The male voice came out of the dark. “You speak English?” I rubbed my wrists where they’d tied me up with rope. It didn’t feel like the skin had been broken on either arm, but it was too damn dark in the room to tell. “American. You?”
The voice was rough, as if he had something stuck in his throat. “Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment,” he said.
“I’m impressed. Regular Army here.” My eyes began to get accustomed to the lack of light in the windowless cell, and I made out the shape of another man sitting on the floor across from me. I stepped over and extended my hand downward. “Captain Jeremy Groom, First Infantry.”
He didn’t stand but shook my hand. “Lieutenant Alec Macpherson.”
His grip was strong beneath the ragged bandages that covered his hand, and the warmth of his hand in mine sent an immediate and dangerous message to my groin.
“How long have you been here?” I asked. I looked around, finally able to see where I was. The cell was about eight feet long and four feet wide; the floor was packed earth but the walls were concrete block. No windows. No furniture, just a foul-smelling bucket in the corner in lieu of a toilet.
Summer in the Afghan highlands was ending, and the outside temperature had been in the high sixties. It was warmer inside than it had been outdoors, probably the result of the mountain sun heating the corrugated roof.
I shucked my soft-shell jacket, leaving me in a camo shirt and pants, with wool socks and boots and a light-green T-shirt and boxers underneath.
“What day is it?” Alec asked, as I dropped my jacket to the ground.
“October first.”
“Then I’ve been here about two weeks,” he said. “I was captured in the mountains outside this nowhere town called Fayzabad. But then I spent a couple of days tied up in the back of a truck.”
“No idea where Fayzabad is,” I said. “I got separated from my convoy on a trip from Kabul to Jalalabad.”
“You think we’re close to Kabul now? Or Jalalabad?”
“Not sure. Like you, I spent a couple of days in a truck.”
“So we have no fucking idea where we are.”
“Maybe.” I sat down across from him. When I’d been pushed out of the back of the truck, I’d seen the building we were in; it was squat and single-story, with front windows that had been boarded up, and a faded sign in Arabic lettering. “When they brought me in I recognized the word for school over the front door,” I said. “It was in Dari.”
The Dari language, also known as Farsi or Afghan Persian, dominated in the north, western and central parts of the country. It was the lingua franca of Afghanistan, though Pashto dominated in the south.
“I’m a tactical linguist. Dari, Pashto and Farsi. Don’t you get language training in the Rangers?”
“I can speak a little Dari but can’t read shit. How’d you get caught?”
“I was attached to a UN-sponsored mission with family planning information for native women. I was translating at an information session at a village when bombs started flying. I was taken while I was helping some women get away. How about you?”
“Mission failure. Pinned down while providing cover.” Alec struggled to sit up against the wall. I could see he was hurt but couldn’t tell how badly. “You able to see anything else that might tell us where we are?”
I shrugged. “We’re at the base of a mountain. Dusting of snow at the top. Early afternoon when they brought me in.”
“Which side of the mountain?”
“West side. We’re in kind of a bowl—lower mountains to the north and south. Open plains to the east.” I hesitated then figured that very quickly there would be no secrets between us. “How bad are you hurt?”
“I’ll survive.”
“Cut the bad-boy bravado. Specifics?”
He grunted. “I thought at first that my left ankle was broken, but I can’t feel any broken bones, and as long as I don’t put pressure on it there isn’t much pain.” He held up his hands, which were wrapped in grimy cloth. “Knife wounds to both hands. They sting but I think they’re healing. Hard to see anything in here.”
I looked up. Daylight filtered through a tiny gap where the flat metal roof rested on top of the highest course of concrete block. “Can you stand?” I asked.
“As long as I don’t put too much weight on my left side. But the ceiling’s low—in some places I have to duck my head an inch or two.”
“Perfect. Stand up.”
“Why?”
“See that gap up there? If we can make it bigger we’ll have a better idea of day and night.”
“Tried that already. The concrete’s too hard.”
“But you didn’t have what I do.” I reached down and took off my right boot. A month before, the insole had begun separating from the base. Instead of requisitioning a new pair, I had tucked a tiny file with a sharp end into the gap. I reached inside and dug my finger around until I found it.
