The soldiers were resting around a tiny fire in a small clearing. The fire was only for cooking and illumination; the steamy jungle night required no extra heat. Dan Hansen was sitting with his back propped against a tree trunk, totally exhausted, gazing at the tall figure standing at the edge of the clearing. Harris was so far away from the light that Dan imagined he could see the dim jungle through Harris' body.
The fire brightened slightly, illuminating Harris' face. He smiled at Dan for a moment.
Phantom became flesh as Harris approached Dan. Stopping in front of the fire, Harris opened his fly and removed his penis from his fatigue trousers. Exposed and erect, he continued advancing, finally stopping with the tip of his cock inches from Dan's mouth.
As Harris opened his mouth to speak, the machine gun in the darkness began firing with a series of soft popping sounds, each as quiet as a single kernel of popcorn bursting.
Dan saw the shots tear Harris apart in horrible slow motion. Blood and flesh exploded from his chest and groin as he tumbled backward, crashing to the ground beside the fire.
The rest of the platoon jumped up and returned fire. The enemy machine gun fell silent.
Dan cradled Harris in his arms. Harris appeared to be trying to speak, but his mouth was full of blood. An instant later, the pain and light vanished from his eyes. Dan continued holding Harris' body, sobbing softly as blackness engulfed them . . .
Dan sat up straight in the darkness. After a few seconds of panic and disorientation, he realized where he was and what had happened. "It was just a dream," he whispered. "The same goddamn fucking dream."
The bed was too soft. The air was too cool and dry. The worst part was when, half asleep, he dropped his hand to the floor under the bed and the reassuring feel of the M-16 was gone.
It was two full weeks since Dan had come home to Cheyenne following his discharge, but he was still having trouble going to sleep. When sleep finally came, the dream, which he should have left on the other side of the world with his weapon and Harris, was waiting to ambush him. Tonight was even more difficult than usual. His parents had taken off for Hawaii that afternoon and he was alone in the house for the first time.
No sense in trying to go back to sleep. Dan threw the covers off and climbed out of bed. His jockey shorts suddenly felt tight and confining, so he pulled them off. He stared down at his hardening member. Unbidden and unwanted, memories of Harris ("No, Ed!" he savagely corrected himself) suddenly inhabited the bedroom.
"Happy Birthday," Dan thought. He'd actually turned twenty-one on patrol, three months earlier. A few days before that, Charlie had celebrated the beginning of 1969 with a mortar attack on the base. Dan had spent New Year's Eve in a foxhole, resisting the impulse to shoot everything that moved in front of him and hoping that the perimeter hadn't been penetrated.
The air now seemed oppressively hot. Dan went into the bathroom and opened the window. He stood in the breeze, looking out at the sea of lights. His parents' house was on a hill and a good deal of the city was spread out below him.
There was one light that didn't come from the city, Dan realized. A dim glow was coming from his parents' fifth-wheel trailer at the far end of the back yard. "Dad must have left the light on when he was getting stuff out of the trailer," Dan thought. Suddenly the light went out.
Dan pulled on his shorts and got a flashlight. The only weapon he could find in the house was a crowbar, so he took that. He slipped out the back door and glided across the yard to the trailer. There we no more lights showing, but he could hear faint sounds from inside when he pressed his ear against the trailer's side.
He opened the door soundlessly and stepped inside, keeping low. There was enough moonlight streaming through the windows and skylight to show that the main room, a combined kitchen, dining room and parlor, was empty. The door leading to the bathroom and bedroom was closed. On the other side, someone was gasping and moaning in a high-pitched voice. Dan noticed that the trailer was rocking gently on its supporting struts.
The crowbar was in Dan's right hand. His left hand was holding the flashlight but he could still work the knob with it. He opened the door quickly and quietly. The sounds were much louder now.
Although the drapes in this area were closed, the skylight over the bed provided faint illumination.
The bathroom was about five feet square with a small sink and medicine cabinet on one side and a tiny shower on the other. The toilet was by the door, facing the three steps leading up to the sleeping area in the overhang above the pickup bed. The curtains dividing the bedroom and bath were pulled back and Dan could see two figures struggling at the far end of the room.
