Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:11:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: erik ritler <erikritler@yahoo.com>
Subject: Space Ship Boys Chapter 6 - Fishes (or Mammals?) and Friendships

Hello readers! First, thank you for the many positive emails about previous
chapters. I am happy that people are enjoying the story (heck, I'm just
happy people are reading it). As always, feedback on this or previous
chapters is welcomed at erikritler@yahoo.com (feedback on future chapters
accepted from legitimate time travelers only please). Also, I head the sex
scenes with the phrase xes, so search that using the find function on your
browser if you want to skip to the steamier bits.

To recap the story so far, Devon is a sarcastic and witty college kid who
finds himself on a space ship on an 18-year voyage to a new home planet
after the destruction of earth. The mass majority of the passengers on
Devon's ship are guys from the boy's college he attended. Being in this
highly male population makes Devon slowly realize he's gay, something that
bothers him at first, but as he opens up to his closest friends he begins
to worry less, and eventually the pieces begin to fall into place. He
confides his sexuality to his best friend Patrick, who is very open and
accepting of it. Devon asks Patrick to talk to his other best friend Reid,
but that doesn't seem to go so well. In the meantime, Devon and Charlie
decide to become sex buddies and Devon and Conner become closer friends.

As life progresses on the ship and Devon grows more and more comfortable
with his sexuality, he wonders what the future holds for everyone on board.

And that brings us up to chapter six. Enjoy!



Space Ship Boys

Chapter 6 -- Fishes (or Mammals?) and Friendships


i

"So I still don't get it. If the first probes were sent out over a hundred
and fifty years ago, why don't we have pictures yet?"

Charlie rolled his eyes and groaned, I banged my head on the table in
frustration. We'd been trying to explain basic astrophysics to Jason for
over an hour, and I was starting to regret bringing the topic up at all.

"Ok, let's start over...again," I say, giving the lesson another go. "There
are seven possible settlement planets, right? But let's just take the
farthest one. It's about four hundred light years from earth. So say we
were sitting on earth and launched a probe that moved at exactly the speed
of light. It would take four hundred years to get there, then it could take
pictures and compile data and whatever and send them back to us, and that
transmission would take four hundred years to get back because it's moving
at the speed of light. So if you sit on earth, you have to wait eight
hundred years to find anything out. Get it?"

"Yeah, of course. But it's not going to take us four hundred years to get
there, they said it would be like nineteen at most," Jason replies, his
large green eyes stuck in a quizzical expression that makes him look
constipated.

"And that's what we've been trying to explain to you. Time slows down when
you go really, really fast, so even though for us this trip seems to take
nineteen years, outside more time is passing," Charlie adds.

Jason sighed and looked just as confused as ever.

"Ok, here, try this," I interject, "You know how when you hit fast forward
on a vid and at first it goes twice as fast, then when you keep pushing the
button five times, then ten, then twenty?"

"Yeah," Jason replies uncertainly.

"So, when we move close to the speed of light like we are right now, it's
kind of like you're holding a remote control and hitting fast forward the
whole universe around you." I point to a monitor across the cafeteria,
"Like if a movie had been playing there and we hit fast forward as fast as
it would go while we were talking, an hour would pass for us while like
twenty hours would go by on screen."

Jason seems to get my analogy to some extent, although it's not the best
explanation of relativity I could have come up with. "So in the rest of the
galaxy time is moving like in fast forward?"

"Exactly," Charlie replies, nodding at me gratefully for coming up with an
example to get us over the hump of the relative time mindbender. "So we've
been on this ship almost five months, right? But that's five months to
us. Outside the ship it's been like everything is on fast forward, so out
there it's been about -- what? -- a hundred months. Like eight years."

"Ok. So my parents will be like fifty now?"

"Uh, no," Charlie answers, "Because they're on EV2233 and going as fast as
we are. All the ships are, so it's been five months for everyone."

I pick up the lesson, not wanting to get stuck on the physics again. "So
anyway, that's why we never received information about the planets back on
earth. But now that we're moving really fast and time around us is in `fast
forward', someday we'll run into the information on its way back to earth,
first for the closest planet, then the next one, and so on. Once we start
getting that data, we can figure out which planet we can live on and go to
just that one, but that's why we're visiting as many as seven along the
way."

"Well, I hope it's the first one."

Like Jason, we all hoped the first of the seven planets would make a good
home for humanity. But even more, we hoped that at least one of the seven
would be habitable at all. Charlie and I didn't tell him they could all be
duds, although being a smart kid he'll figure that out soon enough.

His curiosity sated for now, Jason digs into his spaghetti, shoving big
forkfuls into his mouth. It was my recipe, although a basic one, but since
it was some of the first non-ration food being served since leaving it was
pretty popular. Somehow seeing Jason cram three times as much as he should
in his face is a far greater compliment that the praise I'd received from
others.

Jason Castello was part of Charlie's new function on the ship, and as such
I was glad that he had found something to take his mind off the loss of
earth and his family, although it did mean having to hang out with scrubs
all the time. Although the majority of passengers on this ship had come
from John Ducker Third Level University, there had been some activities on
campus for the local middle schools the weekend we evacuated, and as such
there were forty-seven `orphaned' preteens on board, Jason being one of
them. For some reason the guys on board had taken to calling them
scrubs. I'm not sure where the nickname came from, but it got around quick
and stuck. Seeing that none of their chaperones made it on board (they had
ended up on the ship in town near the girls school), the kids had been left
to run wild, until someone in the crew finally took the time to come up
with a structured program for them.

And Charlie had been put in charge of that program and was now responsible
for managing them -- making sure they had jobs and went to school and
stuff. At first that sounded really horrible -- I thought he was going to
have to be like a disciplinarian and put up with fifty bratty kids all the
time, but he took on the challenge with optimism and spunk and became
something like an adopted uncle to them all. He was the `cool older kid',
the first one that had really paid attention to them, so they were always
hanging around now, particularly Jason, whose mussed black hair and big
green anime eyes were becoming a regular feature at dinnertime. He wasn't
that bad -- for a twelve year old. He asked a lot of questions, but at
least he appreciated my cooking. Now that Jason had finished his dinner,
Charlie tells him to scram, but in a nice way, and he shuffles off to
wherever the scrubs hang out.

Five weeks had gone by since our 100 day party, and it had been an eventful
time for all of us. Some stuff had been really good, and some not so much.

