I knew I should never have agreed. Oh, hi, yeah it's me Wolf again. Sameold sameold-a buddy who taught English in Bangkok, to whom I was attracted but couldn't quite read, had intimated to horizontal frolics if I only. Ok, let's back up. Chiang Mai is a large province in the North of Thailand, and it's divided into 'districts', like counties, and one of the largest is called Fang. No, it's not pronounced like the canine tooth of a tiger, more like Fahng with a long British 'A'. It's a farflung district on the Burmese border, quite distant from Chiang Mai city proper, and big enough to have enterprising sorts propose lopping if off from Chiang Mai province and establishing it as a province itself. This never quite happened.

It's largely agricultural, but does have a stretch of mountainous territory near the Burmese border inhabited by the so-called non-Thai 'hilltribes', and was once an area of intense opium cultivation. Was-the Thai got more US government assistance money for acknowledging the Burmese could grow it just as well and 'suppressing' opium cultivation within Thailand proper. No roads penetrated this mountainous terrain and regular transport to and between points within it, aside from on foot, was achieved by a regular aquatic taxi service on 'long-tail' boats which plied the Mae Kok River. The boats' name derives from the curious outboard diesel motor which drives them. The propeller is separated from the engine proper by a driveshaft at least seven feet long, thus the long tail. Skilled pilots can propel the shallow draft canoe-like boats in the seasonally shallow river, managing to avoid sand bars and other obstructions with the propeller on its long drive shaft hardly dipped below the surface of the river.

It was a totally legitimate transport of indigenous travelers and cargo until Chiang Mai's insidious and inventive tourist entrepreneurs got hold of it. It became a necessary 'adventure' for tourists on a visit to Chiang Mai to sit for three hours in a van from the city to the middle of Fang district, and then sit in a rather cramped and uncomfortable long-tail boat for a three hour journey from the district to the provincial capital called Chiang Rai, located about seventy miles north of Chiang Mai city. One saw romantic 'real' mountain scenery passing by, colorful hilltribe sorts in their colorful traditional costumes selling mass-produced colorful crafts at the stops and etc Those not inclined to overnight in Chiang Rai could then bus for three hours back to Chiang Mai, making a fairly long adventurous day.

Then a tourist entrepreneur had a brilliant idea! Why take only three hours on the river, when you could make it last three days? Tourists were enticed to make the river trip on 'traditional' bamboo rafts, which moved at the speed of the river's flow rather than at a nice motorized clip. Everyone was happy. Hilltribe sorts cut the bamboo in Fang, built the rafts, and piloted them down the river to Chiang Rai. They pocketed the pilot's fee, cut the rafts apart, and sold the bamboo in Chiang Rai city. Villagers at isolated villages along the river sold tourists meals, expensive bottles of Singha beer, and more crafts at raft stops. And, the tourist entrepreneurs made money too.

The tourists? No idea if they were happy. They sat on bamboo rafts of dubious comfort, shaded from the sun with a simple tarp canopy, and watched the rather similar scenery, however exotic, slide by at the pace of the river. The rafts had reasonably clever jakes built on the side, where one could perform nature's business over the side with a minimal loss of modesty, and one slept on the rafts with bamboo stabbing the back or at raft stop camps. It was rural, 'real', and etc.

It was the beginning of the Thai 'cold season', when the weather was actually human, and I had a rare collaboration of lunar timing and luck to give me a five-day weekend free from teaching. One of the three truly major Buddhist holidays called Makhabucha (it's all very arcane, the Buddha preached a sermon and some large number of disciples achieved instant enlightenment or somesuch, I'm not sure) occurred on a Saturday, so there was the so-called 'compensation holiday' on Monday to make the three-day weeknd. At the end of that, my visa period expired, so I had two free days free from school afterwards to do my trot across the border into Burma north of Chiang Rai. I could have contrived something truly amusing to do with the time, but my buddy, yes. He inveigled me into signing onto one of these raft trips with him, to take the period of the three-day weekend. I could make the quick trip to the border town for my border trot, how convenient. Rural, we'd fool about amidst the 'real' mountain scenery, yes. So I paid my money to the tourist agency in Chiang Mai and awaited the rustic horizontal delights.

My buddy was to have flown in on the Saturday morning to just make the van ride to Fang, but phoned that Friday afternoon. Some super dysentery or such had struck and he could no more leave his tiny bathroom, than, etc. A quick evening visit to the tourist agency confirmed the fact that at such a late date no refund was forthcoming. I resigned myself to three days of 'real' scenery by myself. I had no other amusing possibilities, and the raft trip was a sizable bit of my meager earnings to simply throw away. I decided to go anyway, after a visit to the AUA library for a couple of good novels and other forms of boredom insurance.

The tour agency had provided an information packet with packing instructions and other data. Following instructions, I took a Chiang Mai taxi to an office close to a sub-provincial bus station where tourists on the raft trip were to take a van to Fang town. The van seated nine in adequate comfort and the trip was scenic enough once the road left the Chiang Mai valley and rose into the mountains separating Fang district from the valley. The van arrived at the van agency's Fang office and the Thai passengers left on their various business while the foreign tourists clumped together to await transport on the next leg of the journey to Tha Torn.

