High Lonesome

by Tanya Chris

  He went downstairs into the closet-sized room where the pump was and brushed his teeth, then stripped back down to nothing, shivering in the cold, tiled room on the edge of the hut, and splashed freezing water over his face and into his pits and groin. How much cleaner that made him, he didn’t know, but he felt cleaner, better. Or maybe that was the H.

  He dressed again and then looked at his reflection in the square of mirror hanging from a nail. Maybe he’d been fooling himself when he thought he didn’t look like a traitorous drug addict. Right now he looked like a common street person with his curls tangled and matted and his face slack from the high.

  There was no way he was going to wash his hair in water that cold—it would totally spoil his buzz—so he just used his fingers to try to arrange it better and then shrugged it off.

  Nothing was a big deal when the high was fresh. The emails that would be piling up back at work, the fear of his parents finding out about his habit, the empty pizza boxes and used syringes that covered his apartment. Dull needles, dirty hair. Whatever it was, it wasn’t that big a deal. Not even committing treason.

  It was a lot of money. And it wasn’t like the Russians didn’t have submarines already. Yeah, the osmotic engine made this particular submarine special, but his team had yet to prove their design would actually work. And if it did work, if they did construct a viable salt-water-powered submarine, the Russians could probably wait six months and find the plans on eBay.

  Or just buy themselves a submarine from wherever submarines were bought from. Wherever that was. He wasn’t in Sales. He was an engineer—one member of a team responsible for one part of one system, and though he got paid very well, he didn’t get paid enough to support a heroin habit.

  The money the Russians were offering was enough to settle all his tabs, get him square with his dealers so he wouldn’t have heart palpitations every time he tried to score. He’d pay them off, maybe go on a last good run, and have something left over for rehab. Get himself clean and walk away. It made sense. It’d be OK.

  He went back up the stairs to the dorm, almost at a run, feeling good. Maybe there was something to this acclimatization business. He stopped in the doorway, toiletry bag in hand, when he saw that Pyotr had returned.

  A moment ago, he’d felt sure he’d sell the plans, but now, face-to-face with Pyotr, that certainty evaporated. Pyotr was so Russian, with his white-blond hair, warmer blond beard and those ice-blue eyes, like he belonged to winter, like he’d brought winter with him.

  Last night he hadn’t been able to see much more of Pyotr than the outline of a slim man with a protruding bulge in his long underwear. Pyotr wasn’t a tall man, probably a few inches shorter than Joe, but his biceps made tempting mounds in the sleeves of his long-sleeved shirt and there was a noticeable bulge at his crotch again. Tanner’s eye caught there.

  “I packed light,” Pyotr said, excusing the fact that he was still kicking around in his underwear. “I hadn’t planned on staying long.”

  “Me either.”

  “Get in, get what I need, get out again,” Pyotr added.

  Pyotr was fishing, he could tell, trying to get him to confirm he was there to make an exchange, but he wasn’t ready to confirm that. If they were going to be stuck there for another day, he could take another day to make up his mind.

  He brushed past Pyotr without comment and went over to his own bunk where he knelt down to stash his toiletry bag in his pack.

  “I think you can give me what I’m looking for, Tanner.”

  A warm hand settled on his neck. It felt comforting, certain—not like a threat but like a promise. He’d thought Pyotr was trying to get the plans out of him, but maybe Pyotr wanted something else, and maybe he could want that too. Pyotr had such strength about him, such confidence, things he was sorely lacking himself these days. He’d love to borrow a little.

  He turned his face up to look at the handsome man standing over him, at the muscular body braced for action.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  Pyotr crooked an eyebrow at him as though his reaction was unexpected, but he threaded his hand into the tangle of curls at the base of his neck and tugged through them. He loved having his hair played with, his scalp rubbed. Pyotr’s gently firm strokes sent tingles of happy comfort through his whole body.

  He felt himself leaning in until his head rested against Pyotr’s thigh. His hands moved as if they had a life of their own, wrapping themselves around the backs Pyotr’s legs and crawling up his thighs. It wasn’t appropriate behavior towards someone he’d just met, but Pyotr continued his scalp massage without comment.

