Battle Buddies - Rangers

WEEBLE

“How you walk, the way you step, matters. Your shoulder position, your hips, knees… do you put the balls of your feet down first, or your heel? Maybe you use the entire outside of your foot.” Ulster explained.

They were far away from the compound in the woods. Weeble found he liked the sound of Ulster’s voice. It was deep, sure. But more than that was the inflection he gave the words he spoke, stressing letters, syllables or words with a precision that made Weeble think the deliberate control wasn’t accidental. A momentary pause here, a push of a phrase there. It was almost a song.

“Like everything else, keep your primary goal in the front of your mind. Maybe you want to move fast but silent. Maybe ramping up your power for a leap or attack is the most important. You should have your plan before you move. Choose your path. Picture your movement. Execute your steps. Be deliberate.” Ulster paused.

Weeble nodded. “Choose my path. Picher my movement. Execute my steps.”

“And Be Deliberate.”

He was finally understanding what being deliberate meant. It meant no guessing. It meant deciding ahead of time and having a plan. And then doing what you planned and decided. ‘Be deliberate’ was always the last instruction of Ulster’s training. Never stop thinking. In other words, be like Assmunch.

Ulster stood up from where he squatted and pointed off into the trees. “Retrieve the mark while making as little noise as possible. You have fifteen minutes.”

Weeble nodded and looked at the ground. Fifteen minutes should allow him to move slow enough not to make too many mistakes. He didn’t know where the mark was but he never did for any of the exercises Ulster put him through.  That was part of the challenge.  He only got a general direction, the rest was up to him.

Today’s early lesson was finding cover as he moved toward the mark. Within the time allowed. Before the rocks came. Yesterday’s lessons were low movement and quick movement…before the rocks came. He was sore and bruised. The rocks weren’t pebbles and they weren’t tossed at him but were instead thrown with punishing force. Any pause meant multiple rocks thrown at him. Standing still was death.

He’d tried a complaint about the force of the rocks. “The rocks really hurt. They’re gonna break a bone or somethin” he whined.

Ulster shook his head. “Try getting shot.” The man said without emotion. “Now, again. You have fifteen minutes.” His arm point off to the west.

Weeble chose his first few placements of his feet and began to move.

*****************

BOOTLICKER

When Hammer had him gathering rocks from the woods he’d thought it was a colossal waste of time. They had to be sized in a very narrow range and Hammer hadn’t told him that right off, instead rejecting most of the ones he’d gathered and sending him back out to get more. The ones that passed inspection stayed in the ten pouches currently burdening him with their not insignificant weight. It was all worth it, he thought to himself, as he flung another rock at Weeble from behind his makeshift shelter. The only disappointment was that Weeble no longer grunted in pain when he was hit.

Yesterday was free hits all day, if he could hit his target. And as the day wore on his aim got better as well as his sense of where Weeble would be.

Today was more of a challenge because Weeble got smart and moved from cover to cover almost too fast for Bootlicker to tag him with a rock. Bootlicker was not supposed to reveal his location so he was forced to find hidden vantage points from which to assault, mirroring the small guy’s path through the woods. And if Hammer thought he’d exposed himself too much it wasn’t Weeble that felt the pain. If Hammer thought Bootlicker hadn’t taken advantage of a mistake Weeble made, Bootlicker got theknife. If Bootlicker made too much noise, he got the knife. If he ran out of rocks, he got the knife. Sometimes, it was also rocks.

The pain from getting nicked wasn’t too awful anymore, just annoying. He welcomed the reminder and incentive to do better. Hammer didn’t seem to care that Bootlicker’s BDU’s were trashed and after the first few cuts Bootlicker had already written off that set.

Hammer’s rules for this exercise were to listen. Bootlicker could not look towards Weeble until his fellow Bravo made a noise and then he’d have to turn and throw without exposing himself and immediately duck and turn back around.

He couldn’t wait to see if the target was hit, he’d have to listen for contact.

The trouble was that the rock was going to hit something so he had to recognize the sound of the rock hitting a body. He was allowed two attempts. Listen for Weeble’s fuck up. Turn and throw instantly. If the response wasn’t fast enough, the knife moved.

No more than a 50% failure rate. If he missed, his second attempt had to come immediately. If he was wrong, the knife came out.

Yesterday during the dinner break he figured out the real purpose of the exercise. Entirely by accident of course. Or maybe it wasn’t an accident knowing how Hammer liked his little challenges to be multi-layered. It wasn’t about training his aim. Or his reflexes. And it wasn’t about punishing Weeble for fucking up.

The day started out easy enough. He nailed Weeble almost every time. It was a good thing the little squirrel wore his ACH because even though Hammer didn’t want Bootlicker to target Weeble’s head he still heard a satisfying ‘tink’ pretty often.

“Because a head shot is a low percentage target.” Hammer grated through his damaged vocal cords. “I thought you were supposed to be smart. I thought in spite of being an Infantry piece of shit you still had a few brain cells. Isn’t that 2nd week in Basic information?”

Bootlicker nodded, biting back the response he wanted to give - ‘a hit is a hit’. That would get him nicked, and they didn’t call him Bootlicker because he let his mouth say stupid shit.The ever present knife was positioned an inch from Bootlicker’s left eye. “If you hit his head, it means you aren’t aiming for his body. Or your aim is shit, either one means you’re useless. If you target center body mass every time, it becomes automatic. Now your stupidity has made me talk too much. Where?”

Bootlicker took a centering breath. Patience. “Kidney” he said.

In less than a second he was wracked with an intense pain that folded his knees. Hammer’s trashed throat couldn’t take too much talking without rest. And there were many other ways to inflict pain than a knife stick to a tender area.

Hammer didn’t speak for the rest of the day and communication was reduced to basic hand signals. Stop. Wait. Go. Follow. Listen. So Bootlicker was forced to restrain his wild throws, which counter intuitively meant an increased failure percentage. His instant throws were far more frequently on target than his aimed and restricted throws. That was all hand-eye coordination.

Gradually over the course of the day yesterday Bootlicker realized his taskheld more difficult challenges than hitting Weeble with rocks. He had tosurvey the field for potential paths Weeble might take. Simultaneously hehad to figure out his best vantage point for a throw from a concealed position. And last, he had to listen to anticipate, picturing exactly whenand where he would throw his rock in the short second he had after turning.

The true purpose of the exercise wasn’t playing punisher for Weeble. And it wasn’t about hitting targets. It was all about anticipating your enemy.

Know the choices your enemy had to make to reach his goal.

Bootlicker grinned. He was going to get all cut up today and he was looking forward to every slice.

******************************

LAMONT

‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Lamont berated himself. ‘Control yourself.’ He mentally fought with his dick that threatened to engorge as he showered among the six men from the compound. This was a problem he thought he’d conquered early on in his military enlistment. In Basic, it was easy because he was always surrounded by men his own age who he didn’t find so attractive he that he couldn’t ignore his impulses. And honestly, as fresh recruits none were so outstanding physically to tempt him. In fact, almost all were lacking in one way or another. Some were flabby and soft, others were struggling to fill out with adult muscle. Boys pretending to be tougher than they were. 95% of them were awkward, some were downright ugly.

