Nights Without Night

by Marina Vivancos

  “I bet they can’t wait to see you,” I say. He shrugs, but there’s a smile on his face.

  The clang of the boats and the slight sway of the water is soporific, and I watch as Isadoro drifts off. It’s the first time since his return that I see him fall asleep. I follow, with ease.

  **********

  Isadoro twitches in his sleep. Even in the dark, I’ll be able to see the furrow in his brow, his tense body moving with a restless spirit.

  Sometimes, he wakes up like he’s escaping something, and for a moment it will follow him into wakefulness, its claws and teeth reflected in his eyes. He’ll take a breath like it’s his first after drowning and I let him come down from it before touching him softly, asking for him back.

  The things that keep him awake at night are on this boat with us now. They curl up during the day, but hunt in the dark, when his mind softens and turns porous.

  Now, though, they have more space to roam. They have the open sky and the ink of the ocean and the wood of the docks. They’re not trapped in a room with him, a tangled mass writhing in the shadows.

  They’re here, but they can breathe now. And so can we.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  We stay a few days at our next stop.

  The town is beautiful, with white houses that remind me of old movies set in France or Italy. Open balconies with hanging plants dot the façades with colour. The roads are thin and winding, rising sharply on steep hills devoid of people. There are cats everywhere, lounging in the shadows, following us with their uninterested eyes. Isadoro tries to make friends with them, and a few rub against us, following us for a little while before disappearing again.

  We take the boat out and anchor it at one of the bays. We get the goggles and fins out, running the flame of a lighter briefly over the glass of the goggles and then spitting inside them to avoid smudging.

  We throw ourselves into the sea and explore the rock and sand at the cheeks of the bay, swimming alongside it and to the curve of the headland. We breathe through our snorkels, eyes on the underwater landscape. We follow small schools of fish that glitter away from us when we get too close. We graze tentatively at the black spikes of the sea urchins camouflaged against the dark rocks. Isadoro spots a flatfish and we watch it burrow in the sand and settle, hidden from sight. We swim, and swim, and swim, becoming part of the wildlife until our muscles and lungs burn.

  When we exhaust ourselves, we return to our floating home and haul ourselves out. Everything is salt and the sting of the sun. We eat our pack lunches and then swim to the shore of the bay where we nap in the sand, getting up periodically to cool ourselves in the water.

  When we steer the boat back to the harbour, our skin is stretched tight across our bodies. The shower that follows is one of the best experiences of my life. The water is even sweeter than that first shower. I feel like a layer of myself has been shed and left in the waves where it’s always belonged. My body and soul has been made light.

  After the sun has set, we go to dinner. We hold hands as if we’re on our honeymoon. It feels like the start of something. I don’t think about our inland home, miles away now in another world.

  I ask Isadoro about his fellow soldiers. He smiles as he talks about them, the memories a buoy instead of a drowning anchor.

  “He was like a sniffer dog,” he says of one of the members of his battalion. “Every time we thought we’d find nothing at the raid, he’d find the stash. One time, he noticed a screw just a bit too loose on a pipe, and a minute later we had our hands on a bunch of loaded magazines stuffed inside,” he recounts. “That’s how he got the nickname Hound.”

  “What’s your nickname?” I laugh.

  “Ah-ah.”

  “I’m gonna find out when we meet up with them anyway!” I say. He just shrugs, smiling at me.

  “Fine. Just you wait,” I say. He laughs, and it rings out like a bell.

  We walk along restaurants with their tables spilling out, the sound of the waves hitting the rocks around us. Everybody seems to be out, and I see couples holding hands, young and old and everything in between.

  “When you said you’d fucked guys when you were, you know, out there…didn’t you ever find someone you wanted to stay with?” I ask, not letting the thought linger long in my head before it's out. Isadoro turns his head to look at me.

  “No.”

  “But the relationships you made out there must have been intense.”

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t sleep with people in my battalion. That would have been a massively bad idea for so many reasons.”

