Another Marine Hookup

I caught a look at myself in the wall mirror. I looked like I felt - pumped and full of energy (negative, still demanding more release), sweat drenched ripped torso fading to my narrow waist and sweat-soaked upper portion of my faded cotton standard-issue USMC PT trunks. Ninety-five minutes of punishing my own muscles left my pumped bi's and tri's and hairy, sculpted pecs looking more like they were those of a burgeoning bodybuilder than my own natural lean-muscled jock build. Time to go let this anger out once and for all - to punish the heavy bag and transfer my fury to that inanimate object, since I could hardly do what I wanted to and beat the smug superiority out of our pencil-dicked idiot of an interim base commander. I made a mental note to visit the chapel and say a prayer for our great base commander's recovery from emergency cardiac surgery.

Ironically, Col. Bellinger's massive heart attack occurred shortly after a very heated argument with the visiting inspector of equal rank, who'd gone to exceptionally findings and vaguely-worded descriptions to inflate their meaning. Bellinger was old school, and a fight was a fight, to be settled like men of honor settle differences, one on one. Col. Percy was no gentleman, however.

"The FUCK, James!" another marine shouted in the locker room, when I'd slammed open my utilitarian steel-cage locker door so hard the entire free-standing block teetered. That included the locker Layton was reaching into at a bad time for him.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!" I shouted and gave the locker frame a one-two of a savage heel-of-hand jab and side-kick at the lower locker under mine. That one really did have the locker block swaying.

"Easy there, tiger!" Layton laughed. "What did this poor equipment do to you?"

"It wasn't equipment; it was a tool!" I growled, ripping my boxing gloves and tape out of my locker. And then, with out even a nod to discretion, I added, "A worthless tool named Percy."

Layton looked startled and looked around, both of us hearing stifled laughter from a couple of rows over. Layton suggested helpfully, "How about saving it for the bags?" And moved to help me with my tape. I resisted the urge to deck him just because he was there, instead forcing my breathing to steady.

I also took an appraising look at Layton, mostly naked in just his jock strap, obviously just getting changed for his workout. He was one of those short, fireplug builds, all muscle that would age well or badly, depending solely on how he adjusted his intake of fats and carbs as he got older. But at this point in his life, close to thirty like me, he was a mass of muscles, probably one eighty-five or more on his five-eight frame. His farmer's tanned torso was mostly milky-white with a contrasting dusting of long, black body hair over his pecs and down his abs, a fat T shape, the base of which clearly ended in an untamed mess of a thick black bush which was far from contained by the jock pouch. The pouch itself outlined a very short, very fat cock with a fat bulbous head, and it looked to rest on a set of goose-egg balls. Either that or that bush was thicker than four or five steel wool pads filling out that pouch. All of that over darkly-furred tree-trunk legs and hairy wide but short feet. His arms, likewise hirsute, were thick as big tree limbs, though short, like his legs. I towered over him, and I had to force my thoughts away from how he would look impaled on my cock as I drilled him hard and long.

I also noticed, as Layton ripped off the tape on my second hand that when he bit the tape as my wrist he leaned in unnecessarily close and inhaled deeply. I stunk of angry sweat. And from a slightly larger bulge in his jock strap, it was clear he liked it.

"I think I've got it from here, thanks!" I said, defensively pulling my hand back and checking one against the other. NO! I told my cock. JUST NO!

"Welcome," he said, casually adjusting his own equipment in that tightening pouch.

OH HELL NO! Layton and I served together. He wasn't under my command, but we were both stationed in the hell-hole that our base had recently become, and his superior officer of my rank was a brother I'd served with now for the third time, a good man who was almost a friend. JUST FUCKING NO! I told myself, tearing my eyes away from Layton's hairy bubble butt as he bent to get into then pulled up his own workout trunks. Tight front and back - beautifully so!

I busied myself getting my glove laces ready and then realized I had to have help . . . From Layton or from the unseen laugher, as ours were the only signs of life in the locker area.

