Canvas Hell - 3. The Woods at Night

Karl caught his heel on the tip bar as he tried to escape the tent, falling and recovering quickly. He left at a pace that left little doubt of his physical power and speed. I collapsed back on my bunk and started to remove all I could of the 'white Brylcreem' from my forelock. After days of emotional turmoil and an epic orgasm, I just didn't have the energy to figure out what to do about/for/with Karl. I used my canteen to rinse out his cum-drenched bandana, squeezed it dry and flapped it about for a bit before folding it and leaving it on Karl's pack. I tidied the rest of the tent, picking up the flotsam and jetsam that teen boys inevitably generate. The triangle called us to supper and I trudged to the Mess Hall.

Jim was there, bright and energetic as a puppy. He was chattering away about what he and Karl had done in Wilderness Survival and what they would 'get' to do over the next four weeks. I let his piping voice wash over me. I was not frowning or surly, just... numb. Jim finally wound down enough to notice.

"What's wrong, Patrick?"

"I... Well... It's nothing, Jim. {Inventing wildly} Just down over the nasty food we have to eat." Jim set off on that topic for a few minutes and came to a screeching halt.

"You're lying. Why? What happened?" His honest concern was obvious.

"I fucked up, Jim." My dropping of the F-Bomb brought Jim up short and I knew I had to give more. I whispered, "Karl, um, Karl got back earlier than I expected and caught me, um, you know..." UBSL (universal boy sign language) substituted for actual words.

"Oooooh."

A conversational hiatus ensued until Jim broke it with, "So what? He said he did it. You said EVERYONE does it. You saw it b-be, being, you know, done to me. So what?"

Before I could even imagine a response, Karl sat his tray down next to Jim. He ate without looking up. Jim stared from me to him and back like a Wimbledon spectator and just as mute, obviously waiting for the tension to break but feeling (I'm guessing) too young to do it. About halfway through what could charitably be called stew, Karl stopped and looked at me.

"Why?"

I stared for a minute, then looked around. "Can we do this someplace else?"

Karl shrugged and grabbed his tray; Jim and I followed. I don't really know why, but I walked to the amazing place that I'd found on my first afternoon, the tiny dell with a cascade that made me think hobbits were lurking around the corner. The 20 minutes gave me time to think, but I had nothing. We sat on some rocks off to the side.

Jim stared in wonder. "Whoa." It really was beautiful. The late-afternoon light caused the air to glow. Bees glided from flower to flower. Ferns rustled in a sensual and ineffable dance. The spring burbled and the water flashed reflected-highlights as it leapt from stone to stone. "This is amazing! How did you FIND this, Patrick?"

"WHY?" Karl's harsh voice cut across Jim's wonderment.

"I don't know Karl," I saw him start to inflate, "No, Karl, that's the real truth. I ran to the tent planning to, you know... and the smell of, well {Karl blushed; my eyes went straight to my shoes and never left them}, your, you know, session hit me. I imagined Sherry and even Darlene, but... thoughts kept interrupting me..."

"What thoughts?" Jim was fascinated and puzzled; I ignored him.

"Then I saw that bandana."

"What bandana?"

"Shut up, Jim. Please. Let me get this out.

"That bandana that you used to catch or clean up your, um, your stuff. I didn't know, HONEST! I saw it lying there and picked it up and felt your, well, wet stuff. And the scent hit me. I don't know, Karl. I DON'T KNOW why. I just made me, made, made me... lose it."

By this point, the tears were dripping onto my shoes.

"But... why?" Karl was genuinely confused and perplexed.

"I don't KNOW, Karl. I, I, I just, I don't know!"

The last thing I expected was a calm and confident voice from Jim.

"Well, of course, you doofuses! People are animals! Smells are how animal mark their territory and announce their readiness to mate. Karl, they told us all about that today. Bear and foxes and shit? They scent-mark because, what did the guy say? Nothing makes a stronger impact than smell. How could any guy NOT get excited by, you know, another guy's, um, well, stuff? Why is that weird?"

