A Marine Called Jason
(Revised)
by: Peter

(© 2007-2015 by the Author)
 

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 68
Finding Jason 

My sniper training had taught me patience, and that paid off so I didn’t go nuts waiting for time off.  The day finally came.  I came in from a mission and was showering at the outdoor shower when the sergeant came in behind the privacy wall.  It wasn’t the first time he’d done that and I wondered if he just wanted to watch me shower. But this time he brought good news.

“You’ve got a three-day waiting at the CQ desk,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Thanks? Is that it?  Most guys jump up and down over a three-day.”

“When does it start?” I asked.

“As soon as you pick it up.” He was turned to leave when I stopped him.

“Hey, Sarge.”

He turned around. I did some jumping jacks for him. I noticed his eyes fell right to my swinging cock. He stood and watched till I stopped and my cock was hanging still.  I was looking right at him when he looked up.

“That do it for you?” I asked.

“For now, but I want an encore,” he said.

Okay, that was settled.  My suspicions were confirmed.  I made a mental note to pursue it….or let the sergeant pursue me.

Finally! I was going to Saigon!  On my own, not a quick flight in and back, like with Lt. Cunningham. I decided not to wear civvies.  If I found Jason I wanted him to see my patches. I kept my dress uniform hanging at the back of the rod, waiting for just such an occasion. Not the dress blues; the summer tans. I liked that better because the shirt showed off my upper body better.

I thought about asking the lieutenant to fire up his bird and give me a lift but thought better of it. He would probably want to hang around.  I got a ride into Saigon along with a couple of other guys, on a truck going after supplies. It was nearing dusk and the city streets were already bright with the lights welcoming the ensuing nightlife that would soon begin. Ironically, we were let off in front of my old barracks, at the guard shack where I’d last seen Jason. The other guys took off, leaving me standing looking over the high walled fence.  They had rebuilt the barracks. 

“Can I help you?” It was the guard stepping out of the guard shack.

“No. I used to live here,” I said.

“Sorry I can’t let you in without authorization. That’s Intel,” he said.

“I know. That’s okay,” I said. I wondered if Colonel Brown was still the CO.  I asked the guard.

“I heard he was sent back to Washington,” he said.

I nodded then turned and walked away. A few paces down the street I stopped and turned to look again.  Something drew me back to this place where more than two years of my life had virtually been snuffed out. I walked back to the guard shack.

“Can you tell me, did anybody get killed in that attack?” I asked.

“Miraculously, no. There were some pretty bad injuries, though. Surprisingly, a lot of guys walked away without a scratch. Hey, were you here when that happened?” he asked.

“Yeah.

“One of the lucky ones, huh?”

“I’m still standing,” I said.

A few yards down the fence I came to the tree where I’d tossed the condom Jason had used to fuck Ling.  I had to laugh, wondering who had found it.

As I walked on in the direction of Toby’s, I had the overwhelming feeling--a gut sensation, really--that I had been on this very same mission before, looking for Jason.  But that was a dream, and in the dream Jason didn’t exist, and that thought haunted me now. I walked past the street leading up to the Trent Hotel, toward the park. I paused to just look at the building, I think to make sure it was real. Room 238….was there a room 238, I wondered?  I went on.

Walking along the narrow pathways, past the ponds and small gardens, emotions started playing havoc with my guts. I managed to maintain a tough calm till I saw Toby’s, then I choked and had to stop and sit down on a bench under the trees and take a moment to toughen up. I think I thought Toby's might be a figment of my imagination but it was real, too.  The Trent….and Toby's….that meant Jason was real. If he was still alive.  I had no idea if he would be there--doubted if he would, frankly--yet hope would not give up.  I had come all this way--again--this time out of the nightmare.  There had to be hope, or there was nothing.

