Author's Website: https://www.squidge.org/~pumpkin/cara/caraindex.html

Disclaimer: Alliance owns them. All hail mighty Alliance, in deference to whom we make no profit!

Author's Notes: Thanks to Jac for a quick and incisive Fraser style-beta. :)

Story Notes:

There are places in Michigan that are almost far enough from civilization to momentarily forget that it exists. For Ray at any rate. It is a secret pleasure and a guilty amusement watching him go about 'roughing it' for the duration of a long weekend. I hesitate to use the term, of course, less than an hour's pleasant hike from where we parked the car and with temperatures barely dropping below 17 degrees C at night.

But Ray is content. Loudly and energetically so, as happy to complain over a single insect bite or a soot smudge on his jeans as to sit and watch a sunset in rose and gold. Loud in the still forest, the sound of his voice echoes, raised in communication to me. I wonder if he has heard the crows call and thinks it beautiful, as I do.

With his seemingly inexhaustible supply of pocket money, most of which I suspect he obtains from a mild indulgence in illegal wagering, he has sought out the best gear Eddie Bauer and LL Bean can provide. Not poor choices. Perhaps a bit elaborate, but I let him enjoy them. We have a three-man dome tent whereas a two-man pup tent would have sufficed. I rather regret the loss of closeness caused by the extra space it grants, but not the high-grade mosquito netting covering the arched windows.

He is rarely still. Zipping the tent, moving a camp chair, dusting himself a seat on a stone or log. Working up a sweat and soiling his shirt carrying stones for a fire ring. He has learned that there must be a fire ring, and a fire ring there shall be.

His happiness is mine, jealously and secretly shared. I gather wood, wandering to intersect his path deliberately though there is less dry wood to be had near the glacial stones of the dry riverbed he has found.

I wonder where it arises, from what hidden fount in his heart. It is nearly always there. It's brighter today, clearer, not muddied by the troubles of our jobs.

Words flow from him like water, threats and jibes and comments on his own observations. It puzzles me that he accuses me of constant talk when he is so often like a river in flood, rolling to the sea. I am quiet and present, the boulder that focuses the chatter of the torrent. He fails to notice, supporting my theory that it is often this way with us; he merely requires an occasional word or opinion to run up against, so that he can have the train of his thoughts broken into ripples and wander in new patterns, diverted and redirected.

I leave my armload of wood piled next to the tidy ring of stones. His shoulder brushes mine as he stands to stretch; he hardly notices the tiny flint-and-stone spark of contact, but I do. As always, it threatens to catch in the dry tinder of my soul. In his presence, I smother the flame. As always.

"Ya know the problem with nature? It's dirty, that's what the problem is. A guy can't touch anything in these woods without ruining his clothes. Except you. You never get dirty. Not in the serge, not in that ratty flannel. I don't see how you do it. It's enough to make a guy believe in conspiracy theory." His hands divide the air like birds in flight.

A conspiracy? Between myself and the dirt, perhaps, but for what purpose? I feel myself smile. Surely if there were a nefarious intent in soiling Ray's clothes, it could only be designed lead to one thing: the rare treat of viewing his body without them.

That quickly, the half-smothered spark flares, and I ignite, fanned to flame. I am used to it by now, and can perhaps control the burn even here, with nothing to distract me. Perhaps it would be wise for Ray to take shelter, lest he inadvertently provoke a firestorm.

"Well, Ray, there is the lake. A swim provides the natural equivalent of a hot shower." The Mountie Speaks from the Mountaintop of Infallible Wilderness Lore. I invest my words and tone with enough pomposity and enough mild taunt to rouse him to action.

"You mean a cold shower." He laughs. "At least it's cleaner than Lake Michigan, right?"

Nominally, yes, especially in this nature preserve, the cove near our campsite fed by a relatively pollutant-free stream. I nod, assuming he doesn't want to hear the details.

"You come too when you get finished gathering all the wood." Assigning me the task is a small implicit dereliction, his cordial revenge on me for inflicting the stuffier parts of my nature on him. Punishment for keeping him at arm's length. And yet, contained in his mild vengeance is the invitation to come off the mountaintop and join him.

Not yet.

He goes to bathe, and the woods part for him.

Diefenbaker laughs up at me, tongue lolling, and trots off at Ray's heels. Ingrate. Not that I employ the term because he has abandoned me to unpleasant work, but because he will return later with tales of Ray's long, lean, wet body in hopes of watching me squirm, secure in the knowledge that Ray cannot understand him. In spite of how conversant Dief has become with certain aspects of human culture, he doesn't understand why it is impossible for me to select and take Ray as my mate. His studies have found their focus in the arenas of comparative food-tasting and the evasion of Animal Control.

Ray passes from view, still audible to me via the crackle of sticks and twigs underfoot and the swish of branches against his body.

