Relocate?

He'd been so sure when his ship pulled into Norfolk and before he'd come to Hagerstown to check out how his father was doing with the family garage business that he wanted to stay in the Navy—to relocate to the West Coast to take up the cushy billet being offered to encourage him to reup. But now . . . now he was torn. Tom was a hunk, a Marine recently mustered out at the end of the war and hired at the garage, with a cock to die for.

He had to be on a train in five hours, but Tom was ever hard, insatiable, demanding, masterful. He was riding Tom's cock in a cowboy position, Tom stretched out on his back and him spiked on Tom's cock and riding it like it was a horse. He'd been riding it forever. Flailing around, revolving every which way on the young Marine's hard shaft . . . being lifted and slammed down on it . . . turned on it . . . fucked hard and deep and fast. Tom growling of how much fun it was going to be when he mustered out of the Navy, came to work in his dad's garage, and rode Tom's cock every night. "I don't want you to go," Tom had said. "If you do, I might come for you." That had given him chills, but he had gotten on the train anyway.

The conductor was striding through the carriage, announcing an arrival in San Diego in fifteen minutes. Ned's sense of where he was swam up from his dream. It seemed he'd been on the train from Maryland forever. The options were driving him crazy. He'd been so sure at first that he wanted to take this Navy job in San Diego—to reup again. Then, there for a while, he'd thought he'd had his fill of the Navy and of war—and of pretending he wasn't who he was. And then the cushy job came along—and the invitation from the lieutenant—no, a lieutenant commander now—and then Tom, the hunky ex-Marine in Maryland with the monster cock was there, talking of the future they could have together. Someone Ned's own age for a change. Someone who wasn't both Ned's superior and dominator. He dominated in sex, of course, just like the Navy officer did—and just as Ned liked it—but beyond the bed, they were equals.

As the train pulled into the station in San Diego, Ned nervously scanned the platform to see if he could see him. It was easier than he thought it would be as Lieutenant—no, he had to remember to call him Lieutenant Commander now—Lewis Harris was wearing his khaki service uniform, which made him stand out in the crowd on the platform. It helped that he was tall and broad shouldered and had the air of authority and being in control. He was still a handsome devil, Ned was glad to see. The war in the Pacific hadn't done him in like it had so many others. Ned rose from his seat and carried his duffle bag out to the open platform between the two passenger cars.

Harris picked him out in those climbing down from the train, also being easy because the young gunner's mate was wearing the dress blue service uniform of a postwar Navy enlisted man. The two men waved at each other and Harris pointed up toward the station area to note he'd wait for Ned near the waiting room. The station, and, indeed, all of San Diego was full of the hustle and bustle of returning to a peacetime industry footing, with merely a year having gone by since the Japanese surrender in World War Two.

Both men had served in the Pacific fleet in the war. They'd been mates—or at least in the same crew—of the battleship

Maryland

—a ship Ned felt special for serving on, as he was from the State of Maryland. They had fought in the battle for Peleliu and then been stationed there as the U.S. invasion force moved on to Okinawa. But Harris had been wounded on Peleliu and sent back to the States, while Ned Carnes had gone on to Okinawa and the Japanese mainland. He was only now returning to the States, with the decision to be made of whether to get out of the Navy and help his father run the family garage in Maryland or stay with the Navy. He'd been offered a billet here at the U.S. Naval Station San Diego that had just been reformed from a destroyer repair facility a month earlier, in September 1946.

It had been Harris who had sent a letter saying he'd heard Ned might be reassigned to San Diego and invited him out to take a look at the job being offered before he decided what he'd do. Ned had been flattered that the lieutenant commander had invited him out but he had mixed feelings about it. With Ned's interests, which the naval officer well knew about, it was difficult to make it in the Navy. Of course, the lieutenant commander was making it in the Navy and there were more like-minded men in the Navy than there were in Hagerstown, Maryland, so there were risks either way. Ned wasn't at all sure how Harris would receive him either. Their parting had been abrupt—and explosive.

"Looking good, gunner's mate," the lieutenant commander said as Ned walked up to him.

"Well, you know the Navy, Sir," Ned answered. "Lots of backbreaking work and the grub is about inedible, so the balance is good for keeping the body fit."

