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  While standing in the shade, relishing a breather, Zeth turned and faced Josh. He said, “About the other day…” and paused, ending his comment as quickly as he had started it.

  “What about the other day?” Josh replied, open-eyed and interested in everything Zeth had to say.

  “We were so close to having sex. What are your feelings about that?”

  Josh lifted his right hand, coughed into his fist, and admitted, “It was all about the heat of the moment. Don’t you think?”

  “Something like that. I’m not really sure what it was. I do know that you had me hot and bothered.”

  “Duty called at the time. You had to leave. Sandra needed you.”

  Confident, caring, and honest, Zeth said, “I needed you.”

  Josh’s jaw fell open.

  “We could have knocked sex out of the park if we wanted to. I waited for you to come and you didn’t. What was up with that?”

  “Duty calls when young campers decide to catch the forest on fire. My job called me away and…”

  “You didn’t come back.”

  “I had every intention of coming back,” Zeth said. “Whatever. It’s over. We have other things to worry about now.”

  He stepped closer to Josh, closing the small gap between the two men, and leaned into the filmmaker. In just a matter of seconds, his lips connected to Josh’s. They kissed in the minimal sunbeams and surrounding forest.

  If it were night, fireworks would have lit the sky. Bristling blues and flower-shaped reds would have burst in the heavens. Purple booms of bliss would have filled the night, separating the minimal clouds. Fiery oranges and explosions of yellow would have illuminated the dark sky with such ease and…

  The kiss ended. The Penichowaba brothers murmured indecipherable sounds in the breeze. The wind picked up, twirling. The birds stopped chirping, watching the afternoon show between the two adult men.

  Josh whispered, smiling from ear to ear, “That was rather nice, Zeth. Now I know why I could fall for you.”

  * * * *

  Honestly, Zeth couldn’t make it to the edge of Lake Penichowaba. He shortened their walk by turning around, and the two men made their return trip to the cabin, side by side.

  It was Josh who reached out for Zeth’s left hand and tucked it within his own. Then he squeezed Zeth’s palm and fingers. “You do something crazy with my heart. Do you know that?”

  “What kind of crazy?”

  “I’m really not sure. You just warm me up. I feel different around you. I feel like nothing bad could happen in my life. Everything is so nice when you’re around. Perfect. Without problems.”

  “Don’t even tell me I complete you. Because if you do, I’ll never kiss you again.”

  Josh laughed. “You’re lying. Something tells me you never want to stop kissing me.”

  It was Zeth’s turn to laugh. “You’re reading my mind, aren’t you?”

  “I am. It’s my special, uncanny talent.”

  “Because you’re a warlock.”

  “But of course,” Josh joked and escorted Zeth toward his cozy cabin, enjoying their time together, his life right now, with or without the threat of coyotes.

  * * * *

  The bandages on Zeth’s right shoulder and part of his neck were dried with blood. Josh told him to grit his teeth and think of their almost-naked combination on Josh’s bed the other day.

  Bare-chested and bandaged, Zeth listened to Josh’s instructions. As Josh pulled the bandages away from Zeth’s skin, Zeth let out a short yelp, gritted his teeth together, squinted, and squeezed both fists into balls.

  Once the bandage was removed, Josh studied the wound. “Mr. Coyote really took the top layer of flesh off. Plus, I see some teeth marks.” Truth said, the wound looked soppy and bloody. “It’s pretty bad, but nothing I can’t handle.”

  Josh cleaned out the wound, applied a bacteria-killing liquid to it that he imagined felt like an ice pack to Zeth, and covered the shoulder and neck area with fresh bandages. Following the mending procedure, he gave Zeth a kiss and rolled a palm against Zeth’s left pec.

  “You’re the sexiest patient.”

  “Trust me, I’m not as sexy as you. City man medic is totally hot.”

  “So you like that I’m a city man?”

  “A little more than like. I have somewhat of a crush on you.”

  They kissed again, heated and lost for a few minutes. Again, the moment became intense. Nipples were pinched, material-covered cocks were rubbed, and…

  Zeth pulled out of the kiss first, hearing the pack of coyotes outside the cabin. Howling, yips, yelping, and barking filled the afternoon.

