PHOTO above - 'colliding galaxies'

The night was uneventful after the trouble on the hotel veranda. Brad and his friends were assured by the manager not to worry about the incident, that it was not uncommon for such things to occur there, and they managed to enjoy the rest of their meal. They soon returned to the boat and all retired early, except for Caruso who had the first night watch.

Brad and Clint and Jimmy sacked out on the hatch cover again, even though Caruso would be on deck for much of his watch. It was obvious everyone knew what was going on with them, so why bother trying to hide it? Later, Caruso had to awaken Clint for the second watch and, as a result, Brad and Jimmy awoke too. The three boys were all tangled up with each other.

Caruso stood there with his hands on his hips, laughing at them. He winked and said, "Ahh ... pretty boys.  Me old 'nuff to be your papa, else I'da climb right in middle!"

"And wouldn't that be fun?" Clint sighed after Caruso had gone below deck and he jumped off the hatch to begin his watch. "Who gives a hoot how old he is?"

"Dream on," Jimmy laughed at him. "Caruso is a man of principle. He might look at us and joke about it, but he won't touch. Rondin's the one you gotta watch out for. He got a little touchy-feely with a couple of the boys when my classmates and I sailed on this boat a couple years ago."

"He's not so hot like Caruso, that one," Brad joined in. "Something sinister about him. I think we'd all three kick him off the hatch if he tried to join us. But Caruso? I think we'd let him crawl all over us a while, huh?"

Clint and Jimmy readily agreed and Clint went off to start making his rounds. Before Brad even knew what happened, Jimmy was on top of him. All the boy's wonderful weight was bearing down on Brad and he was kissing Brad with the wild passion of a man who'd been starving out in the jungle for months and had just now found nourishment.

Brad kissed him back, loving the feel of Jimmy's hard chest against his, his bulging crotch, his long legs intertwined with his own. His hands ran up Jimmy's back underneath his t-shirt,  fingers tingling at the soft smooth skin, the corded muscle beneath it. They were sucking at each other as if they were in a frenzy, and Brad realized how much he'd been desiring to be alone with Jimmy since the moment he'd first seen him.

Jimmy voiced the same thought. "Oh man, I've been wanting to be with you like this since I first saw you when I opened the door at Granny Sal's house and there you were. Clint too. I couldn't believe it. Two swell guys like you just walking into my life on Lateela Island in the middle of nowhere. Ha! I knew immediately that I had to be with you guys, especially you, Brad. Really. I love you, buddy. I really do."

Brad's heart was banging. Jimmy had to be one of the most beautiful exotic hunks in the world and Brad had really grown to like him in the last two days. He ran his hands up and down Jimmy's back again. "I love you too, bud. I can't believe how we've clicked like this, all three of us. Jeez, we really must be weirdos."

"Screw that," Jimmy laughed. Then he kissed Brad again, adding, "If loving you and Clint is being weird, then I wanna be the weirdest mother fucker in the whole Pacific! I ..."

He stopped speaking and moved his hand up to Brad's shirt pocket. "Whaddaya got in here?" he asked, squeezing his hand in between their muscular chests.

Then Jimmy pulled the object in question out and held it up to the starlight. It was the picture of the boy from Finisterra Mission. He made a face. "Oh, it's your new sweetheart, huh? Saroh. Jeez, he is awfully cute. Hunky too. I like that tribal tattoo at his waist. What? When we get to Finisterra are you gonna forget about me and Clint?"

Brad was gazing up at him. "Why? Are you jealous?"

"Damn right I am, if he's gonna take your attention away from me."

"Why worry about it? He may not even be like us. Most guys aren't."

Jimmy slipped the picture back into Brad's pocket. "If that slick fellow Kee is after Saroh, you can bet your life the boy is like us. Somebody as experienced as that sailor wouldn't be interested in a boy who doesn't know the score. And out here pretty much everybody does. It's just the nature of a world of men where women are few and far between."

Brad attempted a shrug. "Who knows? Maybe he'll like all three of us, and then we can be four."

