Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 09:44:46 +0000
From: Troubled Kid <troubledkid1985@hotmail.com>
Subject: Adventure-Training-4

Disclaimer: Usual stuff, don't hurt the children (seriously - put the kid
down!)  if your don't like it, stop reading. Contains sex and if you don't
like that, get help!

This storey WAS loosely based on myself and the people I know but now I
have gone completely in to fantasy. It's been really hard to write some gay
scenarios around straight people I know. Sort of like, "What would this
person do here?". It wasn't working because, in truth, my friends wouldn't
get themselves into those situations!  So I can now, proudly say: An
similarity between persons living or dead is pure coincidental.

Finally:

Dedications:- To the real life version of James and Martin. My two best
buddies in the world.

To Simon, with love. You shall never truly know me.

And to Tyler, miles and miles and miles and miles....... Now I have started
writing myself, I get what you mean!

-----------------------------------------------

Adventure-Training

Chapter Five

The next day, after breakfast had been devoured, every kid in the hostel
piled on to the two minibuses. Simon and I took the same seats as usual and
we left in convoy to the lake. With only Simon and I sailing, we were
already in shorts and tee shirt. The other kids were going to be on the
lake for half the day then in the town in the afternoon. After the last
days rain, the skies had cleared and the sun was out. We had changes of
clothes in our bags but we had planned to head straight out on the water as
soon as we arrived.

While everyone else was desperately trying get changed on the bus for the
lake, Simon and I were already pulling on life jackets and I was handing
over a lump of cash (considerably larger than I would have liked) to the
man behind the boat rental counter.

"Come on, then!" I said as I took off in the direction the man pointed me
in. Simon followed me still trying to figure out the zip on the life
jacket.

"How the hell do you do this?" He looked so cute with an exasperated look
on his face, but I didn't want him to know I felt like that. Whenever I
don't want someone to now know I like them, I've always seemed to go to far
the other way: say something to take the mick.

"For gods sake, you a retard or something?" Damn it! I'd gone too far! I
instantly wanted to take it back. "Nah, just kidding mate, come here and
I'll sort it out" I smiled, trying to let him know I wasn't serious.

The look of frustration had turned into a frown but now it changed again in
to THAT grin. He walked closer and turned side on to me and lifted his arm
slightly. I reached under and did the zip that secured the jacket. "Turn
round." He turned to face me and I grabbed the jacket by the top and lifted
him up to test it.

"hey!!" He only left the floor by an inch, but he didn't look happy! I
smiled and patted him on the back twice.

"Your all sorted, lets go."

The man who ran this place had got all the boats out and by the jetty that
morning, so all you had to do was raise the sails and cast off. We got in
the boat and began making my checks, both of the rigging and my crew.

"So, do you know how to handle a jib?" This was the sail at the front of
the boat, and if Simon was to be my crew, he needed to know how to handle
it.

"No, I was really just a passenger with my cousin. There were three of us
in it so I didn't do anything other than sit where I was told."

"Right, not a problem, we'll get out on the water before we raise
that. What do you do if I say way gyb, gyb ho or lee ho?"

"Err, is this the bit with the boom?"

I smiled, maybe I wouldn't have to teach him as much as I thought. "yeap,
that's the one. Lee ho and gyb ho means we are turning so the boom will
come across, way gyb means we are heading down wind and we MAY gyb, so
watch out. Actually, I haven't sailed since September, so I am out of
practise and if we are running with the wind the chance are we WILL gyb!"

He sorted of looked at me a bit confused. "Right, so mind my head, then?
Why not just SAY that when were are out sailing? Why the new words?!?" He
smiled like he was the first person who ever came up with that idea.

"you'd be surprised how much people have thought about what to say. Things
like, we always 'ready about' and 'prepare to gyb'. One means turn so the
wind come across the bow the other means the wind moves across the stern,
but the sayings are completely different so in high wind no one gets
confused and thinks we are tacking when we are actually gying."

"ok......." He said, not really getting much of it, "How about we just
sail?"

I laughed "I have NEVER heard a better idea!"

