Ignite, p.10
Ignite, page 10
Austin had seen it himself and had judged, until he’d seen the other side. The side that others didn’t see or chose not to see, a side that Tan maybe didn’t always realize himself. Things weren’t as black and white as they had seemed, and Austin’s heart had filled with compassion for the flirty twink.
They’d become friends, much to Tan’s initial surprise, since he was not used to others wanting only to be friends with him, not even campers. He’d flat out told Austin that, and more than anything, that casual remark Tan made after they’d hung out a few times and he had offered to blow him—again—had cemented Austin’s resolve to never start anything sexual with Tan. The guy’s life was fucked up enough as it was. He needed friends, not more people who took advantage of him.
He couldn’t deny it was hard at times, especially now that they were spending so much time together. Tan was exactly his type, and the fact that he was so affectionate and cuddly didn’t make it easier. But Austin valued the friendship they had way more than the prospect of sex, even if he’d had to jerk off a few more times a day now.
It took them four days to traverse through the Black Hills and cross the state line into Wyoming. They didn’t encounter another person, nor spider bots, both things to be thankful for. The landscape changed as soon as they hit Wyoming, and that night, they camped between some man-sized bushes, which hid their tent well. The next day, the landscape transitioned even more. Gone were the trees and the hills, and instead, the dry prairie of the Thunder Basin Grasslands stretched out in front of them.
They avoided the roads and cut through the fields—if you could even call them that. The dry summer had turned the grass into an endless vista of yellow-brown grass, dark sage spots indicating sparse bushes. The terrain was rolling, uneven, with little dips and patches that could trip you up if you didn’t pay attention to where you planted your feet. The sun burned mercilessly, even as it cooled off considerably in the night, and he and Mack quickly realized they should’ve picked up some sunscreen from Walmart. But as Mack pointed out, a sunburn was about the least of their problems right now, even if it was annoying as fuck.
The second night, they pitched their tent near a dilapidated shed that had probably once been an outdoor shelter for cattle. Close by, another telltale black circle indicated a bot had landed there, which put them all on alert, but they didn’t see anything. No people either.
Austin had driven through this part of Wyoming several times with his dad, and you could drive for miles without encountering anyone. With all cars out of service, the chances of running into someone were slim. In this case, that was to their advantage. Few people would attempt to do the hike they were doing, unless they had a similar reason to get away.
Early on the third day, when they had been walking about for an hour, Tan pointed at something in the distance. “What is that?” he asked.
Austin had to narrow his eyes before he recognized the shape. “It’s an oil pump. It’s not pumping, of course, since it doesn’t have power.”
“There’s oil here? I thought that was only in, like, Texas,” Tan said.
“Actually, there’s a lot of untapped oil around here. Geologists have discovered a huge oil field in North Dakota and Montana, but it stretches out all the way to the west of South Dakota and this part of Wyoming. That’s why you see oil pumps everywhere,” Mack said.
Huh. That was news to Austin. “Why haven’t they tapped it yet on a bigger scale?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, but I seem to remember it had something to do with the type of oil field? I could be wrong, but I think it’s the type that isn’t at the surface, so it’s a lot harder to get to. And it would have a big impact on the environment.”
Austin scoffed. “That’s never stopped them before. Look at what they did to Alaska when they started drilling for oil there.”
“You’ve been to Alaska?” Tan asked.
Austin nodded. “Yeah. Me and my dad traveled pretty much everywhere, at least before they closed the borders.”
He remembered that day, like everyone did. He’d been a junior in high school when the news broadcasted that starting immediately, all free traffic between the three United States had been terminated by the CUS. Only people with government-approved travel plans could travel outside of the Conservative United States. It had only taken them weeks to build the Wall and station border agents along the entire stretch.
It had created a huge uproar, but in the end, the people had swallowed it, like they’d swallowed everything else before and after. It had created a ton of jobs, they’d argued, and who wanted to travel to the liberal Western or Eastern United States anyway?
After the Wall, there had been a steady stream of legislative measures, each one more restrictive than the previous, all aimed at creating the theocracy the founders of the CUS had envisioned. Outlawing all homosexual activities had been one of the first ones, and not surprisingly, one of the easiest ones for people to accept. After all, most liberals had left already.
Austin couldn’t remember how often his dad had lamented they should’ve left as well, but with his mom being so sick and unable to travel, they didn’t have the opportunity, and then it was too late. Instead, his dad had chosen to align himself with the government as closely as he could in order to protect Austin, who had already come out of the closet to his parents by then. Luckily, he hadn’t yet mentioned a word about his sexual orientation to anyone else, and that had allowed him to stay safe for a long time, until he’d trusted the wrong person with his secret.
“I’d never been out of Nebraska before I ran away from home,” Tan said. “I’m a farmer’s kid, you know? Farmers rarely travel. No time, no money. Even after, I never got farther than Denver.”
Tan had run away from home at sixteen, he’d told Austin, too scared his parents would report him. They had, and after managing to avoid getting caught for two years, he’d been arrested in an illegal gay club in Denver and deported to camp.
