A Crack in Time Lee James
We Children of the Sixties liked to believe we lived in the Age of Aquarius: an era of political and social upheaval, love and sexual freedom; a time of tuning in, turning on, and dropping out. And that cataclysmic clusterfuck called the Vietnam Conflict raged on with no end in sight.
In the spring of 1970, I was seventeen and had just graduated high school. I had a plan: work, save, enroll in college, get a student deferment, and beat the draft. I could control my own destiny.
Well, it sounded good in theory.
The only job I could land in my hometown had me waiting tables below minimum wage in a ma-and-pa bar and grill called the Longhorn Café.
On an ordinary day of fry cook fuck-ups, a dropped tray of drinks for a table of eight, and moody customers, an Air Force officer stopped by for lunch. He looked to be about twenty-four or five, stood around six-two, with sinuous muscles, black hair, and dark eyes. And the most gorgeous man I'd ever seen was making a beeline for my section. I stared at him--my mouth gaping, my knees going weak. I swallowed before I started drooling, turned off my closeted, silly-bitch fantasizing, and pulled my pad.
As I took the officer's order, I noticed him giving me the once-over, pausing at the crotch of my hashed-out, bell-bottom jeans. Then he smiled at me.
I saw the joviality( maybe it was smart-assery?) in his eyes. Whatever it was, I liked it--along with the uniform and his handsome face. My cock twitched. I got his lunch order and bolted out of the dining room before he noticed the "joviality" in my jeans.
Regardless of the sexual enlightenment zeitgeist of the sixties, same-sex preferences did not play well along "Main Street" America. I knew closeted bisexuals, lesbians and gays lived in my little town. I recognized them. Maybe I didn't really want to? After all, most people still expected men to marry, be the breadwinner, and father children. As a man of the rugged Pacific Northwest, I came across as stoic, straight and, goddamn it, packed the big balls to prove it.
As I started to set the second lieutenant's lunch before him, his elbow brushed my thigh... or maybe I brushed my thigh against his elbow. Just a touch, and electricity shot through me as though I'd shoved one of my fingers into a 210 volt outlet. I damned near dropped his "Wild West Burger Platter."
Oh fuck, oh dear... his dark eyes gleamed at me and his easy, open smile displayed stark white, perfect teeth.
He rose from his chair. Standing military straight, he offered his hand. "Second Lieutenant Trent Valiston."
Dig it... that masculine voice, his military bearing, his fit and trim body. I stared at him before shaking his hand and muttering, "Uhh... Myka Dahl."
He grinned. "Yes, you sure as hell are."
Having heard similar lines hundreds of times before, I just smiled.
Valiston just smiled back. "Do you go by Mike?"
"No, it's Myka, like the countertops."
"Hmmm," second Lieutenant Valiston said.
"I'm told I got the name because my dad knocked my mom up in the kitchen," I said.
He chuckled and placed one of his big hands on the base of my spine... only for a moment... those fingers near my ass, his body, his smile, shit, his military haircut -- the lieutenant could've ravaged me right there on the dining room floor! Kitchen, dining room, not a big difference.
It didn't take a Rhodes Scholar to guess that Trent Valiston was stationed at the nearby Air Force base. As we came to know each other, I learned he'd graduated from the USAF Academy and planned to make the Air Force a career. I also learned he'd gotten married about two years ago. In the jargon of the era, that reality was a "fucking downer."
Whenever Trent came into the café, he'd sit in my section and focus his attention on me; even when he'd brought a couple of officer buddies with him. When he dropped by alone, he'd always toss out flattery such as, "Nice haircut, Myka," or "The way those jeans hug your ass and crotch, you could be the poster boy for Levi Strauss," or "Like the thought," in reference to my CSN&Y "Teach Your Children Well" T-shirt. Casual dress was the rule in the Longhorn. The place made no attempt to be the Pacific Northwest's answer to the Café du Ritz. I'd become just a teenaged working stiff--no tie or jacket required--just cannon fodder waiting to get his ass drafted and shipped off to Vietnam. Those Godless communists nationalizing those goddamned Michelin rubber trees; followed by General Eisenhower strongarming DeGaulle to keep his French troops fighting and dying in those fucking jungles, trying to win one for goddamned Capitalism. I've heard that's why the French are not particularly fond of Americans to this day.