When Dan switched the flashlight on, the first thing he saw was a boy's pumping buttocks. He was standing on the second step and bending over the bed. Dan's dick started hardening at the sight of the boy's flexing ass muscles and swinging balls.
A figure with long blonde hair was spread-eagled on the bed, legs braced against the closets that flanked the stairs. Dan relaxed. This was no potentially armed burglar, just some teenager giving his girlfriend the business. He must be doing a really good job. She was still screaming rhythmically and the couple was so intent on their screwing they hadn't noticed Dan or the flashlight beam.
Still, they had no business in his parents' trailer. Dan snapped on the overhead light and shouted, "What the hell is going on here?" The boy was so startled, he tried to straighten up. There was a solid whack as his head hit the low ceiling and he collapsed on top of his companion.
"Can't you find a better place to screw your girl than my folks' trailer?" Dan asked as he pulled the boy to his feet. The kid was short and stocky, well muscled, with black hair cut extremely short. He looked like a fifteen-year-old Marine. Although his eyes weren't quite focusing, his long thick dick was still standing out from his body.
Dan got a shock when he looked at the figure on the bed. The shoulder-length blonde hair and delicate facial features were feminine enough, but he now saw a flat chest, a big stiff cock and a bulging pair of balls.
It was hard to keep his voice stern while his penis was becoming painfully hard, but Dan managed. "Well, well. I've caught a pair of teenage faggots. You guys, or maybe I should say girls, are really in trouble now!"
"You're really dumb, you know that?" Dan continued. "While you're butt fucking in someone else's trailer, you play stupid games with the lights." He looked around the room and spotted a hand-rolled cigarette laying on the counter. "Ah, ha!" he cried, seizing the joint. "Sex and drugs and rock and roll. You fairies are in trouble, big time."
The blonde on the bed spoke up. "Please let us go. I promise we'll never come back. We just used this trailer to fool around because our parents grounded us for staying out late and took the car keys. You can keep the joint."
Dan looked at him steadily. "What's it worth to you?"
"We'll do anything you want," Blondie answered. "We weren't going to steal anything. All we wanted was a private place to fuck." He was sitting up on the bed now and Dan was having a hard time looking the boy in the eye. His gaze was constantly wandering down toward Blondie's still-stiff pecker.
He swung around to glare at Baby Marine. "Anything!" he exclaimed. "I suppose you'll do anything, too."
The dark-haired boy looked down at the floor. "I guess so," he muttered.
"You guess?" Dan was secretly amazed that he was imitate his training sergeants so accurately. "I guess you will if you want to get your sorry ass out of here in one piece."
Dan sat down on the toilet lid. "OK, you can start by telling me who you are. Sit on the steps so I can keep an eye on you. No, don't bother putting your clothes on."
"I'm David Kemmel," the blonde answered. "This is my step-brother Bill Berkmann. My mom married his dad a couple of years ago. We live in the house halfway down the hill."
"Aren't you two a little young for sex crimes?" Dan asked, leering at David. The blonde boy's chest was better developed than Dan had originally thought. It was bulging with muscle tissue, matching swollen arms and legs. David was obviously serious about working out.
Bill just glared. "I'm seventeen," David answered, "and Bill's three months older than I am." He seemed to be getting sort of pissed. "What's your problem, anyway? We didn't hurt anything, we're sorry and we'll leave and never come back."
"Don't worry about my problem," Dan growled. "Worry about your problem. I'm your problem. What am I going to do with you?"
Dan reached over and picked up the joint. "I guess I'll see how good your shit is while I decide your fate," he said.
David picked up a pair of blue shorts from the floor. He pulled a matchbook out of a pocket, handed it to Dan and dropped the shorts again.
During his last months in Nam, Dan's platoon had smoked Thai stick almost exclusively. Wyoming dope had been pretty lame before he'd joined the Marines, so he wasn't expecting much. He lit the joint and took a long drag. It was amazing. Already, the world around him was coming into sharper focus, especially the bodies and cocks of the boys sitting in front of him.
He took a second toke and passed the joint to David. The sound of breathing was suddenly loud in the confined space. He realized that his penis had become painfully stiff inside his shorts. Both David and Bill were getting hard-ons again as they stared at the bulge in his crotch.
