2025-07-10, 04:21 PM
Test of strength
‘What am I doing here?’ thought Oliver as he rolled over from his back to his stomach. Although his back was already fairly tanned and his front was significantly lighter, he didn't want to continue lying on his back; it was simply more uncomfortable. He crossed his arms, rested his head on them, and let his gaze wander.
The lawn was pretty empty for such a hot summer day. On the other hand, there were never as many people at the pool on weekdays as there were on weekends, and the holiday season and a construction fair were also factors. Therefore, there were mainly young visitors, who of course flocked here during the holidays if they didn't travel.
Oliver felt twenty-three years old compared to the average audience here. Even his friends, Mario and Thomas, who had spread out with their respective girlfriends in his immediate vicinity, were two and three years younger, respectively. He wondered what he had done in this rural town over the summer. After all, he had already moved to the capital four years ago to study there. But he spent most of the summer with his parents in the countryside.
But now he was lying here among his friends and felt lonely and excluded. He was a little jealous of the girlfriends of the two, who could snuggle up against his attractive friends when they weren't even kissing. Mario was the more beautiful of the two, tanned, one eighty tall, muscular, dark brown, medium-length hair. In his tight purple swimming trunks, he looked simply ‘scrumptious’. A pretty boy, a womaniser and a footballer. Oliver sighed.
Thomas was also a good-looking young man, six foot tall, blond, short hair and slim. He was wearing green swimming shorts, which looked a bit lanky on his tall frame. He was lying on his back while his girlfriend Nina rested her head on his stomach.
Both of them used to ask him frequently if he had a girlfriend and who she was. But Oliver never had a girlfriend. Not even a fling, not even sex. Except for the one with his right hand, but that doesn't really count. While he had always avoided these questions in the past, he had recently been telling them a lot about the things he did with his best friend Manuela, who also lived and studied in Vienna. They both assumed that Oliver was dating her and hardly asked about it anymore.
Oliver's loneliness grew painfully amidst the many handsome boys in the pool, whom he observed as inconspicuously as possible in order to at least have fun with them in his mind at night.
Oliver had known for ages, since he was about twelve, that he found boys more attractive than girls, but neither the coming-out episodes of Dawson's Creek – how often did he fall asleep thinking about Jack – nor Beautiful Thing, which he had watched alone in the cinema in Vienna with his heart pounding, could persuade him to embrace his sexuality, let alone come out. This is not really surprising, given the conservative rural area and the prudish, uptight Oliver's family.
The only physical contact Oliver had with other boys was here, in the swimming pool, with his friends and other boys from the village, when they threw each other into the water, which never happened without a tussle that continued in the water with both sides trying to submerge each other. These summer games were quite rough, the harder the opponent resisted being thrown into the water, the harder you had to hold him and the tighter you hugged him as you pushed him towards the edge of the pool.
Oliver loved these water fights, which he often started himself by clever provocation. Most of the boys he knew joined the game with great fervour, while the girls tended to stay away, as it often got quite brutal. Of course, after a while the girls were also dragged into the water and dunked, but usually only after the boys had let off steam for a while. It had been like that every summer as far back as Oliver could remember, and he didn't plan on stopping just because he was already twenty-three.
A piercing, loud laugh woke Oliver from his thoughts. Not far from him and his friends, there was a large group of young people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, with the boys in particular being quite athletic and attractive. They were a group of basketball players and their friends. Oliver knew most of them by sight, and he was even in the same class as Andi and Bernd for four years at the local grammar school. He still knew Rene and Udo from primary school.
Bernd! Oliver hadn't seen him at all this summer. This five-foot-ten-inch ‘little’ basketball player used to be his best friend. But only until the seventh (for D.: eleventh) grade of high school. A slim, athletic boy with blond, tousled hair and bright blue eyes. He had worked out just enough to have well-formed biceps and chest muscles, but he didn't look overly muscular or puffed up. When he tensed, you could also see his abs. The sunscreen glistened on his bronze skin. What a beautiful body. Oliver's gaze travelled up the slim, toned legs, with little hair, to Bernd's tight, light-blue shorts and the slight bulge there. Oliver had to swallow.
This guy, with his muscular, hairless chest and his slight bow legs, had done it to him very early on. He enjoyed every little accidental touch and the closeness that their good friendship brought with it. When this broke, Oliver often cried himself to sleep. His other friends couldn't make up for this loss. Bernd was just something special.
