Chris and Nigel
Chapter 8 - Almost Homeward Bound
By It's Only Me from Across the Sea
This story contains explicit descriptions of sexual acts between the characters in it. Although the characters are teenagers who may be below the age of consent in the country or state where this is read, nothing written here should be taken as approval of, or encouragement for, sexual liaisons between people where such liaisons are either illegal, or objectionable for moral reasons. Although this story does not include safe sex practices, it is everyone's own responsibility to themselves and to each other to engage only in PROTECTED SEX. It is a story. Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Nothing represented here is based on any fact known to the author.
The story is copyright 1999 by "It's Only Me from Across the Sea". If you copy the story, please leave the credits, and the web address of http://iomfats.org present, and also the email address of its_onlyme@iomfats.org. I'd love to receive feedback.
Sometime in the middle of the night, maybe around three o'clock, I found I was awake, and bursting for a pee. And I found I was almost certain that I had heard the door closing as we were falling asleep last night. It bothered me. Bothered me as I wriggled out of Nigel's' arms, and out of bed, to go to the toilet. Bothered me as I tiptoed across the floor so as not to wake him. Bothered me as I slipped out of the door, along the passage and relieved the ache in my bladder, and bothered me as I crept back to our room. 'Why would anyone have closed the door?' I thought. 'And if they'd been there, why hadn't they spoken? What had they seen? Who were they?' And I eased the door open and slipped back into the room.
His hair was lit up by moonlight, just shining into the room through the window, and he looked so wonderful, just lying there, a slight smile crossing his lips, a hand up on the pillow beside his head, fingers curled. All he needed was a real halo, but his hair made him look like an angel anyway. I was wondering whether to get into bed with him again and risk disturbing him, or to get into the other bed, when he made the choice for me by turning over and taking up the whole bed. I felt so lucky, almost blessed, to have such a boy as my boyfriend. He almost seemed magical lying there in the silver light. I just stood there, looking down at him, at his face, the outline of his body under the light duvet, and listening to the rhythm of his breathing. It felt good. There was nothing sexual about it at that moment, nothing so worldly, nothing so real. It was a mystical thing. It was wonderful, just looking at him. I was so in love with him I nearly burst. I chose the bed. The other bed. And tiptoed over to it.
Which was when I had a surprise.
Because the other bed had someone in it.
I found out as I got into it.
I found out by landing on them, and waking them up. And waking them up woke Nigel up. With a jump, but rubbing his eyes sleepily.
"Woss goinon?" he grunted, with voice full of sleep. "Whoosat?"
"That," said a voice, "That is Carol. I mean I am Carol"
"But, but, but, but..." I was gibbering, perplexed, surprised, oddly not angry, but more than a little embarrassed.
"Yeah, me too!" Nigel was a little sharp, but making no sense. I suppose that's inevitable when you're jolted awake by something so awful. "What're you doing here?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time, " she said. "And you were kind of busy, and didn't notice me slip into the room, and I hadn't realised before I shut the door, and I hid in the bed."
"But you were here when we... while we... as we... " I was gobsmacked.
"Didn't mean to be. Er, but it was, er wasn't, er what I expected. I mean not what I'd imagined."
"What do you mean?" I was reeling.
"I didn't watch. I didn't. But I heard you, heard you telling each other how much you love each other." Carol was very near tears as she was telling us. "It was beautiful, er, I mean, well yes, beautiful. I'm sorry, Chris. That I was mean to you. I'm sorry." And the tears started.
If the trip so far had been weird, then this was weirdest. Yesterday, Carol had been telling me how disgusting we were. Today she'd not only seen our most intimate moments, most sexual moments, but was telling us how beautiful it was, and standing there between the beds, crying silently, with me beside her, and Nigel opposite. And then the strangest thing happened. He stepped towards her, and took her into his arms, and held her against him, and whispered to her.
"It's all right, Carol. It's all right. I know you love him, too. I love him. I'll never hurt him. It's all right." And he stroked her hair and kissed her cheek, wiping her tears away with his lips.
And I realised that he was naked, and standing there, unconcerned, my boyfriend holding my girlfriend in his arms, smiling at me, his smile just caught by the edge of the moonlight. And as I realised, I put my arms around both of them, and held us all three tightly together. Held all three of us. Together.
Stroked her hair, his hair, and kissed each cheek, Carol's and Nigel's, Nigel's and Carol's. And each of them kissed me, too. 'This isn't happening. This isn't happening. This (kiss) isn't (kiss) happening (kiss)' was going through my mind. And I stopped thinking, and kept hugging, and felt arms come around me, one from each side. And our faces met, all three, with three tongues, and three mouths, and we touched tongues, all three. Yet as we did, we each drew back.
"This... is... wrong..." Carol, whispering.
"Not wrong." Nigel. "Not wrong, maybe not right, but not wrong."
