We met at the head of the trail we took yesterday, this time on bikes. Me riding my beat-up Raleigh M20, which was looking a little worse for wear after three years of use (and it wasn't even new to begin with). And Wes riding his shiny Klein Attitude, although also not brand-new, but admittedly much cooler.
I couldn't help but notice Wes had a bulging backpack on his back, looking like it was about to burst. "What's up with that?" I asked, pointing to the backpack.
"Nothing!" he said, trying to brush it off. I raised my eyebrows. It was stuffed full. Obviously, it wasn't 'nothing'. I waited for the answer.
He scoffed and smiled wryly at me. "Don't be nosy! I'll show you later, okay? It's a surprise."
I wrinkled my nose. As a man of science, I didn't like surprises.
"You'll like it. I promise," Wes said, picking up on my apprehension. He put his foot on the pedal, about to take off down the trail, but—I took off first, stopping my bike right in front of him and then looking back at him with a fiendish grin. He shot me a curious glance.
"I thought we'd take a different route today," I said. "Instead of me following you, how 'bout we switch things around and you'll follow me?"
It was Wes raising his eyebrows this time. "I'm to follow you, huh?" he asked, not exactly opposed to the idea, but . . . surprised and poking fun at me? I guess he wasn't the only one with the surprise up his sleeve.
"Well, yes, since I'm the one who actually knows how to work maps," I shot back.
He shook his head playfully. "What did you have in mind?"
"I'd like to increase the length of the trail, if you're up for it," I said. "For the sake of burning extra calories." I winked at him. "The longer the trail, the more intense the workout."
Wes considered this. It was obvious I wasn't too concerned about the calories, but he was. He adjusted his backpack. "Burning extra calories, huh? Actually, this is not a terrible idea. I'm game if you are. Lead the way!"
I took off, sending pebbles his way with my tires, and he followed me. I have no idea what had gotten into me last night, but I spent two hours poring over topographic maps trying to find a trail Wes hadn't taken before, something other than the usual boring hiking paths, something off the beaten track, something new and exciting. I dismissed one option after another, though, because nothing seemed right. They were all too obvious. The chances were, he'd already taken most of them. And what I wanted to do was to surprise him. I needed something hidden from the public eye. A trail less traveled, if you will. And, having scrutinized dozens of maps, both paper and their digital equivalents, I finally found one! It started in the middle of nowhere, not connected to anything at all. But, coincidentally, it led to the fresh water reservoir just as the one we'd taken before. And that was where we needed to be, ultimately. So it was perfect! Better than perfect, actually. It was a stroke of luck that it was even there.
"Wait, that's where we're going?" Wes asked when I got off my bike and started muscling through the undergrowth. "I hate to disappoint you, but there's nothing there."
He stopped following me, looking dubious at my efforts to tackle a Scotch broom bush. I was right then! He didn't know about the secret trail. He had no idea! I was going to be the first one to show him that. I bit my lip in anticipation. It was going great.
"You told me to lead the way, I'm leading the way," I said, deadpan. "Or do you not trust me enough to follow me? Or are you scared?"
It looked like it was both, but it wouldn't have been very nice of him to admit it to my face. He wasn't the kind of guy who could hurt somebody's feelings easily. I watched the struggle play out on his face. He looked intrigued (which was good), and a little concerned (which I could work with that). Obviously, he knew I wasn't the kind of guy to get him into trouble. I hoped he knew that. I hoped he could find it in his heart to trust me. Even if he couldn't, though, diverting expectations was going to work in my favor in the end, contributing to a more pleasant experience, akin to elation even, once he'd found out where I was taking him. And elation was only a short bike ride away from affection, if you ask me.
"Okay," he finally said, writhing in doubt. "Whatever you say, sport. I'm not afraid. If you say this is the way, let's do this!"
I smiled mischievously at him, and, getting ballsier by the second—and I don't even know that came from—I said, "You can relax, tough guy. You're in good hands! Let me take care of this."
He looked a little wide-eyed for a second, but he took it without protest. I made my way confidently through the bush, dragging my bike beside me, paving the way, as if to prove it to him that I could really do it, and he could just follow me, trusting me with the job, same as I trusted him before on account of his muscles, and his outgoingness, and me being a bookworm. For a moment there, we switched roles. Now it was as if I was the tough one—and I liked it. Something about him, about our interactions, had awakened that in me. And I don't think anyone else ever managed to do this.
When we emerged onto the secret trail finally—all out of breath but smiling—I spread my arms in a voilà gesture and looked at him triumphantly. The trail did exist. He was wrong not to trust me.
He sort of scoffed, taking the sight in. "Okay, Mister Know-It-All, I guess you do actually know it all," he said in a way of apology, I suppose. "This was here all along, and I had no idea. And I think I've explored most of the neighboring trails."
