The hand had left Paul's hardening cock and took one of Paul's hands and moved it below the waistband of Ted's athletic shorts and down to his already-hard cock.
"Let me give you this. You need this. I can be really good to you."
Paul moaned in answer.
Paul's belly was bent over the arm of the sofa, and Ted was covering him close from behind, holding Paul's wrists with his fists, and stroking Paul's channel deep with his sheathed cock when Paul came out of his drunken stupor enough to have any idea where he was and what was happening and who was fucking him.
"Oh, shit, no!" he cried out. "I can't." He struggled up from underneath Ted, who just sat back in the center of the sofa and looked at him with surprise and disappointment as Paul swept up his shorts and briefs from the carpet and ran for the door. Ted hadn't bothered to take Paul's athletic shoes off him.
Paul had no idea how Perry and Terrence made it home that day. He had driven his Jeep, and he had taken off alone. He didn't even have any idea how he made it home that day as buzzed as he was. Within a week he was, by his own request, headed back up in the San Rafael mountains to hide himself away in a fire spotter's tower. The park authority had been delighted he had volunteered for duty up there over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, when it was almost impossible to staff up the isolated forest posts. No one asked him why he had volunteered. They didn't want to hear again how much he missed his boyfriend.
He left without speaking to either Perry or Terrence again. He didn't have much doubt what they'd gone upstairs in Ted's house to do and left him alone with Ted, buzzed—after Perry had said they would be there with him, that they wouldn't leave him alone with Ted. He even half suspected everything had been arranged between the three of them. Holt had more money than he knew what to do with. Terrence could be bought easily, even if Perry couldn't. He knew that if he asked Perry, he'd get the answer that, no matter whether or not it had been planned, it was what Paul needed. But Paul couldn't stop thinking that Holt probably lured a young guy to his house a couple of times a week, fucked him, and then cut him loose.
And of course he didn't contact Ted either. Paul was more embarrassed about what had happened with Ted Holt than angry. Holt was a sexy guy, and obviously a player. He certainly was more into the game than Paul was. Paul was the one who drank the beer and lost control. For all Paul knew Holt had made it clear that he was inviting the three of him because he wanted to fuck Paul and mistakenly thought that this had been conveyed to Paul before he agreed to come.
It had taken him a while to come out of the buzz. He had felt the cock working inside him for several minutes before he had fought to escape it. And he was angry. Not necessarily at Ted; he had some slight remembrance that Ted had asked for permission to fuck him. He was angry at himself—and was feeling disloyal. This, because as he was coming out of his stupor and realized he was being fucked, he remembered imagining that it was Adrian—and then thinking that it couldn't be, because he was getting a much better fuck than Adrian had ever given him.
He . . . just . . . couldn't give in to Perry's argument that this was what he needed. It was disloyal to the memory of Adrian. And somehow it was worse that he hadn't been able to make it even to Christmas before he betrayed Adrian.
* * * *
A week before Christmas Paul had been on top of his tower in the San Rafael mountains for four days, completely alone. He'd had time to think, and each time he started to think about Ted Holt and what had happened in his house, he blotted it out and tried to think about something else. Being alone was what he knew he wanted, what he needed. He spent a lot of time out on the balcony that ran completely around the small, but adequately outfitted crow's nest he lived in 24/7, and scanning his binoculars over the ridge tops, watching for signs of smoke. Not many came up here over the Christmas season, although the weather was still good for camping, other than the surprise snow storm now and again. But those who did come up here in December tended to be less careful than the summer campers.
His digs at the top of the tower consisted essentially of one room with a small bathroom in a corner, the rest of the walls all windows looking out on the mountains and, beyond them, to the west, a glimmer of the ocean. But there was a kitchenette; a table and four dining chairs; a small sofa and overstuffed arm chair; two twin-sized beds, each against a wall, a braided rug in the center of the room; and a desk. No TV, but he did have electricity and a CD player—and, best of all, he had an Internet connection. He hadn't used that much yet, though. He wasn't in the mood to be connected with the world. He'd intended to do some writing while he was up here—but he hadn't done any of that yet either.
