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“Hey, take care, alright?” Jeff says to Tyler as we prepare to depart. “Stay out of trouble. Try not to get arrested or some shit.”

“I’ll do my best,” Tyler says. “If I do, I guess you’ll be hearing from me.”

Jeff laughs. “Then no news is good news.” He hugs Tyler, then turns to me. “Here, this is for you. For the road.”

He passes me a bag. I look inside and smile.

“Don’t drink them all at once,” he says.

“I shall savor them,” I reply and clasp his forearm. “Thank you. And may the Force be with you.”

I’ve never seen a man look so proud. “He gets it,” he says to Tyler.

“Thank you again, Jeff,” Tyler says.

We get into the kah, Tyler brings it to life with the turn of a key, and we’re away. I watch as new wonders pass by my window—distant mountains beyond the endless stretch of buildings and stone, my first glimpse at the landscape outside of this city Tyler calls Bakerville. Most of the things I see I don’t understand, but as confounding as this place is, it’s beginning to feel less like the underworld and more like just another place I’ve reached on my map. There is chaos here, but only because I’m not accustomed to its order. This is not a world for alphas like Alyx and I. We need room to spread our wings, and I can feel that many things about this place are much like a cage. I know that Tyler feels this way, too. I think his desire to get back to Circeana may even be stronger than my own.

Tyler turns and we move faster, joining a school of other kah that eventually burst out into a great channel filled with hundreds more driving at great speed—a freeway. Tyler reaches over and takes my hand.

“I’ve always wanted to do a road trip with my man,” he says. “We just need some shitty gas station snacks, a couple of Big Gulps, and a Rolling Stones best-of CD.”

Tyler opens the windows and the wind swirls about the kah’s belly, whipping up our hair and clothes. He puts his hand outside, and I do the same. The breeze tugs at my palm, Tyler’s smile is as bright as the sun, and for a moment I feel like I’m flying through the sky in my phoenix form. I open two cans of Coke, taking great pleasure in how they snap and hiss, and how the drink bubbles up from the silver spout. The cans are cold and dripping with perspiration. I pass one to Tyler and press mine against my cheek before sipping the delicious nectar.

“My mate is a Coke fiend,” Tyler says. “What are you going to do when we get back to Circeana? You’ll never be able to drink one again.”

“Perhaps I’ll ask the Great Phoenix to grant me a spring of Coke,” I say. “One as big as the marketplace fountain, big enough to bathe in.”

“Do you want ants?” he says. “Because that’s how you get ants.”

“I’ll enjoy these while I can. Their memory will be a token of one of the few good things I’ve experienced in your world.”

“Aw, come on. I know you loved those movies too. And look at you. You are a natural passenger prince.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He grins. “You, lounging there with shades on, arm hanging out the window, sipping your drink. Me, driving you around like I’m your manservant.”

“Oh, I see. Since you’re my manservant, that means I can order you to do whatever I want.” I smirk and hold up my middle finger.

Tyler gasps. “What the hell did I do to deserve that?”

“It means ‘fuck me,’ doesn’t it? So why don’t we move into the back, and you can man serve me.”

“No, Kalistratos, no,” he says, choking with laughter. “Oh my god. No, it means ‘fuck you.’”

“Ah. That certainly makes a lot more sense. So, into the back, then?”

“Someone’s horny all of a sudden.”

“Of course. It’s been, what? A day since I’ve touched you? I’m craving my mate.”

“You’re the one who refused to defile Jeff’s couch with me last night,” he says. “Anyway, we can’t just hop into the backseat. Cars can’t drive themselves. If you only knew how to drive. Then I could give you road head.”

“Road head?”

“Yeah.” He reaches across, eyes still fixed straight ahead and grabs a handful of my crotch. “I lean over and put my face on your lap. You get the idea.”

My cock is already getting stiff. I reach into Tyler’s lap and rub his bulge, then with two fingers release the waist button on his pants. He inhales softly and brings his hand back to the wheel as I rub my thumb across his underwear.

“Oh, shit,” he mutters. “Kalistratos…”

“This would be much easier with a chiton,” I say as I pull the waist of his underwear forward, freeing his cock. I spit on my palm and watch his eyes flutter and lips part as I slowly twist my hand around his head.

“I’m all for man skirts,” he breathes. “Hold on, hold on. Oh shit.”

I’m stroking him faster now. He moves his hips in reaction and the kah jerks, slowing down suddenly. An angry horn blasts from behind us, and a kah roars past us on our right side. The woman driving holds out her finger in the “fuck you” gesture.

“Wait,” Tyler says, pushing me away. “I don’t want to die with my dick out in a fiery wreck.”

He turns the wheel and we fly across the freeway, again somehow managing to avoid smashing into all of the other kahs in our path. We ride up a slope, and Tyler turns us onto a small empty road surrounded by open yellow hills. We go a short distance further and then come to a quick stop beneath the shade of a grove of tall and scraggly oak trees. Tyler looks around, then unclasps the seat belt.

“Alright,” he says. “You asked for it. Get in the back.”

I pull Tyler’s shirt off as he wrestles with the front of my jeans. Getting them off in this cramped space is no easy task.

“There’s a perfectly good tree over there,” I say. “I could bend you over behind it and?—”

“Just shut up and take me here,” he says and pulls my face down to his to kiss me.

His hand slips between my legs, cupping my erection. I push my underwear down my thighs with one hand and struggle to get them past my knees. Tyler helps me, but I have to balance myself by pressing the crown of my head against the door.

“Ouch,” I grunt as Tyler’s leg jerks upward. “Careful. Those are sensitive.”

“Sorry.”

Finally, they’re off. I sit up and bang the back of my neck against the ceiling. I have to resist simply tearing the damned shirt off of my body. Tyler reaches up and pulls it off me, and the knife pouch tied around my neck swings out and knocks him on the nose. He grabs the cord in his fist and yanks me down onto him, meeting my lips again. His other hand slides down my front and eagerly grasps my cock, and I push myself between his legs and rub my erection against the hard outline in the front of his underwear, where a dark spot of precome is slowly growing larger. His kiss turns into a sigh of need as I rock my hips back and forth, sliding our cocks together.

“Dammit,” he whispers. “No lube. Curse this normal human body.”

“Then your mouth will have to take what your ass cannot.”

“Jesus,” Tyler says. “Is this a command from my prince?”

“Absolutely.”

With a deviously sexy smirk, Tyler pushes me back against the door and gets between my thighs. He kisses my neck, then quickly moves towards my cock. He’s about to take my head into his mouth when I see something through the back window.

“Wait, Tyler,” I say, pushing my palm to his forehead.

“Ow, what?”

“Police.”

Tyler bolts upright and peeks over the top of the seat. The black and white kah rolls down the road in the distance.

“Maybe it’s going to just pass by,” he says.

We watch silently as it goes along, then it turns off the road onto the dirt field where we’re resting and stalks slowly towards us, a cloud of yellow dust rising from its black wheels. The red and blue lights flash like lightning.

“Shit,” Tyler groans.