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Goddammit!
Here
he was again, under the shower and with none other than
SSgt Alex Turner in the stall opposite. They were bloody
Royal Engineers and couldn't even fix shower stalls
with fucking doors?
And
why on earth was he always carefully planning to avoid
having a shower at the same time as that goddamned bastard
when ultimately, it never worked out. Tom turned his
back on the other man and listened with growing desperation
to the whistling and humming from behind. Trying to
drown the sound of that deep voice with hot water pattering
past his ears and drumming onto his short hair.
Goddamned
motherfucking bastard!
Keeping
his eyes scrunched shut, Tom reached blindly for the
shower gel to sluice the caked mud off his skin, when
the currently hated voice cut across the running water
of a dozen shower stalls.
"Hey,
Tom! Throw me your shampoo, will you? Just ran out and
got to keep the mane clean,"
Tom
groaned when the subsequent chuckle reached his ears.
"Sure!"
If
anyone noticed his strangled voice, he could always
use the strenuous exercise as an excuse. Running twenty
miles in full gear across a natural terrain obstacle
course was no walk in the park, even for him.
Bloody
'mane', what a lame joke. Alex Turner's hair was crew-cut
short and blond. White blond in fact. Pissin', bleedin'
sun bleached blond above a deeply tanned face and ...
and skin ... and those …
"Fuck!"
Tom hissed, glad for the running water. Making a long
show out of washing. Bad enough having to turn round
in a moment. Of course that dickhead had to be in the
opposite stall, the inconsiderate prick. Didn't matter
that Alex was his best mate, getting regularly plastered
together on Saturday nights in the pub round the corner.
Yeah.
Fuck. Sure. Whatever.
"Are
you blind and deaf or just piss-poor slow, Tom?"
That voice again, this time with much more authority
and a hint of laughter. Nice, loud, dark, resonating
in the showers.
"Jesus,
can't you let a guy wash the muck out of his own hair
first?" Anger, that was good, worked wonders; stupid
jokes did, too. Lots of shoulder clapping, arm wrestling
and beer guzzling was equally useful. Getting smashed
when off duty and drowning, killing, obliterating thoughts
of The Impossible.
Tom
employed his annoyance to great effect as he whirled
around, soap suds clinging to his smooth skin. Not a
scar worth mentioning, not a blemish that could be used
for identification. Instead expanses of honey bronze
over a muscular broad frame.
Tom
looked good, the girls told him. He was positively devastating,
gushed those who tried to get into his pants; he was
a goddamned tease and useless prick they snarled later,
when he left the nightclub without them. He would soon
be running out of believable excuses.
"Here's
the bloody shampoo and get going, Alex, I'll need it
back." Not looking, just not looking. Blessing
the soap in his eyes, thankful for the hazy film before
his vision.
"Cheers,
mate." The blur in front of Tom's eyes moved closer
and then the traitorous soap abandoned him, washed out
of his eyes by a rogue stream of water. Deserted by
the merciful filter, he was left defenceless and presented
with a vision he could damn well do without.
As
if he even needed to see Alex to know exactly what he
looked like. A knowledge which instantly dried his mouth,
constricted his throat and made swallowing near impossible.
The rest of the physical reactions that followed without
fail were too terrible to be considered.
Shit.
Again. Yet a-fucking-gain.
The
inevitable happened. He had to turn his back immediately
or he'd race out of the room in terror at his hardening
cock. He could hear the accusations in his mind.
Raving
poofter. Screaming fag.
Turning
as fast as he could, but too late to miss the crinkle-eyed
blue-hued flashing grin, the deeply tanned skin, the
extraordinary body. Not a single man in their regiment
was a physical match for Alex. Not even he himself.
Too
tall, too broad, too muscled, too … Oh God!
Not turned fast enough. Already seen what killed him
every time, going straight from his eyes to his brain
and cock. Straight. What a lame joke.
Images
reeled across his mind like an old jukebox that was
stuck on the same fucking song, played over and over
again.
Scars.
Evidence
of torture at the hands of 'hostile entities' in a tea-towel
sized country no one bothered to remember the name of,
changing its tag as fast as it swapped its self-styled
dictators.
Scars
across the back, the chest; scars that Tom had seen
before and caught sight of again. Visible amidst wiry
blond hair and running down thighs, and, worst of all,
to where he never dared to look. Never. Not possibly.
Not ever. Yet he could see in his mind the scars that
crossed the base of Alex's cock. Scars that made him
feel guilty for getting off by just thinking of them.
Being
so sick, perverted and utterly debased that he wanked
at their memorised impression more often than he dared
to admit even to himself. Imagining that broad back,
running his hands over the irregular landscape of deeply
tanned skin, broken by pale ridges and craters of dead
tissue.
"Yeah,
cheers mate." Whispering to himself, Tom's back
remained turned to the room, facing the partly cracked
white tiles while hanging his head low. Water drummed
in hot, hard streams onto his back, desperately trying
to will his cock to soften. To no avail. He knew the
futility of the attempt, had been there too often in
the past three years.
Time
stretched. One minute. Two minutes. Movement from the
opposite stall, which he could sense rather than hear
or see, ensconced in his own world of relative safety
amidst the stream of water. Soothing his sore muscles,
but never washing away his guilt.
"Hey,
fallen asleep?"
Tom
pictured Alex standing there, towel wrapped around narrow
hips, barely covering massive thighs. Exposing the scars
while never giving answers to Tom's unspoken questions
of what had happened on that failed mission.