Jimmy nuzzled Brad's chin with his nose. "Right. You'd better share him. I don't want no other native hybrid hotshot taking you away from me."

With that, he kissed Brad passionately again, slowly and sensuously, and began to undo Brad's belt. Before Brad knew what was happening, Jimmy was pulling his shorts and underwear down.

"Wait a minute," he croaked. "Hey, what if Clint comes back, or the security guard?"

"They won't. I made a deal with Clint. He's gonna stay away from here and keep the guard away too. Keep him busy aft, talking, asking him questions."

Brad couldn't help smiling. "Yah? And what's your part of the deal?"

"I agreed to let him do something later, when you're on watch and you'll keep away so me and him can be alone."

"Oh no." Brad let out a little laugh. "And what is that something?"

"This!"

Jimmy pushed up and grabbed Brad by the sides and flipped him over. Brad's face hit the tarps and he got a mouthful of canvas. Jimmy pulled Brad's pants down to his knees and then Brad heard him undoing his own belt and pulling down his shorts and underwear. The next moment the native boy was fully on top of Brad's back, his stiff cock riding the crack between the mounds of Brad's butt.

"Ohmygod Brad!" Jimmy hissed in his ear. "I've been wanting to do this so bad Oh!" He pressed hard against Brad and rode up and down on him. "Jeez, this feels so good. I want to get inside of you, lover. I wanna fuck you so bad!"

Brad loved having Jimmy on top of him like that. He loved the feeling of Jimmy's big thick cock and his balls pressing against his butt. But he wasn't so sure he wanted Jimmy to fuck him. At least not tonight.

He suddenly flipped himself back over, grabbing Jimmy in the process, their legs and shorts getting all tangled in a mess as he managed to get Jimmy face-down on the tarps. Brad squirmed up on top of him, reversing the order they'd previously been in.

Now Brad's stiff cock was riding Jimmy's butt.

"Sorry, jungle boy," Brad whispered in his ear. "But I'd rather do it this position tonight. Whaddaya think, huh?"

Jimmy let out a hoot. "I think I like it this way better. Especially with you. There's a tube of K-Y in my right pants pocket."

"Wow, you really come prepared." Brad reached down into the pocket of Jimmy's short pants and pulled out a small tube. "Whaddaya doin' with this?"

"Medicinal," Jimmy said. "Good for cuts and bruises, mosquito bites, even sunburn."

Brad unscrewed the top. "Yeah, I bet that's why you brought it along. Sure."

"Okay, I'm guilty. I knew I was going away with you and Clint, so that was the very first thing I packed."

"Humph! And then you acted like you'd never been exposed to the likes of us before."

"I had to play it a little innocent, didn't I? I didn't want you and Clint to think I was a big whore. Just a sweet native boy like we're all supposed to be."

"Sweet isn't the word," Brad sighed, "and you're obviously far from innocent." He pushed himself up and parted Jimmy's butt cheeks. He squeezed a dollop of the jelly onto the puckered hole there and began rubbing it in with his fingers, up and down, around and round.

Jimmy squealed and began to groan, arching his butt up to press against the fingers. "Oh jeez! C'mon, get yourself inside me. Your dick. Fuck me!"

"Sure thing, hunk baby," Brad smirked, now lubricating himself. He let out a "Whoa!" and then a "Whoo!" because the touch of his own hand on his cock with the slippery substance was incredible. He couldn't wait for what it'd feel like inside Jimmy.

He positioned himself one knee on each side and began to push himself into the beautiful native boy. He was being slow, gentle, but Jimmy was wanton and greedy and kept pushing up at him, so eager for it, wanting it, begging for it.

"C'mon Brad! Give it to me hard. I want it!"

And Brad did. He was all the way in, then back out, in again, as tight as can be, sliding so smoothly, sparks of sensation flying up his shaft and throughout his body. He wasn't just fucking Jimmy, Jimmy was fucking him too. A natural rhythm formed between them and they gasped and groaned as they moved back and forth and up and down.

