Author’s Note: It was a long drive. They had time to talk. This they did, and they got to know each other well enough to know that whatever “it” was, they had it.

They do not talk much now.

First Kiss

They drove in silence, enjoying the tree lined, winding, two-lane road that followed the watercourse of the South Fork of the Sacramento River, heading ever higher into the mountains to the west of Mount Shasta. As they neared their destination, Nathan slowed. He was looking for an almost invisible side road tucked in between the tall trees. He explained this and concentrated on finding the trail he was looking for. It had been five years since Nathan had been to this campground. It was easy to miss the entrance. There was no sign, and the place appeared on no maps. He saw one road that looked like the one he was seeking, slowed down to a walking pace, peered at it, and recognized that road led to the wrong campground. “That’s the hippie campground,” he explained. “Good swimming hole, lots of skinny dipping, and lots of the knit beanie, tie dyed, ganja crowd. Ours is the next one up.”

It was less than a mile. He saw the road, suddenly recognizing it as though no years had passed. He made a sharp turn and the truck bounced down a steep, short, rutted dirt road into an open area. It was not impressive at first sight. Nathan had seen cars pull in, watched the people swivel their heads, looking around, and then leave immediately, the people evidently thinking that it was an ugly campground. However, another dirt road, again, almost invisible, went off to the left, to the west, and upstream. To their right, the view opened up, and they saw a broad valley, perhaps a quarter mile across, composed mainly of boulders and sand. The South Fork was a small stream even when forced into a narrow channel, but in that region, it split up into many tiny rivulets separated by ridges of piled rocks and sand, and it formed occasional pools. Each winter and spring, during high water, and especially dring the occasional flood, the streams would form new courses. It was always different each year. But some parts remained stable features.

Nathan pulled his truck into a camp he had stayed at before. It was his favorite, more open, and it had the best view. It was on a low bluff overlooking the valley, about twenty feet above one of the streams. There was a small stand of large trees to one side, both firs and the kind of junipers that Californians called “incense cedar” while the west side was closed off by a dense stand of closely growing small conifers. Near the center was a huge and ancient pine. Nathan backed his truck between great pine and the stand of firs.

“Is this it?” Adrian asked as Nathan turned off the engine.

“This is one of the camps. I want to get out and walk. The camp where Brian and I stayed the first time is further on, but the road is overgrown, and there is no turnaround. You cannot tell if anyone is there until you are almost upon them. One of the irritating things about that spot is you are always getting people driving in, seeing the road end, staring at you, and then awkwardly backing up. We’ll walk it. If anyone is there, we’ll stay here.”

They got out. It was rapidly turning dark and growing difficult to see. Nathan reached into the bed and pulled out two, empty, single gallon water containers. They walked down the road. It was indeed overgrown, but Nathan noted that it was leafy foliage and would not scratch his paint job. He looked, nonetheless, for the light flashes that indicated broken branches. Those would scratch the paint. He had brought a pair of clippers he would use to trim back those branches before he drove his truck through.

The deeply wooded road made a bend, and Nathan saw a dark van up ahead. He smelled a touch of the acrid scent of marijuana, and he heard a guitar. “Yep,” he said to his companion, “someone is there.”

Walking by the van, he saw the side door open, and he saw the inside had been turned into a big bed. That was a good way to setup a van. One had a nice sleeping area, but plenty of storage under the bed. To their left, around a fire, he saw a group of young men and women with long hair. The young men all had beards. One had a guitar, and they were singing. In Nathan’s mind, this was the “other California,” almost the cultural opposite of Venice and Santa Monica, which was the California most often seen in movies. He waved a hand cheerily to the campers, holding up the water bottles. “Just getting water at the spring,” he explained.

According the rules of experienced campers, walking through the middle of a camp was not simply not done. One was to find a path to the side, but this camp was laid out to make that impossible.

One of the women asked, “A spring? What spring?”

Not knowing about the spring was not unusual. One could camp at that spot and not see the tiny, tiny stream hidden over a hump on the far side. Nathan laughed lightly, he said, “Yep! This campground is famous for the water. You are camped next to one of the best springs for miles. It runs under the road and emerges right here! Don’t be surprised if other campers come here to get water. This is the source.”

One of the men said, “Ohhh yeeeah man! I thooought I felt, like, water energy! We were sleeping on waaater last night!”

