A Forest of Corpses

by P. A. Brown

  I came up behind him, and without speaking, let him know I was there. After a few minutes he dropped the glasses to turn glowing eyes on me.

  "Did you see it?"

  I nodded, then admitted ignorance and asked, "What was it?"

  "Great Horned Owl. I've only seen one other before."

  "Rare?"

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  "No, just not urban birds. Nocturnal, too." He held up the binoculars. "Want to take a look?"

  I took them and raised them to my untrained eyes. At least I had an idea where to look. And there it was, a big mottled brown lump staring balefully back at me as though it caught me looking and was not impressed. I pulled away and met Jason's quizzical look.

  "Is that something else I need to watch out for? He going to come down dive-bombing me too?"

  Laughing, Jason took the binoculars back. "No. Trust me hon, he's not interested in you or me."

  A jay screamed nearby and Jason perked up. "Oh, look.

  The jays found it."

  I looked up in time to see the brown lump being attacked by a trio of angry birds that weren't even a quarter the size of the owl. It didn't take long before the bird fled the screaming jays and vanished on silent wings deeper into the forest. I didn't blame it.

  "That's what they were screaming about this morning, I guess," Jason said as we resumed our hike. "Told you they were a good early warning system."

  We fell into what Jason assured me was a ground-eating pace. It seemed slow to me, but he insisted it would conserve our energy—we'd cover more ground if we didn't wear ourselves out by overdoing it. So we hiked up forested hills and down into twisting valleys, dodging low branches and tangled roots. Heat built as the day lengthened, bird calls were replaced by the hum of insects. They flew around my head. I kept my mouth shut, remembering Jason's story 141

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  about eating bugs. Instead they went for my eyes and nose and buzzed in my ears, ignoring me when I shook them away.

  Something slithered on the path in front of me. I froze, staring at the ground, trying to see what was under the round cover. When nothing moved, I prodded the ground with my walking stick.

  Then I stopped. Shit, was I actually letting fear control me? Letting a sound send shivers through me and make my heart race? I didn't back down from armed cholos. Was I so out of my world I was overreacting to every little thing?

  My anger made me snap, "How much longer are we going to walk today?"

  He stopped and faced me. His face wore a look of concern.

  "Are you tired?"

  "What? No! I was just wondering."

  "I'd like to go another couple of hours. That okay?" he said it cautiously, as though afraid of offending me. Is that what we had come to?

  I took him in my arms. "We'll go as long as you want. Just so you know," I brushed a strand of hair off his sweating brow, "I intend to fuck you hard tonight. If that's okay with you."

  His smile was blinding. When he raised his face to me I kissed his open mouth, holding nothing back. His response was immediate, and left me wanting him then and there. I broke away and stroked his cheek.

  "You do that again, I won't be waiting till tonight."

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  He blushed and pressed his face against my chest.

  "Whatever you want, Sir."

  Satisfied, I put him away from me. "Two more hours, then we make camp."

  "Yes, Sir."

  I heard the rush of water just over an hour later. We traded looks and the same thought must have crossed our minds. I reached the first pool just after Jason. He knelt down on a flat rock and dipped his hand in the clear water.

  Standing, he shook his hand and looked over his shoulder at me.

  "It's not too bad."

  That was good enough for me. I dropped my backpack and hat and started stripping. Jason watched me, making no move to follow suit. I was down to my skivvies; his eyes became pools of desire, almost as deep as the water I was about to enter. When I slid my fingers under the waistband he licked his lips. I stopped, my fingers brushing the smooth, wet head of my swelling cock.

  "Am I doing this alone?"

  He hurried to strip, took a deep breath, closed his eyes and did a cannonball into the middle of the pool. I counted to three and followed him with a yell. I came up flinging my head to clear my eyes of water and found myself staring into Jason's face, inches from mine.

  Without a word I grabbed him and yanked him against me.

  The water around us was cold, but he was furnace hot. I plunged my tongue down his throat, then covered his face 143

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  and throat with kisses. He moaned, grabbed my ass, pulling me tight. His heart hammered against my chest.

  Something crashed in the bushes behind us. We jerked apart and looked around. Nothing. The next look we shared was bemused, and a little bit pissed.

  "How 'bout we wash up and get to the top," I said. "It's about time to make camp."

  Like always, he obeyed. After splashing around and washing as best we could with no soap, we dressed and made our way to the top of the ravine. It took another twenty minutes to find a suitable site to pitch our tent. After looking around, Jason said we could have a fire tonight, then he went in search of firewood. I went through our packs, digging out the cooking gear and a freeze-dried beef stew, and laid out the tent for Jason to put up when he returned.

  While I waited for him to come back I moved around our camp, studying the forest around us. I tried to see it through Jason's eyes. What was it about this place that he loved so much? Why did he come alive here in a world that was so alien to anything I'd ever known? From the first time we had met I had always feared another man would come between us. Had I been looking in the wrong place for my rival? Was it out here? In a world I didn't—couldn't—understand?

