Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:44:10 -0500
From: George Gauthier <georgegauthierdc@gmail.com>
Subject: Jungle Boy 16

				Jungle Boy 16
				by George Gauthier

Fair warning: This story features explicit and graphic depictions of gay sex.
The story takes place forty years in the future.

			Chapter 1. Story Conference

Movie producer Martin Fletcher nodded his thanks as his houseboy, Luis
Vasquez, set a tray down on the patio table. It bore pitchers of iced tea
and lemonade plus a bucket of ice and glasses, refreshments for his
visitors on a summer afternoon. The visitors the movie producer was
expecting were all personal friends as well as business associates.
Fletcher preferred meeting them in the informality of his Hollywood estate
rather than at his office.

"And bring a chair over for yourself, Luis."

The slender mestizo was not only the producer's houseboy but now an
fledgling actor and a pretty good one at that. Fletcher had given Luis his
debut role in a gladiator picture playing a naked slave boy serving the
gladiators both as a body servant and as a joy boy who got passed around as
an outlet for their sexual urges. Luis honed his new craft in several small
roles after that.

Luis's mixed heritage, Spanish and Zapotec Indian, let him play ethnic
characters. With his high cheekbones and light toned reddish brown skin he
could play an Indian, a Mexican, a lascar, a Hindu, anything at all. That
was how two time Oscar winner Anthony Quinn, himself of mixed Aztec and
Mexican-Irish ancestry, got started in the picture business, playing
Indians, Mafia dons, Hawaiian chiefs, Filipino freedom-fighters, Chinese
guerrillas, and Arab sheiks.

More than a year later, Luis' career as a supporting player was going
well. The critics had been kind about about his recent featured role in
'The Young Musketeers', in which Luis played Planchet, Athos's
servant. Though Luis had no plans to quit his day job and not just because
it kept him close to Fletcher and the studio brass. Fletch, as he was
usually called, was easy to work for and a very nice man. The producer was
often away for weeks on business. That downtime and flexible hours left
Luis free time for his college courses and his film and TV work.

As usual when the Luis was working around the house and grounds the exotic
Latino lad was in the nude. Not that Fletcher was fey himself, but cute
houseboys of the gay persuasion were all the vogue in Hollywood these days,
the cuter the better, and Luis was prime eye candy. It was something of a
naughty game among Hollywood celebrities to see whose houseboy was the most
brazen. Fletcher's Luis thought nothing of going out the door in the buff
to pick up the paper from the front lawn or to stroll down to the communal
mail boxes, fifty yards away. You might also find him on the jogging the
trails running through the nature preserve adjacent to the
development. Funny thing too how often folks in neighboring houses,
houseboys or owners, stopped him on the way back and chatted him up.

By the middle decades of the twenty-first century, nudity taboos were a
thing of the past largely due to generational change. The law too had moved
with the times, through judicial decisions and enactment of new statutes
that recognized public nudity in many contexts as a civil right. Why should
other people's prejudices control what you yourself might wear? And with
global warming still unchecked, many of the younger sort saw casual nudity
as a practical solution to climate change. For many of them, if you were
young and pretty, then nudity should be your default condition, at least
for males. Young ladies had to be more cautious, human nature being what it
is.

First to arrive were Fletcher's friends and colleagues, veteran director
Jim Nichols and studio production chief Leon Potter. On their heels came
Fletcher's two favorite movie stars, Hollywood's Jungle Boys, Alexander
"Sandy" Barnett and Terrence Knowles.

The young A-list actors were far from typical leading men; they were both
short and slender rather than tall dark and handsome, a pair of pretty boys
really. Though they were in their early twenties they looked more like a
couple of teenagers, a pair of super-cute twinks with fine-boned features
and toned physiques that were more about quality than quantity. As usual
they were dressed only in their trademark garb of the low-rise shorts
called hot pants. Neither wore a shirt and both were barefoot. As Terry
settled into his chair he gave a nod and a wink to Luis. The houseboy had a
terrific crush on the cute red head.

Sandy brushed his hand through his blond thatch, letting the breeze fluff
it out, making it look like a golden halo. His red headed lover and costar
pointed over to Luis and his total lack of clothing.

"Oh right, Terry."

The stunning blond beauty said shucking his shorts, getting naked. Terry
did the same, his blue eyes twinkling at Luis. All the young males were
soon on an equal footing.

"First some sun while we talk, then a refreshing swim, explained Terry to
the older males, as if their habitual casual nudity, off screen as well as
on, required explanation. Actually Terry and Sandy came over two or three
times a week to swim laps in Fletcher's Olympic sized pool. They also like
to toss a Frisbee or play badminton on the producer's landscaped
grounds. Always in the nude, of course. Like many young males, not just
those who were gay, Luis, Sandy, and Terry had used a one-time permanent
depilatory cream that permanently suppressed the growth of beard and body
hair, leaving the trio sleek and smooth all over.

Arriving next to last was the actors' agent Ed Veronese, The last conferee
was character actor Conrad Held, who was a walking cliche: tall dark and
handsome. A man in his thirties, he usually played villains including the
title role in their highly successful Dracula pictures. Nichols looked over
at his producer.

"So what is the word of the day, Fletch? Or dare I even ask?"

"My friends, the word of the day is 'Naked Prey.'"

"That's two words." Leon Potter pointed out.

"One or two, either way I am clueless," Jim Nichols commented. "What have
you got for us this time, Marty?"

"A concept for a whole new franchise. Think 'Twinks in Peril'."

He hunched in his chair forward, clearly excited about his latest
brainstorm, ignoring the dubious looks from his interlocutors.

"We'll do a series about pretty boys fleeing mortal danger. Sometimes
they'll be chased by pirates, or maybe Indians on the warpath, Saracen
raiders, or headhunters, you name it. And the threat doesn't have to come
from humans. It can be a man-eating lion, a grizzly bear or a rogue
elephant on the rampage, a saltwater crocodile, sharks -- the list is
endless. We'll never run out of ideas."

"Wait a minute," Nichols said. "Didn't Cornel Wilde once do a picture by
that name. Hell that must have been eighty years ago."

"Actually it was back in 1966. Although Wilde's character was supposed to
be naked in most of his scenes, there were a lot of coy camera angles,
strategically placed shrubbery, and so forth not to mention the modesty
pouch he wore. We don't have to worry about that stuff these days."