I got up from the bench and walked toward Toby’s. Moving forward, there was a force inside me that made me want to turn and run.  I was surprised at my sudden cowardice. I wasn't sure my heart was even beating.  Approaching the door, I opened it and walked in as if I’d been there only yesterday, when it’d been….what, three years?….or was it fifteen? For a second, I didn’t know if I was entering my future or my past that didn’t exist.  I shook it off.…or thought I did.  When I went inside I half expected to see a young stranger behind the bar.  There was only Toby.  He didn’t see me at first and I took a moment at the darkened doorway to get reacquainted with the place. It was still going strong, with lots of noise and laughter.  Nothing had changed. Except me.

Toby didn’t recognize me till I was half way down the bar, and when he did, he looked like he was seeing a ghost. He tossed the bar towel over his shoulder and stood in frozen silence, just staring at me. Then, still expressionless, he started out from behind the bar and I could make out his mouth forming the words, “well son-of-a-bitch!”  I met him at the end of the bar in a tight bear hug.  He felt good. That’s all I could think of--not great or awesome--anything more than good would’ve gotten me a hardon. Neither of us said anything for a long time, just stood there, holding each other tight. I thought I felt Toby choking up.

“When did you get back in country?” he asked finally, probably as an excuse to break apart, but we didn’t, not for a few more seconds.

“A few months ago,” I said.

We separated and held each other by the shoulders at arm’s length and just looked at each other.  I wanted to ask but I was afraid to.  I guess I did, though, with my eyes, because Toby smiled and his eyes danced like they always did when he was about to say or do something exciting.

“Well, there’s someone here I guess you probably want to see,” he said.

I whispered, “Oh, Fuck” and my heart skipped, or maybe it just stopped beating altogether for a few seconds.  He was here! Godd, he was alive!!  I just kept looking at Toby, afraid to speak, afraid to look anywhere else because if I did, and I saw him, I didn’t know if I could handle it.  I was terrified that if I saw him I would be hurled back into the nightmare and all this would be snatched away from me.  I couldn’t believe it, and I was afraid to.  When Toby started to move past me I stopped him with a hand on his muscular arm.

“Tell me….so I know….we’re talking about Jason, right? Jason’s here.”

“Yeah, Jason, who’d you think? God, is he going to be glad to see you.” He squeezed my shoulder and nodded to the side.  I finally tore my eyes from his, scared as shit.  He squeezed my shoulder again and nodded to the left then stepped back around the end of the bar, leaving me standing there alone. I never felt so alone and vulnerable in my life.  I felt like a little boy lost.  It took everything I had to turn and look around the bar, toward the tables at the windows. The dim lighting made it hard to see, but then I heard his laughter.  It sent shivers down my spine.  Please, God, this isn’t a dream!

I was so nervous I thought I might puke.  I took a deep breath.  I had to force my legs to move me in the direction of the table where the beautiful sound had come from.  The place was dimly lit but I was sure that the figure standing at a far table was him. He had his back to me and he was laughing and talking to the guys at the table before he pulled a chair out and sat down. I was about six feet away when he suddenly turned and looked at me; squarely at me.  It was as if something--a signal--had gone off in his head and he knew I was there.  His laughter vanished and his face was suddenly blank, disbelieving, probably pale, as if he were seeing a ghost.  It seemed a long time….maybe it was….before he slowly shoved his chair back and stood up. When he did, suddenly it was just him and me in the crowded, noisy bar. He seemed to hesitate before he came toward me but when he did, it was a determined advance, like he would’ve come through a wall to get to me.  He hesitated again just before he pulled me into his powerful arms to hug me. I hugged him back, hard and tight. Neither of us spoke, but I felt his powerful chest, and the washboard plate of his stomach muscles spasm against me. Was he crying?

“Fuck!” he whispered; it was about what I expected he might say.

I didn’t know how long we stayed in the embrace, but when we parted guys were looking at us.

He turned back to the table where he’d been sitting. “I gotta split, guys.”

“Hey, this was your round,” one of them said.

He took a wad of money out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. “Let’s get out of here,” he said hoarsely.

I saw Toby smiling when we left, his lips pursed tightly.  We walked to the park and stopped at one of the ponds and stood for a long, quiet moment looking into the water, watching the goldfish.  My heart was pounding so hard I was sure Jason could hear it….maybe feel it. He was breathing hard, his massive chest almost heaving.  I heard him take in a big, deep breath and he started to say something but he choked it off.  I was surprised that I was calmer than he was.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I managed to say quietly.