"Because we're both guys!" I found myself whispering. "I'm not a lady bear or a vixen or a... a girl. I'm a GUY! I should never have, ha-have been in-interesting in the smell of a, a guy." Yes, I was pouring tears by then.

"Well, now that's just crap." Jim, the satguru was back. "I don't know what smells make guys, you know, ready. How do YOU know? Maybe you would have even been hornier if it had been a girl's, um... Sorry, do girls have, you know, cum?"

To this day, I can't tell you want flipped my switch from disgust to hilarity, but I whooped with laughter. I fell off my rock and realised that Karl was trying desperately not to laugh. Jim was red with indignation, sputtering.

"WELL?!? DO THEY?"

Gales of mirth greeted the question, to the point that even Jim was laughing. When we recovered, Jim's quiet and serious voice whispered conspiratorially, "I mean, seriously... do they?"

I looked up and realised he was desperate to know. It was an important question for him. "Jim, I don't know. I know they orgasm {his eyes popped} but I don't know if they, well, if anything, well, you know, comes out."

Karl's whopping laughter broke us up again. I recovered first. When the hiccoughing subsided, I looked at Karl and said, "Karl, I don't know why. But..." I steeled myself and then simply let it out, fear and worry loaded into each syllable. "But I never came like that Karl."

His laughter vanished like a thrown switched and his eyes, like Ginny Greenteeth's, wide and frozen, became my universe. I went on, "I don't care if you both hate me. I don't care what it means. It was the best, you know, that I ever imagined. I dream of things. I wake up..." I hung my head like I was incapable of looking at anything other than the leaf mould. "... sticky. But I never dreamed that it would be THAT good. That... beyond. That... GOD, I don't even have words! I'm sorry, but I don't care, Karl. It was the best thing that ever happened to me."

A preternatural silence enveloped the glen. Not even the bees inhaled. My eyes flicked for a few nanoseconds to each of their faces, trying and failing to pretend that I didn't care. Both looked like the image of a shocked victim after a tornado, interviewed on TV news. If someone broke out with, "It sounded jest lahk a train," it would not have shocked me. It was again Jim's wise-beyond-years voice that shattered the spell.

"Then it's stupid and seriously messed up to pretend, don't you think?"

Jim's gaze went from Karl to me, back and back, weaving a fabric. Neither of us moved, looked or reacted. I don't care what you think and I don't care if it made me a wuss or a pussy or a baby; I lost it and escaped, weeping and running through the game trails of the island.

I was never an outdoorsman or tracker, but I instinctually knew that nothing, no one, nobody could follow as I twisted and jinked through the forest. I ended in the hollow of a giant, ancient tree. Grief, tears and all of my shattered dreams poured out of my rolled-into-a-ball self and onto the leaf mould in the bole of that beech.

I jumped as if shocked. "So, what do we DO, Karl?" Jim's voice was rife with fear, awe and concern.

I heard someone, Karl? come toward me and my sobs simply redoubled and I curled armadillo-like tighter into myself. The thought of him seeing me here, like this, after knowing, knowing THAT, left me mindless. All I knew was grief and fear and need.

"We help him, Jim. Like he helped y-you. Like he help, helped m-m-me."

I felt a feather's touch on my shoulder and hadn't the strength to even react. Everything I had was poured into my tears. My fears. The jeers I expected. I was, to put a Shakespearean tone to it, undone and unmanned.

I sensed Karl sink to the ground behind me. Moments later, Jim, crouched to my front.

I screamed in despair when Karl's arm reached round me, and almost died when Jim's tentatively embraced me from the front. I was enfolded in... in... in caring? Maybe in compassion? May-maybe in... love?

