Justin was sleeping long this morning. Brian too had woken up quite a lot later than he was used to, but the fact the they had stayed up most of the night fucking in every which way known to man gave him a full excuse for that. He went to open the balcony door to let some air into the room and realized it was sunny and surprisingly warm on the balcony. As the balcony was south facing, the mid morning sun had warmed it up and it was actually very pleasant. Justin would love to eat breakfast out there. Brian mentally told his inner mocking voice to shut the fuck up. He was NOT turning into a lesbian, he was on vacation. Period.
Brian showered quickly and got presentable enough to leave the room. He left Justin fast asleep and hustled downstairs to get to the breakfast buffet before they stopped serving. When he got there, the staff was already preparing to take down the buffet and when he asked if he could take a tray to the room, they kindly offered to prepare him a basket.
While he waited, he made inquiries at the front desk about the changes made to their plan. The receptionist explained how to find their new accommodations. It was a cottage located on the northern side of the peninsula near the small town of Grundarfjörður. The receptionist also informed him of various sites of interest in the national park they would be driving through to get there and encouraged a day of slow travel. Even though they would cover less than than 50 miles in total, there were many things to enjoy on the way. Brian asked if it was alright to pay the bill so that they could leave right after finishing their late breakfast and in fact the receptionist encouraged him to do that since she was expecting to start checking out a large group that was staying with them and subsequently welcoming a new group for lunch so, in fact, now was a great time to check out. Later they could expect to have to wait for service.
Back at the room Brian laid out a miniature breakfast buffet on the small table out on the balcony, with skyr, scrambled eggs, freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee in a thermos flask, yoghurt, fruit salad, freshly home baked bread and a small collection of condiments, cheese and cut meats.
Too soon it was time to wake Justin up. It was getting closer to the time the receptionist had asked them to vacate the room for cleaning. Justin was deep asleep - the poor boy must have been exhausted. Brian waited for his sleeping cycle to change but the wait was a delight. Justin looked so adorable with his hair plastered in all directions as a result of him falling asleep all sweat drenched. Brian thought there was probably some cum in the boy’s hair too, at least judging from the state of his own cleanliness before he hit the shower less than half an hour earlier. Numerous love bites graced Justin’s delicate skin and Brian made a mental note to rub some ointment on them later when he’d be awake. After a while Justin’s breathing and small movements indicated that his sleep was shallower and Brian let his fingers lightly graze his skin as if it was a fly, starting with the side of his hand and following with his fingers and then his palm. That’s when Justin came to, closed his fingers around the feather light dancing of Brian’s fingers and welcomed them by inviting it for a kiss. He then opened his eyes and smiled remembering their night of passion. “Hey there handsome…is it morning already?”
“Rise and shine, Sunny Boy. Check out time is in an hour.” Brian kissed him good morning and stroked back his hair. “What do you want to do today Mr. Taylor?”
“Hmmmm…. oh you know, play golf and sip cocktails on the beach… and massage… breakfast in bed perhaps…” He stretched like a cat, his muscles were obviously sore from their long night of lovemaking. “Oh man… I can hardly move… We were possessed last night, weren’t we... I really am going to need a massage,” he complained but only verbally, his smile was wide and he uttered a happy sigh.
“First you need a shower. Regretfully we do have to check out before 11:00,” Brian pulled Justin from the bed and led him to the shower. He handed him a couple of ibuprofen and a glass of water to wash them down. “Turn up the heat in the shower - it’ll help,” he instructed the achy boy, then he kissed him softly and left the bathroom to pack up their belongings.
Justin did as told and turned the heat up as hot as he could take it. The hot water did help soothe his aching body. Last night had been worth all the discomfort though. After the mindblowing glacier experience, they came back to the hotel just before 2 am, and well… wow… it was not really possible to describe with words what came next. They had both been pretty speechless on the way back and after they came into their room, but Brian and he had always had their best communications in bed without words and last night was no different - things were “said” loud and crystal clear.
Ever since the last night before he left Pittsburgh for New York, Justin had struggled a bit with the way it felt like Brian was saying goodbye to him every time they made love. The first few visits had been difficult. Brian was closed off and Justin had used a lot of energy to get him to open up. That was one of the reasons why he started working on getting his usually overworked lover to take a vacation with him. Now he felt it was paying off because last night… on the glacier, those words Brian said to him… he had never said anything like that before. And when they got back to the hotel, as they both undressed slowly in front of each other, not once losing eye contact and then falling into bed as if they were one person then staying like that for hours… It felt like Brian was finally saying ‘Hello’ again.
He did not see Brian when he got out of the bathroom, but there was a note on the bed next to clean clothes for him to wear.
“Back in 5, packing the car.”
A nagging anxious feeling reared it’s ugly face. Many times in their relationship, usually right before they were about to reach some type of a milestone, Brian would take a step back. Justin knew he had to be careful - he did NOT want to be thrown of Mt. Kinney while in Iceland. Soon enough, though, Brian came back to the room.
