Day 9: A Long Strange Trip by Daisy Morgan

This is the first chapter of a WIP. It takes place at the end of the Satan’s Witches tag.

Sunday

“Starsky, look, I can have the car packed and we can get out of here by nightfall, huh?”

“Says nature boy pining for the city.” All of a sudden, my nature-loving partner decided he’d rather be anywhere but up here at Pine Lake.

“After what we went through with those weirdos last night, my vacation is ruined!”

“Shh…”

“What?”

“Fish.” Hutch was gonna scare ’em away if he didn’t start keeping his trap shut. “The only thing that’s ruining your vacation are these ten happy, fat trout.”

“Oh come on!”

“The only thing you caught was an allergy.”

“That has nothin’ to do with it,” Hutch protested. “I don’t care if you caught ten thousand of those little suckers; it was all beginner’s luck.”

Hmm, looks like my partner’s getting a little jealous of my superior fishing ability.

“I just wanna get outta here!”

“Scared of the woods?” I teased him.

“All I had last night were bad dreams because of those weirdos.”

“And all I did was dream of the beauties of nature.” I was getting under his skin now, and he was getting more and more frustrated.

“I wanna split!” Hutch yelled.

“And I wanna stay,” I replied calmly. I told him that I’d had an epiphany since coming here to these virgin woods, and that I was starting to feel one with nature. But my poor partner was trying everything he could to convince me to cut short my newfound love of trout fishing.

Luckily, Hutch had some help from a growling bear.

“Come on guys!” I clucked nervously to my newfound fish friends as me and Hutch walked quickly towards Hutch’s Galaxie, which was parked in front of the cabin.

And that’s when we realized the growling was coming from inside the car.

“Oh shit, Hutch, what are we gonna do?”

“Shhh! Get in the cabin! But don’t run. Just walk backwards real slow until we get to the door.”

“Shouldn’t we make a run for it?”

“No. The bear’ll chase us.”

We backed up slowly to the cabin door and pushed our way safely inside. I opened a kitchen cabinet, grabbed a plate and laid the newly-caught trout on it, then stuck it in the icebox to keep cool.

“Well, what are we gonna do now?”

“Gimme one of those fish, will you?”

“Hutch, how can you be hungry at a time like this!”

“I don’t want to eat it, dummy, I want to use it to lure the bear out of my car!”

“Oh, good idea.” That’s my partner, always thinking.

Hutch grabbed the trout out of my hand, held it up by its tail, opened the cabin door, and cautiously peered outside. The bear was rummaging around in the backseat, eating from the box of Wheaties that Hutch had bought at the grocery store in town the day we arrived. He flung the trout as far from us as he could and waited to see what the bear would do.

As I peered over Hutch’s shoulder, the bear jumped down out of the car and waddled unhurriedly towards the limp fish lying on the ground some feet away, gingerly picking it up in its mouth as it sauntered away towards the woods.

When it seemed safe, me and Hutch cautiously made our way out of the cabin toward the car, but we stopped dead in our tracks when we saw what the bear had done while we’d been arguing about who was the better fisherman. Inside, shredded pieces of foam and leather were strewn everywhere, mixed with crumbs from the cereal. Hanging on the floor, its cord badly frayed and mangled, was our police radio. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. Somehow the bear had managed to puncture two of the tires, and there was only one spare in the trunk.

“Oh, that’s just great!” Hutch yelled. “Look at my car! Do you know how much I paid for those tires?”

“Knowing you, not much. Shit!” I slammed my fist against my thigh. “Next time you want me to go fishing with you in the woods, Hutch, you can get bent!”

“Calm down, let’s just think about this, Starsk. We need to figure out how to get out of here. It’s only ten or so miles into town, right? So we should probably just start walking before it gets dark completely.”

Hutch apparently thought his suggestion was helpful. Have I mentioned that this whole shitty weekend vacation was his idea? No? Well, don’t worry, I made sure to remind him of that every chance I got.

