by Jeff Vrolyks
Chapter Two
It was the busiest time of year for camping in Yosemite, this being the first week of June. School was out, family vacations in full bore. You couldn’t ask for a better forecast: sunny and highs in the seventies, lows in the upper fifties. The Barnett’s were a quintet, John and Amber with their three sons Jake, Michael, and Chris. Chris was the eldest at fifteen, a soon to be sophomore at Piedmont High. He was a good looking boy with aspirations of making the junior varsity football team, had a gym membership at 24 Hour Fitness which he frequented with zealous regularity, and possessed the kind of good looks that evoked girls to giggle amongst themselves. Jake was the youngest at eleven, his ambitions split evenly among AYSO soccer and playing X-Box. He had sprouted three inches this year, and was already taller than his thirteen year old brother Michael.
Michael was slow to mature, reached puberty only recently, and possessed no aspirations or ambitions that he was aware of. Like all adolescents he was still trying to get a grasp on who he’d grow into, searching for his identity. Being that he had no inclinations of playing sports—he had tried playing football with his older brother Chris and loathed everything about it, kicked the soccer ball around with Jake and considered it too strenuous—his hobbies were those enjoyed indoors such as reading comic books, science fiction magazines, and role-playing video games on the computer which he hadn’t a knack for but enjoyed immensely.
What Michael lacked in talent he compensated for in repetition, playing long hours in front of the computer after school. Role-playing games were great for one singular reason: he had an opportunity to be someone he wasn’t, to be the hero in a digital world, assume the looks of a stud and not a boy slow to mature physically. The game he played more and more was DragonQuest, his character a Barbarian Warrior who led the charge in dungeons before a group of player-controlled mages, wizards, rangers, rogues, and clerics, protecting them from falling victim to monsters. He had made acquaintance with several of these warring and healing classes and attained moderate respect from them. Being that his friends were virtual and resided in cities and states far from Sacramento, he remained somewhat of a loner in school—this his second year at Piedmont Middle School.
On the third to last day of school, Michael’s English teacher had assigned an essay to be turned in on the day before summer vacation kicked off: What do you want to be when you grow up? A typical inquiry, Michael thought, but that didn’t make it less interesting. It was a question that would be easily and hastily answered by many of his classmates, but not so for Michael. He supposed his teacher wanted to read essays of doctor and lawyer hopefuls, future engineers and businessmen, but Mr. Kendrick wouldn’t get that from Michael. His essay was titled Video Game Artist. He wanted to draw the monsters and heroes for video games. He wasn’t great at drawing by computer, nor was he competent at freehand, so he supposed it was a long shot landing that career, but it was the only answer he could come up with to that ageless question.
He did have a friend who wasn’t based in pixelations and spoken to solely via keyboard. Taylor was his name, was the same age and went to the same school. But a year ago he began playing baseball and since then that damned game consumed his free time almost entirely. No more hanging out with Taylor to play Transformers—which wasn’t a bad thing, being that he was now thirteen and too old to play with toys—or shooting shit with pellet guns or sticking M-80s in random things to see how they blew up. Michael still spoke with Taylor when he chanced by him during passing period, or meandering around campus during lunch recess, and occasionally he sat beside him during assemblies, but that was pretty much the extent of it. At lunch Taylor sat beside the kids he played baseball with; that was the agent of their unity and it was a sticky one, one that made no exceptions for boys whose hobby was playing online video-games.
In the neighborhood there weren’t many kids his age. They were either a couple grades above or below him, just as his brothers were. The exception was his next-door neighbor and possessor of his heart, Mae Clark. His first and possibly last crush she was. Mae was his age and not nearly as slow in her maturation. She was already growing respectable boobs at thirteen and her hips were starting to become a woman’s. Michael was shaped like a plank, flat ass and flat chest, stringy arms and legs. At least he wasn’t fat, he had that much to be grateful for.
