The Pursuit of Manliness

It was patently evident to Colonel Nesmith Norman what the nawab was so clumsily suggesting. The pretty girl who was being presented to him and who was one of the nawab’s many daughters borne to him no doubt by one of his many wives was fully at Colonel Norman’s disposal should he so desire. This had become one of the many acknowledged perquisites in a career in Her Majesty’s Services Overseas, particularly to be expected when one had the power to bring advantage to one of Her Majesty’s imperial subjects. But the colonel pretended not to understand.

“She is indeed a pretty maiden,” Colonel Norman agreed. “A fine match for any husband, I’m sure. But I think you’ll find that everything is already in order, sir. Would there be anything else you desire me to know?”

The nawab seemed slightly flustered, perhaps attributing to the colonel the mythical reserve and prudence of his Christian overlords. Of course, as Colonel Norman knew, had the nawab presented one of his fine sons, whose manly frames stood behind their father, their bare breasts gleaming the keen musculature of youth and exercise, then the colonel’s detachment would surely have deserted him. But the colonel was too wise to expose his sexual preferences to any of Her Majesty’s minions, who must see only the incorruptibility of the imperial rule he represented. If only manliness were not also defined in terms of the objects of a man’s desire as well as by the manliness of the man himself, then Colonel Norman was surely as much a man as any man could ask for.

As the nawab departed, perhaps content that his daughter could be offered afresh to another man, Colonel Norman’s eyes followed the bodies of the nawab’s sons, his penis twitching with desire. If only those boys knew what it was he had hidden in his britches, who knows? Perhaps they would have surrendered to him the flavour and firmness of their bodies. A slight perspiration crossed the colonel’s brow arising not only from the damnably wretched heat of this corner of Her Majesty’s dominion. Those bare muscular torsos. The sun glancing off the hairless abdomens. They may be dark-skinned, but as Colonel Norman had discovered for the price of just a few paisa in the Calcutta slums, the colour of the skin in no way lessened the quality of a man’s body or his sexual receptiveness.

God damn my eyes! swore the colonel to himself. He needed manual relief or something stronger after having tarried so long in the company of such fine-looking young men. But fortunately there were sufficient young men of similar proclivity serving Her Majesty abroad that such relief was never far to find.

The colonel retreated to his quarters, a relatively large room at the back of the barracks, within sight of his command, but a room sizeable enough for two serving officers of his rank. This was another perquisite of Foreign Service, which came with the many servants and the low cost of living. If only there were fewer of those damnable flies and mosquitoes! And so often the colonel longed for a decent spread of roast beef, instead of the rice-based meals that the coolies prepared for him.

What he needed more than even the most succulent roast beef, served with swede or potatoes, with a side helping of offal, was a very different kind of meat. But a meat that was thankfully within easy reach of a colonel who well knew how to apprise his men. And the man most fit for his carnal appetite at the moment was Corporal Knight, a first-rate swarthy fellow, who was most gracious to respond immediately to his superior officer’s call, passed along to him by one of the colonel’s servants. Colonel Norman gazed at his servant, young Namid, as he scurried away to summon the corporal. His servants were such measly weak fellows, not blessed, as the Nawab’s sons were, with a diet that could build up their muscles to manly proportions. They were instead wiry, if strong. But even were the colonel to think well of carnal relations with his servants, he knew also how ill the natives oftentimes accepted it when one of their own was buggered by a servant to Her Imperial Majesty. Far safer, and indeed far more dignified, to exercise one’s bodily desires with one of one’s own kind.

“You called, sir!” said Corporal Knight, a muscular, lithe fellow, with golden blond hair and more than a trace of his Geordie accent remaining after his years of service for the Crown.

“At ease, corporal. It is service of an agreeable kind for which I have called you. If, that is, you have a mind for it?”

The corporal smiled grimly, seeing from his senior’s recumbent pose, his shirt undone and his britches unbuttoned, exactly what service was required.

“I have a mind for it, sir. Indeed I do. I saw those fine fellows who accompanied the Nabob bobbin fellow, and I had half a mind myself to seek out a junior with whom to relieve myself. But with you, sir, it is always the greatest pleasure.”