“Your parents are farmers?” Mack asked, a hint of incredulity in his voice.
Tan sent him a sad smile. “Yeah, I know. Hard to imagine when you look at me, right? I still don’t know what genetic joke God played when he created me, but obviously, I look nothing like my six-foot-three built-like-a-brick-wall dad. I look very much like my mom, including her body type.”
“She must be beautiful, then,” Mack said, and that remark was so unexpected from him that Austin and Tan both snapped their heads in his direction. Mack immediately stumbled over his own feet, barely managing to keep upright. His cheeks grew red as he stuttered, “I-I’m sorry, that w-was awkward.”
Austin thought he’d never seen anything more adorable than the fiery, blushing Mack, all flustered and nervous as he tried to recover from blurting out something so sweet. They’d all stopped walking, too stunned to even continue. Mack dropped his shoulders when Tan walked over to him, undoubtedly expecting to be reprimanded in some way.
Instead, Tan reached up and kissed him on his cheek. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s one of the sweetest, most genuine compliments I’ve ever received.”
Mack raised his eyes to meet Tan’s gaze. “You’re not taking it the wrong way?” he asked hesitantly.
Tan frowned. “Why would I be upset about a compliment?”
Mack’s eyes dropped again. “Forget it. It’s stupid.”
Tan reached for his arm. “It’s not stupid. Why would anyone take it the wrong way if you say something nice about them? I don’t understand.”
Austin stepped closer, having trouble picking up their soft voices.
Mack fretted with his hands for what felt like a minute before he finally spoke again. “Don’t men interpret it as something else when you say something nice?”
Austin let that question sink in, unable to even make sense of it. What was Mack talking about? Why would he think that saying something nice to Tan would get him into trouble? At first, he thought Mack was embarrassed because he’d blurted out he’d noticed Tan, found him attractive, liked him maybe. But clearly, there was something else going on. It was like Mack was speaking a different language, a coded and veiled one filled with vague references. One Austin didn’t master.
“Sweetie, I like it when someone tells me they think I’m beautiful. Why wouldn’t I?” Tan asked, sounding as baffled as Austin was.
Mack kept looking at the ground, and Austin wondered what was going through his mind. The distress on his face showed this wasn’t an easy topic for him, but Austin felt like he still lacked crucial information to make heads or tails out of it.
“I thought it was like permission for someone else to get…aggressive?” Mack said, his voice even softer than before.
Tan gestured at himself. “Do I look like an aggressive type, honey?”
Nope, Austin still wasn’t getting the whole picture, and it frustrated him.
“I don’t know,” Mack said. He raised his head slowly and shrugged, his whole body showing defeat and utter embarrassment. “I think it’s clear by now I have no idea what I’m talking about. Let’s forget it and move on.”
Before Tan or Austin could even react, he started walking again, leaving them with the choice to either call him back or follow him. Austin shared a look with Tan, whose face mirrored his own confusion. Silently, they resumed walking as well.
Austin let Mack’s words tumble around in his head, determined to figure out this puzzle. He’d clearly been convinced Tan would not just get upset over his compliment but would get aggressive, somehow? How anyone could think Tan was aggressive was beyond Austin. Well, the guy had a violent streak, obviously, considering how he’d kicked that man on the ground, but that was a completely different situation. Surely Mack could see that was different, couldn’t he?
From what Mack had told them so far, it was obvious that he’d been raised in a sheltered environment and had no experience interacting with other gay men. That wasn’t uncommon among campers, many of whom had desperately tried to hide their sexual preferences for years before getting caught. In some of the larger cities, there were underground clubs of gay men, fiercely guarded of course, but at least they offered some kind of possibility to meet other men. It’s where Tan had gotten arrested…and where Austin had met the biggest mistake of his life.
He wondered sometimes what had happened to Jude, how the guy had managed to live with himself after betraying Austin. If he had managed to live with himself. What bothered Austin most about the whole situation was that he should’ve known from the start that Jude was weak. There had been many hints and indications that he lacked a backbone, and Austin had ignored them all, too caught up in the thrill of having a boyfriend.
That first time they’d had sex, man, even after everything that had happened, he still got a hard-on when he thought about it. He’d never experienced anything like that, the sensation of being so close to someone else. Maybe it hadn’t been good sex objectively speaking, as it felt to him like Jude had been too passive while Austin had been a bit too clumsy, too fast and aggressive, maybe.
Aggressive. Dominant. Another word for the guy who topped in a gay sexual encounter. And with lightning clarity, he realized what Mack had mentioned earlier.
“Aggressive,” he said, grabbing Mack by his arm to stop him. He put slight pressure on his arm to make Mack face him. “Did someone tell you that if you are nice to another man, that means you’re giving him permission to top you?” he asked.
Mack’s eyebrows drew close in confusion. “Top?”
He didn’t even know the terms, Austin realized. He’d been so sheltered, so cut off from the world that he had no idea about gay culture and customs, none of it. “Penetrate,” he said, unable to come up with a better word. “I meant giving another man permission to penetrate you, to fuck you.”