Typical “Dead Head.” Completely deluded but convinced he saw God.

You are camping by a fucking river, you retard! Nathan thought.

But he only nodded pleasantly. The woman who had first spoken stood up and followed the two guys to the spring. He led her over the hump and dropped down into the small declivity. It was truly a hidden spring. It was hardly more than a dribble, but someone, some years before, had dug a hole and built a small dam. Each year, the hole had to dug out again, but it looked like someone had done that this year already. Nathan was not catering to a acid head’s delusion when he said to the woman, “You have a blessed camping spot. This water is so pure, it is sacred.”

She was delighted by the tiny spring and amazed that her group had not spotted it. “Thanks for revealing this,” she said. “Feel free to come and visit.”

Nathan handed a bottle to Adrian, who hopped on the other side to begin filling it. Nathan said, “My name is Nathan, and this is my beloved, Adrian.”

She smiled and said, “I’m Moonlyte. Pleased to meet you Nathan and Adrian.” It was evidently important to her that they know how to spell her name, so she spelled it out.

She left them then. Nathan could hear them chatting happily. All hippies, in Nathan’s opinion, were “Romantics” in the derogatory, Nietzschean, sense of the word. But they were peaceful souls and good neighbors.

With a discernable edge to his tone, Adrian commented, “You introduced as a gay couple, Nathan.”

Nathan knelt down to fill his bottle. “Was that wrong of me, Adrian?”

“No. It was not wrong, but it was a surprise. Is that what I am, your ‘Beloved?’”

“It is how one translates a Greek word, Adrian: ‘The one loved.’ In that schema, I am the, ‘Lover.’ These people are cool. They will see us as magical beings with a special relationship. Around here, among hippies, we can be out. I am hoping you will find this to be a relief.”

Adrian looked up at him in the dark, his beautiful features looked peaceful. He said, “I like it, but I’ve heard you mention how you find hippies naïve.”

“Yeah. You are right. I shouldn’t be such a dick that way because they do get that part, and other parts, right. In fact, welcome to civilization, my lovely friend! No one will care if we are lovers here.”

Adrian beamed happily in the gathering dark. It seemed to Nathan that he radiated light.

Returning to camp, Nathan studied the camping area while Adrian removed his beautiful bicycle. There was a fire pit and a few large rounds of wood, tipped on end, on which to sit. That was lucky. Sometimes Forest Service personnel would destroy the fire pits when fires were no longer permitted later in the season, while large rounds of wood – such excellent seats – would often be split up and burned by lazy campers.

From his truck Nathan produced a small rake and shovel. To Adrian, he said, “If you will, sir, rake clear this area?”

He indicated the elliptical perimeter he wished to use for his tent, carefully positioned for the most privacy and the best view. His tent was an extremely expensive one made for expeditions in the Himalayas. When set up, it looked like a geodesic ellipsoid. Having been designed as a communal tent at large, base camps, it was spacious. One could stand in the middle and set up different areas to each side. Nathan liked to designate one side for sleeping and one side for “working.” The opening was in the center of one of the long sides. The whole affair was self supporting, requiring no guy lines and no stakes. The poles were made from re-purposed, interconnected, aluminum arrow shafts, all held together by light elastic cords through their hollow centers. There had only been a few of these tents made, for few people could afford a four thousand dollar tent. Nathan had bought it cheaply from one of his clients who had returned from an aborted Everest expedition, saying, “Never again!”

Nathan first pulled the tent from its bag and tossed it out. The poles were all color-coded and always required a bit of sorting out. Adrian came over and looked at the tent, laying flat on the ground. He whistled and said, “Whew! Fancy! I have only seen these kinds of tents in pictures. They are ridiculously expensive, aren’t they?”

“Indeed. I’d never buy one new. I got this one second-hand and dirt cheap from one of my clients, a movie producer, who bought it for a climb on Everest. He never used it. Uh, actually, I knocked off a grand from the price he was paying for some bookshelves. We were both happy with the deal.”

“Score!“ Adrian exclaimed.

“I thought so too! But you see the size?”

“Yeah. I need to rake some more.”

As Nathan expected, Adrian was an experienced camper and knew the supreme importance of getting a smooth area cleared under a tent. While Nathan locked the poles together, he noticed that Adrian scooped up some sand from another area and used it to patch some dips in the ground. None of this thoroughness and thoughtfulness surprised him, but he was delighted. Nathan, who commanded many men, always sought workers who required the least instruction.

