Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 00:19:57 EST
From: Phaedrus57@aol.com
Subject: Isle of Refuge 2--tt/bb, consensual, Young Friends

Caveat: This is a story of love and adventure among a group of teenaged
boys.  It contains scenes of sexual activities between boys.  If this
offends you, do not read the story.  Please go to some other site.  If the
laws of your country or locality say that it is illegal for you to read
this type of story (i.e. that you are too young to have erotic thoughts or
sexual questions and your innocent little mind shouldn't entertain such
possibilities as are portrayed in this story), you should obey the law.  If
you read this story nevertheless, don't get caught!  Hide your downloads
and delete your history.

Enjoy the story, which will go on for many chapters.  I hope that it will
appeal to your minds and hearts.  It isn't primarily a sex story, although
it has its erotic moments.

Comments are welcome and strongly requested.  Flames will be ignored.
E-mail me at phaedrus57@aol.com.


Isle of Refuge

Chapter III: The Second Day

	The boys gradually awoke, yawning and stretching, as the rays of
the rising sun hit them.  Tommy, surprised but not displeased to find
himself in Miguel's brown arms, shook the older boy awake and said in a
stage whisper, "Miguel, it's morning!"

	As soon as Miguel's eyes opened, Tommy jumped up and shouted, "I
gotta go to the latrine!"  He ran down the hillside, followed slowly by
others.

	The last to get up was Mike, who emerged from his hammock looking
sleepy and cranky.  "Did you sleep OK, Mike?" Richard asked from beside
Chris's stretcher.

	"What's it to you, faggot?" Mike snarled.

	"Sorry I asked!" Richard said quietly.

	"I woulda slept a lot better if you guys hadn't been fucking around
all night," Mike complained.

	"We didn't mean to bother you, Mike," Richard said.

	"So you admit it?  You queered Kevin and Miguel and Tommy?  Tommy's
just a little kid, for chrissake! " Mike said accusingly.

	"As matter of fact, Tommy wasn't involved.  But nobody did anything
he didn't want to do."

	"Shit!  Marooned on a desert island with a bunch of fags.  For this
I left Yonkers?"

	"Mike, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do either,
except help everyone else survive," Richard said.

	"Hey, can somebody help me get to the latrine?" Francois called
out, still lying on his blanket.

	"Mike, as soon as someone comes back to stay with Chris, will you
help me take Francois to the latrine?" Richard asked.

	Mike looked sullen, but didn't refuse.  Richard heard Chris cough
painfully.  "Do you want some more morphine, Chris?" he asked.

	Chris grimaced, but said weakly "Naw, I wanna be awake ... for
awhile. I don't wanna, like, miss everything!"

	Richard went to the pool and returned with a cup of water, which he
held to Chris's lips.  "Drink some water, bro," he said softly.  Chris
tried to swallow, but only gagged and coughed.  "Maybe later," Richard
said.

	Just then Kevin walked back up the slope, returning from the
latrine.  "Kev, would you stay with Chris while Mike and I take Francois to
the latrine?  Did you see Tommy down there?"

	Kevin grinned and replied, "One: yes.  Two: no."

	"Quite a smart mouth so early in the morning!" Richard said,
grinning in return.  "Chris, you take Francois' left arm and I'll take his
right."

	Seemingly in better spirits than a few minutes ago, Mike complied.
He and Richard got Francois upright, carefully helping him keep his weight
off his broken leg.  With an arm over the shoulders of his two muscular
companions, Francois was carried downhill to the latrine.  As Richard and
Mike helped him perform his necessary functions and performed their own,
Richard thought, "We're going to get to know each other awfully well in
this place!"

	As Mike, Francois, and Richard returned to the campsite, Richard
looked around for Tommy.  Just as he began to worry over the little boy's
absence, Tommy ran up the hill on the path from the beach.  The eyes and
ears of the group as usual, he shouted, "The boat's gone!  The Venture's
gone!  Ya can't see anything on the reef!"  He stopped in front of Richard
to catch his breath.

	Richard lifted the little boy up in his arms.  "Thanks for the
information, dude.  Remember what I said to you last night?"  Tommy grinned
delightedly, but Richard looked stern and added, "DON'T EVER GO OFF BY
YOURSELF WITHOUT TELLING ANYBODY!  No one knew where you were.  What if
you'd gotten hurt or fallen in the water?"  Tommy's expression changed
immediately from delight to chagrin.  Richard held him very close and said
quietly in his ear, "Please don't do that again!  I was really worried
about you!"

	Tears started in Tommy's eyes, and he laid his head on Richard's
shoulder.  "I'm sorry!  I won't do it again!"  Richard stroked his back,
kissed his cheek, and put him down.