"Mind lacing me up when we get upstairs?" I asked Layton, already stepping away from him as I caught a glimpse of his densely-muscled upper body moving as he bent to tie his sneakers.

"No prob at all," he answered a little muffled as he pulled a very tight - in all the right places - t-shirt over his head. I was at the door out, stalled watching him. As he approached, he shot me a grin. "Let's go see if you can work off all that aggression on the bags." And from behind me, as I'd broken my stall and started walking on when he neared, he added, lower, "Or if we have to find another way to get you relieved."

HOLY FUCK! I thought, as I realized my resolve was just about blown. SHIT! Not blown . . . I gave up trying to think coherently and concentrated on not walking into anything as we crossed toward the heavy bags.

Our height differential - the better part of a foot - worked to Layton's disadvantage. While I worked up another, more intense sweat, doing my best to punch the life out of Col. Percy via the stuffing in the heavy bag, Layton had to brace himself, further lowering his reach, and to have his arms up as high as they could go to steady the level where my punches mostly landed. A couple of times I asked him if he was okay, and he grunted "Semper Fi" once and other time growl-grunted "Ooooh rah" back at me, face red, feet planted, quickly taking the opportunity of the break in my assault to wipe sweat from his face with his shirt. DAMN those sweaty, furry abs of his!

I finished off about a half hour's battery with a punishing series of rapid punches, as if the heavy bag was the speed bag and I was infuriated with it. If it had been a melon - or Percy's head - it would have been pulp when I finally slumped into the bag with head then grabbed the bag when my sweaty pate started to slip off and gave out a loud, long scream of anger and frustration, much like the one I'd loosed in the lockers. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Layton was sucking for breath on the other side of the bag, and I realized he'd likewise slumped into it, my weight and height pushing the bag to an angle above and a bit over him. "Thanks!" I huffed. "And sorry you had to work so hard. Glad you did, though - I might have just punched this bag through the wall there behind you if you hadn't been there."

Layton wheezed a laugh. "Yeah. And then . . . Percy would have . . . written up a violation on you!" he taunted me between gasping breaths. "Willful destruction . . . government . . . property."

I choked out a laugh, but I was still furious with the asshole. Layton knew it, too. When I stood away from the bag and hunched over, gloves on my knees, still working on controlling my own breathing, he stepped around the bag. "Looks like . . . we'll have to . . . go to . . . plan B!" he got out.

I looked up from my hunched over position into his solar plexus, which he'd bared, wiping sweat from his forehead with his drenched t-shirt. "Damn, brother. I wasn't THAT hard, was I?" I asked, knowing I'd let it have everything I had. It was either that or go shoot something . . . or worse, shoot my CO, which is pretty-much a career-ending thing, even if you shoot him in his empty nutsac and just wound him.

Layton's look was all sex, reacting to my "hard" statement. He stepped toward me and started to unlace my gloves. "Oh, sir, if that . . . was you NOT . . . being THAT hard, then we . . . definitely . . . need to get to plan B . . . so I can see what THAT hard . . . IS!" he struggled out.

"Layton!" I barked, taking him by surprise right as he pulled my right glove off. 

"SIR!" he snapped back, reflexively coming to attention, which I couldn't help but laugh at.

"At ease, marine. We're just two dawgs in the gym here."

"SIR, YES, SIR!" he barked, startling me and attracting some stares from the others on the gym floor.

But he relaxed, went back to unlacing my other glove, and I couldn't help but enjoy the sight of him, his body having been taut at attention, then those muscles rolling to rest as he stood down, arm muscles rolling and rippling now as he worked. FUCK! I was not winning this one. "What if you read me wrong, Layton? Ever think of what kind of shit you'd be in if you had?"

"Some hills are worth to die for," he answered with a grin. "Oh, and sir?"