"But..."
"You love Chris."
"Yes," she said. "Oh yes"
"And I love Chris."
"I know you do."
"And Chris, you love Carol." These weren't questions.
"And I love you, Nigel. Both of you."
"Not wrong, then."
"But, Nigel?" He had taken me by surprise, when I thought there were no more surprises.
"No 'buts', Chris." He was definite. "We each love you. And we each, er, like each other, Carol and I"
I wanted to surrender. I wanted to, but Carol? What was she really thinking? She'd been so certain that we were disgusting, now she was kissing us both. At the same time. Together. With Nigel naked and beautiful in the moonlight. Who wouldn't agree to anything with him so beautiful? Who wouldn't agree?
"Carol?" I turned to her. We were all still held close, holding close.
"I'm not sure, but at the moment I don't think I care." And she pulled us tighter together and kissed us, one then the other. "I love you Chris (kiss), and I like Nigel (kiss), and he's soooo beautiful (kiss), and so are you, and right now I don't care what's right and what's wrong. I want you, now, either or both of you, but I want you to make love to me. Not sex. Love. Now. Before I change my mind.
And, as if to prove it, Carol locked lips with Nigel, and started to run her hands over his body, and over mine. And he didn't seem to be holding himself back. Come to that, nor did I. I didn't understand anything that had happened to me since we got to France. I wasn't thinking about anything just then, just the beauty of the two people in front of me, in the moonlight, Nigel with his taut, firm body, his halo of silver hair, and Carol. I hadn't seen her naked on the beach, we'd been too much of a hurry, but I saw her naked now, as I pulled back to watch them kissing. She had a firm, straight back, so slim at the waist, with hips curving gently outwards with a beautiful bum. It was kissable. I'd known it would be, and it was. On Carol breasts are beautiful, not large, but small, firm, tight, kind of pretty, and her stomach, when I could see it, so smooth, almost hollow, she was so slim, and legs that seemed to go on for ever, locked with Nigel's. I was getting really hot watching them, and I realised how much I loved them both.
That kissable bum? I was behind Carol, sandwiching her between me and Nigel, pressing against her kissing her neck, her back, and down her spine, down to each cute cheek, kissing her bum, kissing the backs of her thighs, my arms round both sets of legs, stroking now Nigel, now Carol pulling them together, kissing all the while, licking her legs, and then moving up, upwards and sideways, kissing the front of his thigh, her thigh, licking, pushing and getting my face crushed between them, kissing his cock and her lips, trying to find that secret spot she'd shown me the other night, and hearing each of them whimper as I found places on each of them, and each on the other, and we started losing our balance and swaying gently, and kind of shuffling towards a bed, any bed, either bed. When did we lose the few clothes we were wearing, she and I? No idea. How did we end up tangled on the bed? No idea either, but there we ended up, in a heap, kissing, holding, stroking. No words. Just touch, taste and smell. But we kind of 'stalled'. Nigel, this time.
"Guys?" Nigel sounded odd, and it stopped us, all three.
Then he echoed what I was feeling, "This seemed right, but it doesn't feel right. Can't we just stop, and think for a minute?"
"You're right, it's odd somehow," Carol whispered. "I mean, I thought it was what I wanted, but..."
And we were there, three kids, out of our depth, naked on the bed, ridiculously too small for three. The excitement had gone, evaporated in the time it had taken us to think. "I feel sort of weird," I mumbled. "I'm with the two people I love most in the world, and I feel unhappy. Almost as if we're all having to choose. I'm here with both of you and I feel alone."
"That's it," said Carol. "Alone".
And we sort of scrunched together, three kids again, just kids. Lovers, maybe, but kids, too.
Just for a change, I was the grown up one. "This is a 'morning thing'," I announced. "I can't cope tonight. We can cope in the morning, it's too difficult all at once like this."
"Mmm," from each of the others.
"So, look, Carol, I do love you, but I think you need to get back to your room. I'm really pleased you and Nigel are friends, and I'm so happy that we're friends again, too."
"Er, umm, yeah," she mumbled. "I guess you're right."
"Nigel, I love you so much, but I think we need to sleep," I said. "In our own beds, idiot!"
"You're probably right," he smiled. "Carol?"
"Umm?"
"I'm glad we're friends, too."
And she ruffled his hair. And kissed him on the cheek. And kissed me. "Where's my stuff?"
So we found it, and kissed her, and she slipped out of the door, and we watched her to the end of the corridor, and shut the door silently.
"Nigel?"
"Yes?"
"I love you. I mean really love you. For ever, I mean."
"What's up?"
"I'm scared."
"Of me?"
"No. Never of you. Of going home."
"Yeah."
"It'll be odd at home."
"Yeah."
"How'll we..."
"Shh. Not now."
"But..."