"Though his movie 'Naked Prey' was set amidst a native uprising in Africa,
it was inspired by the real life adventures of John Colter a member of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition, usually considered to be the first of the
mountain men of the American West. Colter was captured by Blackfeet Indians
in 1809, stripped naked, and given a chance to run for his life, chased by
a pack of young braves. He killed their front runner and opened up enough
of a lead to double back and hide in a beaver lodge overnight, then walked
for eleven days to a trader's fort on the Little Big Horn River."

"And the "naked" part is where Terry and I come in," Sandy noted. "We will
be running away bare ass, from whatever is chasing us, won't we? No modesty
pouches naturally."

"Exactly. Oh there will be some set-up scenes in costume, but then boom. No
clothes. It's a natural extension of the 'Jungle Boy' concept to any kind
of landscape or situation."

"Just don't expect us to run around naked in the snow. We don't want to
freeze our nuts off. Africa, South America, tropical islands are
fine. Greenland, Canada, and Siberia definitely not."

"Of course not. Oh, did I mention the we can promote these new pix as
action-adventure, spoofs, slasher films, whatever best fits the story. And
Luis will feature in these pictures too, either as one of the hounds or one
of the foxes. You'll still do your Bomba Pictures of course. You wouldn't
be the Jungle Boys if you stopped doing jungle pix altogether."

Sandy and Terry rolled their eyes. Here we go again. Producers and
screenwriters seized on any pretext, however flimsy, to get the young
actors out of their clothes in front of the camera. The truth is, both
stars owed their success less to their talents as thespians than to their
physical beauty and their willingness to run around in the skimpiest of
costumes or even nothing at all. Terry and Sandy had made entire pictures
in the nude including a gay version of 'The Blue Lagoon', already a cult
classic.

During the planning for a picture about Billy the Kid, the first question
Jim Nichols asked Fletcher was how they were going to get Billy
naked. (Answer: Catch the outlaw swimming in a river and drag him out with
a lasso, tie him up, and force him to march starkers into Lincoln, New
Mexico.) Each of their pictures had a wholly gratuitous bath or shower
scene, often featuring grab ass foreplay with both actors. Their slasher
picture had them playing go-go boys sharing a room and a bed in a spooky
old mansion long since turned into a rooming house. For most of their
scenes they were either naked or dancing lasciviously atop a bar in a tiny
mesh thong.

Well, there was nothing new in using the delectable physiques of the
youthful nude males to attract an audience. Hollywood peddled sex appeal;
it always had.

It hardly mattered to audiences anymore that all the pictures the twinks
made featured gay romances. Obviously their gay fans drooled over their
love scenes and nude scenes. The pictures were hugely popular with straight
teens too, always Hollywood's prime audience who quickly became the biggest
part of the two young actors' fan base. Terry and Sandy did not threaten
their masculinity, not with their short slender physiques and pretty boy
good looks not to mention their gay goings on, both on screen and
off. Surveys showed that their action-adventure pictures appealed to the
straight male audience as action-comedies.

"Now don't fret boys. You will still be doing costume
pictures. Screenwriters are at work, even as we speak, on scripts for the
next of our 'Dracula' and 'Young Musketeer' pix. With our Bomba pix, that
would give us four lucrative franchises going at once. We'll all be rich!"

"We already are rich, Fletch," Potter reminded him.

"Not me, not yet anyway," Luis piped up.

That brought a laugh. Fletcher gripped the boy's bare shoulder
reassuringly. "Stick with us kid, and we'll take care of you. You'll make
your parents proud, you will."

"But don't quit my day job just yet, right?"

"Right!"

"Here is something else. Last week Universal Television pitched us a TV
series about the 'Sons of Monte Christo' where the three of you, that
includes you Luis, play half-brothers, all of them sons of Edmond Dantes by
different women. Sandy, you would play Albert, supposedly the son of his
enemy Mondego but really Dante's natural son by Mercedes conceived before
his exile and her marriage to Mondego. Terry's mother would be an Irish
lass whom Dantes met in Dublin during his sailor days. Luis, your
character's mother would be Haydee, daughter of Ali Pasha of Yannina.

"I don't know, Fletch." Ed Veronese began. "Production schedules in TV work
can be brutal. Actors put in very long hours grinding out a show a week for
TV. How could they squeeze in a series during a hiatus from
features. You're going to work my clients to death. Besides, they're young,
their juices are flowing, they need time off for fun. All work and no
play..."

"Here's how. Sandy and Terry shoot all their scenes at one go. The rest of
the scenes can be shot around them. And you boys won't all work together,
in the same episodes. Conrad, you will be in almost every one portraying
Benedetto the illegitimate son of Villefort and Madame Danglars, twice over
the mortal enemy of all the scions of Monte Christo. Your role and and
Luis's will provide continuity while Terry and Sandy headline the series."

Also, the Monte Christo episodes will rotate once every other week with
other adventure fare in that time slot.  And we will bring in guest stars
in each episode. All of which should lighten your workload a lot."

"Guest stars. Like who?" Sandy asked.

"Just about everyone who is anyone in motion pictures wants to work with
you kids. You just don't realize what a good reputation you have among your
fellow professionals. Unlike some Hollywood brats I could name, you have an
old-fashioned work ethic. You kids always show up on time knowing your
lines cold and ready to go. No entourage, no demands, no attitude, and no
temper tantrums over "creative differences either."

"And you're good sports about all the rough stuff the bad guys lay on you
all the time."

The twinks nodded in understanding. In their pictures, the boys' characters
get captured rather a lot, usually stripped naked and strung up for a
beating or even a whipping. Likely as not, the bad guy's henchmen humiliate
and abuse them physically and even sexually. There was a definite S&M
subtext in so many of their pictures, though often done tongue in
cheek. The twinks might be the protagonists of their pictures, but they
were not not alpha males by any means. They were and very much looked like
a couple of bottom boys, "beta males" Terry called them with
self-deprecating humor, and their on-screen misadventures reflected that.

Still, they were the heroes of their pictures. Bottom boys or not, they
always rose to the occasion and saved the day.

"OK, Fletch. I can see how Terry's eyes lit up when you pitched the
series. Put a sword in his hand, and he is happy. Send us a couple of
scripts." Veronese replied. "Can't hurt to look." he added with a shrug.

