The Arrival
(HANK)
Log Entry. 2003-06-20 Day 1,287.
The North Sea has two moods: pissed off, and asleep. Today, it’s just asleep. A flat, grey sheet of water stretching out to a sky that was the same damn colour. Asleep doesn’t mean it’s quiet, because The Northern Pioneer never sleeps. The constant thrum of the generators feels like the rig’s heartbeat, a vibration you feel in your teeth more than hear. I’m used to it now. Smells like diesel, salt, and rust. Smells like home. And today home felt a little different after his arrival.
My crew moved slowly today for some reason, all of them dragging their butts after another long 12-hour shift, muscles aching, brains already halfway to the shower and the bunk. All except me. I don’t drag. Can’t afford to. As the Driller, I am the deck boss and I never drag. On my floor, you see a problem before it becomes a body bag. You see everything.
Saw Dex trying to take a shortcut with a pipe latch. My voice cut through the machinery’s groan, sharp as a whip crack. “Do it wrong, and you lose a hand. Do it right, and you keep it.”
He jerked, nodded, and fixed his grip. No backtalk. Good. They know my rules. Simple. Do the job. Don’t be an idiot. Go home in one piece.
The comms in my pocket crackled which made me put my pen down. “Hank, chopper’s five minutes out. Your new roustabout’s on it.”
I grunted an acknowledgement. A new roustabout. Great. Probably some skinny kid fresh from a simulator, all theory and no calluses. Another body to babysit. Another potential liability on a floor where liability gets you killed.
I made my way to the helideck, the wind already picking up, pulling at my coveralls. The sound came first—a distant thwap-thwap-thwap that grew until it was the only sound in the world. The helicopter crested the horizon, a black insect against the grey, growing into a roaring, shuddering beast as it settled onto the landing pad.
The rotors whined down. The door slid open. And out he stepped first, in front of three other bigger guys.
He was small. My first thought. Maybe five and a half, if that. Carried a duffel bag that looked too big for him. He ducked under the slowing rotors, his movements quick, almost graceful. Wrong kind of grace for out here. This ain’t a ballet was my first thought as I watched.
He came closer, and I got a better look. Didn’t look like a kid, maybe mid to late 20s. Had a man’s face though with boyish good looks, but it was all sharp, clean angles, like a model, a guy from a magazine. His coveralls were brand new, bright blue and stupid-looking. Then he looked up, and his eyes met mine.
They were a mix of green and grey, more green than grey, reminding me of the colour of the sea after a storm, and wide, like the kid was petrified. Wide with that first-hit-of-reality fear everyone gets when they step onto the rig for the first time. But then they narrowed and he became steady, and those stormy eyes settled and took everything in.
Including me.
He had stopped in front of me, tilting his head back to hold my gaze. I loomed. At 6’4” I know I loom. It’s useful. Especially over a guy more than half a foot smaller than me.
“Noah Evans,” he said, his voice clearer than I expected, not drowned out by the wind.
I looked him up and down, a slow, deliberate inspection meant to intimidate even though I was truly giving him the once over. The body underneath the stupid blue coveralls looked compact. Not big and bulky like mine, but solid. Firm. Rather fit from the way his coveralls hugged his frame.
“Richardson,” I grunted as my eyes returned to his, snapping myself out of my reverie. “You follow my orders, you keep your head on a swivel, and you might last the rotation. You don’t, the medevac chopper’s expensive. Understood?” My usual greeting.
A flicker in those storm-coloured eyes flashed through them. It wasn’t fear like the usual floorhands. More like annoyance.
Good. Annoyance meant he had a spine.
“Understood,” he said, his jaw tight, hardening the line along his chin which made something in my stomach flutter.
I jerked my head toward the Accommodations module. “Dump your gear for now. Mess Hall’s down the corridor. You’ve got twenty minutes. Then you’re on the drill floor with me to get the lay of the land.”
He nodded, hefted his duffel, and moved past me. As he did, I caught the scent of soap. Just soap. Not a trace of rig stink on him yet.
I watched him walk away, that quick, balanced walk of his. With that round muscular ass apparent and on display because of the way his new work outfit clung to him as he continued on. A gymnast’s walk, I’d find out later. But right then, all I thought was: Noah Evans. Another one who’ll probably break down and snap in half.
And then, a quieter thought, one that whispered in my head against every self-proclaimed rule I lived out here: Or maybe not, maybe something more finally.
I gripped the rail after he was gone from my sight, but his presence lingered on in my head.
I ducked into the nearest john on the floor, closing the door quickly behind me. I had about fifteen minutes, and I could feel the sudden urge for some reason. I didn’t usually do this, especially not over a new roustabout, but I was feeling it for sure as my bulge grew within the confines of my coveralls.