I cried myself dry as they held me. Rocking and murmuring. I was destroyed, despairing, desperate. I pulled and struggled at times but neither loosened his grip. I occasionally paused, unable to cry any more, and both continued to tell me they cared and that it would get better. The sobs receded. I finally regained some sense of myself, and unutterable shame washed through me.

With a burst of horrified energy, I pushed them off and glared. "You don't have to pretend. You don't have to do this. I'm going to the Major and going home. I do'... don't want, want you to do this, I want, want to..." I broke and cried, "I want to go HOME!" The passion, despair and grief in my voice rung in the tiny clearing.

"Are you actually brain damaged?" Jim's voice. It was like ice-water down my spine. "You didn't care when I told you I, I well, I liked it! You didn't care when Karl said that he, he, he did... that to kids. Do you SERIOUSLY thing we'd give a, a FUCK that you blew a load in your own private TENT to the amazing smell of another guy's ORGASM?

"Seriously, Karl, I think he may be too stupid to live. It's probably best to leave him here to be eaten by, by, whatever eats kids out here. Creeping barbed wire? One Eyed Jack? Let's go back to the tent and you show me what he smelled, thinking about a sexy guy getting his rocks off a few inches away. Excuse me if I shoot a load after you leave. God almighty! Patrick may really be too dumb to save."

The, I don't know, the outrageous unfairness of that broke through my sobs.

"You little FUCK! You're like, NINE! You have no IDEA what it's like! You can't, can't, can't IMAGINE..."

Both of them had hands to their faces. I was so mad, so worked up, that it took me several spittle-slinging splutters to realise that they were on the knife's edge of hysterical laughter and that they'd done this on purpose.

"You, you, you fucking FUCKS!" Admittedly not the best or most grammatical, witty or cutting of comebacks, but I was reeling. Those two fucking FUCKS dissolved in laughter. I sat hiccoughing until I suddenly saw it from their perspective and dissolved in my own mirth.

It was odd. All three of us went from gut-knotting laughter to utter sobriety at the same instant. Jim, again, spoke first, voice quiet and tentative, "Are we okay now? Can we be friends again?"

"We never weren't friends," I whispered, "and what you just did for me, both of you, is greater than anything anyone ever gave me." I looked at Karl, his face serious, curious, perplexed.

"The three of us saved each other, you know?" Karl's voice held a sort of reverence. "I was eaten away inside, like a disease or something. I really did want to die. Patrick made it better." I could not breathe as I listened.

"When you were attacked by those three, Jim, you were shredded. I don't know I'd ever seen anyone so lost and alone as you were that morning. Patrick knew exactly what to do, and made it better. When we got back from the boat, though, telling you what I'd done and you forgiving me, that healed me. Without you AND Patrick, I'd be so damaged I don't know if I could really live. I think it was the same for you, Jim, and then it took both of us to heal Patrick."

It was by far the longest speech I'd ever heard from Karl. Frankly, it was the longest speech from any of us since we got to Camp Sin that didn't involve wails, sobs and self-hatred.

Jim moved forward. Karl and I stood frozen, but Jim came again to the rescue. He grabbed the two of us and pulled us into a three-way hug. "Karl's right," he said in a small but confident voice, "we are each other's heroes."

We hugged and breathed together for a few minutes; no thought of sex (shocking for healthy teen boys), no thoughts at all (NOT shocking for teen boys), more lost in the comfort of knowing that someone cared.

Sometime later, Karl broke the silence, "Um, guys, I don't know if either of you noticed, but it's kinda starting to get dark?"

All our heads snapped up and looked around in surprise. Yeah, we were well on the way to twilight. There was light high in the trees but little else.

Both of them turned to me. "Which way back to camp?"

"Well, I was running away and crying like a little girl. I have no clue. Which way did I go when I left the dell?" Identical looks of complete confusion stared back at me. Oooookay.

"Well, at least you two are in Wilderness Survival," I quipped.

Jim look positively alarmed now. "They only talked about what we were GONNA learn, they didn't teach us!?!"

