DISCLAIMER

The following contains explicit gay-male relationships / sexuality and is not suitable for everyone. If for any reason the law you are governed by prohibits you from legally reading this (due to your age, your country's bigotry, etc...), you are taking the responsibility upon yourself if you read further.

Please note that I, the author of this work of fiction retain all rights. Please do not publish this story online or otherwise without my consent. Under no circumstances will a fee of any kind be charged for access to this story. Passed that, feel free to share my work as long as the disclaimer, credit to the author and body of text are left in tact.

Alright! Enough of the legal stuff. Hello and thank you for taking interest in my writing. I'd like to say right now this is not a great story to get you off, if that's what your looking for. If however, you are looking a story that's main objective is to express the plot rather than get its readers horny, then by all means, read on. I hope not to disappoint. Thank you kindly.

"Fuck you Steve!", I through back at him, now analysing the fullness of the dilemma we were in.

"I told you to paddle harder, but no! You had to try to stop!" The sarcastic remark from Steve had no real meaning to me.

"You're blaming me?! You were steering us! What the hell were you thinking taking us into those rocks!"

Now, actually looking at me, in a low voice said, "I didn't see them. And come to think of it, neither did you! So get of my fucking back!"

With a sigh I took a look around. The canoe was long gone now, and all I knew for certain was that Steve and I were somewhere in Northwestern Ontario. The forest was fairly thick in this area, but a rocky hill made a clearing within sight, away from to river.

He broke the silence with, "Damn I'm wet.", and started walking off toward the much sunnier clearing. I had to concur; the river was anything but warm, and I was soaked head to toe. So we set off toward elevated rocky land that had to be more temperate than the shady forest.

"Do you think they know where we are?" I asked pulling myself up a series of rocks.

"I doubt it. The other camp wasn't expecting us for hours. Plus the jackasses we were supposed to be working with ahead of us decided they were going to beat us there, so they'll think we're just a little behind them."

"We would have been," I accused, "if you hadn't decided on taking a 'shortcut'."

And as expected, his trademark two word replay of, "Fuck you," was all he needed to make himself feel better. Now, having successfully scaled up the rocky side of the clearing, we found ourselves sitting on the radiantly warm, dark grey stone. Judging from the sun, it seemed to be mid-afternoon. The wind was gentile, and it rustled the leaves softly. Even thought the sound the breeze was making was nice, it didn't feel very good; After all, I was still wet and cold.

I pulled my trust zippo out the front pocket of my dripping jeans. Unfortunately, the top wasn't completely closed when the canoe was gouged apart, and the flint and wick were both wet. As expected, no results were yelled trying to get a flame.

"You have anything to start a fire?", I asked glancing behind me at Steve, who was lying down, hands behind his head.

"No."

"Well if we don't start a fire, I don't know how they're going to find us." I left my lighter open and sitting on the ground in the sunlight, to dry it out and hopefully get it to work again.

"So what are we going to do?", I said approaching him. His eyes remained closed.

"Number one, your in the light. Number two, they won't even know something's wrong, never mind look for us for hours. Chill."

"I'm cold enough as it is."

Still his eyes remained sealed, he said, "Then get out of those wet clothes."

I grimaced at the idea and said, "Yeah, you wish. If you think that's such a great idea, why haven't you stripped?"

"Because my cloths will dry faster this way." He said with a certain rationality. "Besides, I wouldn't want to give you any ideas."

"Screw you." I said walking back to my zippo and lying down under the sun. This sucked. Really sucked. There's no better way to put it. Here I was with Steve, who for whatever reason was always a jerk to me. I though it was bad enough to be paired up with him and having to work with the bastard through the day. Now, I was stuck alone with him for a much longer time than originally planned.

Then again there was a part of me that did like him. Physically that is. He was very handsome, and well built for seventeen. But beyond the fact that I liked the way he looked, there was no attraction; the emotional connection just wasn't there. Way back when I first applied to Jr. Forest Rangers, I considered the work primarily. And then there was the thought, nay hope that I would meet someone. After all, out of 40 guys or so, at least one of them had to be gay other than little old me. Still, the odds that I would find him, and remotely like him (and vice versa of course) seemed slim.

