Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:24:37 +0000 From: Nick Vandermens Subject: Adventures of Ethan and Remy: The Cruise Part 2 Disclaimer: You have to be of legal age to read this, also make sure you aren't breaking any laws by doing so. This story will contain under-age homosexual relationships between two teenage boys and possible scenes of a sexual nature. If you find that this type of material offensive or you otherwise decide not to need this sort of thing in your life, then you should go elsewhere and perhaps reconsider the location you are looking for stories, as seriously... you are in the wrong place. I am an adult, I write fiction. All the people in story are fictional and any relation to real people is purely coincidental. The cruise ship does not exist and the actual cruise itself is a fictional voyage that to my knowledge doesn't exist as one single voyage. I have been on a cruise ship a couple of times, never as a passenger, but as a ships guest so I do have a limited understanding as to how ships guests are treated outside of passengers, although I have never been on one as luxurious as the one in my story. Smash Media Group is a figment of my imagination. It is not basedon any real company or organisation. Since this story might be a long one I am going to have various interludes where I introduce some more of the characters that crop up in the story. This entry is a short submission just to reassure people that I'm not gone. More on its way soon. Adventures of Ethan and Remy The Cruise. Part Two I think I was drunk. Completely off my head, which was weird since I hadn't touched any alcohol, but then nothing was making much sense; I was falling all over the place and no matter what I tried to grab hold of I just stumbled the opposite way, bumping into furniture and objects that just seemed to jump into my way. Remy was there too, he was standing still as a rock with his familiar bemused grin. It only reinforced the fact I must have been drunk and no doubt making a complete arse of myself. I wasn't even sure where I was or even how I got here; although I distinctly remember being in New York and being excited about something or other... Was I even still in New York? I took a step towards Remy and was sucked back by some obscure force of nature. This wasn't a stumble, this was a plummet and I couldn't counter it, my legs felt paralysed, completely immobile, pinned together, as if they were being snared by some tentacled sea monster about to drag me under the ocean. It must have been a fraction of a second until... The ocean! You know those full body spasms you get when you wake up from a dream? I had one of those. I shot awake with a yelp. I quickly surveyed my surroundings and noted that I wasn't in bed; strange, although I distinctly remembered going to bed; in fact I was actually on a floor, soft and velvety like the bedroom of a posh hotel room, yes that was it, it had dawned on me. The ocean! I was on the ship with Remy. What confused me the most was I still being tossed about. Perhaps I was ill with something, perhaps some strange and exotic foodstuff had disagreed with me and I'd become delusional or someone had slipped me some strange hallucinogenic. I blinked and cleared the sleep out of my eyes and I noticed something that I probably should have noticed first. It wasn't me that was being thrown about, it was the entire room; no - it's the whole ship! I had never been in a storm before while at sea, but then I had never been at sea so it was another day of firsts. The rumble of thunder and the flash of lightening affirmed my diagnosis. I wasn't ill, which was a relief as those canap s last night were just too tasty. That was after I learned that a canap wasn't something you put over the tent to keep the rain off. I lived a sheltered life. I decided that it might be best if I try and get back into bed and get some sleep, despite the rocking and rolling. This hard floor wasn't the best of surfaces to try and sleep on, and I might end up over the other side of the room by the morning. Although technically it was morning, although the rain clouds kept the sun at bay, and since it was holiday time, it wasn't morning enough yet and the clock distinctly stated it was only 6.30am. It had to be at least 8.30 before it was morning enough to get up. The sliding of sheets grabbed my attention. Remy was about to get up and find me on the floor, oh that would be amusing for him. A strange shuffling noise peaked my interest until I saw what I had heard. Remy's soft shape wasn't as soft as I had remembered. I coughed as the weight of his sudden limp form landed on my tender areas and the wind was knocked out of me. That that must have woken him up; it sure as hell knocked what little sleep I had left in me out. I lifted my head and took a look at my boyfriend lying on top of me. He was soundly sleeping, breathing softly with that slight rasp I had grown familiar with. I'm not sure how he could have slept through that fall, let alone the thunder, but then Remy could fall asleep in seconds when it came to bed. I heaved the sleeping form of Remy into a lying position next to me. I wasn't going to