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Ex-Rats Ch. 01

By: alpha55



Hey, it's me, Jimmy Axelsson. I'm the sun-tanned, gun-totin', mustache-growin' river rat that bullshitted those two navy nurses aboard our assault boat in a six-chapter missive that was unleashed here and titled "Rest and Relaxation".

I'm a humbled man now, and I'm here to tell you that old age sucks. 

You remember Marty and Shauna, right? Marty was the guy who fell head over heels for Shauna, known back then by her rank: Lt. j.g. Shauna O'Meara. Marty, aka GMG3 Martin Demarest, was my fellow watch-stander the day Kerri and I met. Kerri, by the way, is now and has been for the past forty-odd years, Mrs. James Axelsson, but the day we first met, I found out that her full title was Lt. Kerribeth Cavallieri, U.S. Navy Nurse Corps.

If you'll recall, we met, mingled and mated on a blisteringly hot day just after our completion of a four day operation that took place among the bayous, bugs and bungling of the Rung Sat Special Zone in what was then known as the Republic of South Viet Nam. 

Marty and I had been on watch that morning aboard the Stoned Pony, as our boat was very unofficially christened, and we'd been sort of accosted by the pair of hotties that eventually became our respective spouses. Or we had become theirs; I'm still not sure how you'd describe the procession of events that led to each of us finding everlasting happiness and contentment.

I do know that back then we could all fight and nurse all day and fuck all night. Now things are a bit less frenetic but, at least in the case of Kerri and I, still admirably torrid for a pair of respectable ex-river rats.

But then, you have to understand that Kerri has aged well, as have I, though I don't mean to brag, just to present the facts of the matter. 

Having beheld Kerri in the nude within moments of our meeting each other, and for some forty years hence, I can tell you confidently that those naturally imposing breasts, that ebony-shrouded pussy, and that well-wrought ass - maybe not quite J-Lo, but damned fine nonetheless - were, on first inspection, enough to drive me to an embarrassing premature ejaculation, and remain in uncannily serviceable shape even now. 

The above-mentioned unfortunate occurrence, you may or may not recall, was mitigated only slightly by Kerri's understandable exclamation that she'd never seen a man cum before, having, as I later surmised, heretofore experienced these phenomena only with the member firmly inside her. Furthermore, with this startlingly honest revelation, she had proceeded to masturbate enthusiastically and to quickly orgasm, all the while standing next to me in the boat's small bridge enclosure. Now that's a memorable first encounter.

Of course, that day, while living forever in memory is, in fact, ancient history. The four of us, Kerri, Shauna, Marty and I have since, at least up to just recently, lived lives of convivial normalcy. 

This Cinderella story started to unravel when Shauna called a few weeks back to tell us that Marty had suffered yet another small stroke. Kerri had taken the call and, after hanging up and giving me the gist of the conversation, had again beseeched me to start taking care of myself.

I responded with my usual platitudes to a healthy lifestyle which, each of us knew, were long ago destined to be discredited and ignored. I do, after all, own a home in the wilds of New Hampshire, meaning spring and summer days are full of half-assed landscaping chores and fix-ups around the place, not to mention, when I was younger, several softball leagues. 

Meantime, autumn and winter afternoons were and still are times of cutting, splitting and hauling the wood needed to keep our voracious woodstove providing the sweltering heat necessary to defrost after a day of shoveling snow. And, of course, I used to make time for a couple of ham-and-egg, allegedly no-check men's hockey leagues. All in all, I had enough exercise just trying to keep my little piece of the American dream in order, let alone spending valuable time and effort, and especially money, in the frivolity that nonetheless keeps my gorgeous Kerri still eminently fuckable. Honestly, she still draws stares and leers from guys half her age. 

In any case, after casting her self-appointed, and to my mind uncalled-for dispersions on my physical health, Kerri finished with the thought that perhaps we ought to travel from those New Hampshire wilds to the even wilder wilds of Montana to visit our old friends.

"We haven't been out that way for a couple years now," Kerri said, probably with her brook-no-argument look that I completely missed. "I'm also worried about Marty. What's this, his third stroke in less than a year? That really concerns me."

"He's a tough old bastard . . ." I began.

"No, you're a tough old bastard," she interrupted, "he's just an old bastard, and he and Shauna are more than just our best friends."

"Yeah, but I've got my column to write, a bunch of people to see about my next book project . . ." I began again.

"Hey," Kerri responded. "You've got plenty of time to see the people about your book. The damned thing's not even half done yet. And you can take your laptop out there to work on your column. What's the big deal?"

"I can't just up and walk out on my job . . ." I tried once more.

"Listen, Marty isn't getting any younger. If he was dying you'd go, right?"

That as it turns out prophetic statement stopped me. After all, he is my best friend and what's the point of having a job that you can work from home . . . or anywhere else that you can plug in a laptop . . . if you don't take advantage.

"You're right," I answered. "Let's see if we can book a flight for, oh, day after tomorrow."

Kerri embraced me. "And are you going to listen to me about getting some exercise and quitting the smokes? You are, after all, getting pretty close to geezerhood."

Hell, darlin'," I replied. "We're both well into geezerhood now; seems like its time to rest on our laurels. Besides, I'm still able to get it up at least two times a week, sometimes three. That ain't bad for a senior citizen."

"That's 'cause you're a friggin' sex maniac and I'm irresistible." She began unbuttoning her blouse. "Wanna go upstairs and I'll prove it to you?"

"Floor show first?" 

"Sure."

Putting some Van Halen on the iPod, Kerri resumed her task with the buttons, one by one by one, to reveal a lacy light-blue bra overflowing with delectable bosom. 

Just the other day my ageless wife, who works only four days a week now, had gone to the lake where we have a ramshackle summer cottage. After a few hours of late summer sun in one of her revealing two-piece swim suits, ensembles that would stop traffic on any street in San Tropez had we the desire to go there, she'd touched up a sultry tan line that dipped perilously close to the dark and ample nipples that remained concealed by the brassier. I couldn't help but admire that tan line as it plunged precipitously toward her yet-taut and oh-so-sun-browned belly. 

Now I may not be the most well-endowed male on the planet, but the package is still maybe a tad lustier than most, or so I've been informed by Kerri and . . . well let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Long story short, long and thick is not a problem, and my trousers began to bulge as Kerri shrugged out of the blouse and tossed it on the couch. 

I moved unsteadily to said couch as my sexy and delectable wife began working her fingers beneath her bra straps. While I slowly lowered myself to the cushions, my Venus slithered and slinked, hips and shoulders sensuously interwoven with Alex Van Halen's pounding percussion. She began dropping the bra straps glacially, all-but-imperceptibly from those golden shoulders.

The lighter strap line of the two-piece, contrasting with her perfectly bronzed shoulders and upper chest, tore at my libido. I couldn't take my eyes from the spectacle, nor could I simply ignore the potential of Mediterranean duskiness . . . naturally dark-ish, but of course not as glowingly browned as her shoulders . . . that I anticipated from her un-tanned breasts. 

At last, those ebony-tinged nipples emerged from the lowered bra, while Kerri shimmered enchantingly to the music. As her fingers continued their earthward trek, she nodded subtly toward my crotch.

Knowing the look pretty well after so many years of married sex (and several months of pre-marital sex), I unzipped my fly and probed for the thick rod bulking my suddenly too-tight boxer briefs. Pulling the satisfyingly enlarged member from my trousers, I began pumping it to Eddy Van Halen's erotic licks.

My wife had suddenly increased her pace and I was once more enthralled at her lushly shadowed, daintily trimmed bush, at her plump mons peeking below, and at the single milky droplet of my wife's hardy juice decorating her dewy sex. 

Lying full length on the couch, I offered my engorged cock to this vixen as she languidly edged closer. Straddling me with one knee over my hips and the other planted firmly on the floor, my wife eased her well-wrought pussy onto my stiff member and within six or seven quick jerks my sperm erupted to mingle with those musky female liquids.

Finished, we scrambled for Kleenex and scattered female attire to keep the various creamy liquids from staining the couch, already victim to a number of similar encounters over the years. Such is, alas, what happens when the kids finally move out on their own; what had been a perfectly sex-less couch abruptly becomes a bed-away-from-the-bed. 

Though spent, we managed, after a few moments, to drag ourselves to Kerri's desktop, there to book a pair of seats to Montana at the expected usurious prices. But then, Marty and Shauna were and always will be worth way more to both of us than a couple of airline tickets and a few delayed meetings.

Two days later, hauling laptops and briefcases, overnight bags, handbags, and one good-sized suitcase, we met Shauna at Butte's Bert Mooney Municipal Airport. As is traditional, when we schlepped our gear to her ten-year-old Land Cruiser, Shauna insisted that I drive so she and Kerri could catch up on stuff during the hour's ride farther into Montana's hinterlands. 

Like Kerri, Shauna's in her mid-sixties now and still one handsome woman. Her red hair's streaked with a little gray and she's gotten a tad, and I mean just a tad, jowly, but she still has her figure, her Midwest-tempered come-fuck-me look and her vitality. Put plainly, I sure as hell wouldn't kick her out of my bed for eating animal crackers.

Anyway, as I drove, Kerri and Shauna chatted and laughed over kids and grandkids, mutual friends, both departed and still around, and, obligatory for those our age, the various health issues with kith and kin, most notably Marty. 

Both girls had been Navy nurses in Viet Nam, which led to our meeting each other in circumstances both bizarre and exotic. In a nutshell, rarely do romantic relationships between female officers and enlisted men work for any length of time. But ours was a two-in-two-million shot that's tested out pretty well over the years.

After an hour or so of nothing but corn, cattle, hills, forests and more friggin' corn, we pulled up to the big old farmhouse to see Marty sitting on the porch, shucking a dozen ears of the aforementioned flora. Shauna and Marty's firstborn daughter, Diane, sat with her husband, Jay . . . short for J.T., which was short for John Thomas . . . on the porch swing waving and grinning. I parked next to Marty's Ford pickup and took stock of my old friend and fellow watch-stander.

He seemed okay to me at first glance, but a longer look revealed a touch of feebleness, a slight tilt that hadn't been there the last time I'd seen him, when he and Shauna had visited just over a year ago. He was wearing a bulky knit sweater to ward off the fancied chill of a mid-September afternoon, and from where I sat a good forty feet away trying to remember which button you had to push to get the friggin' key out of the ignition, I just thought he was looking a tad elderly. 

Kerri, meantime, was out of the car and had my ex-shipmate wrapped in a big Italian hug before I even got my door open. 

Shauna, for probably the twentieth time, pointed out the right button, grinned at me, and reminded me that she always left the keys in the ignition at the house. That grin did wonders for my libido, always had. 