Words were not needed, and would even be unwelcome, as the two men hurriedly divested themselves of their military attire, revealing ripples of muscle on sculpted ribs, tight abdominals of washboard beauty, hard supple flesh and muscle, and then collapsed onto the colonel’s camp bed to press their compact naked bodies against each other. Firm. Hard. Rippled. Tense. Their mouths met. Moustache against moustache, corporal against colonel, tongue entwined in tongue, and sweat admixed with sweat.

And the climax of all the groping and foreplay, after a scant few minutes while the blood engorged the organs, there they were: two penises, erect and pulsing. One slightly bent and somewhat thick, the glans easily pushing back the foreskin and pulling taut at the hairy scrotum in which his balls were straining to release, but not quite yet, the fruits of Onan’s seed. And the colonel’s own, much prouder even than his corporal’s, a goodly length, perhaps a whole foot in length when erect, correctly proportioned and throbbing with energy and unreleased spunk. The colonel was proud of his member, his Peter, his John Thomas, his manhood, his pride and joy, a marvel for anyone, but especially another man whose tastes were attuned to the glory of manly abundance.

And then, the corporal took the colonel’s penis in his mouth, the whole of it unlikely to get far inside, relishing its mighty masculinity, as throbbing and as proud as any part of a man, his moustache brushing against the length of it, while the colonel stood up, holding the corporal’s head in his broad palms, his fingers running through the thick mass of blond hair, using the ears as handles to secure the head in place, his manhood sucked and licked and nibbled as energetically as the corporal could.

Of course, rank meant that Colonel Norman would not be able to take the corporal’s penis into his own mouth. Nor could it ever be permitted that he be the recipient of the glorious act of sodomy that culminated every session of lovemaking. This was only right and proper, although there was never a written law of conduct relating to homosexual acts in the British Imperial Army. A colonel can bugger a corporal, but a corporal could never bugger a colonel. Similarly, a lieutenant could bugger a sergeant but never a sergeant a lieutenant. And for that matter, Corporal Knight could bugger his infantrymen, but they could never bugger him.

And so too, today. Corporal Knight assumed the position, Colonel Norman behind him, his huge member prised for action, swelling with lust and desire, and then straight into Corporal Knight’s patient anus, a hole designed for so much more than defecation, and pleasured by the prostrate gland, nature’s bounty not bequeathed on the weaker sex. And with pleasure there is always pain, as Colonel Norman knew well, but in this case, the pleasure was all his as he pounded away in the willing orifice, lubricated by the shared saliva of the two soldiers, and the pain was almost entirely the corporal’s, whose anus had to accommodate a much larger member than God had perhaps originally intended when he designed it to take as well as to give.

Sometimes, and this was one of those times, Colonel Norman wondered what it might be like to be on the receiving end of lust. It was such a long time since he served with a more senior officer than he, possessed of similar appetites. He had near forgotten what reciprocal love was like. His own anus had received only what he chose to insert of his making, and he was sure it had now lost the elasticity it once had when he was the darling of senior officers or indeed when he was at school and gladly allowed the prefects to take their turns on his recumbent arse. Although, ironically, it was not his arse, but his magnificent proof of manliness that had made him so popular. Indeed, Colonel Norman was not so vain as to not recognize that his rapid ascent through the ranks to colonel in this quiet posting in the great subcontinent owed a great deal to the willingness he had shown in satisfying the carnal lust of his superiors and to the true splendour of his manhood.

But as Colonel Norman was aware, as he pushed frantically into Corporal Knight’s arse, one hand gripping his subordinate’s penis, and his other holding himself up against falling over, he was the most senior officer in this posting and it was not likely he would again meet more senior officers until he was transferred to a more challenging posting. Out here in a province few, including him, could properly pronounce, and which could only be reached by several days’ very slow steam train ride and a day’s ride on a wagon, there was no one who could service his arse.