let us both lie on the floor. I tried to get up but found my legs were still paralysed like in my dream. Fortunately, rather than paralysis, I had just gotten tangled up in a sheet that had bound my legs. It didn't take long to free myself and hoist Remy back onto the bed. At least one of us will have slept well, but then I'd rather see his smiling face than his grumpy one; so call me sentimental. Besides you've not seen him when he's grumpy. Things weren't going in my favour and instead of putting him neatly into bed and tucking him in, the ship lurched the opposite way and this time he rolled over to the other side of the bed. I jumped to catch him before he went over; I failed, my hand barely grazed his arm. His sleeping body fell out of bed on the other side with a graceless thud. I just fell on the bed and planted my face into the mattress. "Woahargh," was all I could make out when he actually did wake up. I couldn't see him, but I knew he was down there; after all I had practically thrown him there. I shimmied up the mattress and peered over the edge where he was laid on the floor with most of the duvet. Green eyes looked up at me. "Why are you on the ceiling?" "I'm not, it's you that's on the floor." I grinned down at him. I looked down at those eyes as they darted about the room in what I imagined to be similar to my own waking minute. "Oh." He sat up. "I don't feel well." "It's the ship. We're in some kind of storm." I had to grab the side of the bed as the ship took a lurch to prevent myself from landing on Remy. Remy's eyes went wide and he smiled. "Cool." He said in a drawn out voice. He practically hopped off the floor and went over to the balcony doors yanking them open. He peered out into the grey morning. "I've never been in a storm at sea before." He said quickly sidestepping to counter another lurch in the ships direction.. "This is cool." I had the sudden feeling of dread as my mind played a scene of the ship lurching wildly and Remy not being able to hold on and vanishing over the side of the balcony. "Get inside." I said, wobbling over to him and pulling him back inside. I slid the doors closed, cutting out the sound from the waves and thunder. "What?" He asked. Then his expression changed to a guilty one as he realised that I was worried. "Sorry." He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "Let's get dressed and grab some breakfast." Getting dressed and ready for breakfast had never been so challenging. We all take it for granted that we can get up, empty our bladders, shower, dry ourselves and climb into our clothes in a relatively small amount of time and with relative ease. Now try doing this when the floor isn't in the same place twice, never mind it even being the floor at some points. Walking across the seemingly flat floor to the bathroom was an adventure in itself, for at one single moment the floor can go from having you feel like you are climbing up hill to suddenly finding yourself sliding down hill on your backside. I tried to compensate by timing the peaks and troughs of each wave, but just as you think you have the timing figured you get an unexpected wave and you pee on the floor, or the ceiling, depending on the severity of the wave. The shower on the other hand wasn't as bad, the shower had grab rails that I initially assumed were for the infirm, but now realised that in a storm, everybody is infirm as the rails helped keep me upright. Except for that occasion when there was too much soap on the shower tray floor and I ended up doing some kind of new style break-dance, and end up on the floor in a graceless heap. Eventually after various giggling fits as we tried to climb into trousers and shirts we were ready to leave the room, albeit slightly bruised. Walking down the long corridor was like walking along some crazy fairground ride. You could see that the main corridor ran along most of the ships length and while in itself impressive to look at, what was even more wondrous was that it was pivoting up and down before our eyes; you could actually see the ship riding the waves. It was also impossible to walk in a straight line, and I was grateful that the corridors were somewhat narrow; else I'd be all over the floor. Instead I could put my hands out to either side and use the bulkheads for balance. Must to my frustration the elevators were out of service due to the extreme weather. There were a few people wobbling about the corridors, cursing either the weather or the liner for being too wobbly. Some of them gave up and bumped their way back to their rooms, but a few of them actually decided to brave the stairs. As did we. Stairs are another of life's simple givens. Stairs are generally a constant factor in life; you go up them or you go down them. We were going down them, into the ship, but for at least half of the time it seemed we were walking up, while heading down at the same time. The staircase handrail was crucial if you didn't want broken bones, and human nature to avoid bone breakages and as such there was a steady stream of people heading down the stairs in various styles of formal attire all clinging to the stair rail creeping down step-by-step, offering soothing