To say that Mack looked shocked was an understatement. His eyes about bulged out of his head, and his cheeks grew red as tomatoes. His mouth dropped open, then closed again, like a fish on dry land gasping for air. Or water. Or whatever it was that made fish do that weird flopping with their mouths once they were out of the water. Stupefied, completely in shock, and unable to say a word.
“I take it this is not a topic you’re used to talking about,” Austin said kindly.
Mack slowly shook his head, finally closing his mouth.
“I understand. You don’t have to say anything if that’s too hard for you right now, but can you just acknowledge with a nod if I interpreted your words about being aggressive correctly?”
He waited a few seconds with bated breath, but then Mack nodded, dropping his eyes.
Austin let out a sigh of relief that he’d managed to understand Mack’s words. Now he had to offer something to comfort him, to assure him that what he had been taught was wrong.
“Again, Mack, you don’t have to say anything, but I just wanted to tell you that what they told you was wrong. Being nice to a man, even a gay man, does not mean you give permission for anything sexual to happen. I don’t know why they told you that, maybe because they wanted to instill a fear of men in you, but it’s not true. Tan was pleased with your compliment, and he would never take it as anything else but a nice gesture from a friend. And neither would I or most gay men I can think of.”
He hoped he’d found the right words to take away some of Mack’s fears. It certainly explained a lot of his initial reaction to the two of them, of them crawling into a sleeping bag together, of saying the wrong thing. He’d been on edge pretty much since they met, and this had to be the cause behind his tension. Poor guy.
“Do you know other gay men?” Mack whispered, surprising Austin by saying something. “I mean, before you went to camp?”
Austin hesitated, his lifelong habit of keeping things secret preventing him from speaking up immediately. “Not many, but yes. I met a few.”
Mack looked up and met his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed. “How did you manage that without your dad finding out?”
“My dad knew,” Austin said. “He knew I was bi, and he was perfectly okay with it. All he asked of me was that I be extremely careful and not trust anyone.”
Mack blinked as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “I never met another gay man until I met the two of you,” he said softly. “Heck, I barely met any straight men I wasn’t related to. I’m sorry for being completely ignorant about this, but I never had a chance to learn or experience anything.”
Tan stepped close to him and in a gesture that seemed as natural as breathing to him, he took Mack’s hand and pressed a soft kiss on it. From anyone else, it would have looked ridiculous, but with Tan, you knew it came from his heart. “I think you met gay men, sweetie,” Tan said. “You just didn’t know it. And don’t apologize for who you are or where you came from. We’ll help you figure things out, I promise.”
Austin’s throat constricted. Tan could be so sweet and tender, despite everything he’d been through, that it took Austin’s breath away. He was fortunate to have him as a friend.
“Mack was right, babe,” he told him. “You really are beautiful.”
10
That night, they had to pitch their tent in the open. There was literally not a tree, bush, or building in sight. The good news was there was also not another human in sight. Still, they felt uneasy about their exposure, and they agreed to stop before darkness fully set in so they could set up in the dusk without needing a light.
Setting up the tent was routine by now, and they had it up in two minutes. Mack had picked a spot that was lower than the ground around them, a little circular pit, like a mini valley surrounded by the slightly higher slopes of the terrain. The tent fit in there exactly, sticking out only a few inches above the terrain, so they would at least have some protection from their surroundings. It wasn’t much, but it was the best they could do. It was a clear sky, so rain wouldn’t be an issue. If it had been, he wouldn’t have set up camp in that hole, knowing it would fill with water.
He knew Tan was exhausted, still not used to the physical demands of walking all day. They had adjusted to his pace, which was a lot slower than Mack or Austin would’ve managed on their own or even with the two of them, and they had taken frequent breaks, but it was a lot for Tan. Still, the guy didn’t complain, and Mack respected him for that.
Austin didn’t complain either, though Mack suspected that his feet were still bothering him, judging by the winces on his face every now and then as he made a misstep. He’d offered to check them the night before, but Austin had refused, saying it was fine and he shouldn’t worry about it. Mack had accepted the rebuttal, figuring this was a boundary Austin didn’t want to be crossed. Maybe he felt uncomfortable with another man touching his feet?
As had become painfully clear today, Mack had no clue about social norms between men, let alone between gay men. He still wanted to crawl into a hole when he thought about his remarks about being aggressive. He should’ve never said anything. He was smart enough to have figured things out on his own by observing, or by listening to their conversation, since Austin and Tan did talk about some pretty personal stuff every now and then. He never butted in, but he sure listened.
But no, he had to open his mouth and demonstrate what a clueless idiot he was. Tan and Austin had been super nice about it, much to his relief, but that didn’t make him feel any less of a fool. Sure, rationally he knew it wasn’t his fault. He’d merely repeated what he had been told, which apparently had been complete nonsense, and what he’d learned from that romance, which maybe hadn’t been correct either?
Austin had probably been right, that his father had told him things like that to instill a deep fear of men inside him. Mack hadn’t realized he was gay until he was sixteen, but in hindsight, his father had probably picked up on clues much earlier and had done whatever he could to dissuade Mack from this path.
