Skin it back and squeeze the knob,” Sergeant Baker ordered.
Welcome to Monday morning short-arm inspection, a ritual to ensure that none of the troops had dipped their wicks into anything contagious over the weekend. Sergeant Billy Baker, our personal dick inspector, roused us with a shrill whistle at five-fucking-A.M. We stumbled out of our cots, uppers and lowers, and stood tall in a variety of undergear that would gladden the heart of Calvin Klein. To wit: boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs and come-fuck-me ball-huggers.
“Drop your drawers,” was the sergeant’s next command, which was not necessary because after three months of basic training we astute recruits knew the drill. As the boys complied I always wanted to shout, “HOLD YOUR HAT AND HALLELUJAH, PAPA’S GONNA SHOW IT TO YOU.” However, being a legally gay PFC, as I now was, did not give me the right to break into song at the drop of a guy’s jockey shorts nor, for that matter, the right to drop to my knees.
We were a dozen tent mates residing under a canvas tarp over a concrete slab. The accommodations gave new meaning to the word sparse. The tent held six double-decker cots, three on either side of the twelve-by-twenty concrete floor, each cot assigned a footlocker. This Monday-morning display of manly pulchritude often reminded me of the West Point dictum, “You can measure a man’s courage by the length of his foreskin.”
Alas, there was only one courageous man among our snipped dozen.
This was Julio Zapata, who everyone mistakenly called Julie. Julio was a cross between Fernando Lamas, Ricardo Montalban and Adonis. To watch Julio skin it back was like contemplating a vegetarian’s dinner treat. Mushroom head, cucumber and two kiwis. My jack-off dream was to skin Julio back with my lips while Sergeant Baker waited his turn. Yes, I’m assuming Sergeant Baker was a courageous man, however I never actually saw proof as required by West Point dick authorities. The sergeant never joined his charges on piss break in the field. Was he part camel?
Jacking off was another activity being legal did not address, albeit being legal did not figure into the dilemma. Gay, straight, bi or trans, the American boy’s first affair is with his fist, to which he remains true till the Grim Reaper brings down the curtain. To quell our raging hormones and the urge to fuck with a partner, the ever-helpful Sergeant Baker recommended going into a corner to jack off. Cohabitating in our tent was obviously a no-no regardless of one’s legality.
Do you get the feeling that being legally gay in the army is not much different from being illegal? In fact, it’s rumored that closeted GI’s have more fun (i.e., sex) than those who wave the rainbow flag. Straight guys with hard pricks and no women are reluctant to make a gay buddy know they are not averse to a good blow job. To court a gay is to be gay, or so many would deduce. But a straight could cozy up to a “suspect” and get his rocks off to the satisfaction of all concerned without the straight being compromised. Don’t ask about it, don’t tell about it, just do it.
I’ve never seen any of the troops jacking off in a corner. If I did, I would join the bugger and perhaps initiate a twelve-man circle jerk. Jacking off in a double-decker cot would be as unobtrusive as dancing the twist (shake, rattle and roll), thereby depriving your bunkmate of a good night’s sleep. Also, where do you deposit the cum if you don’t have a willing receptacle? A condom? Then you have to get rid of the loaded rubber. A sock? It would be rather sticky in the morning. A towel? You can’t say nighty-night to your tent mates, then take a towel to bed. To let yourself cum on the sheets results in pecker tracks, signs of which the troops are constantly on the lookout for.
Wet dreams can also result in pecker tracks; however, pecker-track inspectors know a wet-dream stain from a jack-off stain. In a wet dream the cum seeps out slowly, forming a spot about the size of a quarter. Jacking off lets loose a spray that anoints a huge area including the guy’s chest, belly and even his chin where an agile tongue can lick it off, and this ends up staining a large area of the sheet.
The on-base USO is a refuge to troops in need of a place to defecate and masturbate without an audience. Ours had a latrine that boasted six stalls and a gay facilitator who organized bingo games, family visits, emergency leaves, Scrabble competitions and, so I learned, gang bangs. His name was Ralph. He was about fifty, slim, with graying hair, and from the outline of the long pecker in his chinos I would say he dressed to the left.
