Wild Raspberries by Jane Davitt Page A

put it on the table. “I didn’t need it all.”
    “You bought enough.” There was a frown puckering Tyler’s forehead. Did he think Dan had shoplifted it or something? “Maybe too much, seeing as you’ll be carrying it around with you.”
    “Yeah, I might need to donate some of it back, but I didn’t have time to try anything on so I just grabbed what I saw.”
    “Donate?”
    “I got most of it from the thrift store,” Dan explained.
    The frown deepened. “You didn’t have to do that,” Tyler said slowly.
    “I don’t need fancy and new when I’m sleeping rough,” Dan said. “And everything looked clean, with no holes.” He backed away before Tyler said anything else, feeling hot around the ears. Taking food from Tyler in exchange for doing some chores was one thing; taking money — taking charity — crossed a line. And it didn’t feel like earned money. Taking care of a man with a sprained ankle didn’t seem like something a person should get paid for doing.
    Outside, the air was sultry, the sky deepening to black with a half moon climbing. Dan slapped at a mosquito and got his gear from the truck. The woods looked scarier with the cabin behind him than they had when he was in them, somehow, as if he’d gone from being part of them to being an outsider. He didn’t mind, though. He was going to sleep clean on a soft couch tonight, with the hum of a fridge in his ears and the taste of mint in his mouth. He’d have taken all of that for granted a month ago, but not now.
    ***
    The shower over the deep bathtub was old, with the steel fittings dulled by lime scale but clean. The shower curtain looked new, though, a plain, chilly, pale blue. The water came out hot and pounded the back of Dan’s head with enough force to make him bow it forward. He watched the water swirl at his feet, cloudy with dirt, and reached for the shampoo he’d bought.
    Being clean felt good. Good enough that when he was smoothing the shower gel he’d bought (more expensive than soap, but less messy, as long as he made sure the top was closed tight) over his stomach, his hand dipped lower and cupped his balls.
    They needed washing as much as the rest of him — God, his ass probably still had bits of leaves stuck in it from his attempts to clean up after taking a dump behind a tree, his muscles clenched, his gaze darting around because it had felt so fucking weird to do that outside, like an animal or something. So, yeah, they needed scrubbing, but they probably didn’t need to be stroked and squeezed gently as his cock filled with a delicious slowness, pointing north.
    He did it anyway, one hand braced against the white tiles, the other busy, a soap-slick slide from root to tip until he was as hard as he was going to get with nothing but his own hand and fantasies to juice him up. He couldn’t find his place, though; his best jerk-off scenes felt used up and tainted, lust-ugly faces from the last few weeks taking over, invading.
    He gave a frustrated, unhappy moan and slapped his hand hard against the tiles, his cock bobbing, neglected, his hard-on waning. He was fighting back tears, stupid, weak tears of tiredness and misery when Tyler knocked at the door.
    “You about done? Because I need to piss.”
    Dan had locked the door, so he couldn’t just holler for Tyler to come in and get on with it. He didn’t really think Tyler would have jumped him, even before spraining his ankle, but once learned, caution stuck with you better than riding a bike. He rinsed the soap away with a half-hearted swipe or two and shut off the water. “Give me a minute.”
    “Boy, I’m balanced on one leg and my tonsils are floating. Wrap a towel around your skinny ass and open the door.”
    Dan got out of the bathtub and opened the door, his hair dripping with water and one of Tyler’s towels — no sense in getting the small one he’d bought all wet — around his waist. It was the biggest towel he’d ever used, soft and thick, and it