by Willa Okati
"Rack…" Daniel starts to say, getting ready to launch into something that is going to reaffirm his manliness and keep him from tearing up like a little girl, but then he doesn't have time for anything more. Their waitress is back with a Sprite for Daniel and two heavily-laden plates of all-the-way burgers and fries for the pair of them.
Rack practically lights up like a tree at Christmastime. He stubs out his cigarette and reaches into his pocket for a fiver, which he slaps right into the waitress' hand. "Now that's what I call service," he says, eyeing his food like a starving man on safari. "Proper big portions, too."
"We get a lot of truckers around here." The waitress winks. "They don't like things skimpy. And you did say you wanted a big hunk of meat."
Daniel, having just taken a bite of his huge, drippy, greasy, delicious burger, almost chokes. Rack just laughs until he almost cries, and gives the waitress' ass a light slap. She jumps with a yelp and swats him back, hard. "You're a good one, you are," he approves as she stands there in a huff. "What, just because I'm gay I can't be a naughty little hooligan?"
"Can you control him?" she appeals to Daniel.
Daniel shakes his head and swallows. "No. Believe me, I've tried. Rack is a force of nature."
"Men," she says with a shake of her head and a cluck of the tongue.
Rack's still in a fine good humor. He grins an apology, albeit a pretty shameless one, and leans back to enjoy his meal. "Sorry, love. Just you keep an eye out for refills, and I'll pass you another five-spot when we're done here. We on?"
"You've got a deal."
"Good." Rack darts in for another quick kiss. Daniel hears their female Greek chorus give a simultaneous sigh of approval, and backs off with a grin. Time to eat like a king, enjoy his soda, make small talk, and be eyed up by four country women who think this is better than daytime TV.
Okay, so this is one of the strangest situations he's ever been in with Rack. But he can deal. Oh, yeah, he can deal just fine.
Daniel nudges Rack's foot with his own, never too old for a little game of under-the-table, and digs into his meal.
"Good, innit?" Rack asks around a mouthful of burger.
And Daniel has to agree: yeah, it is good. All of it. Damn good.
* * * * *
It's about midnight when Rack, having taken one too many twisty turns and doubled back at least three times, admits they're lost. It's a blow to any man's pride, and Daniel sympathizes as he climbs off the back of the bike.
Rack doesn't throw his helmet on the ground -- he has more respect for good gear than that -- but Daniel can tell he wants to. "Bloody, buggering, sodding directions!" he swears, kicking viciously at the grass on the side of the road. "What good is a map that doesn't tell you when to go left or right?"
"Calm down, Rack." Daniel tries to soothe the man by putting a hand on either shoulder, but Rack's far too pissed off. He shrugs Daniel off and starts stomping in a circle.
The moonlight glances off his watch. He looks at it and starts swearing again. "Past the witching hour, even -- and no fucking campground in sight. Stupid damn map, doesn't even tell you which town it's near, does it?"
"Rack, take it easy. You'll make something go pop, and then where will we be? I'll be standing by the side of the road with a Harley and a guy bleeding from his nostrils, holding up a map with HELP scribbled across it."
Rack stops and deals Daniel a narrow glare, then resumes his angry pacing. Daniel temporarily gives up trying to 'help' and decides he's better off just standing there, letting Rack vent his temper. He does, however, think that Rack looks totally fucking edible by moonlight, with the starshine glinting off all his piercings and turning his normally pale skin a milky-blue shade.
When he finally runs out of steam, or at least enough to propel him forward, Rack turns to Daniel. "Help me out here, love," he begs. "Do you remember anywhere, any place that we could go back to and try and find our way from?"
Daniel has to shake his head. "Just Joey's Place, and that's at least a hundred miles back."
"Hell. The Three Sisters and Granny Doom are probably still sitting there over their coffee and pie, while we're out in the middle of fucking nowhere."
"We could have stopped," Daniel points out. "There was that bed and breakfast a couple of towns back."
