Title: The Other Trailer

Series: This story stands alone but is also a companion fic (of sorts) to A Helping Hand and We Can Do More.

Author: Lobelia; [email protected]

Website: http://www.geocities.com/lobelia321/

Pairing: Viggo Mortensen / Orlando Bloom

Rating: NC-17

Category: Birthday fic.

Summary: Viggo and Orlando share a trailer.

Feedback: Yes, please, I would love feedback! Anything, even if it's only one line, one word!

Content/Warnings: RPS.

Spoilers: Mild TTT.

Archive Rights: Beyond the Fellowship. Imagin'd Glories. My niche. Anyone else, just ask.

Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I do not know these people. I am not making money. The events described in this story did not happen.

Author's Notes: Richard is, of course, Richard Taylor, the lovely president of WETA.

Thanks: Thanks to Selkie, who many months ago wished for an insight into the other trailer. Thanks to Lady Moonray, for Viggo-droolpics. Thanks to Demelza, for handholding.

Dedication: *Happy, happy birthday, dearest Gloria!* And thank you for all the fun and the chats and the encouragement, the ants and the fb-overdoses and the seriousness about writing! (Not to mention pearl bunnies...) I'm looking forward to loads more of same, *g*. *hugs and kisses*

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Strange and spicy smells come off the trees. Is it their sap? Is it the fungus on their bark? Is it the moss on their roots? I'd like to know. I'd like to explore the smells. I'd like to explore this whole forest. I've never been in such a strange and spicy forest. Such a silent, ancient place. I wish there were more time. But we have only four days in this forest, and I don't even know what it is called. Everyone just calls it Fangorn, and it may as well be. It may as well be a forest of living trees in Middle Earth. And I may as well not be Viggo but Strider, forging ahead through the undergrowth, sniffing out the air for traces of... what?

Perhaps I should have brought a flashlight. Ten-thirty at night is not the ideal time to go exploring an unknown forest. And it is pitch black in here. As soon as the lights and huts of the film encampment are left behind, darkness closes in all around. Not even the tops of the trees are outlined against the sky. There is no moon tonight. There are no stars. The air smells of heavy moisture. Leaves droop onto my shoulders.

Perhaps I should have worn shoes. Although the grass feels delicious under my naked soles. The grass, the crackling twigs, the roundness of rocks, the dry raspiness of lichen on the rocks. I curl my toes around the rocks, I dig them into the earth. Feels good to be out of boots at last.

It's not only pitch black. It's also silent. Only my own footsteps rustle and crack. Only my own blood murmurs in my ears. Perhaps if I stand quite still. If I still my breathing. If I breathe in the silence. Perhaps then the silence will become audible. Perhaps it will start to hum like a tuned harp. Or is that hum the sound of a jet far overhead?

What was that? Something hooted. Are there owls in New Zealand? Or is it some unknown species of hooting marsupial? Let me walk on a bit. If I hold out my hands in front of me, I will avoid unpleasant bumps. Bark, ferns, spiky things trail against my finger tips. Something cottony catches on my face. Keep still! Is that a spider scurrying down my neck? No, only a shiver of my own skin. I'm picking the threads out of my hair. I'm wiping my face. I'm inhaling the sharp moist smell of nocturnal chlorophyll.

Squelch. That was underfoot.

Proof positive. I should have worn shoes. Or brought a flashlight. Shit. And it is. Definitely. Definitely shit. Unknown hooting marsupials' shit.

But it's a healthy smell. A healthy rich smell. Not quite the smell of cows and farms but at least not the smell of Xenons and dimmer boards and caked greasepaint. A natural, untouched smell.

Squish. That was underhand.

And this, too, is natural. This sweet rich pungent smell of... what? I wish I could see. But my hand slimed right into it. Some sort of bark mould or tree sap or bat guano. Do they have bats in New Zealand? Probably not. They don't have placental mammals, do they? Perhaps bat-like monotremes, flitting among the branches, dropping their silent excreta into the night.

What's this wetness?

Rain. Definitely. That's definitely rain. Well, I should be sheltered here, among the trees, under the canopy.

Or not. This is not your ordinary drizzle. This is some sort of antipodean deluge. These are drops of fierce proportions.

But they are clean fresh wet drops. They are the tears of the sky. When I lift my face, they wash over me like soft sheets of satin. They trickle down the sides of my nose. They collect in my eyebrows. They soak into the top of my head.

Perhaps I shouldn't have come out in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and jeans. Perhaps it's time to head back. It's going to be another long day tomorrow, and there'll be an early wake-up call.

Just another minute. Another minute won't do any harm. I admit, it's not entirely comfortable standing out here, dripping, with shit all over my foot and goo on my hand. But then, what is the alternative? That tiny, cramped trailer? That pre-fabricated metal box with plastic doorhandles and drapes the colour of puked-on dishcloths? And that infernal smell in there, that smell of disinfectant and musty mattress?

And the trailer-mate. Oh, the trailer-mate.

They're lavishing millions on this movie so why, suddenly, when we're in this miles-from-nowhere location, do they decide to skimp on the accommodation and bundle us off, two to a trailer? How is anybody to work under such conditions? How am I supposed to do my meditation in the mornings? Or read my script in peace? Or gather my energies for the day ahead? Or... or anything! That trailer is so squalid, and so small, and we'll be so on top of one another, there won't even be space for any private jerking off, for fuck's sake!