As we started down the dirt road, a sudden flash of lightning gave us pause, as it was immediately followed by a loud boom of thunder overhead. Terrific. The storm was right on top of us, and everywhere around us were tall trees. We were in the worst possible place you can be during a thunderstorm, except for maybe in the middle of a swimming pool.

Seems that in our excitement over the bear, we hadn’t noticed how dark and thick with thunderclouds the sky had gotten.

And then the rain started.

We quickly ran back toward the cabin, arms raised in a futile attempt to shield our heads from the driving rain. Hutch started up a fire in the fireplace and we stripped off our clothes. We hung them up to dry and sat on the sofa in our underwear, drinking beer and huddling under our sleeping bags as we shivered in the chilly cabin.

“Now what?” I asked as we looked at each other.

“I don’t know. Storm’s gotta end sometime, right? Thunderstorms don’t last long, and when it stops, we’ll head back to town.”

“When it stops? It’s gonna be dark soon, Hutch. And there’s no way I’m walking ten miles through the woods in the dark. No, we should just stay the night and walk into town tomorrow, when it’ll be nice and warm and sunshiny.”

“Suddenly you’re no longer one with nature, huh, Starsk?”

I glared at him.

While our clothes dried from the warmth of the fireplace, the rain continued to pour down, long after the thunder and lightning had stopped. Hutch picked up my wrist and examined my watch.

“Six pm. Well, at least this overpriced gadget is useful for something.”

“You know somethin’?” I asked him.

“What?”

“I’m getting hungry. Think we can fry up that trout?”

“Sure thing, buddy, why not?” We got up from the sofa, quickly threw on our mostly-dry clothes and headed into the kitchen. “Let’s see if there’s anything I can cook with it,” Hutch said, rooting around the shelf near the stove. He pulled down a bottle of vegetable oil, some jars of dried seasonings, and the salt and pepper shakers.

“Just don’t add any acorns or other weird ingredients, okay?” I remarked dryly.

“Don’t worry, we’re all out of acorns and bear meat,” Hutch chirped, “unless you wanna volunteer to go outside in the rain and gather some.” Then his eyes lit up as he spied something on the counter. “Hey, I forgot about these! Look!” He held out a handful of spongy, mysterious brownish-white objects.

“What are those?”

“Mushrooms. I picked them the first day we got here. Guess I forgot about ’em, on account of those weird Satanists. These’ll be great to cook with the trout.”

I eyed the fungus suspiciously. “I said no weird ingredients, Hutch.”

“Starsky, these are wild mushrooms. There’s nothing weird about them.”

“Think I’ll pass.”

“Well, suit yourself,” Hutch replied as he chopped the mushrooms and threw them into the frying pan with the trout. “More for me, then.”

When the fish was finished cooking, Hutch transferred it onto two plates, shoveling all the sautéed mushrooms onto his own plate. I grabbed us some more beers and we sat near the fireplace to enjoy our meal. I settled on the sofa while Hutch made himself comfortable on the leather recliner. As the evening wore on, it had grown increasingly chilly in the cabin despite the fire, and now it was starting to get dark outside.

Not long afterwards, Hutch began to yawn; just a few times at first and then uncontrollably.

He looked over toward the window. “It’s getting late. Maybe we should just go to bed now and head over to town in the morning.”

Go to bed? It wasn’t even 7pm yet.

Hutch started to get up from the chair but suddenly fell back, blinking his eyes and shaking his head as if trying to clear something away.

“Whatsa matter?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. I’m starting to feel woozy all of a sudden.”

Before I could respond, his mouth opened wide in a yawn and I watched as all his muscles went limp as he sprawled lifeless on the chair.

“Hutch, hey Hutch!” Alarmed, I jumped up from where I was sitting and lightly slapped his cheeks to get him to respond, but it was as if he’d been drugged or something, like what happened a few months ago when we were undercover in that mental hospital.

But what the hell was happening now?

“You okay, Hutch? Talk to me.” I gripped his shoulders and tried my best to sound calm, but suddenly, I was feeling anything but calm. Outside, it had begun thundering and lightning again.

Instead of looking at me, he looked past me at the moose head that was hanging on the wall next to the fireplace, his eyes open wide in amazement.

