I made my own preparations. “Cocktails, anyone?” I pulled the carefully-wrapped bottle of Bushmills out of my pack.
Luke raised his eyebrows. “So that’s what was sloshing around. I thought you’d brought an awful lot of mouthwash for the weekend.”
* * * * *
We dined
al fresco
on barbecued brats wrapped in toasted French rolls, washed down by beer and a whisky chaser. I’m not big on picnics or barbecues, but even I had no complaints that night, not once I’d had a chance to catch my breath.
“What’s for dessert?” I asked, kidding.
Luke wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. I laughed and raised the bottle, offering it to him.
He took it, drank, handed it back. He was still smiling at me. Nodding to our sleeping bags lying a friendly distance from each other, he said, “It’s going to be cold tonight. Should I zip our bags together?”
It took me a second to get it. I felt my face warm, but I tried to sound indifferent. “Oh. I guess so. Yeah.”
He zipped the bags, turning them into one giant bag, and before long we were stretched out on our sides, not touching, but within arm’s reach. “Where do you come up with the ideas for the stuff you write?”
“Things I see. Things I hear.” I shrugged. “Stuff strikes me funny, and I write about it.”
“I laugh my ass off reading that column you do for the Blade. It’s such a kick the way your mind works.”
I was insanely flattered, although I tried to hide it. I watched him under my lashes to see if he was serious.
“And you’ve written books?”
“Two.” I lifted a negligent shoulder. “Travel books, that’s all.”
“That’s all? That’s amazing.” His smile was genuinely admiring. “Travel books about where?”
“Italy. France.” I stopped myself from shrugging again. It wasn’t like I was being unduly modest, I just did’t think it was a big deal. I hadn’t written the Great American Novel or anything. Not yet. Probably not ever, if I wanted to be realistic — which I rarely did.
It didn’t matter. The alcohol was singing in my bloodstream, and I was the life of the party. And it was a lovely party: firelight and starlight and the wine-crisp night air, the smell of pines and woodsmoke and lube and latex.
We were lying next to each other on our doublewide sleeping bag, feet brushing, knees brushing, arms brushing. Gradually we shed our clothes as we passed the bottle back and forth. More back than forth, but then I was more nervous than Luke. He was smiling and relaxed, reaching over to brush the hair out of my eyes as I talked.
I totally forgot what I was saying. Luke prompted me by asking about the trip to France, and I answered that it would have been better with someone with me — and maybe he should come next time.
“Oh, yeah? Where are you going next time?”
“Ireland.” I said at random, guessing that with a name like O’Brien, he might like to go to Ireland.
He was amused. His eyes sparkled. “When are you going?” He licked his thumb and reached out to circle my left nipple. I caught my breath, tried to catch his hand and press it to my chest. “I might like to come.”
“You can come,” I promised, leaning over him.
I ran my hands over the broad expanse of his chest, the wide shoulders…communing. I could feel the warm flush beneath my fingertips, the damp of perspiration. I loved the language of his bare skin, the delicate punctuation of freckles and a tiny velvety mole on his rib cage.
I liked the contrast of bristly face and hard jaw with the softness of lips and flickery eyelashes. I scooted closer still, savoring the solid rub of our erections.
“Are you an innie or an outie?” he inquired huskily, his hand resting on the small of my back, pressing me closer.
I glanced down at my flat belly, and then chuckled, meeting his eyes. I’d never heard it called that. “I want you to fuck me,” I told him. “I
need
you to fuck me.”
“Happy to oblige.”
He was in great shape, and I liked that too, Rock hard pecs, the balls of muscles in his arms; what would it be like to be in that kind of shape? There was a lot of strength, a lot of power there. Big hard hands rested on my hips as he helped me ease onto that straight rigid cock.
I cried out and I could see he liked it. He liked it vocal. Oh, he was truly Irish with his love of the blarney.
“Oh, fuck, you feel so good. You’re so big,” I told him, throatily.
“You
beauty
,” he whispered.
That’s not something you hear everyday. I chuckled again. Settled more fully on him, adjusting to his size and length. It had been a good long while since I’d had a real live partner and not a silicone rubber substitute.
He raised his head and kissed my breastbone, and I bent forward latching onto his mouth.
All this and kisses too? I kissed him until I thought I’d pass out from lack of oxygen, and his mouth parted reluctantly from mine. I liked his reluctance. The wet smack of his lips letting me go. I liked the taste of alcohol in his mouth.
“God, that’s sweet,” he muttered.
I rocked back and forth…gently…rising up and scrape-sliding down. The smooth swooping glide of a merry-go-round, that’s what it reminded me of, and the merry-go-round pole driving up my hot little hole. We were just playing, but I started to feel that urgent aching need.
I planted my hand in the cushion of solid pecs and I worked my hips more frantically. Luke matched my rhythm easily, bucking up against my ass, thrusting deeply. His grunts excited me even more. I arched my back, went wild, begged him to fuck me hard, harder,
harder.