Perhaps the best news was that the intership communication net was up and
running, and in the ensuing weeks we got data from other vessels. Some were
still offline, like we had been, so there were holes in the network. We
ended up in caravan behind a megaship from San Diego -- one of the massive
vessels designed to evacuate millions of people in one ship -- and they
almost immediately sent us a complete census list from all the ships that
had reported in. My parents were actually on the San Diego ship, and there
was a sense of immense relief when I saw their names on the roster, next to
each appearing a nine letter moniker: onusasapX and devweRokc. I knew that
each passenger was allowed to attach a nine letter string to their name
when filling out the census -- someday there'd be more elaborate messages
sent back and forth, but for now this was all we were allowed because of
data constraints. It took me a minute to figure out their message until I
rearranged them and the meaning
  became clear: "Devon, we are ok, contact us as soon as possible. Love mom
and dad." I have to admit, tears welled in my eyes a little when I figured
that out, and I quickly added my own nine letter message to my name on the
census -- iokcu18lvD. They may or may not like the `see you in eighteen
years' part, but they knew my weird sense of humor so I figured it would
do, and besides, the `love Devon' was really all they would be looking for.

Of course, having communications up had its down side. We learned that
several ships had been lost in the egress - a megaship from Dallas with two
million on board had exploded in the upper atmosphere upon liftoff,
shooting debris back down to earth and taking out four smaller vessels. At
least twenty on board our ship had relatives lost in that accident. The
business of getting three billion people off the planet over the course of
ten hours was not a simple thing.

And then there was a lot of just not knowing. At least a quarter of the
vessels in caravan were out of communication still, so for those who hadn't
found their friends and family on a list there was still hope, but it was a
nervous sickening hope to be sure. Charlie had had a bit of a rough time,
he knew his family lived well outside an evacuation zone, and although he'd
spent the last several months grieving over the loss of his parents and
three brothers, once the names started coming through the computer system
it hit him pretty hard. He spent a week being drunk and disorderly, during
which time I covered for him at work and spent my afternoons trying to get
him out of bed. I was starting to think he was about to completely fall
apart, but then one day he got up on time, showered off the muck, went to
work, and things kind of returned to normal with him. He was still prone to
moodiness and drinking too much, but he didn't seem self destructive
anymore.

Shortly after the com system came online, we had an election on board, and
that's when things began to feel like they were really returning to
normal. Each ship was instructed to elect a governmental council as well as
a mayor, the function being to handle civilian affairs during the
voyage. Stupid Steve Caine had almost immediately thrown his hat in the
ring -- well, he wouldn't be the first ex-convict to run for office. I have
to admit, he did have a bit of a following still -- guys who were fed up
with ration food and the crappy shit detail assignments. As long as humans
have experimented with democracy, being hungry and unhappy has always made
a minority of the population willing to listen to the nut jobs. I didn't
follow the annoying politics of the ship too closely, but I was a little
worried Steven would be elected.

But then Eden Stranton was `drafted' to run. He protested at first, stating
that he didn't really want to be mayor of anything, but a small group of
ardent supporters forced him into it. Coming off his success in fixing the
com system and adding to that his popularity from school, he was a pretty
unbeatable opponent. He would have won anyway, but he slammed the final
nail in Steven's political coffin when he announced a plan to create a
janitorial force to take on a lot of the shit detail work, and that the
force would be comprised of those on probation following time served in the
brig. So his platform was to make his opponent scrub toilets instead of the
voters, and needless to say that resulted in a landslide victory.

Like I said, I wasn't too interested in politics, but I will admit that I
went up to Conner's flat more than once to ask Eden about his
ideas. Usually I became really interested in governmental theory when he
was doing things like brushing his teeth shirtless after a shower or
stretching before running. Funny how that worked.

And while that was going on, I'd finished my training classes and now had a
full time job on the ship. I now worked directly under the purser in
managing the food stores. It was a cool job, really. I still spent four
hours a day in the cafeteria cooking and serving, but my job was becoming
more about what would be for dinner four months from now. I had to work
closely with the farm unit to plan crop yields, and then I had to work with
the medical unit to make sure we were able to maintain a healthy diet on
the ship. It was a lot of work, and entailed a lot of stuff I'd taken for
granted on earth, but it was a fun job.

One of the perks was that I got to spend more time with Conner, who I
selected as my nutritional advisor. He helped me set up a system to make
sure our meals had the correct balance of amino acids and vitamins, which
was helpful since I was mostly concerned with what tasted good. I was
appreciating his friendship more than ever, and as a result of our time
together talking about health we ended up making a gym schedule for
ourselves and working out together. It worked out well, our work schedules
both started a little late in the day, so we were able to go down to
bottomside in the mornings when it wasn't so crowded.

Bottomside was the recreational area of the ship, and as the name suggest,
it sat on the very lowest decks and was accessible via the elevators in the
commons lobby. Like a lot of the decks in the `southern' part of the ship,
gravity pulled towards `true north', so the areas here were all essentially
upside down. However, the elevators flipped imperceptibly on their way so
you didn't really notice you'd changed direction, although it was sometimes
dizzying to look up at the ceiling and consider that it was the bottom hull
of the ship.

The best space in bottomside was the football (some call it soccer)
field. Well, it could be used for anything, but football was the sport of
choice on this ship, and this main space in the bottomside facility was a
sight to behold. The football stadium held a full-sized field, along with
stands capable of seating a thousand. The curved hull of the ship sat a
hundred feet overhead, and where most of the ship is lit with standard
conduit lighting, the ceiling of the field is coated in a special material
that produces a simulated blue sky. Watching a game here, it's not hard to
pretend you're on earth on a sunny spring day.

Opposite the field is a series of tiered mezzanines extending from the
curved wall and overlooking the stadium. These five floors house the gym
facilities and contain all the weight lifting machines, treadmills, etc
that we need to stay fit and healthy. Conner and I had started lifting
weights here, which I grumbled about at first, but then one morning I
noticed that my biceps were a tiny bit larger. Like they went from 4.00
inches to 4.01 inches, but it was enough to totally psych me up and from
then on he didn't have to goad me anymore.