More nicknames, huh? A new level of familiarity. It brought a smile to my face and a fresh bout of confidence.
"Told you!" I said, smug. "And it's gonna take us straight to the reservoir, too. Or maybe—not so straight?"
I wanted to smack myself in the face as soon as the words escaped me, or better yet, choke on them and die. What in the world was I thinking, telling Wes something like that? I didn't mean it to come out that way, suggestive and provocative. But it totally did, damn it.
Wes's smile disappeared at once. He looked me dead in the eyes, a deer caught in the headlights. If he had any suspicions about me before—he must have been pretty damn sure now. I as good as said it. I watched him as he gulped nervously, not sure what to do next.
"I mean, it's a winding path, is all," I hurried to explain. "More cardio, remember?"
I tried to keep my voice calm, but it treacherously quivered. The dead giveaway that I knew he knew that I said something wrong. I couldn't hold his gaze any longer. I hopped on my bike and started peddling away, hoping that he was going to follow me regardless, never mind what I said. But him leaving me here, on this secluded trail, was a definite possibility too. Obviously, what I said bothered him. Maybe he wouldn't want to stay alone with me anymore, when it was just the two of us, no telling what else I could have said or done.
There was a lot of uneasiness in his eyes the last I looked at him. Something that had to be acknowledged. And even though I didn't know what to attribute it to exactly—disgust, revulsion, hatred, or fear? It was definitely there. Yikes! I'm afraid I left him with little choice. I could have kept my mouth shut and kept it chill and easy. But the cat was out of the bag now. He was just going to have to make up his mind.
Luckily enough, a few minutes later, I heard him following me, keeping himself at a distance but following nonetheless. I wasn't sure what to make of it. I just decided to roll with it, if you'll excuse the pun.
Our playful banter from earlier seemed to have been stopped dead in its tracks now. For the next twenty to twenty-five minutes, we weren't talking. And it was odd, because Wes was always talking. I figured he must have had something on his mind to keep him preoccupied, wink-wink. Something I said? Yeesh! I was afraid to turn back to look at him, not sure what I was going to see when our eyes met. So I just kept pedaling, keeping the pace, hoping that we were gonna be able to resolve this somehow. As long as he was still following me—I was a happy camper.
The suspense didn't last long, though. Soon I heard him shouting after me, "Hey, what's that? Is this an abandoned warehouse?"
I stopped my bike and finally looked at him. He was pointing at something down in the ravine. And, having traced where his finger was pointing, I noticed it too. There was something that wasn't on the maps. Apparently, we found something nobody knew about.
"It wasn't on the maps," I said when Wes got closer.
"Ah, so you don't know it all, after all," he said, his playful smile reclaiming its prominent spot on his handsome face. I smiled back, happy we were talking again.
"I don't . . . apparently."
It was a lucky coincidence we stumbled into something like that, the ruins of an old and unmapped building, because it helped alleviate the tension between us, and gave us something to talk about that wasn't me being gay. Extremely lucky. What were the chances?
Wes even agreed to climb down with me. Check it out and take pictures. So that I could report the find to the Historical Society of Eureka Springs. And they could put it on the maps or something. Figure out what it was. Good thing I always carried my Kodak Star 110 with me, just in case something like this happened.
It was presumably an abandoned 19th-century logging camp bunkhouse, no roof, barely any walls left. And as I started taking site pictures, I—sort of accidentally, but not really—snapped a few pictures of Wes too. I wanted to have him on film also. To have an image of him that could have been mine, in case of his absence. For I didn't know for how long this so-called friendship of ours was going to last . . . if it was even friendship.
I didn't know why I bothered with covertness, though, because Wes gladly posed for me later, on his own volition. He wanted some pics to be able to show this to his family and his friends. The pics that I took in secret, though, turned out way better. Because it was almost as if he was trying too hard when he was posing for me. Which, I realized, was what he was doing in school too—pretending hard to be somebody else. And this was probably the reason I never noticed him, not really. Because I wasn't attracted to the person he was pretending to be. But the person I think he really was . . . was beautiful. And I was really attracted to that person.
We were lucky enough to get out of the ruins unscathed, with all the prickly undergrowth, and the climbing back up onto the trail. Not a scratch, either of us, not a bruise. Wes was talking to me again, laughing, no longer avoiding eye contact. And it made me really happy that I was there with him, at that moment, together. Because I didn't think I'd experienced anything like this before. It was like finding something that you didn't know was lost, a piece that you didn't know was missing. And, at the same time, somehow, it was as if he was always there, in my life . . . And I was always there with him.
"What's this?" I asked when we were back at the freshwater reservoir, and Wes finally started to unzip his bulging backpack. He lowered his gaze timidly and showed the contents to me.
"I thought—" he began. "If we were gonna sit here for hours watching lizards—"
"Salamanders!" I corrected him, taking a peek into the backpack.
