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| Part 2 by Castgimp |
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| I pulled Ben slowly to his feet again, or rather, to his foot. I wrapped my arm firmly around his back, under his shoulders, and he wrapped his arm tightly around mine. He held his injured left ankle off the ground between us. We took a first hesitant step forward. It was awkward. He had to sort of hop forward on one foot, leaning on me. I tried to carry as much of his weight forward with me as I could. We could only take small steps, and we had to rest frequently. The path was not steep at this point, but it was a steady relentless downhill slope, and our light was disappearing fast. Periodically we would lurch and Ben would have to put his left foot down for balance to keep us from pitching forward onto the ground, and each time he would cry out with pain. I felt terrible, but didn't know what else to do. It was pitch dark long before we reached the camp and our progress slowed even further as we picked our way tentatively along the dark trail. I began to be afraid that we would lose our way. Moving down the mountain wrapped around each other like that was hard work, and we were both wet with sweat, despite the fact that it was getting very cold. I was worried that Ben would get chilled and go into shock. If his ankle really was broken, this was exactly the wrong thing to be doing, but even as I agonized over my decision to try to make it back to our camp I couldn't see that we had any other choice. Each time he had to touch the toes of his left foot to the ground I could feel his fingers grip my shoulder more tightly as the pain shot through his ankle. After a while he stopped crying out, and instead just sucked in his breath sharply each time his injured foot landed on the ground. It took us almost two hours to reach our tent. I was never so relieved as the moment when I realized the sharp dark shadow in front of us was finally our tent. We were both drenched with sweat from the effort, and a sharp cold wind had picked up and was whipping through the trees. I sat Ben on a large log near where we had built the campfire the night before while I opened the tent, and lit the lantern. Then I carefully helped him into the tent, easing him down onto his sleeping bag and the thin air mattress on his side of the tent. Ben's face was ghostly pale. "We've got to get you out of those wet clothes Ben." "I know. I'm freezing. You too man. You're soaked." "You first. Let me give you a hand." I helped him pull his sweatshirt up over his head, and then helped him peel his wet T-shirt off his chest. I tried to dry him off as best I could with a small hand-towel, wiping his back and neck and chest. He was starting to shake and his teeth were chattering. I gave him a long-sleeved T-shirt and a heavy fleece pullover from my pack, which he gratefully pulled on over his naked chest. I tried to dry his wet hair with the towel and then gave him a wool cap that I had brought with me. Next I pulled off my own wet shirts, two layers of cold wet cotton. I was shivering now too with my own damp chest naked in the dimly lit tent. I rummaged through my pack looking for more dry warm clothes. "Take something out of my pack Mike," Ben offered. "I've got clean clothes on top." I pulled a long-sleeved thermal undershirt and a heavy plaid flannel shirt from his pack, the first two things that I could find. They smelled vaguely of Ben, musky and sweet, and slipping into them was comforting way beyond the value of the warmth provided by the fabric they were made of. "Thanks man. I'm wearing your clothes and you're wearing mine," I smiled. "I know. Pretty funny. Reminds me of college." "Did we wear each other's clothes in college?" "Just that once. That night freshman year when I passed out in your room and got sick. You cleaned me up, and put one of your shirts on me." I had totally forgotten about that episode. "So I've worn your clothes anyhow. I don't know if you've ever worn mine. I never did get that sweatshirt back from you that I puked on. I assume you threw it out." "Yeah." My face flushed deeply. I was glad there wasn't much light in the tent. In fact I had kept that shirt. "It was pretty gross as I recall." I had washed it, and then carefully hidden it in the bottom of one of my drawers. What for? As a souvenir of the night Ben puked in my room? Because I wanted something that belonged to Ben? I wondered where that sweatshirt was now, and how I had forgotten about it. I had had such a crush on Ben freshman year. Again my mind was flooded with the image of Ben standing in the shower across from me freshman year, pulling on his hard wet cock and smiling, his lean chest and hard runner's legs glistening as the water ran down his fair skin, his dark hair forming wet squiggly trails along his abdomen and thighs. "I'm still freezing man." Ben's voice snapped me out of my momentary reverie, and brought me immediately back to the uncertain reality of our current situation. "Me too. I don't know about you, but I'm wet down to my shorts." "Yeah, I'm soaked all the way through." "We've got to get all of your wet clothes off." "You're going to have to help me." "I know. Here. Let's get your boots off." Normally we would have taken our boots off before we climbed into the tent, to keep it clean. As it was we had simply clamored in as quickly as we could. I knelt at the foot of Ben's air mattress and unlaced his boots. His right boot slipped easily off when I pulled on it. His sock was wet with sweat, and I peeled that off too, revealing a very white pale naked foot with a high arch and long, strong toes. With his left foot I was as gentle as I could be, loosening the laces all the way and then easing his foot out of the shoe as slowly as possible. I tried as best I could not to jar or twist his ankle, but as careful as I was, I could see him wince as I eased the back of the boot over his heel. That sock was also wet, and I peeled it gingerly down over his ankle and off. I held his foot