Roommates

by Valerie Reyes

  Schaffer said, “Petty Officer, I don’t know, I just—”

  I raised my voice even more. By then, I was shouting at him. “You will report to my office posthaste and wait there five minutes until I am ready to see you. NOW, RECRUIT!”

  Schaffer forgot about everything else. He just ran straight for the barracks as fast as he could. I saw that he wasn’t running with his usual speed. At that moment, I didn’t care. He was just so damned attractive.

  Chapter 5: Recruit Schaffer

  I thought that I was finished as a SEAL—maybe in the Navy. I ran as best as I could on my sore leg while I waited for Anderson to finish putting the recruits through their paces. It was not lost on me that he had me run right by the bell on my way to the barracks. I had thought about doing it, too. I could ring the bell. I could quit before they got rid of me. It was a tempting thought. I looked at the silver bell as I passed it. I did not stop to grab the white rope that dangled from the bell on my way by.

  I ran into the barracks, then kept running until I reached the locked door of Anderson’s office. I could not remember how often he had actually used the room, if at all. He was always outside, always barking orders at us. I don’t know how it was that he never lost his voice.

  Whether it was five minutes or an hour that I waited, I could not tell. I stood where I was, trying to ignore my throbbing leg. Even that little bit of running I had done to the barracks had caused more pain than I thought it would. Something was wrong. I knew it was, and I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. How I could have admitted to it Anderson?

  I thought to myself, if I just pretend, if I just keep going along to get along, then everything will be all right. I didn’t really believe it. As soon as a nurse at sickbay got a look at me, that would be it. I’d be drummed out of the program. But if I didn’t seek medical attention, I’d be even worse off.

  As far as I could see, it was a lose-lose situation. My assessment of my circumstances did not improve when I saw Anderson striding down the hallway with a look of stern determination on his face. When I saw him walking towards me, I felt something—what was it? —stir inside me. It was the kind of feeling that I always heard other guys in my high school talk about when they talked about a night out with their favorite girl. I had tried that once, but it had not done anything for me. Kissing a girl had been like kissing a dog. It was almost repulsive how bland and senseless it felt to me.

  I didn’t have time to think about the feelings that rose up in me when I saw him. He strode right past me and unlocked his office door. He went in, then motioned for me to follow. I stood in front of his desk. But, instead of sitting down in his chair, he stood next to me while I stood at attention. I tried not to let the pain in my leg show. I tried not to let him see me cry. I tried to keep myself from jumping straight into his arms like a madman who has no idea what he’s doing.

  He said, “Recruit Schaffer, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but—”

  I gulped. I said nothing. There was nothing that I could say to him then. He cupped my face in his hands. He turned my head until I was looking directly at him. My body moved with my head. He leaned in close. I could smell the breath mint that he had put in his mouth a half hour ago to cover up the scent of alcohol that issued from him after he took a swig from his bottle of Tennessee Whiskey. His eyes were so big, and so brown. He had a pair of full, red lips.

  He pressed his lips against my own. The spark that had lit up inside me flared into a towering conflagration. I felt that I was burning alive, that I would burn myself to a cinder if I kept kissing him. It felt so right and so natural. In that moment, I didn’t care whether I would become a SEAL or not. I didn’t care whether I had pulled a muscle in my leg, or how much medical treatment I would require. There was only him, the overwhelming presence of him, his warm body heat, his hot breath, and his strong hands.

  Those hands moved downwards away from my face to my chest. He pulled at my shirt. I wanted him to take it off. I wanted him to go as far as he wanted to. I kissed him with all the passion that I’d never known I had. One of my hands found his belt. I fumbled with it until he pulled his mouth away. Then he unbuckled his belt himself. We were both breathing heavily when his pants fell down.

  Without reservation he bent me over and pulled off my pants. Before I had a moment to think, he spread my cheeks buried and his entire face deep into my ass. I moaned in pure ecstasy as I felt the light scruff on his lips brush against my hole. I reached back and pulled my cheeks open and looked at him with a begging expression.

  With his pants already off, he took his rock hard member and shoved it inch by inch inside of me. I had never felt the duality of pain and pleasure in such an intense fashion. He contentiously thrusted and we both began sweating and breathing heavily.

  He reached his hand around and touched my member which was completely swollen. Within seconds, I ejaculated and it dripped onto my uniform which was now crumpled up on the floor. I regained consciousness to him finishing inside of me.

  That was when the door opened. We pulled apart quickly at the sound. A master chief whose name I didn’t know stood there, staring at us with wide-eyed shock.

  Chapter 6: Officer Anderson

  They kicked us out of the Navy, of course. Maybe they knew what I was all along, even before I was willing to admit it to myself. Maybe that’s why I never got the promotion I deserved. Maybe they were just waiting for me to screw up. There are a lot of maybes. All I can tell you is that I don’t regret kissing Schaffer, or almost having sex with him. It felt good. It felt right.

