Wild Talents
by Wrestlr
Chapter 4: Mitch
They all awoke with the sharp sunlight glaring in their eyes: Mitch first, then Ron and Scotty once Mitch began to stir. Sunday morning, after a long, exhausting Saturday night of more sex-play. Mitch glanced out the window; somewhere near midday already, and they still had done none of the fishing they had promised their fathers they would. They had to come back with a few fish at the very least, or they would face uncomfortable questions about what they had been doing all weekend.
“Come on, you guys,” Mitch sleepy-mumbled. “Rise and shine. Either of you know what time it is? We’ve got to do at least a little fishing before the weekend is over.”
“Too fucking cold,” Scotty groused. “Let’s just tell them it was too fucking cold and the fish weren’t biting.”
Mitch shook his head. “And then what will we tell them we did instead? Spent the whole weekend playing cards?”
Scotty snickered. “Yesterday we were talking about leaving home tomorrow. Now you’re worried about what our folks will think? Are we scrapping the plan if they ground us? Are our dads gonna say, “Sorry, Institute, you can’t take our boys ’cause they’re grounded for a week’? Bet the recruiters will love that!“
Mitch rolled his eyes. “Come on, guys. You know what I mean.”
Ron yawned. “Yeah, I suppose we better make a show of it.”
They pulled on clothing against the lingering morning chill and, rather than take turns using the outdoor john behind the cabin, ran to the edge of the woods to take a shoulder-to-shoulder piss against a tree, feeling a weird satisfaction that their piss was running down the same tree trunk.
After a quick breakfast, the boys gathered up their fishing gear and set out for the lake. Aside from the chill, the day seemed to be off to a good start, though. After a minor disagreement over the best location to catch the mountains of fish that they were going to take home, they settled alongside the water and set up their poles. Yes, they agreed, they were going to catch fifty fish—no, a hundred!—in spite of the cold, and their dads would be so proud!
Mitch did not bring up their plan to leave home, though he mulled the idea while they sat on the lake bank. He decided they would have plenty of time to talk it over later in the day, after they had caught plenty of fish.
Exactly who got an erection first, Mitch was not sure. As he re-baited his fishing hook, he became aware of the increasingly sexual charge to his friends’ thoughts. After he cast his line back out into the water, Mitch turned and saw Ron had pulled his erection out through the fly of his pants and was stroking it, while Scotty massaged a large lump in his own crotch and stared at Ron’s cock.
Both of them looked at Mitch and grinned. We’re all thinking about the same thing, Ron mind-purred, nodding at Mitch’s groin, and it ain’t fishing.
That was the last time Mitch thought about fishing. They fell into each others’ crotches, fully clothed except for their dicks out in the chilly air—Mitch sucking Ron, Ron sucking Scotty, Scotty doing the same to Mitch.
Every time that Mitch pushed his face down on Ron’s rod, Ron groaned. Mitch felt Scotty’s thoughts twitch with the pleasure that the vibrations in Ron’s throat and tongue were sending up his prick. Scotty started answering with groans of his own, and Mitch immediately loved the way that felt on his cock. Scotty also began trying out little tricks with his tongue; now that he had surrendered completely to the experience and stopped holding back, the same competitive nature that made him such a great athlete was driving Scotty to get more skilled and more confident at cock-sucking with every mouth-stroke.
Minutes later, one of those new little things Scotty tried with his tongue shoved Mitch over the edge faster than he expected. Mitch gasped and opened his eyes wide as he started to shoot into Scotty’s mouth. His whole body, not just his balls, seemed to be emptying itself into Scotty. Mitch sensed that his friends were about to climax too. He tasted Ron’s load gushing into his mouth and felt Ron’s mind blaze with orgasm, and then Scotty was cumming too, both of them cumming as hard as Mitch had.
Even after Mitch finally finished shooting, being buried balls-deep in Scotty’s mouth was such a pleasure that he did not want to pull himself out, not even as his cock started to go soft.