Perhaps I should beat off right now, out here. Get it over with. Except it's too wet. And yes, my hand's full of stuff, I forgot about that. No good. No good at all. Should have thought of this before. This is no good at all for my physical balance. Or my mental balance. Or any kind of balance.

And of all the people...

If only Sean were here. Or Richard. I wouldn't have minded sharing with Richard. He'll probably fly in tomorrow, check out the ents, climb back in his helicopter and be out of here. Even Harry. Harry I could cope with. But Harry's not here. And John and Ian immediately paired off into one trailer, and the hobbits, of course, grabbed the other one, so that left...

Orlando.

No good. No good at all. He's probably in there right now, spreading his stuff all over the trailer, spreading himself all over the trailer. Spreading his mental energy into every nook and cranny, leaving no room for me to breathe. Spinning entire cobwebs of Orlando-Orlando from one end of the trailer to the other so that, when I get back, I'll be caught and trapped and strangled.

But what's the point? It can't be helped. And I really must go back now. I'm soaked. There, that was a sneeze. My feet are chilled. Long hair is not a good thing to have in the rain. I'll just turn round... no, that wasn't the way I came. I'm sure I don't remember that tree stump. Ouch, and it hurt my toe, too. Where the... Nothing. No lights. Perhaps it was in that direction...? Shit. This is starting to feel stupid. If I don't find my way out soon, I'll have to cooee. How ridiculous. What was that? Ow, another tree. I'm not being careful anymore. I'm crashing through the undergrowth like some kind of wild pig. It's really almost a bit...

"Bloody hell!"

"Fuck, what... Ian??"

"Viggo?! Is that you? God, you scared the bejeezus out of me!"

"Yes, sorry." Hell, it is Ian. And he's actually got an umbrella up over his head!

"Shit, Vig. You just made me piss all over my trousers. What are you doing out here, blundering around in the dark and walking into people?"

"I'm just... What are you doing out here?"

"What does it look like? I'm having a piss."

"What?" Shock. "Surely there's a toilet in our trailers?"

"Yes, yes. Look, I don't want to go into it. Actually, yes, I do." He lowers his voice. "It's John. He's got a bit of a problem. He... Well, turns out, he needs to spend quite a bit of time on the loo every evening."

"Oh. Right."

He sighs. "I'm getting a bit too old for this location lark. And he is, too, I think. Still, we must make the best of it. Anyway, shouldn't think you'll be having too many problems with young Orlando!"

"Why does everybody think it's so great to be sharing with Orlando?"

"Who's everybody? Nobody thinks that. Nobody thinks sharing is great -- oh, except for the hobbits, maybe. And Orli's fun... isn't he?"

Now it's my turn to sigh. "Fun. Fun, Ian. Fun is not what I want after a long day's work when all I need is to be left to myself in peace and quiet so I can gather my thoughts."

"Is that why you're out here? Traipsing through the woods in the middle of the night, gathering your thoughts on one of your ridiculous walks?"

"They're not ridiculous."

"Vig," he says and puts a friendly hand on my shoulder. "They are ridiculous. But don't mind me. Traipse on ahead, if you must. I'm off to bed. See you in six hours!"

Six hours? Is it that late already? Shit, I'd better hurry back. My trailer -- our trailer -- is just across the clearing from Ian and John's. Hell, I do seem to have walked quite a way. How did I get all the way round here?

The light in my trailer -- our trailer -- is still on. An orange light, a sickening anaemic light. Strings of rain part as I run across the clearing. Puddles splash. I skid on something, some grass, some mud. And there's a rope near the trailer, some sort of cable or other piece of garbage that almost sends me sprawling. No, caught myself just in time. Bang, goes my hand on the side of the trailer.

Metal hinges creak. A rectangle of light falls onto the grass.

"Hey, Viggo? Is that you?"

Orlando.

"Yes, yes." I try to sound wet and weary.

"God, Viggo. What were you doing out there all this time?"

I climb up the steps. Mud drips onto the floor. Small, soggy leaves stick to the door where I lean against it.

"What happened to you? You're soaked... and what's that smell?"

"I trod in something."

"Trod?" Orlando bursts out laughing. "You mean, you went walking in the wilds and you trod in some dog turds?"

"It's not dog turds," I say, irritably.

"I think it is," says Orlando, bending down and peering at my bare toes. "It is! That woman from personnel, whatsername, she's got a dog here. She's partially sighted. Don't you remember? Big brown German shepherd."

"It's a hooting marsupials'... Never mind. Is there a shower in here?"

"Yes, yes, man, relax. What's that you've got there?"

And then Orlando does something unexpected. He lifts his hand and he brushes it across my forehead. My eyes fall shut: auto-reflex. His thumb sweeps along my hairline. "Cobwebs or something," his voice says. Then his hand's on my hair. Picking through the strands, holding my hair down with one hand and pulling threads off with the other.

I open my eyes. He stands there, laughing, holding his cobwebbed hands out to me.

"Just," I say, "just wipe them on my pants or something. My jeans are filthy, anyway."

Orlando's hands are warm against the damp denim. He has his palms against my hips and wipes downwards in two long quick strokes. Shit. Mistake. I forgot that I never got that chance to jerk off.

