Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 23:27:53 -0700 From: Greg Pine Subject: Barriers 4 Dave's Story "I'm on the wrong path." I noticed my mouth saying one day. I think my mouth had been saying it for a few days, or weeks, before I heard myself saying it. When I was stuck in traffic, or being elbowed in the grocery store. I would float out of the present and hear myself saying it again. I would wake up at night after a street light had pierced the blinds of my bedroom and hear it again, "I'm on the wrong path". "What's that?" she'd say next to me. I didn't answer. She thought I was talking in my sleep. Before I wholly knew what I was saying my hands tried to show me. I took out my camping bags and rummaged through them. The smell of wood, and mud, billowed out of them and calmed me down. It had been several weeks since my last assignment and I was due for another one. I turned over all the supplies in my hands. My headlamp, my compass, my axe and thermos. My ranger shirt. My ranger shirt. It was crumpled and unwashed. I unfolded it in my hands and looked it over. I looked at the tag, there was no "D.E". on them. I usually write my initials on all my gear. I must have missed this one. I took off my shirt and put the brown polo on. The smell wafted out of the shirt and across my torso, and to my face, but it wasn't my smell at all. It was Scott's. Ours must have gotten mixed up along the way. I thought back to our last patrol. I don't know why I had exposed myself to him on our trip. I had only been touched by two other guys in my life. One, on a high school camping trip with three buddies, my tent mate Kevin reached into my sleeping bag, into my boxers, and felt me up at night. Another time in college, well, twice in college, I had gone over to the RA's dorm to "watch the game", and after a few beers I let him use his hand and mouth on me. I'm not gonna lie, I liked getting off, even if I felt some guilt afterwards. But I do remember on our first day Scott's unique blend of intensity and aloofness amused me. If he thought I wasn't paying attention, he laid the unblinking focus of a mountain lion upon me. But when I looked back at him, he pretended like he was daydreaming of something else. Everything I said was hilarious to him, and every movement I made was an Olympian's in his eyes. It was a much needed ego boost to be held on a pedestal. Maybe that's why I was so reckless. I felt like I could do no wrong. The cabin was hot and I slept naked. When I heard him pacing around at night, I turned and let my dick hang out in the open air. I was a little drunk and thought, if he doesn't see it, I get a cool breeze on my naked body. If he does see it, well, that would be the funny part. It is kind of empowering to not care if someone sees your dick. But I didn't imagine he would be so bold as to blow me. Can you send a word through a dick? I guess so, because I had never felt anything so carefully intense. In a word, I felt admired. I got hard again thinking about it. The memory was like a glint of light in my dark boredom. I jacked off wearing his shirt, spilling the cum onto my abs. Then I stuffed his shirt back in the bag. I kept doing it over the next few weeks when my girlfriend wasn't home. When I was horny I would take his shirt out of my closet and put it on, roll back my shoulders, and flex my biceps in the mirror. I felt powerful. I sniffed its pits. It smelled like when we fell asleep next each other in the dark, only firelight and moonlight glowing on us. Sometimes I put the pit stain in my mouth. His smell carried me back to our carefree days on the river, chilling on the shore, drinking booze, sleeping shirtless and sweaty, getting my dick sucked. The memory was persistent. It left and returned in waves, coming back stronger each time. When I was ruminating on being on the wrong path it came back strongest until I could not ignore it anymore. It was the only open door I could go through. I found his email through the park service headquarters. I didn't have to think about what to say to him, it just drifted into my mind like a falling leaf. I used my phone to record one of my favorite acoustic covers called "Rivers". When I sang the lyrics "Run, river, run to the sea - Water always wants to be free...", I looked up from the guitar and soulfully at the camera. Man I was good. When I was done I gave the camera a smile before turning it off. I attached my video and wrote: "Hey Scott! I said I would stay in touch, didn't I? This song reminded me of our trip! Let me know what you think! Things are fine here I guess. But itching to explore the great outdoors again. Which park you going to next?" I didn't know how on the grid he was, but he answered two days later. "Wow. Dave, what can I say? This made my week. I've listened to it a few times. It really made me happy to hear from you. I hope you know that you are really unique and gifted. I'm not just saying that. As for where I'm going.. I guess.. I want to know where you're going?" Geez, he was always pretty intense. Maybe that's why I felt so comfortable sharing. I knew he would eat up pretty much anything I sent. Even if it was a small, poorly lit phone video. But nevertheless no one else was calling me special, unique, or gifted. No one else made me feel like I was 10 feet tall and made of