Into the Woods
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
John walked around the rented truck, tugging at all the ties on the gear in the bed, making sure everything was secure. He was excited with just an edge of nervousness. He hadn't been camping since his last trip with his dad the year before his death.
The summer months had ended and early autumn was kicking up wind in the bay. John was missing the crisp rustling of leaves and the smell of a campfire. He'd said so to Dorian, who always knew how to pull the syrupy nostalgia out of his human husband. And one night, in the glow of the lightscreen fire, John explained his father's love for the woods and camping and the sweet, wet, earthy scent of the forest.
"Let's go," Dorian had practically insisted, his hand brushing past John's forehead and through his thick, soft hair.
John shook his head no and stretched his arms out, splaying his fingers and popping his neck. Movement was always John's tactic when he was talking about something uncomfortable. He retreated into stretches and jaunts. "We both run on batteries," he reminded the android miserably.
The next day, Dorian picked up a hearty, state-of-the-art, solar generator from Rudy, promising to bring it back in perfect condition, and presented it to John. Enough energy to juice John's leg and Dorian as much as needed.
John examined the device, a crooked smile worming its way onto his lips. "How much does one of these cost?" he asked.
Dorian set it protectively in his lap, "More than we have."
"We'll be careful with it, then," John laughed, a musical, real laugh. The idea of camping for the first time in ten years lightening his wrought shoulders.
And now they were going and John couldn't wait to put some miles between himself and the city.
While John checked the cargo, Dorian climbed up into the passenger seat of the truck. He had one of John's old, worn baseball caps on his head and a comfortable smile on his face.
John checked the locks on the apartment once more and jogged to the car, "Let's blow this popsicle stand!" He laughed, pulling himself up into the shiny pickup.
"What does that mean?" Dorian asked curiously, as John backed them up into the sparse, early morning traffic.
"I don't know," John said after a moment's pause, "My dad always said it when it was time to go."
Dorian pulled a thoughtful face, "Okay then, let's blow all the popsicle stands, then!"
John laughed and placed his sunglasses on his face, rolling down the window to let a breeze pass through the cabin of the truck. He merged onto the highway out of the city, snapped cruise control on with his thumb and leaned his shoulder back into the seat. One hand rested lazily on the wheel while the other sought Dorian's palm, their fingers mingling on the middle console.
The cityscape disappeared into memory and the agro districts thinned out into clumps of brush and rural housing and soon the stretch of highway was framed with trees, their leaves just starting to spread with colors. Gold and red and yellow intermixed with green.
"You know," Dorian said thoughtfully, his blue eyes brilliant in the shade of his hat brim, "This is the first time I've been this far out of the city."
The comment struck John deep for as they worked their way to the campgrounds, he felt as though he was approaching the memories locked closest to his heart. To imagine that Dorian only knew the sanctioned districts made him feel sick. He also felt the bristle of cottony, static excitement in the middle of his chest that he would get to share something so meaningful with Dorian. "Dee, you're going to love it," he promised, pitching recklessly in the big truck bench seat and planting a kiss on Dorian who leaned in to receive it, one eye trained on the road.
He put John's empty thermos of coffee on the floor and lifted the middle console, sliding along the bench to nestle up next to him as they drove. John slipped an arm behind his shoulder and sighed happily as Dorian's hair brushed his cheek when the warm android pulled his hat off and bent his ear down to rest on John's shoulder.
They stopped for lunch, John pulling a burger through the window and letting Dorian drive while he ate in the passenger seat. Dorian couldn't stop smiling. John thought it was because he got to drive the truck. However, as Dorian reached over and smudged a bit of mustard from John's chin with a sighing side-grin, he was happy because he hadn't seen John so animated and joyful in, well, ever.
Anxious to drive again, John insisted on a rest stop and switched back to his place behind the wheel. It was early afternoon when they pulled into the camp grounds, rolling the truck into a clearing with a fire pit. The few other people there were in surging, heated trailers with popouts and sliders, satellite dishes and ovens. John turned his nose up to the super RVs and started loosing the straps on the truck bed and ripped the tarp off the top. Everything was brand new. He dragged the tent out and the tools. '
They worked diligently to set up camp. Rolling their sleeping bags along the bottom of the tent and setting lanterns up. Then they locked the truck and walked to buy firewood. John took deep, inhaling breaths, the smell of the woods triggering hundreds of childhood memories that prickled the sides of his eyes as Dorian caught hold his hand.
