(no subject)

[lobelia321]

Title: Up Shit Creek
Part: 5/8
Author: Lobelia; lobelia321@aol.com
Other info: See Part 1/8

Billy was dripping, and Karl was dripping. Karl's hair was plastered across his forehead in a seventies-style fringe, water was streaming down his nose and cheeks, dribbling from his eyebrows and from his moustache and from his beard, trickling down Karl's neck, making his neckline shine and his T-shirt cling to his chest so that his hard, stiff nipples pressed against the wet cotton.

Not that Billy cared about Karl's hard, stiff nipples. He had hard, stiff nipples himself. Hard with cold, positively puckered with cold. Billy sneezed. There was water glugging about in his left ear. To cap it all, there was a squashed pulp in Billy's back pocket. He pulled it out. It was what remained of *Julius Caesar*.

So, what with being miserable and wet, Billy had precious little attention left for Karl's hard, stiff nipples or Karl's wet neckline or, Heaven forbid, Karl's naked torso. Because now Karl was stripping off. He was tugging his wet T-shirt over his wet head, then spreading it out on the middle bench to dry and digging around in his bag for a towel. He towelled off his hair vigorously, droplets flying, and he rubbed his chest, rubbed right across those hard, stiff nipples, now visible and exposed to the air.

Billy found himself staring which was really too stupid, considering, and he only stopped staring when a towel caught him squarely in the face, thrown at him by Karl, without a word. Then Karl moved past him, still without a word, and who needed Karl's words, anyway? In moving past, Karl set the boat rocking but he didn't apologise, pushing roughly past Billy but still not apologising. He yanked the remaining oar out of its position inside the boat and sat down in the stern.

Karl began to scull. Billy sat huddled on his bench and sneezed into his towel. He had to admit that Karl was good at the sculling. He swivelled his torso round with each downstroke, he twisted about on the bench, making his chest muscles heave, he peered into the distance with what seemed to Billy a masterfully gauging gaze.

Billy began to feel irritated again. Again. Still. Continually. Karl's stupid, haughty expression and Karl's stupid muscular arms manipulating the oar and Karl's stupid hard, stiff nipples, each pore on the aureoles like a small solid nub, each aureole surrounded by an expanse of smooth skin. Not a hair in sight, only the black hair under Karl's arms, curly with moisture, and a hint of something just above the waistband of Karl's jeans.

They reached the shore within minutes, Karl was sculling with such resolute determination. As soon as the sand of the little beach scrunched under the boat's bottom, Karl jumped out, splashing through the shallows in his wellingtons, doing stuff with the rope, tethering it to something, a bush or a rock.

Billy sneezed again and clambered out after Karl. He swayed about the beach on sea legs. Nobody said a word. The wordlessness was making Billy more irritable by the second. Unsaid words were threatening to choke Billy. *Something* was choking Billy from the inside. His head was starting to hurt with it, and his balls were fucking freezing to death in his horribly sodden jeans.

Karl had hauled his bag ashore, and his fishing rod. He clamped his baseball cap back on his moist head. He was pulling off his boots and socks and jeans, and tugging at his boxer shorts. He was, in fact, stripping off completely. And in another few seconds, he was going to be nude.

"What the fuck?" said Billy, the words escaping from his choked inside. "Not this again."

"Do you mind?" said Karl, as if he'd only waited for a cue to speak. "I'm only taking off my clothes." He enunciated each word carefully, as if speaking to an idiot. "So that I won't catch my death of pneumonia. And if *you* choose to interpret this in any other way, that's your business and that's your own sick mind."

"Me?" cried Billy. "I'm not the one interpreting this in any fucking way!"

"Good!" said Karl. He was now completely stark raving naked, and Billy's ears were burning as if lit by internal microwave ovens. Yes, Billy knew that he should take off his own clothes. He should take off his wet shirt, and he should take off his sopping socks and his soggy shoes and his sodden jeans and his drenched underpants, just like Karl had done, and then he should towel himself off, just as Karl was doing. And now there were certainly more hairs visible, fuck, Karl's dark pubic thatch and nestling in the middle of it, Karl's cock, tiny and blue, and Karl's balls, wrinkled and brown. Billy remembered how he had held that cock in his hands only minutes earlier, and he had a rushing sensation in his ears.

"Well?" said Karl. "What are you staring at? Never seen a naked man before?"