Ralph and I recognized each other as soul mates from the time of my first visit to the USO facility. Knowing I didn’t play bingo or Scrabble he asked me if I had come for a game of pool, the question spoken with a nod toward the sergeant who was at the pool table, playing solo. I shook my head, hefted the bulge in my crotch and headed for the latrine. “Take the last stall,” Ralph advised me as I went for the much pent-up release.
I took the last stall because I had learned to follow orders as befits a lowly PFC, and I didn’t bolt the door because I suspected Ralph had it in mind to peek in or perhaps join me for a community wank. I dropped my pants and shorts, and sat and fisted my cock, which was already stiff with anticipation. I gave my balls a playful rub and drew precum after two strokes. Then the door opened a crack and a head appeared. It wasn’t Ralph. It was the sergeant.
“I’m looking to get sucked off,” he announced.
“Well, Sergeant, you’ve come to the right place.”
He came in, closed the door and dropped his pants and jockeys. His prick was semi-hard, thick and displayed a helmet-shaped head with a drop of man juice at the piss-slit. His man bush was abundant and ran up his heaving belly. His balls were huge low hangers which I cupped as he shoved his cock toward my lips. “Kiss it, pal.”
I tongued the piss-slit and got a mixture of salty cum and the unmistakable taste of man piss. He must have taken a leak before coming to the stall. I was so hot my own cum juice was flowing like water from a leaky faucet. The sergeant put his hand on my head and pushed me onto his cock. I lapped up the big head like a kid with a lollypop, the ones we called all-day suckers. I began to caress his prick with my lips and tongue. Holding my head he fucked my face with slow, circular motions, aiming for my tonsils. It had been a long time since I’d had a taste of cock, and I was lapping it up like a starved puppy.
I put my arms around my sergeant to grasp his ass and—holy shit, I was touching not ass but skin in need of a shave. It was Ralph, who had squeezed into our stall and was licking the sergeant’s ass. From the moans the sarge was sighing I figured Ralph was giving him an in-depth rim job.
“I’m the meat of the sandwich,” the sergeant quipped as he shoved his cock in my mouth and his A-hole onto Ralph’s tongue. The happy noncom was wiggling as best he could in our tight quarters. “Okay, men, let’s share the goodies.” With that the sarge disengaged his sucker and licker, then turned around as best he could with his pants and jockeys around his ankles until I faced his ass and Ralph got the prick with the helmet head and low hangers.
I went right to work. Ralph had licked the sarge clean but I continued to polish the apple, so to speak. I reached between the sergeant’s legs and tickled his balls and Ralph’s chin. Then I dipped a finger in my abundant precum and shoved it up the sergeant’s back door. He jumped which must have rammed his cock down Ralph’s throat. “You fucking me?” he yelled.
“Just a finger-fuck, Sarge.”
“Had a major that liked to finger-fuck me. Got so loose he could put two fingers up my poop hole.”
“Did he lick his fingers?” I wanted to know.
“Fuck, no. He made me lick them. Rank has its privileges.”
The sergeant backed into me (remember, I was sitting on the toilet to give Ralph room to stand up.) “He’s putting a raincoat on me,” the sarge informed me. (A raincoat, for you civilian readers, is a condom and if dicky has a hood always skin it back before putting on his raincoat; the army’s complimentary condoms came with these instructions.)
Ralph turned and pressed his face against the closed door, giving sarge clear access to Ralph’s poop tube, a territory the sarge seemed to know very well because he buckled his knees a few inches, aimed his helmeted soldier at the mark and entered the fort without a moment’s hesitation. Ralph moaned, the sergeant moaned and I tongued the sarge as the sarge fucked the USO facilitator. We were a fucking team. (Excuse the pun.)
Sarge was the first to drop his load, and his moans and spasmodic shivers told his mates it was a rapture supreme. I was next, spraying the sarge’s ass with my man cum. My rapture had me licking my cum and tonguing it up Sarge’s bumhole. Ralph brought himself off with his fist, rendering the stall aromatic with the scent of jism and man sweat. Exhausted, we untangled ourselves slowly, like sardines vying for fin room.
The sarge’s condom hung low with his load of thick, white boy juice. The ever-helpful facilitator bent to inch it off Sarge’s cock, with his lips. I caught a glimpse of Ralph’s cock; uncut with the foreskin not able to completely clear the cockhead. A tasty delight for many a discriminating gourmand.