In AIT after Basic he had the luxury of a single shower in his dorm style barracks room so he wasn’t subjected to the visual argument of a serviceable dick hanging on some awkward idiot. He didn’t have to be exposed to the few soldiers he did find tempting. His housing quarters after AIT was another dorm style room he shared with Chad Benton and he’d figured out a way to keep that indiscretion just between the two of them. As much as the dumb pig irritated him, he could use the simple animal’s warm meaty hole right now just to take the edge off the distraction.

But now he was among real men, older men. And it wasn’t so much their hard, fit bodies that sung to him, it was the attitude of tough severity that translated to a capable seriousness. It promised a secure knowledge of restrained brutality. It was careless freedom filled with a confident swagger. Some men held a presence that surrounded the immediate area, as if they controlled the air itself. These men demanded attention and obedience from lesser men without an active command, such was the force of their mere existence.

Auger, with his shaved head and constant scowl. At 5’8” or 5’9” he fell out of Lamont’s usual target range but there was just something about the way his neck was positioned on his shoulders that was hard to define. It took what was otherwise a slightly above average sleekly muscled body and transformed it into a solid machine. Examining the shape of him, Lamont realized the back of his neck ran straight up to the back of his head like a block of concrete. No curve, no rounded skull. Slightly hairy and well defined pecs, with a treasure trail down to his light brown pubic hair that was matted with water from the shower. His ass and thighs were hard, both were also slightly hairy. Auger was a filled out size medium. Which was also a good description of the set of meat between his legs.

Definitely a shower more than a grower.In a world of men, and Lamont had seen more than his fair share of naked men, he’d come to realize the variation in soft dick sizes skewed more towards average to below average. Certain environmental factors played a part in presentation, of course, as did a man’s current emotional state. A distracted, stressed out man who had restricted sexual outlet typically showed a soft dick that was shrunken and retracted.

That was the least attractive sort of soft dick. It was what he saw most often throughout his early days in the Army. No one had time, opportunity or energy to think of sex, and the ‘use it or lose it’ philosophy of cocksmanship proved true. If you didn’t bone up regularly your dick would settle into a hibernation mode where your soft length decreased. And there were some unfortunate guys who lost almost every bit of soft length until their dickhead barely emerged from their pubes.

Maybe that was the real reason Lamont was struggling with his urges.

None of these men fell into that category. All six were hanging proud and what he could only describe as satisfied and well taken care of. These were cocks that saw frequent activity and dedicated attention.

Mission was one of his shower mates whose fullness and length even soft indicated his needs were always met. His deep, nut brown skin shone under the rivulets of hot water that poured down his hard body. From his facial features, he was probably of Indian or Pakistani descent. His short hair was a thick black barely affected by water and except for his armpits and pubic hair, he had no other hair on his body, making him appear slippery. Mission was closer to six feet tall with a rugged handsome face that smiled with bright, straight white teeth. He wasn’t overly muscled, but what he had was thick, mostly on his lower body. Heavy thighs and swollen calves that bracketed sturdy knees. His ass was more wide than round, but without the flatness usually seen on that type of frame. His chest and shoulders were the same, a nice, solid thickness to their width.

Lamont momentarily glanced at Mission’s swaying equipment as the good natured man lathered up each armpit in turn with soap while sharing jokes with the other men. It was a beautiful piece of art that he could imagine sliding into his throat.

It was clear Lamont wasn’t included in their conversation. They behaved as if he wasn’t even there, which suited him just fine. He could focus onstudying them as they spoke, as if he were paying attention to what they said. He was definitely NOT paying attention to what they said.

Jaeger was all meat. Burly and broad, thick everywhere, including his waist and stomach. It would be easy to say he was out of shape, except for the stretch and dance of dense muscle underneath his skin. As he stretched his arms up to shampoo his head - arms which didn’t look like they could easily reach - his lats flared like the head of a cobra about to strike and his abdominal muscles pushed forward against his skin like a pan of dinner rolls fresh out of the oven. It was like the beast was layered with a slab of insulated skin that attempted to smother the bulk of a rhinoceros beneath it that constantly fought to break free. There was power there, a slow eventuality of crushing momentum and force.

Jaeger had a package where his dick hung exactly as low as his nuts, and he kept his hair trimmed but not short, allowing it to be fuzzy but not a wild jungle. If Lamont had to guess, Jaeger would end up somewhere around seven inches when hard, with a decent thickness. He was circumcised.

The most interesting thing about Jaeger was his tan line. He obviously wore a speedo and the pattern of his tan said he paid attention to making sure it was even, with a clear demarcation. Jaeger liked the contrast of his deep tan against the whiteness of his ass and hips. It was the middle of winter, and yet Jaeger still had a deep tan. Tanning bed? There was a vanity in Jaeger, for sure.

Then there was Schizo. Schizo wasn’t much to look at. He had one of those faces that looked like it had been smashed in. A flat, wide nose with inappropriately sized nostrils. His eyes were round and slightly bulging.

But it was the lips that were the real turn off. Fish lips, that’s what he usually thought of: wide, puffy flaps of bloated pink flesh that looked more suited to sucking onto some large sea animal. Peasant blood, that’s for sure. And the worst part? Lamont was in such a state that he’d let the disgusting farm animal mount and breed him with his short fat dick and overly hairy balls. A wild bush was one thing, but carpeted balls just weren’t attractive. Most men never grew a thick layer of hair on their nuts.

But this guy?

No, Schizo wasn’t the sort Lamont wanted to stick his own dick inside and in fact the gross man wouldn’t even get Lamont hard until well after the deed was done and he was able to have a nice jerk off thinking about whatwould likely be a sweaty, grunting and slobbering awkward mauling that left his asshole feeling like slimy toilet. It would be a fuck in which the victim just laid there wondering when it would be over, but knowing it was just going to go on way past any beneficial satisfaction.

It would start with a grunt and a shove to the back of Lamont’s head, pushing him forward over a table, or whatever handy piece of furniture was closest. Maybe a fallen tree in the woods. There would be no asking, no negotiation, no seduction. Lamont would initiate it all with a quick glance at Schizo’s crotch and a slight grin. Clothes would not be freed, the less nudity the better. Minimal skin contact. Just enough to get the job done and no more. Lamont’s uniform would be pulled down just enough to expose the crack of his ass and Schizo would pull his four or five inch dick free of his open zipper. He would fumble with it, of course. A glance and a grin was all it would take.

The first couple attempts to penetrate him would be unsuccessful, blind stabs that weren’t near his hole, forcing Schizo to press down on the back of Lamont’s neck in frustration as if it was Lamont’s fault that Schizo was a bad fuck. He’d have to resort to using his other hand to figure out where his stubby cock needed to be, his blotchy face already red and sweating from this unfamiliar effort because Schizo rarely achieved sexual satisfaction so the anatomical targets of his victims weren’t well known.

There was a hole there somewhere, and how he got there was just an unnecessary detail. Just keep pushing, it’ll find its way.