“Resourceful,” Alec said. He struggled to get up, and I grabbed him under one arm to lift. He was a big guy, with powerful biceps. His raw masculinity sent a thrill of desire through my body.
Once he stood, I had a better sense of him. At least six-four, broad shouldered and deep chested, with a narrow waist. His camouflage T-shirt hung loosely, indicating that he’d lost weight in his captivity. I handed him the file, and when our hands touched I felt that electricity again.
The last time I’d gotten laid was on R&R six months before. After Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was wiped out, I came out to my commander, and eventually the rest of my team. I was the only gay soldier I knew and even if I’d known another, I was smart enough to keep my dick in my pants when it came to the military.
Alec listed to the right as he tried to keep the weight off his left leg. “I need to turn around,” he said. “If I face the wall, I can lean on it.”
“All right.” I put my hands on his waist, one of them slipping accidentally beneath his T-shirt to the smooth flesh beneath. I flashed back to the last time I’d touched a man’s skin, a week before I shipped out, and my dick swelled.
I pulled my hand away and replaced it over his waistband. I helped him turn, steadying him as he hopped on his right foot in a half-circle. He was so close to me I could have leaned forward to kiss the back of his neck. I had to back my hips away so my hard-on didn’t press against his ass.
He leaned against the wall, bracing himself with his right foot, and tried to raise his right arm. But he couldn’t maintain his balance, and I had to body-block him to keep him upright. I was sure that my hard-on jammed against his butt as I grabbed him, but neither of us mentioned it.
He switched the file to his left hand and raised it to the ceiling. He began to pick at the concrete, and tiny bits flew out of the opening. I could see he was having trouble keeping his arm raised, and I put the flat of my hand beneath his left bicep to hold him up. “Yeah, that’s good,” he said.
The musky smell of his underarm filled my nostrils as he chipped away at the concrete. “Not too much,” I said. “Just enough so we can get some light. But we don’t want it too visible to them.”
“Not my first time at the rodeo,” Alec grunted. My own arm started to flag and I shifted my body so I could keep his arm up. That meant my hard-on was pressing against his butt again. I tried to back away but Alec shifted his ass so I couldn’t move.
Huh? Did he know what was going on, or was he just struggling for a better position?
He took out a quarter-sized chunk and real sunlight came into the cell in a thin stream. For the first time I got a good look at him—though from behind. His hair was a dirty blond, his buzz cut starting to grow out. He had a tattoo on his left bicep of interwoven barbed wire.
“I think that’s enough for now,” he said, and his body sagged as he lowered his arm.
“You should probably sit down,” I said, cradling one arm around his back as he lowered himself. As we went down together my face ended up against his, feeling the scratch of his beard against my smooth-shaven cheek.
The first man I ever kissed had a mustache and a soul patch, and ever since then I’ve had a taste for hairy faces. I wanted nothing more than to rub my cheek against his, luxuriating in the feel of his skin on mine. But I backed off as he slipped down to a sitting position.
He handed me the file and I sat on the rough ground to replace it in my shoe. By the time I was finished he was stretched out on the ground, with his camo jacket balled up under his head as a pillow. “Gonna take a nap,” he said. “Wake me when the rapture comes.”
“Will do.”
I sat back against the wall as Alec nodded off. I didn’t think the extra gap would be noticeable to our captors; the hall outside had enough light that their eyes would have to adjust to the darkness inside, as mine had.
I watched Alec sleep, taking note of his smooth forehead and slim eyebrows. He had a broad face with a small nose and wide mouth. Damn, he was handsome, and the multi-day growth of his beard only made him appear more masculine. I didn’t see much body hair—nothing around the neck or over his impressive biceps. His pecs were just as big.
But enough horn-dogging. The military had attempted to train me to think logically, so I considered my situation. I was locked in a cell in an isolated area of Afghanistan, held by captors I thought were Taliban—but I wasn’t sure. Four men, a mix of teens and adults, had brought me there in the truck, but I didn’t know how many had remained.
My cellmate had a weak ankle and appeared to have gotten debilitated during the time of his captivity. The fact that he’d been there for a while implied that they were in no hurry to get rid of either of us.
