Assmunch

I apologize for the long wait. The process of moving from Georgia to Texas has been long and intense. I began it all in August of 2023. It was five months of house repairs and selling the house I owned in Georgia - two months of repairs, three months waiting for a purchaser. Then three months of looking for a house to buy in Texas, moving, and more house repairs on the house we bought. For three months of that we were essentially homeless, staying with friends and family during the painful waiting for contracts to be signed, money to hit the bank, and keys to exchange hands. I never want to move again. To catch you up on the story so far - The Bravos have just completed Airborne Jump School and earned their wings. After being allowed to relax on a four day pass, they were taken to a secretive compound for selective training. They have not been told the purpose of this training, but that’s nothing new for the Bravos. Grunts aren’t told why. Still, after a closed meeting with Bootlicker the squad leaders have begun putting it together and now know they have been lab rats in an experimental program thought up by the Pentagon and Marine Major Collins to determine the effects on a unit when homosexuals are permitted to serve in the military. The squad leaders decide not to tell the other Bravos, and each of them is keeping their own secrets about which Bravos might be gay. Assmunch, their Platoon leader is nowhere to be found. After an unsuccessful battle drill, the Bravos have been divided up among the men of the compound to undergo individual instruction. The organization running the compound also has no idea who the Bravos are, or why Major Collins has brought the young Privates here for what is usually reserved for specialized mission training of special units. But the money the Pentagon is paying is too good to pass up. Ulster McGregor, the leader has decided the Bravos have to know what they’re involved in, and implements a plan of psychological manipulation that will run in tandem with the training. Each Bravo is subtly questioned for intel. Except for Assmunch. His questioning has not been subtle. He has been isolated, beaten, and subjected to various methods of interrogation and low level torture. And when his resistance proves to exhaust his captor’s patience, they move to level 2 enhanced methods which result in his tormentor sexually assaulting him. It has only been 24 hours since they boarded the transports that brought them here. 24 hours without any sleep except the all too brief wait-naps they’ve learned to take whenever they could. SLEEPER “Montelongo, you’re with me.” The man said walking up to him. “Break down your kit and prep it for storage. We’ll be on a week and a half mission, so load out accordingly. Constant movement, rough terrain.” “Yes, sir.” Sleeper said, moving immediately to pull his items from his individual tent so he could pull it down. “I’m not your sir, or anyone’s sir. But, you bring up a good point. Address. Hmmm”. Ivan Brickmann pursed his lips and put a hand to his chin. Then he smiled in a friendly, relaxed way. “Call me Ivan. What’s your name?” Sleeper smiled back, it just felt right. Ivan seemed like a good guy. “My brothers call me Sleeper, but I guess just call me Addison, that’s my first name. Of course, you can call me Montelongo, I’m used to that too.” The man waved away the offer. “Nah. I’ll go with Addison. I like that name. Where’s it from?” Sleeper was making quick work of the ground pins, tie downs, paracord and thin tent fabric while they talked, pushing them into his ruck once they were reduced down to their minimal and most compact size. Breakdown should only take 30 to 45 seconds. Pins and paracord wrapped, tent flattened and edges folded inward to make a 16 inch strip onto which the wrapped paracord bundle was placed before rolling it into a tight cylinder of fabric. “I’m not sure. It’s a family name from my mother’s side. I only know my dad’s side.” Ivan nodded. “I don’t know where Ivan came from. I guess it was just a name my father liked.” Sleeper smiled. “Ivan’s a bitchin’ name. It sound tough.” The man shrugged with a grin. “I guess it does. Addison sounds fancy.” That made Sleeper laugh. “Nothing fancy about me. You want fancy, go talk to AF.” He said, point off into the slowly lightening camp toward one of the other soldiers. “What’s AF stand for?” Ivan asked conversationally. Sleeper was almost done getting everything stowed in his ruck. “Abercrombie and Fitch. Dude should have been a model for Calvin Klein, Hilfiger, Jordache Jeans, any of those fancy clothes. I’m handsome as fuck, but that guy is fucking pretty. Almost perfect. He’s got fucking dimples AND a cleft chin, a jaw like a boulder, and the rest of him just seems to fit together. He’s like some fucking All American Poster Boy for Freedom, Democracy, and everything Liberty and Justice for All.” That made Ivan laugh, a rich, loud and completely unrestrained bark. “I have to see this guy.” “I’ll take you past him. He loves to be seen.” Sleeper was shoving the rest of his gear into his ruck. There’s wasn’t much. If you were housed in a Temper you could spread yourself out a bit, some guys made a fucking mess of their square, but you knew you were going to be there for a while. It was called semi-permanent for a reason. But a temporary encampment in your individual tent meant you could be moving out fast, so you didn’t take anything out of your ruck that you didn’t need, and if you did, you put it back when you were done. No one wanted to be last man if you had to move out. “Don’t let Sleeper fool you.” Demon called from one of the closest tents, climbing out with his grooming kit. 38 degrees out this morning, and Demon was heading to the showers completely naked, with just his boots on his feet, carrying his towel and grooming kit in his left hand. “Sleeper loves to be seen too. It’s funny sometimes watching those two try to out-pretty each other.” “Fuck you Demon.” Sleeper threw him the bird. “Hey, I had no problem getting laid last weekend while you were on a romantic getaway with Zeus.” Demon smirked. “The ladies love me.” Sleeper snorted. “Yeah, I heard about that. She wasn’t a prize, dude.” Demon gave a high pitched yipping with a squeaky voice, and the sound was repeated across the camp by most of the other Bravos. “What’s that about?” Ivan asked. “Nothing.” Sleeper replied, but was interrupted by Demon who stopped a few steps away. “That’s the sound a fox makes. Sleeper wants his call sign to be Bravo Fox, because he thinks he’s foxy.” Sleeper scowled at his naked brother. “Foxy is for girls. I’m a fox, get it right.” Demon laughed and continued. “No, you’re foxy. If Zeus is your boyfriend, you’re the girl. I don’t make the rules, buddy.” Ivan felt the embarrassment flowing off of Montelongo in waves. Interesting. A little truth in the joke which was well accepted by the others in the Platoon, Ivan thought. “And I can’t do anything about how ugly you are.” Sleeper shot back. Demon ran his free hand down his lean and defined chest, his pecs flat unlike Sleeper’s. “I’m a tightly wound demolition spring. I’m made to be an effective working tool, not just a pretty trophy the boss parades around.” “I fucking hate you, Demon.” Sleeper grunted, pulling his ruck onto his back. “Can we go?” He said to Ivan. “Sure, come on.” Ivan replied. That little interaction provided a wealth of information on who Addison Montelongo was. Underneath the embarrassment was a distinct sense of satisfaction in the kid, some pride, and in spite of the voiced argument a comfortable happiness. He didn’t bite back with any meanness or low blows. There was no disagreement about the guy named Zeus being his boyfriend, or the getaway being termed ‘romantic’. Addison was fine with being portrayed as all flash and no substance. He liked the way this Demon made digs at him. He liked the digs themselves. “Who’s Zeus?” Ivan asked, walking towards the compound. He wasn’t surprised that Demon came with them, he was heading to the showers so they were both going to the same place. Another clue. It wasn’t Addison that answered him. He was fine with allowing Demon to explain. A quick check revealed Addison had a calm, unconcerned look on his face. Either he was very good at hiding his emotions, or nothing about the question bothered him. “Zeus? You can’t miss him. He’s our big guy. He’s way out of Sleeper’s league in the body department. Face wise? Eh, I’ll give Sleeper the edge. Zeus is handsome, but not on Sleeper or AF’s level. But with Zeus, it’s an overall thing. You have to be around him. Zeus is a feeling, a presence. I’ve never met anyone like him. And he sure loves Sleeper here. Stuck to him like glue.” Demon expounded. “He doesn’t say much. Hardly speaks at all. Keeps to himself. Top marks in qualifications. Screw taking a look at AF, it’s Zeus you really want to lay eyes on.” Ivan almost shook his head. That was a lot. Hero worship? Jealousy? Hmmm, interesting. “Is Demon right?” He asked Addison. “Zeus is…” Addison paused. “Zeus just IS. Demon’s right.” There was a raw, vulnerable honesty in those few words. Admiration. Love. Resignation. Pain. Hope. It was almost too much to unpack. “Any one of us would crawl across broken glass just to eat the undigested corn out of his shit.” There it was, that deflection. The mirage of crudeness covering some truth of Addison’s being. Sleeper was a costume. Bravo Fox was how he wanted his Platoon to see him, how he wanted to appear to his superiors. Ivan intuitively felt there was a depth and cleverness to Addison he didn’t want anyone to see. The ability to disguise yourself so perfectly was not something that an average grunt could ever be capable of. Even more, Addison liked this persona he’d created. He liked being treated as a pretty goof, no threat to anyone and not competent enough to be depended upon. Only someone who was far more than average would accept with such equanimity being treated as just a pretty face. The kid had absolutely no Ego. The million dollar question was whether Addison Montelongo was some empty dilettante or had levels of competence and capability that he was trying so hard to hide. Ivan was well acquainted with operators whose job required them to remain hidden among the masses, projecting an image that was unremarkable and average in every way. Someone like Montelongo could easily put his looks to use with charisma and charm. AF sounded like exactly that sort. However, Montelongo didn’t leverage his advantages at all. He didn’t want to be important. He didn’t want to be noticed at all except to be dismissed as something pretty. Ivan had a path forward now. He knew who he had to be to get past Addison’s facade. Someone safe, someone the kid could entrust with his personal baggage. A teacher, kind and strong. Supportive both emotionally and intellectually. With a stress on just how little time they had together before they’d never see each other again. Someone with no connection to the military. ************************** “What’s your Grid Azimuth?” Ivan asked. Addison was kneeling with the map on one knee. “93 degrees” “And your GM?” “Uh…” Addison paused while he scanned the perimeter of the map that Ivan had provided before they left. “14 degrees West” Ivan nodded, Addison’s math was fast. “Good. So…” he led out. “Magnetic Azimuth is 107 degrees.” Ivan pressed a hand to Addison’s shoulder and brought himself down to a squat beside the kid. He leaned in close. Touch and proximity were what Ivan called Trust Tools. “Okay. Now plot it out, and make your notes on the overlay and your field book.” The kid used his protractor to make various marks on the overlay in quick fashion. The pace at which he did his work impressed Ivan. “38 klicks straight line. You said we have a two day target?” Addison asked him. “That’s right.” Ivan answered, watching Addison’s pencil moving over the topography of the Medium Scale Joint Operations Group Ground map for possible routes. The part that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up was that he hadn’t indicated the location of the compound on the map. It should have been Montelongo’s first question. Had Collins briefed them on the location they’d be dropped off at? Other actions taken by the kid were also out of the norm. He hadn’t made a scale strip for distance calculation, simply used the flat side of his protractor as a gauge. That sort of shortcut eventually became ingrained but at the early stage these kids were at in their training he shouldn’t be there yet. Maybe the kid had a mind for math. The kid looked at him. “The terrain is going to make that tough.” “Explain.” Ivan said. “The valleys are where we can make good time, and the stretch between this range, Dirtseller Mountain, and our target isn’t difficult. Cultivated or developed land, some roads. But getting across this range…”. Ordinarily a straight march could cover about 13 km per day, more if not loaded down. And if they marched into the night 19 was doable. But the change in elevation, both increase and decrease in many areas would slow them down. Finding water, securing a camp, stopping to check the route, landmarks, reorientation, finding an alternate route around obstacles, all were time eating. The size of your group mattered as well. Larger groups moved slower. “Is your origin correct?” Ivan asked, knowing it was but curious to discover if it was a guess or if Montelongo knew for certain. Montelongo glanced at him with two eyebrows raised. “Yes. Well, within 4 miles, give or take.” Ivan tilted his head and squinted his eyes. “Bootlicker figured it out when we were dropped off. We left Benning, drove almost straight up here for a certain amount of time at a certain speed. The last leg was uphill almost continuously. He put it all together. Once I had this map, I knew exactly where we were or where we had to be to meet all the criteria. Running around the woods for the last couple days filled in the gaps.” Addison explained. “We can only be right here.” Ivan nodded. “I’m impressed. You think three dimensionally.” Addison shrugged. “Like I said, Bootlicker figured it out.” “No. You’ve got a map in your head.” Ivan said with a wry grin. “Okay genius, show me our route.” It was one thing to pinpoint your location when you had a visual of the horizon. But in heavily wooded areas the subtle changes in elevation, existence of waterways and roads, manmade landmarks - none of those were apparent and you had to place what you came across on a map in your head. Few could do it without years of experience and practice. He doubted many in the kid’s Platoon could pinpoint their origin so accurately even with this Bootlicker’s knowledge. Montelongo spent the next five minutes marking the overlay. The route wasn’t perfect, of course. It did, however, hit the most important locations, especially the one Ivan chose for their actual mission - the National Guard Resource Depot. The map didn’t indicate the Resource Depot’s existence so Montelongo couldn’t know it was there. But they wouldn’t be going anywhere near Dirtseller Mountain or what he told the kid their target was. *********************** “We’re going to break into a Federal facility?” Sleeper wanted to add ‘what the FUCK?’ To that but didn’t. They were on their stomachs looking at the same kind of chain link fence that surrounded every government facility on U.S. soil, complete with metal white signs that had the words ‘AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’ in big red letters. But that wasn’t the sign that worried him. The sign that worried him was the one that warned intruders would be prosecuted for a felony under Federal Statute U.S.C. Your Life is Over, Section: Go Directly to Jail, Paragraph: How Stupid Are You, Subsection: Your Mugshot. “Yes. No.” Ivan’s casual reply didn’t indicate a concern at ANY level. “They’ve got some good shit in there. It’s sort of a gray area. It’s technically federal, or maybe a better way to put it is ultimately federal, but all of it belongs to the State, not the Fed, or the military after it’s been purchased. Now, the stuff on loan from the military… eh?” Ivan held up a hand and lifted it then lowered it again. Sleeper pounded his forehead on the dirt. “We can’t steal anything from there!” He said into the soil. They’d made good time, reaching their current location in just 30 hours. The terrain hadn’t been a problem at all, it was the constant need to avoid being seen that created the most difficulty. Winter got rid of the difficult underbrush and visibility issues that traveling through woodlands entailed. He felt Ivan shift without looking at him. “Why not? We’re doing them a favor. That equipment is probably older than dirt. National Guard always gets the hand-me-downs from the military. It only gets used on their training weekends, their funding is dismal because it’s not a high profile political must-have. Hell, the Reserves get better treatment, and they’re bottom feeders. So, we take a few things and they requisition newer replacements. Besides, if you don’t think all sorts of equipment walks away from this facility every single weekend, you’re delusional. We don’t have a big shopping list. We’ll be in and out in less than an hour.” Sleeper looked at Ivan. “Is that what you guys do? Steal all your shit?” Ivan shrugged. “You need to lower your moral superiority, soldier. If you want to feed your outrage properly, you should think about how your government has a thousand depots like this or bigger, jammed with dusty gear, equipment, materials, munitions, weaponry, vehicles, fuel and everything else that sits around unused for years until some natural disaster pops up and the Governor sends in the National Guard. And then, because they get literal pennies in funding, half of this stuff doesn’t work when they go to use it, the personnel have forgotten 80% of their training meaning they CAN’T use half of the stuff that DOES work. Their limited time with the Guard away from their regular lives doesn’t give them the opportunity to maintain all of it anyway. So what if we pull a pair of shoes out of a dumpster?” Sleeper blinked in surprise rapidly. “Did— Did you just call the National Guard a fuckin dumpster?” Ivan frowned. “No.” “Yes you did. Fuck, dude.” Ivan shook his head and shrugged again. “The National Guard isn’t a dumpster. I don’t know how you got that idea. The National Guard are the Homeless in this analogy, the ones that dig through the dumpsters, like this depot, trying to find something useful that might actually work for them. The State of Georgia is like a church, or maybe a shelter that gets ‘donations’ or uses charity money to buy blankets or clothes for the homeless. But they aren’t buying the quality stuff, just discarded used equipment or goods. Think of it as an ecosystem, a life cycle type thing.” Sleeper’s mouth hung open while he stared at Ivan. “Oh. Well, that’s so much better. It hardly sounds insulting at all when you put it that way.” He muttered sarcastically. “Exactly.” Ivan confirmed, confident that he fixed the issue and that Montelongo understood. ‘These guys are some shady motherfuckers.’ Sleeper thought to himself. Criminals, by Ivan’s own admission. “Now, your mission is to get us inside. Get to it.” Ivan ordered. Sleeper took a deep breath. He could refuse. End it here. None of this was duty related so there was no order to disobey. But Sleeper was no fool, he knew these were skills that would be useful. He couldn’t ignore the desire to test himself and he was curious to validate Ivan’s insulting view of these Depots and the equipment inside. He felt a moment of disorientation as his thoughts congealed around the concepts of duty, orders, desire, curiosity, skills, intelligence gathering and ultimately being given a choice between moral actions vs. necessity. Why? What was really bothering him? If he’d been given this task in field training, there would be no conflict. Orders, that was the difference that mattered. With orders, he didn’t have to think. He didn’t have to choose. Orders protected you. The mission protected you from individual repercussions. There was a line, sure, that no soldier should cross - avoid civilian casualties, avoid actions that would result in the death of friendlies. Breaking into a secure facility wasn’t that high up on the list of objectionable actions. Truthfully, even without a mission, or orders, whether on duty or off, it barely lifted the offense needle. He’d get chewed out at worst. And that was what spun his brain around. There shouldn’t be a difference, right? Wrong was wrong. Illegal was illegal. Except it wasn’t. He realized then that the Army expected a certain amount of fucking up, of bad choices made by idiot grunts like him. Now, if he broke into a nuclear facility, or a facility with Top Secret contents, oh he’d pay for that. But this? It was the equivalent of taking your mom’s car for a joy-ride. The State of Georgia would be mad, but what could they do? The Army wouldn’t care. And that assumed either of them would even find out. Or that any of it would point back to him. And going down that road, Ivan referred to it as a ‘shopping trip’ which meant this wasn’t the first depot his buddies had hit, which meant the State of Georgia knew equipment walked away from these facilities exactly as Ivan had said. And yet, they refused to protect them with anything more than a chain link fence and a couple of signs. As if losing a certain amount of equipment was acceptable. And wasn’t this what he was being trained for, or at least part of it? Infiltration was taught in one of their modules back in Germany, how to gain access. With one glaring omission - they didn’t teach anything about when NOT to infiltrate. Sleeper snorted. Now if that wasn’t a clear message, he didn’t know what was. The Army had to know that. Too many brains created those training modules to leave out something that important, unless they didn’t want the grunts to even entertain the thought of failure. Overcome or subvert defenses, avoid them if you could, eyes on the mission, the goal. Barriers were nothing but an element to bypass however you could. Lies, deception, brute force, sneaking, press a weakness, all options should be considered. Incapacitate or kill defenders if the mission were important enough. Blow shit up if you had to, if stealth wasn’t a necessity. Sometimes, just wrecking a piece of infrastructure was the goal. Set a fire. Flood the place with broken water pipes. Cut the power, disrupt communications, sow chaos. At other times, retrieval was the mission and destruction was a waste of time. It required a fast entry and exit with minimal enemy interaction. Leaving bodies or rubble behind was undesirable for many reasons. Occasionally, the mission had a caveat that you had to leave the enemy unaware that you were ever there. That was Bootlicker territory right there. Simply put, this type of thing was exactly what he was trained for, it fell squarely into the skill set expected of him. Plus…fuck, it would be exciting and fun. “Well, fuck it, let’s go fuckin’ shopping.” Sleeper said to Ivan, climbing to his feet, his former moral superiority sufficiently lowered by his surprisingly easy rationalization. It did make him briefly wonder how solid his morality could be if it was swayed that easily. He concluded it was solid where it needed to be, flexible when required and he could be proud that a logical evaluation of the particular situation left him certain of how to act moving forward. As they walked the perimeter to the front gate of the depot, he asked Ivan, “Was that part of this? Testing if I would hesitate to do something illegal?” Ivan chuckled. “Illegal. Hmmmm. Be glad it wasn’t a test, because asking that question right there? That’s a fail.” He gave Ivan a look of confusion. “That whole legal-illegal perception is useless. It doesn’t matter. What’s legal only matters if the people who made the law can enforce it. Here? Now? Later?” Ivan laughed. “If we do our job right, we remove their ability to enforce anything. Do you understand?” After his thinking through it moments ago, Sleeper realized he did understand. “Yeah, I get it. Or at least I think I do. It’s only illegal because they said it was, and they could do way, way WAY more to protect this stuff if they really thought it was important. They really don’t care, do they? It’s kinda ridiculous, when you think about it. It’s a mind fuck. We..” Sleeper pointed to Ivan then himself, “are supposed to believe it’s incredibly important, because of the fence, the signs, the promises of consequences. But obviously they don’t think it’s important at all. If they did, there’d be security, personnel