One of the reasons why I wasn't enjoying my time working here was that I had been partly outed. I brought along my Creative Nomad Portable MP3 Player to listen to music while I worked. One of the songs on it was "rainbow" by Ween. They originally played it on South Park with lyrics of "So many colours in the homo rainbow. Don't be afraid to let your colours shine." Obviously a comedic song, and that's what I tried to convince George of when he heard it. He just looked at me, clearly not buying that I just thought it was funny, and ended up telling the entire camp about it. Well soon enough, I was labelled as a potential fag and treated appropriately.

Time had passed and I was actually starting to feel a little better; my clothes we now only damp and I was much warmer. As I continued to lie back, I heard loud snoring originating from Steve's nose. Apparently he'd fallen asleep during the course of his drying out. If I had been braver, I would have used the opportunity to take a look at him while he was sleeping. After all, his shirt and levis were practically painted on to him. Still, the remote possibility of being caught looking at his masculine body was enough to stop me.

My eyes closed, hair still dripping, I was trying to rationally go over the events that had brought me here. We were supposed to canoe to the far camp this afternoon and come back before dark. Each of the guys paired up and got into canoes to paddle across the lake like we'd done dozens of times before. To my dismay, I couldn't find my bug spray, and thus I was late to show up, as I was looking for it. Of course, Steve was late as well, and we were the only two people left. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to have a problem with the arrangement, well except for the fact that he constantly insulted me.

The other camp didn't know how many teams were coming, as that was dependant on how many our camp could spare that day. So they wouldn't know something was wrong, at least right away. But what about the other teams? Surly people would notice that there precious Steve wasn't there to make stupid comments at the obvious. Then again they'd probably figure he was just being a lazy bastard (which he was) and decided to go off 'exploring' as he often did rather than work. It amazed me that nobody had a problem with him being paid and not working like everybody else. And because of that, the Sr. Forest Rangers in charge had no idea he wasn't pulling his weight. I guess it goes to show that it's more important to be liked than competent.

Then I thought about myself. Would anyone notice I wasn't there. More than likely no one would care, but if someone did notice, they'd think I was with Steve; true enough.

Damn. When would someone figure out something was wrong... Well, before dark at least. Still, I couldn't fathom how they were going to find us without a fire. Then again, how could they see the smoke from a fire in the night? Fire . . . a must. We need fire, and what about wood... Those were my last thoughts before I fell asleep under the clear blue sky.

I awoke later in the day. My clothes were now dry and I was feeling better. Although, let me tell you, a rock doesn't serve well as a pillow. I sat up and took a look around; Steve was nowhere in sight. I thought for a sec. Fire . . . yes that's what I was thinking of. We needed to get wood and dry out my zippo to get . . . my zippo?

I glanced around the grey stone, looking for anything rectangular and shinny, but nothing I saw remotely fit that description.

"Steve must of taken my lighter.", I concluded, now getting annoyed.

Looking up to the sky, past the pseudo horizon created by the tree tops, I looked for any sign of smoke, hoping he had got a fire going. Once again, luck wasn't on my side. Nothing but occasional white blotches swimming in my limited view of the heavens created by twisted green coniferous branches.

"Steve!!" I belted at the tree tops; the reverberating sound coming from all around.

"STEVE!!!" Came from the very depths of my lungs, causing the bird life to flutter.

God damn. Nothing. I was now wandering through the woods, back towards the river. As the sound of water grew louder, so did other sounds... sounds that were somehow out of place. I stopped and listened more carefully. It was somewhat familiar, though I couldn't put my finger on it until I heard the distinct sound of laughter.

"Steve must of found the others... or maybe vice versa? Who cares. The point is we're saved!" I quickened my pace toward the noise, hearing it more clearly with every step. I was close enough to see that they were in a treeless area by the river. Seeing them from a better angel, there was Steve flicking my lighter idly talking to two other boys. I stepped out of the woods and into the day light. They stopped talking as soon as they saw me.