To this day I will occasionally picture those perfect lips wrapped around Marty's cock, even as I'm entering Kerri atop either bed or couch. 

The memory of how Shauna had savored Marty's load continues to inspire me as Kerri and I begin to churn. Even though I'm making love to my wife, my soul-mate, I sometimes feel that I'm actually fucking Shauna, she was (and still is) that enticing. 

Occasionally, I'll imagine Kerri also thinking of our intertwined friends and it often seems that she feels the same way, only that it's Marty inside of her. It's like these remembrances abruptly focus each of us on the other as our need and our lust, not to mention the pure pleasure of our mating, shakes us into a heightened awareness of how good each feels to and with the other.

The grin that Shauna released at my fumbling had all the sensuality, the beauty, the impishness, the intimacy that men have fallen in love with through time immemorial. She is a woman of unearthly sexuality, a woman who is mentally undressed and ravaged by nearly every man she encounters, and she's a woman who knows her powers and her attraction and reserves it for her chosen mate to the exclusion of all others . . . almost all others. And there, as we shall see, lies my shame. 

The once indomitable lust, the intense yearning, the nearly insatiable hunger that Marty and Shauna once felt for each other has, of course, settled into a less unbridled passion that melds well with our advancing age. Looking at Marty from the driveway, I felt a momentary pity, a pity that I've seldom acknowledged. A pity, doubtless self-inflicted, that this once virile man had become essentially a shadow of his former self. More and more I cringe in realization that Kerri and I will soon decline into this same ennui; more and more clearly I foresee the sadness and the unfulfilled need this inevitable decline will presage.

Sitting there in her ancient Land Cruiser, I looked steadily at Shauna and her grin faded, her eyes teared up. She reached for my hand and put it lightly to her breast. We remained that way for a moment as the memories of what once had been overcame both of us.

Ripping our gaze apart, Shauna and I got out of the Land Cruiser and wandered up onto the porch, an oak-planked construction that, though nearly always appearing in need of some repair, had looked pretty much the same for the forty years or so, on and off, we'd been visiting. 

Now before I appear just a bit hypocritical, it's a safe bet that Marty and Shauna consider our whole house a work in progress every time they head out to see us in New Hampshire. In all humility, I must confess that, earlier braggadocio notwithstanding, my often Herculean efforts at hefty home-ownership responsibilities, though doubtless healthy, seldom achieve their desired results. 

Anyhow, Marty and Shauna, after living the first five years or so of their married life in Marty's Montana home town, had moved to Vermont some thirty-five years ago. Shauna had taken a teaching position at a high-end private school there, while Marty found a well-paying machinist gig, his sort being employable just about everywhere. In those days, we got together at least a couple times a month, relived the good old days, celebrated various occasions, even vacationed together when we could all scrape some weeks off of work at the same time. 

I had, back in those days, flattered myself that they'd moved east to stay closer to us, but after about eight years, they moved back to Montana when Marty's dad died, leaving Marty this huge and aged house which front porch we presently occupied. The damned house hadn't even had indoor plumbing until Shauna insisted, back when she'd first moved in, that it was a much more sanitary, not to mention a more comfortable method of bathing and of relieving oneself. 

Truth to tell, Marty seems happier out here than he ever had in Vermont. To me, on the other hand, the sticks are the sticks; Vermont, Montana, New Hampshire, all same-same.

Marty's whole family had, of course, been enchanted with Shauna when she'd first come out to Montana as a newlywed all those years back. And so had she, the only daughter in a clan of five older siblings, found his family to be just what she'd been looking for her whole life. Kerri and I had spent many evenings overcome with laughter as Shauna and Marty narrated the carryings-on of Marty's numerous kinfolk, most of whom, now including Marty and Shauna's two kids and their kids, lived within eight square miles of where he sat shucking corn. 

I couldn't help but think, as I stood there in a moment of depressing prescience, that Marty would be buried here soon enough.

 * * * 

In the next chapter, we find out just how daunting old age can be. 

Ex-Rats Ch. 02



While Kerri was hugging Di and J.T., asking after Meagan, Marty and Shauna's younger daughter, asking when we'd see all the grandkids, I ambled up to my corn-shucking friend. "Hey, ya boozebag, how ya been?" Such was my usual greeting to Marty.

"Been better; been worse," my old shipmate replied. "Gettin' any these days?" He suddenly began coughing while Shauna lightly whacked his back.

I smiled just a little, then turned to grab a hug from Diane, like her mother, a drop-dead gorgeous redhead, and to give Jay a hearty handshake. I nodded a tiny nod toward Marty and both just shrugged. 

Turning back again, I noticed that Marty's left eye drooped a bit and he seemed to have a little difficulty grasping the ear of corn he was working on. Otherwise, I fantasized that my buddy appeared to be in decent enough shape. Seemed he'd dropped a good bit of weight though, which I didn't like. 

While Kerri was busy chatting with Diane and Jay, I reached for my Marlboros, shook one out and offered the pack to Marty. He looked to Shauna, saw those green eyes flash, and said "No thanks. I don't do them friggin' things any more." Another fit of coughing. 

I checked to make sure Kerri was still tied up with Di, and responded "Yeah, I oughtta quit myself, but, what the hell, they're my only vice." 

After a few more minutes of yakking and laughing, Diane told us that they had to relieve the sitter, said they'd be around with the kids, along with Meaghan and her brood, the next day. With more hugs and backslapping all around, and a lingering embrace for her dad, she and J.T. headed out to their Jimmy sport ute. 

"Got some Southern Comfort in the suitcase, if you're interested," I told Marty as we watched Diane and her husband leave in a cloud of summer dust.

"Goddamn skunk-piss," he retorted, as always. "There's some genuine Montana moonshine in the kitchen cabinet; how's 'bout you pour us both a snort."

I glanced over at Shauna, who shrugged and rolled her eyes. That was good enough for me. "I really do hope they've discovered ice in this cow-infested shithole," I said, heading inside for a couple of glasses and some of Marty's Old Grand Dad. I paused at the door, looked to Kerri and Shauna. "You ladies drinkin' with us?" Both women glanced toward each other and burst out laughing. 

"Hell, yeah," Shauna said with that stunning grin. It was just like old times.

I remembered sitting with Marty on an ammo box at the stern of the boat while he stared with adoring eyes at the woman whom he'd eventually marry. We'd just inveigled the girls to fire the .50-caliber machine guns mounted at each stern quarter, had finally finished kicking the spent shell casings over the side. Shauna and Kerri were lazing, naked and beautiful, on the engine compartment cover beneath the shade of the canvas awning. 

Each displayed an enchanting sex; the one Italianate dusky and bounteously erotic, the other alluringly alabaster and subtly sensuous. 

I recalled Kerri flaunting her enticingly pink labia, allowing it to peek occasionally from between her lushly shrouded mound (trimmed at the time only enough to prevent embarrassment from those curly pubes dangling from the sides of panties or bikini bottoms). The well-defined hood shielding her pink clitoris nestled mid this dewy slit, while her plump pussy lips parted to reveal a gloriously honeyed tunnel that I had already found to be enchantingly welcoming. 

Not as heavily pubed as Kerri, whose dark hair bloomed lushly at both head and crotch, Shauna flaunted her crack from a lithe mons that allowed her sizeable clitoris, also pink and pretty, to poke invitingly from between her pussy lips. She was, to put it bluntly, the essence of sexuality without even trying. 

When this lovely redhead bent her leg to get more comfortable, her swollen love-lips parted to reveal her oh-so-delicate, yet so awesomely promising path in a way that was both shameless and innocent. 

No wonder Marty'd been smitten. But the hell of it was, Shauna had been smitten, as well. I'll always recall the look that passed between them at that precise moment, and I realized at that moment, as well, what true love, what selfless, uninhibited, all consuming love was all about.

And as I headed in to get the booze, I couldn't help but think, based on Kerri's still-enchanting vaginal region, that Shauna looked pretty much the same down there yet. 

With an inaudible "Oh yeah", I marched into the kitchen to fix some cocktails. Locating a platter above the stove, I toted the drinks back to the porch where I found Shauna and Kerri teary-eyed, clinging fiercely to Marty. Shit, I thought to myself, that's not good. 

"Hey, man," I said to Marty. "What's up?"

Marty gave me a quick glance, looked toward the mountains off to the west, old Mossback the nearest at just four miles away. "Little bit of bad news at the hospital yesterday," he replied. "Seems they think I might have lung cancer. I sorta forgot to tell Shauna till just now." 

"Goddammit, Demarest, you're not gonna die on me," Shauna cried.

I carefully placed the drinks on a small, round table and, to get my head together, began passing them around. Of course, everyone got the wrong one, so we spent a few minutes straightening that out. By then, I'd figured out how to respond. "You 'sorta forgot,' huh?"

"Yep," was all Marty would say.

"So what're you going to do?" Kerri asked this probably knowing the answer better than Marty, having worked in oncology for going on twenty years now.

"Well," Marty replied, shifting a bit on his seat. "I'd guess it depends on the tests and whatever they decide for the damned treatments. That's if I do the goddamned treatments to start with . . ."

"Do the damned treatments?" Shauna screeched, cheeks wet and flushed. "Of course you're gonna do the damned treatments." Though out of nursing for nearly forty years now, Shauna knew as well as Kerri how desperate Marty's situation might be. She also knew how stubborn he was, how much he hated feeling poorly, and, of course, how she adored him. "You old shit, you'll do the damned treatments if I have to carry the beds and the needles and the drugs and the goddamned radiation machine home on my fucking back."

"There ain't no need to get all worked up," Marty said testily. "I'm seein' the friggin' doctor tomorrow," he looked toward Kerri and me, "and he'll poke around, do a few more tests, make sure nobody's gonna stroke out again, make sure I can pay for the goddamned stroke I just had, all that good shit. Hell, you know all the bullshit they do now 'fore any kind a' healin' shit happens . . ." 

"Whoa," I said then. "A little slack on my sensitive ears, here." Needless to say, such language was commonplace among the four of us, but I could see a donnybrook brewing and wanted to remind everyone that Kerri and I were here to help, not just to bear witness or something. "Marty," I went on. "You've got one of the finest, prettiest women on the friggin' planet that goes to bed with you every damned night. I think you oughtta look to keeping things that way. And Shauna," I turned to face those crazy Irish eyes. "You got one hell of a good geezer here that needs a little bit of TLC. Maybe you might cut him some slack, let him feel sorry for himself just a little before we all stick him with enough needles that he looks like a goddamned voodoo doll."

Kerri looked at me with that inscrutable smile, while Shauna and Marty gave a glance to each other, then to me. Shauna finally said "Actually, that kind of makes sense."

After trying to figure out what I'd said, and how it could possibly make sense . . . whatever it was I said . . . I asked "When're you gonna tell the kids?"