stationed here as guards. The fence would be electrified, maybe surveillance cameras. Definitely not a chain link fence with a stupid six foot high double gate locked with a chain so loose we’re both going to squeeze through the gap. If they don’t think it’s important to secure this facility, it means they don’t consider the contents to be important either. So there’s no reason we should think it’s all that important ourselves.” Ivan nodded. “And…?” He prompted. Sleeper considered. “And I guess if they can spell out all the consequences for violators, they probably should have thought of what consequences were there for them if they didn’t protect this stuff like they should.” Ivan gave Sleeper a huge congratulatory smile. A weird thought went through Sleeper’s head… that was exactly the way Assmunch smiled when he found something that really pleased him. And speaking of Assmunch, Sleeper didn’t think he’d have had near as much trouble working his way through this business. Assmunch would have wanted to break into the depot and rummage through the Quonset Huts, the open air motor pool, the armory built into an earthen mound. He’d do it just to say he could, just to figure out what was required, what needed to happen to get in. For that matter, so would Demon, Wanker, Bootlicker and about half the Bravos. Definitely not Zeus, though. No breaking the rules for Zeus. “Talk me through it.” Ivan said as they inspected the gate. Sleeper shrugged. “Pretty easy. The loose chain coupled with the flexibility of the metal of the gate means we can make a gap and get through. No need to cut anything. No security measures out here on the perimeter. There wouldn’t be any motion sensors on a gate, and even the fence line doesn’t have the indicators a disturbance track would need. We’re good for entry.” He pulled one of the gates from the bottom and a shockingly large space opened that allowed Ivan to scoot through. Ivan did the same for him while Sleeper crawled through. “That looks like the Operations Command office there.” Sleeper said, pointing to one centrally located Quonset Hut. “Let’s hit that one first.” Ivan motioned with his hand for Sleeper to take the lead. ***************************** They didn’t find anything interesting in the Operations Command. Paperwork, personnel files, a couple computers. It was set up like a large office, fifty feet long and thirty feet wide. It also had an area set up like a day room at a barracks, with couches and chairs, a kitchen, a TV, a few tables. It wasn’t a Mess, that was probably in one of the other buildings. No, this was for downtime, meetings, recreation. Ivan let Sleeper look at anything he wanted, even a safe in what he assumed was the Commander’s office. “Don’t bother.” Ivan said. “There won’t be anything useful in there.” Sleeper felt relief. Sure, snooping around the facility was borderline okay, but a small safe in a commander’s office felt too personal. This was a National Guard Depot, not some high level Defense Department facility. There would be nothing valuable in the safe, no secrets, money or equipment. It was something that was purely for the Commander’s personal use while on duty. However… “It might have access materials. You know, keys to the other buildings, the motor pool, maybe computer login information.” Sleeper offered. “We don’t need keys to the buildings, do we?” Ivan grinned. “And motor pools are notorious for lazy security. You have a lot to learn about how your government views equipment bought with taxpayer dollars. Keep your eyes open, I think this should be a good wake up call.” “Well what about information then? We could get into the computer system.” Sleeper offered. “I should let you do it just to educate you, but you have someone in your unit I’m sure who could tell you everything you might find. Ask him. We won’t waste our time with it here. Speaking of which,” Ivan continued. “What kind of unit are you? The way you handled the Battle Drill exercise wasn’t straight by the book Infantry.” Sleeper shrugged, hoping it came off as genuine. Keep it casual. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let this guy know Bootlicker’s intel. “Oh, we’re Infantry, for sure. Just getting used to having some new guys who switched from other MOS’s. Still haven’t worked out all the kinks.” “Kinks? Didn’t seem like there were any kinks to me.” Ivan pushed. Sleeper gave Ivan his best ‘bullshit’ look. “I’d call me getting knocked the fuck out right out of the gate a pretty obvious kink. Dumb move on my part. Left my guys, and my unit without a commander.” Ivan tilted his head. “Do you think that’s why you didn’t complete the mission?” Sleeper shrugged again. “Probably not. The Bravos knew what to do, didn’t need me calling the shots after engagement.” “That would indicate either a well structured plan, or well trained personnel.” Ivan offered. “Neither of which mattered in the end, right?” Sleeper laughed while rearranging the items and paperwork in the commander’s office back where it all was before they’d gone through it. “Still couldn’t accomplish the mission.” “You think you made a mistake?” Ivan asked, watching Sleeper’s actions closely. Sleeper paused. He’d thought about. Sure, he felt bad, like he’d let his brothers down. Could he have made a difference? Was there something he missed that he could have corrected during the raid? “Sarge says doubts are part of the job, and that a leader without doubts gets his men killed twice as fast. Yeah, I made mistakes. Going in with my men wasn’t one of them.” Ivan nodded. Sleeper couldn’t tell if he agreed or if he was just acknowledging the statement. “What was the weakness in your plan, then?” Sleeper resisted the urge to sigh. “What I WANT to say is that we were down our best strategist, and our best scouts and sneaks. Those three could have made a difference.” He shook his head. “But really, the worst mistake was we… no I, it was me… treated it like it was just another drill with nothing on the line. If this had been a real-world mission, half the Bravos would be dead. I rushed it, told them to push as fast as they could and that speed would be the deciding factor because the enemy wouldn’t be able to re-position fast enough to stop at least one squad from reaching the goal. I played a game of sacrifice.” “There was no time limit for the exercise.” Ivan pointed out. Sleeper looked Ivan in the eye. “And no directive to accomplish the mission at all costs. With something more surgical I could have kept my men alive, and given us a better shot at reaching the goal.” Ivan raised his hands again to mime balancing out the scales. “And yet, too cautious and the mission fails anyway.” Sleeper sat on the Commander’s desk and crossed his arms. “How would you have done it?” “Me?” Ivan smiled. “Oh, I would’ve started fucking with the enemy the minute I got the orders. I would’ve sent a team in while they were still planning and thinking they had all the time in the world before the attack. I would’ve taken advantage of the fact they believed you would play by the rules.” Sleeper froze, stunned. “We’re not allowed to do that.” “Who told you that?” Sleeper couldn’t reply, it felt like his brain was short-circuiting. “Who was in command?” Ivan asked. “Did you have an officer or superior?” “No.” Sleeper said quietly as his arms fell down to rest his palms on the desk. “You, Addison. You were the one who was given the power and authority to decide how the operation proceeded, at least for your team. Every decision you make branches off from -“ “- how you define the mission and the engagement.” Sleeper finished. “Fuck me.” Ivan raised his eyebrows. “It was expected. I’ll give you a cheat, because, well, I don’t believe in rules. And I don’t believe in limitations when the lives of my men hang in the balance. Here’s the thing, whatever you were before, your team, you weren’t sent here because you are some nameless platoon of average grunts. So stop thinking like average grunts. Stop thinking that you can’t wipe your ass without a sergeant ordering you. Stop thinking that the book you were given in Basic is all they’ll let you do. Push the limits. Go outside the limitations they set. If it’s not said or ordered specifically just assume they omitted it deliberately and have allowed for you to use that omission to further your goals. Find a way, ANY way, to get the job done and keep your men alive. Results matter. Begging for forgiveness is a whole lot easier when your men are alive and you achieved your objective. You might get chewed out, but it’ll just be for show. And you’ll learn there are orders you can disobey without repercussions as long as you perform above expectations. There are superiors who look the other way, who only care about results. Be careful not to get yourself court-martialed, but shy of an actual crime with identifiable damage, no chain of command is going to go through the trouble of a court martial. Understand?” Sleeper nodded. Ivan clapped his hands, startling Sleeper. “Oh, and don’t fuckin’ get caught and you won’t have to worry about any of the other stuff.” ************************************************ ASSMUNCH It didn’t feel like I slept long but my mind snapped awake and refused to drift. Yeah, I was sore and bruised everywhere which didn’t help. A quick assessment, almost automatic by now, categorized the physical trauma to my body. Which was a mistake because it forced me to review how it happened. Which meant confronting that. I mentally slid away the second it touched my conscious mind. Nope. Not helpful. Nope nope nope. My shoulders ached, no doubt from being strung up and hanging from my wrists for an extended period. Surprisingly, my wrists were fine, just a little raw from the rope. My ribs hurt the worst, and second place went to my abdomen. My lower back area, especially around my kidneys gave me stabbing pains each time I moved. I flexed and stretched to figure out how extensive the damage might be. Not awful, nothing a little more stretching and rest wouldn’t take care of. It wasn’t even as bad as that time I’d slipped on the balancing logs while running the obstacle course and hit my side on the way down. I fucking rag-dolled into the mud like the snot sliming down your jaw after the gas chamber training. It wasn’t the first or last time my soul left my abused body in shock. My hips and groin ached, hard to say why. It was most likely from being hung just high enough that if I stood on my toes I could take a little weight off my wrists. Plus, each painful punch or kick I endured made me involuntarily seize up to ride the wave on my toes if I could. Sometimes I couldn’t make my legs work well enough to do that though. Have you ever felt a pain so sudden and immense that you can’t move or speak? Like you walk into something with your knee and there’s no room in your brain for forming words? Then your friend asks you ‘are you okay, man?’ And all you can think is ‘shut up, just shut up, I can’t talk, I can’t talk, I need to focus all my willpower on making the pain go away’? Yeah, the Ape was damn good at his job. At first, it wasn’t so bad. Not only could I deal with it, I wanted to focus on it and categorize it. A blunt fist felt heavy. A stiff finger jab was sharp and electric. Thrown elbows were special because the force was insane enough to feel like the spike went inches deep. Knee to the outer thigh? Nothing worth writing home about. Knee to the inner thigh, yeah, you felt that in your OTHER thigh too. Dense muscle seemed to restrict and localize the pain, while soft muscle spread it like a burn. Each had their benefits, but I liked the soft muscle burn the most. It was a warm pain rather than a cold electricity type. I could fall asleep with a warm or hot pain. Cold, sharp, electric pain made my brain sizzle with denied focus. Thoughts scattered, and if it was strong enough your eyes refused to see. Well, I’m sure they saw stuff, but my brain wouldn’t recognize it. Like it said ‘Nope, I’m busy, not accepting visual input at this time.’ The brain flares were seductive too, I won’t lie. I’m sure you’re probably saying ‘this dude is sick’ but hear me out on this. As near as I can figure, the brain flares were just sensory overload, a couple of seconds of absolute confusion and denial of existence. You only know they happened because for a brief moment afterwards you questioned ‘what the fuck just happened?’ Well Private Punching Bag, you got your bell rung, that’s what fucking happened. What kind of question is that? Did you lose a few brain cells? Don’t worry, you don’t need those, you’re in the Army. Brain cells are NOT standard issue and NOT mission critical, carry on. Carry on. Yeah. HOO-AH! The pleasure to be found in pain lasts only as long as your body can pump out whatever chemical it uses as a defense. Once you’ve milked that organ dry the pain becomes an irritant to your consciousness. And that’s the point at which your only option is to ignore it. What I mean is you have to think away from it. During the pleasure period, focusing on the pain is rewarding. After that period ends there’s no reward in it. I’ve had this trick I do ever since I was 13 years old. I call it the Push It Away. What? Not the world-shattering descriptive term you expected from me? I was 13 when I had to name it so cut me a little slack and maybe go fuck yourself while you’re at it. You can think about how you like to judge children as you attempt to fit your big opinion of yourself up your … Now I’m getting off track, see what you did? Verbal brilliance was never in the top 10 of my best qualities. I do know how to say ‘fuck you’ in five languages. That ought to be worth something, right? So anyway, the Push It Away works like this: You take the pain, shrink it down to a manageable size in the area affected and imagine pushing it out of your body. It takes some effort, and yes it’s all in your mind, but that’s the ‘trick’ part of it. It tricks your brain into focusing on something other than the pain, you’ve given your brain a conscious task rather than instinct. Your brain wants to pay attention to the pain because that’s important for survival. Fighting that instinct isn’t easy. Once the trauma initiates the pain though, it’s heightened afterwards because your muscles seize and tense, you hold your breath, and your brain is trying to catalogue the injury, take an assessment of damage. That makes it remember the trauma. You can’t let it do that, can’t let it relive the trauma. So … don’t. Think of anything else. In sports, your coach tells you to ‘walk it off’. All he’s doing is giving you a conscious task to focus on rather than the pain. It also helps you un-tense, gets you breathing normally. It allows the tension in your body to release. It takes practice, and you have to start out small but it works. There wasn’t any real pain to speak of when the Ape shoved up…. Nope. Push It Away. I made a circle with my lips and breathed a few shallow breaths. I don’t know why I couldn’t think about it. It couldn’t have been physically damaging, his dick wasn’t even that big. Nope. Push it Away. A feeling of disgust and sickness began to overwhelm me. I pushed HARD, and pushed myself right out. Thoughts began to surface. And yet, I became a clinical observer. I saw the thoughts, but it wasn’t me thinking them. The place where there was no me. And it began: Part of him knew what happened, knew what the Ape had done to him. The other part refused to care or acknowledge the rape. The part that knew wasn’t too bothered except to question what possible goal they’d meant to accomplish. Oh, he understood one aspect involved breaking him psychologically. That was a no-brainer. They’d tried isolation, tried interrogation, some weak physical trauma along with mind games. His only regret now was that he’d spent most of the time mentally trying to figure out their game rather than using the process to strengthen his focus and endurance. He regretted how frequently he’d chosen to ‘tap out’ mentally during the worst of it, including the sickening feeling at his periphery when the Ape’s unimpressive cock first slid up inside him. It almost made it worse that the big beast didn’t measure up in the dick department. Being brutalized by something completely average was insulting in its own way. If he was stronger he would have stayed present to learn as much as he could. He couldn’t even say with any certainty how long it had taken. All of the details were locked in a very tiny box far back in his mind. He was forced to question whether that was good for him. No, that was not the right concept. Of course it wasn’t good for him to lock it away like that. Doing it that way meant he’d learned nothing from handling Kevin’s memory in a similar fashion. The true question was whether it was useful, either in the short term or long term. Would it rear its ugly head at some inopportune moment, come back to him when he least wanted it to? Probably. He mentally sighed. He knew what he had to do. Trouble was, he didn’t want to. Fucking hell. He wasn’t even sure he’d have time to wade through the connections to what it meant for his time here, for his relationship with Kevin, to being the leader of the Bravos. At least he wasn’t stupid enough to question what it meant for his self confidence or his manhood. It had nothing to do either of those. Those were solid. He knew who he was and hadn’t asked for this treatment. There had to be a point to it, didn’t there? He could choose to shrug it off and chalk it up to an experience he probably had to get out of the way sooner rather than later, and they’d done him a favor. But that felt like taking the coward’s way out. It would be easy to talk himself into that. Twisting your brain and consciousness with lies that let you off the hook simply rationalized what you wanted to be true, not necessarily the actual truth. Yes, the situation was absolutely beneficial for those reasons, but silver linings are the sugar you put on something bitter to hide its nature. Mental strength came from recognizing and understanding the bitterness first. Fuck. He put his hands behind his head on the cot, refusing to stand up and pace like he wanted to. Was he making too much of this? Ultimately he didn’t care what the Ape did. So why hide it away from himself in a box? That made it seem like he did actually care. Also, was it that important to do this now? Was this the right time and place for the soul-searching? “Arrrrggghhh” he growled in frustration. Another lie to his brain. “Fuck you, brain.” He muttered. Why entertain putting it off when he had nothing else to do but lie here? He’d never been in the habit of lying to himself. “Well guess what, Tom? We’re gonna do this, you stupid fuck. Stop trying to trick me. Don’t start none, won’t be none.” He said out loud. Oh, now I’m talking to myself. Woooo-weeee, this is definitely doing a number on me. Which only meant he should absolutely work his way through it now. Having decided, he felt a calm descend. He took a moment to relax with relief. Good, we’re on the right track then. He allowed himself that affirmation. Yes, there were benefits to the experience. It would be stupid to ignore those. He could use them to force himself to grow. Sure, it was a crutch to make the damage assessment he’d be doing later easier to swallow but why give up an advantage when you didn’t have to? So, benefits. Another bridge crossed, a test most men never endured. And he’d endured it. He’d felt no terror, no shame, no soul-shattering fear or revulsion. The only emotions he could find were regret and sadness that Kevin wasn’t the only one. He understood that had been important to himself. It made him want to apologize to Kevin for putting himself in a position to have it happen. Except he wasn’t sure he could even tell Kevin. It would make him angry. Maybe Kevin would even take his anger out on him. For any other reason, that would have excited him. An angry Kevin was just fucking sexy as hell. Those grey eyes shrouding with a scowled darkness, the clenched jaw and subtle snarl he displayed forced a deep surrender inside Tom that was damn near its own full body orgasm. Seeing the otherwise sedate, unshakeable man burn with the internal molten heat of fury thrilled his blood to equal Kevin’s primal emotions. Any emotion Kevin chose to reveal was like a bright beacon to Tom’s soul. It could be love, which made Tom flush with a weakness so close to passing out. It could be amusement that flooded his body with endorphins. Kevin’s frustration made Tom’s spine tingle. If there was a sign that two souls were tragically and joyously intertwined, it was how Kevin’s mood invaded Tom’s body and mind with uncontrollable instincts and reactions. And for him, the ease with which Kevin seized all power and control seduced him beyond any line in the sand he might draw. Yes, Kevin would be angry. He would be angry at the men who did it, at the situation, at the futility of all of it. No silver lining in that, except perhaps gaining the knowledge early on that Tom intended for an extraordinary life and if he wanted to be a part of that there were going to be other distasteful situations that he should learn to keep separated from their relationship. He jolted up on the cot, breathing heavily as he swung his legs over the side to ground his feet firmly on the concrete floor. He’d gone the long way around. You dumb fucking grunt. Had to do it the hard way, didn’t you? He ridiculed himself. What this was, this training, his experiences no matter how personal or intimate… it had nothing to do with what he had with Kevin. Kevin should learn to keep it separated? Doctor, fix your own fucking self. Which was something Kevin would say, only he’d probably remember the right quote. It was Shakespeare or something intellectual. Or maybe John F. Kennedy said it, who the fuck knows? Something else occurred to him right then: how it would affect Kevin was his biggest internal conflict. He knew from the start he didn’t give a rat’s ass about what it meant for himself. He could deal with the disgust, even mitigate the blame. It didn’t matter at all because what happened to his body had no connection to the man he was. And while it would affect the man he wanted to be it was only because it was something he could use to surmount other obstacles. If the Army taught you anything, it was that pain and suffering were the stairs you climbed to domination. The final piece that called a truce between the warring factions of his mind was that the sexual assault had to be a one time thing. He understood the difference between an ongoing and repeated use of the method vs. a single occurrence. Ongoing and repeated would be repulsive in a way he may not be able to reconcile so easily. He began to laugh. Yeah, his laughter sounded crazy, even to his own ears, but it was the laughter of release. Sitting there on the edge of the cot he understood he’d never have to cross this bridge again. The confidence he’d gained in his sense of self was huge by itself, but even more important was realizing he and Kevin travelled separate paths that they could walk side by side. Whatever change became necessary on that path, Kevin would be a constant. I dropped off the cot onto the floor and began a set of pushups. No sense in getting soft or letting my strength suffer just because I was a prisoner. I was past the worst of it. The gentle reintegration of my separated minds felt right. I wasn’t even angry. I learned something about myself it would have probably taken years to learn otherwise. Now, figuring out why my brain seemed to enjoy having a psychotic break? Way too gnarly to dig through. There was some mental bullshit called Multiple Personality Disorder. Sally Field did a mini-series about it in the 70’s. My mom has it on VHS. It’s called Sybil or something. Seems a little fake to me, just saying you’re different people when your mood changes. Well, at least it used to seem like bullshit until my brain decided to watch itself use the 3rd person to refer to me. That means I was three people at once, right? Me watching, the guy talking about it, and who the guy was talking about. That’s why they call it 3rd person. Ah, FUCK! Mrs. Balenciaga in 10th grade English could have explained it that way and maybe I’d have made a B in her class instead of a C. It made sense now. Before you get all ‘uh… Assmunch, that’s not what 3rd person is’ I beg to differ. One part of me was talking about *myself* to another part of me. That’s three people. There was probably a 4th person, or more, in English but who the fuck knows how THAT fucking works? Like I said, brain cells are not standard issue in the Army. Hoo-ah!

