I drove to Manitoba from our rest stop in Minnesota. Not because I didn’t trust Sal behind the wheel of my baby. It was because I wanted the city boy to be able to drink in the beauty of Canada. To say he was captivated would be selling his reactions short.
“Oh man, look at that sunrise.” His voice cracked and he craned his head around like an owl. I pulled over before he broke his neck and eased the car gently into park alongside a road that appeared to go on forever.
I parked, and he and I left the car to stretch and enjoy the sunrise. We had driven hard, with only two stops. One was at the border, the other a pull-off for gas, a restroom, and some of those creamy orange sodas Sal can’t pass up. The two of us rested against the front quarter-panel of my car as the sun threw oranges, reds, and dark pinks over the flat Manitoba prairie.
“The sky and land are endless.”
“Yeah, it’s something, huh?”
“How much further until we reach Martens Bay?” he asked as he snapped a few pictures on his cell phone.
“Oh, about an hour, maybe less,” I replied, folding my arms over my chest. The light jacket felt good. “Don’t be in a rush,” I muttered under my breath as my gaze roamed the flat, familiar landscape that I called home.
“Aren’t you excited to see your parents?” He stepped away from the car, his camera moving left and then right. “I just love Canada.” He spun and locked his camera on me. “You nervous about going home?”
My sight touched on him, gently roaming over the soft denim tight to his muscular thighs, the sloppy sweater that hung sinfully off his shoulder, and the dark stubble along his jaw.
“I’m more nervous about what they’re going to say when they see you.” There. It was out. At least something was.
“Wait.” He lowered his camera and nailed me with a highly suspicious look. “They don’t know you’re bringing me?”
“They know I’m bringing a friend. They assume it’s a woman. I mean, they probably assume it’s a woman.”
“August, are you telling me that your family doesn’t know you’re gay yet?” His face was slack with disbelief. I nodded. His disbelief changed into anger in a blink of those bittersweet chocolate eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me? I thought you’d told them when we made the plans to visit them.”
I looked down the road, my gaze locating a raven sitting on an electric pole. “I know it’s not the best way for them to find out, but I thought if you were there they’d at least have to be polite.”
The heated string of Spanish expletives startled the raven. It flew off. I wished I could. I stood there, arms folded, letting Sal vent his spleen on me. He had every right. It was pretty shitty to use him as a human shield. When he was done, he stared at me as if he expected me to reply to his long list of complaints and dirty names.
“I don’t know what you said, but I get that you’re mad.”
His threw his hands into the air and stomped around, mumbling to himself, for another minute or two. This was the first time I’d ever seen him really pissed. He was kind of sexy with his dander up, but I kept that thought to myself.
“You totally should be mad.”
“Thanks. I’m so glad you give me permission to be pissed off.” He stalked back across the two-lane road to point a finger at my nose. “You need to own your shit, August.”
“You’re right, I do, and I will. I just didn’t know how to tell them that I’m gay.”
“And bringing home a Latino man who just happens to be HIV positive is your solution? Great! You know how much they’re going to hate me?”
He pounded down the road, stopped, glowered at me, and then came back with long, powerful strides. He stood there, Manitoba morning settling on his wide shoulders, and tried to look right into my soul.
“I love you like mad, but you need to be the man you’re supposed to be. Step up. Be proud of being a gay man. It’s time, August.” He cupped my chin in his warm hand so I couldn’t look away. “It’s time.” Then he kissed me. Hard, deep, crushingly. When he pulled away, my lips tingled from the pressure of his kiss.
“I’m working on it, I swear. This here, with my folks—this is the last hurdle, I promise.”
“I know,” he said, then tugged me by the back of the neck against his chest. I slid my hands around him, pushed them under his baggy sweater, and pressed my fingers deeply into his hot, firm flesh. “I keep forgetting how young you are, and how far you’ve come in such a short time.” He kissed my neck, his lips tender now. “I still want to kick your ass for not telling them about me, but I get it.”
We held each other as the sun crept over the flat farmland, beams of golden light arcing out, warming small bugs and song birds as well as us. I dug into my front pocket and handed him the keys. It was the least I could do. I’d need the next sixty minutes to get my shit owned.
