Tunnel Trauma Part 1

We wanted to tell you all of our exploits but some include people who might sue us. The following is scandalous but the participants have been contacted and given permission provided we change the names.
The central character in this is a tunnel. Luckily there are quite a few tunnels on the canal system so we can hope to remain anonymous. May has two weeks holiday in the summer so we aim for peace and complete isolation traveling for ten of the fourteen days and stopping anywhere that takes our fancy. The journey would include the passage of two long tunnels that are quite claustrophobic.
During the initial wet weekend we stocked up on food. It was a Saturday morning when the fun began. The game of the day was “Holding hands” which you will remember means that we drink well to start and then carrying a bag in one hand we hold each other so we can’t aid ourselves manually. On this occasion May felt it was important that we should be fully unisex in dress.
The obvious would have been to wear jeans but as I’ve told you she is cunning. It was a hot day and so she decreed shorts and a T–shirt for both with sandals below. The T–shirts she chose were the enormous ones used to go over a bathing garment and reaching almost to the knees. Practically speaking she had given us both a dress and absorbent panties.
I’m well into middle age and felt like mutton dressed as lamb but she assured me I looked the part of a wealthy holidaymaker. I was not so sure about the pattern of women’s bathing costumes that decorated my T–shirt but in the ensuing escapades it was a minor consideration.
The shopping bags were heavy and it was a long way back to the boat so when we smelled fresh coffee a truce was called so we could stop and savor the first day of the holiday as if we had come to France instead of Northampton shire. Little cups of Turkish with too much sugar whilst watching the traffic go by took up the best part of an hour. The striped awnings outside the pub on the other side of the road beckoned and as we had all the time in the world we crossed over and spent another hour over a pint and a half of a locally prized brew.
Then we had to set off, holding hands, keen to get back since both of us had reached the point of anguish. It is a long dusty road with roaring traffic that leads to the canal bridge. At first we made good progress but the bags were heavy and May must take smaller strides as the moment of release draws on. Her hand in mine grew sweaty and she gripped tighter. She kept looking for a spot to suggest for a break if only to sit and regain her composure. I know the signs.
Poor May, it was not the right road for a prospective piddler, too many people and cars. No grass verges for a walking widdle and no convenient brick walls to stand behind. Her hand held tighter still. She stopped, looking at me with wide–open eyes that I can never resist. “It’s continuous now, I’ll only manage as far as that junction ahead and after that it’s just guesswork, and please let’s find somewhere to go. You can count it as a victory if you want.” That’s how she gives in and I know that her limits of endurance have been reached. For a reason I haven’t understood it is always my job to find a solution to the “I must piss now” order.
Here I was completely at a loss, doubly so because there were two of us up against the limit. You can’t walk up to a complete stranger’s front door and ask to use the loo. You get arrested for peeing in the gutter; there was not even a quieter side street in view. I calculated on nearly a mile more to walk.
The only factor in our favor was that the pedestrians were sparser. “How brave are you, lovely one?”
She looked suspicious, saying, “about as brave as you.” I made up my mind.
“Right we shall carry on walking briskly and if we pee then we pee but we shall pay no attention to it. Are you game?”
“What, you mean just act as if it was normal to walk along a suburban street pissing to keep the dust down?” She does have a way with words sometimes.
Holding hands now to keep one another’s confidence up we set out on our foolhardy mission. After a moment’s progress May started to giggle. “I’m squirting with each step”.
I glanced across, “Nothing shows”. Her confidence increased and she began to hum a tune, which is usually a bad sign, but it was the Star Trek theme. “I’m boldly going,” she muttered.
That started me laughing and I could not control the tap for some moments so I was the first to leave drips on the dry causeway. To even the situation my drips caused May to giggle again and she joined the dripping parade. It was no good trying to hold on any longer.
Murphy’s law says something like, “if something can go wrong it will.” Murphy’s law came into action. A group of youth came bounding from the driveway of a house in front of us. May squeezed my hand “What are we going to do?”
“Just walk on and ignore them as if everybody left a trail behind them.” What else was there?