His four clients nodded. Sandy in particular had really warmed up to the
idea.

"I can't wait to gallop down a road, the wind spreading my cloak out like
wings. Did you ever see that old flat movie 'The Shadow'. Wow, that cloak
of his was so cool."

As a matter of fact, Terry had seen the movie and knew that much of that
cool look of a cape billowing out was a CGI effect and not costuming at
all. But he did not want to deflate Sandy's enthusiasm.

"Gosh, maybe Ed was right back there at Fletcher's." Terry commented to
Sandy and Luis as they drove home in Terry's battered Ford. Mindful of the
twink's recent arrest while driving nude, all had put on their shorts.

"Much as I like the idea of playing a son of Monte Christo, we might be
spreading ourselves too thin or risking overexposure."

"No pun intended," Terry added hastily.

"I think we should just wait for the scripts." Luis said. "You know Terry,
this could be my big break."

"Exactly right. I think it is just great that Conrad and Luis will be
taking point on the project. Luis will star in half of the episodes with
the two of us chiming in for essentially supporting parts. We will also do
our own episodes too. That way, our star power gets the project launched,
and Luis gets his breakout role."

"Like me with Dracula", Conrad pointed out.

That drew a happy smile from the houseboy. Sandy was always so
generous. Terry too. Look at the way they had insisted that Conrad get top
billing for one of their Dracula pictures. Both were good friends and
terrific in bed too, which was where they were all headed that afternoon.

Life was good!

		Chapter 2. On the Warpath

The first of the 'Naked Prey' movies entitled 'Warpath' was a war movie and
coming of age tale. The action takes place on the western frontier of
Colonial America at the outbreak of the French and Indian War in the
mid-eighteenth century.

Sandy and Terry portray Axel van Zorn and Johnny Strang, young settlers in
the Shenandoah Valley in western Virginia. The two eighteen year olds go
off to war, marching with a company of militia on a punitive raid against
the Shawnee, in a reprisal for raids across the border instigated by the
French during the opening phase of the French and Indian War, soon after
British General Edward Braddock's defeat in the Ohio country in 1755.

The film was shot in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Central California,
standing in, somewhat unconvincingly Jim Nichols thought, for the woodsy
Allegheny Mountains. The trees were all wrong, looking nothing like Eastern
woodlands. Still this was the best that location scouts could find without
crossing the continent to the actual locales which anyway looked much
different from colonial days. The ravages of both Chestnut blight and Dutch
Elm Disease had radically changed the makeup of those woodlands from back
then.

Jed Turner, Captain of militia, is tired of responding after the fact to
Indian raids. He decides to go on the offensive, to launch a raid on two of
the closest Indian towns and thereby teach the Shawnee that peace is better
than war with Americans. Let them worry about their own villages rather
than plan raids on white settlers. His company of militia numbers over a
hundred and sets off across the Alleghenies intending quick strikes on both
villages before the Indians can rouse the whole tribe.

It is hot sweaty work marching up and down hills and mountains against the
grain of the land carrying all their gear. No horses on this trip. Just
shank's mare. Some of the men wear boots whiles others like like young Axel
are satisfied with soft-soled moccasins. They are much quieter for sneaking
around the woods.

Axel and one other youth named Johnny Strang, a lithe redhead a
finger's-breadth taller than Axel, are dressed much like their Indian
enemies. In the heat of high summer, they wear only a deer hide loincloth
passed between the legs and supported by a leather thong wound low around
their hips. Except for moccasins and loincloth, their tanned bodies are
bare for all to see, making them look like naked savages themselves only
without the war paint or eagle feathers.

The color of his deerskin breechclout nearly matches Axel's skin tone,
bronzed from exposure to the sun. During the summer Axel hardly ever wears
clothing while tending the fields and the garden in the rude nude. He likes
to display the sexy young body he has so recently grown into.  His master,
Angus MacCrae, indulges his young indentured servant since there were no
females on his farm, just him, his nephew Caleb (Axel's lover), the boy,
and his black slave, Noah, the cook.

Johnny Strang has a peaches and cream complexion reflecting his Irish
heritage, his tan a lighter nut brown. From any distance, you could hardly
to tell that the boys aren't entirely nude. The strip of hide over their
loins is only a couple of hands breadths in width and tends to bunch up in
back, in the boys' clefts, entirely uncovering their buttocks. From the
side, they might as well be naked for all the good their skimpy garment
does them. The boys carry matching leggings and hunting shirts wrapped up
in a roll perched atop their packs in which they carry provisions: jerky
and pemmican and waybread. The young warriors are equiped with long rifle,
powder horn, canteen, hunting knife, and tomahawk.

"Isn't that some Indian buck snuck in among us?" one of the men asks with a
grin nodding toward Axel.

"He's the right skin color, granted, but small as he is, young Axel there
looks more like an innocent fawn than a virile buck," another jokes.

"Oh I don't know," opines another man. "He is practically buck nekkid,
ain't he?"

Axel pretends not to hear the good natured jibes.

"Don't mind them, Axel," Johnny tells his friend, "They always tease the
new guy. It's an initiation."

Another militiaman opines loudly that Axel's blonde thatch would be quite a
prize as a scalp for some Indian brave. Another man weaves a wreath of
flowers and places it on the blond boy's head like a crown, amid whistles
and cat calls from his friends. Even tempered lad that he is, Axel accepts
it graciously, even joking about it. Yes, he will wear the wreath but only
till he can replace it with the laurel crown of victory won for his prowess
fighting Indians. His comrades in arms are delighted with the spunky lad
who has taken their teasing in stride.

Finally one of the teasers asks if he really knows how to use his
Pennsylvania rifle, or is he just carrying a spare weapon for Captain
Turner. With a big grin on his face, Axel points to a distant target, a
dark knot in a tree about the size of a man's head and almost 200 yards
away.

"Watch" he says simply, then snaps his rifle to his shoulder and fires in
one smooth motion. The Captain is looking through his telescope to observe
the impact of the shot. Snapping it closed, he says simply.

"Another dead Indian". The men nod, accepting Axel now as one of them. He
has proved not only competent but personable, someone with an even temper
who can take a harmless joke or two at his own expense. A good comrade then
for the long march across the mountains. Johnny Strang, a veteran of an
earlier raid, was already known as a good lad and a competent marksman.

