Marine Stories: Tucker and Holsom

Into the office walked Tucker, the well-educated, temperamental engineer, on the first day of his eight week deadline, a gig taken only because an old military friend was in a bind. Heads turned. The mature, distinguished Inspector inevitably drew everyone's attention. Standing in front of the open area, Tucker looked about him for the office marked INSPECTIONS. At that moment, Eric Holsom stepped out of his office into the open area. Tucker nodded to acknowledge the E-7's presence. E-7 Holsom was a big man, balding with a shaved head, in great shape with a manly face, not that of the star, but of the sidekick, the pal, the first baseman, the port in the storm, the Rock of Gibraltar. He was military through and through, or so it seemed. The façade was convincing, but not in Tucker's presence. Holsom perceived Tucker with an instant toxicity; Tucker felt an almost palpable dislike shoot through him as if he had been lanced. However, when Holsom spoke, he was deferential, respectful, and compliant. Tucker blew off the rush of negativity as a territorial intrusion, and proceeded with the project at hand.

At the end of the first week, Holsom composed the final report.

On Monday morning, Tucker sat in front of his computer and opened the Weekly Report that Holsom had written. Tucker was used to reading some really, really rough stuff in the field ... descriptions that were all over the place, execrable grammar and spelling... With his just filled coffee cup in his left hand, he moved the mouse. The file opened. Switching the coffee to his right hand, he leaned back in the chair and started reading.

Tucker was dumbfounded. Holsom wrote like a Hemingway. The writing was neat, well ordered, clear, unambiguous, grammatically correct; in two words, elegant and refined. From this tall baseball player built E-7 with supreme spit and polish comes prose that borders on the poetic. Tucker was not ready for that revelation. When his thoughts came back to the project and the site visit that was going to occur in about an hour, he noticed that the cup of coffee was empty.

In the second week, Holsom's behavior began to make Tucker start to think that the burst of fear he first experienced had been dismissed a bit too lightly. There was nothing Tucker could put his finger on, but he knew that something was going on behind the scenes. Holsom had taken his military distance to the extreme. Whereas his prose may have been poetic, his behavior had become obsequious. It was as if Holsom not only wanted to keep Tucker at bay, but he also wanted Tucker as far away from him as he could get.

Finally, in the third week, with the tension building between them, Tucker decided to have a talk with Holsom to iron out a relationship that had to last only a little over a month.

Both of the men are in the office while the rest of the employees have gone to lunch.

Tucker begins: "I've asked you for this time because there are some things I'd like to say. First of all, we're both adults and we are going to be working together for ... What... another five weeks. We can endure anything for five weeks. The point is why do we have to? I want to add, although I haven't said anything about it before, I have a really high opinion of your writing skills. You describe some of the least human things about a particular installation and it reads like a Hemingway short story. Your mind is like a steel trap. Once you see something, it's yours forever. And you are learning all the time. People are your teachers. I am your teacher, perhaps... but I am a teacher you are on the run from... and if it will make a difference over the next five weeks, I'd like to know... at least... what it is that's going on that's making you want me out of your life. And, don't even bother trying to deny the way you act around me, the way you perceive me... is so obvious... I mean it's like you have a calendar inside your desk with my departure date on it... and you're marking off each day. When someone's got that kind of an attitude when I've done nothing to deserve it, I want to know what's going on.

To which, Holsom replies: I think you think you know something is going on... and nothing is going on. May I give you an example? When you were 19, a redhead with heart shaped lips, broke your heart. At 27, you meet a beautiful redhead with heart shaped lips... who you have to work beside day by day for eight weeks. You remember every detail of the break up that happened years ago. You remember her voice. And this girl makes you remember the worst part of your life. Isn't it only natural to want to avoid her if she brings up unpleasant memories?

Tucker: So I bring up unpleasant memories. I remind you of someone in your past that got to you and got to you bad. O. K. I get it. All I ask is that I am not that other person whoever he was. I don't know what he did to you and why you hold such feelings inside you. But just don't see him when you see me. Now that I know it's not me, but I am someone who reminds you of someone else... at least we understand each other. So I will regard your distance not as a negative thing, but as a sort of knee jerk response to a similar stimulus. Pavlov wins in the end... conditioning. And, by the way, don't we have a site inspection this afternoon?