And then both corporal and colonel ejaculated simultaneously, semen spurting from two penises, one, the corporal’s, free and able to arc high into the air and onto the wooden floor, whilst the colonel’s was released into the corporal’s arse, from whence it would soon bubble out and ooze down his legs. And then long after anal intercourse was just a memory, there might be a trace of semen in the corporal’s shit, wisps of manhood’s fruit scattered in the chamber pot as he adjusted his night gown, perhaps before sharing his bed with one of his privates: perhaps even young Private Godley, who was indeed a Godly looking fellow and whose arse had often been the object of the colonel’s own pleasuring.

After their energetic tryst, colonel and corporal lay collapsed on the colonel’s bed, the weave matting beneath the mattress being just stout enough to support two manly fellows and indulged in the small conversation that happened so rarely between soldiers and only made possible by the inexplicable emotion of unmanly tenderness that overtakes a fellow after he has released his seed.

“So, is it true, sir, that we are to have two colonels soon?”

“Two colonels, Corporal Knight? Just what do you mean? Is this some devilish riddle with which you entrance me?”

“Have you not heard then, sir? It is said that there will be another colonel serving here. It’s because they intend to bring the railway nearer this town. The Nabobs and the rest have been very eager on this. And with more commerce, comes more need for authority. And so, sir, there is need for more people in authority.”

“No, I had not heard, corporal. Is this not always the way that the news travels? First to those fellows who need to know the least before it reaches the one who most needs to know.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I thought you already knew.”

“You’re excused, corporal. But I best investigate it myself. There are many false rumours spread throughout the empire and the furthest from Her Majesty the Queen the more false and unfounded these rumours must be.”

Colonel Norman wondered whether he didn’t actually welcome more companionship. Another colonel would be fair company. Too often, he felt forlorn by virtue of having no one of similar rank with which to share confidences. But on the other hand, he knew only too well that a bare minority of his fellows in the armed forces took a sympathetic position towards the mutual exercise of manly lust between men. This was a sizeable minority, needless to say, but one that had to remain discreet, as there were others in the ranks who could ruin a man’s military future simply because his pursuit of manliness extended beyond duty to the Crown and the rigours of military engagement.

His anxiety was heightened further by the simple reflection that in the military compound there was unlikely to be a bending of the rules that specified that officers of the rank of colonel or below should share a room with another of the same rank, unless the accommodation were not sufficiently substantial for two such officers to share. And it was clear to Colonel Norman as he surveyed his bedroom, that there was plenty of spare space to accommodate another colonel.

When Colonel Nigel Nichols arrived, he was without doubt a fine specimen of a man and pleased indeed to discover such a handsome room to share with Colonel Norman. His last boarding in the deep jungles of Southern India had been hellish and cramped. Only the death rate kept the predicament of overcrowding at bay. But, as far as Colonel Norman could see, Colonel Nichols had escaped the ravages of malaria and other tropical illnesses wholly unscathed.

“So what do fellows do of an evening, Norman?” Colonel Nichols asked of his fellow roommate. “Is there a town near here with fine ale and a good whorehouse?”

“There are not many places where one can find good ale, Nichols, but there are many where one can satisfy one’s lust for the … uh … fairer sex.”

“The fairer sex, you say, Norman. Jolly good idea! Shall we make a toast to the fairer sex? And shall we this evening seek out their company?”

This was what Colonel Norman dreaded. At first, he had been delighted by the sight of Colonel Nichols. What a fine man he was! And, by all accounts, a fine soldier too. The additional lower ranking servicemen destined to be brought in to the area would be well commanded. And there might even be a call for a more senior ranking officer than colonel to command the barracks, now that commerce was due to make the town prosper more. All that cotton and iron destined for the many corners of the British Empire! But now, a fellow who sought to dip his stick only in the oily, hairy craw of a prostitute’s cunt. What a waste of a man’s manhood!

However, the colonel was wary about betraying his lack of interest in women when he wasn’t confident what the other soldier might think. He knew that many took a lack of passion in the weaker, fey sex as indicative of a weakness in oneself and Colonel Norman could not abide that.

“Yes indeed! A toast to the fairer sex!” said Colonel Norman without conviction, opening a bottle of malt whiskey and pouring it into two of the small glasses that he owned that otherwise would be used to hold tea.