gold. The feeling he gave me was addicting. We wrote back and forth almost every day, discussing where to apply next. Yosemite, Sequoia, Grand Canyon. I would usually attach a new song as well, and he adored them. Reading his lavish praise made my ribs tighten and feel like a cleansing light was pumping through my arteries. But, it turns out you can't just waltz into world famous geological wonders and set up shop. We wanted to stay in the West at one of the cooler parks, not man a tool both at some national monument in Nebraska. The only open positions were at Zion, and not for two months. When we found out he wrote: "That's fine, I'm going to submit my application right now." I wrote, "Ok I will too, but two months sounds like torture." He wrote. "So, want to leave right now?" "What do you mean?" I replied. "We drop everything and go. We take our sweet time getting there and explore along the way." I read it several times but I was still confused. I can't drop everything. But the thought of two more months in my ant's nest of a life was crushing. I typed out my answer but couldn't finish it. I paced around my room and looked back it. Pressing send was like jumping off a cliff and hoping to be caught. I wrote, "Alright, but just one thing. Can we share a tent?" We planned to meet in two days at an REI on the outskirts of Sacramento. I lived about an hour north of that and he lived about 2 hours to the west. I told my girlfriend I was taking an assignment out of state for a few months and she said she might not let me back in when I came back. Our relationship was already strained and obligatory. She said some hurtful things and I said I might not come back at all. I truly did wish her well, but how can you keep going down a path you know is a dead end? My friend had dropped me off in the parking lot with all my bags and guitar case and I waited. When I first saw him pull into the parking lot with his jeep I got a huge smile. His dark brown hair had grown out a little. He had trimmed his mustache but not to the skin, it was just a little bit of stubble now. He had an angular nose like a I remembered, and crisp dark eyebrows over his blue eyes. "Scott!!!! Hey man! How you been?" I hugged him. "Hey buddy! I missed you. Are you excited?" He said. Of course I was. I was stepping out of a maze and into a new world. Both of our breaths were rapid and our voices a tiny bit nervous, we were anxious like puppies. We decided to zig zag slowly eastward, trying to hit as many parks as we could. The beauty of it was that there was no real plan, we would stay in or leave a place whenever we felt like it. We barely planned more than one day in advance, we would wake up and follow our moods. We first went south to Sequoia. We stopped at little towns along the way for food and supplies and coffee. During long stretches of road he would raise my arm by the wrist and kiss my knuckles. The affection was nourishing. Strange, even though we had no real direction, I started to feel like this was the right path after all. How can you be on the right path with no destination? Or maybe it was the right one because there was no destination. Maybe the right path is to wander. A few days later we found a quiet glen among the redwoods and set up camp. The forest floor was brown and we were surrounded by great red pillars and thick green vegetation. In the day we would hike, eat, or just lounge around. At night I would lean against him while the fire radiated and practice guitar. It would vibrate us both. He would put his fingertips on my head and rub my hair. I was stuck trying to hit a particular note, "oooohhhhh I can see the light...." I repeated a few times. He would give a little laugh like a sniff and bend down to put his lips on my head. I was laying on my stomach in the tent after a long hike to unwind. I was only wearing some white cotton boxer briefs, my sweaty bottom wrapped in tight hanes. My cheeks stretched the fabric, imprinting two peach pads against it. He climbed in the tent to lay down as well, but he started rubbing my glutes, and put his hand in through the leg hole. He cupped my cheek and firmly squeezed the deep muscles near my pelvis. I moaned, no one had massaged me there before. I guess that was his signal to go further. Up until then he had tended to my dick, nuts, armpits, and mouth. I guess it made sense he would also like my ass. It's just that I hadn't thought of my ass as a sexual object before. But it was flattering to know that there were no parts of my body he didn't like. I felt perfect. He peeled down my underpants from the back, and started kissing my pale cheeks. I could feel his jaw grinding between my legs. He started licking the back of my nuts and taint. I started to squirm on the sleeping bag, my chest pressing against the cool nylon. He pushed my cheek aside with his palm, fully exposing my pink opening which was surrounded by coarse dark blonde hairs. He angled his head, and extended his tongue. I was in disbelief and a little embarrassed at what he did next, his tongue pressed directly against my asshole. He rhythmically relaxed and pressed his tongue again, lapping at it, making it wet. I started writhing my hips, rubbing my dick against mattress pad. I humped the mattress while he was licking me and filled the pouch of my hanes with jizz. That