The River

Torridan is a beautiful, mountainous area in the highlands of Scotland. Sitting on the west coast, you can walk up the green flanks of Anshielach. From the summit look out over the water to the mystical shores of the isle of Skye, known in Celtic legends as the Isle of mists, The sorcerer's Isle.

Yet the best still awaits.

For if you drive past the village of Torridan where most of the tourists stop for that five-minute photo session that proves to friends and family that they were THERE, there is a little single-track road that leads you back in time to a little bit of paradise, called Craig Hostel. Five miles from the nearest road, across a bog that is laughingly called a trail, you enter a world without telephones or even electricity and your heart soars to be truly free from the mundane world.

It was here that I met Gunther, and life took on a wonderful new curve.

Truth be told, I heard him long before I saw him

At the end of the trail, the land drops quite sharply and it was my habit after the tiring walk out to sit on a nearby rock for a while, take off my rucksack, and enjoy the view.

The hostel itself is a beautiful old stone building that had been built sometime in the last century by the landowner as a getaway from life's pressures. It sat in a beautiful little hidden valley within walking distance of the sea. They would come out by boat in the summer and, for at least a little while, relax oblivious to the goings on of the rest of the world. The family had then donated the building to the Scottish Hostel Association shortly after its conception in the 1930's and had been open to weary travelers from all over the world ever since.

One old chap I had met here a few seasons back had told me a wonderful story passed on to him by his father.

Not long after the hostel was open to the public, the father had come here with a couple of friends. During the evening, one of those violent thunderstorms that the west coast of Scotland is so famous for, came out of nowhere, and dripping travelers were soon filling the place up. So much so that before long the floor of the common room was being used to accommodate the over-spill. Soon, the room was a jungle of wet clothing and damp bodies vying for a place close to the one small fire that was the room's only source of heat.

Later that evening, while writing a rather soggy addition to his journal, the young lad suddenly realized that he knew the piece of music that a pretty, young German girl was humming to herself as she read, nearby. Taking out his penny whistle, he softly played along to her melody. This went on for a couple of minutes before the girl suddenly looked up and gave him the most beautiful smile as she realized what he was doing. Immediately, she began to sing along to the lilting air.

They were married six months later.

Now, here was I, part of another generation of wanderers, coming here to recharge my batteries before the next assault of city life.

Today, as I sat there on my rock, I could feel the rivulets of sweat run down my back, and I eagerly sought out the two Rowan trees that marked the location of the rock pool that lay upriver from the hostel. Generations of travelers had gone skinny dipping her, from long before I was born, and I thrilled to the thought of the cold mountain stream on my skin.

Suddenly, as if memory had come to life, the angelic sound of flute music rose to my ears from the valley below. Puzzled, I turned my attention back to the cottage and saw that I was to have company that evening.

Sitting on the wooden bench outside the little hostel a young man was indeed playing a flute, its beautifully haunting sound traveling effortlessly up over the valley rim to where I sat. Before him, sitting on the grass listening intently were two girls and I could not help but smile; Craig certainly had a way of bringing people together. You could arrive on a Saturday morning to a group of strangers and leave a few days later saying tearful good-byes to a gathering of dear friends.

Smiling for the first time in days, I hefted my rucksack to my shoulder and made the descent from my vantage point to the mellow accompaniment of Mozart.

It felt like coming home.

The melody was just reaching a close as I rounded the small enclosure that held the warden's vegetable garden and I immediately joined in with the girls' enthusiastic applause, for the piece had been quite exquisite. I was vaguely surprised to see our young musician blush and look embarrassed at the attention his piece had brought, and on closer inspection I could see that he was only a couple of years younger than myself; perhaps twenty or so.

"That was truly beautiful." I said as an introduction.

"Thank you." Came the almost inaudible reply and then he glanced up at me through a stray lock of black hair and gave me a shy little smile, his full lips seeming to hint at a whole new land of promise.

And as simple as that, for the first time in my life, I found myself attracted to another man.