Karl smiled grimly and put his arm around the boy's shoulders. "Patrick was just kidding." Karl bug-eyed at me as a cue.

"Oh? OH! Yeah, just kidding. We'll be, um, fine. Let me think for a minute."

I doubt paintings get stared at as intently; I was the sole object of their attention as they waited for my brilliant and stunning plan for returning to camp. AH-HAH! It finally struck me.

"Nope. I've got nothing," the look of panic was too much and I laughed. Jim weakly punched me in the side; Karl not-so-weekly punched a charley-horse into my bicep. "OW!

"Okay. Good news bad news. Bad news is, I admit, that we have no frigging clue where we are. The upside is that we are on a tiny little spit of land with water on both sides. One is a lake thing and the other is a river. If we get to the river, we can just, I don't know, throw in some leaves. The camp is near the upstream end. We go the opposite way of the leaves and end up there."

Pretending to be far more confident than I felt, I struck out and the two fell into step behind me. It took forever and we never did find lake or river -- game trails vanished in brambles or turned back on themselves. Tiny streams with deceptive voices that bounced off rocks tricked us; where we thought the bank stood was actually the stream itself. Each of us tripped several times, always managing to drag one or both others into a tangled mess. As we faded to full-dark, Jim was quite obviously scared and I could tell Karl was getting nervous. For some inexplicable reason, with light completely gone and the moon just rising, darkness felt comforting and safe to me; I gained confidence as quickly as they shed it.

We had just rounded a set of large stones when everything suddenly clicked. This was the spot where that beautiful deer and I had startled each other so badly on that first afternoon. I knew exactly where we were and how to get back now. In fact, we'd very soon reach the point we could see the fire rings and hear the roughhousing. The little clearing brightened a bit with moonlight... and relief.

Okay, in retrospect, what I did was stupid, mean and selfish. In my own defence, I had been on an emotional roller-coaster and was, in fact, a teenaged boy (for which stupid, mean and selfish are synonyms). A devilish smile crept across my face as I plotted the perfect setup. A few minutes into the forest, I suddenly came to a stop and gasped.

"Shh! Did you guys hear that?" Woods at night are never silent. Breezes tickle leaves, small animals scurry about the business of eating without being eaten and things naturally shift about. Altogether, those tiny noises are far more 'silent' and spooky than the simple absence of sound. Jim and Karl froze, nothing moving but their huge, white-edged eyes and heaving chests.

"THERE!" I shout-whispered. "Be real quiet for a minute and don't move." Is there anything worse than telling someone NOT to move? You go instantly from frozen stillness to a state where every muscle and nerve itches to run. I carefully worked around them and saw their horrified gazes follow me as they strove to move nothing but their eyes; my smile widened to evil glee.

I took a few steps back along the trail we'd just followed. I had timed it so that we had just passed a kink in the little game trail so I was immediately swallowed by the dark forest when I rounded a tree trunk. I paused and counted to ten, silently turning.

I put on my best 'about to be eaten' face, leapt back around the tree and screamed, "RUUUUUUUUN!"

It was a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Jim and Karl levitated several feet straight up and their legs were already pumping furiously before they hit the ground. Okay, I may be evil, but I'm not so thoughtless that I would let my buds run further into the forest. I had made sure that the 'run straight ahead like a madman' option would put all of us back in the middle of camp. I kept adding sound affects like, "OH MY GOD!!!" and "NOOOOOOOO!!!" as I followed (adding as many exclamation points as possible each time). I can tell you a couple of things: Karl can move as quick as a snake but has no real endurance; Jim, on the other hand, was a fucking antelope leaping from rock to branch to path and never slowing or tiring.

Jim easily outdistanced me and Karl. He hit the back wall of the admin building like a bullet and spun, backed against the structure, seemingly trying to claw his way backwards into the siding. Karl collapsed at Jim's feet, unable to breathe. I arrived and stood with arms on knees desperately trying to regain my breath.

