The Tent

I'm tying up some loose ends, and editing this story has always been the 'loosest of ends' in my mind. Sorry for the wait in doing this, and thank you so much for your patience.

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Toward the beginning of my college days I was running around with a guy by the name of Mike Gloner, who I befriended a couple of years before when I worked my first part-time job.

Mike and I came from slightly different cliques when we were in high school. I associated with what was termed at the time as the 'freaks,' while Mike was most often chumming with the 'jocks.' However, even though we came from slightly different social strata we became fairly good friends over the years. Both of us liked the same music, we both liked sports, and we both smoked pot, which incidentally, was the initial hook to our friendship. We even found out later that we dated the same girl for a time, although Mike dated her a year after I had. Really, the only difference between Mike and I was that I had longer hair and a different gaggle of friends.

Still, even though Mike had much in common with me, and by implication, with my other long-haired brethren, my association with Mike was starting to create a rift within my own clique.

It seems that freaks and jocks should never mix, or at least that was the ruling attitude of the day. My other friends didn't like Mike, and as far as I could tell, for no other reason than he was a jock. That was that, and they made sure to let me know about their dislike at any and every opportunity.

The verbal derision against Mike got so bad that one time a couple of my old friends relayed to me a rumor they heard about him. It was one of those, 'a friend of a friend who has a brother told me' type innuendos. According to these two geniuses Mike was a fag—their words not mine—and was seen making-out with another guy.

I didn't ask for any details knowing that they wouldn't have any. I told them that I knew Mike well. That I knew he has a girlfriend, and that we've double-dated on a number of occasions. I also told them that I had been with Mike in a number of different social settings, both alone and in groups, and not once did I get the impression that he 'liked' guys.

Quite frankly, even if the rumor were true, I really didn't care. I thought Mike was a good person, and it really wasn't any of my business what direction his sexual appetites may have ran.

After that bit of rumor-mongering, I started to move away from my freak friends. Life was too short to put up with their juvenile bullshit, which I chalked up to their irrational animosity toward jocks in general, and Mike in particular. I told Mike about the reaction of my other friends to our association, at least everything except the rumor, and he said he was getting the same kind of flak from his side.

None of this surprised me, and as a consequence, both Mike and I started to hang out together on a more regular basis, while shunning our past associations and cliques.

The break from my high school friends was actually easy, given that I was starting college in a few weeks, and as far as I knew I was the only one of my friends moving on in higher education.

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Over the next year I kept in touch with Mike, partying with him over Christmas and Spring Breaks but rarely seeing any of my old friends, many of whom had already moved away or were busy developing new lives of their own. Suffice it to say, I never gave their rumor about Mike's 'sexuality' a second thought, mostly because he never did anything that would suggest he was anything other than straight.

It was during that first year's summer break from college that Mike suggested we go camping and do a little fishing with another friend of his, Danny Trainer. I said it sounded like a good idea. I had always liked the woods and camping.

We decided to go over the Forth of July holiday given that it would be a long weekend.

Each of us brought our own camping gear and some food. Mike had one of those old canvas tents; the kind a person could almost stand up in, and which can sleep four comfortably.

The day of the trip started well enough. The sun was out, it was warm, and we made good time to the camp site. However, soon after our arrival the weather cratered on us, and we barely had enough time to get the tent up before it started raining.

It wasn't a violent thunderstorm, which would have been typical for that time of year, but it was turning out to be one of those day-long soaking rains that keep everyone and everything under cover for hours, or even days, on end.

Danny suggested that we bag the trip and go another weekend. Mike and I disagreed, thinking that since we came all this way, we should wait it out and see what happens tomorrow. Besides, we had brought plenty of grass and beer, so at least we would have a good time, even if we were going to be stuck in the tent all day and night.

That night it was damp and a little cool. The rain was still coming down in a steady stream, but we remained reasonably dry even though there was a small leak in one corner of the tent.

Dinner was a forgone conclusion since we couldn't build a camp fire, and we didn't have enough ambition to drive to the nearest town for fast food. Yet, none of us minded given that we were getting a good buzz from the pot I brought.

