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Lightning jutted out many-fingered hands across the sky, the answering thunder rattling the windows of your small shop. It was little more than a trading post - a mercantile with ammunition and canned food, two rooms available for rent, a bathing room and a chair facing a mirror. This last was your pride and joy – leather upholstered with a comfortable bar for a patron to rest their feet, it was your custom ordered barber chair, complete with a mechanism to lean it back so you could give a man a shave or a rinse. Your shop was more or less in the middle of nowhere in West Elizabeth, where traders and hunters stopped to replenish their food and ammunition. More often than not, most of your patronage came from the rail station ten miles away. Folks would pass by, needing provisions, sleep and a haircut before moving on.
You were sweeping up after a long day of doing nothing. No train and it was hot, no wagons moving through. You had already dusted the cans and rearranged the glass jars of hard candies. Your brushes were soaking in soap and the chair had been oiled and polished. You yawned and stretched, nearly ready for bed. It was a lonely life, but at least you could live it how you wished. Run out of a small town in the east for your more...curious tendencies, you had escaped here for respite, tired of folks asking you when you were going to find a wife. The fact was, you weren't ever going to find a wife. You lived alone, though rare cowboys and outlaws warmed your bed whenever they took the hint and were interested in what you had to offer. They were always gone in the morning though, more often than not red-faced and ashamed of what the two of you had done in the middle of the night with no prying eyes to judge or to lynch you for your proclivities.
You were just thinking to yourself, as you tucked your broom in the corner and felt more than heard another boom of lightning rumble through your shop, that you might call it an early evening when the door was suddenly slammed open, a tall, broad man stumbling in, bracing his hat against the wind.
"I put my horse in the shed out back," he hollered over the sound of the storm in the open door behind him. "Don't suppose you got a room 'vailable?"
"Certainly," you answered, "but close the door, you're lettin' in Noah's flood." He complied, shutting out the howling and splattering of the storm outside. He stood to his full height now, all six or so feet of him. He was wide and muscular, a wary look in his astonishingly blue-green eyes. His hair was unruly beneath a sopping wet leather gambler's hat, and he shivered within his tan overcoat. Legs, broad and strong, swooped to the ground in an arch of graceful muscle that ended in ratty black western boots that dripped rainwater onto your clean floor. He looked to be about twenty or so, a little younger than you, but not by much. "You look like you could use a bath and a haircut too, if you don't mind my sayin' so," you commented. He grunted and looked down at himself, surveying his general state of disarray, his blue shirt a muddy mess and his pants sticking to his legs with rainwater and muck.
"S'pose yer right," he agreed in his rough tone. He had an accent of some sort, Texan, maybe? It was a little muddled and you thought perhaps he was a regular traveler. You said so, commenting on the worn state of his boots. "I travel some," he fenced, pulling off his coat and allowing you to take it and hang it up. You raised a brow and lowered it just as quick when you noticed he was wearing two guns at his hips. A gunslinger. "Reckon I'll take that haircut afore I bathe," he suggested as he tugged at a strand of hair, and you guided him to the barber's chair, though you were a little unhappy with how dirty he'd be getting it. Still, he was a patron, and a handsome one too, with a ruggedly angular jaw, hard blue eyes and aquiline brows. Pulling his hat off and setting it aside to dry, you ran your fingers through his tangled blonde-brown hair. Despite not being entirely clean, it was soft to the touch and you reveled in it as he leaned back and closed his eyes, allowing you to toss a drape over the front of him.
When you carded your fingers through his hair, you noticed that your hand came away sticky. You observed your palm and had to hold back a gasp of surprise as you found that it was stained with blood. Tipping your visitor's head forward and parting his tangled locks, you discovered a deep gash at the back of his skull.
"Uh, mister, it looks like you need some stitches there."
"Eh, it's fine," he groused. "Just the haircut." Your brows rose and you met his eyes in the mirror.
"Mister, this gash...it don't look so good. It's deep and the edges are real red."
"I said 'just the haircut,'" he told you in a level tone, but you noticed now that his eyes were just a little bit unfocused, his skin a bit pale in the light of your lantern.
"Alright then," you said softly. "You know," you brushed his hair, avoiding his eyes in the mirror now, "I've patched up my fair share of gentlemen. Taken care of 'em for a bit. Even had to nurse a few back to health. Never know what you'll find out in these parts," you commented, letting your hands drag a little more slowly than was absolutely necessary across his neck as you worked. He leaned into the touch, letting loose a soft sigh as you combed out the tangles. You thought that perhaps he was the type… the big, tough, lonely type that acted gruff and violent, but was gentle as a lamb as soon as their union suit hit the floor. Men of the kind you thought he might be usually kept their inclinations to themselves and more than a few of them ended up married despite what they really wanted. Those who didn't end up married often ended up in the wild, running away from society and themselves, unable to accept who and what they were any longer than it took to rut another man against the side of a barn before tucking themselves and their shame back into their trousers. You wondered if he was any different.