Maybe there’d be spit involved, but probably not. For someone like Schizo holes took dicks. Lubrication? Why? That was too much trouble and that’s what holes were supposed to take care of. A fuck happened because that’s just how fucks worked. Penetrating Lamont would happen more because Lamont let it happen than any expertise on Schizo’s part.

When the ugly toad’s swollen fuckstick finally entered Lamont’s reluctantly willing young grunthole it would be followed by a shortly lived rush of satisfaction that died when only two inches found its way inside. Yeah, it

was going to be one of THOSE fucks. Lamont’s position meant his

asscheeks kept over half of Schizo’s dick from getting inside. There would be no deep, gut drilling plows that made Lamont’s eyes roll back in his head. There would be no thrill of being internally violated by a magnificent piece of wet meat that sent spasms all the way up to your stomach. It wasn't a dick you could clamp your hole onto and pull into you, willing it to bottom out until the soft and heavy balls slammed against your ass.

And even worse, every thrust meant Schizo’s dick pulled free, only to be plunged back in to that same unsatisfying shallow depth, creating more emptiness than it filled. Every third or fourth thrust would miss until the frustration of it all meant Lamont would struggle to fuck himself just to keep that stubby cock continuously stretching his stupidly hungry butthole. If he couldn’t have more than what felt like a hard boiled egg shoving up into him, at least he could keep it grinding on the parts of him he was able to feel. The rapid and constant force stretching and releasing his sphincter was at least soothing.

But even that became frustrating. In a cruel twist, in spite of Schizo’s obviously rare foray into fucking, it would not be a short lived encounter in which he prematurely ejaculated from the sheer joy of feeling a warm hole graciously massaging his sensitive cock. No, Schizo meant to maximize his thrust count until the act of rutting lost all meaning except for the thought that the ordeal couldn’t possibly keep on like that. The rhythm of the toad’s thrusts never changed. Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang….His grunts were repetitious. Ungh Ungh Ungh Ungh Ungh Ungh

Ungh…

Lamont couldn’t even be sure he hadn’t soiled himself. He felt wet and sticky back there. He could only hope the feeling was from some mid thrust cum spurt Schizo had fucked onto then into his punished hole. But even so, the thought only made his degradation complete. In this situation, he was just a dirty, nasty whore who didn’t get to clean up until the cock fucking him was done punching his fuckhole into worthlessness.

And when it ended, it just stopped. No change in breathing alerted Lamont that Schizo was releasing his sperm inside him. His asshole had long gone numb so any feeling of warm spurts never materialized. The rhythm of the thrusts continued until Schizo pulled away. One handed, he would yank the front of his pants forward while his dick retreated inside his zipper, then a quick motion secured his fly. Lamont wasn’t given a second look as Schizo walked away. It ended as quickly as it had begun. It would be the kind of fuck where you scowled angrily with confusion about whether they guy even shot his wad, and if he didn’t what the hell was all that for anyway?

Lamont turned and twisted the shower control to stop the water. His little fantasy had done its job, he was no longer in the mood right now. The whole imagined encounter took no more than 30 seconds. He didn’t even want to catch a glimpse of Schizo finishing up his own shower two men over from him.

Unfortunately, Schizo wasn’t his handler. Jaeger had that duty and the human rhinoceros followed him to the wall where their towels hung.

Lamont tried hard to avoid the picture of Jaeger’s powerful legs and ass rumbling naked right behind him.

“So which one is it, kid?” Jaeger’s voice sounded behind him as Lamont caught from the corner of his eye the man’s meaty hand grab his towel off the hook beside him.

“What?” Lamont said with surprise.

“Don’t give me that bullshit. You will be honest with your superiors. Consider it part of your training that I’m going to start enforcing. We’re done with your amateur level of clever. You haven’t been alive long enough to hide things, especially not when your mind is a million miles away and everything shows up on your face.” Jaeger took a step closer just as Lamont pulled the towel up to his face and let it hang in front of his body. Jaeger just held his towel in his hand off to the side leaving himself fully exposed.

“I’m not hiding anything.” Lamont replied, but even to himself it sounded like a weak denial. He hated this. Ever since he’d come to the Compound he felt out of his depth. Back in the Platoon he was top dog, in command.

But they’d separated him from his men and among these older, more experienced men he felt his inadequacies being shoved in his face. To them, he was just a stupid kid, an ignorant grunt who couldn’t do anything right. And he had to admit he’d ruined any hope of being seen as capable by them when he’d so easily answered all their questions about who the Charlies were, what training they had, where they’d been. 

He’d told them about Germany, about the four Platoons driven to compete with each other and how they’d come to be a unit through a special training program offered. It was too late by the time he realized giving up information so freely was a trap. It was only after seeing the state that Assmunch was in that he understood Ulster MacGregor was trying to figure out what Major Collins was after, not that Lamont even knew who Major Collins was in the whole scheme of things. He’d gone into this with a cocky sense of superiority and belief that this was just more boring training. The look of disappointment on Assmunch’s face as he hung there in that room when he saw Lamont begging him to cooperate put a knife in him and deflated all that confidence. It was just another reminder that Assmunch was a different animal. 

Assmunch was more like these men here in this compound than Lamont would ever be.

Jaeger’s blank face demonstrated that he didn’t believe Lamont’s denial. “I know what makes you tick, kid. Every one of those men over there know it now too. So which is it? And don’t you fuckin lie to me or I’ll have it out of your hide. And just so there’s no misunderstanding: Which one of the six of us has you biting your lip so hard while you try not to stare at our dicks? Unsuccessfully, I’ll point out.” He took another step closer, now only a foot away from Lamont. “If you’re going to look, maybe drop the guilty, shifty eyes when you do it. Another part of your training: do the thing, or don’t. If you’re going to steal a bike, you walk up to it and take it like it already belongs to you. You don’t reach out, then turn away, then go back, then stop. That makes you look like a thief. Anyone watching you will know that bike don’t belong to you. They will know you’re thinking about taking it but know you shouldn’t. You’re thinking about getting caught rather than thinking about taking the bike. So if you’re going to drool over a man’s cock, it’s better just to take a good long look as if there’s nothing wrong with it. Because men who don’t want cock in their mouth do that all the time. What they don’t do, is try to stare at it out of the corner of their eyes like they really WANT to look but don’t want to get caught looking.”

Lamont’s heart was pounding. If he was caught, it could be the end of his military career.

Jaeger gave a deep sigh and looked up at the ceiling of the cement bunker 30 feet above their heads. “And you’ve got to stop putting that shit all over your face, kid. No one’s going to report you for liking dick. At least not any of us. We don’t give a shit. You think you’re the first cocksucker we’ve ever known? We don’t follow their rules anymore.” Jaeger’s emptyhand reached up and pulled away Lamont’s towel from between them, throwing it on the floor before grabbing Lamont behind the neck and exerting a firm pressure downward. The signal was obvious and Lamont felt himself kneel onto the cold concrete. 

In his mind, he knew the other five men could see everything and his usual warning bells sounded in his head. His secret would be exposed but he didn’t have the mental strength to resist.