‘Aaahhh!’ Oliver cried out as someone poured mineral water over his back. Mario laughed at him and ran away, Oliver dived after him and chased him through the whole bathroom to the pool. There Mario suddenly stopped and turned around... Oliver wrapped his arms around Mario's upper body and tried to push him into the water. Chest to chest, they wrestled next to the pool.
Oliver, at 1m75, was smaller than Mario, but he was quite strong. He had always had broad shoulders, probably due to his genes, and a friend persuaded him to start strength training a year ago. This had given him muscles all over and he was able to keep up with Mario's muscular strength. Both bodies were tensed, you could see the fine play of muscles everywhere, from biceps to calves, as these handsome boys wrestled with each other. Quite a few bathers watched the fight with great interest, mainly of course of a female nature, as the tanned footballer and the bronze-coloured, slim athlete with short blonde hair wrestled. Oliver thought he had Mario in a position to finally push him into the water, when Mario, taking advantage of his height, hugged Oliver even tighter, pressing him against him and lifting him slightly. ‘Shit!’ thought Oliver. He seemed to be losing out, but he enjoyed being pressed against Mario's body – in wrestling terms in a bear hug – his feet lost contact with the ground, his red, tight retro shorts pressed against the purple swimming trunks. ‘Hopefully I won't get a stiffy,’ he thought...
Suddenly they were thrown into the water by a third force. Since neither of the two released the embrace, they fell tightly entwined into the cold water. ‘BRRRrrrrr!’ But the danger in the middle of Oliver's body was averted. While Thomas was still standing at the edge of the pool and laughing at them, Oliver pounced on Mario, put his hands on his shoulders and pushed him under the water. Then he quickly fled the pool.
He also tried to throw Thomas into the water, which he couldn't do alone, but Mario helped him a little later, until all three ended up in the water. They dunked each other and tried to climb out of the pool again. But by now the basketball players were also at the pool and wouldn't let the three of them out. They pushed them back into the water again and again, with some of their teammates being pushed into the water. A big wild water fight was soon underway. As usual, Nina, Sine – Mario's girlfriend – and the other girls stayed a little in the background so as not to become victims themselves. They sat on the concrete border of a flower bed near the pool and enjoyed the boys' antics.
Everyone was diving everyone, everyone was wrestling with everyone... Mario was attacked particularly often, the old football-basketball rivalry. Although Andi, Rene and Udo often went at him in threes, they hardly managed to dunk him because Thomas and Oliver rushed to his aid and the three of them got a good mouthful of chlorinated water.
Only two kept a safe distance: Oliver and Bernd. They tried not to get in each other's way and kept a safe distance between them. After all, they didn't even talk, so it would have been hard to dunk each other.
When Oliver finally made it out of the water, Udo wanted to get out of the pool too. They went at each other to push the other into the water. However, Udo was a lanky giant and couldn't stand up to Oliver... Oliver lifted him up, carried him to the edge of the pool and threw him into the waves.
Then he suddenly felt strong arms embrace him from behind and clasp him in front of his stomach. A warm, wet body pressed against his back and he was lifted slightly into the air. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as a voice he knew only too well whispered in his ear, ‘You don't throw my friends into the water with impunity, Olli!’ Before Oliver could say or react, the two athletic bodies landed pressed together in the water. But that was not all: when Oliver reached the surface and gasped for air, he was grabbed by the shoulders and pushed down several times in succession. Oliver felt hot and cold at the same time when he sensed the boy who meant so much to him and who had disappointed him so badly.
Bernd and Oliver were inseparable for a long time. They could talk to each other about everything (let's say almost everything), fool around, they went running and walking together, played basketball with each other, although Bernd was of course much better than Oliver, and they watched DVDs together. It wasn't uncommon for Bernd to fall asleep during the film, especially if it was late, and to snuggle up to Oliver in his sleep, with his head on his shoulder and his body and legs touching Oliver's body and legs. Nothing ever happened, but Oliver felt like he was in seventh heaven. The warmth that emanated from Bernd's body flowed through his and he felt secure. Sometimes Bernd's head would slip onto Oliver's chest and Oliver would put an arm around him. Whenever Bernd slowly woke up at the end of the film, Oliver would push him aside and scold him for not having the stamina to watch films. After that, Bernd would look at Oliver for a while with his piercingly clear blue eyes and dachshund expression and smile mysteriously: ‘Then why do you always watch with me?’ That always made Oliver laugh too, and he replied, ‘Because you're nice and quiet and don't eat crisps loudly during the film!’