But mostly we like playing a game we'd invented in the racquetball
court. We tried to turn off the gravity one afternoon to see how that was,
but we couldn't figure out how to set it for weightless. Instead, we
managed to set all the floors as gravitational down simultaneously, which
turned out to be kind of fun. The thing with gravitational planes on this
ship is that once you were grounded to one, that would remain `down' for
you as long as you stayed connected. So if I set both the floor and the
wall in front of me to be down, I could stand on the floor and touch the
wall all day long and nothing would happen. But if I touched the wall and
then jumped off the floor so that my body was completely out of contact
with it, I'd repolarize and the wall would become `down' for me. In this
case, I'd go tumbling face-first into the new floor, which was something to
avoid. It was confusing at first, especially in areas where the floor and
ceiling were both used as floors to conserve
  space, but we'd quickly figured out that it's pretty sweet in
racquetball. We hadn't quite developed official rules yet, but it was
awesome to go running after a ball and end up walking up a wall, or to have
Conner launch a ball at me from the ceiling.

One afternoon, the day after a slight ankle sprain (yes, there were dangers
to six-wall ball, as we now called it), I decided to surprise Conner and
asked him to bring a swimsuit with him after work. He laughed at me and
told me he didn't have a suit -- it wasn't like he'd packed to go to the
Bahamas when we left earth. Har-de-har. I replied that he could wear
whatever he wanted -- boxers, undies or nothing at all, just to meet me in
area W4, which he did.

Working for the purser, I had access to all the farm areas, including the
wet farms. Area W4 was a massive space -- basically an endless warehouse
that held a gigantic saline water tank. And I mean gigantic -- it's
thousands of feet long, taking up almost an entire floor on the ship. You
entered the room to a little platform overlooking a large expanse of water
-- when lit it would be crystal blue, but it was now dark since we'd come
after work and the ship had the room set to `night'. You could barely see
the other end of the room in the dim light, but you could make out the
sound of the water slapping the opposite walls in the familiar
whoosh-whoosh sound of oceanic waves. There were pools on the ship -- all
kinds, but I told Conner that none of them were like swimming in here.

He was uncertain at first, but then as I stripped down to my `suit' (my
tightie-whities, I hadn't packed swimwear either), Conner followed
along. Ok, ok, so here's the truth. While I really did want to go swimming,
yes, this was also an opportunity to check Conner out. I admit it. As he
stripped off next to me on the small metal platform, I snuck a pretty good
look. Conner was a nice looking guy, as I've said before. Wide smile, white
teeth, nice long arms and legs. I was happy to see the rest of him lived up
to the promise. He had really well defined shoulders and a strong, lean
chest. No six pack, but his torso was long and sexy. Dang, too bad we were
just friends. Seeing Conner riled me a little, and I made a note to call
Charlie later to relive some of the testosterone.

When he'd stripped to his boxers (royal blue and plain), I jumped in,
treading water. Conner took a little coaxing, then followed me in, yelping
a little a when he hit the water. Yep, it's set to oceanic standard, about
15 degrees Celsius, not exactly a `heated' pool.

We swam around for a bit -- the near end of the tank is only five feet deep
or so, and although I enjoy the salt water on my lips and against my skin,
I call to Conner to swim out with me over the ledge where it's deeper
(quite a lot deeper, actually). We get about fifty feet out when I turn to
tread water. Conner starts telling me how great this is -- swimming in this
big open space, when all of sudden he goes totally silent. Then,
unexpectedly, he screeches and leaps up in the water towards me, grabbing
my waist. I appreciate the nearly nude physical contact with the guy, or at
least I would have if he hadn't almost drowned me -- he pulls my head
slightly below the surface and I swallow a big gulp of the briny water.

"Holy crap, Devon! There's something in here with us!" he exclaims, still
clamped to my waist. I sputter and cough, trying to respond and push him
off at the same time. In retrospect I should have stuck my hand in his
boxers to see what was in there (I don't think he'd have noticed), but at
the time I was trying not to go under.

"Jeez, cough, cough Conner. Get, cough, off. It's just Beau." I laughed. I
expected my surprise to be, well, surprising, but maybe not this much.

"Beau?" He looks uncertainly around him at the dark water.

"Yeah," I reply, steadying Conner and getting my breath back. I slap the
water in front of me hard three times and wait a second. I'm rewarded by a
huge grey head emerging right in front of me. I pet the large slick snout
in front of me.

"What. Is. That?" Conner whispers tersely.

"I told you, it's Beau. He's one of the minke whales."

"And what the hell is he doing in here?" Conner asks. I can guess why he
freaked out. Of the twelve whales in this tank, Beau was the only one that
was all that interested in people, and usually when he met someone new he
liked to swim up under you and graze your feet.

"Swimming, I would think. Where'd you expect him to hang out, the library?"
I joke. "Computer! Lower tank lights! Level five!" I yell up into the
room. The ship responds by turning on the lights at the bottom of the pool
at half brightness. While it's not enough to make the water crystal clear,
or to light the whole room, a luminescence rises up from the deep tank
waters to reveal several large black shapes swimming below and around
us. The larger shapes are the other whales, who typically ignore me and
like to dive deep when people are around. You can also spot schools of
small fish swimming here and there -- a lot of anchovies, Beau's favorite
snack -- but also tuna and yellowtail and some other farm stock fish.

It's a beautiful sight, particularly the graceful whales swimming deep
below us, and Conner calms down. "Wow. That's really cool," he says, then
slaps me on the shoulder, "But you could have told me we were diving into
an aquarium!"

"Surprise."

Beau dives down for a moment, then comes back up, blowing Conner playfully
in the face from the two spouts on top his head. He likes to do that,
although this affection is a little salty for my tastes. I know what it
means, though -- he's bored. I motion Conner over, and we swim along Beau's
body to his sickle-shaped dorsal fin, which sits about three-quarters of
the way back on his twenty-two foot body. "Here, grab on and take a deep
breath. He wants to play," I tell Conner, who obeys and grabs hold.

I slap the water, indicating that we've latched on to the rigid fin, and
Beau responds by immediately diving, pumping his powerful tail to carry us
through the talk at increasing speeds. This would be better with the
goggles, which I forgot on the platform, but the water is clear enough with
the lights so that as we go deeper we can make out the other whales
swimming in the depths. They're all Baleen Whales - five are Northern Minke
Whales like Beau, then there are three Bryde's Whales and three huge Gray
Whales. Beau swims by two of the greys -- the females -- who look somehow
regal and stern, like two wizened old women who are a little annoyed that
their neighborhood has been invaded by rowdy kids. It's a silent world,
quiet and blue and cold, foreign but atrociously beautiful.