“Let’s not go through the usual amateur shit where you try to pretend this is your first time sucking cock, okay? Just get to it and put your real skill to work.” Jaeger waited with his powerful thighs slightly spread, looking down at Lamont with a raised eyebrow.

At the end of the day, the battle was decided by weakness rather than strength. There was a willing cock hanging right in front of his face, attached to a man of strength, a man whose beauty was proud and hard rather than pretty. Jaeger was exactly the type that never failed to draw Lamont’s desire. Lamont’s disappointment in himself deepened at the realization of his own transparency.

Lamont took Jaeger’s manhood into his mouth in one gulp to the base. They both wanted the same thing. Lamont didn’t have to play any of his games. His fantasy from earlier was somewhat coming true: this wasn’t a seduction, his purpose was singular. He was here to serve. The thought was a relief, strangely. He didn’t have to pretend anything except what he actually wanted.

Even freshly washed, Jaeger still had that familiar scent of a man as Lamont took a deep breath through his nose pressed into the neatly trimmed pubes. He was working his tongue along Jaeger’s gradually stiffening shaft inside his mouth, working up a healthy pool of thick saliva to help the process.

“Oh yeah, kid. Expert level, that’s amazing.” Jaeger growled as Lamont caught a glimpse of the man’s testicles pull up then descend again as he flexed into the warm mouth Lamont provided. There was nothing more sexy than active bull nuts on a real man.

 “That doesn’t mean you won the bet.” Lamont heard from behind him. It was Auger’s voice he recognized. Oh well. There was no hiding this anyway. It just felt a bit different having the audience right next to him rather than 20 feet away. He felt a twinge of consternation at violating his ‘no military’ rule but he swept it away with a multi pronged rationale that these men were no longer active duty, that his platoon would never know and it was unlikely that what he was doing would reach the ears of his superiors. After all, these five men would want to keep this to themselves, right?

He felt a light slap on the side of his head. “Mind on the job, recruit.” Jaeger said. “You tend to lose focus and let your mind think of whatever pops into it. Don’t think about them, you think about the cock that’s in your mouth at the moment. You wanted this, the way you begged for it with your eyes. We had to leave our families to do this training operation, so the least you can do is focus on the mission objective which is currently guzzling cock.”

Lamont forced himself not to think of the word ‘we’ in that statement and he doubled down on slurping over Jaeger’s now rigid pole. He’d been slightly off on the eventual dimensions and Jaeger’s dick was bordering on what he liked to call a jizz piston. Length, girth, shape and stiffness all comfortably just under what would be too large or too solid. It was the type of cock that did well at any function from any position, from just sitting flaccid in a noticeable lump in the pants, to taking a piss in a urinal in a thick, heavy stream, all the way to forcing its way into a warm, wet hole.

This was something he knew how to do. These were exactly the type of men that made him melt in submission: older, stronger, confident and with an edge of danger. The draw of illicit sex and his lack of control in the situation erased the last line of objection. He willingly abandoned the self imposed limitations he’d kept in place since he enlisted.

“Fuck yes.” Jaeger grunted. “That’s the hunger of a true cock whore.” He said as he pulled Lamont’s head all the way down and held it there for a few seconds.

Lamont’s tongue traced the hard tube throbbing on the underside of Jaeger’s cock, knowing his throat was massaging the now leaking headwhile he did so. He could tasted the familiar flavor of precum as his jaw moved.

Jaeger pushed Lamont’s head off his spit covered cock. “Auger, you’re next. You have to feel this kid’s mouth.” He said as he stepped to the side, only to be replaced by Auger’s smaller, tighter frame.

“No hands.” Were his only instructions as he put his dick against Lamont’s open lips and pushed inward until his balls slapped against Lamont’s chin.

It was manageable, the size. Auger’s dick wasn’t as thick or long as Jaeger’s, probably around six and a half inches. It was the perfect size to use suction.

Auger thrust his hips repeatedly into Lamont’s face while he worked his tongue and jaw slowly over its length. Fully buried, Auger’s meat softly impacted the back of Lamont’s throat or more often jabbed through his tonsils to get there. The best part was that Auger’s dick constantly spurted a nice, steady flow of precum with every thrust that reminded Lamont why he loved sucking dick. That taste made his saliva glands work overtime. He began meeting Auger’s thrusts with his head, allowing his face to take a similar beating as his throat.

Lamont relaxed into the hypnotic rhythm of Auger’s savage pistoning. The man was driven and unapologetic. He knew the dimensions of his dick perfectly and recognized that Lamont’s oral cavity fit in a way that let him fuck. And for men like him, if it was a hole that could be fucked, you fucked it.

Auger suddenly grabbed Lamont’s lower jaw with one hand, and put his other hand on the top of Lamont’s head as he curved over in a hunch while he fucked Lamont’s mouth. He held Lamont’s head still in a tight grip and Lamont struggled to take short breaths where he could. There seemed to be even more precum gushing into his mouth, which was creating the problem of needing to swallow but being unable to. So Lamont let it dribble out his lips.

“Fuck, yes, eat that dick boy. Eat it. Eat my fucking dick.” Auger grunted angrily. Lamont knew that signaled the approach of the man’s orgasm.

Lamont began working his tongue and jaw again to get Auger’s dick to spurt, and he knew the man wasn’t going to pull out but only get more violently uncontrolled when he exploded.

Lamont’s eyes were watering with every violent thrust. In order to breathe, he’d open his jaw wide when he felt lightheaded and the combined slime of saliva and ball juice filled his mouth too much. After catching a quick inhale, he clamped back down. The slurping sounds of hard, wet meat suctioning through Lamont’s choking throat accompanied Auger’s grunts of approaching release.

“Fuck, fuck you dirty whore, you’re going to make me blow my wad down your sweet wet throat. Yeah. Yeah here it comes. Fuck.” And then there were no more words. Auger’s grip got tighter, he hunched further basically pinning the young private’s head between his abdomen and thighs while he pressed with a shocking amount of strength onto Lamont’s head. He began to spasm.

Lamont tried to choke, but only managed to blow a little air and saliva out around the edges of Auger’s dick into his pubes which ere already soaked with the fluids created by his assault.

A thick, warm stream of hot jizz impacted the back of Lamont’s throat and made him gag. He wasn’t usually a gagger, but the volume of of that first rope of sticky white man juice was more than he could prepare for. He choked again.

“All of it.” Auger grated through clenched teeth as his erratic spasms spewed more and more thick goo into his personal cum drain.

Lamont was getting alarmed. He couldn’t breathe with the amount of jizz and hard cock filling his mouth. He reached up to push on Auger’s

abdomen while fighting to turn his head.

“Fucking pussy!” Auger grunted as he shoved Lamont’s head back off his dick. “I hate teeth on my dick!” He shouted as an amazing amount of new cum splatted over Lamont’s face. The sheer volume of Auger’s production was a whole new experience. Lamont gulped what felt like a full mouth of the man’s cum as three more heavy continuous ropes of thick white jizz painted him from forehead to chin, only to be followed by less forceful dribbling flows of cock lava began pumping out the head to snake its way down Auger’s shaft.