"So. What do you want, partner?"
"Huh?" he responded, seeming to have lost himself in your gentle touch.
"Your haircut," you reminded him. "How do you want it?" He smiled at you in the mirror, seeming to have lost some of his gruff exterior now that he had relaxed somewhat.
"Short on the sides and the back, parted to the right up top," he directed, and you nodded, setting to work. As you trimmed away the hair, you noted that the gash looked like someone had taken a bottle or the butt of a gun to the back of his head in an attempt to bash his brains out. They hadn't quite succeeded, but you really would feel better if it were sewed shut.
"Mister, I ain't trying to give you any lip, but that gash needs mendin'. I'll take care of it in just a moment if you'll let me," you pressed. The man sniffed.
"Fine, if you'll quit harassin' me about it." You nodded and threw a couple of quick knots into the gash with a needle and thread you had handy. It wasn't an uncommon task in this area. The nearest doctor was miles off, and you were a fair hand with throwing stitches or pulling teeth if you absolutely had to. The man winced and hissed as you worked, and you wordlessly handed him your flask. He took it and gulped some whiskey down before handing it back. Both his hand and his gaze lingered a little too long as he did so and your breath caught in your throat. Bringing a bowl of warm water, you washed his hair, taking special care to clean the area where he had been hit. After brushing the wet locks down and trimming a few spots you had missed, you finished the haircut and pulled the drape from his shoulders, indicating that you were done.
Running a big hand over his newly trimmed coif, he stared at his reflection in the mirror and nodded.
"Looks good. I'll take that bath now."
"I keep water warmin' over the fire. Give me a few and I'll have you a tub full. I'll wash those clothes of yours and they'll be dry by morning. 'Fraid I don't have a washin' girl, though," you added in an apologetic tone.
"Don't mind none," he cut you off, "Guess you wouldn't volunteer for that work?" he grinned, but it caught you off guard. Was he teasing? You laughed nervously.
"You wouldn't want me ruinin' your bath," you said offhandedly. He gave a facial shrug and began to strip while you poured water into the big metal tub. You couldn't help but stare appreciatively at the rounded globes of his ass and the firm bundles of muscle that made up his thighs. Even at only twenty or so, he was spattered with scars from a life lived on the run. There was evidence of at least one gun shot in his side and dozens of cuts and scrapes elsewhere. He was rough, but he carried himself with a kind of quiet grace that fascinated you.
Working quickly, he scrubbed himself clean as you tidied the area and rinsed his clothes, rubbing his pants and shirt across a washboard with some scented lye soap. You hung the clothing to dry and wiped up the mess you'd made as he climbed out of the soapy water in the tub and dried himself off. Once again, your eyes lingered over his form, your mind providing suggestions for what you'd like to do with him. He caught you staring and you froze. An angry grimace crossed his features and he stepped up to you aggressively, still dripping water, the towel held haphazardly in front of his groin.
"You got a problem, mister?" he hissed, his eyes wide and dangerous.
"No," you muttered, trying to avoid his gaze. In an instant he was upon you, a fistful of your hair in his hand, tipping your head backwards, forcing you to meet his eye.
"Seemed to me you saw somethin' you liked," he pointed out, his eyes narrowing. The hand in your hair softened and you leaned back into it, testing him. He didn't turn away or flinch. This kind of violent game of cat and mouse was not unknown to you. He was testing you, and you him.
"Reckon I might have," you answered carefully, not wanting a belly full of hot lead or a knife in the heart if you could avoid it. You allowed your gaze to fall to his plush lips and wet your own with the tip of your tongue. In a moment he had closed the distance between you, pressing his mouth to yours with a rough motion, your teeth clicking together in his haste as one of his hands snaked around behind your neck to hold you firmly in place. His head darted back like a snake's and he surveyed your face, searching for disgust or anger there after the forced kiss. There was none. There was only want.
"I ain't funny," he insisted, and you nodded. It was never worth arguing with a man who hadn't accepted himself. "I got a girl and a son," he muttered roughly, undoing your pants as he said so. His hands wandered over your chest as you dropped your shirt away, accepting his touch. You went to your knees and took his stiffening member into your mouth, cupping his balls in a hand. You sucked hard and he moaned, sinking one hand into your hair.
"Your girl do this for you, partner?" you challenged him when you slipped your mouth off him, and he froze.
"Naw. Ain't like that with her. But I got..." His speech stuttered as you took him between your lips again. "...I got responsibilities now, with the kid. This ain't...oh shit...this don't mean nothin'. Just scratchin' an itch," he insisted, but he was pumping into your mouth now, letting you engulf him in warmth and wetness as you loosened your own belt and let your pants drop away. You stood and faced him, sizing him up and his lip curled in anger, either at himself or at you, you weren't certain.
"Reckon I oughta lock up," you pointed out softly. He rumbled a sound under his breath and you left him standing there, his erection standing up starkly between his legs. You quickly locked the door of your shop, flipped the sign on the handle to read "closed" and gestured for him to follow you into one of the rooms.
