Bud Builds a Campground

Bud was working the shower room roofing, corrugated metal sheets. He was finally closing the building, which meant he could proceed with the finishing work inside, tiling, drywall etc. He'd had to wait several weeks for the tin roofing sheets, and while he'd waited, he begun work on the other buildings and structures, setting out foundations and started framing on the bunkies. He'd planned a large gathering of his friends for the community building, a barn raising kind of event but that wasn't for a couple weeks. Today, he planned to complete the work on the roof and begin tiling in the morning. And start his work on the pool for the afternoon.

He'd contact Jackson, a tile specialist he knew to help him with the work. He was fine laying the main parts, the full tile runs, but he felt he needed finesse he didn't have for the corners, cuts and what not, so he'd asked Jackson to come by. Jackson was a tall man, about 6'3", solid build without being bulky, black, married and straight as far as Bud knew, there'd never been any indication otherwise. So, he made sure none of his other friends were on site that morning so there'd be no play or temptation to play while Jackson was on site. He wasn't even sure if Jackson new that he was gay, but it didn't matter, they had a good working relationship and today was about the work.

Bud had laid most of the tile already on the floor, the full tiles anyway, but as he neared the walls, he'd stopped and moved up to finish the roof now that the material was on site. He hadn't started on the shower stall walls. On the roof, he was laying the last two sheets when he heard Jackson's van pulling into the site. He looked up, watched him pull in, then returned to his task, he nailed the second last sheet in, then positioned the last one, as he heard the van door closing. He finished nailing the piece in place. Yes, he still had trim to put in but he was pretty proud of his work. He stood up and looked back across the 30 or so feet of roofing and admired his own work.

"Proud of yourself, are you" he heard as Jackson walked up. Standing admiring his work, he couldn't help but agree.

"I am," Bud replied, as he stood tall on the slanted roof, his skin glistening in the sun with sweat. "This is all new to me and I think I did a pretty good job."

"Looks very good from down here." Replied Jackson, and something in his tone had Bud wondering if he was talking about the roof.

"Head on in, I'll be down in a minute," Bud said as he gathered up his material and tools and headed back toward the ladder.

He put everything down and entered the shower hall, as he'd started to call it, and found Jackson inspecting his work.

"Couple of these will need to come up," he said, "They're a little uneven and they'd be a hazard to bare feet."

He inspected the rest of the site and made sure the walls were ready for tile. He looked over the boxes of tiles sitting on the outside deck, and they got to work. Jackson had Bud mix the mortar while he set up his tile cutter and got his knee pads on. Bud emptied a bag of mortar powder into a large bucket and added water, the plunged the drill bit mixer into the bucket and hit the trigger on the drill.

It spun up and powder, water and sludge flew everywhere, covering Bud. As usual, he'd been working in only his shorts and boots, and both those and his torso were now covered in sludge, water, and mortar. Jackson couldn't help himself, he laughed.

"You're gonna want to get out of those shorts and rinse them before that sets," he warned, "and maybe wash off that mortar on your body." He stepped closer to Bud and ran his hands across Bud's chest, scooping off mud as he went. His hand lingered just a moment at Bud's left nipple and then continued to cross his torso. Bud looked up and into Jackson's eyes, then down at the hand still trailing across his chest and belly and further down to the bulge now showing in Jackson's pants.