“Starsk… it’s moving, Starsk…”

“What is?”

“The moose. Shh!”

He was staring at it, mesmerized.

“It’s talking to me. How’s it doing that?”

Oh, boy. I realized what the problem was. Those damn mushrooms. We’d worked with the narc unit enough times to know the symptoms of psilocybin and we’d seen some cases firsthand, too. If Hutch ate magic mushrooms, we were in for at least six hours of excitement.

A loud clap of thunder overhead startled us, and Hutch turned his attention away from the moose and toward the sound of the noise.

“Loud… loud… the thunder… it’s everywhere, Starsk.”

“It’s just the storm. It’ll pass.”

“No… we’re inside of it… it’s all around us, enveloping us. We’re part of it now.”

“Okay. Listen, I think you ate—”

But I didn’t get to finish because Hutch’s head lolled back in the chair and his eyes glazed over, and he wasn’t listening to me anymore.

As lightning flashed outside, I wondered what movie my partner was watching on the inside of his closed eyelids. I quickly ran over to the windows and closed the curtains.

Hutch was quiet for a few minutes, but then I saw his muscles twitching and he began to squirm. “Itches, Starsk, itches… ITCHES!” he yelped, frantically trying to scratch himself all over, and I do mean ALL over. One minute he was scratching his head and chest, and the next he was stuffing his hands down his pants in a frenzy, and I worried about what his long fingernails from guitar picking would inadvertently do down there.

“It’s okay, Hutch, it’s not real. Just take it easy.” I tried to sound reassuring as I struggled to pull his hands from out of his pants, but I didn’t remember psilocybin causing tactile sensations like that. This was more like an LSD trip. Hutch was too far gone to listen to anything I was telling him, and he continued to thrash around on the chair, clawing at his face, arms, and chest… every place he could get at.

“No, no, no…” he slurred.

Impulsively, I jumped on top of him and put my whole weight on his body as I struggled to hold his arms down. “Calm down, okay, I think you ate some funny mushrooms. Try to think of something else. Hey, when we get back to the city, how ’bout we go to the Pits and get ourselves a proper dinner? A couple of Huggy’s specials, some cold beer, and a game of pool. Huh? Whaddya say, sound good?”

But Hutch was still struggling beneath my grip and I don’t think he heard a word I said. Thank God he still recognized who I was, or we would’ve been in even bigger trouble. “Scratch my back… my back, it itches… Starsk—”

“It’s okay, just try to relax. I’m right here.” Still sitting on Hutch’s legs, I reached my arms around him and pulled him slightly forward so he was leaning against me, and then I ran my hands up and down his back, digging into his shirt as hard as I could with my fingernails to try to soothe the itching. “How’s that? That better?”

But he just kept mumbling and thrashing and complaining about how it wouldn’t stop.

I pulled his shirt out of his jeans and dug my fingernails into his bare skin. I was sweating bullets and breathing heavily, and I could feel Hutch’s heart pounding beneath his shirt and his hot shallow breaths against my neck.

After a few minutes, he started to calm down.

“See, you’re okay now,” I said, relieved, and Hutch responded by mumbling something about how the itching had almost stopped. “That’s good, babe, it’s okay now,” I repeated slowly and soothingly until he quieted down some more. For a while, I continued to hold him as I ran my nails gently up and down his back, which at that point was just as clammy as mine was.

When it seemed the thing had passed, I slowly pulled away and stood up. “Gonna get us some water,” I told him. “Don’t go anywhere.” I was afraid he’d get dehydrated on top of everything else. Who knows how long he’d gone since he’d had anything to drink besides beer.

He lifted his head and looked at me. I thought he understood what I was saying, but his eyes were vacant, as if he didn’t recognize me. As if he was looking through me at something else.

“You with me, Hutch? Huh?”

“Yeah,” he responded weakly. “Water.”

I went over to the kitchen sink and filled two glasses with tap water. When I got back to Hutch, his head was lolling over to the side again.