I suddenly realized I was staring, and I could feel the heat of an embarrassed blush begin to creep up my cheeks. Looking away quickly, I ducked through the door of the hostel. Closing the door, I stood for a moment in the dark hallway and waited for my heart to slow its rapid tattoo against my chest.

What had just happened?

Right then, I wasn't so sure I wanted to know and so I tried to drown the unexpected feelings in normality.

I had been to the hostel many times before when 'real' life was getting a little too intense and I needed to escape for a few days to feel even vaguely human again, so I knew my way around.

I turned left in the dark little hallway and entered the main room. The large window on my left shone beams of dust filled light onto the large Celtic mural on the opposite wall. The mosaic had been painted a few years ago by a Canadian lad who acted as warden for a couple of seasons. He had used common house paints but, with an artist's eye for detail, he had positioned it perfectly so that the sunlight brought its vibrant colors to life throughout the day and late into the afternoon.

The room was small; just large enough for a couple of old wooden tables that would accommodate ten people, twelve if you moved them to make use of the ends. Benches of the same dark, weather-beaten wood lined either side. In the center of the gable-end wall, opposite the door I had just entered through, sat a little pot-bellied stove, known in these parts as a squirrel stove because of the design on the small furnace door, it was probably the original from the thirties.

Today the room was unoccupied, and I quickly checked the small kitchen that branched off from the end of the room at the back of the building. Smiling in anticipation, I moved back out into the hallway and entered the downstairs dorm that was usually reserved for men, although some of the wardens were okay with coed rooms.

There was no sign of luggage visible amongst the tightly packed bunk beds.

My smile widened

Leaving the room, I hurried up the narrow, wooden stairway that dog-legged up to the upper floor. The landing at the top of the stairs held two old porcelain sinks flanked by a couple of well-polished mirrors. The glass in one had a crescent shaped crack running from center-top to the right-hand side.

Turning left, I made my way along the landing. Passing the closed split-door to the warden's living quarters I hung another left and entered the room opposite, which was nominally the lady's dorm. Two rucksacks sat next to one of the bunks.

Our young couple if I was not mistaken.

Taking a deep breath, I returned to the landing and entered the small room situated between the warden's and the lady's dorm.

The room was tiny. A small skylight window in the slanting ceiling barely illuminated it. There was just enough room for a single bed sitting against the wall to the left of the door and a rickety wooden ladder leading up to the cozy little sleeping platform that nestled comfortably under the crown of the ceiling.

This was where I usual slept if I found it unoccupied.

Suddenly, I felt nervous and, to my surprise, a little excited. I could feel a tightening in my ball sack and the end of my cock was tingling with a strange sense of anticipation.

With slightly shaking hands, I shrugged off my rucksack and laid it on the bed. Taking a deep, shuddering breath I slowly made my way up the ladder. I already knew his rucksack would be there, but my breath still caught in my throat and my heart beat a little faster when my head cleared the top of the ladder and I saw it sitting there.

A crumpled sleeping bag lay next to the sack, and I found myself wondering if he slept naked. Before I fully realized what I was doing, I had lifted the top half of the open sleeping bag and was looking at the place where I imagined his cock would rest while he was asleep. Then I thought of the many times I had lain up here, before now. The many times, when the lower bed was vacant, that I had lain and masturbated while fantasizing about a particularly cute girl I had been skinny dipping with, upriver.

And here I was now, wondering what it would be like to feel his limp cock resting against my leg as we slept side by side.

Of course, I realized that this was merely an unusual fantasy for me and that is the way it would stay. I had never thought this way about another man before and I wasn't even sure what was causing me to do so now. But, what the hell, it was obvious by the straining bulge in my trousers that the thought excited me. The way I looked at it was, what the hell, no one was getting hurt, so why not roll with it. After all, it wasn't as if I would have the balls to follow through on any of this. Man, even if I had wanted to, I wouldn't know where to start.

"I am sorry. I have already put my stuff up there." The voice was very soft. English learned from textbooks and lilted with German pronunciation.