That earns him another hard look. "Bed and breakfast? You ever been in one of those places, pet? Chintz and gingham and ruffles up to your goddamn eyeballs. Some elderly bint pouring tea and talking to us about what good friends we must be to take a road trip together. Those ladies in the diner, they sussed us out and they were fine, good solid women, those."
Daniel refrains from commenting on Rack's change of heart toward the diner denizens, and lets him go on.
"A bed and breakfast is no place for the likes of you and me. They'd give us a room with twin beds, or insist we have separate quarters, and I'm not stopping without you." Rack pulls out his pack of cigarettes and lights up angrily. Around his first exhale, he snaps: "And no smoking, either. Not in one of those places."
"Okay." Daniel tries to be reasonable. "We follow the road signs until we hit the next town, and crash for the night at a cheap motel. Get up with the sun, ask for directions, and then find the campsite."
"As if anyone would know where it is."
Daniel's losing patience. "Well, fuck, Rack, why don't we just go back home, then?"
"Because this is supposed to be a fucking romantic getaway!" Rack roars.
They stare at each other for a long moment before Rack's the first one to have a lip twitch. Guffaws follow grins, both laughing until they're leaned against the bike, Rack's cigarette dangling from the one hand he isn't resting against Daniel's chest.
"When I mess something up, I do it right, eh?" Rack shakes his head and sighs, gazing at the trees. "We can't go on to a hotel, love. I didn't bring much of the ready with us, and most of that I spent on those greasy burgers -- which are, by now, a long-lost treasure. I'm starving, me." He glances at Daniel. "You bring any cash?"
"I've got my credit card in my wallet, but I think the balance is low."
"Reckon it'd stretch to gasoline for the bike and a night's sleepover in an orange roof?"
Daniel, reluctantly, has to shake his head. "Gas, yes. Or a hotel. Not both."
"And the sodding thing's almost on E anyway." Rack closes his eyes. "Don't know what we're going to do, then. By now, the whole campsite's going to have closed down, and even if we did manage to find our way there we'd have to bunk down outside the gates."
He's mentioned those before. "Rack, are you sure this is a gated community?"
Rack listlessly digs in one pocket and pulls out the well-wrinkled flyer. "Says so right here, doesn't it? 'Enjoy the lush natural surroundings in the privacy of a fenced forest'. I know the type of place. Not the event, mind you, but this sort of campground's going to have a barrier across the road in."
"We couldn't just leave the bike outside and sneak underneath?"
"Leave the bike?" From Rack's look of horror, you would think Daniel had just suggested they roast and eat a small child.
"It'd probably be safe. Probably," Daniel hedges. "We could find our cabin and sleep there until the gates open back up in the morning. I bet no one would even notice. There's probably a lot of couples still wandering around in the great outdoors."
Rack lets out a long plume of smoke and tosses his cigarette aside, its ember a brightly glowing arc in the darkness. "Oh, I suppose you're right enough. We'll go find petrol, and ask someone for directions." The last half of his sentence is forced out through gritted teeth. Daniel sympathizes with him. Unity in manhood equals never asking anyone which way to go and giving a mandatory dunce cap to anyone who has to cry uncle. "Give us a minute, though, would you? I'm too worked up to drive, and I'm not letting you man the wheels after dark."
Daniel knows he could drive, but he puts that thought aside. Mostly. He gets a flash of how incredibly sexy it would be to drive along these deser
ted roads and feel Rack's hand sneaking down the front of his pants, sort of returning the favor, but then acknowledges it's not going to happen. "Take as much time as you like," he says instead. "Mind if I wander around a little? I could stand to stretch my legs."
"Nah." Rack stuffs one hand in his pocket and holds the other one out for Daniel to hold. "I could walk a bit myself. God, this is the boonies, isn't it?"
