taken a pass on other opportunities that came his way, if I'd said "thank you." Just once. If only I'd appreciated him for who he was and what he'd done.
I didn't. I didn't thank him for sticking by me, for pretty much chucking his future in anthropology - the Ph.D., tenure, and the respect of his peers -- by choosing to keep me and my sentinel secret safe. So even with the five heightened senses of mine, the ones that had brought Blair Sandburg into my life in the first place, I couldn't seem to speak about our situation, see how it all affected him, or feel his anguish. Someone once said my ears could hear for a thousand miles, but I still hadn't learned to listen to the whispers of my own heart - or the hearts of others. I "thanked" Sandburg for all his good work the only way someone as paranoid as myself could, by throwing him out of the only place he'd ever really considered home when Alex Barnes blew into our lives and changed everything. She brought the stink of death into the equation by drowning Sandburg in the fountain outside Hargrove Hall. Finding him lifeless, face in the murky water, down
But, sometimes miracles do happen. I brought my partner back to a life that was the same ... but somehow different. I didn't take any mysterious rides with Sandburg. The only one we took together was to Sierra Verde to track down his killer. And when we came back to Cascade, it was business as usual. And it was, at least for me.
Even after what happened with the dissertation - when, for a few weeks, the story of "Jim Ellison, Detective and Sentinel, The Man with Five Heightened Senses," erupted across the national media - Sandburg danced around me warily, desperately, as though we were on quicksand, and he was losing his footing.
And I didn't seem to notice.
We avoided talking about much of anything important.
So I guess you could safely say I never gave him a reason not to go. And then came the call and the "offer." Rainier University had swung a hefty grant from the government to do a study on why there were so few diseases among the Waorani of Ecuador. I'd heard about the tribe during my own travels in South America for Uncle Sam. Sandburg went on and on about them. "This is, like, so cool. They're one of the least acculturated tribes in Ecuador. Think about it, Jim. It'll give Ron and his team a unique opportunity to study such an isolated Amazonian people and the role medicinal plants play in their lives."
Sandburg was practically orgasmic - well, a hell of a lot more excited than he'd been in months about anything. "Stanford and Duke did studies of them in the 80's. They were once considered the most violent of the Amazon rain forest tribes. These days, the Waorani live a nomadic lifestyle. I can't believe how lucky I am that Ron invited me along."
When I made my usual grunt that went along with the Blessed Protector furrowed brow, Sandburg misunderstood.
Again.
"They're peaceful these days."
It wasn't about the Waorani, exactly. It was about Blair getting an offer to join a six-month long expedition to Ecuador -- and having actually consider taking it.
I hesitated for a minute, unwilling to bring up the sore subject of "this sentinel thing." I already knew the answer to Blair's attending the Police Academy in the fall. That last day in the bullpen after I'd tossed him his detective's badge, Sandburg's reaction wasn't the one I'd expected. His vitals were off the scale, and they were all "wrong." But with everybody there - Captain Simon Banks, fresh out of the hospital, the other gold shields who considered him more than just an "unofficial observer," even his mom, Naomi, who had to do a mean piece of processing to accept the possibility of her son becoming a "pig" and come to the impromptu ceremony -- he got out of making a commitment with a joke, "I am NOT cutting my hair. "
Blair Sandburg, and the art of obfuscate and run. He let it slide. Just like we were letting the team of Ellison and Sandburg slide.
It was the first step on the slippery slope of Blair Sandburg kissing off Cascade, leaving everybody and everything he knew behind.
Including me.
***
It all came to a head last March when, over breakfast, my roommate told me he was accepting Dr. Ken Shelton's offer.
"Jim ... " I knew the 'look' all too well. He was eyeing every unhealthy thing on my plate as he sipped his usual algae shake.
"Lay off, Sandburg. I've only had two sausage links. A man's entitled, especially if he has to spend all day in court."
"Hey, man, what you do to your arteries is between you and Dr. Bypass.
I was putting the uneaten sausage back into the serving dish when my partner dropped the bomb. Nagasaki had probably rocked less. "There's something I have to tell you ... I've decided to take Ken Shelton up on his offer."
Shit. Shit on toast.
"When did this all happen?"
"You mean Ecuador?"
I pushed my plate away. My appetite had gone south when the bottom dropped out of my stomach. "No, Sandburg, when did you start wearing flannel? It's a good look for you."
Wisely, Blair side-stepped the shot I fired over his bow. "Well, officially, yesterday, but it's been on the radar screen for the last few months. You knew that."
"No, I didn't ..." I couldn't finish what I was about to say because it would have been a bald-faced lie, and Blair didn't deserve that "... so ... what about ..."
"Jim, your senses are under control. You're doing better than Okay. You're awesome these days."
"Like a human crime lab with organic surveillance equipment. A monster, right?" The dialog from the past seemed to come out of nowhere.
"Yeah ..." He stopped for a minute to study the rim of his glass. " ... and it's a chance for me, maybe to be ... useful again." 'Useful' wasn't the word he'd really wanted to say. "You want that for me, don't you?"
"Well, when you put it that way, yeah, I guess I do. Let me have the sausage back, Sandburg. Happy now?"
"Here you go, man. Enjoy. " Blair did look happier than I'd remembered him looking in a long time. I hated to think that Shelton had anything to do with that. I knew he and my partner had been friends a long time before I'd hooked up with Sandburg. I wouldn't have given a second thought about what kind of friends they'd been, until my roommate had come home one afternoon from a meeting at Rainier, bouncing-off-the-walls excited - and smelling of sex. You didn't have to be cop of the year to figure out that Sandburg had fucked and been fucked that afternoon. By a male somebody.
My sentinel nose knew Blair showered, and tried scrubbing the smell of semen off his skin and out of his hair, but he couldn't keep 100% successful. The detective in me put two and two together and came up with Shelton.