The word Tha in Thai means 'pier', or 'landing', and the small nondescript town of Tha Torn was the site where the speedy long-tail boats took off for their quick traverse of the Mae Kok river to Chiang Rai. I tried to imagine the place as a sleepy village on a small tributary river to no avail. The addition of tourists to the regular Mae Kok river traffic had caused a mushrooming of tourist oriented restaurant/pubs, tacky craft and curio stores, and even a couple of sad small guest houses. The tour group instruction pack had advised rafters to go to a certain pub to wait. I noticed a fleetlet of five bamboo rafts tied up close to the pub. There were almost twenty-five European tourists in the pub, including me, and I wondered which would take the long-tailed boat and which were my fellow rafters. The bamboo rafts looked to be able to accommodate no more than six to seven tourists maximum per raft.

A Thai stood at the front of the pub and announced himself to be the tour group's agent for this 'expedition'. After delivering an obviously memorized spiel on the ethnic and scenic marvels we would encounter, the agent began to call the names of groups of tourists who belonged together for whatever reason. I was sipping my lukewarm cup of Nescafe as the pub slowly emptied and the various groups went to board the rafts. Finally, there remained a group of three mismatched men in terms of age and appearance, who nonetheless were sitting at the same table, and me. The agent called out, "The group of Mr. Colonel Sharpton." As the group at the other table slung pack frames with sleeping bags attached to their shoulders and got up to leave, I sat puzzled. Thais were capable of disastrous mispronunciation of farang first names, but seldom messed up on titles. Mr. Colonel, I wondered? The group trouped out and the agent turned and looked at me questioningly.

"Mr. Wolf Mutsvoll and friend?" the agent called questioningly. I approached him and explained in Thai that my friend was indisposed and I would be travelling alone. The agent relaxed, no mix-ups or lost fares, and replied I would be travelling with the group of Mr. Colonel on the last raft. Thai custom caused first names, and not family names, to be used in formal situations that occasionally bewildered foreigners. I glanced at the agent's passenger list and indeed, in the computer generated box for 'first name' Colonel was written for the passenger in question. I picked up my pack and walked toward the last raft in line of those tied up at the riverbank.

The raft pilot was standing on the bank next to the raft. He looked like a generic hill tribe fellow, wirier and smaller even than the Thais. He wore the baggy pajama pants of a hill tribe traditional costume, a tunic like jacket over a Mekhong whiskey tee shirt, and a balaclava rolled up like a watch cap. He stood impassively next to a few lengths of bamboo laid as a none too stable gangway. I managed to struggle up to the raft with my pack without falling into the mud. I ungracefully dropped my pack and sat down on the bamboo floor. My three fellow passengers for the journey were huddled together at the opposite end of the none too spacious passenger area of the raft. I set about loosening my backpack slightly to get access to my books and other needful goods and noticed covertly that my fellow passengers were eyeing me. I was better at unobtrusive observation than they were.

The pilot set about untying the raft from an anchoring stake pounded into the mud bank, hopped aboard, and pulled in the sections of bamboo that formed the ad hoc catwalk into the raft. Using a particularly long and sturdy piece of bamboo, he pushed the raft into the current of the rather shallow river, and we began to sedately follow the other four rafts in the party.

The sight of the small landing village receding into the distance was not scenically arresting so I opened a copy of Anthony Burgess' last novel, and settled down for a read. The squeaking of the loosely tied bamboo forming the raft's floor caused me to look up and see a member of the party of my fellow passengers approaching.

When he was within a meter of me he smiled disarmingly and said, "seems silly to sit separated like this when we'll be on this thing for the next three days. Hi, name's Kit, Kit Marley." I started slightly. The novel I was reading was about the death of the playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was called by the nickname Kit, and Marley was one of the several spellings of his last name in Elizabethan England. I tentatively shook his outstretched hand. He hunkered down on his hams like an Asian and smiled even more broadly. I said simply, "ah, I'm Wolf, Wolf Mutsvoll."

Kit would have caught my eye in any group as he sported a look that was inevitable to gain my attention-striking blue eyes in a face that was otherwise Mediterranean in complexion and mien. He was attractive rather than handsome. His face protruded somewhat like the head of a large artillery shell. A baseball cap was pulled low on his narrow but rounded forehead, which gave way to a projecting median which centered on a slightly crooked but patrician nose with his blue eyes rather closely spaced on each side. His chin was neither receding nor particularly strong, but simply rounded off the form of his aspect. He had a wry smile, which taken together with his sloppy shaving gave him an invitingly raffish and approachable air rather than looking slovenly. He projected the confident virility of the typical Italian-American maschio.

A loose polo shirt with the tail worn outside and loose drawstring-waist shorts ending at his knees gave little clue of his build or other attractions. His approach across the raft had shown him to possess a springy, athletic step which suggested participation in athletics or regular aerobic exercise. The tuft of wiry dark hair at the throat of his shirt and the manly calves that appeared below his loose shorts hinted at virile attributes I might appreciate if he chose to remove his shirt or shorts, or both.

"I hope we don't seem standoffish," he said "it's just Colonel there doesn't sort of come about until he's settled in a new situation." He nodded over his shoulder at the older man in the group, who was watching the slowly passing scenery over the edge of the raft.

Hoping to disarm any questions about my name and the X-files, I asked, "I was puzzled when the agent called your group in the pub. Does that fellow with you go by the title Colonel or…" my question trailed off.

Kit laughed. "His name is Colonel all right. His parents had him registered at the Virginia Military Institute at birth." I thought of the character Major Major Major in the novel Catch-22 and wondered if I could ask. Kit luckily continued, "he never quite made that rank in the US service, but he's ah…", his narrative trailed off as my question had. "I'll let him tell you about that when we get to know each other." Kit eyed me speculatively in a way I had come to know from a portion of the male populace and said, "anyway, we ought have an all right time on this slow cruise. Do you play bridge?"

