MARKEY
Mark Wildyr
Take the shot,” I whispered as the four-point buck left the cover of the pine forest and hesitantly stepped onto the narrow meadow. The animal took a long look around before carefully lowering his head to the pale autumn grass.
“Me!” Markey gasped aloud. The white tail’s head shot up, ears flicking nervously. The animals were skittish as hell this late in the season. We had glimpsed a button buck and a spike, both of which were legal, but this was our first decent shot of the hunt.
“Yes, you!” I hissed. “Take it.” For someone who had been so blessed eager to come on the hunt, Marcus Markey seemed downright reluctant to pull the trigger. “Markey, point that fucking rifle and shoot.” I allowed a little exasperation to seep into my voice, knowing that would motivate him.
He eased the Remington thirty-aught-six over the edge of the blind and took a bead. I watched as he drew a breath, held it and squeezed. Judging from the stricken look on his face as the report echoed against the far hills, his aim had been good. The second last thing the kid desired was to kill a living animal; the very last thing was to look like a pussy to someone he looked up to…and that would be me.
There was a gulp and the strangled words, “Got him.”
“Good shot, buddy. Your first kill.”
“Yeah…kill,” he responded with another gulp.
“Well, let’s go collect him,” I said, leaving the blind and starting down the hill.
I had recently returned to my Oklahoma hometown of Victor for the first time in fifteen, tumultuous years. If the navy had tamed my wild side, the SEALS handed it back in spades. You won’t have read or heard news reports about the clandestine missions I’d been on, but I have killed and collected commendations for the killing. Quiet heroes, the SecNav once said of my team.
I would likely have finished out my career and retired to a restless pastoral life of secret memories had it not been for Beet. When Beet—Warren Borak—a lithe, dangerous man four years my senior, took a nineteen-year-old tadpole under his wing, neither of us suspected powerful forces had been unleashed. He guided me, counseled me, nurtured me and protected me. And one memorable, moonless night in Lebanon, he fucked me vigorously in the excitement of an especially brutal action while we waited for the team to reassemble.
My life was never the same after that. Nor was my future… our future. Ten years into my enlistment, Beet and I got drunk with some buddies in Naples and our physical attraction for one another surfaced. We were kicked out of the navy in record time and with as little fanfare as possible.
We became mercenaries, fighting for causes just and not-sojust all over Africa and Southeast Asia. Happy and open about our relationship, we dared the macho world of mercenaries to do something about it, but those intrepid warriors didn’t give a shit. So we hired out for buckets full of money to do what our government had trained us to do for peanuts.
Then last year, my beautiful Beet…a nickname hung on him by the SEALS…died in a firefight with a vicious gang in Africa. That he, a superbly trained professional, should die at the hands of rank amateurs strung out on local drugs was almost beyond belief. I completed my contract, taking a terrible toll on the tribal militia that had killed my beloved. Collecting my own pay and a whopping life insurance settlement as Beet’s beneficiary, I returned to the United States and tarried in the East until it was clear Uncle Sam had no beef with me for my activities of the last five years. Then I returned home.
Marcus Markey was an eight-year-old neighbor kid when I left for boot camp at Grand Island Naval Training Station. The boy had lived next door to us since the family returned to Victor upon the death of his GI father in Kosovo. Markey, who had adopted me as his big brother, struggled beside me with all the push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, dips, flutter kicks, running and swimming I did for a month to get ready for boot. He even attempted the Ninjutsu and Israeli Krav Maga moves recommended by the BUD/S—that would be the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training—website. After each workout, he liked to run his hands over my sweaty biceps to test the hard muscle; it bothered me in a vague way I didn’t understand back then. Markey went to the bus station with my family to see me off, and I still recall his thin arms locked around my waist in a good-bye hug, and the tears that soaked my shirt.