We cast off and sailed away just on the main sail. After a few minutes we
turned to wind and I raised the jib, explaining to Simon what he needed to
do. I sat back and pulled the main sheet tight and pulled the tiller
towards me, getting us out of the wind and going again. We sailed close to
wind and Simon had took on board everything I had said, pulling in the jib
sheet hard. The boat leaned in a gust and I hooked my feet under the straps
and leaned out.  Simon wasn't so quick.  The boat leaned up and he lost his
footing and began to slide down. He was perfectly safe and I let the main
sheet out and slowed the boat down. We came back level and I held my hand
out to him.  Taking my wrist, I pulled him back to his seat.

"look at the water over there." I pointed out in front of us and he
followed my gaze. "See the waters flat?" I pointed further up wind, "see
there? that darker water?  That's the small waves caused by a gust of
wind. When the sails catch a gust, the boat will start to tilt. We need to
lean out like I did before it hits us so the boat remains flat, because if
it tilts, it starts turning to wind. You and I both have to look out and
anticipate it."

"Ok...."

We sailed a basic triangle round three of the buoys in the lake, gradually
getting better and better as we practised. Eventually, we were rocketing
round. I was slowly introducing more complicated aspects of sailing. "Ok,
remember how I said that the tilt of the boat when the wind hits it effects
our sailing?" He nodded, I was impressed with how quickly he was picking up
everything so fast. "Well where we sit in the boat also affects it, you
know, whether we sit near the bow or the stern, oh, that the front and the
back." I was trying to uses laymans terms whenever I can, but I explained
everything using the proper terms first, mainly because it got a smile from
him.

We turned to run with the wind, which was running down the length of the
lake. As I had explained, he raised the centreboard and moved his weight
right to the back of the boat next to me, to get the best speed. We were
both in shorts and tee shirts and I enjoyed the feeling of our bare skin
touching. We picked up a fast pace and before I knew it, we had come about
a mile down, beyond the edges of the lakeside town. I glanced at my watch,
it was 12, and we had been sailing for about 3 hours!

"Wants some lunch?"

"Yeah!"

"Well grab the painter, that's the rope attached to the front and get ready
to jump."

"Ok!" He trusted me. Probably more than he should, considering what I had
planned.

I let down the main sail and we both moved up to the front of the boat. I
let the rope holding the rudder down out of the cleat and raised the dagger
board slightly. I had turned us towards to the shore and started taking us
in on the jib.

"Ok, when I say jump....." We were probably going to fast, I eased off the
jib sheet. When we got to a few meters, I shouted "Jump!" and Simon went
over the side without a moment hesitation. I quickly undid the cleat
holding the jib up and pulled it in to the boat before jumping over and
feeling the cold of the water soak into the trainers. I grabbed the painter
and Simon and I ran the boat up the beach using its own momentum.

Once safely grounded, we both crashed on the stony beach, out of breath.
Lying on the pebbles, I looked at him and he looked at me. In a moment I
thought would never end, he cracked up laughing.  I couldn't help it, I
started too.

"What's...so.....funny?!" I said between chuckles.

"Look at your knee!" I glanced down but it wasn't my knee. Below, on my
left shin, two spots of blood were growing. I reached down to touched and
it was swollen. Not bad, but painful. Maybe Simon acted as a natural
sedative, as I hadn't felt a thing.

"You banged it on the last gyb before we came to shore." Thinking about it
now, I could remember. The wind was picking up and I didn't judge the last
gyb too well. I smacked my shin inside the boat as I moved across to the
other side of the boat. I had been too busy worrying about Simon to really
notice, he had been having trouble with the jib sheets, they had got caught
round the base of the mast.

"Why didn't you say anything earlier?"

"I wanted to see how long it would be before you noticed!"

"For gods sake!" I got up and took off my shoes and shocks and headed to
the water.

"wait up!" He came after me, hopping as he tried to take his shoes off
while running. I had only been going to paddle and wash the blood away, but
if he was copying me.......

I took my shirt off just before I got to the beach and threw it and my life
jacket to the base of a tree on the shoreline. I ran in and dived as soon
as it got deep enough. I love being under water, even though drowning is
one of my biggest fear. I am full of contradictions, and this is one of
them.  I love to sail, I love to swim and I love to swim underwater, yet
the last time I had been truly afraid had been 3 years earlier. I had
capsized a smaller one-man boat and the main sheet had become tangled round
my feet. The lifejacket had kept me up in the water despite me not being
able to use my legs. My heart rate quacked and I was breathing way to fast:
I was panicking. I took a breath and went under, pulling my legs up to me
and getting the rope off from around my feet.