in my hand, unsure what to do with it. I was surprised by the weight of his foot in my hand. His ankle was narrow but athletic, and perfectly formed, dark hair meeting pale white skin over knobby bones and ropy tight muscles and ligaments. It didn't look like a broken ankle to me. I continued to hold his foot, enjoying the awkward intimacy of the moment. "How's it look?" he asked. "Like the foot of an alabaster statue of a Greek god," I wanted to say. I raised his ankle slightly, and lowered my face closer to it so that I could examine it in the dim light. His long white toes were punctuated with a few heavy dark hairs. His foot truly reminded me of the perfectly carved stone feet on the Roman statues I had seen in the Louvre in Paris. It was not apparent to me that his ankle was either swollen or discolored, though the low light in the tent made it hard to say for sure. "It looks fine," I said, trying to sound confident. "Really. It doesn't look swollen or bruised. Maybe it's not broken after all." I set his foot gently down on the air mattress. "Now let's get those pants and wet drawers off you before you freeze to death." Ben unsnapped his jeans and lifted his hips and I helped him pull down his pants and underwear. They were both wet. I handed him the towel so he could dry himself off at least a little, and then helped him wriggle into a pair of loose blue sweatpants that I had pulled from his pack, holding his injured ankle up off the ground for him while he worked his hips and pulled the pants up over his butt. His brief nakedness hadn't seemed to embarrass either one of us, but nevertheless I was oddly relieved to have him back in pants. Now, I thought to myself, would definitely not be the right time to make a pass at Ben. "Do you want me to wrap that ankle for you?" "Do you think it will help?" "It can't hurt" "OK," he said. "Go for it." I did my best to remember the technique I'd practiced in a high school first aid class so many years ago, starting with the arch of his foot and wrapping his ankle in a careful figure eight, trying to wrap it tight enough to create some positive pressure on the joint without making it so tight that it would cut off his circulation or cause his ankle to throb if it started to swell. Then I helped him climb inside his sleeping bag to try to get warm. I finally looked at my watch and it was almost nine o'clock. Neither one of us had eaten anything since lunch and we were both starving. I fished two protein bars out of our stash and we wolfed those down, washing the dry sticky mess down with water. It had been my goal to make a campfire to sit by so that we could get truly warm, but now that seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I decided instead to simply boil some water on the Coleman single burner that we had, and make some instant soup. I changed my wet pants and pulled my boots back on and stepped outside to light the stove. A sharp, bitter wind whipped around the tent and the air felt damp and raw. Before I could even get the water to boil, a wet mist began to sting my face. I stamped my feet to try to stay warm. By the time I got the soup made and poured into mugs, the mist had turned to sharp pellets of hard rain that stung as they bounced off my face. I packed up the stove as quickly as I could and scurried back into the tent trying not to spill the soup. The warm salty soup tasted great, and even holding the hot mug felt oddly comforting. Ben drank quickly, gulping the warm liquid. In the flickering lantern light of the tent his face looked drawn and pale. His was sitting up, but had his legs pushed deep inside the sleeping bag. He seemed to be shivering. "Are you OK Ben?" "I'm cold. Really cold. It's like I can't warm up." I reached over and touched his forehead with the palm of my hand. His skin was cool to the touch. I wondered how you were supposed to know if someone was going into shock. I tried to remember back to that high school first aid class again. What had our book said about shock? Maybe he was just cold. We were on a mountain in New Hampshire in late October and it was cold and wet and windy. Hell, I was cold. "How's your ankle feel?" "All right, I guess. It kind of aches. And if I move a certain way, there's a sharp pain, like when I try to stand on it." "I have some Advil if you want. That might help." "That would be good." I grabbed the pills from the tiny bottle in my shaving kit and he washed them down with water. I could hear the rain heavier now on the tent. "Thanks man." There was a silence then, but I felt like Ben had more to say. "Mike," he began again, tentatively. "What?" "We've got...I've got another problem." "What's that?" "I need to ... I need to go to the bathroom." "Hey. No problem. You want to piss in one of these bottles? Or I can help you kneel and you can just piss out through the door of the tent. No point in getting wet." "No Mike. I need to take a shit." I could tell that he was mortified to have to say that. "I've tried to wrestle this one down man, but I can't. I have to go. I'm sorry." He turned his face away from me in shame. "Ben." I reached out and grabbed his arm. "Relax man. We'll deal with it. We're in this together. It is not a problem." On Friday when we'd set up camp we'd dug a latrine about a hundred feet from the tent. It was just a hole in the ground, but for wilderness camping that was the routine. Ben and I had spent many camping trips shitting in the woods. But we'd always had plenty of privacy. Now I was going to have to hold Ben and help him balance. And it was raining. And it was dark. And it was cold. We decided it would be easier to take Ben's pants off before we left the tent. I pushed a boot onto his right foot, and then we struggled to stand up and get out of the tent. Inevitably we banged his ankle in the process, and I could tell from his reaction that he was in a considerable amount of pain, more than he had let on. I led Ben, bare-assed, away from the tent, as we leaned into each other much the way we had done on our way down the mountain. The