He seldom spoke to Mae. The few glorious occasions when he had, occurred when she came over to his house to chit chat with his older brother Chris. It wasn’t surprising to Michael that she’d befriend his older brother; he knew first-hand how well girls received his looks and personality, so why should it be any different with Mae Clark? He had only asked her a handful of questions in the three years she had been his neighbor, and one regarded video games, and her interest or disinterest in them. She did like them, but not online role playing games, so there went that hope. He had once asked if she wanted to try DragonQuest. Before she could answer he stated that there was a free ten-day trial, so there would be no harm in trying it out. The name alone was reason enough for her soured expression; she shied away from the opportunity. The next time their paths crossed he asked her if she liked shooting pellet guns, and had a proposal lined up for her in the event of an affirmative answer. But even there he failed to capture her interest: she said no, but at least she smiled politely as she said it. He bet she would have said yes to both DragonQuest and pellet guns if it had been his older brother Chris asking her.
Parents will invariably profess to have no favorites when it comes to their children, but let’s be honest, few don’t. His dad favored Chris, shared his love for football, having played it in high school himself some twenty years ago. He encouraged Jake in soccer and admired his competitive nature which was profound for a kid so young. His mother fawned over Jake for some inestimable reason, perhaps him being the baby of the lot. Michael sensed that his parents feigned a lot of enthusiasm for his own interests and propensities, but he supposed that was preferable to them wearing their disinterest on their sleeves.
The Barnett’s were to enjoy a seven day trip to Yosemite, the Wawona campgrounds which were the first grounds as you enter the national park. Its relatively low elevation meant more temperate climate than the grounds deeper into Yosemite, and consequently a lesser need for stocks of firewood to keep warm at night. The sites were a little too close to one another, privacy almost non-existent other than from the firs and underbrush that blanketed the mountain hillside.
On their campsite were two dome tents: one for the adults, one for the kids. After that first night Jake relocated to their parents tent, having woken up twice in the middle of the night screaming. Night terrors are what Jake had, some really shitty nightmares that ended in his sitting bolt upright in his sleeping bag and screaming his damned head off. It had been a thing as of late, spanning and escalating over the months. So loud were these violent paroxysms that the neighboring campers must have thought someone was being murdered. Nobody came to investigate the cause of their alarm though, and that was probably due to how short lived the outbursts were. Short lived because Chris shook Jake into consciousness just seconds after they began. John and Amber decided after that first night that Jake should sleep with them, judging that he’d be less likely to suffer nightmares knowing his parents lay so near him. With Jake’s relocation there were just the two of them in the kid’s tent, Chris and Michael.
It was the second day of their vacation, high noon when Michael wandered off by himself, to do some exploring in this verdant wonderland of hundred-foot-tall redwood sequoias, babbling brooks, and teeming wildlife most of which were blue jays and squirrels. He followed a nearby brook downstream, stopped occasionally to chuck rocks into the water, and spied a lizard basking in the warm sun on a hot rock on the bank. He threw a rock at it, narrowly missing. He moved on.
The brook originated from the Merced river and snaked down between two opposing hillsides. The farther he hiked the farther he distanced himself from the campers of Wawona. At
first he could hear the distant cries of jollity, kids having a blast back at the campgrounds, but as he progressed in his travels he heard it less and less before escaping it entirely. The bank descended steeply at one point, where there were large clusters of enormous granite boulders channeling the fast-moving water downstream. He had to be cautious climbing down the rocks to avoid a nasty injury. Once he made it down he paused to appreciate this new area. The brook was wide and slow here, dark blue in the center where it was ostensibly much deeper. Lateral to what Michael estimated was the deepest part of this section of brook, was a redwood tree with a rope fastened to a low branch, used by the adventurous vacationer to swing into the brook like a less-dramatic Tarzan.
Michael found a few beer cans on the sandy and pebbled beach and figured it to be a popular destination for teenagers looking to party in seclusion. After a cursory examination of these sun-bleached beer cans, he concluded those who drank them had done so many years ago.
He had to pee for some time now and this was as good a place as any to do it, so he decided to relieve himself right there on the bank. There was no need to hide behind a tree as there was nobody around for at least a mile. It felt good to pee out there in the open, the cool breeze against his exposed parts, the sound of liquid hitting sand, punctuated with accusatory caws from blue jays and the occasional chattering of squirrels.