“Here, drink this.” With one hand, I lifted the glass to his mouth and with my other hand I held his head steady as he lapped at the water eagerly, like a starving kitten being offered a fresh bowl of milk.

Then all of a sudden, he started to make choking sounds in his throat and began thrashing around again, spewing water from his mouth, and I felt my heart plummet into my stomach. Which, to be honest, caused a very unpleasant feeling as it mixed with the digesting beer and trout.

“Whatsa matter now?”

“Acid! Burns… burning… oh God Starsk. Get it off, get it off me! Water….” His own glass empty, Hutch grunted and flung it aside where it smashed against the stone fireplace and shattered on the floor. Then he grabbed my glass and splashed the contents on his face. But he kept on ranting about burning, water, acid and for God’s sake help me, oh God help me… that kinda thing.

Yeah, I was having a real good time by that point.

I ran into the kitchen and quickly filled two more glasses with water from the sink. I spilled half their contents as I ran back to him, but poured what was left over his head and down the back of his shirt.

That seemed to calm him for a minute, but it wasn’t enough and he soon started up again. “Wash it off me, oh God, Starsk, it’s burning everywhere, help me…” Hutch stood up from the chair and began desperately trying to rip off his clothes as the fireplace flickered and popped in front of us.

My heart pounding, I grabbed him and half-carried, half-dragged him through the cabin and into the bathroom.

“Starsk…where—?”

“I’m putting you in the shower. Gonna get you nice and wet, gonna wash the acid off you, okay?”

I turned on the shower and pushed Hutch into the stall as he clawed at his sweater in a vain effort to take it off. “Let me do it.” I pushed his hands away and tried to pull the sweater off of him, but the green wool was soaked and heavy and clung to the shirt beneath it. I somehow managed to pull it over his head and then I began to unbutton his blue shirt, but it was going too slowly so I started ripping at the buttons in my haste to get it off him as quickly as I could.

But no sooner had I removed it, than Hutch immediately began pawing at his now soaking wet jeans, trying unsuccessfully to push them off as the heavy wet fabric clung stubbornly to his legs.

“It’s okay, buddy, I’ll do it,” I said as I frantically began to unzip Hutch’s jeans. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to remove wet jeans from a struggling person? Somehow, I managed to wrangle them down to his ankles, and then I lifted his feet one at a time, removed his blue suede sneakers, and pulled the pants off as he held onto me. I flung the jeans across the room where they landed on the floor in front of the toilet.

It was then I noticed Hutch grabbing desperately at his underwear.

Okay, okay, okay, I mumbled to myself in a weird kind of pep talk, you can do this, okay, okay. I took a deep breath and in one quick move, I pulled down his white briefs, wrestled his feet out of them, and blindly threw them across the room. I didn’t give a rat’s ass where they landed, to be honest. They could have fucking landed in the toilet for all I cared.

Completely naked now, Hutch was still thrashing about in the shower stall. “It burns, it burns, oh God, help me,” he kept repeating while pawing at his wet skin. “Wash it off me, Starsk, please… soap, where… help….”

Shit! I thought, Shit shit shit! As I fumbled for the soap, I worried that Hutch would injure himself in his panic, so I quickly began to rub the lather over his shoulders. “Here’s the soap. I got it. Let me help you. It’s okay. Stop squirming; just relax!” I prattled breathlessly, my words coming out in a deranged stream of consciousness. I pressed my clothed body against Hutch’s naked one to try to pin him against the wall so he couldn’t move around, as I lathered the soap over his face, hair, and neck.

“Starsk… Starsk… wash it off… acid… please… it burns…” Hutch pleaded.

“That’s what I’m trying to do, but I need you to stop squirming,” I commanded, stepping back from him slightly so I could turn him in a better position against the wall. “Just stay like this, okay? Don’t move!”

“It burns, it burns, Starsk… help me, please help me,” Hutch was whimpering now, but he tried his best to be obedient and remain still.