The boys acquit themselves well during the raid on the first village,
killing their man. They do their duty without inflicting gratuitous
violence on helpless Indian women and children. The aim of the raid is
dissuasion, not extermination. Axel admits afterwards that once past the
exhilaration of battle, what he feels is simple relief not elation.

"Warfare is a dirty business, maybe necessary at times, but it is a sad
reflection on the human species that it is sometimes necessary."

In a key scene Axel and Johnny Strang get separated from the others. The
militiamen are crossing a stream too wide and deep to ford so the men have
to swim for it, taking off their clothing, then floating their gear across
on makeshift rafts made of tree limbs, shirts or leggings stuffed with
grass. Part of the rear guard, the two youths strip and wait their turn to
cross. When several men get into trouble crossing, the youths, both good
swimmers, plunge into the water and drag them to safety on the far side.

Indians attack the rear guard cutting them down. The youths run off,
abandoning all their clothing and gear. The men they rescued pass them
tomahawks from their own equipment. So the youths have some kind of weapon
if only that. Everyone runs off down the trail.

As a pretext for getting the young actors naked, this was not a lame idea
as in some of their pictures. In their dinosaur picture, the excuse was
that it was set in prehistoric times before clothing had been
invented. Right.

In the following scene, shots ring out from the woods dropping the other
men with them. Cut off from the main body the boys abandon the trail
plunging into the forest, moving away from the ambush site. Coming upon
another nearly overgrown trail they run for their lives, putting distance
behind them, managing to escape immediate pursuit.

After an hour they pause to catch their breath and take stock. They have
run to the west and south of the line of march as was clear from
intermittent firing to the northeast, a running battle from the sound of
it. Going east, directly toward the settlements, will take them back into
the thick of it, not a good idea for lads armed only with tomahawks. They
have no guns, no ammunition, no food or supplies of any kind. They are
naked and barefoot, their hides already cut by brush and thorns. At any
other time Axel would have been pleased to be alone and naked with Johnny
Strang. Now he has to worry about survival.

Though the Indians are not right behind them, the youths suspect that the
Shawnee know they are out there somewhere and will be on the lookout for
them, maybe send war parties after them on their way back from the battle
with the militia.

"Southwest, that's the way we must go." Axel says firmly.

"Why, Axel? That takes us away from the settlements in the Shenandoah
Valley. Surely we have to go east, across the mountains."

"Yes, Johnny, we will, eventually but not right away. Don't you see Johnny,
the Shawnee expect us to head that way. We could never outrun Indian braves
by marching east the way we came, against the lay of the land, crosswise to
every stream and ridge line. The grain of the land lies south and
west. Let's run with it for a day or two before we turn east to cross the
mountains. Once we are back in Virginia, we can head north to the
settlements."

When they stop for the night it is only natural for the two youths to lie
close, arms around each other protectively, like a pair of fawns hiding
from enemies, bodies touching at chest and hip and limbs. They are so
vulnerable: alone, unclothed, afraid they might be killed or worse,
captured and tortured. Axel had not realized how beautiful a young male
body could look in the moonlight. As an Irishman, Johnny has only a light
tan compared with Axel's late summer color, but his skin positively glows
in the light of the full moon. (The cinematographer used filters to enhance
the effect of lighting on Terry's bare skin.)

The boys made a beautiful couple. They were fine looking specimens though
both were rather short in stature; Sandy barely reached four inches over
five feet (163 cm) and weighed only 112 pounds (51 kg). Terry's slender but
well-knit physique physique was only a little taller; he stood just under
five five (164 cm) and he weighted only 117 pounds (53 kg)

They kept their wiry physiques toned and taut from daily swimming and
running and working out with light weights. Theirs were the physiques of
boys not quite grown into manhood: short, slender, and slightly built but
toned and muscular, a swimmer's build in Sandy's case in contrast to that
of a cross country runner like Terry.

Their bodies were completely smooth without any body hair at all thanks to
the new permanent depilatories to suppress the growth of hair everywhere on
his body, even in the armpits and at the fork of the legs, leaving them
permanently smooth and boyish. Both were endowed in proportion with their
stature. That was just fine when you were running cross country bare ass
with your dangly bits bouncing about.

Both young actors were blessed with the kind of good looks that turned
heads, prettier than any boys rightly ought to be. There was Sandy with
delicate features, a straight nose, finely arched brows, a chiseled jaw
line, high cheekbones, and large green eyes topped by a thatch the color of
straw. Terry was no slouch either, a real beauty in his own right. An
incredibly cute red head, his face was lightly freckled and he had sky blue
eyes.

No wonder then that in the scene Axel's hand slips down to Johnny's hip. He
trembles with suppressed emotion. The blond boy is enthralled; his
companion lies so close they might easily kiss, but Axel is hesitant to say
or do anything, afraid Johnny would find advances from another male
repugnant, as so many did. Nervously Axel asks Johnny if he has a
sweetheart waiting for him back in the settlements. That puts a saucy grin
on Johnny's face as he shakes his head.

"No, Axel. Can you guess why a nice looking boy like myself might not have
a sweetheart?"

Axel flushes. The poor kid is so obviously and anxiously working up to
making an advance that Johnny almost laughs in his face. Instead he simply
leans forward and kisses the younger boy on the lips, drinking in the
sweetness of his companion pressing to maintain contact as Axel draws back
in surprise. For his part Axel tries to both smile and kiss Johnny back at
the same time, rather difficult anatomically.

"Oh, Johnny. I never realized..."

"That I had my eye on you, Axel, running around in next to nothing, in just
that skimpy breechclout? Why do you think I copied your garb. I hope you
don't think I usually run around showing my arse off to everyone. That's
just for the boys I like. Now hush, let's make love. Even if this is the
last night of our lives, tonight we have each other."

What follows on screen would be one of their sweetest love scenes ever, a
forging of bonds that will last a lifetime, if they survive. Both boys are
excited but their joining is tender rather than raucus. They are making
love, not just having sex.

Johnny starts off with light kisses, first to Axel's brow then to his nose
and mouth. They even rub noses, silly grins on their faces.

"I know you are pretty new at this so I will be gentle with you, my little
blond beauty."

He bends his face forward and locks their lips together, slipping his
tongue into the younger boy's mouth, poking and prodding and dueling with
his lover.  Johnny asks Axel straddle him so they can see each other's
faces as they make love.

