Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 19:24:30 -0500
From: Jake Preston <jemtling@gmail.com>
Subject: Queering Benedict Arnold 4

Queering Benedict Arnold  4
In some Woods near Poughkeepsie: July 2012
By Jake Preston


"Queering Benedict Arnold" is historical gay fiction. The story alternates between
twenty-first century scenes in which Jake Preston and Ben Arnold (a descendent)
investigate Benedict's life, and eighteenth-century scenes imagined by Jake and
Ben. Some characters and allusions hark back to "Wayward Island" (in nifty's file
on Beginnings). Jake Preston is the narrator in both works.

Most episodes are faithful to history, except for sexual encounters, which are
fictional. You should not read this story if you are a minor, or if you are offended
by explicit gay sex.

Benedict Arnold was an American military genius who was treated unfairly by
jealous rivals while he lived. After his death, he was denounced as the archetypal
traitor in history and folklore, but he was a target of inexplicable hatred long
before his treasonable conspiracy with John André to surrender the fort at West
Point to the British. Taken as a whole, "Queering Benedict Arnold" is an attempt
to discover the origins of that hatred. Comments welcome: contact Jake at
jemtling@gmail.com.

Nifty stories are free to Readers, but donations are encouraged.


      *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

	I awoke in the dead of night with a chill in my back. Our campfire burned
low, and Ben was gone. I figured he had ducked into the brush to take a leak, and
called his name softly. Hearing no reply, I called loudly through hands cupped
toward a cluster of trees darkened by night-shadows and brush. I put on my jeans
and boots. Stumbling over stumps and rocks and wishing I had a flashlight, I
climbed the ridge toward a clump of trees where I had parked my motorcycle.
Ben wasn't there. I followed the grassy trail to the road.

	 Ben sometimes startled awake with flashbacks of bad times in the Kunar
River Valley, like the morning when the latrine blew up when Private Stan
Mueller opened the door. That morning the latrine had been avoided by eight
Pashto cops from Kabul, who had attached themselves to the Askars, attracted by
for higher pay and (as it turned out) the possibilities for corruption. After Mueller
was killed, the cops-turned-soldiers were quick to advance the theory that local
Taliban snuck into our base at night and booby-trapped the latrine door. The cops
called them "Taliban," a term never used by the Askars, who referred to their
enemies as "dushmen"-outlaws: a Persian word. In the 1980s the Afghanis
applied it to the Soviet army. Instead of 'dushmen', the Marines sometimes said
'dushies', a Pashto word meaning 'ghosts' or 'evil spirits'.

      After this fragging-attempt, Ben's platoon used latrines without the
privacy and danger of doors. Was it the memory of Private Mueller, or some other
wartime tragedy, that caused Ben to wander in the dark? Or did he think he was
back in Ganjigal?

	A car passed by on the road. It was just before 3:00 A.M. A hundred yards
ahead, the driver honked his horn. I ran ahead as the car sped off. I found Ben
walking alongside the road, butt-naked. It took me a few minutes to realize that he
was sleep-walking. I led him by the hand, back to our campfire. He was
compliant. The only difficulty was finding a path where he wouldn't lacerate his
feet any more than he already had done. When I coaxed him into getting dressed,
he woke up. I told him what had happened. I figured the driver of the car had
called the cops on his cellphone, so we'd best get dressed. It was too dark for us
to break camp and take off on the motorcycle. We let the fire burn down: no need
to give away our position. In the upper branches of trees, we caught reflected
glimpses of headlights, most likely a cop car, but it never stopped.

	The mention of a cop triggered an association of ideas in Ben's head: "The
cops from Kabul who blew up the latrine and Private Mueller with it, I think they
were trying to get our Askar lieutenant, Aziz Rahul, because a week before, he
had stopped them from siphoning gas from their trucks and selling it to a village
elder. He knew that the bomb was meant for him."

	"How do you know that, Ben?" I asked.

	"He told me," Ben said.

	"When these memories come back, is that what makes you walk in your
sleep?" I asked Ben.

	"No. The memories wake me up," Ben replied.

	"And the illusion that you're back in Ganjigal?"

	"For me that's more of a waking trance, to be under attack in Ganjigal,"
Ben said.