Ralph peeped out to make sure there was no one about to see him coming out of the stall. He told us he would return with a wet towel, of which we were in much need. With our pants and shorts still around our ankles, Sarge and I took a warm piss pas de deux. Sarge fingered my butt and got in a few inches as we made water. “I want to fuck you next time,” he told me.
“Would you kiss me first?” I asked.
He shook the last drops of piss off his dick and said. “Kiss this, buddy.”
Was he asking me or telling me?
We went to the rifle range for target practice once a week. How we got there is significant to my tale of sex in the new Army, which was not flagrant but certainly performed with more joie de vivre than in the days of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, when everyone asked and no one told.
The motor pool, staffed by men with much brawn and big baskets, provided the transportation, a covered wagon with a row of benches flanking a wood flatbed and attached to a cab. We troops were ushered in over the tailgate like biped cattle going to the slaughter. The first men in filled the benches from rear to front. The following men had to stand, filling the space between the benches from rear to front.
The first man in, of course, got the first bench seat in the rear of the wagon. This was Bobby Benson, the company clerk. Company clerks are exempt from all physical basic training, except rifle practice, a perk of being a computer wiz. The army that used to travel on its stomach now travels via the computer.
I was the first standee to jump the tailgate and head for the rear of the wagon. Hence, I stood before the seated clerk whose khakis stretched over a teasing crotch and spread legs. Bobby looked like he had graduated from high school the day before and even had a zit or two on his chin to prove it. Tall, slim and “cute” was our company clerk. The wagon was filling up like a New York subway car at rush hour, all passengers toting a rifle. I was pushed over Bobby until my crotch was flush with his dewy lips. He tugged on my belt and pulled me down until I was seated on his lap. “Better on my knee than in my mouth,” he said.
“Thanks,” I answered, pressing my hip into a package I would love to open Christmas morning.
The cab lurched forward and its cargo heaved backward. Bobby clung to my belt, his thumb rubbing the elastic band of my shorts. Was he telling me something? I tested the water by giving his basket a few more hip rubs. He squeezed my waist, a finger now inside the band of my jockeys. Was this really happening? I was surrounded by fifty guys, all armed, in a fucking convoy.
Bobby’s fingers pulled up my khaki shirt so that he could get them inside my shorts, inches above my ass. My cock grew to its full height: seven inches, give or take a few centimeters. My hip told me Bobby’s prick was also standing at attention.
I lost my head and tugged at his fly zipper. He kept his and stopped me.
“After chow, in my office.”
I squeezed his dick. He caressed my undershorts. Love, army style.
I asked Sergeant Baker for permission to speak to the company clerk on personal business. (Ha-ha.) I said I would rather do this on my own time than take time off from my training. Sergeant Baker liked that. A little brown nosing never hurt and how I would love to brown nose Sergeant Baker’s back door.
Headquarters was a glorified shack across from the barracks that housed the noncoms, including my Sergeant Baker. Bobby bunked in a room behind the office, using the barracks facilities to shit, shower and shave. Nice digs, and all because he was computer literate. The captain and staff sergeant were long gone. Bobby was waiting for me dressed in fatigues that bloused over his boots, like a combat hero between wars. His shirt was open to reveal his dog tags hanging atop a hairless chest. He was rubbing his dick and showed me the rigid bulge that ran down his inner thigh. I rubbed my crotch to let him know I was just as horny and eager to suck or fuck or anything else he may have had in mind.
He looked like forbidden fruit (i.e., underage) so I took him in my arms and began by kissing him full on those tender lips. Our tongues entwined as we indulged in a Princeton Rub, cock to cock. Inserting his hand between us, Bobby began to feel my cock. I immediately extended him the same courtesy.
I stuck my tongue deep down his throat. He tasted of chewing tobacco and smelled of cheap aftershave, both of which made my hard cock begin to seep cum cream.
“Be nice to me and you’ll never pull KP or any shit detail again.”
“What do I have to do to be nice?” I asked, hoping for the best.
“Suck my prick.”
I went to my knees, feeling I was getting the better part of the deal. The zipper that had eluded me that afternoon now yielded to my touch. I reached in, inhaling the erotic aroma of ball sweat, and took out his prick. I refrained from whistling at the sight and settled for licking my lips. I wasn’t going to get my first taste of foreskin, but I was going to lavish my mouth over a redheaded lady-pleaser with a slight upward curve and leaking a fine sliver of Bobby-boy’s cum juice. I cleared the clogged pisshole with my tongue, causing Bobby to order me: “Eat my joy juice. Eat my fucking joy juice.”