"Tomorrow, after I hear what the doc has to say." Marty declared with a warning look to his pointedly pouting wife. "Meantime, that's it. I don't want to hear anything else about the whole thing till we know just what's what. We got all kinds of vittles here. How 'bout some of us get down to cookin'." He eyed my nearly empty glass. "And Jimbo, why don't you start humpin' your bags and your Southern Comfort and such up to the house, get settled in for the night. And, by God, if you let that pretty little Eye-talian girl there so much as lift her little pinky finger to help you, I'll kick your ass right where you stand." He coughed harshly again. 

Kerri Axelsson, nee Cavallieri, gave a nod to my corn-shucking friend, said placidly, "Martin, I so admire your way with that man."

I couldn't help but think as I walked down to the Land Cruiser: Lung cancer. Shit!

I also wondered what things might have been like had our pairings been reversed, had I ended up marrying Shauna and Marty wound up with Kerri. 

Knowing Kerri's insidious eroticism, her brash confidence and her single-minded dedication to, well, anything that took her fancy, I decided that Marty would eventually have been overwhelmed by that same passion. Yet I continued to imagine his sizeable cock slithering, with much impassioned moaning and gasping, into, almost out of, then back into Kerri's so-welcoming crack, balls softly thwacking the crease of Kerri's so-stupendous bottom.

This has been a thing I've idly pondered over the course of our lengthy acquaintance, this imagining of my wife and my best friend entwined and sweating, engorged and grunting with near animal lust. 

My own penis began to stir, so I exorcised such thoughts to concentrate on hauling the forty-nine pound suitcase, which cost me twenty-five dollars to have stowed in various aircraft on the flight out, and the two laptops, and the two carry-on bags, one weighing approximately four pounds, the other, approximately twenty pounds, including Kerri's hefty purse, up to the second floor guest room. 

I did it all, by the way, myself. While all and sundry of my friends and family sat drinkin' and winkin' through the entirety of my ordeal. But I'm not a bitter man . . . usually. When everything was in its place, I fussily measured precise amounts of ice, SoCo and soda into a rather large glass, rejoined the others on the front porch and pointedly toasted each and every one of them.

"Didn't offer us any of that skunk piss, I see," Marty said calmly enough. "Might be I'll have both an Irish lass and a hot little Eye-talian lady in my bed tonight. Have me a real international love-in." 

I nodded toward Marty when Kerri jumped from her chair to sit square on his lap. Shauna, red-eyed and pale, knelt beside him to caress his calloused hands.

I returned my thoughts to that day we'd all met. Kerri and Shauna, all young and sexy and comely, decked out in halter tops and ass-fitting cut-off jeans. Marty and I, in hacked-up camos and flip-flops, tanned and fit from four months of fighting, finagling, and fornicating in the lusty tropical sun, and lounging innocently between the stern fifties. Who knew that Navy nurses could be so drop-dead gorgeous, or that brown water sailors could be so appealing?

To enlighten further (need it or not), after the Rung Sat operation, our river assault boat was being re-armed and re-provisioned in the town of Vung Tau prior to sailing back to our normal operating area among the rivers and bayous of the Parrots Beak, the jungle enclave between Saigon and the Cambodian border. The three others of our boat's five-man crew were off that late morning, doubtless in pursuit of their own government-issue fun, leaving Marty and I, after drawing the short straws, the only squids (the Marine Corps fondly endearing term for Navy guys) aboard to maintain dutiful watch.

I recalled the girls leaning against the railing of the boardwalk leading to Beach Alpha. Kerri had called out suddenly, asking us what type of boat we manned. 

I'll always be proud of my response: That this particular craft was the Official Vung Tau Harbor Tour Boat and that Marty would be honored to pay for a pair of dee-luxe tickets for the two lovely ladies. Though he's never said one way or the other, I wasn't quite sure that Marty truly appreciated the fated appropriateness of my wit at that particular moment. 

The laughter of the two girls was encouraging though, and their eventual acceptance of our most precipitous invitation all but overwhelmed Marty and me. Hell, we nearly went over the side in our haste to escort these two visions aboard our fifty-foot vessel.

After a decent interval of about ten minutes, during which first names were exchanged, beers offered and accepted, and minute pleasantries were dispensed with, I had led Kerri to the pilothouse. No sooner had we entered this small, hot box when Kerri, claiming a need to get cooler, suddenly unleashed her magnificent breasts. She stood next to me, her dark nipples erect and pulsing, as I struggled valiantly to remember how to start the damned boat. When she put her hand to my cock, throbbing and thrumming against my strained camos, I nearly came in my drawers right then. I remember moaning just a little, forced myself to keep in mind that it probably wasn't good form to begin sucking the tits of a round-eye woman, doubtless an officer, whom I'd met only moments earlier.

I recall that after a few pithy comments, shucking the cumbersome camos and the aforementioned premature ejaculation, I finally got us headed off on our adventure.

I can vividly remember both ladies topless and waving gaily as we passed the two gunfire-support destroyers anchored near the entrance to Vung Tau Bay. The crews, I fondly recall, had lined the rails of the two warships, both of which cut loose with whistles and sirens in homage to our two passengers. I remember well an absolute mastery of my twenty-one-year-old world as the four of us cruised blithely into the South China Sea.

We'd hardly left the destroyers behind when, at my invitation, Kerri and Shauna joined me in the pilothouse. While I stood naked at the wheel, I noticed that both girls were speculatively eyeing my semi-erect dick. I had never been the recipient of such unabashed inspection before and the sensation was a bit confounding, though not altogether unpleasant. I considered myself even then at least adequately endowed, though I think I mentioned that Kerri insists I'm far more blessed than I am wont to acknowledge. Shauna, to her credit, did not put forth an opinion, at least that particular day, but seemed to approve of what I had to offer.

Kerri, gazing alternately at me and at Shauna, began to rub her tits in nonchalant insolence, the sheen of honest perspiration smearing and glistening. She ran her hands down her bronzed, ever so slightly rounded tummy and circled to her luscious hips, finally inching a wayward forefinger into her brimming belly button. She seemed to revel in the sensation of her own silken flesh, protuberant nipples and frothy hips. Shauna, I noticed, had become transfixed. 

I would have been a bit more transfixed myself had I not the responsibility of maneuvering the boat among rocks and reefs, ships and sampans, and all the other assorted flotsam and jetsam congesting the harbor entrance. Suddenly Kerri unbuttoned her shorts and began lazily sliding them over those delicious hips, that superb ass. This brazen act immediately caught my full attention.

I noticed Shauna becoming more and more bewitched as this divinely endowed woman wriggled and oscillated and revealed. I don't at this late date recall how we kept from a collision with something, but as those cutoffs inched over those incredible hips, revealing shocking pink panties (which, I might add, survived Viet Nam only to die an agonized death at the hands of our twenty-year-old electric drier), I gazed from Shauna's fascinated eyes to Kerri's delicious hips, and felt that I had truly died and gone to heaven. 

In any case, the cutoffs were drifting 'neath that magnificent rear while Shauna and I began to apprehend Kerri's sun-leavened thighs. Suddenly, the shorts dropped and Kerri stood clothed only in her now-legendary pink panties. 

Shauna was panting and there was no way I was going to tear my eyes from this vision of erotica to conn the boat. I throttled back to idle, let the boat drift and to hell with anything in our way.

Gazing at Shauna, Kerri slithered her tongue around her perfectly formed lips and sensuously hooked her fingers through the waistband of those electric panties. Switching that sultry visage to my widening eyes, she unhurriedly started lowering the delicate undergarment millimeters at a time. Shauna moaned and impetuously put her hands onto, and then over Kerri's dusky shoulders. Breast to breast, nipple to nipple, the two women began to kiss, Kerri abandoning her task momentarily.

Marty entered the pilothouse then and stood in dazed confusion at the tableau of the two entwined goddesses. My recollection of the moment remains such that I was only vaguely aware of his presence, was barely cognizant, moreover, of which planet I was on.

Abruptly Kerri resumed her interrupted disrobing. Shauna, meanwhile, put hands to hips and all but ripped her own cutoff jeans to the deck. My enjoyment at this time knew no bounds, nor did my erection. I believe that seldom have a pair of Navy-issue panties such as those adorning Shauna's heavenly hips been so downright sexy, so altogether erotic in appearance as those I beheld that long ago moment. 

Kerri resumed then her so-erotic hip-swivel, continuing the downward journey of her own enchanted panties. Marty, of course, had gained a considerable erection at the sights and sounds before him. He placed his member in the crack of Shauna's ass, his hands on her rotating hips, hips that now gyrated and swayed in concert with Kerri's hypnotically cycling pelvis, as yet not quite fully revealed. He promptly began his own gymnastics, maintaining a respectable rhythm quite unlike his ponderous attempts at barroom dancing.

Next up, Shauna drops a little surprise on me.



Ex-Rats Ch. 03



I broke off my reveries to find myself back on that Montana front porch and Marty, delighted with his wit, smirking at me from over Kerri's shoulder. Shauna, meanwhile, continued to stroke his arm, eventually putting her hands to his cheeks, pulling him gently toward her for a quick smooch.

Kerri rose from Marty's lap then, and we embraced. I could feel her convulsed in silent sobs, while Shauna and Marty sat head to head, Shauna running her hands, over and over, through his thinning hair. 

Jesus, it does suck getting old.

We remained that way for a short while, Kerri and I holding desperately to each other, with Kerri now and then emitting a small squeak of a cry. Shauna and Marty gently nuzzling, Shauna with the occasional snuffle. In that time I was trying very, very hard not to lose it completely, too.

"Y'know," I said to keep from making a damned fool of myself. "It isn't every day we all get together in the ass-end of the world. Seems like we ought to make the most of what we have together in the here and now."

Well, that sure as hell didn't have the intended effect. Kerri began these huge, gulping howls that Mediterranean women seem prone to, while Shauna, still on her knees, leaned over at the waist, touched her head to the warped and weathered floorboards, began uttering forlorn yelps of desolation.

Marty, in tears himself, put down the ear of corn he'd been working on and laid a soothing hand on Shauna's shoulder. "Hey, you gorgeous little paddy," he said in his no-nonsense tone. "Much as I fancy Kerri, you still get first licks."

Abruptly, Kerri began to laugh, a melodious sound made even merrier by her refusal to remain shattered by Marty's news. 

Shauna, laughing a bit herself, rose to caress Marty once more. Then, embracing Kerri with her most impish look, she stated apologetically "Marty's only kidding, y'know. You're company. Of course you get first licks." 

I could only shake my head as both women hugged and giggled and cried. 

Marty winked at me and I shrugged, asked if anyone wanted another drink. Of course everyone did, so I returned to the kitchen, the Old Grand Dad, the SoCo, and the mixers.

