Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:31:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dolphin Dan
Subject: lust in iraq part 1

LUST IN IRAQ
Part 1

By Dolphin Dan

***** SPECIAL WARNING *****
In addition to the usual warnings (that if you are not of legal age, or
otherwise prohibited from or offended by reading about sexual acts among
consenting adult males, etc.) it should be mentioned that this story is not
intended to be political in any way, shape or form, and that ANY political
agenda or bias perceived here lies entirely in the mind of the reader.  If
you are not able to set aside the political aspects involved with the
setting and theme of this fictional piece, than this story is NOT for you. 
***************************

I didn't consider myself gay, or even anywhere close, until I went to Iraq.
I confess, in my teenage years I'd had some thoughts that one might
consider "gay," and even in my 20s I was kind of curious what it would be
like to sleep with a man, but I certainly didn't identify myself as gay or
even bi.  When my unit got shipped over in the fall of 2003 I was 29 and
pretty well-adjusted, and even had a steady girlfriend waiting for me back
home in Ohio.  I was a completely normal guy, like thousands of others in
the Army, and I didn't even think about "don't ask, don't tell" because it
simply didn't concern me.

PFC Toby Smythe changed all of that.  He arrived about six months after I
did with a large rotation of recruits.  They were only a few weeks out of
Basic.  We were based in one of the many tents and Quonset barracks
littering the tarmac at Baghdad International Airport, and when a bunch of
reservists were rotated back to the States, these kids--and that's what
they were, just kids--moved right in when they got out.  At first I
resented being handed a company of complete greenhorns.  Simmons, our
captain, had sympathy for me.  "I hate to do this to you, Jim," he said one
evening, offering me a cigarette after handing me a clipboard with the
orders attached.  "The Pentagon is shaking up everything.  There's a lot of
personnel changes.  We got stuck with the newbies, and we've got to get
them up to speed.  There's no two ways about it."

I first noticed Smythe during my first inspection of the barracks after the
new grunts moved in, and I couldn't explain why.  He caught my eye in a way
that was totally inexplicable.  He wasn't what you'd consider classically
attractive, at least, the type I would think most guys who like other guys
would go for.  He was a little on the short side, and, while as physically
fit as any soldier in a forward combat area, he wasn't some kind of
uber-muscular superman or anything although he was well-built.  While he
would have been quite a catch on Venice Beach in peacetime, he would have
looked very out of place posing for a magazine.  His hair was very blonde,
and, rather than the flat-top or sidewall favored by many soldiers, his was
shaved a uniform 1/8" all around his scalp.  He had brown puppy-dog eyes,
thick, straight eyebrows and a slightly aquiline nose.  Honestly he looked
like a cartoon character.  His bearing was very military: his eyes were
always directed straight forward, his chest thrust outward, and he looked
like the prodigal sailor in those Horatio Hornblower movies, presenting
himself before the mast to proudly and defiantly receive the cat-o'-nine
tails after covering for another man's transgression.  Honestly, although
his appearance was striking, I didn't like him at first.  I singled him
out.

"Who are you?" I asked him at the first inspection.

"Private First Class Toby R. Smythe, SIR!" he cried at virtually
ear-splitting volume.  He had a thick Southern accent.

"Turn that voice down a notch, Private."

"Yes, SIR."

I glanced at his cot and foot locker.  The blankets on the cot were
stretched so tight they looked about to rip apart.  The foot locker had
virtually nothing in it.  Already I didn't like Smythe.  Overachiever.
Eager to prove himself.  Hell, he probably enlisted because he wanted to
come to Iraq.  I don't know why I did what I did next.  Perhaps on a
subconscious level I realized I was attracted to him, and some kind of
reflexive defense mechanism deep in my brain was already reacting against
it.  I grabbed the blankets of his cot, pulled them up and tossed them back
down.  I pitched the pillow on the floor and nudged the locker with my foot
so that it was skew.  I walked around in front of him.

"Your cot is not regulation, Smythe."