Axel looks so cute, sitting up as tall as his slight stature will allow,
his nipples erect, a giddy look on his cute face. Johnny's hands run
lightly over the boy's torso, fingers twirling and squeezing his nipples,
sliding down the chevrons of his ribs. Axel reaches his hand to flip the
other boy's red locks out of his eyes, cupping Johnny's chin and tracing
his pouty lips with his thumb.

The boys shift from foreplay to simulated sex as Axel settles himself onto
Johnny's cock. Terry thrusts his hips as Sandy lifts himself up and
down. Lovers in real life, they are familiar with each other's moves. Of
course this is movie sex for a theatrical release after all, not a porno
film so no erections or penetrations. It helps that with forty guys in the
crew just out of frame, and with all that equipment around them, lights,
cameras, crane, cables snaking away, the situation is not exactly romantic.

Other scenes show how the young militiamen use their wits to escape Indian
war parties. In one vivid episode it is the next afternoon. The youths can
hear the sounds of pursuit getting closer. The war party numbers ten or
twelve. No use then to fight so many, not even from ambush, not with just
two tomahawks between them against a dozen well-armed braves (one of them
portrayed by Luis).

As they run past a steep hill, Axel spots a large wasp nest hanging from a
tree just up the slope. He tells Johnny to keep running and to let himself
be seen briefly, then scrambles up the slope and climbs the tree. The
audience can see that the nimble lad on screen hauling himself up the hill
and shinnying up the tree is no stunt man but the Jungle Boy himself, Sandy
Barnett, in his trademark costume of a sheen of sweat and nothing else.

As the war party runs after him, Terry in his role of Johnny Strang, ad
libs, turning to taunt the Indians by putting his thumbs to his ears and
wiggling his fingers, gobbling like a turkey. That draws them up short.

Taking advantage of their sudden stop, Axel chops the wasp nest free and
lets it tumble down the hill amongst the Indians. Angry wasps swarm out of
their paper nest, buzzing and stinging -- unleashing pandemonium among
their pursuers who scatter yelping plaintively. The clever trick gives the
boys a chance to open up some distance between them. They laugh as they
run, chortling over the way they have at least temporarily discomforted and
discouraged the Indians.

Of course, though the nest was a physical object, the angry wasps would be
inserted by technicians during post production with CGI. Director Nichols
loved Terry's bit of improv and shot a closeup of the comical action.

When the film was released, critics lauded the combination of
action-adventure, scenic locations, historical authenticity, and gay
romance. No doubt about it. This was the first entry in yet another
successful franchise for the Jungle Boys.

One spoilsport critic claimed that the only difference between the new
'Naked Prey' series and regular 'Jungle Boy' pix like the Bomba films was
the scenery. They were all about the same thing: "Bare Ass Twinks in
Peril." That provoked Fletcher to grumble that someone in their own camp
must have talked. That critic's wording was much too close to his own
original shorter version "Twinks in Peril."

			Chapter 3. Bomba II

Though thee setting of the Bomba adventures was a sleepy British colony of
the 1930s, the movie crew travelled to the Yucatan whose jungles and rivers
would provide excellent locations for the picture. Sandy portrayed Bomba
the Jungle Boy with Terry as his love interest, Bryce O'Hanlon, once a
sissy rich boy from New York, happy now to sleep in Bomba's arms when they
both aren't running around the jungle bare ass naked getting into trouble.

It seems that someone is always chasing after them whether angry natives,
evil witch doctors, Arab slavers, corrupt colonial officials, raiders and
bandits, you name it. If not bad guys the Lordlings of the Jungle had to
deal with storm and flood and landslides -- even an elephant stampede, the
last supplied by stock footage. These days, you couldn't stampede a herd
just for a movie.

In this latest installment, Bryce's bull-headed father, intent to wipe out
his shame, has hired white hunters to find and shoot the Jungle Boy and to
drag his son back to New York to be whipped into some semblance of
civilized behavior. If not, then the father will have his son shot full of
psychoactive drugs and consigned to an asylum. No son of his is going to
share a bed with a male lover, not if Michael Francis O'Hanlon has any say
in the matter. He will tolerate no such a blot on the family's escutcheon.

The story opens with scenes of Bomba and Bryce in their jungle retreat. The
boys are happy even if jungle living is not all fun and games. Food doesn't
just fall from the trees, and even what grows on trees might not be ready
to eat without preparation. The boys have to hunt (Bomba's department) and
gather (Bryce's task). Bryce prepares jungle foodstuffs in ingenious ways,
boiling water by dropping stones heated in a fire into the pot or burying
fish and vegetables under sand and building a slow fire atop the cooking
chamber. It helps that a friendly tribe provides flour and cornmeal and
yams from their gardens. They respect Bomba as a manifestation of the
benign spirit of the jungle.

Still hunter-gatherers have a lot of free time on their hands, time for
diving out of their tree house into the pool below, swimming, and playing
the grab ass games that young males are so fond of.  Over the past six
months, their relationship has deepened as the boys have come to know one
another's habits and personality quirks. Bryce has a quick temper but his
anger blows over fast. Bomba is more even tempered though jungle living has
made him realistic and even ruthless about killing animals for food. A
young antelope might look like Bambi to city folks, but it was fair game
for Bomba's arrows. The jungle boy did draw the line at monkeys which
looked much too human to go into the pot.

A series of short scenes, almost a montage, shows their life
together. Bomba teaches Bryce survival skills like tracking, swimming,
swinging on vines, and the use of his knife as both tool and weapon.  Bryce
learns to climb up palm trees to cut coconuts free and let them fall to the
ground. (Terry was a past master at climbing palm trees and did his own
stunts here.) In turn, Bryce shows Bomba how to box. They boy's wiry
physiques pack a lot more punch than potential opponents might suspect and
both lads are quick and nimble and hard to land a punch on.

Naturally the young actors do a sexy love scene, though one played largely
for laughs. It starts out with heavy petting and kissing and rolling around
and takes a comic turn when the young lovers accidentally roll off the
platform of their tree house and plunge into the jungle pool below. A real
accident, it was definitely not in the script, but Nichols kept the cameras
rolling anyway as the boys improvised incident and dialog, making for a
real fun scene.