"And yours certainly is fit." Barely here and the man already was at it, Ned thought—moving into his dominating position. Ned was both aroused and felt beleaguered by that.

"Same with you, Lieutenant—umm, Lieutenant Commander. Don't know how you keep shipshape while riding a desk as you told me you do now."

"San Diego is a wide-open town," Lew answered. "A desk is not all a man can ride here." He gave Ned a wink. "And let's make it Lew and Ned between us when the brass aren't looking, shall we?"

"Fine with me . . . Lew." Ned was a bit off center from what Harris had said before that. He hadn't known how it would be between them. And, yes, he'd noticed that the man hadn't told him to dispense with the "sir"—that the lieutenant commander didn't seem to mind the dominator distinction.

They'd parted so abruptly on Peleliu. And Ned knew so little about the naval officer and needed to know more before thinking of relocating to San Diego. A lot was riding on what he found out. Among other things, he wanted to know what, if anything, Harris had in connection to the offer of a cushy billet out here if Ned stayed in the Navy. The Navy seemed anxious to push men out of the force, the war being over and cannon fodder not being needed now, but Ned's jobs officer had gone the extra mile to talk up the San Diego offer.

"Come on through the station," Lew said. "I have a car waiting. I'm putting you up at the Del Coronado, the fanciest waterfront hotel we have here. The Navy hasn't given up all of the rooms it commandeered during the war yet, and I snagged you one." He obviously wanted Ned to understand that it was something he had arranged.

"I won't be staying in the naval barracks? I'm still enlisted, you know." What Ned really wondered was why Lew wasn't going to put him up himself. If he'd done that, it would answer Ned's most pressing question—well, more than one question Ned had. But by rights Ned knew he should be staying in the base barracks, not in some swank seaside resort hotel.

"The hotel business is strange here. Sometimes you can't get a room without selling your body. Sometimes the Navy can't fill its billets and the rooms go to waste. We're just lucky I could get you in. Bet you're thirsty after all those days on a train too and would love to get a shower. Thirsty first, I think. The hotel's got a great open-air bar, right on the water." He didn't wait for Ned to say what he'd like to do after coming off a long train ride.

The waterfront bar was, indeed, quite nifty, but they didn't stay there long. Ned had checked in at the desk, but Lew suggested he treat them to a drink before Ned went up to the room, so Ned lugged his duffle bag through miles of reception rooms to the outdoor, seaside bar. Lew ordered him a beer and Lew had scotch. They talked for almost an hour and polished off another two drinks each, filling in the blanks of how the life of each had gone since that fateful day on Peleliu Island half a world—and, it seemed, half a lifetime—away, even though it had only been a year and a half. There was a lot to talk about—and a lot of talk to avoid—but Ned could tell that Lew was getting antsy. He wanted something. Ned wanted something too. Chances were good that they wanted the separate parts of the same thing.

As the conversation drew down, Lew had the idea of seeing if Ned's room was nice enough—although Ned could have told him that a triple bunk under cannon shells against a steel bulkhead had been about as nice as Ned had had for years. And then Lew had Ned. This didn't come as a surprise to Ned. Lew had had Ned before.

In the room, which obviously wasn't the hotel's best in either size or view but that was a palace to Ned, Lew plopped down on the side of the bed "to test the springs." Then he invited Ned to plop down beside him to test the springs himself. Ned discerned nothing wrong with the springs. He didn't determine anything was wrong either with Lew putting an arm around his shoulder and turning him for a kiss that got deeper and deeper until Ned was putty in Lew's arms, pinned to the bed under the officer's body, and almost breathless. Then they gave the bed springs a real test. As it turned out, the bed springs did creak noisily when bodies bounced up and down on it in vigorous rhythm.

The naval officer had always had his way with the enlisted man, even the very first time, although by then both men knew that the other went with men—and that Lew was a top and Ned was a bottom. And by that first time the two had given each other looks that signaled want, need, and their respective positions in the dominant-submissive spectrum.

Lew came out of the kiss only long enough to pull the gunnery mate's jumper over his head and for Ned, in turn, to unbutton and pull away the officer's jacket, taking each down to nothing more on their chests than their dog tags on silver chains. Both men were well-developed, Ned slimmer than Lew, who, in his mid thirties, was considerably older than the seaman, who had barely turned twenty-one. Lew was in remarkable condition for his age.

