Happy Homecomings

"Well, I guess it's up to us to pick up the slack." She held up her glass of sparkling water for a toast.

Clinking glasses, they both said, "As always," and laughed before drinking.

"Saturday should be a lot of fun," said Amber. "I hear the weather's going to be beautiful."

"Yeah," said Ray. "I heard the planning committee didn't want to go overboard, since the 4^th of July is just two weeks later, but they still got us a live band and there are going to be both U.S. and German barbecue pits and smokers."

"So, why aren't they going to hand out your unit awards at the homecoming barbecue or at the Independence Day celebration? Why are they waiting another week after that and making themselves set up three events?" asked Amber.

Ray finished chewing his celery stick. The remainder of the earlier snack platter was serving as the vegetable portion of tonight's meal.

"Mainly it's just plain old time," he said. "There will be a lot of awards to hand out, so it would ruin the other two events. Plus, we need the extra time to get as many awards processed as we can."

When she gave him an inquisitive look, he said, "Sure, we know what people did down there, but getting everything written up and cleared through the chain of command can take a lot of time. The brigade had to find a balance between having enough time to get most of the awards authorized and still being able to award them here before a third of the battalions PCS all over the world. In fact, I've been having to be a royal pain in the ass to be sure that my guys' awards will be ready in time."

"But what they did was so obvious and important," Amber declared. "Couldn't they just give them to them on the spot? What do they call that? A battlefield commission?"

Ray chuckled. "Not exactly, although we did get something kind of like that for Evans. I told you how he not only did a hell of a job driving and protecting us, but he also took over and ran the whole withdrawal operation after Staff Sergeant Joya was hurt. Within two weeks of the mission, the battalion commander promoted him from PFC to Corporal, skipping right over Specialist since he showed such strong leadership under fire.

"Medals, however, are a different beast, controlled by a different bureaucracy." His voice took on a harder note. "I couldn't believe how hard some rear echelon mother fuckers stonewalled us on giving Bronze Medals with Valor devices to three junior enlisted members, even though they obviously saved all of our lives." His voice lightened again when he said, "But Colonel McCormick told their story so passionately to Major General Starkey at Division that the old man got on the phone to Washington personally to get the paper pushers pushing."

Amber suddenly got to her feet, walked over to the refrigerator, and pulled out the wine bottle they'd started on earlier. Then she picked up their glasses from the drying rack by the sink.

She emptied the bottle, but it only gave each of them half a glass. "Another?" she asked.

"No, this is my first time having more than a single beer at a time in a year. I think I'm fine." He smiled and held the glass out to her. "Just like you."

"What? I've had too much, or you've had enough of me too?"

His eyes widened and then he laughed. "Damn, it did sound like that, didn't it? I was trying to say that I feel fine, and you look fine." He put the glass down and said, "Maybe I really have had enough of this. But never enough of you."

"Ooh, nice recovery," she said. "But go ahead and drink that while you tell me the rest of your story from earlier."

His face dropped. "The rest? Um, baby, I'd kind of like to let it go for the rest of the night, if that's alright."

"You misunderstand me," she purred. "I don't want to hear any more about the war, I want to hear about the sex."

Chapter 11

"The sex?" sputtered Ray.

"If Clem Evans is telling his girlfriend about watching us go at it in the men's room as part of their foreplay, I deserve to know about it."

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that. Plus whatever it was that made you hesitate when you were telling me about your meeting with Clem today."

"Damn, you don't miss a thing, do you?"

"Captain Sempels, I'm keeping my eye on over 100 teenagers every day. Of course I'm not going to miss anything with you."

Ray acknowledged that obvious truth with a nod of his head, then sipped from his glass. "So, where did I leave off?"

"Hmm, it all got tangled up in the fight, so you'd better tell it all on its own. I just know there were elements of two young lovers sharing dirty stories, including about us. Then there was something about Clem, or you—" She gave him a stink eye. "—talking about a replay of our bathroom farewell."

