This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments. And last but not least, Nifty would like your donations.

Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Chapter 26 (Tues. Jan. 10,, Wed., Jan. 11)

While Sean was downstairs tucking in the troops for lights out, I was making my bunk. I made it particularly tight to see if I could get Sean to notice. As I was taking my clothes off to go to the showers, I heard him coming through the upstairs bay. That was one thing about combat boots, you couldn't tip-toe.

He entered without knocking, but, after all, it was his room. For some reason, he felt the need to switch on the overhead bulb. I was still in my boxers, unpacking my new shower shoes. For just a brief moment, I felt his eyes on me, again, just like they had been in the mess hall. "Hope the troops have left us enough hot water."

I hadn't thought about that. "Are the showers coal powered, too."

"Naw," He laughed. "The tanks are electrically heated, but they're not very big. We'll see."

I turned around to look at him. "How did you put it earlier? Shower with a friend?"

He chuckled and then noticed my bunk. "How the Fuck do you do that?"

I played innocent. "Do what?"

"I can't tell you how many inspections I've failed because my bunk was crap." He pulled out a half dollar and bounced it. "Wait 'til the drill sergeants get a load of that."

"Haruki taught me the tricks." I caught him looking at my package, as he retrieved his coin, which my dick acknowledged with a twitch. "At one point, he was even going to make me a 'folding board' so I could get all my things folded to exactly the same size, but didn't bother when he saw that I was able to do it all by myself."

"Do you and Haruki, uh…" He let his voice trail off.

"Have sex?" I ventured; Sean nodded. And I answered truthfully. "Yeah, we do."

He was now hoarse. "Could we?"

I flipped off the light switch and pulled him up to me. I found his mouth with mine and our tongues greeted one another. "I'd like that."

He placed his forehead against my neck. "Even if I'm a cripple?"

I felt his boner pressing against my leg. "From what I'm feeling, the only thing you're lacking, Sean, is a little self-confidence."

He responded to this by sliding the mattress off his bunk onto the floor. He quickly took off his fatigues and boxers and got under the covers. Waiting, he held up the corner for me to get in. I thought to myself that this good-looking, likeable, if not loveable man had never done it with another guy. I couldn't keep my thoughts quiet. "This your first time with a man?"

"Well, I used to jack off with my big brother, back in high school." His blushing plunged deeper into the red spectrum.

"That's a start." What could I say? At least, he wasn't a bad kisser. Like the mess hall, he couldn't hold a candle to Haruki. But after all, Haruki was, hands down, the best kisser I'd ever encountered. "Do you want me to take you to the next level?"

He nodded tentatively. "Does it hurt much?"

"Not if you fuck me first." I told him truthfully. He giggled, and for the first time since I'd arrived this morning was his voice back to that sweet tenor that I so fondly remembered.

I reached over under my bunk and fished for the Vaseline in my backpack. I put a glob up me so that it would melt inside, as I went down on Sean's lovely circumcised cock. Since he hadn't had all that much exercise today, he still smelled of Lifebuoy Soap mixed with the heady scent of testosterone. He tasted of salt. His cock was neither massive nor puny; it was just right, and as they say: 'more than a mouth full is a waste'.

When I tasted pre-cum, I knew it was time to put him in me. To avoid the angry-looking wound on his lower thigh, I squatted rather than straddled him. His blue eyes went wide and he whimpered as I sat down along the length of his erect phallus, embedding him in me down to his pale pubic hair. Then, I massaged his dick with my anal muscles. His wide eyes gave me a look of disbelief, which turned momentarily to a mischievous grin.

We let the copulation begin, first with a slow withdrawal, replaced with a quick thrust, slam and slapping collision between my ass cheeks and his pubic mound. He moaned and scratched his nails along my lower back. I purred with pleasure. Then he got a series of rapid-fire ins and outs, causing my anal walls to spasm, massaging his cock inside my ass.

When his breathing steadily accelerated into panting, I knew it was time to find our rhythm for the long hall. Not letting him slide out, I quickly lifted my left leg over him and lowered myself onto my back at a ninety-degree angle. I whisper-growled: "Fuck me, Sean! Fuck me silly!"

***

Next morning, it was my new usual time to get up; it was 0400 hours and I was wide awake. Sean was still sleeping next to me on the mattress, which he'd pulled off his bunk at lights out. I decided that I would go for a run, as Haruki and I had been doing for a good while, now.

Dressing quietly was going to be a problem, so I gathered my clothes and put them on in the empty, and damned cold, upstairs bay. To avoid waking the bay full of guys beneath me, I concluded that even my running shoes would be too much, so I waited until I got to the bottom of the stairs to put them on.

I was starting to lace my left shoe, when Private Helmstedter came out of the latrine. He looked startled, but then quickly calmed and gave me the thumbs up. He leaned in next to my ear and whispered: "Give me three minutes, and I'll come and run with you."

Jogging in place and stretching wasn't really enough to keep me warm, and the three minutes seemed like an eternity in an icebox, but it was only three. Yes, I timed him.

