Sometimes I'm not sure what's a dream and what's a memory. There's a lot of stuff from my military career that I try not to think about—"blocked" is the word that the shrinks would use, but I prefer to say that I don't want to spend my life remembering that shit. It's a choice you make. You see bad things, you don't want to go over and over them in your mind. That's a short cut to the nuthatch. But sometimes it comes back as vivid as a movie whether I want it to or not, when I'm asleep or half awake. I figure out strategy, plan operations, brief my troops and go into action. Sometimes these memories are good. Most times they're bad.
Today they were good—so good they hurt worse than the bad stuff. Fear and injury and death I can deal with—I'm trained for that. But happiness, love—no, they don't train you for that in the USMC. There's no best practice for dealing with love. When I met Will Laurence, I was in unknown territory.
After that first encounter, I noticed him everywhere around the base—walking across the yard, eating his meals, on parade, maintaining vehicles. I was surrounded by fit, young, sexually frustrated marines, and half of them would have been happy to help me out—but they didn't register. Just this one—this slim brown–haired boy from Tennessee or wherever the hell he was from. Okay, I confess, I knew it was Tennessee. I read his file.
When we passed each other he saluted, but he also smiled. No law against that. If I saw him at work and watched him for a while, he always looked up, those grey eyes flashing out at me. He seemed to know when I was there. He seemed to be waiting for me.
And this was the memory that came back to me as I lay on that motel room bed, travel–tired, disorientated, lonely.
The second time we spoke we were both on a weekend furlough. The Fallujah region wasn't exactly bristling with social hotspots, and applications for leave were nonexistent. However, we were required to take a certain amount of R and R, so once every couple of weeks we trundled out in buses to the military base at Lake Habbaniyah, where a makeshift recreation facility had been set up. Some of the old barrack blocks had been turned into canteens, there were volleyball courts and a baseball diamond marked out on compacted earth—and there was the lake to swim in. Beer was doled out in small quantities every evening—never enough to get loaded, of course. The food was a little worse than what we were used to at home base. We were allowed to sleep more—but the sleeping quarters were so fucking hot and airless that it was a pointless indulgence.
I took my furloughs because I had to; I'd rather have worked. But on this occasion I was looking forward to the next 48 hours, because one of the other names on the list was Corporal William Laurence.
I saw him getting on the bus. Nobody grabbed him in one of those complicated handshakes by which the popular guys recognize each other. Nobody play–punched him in the gut or got him in a headlock. He nodded to a couple of people, and they nodded back. He walked past me, smiled and took a seat halfway down the vehicle.
I glanced around. He was dressed in civvies—a faded college T–shirt and a pair of board shorts. Trainers on his feet, no socks.
Nice, I thought, and looked away.
I didn't see him for the next twelve hours. I wouldn't say I was looking for him—that would be too deliberate—let's say instead that I walked around the facility with my eyes open and he was not there. I spent the day reading the newspapers, watching DVDs, doing a bit of paperwork and joining in a game of volleyball when the sun was less fierce. No sign of Will anywhere. Hey ho. Off with his friends.
After dinner I took a stroll around the perimeter; the facility was fenced and heavily guarded, which kind of spoiled the Methodist picnic vibe they were going for. Out by the water's edge there was an old concrete guardhouse that must have been shelled at some point in the last twenty years, and nobody had bothered to pull it down; now, I guess, it was home to a few scorpions and furry critters and not much else. It was known as a place where you could sneak a joint without much danger of being busted; the ground was littered with roaches as well as more conventional cigarette butts. On occasion I'd seen condoms, too, so dope wasn't the only illicit substance being sampled out there. Typical of the USMC to turn a blind eye. As long as nobody officially knew about it, it wasn't a problem.
Tonight there was no smell of dope, no sounds of fucking, just lake waters lapping and the strumming of a guitar. A few soft chords, a bit of picking, the sugges– tion of a melody.
I walked slowly toward the old guardhouse. The sun was down, and what little light was left in the sky was reflected in the water—and it was against that that I saw the silhouette of a seated figure, head down, back bent, the neck of a guitar sticking out at right angles. I got within ten feet and listened.
I must have shifted, made a noise, because the music stopped.
"Who's there?" The voice was tense and guarded.
"It's okay. Friend."
The figure stood up and faced me. I squinted; there was just enough light to identify the mystery guitarist.
"Corporal Laurence."
"Captain Stagg?" He stood to attention and saluted, swinging the guitar over his back.
"No need for that, Will." I stepped closer. "We're on leave. You can call me Dan." I leaned against the pitted, crumbling concrete wall. "Carry on playing."
"Oh, it's okay. I was only wasting time."
"Nice way to waste it." A roar of voices drifted over the sand. "Better than drinking beer, right?"
"I got beer." He picked up an old canvas rucksack, and there was a chink of glass.
"You came prepared."
"Sure did. Want one?"
"Why not?" He sat cross–legged on the sandy ground, opened two bottles and handed one to me. I sat too.
"Cheers, Cap'n."
"Cheers, Corp'ral."
We touched the necks of our bottles together and drank, our eyes joined in the gathering darkness, and we both knew at that moment what was going to happen. I reached out—actually watched my hand moving out from my body, as if it was something over which I had no control—and touched the back of his head, feeling the short brown hair, the soft brown skin. Breath whished out of his mouth, and I felt him shudder. I drew him to me, and we kissed.
A soft wind disturbed the surface of the lake and made his guitar strings hum. We carried on kissing. There was another distant roar of male voices, and, from closer at hand, the dry chirp of an insect. Our hands were on each other's shoulders, backs, heads and arms, finding the gap between pants and shirts, traveling up stomachs and chests, mine furry, his smooth. I found his nipples and pinched, and he moaned into my open mouth.
From that point on, the entire senior administration of the USMC could have marched down on us and we wouldn't have been able to stop. I hadn't got laid for weeks, and, by the look of things, neither had Will. He pushed his hands against my chest, broke the kiss and sprang down to the waistband of my shorts, his agile fingers popping the buttons, grabbing the fabric and pulling them down. My ass landed on the sand and gravel, and my dick shot up into the cooling evening air. It didn't get cool for long. Will grabbed it, shuffled back on his knees and opened his mouth. A kiss and a lick were the only preliminaries; his lips engulfed me, slid down the shaft and touched the soft bush of hair. I rested one hand on the back of his head, and with the other caressed his neck, his throat.
The soft breeze was getting harder, sending ripples and then waves to the shoreline, the sound of splashing water mixing with the slurps and clicks of Will's mouth working on my dick. I felt it starting, my thighs tensing, my balls drawing up...
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