Joy juice? Before my Army days came to an end I would compose a lexicon of poetic names for semen. I sucked, my lips caressing the rigid flesh, grazing over the big red head and the telltale ring of his circumcision. He began to fuck my face, which I encouraged by wrapping my arms around his ass, kneading the flesh and looking to gain entrance to the crack and find his tender hole.
My stud was hopping on one foot and salivating. Fearing he would release his joy juice too soon I eased his prick out of my mouth, held it in my hand, inspected it at close range, rubbed the head under my nose, masturbated the firm shaft and tongued the tiny opening.
Reaching into the fly, I pulled out his balls. A generous handful. “Take ’em in your mouth,” Bobby ordered.
Opening wide, I got one nut in and sucked on it. With his fingers, Bobby eased the twin nuts between my lips. I lapped the mouthful of scrotum while Bobby rubbed his cock between his belly and my forehead. “Warm up the cream,” he laughed. “You like it nice and hot, right?” I gave his balls a reassuring suck to let him know that was how I liked it.
I savored the man sac for as long as I could take it but the need to breathe forced me to give up my prize. The void was quickly filled by Bobby’s cock, which he guided between my lips. “I’m near,” he panted, fucking my face with long strokes, withdrawing completely before shoving it back down my throat. I began to taste the first drops of his joy juice. His release was so close I could feel his ass muscles tense under my probing hands. I got a finger into his asscrack and poked his hole. He raised one of his legs and wrapped it around my neck. I got a good inch up his ass. He shoved the entire length of his cock into my mouth so that my nose was buried in his fly, sniffing his bush.
He yelled, “Fuck!” and ejaculated into my mouth. One, two, three, four squirts of thick, warm jism. He fired it like a machine gun, so quick I swallowed the streams without tasting them. I opened my fly, pulled out my dick and began rubbing. I looked up at Bobby who was cleaning his cock with a handkerchief, his balls hanging over my face. In less than a minute I shot a load as big as the company clerk’s, completing our personal business.
He rubbed his cock across my lips. “Kiss it good night.”
I did.
I never pulled KP or a shit detail for the remainder of my training. It’s who you blow that counts in this man’s army.
The final week of basic training would be a bivouac. Camping out and living as if in combat. The base was alive with rumors and talk of pup tents measuring six by four. Two men to a tent. Well, that gave one pause. Who would I bunk with? Could I choose a buddy? I asked our company clerk if I could pick my tent mate. No fucking way. “We make up the list and post it the night before you leave on bivouac.”
“Give me Julio Zapata.”
“So you got a hard-on for the Cuban jalapeño? You could burn your tongue nibbling on that. Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.”
I got off detail by blowing the clerk so… “I’ll kiss your ass, Bobby.”
No yes or no this time. “My place tonight,” was his answer.
I pretended to go to the latrine and detoured to HQ. Bobby was waiting for me in his room with a bare ass and a stiff dick. This kid was a WASP jalapeño. “Bend over and take my picture, Bobby-boy.” He bent, spread his checks and showed me his camera. The lens was hairless, tan and puckered for the shot. I was once again on my knees for the company clerk, this time in a trade-off, or so I hoped.
Our clerk wiggled his hot ass and intoned. “Click. Click. Click, ass licker, go for it.”
I sniffed up the crack—not bad—then got the tip of my tongue on the poop hole. Bobby jerked up as I made contact. I licked the tender lips, first dutifully, then passionately. This A-hole was so good it had me tonguing up and down then in and out. “Deeper,” he yelled, shoving his ass in my face. Holding his hips for a firm grip I got my tongue in about two inches. The flesh there was so tender, so yielding. I guessed Bobby was a virgin. I was teasing his cherry with my tongue. The thought had me creaming in my pants.
“Fuck my ass,” he cried, and his fist brought on his orgasm, spending in jet streams of cum cream.
My jism was dripping like piss. I unzipped, fisted and dropped a load to equal his.
“Kiss my ass good night,” he ordered.
I did.