Brad stretched out totally on top of him and buried his face in Jimmy's neck. "Damn! Ohmygod Jimmy Timateo. You sure the hell know what you're doin'!"

Jimmy turned his neck to kiss Brad, then, "You learn about life real quick in these islands. But I never thought I'd ever do this with somebody like you, Brad. You're just the best guy in the whole freakin' world."

After that they became lost in their passion, senseless to the world around them. Brad groped beneath Jimmy and grabbed the boy's dick, fisting the turgid length tightly and stroking it along with their rhythmical movement. The native boy's erection was throbbing, ready to explode, the same as Brad's as it surged back and forth inside Jimmy.

Moment by moment the ever-increasing eruption of sensation grew and grew until they were kissing wantonly, sighing and groaning into each others mouths as the floodgates of sensation were rammed and bammed and the moment of relief arrived. They both climaxed as their manly love juices soared for release along with their cries of passion that burst out into the night.

"Fuck!" Brad started to laugh a minute later after they'd calmed down and were lying in a heated heap. "They must've heard us all the way down to Rabaul."

Jimmy turned himself around underneath Brad till they were face to face again. "Don't worry about it. It's a pretty common sound at night along a waterfront like this. But," he couldn't help letting out a little laugh, "you and me, Brad. I don't think we're pretty common at all. We're some damn special mother hunchers, if I may say so myself!"

**

In the morning Brad was standing in the bow of the Balanga as it made its way out of the harbor at Storms End. The purr of the diesel engine below was soothing as he watched the sun rise over the ship graveyard on the point east.

He was all hepped up now. His hands were clenched in excited fists. They were on the move, heading out on the Bismarck Sea to find the mysterious lost island and, hopefully, his dad, the other two missing scientists, and the old madman Johnny Fang.

Other boats were on their way out and the day looked promising. The sky, still stained with dawn's pink, was clear and cloudless, and a slight breeze was stirring up from the southeast. The calm waters were crystal clear and Rondin was up on the foremast keeping a watch for hidden shoals and coral rocks. Captain Redd was at the wheel directing the boat, and Clint and Jimmy were on the aft deck helping Caruso with some duties.

The three boys had awakened early and helped in the beehive of activity that had ensued until the Balanga was casting off its lines, inching away from the wharf and heading out to sea. The rest of the night had been uneventful. Brad had taken his watch after Clint, and he'd stayed away from the bow so that Clint could be alone with Jimmy. Sure, he'd wanted to sneak back and watch. What could be sexier? But he wouldn't betray them like that, and he definitely had more than enough of an imagination to picture what they'd be doing.

He touched his fingertips to his shirt pocket and a smile stirred the corners of his mouth. The photograph of Saroh was still there and he liked the feel of it pressing against his heart. He wondered what it'd be like to actually meet him. In Brad's mind, the boy had a grand status, like that of a character from a South Seas adventure novel. A hunky Pacific Islander boy spending his summer working at a mission on a jungle island, hounded and marked for abduction by a tough young hoodlum sailor and his gang who, Brad was beginning to believe, were none other than the the Ching Tu Tong.

"What's up, limey duck?"

Brad turned to see Clint beside him, grabbing the rail and looking over into the blue waters.

"Just thinking about those guys last night at the hotel. Wondering."

Clint looked up from the harbor depths. "Nothin' to wonder about. It's gotta be them, Brad. The tong. And good news, Jack. Seems they might not know us by sight. At least we probably got that on our side."

"Right, but we sure know them now. I'd recognize that one called Kee anywhere. Except," he added with a chuckle, "he won't look so pretty now for a while after I got through with him."

Clint hooted. "Ka-boom! I almost felt that one myself. Good punch, buddy."

Brad shrugged. "Lucky punch, you mean. He was drunk. I might have been the one to end up on the floor if he'd been sober."

"Not as long as I was there. If he would've tried to put you on the floor, I'da put him up on the fucking ceiling!"

Brad leaned back against the rail. "And loved every minute of it too, huh? Seriously, I've been thinking. He looks part white, mixed-blood like Jimmy. And he's got a degree from Harvard, or so he said, and spent a lot of time in the States."