Now, glancing at him as we strode down the meadow, I could still see traces of that shy, adoring kid in this lanky twenty-three-year-old. He’d retained the creamy complexion and black sloe-eyes that gave him a slightly foreign cast. A once shaggy mop of black hair was cut short in a vaguely military style. But if Markey ever joined up, he was in for a bad time until he got tough enough to secure his own ground. It wasn’t just that he was far beyond merely handsome; his long, curled lashes alone would earn him grief in the barracks. Markey could have been a beautiful girl except for the Adam’s apple. I wondered if he had ever cross-dressed. There wasn’t a sign of a beard on his smooth skin, although I’m sure there was one; it merely cleaned up well. There wasn’t much of the kid I knew fifteen years ago in this fantastic youth—except for the shy, diffident demeanor.
“Kinda small,” he observed wryly as we reached the fallen stag.
“It’ll make good venison. Well, let’s get at it,” I suggested, noting the absence of any pride in the kill. “We’ve gotta field dress him.”
“You mean cut him up?” The words were almost strangled.
“You want to leave him for the coyotes?”
“N-no. Of course not. But I don’t know how.”
“We’ll gut him now and pack him back to camp to dry out a little.”
“Uh…okay. Will he be all right tonight? You know, he won’t go bad?”
“No. It’s cool enough. He’ll hold for a couple of days.”
We hauled the buck away from the kill area and strung him up in a tree. After a couple of false starts, Markey slit its belly with a grimace of distaste. When that job was done, we hauled the carcass back to camp where we hung it again, washed out the cavity, and left it to dry. Then I grabbed a bar of soap, stripped, and waded into the lake. Ignoring the shock of cold water, I lathered up while Markey stood on the shore staring at me in disbelief. After all, it was November.
“If I’ve learned one thing in the last ten years, it’s to keep clean,” I called. “Keeping clean is half of staying healthy. Coming in?”
I watched as he undressed in the late afternoon sun, revealing a long-limbed, clean-muscled physique with unblemished skin and little body hair except for a pubic bush. Visibly embarrassed, he turned with his flank toward me, which merely silhouetted a long cock sprouting from curly hair. He rushed into the water and gasped aloud at its frigid grip.
I continued lathering, well aware of black eyes studying me closely. I rinsed and repeated the process until my skin squeaked. When I tossed him the soap, he seemed frozen in place. Then he floundered frantically until he recovered the bar. As Markey scrubbed, I could tell my inspection bothered him, so I swam out into the lake. Sufficiently warmed by my exertions, I silently submerged and covered the distance to the shore underwater. When I surfaced beside him, Markey was frantically calling my name.
“Right here,” I said quietly, startling him.
“Damn, Daniel! I thought something happened to you. You were under for a long time.”
“A fifty-yard underwater swim is mandatory for SEALS.” I laughed. “You’d be surprised how many tadpoles had to have water pumped out of their lungs after their first try.”
Markey’s teeth were chattering, so I crawled out of the water, knowing he would follow. To spare him further embarrassment, I kept my eyes averted as we dried off and dressed. I did the cooking, a trade-off for him cleaning up the gear afterward. Later, as darkness was wresting supremacy from light, we sat at a campfire and sucked on long-necked bottles of beer.
“How was it?” he asked out of the blue. “You know, the SEALS.”
“Great! Best time of my life.”
“Why’d you get out?”
I swallowed the temptation to tell him the truth. “Found out there was more money to be made outside the navy for doing the same thing.”
“I heard you were a soldier of fortune, but I didn’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“You were so gung-ho.”
“You grow out of that pretty quick.”
He let a small silence grow as I sensed some of the hero worship leaking away. Then, “How come you went for the SEALS?”
“After boot, I got caught up in the spirit and put in for BUD/S training.”
“How was it?”
“Hell,” I said simply.
He grinned into the dying flames. “How about Hell Week?”
“Hell on steroids. You thinking about becoming a tadpole?”
That brought a quick frown and another swig from the bottle. “Naw. Not cut out for it. Wouldn’t fit in,” he added enigmatically.
I left it where it was, and we sat around languidly nipping at the beer, me relating carefully selected bits and pieces of the last ten years while the night slipped away. I even told him a little about Beet.
