High Lonesome

by Tanya Chris

  The longing in Joe’s voice sent a shiver down his spine. “That’s why you were drinking.” He turned Joe around to face him.

  “I needed something. I thought I was going to come out of my skin. It was a stupid thing to do.” Joe ran his hands up Pyotr’s arms. “The sex worked better anyway.” He leaned in, going for a kiss, but Pyotr held him off. He wanted to understand everything there was about this problem so he’d be able to handle it.

  “Is that why you live up here? So you won’t be exposed to it?”

  Joe frowned. “I was clean two years before I moved up here, but after I got clean, sex took over where heroin left off. Then I found out I was positive and I figured I should stop fucking around, but I had no idea what to replace the sex with. It felt like everything was gone, like heroin had managed to take one more thing from me. So I came up here to be a hermit, a spiritual guru. I don’t know. To stop having sex.” He laughed bitterly. “Didn’t work though. I have plenty of sex, but zero relationships. People come into my life and then they go again just as fast.”

  “I’d like to stay in your life.”

  “How can you say that when you’re afraid to even have sex with me?”

  “I’m not.”

  Maybe there’d been a frisson of fear when Joe had first spilled his news. It was just such a bugaboo, the monster in every gay man’s closet, a dividing line no one was eager to cross. But mostly he’d been scared because he’d just found Joe and Tanner and didn’t want to lose them. HIV wasn’t a death sentence these days, but it was still terrifying to learn someone you cared about was positive. And addiction was a horrible specter too.

  Fuck. Couldn’t he have found a couple of nice, uncomplicated guys? Maybe one could be an accountant and one could teach high school?

  Listen to him—a couple of guys. Like having two guys could ever be uncomplicated. And since when had he wanted even one guy, never mind two.

  “I’m not afraid to have sex with you,” he repeated. “I want to do it right now.”

  He backed up his words with his mouth, sealing it over Joe’s, mingling their saliva without hesitation. Joe’s response was less certain, but he persisted until Joe relented, opening wider and allowing him all the way in. Joe kissed the way he took care of the hut—with steady determination and masculine confidence, no submissiveness in the way he pushed back against Pyotr’s seeking mouth, taking as much as he gave.

  Pyotr worked his hands under Joe’s shirt, then beneath the shirt below that, until he touched skin. Joe’s stomach was furry and it rippled when he touched it, either sensitive or ticklish, but Joe didn’t pull back, only pressed himself more firmly forward. Pyotr kept working the material up until he had to let Joe’s lips loose so he could tug the layers off over his head. The pants came off more easily. They were elastic-waisted and only one layer deep aside from boxer briefs. He took the briefs down too, sliding them down Joe’s legs until Joe stepped out of them.

  He sat down on the bed to watch Joe finish peeling off his briefs and kick off his shoes. When Joe was fully naked, he held up a hand to keep him where he was, wanting a moment to admire his form before he pounced on it. Why was it always dark when Joe was naked? The night before, Joe had suggested they try it again in the light of day, but one moment had led to another and then one of those moments had led to a fight, and now it was dark again, not even a lantern in the room, just the moonlight and them.

  He dropped from the bed to his knees and gestured Joe forward. He swallowed Joe’s cock, tasting the musk of a long day. Joe hadn’t gotten any of the water he’d warmed. Only he and Tanner had had the luxury of a shower, but he didn’t mind a cock that smelled like man.

  “Easy,” Joe said, putting a light hand on top of his head. “I’m close.”

  He pulled Joe’s cock from his mouth and looked up at him, trying to catch his eyes in the dim light.

  “You know it’s OK to come in my mouth, right? For one thing, the risk of infection from oral sex is negligible whether you’re positive or not.” He did know basic AIDs facts, despite his overreaction earlier “For another thing, you and Tanner just got finished explaining to me why you’re the safest guy in the room.”

  “Just …” Joe sighed and didn’t finish his sentence, but his hand stayed on top of Pyotr’s head like he was prepared to push it off.

