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 54 (Sat., March 18)

Pageantry was in big demand as our graduation ceremony came closer. It had certainly been planned well enough to go off like clockwork. After all, this was a well-oiled training post of the military industrial complex, churning out twelve hundred new soldiers every few weeks. This is what these people did; they organized pageantry, not unlike the people at Disneyland.

We'd all had our first stripe of Private E-2 sewn on by yesterday afternoon. The Fort-Dix Band was playing rock music spiked with John-Philip-Sousa marches. Graduation was being held in the huge post gym, since it was far too cold and snowy to be held in the open. That hadn't stopped them from training us in the snow and cold, though. But now, the whole thing had the smell of a professional Broadway production.

I was required to sit with the cadre, next to Drill Sergeant. I was introduced as Trainee of the Cycle, by the military version of the one-ring-circus' ringmaster. I saluted the Post Commander, the Post Commander saluted back, and he presented me with the usual trinkets, a framed accommodation and what looked to be a bowling trophy, which displayed a small plastic plaque on the front with my name and unit. The Lieutenant General, with whom I would later pose for pictures to be included in the Training Cycle's version of a high-school yearbook, didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest when the plastic plaque fell off during the presentation.

Proud, photographing parents were there, except for those of Moffett, Gerry, and myself. But to his surprise, Moffett's brother, John, did show up and talked Moffett into going home for his week's leave. John seemed to be a pleasant enough guy, with many the same attributes as his little brother, as in big enough to go bear hunting with a flyswatter. But there was something about the man that rang false. Of course, I wasn't in any position to say anything to Moffett, but I was hoping beyond hope that we would see our Second Lieutenant Alvin Moffett again, soon.

His BA in economics had earned Moffett a direct commission, as opposed to my PhD, which got me Trainee of the Cycle. We saw Morton's parents briefly. Since the incident at Gerry's cousins' apartment had undoubtedly made the rounds, they were somewhat standoffish, and did not take a snapshot of their son, standing next to Gerry.

Not to be outdone on the camera front, Gerry and I had pitched in together to buy a Kodak Instamatic at the PX, last weekend. So, we didn't take a picture of Morton and Gerry together, either. But we did get pictures of Drill Sergeant, our First Sergeants from Basic and from the Reception Center and most everyone from the unit. Even the French-speaking Captain from the Reception Center was there to congratulate me. I scanned the hundreds of visitors with a vague hope of seeing Haruki, Sean, Bat or Marv. Nothing. I hadn't expected them to drive down to see me, but there was just the slightest of hope.

I had to smile, albeit somewhat sadly, as the song, Mr. Lonely, by Bobby Vinton came to mind, again for the second time recently: 'Now, I'm a soldier, a lonely soldier, away from home, through no wish of my own…'. Then someone placed a hand on my shoulder, and I placed mine on his.

When I noticed that it was Lieutenant Moffett, wanting to say good-bye, I snapped out of my cloud of thoughts. "Uh, sorry, Sir." I smiled. "Thought it was Helmstedter." Class-oriented society had never been quite as glaringly obvious to me as it was at this moment. I was now required to address the guy, whom I'd fucked in the ass just two weeks ago, as 'Sir'.

Drill Sergeant appeared out of the crowd and wanted to know if I was about ready to go back to the unit and sign out, since he wanted to get started because of the snow and ice storm that was picking up. We found Gerry wandering around, with no one to talk to. He seemed down; I knew that I was. "We really have overstayed our welcome." He told me softly.

I looked at Drill Sergeant, who would soon mutate back to Gordon. "Are you driving home just for the weekend, or do you have leave?" I thought getting him to change the topic might improve our spirits.

"No, still gotta buncha old leave left that I have to take." He informed us, as we walked into the Orderly Room. Steve handed us our Special Orders, assigning us to Clerk Typist School at Fort Knox, Kentucky, or so Steve said. The only thing that I could recognize was HEADQUARTERS, US ARMY TRAINING CENTER, INFANTRY, Fort Dix, New Jersey, 08640, centered at the top and SPECIAL ORDERS, NUMBER 262, on the left and the date on the right, and EXTRACT, again centered. This series of complete words was then followed by rows and rows of things like: Rel fr, Asg to, Aloc, Rept and Lv data. My mind just flatly refused to decipher this garbage.

"And here's something you can frame. I pulled them from your files." Steve handed Gerry and me our respective notices from the Department of State, telling us that they didn't want us. He shook his head. "Sorta tells you something when the guy with the best overall training record for the entire post is German, and our Trainee of the Cycle is French, doesn't it?"

Drill Sergeant nodded shuffling his own papers. "Yeah, kinda makes me wanna shiver, when I think a where this country's headed."

***

I didn't know what I expected Fire Island to be, maybe thousands of Queers camping it up on a sunny, sand-bar beach on the edge of the Atlantic ocean. My first recollection of any public reference to 'the unspeakable' goings-on at Fire Island was when, on my twelfth birthday in 1956, I heard Robert Higgins, whom I'd found adorable in those days, tell Rosalind Russell on opening night of the Broadway production of Auntie Mame, that he didn't want his fiancée and her parents exposed to her 'airy, fairy friends from Fire Island'. But, as life had already shown me several times over in my relatively compact twenty two years, it was never going to be what I expected.