Beau can dive for twenty minutes at a time, but he seems to know we can't
and takes up back to the surface. The tank is deep, and my ears pop along
the way. "Wow, that was awesome!" Conner exclaims as we swim back to the
shallower ledge. Beau follows us, and I know what he wants. There's a
control panel in the water on a little island, and I swim over and push
some buttons on the console. There's a whoosh from out in the pool and some
bubbles surface noisily. "Whale snacks." I explain.

Beau dives deep, and Conner steps up to the ledge where the tank goes from
five to a hundred feet deep. I stay back, knowing what comes next. Without
warning, Beau shoots up out of the pool a few dozen feet from Conner, his
entire body emerging from the water as he twists in the air. All four tons
of him slams back into the pool, enveloping Conner in a huge splash. The
wave reaches me and I ride it towards the platform. I laugh at the
sputtering Conner as I climb the steel ladder out of the pool. Beau has
swum to the depths to retrieve his snack, and the splashing we hear around
the tank indicates the other whales have come in for food as well.

As we leave, Conner slips back into his clothes, his wet body soaking them
immediately, but I decide to remain undressed and just carry my kit in a
bundle under my arm. I like the way my briefs cling to my compact body,
it's almost like walking around nude and I can't help but shake my sexy
little Devon butt a little. Conner doesn't say anything about my undress,
and as we head through the hallways we pass several guys, who glance at me
but don't seem to find it odd that I'm wet and traversing the ship in my
skivvies.

The next day we resume our regular gym schedule, although Conner does agree
to go with me to see Beau once in a while, although he never quite forgives
me for not telling him there was an enormous affectionate aquatic mammal in
the pool before he dove in. Whoops.

So on that front, things had been going great. Conner and I were better
friends than ever. But part of the reason things had been so good with him
was probably because things with Reid and Patrick were going terribly. Or
at least with Reid they were.

After the party, Reid had become increasingly distant, which pissed me
off. Sure we were on opposite shifts, which meant I was always still at
work when he got off, so we were bound not to have a lot of time together,
but he didn't have to avoid me. When I was serving in the cafeteria he'd go
to another line or grab something cold and leave. We'd say hi to each other
now and then, but we didn't really hang out. He was always asleep when I
got home at night (he worked pretty early), and then he was always gone
when I got up. That wouldn't have been so bad, but one morning after a game
of six-wall with Conner I'd spotted him across the gym working out with
Chris and Peter. So they'd replaced me as gym buddies. For some reason that
hurt my feelings more than anything.

But as time passed, I went from freaking out about what Reid would think if
I were gay to not caring what he thought about anything. What he thought
about having a gay friend became irrelevant -- mostly I just wished he'd
have the nerve to talk to me to my face. And yet, there was always a pang
of regret when I thought about it. I kind of missed him. It was kind of
stupid to lose a friend over this.

This was something Patrick had spent weeks reiterating to me. He was
annoyed at me because of the way things turned out -- he kept reminding me
that I had promised no weirdness and that this felt beyond weird. He also
conveyed his conversation with Reid in full detail, swearing that he'd
politely brought up the subject that I might be gay and that Reid had
smiled and been fine with it. He swore this was an invitation for me to
broach the subject with Reid, but I pointed to the ensuing behavior and
insisted that everything after the party indicated that Reid was done with
me. Which hurt, but was fine.

And although Patrick was annoyed about the rift between Reid and me, he
knew when to shut up about it. Besides, I told him, I found it far more fun
to fill him in on all the other, sexier details of my life. In the ensuing
weeks after my night with Charlie, he became something of a confidant. I'd
tell him everything, and he'd usually have good advice. He always listened
in his dispassionate Patrick manner and make observations as scientifically
as he could, even though every once in a while I'd catch him rolling his
eyes at my more outrageous statements. Despite the occasional sarcasm and
wry comment, though, I had a newfound appreciation for Patrick, and the
openness he showed on the night I talked to him made me trust him, and as a
result we grew a lot closer. He really helped me out when Charlie was in
his funk -- it was his advice for me to be supportive and not pushy, and in
the end that worked out well.

And to make sure that Patrick and I always had something to talk about,
Charlie and I continued our adventures together.

Not at first, of course. Charlie's week-long funk had interfered with us
following up on our after-party fun, and most of that week was spent
looking in on him and making sure he ate something. Then he snapped out of
it and went back to a normal schedule, which meant that he started sleeping
in his assigned room rather than the secret flat he'd done up. We still
hung out a lot -- I made sure of it so I could watch him in case he started
to get depressed again, but I wasn't going to initiate anything sexual
since he seemed kind of fragile; and when two weeks went by without him
showing any sign that he was interested, I figured that our agreement to be
bed buddies was trumped by the more important and impactful situation with
his family. And I was more than happy to be the kind of friend who helped
him through that.

But then things changed.

ii

xes

We'd been working in one of the farm areas -- a large room dedicated to
grasses -- wheat, barley, etc. Charlie wasn't assigned to any duties there,
but his shifts always ended a couple of hours before mine and I could
usually count on him to show up and help me out at the end of the day. This
was one of the boring farms, it was always devoid of people since all that
needed to be done was a visual assessment of each bed daily. Everyone liked
hanging out in the garden farms, where there were always plants to be
pruned and picked and tended. Here you just watched the grass grow, then it
was harvested, then it grew back.

Charlie had been doing what he usually did when I was checking the grass
farm -- he wandered around aimlessly, looked at the ceiling, laid on a
bench, ran his hands over the young wheat. He'd often circle the room,
which in this case meant climbing the gravity stairs on one end and walking
around on the ceiling, which was in fact used as another floor and covered
with barley. Occasionally he'd sneak to the spot directly over me and toss
a wad of dirt or something at me from overhead. I was always absorbed in my
readings, and this usually shocked me, to his delight. Sometimes we
chit-chatted while I made notes on each bed's progress, other times we just
hung out in the same general area, both of us feeling more comfortable
whenever we were within close proximity.