Orlando's still there, not moving away. He's half-naked, what's more. He's wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants, tied with a drawstring around his hips, and a necklace. Some sort of silvery, glinting thing, shining against his skin. Men with jewellery. Ridiculous.

"Turn around," he says. And that's ridiculous, too. Yet I do it. I turn. I stare at the grey aluminum door. I read the fire precaution notice. I count the screws used to fasten the notice to the door.

"Leaves and stuff all through your hair," Orlando says. My hair is pulled, my hair is tugged. The down along my nape rises. I feel... what? I just want to have a shower. I don't want to be pawed and patted by Orlando. And yet I hold still. I hold quite still as he combs his fingers through my hair. Leaves rustle. Bits of moss and bark spark to the floor. Above our heads, the rain drums onto the metal roof.

He's still combing my hair, and surely, all the twigs must be combed out by now? He's running his fingers into my hair from below, along the skull and upwards to the crown, and then outwards, pulling strands of hair along, letting them trail over his fingers, letting them settle back against my neck.

I sneeze.

"You're soaked," he says. "Your hair's all matted. You should have a shower." Yes. Right. Shower. Four. Four screws needed to hold that fire notice up. "It's just in there. I've had one already." What? Oh, right. Just in here. He's clicking the door shut behind me.

The bathroom is cramped and smells of dettol. I need to have a session. Yes, I've got to have a dump. The toilet seat is a narrow hard doughnut. Oh, how I hate communal johns! I'll turn on the shower to drown out any sounds. Poor old John. Well, we're all heading that way.

Everything in here is the colour of dead tuna, and everything is plastic. But the water that spurts out of the shower nozzle in fits and starts is hot. Scalding, in fact. I swear and fiddle with the stupid faucet knobs. I also haven't got any soap or shampoo. That's all still in my bag, out in the main space. Orlando's bottles are lined up in a neat little rank on the floor of the shower cubicle. Shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, hair gel, talcum powder, foot powder. Why does he need all this stuff? The shampoo is some industrial-strength concoction that reeks of gum drops but it'll have to do. I'll get my organic, genetically unmodified, nettle-and-camomile shampoo in here tomorrow. There's soap as well, soap on a rope, dangling off the mixer faucet. Some people are too organised.

My dick's still semi-hard, and I think briefly about jerking off but then I can't be bothered. I'm too chilled. I'm too tired. I just want to wash my hair and go to bed. I just want to get hot and wet, and then dry and clean. The towel they supply is thin and raspy. There's no bathmat.

The ledge above the washbasin is littered with Orlando's battery-run toothbrush, Orlando's toothpaste, toothpicks, dental floss, shaving cream, shaver, aftershave, spare blades, mouthwash, deodorant, jewellery, watch, scalp brush, nail brush, nail clippers, nail file, headache tablets, travel sickness tablets, painkiller tablets, nasal spray, spare AA-size batteries, thermometer, band aids, condoms - condoms! What does the man want with condoms? And a thermometer! There's a travel toiletry kit hooked onto the back of the door. It has about seventeen compartments. It's empty. He's emptied it all out onto the ledge. There is not one square inch left for any of my things. Not that I have many things. Not everyone's such a vain nutcase. Or hypochondriac. Or both.

I sneeze again. Shit. Snot sprays all over the basin.

Back in the main space, the overhead light casts a fitful glow. Dead moths line the skirting. There's a kitchenette, hideously utilitarian. There are some tall, narrow cupboards, fitted ship-style into the walls, sporting ornamental plastic metal-look-alike handles. There's a double bed, and there's a couch.

Orlando's lying on the couch, on his front, a sheet draped over his bare back. He's reading a book. He's got a Bakelite beaker with water wedged in the corner between metal frame and mattress. A pair of running shoes trails irregular laces onto the floor. A bag is open on the counter. A moist towel is draped over the top of one of the cupboard doors. A script, a paperback, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, some socks, some rings, some necklaces and a diary with multi-coloured Post-its between the pages are all piled onto the window sill. Spreading and spilling himself into the space.

The double bed at the far end, however, is untouched. My bag waits neatly at its foot.

Orlando looks up, sees me, and quickly looks down again. I feel strangely naked. Well, I am strangely naked. Why did he look away? Is my dick still at half-mast? No, it's down. It's behaving itself. So what's the problem? Damn prudish Brits.

The double bed is covered in a mucus-coloured counterpane. Small white-and-yellow daisies are crocheted into its geometric design. It is an expanse of machine-made meadow. There's a hillock at the top end of the mattress, and a hollow from which Orlando must have pilfered his pillow.

"You know," I say, "I don't need such a large bed. You should sleep there."

"No, no," says Orlando, turning a page of his book. "I'm fine here. You have the big bed. Go on."

"I don't really care where I sleep."

"If you don't care, you might as well sleep in the big bed."

"Well," I say, "okay." And after a few seconds, "Thank you."

It's difficult to continue feeling irritated with someone who's just given you the only comfortable bed in the room. Who's lying there, quite still and peaceful, not fussing around. Whose touch still lingers on my scalp and whose haircare product fills my nostrils with its pharmaceutical smell.

"I used your shampoo," I say. "Is that okay?"

"Of course," he says, without looking up.

