The Disillusionists cont'd...

We sat by the fire for a while and listened to the wind in the trees. The smoke curled around us and left a familiar cedar imprint on our clothes. Small nocturnal creatures scurried close by, drawn no doubt by the smell of the cheese.

"Oxygenation." Said Mike, stripping an olive pit with his teeth.

"Pardon?"

"Oxygenation," he repeated, "the surf... It's the earth breathing."

I was pretty sure what I heard was the wind in the trees but I couldn't be bothered to argue. It had been a long day and I was tired. I asked Mike instead who the two men in the paintings back at his house were.

"Those? Those are prints I got at a garage sale. I think they were about five bucks each but cost a helluva lot more to get framed. But yeah... they're Thomas More and Oliver Cromwell. I don't really like the Cromwell painting so much. Kind of drab. Supposably Holbien the Younger painted him that way as a reflection of the man. If you look at More, the sleeves of his tunic are just three dimensional... the depth and colour. Vibrancy. The originals are three or four hundred years old, I mean, here's a guy who's willing to give up his life, his wife and family for a principle! I'm not particularly religious but I don't know... the only martyrs you get these days are suicide bombers."

Mike sat back and continued to muse on his general wonderfulness and the sounds that appeared to be coming from between his ears. It seemed though that the trees were now standing stock still. Is what we heard really the surf echoing up from below, baffled by the soft, outstretched arms of the coastal temperate rainforest? We remained silent for a while, interrupted only to make quiet acknowledgement of the passed bottle. Eventually Mike stood up. He left us alone and climbed into the bus. It must have been about two in the morning. Bats swooped close to our heads and scooped up the moths that were attracted to the warmth and light of the fire. An owl eyeballed the bats, but preferred to eat the mice that were busy pilfering the cheese. A line of ants would begin working on the olive pits and a few worms were maneuvering toward the moist pressed soil under the camper's tires.

"I like the way your parents operate," I said to May.

She laughed, "Thanks. I think they had to work on it for a while but they're a lot happier now than I've seen them I guess..."

"Must've been a pretty tough time when all that was going on."

"Yeah." May sighed, "It seems weird that it's really such a long time ago now."

I crossed my legs and rubbed my chin, "Time has lost all meaning to me. No matter how hard I try to slow things down, the faster the days seem to go."

May grabbed my arm, "I know what you mean, I mean..." she took her hand away, "a week used to seem like a month is now."

"And a month a year."

"Exactly. But y'know, when you're two, a year is half your life. So when you're thirty, it's only one-thirtieth."

"Jesus. Imagine what it'd be like when you're a hun'erd."

"Oh god no!"

We laughed at the prospect and then fell into a less awkward silence. May's round face refelected the fire and I leaned over to kiss her. She turned to kiss back and we made contact only slightly askew. She took my hand and placed it firmly on her breast which I thought was a little bit forward but I wasn't about to complain. After a brief consensual struggle I managed to remove both our pants and was soon boning her like no other against the back of the motorhome.

Inside, Mike felt a subtle rocking and at first assumed it was the wind. He rolled over to Alexis like a spoon and was just about to doze off when she said, "You awake?"

"Uh-huh."

"You feel that?"

"Yeah."

They started to laugh. "Oh... It stopped," said Mike.

"Sh-shhh... Listen."

"Did you hear that?"

"Yes."

"Unbelievable... I'm crackin' wood over here."

"Oh gross."

Outside I had unbuttoned May's jacket with one hand and rubbed her clit gently with the other. She melted into me and I rolled her nipple lightly in my fingers and drove my cock deep inside. After a while I thought I might blow my load too soon so I slid down and turned her around and chewed on her sweet pussy. "I muh gonna cum..." she said after I got to the letter zed. I stood back up and started banging like there was no tomorrow. I thought my balls were going to explode. "Don't inside me..." I pulled out and she took me in her mouth. We collapsed together against the bike rack of no pain.

She woke me with a kiss and together we found our pants and shoes and crept into the camper to go to sleep, separately, on the floor.