cold rain was steadier now. We had put rain shells on, but still were getting wet. We didn't go as far as the latrine we'd dug, but just to the edge of the tree line, a spot we judged to be far enough away from the tent. I helped Ben lower himself down on one foot and then supported him by holding him under his armpits while he moved his bowels. I thought I would find the whole thing objectionable, but in fact it seemed as natural an act of human nature as any I could think of. I knew Ben was deeply ashamed, and tried to make it as easy for him as I could. I looked away until he said the simple word "done." I handed him the wad of toilet paper I'd jammed into my raincoat pocket, and braced my knee against his back while he cleaned himself off. The rain had started to feel like sharp pellets of ice against my face. Ben leaned heavily against me as we made our way carefully back toward the tent. Ben was shivering almost violently, and I knew the sharp cold rain against his exposed legs had to be miserable. I didn't know if we had made the right decision to try to get to the shitter with Ben butt naked. My own pants were wet and clinging to my skin. At least, I thought, we wouldn't have to peel another pair of wet pants down over his sore ankle. Despite the jackets we had pulled on, the driving windswept rain had pretty well soaked us even in the short time that we were outside. As we lurched awkwardly out of the rain and into the dim glow of the tent, it was pretty clear that all of our clothes were going to have to come off again. Other than a grunt that seemed to express pain as I eased him back down onto his air mattress, Ben had been silent. I didn't know if this lack of speech reflected his shame at having to move his bowels in front of me, the pain from his injury, or the simple fact that he was freezing. I considered again the possibility that he might be going into shock. Whether Ben was going into shock or not, I had to find a way to keep him warm. I remembered that old first aid book talking about lying naked against someone who had hypothermia to transfer body heat. At this point our bodies really were the only source of heat we had. I decided I had to take the plunge. "Ben," I said. "You're freezing. You need to get warmed up. We need to get you out of those wet clothes again. Listen. These two sleeping bags zip together." They were a matched pair of good down sleeping bags I had bought years ago at EMS in Burlington with my employee discount. "I think we need to put them together and get in the bag together, to stay warm. I'm not trying to hit on you man." I had to say it. "I'm just trying to keep you warm. What do you think?" "OK." It was all he said. I didn't talk to him about climbing into the sleeping bag together naked, but that is what we did. It took quite a bit of maneuvering to get our wet clothes off again, get the bags zipped together, and then slide ourselves down into the now larger down-filled nylon sack. Ben's skin was cold against mine. I moved tentatively in the bag, trying very carefully not to knock up against his bandaged ankle. Ben was on his back and I was on my side, and our bodies touching where my chest met his shoulder. I was debating whether I should put my arm around him or move closer to him when he shifted his weight and rolled onto his side so that we were facing each other chest to chest. Then he moved his arms around me and pulled me up close against him. I slid my arms down his back and hugged him tightly. We stayed like that, not speaking and not moving, for what seemed like a very long time. There was finally some heat building up in the sleeping bag, and for the first time in hours I began to feel the chill leaving my body. I hoped Ben was feeling warmer as well. His skin still seemed cold to my touch. Lying there in that sleeping bag hugging Ben was among the most peaceful things I have ever experienced. I didn't want to speak, for fear of breaking the spell. The circumstances were not anything I had ever imagined, but lying naked with Ben like this, simply holding each other, was something I had dreamed of many many times. It didn't feel sexual to me, and in fact I wasn't even worried about getting a hard-on. It was just about the intimacy of two men lying together. I knew that our situation was actually pretty dire, but I felt as if I could have spent the rest of my life lying there naked in that tent with Ben. We fell asleep like that, hugging each other tightly, chest to chest, as the rain pelted the side of the tent. I don't know how long we slept. The movement of Ben's body against mine woke me. He had shifted his hips and seemed to have moved away from me, when suddenly he rolled back against me, almost thrusting his hips against mine. I was startled to realize that his cock was erect. Instinctively I thrust my hips back against his, and I could feel my own cock growing rigid as I moved against him. Ben slid his hands down my back and cupped my ass, pulling me even more firmly against him. My mouth found his and our tongues met aggressively, probing the hot wet insides of each other's face. Ben moved his pelvis against mine, and I moved mine back against his as we slowly dry-humped each other's lower abdomens. It was a long slow gentle fuck as we pressed ourselves together and hungrily pulled at each other's mouths with our lips. I was conscious, always, of Ben's ankle, and not wanting to inadvertently kick it or roll on it. I moved as little as possible and let him move against me, moving my hips only in response to his. As he moved his hips away I let mine follow, so that there was never any space between us, and our skin was always in contact. Eventually we both came, grinding our hips and kneading each other's asses, and then we rested again, finally warm, glued together with the sticky remains of our disintegrating jism. Once our breathing had returned to normal I was stuck by the deafening silence. What was it? The rain had finally stopped. We slept again. |
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