My reaction was complicated. So what else is new? I was furious, and confused, and ... okay, I'm ashamed admit it, jealous. But I also didn't have the balls to say, let alone, do anything about the growing feelings I had for my partner. I didn't know if I loved Sandburg that way. I mean I did, I just didn't know if I could take that last giant step and show him.
Okay, do him and let him return the favor.
So, in the end, while I sat back at the loft cursing my sorry-ass self, I let someone else woo Sandburg, love Sandburg, treasure Sandburg. And that same person - Dr. Ken Shelton -- took Sandburg, offering him ... hope. Something I hadn't.
That's how I lost Blair. "Being about friendship" hadn't been enough, after all. I hadn't been enough.
Sandburg left me in Cascade and went off to reclaim the world, but he did throw me a bone. He told me not to worry, that he'd always come back, that we were "sprouts on peanut butter." A team.
But isn't that what people always say - the ones who are sailing off into the sunset to the poor schmucks left on the pier?
***
That was six, long months ago. I was roused from the unpleasant walk down memory lane by my cell phone ringing.
"Ellison."
"Hey, Jim."
"Sandburg! Where are you?"
"Nice to hear your voice, too." There was a familiar amusement in that rich baritone of his. God, how I'd missed it.
And him.
"The plane was late."
"You were supposed to be here yesterday." I could visualize the words on the e-mail:
Hiya, Jim.
Knowing what chartered flights from South America were like, I'd check with the airport before driving out there.
"REAL late."
"Very funny. I'll come get you."
"No. Don't drive all the way out here. I'll hop in a cab or catch a ride with one of the guys."
"Do you have -"
"The address? Yes, Jim. I think I remember it."
"Don't be a dickwad, Sandburg. You have enough money?"
"I'm flush. I broke into 'Senor Puerco.' See you in a little while."
"Okay. Sandburg - Blair - I wanted to tell you ..."
"What, man?"
I was just on the verge of blurting out what I really wanted to say, the thing that had been spiking my gut, but, like always, I sucked it up and swallowed it whole.
"Nothing. It'll keep."
Repression, thy name is Ellison.
"I hear you."
In my mind's eye, I could practically see that smile of Sandburg's - the one that's a cross between Naomi's and Fred Rogers' - dancing over that kisser of his.
"See you when you get here." I shut the new Nokia off. My old one had met an untimely end the first week Blair was away. I'd waited too long before calling him at the base camp in Coca, so we missed connecting by a couple of hours. The phone and the living room wall duked it out.
The wall won.
Looking at it in my hand, for a minute I thought Sandburg might call again. This time, it wasn't a sentinel thing. It was a Jim Ellison thing. A Jim Ellison with a missing piece thing.
I'm not sure just how long I stared at the phone, but when I came back to myself, from wherever the hell my hyperactive senses had sent me, the shadows in the living room were noticeably longer.
Christ, A zoneout. I hadn't had one like that since the day Sandburg headed off to his "excellent adventure" as he put it, with major misgivings and enough angst to send him back into therapy. Blair was as much of a mess as I was. The only difference between the two of us was that he didn't bother to hide it. The bravado I'd seen Sandburg flash, like when he used a fire hose to subdue the bad guys or took one out with a well-placed baseball pitch to the head, was long gone. On that miserable, rainy Tuesday morning, he was like a kid packing for overnight camp for the first time, going back and forth to the basement storage area a dozen times, anxiously checking and rechecking his luggage, and opening and closing drawers in his small under-the-steps bedroom to make sure nothing important was left behind.
Not being in the "to go" category put me square in the middle of a piss-poor mood. But then, piss-poor would probably be the high point of that day.
"You left the patterns on the kitchen tile, Sandburg. Wanna pack them, too?"
"What? Oh ... good one, Jim." Sandburg answered distractedly. I heard the last lock on the last suitcase snap shut. "Hey, did you see my backup 'MacGyver?'" That's what he called the Swiss Army knife I'd bought him for his last birthday. The Swisschamp, the big brother to Blair's bar mitzvah pocket knife, had a fish scaler and hook disgorger I figured he might need.
"Here it is."
Sandburg took it from me and put it in his breast pocket - the one over his heart. "I'll have to throw this puppy in one of the gear boxes, or it'll never make it through airport security."
"That's what I like about you, Chief." I tapped the back of my partner's head and stroked his hair for a second. Just like old times, ones I might not see again. "Always thinking ahead."
He looked around one last time. "Well, I guess that's it."
"Yeah. I guess." I swallowed hard. Trying to sound casual was a bust. Best to get it over with. "So, 'Burton,' we'd better head out. You don't want to miss --"
"Uh, the thing is, Jim ... I arranged for Ken to pick me up."
"When did you do that?"
"Last night."
"I thought 'I' was driving you."
"Yeah, but, I know how much you hate the airport. And we said our goodbyes last night at the party the gang threw me. So, it'll just be better ..."
"Yeah ... sure ... whatever." I sucked it up, like I'd done hundreds of times before in the military, the police academy, at Metro, and more than once during my brief, unlamented marriage to Carolyn Plummer.
"You upset?"
"No. Why should I be? It'll save me a trip I hate." If I'd been any more curt, the words would have banged on my front teeth and knocked them out.
Just then, I heard an obscenely large SUV roll to a stop in front of our building. Dr. Kenneth Fucking Shelton had arrived.
I didn't want to face off with him.
I didn't want Blair to leave me.
But what you want is never what you get, is it?
The air was thick with emotion, as thick as whatever Sandburg would be breathing in the rain forest. "He's out front, Sandburg."
"How did ..." Blair cocked his head to one side like Champ, the terrier that had lived next door to me when I was a kid. I 'saw' the 'aha' hit my partner between the eyes. "Sorry ... your hearing ... shows just how nuts I am today."
"Just today?"
