Prairie Dogs, Pronghorns & Penis Sheaths
by Biff Spork
Chapter 16
Waking Up
Local Boys Rescued from Freak Flash Flood
Early this morning a Search and Rescue helicopter picked up two boys from where they were marooned on a hillside on the vast Mason Estate. The boys have been identified as Marcus Mason, whom readers may remember as the 'Billionaire Boy', and a friend, Gerald Kelly, both 13 years old.
" We thought we'd lost them," said Jack Strong, member of the S & R team that located the boys. "Their vital signs were so low they hardly registered, but we bundled them up and rushed them to the hospital."
The boys had been camping on the prairie near the riverside when the flash flood occurred. Both boys remain in the ICU at the River City Private Hospital, where authorities described their condition as critical.
(From: The River City Times)
I came awake dazzled by bright lights overhead and their reflection on the white walls in the room. I tried to speak but could only gargle through some phlegm. I cleared my throat and saw my mother's face looming above me.
" Oh, Bumper," she said. "Thank God you're awake!" She leaned down and kissed my forehead.
" Hi Mom," I said. "Where's Marcus?"
" He's right there," she said, pointing to a nearby bed. "He's still asleep, but he's okay." Tears were rolling down her cheeks.
A nurse's smiling face appeared above me and then my father's and a doctor's. I held onto the thought that Marcus was okay and dizzily tumbled down into a comfortable, quiet place full of warm darkness.
When I next awoke, the lights had been dimmed. I looked over at the other bed in the room and called, "Marcus!"
There was no answer. My mother came to my bedside.
" Marcus is still asleep, honey." She sounded a little sad.
" How long have we been here?" I asked.
" About two days," she said.
" He's still asleep after two days? What's wrong?"
" Well, he's not really asleep. He's in a coma. There's nothing wrong with him. The doctors say he's okay, but he must've got hit on the head somehow, and the concussion put him into a coma. It's like he's asleep, but they don't know when he'll wake up. They say he'll probably wake up soon and have nothing wrong with him. They just don't know when."
I had an intense desire to see Marcus, to see him breathing, to feel his warmth, even if just to hold his hand. I threw the sheet aside, but as soon as I began to move off the bed, sharp pains paralyzed my leg. I looked down and saw it was thickly wrapped in bandages below the knee. My mother held me down and tucked the sheet back over me. There was a tube coming out of my penis and another connected to my arm as well. I lay back.
" Just lie there, honey, and get better. Your leg was really messed up. The broken bones were sticking out, and whatever you were doing kinda tore up your muscles. The doctors managed to put you back together, but you need to stay off that leg until it heals. Don't worry, as soon as Marcus wakes up, we'll tell you right away — even wake you up if you're asleep."
I saw Anna rise from behind Marcus's bed and come over to us.
" Hi Bumper," she said. "How're you feeling?"
" Fine," I said. "No problem."
Yeah," she smiled, "sure. Well, you'll feel better soon, now that we've got you where we can do whatever we like to you."
" Oh, God," I said. "Out the frying pan and into the fire."
" You guys had quite an adventure," said Anna. "You were found about three miles away from your campsite. Do you remember how you got there?"
A nurse brought in a tray of food and some orange juice. While I ate, I tried to tell my mom and Anna about the flood. We agreed it was probably when the tree rolled over that Marcus's head was struck. There were so many big branches smashing against us that it was likely one of them had bashed his head. That was why I'd thought he was asleep when we reached the surface.
" You saved his life, Bumper, by carrying him to safety," said Anna. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she held my hand in both of hers.
" Yeah, but he saved mine too," I protested, remembering how he had piggybacked me to our hill after my leg broke.
" I was talking to the Search and Rescue guys after they brought you in, and they had a funny story," said Anna through her tears. "They said that when they found you guys, you had your arms around each other. And even though you were both unconscious, they couldn't pry you apart and had to lift the two of you together and put you on the same stretcher."
" He was so cold. I knew I had to try keep him warm."
Anna described how she and Jason had raced through the storm toward our campsite in ATVs, but had to turn back when the overflowing river cut them off. All they could do was return to the house and organize a rescue team for the daylight.
Jason and my father visited later in the day and filled in more of the background. Because the river had never flooded before, nobody had taken the warning signs seriously. The watershed for the river, several forested mountainsides far upstream, had all been clear-cut over the last few years. With no tree roots to hold the soil together, the run-off from storms was very rapid. Some of the tributaries of the river had been dammed, but the strength of the dams was calculated with reference to the run-off patterns before the mountains were logged. Even a normal storm had filled them to capacity the previous year. Because of record high temperatures, the storm that caused the flood was far more severe than a normal summer storm. One of the small dams far upstream had burst and the flash flood was the result. Local scientific opinion was that with continued logging and higher temperatures, we could expect to see more such floods, perhaps even yearly.
