Westpoint Tales
by Kiwi
Entangled Tales - 77 - Peter & Jay
Peter raised his head to look at him. "You all right, Big Guy? Bloody idiot! You're not a pack-horse you know."
"No, I'm not, am I? I guess that you were the straw that broke the donkey's back."
"That's the camel's back, you Dork." Peter darted forward and he kissed Jay on the side of his mouth. "I love you, you know."
"I know. I love you too. Now, get off! I can't get up."
Peter disentangled himself, stood and offered a hand to help Jay to his feet. He kept one foot firmly placed on his own backpack to keep it away from him.
Jay glanced down and grinned. "Stubborn little bugger aren't you? Come on, Elf." He walked on.
Peter picked up his pack and followed. They walked about 200 meters upstream until they came to a spot where rings of fire-blackened stones showed where previous campers had stayed. They dropped their packs and lay back in the late afternoon sunshine.
"Whoah!"
"Whoah is right. Pretty cool isn't it, Elf?"
Peter sat up, looking around at the heavy bush-clad hills around their valley, the river flowing busily past them and a couple of small birds darting around over the other side.
"This is just beautiful. A whole new world just a couple of hours away from home. It's a pity that there's no road into here."
Jay sat up behind Peter and draped his arms around him. "A road would spoil it. Then there'd be people and noise and trash and everything."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Can we stay here, Jay? Forget about walking on any further. I don't want to see the top-hut and everything. Let's just hang around here, I've done enough tramping."
"But we were going tramping for the weekend. There's lots more to see yet. But . . . yeah, okay, let's just stay here. We'll go up to the top-hut some other time."
"Great! Thanks. I've done enough tramping for today and for tomorrow too."
"Yeah. Don't want to wear you out too soon, or me either come to think of it. We'll need some energy for the making love bit."
"Yeah. We'll need that for sure. Come on and I'll show you how to put the tent up. Ow! Bloody sandflies! They've followed us."
"No they haven't. It's just their cousins. This is foreign territory to the ones back by the pool. Some bug spray will keep them away."
A spray with the can from the side-pocket of Jay's pack drove the insects off, and then they pulled the two-man hiking tent out and erected it. Peter unpacked their food and cooking gear. He laid out the bed-rolls and the double sleeping bag in the tent. While he was busy sorting their accommodation, Jay busied himself collecting firewood from around the area. A couple of small, dead, trees were easily smashed up by pulling them over and stomping on them.
When their campsite was all tidied and organized and the fireplace was loaded up and ready to go, they took towels and the bug spray and went back to the hot-springs pool. They took their boots and jeans off, (spraying their legs carefully), and waded into the water to open up the rock-wall and let the river water flow through to cool the pool.
When Peter was finally satisfied with the temperature, they repaired the wall, stripped off the rest of their clothes and gingerly lowered themselves into the warm water.
"Great, Big Guy. Really great, this is fantastic. Who would have thought it? - a rock-lined pool in the middle of nowhere and it's sheer luxury!"
"Sure is. Stinks though, doesn't it? It smells like Mother Nature farted."
"It stinks - rotten eggs and fart smells, but it's not that bad. It's just natural, all hot springs smell like this. Have you ever been to Rotorua? That stinks at first but you soon get used to it."
"I've never been there. Maybe you could take me one day."
"Okay, sure."
"Why do they stink, Elf? It's the sulphur or something isn't it?"
"Yeah, it's sulphur. I'm not sure why. Something to do with fire and brimstone and volcanoes and cracks in the earth - something like that."
"That'd be why the water's hot then - coming up from a crack in the earth."
"Yeah, something like that. And the gas too - there's bubbles if you look. That's what stinks."
"I guess we'll be smelling like it too then."
"That's all right, as long as we both smell the same."
"Oh yes! Between this and the bug spray, we'll be smelling great! Get out of it! You blood-sucking Mothers!"