As he urinated he scanned the area, spied something just beside a redwood some twenty feet away. It was a magazine partially covered by pine needles. After relieving himself he zipped up and investigated the discarded magazine. It was upside down, but he knew immediately what kind of publication it was: pornographic. There was a buxom beauty in a compromising position on the back cover, a phone number and website address below her. Michael bent down and took it up. Penthouse. He felt a tickle in his groin as he opened it. Images pouring into him page after page were done just above a steady awareness that he was alone. Very alone. He threw a couple glances over his shoulder as he perused the magazine. Masturbating was new to him, about a year new, and that was something he did have a passion for. Had there been any professions that masturbating played a vital role in, he’d have composed his essay differently last week. Being that he shared a bedroom with Jake, he didn’t get many opportunities to do it. Even the bathroom wasn’t a safe refuge from his family, as someone would knock on the door before long without fail. He had the shower and a chance-few other places to explore this new hobby. This was as great a place as any to revisit it, so he did.
After finishing he tossed aside the magazine where he had found it, reconsidered, and took it back up. He’d keep this, he decided. He regretted not having taken a backpack along to stow the book in, but he wouldn’t let that stop him. He folded it over and stuffed it down the front of his shorts, draped the hem of his shirt over the bulge and examined himself. It would have to do. He began his hike back to camp.
He was now carrying the mag. No sense in concealing it yet. He began second-guessing this decision to take ownership of this forsaken sex-book. There were still five days remaining on this trip, which meant five days that someone could stumble upon his treasure; his mother stood out as a likely candidate, as she would spruce up the tent sometime between now and their return home. Even hiding it in his suitcase wouldn’t guarantee him safety, as his family was a nosy bunch. So he decided to keep the magazine away from camp for now, under a blanket of pine needles and behind a rock, and on the last day of vacation he’d sneak it to his tent and bury it under the clothes in his suitcase.
Having duly buried his treasure, he returned to camp.
That night there was no screaming bloody murder from Jake. Michael awoke only once, just before dawn, and lumbered out of the tent to take a piss by a tree. The breeze grazing his genitals as he urinated reminded him of yesterday, his blessed fortune found at the obscure swimming hole. He decided to venture off again later that morning and revisit that old magazine.
True to his plan, Michael journeyed down the brook just before noon. He found the mag just where he left it, only some of the organic blanketing had shifted off of it, and Michael ascertained the evening wind was responsible. That or some curious quadruped had nosed around it. He picked it up and brushed off the dust, looked around before heading off to a cluster of thick-trunked sequoias to take cover behind. He was only a hundred yards or so away from the campgrounds, and there were people who swam or played in this section of brook, so he took discretion in where he got down to business.
He had only just finished the deed when he heard two people conversing near enough that he reflexively dropped the book and zipped up in alarm before peeking around the tree to spy the intruders. It was an older couple walking hand in hand down the bank of the stream. Michael decided then that he wouldn’t do it here again. He wedged the folded-over magazine under a wide boulder and headed back to camp.
The next day the Barnett family took the Chevy Tahoe out of the campgrounds to a well-known swimming hole called Swinging Bridge by everyone in the know. For several hours they swam in the clear cold water, dove off the rickety bridge that connected elevated hiking trails on both sides of the stream. This area of the river was governed by massive flat granite slabs. So prevalent they were that you never had to walk on dirt. On these rocks is where people spent their time in leisure, laying out to work on their tans, reading books, playing Checkers, sipping beer, drying off from having recently swum. There were at least two dozen people at Swinging Bridge today, split into groups ranging from two and five, families.