Finally, Scotty pulled his lips off Mitch’s cock. “Damn,” Scotty grinned. “I don’t know about you guys, but sucking cock is hard work. I worked up an appetite.”
Ron pulled his phone out of his pants pocket. “Wow!—It’s 2:30 already. We just fucked practically the whole day away. We have to start home soon.”
“And we haven’t caught a single fish.”
“And just what do we tell our folks? That we were too busy sucking cock to check our lines?”
Mitch shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’ll go over too well.”
Ron rolled his eyes. “If we’re still leaving home tomorrow to get away from the Institute, I’m not sure that’s a big concern. We’re still going, even if they ground us, right?”
“Sure, but I don’t want to piss them off right before we disappear. That wouldn’t be right.”
Scotty grinned. “Don’t worry, guys. I’ve got the perfect solution. There’s a fish stand at the foot of the mountain, and a diner too. Let’s go get packed. We’ll hit the diner for a late lunch, and then we’ll pick up a mess of fish on our way home. Our folks won’t know the difference.”
After getting their clothes fastened and straightened, they loaded the last of their stuff into Mister Rust Bucket and drove down to the truck stop diner at the foot of the mountain. The parking lot had more trucks and cars than Mitch would have expected, and they had to park some distance from the door. As they walked toward the diner, Mitch thought back. Had just a few days passed since that day in the locker room? Already he felt as if a century had gone by. Even his walk was different now. He strode with his head held high and his shoulders proudly back. He noticed with a grin that Ron and Scotty had also picked up this very same gait, as if copying him.
They took a booth by a window in the back. The waitress brought them burgers and heaps of fries. While to everyone else in the diner they might have seemed to be eating in silence, they were discussing their plans telepathically. Mitch and Ron fired ideas back and forth, but they were always mindful to include Scotty, sending their thoughts into his head, reading his thoughts too so he could have input into their plans. They were careful to keep their broadcast thoughts reined in closely, so they would appear like three good friends sharing a quiet meal, not a group of Talents flaunting their telepathy in public. They did not want the other diners to realize what they were. But anyway, the three of them would be long gone from this diner soon enough.
The plan. Mitch, always the organized leader, was interested in determining the details: Where would they go, where would they stay. He had some ideas, but he did not want to go through with any course of action until they had planned it out and knew what to expect. What about money—how would they pay for gas and food? What if they did not like being away from home? What if they did not find a place where the guys felt the same way they did about Talents or sex? If they could not find a spot with more guys who were into guys like themselves, which seemed unlikely, then they always had each other no matter where they went.
Mitch was having second thoughts. He could sense Ron’s anxiousness for him to endorse the plan. The idea had been Scotty’s, but Mitch was the one who had been considering leaving home for a long time now. Of the three of them, he was the one who had thought the most about what they would be getting into, what they would need, where they could go, what resources they could draw upon. Ron and Scotty certainly would not run away without Mitch—and not just because plans always seemed to fall apart when Mitch was not there to help hold everything together. Mitch also sensed Ron’s certainty that all three of them had become inseparable in a completely new way, as friends, lovers, and rebels against the Institute. Mitch was not so sure Scotty felt fully the same way; certainly Scotty loved Mitch and Ron, and he enjoyed the sex they shared, but would he still feel the same once they were out in the world among other people and around girls again? Were Mitch and Ron wrong to sweep Scotty up in this mess, even though he claimed he wanted to come along? Scotty was not a Talent; the Institute would have no interest in him; and Scotty could always go back to his life if he wanted, any time he wanted. Mitch needed to mull these and other factors carefully before he completely gave his approval to the escape plan.
While Ron and Scotty mentally debated some finer point of the plan, Mitch looked around the diner. He noticed the scruffy man a few tables away, over Ron’s shoulder. The man kept staring at them as he chewed, looking away, staring again, watching them carefully. Something about the man seemed suspicious, but Mitch decided not to try reading his mind; they did not want to reveal their Talents. Besides, Mitch did not have much experience reading minds other than Ron’s and Scotty’s—what if he did something to tip the man off that they were Talents? While the man seemed like some type of pervert, he was not doing anything except watching them. Probably just some nosy local, Mitch decided, probably harmless. No need to tell the guys and get them upset.
