Playing with Fire

Chapter 10. Christmas Week, Norman Island, BVI.

The restaurant was open on two sides and looked rather third world-ish. It sat on a concrete floor with 2" steel pipes supporting a metal frame roof which was also made of 1940s corrugated steel sheets, riveted in place. We spotted several feral cats watching us eat fish but the place was basically clean, with many coats of paint. The resort had lots of little lizards that ate flying insects, and the cats kept the lizard and bird population under control. I've never seen a rodent here but I'm sure they're around. I'm sure the lizards were in our cabins too.

For lighting they had fluorescent lights on the kitchen ceiling but the tables (and bar) had tall oil lamps. On the ceiling in the kitchen were dozens of tiny lizards snatching bugs out of the air around the lights. Life was good for the lizards. We'd see a moth fly into the dining area and make a B-Line towards the lights then suddenly disappear.

They had a radio playing a local British radio station which was mostly reggae, both of us liked reggae but couldn't understand anything the DJ said.

The menu was hand painted on a board hung on the wall, specials were listed on 3x5 cards on each table. The costs were very reasonable since the fish was caught by islanders during the day. Your meal was charged to your room account unless you came from a boat on the bay then you paid in Euros or US dollars.

Patrick never drank wine before meeting me but he said he liked it so we got glasses of a Merlot, which was not recommended with Snapper but I wanted it anyway.

At the waitress station was a short bar with six stools, we could eat at a table or sit at the bar and eat.

First, our salads arrived along with crusty hot French bread with warmed olive oil and minced garlic in tiny dipping bowls, it reminded me of Olive Garden.

The snapper fillets were juicy and very tender, and I got totally stuffed.

We discussed the history of the Caribbean Islands over dinner. I wrote a paper for high school world history class but I was not an expert.

Other couples in the restaurant and at the bar were chatting about the old restaurant that burned down years ago. They said the old one looked like a mess hall, it was an actual mess hall for the British Navy during WW2. This place looked run down, but it was the only kitchen on the bay now. They served some great meals but the dining area looked like a road side food stand in rural Cambodia. It was clean and cheap but had obviously lived through a number of hurricanes. All the tables and chairs were plastic, and most of the meats were lightly battered and deep fried. She said our snapper was caught today near the island.

Patrick said from where he sat it looked like the kitchen wasn't as clean as they would require in the States. I told him every time we came here we never got sick and never heard of anyone else getting sick eating there. And it was always the same two older ladies working in the kitchen, they made some very good meals.

They shut down the kitchen every day around 1am to blast it clean with hot water. They say the kitchen was the single largest user of electricity on the entire island. They cooked with gas but had two large refrigerators and a big chest type freezer in their kitchen.

They also ran their own desalination machine 24 hours a day that was powered by the sun during the day. The island had no municipal water or sewer. The only utility on this island was electricity, which came by fifty year old undersea cables from Peter Island. That was slowly being supplemented by solar and wind generators but the wind here stopped every day from 2am until 10am. There was no telephone service, cellular, or internet available. The lack of infrastructure kept costs lower and added to the ambience. It also meant if you suddenly had chest pain you had a huge problem the resort could not resolve for you. Many guests rented tiny satellite phones to bring along and purchased medical insurance with evacuation coverage too.

Hundreds of years ago Europeans turned many Caribbean Islands into factory farms since sugar was very valuable in Europe. It was grown, harvested, and processed on the islands along with other crops, like cotton. Europeans tried to turn the Caribbean islands into their own Spice Islands to avoid the cost of sailing around the world. From Indonesia they imported Clove, Nutmeg, and Mace since the 1500s. Salt was also valuable and was still produced from sea water in the Caribbean. Salt was also used as a currency in the era of Ancient Greece and Rome because it was so valuable.

Today, many Caribbean islands had large stone ruins, the remnants of the old sugar processing factories and windmills. Lots of African slaves eventually arrived in chains. The humans that lived on these islands before the Europeans arrived were also dark skinned and were (now) referred to as 'Arawak Indians.' Many people felt they were evidence that many people had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean thousands of years ago. Those Arawak people also settled areas we now called the Gulf coast states. When slavery arrived in North America local black and brown skinned you were forced into slavery and lost their property or their lives.

Many historians today theorized there was trade across the seas between Central America, across the Caribbean and all the way across to the Middle East, which was why pyramid ruins and hieroglyphic languages were found in both regions. Many ancient languages from Mexico to India had linguistic similarities.

After dinner and two more glasses of wine we went back to our room and gave each other erotic sponge baths by the sink and then went to bed together. Both of us gave up on nice hair, thank God for baseball caps! Hair seemed to hold onto the salt and slowly turned into ugly-waxy bird's nests on our heads. My father suggested getting haircuts but neither of us took his advice.

December 22nd.

Morning came early. It was beautiful out at 8am with tropical birds chirping, a gentle refreshing breeze outside, and the ocean was dead flat calm with no clouds in the sky.

I walked from the window back to the bed and sat on the corner and watched Patrick breathe, still asleep. I watched his chest rise and fall, his face half buried in the large pillow. When asleep Patrick had a simple innocent beauty that I found extremely attractive, it was rewarding to just sit and watch him breathe. All the contours of his body, the shadows, the skin tones, everything about him was like a living sculpture. I think I sat there and watched his chest rise and fall for ten minutes and grew hard watching the show.

I moved around the bed and got on my knees by his side of the bed and set my hand on his chest and moved my finger tip in circles around his tit, which woke him with a yawn and a smile. Then he rubbed his eyes and then seemed to become aware of his surroundings. Patrick always woke up in steps, rarely all at once. I don't think he could ever be a fireman or soldier because of that.

The restaurant was already open so we walked over for breakfast, a much smaller menu. They had mostly egg based items on the menu.