As I orchestrated more drinks, Shauna came up from behind and put her arms around me. Leaning her head on my shoulder, she asked how I stayed so vigorous, so young-looking despite drinking like a Bowery rummy, smoking like the proverbial chimney, and absolutely refusing to exercise. I put a hand to hers and replied, "Good genes, I guess."

Feeling the arms of this gorgeous woman, my best buddy's wife, around me, I went off, once more, into the wonderland of fond recollection.

We had paired off easily that fateful day long ago; the enticingly bronzed, ebony-tressed Kerri with fair-haired Scandinavian me; the green-eyed, flaming-maned Shauna with the staid and steady, not-all-that-Canadian-anymore Marty.

When Kerri, yet interwoven with Shauna in the sweltering and sultry pilothouse, had at last slid those famous panties from her forested cleft, she had promptly begun to work Shauna's virginally white undies down those shapely, freckle-dusted thighs. Hardly had Shauna's perfect posterior been unsheathed, when Marty groaned and began copiously unloading over both Shauna and Kerri.

Immediately, Shauna turned, panties at mid-thigh, and went to her knees. She took Marty's spewing cock in her mouth to accept the last of his discharge, running her hands up and down that thick shaft. 

Kerri and I watched avidly as Shauna began massaging Marty's unshorn foreskin up to her mouth then down to caress his balls. She let the glistening head of Marty's penis slither out of her mouth, began running her perfectly pink tongue over his belly. 

It was about then that Kerri looked at me with those deep and dark, yea sultry eyes, and we knew we had to have each other. Immediately. 

I recall vividly that we leveled our sights at one another as she stepped onto the low platform in front of the wheel, settling her plump love nest to exactly the right height. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to quickly check our drift, then glanced down to see that the penis-to-vagina course was true. 

With but slight adjustments, I placed my cock to the edge of those heavenly pussy lips and stopped. Leaning in, I kissed Kerri full on her mouth, wasn't surprised when her tongue flicked to my lips. I opened my mouth and accepted her advances as I slowly pushed my satisfyingly re-energized rod deeper into her yielding tunnel. At last, I could resist no longer, grabbed the wheel with both hands, enfolded one of the most attractive women I'd ever beheld between my forearms, and shoved myself into that heavenly hole as far as I could possibly go. 

Kerri's eyes widened, her lips (both sets) opened and she began a low moan as I upped the tempo, pumping faster, even faster, deeper, deeper yet, until we were both frenziedly humping and huffing, kissing and tonguing, the wheel twisting and turning in jerky fits with our unheeding passion.

It's indeed fortunate that the engines were still at idle or this fantastic journey might have become simply woeful. 

Abruptly finding myself back in Shauna's kitchen, I turned as she released her hold, and said "You know me, Shauna. I don't take a whole lotta stuff real seriously. But I'm starting to look old age in the face, and it ain't pretty." I grinned then and went on. "But I swear to God, ma'am, I don't know why you're asking me that. I don't believe I've known any more pretty . . . hell, downright sexy old ladies as Kerri and you."

"To tell you the truth, Jimmy," Shauna replied without returning my grin, "I'm starting to feel my age, too, and it's a thing that worry's me. And once Marty starts getting real sick . . . and he will, we both know that . . . I'll just want to die, myself. I just can't conceive of living without him." 

I don't know what Shauna expected to hear from me, but I answered with what I felt. "And that's as it should be, Shauna. Isn't it?"

She came around to face me then, and once more I fell under the spell of those wild azure eyes. "Goddamn it, you know just what to say all the time." 

"Now, that doesn't mean I'm encouraging you to off yourself on Marty's deathbed, you crazy Irish wench." I responded. "What I'm trying to say is that we, Kerri and I, are sure as hell feeling what you're feeling, and that we're here to help however we can."

Shauna turned away from me, was silent as I blundered through fixing some more drinks. Finally, she muttered "I'm wondering if I can come to live with you and Kerri when . . . the time comes."

I've got to admit, I'd been waiting for something like that for almost forty years.

"Of course you're welcome to move in with us, Shauna," I replied, perhaps a bit quicker than was decorous. "But keep in mind that Marty's got awhile yet. Hell, that boozebag'll probably outlast all of us." I said this despite the fact that we both knew differently. 

She smiled at last, though crying just a little, and once more I went weak in the knees. She shook her head then, grabbed Marty's drink and we headed back to the porch. 

After a tasty steak dinner, most of which everybody but yours truly only pushed to and fro, then a few more drinks, a few less laughs than usual, and some brief tears, Marty announced that he was getting too old for so much entertaining, was heading on in to bed, mentioned that tonight he'd just be pleasuring Shauna. He gave Kerri a quick hug, squeezed my shoulder gently, said he was real glad to see both of us. Limping just slightly from the effects of that latest stroke, he gimped over to embrace his fine looking wife.

Momentarily, I was once more transported back to that wondrous day. When Marty had finished tying us to the dock on our return from the "tour", he'd rejoined Shauna to embrace her in just that way. This night, as back then, she couldn't take her eyes off him. Theirs was a love to, well, to rival the love between Kerri and me.

That, however, wasn't what was supposed to happen on the day we all met, way back when. What was supposed to happen was entertaining these two enchanting ladies with a cruise into the South China Sea. What was supposed to happen was having a few beers, enjoying some good sex, and all of us going our own way. 

Indeed, we did enjoy a tropical cruise, a few beers, and some marvelous sex. Then things had gotten a little out of control. 

I recalled that when we'd returned from our little adventure, the boat holed and dented, we four vagabonds exhausted and grimy, we found ourselves neck-deep in a pile of pissed-off officers and envious crewmates. The patrol officer of our two-boat detachment, Lt. Janvrin, had immediately begun threatening bodily harm toward Marty and me for our impromptu sortie with the two beauties. I, meantime, was trying to pry the bedeviled Marty and Shauna apart, the better to meet this assault on our honor and intentions . . . well, our honor anyhow. 

I'd begun to apologize to Shauna for getting us all in so much perceived trouble. Abruptly she'd put one soft hand to my cheek and the other to her lips. Her gentle touch has stayed with me for all these years. With one soon to be explained exception, only by Kerri have I been touched as I was that long-ago moment. 

Ascending the stairs to Marty and Shauna's second floor guestroom, Kerri suddenly began sniffling, grabbed my hand, put it inside her shirt, under her bra, to begin shmushing it around her erect nipple. As she massaged her breast with my hand, she asked sadly "How have we all suddenly become so old?"

"Yo, darlin'," I responded in the only way I knew. "Remember, you're still getting good sex two, three nights a week. You might be just a little grateful. I know I am." By now I had taken back control of my hand and began lightly pinching the aforementioned nipple.

I was amazed to see a small grim. "Okay, okay," she said, "You are and always will be The Man."

"Damn straight," I said, and meant it.

Once in the room, I beheld those nipples mounding her shirt even through her normally suppressive out-in-public bra. Christ, but she was a sensuous, exotic, arousing lady. We slowly stripped down to underwear and Kerri told me to sit on the bed. 

I did as requested and was treated to the recently re-enacted vision of her sensuous grind as she began removing her panties. Though they weren't the shocking pink panties of legend, they were erotic enough in their shimmering blackness that I expected great things momentarily. 

Sure enough, she hooked her fingers at her hips, latched on to those erotic-enough panties and began inching them down over said hips, not to mention that still oh-so-alluring ass. Gazing at me with that come-hither smile, she lowered, inch by tantalizing inch, said delectable panties. I could only gaze at this Venus in rapt appreciation.

As Kerri's lush ebony pubic growth was revealed, follicle by erotic follicle, I began feeling my cock enlarge with the anticipation of her unclothed vulva. I unleashed my erection to relieve the pressure on the strained boxer briefs while Kerri slowly worked her panties ever lower.

Now, as I've stated, I'm doubtless not the most remarkably endowed son-of-a-bitch in the world, and my wife yet seems to think that I have nothing to be ashamed of. All well and good. But I must confess that there have been times in my exertions to get my cock as deeply into her soaking, slithery, compliant channel as I could, that I craved at least another inch or so of manhood to gather and deliver that much more pleasure to this woman that I love so much. 

No matter length and width, however, I guess Kerri likes it just fine. She lowered herself to the bed and I knelt between her legs (ignoring my protesting knees) to begin thrusting my burdened cock into that lovely snatch. This was one of those encounters where I felt that my penis was reaching as far as her vaginal length would allow, was stretching my woman to her limits. 

She must have felt the same way, for she suddenly let out a muffled scream and soaked us both with pee and pussy juice. At the same moment, I gushed two days of accumulated desire into that perfect softness, again overflowing those perfect lips. We knew we'd have to change the bed before sleeping, wash the blankets in the morning. We also knew Marty and Shauna would understand.

That next morning, after doing the obligatory laundry, we all headed back to Butte for Marty's tests. Again, I drove the Land Cruiser, easily ignored the cattle and the corn, and regretted the unusually muted murmuring from the others. As I drove, I recalled that halfway through our cruise those many years back, I had allowed Kerri, after some brief but intense instruction, to take the helm of the Stoned Pony. 

My young soul lacked for almost nothing as I stood admiring her nude body and reminding her not to crash into the rocks that seemed to be everywhere. As we puttered northward along the coast, rolling lazily over the Pacific swells among the fishing sampans, cargo vessels, South Vietnamese patrol boats, and assorted other water-born craft, Marty and Shauna were, unbeknownst to me, anyhow, falling deeper in love. 

I remember, too, wondering just when Kerri would finally let me know that I was merely an entertaining diversion; that after this day, somebody like myself was no longer worthy of her affections, even of her friendship. The fact that she would occasionally caress my shoulder or run her fingers lightly through my sweat-damp hair before I'd sternly remind her to look where she was going, only jolted me insofar as I looked on these gestures as preliminary to this beautiful woman summarily dismissing me from her life forever. 

But, then, the whole voyage was supposed to be a lark, a little un-military playtime, unencumbered by affection. I still marvel at how wrong I was. 

In any case, we cruised that way for close to an hour, until we bumbled into the ill-conceived VC ambush. The attack scared the ever-loving crap out of all of us, and it was only later that I considered the possibility of forty years in the Portsmouth Naval Prison had either of the nurses been wounded or killed. I can only imagine how terrified Marty had been at the possibility of losing his new-found love. 

When we'd extricated ourselves from the firefight with no casualties and only superficial damage to the boat, Marty and Shauna had cemented their feelings for each other. Kerri, meanwhile, stood disconsolately and in undeserved humility next to me in the coxswain's station during the trip back to Vung Tau. 

I was forced back to the present by Shauna, who directed me to the oncology clinic hard by St. James Hospital. I parked the Land Cruiser, got proper instruction on removing the key from the goddamned ignition, and followed the others into the building.

