Sex & Sourdough

Published by

Dreamspinner Press

5032 Capital Circle SW
Suite 2, PMB# 279
Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

USA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Sex & Sourdough

© 2013 A.J. Thomas.

Cover Art

© 2013 Aaron Anderson.

[email protected]

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

ISBN: 978-1-62798-307-5

Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-306-8

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

December 2013

For Eugene, who convinced me that turtles travel in herds.

A
NDERS
SAT
down in the dirt, four hundred miles from home, with nothing but a backpack and basic camping gear, and stared at the black screen of his cell phone. He had been staring at it for over an hour, and he’d turned the damn thing on and off again three times just to replay the angry voice mails. He didn’t want to listen to them again, since it would just waste the battery on his phone, but the furious messages his lover had left him the night before made him feel like getting sick rather than hiking.

The Amicalola Falls Visitor Center parking lot was quiet, since it was a Tuesday morning. Most of the other hikers who had come up on the shuttle from Atlanta had already gotten started. After listening to his lover rage and belittle him until his voice mail cut off the recording, Anders still managed to check in at the ranger station, signing his name and address in the logbook for hikers and backcountry campers in the park. He even made it back across the parking lot and as far as the
stone arch that would eventually lead him to the start of the
Appalachian Trail.

That was where he’d choked.

And where he’d stayed, replaying his lover’s messages like an idiot. The first message was an insulting rant about how stupid it was for Anders to take off hiking on his own, and it continued until the message time cut off Joel’s rant. The second message was Joel screaming about how he planned to punish Anders for not keeping his phone turned on. The third, which he really didn’t want to listen to again, was a slurred, hissing series of insults in which Joel accused him of taking this trip without him just so he could fuck around behind Joel’s back. Since they were recordings, there was no way for Anders to remind Joel that the only reason he was out here alone was because Joel had decided to sign up for a summer class two days before they were supposed to begin this hike together. That was probably for the best, since arguing with him would just make Joel angrier.

He turned his phone on and drew circles in the dirt, waiting for it to connect to the weak cellular signal. He got as far as entering his voice mail pin number before he came to his senses. With trembling fingers, he deleted the first three messages as they began to play.

Then his phone announced that he had one new voice mail. “Anders, baby, I’m so sorry that I got upset last night,” Joel’s recorded voice—sweet, calm, and sober this time—said through the phone. “You know how crazy I get when I think about us being apart. So, there’s a little store near Neels Gap, about thirty miles from the start of the trail. I’ve still got two weeks before my class starts, and I can drive down and meet you there on Friday. You should be able to get there in four days to meet me, and we’ll talk about how you’re going to make this up to me when I get there. Love you, baby.”

Anders looked down at the phone after the message ended and deleted it too.

Just so he didn’t feel stupid for wasting more of his phone’s battery, he snapped a picture of the sign next to the arch, and then turned the phone off again. Once the phone was back in his pocket, he climbed to his feet and looked down the trail beyond the stone arch. It was just dirt, the same as on the parking lot side.

“You all right there, Butch?”

Anders looked around. The only hiker near him was a large, scruffy man with a full brown beard, a thick baby-blue down coat and heavy gloves. He looked like he was ready for a mountaineering expedition instead of a spring hike on what promised to be a sunny day. Anders himself already felt warm in a light fleece, and he hadn’t even started moving yet. Between the man’s beard, sunglasses, and layers of clothes, Anders wasn’t sure if he was a hiker or a transient. He had a faded old backpack on, and a set of scratched and dented hiking poles, so he had to be a hiker.

Anders looked around again, trying to figure out who the stranger was talking to. Anders was anything but butch. He was only five foot seven, and at a hundred and sixty pounds, he was so skinny he was often mistaken for a teenager, even at twenty-three.

Anders recalled all of the warnings his parents had issued about psychopaths roaming this trail, then banished the thoughts immediately. Dressing for subzero temperatures during the last week of April and calling Anders butch might mean the man was out of touch with reality, but that wasn’t always the same thing as dangerous.

“Most people don’t start having second thoughts until two days in,” the man continued.

“I’m not having second thoughts.”

“You sure about that?”

“My hiking partner decided to ditch me, and I’m just not sure it’s a good idea to go through with this.”

“Ditched you? How far were you planning on going?”