Each ran fingers over the chest of the other as they went into another deep kiss, but before that was finished, Lew was fiddling with the traditional thirteen-button flap in the crotch of the seaman's trousers. Ned gave a jerk and a rattling sound deep inside when Lew pulled the waistband of his briefs down, hooked them under the young man's balls, and proceeded to stroke Ned off.

Ned struggled a bit at having his cock stroked while they were in an initial clutch, but he knew Lew liked to do this to establish his dominance. He was much the stronger of the two, having the advantage of size and weight, and he held fast to Ned, with his arm around the young man's shoulders, holding him close in and his lips locking on Ned's and his tongue down Ned's throat. He wouldn't let Ned go and stroked Ned's cock until his ejaculate arced across the room.

This was the way the officer liked it—to bring the other guy, the submissive, off quickly and then to take his time getting what he wanted.

When Ned had come, Lew let the young man's body sink to the surface of the bed beside him and he rolled over on top of Ned. As he rolled, he unzipped himself. He naturally was in erection. He encased their cocks together and resumed stroking. Ned lay under him moaning, their eyes locked. He assumed Lew would fuck him in a missionary position there, but after a few minutes Lew laughed, rolled back off him, and said, "Go take a shower. You smell like you brought the Kansas stockyards with you. Come out ready for me."

When Ned emerged from the bathroom with just a towel fastened around his hips, Lew was naked, sitting on the bed, smoking a cigarette, and stroking his cock with his free hand.

"Come here," he commanded of Ned and crushed his cigarette into an ashtray on the nightstand as Ned approached. "So nice; I remember you like this," he murmured as he pulled the towel off Ned's waist, palmed Ned's buttocks, and brought him in close. Lew nuzzled Ned's belly with his cheek, lowered his mouth over Ned's cock, found the rim of the young man's hole with the index finger of either hand, and began working Ned's ass open as Ned moaned and sighed for him.

"Turn and grab your ankles," he commanded. Ned did so, and Lew spent a few minutes eating his ass out.

"Now sit on it," he commanded. "It's been too long since I've fucked you," and, with Lew's hands grasping his hips and helping to pull Ned down into his lap and onto his shaft, the sailor descended on the cock and, as Lew wrapped his arms around Ned's belly and nuzzled him below the shoulder blades with his cheek, Ned used the leverage of his feet on the carpet to fuck himself on the hard cock. Ned cried out in ecstasy as he felt the familiar—but not experienced for so long—slide of the master's cock inside him, His gates rolled open and the muscles of his channel walls rippled over the hard shaft as slowly, slowly, with each thrust, it moved deeper into the soft core of him. He'd been fucked since the naval officer had last had him, but never so well or so deeply—unless it was by Tom back in Maryland. Ned was in no frame of mind to do comparisons at the moment, though.

Lew didn't seem to be in a rush to go anywhere. He fucked Ned in a missionary position on the bed, doggie style on the floor, and even in the overstuffed chair in the corner of the room, with Ned slouched in the chair, his legs hooked over the arms, and Lew crouched down over him and taking him in long, vigorous strokes.

Ned objected to nothing that was demanded of him. He never had—not even that first time. Lew took what he wanted, when he wanted it, and as he wanted it.

Eventually, both were tired and they lay, naked, in each other's arms on the bed, their bodies stretched out along the lines of the other, Lew on his back, propped up on the headboard, smoking a cigarette. Ned was on his side, Lew's free arm around his chest, holding him close in. Ned's left leg was laying on top of Lew's legs. He was letting his left hand glide over the older man's body, worshipping it. He stopped at a scar on Lew's side, near the waistline, on Lew's right side. The scar was puckered.

"Does it still hurt you?" he whispered.

"Only when I think that I didn't see you again after that."

"The bullet was meant for me," Ned said. "I've always believed that."

"And I think you've always been wrong. It was meant for me all along. It wasn't your problem."

"How can you say I wasn't the problem?" Ned asked. That obviously wasn't what he should have said—or asked—though. The spell of the afternoon had been lost. With a grunt, Lew reached over and crushed his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand, disengaged from Ned, and rolled over to the edge of the bed, sitting up for a moment to steady what had to be tired muscles. He lurched up from the bed and headed for the bathroom.