They had omelets, toast, bacon, grilled veggies, diced ham, salsa, hot sauces, beer, wine, water, and mango juices. When we arrived my parents were just seated so we took the other two chairs at their table, after breakfast we went our separate ways. Dad never spoke directly to Patrick that morning, but Mom did. She did most of the talking most of the time. Out of kindness she always asked me if I slept well, I always responded that I didn't know because I was unconscious all night. What I really wanted to say to her was, "No Mother, we didn't sleep well because he fucked me over and over until the sun came up."

After breakfast we hiked the trail that went to the peak of the island. It was obvious that this island had been blasted by several hurricanes over the decades, we saw evidence of storm damage everywhere. Trees snapped off at the roots, barren building foundations, and broken utility poles. Because the island was mostly limestone it was difficult to bury anything, so most digging was done near the shore.

I read online this island was inhabited by about one hundred people and it got electricity via undersea cables from Peter Island. Each cluster of homes had its own water system that stored rain water and slowly distilled water from the ocean while the sun was up. I think most of the locals bathed in the ocean or standing beside the kitchen sink.

Once we got to the peak it was easy to see we were the only ones up there. The peak was covered by large limestone boulders so we climbed on top of the highest one and sat on the very peak and looked around at the islands in every direction. I bet the wind blew at a constant twenty miles an hour and would remove your hat off quickly, but it felt nice.

I knew most of the nearby islands by name, Patrick said he'd love to hike around all the way around Norman Island someday. I pointed out far in the distance we could barely see through the haze the mountain peaks on Saint Thomas (USVI). We'd been there a couple times too, but I told him that island had a crime problem and a nasty place to visit. When he asked why I said mostly because of poverty, drug addiction, lousy schools, and corrupt governments. I told him in my opinion that was a problem across the entire Caribbean. And Saint Croix was worse than Saint Thomas, but it was almost too far south to see. The cruise ships quit going to Saint Croix due to crimes against tourists.

I told him in the articles I read about Norman Island on this very spot, in the 1940s they had British soldiers up here watching for enemy aircraft, and especially U-Boats. It was the perfect place to be an observer because you were in the middle of a cluster of large boulders that provided solid protection. They spent all day up here with a gallon of water, binoculars, and a whistle if they saw something abnormal moving on the sea, like a periscope.

"The reason why all the buildings from the sugar cane era were destroyed was the great slave revolt in 1733. They burned everything, and the fields too."

I told him there were several slave revolts on the islands throughout history, but in this area it was the 1733 revolt (started Nov 23rd) that ended most of the farming here and began the gradual end of slavery. The revolt spread to neighboring islands, like the one we were standing on. I paused for a moment then told him that slavery exists today but now it's totally legal in most countries, including the U.S.

"What do you mean?" Patrick asked with a tone of disbelief.

"Slavery exists in jails and prisons across North America and it's perfectly legal. We criticize slavery in China but nobody talks about it in the States. I'd love to see a list of what items and brand names were made in American slave factories. The US prison system runs factories and advertises their services online: unicor.gov. The problem here is there are too many people making too much money off it, some of those brands advertise on TV which was why TV news cannot mention it. Slavery in the US cannot be mentioned on television."

"Huh, I hate the very idea of it," Patrick said. I told him to never end up in prison or he'd see firsthand what modern slavery looked like.

By then we'd perched our asses on large boulders and sat there in the sun with perfect views all around, sort of like being the king of the island.

"Are there cops out here?" He asked.

"I've never seen 'em on the trails, only where wealthy tourists and alcohol come together. I think that's mostly why they exist. They're probably paid from an alcohol sales tax."

It didn't take long after that and I had my hand down his shorts, then he slid halfway down the boulder and was firmly inserted in my mouth, then he came for me. After some water we swapped places and I produced for him.

On the hike back to Bight Bay Patrick admitted he was confused about what direction was north here, he felt lost without common landmarks, like the tall buildings in downtown Chicago. Because of all the palm trees the only signs of mankind were boats on the sea, some of them were rather large.

Back by the bay we ate lunch then went for a swim with face masks and snorkels. It was like swimming in a tropical fish tank. We saw large schools of colorful tiny fish and were surprised there were no large predator fish nearby. We saw pelicans and some birds that dove into the water trying to catch gulps of tiny fish.

We spent most of the afternoon in the water and had a great time. We also checked out the sailboats at anchor but saw very little activity on most of them. A few looked like nobody was on board at all.

We watched two sailboats that had younger couples on board. One had a baby on board that was just learning to walk, and a small dog too. They appeared to live that way, and they flew the flag of the UK. I told Patrick I bet she had a full pubic bush and hairy arm pits and legs, I heard that was a thing with people that lived on boats. Patrick flashed his hairless arm pits, I chuckled and told him she could probably kick his ass.

"Imagine she had you pinned on the deck, she sat on your chest and started to grind that big hairy snatch all over your mouth."

He made a horrified expression and shook his head NO!

Looking at the bay underwater it became obvious why the Brits made a tiny naval base here, the bay was unusually deep and clear. There was no coral and it was large enough to park very large ships side by side. It had a featureless sandy bottom but was rocky around the edges, it was deeper than Pearl Harbor. It was sheltered from the weather and had great access from the sea. The bay was large enough to anchor the Bismarck and the Yamato side by side and have room enough to barge-in supplies too. The bay almost looked man-made when seen underwater, maybe it was.

We were super hungry by dinner time, and there was supposed to be a beach party at the resort. We decided to go, I'm sure my parents would be there too. We'll probably be the only same sex couple attending.

What it turned out to be was a bonfire with people playing guitars, bongos, and a harmonica. We could sing, grab an instrument and play along, or just watch. They sold beer, wine, and cocktails. It was a group of about thirty older people and they had sliced watermelons and other fruits grown on the island.

We sat on old folding chairs and tried to be unseen. There were the ever present unarmed cops leaning against trees silently watching for signs of trouble.

"What would they do if I shouted, FUCK THE CROWN?"

