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