Once the area was cleared, Adrian came over again and without a word took the polypropylene sheet Nathan used as a protective later under the tent. It was cut to fit precisely. He laid it out and returned as Nathan had just finished putting all the poles together. Together, they spread out the tent. Adrian said, “I’ll bet you have a system for putting the poles in. How can I help?”

“Well, in the bed of the truck, near the back, there’s a mat I use for wiping one’s feet, and the tent is a ‘no shoes’ zone, right? So you can bring that and take off your shoes so you can walk on the tent and help feed the poles through the loops in the middle while I go around the perimeter.”

“OK!”

It was a complex operation, for it was a complex tent. It took them a good twenty minutes to set it up. He did not bother with the waterproof rainfly that night. It was not needed.

Once setup, the dome tent was a thing of beauty, all red, orange, and gold triangles with the lighter colors at the top and the darker colors at the bottom. The pattern made by the variously flame colored triangles simulated a fire-like effect. Nathan loved the way the hues made it cheery inside on gloomy days.

After properly admiring the tent, Adrian asked, “Shall we make a fire, Nathan?”

“We could, but you will find this area is picked clean of any easily obtained wood. I brought my chainsaw though. I was planning on cutting up one of the dead and fallen trees one will find in the riverbed, but that will have to wait until morning. I set up my cooking area on the tailgate of the truck. I have another tarp we can hang from a line between these two trees, but again, that can wait until tomorrow. I was thinking of a minimal setup tonight which we can refine tomorrow.”

“That makes sense, but I sure would like a fire!”

“OK. Sure. Where we are going to bathe has lots of sticks laying around. Most people don’t gather wood there. It’s too much work. We can use a couple of bungees to tie up a bundle and bring it back with us, and, I expect, you are very hungry?”

“Starving!”

“Me too! But by not stopping, we had just enough light to set up camp, so thanks for rolling with that.”

“Sure!”

“I have lots of food too. Do you like steak?”

“Love it!”

“Well good, so you will like the Harris Ranch rib eyes I bought at Gelson’s. Big, thick steaks, and all organic.”

“OK, now I’m really hungry!”

“Which do you want to do first, then, Adrian? Eat, or wash up?”

“Well, I want a fire to sit with while we eat, so we need to get wood first, and that means going to the pool you wanted to show me, so let’s do that first. I had that trail mix. I am hungry, but I can wait. Plus, uh, well, you know!”

Yeah, Buddy, I’m feeling it too!

“Yes, I do know. Good. Let’s do that then.”

Nathan grabbed the towels, his kit with grooming items, and these he put into a steel pot with a carrying handle. He grabbed his headlamp, spare flashlight, and the bungee cords. Placing these items near, Nathan sat on one the sitting rounds to remove his boots. He told Adrian he might want to put his shoes on, but he, himself, was going barefoot.

“If you are going barefoot, I am going barefoot.”

“Great,” Nathan told him as he rolled up the cuffs of his jeans. “And when we get back, you can set up the inside of the tent while I cook.”

Adrian agreed with that, saying, “We make a good team, you and I, huh Nathan?”

“It appears we do, you lovely boy. Now let’s go get naked together, huh? Let us wash away the polluted South and let the clean North give us a new beginning.”

“I have been looking forward to that all day!”

“Me too, man. Me too.”

Nathan typically liked to carry things with his semi-disabled left hand, for this left his adept right hand free. As they made their way out of camp to the road by which they came in, he held his bucket swinging from by its arced handle, and he carried the towels draped over his arm. He wore his headlamp, and Adrian carried the flashlight.

Nathan was a more excited than nervous, but he was surprised and delighted to feel nervous at all. Adrian was making him feel young again. He was chattering like a boy, going on and on about everything. Giddy with expectation, told him that the campground was initially a logging camp, back in the twenties, and it was still used by the Forest Service and California Conservation Corps.

Meeting the road, they went left toward the stream and dropped down a steep pitch to the broad river valley. That road was still used as a place to fill water tanker trucks from the river. The wide open area they had seen on the way in was also a place where road crews would dump sand and gravel.

They had their flashlights on. Nathan warned him, “Watch your footing, Adrian, these stones can roll on you, and watch this mossy part!”