On a hot summer night about a month after we'd met, Trent sat at a table drinking coffee and reading. Only he and I remained in the café at closing time. Dressed in civvies, Trent told me the jeans I wore showed everything I had. As I stood before him wiping off his table, he ran an index finger down and around my cock. Being seventeen with the libido of a mink on industrial-strength spanish fly, my dick instantly went from just hanging to straight up and stone hard. I'd never had a man or woman touch me intimately before, but I liked it a lot... I mean a whole shitload of lot. But in faux moral outrage, I blew-off Trent's ballsy advance, and without a word walked out of the dining room to lock the doors, close down for the night, and begin cleaning the joint.
Trent followed me to the janitorial closet. He placed a hand on my shoulder, and my body shivered.
"I'll help you mop and wipe down, then we'll split to someplace where I can get to know everything about you."
I shrugged. "If you like." Well shit, I at least tried playing hard-to-get.
Two men giving the Longhorn Cafe a lick and a promise...we finished in no time. Trent backed me against a wall and kissed me. I did not push him away. Hell no, I liked having his lips on mine, and our hard bodies pressed together. Soon, we were sucking tongues, swiping mouths, and moaning.
Slipping my hands under his shirt, my fingertips ghosted along his pecs and abs. Then I went for his jeans. He groaned as I wrapped my right hand around his cock, while palming his furry ass with my left. I could honestly state, "A good time was had by all," as the local newspaper reported on the Sunday supper and Canasta game, coffee and Oreos served, at the Knudson ranch.
He had a wife at home. I lived with my parents. We left my piece-of-shit car in the café's parking lot, and drove to the mountains in Trent's VW Microbus. We didn't talk about what we were about to do. We knew what we both wanted.
Parked along a whitewater river and hidden by trees, we undressed and stood in the summer moonlight, holding each other. With our nude bodies in full contact, Trent needed only to kiss me to make me cum. But shooting fast didn't present a problem. At seventeen, I needed about fifteen seconds to get my cock locked and loaded again.
Trent had a big dick with a good girth, and I got my first taste of male genitalia and cum that night. The two of us being the same height, we lay on our sides doing a sixty-nine.
Then we went back for seconds.
Man oh man, Trent's spicy, musky male scent and sexy body had me wanting more. Married? Who gave a shit! It was the summer of 1970; we were young, hung and lusty.
That same night, Trent introduced me to anal intercourse. He was gentle, but that first fuck did not escape my attention. my ass hurt for two days after Trent's big cock stretched, filled, and plowed me. But I wasn't complaining. Yes, a good time was had by all.
By our third liaison, I thoroughly enjoyed getting fucked; feeling him inside me, his dick's mushroomhead massaging my prostate until I cried out in pleasure--our bodies soaked in sweat. When his pre-cum provided additional lubrication, he performed his grand finale of long-stroking me. I loved feeling his cock pulsating as he ejaculated--his semen slowly slipping out of me, pooling around my balls and sliding down my inner thighs.
Over the weeks, Trent and I saw each other frequently. In fact, we met every hour we could beg, borrow, and steal. He told me he had American Indian in his gene pool, accounting for his erotic black hair and dark eyes that could make me smile, feel his happiness, his frustration, and ultimately, his love for me.
We would go to the mountains in his Microbus to make love--he drove as I smoked a joint and sang along with Hendrix on the eight track, tossing out the mondegreen, "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy." Then I would lean over and do it. Fuck the oncoming traffic on the two-lane highway. That's when I knew I'd fallen in love for the first time.
I could never convince Trent to share a doob with me, but I made certain he saw blazing colors and heard a rock band every time he'd cum in my mouth or ass. Whether for love or just sex, we used each other throughout the summer and fall of 1970.
In December, I received my "Greetings" letter from Selective Service. The lottery had given me lucky number seven--plenty low enough to get drafted if I passed the physical. Fuck oh dear, I'd turned a strapping, hearty, and healthy eighteen. And a very Merry Christmas to your ass, Myka Dahl.
Trent told me what to expect while at the induction center, adding, "While you're there standing in line almost buts to nuts, discretely enjoy the scenery."