Our only weapon, as far as I could tell, was the tiny file in my shoe. If I got close enough to a jailer, I might be able to use the file to cut him or even put out an eye. But would that be enough? And was I adept enough to manage? Alec undoubtedly could; Rangers were famous for being able to get out of tough situations with their wits and brawn alone.
The door to the cell swung open and banged against the wall. An elderly Afghan man with a creased face, missing several teeth, held out two two flat ovals of nan-e Afghani, the native bread cooked in a tandoori oven. He wore a light-blue headscarf and a woven sweater in a pattern of blue and purple diamonds.
I jumped up and began speaking in rapid Dari. “This man is injured. He needs soap and water and clean bandages. If you don’t keep him alive he will die, and you will lose his value as a hostage.”
“I am just an old man,” he said, thrusting the bread toward me. It was still warm, speckled with tiny burnt circles, and smelled rich and doughy.
I took the bread, and he backed away, slamming the door behind him.
“What did you say to him?” Alec asked.
I handed him one of the flat breads. “That you needed fresh bandages.” I took a bite of the bread, which tasted as delicious as anything I’d ever eaten, and I realized how long it had been since I’d had food in my stomach. “This is all we get?”
“Is he the only one who’s ever come to look after you?” I asked.
“As far as I know. I’ve heard other voices, so there might be more.”
I chewed the bread slowly, to make it last, and wished I had some water to go with it. A few minutes later, the cell door swung open again. This time the old man had a basin of water, a bottle of U.S.-issued hand sanitizer and a roll of gauze over his shoulder. He handed the stuff to me without saying anything, then left.
“You must have the magic touch,” Alec said.
I shrugged. “It’s a gift. Let’s see what your hands look like.”
He shifted position into the shaft of light, and I began to unwrap the dirty gauze. It could have been worse; his wounds were angry and red, but they had scabbed over and there wasn’t evidence of gangrene or any serious infection. “Whoever wrapped you up the first time did a good job,” I said, balling up the layers of flimsy gray fabric.
“I did it.”
I looked up at him. “You?”
“Rangers learn field medicine. Ninety percent of deaths in the field come from nonfatal wounds left untreated.”
His left hand was shaking, and I clasped it in both of mine to calm it.
“That feels good,” he said.
His eyes were light blue, the color of the early morning sky. I looked deep into them, then, embarrassed, pulled my hands back. I had learned to keep a clean handkerchief in my pants pocket, and I dug it out, then dipped it in the warm water and wrung it out.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said, reaching for the cloth. “I can manage.”
“You’ll cross-contaminate,” I said briskly. “If you try and clean one hand with another that’s already dirty. Just let me take care of you.”
He smiled. “Yes, sir.”
I liked his smile. “Good attitude, soldier,” I said.
“But if I were you…” he began.
I looked up at him.
“I’d take a drink before getting the water dirty. And I’d give one to my buddy, too. You don’t know when the next time we’ll see water will be.”
“Good idea.” I lifted the bowl and took a small sip. The tepid water tasted metallic, but it felt great on my parched throat. We passed the bowl back and forth a couple of times, taking small sips. When we were finished, I carefully wiped away the dirt from his hands, one by one, spraying each with the hand sanitizer. When they were dry I wrapped the bandage around them sparingly, leaving his fingers free to function.
We spent a very intimate half hour together, sitting close to each other, one of us always touching the other. The feel of his skin against mine sent my heart racing and made my dick swell. I felt myself blushing and hurried through the final steps. Then I moved back to my side of the cell.
When things got boring in the field, I often spun myself elaborate fantasies to keep my mind occupied. I’d daydream about running away from the war, for example. Just start walking toward the north, in the direction of the border to Tajikistan, which had so far remained aloof to the Afghan conflict.
I’d imagine how I would survive, finding a river to follow, threading my way through fields and around the bases of mountains. I would glean food as I passed, drinking from rivers, maybe even catching a fish. One summer in high school, I took a two-week outdoor survival course, and combined with what I’d learned in the Army, it made me confident I could manage.
Things got hazier once I reached the border. If I just walked away from my commission, I’d be a deserter, and I wasn’t sure how close the Tajik language was to anything I spoke. That was usually where the fantasy faded away.