"Let's not find out!"

It seemed Patrick was annoyed by the constant presence of uniform security guys. He asked why they were here. I told him that in years past this bay was a hangout for celebs with yachts. Celebs in swimming suits usually attracted paparazzi, which was why they created the security force. In the 1980s it was not uncommon to see celebs here like Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Cary Grant, and Roger Moore. They had a competition to see who owned the largest yacht. I told Patrick, "In the good old days if you were a good looking young man you could easily secure temporary employment on one of those big yachts working as a human sex toy. All you had to do was walk around naked all day, hopefully hard, and let anyone touch your body any time they wanted. AIDS really killed that era."

"Do you think you'd do something like that?" I asked.

Patrick answered that was sort of what being on the high school swim team was like. He said he might try it for a day or two.

I told him if you got mixed up with the wrong people it was an easy way to end up dead, your body tied to a chunk of concrete and dumped in the sea.

We stayed at the party until 10pm then walked the 100 yards to the restaurant and drank a few beers then went to our cabin. Even though it was hot out today the ocean breezes were nice and it was very tolerable. We were both comfortable without air conditioning in the cabin.

Near the restaurant was another brick building, also on a concrete slab floor, it was a large outhouse that had running water, sort of. What it had was running salt water so it wasn't safe to drink but it was fine for hand washing and cleaning the bathroom. There was a uniform cop on a chair outside the door to the ladies outhouse. It looked like the building sat on top of a very large septic tank. Both the restaurant and the outhouse were about 80 feet in from the edge of the water.

As we approached the men's room we both said hi to the cop on the chair and he nodded at us then watched us closely walk past him.

In the men's room we used the stinky (eco-friendly) urinals then turned to leave. I caught a glimpse of something that startled the crap out of me. Outside the window in the darkness were two big eyes watching us. When my vision adjusted I saw it was that cop that moved over to the window to watch us use the bathroom.

I gently shoved Patrick towards the door and we went back to the bar. After a couple more glasses of beer we went back to our hut and closed all the curtains and turned off the lights and went to bed. After the place was quiet and dark for a while we got in bed together into 69 position and blew each other again.

As I tried to fall asleep it occurred to me that it seemed like the local cops knew we were a gay couple so they kept an eye on our activities.

December 23rd.

Mornings on the Caribbean were wonderful. The skies cleared, the winds calmed, the ocean was flat as glass, and everything seemed refreshed. It rained overnight but we slept through it. As we walked to the restaurant we saw puddles on the sidewalk since it was still shaded by the palm trees.

We had breakfast with my parents and discussed Christmas plans. The island would be shut down for two days but the restaurant had to open or we'd all starve. The only time they closed was for hurricanes, but we were told they always kept 3-4 days of frozen food on hand for emergencies.

Every day a boat arrived with supplies, aside from what they caught in the ocean around the island everything else was either in cans, cases, or came frozen. Beer arrived in large kegs. They hauled off bags of compressed trash but they burned all their paper and cardboard trash behind the restaurant at night.

Beer and wine kegs were wheeled off the boat with carts. Produce arrived in cases the size of a microwave oven box.

The delivery boat sailed into the bay like an old Mississippi River Boat. They lowered a long ramp and four guys unloaded supplies with carts. We saw no cases of beer, it was all delivered in kegs and was probably done that way over all the islands. Food arrived in insulated cases, most of it arrived frozen.

They drove the freight boat so the bow ran aground on the beach then lowered a long ramp into place with a crane, just like paddle wheel boats from the 1800s.

To fill the propane tank they stretched a long hose from the boat to the tank on shore and filled it up. It was interesting to see how they adapted to doing business on the islands. They were very well organized, we watched them unload and take back the empty containers and plastic trash. The boat looked like a shallow draft floating warehouse, all it was missing was a stern paddle wheel and smoke stacks. We guessed it was water jet powered but couldn't operate in rough seas which was why deliveries were made early in the morning.

Both of us felt our hair turning into a waxy mess due to the salt water so we paid for fresh water showers at the resort, it cost four quarters for a five minute stream of heated rain water. It was a small shower near their office and we went in together. They had two paid showers inside a cement block building near the office.

After the showers we went back to our room and were looking at the radio in our room when there was a knock on our door, two black men in police uniforms wanted to discuss our showers. He told us it was against British Law for two men to shower together. I'd never heard about that rule before and it certainly wasn't posted anywhere, but someone must have squealed on us.

Patrick panicked and became belligerent. I tried to quiet him while I handed the cops our bogus IDs. I grabbed our passports and cash, cells and stuff into my fanny pack. The stuff was in Ziploc bags in my fanny pack and they escorted us to a place well beyond the outhouse by the restaurant. We walked on a trail into the trees to a clearing. I explained we showered together to save water but he said it was still against the law in the BVI. Any argument I came up with they said to tell the judge on Monday, it wasn't up to them.

In the clearing was a fenced cage about the size of four tennis courts (50'x50'). There were two shelters inside, basically wood structures, partially enclosed, with thatch roofs. The cage was enclosed by an eight foot chain link fence and three rows of barbed wire on top. There was a hand pump for well water and a tiny outhouse and that was it. He said court would be on Monday after the holidays, the judge was on vacation. We both knew we'd have to sit here in this zoo cage and wait for six days. The cops left and Patrick was immediately furious and wanted to fight anyone so I ignored him and walked the perimeter examining the enclosure. I'd heard people talk about this place before and they said it was easy to escape from, but then you had to leave the island because if you returned to your hut they'd take you to the main island and put you in a real city jail then you might never be seen alive again.

I heard someone say if you were a fit young man with white skin and ended up in jail in Road Town the other inmates would literally fuck you to death and dismember your body and burn it with the trash.