"FUCK IT ALL, Layton!" I let my frustration - about three differing frustrations at that point - spew. "James! Call me James or shit, call me Bill if we're having THIS conversation, God DAMMIT!"

I'd definitely lost this one. His grin was now a filthy smirk. Somehow that smirk made him the most fuckable man on the planet right then, despite every reason in the universe NOT to do just that. "Okay, James or Bill," he jibed me. "So yeah, I might have been wrong. But judging from the woody you shot in the lockers, I had a damn good chance. And like I said, some hills are worth dying for!"

I just stared at him, helplessly feeling my cock surge . . . again. This was SUCH a bad idea. I should just walk away, grab my gear and head back to the BOQ, lock my door behind me, move something heavy in front of it to deter me from changing my mind, shower in my own place and jack off . . . and remain pissed as hell at Percy, maybe add Layton to my shit list.

Then again . . . "So you know there's a storage room by the locker room that is used at first light when the place is cleaned, right?" he threw out, that filthy smirk even more intense. "You know you need to burn off more of that pent-up . . . aggression," he finished, throwing a look down to my workout trunks, obviously barely containing my hardon.

I was powerless. My raging anger, my raging testosterone, my raging cock - now all conspiring against me, as men have been unable to control since the beginning of time. The heavy bag and Layton were between me and the rest of the gym, and since his amazingly muscled ass was toward the gym, nobody could see that he was sporting a beercan-thick, slightly shorter silhouette in his shorts; so I was pretty sure this looked to anyone observing us like a tense conversation or even a roid rage incident, either waxing or waning.

I reached out to clamp my hand down on his sweaty shoulder, and he feinted away, as if I was going to strike him, then, realizing, repositioned himself under my hovering hand and held my gaze. I laid my hand and squeezed his shoulder. "One of us should be practical here," I softly told him, more pleading than anything else.

"Tell you what, James," he replied immediately. "Ten minutes. We give it ten minutes. From now. And in ten minutes if we are both at that store room, well, then, I guarantee you'll have the best outlet to let loose every bit of your anger, aggression and everything else you need to, uh, let loose of," he said with a leer downward to my crotch. "And, if either of us COMES to our senses before then," he added, as lewdly as he could make it sound, "Then so be it. We'll both be giving Rosy a workout somewhere else, that's for damn sure!"

With that, Layton, in a fluid movement, stripped his soaking t-shirt off over his head, and as he turned to walk away, wiped his face and chest and then, as he walked, very slowly wiped his abs, letting enough of the t-shirt hang in front of him to cover his hardon. I couldn't help but grin at his resourcefulness and perfect choreography . . . and his amazing ass as those buttcheeks bounced away and out to the lockers.

"He's a good man, Layton," a fellow officer I knew startled me, having come up from behind. "Very able-bodied," he added. I had whirled around when he spoke suddenly, and I was facing him, forgetting about my raging hardon. "Very intense, too," Reynolds threw in as he walked off.

I suddenly thought every single person - about ten men and a woman - in the gym was staring at my hardon, thinking, "OH, so James is one of THOSE!" and scanned the room. Nobody was looking at me - no quick turns away, nobody even facing within twenty degrees of my direction from them.

FUCK THIS! I was NOT going to do this - no way. I didn't DO that, not even if nobody noticed, and Lt. Reynolds' comment was completely without any of THAT kind of meaning. And I particularly wouldn't give that dickless jackass CO the satisfaction of sending me down on a conduct unbecoming charge. FUCK! That fucking worthless smug piece of shit! Weaseling his way into a command by conducting an inspection and, since he couldn't find anything worthwhile, finding petty, unimportant things and writing them up as damningly vague as possible . . . and potentially ruining the career of a great man, a better man by exponential magnitude than that pile of steaming goat shit Percy could ever dream of being! FUCK HIM! And NOT in a good way! No FUCKING way was I going to succumb to this temptation and risk Percy's retaliation, particularly after I'd made my distaste for his tactics known to him and put a broad, bright target squarely on my chest, a target so fucking big that even that nimrod fuckhead Percy couldn't miss.

