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Chapter Seven

There were seven others gathered in the clearing by the boathouse. All the newbies, like him. Most were from other cabins, except for Alan.

Alan, the other little cute guy. Alan…his possible competition.

Alan smiled over at him as they sat on logs by the extinguished fire. “This is exciting, right?”

“Yeah, exciting. Very,” Jovian said, holding himself back from pulling out the travel mirror from his pocket to check his face again.

When Coach Dixon came over, Jovian sat up, smiling seductively. “Good morning, Coach Dixon,” he said.

“Morning,” he said as he nodded over to Jovian. To the rest, he said, “Good morning, everyone. I’m Cherokee Dixon, but most folks call me Coach Dixon, or even Coach Dix. I’ll be your instructor for the next two survival classes.”

Jovian clapped along with the rest of the class and then they stopped and listened, though Jovian barely heard the words the man was saying, but he hung on all of them, just hearing that deep, penetrating voice the man had.

“Before we begin, I just want to tell you that if you ever find yourself lost in the woods, don’t panic.

People get lost easily and often. To live an outdoor lifestyle, you may get turned around during a hike or a camping trip.

You might break down on the side of a road that isn’t often traveled.

There are a lot of ways it can happen, and what we’re trying to do here is just to give you a few basic survival techniques that can help you live through it. ”

Jovian could listen to that voice all day. The tremble, the deep, resonating sound of it went through him like radiation, burning him all the way through.

As he was telling the class something about water, Jovian’s head fell to his shoulder as he silently sighed with the lulling the voice gave him.

“Now, drinking from water sources are scary things. If there is a dead animal up from where you are, bird shit, lots of things that cause dangerous bacteria in the water. If you’re way up high toward the source of the stream or creek, you have a much greater chance that it’s okay to drink but never take it for granted.

” As he spoke, he walked back and forth, those icy blue eyes grazing over all the eager faces that stared his way.

“Never, and I mean never, drink standing water. Never drink water that is discolored or that smells. Those are your first clues that it’s contaminated with some nasty stuff.

What is the best way to make sure it’s good enough to drink when you find moving water? ”

Alan stuck his hand in the air, like the teacher’s pet he likely wanted to be. “Sir?”

“Yeah?”

“Boil it first, right?”

“Well, yes, that is one thing that should be done, and if that’s all you can do, get the water to a rolling boil for three minutes, then let it cool.”

Jovian looked over at him, triumphant that he didn’t answer 100% correctly. That was a mistake. Dixon pointed to Jovian and asked, “What else should be done?”

Jovian nearly swallowed his tongue, being put on the spot like that. “To what?”

There were general laughs after he said that, and Jovian stared around at the group with daggers.

“Done to water before you can drink it?”

Jovian shrugged and said, “Bring some with you? Buy better water? I don’t know. Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“Well, at least you’re honest,” Dixon said, then turned to the rest of the group.

“If it’s possible, it should be filtered and then boiled, and believe me, I know that will feel like it takes forever, especially when you’ve been without it a couple days and the sound of it running over the rocks makes you even thirstier.

If you don’t filter or boil it, however, you could get so sick that you might die.

The dehydration you feel beforehand will be nothing to what you’ll feel if you get sick and vomit for hours. ”

Jovian’s attention perked again when he said vomit, but when he didn’t point to Jovian and laughed, Jovian figured he missed something.

“I’m going to show you a good way to filter water, and then we’ll take a quick walk in the woods nearby, those that can,” he said, patting the girl in the wheelchair on the arm. “I want to show you how easy it is to get lost.”

Getting lost in the woods with Dixon made him warm all over, but since the others were going along too, he lost his warmth in favor of scowling.

Wearing those tattered jeans and flannel shirt, Dixon looked the part of a mountain man, but he moved almost gracefully. As he squatted, Jovian got a good look at the man’s thick thighs, and the way the denim stretched over his ass.

A long back that was super straight showed his muscles that ran along his spine, and his wide shoulders were perfect to grab onto while fucking face-to-face.

“Jovian? Are you getting this?”

“Ohhh, yeah ,” he said dreamily.

“Good. Get that water and make it drinkable.”

Jovian’s eyes widened painfully. “Pardon me?”