  “How was it like, being Team Sergeant? You never talked much about it,” I ask. Isadoro pauses for a moment, thinking.

  “I wasn’t the Captain, so I didn’t have much influence on mission structure, but I could influence enough to make sure my team was safe and that the people we were there to help were a priority. It was why I joined the Ops in the first place, so…”

  “Sounds like a lot of responsibility.”

  “Yes. But being a soldier is a responsibility. You feel responsible for everybody in your team, no matter your rank. In my first year of deployment…remember the kid that had the accident with the tank?”

  I remember exactly who he’s referring to. It had been a new recruit who liked to help with mechanical maintenance. By that time, the tanks had already been upgraded, but there were still some old ones in operation which had to be ‘pimped up’ on the fly so they could survive IEDs. Tanks were crucial but could quickly become a liability when hit, because soldiers weren’t allowed to leave them in the field, even when disabled, to avoid the opposition getting their hands on them and taking advantage of the machinery. They had to be tweaked so they were not only resistant to that kind of attack but could be moved easily when disabled.

  This particular tank had been altered so many times it had fucked with its integrity. The kid had been doing some work on it when a piece blew up a few inches from him. It hadn’t killed him, but it had injured him severely—an injury that would last a lifetime.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “We all felt responsible for that. We all thought we should have done something, as stupid as that sounds. War—they say nothing is fair in war, but that’s what you’re out there to do, in your head. To do something fair. To help the regaining of balance. We know we’re risking our lives, and that so are the people around you, but it’s with a purpose. But that…that was just so fucked up. So…”

  “Unfair.”

  “Yeah. So, yeah, it was a responsibility. But there comes a point when you feel something so much, you can’t tell the difference when there’s more of it.”

  The memory of him telling me about that particular accident is crystallized in my mind. I remember Isadoro’s drawn face on the stuttering Skype line, looking young and tired and miles away. It had added a new fear to my long list of fears. I’d hid it deep inside, where he wouldn’t see it. I’d wanted him to tell me these things, to still be the person he could open up to when he needed someone by his side.

  Now, though, the stakes aren’t as high. He’s already here with me.

  “I’m so glad you came back,” I say softly, feeling the truth of it deeply.

  We go back to the boat in a shroud of deep, star-filled darkness. We enter the cave of the boat and turn on a small lamp attached to the side. It’s our small space in this world, an ember glowing in the dark.

  Isadoro goes out again for a moment to check on the chafe gear keeping the boat from bumping into the ones on the side. I take off my shoes and clothes, placing them in one of the hanging nets. I wait for him. He pauses at the entrance for a moment when he sees me, before climbing inside. He sits on the bench opposite me and starts unlacing his sneakers, but I kneel at his feet and push his hands away. I undo the knots, loosening the cords carefully before pulling the shoes off. I slip his ankle socks off, stuffing them in each shoe. I kneel up, undoing the buttons and zipper of his board shorts and then slide them down his thighs
and off. The rustle of fabrics fills the small space.

  When I reach for his shirt, he meets my eyes, expression intense and quiet. I lift his shirt up, sliding my hands across his flanks, his chest, his arms. When the shirt is off, my hands return to his skin, cataloguing him. Despite his weeks in bed, he still has some of his definition, the ridges of his stomach harder to get rid of. I trace them, raking my nails up until my thumbs brush against a nipple. His breath catches in his throat.

  My hands travel down again, over his boxers but avoiding the bulge already growing there. I stroke the hair on his thighs, teasing him as my touch turns feathery at the sensitive skin inside his thighs. Reflexively, he widens the splay of his legs and I settle there. I bend down and finally give him the attention he wants. I nuzzle at his clothed dick, running the bridge of my nose against it, my closed lips, before opening my mouth and pressing my tongue there.

  He makes a noise, a little, cracked thing, and his hand lifts to my head, simply carding its fingers there. I do it again and again until the white material of his tight boxers is translucent and wet from my mouth. His cock has hardened and the head peaks from the waistband. I lick my tongue against it and then suck tightly. He grunts, shifting abruptly, but I follow the movement. I keep sucking, pressing hard with my tongue at his slit until he’s breathing hard and squirming restlessly.