“Shhh…shhh, it’s okay,” I soothed as I rubbed the soapy lather over his body, concentrating next on the large areas of his chest and back. As I spread the lather over his muscled chest, I couldn’t help but notice how smooth and sensual his skin felt beneath my hands—Oh God—and how perky his nipples were. Why are you thinking about that? When I got to that funny indentation in the middle of his chest, I suddenly got the most intense urge to lean over and kiss him there, and as my fingers moved over his cute, little innie belly button, I wanted to put my tongue inside it and lick him. Damn it, shut up right now; what in the world are you thinking; he’s your partner for chrissakes!

I shook my head to try to clear it as I lifted up his arms and lathered the sensitive underarm area, dimly registering the feeling of the fine, light-brown hair beneath my fingertips, and suddenly, I could smell his manliness, an erotic scent of sweat and musk—Stop it right now!—and then I held his arms up over his head as I rinsed the soap off.

“Still burns, still burns, my legs, please Starsk…” Hutch whimpered as he looked into my eyes, and I swear I wanted to cry. That pleading yet vacant look in those eyes… I get chills just thinking about it.

“I know, baby, I know. It’s okay, I’m right here, just take it easy…” I murmured soothingly, kneeling down as I rubbed the lather up and down Hutch’s slender yet muscular legs, and I couldn’t help but notice the fine blond fuzz that covered them. When I finished washing his legs, I took a deep breath and washed all around his firm buttocks—Yeah, they’re firm why are you even noticing that—and then I did his feet. Thank God I don’t have a foot fetish.

“That better? All gone now?” I asked, breathing a deep sigh of relief. Whew—that wasn’t so bad.

But as Hutch huddled quietly against the wall of the shower stall, warm water cascading down on him, he looked down at his groin and then looked up at me pleadingly. And then he began to cry.

Oh God I need to wash his cock.

“Starsk…” Hutch’s voice was quivering, tears streaming freely down his cheeks and mixing with the water pouring down on him from the showerhead.

But despite all the water around us, my throat felt bone dry. I swallowed and looked at the bar of soap in my hands as Hutch continued to whimper.

“Please help me, Starsk.”

Okay okay okay. I repeated the mantra again to myself maniacally, trying to distract from the task ahead. You can do this, okay, okay, okay. Then I took a deep breath, bent down, and gently began to spread the lather over Hutch’s flaccid penis, lifting it gently so I could get underneath it. I’d seen Hutch’s dick about a million times and never thought twice about the fact that he was uncircumcised, but I’d never touched it before, nor had I ever thought about touching it. Not even a little bit. Well, maybe just a little bit, but I swear nothing ever happened.

It felt soft and squishy and wrinkled and it reminded me of my own dick in the shower, except for the foreskin.

Oh shit, I don’t need to wash under the foreskin, do I? Shit. I need to wash under the foreskin. I took a deep breath and gently eased it back about an inch as Hutch began to squirm, quickly lathered and rinsed the head, and then pulled the foreskin back over it. He only stopped squirming when I took my hands away. I dimly remembered learning something about how foreskin has around 10,000 nerve endings, which make it really sensitive to touch.

That done, I began to wash his balls, because by that point, it seemed nothing was off limits. I noticed how dense and heavy they felt, and I massaged the soap all around, making sure the lather coated every inch, because I briefly forgot that the burning was all in my partner’s head. His scrotum felt like the world’s most wonderful stress-relief ball—Oh God did you really just think that—what the hell is wrong with you—and I don’t think I took another breath the entire time I was touching him down there.

Then suddenly I got the craziest notion in my head and I started laughing because I worried that next he’d insist there was something in his rectum and only my dick up his ass could get it out.

But as I started to rinse everything off, I noticed that his dick wasn’t so limp anymore, and the foreskin had retracted slightly on its own, revealing the head that I’d just washed. For some reason it reminded me of a mushroom. I realized that my own cock had started to swell inside my wet pants, which was really fucking uncomfortable, let me tell you.

I quickly reached for the faucet and rotated it all the way to the right, grateful for the feeling of the ice cold water hitting us suddenly, dispelling our mutual hard-ons, but I had to turn it off when Hutch started shrieking in protest. “It’s okay now Hutch, it’s all gone, you’re okay,” I said soothingly, but I think I was trying to reassure myself as much as I was trying to reassure him.

