Please see original story (www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/camping/canvas-hell/) for warnings and copyright. Highlights: All fiction. All rights reserved. Includes sex between young-adult men. Go away if any of that is against your local rules. Practice safer sex than my characters. Write if you like, but flamers end up in the nasty bits of future stories. Donate to Nifty TODAY at donate.nifty.org/donate.html to keep the cum coming.
Karl's voice was next, deep and hard and cold, from just outside the tent-wall behind me. "Good job, Patrick. Really, really good job." I heard him turn and walk away.
***** Canvas Hell 17: Freezing
By Bear Pup
T/T; self-discovery; no sex (all plot)
My next session was a Free Period, but the very idea of staying in the tent repulsed me. I looked carefully out of the tent and found that no one was near, most especially not Jim or Karl. I practically ran to the treeline and until I was well out of sight of Camp Sin. Like I'd done a week before and for similar reasons, I just let my feet take over.
I was finding that my mind was a strange thing. It could neither understand nor leave alone the stuttered phrase, "I thought you loved me." Every few minutes, Jim's voice would come back but my mind fled from the idea as quickly as the memory surfaced.
In fact, anything with Jim's voice or face seemed to send my thoughts scurrying for safety, or at least something, anything else. In contrast, Karl's' voice and his looks of shock and betrayal and disgust refused to be banished. Two phrases would arrive to ambush me anytime I thought I was finally processing the beauty around me: "...you're just Winner in a different package," and, "Good job, Patrick. Really, really good job."
Still, though, tears eluded me, were beyond me. I physically ached, and not just the handprint plastered across my cheek. I'd walked perhaps two hours; occasionally I'd hear voices of other campers off exploring as well and would scurry to avoid any contact. That was until I heard a far-too-familiar voice, Karl's.
"I'm sorry, buddy. I know you hurt. I... Well, I guess I could kiss you again if that will help."
"NO!" Jim's voice was a sob, "That's what started this. I never should have asked."
I froze. All of my habits and experience told me to wait, to listen. But in the space of that brief exchange, I lived through an hour's worth of thoughts. What I'd heard Karl say that first night and whether he'd have said it if he knew I was awake. How betrayed he felt when I told him I'd heard. How every time this trip that I trusted my 'instincts' and my 'experience', I'd hurt someone. How I could not bear to hurt Karl. How I could not survive the thought of further hurting Jim. Sealing the deal was the soft and deeply disappointed voice of Dr Eaglas, "You are also the only one who can fix this... you have two really good friends, and all three of you are in a lot of pain, Patrick, and I can't fix it."
I tried to take a deep, bracing breath to steel my courage, stiffen my resolve. I found that I couldn't breathe had no courage to steel or resolve to stiffen. I deliberately scuffed my feet as I came around the tree, then froze in absolute horror as I realised where I was.
Karl was sitting with his arm across Jim's shoulder, nestled on the moss in the arms of the tree where Jim and I had... had... Jim had obviously been crying on Karl's broad, strong chest. They both looked up at me. Karl was incredulous; Jim was heartbroken; both were appalled that I'd found them here.
Karl was up first, as if spring-loaded. He positively bristled as his muscles flexed and hands clenched. Jim stood and looked from one of us to the other then simply... fled. I simply stared, still not breathing, still not moving. Karl started to shoulder his way past me then stopped, jaw working, and suddenly POW! I was on my ass, nose gushing blood, glasses on the ground. Karl was stalking off, shaking his hand. He didn't look back at all, just headed in the direction he'd seen Jim move.
And the floodgates opened and I cried... No, actually. I sat and stared at the blood on my hand and then pinched the bridge of my aching nose like they'd taught us in school. If anything, that punch -- the immediacy and shock and power and emotional release behind it -- that punch snapped my broken-record thoughts. Karl's accusations faded because I suddenly realised just how wrong he was.