Jason said that while he was up in one of the helicopters, he had seen the buffalo herd and also the pronghorns. He couldn't be sure that all of them had survived, but the majority of both populations were okay. He had arranged for feed to be air-dropped to them in case they found it difficult to forage while the flood waters receded. He didn't mention our prairie dogs.
That night before I closed my eyes, I called over to the next bed, "Marcus! Wake up!" There was no answer.
After breakfast the following morning, the doctor decided I could be unhooked from the tubes and wires plugged into me, and that I could move around, as long as I kept the weight off my broken leg. They brought in a wheel chair, and with my mother's and Anna's help, I got into it and rolled myself over beside Marcus's bed.
As soon as I clasped his hand, my eyes welled up and began to overflow. All the fear and worry of the previous three days washed out of me in a flood of tears. I pulled the wheelchair up tight beside Marcus's bed and kissed his hand and cried. It was mostly happiness. Once I felt his warmth, I knew that he was in there somewhere, that he wasn't gone forever, and the relief I felt was like a super-nova bursting inside me. I puffed and panted like I'd run a marathon and kissed his hand again and again. I was quite out of control, but nobody said anything.
When I calmed down, I was wheeled back to my bed and spent the rest of the day pondering how to find Marcus, wherever he was, and get him to wake up. Again that night, just before I closed my eyes I called, "Marcus! Wake up!" Again there was no answer.
I had an idea when I awoke the next day. I remembered one morning when Marcus and I had fooled around in our tent. After I ate my breakfast, I wheeled over to Marcus's bed. During the daytime, Anna was usually there, as was my mother. I said to Anna, "Why don't you and my mom go and have a cup of coffee and some breakfast? I'll watch Marcus and ring for a nurse if there's any change."
After Anna and my mom left, I hoisted myself up onto Marcus's bed and lifted his sheet so I could crawl in beside him. What I had recalled from that morning in our campsite was how we had lain together, and how he had given himself to me totally. I remembered how I had roamed over him and discovered an especially sensitive spot under his arm where I could make him laugh, when I touched it with my tongue. That morning in our tent, I had touched it again and again, and every time, a drainpipe laugh had gurgled out of him while he lay, not resisting in any way, open to me like he was on a platter.
I lifted his arm away from where it lay beside his ribs. I knew exactly where that magic spot was. I had memorized it. I put one hand on his belly so I could feel if there was any response, any reflex movement. Then I pushed my head forward and twiddled my tongue on the exact spot under his arm. At first, nothing, then I felt the faintest tremor. I tickled that spot again. His abdominal muscles trembled. Again, and those muscles clenched and a cough, then a laugh, burbled out of him. I raised my head to look at him just as his eyes opened.
" Bumper," he said.
" Marcus," I said. I moved up the bed and kissed and kissed and kissed him. "Are you okay?"
" I think so," he said. "At least I feel okay." I saw his eyes scan the room.
" Don't ask," I said. "We're in a hospital. We made it. We're okay, but you've been snoozing for days. I think something hit your head when we were underwater."
" You okay, Bumps?"
" Yeah. Now you're here with me, I'm fine."
Suddenly a nurse was there and then a couple of doctors. I was ordered back to my bed while they poked and prodded Marcus. Anna and my mother returned shortly afterwards.
My mother came over beside my bed, looked at me shrewdly, and said, "How did you wake him up?"
" I knew a spot where he was ticklish," I confessed.
" You sent Anna and me out of the room so you could tickle him," she said. "You're getting very devious, but it worked." She leaned over and hugged and kissed me. "Oh Bumper, I love you so much," she said and squeezed me.
" I love you, too, Mom," I said as I hugged her. We pulled back a bit and looked at each other with satisfaction.
After a minute I said, "Mom, Marcus is very special to me."
" I know, dear," she said. "I knew from the first moment you told us about him, just from the tone of your voice. And then, when I saw the two of you together, I knew you'd found something most people spend their lives looking for." She pressed my hand, and I realized I didn't have to say anything else.
When the doctors finished with Marcus, they examined me. Aside from my broken leg, both of us appeared to have recovered. While they wanted to keep Marcus one more night for observation, unless some problem arose, we were well enough to be discharged the following day.
Marcus and I had a long discussion that night about how to continue to live together and how to put it to my mom and dad, and Jason and Anna. When we had settled that, Marcus and I lay together in silence for a few minutes. Then Marcus said, "Bumps, I'm really sorry about the prairie dogs, about what happened to Dogtown. I know you loved those little dogs."
" So did you," I said.
" No, I liked them. I admired them, but I never really got down with them like you did. And you're a very loving person."
I hugged him tightly. I understood something from his words that I'm sure he didn't mean me to hear. I had assumed that he had run down to try to save Big Mama, because he felt the same as I did about her. But it was clear that he didn't do it so much for her as for me. He had thrown himself into a raging flood to save a prairie dog because I had been crying.
" You're a very loving person, too," I sniffled.