His question caught me entirely off guard. "Ah what…?" I asked brilliantly. "Colonel likes to play bridge. You'd make a fourth if you play. Three handed bridge is lame." I recovered sufficiently to say, "I play an all right game. I'd be glad to make a fourth." Whatever Kit was going to say was cut off when a barrel-chested bearded blond fairly bounded across the raft and tapped Kit on the shoulder.

"Hey Kit, Colonel wants to know where you packed his Swiss Army knife." Kit glanced over his shoulder and said, "show some manners, Toby, and meet our fellow passenger. He plays bridge and said he'd join us. This is Wolf," he said smiling, "and this yobbo is named Toby." I was greeted by a brilliant white smile framed by blond facial foliage, and shook his stubby hand.

I was amused by his name, as he looked like he would be comfortable hoisting a Toby jug of ale in a local in Hogarth's London. He was emphatically blond, but a dark blond; his hair had the slightly metallic hue of a Celtic sort, with no coast raiding Vikings wading about in his gene pool. His well-trimmed and styled hair came low on his forehead and was combed back in a retro wave from a pronounced widow's peak. He sported a thick full beard of an identical color to the hair on his head. Its well-trimmed growth emphasized the breadth of his cheekbones and his prominent jaw, which made the lower portion of his face appear larger than his slightly domed forehead. His almost cliché British working class appearance was completed by a pair of light blue eyes and high coloring on his cheek bones. His face exemplified those frequently encountered words in English novels, 'open and honest', and he was more masculinely appealing than good looking.

His build further fulfilled the English bulldog image. He had massive shoulders supporting a broad, muscular chest-not the sculpted pecs of a gym lifter, but simple strong fine muscles emphasized all the more by his receding muscular belly narrowing to a small waist. He looked to be truly hirsute, as every inch of flesh exposed by his tight tucked in tee shirt and running shorts was covered in layers of curling, wooly blond hair. I averted my gaze to keep from staring too obviously. He was assuredly virile.

Kit smiled winningly. "I'll go find Colonel's knife and tell him we have a fourth. That'll cheer him up." He turned and followed Toby across the raft floor to where the Colonel, or Colonel sat. I just shrugged and continued to read.

A while later I was still reading, smugly pleased with my choice of reading matter. I heard a call of "hey Wolf," and looked up. Colonel was standing looking out over the scenery, and Kit was hailing me over with a repeated wave of his hand, sitting rummaging in a pack. I put my novel away and moved across the raft floor to the group. As I approached, Colonel or the Colonel turned around and looked my way.

The Colonel was difficult to classify visually, but he was striking. He had seen and passed the age of fifty for sure, but was obviously a character of power with the demeanor of someone absolutely accustomed to authority. He was not definably handsome, but his weathered face was arresting. Still keen blue eyes peered out from under bushy gray and white brows and his clipped military mustache, that sprouted beneath a defiantly pug nose, was similarly mixed gray and white. His complexion was ruddy, with heightened color on his prominent cheekbones. The thin-lipped mouth beneath his mustache had a set that made The Colonel look like he was constantly deciding something important, and his prominent chin added to the aura of command. His well-shaped crown was covered with a balding white military buzz cut.

His pugnacious image was enhanced by the fact that Colonel was short but massive and well proportioned. He was dressed in drawstring shorts and a tight crew-neck tee shirt. The latter outlined an upper body that would make younger gym rats wonder how to achieve it. His fine broad shoulders topped pectorals that spoke of three angles of bench press in their molded form, and those devolved to firm and rippled abdominals. His arms made me almost ashamed of my own hard-worked biceps, and his well-shaped forearms were frizzed with a covering of dark gray and white hair like the rest of him that showed. The shapely legs that showed beneath his loose shorts would have stopped men cold at the Castro street fair for a look.

Kit stood up and rather formally introduced us with, "Wolf, this is Colonel Sharpton, and Colonel, this is Wolf, ah, Wolf…" "Mutsvoll," I chimed in, "but please call me Wolf." Colonel gave me a thin-lipped smile showing even white teeth, which I'd somehow expected. "And you must call me Colonel, we don't stand on formality here." He reached to shake my hand with a grip that was just short of bone crushing, which I tried to return in a manly fashion as my father taught me. "Kit has told me you play bridge and would be willing to join us. That would be splendid. We've had quite enough of three-handed bridge." He finally released my hand, which throbbed.

Kit finally withdrew his hand from the pack in which he'd been rummaging and held up a pack of Bicycle playing cards. "Bridge anyone?" he called cheerily. Colonel looked at me and said, "let's us two be partners. These scoundrels know each others' moves. What do you play?" I looked at him blankly. "I mean, what conventions do you play? I play Staeman with Jaokovy transfers and a few other exotic things if you know them."

I managed to stammer that I played American standard, as my parents had called it. Colonel nodded, and sat down preemptorily with his back supported comfortably by the edge and wall of the raft. The rest of us arranged ourselves in an uneven square around him. Kit won deal on the cut and dealt. The game went back and forth in score, as Kit had also found a bit of paper and a pen to score with. Colonel stretched while Toby was dealing and wiped his forehead with a cowboy bandana. He looked at me and said, "spent half my adult life in the tropics, and you'd think I would be used to the heat. But it gets me down every time." He then smoothly shucked his tee shirt in one lithe motion.

