Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

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.

The box was rectangular, a foot and a half on each side, and four feet tall. When he asked the guys in the office what it was and who had dropped it off, they just shrugged their shoulders.

"Brought by the post office is my guess," said one. "I wasn't on shift when it was delivered."

"It's Christmas," said the other. "You got a momma who loves you and feels sorry that you drew fire-spotter duty over the season?"

As a matter of fact he did. And it would be just like her to send him something useless in a big package. He was thinking a kid's inflatable swimming pool as he manhandled the box into the back of the Jeep. It was too small to be a Corvette. That's what he really wanted for Christmas.

Going back up the fire trails, he took the same route he'd taken down. He stopped far enough away from the encampment again that he could see the tent with the binoculars but that he couldn't be seen. The tent was there, but no one else was anywhere in the encampment that he could see.

"Shit," he said out loud. Then he admonished himself silently for letting this get his interest—and being disappointed that he couldn't watch two hunks fucking.

The box wasn't hiding something weird from his mother. It was an artificial Christmas tree, all decorated already, even with lights. And there was a long, heavy-duty extension cord provided.

The card read, "I'm so sorry. I couldn't help myself. Please forgive me. But please also think of me on Christmas." It was signed "Ted H."

Paul smiled—then he scowled and told himself to shape up and get real. He put the box in the corner and tried to forget about it. But the room was too small and the box too big to forget about. It wasn't more than an hour before he was taking it out of the box and measuring the distance he'd need for the extension cord—which was enough. He had everything he needed to attach the Christmas tree to the railing of the tower balcony facing the Sierra Madre mountains, where he could see it from the bed he'd chosen to sleep in.

Then, with a sigh, he started to zap his uninspiring dinner, already beyond sick of his own inability to heat up a TV dinner properly, and fought hard to pretend that being alone up here was exactly what he wanted, exactly what he needed. Exactly what he deserved.