  While I stood at the edge of the clearing something moved in the shadows. I tensed, my hand automatically drifting over to where my shoulder holster would have been if I'd been carrying my piece. It closed over air. I cursed under my breath.

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  Then, like a ghost, a deer emerged from the forest and paused at the edge of our clearing. Long legs moved delicately over the short foliage, big ears swiveled around nervously. I held my breath as a second, smaller deer followed it. This one was spotted. A fawn.

  The two of them moved like wraiths across the open space, freezing when there was a sound from the direction Jason had gone. Both of their narrow heads shot up. In a heartbeat the deer vanished with a flip of their long, white tails.

  Seconds later, Jason was back with an armful of wood. His face lit up when he saw me, and my earlier fears faded like the ghost deer. I caught him before he reached the fire pit and took the wood away from him. After dropping it beside the earthen pit I took him in my arms.

  "What's this all about?" he asked.

  I pressed my erection against his belly. "You have to ask?"

  "No—" he gasped when I nipped his lip, then licked it. He moaned. "Alex."

  "You missed the deer," I whispered, my voice shaking with my need. "I want to fuck you."

  "What about the fire—" He narrowed his eyes. "What deer?"

  "Forget about them. Forget the fire, too. It can wait. I can't. I need you."

  With that I wrenched his jeans open, and dropping to my knees, took him in my mouth. He cried out as I ran my tongue up his shaft, sliding over the slit, lapping up the musky fluid leaking out. Then I swallowed him, suppressing 145

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  the gag reflex, reveling in the familiar taste and feel of him.

  This was mine and no one else's. Something buzzed around my ear. I hoped it didn'
t bite me. I could tell from the sounds Jason was making that he was close to coming and I pulled off him. I wasn't done yet. I stood up and pulled him back into my embrace, wanting a lot more than having him come in my mouth, as pleasurable as that would be.

  "Get that tent up, boy. I told you I'm going to fuck you and I'm not doing it out here where the damned bugs can eat my ass off."

  "Yes, Sir."

  I don't know if he moved faster knowing what was coming, but in no time the tent was up and the wood stacked for the fire. "Later," he said, with a soft smile.

  Even so, I was in a fever by the time we crawled inside and sealed the flap behind us. We stripped fast and I pulled him down on top of me. He straddled my hips, our cocks sliding together over my stomach. Reaching between us, he wrapped his hand around both of them. Even in the dim light of the tent I could see the glazed look on his face as he massaged us, his thumb stroking the bulbous head of my cock and his. I shuddered with my need for him.

  I urged him up on his knees, and at my hoarse whispers he impaled himself on my dick. He rocked on me while I pumped his cock. He was moaning now, soft sounds that turned into grunts as I drove myself into him again and again until I filled him with cum and he jerked and came in my hand.

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  Sagging, he fell into my arms, covering my face with kisses. He paused with his mouth over mine and whispered,

  "I love you, Sir."

  Outside, an owl called a plaintive who. I rolled Jason over and kissed him before slapping his ass and pulling my jeans toward me. "Let's go build that fire. You can feed me now."

  "Yes, Sir."

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  Jason

  At dawn the next day I rebuilt the fire while Alex took care of his business. I got breakfast started;. freeze-dried scrambled eggs and sausages. After last night both of us had a heavy appetite. Following breakfast, we cleaned up the campsite, repacked and hit the trail again while it was still early. If we could keep the pace we had yesterday we might make twenty miles, our best day yet.

  I also noticed a shift in Alex's attitude. When we had first got here, despite pretending otherwise, I knew he wasn't really happy. I think it was so alien to him that he felt out of place. I should have expected that. But I had really wanted him to love the same things I did. A ridiculous hope, I realized now. In fact, I think I always knew it had been wishful thinking on my part, but I wanted him with me anyway.

  But now, now he seemed to be enjoying himself. He had even helped me get the fire going this morning and was out looking for more kindling to feed it so I could prepare our breakfast. When he came back with an armful of wood, his flannel shirt dusted with tree bark, a streak of dirt on his face, he was laughing. When I asked him why, he said, with wonder in his voice, "I think I saw a turkey. Are there really turkeys out here, or did I just hallucinate?"

  "Wild turkeys? Yeah, they're being reintroduced," I said, smiling along with him. "Though there are some people who say they weren't native. I don't believe it. They've found evidence of them in the Pleistocene era. Wow. I'm jealous.

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  First deer, now turkey." I stepped up to him and slipped my arms around his waist, leaning my pelvis against his. "Are you still sorry you came?"

  "Sorry, no—" He caught my look. "Okay, maybe I was a bit."

  "But it's good now?"