So, his days were spent mainly walking the balconies, scanning the ridge tops more than half of his waking moments, trying to read a couple of novels that weren't helping—he saw the mistake of bringing gay novels up here almost immediately—and trying not to think about what he knew he really should be examining in his mind.
The afternoon of the fifth day he saw smoke—up to the northwest, toward the Sierra Madres, but clearly within his own span of responsibility. He was instantly excited by the prospect of activity, not giving a second thought to his professed desire to be alone, and raced down the tower, jumped in the Jeep, and headed down his mountain toward where he had seen the smoke.
It was a fire, but it was a campfire at an established camping site, and the fire was letting off a hell of a lot more smoke than seemed justified by the embers still smoldering. It wasn't near any overhanging trees, and it was well surrounded with rocks, with no brush nearby. Not a danger. Paul felt a little disappointed.
There was a tent nearby, though, and he saw the ripples in the nylon sides of the tents about the time he heard the unmistakable sounds of sex. Male sex. Men in deep fuck.
The flap of the tent was full open and snapped back on the sides on either side. He could see a pair of big feet, the toes scrunching up, letting loose, scrunching up. He was drawn to the sound. As he drew closer and could see farther into the tent, he saw the calves that the big feet were attached to and the knees. And he could see the soles of smaller feet, on either side of the calves. And the butt cheeks of a young, well-muscled man. He could see the beefy hands of the man on his back grabbing the slim waist of the smaller man. And he could see the alternating root of a thick cock and a couple of inches of the base of it, as the smaller man, who was straddling the pelvis of the larger man, rose and fell on the impaling cock.
This is exactly what I do not need to see, Paul thought, as he jerked away, went to the Jeep and took a bucket of sand from the back, walked back to the fire and smothered it with sand, and then got back in his Jeep and rode back up to his safe tower on the adjacent mountain top.
Stumbling into the tower room, he went directly to his laptop. He'd check his e-mails, he thought. He hadn't done that in a couple of days. It would wipe the vision of what he'd seen—and how it had aroused him—out of his mind. Fat chance of that his mind sassed back at him, as he switched on his e-mail account. There was a message that there was a large box addressed to him down at park headquarters in Santa Barbara that he could come down and pick up at his convenience.
He'd go later in the afternoon, he decided. He was too fidgety now. He picked one of the gay novels up from beside the laptop, walked over to one of the twin beds, stripped off his trousers and briefs, laid down on the bed, and flipped open the novel to one of the dog-eared pages. Then he masturbated himself to drowsiness and a restless sleep.
When he woke, he showered, and dressed again. Then he drove down the mountain to Santa Barbara. There were a couple of routes he could have taken down the fire trails, but, without a thought, he chose the one going by the encampment where the two guys had been fucking. He pulled up at the side of the road beyond eyesight of the encampment, took out his binoculars, and trained them on the site.
The two were still fucking—or were fucking again. This time they had moved to outside the entrance to the tent. They were on some sort of mat. They both looked like college students—clean-cut, although the bigger one had a tattoo on a shoulder blade—and athletic. The smaller guy was dark headed. He might even have been Hispanic. The bigger guy was a Nordic blond. The smaller guy was on his back, with his legs spread and in the air, held out there by the bigger guy's hands. He was scrabbling at the brush and small rocks nearby with his hands, his mouth was gaping open, and, now that he saw him, Paul realized he could also hear him—but barely—crying out how well and deep he was being taken.
The bigger guy was kneeling between the smaller guy's thighs and moving his buttocks back and forth, rapidly and rhythmically, ramming the smaller guy's ass hard and deep.
Paul let the binoculars drop in the seat beside him—after several minutes of watching—he shook his head to try to dislodge the vision of what he'd seen—not just looked at, but watched for several minutes—and told himself to get a grip on himself. He backed the Jeep up to take a route that didn't go right past the campsite and drove on down into Santa Barbara.