The list was posted the Sunday night before the Monday morning bivouac. Two hundred guys elbowed their way to the board. I saw Julio up front—saw him read it and turn back. He spotted me in the crowd and made his way to me. “Looks like you and me are asshole buddies, pal.”
I almost fainted.
Was I the first soldier in history to have a hard-on while setting up a six-by-four pup tent? Julio was a tall jalapeño. He would have to sleep with his legs bent or wrapped around my neck. Should I give him the choice? I didn’t have much time to think about it, as it was a grueling day of marching, crawling and eating out of a mess kit. Mess is the operative word. The sun set, the clouds rolled in and the rain began to fall. Just what we needed.
Exhausted, we retired to our tent, hoping it didn’t leak. Julio stripped down to his boxers and stretched out, his toes touching the tent’s flap. I got down to my jockeys and lay down beside him. Our arms and legs were inches apart. When my eyes adjusted to the dark I could see Julio tracing the line of hair that ran down his chest to the elastic band of his shorts. His fingers inched under the band. Was he going to…? I could see the outline of his cock inside his boxers. Was it hard or was the dark playing a trick on me? He took a deep breath and started to snore.
Well, no one promised me a honeymoon on my first bivouac.
I wanted to lick his skivvies. Tease his cock out of his fly then skin back his beautiful foreskin with my lips. I wanted to jack off. Alas, I could do none of the above.
I dozed an hour then awoke on this rainy night. I glanced at my tent mate and thought I was dreaming. Julio’s cock was sticking straight out of his fly, listing slightly to his belly button. It was big, thick and sporting a drop of morning dew on its tip. His erection had peeled the foreskin so that it covered half the cock’s head. I wiggled around the tent pole without bringing it down on our heads. My nose was so close to Julio’s prick I could smell it. I was at the point of no return. Kill me he might, but I was going to do it. Yes. I was going to do what I had dreamed of doing since I first laid eyes on Julio Zapata.
I put my lips over the head of his cock, drinking in the aroma. I caressed the foreskin and slowly pulled it down to uncover the cockhead. As delicious as I had imagined it? No. More so. Much, much more so. My sleeping beauty sighed in his sleep. I began to suck, slowly, engaging my tongue to ride the foreskin up and down the shaft, covering and uncovering the big head. If I got caught I would die with my boots off and Julio Zapata’s cock in my mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing?” My hero was awake.
“Blowing you. You want me to stop?”
“Are you a fucking queer?”
“I’m queer for you, Julio.”
“You’re the only guy who ever said my name right.”
“That’s because I love you, Julio.”
“You gonna swallow my cum juice?”
“Every fucking drop.”
“Go for it, cocksucker.”
And I did.
“Don’t pull the skin all the way up. I’ll pop too quick. Suck the shaft and keep off the head.” For this being his first gay blow job, he certainly knew what he wanted.
I followed his instructions, eager to please and learn the dos and don’ts of sucking uncut cock. Julio inhaled and spread his long legs wide open as if inviting me in. Easing his cock out of my mouth I began to explore the terrain. I stuck my nose in his curly bush, sniffing; ran my tongue up his belly and into his belly button. He giggled. Moving up, I kissed his hairy chest, his pointed, pink tits, his neck. I looked into his smiling face. His dark eyes were fixed on me. He was licking his lips. “Suck me more.” My lips touched his. He hesitated a moment, then grabbed the back of my neck and stuck his tongue in my mouth. Cum cream shot out of my dick. He shoved my head down to where he wanted it, and I was at the mercy of my Cuban lover whose huge cock dripped semen into the puckered rim of his foreskin bunched up below the head.
“Lick me clean,” he instructed. I pulled off my shorts and went to it, savoring every drop, sticking my tongue under the foreskin and lapping the juice of love only Julio could feed me. My cock leaked cum like it was piss.
Julio wrapped his legs around my neck for the supreme moment when his cock gushed squirt after squirt of warm jism down my throat. He held my head on his cock until the well ran dry. We didn’t move for a good five minutes, exulting in the afterglow of our rapture.
“You’re a good cocksucker,” my hero complimented me.
“We’ll be in this tent for another four days,” I reminded him.
“I got a good supply of raincoats,” Julio told me.
“You took raincoats on bivouac. Why?”
“Because I heard it might rain.”
