They had met, as men sometimes do, in the pub. It had been a casual conversation at the bar but when Tony had popped in again the next Saturday, he had found himself talking to Dennis Matterson again. Tony was a newcomer to the village who had moved to the country on retirement. It had always been an ambition to leave London town and retire to the country and had rather expected to do it with Del. That, though, had been a sad story and he had moved alone in early bereavement. So sad given the plans they had had and more. The children, grown up of course, had said he should not make the move, but he had carried it through. Perhaps because that was what Del and he had planned to do together. It was not quite what he had expected. The country was very different from the town and it was more difficult making friends than he had thought.
Dennis had lived in the village for years. He was not a widower, but his wife had walked out on him. Odd, after thirty years, but these things happened.
The two got on very well and became both friends and drinking buddies. What was odd about them, and this was not something other people knew in the village was what they did for sexual release. They were not gay, not one bit of it, yet had become wanking buddies as well as drinking buddies. 'Needs must...' perhaps; had either been in a relationship it would most likely not have happened, but they were not.
It had come about from an innocuous question from Dennis, "What do you do for sex these days?"
Tony had laughed, "Come off it. What'd you think? Like being back at school really."
"Magazines? Your own hand?"
Tony had laughed again. "Bit too personal really but, well, not Mayfair and Men Only these days... well I have reached for the top shelf once or twice - not in the village, though."
"Not with old Mrs. Jenks watching. You can imagine her gossiping about it."
"Does she have such things on the shelf?"
"No, of course not! I've some Continental mags if you want to borrow though."
Dennis's magazines proved quite strong stuff. Not simply girly magazines with lots of pictures of posed girls showing everything, but plentiful copulation, fellation, cunnilingus, sodomy... you name it. Most things were there and often very well photographed as well. Tony exercised his penis thoroughly as he leafed through - night after night; for days, actually. It was not quite the twenty-first century; it was not the time of the Internet; things were different then; quite a bit different. The magazines were rather educational, in rather an odd way. They certainly opened Tony's eyes a little wider than they had perhaps been.
Tony was suitably grateful next time they met, "Thanks."
"Enjoyed them?"
"Quite a few times!"
They had laughed. It was all done circumspectly. The wanking word was not mentioned. They had alluded to what they both did, Dennis had offered wanking material and it been accepted, but they had not actually gone as far as to talk about what they did in any detail. Men don't - normally.
The spring came, and the two men agreed it would do them good to get out and take some exercise. Walking seemed a lot more palatable than running and neither really wanted to dress up in Lycra and speed across the countryside shouting at each other on bicycles.
It was good to meet up and head out with the prospect of a day's walking and that all-important pub lunch. Sometimes circular and sometimes linear with a return by train or bus more often than car. They got well into the whole idea, taking longer and longer walks, enjoying both exercise, company and the beer.
It was a glorious sunny, early July weekday when they set out on one walk which took them, as sometimes happened, by a river. It was all so pretty with the trees fringing it and the gravel of its bed showing clearly with the occasional trout swimming lazily. It was lovely, the weather hot and the water looked very inviting to the two walkers.
"We could have a dip," said Dennis.
"Tempting, tempting. What they call wild swimming these days, apparently."
"Or what we simply called 'swimming' as boys. I used to swim with my friends in a local river. Parents never knew of course. Must have been I suppose ten or eleven. Four of us used to go into it and swim around. We had a rope tied to a tree and used to swing out and let go."
"Splash?"
"Yes, a heck of a splash. Such great fun. Used to swim across the river up on the bank and pretend to be explorers or something."
"Sounds like it was good then. Well, I'm game. Let's take a dip."
The men undressed. They were not wearing a lot to start with. Dennis paused at his boxers. "I'm not getting these wet and we always swam naked as boys." So down they came.
Tony was momentarily surprised seeing his friend standing there naked on the riverbank. "I suppose we are all men together," and then joined him.
"We were all boys back then. We'd have hardly wanted girls along. That was a much later interest! Different now I suppose."
Tony smiled, "well that might put a different complexion on the whole idea of a swim."
They looked out at and across the river. Birdsong, bees buzzing and the trill of the moving water but nothing else, not even a hint of traffic in the background. It was such a lovely warm day and the riverbank was quiet, peaceful and almost idyllic.
The two men stepped down into the water and walked a little way across the gravel, feeling it under their bare feet, to where it was a bit deeper and began to swim. It was lovely, cool and so refreshing on a hot day. Good to swim and drift a little downstream with the current. Perfect really and once in the water not a bit strange, really, to both be naked together. They did not go far. Their clothes were not exactly on show and it was pretty unlikely anyone would come along, but they neither wished to leave them too far away nor get so far as to find it difficult to find them again. That would be just a bit of a problem!
Dennis swam to a gravelled beach on the inner curve of the river, the other side from their clothes and got out, closely followed by Tony. The two men sat enjoying the warmth of the sunshine as, whilst it had been good to swim, the water was quite cool.
"I didn't expect to be doing this. Sitting stark bollock naked with you on a riverbank when we first met in that pub." The mention of 'bollocks' caused both men's eyes to instinctively drop. Two pairs of ballocks were very much there in the sunshine, and, also, the other things. 'Lolling' would have been a good description. "This is all very natural. At one with nature, I suppose."
"We were like that as boys," commented Dennis. "I remember us smearing ourselves with mud as war paint or as camouflage and creeping around in the wood in bare feet and bare everything else. Great fun, great games. Sticks as spears or guns. Happy days, as they say."
Behind them, through bushes and trees the faint sound of a girl's laughter. Their heads turned.
"Not as alone as we thought. We'd have hated that. Girls, urgh!"
Tony smiled remembering his own young boy view of girls, "yeah, urgh!"
Their view of girls, as grown men, was rather different. They sat with ears cocked in the direction of the sound. They were not on a footpath: just the bank of a river. It seemed very unlikely anyone was coming towards them. Even if a footpath did indeed go past them it did not seem close. They could sit there unobserved as the girl or people went past. There was no immediate need to slip into the safety or modesty of the river and swim away. The laughter heard twice did not seem to be coming any closer.
"I wonder what that's about? You game for going to take a little look."
"Like this?" Tony frowned.
"We can retreat to the river easy enough, be like playing as boys again. Playing spies."
"Naked spies?"
"OK, Red Indians then."
"Should have loin cloths."
"Perhaps some didn't. Naked savages then!"
"Do we pick up sticks as spears?"