A Fire Spotter Christmas

The box was rectangular, a foot and a half on each side, and four feet tall. When he asked the guys in the office what it was and who had dropped it off, they just shrugged their shoulders.

"Brought by the post office is my guess," said one. "I wasn't on shift when it was delivered."

"It's Christmas," said the other. "You got a momma who loves you and feels sorry that you drew fire-spotter duty over the season?"

As a matter of fact he did. And it would be just like her to send him something useless in a big package. He was thinking a kid's inflatable swimming pool as he manhandled the box into the back of the Jeep. It was too small to be a Corvette. That's what he really wanted for Christmas.

Going back up the fire trails, he took the same route he'd taken down. He stopped far enough away from the encampment again that he could see the tent with the binoculars but that he couldn't be seen. The tent was there, but no one else was anywhere in the encampment that he could see.

"Shit," he said out loud. Then he admonished himself silently for letting this get his interest—and being disappointed that he couldn't watch two hunks fucking.

The box wasn't hiding something weird from his mother. It was an artificial Christmas tree, all decorated already, even with lights. And there was a long, heavy-duty extension cord provided.

The card read, "I'm so sorry. I couldn't help myself. Please forgive me. But please also think of me on Christmas." It was signed "Ted H."

Paul smiled—then he scowled and told himself to shape up and get real. He put the box in the corner and tried to forget about it. But the room was too small and the box too big to forget about. It wasn't more than an hour before he was taking it out of the box and measuring the distance he'd need for the extension cord—which was enough. He had everything he needed to attach the Christmas tree to the railing of the tower balcony facing the Sierra Madre mountains, where he could see it from the bed he'd chosen to sleep in.

Then, with a sigh, he started to zap his uninspiring dinner, already beyond sick of his own inability to heat up a TV dinner properly, and fought hard to pretend that being alone up here was exactly what he wanted, exactly what he needed. Exactly what he deserved.

* * * *

Each day for the next four days, Paul made an excuse—convinced he was fooling himself and that it was no big deal—to drive near the campsite where he'd seen the young men fucking. They never were there, though. The tent was still there, and that was enough to keep drawing Paul back to the site.

It started snowing on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Just lightly, and it only accumulated an inch or so by nightfall. But the snow prompted Paul to accept that it was Christmas. He'd been totally alone for four days now, and it wasn't seeming as great an idea now to be totally by himself as it had been when he decided to come up here. He thought back to what Perry had said about him being a party boy. And he knew that was true. In years past he would be thrice fucked at the Christmas Eve party before Christmas morning had been chimed in. That's how he'd met Adrian—last Christmas Eve. A year ago tonight.

This Christmas Eve he was all alone—and without Adrian. Life changed so quickly. He turned on the lights of the small tree outside on the balcony railing and curled up on his bed and watched the tree. He didn't even have any beer left. Of course, the last time he'd gotten soused in beer hadn't worked out too well. Or hadn't it?

In addition to not wanting to be alone so much now, as Christmas loomed, it wasn't working to not think about Ted Holt either. The more he tried not to think of that afternoon in Ted's house when he'd gotten so drunk and let his guard down, the more he thought about it. And the more he thought about it, the more details about it surfaced. Ted was such a hunk. Substantial, and not just in wealth. He had a good, solid physique—and, yes, he meant the man had a fat cock as well—but none of the solidness of him was fat. All hard muscle. Distinguished sophistication, movie star good looks, those gray sideburns to his silky auburn hair. The way he had walked, upright and with assurance; the confident way he'd played basketball—being better than Paul but not hogging the ball. Showing that he was able to let Paul enjoy himself as much as the more capable Ted did. The flat stomach and even the trimmed bush—and, again, that oversized cock. Hard on that afternoon, hard, Ted had whispered, for him, Paul. Hard inside him.

Ted whispering how perfect Paul's body was and how good Ted wanted to be to it. Paul sighing and moaning in his arms—knowing now that despite his instinct to reject then—that he wanted Ted inside him. Long, hard, thick inside him. That he had known that it really wasn't Adrian. How Paul had whimpered and held his breath as Ted took that first, long slide into him. Holding there, kissing Paul on the throat, whispering, "You're so nice, so warm, so sweet." And then the start of the slow pump.

Paul snapped out of the reverie, jolted back to the present by the shock of someone pounding on his door—the door of his perch high atop a tower, in the middle of nowhere.

"Hey, it's cold and snowing out here. Have mercy on a couple of freezing guys."

Paul got to the door before it opened without his aid—but just barely. A big blond hulk spilled into the room, followed, close on his heels, by a wiry little Hispanic.

"Hi, my name's Mark. This here's Jose. At least I call him Jose. Found him down at a bar in Santa Barbara and brought him camping with me. Has a hole to die for. God, it's gotten cold out there. Freeze the tits off a witch, it would. Saw the Christmas tree from the bottom of the mountain. Too cold and lonely for us down there. Figure the Christmas tree meant you wanted company. Brought the beer. Got any chips?"

The campers Paul had seen fucking down in the tent days previously were now bouncing around his room, suddenly making it much smaller than Paul had thought it to be. The Nordic-looking guy, Mark, was swinging two six packs of beer and just standing there and grinning at Paul. The small Hispanic was moving around the periphery of the room, touching this and that. Unbuttoning his parka. Unbuttoning his shirt. Unbuttoning the fly to his jeans.