I needed so much. There was such a big gaping emptiness in me. I needed him to fill it with heat and hungry demands; I wanted his need to overwhelm my own. I almost sobbed as he reached up and took my solid erection into his fist. He pumped me. Sweat broke out across my back. I was on fire.
I looked up and the sky was spinning, the stars rolling across the night, trying to drop into the little pockets. A dizzy swirl of stars and tree tops and the sliding moon, faster and faster and faster….
Luke shouted and I felt that funny squish inside the condom, the rush of hot release. My hole pulsed in response to his orgasm, like a pink mouth trying to find the words. There were no words for this. I reached for the low-hanging stars and yelled right out loud as my own release shivered through me.
Like the cork popping on champagne, spumes of white shot out. Emptied, I slumped forward on Luke’s sweaty chest. Closed my eyes. His arms fastened around me. The sparse hair tickled my nose pleasantly. His heart was thumping from a million miles out…echoing across the universe…
“Christ Almighty,” he moaned. “Please tell me you’re just the same sober.”
The merry-go-round slowed…slowed…glided gradually to a stop. It was nice to lie there like that, skin on skin, listening to the faraway chirp of crickets and frogs.
His words finally registered. I laughed and lifted my head. “It’s moot. I’m never sober.”
His mouth was a kiss away. He said wryly, “You think you’re joking.”
That startled me. “I
am
joking.” I shook my hair out of my eyes. “Listen, I like to drink, but I do
not
have a problem with alcohol.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, in the tone of someone who doesn’t want to get into an argument.
It was like he dumped a bucket of ice water over me. I felt bewildered. Hurt. I pulled out of his arms and sat up. “Maybe you should work on your after-play technique.”
“Sorry.” He tugged me back down. “That really
was
amazing.”
I didn’t have an answer for him. He’d spoiled it for me. I lay there, head on his chest, more hurt than angry — but a bit of both. He stroked my hair. His touch was light, almost tender. I couldn’t think of the last time someone was tender with me.
“Tim,” he said quietly. That was all. I raised my head and he kissed me, his mouth warm and surprisingly sweet.
And we did it all again, only slowly, lingeringly.
* * * * *
The house loomed before me. Ten stories tall. The windows flashed red in the setting sun. The hinges of the broken front door shrieked as the door swung open…
I jerked awake. It was freezing. My head throbbed. My mouth tasted horrible. I needed a piss.
“Bad dream?” Luke asked softly.
Confused, I realized that we were somehow in the same sleeping bag, and I was lying plastered on top of him, my sweaty head resting in the curve of his shoulder. He was dressed again; we both were, although I didn’t remember pulling my clothes back on, didn’t remember zipping ourselves into the bag.
“I…No. I…don’t remember.” I answered in a whisper, responding to his own hushed tone, even as I wondered why we were whispering.
Somewhere to the left, a twig snapped. I shivered.
He pulled the sleeping bag — wet with dew — over my shoulders, and slipped one arm around me again. It felt very good to be held. Even like this, in jeans and flannel shirts, I could feel and was comforted by the heat of his body. His hand slipped under my shirt, absently smoothing up and down my spine.
Despite the soothing touch, I heard the steady, swift thump of his heart beneath my ear.
His other arm, I slowly realized, rested on top of the sleeping bag — and he was holding a gun.
“Is something wrong?”
“Not sure. I think someone might be out there.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, starting to pull away. He held me still. His put his mouth against my forehead. “Shhh. Don’t let on.”
I made myself lie still. Stared at what I could see of his profile in the dark. “What do we do?”
“Wait.”
Wait?
For someone to pick us off as we lay by the cooling embers of our campfire? And I thought I had to pee
before?
My own heart was ricocheting around my ribcage. I felt for the zip of the sleeping bag, gently pulled it down. Luke nodded infinitesimal approval, continued to stroke my back in that automatic way, his eyes watching the line of trees surrounding the clearing.
We lay there not moving for what felt like an hour. Then I heard an owl call: not the drowsy nocturnal hoot, but the screech they make when they hunt.
A dank, damp breeze scented with the tangled undergrowth washed over my perspiring face. And all at once the night was alive with sound. From silence to deafening racket; I could practically hear ants marching up and down the grass blades, the dew drops crashing from the leaves overhead. Even the stars overhead seemed to crackle brightly in the black and bottomless sky. Too bright for my eyes…
* * * * *
I woke up sick and shaky, head pounding, my ass feeling thoroughly kicked.
“Morning, sunshine,” Luke remarked in answer to my groan. He squatted next to the smoky campfire and held up a sauce pan. “Coffee?”
I muttered assent, crawled carefully out of the bag. Everything was wet, as though it had rained during the night. The smell of frying bacon made me want to puke. I staggered into the bushes and relieved myself.
As I wove my weary way back into camp the empty Bushmills bottle caught my eye. It lay near the ring of campfire stones, a tablespoon of amber glistening in its belly. Why the hell had we finished the entire bottle? Now there was nothing left for today.