words of comfort to their travelling companions that there are only another six flights to go, or commenting on the size of the last wave and how they might die. Some just vomited where they stood, frozen in place, not sure to continue their descent or retreat back up the stairs. Most of us just climbed around them, perhaps selfishly so, but it was every man for himself. It was like a shipwreck movie and everyone was trying to escape, except we weren't sinking, and there was no murderer chasing us. Although e weren't trying to escape to safety, we were just on our way to breakfast. By the time we reached the first restaurant we found we were physically exhausted. There was an announcement over the ships speaker system that they apologise for the spot of bad weather and it should hopefully be over by lunchtime. Also, we were informed, not to worry and that the ship has sailed perfectly well in worse conditions. Personally, I was not looking to break that record. Another thing that had me admiring the people that worked on this ship was how effortlessly the staff wandered about pushing their dinner service trolleys about as if they were on flat ground, it really was quite inspiring. We struggled into our seats and quickly ordered something to drink. The smallest action made all the difference as I soon learned. When drinking you don't put your glass down on the table in between sips, it ends up emptied on the table cloth. Instead you hold it, letting your waist move with the waves and eventually it becomes quite pleasant, like a gently rocking. If it wasn't for the various people retching all over their breakfast it would have been quite relaxing. Choosing from the menu was again, all about strategy. Cereal was out of the question, and instead decided on omelette, which had more natural friction to it and tended to stay on the plate. The problem was that the plate didn't want to stay on the table and wanted to slide towards one end or the other along with the cutlery and the other various table accessories. We entertained each other with various comments like "Pass the salt, please" as it slid towards the other, then as it slid back "Oh, thank you." Or "Here try some of my omelette" as it slid towards Remy. I wasn't too fond of Remy's fair trade sausages, mainly because they were currently residing under the table two across from us, while the boiled eggs from another passenger were rolling about my feet in a bid for freedom. After breakfast was either in us or over us we returned to our suite to change into something cleaner, which meant climbing back up the stairs, around the frozen people that were still there spewing up, and down the corridor of varying steepness and into the room where we found most of the furniture that wasn't bolted down was now wandering around the cabin. The main part of the day consisted of us trying to navigate the ship using our hands and sometimes knees as support and stumbling down stairs. It was amazing none of us broke any bones. Since most of the ship was closed off due safety reasons, including the outside decks, there wasn't much to do and boredom was starting to sink in. The constant rocking of the ship was entertaining but I longed for some stillness. We had found that the best part to be was closest to the waterline in the middle of the ship. While it still moved a bit, we found that it's the pivot point of the ship. The worst part was at the upper front or back of the ship, which is where our suite was. Go figure. Sure enough as the captain had said over the speaker system the storm had died of after lunch and the ships cleaning crew began their duties, cleaning the decks of vomit and spilled food/drinks/people. There was even a queue of people outside the reception complaining about damaged belongings and compensation. That annoyed me a bit; ships floated on water and water was unpredictable, you can't blame the ship for the waves. What was worse was that some woman was complaining about a lost container of diamonds. Who on earth took diamonds on a ship voyage? It was completely crazy to think that they were so rich that they took millions of pounds of diamonds on holiday with them. I was baffled by the stupidity of rich people. Although, I thought looking at my own rich person, not all rich people are stupid, some were damn sexy. It occurred to me on that day that a cruise ship isn't really much fun if you are a teenager. There are really only a few things you can do on a cruise ship; you can drink yourself stupid in one of the ten bars, assuming you could get served; you can eat yourself morbid in one of the ten restaurants or sit around and absorb ultraviolet rays either naturally or artificially. If you happen to be the active sort of old person, you can throw some balls down a green or play tennis. We tried tennis, but neither of us was really any good. We even tried bowls but not really knowing how to play it and were quickly put to shame by the more experienced players. There was even snooker would you believe it. Not with balls through, instead there were pucks that you bounced around the table with your cue. The idea was the same, but there was just more friction so