One day I was absorbed in trying to figure out why a certain bed always had
a 14% smaller yield than the others when Charlie snuck up behind me and
unexpectedly wrapped his arms around my waist. I flinched at the unexpected
contact, then relaxed. He didn't need to say anything for me to understand
that he was thanking me for being there for him. I don't know how I knew
this, but we'd grown close enough that I could read it in his body
language. After a moment hugging me tightly, he slipped his hands up under
my shirt and began caressing my chest and stomach, and although he still
didn't say anything, I also instantly understood the meaning behind this. I
turned and smiled at him and he smiled back. He had a shaft of hay between
his teeth, and with his moppy brown hair and deep dark eyes it made him
look like the epitomic all-American farm boy.

He stepped closer to me and tugged my shirt up over my head, the air in the
room was hot and smelled of dirt and plants -- the environment here was set
to late summer, and it was a little over 30 degrees. So having my shirt off
was refreshing, since I was sweating profusely anyway. He reached out and
tugged on my nipple a little, and all the sexual energy we shared came
rushing back. Still, I was a little worried about his mental state.

"Are you sure about this?" I ask, letting him continue to pet my chest.

"Oh yeah," he replies, "That is, as long as you're still gay and we're
still friends stuck on a space ship with six thousand guys."

"Uh, yeah, I think all of those things are still true..."

"Good," he replies, smiling one of the first true smiles I'd seen on him in
weeks. And then he doesn't waste any time at all -- reaching out and
grabbing my belt strap and pulling me close to him. He kisses me deeply,
our first real kiss, or at least our first passionate kiss. It's sheer
electricity, his tongue slipping between my lips to explore my mouth. We
both smell a little from being in the heat -- not bad, but tangy and
manly. His shirt is damp with sweat, and as we make out I revel in the feel
of the fabric rubbing against my bare chest. But I want more contact, and I
reach out to pull his shirt over his head, reluctant to part my lips from
his for even a second, trying to coordinate our kisses with the clumsy
fumbling of my fingers.

He helps, and as soon as he's topless I pull him into me, our tongues
reuniting in his mouth in salty wet triumph. His body is glistening with
sweat also, and when I pull us together, stomach to stomach, chest to
chest, our slick skin slides together -- I can feel his heart throbbing
deeply against my chest, and I think about the hot boy standing in front of
me, thoughts that instantly inflate every erectable inch of my teenage
body.

This is a hurried and desperate tumble -- Charlie later tells me he hadn't
even beat off during his funk, and I admit to him I only did it once - most
of my free time had been spent worrying about him. Now that this was over,
both of our bodies cried for release, and there was none of the tender
exploration we had played with that first night together. Charlie
frantically unbuttons my pants and pushes them to the floor, I start to do
the same to him when he presses me against the wheat bed a little too hard
and I lose balance and fall backwards. It's not a long fall -- the beds sit
a couple of feet off the floor, and now I'm lying in the wheat, looking up
at the horny boy about to pounce.

Charlie has a mischievous gleam in his eye, one he reserves for his most
roguish moments and one that I find intensely arousing. He quickly pulls
down his jeans, revealing a pair of tight blue plaid briefs with a steer
motif on the crotch. I almost ask him where he gets his underwear, but
before I can phrase the question he leaps down onto me, his weight both a
little painful and a little erotic. And then we're kissing again, our
brief-clad crotches rubbing together. I can feel the defined thickness of
his shaft against mine, each time he humps me our erections roll over one
another and waves of pleasure rush over my body.

The kissing isn't something we'd done before, and not something I'd have
thought Charlie would be in to, but he seems aggressively ravenous for my
mouth, his prickly chin scraping my cheek now and then pleasurably. I grunt
into his mouth, and he grunts back at me, laughing a little. I'm content to
go on kissing, but Charlie clearly isn't. He reaches down between us and
hastily pushes my briefs down my thighs. My boner springs happily free and
I feel the scratchy wheat under my now-bare ass. I go to reach into his
underwear but he shakes his head and moves my hand up over my head, pinning
it there with his left hand, which is also supporting his weight.

He pushes his own briefs down, although they only slip halfway down his
butt because of the weird position we're lying in, my legs dangling off the
wheat bed and him lying on top of me. Still, it's enough so that his seven
inch erection pops out, pink and wet and clearly ready for fun. Charlie
lowers himself so that our cocks line up; he grabs both in his free hand,
forming a fist around the meaty shafts. The feel of his cock against mine
is electric, the feel of his hand around me is electric and the feel of his
body grinding against me is electric. It's almost more than I can take even
before he starts doing anything.

He begins thrusting back and forth, copious amounts of precum instantly
coating both of our boners. I let out a whimper as pleasure spreads through
my body and overcomes my senses, which encourages him to go faster. This is
hot and heavy, and I sense from his glazed look that his body needs a fast
release. I notice an odd sensation from between my legs and realize that
it's Charlie's balls rubbing against mine in time with his thrusts. For
some reason, the image of our scrotums gliding over one another is almost
more powerfully erotic than anything, and I feel myself tipping over the
edge.

"Ung, ung," I grunt in time with Charlie pushing against me, "I'm almost
there."

"Good," he smiles back devilishly. The sensations below my waist change --
Charlie begins rubbing the heads of our dicks in circles around each other,
a pool of precum allowing them to glide effortlessly against one
another. It's too much for me and I feel my balls contract. My hips
involuntarily buck, almost throwing Charlie off me, but he manages to stay
on as my orgasm begins.

My first shot fills Charlie's fist with a white glob of cum, and I screech
in pleasure. He sits back and strokes me through the rest of the orgasm
with his left hand, his right hand now furiously beating his own shaft. He
grunts and a stream of cum shoots out with tremendous force, landing in my
hair and on my forehead. Four more spurts spray my chest, and I reach up to
grab the last few dribbles in my hand. Charlie pants and gasps and
collapses back onto me before rolling over to lie next to me.

"Been storing up?" I ask, looking at him with a strand of semen hanging off
my bangs. He blushes furiously, then we're both laughing, lying naked
together, me covered in our cum.

That's how sex with Charlie started back up.

The next time, I took the opportunity to instigate things. We were hanging
out in the unoccupied room in section 24, which we started doing most
nights after work. Usually Charlie came up here to drink, and usually I
accompanied him to try and get him to do something else. Two nights after
our garden encounter we were both in the room catching up on some work, me
going over protein schedules and him trying to figure out how to get all
forty-seven scrubs in for scanning over a two day period.