Peter took a deep breath and deliberately sunk below the water, lying flat on the bottom, to get away from the sandflies. Jay reached over and lifted his head and shoulders back up out of the water.
"Hey! I was just drowning the sandflies."
"You don't do that, Elf. Don't ever put your head under in a hot pool."
"Why not then?"
"It's dangerous. There's some sort of bug that lives in hot pools, if it gets up your nose it could make you sick or kill you even."
"You serious? Who told you that?"
"I'm serious. Dad told me - when we came up here last time."
"That was when you were what, 10 or something? It sounds like a story that you tell little kids to scare them."
"It's real, Peter. I've read about it too. Don't take the risk anyway. Keep your head out of the water."
"Oh - kay. I'll believe you, thousands wouldn't."
"Peter, I'm serious."
"I know you are. I won't do it anyway, just to keep you happy."
"Good! I don't want you getting sick. Not now, not ever."
"Yeah, I love you too. Keep your own head out of the water, Jay."
The sun disappeared behind the hills and the valley was swathed in shadows. They came out of the pool, dried off and started getting dressed.
"You think we should plunge into the river now?"
"Not bloody likely! It's cold in there."
They sprayed each other's exposed skin and then went back to their campsite. Peter got the fire going while Jay cut and trimmed some sticks for fishing-poles.
There were no fish, or, they weren't biting anyway. After an hour of dangling their bait in the water to no avail, they gave up and cooked sausages for their tea. It was nothing fancy, just half-burnt sausages wrapped in bread with billy-tea and biscuits to follow.
Afterwards, they sat by the fire sharing the headphones to listen to music on Peter's old Walkman, and watched the moon come up from behind the hill. The whole valley was bathed in silver light and super-black shadows.
"Now that looks good - really good."
"Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's like our own magic kingdom."
"Or Queendom."
"Don't, Peter, there's no queens here. There's just you and me - a pair of kings maybe but no queens."
"You're a king, Jay. I'm a queen."
"You are not! Don't think like that. You're not a queen, you're a boy - a beautiful boy and I love you very much."
He turned around from his spot between Jay's legs, kissed him briefly and then buried his face below Jay's chin and hugged him fiercely.
"I love you so much, Jay. You are my every dream come true."
"Oh, my Elf! Sometimes I'm scared that it's all going to come crashing down. My life just can't be this good. But it is, every day is better and I love you more every single day!"
Peter quietly disengaged, got up, went around the fire and sat facing him from the other side.
"What're you doing, Elf? Come back here."
"In a minute, Jay. I just want to look at you for a while."
"From away over here?" (It was all of 2 meters away). "Come back and sit with me."
"In a minute, Jay. I heard you talking to Dad before."
"And?"
"And it's right, what he said. You weren't my first boyfriend."
"I know that. I don't care - I'll be your last."
"You will. There'll never be another after you, no matter what happens."
"Nothing's going to happen. Come and sit with me."
"Soon, Jay. I need to tell you about it - about what happened and what went wrong."
"Peter, I don't care. All that matters is you and me, here, now and for always."
"It does matter. I need to tell you."
"Okay then. If you have to, I'll listen, but nothing's going to change the way I feel about you."
"I hope so, Jay, I really hope so. But you've got to know."
Jay sat quietly, watching Peter's face in the flickering firelight as he poured out his story.
"When I was a kid, I was pretty ordinary - just one of the dozens of boys around town. I did all the normal things that kids do. I went to Play Centre, went to school, joined the Boy scouts and played sports - when I had to. I had friends and had enemies too.
They weren't really serious enemies, just rivals really - kids from other areas of town. My friends were mostly people my own age from close to my home. Relationships grew from being close in age and location.
Sometimes my enemies became friends and sometimes friends became enemies. Nothing was really serious - there were no deadly enemies and no really close friends either. It was all quite casual and superficial - childish, I suppose.
As we grew older, I started to realise that I wasn't really just another boy; I was a bit different to the rest. For one thing, I was smaller than most kids my age, but that didn't worry me - there was nothing I could do about it. It was just the way it was.