I paused in a few places to check the fence and noticed a few glaring security flaws (or maybe they were like that for a reason). While I was busy Patrick went to the gate and screamed obscenities but we were alone in the jungle, nobody could hear him except the bats. We were about a quarter mile from the bay in the middle of a dense tropical jungle. There was no mention of food, only water and a toilet with no toilet paper or soap, no showers or nothing. At night we'd have to sleep on a hard plywood shelter floor with one wool blanket each for comfort. The blankets were US military surplus and even said US in large stamped letters.

After an hour he finally ran out of anger and caught up with me as I examined the perimeter fence (and the jungle beyond the fence), he tried to pick a verbal fight with me so I changed the subject and asked him if he wanted to escape with me. He smiled and asked what the plan was.

"See the fence, its standard eight foot chain link, right?"

"Yeah."

"Ever climb chain link fence?"

"Yes, but not wearing flip-flops," then I pointed to the corner and he looked at it and saw the same thing I did, the way the corners were made would work like a ladder, then all that was left was the barbed wire on top, it was like standard USA farmland barbed wire, nothing deadly or dangerous but it would slice the shit out of us. And this barbed wire went straight up, it didn't lean in or out.

"I'll climb the fence and drape our folded blankets over 'em and climb over and down the outside."

"Then what?"

"Then we hike to Treasure Point and swim to Flanagan Island."

"How far is that?" he asked.

"I'd say it's about 3/4 mile to Treasure Point, then two miles to Flanagan Island, then another 3,000 feet to East Bay on Saint John, we could do it in one night easily as long as the weather cooperated, right now it's perfect."

I did some math in my head then told him it would be like swimming 40 laps in the pool.

"Forty laps huh? What about water to drink?"

"I say we load up on water here on that pump, and if the guards come back we ask for food." We could probably find empty bottles on the beach."

"Won't they be watching for us there if we disappeared from here?" He asked.

"No. There's no roads, no phones, they don't carry radios. No, I don't think they can or would even try. These cops are just local island people."

He looked scared then I asked, "How long would it take you to swim forty laps on the open ocean?"

"In shark infested waters?" He asked sounding sarcastic.

"Yep, how long?"

"I'd guess if the ocean was calm about two to three hours." He boasted then walked up to the tall fence, shook the fabric and said we could probably dig under it in less than fifteen minutes with our bare hands. He looked at me and said during his senior year he swam forty laps every Saturday for team practice.

I noticed there were clouds building off to the west, then we agreed as soon as the sun was just above the sea we'd climb the fence. It was less than one hour until sunset.

First step was to pump some water. I worked the handle and he bent over with his hands cupped and drank as much water as he could stomach, then it was my turn. My stomach was full of water and I felt like a giant water balloon was inside me.

I folded our blankets and discussed how to climb over the barbed wire and not get sliced like bacon. We'd basically climb up and slide over the barbed wire covered by six layers of wool blanket, get a toe hold on the fence outside and climb down.

I told him I'd go first and stay on top to make sure he got over the barbed wire safely. I didn't want to see him fall, even though the ground was soft sand. There was no emergency medical care on Norman Island except maybe a first aid kit in the resort office.

When the sun was almost halfway set we went to the corner and I climbed up and carefully positioned both blankets over the barbed wire. Holding onto the wire support arm I slid one leg over the wire and shifted my weight to the outside then moved my other leg and climbed part way down and told him to do it too.

He climbed up the corner and stopped at the top to consider how he was going to slide over the wires. Then Patrick went over one leg at a time. While he climbed up I moved back to the top and held his arm tightly when he shifted his weight to his foot on the outside to make sure he didn't fall.

After he had both feet on the outside I climbed down and watched him above me. He took the blankets down and dropped them to me. We carried the blankets for a while then left them on a large boulder. They'd make a nice home for a hundred tiny lizards.

We walked south towards the nearest beach on the next bay over from the resort. We soon came upon an existing foot path and kept walking towards the shoreline.

The temperature dropped as the sky darkened and we slowed our speed. The moon was out but way over on the east horizon.

Forty five minutes after our escape we walked out onto a rocky beach on Privateer Bay, now our course turned nearly straight west along the tree line. In the distance we saw lightning. The beach was narrow. Here it wasn't a sandy shoreline, it was rocky but along the edge of the trees there was a narrow strip of sand with a few boulders to navigate around. Over time we slowed and our jog turned into a brisk walk. We walked or jogged for ninety minutes and finally saw signs of life again in the form of red lights on sailboats at anchor off Treasure Point. I prayed we hadn't turned into a buffet for the Noseeums along the way. Sandy beaches near the water at sunset were the cause of being eaten alive by the Noseeums.

We arrived at Treasure Point at 9:30pm and it looked like there was a party on the beach. All the partygoers had British accents and it appeared they were all from three sailboats anchored nearby. To the west was our destination, Flanagan Island, which was a small tree and rock covered island. Nobody lived there but it had one small lighthouse in the middle. If my memory was correct it was US soil, probably part of the US Park Service.

At Treasure Point was a festive party, it seemed rather wild. Judging by the volume I'd say everyone was drunk, maybe high too.

Someone walked up and welcomed us and told us to grab a beer so we got cups and tapped the keg they had on ice. They dug a pit in the sand, shoved a beer keg in the hole and filled-in around it with maybe 40 pounds of ice.

We got beers and Patrick quietly found a case of bottled water and grabbed two of them and stuffed them in his pockets. We also grabbed some food off their table, mostly veggies like carrots, celery, and cauliflower chunks.

I never counted people but I'd guess there were at least fifteen people on the beach, most were adults, some were naked, and most looked drunk. It was dark and hard to see but I thought all the small kids I saw running around chasing each other were also naked. British attitudes about nudity were very different from American values.

They had a small fire and people sat on blankets eating and drinking or making out. I was surprised I didn't see anyone having sex. Most of the people ignored us, it was clear they did not anticipate having strangers crash their beach party.

