A Soldier's Story (2 page)

       By the time they arrived back at the barracks, Jay felt insensible with heat and lust. I'm just a stiff cock with no brains or will left. He squinted up at the quarter moon surrounded by stars, grateful that the hellish fireball of a sun had finally sunk beneath the horizon.

       The tantalising smell of fried chicken wafted out from the mess kitchen, but he wasn't hungry. Or at least, he wasn't hungry for food. He went directly to his room and threw himself down on the bed.

       Oh God, he wanted Darren so badly. But he wouldn't feel that way; he tried to reassure himself, if there were women around. Lord, look what happened in prisons and convents, and anywhere for that matter, where one gender was deprived of the other. Hell, today's army would do well to follow the example of General Joseph Hooker, who allowed whores in army camps, during the US Civil War.

       Jay stroked his cock, trying to jerk it towards a climax that stubbornly eluded him. Damn! He felt more sensual than horny, that was the problem. All the nerves in his body tingled. His foot felt as much of a sex organ as his dick. He grinned at the thought.

        He'd experienced it before on occasion, and found it more difficult to remedy than just straight randiness. He needed to pound a hooker, and there were lots of them, he'd been told, in Cyprus. Or Darren… He leapt out of bed at the unbidden thought. Damn that accusing little voice––his alter ego, he supposed––it would be the undoing of him, if he let it. He lit a cigarette and stood by the window, staring at the moon. The room closed in on him, suffocating. He had to get out. Had to take a walk in the air, what there was of it, in the still desert night.

       He stumbled down the dark corridor and made for the stairs. As he passed by the supply closet he narrowly missed colliding with a soldier carrying a stack of towels. "Oops. Sorry, sir, I wasn't looking where I was going."

       Darren!

       Jay felt the irrevocable strings of certain destiny tug at his intestines. So it was meant to be. There was no escaping it. "It wasn't your fault," he murmured. His voice sounded thick with desire, but he no longer cared. At least he didn't think he did, for at that moment he stopped fighting himself.

       He knew Darren sensed this by the look in his eyes. Without uttering a word, he stashed the towels on a shelf and moved to the far end of the storage room. Jay hesitated only slightly before following as if in a trance, barely remembering to close the door behind him.

       What happened next was such a raw act of naked lust that it sent shock waves pulsing through him. They moved together as one, kissing, holding, fondling until Jay feared he would implode from the sheer intensity of his passion. He had dreamed of this moment for so long. Now that it was finally here, it out surpassed even his most lurid imaginings. Darren felt like magic pressed against him, his body hard and firm, his skin warm and smooth to the touch, his mouth creating a special nirvana all its own.

       As if on cue from some erotic deity, they undid their belts in unison, and dropped their pants. Jay fell to his knees and only after the slightest hesitation, took Darren's rigid cock in his mouth. One part of him held back, looked on, couldn't believe what he was doing. Yet no power on earth could have persuaded him to stop. He loved it, felt enraptured, took the full length of it in his mouth and rimmed around the head with his tongue. He recalled how an old girlfriend used to deep throat him and emulated her technique: look up, open wider, let it slide right down. Darren pushed him away. "I won't last like that," he gasped. "I'm ready to go off any minute." Then he got to his knees in front of Jay, and returned the favour.

       Sheer bliss spiked with flame, thought Jay, and gave himself up completely to the intensity of the moment. He felt as if he were riding the crest of a wave, about to crash into the surf at any moment…

       But Darren stopped his heavenly ministrations just short of them producing what promised to be a thunderous orgasm. Jay moaned his displeasure.

       "Do me standing up," Darren whispered, and placed his hands on the wall with his legs apart.

       Jay trembled so much he could scarcely breathe. He eased his cock into Darren's anus as carefully as he could given the urgency of the moment. He felt awkward. He'd never done anal before, even with a woman. And the fact that they were both so damned aroused they were insensible didn't help matters. Shouldn't there be Vaseline…?