The boys resume their lovemaking on the mossy verge of the pool. Bomba
rolls Bryce onto his shoulders and put the boy's slender limbs over his
shoulders. He leans forward for a kiss then straightens up for the fuck,
thrusting his hips at the boy's rump, pumping in and out. At least that is
what it looks like on camera. This is a feature film, not a porno flick.

In all this the lovers are watched attentively by their faithful animal
companion, a young ocelot, even though the pretty cats are not native to
Africa at all. But then few in the audience will be zoologists. In a shot
executed during post-production the camera even zooms in on the cat's
eyeball in which the audience can see the reflection of the hot action
between the boys. (This particular shot is a homage to 'Alien', something
of an in-joke for film buffs.)

When the men hired by Bryce's father show up at the tree house, Bomba is
away on a hunt. Bryce greets the safari led by a big dark haired man named
Gunderson and shows them where to set up. Since it is late in the day,
Gunderson plans to stay overnight and grab the boy in the
morning. Meanwhile he invites Bryce to dinner to pump him for
information. All unsuspecting, Bryce agrees. As they talk Gunderson learns
that Bomba will be away for a couple of days.

"Off hunting, eh. That's doing it the hard way. Maybe I live rough on
safari, but I prefer my creature comforts too. Don't you miss civilization,
young man -- the stores, the cars, all the modern conveniences?" Gunderson
asks.

"Oh, sure, I miss some things, like coffee and pancakes and maple syrup for
breakfast and electricity, but otherwise no, not really. I don't know what
we might do in the long run, but for now, this is fine. "

"I see you go around stark naked, like the native boys in the Nilotic
tribes in this area."

"That's right. We never wear clothes not even when we go to the villages or
to the district station of the colonial government. Funny thing is that I
used to be so up tight about nudity -- my Irish Catholic upbringing, you
know. My dad threw a fit the last time he saw me, just before he went back
to the States. "

"No, the only thing I wear these days is a knife sheath strapped to my
right calf."

"Hmnn, that is an awful lot of knife for little guy like you, Bryce."

"Maybe so, but it is both a tool and a weapon. We also use bows and arrows
to take game, though you have to creep up pretty close to use it."

"I prefer my 30 ought 6." Gunderson said. "Lots more range and stopping
power."

As for Gunderson's men, sure they look like a rough bunch, but so far they
had done nothing untoward. The actors who portrayed them were big men with
chunky builds, chest hair peeking out of the tops of their shirts, and
beard stubble on their cheeks. All had years of experience with film
credits like 'Thug #1', 'Lout in the Cafe', or 'Mafia Boss's Henchman'.

Barely eighteen, Bryce is rather naive and suspects nothing from what seems
like a friendly interest on Gunderson's part. So he open up with him, happy
to see a new face. The boys don't get many white visitors out in the
jungle.

The next morning, the jungle boy accepts an invitation to breakfast and
clambers down from the tree house. Poor Bryce is quickly surrounded by the
white men, shoved to his knees, his wrists bound cruelly behind his back, a
choke rope tight around his neck to keep him under control. As the boy
trembles in his bondage, his captors mock and abuse their pretty captive.

"What a sorry looking specimen this one is, Gunderson, -- short and skinny,
and nary a feather on him, not even down there."

"And pretty as an Irish lass too. Definitely not his father's son. Why
would a he-man like his O'Hanlon want a cocksucking runt like him back
anyway? We could just as easily shoot him as we will the blond Jungle Boy,
when we catch up to him. Bury the both of them."

"Why bother burying them?. Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms," (quoting a
classic one-liner delivered by Clint Eastwood in 'The Outlaw Josey Wales').

Bryce's look of alarm just makes them chuckle.

"Aw, look at him, the little pansy is worried about his boyfriend. Too bad
kid. We'll get to Blondie soon enough. We plan on making you a widow right
damn quick."

The men chortle at their captive's reaction.

"Can you believe that both of them live up a tree like jungle animals and
run around buck nekkid."

"There oughtta be a law or something. He is one naughty boy. Hey there's an
idea. Let's have some fun with him."

With that the boy's captors kiss him sloppily and feel him up in a parody
of foreplay, pinching his nipples and squeezing his buns hard enough to
leave bruises. The boy squirms and struggles as they grapple his slender
body to their hairy chests and make him lick out their arm pits.

"That's it, lick them pits, boy. A real man has hair on his chest and in
his pits and on his balls. Yeah, snuffle that man sweat, you shameless
tramp."

Next they bend Bryce over a log and strap the boy's butt, not from sexual
desire but just to vent their aggression on him. These are cruel men who
despise boys who prefer their own gender. Bryce can only kick his legs
ineffectually, totally at the mercy of these brutish men as they lay into
him. Soon his buns are striped with red welts. When they are finished
beating him, the men set the boy on his feet and mock him.

"Such a cry baby! What's the matter nature boy, you want your mommy?"

"Go ahead and bawl. It's all music to our ears."

"Har, What else could you expect from a cocksucking pansy faggot like him?"

The graphic scene was blatantly manipulative, designed to align the
audience's sympathies with the young protagonist against the villains who
had taken him captive. There was pretty little Bryce, his nude body looking
even more slender with his arms tied behind, forced to his knees, just a
slightly-built smooth-skinned lad surrounded by big hairy men, brutish
louts lording it over their hapless captive, mocking him and beating on a
young innocent who had never hurt anyone in his life.

Bryce's only "crime" was to fall in love with another boy, but that was
enough for these thugs and the man who had hired them. Which was why the
scene did not include a gang rape which would have been out of character
for Gunderson and company. Still the gay fans did get to drool over close
ups of Terry's rump as the straps fell on his delectable buttocks, making
them jiggle and clench from the pain.

Terry's gay fans were sure they would never pass up an opportunity like
that, with a walking wet dream like Terry at their mercy nude, in bondage,
bent over, pert rump in the air, his dangly bits hanging so vulnerably
between his slender hairless thighs. Not that they would ever do such a
thing to Terry Knowles, the personable young actor they all loved, but
Bryce O'Hanlon, sissy rich boy from New York was a different
proposition. After his previous sheltered existence with only his right
hand for company, there was a boy who needed to fucked hard and often and
by men who knew how.