We stood at the edge of the water and looked across the sea at the island in the distance and what looked like a mild thunderstorm stuck above it (or possibly it was stuck above Saint John but looked like it was above Flanagan) and decided to go for it, really for us there was no other way off Norman Island tonight that I knew of. We waded into the water and slowly swam west past the sailboats at anchor. I noted the time was 11:15pm, and I took our flip flops and stuffed them into my back pockets.

We stayed close and joked about being eaten by sharks for a while but that got old. I told Patrick I never heard of a shark attack on a Caribbean Island, I really thought the water was too warm and shallow for a Great White. The local sharks were too small to go after a human.

"Accidents happen." Patrick chimed-in.

"Will you please stop freaking out about Jaws, it was a fucking movie, dude!" I argued back as we steadily swam further from Norman Island.

Then he mumbled, "I could have stayed home."

"Oh WAH!!!" I mocked his whining.

"I think if you look at where the world's shark attacks happen they're all in areas that get strong, cold, near-shore currents." I added.

We flipped over onto our backs and causally paddled towards the Flanagan Island for over an hour but periodically looked all the way around us for boats. I raised my head and looked behind us and saw the beach party fire was invisible now. While we swam we discussed currents and decided there was almost no surface current since our view of the lighthouse hadn't changed except it looked closer.

I think we made the first mile in about 90 minutes and kept swimming towards the red beacon. I decided Patrick must really trust me that he would risk his life to swim two miles across the open sea, maybe I should take his affection more seriously. But he got quiet for a spell, I think he was upset with me for getting us into this situation. It was my idea to shower together, he didn't want to at first.

I'd be lying if I said that swimming on the open ocean didn't scare me at all. We stayed close but stopped talking and just kept a steady pace using our arms and legs. I felt very vulnerable swimming in the dark across a busy waterway towards a thunderstorm but I didn't want to add to Patrick's anxiety and kept paddling.

For a while we swam on our backs very close side by side, I told him I really liked him and admitted it felt like I was falling in love with him. He confessed that he always fell in love with fellow jail escapees! I laughed at his joke but I think he was somewhat serious. We were both at risk for drowning out here and supported each other and kept pushing forward. At least the water was warmish. My best guess was the ocean temp was in the mid to low 90s.

Suddenly we swam into a patch of much cooler water I felt that we got into a surface current but kept an eye on the lighthouse and kept pushing ourselves to keep swimming west. We stayed close and talked the entire way. He spoke about the Niles North swim teams and coaches, he said he heard a rumor one of the coaches was banging one of the female team members. He heard a rumor that the head coach was hung like a horse.

I asked him to tell me about other guys he saw naked on the varsity swim team and he gave me names and full descriptions of what they looked like in the showers. He said that nobody on the team looked big in the showers and he only saw two turtle neck dicks all four years.

We even talked about early attempts at jerking off. He said he and Matt experimented in front of each other but that ended the day his brother kissed a girl the first time and felt her tits. He said his brother was breast obsessed during high school and even stole a bra from the store just to learn how they un-hooked. Sometime after that if he got high he'd wear that bra and walk around the bedroom naked with the bra on because he thought it looked sexy and naughty.

Patrick said back then they did almost everything in front of each other because they had total trust, no secrets, just be yourself. He also said most people didn't understand identical twins, most people thought we had the same personalities but they were very different people inside. The older they got the more different they became.

December 24th 1998.

About 4am we noticed the first hints of light in the eastern sky and when I rolled over to look ahead of us I saw we were almost there, so I told him to turn over and look. We could even hear the beach and crickets ahead of us, it was maybe 200 feet away so we pushed hard the rest of the way. By the time my foot hit sand the sky was brighter and we were free of the BVI, we'd crossed into US territory.

Standing on the moonlit sandy beach Patrick did his imitation of Kevin Bacon in the movie Tremors, he looked back at Norman Island and yelled, "FUUUUUCK YOUUUUU!" Then let go a maniacal laugh which made me laugh too.

On the beach we stopped to hug each other and kissed briefly. Then we had about a five hundred foot walk across the Flanagan Island. In celebration we both drank our water but kept the bottles, I handed him his flip flops.

There were a few clouds above us but the moon was bright. We hiked into the brush but it wasn't as heavily treed as Norman Island and we saw trails all over the place. Light from the moon lit the trails since they were made of brilliant white limestone and were easy to see.

Patrick asked what my parents would do and I said it would be obvious to police we escaped, but since that sort of thing was common on the BVI my parents new well enough to assume we escaped and would contact them. My dad would look around and see the other islands and assume we swam to freedom. Our only other option would be to sit in their jail and wait for next week and be charged with indecent behavior in public and hire a corrupt British lawyer and hope to get away without prison time and hope my parents would purchase my freedom.

"What about me?" he asked.

"I'm not sure but I bet they would pay for both of us, but that don't matter now!"

He said he thought we did the right thing, but if we'd gone somewhere where gay wasn't illegal we'd be asleep on a hotel bed right now instead of hiking across an island at 4am. He sounded upset. I guess I owned much of the blame for our predicament, which really wasn't that bad considering.

I told him with the boats at anchor on the bay it was a daily circus as people ran from shore and swam out to their sailboat with police standing on the beach watching them. Drunks at the bar could be heard laughing at the clown show.

Patrick said it again, "I think going there was a dumb idea."

I told him my parents really liked the solitude and lack of commercialization, but I'd never go back.

We continued hiking across the island, it was a gradual uphill towards the center, we saw no signs of mankind except the lighthouse, which was just a solar powered red lamp on a tall reinforced post that slowly blinked on and off. It took about 20 minutes to cross the island then we walked out onto another beach on the west side and saw two sailboats anchored off the furthest west point. I reminded Patrick it was less than four thousand feet to Saint John. But we walked along the beach and saw smoke on the beach like someone was burning something. Behind us the sky to the east was slowly getting brighter but the stars were still clearly visible to the west.

