Zale's Big Trip, Part 3
by H. A. Kirsch
Copyright 2011

---

Harley wasn't kidding about camping, or hiking to get there. We got up at a nice, leisurely late eleven in the morning and had breakfast in the room. I discovered the totally hedonistic joys of room service. Poke at the computer system on the TV, put in my IPC number so that they didn't put something in my food that would kill me, receive food from someone in snappy dress. It even came on one of those fancy platters like you see in movies. Can you tell I usually vacation in motels?


We took another luxury cab over to some outfitter on the edge of the park. I always thought it was amusing when you could go from bustling downtown - largest city in Australia! - to a bunch of picturesque rolling hills in about half an hour. Lainsville was kind of like that, except it was a 'small city', not a gigantic continental metropolis.


Things were tense for a few minutes at the outfitter guy's place. We were going to be renting most of our gear, save for a pair of hiking boots that I packed for lack of better casual shoes. Apparently, when a rich-looking lion comes into your store, you try to rip him off. I wouldn't. I'd do whatever he said. If he told me to give him a five finger discount, I'd suck his dick first so he wouldn't have to feel uncomfortable walking out of the store with a fucking hardon.


Anyway, Harley acted like he was oblivious of the whole thing, then put up hell. I remembered watching him beat the shit out of Kyle, the lion's former business partner and all-round lascivious shithead. Well, actually, he just punched Kyle - he beat the shit out of him at a later date while I wasn't around. He had the same look on his face at the smug clerk, that he did before he pistoned a fist into that jerky German Shepherd. This time, it was a dingo. Figures.


Then, it was off to the park. I thought it was weird that we were taking a hired car to a _national park_, but the driver didn't care and Harley didn't exactly ooze emotion most of the time. He gave our regular clothes back to the waiting driver after we changed in the 'restrooms', and off we went. Backpacks slung on - they weighed a ton, even though it was just enough gear for two nights and three days of slumming around - legs wrapped in khaki pants to stop scrapes and bangs, hiking boots, comfortable layers for when it went from cool morning to hot to cold to hot to all those things that happen outside that you just don't think about since you live in a house.


"Okay, so I guess we really are camping in the rough? Because the campground is-" I tried to point Harley towards the several signs showing "Campground" on them, but he didn't seem interested.


"Do you remember Chaz? You accompanied me to his dinner party."


"I don't know what that has to do with anything, but yes, I do, and why are we going up that hill?" We were about to go up a hill. It was a pretty serious hill. Not really like a foothill, just a hill hill, but still. Harley took to it like it was nothing, although after only ten feet or so, he was grunting ragged. I followed, and boy, he was really pushing it. Luckily, we crested it and settled into a rough but walkable nature path.


"Despite having a mansion and dapper attire, Chaz is a considerable outdoorsman. He has given me a detailed hand-drawn map to, in his words, 'a wonderful place to stay'." Harley turned and handed me a rather crumpled piece of paper.


Well fuck me, a hand-drawn map! Detailed! We had quite a bit of a hike to go. Hours of hiking. "You know, I'm not really a hiker, so if we crap out, you're gonna have to carry me."


"Give yourself credit, Mr. Sterling."


We stopped mid-afternoon for a snack. Trail mix. Vegan carob trail mix! Delicious. I washed it down with what seemed like an entire water-thingy of water. We only had four of them. We rounded a corner and Harley hauled his gear down off his back, then led me to a stream. The water-thingy was a 'water skin', a sort of weird stretchy neoprene bag. There was this bizzarre T-shaped thing that Harley took out and fastened to the end, then crouched down to the stream. He blew into one end of it and it whirred like one of those toy party sirens. Then, he stuck one end into the water and did the same thing. It made a burbling sound and the bag inflated up.


"I don't think we should just drink that stuff," I said. "There's probably giardia in it. Is that it? The thing you get from nasty water?"


"This is a high-efficiency microfilter," Harley said, taking off the little water filler gadget and showing me part that slid out. It was all dark and grainy inside. "It may not taste particularly delicious, but you will be perfectly fine."


