The Wilds and the Wets - Part 1

Don’t ask me how it happened, because I just don’t know. I’m a city boy, born and bred, you see. I go clubbing. I go to football matches. I work out at the gym. But I don’t, never have, and never will “do” the countryside. I’m just not made for it– you see? And it, most certainly, is not made for me.
The problem, though, is that from time to time a girl floats into the life that thinks the city stinks and the country is where it’s at. Whereas, of course, as far as I’m concerned it’s the country that stinks (literally, in many cases: I mean, have you ever actually smelled a pig farm or a stable yard?) and the city is where it’s really at. If we can only agree to differ on this, then I guess it’s possible that we might manage to rub along somehow. But the thing is, these wretched rural types just won’t agree to differ, will they? They’re worse than evangelical in their insistence that if only you’ll try them, and give them a chance, you’ll come to like doing the same things they enjoy doing. And the result is entirely predictable. Sure as eggs are eggs, you’re going to end up filthy, wet and miserable.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m a tolerant guy, as open–minded as the next man. And if you get off on getting filthy, wet and miserable then that’s fine by me. You go and do it and enjoy yourself. But I don’t, see, and I never will. So just include me out, okay?
I finally realised that the countryside and I were never going to see eye to eye when I was dating Caroline. She was a farmer’s daughter, as “country” as they come. She insisted on teaching me to ride, so that we could “go out on long hacks together”. A “hack”, I later discovered, was a ride through the country to the arse end of beyond; and when you arrived, all saddle–sore and knackered, at whatever Goddamn place it was you’d ridden to, there was nothing actually there, and nothing for it when it started to rain (as it invariably did: we are talking England here, you know) but to grit your teeth and ride back to where you started; getting wetter and wetter as you went. It was a thoroughly miserable experience; and on arrival back at the stables the ground was so wet and slithery that I invariably slipped and fell into a pile of I don’t know what. So there you have it: filthy, wet and miserable, once again!
What’s more, Caroline wouldn’t even let me go and get myself a dry change of clothes and a hot mug of tea. Oh no! First I had to see that the damn horse was all nice and dry and cosy in its bloody stable, all nicely wrapped up in its rugs and blankets. And of course, while I was putting these thing on, it was almost bound to slobber all over me, or fart just as I was trying to do up the leg straps behind its arse. Or even … no, we won’t even go there. And then, just to add insult to injury, there was the sudden realisation that my horribly expensive white breeches, having got thoroughly soaked through, were now almost totally see–through, revealing my bottle–green underpants. Caroline found this hilariously funny, for some reason. She, however, was wearing purple corduroy jodhpurs which, despite being as sodden as my own breeches, nevertheless remained completely opaque, giving me absolutely no idea what knickers she had on underneath.
Naturally I cried foul, and said that I would never get on a horse again. Which was all very well until November came around, and I was more or less ordered to accompany Caroline to the opening meet of the hunting season. She told me that if I didn’t want to ride I could always “follow on foot.” I reluctantly agreed, little knowing that “following on foot” meant fetching and carrying drinks and sausage rolls for all the riders before they set off, being jumped at and slobbered over by half a dozen of the most enormous dogs you’ve ever seen (I don’t do dogs, either: did I tell you that?) and then finally being bundled into an ancient and thoroughly unroadworthy 4×4 driven by some chinless drunken sot of a Young Farmer who insisted at pounding along these pot–holed, rutted cart tracks at breakneck speed, all for the dubious pleasure of enabling me to hold open a rickety old farm gate which had dropped on its hinges and weighed a ton while a hundred odd riders galloped through yelling “thank you awfully” over their shoulders as their horses’ hind hooves showered me with liberal doses of mud, water, and whatever else happened to be lying on the ground near the gate. Before very long I was – you’ve guessed it – filthy, wet and miserable. Like I say, that’s the way things are in the country, and it’s not for me.
Needless to say, my relationship with Caroline, such as it was, did not last. I understand she later married the hunt master’s son, and is now blissfully happy with a stable full of horses and a kennel full of dogs all of her very own. Well, good luck to her– is all I can say. She’s welcome to it!