His tight tee shirt had outlined an obviously sculpted lifter's body, but naked to the waist Colonel was a forceful advertisement for virile mature men. His muscular chest, and the rest of his upper body, was evenly but not heavily covered in dark gray hair. But like a singular snowstorm, the space across his pecs, between his small nipples, was covered with a spread of coarser, pure silver-white hair. A trail of the same traversed his rippled belly and disappeared into the waistband of his shorts. The visual effect was compelling, and he seemed to know it. I had enough presence of mind to bid my hand correctly and was relieved when Colonel bid and got the hand. As dummy, I had the leisure to stare covertly at this specimen. His muscles rippled with military precision beneath his fine fur as he played his cards and pulled in tricks. Colonel's skillful playing won the hand, and at that the second rubber for our partnership. Kit and Toby admitted total defeat, and with a pleasant nod to Colonel, I returned to my own pack and resumed reading.

The sun was going down and the weather cooling, and I wondered how to take a bath on a raft, however slowly moving. Living in Asia as long as I had had made me feel the early evening bath was necessary for being socially acceptable at night. I stood up, stretched, and looking into the distance saw bathing suit-clad rafters leaping into the river and climbing back up on their rafts. That was how one did it. The raft had breaks in the small safety walls on either side so the craft could be conveniently moored on either bank of the river, which provided access for a moving raft bath. I removed my shirt and wrapped the dishtowel-like Thai pakamah around my waist like a makeshift sarong and modestly removed my jeans and underwear and replaced them with my Speedo's. I figured my rafting mates required no such modesty, but there was the pilot and the other tourists. Removing my soap box and little plastic dipping bowl, called in Thai a khan and which was incredibly useful for baths and other aspects of guest-house level travelling, from my pack, I proceeded to the break in the raft wall on one side.

While I arranged my bathing articles and draped my towel over the wall of the raft, Toby called in an incredibly thick accent, "Wolf, whatcha up to, mate?" I held up my soapbox, mimed soaping myself, and set about getting wet. The water was cold, but not unbearably so, and when I threw myself fully in while holding onto the edge of the raft, found the level in the middle of the river was no more that about chest-deep on me. I ducked my head and began to pull myself up onto the raft to soap. As I started to work up a good lather, squatting on the edge of the raft, I noted that Toby and Kit had decided to join my ablutions clad as I was, in brief racing trunks. I thought briefly of throwing myself back into the river to cover a burgeoning hardon that would have shown through my own Speedo's.

Toby led the pair, fairly bouncing across the bamboo floor. With almost all his skin exposed, he looked like nothing so much as a blond explosion in a mattress stuffing factory. On most men, his extreme hirsuteness would have been excessive, possibly unattractive, but on this specimen it was the ultimate hairy turnon. An unbroken dense expanse of blond, curly, wooly hair cascaded and positively exploded down his broad chest, across his shoulders to blend with that covering his arms, and over his belly to the expanse of skin below his navel, ending at his bathing suit waistband. His powerful muscularity, and vibrant good humor showing through his beard and mustache in his dazzling smile made it a singular expression in manliness. He wore his fine pelt like an affable dancing bear.

Kit displayed further the kind of maschione I'd noted in his facial features during our first conversation. He obviously did something positively physical in a gym, but his body displayed the tight, defined musculature of a long distance athlete or a soccer player, not a spa lifter. He had a pleasing long torso and was finely proportioned. His chest and rippled belly were covered with evenly spaced, obviously coarse and wiry hair of such a dark brown as to appear black. He turned and stopped briefly in response to a call from Colonel. I was interested to note he had a sparse sprinkling of the same dark hair on his upper back. Without his baseball cap on, his high forehead gave his face a handsome aspect that was out of the norm of movie star good looks, but was attention catching nonetheless.

Toby positively beamed, "hey Wolf, when we saw you wuz gonna have a scrub, why me and Kit, we thought to join you."

I was wet, half-soaped, and somewhat taken aback at being joined by my racing suit clad raft mates. Toby puzzled me, as his conversation ranged from speaking in a relatively educated English accent to a positive satire of an unidentifiable regional accent that was nearly unintelligible. Before I could say or do anything Toby had taken the soap and my soap box in hand. "Here mate," he said companionably, "let me help you soap your back like. You tall blokes got places what you can't reach all the time."

He then proceeded to lather my back with strong, sure hands that knew more than a little about massage. He grasped the muscles of my shoulders and began to assuredly rearrange them while pulling me close enough so that patches of his profuse chest hair abraded my soapy back. It was a remarkably intimate gesture to pull off in full daylight and in possible view of a portion of our expedition. I found myself getting rapidly turned on, and was glad I was facing out towards the river bank. I glanced quickly over my shoulder, across Toby's blond head, and saw that Kit was comfortably squatting next to the opening in the raft wall watching us with a curious smile on his face. I muttered something to Toby about being sufficiently clean, pulled away slightly and leaped into the river. Toby quite simply jumped in with me.

We landed in the water in a confused tangle and I ended up grasping the edge of the slowly moving raft, to keep from being left behind, with Toby clasping my waist with both arms. Under the cover of the slightly murky river water, his hands were a good deal more familiar that they had been while soaping me. I had gone fully erect in his wet furry embrace, despite the cold of the river water. His stubby fingers massaged my cock through the distended crotch of my trunks and his beard tickled my shoulder as he murmured in his thick regional accent, "thought we had youse read right mate, just thought we'd kinda be sure like."

