The Weight of Feathers

He who has nothing, loses nothing.

When Lace passed Cluck in the hallway the next morning, he nodded in greeting but didn’t make eye contact. The minute he walked into the kitchen that afternoon, Lace left, Eugenie in midsentence. They did that until call time, him not looking at her, her leaving any space he entered, and she took it as a shared understanding that what happened last night would stay in the trees.

Then the sun turned from gold to copper, the slight change in light that came just before it went down. If how he kissed her was something that had to stay in those branches, she wanted to know if it also had to stay in the night before. Or, if tonight, once the show was done and the sky was dark, they’d do it again.

She made up an excuse to stop by the blue and white Shasta, something about costumes.

She forgot it as soon as she shut the trailer door behind her.

Cluck’s dress shirt had been flung onto the built-in bed, and he worked in his undershirt.

He saw her and set down a wire cutter.

The feeling of his mouth still glowed hot on hers from the night before.

He put his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. Odd, considering how much she knew he had to do and how little time they had before the show. Then his eyes flicked down, and she realized his hands might have been in his pockets because he wasn’t sure whether to put them on her.

She caught his eyes as he looked back up, and held them. He took one step toward her. He didn’t take another one, but it was enough to tell her he was in if she was.

She kissed him as hard as when they were in the cottonwood. He held her waist, felt her body through her clothes. She held him against the trailer wall, and he shoved the empty wire frame of a pair of wings out of the way. It rattled against an age-spotted mirror.

He slid a hand under her shirt and onto the small of her back, his palm half on her bare skin, half on the waistband of her skirt. A skirt she thought she would not wear as long as she was among the Corbeaus. His fingers pressed against her escamas. As long as he didn’t look, he wouldn’t see the birthmarks. The texture of her healing body would hide them.

It hurt, his hands on her burns. It stung like a hot shower, pins of water and steam stabbing in. She was ready for it. The sting reminded her she was a body knitting itself back together. It was why she liked his hands on her. His wrecked fingers knew how to handle something ruined.

He kissed her like her lips were not chapped and scarring. Ran his tongue over the curve of her lower lip like it was soft. Like the rose and lemon oil she spread on her mouth at night made a difference. Maybe he did not feel it because his were just as rough. He and Lace were sewn of similar fabric, the raw edges of their families’ cloth.

Her mouth left a smudge of lipstick on his. She rubbed it away. He closed his eyes and held her hand there, kissed her thumb and took it lightly between his teeth, holding onto it. It trembled the veins that held her heart, that feeling of his teeth on her thumb pad and fingernail.

The feather on her forearm flared with heat.

She kissed him so hard he kept his breath still on his tongue. He left the taste of black salt on her mouth. The woody flavor of charcoal. The sugar and acid of citrus peel. The soft metal of iron.

A knock rattled the trailer latch.

“Cluck?” said Eugenie.

Lace ducked down behind a counter.

“What are you doing?” Cluck asked.

“She’s gonna wonder why I’m in here.”

“She’s gonna wonder why you’re on the floor. Just say you’re helping me fix something.” He opened the door.

Lace stayed down.

Eugenie handed him a few rolls of satin ribbon. “Closest match I could get.”

Cluck held the tail of one against another spool of ribbon. “Good enough.”

Eugenie’s eyes wandered over to the counter, her feet following. She stood over Lace, hands on her hips. She already had on a dusk-blue dress, but Lace hadn’t done her face yet.