Blair laughed. So did I, and we seemed "good" again, if just for this minute. Then he launched himself at me, in an off-centered, ferocious hug. I grabbed Sandburg around the waist, pressed him up against my chest and tried to will him to stay. As I rested my chin on the top of his curly head, the hair tickled my nose and sent all my senses into orbit. We rocked together in silence, the only sound the drone of the refrigerator a few feet away.
Finally, there was no more time left. Sandburg whispered, "Jim, I ... I ..." There seemed to be something he wanted to say, but couldn't. Blair's voice was gravelly, retted with emotion. "... take care of yourself, Jim. I'll miss you."
"Same here, buddy."
Blair looked up at me, enormous tears prisming in those blue eyes of his, threatening to escape if I shook him the wrong way.
Untangling himself from my arms, my partner picked up his bags, and looked around the loft one last time.
"See you, man." Sandburg mumbled a husky, unhappy goodbye.
"Yeah."
And then he was gone.
I wanted to yell, "Sandburg! Stop! You left something behind."
But how could I tell him it was what passes for my heart?
***
One of the reasons Blair had felt comfortable, if that's the right word, accepting the offer of rounding out Dr. Ken Shelton's Ecuador expedition was that my senses had leveled out. Most of the time, they were under control. I used them, rather than them using me. And, as weird as it sounds, Inspector Megan Connor, the Aussie transplant, stepped up to the plate and offered to partner with me - probably because Sandburg was one of her favorite people. What she felt toward me was anyone's guess. Aside from that, Connor was tough enough and knew my situation well enough, so I could go about the business of being a detective without having to invent cover stories and without experiencing any major problems. Before he left, he made sure she could navigate me through the kinds of situations we might experience.
And there was one weirdly comforting thing about partnering with Connor, rather than one of the other detectives: her long curly hair was like Sandburg's. Sometimes, I'd catch of glimpse of sunlight hitting it a certain way, see fingers raking through it, and momentarily be with my "real" partner. Then reality would set in, and I'd end up arguing not about Acua'ba fertility rituals, but how the hell Australians could actually call what they play "football."
You could say the six months passed painlessly, more or less. That is, if you'd spent each and every day shot full of Novocaine, or Johnny Walker Scotch.
I hadn't done either. Outside of work, mine started off as 183 days in a purgatory of trying on other "skins" - other "Jim Ellisons." Ones that didn't need Blair Sandburg. None of that worked.
See, in the four years I'd known Sandburg, he'd made me a better man. So, while he was traipsing through Ecuador, I did things I thought he'd want me to do. I reached out more to friends, tried making new ones, even offered olive branches to my dad and brother. I dated some, but didn't sleep with anyone just because it was convenient. Nobody should be used that way. And besides, how could I do the horizontal mambo with a substitute, when "the one" I really wanted to make love to was thousands of miles away?
How did that little bit of information finally penetrate my thick skull? Like a lot of the other seminal moments in my life, it came to me in one doozie of a dream. In it, Sandburg and I were off camping somewhere. I was stoking a fire that didn't seem to want to take hold when Blair walked into the campsite, hair wet, skin glistening from a late afternoon swim. This wasn't the lifeless Blair Sandburg I'd yanked out of that damned fountain. This was a radiant Blair Sandburg, a transformed figure with golden lights shining in every direction. And just as he said, "Jim, can I help you?" the small fire mushroomed up like some solar flair, almost jumping the guardian rocks around it. Then Sandburg's voice - strong and urgent - spoke. "Jim, it's taking too long. It's almost too late ..." And now the fire was enormous, dancing wildly around the two of us. I reached out and grabbed him protectively, and as flames engulfed everything, sentinel and guide melted into one another.
I woke up shaking, not from fright, but from the absolute certainty of what it all meant. I was in love with my partner - the partner who was somewhere in the rain forest between the Napo and Curaray Rivers. It was as simple as that. I jerked off and came harder than I ever remember. The one word I screamed was Blair.
Lying there afterwards, in a massive pool of my own sweat and come, I knew I had to tell Sandburg. But not in a letter, a phone call, and certainly not by e-mail. It had to be face to face. I thought about flying down there, hat in hand, and spilling my guts, but decided against it. Using that kind of emotional blackmail and dragging Sandburg back to Cascade before his work was completed wasn't an option.
My partner needed South America -- we needed South America -- for things to be right between us again. The big announcement would have to wait.
In the middle of more than one long night after that, I did a lot of soul-searching. Same at the gym. During my millionth sit-up, I wished there'd been a way to erase all the shit that had gone down the pike since Peru. But I nixed that thought almost as fast as I'd had it, because no sentinel abilities coming back "on line" -- no out-of-control senses, no spikes, no zone-outs - would have meant no Blair Sandburg in my life.
And so I waited. I redirected all of my energies and pent-up passions into the job and getting into fighting trim for our future together - just in case there was going to one.
Sandburg might say no. But one thing was certain: if I didn't tell him, the answer would never be yes.
As those six, long months thankfully were drawing to a close, Connor's and my arrest records were pretty impressive (almost as good as Sandburg's and mine), I was never in better shape, and -- it went without saying -- I was solo. But not alone. I had Sandburg buried deep inside me. And now Blair that was back in Cascade, I wanted to return the favor.
Earlier in the week, the loft elevator had blown several major gaskets. So, it was in its usual condition when I heard Sandburg enter the building. I also picked up a few choice obscenities being mumbled as he plodded up the stairs.
Suddenly, my body responded like an animal in heat. Make that a caged animal in heat. I was primed for action. My heart was doing double time. I could literally see it beating, trapped as it was under that favorite black t-shirt of mine made even tighter because of all my extra workouts.