The receptionist, somewhat flustered at seeing people other than the patient and his wife, mentioned unnecessarily that only Marty would be allowed into the examining room for some tests. Duh! 

We were, she said while looking only at Shauna, welcome to sit among the roomful of patients, friends and family, all stoic and grimly prepared for the worst, who took up a goodly portion of the seats in the reception area. Telling the others that I'd be back in a minute, I headed for the door to grab a quick smoke outside.

As I stood on the sidewalk, I thought once again of Shauna, of how she was such a strong girl, that she would, of course, handle everything just fine, and . . . then what? Well, I mused, I guess she'll just move in with us. 

The fact that I was head-over-heels, unflinchingly, hopelessly in love with the woman . . . had been for more than forty years . . . might, however, make things a bit strained between Kerri, who I also loved with that same undying passion, and me. This could get a little complicated. 

Turned out Marty's tests took considerably longer than we expected. During our wait, Kerri, Shauna, and I shuffled around the reception area, alternately telling each other that Marty still had a few more good years and continuing to reminisce about the times we'd had together. Eventually, Shauna was asked to come into the examining room. She rose with a grimace of anticipation to follow the nurse. 

Kerri and I promptly headed outside so I could grab another smoke. 

"When are you just going to tell her that you love her?" Kerri asked me after I had fired up a Marlboro.

"'Scuse me?" I said, trying to appear innocent and offended.

"I've known since we all met that you're in love with Shauna." Kerri sighed and rolled her eyes. "I've also known for lo these many years that I'd be lost without you. Kind of a conundrum, isn't it?"

Next: Just say no? No way.



Ex-Rats Ch. 04



(Tough to say no)

On hearing Kerri's gentle admission that she was well aware of my unconscionable . . . love? . . . lust? . . . for Marty's wife, I began to feel like a damned idiot. Guiltily recalling my earlier thoughts, I took her startling revelation to confirm my long-held belief that women were telepathic or something. But, I had to ask. "What brings all this on?"

"While you were snoring and snorting last night, I went down to use the bathroom and Shauna was at the kitchen table and I could tell she'd been crying some more. She's convinced that Marty'll be gone in a year or two. She mentioned that she'd asked you if she could move in with us when he dies." Kerri looked down at her shoes, then back up at me, her own dark eyes a bit misty. "I asked her what you'd said, and she told me . . ."

"That I agreed, right? 'Cause, of course, I did." I leaned to my wife and touched her hand. "Darlin', you know I love you." She inclined her head toward me just a little. "And, I've got to admit that I do love Shauna. But Shauna is Marty's wife and will continue to be, well, till death do them part. I mean, that's a couple that has their picture in the dictionary next to the word 'love'."

Kerri started to speak, but I went heedlessly on my way. "Even if Shauna lost her head enough to stop loving Marty, I guaran-goddamn-tee you it wouldn't be because of the likes of me. Besides, we owe them that. If it was Marty that wanted to move in with us, hell if it was me or you that wanted to move in here, I'd expect all of us to do what we could for any of the others, no matter what the situation." I was floundering badly, and I knew it. 

Kerri looked at me with those usually soothing, often smoldering, occasionally downright stormy dark eyes. "Jimmy," she murmured softly. "I know that you and Shauna were intimate that one time." She smiled then at what I imagine was my deer-in-the-headlights expression. "I also know that it was one time only and, believe me, I never have and never will say anything to anyone about it . . . including Marty. And, trust me, I didn't find out from Shauna, at least not in so many words. As far as I know she's been as discreet as you have. Nor have I ever thought of being unfaithful to you, Jimmy, out of spite or revenge or for any other reason than because I love only you; want to be with only you."

She held up her hand before I could interrupt. "My point in all this is simply that when Marty's gone, Shauna will indeed have lost her love, and she'll absolutely expect the likes of you to fill in."

I pondered all this a moment, then had to ask "And what about you, darlin'?" 

"If it was any other woman in the entire world, there's no way this would even be allowed to come up." She laid her hand lightly on my arm. "But, of course it's different with Shauna. I love her nearly as much as I love you."

At that moment, I felt myself unworthy of either woman.

I mulled the potential deprivation of Kerri's unabashed sexual appetite, her still-magnificent body, her uninhibited passion. There was only one other woman, I admitted to myself, that could match my wife in pure physical beauty, in singular eroticism. And that woman was most emphatically unavailable, now with other, greater burdens weighing on her mind than my once all-too-requited love.

I couldn't help, however, but to think back to the night many years before, during a snow-laden February school vacation week. Shauna and Marty were living in Vermont then. She'd been skiing at Sunapee that day while Marty had dutifully stayed home to mind their daughters. Diane was just three at the time, and Meagan had turned a year old only weeks before. 

Marty called me to say that Shauna was having car trouble, was broken down over by Lebanon in New Hampshire near the Vermont border, some thirty miles from our house west of Concord. We were expecting a blizzard that night and Marty said it was already snowing heavily in the western part of Vermont, said he couldn't find anybody to watch the girls, that there was no way he'd drive with the kids through a blizzard. He also said that he refused to allow his wife to be stuck in some Podunk hotel for two or three days, asked if I'd drive over to pick her up, let her stay with us till the storm passed. 

As it happened, our two boys were in New York, visiting Kerri's folks over by Oneonta. So I told Marty that I'd be happy to help Shauna out, and got some details as to where she and I could meet. 

I'd have asked Kerri to accompany me on the ride, except that she was working the second shift at Concord Hospital. Way things were shaping up that night, weather-wise; I pretty much expected that Kerri would have to work a double shift as a fill-in for one of the third-shift nurses, many of whom would likely be snowed in. To be honest, I experienced a low-level excitement at the prospect of being alone with Shauna for the night. I suppose the fact that all of us had been naked together within a half-hour of meeting might have had something to do with it. 

In any case, it was snowing pretty heavily by the time I met Shauna at the garage where she'd had the car towed. After making arrangements for repairs, we started back toward my house, with Interstate 89 by now becoming a bit treacherous. 

Shauna thanked me again for coming out, said she hadn't been looking forward to spending the next day or two snowed in at some hole-in-the-wall motel. Nevertheless, as conditions continued to deteriorate, we began listing places along the way where we could take shelter if the road became impassable, which occasionally happened. 

The big Bronco got us back to my place in one piece, however, and with four inches of snow already on the ground, I was pretty sure that Kerri wouldn't be home for some time.

Sure enough, when Shauna and I got into the house, there was a message from my wife on the answering machine. She'd be working the next shift, asked if I might be able to come get her in the morning since it was obvious that our aged, rear-wheel-drive Plymouth wouldn't be going anywhere for awhile. I called her number at the hospital while Shauna peeled off her layers of ski togs. 

As I spoke to Kerri, I couldn't help but notice that Shauna, in a tight, and I mean TIGHT! leotard and form-fitting stretch top, was now tending the woodstove and brewing water for a couple of hot toddies. To put it delicately, every curve she possessed . . . and she possessed some bodacious curves . . . was highlighted, underlined, and italicized. I felt myself becoming aroused at the sight. 

After telling Kerri that I'd just rescued Shauna from her ski adventure, which she took suspiciously well, I told her I'd do my best to pick her up at the end of her double. I hung up the phone then and simply admired Shauna's figure as she stood at the kitchen counter pouring the hot lemon and whiskey concoction into a pair of coffee mugs. She turned abruptly and caught me red-handed staring at her magnificent rear.

She smiled and, to my amazed delight, struck a pose, legs apart, hands on her hips, breasts outthrust, perfect lips formed into a perfectly adorable pout. "Like what you see, Mr. Axelsson?" she asked.

Knowing exactly what she had packed into those ski togs got my cock stirring some more, but I grudgingly set my desires aside. This was, after all, my best friend's wife, and a good friend in her own right.

I laughed and replied, "Just making sure you're putting plenty of whiskey in those toddies."

Shauna laughed too. "Oh, and I was so sure you were checking out my buns."

"Ah. You're baking buns, too?"

"I'll be baking them next to the woodstove in a second; I'm still trying to thaw out from skiing. Have a toddy and let's toast our buns together."

I tossed a couple of throw pillows onto the floor in front of the woodstove while Shauna placed the toddies next to the pillows. She gave me a small caress as she backed her butt cautiously nearer the stove, thanked me once more for rescuing her. 

"Hey Shauna, no problem. But you might want to give Marty a call, let him know you're safe and sound."

At that moment, Shauna, hair a glowing russet halo around her flawless face, green eyes flashing desire, was bent over at the waist with those fine buns pointing toward the woodstove, doing some serious baking. In her tights, with her nipples tenting the front of the pullover even through the sports bra she doubtless wore, this pretty Irish girl presented a sight of nearly unbearable sensuality. "Am I really safe and sound, Jimmy," she replied then, "or am I about to be ravaged by a man I've loved since we first met." 

I was shocked speechless. Trite, but true. 

"Oh, Jimmy, don't look at me like that. You know I've always been attracted to you. Just like I know you've been dying to get in my pants."

I eased to the pillows, looked into those Celtic eyes and saw no mocking, no joking, no pretence. "Hey, Shauna, nothing like telling it like it is."

She smiled sweetly and straightened up.

"So," I said as calmly as possible, "now that we've cleared up any misconceptions, what about calling Marty?" 

"I'll call him in a few minutes. But, face it, Marty's in Burlington taking care of the girls. We're here. And I'm willing to take the shot. My concern at the moment is about Kerri. I know that she'll suspect -- hell, she'll know damn well when . . . if . . . we do the deed, because I know Kerri. Thing is, what will that do to your relationship?"

I looked at her with narrowed eyes. "You're throwing a lot of obstacles in the way, here; two of which are Kerri and Marty. If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that I love Kerri. Hell yeah I'd like to ravage you, as you put it. But, you know it wouldn't be right. We'd be betraying two people who sure as hell don't deserve it."

"So you'd be overcome with guilt if we . . . showed our love?"

"I have no idea," I replied. "Honestly, I've never even considered being unfaithful to Kerri."

"Nor have I ever considered stepping out on Marty."

"Then why is this subject even coming up?"

"Because we've always wanted to test the waters with each other, we just haven't had the opportunity. And, of course, we both love our spouses."

"Is there a problem between you and Marty?" I asked, just a little worried.

"Marty and I are fine, Jimmy. It's just that I see no reason not to take advantage of a night together. Just us." Shauna abruptly leaned in to kiss me. I felt her tongue probing and resisted the urge to take her right there. She eased to the floor next to me, close enough that our hips and shoulders touched in charged excitement. 

"You know, Jimmy," she went on, "eventually we're going to get old. Eventually, we're going to die . . ." 