They hopped over a narrow part above a long, wide, shallow pool. “Good fishing at this pool, but easy to get snagged in that brush, and if you’re using spinning gear you have to start reeling quickly ’cause your lures will get stuck if they hit bottom; then you scare all the fish trying to get it unstuck, and I end up wading up and pulling it out by hand…”

Nathan realized he was babbling like a boy, and he stopped talking. He wondered if Adrian picked up on his nervously adolescent energy.

But Adrian was more interested in the view of majestic Mount Shasta to the east, glowing pink still in the snowy upper reaches. He stopped behind Nathan, saying, “Wow!”

Nathan paused and looked. “Wow,” indeed!

Behind the mountain, the sky glowed pale silver at the horizon, indicating a bright moon was soon to rise. Adrian said, “When I checked my phone, my sky map app said it would be full moon in a few days, so it should be pretty light when the moon rises! Oh, I just love this!”

They stopped together. Adrian did something sweet. He reached over and took Nathan’s right hand in his left. He turned off his flashlight. Nathan, awkwardly, for his left hand was holding the pot, removed his headlamp and turned it off.

They looked at each other in the dark. They looked around them. Only the bubbly sighs of the gentle stream behind them interrupted the perfect silence.

Adrian moved close to Nathan.

Their shoulders brushed.

Nathan’s body coursed with cool rushes of blue, electric fire.

All day, there had been almost no physical contact with each other. Nathan felt supercharged with sexual energy. He would not have been surprised to see flashes of lightning flicker between them, and perhaps, on another realm of higher senses, there was a crackling manifestation of visible power.

Reaching out his perception, Nathan hunted with his attention for any observers. He could feel when he was being watched. He felt they were unobserved; that is, unless one considered the everpresent sense of his dead lover.

Under the purple sky, save for bats, owls, and ghosts, they were alone.

He drew Adrian to him. He was gentle and suave, as careful as he would be were he gathering a frightened sparrow in his hands. He held the trembling young man. Adrian’s left arm came under his right, and his right wrapped around over the top of Nathan’s cluttered left. With his free right hand, Nathan lovingly massaged the back of the young man’s slender neck. Adrian nuzzled his face in the crook of Nathan’s shoulders. He felt his hot breath and he drank in the salty scent of a man. Adrian’s hair smelled more dusty than sweaty. His long, tall, hard body felt like liquid granite in his arms.

Adrian’s strong finger’s probed the line of muscles along Nathan’s spine, sending thrilling shocks into his cortex. The entire fronts of both their bodies were pressed close.

They held this embrace in perfect silence, swaying slightly, for several long minutes, content.

Finally Adrian moved his head back and looked at Nathan expectantly. He was glowing blue in the twilight. His face appeared as pale as the moon.

He wanted to be kissed.

Nathan kissed him.

He kissed him lightly at first, only grazing Adrian’s lush yet roughly chapped lips. After a few moments, he tasted those succulent lips, licking them delicately with his tongue, enjoying the rough sensation of the flaky skin there. He felt the proud heat of Adrian’s desire rising up to meet his own.

When Adrian’s lips parted, it was not Nathan’s tongue which entered his mouth, but Adrian’s tongue which entered his.

He tasted of chocolate and salted cashews.

With a thumb, Nathan felt the throbbing pulse of Adrian’s neck artery. The blood pumping there revealed a heart that crashed and thundered. Adrian’s body writhed, and forcefully he pressed himself hard into Nathan, his kiss grew passionate, and their heads twisted against each other. The madness of their love was breaking free, as it would, as it must, as it had to.

Adrian pulled his head back with a low moan. He sounded young, childlike. He sucked in his breath with a gasp and stared at Nathan with wonder filled, bright eyes. He moved apart and looked down quickly. To Nathan, it looked like he was overcome with sudden shyness.

It was Adrian who spoke first as Nathan studied him. His voice was soft. “That was a great kiss, Nathan.”

“Yes.”

Nathan smiled a small smile and lightly tossed his head, indicating they should move on. Their eyes were adjusted to the light then. It was easy to see. The sand and rocks were light colored. The sky still held a glow. Adrian let go of Nathan’s hand.

Nathan led. Adrian followed.

