by Active Duty- Gay Military Erotic Romance [Cleis MM] (retail) (epub)
When things got boring in the field, I often spun myself elaborate fantasies to keep my mind occupied. I’d daydream about running away from the war, for example. Just start walking toward the north, in the direction of the border to Tajikistan, which had so far remained aloof to the Afghan conflict.
I’d imagine how I would survive, finding a river to follow, threading my way through fields and around the bases of mountains. I would glean food as I passed, drinking from rivers, maybe even catching a fish. One summer in high school, I took a two-week outdoor survival course, and combined with what I’d learned in the Army, it made me confident I could manage.
Things got hazier once I reached the border. If I just walked away from my commission, I’d be a deserter, and I wasn’t sure how close the Tajik language was to anything I spoke. That was usually where the fantasy faded away.
I looked up to see Alec staring at me. “You looked like you were in your happy place,” he said. “Where’s that?”
I was embarrassed to be the subject of his scrutiny. “Just walking,” I said. “Out in the countryside.”
He nodded. “I wish I could walk away sometimes myself. It’s crazy, you know? I mean, what are we doing here anyway? The Afghans don’t want us. The Talibs certainly don’t. We could just pull out and leave them to kill each other.”
“And then they’d come after us,” I said. “The Talibs don’t just want to run this country, they want to wipe out everyone who disagrees with them. All over the world.”
“That’s the story they tell us,” Alec said.
“Let me take a look at your ankle now.” I sat cross-legged across from him and lifted his leg gently so that his foot rested in my lap. I unlaced his boot and slipped it off, and he winced.
“Buck up, soldier,” I said. He leaned forward to swat me but I shifted out of his reach. I slid the sock off and felt the ankle. “Can you move your toes?”
He wiggled them.
Having his naked foot in my lap was very erotic, and I could feel my dick bouncing back up again. Jesus, was I that much of a horn-dog? I ran my hands gently over his rough sole and the smooth skin above. “The foot doesn’t feel that swollen,” I said. “Just tender. Hey, does that make you a tenderfoot?”
“It makes you a lot less than a field medic,” Alec grumbled. “But I have to say it feels better out of the boot.” He yawned. “Time for another nap.”
He pulled his foot back, stretched out on the floor, adjusted his camo jacket beneath his head and closed his eyes.
He looked so handsome in that shaft of light, like a sleeping angel. A very buff, masculine angel, his light green T-shirt riding up to reveal a line of smooth flesh. He rested on his back, and my eyes were drawn to his groin, wondering if his dick would be as big as the rest of him was. I fantasized about sneaking over there while he was asleep, palming his goods through his camo pants, just to get a feel for them.
Then, if he didn’t wake, I might get more daring. I’d seen the waistband of his boxers peeking out above his pants. I could unzip those pants, reach through the slit in his boxers and touch him. His dick would be warm and firm, like the rest of him. With a few expert strokes, I could bring his dick to life, using his precum to lubricate my efforts.
And then, what the hell. I’d go down on him, taking that succulent dick in my mouth, teasing him with my tongue, tantalizing him, making his blood race the way mine did when I looked at him.
The thought of it was making me hard. He was still asleep, tiny snores rippling his lips, and I reached down and slowly unzipped my pants, leaving them splayed out over my groin as my stiff dick surged through my boxers. Slowly and quietly, I began to stroke myself.
“You’re not just going to torment me, are you?” Alec said, his eyes still closed.
I hurried to stuff my dick back into my pants. “Sorry?”
“You don’t have to put it away on my account,” he said, sitting up, with a sly grin on his face.
“I wasn’t…I mean, I didn’t…”
“You were jacking yourself off,” he said, resting his right hand over his groin so I couldn’t see if he was hard or not. “It’s all right. Guys do it all the time.”
He shifted position and I saw his hard-on poking against his pants. “What’s your fantasy?” he asked. “You have a girl back home you were thinking of?”
I shook my head, licking my dry lips. I took a deep breath and said, “I’m gay.”
He laughed. “No shit, Sherlock. I knew the first time you rubbed your woody against my ass.”
“I wasn’t rubbing it!” I said indignantly.
“Sure you were. Made me hard when you did. Or didn’t you notice?”
“You?”
“Queer as a three-dollar bill, as they used to say. And now that they wiped out that dumb-ass Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I can say it proudly.”
“But you’re…so masculine. Tough.”
“So are you, in case you haven’t noticed.”
I never thought of myself that way. Sure, I was athletic enough to play high-school sports, and I’d made it through basic training without too much trouble. But inside I was still a shy, gay kid who didn’t know what to make of his attraction to other men.
“Are you just going to sit over there?” Alec asked, breaking me out of my reverie. “Not daydreaming again, are you?”
I clambered over to sit next to him. “No need. I have a walking wet dream right here.”
I leaned toward him, and he met me halfway. His lips were as dry as mine, but we managed. He opened his mouth a bit and his tongue came out, teasing its way along my lips. I opened up and our tongues met. With one arm around his shoulders, I pulled him closer, and the passion that had been simmering inside me rose to a boiling point.