  Pyotr’s thighs were gloriously muscled. Tanner could feel the vee of his quadriceps as they tapered into his kneecaps and the separation of quadriceps from hamstring. He traced over the swells and slopes of muscle and bone. Pyotr was a walking anatomy model, a statue brought to life, except that the cock curled into his long underwear was decidedly more ample than what The David sported. Tanner tilted his head to gaze at it, his fingers itching to crawl the last few inches to uncover the treasure behind the fabric.

  “Is this what you need?” Pyotr asked. “Something to suck on?” He reached into his underwear and pulled out his cock. It was already thick and meaty and it grew before his eyes.

  Pyotr stroked it languidly, holding it out in front of him like it was a reward he was offering. Pyotr’s balls were shaved clean where Joe’s had been hairy. Hairy balls looked nice—rugged and manly—but he’d rather suck on clean-shaven ones. He stuck out his tongue and swayed into Pyotr’s sack, finding it smooth and warm beneath his tongue.

  His hands continued their crawl up Pyotr’s legs, moving higher to delve under his shirt. Pyotr’s abs were as hairless as his balls—tight and hard and heaving slightly with his breath. Above them, he found more smooth skin as he worked his way up Pyotr’s chest, his mouth following his hands until his tongue swiped across the hard bud of a nipple.

  He giggled against the nipple he was tonguing, imagining it must look like Pyotr was about to give birth to him with his head up under his shirt that way.

  “Enjoying yourself, Tasha?” Pyotr asked, his tone fondly indulgent and not at all hurried. He didn’t make noise as Tanner continued to stroke and fondle and tongue him. His hands stayed light and non-urgent, as though this worship were no more than he expected.

  He found his way back down to Pyotr’s cock, now fully hard. Somehow Pyotr had managed to work his long johns all the way down without him even noticing, making for a better view of those perfectly-muscled thighs and the hairless cock and balls bobbing above them like treats to be gobbled up. It was hard to tear his eyes from the feast in front of him but when he did glance up it was to find Pyotr watching him, his gaze increasingly hooded but still accepting of the slow pace he’d set.

  He was too entranced to move more quickly. Pyotr’s skin glided like fairy wings under his tongue—soft and supple, but lightly tanged with the scent of male sweat and symbolically full of maleness. This was man. This was cock. After too many months without, he was in no hurry to be finished, and the drug made his limbs so heavy, like every movement had meaning.

  This was beautiful, what they were doing—him on his knees sucking and Pyotr lightly petting him. There was music, or maybe it was words. Pyotr talking or a tune his head played, but it played with the rhythm of his mouth, painting the moment with wonder.

  “Yes, yes,” Pyotr said. “Doing so good, making me come.”

  And then he did come. Tanner swallowed reflexively. The fluid hit his stomach like a bomb dropping. He’d forgotten how sensitive his stomach was. He gagged, pulling Pyotr’s cock out and wiping his mouth dry with his sleeve.

  Pyotr leaned down to him. “You have a beautiful mouth, Tasha.” He kissed him lightly on the lips. Tanner’s lips pursed to catch him and their mouths clung for a moment before Pyotr straightened. Over his shoulder, Tanner spotted a figure in the doorway. Joe. Watching them.

  “W
ell, I did tell you to eat something.” Joe pushed himself off the door jamb and disappeared without another word.

  Shit. He hadn’t meant to make Joe feel bad, not when Joe had made him feel so good and seemed to understand what he needed so well. Now that the blowjob was over, he wasn’t sure why he’d done it. Hadn’t he just decided not fifteen minutes ago that he was going to avoid the Russian? It hadn’t even been sex, not really, just a kind of high-driven ballet. He wasn’t even hard.

  He pushed at Pyotr’s thighs which caged him. Pyotr stepped back casually, pulling up his long underwear and tucking his cock away. Tanner caught sight of a drip of come lingering at the tip and wanted to lean forward to lick it off, even though his stomach had had more than enough come for one day and his mind regretted what he’d done already.

  “What is he to you?” Pyotr asked.