I stood over the toilet and fished it out with a little difficulty, already hard which surprised even me for a man of 43 years. Mind you, no action means your right hand is your mate, and right now my mate wrapped around my thickness as I spread my feet wider facing the toilet and began to pull on it, making it grow even more.
I let out a soft moan as I looked down at my monster, a nice piece, thick like a can, and a bit bigger than average.
Jim loved your cock. I thought to myself as I watched my big hand work it up and down. I leaned forward and put a hand on the wall above the toilet and let my chin lift up to the sky, or rather the low ceiling in here, and got lost in memory.
“Fuck.” I moaned out, remembering the last time I was with Jim, more than 15 years ago, his smaller body like a dancer’s, moving under me, swallowing me up inside him, groaning with every hard thrust I gave him. He loved getting fucked. And I loved fucking him.
I looked down and dropped a gob of spit into my hand and worked it around my shaft, letting a low moan escape my open lips as I felt the slipperiness of my own fist. I instinctively thrust my hips forward into my own hand and jerked my cock faster, twisting my hand around it in a frantic fury. God, I missed fucking.
I heard my own exhalation and felt that familiar knot in my stomach rising. My own toes curled in my boots, gripping the soles of them as I looked down again.
And then I pictured that new roustabout’s face looking at me. Those green-grey eyes, more green than grey. That cute, model face just a few minutes ago.
Evans.
And I blew my load straight out into the john, right into the cold water, hearing it splash with each load I dropped, grunting silently so the others walking by didn’t know what I was doing.
I squeezed the last drop out before I reached for the paper and wiped up the rest. I gave my fading cock a shake, and then tucked myself back in, giving a quick flush and a wash of my hands.
I smelled like cum, I knew it. But most guys did around here. What else was there to do with a rig full of men. No one said anything. We all took care of ourselves. Some even took care of each other. Me? I kept to myself. Didn’t want to tempt fate and let anyone on this rig find out about me and jeopardize my role. But I missed it, that feeling, the connection, the need. And that little newbie flared up something in me I had tried to suppress for fifteen years.
I looked at my reflection in the tiny mirror over the sink and saw the weathered look of my tanned cheeks, the lines crinkling around my eyes. Compared to the new kid, I looked like a fucking old man.
Don’t even think it Richardson. I grinned at myself, already thinking it.
He was cute, I’ll give him that. Maybe a little too cute to survive the jeers from this lot. This wasn’t a prison, but it often had the same hungry feel to it. Out at sea. Far from home. Men being men and their needs and all. No one admitted it. No one talked about it. We were only three years out from the turn of the century. Y2K hoax. But nothing’s changed. Men needed to be men, not sissies. And out here, you needed to be men. That’s why I was here.
I’d learn to keep those needs to myself these past fifteen years. Would never risk anyone here knowing that part of me.
“Never would have pegged you for a fag.”
I closed my eyes and felt the radiation of the rig as the memory of his words hit me again. Or was it my own body remembering the anger and the betrayal from my best friend.
Former best friend I should say.
I shook off the memories and left the john. Before I had to meet up with the kid on the floor, I ducked into my cabin. Back in my room, alone, I sat with my own personal journal, the one I started a couple years ago at long last, to rid my head of some of the thoughts that circled. My dad always said I should’ve been a poet: too bad I was built like an ox. I smiled at the thought of him, wishing I had been there in the end. I read my last entry and took a deep breath and told myself to just do it. Whenever you think about Jim you write. Whenever you think about Bob you write. Whenever you think about your Dad you write. Write about it or else your head won’t be able to think straight.
So I wrote in my journal, always beginning with the date: June 20th, 2003
It’s been a long time since I felt like this towards someone else. Something about him and in just one encounter. Maybe those eyes? The way he moved? The curve of his body or the way he filled out those coveralls? He wasn’t scared of me, which said something. He didn’t look up at me like the others, but he did look at me like I was someone. Maybe he came here for similar reasons like I did way back when…. Hiding. Running away. What’s he running from I wonder? He didn’t blink when I stared back, and I could swear that I saw his face almost react to mine, like he could see right through me. But that’s just wishful thinking. The Northern Pioneer is no place to find love. You love the rig, or you lose your mind. Or you go home. And there is no home for me other than this rig. But I’ll be watching him carefully. I’ve known him for all of five minutes and already there’s something about this one I find intriguing. I haven’t been this intrigued by anyone since Jim. Fifteen lonely years and I still feel his presence. I’m not getting any younger. Haven’t I punished myself enough?
I put my pen down and stretched my arms out in front of me. Time to meet the new kid and show him the ropes, maybe get to know him. Little did I know just how much I’d get to know him.
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