A Companion Piece to – “The Skinny of It!”

 In respond to a reader’s request for a story, exposing more of Scott’s booty, and Johnny’s too!

Usual Disclaimers Apply

Rated:  NC17 for Language and Adult Content

Summary:  The Boys vs. Mother Nature

 

~ JML ~ JML ~ JML ~ JML ~ JML ~

 

Another hot, muggy heat wave had encroached into the San Joaquin Valley.  It followed on the heels of a week of rain-soaking cool days that had brought much needed precipitation to everyone’s relief, for the fields had been bone dry, sorely in need of blessed showers.  The rains filled watering troughs and rain barrels to the brims.  Troughs and barrels had been strategically scattered near crops and dwellings alike in preparation for the oncoming dry weather.  Wooden caps secured the rain barrels from losing too much of their precious contents to evaporation.  Everyone at Lancer had been on high alert for any flash fires that might start due to heat lighting or other unknown sources as water buckets stood on the ready, by the watering troughs.

Now that summer had officially arrived per the calendar, the heat roared in like hell’s fiery fires lingering over the valley, roasting everyone and everything in its path.  For now life on the ranch was miserable as the temperatures soared higher day after day.  Tempers flared as everyone on Lancer moved in lazy motions, wilted by the oppressive heat, as they attended to only the most absolute crucial chores.  All heavy duty labor ceased for now, trips to town were deemed extraneous as they took too much effort and toll on the humans and horses alike.  Even the cattle sank to the ground under trees seeking relief from the heat of the day, moving only at night to drink and eat.  It was too hot to move, too hot to cook, too hot to eat, too hot to think and too hot to sleep. 

Hell it was too hot to bother wearing his cut-off long johns as Johnny tossed and turned on his mattress trying to find a cool spot to sprawl his sweat drenched body, if only for a quick second or two.  He had long since shed his cut-offs in hopes that a cool breeze might drift across his sweltering, naked body as he flipped over yet again, pounding the pillow in frustration.  He couldn’t see it but the moonlight played across his well-toned sun-kissed buttocks as the full moon rose casting its soft glow through the open window frame on Johnny’s own full moon.

Johnny found no relief in his latest position on his bed; no doubt about it, it was too damn hot.  This situation called for another form of reprieve from the claustrophobia atmosphere of his sleeping quarters.  He strolled in all his male pride and glory to the open window and grinned as the moon beams struck the flat surface of the nearby fishing pond, making the water shimmer like sparkling champagne bubbles rising to the top of a fluted glass and like brilliant diamond jewelry glittering around some high society lady’s alabaster neck.

Searching around for his discarded cut-offs, he located them hiding under his bed only after crawling around on all fours.  He lifted the dust ruffle doohickey, that made no sense to him at all but Teresa insisted that it had to be there, before he struck pay dirt.  Johnny shucked them back on, strolled to his door and quietly eased it opened.  He crept in the hallway on his tiptoes as softly as a cat in pursuit of his evening’s meal.

In the next room, Scott was experiencing similar sleeping difficulties, tossing and turning, praying for a small miracle in the form of a rainstorm to wash away the heat and cleanse the heavy tropical-like atmosphere away.  He found breathing difficult as the humidity had steadily climbed during the last few days and had not budge downward towards a more reasonable level.  Sighing to himself, he finally rose from the bed to strip off his cut-off long johns that stuck to his firm derriere like cotton candy on small fingers, his drawers were just as sticky, only no sweet smell of sugar, just the pungent smell of his sweltering skin.  He tossed them in the corner, thinking how much his little brother would appreciate his gesture.

Stretching his arms over his head, Scott flexed his arm muscles and was pleased to see that not only had he added some weight to his frame but in the form of firm, rippling muscles, his chest was defined and golden tan as he ran his hand across it, pleased to not feel any extra padding.  His long legs were firm, well-developed from his hours in the saddle and now tanned from his recent trips to the watering hole.  He grinned as he as remembered how pale he was before coming to California, his entire body had never been exposed to this much sunlight in Boston that was for sure.  His glowering skin made his blue-grey eyes seem more pronounced and his blonde hair had lightened from the sun’s bleaching of his straight locks.

Scott bent over touching his fingers to his toes, stretching out his back muscles in profound relief after the labors of his day, which entailed moving large cumbersome bales of hay to the fields for the cattle.  With his backside pointed towards the doorway he didn’t notice that the door had been slowly opened as a figure stuck his head inside the crack, “Yo!  Scott, ya awake?”

Scott jumped at least two feet off the floor by the jolt given to him by his younger brother, again.  “Damn it all to hell!  Johnny, you scared the crap out of me!  You need to stop doing that, boy!” 

Johnny quickly moved inside Scott’s room, closing the door softly behind him, waving his arms to warn him to settle down and be quiet.

“Just what exactly are you doing?” he whispered with urgency, jabbing his index finger with each word into Johnny’s bare chest.

The moonlight shone upon Johnny’s smirk as he slowly looked Scott down then up, “Boston, just what exactly are ya doing?  All naked and stretching out like that.  Sure wasn’t what I was expectin’ ta see when I opened the door!”

“Well, clearly YOU aren’t what I was expecting in the middle of the night either!”

“No?  Were YOU expectin’ anyone else in the middle of the night, Scott?” he chuckled.

“Johnny, that’s not the point.  I was trying to cool off...what are you doing sneaking into my room?”