	Meanwhile, the other boys were absorbing the import of Tommy's
news.  They looked at each other grim-faced in the bright morning sunlight.
Everyone except Mike was holding someone else's hand.  Kevin voiced all of
their thoughts.  "That's it.  Now there's nothing to connect us to the
world.  Everything starts new now.  We're alone, on our own."

	Richard thought, "It's all up to me now.  Will I be strong enough?
I love these guys, but can I get them through this?  I can't let them
down!"
	He forced himself to smile confidently and say cheerfully, "OK,
guys, let's get cleaned up and find some food.  Then we need to talk!"  The
gloom lifted, and the boys ran and jumped into the pool, laughing and
shouting.  Even Mike looked happy, but he stubbornly kept his boxers on.
Richard said to Kevin, "Go get cleaned up.  I'll stay with Chris until you
come back."

	The boys played and cavorted in the pool, scrubbing their own and
each other's bodies with sand.  While they dried themselves in the sun,
Richard organized a foraging expedition to gather fruit for breakfast.
When everyone had eaten his fill, Terry, Joey, and Angelo dug a shallow pit
near the latrine for food waste to prevent the contamination of the
campsite.

	Chris's eyes were closed, but they opened when Richard spoke to
him.  "Is there anything I can do for you, Chris?"

	"Just hold my hand and don't leave me," Chris whispered.  Chris's
body had grown very white.  His breathing was shallow and labored, and
Richard could feel his heart beating rapidly.  Still holding Chris's hand,
Richard summoned the other boys to gather around him.  Kevin sat close to
Richard on his left, and Miguel sat close to Kevin's side.  Terry, Angelo,
and Joey sat side by side, their arms over one another's shoulders opposite
Richard.  Little Tommy sat on Richard's thigh, wrapping one arm around him.
Chris lay on his stretcher, and Francois sat upright on a blanket next to
Chris.  Mike, arms folded, stood just outside the circle behind Joey.

	"Guys, here's our situation," Richard began.  "We don't know
exactly where we are.  We know this has to be an island, and we know that
we were headed for Australia after we left Hawaii.  We didn't find The
Venture's log, so we don't know what our position was yesterday, but we are
probably in the Santa Cruz Islands or Vanuatu.  We don't know if anyone
else lives here, but we haven't seen any sign of anyone, and it's hard to
believe that any people living here wouldn't be living in a place as fine
as Tommy's Falls."  Tommy beamed with delight at the thought that the
campsite was named for him.

	"As far as we know, no one knows where we are or what happened to
the Venture.  Someone on the crew may have sent a distress call, but we
have no way to know whether it was received even if it was sent.  Our next
port of call was supposed to be Brisbane, Australia, and someone may start
looking for us when we're long enough overdue there.  But where will they
look?  How can we attract attention?

	"The bottom line is that we're probably going to be here for some
time, maybe weeks, maybe months.  What we have to do is survive.  We've
only got each other, and we have to take care of each other.  I know from
being with you guys for the last two months that we can do that.  And each
of us has to take good care of himself.  If anyone gets hurt taking an
unnecessary risk, he creates a burden for everyone else, and there isn't
anyone here who can treat serious injuries.

	"We need to agree on a few things.  First, it's really important
that no one ever goes off alone by himself without telling anyone.  We
don't know what dangers there are here, and if somebody disappears, we'll
all have to look for him.  Second, everyone has to do his share and always
put the welfare of the group before his own.  This place may be a tropical
paradise, but survival here will take work.

	"Third, we'll have to respect each other.  That means not picking
on people because they're different from us or weaker than us.  It means
listening to other guys and caring about what they feel.  It means telling
the truth and trusting each other.  It means settling disagreements by
talking and listening, not by fighting.

	"Fourth, we have to take care of the place where we live.  No one
is going to pick up after us, and we can mess this place up totally before
we know it if we aren't careful.  That's why using the latrine and the
trash pit is really important.

	"We have two basic needs: food and shelter.  We can't just live on
fruit.  We need protein.  We can get some of that from fish, and we'll have
to learn what birds and animals there are here that we can use for meat.
We'll have to figure out ways to catch them and learn how to cook them.  We
already know that the weather here is not always as fine as this, and we
need to build a shelter where we can all live.  We'll all have to learn to
do things we've never done before and figure out what skills we have to
contribute.

	"Guys, you know I love you all.  I wish I had the knowledge and
skills to take care of you and keep you safe, but I don't.  I'm still a
kid.  Some of you know more about danger than I can even imagine, just
because of where you've lived.  I was your counselor on the boat, but that
doesn't necessarily apply here, and if you think that someone else should
be the leader, I'll accept that.  Okay?"