  “What the hell?” Zeth rushed to the cabin’s front door and stared outside through the door’s screen. “Shit.”

  Ten coyotes circled a dead deer on the pathway that led to Lake Penichowaba, pulling bloody meat away from bones. The sounds of cracking bones and ripping flesh echoed through the yard. Coyote muzzles were covered in blood from their fresh kill. And two of the coyotes started to drag the carcass into the surrounding woods, having every intention of taking the wild animal back to their den for a later supper with their buddies.

  “What’s going on?” Josh asked, walking up behind Zeth, looking over his left shoulder at the unraveling scene.

  “It’s a dead deer. The coyotes are dragging it away.”

  “Coyotes attack and kill deer?”

  “Only when the deer are wounded.”

  “Should I get the gun? We can scare them away.”

  Zeth shook his head. “The deer is already gone. The coyotes need to eat. Let them take their food this time, as long as they don’t hurt us. Right now, they’re busy with their task. Otherwise, I would say we fire off a warning shot, but don’t feel it’s really worth it right now since their deed is already done.”

  Before Josh and Zeth realized it, the two coyotes were running away with the bloody deer in their muzzles, rushing through the woods and seeking shelter back at their den.

  Zeth spun around and accidentally bumped his right side against Josh. He left out an aggressive yelp and added, “Fuck!”

  Josh backed away.

  Zeth immediately apologized and kissed Josh, directing his pain away from the wound and light contact.

  The kiss worked like medicine.

  * * * *

  That night, Zeth dreamed of the warlocks again. Another movie unfolded. This time, the warlocks surrounded Josh’s cabin along the lake. Sixty or more of the well-built, white-robed men were present in the dream. Zeth was healed and naked. He led the coven through the woods to Josh’s new Inuksuk statue. The warlocks made a circle around the statue and removed their robes, dropping the silk fabric to their bare feet. Each, like Zeth’s previous dream, were quite muscular with broad shoulders and tight stomachs, muscular in all the right areas, and thin. Again, the warlocks were hairless, from head to toe.

  The high priest said something in Latin that Zeth couldn’t understand. “Jidln. Eridkn. Okenid.”

  The coven repeated the high priest’s phrases. “Shem jidln. Shem Eridkn. Shem Okenld.”

  The priest’s coven raised their arms into the night. Their palms turned into green fire, illuminating the Inuksuk. The Inuksuk shined a lime green hue, which burst and dispersed in every direction. A laser beam of green shot into Zeth’s bare chest and illuminated his torso. His nipples turned a brighter green, glowing. Green light spilled out of his mouth and eyes. His entire frame felt as if it were on fire. His temperature started to rise: 101, 113, 128 degrees Fahrenheit. Skin started to melt off his muscles, dripping to the earth, and…

  * * * *

  Zeth Mandell sat up in the bed with perspiration running down and over his face. Josh lay sleeping at his side, lightly snoring. Zeth’s arms and chest were covered in sweat. His chest rose and fell, and fear locked itself into his mind. He trembled on the bed and felt cold, chilled to the bone, even when the room was seventy-five degrees. Blood raced through his veins, an
d his pulse quickened. His heart thumped within the back of his throat, throbbing. Zeth couldn’t breathe, feeling dizzy and confused. He blinked a number of times, and his hands shook.

  “What the fuck?” he whispered in the dark. He quietly climbed out of bed in hopes of not waking Josh and walked downstairs.

  In the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of tap water, drank half of it at the kitchen sink.

  Somewhere in the night, along the lake, he heard the pack of coyotes howling. The pack became obnoxious, loud, and annoying. One howl after the next transpired, echoing through the park and along the lake. Feeling uncomfortable, thinking that he would see the glimmering green-white shadows of the warlocks outside the kitchen window, he placed the water glass on the counter and backed away from the sink.

  Slowly, he made his way upstairs, one step after the next. Zeth tried to stay as calm as he could, but his entire body shook, nervous and still upset by the warlock dream. In the distance, the coyotes continued to howl, obeying the night’s shadows and their pack’s rules. His footsteps on the stairs were almost motionless, and his incline took forever. The night had turned into a black and white movie with very little action.