  “Iván,” he says, clutching my hair a little tighter. I hum loudly, letting the vibrations travel. “Jesus.”

  He pulls me up and I go. He bends to meet me in the middle and kisses me deeply, our mouths opening at once, eating each other up with hunger. I run my hands across his hair, cut just before we left, and pull him closer.

  It’s like I can’t get enough.

  We stumble up in the small space, knocking into each other as we shed our underwear and turn off the light. I’m already hard just from tasting and having him so close. We crawl onto the bed and lay on our sides facing each other, tangling our limbs until we are a creature of myth, multi-limbed but hearts conjoined.

  My skin knows his hands. It knew them when we were small and we play-fought in the orange-scented earth. It knew them when they pulled me after him or helped me up. It knew them when I was a teenager and wanted him fatally, with hormones and friendship and a coalescing love. It knew them when they turned purposeful and wise to the secrets of my body, to its ripples and its wants and all its warm places. It knew them even when they were gone, imagining them in another landscape but still mine, a phantom limb. And it knows them now, relearning my plains and tides, the depths that are still there for him.

  He moves away just long enough to get the lube from one of the hanging nets before he’s back. I roll onto my other side, back facing him. He presses against it and kisses my shoulder, my neck. I stretch to give him more space and he doesn’t hesitate, making my skin his. He uncaps the lube and coats his fingers. He reaches between us and I lift my knee towards my chest as I feel him at my entrance. I shudder as he presses one thick finger inside and then out again, setting a slow pace that is more feeling than pleasure.

  He bites at my neck lightly as he slips in another. I can feel the stretch now. He moves his fingers until he rubs against my prostate and I moan low in my throat, pressing back against him. He pulls his fingers back and scissors them open right at my entrance.

  “Jesus. Fuck,” I say. He laughs softly into my neck.

  He stretches me with a thoroughness that has me feeling every moment. It’s a rare intimacy, having someone so focused on your body without attending to their own, but without the blinding force of heightened pleasure. I become aware of my body, of his, of each of his decisions and movements.

  When he adds a third finger, he tilts my head towards him and lifts himself on an elbow, kissing me. I can barely coordinate my lips as he pushes his digits deep inside, sparking the small of my back and the pit of my stomach.

  “Please,” I say. He hums against my mouth, against my temple, before moving slightly away. I pant in the starlight of the bed as he goes to get a condom.

  “Wait,” I stop him. “I’m clean, if you, if you’re-”

  “Yeah, I’m clean.”

  “Please,” I say to a question he didn’t need to ask, wanting him bare inside me suddenly, desperately. He bends over and kisses me, an answer of his own.

  He presses against me again, his hips tilted back, before fucking into me in a long slide. I bite at the sheets, it’s so much and so good. Despite his slow preparation, his thrusts are deep snaps of his hips. Each hit is a light burst into life. The noises I’m making must travel across the water, across the endless sky, but I don’t care. I’m too lost in this for anything else to matter.

  “Isa, Isa,” I pant as the iron band of his arm tightens around me. The pleasure rises. His breath is on my neck, my shoulder. I can feel his teeth and his tongue, his fingers digging into me until I can’t take it anymore.

  I close my eyes. For a moment, as I tip off the brink, it’s like I’m melting into him. Like I’m part of what he is, dissolving and solidifying and dissolving again.

  I feel him still inside me. Feel him shudder and say my name. I get lost in the sound of it, in its desperate stretch. Of the feel of his warmth spilling inside me.

  I make a noise of protest when he slips out of me, but he curls around me again and I hold his arms where they are wrapped around me.

  The last thing I know is a kiss to the curve of my shoulder, a press of his lips.