From Colonel Norman’s perspective, a night out in the brothel was unlikely to be a success, but he took along with him not only Colonel Nichols, but several of the more junior officers whose very lack of sexual adventurousness meant that he had much neglected them over the year. It was on their recommendations that he and Colonel Nichols, together with these officers, took a rickshaw to a gaudy brothel, brightly lit candles everywhere, there to be offered alcohol, opium, marijuana and women.

Colonel Norman indulged in alcohol, he smoked some opium, but he ignored the women as best he could. It was difficult to avoid them, of course, as they fell all over him, their bosoms bare and their nipples showing, sometimes opening wide their legs to reveal a hairy nothingness where surely a something should be. Skinny, scrawny, dark-skinned native girls who spoke execrable English and those few words they knew seemed to be only to do with sex.

“You want fucky fucky?” one girl asked Colonel Norman, while Colonel Nichols was regarding him, three girls with their arms around him and one of them with a hand already inside his britches. Colonel Norman looked across at his fellow soldier, who smirked in a jovial self-satisfied way, and conjectured more on the size of the member the girl had uncovered than he did on anything else.

“You got big dicky!” exclaimed the girl fondling inside Colonel Nichols’ britches. “Want fucky fucky? Three girl. Good price.”

“Yes, by God I do!” said Colonel Nichols with a grin. He stood up, with two girls around his shoulders, and the third still with a hand inside his britches. They gradually slithered into more comfortable positions. “How about you, Norman? You want to join these three fine hussies? Or do you want to stay with your own little flower?”

There was probably a note of irony in Colonel Nichols’ remark, because the three most attractive girls the madam had supplied the officers were the three who had gravitated around Colonel Nichols, perhaps scenting his masculine potency, whilst after the other officer’s were allocated prostitutes, the one left for Colonel Norman was surely the most unhealthy and scrawny of them all. Madame Seth’s whores had a nose for a man’s eagerness for sex with women sharper than Colonel Norman’s own for men who wanted sex with other men,

“I’ll be fine, Nichols. You go ahead and enjoy yourself. I shall stay here with my own little fucky fucky.”

“Well, best of luck, Norman old boy,” said Colonel Nichols making his way with the three whores clinging to him and his clothes, whilst the one grasping the colonel’s erect member was excitedly discussing it with her two colleagues.

Colonel Norman had no appetite for sex with the whore who had assigned herself to him, but he was far too gentlemanly not to pay for her services even though he had no intention of actually using them, He let her idle with his penis, which under her ministrations steadfastly refused to get erect, while listening to the punctuated gasps and shrieks and groans coming from the room, and the bed within it, where Colonel Nichols was taking full advantage of the three whores who had attached themselves to him.

At one stage, Colonel Norman even saw Colonel Nichols, fully naked, his fine member displayed, as he stood at the doorway of the room where his whores still lay on the bed, and ordered some more wine from the coolie who was sitting on a chair waiting for just such commands.

“Why, hello there, Norman old chap!” he roared, his penis erect and a full foot in length, the size (would you believe it!) of Colonel Norman’s own member when erect. But not now, of course, as it limped sorrowfully over the side of the divan where he sat, not so much spent as unused. “Done and dusted?”

“Indeed, Nichols!” Colonel Norman lied. “And a fine wench she was too!”

Later, back at the barracks, Colonel Norman was feeling very much frustrated. He’d had his penis twiddled and twisted so much by the young whore that it was sore and raw, but it had not fully come to life and it most certainly hadn’t relieved itself. What was even worse was that in this moment of dire need for release with a willing soldier, the colonel was to be sharing his room with another whose appetite was quite clearly for women. An appetite he learnt had been well sated with the three hussies with whom he had entrusted his need for gratification.

The rickshaw driver ran off, carrying his now empty carriage behind him, while Colonel Norman contemplated whether he could risk a visit to Corporal Knight or even Private Godley. But he decided against it. Instead, he meekly followed his fellow colonel into their quarters and collapsed on the bed.

“Damned fine whores, Norman old boy!” exclaimed Colonel Nichols pulling off his shirt with just one vigorous pull, and standing bare-chested in only his britches and bare feet. Colonel Norman gulped involuntarily as he regarded the sculpted torso of his equal ranking officer.

“Indeed they were!” lied Colonel Norman. “Damnably fine!”