Well, I'm not about to start feeling shy just because he is, so I walk over to my bag and pull out my bathroom things. They don't take up much space. Unlike some, I don't need to take an entire drugstore of personal-hygiene merchandise with me on location shoots. My stuff fits into one small plastic bag, thank you very much. I dig out my loofah-bristled toothbrush and my homeopathic seaweed toothpaste. Also my Japanese tongue scapula.

On the way to the bathroom, I look at Orlando out of the corner of my eyes and see him looking at me out of the corner of his eyes. I then bump into the corner of the kitchenette counter. Shit. I sneeze. "Bless you," says Orlando.

The toothpaste produces its usual sharp ocean tingle on my gums. I say "aaah" to my reflection and scrape the white coating off my tongue. I run my tongue along the roof of my mouth. Always feels funny when freshly scraped. I put the damp toothbrush and the scapula and the toothpaste tube down among Orlando's things. They nestle into the unfamiliar trove.

When I get back out, Orlando's still lying on his front. He's still quiet. He's still pretending to read. I know he's only pretending because... Well, I don't know, actually. I'm guessing. But when I look out the window, I don't see the lights of the other huts and trailers; I see Orlando's face reflected behind me. Rain streams down the pane, and behind the vertical stripes is Orlando's face, hovering in the blackness, and behind Orlando's face is the dark forest, and deep in the dark forest are the glints of two pupils. Orlando's pupils. Orlando's eyes looking at me from behind.

Another sneeze. Maybe I shouldn't be sleeping naked tonight. I always sleep naked. I don't own any pyjamas. I dig around in my bag and pull out a T-shirt. This can be my night-shirt. No shorts, though. I don't bother with those. The body must breathe. The balls must swing loose in the night. What else do I need? Shooting schedule, alarm clock, bottle of mineral water. Yes, there's still some left; it's half full. I take a swig. The clock won't fit on the window sill, it keeps falling off. The bottle almost falls off, too, but I catch it in time -- not fast enough, though, to prevent the lid from rolling under the bed with a plasticky clickety sound. So here I am, on my bare knees, brushing aside the dust bunnies to get at the small green cog of a lid. I screw it back on. I stand the bottle on the floor next to the bed. I stand the alarm clock on the floor next to the bottle. I look for the shooting schedule -- it promptly slides off the bed and spills sheets all over the floor, upsetting both bottle and alarm clock. In fact, setting off the stupid alarm clock which starts beeping monotonously. I wham my hand onto its cocky top.

Orlando chortles.

Yes, true. I am causing ten times more of a ruckus than he is. It's me who's expending the mental energy. I need to regroup. I need to gather myself in. I need to focus.

"Okay," I say, "why haven't you got an alarm clock, anyway? You're not relying on me to get you up, are you?"

Orlando digs down behind his pillow and waves his cellphone in the air. He's actually grinning. I think he's laughing at me.

Okay, okay, that's right. Go ahead and laugh at me. Chortle. Mock. Do whatever. Look at me in that stupid way, if you must. Look at me and crinkle your eyes up in that ridiculous fashion. And look away again. Too quickly. And yawn, why don't you. Go right ahead, yawn away. Yawn so that I can see all the way into your mouth, past your pink tongue and your pink throat, all the way down to your freaking tonsils. No need to cover up that yawn, no need at all.

Actually, I'd better get under the covers now. Definitely under the covers. I'm only wearing a T-shirt, after all.

"Shall we turn out the light?" I say.

"Yep," says Orlando. "I'll get it, if you like."

He's up. He's hopping across the floor. The trailer shakes. His shoulders are bare, his chest is smooth, his necklace glints. And he's got something on his stomach, some sort of... tattoo thing. Yes. Ridiculous. Next, he'll be showing me his cock ring. I mean, not that I'm thinking about... Not at all.

The noise of the rain gets louder as soon as the trailer is dark. Everything takes on a blueish-orangey tint. The window is streaked with luminously liquid lines.

"Well," I say. "Okay. Good night."

"Night-night," says Orlando's voice. "Sleep tight. Bed bugs and all that."

I don't like this bed. It smells musty, and the mattress is too springy. The pillow is too fat and feathers poke out its side. I don't need a pillow, anyway. It's not healthy to sleep with a pillow. Cricks the spine. The sheets are tucked in, military-style. I lie straight, and I think of Strider. I think of the hardness of a forest floor, of the mossy bumps and curled-up leaf litter, of the fluttering of tiny insects and the stridulations of cicadas. Of the heavens above and the worm-filled earth below. I think of the comfortable sweaty smell of my sleeping bag, of the rough texture of its insides, the blunt teeth of its zipper.

The air in this trailer is stifling. "Can we open a window?" I say.

"Fine," says Orlando. "Go ahead. I might have known you'd be a fresher, not a fugger."

"A what?" What's he going on about now? First-years at school? Fuckers?

He's laughing again, the son of a jerk. "You Yanks," he says. "Freshers are people who like to sleep with the windows open, freezing their balls off. And fuggers, they like to keep the windows closed and sleep in a warm fug."

"So which are you?" I ask, annoyed. Just what I need, a bedtime lesson in British habits of aeration.

"I couldn't get the windows to open," he says.