They had to make their way around and over many obstacles to get where Nathan had in mind. Nathan did not take them straight to the place; instead, he followed a circuitous route. He first went upstream behind the pool, for by the most direct route, there was a fallen tree one would need to walk along, and this was further complicated by overgrown brush one would need to push through. That obstacle was followed by several artful jumps across the tops of large boulders. Any fall was potentially deadly. It was a tricky path in daylight, but in the dark, it was dangerous even for one who knew the way; thus, for someone who was not already intimate with the terrain, it was foolish.

Also, Nathan, ever wary, did not wish anyone on the bluff behind them to track their movements. It was a secret spot that he shared with no one but his chosen confidants.

Once upstream and on the other side of the secret pool, he walked downstream. Adrian did not question him. He followed carefully, even stepping in Nathan’s footprints.

They were sharing together a sacred spell. They needed no words.

Nathan kept glancing to his right, toward the camp.

Once he saw that the stand of young willows on the far side of the pool obscured him and Adrian from any view there, he immediately moved in that direction. They had to climb up a large mound of sand mixed with small pebbles. Once above it, the lovely pool beckoned darkly mysterious before them. He reached over to Adrian who took his hand. “This is it, Adrian.”

“It feels so peaceful, Nathan.”

“Yes.”

It was not a spectacular, dramatic spot. It was a sweet and humble spot. That’s what Nathan liked about it.

In all the the times he and Brian had returned to camp, he had only seen one couple discover the spot. Nathan and Brian were sunbathing nude, and the couple, two beautiful humans, a young man and women, had greeted them pleasantly and removed their clothes to swim. The entire length of the South Fork was a nudist’s river by tradition since time immemorial. There was nothing unusual in that couple’s indifference to his and Brian’s nudity, and there was nothing unusual in their enjoying the same freedom. The pretty couple had waded in and kissed each other against the same rock that he and Brian had enjoyed much passion together.

In Nathan’s opinion, the gentle spirit who guarded the pool enjoyed the company of lovers, and would, at chosen times, invite them.

He and Brian had rolled over on their fronts to give that beautiful couple privacy, and they shared a happy glance with each other.

Quietly, Adrian said, “You are remembering, aren’t you, Nathan?”

“Yes.”

Standing high in space above the pool, Nathan included him in the place by telling him that simple story.

“I am overwhelmed by memories of Brian right now, my Adrian.”

He said this as an explanation, but he was not sure what he was explaining. His mind was not working. He was only perceiving, not thinking.

Adrian asked him, “Do you think he would be glad to see us here? You and me? Together?”

“He would be delighted. As the end came nearer, he would entreat me to go and play, to meet new people, to enjoy life, to, as he liked to say, ‘Carpe diem.’”

“Seize the day,” Adrian said, demonstrating his understanding by pulling Nathan down to the edge of the pool.

Nathan dropped the towels and the bucket. He stepped into the water with Adrian, who observed, “It’s not as cold as I thought it would be.”

“Yes. It’s warmer at the end of the day and colder in the morning.”

He let go of Adrian’s hand to unbutton his shirt. Adrian got the cue and pulled off his cycling jersey, which he wadded up to toss on the shore. His smooth chest gleamed in the blue light. Nathan went more slowly in undressing, and, this, evidently, was unsatisfactory to Adrian who moved to finish unbuttoning his shirt. Nathan was able to caress his lover’s lovely shoulders while he did that. He always enjoyed being undressed by another. He found the little bits of awkwardness in the process endearing. When Adrian reached his beltline, he saw him hesitate, was he wondering to pull the shirt up from where it was tucked, or should he unclasp the belt and open his fly?

Nathan answered this dilemma by doing that himself, allowing Adrian to finish unbuttoning his shirt and then remove it. They were still standing in the water. Nathan did not want his shirt tossed, so he took Adrian’s arm by a sleek tricep and guided him back up the small beach. Looking around, he saw a branch that would serve for draping his shirt, and he did that. He pulled off his dark undershirt, making Adrian gasp.

“I knew you were buff, but I did not know that under all those clothes you looked like an MMA fighter! Fuuuuck, dude!”

Adrian fell forward and attacked Nathan’s chest, running his fingers through his hair there and squeezing his pectoral muscles. He was panting through his nose. Nathan could feel the hot snorts of air blowing on his cheek. It was a crazy rush to feel such a young buck’s wild passion. Nathan grabbed Adrian’s head by the sides and kissed him madly. Adrian held him to himself with his fingers digging into Nathan’s back. They made animal noises as they lashed each other’s tongues with each other’s tongues.

The game had only just begun.