It Takes Two (9 page)

He gulped air. His grin turned scared and angry. I pushed him down again, then wrapped my arms around his chest and waist. Our two hard bats brushed. He shook his head. Then he pulled himself against me, tried to thrust once or twice, and turned away, gulping air.

“Submarine attack,” I said.

He let it pass.

Reaching around, I touched him gently—the hair on his chest, his belly button, both nipples. His nipples, surrounded by curls, were hard as thimbles. My bat was lodged up behind him, feeling wonderfully uncomfortable. I reached down and tried to reposition it under his ass and between his legs.

He elbowed me away, misinterpreting the shift. “You ain’t. Uh-uh, no. Let’s keep that area off-limits, Coach.”

“Hey, Buddy,” I answered, reaching for him again. “Are you OK?” I touched him lower down, slipping the thin hood of his hard cock behind the groove and squeezing gently.

Turning to face me, he put his forehead on my shoulder and began to play with me the same way, fumbling a little, maybe because I’m minus a foreskin and therefore built differently. It didn’t take long for him to learn the ropes. In a few seconds, my forehead was on his shoulder, and I said, “Yeah, Buddy, right there, right there, right there.” And we were pulling on each other slowly—and then faster, and then slowing down—and then sinking like harpooned seals because it got to feeling so good we forgot to kick our feet.

Breaking apart, we came up laughing. “Let’s get in the boat,” I said. “Before we drown.”

He shook his head. “We ain’t finished with this, Coach. Do you think?” Drifting back and steadying himself, he held my waist with his feet. His hard cock, the hood still retracted, rose and fell like a red-topped periscope breaking the surface.

Touching his knees, I said we might end up as floaters if we tried to finish things where we were. He reached for me. “We ain’t stopping,” he said, sounding determined. “Show me how else you want to do. Boat’s fine. Race you back.”

Later, side by side in on a sweat-soaked narrow bunk, I touched the rows of milk pearls lining his belly. “Definitely two colors,” I said, running a finger into the wetness, spreading it and drawing a circle. “Your cream’s thicker than mine.”

He looked down, a neutral, tired expression on his face. “I’m thicker all the way ’round. When I get my steam up, anyhow.”

“Out of steam for now,” I answered, touching the curves of his relaxed shaft and sack. “Want me to see if I can get your pressure back?”

Bud pushed my hand away. Then, suddenly hearing something, he stood up, moved quickly to the open door of the cabin and peered outside, sweeping the ocean. Looking at him, I could hardly breathe. In the 1940s, sex between males went hand in hand with fear.

“God damn,” he said as he stepped back inside the cabin, rubbing his belly with one towel and throwing me another. “There’s a boat out there, coming up from Estero Island. Anybody could have chugged right by and seen us, seen what we was doing.”

I’d shifted to the middle of the mattress. The sensation of mixing his sweat with mine made the whole thing seem a little more real. “We’d have heard a motor if somebody got within half a mile of us.” I replied. “Relax, Buddy.”

“Could have been a sailboat come up.” Bud pulled his shirt over his head. “Fucking acting like a bunch of snot-nosed kids, we was. Draining our nuts. Forgetting there’s other people around.”

“Your old coach says it felt pretty good too,” I answered, trying to get back in the game. “Your coach says his Buddy has a good set of hands and a bat that sure shoots a helluva home run.”

“Lay off,” Bud said. “Why don’t you put on some clothes?”

“Because they’re on deck,” I said. “Because I’m going to splash the cream off before I get dressed.”

“Man,” he said. “You’re not getting me in the water again. So forget that idea.”

I stood up, suddenly pissed and disappointed and feeling thoroughly naked. “Not my intention, Sarge,” I said. “But then what was yours, throwing that woody in my face if you didn’t want to roll around?”

He pulled his shorts up, zipped and buttoned them. “Like I said last week. You remind me of my old coach. I must of had a thing for him, wanted to be his little jerk-off buddy. Must of wanted to do what we just did, with him, in the shower room. Big fucking deal.”