He merely glanced behind him.  Something flashed in his eyes; I couldn't
tell whether it was cowardice or defiance.  "No, SIR," he replied.

"You'll report to me immediately after mess, private."

"Yes, SIR."

"Goddammit, I thought I told you to stop SHOUTING!"

"Yes, SIR!"

When he reported after breakfast I minced no words with him.  "I'm going to
make an example of you, Private," I told him.  "Every company needs an
example.  And I've decided you're it."  I set him right to work on numerous
very dull and boring tasks, cataloguing ammo, running files back and forth
and the like.  I figured he would blanch at this, because it seemed to me
he was one of those "hungry for glory" types who had come here to go home
with a chest full of medals.  I also verbally dressed him down in front of
others nearly every chance I got.  My own interest in Smythe, which had not
yet risen to a conscious level, was not the sole reason for this treatment.
I was a firm believer in the philosophy that, when presented with a team of
raw privates who don't know your style, you'd better single out one as an
example--even arbitrarily--and make sure he tells the rest of his company
what a hardass you're being, and then the rest of them will respect you.
So, over the next few weeks I employed this philosophy with Smythe.  I'll
skim over the details; they're not very interesting, and if you've seen any
of the standard "you're in the Army now" movies made over the last six or
seven decades you'll know the drill in any event.  I confess there were a
lot of things eating at me in those weeks.  I resented the new recruits; I
resented being passed over for OTS two months ago, which would have meant
my temporary rotation back to the States.  I missed Meredith, my
girlfriend.  I hated Iraq.  I hated the heat and the flies, the bland food,
the dust in my throat and under my fingernails, the hostile look in the
eyes of the natives, the dreadful fear every time we went out on a mission
that I wouldn't come back.  For a few weeks Smythe personified that hatred
for me, and I confess I treated him badly.  But he never once complained.
He was too much of a soldier for that.

We patrolled frequently.  Our beat was the neighborhoods on the outskirts
of Baghdad, known as the Wild West; our primary mission was to facilitate
the delivery of infrastructure and supplies to construction sites and to
provide security for patrols looking for insurgents.  It was dangerous
duty.  Two weeks after the arrival of Smythe and the other newbies, Captain
Simmons informed us that we were headed out to escort a company of tanker
trucks importing gasoline into the city.  The trucks were owned by civilian
contractors, and as civilians and gasoline were both prime targets for
insurgents in the Wild West, it was to be a hazardous assignment.  I recall
thinking, as we loaded up with ammunition, checked weapons and piled into
our HMVVs at the base, that Smythe and his friends were simply not cut out
for combat missions.  But they were all cool as cucumbers, sitting in the
back of the HMVV, weapons at the ready.  Several of the new members of the
company were metalheads, and on the way to the checkpoint Janney, one of
the most likable and gung-ho of the new grunts, passed a little wallet of
CDs to me.  "They tell me the men under your command are allowed to pick
the music on the way to the mission," said Janney.  "Could you play some
Judas Priest, sir?"

"Judas Priest?"  I smiled momentarily.  I remembered seeing Judas Priest in
Columbus in 1990, when I was sixteen.  "All right."  I plucked Painkiller
from the CD wallet and handed it up to Kinnear, our driver, who was also in
charge of the stereo.  When the music started I glanced back at the men.
Smythe, who was chewing a wad of gum the size of Minnesota, smiled and made
the little devil-horns symbol with his hand, pressing it against the front
of his helmet.  My eyes lingered on him.  For the very first time in my
life I had a conscious thought of finding another man attractive.  The hue
of his pale skin, the little golden stubble of his sideburns, the mole on
his chin, the fine little blond hairs on the back of his hand--something
about Smythe was utterly captivating and I couldn't understand it.  I
actually began to get an erection.  You have to understand how
unusual--even frightening--this is.  We were headed into a combat zone, a
part of the city rife with insurgents, into a situation where a terrorist
attack or a live firefight might erupt without warning at any moment.
Other men would be shitting their pants in fear, and instead I was tenting
mine--and over a lowly private.  It was incredibly inappropriate, and I
felt shamed and callous.