Apparently, the lion had done this before. Good for him. It was sunset before we finally reached our destination, up another steep incline. There it was, a clearing perched on the edge of a hill. Half an hour of scrabbling in the dirt with the edges of our boots and we had a nice flat spot for the tent. Another half hour of swearing, mostly on Harley's part, and we had a two-person tent nestled in the bare spot.


"So! How about dinner?" I smacked my thighs as I sat on a nearby log. It was worn down on top - we weren't the first people to stop there.


"Eat," he said, and handed me another packet of trail mix. "Tomorrow night, we will have a true meal."


We ate in silence, then clambered into the tent. As soon as the sun was down, it started to get quite cold. We had two sleeping bags, barely comfortable rolls, and just balled our clothes up for pillows. I was terribly tired, sore and worn out, and fell asleep immediately, only to wake up in the dead of night. There were Things Outside. I tried to stick it out as long as I could, but I couldn't stand it. Not only were they munching and crunching around, but they were making noises, growls and yips and tussling sounds.


Then, one of them screamed. Oh my god, I punched Harley in the back. "Wake up, wake up you stupid shit! There's something outside! It's fucking screaming!"


Harley woke up and scruffed me like a dog. He grabbed my neck, not my mohawk, which hurt like a bitch. He yanked the tent flap open and stuck my head out. There, having a field day with the crumbs from our trailmix that had fallen into that old burnished log, were two silver foxes. They were mortified that someone was staring at them and stared back, all cat-eyed and down-muzzled. I'm talking about regular old every day cute little foxes, not hybrids. Wilds.


"Those foxes will not bother us, except perhaps to annoy. They might as well be squirrels. Go to sleep, Mr. Sterling."


"There could be worse things!"


He growled.


"Okay, okay." I retreated back into the tent, while Harley quickly knocked back off, breathing turning into that heavy, regular huff.  I lay there for hours, listening to the foxes have their little food orgy spat and then leave, boring myself to near tears. What a fucking vacation. Embarrassing weird gay opera, camping that was thrust upon me with as much sudden gruffness as Harley's own dick, foxes terrorizing me in the middle of the night...


Then we woke up.


---


We were overlooking some sort of valley, and the combination of biting chill and springtime sun turned into a massive explosion of fog. I thought we were living in the clouds, and we weren't even very high up. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck from the previous day's hike. I worked out pretty hard most of the time and I ran all the time, but running around the city or even through local nature areas was nothing compared to hiking around in the hilly national parks northeast of Sydney.


We weren't staying in some random spot; Chaz had undoubtedly picked it out on some previous trip and noted it down as exceptionally beautiful. Good for him; good for us. I was mesmerized. Fuck my aches and pains. "You know, I think this was actually worth it."


"I spared you the character building speech the other day," Harley said, grunting as he changed his underwear in the tent. "You did not seem particularly interested in camping."


"I'm not really one of those outdoorsy types," I said, staring out at the slowly shifting sea of fog. It was like one of those science class things where they demonstrate how carbon dioxide is heavier than air by using dry ice and water. "So we're just... we're just hiking more today?"


"Yes, to the other camping spot. I believe it is supposed to be a very good spot for a sunset, presuming there are clouds. Unfortunately, Chaz's handwriting is not nearly as good as his drawing skill. We will have to see." Harley came out of the tent and just stood by where I was sitting in the grass, surveying the land. A breeze kicked up and started rustling the fog around. Within a minute or two, it blew away, exposing the massive valley made by some river as it twisted around. "We should move."


I felt like my vacation with Harley involved two different worlds that only sometimes met up. We barely talked, he'd been doing business so that was totally reasonable, but sometimes we'd just sit there. It was like being half of a really old couple who had just run out of things to say to each other. In a way it was low maintenance. I never had to worry about him going on and on and on and on about shit. Like my coworker Shawna; if she was hiking with Harley, he'd have eaten her already. She could talk for days about intricate bullshit. She'd talk my arm off, then eventually pause and go, "and you just stand around palming your horsey hair around like you're some pretty boy! I bet it's so easy for you!" Meanwhile I'm doing math problems in my head because they're just so much more interesting.


