Bunk beds make strange sailboats yet I float and scut before the draft of your breath. As you lie sleeping, I hover above. Your watcher, your guardian spirit pinned in your sky. You sleep as if my weight were nothing, air about you granted worship. Fine striped blue ticking and tiny downy barbs are my cheek's lover not the tendoned tan hands I watch in repose, power curled into loose fists. My pillow is wrinkled white cotton when I want your treasured chest to lay upon, filled with golden laughter. Why should I sleep when sight of you revives me, nor dream when I have view of all I could dream about. Time enough for sleeping when you are gone and dreams will ever be memories of you spread below me sleeping innocent of my love.
At ten o’clock the lights went off in the barracks but the open corridors let in some low level glow and a few guys still stirred around. Laughter and shouts from the showers slowly subsided and a quiet mood gently lulled the long line of bunk beds in their pools of shadowed night.
It was hot in Florida, always. A humid 85 degrees for the evening temperature meant sweaty pillows and underwear. Most of the sailors stripped off tee shirts and slept in damp white boxers on top of the blanket and sheets. My dog tag chains even felt warm against my chest. I tossed, restless.
Cameron was the last guy to come out of the showers. The sounds of the large room grew padded and cottony quiet. When he came near our bunk his plastic shower shoes created the flip-flop noise that gave them their nick name. He opened his locker, as quietly as possible and pulled a pair of clean boxers from a shelf. Turning to me, drawers in his hand, he asked about the last class, the one he’d missed. I rose up on an elbow.
“We went over the shapes, you know? The contours of battleships and carriers, that stuff. Naming the class from blacked out shapes?”
“Oh, yeah… I know that part. When’s he gonna give the test?” Cameron held his towel at the waist with nervous fingers. I wondered if he would drop his towel and pull on the drawers right there, while I was watching. He didn’t have much choice. We usually took clean drawers into the shower room, guess he forgot. “Where’d you go? ... Why’d you miss?”
“They called me to the admin office. I got that transfer to radio school. You remember? I asked for it last month?” He let the towel open and slide off his hips, held it in front of his crotch.
“So? You gonna ship out? When?” I watched the way the light from the corridor made his bare hip glow pale white and fuzzy. He dropped the towel to his side but the shadow of his hand masked his privates. We’d showered together a hundred times but this dark and shadowed atmosphere made his body seem suddenly mysterious and interesting… intimate.
“Looks like I’ll be leaving next Tuesday. We’ll have to celebrate this weekend, huh? You wanna go into town? Maybe Friday night? We could stay at the Thunderbird the whole weekend... Walk to the beach, drink a few beers, talk, you know.” His hand flipped with his words, the white drawers flagged and his naked body flashed in low yellow light. His cock was thick and heavy, swinging slightly with the thrust of his torso as he spoke in a low whisper. “I kinda wish I hadn’t asked for it, now, since I got to know you.”
“Sure. Sounds good. I’m gonna miss you, man.” I let my eyes track up to his face. He looked worried, tense. He stared into my glance. “Radio school, that’s cool. You’ll make friends quick, no sweat.”
“I donno, man. It ain’t easy for me, you know?”
I wondered if Smith and Walbert were listening from the next bunk over. I checked their bunk, they looked still, maybe asleep… maybe listening. I shifted around. “You’ll be okay. Yeah, we’ll celebrate, sure. Get some sleep, okay? I’m bushed.” I fell back on my pillow, shoved my arms behind my head. Cameron tossed his drawers on his top bunk and turned to hang his damp towel in his locker, put away his shower shoes. I watched his ass as he bent and flexed. For the millionth time, I wished I had his great build. When you’ve been skinny all your life it seems unfair some guys should have these terrific muscles without even working for ’em. Cameron looked like a wrestler, thick and solid. He turned back towards me and reached up to fold down his sheet or something, but he leaned towards the bunks with his head out of sight and his cock swung out to point at me, pendulous above my face. Big balls, too, and a thicker bush than I had. That was the first time I felt it. Right then, in the dark, I reached down to squeeze the fast rising boner under the tent of my shorts. That’s dumb, I thought. Hadn’t felt that shiver from a guy since I was about twelve and watched my uncle David change out of his swim trunks. I wished Cameron would pull his drawers on! It looked funny, him hanging around our bunk naked. What if Smith rose up and looked our way? He’d never shut up about it! Then Cameron was bending down, turning … he sat his ass on my bunk and was handing me something:
“You keep this, okay?” He was barely whispering, I could hardly hear him. “It’s a gift, me to you.” He shoved his transistor radio at my hand … the hand I had over my tent pole. I didn’t grab it right away, hesitated. He lay the radio on my hip and I could feel the warmth of his hand as it lay there, still next to mine, touching my hand. I reached across to clasp the radio, leaving my boner sticking up as a prominent ridge to my naval. He looked at it, then back at my face. “I’ll miss you...” and he slid his palm over my cock. He just patted it, light and friendly and then he was pulling on his drawers and standing back up. When he turned and climbed into his bunk over my head I saw his open fly and the thick dark length of his cock as it stuck out in ridged attention.
He disappeared into the night above me but I watched the bottom of his mattress as his butt shifted and came to rest. I closed my eyes, then, and dreamed.
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