I must've frowned then, because she went on hurriedly. "I know, I know. Morbid, huh? Well, shit happens. And the four of us are so together that, well, the first widow or widower will be devastated. My point is, why not take a test drive? Just us two; just this once. In case Kerri or Marty goes first?"

"I'll say it again," I said, sort of again, "you're talking about betraying both Marty and Kerri."

"I suppose I am," Shauna replied with a small sigh. "Believe me, Jimmy, I love both of them. But I also love you."

I was flattered, indeed honored, but had to ask "Does Marty know anything about this?"

"Of course not. Do you think I planned this whole thing? I called Marty when the car broke down because I hoped that he'd figure out a way I could get home tonight. I kind of assumed that he'd be able to find someone to watch the kids, and drive out from Burlington to pick me up. Or, if not, that he'd have an idea of where I could catch a bus. But, I guess the busses aren't running tonight, and the way the weather is there's no way he'd have been able to get me, so . . . here we are."

I wasn't sure how to handle any of this. "What about loyalty, honor, to have and to hold, the vows of fidelity, all that?" 

Shauna poured those wild Irish eyes over me, over my soul. "Are you telling me that you don't want to make love to me, that I'm not worthy?" She asked quietly.

"Come on, Shauna. We both know how friggin' worthy you are. But, for one thing you weren't there when Marty and I were confabbing in Commander Lundgren's office after we'd been busted. Marty claimed that he'd have shot me if I'd so much as touched you during our, um, little adventure."

"He really said that?" Shauna asked with a small grin.

"Oh yeah," I replied. "And knowing how infatuated he was with you, I have no doubt that he'd have done it. Point is, I'm not sure if I could have said that about Kerri at the time. But now? I've always thought of myself as the luckiest ex-river rat on the face of the earth when Kerri told me lo these many years back that she was falling in love with me. I'm not sure I want to mess with that. I went through a test kind of like this the day we met. I passed with the proverbial flying colors and ended up with one of the most beautiful, selfless . . . and loyal women that ever lived; though you sure as hell match her on the beautiful part."

"But not on the others?" Shauna asked with a sassy pout.

"Shauna, you want me to, well, to betray Kerri, you want to betray Marty. What do you want me to say?" We looked at each other long and hard.

I couldn't help, then, remembering when Shauna had first stepped aboard the Stoned Pony. I had a feeling then that we'd all pair up as fate would will it, but I also knew that I'd give my left nut to have a shot at both women. This finely put-together redhead with those foxy green eyes had captured my lust, was well on her way to capturing my heart. I had all but drooled at the thought of having each of those fine women. 

Suddenly, the picture of the next best thing came to my convoluted mind, but I have at least some sense of honor . . . so I thought.

I noticed then, that Shauna's gorgeous azure eyes had begun to tear up. "Goddamnit, Jimmy, I want to make love with you. I don't want to hurt Kerri or Marty, either, but I know I want you just this one time. And I had hoped you'd want me." She quickly jumped to her feet and began messing with the woodstove. "Jesus," she yelled at the stove pipe. "I'm sounding like a fucking whore. You're right, Jimmy, we'd be hurting two good people. It just isn't fair."

I leaned back on my pillows and was silent. I watched her close the stove door and ease down beside me, again electrically close. God but she was a beautiful woman. 

Then she was in my arms once more, her lips pressed to mine, her tongue probing and flitting. I could feel her soft curves through her tights, found myself becoming enormously aroused, my mouth accepting her flirting tongue. And I began to accept the fact that I was without my wife for the night.

"Shauna, you realize, of course, that you're making it very hard for me not to take advantage of our situation," I said when we came up for air. 

"I know that Jimmy. But our getting together was bound to happen. We all knew that."

"Well I sure as hell didn't know that, Shauna, and I'm inclined to think that neither of our respective mates would know something like that, either."

"Don't bullshit me, Jimmy," Shauna replied with that sexy grin. "Even Marty's told me that he's very aware of how much we want to bed each other."

Ashamed that I was that transparent, I could only reply "Of course I want to bed you. But that still doesn't mean its right."

"For us," Shauna looked up at me with those bewitching eyes, "it would be right. For Marty it's, well, if not right, at least acceptable. Marty loves Kerri in his own way . . . who wouldn't? She's a beautiful woman . . . in all ways. Way more beautiful than I am."

I was about to mildly dispute the "more" part, but she went on.

"The thing is that you and I love each other differently than Marty and Kerri do. I'm sure that if Kerri gave even the slightest hint that she'd go to bed with Marty, he wouldn't hesitate. But she won't, and he wouldn't dream of forcing the issue."

I just couldn't think of what to say, so I simply gazed my fill at that enchanting, perfectly formed face, those witchy green eyes, those full pink lips. 

We moved to kiss again.

Stay with us as my shame is revealed.



Ex-Rats Ch. 05



So there I stood, maybe a hundred feet from where my best friend was finding out when he was going to die, and thinking thoughts of the night I spent with his wife. Oh yeah, I'm one hell of a great buddy.

My shameful reverie was interrupted by Kerri tapping me gently on the arm. "You're back in bed with Shauna, aren't you?" she asked with a tiny smile. 

"Not yet," I answered her honestly. "I'm thinking that whole thing wasn't my proudest moment. I can't believe you've known for all this time and you never said anything about it."

"Frankly, Jimmy, I knew it was bound to happen from the moment we got aboard your boat." She let out a little laugh while I thought how familiar that sounded. "But," she continued, "I wouldn't have wanted either of you to make a habit of it. A one-time shot's okay, both of you deserved it. More than one night, though, then you and I . . . and Shauna . . . might've had a problem; so be advised." My wife leaned in to kiss me on the lips, taking some of the sting out. 

"D'ya think Marty knows?" I asked quietly. 

"To be honest, I don't have a clue," Kerri replied with tender eyes. "But if he does, then Shauna told him, and if she did, she did it in a way that he's accepted, as I have."

"So you knew, like, the minute we picked you up that morning?"

"Actually, I didn't know until Shauna and I hugged when we took her back to get her car. It was just a little too long and intense to be a 'love ya, see ya later' hug."

"So a simple hug gave it away?"

"Frankly, Jimmy, I'm surprised you both waited as long as you did."

"And you've never had any inclination to, like, return the favor with Marty?"

Kerri laughed out loud. "Are you kidding? I've wanted to give Marty a go since we all first met up. I just wanted you even more, especially after we'd done it that first time. Remember? We nearly crashed the boat."

I smiled just a little at the memory. Kerri braced against the helm, my cock pounding incessantly into that juiced-up crack, her pink labia alternately folding and unfolding around the engorged member as I rammed my rod, piston-like, in and almost out, back in, almost out. 

I recalled watching the head of my cock occasionally peek out from that honeyed tunnel, only to be driven, to my immense satisfaction, back in; drawn again, the entire seven-and-a-half inches, all the way out to the tip of the helmet, the lower rim glistening and throbbing. Then back in its entire ecstatic length.

The wheel, which braced Kerri's sweet ass, and which I gripped with unheeding, white-knuckled intensity, was slewing erratically to port with the in-thrust, to starboard when I withdrew, back again to port when I entered, back to starboard when I pulled back. Neither of us knew or cared. And besides, in my inspired, if seldom-utilized practicality, and under extreme duress, I'd long since brought the throttles to idle and just let the damned boat drift. God only knows how we didn't get run over by something. 

Kerri, meanwhile, moaned and gasped. Her tongue continued to slither sensuously around her lips, then around mine; her breasts shuddered enticingly, her rigid nipples slashed my own. It was an uneven joust of feminine and masculine hardness. My golden-hued goddess thrust her well-defined and rigid nipples toward my willing chest as I pounded my pelvic steel into that oh-so-delectable slit. 

Just before our mutual orgasm, we each, as if following some erotic script, glanced to Shauna and Marty right next to us. Shauna, still on her knees, massaged Marty's considerable shaft with a singular passion, occasionally running her tongue up and down the ridged nerve-line, now red and pulsing, that climbed the underside of Marty's uncircumcised penis. His foreskin was, by now, quite unable to hood the massively re-engorged and pulsing helmet. 

Suddenly, I tumbled my load into Kerri's bucking mound, accompanied by our intermingled shouts. 

Man, I was in river-rat heaven. 

"I know you're feeling ashamed and guilty," Kerri said then, shattering my daydream, though not the one she assumed, "but please don't. If Shauna really wants to live with us after Marty's gone, we'll deal with that when the time comes."

Had it been Kerri and Marty who'd been unfaithful, I asked myself then, do I love Kerri enough to have forgiven her, to have stayed with her, as she'd done with me? Would Shauna have stayed with Marty?

I looked at my wife, remembered our first day together, how unbelievably proud and happy I'd been when I realized that she shared the intense, if inexplicably delayed feelings that I had for her. And, in my dotage, I realized quite honestly that, yeah, I'd forgive her a one shot deal with my old shipmate. Matter of fact, I began to feel that we all, Shauna, Kerri and I, owed him one.

We returned to the waiting area and I nodded toward the examining rooms. "Wonder what's going on in there," I said in a blatant effort to change the subject.

"They're going over treatment options, what to expect from chemo, his diet, their lifestyle changes. This isn't going to be easy for them." Kerri sighed, accepting the change as she sank wearily into the only chair available. "I feel so goddamned helpless."

I might mention, here, that throughout our wait, all eyes in the reception area had followed both Kerri and Shauna since we'd come in. Men were undoubtedly imagining the wonders of each body next to theirs, women wondering how they'd gone so wrong. 

Only one guy out of the two or three shifts of folks we'd waited among through these past two hours had so much as attempted to speak with any of us. He'd been a younger dude, maybe late 20's, and he'd been staring at Kerri and Shauna since he'd entered the clinic. 

He'd been with an older gentleman, could've been his dad, and barely acknowledged the fact that the older man who'd accompanied him had been seen within minutes. I could see the guy trying to figure out how the pair of beautiful older women that he'd suddenly encountered had snuck under his radar, Butte being kind of a small city and all. 

He'd abruptly risen from his seat opposite Kerri, and without preamble, interrupting Kerri's detailed explanation to Shauna of how she and Marty might break the news of his illness to their children and grandchildren, asked if either she or her friend knew of a place close by where he could get a cup of coffee. 

The two girls were, of course, well aware that coffee was the last thing on his mind. Nevertheless, Kerri gave the guy her most sultry look and he all but melted to the floor. I could see his hopes rising, as well as his dick. 

"Let me ask you something," she said and paused, gave this dude her favorite sloe-eyed, come-hither stare. The guy was all but drooling, expecting to bask, if even for a moment or two, in the attentions of two enchanting mature women. "Is everyone in this armpit of the universe as much of an asshole as you are?"