"Okay," said Ray, picking up the story. "So, during the first half of the deployment, Evans and I only crossed paths a few times. We were actually spread across a couple of different bases, so it was even easier to lose sight of someone than here. But I did see him around camp and he was on our security detail for two other outreach missions before the one that went bad. And each time he asked after you and asked me to give you his best."

"Hmm," interrupted Amber. "I only remember you bringing him up once before THAT DAY."

"Well, I didn't want you thinking he was getting all creepy on us."

"Was he?"

"You know how he's got that whole young Southern gentleman thing going on? Most of the time I just think his momma raised him up right. But every now and then I find myself wondering if we've got the Savannah version of Eddie Haskell."

Amber nodded; she did know. In fact, one of the bizarrely attractive things about what had happened in the gym toilet, was how polite and appreciative the boy had been afterward. Thanking her for her kindness, as if she'd given him a perfumed handkerchief for a memento to carry downrange, instead of the memory of her talking like a whore and then finishing Ray off in that dirty mouth.

"So, it seemed completely within his normal character to ask after you since he'd 'met' you." Here, Ray used air quotes. "By the way, you weren't serious about the replay, were you?"

Amber paused and sipped before responding. "When I said it, no. It was a spur of the moment thing, a little joke. But I have to tell you, that whole scene was really exciting."

"I know it was," he said. "I remember how hard you came and I'm sure you remember the same about me."

"But have you masturbated about it since?" she said plainly.

"Yes," he answered just as plainly.

The smile returned to her face.

"Good," she said. "So, no, I wasn't serious when I said it then, but I think I really would like it to happen again. It doesn't have to be with Clem, although that would be kind of special. But that rush from doing it in front of someone else is something I think I'd like to feel again. How about you?"

"That rush," he mused. "That's a good way of putting it. Yeah, I wouldn't mind feeling that rush again too."

They tipped their glasses together, then drained them.

Amber cut a piece of chicken and just before popping it into her mouth, she said, "Carry on. You were protecting me from the boy's creepy southern charm."

"Yeah, and again, he didn't actually do anything that felt like he was stalking us or might spill the beans or anything, it was more just me being nervous about what would happen if anybody did find out what we did with a young soldier."

"It was pretty damned crazy," she admitted.

"Amen," said her husband. "But up until THAT DAY, he really only said one thing more specific about it and it was pretty funny."

Amber raised her eyebrows.

"I told you he'd been part of our security detail for two earlier medical outreach missions. Well, when we got back from the second one, we were packing up our gear and he and I ended up off by ourselves for a minute and he goes, "I sure hope you'll let Mrs. Sempels know I brought you home safe again. Just like I promised, eh? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more." Then he waggles his eyebrows and walks off."

"Monty Python?" Amber asked incredulously. "I only know that skit because my father made all us kids watch his DVD collection. How does a 19-year-old know about it?"

"Actually 20 now," said Ray. "But apparently somebody found Flying Circus on a streaming service and it was a huge hit with the troops. Standing in line at the Dining Facility, you'd suddenly hear, in this serious English accent, 'And now, Corporal Smith, a man with three buttocks.' "

Amber laughed and Ray carried on.

"Which quickly turned into, 'Hey, Jonesy, quit sitting around on your three buttocks,' or 'Screw you, Brown, you can kiss my three buttocks.'"

"Our heroes at war," she said in a mock-dreamy voice. Then, narrowing her eyes a bit, "But still you never told me about wink, wink, nudge, nudge."

Ray shrugged. "At the time I still wasn't sure if it was just a funny inside joke or if I had a teenager on the edge of making us regret our crazy moment."

"And now? Now that he's no longer a teenager and you've 'counseled' him about it over illegal beers?"

Chapter 12

"Okay, so you know that after the attack, we all got together as a group, with a real psychologist leading us, and we started talking it out, making sure no one felt alone. And that went well, got us all over the initial adrenaline high and the usual self-doubts in the aftermath.

"The psychologist was stretched pretty thin, so after he declared me good to go, I started talking to the crew independently. After a couple of meetings, when I felt like everyone had a handle on things, I introduced the beer to say thanks and chill things out.