Holsom: Yes, sir, we do.

Although there was now a crack in the ice of the coldness between them, the crack was in only a small part of a glacier... in other words, meaningless. Tucker continued to be amazed, that even after their talk, the beautiful reports continued to be written and the borders between Holsom and him were still as wide as they had been except for some early morning pleasantries and end-of-day well wishes.

In the 7th week, Holsom and Tucker found themselves out of town in the middle of small town nowhere on a homecoming weekend. They were lucky to find one room with two double beds at the last moment, and they got the room because there had been a last minute cancellation. Tucker had a plan. The two men went to dinner, and Tucker brought back to the room with him a bottle of Jack Daniels. With the ice machine down the hall and two glasses in the bathroom, there were the makings of a party. At first, Holsom declined and then acceded to "just one."

An upper tier music channel supplied a non-threatening atmosphere.

With half the bottle consumed between them, Tucker turns the conversation to the man he represents to Holsom.

Tucker: Fuck, man. You're a huge ole lug of a guy... with a literary gift some bestselling authors wish they had. What did this guy do to you? Did he fuck you? Did he beat you? Did he betray you? Did he bleed you dry? Did he inject you with drugs and turn you out on the streets?

Holsom: You think I'm drunk enough at this point to talk all that shit.

Tucker: All I know is that's there's been an undercurrent between us. You think I'm trying to come on to you.

Holsom: Well, aren't you? Is that honest enough for you?

Tucker: When I'm in the field, I'm totally professional.

Holsom: Is this professional? Getting me sloshed enough to let you get into my life?

Tucker: All that I know is that the moment you walked out into the room where I was standing, I felt an immediate dislike. Actually, and let's do be a little alcoholically honest, I felt palpable hate. A complete rejection of who I am and what I stand for.

Holsom: Let me tell you something, now. You just hit the nail on the fucking head. 'Cause the instant I laid eyes on you, I knew what you were.

Tucker: Old friend, now that we're d***k enough, you tell me what I am.

Holsom: You're a fag... it's as simple as that... an officer fag who fucks the boys.

Tucker: I'm happy we're over that hurdle. Ah, the vile truisms of life. That deserves another quick shot. What do you say to another quick shot?

Holsom: Fuck, why not?

Tucker: And you want to know why I fuck the boys... and I do fuck the boys... I fuck them because they want me to fuck them. I don't have to come on to anyone. Their asses gravitate toward my dick like moths to the flame. And you want to know why??? Because they want to feel a man inside them. They may fuck as many girls as they can; they may fuck as many of their buddies as they can, but in that ultimate dream, that fantasy of fantasies, they see themselves on their backs with their legs in the air with daddy pounding their asses like there's no tomorrow. I've had them so forward that after the preliminaries are over, the first words out of their mouths are, "You will fuck me, won't you?"

Tucker and Holsom share the quick shot.

Tucker: So, since we're being honest, what did this guy do to you? Did he beat you? Did he hurt you?

Holsom: He didn't beat me. He did seduce me and he did fuck me.

Tucker: No k**ding, man. The guy fucked you... like in the ass or just figuratively?

Holsom: In the ass.

Tucker: And I remind you of him.

Holsom: That's the problem. He fucked me, but he didn't hurt me. Yeah, he hurt me 'cause he made it more difficult to live up to my physical image... the manly man. The seducer. The man women want. The man many women want. And, to tell the truth, all I wanted was him. I wanted to be fucked the way he fucked me. And I haven't thought about that since I was 18. I knew I had to put it behind me, put it out of my mind, but how do you live decades and never experience the magic I felt when he fucked me? And, lately, even before you came to the office, I had been remembering. I was up late one night in the basement with the computer and I found this website for older men and younger guys... And, as I started watching some of the videos... I knew that was the scene I had secretly wished for... Of course, now I am the dad... the young ones are the boys. All of this... I started having all these jack off fantasies as I watched the porn... and pretty soon I was fucking myself as I watched the vids... In the morning, I vowed not to visit those sites again... But I would... a day would pass and I would have a bout of not being able to sl**p... and I was down in the basement jacking in front of the computer, looking at those boys wanting to be fucked.