Winner hurt people because he enjoyed it. Because it made him feel less weak, less afraid. I was not Winner; I was a sort of an upside-down Winner. I was afraid, sure, and probably weak. But I kept hurting people because I was working so hard to either not hurt them, or not get hurt myself. It honestly took Karl decking me (and man did it hurt!) to wake me up to what Dr Eaglas had been telling me, what Jim had been telling me, what I knew and kept running from. I suddenly knew what I needed to do.
My glasses miraculously survived. Of course, this was the 70s, so kid's glasses were designed to survive a nuclear war, and looked like it. On the way back to Camp Sin, the bleeding finally stopped. I used my canteen and my already-spoiled t-shirt to remove the blood from my face, and tucked the shirt into my pocket. I chucked it into Tent Canvas Hell as I passed; the tent was empty. I grabbed a couple of handkerchiefs just in case. The triangle rang and I headed to the Mess Hall.
I was rather shocked that the main hot dish was... edible. It was thin strips of beef in a creamy gravy with mushrooms, served over noodles. Beef Stroganoff was something that my Mom made, and Chef had produced a passable imitation of real food. A kid at the table behind me leaned to his left and asked his buddy, "What is this? I've never had this before."
"Masturbating Cattle," the kid whispered back.
"What?"
"Duh. You know. Beef Strokin-Off!" The entire table burst into snickers and giggles except for the one who asked. He let out a long "ew" noise.
I snorted in laughter, which was a serious mistake, as my nosebleed started up again. I froze for yet another time today, and again at Jim's voice. "Do it, Karl, and do it now." His voice was low and harsh.
I was a Boy Scout briefly; perhaps six months when I was 12. I left when they started to become insistent on involving my father (the drunk). For reasons I cannot even imagine, what stuck was the Boy Scout Law, that I would be "Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent." I still think I did pretty well on those, but Jim's voice, my still-smarting cheek and my throbbing nose pushed Cheerful and Brave right off the damn cliff. I was out the door in a flash, hardly even slowing to dump the remains of my dinner in the bin.
I made myself scarce for the next 45 minutes until guys started to converge on the cabins for campfire practice. Karl and Jim arrived at Cabin 4 later, but by that time the leaders had already started organizing all of us. We were doing a song from The Sound of Music which got a lot of groans about 'girly' and 'dumb' that the leaders were carefully deaf to.
They arranged us by pitch, something that only about three of the guys understood (I was not one of them). Jim ended up about six guys in from the left, I was a little to the right of dead centre and Karl was near the right-hand end of the line. I thanked all of the Gods I could think of as I kept seeing looks from them. Neither seemed hostile, more worried (Jim) or sullen (Karl).
This song would be hard, as the Leaders segmented us and each group was given a 'note'. Karl was in "Do", Jim's sweet high-tenor was in the "La" group and I was part of "Fa". We spent the night doing nothing but the scale central to the tune. We were supposed to come up on our toes when we sang, so it was like The Wave that we'd started seeing at sporting events over the years right after our time at Camp Sin.
The kids with the hardest jobs were those who at the 'edge' of their group. Natural boy behaviour was to move when the guy next to you did, so chaos ruled for the first half hour. Finally, the leaders stretched the line so there was an arm-span gap between each group and things settled down. After the session, I lingered talking with Willie and Orson trying to delay the inevitable until Jim came up and quietly said, "We just want to talk, Patrick. Come on... Back to the tent. Okay?"
The first time we'd left Cabin 4's fire ring together, we were elated. Tonight could not be more different. Karl never looked up from his shoes, I was skittish as a rabbit and Jim had a near-terminal case of jitters. We finally made it back to Tent Canvas Hell. Jim tied the flaps and then turned to Karl.
Jim's voice shook, but was quite hard and direct. "Now, Karl!"
Karl scuffed his shoes together and told them, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have hit you." He glanced at Jim, who was clearly unimpressed.
"You're not apologising to your shoes, or to me, Karl."
