Finding a New Sam

In the middle of the night, he woke. My hand was cupping his package, so I could tell he was engorging upon realizing I was in his sleeping bag with him, naked. That may have been because he could feel my erection in the small of his back. I, of course, was only half dreaming—and the dream was of Cal, not Jackson.

But Jackson murmured, "Fuck me, Keith. Sorry I've been zonked when you come into camp. But I want you. Fuck me."

I gave him a few inches, rubbing the bulb on his prostate, making him shudder and writhe within my grasp, and making him come. He drifted into sleep again, not caring that I hadn't fucked him deeper and hadn't come myself. Worrying his prostate had gotten him off nicely.

The next morning Cal asked us if we wanted to press ahead to Elkwallow or call the trucks to come pull us out.

"That would be wimpy," Jackson said. "We're only half way to the end. We have to show those who dropped out that it can be done."

"Fine," Cal said.

He hadn't asked me. Jackson had looked at me to determine that I was willing, but Cal didn't. And I couldn't look at him. I was worried—and I bet Cal was too—that if Jackson saw the two of us look at each other, he would know. All of that could wait until after we were off the mountain. I didn't know where Cal lived, but I knew that either he would come to Richmond or I'd go to him. All of that could happen after this, though. Jackson and I weren't a couple, but we'd come on this together with the expectation of sex. Cal and me getting together could wait.

We took out for Elkwallow shortly after dawn, Cal leading the way, Jackson following, and me still taking up the tail. I didn't have any stragglers to worry about anymore. But I had getting close enough the Cal to touch him to worry about—which I had to avoid.

We ate lunch at Skyland, a resort that had been there before the U.S. government had grabbed all of the land on the Blue Ridge mountains ridge and that now was managed by the park service. For the first time during the hike we ate in a real restaurant. I'd been too nervous to get all my breakfast down and hadn't eaten much of the cold dinner the night before. I wolfed down my meal, neither looking at or talking to Cal, who returned the favor. All of our talking was using Jackson as an intermediary. If he suspected that there was tension in the air, he didn't say anything. I think he did, though, and just decided that Cal and I didn't get along—being too similar.

"Hey, you scarfing up all those calories because you plan on doing some serious calisthenics?" he asked. He knew that I knew what he meant, because he had a hand gripping one of my thighs above the knee. Cal probably had some idea what was meant too. He was gripping the other thigh. I almost wanted their hands to meet so that the situation would come to a head.

"Yes, I'm tanking up to be able to do some serious fucking calisthenics," I answered, not caring that both men would obtain and understanding from that, but that only Cal would be getting the benefit of the exercising—also not caring if Jackson didn't know that I was hungry because I'd already done the fucking calisthenics.

We almost lost Jackson a couple of hours later at the Hazel Mountain overlook. He stood up on the low stone wall to a get better view of the piedmont some 20,000 feet below, and he suddenly tripped and became part of the view. The slope was steep and rocky. He'd rolled far enough down it to break his leg and for Cal and me to use up more than an hour getting down to him, constructing a makeshift splint out of branches and torn strips from Cal's and my T-shirts, and starting back up to the overlook. Cal had called for help from our shadowing trucks before he plunged down the hillside behind me, and they arrived at the overlook just before we managed to haul a semiconscious Jackson up to the road.

Cal was the first to speak as Jackson was being made as comfortable as possible in the bed of one of the trucks. "So, do we go back with them?"

"You heard Jackson," I said. "If we go back now, all those pansies who gave up will think we're wimps too. I say we press ahead."

"How many tents should we keep back?"

"Just the one," I said. "And maybe we should come off the trail somewhere away from the Elkwallow camp ground."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"I'm gonna fuck you so hard and long tonight, that you're going to be yodeling. We don't want to scare the other campers."

"Suites me fine," he said, with a grin. "But why wait until tonight. Once the trucks are gone, we can go back down to where we found Jackson and you can see if you can get me to yodel."

I didn't count on it. Just like Sam, Cal could take nine thick inches without groaning.