  **********

  When Isadoro had graduated from his Special Ops training, he had been assigned to one of the Alpha teams—combat teams referred to as A Detachments or A-Teams. These Special Forces teams are unique in being allowed to conduct ‘unconventional warfare’, of which the goal is to promote regional stability through interdiction—the use of direct action and reconnaissance tactics to tip the balance by syphoning morale and resources from the hostile forces to the local people. The pamphlet for unconventional warfare describes a wider, political vision instead of being confined by just military goals. A-teams are supposed to run on a philosophy of being aware of the wider consequences their mission’s actions might have. Not just in terms of damage to the enemy, but damage to the relationship between the U.S. and the locals.

  How successful those tactics have been in their goal is something I wouldn’t be able to answer.

  A-Teams are composed of twelve people; a ten-strong operating team under the supervision of a Detachment Commander with the rank of Captain, and a Detachment Technician. The operating team, composed of the people who actually engage in the combat missions, is led by the Team Sergeant, which Isadoro had been promoted to after the then-team-sergeant had been injured. Isadoro had been supported by the Assistant Operation Sergeant, the only woman and the now-leader of the A-team. Under them, the positions had come in pairs, with a Sergeant and Assistant Sergeant in each; two Engineering Sergeants, two Weapons Sergeants, two Medical Sergeants, and two Communications Sergeants.

  Now, as we make it to the restaurant Muhafiz had suggested, we spot four of his fellow Sergeants waiting outside. Isadoro had told me plenty about them over the phone when he was deployed, and I had seen them in pictures and on Skype, but it’s striking to see them there, solid and unpixellated.

  Muhafiz spots us first. Like Isadoro had mentioned, he’s a big guy, with the dark skin of Pakistani descent and a large, square head, as if a child had tried to draw a house but got a face instead. He nudges the guy next to him, Doc, the Medical Sergeant, who couldn’t be more different in appearance. With the fairer skin of inland Philippines, his face is long and narrow. Where Muhafiz is a crude drawing, Doc is painted by a traditional Japanese brush, depicting the round lines of a kitsune.

  The other two people, both Weapons Sergeants, turn as well.

  “Team Daddy!” Ricky shouts, waving widely. My mouth falls open, and I slowly turn to grin at Isadoro.

  “Team Da-”

  “Don’t even,” he cuts me off. I laugh.

/>   “Must you with the noise?” David is saying as we approach.

  “You know I’m deaf in one ear!” Ricky protests.

  “That’s your own fault for not using the appropriate protection.”

  “Urgh, you and your appropriate protection. You probably use like ten condoms at once.”

  “Actually, using various condoms increases the chance-”

  “Dorado!” Ricky cuts David off and jumps to give Isadoro a hug. Whereas David is slim and sober-looking, his serious eyes peering from a dark-skinned face, Ricky is a compact brick. He’s Chilean, explaining Isadoro’s “Dorado” nickname origin, and a very loud counterpart to David.

  “Hey, Ricky,” Isadoro laughs as they pat each other on the back.

  “Aren’t you glad you don’t have to deal with that anymore?” David says as he embraces Isadoro.

  “Hey!” Ricky protests.

  “Kinda missed him, actually,” Isadoro says, slugging and hugging Muhafiz and Doc in turn.

  I’m not left out of the welcome. Each of them hug and pat me on the back like I’m a fellow soldier too, saying how glad they are to finally meet me.

  “Me too. We’ve got so much dirt to exchange on this guy,” I say, pointing a thumb at Isadoro, who rolls his eyes.

  “I knew I liked you,” Ricky says.

  “Let’s go to our table. I got us one on the patio, facing the beach,” Muhafiz says.

  “Man, are you trying to wine and dine us? Never knew you had it in you, nerd,” Ricky says.

  “I’m sorry, who is single out of the two of us?” Muhafiz says, causing David to laugh. Ricky turns to him.

  “Et tu, David?” he says, clutching at his chest.

  We are guided by a waitress to the patio. I’m confused for a moment when she points us to an already occupied table, but as the woman turns her head to us I immediately recognize her. It’s Callie, Isadoro’s second-in-command.

  Isadoro stops in his tracks, face falling in surprise, and then lighting up completely.