Where it happened: Vietnam
Langauge: English
Sex: Male
Rating: 10
Category: Straight
It was my first time with another guy, and it takes some explaining. The context was fear, and loneliness, and the times. It happened in Vietnam, in 1969. I was 21, entering my third and final year in the U.S. Army. I had just landed in Saigon for a 12-month tour. There was a huge build up of forces taking place at the time. Barracks space was non-existent at posts in and around the city, so the Army began renting out villas and small hotels to house newly arriving troops, two or three per room.
This was how I met Sergeant Antoine Dexter (not his real name). We were assigned a room at a fairly decent villa, with its own bathroom. Two beds, in opposite corners, had been crammed into a space meant for one. For six weeks or so we barely spoke. I tried to make conversation every so often, but his answers were usually terse. Sgt. Dexter was black, and I began to feel like it might be a racial thing. As in society, there were many black-white fissures in the Army then. So we kept to ourselves and communicated only when necessary. I did know that he was married, as I was, and that we shared an aversion to Saigon’s red-light districts. I preferred reading and writing letters home to the coming down with the clap, and stayed in the room during off hours. So did he.
We were both off duty one night, he in his corner of the room and me in mine, when a fire fight erupted in the alley behind the villa. Jumping off our beds, dressed only in skivvies because of the wet tropical heat, we grabbed our M-16s. Sgt. Dexter turned our one table on its side and we hunkered down behind it, shoulder to shoulder, facing the door. Not a word had been spoken. The implicit understanding between us was that if anyone other than a GI walked through the door, we would blast away. After 15 adrenalin-pumping minutes, the fire fight stopped. After another 15 tense minutes of listening to eerie quiet, we stood up and righted the table.
“Probably a gang fight,” said the sergeant. “Sounded more like small arms.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Saigon cowboys.” Punks on mopeds, racing around the city, shooting up whatever and whoever they felt like.
“You wanna drink?” he asked.
I was momentarily startled, but said yes.
Sgt. Dexter went to his locker and retrieved a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label. He poured double shots each into two glasses and handed me one. We sat in facing chairs, toasted each other with a nod and tossed them back. He poured two more, and we drained them again. In that moment, in the aftermath of the adrenalin rush, in the hangover of shared fear, the barrier came down a notch. Sgt. Dexter turned on the Armed Forces Radio Network, in the middle of a Motown tribute. A grin spread over my face as Kim Weston sang “Take Me in Your Arms,” and I allowed as how Motown was my favorite. He grinned back. The barrier came down another notch, and for the next hour we talked and talked. We learned about each other’s families, our wives, our home towns, our dreams about life after ‘Nam.
The conversation grew more intimate after that, fueled by the warmth of Johnny Black. We talked about our need for a woman, and more explicitly about what each of us would want from a woman if we had one at that moment. Sgt. Dexter had a decided preference for a long, wet blow job. Me, I wanted a woman on all fours. We laughed at each other then, a reminder dawning that we both had ten months left before going home, and that going to a whore house was out of the question. We lapsed into silence. Minute passed.
Contemplating my drink, I looked up to find Sgt. Dexter staring at me, his eyes intense. I averted my eyes, looking down…down at the outline of an erection in his shorts. I felt a stirring of my own, but I couldn’t bring myself to look back at him. I suddenly became very afraid of what might be happening between us. Homosexual acts between soldiers were far beyond taboo in that era. It meant brutal hard time in prison and rapid dishonorable discharges. It meant shame and disgrace. Don’t ask, don’t tell was years away.
“I need a shower,” I said, getting quickly up on my feet. “Too much humidity, and definitely too much sex talk,” I said over my shoulder with a nervous laugh. I moved into the cramped bathroom and gently closed the door. I turned to the mirror and stared at myself, shaking my head. A breathed out a long ‘whew’ as I turned on the shower, cold water only. Stripping out of my skivvies, I stepped into the bracing coolness and let it wash over me for a few long minutes.
I didn’t hear it, I sensed it. I turned to see Sgt. Dexter’s silhouette in the doorway. The semi-opaque shower curtain did not obscure his nudity, or the amazing hard-on he held in one hand. He stepped forward into the bathroom…
If you’d like to read the rest, please start a post with the title ‘More Drill Sergeant’ and include any comments you may have about the story so far. I’d really like to hear from other veterans who may have had similar experiences.
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