Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2017 11:22:58 -0400
From: Orson Cadell <orson.cadell@gmail.com>
Subject: Shark Reef 9

Please see original story
(www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-friends/shark-reef/) for warnings and
copyright. Highlights: All fiction. All rights reserved. Includes sex
between adult men. Go away if any of that is against your local
rules. Practice safer sex than my characters. Write if you like, but
flamers end up in the nasty bits of future stories. Donate to Nifty
**TODAY** at donate.nifty.org/donate.html to keep the cum coming.

*****

Ian called the halt to that as I was well over thigh-depth on the last pass
and he physically restrained me from another trip. We got everything into
the container, but realized it was, well, nasty, stuffy and stifling with a
strong redolence of burned webs. I set up one of the Mylar space-blankets a
few yards away at the nearest convenient set of trees. This time, to Ian's
wide smile, I angled it. We would, with luck, never need to collect
rainwater again. We'd test the pump later. It was nearly noon when we
finished. We each ate a protein bar, some dried fruit and a liter of water
before settling on a fresh Lunk-Lunk shirt-blanket. I pulled Ian's
now-naked body to me. Sleepily I whispered, "I love you Ian." I heard a
gasp just before I drifted into contented sleep.

*****

Shark Reef 9: Ringpiece

By Bear Pup

*****

I woke slowly in the golden light of late afternoon and realized that I was
alone in the Lunk-Lunk bed for the first time in, well, since getting
sucked out of the plane. I got up, pissed, thought for a minute then went
and dug a new latrine with McGeek's buckets, a deep one this time. Another
handy asswipe-vine was nearby which made it the perfect spot. Clean
(relatively speaking), I went in search of Ian.

I found him looking out into the lagoon with the monocular. I sat next to
him and waited for him to talk. He'd left without waking me, which is
actually quite difficult. That meant he intended me to keep sleeping. After
a while he lowered the scope and sighed, then turned to me.

"You're a right ringpiece, you are."

I looked up and to the left, then back. "Nope. Got nuthin. I think you
probably just insulted me but I'll be damned if I know how."

"Ringpiece! Hole! Shitehole! Arsehole! You're a fookin shitehawk!"

"Um, ooooookay, I think I get the general drift. I am probably sorry for
whatever you suddenly have up your -- never mind, strike that. Bad image at
the moment. Can you tell me what I did so I can know what I'm apologizing
for?"

"I am not a fool, JB. Don't fookin treat me like one!"

"Okay." My voice had gotten taut and I was nearing the edge of my
patience. "I will try one more time. What. The
fuck. Are. You. Talking. About?"

"You, ya fookin knobhead!" I resolved to buy and Irish-to-American
expletive dictionary whenever I got off this island; I was gaining a really
stellar cursing vocab if I only knew what it meant! "You finally get me
back doors kicked in and then say you LOVE me? Y'ar a ringpiece!"

He started to get up and I swept his feet from under him. He threw a flurry
of kittenish punches and I threw my greater bulk over him and pinned his
arms. "Get the fook offa me ya shitehawk Yankee bastard!" When he tired of
hurling insults he went as limp as Olive Garden spaghetti and just started
to sob quietly. I didn't move at all until he ran out of tears and his eyes
focused on me.

"Ian, I really don't get it, kid. You saved us, Ian. We have fresh water,
at least for a while. You found the container, Ian, and then you realized
it was a pump which I sure the fuck didn't. I *love* you for all that, kid.

"And I know I'm not good at this. I mean, I've been about as straight as
guy gets for, like, my whole fucking life. But, even with that. You know,
after the last 24 hours, I think... I really, actually, honestly, think..."
I froze and realized what it would mean to say the next few words. An aeon
passed in that second as I realized everything I thought about myself
wasn't exactly a lie, it was just... based on too little information. That
Ian had made me realize that I wasn't the JB I thought It was. That I
was... better than that. More real. More whole. More true. "...that I love
you."

And the clouds parted and the heavenly host sang as the seraphim played
lyres and the world quaked with joy and... yeah, 'fook' that. Ian had spent
the time I was distracted with the aeon of self-realization repositioning
his leg so that when he jerked it up with all his might, he racked my nuts
so hard I literally could not inhale. I rolled off him into the typical 'my
nads are now jellified pinpoints of anguish' pose, the only thing keeping
it from being a fetal position was my stiffly held arms supporting the two
hands that cradled my screaming balls.

For the next half hour, I relived the first five years of my life. I first
taught myself to breathe. I never respected an OB/GYN more than when I was
desperately wishing there was one there to slap my ass and make me start
breathing. Once I was finally able suck in air, I found that the pain I'd
felt earlier was just an entr'acte to Act II of the magnificent symphony of
agony that Ian had blessed me with. As with any newborn, the first ragged
breath came back out as a ululating wail at the insult of the universe at
large.