“Good, you’re not dressed, I have a lotion for you. Are you ready for your massage? It’s something the receptionist told me to use,” Brian pointed to the bed.
“I hope you know I was kidding about the golf and the cocktails on the beach...and the massage… I do realize… I mean, I know this is not a honeymoon…” Justin was not doing a very good job of trying to keep his cool.
Brian stopped him and softly caressed his jaw, down his neck, across his collarbone. “Yeah, it’s no honeymoon,” he said with a hint regret in his voice, “but let’s have a fabulous vacation anyway, shall we?” Then, with the smile back in his speech, Brian added, “and we both know I owe you a massage after what I’ve done to you… aww… look at all those bruises and bitemarks. We really need to get me a muzzle…”
And that was all it it took. The sun came back out in Justin’s eyes and Brian gently rubbed their noses together, forgetting his massage plans for a while. “Now, let’s do this.” He guided Justin onto the bed and applied the soothing lotion to his neck and chest, but he did not stop there. In fact, he used the whole bottle generously, covering all of his lover’s body while spoiling him with deep massaging and stretches until Justin’s penis was half hard. He softly kissed the head and blew cold air on it and whispered, “go back go sleep Dick Taylor - your servant needs a rest.” Justin laughed out loud at that statement. “Shhhhh!! Don’t wake him up! I’m serious… I made you breakfast… on the balcony…” Brian hesitated at his own words. “Come eat it,” he demanded in a pseudo dictating way and Justin wisely did not tell him how adorable he was. He threw on a robe and followed Brian outside where they both realized they were hungrier than on a regular every day morning.
By middle of breakfast Justin called out, “Woah! My skin is heating up so much - what is the name of this lotion - it’s awesome. We need more of it!” Brian smiled. He was not about to tell Justin that it cost $50 for a 2 ounce bottle. If it was good, he would buy a caseful of it. “It’s called CodDoc,” he said grinning. “That is actually a genius name for it. Apparently it’s made with digestive enzymes from cod. It’s supposed to do magic. You can actually feel it?”
“Yes it’s like a hot water bottle all over my skin! And thank you for not telling me it was made with fish stomachs. I wouldn’t have let you use it on me. I’m surprised it has no smell.”
- - - - - -
After leaving the hotel, the boys stopped at the visitor center for the national park where there was a small museum about life in earlier times. Hellnar and the surrounding the area had, before the invention of motor ships, been one of the largest towns in iceland - bigger than Reykjavik, in fact - with hundreds of inhabitants. The area later stagnated as other towns beat them in the race of building harbors and roads. During the second world war, the occupying armies were located near Reykjavik, and that’s where the jobs and money were, so that’s where the people went. The park ranger suggested a short hike on the shore and circled a few places on a map which he handed to the visitors. He warned them about entering the water, the waves along this section of coast were unpredictable and the suction of the currents was very strong.
“Do people really bathe in the ocean here? It must be very cold,” Justin asked him.
“Yes, it is cold but ocean swimming is a popular sport. The ocean swimmers don’t come here though - they know safer places. The accidents we have up here are simply because regular people think it’s safe to walk in the waves but then they get sucked out. This is the Atlantic Ocean and the suction of the waves at this particular shore is strong and deceitful. There is no pattern in the waves here. One never knows where the next wave is going to come ashore - especially after storms like the one we had yesterday.” He told them it was the combination of open waters and the shape of the shore, with its unusually steep rise off the sea floor followed by flat beaches, that caused the tides to pick up unusual speed. An experienced swimmer had even drowned recently trying to save his dog. They both promised not to go too close.
Their first destination was Arnarstapi, an important old trading post which, like Hellnar in the past, used to have a much bigger population than it has now. They parked the car at the pier and walked around for a while. The guide book was probably not wrong in stating that the harbor of Arnarstapi was the prettiest in Iceland. They took a lot of pictures of the spectacular columnar basalt, ravines and grottoes surrounding the pier, and the numerous kittiwake, arctic terns and fulmar, as well as the small boats resting at the pier.
It was close to lunch time and when they noticed four fishermen working nearby, Justin suggested they offer them some beer in exchange for telling them something interesting. In a funny mixture of English, Icelandic and hand gestures, they vividly described the life in the village. They were all pretty original characters and made both boys laugh. The fishermen gave them raw minke whale meat to taste as well as freshly caught sashimi style shrimp, dried fish and cured shark - a delicacy to many Icelanders, but mostly a very unpleasant experience for most tourists.
The locals told them that sharks don’t have kidneys but, being carnivores, their tissue has a lot of poisonous ammonium in it so it’s inedible when it’s fresh. However, by a process of curing the meat in sand and gravel for up to four months, the ammonium is turned into ammonia, which causes a distinct urine smell and taste, but removes the toxicity. To the question as to how people came to realize it was possible to eat it, the answer was simple: famine. Initially shark was hunted for processing oil from its liver. The meat was thrown away as it was considered poisonous. One day, some poor hungry bloke had stumbled upon an old carcass that birds were nibbling at and, rather than starving to death, tried it and liked it. The rest is history. Both men agreed that the taste was not pleasant but finished their piece to the applause of the fishermen. “I’ve had cock that tasted worse than this, once.” Brian said smirking, making their hosts break out in fits of reverberating laughter when they realized what he had said.
