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.