A few centuries of agonized writhing later, I learned to move then prayed
that I hadn't. I taught myself to stand and fell back to decide it really
was fool's errand. At some point in there, I found words. A few minutes
afterwards, I found expletives and the little island exploded with little
verbal bombs of concentrated torment. If there was a God (a concept that
was rapidly losing credence in my world of hellish pain), there would have
been lightning bolts and heavenly wrath falling to every
side. Nope. Nada. Just pain.

Sound, sight, smell, touch and all the other fucking useless distractions
burst onto the scene. I found that I could actually stand, and peered
around. Ian was nowhere to be seen. Good plan, since I was very carefully
planning how best to feed him to the sharks. No, the lionfish. No! The
morays! Maximum pain and minimum chance of escape.

I staggered to the tidepool at the closest end of the island and sank into
it desperately. I relished the relief, sighing deeply over and over as the
relatively-cool water massaged and soothed my aching nuts. Then I screamed
like a little girl. Around me were a dozen sea urchins, any one of which I
might have sat on moment earlier. Just the thought of dropping my aching
nads onto a poisonous pincushion of brittle spines almost made me puke. I
reached down and maneuvered my hand underneath one and flicked it ashore
where the spines stuck in the sand. I grinned, a long-past Iron Chef (the
late-late-late-night real one from Japan) coming to mind. I flipped urchin
after urchin to the shore then followed them.

Still no signed of Ian. I found my way to the new nest and extracted the
multitool, the largest Ninja Knitting Needle and the smallest McGeek
souvenir bucket. I carefully made sure that each spiky monster was
upside-down in the sand before proceeding. Lacking the utter confidence of
the Iron Chef Sakai, I stabbed each one to death with the knitting needle
first, then carefully cut a hole in the underbelly.

My wonton violence had left a noxious slime in three of them and they were
consigned to the frothing surf. With nine of them though, I was able to
banish the black parts, leaving the roe (actually the gonads) of the
critters. Yes, we'd be eating balls tonight! Maybe the sympathetic magic
would heal my own ravaged orbs.

I used the baby-bucket to consign the black innards to the hungry sea, then
filled it with sea water with which I rinsed and cleaned the spiky little
monster-carcasses. I gingerly removed the 'roe' and returned to the nest
with the orange treasure held carefully in the bucket.

Ian looked at me like I had lost my 'fookin' mind when I sat, beaming next
to him. "Close your eyes. Really, really. Close 'em. You'll love it!"

He looked at me like I would look at a carnival-barker/pickpocket. He did,
reluctantly, close his eyes. I scooped up a bit of the coral-colored roe
and placed it on his tongue. Ian pulled it in and frowned. I could imagine
the sea-tang bursting through that creamy, custardy paste as he coated his
palate. His eyes popped open. "That's really good! What is it. Is it a
fish?"

"I don't honestly know. It's sea urchin."

"Those spiny bastards? Can I have some more?" Apparently, my peace offering
was acceptable.

As we licked our way through a double-serving of creamy gonads in the
fading light, I finally screwed up my courage and spoke to Ian.

"Um, Ian? Can we talk? I mean without obscure obscenities and most
definitely without another knee to my nuts? By the way, that was a hell of
a shot, kid. I can still barely walk."

"Good." He grunted. But he didn't shut me down.

"I didn't have sex with you, Ian, or didn't intend to. I meant to make love
to you and really thought that's what we did. And I didn't say 'I love you'
in some completely incomprehensible plot to play you for a fool. Think for
a minute. I mean really think. You'd just found the thing that makes it
possible for us to live until help comes. We were both exhausted and I
cuddled you to me, then, almost asleep, told you I loved you. Do you really
think I'm that good of an actor, Ian? That I could say that just as I
crashed for the night with you cradled in my arm?"

He stared at me, eyes flicking around my face and eyes, looking for a sign
that I was lying. I saw at least some of his rage and tension begin to
fade.

"Ian, can I, um, hold you, please, while we talk?" He nodded brusquely. I
smiled a bit, "But not until I have a promise that you will not be racking
my nuts. You do that and I'm gonna puke sea urchin gonads all over you." He
smiled then his eye went wide.

"Sea urchin what? You said ROE!"

"Well, yeah, that what it's called. But technically it's their, well, their
reproductive organs. Sea urchin balls and ovaries." He looked ready to
retch. Stupidly, I let my juvenile sense of humor loose. "Come on, Ian,
it's not the first time we've had balls this week." Oops. His lips were now
a thin line slashed across his milky, freckled face, eyes glinting.