“Eat it, you fuck.” Auger sneered, shoving his cum covered and still pumping cock back into Lamont’s mouth. The man still wasn’t done ejaculating. He saw Jaeger’s hand reach out to wipe his buddy’s cum away from Lamont’s eyes as the remainder of Auger’s salty nectar coated his tongue. It was an unexpected kindness that Lamont didn’t really need but not having to deal with the stinging punishment of cum in his eye was welcome.

“Nice load, Auger.” Jaeger congratulated his buddy. Lamont was still thinking kindly of Jaeger in spite of the impersonal nature of his words when Lamont felt the slimy cum covered fingers wipe over his asshole

before being pushed inside. “Well damn. Not your first time for that either, huh?” Jaeger observed in a calm straightforward tone. Up until this point, Lamont hadn’t even thought about getting hard himself, but the pleased and interested subtext in Jaeger’s words had an immediate effect. Lamont knew that tone, knew that meant a man wanted to fuck. He’d heard it come out of his own mouth often enough. Lamont’s dick went from ‘not interested’ to fully engorged in less than five seconds and there was nothing he could do to stop it as Jaeger’s meaty fingers repeatedly penetrated him with Auger’s juices.

He thought his submission was complete, that he had mentally accepted what his role would be. He even welcomed it because it was rare for him to let go this completely and not think about the consequences of sex with men. But there was a difference in actively participating with pleasure and just letting it happen to you.

With every smooth, wet insertion of Jaeger’s two fingers deep inside him he lost more of his reluctance over being a true whore for these men. How weak he was, that two fingers was all it took to make him whimper. He tried to suppress it. He couldn’t. Jaeger was the right man, the right type, the right personality, the right dick. He had a solid uncompromising masculinity. He had such a secure belief in his manhood that others believed it too. Even the act of sticking his fingers inside another man was nothing more than a man toying with an amusing plaything.It was driving Lamont crazy in a way he’d never felt before. Was this how his bottoms felt when he treated them like this? This weak, fluttering quiver in their gut knowing they would agree to just about anything Lamont wanted to do to them? Hating themselves for trying to deny that they wanted him to use them, that just his touch was enough pleasure that they didn’t even need to get off on the sex?

“Who’s next?” Jaeger asked as Auger pulled his still hard dick out of Lamont and stepped away. Lamont gulped the sweet taste of Auger’s jizz to clear his mouth once again.

Lamont knew it was happening and hated that he couldn’t stop himself.

These men… no… it was Jaeger. Jaeger would turn him into the same type of fuck-flesh he himself sneered at when he was done using them. He felt a hunger awaken inside him that wanted to be used like this. Never before had he allowed himself to be put in a position where he was the sexual focus of a group of men. He’d always carefully chosen his interactions for the most minimal sexual involvement, just enough to get the job done like sucking the dick of some guy he just met after taking the SATs, in the parking lot of the testing location.

He was drawn to the guy’s friendly confidence and his good looks. Maybe it was the heady relief of finishing the college entrance exam but all it took was sharing a joint in the guy’s Pontiac and a little casual chatter before the guy expressed he could really go for a blowjob. Having no experience with weed or the etiquette of sharing it, Lamont took his comment to mean that he was asking Lamont to suck his dick in return. With a grin Lamont had replied ‘Okay’. 

Who knows if that was the guy’s actual intent? But he wasted no time before pulling his dick out so Lamont wasted no time before bobbing up and down on that tasty cock. It was the first time he let a guy cum in his mouth, mostly because he wasn’t finished sucking dick and wanted the experience to last longer. But the guy wasn’t any older than he was and it happened fast. When the guy spurted in just under a minute, Lamont gained an unrealistic view of his oral skills. Looking back, he realized it had nothing to do with how well he sucked the guy’s dick, and everything to do with them being 17 and ready to cum with any level of stimulation.When the guy had to pull his head off his dick, telling him ‘I’m done, I already shot, dude.’ Lamont had to play it off like he didn’t know. So that it looked like he hadn’t intended to swallow it all.

Or the time he remembered getting fucked by the dark haired married stranger just after he signed his papers at the recruitment office in the run down shopping center of the town he lived in. Just like this situation, he’d looked too long, too many times as they both walked to their cars in the parking lot and it only took a few minutes for him to be face down in the backseat getting railed by the stud’s raw married cock. The stranger had exited another store a few doors down at the same time Lamont walked out of the recruitment office and they’d made eye contact for a brief second. It could have ended there but the tall man in his low 30’s was parked on the same aisle as Lamont so they walked ten feet apart at nearly the same pace.

Back then, Lamont thought it was all accidental, but now that he was older with more experience he understood that both of them adjusted their speed to match the other in some unspoken and subconscious desire to extend their interaction.

The man was all business, not really caring about being gentle or going slow. He just assumed Lamont could take a dick if he was going to be such a willing and agreeable slut. Losing his virginity that way taught him everything he needed to know about how to fuck another guy. Take what you want, exert control, get your nut and put your dick away, then go on about your business. That attitude drove Lamont nuts. His excitement over getting fucked in the ass and letting the man pop his cherry overcame the initial pain. He wanted it so bad it didn’t matter. He wanted the sexy man’s dick in his ass so bad he didn’t care if he was torn up or damaged, which thank God he wasn’t. He was just sore and in a little pain the next couple days, especially when he had to shit.

All that love and tenderness bullshit was for true homosexuals. Guys who wanted to kiss and mutter to each other about their feelings. Guys who needed weak boyfriends. Lamont just wanted dick, ass, and a nice hard body to grab onto. He saw himself as just one step below the straight men he lusted after: sex was there just to make you feel good. Each guy should get what he wanted and once the deed was done you didn’t needto talk about it or what it meant. You fucked and got off then went on about your day.

The rough and insistent pull of Jaeger’s two fingers in his asshole interrupted his momentary flashbacks and brought him back to his feet, still bent over so his mouth remained at convenient dick height.

The view of Schizo’s short, stubby cock appeared before him and he knew his descent to the level of fuck trash became complete. He opened his mouth and accepted it just as he felt Jaeger’s jizz piston breach his other hole, sinking balls deep on the first slow push.

“The ole Chinese finger trap.” Jaeger chuckled as he pulled against Lamont’s hips. “Hey, remember that dude Atgold after the Battle of Khafji?” He laughed.

“Ha! Yeah!” Mission exclaimed. “You know he married his girlfriend?”

Jaeger began pumping hard into Lamont’s asscheeks. “Really? The one that cheated on him?”

“Confirmed.” Mission replied. “Like, four months ago. He thinks the kid is his.”

“What a dumb fuck.” Jaeger kept up a slow and steady pounding that sent Lamont bouncing into Schizo’s groin. “I thought we’d fucked the stupid out of him.”

Mission gave Lamont’s ass a hard slap. “Not enough cock in the world for that. Dumber than a box of rocks. Still, he was a good fuck.”

Jaeger’s voice changed into a moronic whine that sounded just like Hicks from the movie Alien. “ ‘Can you guys not cum in my ass right before the Daily?’ “, obviously mimicking the soldier they were talking about.