“Why so quiet, Mitch?” Ron asked out loud, snapping Mitch back to their conversation as Scotty went to the cashier to pay the bill.
“Just thinking. And you?”
“Oh, we’ve been thinking too. While you’ve been off daydreaming, Scotty and I have been working through our next steps. We’ve got a great plan. We’re gonna find us a little place in the middle of nowhere. Maybe build a town and have only Talents and gay guys living there. And we’ll all share a great big orgy at the end of every day.”
Mitch smirked. “Your own private playground. I can see why I make most of our plans instead of you. You’ve got some imagination.”
“Maybe, but would it be such a bad idea for the three of us to get far away from here and see what else the world has to offer for guys like us?”
“Not a bad idea at all, I guess. I’m not sure about the ‘middle of nowhere’ part, but it’s not a bad idea.”
“Glad to hear it, because Scotty says he has some money saved up, and we can pool our camping gear. Be a shame to leave you behind, even if you’re a real dick sometimes.”
“You just can’t stop thinking about my dick, huh?” Mitch teased.
“Fuck you. There’s more to you than just your dick, you ass,” Ron said, grinning. “You were our best friend in the world even before the mind-tricks and the cock-sucking. You know we can’t do this without you.”
Hearing things said out loud made them seem more real. Mitch frowned a moment, then smiled, his decision made. “I guess that’s my answer then.”
Ron’s rush of enthusiasm made his thoughts glow brightly. “You mean we go?”
“Sure,” Mitch shrugged with a grin. “Why the hell not? School’s a real pain lately. Scotty’s the only one that enjoys it, and that’s mostly for the sports.”
“Hot damn! Oh!—And I can keep a chronicle of everything that happens to us along the way. Like those journals all the great explorers kept. Someday the whole world is going to want to read about this great adventure we’re starting and everything that happens to us along the way.”
“Maybe ‘starting’ isn’t too accurate. ‘Bringing along’ is probably more accurate. We started it that day in the locker room when our minds—” Mitch stopped, suddenly aware that he had almost blurted something about them being telepaths and Talents out loud, in public, where anybody could overhear. He glanced around. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them—even the pervert-guy from earlier was gone—so Mitch relaxed.
“Damn! I should be writing this all down,” Ron muttered. “This would be a fantabulous way to start Chapter One.”
“’Fantabulous,’ huh?” Mitch teased as they stood up and walked to the door of the diner. “Is that a real word? You been reading the dictionary, Ron? You turning all poetic on us?”
“Fuck you. Maybe I’ll be a writer someday. You think the world will be ready for a big gay love story by the time I’m ready to write it?”
Mitch pushed open the door. “I think somebody already beat you to the ‘big gay love story’ part—the world already has Brokeback Mountain and pretty much every James Franco movie ever.“
“No, I mean a gay love story featuring three guys.”
Mitch snickered and shook his head as they headed across the parking lot toward Scotty’s car. “You’ll probably write it, all right, but I don’t think the world will ever be ready for any story that involves you.”
As they cut through a row of vehicles, between an overgrown minivan and a panel truck, someone stepped in front of them, blocking their path. Mitch stopped, and Ron barely managed to avoid colliding with him.
“Howdy,” the stranger said cheerfully. “Ya boys’re going my way. Can I get a lift to the next town?”
Mitch recognized the stranger as the staring pervert from the diner. No, not a perv, he told himself, just a nosy local, though he did not know why he thought that. Something was off about the stranger’s intense smile, his rough appearance, the jittery way Mitch felt when he looked at the man. What was wrong? A gut feeling? Why did he feel so nervous? Just a harmless stranger. No need to be nervous.
“Sorry. We don’t give rides to people we don’t know,” Ron growled over Mitch’s left shoulder.