As the reefer was going around, Dan opened his shorts and his stiff pecker popped out. "Since you like dick so much, let's see how good you can suck this one. Who wants to go first?"
Both boys hesitated. David reached behind Bill and pushed him to the floor in front of Dan. Bill pulled Dan's shorts off and bent down between the man's knees.
David passed the joint to Dan. He took a long toke and tried to concentrate on the sensations Bill was producing in his groin. His mind jumped back to the Vietnamese hooker who had alternated between sucking his and Harris' dicks while the two men smoked a joint in a Saigon alley. The best part had been when she had taken both men's members into her mouth at once, producing an electric sensation as their cock-heads rubbed together. They had both been drunk, but not so drunk that they'd forgotten the horror stories about VD and the Viet Cong whores who put broken glass in their pussies before fucking GIs.
They were still horny as hell when they returned to the hotel. Harris had grown up on a ranch and his older brother had taught him what boys could do with each other. Dan was drunk and stoned enough to say "Show me," so Harris did.
Dan's attention returned to the trailer. The joint was long gone, David was rock hard from watching the blow job, and he could feel himself edging toward orgasm. Too quickly. Dan pulled himself out of Bill's mouth and pushed the boy away. "Very good," he announced. "You get eight points out of ten."
"Your turn," Dan said to David. "Let's see how good a cocksucker you are."
As David moved to kneel between Dan's legs, Bill picked up his shorts and prepared to put them on. Dan snatched them out of Bill's hand and tossed them up into the sleeping compartment. "You can't possibly imagine you're done," he told Bill. "Suck your girlfriend's dick while she blows me."
Despite his girl-boy good looks, David wasn't as good as Bill. Still, the sight of the blonde hair flowing over his groin, the suction on his penis and the view of David's thick pecker thrusting into the dark-haired boys mouth had Dan seconds away from shooting his load. He pushed David's face away from his crotch.
"That was good too," he told David, "but only worth seven points. That means your pretty little boyfriend wins the first fuck."
Bill stared at Dan's huge throbbing member in horror. He tried to back away and almost fell backwards when his heels struck the steps to the bedroom. "No," he cried. "There's no way you're going to stick that big thing up my ass."
"If you can give it to pussy-boy here, you can take it too," Dan replied, leering at Bill. "You're going to like it almost as much as I will."
That was too much for Bill. He stepped forward and took a swing. Dan blocked the punch with easy grace and launched an automatic counter. A split second later, he realized that he was aiming a potentially lethal kick at a frightened boy and pulled back. The final blow wasn't dangerous, but it still knocked the wind out of Bill.
While Bill was still staggering, Dan grabbed him by the waist and walked him up the steps. Bill landed belly first on the bed. His knees were on the top step and his ass was sticking up in the air.
There was a bottle of baby oil from the trailer medicine cabinet beside the bed. Dan squirted some of the oil onto his penis and pressed it between Bill's buttocks. The boy was awfully tight, so Dan inserted himself slowly and carefully. Although Bill moaned and tried to twist away, his anal muscles were relaxing quickly. In a surprisingly short time, Dan could feel his balls pressing against the boy's butt.
"Hey Blondie, get up here with your boyfriend," Dan commanded. "I want to watch him suck you while I fuck his tight little ass." David moved to obey. The ceiling was just high enough so the blonde boy could kneel on the bed and insert his pecker into Bill's mouth.
Bill was still struggling. Dan suddenly remembered his last time with Harris. Dan had been tense and Harris was too eager and insistent. After the argument, Dan had gone to another hotel, gotten extremely drunk and ended up fucking a thirteen-year-old hooker. She didn't even have tits. Harris cut his leave short, went out on patrol and became a goddamn hero. Silver Star. Posthumous. Dan never saw him again.
Dan bent over so his face was next to Bill's ear. "You can relax now," he whispered. "My cock is all the way up your ass. You're ready for some real screwing." Dan didn't start thrusting. He didn't need to. Bill had stopped struggling and was rocking backwards and forwards. His motion was working his asshole around Dan's shaft in a very exciting way. Hot juice suddenly flooded into the boy's ass.