We accomplished our mission, the contractors delivered the gasoline without
incident and none of our company even fired a shot.  That was good.  On the
way back we picked another of Janney's metal CDs to play in the HMVV; it
was some band called Manowar, and several of the guys, Smythe included,
were totally getting into it.  That afternoon in the office, enjoying a
cigarette, a cup of coffee and the relief of having survived another
mission into the Wild West, I pulled Smythe's personnel file.  He was what
I expected--a raw grunt.  He was from some little shithole town on the
Mississippi Gulf Coast that I vaguely remembered being in years ago, to hit
the casinos one weekend after Basic.  Smythe hadn't even graduated from
high school; he dropped out and took his GED on his eighteenth birthday,
six months before graduation, so he could join the Army earlier.  I
lingered over his photo.  He really was a good-looking kid.  When I
realized I was getting another semi I immediately banished from my mind any
thought of having anything to do with him.  He was certainly hetero; his
file did not indicate he was married, but a guy that good-looking had to
have a girlfriend back home.  I tried to forget about Toby Smythe.  Any
distractions from our mission were ill-advised.

A week later, though, a chance encounter forced me to deal with it.  Our
unit had a set of makeshift communal showers in one of the Quonset
barracks, and, like everything else in the Army and in Iraq, there wasn't a
lot of privacy or comfort.  One evening it remained particularly hot long
into the evening, and just before hitting the rack I decided to have a
quick run through the shower.  Smythe was the only person there.  As soon
as I saw him there I knew I should have turned around and left, but how
would I have explained that?  I resolved to remain calm and not get
rattled.  Smythe was beautiful.  He really did look like a kid, and in a
way I guess he was.  His chest was smooth and hairless, his nipples perfect
little round dimes of dark-colored flesh.  Muscles that looked honed in
Basic rippled unconsciously under his pale skin.  His ass was perfectly
shaped, his thighs and calves thick but not lumpy or sinewy.  Thankfully
his back was to me and I couldn't see his dick.  As it was I tried to keep
my eyes off him.  I selected a showerhead as far away from him as possible,
but in close quarters that was only a couple of feet.  The water that came
out of the spigot was whatever temperature it was in the holding tank--and
in Baghdad in late spring everything is hot.  I wished it was ice-cold.

"Evenin,' sir," bade Smythe cheerfully when I saw him.  He was soaping up
his chest.  He turned to rinse it off.  Hanging in his crotch, dusted with
dark-blonde pubic hair, was a lovely penis.  It was of average length, but,
like everything else about Smythe, it was perfectly-shaped,
perfectly-proportioned.  His balls did seem to be on the large side.

"Hello, Smythe."  I tore my eyes away, but my mind simply couldn't help
itself.  The old curiosities of my adolescence came rushing back.  I had
the strongest urge to touch Smythe's penis.  It wasn't even that I wanted
to have sex with him.  I just wanted to know what it felt like in my hand.
The warm water coursing over my belly merely hastened the inevitable.  My
mind was disconnected from my body in that moment.  I allowed myself one
quick split-second glance back at Smythe.  He had shut off the water now
and was standing there dripping, and I realized he was staring at me.  With
a sinking feeling in my stomach I realized I had an absolutely rock-hard
erection, and that he had caught me looking at him.

I was never more mortified in my life.  Given a choice between repeating
that moment or being sent out into the Wild West unarmed in my skivvies in
the middle of a Baathist rally, I'd take the Wild West in a heartbeat.

Smythe said nothing, but it was useless to even pretend my six and a half
inch dick wasn't standing at full attention and that he didn't notice it.
He grabbed a towel and casually walked past me, out of the shower.  His
expression was blank.  I had no idea what to make of it.  After that he
avoided me when possible, and I noticed his snappy "SIR!" was not at its
usual deafening volume.