  “We could use a condom,” he offered as a compromise.

  “I just want to come while you’re fucking me. That’s all.”

  Pyotr didn’t exactly believe him, but he let it go. “Then don’t come yet,” he said, and proceeded to make that difficult, drawing out his attentions until he wasn’t sure Joe could stay on his feet anymore, and though he could carry Tanner around all day, Joe would be a heavier burden to bear.

  He pushed him backward onto the bed. Joe went over easily and lay sprawled where he’d landed, his eyes on him as he stripped off his long johns, which were the same pair he’d been wearing for days. The shower had felt great earlier, but he’d about kill for a change of underwear.

  He looked up from his attempts to get the clingy things off himself to find Joe stroking his dick.

  “Hands off. You wanted to come while I’m fucking you, that’s what you’re going to do. Come over here.”

  He bent Joe over the bed and left him hanging there with his bare ass in the air while he collected lube and a condom. He put the condom on first so he wouldn’t have to deal with it with lube-slick hands later, then eased a couple of fingers inside Joe, feeling that tight warmth suck him right in like it’d been waiting for him.

  “Nice and relaxed,” he murmured, trailing his other hand down Joe’s spine, admiring the arcing line of Joe bent over in front of him.

  “Ready,” Joe returned.

  “Not up to you though, is it?” He gave him a tap on the ass. He’d noticed earlier that Joe hadn’t minded some slap and tickle and Joe didn’t mind now either. He relaxed further, like he’d needed to push back against Pyotr’s command to be sure it would stick.

  He wanted to get Joe good and worked up because he wanted to make Joe come just from being fucked and he thought Joe could manage it in the right frame of mind, so he gave him another tap on the ass while he stroked two fingers over and over his prostate until he knew exactly where to hit it and Joe was twitching beneath his hands, then he pulled out his fingers and pushed in his cock before Joe could even miss him.

  Joe let out a long moan as he sank into him, so he knew he’d gotten the combination of aroused and ready right. He shifted his hips back and drove into him again, not wasting any time but settling right into a solid rhythm with short sharp thrusts aimed at Joe’s prostate. Joe squealed like the roasted pig he was and Pyotr laughed and teased him about it a bit even as he kept ramping up the pace of his thrusts until Joe’s squeals choked off with a single gut-wrenching groan as he let go.

  “That’s it,” he said, running his hand over Joe’s spine again. “So good for me.”

  Joe made a sound that was much too small for a big man and Pyotr wished he could flip him so they could be up against each other when he came himself, but his orgasm was too close for gymnastics, so he tightened his hold on Joe’s hips and picked up his pace until the pleasure washed through him.

  Fuck, that was good. Sex-wise, this was the best mission he’d ever been on.

  He tried to collapse on top of Joe, but Joe wriggled himself out from under him, leaving him standing awkwardly looking down at the bed Joe had just been bent over. Joe removed the condom. He tied a quick knot in it and then stuffed it into a box he pulled out of the top drawer of his dresser. He’d done something like that last night too, though Pyotr hadn’t been watching him as closely then.

  The box was square and plastic—red as best he could guess in the moonlight—with a translucent top. On the side of the box was a pictogram he recognized as signifying biohazards and a picture of a needle. Shit. Joe had a sharps box. He grabbed the box from Joe, angry, prepared to find it filled with the needles
Joe had supposedly stopped using, but nothing hard or sharp rattled inside. He heard only the gentle sloshing of fluid-filled rubber.

  “This is really just for condoms?”

  Joe nodded.

  “You know this is overkill, right? If your viral load is undetectable, you don’t need to treat your semen like it’s sewage.” Besides, Pyotr thought, giving the box another shake, that was his semen in there. Joe’s had ended up splashed across the floor somewhere.

  “We have to be careful of trash up here. What can’t be composted or burned or recycled goes down in the lift. I guess I’m self-conscious about sending down used condoms, so I carry them down with me every couple of months. This box is just storage.”

  “What does everyone else do with their condoms?”