“Ahhhh, Madre de dios!  With your ass stuck up in the air?  That’s a mighty strange way ta cool off, I’m thinkin’.  Come with me, Boston, I know the perfect way ta cool off, relax your muscles and stretch ‘em out, that don’t require ya ass up ta here,” he leveled his hand about four feet from the floor.

“Uhhh, Johnny, does this involve us going outside?”

“Yep, how about takin’ a moonlight swim in the fishin’ pond?”

“Fishing pond?  Aren’t we perhaps a tad bit on the undressed side to venture outside?  Even under cloak of darkness?  There will be a full moon radiating above our heads the second we step outside.  Don’t you think, we should at least consider putting clothes on first?”

“Nah, what for?  Know what ya problem is Boston?”

“No, Johnny, what’s my problem?”

“Ya over think everything ya do.  For once can’t ya just stop thinkin’ and start doin’ things, for the heck of it?  Why bother gettin’ dressed?  We’re only goin’ be takin’ things off in a few minutes anyway.  Grab a sheet and wrap up in it...be cooler anyway.  Unless, maybe ya want ta throw on ya union suit first?”

Scott shrugged his shoulders at Johnny’s logic as he retrieved his drawers, pulling them back on and over his leans buttocks, tried one more time with his own brand of level-headed logic, “Then you’re planning on sashaying down to the pond in just those?  I mean what if Teresa or Murdoch gets up and see us running around the courtyard dressed in cut-off drawers?

Johnny smirked at his older brother’s comments, “Well, well, Boston, now that can be helped.  Where’s your extra sheets?  In there?”  He pointed to his brother’s dresser.

“Johnny, Teresa just washed them, why don’t you go get your sheets from your room and leave mine alone?”

“Because I’m in here now, ready ta go.  We don’t need ta open up any more doors than necessary, takin’ chances of wakin’ up the whole house.  Dios, Scott, just give me a damn sheet or I swear I’ll rip those long-johns off of ya and make ya walk butt naked with me, like them Romans ya’re always talkin’ about, that’s why.”

“Romans, Johnny?  What Romans?”

“Ya know, when in Rome do as the Romans do, those Romans, Scott.”

Scott groaned, as he grabbed a clean sheet from the top of his dresser, tossing it over to Johnny, who draped it around his shoulders.  “Those were the Greeks, Johnny, who played their Olympian games in the nude, not the Romans, the Greeks.”

“Greeks, Romans, makes no difference ta me, Boston, they were playin’ their games naked.  If it’s good enough for them...then it’s good enough for us.  That’s the point.  Get a move on will ya?  Before ya wake up Murdoch or god-forbid Teresa, she’ll ruin everything!”

Noiselessly the brothers whisked from the room, down the backstairs, eased out the kitchen door and into the courtyard.  Laughing and shushing the other, they didn’t notice that Murdoch was watching them cross the yard from his bedroom window.  He was grinning to himself at the latest Johnny exploit, dragging Scott along with him in his daring act.  Well at least Teresa’s bedroom was on the other side of the house and she wouldn’t be the wiser to his moonlight nude swimming sons.

He continued watching as the two figures make their way to the pond, where they discarded their sheets and drawers on the small wooden pier.  His sons were playfully pushing and elbowing each other, until Johnny hit the water with a splash, followed by Scott’s neat jackknife dive over Johnny’s head.  He could see clearly as the moonlight touched the delicately rippling waters and shortly thereafter two glimmering butts protruding to the surface, along with two pairs of arms and legs as the brothers swam in the pond.  The combination of moonlight and water glistening on the brothers’ skin made it easy to trace their actions as they cavorted in the pond. 

Murdoch watched the moonlight beams as they emphasize his sons’ bodies for a few more minutes.  He was absolutely satisfied that his sons were safe from Teresa’s prying eyes, as he softly touched the key to her room in his dressing robe’s pocket.  Sitting down in his upholstered wing-back chair that sat in the corner by his window, he thought to himself, “I always hoped that the fishing pond would serve other purposes by having it closer to the house than just be used for fishing.”

“Maybe later after the boys have gone back to their rooms, I might just go down there myself and have my own moonlight swim to cool off.  “Or maybe I should just sneak down there and abscond with their sheets and drawers.  That will teach them not to be prancing around Lancer almost as naked as the day they were born in the middle of the night,” he chuckled as he watched his boys frolicking in what had to be refreshing cool waters.  Small wonder that his carefree dark-haired boy couldn’t resist tempting the fates by taking a moonlight swim in the buff and making certainly his more serious big brother came along for the fun!

“Or maybe I’ll not say anything and just surprise the boys by getting them each a robe, be less conspicuous sneaking out to the pond on a night like this instead of those damn white sheets, flapping in their wake, like restless ghosts out collecting lost souls.  They better not stay out there all night long, at some point I’ll have to unlock Teresa’s door before she’s up and about or I...could...fall...sound...asleep...snore...wheeze...snore.”

 

The End

 

Patti H. – June 25, 2009

Author’s Notes: 

Nudity at the Olympic Games?  There are two stories relating to the question of nudity at the ancient Olympic Games. One story states that it was a runner from Megara, Orsippos or Orrhippos who, in 720 B.C. was the first to run naked in the stadion race when he lost his shorts in the race. Another tradition is that it was the Spartans who introduced nudity to the Olympic Games in the 8th century B.C. as it was a Spartan tradition. It is not clear if the very first recorded victor at Olympia, Koroibos, who won the stadion race in 776 B.C. wore shorts or not. It seems fairly clear that by the late 8th century nudity was common for the male contestants.

Scott should be careful what he tells his little brother, as somehow Johnny always manages to turn it around and use it in their world!