“Well, then,” the man fawned. “Name’s Viper. Nice’ta meet ya. Now we’re all friends, right?”
No, something was off. Mitch couldn’t identify what, but something was not right. Something was definitely wrong.
“Your momma really named you ‘Viper’?” Scotty snickered.
“Naw. Viper’s my work name. I’m a bounty hunter by trade.”
“Bounty hunter?” Scotty sounded impressed. “For real? I never met a real bounty hunter before.”
Viper ignored him, focusing instead on Mitch and Ron. “Now, how ’bout that ride?”
Mitch shivered. What was making him so nervous? The stranger—Viper—was just a harmless coot. Maybe just a quick peek in his thoughts, Mitch decided. Then he’d know for sure whether he had any reason to be skittish. Surely he could manage a quick peek without Viper knowing what he was doing—
The moment Mitch touched Viper’s thoughts, something yanked at his head. He had never felt anything like it: dizzying, disorienting—something pulling and twisting his telepathy. And he could not break away. He could not disengage or draw back.
“Mitch!” Ron gasped behind-beside him. “What’s he—”
Sleep.
That whatever-it-was, not a word exactly but a concept, came out of nowhere and hammered into Mitch’s mind, loud, the way his military father gave orders that demanded obedience. A powerful feeling of weariness, drowsiness, threatening to drown his thoughts. An overwhelming need to close his eyes and let go.
Sleep.
The concept again punched hard into his head, making him groggy, drowsy, sleepy. So hard to resist, but Mitch tried to fight it anyway. What was happening here? Why did his mind feel like his telepathy was spiraling out and being twisted into something else? Why could he not pull back or shut it off?
“Mitch ...,” Ron whined, a plea for help.
“I ain’t got much by myself,” Viper was saying, sounding like he was concentrating on something else, “but I got enough to take down a coupla untrained newly manifested Talents. The Institute didn’t want me ’cause I can’t read minds worth shit—”
The Institute? Just the word made Mitch panic, and he struggled to regain control of his telepathy, to push back the grogginess that was starting to make thinking so very, very difficult.
“—but I can sense telepaths, and when they ain’t got no training, I can twist their shit around and use it like it’s my own. You two newbies”—Viper laughed—“are like shootin’ fish in a barrel. The Institute’ll pay me a real nice finder’s fee for bringing the two of ya in.”
Mitch heard something heavy, a body, slump against the metal fender of the minivan, and he knew Scotty was out.
“And then there were two,” Viper hissed through his smile.
Sleep.
“Ron, we can ...” But Mitch could not concentrate, could not finish. His mind reeled. His mouth just would not work right.
Sleep.
That was Ron’s mind-voice too, Mitch realized. “Ron!—What ...”
“Yer buddy ain’t home no more. He’s taking a little nap and all his Talent is dancin’ to Viper’s tune now. Give it up, boy. Ya know ya can’t win.”
Sleep, Ron and Viper ordered in Mitch’s head together. Sleep.
Mitch snapped awake. He had not been aware of passing out, but he had. He was awake now, lying in the empty back of some ancient panel van. Plywood floor. No seats behind the driver and front passenger seats. Windows in the front and back, but none along the sides. Where the fuck were they?
Mitch tried to sit up. He was naked—where the fuck were his clothes? And his hands—handcuffed in front of him. He pulled at the chain connecting the cuffs. Too thick and solid. He knew for a certainty that he would never be able to break them.
The van was bouncing, speeding down a rough patch of road. A bump caused the van to jump on worn shock absorbers, and the body beside Mitch grunted quietly. Ron. Naked. Handcuffed too. Ron seemed to still be unconscious, but Mitch saw his eyelids flicker, knew his friend was faking.
Mitch dared not reach out with his telepathy, not after that had happened earlier. Eyes and ears would have to do. Where was Scotty? Where were they? Why were they naked and handcuffed? How long had they been unconscious? Mitch could see little out the windshield or the two back windows from this angle. The trees looked like those around the diner. Okay, so they had not been out long, maybe just a few minutes, and had not gotten far yet. From the way the driver was speeding and not bothering to dodge potholes or rough patches, he surely seemed to be trying to get them somewhere in a hurry.