Karl grudgingly looked me full in the face. "I'm sorry, Patrick. It was stupid. It's just--"
"NO! No 'buts' or 'justs' or excuses, Karl."
Karl rolled his eyes and huffed a sigh. "Okay. Patrick, I am really sorry I hit you."
Jim turned to me, "And you, Patrick? Do you have something to say?"
I looked at them both. They deserved an apology from me, both of them. They were good guys, and I kept fucking things up, and they deserved better. I took a deep breath, steadying myself for my apology.
"I love you, Jim."
Huh? What? I said WHAT? Silence descended and stillness ruled the universe. Nothing moved except eyeballs as all three of us flicked looks at each other. I was busy searching every corner of the tent, looking for whoever just said that.
As per usual, it was Jim who first found his voice. "Um, what, Patrick?" I finally met his eyes from the corner of mine. They were wide and his face flushed. I looked at Karl who, quite frankly, seemed locked in the horrified fascination normally reserved for a train derailment.
"I'm so, so sorry! I don't know why I said that! Oh my God!" I had gone from not breathing straight to hyperventilating in the space of seconds.
Jim's voice quaked, "Um, Karl?"
"Yeah, um, I'll be back..." dopplered off to nothing as he fled at extreme speed, the tent flaps already settled back before the forest swallowed his last words.
I still couldn't turn to face Jim, and watched him askance, frozen in place. I am not certain to this day that I could have moved if I'd tried. I learnt the real meaning of 'petrified' that evening.
Since it was clear I wasn't going to turn toward him, Jim moved until he was in front of me, still across the tent.
"Patrick?" I expected horror and revulsion, or at least recrimination. What I heard there instead was a mix between hope and heartbreak.
"Patrick? You still there?" I just stared at him, then found myself nodding almost-imperceptibly.
Jim was shaking now as much as his voice. "You really said that, right Patrick?"
Again the tiny nod.
Jim drew a huge breath and just stared. "Patrick, this is important. Did you say that because of, of wh-what I said earlier or b-b-b-because you mean it?"
I found a tiny sliver of my voice and whispered, "Because I really, really mean it, Jim. I'm sorry. I know you'll hate me and that Karl is going to beat me to death. It's okay. I had to tell you th-that. I n-need to kn-know what you want me to do now, Jim. Do you want me to...?" That tiny voice of mine finally tapered to nothing at all.
"Can I sit by you?" Jim's voice was hardly more than mine had been. I nodded spastically and he moved forward like a man navigating a live minefield, slowly, fearfully, hesitantly.
He reached me and touched me cheek where his handprint had faded away. Finally, the tears that had been absent throughout the day exploded from me and I curled into his chest and simply wept.
It was a reverse image of the morning I held him following the Bugger attack. Some part of me realised it was for similar reasons. I was as terrified as he had been, and part of that terror was from realising something I never wanted to know about myself. I looked up at Jim and realised he was crying as much as I.
Suddenly, we launched into a mad, passionate session of lovemaking... No. I reached out and brushed a tear away from his face. He smiled and did the same to me. We didn't kiss, we just looked at each other. Yesterday had been a burst of need and passion. Tonight... I think I was just coming to terms with the idea that all of this was real. I swam in the deep pools of his eyes for the longest time, and he seemed content to look into mine. I held on of his hands in mine and used the other wipe away his tears, as if they were the hurt and I could remove the pain with the moisture.
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Active storelines, all at www.nifty.org/nifty/gay... Karl & Greg: 19 chapters .../incest/karl-and-greg/ Canvas Hell: 16 chapters .../camping/canvas-hell/ Beaux Thibodaux: 9 chapters .../adult-youth/beaux-thibodaux/ The Heathens: 9 chapters .../historical/the-heathens/ Mud Lark Holler: 8 chapters .../rural/mud-lark-holler/ Babe in the Woods: 2 chapters .../rural/babe-in-the-woods/ Off the Magic Carpet: 3 chapters .../military/off-the-magic-carpet/