I looked up to see Alec staring at me. “You looked like you were in your happy place,” he said. “Where’s that?”
I was embarrassed to be the subject of his scrutiny. “Just walking,” I said. “Out in the countryside.”
He nodded. “I wish I could walk away sometimes myself. It’s crazy, you know? I mean, what are we doing here anyway? The Afghans don’t want us. The Talibs certainly don’t. We could just pull out and leave them to kill each other.”
“And then they’d come after us,” I said. “The Talibs don’t just want to run this country, they want to wipe out everyone who disagrees with them. All over the world.”
“That’s the story they tell us,” Alec said.
“Let me take a look at your ankle now.” I sat cross-legged across from him and lifted his leg gently so that his foot rested in my lap. I unlaced his boot and slipped it off, and he winced.
“Buck up, soldier,” I said. He leaned forward to swat me but I shifted out of his reach. I slid the sock off and felt the ankle. “Can you move your toes?”
He wiggled them.
Having his naked foot in my lap was very erotic, and I could feel my dick bouncing back up again. Jesus, was I that much of a horn-dog? I ran my hands gently over his rough sole and the smooth skin above. “The foot doesn’t feel that swollen,” I said. “Just tender. Hey, does that make you a tenderfoot?”
“It makes you a lot less than a field medic,” Alec grumbled. “But I have to say it feels better out of the boot.” He yawned. “Time for another nap.”
He pulled his foot back, stretched out on the floor, adjusted his camo jacket beneath his head and closed his eyes.
He looked so handsome in that shaft of light, like a sleeping angel. A very buff, masculine angel, his light green T-shirt riding up to reveal a line of smooth flesh. He rested on his back, and my eyes were drawn to his groin, wondering if his dick would be as big as the rest of him was. I fantasized about sneaking over there while he was asleep, palming his goods through his camo pants, just to get a feel for them.
Then, if he didn’t wake, I might get more daring. I’d seen the waistband of his boxers peeking out above his pants. I could unzip those pants, reach through the slit in his boxers and touch him. His dick would be warm and firm, like the rest of him. With a few expert strokes, I could bring his dick to life, using his precum to lubricate my efforts.
And then, what the hell. I’d go down on him, taking that succulent dick in my mouth, teasing him with my tongue, tantalizing him, making his blood race the way mine did when I looked at him.
The thought of it was making me hard. He was still asleep, tiny snores rippling his lips, and I reached down and slowly unzipped my pants, leaving them splayed out over my groin as my stiff dick surged through my boxers. Slowly and quietly, I began to stroke myself.
“You’re not just going to torment me, are you?” Alec said, his eyes still closed.
I hurried to stuff my dick back into my pants. “Sorry?”
“You don’t have to put it away on my account,” he said, sitting up, with a sly grin on his face.
“I wasn’t…I mean, I didn’t…”
“You were jacking yourself off,” he said, resting his right hand over his groin so I couldn’t see if he was hard or not. “It’s all right. Guys do it all the time.”
He shifted position and I saw his hard-on poking against his pants. “What’s your fantasy?” he asked. “You have a girl back home you were thinking of?”
I shook my head, licking my dry lips. I took a deep breath and said, “I’m gay.”
He laughed. “No shit, Sherlock. I knew the first time you rubbed your woody against my ass.”
“I wasn’t rubbing it!” I said indignantly.
“Sure you were. Made me hard when you did. Or didn’t you notice?”
“You?”
“Queer as a three-dollar bill, as they used to say. And now that they wiped out that dumb-ass Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I can say it proudly.”
“But you’re…so masculine. Tough.”
“So are you, in case you haven’t noticed.”
I never thought of myself that way. Sure, I was athletic enough to play high-school sports, and I’d made it through basic training without too much trouble. But inside I was still a shy, gay kid who didn’t know what to make of his attraction to other men.
“Are you just going to sit over there?” Alec asked, breaking me out of my reverie. “Not daydreaming again, are you?”
I clambered over to sit next to him. “No need. I have a walking wet dream right here.”