Michael spotted a girl laying face down on blanketed rock, wearing a yellow two-piece bikini. Her body was dry but her hair gleamed wet. She was nineteen or twenty (Michael judged) and had a knock-out body. Beside her was a guy younger than she, maybe the age of his older brother Chris: fifteen. The guy was sitting with his legs before him and leaning back on his locked arms. He looked over and caught Michael staring at the girl in his company—probably not girlfriend but sister, he thought. Michael quickly looked away. His eyes returned frequently. It was hard not to stare: someone that sexy and skimpily dressed is a rare and spectacular occasion. After awhile she flipped over and dug the bikini bottom out of her crack, adjusted her top, pulling it away from her boobs for a split second to reposition it. Michael stared feverishly. She settled down on her back, got to tanning her front side. Michael was performing all things perverse and depraved on her in his imagination. The guy at her side glared over at him again. Michael decided to only stare obliquely from now on, unless she repositioned her bathing suit; if and when that happened again he’d be staring directly, her company be damned.
Unfortunately his father decided to take a swim and urged Michael to come along. So he did, along with Chris. They played around in the water for a half hour, maybe an hour before quitting the stream and returning to their stations on towel-covered flat rock. The girl and boy had left sometime during their water-sport.
The Barnett’s returned to camp a few hours before dusk. Michael refused a game of Chess against his mother and said he wanted to go hiking, alone, and would be back before dark. Jake asked if he could come along. Michael said no, but maybe tomorrow. With that half-promise he ventured off the grounds to the brook, followed it downstream. He went straight for the big rock and found his magazine where he had left it. Using better judgment he decided to return to the swimming hole a half-mile or better downstream, to ensure his privacy.
Upon arriving at his destination he found a nice rock to sit on, dropped his shorts to his ankles and took a seat, opened the mag and grew an erection. In his mind he was seeing the girl at Swinging Bridge, her face attached to the naked models of the mag. He was having sex with her in his mind, page and page again. Finally he set the Penthouse aside and relied on his memory of the girl to base his fantasy, laid back flat on the rock. So caught up in the deed he was that he didn’t hear the approaching footfalls. When he did it was too late, he had been spied. He sat up and let go of himself, met eyes with the ver
y guy who was seated beside the girl in the yellow bikini earlier that day.
“What are you doing?” Asked the guy grinning wryly.
“Sorry, I thought I was alone,” Michael said, his face burning red.
The stranger stopped a few feet from Michael and stared sharply at the magazine with a scowl. “Dude, what the fuck? It was you who stole my Penthouse?”
Michael swallowed dryly, heart at a gallop. “I… I didn’t know.”
“You fucker, jacking it to my mag. Get your own, freak.”
Michael sprang off the rock, pulled his shorts up, and took his first few strides campsite-bound. He saw the girl who wore the yellow bikini descending the rock cluster at the brook. She still wore the yellow top but now covered her lower half with short shorts. The stranger stopped him with a hand to his chest.
“It was you who was staring at my girlfriend at Swinging Bridge today.”
“I wasn’t staring,” he said unconvincingly. The girl drew nearer, her brow furrowed.
“Yeah, right,” the guy said thickly. “I saw you fucking her with your eyes. Were you fantasizing about her just now when you were jacking off? I bet you were.”
“No, I swear I wasn’t.”
“Who’s this?” The girl said upon arriving.
“I don’t know,” the guy replied. “What’s your name?”
“Michael.”
“Michael, I’m Ryan and this is Emily.”
Emily extended her hand to shake Michael’s; Ryan slapped her hand away and said she’d do best not to touch his hand, then explained why. “I just caught him jacking off to a magazine.”
Michael anticipated Emily frowning, but she didn’t. She smirked. Then said, “You were at Swinging Bridge today. I saw you checking me out.”
“He was jacking it to the magazine,” Ryan said, “but he was fantasizing about you. Sick little fucker, ain’t he?”
She nodded. Her expression was one of mingled intrigue and flattery.
Michael wanted the hell out of here. His face glowed his shame. He took a step toward camp before being stopped once again.
“Look,” Ryan said, “I don’t want that magazine back, now that you’ve put your dick germs all over it. Keep it.”
“Thanks,” Michael said awkwardly.
“Oh it’s not a gift. You’re paying for it. How much money you got?”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Then get me some beer. Beer or money, or pot. Something.”