But, back to my story. After Caroline, I swore on my great grandmother’s grave that it would only be city girls for me from now on. Girls, that is, who liked clubbing, eating out in restaurants and taking in a West End show. Girls who liked to have concrete and asphalt under their feet, and for whom “a quick ride” meant nipping upstairs and removing our clothes. Girls who had absolutely no use for a dandy brush or a hoof pick, and wouldn’t even know what one was if they sat on it. (If the image of a girl sitting on a hoof pick disturbs you, then do please feel free to substitute a whip, or a shit–shovel, or a lead rope, or any of the other weird and wonderful items to which Caroline introduced me, and whose acquaintance I would far rather never have made in the first place!) And when I met Fiona, I really and truly thought that she was just such a girl. In this I was mistaken; but I did not discover my mistake until I was too heavily committed. So I went along with her plans, crossed my fingers, and hoped.
Will I never learn?
It started when Fiona asked that I accompany her to a dinner party being given by some good friends of hers, Peter and Carol. There were several other guests, about whom I can remember very little save that they all had children and needed to get back home before nine o’clock, because that was when babysitters started charging time–and–a–half in these parts. So by the time the brandy came out, it was just the four of us.
“So,” said Peter, looking across at Fiona with a knowing smile. “It’ll be two–man tents for Scotland this year, will it?”
“Actually,” replied Fiona, “I haven’t exactly got around to mentioning Scotland to Simon yet.”
“Oh, do please say you’ll come,” enthused Carol. “It’ll be so much fun.”
“What,” I asked guardedly, “is Scotland?”
“Don’t you know that?” giggled Fiona. “It’s one of the four home countries of the United Kingdom. Surely you know it? Men wear skirts there, everyone seems to be called MacThis or MacThat or MacTheOther, and I guess it must be where that poor donkey was who caught the whooping cough. Well, that’s what I always used to assume, when I was a kid.”
“Yes, yes,” I replied. “I know all that. But what’s it got to do with us and tents?”
“Well,” said Peter, “it’s like this old bean. Every year for the past five or six years…”
“At least,” Carol cut in. “Although to be honest I thought it was more like eight.”
“Well, perhaps,” Peter agreed. “But anyway, for a good few years, Fiona has come with us on our annual trips to explore a different little bit of Scotland. And we just sort of assumed that you’d probably be coming too, this year, that’s all.”
“Oh do please say you will,” said Fiona. “You’ll enjoy Scotland so much, I just know you will.”
“And tents?”
“Well,” Carol explained, “we’ve always shared a three–man tent before. It’s a bit cosy, of course, and we always had a bit of a giggle. But we sort of assumed that you and Fiona might want to, well, you know … “
“You might want a bit of time to yourselves, if you know what I mean old bean,” Peter finished for her.
“You sleep in tents?”
“Oh yes,” said Fiona. “I mean, you have to really, don’t you. It’s not as if you can just book a room at the Waldorf in Glen Affric, is it? Because there isn’t a Waldorf in Glen Affric. In fact, there are no hotels in Glen Affric at all. Just a little youth hostel which was fully booked, so we were jolly glad we had the tent with us, weren’t we?”
Peter and Carol nodded their agreement and giggled, and Fiona blushed a little, and I guessed that there was something about Glen Affric that they weren’t telling me. I filed this little piece of information away at the back of my mind for later exploration. Right at the moment, though, I had slightly more pressing concerns.
“What about roads?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” said Fiona. “There are roads in Scotland. Just as well, really, as it’d be a bit difficult to get about otherwise, wouldn’t it?”
Reluctantly, with all eyes turned on me, I agreed that yes, I’d go camping in Scotland with them. Just this once, I’d give it a go and see what I thought of it, mind. No promises after that. And that’s when I learned that we were only a couple of weeks shy of their planned departure date, and I had to kiss no end of butt to get the necessary time off work in such a shipwreck hurry. And then came Saturday!