I wish that I had not glanced behind us at that point. The trail showed clearly on the ground. Perhaps if I had kept silent and not told May, the idea was to pretend we were deep in conversation as we passed the group so that they would not give us a second look. Perhaps many things would have been better but May looked back to see the tell tale marks. The youth, all five of them looked as well. We went by averting our gaze but their silence told us that they were watching us intently.
A few yards past one called out something unintelligible but we strode on in silence. May asked if I was still “draining off.” I most certainly was and would probably continue for some time yet. We passed two more people neither of whom noticed anything untoward. At least they certainly showed no sign. With the long T–shirts our folly was fairly well covered, better in May’s case than mine due to the point of exit being lower. The front of mine had a growing patch on it.
So we reached the safety of the canal and there, leaning against the bridge, was Nathan from Swindon. We had met him and AnnaMarie the previous year on a boat and they had enjoyed it so well that they were having another trip and saw our boat tied up. “Still at it I see” was his opening remark.
In our pleasure at seeing him again we forgot all about the indignity and talked happily all the way back. AnnaMarie saw us coming and stood on the cabin roof waving. As we approached she put her hands on her hips, opened her legs and gushed. We fell about laughing as she hopped down and embraced May. To be fair she wasn’t wearing much to get wet. A little bikini on a small girl doesn’t leave much to the imagination when it’s fluorescent green and yellow is well damped down.
We knew that the next couple of days would be wet ones whatever the weather.
Setting off that afternoon in glorious sunshine both boats made good progress, which is more than could be said for the crews. It was a long stretch without any locks. The crews, AnnaMarie and May settled on the roof of the cabin on Nathan’s boat and worked their way through a couple of bottles of sweet white wine whilst us skippers stuck doggedly to our navigational tasks. We were sober citizens, no childish wetting games for us. On the other hand the girls were letting their hair down.
For the first hour they chattered, becoming more and more animated as the level in the bottles went down. They began to greet each passing boat more effusively; they even took to greeting the ducks and the dog walkers on the bank. By four they were giggling uncontrollably at anything. Pausing to whisper then going off in fits of laughter.
From time to time Nathan would turn to look back at me and raise his hands as if to say, “What can you do with them?” If anyone has seen the little Belgian statue of the “mannikin pis” they would recognize AnnaMarie’s pose when we slid through the grounds of a country park. May’s attempt to recreate the picture we had once tried to mimic on film of Aphrodite in the sea shell was not quite accurate but it made me wonder if the original had been desperate to pee at the time, she is after all holding her crotch– though not as lewdly as May managed.
Sensible May surfaced when the bottles were empty. She insisted on copious quantities of water to avoid the hangover. They were playing “hold it” by now and had spread themselves in the sun, eyes closed, hands on crotch. Here we arrived at the only lock. We sensible and responsible skippers skillfully guided our craft into the lock and waited for the crew to operate the mechanisms. The contrast in behaviors brought tears to the eyes of the assembled watchers as the girls did everything wrong. They wound the handles the wrong way. They lost their footing when pushing the gates. As the lock eventually filled up the sound of rushing water added interest to the spectacle.
AnnaMarie in a bikini is a real eye full. We all enjoyed the sight. Knowing what agonies she was undergoing to retain her self–control improved the experience for us all. Being comprehensively drunk they made very little effort to disguise how much they wanted to pee. A Mr. and Mrs. Waddle conducted a hire boat waiting to come down the lock. That’s what they said. “And we’re the little Miss Widdles,” bellowed AnnaMarie, taking mincing steps along the lock side.
Both hands to her groin May wailed, “Oh stop it please. I don’t want to make a complete fool of myself.”
“You already have. You’ve nothing to lose, nor have I.”
The girls’ final task was to shut the gates as we left the lock. That was what normally happened, but on this occasion they might have worked out that it was unnecessary since a boat was waiting to enter. When it was pointed out they reopened the heavy gates, apologizing rather too much for their mistake. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Waddle, we never saw them again, if we had they might have gone the other way. Being silly in public has a limited attraction if you are not part of it.
“Lets keep Robert company for the rest of the time,” they said as we left the bemused spectators. They were not much use as conversational companions. Their only topic was the need to let go of their wine and water.