Right. I'm kneeling on the bed and it's true, the damn windows won't open. There's a handle, there's a catch, there's a latch, there are all sorts of attachments and adjustments -- but nothing budges. I rattle, I shake, I bang the plastic frame in frustration.

There. The banging seems to have done the trick. One of the windows pops right open. In fact, pops right out. Goes berdump and hangs out of its frame, dangling by one half of a hinge.

Orlando is laughing quite shamelessly now. "Did you just smash the window with your fist, Viggo?" he says. "Did you just put your fist through that window and..."

"Oh, do shut up." I'm yanking at the window. No use. It continues to dangle, like a milk tooth hanging by a shred of skin.

Orlando's giggling. "I never knew it was going to be so entertaining sharing with you," he says. "I thought it'd just be go-to-bed and lights-out."

Rain falls through the open window onto my sheet. I pull the drapes across, crawl around, find my raspy-thin towel and wedge it against the sill. A moist breeze wafts by. Smell of earth, smell of wet grass, smell of dank undergrowth.

Time to go to sleep.

There's a lot of rustling coming from the couch. A pillow is plumped. Sheets are shuffled. A body moves about from left to right. Every now and again, there's a last little chuckle.

"Orli," I say.

The rustling stops. "Yeah?" says Orlando.

How to broach this? "The thing is," I say. I sneeze again. My hair is damp against the sheet. "Orli. I need to meditate tomorrow. I need to meditate before we go on set. Before we go to make-up. First thing."

"Oh," says Orlando. "Okay."

"I mean..." Yes, I am mean. "I mean that I need to be alone. To meditate. I need to be alone for about an hour."

"Oh," says Orlando again. "So: what? You want me to leave the trailer at four-thirty tomorrow morning, one full hour before we actually have to get up, so that you can meditate?"

"Yes," I say.

"Okay," says Orlando. "That's fine. I'll go and wake the hobbits. It'll be fun."

I was wrong before, about wanting to share with Sean or Harry because they sure as hell would never put up with me throwing them out of their trailer at some ungodly hour. Only Richard... Well, Richard would probably be up himself. Richard probably gets up at three a.m. every morning to sew buttons on the orc costumes and dust down the swords.

"I'm sorry," I say. Although I'm not.

"Don't worry about it, man," says Orlando's voice, disembodied in the dark, coming from somewhere beyond my feet. "It's good that you do this. I admire it. I admire how you're so serious about your acting."

Hmph. I sneeze again. There's an itch at the base of my throat.

Clickety-click click. I lift my head. Orlando's cell is blinking. He's got it in his hands. He seems to be reprogramming his alarm.

A faint orange quadrangle shivers against the ceiling. Dark dots coagulate in oily slivers. It's the spectral twin of the window above me. Dried lentils roll around in a sieve -- that's what the rain sounds like. Somewhere, somebody coughs. Somewhere, somebody bangs something. Somewhere, something hoots. There's a lot of creaking and scuffling coming from the couch. Scrabbling noises. Rubbing noises. Shoving and shifting and shuffling noises.

"Orli," I say.

"Yeah?"

"You're obviously uncomfortable there."

"No, I'm fine. Really."

"This big bed is bad enough so the couch must be worse. And you've got that back of yours to think about."

"My back's fine."

I sneeze. "Look, just come in here with me."

Silence.

"Look," I say again. This is stupid. I feel stupid. "I feel bad about you being on that couch." Phlegm clogs my throat. I cough. "Why don't you just come in here with me? If you sleep like shit and if you do your back in, I don't want to be the one who gets the blame."

Rustle. Shuffle.

"Anyway, I can't sleep with you squirming around over there so just get your butt on in here."

Orlando laughs. "Okay," he says. "Okay, I give in."

More shuffling, more rustling. Orlando's shadowy shape appears to the side of my bed. The mattress springs on its sprung base.

"I bet you just want to infect me with your cold," he says.

"I don't have a cold," I say. I sneeze. I wheeze.

"Okay," says Orlando. "No cold. Whatever you say, Viggo."

A blanket flops onto my legs, gets pulled away again. The mattress sags. "Don't you want your pillow?" I can hear his jaw click. More rustling, more shoving, more shuffling of feet against mine. "Oops, sorry."

"Is this better than the couch, at least?" I say.

"Ooh, yeah. Very cosy. I've always wanted to snuggle up with a nice filthy Human. Covered in dog shit." He's laughing again, the little... He's laughing at me. I seem to be a one-man amusement generator. Great. And oh shit, now he's rolling towards me. He's going to... No, he's just poking me in the ribs. Well, don't poke too much. Don't poke any lower than that. Because, remember, I'm not wearing any shorts here. Maybe... Yes, maybe I'd better turn over, turn my back to him.

This mattress is not only musty but also very saggy and loose as a moose's balls. There's a V-shape to this bed, with me clinging to one shank of the V, and Orlando no doubt clinging to the other shank, and a sharp, perilous trough in the middle.

I sneeze again. I roll into the trough.

"Do you need a hankie?" asks Orlando.

"No," I say. He's in the trough, too. Who can think of hankies at a time like this?

Luckily, I've still got my back to him. I claw my way up the V again. Stupid idea, inviting him into my bed. Definitely a stupid idea. I should learn to resist these philanthropic urges. But the bed is getting nice and warm now, the blanket's getting heavy, gravity is pulling me down...