Saturday, when Fiona took me to an Outdoors Activity shop, to “kit me out”; and when I finally discovered what a week’s camping in Scotland with Peter and Carol was actually going to involve. You see, it turned out that we weren’t just going to take our tents along and just pitch them on a fixed site for the week. Oh no, that would be far too easy. What we were going to do was to walk from place to place, carrying our tents, our clothes, our food and everything we might need in these walloping great rucksacks, pitching our tents in a different place each night and breaking camp again next morning before going somewhere else. This did not sound like my sort of holiday at all; but by the time I learned all this I was too heavily committed to back out. I couldn’t bear to lose face at work by not taking the week off after all; and no more could I contemplate losing face with Peter and Carol – never mind Fiona! – by wiping out at this stage and spending the week skulking at home on my own. So I went along with it all, even though I was dreading it more and more with each and every new revelation.
Fiona assured me I needed walking boots, and those ridiculous pole things, a sleeping bag and mat, a waterproof coat so expensive it made me wince, and waterproof over trousers, which were scarcely any less dear. Then there were special lightweight walking trousers in a fetching shade of pale green, a fleece, a platypus (no, NOT the animal – but a plastic bag that sits in the top of your rucksack which you fill with water and drink through a straw as you’re walking along) and, finally, the rucksack itself, which needed to be big enough to carry all of this, plus half the pieces of our two–man tent, my food for the week, all the ordinary clothes (socks, underpants, T–shirts) that I might want to bring with me. I could have cried when the shop assistant rang it all up. My credit card was already maxed out and groaning at the seams, but the transaction wasn’t refused, and I left the shop wondering why I hadn’t just insisted that, for half that amount, we could have had a week for two in Marbella through LastMinute dot com; which would, of course, have been far more my type of a holiday.
We travelled north on the sleeper on a Friday night. Fiona and I shared a twin berth, but there is no way you can have sex in those cramped little bunks. No way you can sleep really, either, what with the train lurching this way and that whenever you come to some slightly dodgy track work. And believe you me, we have a LOT of dodgy railway track in this country, especially once you get beyond those parts of the network that the editors of national newspapers have to travel over on their way in to London to work. It was raining when we arrived at Inverness, of course, and I suggested that perhaps we should find a nice quiet pub where we could sit by the fire and wait until the weather improved a bit. Peter and Carol just roared with laughter, assured me I was a good egg, and led the way out into the storm. Resigning myself to the fact that this week I was destined, once again, to get filthy, wet and miserable, I donned my expensive waterproof over trousers, zipped up my waterproof coat, fastened the pop studs that hid the zip, pulled up the hood, jammed my hands into my waterproof mittens and followed our friends out into the rain.
By the time we stopped for lunch I was, you’ve guessed it, filthy, wet and miserable. We were in the middle of an evil, black peat bog that stretched as far as the eye could see. Overlying the peat was a layer of heather. And you can put any notion that heather–covered hillsides are lovely, romantic things far from your mind. Believe me, they ain’t. Heather is pure evil– the devil’s plant, no less. Don’t ask me to explain: if you don’t believe me, just go and try walking over a heather–covered hillside yourself, some time. It was still chucking it down with rain, of course. My “base layer” of clothing was clammy with sweat. My platypus was empty and had been for some time, so that I was simultaneously both gasping with thirst AND dying for a pee. I was just about to ask Fiona when we were likely to find a toilet I could use, when Peter dropped his rucksack on the ground and declared “Right – time for lunch. I’m starving!” Somehow the other three all found little rocks that they could sit on. I didn’t. I just sat down in a squelchy patch of peat, and prayed that the waterproof over trousers really were as waterproof as I had paid for them to be.
The other three appeared to be utterly oblivious to the weather. I, however, was not. Now I was no longer walking, I quickly began to feel chilly. And I couldn’t eat my sandwiches with my mittens on; but as soon as I took them off my fingers began to grow numb.
“I could just do with a nice, warm cuppa,” said Carol, delving deep in her rucksack before setting up a little gas burner and putting a kettle on to boil. “Anyone else fancy a brew?”
Now, my bladder had been growing pretty uncomfortable even before we stopped; and getting thoroughly chilled as we sat eating lunch had made it a hundred times worse. Adding a cup of tea to the equation was hardly a good idea; but I was cold, I wasn’t thinking straight, and I reckoned my most pressing need was to warm myself up a bit. So I accepted the cup when it was offered and drank it down with relish. When a refill was offered I accepted that too, and drank it no less eagerly. And then, to my horror, all the others just stood up, re–loaded their rucksacks and looked to the entire world as if they were about to move on.
