dontravis.com blog post #565
After
being drugged, hijacked, and abandoned on Western New Mexico’s high desert
country, Vince starts walking toward nowhere, hoping he’ll blunder into
civilization. He doesn’t. Let’s see what happens when he awakens after a cold
night.
SPLENDID
DESOLATION
I woke at first light wrapped in warm
blankets and shaded by an awning of scrap canvas stretched between two boulders.
Something soft and wet was pressed against my cracked lips. I sucked on it like
a blind baby finding a tit.
“Not too much,” a voice cautioned. Focusing
my eyes, I discovered a young man sitting cross-legged beside me holding a
dripping cloth to my lips. Davy! He’d come back for me. “Take it slow,” the
youngster cautioned.
Despite the words, I sucked the rag dry of
the sweetest nectar known to man… water. I tried to sit up, but discovered I
was too weak to even lift my head. “Where am I?” My voice sounded like a
bullfrog with a whiskey problem.
The young man smiled, revealing teeth
brighter than Sweetie’s. I realized he was not Davy; this youth had a little
bulk to his frame, although he was as spectacularly handsome at that miserable
little shit. Dark curls fell across a broad forehead as yet unmarked by life. Turquoise
eyes, somewhere between blue and green, smiled along with a broad, sensual
mouth.
“You’re safe. You just need to rest and
gain some strength, and then we’ll get you to shelter.”
“How’d you find me?”
“That’s what I do,” the youth responded in
a light baritone. “I find people in trouble out here. You’d be surprised how
many there are.”
“Not if they’re as stupid as I am,” I grumbled,
accepting more water from a canteen.
“Folks get insulated from the desert by
air-conditioned cars and forget how dangerous it is.”
“Can you show me the way me back to
civilization?”
“Sure. As soon as you get your strength
back. Right now, I want you to eat some trail mix. We’ll try bacon and eggs
later.”
Trail mix had always tasted like confetti,
but the stuff this kid fed me was ambrosia. After that feast, I dropped back
into a restless sleep. It wasn’t until afternoon that I felt strong enough to put
a good, solid meal under my belt. Then I took notice of our surroundings. We were
camped on a steep hill crowned by two large boulders. There was nothing but
nothing for miles in every direction. I wondered how the dark-haired youngster
managed to carry my dead weight up the slope of the hill.
Seeing I was awake, the boy abandoned
chopping scraggly bits of wood with a hatchet to check on me. “Feeling better
now?”
“Yeah. Think I’ll make it. When can we
leave?”
“Not till tomorrow. You oughta be in better
shape by then.”
“Why not now? Hell, we ought to make it by
sundown.”
The boy looked at me with dawning
comprehension. “I’m sorry, man. I don’t have a vehicle. You’ve gotta walk out.”
My heart sank. My dismay must have shown. The
kid laid a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. You’ll be better provisioned this
time, and you’ll know where you’re going. By the way, my name’s Skye. Skye
Hardesty.” The youth offered a strong hand that reminded me how weak I was. “I
know you’re Vince because I looked in your billfold when I wasn’t sure what the
situation was. Hope you don’t mind.”
I shook my head. “Sky? Like that up
there,” I asked, pointing upward.
“Skye with an ‘e’. My brother got a normal
name, Karl, but they tagged me Skye. Go figure.” The kid was not only good-looking;
he was also likable. “By the way, your wallet’s empty. Just has a driver’s
license and a couple of pictures.”
I swore aloud. “That thieving son of a
bitch! I had five hundred and some credit cards. I’m gonna wring his scrawny neck!”
That elicited a slew of questions, all of which I answered, laying out my story…minus
the romp in the truck bed. Skye agreed there were some pretty bad people in
this world.
It grew uncomfortable even under the
protective awning in the hottest part of the afternoon, but my rescuer had
chosen well. Our hillock caught whatever faint breeze the thermal heat stirred
across the desert. Skye suddenly reappeared from wherever he’d been and hovered
over me. The kid hadn’t even broken a sweat. Used to it, I guessed.
“I wanta clean you up some. We don’t have
a lot of water, but I’ve got enough to sponge you off. It’ll keep you a little
cooler, too. Okay?”
I licked lips that felt almost normal and
nodded. “Sure. But I can do it.”
“If you’ll put up with me getting kinda
personal, I’ll do it. I won’t waste as much water.”
So I sprawled atop my blanket wondering if
I could control myself as the boy carefully removed my clothing. Couldn’t
afford to scare the kid off…he was my ticket out of this jam. I watched as the
young man wet a rag, rubbed it against a small scrap of soap, and set about
washing me from head to foot with water from his seemingly bottomless canteen.
When he was finished, Skye sat cross-legged
and looked me over carefully. Searching for spots he missed, I guessed. Any
though of covering myself quickly died as the evaporating moisture cooled my
sunburned flesh.
“You sure are a handsome man,” Skye
ventured shyly after a moment.