“You heard me. Take the water in that bottle there and run it through the procedure I just showed all of you.”

Not having listened to a bit of it, he struggled while staying on the log to come up with an excuse, but that man’s eyes were locking into his, and the chills he felt were going to freeze him right through.

When he froze into a block of ice, at least he wouldn’t be on the spot.

The eyes unlocked and Dixon moved them to Alan. “Why don’t you give it a try.”

Jovian’s fur was up even as his body returned to normal temperature. Alan…his competition and because he’d been fawning instead of learning how to make water drinkable, Alan was a step ahead of him in the race to the mountain man.

Frowns weren’t sexy, so he adjusted his face and waited for Dixon to look to Jovian again, but it never happened again while sitting around the firepit.

They took the walk to the woods near the camp and Dixon then showed them how easy it was to get turned around in a place where every direction looked the same.

While the others were walking off to see what Dixon meant, Jovian sidled up to him. “You’re so good at this stuff, Mr. Dixon.”

“Coach, Dixon or Dix. Mr. Dixon was my dad.”

He laughed a little too much for the lame joke it had been, and Dix set his eyes on Jovian again. “That wasn’t funny.”

“Maybe it was the way you said it. Next time you have some free time, maybe you can show me that water thing again.”

Setting a hand on his hip, Dixon turned to him fully. Shivering, Jovian watched those eyes lock with his and it was physical. What he felt was like his whole body was being jarred. “You mean the lecture you didn’t hear a word of?”

“Sorry, I got…distracted,” he said seductively, smiling his cutest smile and running his fingertips over his lips before he bit the bottom one.

“You will wish you hadn’t got distracted if you’re ever lost in the woods. Now, go off that way and do a few turns like the others.”

Dixon turned from him and walked off to find the others, but Jovian’s hands dropped to his sides in momentary defeat.

But, if he did get a little lost, Dixon would be the one that would find him. Alone. In the woods. Jovian headed up a little slope and into the trees. The smell of pine already annoyed him.

The crunching of the debris on the floor of the woods made it sound like he was as big as a house, and try as he might, he couldn’t walk more quietly. Jovian mostly tried to ignore that walking into the forest meant yet another pair of his shoes were ruined.

“Don’t these people get how expensive shoes can be? How hard it is to maintain an above average shoe collection?”

He found a spot way up the hill, learning that climbing was a lot harder for real than on the treadmill at the gym. There were rocks and sometimes when he set his foot down, it pushed right into the earth, nearly burying his once-white sneaker.

“I swear, his dick better be a foot long and a hydro flask in girth, or I’m getting a damn refund!”

Sitting, Jovian waited for the rescuing.

Sure, he knew it was just down the hill, but once he got to the top, everything below looked the same.

The trees were tall, blocking sight of the camp, and even the big lake.

Glancing over his shoulder, Jovian saw a rock wall at his back.

And farther down, there looked to be a little trail, but he also thought Dixon had said something about hunting trails, and they were trails animals used while hunting prey and making it to water.

Or did he?

Staring at the man took almost all Jovian’s attention, so he could have heard wrong, but if he was right, and there was a hunting trail so close…

Suddenly, he didn’t want to be there anymore. He felt like bears and mountain lion were around every trunk of every tree. His heart started pounding so loudly that Jovian worried predators would hear it and pounce.

He got up and a dizzy spell hit him, and he started down the hill again, straight down, seeing the same tree pass by repeatedly, and his breathing was so shallow, he knew he’d pass out before he’d reach the bottom.

When the terrain flattened out some, he ran straight ahead, hollering out for help. It took forever, the path he thought he’d taken stretching on and on while he screamed for help.

Then, suddenly, he emerged right behind the latrines. He recognized them certain enough, but seeing them, it made no sense. Jovian had run straight ahead. Straight! He was sure of it.

Walking from the back to the side of the latrines, he saw the others walking in a group back to the camp, with Dixon leading the way. They were all smiling, talking amongst themselves, and Dixon was next to Alan…laughing.

He turned his head, and those eyes caught Jovian’s, and immediately he lost his grin. He stopped while the rest of them kept heading toward the camp, like they were afraid of what was about to happen. “If you had to take a piss, you could have told us.”

Angrier than he’d ever been, he hollered, “You were going to leave me out there?”