Men are apt to turn either sad or angry soon after they shoot off. But they can be humored. So I tried another joke. “Everybody’s got a school-kid jerk-off fantasy,” I said. “Only this was kind of a daytime wet dream. Wet, huh? You get it?”

He smiled. “I get it,” he answered. “Now why don’t you go rinse off, so we can head back.”

He picked up the towel he’d brought me and handed it over. “Anybody ever tell you, you look a lot like Van Johnson,” he said. “Only not half so good looking?”

This sounded like a battlefield promotion to me, from home-town coach to redheaded movie star. “I’ve heard it once or twice,” I answered, slapping my butt. “But my ass isn’t as wide as his. And I’ve got better legs.”

Bud shrugged. “Your toes point in when you walk. At least you got two legs and two feet, though, instead of just one and a stump like that ruptured-duck flyer he played in the movies. What I mean is, you and Coach Andy, you both got cheeks like Irish lumberjacks. You both got Van Johnson’s orange hair and washed-out eyebrows.”

“Swim coaches look for pigeon-toed kids,” I answered, stung and yet elated that he’d noticed so much about me. “Kids with small, strong hips. We just glide through the water like baby porpoises.”

“Your shoulders is OK too,” Bud allowed. “And arms about as long as your legs. And Johnson’s white teeth—like searchlights.”

“Remember in
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
?” I said. “When the Army Air Force pilots go aboard the Navy carrier? And one of them sacks out in the admiral’s cabin? There’s a double bed and curtains. And the wardroom’s big enough to hold the Goodyear Blimp. Pure Hollywood. And Johnson’s teeth probably come from MGM.”

“I never saw no admiral’s cabin,” Bud said. “Marine grunts get carried as baggage.”

“I was in charge of one,” I said. “Flag officer’s cabin is about twice the size of a B4 bag opened up. You couldn’t swing a cat.”

“Didn’t know you kept pussy on Navy ships,” Bud joked, now definitely loosened up. “They sure didn’t let the Marines have none.”

“It was strictly one-handed sea pussy,” I lied. “Officers had to show their blue movies inside their eyeballs. We figured you Marines played group-grope in the showers.”

“You didn’t provide us no showers, Lieutenant.” He paused two beats, then added, “Just buckets of salt water.” He threw his towel onto the bunk and glanced around the cabin. “This ain’t gonna happen again. My mistake. Don’t take it personal.”

There wasn’t any answer to make. So I went back on deck, dipped one end of the towel in seawater, washed the semen and sweat off my chest and stomach and crotch, rubbed myself dry and pulled on my shorts. “No worries as far as I’m concerned,” I said, looking back at him. “This goes no farther than the boat. Loose lips sink ships.”

“I appreciate that,” Bud said. “But I ain’t worrying much. See, I got a girl I been dating. And she don’t let me build up too many wet dreams. Don’t need nor want nothin’ else.”

“Sure glad I could help you out,” I said. “That’s what friends are for.”

“No they ain’t,” he replied. “Though I have to say I’ve had a lot worse—from experienced Philippine whores, by the way.”

I laughed. But I gave myself a good talking-to before bed that night while I was brushing my teeth:

You’re still looking for another Mike Rizzo, Dan.

You know how that goes, Lieutenant.

So quit looking, Dan. And quit mourning. Mike is dead as President Roosevelt. He ain’t gonna show up stateside any more than he did in Japan or Guam or Peleliu—when you wouldn’t quit checking the daily survivor lists. Don’t get crazy on me now. You’ve just gotta keep moving
.

In Japan after the war, I’d gotten naked with dozens of sun-tanned, physically fit younger men with drawls. Even so, it didn’t always help.

Waking up in a dark room, shivering and soaked with sweat, I’d shout and kick as if swimming desperately toward a disappearing life raft. One surprised officer, himself the survivor of a submarine sinking, held a pillow over my face to shut me up. A few months later, an Australian colonel with a shot-up knee and bad dreams similar to mine asked me to be his mate and live with him on a cattle station in Queensland. I thought about it—until the dreams hit again.