In comparison, Blair's heartbeat was remarkably calm, except for the exertion of humping up the three flights of stairs. I swung the door open before he even knocked. There Sandburg stood, fist hanging in midair. He looked better than I ever remember him looking. His skin was tanned, blue eyes were shining there in the diffused hallway light, and all of that glorious hair of his was pulled back, but in a strangely unfamiliar way.
"Well, don't just stand there, Chief. Come on in and take a load off."
"God, I'll never get used to your doing that." Blair poked me in the ribs before moving past me. He walked in easily, confidently, like someone who'd made his mark in the world. I hoped the loft wasn't just some way-station to the next place he was heading before we'd had a chance to talk.
"Here, let me have your bag." I grabbed the duffel from Sandburg's shoulder and stowed it under the table. It was heavy with all of his books and ripe with at least a week's worth of dirty clothes in it.
"Thanks, tough guy." Blair stood in the middle of the living room, re-acclimating himself to the loft, looking around to see if any major changes had been made in his absence. There hadn't.
My partner noticed and it pleased him. The smile told me as much. "It's great to be home, man." Making a slow half-turn in my direction, Sandburg swept a scientist's eye over me critically. My reward was a bona fide whistle when he was done. Either that, or the kid was having an asthma attack.
"Jesus, James!" And it wasn't my imagination. Sandburg gulped like a cartoon character. "You look ...have you been living at the gym while I was away?"
Parts of me were more than pleased he'd noticed. They were becoming rock-hard in appreciation, in fact. "No more than usual. Probably all the good, clean living I've been doing."
"Yeah, 'Schwarzenegger.' Pull the other one." He chuckled. It was like hearing music after you'd been deaf. "Of course, with those muscles, you'd probably pull it off. I am 'so' parched, man. Got anything to drink?"
"Take your pick ... water, juice, beer ... I think I still have some of that twig tea lying around."
"You went out and bought it?"
"Nah, it's still here from when you left." I wasn't about to 'fess up that I'd done a mean piece of shopping and stockpiled all his favorites, right down to those little stuffed grape leaves from Trader Joe's he likes so much.
"Ugh, way to gross me out, big guy. The only thing worse than old tea is the old doobie you find in a desk drawer."
"'Too Much Information,' Chief. Maybe it's not quite that old."
"Sort of brand new, huh?"
I pulled out the untouched container from the kitchen cupboard. "You want it or not?"
"Sure. Got munchies to go with it? Any Thin Mint Cookies squirreled away?"
I was busted. Every year, Girl Scout Troops stormed the 852 Prospect and didn't leave until they forced me to buy cartons and cartons of them - almost enough to last until their next sales effort. I pulled a box out from the same cupboard shelf.
"Want to use your -- " I asked.
"Can I use my --" He said at the same time.
Both of our hands had reached for the chipped "Dude, I'm FU'd" blue soup/coffee mug - a gag gift from the guys at Major Crimes. Sandburg loved that damned thing. At 28 ounces, it was the biggest cup he'd ever seen. Filled to the brim, the thing practically had a tide in it during the full moon.
We did a version of synchronized smiling, a recognition that we were back together and in one another's space -- verbally, at least -- in less than five minutes. I wondered if that was some land/sea/air record for a sentinel/guide reconnection. Our fingers touched as I shoved the mug toward Sandburg and a spark jumped from me to him.
"Watch it, Jim! You 'don't' want to see this -" he pointed to his disheveled-looking hair" - standing on end, do you?"
It took me a minute to realize how long Sandburg's hair had gotten since the last time I'd seen him. The braid he was fingering started at the nape of his sun-tanned neck, and was resting comfortably on his left shoulder like a little animal. The end was fastened with a leather tie.
I'd always considered Sandburg's hair a third roommate, since it was in and on everything in the loft - the furniture we sat on, the food we ate, the air we breathed. It book-marked places Blair had been: Rainier, the police bull pen, here at the loft. Funny, until just now, I'd forgotten that I'd found little pieces of Sandburg clinging to his dissertation draft I'd read that terrible night at the P.D. over a year ago.
"Knock yourself out, Chief. And after you're finished, you know the drill."
"Some things never change. Let's see if I remember. Loft Rule #37. Cups won't be left in the sink, on common counter space or major appliances ..."
"I'll housebreak you yet, Junior. " God, how I'd missed this. Sandburg must have read it on my face, because we ended up hugging. It was lopsided, off-balanced, but tight, as though we both needed it to stay grounded to the earth. The feel of Blair in my arms was warm and comforting. I'd missed that, too.
"Welcome home, Partner."
"Thanks, Jim." The touching little scene would have lasted a lot longer if I hadn't gotten a snootful of a dozen different layers of grunge, none of them as pleasant as pure "Blair-scent."
"Uh, I love you, Buddy, but go get a shower. Now, before my nose is fried. You can have your tea afterwards."
"Is it that bad?"
"Worse. I'm begging you ..."
"Okay, okay." He grinned into my shirt. My nipples couldn't help but notice. "Can't afford to insult my host. Or his nose." He squeezed me one more time before letting go. "And I have 'got' to do something about this. "As he passed the thick braid of hair under it, his ridiculously-freckled nose wrinkled up. I stopped counting the spots dappling his golden skin at 50. "God, it does smell awful, doesn't it? I've got 72 hours and about a hundred pounds of dirt in it." Sandburg's fingers fumbled back and forth, but he couldn't seem to get the leather strap untied. I chalked up the lack of coordination to his having been shoehorned on the equivalent of the Ecuador "Local" for way too long and needing about 18 hours of serious, uninterrupted sleep in his own bed.
Blair's bed.
"Do me a favor?"
"What?"
"Could you maybe ..."
"Spit it out, Sandburg."
"I need to get undone before I shower. Could you?"
Fucking loaded question. "You want me to undo you?"
"The braid, man. " Sandburg answered in that "teacher" voice he sometimes uses, like I was a third grader with my zipper at half-mast. "Undo the braid."