The guy, scarlet with humiliation, backed away. I saw his self-esteem running down the tubes and sort of pitied him. He looked like he was going to say something but didn't, simply turned and headed for a seat as far from the two ladies as possible. 

I'd had a notion to go over to the guy, explain that one of Kerri's best friends was doomed, that she was just a little touchier than usual. 

But I didn't; my ordinary sympathies themselves subordinated to the realization that my old buddy was essentially a dead man.

I sat back, recalled once again, with mingled shame and pleasure, that night with Shauna. I finally couldn't control my feelings or my lust for her and we eventually ended up on the couch in front of the wood stove. My cock was immense, my libido unchained, and Shauna just too hot to be left unfulfilled.

She put her hands to each side of my face, leaned in, offered those full lips to me, and after about a tenth of a second further searching my soul, I responded in kind and our tongues began a sensuous dance. 

Shauna eased my hand to her breast and I felt her nipple, full and erect, undaunted by the tight top and the supportive sports bra.

I started kneading her boob and she responded, arching her back to push that delectable orb with its impressively hard nipple, against my busy hand. She began a soft moan that consummated my undoing.

We shifted in choreographed lust (and, I would hope, mutual attraction . . . dare I say love?) to nestle crotch to crotch, beginning a subtle and rhythmic pulse, slowly against, then away, against, then away.

With a lusty groan, she abruptly lifted her top, belly to neck, and thrust those tits, encumbered only by the supportive sports bra, toward my face.

Still kissing, with indecent swapping of spit and pleasure, this woman I'd craved for so long, I suavely pushed her bra up to join the top bunched at her neck and, at beholding those erect nipples, each protruding nearly an inch from her delicate pink aureoles, left that probing tongue for the closest tit.

Wrapping my lips around her rigid nub, I began to lustily suck and lick this woman's bounteous boob. Her moans became louder, her pumping more insistent. She put a hand to my bulging fly and started massaging the energized penis there. I had thoughts, then, of a premature ejaculation, but with admittedly immense self-control, managed to forestall this once-encountered embarrassment. 

As Shauna began to lower the zipper of my increasingly tight jeans, I switched boobs to begin my ministrations anew. Her nipples were almost a glowing red, even the aureoles puffed and darkening. God, it was an erotic sight.

With admirable efficiency, yet with understandable and eloquent forcefulness, Shauna unleashed my throbbing member from boxer-briefs and jeans, slipped a thumb into her mouth, then wrapped her entire hand about my pulsing shaft. Standing it to its full height, she began to caress the nerve just below the helmet with her wet and wild digit.

I, meanwhile, continued to suckle those perfect breasts, each roughened just a bit at the tip of the nipple, yet each pliant and tasty, her tasty milk tingling the edges of my tongue. 

Shauna abruptly dropped my cock, pulled away from me, grasped the waistband of her leotards and in one slick motion had both pants and panties down to her delicate ankles and free of her petite toes. She quickly moved to take my manhood into her voracious mouth. 

I grunted at the ecstasy of her engulfing lips, allowed her free reign with my pulsing cock.

After a few tentative voyages into and out of her slavering lips, she took my entire length inside her spittle-laden cheeks. I don't know how she'd managed the entire thing without gagging, but, then, I'd seen her take all of Marty that day years before so I wasn't about to question her. 

"I'd better get inside you," I gasped after a few more total immersions in her deep and willing throat. "Otherwise you're gonna get a mouthful of cum." 

Moving with amazing alacrity, again like a well-rehearsed team, we were in position for my enraged member to enter that incredibly wet and receptive pussy. Thus, in one potent thrust, enter I did. 

My God, she felt so good. 

In a few rapid pumps, I came into that so-comfortable tunnel, loading it up with my spunk, to the point that when I withdrew, dripping and still throbbing, the juices ebbed and flowed with her spastic, uncontrollable shudders. 

She arced her pelvis up and back a few times, remaining engulfed in orgasmic pleasure, then she grabbed my hand to use in heedless masturbation of her protuberant clit.

This caused even more dramatic pulsations throughout her entire body as she left my fingers to perform their task unguided and threw both arms around me trying with more or less success to force herself back onto my declining manhood.

Jesus, she was one hell of a horny woman.

We dozed that way for some minutes, my cock comfortably if somewhat tenuously ensconced in that pillowy pussy, until I could feel myself becoming aroused once again.

We'd savored each other not once, not twice, but three times before I happened to glance at the clock over the kitchen stove, said I had to get going if I was to pick Kerri up on time. 

I remember her auburn hair fanned across the arm of the couch, those sated Irish-green eyes, those impeccable breasts, hips, pussy, legs. I also recall my almost overwhelming sense of love for her . . . and my soul-chilling guilt at what we'd just done to Kerri and Marty. I wasn't sure how I'd face either again, wondered how I'd live without Kerri, without her love. Though we swore each other to secrecy, I had a feeling the whole thing would erupt eventually. 

Seems I needn't have worried. But I did feel obligated.

Back in the waiting room, I couldn't help but notice Kerri smiling that inscrutable smile, as if she were sharing my recollections.

Shauna and Marty walked out of the examining area together ten minutes later, and proceeded to inform us that they were famished, told us they'd let us know what was going on over lunch.

Marty directed us to a deli a few blocks from the clinic, where we ordered sandwiches and beers. As we ate, Marty again only picking, Shauna presented Kerri and me with the facts. The gist of it was that Marty did indeed have lung cancer, was to undergo exploratory surgery in a week, assuming no other complications arose, and would begin chemo and radiation therapy a few weeks after recovering from surgery.

"It seems the biggest concern," Shauna said as we finished lunch and walked out of the cafe, "is how Marty's going to handle the treatments with the three strokes he's had."

"Shit, woman," Marty replied. "They were just these teeny-ass strokes. Hardly felt 'em. Weren't even worth going to the hospital for if you hadn't of packed me into the Cruiser and up and hauled me over there." He nodded toward Shauna, who frowned, but let him rant.

"Marty," Kerri said then, "a stroke isn't something to fool around with, no matter how teeny you think it might be. Of course Shauna did the right thing getting you to the hospital. Remember, we worked triage in 'Nam; any head problems automatically went to the front of the line, no matter how superficial they looked."

"Oh hell, Kerri," Marty responded. "We all know my head's hard as a rock, best place for me to get a problem." He laughed a bit, which turned into a bout of coughing. 

I winced at the obvious pain he was in with each cough. "This lung thing," he went on finally, "now that'll be a little bit of a hassle"

"It's a whole lot more than a hassle, you decrepit bastard," Shauna said grabbing his hand and swinging it gently as we walked back to the Land Cruiser. "And you will do just what Doc Neibler says you're gonna do; the operation, chemo, radiation, the whole nine yards."

"Any more word on the prognosis," I asked.

"Doc said it ain't good," Marty replied tightly. "But he says they're inventin' new stuff all the time, all over the world. Things're a hell of a lot better 'n they were even five years ago. Bottom line; maybe two, three years; maybe more, maybe less. Fuck it, let's get home, have a couple snorts. Jimbo, you look worse'n I feel; a few hits of that Southern Comfort skunk pee'll have you feelin' right. And by God, a fist full of Grandad'll have me downright dancin' in the yard." He grimaced a bit. "I'm gonna need a pretty good buzz on to figure out what to tell Di and Megs."

Kerri put an arm around his waist. "Better not get too sloshed, Marty. It's not going to be easy." 

The three of us began to get a little misty-eyed, and I pondered how we'd see Marty and Shauna through this whole thing. I also wondered, as an honorable man, how we could get Marty a night in bed with Kerri . . . and if he could handle it. 

Oh Lord, it absolutely sucks getting old.

*

Next, I end up feeling like a complete fool . . . and learn just how much I'm loved. 



Ex-Rats Ch. 06



The sun was still a good distance above scrubby old Mossback when we drove into Marty's yard, piled out and headed for the kitchen and the liquor. I grabbed Marty and brought him up short as the ladies disappeared through the front door.

"Hey, man," I said looking him in the eye and deciding to just lay it out. "I'm ashamed to admit that Shauna and I . . . well, we had sex one night. Kerri knows and . . ." 

"What?" Marty looked at me with a puzzled frown.

"I said Shauna and I made love once a long time ago. You're kinda owed a night with my wife." 

"Oh, yeah," Marty said, coughing just a little. "Shauna told me about that. She's somethin' else, ain't she? Sexiest woman either of us ever could hope to have, eh? 'Cept for Kerri, of course."

That got my attention. "So she told you about our one, and I do mean one time together?"

"Yep," Marty said with remarkable calm. "She told me, oh, 'bout a year afterward. Can't say that I was real pleased, 'specially after she mentioned that she'd understand if I went out and bedded another woman my own self. Course, she was thinkin' of Kerri."

I looked away, dreaded what he'd say next.

"But, first of all, I never have and I sure as hell never will cat around on Shauna. And second, I respect both Kerri and you . . . and Shauna . . . too much to consider, like, a pay-back."

I started to say that I didn't deserve his respect, but he went on.

"The hell of it is, I b'lieve I loved Shauna even more after she told me about you two together. She swore up and down she'd never done it before, wouldn't ever do it again. But she said she had to have you just once, and that she believed both you and her deserved it. And, I'll tell you, Jimbo, the way she put it, and the way I see her lookin' at you every now and then, I had to agree." 

Marty grinned as I stood in astonished silence. "C'mon, man," Marty said then. "There's likker to be drunk."

I followed my old, ex-rat buddy into the house, wondering how I deserved such a man as my friend, such a woman as my wife. I felt another gut-busting wrench of guilt for what Shauna and I had done so long ago. 

And now she was making noises about moving in with us someday. 

I wondered how much understanding Kerri truly possessed. I also realized, in my admittedly self-centered way, that I ought to be proud that two downright sexy grandmas found me bed-worthy. But I was determined that I'd never again risk losing Kerri. 

Nevertheless, I also began to wonder how much longer I'd be able to get it up.

A few drinks and some leftover steak later, we all sat on the front porch in a for-sure September chill waiting for the Demarest daughters and their respective families to show up, discussing Marty's treatment options, trying to figure out how we'd break the news to Diane and Meagan. Actually, Shauna and Kerri were discussing treatments and details, while Marty and I were reminiscing about the day we'd met the two beauties.

Together we recalled the firefight in which we'd found ourselves embroiled. How we'd manned the twenty-millimeter cannons while Kerri conned the boat, nearly running us aground in her initial panic. 

I recalled that when my gun was unable to traverse further aft, I'd hopped from the turret and headed toward the stern, thinking that at least I could get a few rounds off from the stern fifties. 

We each admirably remembered how Shauna; courageous, resourceful Shauna, had, despite bullets and RPG's flailing the air around her, located the reserve .50-caliber ammo, loaded up the port stinger and added another weapon to the fight. 