He patted my shoulder and pulled me closer. "Anna said the doctors told her that your leg was so badly mangled from what you did after it was broken, from your swimming and hauling me around, that they seriously considered they might have to amputate it. Bumper, you saved my life. You know what that means?"
" I can kiss and cuddle you like this for a lot longer?"
" As long as you want. I'm yours. Completely. You can do whatever you want with me. Any sensible person with broken leg would have just left me tangled up in that tree. You didn't. You just came and saved me — a real suicide mission. I don't need to know anything more about you, or how I feel about you."
" You mean the time is right?"
" Yeah, for me the time is right. I don't want anything in life except the chance to make you happy. It's not just that you saved my life. It's that everything I am wants to be with you forever. You're everything I ever dreamed of, and more."
I slid my hand down his belly, found his boner and grabbed it. "So this perky little thing is mine, now. Is that what you're saying?"
" Yep. It's all yours, and everything that's attached to it, too."
" Wow! So I can squeeze it and rub it and suck it and play with it all night if I want? I can stick it in my ear or up my nose? I can make you squirt like a fountain again and again, all night long?"
" Yep."
" Marcus," I said, groping around with my free hand to find his hand. When I found it I pushed it through the pee slit on my pyjamas so he could hold my dick, too. "You saved my life too. I would never have made it through the flood to our hill if you hadn't carried me, but I was yours long before that — I knew it when we were riding our bikes to your place from the mall, that day we met. The instant I looked at your face when you took your mask off, I knew I was done. You belong to me, but I've belonged to you since then." I laughed. "I guess that means we're completely at each other's mercy."
" So," laughed Marcus, "I can do anything I want with you, all night, every night, forever?"
" Yep."
" God, Bumper. We are gonna have so much fun…." He gripped my dick a little tighter. I stayed his hand.
" Marcus, it's usually been you putting the brakes on, a little, up til tonight. But now that we're free, I want to wait until we're out of this place. Let's ride this wave until we're in our bedroom, your place or mine, but not here in this slightly creepy hospital room. Okay?"
The following day, after the doctors had cleared us for discharge, we asked my mom and dad and Jason and Anna to sit down in our hospital room and hear what we wanted to do.
It was not too surprising to me that Anna and my mom were both in favor of Marcus and I being together, sometimes at his place and sometimes at mine. My dad and Jason both accepted it too, and seemed to like the idea of helping us to put together a presentation on climate crisis action for the trustees in charge of Marcus's inheritance. It seemed that my dad and Jason had become friendly over the last few weeks and had grown to respect each other. Jason knew the trustees well and that, combined with my father's business and banking expertise, made us feel confident we'd be able move ahead with at least some of our plans.
When it seemed that no-one had anything to add, my mom said, "I agree completely with what everyone has said, but Bumper, I like to have you around all the time. I know this new arrangement and the home schooling is what you want, and that it's best for you, but I do have a request, a little adjustment…."
" Sure, Mom. Just tell us," I said.
" You said you would live at Marcus's house during the week and with us on the weekends, but for me, Saturday and Sunday is not enough. I want you and Marcus to come home on Friday afternoon and stay until Monday morning so I get to see you for three whole days every week," she said. "I don't mean you have to stay in the house all the time. I just want to have you around."
" Friday afternoon to Monday morning it is," said Marcus.
" That would be nice, Marcus," said my mother with a smile.
" What day is it today?" I asked.
" Friday," said my mom.
I looked at Marcus. "So, we know where we're going to be today." Then I turned to my mom and said, "What's for supper?"
" Oh," she said with a quivering smile. "I haven't thought…."
" Don't worry about it, Mom. We'll help you. I've been trying to teach Marcus how to cook. He doesn't know anything besides how to open a fridge and put something in the microwave. I've been dreaming about your mushroom spaghetti sauce. Maybe you can teach us how you make it?"
The spaghetti and mushroom sauce was great. Anna and Jason joined us for supper, and though it was early in the evening when they left, Marcus and I pleaded fatigue soon after, bade my parents good night, and retired to my bedroom. Though small, the twin bed I had grown up on offered more space than our sleeping bag, but we didn't need room to spread out.
We made love all night long, drifting into satisfied naps between sessions. I learned a lot that night, but most important was that I finally understood the meaning of the phrase, making love. Every time we made love that night, I didn't feel depleted. I felt enriched. It was like love was a kind of energy that we could generate, we could make, together. After every orgasm we shared, I had more of that loving energy, not less. Though we were exhausted by morning and slept drunkenly into the early afternoon, I awoke brimming over with love.
I felt Marcus's warmth next to me, lay with my eyes closed, and listened with delight to the racketing drone of a neighbor shredding his lawn, kid shrieks from the Slip'n Slide down the block, and the lazy buzz of a huge blue bottle fly who had imprisoned himself in the space between the top window and the pushed-up bottom window….
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