moment triggered something inside him, some animal instinct, he started seeing me as more than a friend, he saw me as his mate. Soon after, I think in Arizona, we had driven about half an hour off the main road to find a secluded spot near a mesa. Although I missed the trees, the glittering rocks had their own beauty. There was no almost light pollution here, and the most stars I had ever seen were scattered above. They made the red rocks glitter like a tower of new pennies as dusk fell. Here we took turns reading chapters out loud to each other from some paperback books that he grabbed in one of the small towns we passed through. I liked to rest on his chest as he read, and feel his voice vibrate my whole head. This was where he first inserted. He was rubbing lotion on my back in the late afternoon. It had been left in the sun while we were out hiking. It was melting like candle wax as he rubbed my muscles. He said, "Dave, look at me." I propped myself up on my elbows and twisted halfway to look at him. I felt a greasy sting, his tip had entered me. My mouth opened in a whimper as I felt the flaring ridge of his dick head push past the edge of my slit. It stopped there, I wasn't used to it. The stretch of my orifice was overwhelming. It felt like I cumming but my dick was still relaxed. I looked down at my dick and then back up at him in confusion. How did he... what.. happened? Some semen had started to leak out. I contracted and the head pinched out. I shuddered for a few seconds. The feeling of my gap close around his dick head as it exited was like nothing I had ever felt. It caused the other half of my load to leak out somehow. "You ok babe?" He whispered. His brown hair was messy and his face blushed a little. He looked worried and adorable. Yeah, I was, I said in between breaths as my pecs heaved up and down. I laughed, and playfully shoved him. "Ow, your jerk." But I rolled over and the stain I made said more than enough. It was intensely erotic that he wanted to put his penis inside me. It created a new appetite within me. It was hard at first but I was determined to make him feel as good as he was making me feel. The next day in our little private clearing next to the mesa, he was chopping our firewood into smaller pieces so it would catch easier. He was shirtless, and his hairy forearm striations were rippling. While he was doing that I was practicing a new song. "You're my satellite... You're riding with me tonight..." I sang. "You're getting really good." He would say between chops of his axe. "Getting? I thought I was already good?" I smiled and jabbed. He dropped his axe and came over to me. He put his hand on my jaw and rolled my earlobe between his thumb and fingers. It made me tingle. "No I mean, it, your song makes me happy." He said. He was standing above me and I put my hand on the mound between his legs. "Babe I think I wanna try again for you." I said. "Oh... " His eyes went wide. "I would love that. As long as you're ready." He said. But he looked ready to pounce. I gave his pouch another squeeze, and looked up at him for a little while. "Now's good." I said. I scrambled to the tent and got on my knees and knuckles. He chased after me and knelt behind me, yanking down my shorts. He planted one hairy, muscular forearm to my side and another on my hip. I arched my back to present myself. He said, "I can't believe how hot you are..." He pointed his leaking knob right on the outside of my warm hole. I waited for him to push in but he didn't. He just held it there, the slit of his penis, leaking precum, dabbing the drops on me. What was he waiting for? I took the lead and lowered my hips, feeling him push in. I moaned. When he was fully inside it seemed to force more blood to my dick, it was harder than it had ever been, pointing straight up and throbbing. I reached under and felt his balls behind my balls, I held and massaged our four testes in my hand. I felt like twice the man I used to be. I let go and he started easing in and out slowly at first. Then he put his hands on my hips and started gliding in and out faster. I felt his nuts tap the back of my nuts as his wet dick parted me. I rose off my knuckles and balanced on my knees, I could feel his chest hair on my back. He was mouthing my ears and neck. He reached around to grip my penis as he ground inside me. He was pulling me in tightly now, god he was strong. Finally I felt him hold me still, and pulse. I closed my eyes as he injected me. I felt a warm sensation and tried to cherish it. At some point earlier I had squirted into his hand and it flowed over his knuckles. I could have fallen asleep with it inside me, but he pulled out. But at least his emission was still there, giving me his energy. We collapsed and panted for a while. He dabbed his tongue on the white drops on his fingers and knuckles, and started lapping it up. He put his hand in front of my mouth, offering me some. I helped clean it up with a few licks of my own. We fell asleep embracing each other in the silent, starry desert. He absent mindedly nuzzled me with his face, rubbing his eyes in my hair as he drifted off. If you enjoyed this story, please let me know at sleepisimportant2@gmail.com The songs that Dave played for Scott so far are "Allman Brown -- Rivers", "Jon Bryant - Light" , and "Guster - Satellite".