He was lying face down on the bunk, shirtless, and with his nose deep in a
notebook. I'd been staring at him for the past several minutes, having
become quite bored thinking about soy. From my vantage point on the couch I
could take a quiet moment to look him over, not that he'd mind if he knew I
was staring, there was just something endearing about watching the half
naked boy reading without him knowing. I was intrigued by the brown skin of
his back, and the way an indentation ran in a line up the center, and the
manner in which his square shoulders flexed and moved when he turned the
page of his book. I was particularly intrigued with the way his jeans sat
low on his hips, revealing a white band of elastic that was also low enough
on his waist to provide the tiniest tantalizing glimpse of the v-shaped
flesh that led southward into the crease of his butt.

And being a teenager, that's about all it took to get my motor running. I
thought about his low jeans, and how if they slipped down another couple of
inches his ass would be half exposed. Another couple of inches lower than
that and he'd be practically naked. And then maybe he'd want me to be naked
with him.

Ever so slowly, I got up from the couch, not making even the tiniest
sound. Charlie loved to sneak up on me, and I figured this was my chance
for some turnabout. I was in sock feet and sweats, which made my silent
maneuvering easier than it would have been in shoes. Still, I took a full
minute to traverse the six steps to the bed. It helped that Charlie was
really engrossed in his work -- he took his new job seriously, which was
great, but if I had anything to say about it he was about to take an
unscheduled break.

Moving as slowly as possible, I came up alongside him and realized I hadn't
really planned this surprise too well. I wasn't sure exactly what to do
now. I could pounce on him, which would be fun I suppose, but somehow a
little anticlimactic. Or maybe too climactic. Then I spotted that
all-alluring crease of flesh on his lower back and decided on a plan of
action.

Barely daring to breath, I lowered my face to his back. I considered that
maybe he knew I was hovering -- once I was within a few inches I'm sure he
could have felt my body heat near him if he'd been paying attention -- but
he seemed so engrossed in his work that I was pretty sure he was unaware I
was here.

I reached out with my tongue and ever so gently licked at the spongy flesh
there. He tasted clean and refreshing -- we'd both showered a little
earlier -- but still a little salty and distinguishably `Charlie'. If I had
surprised him he didn't show it dramatically -- he kept on reading his
notebook, although I could tell by his posture and the way his muscles
shivered that he definitely felt what I was doing.

He didn't say anything, though, and I was happy to play along. I could have
used my fingers to explore, but I liked the taste of him, and I wanted
more. I ran my tongue up his back, deeply inhaling the scent of soap and
clean skin. Charlie was a skinny guy, but he had some muscles, and I liked
the way the lower parts of his lats felt meaty and warm against my mouth. I
nipped at him playfully, gently biting into the muscle there. Still he
didn't move or say anything, although the shivers I felt against my cheek
told me he was enjoying what I was doing.

It was a bit of a stretch to hold this position, so in one fluid motion I
swung my left leg up and over him to straddle him from behind. I fit
against him like our bodies were made for one another, the cotton of our
sweats rustling as our pants rubbed against one another. I had a gigantic
boner by now, and judging by the way it slid so naturally into the crevice
between Charlie's cheeks, I figured he could feel it even through the two
pairs of pants and underwear we had on. In case he didn't, I thrust back
and forth a couple of times, enjoying the sensation of my head sliding
against the cotton fabric of my underpants.

Lowering myself against him, I moved my oral exploration on to his neck,
sucking a little at the skin there and enjoying the damp scent of his
hair. My fingers ran down his smooth sides, and he lifted his body a
little, which I took as a sign to begin exploring his chest with my
fingers. It was hard to steady myself in this position, but I discovered
that I was more than capable to distribute the weight so I could caress his
chest with both hands while still licking at his neck with my tongue. I nip
at his ear a little, which I knew was particularly sensitive, and he gasps
slightly. I guess I won the quiet game, or at least this adult version of
it.

"Bored, are we?" Charlie chuckles, while at the same time grunting in
approval at my ministrations.

"Not at all," I exhale directly in his ear, taking the sensitive lobe
between my teeth, "I have my own Charlie to play with, how could I ever get
bored?"

He laughs and lets me go back to sucking his ear. I've unconsciously
continued thrusting against him, and am fully hard, slipping around in my
pants. It hardly seems fair for me to be having all the fun, so I move a
hand down into Charlie's jeans. He's still lying flat on the bed, and I'm
on top of him, so it's a tight fit, but I am easily able to navigate the
distance and find what I'm looking for. As expected, he's also completely
hard and ready to go.

I discover that each time I thrust against him it pressed his hips downward
and causes his shaft to slide forward against my hand. I make a fist, and
although this is an utterly bizarre sexual position, I continue humping the
increasingly aroused Charlie from behind, him humping my hand in
return. I'd love to get fully naked with him, but each thrust takes me
further into sexual lust and it feels increasingly too good to
stop. Charlie must agree because he grunts more and more audibly with each
thrust.

After only a couple of moments I'm taken completely by surprise. I didn't
think I could come just rubbing against all this fabric, but that's exactly
what happens.

"Erg, oh god, OH GOD," I exclaim, my load ejecting into the crotch of my
tightie-whities. I hump Charlie mercilessly, using his ass as the perfect
cushion against which to ejaculate. His body is hot and sensual under me;
lost in my orgasm I reach down and suck aggressively on his neck, biting
him a little harshly until he yelps pleasurably. As I recover, I begin
fisting Charlie faster than before. He's clearly aroused by my orgasm, and
is making the sharp panting noises that I know mean he's deep in boy
heat. But this isn't the best position to get off in, at least not for him
(clearly it was for me), and I begin to lose feeling in my hand.

So I roll off him, reveling in the sharp pangs of pleasure emanating from
my overly sensitive crotch as I move around. Charlie rolls onto his back,
smiling, but his eyes also glazed over with sex. I quickly unbutton his fly
and tug on his underwear, allowing his erection to spring free. I begin
pumping him using the method that works the fastest on me. He's slick with
precum, and the shaft slides easily between my fingers.

"You know...gasp...Devon...Ugh, I'm really...ugh...glad we decided...oh
god...to become...ugh...sex buddies..." he pants and moans as I pump his
rock hard erection.

"Me too," I reply, smiling up at the red-faced Charlie. It doesn't take him
long to get there, and after a few more seconds he unloads in my hand, on
his chest and all over the bed. Man, the guy can shoot a full load, that's
for sure. He looks as hot as ever, his chest covered with several globs of
his sticky white semen.