My hands roamed over his broad back, feeling his muscles beneath his T-shirt. He didn’t have as much flexibility in his hands so they stayed on my shoulders, holding me close. After we’d kissed for a couple of minutes, though, I pulled back.
“What if the old guy comes back?” I asked. My heart was beating like a high-school drummer and my breathing was shallow. “We don’t want these guys to know we’re gay.”
Alec looked up at the crack in the ceiling. “You’re right. He pops in unexpectedly sometimes. But once he’s delivered supper, that’s the last we’ll see of him until sunrise.”
I backed away. “Then you can be my after-dinner treat,” I said.
“Dessert,” he said, smiling back at me.
The next couple of hours were hell. I kept looking up at the crack between the roof and the wall and trying to will the sun to go down faster. To distract myself from thinking of Alec naked, I focused on remembering everything I could about our surroundings.
The school building was tucked into the side of the mountain. The truck carrying me had parked a few hundred feet downhill, and I had been manhandled up a curving dirt pathway beaten into the mountainside. As we climbed, I noticed a cluster of buildings in the valley—simple houses of stone and concrete block, with corrugated metal roofs. I had no idea what the village’s name was, or where we were. I had only been in Afghanistan for three months by then, and my command of the country’s geography was slim.
I focused my mind on the approach to the school’s front door. I had noticed that inscription above the lintel and recognized the building’s original function immediately. The two men guarding me had walked me through a large classroom, though the few remaining chairs and desks had been broken into kindling and piled along one wall.
That was it. I’d been pushed into the cell with Alec directly from that room. Where had the water come from, then? And the bread? I knew there were often springs in these mountains. But the bread had to have come from the village. Did the man go down there to get it, or did someone bring it to him?
The light was almost completely gone before the door banged open again. This time the old man held a large pot in his hand which smelled of fermented goat’s milk, coriander, garlic and on
ions. It was accompanied by two more slabs of bread—nowhere near as fresh as the ones we’d had before.
“When can this man see a doctor?” I demanded of the old man. “Is there anyone in the village who can help him?”
“I am just an old man,” he said, putting the pot and the bread on the floor. “Others return in two days.”
He backed out of the cell and slammed the door behind him.
I sat on the floor across from Alec and we took turns dipping bits of bread into the stew. We were both so hungry the bowl was clean in minutes.
“Two days,” I said, when we were finished. “At least we have a chance to keep track of time now.”
“We don’t want to be here when they get back,” Alec said. “If what he said is true, then right now he’s the only one watching us. Tomorrow morning when he brings breakfast, I say we tackle him and get out of here.”
“Where would we go? We don’t even know where we are.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time in this country. Get me outside and I’ll figure it out.”
“Do you think the old guy sleeps here?” I asked.
He shook his head. “He goes down to the village. But there’s no way out of here. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking of.”
He looked at me. There was just enough light left in the room that I could see a glimmer in his eyes. “Oh,” he said.
“Yeah. Oh.” I scooted over next to him. “We need to get some sleep if we’re going to break out of here tomorrow. But it’s going to be a long time until dawn. You think we could…”
His mouth was on mine before I could finish the sentence. We kissed with a wild passion, pressing our faces together as if we could merge into one being. I reached down and pulled up the tails of his T-shirt, and he backed away from me long enough to get it off. I did the same thing with my own, unbuckling my pants with frenzied fingers.
It was cooling in the cell, but I was so desperate to get naked I didn’t care. I had to struggle with my boots; Alec had a head start because I’d already removed one of his earlier. So he was naked first and launched himself at me while my pants were clustered around one ankle.
We couldn’t wait. His mouth was on my nipple, and I arched my head back in ecstasy, running my fingers through his short hair. I reached down to find one of his nipples with my fingers, and he squirmed as I squeezed hard with my nails.
I pulled back and wriggled around beneath him. “Watch your ankle,” I said.
“Fuck my ankle.”
“I’d rather fuck your mouth,” I said, positioning myself so we were both dick to lips. I took in as much of his as I could, but he was long and thick and I started to choke almost immediately.
He did a better job with me, and I began to mimic his actions. Licking his dick up and down like a lollypop, then teasing the head with my tongue, only taking him in my mouth when I felt good and ready.
He started humping his ass up and down, pushing into my mouth farther and farther, and then he erupted down my throat. I tried to swallow but ended up choking again. He pulled back. “Are you all right?”
“Don’t stop,” I pleaded, between coughs. “Jesus, don’t stop.”
He went down on me again, and stuck a finger roughly up my ass, and my gonads exploded. He was a better man than I was; he swallowed every drop.
Then he slumped down next to me on his right side. “That was crazy,” he said.
“My first time,” I said.
“No shit?”
“Well, my first time with a fellow soldier on a dirt floor in a holding cell,” I said.
He flicked his index finger at my softening dick.
I pulled back. “Ow!”
He laughed. “We’d better get some sleep,” he said.
“It’s getting cold in here. Do you cuddle?”
He looked at me, and laughed. “Hell, yes,” he said. “Scoot around.”
I turned so that my head was beside his, and shifted to one side. He put his arm around me and pulled me close, his dick rested against the firm globes of my ass. I draped our clothes over our naked bodies. Then he was asleep, and so was I.