      "Do you know the cause of your sleep-walking?"

	"No. But I know what triggers it," Ben said. "It's a dream that keeps
coming back; nothing to do with the war. I'm at home in Calgary, in the parlor.
There's a tall raft of shelving where the bay-window should be. The shelves are
stocked with dozens of identical coffee mugs. Each one has my name inscribed on
the side in block letters: 'Benedict Arnold'. An elderly lady climbs a stepladder
and reaches for one of the cups. 'This one is meant for you', she says: 'this one
and none other.' It seems a harmless dream. Still it disturbs me. When I wake up
later, I don't remember walking in my sleep, but I remember the dream."

	Ben's mind drifted back to an earlier subject: "A month later the cops
from Kabul tried to cut Aziz down by 'friendly fire'. Lieutenant Rahul led a
detachment of eight Askars on a regular patrol in the hills above the Kunar River.
I was there too, and Corporal Floyd Jones. On the trail above our base, a grenade
exploded just behind us. It sounded like a grenade. That surprised us: How could
the dushies move in close enough to lob a grenade? Our question was answered
by another explosion. It was fire from a forty-millimeter shell. It came from our
own camp. From a glint of light, I knew that someone down there was watching
us with field glasses. Aziz- I mean Lieutenant Rahul- telephoned camp to say
that we were taking friendly fire. I stayed close to Aziz, hoping that the Kabul
cops (it that's who it was) would refrain from shooting at an American advisor.
'Those dushie shits are trying to frag you', I said to Aziz. He looked puzzled. His
English was poor. He didn't know the word 'frag'. But he knew 'shits' well
enough and grasped my meaning. Everyone in our party put on tarp-like orange
vests to identify ourselves as friendlies. Still, we kept away from the trail, and
crept among nearby boulders. Another forty-millimeter shell deflected from the
boulder that afforded Aziz and me with our only shelter from friendly fire. Jonesy
(Corporal Jones) got on the horn with Sergeant Kowalski, another American
'advisor', and told him to knock it off with shelling from base camp. 'One more
forty-mill and I'll telephone Fort Joyce for aerial on your position!' (By 'aerial'
he meant artillery fire from the air.) He shouted his threat into the phone. He
never would have done that, and even if he had, Fort Joyce would never have sent
artillery against our own base, but the threat got results. There was no more
shelling from the base, but the commotion attracted the dushmen and soon our
platoon was in a firefight with them. No one was injured on either side, but the
'friendly fire' crisis was forgotten.

      "Officially, Jonesy and I were 'advisors', like all the Marines attached to
Askar companies-a political fiction," Ben continued. "It was part of
counterinsurgency theory, not unlike Richard Nixon's attempt to Vietnamize the
Vietnam War thirty years ago. How could Lt. Rahul be in command of a patrol
when Lt. Jones was required to keep control of the radio? - Anyway, Rahul's
English wasn't good enough request aerial artillery from Fort Joyce. We were
under orders to pretend that the Askars were in charge of defense in Afghanistan,
except when they weren't, which was any time we had a firefight with Taliban
insurgents."

      I put in my two cents: "George Bush once said that the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan would not be repetitions of the Vietnam War. That's when I knew
that Afghanistan would be another Vietnam."

	Ben ignored my political commentary. He had an urgent story to tell. It
was personal, not political: "After the second fragging attempt, Rahul concluded
that his only chance of survival was to stick close to me. This was possible
because I was assigned to him as his tactical and communications advisor. He
moved his cot into my two-room hut, so we became bunkmates. None of the
Marines objected to this: Rahul was the only Askar they thought they could trust.
He never included the Kabul cops in any patrol mission-instead, he delegated
command of them to an Askar Sergeant. 'They're worse than useless, they're
homicidal', he would say.

	"Aziz Rahul was relieved when four of the cops got blown up in a
transport truck by an IED. They were peddling stolen gasoline in a village. The
danger to Rahul was reduced by their deaths, but a new danger presented itself:
Rahul and I became lovers.