“Good. Because I can’t,” he said finally.  It sounded like had to push the words out of his chest through a pile of emotions.

It was another moment before we drew our eyes away from the pond and looked at each other.  It was such an intense look….I swear, it crossed my mind that he might kiss me, right out there in the open.  If he had, I would’ve kissed him back. I’d never felt such a strong sense of male bonding and love, even those times when Jason fucked me.  His eyes were dancing, shifting about, searching, as if he had to make sure I was real.

“It’s great to see you….somehow just doesn’t cut it,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can’t think of anything to say either.  I never rehearsed anything.”  I tried to keep my eyes shifting so my gaze wouldn't burn into him.  Had he been this handsome before?

“I can’t believe it,” he said, his eyes roaming all over my body, as if I had come out of his dream and he was trying to make me real. He laughed, but choked on it, then turned serious. “Godd, you look great,” he said.

“So do you.”

He kept looking at me, his eyes fairly dancing as they roamed over me.  He laughed, a soft, nervous laugh. “I can’t stop looking at you.  I’m afraid if I do, you won’t be there.”

“It took me a long time to get here, I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

Then he noticed my wings and that broke the nervous edge. “Hey, what the fuck is this!” he exclaimed, fingering the badge. He sounded like his old self again.

“I wasn’t going to come back with you having that over me,” I said.

“Shit!!  Geezuss!” he swore, his eyes suddenly wider. He had seen my sniper’s patch. “Damn, you’re a sniper now, too?”

“Yeah.”

He was shaking his head in amazement.  “Fuck, what made you decide to change your MOS?”

“You,” I said.

“But you were Intel. You were one of the smart ones.”

“You never did know how much I admired and looked up to you.  I wanted to see if I had what it took.”

“Shit, man, you didn’t have to prove anything to me,” he said.

“I had to prove it to myself.  And you."

“No, not me,” he said sternly, shaking his head. “I….fuck, man, you….you were all I needed, just the way you were.”

I wondered what he’d started to say but what he said gripped my chest.

“But I’m fuckin’ proud of you,” he added.

“Thanks, coming from you, that makes it all worthwhile,” I said.  “But, what about you?” I asked with a curious frown.  “A guy I bunked with told me there was a Jason Seaborne who re-enlisted in the Marines.”

“You know about that?” he asked surprised.

“Yeah, when were you going to tell me.”

“Seriously, it slipped my mind,” he said, laughing.

“How come you left the SEALs?”

“Oh, you never leave the SEALs. I’m technically still a Navy SEAL. Dual classification,” he said. “I’m still doing the same job, just wearing a different uniform.  And the Marines is paying me now, instead of the Navy.”

“What made you decide to switch uniforms? You were already one of the elite,” I said.

“I always liked the way you looked in your uniform,” he said.

“Bull. You always liked the way I looked out of it. That’s not the reason,” I said.

“You,” he said with a downward glance.

“What about me? Don’t tell me you didn’t think you measured up to me.”

“No, it was….I….I wanted to be a fellow Marine with you.  I wanted that bond,” he said.

“That is the dumbest damn thing I ever heard,” I said, then I quickly added, “But I’m honored. And I know you look like a stud in the uniform. But you filled out your Navy whites pretty well, too.” 

“Hey, that guy you bunked with who told you about me.…were you really bunkmates?” he asked with a leering grin.

“Not in the true sense of the word,” I said. “I mean, we never shared a bunk.”  It wasn't a total lie, we never did sleep together in the same bunk.

He nodded, smiling.  “But that’s not to say……

“That’s not to say,” I repeated. “It’s been a long road, Jason. I can’t go over it all right now.  But I will, in time; I’ll tell you anything you wanta know.”

There was a long silence. We looked at each other and I saw the questions in his eyes.  We had been standing and I sat down.  He remained standing.

“I kept tabs on you whenever I could,” he said.