Daniel has to agree. They haven't seen any sign of civilization for at least fifty miles. Ever since then it's been nothing but trees, trees everywhere, tall pines and medians of dogwood. Out here, there aren't even any efforts at beautification. It's just road, a long and winding ribbon that stretches on as far as the eye can see.
"Is the bike parked well on the shoulder?" Rack asks, craning his neck to turn around and see. "I wouldn't like an eighteen-wheeler lorry to come along and smash it to bits."
"The bike's safe from everything but Bambi," Daniel reassures him. "And I don't think deer would do anything but nose around it."
For some reason, this perks Rack up. "Deer? Really? Around these parts?"
"I'm not sure if they're local, but anything's possible."
"Reckon we'd see one?"
"If we were lucky enough." Daniel gives Rack a friendly elbow. Rack nudges him back, good mood restored. Daniel feels something tightly bunched up inside of him relax at that touch. Seeing Rack all tensed up gives him knots in his own stomach. Prick him, and I bleed.
"Deer. For real, then. Awesome." Rack's scanning the woods. "They don't come when you call them, do they?"
"I think hunters might have something. But we're probably not going to spot one, Rack, sorry. Squirrels, on the other hand…"
"God, you can't get rid of squirrels no matter where you go. Rotten little rats with plumy tails. Pigeons of the mammalian world." Daniel knows that Rack has a particular hatred for anything small and crawly, which squirrels definitely qualify as. The list goes all the way down to spiders and ants. Weird phobias for a guy who gets off on having his penis pierced, but that's life, right? It doesn't make sense, but then again, it's not supposed to.
Daniel takes in a deep breath of good country air and squeezes Rack's hand tight. An idea takes shape in his mind. He rolls it over, examining the thing from every angle, and while several problems present themselves when analyzed it's decided they can be dealt with.
There's a subtle way to approach this, and a bold way. Frankly, just asking Rack if he wanted to go fuck under the trees would likely get him a heartfelt "Hell, yes", but that doesn't fit with the moonlight -- or, damn it, with the romantic weekend idea that's started to affect him, too.
So he takes things the long way around. "Let's go into the woods a little. I want to see if any deer will come out if we're out of sight."
"Are you daft? Who knows what's in the trees after dark? Like as not some horrifying hillbillies who'll make us their bitches or run us down like dogs."
"You've been watching that movie again, haven't you? Trust me, Rack. I grew up around the woods and they're not bad after the sun goes down. Kinda romantic." Daniel plays his key card word with a little extra emphasis. "Trust me, they're great. Just follow my lead."
Rack's grip on Daniel's hand tightens a little, but apparently he's game. They step off the grassy embankment, down a small ditch, and up into the trees. Once inside, the moonlight is dimmed down to a small glimmer, and Daniel can tell that they're standing inside some good old-growth. Nothing's touched this forest for a couple of hundred years. He can feel the age, and it's like going home again.
Someday, he's really got to take Rack there for another romantic getaway. Okay, less with the romance and more with the slew-of-relatives coping, but all the same, he'd love to take Rack around the places where he grew up. They could drag Luz and Mei Li along, and oh, lord, wouldn't that be fun?
Actually, it would. They could horrify the locals and then go to bed at night -- Daniel prematurely called dibs on the hayloft -- and make sweet, sweet love. Straw's a bitch to get out of tender places, but that's what blankets are for. As he learned in his youth.
Ah, the golden times long since gone by.
He'd love to introduce Rack to the charms of life on a farm.
And as he's thinking this, he suddenly gets it. Why Rack was so gung-ho on them spending a weekend camping, never mind the whole theme of the gathering. Rack's been camping before, and probably loves it. He wanted Daniel to feel the same enjoyment he had. Share and share alike.
And if they happened to be surrounded by a hundred-odd other gay men for company, all the better. Nothing like being with your fellow man to feel right at home.
Daniel pauses to nuzzle a kiss into Rack's hair. Rack stops and allows the caress, although he makes a small curious noise. Dummy, Daniel thinks, and me, too. Doesn’t matter where we go, as long as it's the you-and-me show.
