A Forest of Corpses (13 page)

Crickets serenaded each other, tree frogs sang. Something buzzed in the canopy overhead. Every so often something small and hard would smack into the trees or fire and burst into flame. I tried to see what the kamikaze creatures were but couldn't. Finally Jason said, "June bugs. Don't let them land on you. They bite."

"Oh, do they. Another dangerous critter. This place is more hazardous than the streets."

Jason smiled. Under my fingertips he was humming again.

I was rock hard and painfully constricted in my jeans. But nothing on earth would have made me move at that moment.

The torture was exquisite.

119

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

He knew I was hard. He couldn't help but know it. I must have felt like a furnace against his skin. His head moved from side to side, managing to caress me with gentle pressure.

Soon, the dampness from my precum would seep through, and he would know how far gone I was.

Seconds before I had taken as much as I could and was going to drag him to his feet, he turned over onto his knees, pressing his mouth against the wet spot over my denim covered cock. His hands came up to knead my thighs. I was intensely aware of his delicate touch as he slid the button of my fly open and eased the zipper down over my swollen cock.

Then his wet, hot tongue was on my slit, lapping up precum, circling the glistening head. His lips closed over my prick. I moaned and opened my legs wider, silently urging him on. He obeyed and swallowed me to the root, his agile tongue slipping wetly up and down my veined cock, then swallowing me again. When he tugged on my jeans, I rose off the stump and he pulled them down, moving away from me long enough for him to jerk them over my hips. He pushed stiff fingers up under my balls, playing with the perineum, exploring me. I raised my hips off the tree trunk inviting him to investigate deeper. He did with enthusiasm. But without taking my boots and jeans off he couldn't go further, and I didn't want his mouth off me. He continued pumping along the length of my erection. His tongue stroked the sensitive underside of my dick and tasted my precum. I moaned and thrust into the heat of his mouth. This time when he started humming deep in his throat, I lost it. My fingers dug into his scalp, rocking him mindlessly up and down on my cock again and again until 120

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

I came, pouring cum down his throat which convulsed as he drank me in.

I shuddered when he pulled off me, resting his head on my leg. I stroked his short hair, loving the crisp texture.

The owl was back. I lurched to my feet, tucked myself back in and zipped up. Reaching down, I pulled Jason up with me. I wrapped him in my embrace, nuzzling his throat, sliding my tongue into his mouth, tasting myself. "Let's put things away," I said. "Call it a night."

He went over to tend to the fire, I packed up all the gear, putting the food in the lightweight bear safe, making sure there were no traces of food anywhere that might attract the wrong kind of attention. Finally, everything was put away and we retreated to the tent. Again we found ourselves spooning through a night of deep sleep, waking in the same position we had fallen asleep in.

At dawn I tried to move on top of him, wanting to finish what we had started the night before, but every muscle in my body, except my swollen cock, was aflame. Before I could stop it, I groaned. Instantly Jason was leaning over me. He knew immediately what was wrong. He gently pushed me onto my stomach and held me down when I tried to sit up.

"Lie still." Not used to Jason ordering me to do anything, I froze. He took advantage of my confusion and, stripping my long johns off, massaged my calves, kneading and prodding my stiff muscles hard enough to cause agony, slowly working up until he was digging his fingers into my buttocks. My erection was long gone. He wasn't gentle; I ground my teeth but didn't beg him to stop.

121

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

Finally he sat back on his heels. "I'm going to make coffee and pull together some breakfast."

I flipped over onto my back and lay there enjoying the absence of pain. If Jason hadn't been so quick to leave I might have tried to finish what I had started, but he was gone, so reluctantly I climbed into my clothes and followed him outside. I drank two cups of atrocious coffee and chewed on dried fruit and breakfast bars while sitting on my tree stump. Jason bustled around the campsite putting everything away and packing up. He took both canteens down to the water spigot and was filling them when the squirrels first appeared. Two of them, tag-teaming each other through our encampment, one gray, one black. The gray had a massive plume of a tail, nearly white, the black one had a wispy thing, more rat tail than squirrel. Did that make him a squirrel loser? An animal nerd? Watching them, I finally understood the phrase greased lightning. Those things moved
fast
.