Mission started laughing trying to get words out. “ ‘It just keeps drippin’ out!’ “

Jaeger began laughing too. “Poor guy.”Hearing this, Lamont knew these guys would leave him in a similar condition. That only made his dick harder.

*******************************

ASSMUNCH

The big man I believed was the commander of the compound grabbed the steel chair, turned it around and straddled it to face the bunk where I sat.

“How are you feeling? Your ass okay? We can get medical if you need it.” The man’s deep voice reverberated in the small concrete cell, almost sounding kind and concerned.

I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.” I replied, refusing to give the man any satisfaction that the Ape’s actions had any effect on me.

“Good. We can move on.” He folded his arms across the back of the chair. He gazed at me with eyes that considered. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped and took a breath through his nose before finally reaching some conclusion.

“Leaders are often caught between duty and protecting their men. It doesn’t get any easier. Some of the jobs we do don’t involve existential questions. Some objectives are as simple as delivering assets or information to a certain place at a certain time. For some leaders, and some missions, that’s a luxury we seldom have. That’s where we’re at, you and I.” The Commander paused.

“That’s where all the players are, I believe, in this situation we find ourselves. I’ve been given a job that right now intersects with the job you’ve been given. You are here to learn, to be trained. We are here to teach you and train you. Unfortunately, that’s where the simple part of our jobs end. You’re complicated for me, Private. Your men are complicated for me and it has nothing to do with who YOU are. It has everything to do with who sent you here.

“I’ve put some of the pieces together, enough to figure out your Platoon and the other one are being used to determine policy. Now that may not sound like a big deal to you, but it raises certain red flags for me. If it were any other officer than Major Collins, I’d assume we’re just dealing with studying the effects of mixed occupational units in the regular ranks.

“Think of it as bringing the well rounded knowledge of a Special Forces unit to ordinary grunts. Ordinarily your infantry training would get narrower the further your career proceeds. Your training has been different though. You’re being broadened. At first glance, it appears that simple.

“But we have facilities here, continental, where that training can occur. And yet, you and three other Platoons were sent to a NATO base in Germany. Red flag. You, and that means Army Privates relatively fresh out of AIT, don’t get sent to that particular NATO posting. There’s nothing for soldiers as green as you are to do there. You aren’t even given the clearance to know the purpose of that base.

“You were isolated from other troops and command structures. Red flag. The reason that’s a Red Flag is it means the reason you were there doesn’t align with the mission of that Command. Major Collins sent you there to keep you in a bubble.

“Next, there doesn’t seem to be anything remarkable or outstanding about any of you that would justify those things. To all outward appearances, you are all just average soldiers. You have no commendations, your awards are simple milestone achievements, your tests do not put you in any exceptional category. Red flag.

“Now we get to the truly interesting part. You were brought to us. I mean no insult when I say this, but you and your men are not of a caliber or level that would usually require our specialized training. Even considering the top notch training you received in Germany you still don’t qualify. I’ll tell you why that’s remarkable within the bounds of your non existent security clearance: We are expensive, my organization. We are discretionary, which falls under a very special category I can’t even reveal a ghost of a hint about. All you need to know is that is takes some very special people with very specific authority to contract our services. For you to be here is a Red Flag. You’re smart. I know you can read between the lines.

“And last, we have Major Collins. He is an adjutant commanded by someone who speaks into only one person’s ear. And my organization has a history with the Major.” And then the Commander smiled. “But those concerns fall on my shoulders, not yours. It’s clear you’re being kept in the dark, and I’m satisfied that you can’t give me the answers I need. That means that this part of your training is over. So what does that mean for you?” He raised his eyebrows indicating the question was not rhetorical.

It was a lot to consider. I felt a flush of pride that Sleeper, Bootlicker and I had already started putting the pieces together and that we’d almost come to the same conclusions after we first met Major Collins. Like this man in front of me, I wouldn’t get any answers here. And that left only one thing.

“Classroom?” I offered both sarcastic and hopeful. Because that’s what happened after every practical training module. You sat down with your instructor in the classroom and broke down what you learned. In no way did I expect any of this would lead to a classroom.

The Commander threw his head back and gave a short laugh. “Yeah. I like you kid. You haven’t disappointed me. No useless questions about why, no complaints.”

I still didn’t feel like smiling even if I was relieved that my physical and mental punishment might be over.

The Commander spoke into the air, “I’m going to need a level one SC for this soldier.” There was a short pause and then he looked a me before standing up. “Let’s take a walk.”

He held the door to my cell open and waited for me to stand up and walk through. “To the left.” He gestured with his head. It didn’t seem to matter to him that I was limping from the bruised and battered condition of my body after days of beatings. It was nothing I couldn’t handle, but I hadn’t stretched or moved in the hours between what the Ape had done to me and the Commander walked in. It was all just pain anyway, which was its own comfort. Although, I could definitely use a shower judging from the stink coming off me from four days of abuse.

I tried to jump through the mental hoops to accept that the men in the Compound were just doing their job and that I hadn’t been sold up the river by Major Collins. The former was easier than the latter. It occurred to me that this category of mental maneuvering was solidly in Bootlicker territory and he’d have figured this out without a benevolent sit down with the Commander. There were pieces of what the Commander said I would have to put together yet.

Major Collins had to know the men in the Compound would suspect there was an angle to all this. None of us were given a command not to reveal our background and the way these guys operated told even my idiot grunt brain that questions would be asked. And our answers would generate far more serious questions like the ones the Commander had just outlined.

The part I couldn’t wrap my brain around, the puzzle piece that didn’t fit, was why Major Collins and this group weren’t on the same side working together. If these guys were some mercenaries for-hire exclusively under the control of the federal government why did they need answers at all?

Shouldn’t any request from the upper levels represented by Major Collins be dealt with without questions?

When I stepped through the door the hallway was the same non-descript concrete block with a concrete floor and concrete ceiling. Basic, utilitarian, and lit by fluorescent bulbs the hallway stretched for about 12 feet before we came to a corner tee. “Left.” The Commander said. This corridor ended in an elevator door.

“What you endured was standard interrogation. I’m sure you guessed we were limited in what we were permitted to do. No permanent, lasting damage, nothing that couldn’t be overcome in 10 days. Without that directive, standard interrogation would have had us happily breaking your bones, burning your skin and removing body parts. So… lucky you.” He said this with a congenial smile that appeared sincere.

I wasn’t fooled. This too had to be part of the interrogation. I’d seen enough TV shows and movies to recognize this was the part where the cops brought in donuts or a sandwich and some drink with sugar or caffeine, then started talking super nice to the suspect. It was intended to get them to relax and believe the ordeal was over. To drug you with a food induced high making your mental fortitude slip. To let down your guard.

Oh no, Chief Torturer, I’m not your sucker. Not today. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, to quote Monty Python. The point of that, in the movie and real life, was that you should ALWAYS expect the Spanish Inquisition. These fucking cheese balls didn’t realize the value of a Monty Python education.

When the elevator door opened we stepped inside. The man was quiet for the ride, which took us up. It took longer than I wanted, making the silence linger with an uncomfortable tension. It was the kind of elevator ride during which you noticed how impossibly slow the elevator was rising.