  Once upstairs, inside Josh’s private bedroom, Zeth walked over to Josh’s queen-sized bed and climbed inside. As the coyotes continued to talk in the night, he pressed his naked back against Josh’s sleeping frame, careful of his right shoulder and neck.

  Josh stirred awake and groggily said, “You came back. Where have you been?”

  “Getting a glass of water. I’m here now.”

  Zeth snuggled against his host and completely forgot about the warlock dream and noisy coyotes, safe in Josh’s arms, protected.

  * * * *

  June 15

  It happened just before dawn. Night was still thick with an exuberant display of clouds, and the sounds of the wild around Josh and Zeth were melodic: an owl hooting in the distance, the continuous howls from the pack of coyotes, and the wind, which brushed the many leafy trees.

  Josh started something sexual between the two of them. While spooning Zeth’s left side, he placed his hand over Zeth’s limp dick and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  Zeth squirmed where he laid on his back, cautious of his damaged neck and shoulder.

  Josh brushed his hand along Zeth’s nakedness, up and down.

  Zeth groggily asked, “What’s going on?”

  “You’re dreaming,” Josh whispered. “It’s a good dream. Just go with it.”

  Zeth stirred awake, looking up at the dark, A-shaped ceiling. “I’m not dreaming and know exactly what you’re up to.”

  “You’re not pushing my hand away.”

  “I didn’t say I objected to what you were doing, Josh,” Zeth whispered, grinning from ear to ear in the darkness. Josh carefully applied kisses and licks to Zeth’s chest. He rolled his tongue along both of the man’s pecs, down and over his chiseled chest, and buried his nose inside the triangle patch of pubic hair at Zeth’s middle. Within a matter of seconds, he started licking Zeth’s swollen dick, using his extended tongue, applying finely executed strokes that seemed to be driving Zeth into a melodramatic state of pleasure since he moaned.

  Once his licking ended, Josh opened his mouth and slid the tip of Zeth’s cock inside. Then he started to bob his head up and down, rhythmically, without taking a break, and somewhat gagged on Zeth’s large mass. He pulled excess cock skin down with two fingers, harmlessly clamping the skin against Zeth’s ball sack, which sent Zeth into a relentless amount of satisfaction.

  After a string of gasps in the night that escaped Zeth’s throat, and his left hand gripping the bed’s perspiration-covered sheet, Josh stopped blowing him.

  “If I don’t stop now, you’ll come. We both don’t want that yet.”

  Zeth didn’t object again.

  Josh, taking the lead during their night of bliss, told Zeth, “I’m going to lift your legs and do a naughty on you.”

  “A naughty?” Zeth inquired.

  Just as the comment left Zeth’s mouth, Josh already had his head between Zeth’s legs and started to gently lick the tight strip of Zeth’s open rump, applying his tongue with a deliberate action.

  After three quick licks, squinting in the darkness, gasping for air, Zeth moaned, “Jesus, Josh…I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  Josh only responded by taking a few more licks, one after the next. He used his tongue on the opening, then a finger, and used his tongue again, driving his subject mad and leaving Zeth sexually inebriated and delusional.

  Lick. Finger. Lick. Finger. Josh became busy with his intense work. He brushed his nose against Zeth’s balls, sniffed the sack, moaned, and continued his arduous skills until Zeth begged for Josh’s cock to be inside him.

  “Fuck me with your dick, Josh. You know that’s what I want. Don’t let a good man down.” With latex covering his firm cock, and Zeth’s legs spread open, Josh knelt on the bed, unable to plant his chest against Zeth’s for fear of hurting the man. Rather, careful with his movement, Josh slipped the tip of his dick inside Zeth’s opening, pushed it forward, and listened to Zeth gasp and grunt in possible pain.

  Balancing himself, Josh slid the entire length of his dick inside Zeth, and coached, “I’ll be careful with you. There’s no need for any more injuries.” He pulled his erection out of Zeth, slowly, of course, and pushed it back inside, riding the man’s tight bottom with an increase in velocity, in and out.

  Zeth murmured unrecognizable words beneath Josh. His eyes rolled into the back of his skull in euphoria. He continued to clench the summer sheet on the queen-sized bed, grunted as Josh moved in and out of his bottom.