Mike also brought a bottle of whiskey he had stolen from his old man's liquor cabinet, and was periodically passing it around.

Pretty soon none of us were feeling either hungry or cold. It was a good time. Our conversation ebbed and flowed across various subjects, from sports to girls. Mike was a particularly good story-teller, and had a knack for making Danny and me laugh.

It was at about the time of our second joint and when a third of the whiskey was gone that the evening turned into something altogether different and unexpected. Mike had just finished one of his stories that had us all in stitches when he asked me, "John, you ever play truth or dare?"

I thought it was an odd question coming out of the blue as it did, "Yeah, a couple times in sixth grade. Why?"

"We got nothing else to do, let's play truth or dare. Danny you game?"

Danny nodded his approval, but I thought it was a stupid idea, and said as much, "It's a fucking kid's game, which I didn't like all that much even when I was a kid. I'd rather play poker."

"Come on it will be fun, besides we didn't bring any cards," was Mike's response as he put an empty beer bottle on the floor between us.

I was too stoned to argue with him. I figured each of us would answer a couple of stupid questions, someone would do one or two particularly moronic stunts, and then we would give up on the whole idea as idiotic.

"Okay, here are the rules," Mike began, "You know how it was played when we were kids? No one would take the dare..."

"Unless they were stupid," I interjected.

"...Right," Mike continued, "Well this time one can only take three truth questions before you have to take a dare. Agreed?"

The question was rhetorical as Mike started the game by spinning the bottle before Danny and I could speak.

The truth questions were what would be expected, mostly about sex, 'who would you fuck...who wouldn't you fuck...what was your most embarrassing sexual experience...what was your greatest sexual conquest,' that sort of nonsense.

Given the irregularities of the tent floor, Mike and Danny had to ask and answer the majority of questions, because the bottle rarely ended up pointing in my direction.

I had to admit that although I was a bit embarrassed playing a kid's game at first, I was having a riot listening to these two trade stories. They were both genuinely funny guys who didn't seem to take themselves and each other that seriously. Both my tent-mates were always quick to laugh and never said a disagreeable word. I was, at least, starting to feel comfortable and relaxed in the situation.

Eventually, the 'dare' part of the game had been reached. I still had a couple of truth questions I could use, but both Mike and Danny had used up their first three, and would have to take a dare if the bottle landed on them.

Mike spun the bottle, and true to form it landed on Danny.

Mike contemplated for a moment on what he was going to have Danny act out. Danny just sat and laughed in nervous anticipation, "Don't make me do something too stupid like the last time, okay?"

Laughing, I asked Mike, "What did you have Danny do?"

Danny answered, "I had to give myself a swirly."

"No swirlies this time," Mike said, trying to mollify Danny, and then he added, "Instead, I want you to stand outside the tent and yell, 'I love you Mrs. Fairchild,' three times."

I didn't know it then, but Mrs. Fairchild was a teacher Danny had a crush on in grade school. I guess it was an inside joke between the two, and Mike always rubbed Danny's nose with it.

"Fuck you man, it's still raining and there're other campers around," Danny said.

"So? The quicker you get out there, the quicker you can get dry," was Mike's unsympathetic response.

Danny grudgingly opened the tent and stepped outside. As required, he yelled the statement three times at the top of his lungs.

From various points around the camp ground Mike and I could hear several dogs begin barking feverishly, while another group of campers yelled for the drunken asshole, whoever he was, to shut up.

Mike and I were laughing as Danny came back into the tent, embarrassed by the fact that he woke up the camp and was drenched from head to toe.

"You asshole," Danny said to Mike as he laughed at himself, "Give me a towel."

As Mike went to get him a towel Danny stood up and started removing all of his wet clothes.

At first, I didn't think Danny's actions were out of the ordinary, given that it would be natural to remove all your clothes to get dry; however, the way Danny just stood there toweling himself was somewhat unnatural.

There was something overtly sexual about his demeanor. For instance, he really didn't towel himself except for his head, leaving his lower torso uncovered and well exposed the whole time. In fact, he positioned himself in a slightly arched backward stance, which caused his hips to be trusted forward. As he vigorously toweled his head, I could see that his movements were making his limp cock dance about, hitting first one leg and then the other.