Far away, listening to jungle drums, Bomba learns of Bryce's capture and of
the vicious things his captors are doing to the boy he loves. Bomba takes
to the trees, swinging on vines Tarzan style to cover ground faster than
the white men can march. He sneaks into their camp at night and cuts his
lover free. Together they flee for their lives and their freedom. No way
they could win a stand up fight against so many enemies, the white hunters
armed with rifles and their native trackers armed with long spears. The
chase in on.

The boys pull up short at a deep ravine with a white water stream flowing
through it. Desperate to survive, Bomba and Bryce plunge into the swiftly
flowing stream and struggle across. The trackers turn back. Crossing there
is too dangerous. They will go upstream to the log bridge and try to pick
up their trail on the other side.

Most of the whitewater scene was shot with stunt men swimming though a crew
stood by downstream to pull them out if they got into trouble. With time on
their hands, the boys went swimming in a quiet pool below the
rapids. Elliptical and surrounded by rocky slopes, the pool lay in a bowl
that an eddy of the stream must have cut during the annual flood.

At first their swim was idyllic, arms and legs sculling lazily under a blue
sky, letting the warm waters of a jungle stream lave them, listening to
bird calls, as a light breeze swirled around to cool things off and to keep
the bugs away. No one except the guy shooting footage for the Making Of
video paid much attention as the nude boys swam and gamboled and carried on
as youths will do.

Just then a Nile crocodile nosed its way upstream and entered the
pool. Only its eyes and the knob of its nose betrayed it presence. The
camera guy shouted and waved to the kids. Sandy noticed and poked Terry to
alert him to the danger. The twinks swam for their lives, reaching the
rocky bank just in time to scramble up the slope. They reached the top of
the ravine trembling with fear and anger. Cursing to relieve their tension,
the boys flung rocks down at the predator patrolling below, their anxious
faces and indeed the entire incident captured by the cameraman doing the
Making Of video. Nor would anyone think the whole thing was staged, not
with the way their cocks had shriveled in fear and their scrotums pulled up
close to their groins for protection. You cannot fake that.

Even after a hunter came up and dispatched the croc with his rifle the boys
were still shaky. They hugged, pressing their bodies together, grateful to
be alive but badly shaken at how close a call it had been. The thought of
losing his lover brought both young actors to the brink of tears. They
touched foreheads and held each other for the longest time in a chaste
embrace. Many of the crew look on, smiling indulgently at the young
lovers. Everyone loved these sweet kids.

"Close call, boys" Fletcher rumbled sympathetically. "A hunter should have
been watching over you at the pool instead of gawking at the filming. We
had other guards covering that. I have no choice but to fire the man, as an
example. We could never face your folks if we lost either one of you. Nor
forgive ourselves either, me and Jim. You know how much we care about you
both."

Sandy and Terry nodded in acknowledgment. Both producer and director were
good friends and had strong avuncular feelings for their young proteges. It
made both men sick to think of those beautiful young bodies torn apart and
turned into so much dead meat.

Still they were both veteran moviemakers, and their creative instincts
kicked in.

"You know, Fletch, this sequence is much too good for just the Making Of
video." Jim Nichols said. "We'll splice it into the movie. We need both of
the kids to do a voiceover later on. Their language there was too salty for
a family film. Tut, tut, all those naughty words."

"Say boys. How about clambering down the rocks but staying just out of
reach, talking directly to the croc, maybe say some jungly words of
wisdom. I'll get a writer to scribble something down for you."

"Jim, you cannot be serious." Sandy protested in a John McEnroe tone of
voice. "We are not getting any closer to that monster than we are
now. Count on it. If you want, we can work with a fake croc back in
Hollywood , but we are staying away from that animal. You may not have
noticed, but he is not exactly a member of the Screen Actors Guild. So I
don't think he can be counted on to play the scene the way his director
conceives it."

"Right, Sandy," Terry chimed in. "Definitely a method actor. When he chomps
on you, he really means it."

The director tried to get his stars to change their minds, telling them it
was perfectly safe. Crocs can't climb rocks, after all.

"Maybe not, but I don't know how high he can lunge, propelled by that tail
of his. Good Lord, Jim, that croc must be fifteen feet long (5 m). So
forgive me if I am less sanguine about the situation than you. In fact,
your proposal reminds me of nothing so much as the scene in De Mille's
'Samson and Delilah' (1949) where the Biblical strongman wrestles the lion
and kills it with his bare hands. De Mille wanted his star Victor Mature to
wrestle a real lion, supposedly a tame one.

"Look Victor," the director urged. "There is no danger. This lion is
gentle. Why he was raised on milk."

"So was I, but I eat meat now." came the adamant reply.

"And that was that."

"If you watch DeMille's movie, it is obvious that in the long shots, it is
a stunt man who wrestles the real lion. In close-ups, Victor Mature
wrestles a stuffed lion. It is actually quite comical if you know the story
behind the production."

Afterwards, when Fletcher and the director were alone, the producer told
him privately.

"Nice psychology there Jim, getting the kids mad about going on with the
scene. Snapped them right out of their funk. You got them angry first, then
a minute later they were joking about it."

The two old friends chuckled conspiratorially.

		Chapter 4. At the Premiere

To no one's surprise, critics recommended Bomba II only for fans of action
movies. That brought a shrug from Leon Potter. Such fans were their target
audience anyway. The box office would later vindicate the studio's decision
to green light the sequel.

Still the critics were not entirely wrong with some of their
observations. The plot is straight-forward, even simplistic. Most of the
movie is one long chase. The boys ran and swam and swung on vines,
occasionally doubling back or lying in wait to spring an ambush on the
native trackers who were out in front of the main party of pursuers. Bomba
and Bryce fall upon the trackers before they realize it, getting too close
for them to wield their long spears, giving the fugitives a chance to cut
them down. The young actors experience with knife fighting in their recent
gladiator picture, made these scenes especially realistic.

During one such ambush set on the edge of a grassy glade, they almost got
shot as Gunderson and company opened up at long range, but the boys got
behind a huge termite mound and kept it between them long enough to
scramble to the safety of the tree-line.

And naturally the picture ends with a clear cut victory for the good guys,
setting up yet another sequel. At a jungle river crossing Bomba tricks the
men into a close encounter with a herd of angry hippos. Those bad guys the
pachyderms don't kill outright flee in panic only to stumble into quicksand
and perish.