Martens Bay is a small town, about five hundred people, who mostly farm. There’s a lake nearby, pretty big one, Lake Martens, that gives lots of locals a job taking American fishermen out to catch some of the largest northern pike ever to be seen by human eyes. Summer time is short and busy for farmers and outfitters. Winter is long for everyone who doesn’t fly back to the States. Driving through Martens Bay, you have your choice of a bar, a small food store, a hockey rink, and a church. The bar and church are on opposite ends of the four-lane that cuts through the town.
Sal crept along the rutted driveway leading to the small farm I was raised on. A large barn sat on one side of the dirt lane, an old farm house on the other. Most of the animals had been sold off about four years ago, right about the time I went to college. Dad still kept a couple of steers to fiddle with, but he was retired now, or was supposed to be. My throat was dry. My lips too. I emptied what remained of Sal’s orange soda, belched into my hand, then tried to find my shit so I could own it.
He slapped my thigh. “You ready for this?”
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
I threw the passenger door open and got out of the car. Sal did the same. The front door of the house opened. My mom and dad stepped out. I saw them look at me, smiles wide, and then over at Sal. When they glanced back at me, I saw how confused they were. I bounded across mud puddles and up the four steps to wrap my arms around them both at the same time. Mom smelled like pickling spices, Dad like pipe tobacco. Both were tall, lean, and bowed from eking out a living on this old farm.
“You feel thin,” Mom said after the hug ended.
“I’m fine, Mom. The team’s trainers are putting some muscle on me. Mom and Dad, this is Sal Castenada, my friend from Elmira. Sal, Bill and Natalie Miles, my parents.”
I stepped back from my parents, turned, and held out my hand for Sal. His smile was awkward and adorable. I took his hand and pulled him up to stand beside me on the old, rickety porch. Both my parents seemed to be a little baffled, but we Canadians are too polite to come right out and be blunt. Dad and Sal shook hands.
“Come on in. I’ll get you boys some food,” Mom said, her arm around my waist.
I looked over my shoulder at Sal and my father shaking hands. Sal gave me a quick nod, so I allowed my mother to pull me inside. The house was just as I recalled. Kind of dingy, with old curtains, carpeting that was worn flat in spots, and a woodstove in the living room churning out heat. God, it was good to be home. Dad took Sal upstairs to show him the guest room and help with the bags. I followed my mother into the huge kitchen. She quietly tied an apron around her waist, then removed a cast iron skillet from the dish drainer.
I crept around the kitchen, trying to get a peek at her face. She chatted away casually as the gas range click-click-clicked to life. Telling me about the neighbors, the lake, the girl I’d dated back in school and how, miraculously she was still available. I felt bad, but steered the talk away from girls and locals. Dad and Sal stepped into the kitchen, and talk shifted to safer topics like hockey. Mom cooked away, interjecting things into the conversation as she placed platters filled with scrambled eggs and thick, round slices of bacon on the table.
I lowered my head when Dad said grace. My eyes met Sal’s over a plate stacked high with dark rye toast. Knowing what had to be said made acting like nothing was wrong hard. I caught my mother giving Sal peculiar looks as she nibbled at her bacon or sipped her strong coffee. After the food was gone, Sal slowly pushed himself to his feet. We all looked up at him.
“I think I’m going to go grab a nap. We drove straight through. Thank you for the delicious breakfast, Mrs. Miles.” He gave my mother the same kind of smile that always made my heart beat a tad irregularly. Then he climbed the creaky stairs to the second floor.
I shifted around in my seat, stirred some eggs crumbs around on my plate, then blew out a long, long, long breath.
“Mom, Dad, I need to tell you a couple things.”
My father stopped packing tobacco into his old pipe to look at me. My mother stared over her mug of coffee. I cleared my throat.
“I know you don’t have too much experience with different people out here,” I opened with, my index finger rubbing along an old, smooth chip on the edge of my plate.
“Different how?” Dad asked as he thumbed some vanilla tobacco firmly into the bowl of his pipe. “If you mean Mexican like your friend Sal, then no, not much, but he seems like a fine fellow, although I don’t get why he’s wearing a peach sweater.” Mom made a sound of agreement into her coffee.
I had to smile, just a little. “I didn’t mean different because Sal is Latino, I meant different like gay men.” My gaze lifted from the old plate with the blue flowers and the familiar chip. The plate I’d eaten off of for as long as I could recall. “There aren’t many gay men in Martens Bay.”