I leaned toward him, and he met me halfway. His lips were as dry as mine, but we managed. He opened his mouth a bit and his tongue came out, teasing its way along my lips. I opened up and our tongues met. With one arm around his shoulders, I pulled him closer, and the passion that had been simmering inside me rose to a boiling point.
My hands roamed over his broad back, feeling his muscles beneath his T-shirt. He didn’t have as much flexibility in his hands so they stayed on my shoulders, holding me close. After we’d kissed for a couple of minutes, though, I pulled back.
“What if the old guy comes back?” I asked. My heart was beating like a high-school drummer and my breathing was shallow. “We don’t want these guys to know we’re gay.”
Alec looked up at the crack in the ceiling. “You’re right. He pops in unexpectedly sometimes. But once he’s delivered supper, that’s the last we’ll see of him until sunrise.”
I backed away. “Then you can be my after-dinner treat,” I said.
“Dessert,” he said, smiling back at me.
The next couple of hours were hell. I kept looking up at the crack between the roof and the wall and trying to will the sun to go down faster. To distract myself from thinking of Alec naked, I focused on remembering everything I could about our surroundings.
The school building was tucked into the side of the mountain. The truck carrying me had parked a few hundred feet downhill, and I had been manhandled up a curving dirt pathway beaten into the mountainside. As we climbed, I noticed a cluster of buildings in the valley—simple houses of stone and concrete block, with corrugated metal roofs. I had no idea what the village’s name was, or where we were. I had only been in Afghanistan for three months by then, and my command of the country’s geography was slim.
I focused my mind on the approach to the school’s front door. I had noticed that inscription above the lintel and recognized the building’s original function immediately. The two men guarding me had walked me through a large classroom, though the few remaining chairs and desks had been broken into kindling and piled along one wall.
That was it. I’d been pushed into the cell with Alec directly from that room. Where had the water come from, then? And the bread? I knew there were often springs in these mountains. But the bread had to have come from the village. Did the man go down there to get it, or did someone bring it to him?
The light was almost completely gone before the door banged open again. This time the old man held a large pot in his hand which smelled of fermented goat’s milk, coriander, garlic and onions. It was accompanied by two more slabs of bread—nowhere near as fresh as the ones we’d had before.
“When can this man see a doctor?” I demanded of the old man. “Is there anyone in the village who can help him?”
“I am just an old man,” he said, putting the pot and the bread on the floor. “Others return in two days.”
He backed out of the cell and slammed the door behind him.
I sat on the floor across from Alec and we took turns dipping bits of bread into the stew. We were both so hungry the bowl was clean in minutes.
“Two days,” I said, when we were finished. “At least we have a chance to keep track of time now.”
“We don’t want to be here when they get back,” Alec said. “If what he said is true, then right now he’s the only one watching us. Tomorrow morning when he brings breakfast, I say we tackle him and get out of here.”
“Where would we go? We don’t even know where we are.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time in this country. Get me outside and I’ll figure it out.”
“Do you think the old guy sleeps here?” I asked.
He shook his head. “He goes down to the village. But there’s no way out of here. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking of.”
He looked at me. There was just enough light left in the room that I could see a glimmer in his eyes. “Oh,” he said.
“Yeah. Oh.” I scooted over next to him. “We need to get some sleep if we’re going to break out of here tomorrow. But it’s going to be a long time until dawn. You think we could…”
His mouth was on mine before I could finish the sentence. We kissed with a wild passion, pressing our faces together as if we could merge into one being. I reached down and pulled up the tails of his T-shirt, and he backed away from me long enough to get it off. I did the same thing with my own, unbuckling my pants with frenzied fingers.
It was cooling in the cell, but I was so desperate to get naked I didn’t care. I had to struggle with my boots; Alec had a head start because I’d already removed one of his earlier. So he was naked first and launched himself at me while my pants were clustered around one ankle.
We couldn’t wait. His mouth was on my nipple, and I arched my head back in ecstasy, running my fingers through his short hair. I reached down to find one of his nipples with my fingers, and he squirmed as I squeezed hard with my nails.
I pulled back and wriggled around beneath him. “Watch your ankle,” I said.
“Fuck my ankle.”
“I’d rather fuck your mouth,” I said, positioning myself so we were both dick to lips. I took in as much of his as I could, but he was long and thick and I started to choke almost immediately.