My cock, however, begged to differ. My nuts and cock filled my internal command center with a different plan, a plan to buttfuck Layton within an inch of his life to spite Percy's love for rules and probably to spite Percy, who'd probably die for the chance to take a REAL man's cock.

Thus I found myself heading toward the door to the lockers, dangling my gloves in front of my embarrassing crotch tent, slowly but directly, and turning right after leaving the gym into the small hall with the door down on the right. FUCK IT! I thought, as I flung my gloves over toward the door to the lockers. I took the few steps down the hall and, slamming the door open wide, took a step in like I belonged there. I did, goddammit! I was an officer, this was the officer's gym, and if anyone asked, I would have needed something in the store room.

But as I looked around in the dim light from a row of transom windows to the June gloom outside, I was both relieved and disappointed. Layton wasn't here. I glanced down at my treasured Submariner, knowing the time was precise, knowing I'd snuck a look when he walked off to mark the countdown, knowing I knew ten minutes with or without a watch, and it was, right on, ten minutes.

"Close the fucking door," came a whisper which caused me to turn slowly toward the source.

"Fuuuccckkk!" I exclaimed, mostly under my breath.

"Not unless you close the fucking door!" Layton said, this time more insistently.

I reached for the door and shut it carefully and quietly. I had experienced a moment, as I swung the door slowly, of thinking I should turn around and walk away. But I flipped the lock from the inside, securing the door.

The light from the hall had been brighter than the light from the transoms due to the cloudy haze outside, and it had shown away from the direction of Layton's voice. With the door closed, training took over, and my eyes adjusted quickly. HOLY FUCK! I thought as my eyes stopped their scan to the area which had been darkest when the door had been open.

Layton was out of his trunks, t-shirt nowhere to be seen but the trunks cast aside in a heap, his jock strap pouch protruding with his boner barely contained, on his knees . . . just a few steps away. As the milliseconds passed, I could smell his sweat, and adding that sensation to my eyes' and my brain's myriad ways I would use that bitch, my cock had become fully hard in that short time.

"GodDAMN, James!" Layton uttered appreciatively. "I knew you were big, but I had no fucking idea you were a fucking GOD!" Oh, he was GOOD!

What part of my brain, somewhere way in the back at that point, knew as ridiculous sweet-talk, my cock took as fuel, and I was in front of him in another second. I just stood, feet planted, my sweaty crotch right there in front of his face.

It was, for a moment, a standoff. I stood there like that. He knelt there just as he had. But when I looked down, I saw his eyes glazed with want and appreciation, transfixed on my fuckmonster's outline in front of him. As if he felt me looking at him, he slowly moved his gaze away and up to meet mine. His face was full of want, of a request, of the need for permission. "Earn the fuck," I told him simply.

I saw his eyes widen, and then he looked back at my cock and unconsciously ran his tongue across between his lips. He carefully reached out, then backed his hands away and instead leaned forward and rubbed his face along the long, fat outline of my wood. I stood firm. The sensation was amazing, and I wanted to just SHOVE my cock down his throat, up his ass, over and over, and fill him with my seed. I heard him exhale long and deep and inhale again, again deep and long, and a slight moan followed it as his face continued to rub the length of me and my cock continued to drip against the side over my thigh, as it had long-since burst from the confines of my sweat-soaked jock strap.

He again brought his hand up. I wasn't looking down, I was just FEELING him, maintain my parade rest stance, but I felt his movement and felt the warmth of his hand near my trunks leg opening. "May I?" he asked softly.

"EARN THE FUCK!" I repeated, more forcefully, and I knew I'd chosen the right response when he moaned in response and pushed his cheek harder against my throbbing bone.

Layton's hand went up my trunks leg and found my big, full cum tanks. His hand was warm, and his touch assured, though light at first. "Amazing bull tanks!" he uttered as he handled them with increasing pressure to his caress and grip, rubbing his face all over my trunks crotch along my fuckpipe a bit faster, more insistently.