However, the most important and deep friendship with Bernd came to an end, first gradually and then loudly, when Bernd joined the basketball club at the age of 17. School, three training sessions per week and a game on Saturdays took up a lot of time. In his limited free time, he hardly took time for Oliver and mostly hung around with his teammates. Oliver was furiously jealous and resented him for it. During the summer holidays before the final year, things got better again, but in the final year it got really bad. When they did meet, they either argued or ignored each other. Bernd tried several times to persuade Oliver to do something with his new friends. It was too much for Oliver, they were just in Bernd's room studying,
‘I don't want anything to do with those idiots! All those basketball players think about is playing ball, drinking and picking up women!’
‘Don't talk about my friends so disparagingly!‘ Bernd replied.
‘If those idiots are your friends, what does that say about you? You're not like that!’ Oliver raised his voice.
‘I'm a basketball player too, get it!’ Bernd shouted back. “I just don't want to be a weird outsider and troublemaker like you! Either you accept my new friends and make new ones yourself, or from today you'll have one less friend!” Bernd became more conciliatory. ’Try to get to know the guys first, they're okay, you'll see. Don't be so prejudiced, Olli!’
‘I don't want to get to know them!’
‘Please.’
‘No!’
‘Please, Olli, for my sake.’
‘I said no, damn it. Andi is already getting on my nerves at school, he never leaves me alone. I won't even start with the other weirdos...’ Oliver rolled his eyes.
‘OLLIE’
‘Leave me alone! Go to your fucking basketball buddies’
‘You've played basketball with them too’ Bernd's gaze became more pleading.
‘I still don't want to be friends with them! If you don't have time for me besides school, club and your new friends... well, tough luck ’ Oliver looked up at the ceiling. It might seem arrogant, but he tried to hold back the tears that he could already feel coming.
‘You're an arrogant asshole, Olli, you think you're better than everyone else, don't you?’ Bernd was really angry now. All the crap he had to listen to, just because of his new friends. Why couldn't his old best friend understand that?
‘What am I doing here?’ thought Oliver as he rolled over from his back to his stomach. Although his back was already fairly tanned and his front was significantly lighter, he didn't want to continue lying on his back; it was simply more uncomfortable. He crossed his arms, rested his head on them, and let his gaze wander.
The lawn was pretty empty for such a hot summer day. On the other hand, there were never as many people at the pool on weekdays as there were on weekends, and the holiday season and a construction fair were also factors. Therefore, there were mainly young visitors, who of course flocked here during the holidays if they didn't travel.
Oliver felt twenty-three years old compared to the average audience here. Even his friends, Mario and Thomas, who had spread out with their respective girlfriends in his immediate vicinity, were two and three years younger, respectively. He wondered what he had done in this rural town over the summer. After all, he had already moved to the capital four years ago to study there. But he spent most of the summer with his parents in the countryside.
But now he was lying here among his friends and felt lonely and excluded. He was a little jealous of the girlfriends of the two, who could snuggle up against his attractive friends when they weren't even kissing. Mario was the more beautiful of the two, tanned, one eighty tall, muscular, dark brown, medium-length hair. In his tight purple swimming trunks, he looked simply ‘scrumptious’. A pretty boy, a womaniser and a footballer. Oliver sighed.
Thomas was also a good-looking young man, six foot tall, blond, short hair and slim. He was wearing green swimming shorts, which looked a bit lanky on his tall frame. He was lying on his back while his girlfriend Nina rested her head on his stomach.
Both of them used to ask him frequently if he had a girlfriend and who she was. But Oliver never had a girlfriend. Not even a fling, not even sex. Except for the one with his right hand, but that doesn't really count. While he had always avoided these questions in the past, he had recently been telling them a lot about the things he did with his best friend Manuela, who also lived and studied in Vienna. They both assumed that Oliver was dating her and hardly asked about it anymore.
Oliver's loneliness grew painfully amidst the many handsome boys in the pool, whom he observed as inconspicuously as possible in order to at least have fun with them in his mind at night.