He did a better job with me, and I began to mimic his actions. Licking his dick up and down like a lollypop, then teasing the head with my tongue, only taking him in my mouth when I felt good and ready.
He started humping his ass up and down, pushing into my mouth farther and farther, and then he erupted down my throat. I tried to swallow but ended up choking again. He pulled back. “Are you all right?”
“Don’t stop,” I pleaded, between coughs. “Jesus, don’t stop.”
He went down on me again, and stuck a finger roughly up my ass, and my gonads exploded. He was a better man than I was; he swallowed every drop.
Then he slumped down next to me on his right side. “That was crazy,” he said.
“My first time,” I said.
“No shit?”
“Well, my first time with a fellow soldier on a dirt floor in a holding cell,” I said.
He flicked his index finger at my softening dick.
I pulled back. “Ow!”
He laughed. “We’d better get some sleep,” he said.
“It’s getting cold in here. Do you cuddle?”
He looked at me, and laughed. “Hell, yes,” he said. “Scoot around.”
I turned so that my head was beside his, and shifted to one side. He put his arm around me and pulled me close, his dick rested against the firm globes of my ass. I draped our clothes over our naked bodies. Then he was asleep, and so was I.
The sound of him pissing in the bucket in the corner woke me a couple of hours later. “Sorry,” he said.
I stood up next to him and aimed at the bucket. There was something weirdly erotic about being naked beside him, our streams merging. “As long as we’re awake, we should work out a plan,” he said.
“I was thinking. When the old man put the food down on the floor last night, I had a clear shot at his neck. I could probably knock him out.”
“We need better than probably.”
“I studied some karate when I was a kid,” I said. “My dad thought it would toughen me up. I can do it.”
“If you can get him down, we can lock him here in the cell and then get out of here,” Alec said.
The temperature had dropped rapidly during the night, and it was cold. We both pulled our clothes back on, then cuddled back together. When I woke again a thin stream of weak light filtered in through the crack at the ceiling. I yawned and sat up.
“About last night,” Alec said.
I looked at him. Was he going to tell me that our frenzied sex had been a big mistake? He was gorgeous, after all. He could have his pick of men, military or civilian. I was sure he didn’t want to get tied up in any kind of relationship. But I tried to play it light. “You mean you had the same dream I did?”
He laughed. “I’m usually not such a bastard,” he said. “And I don’t usually get off so fast, or choke a guy.”
So he wasn’t rationalizing away the night before? “I’m tough,” I said, keeping up my facade. “I can take it.”
“I can see that,” he said. “If we do manage to get out of here, we’re going to have to rely on each other. I want you to know you can count on me. That I’m not some selfish dipshit.”
“You weren’t selfish last night,” I said. If he was going to be honest, so was I. “You were hot and sexy and those few minutes were some of the best I’ve ever had.”
“I don’t know if I should be flattered, or sad for you.”
“Be flattered. I’ve had good sex and bad sex and great sex, and I know the difference. Last night was great.”
“It was pretty hot,” he admitted. “I didn’t screw around much in college, and after I got into the Army the only chances I had were on R&R, and most of the guys I met didn’t really do it for me. But there’s something about you—or you and me together.” He looked down at the dirt floor. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
He didn’t get a chance to, because the door swung open and the old man stepped in, carrying more fresh bread. When his head was bowed in front of me, I clasped my hands together and slammed them against his neck. He fell to the ground and Alec scrambled to his feet. I heard him wince once as he must have landed on his bad ankle, but that was it.
I pushed the man to the side and picked up the bread he had been carrying. Alec stood at the doorway to our cell and looked out. “Looks clear,” he said, and stepped into the schoolroom. I was right behind him, stopping to close and lock the cell door behind me.
The room was as I remembered it—dirt floor, boarded-up windows, a pile of broken furniture in the corner. Early-morning daylight sifted in through the front door, which the old man had left ajar.
Alec grabbed a long piece of wood that looked like it had been the leg of a desk and used it as a crutch. I picked up another piece with a sharpened edge. We paused again at the front door. A rosy dawn was rising over the valley. Smoke from what I thought was a communal oven in the village lifted skyward in a thin plume. I couldn’t see anyone moving there.