"Ain't never...bothered with a bed," he admitted through gritted teeth, as though every admission was painful.
"We don't have to," you offered. His hand darted out and was around your throat, squeezing slightly as his eyes narrowed. He was dangerous, you recognized, deadly even. But he was lonely. And he was missing something. Missing the company of a gentleman. Well, you were hardly a gentleman, but you'd have to do.
"I could have you against this wall," he hissed, pushing your back against it. You didn't fight him, instead smirking.
"Or over the dresser. Or on the floor. Or I could take you instead," you pointed out.
"No," he snarled, teeth flashing brightly as a streak of lightning made itself known through the wavery glass window. "Told you I ain't funny." You shrugged.
"However you want, partner. Makes me no difference." He stood for a moment, his big chest heaving, studying your face, searching for something.
"Come here," he demanded, shoving you bodily onto the bed, and then he was on top of you, his hands grasping at you, the head of his cock dragging against your leg, leaving behind a trail of slick precum. You growled softly under your breath with want, feeling his hard muscles heaving beneath your hands as you grasped at him, your own hips pumping up to seek his own, to grind against him with your own want. The man reached a big hand down between the two of you and pumped you both, his breaths coming short and angry and needy. After a few moments, he flipped you onto your belly, spitting into his hand and slicking a finger against your hole. You moaned and grasped at the sheets beneath you as he pressed it inside. You groaned and forced out,
"There's oil, in the top drawer." He grabbed it and dripped some over his hand, sinking his finger back in and this time your groan was one of pleasure as he worked the delicate tissue. For as much as he insisted that he wasn't like this, that he didn't do this, he certainly seemed to know his way around another man's body. Slicked and stretched, you weren't surprised when he sank himself inside you to the hilt and you cried out as he pressed against your most intimate parts, shoving you roughly into the bed as he mounted you and fucked himself into you hard and furious, his grunts and moans forced through a clenched jaw as his fingers sank into your hips hard enough to bruise. You forced a hand beneath you to grasp yourself, wrapping your fingers around your shaft and pumping in time to his furious strokes.
The man said nothing to you as he had his way with you, your body pliant and willing beneath his. You had been wanting, no, needing a man like this for months. He was silent, angry, but his body against yours felt good, felt right and when you finally spilled yourself across the bedspread, it was at the same moment he spent himself inside of you. He rolled away from you, panting, a blush high in his cheeks. Hawkish eyes met yours and again his lip curled.
"Get out." You arched a brow.
"That's a fine way to talk to some fella you just fucked into next Tuesday," you protested and he came upright off the bed, grabbing you again by the throat but you ignored his bravado. You saw past it. Instead you pushed against the pressure at your throat and pressed a soft kiss to his lips before clambering off the bed away from him. "Take care of that wound. I'll take a peek at it in the morning if I'm up before you're off." He nodded and laid back.
"Don't even know your name," he said miserably behind you as you stepped out of the room. You paused, considering, and finally gave it. He nodded. "M' name's 'Morgan.' 'Arthur Morgan.' Look, I...I don't do this...often..." He seemed at a loss for words, embarrassed and regretful now. You'd seen it before, though men were rarely this gentle about their shame. "I don't know...why I want to...but I do..."
"I understand. Ain't easy wantin' things folk don't want you to have. You have a good night. You can leave payment for the haircut and the room on the counter in the morning."
When you awoke the next day, predictably, he was gone. But on the counter was sat an enormous pile of coins, easily thrice what the services had been worth. For a moment you were angry, thinking that he was paying you as a whore, but your temper settled when you noticed a note sitting beneath the coins. It was hastily sketched onto a torn slip of paper.
"Best haircut I had in years. Thanks, partner. -A.M."
You didn't see him again for at least two years. He looked a bit more grizzled, a little more worldly than before. The skin beneath his eyes was stained dark with lack of sleep and you frowned when he stepped into your shop, unsure what to expect from him.
"Could use a haircut, partner," he explained, as though this was a weekly occurrence.
"Alright then," you agreed cautiously. "Have a seat." He obeyed and you draped his shoulders in cloth and went to work. "How's that girl and son of yours?" you asked. You heard a sharp intake of breath through his nose and realized that was the wrong thing to say. His jaw tightened.
"Dead," he said simply.
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear it." He hummed a sound and you kept up your work, snipping away the hair and brushing it as he sat, silent and brooding.
"Thanks," he said, once you were through and had pulled away the drape. He stood and met your eyes, looking as though he was about to walk away. He lifted a big hand and scratched the back of his neck. "Reckon...reckon you'd like some company? Tonight?"
"Sure," you said cautiously. He nodded.
"I got a few things need doin', then I'll head back over. I'll be back before dark."
True to his word, he reappeared, this time with the carcasses of a few rabbits and raccoons slung over his horse's haunches.
When he followed you to the vacant room this time, he took a shaky breath.