All
he knew was that Alex had got lost in 'hostile territory'
as part of an operation that had been carefully kept
away from public view; got rescued over six weeks later,
when the pathetic figure of a small-scale dictator had
run out of people to kill; had been in a military hospital
for weeks, then returned home to his wife only to be
divorced half a year after he'd been posted to the RSME
in Brompton as Staff Sergeant.
Tom
shook his head, but he didn't turn round, merely stuck
his head out of the spray. "Go ahead, just give
me a minute, still bloody sore. Got to do an extra round
of cardio from tomorrow onwards, fear I'm turning into
a fat slob."
That
wasn't so difficult, the ruse had worked. Alex laughed,
seemed to swallow the excuse, and then the almost empty
shampoo bottle hit Tom between the shoulder blades.
He could just see Alex's face before his eyes. Even
if he tried not to see it.
He
wouldn't turn though, no matter if a whole dispatch
of RE's pelted him with shampoo bottles. The evidence
was still there, his body was condemning him, and there
would be only one way to get rid of it.
"Wanker!"
Was his half-hearted complaint, while Alex's laughter
finally receded as he walked out of the room. Tom stood
still for a couple of minutes. Listening to the quiet,
except for the drumming of his own shower, finally the
only one left.
"Thank
fuck." Breathed out, Tom straightened up and peered
around the partition. Empty, no one would witness his
guilt. Picking up the shampoo, his movements turned
fast and efficient.
How
often had he done this? Uncountable times. Just like
the nightly rituals, with moans muffled by pillows.
Solitary indulgence while hiding in daylight who he
truly was. Had joined the army at sixteen as a junior
soldier, had never wanted to do anything else. Dragged
himself through military school and ended up a Sergeant
in the Royal Engineers.
Sixteen,
and he hadn't had a clue; would have fucked any girl
if they had let him.
Hadn't
intended to grind himself at eighteen against another
guy in breathless need, loaded to the gills with cheap
lager, denims pulled down to his knees. Faceless, nameless,
both equally horny. In a dark alley behind a tatty night
club, their barely hidden corner stinking of piss and
weeks old rubbish. From then on he'd always associated
dumpsters with lust; his first true, intense, mind-blowing
lust.
How
charming.
Tom
squirted shampoo into his palm, dropped the bottle,
quickly lathered the gel to a thick foam between his
hands. Turning once more to face the wall, left hand
bracing against wet tiles, right one wrapped around
his cock. He lowered his head, shutting his eyes tightly.
Stroking
himself fast, without preambles. Delving right into
the fantasy that would accompany his every waking moment
if he didn't make sure he kept his mind thoroughly occupied.
With
every swift, near punishing stroke of his calloused
hand he saw that back before his closed eyes. Felt himself
plunging into the tightness of the muscular, unblemished
arse, as if the torturers had made a statement that
Tom couldn't quite grasp.
Always
the same. Forever the fantasy of his cock buried within
Alex's body, enveloped by yielding heat. Obsessed with
fucking his mate; with using the great body with all
the strength he had, knowing that the other could take
it, exceeding him in power and bulk. No restraints,
he would just fuck that gorgeous arse until …
"As
fucking obsessed …" Ground out beneath his
ragged breath, another hard stroke, "with fucking
him …" eyes closed, his face a contorted grimace
of empty, painful lust, "as a fucking chick!"
Images
accelerated, getting rougher. He would palm, lick, bite
into the writhing back beneath his hands. Tasting the
testimony of the other's survival, caressing the remains
of another's hell.
Faster,
harder, closer. He wanted him, needed him, had to have
him.
Would
never get him.
Just.
One. Stroke. More.
"Tom!
Get your arse in gear!"
Alex
hollered down the room and the voice crashed onto Tom
like the water. Assaulting his senses and pushing him
right over the edge the moment the fantasy image cried
out beneath his hands, teeth and lips, while muscles
clenched around his cock. He came with a badly stifled
cry, praying while white splattered against wet tiles,
that he had not betrayed his greatest, most feared secret.
Struggling
to catch his breath as quickly as possible, pretending
to be just fine.
"You
alright, mate?" Alex was there, looking at him
with concern. Dressed casually, with bare feet in flip-flops.
Tom turned, managed not to give himself away this time.
"Yeah,
sure." Grinning wryly, he muttered his thanks for
the towel that was being shoved into his hands.
"Fair
enough, I thought I heard something." Alex grinned
with a shrug, while Tom dried himself as quickly and
efficiently as he could. Deliberately avoiding to look
at those deeply tanned, sinewy feet. How the bleeding
fuck even feet could turn him on, or hands, or eyes,
or hair, or just about every goddamned part of this
man, was completely beyond his grasp.
"Hurry
up, Mary stops serving food at seven thirty."
Tom
succeeded in wrapping himself in the towel without further
incidents. "Alright, just some clothes and off
we go. Won't take a sec."
Alex
took the hint and turned to wander out of the showers.
Tom
tried not to stare at the retreating back, knowing too
terrifyingly well what was underneath the shirt.
Three
years of consuming lust.
Needs,
hidden away behind the mask of a best mate and comrade.
Time, which had made living the white lie more and more
difficult. Life, sliding towards the cliffs of self-destruction
while his secret was getting increasingly difficult
to hide.
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The
following excerpt is the first chapter in the 