Not long afterward, a Christmas CD Mark had brought was blasting out on the player, a gay action movie he'd found on the Internet rolling on the laptop, a collection of empty and crushed beer cans scattered around on the braided rug, Paul was sitting in the overstuffed armchair, his head buzzing from the stark contrast between now and two hours previously in his mountain-top hideaway, and watching Mark and Jose fucking on one of the twin beds.

Both were naked. Mark was sitting on the edge of the bed. Jose was sitting on his cock, facing Paul and giving Paul "this is the good life" looks with his dark, flashing eyes. Mark was holding the little Hispanic's thighs wide and had Jose's legs trapped outside of his. Jose was doing most of the riding, but every so often Mark was leaning back and raising both his and Jose's legs and yodeling, "Ipsey, doddle, here comes Santa's sleigh. And he has a gift for youuuu."

After a while of this, Mark put his chin on Jose's shoulder and called out to Paul, "Jose tells me he wants you to fuck him too."

The look on Jose's face told Paul that either he didn't understand English all that well or that he, indeed, had made this request.

"I don't know . . . I don't . . ."

"You want it. I can tell. You're hard for it."

And, indeed, to his own surprise, Paul's cock had somehow been let out for air and was encased by one of Paul's hands and was engorged. But how was he to say that he didn't enjoy fucking another guy all that much—even though he had done it from time to time. And during Christmas Eve parties too. This, as a matter of fact, was very much like the Christmas Eve parties he'd been to in past years. But he didn't really want to fuck Jose. What he wanted was Mark's cock inside him. No, what he really wanted was Ted Holt's cock inside him.

"Come on over. I've warmed him up for you."

Jose was on his back on the bed, holding his own legs up and a spread. Paul was between his thighs, inside him, pumping slowly. Paul's hands were working the little Hispanic's torso and nipples, and Jose was moaning and groaning for him.

Paul felt the hard breath on his neck, smelled the beer, heard the whisper at his ear. "And I want to fuck you."

In response Paul opened the stance of his legs and leaned over more into Jose's torso—and Mark, close behind him, one hand on Paul's waist and the other guiding his own cock, started to work his way inside Paul.

They partied from Christmas Eve through Boxing Day, December 26th. On the morning of the 27th, Paul woke up to a deserted tower room, other than himself and three days worth of party devastation.

The guys weren't at the encampment when he went down the mountain. It wasn't just that they weren't in their tent—there was no tent anymore. They were gone, completely. And they weren't there the next four days he checked either.

It was even more lonely on his mountain top perch now than it had been before the party boys had invaded. That said, it was a lot different Christmas than he had anticipated it would be. And he wasn't sorry about that.

* * * *

It was New Year's Eve and Paul was still alone. The lighted tree was a comfort to him, but he'd take that down tomorrow. Then he'd go down into Santa Barbara to buy books he could read without thinking about what he really wanted to do.

Being up here had certainly changed his perspectives and wants from when he was moping around mourning Adrian. But it had been an entirely different method of change than he'd ever imagined it could be.

Once again the shock hit him and immobilized him for moment when he heard the knock on his door.

"Hi, I hoped you wouldn't want to be alone for New Year's Eve."

It was Ted Holt, bundled up in a fur coat that only a man as distinguished looking as he was could pull off, holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and two champagne glasses in the other. He was all white teeth, hunky handsomeness, and a glowing smile.

Ted knelt on Paul's bed, his hands stretched out and holding Paul at the waist, while Paul's buttocks rested on Ted's thighs and Paul's torso arched back away from Ted, his head flopped back and his arms dangling at his sides. Every fiber inside him concentrated on Ted's moving cock deep inside him. Paul had already ejaculated, his cum dribbling down the sides of his cock and into Ted's neatly trimmed bush.

Paul was babbling the ecstasy of having Ted inside him and Ted was murmuring his pleasure at the sweetness of Paul that built to a crescendo of passion as his hips moved faster and faster and his cock thrust deeper and deep.

"Oh, holy shit, I'm going to come." And then he did and the two collapsed on the bed.

Later, both on their sides, Paul was cuddled into Ted's groin from whence Ted had just stopped flowing deep inside Paul's channel again. They were facing the lit Christmas tree and the still-unopened bottle of Champagne on the table, and Ted was stroking Paul's cock, pushing the last of Paul's cum out of it and massaging the white semen into the head of it.

Ted put his mouth next to Paul's ear and, after rimming the ear with his tongue and making Paul moan, he whispered, "I have a confession to make."

"So do I," Paul whispered back.

"I sent those two young men to you," Ted whispered. "I wanted you to have the best Christmas ever. I still believe you needed to be fucked out of the funk you were in."

"I figured that out," Paul answered. "And I fucked with them without them getting me drunk. All of my beer went into that healthy-looking ficus tree over there. If you had been here, I wouldn't have made you get me drunk before fucking me either. I've gotten the point you and Perry were trying to make."

"Is there any way I can make your New Year's better than your Christmas?"

"You already have."

"Would this belated Christmas present take it over the top?"

Paul looked up to see Ted's arm raised and a set of keys dangling from his fingers. The key chain was for a Corvette.

"I want the man in my bed to be driving the best car on my lots."