	"Our two-room hut was 'Communication Central' in our outpost in a
settlement called Monti. We slept in cots in a windowless room. We hung a tarp
over the door for privacy, and blocked the doorway with a desk that was loaded
with maps and tactical plans. Marines and Askars came and went freely, but our
sleeping quarters were off-limits, and anyone entering or leaving had to squeeze
around the desk. Often we sat at the desk together, studying maps and patrol
tactics by the light of a window, or by a battery-powered lamp. That's where the
body-language between us gradually became intimate.

	"Our courtship was silent intimacy by metonymy: his sun-browned, hairy
arm on the desk, pressed against the fair-skinned smoothness of mine while we
imagined the contrast of our bodies, if only we could enjoy freedom from military
fatigues. In the evening, when we seldom had unannounced visitors, I dared to
keep my shirt unbuttoned. Aziz followed my example. An exchange of glances
confirmed the imagined hairiness of his chest, and the fair smoothness of mine.
The physical differences between us proved to be an irresistible attraction. One
evening while we poured over a satellite-map of the backwater-wash in the Kunar
River, near an unfriendly village called Ganjigal, I took Aziz's hand and guided it
to my chest. Aziz fondled my nips and ran his hands over my smooth torso. He
took my hand to his hirsute chest, and while I explored his pits and nips, he
fondled my cock, nestled in a clothen trap of khaki and jockey-shorts. If only he
could free it from its trap! Mutual desire was mingled with our terror at getting
caught.

	"We ventured outside to piss before bedtime. We stood together and
watched each other piss against the wall of our hut. Ever since the fragging-
attempt against Aziz, we kept visits to the latrine to a minimum. Back in the hut, I
got naked for Aziz. I guided his hand over my torso. He pulled me into an
embrace. We kissed while he fondled my butt. No words were exchanged. We
kept alert for sounds of our fellow Marines and Askars.

	"I helped Aziz out of his clothes. We stood face to face. His moans echoed
mine in the mutual groping of a sword-fight between cocks. It was too dark to see,
but Aziz's fingertips found my foreskin, which quickly became the focus of
anatomical curiosity. I showed him how to pull it forward gently and let it retract
over my shaft. He held his shaft firm at the base while I pulled my gunny over his
glans in the dim glimmer of moonlight from the window. A bulbourous pool
formed between us when he took over the docking-action. 'Docking', I
whispered, 'but don't use that word in public'. I didn't need to explain why.

	"I knelt in front of Aziz and went down on him. He couldn't conceal his
surprise that I did that for him-but then, everything we did together was a first-
mostly for me, too. He raised me by the pits and went down on me in extended
reciprocation, motivated by his interest in my foreskin. When I jizzed in his
mouth, he was hungry for me. I was the satisfied beneficiary of his first blow-job.
I took his hand and led him to my cot. When we got sidled, I lay on my belly and
gave him the license he needed to roam his hands everywhere over my body.
When his fingers reached my cleft, I arched to let him know that nothing was
forbidden. After months of cautious friendship, for us it was more than sex. It was
freedom. 'Take what you need, Aziz', I said.

      "Aziz pressed his finger against my virginal button. I told him to slide it
inside. At first, he didn't understand me. I demonstrated by making a circle with
my left thumb and index finger, and stuck my right middle-finger into it. 'Use
your fuck-finger', I said-a new addition to Aziz's English vocabulary. He wet it
with spit as best he could, and inserted it slowly. 'Get it all the way in, Aziz', I
said. 'It IS all the way in', he said. 'In that case, you'll have to use something
bigger', I said. I tightened my sphincter around his finger. No translation needed.

      If you think it's gonna hurt getting your cherry popped, try it with spit for
lube! I grit my teeth and deep-throated a howl when Aziz pushed his cockhead
past my sphincter. I clutched the end of my cot and watched my knuckles turn red
when his shaft drilled its way inside me. 'Don't stop, Aziz, no matter what I say',
I told him, but all the while I was thinking, 'if only his cock was six inches, or
seven, it would be easier to take!' When he burned his way through my inner
sphincter, he saw the redness in my complexion, down to my neck and shoulders,
and offered to stop. 'God no!' I said. If he pulled out of me now, I knew we'd
have to do it again from the beginning. 'I want this,' I said. This was true, though
not at the moment.