"Look I, I ain't here to use you, mister. I just need some company." You thought of his earlier strangled mention of the woman, his son, their deaths. He was hardly more than a stranger, but you wondered what had happened, and how recently. How often did gunslingers successfully have families, anyway? You sat on the bed, having locked up shop already and changed the "open" sign to "closed."
"Whatever you need, mister. I'll take what I can get. It's a lonely living, way out here." He hummed a small noise and pulled off his clothing. You did the same, lying beside him, letting him determine exactly what would happen. For a long while, you simply laid there with him staring up at the ceiling, which was only illuminated by the oil lantern on the side table, you running your fingers over your own chest, raising goosebumps on your flesh. Then, he turned onto his side and put a hand out, drawing you closer. He kissed you, pressing his tongue into your mouth, and you accepted it. His hands crawled over your body, and you did him the same favor, tasting and touching, him moaning softly as you pleasured him with your mouth. As you slid your lips off him, he blew out the oil lantern and you moved together in the dark, him clinging to you like a dying man. You felt wetness on his face when you kissed him next, and you realized that he was crying, stifled sobs working their way through him as he moved within you, his fingers grasping at you hard enough to bruise.
You ignored it, knowing that bringing attention to his tears would accomplish nothing more than angering him, but you took over, dictating the rhythm and depth of his strokes as he lost himself within you, seeking respite from his grief in your body. And you allowed it.
When he cried out with release, it was strangled, his throat rough with holding in pain. You sat in his lap for a while, just letting him hold onto you. You knew there was no affection for you in this embrace, but you also knew that he needed it, and it felt nice. When you finally pulled away, he caught your arm.
"Please. Stay."
"Mister, I..."
"Please." You sighed and climbed back into the bed. He curled himself around you and you waited for his breathing to deepen and slow before you carefully got up and left.
Awaking in your own bed, you yawned, realizing that there was the sound of someone still in the shop. You dressed and clambered down the stairs to find Arthur gathering his things.
"Money's on the counter," he told you, not meeting your eye. He stopped at the door, his hand still holding it open and finally looked at you. "Thank you. For the haircut."
"It's no trouble," you said simply. He nodded. "And Mr. Morgan?"
"Hmm?"
"Take care of yourself."
You didn't see him again for months. He passed by in the dead of winter, shivering, a gash across his chin. You sat him down in your barber's chair, stitched it shut. You trimmed his hair, cutting away the soft locks, and then groomed the thick beard he had grown, touching up his sideburns with gentle motions. He didn't meet your eye in the mirror, just sat quietly.
"You alright?" was all you asked as he existed in your presence. He nodded once, simply, and handed over payment for the haircut.
"Thanks, partner," he said as he stepped back out into the bitter cold, and there was a note of friendliness to his tone with you now, familiarity even after long absence. You dawdled at closing the door despite the chill.
"I've got a room available," you pointed out, hopeful, one hand on the sign of your shop, ready to turn it to "closed." He smiled slightly.
"Not this time, friend. But thanks for the haircut." Disappointed, you nodded.
"Here," you called after him, tugging a soft bedroll down off one of your shelves. "It's cold out there."
"I ain't got the money for this," he argued. You shrugged.
"Bring me a bear pelt next time you're by."
"You seem pretty shoa I'll be back," he said, amusement in his tone. You smirked.
"I'm sure you'll need another haircut sometime." Arthur took the bedroll gratefully, shook your hand, and was gone.
It was another two years later the next time you saw him. The scar on his chin had healed, though it left a stuttered gap in his facial hair. He greeted you with a smile this time.
"Thought you'd gone and gotten yourself eaten by a bear," you remarked, and as though that sparked a memory, he chuckled and held up a finger, stepping back outside.
"Here," he said, offering you the owed bearskin. "Unless you're chargin' interest?" You shook your head, laughing.
"Nah. Sit down. What do you like?" you asked, as you hung his hat on a hook.
"Short, parted on the right. Clean-shaven, please," he answered. You nodded and went to work.
"How've you been, friend?" He huffed a small laugh as you snipped away with your scissors.
"Been better, been worse. You know." You nodded. "Anyway. Just thought I'd drop by and get a haircut...?" His tone ended with a question and you raised a brow.
"Reckon I can arrange that," you commented, as you snipped away another long lock of hair. He reached a hand up, touched your wrist with a gesture of almost affection. You paused in your movements, one hand still tangled in his hair.
"Never did really thank you for that night, a few years back. And I never did apologize for the time before that. I...well, I am a little funny, clearly. And I appreciate your discretion...and your kindness, friend. You didn't judge me, for bein' a fool."
"Every man I meet is a fool, Mr. Morgan. Myself included." He chuckled lightly.
"Well, I guess that's true." You finished his haircut and glanced outside. It was nowhere near night.
"How about a game of cards? Some whiskey?"
"Shoa," he agreed in that soft, muddled accent of his, and you put up the closed sign and locked the door so you would not be disturbed.