  I had been told throughout my entire seventeen-year career at the Navy how my job was to kill the enemies of America. Some guy even made a video of all the suspected terrorists on INTERPOL’s watch list and had them flash across the screen while that one song made by Drowning Pool blasts at high volume. The video is played as a propaganda piece that all recruits watch during their basic training. The message is: These guys are terrorists, and they have to die.

  How different it was to finally be able to love someone. Even if that love was only momentary—as fleeting as a passing breeze. I know what I felt. I know love when it comes to me. I had loved Schaffer. I loved him as soon as I started to kiss him. I couldn’t tell you what it was that drove me to kiss him, or why I had never thought of doing so for the seven days that he had been with the program. Seeing him injured and crying like that had awakened something in me, something that I don’t really know how to describe.

  Now, did I send him to my office with the ulterior motive of having sex with him? I’ve been asked this question several times by the officers who conducted my court-martial. I told them the truth: I was going to tell Schaffer that he needed to stop crying and man the fuck up. But since he seemed like a promising candidate to be a SEAL, I chose to do it in private.

  He, more than any of the other recruits, looked like he had the best chance to make it all the way. I wanted him to make it, because I saw in him a damned good operative. I saw in him a leader. By that point, I had been around long enough to tell the difference between someone who is just filling time to serve out his first contract and someone who is really in it because he means it. Schaffer meant it. He had a promising career ahead of him. I didn’t want to let that go to waste.

  Maybe they bought it, and maybe they didn’t. I repeated it often enough that they had no choice but to accept it. Sometimes, we as human beings put love before everything else. Even if that love doesn’t make sense, even if it’s detrimental to our careers and future prospects, we still love anyway. It’s what makes us human. We can no more deny our impulse to love than we can to eat, or to rest. That’s why so many people have been caught with their pants down—just as I was, literally—throughout history. Maybe if we all learned that a little love is okay now and then, we’d be better off.

  But that’s not something that Navy officers are quite ready for yet. They gave me a dishonorable discharge, which was the maximum punishment they coul
d give me. They talked about giving me prison in Leavenworth, but I had not actually been witnessed taking liberties with someone entrusted to my care. I had been seen with my pants down, and that was it.

  I can’t say I regret what happened. I didn’t object to or appeal the decision. I looked at it as an opportunity. I could start a new career somewhere that actually valued my services. I mean, come on, I got to be an instructor of future Navy SEALs. How many people can say that?

  Chapter 7: Recruit Schaffer

  The discharge was devastating. It came about as the result of a stupid mistake. I hadn’t been able to keep my leg from injuring itself. That was just a piece of bad luck. But I could have stayed in the Navy and tried again at a later date, if only I’d had a good head on my shoulders when the injury happened. But I wasn’t thinking clearly. I had invested so much time just to get to the program that when I got there, I never thought about a future that was something other than pass or fail. It was all or nothing. That was what drove me the hardest.

  Now there was a hearing. I was called into the office of a chief petty officer. He sat me down and explained to me what had happened. A court-martial had given Anderson a dishonorable discharge. I could stay in the Navy with a strong reprimand on my record. If I did that, I would be ineligible to join the SEALs at any point in the future. Or I could accept a general discharge. A general discharge wipes the slate clean. I thought it was awfully decent of them to offer me that. During that interview, I was still in a pass-or-fail mindset. I asked the officer if I could join the military again with a discharge on my record. He said that I could. So I asked to be discharged from the service.

  He gave it to me, right there on the spot. Now, let me tell you, getting discharged from any branch of the military is awfully difficult. They don’t just let people go whenever they feel like it. You have to have a good reason why you want to go. You can’t just walk up to a petty officer and tell him you want to be discharged because you’re sick. He’ll laugh in your face. You will be let go if you’re a troublesome person, or if you’re feeling suicidal.

  There were two sorts of discharge divisions where recruits were placed, the legal division and the non-legal division. That was just for the men, of course. There was a third division for the women who were discharged for whatever reason. I never saw them very much. That division wasn’t very big.

  I was put in the non-legal division. I was discharged for being gay. That’s how I saw it. I didn’t want to be gay. It wasn’t something that I planned for, or expected. But I had to admit to myself that I was. I saw no point in denying my own nature to myself. There was nothing to gain from doing so. If I liked men, then I liked men. That’s all there was to it.

  Of course, that didn’t mean that I just happened to fall for any man that I saw. Believe me, there were plenty of men to choose from in the discharge division. I bided my time as best I could while I recognized it for what it was. Waiting to be discharged from the Navy is just like waiting for anything else in the Navy. You have to hurry to arrive at your rally point, and then you have to sit around while your superiors figure out what to do with you.

  It came as a sudden surprise when they brought my train ticket. They actually let me choose whether I wanted to ride the bus or the train. They wouldn’t fly me back to Minneapolis. That wasn’t going to happen. But they would pay for my train ride, which I thought was rather gracious of them. I had a tad bit of money in my Navy Federal Credit Union account. I would be okay for about a month while I got my life back together.