  “Nothing.” Nothing didn’t feel like the truth, but what else could he say? “We just met.”

  “How long have you been up here?”

  He tried to remember. Everything was blurry. There’d been the rock climbers at dinner the first night—all that talking—then they’d left in the morning and he and Joe had gone for a walk and then Pyotr came and now it was morning again.

  “Two nights.”

  “You were expecting to go down today, weren’t you? I’m sorry I was so late getting here last night. The storm made the logistics difficult.”

  Pyotr was fishing again, trying to get him to admit he’d come up here to meet him. He didn’t answer. He climbed to his feet and tried to walk past Pyotr to get to the door. Pyotr grabbed him by the arm as he passed.

  “Come now, Tasha. I gave you what you needed. Give me what I need.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The euphoria of his high was already wearing off. Uncertainty crept in behind it. He didn’t want to betray his country, but he needed the money. He was fooling himself if he thought he could handle the pain of withdrawal. He hadn’t developed a habit by toughing out the lows or suffering through dope sickness.

  No, another dose had been his answer to every physical ache or emotional pain, to every bad moment at work, to every feeling of isolation. As all of that increased—thanks to the very thing he used to treat it—he treated it all the harder, until he’d developed a hundred dollar a day habit and hung a millstone of debt around his neck.

  If he didn’t make this trade with Pyotr, what would he do? He couldn’t handle withdrawal, and he definitely couldn’t handle the angry dealer waiting back home for him to settle up. The dealer would break his legs or take a hammer to his balls.

  Those might or might not be exaggerated threats, but one thing he knew for sure: if he didn’t throw his dealer some serious money, he’d be cut off. And that would be worse than having his legs broken.

  He had to sell the plans to Pyotr. There was no other choice. Just … not now. Not yet.

  “I’m hungry.” He wrenched his arm from Pyotr who let it go with surprisingly little resistance and made his way downstairs to the warmth of the stove and the safety of Joe.

  Chapter 6

  Joe

  As soon as he’d finished clearing away the breakfast dishes and had swallowed his morning pill, Joe changed his clothes and went into the foyer to get ready for a hike. He needed to clear his head of the scene he’d walked in on earlier. A decent person would’ve walked right back out as soon as he realized what was going on, but he’d been caught in a syrupy mix of possession and jealousy and lust too thick to fight his way out of.

  He’d experienced the first flash of possessive pull towards Tanner while he’d been fucking him yesterday, and those feelings hadn’t abated, as ridiculous as he knew they were. They were being fueled by the way he kept trying to take care of Tanner, as though he could change the path of Tanner’s addiction. Tanner would get clean or he’d die—those were the only two options—and how much oatmeal he ate this morning wouldn’t make any difference.

  It wasn’t as though Tanner had consciously chosen Pyotr over him either. Tanner had just shot up, which he knew from having interrupted him while he was stashing his kit earlier, and so it wasn’t a surprise he’d grabbed at whatever man was closest at hand. His impulse control would be poor and his suggestibility high. Anyone could’ve convinced Tanner to suck his cock, not that Pyotr would’ve known that.

  No, the one who’d known Tanner was vulnerable and highly open to suggestion and had taken advantage of that fact had been he himself. It hadn’t been his finest moment, and he could hardly blame Pyotr for unknowingly doing the same thing.

  Still, standing there watching the two of them, he’d wanted to be the one whose dick Tanner pulled between his pillowy lips, lips that were made more striking by his otherwise gaunt features. And although he shouldn’t be jealous over a guy he’d met two days ago and fucked once and who was a hot mess besides, he was jealous and that was that.

  The weirder thing was that, as badly he’d wanted to be the one getting his dick sucked by Tanner, he’d just as badly wanted to be the one on his knees in front of Pyotr.

  When Pyotr had staggered in the night before, even as tired and bedraggled as he’d been, Joe had recognized instantly how attractive he was. He had the blond hair of a California beach boy and eyes as blue as the sky over Longline. Pyotr was shorter than him, but stacked. When his coat had come off, revealing the ludicrous lack of appropriate layers beneath it, he’d wanted to run his hands over every peak and valley of his chest and arms.