Men with battle scars were my drug. Healed-over bullet holes got my cock stiffer than a barracks full of flexing peckers. A fighter jock with burns on his arms and two rows of medals on his chest could park his boots under my rack any time. Shrapnel marks were better than pornographic pillow books for getting my attention.

I was swimming laps in the Caloosa pool four mornings after the fishing trip when it hit me: Mixing it up with this latest Mike Rizzo stand-in seemed to have stopped the nightmares. No shipwreck, no lifeboats and sharks, no crying out in the night and waking in a cold, feverish sweat. Nope, the encounter had resulted in calm, unremembered seas and starry nights, hour after hour of pure rest and the relaxed air of a vessel in peacetime going about its business.

I thought about him off and on until just before noon and then picked up the phone and asked him over for lunch. He said he had a busy schedule and that it wasn’t a good idea, but to let him think on it.

So we said goodbye, and I figured that was that. He called back a couple of hours later. What about him taking me to lunch? He claimed to know a diner over on Fowler Street, a place that fried up pretty good shrimp and snapper. The lieutenant had been the host twice, he said. Now he’d buy. I said that sounded fine and we agreed to meet at the diner early the next week.

After that lunch, over coffee, we talked for a couple of hours—soldier talk, where we’d been during the war, whether we might have crossed paths somewhere in the Pacific, making no reference to the fishing trip. Sure, that was what would now be called subtext. But we were mostly seeing if the two of us clicked mentally, not just as players in a coach-student script.

We talked about work; men usually do. He wanted to do a good, honest job for the sheriff, wanted to make something of himself, build a career, move up. I said less, but enough: that I’d been a club officer in Japan, and that my old boss had retired, invested in the Caloosa and asked me to come aboard. Bud asked if I’d ever had a girl and I said that I’d dated in high school but hadn’t had much time for women in college, being on an athletic scholarship and having to work part-time.

He invited me over to see his rented room the following Saturday afternoon. His landlady was out of town, and it wasn’t long before we were down on the rug, wrestling half-naked. He ended up getting angry and silent again at the end of the session, after we’d both shot off.

Two weeks later, we used my room at the Caloosa Hotel. We started with a swim in the pool, then went upstairs to shower and change before dinner. Toweling each other down after a preliminary round of stand-up hand-pussy, he asked if I was ready for a little serious action. I said I’d taught him a trick or two and what did he have in mind?

What he had in mind was getting inside me. We took it slow. I knew how to protect myself when he started losing his mental bearings. He never seemed to turn angry that afternoon. He even thanked me afterward, blushing like a kid on a first date. Later, we ate dinner together at the diner on Fowler Street.

My nightmares stayed on leave.

We arranged to hit the Legion hall the next Tuesday for spaghetti night. Only he had to work an arson case unexpectedly. The following week a group of VIPs arrived and I had to cancel. Figuring that the Legion wouldn’t run out of spaghetti, we settled on the third week to get together. I walked over to the rooming house a little after sunset to pick him up. The landlady let me in. Bud’s door was unlocked and I went inside. He called to me that he was still in the shower.

Keep in mind that was almost three weeks since our last get-together. Being horny as hell, and thus a little crazy, I figured I’d try a quick poke at Bud’s fantasies. Rifling through his closet and chest of drawers, I came up with a faded La Belle High School baseball jersey and a jockstrap. Stripping quickly, leaving on only my white gym socks, I redressed in the modified coach’s outfit.

When Bud came out of the bathroom, he stopped short, laughed, then scowled and told me to quit messing with his stuff. But when his bat lengthened out we both started giggling and playing grab-ass.

“Your coach has got another thing or two to teach you,” I explained after I’d wrestled him down on his cot. “It might hurt at first but you’re gonna like it,” I said, touching him in places I knew rang his bells.

He stirred under me, twisting and bouncing as if to escape. “I ain’t ready for nothing like that,” he muttered. “Lemme get inside you again.”

And so we split the difference, and the relationship became more complicated and reciprocal. I taught him some of the Asian tricks I’d learned—how to warm a man up so he’s ready to be entered, how to massage the prostate, when to pause and reassure a man, when to charge forward, how to hold fire.