“Beet? How’d he get a name like that?”
“His last name was Borak, and that’s Polak for a beet farmer.” I tried to bleed the emotion from my voice. “He was a great guy.”
“Sounds like he was your bud. You know, your pal.” He paused before adding. “Special.”
“Yeah, he was. I mustered out and turned mercenary with him. That’s how special he was.”
“Guess guys get close like that when they’re living and fighting together.”
“It happens,” I allowed. Had he sensed our true relationship?
“You ever kill anybody with your hands?” Another one from out of the blue.
“Yes,” I answered quietly. This was getting a little intense.
“How did you do it? Cut the guy’s throat?” I shook my head mutely. “Then how? Show me.” He looked stricken. “Sorry, didn’t mean to get so personal.”
“If I show you, I might get carried away.” I tried for some humor.
“That’s okay,” he responded. “I absolve you in advance.”
“You might, but the law won’t. Stand up,” I ordered, my voice a little sharper than intended. As he rose, I slipped away from the fire and melted into the trees. A second later, I heard him call to me.
“Daniel? Where are you, man?”
I silently circled the camp. From his occasional shouts, I judged he was growing nervous. This wasn’t the way he had planned for the game to go.
Understanding he would shift his stance continuously to watch for me, I eased behind a fat water oak directly to his left. When he turned to check another direction, I slipped up behind him and threw my left arm around his throat. My right thumb pressed gently against his carotid. He gave a strangled gasp and started to struggle, but quit when I pressed harder. His artery pulsed wildly beneath my thumb.
“That’s the way I did it,” I whispered with my lips against his ear. I eased the pressure but was loath to release him from my embrace.
He leaned against me in relief. “You scared the hell out of me, man. But…but it was sort of exciting, too. I didn’t even hear you. I knew you were coming, but I never heard a thing.”
“You weren’t supposed to.” My index finger flexed involuntarily against his cheek, caressing the light stubble of his invisible beard. His hair smelled clean and masculine. The length of his body rested against me, setting my groin afire. Abruptly, I released him and stepped away before any damage was done. “That’s the way I did it,” I said again.
“Awesome!” He rubbed his throat where my arm had been.
“No, it was horrible. It’s an incredible high until you realize the thing lying at your feet had been a living, breathing man. Then the excitement leaches away fast.”
“So you didn’t like the killing part, huh?”
“No sane man likes it, Markey. And I certainly never did except—” I bit down on my tongue.
“Except when?”
“Except when I was killing the animals who slaughtered my…friend. And I wasn’t too sane at the time.” I drew a shaky breath. “Well, I’m turning in.”
“Yeah, me, too. It’s been a full day with my first buck and all. And…well, being with you. You know, hearing about your experiences.”
“For me, too. It was good to see what kind of a man the kid next door grew up to be.”
“A disappointment probably.”
“Why would you say that? You’re a handsome, healthy young man and a good person as far as I can see.”
“Maybe. Sometimes I wonder.”
“Anything you need to talk out?”
That slight hesitation and shake of the head again. “No. I’m okay.”
Deciding to let him off the hook, I stripped to my skivvies and slipped into a sleeping bag laid out in the back of my SUV. Markey’s white jockeys made his flesh seem even darker as he crawled into his own fart bag beside me. We said our good nights and a silence grew, broken only by the call of night creatures and the squawk of a loon somewhere at the far end of the lake.
“Daniel, is it true they drownproof you in BUD/S? How do they do that?”
“They tie your ass up and dump you in the water. The first thing you learn is not to panic. When you get over being afraid, you learn to bob your way to the surface and to the shore.”
“Kinda like a real seal, huh?”
“Yep, just not as graceful.”
He let the silence go on longer this time. “Daniel, I…I missed you, man. Thought about you a lot. Your mom used to let me read your letters.”
“I missed you, too, kid.”
“No you didn’t. You were out there doing all kinds of exciting things. You didn’t think about the pesky little kid back home.”