Tucker: Is that what you want? You want me to fuck you?

Holsom: I do and I don't. I mean I'm not the k** I was when he showed me what to do.

Tucker: That's the problem. Inside, you still are the k** you were. Sex is the one f***e in the universe that defies time. No matter how old the body gets, the sexual impulse is eternally youthful. It is the youth in you that wants to experience what you've missed for so many years.

Holsom: You want to fuck me?

Tucker: Who wouldn't want to fuck you? Yes, man. I'll fuck you... I'll be happy to give you something else to think about.

Holsom: You want me on all fours.

Tucker: First we have to shower and get cleaned up... We've put in a full day.

The two men eye each other as they take their clothes off and throw them on the motel furniture. Tucker pours one more shot as each man looks at the other buck naked and semi-erect. Yes, Holsom is going to get fucked, and Tucker is going to get himself a huge hunk of manhood to gratify. Both men will remember the evening for a long time.

As Holsom turns to enter the bathroom, the first flashback occurs. It wasn't the old guy. It was the quarterback. The day that Hamster got him aroused and showed him a jack off trick... and then Hamster demanded that he jack off in front of him.

"Hey, I just pulled mine out and let you see it. It's time for you to pull out yours."

"You didn't say there'd be any tit for tat."

"Situations change. What's it to you? Your world's going to explode or something if you pull it out and show it to me? What's the deal? I just think we need to be even about this. I guess it's tit for tat if you want to look at it that way. Or you could look at like it's two buddies who now know what each of them looks like. You didn't mind looking at my dick. Are you really going to mind if I look at yours?"

"Well, if you put it that way."

"And we've seen each other in the shower hundreds of times... I just want to take a look at its po-ten-ti-al-i-ty (which he broke into six distinct syllables). And you're sorta liking this anyway."

"I ain't done nothing like this before."

"You're just learning a little more about life."

And then they would cum together. He remembered Hamster took the lube and wet his own dick and then dribbled a goodly amount on mine. He didn't touch it at that point, but got his knuckles close. Damn, his hand is rubbing against my stomach. My dick leaps up and hits his hand. He takes it away and sets the lube down. Standing in front of each other, jacking and the way he pulls his hand back down his cock and how far out he moves his fingers when he's rubbing the back of the head. The speed. That's the secret, the speed and the pressure.

Hamster leans into me and his dick touches mine. Oh, those chills and shots of heat. I couldn't help it when I jerked forward and we collided.

"Grab it." Standing there without touching himself, erect and proud, I accepted the command, realizing, despite my extensive training in masculinity, the world was not going to collapse if I put my hand on his dick. I had never had a feeling like the feeling that overwhelmed me as I pressed my hand around his dick. He dribbled more lube over my fingers. I began first by simply squeezing... applying pressure and releasing it... then came the slight movement and the extension of that movement as my hand explored the base of his dick, with its unexpected thickness, nothing like mine that remains virtually the same thickness from the base to the head. He seemed to grow in my hand. I know I felt the veins in his cock expand as I squeezed him lightly and then continue to expand as I released my grip. At that moment, Hamster encircles my dick with his fingers and begins stroking. We just stand there stroking and we could feel the feeling rise in both of us and the heat exploded and got goo all over everything... so had to do a major clean up after the event. I remember it as if it were yesterday. And it never happened again... and after that there were months of nights when my hand would turn as if it were Hamster's hand on my dick... and I would shoot off. All I had to do was repeat the visual story... imagine that one and only time we were together... and I would feel the wonderment of that time... Until it got around that I had given Hamster head... when I had never given him head, but only jacked him off as he jacked me off... the gossip died though when the coach walked in on Hamster sucking off Hank Jameson, the son of one of the town's most respected doctors. I never told the true story to anyone until tonight. I just forgot about it and it went down the memory hole. Except for the feelings, the recreation of that moment built up inside me... Just after that time with Hamster, I grew nine inches, and yet when I would jack off, I was that awkward skinny kid lifting weights trying to make himself bigger and Hamster was this sort of hero type in my eyes... and it was like that until I was eighteen and a half ... that's when I discovered my ass or I should say Mr. Alligood, Lester Alligood, the man who owned the biggest family restaurant in town, discovered my ass.