      "'Allah akhbar!' Ben whispered, jubilant. I reached around and felt the
base of his cock at my anal rim. Sure enough, Aziz had made it all the way up my
ass. He thought it was the point of no return, but for me that point came earlier,
when I arched my ass for him. As long as he fucked slowly, his dick-friction was
tolerable, but when Nature took its course it was almost as painful as initial
penetration. I took it like a man because in our relationship at this moment, we
needed to go all the way. Be both felt this need. Aziz would have bottomed for
me, but since I volunteered, how could he refuse? Our intercourse was lubeless
but not loveless. Even so, don't let anyone tell you that love works well enough
for a lube. The rocks above Kunar River could be measured on satellite maps, but
the friction that Aziz administered to my anal canal could not be measured.
Words cannot tell my relief when he moaned in my ear and his rigid rod turned
lubriciously silken. Moments after he removed his cock dripping with cum, his
erection returned and he plunged into me again, and humped furiously until he
orgazzed a second time.

	"After the agony of unlubed sex, romance returned when we lay in each
other's arms, whispering and cuddling. I held Aziz's hairy body like a teddy-bear.
When we got horny, he offered to take his turn in the saddle. I said no: 'Now that
my ass is lubed with your spooge, let's take advantage'. Unlike spittle, spooge
works quite well as a lubricant in anal intercourse. Our lips locked while he
missioned me. His earlier kisses had been tentative, but now his tongue could not
be extricated from my mouth, nor his prick from my portal. 'Allah akhbar (I used
his expression), you've conquered my ass'. Afterward, in pillow-talk, I had to
explain the North American idiom of 'conquering' ass, a suitable expression for
two lieutenants, and 'missioning', a verb formed from 'missionary position'.
He thought it had something to do with a military 'mission', as in 'missioning
a Marine'. I had to admit to his logic, but 'language is rarely logical', I said.
'That's why it's so hard to learn'.

      "Aziz thought it strange that Americans considered any position besides
the 'missionary' one as a deviation from the norm. He liked missioning because it
felt exotic, and he liked the way I opened up to him spread-eagle, 'like a rose in a
garden at dawn opening up to a hummingbird'. He had learned the word
'hummingbird' earlier in the week, when we saw one in Camp Monti. At last he
found a way to use it in a sentence! I had to explain the American idiom of
'cherry-popping' or 'cherry-busting', too, something that Aziz had just done to
me. 'It's not just North American, the Brits use it, too' I said. 'In Pashto we talk
about piercing the pearl of virginity, which makes me your jeweler and you my
prize pearl', he said while he fondled my butt. If I could have seen his face in the
dark, it would have glowed with pride.

      "'They say that a virgin will always have a special place in his heart for
the man who takes his virginity', I told Aziz. 'What do you say, Ben?' he asked.
'I think it's true, at least for us', I replied. 'They also say that when you fuck a
guy, it's the second time that really nails him'. We drifted into sleep, but three
times more during the night, Aziz rose to the occasion with additional
contributions of spooge. We tried it at different angles. He even fucked from
behind standing up, but we always returned to missioning. I was glad for the
freedom he took with my body.

      "'I'm one happy guy', Aziz said when we woke to the light of dawn. He
wanted to fuck again, but it was way too dangerous. 'Besides, you already got me,
how many times was it?' I asked. 'Five times, but who's counting?' he replied.
'Six times, if you count the double-fuck you gave me the first time', I said.
'That's six fucks I owe you', I quipped. While we got dressed, we argued about
whether a double-fuck counts as one or two."

      I asked Ben if Aziz ever offered his ass in return. He did, but that's a story
for another day, Ben replied.

      "The fear of being discovered was always part of our relationship," Ben
said. "I was afraid because 'Don't ask, don't tell' was still the rule in the Marines,
but more than that, I was afraid that I might get fragged by one of my buddies if
they found out. There were two ex-cons in my unit, both privates, so I had to
allow for the possibility of criminal behavior. They won't allow gay guys in the
Marines, but apparently they have no objection to common criminals. Still, Aziz
had more cause to be fearful, because a homosexual act, and even just being gay,
is a capital crime in Afghanistan, punishable by stoning. That's if you're lucky.
Aziz told me about one gay guy who was murdered by neighbors. They plugged
his rectum with superglue, and kept him naked in a cage while his stomach
distended and his internal organs were poisoned by his own shit."