The afternoon slipped into evening as our boats mumbled their way northwards. Bit by bit the girls became quieter and in due course they fell asleep. AnnaMarie had drawn her knees up as she lay on her back and was sound asleep within minutes. The two of them lay, head to the bows in line, with May’s feet a little way off the back cabin edge.
Soon after falling asleep AnnaMarie’s body started to relieve itself of its water ballast. I watched fascinated as the rivulet made its way down slope towards May. It trickled by her ear and under her shoulder. It never reappeared because her T–shirt soaked it up. May stayed asleep. How she contained the volume of her own input I can only guess.
Waking some hour or more later she sat up rubbing her face. A cool breeze on her back told her there was something unusual afoot. It made her turn and see the sleeping AnnaMarie and a large damp spot where she had been lying. She pulled the wet shirt off her back and leaned forward to take it off. As she did so the pressure within told and she looked down between her legs.
“Oh Robert look what I’m doing!”
I had been looking for over an hour expecting something and now the moment had arrived. Her shorts had their second bath of the day.
“Am I disgusting or what? How can you cope with a woman who does this?”
She wasn’t really very upset so I turned it into a joke about swabbing the decks. Not really expecting any further developments I was amused to see that she sprang into action with the mop, sloshing canal water all around and soaking AnnaMarie in the process.
The two of them had escaped the hangover but were somewhat quiet, not feeling 100%. We tied up before 7 that evening and AnnaMarie made good use of her bikini by swimming up to her own boat.
Separately we finished the day over a ludicrously inappropriate Steak and Kidney Pie on our boat and on the other they had Pasta and Cappuccino, as Nathan said, “Anything with P’s in it.” So where does the tunnel come into the story? It comes in here because we had tied up at the entrance intending to spend the first hour of the next day underground.
So, why tell this entire story beforehand? Firstly, because it’s wet but secondly, because it explains why we were together and indirectly explains why we had a problem the next day.
— ––
Robert chickened out of writing this bit so this is May reporting.
He is never embarrassed but I’ve found a weakness. He is like all the other canal people, he will insist on talking about his boat engine. It bores me rigid. He thinks its the cat’s knees, the business, I think it’s a baby; if you don’t feed it right it makes an awful noise and if you forget to feed it the thing stops. Here goes with the explanation of why it stopped in the tunnel.
You would think from reading these stories that we never fell out and that is almost true but I do have great trouble with him. He thinks he’s too old, in fact he thinks he’s a dirty old man. I’m not going to have anyone saying my favorite friend is a dirty old man, not even him. His precious engine stopped in the tunnel because he was watching AnnaMarie and I pissing it up instead of looking at the dials. If he had been less interested in my wee he would have seen that he had run out of cooling water. Goodness, I’d have peed in his engine for him if I’d known. When the panic was over he kept on saying he was just a dirty old man and if he had watched the dials on Saturday he would not have just started up on the Monday morning without putting it right.
As I’ve said we set off first thing on Monday and went straight into the tunnel. Pitch darkness with a tiny speck of light in the far distance and rivers of water cascading from the roof every so often. You can touch the walls on either side and with no effort you can touch the roof as well. It’s quite frightening. If we had gone straight through, it would have taken a bit less than an hour. As it was, we had reached less than half way when there was a noise like a banshee in labor and the engine stopped.
An automatic warning had gone off to say the engine was boiling because it wanted a drink. Nathan was coming along behind us and had to stop as well. Robert soon knew what to do in order to put things to rights. Fetching jugs of water from the kitchen, sorry–the galley, I passed them to him while he trickled them into its bladder. The operation took a good twenty minutes after which the super high–tech metal monster got under way again.
Robert was in a poor mood when we came out into the misty morning light and he insisted on stopping immediately to cosset the beast. I left him to it and helped Nathan and AnnaMarie with another bottle of wine. Judging by past experience I deemed that he would have recovered his good humor within the hour. So when I returned it was a bit of a blow to find him feeling sorry for himself with the dirty old man syndrome and I had to give him a severe talking–to.
The others came along to find out what the delay was. We had a private conference and agreed that a good piss would give us back our happy sailor. Just what game could coax him? Nathan was looking at the map and he pointed out that in an hour or two we should arrive at the interestingly named village of Weedon. “There’s got to be some mileage in that. Let’s all have a drink and hold it till we get there. The first to leak gets weed on?” AnnaMarie was a real enthusiast.
