This is the continued story of
Simon's Journal.
Before you begin this third volume in this series,
I would highly recommend that you read the first and second volumes
as each picks up were the previous left off.
Simon's
Journal - Volume I
Thirteen Days -- The First Crusade
Thirteen Nights -- After the Crusade
ADMONITION:
The following narrative is nearly a complete work of fiction. Some events and characters were pulled from real life but have been changed, enhanced and twisted to comply with my will. Any other similarity to actual individuals living or dead is completely unintentional, but it would be so very incredible!
WARNING:
The story you are about to read contains diaper use, violence, adult language and strong sexual content. If reading a coming of age story about boys wearing diapers and exploring their awakening sexuality doesn't tickle your pickle, or if pickle tickling is illegal in your area, then I suggest you select something else to read.
Simon's Journal
Volume III
Thirteen
Sails
Adventures Abound
Written by Danny
Where'm I going?
"Simon!" mom shouted through the house, "They are waiting for you!"
Grabbing my backpack with one hand, I tucked the string inside the waste band of my swimming trunks with my other hand just before running out of my room.
"Simon?" she shouted again.
"For crying out loud I'm coming already!" I yelled as I paused to turn off the light switch by the door.
At the end of the hallway dad stopped me, gripped my face firmly with both hands and kissed my forehead. He's been doing that a lot since I came back home.
"Do me a favor, have fun and try not to think about all that other stuff for a few days alright?" he said.
I smiled and threw my one free arm around his neck, hugging him with all the strength I could muster without pulling at the scars that crisscross my back.
Seeing how this was going to be the first time I was going to be away from home for more then a few hours since my return, Mom felt the need to hug me harder and longer.
She finally released me with a question, "Did you pack extra GoodNites?"
"Mom!" I blushed because out of the corner of my eye I had noticed, standing on the other side of the screen, was my best friend BJ and he had an ear to ear grin plastered across his acne cursed face.
Looking back to dad and then to mom I softly reassured them both, "I will be ok, really!"
By the way her eyes glistened I could tell that she was struggling arduously to not cry. With one last kiss I was out the door and running with BJ to their car, where Mr. and Mrs. Otteranski waited.
BJ dove into the backseat first, which gave me two seconds to catch a glimpse of a polished black car with dark tented windows sitting at the top of our street. In our neighborhood, a car like that looked about as inconspicuous as a clown at a funeral.
I tossed my backpack into BJ's lap, looked to the black car once more and then jumped in, closing the door behind me.
As soon as I had closed the door Mr. Otteranski sang out with, "Welcome to Otteranski airlines and I will be your pilot today. Please observe that I have turned on the Seatbelts sign!"
It was corny, but it was still funny and we both laughed.
I looked back to the house and saw mom and dad standing on the front-porch waving goodbye to us. Mom was crying now but she was still smiling. BJ rolled down the window and we both shouted out to them.
"Bye, see you in a few days!" I said.
"We'll collect some seashells for you!" BJ shouted.
Standing on the beach, the smell of the ocean on the breeze and the sound of the surf as it flowed in and out nearly stole my mind away and probably would have done so if Mr. Otteranski had not given me a soft kick in my posterior region.
"Don't stand there like a lizard sunning itself," he said, "grab something and take it in."
When I turned to face him, he was smiling mischievously but the sight of my tears spilling down my cheeks brought about a somber and loving expression as he bent down, took hold of my upper arms and spoke to me, not as though I were a small child but as a boy on the brink of manhood.
"We knew this might be tough for you," he paused to wave away a small flying insect, "but your doctor would not have agreed to let you come if she didn't think you were ready."
With his thumbs he tried to erase the tears from my face and then lifted my hair out of my eyes.
"You know, your moms right." He said while trying to hide a grin.
"No way!" I said grinning madly and trying to pull away, "I ain't cutting it off!"
Just then BJ yanked on my ponytail, "Yeah, makes a nice leash!" he giggled.
In a blaze of flung sand we were racing across the beach with me only two strides behind him. A few months before I could have easily over took him but while I was sailing around the world, he was here eating like a horse and growing nearly as tall as one.