I hadn't even heard him climb up the noisy stairway, so caught up in my fantasies had I been. But, right at that moment, I was very aware that the bulge of my exited cock must be pushing out from my trousers just about exactly head height.

Now you would think that being caught in such a compromising position would have cured me of my embarrassing bulge, but of course not. With the thought of him being so intimately close to my stiffening cock, if anything, it strained to get harder.

Quickly, my cheeks burning, I scurried back down the ladder and turned to my rucksack, pretending to be looking for something inside so that my back was presented to him.

Gods! Who was I kidding, he would have had to have been blind not to have seen how excited I was!

"Oh, it's okay," I stammered, weakly, "I can take this bed here, if that's okay." Thankfully, my hard-on was finally starting to recede, but I knew that later I would have to find somewhere quiet to take things into hand, as it were.

Close behind me I heard a creak as my companion began to climb up to his sleeping area. "Oh, you do not have to do that, there is plenty of room up here if you would like to share."

I froze for a moment, not sure if I had heard properly or whether my fantasies were staring to play tricks on me. I decided that the best course of action would be to pretend that I had not heard.

I pulled the towel from my sack and said, "Well, I think I'll go for swim. Get rid of some of this grime." Taking a quick breath and fixing what I hoped was a casual smile on my face I turned to take my leave.

And almost forgot to breath out again.

My companion was sitting on the end of the raised platform, wearing nothing but a pair of loose jogging trousers that, for some reason, made me think of the jompurs that you see them wearing in old stories about the Arabian nights. Draped across his naked torso was a thick burgundy towel. His nipples were small, round and hard and it took a conscious effort not to stare at them.

Climbing down from his vantage point, he pushed his bare feet into a pair of well used, dirty yellow flip-flops. "Do you mind if I join you? I was just heading up there myself."

"Not at all." I stammered, trying not to think too much about the fact that I was about to see this young man naked.

Of course, that just made me wonder what his cock was going to look like.

"Cool." He smiled and we headed off for the river.

It was unusually warm for mid-May, but the ferns that lined the little path beside the river were still only mid-calf height. Given another month or so they would have grown taller than an average person's waste and it would be a bit of a battle to go to the rock-pool for a swim, but for now it was a pleasant walk full of the scent of new growth and the promise of long summer days to come.

My new friend led the way along the narrow dirt path that led upstream, following close to the river's edge. The ground on this side of the river was perfectly flat, but on the other bank it rose steeply for about forty feet before leveling off and heading off into an desolate tract of land that rarely saw the tread of human feet these days. Not since the forceful removal and deportation of the clans by the English invader after the last great rebellion of 1745.

Ahead of us you could just make out the muted roar of the double waterfalls that fell about twenty feet into a narrow, lushly green canyon and joined two small rivers together before their final merging with the mother that was the sea. Many a day, one of these falls had proved a welcome natural shower to sweat soaked, weary travelers on a balmy august day.

Just as the little ravine leveled out on the river's western bank there stood two beautiful rowan trees, like sentinels guarding the entrance to the gully beyond. Their vibrant green leaves reaching in joy to the nourishing blue vastness of the sky, while the pale almost luminous glow of their trunks was like beacons calling you to the river.

At this point, the river abruptly fell about six feet creating yet a third, much smaller waterfall that had scooped out a little bowl in the riverbed before tumbling over a line of rocks and continuing its journey onwards. This little wonder of nature had created a small swimming hole that had delighted travelers for generations.

It was almost a tradition that in such a beautiful celebration of nature's wonders, skinny dipping had become the norm.

As I followed my young German companion upstream, my thoughts traveled to that point in time when he would remove his jogging bottoms and stand in naked splendor before me. I found myself watching his slightly swaying hips, the way the material slid across his tight, round buttocks. It was obvious he was not wearing any underwear and I couldn't shake the thought that the way he walked was almost feminine in its sensualness.