I reminded them that if Robert lost, it would remind him of our first encounter when he was stapled to the ground and weed on by a group of irate girls. My own idea eventually took root. The drink always starts our games so perhaps we could persuade him to take some wine with his water. Then at the village we should buy some postcards for the various relatives and before going back to the boat ensure that Weedon itself was weed on in a suitably novel way. Each of us should think of some curious or outrageous manner of leaving our little blessings on the village. Robert loves that kind of challenge; variety is the spice of life, he always says.
Once AnnaMarie takes up an idea she is so excited by it that everyone is involved. Her dedication to the project soon lifted Robert’s spirits. He even volunteered to let me steer the boat while he went to work on another bottle of wine with Nathan.
Another hot day was well advanced by the time we set off. Beyond the first bend the canal came out into broad sunlight from the cutting that led to the tunnel. There we saw a boat with four girls lounging about topless. Anna Marie raised an eyebrow at me in question. It’s not something I ever tried before in public, as I’m a bit big at the top. This day had a different feel to it and I smiled, shrugged, and in a single flick my shirt was off. A brief hesitation before unclipping the bra and I set back my shoulders determined to “put on a brave front.”
Never having been oversupplied with personal confidence this was a big move for me. A chance reflection in the wheel box window helped a lot. I was indeed deep– chested but the shape was quite acceptable, at least as attractive as the page three models plastered over the canteen walls in dispatch at the plastic factory. Needless to say, AnnaMarie had no qualms as she has an altogether pert little body.
We stood side by side with me steering, captain of my own ship and, dare I say it, quite proud of myself. At the next bridge Robert waved to us that he was leaving another bottle of wine on the towpath for us to pick up as we went by. Anna Marie seized it and before long we had forgotten the tunnel. Indeed it was something of a rerun of the previous afternoon.
This time us girls were in charge of one of the boats and while our men folk were doubtless talking nonsense about engines we concentrated on serious matters like seduction. The talk became more intense until we dared each other to go the whole distance bottomless as well as topless.
It was not as bold as it seems for we stood inside a wheel box but there was just enough of a thrill to make it enjoyable. The little boys dangling over a brick bridge were clearly full of praise for our move. Games do have a habit of growing with practice and this one evolved into us alternately taking turns all around the deck. Nothing to it when you are passing fields of turnips but when the rules alter to require a trip around the boat at each bridge… There comes a time when its my turn and I can see a crowd of people going from a car park to a pub at the other side.
This was a bit much and even with too much wine inside I showed grave reluctance. Anna Marie seemed to be very understanding, but was she?
“I’ll go if you go at the next one!”
She can’t have known what the next bridge would be like. As she made her way out of the wheel box into the full glare of the public gaze, just as nature made her, a screeching sound told that there had been some sort of road accident and all the people looked away from the boat. She was out, round and back before anyone looked. A cheer from the pub garden told us she wasn’t completely unnoticed– but by then it was her back view.
I was very gratified when the boat motored by and the shout went up, “there’s another” followed by a round of applause. We grinned and giggled at each other, turned to face them, hidden from the waist down and blew them a kiss. That was the peak for me.
The next bridge…
Some bridges pass over the canal and the walkers don’t know it, and there some bridges that are in the middle of nowhere. A few bridges are local vantage points. The most common bridges are very narrow with a footpath almost at water level and so tight a fit that you cannot use one deck of the boat till you have gone through. My bridge was this sort. The local kids were using my bridge as an illegal swimming stage.
All sorts of thoughts went by in a trice. It’ll be called soliciting; a newspaper will get hold of the story of a naked woman disporting herself to the detriment of the moral standards of Britain’s youth. What actually happened was that a ten year old boy dove into the canal the moment after I had set off for my quick turn round the deck and Anna Marie had to stop the boat till he had got out with the result that I was back in the wheel box by the time we went through. A girl looked wistfully at me as she stood like a little clothes peg and said to my face, “I wish I was as beautiful as you.”
Enough of this I hear you say, where’s the wet bit? It comes…
To be continued in Part Two.
Robert and May