“You’d be surprised. Mom kept me up on your life. I even have some pictures she sent.”
“You do? Which pictures?”
“Photos of you in your football uniform, your graduation, things like that.”
“Awesome. I thought you’d forgot all about me.”
“No way, kid. You were my little brother, you know.”
“And you were my…” The voice died away.
“Your what?”
“Idol, I guess.”
I turned to face him. “That’s not what you were going to say, is it?”
He dipped his head. “Daniel, if I tell you something, will you hate me?”
I chuckled softly. “I could never hate you, Markey.”
“Don’t be so sure. But never mind.” He flopped over on his side.
I clasped his naked shoulder, pulling him onto his back. “Not so fast, buster. You can’t give an intro like that and then just walk away from it. Say it, Markey, and trust me to handle it, okay?”
“I…” the voice dropped to a mumble. “I have feelings for you.”
“So do I, buddy.”
“No!” he cried in an anguished voice. “Not…not like that. I have feelings for you! I want to do things with you. But…but I don’t know what!”
I swallowed hard. “What are you saying, kid?”
“Kid! Yeah, what are you saying, kid?”
“Sorry, but to an old dog like me, you are a kid.”
A silence grew. Well, you fucked that one, I thought. I debated pushing him some more, and then he spoke.
“Daniel, how do you know if you’re…”
“You’re what?”
I sensed rather than saw his shrug. “Different.”
“Everybody’s different, Markey. That’s what makes us who we are.”
“I’m not talking psychology. I’m different.”
I threw back my sleeping bag and came up to rest on my elbow. “Okay, man, it’s time to talk turkey here. Say what you mean.”
“How do you know if you’re…well, gay?”
That one hit me between the eyes. “You try it with another man. If you want to slug him when it’s over, then you’re not. If you don’t give a shit one way or the other, you were probably just experimenting. If you can’t wait to try it again, then you probably are.”
He turned to face me, and even in the faint light, I saw him examine my naked torso. “Who do you try it with?”
“Someone you like. A buddy. Someone who won’t go berserk on you afterward.”
His Adam’s apple moved. “Can I try it with you?”
“Me?” My mouth went dry.
“Sorry,” he backed off. “But I’ve been wanting to try it so bad. And I don’t know anyone safe. I mean—”
“I know what you mean.”
“I love you, Daniel,” he said so softly I wasn’t sure I heard him right.
“That’s kind of fast, man. I just got back.”
“No. I’ve loved you since before you went away,” he said, swiveling his head away from me.”
“You were only eight years old then.”
“Didn’t matter. I still felt that way. Thought maybe you felt it back. Nobody ever treated me like you did. Practically like a grown-up…like you were.”
I laughed softly. “Shit, I wasn’t even a grown-up myself.”
“You were to me…the most grown-up guy I knew.”
I put a palm to his cheek and turned his head to me. Silver shafts of light in the onyx corneas made them gleam like black fire.
“I didn’t know,” I whispered.
“Remember how I used to feel your muscles after we worked out? I always hoped you’d feel mine back, but you never did.”
“Didn’t mean I didn’t want to.”
“Did you?” he asked, flopping on his side to face me.
“Yeah, but I didn’t have the nerve. If I had touched you, something would have happened, and you were too young. Hell, you probably didn’t even know anything about things like that.”
“Then how come I’d go home and play with my pecker afterward? The first time I came, Daniel, I was thinking of you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.
“I waited for you,” he added. “I mean I haven’t done it with anybody. Three guys wanted to get with me, but I turned them down.”
“Three guys in Victor?” I asked incredulously. There couldn’t have been three gays in that little burg, but, of course, it wouldn’t just be gays trying to climb this guy’s butt. Markey could make straights cream in their britches by just blinking those sable lashes...and he probably didn’t even know it.
“Yeah, in Victor and, you know, on football trips. But I always said no because I was afraid it would make the picture I had of you…of us…go away.”
“What about girls?”