Again, I was aware of the engorged excitement of my growing cock pushing against the tightening material of my trousers and I glanced down to see how noticeable it was. While my penis wasn't anywhere near totally erect, it was obvious from the bulge in my pants that I was looking forward to the swim ahead.

I tried desperately to think of something else, anything else, to negate the embarrassment of removing my clothes at the pool to bare my rigid, stiff cock to this beautiful young man and become a figure of distaste in his eyes. But I could not help myself. The simple truth was, that the very thought of being so close to his smooth, naked body was driving me wild with excitement and all I could think of was running my hard dick against his silky-smooth skin.

"So, where are you from?"

The question took me completely unawares and my mind reeled at the sudden change of track before I replied. "Glasgow. And you?"

He glanced back and I tried to casually cover my crouch with my towel although I was glad to realize that, with the onset of the conversation, my cock was starting to lose some of its hardness.

He didn't seem to notice as he looked ahead once more and replied. "I was born in Bremerhaven in the north of Germany, but my parents moved to Ulm, in Bavaria, when I was very small."

So, I was right about the southern accent.

"What do you do there?" I asked for want of something better to say.

"I am an engineering student at the University, it is my father's greatest wish that I should follow in his footsteps when I graduate. He is a very important man in his field."

"And you? What would you like to do?"

He stopped in his tracks, and I almost walked straight into him. Half turning, he gave me that beautiful smile. His head was tilted slightly to one side so that he looked at me through a couple of stray locks of long, silky hair. It was so dark that it shone a deep, midnight blue where the sun glanced off its surface. His eyes of spring green sparkled and danced as he looked me straight in the eye and said simply; "I want to play the flute in wonderful, lonely places and swim naked with beautiful people in small mountain rivers."

I was lost for words and found myself sinking into those eyes as I wondered if he was including me in that statement. Before I could think of a reply, he had turned once more and continued to walk upriver. Had he just been flirting with me or was it simply wishful thinking on my part? Shrugging, I fell into step behind him.

We made the rest of the trip in companionable silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts and it wasn't long before we were climbing down the shallow riverbank, under the shade of the Rowan trees.

About twenty feet upstream from where we stood on the edge of the swimming hole, the river happily tumbled and fell over a small serious of rock ledges before abruptly falling for about five or six feet into a natural, almost perfectly rounded bowl. Here the water circled lazily before moving over another line of barely submerged rocks and continuing its briefly interrupted journey to the sea.

There was a small stony outcrop of land just big enough for about three people on either side of the stream. Gunter immediately did a little precarious dance across the barely submerged rocks and threw his towel down on the bank opposite me.

"God's, but I love it here." He cried, lifting his arms out to the side and throwing back his head, eyes closed, luxuriating in the mixed delight of the sun's warmth and the chill of the spray from the falls. The water was pure Scottish mountain spring water which meant that, even in summer, it felt cold as ice until your body had been submerged long enough to get used to it.

I smiled at my companion's unrestrained exuberance and delighted at the way the spray glistened off his naked torso. Boy, but he looked good, with his lean, whippet like body, his hard nipples reacting to the feel of the cold spray. He looked as if he belonged here amidst the perfect beauty of the Scottish Highlands.

Suddenly, he laughed and pulled down his jogging bottoms, his sandals being swept aside as the trousers were yanked over his feet and unceremoniously dumped by his towel. Then he stood up in all his naked glory, a huge, delighted smile spread across his face and, with arms wide once more, began to bounce around in a circle to let the spay drift across every part of his beautiful young body.

My eyes, of course, were captivated by his wildly bouncing cock. It was perfectly flaccid, although it seemed almost to be stretching thinly with the violent up and down movements of his little dance. The foreskin was pulled forward, of course, protecting its valuable head from harm, the wrinkled hood pointing out cutely at the bottom, the way foreskins do. As he turned, I got to see that gorgeous penis from every angle as it danced in joy along with him, as well as his almost perfectly rounded, pert buttocks, slightly tanned from exposure to the sun and my own cock began to respond eagerly to the sight.