"I knew that. Yeah. Sure. No problem." I put my hands on Blair's shoulders and spun him around to face the balcony. They felt broader than when he'd left. I straightened the braid to let it hang down his back. Somewhere in a different section of my brain I made a mental note that I could see his backbone through the layers of shirt he was wearing. I gauged that my friend had lost more than a few pounds in some places, but bulked up in others, from whatever the hell he'd been doing while on the expedition. Maybe it had been really strenuous thinking.
All things considered, though, it looked pretty good on him.
"How's this put together -" The deceptively simple-looking pattern was actually quite intricate. I didn't want to just start pulling. A thin film of muck and dirt my Sentinel eyes saw held it together.
"Wild, isn't it? Huepe, our guide, did for me a few weeks ago."
My mind conjured up a picture of that glorious mane being touched by 'Huepe.' I hated the idea that a stranger handled something that was ... mine.
"You mean you were wearing your hair loose?" I tried covering up what that thought was doing to my body. It was making things below my belt sit up and take notice.
"Jesus, are you crazy? Can you imagine what kinds of creepy crawlers would have taken up residence? It would have been like -"
"- the beard spiders in Sumatra." I finished his thought for him. "Maybe you should have taken a machete to this thing."
"Like I told you before - I am 'not' cutting my hair. And besides, with short hair, I look like I'm 12."
My dick heard 'that' comment, and was perversely excited. Drooling over it, in fact. "Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. That's why I've kept always kept it longish."
"Well, it ... works for you. Hang on. It's hard for me to ... " I squatted down more than a few inches so I could get a better look at it.
"Sorry," Sandburg apologized, "for the vertically-challenged thing."
"Have you tried being taller?"
"Very funny. Not."
Once I figured out the design, it wasn't so hard to take apart. With a few deft movements, the braid unraveled in front of my eyes. Like Sandburg's and my relationship before he'd left. And I'd been the jerk who'd done the "honors" on that front, too.
The long hair hung in wavy strings around his shoulders.
"Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. Listen, everything I have with me is toast. Do you-"
"Your robe's where you left it."
"Yeah?" That made Sandburg look over his shoulder and give me one of those million-dollar smiles, the one that had women camping on our doorstep.
"Go on. When you come out, I'll have your tea ready."
"Great."
"And maybe ... we can play catch-up."
"You bet."
With that, Blair Sandburg and his hair went into the bathroom, leaving me standing with the smell of my partner on my hands, and a lump of anticipation in my throat - not to mention in my trousers.
Tea. I had to make Blair his tea. Doing something that mundane would give me some time to think. I put the kettle on and listened to my partner washing away the grime and the exhaustion of his trip. If I were being entirely honest, I was paying more than a little attention to the sound of his kneading shampoo into all that hair, then gliding soapy hands over his naked body, lingering here and there, moving down to his ... the whistling of the kettle telescoped me back to the reality of my kitchen. I turned the boiling water off, poured some into the mug on the countertop, even as I continued to monitor my guide -- his heartbeat, respiration, even the off-tune humming -- just like hundreds of times before.
As I let the leaves steep, I stared into Sandburg's mug, hoping it would cough up some answers - or at least give a guy a glimpse into the meaning of life.
What was I going to do? Just tell him? Uh, Blair, guess what I discovered while you were gone? That I have non-brotherly, non-friendship. non-subject/researcher feelings toward your choice little ass. That I really, REALLY want to play 'hide the salami.' That I want to do the nasty with you, as nasty as we can make it. That you and I ...
"Uh, can I drink that tea, or are you seriously involved with it?"
I almost spilled Sandburg's tea. I must have been standing in that position for at least 15 minutes, and didn't even hear him when he stepped out of the bathroom. A cloud of steam still clung to every inch of what I could see of the not-surprisingly toned and tanned body. The ratty old checkered robe that was wrapped around his solid frame was topped off by one of the white, organic cotton towels around his shoulders. Blair had bought them right before he'd left. They were on a website for people with hyper-sensitive skin.
Even as he'd been packing up to leave, Sandburg had been thinking of me. And in typical Jim Ellison fashion, I'd 'thanked' him by asking why he couldn't order them in blue.
And that damned robe. How could Sandburg turn something that should have been a ragbag into something that could make a weaker person's mouth water?
With it cinched at Blair's waist, the robe revealed the soft furry thatch on Sandburg's chest. The glistening hairs cast gold and auburn flecks of light in my direction. Somebody smarter than an anal-retentive cop might have said like a beacon leading the way home.
And then there was all that wet, unruly, glorious hair, almost alive in its movements. The long, jumbled strands spread over the strong shoulders and down his back and the flannel robe. With even the smallest move, it demanded my renewed attentions.
As he stood next to me, grabbing for his drink, I noticed how the damp, clinging robe accentuated each notch in my partner's spine.
"So is it okay, Jim?" Sandburg opened one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out a spoon. He reached over for the grinning honey bear that sat in its usual spot. A long squirt and a quick stir later, he gingerly picked up the hot cup, but not before first turning it to the right, then the left, so that the "FU'd" faced him. The whole tea ritual was so fucking hypnotizing that I missed whatever the hell it was that Sandburg was going on about.
"Sure." Then I figured I'd better find out what I'd just agreed to. "Wait a minute. What's okay?"
The first sip of the hot tea made him sigh and smile. With his other hand, Sandburg began to blot his hair dry with the towel that had been wrapped loosely around his neck. "The truck, Jim? You know, your 'other' '69 classic." The truck and Sandburg shared a birth year. The Ford was two-toned. Sandburg wasn't. There was another major difference.
I loved the truck, but I wasn't in love with it.
"To borrow it?"
"Borrow it for what?" My I.Q. points were dropping like the Dow the closer I moved toward my partner. And I couldn't stop looking at Sandburg's hair.