“Well, I sort of did it to one.”
I laughed aloud. “How do you sort of do it to a girl?”
His giggle was a release of nervous energy. “By trying it in the backseat of a car and not getting it in her very good. I came all over both of us.”
“And you never went back to give it a proper try?”
His eyes glistened. “Too embarrassed. And besides, it wasn’t like I thought it would be…like it would be with us. You know, you’n me.”
“Kid, do you know what you’re saying?”
“Making a fool out of myself, I guess. But, Daniel, I know what I want.”
“And if you get it, it’ll be like with that girl, a disappointment. You’ve got this romantic picture painted in your head, and that’s not the way it will be. There’ll be smells and emissions and sweat and grunting and—”
“Oh, man, I hope so! But that doesn’t mean it won’t be good, does it?”
That gave me pause. “Kid, it’ll be earth-shaking for me, but I’m not sure how it will turn out for you. Nobody can know… not up front. And remember one thing. We could end up not being friends anymore.”
He wrinkled his nose in the darkness. “How come? Why wouldn’t we be friends? I mean, after something that awesome?”
“You might be so disgusted you won’t want to lay eyes on me again.”
“Maybe I don’t really know how I’ll feel afterward, but one thing I know for damned sure. I’ll always want you for my friend, Daniel. You’re a habit, man.”
“Yeah, but maybe I’m a bad habit.”
“No way.” It got awfully quiet in the back of the SUV. Then he spoke again. “Course, you probably don’t want me for a friend now you know I’m qu—uh, feel that way about you. But I finally got it out in the open, and it’s been clogging up my insides for as long as I can remember. I just hope I don’t pay too big a price for opening my big mouth.”
He stirred restlessly as I grappled for an answer. I could have ignored my raging lust and eased him away gently, but he deserved honesty.
“No, Markey. You won’t lose my friendship. If you don’t know by now that I’ve got feelings for you, too, then I’m a better actor than I thought.”
“You do?” he asked eagerly, those big eyes flashing ebony light like an otherworldly alien. He reached for me but lost his nerve; his hand fell into the space between us.
“Yeah, I do. How could I not? You’re so fucking handsome…and sexy.”
“I am?” The amazement was genuine. He had no idea how hunky he was. “So…so what do we do now?”
“Markey, if you insist on this, then you’re going for one hell of a ride. When you come out the other side you’ll either be dazzled or revolted. Whichever way it is, I’m still available for friendship. I just hope you are.”
I rose to my elbow and leaned over him. His eyes were huge, questioning, expectant. I lowered my lips to his, catching him by surprise. He drew a sharp breath. After a moment, he relaxed beneath my touch. Then he returned the kiss, his lips softening, his mouth parting, his tongue timidly exploring. In an explosion of breath, I ground my lips against his, glorying in the electricity of the moment. When I drew away, he came with me, holding on to my neck. He was halfway out of the sleeping bag, his naked torso exciting even in the semidarkness. On his knees, he rolled his jockeys down over his thighs. The shiny glans of an engorged cock caught the moonlight, a glistening pearl of precum at the slit.
Markey fell atop me, sending his thick erection down my throat. His cry of pleasure conjured images of another cock, a fat, throbbing column of living flesh I would never again be privileged to take. With a sob, I threw him on his back and examined him. He was larger than Beet…everything that mattered was measured against Warren Borak…but not as thick through the root. I tongued the slit and slipped my lips over the bulbous crown, slowly riding the shaft to his groin, burying my nose in his clean, black bush, drawing cries of astonishment from his cherry lips. I slowly climbed the pole, keeping up a slight suction as I reached the end. Then I tongued the underside down into his testicles. His legs spasmed before opening to my touch. I took the stones in my mouth, testing their firmness. Innocence, I thought. This was what innocence tasted like…firm, strong, clean, pulsing, exciting…fucking wonderful!