I closed the door behind me and we started down the winding path, Alec in the lead. We gobbled the bread as we walked. He was using the table leg as a makeshift cane, but he was able to move fast enough that I had to hustle to keep up with him. We went down the curving path, then cut away from the town, toward the north.
“I recognize this country,” Alec said after a couple of minutes. “We’re in the northeast, and the border with Tajikistan is that way.”
“You think it’s better to go that way than to try for one of the bases?”
“The closest is Bagram, outside Kabul. Long way to go, though, and it’s on the other side of those mountains.” He pointed south. “The countryside between here and the Tajik border is flatter and as long as we run parallel to that road down there, but out of sight, we should be able to make it in three days’ march.”
“Can you walk that far?”
“Going to have to.”
We trudged along all morning, making our way through a rift in the mountains. We saw no one and heard nothing more than the sound of the wind rolling through the mountains. I spotted the extravagantly twisted horns of a wild goat across a valley from us, its brown body blending with the landscape as it scrambled up the rocky slope.
“That’s an ibex, isn’t it?” I asked, pointing. “Look at that long beard.”
Alec shook his head “That’s a markhor. They both have beards, but the horns of the ibex curve up like a crescent moon. The markhor’s look more like a unicorn’s horn.”
“I wouldn’t want to meet either of them up here.”
“They’re not the ones to worry about. There are nine species of wildcats in these mountains,” Alec said. “But they’re all nocturnal hunters, so with luck, we won’t run across any of them. Snow leopards and black bears, too.”
Alec and I took off our jackets and tied them around our waists when the sun got hot. A couple of eagles soared on the thermals above us. My throat began to parch, and I wished we’d been able to provision ourselves before our escape.
Alec stopped. “Listen.”
All I heard was the wind creeping around the base of the mountain.
“Sounds like water,” he said. “Over that way.”
He picked up the pace, climbing around a rock formation. Below us we saw a small mountain lake surrounded by trees. A falcon that had been drinking from the water’s edge rose up as we picked our way through the rocky scree. As we moved out of our cover and into the open we both scanned the area around us, but we were alone.
When we got close, I realized that the trees around the lake were a mix of olive, apricot and pomegranates. Alec lowered himself carefully to the ground, and leaned down to the lake to drink. I kept watch while he did, grabbing one of the red low-hanging globes. The apricots were tiny and unripe, but the pomegranates looked as good as any in a U.S. grocery.
When Alec sat up, I leaned down to drink myself. The water was cool and fresh and went a long way toward slaking my thirst. “You know your way around out here,” I said, wiping the water from my mouth.
“Had to. Memorized the maps and potable water for most of the area.”
The sun was directly overhead by then, and the basin around the lake was steaming hot. “Let’s take cover in the shade,” he said. “Give the heat a chance to burn off. Then we’ll head out again when it cools down.”
“Sounds good to me.” I stood up and pulled down a couple more pomegranates, tossing them to Alec on the ground. Then I pulled the file out of my shoe and sliced into the dark red skin, letting the juice dribble into my mouth as I gobbled the ruby-colored seeds. I handed the file to Alec and he did the same.
We devoured the fruit until we were full and covered with berry stains. “Think it’s safe to clean up in the lake?” I asked.
He looked around. “Can’t hear anyone out there. And no one lives anywhere around this area.”
“That’s all I needed to hear,” I said. I pulled off my red-stained T-shirt, exposing my sweaty flesh to the sun. When I looked at Alec he was staring at me.
“What?”
“You look even better in the daylight.”
“Yeah, well, how’s about reciprocating?” I said, as I leaned down to tug off my boots. When I looked up again, Alec had shed his boots and his T-shirt and was unbuttoning his pants. His chest was a wonder, his pecs big and beefy, his six-pack glistening with a sheen of sweat. As he shagged his pants down I got a tantalizing view of his waist, the way his lower ribs curved inward, his belly button flecked with a couple of blond hairs.
He was gorgeous, a beefy David come to life in Army-issued boxers. He peeled the bandages off his hands and looked at them. “Not bad,” he said. “Healing.”