I recapped with Marty, my stunned appreciation of his future wife, nude and glistening with sweat, blasting away at the receding shoreline. When her weapon had run out of ammunition, she'd crumpled to the hot deck, shell casings hissing and smoking around her, and burst into hoarse sobs. What she'd done that day had gone against her entire nature.

I told Marty that I was about to go to her, to praise her, to comfort her, to do. . . something, when he'd appeared at her side to enfold her so fiercely that I knew he'd been scared witless that he might lose her. 

After this further moment of reflection, I leaned in toward him and tapped his arm. "Hey, man, 'member what we talked about earlier? I've been wondering why you didn't just refuse to have anything to do with me."

"Wellsir," he said with another short cough. "We all shared a special time, some special experiences together. Probably not a whole lot of people can say that. I s'pose God or fate or something was meaning for us to get together and share our whole lives. All I know is, wasn't for that day, there ain't no way that I'd of ever found friends like Kerri and you. Nor is there another lady out there that I could love like I do that pretty Irish girl. 

He sighed, without coughing this time, took a hit of Granddad and went on before I could think how to respond. "It's lookin' like I'm gonna be the first one of us to go, just like Shauna once said. I'm thinkin' that someone's gonna have to take over pleasuring that little beauty, and that's more 'n likely gonna be you, Jimbo. I'd say keeping both her and Kerri satisfied is gonna be a full-time job. Think you're up to it?" Marty began coughing and laughing, while I could only sit in humbled silence.

I began to imagine such a threesome, just me surrounded by the beauty and eroticism of the dusky Kerri and the comely Shauna. I could imagine my cock pumping between Kerri's bodacious boobs, my cum squirting lustily to her chest, slicking her neck and chin as Shauna watched, perhaps rubbing her awesome clit.

I further imagined gripping my enlarged manhood and kneeling between a reclining Shauna's open legs while Kerri licked and fondled my balls. I pictured rubbing the tip of my penis, lightly at first, against that pretty, protuberant pink clit, reveling in the feel of my hefty head against the impressive, though oh-so-feminine hardness, all but bursting in its engorgement, yet no match for my massive engine.

I could picture myself rubbing harder, and then a bit harder, running my entire length over and up and down that mini-penis, with the occasional side trip to the wondrous opening of her musky and inviting cave.

Moving to Kerri, I would snuggle my throbbing hardness among her yielding thatch, parting those plump pussy lips to lightly tickle her tunnel, then squeezing a drop of dew onto her peek-a-boo clit, a clit that snuggled among the folds of her labia to burst forth in lithe protraction when her passion became nigh unmanageable. 

I contrasted, in my imagining, Kerri's ebony hair cascading amid Shauna's flaming tresses, each beginning to writhe in a lately unfamiliar, though not unknown mutual passion, both for penile and vaginal interaction. I pictured my cum oozing over each in turn, drenching lips and cheeks, breasts and tummies, thighs and clits.

I recalled, abruptly, a naked and well-hung Marty, who stood, that day, in manly perfection next to both Shauna and Kerri, also sans clothes. 

We were getting the aft .50's ready for the girls to shoot, and Marty was busily hefting the ready ammo from the port-side gun, checking for any imperfections. This was, of course, an unnecessary repetition since he was downright anal in carrying out a minute inspection of every bullet, rocket and grenade that went into every weapon aboard our boat, often checking the ready ammunition three or four times a day. He insisted that all rounds be defect-free, well-oiled, and seated properly in belts, feeders and tubes before he'd allow anyone to actually shoot the damned things. Thus we were meticulous in making sure our loads were perfect.

Standing there, sizeable member hanging flaccidly . . . well, almost flaccidly . . . over his dangling scrotum, he'd been feeding the belt from over his wide shoulder back into the ammo box attached to the machine gun atop the tripod gun mount. Kerri and Shauna, naked and gleaming erotically with sweat, stood flanking the big Gunner's Mate. Both caressed his body, his manhood, with longing gazes; both flaunted sex and desire. 

Marty's chiseled features accentuated, as little else that I've ever witnessed could, the difference in the male and female anatomy. His muscular calves and thighs were juxtaposed against Kerri's flawless and finely wrought hips that circled to her dark and profuse bush, a bush that nevertheless allowed the full-bodied sex of my Mediterranean goddess to enchant and entice. 

On the other side of my barrel-chested, well-endowed shipmate, the delicacy of Shauna's wispy pubes was made sensuously apparent by her cleft pussy lips, bulging in erotic splendor, and that bodacious clit, looking like a miniature cock as it poked wantonly from between her exquisitely wrought pussy lips. Her breasts, like Kerri's, rode high and firm, yet remained admirably pliable with the milk and the tone of youth, Her nipples jutted like a couple of rose acorns from her perfect teats, while her lighter areoles, puffed with as yet unquenched desire, formed a pair of flawless coral-hued circles about those deified nubs. 

I remember my youthful naïveté in marveling how something as huge as Marty's engorged cock could fit into something as petite as Shauna's delicately wrought sex. 

While Marty continued to enlighten and instruct the girls in the complexities of aiming and firing, I stood in the shade of the engine compartment awning. My own member had begun yet again to stir at the sight of the two nude females strutting and preening.

Youth treated us all very well, then. Had I the talents of a sculptor, I'd have shaped this memory as my only work.

Matter of fact, the memory was enough to beget a nudge or two down there even now. Returning to the present, I said to Marty "Hey, man, I'm not real sure that Kerri has as much understanding as we give her credit for"

"James, my man," Marty said then. "Kerri, Shauna, and I, we've talked this out a time or two. Seems like we all feel a little differently about each other than the way you do. Now, I'd kick your ass if you was to say you loved me, but I know me 'n' you got a little more than a good friendship goin'. I mean, we all know you love Kerri, and we know that you lust after Shauna, which is okay. I mean who wouldn't? But you don't have the same feelings for all of us together as the rest of us have."

I had to look away in shameful acknowledgement of what he was saying.

"Hell, Jimbo," he continued, "maybe it's your upbringing, or maybe it's that piss-poor attitude you newspaper guys all seem to have. Most likely, it's just the way you are. Anyhow, the girls and I just allow as you are who you are, and we've all managed to stay friends just fine for one hell of a lotta years. Trust me, bro, one night with Shauna isn't gonna split us all up. Matter of fact, I believe it was a shot by one of us to get you to see how good the rest of us feel about each other. And about you." 

I turned to look at him once more, saw only a shadow of that day years ago. No doubt he'd be gone long before his time, and I'd lose the one man that I could honestly say that I loved -- though I'd never say it to him outright. I guess they just don't make people like this old ex river rat anymore.

And to repay his years of selfless friendship, I had bedded his wife. 

"What the hell are you two blubbering about?" I heard Kerri ask loudly, and realized that both Marty and I were in tears, crying like a pair of two year olds with skinned knees.

"Must be one of you two females is chopping onions," Marty replied, wiping at his eyes, while I wished I had a handkerchief or a Kleenex or something.

Abruptly, Shauna gave out with a short sob and ran inside the house. Kerri ran after her, tears streaming down her face, as well.

"Shit," Marty said beginning to grin. "If I'd'a known that's all it takes to clear out the womenfolk, I'd'a turned on the waterworks just 'fore every Packers game these last forty-odd years."

We each had a short laugh over that, then I had to ask: "Are you sure you couldn't get it on with a fine-lookin' Eye-talian lady of our mutual acquaintance. 'Cause I'm pretty sure that between all of us, we can get it in her head that she's missing out on the greatest sexual experience to be found on the face of the planet if she passes up an opportunity to bed you." 

Marty looked at me with steady, red-rimmed eyes. "Jimbo, even if I could get it up anymore, I'd never try to get Kerri to do anything she doesn't want to do; especially that. She wants you, and only you, totally, completely, and forever. I'd'a thought you'd know that about both of us."

"Well," I said quietly, "then accept my apologies. But Shauna and I . . ."

"I know how you and Shauna fit, man. It was gonna happen, and I'm just glad you both quit at just one night together. Don't know how I'd appreciate you guys makin' a regular thing out of it."

I started to reply, but Marty cut me off. "Hey, man," he said gently. "Hadn't been for you coming up with that load a' horse manure about the Pony bein' the Official Vung Tau Harbor Tour Boat, both those little ladies would a' sashayed off to the beach, and that whole magical day never would a' happened." 

"I'll be honest with you, Marty," I answered. "I thought you were gonna strangle me soon as I said that. But I sure as hell didn't think you had a better line of bullshit. You never were the most talkative river rat I ever met."

"Jimbo," he reached out and punched my shoulder lightly. "I figure I sorta owed you that one night. Now that we ain't none of us youngsters any more, I, for one, can die happy. I found a beautiful wife and two of the best friends a man could ever want, and I've pretty much been thinkin' that I . . . hell, the whole pack of us owe it all to you." 

I sat back, flicked a glance over at Mossback, the hills around it, some smaller, some larger. Then I lifted my glass toward my friend. "Lemme hear you tell me you're gonna do everything . . . and I mean EVERYTHING! . . . you've got to do; for your kids and your grandkids, for Kerri and me, and especially for Shauna. She deserves a man as good as you are."

He toasted me back. "You know me, Jimbo, I'll get ornery and cantankerous at times. After all, I got a reputation to live up to. But, bottom line, I'll do my damndest to hang around with Shauna, all the young folks . . . and with you guys . . . as long as I can." 

He looked to Mossback himself then, coughed, and went on. "I know how that night you two spent together was something special for my little Irish gal. I b'lieve she fell for you just as hard as Kerri did back that day we all met up." 

"Shit, man," I replied, "She probably knew, just like Kerri did, that I was the goin' out and having a good time type of guy, the one that wanted some fine sex, some cheap booze and some kick-ass rock 'n' roll. Then you made those googly eyes at her and all that, and she went and fell in love. Tell you what, that pissed me off."

Marty laughed shortly, coughed a little more, and rocked his glass toward me again. "An' there you were, about an hour or two from Kerri tellin' you that you was her particular slice of heaven."

I took a long level look at my old shipmate, said "My God but we've been lucky, haven't we?"

"When it's my time, Jimbo," Marty said in reply, "I can't think of a better man to leave my lady with." I felt honored to know this man.

Shauna and Kerri rejoined us on the porch, drinks in hand. 

"Are you two degenerates through feeling sorry for yourselves?" Shauna asked, tears gone, jaw firm. "'Cause I know we girls are." I swear the woman looked twenty-three again. "The kids'll be over pretty soon and it just wouldn't be right for us to be crying in our booze when they get here."

I glanced at Kerri, who grinned in that incredibly sexy way of hers and handed me a SoCo and soda. "Let's party," she said. 

THE END