I had no quick comeback in the situation, what with a blond bear fingering me skillfully in a tight embrace, with his own erect prick nestled in the crack of my ass. He released me so that we were both holding onto the side of the raft. "Now mate, let's let that river water cool us down a bit. You being clean and rinsed like, maybe you'd return the favor and soap me own back." Relieved that the chill water was easing visible signs or embarrassment, I nodded. I glanced up and saw that Kit had gotten wet himself and was calmly soaping himself. Some sort of silent communication passed between Toby and Kit, and he nodded and smiled.

Kit stepped aside as I pulled myself up onto the raft and Toby followed. Kit passed Toby the soap and leaped into the river. Toby quickly soaped his chest, handed me the soap, and turned his back to me while glancing expectantly over his shoulder. I worked up a good lather in my hands, and began to wash up his back, which was nearly as hairy as his chest. It was remarkably erotic, running my soapy hands through Toby's wet blond fur while he positively purred with contentment. I had no idea how innocent our mutual grooming looked, nor cared. I was jarred from my reverie when Kit pulled himself up onto the raft and squeezed past Toby and me to retrieve his towel. He gave us another of his knowing looks, toweled himself briefly, and then walked back to where Colonel appeared to be dozing.

Toby shrugged his broad shoulders and said, "I'm plenty clean mate, getcher self dry and dressed." He nodded towards the front of the raft. "Looks like we's commin' to tonight's mooring maybe." I followed his gesture and saw a village appearing in the distance. The pilot in the foremost raft was awkwardly poling his craft towards the riverbank on which the village sat. As I retrieved my towel, Toby leaped quickly into the river to rinse, and pulled himself out. Grabbing his own towel, he strode to where Kit was dressing and Colonel seemingly still dozed.

I walked to where I'd stashed my pack, dried myself off, and climbed into my own clothes. By the time I was dressed and had secured my pack, the pilot of our own raft was poling for the bank where the other four rafts were already tied up. The pilot of one of the already moored rafts was pounding a bamboo stake into the ground close to where out pilot was heading. He threw a rope to his mate on the bank, who secured the rope and then went to pound in another stake. Secured fore and aft, the raft remained close to the bank.

I was glad the packing information from the agency had emphasized bringing a flashlight, as none of the country we were passing through was electrified. My three fellow passengers were at the exit to the raft, waiting as the pilot placed the lengths of bamboo that formed the gangway. We disembarked. A sign in Thai on the riverbank proclaimed the disorganized spread of houses surrounding a cement typical Buddhist temple as 'Ban Mai', which I translated into the prosaic name of 'New Village'. Colonel rubbed his hands together and looked at me. "The agency packet said we were responsible for our own meal here. The boys have said you're something of a local compared to us tourists. Where do you suppose we can find a meal?"

A building close by had bamboo picnic tables with benches built outside, and a similarly prosaic sign in Thai proclaimed it 'restaurant'. The four of us trooped over and sat at one of the tables. A waitperson emerged from the building, set down a simple kerosene lamp made from a converted soft drink can, and look at us expectantly. No menus were forthcoming, so I asked in my careful official government Thai what there was to eat. I was treated to a torrent of the thickest Northern Thai dialect I had ever heard, and managed to figure out among the words I didn't understand that the restaurant offered the ubiquitous barbecued chicken and side dishes. I ordered a couple of chickens, a couple of the N. Thai 'chili sauces' I hoped weren't excessively hot and the usual sticky rice.

My three companions were puzzled by the viscous mass in a basket that was our rice. Once they figured out how to roll it into balls and dip these into the chili sauces, they found the foreign style of eating amusing. I was reminded of having had no lunch and gladly helped demolish the entire meal.

The Thai Buddhist religious cycle moved according to a lunar calendar, and major festivals, such as the occasion of the three-day weekend, were timed to occur during a full moon. By the time we had finished dinner, the full moon had risen halfway in the sky and the moonlight was so bright in the unelectrified village as to obviate the need for flashlights or lanterns. It seemed that a large portion of the village's Thai population had gone or were going to the lighted Buddhist temple, and I saw a number of our fellow rafters mounting the small hill where the temple was situated as well. Colonel looked enquiringly at me and I simply explained what I knew of the particular importance of the day. "Well," he said rising after we had split the dinner bill, "shall we see what the locals are up to?"

We joined the irregular procession up to the temple. I could hear the sound of a small electrical generator as we approached, and saw the interior of the building was lit with electric lights. While we walked, Toby had put one arm around me in a companionable manner, but massaged my shoulder in a significant way with his strong hand. When we got to the door I saw that the service or ceremony had been under way for some time. Five saffron robed monks were sitting to one side of the large Buddha altar that dominated the front of the building, chanting sonorously in Pali, the ancient language of Thai Buddhist ceremonials. I showed my companions how to perform the triple bow of respect to the Buddha and sit politely with their feet pointing away from the image. We got some approving nods from the villagers close to the rear of the congregation.

After some time, the chanting stopped and the monks made an obeisance to the Buddha statue, copied by the Thai congregants. The other tourists got up to leave, and I noted that the villagers arranged themselves in two orderly lines before two of the senior looking monks among the officiants. These were tying cotton strings around the wrists of the villagers. "Come on," I urged, "it's called sai sin, those strings on your wrist tied on a major holiday like this will insure good fortune." My companions followed me, and the smiling villagers urged us politely to the front of the lines. The monks tied the raw cotton twine around our wrists with the pronouncement of blessings and then wet us liberally in further blessing with lustral water from a basin in final blessing. We got up to go, with several more smiles and nods between us and the villagers still in the temple.