I glance into the woods in the opposite direction. There is a deadfall within a hundred yards that would provide plenty of firewood, and I have a camp hatchet. But I have no need of fuel; I am already alight and burning well, and in minutes I will be confident that Ray has truly gone. Perhaps then I may indulge myself.

Or...

A jay flutters to light in a nearby birch, its beady eye fixed on me as it scolds me for my unworthy thought. I return its stare. Projecting one's own ethical trauma onto a wild animal is not sensible. I remind myself that such animals frequently breed without regard for promiscuity, and that it would have no moral code via which to judge me other than its desire that I leave so that it may scavenge for crumbs from our lunch.

In that, at least, I can oblige it.

I rise silently and pursue Ray into the forest. It is, after all, unwise to swim alone. And while I know from experience that Diefenbaker is perfectly capable of rescuing a drowning man, I cannot resist the temptation to rationalize my moral failure.

A rock outcrop, partly-concealed by thick pine boughs, is the perfect vantage point for a would-be lifeguard, providing an adequate view of the lakeshore where Ray stands with Diefenbaker at his side. The beach is pebbled, a rockhound's wet dream-- agates in the rough, waiting to be tumbled and polished, carved into cabochons and dyed for beads. Ray probably isn't aware of the stones' value. They're just rocks to him, and he is all the dearer to me for it.

He is the better wet dream, light glowing on his shirt as he kneels to dip a finger into the water. I can hear his voice clearly, channeled up to me by the slope of the hill. "Pretty cold, isn't it, boy?" Dief woofs a rather impolite disagreement that is lost on him, and I smile.

He starts to unbutton his shirt.

My smile freezes and I dampen my lower lip, feeling cool air touch it. In this matter, I am no better than an animal myself. I reach to press my palm to my body, encouraging my penis to swell inside my jeans. It truly isn't far from my secret perch to the lakeside, and I have been blessed with especially acute vision.

Let it be enough.

The shirt comes off his shoulders; sunlight caresses his body. I imagine that I can already see his olive skin absorbing it, darkening. His chest hair tantalizes me in that it is so unlike my own smooth chest. He is lean, which is perhaps a charitable word but nonetheless a fitting one. There is too much muscle on him to label him thin or scrawny, as some might be tempted to do.

He folds his shirt and places it neatly on the stones well above the water. The sun shines on his skin, reflecting almost painfully into my eyes, but I will not blink.

Now his jeans and briefs. Culturally conditioned modesty turns him to face toward the open water where there is less chance someone might see his genitals as he bares his lower body. I regret his choice, but respect it. His hips are paler than his chest, but still subtly swarthy, like the rest of him.

I rub myself roughly, then give in and unfasten my fly. The earth will accept what I have to offer: Onan spilling his seed upon the ground.

Ray is unselfconscious and beautiful, picking up his socks and shoes to set them neatly with his clothes, bending over as though he were displaying himself just for me, his flaccid penis visible for a moment, nestled in dark curls. Fire roars inside my head; I gasp flame. Fast brutal strokes, painful punishment for this ecstatic transgression; now, hurry, before the water swallows him, before--

"Fuck!" I do not know if the cry is his or my own; he shivers and I shudder. I come, feeling shamed and insignificant already even as the crest of pleasure breaks over me, quenching the wildfire, reducing it to smoking embers. I have left wet patches on the ground, opalescent fluid staining the forest floor. It will be absorbed by deep loam and tree roots.

Ray walks slowly into the water, muttering with agitation at the cold and the uncomfortable stones underfoot. Diefenbaker cranes his head, looking up the hill toward me, muzzle open and tongue hanging out, laughing.

Ray gives up on the stony bottom and mutters an oath, flinging himself full-length into the sparkling body of the lake, surfacing with a gasp, stroking in strong rhythm toward the center of the cove, where a glacier has left a massive stone ground smooth by aeons of shifting ice. A perfect dock for sunbathing.

I tilt my head back to the unforgiving sky, mute witness to my solitary act, and zip myself back up. Sufficient time, perhaps, has failed to pass and I have failed to achieve my allotted task, but he will not mind gathering the firewood with me later.

I move down the hillside, making no effort to silence my steps, and stand on the shore in time to see him climb onto the surface of the stone, its massive face tilted toward the sun.

"Come on in, Benny. The water's great. Warm!" he lies.

I leave my clothes folded on the bank next to his.

"Diefenbaker, stand guard." A wasted instruction, but should someone happen by, it would be convenient to blame any theft on Dief rather than shouldering the responsibility myself. In light of his contemptuous amusement at my plight, I do not feel guilt for my intent to do so.

The frigid water cools me as I wade in and swim out to the stone; it quenches the lingering embers of desire with enviable efficiency. A most timely development.

Ray is basking, clean and sleepy in the sun, water drying from the dark patches where his wet flesh has touched the stone. I haul myself up and lie naked beside him, almost near enough to touch.