Seeing that, and knowing I caused it, put me right back into heat. I wanted
to get off again, but suddenly I was a little bashful. Maybe under other
circumstances I would have waited until later, but somehow sitting next to
a cum-covered Charlie with his dick softening in my fingers, I was able to
overcome my shyness.

"Uh, seconds." I explain, sitting up on my knees and unzipping my fly.

"Ok," Charlie replies, not moving from his position of post-coital
bliss. Clearly he's not shy either. I fist my newly freed shaft as fast as
I can - I'm lubricated with the deliciously slimy load that I'd shot into
my underpants. It only takes about twenty seconds before I'm shooting
again, and while I might like to add my load to that on Charlie's chest, I
decide to be more polite and come in my free hand. "Cool," Charlie says as
I finish and collapse panting next to him on the bed.

And the weeks progressed like that, Charlie sometimes jumping me and
sometimes me jumping Charlie, usually with a jumping one way or the other
happening once a day.

Eventually I noticed that something odd had happened. About the twentieth
time or so we were together, I realized that Charlie had been right from
the very beginning, and although our coupling was bringing us closer as
friends, I wasn't becoming more romantically attracted to him, or him to
me. Don't get me wrong, I loved his body close to mine and I loved his
smell and taste, and man did I love making him come. But despite all the
things I loved about him, I didn't love him. Well, I did, but as a friend.

This manifested itself several ways. For one thing, I noticed that our play
centered more and more on getting off, and less on kissing or
cuddling. While we took to sleeping in Charlie's flat in the unoccupied
section, and on most of these nights we'd tumble two or three times,
afterwards I'd usually slip off into the other bed in the room. Sometimes
we'd sleep in the same bunk, but not usually. At first I wondered if this
should bother me, if there was something wrong with not falling in love
with Charlie. I mean, it's what he wanted and what I kind of thought would
happen, but he was an important friend to me so I decided to talk to him
about it one night after a particularly memorable experiment with a banana
peel.

We were lying in bed together, a rather disgruntled Charlie trying to get
all the goopy brown remnants of my failed experiment off his chest, when I
decided to bring it up.

"Hey, can I talk to you about something?" I ask, reaching over and swirling
a somewhat disgusting puddle of pureed banana and cum on Charlie's
chest. He kind of huffs at me, I can tell he's not really angry, but the
banana sex wasn't as enjoyable as one might have thought.

"As long as it isn't about doing it with lemons or onions or something like
that next time. I'm never going to get all this gunk off me. Gross."

I reach over the bed and grab a sock, putting it on my hand like a mitten
and running it down Charlie's chest. It scoops up all the grosser bits but
leaves a big dirty brown streak of oxidized fruit, making him look like
some circus freak with a huge birth mark on his chest. "No, it's not about
that. It's about us."

"Uh-oh."

"Nothing like that. I wanted to talk about falling in love."

"UH-OH," Charlie says more emphatically, shifting uncomfortably
around. Good lord, what is it with guys and the l-word?

"No, no, nothing like that. Don't get your undies in a bunch." He wasn't
wearing undies, as I should know, lying here naked next to him and playing
a little with his flaccid penis as a kind of apology for the messy
sex. "The thing is, I'm not falling in love with you, which I know is what
you wanted, but I kind of wonder about that. I mean, is it normal for us to
have sex and not develop romantic feelings for each other? It seems like it
may be kind of weird."

"How so? I mean, friends have sex all the time. Our situation is a little
different, granted, but I don't think it's odd that we like being
together." I chuckle. Given the highly pornographic picture the two of us
paint in this position, `being together' seems like an overly tame way to
describe our activities.

"Yeah, I know," I reply. I'm having trouble figuring out how to phrase
exactly what I'm trying to express, so I roll over on my back and look at
the ceiling. It doesn't help, but after a few seconds I start talking
anyway. "It's just, I always thought when I started having regular sex with
someone I'd eventually fall in love with them and there would be, um, I
don't know, fireworks or a spark or something. Maybe it's because we're
just friends that hasn't happened. Or maybe because I'm gay and you're
straight. Or maybe what I imagined, that whole being in love thing, doesn't
really exist at all and I'll never feel that way about anyone. I guess
that's what I'm really worried about, more than us screwing around being
weird. What if I never fall in love with anyone?"

Charlie looks deeply at me, his big brown eyes full of concern. "Look,
Devon, here's the deal. First of all, and I thought about talking about
this before but it's a kind of weird subject to just bring up, but you
don't have to call me straight. I mean, I'm lying here naked in a pool of
your semen after having just let you fist-fuck me with a piece of fruit. I
think we can safely say that I'm bi-sexual, or maybe even gay. I don't
really know which yet.

"If we'd never left earth, maybe you and I would never have gotten together
and I'd have met some hot girl and fallen in love. Who knows, maybe I'd
never have experimented with guys. But I did, and guess what? I discovered
that I like having sex with you. I mean, I LOOOOOVE having sex with
you. It's great. Awesome. You make me see stars every time I come. And
sometimes at night I find myself humping my pillow thinking of that sexy
little white tummy of yours, or the way your ass looks in your little white
undies."

I start to blush furiously at the compliments.

"So you've taught me something about myself. I'm at least bi, and I know
that our experience together has made me that way for the rest of my
life. It might even make me never want to go back to girls. Who knows? I'd
say right now I'm probably, hmm, 71% gay? Something like that. And that's
all because of you.

"As for the whole falling in love thing, that's something I've been
thinking about too. Sometimes I worry that us being together like this is
great for me but not good for you. I mean, us becoming closer friends and
us having sex saved my life, you know that? I've never talked about this
with anyone, but for a while there, I was thinking about, you know..."

He trails off, but he doesn't have to expand on what `you know'
means. Charlie was clearly prone to depression, or at least moodiness, and
one of the reasons I'd insisted on searching for him that night he
disappeared several weeks ago was because I half expected to find him
unconscious somewhere with an empty bottle of pills.

"Charlie, look man, if anything like that ever happened, it would kill me,
I don't know what I'd..."

He presses his forefinger to my lips, it smells like banana and despite the
serious discussion I have to smile a little. "Shh, all that's over now. I
promise. Because of you. You being my friend, and us being together like
this. I want to say this to you, and it's a little hard. I want you to
understand that when we say that we're not boyfriends, that's all about
romantic love. That we don't seem to have, and it's good we feel the
same. I was worried maybe one of us would develop romantic feelings, and
that might be a mess. But we haven't, and that's ok. As far as the love
friends feel for one another, well, Devon, in that way I love you as much
as a person can, you are the most important friend I've ever had, and I
want you to know that I will be yours forever and ever. You saved me. In
that way, yes, I guess I fell in love with you a little, as a friend."