	"Just what do you mean by `love', Richard?  Do you mean you want to
fuck around with us now that you've got our pants off?" Mike asked
sarcastically.  Kevin's face clouded with anger, Miguel looked at Mike
anxiously, and Tommy clung to Richard more tightly.  The others turned
toward Mike in astonishment.

	"Mike, what I mean by `love' is caring about another person,
putting his needs and feelings above your own, sacrificing for his welfare,
understanding him, appreciating his good points and putting up with his bad
points, maybe helping him be a better person.  But you're really worried
about sex, aren't you?"

	"Your goddam right I am!" Mike said angrily.  "I'm not a fag.  I
don't wanna live with fags or hear them doing stuff with each other at
night.  I don't wanna get turned into a homo!"

	Kevin spoke up.  "No one can turn anyone else into a `homo', Mike,
so don't worry about it!"

	"Kevin's right," Richard said, "but I think it's really important
for us to agree that no one should ever be pressured or forced to do
anything sexual that he doesn't want to do.  We're all guys, we've only got
each other, and we've all got hormones.  We're all scared, too, and cut off
from everything we've known, and we need to feel close to someone and know
we're not alone.  Some of the rules that applied at home don't work here,
and I think that includes the ones that say that sex between guys is wrong.
It's gonna happen!  Just think about all the grab-ass that went on when we
were in the pool.  We're all experimenting, and we all have needs.

	"I'm pretty sure now that I'll always be gay.  I wasn't sure about
that when I signed up for the Venture.  Some of you might be gay later on,
or you might be straight, or bisexual.  But you don't have to have sex with
someone in order to love him.  I don't think you should have sex with
someone you don't love, either.  My love for you guys doesn't have anything
to do with sex.

	"I like to be close to Richard because he's treated me better than
anybody else ever has.  He's bigger and stronger than me and he makes me
feel safe.  When I was in the group home some of the older guys made me do
sex stuff I didn't want to, but Richard would never do that.  He's totally
kewl!" said Tommy.

	"Mike, man, I know you don't got no place else to go, and I'm sorry
for you.  But stuff's gonna happen," Miguel said.  "Richard and Kevin and
me did stuff last night, but we didn't, like, plan it.  I felt bad about it
at first, but now I feel okay.  In fact, I feel really good about it!  Can
you deal, bro?"

	"I dunno.  Do I have, like, a choice?" Mike replied, seemingly
resigned.  He grinned a bit sheepishly.  "I'll just have to go to
Confession big time when I get home!"  The tension broke, and all the boys
laughed uproariously, hitting each other's backs and arms playfully.
Richard heaved a quiet sigh of relief as he felt Kevin squeeze his hand.
Mike finally sat down beside Joey.

	Chris had lain quiet during the entire discussion, his eyes
sometimes open and sometimes closed.  Now he coughed as he tried to sit up.
Richard put his arm beneath Chris's shoulder and asked quietly, "Is there
anything I can do for you, Chris?"

	Struggling for breath, Chris whispered, "Can you lift me up a
little?  I wanna say something."  Richard helped him raise his head and
shoulders, and the other boys drew together in a tight circle around the
stretcher in order to hear.  Chris continued, "I'd like to hang here with
you guys, but ... it ain't gonna happen."

	As Chris stopped for breath, tears started in the eyes of several
of the boys.  "Hang on, Chris!  Don't die!" Tommy cried out.

	Richard said, "It's okay, Chris.  We're all here with you.  We all
love you, and we'll never forget you!"

	"You're the best brothers a guy could have ... the best family I've
ever had.  Don't get all sad for me ... Do what Richard said.  He's the
best -- listen to him.  Take care of each other.  I'm gonna be watchin'..."

	Suddenly Chris was coughing blood.  He struggled for another
breath.  Then his body sagged in Richard's arms and he made no more sound.
Richard, his face bathed in tears, felt Chris's neck for a pulse, but found
none.  "Bye, Chris!" he whispered, almost breaking down.

	All of the boys were weeping and holding each other now.  Even
Mike, his expression grim and stoical, had tears running down his face.  He
didn't object when Richard, moving from one boy to another to embrace and
comfort each one, gently put his arms around him.

	"You okay, Mike?" Richard said softly, then added, "You were his
brother, too.  He loved you.  I love you!"  Finally, Mike began to sob.

	At last, Richard and Kevin cut a piece of sailcloth and wrapped
Chris's body in it.  Then, feeling utterly drained and desolate, Richard
collapsed into Kevin's open arms and wept until he could weep no more.  The
redheaded boy held his older lover as a mother comforts a child.


Chapter IV: A Burial and a Beginning

Coming soon...