When I had got the boat upright and had dragged myself, soaked to the bone,
back on board, I realised how stupid I had been to panic. I was safe, I
knew what to do to get myself back to a position to get myself back to
shoe, yet I had felt it, I had felt myself begin to loose control of
myself.

Now I was diving under the water and I felt ok, I was in control.

I came up and looked to the shore just as I saw Simon, naked from the waist
up like myself, diving in too. He came up to the surface only a few feet
away.

"Hello! Fancy seeing you here!" I had to laugh, he made it sound like we
had just run in to each other down the pub!

"HA! Shut up, cheeky!" Hmm, that sounded a bit fruity, I didn't mean to
make it sound like that. I reaffirmed my manhood by splashing him. Logic in
the water runs completely differently from on dry land.

The normal course of events happened, I splashed him, he splashed me, a
dunk here, a dunk there, all harmless fun until he pounced on me. If I had
time to think about it, I probably would have enjoyed the feeling of his
bare flesh against my chest, but at the time, I was too busy panicking. I
had lost my footing and feel backwards. He hadn't been expecting that, and
he too fell in to the water in a way he hadn't thought he would, the only
problem was that he was on me!  I felt the same as I had all those year
ago, except this time, I couldn't take all those quick breaths that I had
before.  I wasn't in control of myself. I thrashed my arms out in front of
me and pushed him away. I got my feet under me and pushed myself up.

I took the largest breath I think I have EVER taken when I got to the air.
My heart was racing. I closed my eyes repeatedly and cleared the water from
eyes before looking for Simon. I turned my head and saw him doggy paddling
bit further out, just out of his death.

"dude, you ok?" He was clearly phased by my turn of moods and I can't
imagine I looked to calm to him.

Still breathing deeply, I looked up at him. "I'm ok........Just a
bit.......out of breath"

"Hyperventilating, more like!"

"Nah, nah, not that bad. I just panic when I get caught underwater."

"I thought you loved sailing and all that stuff!" He was starting to
lighten up again, before I was.

"I do, just hate the idea of water in my lungs!"

I smiled again as I started out of the water. Simon followed and I grabbed
our bags from the boat.  I lay on my front on my towel eating the grub we
had brought from the hostel. I had called him my shadow earlier, but maybe
clone would be a better description. He was doing exactly the same as me.

When we finished eating, I closed my eyes enjoying the feeling of the sun
on by back, but with a cooling breeze blowing over my back from lake.

In truth, there was no way I could have got any sleep. He was a foot from
me, his head facing mine and I could feel his breath on my check. I opened
my eyes and saw his were closed. I had not had that much of a chance to
'check him out', as I suppose you would call it.

My description of 'perfect' was defiantly the correct one. He probably
could do with one more meal a week than he actually had, but he wasn't
wasting away, it just gave him a muscle definition I didn't think you could
get that young. His arms were under his head, just like my head was on
mine, and I could see what surprised me, barely any hair under his arms or
on his chest.  I had always been 'hairy', hairy armpits at aged 12, you get
the idea, so seeing a 14 year old with less than I had at 12 seemed
strange. Late bloomer, I suppose.

"What you looking at?" DAMN IT! He was awake.

"err, you" SHIT! "I'm mean, nothing. I mean..... don't worry"

His eyes were closed again, "You like what you see?" He turned over on to
his back, showing me his forming 6 pack. Was he putting on a show for me?!

I didn't answer his question, treating it like a rhetorical one. He didn't
say anything else and I just lay there looking at his face with his closed
eyes. Could he feel my eyes on him? I didn't know. His face was allot cuter
when looked even closely. Looking at his face, I doubted he had ever had to
shave. No spots and no blemishes. His jaw was a little smaller than I think
it should have been for the shape of his head. He had told me how he had
had to have an operation on the roof of his mouth when he was younger,
maybe this was an effect of that? It didn't look wrong, it just looked
like......him! And Him = good looking.

I had thought allot this week about how I felt about Simon, and I think the
fact that I had always preached to anyone that listened that should always
be honest to yourself helped. At the time, I was talking about music
choices, saying the truth about what you thought about things. I was
talking about being true to yourself socially, if that makes any sense, not
this, but it helped.

----------------------------------------------------

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to the sailing adventure, though not
the end of the story.  I have WAY to many plot ideas in my head, just a
matter of finding the time to write them down!

Thank you!
troubledkid1985@hotmail.com