"Right," Clint took up the thread of thought, "so what's he doing in a South Seas armpit like Storms End with a bunch of sleazy sailors? Maybe his dad was the tong leader, like Johnny Fang used to be, and he sent Kee to the USA for a Harvard education. Could be. And now he's back home running the show."

"You got it," they heard from Jimmy, who'd walked up to join them. "They're pirates, those guys. Young and tough and bad as can be. The tong leaders groom their sons to take over, or their younger brothers or nephews. Johnny Fang's uncle was the tong leader who groomed him, his father's brother. Sometimes it's a family affair for generations. We'll have to ask about those guys at the mission. The people there ought to know more about them. They go there pretending to be donors so they can get information and steal from them, the rotten creeps. Whaddaya gonna tell Saroh when you return his picture, Brad?"

"I don't know. I'll have to think of something. I can't tell him what happened, how those guys were talking about him, how that picture came sailing over to me. And I sure can't tell him I got in a fight over him."

"Oh man, you gotta tell him that," Jimmy chided with a grin. "Jeez, he'll love it. He'll get a huge crush on you in a minute."

Clint snorted. "That's not the only thing huge he'll get."

"Aw come on," Brad protested. "Who knows if he's even a homo boy like us?"

"If that fellow Kee's after him, you can bet he is," Clint said.

"And even if he isn't, one look at you, Brad, and he will be," Jimmy insisted.

Brad made a face at him. "Yah right. You're only saying that because you wanna get on my good side."

Jimmy cracked up laughing. "I've been on your good side, bud. Under  you. And I sure wanna be there again and again."

"Oh, so that's what you two were doing while I was on watch, huh?" Clint probed.

"Like you didn't do the same thing?" Brad tossed back.

"Hell no. Jimmy didn't want to. Now I know why. He'd just done it with you! We had to do something else."

Brad couldn't help laughing. "Aw, disappointed, huh? You big idjit! Doing anything with Jimmy is as good as it gets."

Clint grinned and bounced his eyebrows. "You're right about that. We had a helluva good time!"

The day went on calm and windless, the steering of the boat accomplished with hardly a touch on the wheel. Once out of the harbor, Rondin came down from the mast, but the boys kept a lookout from the bow for broken water, a sign of dangerous submerged shoals or reefs. For a while they passed a succession of hilly islands and dreamy-looking atolls, but soon enough all land fell behind and the wide sea surrounded them.

Later, the boys helped out with some general duties and then worked with Zinali in the galley preparing food for the day. After lunch they returned to their post in the bow with binoculars and a telescope. An albatross began to follow the boat, hovering over the stern, its wing-span looking as wide as Clint was tall. All the while the tropical sun glared down on them and soon the decks and hatch covers and bulwarks were hot to the touch.

The idyllic day on the peaceful waters passed by without incident. The Balanga carved through the calm sometime buried in silence, sometime bombarded with song from the tribal sing-sing of Caruso and Rondin to the Malay popular songs of Zinali as he worked in his galley, to good old American swing tunes heard on the Rabaul radio station when its signal came in.

Flying fish and porpoises had been abundant throughout the day, dancing around the boat in the glittering water as if the Balanga had become their leader. But they were gone later in the afternoon and, suddenly, a pod of whales appeared, leaping and diving alongside the boat. Some of the big creatures looked to be half its size.

"Get me a harpoon!" Clint shouted. "It's time to catch some Moby Dick!"

Laughing, Jimmy nudged Brad in the side. "Jeez, you'd think he'd had enough dick last night."

Brad nudged him back. "Hey, don't let Captain Redd hear that."

Jimmy laughed even harder. "Why not? He probably gets his share every night. Who knows what the hell those guys are doing down there below deck?"

Captain Redd, who was too far away to have heard, bellowed out, "Crikey! Leave those buggers alone, Clint. A whale like that could pull us all the way up to the Sulu Sea."