“I know yer awake back there,” came a voice, Viper’s, from the driver’s seat. A metal mesh, too fine to reach their hands through, separated the boys in the cargo area from the front seats. “And don’t get any bright ideas about tryin’ to mind-zap me neither, or else—”
Sudden images from Viper filled Mitch’s mind. He saw the van jerk to the right, felt the sickening, jolting rush over uneven ground as the speeding vehicle skidded sideways, out of control, felt the bone-shattering slam of metal against a tree truck, just feet from where Mitch and Ron lay, and the inferno of pain exploded everywhere, and then cold blackness.
What the fuck? Mitch blinked as the world returned to its true self. Was that warning based on Viper’s sick fantasy, or a memory of something that had happened to one of his other bounties? Either way, Mitch decided, no telepathy.
Ron’s mind-voice whispered, He’s bluffing—trying to scare us. He’s trying to get us somewhere in a hurry—can’t split his attention between the road and using our minds against us. If we hit him hard, we can take him.
Mitch considered this for a second, remembering the image of impact, then shook his head no. The risk was too great.
Ron scowled but did not argue.
Viper continued yelling over his shoulder at them, half-watching the road. “We could’a done this the easy way. We could’a gotten in yer car, real nice and friendly-like, and I’da influenced ya to drive us right to the nearest Institute outpost and turn yerselves in—hell, ya’da even thought it was yer idea, like doing yer civic duty or something! But noooo, ya fuck-heads just had’ta make things difficult. Now I gotta collect my bounty the hard way.“
What would Scotty do, Mitch wondered while Viper ranted at them. Scotty was the best athlete, used to dealing quickly with opposing players. Where was Scotty anyway? Mitch considered asking Ron, but Ron was busy studying the rear doors of the van—pointlessly, Mitch thought, because they were likely locked, and anyway the van was moving too fast for them to jump out. No, Viper had them naked and helpless for a reason: to keep them cowed, vulnerable, and too humiliated to attempt an escape.
“I’ve got to pee,” Mitch tried, calling to the driver over the growl of the overtaxed engine, hoping Viper might slow down, pull off to the side of the road, open the back, let them out. Not much of a plan, but all he could think of. If they got out of the van, maybe Ron and Mitch could take him, or run, or—
Viper just laughed. “Hold it in, boy. We’ll be there in half an hour. If you gotta go before then, well, maybe there’s an empty drink bottle back there somewhere ya can piss in!”
Damn!
Why was Ron so fascinated by the rear doors? No, not fascinated, Mitch realized. He sensed a thin tendril of thoughts running from Ron’s head to—no, through—the doors. Ron was up to something, but what?
“Hold on,” Ron warned, quietly enough that only Mitch heard him over the engine noise.
At first he thought Ron meant wait, but then he realized Ron meant anchor yourself. But to what? The back of the van was an empty open space except for them and a few items of trash like burger wrappers and plastic drink bottles by one tire well.
Another engine vroom-ed alongside and past the van. Mitch caught a glimpse of a car roof through the windshield, cutting dangerously close in front of the van. Viper spat, “What the fuck—?” And then Mitch heard tires screech, the car ahead swerved at them, in front of them—too close!—and the nose of the van tipped down as the brakes caught, and the van jerked to the side as Viper twisted the steering wheel hard to the right. The van bounced over the shoulder, and Mitch and Ron were tossed back and forth inside the cargo area, as the tires left the road and contended with bumpier ground. “Fuck!” Viper swore again as the van bucked and swayed and somehow managed to stay upright.
Mitch saw the tree trunk coming through the windshield and he had half a second to flatten himself against the plywood floor before the crash of metal and glass against wood. Airbags at the front of the van. The windshield cracked. The van came to an abrupt halt, but Mitch and Ron kept traveling as the velocity flung them against the metal mesh behind the driver’s seat.