“I think Cristian Pont was gay,” Dad said, leaning back to dig into the front pocket of his work pants for his old butane lighter. “Remember how neat his yard always was?”
Mom made another sound of agreement.
“Never a leaf out of place. And he always pressed his shirts, even if he were just going to the bar for a gin and tonic.”
This was going to be harder than I thought.
“We always liked Christian,” Mom chimed in. I glanced at her and gave her a weak smile. She gave me one back. “Are you trying to tell us that your friend Sal is gay? We’re totally fine with him staying here if he is, August. Aren’t we, Bill?”
“Oh, yes, fine. We have nothing against the gays.”
He flipped the lid on his lighter, rolled his thumb over the striker, and got a huge, dancing flame. I stared at the fire being sucked into the pipe, then at the cloud of rich smoke Dad exhaled into the air.
“As a matter of fact, your mother had a cousin who was a lesbian. What was her name, Nat?”
“Georgina. She moved to Florida and lived with her friend for years. I should send her a letter, see how they’re doing,” Mom mused, then sipped her coffee.
Shit. This was so not good. Not at all good. I took a sip of my now chilly coffee as Mom and Dad prattled on about cousin Georgina the lesbian and her “friend” the other lesbian. How was I supposed to dive into this?
“Georgina was a whiz with engines,” Mom was saying. “One time my father could not get his old Ford truck to roll over. He called Georgina. Everyone in the family knew that if you needed your car worked on, Georgina was the one to call.”
Dad grunted. “I wonder whatever happened to Cristian. Last I heard he was going to open a flower shop over in—”
“Sal and I are gay. Both of us. We’re both gay and dating each other. When I leave here, I’m moving in with him. I don’t iron my shirts or anything else, and Sal could care less about the yard outside his apartment,” I blurted.
My parents sat staring at me as if I’d just said football was better than hockey.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell us, August?” Dad asked as I battled to regain some control.
“Sal’s HIV positive.”
That one just kind of flopped out of my mouth, but since it was there, on the table, like a guppy out of its tank, we all needed to address it. Someone maybe should toss the poor dying thing back into the water. Obviously my parents weren’t touching it, so I did.
“HIV is not AIDS,” I said gently, my gaze touching on both of them, seeing the horror in their eyes. I recognized that look. It was the same expression that had grabbed Mario’s face the night Sal had told my friends about his status. Mario had been scared for me. Scared of losing me. Just like my parents. Maybe he still was. Shit.
I reached over the table, hands open, and slowly, painfully, each of my parents slid a hand into one of mine.
We talked. For a long time, sitting there with cold coffee and vanilla-scented smoke rings lingering over our heads. I did my best to fill them with good information about HIV.
“We’re being careful,” I assured them. “Always. Sal is crazy about being safe.”
“Why didn’t you tell us all this earlier, son?” my father asked, and tried to relight his pipe using only one hand. Mom nodded in agreement, her eyes filled with concern.
“I’m sorry you were the last to know,” I said, grasping their hands a little tighter. “I guess losing your love was my greatest fear, so I shoved you two to the back of the line.”
“August, you’re the brightest light in our lives. We could never not love you, no matter who you date. Just please promise me that you will always be safe. Dad and me, we don’t care if you’re gay or straight, we just want you to be happy and healthy.” She swiped at a tear.
That was it for me. I jumped out of my chair and moved around the table. I hugged her and then my father as tightly as I dared.
“Now why don’t you go upstairs, move Sal from the guest room to yours, and take a nap with him?” Mom patted my face. “You look exhausted.”
“I’m still not sure about a peach sweater on a man, though,” I heard my dad telling my mom as I left the dining room.
Chuckling with relief, I pounded up the stairs, grabbed Sal’s bags from the spare room, and jogged to my old bedroom. Sal looked up from an old copy of The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett that had been resting, with a couple of other books, on a shelf over my old wooden desk.
“You sure love your post-apocalyptic stuff,” he said, then tossed the well-read paperback onto the bed beside him.
“I thought you were napping.”
He shrugged.
I closed the door behind me and walked over to the bed.
“I did lie down for a while.” He reached for me and pulled just once on my wrist. I sat down beside him on the double bed. The ancient frame creaked loudly. We both winced at the grating sound. “Did you know that if you open that vent on the floor by your dresser, you can hear everything that’s said in the dining room?”