I wanted to cry out OH FUCK YEAH! but I held my position and let him EARN it. He obviously wanted to, as I saw from the large, darker wet spot on the point of that protrusion on his jock strap pouch when I slowly moved my head enough to glance down around his wide shoulders.

He had his hand inside my sodden jock strap now, working my balls firmly. Felt fucking awesome, and if we weren't in a store room, on base, at risk, I'd have loved to have that go on for a long fucking time. But we weren't, and hopefully he'd find the balance . . . soon.

And then, as if he read my thoughts - more likely he wanted it badly enough to not be able to take the tease any longer himself - he was pulling down my trunks and jock strap with his other hand, using the hand in my jock to hold my cock back against me so as to not get caught up as he pulled them down. As I felt him push them down to the floor when they'd puddled by my ankles, I also felt his first mouthful of my enormous, pre-cum slimed cockhead. I forced myself to maintain stance, and I stepped out of my trunks, his hands guiding them off me.

That done, Layton's tongue was now giving my knob an aggressive polishing - a goddamn fucking great polishing, which if he wasn't careful would have him eating my jizzload before too long at all. He was that good, his tongue perfectly touching, tantalizing, teasing and tempting every single area of my cockhead that was more sensitive than the last place his tongue touched.

His grip on my bloated low-hangers was tight and definite in conveying his desire, squeezing, massaging, rolling them, pulling and then brushing them lightly with his meaty hands. A two-hander - I fucking LOVED a man who knew how to handle a set of balls the size and temperament of mine. And as he learned more by his increasing pressures and tensions of his pulls, his grip and technique adopted every aspect and carried me out of myself.

It was like his mouth and his hands were different partitions of my reality. Like my cock was having one erotic experience and my balls another.

His sucking was now to about half my long, fat cockshaft in his mouth, working it in and out, that tongue swirling and sucking at me and rubbing me with its soft, wet, velvety touch. My huge cockhead was against his throat opening, seemingly unyielding at the farthest insertion point, before he worked back again to where he was working my head and threatening to make me lose footing it felt so fucking good.

And then he pulled harder on my nutsac as he went down on my shaft again, and this time, when my knob found the resistance, he made some unintelligible sound as he pulled HARD on my sac, and suddenly my cock was plunging down his throat. "OH FUCK YES!" I cried without wanting to. But it felt so fucking goooooooood, both the yank to my 'nads and the tightness of his throat around the top half of my cock. His nose in my pubes, deeply inhaling when it thudded against my pubic bone was just as hot.

In response to my unintended cry, he chuckled a little, which, around my cock, felt amazing! But he also took one hand disappointingly away from my nuts to pat my abs gently in a silent QUIET! which I clearly understood and took heed of.

I brought my hands around from behind me and took his soft, buzzed skull in my grip and held him in place on my cock, fully planted. He surprised me - I expected him to gag quicky, but he didn't. Hell, why should I be surprised? Most cocksuckers couldn't throat me - few ever had - yet he had - WAS! - so why would I think he'd gag quickly like those few others who'd had to really work up to throating me?

Layton very slightly pulled my sac backward and even more slightly pulled his head back against my tight grip. I was tempted to show him who was boss and GRIND my cock farther into his throat, break his nose in my crotch, then skull-fuck him until he gagged and begged. But he was being a good boy, after all, a good bitch, actually a very, very good bitch so far. So I loosed my hold on his head and let him pull back.

He worked every long inch of my cock as it withdrew, with a pop, from his throat, until he was going to town on my head again, teasing me to the point that I started to feel like I was shortly going to start that ascent. Then he went down again, again FORCING me into his throat, the incursion easier this time, but not much. And then he was sucking me from head to root, in and out, working up a head of steam, sucking hungrily, moaning as he did it, working my nuts ever harder. In short, driving me fucking WILD.