Once outside, there was nowhere to go but back to the rafts. The path led along the bank and we saw that the five hilltribe raft pilots had kindled a fire close to the first raft in the mooring line, where they had made their own meal and obviously intended to bunk for the night. The rafts seemed intentionally somewhat widely spaced along the riverbank in their tying up to afford a measure of privacy.

We boarded the raft and while Colonel and Kit moved to the forward corner where they and the Englishman had placed their packs, Toby stayed in the aft corner with me, next to my pack. He pulled me into a rough embrace and began to caress my back under the tail of my tee shirt. Lapsing into his regional accent he said, "so, seein' as how we's private like wit' the pilot gone like, didja think to join us for more like when we's were scrubbing?" He upped the ante by lifting both the tails of our tee shirts, so that his copious chest hair was abrading my body. I was seriously turned on, but almost burst out laughing. Given the disparity in our heights, his luxuriantly hairy chest and small erect nipples were rubbing me somewhere just above mid-belly.

I responded by reaching down and pulling the tail of Toby's tee shirt about around his neck. While he struggled to remove his arms from it and pull it off, I peeled off my own tee shirt, shed my flip-flops, and doffed the elastic-waist warm-up pants I was wearing. Toby turned to tuck his tee shirt into the waistband of his shorts. When he turned back to me, the effect of the bright argent moonlight on his pelt was remarkable; he fairly gleamed. His grinning white smile parted his metallic colored beard. "Mm, fine one ye've got there, mate," he said reaching for my cock, and causing me to shudder, "come along now and bring your sleeping bag. You'll find us a playful lot." With that he turned and moved to join his companions.

I reached for my still rolled sleeping bag and awkwardly into my pack for the amusement kit I'd brought in anticipation of fooling with my friend, before I followed Toby. I felt somewhat conspicuous with my white nakedness and my erection visible in the bright moonlight. I padded across the small space of the raft. I found my rafting companions had been active. Three unrolled and unzipped sleeping bags had been laid together in a kind of padded area on the bamboo floor, and all three were as my BritBear might have put it, starkers.

Colonel lounged with his back against the raft safety wall with Kit bent over his crotch sucking his cock, and Toby sat cross-legged next to Colonel. The bright moonlight picked out the fall of silver-white hair among the darker fur on Colonel's muscular chest like an illuminated 'T', and Toby shone like a seated bronze idol. "Well," grunted Colonel, "the young Teuton wolf comes prowling. Unfurl your bag, boy, add it to our space and join us." He threw his head back, "easy Kit, we're just getting started."

I quickly loosened and unrolled my bag, unzipped it, and laid it adjacent to the other bags to form a rectangular space. Having done that, I wondered what to do next as I figured with someone like Colonel, even this activity, would have protocols. Toby got up and approached me. His cock was thick, short, projecting upwards and hard, and the head blossomed like a mushroom, thicker than the shaft. He put one hairy arm around my waist, and pulling me to him, bent his head slightly and began to flick his tongue across my hard nipples teasingly, first one and then the other. His woolly embrace, the sensuous scratch of his beard on my chest, and his busy tongue all had me aroused to an almost unbearable degree. When he moved his waist so our pricks grazed each other in the midst of this I simply shuddered and moaned, and my hips bucked involuntarily.

Toby straightened his head and chuckled, "randy young fella, ain'tcha boy?" He pulled me closer and ran the top of his bristling forearm down my back to the cheeks of my ass and rubbed his crotch against mind where my cock was hidden in his thick blond pubic hair. "Mm, quite a contrast ain't we," he nodded at his hairy chest touching my resolutely blond and smooth one, "nice change for us hairy guys." With that he reached up and pulled my face to his, enveloping my mouth with the most lascivious kiss I'd ever received. I quickly embraced him hard and would have pulled him to the soft sleeping bag underneath us and let what would happen, happen when he pulled away again. I groaned in frustration, my cock still nudging his.

He took my hand, and switched linguistic gears to his near-educated accent. "We've four of us and a fine moonlit night m'lad, come along and let's make a group, shall we?" I allowed myself to be led across the small space of the adjacent sleeping bags, where we lowered ourselves next to Colonel. He still sat with his legs thrust out straight, and Kit was kneeling upright next to him. I wondered if there was some esthetic to this. Colonel was short and solidly muscular like Toby. Naked, Kit showed his slender muscularity to advantage. Even his cock seemed to match, as it was long, slim and fine, arched out from his body with a cut head.

Colonel smiled, "ah young Wolf. Has Toby got things started for you satisfactorily?" He asked this question in an almost ironic way and I was unsure how to answer. "Ah, yes Colonel," I replied, "quite well." Feeling a bit bold, I reached to caress Colonel's hairy chest. Colonel took hold of my hand, pressed it to the center of his chest, and then guided it down the white trail traversing his belly to his cock. His cock was thick, and he trembled a bit as I fingered back his foreskin and gently caressed the head of his prick.

It seemed a simple, natural occurrence that we formed a group as Toby had suggested. I slowly knelt over Colonel's lap and bent down to take as much of his thick cock in my mouth as I could. Colonel straightened up against the raft wall as I began to manipulate his foreskin with my mouth and reached over to pull Kit closer to him so he could suck Kit's long cock. I felt movement behind me and briefly interrupted my fellatio of Colonel. Glancing back, I saw that Toby had flopped onto his back and was sliding himself up between my calves to get his face underneath my crouching body. I started and then almost forgot my attention to Colonel when Toby took hold of my ass with his strong hands and pulled to lower my crotch so he could start sucking my own cock. I groaned over Colonel's cock as half of my length slid into Toby's mouth, his bristly mustache tickling me all the time he slurped and sucked me. I almost completely lost it when he reached up to probe my ass with first one and then two of his stubby fingers.

