Active Duty: Gay Military Erotic Romance (15 page)

“In more ways than one,” he said.

He clasped me close to him, and we began rubbing our bodies against each other. Our dicks stiffened, the sheen of water between us acting as a lubricant. We pressed our lips together, kissing with the same wild passion we’d felt back in the cell. We struggled for maximum skin-to-skin contact, dicks rubbing against bellies. The pain-to-pleasure ratio was so equal—I wanted to pull away to relieve the tension but I couldn’t let go of him, and it seemed he felt the same way.

My guts boiled and shivers raced through my body as my orgasm built and then exploded. Alec held me even closer, pressing his body against mine, his dick some kind of desperate force pushing against me, and my orgasm spiraled to heights I’d never reached before. He threw his head back and gasped and then I felt him spurt against me.

I couldn’t let him go. I held him close, neither of us moving for a moment as we sagged together, relishing the force of our orgasms. Then we dunked, together, rinsing ourselves clean once more. We stood in the sun for a couple of minutes letting the air dry us off.

Alec took the first watch while I napped in the shade. He woke me after an hour then catnapped himself. The sun began to sink in the west and the air cooled down enough so that soon we would be able to walk again without risk of heatstroke. He was so handsome as he slept, the fierceness of his features relaxed, and I could see in his face the little boy he had once been.

I assumed we’d make it out of the mountains alive. Alec was strong and resourceful, and I was a good soldier. But what would happen after that? I would return to my battalion, and he’d go back to whatever it was he did. Would we ever see each other again?

I remembered my fantasy of walking away from the war. Could Alec and I do that? Slip into Tajikistan, live together under the radar in some village?

Nope. Alec wasn’t the type to run away, and I realized I wasn’t either. I wanted to complete my tour, do the best I could to help this parched, angry country and its people. Once my obligations were complete, I could consider what the future held. If Alec wanted to be a part of that…

He opened his eyes and smiled at me. Then he sat up, yawned and stretched. “Let’s get on the road,” he said.

We didn’t have to go far. We climbed back up to the ridge and marched for about an hour, until Alec’s eagle eye made out a U.S. recon patrol on the road below us—two big Humvees. We scrambled down the hillside in time to flag it down.

There wasn’t room for both of us in either vehicle, so we
were separated. After I explained who I was and what I was doing out there, I discovered they were heading to Bagram, and leaned back in my seat and slept. It was late at night when we finally arrived at the base. Both of us had to report in, so there wasn’t much time to talk.

Alec thrust a piece of paper at me and leaned close. “My email address. Next time we get together I’m thinking about spending lots of time in a king-sized bed. Sound good to you?”

“Sounds very good,” I said. The Army’s gotten more tolerant, but not enough that I could do what I wanted to Alec right there. Instead I reached out to shake his hand.

He grabbed me in a bear hug. “I’ll see you again,” he said into my ear. “Count on it.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” I said. And then we separated to return to our assignments.

NEW DOG, OLD TRICKS

Aaron Michaels

O
ne mile into the run, the pack felt like a lead weight on Gideon’s back. After two miles, he felt like he’d strapped one of those ridiculous little Smart cars onto his shoulders. His entire upper body ached with the strain of carrying the heavy backpack, and he was sucking wind like he hadn’t done since he first decided to go out for track in high school.

The day was scorchingly hot, the sun high overhead in a cloudless sky, and he was pouring sweat inside the combat camo shirt he’d picked up at the Army surplus store along with the backpack. Not the smartest time to take a run, but Gideon kept telling himself it wasn’t as hot on the track as it would be in Afghanistan. It had been his stupid idea in the first place to enlist in the Army at age twenty-six, and he damn well wasn’t going to Military Entrance Processing Station with a bunch of kids right out of high school without getting his body into better shape.