LOL, if you’ve ever been around young military guys it’s sort of a contest to come up with crazy names for stuff. EVERYTHING gets another name.

Thanks man! It’s been difficult trying to write with so much going on for me. Nothing serious or beyond normal life so I should count my blessings, it’s just all happening at once. A close friend is going through a divorce that is simultaneously ridiculous (because the petty bullshit that 2 grown adults fixate on is absurd) and disappointing (because they can’t see past their own selfish needs to do what’s best for their 11 year old son). I get to play legal and psych counselor by phone several times a week. My position as President of the HOA brings me MORE ridiculous bullshit by foolish homeowners making it difficult to get our projects done. Work is its usual mental drain. And trying to gear up for selling my house to move back to Texas which means repairs and fixing it up to make it look pretty while trying to spend as little money as possible. I spend much of my downtime just trying to forget the world exists. But, I am writing the next chapter and have gotten it 1/3rd done. I’m glad you all are patient.

Thanks bud!

“Hey Wanker, can I talk to you for a sec?” Chunk asked in a low voice after he came to sit down next to him. Wanker glanced over as he took another bite of the hamburger and macaroni casserole they were being fed. After the failed attack on the compound the Bravos had been given their gear and told to set up camp just outside the compound in a cleared area. Then they’d been told to get some sleep and they all crashed for a luxurious four hours straight once Sarge had given the all clear that their camp passed inspection. Normally camp inspection was a job for Assmunch and Sleeper, but no one knew where Assmunch was. And Bootlicker and Weeble were AWOL too. Sleeper had gotten himself skull punched and in spite of his arguing that he was fine, Sarge told him to shut his dickhole and sleep it off. It was sometime in the early morning hours and something about the quiet and darkness after the last 48 hours was especially relaxing. The silence had a different flavor just after a battle drill exercise. It felt empty. And whoever was doing the cooking here was amazing. The casserole had some kind of cheese and maybe salsa? that added a whole other level to basic hamburger and macaroni. That was on top of the fact that tree bark and dandelions would have tasted excellent after their ordeal. “Sure Chunk. What’s up?” He answered between mouthfuls. That was another thing, there was plenty to eat which was a rarity when out on patrol. He was already on his second serving. Chunk looked off at the other Bravos, then down at his plate. “I was just…”. He paused. “Just spit it out, brother. We help each other, right?” He gave Chunk a friendly grin. “But no Bootlicker secrets, okay? You know I can’t.” Chunk looked up and gave a nervous grin. “Nah, I don’t want to know anything about any of THAT.” Then he took a deep breath to reinforce his resolve. “I was just wondering… what’s it like?” “What’s what like?” “You know… getting fucked. Does it hurt?” Chunk said it in a rush, as if taking too long to ask would force him to chicken out. Wanker smiled. “That’s it? That’s what’s got you all worked up and nervous? Relax man, it’s no big deal. You can ask me anything you want. It doesn’t hurt at all anymore, but the first time it hurt like hell. But that had more to do with how big the dick was.” Chunk’s eyes widened slightly. “Was it Footlong?” Then he held up a hand. “You don’t have to tell me, I shouldn’t have asked.” A chuckle escaped Wanker’s lips. “No, it wasn’t Footlong. And technically, it wasn’t the first dick that hurt, it was the second one. The guy wasn’t trying to be gentle.” Chunk stared at him with a slack jaw, mouth open in shock. “Were you raped, Wanker?” Wanker looked away and took a deep breath. “No man, it wasn’t rape. I gave him permission. I guess it’s no big deal if you know. Assmunch knows, he helped me through when I came back to the barracks. Fuck, it hurt just to hold my asshole closed. Mostly it wasn’t so bad during even if it was pretty brutal, but after… well afterwards it was my brain making the pain worse than what it had to be.” Chunk was fighting between sympathy and curiosity, and curiosity won out. “Why did you give the guy permission?” Wanker looked at him with a peaceful smile that lacked all regret. “Because I didn’t want to leave the Bravos. Didn’t want to chance it. It was either take the punishment or get booted.” Hearing Wanker put it so plainly hit a sympathetic chord in Chunk’s soul. He would have made the same choice. He nodded at Wanker’s words. “Yeah, I woulda done the same, I think.” “Besides, Sarge broke me in before Horvath dished out the punishment, so I was okay with what happened. I did deserve it, at the very least for being caught. Sarge isn’t so bad, he said that was the main mistake I made, being stupid enough to get caught. And I learned how much I love you guys, so I wouldn’t take it back.” It appeared that Chunk had a never ending supply of shocked, wide-eyed gaping looks to give, because another one transformed his face into disbelief. “Sarge?” Wanker nodded. “Yup. He’s got a big crank, and you’ve seen his nuts, fucking huge sack. And then Horvath’s just a goddamn horse. If Sarge hadn’t opened me up easy, Sergeant Charlie would have ripped me open.” “Damn.” Chunk whispered, staring off into space. After a few moments, he continued. “You said it doesn’t hurt anymore, though.” “Nah, now it’s good, no big deal. Sometimes I’m not even thinking about it when one of the guys is taking a run. Sometimes it feels good too. It can be a good way to relax everything and just let go.” The fourth variation of incredulity froze on Chunk’s face. Man, the guy was cracking Wanker up with how many different ways he could demonstrate being mentally thrown off his feet. “I could probably take another Horvath fucking no problem now.” He said, trying for a fifth variation. He wasn’t disappointed, and it made him laugh. “Dude, do you practice those looks in the mirror? I swear to God they just keep getting better.” “It’s just… I mean… wow! How big?” Chunk stuttered. Wanker held up his arm and pointed to his forearm to his wrist. Then, it was Wanker’s turn to stare off. “You want to know the best part? I feel closer to you guys. I like taking care of the brothers that need it. It’s like I’m doing something good for them, even if it’s just something stupid like getting them off and helping them feel good. I feel like I’m paying you guys back for putting up with all the times Bootlicker and I got us all in trouble. Pulling my weight a little.” “It’s not stupid, Wanker. They joke around sometimes about you being a good fuck, but they’re always grateful. And they don’t ever talk bad about you for doing it. Shark says you’re prime.” Chunk reached out an arm and grasped Wanker’s shoulder. “You know we love you, we love Bootlicker too. I’m glad you wanted to stick around, brother. It wouldn’t be the same without you.” Wanker felt his eyes begin to fill up. He fought it down, but it was hard to do. “Thanks, Chunk. Feels good to hear that.” He replied sincerely, putting another fork full of food in his mouth to cover his difficulty holding back his emotions. “I think I want to try it.” Chunk said. Wanker coughed up the bite he was just about to swallow. He proceeded to keep coughing. He grabbed his canteen to try to take a drink between his choking coughs. After 30 seconds of getting himself calmed down, he said “Warn a brother before you just spit something like that out.” “Sorry, man.” Chunk gave a small laugh then got serious. “I don’t know, I’m not into dudes, but you guys aren’t really just dudes, you know? And I get horny sometimes. I only ever see you guys.” He sighed. “Don’t laugh, but sometimes I get so crazy for someone to touch me. We all joke around a lot, horseplay, but it’s all just regular stuff. When we did massages at Airborne that first week it felt so good to have someone put their hands on me to make me feel good. I know it sounds dumb and pretty gay.” He looked down at the ground as if he was ashamed for showing sensitivity and vulnerability. Wanker put his plate down and moved closer to Chunk. “It’s not dumb, Chunk. I get it.” He put his arm around Chunk’s shoulders and pulled him into him. “We’re brothers, and we’re all really close. I think I know why you’re asking about all this.” He gave Chunk a squeeze. “We’re close, but there’s a line. We can joke around but it’s always got to be a joke. A little grab ass, an armlock instead of a long hug. But look, if you need a little extra love, dude, just ask. Most of the guys here wouldn’t bat an eye. You want a buddy cuddle, just say it. And if you want more than that, you know I’m available anytime.” In a move Wanker would never have predicted from Chunk, his brother tilted his head and laid it on his shoulder. “Thanks Wanker.” “And look, if you ever do want your cherry popped we can make that happen too, so don’t worry about it so much, okay? Take it from me, it’s not a big deal. What happens to your asshole doesn’t define you as a man. It’s just an asshole, who the fuck cares what goes into it or comes out? Plus, if you’re going to do it, it’s best if you let a brother take care of it. It’ll stay in the Brotherhood. And no one here is going to look at you different afterwards. Just be sure that’s what you want.” Chunk heaved a sigh and Wanker felt him relax even more. “Maybe you’re right, that I’m not really looking to get fucked. I don’t know.” Another sigh. “My head’s all over the place. I know it wouldn’t even come up if we had access to females.” Wanker pulled his hand off Chunk’s shoulder and rubbed it across his head, sliding it through the short buzz of his clipper cut, drawing a low purr from Chunk’s throat. “Yeah, I feel ya, man. That would be nice. In spite of all the action I’m getting, it’s not the same. A little pussy would be fantastic.” They sat like that for a few minutes, taking comfort in their shared misery, Wanker never stopping his gentle motions on Chunk’s skull. Wanker thought that it was really nice that they could just sit like that without worrying about what the other guys would say. Trusting your brothers was a good, warm feeling. At that moment it seemed stupid that men couldn’t do this anytime they wanted without it being seen as something more than what it was. A little pussy every now and then, plus the love of your brother, yeah that would be a perfect life. ***************************** “I disagree, McGregor. I’m not useful in any way. Not for this.” Ulster McGregor shook his head. He didn’t know what was up with Brickmann, but it was clear he was avoiding his nephew. But he wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t useful as someone to use against the kid. Not anymore. At this point, all he would be good for was to comfort the kid. And Private Brickmann didn’t appear to need all that much comforting. It was a shame they couldn’t break any bones or make some cuts. That usually took things into serious territory, but Ulster was fairly sure the kid wouldn’t break easily and a few broken bones and slices wasn’t likely to have a different result. Bennett agreed saying the lack of flinching and cowering while he jabbed, punched, and kicked the kid indicated the subject had accepted the current level of persuasion and the next level was necessary. They could psychologically break him, it wouldn’t be difficult, but there was no purpose to that. He wasn’t holding any actual intel. Collins had simply said to attempt to get any secrets, no matter how small, from him. Bennett agreed that the kid endured far better than most that were tested this way. And the level 2 rape, while distasteful and not enjoyable for either party, was never the real goal. Rape was tricky as a mental punishment. For men at a certain level of training it didn’t physically affect them much, but mentally and emotionally? It could shatter the foundations of their confidence. Men believed their strength was rooted in their manhood, especially soldiers. Damage their manhood and they questioned their ability to resist. The more it mattered to them, the worse it was. But the rape had to be tailored to the stage they were in life, and you had to know something personal about them to make it an effective technique for breaking a subject. It was why it wasn’t usually an option. However, a buck Private in the U.S. Army, first leadership position as Platoon leader, separated from his men with no hope of rescue. He should have fought like a banshee, or begged with tears and snot running down his face. Instead, it was as if he just ignored it. Just like he ignored the beatings. Ulster wasn’t quite sure how to evaluate that, except that the kid was resistant to the usual low level techniques. Nor could he reconcile the fact that the kid’s uncle wasn’t all that torn up about it, at least not enough to make himself known to his nephew and get him back on his feet. “Tom will be fine, Ulster. Now isn’t the time to bring me in. Let me take the idiot out, get him away from the rest. You keep Tom here. I’ll take the idiot as my project.” Brickmann explained. “He’s hiding something. He shouldn’t be Tom’s second. I haven’t seen anything that makes him special enough to warrant that position, so either Tom knows something about him that makes it worth having him as his second or there’s something else. But regardless, the kid needs to step up or get out of the way. Quincy Washington, the little guy Chambers, or the one they call Bootlicker would make a much better second. I’ll bring the idiot back for explosives training, but the rest I’ll handle in the mountains.” “Fine. Montelongo does need handling. Maybe try to figure out why that hasn’t happened yet. Sergeant Walters should never have approved his assignment as second, but maybe it’s a test for your nephew, or a lesson. I’ll have Bennett work with Walters.” Ulster replied. “What are you going to do with the other two?” Brickmann asked, taking a last look at the contents of the file folder he held in his hands. “You going to tell them it was all a psy op?” Ulster grinned. “I figured we keep them going until they figure it out. I think putting them back with their unit would dilute their focus. They are both very intense. And determined. I like the little guy. If any of these kids are going to make it to Battalion, it’ll be these two and your nephew. The little guy deserves my personal attention. Hammer is better for the other kid. I haven’t decided if the little ego competition they are fighting with each other is useful for a training enhancement yet. Hammer and I do things differently and my kid responds to praise and emotional support, eager to please. Having Hammer around will keep the kid’s guard up. Did you know he calls Hammer ‘Whisperman’ like some creepy horror movie?” Ulster chuckled. Ivan Brickmann laughed. “I heard that on the ears. That’s Gregory’s own fault. He really puts it on thick when he wants to. He wanted the kid afraid. If you’re going to have a fucked up voice, why not use it?” Ulster nodded. “Well it got him moving. Alright, you take Montelongo out, see if you can find out what his deal is and break his complacency. It’s up to you whether you want to tell him about your nephew. I’ll have Bennett have a go at the Sergeants, they should get along nicely, same basic animal. I just know Collins is doing one of his nerd projects and it would be nice if just this once he told us the point. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good mystery and it keeps me on my toes, but we can be way more effective with these kids if we know the goal.” Brickmann’s answering laughter was loud and exuberant. “Ah, Ulster. The rats don’t get told why they get the cheese. Whatever he wants with these kids he wants something else from us. You should be used to it by now. If we have to be his circus monkeys every now and then, or rats in one of his mazes, you know it’ll be worth it. Besides, he’s not asking us to do anything but what we want to do and what we’re good at.” Ulster looked down at his desk, lost in thought. He had six teams on foreign soil at the moment but right now they were independent operators and needed no oversight. He had two weeks to toughen these kids up enough to sail through the Ranger Induction Program. They had a good start with the training they’d had up to this point and they were far more motivated than their usual students which were foreign military or civilian guerrillas who barely knew which end of the gun a bullet flew out of. And that training didn’t go beyond skills needed for a specific operation or mission. How to kidnap a subject. Destroy this bridge. Stop the upcoming attack on this village. Rescue these prisoners. If Americans had to be sent in they either couldn’t be seen, or everyone that was a witness had to be killed. Most of the time, putting down enemy fighters to the last man was okay, even if it was messy and left questions. But sometimes the operation couldn’t look TOO professional. Sometimes they had to be ghosts. Sometimes it was about retrieving someone in an organization that needed to disappear. Delicate missions. Local resources. Anything that needed to happen that wouldn’t point back to the U.S. JSOC and SOF like SEAL teams were useful for many missions, especially when support was crucial. But there were far more situations that didn’t require moving a mountain or couldn’t endure the notice of allies or the U.N. And while a country like Somalia might not track and identify every single aircraft over its airspace, you could bet that the Soviet satellites did, or worse NATO. Having to answer to your allies for a local action or regional incursion was far worse than telling the Soviets to fuck off. Often it was your own allies that were the worst at using intel against you. It was always a bargaining chip in some negotiation for aid, trade or raid. And now the Soviet States were independent. That would ordinarily be a win for democracy. Except for the question of how the various military resources, including the nukes, were divided. And who ended up controlling Russia, the largest Soviet State. Correction: Former Soviet State. It was still difficult to stop using the word Soviet. In the resulting chaos of the dissolution of the USSR, Ulster found a niche he was able to exploit and grow his small training facility into a global mercenary force. The Eastern Bloc countries had thrown out the Soviet loyalist communists and Russian officials and through back channels had asked for certain resources, mostly information trading, to shore up their protection from Moscow. Most of that came in the form of identifying Soviet agents that were planted in organizations in their country. Ulster had gotten his chops as a subversive military advisor for the Afghans in their ten year war against the Soviet Union. Of course it was a not-so-secret secret that the U.S. was arming and training the Afghanistan guerilla forces, the Mujahideen. It was one of the reasons the Soviets hadn’t succeeded. Another reason, probably more accurate, was that war was a valuable commodity. Sure, it was expensive, difficult, and problematic when conducted so far away from your power core. But you couldn’t sharpen your blade on air, and you couldn’t support your military industry without an enemy. At least half the problem was that the USSR was arrogant and didn’t feel that putting in a maximum effort was worth it for Afghanistan. They treated the military action as a training exercise rather than an actual war. Well, it wasn’t completely because of that, they were fighting the gradually growing resistance to the failures of communism. The recession of the mid-70’s to the mid 80’s didn’t only affect the western capitalist nations. The life of the average citizen wasn’t good anywhere in the world, but in Soviet countries it was particularly dismal. So the USSR wasn’t unified, and the Iron Curtain couldn’t completely block information that the rest of the world wasn’t suffering near as badly as they were. There were no food lines, no shortages in the Western countries. And the people blamed their leaders. Leaders who only made it worse by making the most vocal detractors ‘disappear’. Ulster shook off the useless musings. He could write a ten volume series on the slow deterioration of the former USSR from the unique perspective of an Operator whose primary missions had been to sow dissent and destabilize, to enable resistance and generally cause chaos, some openly as U.S. military but most from the darkness behind the curtain. It exposed the opportunity that a private mercenary company could have. But he took it a step further. Most of the mercs out in the world were small outfits. Limited Strike teams that expanded their personnel only if the job required it, hiring whoever they needed for a temporary job, but keeping only a core group of twenty or less as a permanent group. There were thousands of floaters out there, former agents or soldiers with no particular loyalty or morality. About half were in the business of selling information back to their former masters. After all, if you could get paid twice for the same amount of work, why not? And thanks to Ulster’s former job, he knew almost all of them. Almost all of them were men, and some women, who couldn’t bear a life of normalcy, of civilian laziness. It was an addiction to adrenaline, to danger, to challenge and pitting their skills against something bigger than whether to eat pork chops or meatloaf for dinner that night. Deadlines, the dance of evasion or escape and knowing the secrets of the world was far more seductive than mowing your lawn and going to the mall later. It took an immense amount of focus and determination to leave that world behind. The success rate for reintegration was about 50% and entirely dependent on the personality. Ulster was fortunate that he woke up and realized that his family was more important than what he did for work. He wasn’t sure exactly when his job became his priority, but Heather leaving him and taking the kids terrified him far more than facing down an enemy. So he changed. If he had to pick one thing that separated those who could leave the life of excitement and danger, and those who couldn’t, it was that the successful ones found something else they couldn’t afford to lose, something far more important. So he founded International Conflict Resources with most of the loose money he’d stashed away from various missions over twelve years. He was surprised to find out it all came to roughly 15 million U.S. once it was converted. The thing about warlords, political tools, and petty regional thugs was that they loved having money laying around, as if bricks and stacks of it made them feel good when they looked at it. Or they were afraid if they let it too far away from them it would be stolen. It was a strange psychological reaction but there was a reason for it: Organization independence when the regional banking system was easily utilized by other agencies to discover, manipulate, or cripple your limited organization. Loose money was a protection against being frozen. And it was a Plan B if everything fell apart. They could run and hide and use that money to start again. However, as in all other things, these limited organizations always believed they found a clever way to hide when in fact they were just using a method that organizations had used for hundreds of years, methods that governments and agencies were well prepared for. Money laundering, shell entities, distributed caches, non-active players acting as holders (some of them legitimate), all of them easily tracked and mapped out. And while the U.S. either seized or turned over to local governments the ‘official’ money, the loose money wasn’t significant enough to worry about and whichever team managed to find it could keep it as a bonus. Most of that fell into the ‘personal stockpile’ category of specific players and amounted to less than 100K. If you brought it into the US all you needed was an identifier to register it as foreign earnings so the IRS could send you a tax bill. Those identifiers came with the contract package as a standard perq. Ulster had taken a page from the organizations he’d taken down over the years and left his cut in distributed caches, accounts or businesses all over the world. When he began doing it he didn’t have a specific plan other than a nice retirement nest egg. It wouldn’t do to put that money to use while he was still working and his family enjoyed a comfortable middle class income provided by his legitimate employment. It was only when he cycled out of his action team and officially ‘retired’ that he established International Conflict Resources. He started small. Just himself and one guy from his former team hiring out as ‘advisors’ on carefully chosen operations for the US government. Over the last four years they’d grown into a respectable mercenary outfit that provided a full range of services from basic security contracts to small incursions and raids. He was the first one to approach newly separated operators and peak specialities soldiers to recruit for his growing organization thanks to his former handler feeding him potential recruits. He had placement for each of the psychological types - those who wanted to stay domestic and out of the fight, those who couldn’t mentally leave the fight behind, those who were geared more to support and logistics, those who were masters of infiltration and intel gathering, and more. Brickmann was one of the latter types. He loved the mental chess match of infiltration and was impressive in his ability to remake himself into any type of character. But it was his uncanny ability to figure out what his target needed and slide into that role that proved his worth. If there was anyone that could get inside the Montelongo kid’s head, it was him. Knowing Brickmann, he’d play it blind. This wasn’t life or death so he’d forego the standard background intel on the subject. Brickmann said ‘reactions, questions, casual conversations are all more natural if you don’t know.’ Again, that was part of Brickmann’s gift. Ulster knew Brickmann would think it too easy to gain the trust of the Montelongo kid if he had a file on him first. There were a few other standouts in the first group Collins had sent here. The one they called Weeble was a surprise and Ulster intended to push him as far along the path as he could because the kid had potential. Initiative and motivation, a refusal to quit, determination and a quiet strength all hidden by that meek, willing personality. The way he’d dealt with his abandonment checked off a lot of boxes. How he’d fought through his Whisperman ordeal checked off others. And then there was his interaction with Ulster himself. The kid didn’t whine, didn’t complain, made split second decisions and didn’t look back. He dedicated himself to the mission and went beyond expectations. That kind of drive and determination, the fight beyond his abilities, the confidence in his actions couldn’t be taught. That came from a history of overcoming obstacles and created character that bled off into others that surrounded him. The sexual episode, while fun, was a test he’d passed with flying colors. Not the way he submitted himself, but afterwards when the kid maintained his focus and moved forward without the episode having a single effect. That kind of absolute compartmentalization was an unusual and valuable trait. Ulster wrote out a list of the notables and assigned handlers from his available men. The rest would get group training as a class. When he finished, he was slightly surprised that his list was as long as it was. For the hundredth time in the last two days he wondered what Collins was doing with these kids. Ordinarily there might have been two, maybe three standouts in a normal Infantry Platoon. The quality he was seeing in these troops hinted that Collins had selected each of them specifically. He also suspected that Brickmann’s nephew played a large part in who these troops were. One of the benefits of effective leadership was that it elevated subordinates and wouldn’t allow mediocrity to endure. He could quote the historical military tactician that paraphrased but he had to get moving and his mind was busy making a plan. *********************** “BENNETT!” Brickmann yelled as he climbed the stairs inside the command center. He passed Fazzini as he walked up. “Grab Decker.” He told Fazzini. Fazzini grinned with a squint of his impossibly light blue eyes before hurrying down the stairs. Once Brickmann entered the top floor with windows that overlooked the still dark compound he saw Bennett sitting at the security desk, looking at the monitors that had various video feeds. “What do you want, Ivan?” Bennett replied in a deep impatient voice without even giving him the courtesy of looking at him. Ivan crossed his arms and planted his feet. “I want to kick your ass you piece of shit.” Bennett stood up and inflated his impressive size. Now he did grace Ivan with a look. A mean, challenging look. “Fuck off. You mad I fucked your nephew?” Bennett spat with a snide smirk. Bennett was a large man. Bearded even though he still kept his black hair cut in a military fade, he looked like a pro wrestler complete with that slightly insane glint in his dark eyes. The beard was cut in a Spartan style, shorter and straight on the sides of the jaw, but longer on the chin to create an even point. He’d be handsome if it wasn’t for the big nose that had obviously been broken more than a couple times in the past. Crooked and with a thick knot halfway up the length said the man had refused to have it fixed. He had a heavy brow and prominent cheekbones he kept free of beard growth. Bennett liked to think of himself as a real tough guy. He kept in shape and loved to use his size to intimidate. There was only one way to deal with a man that stood three inches taller and 50 pounds heavier. Ivan’s foot flashed out faster than Bennett could react and slammed into his crotch with every ounce of brutal force he could impart. Right in the nuts. If you went for that move, you had to give it everything. But he gave props to Bennett for not vomiting. A lesser man would have emptied his stomach. Bennett collapsed with a grunt of pain. That never got old. He gasped while trying to steady himself on his hands and knees. One good knee to the side of Bennett’s head finished the job to send him reeling over onto his side, curled up into a ball. Fazzini and Decker arrived a few seconds after. “Put him over the desk.” Brickmann said. They yanked Bennett up and threw him face down over the desk. He grabbed the waistband of Bennett’s trousers and pulled with a full powered heave as the fabric ripped and exposed the sturdy oversized meat of his bare, hairy ass. He began to struggle but an uppercut between his legs right into his already sore balls put a stop to that. “Behave yourself boy. You’ve already lost.” Ivan spat. “Fuck you, pussy.” Bennett managed. That made Ivan grin. “We’ll see who’s the pussy here.” Going in dry wasn’t easy. It was painful on your dick, but the trick was to work it in slowly. Bennett thrashed on the desk, held down by Fazzini and Decker, which made it even more of a challenge so Ivan punched his fist down into Bennett’s mouth, splitting his lip and sending blood dripping onto the desk. “Look at you, first blood. Not so tough now, are you?” Bennett’s only response was to grunt in pain as the head of Ivan’s impressive dick popped through his outer ring. His legs seized up and he clenched down in reflex. “Relax, or I’ll break your nose, boy.” Ivan growled, punching the bigger man in the right kidney. “No. I’m gonna break your dick off.” Bennett promised. “Fine.” Ivan said with no inflection, managing to get a little more dick forced inside before slamming his palm down right beside Bennett’s nose, causing a gush of blood to join the small pool already on the desk from his split lip. They were all breathing heavily, Fazzini and Decker having to use all their weight to keep Bennett pinned, Bennett fighting with all he had against the weight of the three of them, and Ivan keeping up the pressure of forcing himself inside this beast dry while beating down with his fists. Bennett was no easy victim but this was going to get done. And finally, Ivan’s hips were pressed firmly up against Bennett’s hairy cheeks. Still, his big meaty ass meant Ivan was only halfway planted. Big round muscle asses were great to look at, but the hole was buried deeper than your average man. He reached down and grabbed the torn fabric of Bennett’s trousers and ripped the right leg further until he could free Bennett’s knee to pull it up onto the desk, spreading his ass enough to push all the way in. “Aaaaahhh, fuck!” Bennett gasped wetly through the blood. “That’s right, it’s a fuck. That’s what happens to Beta bitches. Just what you deserve, getting dicked down by better men than you.” Ivan grunted while he gave a few short thrusts which drew out some fresh mucous from Bennett’s abraded hole. Irritate any mucous membrane and the automatic response of the body was to produce the slimy fluid meant to flush the foreign object or material out. And assholes worked just like the nose and mouth even if there was less fluid expelled. Bennett took the opportunity to buck, trying to get his right leg back down. Ivan pulled out completely and gave Bennett another punch to the balls before sliding his belt off in less than a second. He jammed his cock back in to the hilt accompanies by Bennett’s squeal of pain, then looped the belt around Bennett’s knee while he was momentarily incapacitated and pushing it into the handle of the drawer just below, securing it tightly. “Now we rock and roll. You’re weak. You’re nothing next to a real man. Can’t even fight back because you know this is where you belong, face down with a dick in your ass being beaten by an Alpha that’s older and tougher.” Ivan picked up the pace, thrusting hard and deep into Bennett’s warm, tight hole. The legs of the desk were giving out a squeak with every push, matching the grunts of pain from Bennett. “Stop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Bennett’s tone had changed. “Please don’t, please stop.” His words were quiet and held none of the snide challenge from earlier. “Stop what?” Ivan ordered. “I’m pathetic. I’m so weak. You’re stronger. Please stop hitting me, sir.” Bennett pleaded. Ivan pulled out and stood back. He saw Bennett’s big body deflate, watched as his brutalized hairy asshole clenched and unclenched trying to adjust to the punishment, his full, trunk like thighs spread wide. Ivan signaled Fazzini and Decker who slowly took their weight off Bennett’s shoulders. Bennett didn’t move and lay there breathing hard. He was a picture, that was for sure. One leg cocked up and tied, his ass spread wide, his other leg not even trying to bear his weight. He remained in position. Ivan moved forward again, grabbing the two meaty globes of Bennett’s ass and pulling them further apart. He spat on Bennett’s tightly puckered hole and pushed the head of his hard cock against it. “You gonna be a good boy now?” “Yes, sir. I’m a good boy.” Bennett said in a childlike voice. “Yes, you are. Such a good boy.” Ivan repeated sweetly, reaching out a hand to stroke down the back of Bennett’s head as he slowly re-entered the big man. He noticed his left knee throbbing slightly from when he’d slammed it into Bennett’s hard skull earlier. Not as young as he used to be, and he hated the reminder. Bennett’s groan was one of whimpering pleasure now as he sunk the length of his thick cock inside the younger man. The Brickmann clan men were all gifted with above average equipment and he knew how perfectly it stretched a willing hole, whether that was ass or pussy. That was Bennett’s hidden need, the key to who he was. He responded to overwhelming dominance. Overwhelming. He couldn’t submit himself, as much as he really wanted to, without force. Inside, Bennett was desperate for validation from superior men. Ivan had met his type before, those who were too masculine, out to constantly prove how much better they were than all the other little men around them that they considered less masculine and competent. Strutting around with a chip on their shoulder, daring any confrontation. Derisive smirks on their lips, a glint of violence in their eyes. But given the right circumstances, that bravado melted into a soft pile of willing and compliant puppy dog who loved to serve. If the world proved anything, it was that even if you considered yourself an Alpha, there was always a bigger, badder Alpha out there. And Ultimate Alphas saw boys like Bennett as amusing little chihuahuas that barked and barked, nipped at their ankles, but easy enough to put in their place. The first Ultimate Alpha that taught the puppy that lesson had them for life if they chose. But true Alphas were made for hunting, so owning someone like Bennett wasn’t a goal for Ivan, and owning Bennett would not help him grow. That didn’t mean Bennett didn’t look at him and Ulster as his Alphas, which he always would. It was ingrained in his very soul now. If Ivan had just walked in and snapped his fingers Bennett would have removed his trousers and bent over the desk without a word. But Ivan knew how to keep Bennett on the leash, and that was to dominate him with brutality first. It was all about the trigger. And by continuing to demonstrate dominance before rewarding him as a good boy, it ensured Bennett would never just roll over for anyone and would eventually grow beyond the sub-Alpha stage. Oh, he might still find some big strong way too good looking beast to give it to him good, but that wouldn’t have anything to do with his authority or self image. And it was Brickmann’s duty as his Alpha to help him grow to that point. Ulster had given him the task. And he would fulfill it. They both had high hopes for the young wolf. Ivan didn’t enjoy the rough part, no true Alpha did, but it was what Bennett needed the most, almost more than the tender part afterwards. The rough part was what allowed him to let go, to let himself be dominated and commanded, but only by someone stronger that he accepted as an Alpha. Bennett was still young, at 31. Hopefully he could reconcile these two opposites inside himself eventually. He’d never become an Ultimate Alpha until he did. Ivan scowled. ICS wasn’t some perverted grooming outfit for guys to get their kicks with other guys. But there were many types of men, and men like Bennett had a specific need, and without that he’d act out. It was why the man had only barely made it to the end of his second enlistment. Competence could only cover for so much acting out. Ulster had recognized his belligerence immediately and had set Ivan the task of dissecting the man. And if a beat down and a fuck was what squared the beast away, that was what he would be trained with until he grew beyond such basic levels. Ivan wasn’t even sure how much he believed in the whole Alpha concept, but Bennett did. The boy needed strong leadership to bring out his best. And to him, submitting himself to another proven stronger male was how it happened. For now. Ivan hoped he didn’t have to keep fucking Bennett for much longer. It was losing its allure. Ivan did his duty in letting Bennett provide him pleasure and gradually worked himself up to orgasm by pounding Bennett’s ass as hard as he could. The desk had moved a foot, and he’d have to slow it down so the monitors didn’t come unplugged. Another crucial aspect of this side of Bennett was knowing he’d pleased a man he looked up to. So Ivan had to finish. Sure, it wasn’t an unpleasant duty and Ivan Brickmann enjoyed it, having this big, mean beast submissive to him, so he made certain he used his prime, grade A ass to maximum effect while Bennett moaned with grateful pleasure beneath him. The big dark haired man hadn’t moved an inch from the position they’d left him in when they released him. He truly was a good boy. There was something heady and serotonin inducing to submit a specimen like Bennett. “Oooh, yeah, you’re going to make me cum boy. Do you want me to cum?” Ivan moaned, keeping to the script. “Yes, sir. I want you to cum so bad. Please? I promise I’ll be good.” Bennett whimpered. The sincere and desperate need in Bennett’s voice brought Ivan to the brink, and he stopped right at the edge. When the feeling began to wane, he stroked a couple more times. He reached the brink again, feeling a small spurt of ejaculate leak out inside Bennett’s muscular, gripping hole. He paused, letting the moment back off, squeezing down, and even slower he thrust in before stopping again. It was building, and would reach the point of being unable to stop his orgasm regardless of what he did or didn’t do. Just the barest movement kept bringing him to the edge. He moved painfully slow, reveling in the wet rub of Bennett’s guts keeping him balanced on the knife edge. “Please…”. Bennett whined with a weak, trembling voice. That did it, it was happening. The flush of pleasure that started in his throat, spread across his chest and straight down his stomach to…not his dick, but under his dick, beneath it, just before exploding up from the base of his balls. He almost painfully pulled back and then sunk back into the warmth as his dick jerked and twitched with every thick ropey spurt of hot jizz spraying out in an almost continuous pour of molten seed. Character roles were one thing, but he was still a man fucking something wet, tight, and warm. Nature takes over at some point. “Oh fuck, oh my fucking God, oh holy fucking shit, oh shit…”. Ivan gasped as the powerful orgasm shook him from foot to eyeballs. The type of nutting that made your entire body spasm and lose control. The repeated flexing of every fiber in his dick was undeniable and uninterrupted, spewing forth more and more cum as if suctioning it right out of his balls in a way that made them ache so good. “Yes, give it to me, sir. Yes sir. Yes sir. I’m a good boy.” Bennett matched him with every uttered phrase. This was the moment of his greatest validation. He’d satisfied a superior male, gave him pleasure and accomplished his purpose. Ivan tried to catch his breath while remaining fully inside the younger man’s willing and receptive ass. “Good boy. Very good boy.” Ivan breathed, giving himself time to pull himself together. Bennett didn’t squeeze down on his dick. He wouldn’t do anything without Harris’ command. He withdrew his softening dick, which was a sign of having the best, most intense orgasm. A regular orgasm wouldn’t make him go soft and he often found himself continuing to fuck for a second orgasm, or a third. He sighed. That was the irony of life. The type of nut that made you cum the hardest also ensured you couldn’t do that again in any decent amount of time no matter how much you wanted to feel that soul shaking release a second time. While the average ones you could repeat many times in the course of a couple hours. It was almost as if your nervous system’s goal was to expel the full amount of your seed one way or another - either through one violent and explosive massive detonation, or through multiple lesser small caliber munitions deliveries. Bennett obediently remained in the same position. Ivan buttoned up his trousers and automatically went to secure his belt before he remembered it was strapping Bennett’s leg down. He moved to the side of the desk and knelt down to look Bennett in the eye. His nose had stopped bleeding, as had his split lip. He was going to have a black eye. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d have to walk around for a week with a bruised up face, and everyone was going to know how he got that way. Bennett didn’t get beat up except for one specific way. And many were the men who thought they could do the job only to have Bennett’s mark on their faces instead. Lucky for them, Bennett didn’t do anything beyond teach them a lesson with his fists for over-estimating their ability to dominate him. And if there was one thing Bennett loved more than getting fucked by an Alpha male, it was beating the shit out of lesser men who were beneath him. Because of that, he didn’t discourage his male suitors. As long as they could take him down, they could have the prize, but if they couldn’t he would have plenty of fun banging them up and unconscious, which for someone with Bennett’s talents meant they didn’t pass out until he wanted them to pass out. There was a betting pool in ICR for who could take the longest beating, who managed to get the prize (which was now up to a whopping $8000 and had remained unclaimed for a year now, the last guy some insanely stacked Israeli Shayetet who Bennett insulted one too many times, trying to push him to prove it. Bennett smiled for a week after, and that was fucking weird as shit seeing him smile like that with half his face distorted from his beat down), and a pool for who had the most attempts. Again, Bennett knew about the betting pool and supported it. He wasn’t trying to chase anyone away. They just had to earn it. Of course, Ivan didn’t participate, it wouldn’t be fair as he’d already claimed the prize many times, usually when Bennett completed a job particularly well. As Bennett’s Alpha it was his right and duty. And after testing his nephew to the ultimate limit, Bennett deserved his reward. Tom would be better because of what Bennett had done. Decker moved up behind Bennett, his own reward for his participating in the fight. No, Decker and Fazzini wouldn’t qualify for the pool, being helpers didn’t count. Now that the big 6’3” hairy muscle boy was freshly fucked there wasn’t any difficulty sliding his own average sized cock up inside using Harris’ cum as lube. Still tight and incredibly warm, Decker began pounding. “Make it good, Decker. Hard and fast, like he likes it.” Ivan directed. If Bennett got the sense you weren’t fucking him like a real man should fuck, you’d lose out and he’d come out of his docile submission and you’d have to fight him down again. And Fazzini and Decker weren’t up to taking Bennett down on their own, even if his pants were ripped open and he had one eye swelling shut. “I know that, Brickmann. Shut the fuck up while I jam my dick in this bitch.” Decker growled, almost overplaying it. But the violent balls deep thrusts he shoved into Bennett’s jiggling meaty ass did enough to keep the angry rhino asleep. It was good that he didn’t linger and emptied his own nuts into the young muscle boy in quick order before giving up his place to Fazzini. As long as the train kept running, Bennett would stay in his good boy persona. While he was docile, anyone his Alpha gave him to could do what they liked. Ivan took the opportunity to look in Bennett’s dark brown eyes. “Hey there good boy. You did good with the kid in lockdown. I’m proud of you.” He said, stroking Bennett’s forehead. Bennett smiled as his face slid through the blood on the desktop with every one of Fazzini’s jabbing thrusts. “Thank you sir. I could bleed him without incapacitating him if you want. It wouldn’t damage him too much.” The eager offer made Ivan smile back. He sounded like a kid offering to get his father a beer and his favorite slippers. “Ulster will decide. The kid will be an Alpha, so target what you do with that goal in mind. I’m headed out, so be a good boy while I’m gone, okay?” Bennett nodded without breaking eye contact just as Fazzini came in his ass with a few low grunts. “Yes, sir. I’ll be a good boy. I’m always a good boy.” Brickmann gave him a pat on his head. “Yes you are. A very good boy.” He stood up and told Decker “Cover the desk while Bennett gets himself cleaned up.” After retrieving his belt and releasing the big man, he followed Bennett down the stairs, who walked with head held high and shoulders back in spite of his ass hanging bare with the shredded ruins of his trousers flopping loose. Several of the men turned to look, then resumed what they were doing without batting an eye as he and Bennett walked past on the main level. The state of Bennett’s face, and his big meaty ass exposed told them everything they needed to know. And they knew better than to give any indication of it or they would face a lesson from Bennett who would beat them to a pulp even if a river of jizz was sliding down his hairy hamstrings. Only after Bennett descended on the lift did it occur to Ivan that Bennett uncharacteristically wasn’t wearing underwear. A chuckle escaped his lips. Bennett was definitely a very good boy. He had been looking forward to Ivan’s visit. Now, he had to collect the Montelongo kid and be on his way. Shower first though, then load him up like a pack mule from the equipment in the bunker. He had a lot to learn.