I scrambled out of my pants and boxers, my dick already stiff and banging up against my belly. He turned before I could get a good view of his dick in daylight, showing me the plump globes of his ass, a few shades paler than the rest of his body. He waded gingerly into the lake, and when he got waist deep he dove under the surface.
I followed him in. The lake water was cool but not cold, warmed by the hot sun. He popped up beside me, shaking water from his smooth skin like a happy puppy dog. He pushed me backward, and I went into the water, and then the two of us were frolicking around together. We swam apart, then together, each trying to dunk the other.
For a couple of minutes we forgot that we were escaped prisoners in the middle of a war zone. We were just two horny naked guys playing around in a sparkling mountain lake.
But all good things must end. After a half hour or so of play, I returned to shore, grabbed Alec’s T-shirt and boxers and my own, and rinsed them out in the water, then lay them out in the sun to dry.
I relaxed in the shallow water by the shore, my body half-submerged, and Alec stood up and began walking toward me. His dick was everything I remembered it to be and more. It was long and firm, with a thick mushroom head.
I stood up in front of him. He had about two inches in height on me, but that didn’t make a difference; he just spread his legs a little wider and we were at the same level. He wrapped his rough hands around me, playing with the fine dusting of dark hair over my ass. “I like a hairy guy,” he said into my neck.
“And I like my men smooth,” I said. “Seems like we’re a good match.”
“In more ways than one,” he said.
He clasped me close to him, and we began rubbing our bodies against each other. Our dicks stiffened, the sheen of water between us acting as a lubricant. We pressed our lips together, kissing with the same wild passion we’d felt back in the cell. We struggled for maximum skin-to-skin contact, dicks rubbing against bellies. The pain-to-pleasure ratio was so equal—I wanted to pull away to relieve the tension but I couldn’t let go of him, and it seemed he felt the same way.
My guts boiled and shivers raced through my body as my orgasm built and then exploded. Alec held me even closer, pressing his body against mine, his dick some kind of desperate force pushing against me, and my orgasm spiraled to heights I’d never reached before. He threw his head back and gasped and then I felt him spurt against me.
I couldn’t let him go. I held him close, neither of us moving for a moment as we sagged together, relishing the force of our orgasms. Then we dunked, together, rinsing ourselves clean once more. We stood in the sun for a couple of minutes letting the air dry us off.
Alec took the first watch while I napped in the shade. He woke me after an hour then catnapped himself. The sun began to sink in the west and the air cooled down enough so that soon we would be able to walk again without risk of heatstroke. He was so handsome as he slept, the fierceness of his features relaxed, and I could see in his face the little boy he had once been.
I assumed we’d make it out of the mountains alive. Alec was strong and resourceful, and I was a good soldier. But what would happen after that? I would return to my battalion, and he’d go back to whatever it was he did. Would we ever see each other again?
I remembered my fantasy of walking away from the war. Could Alec and I do that? Slip into Tajikistan, live together under the radar in some village?
Nope. Alec wasn’t the type to run away, and I realized I wasn’t either. I wanted to complete my tour, do the best I could to help this parched, angry country and its people. Once my obligations were complete, I could consider what the future held. If Alec wanted to be a part of that…
He opened his eyes and smiled at me. Then he sat up, yawned and stretched. “Let’s get on the road,” he said.
We didn’t have to go far. We climbed back up to the ridge and marched for about an hour, until Alec’s eagle eye made out a U.S. recon patrol on the road below us—two big Humvees. We scrambled down the hillside in time to flag it down.
There wasn’t room for both of us in either vehicle, so we were separated. After I explained who I was and what I was doing out there, I discovered they were heading to Bagram, and leaned back in my seat and slept. It was late at night when we finally arrived at the base. Both of us had to report in, so there wasn’t much time to talk.
Alec thrust a piece of paper at me and leaned close. “My email address. Next time we get together I’m thinking about spending lots of time in a king-sized bed. Sound good to you?”
“Sounds very good,” I said. The Army’s gotten more tolerant, but not enough that I could do what I wanted to Alec right there. Instead I reached out to shake his hand.
He grabbed me in a bear hug. “I’ll see you again,” he said into my ear. “Count on it.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I said. And then we separated to return to our assignments.