The two of you played until the sun sank into the west, sharing a bottle of whiskey from the shelf. You had always gotten the impression that Arthur was, at heart, a good man, and your conversation confirmed it. He was gentle, compassionate, and now that he was a bit older, regretful at how he had treated you and men like you, frustrated and ashamed of how he had responded amidst his crisis of identity. "I'm real sorry for how I treated you, that first time," he repeated after a few drinks, his eyes soft and a little watery, affection in his stony gaze. You nodded, unsure what to say in response. You had received worse treatment from worse people than Arthur. "I wish I could prove it to you."
You reached out a hand, covered one of his.
"You can prove it to me now, Arthur," you told him softly, testing out his first name on your tongue, and he followed you, letting you take him into his usual room, moving against him, your mouth and your hands roaming over his body, worshiping the hard lines and soft curves of him as he sighed and whimpered at the pleasurable ministrations, more open, more relaxed now that he had accepted what he was.
And the next morning, just as always, he tipped his hat, smiled, said, "Thanks for the haircut, friend," and was gone.
The next time he came by, he was pale and sickly, holding his side and grimacing in pain. Where his hand rested against the doorway of your shop, it left a bloody stain.
"Reckon I could use a haircut," he slurred, stumbling in. Shocked, you picked him up and put him into your prized hair, ignoring the blood that leaked sluggishly onto the fine leather. He'd been shot in the side. "Bullet's...already out," he mumbled, "just need...some stitchin'."
"Christ, Arthur," you muttered under your breath, cleaning the area, your heart pounding, your fingers trembling. Fortunately, the bullet hadn't hit anything important, but it was bleeding quickly enough that something had to be done. You stitched what you could closed, applying some ointment to protect the wound. Tugging Arthur upright, you slung his arm across your shoulders and put him to bed. He slept for the next three days, shivering from the fever that raged through him as the wound tried to fester. You sat at his side, wiping his brow, cleaning the wound as best you could, and worrying. You kept him hidden from other patrons who stopped by, terrified of him being caught by the law, not knowing why he had been shot but knowing damn well it wasn't because he was doing something saintly.
On the third day, he awoke and sat up, gratefully accepting some soup. You chided him for trying to get out of bed and forced him to rest.
Arthur stayed for two weeks before finally insisting he had to "get back to it." You trimmed his hair before he left, and as you removed the drape from over his shoulders and torso, you planted a soft kiss against his cheek, murmuring,
"Stay safe out there, friend."
He stood, slung his saddlebag over his shoulder and tipped his hat with a gentle smile.
"Thanks for the haircut, partner."
You didn't see him for months, and you fretted and worried that something had happened to him. You even closed up shop and traveled to the nearest town, your heart in your throat as you searched for bounty posters of him, asking if anyone had seen a man lately of his description. Nothing. In the meantime, you found fewer and fewer people stopping by your shop. You had finally saved enough to buy a new shop in a small city in New Hanover. You realized that you would likely never see Arthur again once you moved into the city, so the success of your business was tinged with regret. With a hard, burning weight in your chest, you thought of Arthur coming here and you being gone if he needed help or comfort. You dallied in moving your things, and you were glad you did.
Just a week before you planned to leave permanently and relocate your prized barber's chair to the new shop in New Hanover, he pushed the door of your shop open and came inside with a friendly smile on his face.
"Arthur," you breathed, and without quite knowing what you were doing, you embraced him. He went a little stiff, clearly surprised at the sudden gesture of affection, but he returned it in a moment, his big hand clapping against your back. He drew back away from you and you stared at one another for a moment before you finally said, "What can I do for you, friend?" Arthur removed his leather gambler's hat and ran his fingers through unruly hair.
"A haircut, a warm meal and a room, please." You nodded, your eyes glittering with happiness at seeing this quiet, gentle man you had grown to adore.
"Glad you stopped by, friend. I bought a shop over in New Hanover. I'll be out there now," you told him as you brushed his tangled mop of golden hair. He tensed slightly, his frame hardening when you spoke.
"Don't get out to New Hanover much," he observed aloud. His tone was almost regretful.
"Well, if you ever are...that's where you'll find me," you said softly, your brows drawing together in the middle. You hadn't had another man since the last time Arthur came to your shop, and you found yourself longing for him, pining for him nearly. His hand reached up and covered yours when you finished his hair, and you laced your fingers into his own, your touch telling him everything that you could not say.
That night when he moved within you, his motions were desperate, tugging at you, holding you tightly against him as though he thought you would disappear.
And the next morning, like clockwork, he tipped his hat and said,
"Thanks for the haircut." This time he added, "I'll see you around, friend," and you found yourself praying it would be true.
Though you had worried that you wouldn't see him again when you moved your shop, you were relieved that Arthur kept finding excuses to visit New Hanover, true to his word, swinging through at least once a year for a haircut, sometimes for something more.