"Jesus, Chief, you could weave a rug out of that mop of yours."
He smiled up at me. "Yeah. It sorta gotten away from me, man. Must have been something in the water. Anyway, I need the truck so that I can pick up the rest of my bags tomorrow." His eyes were soft, uncertain. "If I'm still ... if you still ... if this is still..."
The word he couldn't bring himself to say was "home."
"I'd hunt you down like a perp if you didn't come back here."
"That's sort of a mixed message, Jim, but thanks.
I wanted to grab him by that long hair and pull him into a bear hug, but I didn't dare, because I wouldn't have stopped at just innocent groping. "You leave your stuff with Ken this afternoon?"
"How did you know?"
I pointed to my ears, with a "duh" expression on my face to complete the picture. Sandburg hadn't taken a cab from the airport. Another one of his little obfuscations. It was like nothing had changed. He'd gotten a lift from Shelton. I'd heard what the esteemed doctor had said to Blair when he'd been dropped off earlier. "Don't say 'no' right now. Think about it. We're good together, Blair. I take that back. We're great together."
Sandburg's answer was kind, but to the point. "Thanks for everything, Ken. I mean it with all my heart. Thanks for the last six months ... for giving me a chance to do something I thought I'd never do again. But I belong here."
"Do you mean Cascade ... or with this Ellison character?"
"He is that, Ken."
Then I heard a kiss filled with longing and hope - on Shelton's side. I heard my partner shift away and slide toward the passenger-side door.
"Blair-"
"Listen, Ken, I have to go. I'll swing by and pick up the rest of my things tomorrow, if that's okay."
"Have dinner with me."
"I don't think that's such a good idea. No, I'll just come get my bags."
And with that, Blair Sandburg left Ecuador behind.
"I'll drive you over there tomorrow."
"Hey, man, it's not neces-"
"I think it is, Chief."
"Why's that?"
"Because ...Ken Shelton needs to know the expedition is over."
"He knows, Jim."
"Trust me, Sandburg. He doesn't. Not 100%. But he will."
All the while, I couldn't stop staring at Sandburg's hair. I had to touch it, so I reached out and snagged a few strands. It was as though some primal part of the sentinel in me needed to ground itself by hanging onto my guide. Blair didn't seem startled and didn't seem to mind. I rubbed those dark brown captives between my thumb and index finger. Somehow, through its surface, I thought I could actually feel Sandburg's blood coursing through his veins.
And the seductiveness, the intimacy of the moment, was riveting.
"So, it's settled." I kept fingering his hair. But I needed to get even closer. "C'mere, Sandburg. We're too far apart. We've been that way for too long."
"Far apart is being on the other side of the world."
"Sometimes, it's being the same room with someone you ... that you want to ..." The words fought to stay unsaid.
"Jim, you don't have to -"
"It was my fault." We inched closer.
"There was enough blame to go around, Jim."
"I should have let you tell the story ...let you publish your dissertation. I went back on a promise. It was the coward's way out."
"You're a lot of things, Ellison." His whole body tensed. "But 'coward' isn't one of them. And if I had, you'd probably end up on some secret military base or in some university lab. No way, man."
We were so far in one another's space, I could feel Sandburg's breath tickling my chin. "It could have been worse - we could have ended up - on the Jerry Springer show."
"He relaxed into my hands, and didn't fight the laugh that spilled between those perfect white teeth of his. "I can see it now: 'Sentinels and their Guides' - the Last Taboo." I'd missed that laugh so much.
I lowered my head to kiss the hair. "I was thinking more along the lines of 'Middle-aged Cops and their Boy Toys.'"
"I'm getting to be a little long in the tooth for a 'boy toy,' don't you think?"
He put his hands on top of mine. "You know, Jim, hair's a funny thing. I mean, in most cultures, long hair is considered to have certain properties."
"Keep talking, Sandburg. I have my hands full here."
"Hair's, well ....sensual."
I used my fingertips to brush a lock of hair away from Sandburg's forehead, the way I'd seen him do a thousand times since I'd known him.
"The way it looks. The way it feels."
Blair wasn't telling me something I didn't already know. I'd always been a long-hair junkie. It pushed my buttons like nobody's business. Funny, though, the one woman I married had had hair almost as short as mine.
"The way it smells." Christ, he was right. I'd always sniffed around him. Sandburg's hair was like catnip, and I was a 200 lb. panther ready to pounce on it.
Blair snapped his fingers to get my attention. "Pay attention, Jim." Like it was straying anywhere else. "You know, more than once, from behind, I've been mistaken for a woman because of this ..." Sandburg tugged on one long piece of hair as he spoke.
"Only until you turned around, and they saw that five - make that ten - o'clock shadow- "
Blair's breath came in rapid chuffs.
"But it didn't matter, Jim, because, sometimes, men liked what they saw." My dick was dancing its own peculiar version of the hokey-pokey at the admission.
"Stop fishing for compliments, Sandburg. Who, in their right mind, wouldn't?"
"See, even though I'm a pretty flexible in accepting variations social bonding paradigms ..."
Jesus, here we were, on the verge of knocking boots, I hoped, and Sandburg was trotting out more thesis-speak. "Speak English, Chief ..."
"Okay ... I'd say something like 'Thanks, but no thanks,' because men really weren't my type.' The thing is, Jim ... standing here, like this ... I think I'm yours." His voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned against me for support. I studied the bridge of his nose, waiting for him to say, "Correction. I know I'm your type."
Sandburg's eyes were awash with an intensity I'd only seen glimpses of before. And usually, then, it had been directed at some tall, blonde female, with legs "up to here." Now the legs "up to here" stopped right below a dick that threatened to go ballistic, if it didn't get a "happy" real soon.
I dropped my sweaty hands to Blair's waist and clutched at the belt of his robe. The thin, little flap of material was the only thing separating me from Sandburg's waiting, naked body.
