Baja Honeymoon

by Roland Graeme

  Rick clamped his hands down on the back of Ken’s head and forced it all the way down until he gagged him on the swollen length of inflexible cockshaft being driven into the depths of his throat.

  “Take it, you cocksucker,” Rick demanded. “Take it all!”

  Ken did his best to satisfy his lover’s aggressive demands. Rick’s roughness roused a latent masochistic streak deep within him. He would’ve been more than happy to bask there in the hot sun, pleasing Rick with his mouth for the rest of the afternoon. So he was taken by surprise when, after a few more minutes of the exciting throat-fuck, Rick tightened his grip on Ken’s wet hair and pulled Ken away from his saliva-coated prick.

  “Make me,” Rick gasped, as he lowered his head to Ken’s crotch. “Make me suck yours the way I just did you.”

  “You want it a little rough, huh?”

  “Yeah. Fuck my face for me. Fuck my face!”

  “You want it so bad, you horny bastard?” Ken taunted. “Then take it.” As he spoke, he pushed Rick’s face against his groin and inserted the full length of his cock between Rick’s open, eager lips.

  They became so wildly excited that, for once, they didn’t actually fuck. That would’ve required interrupting their sex for the few moments it would take to get up, go to the truck, and grab a condom and the lube. Neither man was willing to postpone his orgasm for even that long. Instead, when Rick had tired of sucking Ken’s cock, they lay side by side again on the beach towel, kissing deeply while they jerked off together. Two jets of white semen soon shot up into the air above their thrashing bodies, the drops catching the sunlight and sparkling as they rained back down onto the two men’s sweat-slick flesh.

  “Jesus,” Ken said. “I really needed that.”

  “Me, too.” Rick’s right hand, sticky with cum, sought Ken’s and grasped it. Ken returned the pressure. “We’d better go back in the water and rinse off.” It was an utterly banal suggestion, but the tremor in Rick’s voice betrayed his emotion.

  “Yeah, good idea.” Ken could hear tenderness toward Rick filtering through his own voice. Maintaining his grip on Rick’s hand, he helped him to his feet, and they dashed toward the ocean holding hands.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE SCENT OF PINE

  IT WAS, incredibly, their next-to-last day in Baja. Even if they dawdled and treated themselves to some extra detours along the way, they’d be near the United States border within forty-eight hours.

  The warmth of the sun felt good as they lay together, still lazing about and doing no more than thinking about getting up. Finally, though, they roused themselves and got moving.

  While crossing the state border in Guerrero Negro, they had to show their Tourist Cards for the first time. Ken was actually rather excited about this, because they’d paid good money for the cards and up until now it had seemed that the money had gone to waste. Being required to provide documentation of their status seemed to reinforce the fact that they were traveling in a foreign country, after all.

  After crossing into Baja Norte, they decided to find somewhere to have lunch in Guerrero Negro.

  They passed a couple of small, ramshackle roadside stands, but neither the establishments nor the advertised bills of fare looked particularly enticing. Farther along the road, they spotted a parked catering truck. According to the sign on its side, it specialized in tacos.

  Ken would have been a little hesitant to eat tacos from the average catering truck back home, north of the border, and as a result he harbored some serious reservations about doing so down in Mexico. But in the spirit of adventure, he and Rick walked over to check the truck out.

  It was a large white vehicle with a sign set on the ground in front of it advertising fish tacos. The grinning cartoon fish painted on the sign was disarming. The truck’s exterior was freshly washed and waxed, and when they looked inside it, everything in the interior seemed well organized and looked sanitary, so they decided to take a chance.

  After placing their order, they observed the vendor put on a pair of disposable gloves after handling their money and before he started cooking, which convinced them that they’d made a sound decision to eat here. They watched him dip the chunks of fish in batter and drop them into a vat of boiling oil. The instant they turned golden brown and crispy, he pulled them out and wrapped them in warm corn tortillas. He was talkative and asked them about their trip while he prepared the tacos.

  Near the front of the truck was a salsa bar with different types of sauces and condiments, allowing customers to season their tacos to taste. Rick and Ken took their paper plates, heaped high with tacos, and filled them with different types of salsas. The tacos turned out to be excellent. Served piping hot, they were stuffed with pieces of fish that were crispy on the outside, flavorful inside. In fact, they were the best tacos they’d eaten so far during the trip, and they agreed that their taco truck experience had been an entirely satisfactory one.

  Back in Baja Norte, they were immediately aware of an increased military presence. They had to pass through several military checkpoints before they reached the small town of Rosalito. As usual, Ken went out of his way to engage the soldiers in conversation, to Rick’s amusement.

  “Some of those guys were hot,” Rick remarked after they left one such checkpoint behind, with Rick taking over the driving duties.

  Ken snickered.

  “What’s so goddamn funny?” Rick demanded.

  “You’re beginning to sound awfully damn gay. Before, you never took much notice of whether other guys were hot or not.”

  “Must be your influence.”