“They told me.”

"I don't want to rush you, Brad, but I'm ready to listen whenever you’re ready to….well, we gotta start sometime getting reacquainted."

“I know.  But I don’t know where to begin just yet,” I said quietly, and I didn’t.  Things from my past came to me randomly, but I was still never sure which past, and I didn't know what I should talk about.

“We’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” he said. “Do you wanta walk?  ‘Cause if we don't, being tucked in here in the shadows, I don't know what I might do.”

"Then, no, I wanta stay put," I said jokingly.

"Come on, let's walk," he said.  

The other thing I wanted to do was take his hand, but of course we couldn’t do that.

We walked and I started talking, asking him about what he'd been doing the whole time I was gone, but he shrugged me off.

"I don't have anything exciting to tell.  It’s the same old war.  It's you I wanta hear about," he said.   

I laughed.  "Hell, I was asleep for over two years, what the hell can I possibly have to tell about?"

"You didn't get those wings and that sniper's patch in your sleep," he said. Then he started grilling me, gently at first, till I finally opened up with the whole story, about my time in the VA hospital, going through rehab, then going through basic again, and Airborne school, then sniper school.

“Damn, you really wanted to get back over here,” he said.

“It was my total focus.  When I found out you'd been checking on me, I was determined to find you.”

“I can’t believe they made you take basic again,” he said.

“It was a breeze,” I said. “But after all that training, would you believe, I damn near got sent to Germany.”

“What the hell do they need snipers for in Germany?”

“They screwed up my orders.  I went ballistic. The CO took care of it, though.”

“Why didn’t you go ahead and go to Germany?  That would've been a great assignment.”

“Because that’s not where you were.”

We stopped and he just looked at me.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?"  I asked.

"I have to keep making sure you're real."

"They told me at the VA that you checked in on me all the time," I said.

"I worried about you, a lot."

"I've worried about you ever since I got back over here," I said. "I had no idea where you were, didn't even know your outfit.  Toby's was my last great hope to find you. Of course I don’t get into Saigon often now."

Suddenly he turned into an alley and leaned back against the wall, his hands in his pockets and his head laid back.  He sucked in a hard breath and I could tell he was filling up with emotions.

"Jason?....What?" I asked quietly.

He shook his head, choking it down. "I feel so….so humble and…. and….worthless.  I don't deserve this….fuck, all you went through to get back over here.  God, why would anybody do that for me?  It's hard to believe anybody cares that much."

I poked my fingers in his chest, hard.  "I care! And don't you ever say that to me again," I said, sounding almost angry. 

"I know.  God, how I know you care.  I am so fuckkin’ glad you’re back, I feel like I’m going to burst with emotions," he said.  He made a quick swipe at his eyes. "I had this crazy plan," he said.  "When I got out, if you were still asleep, I was going to get a place close by the VA and visit you every day; keep watch over you."

"That would've been pretty much a waste of a life," I said.

"No, man.  No, it wouldn't.  No more than you risking wasting your life coming back to this hell hole to look for me."  He grabbed me by the shoulders.  "Nothing is ever going to take us apart like that again.  You hear?  Nothing!" 

"I hear you."

He glanced both directions then and pulled me tight against him and kissed me so hard I thought my lips might bleed. It was a rough kiss that set me to trembling inside. He was trembling, too, choking down dry sobs.

“Godd, I am so glad you’re here,” he whispered, laying his head on my shoulder. As he held me tight I felt him start to bone up.

“Jason….we can’t do this; not here,” I said gruffly.

“Yeah, I know.”

Then he put his arm across my shoulders and guided us back onto the street. "What was it like, being away so long?” he asked.  “I mean, do you remember anything of that time?  Were you some place, or were you just out there, in nothingness?"

"I remember some," I said.  "Every now and then something comes through, like little flashbacks. I was some place.  And I remember people, but not clearly.  I can't put it all together yet. I don't know if I ever will.  It’s like I’ve got two pasts now. There are memories but I have to stop and figure out if they're memories from my real past or just something I dreamed."

