“I’ll go get coffee ready.” Dany smiled as he slipped on a shirt, pants, and boots. The fresh morning air rushed into the tent as he unzipped it and stepped out into their alcove in the trees. Dany stretched and walked into the woods a ways to find his handiwork from the previous night. He grabbed a thick climbing rope in both hands and loosened the slipknot he’d tied at the base of a tree. Hand over hand he lowered their climbing packs, which hung suspended high in a tree branch, far out of the reach of bears. After coiling the rope and slinging it over one shoulder, he hefted the packs back to camp and quickly looked in on Brad, still sawing logs. Without the essence of freshly brewed coffee to stir him, the boy would sleep until noon, Dany thought to himself as he fished out a fire-scorched metal coffee pot from one of the backpacks and headed down toward the river.

As Dany walked along the dirt trail, the metal coffee pot rattled against his knee in a listless grip as he considered again Brad’s request. He was older than his boyfriend, and they often laughed at the fact that Brad had only ever had two cocks in his mouth: one was Dany’s, and the other was his own. Dany was his first real boyfriend, and they had fallen easily into a long and loving relationship. So was it really fair, after all, for Dany, who had played the field for much longer before meeting Brad, to expect that he’d never be curious to be with someone else? An old adage came to him as he approached the river’s edge. If you love someone, let him go.…

The babble of the brook danced in his ears as he scuttled onto a large rock and bent down to fill the coffee pot. Movement attracted his eye from the opposite bank and he lifted his head to see the hiker from the previous day, wading into the water nude. Droplets of water shimmered in the sun against the golden tan of his body as he scooped handfuls over his shoulders and chest, bathing in the cool stream. Dany lost all focus on his chore and sat transfixed, watching this river god in his morning ritual. The man was humming softly to himself, and then suddenly submerged into the water and disappeared.