Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 20:49:59 +0000
From: Troubled Kid <troubledkid1985@hotmail.com>
Subject: Adventure-Training-5

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: Any
similarity between persons living or dead is pure coincidental.

I'm sorry it's late. It's a little longer than usual. I am also trying to
write it a little different. More talking. This is my first storey I have
written since I was 15!  So give me a break! Anyway, as it's a new and
improved writing style, tell me what you think! Tell me if its better,
worse, or maybe you can't even tell! Emails at the bottom.

Dedicated to the real life friends represented by James and Martin, and to
Simon and Tyler.

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

Adventure-Training

Chapter Five

We lay there for an hour or so, eating the food we had brought and chatting
about bullshit (not literally, but you get the point). The sky became
darker and the wind picked up. Our skin became goose pimpled in the cold
air, and Simon got up to get his shirt. I suppose I was a bit disappointed
the show was over, but we needed to start heading back. He tossed me my
shirt and life jacket and we got ready to sail off.

Simon took the helm as before, but the wind had picked up and I was worried
he was sailing beyond his abilities. Heading in to wind, back up the lake
towards the town, the boat was constantly leaning.  Both Simon and I,
squeezed tight near the front, had our weight far out over the boat to try
and keep us level.

A gust came at us, stronger and from a slightly different direction than
Simon had been expecting.  The boat leaned even more and turned in to
wind. We had leaned to far and the weight of the sail and mast was now
pulling us over. Simon fell in to the water now below us, falling between
the side of the boat and the boom. I tried to pull myself up and over the
rising side of the boat, easy in a one-man craft, but here, it was almost
impossible. I was just pulling boat over further!  I had to give up and
resign to the fact I was going in.

I fell forwards but badly, hitting my arm on the boom. I also came up under
the sail. I kicked my legs and swam the length of the boat underwater. I
came up past the mast and looked around. Simon was nowhere to be seen. The
rain had started to fall from the dark clouds and the water was freezing.

"SIMON!" I called, spinning round trying to see him. "SIMON!"

"Over here!" I could barely hear his voice over the wind. I swam to the
other side over the boat.  It was on its side and the centreboard, normally
sticking straight down into the water, was now horizontal. Simon was trying
to pull the boat upright by pulling himself up on the board. I doubted he
could do it with his small weight, but if he did now, the boat would take
off, as it had its bow to the wind. I grabbed the painter and swam with as
force as I could to swing the boat into wind.

I had to turn it through 180 degrees, so it didn't matter which way round I
spun it. I turned it clockwise, that way Simon could see me and would
understand what I was doing.

With the boat now facing the right way, I joined Simon on the centreboard.
He pulled himself up on one side while I did my best chin up impression on
the other. The boat slowly rose as the sails emptied of water. As it came
upright, it started to correct itself faster and faster. I grabbed Simons
arm and we both swam as fast as we could away from it as the boats hull
slammed in to the water where we had been seconds before.

At the stern of the boat, he climbed up first. As he was almost in, I
placed a hand on his butt and pushed him the last short way into the
boat. He turned round and, with him pulling on one of my arms and the other
being used to pull with my own force, I slipped into the boat next to him.

We lay there panting for a few seconds, our bodies shivering, trying to
burn fuel and warm us up.

Simon started giggling. "Well, at least I've learned capsize drill now!"

I had to laugh too. The boat was full of water, we were both soaked and
freezing, but we were perfectly safe now, and it WAS pretty funny!

"Ok, ok, you bail out the water, I'll sail us back SLOWLY on the mail sail
and we'll just let the jib flap."

It took an age to get to shore on the main sheet, but we did it. The rain
came down heavily as we tied up and ran along the jetty. There were no
changing rooms here, just toilets, so we both headed in to them.  I was
going to head to a cubicle but Simon was in front of me and he just began
changing in the middle of the room. Not to leave him all alone, I started
too. I took of my shirt, leaving me in the same state as earlier. He was
drying of his chest as I tried the aged old trick of trying to change my
short and underwear underneath a towel. He laughed at me. I looked around
he had pulled on a new shirt and it stuck slightly to his damp skin. He had
also taken off his shorts and pants (English, therefore pants = underwear).
He was now standing, naked from the waist down, laughing at my attempts to
balance on one leg, take of my shorts AND hold a towel. His tee shirt was
too low for me to see anything but the very bottom of his almost hairless
ball sack, but he turned around and I saw the smallest but in my life as he
crouched down to look for clean clothes from his bag.

I was staring for too long. It was on of those moments that just continued
for a second more than it should have. He turned his head, almost in slow
motion, to see why I had stopped changing. As soon as I realised he was
looking at me looking at him, my eyes shot to the floor and I continued
trying to change.  There seemed little point now trying to continue with
the towel, so I took it off and dried my chest and pulled on a clean Tee
shirt.

"Ahh, Foo Fighters! Cool!" Simon was almost changed, he was now pulling on
socks and then standing on his towel after.

I looked down at myself. I thought it was just a plain black tee shirt, one
like dozens I had. But now I saw it was the Foo Fighters one my brother had
given me for my birthday.  Black, with the FF symbol in the centre. "yeah,
they are great. And not just the new album, the early stuff it good too."

"I know what you mean. I quiet like the first album, when it was just
Grohl." Wow. That surprised me! A random bit of music trivia even I had not
known till a year or two ago. Most of the songs on the first foo album was
written by Grohl and Grohl alone.

I was not confident about changing quiet the same way as Simon: I was a
little older and my tee shirt was a little smaller on me that his was on
his small frame, so I turned my back as I dropped my shorts and pulled on
some clean boxers.