“How do you think I knew what my folks were getting me for Christmas every year when I was a kid?” I fell back onto the bed, the box springs groaning as my weight settled. “Fooling around in this bed is not happening,” I pointed out.
Sal settled beside me, his arm lying over my stomach, his head on my biceps. “Your parents are hysterical.” He pushed my shirt up so he could rub my abdomen. “You lay all that on them—and Aug, that was a shit ton of stuff to pile on them—and the biggest issue your dad has after the dust clears is the color of my sweater. Do you know how amazingly funny and cool that makes them?”
“Yeah, I do. I should have told them way before now. I was just scared, you know?” My lashes drifted down onto my cheeks.
“Trust me, I know.” He patted my belly.
I fell asleep, feet dangling off the side of the bed, Sal curled up beside me, my parents’ voices and my dad’s vanilla pipe tobacco smoke filtering up through the heating grate on the floor. It was great to be home, and to be accepted, even if Sal had a “girly sweater” going on.
After two days of my mother’s huge meals three times a day, Sal and I set off for a run in the evening. We had to. We were both in misery from eating so much. Also, I got concerned about Sal when he didn’t eat right. Sure, I knew a couple of days wasn’t going to spike up his viral load, but still…
“You know when you make that face you look just like your mother?”
I threw the man jogging at my left a dark look. Sal’s laugh was a sharp bark.
“You do recall that I’m adopted?” I asked with attitude as we ran up to the border of Lake Marten.
Sal slowed and then stopped when the lake came into view.
“Pretty, huh?”
“Wow,” he panted, his sweaty hair stuck to the side of his head. “Oh my God, is that a moose with a baby?”
I trotted up to stand beside him, looked at where he was pointing, and nodded.
“Yeah, it’s a moose.”
I bent down to touch my toes and stretch my hamstrings. When I straightened, Sal was taking pictures with his cell, his face glowing from either the two mile run or the sight of the mama moose with her calf. Maybe both.
“Not too many of them wandering around Elmira, huh?”
“Not a one.” He laughed, then walked to the edge of the lake. I moseyed up to stand beside him. A gentle wind moved over the water, moist and fresh, kind of chilly when it rustled over damp clothing. “It really is beautiful here.”
I studied his profile. “Yeah, it is.
He threw me a sideway glance, smiled, and returned to snapping images of moose, lake, towering pines, and a long pier that ran out into the water.
“You about done taking pictures?” I asked while pulling my shirt over my head.
“Um, maybe?”
Sal turned to face me. I toed off my sneakers, then bounced around on one foot then the other, peeling off my sweaty socks. His dark eyebrows shot up his brow when I wiggled out of my running shorts and briefs.
“Is this some sort of pagan Canadian tradition?”
“Sure, we can call it that. Or we can call it skinny-dipping.”
I ran out into the lake. The water swirled around my thighs and splashed up over my balls. It was brutally cold. My nuts ascended into my body as fast as they could. I heard Sal laughing at my squeals from the shore. Needing to show him that I really owned my shit, I drew in a deep breath and dove into the freezing water. When I surfaced about six meters from the rocky shore, I cleared the water from my face, then paddled around to face Sal, who was still on the shore, the coward.
“You coming in or what?” I shouted while treading water. He stripped and, with a shout that scared the moose and her calf, leaped into the water. He came up right in front of me.
“Holy fucking shit, this water is frigid!” Sal gasped as lake water ran down his face and neck. He swam a little closer. I stole a kiss. Then another. And then one more. “You think we could get out of this ice plunge?”
“Will you fuck me on the shore?”
“If my junk hasn’t frozen off and fallen to the bottom of Lake Antarctica here, sure.”
“Drama queen,” I tossed back at him as I broke for shore.
He followed with ease. I reached the soft shore first. Lake Marten slapped around my thighs. I turned to watch Sal rise out of the cold, clear water like some kind of ancient aquatic god.
He stepped right into my arms. He was cold, his skin pimpled with gooseflesh, but his mouth…oh, his mouth was hot. As was his touch. Every caress of his hands over my skin set me on fire. He cupped my naked ass while rubbing his tongue over mine. Our cocks, rising slowly now that we were out of the bitterly cold lake, bumped together.