I was panting from exhaustion and as I leaned my head against his, I wrapped my arms around him as we both shivered from the chill.

Hutch had noticeably quieted down and I hoped that the worst of the hallucinations were over. I didn’t know how much more I could take, to be honest. There’s no way these were caused by ordinary psychedelic mushrooms. What the hell was going on?

“Come on, it’s over now. Let’s get you dried off, okay?” I helped Hutch out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and placed it over his shoulders as I rubbed them to try to warm him up. Then I quickly toweled off the rest of his body as he shivered violently. With my arms firmly around him, I walked him over to the bed. “Sit down and I’ll help put some dry clothes on you. Just relax. I gotta try to find something for you to wear.”

I fumbled around in one of the duffel bags until I found some underwear and sweats. I slipped Hutch’s feet into the white cotton briefs.

“Those are yours,” Hutch remarked blandly, sounding lucid for the first time since this whole thing began.

“Oh, well that’s okay, they’re clean at least,” I responded, pulling them up until I’d gotten them up to Hutch’s thighs. “Stand up for a second, will ya?” I said, heaving him off the bed so I could more easily get the underwear on him.

“Ow!” Hutch yelled, and I realized that his dick must’ve gotten wedged in an uncomfortable position inside the too-small underwear. Wincing, I stuck my hand down the waistband and felt around until I had hold of it—Please don’t get hard again oh God—and then I hastily straightened it out and removed my hand before anything more could happen.

“That better? Huh?”

“Yeah,” Hutch responded weakly.

Poor guy, he was even more exhausted than I was.

Another crisis averted; I breathed a deep sigh of relief. But with Hutch still shivering, I needed to finish getting him dressed. I grabbed the sweatpants and somehow managed to wrangle them onto his legs and pull them up to his waist. Then I searched around the cabin until I found a sweatshirt he could wear. “Here, think you can put this on by yourself?” I asked him, but Hutch just continued to shiver while muttering “cold, cold” repeatedly.

“That’s okay, I’ll do it,” I said, lifting up his arms and pushing the sleeves down onto them. It felt like trying to dress an octopus and was infinitely more difficult than when I was taking his sweater off. When I had finally succeeded getting his arms in, I pulled the shirt down until it covered the waistband of his sweats, and as I did so, I could feel the smooth bone of his hips beneath.

“Lie down now, babe, I’ve got a nice warm bed for you, just lie back, that’s right, just like that.” Hutch did as I instructed and I pulled the blanket over him. Then I found one of the sleeping bags and placed it on top of the blanket, rubbing his still-damp hair with the towel. “You warm enough now? Huh?”

“Yeah,” Hutch responded, “warm.”

“That’s terrific! I’m gonna go put some more wood on the fire… be back in a minute.” I rushed over to the fireplace and threw some logs onto the fading embers. But my newfound peace didn’t last long.

“Falling, falling, help me Starsk!” Hutch began to yell and I quickly ran back to him.

Did he think he was going to fall off the bed, or maybe he felt like he was already falling? He could’ve had vertigo or maybe it was another hallucination—who the hell knew.

But I was afraid he might actually manage to fall off, so I yanked the blanket and sleeping bag off him and threw them on the floor. “It’s okay, look, I put the blankets on the floor. You can sleep there.” I helped him down from the bed and pushed him into the sleeping bag. I zipped it up, placed a pillow under his head, and threw the blanket over him.

“Falling, falling…” he mumbled.

“No, it’s okay, you’re on the floor, there’s nowhere to fall, I promise, babe. Shhh… just take it easy.”

“I don’t wanna fall…” Hutch was whimpering again.

“It’s okay, I’m right here,” I cooed, kneeling down beside him as I placed my hand on his shoulder. “I just gotta change out of these wet clothes and then I’ll join you, okay?”

“‘Kay.”