       But once inside with his lips kissing Darren's back and his hands fondling his balls and cock, all concerns were forgotten, and Jay fucked him to a special kind of paradise that could not be eclipsed.

~ * ~

       Cyprus…blinding blue sky, golden beaches, calm waters. Jay browsed around the local sights, Paphos Castle, the lighthouse, the Tomb of the Kings. He had lunch beside a palm tree overlooking the harbour. What secrets, he wondered; lay behind the shuttered windows of the stone houses?

       He ordered another beer. One more day and he'd be back home with Kerry. The idea scared him, he had to admit, but he realised how much worse it would be if he'd gone directly from Afghanistan to Canada. The military had got it right for once by providing this hiatus between the worlds.

       "You lonely. You like party with me?" He had noticed her working her way through the tables, red haired, probably Russian, with brown eyes and black enamelled fingernails. The place was crawling with hookers, of course, and a man by himself was fair game.

       "Not right now," he said, although he didn't find her unattractive. He just felt so damned confused about his own sexuality. Wanted to relax for the afternoon. Do some more sightseeing and forget about the pressing problems of war and sex, if only for a while.

       She looked disappointed. "How about later?"

       "Maybe." He smiled up at her. "If I want to, I'll meet you back here around eight."

       She beamed. "My name Nadia. I very reasonable price, you won't be disappointed." She leaned over, showing off her cleavage. "I do anything…how you say…and everything you want."

       God, what a helluva way to make a living, Jay thought, as he watched her teeter away on impossibly high heels. He compared her to Kerry. He couldn't imagine her peddling her ass to strangers even to save herself from certain death. If only she could see him now, contemplating a date with a hooker. But even worse, if she had somehow looked in on what he was doing in the supply closet with another soldier––a male soldier! It was the first time he had ever cheated on her too. He consoled himself in the conviction that she would never find out. Neither would anyone else in his hometown.

       He finished his beer and lit a cigarette. He would save the hard drinking part until later, after he'd performed with the redhead, of course. Maybe a hot session with a woman was exactly what he needed to drive the thoughts of Darren from his mind? Yet he felt afraid. What if it didn't hold the same thrill as it used to? What if it couldn't measure up to his experience in the supply closet?

       He got up and walked slowly back to his hotel. The problem was, he didn't see how anything could even come close to being as intense, exciting and utterly earth-moving. Perhaps the forbidden nature of the act, and the danger of someone walking in and catching them at any minute had added that indelibly delicious dash of spice to the encounter. He shuddered at the risk he'd taken. How could he have been so bloody reckless and out of control?

       He spent the rest of the afternoon at the spa and swimming pool trying to free his mind of the encroaching angst. It was incredible, he supposed, that after such a sizzling finale to the attraction and friendship he felt for Darren, nothing else of note passed between them. Jay would have loved an encore, but at the same time feared it above all else. Where the hell was it leading? So the business of the squad went on as usual with both acting as if the sizzling encounter, which broke all the rules, had never happened. It got to the point that Jay almost wondered at times, if it had, or was it all merely a figment of his own florid imagination.

       Before he left for the airport, he had shaken hands with Darren, said goodbye, and wished him well. It was the first time they had touched since their hands had been all over each other in the supply closet. Then on mutual impulse they hugged, brief but magical. Jay felt his senses soar. But that was it.

       As he swam a few more laps, he regretted not taking it further. Darren was clearly waiting for him to make the first move. After all he held the rank. He smiled at that, as he got out of the pool. Resisting going for an encore, took every ounce of willpower he possessed. It was punishing, every fibre in his being longed for it. Yet by the same token, he felt he had done the right thing. Now it could be just marked down to a single moment of mad indiscretion brought about by circumstances, and never to be repeated.

       When he got back to his room, he ordered dinner from room service, and downed a double Scotch before setting out for his rendezvous beneath the palm tree.

       Nadia was already there, waiting for him. "You very good looking." She peered up at him, seductively. "I like men…how you say…tall and built."