"Now, skipping ahead to the good parts, Evans told me that he and Pham had already been hooking up before the shit mission and that it had gotten more intense since. He was kind of worried that the excitement of that day might be creating a false sense of intimacy between them. That he might really be falling for her, but that in the end she might drop him when the buzz wore off."

"Damn, Dr. Phil, how did you handle that question?" Amber asked.

Ray puffed up a little. "I told him he should share his feelings with Specialist Pham. That honesty and transparency were the best foundations for both a friendship and a romance."

"Okay, okay, I get it, you're a sensitive guy. Cut to the chase," she said.

"So, one night, after a tall can of Guinness, he blurts out, 'I told her. About you. About us. In the gym.'

"He's close to freaking, which I was too on the inside, but I try to stay calm and quiet on the outside, so he'll keep talking. He says they were on this long ammo re-supply mission where they had to drive all the way to Baghdad to load up and then leapfrog back from base to base, dropping off supplies as they went. Clem said as the mission got longer and more boring, the conversation with Hue Lan just got wilder.

"She finally tells him a story about how her best friend was getting married and didn't mind her fiancé having one last fling for his bachelor party but didn't want it to be with some skanky stripper. Plus, she kind of felt like having her own 'one last fling' but wanted to do something she'd thought of, but never tried. Another girl. Hue tells Clem that she ended up being the one last fling for both of them. First separately, then again all together."

"Wow," gasped Amber. "Young Clement found himself a hot one, didn't he?"

"No doubt. He tells me he's sitting there in shock, just trying to keep the truck on the road while his johnson is trying to climb out of his pants all on its own. Then she hits him with, 'Have you ever been with more than one person at a time?' And Clem says she said it in this hot, growly voice, like she really, really wanted his answer to be yes."

"Holy crap! No wonder he told her about us."

"Exactly. But to his credit, he doesn't exaggerate it, he tells her that he hasn't actually been in a threesome, but that there was this older couple that did it in front of him while he pleasured himself."

Amber frowned a moment at the idea of being an older couple, she was only 32 for Christ's sake. Then, "He really said he, 'pleasured himself'?'"

Ray laughed. "I think he spoke that way to try and sugarcoat things since he was talking about me and my wife. Anyway, Pham thinks his story is so hot that she starts giving him head and makes him tell it again in more detail, while they're driving along in the middle of a convoy."

"No way!"

"They were in a big cargo truck by themselves, with the cab so high that no one could see what she was doing and she just went for it."

"I'm liking this girl more and more," grinned Amber, happy to feel some of the spark of the previous three days returning to her groin after today's heavy conversations.

"Clem said he had to stop her when they started getting close to their base camp, but that as soon as they were parked in the motor pool, she went at him again. He said it was after dark by then, but that there were still some people around. But when he told her someone might come looking for them since they hadn't turned in the keys to the truck yet, she just went at him harder and he ultimately had to surrender."

"Surrender? More sugarcoating?"

Ray's eyes blazed and his voice growled as he said, "I took it as surrender his seed to her hungry mouth the way I did to yours while he watched us in that stall."

Amber ran her tongue slowly around her lips. "A surrender I was very happy to accept."

Chapter 13

Ray got to his feet and held out his hand. When Amber took it and stood, he began leading her to the stairs up to the sleeping floor. However, she suddenly tightened her grip and pulled him from the dining room into the living room and then directed him down into an armchair. She slid down to her knees in front of him and reached in to undo his Docker shorts. She wrestled them and his briefs off his ass, down to the floor, and free of his feet.

"Tell me the rest," she said before spreading his knees and diving in between his thighs with open hands and open mouth.

Ray gathered himself as best he could and continued the story. "They go check in the truck and then walk out of the compound, him headed to his hootch and her toward the women's tent. But they both circle back because apparently the breakroom in the motor pool is a place they've found where they can be alone after hours. He lays her down on the couch and starts returning the favor from the truck."

Amber pulled her mouth off his now-hard prick and held the shaft against her cheek. "Um, Captain Sempels, did this counseling session of yours by any chance end up with a circle jerk?"