A few high-school kids were running on the track with
him. Or rather, passing him by, all long, sleek muscles beneath lightweight running shorts and tank tops designed to let skin breathe. At least none of them made fun of him as they zoomed past. One kid, a tall black boy who had the grace of a natural athlete, even ran next to Gideon for a few strides before he said, “
Semper Fi,
” and resumed his faster pace.

Gideon appreciated the sentiment, even if his chosen branch of the service was the Army, not the Marines.

He decided to stick it out for five miles then take a break. Technically, he was within weight range for his height. He had no medical issues that would get him disqualified, temporarily or otherwise. He didn’t need to be out here for any other reason than his own pride, but that was enough to keep his feet pounding the track.

He was into mile four when another runner came up beside him. Gideon was running in the outside lane, taking his time. Most of the other runners on the track were using the inside lanes, but this guy paced alongside Gideon in the lane right next to his.

Gideon snuck a glance at the guy. Crew cut, muscular build, but not body-builder muscular, he was just little taller than Gideon and maybe about five years older. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and running shorts and well-worn running shoes. He’d worked up a sweat, and the dog tags he wore around his neck were plainly visible through the damp, sheer fabric of his shirt.

“What company are you with, soldier?” the guy asked Gideon.

He wasn’t looking at Gideon, just staring at the track ahead.

“Haven’t been assigned yet, sir,” Gideon said, trying hard not to sound out of breath.

The guy glanced at Gideon, one eyebrow raised. “Huh,” he said, then he went back to looking at the track.

Gideon expected the guy to go back to his own run and leave Gideon behind, but the guy kept pacing him.

“When do you report?” he asked, after they’d rounded the far end of the track.

His voice sounded annoyingly normal. Gideon was staring hard at the finish line a half lap away. That was his goal. Once he crossed the finish line this time, that would mark five miles, and he could quit running and shuck the damn pack off his back.

“Two weeks,” Gideon said. He didn’t bother to try to mask how out of breath he was.

The guy nodded. “That ought to give you just about enough time to recover.”

Gideon didn’t say anything. None of the high-school kids out running had given him shit. He didn’t need to take any from some soldier he didn’t know. He would have pulled away and left the guy in the dust if he’d had any oomph left in his legs.

His legs felt like rubber when he crossed the finish line. The lawn in the center of the track was lush and green, and Gideon collapsed on it in an undignified heap when he tried to sit down. He slipped out of the backpack’s shoulder straps and swung the thing around next to him. He had two liters of water inside along with enough dumbbell weights to equal fifty pounds. His goal was seventy pounds, but he knew enough to take that slow. He hadn’t been lifting anything heavy on a regular basis since his last warehouse job went south.

He had one liter of water nearly empty when the soldier walked over to where Gideon sat. “I wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass,” he said. “Basic’s going to be hard enough. You don’t need to go in still recovering from a last-minute attempt to pull yourself
into shape.” He gave Gideon an obvious once-over. “Besides, you don’t look all that out of shape to me.”

“Thanks,” Gideon said. “I think.”

The soldier stuck out his hand. “Doug Evans, private first class.”

Gideon’s surprise must have shown on his face. The guy looked far older than someone who’d still be a PFC.

“I enlisted late, too,” the guy said with a grin.

Gideon shook his hand and introduced himself. “Where are you stationed?” he asked.

“Fort Bragg, airborne forces, currently home on leave.” He plopped down on the grass next to Gideon. “Staying with my sister. She just had a kid, and she wanted to introduce him to his Uncle Doug.” His grin got bigger. “I’m not much into babies, but I have to say, this kid is the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen. Looks too much like me.” He rubbed a hand across his scalp. “Even has my hair.”

Gideon laughed. Now that he wasn’t running and had a chance to really look, Doug wasn’t half bad up close. His short hair was dark blond tinged with red, and he had the kind of skin that freckled instead of tanned. His eyes were deeper blue than the washed-out color of the summer sky, and his voice was pleasantly deep. Doug wasn’t exactly Gideon’s ideal kind of guy, but it had been long enough since he’d dated anyone that he couldn’t help but imagine what Doug looked like beneath his clothes.