"Someone wrote that there's an 'instinctual' element about communicating social behavior and intentions through hair." Sandburg's words played counterpoint to his actions. Blair swung his head from side to side, as though he were keeping time to a metronome. The momentum laid strands of hair against my chest. I growled into his ear as my nipples hardened under the "punishment."
"Keeping talking, Professor."
"See, anthropologically speaking, hair can be used as a public symbol with an explicitly sexual significance attached to it."
"No shit." Could I come back with the zingers or what?
Blair eyes never left my face. "Changes in hair accompany a move in sexual status."
Our crotches were so close, I felt the nap of Sandburg's flannel pressing on my zipper.
"You're losing me here, Chief."
Blair hooked his thumbs in the loops on the back of my jeans and gave my hulking carcass a tug toward him.
" Oh, you know, Jim ..."
The room was getting warm. Really warm.
"Something about ... how did you put it ? ...'alternative social structures'?"
"Give the tall, hot-looking detective a gold star." In about two seconds, I wasn't going to be responsible for myself or what would happen. Sandburg had to know it. Even without Sentinel eyesight, Sandburg couldn't help but notice the Major League wood I was sporting - the 'bat' was practically ripping through my jeans. "And of course, there's the whole sexual potency issue ..."
"You mean ..."
"Like Samson. Right."
"Where we going with this, Chief?"
"Touch my hair, Jim."
"You sure?"
Blair raised his right hand, took a long ribbon of his hair and ghosted it over the side of my neck. As the chocolate brown ribbons wound themselves through my fingers and around my wrists, I wondered, not for the first time, what it was like to be saddled with a mane like this. Considering my hair - or, lack of it - I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have it "with" you day after day? Washing it, brushing it out, keeping it out of your partner's food, for Christ sake? But, on the other hand, what was it like to see it slither across the sheets, if you were Sandburg's lover? What did it whisper to that incredibly lucky son of a bitch in the middle of the night? Was it the promise of pleasures and sensations? Hidden things? Forbidden things?
I was beginning to think this stuff was magical. It was making me sound poetic, something no one in his right mind's ever accused me of being. Ask anyone.
My grip tightened as I was on the brink of tumbling into that abyss of possibilities. No mistake about it. This was foreplay in an exotic foreign land.
"God, Sandburg ... Blair ..." I found myself burying my face in Sandburg's hair. Colors that skated inside my eyelids started to blend, to merge, to melt together. My guide's voice -- the one that could coax jumpers off ledges, smiles to appear on captains' faces, and even stubborn sentinels to grow -- brought me back to myself.
"Jim ... buddy? Jeez, did you zone out on me?"
Perceptive son of a bitch.
"You been having problems?"
"Uh ..." Words were never my strong suit.
"You 'have' been having problems without me, right?" He persisted, even as I found myself trying to braid his hair back into the original pattern, as though it were already an ingrained memory in my fingers. Blair almost tenderly stilled my hands. "And you can't do that until it's dry."
"Sorry, Sandburg."
Sorry. The word most often used in the Ellison-Sandburg dictionary. Sorry, about your hair, Sandburg ... Sorry about your dissertation, Sandburg ... Sorry, I turned your life into a pile of crap, Sandburg ... Sorry, I never told you that you mean more to me than my own sorry life.
But it was like I was possessed. I couldn't not keep touching Blair's hair. I threaded my fingers through it and began massaging his scalp. The eyes I never thought would have love light in them for me, blinked several times, then closed, as Sandburg melted into my touch. I could track the blood pulsing under his skin, and smell the honeysuckle shampoo, the top notes of aloe, swirling with my partner's natural scent as they all flooded over me.
Blair sighed. "Jim? C'mon, man, talk to me."
"Problems? Yeah ... being without you..." I ran the hair between my lips. It filtered my voice, making it sound alien even to my own ears. "That's the fucking biggest problem I've been having."
"And you didn't think I'd be sort of interested?" He answered, more concerned than angry with me for being such a 24-carat jerk. "Not enough to tell me when l called from Coca, or when you wrote?"
"You mean all six times?" I hated writing even more than I hated talking. The reason I didn't do either was simple in a fear-based way because once it was committed to paper, once said I missed him, that I needed him, that I loved him ... then it would be true.
And if that were true, then whatever dreams I'd ever had about who I was, and what I wanted out of life, would be changed forever.
If I loved Blair Sandburg, I'd be the forty-something queer cop with the long-haired faggot boyfriend to everyone in my little universe - to friends, family, to the people I worked with. And when I say it that way, I know I should add, " ... and the biggest forty-something idiot around." By not having the balls to say something to Sandburg, I've been taking a pass on the thing that most people struggle their whole lives to find: love.
In my case, love came all wrapped up in a 5'8" long-haired former neo-hippy witchdoctor punk.
"Sandburg, ... Chief ... I ..."
He sighed before turning toward me. And then ripe, moist lips were brushing against mine. Then we fell headlong into what Blair calls an uber kiss -- one that involved mouths and tongues and souls and body parts. According to him, it had to last at least two minutes or 48,000 miles - whichever came first.
When we finally broke apart, I was speechless, breathless, and boneless, except for one particular bone. "So how much time have you and I wasted here,
Chief?"
"Too damn much. "You love me. I know, Jim. Almost as much as I love you. I almost told you that last day but I turned chicken-shit."
"No more than me, Sandburg. So, now what?"
"Hang on a minute, Jim ..."
"You wanna stop?" He couldn't be saying that, could he?
"No, doof. But I'm dripping all over you and your floor. That's gotta be at least 16 house rules I'm breaking."
"Kiss me like that again, Chief, and I'm willing to give you a pass." Reluctantly, I throttled down. "Here, give me that towel." As I grabbed the one from around his neck, I brushed against Sandburg's still-wet jaw. He pressed against my hand. The beads of moisture began to sizzle, like tears on the surface of the sun -- or a glacier. Fire or ice. It made no difference. How we got here was immaterial.