That night John and Dorian fed a hungry fire while John hugged himself into an oversized sweatshirt. Dorian couldn't remember ever seeing so many stars in the sky. Back home, most of them were washed away in the city's polluting lights. Here he could see a dusting of stars in a vein across the sky.
John cooked hot dogs over the fire while Dorian watched in awe. The man seemed to know just what he was doing and he stacked the fire for a nice long, slow burn, stabbing at it strategically with a stick and loosing sparks up into the thin air. After John ate his dinner, they huddled in the dark air and watched the fire die down to red-orange embers. Dorian has his arm wound 'round John's waist as the man talked about his past camping trips with his dad and occasionally his mom. He talked about winter trips on the lake and summer days of sunburn and adventure. Getting lost in the endless woods and breaking his arm climbing up on dead-limbed trees. His dad taught him about fires and fishing and everything else. They curled in on each other as the fire smoked out a slow death.
John rolled his shoulders back and stretched, his arms snaking up around Dorian's neck to kiss his soft lips. "I should shut up about my childhood so we can go to bed."
"I could listen to your stories forever," Dorian said, and meant it. He liked to imagine John as a child, an innocent, wide-eyed soul. An athletic, energetic young man with messy hair, unmarred by circumstance and time.
They moved to the tent, John groaning in satisfaction as he stretched onto the puffy sleeping bag. As a kid, he would have scoffed at the foam mattress beneath them. But now he was grateful as he shimmied out of his clothes while flopped on his back.
Dorian stripped too, preferring to stand hunched and slip out of his things. "So this is camping?" he smiled down at John's wiggling hips, "So far, I'm a big fan."
He got down and lay beside John, smoothing his fingers over the goose-pimpled flesh on John's body in the cool night air. The tent could have been warmer.
"We're going to have to snuggle close," John said, pulling at a blanket.
Dorian grinned and opened his arms and John rolled close, laughing in the canvas dome. The night air flowing through the open flap and the sounds of the still dying fire mingling with the far-off rumble of the RVs which were far away, but still audible in the crisp air.
"Listen to those engines roar," John said, kissing Dorian's chin and jaw, neck and shoulder.
Dorian's hand found John's member and held it in his palm, squeezing gently and working him to full arousal. The tent was unzipped from the entrance and the moon shone through the tree tops, casting a pale light on their angular bodies. Dorian turned his torso and lay on his belly, trapping his erection against the silky sleeping bag.
John straddled him, running his hands over the globes of Dorian's ass and leaning down to kiss the middle of his back. Inhaling the familiar scent of his skin. Dorian was self-lubricating and John worked his way in slowly. "I've always wanted to," John panted, "have sex in a tent in these woods." He breathed in the scent of their lovemaking as it mingled with the smoke of the fire and the oaky smell of the trees.
When they were done, the sweat on John's skin was making him shiver and Dorian got up and zipped the tent closed. He plugged into the charger and then unrolled a cord for John's leg, too.
John let Dorian gently detach his leg and press kisses into his thigh. He unfolded a blanket as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. "I never thought," he sighed, hesitated, and changed his thoughts, "—thank you for coming here with me, Dee."
Dorian could see John just fine in the dark and he saw the secret sheen in his eyes and the deep smile on his lips as he struggled with how good he felt. John had been a different man tonight, capable and free, happy and confident. He thought these woods were lost to him, restricted by his leg's charging limits.
Dorian lay beside him and pulled him close, swaddling them both in the blankets. A gentle thrum from the solar charger made his fingertips feel electric as they ran through John's hair.
John sighed in full contentment and let his eyes slide closed. Dorian knew that they were never going to return the solar charger to Rudy. It was going to be lost. John's happiness had no price tag.
Every stretched weekend in their future would be spent nestled between the trees, wading in the muddy lake, getting lost in these woods and each other.