The next few days I was in a strange sort of emotional agony.  For one
thing I was conflicted: for months now the thought of returning to
Meredith's sweet embrace--and her equally sweet pussy--had kept me going,
but now she was almost a faded memory, like a character out of a book,
whereas Smythe was alive and definitely in my face on a daily basis.  For
another, I was very worried that Smythe might tell someone what he'd seen.
"Don't ask, don't tell" is one thing, but even a whisper among the men that
the sergeant of the platoon might have been queer could change the dynamic
of our unit, and that would surely interfere with our mission.  Indeed I
actually began to think whether I should request a transfer, and on what
grounds I could make it stick.  Then sanity came back to me.  This was MY
unit.  I wasn't going to transfer out because I secretly jerked off in my
bunk at night thinking about one particularly good-looking soldier under my
command.  The whole thing was ridiculous.

Then toward the end of the week another mission loomed.  Captain Simmons
called us all together and, with maps spread out on the table, informed us
of what was coming.  "We've got reliable intel that an insurgent leader is
being held in a safe house in this part of the city," he said.  "We're
going to to a standard snatch and grab, only it may not be so standard."
The problem: this safe house was a tough one to crack.  The insurgents
holed up there were believed to be heavily armed with everything from AKs
to RPGs and more.  It would be a dangerous mission.  He was putting us
together with Captain Peterson's unit.  The insertion would begin at 0145
that night.

I will not go into great detail on the mission; that's not the focus of my
story.  It should suffice to say that those hours leading up to 0145 were
excruciating for everyone.  Our unit had had bad experiences before in that
part of the city and every time we went in there it was a pitched
firefight.  As I loaded ammo clips, Private Smythe came up to me.  He
looked as cool and as collected as ever, a cigarette hanging from his lip,
as if this was all in a day's work.  "You nervous, Sergeant?" he asked me.

"Don't you worry about me, Private."

"Good luck, sir."

"You too, Smythe."

We went in, two companies of well-armed guys in HMVVs.  The shooting
started within a block of the safe house.  It was exactly as I expected,
but you can never really be used to the fear, the horror and the
adrenaline.  After 20 or 25 minutes I found myself pinned down with Janney,
Parham and Kovacz behind a crumbling wall, and an insurgent with a
tripod-mounted machine gun was giving us hell.  "We've got to take out that
weapon!" I cried over the roar and chatter of gunfire all around us.  The
plan was to take it out with a shoulder-mounted grenade.  Parham, Kovacz
and I would provide cover fire while Janney launched it.  That moment was
one of the most terrifying of my time in Iraq.  As soon as I began firing I
heard the answering chatter of the insurgents' gun.  Then I heard a loud
PING! and I was thrown backward as if someone had hit me square in the
front of my helmet with a sledgehammer.  I heard the whoosh and roar of the
grenade and felt the heat of the blast of the resulting explosion.  But I
was very disoriented.  I assumed I'd been shot in the head but I couldn't
feel any blood steaming down my face as I would have expected.

The next thing I remember I was on the HMVV and we were on our way back.
The world was swimming back to me.  Beamer, the medic, was swabbing at my
head.  I had a splitting headache.  "I hate to say this, sir," said Beamer,
"but one more millimeter to the left and you'd have been a KIA for sure."

"What happened?"

All the guys on the HMVV--I noticed Smythe was among them--stared at me
like I was nuts.  "You don't remember?" said Beamer.

"I remember getting shot."

Janney handed me my helmet.  There were two neat bullet holes in the left
side, very close together, an entry and an exit.  Astonishingly the bullet
had gone into my helmet, grazed my scalp and popped out the other side.  It
was literally as close a shave as they come.  I was addled and had a nice
raw gash on the left side of my head, but I was alive.

I was very shaken by the brush with death.  We got back to the base as dawn
painted the sky, with, thankfully and almost miraculously, very few
casualties of a minor nature and no KIAs.  We had accomplished the mission,
sort of--we failed to capture the guy we wanted, but he was believed to
have been killed in the action.  I collapsed into my bunk in the barracks
and slept fitfully.  Killing people is never a good thing to do before bed.