Everybody loved Lester. His employees loved him. His vendors loved him. His customers loved him. His wife and children loved him, and all he wanted, and what he eventually got, was my ass... The problem was I liked it. I felt things inside me I'd never even imagined existed. The desire for those late closing nights together became a drug... and I was hooked. But toward the end of the summer, the day after one of our nights I promised myself that I had done it for the last time, but then I would agree with the new weekly schedule which would put us together closing Sunday night. Lester had it all worked out. He would come back to his office in the morning and do the last night's business. He always saw that my tasks had been handled by the other staff, so nothing I normally did was undone. So after the employees left and the doors were locked, the time was to ourselves. This went on all summer and then I truly had to end it; I joined the Corps. All this was going on inside me, knowing it was counter to everything I'd been taught... yet the feelings were so overpowering and reassuring, so pleasurable and despicable all at the same time that I was consumed with the thought of anyone ever discovering my secret life.

So here it is... wasted in a motel room with a pretty heavy buzz going, talking about my teenage sexual escapades with a man who would pull his dick out in a heartbeat, and who has... Pretty damn interesting... and to know you want to fuck me and to know that I want you to fuck me... ah, fuck, let's have another shot and then we can shower.

So back between the beds they sit down with knees touching from time to time... and, of course, glances at each other's manhood. Holsom takes the bottle, pours a stiff shot in each glass, replaces the bottle. The eyes of both men seem locked as they raise their glasses to "Fuckin' Sex, that's the toast to fucking and sex and sex and fucking." Both men drink their shots simultaneously, and set the glasses down together, also. Holsom rises.

Tucker speaks: "Hey, if you're going to give me your ass a little later on, what's about giving me a touch of that cock before we head into the head."

Holsom jumps to complete erection with those words. He stands there, his dick twitching. Tucker is truly savoring the moment. With a purple blue veiner looking him in the eye, he allows himself to imagine the overwhelming sweetness of the first blush of feeling as his lips would touch the head of Holsom's cock. Lingering and lingering, Tucker lets the alcohol slow his concentration down and he continues to stare at this most desirable cock... this clichéd raging manhood. Tucker concentrates on running his tongue around on the inside of his mouth. This stalwart image of a man presenting himself before him tortures Tucker to such an extent he hesitates to make contact.

Tucker places his hands on the mountainous, rock hard thighs... and continues to stare.

After a few frozen moments, Holsom offers, "I thought you wanted to get a taste of it. I'm more than willing to let you."

Holsom's words bring Tucker back to the present alcoholic reality and Tucker realizes he's been tripping on the situation and almost meditating on the moment. Holsom glances up. Eyes meet. Holding his eyes on Holsom's face, Tucker leans forward the few remaining inches and makes contact. Tucker's lips detect the juice, the sacred juice from the inner man, as he kisses ever so lightly the skin of the head... his tongue elongates and gathers the fluid of the unrestrained depths of passion, brushing the tiny raised mounds of the fluid bearing orifice. The unexpected gentleness and firmness of Tucker's lips disproportionately bombard Holsom with feelings of explosion and excess. They are feelings he had never felt before coursing through him, animating him in a new, strange way.

Tucker knows what he has before him. He has a creature with a tortured inner life, a big man with a fine mind, a man tortured by his sensitivity to the memory of past events, events he found satisfying and fulfilling. He has before him a man, a real individual who thinks and feels, who is dumbfounded by senselessness, and still responsive to the antique virtues of honor and fidelity. Tucker is taking into his mouth a channel into this man's psyche, plugging into his core being, and bringing him feelings he has longed for over a decade. This is definitely a soul suck.

As Tucker's lips begin to envelop Holsom's dickhead, Holsom flashes back yet again to the first time Lester suggested sex. Lester was hosing down the kitchen after the final walk through and had accidentally sprayed both of them. Lester insisted they take off their wet clothes and lay them on trays in the ovens and set the ovens at a safe temperature to let the clothes dry quickly. Sitting around naked after the clothes had been placed in the ovens, Lester brings up the topic of masturbation and the feelings it brings about.