I don't know how long we pleasured each other in a kind of sexual conveyer belt. The only sound was of busily working mouths and an occasional moan of pleasure. Suddenly Colonel released Kit's cock from his mouth and said in a peremptory tone, "lads, I need to fuck."

Toby nimbly scrambled out from under me to kneel upright while still probing and caressing my ass. "Well Wolf, m'boy, since you're the newby here…" he trailed off. "I know," he said looking across at Kit, "let's introduce Wolf here to the fireman's carry."

I was puzzled, but both Toby and Kit moved into decisive action. Kit walked in front of Colonel on his knees and pulled me to him into an almost fierce kiss, while skillfully caressing my cock. I couldn't see what Toby was doing, but felt his fingers probing my ass again, this time with the cool feel of lube being applied. Nearly immobilized between the two of them, I was becoming almost unbearably aroused.

Toby's hand was removed, and the two of them took one of my elbows each, pulled me to my feet, and positioned me with my feet placed on either side of Colonel's strapping thighs, with me facing him. Colonel was looking at the three of us expectantly and slowly applying lube to his rampantly erect cock. "Carry, ho," said Toby, and the two draped my arms, one over each of their shoulders, and then hoisted me into the air in an approximation of the manner of carrying incapacitated people in event of an emergency. However, rather than forming a chair with their hands, they supported me each with one hand holding me under a knee, and the other hand grasping me between the hip and buttock. They then began to lower me slowly over Colonel's crotch.

Colonel supported his cock with one had as Toby and Kit lowered me. They were both incredibly strong and displayed no undue effort in controlling my descent. My first contact with Colonel's body occurred when the two, kneeling by now, had adjusted things so that the thick head of Colonel's cock distended the opening to my ass. He took me or I was taken, as I was lowered over his entire length. "Mm yes, good Wolf, you've got a fine ass there," Colonel half-moaned as Toby and Kit proceeded to raise and lower me over his thick cock. Getting fucked by Colonel under any circumstances would have been something, given the thickness of his hard cock, but this was nearly unreal when the only contact between our bodies was his probing prick splitting my asshole.

Toby and Kit seemed to know the drill well, as they facilitated Colonel's passive invasion of my ass with concerted precision, lowering and raising me with the slow constancy of an oil well pump. There was a certain sensuality in being fucked with the only physical connection between me and my amply equipped fucker was his substantial cock and my asshole. Colonel had his head tilted back slightly, his teeth gleaming in a satisfied smile in the moonlight, seeming to simply enjoying being so serviced. I was seriously turned on by the virile proximity of my stalwart firemen holding me, and Colonel himself. Toby and Kit began to swing me slightly as they lowered me over Colonel's thick cock, which intensified my rearward feelings. I reached out and ran my hands through Colonel's chest fur as I was lowered. At the lower end of a slide, Colonel seemed to come to as he shook his head, "mm, fine work, boys. Why don't you let Wolf here finish what's started and take your own pleasures?"

With a little direction from me, Toby and Kit managed to rearrange me while they lowered me so I ended up kneeling astraddle Colonel's thighs with his hard pole of a cock firmly planted up my ass. I was majorly turned on and decided to surprise the older man by pressing down with my ass, grabbing his head to me, and kissing him as lasciviously as I could manage. I was surprised at how he reciprocated, as we played the tongue dance and he pulled on the cheeks of my ass with his callused hands. I decided a bit of a change was needed. I maladroitly turned while keeping myself firmly impaled on Colonel's cock so I ended up still astride his lap with my back to him. I groaned when Colonel grabbed my waist and began thrusting as best he was able in the cramped position. I surprised myself by groaning loudly, "yeah, Colonel, fuck me good, unnnh." I worried about such outcries with other rafts nearby. Any worries were forgotten when Colonel reacted by awkwardly reaching up to turn my head and pull my face around to kiss me again. Given the position and the difference in our heights, this was difficult.

Preoccupied with my own action, I hadn't noticed what Toby and Kit had gotten up to. This became clear when I made another yelp of noise as a very experienced mouth took most of my cock in and began to expertly suck it. My eyes flashed open in surprise to take in the sight of Kit on his knees with his ass in the air, simultaneously sucking my cock while Toby knelt behind him, fucking him slowly. A smile split Toby's blond beard, "you've been so stalwartly servicing Colonel, me n' Kit here thought you needed a bit of pleasuring yourself." I could only groan in response. The feel of receiving expert head as Colonel pushed on my back lightly to move my distended ass over his incredibly hard prick was sending me over the edge. "Mm, y-y-yes," I stuttered, as Kit did something with his tongue on the head of my prick that should have been outlawed.

Kit's skill at bringing me to the brink and holding off before a climax to the event occurred was near supernatural. In view of my distraction, Colonel had begun assisting by lifting me with his hands under my buttocks, to facilitate his own pleasuring. After some uncounted time at this activity, Toby piped up, "Colonel, sir, I fancied giving young Wolf there a bit of a ride when we were bathing together like. Would you mind swapping lads?" Colonel's bass voice rumbled behind me, "Toby, good fellow, I've had a fine go with Wolf here, but it seems Kit's attentions have confounded him somewhat. Perhaps he could do with a bit of your more vigorous rogering."