When I woke in the morning, still shaken, I went to put on my boots and
found a piece of paper inside my left boot.  Astonished, I took it out.
The blood drained out of my head when I read it:

"SGT., I KNOW I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO ASK AND YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TELL.
MAYBE THERE'S NOTHING TO ASK OR TELL ABOUT.  BUT IF THERE IS WE HAVE
SOMETHING IN COMMON.  YOU KNOW ME, I SAW SOMETHING THE OTHER NIGHT YOU WISH
I HADN'T.  YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.  LOVE TO CHAT IN PRIVATE (AND I
DO MEAN PRIVATE).  IF NOT, OK, AND YOU CAN COUNT ON MY DISCRETION IF I CAN
COUNT ON YOURS."

The note was astonishing; it was brazen, and extremely dangerous.  I didn't
even know how he got it into my stuff.  By all rights I should have
crumpled it up, thrown it away and never thought of it again, for it was
the kind of thing that could get both its author and its recipient in a
world of trouble--even court-martialed.  Probably at any other time I would
have done just that, even despite what I felt for Smythe.  But all of us
were in a strange mood, living day by day with the shadow of death.  Still
shaken by how close I'd come to getting killed, I was in a strange and
risky state.  But you also have to understand that I viewed the note as an
act of love, of kindness.  We were in the middle of a war, surrounded by
violence, butchery and hatred that ground us down.  Being the recipient of
an act of love, under those circumstances, makes it all the more imperative
to act on it.

The next night, while the men were having some rec time watching Comedy
Central taped from the states, I approached Smythe in a brusque manner.
"Private, report to me in the office right away."  The other men looked at
him and at me.  He looked momentarily terrified; perhaps he thought I was
going to report him over the note.  "Yes, sir," he replied.

It was late and the office section of the main barracks was empty.  The
office was a prefab unit, like an indoor trailer at a construction site.
My heart skipped a beat; I knew what an awful risk we were both taking.
After he came in I sat at the desk, picked up my coffee cup and lit a
cigarette as if I was talking to any other private.  "Remain at attention
as if I'm reprimanding you," I said softly.  There were blinds on the
office windows but I did not pull them; I didn't want anything to look out
of the ordinary.

"Yes, sir."

"You sent me that note?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"  He looked terrified again, so I tried to set him at ease.  "It's
all right.  I'm not going to turn you in.  But why?"

Softly, he replied, "I'm very attracted to you, sir.  After I saw what
happened in the shower I thought you might feel the same way about me."

My heart skipped a beat.  This was almost unbelievable, like some kind of
dream.  I smoked.  My hands were shaking.  God, what about Meredith?  What
was I doing?  "Toby, don't call me 'sir' here.  My name is Jim."

His eyes looked down at me, those beautiful blue eyes.  I felt a twinge of
excitement in my groin.  I wondered if he was getting hard as well.

"We must be COMPLETELY on the Q.T. with this, Toby," I told him.  "I mean,
totally."

"What do you have in mind?"

I dragged on the cigarette.  I realized I was making a date.  Of all the
places on earth, Baghdad in a war zone would be the last place I would ever
expect something like this to happen.  "This office, 0230 tonight," I told
him.  "Lights will be off, blinds drawn.  You must be quiet.  Don't knock.
Just tap on the doorknob very softly.  I'll be here."

Toby's expression hadn't changed.  He was still the stern-faced military
boy.  "0230," he said.

"One more thing, Private.  This does NOT change anything out there.  We
have a mission to do.  This is separate.  The second you forget that, the
second we have a problem.  Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

I didn't sleep.  I didn't even go to bed.  Until 2:15 I lay awake on the
small cot in the office, stripped to my khaki boxer briefs and tank-top,
sweating in the heat and realizing with amazement that I was about to have
sex...with a man.  It occurred to me that maybe Iraq really had changed me.