And now we're floating. We're floating on some sort of raft thing. Half bed, half raft. It's raining; it's drumming loudly on the roof, except there is no roof. Only the heavens above. Someone else is here, too, a warm presence, could be Orlando, could be Richard...

"Viggo?"

"What? What?" I lurch to the surface of the dream and gasp for air.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Okay? Yes, of course I am. What?"

"Do you want a decongestant or a nurofen or something? You were sort of huffing and wheezing."

Haaa-choo! "No, I wasn't." Shit.

"You were. You are. You just put spray all over my face."

"Oh, shut up, Orli, that's gross."

"It's not me who did the spraying!"

"Look, just leave me to suffer in peace. And I don't take painkillers. I'll have some echinacea in the morning." If I remembered to pack any. And those herbal lozenges I got in Wellington. And yes, I guess I am wheezing. In fact, I feel like shit, come to think of it. There's fire in my throat. There's porridge in my eyeballs. My sinuses are wobbling about like udders. My ears are popping and my head's stuffed full of snot.

Why, oh why, did I not bundle up better when I went exploring? At least he hasn't said "I told you so." Well, that would be because he hasn't told me so. Because nobody told me so. Because I didn't let anybody know that I was going into the forest. Because I just pissed off, and now I'm piss-sick

"Really?" says Orlando. "You don't take any painkillers? You don't even take lemsip?"

"Lemsip? What's lemsip?"

"Don't you have it in the States? A sort of lemon drink with vitamin C and paracetamol. Good against colds."

"I do acupressure," I say.

"Acu-what?"

"You know." I try to sigh but have to wheeze instead. "Pressure points on the body. Ancient Chinese technique." Or was that Japanese?

"Oh, right. How does that work then?"

"Well." I half-sit up and turn around. "For example, if I rub my cheekbones here, that's good for my sinuses."

"Here? Just here?"

I show him how to use the thumb and the middle finger, and how to rotate them just so and just where. I don't know why I'm doing this. His face is very close to mine. He's copying my movements, he's pressing, he's rotating, and all of a sudden he's pushed my hands away and he's pressing and rotating on me. The pads of his fingers dig into my cheeks, and yes, he's rather good at this. He's got big strong hands, and wide strong fingers. He doesn't stab, he presses firmly, and he rotates firmly, and I can feel the snot crackling inside my sinuses.

"Is that right like this?" he says.

"Yeah. That's the... Hm." Somehow my eyes seem to have fallen shut. "That's the... the zygomatic bone, yes, and that's for the... hm, maxillary sinus..."

He's pressing, he's rotating. The snot in my head is crackling and popping. Small explosions vibrate through my cranial cavities.

The only problem is that in order to show Orlando how to do the acupressure, I've had to turn round. And turning round reminds me that I've got nothing on underneath my T-shirt. And my sinuses crackling and popping reminds me, with no apparent link or connection, of my dick, and when my dick gets remembered, it gets hard. And that's too bad. Or not. Well, it doesn't really bother me. Or shouldn't. It's all part of nature, right? And Scandinavians love to be natural. We Danes, we feel very free and easy about being natural. Well, maybe not that free and easy. Maybe just free and easy enough to turn round but not quite free and easy enough to relax and roll into the trough. Instead, I'm tensing my lower body backwards in a desperate concave arch.

Orlando's still massaging my zygomatic bones. The rain's still dripping outside. The rain is weaving a cocoon of water round the trailer. Orlando's face glimmers orange. His fingers are warm and firm and strong. Snot continues to crickle and crackle behind my nostrils. I give a long, wet sniff.

"Is it working?" says Orlando.

"Yes," I say. "See? I don't need paracetamol."

"No," says Orlando. "You don't. Because you've got me."

I'm getting quite relaxed now. I relax into his firm and hard fingers, and that's a mistake, because Orlando relaxes at the same time. We roll into each other. We roll into the trough, and my groin rolls into his thigh.

"Hullo," says Orlando. He gives a little chuckle. Doesn't take his fingers off my face, though. Continues to press and rotate.

"Hello what?" I croak.

"Hullo-hullo," murmurs Orlando. It's not at all clear what he's going on about. I'm lying still as a stick, dick hard against his sweatpants, and he's moving slightly, rubbing against me. It can't possibly be on purpose; it's because his arms are moving, and his arms are moving because his fingers are moving, and his fingers are moving because he's rubbing my maxillary sinuses. And now I let out a little gasp, and that's because my maxillary sinuses are clearing, my airways are unblocking so that breath goes in and breath goes out, and that, as everybody knows, causes gasping. Gasping in short spurts. Spurting short gasps.

I move a little, just to adjust. Just to get more comfortable. No, just to get away from Orlando's sweatpants. But of course, there's the trough and the V and the rain and the orange light glinting in Orlando's eyes and the silver light glinting on Orlando's chest, and all of that combined means that I, well, move into him instead of away from him.

It's only a small miscalculation. Anybody could make it. Into instead of away. Into and onto. Onto Orlando, onto Orlando's thigh, and he says, "Mmm", and he moves his hands to my head -- are there any pressure points on my head? -- and he's kissing my lips.

How the fuck did his lips get onto my lips?