“Your magazine?” Emily asked her boyfriend. “It was already here when we—”
Ryan cut her off with a shush.
“You can keep the magazine,” said Michael. “I don’t want it. I can’t offer you what I don’t have.”
“You’re going to give me something, buddy-boy, you bet your ass. Maybe I’ll find your campsite and meet your parents, tell them what I found you doing.”
“No, don’t,” Michael said desperately. “There’s no reason to, I won’t have anything for you. I wish I did but I don’t. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Well,” Ryan said contemplatively, “I suppose we could work something out.” He looked at Michael’s mouth. “You can work off your debt with your mouth.”
Michael was confused.
“You know,” Ryan said hintingly. “Get down on your knees.”
“Oh no,” Michael said repulsively, “I don’t do that. I’m straight.”
“So am I, but you’re in a pickle, buddy-boy, so you have a choice to make.”
“What are my choices?”
“On your knees or I kick your ass.”
Michael considered an additional option: paying him off. He could borrow money from his dad maybe. “How much money would it take?”
“Fifty bucks,” he replied after brief consideration.
“Fifty bucks! That magazine probably cost five bucks!”
“Yeah well you’re in no position to name your price. This ain’t Priceline, dude.”
Emily whispered in her boyfriend’s ear. Whatever she said made Ryan grin. She pulled away, then returned to whisper an afterthought.
“You’re in luck,” Ryan said to Michael. “My girlfriend is very generous. Here’s the deal: the price is still fifty bucks, but you get something for your money aside from the porno.”
“Like I said, I don’t have fifty bucks.”
“But your parents do. You can think of something to tell them. Anyway, for your fifty bucks you get to live out some of your fantasy on my girl.”
Michael blinked wide, mouth unhinged. Surely this was a joke. But Emily was grinning devilishly; maybe it wasn’t a joke.
“Like… like do what?” Michael said. He had an idea what, but wanted to hear it.
“You ain’t fuckin’ her, if that’s what you’re thinking. Ever gone down on a girl?”
“No.”
“So do we have a deal then?” Asked Ryan.
“I don’t know if I could get fifty from them. I can only try.”
“Trying isn’t good enough.”
“If I can’t get it, I’ll give you my PSP. It’s almost brand new, and I have a few video games for it. Is that cool?”
Ryan met eyes with his girlfriend Emily; they both nodded.
“Deal,” Ryan said. “All right, let’s do this. Down on your knees, pervert.”
“Down on my knees?” Michael repeated confusedly.
“Yeah.”
Emily unbuttoned and unzipped her shorts; they puddled around her ankles. Now she was clad as she was at Swinging Bridge. The sight of her bikini’d body ushered in an erection. She took either side of her bottoms with a hooked thumb and stopped just short of dropping them.
“I don’t want him seeing me naked,” she said. “Cover your eyes.”
Michael dropped down to his knees and closed his eyes. His heart raced. He simply couldn’t believe this was about to happen. To hell with the PSP, he’d give that up any day to experience what he was about to, with a girl as painfully beautiful as Emily.
“If you open your eyes even once, I’m beating your ass,” Ryan threatened.
Michael listened to the pine-needle crunching footfalls of the girl, stopping just before him. His erection was harder than a rock. He opened his mouth. Emily giggled.
Flesh entered Michael’s mouth at the same time that he heard the unmistakable sound of a picture being snapped via camera-phone. At first it didn’t compute in him, what was put in his mouth, having never experienced oral sex. But it wasn’t long before he sensed something severely wrong. Female anatomy wasn’t shaped so… so protuberantly. The idea that it wasn’t Emily standing before him but Ryan was on the heels of the previous thought; he opened his eyes and his fear was actualized. The fucking asshole was sticking his cock in Michael’s mouth. So furious was Michael, for both the depraved act forced upon him and the idea that he was easily duped, that he mindlessly acted, took his vengeance, and that was biting down at what was being thrust deeper into his mouth.