  The weather changed rapidly. The air was humid, and dark clouds hovered on the horizon, threatening to roll in and dump rain on them. The prospect made Ken more than a little nervous, because the road was already pretty rough, and mud would make it nearly impassable. Throughout the morning, he kept a wary eye on the clouds, but they ended up dissipating before they reached the coast.

  The road, however, continued to be very rough, and during one stretch they had to crawl along at a snail’s pace. The upside was that they were able to enjoy the scenery, and they stopped often to look around. The desert flora was plentiful, and they took the time to take lots of pictures of the different types of cacti and other desert plants along the way. They amused themselves by trying to find the biggest or most impressive plant, and then, of course, taking turns posing for a photo in front of it.

  They also stopped every few miles to check out the beaches. At one beach they found several rusting lobster traps strewn about, obviously abandoned long ago. The traps were dented and looked as though some especially big surf might have carried them ashore and tossed them far up onto the rocks. There were also all sorts of other bits of flotsam washed up onto the rocks: empty bottles; bits of plastic; and loose, weathered wooden boards. Ken and Rick did their good deed for the day by loading two garbage bags with the worst of the debris and tossing the filled bags into the back of the truck to be disposed of later.

  Farther down the road, when they stopped at yet another beach, they discovered several interesting rock formations. Many of these were not only worn smooth by the tide but also displayed impressive evidence of the ocean’s power to carve its way through solid rock. Whole sections had been scooped out of some of the rocks, and others were pierced all the way through by long, narrow tunnels that allowed the seawater to flow through them. It was as though some sculptor had made the alterations, using a variety of sophisticated tools, but they were in fact the work of nature. Ken and Rick took photos of the spot, which had a certain austere beauty, and continued on their way.

  They now found themselves traveling along a road that was in poor repair even by rural Mexican standards. The pavement was cracked and broken, and in many places it was missing altogether, eroded away by exposure to the elements. The desert landscape to either side had been built up into shifting sand dunes by the wind, and these dunes often spilled across the road, creating barricades that a vehicle ha
d to either go over, plow through, or circumvent.

  Bouncing about in the passenger seat, Ken was concerned by the way the road’s condition deteriorated further until it was no more than two parallel ruts left in the dirt and sand by previous vehicles. He could tell things were going to get even rougher as the road and the dunes seemed to merge into a single, undifferentiated entity. The ruts would drop down one side of an incline and then shoot up the other side, only to veer off into yet another rocky gully. A little warning voice inside his head kept reminding him that they hadn’t actually seen another vehicle on this so-called road ever since they’d turned onto it, and getting stuck wasn’t an option. It would mean, at best, a long hike on foot in search of possible help. It wasn’t a very reassuring thought as they continued to bounce over the rough road.

  “I’d like to get my hands on the son of a bitch who included this route on the map,” Ken said, after the truck had negotiated an especially jolting bump.

  Rick, however, seemed unconcerned. He seemed to know instinctively when to use a heavy foot on the gas while sliding down the steeper embankments, making sure the pickup had lots of momentum to get it up the other side. Miraculously, they made it every time, bouncing along with all four tires spinning. The truck’s suspension got a workout but passed the torture test with flying colors, and they managed to make it through the roughest stretch of roadway they had yet encountered without getting stuck.

  The road eventually started to veer away from the coast and leveled out as it made its way into the foothills. Rick eased his grip on the steering wheel and let out a sigh of relief.

  “Want me to take over?” Ken asked.

  “Oh sure, you volunteer now, after I’ve been white-knuckling it for miles,” Rick said, but with humor.

  They changed places. Ken was beginning to feel confident, reassured by the improved condition of the road under them, when they rounded a corner and saw how, directly ahead, the road took an abrupt turn and then seemed to go straight up the side of the mountain.

  “Fuck,” Ken exclaimed. “Just when I thought the worst was over.”

  “There’s nothing to it,” Rick scoffed. “Just gear down and take it slow.”

  Ken had visions of the pickup losing traction halfway up the ascent and rolling backward, picking up speed as it hurtled along. But he’d be damned if he was going to wuss out and lose face in front of his buddy. Maintaining a death grip on the steering wheel until the blood drained from his own knuckles, he got them to the top of the hill in one piece.

  From their new vantage point, so high up, they could see the little community of Santa Rosalillita a few miles up the coast.

  Lobster traps, in good repair this time, were piled alongside the road in great heaps as they entered Santa Rosalillita. It was a small village with only a smattering of small houses scattered along the bay. Judging by the omnipresence of lobster traps, fishing nets, and other fishing gear piled in the front yards of all the houses, and the many boats moored in the bay, everyone in the town gained his livelihood from the sea.

  “Let’s check out one of these little cafés and see if we can get some lunch,” Rick suggested.

  Lunch turned out to be the catch of the day, scallops served on fried tortillas and accompanied by a thick, filling bean stew and prickly pear salad. After the meal, they followed the road through the town and found the turnoff that would lead them back to the highway. It was unpaved, but had recently been graded, and was in good condition.