He looked away and we walked on.

“Is your brother still an anti-war activist?” I asked.   

“Oh, yeah.” Then he gave me a funny look. “I don’t remember talking about my brother’s anti-war activities,” he said.

“I didn’t like your brother,” I said. 

“He was….part of your other life?” he said, still with the strange look.

“Yeah. He was a real prick,” I said.  “But don’t ask me questions about that, ‘cause I can’t answer them."

“So, what happened to Intel?” he asked.

“It didn’t measure up to you,” I said.

“Brad…..”  He stopped again and faced me. “Man, you don’t have to measure up to me.  I’m not your fuckin’ benchmark.”

“You were always my benchmark. You were my hero,” I said.

“Now you’re embarrassing me,” he said as he walked on.

“Tough,” I said.

“What about before all that?” he asked, referring to the time I was in a coma. “I know you said don’t ask, but….in general, what was it like?  You said you would tell me anything I want to know.”

"I meant don't ask because I don't remember enough to answer."

"So tell me what you remember."

“Well, there’s twenty six months of my life that’s missing,” I said. “I don’t remember a lot of it, and what I think I remember, I don’t know if it’s real or not.”

“I would guess it’ll take you a while to sort it all out,” he said. “But you are able to remember things that you know are from that time?”

“I do, and I don’t,” I said.  “Sometimes it’s hard to know if I’m really remembering something real, or if I’m remembering things from back in that time.  It’s still all pretty confusing.  Like coming back here, it was like….like I’d been here before.”

“You were here before,” he said.

“No, I mean I was….I was here again.  I came back after…..,” I said.  I stopped, shoving my hands in my pockets, looking down at my boots for a moment.  Jason stopped with me and I could feel him looking at me. I glanced at him and saw the confused look on his face; he was wondering what was the matter.  “Listen, if I say things that don’t make sense, or remember things….about us….like things that didn’t really happen….well, you know why.”

“I understand,” he said quietly.  “If you wanta talk about it…. about stuff you remember, or think you remember, maybe I can help you sort it out….you know….what’s real and what’s not, just by listening.  Hell, it doesn't have to make sense.”

I nodded and we walked on. “Did you know two guys named Jeremy Cole and Bill Townsend, from high school?” I asked. I was a little surprised that the two names came back to me so easily.  I had not thought of them till that moment.        

“No.”

"So the night at the cabin wasn’t real," I said, absently. “When you went back on leave….had they named your high school football stadium after you?”

He reared back and laughed. “Fuck, no.  They retired my jersey.  It was in a glass case on the wall.  But that was all.

“I saw your jersey.  It wasn’t in a case, it was still hanging in your locker.”

He looked at me, blinking. “That is weird,” he said. “What about the night in the cabin?" 

I was shaking my head.  "It's not important," I said. “We took pictures, didn’t we?” I asked. “At the Trent.…when you came in off a mission, I took some pictures of you.” 

“Yeah, we took pictures. Yeah, they’re sealed up in an envelope, at Toby’s,” Jason said. “I had no place to keep them.”

I gave a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s one thing. Describe your room back home,” I said. 

He gave me a grinning scowl and began describing his room. I didn’t recognize it from his description. I didn’t say anything for quite a ways down the street. He shoved his shoulder against mine, to jog me.

"Did any of that ring a bell?" he asked.   

“Did you have a GI Joe action figure?” I asked.

“Yeah, every kid I knew had a GI Joe.”

“Sitting on your dresser?”

“No. I packed him away in his footlocker before I left.  He used to sit on my dresser though.”

Suddenly I felt like I was being torn apart, like big claws digging into my stomach, pulling me in all directions, and I broke out in a sweat. I looked around me at the city lights and the hustle of people and I felt like a stranger in a place I knew well. I stopped and leaned back against a wall.  “I can’t do this, Jason. Not here, not now,” I said.

“That’s all right. It’ll take time,” he said. “Listen, would I be rushing things if I suggested….if you don’t wanta talk, would you wanta see if we can get our room?”