While hiking, Harley only spoke if he needed to, and even then he passed words up for a well placed point and grunt. That was okay. It was hard to talk while stomping around. We were on trails, mostly, except where it was obvious something had fallen down across the path or there was a shortcut. Some of the shortcuts weren't so short, and a lot of the trails were basically deer tracks.


By mid afternoon, I was pretty much dead, but I couldn't just tell Harley I was going to stop. He'd probably just keep going after giving me the map. We eventually pushed into some kind of clearing and I just sat down. Instead of giving me The Eye, Harley just dropped his backpack and stripped.


"Wow. Well, I guess I can take it right now," I said, wiping sweat off anything I could reach on myself. I was sweating enough that my mohawk was wilting. Harley looked just as ragged as me, which always seemed odd. Not all hybrids could sweat, but horses always could.


Not just ragged. Wild. He stripped right down to the fur and just stood there. Was he _sniffing_? What was he sniffing? Was there an animal? People nearby? All I smelled was grass and dirt and my own smell and fresh air. I hadn't really seen that look before. He didn't look so much like a person as a wild animal who happened to be standing upright. The closest I'd seen was when he'd just finished working out.


"Harley?"


He grunted and walked over to a big rock outcropping and sat down, then leaned back, then rolled onto his side. "This is it."


"This is what?"


"This is the spot." He closed his eyes.


"Great, so you're going to take a cat nap. Am I supposed to pitch the tent?" That's what the smell was! Water! That probably explained the faint rushing sound. There was probably a little waterfall. I had some mental image of a pond and a waterfall and rocks all around and something sexual and unicorns and all kinds of fairy tale shit. Water. Cold water. "Oookay, I guess it's cat nap time. I'm gonna go see if that's a waterfall or some crazy.. something."


"Take the filter straw, or you will regret it," he mumbled, then closed his eyes again.


If he could take all his clothes off, so could I. It's not like anyone would ever see. I wandered around down the continuation of the path and found my waterfall. No unicorns, no pond, and it was barely more than a trickle. It was also extremely, extremely cold. I couldn't do more than dash underneath it for a few seconds, then let the breeze do the cooling.


Then, I took in about a gallon of water through the filter straw and proceeded to throw up instantly. That sucked. About a pint next, and that was fine. After sitting on a rock for a good twenty minutes, I started to feel better. I hadn't realized I had a pounding headache until it went away. Shit, I was probably dehydrated. I got about a gallon of water back into me, and finally peed a little.


I wondered if I was hurting myself. I knew it was rough going, but I didn't know what my limits were. Harley didn't seem too concerned, although he did stop us whether or not we were really 'there'.


I went back up to the flat spot and the tent was up, with Harley inside of it. He was lying down with his head poking out, on his stomach. "It was too hot in the sun," he said, and he sounded miserable.


"I was dehydrated. I bet you are. Here, suck this down," I said, rummaging through the gear and taking out the waterskins. He didn't seem too interested until after he'd had a few slurps. He sucked them both flat, then rolled over with an audible but kind of muted slosh. I crouched. "I don't think we're cut out for this stuff. You're some rich guy and I'm a wannabe rock star."


"You are hardly a rock star, Mr. Sterling."


"You should hear my album! I finished it. I'd have brought it along but I kind of suck at packing."


Harley rolled over and produced something. Something black. My... my hoof boots. I immediately sat down where I was half-kneeling, hunkered over. "No dress clothes, no rock music to show off, but you did bring these."


I sighed. "I wanted to surprise you."


"You failed at that," he said, then handed them over to me. "Put them on. They are sturdy. Saddle-weight leather. The maker indicated that they would do well to take real use."


Why do you want me to put them on? I couldn't really ask Harley that, but I gave him the accompanying look... and took the hooves. I didn't feel very horny, and being totally out of my element, putting them on was almost a headtrip. I stood up, then clopped around in the dust. "I thought you'd like it if I brought them. You could make me wear them, make me... do stuff. That's what it's about, right? Embarrassing me? Look, a zebra pony who has to _put on_ hooves! Ha ha ha!" I put my hands on my hips and tried to look bratty. It's hard to look bratty with a dick hanging down to mid-thigh.