At precisely 0230 there was a gentle tap on the doorknob.  I ground out my
umpteenth cigarette of the night in the ashtray on my chest, sat up and
cracked the door open slightly.  One hollow-looking blue eye stared at me.
I let him in.  He was dressed in BDUs and a khaki T-shirt.  He carried
nothing with him.  As soon as I closed the door we stood there in the
darkness, face to face, our noses almost touching.  I was frozen, not
knowing what to do.

"This is weird," said Toby.

"Yeah.  For me too."

Very gently we moved together and our lips met.  At first it was strange
and awkward, but Toby put a gentle hand around the back of my neck,
pressing me close into him.  I could smell the aroma of sweat and oil, that
ever-present smell of the Army.  We all smelled like that.  It excited me.
I grew almost painfully erect.  We were kissing for a little while before
we began to press our bodies together, especially our hips.  Even through
the thick camouflage-spangled fabric of his BDUs I could feel the hardness
of that lovely member I'd seen that night in the shower.

"I've been attracted to you since you came to the unit," I told him when
our lips parted.  "I didn't know what came over me.  I always thought I
was--you know, straight."  I felt like I should add: "I have a girlfriend
back home."

"I've never been interested in girls."  He kissed my neck.  Feeling his
tongue pressing the skin just under my left ear nearly drove me crazy with
desire.  "I liked what I saw in the shower.  I was surprised, but...I liked
it.  I thought about it a lot."

We kissed some more.  Between kisses I whispered, "Do you want it now?"

"Yes."

"What do you want to do to it?"

He was already lifting up my shirt and kissing my stomach.  "I want to suck
it."  Then he pulled down the waistband of my boxer briefs and freed my
aching penis.  I had to steady myself as I felt a warm, wet kiss close
around the head of my dick.  I gasped.  He took me all the way into his
mouth.  ALL the way.  Then he pulled me out, so only my head was inside his
mouth, and then all the way back down to the root again.  The pleasure was
unbelievable, almost super-human.  Toby either had a gift, or a great deal
of experience.  I didn't care which.

As wonderful as it was, feeling his lips wrapped around my shaft, the
gentle playing and probing of my balls and my anus with his fingers,
strangely that wasn't the feeling I remember most.  I remember rubbing the
palms of my hands over the top of Toby's head.  His hair was so short and
the little hairs felt so stiff and bristly that it was a captivating
sensation against the skin of my palms, especially when combined with the
sensory overload emanating from my rod.  I moaned softly.  I worked my hips
into the rhythm of his sucking.  I was in complete and utter ecstasy.  I
got so into the feeling of his bristly hair against my palms that I
suddenly had the very strange desire to rub my penis against the same
surface.  I gently reached down and backed away from him, pulling my dick
from Toby's mouth with a string of saliva that hung from his lips.  "This
is weird," I whispered to him, "but I have to do this."  With my other hand
I gently pushed his head down so it was level with my crotch.  I rubbed my
dickhead against the hair on the top his head.  It was slightly bristly,
but his hair was so silky that it didn't hurt or scratch a bit.  It was
such an incredibly weird, erotic but yet pleasing sensation--and one
totally unlike anything I'd experienced before--that I felt for a moment
like I was totally someone else, someWHERE else.

Toby giggled softly.  "You like that?" he said.  He pulled away from me for
a moment and stripped off his shirt.  Even in the dim light of the office
his smooth chest, his lovely little nipples and his shoulders looked like
polished ivory.  He took the opportunity to doff his BDU pants as well so
he was clad just in his underwear, through which I could see the shape of
his own erect penis.  He got on his knees again.  He kissed my dick and
slicked it up with saliva, even licking my balls.  Then he bowed his head
and used his hand to press my penis against it, rubbing softly.  I held my
hand on top of his.  Our hands together formed the upper part of a
makeshift vagina, and his stubbly head was its lower surface.  I found a
rhythm and he went with it.  He kissed my thighs just above my knees.  In
my life I hadn't been particularly adventurous in the bedroom, and fucking
Toby Smythe's head was easily the most unusual form of sex I'd ever engaged
in.