I was hot and so horny. We hadn’t had sex for something like a week. I grabbed his hips, pulled with a grunt, and ground my cock against his. Sal groaned into my mouth, his teeth dragging over my tongue.
“Fuck me.”
I took him by the arm to the first tuft of grass we could find. There wasn’t much—it was still mostly mud—but who cared? I needed to get off so badly I would have let him fuck me over on the dock. Shit. Were there people here? Sal reached between my legs to cup my balls as we dropped to our knees on the springy soil. At that moment, I wouldn’t have cared if the Prime Minister had been wetting his line that evening.
“Fuck me right now.”
I was on my back with Sal between my legs before I could blink. I ran my hands over Sal as he fished inside his wallet, his fingers fumbling as his cock rested beside mine.
“My fingers are so cold I can’t feel a damn thing.”
He snickered, then pulled the condom out with a grin. It fell from his fingers. He cursed. I rolled my eyes. A bug bit my bare chest. Then another. It took Sal three tries to get the packet out of the goop, and then another two tries to get it open.
“Let me,” I said.
I swatted a black bug feasting on my side, then rolled the lubricated condom down over his prick. Sal worked up some saliva and spat on his hand, then smeared the spittle over the condom. A little more lubrication was never a bad thing. He really did have a beautiful cock. I know people say a dick can’t be beautiful, but Sal’s was. It looked even more beautiful because it had been seven days since I’d held it, or sucked it, or felt it breaching the tight ring of muscle inside me.
Just like it was now.
I slapped my hands to the mud. Sal threw my muddy leg over his shoulder and thrust deeply.
“Fuuuuuuuck,” I ground out, my fingers curling into the sloppy dirt that was now packed into my fingers, toes, and the crack of my ass.
He rotated his hips, pressing against my prostate for just a second. Rough sounds of pleasure escaped me. Something bit the sole of my foot, the one resting on Sal’s shoulder, hard. I wiggled my foot as Sal pulled out. He punched his hips forward and up, pushing his cock deep.
“You’ve got the tightest ass,” he said through gritted teeth.
I tried to grab him, tug him deeper, but my hands were slick with mud. He made a large, round motion with his hips that made my eyes roll back into my skull and my toes curl.
“I have to go faster now.”
“Yeah, faster.”
My leg slid off his shoulder, smearing mud and green slimy stuff down his arm. He threw my leg back up beside his ear, lowered his head, and fucked me as hard as I had ever been fucked. There was no traction to be found, so I slipped and slithered back with each powerful thrust.
“Make yourself come.” Sal growled, then shimmied upward, his knees constantly sliding out from under him.
Hand caked with mud, I grabbed my cock. Sal nodded down at me when I began jerking myself off. The wet, sucking sounds of the mud was weird, kind of gross, but incredibly hot. I came fast and hard. Semen flew over my chest, dotting my neck and chin. Sal said something that got lost in my shouts, the slurping sounds of the mud we were rolling around in, and the buzz of bugs. Back bowed, I rode out my orgasm in delight, shuddering and moaning. Sal fell over me when his knees went out to the sides. I groaned. He got to his elbows, captured my mouth, and then came like a wild man, his body tightening up, his cock kicking, his tongue knotted with mine. I grabbed his head, tipped it, and sucked on his tongue like a man starved.
“Shit, ow.” He pulled away from the kiss to slap a hand to his neck.
I snickered. Then felt a sharp bite on the back of my thigh. And then another on my big toe.
“Fucking hell, what is with the bugs?” Sal tried to get to his feet. He slewed around, finally landing on his ass with a splat.
I sat up. My head was instantly surrounded by a horde of small, black gnats. The bastards were hungry. I opened my mouth to tell Sal to get into the lake and inhaled about four dozen flying black specks. Spitting and hacking, I slipped and stumbled to the water, Sal tripping along at my side. We dove in, came up, teeth clattering, looked at each other, and started laughing like a couple of loonies. I noticed he was holding the used condom tightly in his hand. Guess he’d have to carry that home in his pocket. That made me laugh even harder.
“That was the dirtiest sex I’ve ever had,” Sal chortled as we circled each other.
“For sure,” I replied, then swam to him.
His lips were cold when I pressed mine over them. He smiled dreamily after the kiss ended. Someday, I might be old and not able to recall who I’d scored my first goal on, but I knew for certain I would never forget our time in Lake Marten.