Harley stared at me. At first, I thought he was mad, but it was really just a solid stare. Maybe he was really overheated? I had a vague sense of what heatstroke was, and everyone made it out to be some massive medical emergency. If either of us had it... bad times. "Why do you tolerate me, Mr. Sterling? I cannot be the nicest person you know, I make strange demands of you, and..." Harley trailed off, then rolled over onto his back, looking at me upside down.


"Well, I guess I like it. It... I like... that kind of thing. And you're not a bad person. You're, you know, I know you're... you're nice inside. You're not really going to use me, not like some of the people I've met." I immediately thought of Hawk. "Like that wolf..."


"He is nice inside as well, but he is more of a stormy person on the outside. I like to think of myself as a lion statue."


What? "He kept me at his house for a year!"


"You kept yourself there."


"This could have been a serious traumatic thing, Harley! I could be forever altered! I could be, I could be messed up because of it!"


'You had decided to become a prostitute without his involvement, and he gave you the opportunity to say no. This is not about Hawk, Zale. Do not change the subject."


I stomped around and threw my arms up. "Great, so now I get interrogated out in the fucking wilderness! I mean really, why are you dragging me through all this? This vacation's kind of sucked. I sat around while you worked, then you took me to that weird opera, then you.. you made me shit your cum out and fucking _eat_ it, then you dragged me around the fucking hot-ass backwoods! You couldn't make this more unpleasant unless you drug me through the outback, and trust me, you're not gonna do that."

Harley mumbled something, then rolled back over.


"What? Are you going to tell me to calm down? I'm not gonna calm down!"


"I 'dragged' you out here, Mr. Sterling, because...." He took in a big, big breath, then let it out. "Because I love you, and I wanted you with me."


"Oh, well, that's a g-what?"


He gave me a feral look.


"No, no no no, what did you just say?"


"Mmh."


"You just said, you just said, you, argh!" Except I didn't say 'argh', I reared back and brayed and waved my arms and probably bugged my fucking eyes out. "Here! Frying out in the fucking hot... you... said!"


"Perhaps you should get out of the sun and come in here with me, and rest. Then, I will make you dinner, and we can watch the sunset, and enjoy a cool night, then leave tomorrow. We have hiked upwards - going back downwards should be a bit less strenuous."


Way to fucking ignore what you just said, Harley! "Okay."


I crawled into the tent, with my mind set on giving him some piece of my mind. Instead, I fell asleep like a rock.


---


I woke up to Harley cooking something on a small camp stove. I felt absolutely wonderful, but a bit dazed. How long had I been out? I wondered why it mattered, and then woke up some more. The sky! It looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Some clouds off in the distance were turned into stark relief while deep burning rays exploded around them. Harley looked absolutely unconcerned, crouched by the stove and its little pit of rocks he'd built up. Plantains? Tempeh? Some onion? The foxes were going to love our leftovers.


"I have some jerky for myself," he said. "But I'm sure this will be good enough to at least try."  Harley looked my way.


"Wow. Are you even paying attention to that?" I pointed up to the photograph-ready sunset, then climbed out of the tent. Whoa, hooves! I trotted around as I almost lost balance. "It's amazing! This is the best view I've ever seen! Did I complain about something earlier? Harley? Was I complaining? I was being an idiot. You should smack me for it or something." I must have woken up at that rare fleeting moment when you actually feel _great_ after a nap, as opposed to worse than when you went to sleep.


"You realize that you are trotting around, with your tail arched, like a spooked horse."


I whinnied at Harley, but I did it as a human imitation, then snorted, then scuffed some dirt backwards with one of my hoof-boots. "No shit." Sunset? Sunset? Fuck the sunset. Harley said he loved me! That's why I was so happy! He didn't act like he'd ever said it but he did he did he did he did-


"You should sit down," he said, trying to direct me to a log that some camper had put up in the past for just this purpose. No no no, pretty pretty happy happy- He grabbed me by the neck and forced me down. "Sit."