"Salamanders," he agreed, with a giggle. "I thought we might as well have some snacks. Get comfortable, you know."
There were so many snacks in his backpack, no wonder it was bulging. Also, a picnic blanket and a six-pack of Orange Crush. It really looked like he intended to get comfortable. Was that why he wasn't looking at me? Because the intention of having a full-blown picnic in the woods, just the two of us, sounded suspiciously romantic. Or was I misreading the situation again?
"Oh wow! I see the gift card came in handy," I grinned.
He grinned. "You wish. It didn't even cover a third of it. I paid for most of this out of my own pocket. Hope you have a sweet tooth. I know I do."
"Are you kidding me? If it wasn't for my sweet tooth, I wouldn't have had so many cavities."
I helped him unpack and set things up. Among other things, I found graham crackers, a couple of Hershey's chocolate bars, and a whole bag of marshmallows. So I suggested we do s'mores with the help of a crème brûlée blowtorch I just so happened to have in my backpack. Don't ask! There were also Reese's Peanut Butter Cups among Wes's candy stash, so naturally, I decided to do the salty and sweet version. But when I set about putting one of the peanut butter cups on a graham cracker, Wes had the audacity to ask me what I was doing. I looked at him wide-eyed with my mouth agape.
"You couldn't possibly be telling me you've never had Reese's Peanut Butter Cups s'mores before," I said, shocked. He shook his head. "What have you been doing with your life? No, don't tell me. I know. Practice!"
He shrugged. "Can I try one now?" he asked, looking curiously at the ingredients.
Shaking my head disapprovingly, I placed a piece of chocolate on one graham cracker and a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup on another one. Having skewered a marshmallow on a stick, I held it over the blowtorch for about ten to fifteen seconds. And then I placed the toasted marshmallow on top of the Reese's peanut butter cup, and sealed it with another graham cracker, successfully melting everything in between.
I proffered the result to Wes. He looked at it apprehensively.
"Just try it!" I said.
Hesitantly, he took the s'more from my hand and examined it. I rolled my eyes.
"It's good. Trust me!" There I was again, asking him to trust me. He inhaled deeply and—finally—took a bite . . .
I don't think he expected it to be so good. He had to close his eyes, it was so good. And moaned loudly, utterly delighted.
I watched him as he finished the whole thing in just one bite. And when he opened his eyes, he demanded, "More!"
I snickered. I made him more.
Then I made him SkittlesPop Rocks, drizzling Skittles with Orange Crush and then coating them lightly with some citric acid and baking soda. Yes, I happened to have those in my backpack too. Don't ask! I carry a lot of weird stuff in my backpack in the name of science.
This time, Wes looked even more apprehensive.
"You're not trying to poison me, are you?" he asked, only half joking. "If this makes me sick, Torrence, I swear to God, my revenge will know no bounds."
Naturally, no food poisoning occurred after he ingested my enhanced Skittles. He rather enjoyed them, I might say. To finish it off, I made him eat Twizzlers with Orange Crush, just because they complement each other, the tartness of cherry-flavored Twizzlers and the citrusy flavor of Orange Crush. Wes thought so too. But it was really the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup s'mores that took the cake, figuratively speaking. He ate a bunch of them before he stopped asking for more.
"These are so good!" he gushed. "How come I've never heard of them before? Tor, you're the culinary genius. Thank you for making me try them."
The s'mores really got him talking. He even called me . . . 'Tor'.
I didn't know what to say. Luckily, he didn't seem to expect an answer. He settled leisurely on the blanket, rubbing his belly and licking crumbs off his lips. Ooh, those pink lips. I watched him. What else was I supposed to do? He seemed so relaxed, now that his stomach was full. So at ease. So comfortable.
"You should know, I'm a foodie, Torrence," he declared. "You feed me well and I'm yours."
I'm sure he didn't mean it like that—it was the s'mores talking. But there was no taking it back. It was out there now.
He pulled up short, realizing what he just said. His chill demeanor gone. He opened and closed his mouth several times, no doubt wanting to explain himself. But no words came out.
I don't know what came over me, but, without a modicum of hesitation, I blurted out, "Mine, huh?"
His eyes went wide—he stared at me. But I went even further with this, adding, "I might just take you up on that offer."
That did it. He leapt to his feet. For a second, he fidgeted in one place, not sure if he was supposed to run away or do something. Do what, though? Punch me in the face? Kiss me? But he couldn't be still, his heart no doubt pounding restlessly in his chest. Mine was too. But I rose to my feet with ever-growing confidence, reassured now that it was the right thing to do, took my place opposite him, lifted my hand to his lips and, with my trembling fingers, touched them . . .
He looked downright catatonic, staring at me, seemingly afraid to move. He shivered all over. I did too. But if I was gonna go for it, now was my only chance.