I couldn't tell at the time whether he was doing it on purpose or whether it was occurring naturally, a result of his enthusiastic toweling, but in any event the friction of his legs against his member was making his cock noticeably stiffen. It wasn't getting fully erect, but it was obviously expanding in length and girth right before my eyes.

The whole time this is going on Mike is talking and laughing with Danny as if nothing is out of the ordinary, and given Mike's nonchalant reaction, I assumed that I was misconstruing the situation.

Mike and Danny continued to talk, and I was content to listen, but minutes were now passing by and Danny still hadn't sat down. He just stood there in the middle of the tent, clutching the towel that was now draped around his neck, and with his semi-erect cock still trust forward for all to see.

It was then that Danny casually stroked his cock. The movement was subtle, nearly imperceptible, a brief caress of his fingertips down the length of his member. At first I thought I was seeing things because Mike showed no reaction to Danny's touching, but Danny repeated the action a few seconds later, causing his cock to expand further.

It had all become clear to me in that moment. The rumor about Mike that I had heard so long ago, the one I dismissed as nonsense and had subsequently buried deep in my memory, had now became self-evident. They were true.

Danny was most assuredly the guy Mike was making-out with when they were caught, and with perfect twenty-twenty hindsight it was finally and fully evident to me that this whole evening had been planned. The near-secluded camp site, the whiskey, the playing of a kid's game that was better associated with a gathering of mixed couples rather than of straight males, the dare that forced Danny out into the rain as a pretext to removing his clothes, it had all been done by design.

Contrary to what I thought my initial reaction would be to this revelation, scorn or possible disgust, once I realized what was going on my first emotion was one of excitement. I couldn't explain it to myself at the time, and I still can't explain it very well to this day, but I was aroused.

Up to this point in my life, I had never thought or fantasized about man-on-man sex. I knew it occurred in the wide world, and I heard those who would partake in it talked about despairingly among friends. However, I had always viewed homosexuality ambiguously.

Intellectually, I still had doubts about what it would mean to me on a personal level. Is homosexuality good? Is it bad? What does this say about me as a man or as a person? What does it say about me morally or even ethically, and should I even care about these things at all? All of these questions ran unanswered through my head.

Yet, on an emotional level, there was no ambiguity, and I needed to look no further than my groin for that answer. I was hard as a rock.

Looking back on the situation, the purpose of Mike and Danny's actions that evening are crystal clear, but at the time I was still unsure of myself. I could still be reading these signs wrong, and I didn't want to do or say anything that would cause me severe embarrassment. Friendships could be ruined by one wrong, ill-timed phrase or gesture; consequently, I decided to let the events play out as they would or should, and for now, allow myself to drift along on the currents of the remaining evening.

I woke from these thoughts by having Mike snapping his fingers in front of my face. Danny had sat back down, but remained nude except for the towel that was still around his neck. It appeared that his cock was back to its normal, flaccid size. Both of my tent-mates were laughing at the startled look I must have given, having been abruptly roused out of my trace-like state.

Mike sat back on his sleeping bag and asked, "Where the fuck were you?"

"Sorry I was drifting. Too much pot and whiskey, I guess," I said with a slight embarrassed tone, then added, "What were we talking about?"

Mike didn't bother answering my question, and only stated, "Man, you really were out. Maybe we should just bag it for the night."

Danny voiced his objection, "No way man, you're not getting out of this. I own you for tonight, and I still owe you for that fucking swirly."

"Yeah, let's keep going," I said with genuine enthusiasm, "The game is just starting to get interesting." I added that last bit with the hope that they would start to wonder themselves. Was I getting interested because the game itself was fun, or because the situation having Danny naked was turning me on?

Danny spun the bottle. All of us were transfixed on who it would point to, and true to form it rested on Mike.

"Crap," was Mike's only response.

Danny was gleefully rubbing his hands together with closed eyes, acting as if in deep thought.