One minute I'm lying there, having my cheeks massaged, and the next minute I can feel his breath on my skin, and maybe, just maybe, I happen to purse my lips a little, and maybe his lips just happen to be in the way of my lips, and whatever and however, the upshot is: we're touching lips.

Okay, I should stop this.

He's not Sean, after all, and he's not Harry. And he most certainly isn't Richard. But he's not stopping. He's stopped pressing and rotating but he hasn't stopped touching lips. He's pressing and rotating his lips against mine. Pressing, rotating and yes, licking. Definitely licking.

Ridiculous. This is Orlando, after all. This wasn't meant to happen. This... Well, it's difficult to think in this position, in this sort of on-top-of-Orlando position, with my tongue trapped and strangled by Orlando's tongue, and my lips being eaten by Orlando's lips, and with him going "mmm" in that abandoned way, and with me going "hm", and yes, well, thoughts have... gone somewhere else. Gone off into the forest. Stalked off into the night, shinned down a thread of rain, gurgled into a drain.

And what's he doing now? Surely not... Surely not cupping my ass? No, can't be. I'm hallucinating. It's the sinuses; it's the stuffed nose, playing with my sense perception. There's nothing on my ass, nothing at all. Except where are his hands? No longer on my head. Oh... I see. That's where they are. Oh. Well. Oh. God. Fuck. This is... fast. This is... How did this start to happen so fast? In way over my head here. Should pull... away. A bit later. Pull away in a minute. Just another minute. Another minute won't do any harm.

God. He's taken off his sweatpants. Because that is flesh. That is definitely, most definitely, a naked human dick. A very naked, very human and very hard, a hard-as-a-fucking-plank dick. Against my hip. Against my own dick. He's rubbing it up against me, and his hands are moving to my balls. And...

"Sorry, what?" I gasp. Did he just speak?

"Let me just get something," he whispers in my ear. "Don't go away."

He's gone. The mattress bounces back up. The room bounces back into focus. Rain bounces off the window and the wedged towel. My thoughts bounce off the walls, they collide with the kitchenette cupboards, they tangle in the puke-coloured drapes, they ricochet from all corners of this trailer like fucking billiard balls, and...

He's back.

Fuck. He's back in the bed. He's got them. He's brought the fucking condoms from the ledge above the bathroom washbasin.

"Orli," I say. "Orli."

"Yes?" He's whispering. He's lying on top of me, whispering against my face. His forehead feels damp. I can feel his heart through my T-shirt.

"Orli, have you done this before?"

There's no answer. Aeons tick by, and there's still no answer.

No answer means 'no'. No answer means 'no go'.

"Why? Have you?" he says.

What sort of a question... Oh. Right. That sort of a question. The sort of a question one guy asks another guy when they're lying on top of each other at night in bed, rubbing their hard dicks into each other's bellies. The sort of question one guy who's holding a condom in a foil wrapper asks another guy who's holding his breath.

"Yes," I say.

God. This is not something I planned to divulge to Orlando. This is not something he's even supposed to know about. Shit.

"Now you," I say. "Have you?"

Silence again. Finally, "It depends."

"It depends?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'this'. When you ask, 'have you done this', -- do you mean, as in lying around naked with another bloke? Because in that case, yes, I have done that." He's kissing my face now; ridiculous. "Or do you mean, as in, have I ever buggered another bloke, or been buggered, and in that case I have to say 'no', I haven't. And..." He's whispering again. Whispering into my ear again, blowing his hot moist breath right up my auditory canal, setting my ossicles and my cochlea jingling. "And if you mean by 'have I done this before', do I want to do it, do I want to do it now, then maybe... Maybe you'd better ask another question."

Shit. What's made him so articulate all of a sudden? I'm certainly not articulate. I can barely understand his question, let alone formulate a response. All I can do is stare at him, stare at his face in the half-light, and move my hips. Damn hips. Auto-reflex. They tend to do that when they get ground against. When they get run aground. When the ground gets pulled from underneath me and the air gets kissed out of my lungs and intelligence gets blown out through my ears.

"What?" I say, intelligently.

"Viggo," he whispers. Jingle-jangle. "Do you want to do this now? Do you want to fuck?"

"God, Orli," I gasp. "What's got into you?"

"Mmm." He's got his mouth against my neck. He's fumbling with the packet. Foil rips. I can smell that familiar... Actually, I don't want to think about exactly how familiar that latex smell is to me. He's holding the condom in his hand. It's still rolled up. The hard little circle of rolled-up rubber is pressing against my belly.

"Hang on," I say, gasp, pant, whatever. "Listen, you better do me."

"How do you mean?"

Shit. Do I need to spell it out? Well, fuck, here goes. I've come this far. No harm in confessing more. In fact, no point in not. "You, Orli, you do me. Because... well, because I'm more used to it." There, I've said it. I've as good as told him that this is not a one-off thing for me. "And if you haven't, it's easier..."

"Okay," he says. He doesn't seem bothered by any of my confessions. He's eating my mouth again. He's rotating and pressing his lips against mine. He's rotating his tongue against my tongue, he's rotating his hips against my hips, he's going "mmmm".

There's some fumbling, and some mumbling. He's got the condom on. I lift my knees -- god, this feels so familiar; it's been a while but it still feels very familiar -- and he pushes against me. I have to stop him. I have to put my hand on his chest, against the silver necklace, and I have to say, "No, no, we need something, you know, we need something creamy, some kind of lubricant."