“Fifi,” I whispered urgently to Fiona. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” said Fiona.
“When will I be able to go to the toilet?”
“Any time you like,” she replied, looking a little puzzled. “You’re not at school now, you know. You don’t need to ask permission.”
I silently cursed the drunken folly with which I had once asked her to reveal her most embarrassing memory, and she had confessed to having once wet her knickers at school when she was four years old. She had, apparently, been completely dry day and night since about eighteen months, or so her mother always thought, and the mere fact of having an accident was embarrassing enough in itself; but she’d have been absolutely mortified if anybody else had found out about it. Fortunately, however, she wore a skirt to school that day, and when it happened she had been standing painting at an easel. The only visible evidence of her little mishap, as she called it, was the puddle she had made on the floor, and she had successfully disguised this by deliberately spilling her jam–jar full of brush–washing water. I was, apparently, the first person she had ever told of this episode. Having told me, however, she went on to ask whether I had ever wet myself at school; and I was forced to admit that I had hated asking to be excused so much that I had always tried to hold on until the end of class no matter how desperate I was, and had “got it wrong” on more occasions than I cared to remember. The last time I had had to carry home a little bundle of wet clothes wrapped in old newspaper at the end of the school day, I had been seven years old and hideously embarrassed.
Okay – so I didn’t need to ask permission to go to the toilet. But where WERE the nearest toilets?
“This is going to sound awfully dumb,” I said. “But, er, I’m not actually sure where the toilets are, you know.”
“They’re anywhere you like,” replied Fiona.
“What?”
“You go behind a rock,” said Fiona, “if there is one. Or you just pee on the ground if there’s not.”
“What,” I said, “in full view of everyone?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Fiona. “You go out of sight first.”
“And you’ll wait for me?”
“Of course,” she said. Then, raising her voice, she called “Peter, Carol – don’t put your sacks back on yet. Simon needs a pit stop.”
“How will I know when I’m out of sight?” I asked.
“Ostrich theory,” said Fiona. “Just assume that once you can no longer see us, we can no longer see you.”
I was, by now, absolutely bursting, and it took me longer than I expected to find a spot where I couldn’t see any of the other three. By the time I did I simply could not stand still. The moment I tried to do so, it felt as if the pee was just going to come bursting out whether I wanted it to or not. So I shifted anxiously from foot to foot and bobbed up and down as I fumbled with the unfamiliar fastenings of my waterproof outer shell.
My fingers were numb as I reached down to find my trouser fly, and the lack of sensation meant that I did not immediately realise that, try as I might, I simply could not reach down below the hem of the long waterproof jacket as far as the fly of my waterproof over trousers. I was going to have to unfasten the jacket first.
I remembered that some of the coats Fiona had shown me had had double zips, which you could unzip upwards from the bottom as well as downwards from the top. This had struck me as a little pointless at the time, and as those jackets had all been at least twenty pounds dearer than the single–zipped ones, I had decided to do without. Now, as my most pressing need was to get the lower end of the jacket zip undone and reach in to find the fly zip of my waterproof over trousers, I began to realise that double–ended zips maybe weren’t such a bad idea after all.
I raised my hand to my throat and scrabbled frantically for the zip pull. Couldn’t find it. Used my other hand, too. Shit, but this was just absurd! Any moment now I was about to start pissing, whether I chose to or not; I needed to get my coat undone in order to reach my fly zip; and I couldn’t find the zipper to undo the damn coat! If it had happened to anyone else I should probably have laughed. But it was happening to me, and I was becoming more than a little anxious. If I didn’t get this coat undone, and soon, I just knew I was going to piss myself. I was on the verge of doing so already and really couldn’t hold on very much longer. Indeed, I didn’t know how I was still managing to hold on now. Quite simply, I could never remember being as desperate as I was now.