  I guess because of that, I wasn’t worried when I boarded the train with my enormous green rucksack full of everything that I kept from my time with the Navy., including my blue sweatpants and sweatshirt, and all four pairs of pants with tears in the rear. I opened up a paperback book I had purchased at the station, then spread my legs in the two seats next to me. I lost myself in the book, glad that I finally had time to relax. Being able to stretch my legs out and do whatever I wanted seemed like such an incredible privilege that I took full advantage of it.

  I hadn’t yet conceived of the idea that would change my life forever. That happened when I disembarked with a finished, slightly used paperback tucked into my jacket pocket.

  Chapter 8: Officer Anderson

  Was it discrimination? Probably not. In fact, I’m fairly sure that it wasn’t. Since I was the man with the authority, I had no business fraternizing with anybody, regardless of that person’s sex. That’s what the military code of conduct says. That’s why men and women are kept at arm’s length from one another during basic training. I never found a reason to disagree with that rule until I found myself in the position of being on the wrong end of it.

  Now I wonder whether it’s right to keep people from loving one another in the military. Does it interfere with its mission to suppress individuality? While on the inside, not a day passed when I had cause to question how the Navy worked. Once I got outside, I found myself wondering if cutting the hair of new recruits, depriving of them of their sleep, segregating the sexes, and forcing them to live together with strangers is not all done purposefully with the aim of preventing people from questioning whether any given mission is actually viable, or if it should even be attempted.

  The people who got on my side quicker than a hiccup as soon as my story became known didn’t have a problem criticizing the military. These were equal rights groups, social justice warriors, feminists, hippies, anarchists, and all sorts of other people with an axe to grind, who wanted to use my story to promote themselves or their cause. I was happy to help with their podcasts, their video interviews, their live events, and their books because I was able to tell my story. I was the man who dared to love while wearing a uniform. For that crime, I was removed from the service.

  That said a lot about how the government works, a lot more than I expected. I don’t really care what the government gets up to. Calling a politician crooked is like calling a pig unsanitary. It hardly even needs to be pointed out. Everyone knows it. So I didn’t feel the need to dwell on getting rid of the government, or getting rid of any elected official, or reforming the system. That wasn’t for me. I just didn’t want to be involved in any of it.

  I even declined the opportunity to take a paid position in a nonprofit organization called the Human Rights Campaign. They wanted me to advocate for better treatment of LGBT people in the military. I could not, in all good faith, accept that position. I had been treated very well—better than most, in fact. I had enough food to eat, a warm place to sleep, and a job I liked to do, which also proved to be useful to others. Is there anything else that a person can ask? Where is the unfairness when a man has all these things and still is not satisfied? I have never discovered that for myself.

  Since I had more money than I knew what to do with from my military salary, I decided to spend it learning how to program websites. It might be strange to say that a thirty-seven-year-old man like me still has things to learn, yet I found that I did. There was this whole other world waiting for me. It was a world that I never knew about.

  Even while I did this, I began to attend those pride festivals and rallies that everyone with the rainbow flags attends. I learned more about what it was to be gay, lesbian, transsexual, transgender, intersex, and a whole host of other words that I had never heard in the Navy. I couldn’t quite figure out what I was. I still found women attractive. There were some real lookers at those parades. But I had also been attracted to Schaffer. There was no denying that. I didn’t want to use the term to bisexual to describe myself; it didn’t feel right to me. I decided not to label myself as anything. I was just me: Dave Anderson, former hotshot Navy instructor with a story to tell.

  Sometimes, just by chance, I happened to find that I liked someone. People are just people, after all. That’s why I enjoy meeting LGBT people so much. They’re different. They think outside the box.

  They also have a lot of condoms to spare.

  Chapter 9: Recruit Schaffer

&
nbsp; It took me six months to decide that I was gay. It wasn’t an easy thing to face. Growing up, I had always heard “gay” and “homo” used as derogatory terms. That was what the bullies called the loners and the people who were different. My high school didn’t have a gay student group. In the town where I grew up—it’s a place called Rockport in the state of Texas—any student who dared to come out as gay would have been beaten up. He would have been yelled at by any number of pastors. For a small town, there were so many churches that I could not count them all.

  It was that stifling atmosphere of discrimination that caused me to move out to Minneapolis when I was eighteen. I stayed there for two years until I felt that I was ready to make my try at becoming a SEAL. I went back to my old stomping grounds when I returned. I found my car right where I left it: in a friend’s garage. He did not expect to see me back so soon. I tried not to talk to him too much. At least, I didn’t want to talk about my discharge. It was still too raw, too painful to deal with.

  I left my friend with a handshake, a thanks, and a hundred dollar bill for his trouble. I then went in search of an apartment to rent. I found one easily enough—not a lot of people are searching for apartments when it’s bitterly cold in Minnesota. I settled in and thought about who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.

  I wanted to take another try at the SEAL program. I wasn’t sure if I could make it or not. But I wanted to try. When I sat down and thought about it, I realized that I could have probably overcome a pulled muscle if I had been upfront about it. I would have received medical treatment, and that would have been the end of it. I had built it up in my head until it overwhelmed me. Training has a way of doing that to a person. When I looked back on how things had unfolded, I realized that I had no one to blame but myself.