Finally, I did feel the very beginnings of that ascent, and I immediately SHOVED him backward off me, sending him onto his ass on the concrete floor with a regretful moan. "GIVE ME YOUR CUNT!" I ordered, looking down at him, not moving.

His look of disappointment went to a look of sheer excitement, and he scrambled up, onto his feet, and bent over in front of me, his beefy fingers digging into his hard, bubble buttcheeks, spreading them WIDE and showing me a beautifully hair-ringed pucker. The height difference was going to be a problem in this position . . . but we'd make it work. That went through my head as I leaned over and hocked a big glob of spit right onto his hole. "Mmmmmmmmm," he moaned softly as it hit, and he pulled his butt open wider for me. Who'd have thunk all that spit-play when I was a kid with my buddy Keith would come in so handy.

I took a half step forward, grabbed my wagging fuckpole and pushed it down and against the spit-covered pucker. "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!" he moaned when I made contact.

I rubbed and teased his pucker, smearing my spit and cock-snot all over it, playing in his assfur, rubbing that cuntring harder as he moaned more and more. I kept that up until his moans were plaintiff, and despite wondering if he was going to be able to take a log in the keyhole that was his cunt hatch, all at once I grabbed at his waist to pull him and SHOVED DOWN HARD into that hole, breaching him. "OHFUUCCKKKKKINNGGGGHELLLLLLLL!" he shouted.

"Pick up my jock strap and eat it to gag yourself and SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I ordered as his cuntmuscles clenched me HARD, painfully, doing their best to expel the invader. He did as he was told, easily grabbing the trunks from the side since he was already bent over, holding his ankles, shaking the trunks apart from the jock and gobbling it. "Now, you fucking teasing bitch are going to get the fucking of your life!" I spat down and SHOVED in the other eight and half inches of me until my balls slapped against his between his legs and my pubes were ground into his crack.

"Mmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" he cried, very muffled, teeth obviously clenched on my filthy jock strap. And his breaths were gasps in time with his cuntspasms tightly assaulting the length of me buried inside him.

FUCK THAT! I thought, and then I suddenly was thinking about Percy again, what a sniveling little bitch he'd be if it was his cunt wrapped around my fuckstick, how he'd cry and beg and promise anything. And I realized that somewhere while that thought was coalescing my hips had started to propel my cock piston-like into my bitch's fuckchute, and regardless of the visegrip his cunt had on my cock I was reaming him roughly in time with his cries, muffled, continuous.

I slammed that tight, hot, not-lubed-enough-but-too-fucking-bad hole HARD and DEEP and FAST, long-dicking him and using my bigger body, strength, weight and gravity, since I was fucking downward due to his shorter legs, and I gave that bitch every bit of every minute piece of my determination, anger and need.

The harder and faster I slammed him, the more he slowly began fucking back on me. As he did his cries were louder, more urgent. I knew I was wrecking him . . . but the fucker wanted me to! And that just made me want to push him so hard, so far past what he'd wanted or thought he could take that he'd likely never be the same.

Layton had found a shelf to grab hold of with his right hand, and I had his waist in my tight hold, fucking down into his hole harder and harder. I could feel him at the same time getting less tense in his cuntmuscles, relaxing to it at least a bit, but also tighter because my cock was getting harder and thicker as I fucked myself farther toward my draining. My cockhead was huge and wide and flared and felt like I was pulling the tightest of syringe plungers through a too-small channel - almost enough resistance to make my back protest the effort, that was how tight that bitch's cuntchannel was.

He was slamming back as hard as I was slamming him - it hurt my pelvis every time I collided with his tailbone, making me just shove that much harder when we impacted, GRINDING myself into him. Layton's cries were continuous, peaking with ever collision, continuing until the next and amping up again, over and over as I fucked him. All the while I was ruining that sniveling bitch Percy, getting ready to drench the bitch's guts with a REAL man's seed.