Thanks man. Yeah, the stuff you DON’T see coming is the fun stuff.

I hope so! Thanks. It was 80% done three weeks ago, but I needed to decide which direction to take the part from when Lamont is brought in.

Battle Buddies Chapter 26 “Conclusions?” Major Collins asked after Potter finished his debrief. He took some time to think. Most of it he already put together while he and Battles trekked back to their camp. “The Bravos’ strategy was effective for this target, but only because the size of the compound was manageable for a single Platoon. Leaving a rear guard of several squads kept their enemy from converging again, then allowed their forward elements to focus on breaking through. Casualties were minimized for the attacking force, and enough defense troops were neutralized that focusing entirely on their objective was possible. I think it would have gone differently if weapons were used. The lack of cover on approach would have made it a slaughter without another attacking force drawing the defense away from entry points. Also, weapons would have brought the rooftops into play allowing better coordination of the defense as well as domination of the entire battlefield. The Bravos would have had to engage at a distance, at least initially, slowing the pace of the battle considerably, and allowing the defenders more time to modify their plan on the fly. The chaos after initial contact and separation of the defense forces worked against the Charlies. It appeared as if the Charlies didn’t have a secondary plan in place if initial contact didn’t proceed as expected. They were unprepared, too confident in the superior position their fortified defense provided, too reliant on having the time and ability to pass battlefield orders.” Major Collins gave a short negative shake of his head. “You think. Suppositions and conjecture have no place in your information. If you aren’t sure, it doesn’t make it into your report. If more weapons were a factor, or their application, then relate that in a decisive way.” But then he nodded. “Knowing all this, what would you change about the Charlies’ decisions?” Battles spoke up first. “There was no reason they should have let the Bravos dictate dividing up the defense into smaller groups. They were already surrounded. That was the mistake, not anything that happened after.” Potter looked at his friend. “That was the scenario, the conditions of the drill. You can’t change that.” Battles shrugged. “Why not? The Charlies had the intel that an attack was imminent hours before engagement. The drill started then, not when contact was made. They allowed their enemy to surround them, gave them ground without putting a plan in place to compromise that advantage. That was fucking stupid. No one told them to allow themselves to be surrounded. The conditions of the exercise said there would be an attack on the compound and to prepare a defense. That was it. Their defense plan could have started right that minute. They could have sent up to half their forces out of the compound long before the Bravos converged and forced the Bravos to face a pincer or deal with the flanking force first. I sure wouldn’t leave an enemy at my back. Instead, the Charlies probably thought they’d been given a gift of hours to develop a plan of defense. And they squandered it by doing nothing while they waited for the enemy to come to them.” “And how would acting sooner have changed the outcome?” Major Collins asked. “The Bravos wouldn’t have had the forces to surround the compound, leaving the Charlies a path for retreat or reinforcement at the very least.” Battles said. “And the Bravos’ ability to penetrate to the objective would be in serious doubt without that additional manpower because they would have had to choose one or two attack vectors instead of a perimeter wide simultaneous attack.” Major Collins once again relaxed to recline his beefy body back against his pack. “Excellent breakdown. Your information gathering and surveillance of the battlefield was well done, the progression of the attack was conveyed in clear, concise way, your evaluations and conclusions are well supported. But you’ve failed. Tell me why.” Potter scowled. His eyes darted over the mock compound made out of rocks and pine cones on the ground. He looked at Battles who was also scowling. He didn’t speak. He didn’t want to say anything wrong. The Major grunted. “Nothing?” He paused for an answer. “Alright. Get some sleep. I have another mission for you in a few hours.” ****************** WEEBLE He knew he should return to the hidden lair where Mole was waiting, but he wanted to watch at least the start of the exercise. Part of him was excited to tell Mole what he’d discovered. The other part wanted to be with his brothers. He felt kinda good that he was able to sneak up on Sleeper and scare him. Ordinarily he wouldn’t be that good, but Sleeper’s distraction made it way easier than it should have been. Maybe that’s part of it. He thought to himself. Inattention and distraction of the enemy. He resolved to ask Mole. Oh! I just ‘bout did it to myself! Whisperman was still out here. Yeah that would suck, getting knifed while patting yourself on the back for how awesome you were at sneakin around. He found a relatively concealed position that covered his back so he could watch the battle for the compound. He settled into a nice little pine straw and leaf mound. He didn’t have long to wait, less than ten seconds, before the sharp POP POP POP of weapons fire broke the night. Small caliber, his ear told him, maybe a .22, definitely a sidearm. He wore the night vision optics that he’d stolen from the underground warehouse, but they were tilted up on his forehead and inactive. In Germany the Bravos had a week of night operations instruction which included basic familiarity with night vision gear. Before then he thought all Infantry had access to whatever special gear was available but that assumption was destroyed when he found out no one in the Bravos had training in their use either. It turned out all that fancy stuff you saw in the movies was only available to special units. Most of the reason was money. Regular Infantry didn’t get no secret missions deep in enemy territory surrounded by jungles and crazy stuff. You got the gear for the job you had. And sometimes, you didn’t even get all that and had to fight without it. As Sarge said, the Army expected you to fight with a gun and your boots, and anything else was a luxury. From the small rise he occupied, he could see a good portion of the perimeter and watched as multiple teams of Bravos ran forward to where matching teams of Charlies waited in hidden positions. But not all the Bravo teams moved initially, holding back for a secondary assault. It felt strange watching it all happen from a distance. He knew just by how they moved who was who, saw Zeus’ huge form and Sleeper’s only slightly less huge form run towards the buildings. Across the compound he saw Troll, Olympic and Footlong running, and not far away from them was Eagle and Chunk. He didn’t think that team was gonna get anywhere, Eagle didn’t see much point in giving maximum effort most of the time. He did alright, but you could tell he thought being a grunt wasn’t good enough for him. And without good support, poor Chunk was going down too. Silent, AF and Cellblock ran fast, two forward one rear, on another vector. He chuffed with humor, thinking ‘vector’ wasn’t a word he’d ever thought he’d use, but damned if it didn’t just worm its way into his brain after all his training and instruction. Dimples and Alaska matched the speed of the others and Weeble felt a moment of pride that even though no one was near the others, they moved as a synchronized unit perfectly timed for simultaneous contact. Maybe it was an accident, or coincidence. Another word he felt stupid using - coincidence. It meant the same as accident only fancy. And then the lights went out. He scrambled to flip his optics down and switch them on. It was all dark, he couldn’t see nothin’. Damn things were useless! Batteries dead or somethin’. Well, he needed to get back to Mole anyway. He flipped the optics back up and retreated from his position with slow, deliberate movements. He didn’t question the spark of danger that jolted him to action, diving to his left in a shoulder roll that brought him back to his feet in two seconds. “Not bad. But you still let us sneak up on you, little puppy.” The coarse gravel of Whisperman’s voice sent a chill through him. He knew Mole was watching from his hideout fifteen yards away. His makeshift ghillie was now ruined from his frantic dive. Mole wasn’t going to save him, not that it was necessary since he now knew Mole and Whisperman worked together. Whisperman wasn’t going to kill him. But another cut wasn’t out of the question. For the first time he was able to see the Whisperman. Not the man himself, but his rough figure. No wonder Weeble had never caught him. He looked like one of those bushes with the tiny leaves that were everywhere here in the woods. His camouflage was complete. How many hours did it take him to do that? “Get your night eyes back in position, little puppy.” Whisperman continued. “This time, try flipping open the lens cover.” GodDAMMIT! Lens cover. So that daylight or bright lights didn’t fry the electronics. He smashed the feeling of being stupid down as he repositioned the optics and opened the cover, revealing the details of the night in shades of eerie green. Another GODDAMMIT went through his head as he realized Whisperman had been watching him for longer than he’d realized if he saw him messin’ with his optics. “We’re exposed up here. Why are you in the open, Hammer?” Mole’s calm voice from behind Weeble, startling him even more. “They aren’t looking at the woods, Mole. You don’t need to protect your little pet, I’m not gonna hurt him. Much. Got my own pet now.” Whisperman replied. Weeble saw Bootlicker crouching behind Whisperman. He didn’t look like he was a prisoner. And he didn’t look hurt, which sent a wave of relief coursing through Weeble’s chest. Weeble chanced taking his eyes off Whisperman for a split second to glance back at Mole. He was squatting so that his profile didn’t appear above the rise that looked down upon the compound. “We need to go home. Can’t do anything while the mice are scurrying. Weeble’s got intel for us, I’m sure.” Mole said in a slow, bored tone. Weeble locked eyes with Bootlicker even though Bootlicker wasn’t exactly focused on him because he didn’t have no optics. A satisfied thrill went through him, at the thought he pulled a Bootlicker when Bootlicker himself hadn’t. “Yeah, let’s go home. Got lots to tell ya.” Weeble said, his smug grin bleeding through to his voice. He didn’t know where home was, but Bootlicker didn’t know that either, now did he? He saw Bootlicker’s arm flick and the knife flew to thud between his feet before his mind registered that his brother just threw a knife at him. Filled with confidence, Weeble bent down and pulled the knife out of the dirt. “Thanks Bootlicker! Can always use another one.” He said, putting the knife inside his blouse. The look on Bootlicker’s face was priceless. He still didn’t get it that Weeble could see everything with his optics, even the puzzled shock on his face. “Let’s go.” Mole said. Weeble didn’t even stop to think that he’d turned his back on Whisperman without a single fear until he’d followed Mole for a good ten steps. Yeah, fuck you, sicko. You and Bootlicker are better together. He didn’t stop grinning the whole way home. And every time his instincts told him to move, he skipped or hopped ahead without looking back. That fucker wasn’t gonna take another notch out of him, let him bleed Bootlicker for a while. ***************************** BOOTLICKER What had gotten into Weeble? That knife should have made him squeal and jump. And the confidence in his voice? Bootlicker was just messing with him, trying to show off for Hammer, and Weeble was close enough for Bootlicker to feel like he could get the knife to sink right between the little guy’s feet, even in the dark. They weren’t that far apart so he felt like his practice would pay off. And he executed it perfectly. Besides, real world situations were best to internalize a skill. He nailed it. But Weeble hadn’t even moved. Not a flinch or gasp of surprise. And his ridiculous camouflage. Nothing like Hammer’s, who looked like a shrub. Weeble was just covered with forest garbage. He looked like a pile of crap the wind had blown up against some rock during a storm. Still, in the dark like they were, he knew if Weeble went to ground he’d have to step on him to know he was there. He’d have to try it out, to see if he could hide like that. His foot crunched a dead stick in the path and he immediately felt a sting on his ear. “You better pay attention, recruit. I lo-o-ove teaching lessons.” Hammer grated. “Whatever you got in your head, get rid of it. There’s ONE thing you think about now, and that’s where you put your feet. The next one will really hurt, and I will enjoy it twice as much.” Two flicks later, and one shallow stab to the hip and they finally reached a hole in the ground covered by a leaf strewn tarp. It didn’t escape his notice that every time Hammer stepped forward to give a knife flick to Weeble, his brother somehow took an extra step, a little faster, and Hammer missed. Weeble didn’t even look back. It looked like Hammer just picked the wrong moment. Bootlicker felt like his skills were falling behind, and that didn’t feel good at all. Pay attention. He thought to himself. ************************* ASSMUNCH He was too tired, beaten, and sore to care when the ape came through the door for the fourth time and grabbed him off his cot. “Stand up.” Like hell. He was going to get a beating no matter what level of cooperation he gave. He no longer cared. After the first time, the ape hadn’t beaten his face and he felt like maybe the swelling had gone down a little. Small mercies. Through each ordeal, it was thoughts of Kevin, of his dad, Tim, and his mom that kept him going, taking his mind away enough to push the punishment to his body far enough away that he could ignore it. He knew it was possible he was having a psychotic break with reality, but again he couldn’t bring himself to care. The second time, after they’d let him sleep for a bit, he’d done as the ape asked only to get a knee to the groin and a bone shaking fist to the ribs. After that, the ape strung him up to hang from a suspicious hook in the concrete ceiling to continue his beating. The worst part? The ape didn’t talk. Just used him as a punching bag. Then when he’d had enough, or the ape got bored, he would be released and the other guy, the interrogator, would enter and ask him his questions. “What has Collins tasked you with? I know you have a mission. What is it?” He didn’t answer the man. After the second beating he learned that saying anything, even a sarcastic response, just weakened his resistance. “What were you sent here to learn?” The question was one he’d already answered, and he’d answered honestly. So this time he began making the outside world disappear. Part of it was the need to mentally escape. Did people have psychotic breaks on purpose? He’d always thought it happened subconsciously but he was deliberately seeking it out. Was it an actual psychotic break when you were in control of it? Reality was whatever you decided it was. The more you believed something mattered, the more real it became. If you viewed something as a barrier that’s how it solidified in your mind. A speed bump could become a mental wall. And if you could decide to manifest a barrier, couldn’t you also decide the opposite? The power was his to decide. He felt a soothing rush of calm quiet descend inside him with the realization. His pain was only a state of physical being. He didn’t have to tie his mind to his body, they could be separated exactly how he separated himself from reality in the place where there was no him. Wasn’t that what he did when he went to that place? He forgot his body existed? And he could decide what to let in, what to ignore, what to perceive and in what amount. It wasn’t an all or nothing question. It was a matter of degrees, a spectrum. In the darkness of his mind, he let what his ears heard penetrate the emptiness. “—— don’t tell me, you aren’t leaving me many options.” The man said. He spoke of options. Another lie. The man’s options weren’t options for him. Their goals were not the same. The clarity he felt at this moment focused his thoughts in a way he’d never thought they could be. With clarity came simplicity. Unrelated concerns were discarded. Pain was one of those things. His current situation was another. Neither affected what he had to do. That was the gift of simplicity. Complicated nuances, grey areas, even factual distinctions could be discarded. Those considerations were intended to cloud the basic nature of the proposition, to obfuscate choice and steer the mind. To argue was to accept that there was an opposing viewpoint but that in itself was a dilution of simplicity. If you were certain and held surety, no other viewpoints could exist. There were few things in life so foundational as who he was, his sense of self. Regardless of the man’s questions, the concept of simplicity revealed he wanted Andrew to betray who he was. His answers didn’t matter. Facts didn’t matter. Intel didn’t matter. There was just one purpose to his entire ordeal - pushing him over the threshold of betrayal. Telling the man about the Bravos, how they functioned, their training, their individual skills was a line he wouldn’t cross. The remainder of what the man said was lost in unintelligible sounds that his ears refused entrance. Interaction was no longer useful. The man said the same things he’d said from the beginning without exception. His words provided nothing and did not improve Andrew’s situation. He’d already learned the most important lesson: known, experienced pain was seductive. Maybe it was just his own unusual approach to pain, but he found himself far more interested in how different types of pain had different ‘flavors’. There were spikes that flared then receded. There was a lingering, burning pain. Aching throbs, deep searing pain that was blindingly white in his mind. Crippling pain where you couldn’t use your muscles. Pain that sunk inside your bones and spread like an infection. Some stayed, some left, some built and swelled, others gradually weakened into nuisances. And so many more kinds. Each of them came from a unique place and affected a limited and specific aspect of his mind. It became clear that for every type and level he experienced more possibilities existed that he wasn’t subjected to. Nothing during this process instilled fear in him until that realization. The Ape was being careful. No bones were broken. No injuries given that he couldn’t recover from. And that made him afraid because he found himself wanting to know and categorize what those kinds of bigger pain were. He felt the need pulling at him. Seductive. Well, he couldn’t feel any of it if he kept himself separated. He would have to rejoin reality. Experiencing his beatings fully felt like a necessary rite of passage. It had become obvious he could endure them so what was he avoiding it for? Prize fighting boxers didn’t retreat. Cage fighters had to take some hits to deliver punishment of their own. Hiding in a corner was an acceptance of defeat, a surrender of weakness, a recognition that he couldn’t handle the reality of his situation. Turning away and refusing to confront his current impotence stole a critical piece of his manhood - his ability to stand resolute. The hours of ordeal cycled him through refusal, hatred, determination, acceptance, small windows of rational thought where he could reason out a purpose and the goals of his captors. No. They had done him a favor. The Place Where There Was No Him was not to be used to avoid reality, to escape and hide. It was a place of calm to center his mind which allowed him to better handle the world outside. It enhanced his mental state. Smothering himself gained him nothing. They couldn’t hurt him, not really. The threats were empty. He’d be dead already if that option was on the table. You don’t feed a dead guy. You don’t let a dead guy sleep. You drive him to the depths of despair and insanity before putting a bullet in the juicy mush of his skull. The road of torture was a one way express lane of ever more monstrous injuries until the mind was as broken as the body. And at that point, death had long been an eventuality. If a prisoner was important enough to systematically dismantle, he was too important to put back together again. He either needed to stay broken, or be disposed of. None of that was the method they’d used on him. In fact, they should already know he had no information. From that he could conclude this little production had another purpose. And there didn’t seem to be any real value for either the man or The Ape. The piece of him keeping track of the outside world registered his body once again being hung from the hook in the ceiling. Ah. He would have to chew on this puzzle later. For now, he needed to focus on the beautiful pain that came from his body being stretched out so that his prior injuries flared up. God, it felt like that first painful stretch the day after an intense and exhausting workout, when your muscles were weak and burning, tightened up in a near cramp and useless. The feeling of his muscles and flesh tearing, shredding… it was so fucking good, like the scald of a super hot shower. A slightly burning sharpness that expanded and contracted before settling into a dull warmth. A good flavor. Maybe he could do something to make the Ape angry. Yes. He almost smiled from the expectation of how much fun this was going to be. He restrained himself only because he wanted to use that smile to its greatest effect at the right moment in the future. There was another aspect to experiencing pain which made it deep or shallow. Foreknowledge. If you saw it coming, the anticipation reinforced the pain. Expectation added the imagined future pain to the actual present pain so you experienced almost twice the pain. For others, that was something undesirable. Andrew found himself wanting it. The booted kick to his shin wasn’t too forceful, but he lost all control of the muscles and nerves in his leg while the electrified impulses stormed like a chaotic stampede of bison. The way the pain bled away in tingling heat was regrettable but it needed to go away so he could feel the next strike. The Ape did know his business so Andrew knew he had a little time. The next strike would be somewhere else. That was part of the game as well - random locations, varying the force of the strike, alternating the timing. “Ooooof!” He gasped as the Ape jabbed his clustered fingertips into the soft and tender meat of his armpit like a snake attacking, then grabbed his lat muscle before that stabbing white electricity dissipated to dig his fingertips in and twist the lat. “Unnnngggghhhhh”. He laughed through the pain when he remembered something his dad used to say when they got hurt as kids - “Let me poke your other eye and you’ll forget all about how much the first one hurts.” Turns out dad was right. One pain did extinguish another, at least initially. He’d have to remember that. He lifted his leg to kick out at the Ape. He hadn’t made contact in any of his attempts yet, but it was a move that always resulted in the Ape getting a little more creative. “Oh! Still got some fight in ya.” He observed as he moved up close and grabbed Andrew around his neck with his left hand and squeezed his throat. Andrew felt his right hand loosening his belt before being jammed down the front of his trousers. He had to be going for the balls. “I didn’t realize this was a date.” Andrew managed to gasp out just before he felt the mans hand pass his balls to hook around underneath and Andrew croaked out a struggled inhalation past the squeezed hand on his neck as the Ape jammed two thick fingers all the way inside his ass. “Well if it wasn’t before, it sure is now, right sweetheart?” The Ape said just an inch from his face, staring into his eyes with an intense stare. If he hadn’t experienced Kevin’s fat dick tearing into him just last week right after his boyfriend had choked him out cold, the Ape might have succeeded in his expected surprise. As it was, Andrew just flashed back as a warm flush of pure pleasure converted all the pain into something that only heightened his need to be brutalized. He let his eyes roll back as his vision narrowed with the loss of oxygen as he tried to focus on the Ape’s fat fingers jabbing violently up inside him. “Between you and me, recruit” the Ape whispered into his face. “I’m going to get the most out of it when we go to level 2. Daddy’s dick is hungry for some grunt pussy.” He couldn’t have been out long, getting choked out is usually just a temporary unconsciousness primarily as a result of loss of blood flow to the brain. Once the blood is allowed to travel again, your brain wakes up pretty soon after. He had plenty of experience with it and the fuzzy first few seconds of coming to were always a special treat. Your brain woke up before your body did, the world expanded, and it took a couple seconds for your brain to remember losing consciousness. Those seconds were pure heaven. He realized his trousers and briefs were pulled down to his ankles so he hung there exposed. The Ape stood before him in a similar state of undress. “Nice.” The Ape said, letting his eyes roam over Andrew’s nude body. “I do like it more when they’re lean. You know why?” His eyes darted up to Andrew’s as he asked the question. “So you don’t have to think about how fat your momma is?” Andrew coughed out. “Shhhhh” The Ape moved up to him and stroked a finger down his sore ribcage, causing the muscles to contract painfully. He sighed, or he meant to. It came out sounding more like a gurgled groan. As his hand got lower, the Ape traced around over his hip to continue down across his ass and then grabbed it in a rough clawing grip to pull his tortured body up against his own. They were almost equal in height, and the feeling of the Ape’s bare skin against his felt disgusting. He heard the door opening but couldn’t see past the Ape’s face, his eyes staring straight into his own. “Already at Level 2?” Andrew recognized the Interrogator’s voice. Without breaking his stare, the Ape answered. “He doesn’t seem to care about the pain. So yeah. Level 2.” In a fictional scenario, the Ape’s breath would have smelled like rotted meat, or something vile, but it didn’t. Just slightly medicinal. Mouthwash? He also didn’t miss that the Ape had said more words in the last ten minutes than he had for all the hours of beatings. “You sure we can’t bleed him?” The Ape asked. “Maybe later, but I think he’ll break before that. Where’s your patience? Where’s your pride in craftsmanship? You know slow and low pays off.” The Interrogator replied. The Ape grinned while he looked at him, almost lovingly. His hand handn’t released Andrew’s ass, and in fact had slowly crawled toward his ass crack. If he thought a little rape was going to break Andrew, he was in for a rude surprise. No, Andrew wouldn’t enjoy it, nor would he welcome it. He loved the fact that Kevin was the only one who’d done that to him. It felt special, and important that Kevin’s dick was the only dick he’d had, because for him, it wasn’t about dick, it wasn’t about getting fucked. It was about submitting himself to a man he loved, and admired. It was how Kevin TOOK it, just slightly more than how Andrew was willing to let him. After all, you could tell someone to kick your ass, but it didn’t mean they could actually do the job. Kevin could do the job, and he had the equipment necessary to make it meaningful. He and Kevin had something unique that allowed that surrender to intimacy, completely due to Kevin’s immense patience in their friendship. Carol had taught Andrew that surrendering to intimacy wasn’t a character flaw, wasn’t a statement on your manhood. She showed him that he was stronger BECAUSE he allowed it. And Kevin was brutal because Andrew wanted him to be, not because that was his nature. Kevin’s nature was gentle, intellectual, kind and generous. Andrew knew he played the tough guy for him, for them, that Andrew needed him to be a man in everything. In high school, maybe Kevin could have gone either way. He wasn’t a soft or weak guy anyway. Andrew recognized how Kevin’s general demeanor grew and changed as they really grew closer. In general, in public, Kevin projected strength through silence. He stood tall. Well, tall for a short guy, which he was in high school. He had a growth spurt in those two years Andrew hadn’t seen him, and it was good to see his former thickness get redistributed into a physical form that looked like power. Working out helped. Joining a sport like track helped. And Andrew could tell he’d also been taking martial arts of some kind, but Kevin had been tight lipped about it. The round-house kick that clocked Andrew in the jaw wasn’t something an amateur could execute as flawlessly as Kevin had in the hotel room. He could keep his secrets, the way Kevin moved told its own story. Andrew was proud of him. When Kevin came to his Airborne graduation he could see the difference. The set of his now broad and rounded shoulders. The way his arms didn’t ever relax into a straight line when they were hanging, but instead were slightly bent at the elbow. It was an indication of physical dedication, training the body. Beyond that, the way he stepped with the foot movements, the flex of the knees. His clockwork eyes didn’t twitch and instead seemed to recognize, identify, categorize, dismiss everything. When they were young, Kevin saw everything but it was the hyper awareness of a prey animal. Now, his consideration was more like a predator. No fear. Confidence. Almost dangerous. Well… to civilians he WAS dangerous. Weeble could absolutely take him down. Hell, Wanker even stood a chance. Dangerous was relative. The thick finger pushing up against his hole forced him to return to reality. Thinking about Kevin was something that was guaranteed to take him out of the world outside. He could think about that man for hours and not know anything that was happening outside. But he knew how to play this. It wasn’t difficult to figure out. The main thing about rape was that it was a demonstration of power, of control. And if there was one thing he learned from Sarge, it was to change the battlefield. “It’ll be the best grunt pussy you ever had. Go ahead and find out. Maybe we’ll both enjoy it.” He tried to inflect a bored, almost eager tone. The Ape’s dick was nothing special, nowhere near Footlong’s, nor Zeus’, or Kevin’s, in order of descending length. And Zeus’ was even thicker than Kevin’s even though Kevin’s was a fucking pipe. So yeah, the Ape wasn’t going to make the impression he thought he would. Andrew had seen some truly impressive cock, in full swollen, throbbing glory. The Ape might make his wife scream out in pleasure, which was still a very big ‘might’, but Andrew doubted he would even register it beyond the initial penetration. The Ape’s eyes finally left his and turned to give the Interrogator a look. Without looking back, he said “Oh. You used that grunt pussy before? Huh? Sounds like this might not be the first round in the chamber.” Andrew almost laughed. Fishing. “I could be cherry. Might not be. Only way to know is to fuck that dick in. Right? I mean, I’m just hanging here. I can’t stop you. Maybe your friend with all the questions wants sloppy seconds. I can totally make you cum. That’s a promise.” Andrew moved his head slightly to look past the Ape’s. He hid the surprise when he saw Lamont standing there. So, the Charlies were here too. And why was Lamont not strapped up like he was, hanging from a hook in the ceiling with his pants around his ankles? Obviously the leaders were given the special treatment. The Ape’s face turned back to his. “Oh, I’m gonna take you for a ride, handsome. Don’t you worry.” And he darted in and gave Andrew a quick peck. Information. It was everywhere. The Ape wasn’t actually into this. Andrew squashed the feeling of immediate relief. That kiss could have been far more full, more involved. Instead, it was the absolute minimum, as if kissing another guy was the job, not the goal. Again, Kevin to the rescue. Andrew knew what a real kiss was, knew the heat, the desire, the hunger of a real kiss. Even one without the infectious madness of a tongue invading beyond the perimeter of your lips. This guy, he saw it as a tool, a perfunctory act. He chuckled. “What’s so funny?” The Ape growled. Andrew considered his responses. “You can do better than that. Just pretend I’m your mom. You can relax. Let’s just get it over with. Go ahead and get your nut.” A flare of anger flashed through the Ape’s eyes. More information. This was not going the way he wanted. He pulled his hand away from Andrew’s ass. The absence of the Ape’s finger on his asshole allowed him to relax. Either it would happen, or it wouldn’t. But the psychological game was now in unfamiliar territory. The Ape stepped away, but not before Andrew saw his dick had gone soft. Truthfully, the Ape wasn’t a bad looking guy. On the beefy side, like Chunk, thick legs, soft abdomen, solid pecs, big arms and a sturdy neck with flared traps angled down to wide shoulders. But it was his forearms and hands that made him an ape. Just as big around as his upper arms, his forearms were heavily muscled and furred, and that continued into heavy wrists and giant paws that were tufted with hair. Hell, his middle fingers looked equal to most average guys’ dicks. If Andrew made the ‘OK’ sign with his thumb and forefinger, that would be the diameter of the Ape’s middle finger. As if summoned to purpose, the Ape walked around behind him and grabbed his hips, allowing him to look at the Interrogator and Lamont. He no longer cared about what the Ape intended. The Interrogator was calling the shots. “Brickmann, just tell them what they want to know.” Lamont entreated. He look concerned. Andrew gave him a look. “How would I know anything, Lamont? And why are you here?” He felt the Ape move up behind him, nestling his nude body up against his. Lamont shook his head in disappointment. “Just want to talk some sense into you, is all. Don’t let them do this.” Andrew laughed as he felt the Ape’s once again hard dick slide up between his legs. “Let them? Are we in in the same room? Seeing the same things? Just leave, Lamont. You don’t need to watch this.” Lamont glanced over to the Interrogator. Then he looked back, and his eyes looked sad. “I’m supposed to watch this. Training.” He said the last word like it was the full explanation. Which it was. “Yeah. Okay.” Was all Andrew could manage. Lamont watching him get fucked in the ass was its own special torture, and the Interrogator likely knew it. Strangers held their own shame. A contemporary…that was shared shame. Andrew almost broke. But this was for his brothers. It was so he could look them in the eye and say he hadn’t sold them out. It was so that even after everything they took from him, he could walk with confidence that he knew in his heart he wasn’t a traitor. That he could hold their trust. That he deserved their respect, his honor, their honor of him. And they deserved his greatest effort, every single one of them. They had given him their trust. It didn’t matter that almost everything he knew about them could be found in a military file on someone’s administrative desk and the Ape and the Interrogator could probably make a phone call to one of their active duty buddies to have the intel in less than 24 hours. What mattered was that HE wasn’t the one who gave it to them. His men were HIS men. And fuck anyone who thought they could break that bond of brotherhood. He would die before betraying them. They deserved no less. “You won’t break him.” He heard Lamont say. “He’ll die for them.” Yeah, Lamont knew the score. A scoffing chuff answered Lamont’s certainty. “He THINKS he would die for them. But that hasn’t been tested, has it?” The Interrogator’s voice said. When had he decided to cut off his sight and go inside? Strange. Sometime during his thoughts of love for his brothers. He didn’t even know what the Ape was doing back there. It didn’t matter. “Don’t test it. He won’t break. I don’t think even the worst you can do would work. He’ll endure anything. I’ve seen it.” Lamont answered. “Hmmm, Private. Are you actually squeamish? Can’t take a little psychological and physical pressure?” The Interrogator said with humor. “This isn’t even past the ‘let’s be friends’ part of an interrogation. If you can’t stomach it, you can go.” The emotionless dry tone of the Interrogator’s last words covered the room with a blanket of eery darkness. “Is he your friend?” The Interrogator asked. “You don’t want to watch him suffer?” “No, that’s not it.” Lamont answered quickly. Andrew chuckled again. “Lamont, you’re over your head.” He choked out. “This is going to happen. You’re here to learn. So learn. I’m learning a whole shit ton.” Lamont remained silent. As did everyone else. The Ape was still behind him, but damned if he would expand his awareness to feel what he was doing. “Hey. C’mon.” Lamont said weakly. “Lamont.” Andrew said in a serious voice. “Go.” And it was when he said the word that he let himself go to drift. “Fuck you assholes!” Lamont shouted. Andrew didn’t know what he was doing, but heard a scuffle. One of the downsides to shutting off your senses, but that was fine. Half a minute of random sounds and then the room was silent. He didn’t care. There was nothing to care about. “Hey… get your feet, soldier.” A rough voice said in his ear minutes later. Was it minutes? An hour? It was time passing. Time passed. It was emptiness and silence, then the voice. Feet? He had no feet. The voice sounded nice, though. Concerned. Warm. Well, maybe not warm, but…friendly? Maybe friendly. “Okay, let’s just get you in your bunk. Sleep if you want.” Sleep? Bunk? Was he here? Who the fuck cares? He thought. And there was Kevin, looking really good in his tight cowboy shirt and Wrangler jeans, with that smile that was almost a smirk, maybe a grin, but his grey eyes said it was a challenge. Kevin. Yeah, the outside world could go fuck itself. Kevin was inside. ************************ “Well….” Offden said. “Yeah… well fucking what?” Brickmann snarled. “These were supposed to be kids. BABIES. FUCKING SNOT NOSED BABIES!” “HEY!” Benson shouted. “Give it a rest. Why the fuck is everyone so angry?” The group was gathered down in the bunker, combining intel on the two groups of training recruits, every one a Private in the U.S. Army. “Because HE -“ and Brickmann jabbed a finger at the Big Man, “said this was easy money, a babysitting job.” “You got a problem with working and earning your pay, Brickmann?” Nancy said in a friendly voice. “That’s not the point and you know it, Nancy!” Brickmann shouted back. “Oh? You would rather be crawling in the African desert with sand wiggling it’s way up inside your asshole hunting Somalis? That more your idea of earning good money?” Nancy replied. “You know what Nancy? I love you too much, and your cooking to fight with you. What do YOU think about these kids?” Brickmann argued back. Nancy shrugged. “For their age, and experience? They’re good. Whoever trained them, they didn’t slack. I say we pull them in. Give them everything. Hell, half of them will be working for us in two years, you know that. Let’s invest.” Nancy looked over to the Big Man, Ulster McGregor. He was the one who had to make the decision. Ulster had his brows furrowed, deep in thought. “Brickmann. Do you know the kid we’ve got in Interrogation?” “Him? Yeah, that’s my nephew Tom.” Brickmann answered. “My brother David’s son. David was Army down to his bones, raised his boys right.“

Ugh, I know man. Just been on a crazy tear of life interruptions for the last few weeks. Pipe leaks in my townhouse (defective copper pipe, been fixing them one by one as they occur, but I think I’m going to just redo them all and get it over with. Won’t take me too long.) a week long visit from the mother in law, a destination wedding, and it’s my birthday in a few days. I refuse to celebrate it, I’ve had enough. LOL. I do have the next chapter fleshed out and partially written. Just need to fill it out and complete it.

Thanks man! A lot of strategy went into this one. I REALLY want to get to the reason everything happened like it did, but I'm almost there.