As we walked around to that peninsula I admitted to Patrick that although beautiful most of the Caribbean Islands were not the nicest places to visit, maybe I should research vacations on Bermuda or the Azores for next year. Patrick asked how many vacations my parents took a year and I said since I went to college they started leaving four times a year for two to three weeks.

He said we should only go places where gay wasn't a crime, I agreed.

When we got close we saw what looked like a family or two. We saw kids and young people and middle aged adults. We casually walked up and got funny looks from them like they thought they had the entire island to themselves. They also had accents and I saw an Aussie flag on their sailboat.

We introduced ourselves (5:25am) and semi explained our situation, Patrick ran his mouth and said too much and said we escaped from a drunk jail on Norman Island because we showered together. They laughed, she said that meant we were heathen sinners, then they laughed again and said they were sinners too! That actually warmed them up and they asked where we were headed and I said we needed to get to Saint Thomas to fly back to the states. He said they were renting an apartment there and offered to give us a lift and we immediately accepted. I said we had no cash but they declined payment and offered us water and breakfast.

I'm sure Patrick's charm helped that situation. We sat at their driftwood campfire and ate scrambled eggs. We were hungry so we gladly accepted the free food. The guy said they were temporarily living on Saint Thomas at Lindquist Beach and sailed over here with the kids for an overnight visit since they were confined to a small apartment near the beach. They bought that old sailboat just to get away from the noise and the sound of gunshots and police sirens around the island.

I whispered to Patrick that when you said you were vacationing on Norman Island it told most people you were wealthy.

They said they were leaving after lunch for the northeast corner of Saint Thomas so we hung out on the beach in the sun for a few hours. I saw Patrick had a few Noseeum bites on his legs, I had some too and they itched like crazy. At mid-day we helped them load up their stuff and get their kids onto the motorized dinghy. They motored out to the boat but we swam 150 feet to their sailboat in forty foot deep water, beyond the shore currents. It looked like an older sixty footer that was worn but still seaworthy. The sails looked old and yellowed, I saw some cracks and frayed ropes.

She said she was a doctor working on the island at an urgent care and he was a pharmacist for the same company. They worked three days a week and loved the Virgin Islands. I told them I was an ICU nurse near Chicago, which sort of made them warm up a little more to us.

We helped them raise anchors and sailed west, around the south side of Saint John then towards the northeast corner of Saint Thomas. We passed through the very busy and congested passage between the islands which was only about three miles between Red Hook and Cruz Bay.

On the way around Saint John we all sat on deck in the back, he put sunscreen on the kids and she told us that last week she worked at the hospital and had a gunshot victim that was still alive, but the people that shot him came to the hospital and shot him in the hospital bed and casually walked out and drove off. She said that's how harsh life could be on Saint Thomas due mostly to the drug trade. He said you never left valuables in the car, never locked your car doors or they smashed the windows and avoid going near the projects or the shipping terminals. The narcotics came in on freighters in containers, which were never raided by the cops. He said the drug importation on the USVI was a protected business and drug money penetrated deep into the local government. I told her it was the same way in the States.

After two hours we approached Lindquist Beach which was dotted with apartment buildings and tied up to a buoy about 300 feet from shore. They locked up the cabin and carefully put their kids in the dinghy while we climbed down the ladder and swam ashore. At the pier we thanked them for the ride and breakfast and walked to the street and waited for the bus she told us to take (and donated fare money for both of us). Finally, we rode the bus around the island and made it to the airport (3:15pm). I got our passports out of my fanny pack and paid for two tickets to Miami, there was one more flight today, non-stop. Seats were $230 each which was a total rip off for such a short flight (1,200 miles). I put it on my credit card, then we sat in the boarding area and waited 90 minutes for boarding time. I texted my parents that we were alive and safe and on our way back to Florida, but there was no cell service on Norman Island so they wouldn't get my message until they left. I also sent a copy to her email just in case someone had a satellite phone they could borrow to check for messages, which would probably be one thing my mother would do before she panicked. Everyone on the sailboats anchored in the bay had a satellite phone and some had limited satellite internet access too.

We landed at Miami International at 8:45pm and got a hotel room after we purchased (non-stop) tickets back to O'Hare tomorrow morning on Delta Airlines.

We showered and drank nearly a gallon of water each, then we feasted on steak, baked potatoes, salad bar, and had a great time in the airport hotel restaurant. Then the beer started to flow and we both got sauced on Jamaican Red Stripe Beer in little brown glass bottles.

That night I convinced Patrick to fuck me again, this time we did it with me face down and he pounded me from on top. After he came and got cooled off again he jerked me off then we kissed for a long time and he became very affectionate now that we were back on the mainland. He admitted when we made it to Treasure Point and looked across the sea at Flanagan Island he didn't believe he could swim that far and was afraid we'd both drown or be eaten by sharks. Then he said it wasn't as far as it looked at first.

I told Patrick my favorite sex was to have a guy jerk me off exactly like I told him, he said he'd try from now on. I liked to get it on the sofa so I was partially sitting up watching.

Then I asked him, 'do you love me?' and he chuckled and said DUH! It seemed he was no longer mad at me for fucking up our vacation plans.

In bed that evening I rubbed my face all over his tummy and his super soft baby skin and I nursed on his tits briefly. I wanted to rim him but decided not to. I'd just got him to escape a foreign jail by swimming to freedom, that was a tough sell but he trusted me.

December 25th, 1998.

At 6am our room phone rang with our wake-up call, our ride to the terminal would be here soon. We took quickie showers and got down to the lobby. I sort of liked traveling in shorts and a T-shirt without any luggage!

We boarded the shuttle bus and rode to the terminal and got through a very short security check line then to our gate and waited for boarding. The jet was already there and we saw the flight crew arrive.

Twenty minutes later we got our cramped seats by the bathrooms but it was just us in one row so we raised the arms rests and spread out. We both nodded off during the flight to Chicago. He leaned over and put his head on my lap, I rested my hand on his chest and wished I could reach under his shirt.