“Number 238….yeah,” I said. “I wondered if the place is still in business.”

“Yes. But I haven’t been there since…..” He cut off his words and glanced away.  “It doesn’t have to be like then….I mean, we could just talk.  We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“Yes. Besides talking,” I said.

We walked back toward the Trent. We were stopped by two scantily dressed prostitutes.  Jason waved them off with a polite, “No, thanks,” then turned to me.  “Unless you want to.”

“No. Some other time maybe,” I said.

At the end of the street leading to the hotel I started to go toward the alley; I remembered the routine.

“Where’re you going?” he asked.

“The back way,” I said, bewildered.

“Fuck that,” he said and grabbed me by the sleeve. “We’re walking straight in.”

I couldn’t describe the feeling of walking into the place again with Jason.

“Two-thirty-eight,” Jason told the clerk

“Sorry, that room is occupied.”

“Move ‘em,” Jason said as he pulled out a wad of money and counted off several bills. "And change the sheets and put in clean towels." The clerk didn’t argue. He pocketed the money and rushed up the stairs. He wasn’t the old man from my dream, and the Trent wasn’t run down. We could hear an exchange of voices upstairs but then things calmed down. The clerk came down a short while later.

“You changed the sheets, and clean towels?” Jason asked him.

“Yes, sir.”

My legs felt weak as we went up the stairs; it was like I was walking into my past, and I couldn’t discern which past and it frightened me. I heard sounds from a couple of the rooms as Jason led the way down the dark, narrow hallway. He unlocked the door and opened it, then stepped back.  Suddenly I was more frightened.

“No,” I said, motioning him in first. I didn’t know why; it was if I was afraid to go in till he checked it out.

He went in and turned on the dim light--I wondered if it was the same bulb--and turned on the ceiling fan.  It slowly began to whir and stir up the smell of sex in the room.  The sound was as familiar as the smell.  Jason went over to the window facing the street and opened it, leaving me in the doorway.  I stood looking all around. Nothing had changed.  Everything was in the exact same place as the last time we were here; the same as when I was here by myself.…and with Toby.  I still wasn’t sure where I was on my head, in my future or in one of my pasts. I wondered when I would get over this confusion. I felt suddenly hot with nerves.  Jason turned and saw me standing there, still in the doorway.  I was sweating.

“You coming in?”

“I just wanted to make sure I’m really here,” I said.

“You’re really here, in our room,” he assured me.  “It’s okay, come on in.  We’re alone,” he said as he came over and put his heavy arm on my shoulder and brought me into the room. “You’re sweating.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why.”

“Maybe because I’m turning you on,” he joked.

If he only knew. He closed the door and I heard the lock and I walked over to the standing sink to splash water on my face. I dried my face on the thin towel then gripped the sides of the porcelain sink, slumped over and started to sob. I felt Jason’s arm across my shoulder. I glanced around and he had tears running down his face too. He had taken off his sport shirt and I couldn’t help notice his thick chest under his T-shirt.

“I thought you were dead, Jason,” I managed between sobs.  “You were dead.”

“No, man, I’m alive.  I’m right here.”

“You were dead, Jason.  There was a funeral.  I took you back and I buried you."  I was sobbing harder. "I drank beer at your grave. I always left one on your headstone. I adopted your son!” It was coming out now, like an exorcism, and I couldn’t stop it.

“I don’t have a son….that I know of,” he said in a gentle tone.

I remained hunched over the sink, trying to calm down.  “You had a son. He wrote to me himself; he and Sister Marie at the orphanage.  They begged me to come and get him and take him to the States."

"What was his name?" Jason asked.

"Jason, Jr.  Jase."

"Did you bring him back?"

"Yes.  It took two years but I came back here and got him after the war.  Where I was, this fuckin’ war was over.  He was seventeen; I took him back to raise as my own.”

He laughed softly.  “If he was seventeen, hell, I wouldn’t have been old enough to even make babies. And this war is a long way from being over,” he said. His voice remained gentle, as if he were humoring me. 