Oliver had known for ages, since he was about twelve, that he found boys more attractive than girls, but neither the coming-out episodes of Dawson's Creek – how often did he fall asleep thinking about Jack – nor Beautiful Thing, which he had watched alone in the cinema in Vienna with his heart pounding, could persuade him to embrace his sexuality, let alone come out. This is not really surprising, given the conservative rural area and the prudish, uptight Oliver's family.
The only physical contact Oliver had with other boys was here, in the swimming pool, with his friends and other boys from the village, when they threw each other into the water, which never happened without a tussle that continued in the water with both sides trying to submerge each other. These summer games were quite rough, the harder the opponent resisted being thrown into the water, the harder you had to hold him and the tighter you hugged him as you pushed him towards the edge of the pool.
Oliver loved these water fights, which he often started himself by clever provocation. Most of the boys he knew joined the game with great fervour, while the girls tended to stay away, as it often got quite brutal. Of course, after a while the girls were also dragged into the water and dunked, but usually only after the boys had let off steam for a while. It had been like that every summer as far back as Oliver could remember, and he didn't plan on stopping just because he was already twenty-three.
A piercing, loud laugh woke Oliver from his thoughts. Not far from him and his friends, there was a large group of young people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, with the boys in particular being quite athletic and attractive. They were a group of basketball players and their friends. Oliver knew most of them by sight, and he was even in the same class as Andi and Bernd for four years at the local grammar school. He still knew Rene and Udo from primary school.
Bernd! Oliver hadn't seen him at all this summer. This five-foot-ten-inch ‘little’ basketball player used to be his best friend. But only until the seventh (for D.: eleventh) grade of high school. A slim, athletic boy with blond, tousled hair and bright blue eyes. He had worked out just enough to have well-formed biceps and chest muscles, but he didn't look overly muscular or puffed up. When he tensed, you could also see his abs. The sunscreen glistened on his bronze skin. What a beautiful body. Oliver's gaze travelled up the slim, toned legs, with little hair, to Bernd's tight, light-blue shorts and the slight bulge there. Oliver had to swallow.
This guy, with his muscular, hairless chest and his slight bow legs, had done it to him very early on. He enjoyed every little accidental touch and the closeness that their good friendship brought with it. When this broke, Oliver often cried himself to sleep. His other friends couldn't make up for this loss. Bernd was just something special.
‘Aaahhh!’ Oliver cried out as someone poured mineral water over his back. Mario laughed at him and ran away, Oliver dived after him and chased him through the whole bathroom to the pool. There Mario suddenly stopped and turned around... Oliver wrapped his arms around Mario's upper body and tried to push him into the water. Chest to chest, they wrestled next to the pool.
Oliver, at 1m75, was smaller than Mario, but he was quite strong. He had always had broad shoulders, probably due to his genes, and a friend persuaded him to start strength training a year ago. This had given him muscles all over and he was able to keep up with Mario's muscular strength. Both bodies were tensed, you could see the fine play of muscles everywhere, from biceps to calves, as these handsome boys wrestled with each other. Quite a few bathers watched the fight with great interest, mainly of course of a female nature, as the tanned footballer and the bronze-coloured, slim athlete with short blonde hair wrestled. Oliver thought he had Mario in a position to finally push him into the water, when Mario, taking advantage of his height, hugged Oliver even tighter, pressing him against him and lifting him slightly. ‘Shit!’ thought Oliver. He seemed to be losing out, but he enjoyed being pressed against Mario's body – in wrestling terms in a bear hug – his feet lost contact with the ground, his red, tight retro shorts pressed against the purple swimming trunks. ‘Hopefully I won't get a stiffy,’ he thought...
Suddenly they were thrown into the water by a third force. Since neither of the two released the embrace, they fell tightly entwined into the cold water. ‘BRRRrrrrr!’ But the danger in the middle of Oliver's body was averted. While Thomas was still standing at the edge of the pool and laughing at them, Oliver pounced on Mario, put his hands on his shoulders and pushed him under the water. Then he quickly fled the pool.
He also tried to throw Thomas into the water, which he couldn't do alone, but Mario helped him a little later, until all three ended up in the water. They dunked each other and tried to climb out of the pool again. But by now the basketball players were also at the pool and wouldn't let the three of them out. They pushed them back into the water again and again, with some of their teammates being pushed into the water. A big wild water fight was soon underway. As usual, Nina, Sine – Mario's girlfriend – and the other girls stayed a little in the background so as not to become victims themselves. They sat on the concrete border of a flower bed near the pool and enjoyed the boys' antics.