You had been cutting his hair for years now. It was still the same soft, golden brown though now it was streaked here and there with strands of subtle silver that blended into the sun-softened blonde. You pulled a long strand in your fingers, tugging it out away from his skull so that you could brush it and use your comb to slice an abrupt line across it, shortening its length in bouts of snips from your silvered scissors. Outside, rain splattered against the wavering glass windows printed with the sobriquets of your shop, advertising pomades, trims, and shaves. You didn't run anything more than a barbershop now, but you had a room upstairs. Arthur was your only gentleman caller now. You never tried anything with your other patrons, finding that the pleasure you found in Arthur's embrace could not be matched by anyone else.
He was telling you why he had been gone for so long this time, and you listened intently as you worked pomade through his hair.
"Went out west for a bit, got chased back. Had a job...er...somethin' in Blackwater, went wrong," he hedged, meeting your eyes sheepishly. You chuckled.
"You ain't gotta hide you're a gunslinger, Arthur, I already know. I've stitched your sorry hide up more than once," you teased. He had the decency to look embarrassed.
"Weeell," he drawled. That night you shared drinks in the nearby saloon, sat close together in a booth in a dark corner. As the drink loosened his tongue, he vented to you, admitting all the things you both knew but that he had kept to himself, his identity, his life as an outlaw. He was deeply torn over what he did for a living, over his past. He mentioned recently beating the living hell out of a man who owed his gang money and you hummed in solidarity as he expressed his self-hatred over the act. "Ain't got much of a choice though," he went on. "It's part of my job. Usury is a hell of a thing, but the fact is we don't make these folk borrow the money." He sighed deeply. "And I guess no one makes me beat 'em within an inch of their life. I'm all torn up about it. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm tired," he finished, wiping his face with a palm.
Very carefully, so that no one else in the bar could see, you touched his leg beneath the table, meeting his eye.
"I could help take your mind off it for the evening. If you want."
"Shoa," he breathed. He followed you up to your room above your barber shop and the act the two of you shared was no longer just a quick, fast fuck between the soft cotton sheets - you made love to one another, him moving within you with rolling strokes of his hips, your hands sliding over the scars that served as reminders of the injuries you had mended. You tipped his chin up and kissed him tenderly and he returned the action, his fingers sinking into your hair, a moan in his throat.
Neither of you could say it, neither of you could admit aloud what this had become, but in the darkness of your room with nothing but moonlight through the window to illuminate your forms, you declared your feelings using your bodies, your fingers over his throat a gesture saying "I adore you," and his lips and tongue against your collarbone whispering "You are mine," and your thighs and torsos pressing together said without words, "I love you, I love you, I love you," with every touch of flesh to flesh in ways that speech simply could not express. Your love, forbidden though it was, filled the room, declared with soft gasps and small groans and the faintest of cries as you climaxed as one, your foreheads bumping together to finish the declaration with "Forever."
And in the morning, his hand within yours, the other straightening and tipping his hat.
"Thanks for the haircut, love," murmured so softly you nearly couldn't hear it.
You saw him more frequently now, yet you worried about him even so. His stress, his pain as the weight of his duties pulled him down. Once, after a nearly two month absence, he showed up late at night, knocking hard on your door until you finally came downstairs, surprised to see him there. He pushed inside and shut the door behind him, drawing the curtain across it and kissing you roughly, his right hand burying itself in your hair while his left arm hung limp at his side.
“I had to see you,” he murmured. “Thought I was dead this time for shoa,” he admitted, pulling his shirt down on the left side so that you could see a partially healed bullet wound. You paled, fresh worry for him flooding you.
“I don’t suppose,” you forced between desperate kisses, “you’d consider,” another series of rough pecks of his lips against yours, a press of tongue to lips before you tugged back to finish your sentence, “a safer line of work?” He chuckled lowly and pushed you down to the wooden floor. “Arthur, someone might see through the windows.” It was full dark outside, but you had to be careful.
“Let ‘em,” he growled, ignoring the potential danger.
“Arthur,” you stopped him, grabbing the front of his shirt with a balled fist, tugging the material to get his attention. “This world ain’t meant for men like us. We have to be careful.” His eyes met yours and his jaw slackened slightly before tensing again.
“Come on, then,” he finally replied, helping you up and following you up the stairs. That night he slammed into you hard from behind, biting down on your shoulder hard enough to leave crescent-shaped marks, moaning and slapping his hips against your own as though he had something to prove, his hand sliding over your length to match his frenetic pace until you both spilled over the edge.
You gently massaged his shoulder as he leaned against you in the darkness of your bedroom, his breathing slowing until he finally slept. When he went to leave your shop the next morning, he smirked. You hadn’t touched scissors to his hair this time, but still, he grinned and said,
“Thanks for the haircut, partner.”
“Arthur,” you called, glancing up and down the way to see if anyone was awake and about. No one was. He stepped back into the doorway and you planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “Please try to be careful.” He nodded and tipped his hat, and was gone again.