  He hugged me back. "It's good. Now, are you going to feed me, boy?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  I was right. We made good time. We adopted a rhythm that didn't waste energy, filling up our canteen with water treated with our purification tablets, eating handfuls of trail mix while staying on the move. We were coming up on the point where we would have to turn back. One more day going in, then turn around so we could get back on schedule. We had a couple of days of leeway, but I knew it was better to have those days back at home. I wanted to write up a blog of everything that had happened in our hike—well, almost everything, I amended. I didn't plan on sharing our nights with anyone. I smiled at the memories. I sensed Alex was coming back. I hoped so. Ever since he had tracked me down in Los Angeles, convinced me he loved me and I came back with him, there had been a reticence in him. Small, but it was there. I loved the man who had come back for me, showing his willingness to change for me.

  But still, he refused to touch me in the way I wanted—no, needed. He didn't believe me when I said I wanted his pain, his control. Instead he handled me like fragile glass, and while his touch always aroused me and I had never been 149

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  more satisfied as a lover, I wanted my Alex back. The one sure enough in his needs to take control and bind me to him both physically and emotionally. Only rarely did he even use restraints on me anymore. I missed the days when he would put me in his sling or flog me to show me just how much I belonged to him, and him alone.

  It wasn't my place to ask. He was my Master and it had to come from him. But oh, I missed it so when he was sure of himself.

  Around us, the forest grew quiet as the heat of the day grew. Finally, we almost reached the point where we would have to turn around to make it back on our time schedule.

  The next time we stopped for a brief rest I knew it was nearly time. Our eyes met. "Another half hour, then head home?"

  I was surprised when Alex seemed reluctant to agree. I put my hand on his cotton-covered arm. "What, Alex?"

  At first I didn't think he was going to answer me, then he shrugged and looped his arm around my shoulder, drawing me against him. I leaned my head against his chest, relaxing in the place I wanted to be most of all. I could feel the soft beat of his heart and his breath stir the hair on my head.

  "You're not going to believe this, but I'm sorry to see this end."

  My heart lifted and I raised my face to look up into his.

  "Really?"

  "Yah, really. Surprise, huh? But it's been good. When was the last time we got to spend this much time together, 150

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  neither one of us being called away or answering to anyone else?"

  I rubbed his chest and leaned up to kiss him. When we finished both of our hearts were beating a little faster. I laid my head back on his chest and inhaled his wonderful smell, playing with a button of his shirt.

  "I love you, Sir."

  "I love you, Jason Zachary."

  I always knew he did, his actions told me so, but it was so rare for him to say it aloud. I never wanted this moment to end. If I could have suspended time right then I would have.

  Lived like a creature trapped in amber forever, the world a golden blur beyond me, where it couldn't touch me or him ever again.

  We separated and Alex took my chin in his big hands. "You know how special you are, don't you, Jay?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Come on. Just a little while more. We'll come back. Maybe later this year. Or if not here, maybe someplace else. Hawaii.

  Canada. Would you like that?"

  I tried to imagine us on a crowded beach at Waikiki and couldn't. Maybe one of the other islands. Someplace quieter.

  Or Canada. They had gay marriage. Not that I ever expected Alex and I would marry. I knew he never wanted to do that ever again, but to be in a place that let that happen and it was okay, that would be nice. "With you? Anywhere."

  When ten minutes later he saw movement in a nearby tree, he was the one who pointed it out to me. It was a 151

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  Western Wood Pewee. When I identified the common woodland bird he grinned.

  "Tell me it's really rare and a once in a lifetime sighting."

  "Of course it is. I'll call Audubon as soon as we get back.r />
  They'll wri—"

  His hand on my arm tightened, stopping me in mid-word.

  In the silence an out of place sound came from ahead of us.

  An engine.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "There's no road around here, is there?"

  "No..." I frowned. "Not for another twenty miles at least, and not in that direction. What do you think it is?"

  I could almost see Alex, my doting lover, vanish, replaced by Detective Spider, the uber efficient and unemotional homicide cop. Alex had spoken sometimes of how his gut was good at giving him early warnings, that even when everything seemed good, when his gut told him otherwise, he'd learned to listen to it.

  Is that what he was doing now?

  "I don't know," he finally said. "But I don't like it."

  Neither did I. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

  But I followed him when he left our path and headed south, away from the path we had planned to take. Towards the rumbling engine noise.

  The first thing I noticed was an unnatural looking clearing open up where there should have been dense forest. And this wasn't the result of a natural culling. That kind of occurrence would have left a lot of smaller, child trees ready to fill the gap. That hadn't happened here. Instead, it looked like a few 152

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  select trees had been physically removed. There weren't any fallen giants anywhere, no understory at all, no broken or overgrown nursery logs feeding new growth out of their decay. This area had been clear cut. That meant heavy-handed human activity at work. An errant breeze brought the rank smell of smoke and diesel fuel over the more natural odors of things growing.

  Goose bumps riddled my flesh as I watched Alex drop into a crouch behind a thick fir tree. Without a word, he dragged me down beside him. When I recognized the rows of nearly four-foot tall plants I knew we'd stumbled onto something that could get us killed. I couldn't begin to guess how many marijuana plants there were in the clearing. Hundreds maybe.