I turned and grabbed his dog tags that were hanging out of his T-shirt. “I kept these when I took you back,” I said. “I brought them back when I came to get Jase and I buried one of them under one of those big trees with gnarled roots, back at your base camp. I can show you the fuckin’ tree! I’ll dig them up and…”  Suddenly I caught myself rambling.  I was choking him with the chain of his dog tags but he hadn’t flinched. I slumped forward, my head in the crook of his neck and cried uncontrollably. “Oh, Godd, Jason….I thought.…you were dead.…you were dead….in that God-awful nightmare I was in….for two fuckin’ years.” I could barely get my words out between sobs.  He held me tight and patted and rubbed my back and shoulders to try to console me.

“Brad….Brad….I’m so sorry you went through that hell.  I wish I could’ve been there with you.  I would if I could, you know that.  I would've crawled in that coma with you.  Godd, how I wish I could’ve been there for you.”

He let me cry my guts out. And I did, till my guts ached.  When I was quieter, he wet the end of the towel to wipe my eyes. I took the towel to do it myself.

“You don’t have to stop,” he said in a gentle tone.

“I tried to make a life without you, with your son….I have hurt for so long….I didn’t think I could hurt anymore, till now,” I said.

“The hurt’s over,” he said.

“No, it won’t be over, ‘cause I still don’t know where the fuck I’ve been. Things keep coming back, and when I remember things, I don’t know if it’s real or not.”

“Two years was a long time to be out of it,” he said.

“It wasn't just two years. It was fifteen years of my life, crammed into those twenty six months,” I said. “Fifteen years of trying to make a life without you.  Fifteen years of a life that didn’t fuckin’ exist!”  I practically yelled it out, in anger.

“How did I die?” he asked quietly out of the blue. His question jolted me.

“In a plane crash, coming back from the States. Toby broke the news to me.”

“There was no plane crash,” he said. “Had a couple of close calls with helicopters going down but……”

I broke away from him and went over to the window. I wasn’t done; I didn’t have it all out, and it had to come out, what was closest to the surface anyway, because it was choking me.  I felt his body heat then his hand arm on my shoulders again.

“I don’t know what to say; what to do,” he said quietly.

“You’re doing it, just being here beside me,” I whispered.

“I’ll always be here for you,” he said as he guided us to the bed and we sat down together.  “Lie down,” he said.

I sprawled out across the bed on my stomach and cried some more. I couldn’t stop. Jason lay beside me with his heavily muscled arm across my back to comfort me.

When the tremors stopped I rose up on my elbows. Jason had the wet towel for me again. I let him wipe my eyes this time, even though I felt like a blubbering baby.

“Sorry, coming back to this place….something just took hold of me and wouldn’t let go.”

“Don’t apologize. Maybe we shouldn’t have come. Maybe it’s too soon,” he said.

“No, it’s exactly where we need to be,” I said.

“Okay, listen, why don’t we get out of these clothes. It don't have to mean anything," he added quickly.  "You can keep on talking. But I  want to hold you tight against me, naked. That way I’ll know you’re real.”

Without thinking about it, I shoved up and got off the bed, loosening my tie.

“Let me do this,” he said, and began unbuttoning my shirt. 

I was deeply pleased that he wanted to take my clothes off of me.

"I sort of hate to do this, you look hot as fuck in your uniform," he said.

He stripped me naked, his eyes darting and raking over every part of my body as it was exposed to him. He was meticulous about hanging my uniform over the chair then I was down to my shorts and socks. He knelt down and removed my socks ever so gently and laid them on the chair.  My breath caught in my chest when he hooked his fingers in the waistband of my shorts. He pulled them down off my hips, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He didn’t flinch when my manhood swing into view, just kept looking at me while he took my shorts off and laid them aside. Then he pressed his face against my stomach and I felt his lips form a kiss.

“Godd, you look great,” he said huskily as he leaned back away from me and stood up. “Lie down. We’ll talk.  Or we can just lie together and not talk.  But it’s better this way--naked--we’ll feel closer,” he said as he began taking off his clothes.

To be continued...  

Posted: 03/13/15 rp