Rumors of Arthur’s gang were in the air. You heard tales of rival families set against one another. You saw Pinkerton detectives poking around and you felt a chill run down your spine as they asked something of the general store owner next door and he pointed at you. The detective approached you, one brow slightly raised.
“Excuse me, sir. Have you seen this man about?” He held up a bounty poster with Arthur’s face on it and you felt sick.
“Not recently,” you told him, and it was the truth. It had been more than a month since Arthur had appeared at your shop. The detective eyed you.
“The fellow next door says he comes to your shop often.”
“Well, I pride myself on giving good haircuts, mister,” you offered as excuse. He hummed, plucking his bowler hat off, revealing brown hair that was slicked across the top of his head. You knew what he was implying: prove it. “Please,” you bit out. “Come in.” Touching this man’s head was nothing like Arthur’s. His hair was like straw. His skin was rough. Your own skin crawled as you snipped away his split ends and rearranged his coif. His existence in your chair made you want to burn the thing, you thought as you worked, forcing your hands to remain steady. The detective stared at his reflection in the mirror, appearing satisfied before standing and setting his hat back on his head.
“Well. If you see him again, here is my card. He’s a dangerous criminal, sir.”
“He’s a customer,” you insisted. His lip curled with derision and amusement. He left without another word and without paying. You waited until he was long out of sight and then let out a massive breath you hadn’t realized you had been holding, praying that Arthur would not be found.
He still came by, and every time your heart went to your throat when you spotted him, tugging him inside and changing your store sign to “closed” so you wouldn’t be disturbed. More often than not things had to be fast when he was able to visit, him only stopping for a haircut and a quick, borrowed kiss, unable to stay the night. But always, before he left,
"Thanks for the haircut, love."
You longed for him, and you worried for him. His skin had grown pale and his cheeks thinned with stress. More and more, he looked weary when he stopped by, apologizing for his absences, though you had seen him more in recent months than ever before now that his gang was back in the area. The nights when he could stay, you worshiped him with your body, draping yourself over him, letting him rest, his eyes soft when he looked up at you as you rode him, his freshly trimmed hair spread on the pillow beneath him, his big hands grasping your hips.
He was thinner now, and the few silver hairs in his golden-blonde crown had multiplied of late. You touched his cheek tenderly and kissed him when he visited, your forehead bumping his own, buying him fine meals and begging him to stay. But he could not. He had a duty, he insisted, people who relied on him. You knew that he could never know how much you needed him, how much you longed for his hair tangled in your fingers, his fingers tangled in your sheets. You needed him, but you could not have him all to yourself.
Each time he visited, thinner and thinner, coughing now and again in a way that made your heart stand still in your chest.
Horror stabbed through you when you saw the bounty poster with his face on it appear on the wall of the general store, the price on his head triple what you made in a year. No doubt it had been placed there deliberately by the detectives who were relentless in trying to find him and his gang. There had been an attempted bank robbery in Saint Denis recently, and the text on the poster declared that Arthur was one of the criminals responsible. Swallowing a hard lump, you tore the sheet from the wall and burned it for kindling in your fireplace that night.
He was gone, gone for months and this time you wondered if he had finally been captured, if he had found his demise at the end of a short drop from a long rope. You read the papers religiously, searching for news of him.
When next he showed up at your door, he was almost unrecognizable. He looked like half the man he had once been. His hair was scraggly and dull. His eyes were sunken in their sockets. Every breath he took came with a loud crackle and a wince of pain.
"Arthur," you breathed, closing the door of the shop behind him and flipping the sign to "closed" despite the fact that it was the middle of the day. He nearly collapsed in your barber's chair, taking shallow, wheezing breaths.
"Didn't get good news last time I sat in one of these," he said by way of greeting, his mouth gaping for air.
"What?" you asked dully, too horrified to say anything else.
"Sorry I been gone so long. Got shipwrecked. Collapsed in Saint Denis." Arthur turned away from you, refusing to meet your eyes directly and instead finding them in the mirror as he swallowed. "Doctor says I'm dyin'. The consumption," he almost whispered, and you thought that perhaps the world had opened up beneath your feet the way your stomach flipflopped in dismay.
"No," you said quietly, a plea, a command, a lament. "No. Arthur," you put your hand on his shoulder and he covered it with his own, turning his head to the side to kiss your fingers lightly. He blinked away a sheen of tears when next he met your gaze in the mirror.
"Reckon...reckon I could use a haircut…one last time."
"No," you said again, your mouth open in a gasp. "Arthur, please. There has to be something that can be done."
"Friend...you and I have known each other a long, long time now. What I need," he breathed, "what I want is a haircut. Please." You swallowed hard, feeling things you didn't want to feel, your pride rising to the surface to cut off any tears that were trying to escape.
"Alright, partner," you whispered, and you picked up your scissors and went to work. He leaned into your touch, possibly the only gentle touch he ever received, given his life and line of work. You trimmed his sideburns, your thumb rubbing along the line of his jaw. You shaped the crown of his head and his bangs, combing the soft hair across his scalp, your hand caressing his neck. He coughed occasionally and you paused in your work so you didn’t give him a lopsided trim, waited for him to collect himself. He looked almost ashamed of his coughing, as though his illness was somehow his own fault.