When Helmstedter appeared in his sweats, I motioned down the long row of barracks buildings, since running on the cinder formation patches and on still snowy grass seemed to be a lot safer than running down the streets in the dark, since there were no sidewalks, and there could easily be patches of ice on the roads. Besides, the frequency of the thirty-watt bulbs over the entry of every barracks was greater than that of the streetlights. We both settled into a comfortable jogging pace, just a little faster than double time.

We got to the end of the sixth building and the end of our row, we doubled back. Neither of us said anything until we got back to our building. I started between deep breaths of coal fumes. "You got another name other than Private Helmstedter?"

He grinned. "Yeah, Gerry. Yours if Ben, isn't it?" I nodded, catching my breath. "Look, I'm no good at apologizing, but I'm sorry, okay?"

"Accepted." I smiled at him, and noticed that he was attractive in a farm-boy kind of way. But he was definitely not my type, too blond and pale. "Want to go for another round?"

He nodded, and we took off.

***

Helmstedter and I finished our run at about five, and we took a walk to cool down. Since the overcast skies were keeping the coal smoke close to the ground, I figured that I might as well have a cigarette. Helmstedter refused, when I offered him one.

"So, how do you know Specialist McGrady?" came the question I was dreading. I really hadn't given the story, Sean had started, any thought.

Then I had a brilliant idea. "Langley doesn't let us talk about it."

"Shit," His face beamed like it did, when I let him help me out with the marching. "I knew it."

I put a finger to my lips and shushed him quietly. "You're going to wake somebody, and we'll have a bunch of nasty NCOs on our asses." He settled down. "And please, don't go spreading that around." Of course, as I was speaking, my brain was telling me that the kid, any kid for that matter, was going to do just that. So, I changed the subject. "You get drafted?"

He shook his head, still grinning. "No, I'm in for four."

"So, what MOS" Yeah, that was me using military acronyms. "did you sign up for?"

"Eleven Bravo. Queen of Battle."

Luckily Sean had used that MOS code last night. So now, I could bullshit with the best of them. Then, I heard Haruki's voice echoing: 'Bullet Sponge' along with the vision of this probably up-state New York farm boy, in a coffin with someone saying: 'He made the ultimate sacrifice for his country.' I felt panicky. I felt like grabbing him and shaking some sense into his cute, little head. But, just as suddenly as the panic arose, calm replaced it. This was, after all, his decision.

"Why infantry." I casually field-stripped my cigarette.

"Long family tradition." he answered as he took hold of the handle to the door of our building. "They expect it of me."

***

Delighted that I'd fled the encumbrance of family, I went up the stairs two at a time. Sean was still groggy but seriously trying to make his bed. "Did you go out for a run?"

I nodded and took over the task at hand. "Yeah, and young Private Helmstedter was along."

"He your type?" To judge by his tone, Sean obviously had no motive other than curiosity.

I finished making his bed. "No, Sean." I bounced a quarter. "You are, though." That made him blush.

"Does that mean that we can do it again?" His grin was as wide as Helmstedter's had been yesterday morning.

I was getting undressed to take a shower. My dick went instantly hard at the question, and Sean watched in amazement as the skin hood slowly retracted itself. "I think that's your answer, Pal."

***

After breakfast, the first stop was the barber's shop. Groans and complaints did not hold up progress for a second. The five barbers had heard it all before. And they told us so in worldly wise New Jersey humor. However, I did get a glare from each of them at one time or another, since Haruki had already done the deed, and none of them got my dollar.

Next, we marched over to get our pictures taken for the ID card. Each of us had to hold a signboard with our names spelled out military style, which meant ass backwards with a comma. Mine read: LOUGHERY, BENTON-JU-LONG. Of course, we were supposed to only have the last name first and the first name and middle initial last, but I convinced them that everything was my first name and that Chinese don't have middle names. This was unadulterated bullshit, but I wanted to see just how far I could go.

The next stop was the real in-processing. They got our fingerprints on a filing card especially designed for fingerprints. Probably something the FBI thought up. And I was glad to have one of my wet wipes with me.

Before I knew it, I was sitting at the desk of a middle-aged lady who actually spelled Mahayana Buddhist correctly without even flinching. When she asked me to verify the accuracy of the information, I told her that I was impressed. Her detached reply of: "Ya think I never seen a Hippie before? Sign here." deterred any further comment on my part. Okay, I rationalized, she didn't have to understand what she typed, she just had to type it correctly. She also advised me to buy US Savings Bonds. I declined. She said that I would live to regret it.

I was starting to feel dizzy from the naphtha fumes of mothballs, when I was told to remove my jacket and was measured. First, it was my head, and in rapid succession my neck, the length of my arms, the girth of my chest and waist. For expedience, I had to climb two stairs and walk along a catwalk until I was ordered to stop. One gentleman measured my inseam and outseam, the other my foot.

I climbed off the catwalk and was given an open duffel bag. A line of people either guessed my size at a glance or looked at the card in my hand, but my bag started to fill. From somewhere appeared several white tapes with LOUGHERY stenciled in black. A kind lady at a sewing machine then sewed one each onto my four fatigue, or officially, my four OG-107 Cotton Sateen Utility Uniform shirts and my M-65 field jacket over the right pockets. The last things I was given were pieces of brass mounted on cardboard. And I signed for everything.