Ryan yelped and sought to remove his manhood from Michael’s mouth, but his clenched teeth precluded this. Ryan struck the side of Michael’s head as he wailed.
“Let him go!” Emily cried.
Michael released his bite, sprung to his feet with every intention of running away. Ryan was holding his crotch with his left hand, latched on to the dick-biter with his right. Ryan was hissing, doubled over. The girl was pie-eyed, a cellphone in one hand, ostensibly a phone with a new picture added to its cache of a penis in Michael’s mouth.
Michael broke free of Ryan’s grasp and tore off running, never looking back until he was well distanced from the fucking insane couple.
Back at camp he told his parents he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be having dinner with them. He assuaged their concern by claiming it was just a stomach ache, not a big deal.
It was a good thing those psychos didn’t know which campsite was his, Michael thought. A very good thing. But maybe they’d find him. Shit, that was po
ssible if not downright likely. Unless Michael hid in the tent from now till the moment they left. There were only forty or fifty campsites, all along a loop that Ryan could patrol day and night until he spotted his assailant. Maybe he wouldn’t do that, but Michael could imagine it happening too easily.
It wasn’t long before Michael suffered a real stomach ache, engendered from constant worrying. What was the deal with the picture, anyway? The bitch had a picture of a penis in Michael’s mouth: what might become of that? If they learned his surname they could wreak havoc on him through the internet, posting that picture somewhere where it would be found by people who knew him. The idea turned his stomach over and over.
It was later that evening when Michael heard tires crunching pebbles and come to a stop just outside his campsite. His breath caught. He listened acutely. There was a conversation that he couldn’t hear. When he heard someone approaching his tent he thought he might puke. The zipper flew up, a hand opened the flap. It was his father.
“Feeling any better, son?”
“Not really.”
“There’s a couple here looking for a Michael; they described you perfectly. They said they met you earlier.”
“Tell them to go away, please.”
“Okay. Should I tell them you’re ill, and come back tomorrow?”
“Just tell them I don’t want to see them. Don’t invite them back.”
“Is something the matter?”
“Just send them away. Please.”
John nodded and walked away. Michael held his head, his heart thumping, mouth dry. This wouldn’t end here.
A minute later his dad returned to the tent. “Sorry to bug you again,” he said, “but he said it was very important. Why don’t you just go see what he wants real quick?”
Michael nodded grudgingly and got out of the tent. He glanced to the campfire where his family was seated in a circle around it, his little brother Jake roasting a marshmallow on a skewer. His mother waved and smiled at him. Michael waved back. His father returned to the group.
The car was an old Mustang 5.0 convertible, top up. He saw two shadows inside. He stopped at the passenger-side door and hunched down. The girl looked forward, disregarded his presence. Ryan was glaring at him, shadows concealing his baleful expression but not nearly enough.
“You’re fucked,” was Ryan’s preamble. “You hear me? Fucked.”
“What did you expect? That was uncool what you guys did to me.”
“How’d you like me to show your family the picture on Emily’s phone?”
“Don’t.”
“Tomorrow at noon I want you to meet me at the same place, and you’re going to have my PSP and games, and a hundred bucks. I don’t want to hear how you can’t get that kind of cash. Tell your parents you lost a bet, whatever, I don’t give a shit. If you don’t I’m going to beat your ass before telling your folks that you gave me head. How’d that be? Their sweet little son is a cock-sucker. Tomorrow at noon, or else…”
Michael began pleading but it was no use. Ryan threw the car into drive, the tires spun before finding purchase. The Mustang drove away.
It was pointless to ask his parents for a C-note, Michael decided. They didn’t carry that kind of cash on them, and even if they did he couldn’t conceive of an idea to get it loaned to him. Ryan would have to settle for the PSP and games. He supposed he could sweeten the deal by throwing in his Buck knife and the contents of his wallet, which was seventeen dollars. He’d even offer to mail him eighty-three dollars when he had it, if they’d leave him their mailing address. Maybe they’d go for it, maybe they wouldn’t, but what choice did he have? He had never slept so uneasily in his thirteen years.