Anders tried to shrug, not that he could with a forty-pound pack weighing his shoulders down. They had been planning on going however far they could get before the beginning of September. Anders had rushed through his finals and skipped his own commencement ceremony so they would have a full four months to complete the hike. But now, when Anders had only ever set up his new tent in Joel’s living room for practice, even hiking the thirty miles to the place where Joel had said he’d be waiting seemed daunting. Hiking the thousand miles they’d planned, to finish half of the Appalachian Trail, was definitely not going to happen.

“We were just going to hike, see how far we could get this summer. We were aiming for Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He said he’d try to meet me at some place called Neels Gap in four days….” Anders shrugged again. “I’m just not sure what to do.”

The bearded man looked him up and down, then smirked. “Seriously? This isn’t the most complicated hobby in the world, but I guess I could give you a hand, if you really need it.”

“Huh?”

“Trust me. First, turn your body about thirty degrees to the right.”

“What?”

“You’ll have to trust me.”

Anders smiled despite his mood and turned his body so he was facing the arch head-on.

“Now, pick up your left foot and take a step. And now your right foot. And the left again. See? Nothing to it.”

Anders laughed and stumbled forward. With the larger man shoving his backpack and nearly throwing him off balance, those three steps had taken him through the stone arch. “That’s not what I meant.”

“One foot after the other.” The man clapped him on the shoulder. “Everything else sorts itself out eventually. Oh, and Harpers Ferry? It’s near the Virginia border, but technically, it’s part of West Virginia.”

Anders looked back through the arch at the parking lot. An older couple with hiking poles hurried past them, smiling brightly. If he turned back now, he could still catch a shuttle back to town, catch the bus back to Atlanta, and fly home to Jacksonville. Joel wouldn’t be mad at him, but he’d be stuck doing volunteer work all summer, building his resume with the internship his father was so damn excited about. And afterward he would be stuck in law school, or at his father’s firm, or marrying one of the four daughters of his father’s business partners. If he went back now, he would never get another chance to do this. If Joel did show up in four days, there was a slim chance Anders would be able to persuade him to come along, or to meet him farther along the trail once his summer class was over. There was still a chance this summer would turn out the way Anders had hoped, but the only way that chance could become a reality was if he got moving.

“West Virginia?” Anders asked. Joel had told him it was in Virginia, but he hadn’t bothered to look it up. “It’s just nine miles, isn’t it?”

“To West Virginia? I’m pretty sure it’s more than nine miles. Once you get there, it’s awesome.” The larger man laughed. “I’ve only seen it coming south, but it’s beautiful.”

“I mean to the start of the trail.”

“Are you stopping at the trailhead?” The scruffy man in the blue down coat bobbed ahead of him, moving fast. “Come on, Butch, you can do it. Don’t think about miles. Just think about putting one foot in front of the other.”

Anders tried to keep up, but it soon became obvious he was not in the best of shape. The other man moved up Springer Mountain as though the pack and heavy clothing weighing him down didn’t exist. Anders lost sight of him within thirty seconds. Once he was alone, Anders settled into a comfortable, slow pace. Every time his thoughts wandered to Joel, he looked down at his new hiking boots and watched each step he took. The simple act of putting one foot in front of the other, of focusing on the physical world instead of the resentment and fear simmering inside of him, really did make the distance seem to melt away.

He stopped for lunch near a waterfall, wished he’d bought a point-and-shoot camera, and then continued up the mountain. The camera built into his phone had always been good enough, but now he didn’t want to risk running down the battery in case he actually needed to call for help. As the early morning chill faded and the world began to get warm, he stopped to strip off his fleece jacket, passed by the older couple where they were taking a break for lunch, and found himself returning their easy smiles.

Some of his confidence and excitement about this trip, which had evaporated when he realized how angry Joel was with him, began to come back.

Anders reached the southern end of the Appalachian Trail in the late afternoon. He turned his phone on long enough to take a picture of the plaque marking the beginning of the trail, commemorating the workers of the Civilian Conservation Corps who had built it, and then looked down the trail, where he could see a long series of the white rectangular blazes painted along the trail itself. Every year they were freshly painted—on trees, rocks, or wooden signs—to help hikers tell the Appalachian Trail from the thousands of side trails, game trails, and random paths that intersected its two-thousand-mile stretch. Joel had shown him maps of Georgia sections they would hike first, including the color-coded legends that labeled the side trails that would lead them to water, shelters, or to roads and eventually towns where they would be able to buy supplies.