“I guess I’m going to be getting that kind of haircut soon, too,” Gideon said. While his hair wasn’t exactly long, he’d never had a crew cut in his life. First time for everything.

“You get used to it. Pretty easy to take care of, at any rate, and you never have to worry about having a bad hair day.”

They settled into a comfortable silence. A couple of kids were
still running on the track, and at the far side of the lawn, three girls sat on a blanket, their heads close to each other, talking about whatever it was that girls talked about. Gideon had never understood women, so he supposed it was a good thing that he had no interest in them whatsoever. The day was still hot, but a little breeze had kicked up from the west, and it felt good on Gideon’s sweaty skin.

“So how come you’re out running today when you’re on leave?” Gideon asked when Doug made no move to leave.

“Same reason as you.” Doug leaned back on his elbows and squinted up at the sky. “I’m older than most of the guys in my company. They go on leave, go out drinking and picking up women and still come back in the same kind of shape they were in when they left. Me? I have to work at it.”

“What, no drinking and picking up girls?” Gideon teased. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Doug arched one eyebrow and glanced at Gideon. “Don’t get me wrong. I can drink most of those guys under the table. As for women?” He shrugged. “Not my thing, if you get what I mean.”

He kept looking at Gideon, almost like he was testing whether Gideon was going to make a big deal out of what he’d just said.

“I get exactly what you mean,” Gideon said. “Women aren’t my thing, either.”

Doug nodded. “I thought so.” He grinned again. “And before you ask, no, you’re not obvious, which is good. It’s just that a couple of the girls I’ve seen out here today would have drawn the interest of half my company, but you didn’t give them a second look.”

Gideon thought about what Doug had just said. “How come it’s good not to be obvious? I thought—”

“That things would be hunky-dory for guys like us now? Look”—Doug rolled over on his side, his head propped up on one hand—“Yeah, the brass won’t discharge us anymore for engaging in a homosexual act, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to catch the same kind of shit in the Army that you’d catch in a backwoods bar down South. People are people, in uniform or out. Drill sergeants aren’t going to call you a fag—they don’t call anyone a fag or queer anymore—but you still have to watch your back until people get to know you.”

The demise of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was one of the reasons Gideon had decided to enlist. That, and the fact that jobs were few and hard to come by these days. A few of the younger guys who’d lost their jobs along with Gideon when the warehouse went belly-up had already enlisted.

“That change your mind about enlisting?” Doug asked.

“No. I mean, I guess I was naïve to think things were different now. Back when my buddies were enlisting right out of high school, I didn’t even think about it. I couldn’t imagine serving an entire tour pretending to be something I wasn’t.”

“It was tough.”

Gideon blinked. “I thought you said you were older when you enlisted?”

“I was, but I still went in when the Army was only pretending not to care I was queer. They didn’t ask, I didn’t tell, and I kept my dick to myself when I went out with the other guys in my company and they were hitting on anything in a skirt.” He shrugged. “Danced a few times with a few pretty girls just to avoid a lot of questions, and got used to the feel of my own hand.”

“So what’s it like now? Do you date?”

“Nope. Not while I’m on base.”

Gideon understood what Doug was telling him, and for a moment, the immediate future looked grim. Sure, Gideon didn’t
date much himself, but the idea of not fucking anyone at all for the next two years? Bleak.

Doug leaned closer. “Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t have sex, especially when I’m on leave.” His eyes traveled down Gideon’s body, then back up again, slowly. “You interested?”

Gideon allowed himself a long, slow look at Doug’s body in response. He had the kind of narrow hips Gideon liked, and the muscles of his legs were lean and hard, which probably meant the rest of him was muscled the same way. Gideon generally liked guys with longer hair, but he was going to have to get used to military haircuts, even on himself, and now was as good a time as any to start.