"Oh, fuck off, Karl!" yelled Billy. Which wasn't a tremendously imaginative retort but Billy's imagination had joined his brain in Cambodia. Billy's imagination had gone on vacation somewhere else, no, not quite, Billy's imagination seemed to be wholly taken up with Karl's cock at the moment, too awkward, too bloody stupid.

As if Billy cared about Karl's stupid cock.

"And you can stop giving me those come-hither looks," said Karl. "I'm not falling for those any more."

Billy, his teeth chattering, his shirt clinging to his back, said, "What come-hither looks? Don't let your fevered imagination run away with you."

And that was a laugh and a half, because Billy's fevered imagination had already run away in all sorts of inappropriate directions.

"Don't give me that bullcrap," said Karl, bending over to arrange his jeans for drying on a bush, and the sight of Karl's hairy arse staring up at Billy and Karl's balls visible between Karl's furry thighs -- well, what a totally off-putting, ridiculous sight.

"You've been giving me come-hither looks for weeks," Karl continued.

"What?" said Billy, momentarily distracted by Karl's hairy arse, but rallying his scattered thoughts just in time to reply, "No! *You* have been staring at *me* for weeks!"

However, the ground suddenly didn't seem quite as sure on this one. True. Karl had been staring at Billy. But why had Billy even noticed that Karl was staring? Because Billy had been staring after Karl. Shit. And trust stupid Karl to misunderstand everything.

Although Billy couldn't even be sure any longer what was the correct way of understanding all that staring.

"Oh, tell another one," said Karl.

"You stupid, self-absorbed pervert!" cried Billy, only for something to say, because truly, he didn't know where he stood any more on this whole issue.

Karl pounced. Billy was knocked to the ground, face in the sand. Karl was lying on top of him, his whole length and weight pinning Billy to the ground. Karl was lying on top of Billy, stark raving naked, and Billy felt that tiny cock and those shrivelled balls softly pressing against his sodden, jeans-clad buttocks. Karl smelled moist, of fish and river mud.

He also felt warm. He was warming up the wet water in Billy's clothes, and his breath was warm against Billy's neck.

Billy struggled to free himself. "Get the fuck off, Karl," he said in a strangled voice.

"Is this what you want?" said Karl, breathing hotly into Billy's right ear. "After you've insulted me and humiliated me, do you want me to humiliate you?"

"What, are you going to rape me now or what?" gasped Billy, spitting sand.

Suddenly the weight was off him. Billy felt a sudden sting of disappointment. Karl had jumped off, and it was cold again. Billy lifted his head, still lying in the sand, sand sticking ickily against his shirt and wet jeans. Karl was standing some way off. He looked furious.

"What do you think I am, you fucked-up little Scot?" he said. With those words, Karl snatched up his things, jeans, T-shirt, thrust his bare feet into the boots, threw on his multi-pocketed and multi-zippered coat, grabbed his bag, dug around in it, chucked his windcheater at Billy -- "here, keep warm" -- and marched off.

"Wait!" shouted Billy. "Where are you going? Come back!"

Karl didn't turn around. He was already half-way up the hill. Shrubs and twigs were snagging his naked thighs but he didn't seem bothered, he just strode on.

Billy struggled to his feet.

"Fuck off, Karl!" he yelled.

"That's just what I'm doing!" shouted Karl.

"Where do you think you're going?" yelled Billy. "You can't just march off into the middle of nowhere! Half naked!"

"Middle of nowhere! Don't make me laugh, you pathetic tourist. This is *not* the middle of nowhere. In fact, there's another boat-rental place just on the other side of this hill. It'll take me all of twenty minutes to walk to it!"

"So what... what about me?" cried Billy, suddenly desperate.

"Scull back on your own," came Karl's callous reply.

"I can't!" cried Billy. "I don't know how to!"

"Tough tits," said Karl.

"Karl, come back!"

"No."

"Fuck you, Karl!"

"Yeah, you wish."

"Karl!" wailed Billy. Karl was almost gone now. His silhouette was outlined against the cloudy sky, complete with baseball cap, multi-pocketed coat, long bare legs sticking out of wellington boots, hump-like bag and antenna-like fishing rod.

"I thought you'd be glad to be rid of me!" yelled Karl from atop the hill.

"Fuck you!" yelled Billy again from below the hill.

Billy's body was slowly freezing into a solid column. Karl was going, going, gone. And while things had been ridiculous and horrible and deteriorating from minute to minute *with* Karl, at least there had been someone to let fly against. But Karl was gone. There were only grasses, disconsolately waving in the breeze where Karl's silhouette had just been.

TBC