BJ now had several inches on me but our appearance, which once was similarly clean-cut, now differed greatly. His hair was cut high and short, his upper lip sporting a hint of peach fuzz and he looked like the teenage boy any parent would like their daughter to date.
And then there was my own appearance, which was significantly in contrast to BJ's. My hair was long; in fact, it was so long that I had to keep it pulled back with a rubber band or at times I would tie a bandana around my head to keep my hair out of my eyes. I now sport a sweet scar over my right eye that extends down past my temple to my cheekbone. It's not as gnarly as you might be envisioning—as a matter of fact—Mary likes it. She says it makes me look ruggedly handsome.
My hair is long for two reasons. The first is because it helps to hide the canning marks that crisscross my spine from my shoulders to my buttocks. I have my `good friend' Runt to thank for those reminders of the flogging I endured by his hand. The second reason for my long hair is more personal, it is because I made a promise and it is a promise I intend to keep. However, I don't feel like writing about that just now... maybe some other day.
You know, I think BJ let me catch him this time; but I'm not complaining. Another ten yards and I would have dropped for sure.
Being careful not to allow sand to get into the still healing wounds of my back, I tackled him and we both crashed onto the sandy beach laughing. My hands quickly found his ribs and I began tickling him without mercy.
"UNCLE! UNCLE!" BJ cried out.
"And you think that is going to stop me?" I said still tickling him.
"Stop! Stop!" He pleaded.
"Say Simon is the best!"
"No, get off!" he laughed.
"Say it!" I commanded.
"Never!"
I could tell by the way his voice pitched higher and higher that I nearly had him broke.
"Say it and I will stop!" I said laughing while trying to hold on with my legs to his bucking and rolling body.
"No!"
Sounding almost like I was trying to get a baby to say dada I repeated, "Come on, say it."
"OK! OK!" he relented, or so he tried to make me believe.
"IT!" he shouted and bucked so hard that he nearly dislodged me.
"Well then..." I said in my best evil voice, "then you can die laughing for all I care!"
"No! No! Stop!" he roared as my fingers dug into his armpits.
"Boys!" Mr. Otteranski called out, "This car won't unload itself!"
Grudgingly I stood up and extended a hand to help my best friend to his feet.
Rolling onto his back he said, "You're a jerk!" and took hold of my forearm.
"Yeah but you love me anyway!" I joked and acted like I was going to kiss him.
He put a singe finger to his nose like he was going to blow snot on me.
As though I thought they might somehow shield me, I raised my hands up between us, "Man you do and I'll..."
Not really interested in having to help unload the car, we took our sweet time walking back and spent the time talking and joking around.
"You know something." I said looking out over the water and sounding serious.
"What?"
"I think," I paused deciding that I didn't want to say it and instead said, "that the last one to the car is an underwear sniffer!"
Before I had even finished saying it, I was a good three strides ahead of him. It was only by sheer chance that my hand touched the car a full second before his.
"Dog!" he panted.
"Woofer!" I shot back between gasps.
"You both better get busy or I'll make you two pups sleep on the porch!" Mrs. Otteranski said.
"Can we?" BJ shouted excitedly.
"Oh man, that would be sweet!" I said in support.
Trying to sound mom like, she said, "No! Now hustle!"
I don't know what it is about having to do something that seems so much like work that makes it so miserable to do but despite that fact, we had the car unloaded in less then ten minutes.
"Can we go swimming now?" BJ asked sounding desperately bored already.
Looking my way his mom started to say, "Don't get your..." but I cut her off, "Yes I know, don't get my back wet and don't lay on the sand without a shirt on! Mom already told me like a bazillion-trillion-gazillion times!"
She gave me a look like I'd better check the attitude as she said, "And you have on your..." again I cut her off but this time the tone of my voice came out rather whiney, "Yes I am wearing `em under my trunks! Now can we go, pleeeease?"
Throwing her hands up, "Alright, I guess so," and she had to raise her voice several decibels to be heard as we dashed out the beach house door, "I'll have lunch ready in about an hour!"