That we were here was the point.
"Turn around."
Sandburg turned his body toward the other side of the room, and I got the full impact of his almost waist-length mane. If I live to be 100, I don't think I'll ever forget what that first view felt like.
I forgot all about drying it, as the towel slipped from my fingers to the floor. Instead, my hands went up to his shoulders and pulled him hard against my chest. Even through the fabric of the robe, his ass cheeks fit perfectly around my throbbing cock. This was the waiting room for frigging heaven. When I finally got around to speaking his name, "Blair ..." the timbre of my voice was husky, raked by want and longing -- and impatience. In contrast, my partner's answer was even, and seductive as hell.
"So, what do you want, Jim ..." Sandburg turned his head to look back at me over his shoulder, brushing the tops of my fingers with his cleanly-shaven chin. My fingers fumbled first to untie the bathrobe's belt, then, to pull the whole frigging thing off. I was out of control, and I didn't care. This was my guide. This was my Blair. It had never been like this between Incacha and me. Of course, the Chopec shaman and I both knew he wasn't my guide. He was just helping me until, how did he put it, "The walker in your dreams finds you, Enqueri."
Who'd have thought I would find the Guide to the Great City - the pagan, wild-child, Jewish Guide and what he means to me - all tangled up in his long hair?
"I think I'm beginning to get the picture, Jim." With the robe tangled around his ankles, Blair turned around slowly to face me. He began seducing me with tendrils of hair. I could feel one gliding over my tee-shirt, and teasing each of the nipples underneath it. It made me yell in surprise. It made me harder in my pants, if that were possible.
"Sandburg-" I hissed out between my lips just as his hair ghosted over my collarbone toward the back of my neck. My traitorous knees buckled, I fell toward the hardwood floor and hit it full force. They were going to be black and blue. But my partner didn't stop. He murmured into my left ear, "You've been waiting for me. Haven't you, Jim?"
I mustered up jerky little nods like a little plastic dog on the car dashboard.
"You've been waiting for me, haven't you? To come back? To come home? To come to you?"
My left hand clawed into the hair hanging over Blair's shoulder. Once I grabbed hold, I pulled his head down ruthlessly, drawing those glistening, pouty lips toward mine.
"... What you said ... all of it ... yes."
And then, for the second time, I kissed him, with brute force. Those lips were going to be swollen in the morning. I milked his waiting mouth until Sandburg's moaned and mewled with passion. I found myself awkwardly positioned somewhere between Nirvana and Sandburg's legs. To my sentinel eyes, they were glorious, undeniably hairy, and quivering as they were in the late afternoon sunlight.
The muscles in his ass were clenching and opening like an invitation to yours truly. It might have had something to do with my face rubbing against the thicket of pubic hair above his cock.
As I inhaled the clean yet still potent aroma, I looked up and took in - what does Sandburg call it? - the gestalt of the moment. Above me, like my own personal slice of heaven, was Blair Jacob Sandburg, my partner, my guide, and my soon-to-be lover. I could do this. I had to do this.
"Sandburg, can I --"
"Whatever you want, Jim. However you want it."
"Your -" I hesitated, unable to say the word.
"-- hair?" Blair eyes widened, almost comically, imagining what the hell I wanted to do with those long, unwieldy curls of his.
"It that too weird, Chief, even for you?"
"For me? The master of 'alternative social structures'?" Again, with the smile, the one that could melt Permafrost. "Nah. Mi 'kink' es su 'kink.'" Sandburg wiggled his eyebrows. He probably thought it was suggestive. It was really just plain goofy.
"Don't be retarded, Sandburg. I'd like to see how all that hair looks spread out on my -- our -- pillows."
"Oh ... I thought you meant this ..." Blair's fingers latched on to the front of my tee-shirt, grabbing me by the heart as well. He jerked me violently upright and toward his waiting mouth.
This kissing business could get seriously habit-forming.
While the two of us were still lip-locked, I felt Sandburg deftly working my zipper, and pulling out my dick, which was raring to go - hard as diamonds, wet, and throbbing. The unexpected action caught me off-balance, and I grabbed at my partner's naked shoulders for support.
But Blair was like a possessed Slip N' Slide, trailing down my chest with that talented tongue of us until he hit the "little Sentinel." Then - my hand to God - Sandburg took a handful of his chestnut curls and wrapped them around my leaking cock. It erupted happily like a horny teenager's, shooting streams of come onto my partner's body, the side of his face, and into his hair. I can't remember exactly what I screamed the first time I lost my load. I'll have to ask the neighbors. They probably heard whatever the hell it was loud and clear.
When the top of my skull returned to where it belonged, I tried stringing a few words together.
"Jesus, Sandburg, warn a guy before you do something like that."
"Okay. The next time."
"The next time?
"Yeah. And then, after that ..."
"After that ..."
"You can wash my hair again."
"Yeah?"
"Oh, yeah, big guy. And you can braid it for me. You can do anything you want to it." He leaned up for a kiss.
I gave it to him, right before I tongued some of my own spunk off his ear. A lifetime of being Sandburg's lover was going to be damned interesting. Blair's hair - loose or weaved -- was going to be fucking icing on the cake. Maybe a wedding cake. Who knew?
"One other thing, Sandburg ..."
"What's that, Jim?"
"You are NOT cutting your hair!"
The End.
Email the author! Back to Chapter Index
Author's Acknowledgements: To the usual suspects: to Lisa, our Fearless Leader; to Patt Rose, our Fearless Leaderette, and to all the denizens of the MME list, who make it a fun cyber playground.
ETA: Wed. @ 11AM - if the plane/weather/gods cooperate.
C.U. soon.
Blair
P.S. I come bearing gifts.