"Wh-wh-what was it?"

I heaved and panted, perhaps a bit more theatrically than actually necessary. Jim and Karl were fixated on my face, flicking glances to the woods but desperate for me to tell them what murderous nightmare was chasing us.

"S... S... Sk...."

"WHAT?" they cried in unison, Karl was now standing, he and Jim clinging to each other in abject terror.

"S... S..." I let my own eyes go wide with horror. "Squirrel!"

And then I lost it. It took them a minute to realise that I'd pranked them, and pranked them hard. They suddenly melted like wax and dribbled to the ground, gasping in ragged breaths. Relief quickly (and justifiably) turned to outrage and they started slapping and smacking every part of me they could reach. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't fight them off. Suddenly, though, Jim -- always the one with his head in the game -- became my worst person nightmare: The Inescapable Tickler.

I would have howled but was already breathless with mirth. Karl quickly realised what was happening and gleefully joined in the tickle-attack. Each shallow breath not devoted to a squeal was a plea for mercy. Mercy? Yeah, not even I thought I deserved mercy. I begged in rising panic until I recognised what was about to happen. I hadn't done it since I was twelve and Uncle Dave pinned and tickled me until I....

Karl's hand, having slipped off an assault my ever-so-sensitive knee, happened to be in my crotch right when it started. "Jim! Stop! I mean it." Karl pulled Jim off me but it was too late. I was in full piss flow and still giggling insanely from the tickle-aftershocks.

Jim was appalled at what he'd done when I finally came down from the tickle high and looked at the huge, spreading wetness at my crotch. He started to stutter a near-crying apology. "Jim. JIM!" I hollered. "I deserved that. Plus, I expect after what I did to you, you'll both find a little yellow in your own undies. Yeah, well, I'm mortified, but I'm not hurt." My face was glowing scarlet to the point we didn't really need the flashlight we'd all been desperate for before. Karl was laughing quietly and threw his arm around each of us as we walked.

Between my assurances and Karl's warm strength, we got Jim calm and smiling again. As we reached the Hygiene Hut, Karl leaned over to Jim and said, "Why don't you head to your cabin, sport? Quiet. I think we're out way later than we should be. If you miss bed-call, you'll get in trouble. I'll help Patrick since we're in the same tent and they don't check us 'til last."

Jim apologised again, made us swear solemn oaths that we would meet him for breakfast, then set off at a trot. Karl was right. The fire-rings were dim and there were no shouts and laughter indicative of boys playing. We were after lights-out, probably by quite a bit.

Karl and I went into the Hygiene Hut and I stripped off my pants and undies and realised that even my tee shirt was wet with piss. I blushingly handed everything to Karl who busied himself rinsing them out under a tap. Evidently the showers were only heated when it was legal to use them and the water was frigid as I rinsed off, trying not to wail at the cold. I emerged shivering and Karl helped me dry off, each of us with a tiny towel in each hand.

Karl was intent on his task and certainly not thinking... I hope. I felt his hands drag one towel up my crack and another up my junk. I sucked in a breath and prayed that he didn't notice that my cold-shrinkage was not just gone, but now strongly counteracted. I stepped away a little, pretending to finish my armpits. An accidental (I swear) glance showed me that Karl was boned, and boned up hard.

The horrible thought struck us at the same time and our heads swivelled to where my clothes lay dripping. He'd rinsed out my clothes, which was great -- all my clothes. That meant that I had to choose between sopping wet pants (do you *know* how hard it is to get into wet jeans?) or a towel the size of a handkerchief. It was probably forty yards to the tent. Karl saw the look of abject horror on my face as it went slightly more-red than a setting sun. "W-w-w-what am I g-gonna DO?"

"I got this."