The pleasure built quickly and my rhythm grew faster.  I was in such
ecstasy that there was no way I could have stopped.  Finally my balls
pulled up close and tight to my body and my penis became a rod of hard,
wet, hot steel.  I gasped, and then I came harder than any other cum in my
life up to that point.  The pleasure nearly split my head apart.  My rod
ejected spurt after spurt of hot white semen onto Toby's head, the back of
his neck, and his shoulders.  A thick layer of it coated our hands that
were now clasped tightly together.  I remember watching a thick jet of my
sperm erupt from the tip of my dick and fire gracefully down the line
connecting the back of Toby's neck and the gentle groove of his spine
between his muscular shoulder blades.  I can still see it in my mind's eye,
as if in slow-motion.  When I was finished there was a splatter of cum all
the way down his back, even wetting the band of his underwear.

I backed away from him and basically collapsed onto the cot, my belly
heaving.  I was sweating.  It was a dizzying experience.  Only as I
slackened did I realize there was a scratchy feeling on the underside of my
dick; I didn't yet feel it but in the morning I would realize I nearly
rubbed myself raw.

Toby giggled again.  "I gotta get this shit off," he whispered.  "Is there
a towel or something in here?"  There wasn't one, so he used my underwear,
discarded on the floor.  But I saw him lick his hand too.  Then he joined
me on the cot.  "Nobody's ever fucked my hair before," he told me.  The way
he said it, with his bright Southern accent, was strangely funny.  We both
laughed, though we were careful not to be too loud.

My hands wandered over his chest.  I gently brushed his nipples and moved
down.  I began to feel him through the fabric of his underwear, then I
slipped my hands under the band and felt it skin to skin.  At last the
penis I'd admired was mine to feel to my heart's content, and Toby's.  It
was as wonderful to touch as it had been to look at.  He was probably just
shy of seven inches, uncut, and arrow-straight.  I reached down and felt
his balls.  They were much larger than mine.  "What do you want?" I
whispered to him.

"I never do anal on a first date," he said.  "I always play it safe anyway
and I don't know where to find a condom."  He kissed my head.  "But I like
oral."

Nothing more needed to be said.  I pulled down his underwear, and he
clambered up atop me so his crotch was in my face.  He was half-on and
half-off the cot now, his hands planted on the floor, push-ups style.  It
took only a gentle nudge with his hand--still wet from my semen and the
saliva from when he licked it off--to guide his penis between my lips.  I
had never sucked a man's dick before, but I did everything I had always
told Meredith, and any of my other girlfriends, to do--open wide, no teeth,
lots of suction and use the tongue.  I barely had to do anything.  In his
push-up position Toby did most of the work.  He just did push-ups on me,
like a drill sergeant was counting them back in Basic.  Each push upward
pulled his penis out of my mouth; each thrust downward pumped it in again.
He took no prisoners and expected from me as much as I had received from
him, for with each stroke he pushed his dick as far down my throat as
possible.  His timing was perfect.  He never stopped or paused once.  He
just kept doing push-ups, at a faster and faster pace.  With my hands I
stroked his back and the smooth skin of his butt.  I thought of trying to
find his butthole with my finger, but his cheeks were clenched so tightly
together and his pace was soon so fast that there wasn't an opportunity.
He was soon panting, softly at first, then harder and faster.  I wished I
could see his face.  For some reason I wanted to see what this 18-year-old
boy's face looked like at the moment of his orgasm.

Toby's push-ups and the quick panting sounds of his breaths reached a
climax.  Finally he stopped, holding himself up in push-up position, his
biceps quivering, and he said, suprisingly softly, "Jimmy!"  His orgasm was
like a warm, wet grenade going off in my mouth.  The amount of cum he shot
down my throat was incredible.  It seemed to go on forever.  For a few
moments I felt like I was choking.  The head of Toby's dick was quaking at
the back of my throat and his tip was ejecting spasm after spasm of hot
sperm and I couldn't breathe.  He finished coming and pulled himself off
me.  I coughed and it felt like there was a phlegm wad at the back of my
throat.  I got up off the cot and snatched from the desk the coffee cup,
now empty, I'd been drinking from earlier.  Into it I spat a mammoth bolt
of pearly white semen.  Just seeing the size of the wad I coughed up was
almost frightening, because I'd swallowed most of what Toby had given
me--these were the leftovers I couldn't force down.  But we had worse
problems.  My involuntary coughing fit was loud enough to attract
attention.  From outside the office I heard voices, and footsteps
approaching.