  After traveling a few miles toward the highway, all of a sudden the road widened and pavement abruptly appeared. It was by far the widest paved road they had seen in Baja. It would have accommodated at least four or five lanes. It seemed bizarre that out in the middle of nowhere, such a spacious paved highway should suddenly appear. Rick pulled out the guidebook to see if it made any mention of the road.

  It turned out that this was the byproduct of another overambitious engineering scheme. The plan had been to construct a land bridge between Santa Rosalillita and Bahía de Los Angeles. The land bridge was to be a wide road connecting the two ports and facilitating boats crossing overland on large trucks, thus making it easier for pleasure boats to cross over from the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Cortez, instead of having to be transported all the way down and around the tip of the peninsula. There seemed to be little activity or progress being made.

  They stopped at a Pemex station to fuel up and use the restroom. As he paid for the gas, Ken noticed that there was a rack near the cash register, displaying both Spanish and English language newspapers and magazines. One of the English publications was a tabloid, obviously imported directly from the States. Its headline fairly leaped out at Ken. Gunther Wants a Pre-Nup!

  Ken grabbed a copy of the rag and skimmed through just enough of the cover story to confirm that it was indeed filled with speculation about Gunther and Eva’s marriage plans and Deke’s possible reaction to their nuptials. Ken bought the paper, rolled it up into a cylinder, and went back outside, where Rick was waiting for him in the truck.

  “What’s that you’ve got there?” Rick asked.

  “Oh, just some reading material for later, in case I get bored.”

  To Ken’s relief, Rick didn’t question his statement or show any further interest in the tabloid, which Ken hastily stowed away under his seat.

  In the late afternoon, they reached the last tourist attraction they’d marked on their map as a place to stop and check out. This was a national park, with the imposing-sounding name “Parque National Sierra de San Pedro Mártir.” The road leading to it passed through a picturesque farming valley called San Telemo before it began a steady ascent into the mountains. Craggy granite peaks dominated the eastern horizon and towered high above the foothills. Herds of cattle grazed along the road, and Ken and Rick once again saw some real Mexican cowboys, on their horses and hard at work.

  The road continued to climb up the mountain, and the vegetation began to change the higher they got. Soon scrubby pine trees began appearing, gradually developing into a dense forest. The road’s condition got a bit rougher as they approached the park’s entrance, but on the whole it was an easy trip that had taken only about an hour and a half.

  Surprisingly, the area seemed practically deserted. During the entire drive up to the park, they saw only two other vehicles, and both of these appeared to belong to local ranchers. It was obviously a bit early in the tourist season for this isolated spot to attract many visitors.

  At the park’s entrance there was a gate and a small log cabin constructed of tree trunks no doubt felled in the immediate vicinity and weathered by long exposure to the elements. A sign proclaimed, rather grandiloquently, that this modest structure was the park rangers’ headquarters and the information center. The first thing the two visitors noticed when they pulled up was a snowdrift nestled against one side of the cabin. “Snow?” both men exclaimed simultaneously in disbelief. The dirty snow was only a foot or so deep, and it was slushy and melting, but it was still snow.

  The crisp mountain air smelled of pine needles. The sun seemed to penetrate more brightly through this thin, high altitude air, and it made Ken and Rick squint as they walked over to the building. A single ranger was on duty. He greeted them, then politely requested the modest admission fee to the park. In return, he handed them a topological map of the immediate area, a flyer in English on the local flora and fauna distributed by some naturalist organization headquartered in San Diego, and a photocopied map of the park’s one road, which looked as though it was drawn completely out of scale. But also typical was the hospitality extended by the ranger, who insisted that they come inside for a rest and some freshly brewed coffee before exploring more.

  The young ranger, whose name was Javier, seemed glad to have somebody to talk to. He explained that while he was on duty, he slept in the cabin at night. He had another week of his shift to go before another ranger would relieve him, and then he’d be able to leave the park and have a taste of civilizati
on again. It was a lonely job at times, but if you liked being in the outdoors, it had its rewards.

  Javier, Ken noticed, was a strapping youth who filled out his uniform trousers and shirt nicely. He had warm brown eyes and a beguiling smile. Other aspects of his appearance were decidedly urban, and seemed incongruous in this wilderness setting. Javier had his hair frosted at the tips and gelled into stiff spikes, and he sported gold rings in both of his pierced earlobes. Ken wondered how he could get his uniform cap on comfortably over those spikes of hair, which probably explained why Javier wasn’t wearing the cap at the moment—it was hanging from a peg on the wall near the door.

  Javier told Ken and Rick that he was the only person on duty in the entire park, and he gave them a little plastic tag on a bright-red cord to hang from the rearview mirror of the pickup. He asked them to fasten the tag to the gate when they left, so that when he made his rounds, he would know that they had made it out of the park safely. After receiving these instructions, they shook the young ranger’s hand, got back in the truck, and drove into the park.

  After several miles, they stopped at what a signpost identified as the Mirador trailhead. This hiking trail wound up to the summit of a tall outcropping of granite that gave the persistent hiker a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Sea of Cortez to the east. The first part of the trail was steep, and they soon noticed the high elevation as they sucked in great gulps of air but still couldn’t seem to catch their breath completely.