The sudden climax surprised Dan. He was even more surprised when he pulled out and discovered his prick was as hard as ever. Bill had collapsed on the bed. David's penis was still in his mouth. "Your boyfriend was really great," he told David. "Now it's your turn, Blondie."
David glared. "You're not going to touch me unless you use my real name," he snapped. "And I'm not a girl, so stop calling me one."
The ferocity of David's response amazed Dan. He could take the boy apart with one hand and they both knew it. Dan regarded the angry youth with new-found respect. "I'd like to fuck you David," he responded. "I want to poke my cock up your pretty male ass. Would that be OK with you."
The younger man smiled. "Since you put it that way, sure." An instant later, David was on his back with his ass sticking invitingly up in the air. Dan climbed on top of him and felt his throbbing pecker slide smoothly into the blonde's eager asshole. He was startled when the boy kissed him full on the mouth. He and Harris had never kissed. After a moment, the feeling of strangeness disappeared. His excitement increased as their mouths opened and David's tongue found his.
By this time, Bill had recovered and was watching the couple on the bed. His dick had softened during the assault on his ass, but it was hardening again at the sight of Dan's flexing muscles as the man fucked David with long smooth strokes.
Bill greased himself and put his cock between Dan's buttocks. He found the little opening and jammed himself into the older man as hard and fast as he could manage. Dan gasped in surprise and pain as the dark-haired boy's thick tool penetrated his asshole. Bill was trying to punish Dan, but he was smaller than Harris and the man's anal muscles quickly relaxed to accept the invader.
This was the first time Dan had ever been in the middle of a fuck chain. He had never experienced such pleasure and excitement. The tempo of his thrusts had automatically synchronized with the motion of the cock inside his butt. Behind him, Bill started screaming and ramming him convulsively. Dan could feel wave after wave of hot juice squirting into his ass. An instant later, he was pumping his own load of cream into the blonde boy under him.
Spent, Bill pulled out, moved to the side of the bed and collapsed. Dan looked down and saw that David's stomach and chest were glistening with sticky fluid. "You really fucked the cum out of me," the young blonde said dreamily.
A few minutes later, Dan was lying on the bed between the other two. He had a hand wrapped around each teenager's dick. "You boys have now earned your freedom," he announced.
Nobody made any attempt to escape.
"We're men, not boys!" David muttered.
"You know," Dan said dreamily, as he sank toward sleep, "My parents are going to be in Hawaii for the next two weeks. If you guys want to come back and party . . ."
The soldiers were resting around a tiny fire in a small clearing. Dan was sitting with his back propped against a tree trunk, totally exhausted yet totally satisfied, gazing at the tall figure standing at the edge of the clearing. Harris was so far away from the light that Dan imagined he could see the dim jungle through Harris' body.
The fire brightened slightly, illuminating Harris' face. He smiled at Dan with quiet satisfaction for a moment. Then he faded into the jungle night and was gone.
My stories rarely turn out the way I intend. "Coming Home" originally had a different title and was going to be a light-hearted story about a young man who catches two teenagers in his parent's trailer and sexually "punishes" them. However, the characters and situations took on a life of their own and the store grew deeper and darker as the writing progressed.
The Vietnam war cast a persistent dark shadow across the American psychological landscape and spawned hundreds of books, plays, television programs and movies. Although I was never in the military, I am a veteran of the Vietnam war, as is everyone who lived through that era.
I wrote most of this story before most of the 'big' Vietnam movies, such as "Platoon," were released. I didn't write it to follow a trend, but to deal with my own feelings. The story never felt complete until years later, when I added the dream sequences at the beginning and ending.
"Coming Home" is the most serious and violent story I've written. I hesitated to release it in the current political climate, but finally decided it was appropriate. "Coming Home" isn't so much about politics and war as it is about survival, healing and self-acceptance.
Peace.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright (c) 2003 by Ken James
All characters are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people is coincidental.
This story depicts a world in which AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are non-existent. In the real world, please practice safe sex.
Current postings: A New World, Video Boys, Cowboys Don't Kiss, Coming Home (Gay/Encounters)
Coming soon: Dawn (Gay/Encounters); Ginger, The Trespassers (Bisexual/Encounters); UFO (Bisexual/Science Fiction)
In Progress: Sex Education (Gay/First Time)