They'd been over this ground before—in letters, as Ned had been shipped out to Okinawa before Lew had even regained consciousness from the surgery. The Navy was quick to clean up its little messes like that. As soon as he could travel, Lew had been shipped back to the States to a desk job. He'd even been promoted. Beyond that the Navy had seen it in their wisdom to ignore all of the circumstances and give Lew a Purple Star for being wounded. But Lew didn't pretend; he kept the medal in a drawer.

Ned continued to be sure that the eye contact had been with him when the bullets had begun to fly.

It had all happened so fast—the whole two months from being on board the Maryland and strafing the island of Peleliu and being on Peleliu and being pulled out from underneath the lieutenant's bleeding body had zipped right on by—and it had changed so much in Ned's life.

* * * *

We'd come to know about each other—that the lieutenant gave cock and I took it—as we moved around the Pacific on the

Maryland

, engaging in one cat-and-mouse skirmish with the Japs after another. And he'd given me the eye of interest and I'd returned one of "it's fine with me." But there was Mitch. Mitch, a chief petty officer, was the jealous type and he had his claws into Lieutenant Harris. He warned off anyone he saw Harris show interest in and he was a nasty piece of work about it. I wasn't going to get in Mitch's sights just to get some fine cock from Lew Harris, even though I'd heard he had some mighty fine cock to give.

There was lots of cock to get on a battleship full of young, randy guys who had been at sea for years. And I was judged as prime tail. I had no trouble attracting guys suffering from blue balls.

What it would require to get the two of us together would be fire and brimstone and a sudden urge not to give a shit what Mitch might think. We got that in the fight for Peleliu, an island in the Palau Islands, during Operation Stalemate Two, in September of 1944. Peleliu had an airstrip, built by the Japanese, that high command wanted to use for a final-push invasion of Okinawa.

The island was being held by over ten thousand suicidal Japs determined to defend the island to the last man, which they did. Our role on the

Maryland

was to join in the blasting of the island back into the stone age to soften it up for a Marine invasion. I worked one of the big guns on the

Maryland

. Harris was the officer in charge of all of the guns. It was hot as hell on deck during the bombardment, not just because of the normal heat in the South Pacific in September, but also because the guns, being fired almost around the clock, were boiling hot.

We all were stripped down to practically nothing and glistening with sweat. Handling the big guns on the deck of a battleship also kept a man trimmed down and muscled up. Harris was a hands-on officer and, before our pounding of the island was over and the Marines were going over the sides of the assembled flotilla and storming the beaches of the small island, the lieutenant was as stripped down and sweating as all of the rest of us were.

He also was standing by my gun when the signal to desist came down. We both were standing there, sweating, nearly naked, and panting hard. Our dicks were hard from the sensation of sexual power that firing off the big guns brought with it. Taking breaths in big gulps and eyeing each other, Harris and I reached an understanding, with no word having to be spoken, that our time had come. Mitch was nowhere around to come between us and our heightened arousal and the needs of our rock-hard cocks.

The lieutenant merely reached out, took me by the forearm, told me to come with him—that he was going to fuck the hell out of me. I went willingly and docilely. I'd wanted his dick inside me for months.

He took me to a nearby storeroom for stuff needed to clean and maintain the decks, locked the steel hatch behind us and bent me over a thick and high coil of anchor rope. He covered me from behind and above, grabbed my wrists to trap me under him, thrust up inside me, and fucked the shit out of me. It was a hard, rough, brutal—and glorious—fuck in which we exhausted the bloodlust of pounding the shit out of the Japs on Peleliu with the lieutenant pounding the shit out of me, and me thrusting back into him with my hips to take every inch of him I could.

That was the only time he fucked me on board the

Maryland

, but we both knew he would do it again—in spite of the close watch Mitch usually kept over him.

We took Peleliu, although there was irony there. We no more than took it, wiping out some eleven thousand Japs but losing nearly four thousand of our own men and putting another eight thousand in sick bay, than the high command changed its mind. Peleliu no longer was good enough for staging the invasion of Okinawa. The staging field for that was changed to Ulithi Atoll, in the Caroline Islands.