I facepalmed, scrubbed at my dark muzzle, then looked up. Food was apparently ready, out onto two barely usable metal camp plates. Harley handed me one, then filled his up with a couple slices of plantain and a pile of some kind of jerky. "Thanks for making dinner," I said, then tasted it. Oh my god spicy, but in a very good way. "Mmmf."


"I didn't know you could make that sound," he said, devouring some of the grizzled, dried meat. Thank whatever I didn't get grossed out by meat-eaters. "I thought it would be better than eating trail mix, especially seeing as this hike was more than we bargained for. Or, in your case, this entire trip."


I looked up at him. "What?"


"I did not want to cavort around some foreign country alone, and while you might assume otherwise, I do not usually pay for escort services. You are an exception."  Harley finished his share of the vegetarian food, then went back to the jerky. He started to drool, water his eyes, and grunt; he probably over-spiced things.


"I'm... I guess I'm flattered."


"I apologize for being disgusting recently," he said, after finishing his food and seeing that I was nearly done. It really didn't seem like enough, but then overeating in the wild might lead to... problems. As it is, hunkering behind a bush was totally embarrassing. Don't tell Harley, but I watched him, though. It was... it was funny! He made funny faces. "Lately, I have... felt like I need to explore just what I can do with... with... my semen." I have never seen him look more embarrassed than that moment. It wasn't even erotic embarrassment, he just looked profoundly awkward. I'm sure the capsaicin didn't help.


"Uhh, well, it's okay."


"Is it really okay? That was quite disgusting, not to mention unsanitary, what I did to you the other night."


"Are you going to go on some kind of apology thing? The last time someone apologized to me..." Oh, I started getting an erection thinking about it. Harley saw it and stopped looking so beaten.


"You don't seem to have minded how it went, the last time someone 'apologized' to you, but I am quite serious. When I look at you.... when I look at you, Zale, I think I know exactly what you want. How you act, how you talk, how you move, how you dress yourself, what I hear. I want to give you those things, but I cannot do it the way you want. I can only do it the way I want. I can't... put it into any better words. Perhaps you should talk to someone about Firsts, but even then it may not help much." Every so often, Harley would drop a bit of his stilted act, use a verbal apostrophe, and actually be sensitive. This was one of those times, and I sat there in front of him like some little kid getting sage advice from a wise man. At least in the movies; everyone knows real little kids fidget and put stuff in their mouths and play with mud.


It was getting dark. Dark and cool. "Wow. Uh. Well, it wasn't that bad. I was kind of bored sitting around at the hotel, but that opera was neat, and... it really turns me on when you're commanding. This hike was even okay."


"Do you realize," Harley said, standing up with the crunch of joints, "That you spent a considerable amount of time this afternoon telling me you were absolutely miserable? Three words do not change much, Mr. Sterling."


So he really realized he really said it to me, really really! Yes, in case you are wondering, I _have_ sat around writing my name with "Benson" instead of "Sterling" in the past, but I didn't use a bubble-ink pen. Also, I didn't really like how it looked, even with a hyphen. Harley was probably right in general. "I was just flustered."


"It's going to get cold. We should bed down," he said, then dusted the remains of the fire in the camp stove and moved to the tent. I joined him, but I didn't feel very sleepy. Harley kept the tent open and watched the sunset burn itself down, and I sat beside him. He seemed worn out of words - I tried to goad him to talk more, but he just let out his little grunt sounds.


I went to lie down, just to change position, and Harley grabbed me hard. I expected the worst, but all he wanted to do was grab and hold me. He fell asleep in an instant, leaving me trapped with a large lion clutching against me. He did that sometimes, and it always felt a little strange, like whatever sort of predator and prey thing he played at now and again was gone and he just needed some cuddle toy from his childhood.


I really couldn't get back to sleep, but I really didn't want to. I wanted to enjoy it as long as I could.