"Oh, right." He pauses. "Hang on a bit." He's off me again. The trailer shakes as he hops across the floor, the bathroom light flickers on, something falls into the basin, the light goes off again. He's back. He's back in the bed. He's back on me. He's hard and firm and warm, and all of his hardness and firmness is on me and pressed against me.

He's got some sort of cream, one of his many bottles of lotion or potion or pimple application or what-do-I-know. What do I care? As long as it's something. Some creamy thing. He's pumping the handle of the bottle, and he's dolloping the stuff all over himself, and all over me, all over the bedclothes too, I shouldn't doubt, shit, we'll be swimming in it. It smells of... well, of something unorganic, anyway, but what the hell, let's get on with it.

And he's not messing about, that's for sure. That is, he is messing about, and who'd have thought that of Orlando? Who'd have... Holy fuck. Is that him? Oh, god.

Oh, my... god. He's... He is big.

He's big, he's hard, he's in. For some reason, we're kissing again, I don't know why. I thought that part was over but it seems not. It seems we're to kiss while we fuck. And there's no denying it, it is actually nice. It's nice to be kissed so nicely, and to move against him, knees up, chin up, tongue out, sinuses forgotten. Oh yes, sex is good for the health alright, it's good for the physical balance, very good. Not so sure about the mental balance. Not so sure at all. Well, I'll figure that one out tomorrow. It's only the one time, after all. No harm in that. No way am I staying in this trailer tomorrow night. Will escape into the forest. With my sleeping bag. But my god, he's...

He's slow, very slow. I like that. I've always liked slow. And he pays attention to rhythm. I like that, too. Last fuck I had, with a man that is, was all over the place, all over the fucking shop, grunting and groaning and sweating. It was fun, sure, yeah, but this... Whoa, this is something else.

Orlando is slow, he's careful, he's very exact, he fucks like a damn metronome. I could play the piano to the rhythm of his fucking. I could play Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, even the difficult bits, and never miss a beat.

He's putting his hands on the sides of my head. No, that's no good, covering up my ears, making my blood rush into my head. I pull his hands away, I put them on my hips, I need to be grounded, need to grind. God, I could go forever, this is some fuck. But now we're speeding up a bit, we're making the mattress scream -- not me, I never scream --, we're making the whole trailer shake and the cupboards rattle. My bottle falls over, and the frigging alarm clock starts beeping again, but who cares, because now the trailer lifts off. Lifts off into the sky, like some oblong flying saucer.

We're looking down on the forest below, all the tops of all the trees, with all their strange and spicy smells, waving their strange serrated leaves in the rain. The encampment lies huddled together in the lone vastness. We rise above the rain clouds, above the rain, above the moon which is horned, serene, silvery white.

And with a gasp and a shake and a roll and a quake, we're back in the bed, clinging to each other like two sweaty marathon runners, with Orlando's necklace digging into my chest and my belly wet with cum.

I'm panting, and Orlando's panting. Our chests are slippery with perspiration. My heart's pounding but my head isn't. My head is quite clear. My throat is calm, my eyes are soft. Nothing's throbbing or itching. My nose doesn't feel stuffed up. In fact, I haven't felt this good in weeks. My muscles feel massaged, my skin is nice and smooth, my lungs are big and open, and my arse is sweet and raw and thoroughly well-fucked. I feel so good and so relaxed that I'm on that raft again, floating out to sea...

"Viggo?"

What? What? Oh, Orlando. He's rolled to the side but don't tell me he wants some sort of post-mortem. Post-sexem, whatever. So yes, he kissed nicely, and he fucked like a concert pianist, and all of that was unexpected and rather sudden -- but now I must sleep. Now I must...

"Your sinuses seem to have cleared." Is he laughing at me again?

"Hm," I manage.

"I'll be able to sleep now," he says into my ear, "without your huffing and puffing."

"Hm," I grunt again. There's cum trickling down my thigh. Where is that towel? Oh, keeping out the infernal rain. Seems to have stopped now, actually. Only intermittent drip-drops can be heard against the metal roof.

"You know," says Orlando, "tomorrow..."

"Tomorrow I'll be sleeping outside," I say quickly. "In my sleeping bag."

"Oh," he says.

There's silence for a while. I'm drifting off again but then the mattress bounces, the springs creak, and Orlando's face is above mine. I've got my eyes closed but I can feel his fingers on my forehead, running along my eyebrows, trailing down the side of my nose, pressing and rotating against my cheekbones, pressing and rotating into the corners of my mouth.

"You're always so serious," he says. "I like that but you should smile more. It's nice. It suits you."

"Why?" I mumble. What is he on about now?

"You smiled when you came," he whispers. "You looked really relaxed."

Did I? Well. I mean... Shit. I open my eyes. I look at Orlando's face in the murky gloom. Orange dots are reflected in his pupils. They glint at the back of his deep-forest eyes. Tiny dots dance in each bead of sweat on his forehead, tiny beads of sweat cling and shudder on the ends of his eyebrows. His cheeks curve downwards in two solemn hyperbolas.

Okay. I smile.

--------

The End.

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to [email protected].

If you want to know what happens to Orlando after Fangorn, read When the Cat's Away and its sequels.

6 October 2002

All original parts of this story: © Lobelia