You took him up the stairs, half-supporting his weight, but it felt like nothing. His frame had diminished with his disease. You laid him down in your bed, stripping his clothes from him, pressing kisses along his collarbone, down his chest, over his stomach and inner thighs. You bit back tears as he sank his fingers into your hair, him groaning with frustration as he was unable to get his frail body to cooperate.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, but you covered his mouth, and his objections, with your own lips.
“No,” you whispered, your nose pressed against his. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.” There were other ways to find pleasure, and you did so, both of you touching, and pressing and stroking one another with gentle hands. You demonstrated, as you had so many times before, that you adored him, and he you. Through the years you had barely more than soft touches and the memory of lovemaking to fill the spaces when he could not be with you. Those memories would have to last forever now. You wanted to burn this last time into the back of your eyelids, wanted to catalog and remember every sigh, every touch of skin to skin, every pleasured sound that spilled from his lips. You wanted to cherish the way your bodies moving together declared your love, wanted him to know that you loved him, even if it could not be said aloud, and then,
“I love you,” he admitted as he climaxed beneath your touch. You panted, following him shortly after, whispering back, your hand against his thin cheek,
“I love you too,” your heart beating wildly at the admission you thought you would never say aloud. You curled into one another, holding him close, your jaw clenched against the inevitable knowledge that when he left in the morning, it was probably the last you would see of him. There would no longer be any doubt when he was absent for months – there would be no return. He would be truly gone.
You helped him down the stairs in the morning, a hard, burning lump in your throat, remembering your years together, the scattered visits, the hard glances that turned to gazes of affection. You pulled him into an embrace, your chest heaving with sobs you were trying to prevent and he clung to you. When at last you both knew that he had to go, that he had to be gone and away before the rest of the small town awoke, you picked up his hat from the stand by the door and placed it on his freshly cut hair, kissing him one last time.
His voice shook as he spoke and his eyes glittered with unshed tears.
“Thanks for the haircut,” he said, and then he murmured your name softly and was gone.
-----
Arthur was gone and the world went on. Clients came and went. Needing a change of scenery, you saved your money and moved your shop to a small storefront in Blackwater. You cut hair, dutifully providing all the services you always had. You oiled your chair every night and sharpened your scissors weekly. You swept and cleaned and existed as you always had, the quiet barber who had never married.
Years had passed since the last time you made love to the outlaw Arthur Morgan. The light had gone from your life, but still you went on.
The merry bell you had installed on the shop door jingled and you looked up from where you were polishing your mirror.
A man stepped into the shop wearing a familiar leather gambler’s hat and for an instant the world was whole again. But then he tilted his face up and you got a good look at him. Wide face, with scars sliced across his right cheek and upper lip. Scraggly black-brown hair.
“Afternoon, mister,” he greeted you, and you had to clear your throat before you could speak.
“What can I do for you?”
“Heard a rumor you give a damn good haircut.” You nodded.
“That’s true. Have a seat. You can put your…your hat on the stand there,” you forced out. “What would you like, mister?”
“Just a trim please.” He was silent as you worked, seeming caught up in his own thoughts, which was fine because you were too. When you finished, you whisked away the cloth from over his clothes and he stood, turning to you and shaking your hand. “Arthur was right,” he said kindly. “You do give a damn good haircut.” You felt your heart stop.
“So you did know Arthur,” you breathed. “He talked about me?” The man’s soft gray eyes met yours.
“Yes, sir. If…if thing’s had been different…well, it don’t matter.”
“It does,” you whispered. He nodded, swallowed.
“Before he got sick…he was planning on leaving the gang. Kept talking about some place way out in West Elizabeth he used to go to for a haircut. Talked about going back, buying the place. Running a business with a fella named…” Your name spilled from the man’s lips. Your breath caught in your throat and your knees felt weak. He had wanted you. Arthur had wanted to stay but his circumstances couldn’t allow it. “That’s why I stopped by when I saw your name in the window. Here. He…he kept two journals. One with all his gang business, but the other…” He handed you a small, leather-bound book from an old satchel that you also recognized and you took it, your hands trembling.
Inside were dozens of sketches of you, snippets of thought about you, paragraph upon paragraph of emotions that he felt, frustrations he had, things that he longed to do with you. There were drawings of your old shop, drawings of the one you had owned in New Hanover. There was a full-page sketch of him sitting in your barber chair, smiling, you with some of his hair in one hand and scissors in the other.
You realized belatedly that there were tears streaming down your cheeks. You looked up at the man who had brought you this gift.
“Thank you, mister.” He nodded, clenching and unclenching his jaw as though he, too, was holding back strong emotion. Grabbing the old familiar hat, he plopped it on his head and tipped the brim to you.
“Thanks for the haircut, friend.”
And he was gone.