SLEEPER Their upcoming attack using Battle Drill 2, specifically a 2-328 Raid, on the compound didn’t have much chance of success. The skills of the Charlies, who Sleeper now knew served as defenders, were roughly equivalent to the skills of the Bravos in head to head combat. Neither side had weapons, so any advantage there was off the table. Numbers were in favor of the Charlies because for some reason the Bravos were down one Assmunch, one Weeble, and one Bootlicker - two strategists and a wildcard removed from the game board. Terrain and fortification benefited the defenders, at least initially. And the Bravos faced another deficit - battlefield communication. The Bravos had no way to adjust their movements and attacks during the battle so deploying troops to take advantage of weaknesses that opened up could only happen if a squad saw it, which was unlikely when the majority of their individual attention would be on their own individual struggle. The point was being able to operate and make battlefield decisions in the moment toward the mission goal when there was lack of command or radio silence. Sleeper was doing the math in his head and it would take a miracle to break through multiple layers of defense. Maybe he should have gone with a full platoon frontal assault or even a three squad multi directional. While both the Charlies and the Bravos had their physical powerhouses, no one could match Troll and Zeus, especially if you added in Demon’s support for Troll and Sleeper’s coordination with Zeus. Those two could tie up three enemies each and make a hole in defenses like a knife cutting through butter. Sleeper thoroughly hated the decisions a battle commander was forced to make. He felt much more comfortable as second in command. It was easy when you had smart leaders like Assmunch and Bootlicker. The two of them had different approaches but both saw ways to take advantage of strengths and minimize weaknesses. And Sleeper didn’t discount the power of confidence and commitment in a chosen course of action. Bootlicker was always, in everything, so sure he was right that often what seemed like a terrible idea at first ended up working by sheer determination. Bootlicker forced a square peg in a round hole because that’s what he wanted to happen and he didn’t accept that the round hole wouldn’t cooperate. That square peg was going in, period. It also helped that Bootlicker loved to cheat, mostly because he didn’t see it as cheating. “There’s no such thing as cheating.” Bootlicker explained once. “If you don’t take advantage of everything you can, you aren’t trying. It’s stupid to avoid a solution just because it’s unfair, or it’ll piss someone off, or it wasn’t in the instructions we were given. Fuck that bullshit. Limits are for losers. If you want to win, then fucking win. The bullshit you deal with when you lose doesn’t feel any different than the bullshit you deal with when you cheat to win. So fucking win. Bullshit is going to be there anyway, may as well get something out of it. And I don’t know about you, but in our line of work losing means getting dead, so, well… I’m not doing that.” He had a point, Sleeper knew. However, Bootlicker didn’t see value in working within given restrictions. Normal people couldn’t operate the way Bootlicker did because Bootlicker didn’t care about consequences. Sleeper secretly suspected Bootlicker did half the shit he did because he wanted to find out what the consequences would be. No one could figure out why the fuck someone like Bootlicker wanted to join the Army or how the fuck he was even allowed to stay in. Maybe the Army didn’t know about the worst stuff Bootlicker did. But he sure got chewed out enough for the stuff they did know about, plenty of counseling, non judicial punishments, even disciplinary actions in his service record. Boy, Sarge worked overtime trying to come up with new and brutal punishment duties for Bootlicker, anything that might crack his smug, unbothered reaction to being caught. Bootlicker just did whatever Sarge ordered him to do without blinking or complaining. He cut the grass outside their barracks with a pair scissors - the entire 20 by 30 foot swath. He filled an entire water buffalo with a single 1.5 gallon bucket. That particular water tanker had a one thousand gallon capacity. He did it from a spigot on another water buffalo 200 yards away. Or there was the time he had to clean the parking lot at Command. Spotless. No weeds in the cracks, no loose gravel, no oil or fluid stains on the asphalt. Sarge always tasked one of his minion Sergeants Bravo to be Bootlicker’s minder during these punishments. Ordinary soldiers wouldn’t need a minder, but Bootlicker liked to cheat. So one of the Sergeants Bravo would pester him continuously throughout the day. Maybe Bootlicker had the right approach, at least for the Army. If losing meant you or your brothers might die, and cheating gave you an edge to keep that from happening, why wouldn’t you do it? Sleeper forced himself away from that thought. Losing someone during his command was what he feared the most. Losing one of his brothers at all was too disturbing to give thought to. Assmunch was completely different. He didn’t exactly accept loss, only the fact that it was possible. Assmunch was the opposite of Bootlicker. Where Bootlicker only looked at ways to succeed and used every trick to make that happen, Assmunch considered all the ways things could go wrong and fail and adjusted his plans to eliminate those possibilities, which often left a direct path to success. Sleeper guessed that was where Assmunch’s confidence came from. For him, there was only one good answer and he knew it would work if everyone did their part. And then, he trusted his men to pull their weight. In Assmunch’s eyes you had value, you were necessary, he needed you and what you could do. In contrast to Sarge constantly screaming how stupid you were, how incompetent, what a colossal failure you were in the Army’s eyes, Assmunch made you feel important, that you directly contributed to everyone’s success. It made a huge difference in individual effort. Assmunch inspired. That was something Sleeper hadn’t learned to do yet, inspire his men. He gave orders, made decisions, asked for input, all of it. But they didn’t look at him with trust and belief like they did with Assmunch. Maybe because Assmunch always looked for a way to do the right thing and Sleeper didn’t. Assmunch agonized over it sometimes. But there was a distinction between how Assmunch focused on that and Sleeper accepted sometimes the option to do the right thing was available, and sometimes it wasn’t and you still had to do the job. Sleeper gave a small sigh. Leadership. Something he’d only realized as he grew older, just before he joined the Army. Wrestling had been good for that, with coaches, team captains, thinking about strategies for winning as a team not just individually. If there was anything that demonstrated leadership it was that a leader considered how a team could achieve a goal while arranging the skills of individuals to their best effect. It was funny how he’d run away to join the Army thinking it would help him avoid responsibility, and instead ended up feeling responsible for these men around him, his brothers. And fuck Assmunch for making him Platoon second. So now he lay prone under a shrub, something called Privet, in the dark searching for any other option. They’d discussed a hidden squad sneaking in from another vector while the main body of Bravos created an attack diversion. But Zeus didn’t ‘sneak’ and he was their only guaranteed physical attack dominator. Weeble could sneak, so could Bootlicker and Wanker. Shark was pretty good too. But none of them had the sure ability to overwhelm defenders and if Sleeper were choosing someone to defend the inner part of the compound it would be their best fighters. A three man squad would be the minimum, two to create the hole, one to penetrate to the objective. Sleeper growled. Committing to a planned attack strategy without second guessing at the last minute was so fucking frustrating! It was one thing when you knew your plan could succeed. Try committing to an attack strategy you knew would lose. Everything in him was fighting moving forward with this disaster. He felt a tap on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin as he screamed in a whisper “FUCK!” While he rolled to his feet and got caught in the privet bush. “Sorry Sleeper.” Weeble said in a whisper. Or rather, the ugly lump of leaves and pinestraw said it with Weeble’s voice. “Weeble?” He whispered back. “What the fuck, man? Where the hell have you been? How long have you been here? What the fuck? I mean… what the FUCK?” “SHHHHH, Sleeper! I can’t stay. Just wanted to let you know there’s a whole warehouse underground, it’s huge. If you want in, just go in any of the buildins. There’s lifts. Hard to find, just look for a button on the wall. Good luck!” And the pile of leaves and pine straw scuttled away a couple feet without anything more than a slight rustle of sound. “Oh! Don’t get caught, prolly better let Bootlicker and Wanker handle it. Pretty sure you ain’t s’posed to know about it.” And then the form disappeared in the dark. Motherfucker. Fifteen seconds. That’s all the time the interaction took. He’d let his guard down, let his mind wander. A potential enemy had caught him unaware. That was how he had to look at it, even though it was Weeble. And where the fuck was his compound instructor and Zeus in all this? Out of the three of them someone should have noticed Weeble sneaking up. The trouble was he couldn’t spare personnel for a rear guard perimeter, they were too spread out and he had to devote everyone he had to the attack drill. In any battle drill there were assumptions. In this one, a forward platoon attack on fixed defensive positions your six was assumed to be guarded by friendly forces with little to no enemy potential. That would change during the drill as they engaged and each squad had to keep a lookout around them for potential encirclement. Even so, Sarge would have his fucking balls on a plate for this if he knew Weeble had so easily snuck up. It was exactly the sort of dirty trick Sarge would play. It was exactly something Seargeant Horvath would do as well. He could send an assassin in the dark to take out command personnel and leave the Bravos scrambling. It was too late to revise their attack plan to take advantage of Weeble’s information. But if he had a chance during the upcoming battle he’d spread the word hoping someone could get inside one of the buildings. Weeble’s mysterious appearance did remove one worry from his mind. He already knew Assmunch was inside the compound, possibly a hostage, and recovery was a third tier goal, however unlikely. Sleeper mentally reviewed 2-328 for the 18th time: RAID 2-328. A raid is a limited-objective, deliberate operation entailing swift penetration of hostile terrain. A raid is not intended to hold territory; and it requires detailed intelligence, preparation, and planning. The Infantry platoon and squad conducts raids as part of a larger force to accomplish a number of missions, including the following - Capture prisoners, installations, and/or enemy materiel. Capture or destroy specific enemy command and control locations. Destroy enemy materiel or installations. Obtain information concerning enemy locations, dispositions, strength, intentions, or methods of operation. Confuse the enemy or disrupt his plans. Liberate friendly personnel. So Assmunch would likely remain a prisoner as his liberation was not a primary objective. Bootlicker had disappeared from his squad mid-afternoon and was MIA. But Weeble had been seen on a few occasions early during the day running through the woods. Sightings grew more infrequent as the day wore on until no one knew where he was in the last few hours leading up to this drill. But now that Sleeper knew Weeble was accounted for, he felt better. He didn’t worry about Bootlicker much, disappearing and doing his own thing was what Bootlicker did. Sometimes it benefitted the Bravos, sometimes it was just a crazy scheme Bootlicker wanted to enact. In this drill Bootlicker’s presence wouldn’t add much, and just maybe he was off trying to figure out a way to succeed or implementing it or more likely figuring out a way to screw up whatever Objective the Charlies were given. Unless he needed your help in his scheme, you never knew what he was doing. He glanced at his watch and noted it was two minutes to execution of the drill. He wondered if the Charlies had been informed of the exact moment of execution. Probably not, they were obviously tasked with defense of a fixed position with their own objectives. It wouldn’t help them develop and hone their skills if they knew when the fight was coming to them. He did have to chuckle when he thought how stupid Hollywood movies were. Ops command used absolute time to coodinate a battle or attack, GMT or Greenwich Mean Time, regardless of global position. The men on the ground used a countdown. There was no ‘everyone, synchronize your watches.’ That was useless and a group that trained together frequently would laugh at that. If every single one of you weren’t using the exact same timepiece in the exact same condition there was no synchronization, it just wasn’t possible. Troops used for engagement depended upon real time intel at the target location to execute. If a support function was necessary like air or artillery they’d wait for a green go from command, but it was up to field commanders to set it all in motion which could be minutes later. Getting in position, signaling readiness, a last minute check on sitreps meant actual execution time was variable when your attack forces were dispersed. Without comms it was hard to know what was happening elsewhere so you executed your part with the blind trust assumption that at least one other squad would be successful. In an ordinary drill, the cue for Battle Drill 2 would be the enemy’s initiation of direct fire contact, which they wouldn’t have in this exercise as there were no weapons in use. By not having weapons all steps up to Step 11 in the Battle Drill were assumed to be a YES which took care of suppressive fire and positioning on the enemy. Sleeper wouldn’t have much to do on this drill as Platoon leader until the Bravos could draw in. Whoever survived the initial defense would dictate Sleeper’s next move, as well as whatever enemy forces survived and how and where they regrouped. The sharp rat-tat-tat of weapons fire broke the night’s silence. Without thinking, his training kicked in and it didn’t matter that they had been told there would be no weapons fire. That was the cue for execution, and he cursed the fact that the Charlies knew that too. Fuck. Of course the element of surprise would be eliminated. Motherfuckers. He and the rest of the Bravos broke cover and ran for the perimeter of the compound. This wasn’t going to be some honor system of ‘I got you, you’re dead’ and expecting the enemy to stay down. No, this was live combat to disable and injuries were going to be sustained. They knew enough to avoid breaking bones that would take weeks to heal, but everything else was fair game. Sleeper saw Zeus running for his target out of the corner of his eye, so he knew to take the other guy who was crouched and ready. It was too dark to see which of the Charlies it was but he wasn’t worried. Only two of the Charlies could match him hand to hand and this guy wasn’t either one of them. He didn’t even spare a thought of doubt for Zeus’s chances of success. Both of these guys would be moaning in pain for the next couple hours after he and Zeus got done with them. “Goddammit!” Zeus’s opponent yelled just before Zeus knocked him from his feet with a tucked shoulder to sail four feet through the air and slam onto his back. Zeus had never played football, but the tackle wasn’t half bad. Before he could even catch his breath Zeus had him face down and was tying his wrists and ankles. Sleeper had to grapple with his opponent for fifteen seconds or so, but he eventually body slammed the guy to the ground. “Don’t wait for me, Zeus, I’ll be right behind you.” he said as he tied his opponent up and dragged him away from the other one. If they weren’t in too much pain they’d both eventually scoot together and free each other from the ropes, but by then it was Sleeper’s hope the battle would be over. The compound lights chose that moment to extinguish, and they plunged into darkness. “Fuck me, this - Ungh - sucks donkey - mmmmgghhhh - dicks.” Zeus’s victim grunted with gasps. “That was the worst, oh God, I’m gonna die.” “Pussy. Grunts don’t die, we aren’t that lucky.” Sleeper laughed as he climbed to his feet. He gave the guy a hard kick to the ass as he passed him. “I hate you.” Were the final words Sleeper heard as he moved forward toward his last visual of Zeus just before he felt a fist hit the back of his neck just below his skull and he went unconscious. *************** SHARK Being a squad leader had one benefit above all others: you didn’t have to follow some stupid other squad leader’s dumb plan that would get you deaded. Did it matter that you still had to follow your Platoon leader’s dumb plan that was also going to get you deaded? Did it matter if it was your LT’s dumb plan? He sighed. There was a certain amount of relief when command KNEW it probably wouldn’t work. Battlefields were filled with desperate maneuvers that had slim probabilities of success. In any operation you had personnel who were critical to the success of the dumb plan, and then there was everyone else. The sacrifices. He mentally corrected himself. Sacrifices, with a capital ‘S’. Sacrifices had a part to play, and beyond that their role was minimized. Someone long ago figured out battle plans flowed smoother when you didn’t expect too much from the grunts. Taking a position and providing suppressing fire for a squad or unit that had critical personnel tasked with the mission objective was the usual. The Sacrifices didn’t have to know what the ultimate objective was, they just had to hold a position. Support. Sit and Suck. Suffer. A lot of S-words, a lot of F-words, and a whole lot of feeling underutilized knowing the rest of your unit was doing the fun stuff. The minute the lights cut out he knew their chances of success went right down the toilet. They had no night vision gear. His three man squad or anyone else would never be able to see the signal. Assumptions would kill you every time and in this case it was their assumption that they’d have visibility. He sighed again. No plan survived first contact with the enemy. Time to get creative. Mobility was crucial. He turned to Wanker and Dumbo. “Remember the first month at Graf?” He asked, referring to one of their initial small squad drills in Germany, just after they’d all been assembled as a new Platoon and taken through Sarge’s ball crushing evaluations. “The urban noose?” “Yeah.” Wanker said. “This is sorta like that. What about it?” “Remember how Demon fucked up Sarge’s plan by just being a complete maniac?” Wanker snorted. “That’s why we called him Demon. How are we gonna work it?” Shark smiled, exposing how he got his nickname, his trademark fucked up teeth. “Havoc. You and me, Wanker. Dumbo, pick your moment carefully. If we can’t see beyond ten feet, neither can they. Wanker, you know some of the Charlie’s moves and what they call them, right? Move fast and don’t engage unless you can cripple, leave that to me. You just focus on making them deviate with new orders. It’ll depend on how well we can convince them we’re Charlies. No contact long enough for them to figure it out, okay?” “Copy” Wanker said. “Copy” Dumbo repeated. While every battle drill had its official designation, well drilled units up to the Platoon level in Infantry often had their own name for them. Like Battle Drill 8, Minesweeper. Deeper levels of sub drills just got confusing if you called out a bunch of numbers. Wanker was going to pass along all the conflicting orders he could manage. “Let’s go, we’re going to give the Brotherhood a fighting chance. With any luck, our boys will know what’s up.” With that, Shark broke cover and tore off to the right where he’d seen Sleeper and Zeus make their charge. The Charlies wanted darkness? Well that didn’t only work in their favor. Defensive positions had a specific weakness in that the troops had to maintain that position. Maybe Sleeper’s plan wasn’t so dumb, holding back half the teams for a staggered attack pattern. The Charlies would hear attacks happening at other approaches while half of their teams would have to wait in position knowing they couldn’t abandon their defense point in favor of providing support to others. If the lights were still on, Shark would not have been able to divert. They’d be seen and the Charlies would be able to reposition. And there wasn’t a long window Shark could delay moving. In seconds they were standing with their backs to the building wall and Shark darted his head around the corner to assess. Two bodies on the ground, hog tied, scrambling to move towards each other. Their dimensions did not match Zeus or Sleeper’s profiles. “Two disabled. We’ll need to do something to delay them getting free.” Shark whispered. “I got it.” Dumbo replied. “You two stay on the move. I’ll try to follow the sounds and find you. But I know the plan. It might even been better if I’m a few seconds behind you spreading different intel than what you’re telling them. No one will be able to figure out what the fuck’s going on.” “Copy.” Shark replied before darting around the corner with Wanker on his heels. As if by silent agreement, he and Wanker gave each of the disabled Charlies a medium kick as they jumped past, eliciting grunts of pain from them. Another body lay fifteen feet away and it was beautiful the way Wanker immediately mirrored his split-second re-direct to slam his back against the building. By now the practiced movements to clear a position forced an automatic sequence of action. Their brains didn’t even have to think about what they’d seen. With two bodies hog tied, the third should have been as well. Unless the third wasn’t a Charlie. But their brains didn’t have to think that far. All it had to do was say ‘different’ and training took over. Caution. Assess. Clear the room. Six was clear. 9 o’clock was clear. Body at 12 o’clock. Unknown at their blind 3 o’clock. He held up a hand and made several motions. Wanker responded with the Bravos’ hand sign for ‘acknowledge’ before darting to their 9. The absence of weaponry simplified what they had to do. Wanker was bait and recon. If there was a Charlie lying in wait around the corner, he saw Wanker and knew that Wanker could see him. If the Charlie abandoned his protected position to strike, then Shark could disable him. If the Charlie followed his training, he wouldn’t move towards Wanker until checking for an ambush and Wanker could engage. Now, Wanker wasn’t the best at combatives but with Shark it was two on one. The smart move would be for the Charlie to evade and escape. And there was a Charlie, single, as Wanker’s hand signal flashed. He returned the sign for ‘flank’ and stepped outside an arm’s reach past the corner as Wanker moved. The Charlie was no fool and he knew he was a goner in a two against one so he leapt backwards and made to run. “Give it up, Devreaux.” Shark said running after him after he recognized the face. “We’ll just tie you up and won’t beat you. If you make us chase you it’s gonna hurt.” “Just gotta keep you busy, Snaggletooth.” Devreaux said. “Already took your pretty boy off the game board.” So, it was Sleeper lying there unconscious. Idiot. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. Zeus and Sleeper depended way too much on strength and power. Devreaux had let Zeus pass, wisely, in favor of incapacitating Sleeper in an ambush. Instead of moving forward with caution to clear the position, they rushed and Sleeper fell into a trap. That was a rookie mistake and Sleeper should have been past the point where he made those. At least Zeus made the right call and moved forward without Sleeper. Devreaux was fast and Shark knew he couldn’t catch him, which was going to throw a wrench in their plan. Shark was just about to call off pursuit and divert when Dumbo came out of the darkness ahead and clotheslined Devreaux, sending the Charlie horizontal to slam into the packed earth. “Damn, that had to hurt. Give him two for running, Dumbo. Wanker, we move.” Shark commanded. They darted through the compound from fighting group to defensive positions, running fast enough to avoid identification. Wanker would throw out a drill nickname, cycling between three of the Charlies’ drills, leaving confusion in their wake. Frequently they came across Bravos. Like sonar, when they saw the form of a soldier Shark let out a low ‘tch’ sound with his tongue behind his teeth. An answering ‘tch’ was the Bravos sign of friendly. If there was no answer, Wanker just whispered ‘Beanbag’, or ‘Harvest’ or ‘Barbarian’. Shark had no idea what drills or maneuvers those terms referenced, but the deception worked. How would anyone know a Platoon’s customized playbook well enough to give battlefield orders, except a member of their own Platoon? Fuck those Charlies. Training was a beautiful thing, especially when you could use it against the enemy. No one questioned trusted orders on the battlefield, not if they wanted to keep their stripes. It was a good lesson for the Charlies to learn. Establishing an accompanying password or code, some secret gesture or sound helped. The Charlies just had the rotten luck to have their secrets stolen by two crafty spies. Bootlicker and Wanker proved their worth again and again with their infiltration and intel. A lesser leader than Assmunch would have clamped down on the questionable activities of those two. But Assmunch had seen their talent for trouble as an asset. The Bravos didn’t even care anymore when they paid the price as a unit for something Bootlicker or Wanker had done. One time Shark overheard Assmunch telling those two ‘stop fucking getting caught like you’re stupid grunts. You’re not, so do better.” After sowing what chaos they could, Shark led Wanker and Dumbo in a jog to the position they were supposed to maintain. Whatever Bravos were left would assault the center. All the action was a good distance away and they only had to watch for stragglers and pick off any Charlies trying to reposition. The three of them wouldn’t be useful in direct engagement anyway. The Bravos had tanks like Zeus, Troll, Cellblock and Chunk for that, supported by terrors like Demon, Fitch and Olympic. Without compound lights, the night was black, very black. After Germany, Shark wasn’t surprised by the kind of darkness you only got when you were far enough away from city lights. When you were out on patrol in a rural area the absence of light was at first eerie and unsettling. Sounds seemed sharper and more clear forcing a nervous hyper awareness. People said when you lose one of your senses your others grow stronger. Shark didn’t believe that. It wasn’t that they grew stronger, you just paid more attention. In a normal situation you heard ten or more noises in a single second. Shark had counted. Your head dismissed most of those as unimportant unless you focused on them. Sitting in class people were breathing, moving, the air conditioning was blowing, a bird was singing outside the window, your pen was scratching on the paper in front of you, your stomach was gurgling, saliva was squelching around in your mouth. Everywhere. Everything had a sound. So when you were in the dark, your head, not your ears, paid attention to all the sounds your ears already heard. And Shark didn’t hear anything he wasn’t expecting to hear. “Hey Wanker, let me get some hole.” He said. “Now?” Wanker replied in a calm, ordinary tone. “Yeah. We’re good for a few minutes. Won’t take me long. It’s been a week, bro.” he answered. Wanker moved to pull the lower layers of his uniform down just over his ass after releasing his belt. “Do your thing, dude.” Wanker said getting on his hands and knees. Shark moved up behind him, his hard dick already freed. Neither of them exposed anything more than was necessary, as usual. Wanker’s obedient acceptance of being dicked sending a surge of pleasure straight to his pole. Just snap his fingers and he had a hole to fuck anytime he wanted it. It was even better that Wanker didn’t get eager about it, never asked him for a fuck. There was something thrilling about having someone so obedient who had no expectations, who wouldn’t turn it into something it wasn’t. It was clear Wanker attached no significance to the act. He didn’t even feel bad about being used. That was what did it for the brothers. If Wanker had turned into a little bitch, or some flaming faggot (sorry Zeus) the Bravos wouldn’t have stood for it. As long as this stayed in the realm of a sexual handshake, no one was going to put a stop to it or complain. Because Wanker hadn’t changed. He was still Wanker. “Wait.” Wanker said before spitting in his hand and reaching back to grease his asshole with spit. “One sec…”. He spit again, and reached back to slick up Shark’s shaft. “Thanks.” Shark said. He kept forgetting that part. He eased forward into Wanker’s tight hole. The heated furnace of his brother’s ass was a welcome feeling in the cold night air. He chuckled at the thought that there was a time he would have found a thought like that gross. It wasn’t even like he was having sex with Wanker. It was just getting off, releasing some tension. Neither one of them had any kind of feelings that got in the way. Wanker had a hole and he didn’t get warped about what happened to it. Any way, any position, any action - slow or fast, hard or gentle - Wanker just kept his hole in position so a brother who needed it could fuck out a little aggression, boredom, pent up frustration or just get rid of that distracting buildup that all men had to deal with from their nuts. Shark hadn’t had much pussy, only one girl in fact had ignored his unfortunate face and mouth and let him get rid of both their cherries. For her, it was just a matter of needing the credential with her girlfriends after they heard that your period wasn’t as bad if you weren’t a virgin. That’s the crazy shit girls did. Most of them were insane. He knew she’d only picked him because he wasn’t going to say no, not the way he looked, and she could firmly set expectations. She didn’t have to do all the manipulation, the luring, the subtle hints and flirting she’d have to do with most other guys. He was less work for something she saw as a medical procedure. And they used a condom. And she complained about how uncomfortable it was. And she bossed him around about how he was doing it. Losing his virginity: two out of ten stars. Pussy? Eight out of ten stars. Women? Five out of ten. Based on his single experience. But hey, you had to have a benchmark, right? So when he slid raw into the sloppy hole Footlong had left behind in that winter shelter in Germany, he was jolted into an appreciation of Wanker’s ass as a welcome release, and Wanker in general as a receptive fuck. He would never have even considered it if Footlong hadn’t fucked Wanker first. Knowing a buddy had taken the first leap helped him bridge the off limits feeling that he would have had. Ass wasn’t all that different from pussy. And he gained an appreciation for all the things that actually mattered in fucking someone, and just sticking your dick in a hole was really the least of it. Since then, he’d fucked Wanker every chance he got, which wasn’t all that much since there wasn’t too many places they could do it when at Airborne. And he decided that aside from the tight, warm, gripping wetness of Wanker’s hole, his favorite part was how Wanker never blinked when he asked. A few of the other brothers were getting theirs too, it wasn’t a secret, not in the brotherhood. Wanker was a resource and by silent agreement (and Assmunch, Sleeper and Zeus’s warning) they kept it respectful and emotionally dry. The world would be a much different place if men could have this sort of arrangement with women. It didn’t always have to be about love and feelings. As he pumped away, Dumbo kept watch in the night. Wanker had a nice cushioning butt for throwing a fuck, which was good for Shark. His hipbones stuck out a little because he was on the thin side. So he could appreciate not banging bones during what was supposed to be a feel good experience. He gripped Wanker’s hips and with every thrust forward he pulled back, bucking up inside his buddy’s hole. Wanker was a real trooper, not even grunting in discomfort. That was the third thing in favor of fucking Wanker, he never complained, he just took the fuck like a good slut. After a couple minutes Shark could feel himself getting close. “Fuck yeah, I’m gonna nut, bro.” He whispered. “Sweet. Juice that hole, buddy.” Wanker whispered back, a little out of breath. Number four on the list - you could dump your load right in his ass, or his mouth, he didn’t care. From what Shark gathered, hardly anyone got to cum inside anyone they had sex with these days. Even couples that had been together a while still used condoms all the time. It seemed like only married people didn’t. He let out a low moan as his cum flooded Wanker’s guts in several long spurts balls deep. It took him about 30 seconds to come down from the high. He would never hate that feeling. He pulled out and put his dick away. “You done?” Dumbo asked. “Yeah, you need a go?” Shark replied. Dumbo moved closer and pulled his dick out. “Just a blowjob.” “You good, bro?” He asked Wanker with a pat on the shoulder. “A-1, bro.” Wanker replied. Shark went over to the post Dumbo had just left to take his turn at watch. Wanker went to work on Dumbo’s average dick while Dumbo used both hands to guide his head for the type of mouth fucking he needed. Shark shook his head as the usual disappointment flooded him after seeing Dumbo’s low hangers swing with every hip thrust into Wanker’s patient lips. Like his ears, Dumbo’s nuts were legendary. Shark would give anything to have balls like Dumbo’s, nuts that actually swung, the size of plums instead of his own walnuts drawn up in a tight sack. At least the Gods were fair and gave Dumbo an unremarkable dick. Maybe not real fair, he still had to walk around with those ears. He sighed and kept eyes and ears peeled out into the darkness, wondering how the assault was proceeding. The frequent wet gurgle behind him told him the assault on Wanker’s throat was going as expected. Wanker did suck a mean dick. ***************************** MARINES POTTER AND BATTLES “Well ain’t that somethin’”. Lance Corporal Potter drawled, watching through his night vision optics as the Bravo they called Dumbo stiffened up with an orgasm right into Wanker’s mouth. It was uncontrolled and slightly violent, yet Wanker allowed himself to be manhandled and violated as Dumbo thrust and quivered with spastic jerks. Quiet as a mouse though. The Bravos were approximately 30 feet away, and Potter only had a partial profile of the sexual act. “Yeah, sure is.” Battles answered, watching the action himself. The one called Shark had done his deed just before. At least they had the sense to have a watch. “Dude didn’t even spit it out.” He continued after everyone pulled themselves together and resumed guard in crouched positions. Potter grunted. “Let’s move. This team’s holding a retreat position, they’re not going anywhere. We’ll go west.” They moved off into the darkness. Major Collins wanted a thorough report on tonight’s attack drill from initial engagement to the cease of hostilities. Potter knew he and Battles couldn’t be everywhere at once and specific fights or activities weren’t what the Major was looking for. This was a test for the two junior Marines, to see how much information they could gather without being discovered. To determine if they could organize the information and relay it both in a way suitable for a senior officer’s digestion and relevant to the operation of a Marine of Potter’s rank. A test to see if they could properly identify elements of the assault in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Who was sticking their dick in who wasn’t battlefield intel. And if you don’t want a reputation in the military, you don’t offer information that your superior hasn’t asked for. In any circumstance. It was called information compartmentalization. Your LT doesn’t care how dirty the latrine is, or that maintenance won’t fix the shower drain. That information is properly given to your Staff Sergeant. Don’t tell your Colonel the armory issued you an M16 with a cracked stock. And don’t spread gossip up the chain, or within the ranks, ever. Within your unit, that’s unofficially acceptable depending on the nature of the gossip but It’s still discouraged. Now, go outside your unit and the one hard rule is ‘answer only when asked’ but you still need to demonstrate discretion. In Iraq, or during any deployment really, secrets are hard to keep. You know who’s cheating on their wife or girlfriend. You know who the Barrack’s Bunnies are on post. You know who got chewed out for a fuckup. And most of the guys know who’ll ‘do a favor’ for another Marine. Potter and Battles decided early on they didn’t want their business known and kept their own arrangement close. That was another reputation you didn’t want if you expected to go anywhere in the Corps. Wanker’s status as the Bravo’s joy-hole didn’t fall within their orders, so unless the Major asked it wasn’t pertinent to the mission. Potter gave it no further thought. An hour later they made their way back to the camp Major Collins had them create earlier that day about a mile from the compound. It wasn’t easy in the dark woods, another test. He and Battles could have used their optics but they didn’t need them and conserving the battery was an important part of maintaining the operational effectiveness of your gear in case you needed it for something critical. They found Major Collins sitting back against a pack, reading a book with a penlight. “Sir.” Potter said, walking up. “Corporal. Private. Eat first.” Major Collins gestured with the penlight at two aluminum foil wrapped bundles just a few feet away. He and Battles threw themselves on the ground with grateful moans. “Thank you Sir.” Battles said. The only light was from the Major’s penlight. Honestly, they’d adjusted to the dark and would rather not have the light at all. The Major’s use of the light signaled their camp was safe and normal camp protocol was allowed. They opened the foil to the rich smell of a hearty stew. “Fuck, that smells good.” Potter said before he could stop himself. “Apologies, Sir. Won’t happen again.” He said immediately. Collins clicked off his pen light. “Relax Marine. We’re not in ranks. casual communication permitted. In fact, when we’re alone, I expect it from you two. I’m just another Marine, Potter.” “Yes, Sir. I mean Major. Yes Major.” Potter said. “Now eat.” Major Collins said. Man, the stew was good. Something about a warm meal after a full day’s exertion. “Wow, what kind of meat is this? So good.” Battles said around a mouthful. “Deer meat, I think. I could eat five bowls of this.” Potter said around his own mouthful. Potter tried to eat like a civilized human. There was a Major in their presence, after all. The Major had taken care of them, providing healthy Marine sized portions of the deep, savory, thick stew filled with onions, potatoes, big chunks of meat, and a few other vegetables. It was salty with a hefty amount of spice and heat. It didn’t take long to finish when you were trained to eat fast in the field. Battles policed the containers and remnants while Potter gathered natural materials from around the camp so he could create a mock compound to give his report. The night air was dry and chilly, somewhere in the upper 30’s or low 40’s and it felt good. After boot camp in Southern California, he’d had a rude shock in Iraq after thinking that being in a Middle East country was going to be hot. It was, during the height of the day and all throughout the summer. But otherwise it cooled down drastically at night. This temperate Georgia winter reminded him a lot of winter in northern Iraq where it was rare for the temperature to fall below freezing, but it still got close. Dawn and sunrise on a crisp, clear northern Iraqi morning was damn near beautiful, as much as the country and government itself sucked. It was on those mornings that Potter felt like Iraq wasn’t all that different from America. Farmers got up and tended to their animals, the day promised only good things, the distant hills blurred and greyed with a morning haze. Sharing a dallah of Qahwa (Arab coffee) with the indigenous Kurds who were effusively friendly. The Kurds weren’t their enemy in the conflict. The US actually considered them allies against Hussein, but the military didn’t really ask permission for a lot of things they had to do, so people occasionally got butthurt. Compensation was given. And part of the Arabic culture was to ask for 20 camels when you only deserved 2. The art of negotiation was considered a fun challenge in their culture. And serious negotiations were prolonged and often involved sharing Qahwa. It had the feel of being almost ceremonial. As far as getting maximum concessions was concerned during the process, it wasn’t dishonest he eventually learned, to demand more than you were owed. It was expected to demand more. No one in the Iraqi or Kurdish culture would take a claim for 20 camels seriously and an opponent was expected to counter with an equally absurd low ball offer. It was probably racist to use camels, he corrected himself. Kurds raised goats and sheep. Camels were for Bedouin, the nomadic wanderers who wanted little to do with anyone. Now, anytime he thought about Iraq, it wasn’t the lopsided constantly moving fight across the country as Saddam’s forces were in continuous retreat from the superior force of the coalition armies comprised of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, and even Saudi Arabia and Egypt. He didn’t think about that much, and instead thought about how good it felt to actually help the Kurds, the families he’d met, how coffee wasn’t just something you gulped down to give you a jolt, it was meant to be enjoyed. Potter appreciated his time with Operation Provide Comfort in Northern Iraq after they’d taken care of kicking the living shit out of Saddam Hussein’s sad little army. He’d learned a lot, but mostly he UNlearned American prejudices. People were people, and most regular people were only concerned with surviving day to day. And just like in America, city people were far more caught up in political bullshit than the simpler population in the countryside. The Kurds only wanted their homeland back after Saddam Hussein’s brutality against them. It was disheartening to see how little the Kurds possessed, how much they had given up to flee, and their generosity in the face of their destitute existence contrasted with the relative wealth of American soldiers spoke volumes about who they were as a people. Trying to give them gifts to ease their poverty only resulted in an argument over some trinket or item they tried to force in trade so that the transaction wouldn’t be one sided. Often it was items they could not afford to give up, having so little to begin with. Part of it was pride. Potter learned that if you offered the gift as compensation for something they had done or would do, it allowed them to accept it, as long as it wasn’t too valuable. Money was not acceptable, except for merchants or businessmen. Food that had been prepared was also not acceptable. Raw goods or useful items were received well, if they were in payment for a service such as information or help. Small trinkets of no real value were highly coveted by the children, if the items were uniquely American. It could be confusing how they tried to milk you for everything you owned if they were negotiating for something they wanted or needed, but try to give them something for free and they would never take it and suddenly you found yourself in some weird reverse negotiation of trying to get them to give you LESS while they argued that it wasn’t right that you gave them anything, and if you did it was too much. Alternatively, battle maps made him think of his time driving back the Iraqis before he ever saw the gentler side of the people of Iraq. his miniature compound he was currently arranging for Major Collins’ briefing brought back memories of field planning from his early days of the Gulf War, his unit gathered around some cobbled together basic layout of their objective on the ground while they watched their Lieutenant describe the battle plan using sticks, rocks, or utility items from their gear. Scale was important in battle maps. Accuracy of position was important. Critical elements needed to be represented if they measured any weight on the battle. Major players had to be identified. Private Battles watched with riveted attention as he arranged the map, and he could feel the Major’s heavy consideration of his every placement. He wasn’t nervous, even if Major Collins came down from Heaven, the Pentagon. Potter knew his shit, he wasn’t worried about that. And Major Collins was refreshingly easy going for an officer. Potter knew that came from confidence and having nothing to prove. It was something Potter tried to emulate, having seen it before in other leaders. There was a time and place for being a hard ass, but if you used it sparingly it carried more weight. Leadership was tricky like that. It was one of the reasons he both liked and respected Assmunch. They weren’t so far apart in rank Potter felt awkward calling him by his Platoon nickname even if he didn’t quite understand why they called him that. No, Assmunch was one of those rare soldiers who even as a junior enlisted possessed this self awareness, confidence, and ease of command that felt like he was senior. He didn’t act like a Private. He didn’t carry his lowly stripe like the others. Just like Collins didn’t carry his Major like other Majors that Potter had encountered. It was quality. Potter didn’t think that could be taught, but when he found someone with it he made sure he was all eyes and ears. As the lowliest NCO he didn’t deserve or merit the personal attention of someone like Major Collins. Yet, here he was and he was damned if he wouldn’t give the man his best. “The Bravos separated into mostly 3 man units and spread out in an encirclement of the compound, forcing the Charlies to divide their defense. The Bravos were far more capable of acting independently without direct command than the Charlies. That will become clear just after contact…” Potter began his debriefing