Then, from about age 10 or 11, other boys started to take an interest in girls and sex. Everyone except me - I only wanted to be with the boys. Girls didn't interest me at all, no more than horses did. Gradually, I started to lose what friends I had as our interests grew further and further apart.
By age 12, I had pretty much figured out that I was gay. I never told anyone, but by searching on the net, I'd learnt all about gays and came to realise that I was one. I thought that I was the only gayboy in Westpoint.
I knew the statistics, that 1 in 9 people are gay, but it didn't seem to apply around here. There was no-one else like me that I could see. Then, I found one. On the day I started Highschool, I knew that we'd be joined by lots of new kids from the country schools. I was eager to check them out and, hopefully, find someone like me. And, I did.
On the first day, in the very first class, I was looking around the room, checking out the new kids, and I saw him. It was like that song - "You may see a stranger across a crowded room, and suddenly you'll know."
I did see a stranger, a really cute blond boy and he was looking straight back at me. Our eyes met and I knew - I knew that he was just like me. I smiled at him and he smiled at me and we made a connection without ever having said a word.
I went and found him at the recess and, sure enough, he was just as eager to know me as I was to know him. Over the next couple of weeks, we got to know each other really well. He, Dwyane, pushed the sex thing faster than I would have liked, but it was good. I did want to try out all the things I'd read about.
Within 2 weeks we were going all the way. Or, rather, Dwyane was. He was fucking me every chance we got, and we found plenty of chances. The only trouble was that he was treating me like a girl. Sometimes he'd jack me off, but usually it was just me doing him and he fucked me, regularly, but he'd never let me fuck him.
The most I got was when we were rubbing together - fronting - but usually, he'd cut that short once he was all excited and he'd flip my legs up and start fucking. It was definitely not the mutual loving relationship that I was looking for, but it was all that I had and it was better than nothing at all.
By then, I had no trouble accepting that I was gay, but Dwyane never did. As far as he was concerned, he was just fucking. That's probably why he always had to be the top. If, even once, he'd let me do him then he'd have to admit that he was maybe gay as well.
My parents had a pretty good idea what was going on. They never said anything at the time, but they told me later that they thought that we were having sex. Then, after just a couple of weeks, not even one school term, it all went to hell.
Dwyane came to stay for a weekend. We slept together Friday night, then, Saturday afternoon, we went out to the North Beach for a swim. I wasn't keen, with the salt and the sand and everything, but he was horny and insistent, so we went into the bushes at the back of the beach.
It was Dwyane's fault. If he'd just kept quiet, no-one would have known that we were there, but he was always very vocal when screwing, if he had the chance. Anyway, he was roaring and we got caught . . and . ."
Peter's voice faded away, he dropped his head down and there was silence. Jay was concerned now.
"Elf? Peter, are you okay?"
"No. No I'm not okay!"
Jay jumped up and went around to sit with him. Peter turned and sobbed into Jay's chest.
"Hold me, Jay. Please hold me. Don't let go."
Jay wrapped his long arms around his friend and held on tight. "I've got you, Elf. I won't EVER let go! Never!"
"Oh Jay! I love you so much! I can't do it, I'm sorry, I just can't. I wanted to tell you what happened that day, but I can't do it."
Jay rocked him and kissed his hair as he held him. "It doesn't matter, Peter. I know, roughly, what happened to you and I'm sorry for you, but it doesn't matter, not any more. We're here now, you're with me and you're safe. I would die before I'd let anything like that happen to you again."
Peter burrowed his face into him and clung on as he cried. Calming down, he sat back, wiped his own tears and then wiped Jay's. "Thanks. Thank you, Jay. I'm glad all that shit happened to me. I'm glad it happened because it brought me here, with you, and I don't ever want to be anywhere else."
"I love you, Peter."
"I know you do. I don't know why, but I know that you do. Thank you. I love you, Jacob Francis Kynnersley, and I always will. Always!"
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