  Again and again, Josh bolted inside Zeth, slapping his balls off Zeth’s ass. He thrust forward, backward, paused, and continued the action for over twenty minutes. He sent them both into a spin, jolted by an electrical current, banging Zeth’s bottom a dozen or more times while sweating on the man, huffing over him, and continuing his ride, until…

  “I’m going to make you come,” Josh said, reaching for the extension of steel-like dick between Zeth’s legs.

  Right fingers and palm stroked up and down on Zeth’s stick, working its pulsing skin. Josh jacked Zeth’s fleshy meat, causing his fist to rise and fall with quick motion and sending Zeth into a huffing frenzy on the bed.

  “Come,” Josh coached. “I want to watch you shoot. Show me what you have.”

  * * * *

  No longer could Zeth feel the right side of his neck or damaged shoulder. No longer could he recall the muscled warlocks and the havoc they caused in his dreams. No longer could Zeth hear the coyotes howl in the distance, rambunctious in their pack, and…

  “Blow it,” Josh instructed, applying more hand strokes to Zeth’s firm middle. “Spray it out of your dick.”

  With that said, Zeth grunted a final time, shivered on the bed, lifted his hips ever so slightly, and spiraled a load of sticky ejaculate out of his pipe, which landed in his navel and decorated the pubic triangle of hair at his middle. While draining every drop of his semen, he continued to grunt, moan, and whisper over and over, “Josh…Josh…Josh.”

  It was Josh Hideaway’s turn to come. He hoisted his dick out of Zeth’s tight rear, removed and lost the latex, and started jacking himself off, huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf. His hips moved forward, backward, forward again, and his chest heaved. As he swayed to and fro, hovering over Zeth’s torso, he continued to manipulate the stick between his slick thighs.

  “Churning now. Get ready.”

  Get ready meant that he had a saved up vat of juice for his lover on the bed. He thrust his hips wildly, grunted like a bull, handled his dick with skill, and…

  Three arcs of glue spiraled out of his cock and splattered against Zeth’s ribs, a nipple, and his chin. The goop stuck to Zeth’s skin, sealing them together. Josh slumped between Zeth’s legs, spent. As he continued to huff, he patted Zeth on his stomach and mixed his fingers and palm with their go
oey ejaculate.

  Josh confessed, “We make a good team together. You and me. Us. Something tells me we’re going to be together for a very long time.”

  They didn’t shower together.

  “I want to smell our stink on you.” Josh fetched cotton bath towels for cleanup. He added, “We can shower together in the morning. What do you say?”

  “I fell for you. That’s what I say,” Zeth whispered in the dark, seeing the first ray of morning light rise on the eastern horizon. “I’d say you have my heart after that.”

  At Zeth’s left side, Josh leaned over and applied a kiss to Zeth’s lips, brushed fingertips along his chin, and said, “You’ve completely fallen for me, haven’t you?”

  “I have,” Zeth whispered. “I fell for you the first time we met.”

  “That was over two years ago.” Josh sounded stunned, blown away.

  “It is what it is,” Zeth replied.

  Josh curled up beside Zeth, breathed on the undamaged side of his neck, placed a palm on Zeth’s naked and semen-smelling chest, and whispered, “I’ve fallen for you, too.”

  But Zeth already knew that.

  * * * *

  They showered together the next morning, just as Josh said they would. But before soaping up their bodies with Lever 2000 and shampooing their hair, they made love in the shower, upright.

  The sex turned into a romantic endeavor as Zeth stood behind Josh and proved that he knew how to be a man. He humped the city guy with all his might, did a wrap-around with his good arm, and felt almost healed by their intimacy, cleansed and suffering less from his neck and shoulder injuries.

  Following sex, sometime around seven in the morning, Zeth told Josh, “You’ve taken care of me enough. I want to make us breakfast.”

  “Don’t overdo it. Make something simple.” Josh said from the bed.

  * * * *

  Zeth could tell that his right shoulder and neck were already healing. The pain had lessened, and he could move his right side a little better. As Josh made the bed, tidying up the room, Zeth walked downstairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen. He had every intention of making pancakes for the two of them. Every kitchen had a plastic bottle of maple syrup, and there were a bunch of bananas on the counter, which he could use for the meal. He also wanted to put a fresh pot of coffee on and…