"I know," laughed Ray. "I was already way out of bounds, but now we were headed completely off the reservation. I try cutting him off - again - but he says it concerns us and I need to hear it."

"Oh, well," she purred before dragging the flat of her tongue from ball sac to head. "If it concerned us, then of course you had to keep listening." She dropped her mouth over the velvet plum again.

Ray just sat and groaned until Amber closed her teeth lightly around his girth to wake him from his trance. He resumed talking.

"So, he's going down on her and she asks him if he wants to eat his mom like this and how hot it was that his parents fucked right in front of him."

Amber's head jerked up and off and she sat back on her haunches with her hands on his thighs. She stared at him, open-mouthed.

Ray immediately missed the presence of her hot mouth on his cock but was laughing so hard it was probably better not to be jerking it around between sharp teeth.

"I know, right?" he gasped. "I told you he'd been careful not to say who the older couple was, right? Well, he was so careful that he also left out that it was another military couple, let alone someone from his own battalion, because he didn't want her scoping out everybody on camp, trying to figure out who it was. In the end, because he was being so coy about who it was, she decided it must have been his parents and, oh boy, was she just fine with that!"

Now it was Amber's turn to laugh.

Ray continued. "He was so shocked that she thought he'd been getting nasty with his own folks that he spilled out the whole tale, except for who we are. She, in turn, was so excited by the story that she put him on the couch and started sucking him again."

Ray clenched his butt and thrust his pelvis to prompt his wife to do the same. Once she had lips and fingers back where they belonged, he carried on.

"Being a virile, all-American soldier, young Clement naturally rose to the challenge and she mounted him. Then while riding her pony, she made him tell her the whole story again with all the extra details of doing it right there in a gym filled with hundreds of people. And he did, although he still managed to keep out names, ranks or other identifying details...at least for me."

"Only you?" she said upon next coming up for air.

"Since she wasn't from our post and so would never see you here, let alone down there, he was apparently quite forthcoming in describing your many fine attributes."

Amber kept her mouth full of cock, but still managed to arch an eyebrow at him.

"Clem continued to try and tread carefully with his words about you with me, but from the glow in his eyes and the tremble in his voice, I'm sure Hue Lan got the X-rated version she evidently desired," said Ray. "But I still got the crux of the message, which is that he thinks you have a world-class ass, a way with words that would have made him come even if he couldn't see us, and when he did get to see you up close afterwards, beauty to rival Helen of Troy."

Her mouth popped off of him again. "I knew I liked that boy," she drawled and drooled.

Then she added dubiously, "And you were counseling Specialist Pham as well, Captain Sempels?"

"Not after that night, I wasn't," Ray declared. "Fortunately, we finally got our second psychologist billet filled and it was with a woman, so I transferred Pham to her. I had one short meeting with Hue to talk about that and she gave no indication that she knew I was one of Clement's partners in debauchery, so I think Evans really did manage to keep the secret."

Amber didn't take his manhood back into her mouth. Instead, she climbed up into her husband's lap in the big chair and mounted him the way the little Vietnamese American girl had mounted the lanky Southern boy. She began riding him slow and easy. Then she pulled his polo shirt up over his head and drank in the sight of him. The definition in his arms, chest and abs made it clear he'd spent a lot of hours in their makeshift gym down there. On the other hand, the obvious farmer's tan said he hadn't been lying out in the blazing Iraqi sun just for the hell of it. She raised up higher on her knees, until just his tip remained inside her and looked down at his powerful legs. They were a lighter tan up to mid-thigh, where they got white again. Which told her he must have done at least some running outside while wearing shorts.

The other thing she saw was a creamy white ring around the base of his cock. He was really churning her butter, alright. She pulled the rest of the way off of him and got to her feet.

Ray had closed his eyes to focus on the incredible feeling of her squeezing his glans with her talented vagina. But when he felt himself pop loose, his eyes popped open.

His wife smiled and held her hand out to him, just the way he'd done to her at the dinner table. And like her earlier, he took it and rose from the chair. This time, however, when she started leading him upstairs to the bedroom, he followed.

Chapter 14