  Joe smirked. “I do find one from time to time, but I’m the only one up here with any privacy.”

  “So it’s just convenience?” He put the box down on top of the dresser. “It’s not some sort of self-flagellation?”

  Joe ducked his head. “Maybe a little. I don’t know how long I was positive before I found out. It’s not like I was being totally careless, but I wasn’t using condoms for everything, not all the time. I may have passed on the infection before I knew I had it, but I’m not infecting anyone now, Pyotr.”

  He took both of Joe’s hands in his. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way I reacted before. I was wrong.” It was the second time he’d apologized, but the first time he really understood what he was apologizing for. Joe was handling his disease the right way. He didn’t need the added burden of anyone’s ill-informed judgment.

  “So what do we do from here?” Joe asked.

  It was too late and the day had already been too heavy for him to think about where to go from there in any long term fashion.

  “I’d like to do some post-coital snuggling,” he said, sticking to the here and now, “but let’s take it out there, OK?”

  “Out there?” Joe looked over his shoulder at the open doorway.

  “I don’t like leaving Tanner alone.” What if he choked on his own vomit? Or had a seizure? These moments alone with Joe had been important, but now he felt guilty for stealing them. “How about we bring your mattress out there and lie down with him?”

  After they’d wrestled Joe’s mattress onto the floor next to Tanner’s, he ran upstairs and grabbed his own. Might as well make it a party. He let it bump down the stairs behind him until Joe figured out what he was up to and came over and lifted one end without comment. What had he called Joe earlier for carrying Tanner’s mattress down alone? Macho man? Yeah, it could apply to him too.

  “Where?” Joe asked.

  He considered the available floor space and then nodded to the other side of Tanner’s mattress. They’d keep Tanner between them. Nothing could get to him with the two of them framing him.

  While Joe shut down the hut for the night, he went back upstairs for a load of bedding, then crawled under it, shifting across the space of his mattress until he found Tanner. Pyotr wanted his after-sex cuddling, but it didn’t have to be with the guy he’d had sex with.

  Tanner let Pyotr spoon him. “You two were fucking,” he mumbled.

  “Mm, do I smell like sex?”

  Tanner sniffed. “Maybe a little. I heard you.”

  “Sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you. We should’ve shut the door.” Except he’d purposely left it open so they could hear Tanner if he needed anything.

  “It’s OK. I’d have joined you if I felt better.”

  “Tomorrow’s another day.”

  Tomorrow would definitely be another day—no more lazing around the hut just the three of them. Tomorrow he’d have to start working on getting them out of this mess.

  Chapter 14

  Joe

  Joe hovered over the sprawl of mattresses the next morning, reluctant to leave the sight of his two lovers cuddled together. In sleep, they both looked innocent, Tanner no more so than Pyotr. And Tanner didn’t look sick either. Not like an addict, just like a man. A little younger than Joe but not sicker or frailer or worrisome.

  Though each of their individual mattresses was barely wide enough for a full-grown man, pushing three of them together had formed an expanse that was overwide. At some point during the night, they’d all gravitated to Pyotr’s side. Joe had woken up in the middle of Tanner’s mattress, his arm over Tanner with Tanner lying mostly on top of Pyotr. Maybe the temperature had dropped overnight and they’d been seeking warmth, or maybe they’d just been seeking each other.

  Normally he woke up before the sun did. He didn’t need an alarm. The shift from full-dark to something slightly less dark roused him. But that morning, he hadn’t climbed out of bed for a long time. He’d laid there, lingering in their warmth, pretending that today wasn’t the last day they’d spend together like this, until pretending had hurt more than accepting.

  It was warm enough in the hut now. The first beams of the sun’s early rays made a promise of much higher temps. It would take more than a single day to melt three feet of snow, but today was going to make a good start on it.

  With a last glance at the spot where Tanner’s face, wreathed in a nest of blankets, lay on Pyotr’s shoulder, he headed to the kitchen to get the coffee going. The click of the shortwave called to him as he passed, so he detoured over to answer it, the summons reminding him that he needed to talk to Susan about taking a couple of days off so he could escort Tanner down to the base.