Three hours and twenty minutes later we walked off the plane and followed the signs to the L platform that would take us to downtown Chicago where we switched train lines to the one that ended at Linden Avenue. The blue line went from O'Hare to the Loop, then we switched to a purple train that took us all the way to Linden Avenue, roughly fifteen miles north.

We made it to Wilmette near 4pm and walked to my car, I left my house keys under the back seat carpet. I unlocked the door and we went inside. Since my parents were still in the BVI I took Patrick on a tour of the entire house and showed him where my mom stood and spied on me and Phil Watt while he popsicle licked my boner in 7th grade.

"He did what?" Patrick asked.

"Popsicle lick. Ever lick the sides of a popsicle, from the stick to the end?" I asked.

"Uhhhh maybe. I think I always bit the end off, it was too cold, hurt my tongue."

I told him in 7th grade we didn't understand the phrase Blow Job so we called it 'Popsicling,' any kid could figure out what that meant. He'd get me on my back and held it up in the air and licked the sides until I came." I explained.

"Huh! Sounds like fun, we should do it." He replied, and as he said that I started to get hard. The nice part was since we were alone in my parent's house I didn't have to hide anything.

My old room on the third floor looked empty. Everything was covered with bed sheets and it looked like an attic again. Mom had put up some shelving units for storing boxes.

They had three bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second floor. In the middle of the hallway was a door that opened to another staircase that went up to the center of the attic room, which was a long narrow room with angled ceilings and a window at either end. My mom learned how to climb the stairs without making them creak so she could spy on me any time I had friends sleep over.

I liked my basement apartment much more, plus the attic room had no privacy and no sound proofing in the floor. The basement was cooler all year but the attic room turned into an oven in the summer, but it got a great breeze because it was up so high.

He asked how many square feet the house was and I said I wasn't sure but I thought it was about 4,800 sq feet if you counted the basement apartment. He said that was huge, the house he grew up in was 1,900 with four people living in it. I told him when this house was built this was just a regular old rural Illinois home, not a fancy or wealthy area, it sort of turned into that in the mid 1900s.

"It doesn't look that old." I told him it probably only cost a couple thousand bucks to build and maybe 400 bucks for the land.

So I took him into the basement and showed him in a few places where there was no cement floor it was easy to see this house had a foundation made of stones and mortar, and didn't even have a footer under it, the house stood on packed dirt since the 1880s! I said that was common in this area for the old farm houses to be built that way. It was hard to imagine this was once all farm land, with a few scattered houses and all these trees were gone. "If you look closely at the trees in the area you'll see there is nothing older than about 120 years in this area, that's when it was just bare farm land way out in rural Illinois".

I said the amazing thing was that there wasn't any sand under the basement floor, so the dunes must not have gone this far inland from the lake. That might be why there was a wide grassy area along the Chicago River, because the soil was too soft to build on. It might have been all dirt they dredged out of the river since it was manmade and they dumped it on top of sand. I wondered what supported the Baha'i Temple, Patrick said it probably sat on wood pilings like Venice, or maybe it sat on a natural limestone outcropping, which was why it sat so high.

I told him when our house was built it was heated by coal, that's why the basement door faced the driveway. The coal was delivered on a cart pulled by horses, and shoveled into the basement by hand.

After the tour we went back to my apartment and I asked if he would jerk me off, of course he said okay. I stripped naked and sat in his spot on the sofa and had him sit beside me and carefully molded his right hand around my dick and showed him exactly where and how to stroke me and what to do when I started to come. I've done this before with guys but nobody ever remembered how, like it wasn't important to them, but it was very important to me.

If he stroked me exactly like I showed him it would give me a tremendous orgasm. And if he did it how I showed it wouldn't take very long or require much arm work. It was so intense it hurt a little and made my balls tender for several hours. It's even brought tears to my eyes before and made me beg for him to stop, but I already told him not to stop until semen shot out. I told him if he wanted to pause briefly to lick up the precome that was fine.

That evening we drove to a 24 hour Walmart in Evanston and bought clothes to replace the stuff we abandoned on Norman Island and chuckled about how easy (and fun) it was to escape.

After we got home we had a few beers and made our own dinner. I got him into bed early and lay beside him and played with his body for a while. He was hard the entire time and leaked precome constantly. I picked the drops off his head and smeared them on his tits and licked 'em clean. I tried something new that night, I reached behind his nuts and tried massaging his bunghole.

I had to stop and get some lube because his skin was totally dry since it was cold outside.

He had nothing to say except every once in a while he'd moan as I rubbed my fingers in a circle and pressed firmly on his hole and found his most sensitive spot and worked it the most. I even felt his hole tighten and relax like it would bite my finger if it had teeth.

After a while I gently slipped one finger inside him and rubbed the inside wall of his bunghole and worked it around in a circle like I was stretching it.

With one finger inside him I watched his face and worked my finger all the way around to find his most sensitive spot, then I focused on that spot. When I pressed on it and rubbed it firmly he made a face like he was in pain. He's never experienced this before.

I sucked on his puffy left tit and rubbed his hole and Patrick was panting and his dick had been hard for over an hour now. Finally he reached his limit and asked me to stop. He needed to come soon or his dick would crack open or catch on fire or something.

I grabbed him and felt that he was actually thicker than normal. I popsicled him to a fiery orgasm. When he started to moan loudly I pulled back and watched him spurt, he filled his belly button with semen. I licked it off from around one nipple. Then I cleaned the rest with paper towels and we went to sleep. He told me nobody had ever played with his ass hole before.

In bed with my eyes closed I thought about asking him if I could video some of his orgasms up close, call it Come-O-Vision. I also wanted to video him up close coming in my mouth, just the sight of his dick twitching with the head in my mouth would be nice to watch over and over, shot from different angles too. I also wanted close-up video of his tit sucked inside my mouth, then licked like an ice cream bar.