After the playful creatures leaped away into the distance, Brad sat down on one of the hatch covers to read the newspaper they'd bought in Rabaul, and Clint and Jimmy went astern to help Caruso with some work. The paper was mostly local news, New Britain and nearby New Ireland, but there were a few articles from mainland New Guinea and Australia.

Brad paged through quickly looking for any news about Dr. Hyde-Morton's kidnapping in Sydney. On an inside page was a short article relating what Brad already knew, and it went on to inform that no clues to the identity or the whereabouts of the kidnappers had been found yet.

Brad grimaced as he turned the page and folded the newspaper. So, Dr. Hyde-Morton was just as lost and missing as his dad and Dr. Pullman, out there somewhere at the dirty hands of the Ching Tu Tong. It made Brad's blood start to boil just thinking about it.

Then another article caught his attention. It was of a scientific nature and he immediately focused on it to get his mind off the disappearances. It told of a rare celestial phenomenon to occur three days from now, an unusually close proximity of the Andromeda galaxy to our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Andromeda was so close to the Milky Way, the article explained, that some scientists believed the two giant galaxies might crash into each other. Our solar system, all the planets orbiting our sun, was currently riding very close to the edge of the Milky Way at the very spot where it was feared that Andromeda might hit.

Brad knew about the Andromeda galaxy. It was clearly visible to the naked eye in the night skies. It appeared as a hazy star cluster and throughout most of history that's what it was believed to be until astronomers learned it was an actual galaxy outside ours. Because our Milky Way galaxy is a sphere and rotates, the article was explaining, it was only once every twenty-six thousand years that the section our solar system is in nears the ever-approaching Andromeda.

Twenty-six thousand years! Brad's brow furrowed in amazement. And, of course, there were dire predictions from theorists and speculators of catastrophic danger and events for our solar system and planet – everything from the fear our solar system might get sucked into Andromeda to complete end-of-times destruction.

"Nah!" Brad grunted, shaking his head. No way. None of that could happen.

He ransacked his brain, trying to remember what the scientists at the Hammond Labs had said about the Andromeda problem. Often galaxies did collide and the bigger one would absorb the smaller. Two big ones of the same size could also combine but it was a process that could take millions and millions of years as we know time.

But the possibility of one taking a chunk out of the other was believed to be real, he remembered now, and he remembered that his dad and Dr. Pullman had been talking about it recently. Brad shuddered at the thought of the sun and Earth and its fellow planets being ripped away into new frontiers of space.

Then he chuckled. That would sure change the night sky. Being in a new galaxy would mean new stars, new cluster-like nebulae and gaseous clouds, new constellations. Sailors the world over would have to learn navigation all over again. The heavens would be completely different at night. And astrologers – well, their art of telling fortunes by the stars would be totally shot. There'd be all new stars and they'd have to learn it all over again. Or, depending on if one believed in astrology or not, make it up all over again..

Brad folded the paper and slapped it down on the hatch cover. He really wasn't going to worry about colliding galaxies. He was too busy right now with another strange phenomenon, an island lost in time. As skeptical as he was, he didn't seem to care much if Earth hitched a ride with Andromeda and winged out into infinity. Right now it was more important to find his dad.

But Brad couldn't help the shudder that coursed through him. Why now the sudden creepy suspicion at the back of his mind that the colliding galaxies and the secret of the lost island were somehow connected? His dad and Dr. Pullman talking about the one, and then coming out here to the Pacific looking for the other? He shoved the idea from his thoughts. He was already on total mental overload from the mysteries surrounding them, and that was more than enough for now.

Evening came and the sea stretched away in a blaze of silver stained by the rays of the setting sun. The boys had caught some tuna in the afternoon and Zinali fried up the filets for the enjoyment of the crew. It was a happy evening meal with a good amount of manly joking and laughing. It'd been a good day at sea with no mishaps or foul weather, and the crew were in hardy good spirits. Brad forgot his worries and joined in the camaraderie. He told the others about the impending possibility of the disaster with Andromeda.