it added a new twist to the game. We finally ended up in the card room where surprisingly we bumped into a number of other kids. There were four others in there, two boys and two girls. The smallest boy who looked to only be about five or six, was playing with some building bricks in the far corner of the room and looked as bored as I felt. A boy and a girl similar to our own age where nestled together in a soft seat facing the rain lashed window looking out to sea. The other girl, again about our own age, saw us and hopped up out of her seat and came over to us. "Hey." She said cheerily in an English accent. "I didn't think there were any other kids on the ship." Remy smiled and chuckled, "Yeah, we never thought we'd see any either. There is absolutely nothing to do here except watch rich old people play chess." "Join the club. This is the only room that no one uses, probably only because we seem to have claimed it as our own." She waved her arms about as if indicating her domain. "I'm Hannah." She held her hand out in greeting. "Remy," He returned the handshake. "This is Ethan." He jabbed a thumb in my direction "Hey," She cast a nod at me, but didn't offer her hand to shake. Her attention quickly turned back to Remy. "So," Remy continued the meet and greet. "What's the party about?" Hannah chuckled. "That is Micah, my little brother" she indicated to the smaller boy in the far corner playing with his bricks, "That heap of arms and legs is Jamie in the red and Sophia in the purple." He identified them by the colours of their shirts. "But we just call them Japhia, as they are never apart. "Oh," Remy cast a knowing eye at me. "I can relate to that." Hannah's expression dimmed to one of obvious disappointment, and my own selfish satisfaction. "You have a Girlfriend?" She quizzed Remy. "Nah! Just Ethan." He turned his head and grinned. "Oh." She looked heartbroken for a moment before she switched her mood to something a bit brighter. "Oh, I see. That's sweet that you're so open about it." Remy shrugged as if it was no great problem. It wasn't a problem, at least not generally. You always get the people that are shocked at the idea that two fourteen year olds can be so content with their sexuality that they are actually willing to tell others about it without fear of reprisal. That's part of the problem; it's never as clear cut as that. Being gay isn't about being in the closet or being out and flaming. For me, at least, I want to be accepted not as gay, but for my right to be me. Being gay is just another part of what I am, the fact I am proud of it isn't any reason to be afraid of it. It is perfectly natural to celebrate parts of your humanity that distinguish you in some way. Professionally or personally we all have aspects of ourselves we are proud of and flaunt; whether it's the beautiful person on your elbow or the big flash car that gets heads turning. It's accepted and ignored that some people will think it's a bit of a show-off attitude lest they think of the one with thing that they are proud of themselves, then they realise their error. To me, I like my ability to love and be loved, and I like to show that. The part that I do not like is that if someone doesn't like my lifestyle choice it can end in violence; simple because someone decided what they see doesn't fit in their viewpoint of the world. That's all it is a viewpoint, and it's scary that so many people can be locked down into their own point of view. So yes, I'm open about my relationship because it's what I want, and I don't want to hide it. "So where you guys from then?" Hannah asked retreating into the room causing us to follow her over to some soft seating circled around a square table that could have been used for any sort of board game. We explained our brief history about where we were from which led onto how we met. Remy skirted around the issue of him being the son of an entertainment millionaire and instead settled with a 'fairly well-off family'. He had his pride, but he didn't want special treatment. The rest of the afternoon passed with us getting to know our new friends. Jamie and Sophia had eventually disentangled themselves and had wandered over. They were alright people to be with, but they were so into each other it was just bizarre. Was that what Remy and I are like? Are we really that clingy with each other? I guess we were and we wouldn't want it any other way, but it was sobering to see it from another perspective. Jamie's parents had agreed to let Sophia come along as long as they behaved themselves and didn't get up to any mischief. That rule looked like it had already been broken about a dozen times. Micah was a quiet one. He was content to just sit in the corner with some bricks and make towers. Hannah had said he had something like Autism which means he lives mostly inside his head. I felt sorry for him, and a bit helpless in my lack of understanding. I knew it was serious to some extent but didn't want to ask my questions in case I offended someone. I just took it for granted that since his and Hannah's parents could afford a cruise ship, they could afford the proper care for him. Besides, he didn't seem unhappy, just content.