December 26th 1998.

We got a text that was probably from my mother via someone on the island with a satellite phone, I didn't recognize the number. It asked how we were, I immediately replied we were home and fine. She said the cops asked them if we were with them until my dad told them to f-off and get out of their hut. They're staying to Sunday as planned, which was tomorrow. Today was the 26th of December. She said they cancelled our return trip tickets and got a partial refund on the 2nd hut!

I asked Patrick what he wanted for Christmas and he said he didn't want anything. We spent most of the day in our shorts but I had to turn up the heat, it was supposed to snow here later today.

We spent time on the sofa watching a movie and some football. The Bears played the Lions that afternoon. Neither team was having a good season, the TV showed it was snowing hard at Soldier Field too.

I told him how that entire area around Soldier Field was when they had a World's Fair in the 1930s, during the Depression. He didn't know what a World's Fair was.

We put a blanket over the sofa and sort of watched football. I was in back he was on his back beside me so I could play with his body, mostly I strummed his tits and nursed on them over the entire 15 minute half time where we muted the sound because halftime on TV sports sucks. Halftime shows were just fifteen minutes of ads anyway.

During the game we discussed sex and I convinced him to fuck me on the floor, we could put down a blanket and pillows and have all sorts of room and he could do whatever he wanted.

By the time the game was in the fourth quarter the score was 12-0 Bears in the lead. I'd built a Pleasure Island on the floor between the sofa and the electronics cabinet. I moved all the furniture and set out a roll of paper towels, four bottles of water, and a tube of lube.

I also set up my 8mm camcorder on a short tripod and was ready to make a video we could watch someday. I hit the power button on the TV and turned on the stereo to WNUR and had the volume very low.

Step one was to get him naked, then me. He was half hard and standing on the blanket when I returned from my turn in the bathroom with a pitstop at the refrigerator.

I brought over a nearly frozen Twinkie that I sliced in half lengthwise. I stepped up to him and held him, we kissed for a few seconds, his boner pressed between our stomachs, mine stuck out sideways.

I got him on his back with a pillow under his head and used my finger to scoop out the white frosting from inside the Twinkie and smeared it on his tits and licked them clean, then I used the other half and smeared it's frosting all over his dick head and licked it off too. Patrick said it felt great, very teasing. I tasted waves of his salty precome mixed in with the Twinkie filling. Sometimes he made a lot of precome, other times he made none, and I always dripped slowly when hard.

I wiped off his parts and lubed myself and his boner and got on my back, pulled my thighs up to my chest and pointed my bunghole at him. Patrick wobbled closer on his knees and slowly inserted himself.

He slowly inched inside with painful thrusts. It was obvious as a gay man he was very much a novice with a million dollar body, which seemed rather contradictory but that is what it was.

He pushed firmly and moved his hips in a circle as if he tried to corkscrew his way in, and eventually his hips touched my butt cheeks and he was all the way inside. Next step was to slowly slide out but not too far. That took some practice, knowing how far to pull back. Eventually he got it to work and started humping me like a horny teen. Sometimes he pounded me hard and other times he concentrated on maximum movement for maximum pleasure. Again, he told me I was tight and he really liked the way it felt.

He was in push-up position above me so I got to watch his muscles flex and his nipples get flushed with blood and turned red and seemed to get a bit larger and puffier as his body was nurtured by a large dose of male sex hormones.

He whispered he wasn't going to last much longer even if he stopped moving, it felt like his prostate was constantly pumping already.

With his eyes closed he slowly slid in and out his entire length and moaned and his head bounced around with very intense waves of pleasure, he said it started.

He suddenly pushed himself back up to his knees, his rod popped out of me but stuck out in the air like an Alaskan tuna fishing pole.

At first a few drops oozed out and landed on my pubes, then some shot out into the air and sprinkled me. His body flinched with each spurt. Then three long grayish ropes came out and landed from crotch to my shoulders. One last large glop came out and landed on my stomach, he kneeled there with a huge smile, a relaxed/satisfied look on his face. He dripped semen for about fifteen more seconds.

I reached up and he took my hands and got down on top of me and we kissed and moved around to smear his semen all over our front sides. He was exhausted and turned into a heap of satisfied teen on top of me.

Patrick raised his head so our noses were inches apart in the darkness of my living room, he whispered to me that it was my turn, which I took as an invitation to fuck him (terminate his virginity).

We rolled over and I carefully lubed him and myself, then I gently inserted one finger and stretched him out, then a second and eventually a third finger and turned it around and spread them apart to stretch him out. I also pressed some lube into his hole to make sure he was very well lubed to lessen the pain.

I pulled back and inserted my boner and slid all the way inside without him having much resistance, but he winced one time. It went quickly and I was fully inside him.

Patrick pulled me down and we kissed then he whispered to come inside him.

I was almost ready by then, I slid in and out slowly so he could fully feel my size, then when it started I inserted all the way and lowered onto him, our mouths came together, our tongues touched, I whimpered with each spurt and he held me tightly against him.

With our lip tips touching I whispered "Merry Christmas" to him and he whispered back, "I love you Brad."

About ten minutes after it was over and we'd started putting the living room back to normal his Nokia buzzed with a new text alarm. He checked it and told me it said 'MC-FB,' and it was from his brother. I asked what that meant and he said, "Merry Christmas Fag Boy." I told him to delete it. He smiled and pressed DELETE.

Contact the author: borischenaz gmail.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k="boris+chen"&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Note to readers: I recently uploaded a new version of chapter-1, I discovered I never gave Patrick a last name. Since he was Irish Catholic I had to give him an Irish sounding last name, so in the character list he now has a last name! I think it's only mentioned two times in the entire book!

When I named book characters I usually did an internet search like "popular XXXX names" where XXXX is the area where the story took place.

Also, Chapter-11 (page 186) will be the end of this book. I am considering the re-release and re-edit of the book Man's Best Friends as my next project.