The sound of him pissing in the bucket in the corner woke me a couple of hours later. “Sorry,” he said.
I stood up next to him and aimed at the bucket. There was something weirdly erotic about being naked beside him, our streams merging. “As long as we’re awake, we should work out a plan,” he said.
“I was thinking. When the old man put the food down on the floor last night, I had a clear shot at his neck. I could probably knock him out.”
“We need better than probably.”
“I studied some karate when I was a kid,” I said. “My dad thought it would toughen me up. I can do it.”
“If you can get him down, we can lock him here in the cell and then get out of here,” Alec said.
The temperature had dropped rapidly during the night, and it was cold. We both pulled our clothes back on, then cuddled back together. When I woke again a thin stream of weak light filtered in through the crack at the ceiling. I yawned and sat up.
“About last night,” Alec said.
I looked at him. Was he going to tell me that our frenzied sex had been a big mistake? He was gorgeous, after all. He could have his pick of men, military or civilian. I was sure he didn’t want to get tied up in any kind of relationship. But I tried to play it light. “You mean you had the same dream I did?”
He laughed. “I’m usually not such a bastard,” he said. “And I don’t usually get off so fast, or choke a guy.”
So he wasn’t rationalizing away the night before? “I’m tough,” I said, keeping up my facade. “I can take it.”
“I can see that,” he said. “If we do manage to get out of here, we’re going to have to rely on each other. I want you to know you can count on me. That I’m not some selfish dipshit.”
“You weren’t selfish last night,” I said. If he was going to be honest, so was I. “You were hot and sexy and those few minutes were some of the best I’ve ever had.”
“I don’t know if I should be flattered, or sad for you.”
“Be flattered. I’ve had good sex and bad sex and great sex, and I know the difference. Last night was great.”
“It was pretty hot,” he admitted. “I didn’t screw around much in college, and after I got into the Army the only chances I had were on R&R, and most of the guys I met didn’t really do it for me. But there’s something about you—or you and me together.” He looked down at the dirt floor. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
He didn’t get a chance to, because the door swung open and the old man stepped in, carrying more fresh bread. When his head was bowed in front of me, I clasped my hands together and slammed them against his neck. He fell to the ground and Alec scrambled to his feet. I heard him wince once as he must have landed on his bad ankle, but that was it.
I pushed the man to the side and picked up the bread he had been carrying. Alec stood at the doorway to our cell and looked out. “Looks clear,” he said, and stepped into the schoolroom. I was right behind him, stopping to close and lock the cell door behind me.
The room was as I remembered it—dirt floor, boarded-up windows, a pile of broken furniture in the corner. Early-morning daylight sifted in through the front door, which the old man had left ajar.
Alec grabbed a long piece of wood that looked like it had been the leg of a desk and used it as a crutch. I picked up another piece with a sharpened edge. We paused again at the front door. A rosy dawn was rising over the valley. Smoke from what I thought was a communal oven in the village lifted skyward in a thin plume. I couldn’t see anyone moving there.
I closed the door behind me and we started down the winding path, Alec in the lead. We gobbled the bread as we walked. He was using the table leg as a makeshift cane, but he was able to move fast enough that I had to hustle to keep up with him. We went down the curving path, then cut away from the t
own, toward the north.
“I recognize this country,” Alec said after a couple of minutes. “We’re in the northeast, and the border with Tajikistan is that way.”
“You think it’s better to go that way than to try for one of the bases?”
“The closest is Bagram, outside Kabul. Long way to go, though, and it’s on the other side of those mountains.” He pointed south. “The countryside between here and the Tajik border is flatter and as long as we run parallel to that road down there, but out of sight, we should be able to make it in three days’ march.”
“Can you walk that far?”
“Going to have to.”
We trudged along all morning, making our way through a rift in the mountains. We saw no one and heard nothing more than the sound of the wind rolling through the mountains. I spotted the extravagantly twisted horns of a wild goat across a valley from us, its brown body blending with the landscape as it scrambled up the rocky slope.
“That’s an ibex, isn’t it?” I asked, pointing. “Look at that long beard.”
Alec shook his head “That’s a markhor. They both have beards, but the horns of the ibex curve up like a crescent moon. The markhor’s look more like a unicorn’s horn.”
“I wouldn’t want to meet either of them up here.”
“They’re not the ones to worry about. There are nine species of wildcats in these mountains,” Alec said. “But they’re all nocturnal hunters, so with luck, we won’t run across any of them. Snow leopards and black bears, too.”
Alec and I took off our jackets and tied them around our waists when the sun got hot. A couple of eagles soared on the thermals above us. My throat began to parch, and I wished we’d been able to provision ourselves before our escape.
Alec stopped. “Listen.”
All I heard was the wind creeping around the base of the mountain.
“Sounds like water,” he said. “Over that way.”
He picked up the pace, climbing around a rock formation. Below us we saw a small mountain lake surrounded by trees. A falcon that had been drinking from the water’s edge rose up as we picked our way through the rocky scree. As we moved out of our cover and into the open we both scanned the area around us, but we were alone.