He changes his mind. "Rack," he whispers into the blond tufts of hair, "you feel like getting your payback now?"
Rack rears back. "In here? Are you daft?"
"No, no, I'm not. Look. We take off my clothes and lay them down as a ground cover. You can keep on whatever you want. I think there's a one-time use sachet of lube in my pocket, 'cause God knows I have to carry with you around me." Daniel tugs at Rack's hand. "Come on, it'll be fun. You and me and the moonlight, like I wanted."
"Dan… I dunno… twigs in me tender bits…"
"And they'd be worse than a reverse Prince Albert?"
"Hey, I knew that loop was sterilized. This is all… woodsy. Kind of got a dirt motif to it, if you know what I mean."
"Rack," Daniel wheedles, tugging at him. "Think about it for a second. We're all alone, with no one around for miles to see us or hear us. You've got me, who you claim to love, begging to be fucked until I'm screaming. I even have a plan to protect your 'tender bits'. And lube. So are you going to throw me down and have your wicked way with me, or what?"
He can hear Rack chuckling. "Somehow, I didn't see tonight ending up like this," he says after a moment. "Go on, then. Get your kit off."
"Not the most romantic overture I've ever had, but it'll do." Daniel's already peeling off his jacket. He spreads it on the forest floor, then adds his T-shirt. Then he turns in a slow circle, letting the bit of light that does come through illuminate his dark torso and tattoos and piercings, knowing that ought to make Rack's mouth water if nothing else does. His hand lingers over the zipper of his jeans. "So you want to do this, now?"
"Does a bear shit in the… well, it better not while we're here. Jeans now, love. Let me see you naked."
Daniel can hear Rack lighting up another cigarette, and prays that the man knows to be careful with those things in the forest. Visions of Smokey the Bear with his hands over his eyes, peeking through his fingers, flit through his mind. But so long as Rack's using precautionary measures, he doesn't mind putting on a show.
The jeans come off in a loose, easy shimmy after he undoes the button and pulls the zip down. They're looser than the nearly obscene ones Rack wears, so they come off gracefully. There's been a time or two when Rack hasn't been able to get free of his pants, and Daniel's laughed himself sick. Just then, though, there's nothing but the loose flow of denim down to his ankles. He kicks off his shoes, toes off his socks, and stands there, submitting his body for approval.
"Very nice, pet," Rack says, his voice dark and unreadable. "Very, very nice." Oooh. Daniel likes that tone. "Turn around and let me get a proper look at all of you."
The words are scented with tobacco. Daniel spreads his arms and turns in a slow circle, letting Rack get an eyeful of everything from tattooed back to pierced cock, already standing up hard and ready with anticipation. He grasps his dick loosely when he completes the circle, sliding his hand up and down.
"Care to join me?" he asks huskily.
"Give it another moment." He hears Rack stepping heavily on something, and prays it's the cigarette butt. After a moment and a grunt of satisfaction, he concludes that it is.
"Get down on your hands and knees, if you would. Show me your ass while I'm taking my gear off. I want something pretty to look at."
Daniel obeys, his cock twitching with excitement as he kneels and pushes his butt high in the air. From what Rack tells him, he has a great ass, and right now he's showing it off to its best advantage.
Now this is what he calls romance.
From behind him, he hears the sounds of a man undressing with more haste than grace, so noted by the sounds of fumbling and cursing at button-flies. Daniel can't help laughing at his lover, and gets a "Ha, bloody, ha" in return. But his ass is already tingling from what he knows he's about to get, and he's damn certain Rack isn't going to let a little humor at his expense stop him now.
Almost as soon as the rustling stops, Daniel feels warm hands on his ass, moving him into position. They linger, caressing his globes up and down, drawing a line down the seam. "Mine," Rack says, drawing out the syllable until it sounds like three or four. "All mine."