Charlie's words are hushed and sincere, and I can tell that he means ever
bit. I don't know if it was the impact of the words or because I wasn't
expecting this outpouring of emotion or my more feminine gay qualities
coming out, but as he put his hand on my chest and pledged his eternal
friendship to me I kind of lost it and began to cry, which makes his eyes
water a little too.

"Sorry," I sputter, "that's a little intense, you know? I love you as a
friend too, and you saved me in a way. I didn't really know I was gay
before you, and when I started to suspect it I was consumed by all this
fear and worry. Somehow, as soon as we got together that all seemed
better. I feel like, I don't know. I feel like it's ok now if people know."

"Yeah? You mean like tell people, or just let them find out?"

"I think just tell them. Well, I already told Patrick, but that's not quite
the same as being open about it to the whole ship." Suddenly I realize that
outing myself might out Charlie too, and that my decision affects him. "I
mean, I won't tell them about you and me. Or maybe you and me stop spending
time together before I'm open. Or maybe I don't tell them if you don't want
people to think you are too. We're together a lot. If all of a sudden I'm a
gay boy, they'll think you are too, and I don't want...arg, well, that
would be a mess...what I mean is that..."

Charlie stops my stuttering, "Hey, look, you need to do what you need to
do. This is your decision, and don't worry about me. Because of you I'm
alive and breathing, and if the cost of that is a few sniggers in the
hallway I'll deal with it. But there's something else."

"Yeah?" I shift again so that I am facing him, my head propped on my
hand. As I shift my package slides over and across my leg and tickles a
little. I look down at Charlie and see that his is lying seductively across
his leg too.

"The thing is, hmm..how do I put it? When you talk about never falling in
love, that worries me. I mean, you are a hot guy, Devon Chasen, and you
need to realize that. You totally deserve to have someone that makes you
feel fireworks and sparks and all that. And I am sure that you will find
that someday, and someday soon. I just want to make sure that I'm not
getting in the way. You need to be young and in love, and sometimes I worry
that if you spend all your time with me you're sacrificing that chance. Not
that I want to give this up," he grabs my penis lightly and I smile at him,
"but I also don't want to, erm, hold it back. You know?"

"I guess. It's not like the ship is teeming with boyfriend material, and
we've just been fooling around for a month, so I haven't felt like this is
stopping me. I don't think you need to be that concerned."

"But I am, and this may be weird, but that's one of the reason I suggested
the jerk off club idea. You know, get five or six open-minded guys together
and see what happens? In part, maybe that would help you find someone maybe
you could love. And in part, it's because I know that although you're happy
here in a friend's bed instead of a lover's, some day I'm going to have to
set you free, and when that time comes I'd kind of like to still, well, you
know, have someone to have sex with." Charlie blushes. I'm not sure why,
the idea he'd have ongoing sexual needs seemed a lot less embarrassing that
the banana thing, and I'd come up with that.

"So what you're saying is that if watching six hot guys wank off is the
price you have to pay to help me find a boyfriend..." I say in a somewhat
mocking voice, trailing off and waiving my arms dramatically.

"Wellllll, like I said, it's not totally altruistic," he replies.

"Yeah, I've got your number, Barrett, don't think that I don't." He laughs,
as he usually does when I call him by his last name.

I think about it for a second. Charlie had brought up the idea of trying to
get together a wank off club after our first (mutual) night together. At
the time, it had seemed a little rude to bring up the idea of group
shenanigans right after our first time, but since we were just having sex
as friends I'd understood. And the idea did sound appealing in a way,
assuming it didn't backfire and get us beaten up. And yes, I'd thought
about it once or twice since he mentioned it, usually with a resulting
erection in my bunk.

It only takes me a brief moment to think about it, and in the end I tell
Charlie I'm on board. Maybe he's right, maybe this will be a good way to
find the gay guys on board and someday locate that eventual boyfriend. Or
at least find Charlie some other sex buddies. He smiles at me and we
promise to talk about it in the morning, rolling over to go to sleep.

Usually this is the part of the evening where I'd slink off to the other
bed, and maybe it was that I felt bad that the banana idea had been such a
bust, or maybe it was that Charlie had just confessed his eternal love for
me, albeit as a friend (ok, so it was almost assuredly the latter), but
suddenly I was totally overcome by a sense of endearment to the guy. Our
talk tonight had brought a lot of stuff up -- a lot of good stuff -- and I
couldn't help but feel that this was going to change our friendship
forever. In many ways we'd grown closer, but we'd done that by
acknowledging that someday soon we might need to grow apart a little. It
was both a happy and a sad moment in our friendship, a friendship I now saw
had this intense love burning right below the surface. And it was my
newfound discovery of this love, and the realization how important it was
to me, that sent a massive surge of emotions through my body. I was happy
and young and alive, and all at once completely buzz
 ed on this feeling. It was past bedtime, but there was no way I was going
to sleep on this high.

"Hey, Charlie, one more thing," I whisper.

"Yeah?" he asks, still on his side with his back to me.

I reach over and aggressively tug his shoulder, pulling him onto his
back. He yelps a little in surprise, probably wondering what the hell I was
doing and possibly thinking I'd gone insane. But I hadn't. I was drunk on
my feelings for this boy, this wonderful friend, and I was coming into my
own as a young gay man, and dammit, if I'm gay then that's what I am and
that's what I'm going to be.

Before Charlie can say anything, I move my face down to his still naked
crotch and take his flaccid penis into my mouth. I'd never done this before
-- not even nearly -- although he'd sucked me the one time. Somehow, I'd
avoided anything more than humping and heavy petting, but now I needed to
express myself and my homosexuality, and this tender act was my method of
choice.

"Urg," a surprised Charlie manages to get out as I roll his stiffening cock
around with my tongue. It's not the best blow job I'll ever give and I
don't keep it in my mouth for the finale, but when Charlie comes he comes
hard, and he clearly enjoys it. He goes to jerk me off, but I don't let
him. "That one's for being a friend," I tell him before we pull the covers
over us and fall into a deep and peaceful sleep.