Thanks man! I really am trying to push this into novel territory, and I do have an end-game plot sketched out that is a decade long for these characters. So I keep writing. I appreciate the compliments.

ASSMUNCH No rest for the weary, as Grandma would say. Well, someone’s Grandma would say that, not mine. My Grandma would probably be overjoyed at being stuck in some rustic locale surrounded by dangerous, serious fit men. Grandma was probably what they used to call a ‘wild woman’. I snorted. These were the sorts of things that popped into my head for no reason, mostly during The Suck. “Focus, Private.” Yeah yeah. 38 hours without sleep. Which usually wasn’t a problem, except there was no physical activity to keep me alert. My brain was skittering off in any direction it wanted. See, that was the danger, and the challenge of life in the Infantry. The first dive back into The Suck meant you had to remind yourself of all the lessons all over again. Eventually it would become second nature, but for now I had to reinforce my intent, sharpen my focus, and smack down any stray thought that wasn’t primary. The Suck, the monotonous drag of 20 hours of patrol for days at a time, encampment, perimeter and sentry shifts, a maximum of two hours of sleep if you were lucky, drills, 15 minute meal breaks, squat or maybe flop breaks if you were, again, lucky. Your mental and physical condition deteriorated by the hour until you were just a stumbling zombie with one thought - forward. Followed by the second thought - ambush. You wanted to rest, but knew it wouldn’t be long enough or deep enough to make a difference, and would only make you want to cry when you realized you’d just have to climb back on your feet for another march. Objective. Target. 3rd thought, but rare. Honestly, you stopped caring and knew hoping for it just forced it further away. If you reached your Objective, found your target that was all well and good. But that wasn’t your GOAL. No. Deep in The Suck, your only goal was staying on your feet, and forward. And don’t get deaded. Yeah, deaded isn’t a word, but it’s a fun way to say shot, blown up, bled out, fucked up, erased, cancelled and about fifty other words we liked to use for going home in a bag. See? Infantry can be fun. It’s a fucking laugh a minute. “Private! Focus! You goon out on me and we’ll go another 40 hours.” Which made me laugh. “Fuck. Sorry.” I said. I really was. This was unprofessional. Private Goon needed to fucking pull it together. “Where were we?” I asked politely. I tried to flex my numb arms for the 20th time since being tied to the chair. Mission Fail. No flex. I repeat, No Flex. “Your men. You were providing me with a list of their skills, abilities, weaknesses.” the man in the shadows said. “I was?” I said, puzzled. “I thought I was in the middle of telling you about the night I fucked your mom in every hole.” I looked down. “Maybe that was the other guy. You all look alike.” I took a moment to think. “No, it was your sister, that’s right.” I knew it was coming. It didn’t help. I bounced off the concrete after his boot slammed into my chest. Trapped by the ropes and the chair I had no control over my momentum. I had a brief, proud moment that I kept my head from bouncing. Protect the ole helmet, grunt. I made a mental double tap against my skull with imaginary knuckles. That made me laugh, while gasping against my deflated lungs. I was seriously a hilarious grunt. Oh, The Suck has at least one benefit, and that was you just don’t have the energy for pain. Yeah, that’s right, you get tired enough and you get hurt, your brain just shrugs. And let me tell you, if you’re paying attention, you recognize that pain can be ignored. Oh it’s still there, but it’s far away, doesn’t matter, and you can even make it not exist at all. And right now I just couldn’t give a fuck. It wasn’t the first time I’d been treated like a soccer ball in the last couple hours. Or six. Hell, it could have been days. Nah, I wasn’t that far gone yet. Just hours. Maybe. He let me giggle like an idiot for a minute before yanking me and the chair up to vertical once again. Then he went to the door and knocked. The door opened and another man came in carrying a bowl of something and a large pitcher of some liquid. Oh yeah, meal time. God, it smelled so good. And seeing the pitcher I realized how thirsty I was. “I know what you’re thinking, Private.” He said conversationally. “You’re thinking I can’t actually kill you, or injure you, or torture you to get the info I need.” He took the bowl and pitcher from the other guy and put it on the table before dragging it across the concrete in front of me. The horrible squeal of the metal legs echoed in the small room and it was downright rude and jarring. The sound surged my brain into focus. Shit. Everything hurt. Focus was a mistake. “But see, I don’t have to actually hurt you at all. The mind is an awful thing. True torture isn’t about leaving physical scars. It’s the mental scars that break you.” He continued. I watched him lean over and take a deep breath of whatever was in the bowl. “Mmmmmmm. You know, Nancy makes the best stew. The rest of that buck your giant brought in was just perfect. It’s the spices, and the gravy. Damn, I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” Private Goon was hungry. I was so hungry, they hadn’t fed me from the moment they took me away from the Bravos. A day? No, two, it had to be two days since I climbed off the transport. “I hate stew.” I lied. I loved stew, especially hot, delicious home made stew with big chunks of meat and vegetables swimming in a thick, savory gravy steeped for hours over a low flame on a cold winter day. The scent was worming its way through the air. I could taste it. He took a bite and savored it. He chewed slowly, staring me in the eye. “Well, you’re missing out.” He said around the mouthful. A small drip of whatever delicious sauce it sat in trailed down his chin. “Fuck, Nancy can cook. More for me, I guess. For every lie, every evasion, every non-answer I take a bite, leaving less for you.” He smiled. “I’m not trying to be the bad guy here. I want to feed you. I really do. But I need intel. It’s a fair trade.” I steeled my resolve and smiled back. “Like I fed your sister my dick? She was hungry too.” Which made me laugh again. Cackled like a crazy loon. And that thought cracked me up even more. Man, I was fuck - ing - high -lareeous. He shook his head and took another bite then poured himself a cup of water before chugging it down. “Fuck, sorry but I just can’t stop chowing.” And he spooned another large portion into his mouth. “Stop me anytime you’re ready.” I couldn’t keep my eyes from following the spoon from the bowl to his mouth. It wasn’t a big bowl. Another few bites and there wouldn’t be any stew left. “It’s up to you. You have all the power here.” He explained with reasonable, even tones, holding out a heaped spoonful near my face. So close. “Just one piece of intel. That’s all I need. It doesn’t even have to be anything important or critical.” I could give him something stupid, right? Like Dumbo didn’t like the dark, or Zeus wouldn’t act on his own. There was no real useful information in that. Just something that would get me a bite of food, and once I had that bite I could use the relief from hunger to shore up the fortress. My mind snapped back. No. That was the game. Once the door was cracked, it was over. I would have compromised myself and he would use that to push me further. The only way through this, my training told me, was to always refuse. You NEVER trusted your captor to live up to whatever bargain they made. If they gave you what they promised you, then your brain was convinced cooperation would save you. It was a lie. Even if it wasn’t a lie and it bought you better treatment or even release - a critical part of your capability to resist was destroyed. You could never trust yourself again. You’d stepped on the road to cooperating with the enemy. You became a traitor. Civilians might believe there was a difference between mock operations and an actual battlefield. There wasn’t. What you do in one, you’d do in the other. Once you accepted a course of action that bred weakness, you could never trust yourself when it truly mattered. Doubt seeped in. And this guy was right, even if I understood at a foundational level that he couldn’t actually hurt me physically, he couldn’t kill me, or maim me, he could still make my life extremely difficult and uncomfortable. While it doesn’t take much to kill someone, that also meant it was easy to keep them just a couple steps from death in a state where they wanted to die but couldn’t. A single bite of food a week is all that was necessary to live. A small cup of water every two days. Your body would eat itself eventually, but that took weeks, sometimes months. And one good meal, a soft bed and a good night’s rest, and they could start all over again with more weeks of deprivation. They didn’t have to lift a finger or exert themselves at all. If I wasn’t prepared to maintain resistance when there weren’t any actual stakes, when I knew they didn’t have the time to push me to that threshold, I was unsuitable in every way for real combat situations. And Sarge would say refusing to take the opportunity to test yourself was the most dumbshit fucking decision in the history of dumbshit Grunt decisions in the entire Kingdom of Dumbshit Grunts. Battle and war were all about making the hard decisions, taking a path that was the most difficult. There were no easy paths when the lives of your men, your brothers, were in the balance. That’s the part that sent a golden glow of strength through me. My brothers. For them, I’d die. I’d suffer a thousand cuts, a hundred crippling wounds, if I could keep them safe by doing it and give them the best chance of success. The minute I gave the enemy intel I would reduce their chances of survival. If I could die to give them the chance to get home alive, I would do it gladly. I wouldn’t betray them for a fucking bite of stew. “Fuck you.” I grinned before closing my eyes. Ah, it was good to rest, to let it go. Whatever was going to happen, I didn’t need to stick around for it. With a single deep breath I was gone, inside. No more me. No more hunger, or thirst. No more aching body. Yeah, I was giving up my trump card, but it wasn’t something they could use against me. I resolved to stay under for the duration. It would no doubt create a small crisis for them, and that thought comforted me just before all thoughts bled away like a morning fog. ***************************** The shock of ice cold water drenching and choking me brought me out of the emptiness. I gasped and hacked trying to clear my throat and lungs. “Aw, shit. There goes your water.” He said in a dry but contrite defeat. “Ggggnnnnnhhhh” I groaned. Coming out of the depths, I didn’t get to pick and choose what to pay attention to, and I felt every ache and pain in my body as well as a swollen soreness in my jaw. “You hit me?” I opened and closed my mouth. “I thought we weren’t doing that.” He squinched his face up in a cringe. “Thought you passed out, tried to bring you around.” I didn’t buy it. “So that was your first move, the water only occurred to you after that?” He shrugged. “Yeah. Sorry. I really am. I’m not used to ‘Interrogation Lite’ in my line of work.” he actually made air quotes with his hands. “There IS a rule book, believe it or not. The thing is, the list of ‘don’t do this’ is the actual playbook. Not at your level, of course. They will roast your nuts in a military tribunal if you do any of that shit. Me though? Don’t do this is my bread and butter.” He was talking like he was having a dinner conversation. “God, you’re an asshole.” I grumbled. Oh, the adrenaline had me sharp and aware now. It wouldn’t last, but in spite of the awareness of the pain I was in, I welcomed it. “And that’s not in ‘air quotes’ “ I even held the pause. That made him laugh. “I like your style, kid. You’re fun. I can tell, we’re going to be good friends.” He walked back to his chair behind the table. “Oh, I ate the rest of your stew too. It was so good I let you catch a couple zz’s while I finished. Now, “ He suddenly became serious. The switch was creepy in its swift perfection. “who the fuck are you? You and these other children we’re babysitting?” Gloves are off, I guess. My jaw was proof of that. Was his little speech about ‘don’t do this’ a warning? Up to this point things had been civil. Trust me, getting kicked in the chest while tied to a chair was playtime in these situations, a gentle introduction. I was a pretend prisoner undergoing pretend interrogation. Yeah, I know what I said before about there being no difference. Turns out I lied. Don’t feel bad, I lied to myself first so who’s the bigger chump here? You can’t help but try to do the math in your head during this shit. Hmm, a Chump AND a Goon. I’m really sailing through this shit like a fuckin pro! I chuckled at that. “Something funny, Private?” My Inquisitor asked. He didn’t let me answer. “I’m going to level with you, because I realize this has all be set up as some game and you were told it was training. Which I admit, was what we signed up for. That was the plan. Right up until two of your men went rogue. So, did Collins send you here to get intel? Does he want to stick his nose into our business? You should know, that crosses a line.” This was all news to me, and I told him so. “How the fuck should I know? I haven’t been with my men since this all started, thanks to you and your circus apes. We’re just stupid infantry grunts trying to get through the suck.” “Yeah, just simple grunts without a Command, unassigned. YOU. DON’T. EXIST. You expect me to believe you don’t know that? I had my men snoop around. All of you disappeared ten months ago as far as the Army is concerned. And that - “. He pointed an oddly long index finger at me, “sends off every fucking alarm bell I got. And then we got Collins playing all nice, which isn’t his usual modus operandi. So, do yourself a favor, kid. Whatever you’re mixed up in, just spill it. We don’t want to kill you, but there are stakes here that are way above your pay grade. The circles I operate in, that Collins operates in are world shaking. You’re a monkey in a zoo, and Collins and I…we’re the zoo keepers. More accurately I’m the guy who captures or kills the wild animals and manages the ecosystem so that the predators don’t outnumber the prey. And now it seems Collins is raising his own pack of wild wolves and that’s not his job. So you may not know all the details, but you know something. And that’s your only ticket to staying above the dirt.” He got up out of his chair and knocked on the door. Before he left, he turned around. “I really am sorry kid. I know you didn’t ask for this. None of this makes me happy, but you should know I’ll sleep just fine whether you live or die and I’ll put a bullet through your skull without a single regret. Do the smart thing. Right now we can agree you aren’t too far in and I’m good with turning you over to Collins without a scratch. But you gotta give me something.” He turned to the guy who opened the door. “Get him some food, and let him sleep.” I don’t know whether it was the tone of voice he used, or the words he chose to speak so casually, or the end of interrogation protocol by allowing me to eat and sleep, but I believed him. Still, not even the promise of food and sleep could shake the cold knot of fear from worming its way inside my gut. I especially didn’t like how the Bravos didn’t officially exist. And if the words didn’t do the job, the beating I then got from the ape at the door certainly drove reality home. I did get to eat, which was nice. Did you know chewing is optional when eating? Yeah, chewing is impossible when your jaw barely works. I could barely get my swollen tongue to push the food into my throat, whole. Not like I wasn’t hungry enough to just pour it down my throat without chewing anyway. The delicate logistics of delivering a small enough morsel to get through my ruined mouth was its own torture when all I wanted was to shovel it in. There was also a small comfort in the recognition that getting a beat down from an ape is not too different from foreplay with your ass kicking boyfriend. I was just missing the brutal ass fucking that went along with it. That was always the best part. Thoughts of Kevin lulled me to sleep. If my punished mouth could have smiled, I would have. I needed a clear head to think my way through this, and only sleep would give me that. I wasn’t Kevin, who could add all this up in a few seconds and see the bigger picture from all the puzzle pieces. No, Private Chump Goon needed a clear head. Preferably one that didn’t feel like a sledgehammer was bashing it. Pain is what we eat for Breakfast. Huah! ****************************** BOOTLICKER The knife at his neck only provided a minimum of additional motivation because he was inclined to go with this sneaky asshole anyway. He was bored with the lessons from his instructor, bored of the cold empty woods, bored with Demon’s stupid questions, the delays, this whole fucking day. Bootlicker would have followed the man threatening him if he’d only asked. Admittedly, the knife at his neck did make it more appealing. Whatever this guy wanted, the knife meant it was bound to be more interesting than level 1 fieldcraft from the instructor. He’d stepped away from his group to drop a deuce and was embarrassed to be caught mid-shit with a hand over his mouth and a knife pressing into his soft neck. Never even heard the guy. “Make a sound and I slit your throat.” The guy whispered in his ear. A little creepy, that. The guy could have whispered from a foot away, he didn’t have to press his lips to his actual ear. And then, when he spoke, the warm moist breath that came with the words slathered inside his ear canal, across his cheek. It was like a lover’s caress. Weirdo. He filed that assessment away for potential future exploitation. Bootlicker raised his hands to show he wasn’t going to resist. “You mind if I finish?” He whispered back. “Gotta wipe at least.” “Make it fast.” The weirdo replied. Bootlicker paused for a second but the weirdo didn’t move his face away from his ear, or the knife from his neck. Yeah, definite sicko here. Maybe he liked watching guys take a shit. Bootlicker had read about that type, but hadn’t run across any up until now. Yeah, this was way more interesting than a lecture about tracking through terrain. Weirdos weren’t much of a challenge usually, you just dangled in front of their face whatever their favorite creepy thing was and they were happy to do whatever you wanted. Sometimes a challenge was fun, the whole figuring out what it would take to get someone to do what you needed. But with weirdos, it was a different kind of fun. They got so excited. Like a puppy when you held a treat up for them to see. Maybe this weirdo wanted him to shit on his chest while he watched. Bootlicker finished up with a shrug and a couple handfuls of leaves. It was a shame though, he felt like he was finally going to be able to push out a good, long shit. They didn’t call MRE’s Meals Refusing to Exit without good reason. You get backed up in the field, and when a good rumbler finally decides to breach you want to make the most of it. At least there wasn’t the never ending wipe of a chow hall dump. It was small consolation. There was no telling when the next urge would come. It could be a week and then all he’d have to look forward to was seeing how big of a turd he could push out, and if it broke a Platoon record. Once he’d tightened his belt, the weirdo grabbed his coat by the scruff of the neck and yanked him around to move away from where Demon and Troll were still listening to the droning instruction of their guide. He remained docile while the man pushed him forward every few steps with a rough shove. By doing that he was making it impossible for Bootlicker to step quietly. This guy didn’t seem like the careless type which meant there was a purpose to enforcing Bootlicker’s clumsiness. He divided his attention between choosing his steps and thinking about this change in scenario. The Bravos had already been separated into small groups. Standard for either training development or small unit operations. It was possible that this guy was tasked with peeling off various soldiers for one training purpose or another. Bootlicker didn’t think so. The silent attack coupled with leading him away from his group indicated the Bravos and their instructor weren’t supposed to know. An idea popped into his head - the man’s rough treatment ensured a trail the others could follow, and they were just talking about tracking through terrain. Was he now the target? That seemed off, and inaccurate. Why make it easy on them like the man was doing by refusing to let Bootlicker place his feet carefully? Anyone could track a messy trail, especially in winter through leaf fall and dead growth. And what did this guy even need Bootlicker for? He could do this himself. It almost felt like the man didn’t care about leaving a trail, that he knew they wouldn’t follow them. Everything felt off from the knife to his neck, to being attacked when the others were distracted and HE was distracted, now this clumsy travel. “I can actually be way more careful in leaving a trail, you know.” He told the guy. “Doesn’t matter.” The man said in a loud whisper, giving him another shove. “You aren’t going to tie my hands?” Bootlicker asked. Another shove. “Doesn’t matter.” “What if I call out? Someone will come running.” Bootlicker tried a third time. A harder shove this time, forcing him to stumble. “Doesn’t matter. Shut the fuck up.” When Bootlicker regained his balance, he felt a sharp sting on his ear. His hand came away bloody. The fucker had cut him. The sharp tang of coppery blood invaded his nose. Definitely a puzzling development. Bootlicker tried to fit that information into the profile he was building of the man. If he was going to manipulate this guy, he needed a motivation. The knife seemed important. He hadn’t sheathed it and kept twirling it in his hand as they walked, flipping it, tossing it over the back of his hand to grab the handle again from the other side, changing the blade’s direction in his fist over and over again. That was another clue. Bootlicker didn’t get a sense of agitation from the guy, so it wasn’t a nervous tic. Practice? Habit? Showing off a skill to intimidate Bootlicker? The man’s head and eyes constantly scanned the woods around them, never looking at the knife while it moved. There was something hypnotic in the confident moves, a pattern. Bootlicker began to memorize the various movements as they walked. It wasn’t long, maybe a half hour, before they approached a small rise. The man circled around to the right and with a move that looked like an optical illusion or a magic trick he let go of the knife with his right hand and with a lazy and casual motion reached out to grab Bootlicker’s upper arm with his right while catching the knife with his left. The weird part was that the knife just seemed to hang there until it was gripped once again. Bootlicker tried to figure out if it defied gravity for as long as it seemed it had. Around to the right a hole sat at the base of a rocky cliff that was about 11 feet high. The hole looked natural, maybe from erosion, and it was barely wide enough to fit a grown man. He received a kick to the back of his knees and he collapsed. The man didn’t let him fall, and instead lowered him with firm control until his knees were on the ground. “Feet first.” The man commanded. Bootlicker thought the rough whispering was overly dramatic like Michael Keaton in the movie Batman Returns. Maybe someone else would be intimidated. Bootlicker saw it for the silliness it was. “Can’t you talk normal?” He said, scooting on his butt into the hole. He saw a flash out of the corner of his eye and felt another sting on his ear. A cringe was all he would allow himself. He didn’t waste the opportunity to learn. That knife skill enticed him more than the Airborne course, more than survival training, more than range training and qualification. It should be easy to master. After all, he hadn’t neglected his hand tricks while in the Army. If anything he’d climbed up a few skill levels by palming anything he wanted, fooling the Bravos with card tricks, lock picking and picking pockets. Before the Bravos had left Germany he had keys for 80% of the motor pool. He never used them, but you never knew when or if it would come in handy. For practice before they left, he snuck into the NATO ally section at Graf and left the keys on the desk of the NATO allied commander with a note. After duty hours, of course. He wasn’t yet at the level of a daytime duty raid. Knife handling, control and skill seemed like it was a necessary for his path. Aside from the brief time in Basic when there was no avoiding being treated like a diseased worm, being railroaded into the Army was the best thing that ever happened to him. Almost infinite resources, toys, access, danger and adrenaline, skills and training in EVERYTHING. The hole was dark and he had no idea where his feet needed to be as he scooted inside. It didn’t take a genius to anticipate the small crevice would have to open up. There was no purpose to forcing a grown man into a hole that didn’t, and if the weirdo was joining him there would have to be more room. He wasn’t surprised when he felt his feet hit air, then his knees, thighs. He hoped the ground didn’t fall away too far but at least it all felt wide. Scooting six inches at a time while blind was not enjoyable. Once his stomach hung over the edge, his feet contacted solid ground. He realized he would have to move away from the entrance because no doubt the weirdo would be coming in at any time. Without his body blocking the tight tunnel, a slight bit of light filtered in, allowing him to see minimal features of the hideout. It would take his eyes a minute or so to adjust completely but he could make out enough room overhead that he didn’t have to squat. He looked around. The space wasn’t large, maybe seven feet long by five feet wide, sort of an oval. The odor of wild animal was everywhere, that sharp musky scent so overwhelming nothing else could compete. A small lumpy pile sat nearby. While he was contemplating what the pile might be, a hard boot jammed into his back and sent him sprawling against the wall. He should have anticipated that. The weirdo was smart. Bootlicker could have been waiting to attack while the weirdo was vulnerable and stuck in the tunnel. In the time it took Bootlicker to regain his feet and turn around, the man was standing in the den with knife flipping across his knuckles, back and forth. “Make yourself comfortable.” The coarse, gravelly voice didn’t echo, but still sounded too loud for the small enclosed space. Bootlicker moved over to the pile intending to sit. “Not there.” The weirdo growled. He pushed down the frustration. “Here?” Bootlicker pointed to a spot 2 feet away. “Fine.” As he sat, Bootlicker thought he might break the ice. “Yo-“ “Shut the fuck up.” The man interrupted. “Fucking babies.” Bootlicker watched him search through the pile. Bootlicker’s reflexes caught something thrown at him. His eyes were almost completely adjusted now and rather than just shadows he saw features resolve. “Eat that. Drink your own fucking water.” “Than-“ “Shut the fuck up.” Interesting. This was going to be fun. He’d never had to get inside someone this combative. In most cases of opposition, recognition of authority lowered resistance. Well placed subservience smoothed and defined a relationship they felt comfortable with. This guy didn’t care. Bootlicker knew there was a way past the man’s gruff and irritated frustration, he only had to wait for the man to give him a clue. There was always a clue. The weirdo didn’t pull him away for his sparkling personality, unless this was some kinky thing. He wasn’t getting that read. People who wanted something like THAT from you usually didn’t treat you like shit. With those people it was all about being overly nice. This had a purpose, a purpose the weirdo felt was either beneath him or he felt wouldn’t pay off. He didn’t want Bootlicker here, that was clear as day. Orders? Was he just some unfortunate slave to someone else? He took a bite of whatever it was that was wrapped in the foil package. It was too dark to see. The weirdo would reveal everything he expected soon, Bootlicker guessed. The weirdo was definitely not the patient type. As Bootlicker chewed, he felt the clotted blood pull at his skin with every movement of his jaw. ‘This is exactly the adventure I needed.’ He thought with a grin. ********************* “Name.” The man coughed out. His voice sounded like he was choking on a wad of steel wool. Seriously, it was so ridiculous. Bootlicker opened his eyes from his short nap. By mutual unspoken agreement they’d both leaned back against their respective walls and closed their eyes after eating. “Bootlicker.” He answered. A knife flew at Bootlicker. He almost didn’t dodge in time. It thudded off the dirt wall where his chest used to be. “Name.” “Evans.” Bootlicker sighed. It was right there on his uniform. Like always. Which meant a game of follow the leader. He hated this game, it was the ultimate in boring. ‘Prove you know how to listen. Prove you know how to follow the rules. Prove you’re smart. Prove you’re willing. But most of all - Prove obedience.’ For fuck’s sake, he didn’t get the name Bootlicker because he had a shoe fetish. “Can’t we just skip this?” He said softly. Another knife. He didn’t bother to dodge this time because he was expecting it. He just knocked it aside. It was just timing. They weren’t thrown with deadly force. He shouldn’t have come. This was going to be no different than the usual slow, painful drip of information he always had to endure. Skills and information were always taught at a rate that the dumbest idiot could grasp. And Bootlicker was a rabbit among turtles. No. A cheetah. He didn’t need a slow feed, didn’t need repetition, multiple examples or explanation. Practice was what he needed if it was a skill. Additional pieces was what he needed if it were information. Everything was a puzzle. He darted his eyes to the man who was now easy to see with his complete adjustment to the dark. He was picking his fingernails with another knife. Bootlicker didn’t bother retrieving either of the knives the man had thrown. “Which direction did we travel to get here?” The raspy voice asked. He pointed to the wall on his right. “Southwest. Heading 194. Approximately.” The man’s eyebrows twitched. “Close enough.” He said taking his eyes off his fingernail project to stare at Bootlicker. “How far did we travel?” “Two and a half clicks. Approximately.” “Fine. Elevation?” Bootlicker smirked. Showing off was one of his favorite things to do. “Specific, I don’t know. This area of Georgia doesn’t exceed 360 meters. Floor is 280. We’re somewhere between 310 and 330 meters. And delta from origin is…” he paused. “12 meters. Approximately. Maximum deviation of this grid is 40 meters.” “The compound?” Bootlicker referenced the three dimensional sketch of the area he’d already built in his head. “Heading 72 degrees, four clicks, elevation delta minus 23 meters.” “Who gave you a map?” Another smirk. “Ft. Benning. The board outside the Cadre building.” He just had a feeling the man had seen the 6 foot by 4 foot display behind plexiglass that posted information about Airborne command, Ft. Benning, the state of Georgia with both a general terrain map and a detailed map of the base, the town of Columbus, state parks. He didn’t think the man would believe that most of the information came from when he completed AIT here. Over a year and a half ago, his core navigation module provided all the information he needed and he exceeded the boundaries of the requirements because like usual he was bored after internalizing the course demands. While the rest of his AIT class struggled to learn how to use a compass, grid building, resection, identifying terrain features, he began figuring out the rest of the state and then the region. With every detail the picture in his head resolved in finer, smaller segments until he was satisfied he could walk on foot through the countryside from Pensacola to Nashville without following a single road. The look on the man’s face was droll disbelief. “How far is the border of Alabama?” The man’s voice scratched. Yeah, now came the expected proof and confirmation. Just once it would be nice to be taken at face value. These mundane plodding human livestock could never conceive he operated efficiently. “Approximately 20 clicks.” “You know exactly where you are.” It wasn’t a question. “In your head.” The man wasn’t looking at him, but bobbed his head while looking at his knife as if trying to come to a decision. “Scud attack on the barracks.” The man rasped. “Didn’t even make it out of Saudi Arabia, never set foot in either Kuwait or Iraq. Never fired a single round. Missed my jugular by a fingernail. Was told I was lucky they could save this much of my voice. Normal is whatever you decide it is.” Bootlicker approved of the lack of anger, lack of self pity in the man’s ravaged voice. The man went back to flipping and twirling a knife through his fingers, across his knuckles, through his palms. “Observations.” He continued as if he hadn’t just exposed the most painful regret of his entire life. Something in the refusal of emotion resonated with Bootlicker. He took a breath. Somehow, he felt it would be worth it to take a leap of faith. After his talk with Gary, his cellmate in jail, he kept his unusual personality carefully hidden. Gary was right - it was creepy to the human livestock and made them suspicious, even frightened. So he perfected the charming, engaging, helpful nerd persona for general interaction. If he needed a different one for a specific situation, like the firm control he exercised with Wanker, that was easy enough. Wanker believed he was the only one chosen to see a different side of Bootlicker, and that served to ensure Wanker’s loyalty and dedication. Wanker believed they were a team. “All of it?” Bootlicker asked. The direct and intense stare he received sent a thrill through Bootlicker. “At least three forces, multiple objectives.” He started. “We’re pawns, the Bravos. Ultimate objective is a new policy directive straight from the Pentagon. This is a testing ground for us, but there’s a battle behind the show. We aren’t fully welcome here. We weren’t at Airborne. We won’t be in the Ranger course. Our success won’t be measured by training metrics. The training is only a method to evaluate whether a change in policy can be implemented.” “You’re sure you’ll be sent to the Ranger course?” The man asked. “I saw the file myself. The compound is a pit stop. Unscheduled. Major Collins exercised some of his broad discretion to get us here.” “What do you know about Collins?” The man asked. Bootlicker let the slight grin play across his lips. So much information. The man referred to Collins by name, without the rank of Major. That signified familiarity and dispensed with the respect. A personal relationship of some sort, known, no chain of command. The detail of how the man lost his voice indicated a medical separation from the military. His clandestine retrieval by the man indicated he wasn’t affiliated with the men from the compound. But that wasn’t confirmed. “Major Collins is running the program we’re in. He’s working for the Pentagon in this. He reports directly to a General, skipping over the usual intermediaries. That alone makes whoever he is very important.” “Why?” It was a question intended to confirm that Bootlicker grasped the subtleties of military politics, so he answered. “It means he’s protected. It gives him authority beyond his rank. It means he works outside the usual limited environments a Major would be allowed. He has few restrictions, wide discretion, deep funding and the ability to commandeer resources like a NATO training base in Germany and enough slots in the Ranger course for an entire Infantry platoon.” “Is this a specific career objective for your Platoon?” The man asked. “Speculating? Yes, but only because Major Collins won’t waste highly trained, specifically targeted troops after he gets his answer from the program. Those of us who make it will likely end up SOF. All this would be a colossal waste of time, personnel, and money if he didn’t use us further. That seems unlikely.” The man snorted, which with his broken vocal ability only sounded like he was choking on rocks. “You haven’t spent enough time in if you think the Pentagon doesn’t throw away all three of those things every day.” It was Bootlicker’s turn to snort. “Then that tells me you haven’t exchanged a single word with Major Collins, and probably have never laid eyes on him.” The man gave him an unimpressed slow blink. Confirmation. The back and forth revealed further information to Bootlicker. The man was receiving information he didn’t know before, including that the Bravos knew their purpose and their pipeline. Bootlicker let him have the assumption that the knowledge was a given fact among the Bravos even though it wasn’t. There wasn’t yet a reason to reveal that Bootlicker was the one who discovered the information and held it closely so far. He might be impressed to know just how Bootlicker came to know these things. But it wasn’t time to reveal that. That would create an imbalance in this negotiation. The man wasn’t livestock in his mind anymore but he also wasn’t an equal yet. The signs were good that he might be but Bootlicker wouldn’t let himself hope yet. In the silence, Bootlicker picked up one of the knives the man had thrown at him and began trying to figure out how to manipulate it across his hand. He focused on moving it in one direction, working out the method to flip the handle out of his grasp so that the blade contacted his knuckles. The man glanced briefly at his actions, then went back to his unfocused stare. “What were you told before being dropped off?” Up until then, he’d managed to catch the knife every time he dropped it. He would be clumsy until he found the rhythm. The question distracted him and he felt the knife bounce off his thigh. He picked it up and resumed. “Nothing. Pack out and load up. That’s it. We don’t know what we’re supposed to learn here, but given what we’ve been doing the last 36 hours, it’s a crucible. Our baseline capability was measured. The instructors who selected us in small units are teaching us scouting, recon, field skills and tonight is a mock attack on the compound using modified battle drills. We’re supposed to plan an infiltration or frontal assault. We’re meant to lose.” “They won’t let your units penetrate beyond the outer buildings.” The man observed. “Zeus will have something to say about that.” Bootlicker returned. He didn’t give anyone else a snowball’s chance in hell now that he’d been take off the game board. He would have maximized the talents of Demon and Troll to get further than that, but without him dictating the strategy neither of those two had the brainpower to modify the plan on the fly. “But yes, the other group will have secondary defenses. They will make sure they have overlapping coverage for their initial defense. And without Assmunch we won’t have an overall multi layer assault plan. Our small units will be acting independently. It’ll be a slaughter.” “Yup. Gonna get your asses kicked. We can watch from a distance position if you want, but we’ll be enjoying each other’s company for the foreseeable future.” The voice was grating less and less on Bootlicker’s nerves. “I’d rather work with you on the reason you’re here.” Bootlicker replied. He didn’t want to watch the grunts flounder and lose to the Charlies. It would only bore him. “Oh? And what would you know about that?” The careful disinterest spoke volumes. Instead of a direct answer, Bootlicker made a show of looking around their small cave. “We only got here yesterday morning. You, however, have been using this hideout for a least a few days longer than that.” He let the rest, the natural conclusion of that information, hang unspoken. The split second hesitation in the man’s constant knife flipping glared louder than anything he could have said. “Looks like the little guy was right.” The man said. “That little fucker was trickier and faster than he had any right to be. ‘Bootlicker would know’ he said.” That could only mean Weeble. An unexpected laugh came out of his mouth, surprising him. Genuine humor was rare for Bootlicker. “Just think of him as a cornered feral cat if he doesn’t like whatever you did to him.” A grunt was the man’s response. Then a pause before “You’re awful cooperative for someone who has no idea what he’s involved in.” “Involved?” Bootlicker mused. “We’re just here. Pawns aren’t involved, they occupy spaces to force other….” He stopped suddenly. “Took you long enough.” The man actually managed to insert a snide tone into the crushed gravel of his words. Bootlicker ignored the verbal arrow. Multiple game pieces of different levels of power appeared in his mind. The very nature of the compound itself, the instructors he’d seen, the rough military discipline without actual military presence, Major Collins and his ability to get them here, and the last piece was this man and his comfortable hideout that spoke of long term recon. “Put it together. I’ll clear up any incorrect assumptions or conclusions.” The man said, his tone of voice, such as it was, drastically different. “Major Collins has additional objectives he hopes to gain by our presence here.” Bootlicker began, speaking as soon as the thoughts came. “You don’t know what they are, which means you aren’t associated with the Major and not part of his plan. But you also aren’t surprised that Major Collins is directing this. That indicates you have objectives as well that differ from his. There’s something about the compound, or the organization here you both want to know, I think. You yourself aren’t active duty any more, probably a medical discharge just before Desert Storm, or during it because your fitness wouldn’t be determined until you rehabbed and could be evaluated by the board. When doesn’t matter. Your questions… our arrival forced you to figure out what part the Bravos had to play, you weren’t expecting us. And you chose a grunt Private, well two of us if I include Weeble, to provide you intel and that means you are desperate.” The man stopped him with a hand. “Not desperate. Trying to avoid collateral damage to the pawns.” Fair enough. There was still something missing and it immediately came to mind as he recognized the hole in the strategic moves. It made no sense for the man to reveal himself to Weeble and Bootlicker. Clandestine surveillance wasn’t an overnight operation. While he couldn’t know of any immediate or critical timeline that would make a breach of operating procedure that necessary it was beyond foolish to seek the minimal information any Bravo could provide. No one at higher levels would ever think Infantry Privates had valuable intel. It didn’t add up. He kept that to himself. There was another game here. One he was now determined to figure out. And finding out things he wasn’t supposed to find out was his specialty. Sergeant Walters or Horvath were better targets. Hmmm, except if the play was to target soldiers younger and easier to manipulate and control. How interesting would it be if a pawn could be seized and converted to play for your side? Or did different sides even exist? His only path ahead was cooperation, but that suited him just fine. There was quite a bit he needed to learn from this man and it didn’t matter which faction he played for.

Thanks man! Don't worry, I'm still working on Barrack's Bitch... Just needed perspective and to release some seedier material. Not much room in the wholesome world of the Bravos for this type of thing

Literally missionary. Lol