Layton had to know I was close, despite me simply growling and moaning, never saying it, just continuing to fuck as my cock got thicker, harder, veinier and my head flared like a cobra's hood. And I guess he was ready, because he reached back and took hold of my up-to-then swinging nuts, squeezed and pulled as I thrusted and held back some as I pulled back, letting me know he WANTED. My nuts responded.

I felt the ignition and blast inside me like rarely, like those incredible times that it just flashes through you and pulls you into the vortex of release and out of your consciousness. I felt my cock pumping HARD into him, heard him crying out even louder each time I blasted, and the last real thought I had was when his cunt started spasming around me and when I grazed his prostate on the thrusts I felt him pumping out too.

"Fuck...ing . . . hell," I heard him say, and I realized we were still joined, both panting, sweating and stinking to high heaven in that store room. He had his head against the shelf strut he'd grabbed hold of when we really got going, and I was standing, though I was leaning on my vise-grip hold on his waist, still planted in his cunt. "I . . . may . . . need a . . . shitbag after . . . this," he chuckled.

Goddamn if I didn't feel better! I chuckled with him and started to pull out. "FUCK! STOP!" he shouted.

I had stopped. "Well, okay, but now that the entire gym and lockers have heard that, someone's likely to come looking to help," I told him. But my mirth was still bubbling. "And really, Layton, no matter how tight you are, I really can do this without help!"

"Go . . . slow. You really did . . . wreck my ass . . . I think," he added, haltingly.

"Okay, marine. On three. One, two," and with that I pulled out as fast as I could, grabbing him by his shoulders when he whipped up and around.

"THE FUCK!" he snarled. "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! YOU try getting cornholed with the fucking Eiffel Tower and see how it feels!" he growled hotly.

I held him steady, and it didn't take much because his body relaxed. It was just words. "This was a HUGE mistake," I risked opining at that inopportune time.

"I'm facing a colostomy, and you're telling ME it was a mistake?" he joked.

"HEY!" I addressed him sharply, directly. The smile went from his face. "I'm saying, and listen carefully, marine, that THIS, HERE, NOW was a tremendous, PHENOMENAL exercise in bad judgment." He was seriously listening to every word, holding my gaze, and I knew he knew EXACTLY what I meant.

"Neither of us has died on this hill, sir. Hope we don't, too," he said with determination. "But-"

"THERE IS NO BUT, marine!" I told him.

"Understood," he responded simply, this time with resignation.

I found my sweaty jock strap, didn't bother pulling it on and just pulled on my trunks and wadded the jock in my hand. I still had my t-shirt on, and I didn't say another word, just turned and left.

I was coming out of the gang shower when Layton was heading in. He had, wisely, not left the store room immediately after me, and I hadn't seen him hit the lockers before I went in to shower, despite the time it took me to get the tape off my hands. He acted completely normal and at ease, simply saying, "Sir," as he passed me. I had to fight myself to not look after him.

I was dry, shaved for the second time that day and back in my civvies, gym bag full of reeking workout gear and boxing gloves in hand when he passed me. I couldn't stop myself from inhaling in his wake, all soap now instead of his sweat after he spotted me. "Hey, Layton," I called, and he turned. "Thanks for the help out there. Sorry you didn't get your workout in."

"Hey," he grinned mischievously, "You gave me a helluva workout, sir, so no worries WHATsoever!"

The little bitch!

I headed the other way, for the door, without another word. But then I stopped when I was about to go out and turned and called, "Layton?" He looked around the end of the locker aisle, and damned if he hadn't dropped his towel and just stood there stark naked, awaiting whatever I was going to tell him. OH RIGHT - TALK, JAMES! "I think I know a great, uh, boxing gym, off base, if you want to get a real workout in sometime."

He grinned. "I'm up for it, sir. ANY time. Well," he backpedaled with a grimace, "Maybe after a bit of recovery time," that grin reemerging even wider.