"Well, JB, if ever you want yours to work again, I'd suggest you watch that
kind of comment. At some point you'll have to sleep, and a stomped heel is
gonna be a helluva lot more effective than my leg. Swear to God, JB, I'll
leave you with something the consistency of what you just fed me. Are we
clear?"

I swallowed convulsively and replied in a shaky voice, "Um, point
taken. I'm sorry. Yes, we're clear.

"Um, uh, um, where was I? Okay, yeah, we'll skip the whole holding-you part
for a minute until that image gets out of my mind. I, I really think I love
you Ian. Like, more than I've loved anyone I can remember."

"JB! Pull yer head outta yer arse, mate. You are *married*. You have
*kids*. What, we head back to America and I, like, move into the spare
bedroom?"

And just like that, my world stopped and began to spin around a single
word, 'Abigail'. My bride, the center of my world for, what, nearly two
decades? Six days after being sucked from a jet plane. Six days of a
relentless drive to scrabble survival out of the handful of suitcases. Six
days of imminent peril and overwhelming odds against survival had been an
impenetrable bulwark against grief or even worry. We were going to die, so
something inside said, 'fuck it; let's see how far we can put that off.'
But now? Now we had what seems to be water. We'd had no trouble with
food. Eventually someone would come looking for bodies and luggage, and
we'd be alive to returned to... Abigail.

We'd met in school, both Juniors, and married when we graduated. Stopped
using protection the day I landed the job at Summit and Rachel was born
nearly nine months later to the day. Miriam followed, then a gap where we
both worked our asses of to afford a home.

Little Megan forced the decision. That was 15 years ago. Fifteen years
ago... this week. I'd agreed to the trip on the condition that I be back
for her birthday. Instead, I counted back with mounting horror, I was
smoking hash and getting an epochal blow job from a kid I'd just met about
the time she was blowing out candles. I started to cry, then.

Abigail quit her job when she was at seven months with Meagan, the same
week we bought the house on S 1100 E. Two months later, I got a call from
Inflow and jumped at the massive increase in pay. Six years there, bringing
Hanna and Esther, then the move to my current company. The night I signed
the contract was the night our last, Rebecca, was conceived. She'll be
turning nine in a few months. Miriam would be graduating High school in May
and Rachel would be starting college in the fall. Would I be there to see
it?

My god, what must Abigail have been going through? The thought wracked me
with physical pain. It had been six days since I'd taken off on that
plane. If it crashed, was my beloved wife, the center of my life, even then
sitting on a hard-plastic chair in some airport waiting for news, waiting
to find out if I was dead or alive? Sweet Jesus, how would they survive? I
remembered it took months for those Malaysian passengers to be declared
dead. Insurance doesn't pay until then, but the electric company and the
bank wouldn't care.

And if the plane managed to get to an airport? Landed with *most* of the
people still on board? Had they already buried an empty casket in Salt Lake
with Abigail and both our families crying over the loss? What would happen
when I came home, risen from the dead? Wouldn't that be almost worse than
having died for real?

'I love you, Ian.' FUCK! I did love him! But I loved my wife, my kids! My
nice, comfortable life. My home. "I love you, [_____].' It didn't matter
how I ended that sentence, part of me died in the process.

Each of my senses had turned exclusively-inward as I sobbed and wept. I
'saw' only memories and horror-images of what might come to pass on the
other side of the world. I 'heard' only their laughter (past) and wails of
grief (present? future?). I felt nothing, nothing but crippling pain and
misery.

Worst, the worst of all, was the frank realization that Ian had been
right. By saying those words -- worse, by truly meaning them -- I had
condemned myself and at least one other to the agony of love lost. I had
spoken truly; I loved Ian more than I could ever recall loving anyone in my
life. But did I have the callous guts, the sheer cruelty, to walk away from
my wife and six daughters? The question was not, 'Am I a monster?' it was,
'Which sort of monster am I?' A word floated up, a new one. I cried even
harder as I realized something I never thought because I never had the
vocabulary: 'JB Cantrell, you are a ringpiece.'

<eof>

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Active storelines, all at www.nifty.org/nifty/gay...
Canvas Hell: 30 chapters .../camping/canvas-hell/
Beaux Thibodaux: 21 chapters .../adult-youth/beaux-thibodaux/
The Heathens: 23 chapters .../historical/the-heathens/
Lake Desolation: 15 chapters .../rural/lake-desolation/
Shark Reef: 9 chapters .../adult-youth/shark-reef/
Culberhouse Rules: 6 chapters .../incest/culberhouse-rules/
Raven's Claw: 4 chapters .../authoritarian/ravens-claw/

Special collaboration with Brad Borris: In God's Love (5 installments)
.../incest/in-gods-love/