I heard a laugh and looked round. Simon was concentration on his shoelaces
and trying to contain a laugh too big for him.

"What's so funny!?" I asked, while his laugh became infectious.

"Your ass is hairier than my dads!" I could help it, I was laughing with
him now.

"come on, we should get going." I got out between giggles.

"Ok, gorilla"

We were about two hours early for our meet with the rest of the group, so
we walked through the town seeing if we could find them.

"Oh! Over here!" Simon grabbed my arm and led me out of the rain in to a
warm shop full of surfer cloths.  They had all the loose jeans that Simon
wore and tee shirts bearing the same brand name as he was wearing now.

I left him to himself as he looked around at the cloths, all WAY to
expensive for me. (why spend a fortune on cloths? you can get tee shirts
for under a fiver at a supermarket! God, I'm a cheapskate!). I found myself
looking at a display rack with necklaces and pendants, all silver or bronze
in colour. As I stared at one I liked, the metal links in the chain almost
egg shaped, but only a few millimetres across, Simon came up beside me. The
first I knew of his presence was the feeling of him leaning against me arm.

"You like them? I got that one." He pulled out a necklace from under his
shirt with one hand and pointed at the one next to the egg one with the
other. His one was similar to the one that had caught my eye, but larger
links.

"yeah, there pretty cool. I like that one." I nodded at the egg one.

"hey! Its a smaller version of mine!"

"And you're a smaller version of me, what's your point?" I winked at him
seeing if he would get the joke.

"Not smaller, just less hair, eh, gorilla?"

"Stop calling me that!" I said, almost seriously, if it weren't for the
smile on my face.

He gave me a defiant and cheeky lopsided grin "No!"

"If you keep calling me hairy, people will wonder how you know......... you
SURE you want to explain to people that you were staring at my butt?"

That had him. The smile faded, and he thought for a moment before declaring
- "In that case, I will only call you that in private, when me and you are
hanging out."

"What makes you think I will be wanting to hang around with you!"

"You aint got a choice in that matter, mate. You wont be able to get rid of
me!"

I turned back to the case and, while I would loved to have said it out
loud, all I could do was think to myself 'Why would I ever want to?'.

I made a mental note of the number next to the necklace and went to the
tills. I still wasn't sure. It was $8. Like I said, I am a cheapskate and I
know I needed all the cash I could as the teachers took us down the pub on
the last night for a meal each year. I looked and saw Simon looking in the
cabinet, looking a pendants he could buy for his one. I then made one of
the best buys of my life for the worse reason.

I bought the egg necklace.

In truth, its a great chain, I wear it all the time except sleeping (unless
too drunk to remember to take it off) and every time it touch it, it makes
me think of Simon and that random surfers shop. However, at the time, I
bought it because it was cool, and I wanted Simon to think I was cool...

I wore it under my foo fighters' tee shirt as we left the shop with just
the part over the back of my neck showing. Simon noticed it.

"Ahh! Cool! You got it!" He smiled as we walked back towards the meeting
point. On the way, we ran in to a group of our kids. Not James or anyone,
just a group of about 6 we knew roughly. We walked with them for the last
half an hour before meeting everyone else at the busses.

James was talking to Greg and I saw him look up at Simon and myself as we
approached. A flash of recognition came across his face as he saw us.

"Hey Mark! Enjoy your sailing?" He put his hand out, catching some of the
light rain still falling.

"Yeah, it was fun, till someone turned the lake upside-down, eh, Simon? Or
was it just the boat?"

"You capsized?" James laughed. "Not even I have done that! And I'm crap.
I've never even been able to steer the bloody thing whenever Mark has taken
me out. I've given up letting him try and teach me."

Simon was going a bright shade of red. Strangely, the same red as the FF
symbol on my tee shirt. Time to have his pride, I thought. "He was actually
really good. Better than you ever were. He just messed up right near the
end when the winds were high. He was great sailing for hours before that."

"Yeah well, you two still went in!"

"True, True."

Back on the bus, James and I sat down next to each other and talked about
all we had done. I know, it must seem like I abandoned Simon, but its not
true. He was sitting across from us, adding in little bits I may have
missed out about our day. Strangely, he didn't feel the need and add in the
bits about sunbathing or changing in the toilets when I missed them
out. James told me all about the places in the town Simon and I missed.

Everyone started to quieten down as some people just rested and some slept.

"James?"

"yeah mate?" he answered, his eyes shut as he tried to rest.

"Did you go to a cash machine in town, by the way?"

"yeah, need money for the pub tonight. Meal with everyone."

"Yeah, I know, thing is, I only have $2 left. Couldn't tab me a tenner,
could you?"

His eyes shot open. "You had one this morning, said you were saving it.
Where the hells it gone?"

I thought it best to show him than try and explain. I reached round the
back of my neck and undid the chain, dropping it his hand.

"Ahh, cool. Looks a bit like his." He nodded at Simon. "Thing is, why?"

"Just seemed like the right thing at the time." He raised an eyebrow.

"Don't look at me like that! Don't tell me you've never bought something
while shopping with someone because they thought it was cool!"

"True, but that was when a girl thought it looked good................."

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

If you think that buying the necklace to impress Simon was stupid, then your
right. But that is a small bit of truth in this chapter. I DO have a silver
chain, bought from a surfers shop with Simon there and every time I take it
off at night, I think of him. you can all say 'ahhhhhhhhhh' now if you like
;) Drop us a mail to tell me what you think.
troubledkid1985@hotmail.com