"OK, we'll be back!" I shouted back to her over my shoulder.
As we ran past BJ's dad on the porch he said something about staying close but neither of us really heard him.
We laid out our towels using a few medium sized stones to hold down each corner. We slipped off our sandals and in BJ's case he pulled off his shirt before the two of us moved toward the water.
Just as had happened before, the smell of the salt water on the air and the sound of the surf seemed to hypnotize me for a moment.
"Dude!" BJ said punching me in the arm.
It didn't really hurt so I'm not sure why I said, "Ouch!"
"Oh please! Don't be a baby!" he joked.
I narrowed my eyes and raised my hands in claw like fashion, poised to strike out and tickle him again!
"You do and I will soooo dunk you!" he warned with an accusatory finger.
"You dunk me and your mom will..." I didn't have to finish.
"OK, but stop turning into a space cadet." He said with a toothy smile.
"Huh?" I grunted in confusion.
He poked me in the forehead and spoke slowly, "STOP SPACING OUT!"
Trying to be funny I repeated, "Huh?"
"Dork!" he laughed.
"Dork-wad!" I countered but he didn't hear me because he had dove under the water.
Before either of us knew it, we were being called back up for lunch, which consisted of hotdogs cooked over an open fire pit and BBQ potato chips.
"Oh man these are good!" BJ said and followed it up with a ground-shaking belch.
It was funny but seeing the expression on his mom's face I backhanded him in the chest and said, "Dude you are such a pig! Excuse yourself!"
Looking sheepish he said, "Sorry!" to his mom.
His dad just chuckled which made us both burst out laughing.
"Would you like another hotdog Simon?" she asked while placing another on my paper plate before I could answer her.
No one drew attention to it and I didn't even know I said it until later when BJ told me about it, but apparently I had absent-mindedly said, "Thank you Miss-M."
We were not allowed to go swimming again for an hour after lunch, so instead the two of us went to see if we could find a hermit crab but not before I went into the bathroom to change into a fresh swim diaper.
I was just pulling my trunks up over the swim diaper when BJ barged into the bathroom.
"Dude! Don't you know how to knock?" I snapped.
"What? It's not like I haven't seen you wearing those?" he said as he stood before the toilet and let loose a golden stream into the bowl.
"That's not the point!" I said but he wasn't really listening. He was too caught up in the ecstasy of bladder relief.
"Just `cause you seen me wearing them at the Y last week don't mean I want to go showing them off!" I grunted loud enough to get his attention this time.
He turned around, snapping the waste band of his swimsuit back into place and said, "You're being a butt again!" and as an exclamation point to that statement, he flushed the toilet.
I wanted to offer up another protest but determined instead to just let the issue drop, which was probably for the better. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin our vacation the very first day by combating with him over something like this.
We never did find a hermit crab however we did find a little green lizard with yellow spots on its back. We let it go because it looked like it was just a baby.
We managed to find several other little creatures; two small turtles, a fat beetle and a black spider with two white stripes. I have no grief or remorse whatsoever for killing that spider. Of course we tortured it first by pulling all its legs off one side of its body and watching it try to get away but all it could manage was to scamper in a circle.
The rest of the afternoon was spent swimming, picking up shells, skipping rocks on the water and just laying on our towels soaking up the sun.
"What's that you're humming?" BJ asked shortly after we had laid down to rest from swimming again.
I rolled my head in his direction, "What?"
"You were just humming something." He said.
"Oh, nothing really. Just something..." I didn't finish.
I'm not sure but I think I nodded off for a few minutes only to come to again when he said, "I know I am not supposed to ask you about..."
He faltered with his words but quickly rebounded with, "But can I just ask you just one thing?"
I was sitting up now, with my chin on my knees and my arms wrapped around my legs. I gave a slight nod of agreement even though inside my head everything was racing and it felt like my chest was going to implode. I took a breath and held it as I braced myself for his question.
"How come you don't stutter anymore?" he asked.
I exhaled with relief and I think I might have even let a faint, yet amused titter slip out.