In an earlier scene, Bomba swims out to the lake steamer where the bad guys
are holding Bryce prisoner and free him. The boys make a clean getaway
swimming underwater as the villains shoot after them. The villains could
not follow them to shore because the boys had sabotaged their launch,
stranding them aboard ship. To the critics, the scene was wholly
gratuitous, just an excuse to shoot the delectable bodies of the two stars
in graceful underwater sequences that highlighted their athleticism and raw
animal appeal.

Underwater shots had been filmed at Silver Springs in Florida, a movie
location favored for its crystal clear waters. In post production, the film
editor combined the footage from both sequences. Nichols knew that
underwater shots would show off Sandy's prowess as a swimmer. In the water
he was in his element. Not for nothing had he been on a championship swim
team in high school.

As always the underwater shots used no coy camera angles, sun glare, or
strategically placed reeds or fronds, to shield the fork of the actors'
legs as would have happened in films made decades ago. To please fans these
days you showed it all. In truth there wasn't anything nobody hadn't seen
before, just under different lighting, simulating moonlight penetrating to
the depths, casting soft highlights on the smooth slender physiques of the
principals. And no stunt men please, not for these scenes.

Fletcher took no chances with either the talent or the cameramen. Two
divers kept watch below the surface, equipped with rebreathers (which don't
release bubbles) and sea sleds and armed with electric stun guns and shark
sticks. Up above, three men stood guard with rifles, two of them costumed
as bad guys on the bridge of the river steamer. Sonar swept the entire
volume of operations, riverbed to surface and bank to bank, for
intruders. Finally, just before anyone went into the water, they played
recordings of enraged hippos battling for their young, to discourage any of
Florida's hungry alligators from approaching.

Jason Eberly, Hollywood's first Jungle Boy, had a chat with to Terry and
Sandy at the premiere.

"You guys looked really good wielding those knives against the bad guys,
just like when you played gladiators. Isn't it funny the odd skills we
actors pick up for our roles?"

"Right, Jason," Sandy replied. "Horseback riding, swordplay, knife
fighting, even ballroom dancing, though that picture deal fell through."

"And we have other skills too: martial arts, pistol shooting, escape
techniques just in case of another run in with kidnappers or creeps who
want to turn us into sex slaves. But you would know more about that than we
do, Jason. You and your lovers have had to actually kill men to save
yourselves."

"Yeah, that was a long time ago, now. On a happier note, I have to say I
really loved your water slide scene, boys. It's what our Jungle Boy
pictures are all about: youth and love and fun and adventure. It's the kind
of scene I always wanted to do in my day, but things never quite worked
out. The franchise is in good hands these days."

"Thanks, Jason we both grew up watching your pictures," Sandy said. "Now we
are the Jungle Boys."

"Sometimes I just have to laugh about it all," Terry said. "I mean, it's
really silly, isn't it, running around naked in front of the camera? What a
way to make a living!"

The trio chuckled companionably.

The final scene in the picture at the water slide shows the happy couple
safe at last, gamboling like otters, smiling and laughing as they whoosh
down a (mostly) natural water slide to a clear pool at the bottom. When he
reaches bottom, a boy hits the water with a big splash and goes under
briefly only to shoot up like a broaching whale, thrusting an fist upward
shouting his triumph in an expression of life and joy and youthful male
exuberance. Then the young actor scrambles up the rocks to the top for
another ride, giving the audience a good look at his shapely tush.

The twinks go at it, singly or in pairs toboggan style, one of them sitting
between the legs of the boy behind him, leaning back, turning for a quick
kiss before launching themselves down the slide. They even go down head
first on their bellies, slicing neatly through the water at the bottom.

No complaints from "the talent" about retakes. The young actors did it
happily, for the sheer joy of it. No need to reach deep within themselves
to create a performance. This was the real thing, good clean fun that any
young male could relate to. A diver captured the underwater action too. The
scene turned out to be one of their happiest moments ever on a movie set
though it did draw a mild complaint from the director.

"Boys, boys. You know better than to stare at the camera much less mug for
it. Don't you get it? Your characters are alone in the middle of the
jungle. There's no one around to wave to or to smile at."

"Sure there is, Jim. Him," Terry said smugly, pointing to the guy with the
video camera shooting candid footage for the Making Of short film.

Jim Nichols shook his head, smiling. The kid had him there, the little
smart-ass. Gosh what great kids they both were. All right, maybe the twinks
were headstrong and wild, and you couldn't keep either of them in a pair of
pants for very long, but they had spunk.

Critics later complained that the movie's water slide sequence was wholly
gratuitous, not essential to the plot at all, and entirely derivative of a
similar scene in the 1980 version of 'The Blue Lagoon'. Talk about
saccharine endings!

Needless to say, the fans loved it.

			Author's Note

This is another tale about the lives of a pair of young gay actors in
Hollywood and their utterly improbable adventures in the movie business. It
takes place maybe forty years in the future. This thirteenth installment
continues the story of the pair of protagonists, Sandy Barnett and Terry
Knowles, introduced in Jungle Boy 6, in place of Jason Eberly, the original
Jungle Boy of the first five tales (who has an occasional cameo in these
new tales).

Readers quick on the uptake would be correct in surmising that the plots
and scenes for the 'Naked Prey' movies in these 'Jungle Boy' stories were
suggested by stories the series by the same name posted to the
Gay/Historical section of the Nifty Archive.

This tale is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person
living or dead. Neither the author nor any of his heirs or assigns has any
connection whatsoever to the movies except as fans. Occasional references
by characters to real motion pictures and actors and others in the movie
business are simply to lend verisimilitude to a tale about persons in show
business. None of the real people mentioned in passing is in any way part
of the tale.

Readers who like the Jungle Boy series should try either of my series of
historical novelettes. The 'Daphne Boy' tales depict an eternally youthful
protagonist and his adventures in exotic climes and times. The settings for
the 'Naked Prey' series are equally exotic, but each story has its own cute
twink protagonist.

My other series are the 'Track and Field' stories in Gay/College and my
'Mer-Boy' stories in Gay/Beginnings. For links to all my stories, look on
the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive for George Gauthier.

If Alexander, the Daphne Boy is "the ultimate twink" then Jason, Sandy, and
Terry and now Luis are "the penultimate twinks". I just love writing about
them. These kids are hot.

Comments and feedback welcome at georgegauthierdc@gmail.com

All rights reserved.