Shaking, ears ringing, not thinking too clearly yet, Mitch raised himself off the floor and looked around. Ron looked back and nodded curtly. They were okay. Viper—Mitch thought at first he was dead, collapsed against the steering wheel and the airbag—no, his mind flickered, so just unconscious, but he would not stay that way long.
Ron was already at the back of the van, on his back, kicking with both legs at one door. Mitch joined him, slamming his bare feet against the metal door, as hard as he could, which somehow hurt less than Mitch expected. Must have been the leftover adrenaline rush from the crash, he decided. The door jumped but held. This was their one way out, so Ron and Mitch kicked again, and again, and again.
Somebody pounded twice on the door from the outside: a warning. Ron pulled back, so Mitch did too. Something hit the door hard; the blade of a crowbar punched into the gap between the doors. The tool moved, and metal protested. Somebody grunted hard outside the door. Mitch shook his head to clear it. The latch popped louder than a firecracker, making Mitch flinch, as the door swung open hard.
Scotty stood there, crowbar in hand. “Come on!” he yelled. “Move! He won’t be out long!”
Mitch and Ron followed Scotty, and the three of them scrambled out of the van and up the ravine to the road where Mister Rust Bucket sat idling on the shoulder. Scotty threw open the back seat door on the driver side, then yanked open the front door and hopped into the driver seat. Ron ducked into the back seat, and slid across, making room as Mitch followed him in.
Doors slammed. Tires squealed. They were off and picking up speed down the road.
Scotty had not yet said anything about them being naked and handcuffed, which Mitch decided spared them some embarrassment. Instead Mitch asked, “How’d you find us?”
Scotty glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “I woke up in the parking lot, and you guys weren’t there, so I figured you’d gone this way. That Viper guy mentioned the Institute, and the nearest city big enough to have an Institute recruiting office is this way. I knew you didn’t have much of a head start on me, and when I got closer, I felt Ron reaching out”—which Mitch realized was what Ron had been doing when Mitch thought he was staring at the van door—“and I knew I was on the right track. I tried to make him pull over. I didn’t expect him to run off the road, but it all worked out, and I got you out! You guys owe me big time! I definitely saved your asses today and that makes me the M.V.P. You can pay me back with blow-jobs after we get someplace safe.”
Mitch remembered the way the front of the van accordioned around that tree trunk, a front wheel nearly horizontal. They had nearly been killed. That van would not be going anywhere anytime soon, but they still needed to put distance between themselves and anyone Viper might summon for help. Scotty steered down turn after turn. None of them knew this area, and Rust Bucket’s ancient navigation system was shot, but Scotty thought taking random back country roads would make them harder to track.
“Fuck!” Ron swore. “That bastard took our phones—we can’t look up a G.P.S. map!”
“He didn’t take mine. Here.” Scotty waved his phone over his shoulder as he steered around a bend. “Look up a map site. Tell me where the fuck I’m going.”
Ron fumbled at the phone with his still-cuffed hands. “Okay. Okay. Let’s see where we are ... Around the next curve, there’s left turn; take it.”
“Left turn—aye-aye, captain!” Scotty gave Ron a mock-salute and a grin in the rearview mirror. Then Scotty frowned. “Uh, why are you two holding your hands like that?”
Ron held up his cuffed wrists and tugged at the chain holding them together. “Because we’re handcuffed. Duh.”
“Handcuffed?” Scotty looked at them oddly in the mirror. “What are you talking about? You’re not handcuffed. Did you hit your head in the crash?”
Was Scotty being serious? To Mitch he seemed so. But obviously they were handcuffed. Heavy silver-chrome handcuffs like the ones Mitch remembered from those old television cop shows his father liked. Why could Scotty not see—
With his head still feeling shaken up from the crash, Mitch knew he was taking a risk, but he slid his thoughts into Scotty’s head anyway. Just a light contact; not enough to distract Scotty from his driving, but enough that Mitch could see what Scotty saw. And when Scotty flicked his eyes off the road and at the rearview mirror again, he saw ...