I kissed his balls. He lay back, stretched as best he could in our six-by-four home and began snoring. I got up and went out to take a piss.
I was nude but it was midnight, at least, and the rain had stopped. The sky was clearing and now riddled with stars. A half moon appeared and cast an eerie glow over the sleeping camp. I needed a cold drink but hated to rid my mouth of the taste of Julio’s generous secretions. I was elated, giddy and perhaps in love. I was also hearing voices coming from the area of our outhouse. I moved in closer. The sounds were coming from behind the outhouse. I approached and peered around the corner.
There were three people there, one of them kneeling. What the fuck was this? Unless I was hallucinating it was the staff sergeant, John Caputo, bending over our company clerk, fucking the shit out of him; literally and figuratively speaking, I’m sure. Standing over the buggering couple was our Sergeant Billy Baker, his prick sticking out of his boxers as he egged on his buddy, Caputo.
I doubt Bobby was being raped as he was bucking his ass into Sergeant Caputo, bouncing up and down as Caputo’s long, fat prick worked the clerk’s back passage.
“You want sloppy seconds?” Caputo offered Sergeant Baker.
“I’ll fuck his mouth first,” Sergeant Baker said, grabbing Bobby’s head and shoving his cock in the clerk’s open mouth.
I thought it was time for me to make my presence known. “Can I be of assistance?” I volunteered.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Sergeant Baker snapped at me, his prick deep down Bobby’s throat.
“I came to take a piss. What are you doing?”
“What does it look like we’re doing, Private? We’re taking the company clerk’s cherry. It’s a bivouac tradition,” was Baker’s explanation of the midnight fuck.
Bobby was getting it front and rear from two of the finest pricks on the base and he owed it all to being a computer wiz. Will wonders never cease?
My eyes were on Baker’s cock, fucking Bobby’s mouth. I’d wanted a look at that since day one of our basic training. I bent closer and sniffed Sergeant Baker’s balls. He freed his cock from Bobby’s eager lips and, as I had suspected, it was generous in length and girth and sported a foreskin that completely covered the head, ending in a tight hump around the pee-pee hole. I skinned him back and kissed the head.
“You’ve got enough hangover to dock me,” I told him.
“Yeah, dock him,” Caputo urged, not missing a stroke.
“That’s queer,” Baker said.
“Dock him, then fuck him, if it makes you feel better,” the ever-inventive Caputo advised.
Sergeant Baker liked that and so did I. He bent to get his dick in line with mine.
My cock was still flaccid after my explosion with Julio and just perfect for what Sergeant Baker intended. When our dicks kissed he pulled up the foreskin to encase it over my cock’s head.
I was docked with Sergeant Baker. It was more thrilling than anything I had ever done. It was warm, it was intoxicating, it was FANFUCKINGTASTIC. If this was bivouac, vive la guerre.
“I’m going to cream,” Caputo shouted.
“Me too,” young Bobby cried, bucking his ass into Caputo’s ejaculating dick.
I had my fist wrapped around my cock, rubbing the head with the sergeant’s prepuce. Caputo and Bobby were in their rapture. I took a chance and kissed Sergeant Baker on his lips. He responded by sticking his tongue in my mouth.
I could no longer put off what I had come here to do. “I have to piss,” I told my sergeant.
He put his lips to my ear and whispered. “Go for it.”
Bivouac is the hands-on phase of basic training that turns raw recruits into soldiers. Don’t think, even for a moment, that the new Army, with its acceptance of gays, is less rigorous in simulating wartime conditions when leaving the civilized comforts of camp for life in the raw. In fact, Julio and I were convinced it was more spartan than ever; an apt description as Sparta, remember, was home to the army of lovers who reigned supreme in ancient Greece.
We returned to our tent each night, exhausted but pleased that we had not only survived but grown in body and spirit. We ate our rations (ugh), showered in cold water (shiver) and fell into each other’s arms for warmth and comfort. Like millions of fighting men before our time, we became comrades in arms. I told Julio about the cruising area behind the outhouse. We took a peek that night and caught sergeants Baker and Caputo enjoying a circle jerk with a black recruit.
“You want to join in?” I asked Julio.
“Let’s go home,” he answered with his hand on my bare ass.
HOME?
Yeah, that pup tent was our home and Julio, with his body pressed against me, made it clear that we comrades were now lovers.