Peeling the wet layers off was laborious as hell, and I cursed the tightness of my jeans as I struggled to remove them. Naked and shivering, I grabbed Hutch’s wet clothes from the bathroom floor, stalked across the cabin, and hung everything in front of the fireplace to dry. The fire had grown bigger now and I could feel its warmth begin to emanate throughout. I grabbed the nearest duffel bag and pulled out a t-shirt and a pair of underwear for myself. I didn’t even know if they were his clothes or mine.

“Starsk…”

“I’m right here, shhh, it’s okay.” I unzipped the sleeping bag and slipped in next to Hutch. He was still shivering so I put the second sleeping bag on top of us. I snuggled up tightly and wrapped my arms around him, pulling him close. His face was just barely touching mine. I ran my fingers through his hair and stroked the fine, silken strands.

“It’s okay now, it’s all over baby, shhh…”

I could feel his body start to relax as I continued to stroke his hair. Then he muttered something faintly in my ear. “What was that?” I asked.

“I love you,” he said, and this time I heard it clearly. It wasn’t the first time he’d said he loved me, but you know, it’s all about the context, and I wasn’t expecting what came next. First, he kissed me gently on my face, right next to my ear, which felt nice, and then his lips moved over to my cheek, but then he started kissing me on the lips—oh God—and… I mean… I’ve sometimes wondered what it would be like to kiss him, ever since John Blaine died and Hutch brought up the subject, but I never thought I’d actually do it… because… well, I don’t know… I guess just because I don’t think of myself like that, on account of how I like women.

But as he kissed me, I started kissing him back because I LIKED it, and then he slipped his hand under my t-shirt, which also felt nice. As he ran his fingers over my nipples, he started groping me, as if he was trying to get a handful of something.

Without thinking, I brushed my hand over his sweats and pressed it against his bulge, rubbing him over the fabric, and while I was doing that, Hutch kept moaning and murmuring “baby,” but not like the way I called him “baby” when he was whimpering and scared, but like “Oh baby, you feel so good,” and suddenly his hand was down the front of my underwear and he was gripping my cock—uhh—

Then he made a little confused noise. “What’s this?”

I realized with dawning horror that he thought I was a girl and—Jesus Christ he was trying to grope my tits and then he grabbed my dick and didn’t know what it was and here I am kissing him back and he doesn’t even know it’s me and I thought he was lucid but I was wrong and he’s not cognizant and oh shit why did I let this happen he’ll kill me when he wakes up tomorrow and—

“Hutch!” I sputtered, pushing him away. “It’s me, Hutch, snap out of it! It’s Dave Starsky—your partner, remember?” But his hand was still down my underpants looking for ladyparts, so I elbowed him in the chest as hard as I could, and that did the trick because he yelped and immediately stopped what he was doing.

So… mission accomplished, I guess.

“Starsk? Why’d you do that? Ohh…” He was doubled over on his side, moaning and holding his hand to his sternum over the same place I’d fantasized about kissing him earlier.

“Hutch, you okay?” I fussed over him, worried I’d hit him a little too hard.

“Yeah,” he answered breathlessly as he flopped down on his back. “Why’d you hit me?”

“Go to sleep, Hutch.” My voice sounded a little too harsh, but I just wanted this nightmare to end, and I was starting to lose it. I had been promised a nice, relaxing fishing weekend. It was enough having to deal with those crazy Satanists, but my weekend wasn’t complete until my partner got himself hopped up on magic mushrooms and forced me to commit sexual assault on him in the shower while he was spaced out of his gourd.

Relaxing fishing weekend, my ass!

I watched him wince in pain as he continued to rub his sternum. “Just go to sleep, Hutch,” I repeated in a calmer tone.

Hutch lay on his back for several minutes as I listened to his labored breathing and the driving rain outside.

“You sure you’re okay? You’re breathin’ kinda hard.”

“Starsk?”

“What?”

Hutch lifted himself up on his elbow and pointed toward the fireplace. “Look at that!”

I turned my head. “What?”

“Don’t you see it?” he asked, eyes wide, and there was that vacant look in his eyes again. That look gave me the heebie-jeebies.

“There’s nothin’ there. Just close your eyes and you won’t see it anymore.”