       So do I, it seems, Jay thought self deprecatingly. Darren certainly meets the criteria. In fact, we'd make a perfect baby together. He grinned, amazed that he could wax so irreverent about something so profoundly disturbing.

       "You have good time with me, you like me, that good." It seemed Nadia thought the reaction was to her. It amused Jay.

       She linked her arm in his and led him to a glitzy second-rate hotel, where she rented a room by the hour. The neon sign flashed across the king size bed and fluttered over the peeling plaster on the drab walls. Jay drew the curtains closed and dimmed the lights.

       Nadia performed a titillating strip tease. She really did have a good body, he noted with approval, firm breasts and flat stomach, and her pussy was shaved. The latter he found particularly exciting. Not only was it different, he had never fucked a woman with a shaved cunt before, but it exposed the genitals in a most provocative fashion.

       "You like lick?" Nadia questioned, on noting his interest.

       He shook his head. These were dangerous times disease-wise, and you had to be damned careful what you did with a whore.

       "I very clean," she protested, as if reading his thoughts. "No STD." She tried to kiss him. He pulled away.

       "You think I filthy or somethin'?" she demanded.

         Jay took control. I am a fuckin' lieutenant, after all, he thought grimly but with a mitigating degree of humour. "I don't want you to say another word." He placed a finger on her lips. "Just be

quiet and do what I say."

       She nodded. Looked impressed. He pushed her down on the bed. Played with her breasts, fingered her cunt. They said whores never got aroused, just faked it. Yet, Nadia's nipples grew stiff under his touch and her cunt lubricated.

       He felt terrifically aroused. Wanted to fuck her within an inch of her life. Relief flooded over him like a friendly tide. So the encounter with Darren hadn't changed anything. It hadn't, as he had feared, made him less of a man. He still desired a woman just as much as before. And her cunt would do fine. He honestly had no desire to fuck her up the ass. He rolled on a condom, mounted her and drove into her hard. She moaned and wrapped her legs around his waist, rocked in a frenzy. When she fondled his balls, he went off like a rocket.

       Nadia didn't give him a chance to rest. She was up on her knees in a flash and licking him all over. She ended her ministrations with a superlative blowjob, pausing now and then to suck on his balls. When he came, he unloaded such a mega amount of cum in her mouth; he feared it might choke her. But she swallowed it all like the pro that she was, and appeared eager for more.

       "Not tonight, Josephine." He winked.

       "I Nadia, not this Josephine, whoever." She pouted.

       Jay laughed, and tipped her generously. She hugged him impulsively, and kissed his cheek. Insisted on giving him her telephone number. "I like see you again. You call…no."

       "We'll see." He patted her ass. She suddenly looked so small and defenceless standing there naked in a tawdry room that reeked of sex. Maybe she wasn't the hardened pro he thought she was, after all? Or perhaps this was all part of the act to draw him in for another session?

       Down in the street a sidewalk musician strummed on an out of tune guitar. Jay dropped a few coins in the hat and strolled back to his hotel in a kind of blissful euphoria under a sky glittering with stars.

       When he asked for his key at the desk, the clerk handed him a message, to call Colonel Gilles Beaumont, his CO in Afghanistan–– former CO. But what the heck did he want? He'd recommended Jay for a promotion to captain, so it certainly wasn't about any negligent unfinished business.

       As soon as he got back to his room, he punched in the number.

       "I've got the worst possible news." Beaumont's French accent

sounded more pronounced than usual, a sure sign he was seriously upset.

       Jay braced himself accordingly. Felt the room tilt. What the hell had happened? Kerry! He'd been trying to phone her without success for a couple of days. He sat down. He'd feel so damned guilty too, after what he'd been up to. Oh God.

       "It's the squad, Jay. They went missing on their last patrol."

       Relief that it wasn't bad news about his wife was short lived. The squad. That meant Darren. He felt nauseous. Tried to swallow. But his throat was too dry.

       "Look I know this is the last thing you want to hear…headed home and all…but we need you back here. That's not an order, of course. You're under no obligation to return."