Mitch saw Ron sitting in the back seat, fully clothed, his wrists held together but no handcuffs. Scotty tilted his head slightly, and Mitch saw the shoulder of his own T-shirt.
Not naked? Not handcuffed? No wonder kicking the van door and running up the incline hurt less than he had expected, thinking he was barefooted. “Fucking shit!” Mitch swore as he broke contact with Scotty’s mind.
“What?” Ron asked.
“Give me a minute.” Now that Mitch knew Viper had done something to them, made them believe they were naked and handcuffed, probably to discourage escape attempts, he just had to find a way to undo it. He squeezed his eyes shut, searched through his thoughts—and found a something that was not quite right. He wasn’t sure how even to conceptualize what he was sensing. He had so much to learn about his own Talent and what it could do, Mitch realized anew, if somebody with as little power as Viper could do something like this to him. Mitch concentrated on it: a small little thing, easily snapped. Was the fix as simple as this?
Mitch opened his eyes and looked down at himself. Pants, the hem of his T-shirt. His wrists separated easily.
“How the fuck did you do that?” Ron gaped as Mitch’s hands came apart.
“It’s easy. Let me show you,” Mitch said as he slid into Ron’s mind and found that same something. Snap.
A moment later, Ron blinked at himself and muttered, “That bastard! That fucking bastard!”
Since Viper truly had taken Mitch’s and Ron’s phones and wallets from their pockets, the boys had new reasons not to go back home. Viper would know where they lived; he could report them to the Institute or he might even stake out their houses himself. Either way, home was definitely out. Their families were safer without them there.
Ten miles turned into fifty, and they finally had a direction. They passed from one town to another, with wide stretches of farmland or forest filling the gaps whenever they were leaving this forgettable little burg and heading toward the next. They stopped and swapped license plates with another car before they crossed the state line. Since the tags were both from the same state, maybe the owner of the other vehicle would not notice and report the swap, they reasoned, and the police would not pull Mister Rust Bucket over if its tag did not match the number their parents were sure to give the authorities when the boys did not return home as scheduled. They congratulated themselves on their smart thinking as they hit the road again. They were hoping to reach a mid-sized city a couple of hundred miles away by midnight.
Scotty stopped at an automated teller machine as they passed through another small town and withdrew the maximum it would allow from his savings. The money problem thus was temporarily solved. They had enough cash for gas and food to last several days, even enough for cheap hotel stays, so they would not have to sleep in the car.
They talked about their plan. Now the idea of finding somewhere safe for Talents, somewhere with other gay men, seemed more necessary, more real. Happy as they were with the sex that they had been giving each other, all of them realized that they would be meeting all kinds of guys along the way. Young and older, all colors, and those guys would know a lot of new ways to have sex that the three of them had not even thought of yet.
Scotty seemed was less keen on the idea of experimenting with other partners. “Can’t we just fuck only each other?”
“Be serious, Scotty. We’re not getting married to each other, so we don’t have to be tied down to fucking with just each other,” Ron groused. “You know men aren’t wired for monogamy. It’s a great big world out there. This whole trip is our big chance to try new things—learn who we are, what we can do, what we want.”
Mitch had taken charge of Scotty’s phone and was looking up information, so he only half-heartedly rejoined the conversation. “And we’ve always got each other to come back to.”
“You can’t promise that,” Scotty persisted. “I don’t think I want to fuck other guys too. And what if one of us finds somebody else he likes having sex with more?”
Mitch wondered whether Scotty was hinting he might want to go back to being straight and fucking girls, but he did not look up from the phone. “We’ll figure that out if and when it happens.”
In simple conversation, the possibility of meeting some new stud who might become a boyfriend sounded too far-fetched. They were on the move; one-time hookups only, and then they would be gone. But Mitch understood something serious might happen. If so, they would deal with it. No sense letting the thought hang over them like a dark cloud.