Fiction: Princes

By Oliver Land

One of my high-school boyfriends lived on a smallholding where his parents grew vegetables and kept geese. His parents had had him late and kept to themselves. My presence was only tolerated; they would begrudgingly make me cheese on toast. The house was surrounded by fields. You could walk for hours and see nothing. The world felt massive around you. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the occasional caw of a crow. 

 

The boy loved them. He sketched obsessively, filling entire notepads with their forms: black eyes, rounded heads, wings outstretched, feathers in motion. Eventually the drawings were splattered with paint, as if trying to leave the page.

 

One day we went into the fields to have sex. I slipped a condom into my pocket, and we said goodbye to his parents, who knew. We made our way through muddy paths and over locked gates. One field held a murder of crows. For the first time, the boy showed emotion, rushing as they scattered. “My crows!” he laughed. I nodded, smiling.

 

We reached the field he had chosen. A dense patch of trees stood in the middle. He rushed toward it. “We’re here!” he said. Inside the tiny forest was a rotting car. I didn’t allow myself to think how it had ended up in the fields. He rushed to the largest tree and began undoing his jeans. “Here,” he said. I undid my own and felt the blood rush. 

 

He stood, jeans and briefs at his ankles. He lowered himself, glanced around, and smiled. Once I reached him, I rolled on the condom, staring at him as he giggled, hands to his mouth, watching it slide down me. “Put it in! Put it in!” he cackled. I spat on myself. I turned to the abandoned car and imagined who had travelled in it: families on trips, lovers on first dates, grandparents on hospital runs.

 

I wrapped my arms around him and arched my back. I bit his neck and he screamed. His voice echoed across the field, and I finished. I stayed silent and briefly listened to his heart beating, resting my head on his back. I pulled out and shuffled away, jeans at my ankles, to remove the condom. I tied it off and tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans.

 

When we got back, the geese rushed me. I ran as they honked and snapped, wings spread while waddling after me. The boy was in hysterics, watching me dodge their pecks. His mother watched from the window.

 

 

 

 

 

Oliver Land has had poetry and prose published by Hobart, Expat Press, Spectra Poets and Be About It Press. He is working on a poetry collection, a flash fiction collection and a novel. Find him on X @ToxicBrodude and Instagram @xoliverlandx.