And then I remembered – the pop studs! Cursing myself for being so dense, I fumbled with the pop studs one by one, getting them all undone just in time. Only the zip to do now, but – oh my goodness! I could scarcely believe it was happening, but I felt a rush of warm fluid along my penis. I tried frantically to stem the flow, and I succeeded, but not before a little spurt of pee had erupted out into the receptive fabric of my underpants. I froze, concentrating every fibre of my being on the struggle to stop any more leaks, my concentration hampered by the unfamiliar distraction of the spreading damp spot in my pants, against the tip of my penis.
This is bad, man! But I think I’ve got it under control, so I reach for the zipper again. This time it’s there. I seize it with a tangible sense of relief; tug down as hard as I can. I am only a few seconds away from relief now. Just got to hold on for a few seconds more and I’ll be home and dry. Well, home and no wetter than I am already, at any rate. Just the one little leak, which is embarrassing, sure, but hardly the end of the world. And nobody else need find out about it, so it will just be my own, private shame that I wet my pants a little. I am already relaxing, but the zip only travels a little way before sticking. What now? I tug down harder. Nothing! I simply can’t believe this is happening to me, really I can’t. My pants are slightly wet, I don’t want them to get any wetter, but I am about to pee and I’ve still not been able to get in to undo my fly zip. I can’t stand still. I am pressing my knees together, bending them slightly, turning first this way and then the other as though dancing the “twist” very badly.
Velcro!
The pop studs were backed–up with Velcro, I suddenly remember. No wonder the zip won’t move. I scrabble at the Velcro, tear it apart, tug the zipper a bit further until the next patch of Velcro stops it, and repeat the process.
And then, at last, the zipper is undone and my coat is open all the way down the front. And I’m about to pee. Feel another little surge of warmth along my penis. That wet spot must be getting bigger, but I’m in control again, for now. I start to feel across the front of my waterproof trousers with my numb fingers, searching desperately for that elusive fly zip. I need to find it NOW. I really cannot hold on much longer. I shudder. Feel a spasm in my bladder; another little spurt of pee, which I cannot control– much worse than the other too. My pants are not merely damp now: they are wet. My trousers, too, probably have a visible wet patch by now. Good job I have waterproof over trousers to cover them over. But where oh where is that zip? I am so near to having my flies undone and being able finally to take a leak; but I am also so near to wetting myself totally, uncontrollably. Which is nearer? That is the question.
And then I remember. The waterproof over trousers have no fly. I need to pull them down a bit so the waistband is below the fly of my walking trousers. My frozen fingers make one last, frantic effort for me. They get a grip on the waistband of the over trousers. I am able to pull them down half way to my knees. It is enough. I let go and reach for the fly of my walking trousers. The zip runs smoothly and I unfasten it in one, easy motion.
But it is too late.
I start pissing, and there is nothing I can do about it. A strong jet of pee shoots up my penis, soaks the front of my pants, and my trousers (despite the fly being undone). I stand there, paralysed with shock and disbelief. Aghast. Humiliated. I am wetting my pants! It is eighteen years since the last time I did this, and even then the thought that I was really too old to do such a thing compounded the shame of the occasion. I look down. A dark, glistening patch has spread across the front of my trousers and down the inside of my legs. The warm liquid tickles slightly as it runs down towards my knees. Such is the flow that it is erupting out through the fabric of my trousers and splashing as it drips down into the over trousers around my knees with a steady pitter–patter. My sense of shame at what I am doing is total.
And then, after what seems an eternity, the flow comes to an end. But still I just stand there, too shocked to know what to do. I am twenty–five years old, on holiday in Scotland with my girlfriend and two old friends of hers, and I have just wet my pants! I can feel my cheeks flush with embarrassment, and tears of frustration are welling up in my eyes.
How am I ever going to face the others?
What am I going to tell Fiona?
I feel my knees buckle, and I sink to the ground. It is muddy and wet, but I no longer care. I am wet already. And I am humiliated. I curl up in the foetal position and begin to suck my thumb. Maybe if I just ignore the situation it will go away again. Maybe this isn’t really happening anyway. Maybe it’s just a dream Maybe…
“Simon!” The voice is Fiona’s. “Are you alright? Shall I call the others for help?”
“No!” I yelp. “Don’t call the others!”
“But what are you doing down there?” Fiona persisted. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I reply. “Except … “
“Except what?”
Slowly, I clamber to my feet and point to the front of my trousers.
