The Silent Lake
The cabin smelled like pine and woodsmoke. Outside, the lake was flat and black under a clear night sky. Inside, the only sounds were the occasional pop of the fire and the low creak of the old floorboards.
I stood by the hearth with a glass of scotch while Mikey adjusted the thermostat on the far wall. He was in an old flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the same way he used to dress when we came up here as teenagers. He looked more like himself out here than he did anywhere else.
“You know the floor’s hardwood, right?” I said.
Mikey glanced back at me. “Yeah. And?”
“My back isn’t twenty anymore.”
He smiled, small and knowing. “You want a pillow or something?”
“I’m just saying—”
He crossed the room before I could finish and grabbed the front of my shirt. We went down onto the thick wool rug in front of the fire, not hard, but not gentle either. The impact knocked a little air out of me. For a few seconds we just wrestled without much technique — hooking arms, trying to get position, both of us breathing harder than we needed to. It felt slower than it used to, more deliberate. We were both protecting our knees and backs without saying it out loud.
Mikey found the opening first. He pinned my shoulder with his weight, swung his leg over, and locked his ankles behind my head. The headscissors came on steady and familiar. He didn’t rush it. He just settled his hips and let the pressure build until my neck was cradled between his thighs and my face was pressed against the inside of his leg.
The fire crackled beside us. Outside, the wind moved through the trees.
I stopped trying to move. My breathing slowed down. The low-grade tension I’d been carrying in my chest for weeks — the same one that had sent me to the gym at midnight three weeks earlier — began to loosen. It didn’t vanish the way it sometimes did when Mikey went hard on me. This was quieter. Deeper. Like my body was finally remembering how to be still.
Mikey didn’t talk at first. He just held the lock, one hand resting on the rug near my head, the other loosely on my chest. Every so often he’d make a small adjustment with his hips, tightening the pressure for a few seconds, then easing it again. I could feel the warmth of the fire on one side of my face and the steady heat of his leg on the other.
After a while he shifted slightly, settling deeper.
“Olympics opening’s tonight.”
I made a small sound against his thigh.
He eased the pressure just enough for me to speak.
“Yeah?”
“Probably watch it.”
He tightened again, slow and steady. The fire popped. Outside, a branch scraped against the roof. When the pressure softened once more, he added, almost to himself, “Canada might surprise people.”
“Hope so,” I said.
He didn’t say anything else. He just kept the hold, letting the pressure come and go in quiet waves. My thoughts stopped chasing each other. My breathing matched the slow rhythm of his.
After a long time, he spoke again, his voice low.
“Better?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t let go right away. He kept me there another minute, long enough that the last of the tightness in my chest finally loosened. When he uncrossed his ankles, he did it slowly. The release of pressure felt almost as significant as the hold itself.
I stayed on the rug, staring up at the exposed beams of the ceiling. My neck was warm. My head felt clear in a way it rarely did anymore.
Mikey rolled onto his back beside me. For a while neither of us said anything. The last log settled in the grate.
“You were wound pretty tight when we got here,” he said eventually.
“I know.”
“You still are, a little.”
I nodded. I didn’t try to deny it.
Mikey was quiet for another moment. Then he said, “We don’t have to go hard every time. Sometimes this is enough.”
I turned my head to look at him. The firelight caught the side of his face.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sometimes this is enough.”
We lay there until the scotch glass was empty and the fire had burned down to glowing embers. Neither of us moved to get up. Outside, the lake stayed dark and silent. Inside, for the first time in a long time, so did I.
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