I was fascinated at the exchange between Toby and Colonel, discussing switching fuckees between them like a pair of upper class Englishmen. However, despite Kit's attractions and his exceptionally talented mouth, it was Toby I'd wanted to tussle with from the beginning. Feeling slightly put out at being an object of exchange, I nonetheless tapped Kit on the head. He adroitly disengaged his mouth from my prick and himself from Toby's pronging piece at the same time and shifted to one side. I pulled away from Colonel, leaving his firmly erect cock shining in the moonlight and walked upright on my knees to Toby.

It amused me that I had height on him. I leaned down and we kissed salaciously. While I caressed his shoulder curls Toby muttered in a new accent. "Mm, and how shall I have thee, lad?" he asked, running a finger into my well-used ass, "tha' art open and ready." Having used the Cambridge University English listening comprehension test tapes, I decided Toby was on a map of regional accents.

I was in lust. "However we do it I want you facing me," I said. Toby obliged. We moved a space from Colonel and Kit on the spread out sleeping bags. He laid me on my back and had me raise my legs. He knelt upright and held his cock in his hand, probing my entrance and when he had purchase, thrust home to the hilt. I simply gasped. For a small man he was uncommonly well-hung and the girth of the cock pronging my ass was greater even than Colonel's. "Ah yes, lad, a fine ass tha' has." I decided verbally we were in Yorkshire and I was in heaven. Every point of body contact between us was abraded by Toby's fine fur as we fucked.

I managed to urge him closer and he obliged, hooking my knees over his elbows and leaning in closer. I reached up and simply combed his bushy chest with my fingers as he worked my ass like it had seldom been worked, had, whatever. After a while Toby decided to up the ante. He pushed on my legs and lifted my rear bodily, at the same getting awkwardly up from a kneeling position onto his feet. Squatting, he proceeded to fuck me like a madman. I reached up and pulled on the fur on his shoulders as I sort of lost it. The change in position had his prick reaching places that were sending me over the brink. He grunted, "yes lad, I'm about to shoot, you're fine, you are." My teacher's mind registered that 'shoot' was Britslang for cum but this had no importance as I was about to too. I felt that hot rush and suddenly I was spurting all over my chest and Toby's fur, shouting, "I'm cumming!" I only realized when I came to as it were that Toby had been losing his load in my ass at about the same time.

Toby pulled out and sank to his knees again, releasing my legs, and panted. "Oh, lad, that was a tumultuous fuck, that was." I decided after the noise that the other rafters knew what we were about and I didn't care. I'd never even exchanged words with any of them. He flopped down on his side next to me and fingered the cum in his chest hair. "Hmm, you shot without fucking or a blow. As the stupid phrase goes, it was good for me, was it good for you?" I laughed and rubbed the cum into his chest hair. We got up and went to the opening in the raft wall to wash. Colonel and Kit had completed whatever sex had passed for them and were lazing on the sleeping bags.

Toby and I returned and sat down. "You fellows had a noisy time of it," said Colonel, "I assume you consummated things well?" Toby and I just laughed. Colonel produced a bottle of Mekhong whiskey from his pack and we had a couple of drinks, companionably. I suppose it was brazen, sleeping on an open raft as we were, but we sort of laid down together, all four of us like logs in a row. We were arranged on two unzipped sleeping bags and had the other two over us like covers. It was cozy.

I fell asleep next to Kit. I have no idea how long we slept, but was awakened by a cold hand fingering my prick. "Wolf, Wolf, are you up for it? I am." I had no idea what I was up for but my cock quickly leaped into willing hardness under the influences of Kit's caresses. "What do you want to do?" I asked brilliantly. I had the feeling that Kit rather liked the passive role. He replied, "I want you to fuck me."

This idea appealed to me. Having been a double fuckee, being a fucker seemed like turnabout is. I flipped over and ran my hand down his hairy chest. "Is there something about the three of you being like," I fingered a coarse bristly patch near his nipple, "like this?" Kit moved closer to me, which was hard, "I don't know. Toby has been with Colonel in some mercenary stuff in Africa. I just read about him in Soldier of Fortune and kind of joined up. For a bit of adventure, I guess, but I didn't even know he liked guys then. So."

So, we moved in for some serious making out. Kit was remarkably oral, and just sloppy kissing and fumbling had me inflamed. "Let's move to the main event," I said, "how shall we do this?" Kit played with my nipple. "Let's just fuck, the three of us are used to this around each other."

This was fine with me. I found my long ignored amusement kit and got out my lube. I dabbed some on my finger and ran it up Kit's asshole. He quivered as I applied the stuff, and decided this would be all right. I lubed my own cock and then tried to figure out how we would achieve this. The weather was a bit chill and I liked having a cover. Luckily Kit was on the outside edge of the sleeping bag we were sharing. He rolled onto his side and pushed the cover aside to lift one leg. I scrunched over closer to him and he reached back knowingly to guide my cockhead to its target. He shuddered as I entered him.

His ass was quite hairy and I was in heaven. I stroked a bit to get the feel of things and then speeded things up. I was nowhere near the vigorous fucker Toby was, but we got quite active. I started when I heard Colonel's voice at my back, "Are you boys fucking? Ah youth."

We fucked. I have no idea how long I held out, but at last the floodgates burst and I thrust home full to spend myself in Kit's fine ass. I managed to make no noise as I came, but it was a splendid orgasm. Kit had jerked himself as I fucked him and came not long after I finished. We rested a while and went to wash again.

As you may imagine the daytime of the other two days on the raft was taken up with bridge, reading, and other innocent activities. The nights, well. We managed to make most combinations, but Colonel would not be fucked, which didn't bother me at all. Toby was divine to fuck.