Eventually the fishermen needed to resume their work and they told their beer bringing guests to drive by the sculpture of half troll and protector Bárður before leaving Arnarstapi. When Brian asked how to find it, they simply said “Village is little, Bárður is big, you find him.”
And they certainly did. They found it quite spectacular too. Brian took a picture and sent a message to Gus, telling him this was what Icelandic people looked like. (Yes he had given the boy an iPhone for Christmas over the protest of his moms). They left Arnarstapi and drove further along the peninsula, past the water cave, noting that it was incredible how different the place looked in good weather. The glacier was completely cloud free today and stood tall and magnificent above them.
Their next destination was Djúpalónssandur, a sandy bay at the foot of the glacier. Since they had now officially entered the National Park again, there were very informative posters by the parking lot describing in several languages how the bay once was home to sixty fishing boats and one of the most prolific fishing villages on the peninsula but was today uninhabited. The first thing they saw were the four ‘lifting stones’ used, while fishing was still active, by fishermen to test their strength. In English they were called ‘Full strong’ weighing 339 lbs, ‘Half strong’ at 220 lbs, ‘Weakling’ at 119 lbs and ‘Useless’ at merely 51 lbs. They were traditionally used to qualify men for work on fishing boats, with the Weakling being the minimum weight a man would have to lift onto a ledge at hip-height to qualify. Brian started by lifting the weakling and mastered that but when he went for the half strong Justin threatened to withhold sex.
“I am not traveling with you if you intentionally pull muscles in your back, Brian. I believe you could lift that but not without warming up first and no, I’m not going to try lifting the even lightest one. My talents lie elsewhere.” He walked away towards the ocean wiggling his ass at Brian who was glad to have such a smart boyfriend… ooohh… and smoking hot… Yeah, he had known since day one that Justin was a force to be reckoned with. Justin’s pull was stronger than the ocean they had been warned about and… Brian was being sucked down the path… not that he had anything against that.
After walking on the shore for a while - making sure to stay at a safe distance from the waves - they climbed up on the cliffs to get a view of the ocean on the other side. As they got near the top, they noticed a commotion on the far edge of the large rocky cape. At first they thought an accident might have happened, but when they saw everybody else around them had their cameras up, they soon realized what was going on. A group of orcas were out there only a about couple of hundred feet from the shore. Brian was glad he had charged his camera batteries at the hotel so he could film the scenario. There was a lot going on - they had obviously found something interesting to eat. Suddenly someone cried out: “Oh putain, regardez il y a du sang! Ils tuent les baleines ces enfoirés, il faut faire quelque chose !" A group of minke whales had been herded by the orcas to the shore and now an extremely bloody feast had begun. A group of French tourists were angrily demanding that someone should stop the attack.
Brian whistled low. “I guess this why they call them killer whales… do you want to go?” he asked Justin. “Un-uh... this is actually quite erotic...” Justin replied in a low absent-minded voice after a while, his eyes glued to the ocean as he watched with utter fascination the phenomenal dance of death between predator and prey. When the massacre was over the ocean had a giant red pool of blood in it and parts of it even reached the shore. It was magnificent. They walked in silence to the car.
“You know everything in this country reminds me of how small I am,” Justin said thoughtfully. “Thank you for taking me here.”
“YOU took ME here, remember? Come here,” Brian stopped and took Justin in his arms and held him for a bit in a tight embrace.
“Are you guys alright?” It was the park ranger from the visitor center. He had been called to come the the bay to do damage control and see if any tourists needed trauma counseling. “I’m surprised to see you guys here. I’d have thought you were gone by now.”
“No, we took a small detour and went for lunch to Ana… sta… pa… I have problems with Icelandic,” Justin admitted. “Arnarstapi,” The ranger said laughing. “Yeah, well, good ol’ Icelandic - it’s not for beginners, I’ll give you that. But you are certainly having a good visit to our humble land of ice and fire… and blood,” he said and frowned. “This is such a rare event - I’m kind of annoyed I missed it,” he admitted.
“Well, humble, it is not,” Brian told him. “We’ve been here three days now and I certainly have been around the block but this is something else.”
“I like this ‘been around the block’ phrase - in Icelandic, we say ‘I don’t call everything my grandmother’, we don’t have a lot of blocks you know,” the ranger explained, happy that the bloodbath did not seem to have shaken everyone up. A French woman with the group he’d met earlier probably needed professional help, though, and he was glad the group had their own tour guide to deal with that one.
Brian offered to send the ranger a copy of the footage he shot. He typed the ranger’s email address into his phone and promised to send it as soon as he had an internet connection again. They said their goodbyes to the ranger and got in the car. Brian placed his hand on Justin’s thigh and looked at him somberly.
“You are big to me Justin.” For that he received a smile that almost blinded him.
- - -