I experienced the Army's doctrine of "hurry up and wait." I spent what seemed like six months--all right, it was maybe two hours--standing in line after line of nude man flesh in front and behind me; and hell yes, I copped glances at as many of those young chests, asses, dicks, and balls as I could.
I wondered how many of these beautiful young men would return home disabled or in plain aluminum caskets. In later years, we'd learn that many of the soldiers and nurses who served would find themselves unable to leave those jungles behind. Many veterans eventually became victims of that pointless war by taking their own lives.
I was found to have a slight heart murmur which made me "4F" for military service. Can I hear a hallelujah? Praise the Lord and don't pass the ammunition!
But after a high school friend died in `Nam, it took about six months of talk therapy before I got beyond my survivor's guilt. In so many ways, Vietnam fucked with an entire generation.
Trent and I were together for about two years before his tour-of-duty ended. He was promoted to full Lieutenant, and transferred to California. I'd never felt so sad, empty and alone.
But I'd managed to save enough bread from my shit job to start college in the fall. Trent and I sent each other handwritten letters and called each other regularly. His marriage ended within two months of moving to sunny California. Following his "quicky Mexican divorce, he shared an off-base apartment with another Air Force officer. I assumed his roommate was gay. I didn't ask.
When I started graduate school, we lost touch with each other, as often happens when two people's lives are full and spinning in different directions. The male stoicism kicked in: just suck it up because you'll never again see Lieutenant Trent Raymond Valiston. What started as a summer fling proved to be nothing more than that, when all was said and done. Or so I rationalized it.
And forty years would pass by before I found him.
On a warm day in late spring while returning to my office, I thought of Trent. It struck me: forty years ago today, June sixth, we'd met in the Longhorn Café. Across the years, I'd wondered from time-to-time what ever happened to my sexy, handsome military man. I'd been with my life partner for twenty-five years, and we were a happy, loving couple. But like everyone else, I'd never forgotten my first love.
I owned a successful business, and decided I'd use my company's "Manhunt" software to search for Trent. With his uncommon surname, I got eighteen hits. I hoped I wouldn't find his obituary among them.
My "Manhunt" search told me Trent lived in a Sacramento suburb, and worked as a State legislator. The software also gave me Trent's home and capitol phone numbers. I closed my office door, plopped my feet on my desk, and called him.
In spite of the forty-year crack in time, I recognized Trent's voice the moment he said, "Hello." And he instantly knew who I was, declaring, "Baby Dahl! I've thought of you over the years, but didn't want to disrupt your life." He paused. "Yes, I'm still dumber than dog shit. Can you forgive me?"
Of course I could. We talked comfortably for more than three hours as though we'd been calling each other every week over the past four decades. I learned that he had retired from the Air Force, loved politics, had a long-term partner; then our phone reunion headed south. Trent told me he'd been HIV positive for eighteen years. His drug cocktails were keeping him alive, but he knew he was living on borrowed time.
We e-mailed each other daily and called periodically for almost two years. On a beautiful summer day, Trent's partner, Dave, called me at home.
"Trent had a fatal heart attack Saturday while we were camping. He died doing what he loved."
Trent's death came as no surprise. But tears lined my cheeks. I offered Dave my condolences, adding, "Trent will always hold a spot in my heart."
"Trent wanted me to call and let you know." He paused. "No, he made me promise that I'd tell you."
I managed to croak out a, "Thank you."
Dave said, "I followed Trent's wishes and had his body cremated. He wanted no memorial service, no flowers, no cards."
Trent and I had agreed not to see each other dead or alive. We wanted to remember each other only as we were back in the day. With Trent's death, I questioned the wisdom of our decision.
But in my mind's eye, I could still see Trent and I standing nude in full body contact under the summer moonlight. That single vision would remain precious to me as long as I lived.
Dave's voice turned cool. "Trent wanted you to have something he'd made arrangements for about a year ago. I'll send it today."
UPS delivered Dave's package three days later. Inside the box, I found a sterling silver vial containing some of Trent's ashes. The engraving read, "For my unforgettable Baby Dahl. TRV."
And every now and then, I'll hold the vial in my hand and reminisce about that point in our lives when the world's Colors appeared much more vivid, and time seemed to pass by ever so slowly... back when Trent and I were young.
Copyright 2018, Lee James. All rights reserved.
A Crack in Time is a work of fiction . Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.