I traced the contour of his lips tentatively with just the tip of my index finger. His mouth came ajar as he exhaled audibly. More of a moan. His jaw was shaking. But he wasn't stopping me, wasn't grabbing and pulling away my hand. He wasn't trying to punch me either. He was letting me touch him, which made me believe it was okay. I held his bottom lip between my fingers, making him gasp. It was so soft, and warm, and infinitely pink, made me want to kiss him . . .
I couldn't stop myself if I wanted to, probably. His lips, his eyes, his face, the heat of his body, his scent all became the center of my world momentarily. It was just him and nothing else . . .
Not even the incessant beeping in my backpack bothered me, vying desperately for my attention. I did notice it somewhere at the edge of my consciousness, but my focus was on Wes's lips.
I drew closer to him. There was fear in his eyes, and I wondered what it was going to do to him if I kissed him. Did he even want to kiss me? And if he didn't, why wouldn't he just stop me? I knew I wanted to kiss him so bad . . . And I definitely would have—
If the beeping in my backpack didn't turn into a continuous shrill noise. Neither of us could ignore it any longer.
"Torrence?" Wes whispered, his gaze shifting to my backpack. "What's happening?"
This was when I had to turn away from him and take a look at my backpack too, as much as it pained me to do so. The moment was lost. The opportunity for me to kiss Wes was no longer.
The noise was coming from my Eberline ESP-1. And when I got it out of the backpack, the readout was over 5,000 CPM, rapidly going on 10,000.
Wes looked dumbly at the readout. "Tor? What does it mean? Another malfunction?"
I shook my head. "I don't—"
Wes stumbled back suddenly, unsteady on his feet. He put his hand over his stomach. "I don't feel so good," he breathed. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
Suddenly, I didn't feel too good either. There was ringing in my ears, and my vision started getting blurry.
Wes turned ghost-pale. He looked like he was going to collapse, so I caught him. I held him firmly in my arms, even though I was feeling rather wobbly myself. He held on tight to me.
The noise coming from the Eberline was becoming unbearable. For the first time in my life, something was happening that I didn't have a scientific explanation for. I didn't know what was wrong. What was it making us feel this way? Radiation? But it was impossible!
There was a flash of bright light then—
Made me shut my eyes. And the noise, and the ringing in my ears swelled to the extreme, making me sick. And then there was a loud pop—
And everything stopped . . .
For about a second, it felt like the world disappeared—
And then it reappeared again, no more bright lights or shrill noises.
I opened my eyes, and for a moment I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. Because we were standing in the middle of Eureka Springs downtown park, somehow. Several cars passed us by, illuminating our silhouettes momentarily with their headlights. I couldn't possibly fathom how we got there. Just a moment ago, we were standing several miles away. And now we were here.
Wes stirred quietly in my arms. He looked disoriented at first, but he quickly seemed to have regained his senses. I wasn't feeling sick anymore. I take it, neither was he. My vision wasn't blurry. The picture was crystal clear. No doubt, he was seeing what I was seeing. Slowly, he started to pull away from me. When another car passed us by, disappearing behind the trees, he freed himself from my embrace.
He looked around . . . Our bikes were on the ground beside us. Our backpacks. Our picnic blanket. The sweets. My Eberline. How did it all get here was the big question. And also—how did we?
It was already dark. When we were at the freshwater reservoir just a few moments ago, it was 8-ish. Just about the time for sundown. It was full-on dark now, midnight dark. I glanced at my wristwatch. And, mirroring me, Wes glanced at his too. It was quarter to eleven! What in the name of science was going on? Two hours seemed to have been cut out of our lives inexplicably.
The realization of what just happened hit Wes hard. He moved towards his bike unsteadily.
"Wes?" I called out.
He turned to me sharply and pointed his index finger at me. "Nothing happened, all right?" he said, sounding very angry.
"But—" I tried. It was hard to deny that something did happen. But it looked like Wes wasn't going to have it.
"Nothing happened!" he shouted, staring me down. The tone of his voice suggested there was going to be no argument. I haven't seen him like this before. He looked mad. He looked like if I was going to say something, he was going to punch me.
I bit my tongue.
Picking up his bike, he looked around, still a little confused, seemingly trying to get his bearings. Then he just started walking away from me, leaving me alone.
He did turn and look at me one last time. Very briefly. And then he was gone, pedaling quickly away from me.
I stood there, not knowing what to do, unable to process what had just happened. Well, nothing happened, according to Wes. But it was bullshit.
Something did happen. Several things happened, actually.
I was just going to have to find a way to explain it all. You know, scientifically. Anything could be explained scientifically if you put your mind to it. Or at least, that was what I believed my whole life.
But for the first time in my life, I had a slight suspicion that I might have been wrong about it. . .
***
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