“My!” she exclaims. “What a mess. Don’t tell me you slipped and fell headlong in the peat?”
“No,” I say dejectedly. “Can’t you see I’ve just w…” Hang about! What did she say? Slip and fall? I looked down at the front of my trousers. They are all mucky where I have been lying on the ground; and though it is obvious to me that I have wet myself, it may be less obvious to anybody else looking at the mess I’m in.
“Okay,” said Fiona. “So it begins with a W. Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?”
Oh hell! I’ve blurted out too much already, I guess. And besides which, I have to share a tent with Fiona tonight. She’s probably going to notice the smell when I undress. So I may as well come clean with her, if you’ll pardon the expression.
I took a deep breath and said it.
“I’ve wet myself.”
“Oh,” said Fiona.
“It’s all these wretched zips and Velcro and things,” I explained. “I just couldn’t get them all undone in time. I guess I should have listened to you and bought the coat with the double zipper.”
“But of course you should,” said Fiona. “I’d have thought you ought to know by now that it’s best just to do as Aunty Fiona tells you. Now come along. Pull those waterproofs up, start smiling, and come and rejoin the others.”
“But I can’t,” I protested. “Not like this.”
“Not like what?”
“I can’t let them see I’ve wet myself. It’ll be far too embarrassing.” As if having to tell Fiona hadn’t been embarrassing enough!
“But they won’t see,” said Fiona. “Not if you pull your waterproof trousers back up to cover the evidence.”
“What if it stops raining? Won’t they wonder why I’m keeping my waterproofs on?”
“They probably wouldn’t even notice,” said Fiona. “Besides which, these walking trousers dry out ever so quickly. By the time it stops raining, there’ll probably be nothing but peat stains for Peter and Carol to see in any event.”
“Really?”
“Really,” said Fiona. Then she scrambled down into my little gully and came right up close to me. “Now, slip your hand down the front of my waterproof trousers,” she said.
“I’m really not in the mood right now,” I replied.
“Just do it, okay?”
Fiona can be real scary at times, and right now she was at her scariest. So I just did it.
“Now,” she said, “tell me. Is it wet or dry down there?”
“Dry,” I said.
“Which of us has wet their pants?”
“Me,” I said.
“Wrong,” she said. “We both have.” I could scarcely believe my ears!
“You’ve not had an accident too,” I said. “You can’t have. Your trousers are completely dry.”
“But don’t you see?” said Fiona. “That’s my whole point. I needed to go for a wee a couple of hours ago. I don’t like pulling my pants down and squatting in the rain; and when I’m wearing waterproofs nobody will ever know, will they? So I tend to just do it in my pants. You’re right about one thing, though. It wasn’t exactly an accident. I was in full control and just decided to wee in my pants as we were walking along. Actually, my pants are still a little bit wet; but the trousers have just about dried out already.”
I was lost for words. For some reason I had a raging hard on now; and whereas a moment ago I had felt totally humiliated and far from aroused, now I was feeling as horny as anything. Intrigued to know just how wet Fiona’s knickers actually were, I fumbled for her fly zipper and pulled it down. She didn’t try to stop me; indeed, she gave me a naughty little lustful smile. So I slipped my hand inside and ran my fingertips lightly over the sodden fabric beneath. She gasped and closed her eyes.
“Which ones?” I asked.
“What?”
“Your wet knickers,” I explained. “Which ones are they?”
“I’m not sure,” said Fiona. “Why don’t you take a look tonight, when we’re alone in the tent?”
“Will they still be wet, or will they have dried by then?”
“I’m sure I can arrange for them to be wet,” Fiona giggled. “But you’d better make sure yours are, too.”
“Do you think this rain will keep up until we reach our camp site?”
“I certainly hope so,” said Fiona. “Come on! Let’s get back to the others before they start wondering what we’re up to.”
I slipped my hand out of Fiona’s clothes, and noticed that she made no move to re–fasten her fly zip. Then I followed her back to where Peter and Carol were waiting for us, drawing some little comfort from the fact that they were either going to find out that we had both wet ourselves, or else they would never know that either of us had. So whatever happened, we were both in this together.
… To be continued
By: Indigo