You had all the time in the world to try to figure out whether it was efficient at all, or whether it would take less time to just climb the stairs. The hum and audible clunks of machinery came through the weak walls, adding a sense that you were in some junkyard salvage project being moved by a couple of gerbils running on a wheel somewhere far below.

The end of our ride was signaled by a slightly terrifying bounce paired with a clunk that removed any remaining confidence in the safety of this death trap.

When we stepped out of the elevator, a room 20 feet wide by 20 feet long was revealed, some sort of control center with various desks and stations and large windows on three sides. From the view, we were about four stories in the air overlooking a compound of spread out buildings. Ah, I recognized the area from the first day when I was tied to a chair as bait for the Bravos.

Why show me this? Was this another attempt to get me to lower my guard?

“Welcome to The Nest.” My captor revealed. “It’s been sanitized to your clearance level, which is your second training lesson. You cannot share anything you see here with anyone below your clearance level. That includes your men. One of the challenges of command is information compartmentalization. This will recur for your entire military career. You’ve already seen this in practice from the perspective of a soldier, right?”

At first I was confused by the question. No, we weren’t ever told there was confidential, secret, or top secret information about a mission. Plus, my head was still spinning from the abrupt termination of the interrogation.

I felt like a boat in a storm.My captor looked at me when I didn’t immediately answer. “You need to focus, Private.” He said with an expectant calm. “Move on. You either keep up, or you get left behind. Now answer my question.”

Faced with a direct command, my training kicked in. “Not really, I guess. We’re never told much of anything. They just point us somewhere and say go.”

The large man took a breath and let out a sigh. “I’m going to need to see the soldier who sat down in that clearing four days ago after he figured out the drill without blinking.” My captor accompanied his words with two snaps of his fingers right in front of my face. “I don’t have time for you to be this stupid.”

Fucking Hell and what the fucking fuck? Totally rude. I was coming off of four days of beatings, lack of sleep and the Ape’s dick in my ass. “Oh, will I be getting another beating?” My mouth popped off without my brain.

And that somehow jolted me out of the fog of confusion. I decided to accept this new condition and determined I didn’t actually want to go back to interrogation.

Before he could respond I continued. “We’re told what we need to know to do our job.”

“That’s better. As Infantry, you get limited information. Your Sergeants get limited information, but more information than you get. Their lieutenants get limited information, but more than they give to their Sergeants. At every level in the chain of command there’s additional information. All this was covered in Basic and AIT when you were taught Chain of Command. Why?”

I snorted. “They don’t want us to be smart.”

He grinned. “No they don’t. That’s the simple answer, but break it down. Then we’ll get to the complicated answer.”

My eyes were taking in the muted activity in The Nest around us. There were only three other people up here doing tasks at their desks. It had the feel of some business office more than a military command center. “It minimizes battlefield confusion. It focuses us on a singular goal.”

“Both acceptable answers from the perspective of a grunt.” He nodded. “But you, Private Special, you are not long term grunt material, are you?”

I’m not sure I liked his tone. Of course I had no intention of remaining in the regular ranks. And if I was going to go career the new policy was Up or Out which mean I promoted or exited within the schedule set by the Army. “That’s not what I want, no.” I answered, refusing to take his bait.

My captor nodded. “Then you need to change your perspective because you’ve caught the attention of the mysterious Major Collins. Now from what I know of the Major’s activities and influence, which I’m not going to tell you, you’re in for a very interesting career. And because of that, I feel sorry for you.”

I barely had time to digest those ominous words before he continued.

“So now give me the complicated answer.” He demanded.

This rapid change in the subject gave me mental whiplash, but I took it in stride thanks to the dedicated effort of the various Sergeants I’d endured in the past who never let you fully grasp what they first screamed at you before they screamed something else at you.

As simple as he’d made it, it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together to give him the answer he wanted. He wanted me to think further up the chain than the perspective of a Private. But what was the right answer?

Was he asking what our job was? I didn’t think so. Something that simple wouldn’t require all this song and dance. Why wasn’t this ‘lesson’ taking place in my cell? Why even share anything about Major Collins? Why did I need a Confidential security clearance? Information, and the various types of information was somehow the key.

What I wouldn’t give to be Bootlicker or Kevin right now, with a brain that could handle a Pythagorean Theorem of Army Bullshit. All these angles, points, lines and numbers that didn’t go together unless you looked at the intersections. It said a lot that I believed the Pythagorean Theorem to be the pinnacle of complex math at this point. My public school education was yet again a dismal disappointment. Another confirmation that the Army was right for me.

“There’s never just one goal, one objective.” It just floated up there to the top of my brain, like a fart bubble in a bathtub. One of those thoughts that just came out and immediately made you wonder if it was a mistake. I couldn’t tell you where it came from, that thought, but it felt right.

“Go on.” My captor said, crossing his arms.

I almost lost the blood supply to my brain when it came together, shocking me with a cold flash that whited out my surroundings. “Us, the Bravos, you, this place, your questions…we shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here.” I stumbled, or rather my dumb brain stumbled.

I corrected immediately, too afraid to lose the train of thought. “I mean, we ARE here when we aren’t supposed to be. That’s not what we’re for, not what you’re for.” I looked at him and my treatment of the last four days took on a new perspective.

“Special Forces?” I croaked in disbelief.

My hopes were crushed when he ridiculed me with a laugh. “Yeah, no.”

He said. “It does look that way to a grunt, I’ll give you that. But c’mon, you think you’re ready for that?”

He was right, as sad as that crushed dream was, he was right. Nothing about our composition or our progression said Special Forces. You didn’t get there unless you were the best of the best. But that left just one possibility.

“We’re canaries in a coal mine.” I blurted it out.

My captor, a fellow canary, smiled. “Oh it’s worse than that. You’re the canary that needs to get out of its cage and stop the gas from killing everyone.”

“I don’t want to be a canary.” I said, and it sounded stupid even to myself. 

My captor damn near knocked me over when he slapped my back. Damn, he was strong. “Congratulations. You passed lesson two. Break it down.”

I took a breath to gather my thoughts. “We’re not here for training. We weren’t in Germany for training.” I held up both hands to signal ‘wait’. “I mean, yes…we’re being trained but that’s not the reason, it’s just tasks we’re given while we’re being evaluated for something else. It has to be something about who we are. We’ve been grouped into these Platoons for some reason and our instructors are watching what we do, how we perform and behave in different situations. We didn’t need to come here to get you to teach us anything. That seems like a huge waste of your organization.”

“How do you know that?” He asked, leading me.

I shrugged. “Your connection to Major Collins who I’m pretty sure works at the Pentagon. We figured out who he probably was back in Airborne School. But this isn’t your first interaction with him. You either aren’t active duty military or you deliberately choose to run this unit outside regs. Either way means you’re an exception. And military-structured organization exceptions in the U.S. who have connections to the Pentagon mean you are WAY, WAY WAY above my security clearance. A security clearance you had no problem raising to Confidential with just a few words.”