"We'll work it out. Now get into bed." And he straightened up the bed, and waited until I got into it, and pulled the duvet up, and knelt down and kissed me. Just on the cheek. And stroked my hair. Oh it felt good. And I think he stayed there, stroking me until I dozed off.
I'd like to say that I woke refreshed, with all cares gone, no worries, everything sorted out. I'd like to say that so much. I can't. I wasn't. They hadn't. I had them in spades, and it wasn't. So I couldn't.
But wake up, I did, and went over to Nigel's bed, and just looked down at him. A man, yet not a man, a boy no longer. Beautiful, sweet, soft skinned, gentle, kind, and somehow the dominant force in my life. How could so much happen on a school trip? How could one person turn my life upside down so completely. But I couldn't resent him, or my love for him. I stroked his cheek gently with the back of my fingers, butterfly gentle. As he stirred, I brushed his lips with mine, and he grunted contentedly, and huddled down into his pillow.
'I wonder if this is what it's like to have a son?' went through my mind. Just pure love was what I felt for him. No excitement, no sex, no lust, just waves of love, flowing from me to my beautiful boyfriend, to the boy I would have done, would do, anything in the world he asked me to do. Anything at all, as long as it was with love.
I spent perhaps half an hour just looking at him, perhaps longer. At any rate, it was that which refreshed me. That and the gradual wakening from troubled sleep, and a dawning realisation that I had it in my power to solve the problems, if I could only find the key to the lock that bound us all three together, yet forced us apart.
'Time will solve it,' I thought. But that means leaving home and stuff I'm just not ready to do yet, not able to do yet, so that's not on the list. I was also concerned about how we had felt, all three, in the small hours, almost making love to each other, and feeling just wrong about it. 'is it because we're young?' I thought, 'or would I feel this way if I were old, like 25?' But I hadn't an answer.
An immense yawn, and Nigel was stretching awake. "Time is it?" Came sleepily from his mouth.
"Nearly breakfast time. How'd you sleep?"
"I just had a wonderful dream. Idiot, I can see your smile! No it was about sitting deep in a valley, with peace, and sheep bleating, and a river, and warm sun. I felt completely peaceful, floating. It was green. Smelt of summer. No-one else around. No, not even you! Take that hurt look off your face!"
I was grimacing, trying to look hurt. He was smiling. Sleepy eyes, tousled hair, sitting on the edge of his bed stretching luxuriously. "Come on, let's get dressed. We need to find Carol."
"How could I forget?"
"I don't know what to do," I told him, as we walked to breakfast.
"For once, neither do I." And he looked serious. "I feel all confused. I mean I thought I understood what I feel, but I don't."
"I know what you mean. I felt that way before this week."
"Do you wish it hadn't happened?"
"Idiot. I've learnt what love really is. If you hadn't, er, showed, dammit hadn't seduced me, I wouldn't know, now."
"I really love you, Chris"
No-one around. I pecked him on the cheek. "I wish I were brave enough to do that in public! I love you so much!"
"Listen, we have stuff to sort out. Let's find Carol, and have breakfast." And we did.
She didn't look as though she'd slept well. Eyes a bit red and puffy. "Guys... " she said, sort of slowly.
"Morning Carol." Both of us.
"You didn't sleep much," I observed.
"No. Scared. I, I, oh I wish I knew how to explain it." She was clearly upset. "Eat. I'll wait outside the front, in the fresh air.
"I'm coming with you," I said, and grabbed a handful of stuff to eat on the way.
"Breakfast should be eaten in the dining room!" Trunchbull, bellowing across the room. "Sit down and eat it there, at that table!"
"Catch up with you. Don't go away!" I called after Carol. Bugger teachers!
I scoffed the stuff as fast as I could. Trunchbull had come to watch over me, so I had to eat it rather than run. Then cleared my plate away and went after Carol. Front door. That's where she'd said.
And I found her, just a bit to the left, near a palm tree, behind its trunk. "Oh, Chris!" She looked happy and unhappy. "What do we do?"
"Not sure. I mean I have no idea. Oh shit."
"You know I love you?"
"Yes."
"Last night?"
"Umm?"
"I didn't mean to be there. I didn't. I was drawn, somehow, and you were, were... "
I was blushing "Umm."
"But I didn't mind. I thought I would, but I didn't. I wasn't there long, but, oh I don't know, it was, er wasn't, oh I'm not saying this right. It wasn't how I thought it would be. You know, like you read about in the News of the World. It was love. That's what I saw, felt, heard. When I hid, and fell asleep trying to wait until it was safe to escape."
"But..."
"No, let me finish. When you sat on me, I was so ashamed. Then Nigel put his arms round me. He could have been you, Chris. They felt like your arms. And I wanted to be held, and kissed and stroked so badly. To be needed. To be needed by you, by him. And then I wanted you, him, so badly. I don't know whose voice it was last night, but I fell for him, too, and I think I said so. I love both of you, and I tried, tried, tried so hard to make it work for three of us. (tears were starting to fall) But I couldn't."