Everyone was diving everyone, everyone was wrestling with everyone... Mario was attacked particularly often, the old football-basketball rivalry. Although Andi, Rene and Udo often went at him in threes, they hardly managed to dunk him because Thomas and Oliver rushed to his aid and the three of them got a good mouthful of chlorinated water.
Only two kept a safe distance: Oliver and Bernd. They tried not to get in each other's way and kept a safe distance between them. After all, they didn't even talk, so it would have been hard to dunk each other.
When Oliver finally made it out of the water, Udo wanted to get out of the pool too. They went at each other to push the other into the water. However, Udo was a lanky giant and couldn't stand up to Oliver... Oliver lifted him up, carried him to the edge of the pool and threw him into the waves.
Then he suddenly felt strong arms embrace him from behind and clasp him in front of his stomach. A warm, wet body pressed against his back and he was lifted slightly into the air. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as a voice he knew only too well whispered in his ear, ‘You don't throw my friends into the water with impunity, Olli!’ Before Oliver could say or react, the two athletic bodies landed pressed together in the water. But that was not all: when Oliver reached the surface and gasped for air, he was grabbed by the shoulders and pushed down several times in succession. Oliver felt hot and cold at the same time when he sensed the boy who meant so much to him and who had disappointed him so badly.
Bernd and Oliver were inseparable for a long time. They could talk to each other about everything (let's say almost everything), fool around, they went running and walking together, played basketball with each other, although Bernd was of course much better than Oliver, and they watched DVDs together. It wasn't uncommon for Bernd to fall asleep during the film, especially if it was late, and to snuggle up to Oliver in his sleep, with his head on his shoulder and his body and legs touching Oliver's body and legs. Nothing ever happened, but Oliver felt like he was in seventh heaven. The warmth that emanated from Bernd's body flowed through his and he felt secure. Sometimes Bernd's head would slip onto Oliver's chest and Oliver would put an arm around him. Whenever Bernd slowly woke up at the end of the film, Oliver would push him aside and scold him for not having the stamina to watch films. After that, Bernd would look at Oliver for a while with his piercingly clear blue eyes and dachshund expression and smile mysteriously: ‘Then why do you always watch with me?’ That always made Oliver laugh too, and he replied, ‘Because you're nice and quiet and don't eat crisps loudly during the film!’
However, the most important and deep friendship with Bernd came to an end, first gradually and then loudly, when Bernd joined the basketball club at the age of 17. School, three training sessions per week and a game on Saturdays took up a lot of time. In his limited free time, he hardly took time for Oliver and mostly hung around with his teammates. Oliver was furiously jealous and resented him for it. During the summer holidays before the final year, things got better again, but in the final year it got really bad. When they did meet, they either argued or ignored each other. Bernd tried several times to persuade Oliver to do something with his new friends. It was too much for Oliver, they were just in Bernd's room studying,
‘I don't want anything to do with those idiots! All those basketball players think about is playing ball, drinking and picking up women!’
‘Don't talk about my friends so disparagingly!‘ Bernd replied.
‘If those idiots are your friends, what does that say about you? You're not like that!’ Oliver raised his voice.
‘I'm a basketball player too, get it!’ Bernd shouted back. “I just don't want to be a weird outsider and troublemaker like you! Either you accept my new friends and make new ones yourself, or from today you'll have one less friend!” Bernd became more conciliatory. ’Try to get to know the guys first, they're okay, you'll see. Don't be so prejudiced, Olli!’
‘I don't want to get to know them!’
‘Please.’
‘No!’
‘Please, Olli, for my sake.’
‘I said no, damn it. Andi is already getting on my nerves at school, he never leaves me alone. I won't even start with the other weirdos...’ Oliver rolled his eyes.
‘OLLIE’
‘Leave me alone! Go to your fucking basketball buddies’
‘You've played basketball with them too’ Bernd's gaze became more pleading.
‘I still don't want to be friends with them! If you don't have time for me besides school, club and your new friends... well, tough luck ’ Oliver looked up at the ceiling. It might seem arrogant, but he tried to hold back the tears that he could already feel coming.
‘You're an arrogant asshole, Olli, you think you're better than everyone else, don't you?’ Bernd was really angry now. All the crap he had to listen to, just because of his new friends. Why couldn't his old best friend understand that?