"Let's see, what should I have you do," he said, faking continued contemplation, "I know, you can answer a question that's been bugging me since the other day. I was talking with your girlfriend, and she made it pretty clear that your package wasn't what she had hoped."

"Fuck you," said Mike laughing.

Danny continued, ignoring Mike's response, "Yeah, she said you had a small dick. Teeny in fact. Teeny." Danny said that last part in a mock, high-pitched voice and holding his index finger and thumb close together.

"Fuck you, you weren't talking with Carol," Mike said still laughing.

"God's honest, man. Although it was a little hard to understand what she was saying with my dick in her mouth."

Fuck you," Mike said again, and punctuated the curse by throwing another towel at Danny. Then he added, "Besides, how could she blow you, she never has any tweezers handy?"

Danny laughed, "That's an odd thing to say. Why, does she usually need tweezers when she blows you?" Danny paused for a moment while all of us laughed at his repartee, and then he added, "And we can't just take your word for it, you're going to have to show it."

I was pretty sure by now that all my guesses were correct, so I decided to go all in and play along with the game, "Yeah Mike, just how small is your dick?"

I can't be sure, but after saying that I thought I saw Mike and Danny give each other a knowing glance, as if saying to each other that we got him.

Mike turned toward me in a mock show of defiance, then got up on his knees while lowering his pants and underwear.

Unlike Danny from before, Mike remained kneeling in front of us with a complete, full-blown hard-on. Danny's initial reaction was to laugh. I sat transfixed.

Outside of my own hard-on, Mike's was the only erection I've ever seen, in the flesh as it were. It was definitely larger than my own, maybe by about a couple of inches. The shaft was thick and muscular, and capped by a large, bulbous, purplish head, which was slightly shrouded where it met the shaft by a slightly darker-colored sheath of foreskin. His balls were large and looked smooth and hairless as they hung down low below the base of his shaft.

Not only was this the first erection I had seen, but it was the first uncircumcised cock I had seen. I continued to stare at it, transfixed, almost mesmerize. All I can remember was the overwhelming desire to reach out and touch his cock, to play with it and fondle it, to slide that foreskin over his bulbous head enough times so that he ejaculated.

Mike remained kneeling with his hands on his hips and proudly looked down at his well-formed cock. Then he began flexing his cock muscles so that his erection comically danced up and down.

Danny said, laughingly, "Look Johnny, Mike's conducting an orchestra. Here, let me try that." Getting up on his knees, Danny was now sporting an erection of his own, and flexed his cock muscles making his own hard-on dance.

From what I could tell Danny's erection was about my length, and had about the same amount of girth.

I just watch the two of them flexing their cock muscles, getting more and more aroused myself, and decided that I would join the orchestra, "Well, since you guys are showing yourselves off I might as well join in."

I was about to get up and remove my pants when Mike stopped me, "Wait a minute, before you show us your dick, Danny I'm betting Johnny's bigger than you."

"What if he is," Danny asked?

"Then you have to jerk me off."

Danny's initial reaction was to laugh, but then he got serious, "And what if I'm bigger than he is?"

"Then I have to jerk you off."

Before Danny accepted the bet, I did something I thought I would never suggest to another guy, "I tell you what, just by the look of things I can tell that Danny and me are pretty close to the same size. I'll bet you Danny that if I'm smaller than you I'll give you a blowjob, and if you're smaller, you blow me. To prove I'm not trying to pull a fast one, I'll just show you my goods."

I stood all the way up and fully removed my pants and underwear. My cock was as hard as I've ever known it to be. I turned to the side so the two of them could get a good look, and also flexed my cock muscles and made it dance, and making the two of them laugh. I then restated my offer, "How about it Danny, you want to take my bet?"

Danny didn't hesitate with his answer, "You're on. Mike can measure."

The measuring was just formality. The last little ritual that needed to be played out, like the last snap of the football in a game that had already been decided minutes ago. It didn't matter who was bigger, or who was smaller, or who would suck who, first. At that moment, if either Mike or Danny stuck their cock in my face I would greedily start sucking it without hesitation, and I'm sure they would reciprocate if I did the same to them.