But it was no use as he began to laugh at the latest hallucination du jour. He was too far gone and just kept pointing and laughing at whatever the hell it was he thought was so funny. For all I knew, he was watching Laurel and Hardy doing a slapstick routine next to the sofa, or maybe he was watching a bunch of rainbow-colored bears dancing around the room.

Nothing I could do but wait for it to pass. At least it didn’t involve any naked body parts or crying, so there was that. But after a few minutes, his demeanor changed again and he flopped back down on the sleeping bag, moaning about how he suddenly didn’t feel so good. Terrific, I thought. Because this night just wouldn’t be complete until Hutch puked all over the only blankets we had.

“Let’s go,” I groaned as I picked up his dead weight and dragged him into the bathroom. No way in hell was I letting him throw up before we got there. But I was unexpectedly overcome with an intense wave of sadness as I flashed back to what he went through during his heroin withdrawal. That night was the same deal—I held him in my arms with a towel slung over my shoulder while he threatened to puke all over the bed. Then I’d carry him into the bathroom and hold his head over the toilet as he spewed his guts out.

We did that dance many times that night. But I never felt like an abusive partner.

I tried to put all that out of my mind and concentrate on the task at hand. I knew this wouldn’t be over until at least six hours had passed, and so far it had only been about four. God only knew what kind of entertainment the next two hours would deliver.

As he kneeled in front of the porcelain throne, I squatted down behind him, trying to keep him steady by holding onto his shoulders. But his body had gotten slack from the muscle weakness and I had to keep holding onto him to prevent him from keeling over face first into the bowl.

During Hutch’s withdrawal from heroin, he and I practically lived in front of the toilet, and I was expecting similar effects from the mushrooms. But after a long while of nothing coming out of either end, his head lolled back against me and he started mumbling about wanting to sleep. I figured the nausea had passed, so I picked him up and carried him back to our makeshift bed on the floor. I don’t know if somehow he’d gotten heavier or I was just really tired, but I had a helluva time carrying him.

After I got him settled, I was about to slip in beside him when I got an idea. I went into the kitchen, rummaged around in the cabinets, and found a large mixing bowl that I set next to him on the floor along with a hand towel I got from the bathroom. Good idea, right? I figured if he had to puke during the night, I’d be ready.

“Starsk,” he mumbled sleepily.

“I’m right here. Go to sleep, babe.”

“I’m scared.”

“Of what? Nothing to be scared of. You’re safe now.” I tried to sound convincing, but I’m not sure he bought it, because I was scared to death.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Hutch’s voice had begun to crack and it sounded like he was about to cry again. “It’s okay. I’m right here.” I slipped in alongside him under the covers and wrapped my arms around him, being careful not to press against his sternum. “Shhh. Try to sleep now. It’s okay.”

“Make it stop, Starsk.”

“What is it, babe?”

“The buzzing in my head. It won’t stop. I just want it to go away. No… no…” He waved his arms around, evidently distressed by whatever noise he was hearing.

“Just relax, Hutch. I’m right here.” I stroked his face and kissed the worry lines that had developed on his forehead. “Whatever it is, it’ll go away soon, I promise.”

“Starsk?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t leave me.” Whimpering now.

“I won’t leave you, Hutch. You know that.” I rocked him in my arms like you’d do to quiet a colicky baby.

“Please don’t leave me.” He kept mumbling it over and over, pleading, and becoming almost incoherent.

“I’m not going anywhere, Hutch, I promise.” Then my eyes started welling up with tears, just like they did during the heroin. Man, this night was bringing back all those terrible memories. Ironically, magic mushrooms can do that, too. I thought about how people who’ve tripped can experience flashbacks days or even weeks later. I crossed my fingers that wouldn’t happen to Hutch.

But here I was, having my own kind of flashbacks to when Hutch was coming off heroin, and I never even ate any fucking ‘shrooms.

But the thing that really got me? He couldn’t believe I wouldn’t leave him. It was like he didn’t trust me, and that killed me more than anything else. I knew it was the bad trip that was doing it, but even so, it broke my heart a little more each time he said it.

Monday

To be continued…