“Oh, Daniel!” he moaned as I moved a hand over his lean chest. “Oh, man! Oh, Danny! Oh…oh…oh…”
I came off him and licked my way to his chest with his excited cock throbbing against my chest. He shivered when I licked a nipple and groaned when I nipped the other. His breath came raggedly, his chest heaved. A fine sheen of sweat on his forehead shone in the gloomy truck.
“Do it again,” he begged, his broad hands on my shoulders, pushing me back down his torso. I laughed softly as I tongued him all the way down into his curly bush. I held his bucking cock steady and went to work in earnest, washing the big glans and bobbing up and down on the shaft rhythmically. But it was another cock I took down my throat. A familiar shaft, a loving, comfortable column of flesh. I moaned his name in my head… Beet! Beet! Beet!”
“Ohhh, Daniel! I…I didn’t know it would be…be so…so good!”
Finally, I began to discern differences. This column was longer, harder to take to the root. The aroma was different, the verbal entreaties not so gruff, the hands cradling my head more gentle. Beet slowly departed, bestowing a crooked smile on his successor.
Then, as his thinner, younger baritone vocalized his ecstasy, it was Markey I was pleasuring. I clasped his buttocks and pulled him up, lifting him off the floor of the vehicle. With a groan, he thrust his hips, driving his big cock into me, coming with a mighty roar and a geyser of tangy cum. The force of his contractions drove gouts of semen down my throat, almost strangling me. For a moment, I thought he had gone into convulsions. His body thrashed in my hands. He whined as he tried to force himself farther down my throat. Then he suddenly collapsed back onto the sleeping bag. Had he not been gasping desperately for oxygen, I would have feared he’d died of his efforts.
I held him in my mouth as that magnificent hard-on slowly softened. Giving the slit a final lick, I sat up beside him. His arm was across his eyes; my worst fears were realized. He was repulsed by shame and fear: shame at flaunting convention; fear of deviant longings.
Ignoring my own painful erection, I moved back to my own bag.
“Danny…uh, Daniel?” A hand caught my arm.
I paused. “Yeah, kid?”
“Can I try it? I mean, I won’t do it good like you did, but can I try?”
“You want to suck me?” I asked, a smile lifting the corners of my mouth.
“Blow job. They call it a blow job, don’t they?” He peeked out from beneath his arm.
I laughed aloud. “You bet they do! And don’t worry about doing a good job. Touch me with those handsome lips, and I’ll cum all over everything.”
He pushed me on my back and hovered over me. Timidly, he tongued a nipple. I shivered in delight. After giving attention to the other one, he laid his head on my chest.
“You did this with him, didn’t you?”
“Him? You mean Beet?” I considered lying, but this wasn’t the time for it. “Yeah. How did you guess?”
“You said his name.”
I laughed again. “I had a mouth full of cock at the time, how could you tell?”
He shrugged against my chest, sending goose bumps down my frame. “I just could.”
I pulled him up to me. “Yeah, I did. I called to him. I had a ghost to lay away, Markey. And do you know what? He approves.”
“He does? He approves me?”
“Absolutely, you handsome fucker.”
“Can I try it now? I’ll probably gag a lot, will that turn you off?”
“Gag all you want, my friend—”
“Lover,” he interrupted me. “We went way beyond being friends tonight. I’m your lover now.”
Amazed at the confidence in his young voice, I tousled his hair. “Lover. I like the sound of that.”
“Mmm,” he answered, slipping his lips over my leaking dick. He gagged, tried again and did better the second time. Then he came up and looked at me. “Did you do the other thing, too? You know, doing it to each other?”
“Yeah, we did,” I answered, shoving his head down on me.
There was some more sucking and gagging. He came up again. “Are we going to do that, too?”
“You bet your good-looking ass!” I said. “But first you gotta finish this.”
“Okay,” he said with a grin and went back to work.
I’ve always had good orgasms, and those with Beet Borak were earth shaking. The first one with Marcus Markey didn’t quite rise to that level, but it would only get better. Even as I exploded, and he valiantly struggled to take everything I could deliver, I fantasized about that other thing he was anxious to try.