Up a tree, over intertwining branches, down the walls of our tent. I could hear the scritch-scritch of their tiny claws on the tent canvas. The gray launched himself into the air, bouncing off the top of the tent, sailing over the black squirrel's head and landed smack in the middle of my lap.

Needle sharp claws scrabbled for purchase on my jeans, digging into my still tender balls. I tumbled backward, startled at the assault. Before I could sit up the animal was gone, flying off me, landing on the tree trunk above my head.

I stared up at it. I swear those beady little eyes glared back at me. Pissed that I was occupying his space, interrupting his rumble? His tail flicked over his back, froze, then flicked 122

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

again. And again. The black scampered away. The gray chittered at me.

"Bring it on," I said. I cupped my balls and readjusted them, trying to ease the bruising pain the squirrel assault had caused. "You going to chase me around next?"

The squirrel chirred little squirrely curses.

"You know in any other place I'd have my gun with me," I said. Gray stopped chittering, cocked his head at me then started up again. Not impressed. "It's a Beretta 9 mil and while some pundits will tell you the Glock is a finer weapon, I do very well with my Beretta. I'm a trophy-holding marksman. If it was with me I'd have your little squirrel brains plastered all over that tree trunk you're sitting on."

"You're threatening squirrels now?" Jason came up behind me and slid his arms around my waist. For a moment all three of us, two men and a squirrel, were motionless. Then the squirrel flipped his tail over his head one more time, gave me one last evil eye and vanished up the tree.

"The magic Spider touch," Jason said solemnly, then his face split into a huge grin. I couldn't help it, I smiled back, sore balls forgotten.

"Tell me, are there any more demented animals I should know about who could possibly be after my testicles? Manic-depressive mice? Am I going to be mobbed by a battalion of butterflies? A squadron of shrews? A murder of crows?"

"A quartet of quarrelsome quail," he added helpfully. "A round of rowdy robins... "

"A medley of mad mooses?"

123

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

"Mooses? I don't think you'll find any of them around here."

"Okay," I said. "No mooses, moose, meese, whatever.

But—"

Barking broke through our levity. This time it sounded a lot closer than before. It had a frantic edge to it. My cop senses went into alert. The dog hadn't seemed the hyper type when we'd first seen it in the car lot, assuming it was the same dog.

I stood up. "Let's finish up here and go."

This time it took us less than ten minutes to pack up and hoist our gear on to our shoulders.

We headed toward where the barking had come from. It didn't come again.

[Back to Table of Contents]

124

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

Bird songs followed us as we made our way upslope, the dog forgotten. The landscape changed, the trees became less deciduous and more coniferous; lodgepole, fir and towering ponderosa pines, interspersed with the occasional jack pine, and the even rarer aspen. My massage must have worked; Alex was striding along behind me, keeping up to me as spry as I'd ever seen him. In fact there was almost a spring to his step. I really hoped he was enjoying himself. It meant a lot to me that he grow to love the things I did. Not only so we could share, but so he'd understand the love I had for the simple things, like a vigorous hike through forest trails, perhaps seeing a bird I had never seen before. I wanted to be able to talk to him about these things and know he understood, even if he didn't share my birding quirks.

But even though I'd known Alex now for nearly eight months, he remained an enigma to me. Would there ever come a time I understood him? Or would that ruin it all? If I understood what made Alexander Spider tick would the mystique be gone? Would he become just an ordinary man? I looked up at him, at his broad shoulders and still narrow waist. I stared at the hollow of his back, where his spine merged into the top of his ass, a spot I loved to lick on my way to other treasures. Whenever I did he always made the softest gasp as though I had applied an electric charge to his skin. Ordinary man? There would never be anything ordinary about this man.