"Gawd blimey!" Captain Redd hooted. "There's so much room out there in space, how could anything crash into anything? Those astronomers must have flown away with the birdies if they believe that bunk."

Jimmy chuckled. "It sure is hard to imagine something like that happening. But, you know, there are legends about Andromeda in the old Pacific cultures going way far back. There's old kanaka stories about gods who came from there, strange reptilian human-like creatures. Today's natives fear those stories, like those gods they won't talk about from the City of Death."

Clint grunted and faked a shudder. "Ugh. I sure wouldn't want to run into any of them. But suppose those Andromedans do pop over for a visit because we're so close to each other now?"

Brad thought back to the reading he'd done about the lost civilizations of Lemuria. Then he said, "Jimmy's right. The reptilian gods from the far away star cluster. Tales of them thread through the old Pacific religions. For some reason, the natives believed they came from Andromeda."

Captain Redd nodded. "I've seen plenty of crumbling old statues on these islands depicting those crocodile-looking man-gods. But those were just ancient religions based on the perverse perceptions of ignorant primitive people and the made-up myths their high priests told them. Your experience the other day with the Wambutu tribe is proof enough of that, Brad. They still worship a crocodile god."

Yank grinned, lighting an after dinner cigarette. "Leave that stuff to Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne, fellas. It makes good adventure reading, but as a scientist I have to believe that outer-space disasters and other-worldly beings are something we ourselves aren't going to have to deal with in our lifetimes. Even if the galaxies did crash, they'd just sort of blend into each other. There's so much room in space, it's unlikely stars or planets would hit each other. And that's what makes it so unlikely that creatures from one world could go to another – the incredible distances they'd have to travel. One wonders if we'll ever know of a power source that could enable it. And if others out there know about it and used it to come to Earth, we haven't found any trace of it yet."

Brad had to agree with him, despite his suspicions. As a scientist he had to stick with current scientific knowledge, not primitive mythology of the past. "It'd be far into our future, discovering such a power on our own, that's for sure," he agreed. "Maybe we'll send a rocket to the moon soon, but it won't be in our lifetime that we see travel to other stars and galaxies."

Later, as the night fell, the heavens were breathtakingly beautiful with the brilliance of billions and billions of stars. The decks were bathed in the radiance and a soft warm breeze blew in from the south. A near full moon rose to further brighten the skies and a school of dolphin showed up to dance and squeal in the moonlight, much to the entertainment of the crew.

As expected, Andromeda was gloriously visible, bigger and brighter than usual. What was usually just a haze of stars now took on an actual form looking like a huge sphere.

"Take a good look at her, fellas," Clint chided the others. "You won't be able to see Andromeda this close for another twenty-six thousand years."

"Hahaha!" Captain Redd craned his neck as he gazed above. "If I had to sail on these briny billows that long, I'd be standin' in line waitin' to get in the looney bin."

Brad gazed at the far away galaxy with awe. It was amazing to him that it could be seen with the naked eye. Later, as he lay on the hatch cover waiting for sleep to come with Clint and Jimmy snuggling against him, he watched Andromeda and contemplated the vastness of the realms of infinity. He felt small and unimportant compared to the incredible bigness of it all.

He grabbed the arms of his sleeping partners and gripped them tight, wondering why in all the vastness of the universe he was here – on the planet Earth, on this boat in the Bismarck Sea, scrunched between his two beautiful lovers on this puzzling quest to find the mysterious island lost in time.

But he knew he wouldn't trade places with anyone in all of creation. He felt like he was the luckiest boy alive, blessed to the gills with the best of everything. All he needed was to find his dad and life would be totally perfect.

The celestial light sparked a twinkle in his eyes as he took one more look up at the galaxy Andromeda, and he couldn't help but wonder why he had the tingling sensation that his destiny was somehow inexplicably intertwined with it ...

**

Thanks for reading everybody. Please vote and leave a comment. Yes, comment! I love to hear what readers think about the story, the characters, and my writing. <3

NEXT! Arrival on Finisterra Island. What will happen when Brad meets Saroh?