  “How are things up at High Lonesome?” Susan’s cheerful morning voice asked.

  “Melting, but safe enough. We still don’t have power.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. Two utility poles came down, pretty high up, closer to you than to me. We’ve got a crew lined up this morning, but the work’s going to take them most of the day and they’ve asked us to keep people out of the gully while they’re up there.”

  “Makes sense.” Between the wet conditions and wires being down, people traipsing beneath the electrical crew while they worked was an unnecessary complication.

  “You’ll be OK for another day?”

  “No worries. We have plenty of food, just bored with it.”

  “Hopefully power will be restored by end of the day and I can get the lift up to you.” Susan’s voice moved away from the radio for a minute, muffled as she spoke to someone else, then she was back with him. “I’m going to let traffic start flowing from Muir and Flume. I doubt you’ll get a lot of visitors, but stand by, OK?”

  “Um, actually. I was hoping to take a couple of days off, but if you can’t send someone up the gully …” If the gully was closed, not only could he not take Tanner down it, but there was no way for Susan to send up a replacement either.

  “What’s going on?”

  “There’s a guy up here, one of my two unexpected guests. He’s going to need some help getting down and I promised I’d go down with him.”

  “Do you need me to send rescue up? Because I’ll hold off the electrical crew. If you’ve got an injured guest up there, that comes first.”

  “No, no, we don’t need rescue. He’s been sick so he’s a little weak and he’s … a friend.”

  There was a moment of silence, Susan probably waiting for him to make more sense than he was making, but then she chuckled.

  “You made a friend? I’m going to have to give your hut a new nickname.”

  “Ha ha, whatever.” He was relieved she wasn’t making him explain it any more than that. “We’ve been stuck together for a couple of days now, so we got to know each other. I told him I’d help him get down to the valley. I need two days, that’s it. Just to take him down and get back up. I never ask for time off,” he added.

  “That’s fine,” Susan said. “You’re welcome to the time off, overdue it even, but can he hang out with you for one more day? Let me get the power crew up there today and you can bring your friend down tomorrow.” The way she said friend told him she understood there was more going on than that.
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  “Yeah, OK.” A surge of relief washed through him. One more day. He wanted it. Tanner would be in much better shape tomorrow anyway and if Ganymede wasn’t letting anyone up the gully, they’d be safe enough at Longline for another day.

  “Great. Hold down the fort today and I’ll send a replacement up with the first wave of trekkers tomorrow. When the power comes on, radio down and I’ll get the lift loaded up. Fresh food for dinner tonight, promise.”

  He went into the kitchen and put on a kettle of water to make coffee and oatmeal, but when he came back out of the kitchen balancing a tray, the great room was empty. Both guys were gone, the mattresses an empty pile of pillows and blankets. Before he could be too alarmed by their coordinated absence, Tanner appeared in the doorway to the foyer, pale but walking on his own, with Pyotr hovering behind him.

  Tanner sat down in one of the Adirondack chairs and Pyotr covered him with a blanket and took the other chair. Joe, who’d frozen in place halfway across the room with tray in hand, unfroze. He gave Tanner a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of water and served Pyotr his coffee and oatmeal, then dragged one of the chairs over from the table so he could join his men for breakfast.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” he told them. “The bad news is we still don’t have power or fresh supplies.”

  Pyotr looked up from his oatmeal. “What’s the good news?”

  “The good news is we have another day for Tanner to recover.” He explained what Susan had told him. “So we’ll need to put on clothes and move the mattresses out of the great room in case one or two people drop in, but the flood won’t start until tomorrow.”

  “I can put on clothes,” Tanner said. “I’m feeling a lot better today.”

  “Yeah? If you’re feeling so great, let’s see you eat that oatmeal.”

  Tanner scowled at his bowl. “I don’t even like oatmeal when I’m not sick.”