125

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

I caught up to him and when he looked over at me, I captured a quick kiss from startled lips.

"What was that for?"

"For being you."

"Oh, well, that's not much of an accomplishment. I can do that in my sleep."

Still, he seemed pleased, and the Alex I had first met would never have given even that much away. Detective Spider was a man who kept things close to his chest.

"How far do you plan to take us today?"

"At the rate we're going now, I think we can do twelve miles. I'm hoping to do better tomorrow. How are you feeling?'

He thought for a second. Another Spider trait, he never answered even a simple question quickly. Eventually he nodded. "Good. Better than I expected."

"I'm glad. You're tough, Sir."

"You mean I'm better adjusted."

"I had to get acclimated, too. I haven't done this sort of hike in..." I thought hard and was surprised at the answer.

"Years. Long before I met you."

"Why did it take you so long to come back?"

I shrugged, not liking it when the conversation turned to the life I had been falling into when I first met Alex.

"Circumstances," I said uneasily. "I like having companionship when I'm hiking. For safety reasons it's best not to be alone."

I saw the spark of his jealousy and hastened to add,

"Never with anyone special. Just...friends." Friends I had succeeded in driving away with my reckless behavior and the 126

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

growing frequency of my drug and sex binges. The kind of friends I had attracted then weren't the type to indulge in communing with nature except in the most basic, chemical and lust driven sense.

Ahead of us came the sharp snap of a tree branch. Scuffle of heavily booted feet and soft guttural voices. Alex tensed beside me seconds before the two hog riders we had encountered in the trailhead parking lot strode into view.

They stopped when they saw us.

I don't know if they made Alex as a cop, but their tension jacked up and hardened. It was Alex who broke the tableau.

He stepped forward, hands spread at his side. Assuring them he wasn't armed? Was that a good idea? Then again, making them more nervous by having them think either one of us was dangerous also wouldn't be good. I decided to trust Alex.

He knew these kind of people better than I did.

The taller of the two, a dark giant, who had thick hair swept back off his forehead, his cotton shirt open to reveal a thick mat of hair over a heavily tattooed chest, took a step ahead of the smaller man, standing partially in front of him.

The Latino crowded in behind him. The leather jacket he had been wearing the first time I saw him was folded up on his backpack. I was glad they hadn't shown up a minute ago. I can't imagine what their reaction would have been to us kissing.

Then I noticed something. The two were standing close, not quite touching, but closer than men usually stood together, way inside any kind of personal space. And I would have sworn the bigger guy had taken a protective stance over 127

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

the other one. The same time I was studying them, they watched us. A light seemed to dawn on all of us at the same time. Their tension relaxed. I offered the smaller man a genuine smile. One sub to another.

The Latino looked Alex up and down with active interest.

"Been here long?" he asked with studied casualness and only the barest touch of accent.

"Couple of days." Clearly, they hadn't noticed us in the car lot.

The dark giant stepped forward and held out his hand.

"Hawk. This is CJ."

We nodded. I relaxed a bit more; Alex didn't. Alex was all protective cop. "Alex and Jason," he said.

Hawk's gaze drilled into Alex. "You a cop?"

"Yeah."

"LAPD?"

"Nah, Santa Barbara. Homicide."

"Nice town," CJ said and all of us nodded. Suddenly he seemed uneasy. "Say, you being a cop, maybe you heard it, too."

"Heard what?"

"Last night? You hear anything?"

"No." Alex and I traded glances. "Hear what?"

It was obvious Hawk hadn't wanted to say anything but now he frowned and said, "I heard a gunshot. So did CJ.

You?"

Alex stiffened. "No," he said slowly. "We didn't hear anything, did we, Jason?"

128

A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

"Nothing." I think both of us had gone out like lights after the blowjob I had given Alex. I know I hadn't heard anything else until Alex's pain-filled groan this morning.

"When was this?" Alex went right back into cop mode.