"Nor could I. Nor could he."
"But I wanted to."
"I don't think it works like that. I think it's something that happens, sort of... " And I was holding her, her face pressed into my shoulder, her shoulders heaving, no sounds, just heavy sobs. "We've time for a walk before the bus. Let's get away from here for a moment."
As she peeled herself from me, Nigel was waiting, quietly. Worried. "Come with us?" she said. "Please, Nigel, come with us."
We walked quietly towards the seafront. To the beach where Nigel had made me feel better, naked in the waves, towards the fresh seafront air. No words. Just the smell of the sea, the noise of the streets waking up, the hooting of motor scooters, the smell of cigarettes and coffee. Where to start. "Nigel." I needed to talk to him and to Carol, together, but he looked urgent. "Nothing's changed about the way I love you, nor about the way I love Carol."
"But... " he almost interrupted
"Carol fell in love with you last night, too."
"Oh."
"That's why she..."
"Wanted you both. Then. There!" Sobs and tears gone. A decisive Carol.
"But... " Nigel tried to interrupt.
"We have to face it, Nigel." Carol told him, " Chris loves you and loves me. I love you and I love him. You love him. Can you feel anything for me?"
"Oh."
"Oh?" She looked him in the eye.
"Well, yes. I mean I don't know. I mean, well, er, I, er haven't ever, er, thought about girls..." he finished lamely.
"This isn't girls. It's Chris and it's me. And you seemed OK about it last night"
"Er, yes, but that was Chris, too. I mean he was there. Part of it, er was Chris, er... Oh. I... Look, I love Chris. No, let me finish this. I love Chris. I've loved him since I first met him. I've not, never, er, looked at a girl. Not that way. I, er. I don't think I'm, er... I. Oh this is difficult. Just a minute."
"Nigel, don't. Not if you don't want to. Can't..." I was watching his face. He was struggling. I hated it.
"I think I need to. But I don't know how to say what I want, or if I want to say it. I need a little time. Look, Chris, Carol, I love one of you and like the other. But I've never, ever wanted to be with a girl, except as a friend. Not girlfriend. As a friend. And last night was.... confusing. I got caught up in it, and I'm not sure. Not sure. I said things I wanted to mean. No, not what I thought you wanted hear. No. Things I wanted to mean. Wanted to. Almost meant. Couldn't do. I want to be, to feel normal. I like you, Carol. I love Chris. I think about him, his face, his body, his laugh, his voice. It's a boy's voice, a boy's laugh, a boy's body. He's a boy. It isn't because he's a boy that I love him, but I don't know if I would have even noticed him if he'd been a girl. So it must be. Because he's a boy, I mean. And I love him. Love him. I'm not, er, comfortable, yes comfortable, with girls."
"But last night... " Carol was very gentle, "last night you came to hold me... "
"You're special, Carol. You're part of Chris. I was with you both. You needed someone. I can do that. Be someone to, er, to comfort you. I don't think I can love any girl though. Even one who's part of Chris. Not yet, at least. I can try, but I can't do it yet. I can be a really good friend. Can love you as a friend, but not as a lover. I couldn't do it last night. I can't do it now. I'm different."
"May I hug you?" Carol was even more gentle. "You need a hug." And she didn't wait for permission, and put her arms round him so gently, and kissed his cheek, and stroked his hair. "You're special, too, Nigel. Special. And beautiful. I'm sorry. So sorry. I was so wrong. So, so wrong. I shouldn't have... I'm so sorry."
"I love him. I just love Chris. I know you do, too. And he loves you and loves me. I can't let him go. I can't."
"Nor me. You're very brave, Nigel. I'm in love with you, too, you know."
"Maybe one day, Carol. Maybe one day."
And we headed back. Back to 'real life', though I reckoned we were more real than anyone else on the trip. Yeah, even Miss bloody Coker. Trunchbull. We had to catch the bus for the train, back to Carol's Dad. Who was going to kill her. And me most likely. And just at that moment, I didn't care.
I didn't care.
Not then at least. Not then.
Authors deserve your feedback. It's the only payment they get. If you go to the top of the page you will find the author's name. Click that and you can email the author easily.* Please take a few moments, if you liked the story, to say so.
[For those who use webmail, or whose regular email client opens when they want to use webmail instead: Please right click the author's name. A menu will open in which you can copy the email address (it goes directly to your clipboard without having the courtesy of mentioning that to you) to paste into your webmail system (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo etc). Each browser is subtly different, each Webmail system is different, or we'd give fuller instructions here. We trust you to know how to use your own system. Note: If the email address pastes or arrives with %40 in the middle, replace that weird set of characters with an @ sign.]
* Some browsers may require a right click instead