My captor raised an eyebrow. “And I’ll bet you twenty bucks that my security clearance changed before we stepped out of the elevator.” I said confidently.

“You think so?”

“That elevator door would never have opened if it hadn’t. I wouldn’t be looking at your ‘Nest’ if it hadn’t. So yeah, you can raise someone’s security clearance with just a few words. And THAT is the icing on the cake for all of this.” I gestured, sweeping my hand in front of me.

My captor crossed his arms again. “How so?”

“Because you can’t do that. Not unless everything was prepared for us to get that clearance before we even got here.” I replied. “I know how it works, my uncle has some upper security clearance. Investigators came to the house and talked to my mom and dad. OSI. They do a background check. They find out everything about….” I froze. My mind started spinning. No, they couldn’t know about Kevin, I’d cut off all contact when I joined the Army. They wouldn’t go back that far, right?

My captor tilted his head and got a puzzled look. Then he nodded, more to himself. “Whatever it is, they know. The good news is, you can breathe because you wouldn’t be here if it was an issue. What was it? Drugs? Criminal activity? No, don’t answer that.” He waved it away. “I guess you haven’t quite graduated from lesson 2. Okay, I’ll go through it with you since it’s unlikely you’ve had this as part of your training.”

This entire conversation we hadn’t moved from in front of the elevator doors. Now he led me to a desk off to the side. He sat in the comfortable leather padded chair behind the desk and gestured to the basic sturdy metal chair across from him. He leaned back and folded his hands in front of him. “What do you think? Nice, isn’t it?” He said, looking around the desk area. He pushed his arms out in front of him, fingers interlaced then brought them back behind his head.

Glad to avoid the dangerous topic, I resorted to my usual smart mouth. “I think you got the good chair.”

He smiled. “Yes. Chairs. They say a lot, don’t they?”

I got the distinct feeling there was another lesson here. But for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“You’re still thinking like a grunt. I swear to God I’m going to beat that out of you before we’re done.” He scowled.

Chairs? Really? Fucking chairs was the lesson? Of course he got the good chair, he was the boss. That’s just how the world worked.

He actually growled just before he wiped his hands down his face in frustration. “It’s like talking to a teenager. Jesus Fucking Christ. I’m going to have to send Collins a bill for babysitting. Are you some kind of idiotsavant? You only have brief moments of dazzling brilliance in an otherwise empty skull full of bouncing ping pong balls made from useless dog shit? It’s almost lunch time, so tell me about the fucking chairs so we can get some food while it’s still hot for FUCK’S SAKE!”

The fact that I broke him also broke me and I couldn’t hold back the laughter that came out before I could stop it. To see this man who had maintained a calculated control every time I saw him, to watch him now lose his shit was hilarious. Somewhere in the back of my brain I realized that for the first time in four days that clenched knot of worry and confusion relaxed inside me. While I consciously accepted that the ordeal was over I hadn’t accepted it subconsciously. I was still waiting on the next beating, the next time I’d be woken up just a few minutes after being allowed to fall asleep. The next repetitive round of questions.

I laughed. Unwisely, maybe, I laughed at him, at his outburst, at how dumb I must seem even though i kind of thought I was halfway smart. I laughed until tears came out as images of my stupid sarcastic comments came back to me as I was being punched and kicked. Then laughed through the tears until I had to get ahold of myself before I hyperventilated.

Slowly, my laughter gained a more normal tone and ridiculous chuckles and giggles got thrown in. Every time I tried to get serious and stop my face another giggle came out that turned into a short laugh that I barely fought back.

“Ouch…ow… oh that hurts. All the bruises.” I whimpered, which sent me into another laugh.

Slowly I regained control. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to just keep laughing until I cried some more. But I managed to stop.

“The chairs.” I said, completely serious. “There’s never just one goal. Never just one objective.”

The man in front of me nodded. “You did well, got through it faster than I expected.” His eyes turned kind. “For what it’s worth, it was necessary. It’s not something we enjoy but you need to know what can happen. You may have held up until the end, but your friend didn’t. Everyone breaks, Andrew, eventually. It’s just a matter of how far your captors are willing to go, how much they can stomach. You WILL break when you are put in that situation again but what this teaches you is to realize your limits, understand the situation you are in and that you have to keep using your brain. Feeding information slowly to your captors is your best chance at surviving until escape or rescue. To do that, you have to survive. To survive you have to keep using your brain. No one expects you to withstand torture and interrogation and keep secrets.”

“Information compartmentalization.” I said, distracted by realization.

“What you don’t know, can’t be revealed.” The Commander replied.

“And even if we’re never captured, we can only operate within the limits of the information we’ve been given about our mission, which allows our superiors to predict the battlefield.” I continued to muse.

The Commander nodded. “Predict the battlefield… better… it’s always a shit show, most of the time. But you can limit the damage.”

“Tactics and Strategy.” I blurted out. “That’s why…” I had another lightbulb moment, where it clicked. “If you know what the enemy knows, and you know they know what you know… I… okay, maybe I’m glad I don’t know what I don’t know.”

Another nod. “Until it’s your job to know.”

“There’s a reason you picked this desk with these chairs.” I suddenly understood. “The chair on this side of the desk isn’t supposed to be comfortable. Yours doesn’t have to be comfortable like it is, but because mine is like, totally the WORST chair ever made… the point is you want the chairs to be different. As different as they could possible be, right? It’s this way for a reason.”

“Bingo.”

“I’m meant to understand why you get that chair and I get this one.” I continued.

“Right again.”

“I’m meant to want that chair, and understand why the guy across from me needs to be in this chair.”

“You’re doing great.”

“That chair is for someone who is there longer, more permanent. I’m not supposed to sit in this chair longer than a few minutes. I don’t see how anyone could. It’s totally awful.” Now I was getting to it.

“It’s one of those metaphors, isn’t it?” I said, surprising myself. Turns out, English is sorta useful.

The Commander gave me an intense, focused stare. “Never one just one goal, never just one objective. Don’t get comfortable in a position below your superior. If you don’t want to sit in my chair, you shouldn’t ever be sitting in that chair. If you DO sit in that chair, you should accomplish your goal and leave. The faster you do that, the better. If your superior deserves to be in his chair, he wants your occupation of that chair to be as short as necessary, both career wise and direct goal wise. And what if that chair you’re in was just as comfortable as this one?” He asked.

That seemed wrong. “It’s a trap. Flattery. He wants something. He wants me comfortable so I’m more easy to manipulate?”

“One possibility. Usually in cases where your status is definitely not equal. Some superiors want to play being your friend. They are not your friend.”

I had to think what else there could be. “He sees me as an equal?”

“Also possible, but already addressed. Depending on why you’re there. Also… unlikely in your specific situation.”

It dawned on me. “He doesn’t play status games.”

“Which means?”

“He’s there to get the job done, which means I’m there to get the job done. And then I know that he’ll make sure I know everything I need to know to get my job done. He doesn’t play games.”

“And that’s the lesson of The Chairs. Which is just a metaphor for lesson two. Information is all around you. Donegal, you can have your desk back!” He called out. “We’re grabbing lunch.”

Wait. This wasn’t even The Commander’s desk?