	Ben continued: "One night after we made love, I asked Aziz if he was a
Moslem. He said he was, because in Afghanistan it was unlawful to be anything
else. 'Then maybe I should ask if you're an observant Moslem', I said. 'Let me
answer your question by telling you about something that happened when I lived
in Kabul. I witnessed a Taliban execution of two nineteen-year-old boys for the
crime of being gay. Who knows if they were gay or not? Their accuser owed a
debt to the father of one of the boys. Maybe the boy's father spurned a blackmail
attempt. The accuser caught them in the act, or so he said, although gossip was
contradictory about what act. I recognized them as neighbors. The Taliban
summoned all our neighbors to the stadium to witness the execution. The Taliban
had banned sports, along with music, dancing, movies, and all forms of
entertainment, so the stadium was available for public executions. While the two
boys dug their own execution pits, jeered by hundreds of spectators, a succession
of mullahs gave long-winded speeches about shari'a and sodomy-an alien vice
brought by Russians, then by Americans, to sully the moral purity of the Pashto
people. Hoots rose from the crowd when the two boys stood in their pits and the
earth was filled in up to their shoulders. The boys' mothers and grandmothers
were brought in to cast the first stones at their exposed heads. They were followed
by other family members. A younger sister of one boy, distraught and defiant,
removed her black burqa and placed it over the boys' heads for protection. She
knelt between the boys and screamed about the injustice of false accusations. At a
signal from a Taliban cleric, one of the guards shot her in the head. They would
have shot her in any case, for the crime of removing her burqa. After that, all the
neighbors hurled stones at the dying boys, caught up in a surge of religious
enthusiasm. I'll become an observant Muslim on the day when these two boys and
their sister are brought back to life and the persecution of gay people comes to an
end. Until that day comes, for me Islam is just another barbarity inflicted on the
world by fanatics'.  That's what Aziz had to say about Islam," Ben said. "He
wanted to be an American, or a Canadian like me. He'd go anywhere he was
wanted."

	There were gaps in Ben's story. Life is experienced chronologically, but
memory is never chronological. This is especially true when it comes to events
that are always present in our minds. In Ben's case, the most obvious gap was the
Battle of Ganjigal. He referred to it often, but it would be weeks before he could
talk about it. Maybe he never would. Was he afraid that the terror would come
back if he told the story? Did he feel guilty about surviving a battle in which other
Marines were killed? I wondered.

    	"After Ganjigal, I was in the base hospital in Kabul waiting for transport
to Okinawa, and from there to San Diego. The only visitor I remember was
General Petraeus. He took a special interest when an aide informed him that I had
been wounded at Ganjigal. 'Son, is there anything I can do for you?' he asked. I
told him how Lieutenant Aziz Rahul had carried me from the firefight, and that
the only reward he wanted was to be a U.S. Marine and a U.S citizen. 'That's all I
want, Sir', I said: 'A Purple Heart or a Medal of Honor would mean nothing to me
unless Lieutenant Rahul had a share in it.' The General nodded, gravely. His aide
took notes. There had been some talk about awarding a Medal of Honor to
Marines who survived Ganjigal."

	"So there's hope for Aziz Rahul, then," I mused.

	"Possibly; I don't know," Ben replied. "At least he's still alive, as far as I
know. When I was in San Diego, and when I returned to Calgary, some people
feared that I might be suicidal. Megan's family and friends warned her away from
me for that reason. They didn't know me at all. I would never kill myself, as long
as there's a chance that Aziz might still be alive. In the meantime, I keep my mind
occupied with Benedict Arnold. Some wartime survivors take up jogging, or
bicycling, or writing, or political protests, whatever eases their minds.
Discovering the historical Benedict Arnold, that's my obsession, but really I'm
just waiting for Aziz."

	"That's a powerful life-force, Ben," I said. "Staying alive for the sake of
another, like the Jews who survived the Nazis in Germany. Their task was to stay
alive as witnesses on behalf of those who were killed. Your task is to stay alive
for Lieutenant Aziz Rahul. Maybe we can find him together, if we knew where to
look."

	Dawn came to the woods outside Poughkeepsie. We had spent most of the
night talking about Benedict Arnold-not the infamous ancestor, but his living
descendent.