“Never thought of myself like that.”
“Not pretty, but handsome.”
I laughed aloud. “But you are…pretty, I
mean.”
The boy glanced away. He couldn’t have
been more than eighteen…twenty, max, but he carried a maturity about him. It
was probably his serious demeanor.
After a moment’s silence, he spoke again. “I’ve
heard about that place. That Eagle Bar you mentioned.” Skye turned those
sometimes blue, sometimes green eyes on me. “I hear it’s one of those bear
places.”
I smiled. “Yep, a bona fide cave full of
bears, most of them big and hairy.”
“Like you.”
“Like me,” I confirmed. But his close
examination cut off my dissertation on the bear subculture of the United
States.
Skye faltered. “They’re…they’re homosexuals,
aren’t they?”
“Lots of us,” I said deliberately.
“The sex thing…that it’s pretty important,
isn’t it? Sometimes sex gives people a clue to the kind of person they are.”
“Who are you, Sigmund Freud?” I laughed,
intrigued by the trace of bitterness in his voice.
“No, just a guy with problems of his own.”
“What kind of problems do you have? You’re
just a kid.”
“Sometimes that’s when they show up, when
you’re a kid,” Skye answered. Then he turned those agate eyes on me again. “You’re
a handsome man,” he repeated. Skye put a timid hand to my chest. “Sorry,” he
said, jerking away quickly. “Just wanted to see what it felt like.”
That’s okay. I don’t mind. Like it, as a
matter of fact.”
Skye leaned over and gently laid his head
on my chest. After a while, I realized he was working up his courage.
“It’s okay, kid.”
Instantly, he embraced me with a hunger I’d
rarely seen. The world sort of went crazy as we became wrapped up in one
another. When it was over, we sat side by side without touching.
“Feel better now?” he asked. “I figured you
needed it. I…I don’t do that with everybody.”
“Thanks, kid. You’re right. I needed it. And
it was great. How about you? You need any help?”
Skye slowly shook his head. “Not right
now.”
We fell silent as we looked out at the desert
below the hill.
I shivered. “Such desolation.”
He leaned his shoulder against mine. “Splendid
desolation.”
“If you say so.”
He looked at me and smiled. “I do. It is.”
I stretched out on the blanket and closed
my eyes to avoid noticing again how handsome the kid was. The next thing I knew,
I woke at sunset, still naked but covered by a blanket. Skye handed me a tin cup
of stew, which I devoured hungrily.
“It’ll get cold now,” Skye commented,
observing the unbelievable sunset to the west. “Beautiful, isn’t it. This is
the greatest place in the world.”
“Bleakest, you mean,” I groused, little
moved by nature’s garish spectacle.
“It’s the place I chose,” Skye mused. “I’ve
never been sorry.”
“To each his own.”
The boy gave me a wry grin. “Yeah. But
sometimes it takes a long time to learn that.”
“How’d you get to be so smart?”
“Lots of suffering.”
“Yeah, sure. You look like you suffered daily
for all of what? Twenty years?”
“Things aren’t always the way they seem,”
Skye turned enigmatic. “You’re stronger, I think. You’ll be on your way
tomorrow. I’ll miss you.”
“You’re not going with me?” I asked in
amazement.
“No, I still have things to do here.”
“Where the hell do you live?”
The boy motioned to the west with his
chin, a touch of sadness hiding in the reflected hues of the dying sunset. “Over
there, but there’s a gas station down on the highway that’s closer.” Skye pointed
over his shoulder. “My brother, Karl, runs it. He’ll take care of you when you
get there.”
“So come with me and see your brother. Is
there bad blood between you or something?”
“Not anymore.” Suddenly, the youth seemed
to cheer up. “But I’ll stay with you tonight. We’ll be together for a while longer.”
I shivered suddenly and considered whether
I should put on my clothes. The boy seemed to read my thoughts.
“I used some of the water to rinse out
your things. They aren’t clean, but they’re not filthy like they were. Afraid
they’re not quite dry. But I’ve got an extra blanket,” he said, going to the
mysterious pack propped against the rocks that seemed to hold everything but
the proverbial kitchen sink.
Skye built a comfortable fire from the
pieces of cactus and desert wood he’d cut earlier in the day. Then as the fire
warmed the immediate vicinity, we took to the blankets and shared another bout
of lovemaking. I lay quiet, permitting him to set the agenda. He was competent,
tender, but I sensed he was somewhat withdrawn, even as he led me through the
most tremendous, the most stunning, the most satisfying intimate experience I’d
ever had.
*****
Wow! The best sex Vince has ever had... from a twink. A mysterious twink. But at least it seems as if Skye can get him back to civilization and safety. Let's see how next week.
Stay
safe and stay strong.
Now my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on writing. You have something to say… so say it!
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See you next Thursday.
Don
New Posts every Thursday morning at 6:00 a.m. US Mountain time.
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