Karl stepped quickly outside and was gone for no more than a second. "There is no one, I promise. Not a single person anywhere. The other guys are in their tents or cabins and the adults and leaders are making rounds far away from here. It's forty yards to the tent. I'll take the wet clothes so you can run faster. Get to the tent. Get the flaps down. I'll be right behind you." My head was bobbing up and down like a demented dashboard ornament. His plan, ANY plan, was better than I could come up with my mortified, frozen and desperate mind.

He stepped out again and held the door for a moment. "GO!" he whisper-shouted.

There is a spooky legend told around campfires about a ghost, pale white and glowing red, that moves like lightening through camps on an unknowable and sinister mission. I am the cause of that legend. Even if someone was there to see, the only impression would have been a blurred streak, ghost-white to about five feet and fire-red from there up.

When Karl got the tent several years (seconds) later, I was sitting on the cot whispering, "didanyonesee? didanyonesee?" like a gerbil with a mantra.

"No, Patrick, no one. It's okay, Patrick. You're fine. I'm the only... only one who saw." Karl was next to me, arm around my shoulder trying to calm me. Why the *fuck* was I so unnerved by a simple naked run? Was it because somebody might see? That didn't 'feel' right. Was it because Karl might see? Also not 'right'. Suddenly I recalled the vocal catch when Karl had said, ' the only... only one' and it struck me. It's because I was terrified that Karl would see *and not care*.

I turned to look at Karl. Since it was just off a full moon, the tent was fairly well lit. His eyes were wide and he was staring at me in a mixture of fear and hope. I took his arm from my shoulders.

"I cheated, Karl. I got to smell and feel your, um, stuff but you didn't. It's not fair." His eyes widened more.

"You mean, you, you mean I can..."

I nodded.

"Do you want me to go outside or, or, or can I-I-I w-watch?"

A sexual energy ran through me like nothing I'd imagined, a shiver and a gasp and a desire rolled into one whole-body sensation. "Please?"

He seemed disappointed and leaned toward to flaps.

"NO!" His head snapped around. "I mean, please, will {gulp} will you... watch? Please, Karl?"

He moved to his cot, his muscled frame shaking like a leaf. I don't think I've ever done anything that brave or stupid in my life, before or since. I saw Karl's eyes fixate on my hand as it moved to my achingly-hard dick. My eyes never left his face, basking in (and terrified by) the hunger I saw there.

I laid back and began to stroke, gently, softly. I watched the changing expressions as Karl went from hunger to fear to lust to need to fascination and a dozen other emotions. I was going to go so slow. I was going to make this last sooooo long just to keep his face like that.

If you buy that for a nanosecond, you were never a horny teen. I got about two slow strokes in when Karl sucked in a shuddering gasp. My hand began to fly as I flogged my dick with the kind of need normally only seen in people dying of thirst. Up and down, dragging my hand from glans to balls, whipping it frantically. Subtlety and pace and technique could come later in life; right now I needed to seed before my body, mind and soul imploded.

My grand plan to stretch this out crumbled to dust when Karl again drew in another ragged gasp and I fucking erupted, my head back, neck stretched, back tight, ass clenching in the eternal rhythm of desperate need, a cum volcano spewing molten lava across the land.

Rope after rope, pulse after pulse. Karl was as transfixed as I was. The cum kept coming as I kept cumming. I stayed silent (I never made much noise when I came, but that night I hadn't the breath to spare for more and a squeak). I finally tapered off and noticed that Karl had a massive and spreading wet spot in his pants where his hand had unconsciously scritched and scratched himself through the fabric to his own orgasm.

His eyes found mind. I could see his lips trembling, pouty and flushed. He swallowed over and over again, as if trying to control himself. He reached a hand, shaking like palsy, to the head of his own cot and grabbed the bandana that started this whole thing. He leaned forward to wipe at my chest. When his hand touched me, we both let out low "OH!" groan/moan/gasp. He went to pull away. To this day, I don't know where this came from (the guts, the strength, the willpower) but I grabbed his wrist and held it in place.