Her Majesty's Men - Excerpt Available in paperback (144 pages) or as ebook in PDF format. Copyright © Marquesate 2003. All rights reserved. The excerpt below is the first chapter of Her Majesty's Men.

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.