First of all, it was not sunny. As we crossed the divided throughway, twin bridges and causeways, which, just past Captree Island, mutated into a narrow, two-lane roadway and single bridge span, aptly named after the megalomaniac, Robert Moses, who'd almost single-handedly rid New York City of any valuable architecture, only to come to an abrupt end in the sand of Fire Island in the icy fog and snow, I knew that not many Queers, camp or otherwise, were going to be knitting sweaters in front of their respective fires, at least not on this island. But the first indication of what we could expect was the fact that we hadn't seen another vehicle in the last ten miles, and that the ice threatened to become a problem on the causeway.

Not for the first time was I very glad that Gordon was an older, almost thirty, experienced driver and that his car was a fairly new, heavy Jeep Wagoneer, which had four-wheel drive and hugged the road, which made it less vulnerable to the 12 knot winds blowing freely over the causeway.

I was also happy that we'd made a run on the Commissary, PX and Class VI store before leaving Dix. And I felt justified in having convinced Gerry to invest in a pair of five-buckle rubber galoshes. Mine were already on the island in one of my two huge suitcases.

Gordon had kept the radio tuned to WMCA in the City in case there was a weather alert. As we crossed the last few yards of the causeway onto Fire Island, This Is My Song by Petula Clark was playing, and I leaned over the seat, hugged my Gerry and kissed his ear lightly. He turned around and kissed me just like I liked it.

"Whoa, hold on, Sports Fans." Gordon glanced at us and smiled. "We're almost there." That, I had to admit, was good news. As most kids who grew up in the City, Gerry and I didn't do too well on car trips.

"Know what, Gordon?" I asked him ironically. "'Sports fan' sounds immeasurably better than 'Trainee'." He chuckled as he turned onto what must have been a paved road, but it was virtually impossible to tell for sure, since the snow was shifting in the fog.

"Yeah, and you'll never have to drop and give me twenty, ever again." He laughed as he pulled out his federal permit to drive on a national seashore from behind his visor.

"Who knows, we might drop and give you something else, Drill Sergeant." Gerry teased. Gordon glanced at both of us, forcing his eyes back onto the road, which had by now, to judge by the drop we just felt, become white snow on white sand. Optically, you couldn't tell the difference.

***

Not very many minutes later, we arrived at a two-storey, cape-cod cottage painted in Wedgewood blue. Lights were shining from inside and what looked like white smoke, but was probably only heat rising in this 20-degree weather was bellowing from the chimney. It looked very homey, and then it dawned on me: this was home, or as close as Gerry and I were going to know it in the near future.

Backing off the roadway into their drive, we felt a slight jolt, like when we'd left the paved road and gotten onto the sand trail. "That's the barge." Gordon informed us, which meant absolutely nothing to Gerry and me. "The house is built on a barge." Okay, seeing Gerry shrug, this was going to need some detailed explanation, but we had to get the car unloaded, first.

Ju-Long appeared, looking like an Eskimo in his Army-issue parka, to provide welcoming hugs all round. He had opened the steel door of what would normally have been a garage. He got the freezers opened and began unpacking the cooler chests, which contained our shopping from the Dix' Commissary.

Gordon got the Jeep secured and ushered us into the large room with the freezers. When he warned us to watch our step, I noticed that the steel door had what looked like a watertight seal. Inside, it sounded like an engine room. It wasn't loud, but definitely not usual for a room connected to a home. When he saw my eyeing the thick, rubber, door seal, he grinned. "Tell you about this inside." He patted my shoulder. "First, it's time for drinks." Since he and Ju-Long had taken off their coats and shoes, Gerry and I followed suit. Next to the door to the house was a large box with a huge assortment of felt slippers.

Gordon looked tired as he took Gerry's pasteboard suitcase and went inside. We carried our duffel bags. And it had been a long day, particularly for him, since he'd done all the driving.

***

After welcoming us home with a hot whisky and lemon, Gordon showed us to our upstairs room. Our separate bathroom was just across the landing. As he gave each of us a kiss, he pressed a hand to his hard cock, signaling that he wouldn't mind. "Only because Gerry mentioned that you might want to." He smiled and looked ragged. "But not today. I have to get some rest. We'll call you when dinner is ready."

After showering, and crawling into our freshly made bed, my consciousness drifted in and out of my favorite pre-sleep stage. Gerry's fingers were playing casually with my hole and he was purring loving sounds into my ear. "What's that jar you bought at the Commissary?" For the most part, I was too drowsy to answer, but I did feel faintly obligated to tell him it was honey.

"Honey?" His soft purring indicated that he was in the mood. "And why did you bring the jar up here?"

"Guess." I rolled over and returned to an acceptable presence of mind.

"Didn't you tell me that you and Sean had used it as lube?" He kissed my right ear and brushed it with his tongue. "So, can I try it?"

He stuck his finger into the jar, as I sucked on his left tit. "Yeah, but you have to lick it off, after you cum." And as I told him that, he turned me to place the head of his throbbing cock at my hole.

"You ready?" When I nodded, he slipped into me with ease.

The sensuous fuck was making me greedy for more of my Gerry. When he filled me, true to his word, he flipped me onto my back and spread my legs wide, his face told how much he wanted this, even though he had already cum. Then, bordering on gluttony, he lowered his mouth onto my hole and sucked his own honey-sweetened juices out.

When it was my turn, his mouth had only been around my cock for hardly half a second before I squirted. The abstinence during basic training had given him an adequate amount to drink, and drink he did, like the true lover he was.