  But it wasn’t until Pyotr had started barking orders in a Russian accent, recasting himself from “idiot who’d been out in a snowstorm without appropriate equipment including a clue” to “Bond villain” that he’d really taken notice. Fit guys were a dime a dozen up at the hut—they checked in and checked out, walked around half-naked, and left their dirty boxers balled up under their pillows—but guys who could turn his crank towards obedient were few and far between.

  When he’d gotten clean and sober, six and a half years ago now though it felt like a lifetime sometimes and like yesterday other times, it’d taken all the strength he had, and now, sometimes, it didn’t feel like he had any left, like this quiet, unchallenged life—far from temptation and lacking any real mental stimulation—was all he had the courage to manage, like he’d really rather lie back and give in and let someone—someone who wasn’t him—figure out what happened next.

  That was why, on occasion, when the right person came along, he enjoyed exploring his submissive side.

  He wanted to explore it with Pyotr.

  That was the reaction his body had had the night before when Pyotr had ordered him to sit down, and that was the reaction he’d had watching Tanner suck him off. He wanted Pyotr to feed that nicely-shaped cock into his mouth, wanted to look up through his lashes at the stone-cold man he was serving.

  His jealousy swung wildly while he watched—now he was jealous of Tanner; now he was jealous of Pyotr; now he just wanted to be in the middle of them. Because even more than feeling possessive of Tanner or jealous of Pyotr, he felt lust, as though the two of them were putting on a pornographic display just for him, as though the stroke of Pyotr’s thumb around Tanner’s slick mouth was more for his sake than Tanner’s, as though Tanner’s murmured encouragement as Pyotr neared his climax was more for his ears than Pyotr’s.

  His dick had been like steel watching them, but afterward, when he’d gone downstairs, he hadn’t jerked off, too confused by the unstable tripod of emotions playing through him. Tanner had followed him down only a few minutes later and had spent the rest of the morning being as affectionate and clingy as he’d expected him to be before he’d caught him with Pyotr’s dick in his mouth.

  He had no idea what Tanner’s clinginess meant, but he needed to get away—from Tanner, from the strange energy that reverberated between the three of them, and from the heroin.

  Because now he knew where it was. It was in that eyeglass case. And it wanted him. It wanted h
im as bad as he wanted Tanner and Pyotr, maybe worse. The heroin was up there right now. It might be under Tanner’s pillow or stuffed down at the bottom of his pack, but it was up there and if he went looking for it, he’d find it.

  He was in the foyer lacing up his boots when Tanner appeared like a ghost at his side.

  “You going out? Can I come with you?”

  “You hated it yesterday.”

  “I didn’t. I know I slowed you down and it was too much at the end, but I didn’t hate it. I loved it. It was so beautiful.” Tanner clung to his arm, like Joe’s departure would ruin him.

  “You could have some time alone with Pyotr,” he suggested. Despite Tanner’s clinging to him now, he knew what he’d seen earlier.

  “I don’t want to be alone with Pyotr.” Tanner shuddered, communicating the truth of what he’d just said better than his words did. “I want to be with you.”

  The scene he’d witnessed in the dormitory earlier had looked fully consensual, with Tanner sucking eagerly and Pyotr barely moving at all. Had he read it wrong? Tanner seemed almost frightened to be left alone with him now.

  “All right,” he agreed. “Go get dressed. And wear your harness.”

  “Harness?” Tanner looked so adorably confused, as though he’d just suggested some kind of bondage gear, that it took him a moment to clarify and a moment longer to realize he shouldn’t have to.

  “Your climbing harness.”

  “Oh,” Tanner’s face changed from confused to conflicted. “I’m not sure where even … I mean, I think one of my friends took it down. I didn’t know I’d need it.”

  He wasn’t fooled by the lie. Not only did Tanner not have a harness, he hadn’t even known he ought to have one. Tanner wasn’t a climber, not even a beginner climber. He was a person who had nothing to do with climbing, who hadn’t even read up on the subject so he could lie about it. And that was why the AMC group hadn’t noticed him missing. Tanner had nothing to do with them.