"My zippo." I said walking straight towards Steve.

He smiled, "Here," and held out his and with the sliver tool in his palm. I approached him and reached for my ...

Instantly, an arm was around my neck in a poorly applied sleeper hold. I instinctively jumped backwards slamming one of the boys to the jagged ground, knocking his breath out of him and loosening his hold on me. I forced his arm off me to see Steve coming after me. The adrenalin kicking in full force, I kicked high into the air, clocking him square in the side of the head, taking him temporarily down. The other boy, who was watching all of this until now, stood up as he charged at me. I started to run, with him close behind and took a stand by the river. He took a swing at me which I narrowly dodged, resulting in me knocking him into the rushing water.

Steve and the other boy couldn't have been far behind now, so I darted off into the woods. Gasping in every breath, I wove my way between the trees and bushes looking for a place to hide. My mind was blanking out; everything was very surrealistic. My primitive instincts were still holding on tight, but losing their grasp on my actions.

So I just kept running. Dashing deeper into the shadowed forest. Sprinting through the damp air in a vein attempt to get to a location not known to me.

"Oh... no...", I said to myself, reaching the end of land that emptied into the wide open lake. The realization that I was on an island and not part of the mainland didn't come easily; but after enough thought, it was clear that there was nowhere to go. In fact, the river must have separated the earth into two separate land masses. Which meant . . this island was pretty small really. There was no easy way off either; the river was quite wide and fast flowing, making it dangerous to try to swim across.

"Steve and the others are going to find me sooner or later," I reasoned, "there are only so many places I can go.... and I'll have to eat sooner or later.... and I'll need fire to keep warm in the night.... " So what could I do?

I sat on the small cliff which descended into the lake. Looking down at the constant waves, I was starting to break down. Why would they come after me like that? Maybe it was all a joke and I overreacted. I don't think so. They seemed awfully serious about hurting me. Why would the want to hurt me?

Off in the distance I heard shouting. One of the boys was going along the edge of the water and must have seen me. He yelled to the others, but I was gone by the time anyone came. At least I though . . .

Running, again, I ducked and swerved around everything in my path, except for Steve. He grabbed me from behind taking me down. Before I knew what was going on, he had me pinned to the ground and the others weren't far off.

"Well, well!" He said catching his breath, "If it isn't my favourite fag."

"You son of a bitch! Get off of me!"

"Sure. What ever you say." He said moving aside so that the boot of one of his lackeys could ram the side of my skull. My neck twisted, mouth clenched shut, muscles tensed; I couldn't even screamed out.

"You little bitch!" The still wet boy said kicking me in the ribs. I can't recall exactly what happened next, only that somewhere along the line, I lost consciousness.

When I awoke, I felt very sore. It could feel that a number of my muscles had been bruised, and my nose might have been broken. I opened my eyes to see the forest's canopy. It might have been my imagination but it seemed later in the day now; I couldn't guess how long I had been knocked out for.

As reality came back a little more, I noticed the rope around my hands and legs. They were tied tightly and were very uncomfortable (considering they'd probably been on for a while). From what I could tell, we weren't by the river any more . . . WE weren't . . . oh no. The boys. One of them was near by. I couldn't see who it was, my vison still blurred.

He must of seen me moving because I distinctly heard him say, "He's awake."

Birds continued to chirp . . . clouds still went by . . . insects were still buzzing round . . . and the boys were now coming my way.

Kay! If you've read this far, I'd like to first, give you a big electronic thank-you hug. *HUG* Great! Second, I'd like to ask you, do I look fat in these... uh, I mean, what did you think of the story?? Please, please, please, please, PLEASE E-Mail me to encourage me to write more. Or, at the very least you could tell me why you didn't like it. Flames, of course, will be ignored, so there's no need to get your panties in a knot dear. I'll do my darnedest to answer you in a timely manner.

Love you!

~Thane Ross

thaneross@go.com