"Quick!" I whispered to Toby.  "Grab your clothes--under the desk,
quickly!"

He scrambled.  Luckily he was a fast-thinker, for as he dove under the desk
he tossed me his underwear which was still clean; mine, in Toby's hand, was
wet and stained with a mixture of his saliva and my cum.  Throughout our
strange tryst I had never removed my tank-top shirt.  I quickly pulled on
Toby's boxer briefs, which were uncomfortably small for me, and sat back
down on the cot.  I continued coughing and holding the coffee cup close to
my face.  There came a pounding on the door.  "Who's there?"  Then I heard
the slides of two automatic pistols being pulled back and the gruff call of
"Rainbow!  Rainbow!"

The code words.  When someone called "Rainbow," you had to answer "X-Ray,"
or you'd get shot.  In World War II it had been "Thunder" and "Flash"
because it was thought Germans couldn't pronounce them properly; in Iraq,
though, it didn't make much sense, because I'd heard native speakers of
Arabic say "Rainbow" and "X-Ray" with no problem at all.  Nevertheless I
coughed again and said, "X-Ray, X-Ray, it's all right."  I clicked on the
light.  With a start I realized there was still a fair amount of Toby's
semen in the bottom of the coffee cup.  I had no choice; I fired it down
like a shot of whisky.  Didn't even taste it, though I wished I could have
had time to savor it.  I opened the office door.  Two soldiers stood there,
sidearms at the ready.  "It's all right.  It's just me."

"I'm sorry, sir," said one of the soldiers, Kominski.  "We didn't know
anyone was in here this late."

"It's all right.  I was finishing some paperwork and fell asleep."  I tried
to mimic a sleepy, bewildered look.  "What time is it?"

"Almost 0300, sir.  We've got dawn patrol at 0430."

"I'm aware of that, private.  Thank you."  I closed the door.  It had been
a narrow escape.  I went back to the desk.  Toby was curled under it,
clutching his clothes.  He smiled.

"Leave ten minutes after me," I said.  "Make sure no one sees you.  And you
had better be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for patrols in the morning."

"Yes, sir."  He was still smiling.  There was a bond between us now.
Somehow I knew that this would not be the last time we'd have sex.  He
started to climb out from under the desk, and he whispered, "Jim, what
about your shorts?"

"Keep 'em," I told him, reaching for my own BDU pants on the chair.  "Wear
'em on patrol.  Just don't piss in them if we get shot at.  You can bring
them back to me the next time--you know, if we get a chance to--well, you
know."

I crept out, shut off the lights in the office and returned to my sleeping
quarters.  There were still a few men up.  I hoped they couldn't tell I was
flushed.  Back at my own quarters I collapsed on my cot.  In the stifling
cubicle I inhabited I smoked a cigarette in the darkness and thought about
what had happened.  I had been unfaithful to Meredith.  I had very probably
put my command, and Toby's future in the military, at risk.  I had
certainly committed more violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice
than I cared to think about.  But something about it was wonderful and
liberating.  Would I be with Toby again?  Absolutely.  Every chance I got.
They could throw the book at me, drum me out of the service, send me back
to Ft. Benning in the brig.  But during the wonderful time Toby and I had
been together, I did not think once about the war, about danger, or about
death.  The time we had sex that evening was the first stretch of waking
time in the entirety of the six months I'd been in Iraq that I had felt
human--and normal.

*** TO BE CONTINUED ***

THIS STORY IS DEDICATED TO THE BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN WHO DAILY RISK THEIR
LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY, AND TO THE SACRIFICES MADE BY THEM AND THEIR LOVED
ONES AT HOME.