"That First Night In Nanjing"
by Osiris Brackhaus

 

It was a joy to see the crew of airmen approach his craft, perfectly in stride and assertive in their crisp black uniforms. Joe was sure Frank enjoyed the sight just as much, only for completely different reasons.

And of course, there he was, a little behind the men who formed his guard of honor, enjoying the view. Even for a man of Frank's questionable tastes, there seemed to be a definite advantage to being Commander of such an airbase. Like hand-picking a squad of pretty asses as your guard, for example. And Joe wasn't to sure the term 'hand-picked' in this case was only figuratively speaking.

Laughing, he jumped off his plane, greeting his old friend with open arms.

"Franky!", he exclaimed, hugging him tightly. "So good to see you."

And indeed, it was good. Frank looked strapping in his uniform, and the eye-patch only added to the rugged charm Franky managed to maintain even in his neatly pressed uniform. For a second, Joe wondered if he was still wearing white boxer shorts underneath, but then Frank's frowning question got him back into the present.

"What have you gotten me into this time, Joe?", he asked, his voice deep and throaty and not at all as unwelcoming as his words might have suggested. Actually, he seemed just as pleased with their reunion as Sky Captain himself. Why else would he be here at the end of the world if not for him?

"Nothing you can't handle, Franky", Joe replied honestly, again smiling widely at friend he had shared so many campaigns with.

"I hope this is important", Frank returned with a wry grin, "If not, one of us is going to get some serious trouble."

Suddenly, there was a movement in Joe's back that distracted the airbase's commander. Following his look, Joe glanced over his shoulder only to see Polly slide most indignantly off the wing of his aircraft. She really had a talent of making the worst appearances possible.

Frank raised one of his distinguishing eyebrows, his mood considerably smothered by Polly's unexpected appearance.

"What is this?", he asked in a tone that bordered to abhorrence.

"She's in this with me", Joe tried to calm down the waves Polly had managed to create before even opening her mouth. "Please be nice."

Unfortunately, Polly had one of her brisk moments right then, apparently trying to make up for her less than elegant appearance on board. So she she walked straight up to the two men, trying for her best professional smile.

"Polly, this is commander Frank Cook", Joe started the obligatory introduction, dearly hoping things wouldn't turn too bad between his two former lovers. "Frank, Miss Polly Perkins."

"Miss Perkins, it’s my pleasure to meet you. Joe has told me so much." Shaking Polly's hand, Frank seemed all charming all of a sudden, maybe a little sleazy, but charming. "It's so nice I finally get to know the competition."

For a second, Sky Captain thought his heart had missed a beat.
Of all possible things, right these words were probably the worst Franky could have ever said. 'The competition', good heavens!

Polly's glare alternated between drilling holes in Joe's face and trying to down-stare Frank, though in both cases with little visible effect. Her mouth opened and closed in a soundless display of speechless rage.
Of course, being the bright girl that she was, it only took her a second or two to combine the fact that Frank considered her some kind of competition with what Joe had told her only a few hours ago of his time with Franky in Nanjing.

Joe could see in her eyes that she was plain furious, and then it finally hit her that Frank actually was a guy, not some cheap Chinese tavern girl as she had always assumed. Faced with what she now thought the ugly truth, her eyes widened even another notch, blue orbs that contained all the threat and anger in the world. Polly looked bristling enough to spit fire or at least to have her hair turn into living flames.

Actually, as Joe found in a moment of surprising inner calm, she looked just as furious as Franky had promised when he tried to make me kiss him again, that first night in Nanjing...

----

"Oh gods, Joe", Frank said in amused exasperation, his leg gently rubbing against the other man's crotch. "Not even an hour ago you said you needed a girl just to get this terrible Polly person go green with rage. To give her a reason to act the furious bitch."

Prying Frank's hands off his face, Joe shook his head. Sitting on the rim of their hotel-room's bathtub, with none of them wearing more than their white boxer shorts, it was hard getting Franky to a decent distance without turning too violent on him.

"No", Joe replied, his voice unexpectedly raspy. Despite everything, he felt his heart pounding in his chest like he could hardly remember, and he wasn't too sure it was only in shock to the fact that he had just kissed his old friend. "I said it would suit her right."

"Whatever", Frank mumbled with a negligent gesture. "Just imagine her face when you tell her that she actually forced you into the arms of a man..."

Admittedly, this image had its charms. Polly would go ballistic.

But... a man? And then Frank, of all men? Right here and now?

"I can see you like it"; Frank purred again, his strong hands already wandering down Joe's neck again, his lips whispering a kiss on his cheek. "And no man as pretty as you should limit himself to only one girl, I think. Or to girls in general."

"Frank, please, I...", Joe started, but was cut short as his companion put a finger onto his lips.

"I know", he said with a tell-tale wriggle of his eyebrows, looking down to his knee where to Joe's deepest embarrassment a neat tent showed in his shorts. "It is quite obvious..."

"No, it is - ", the young officer tried once again, but to just as little avail.

"Oh, shut up", Franky snapped with a grin and bent down to kiss his friend.

It was a deep, passionate kiss, filled with a longing and ferocity that fanned an unwanted and yet all but unpleasant desire in Joe's chest. And loins, for that matter. Again, there was this fine stubble around Franky's lips that was so unfamiliar and enticing, his scent so... different.

Joe was so taken up with those new details he hardly noticed his comrade had sneaked his hands down into his shorts. Only when Franky firmly wrapped his fingers around his dick he gave a yelp of surprise. For a second, Joe had to fight the almost instinctual reflex of hitting him, but it quickly drowned in curiosity and a certain bemused fatalism. And plain lust, as much as he loathed to admit it. The weeks in the jungle had been much too busy to spend a single thought on any romantic activities, and now his body screamed for attention at top volume.

Apparently, his body had lowered its expectations on its own so dramatically that the touch of a man was fine as long as it was touching the right places. But right now, this seemed not to be open to any negotiation.

"Oh my", Frank whispered into his friend's ear, his voice dark with desire, "Whatever you say, your dick loves me..."

Feeling compelled to reply something in objection, Joe opened his mouth, but the words just never formed. With a detached dread, he noticed how his little resolve deteriorated at the expert touch of his utterly indecent comrade, eroding like sand in the wind. More and more all his attention was consumed by his need to fuck somebody, and more and more Franky looked as he actually could be the one, if only in this one emergency. Just to have it tried as well. To see Polly's face if ever she found out.

A tiny part of Joe's mind noted with biting sarcasm that he was compiling a neat list of excuses for simply wanting to fuck his best friend, but that was all too easily ignored. What mattered now was between his legs, and currently in Franky's hands completely.

"See?", the Irishman asked with a plain dirty grin, his dark eyes ablaze with a craftsman's pride at Joe's dazed look. "I wish I could keep you like this, dear, with your lips looking so kissed, your mouth not quite closed..."

Shuddering in delight at the display in front of him, Franky's grin grew even wider.

"How can a man be so beautiful...", he wondered out loud, his hands still deep in Joe's pants. "You look like you really crave it, just you have no idea what it is. I should have done this ages ago already..."

"So what is it I crave?", Joe asked, stunned at how husky his own voice sounded.

"Me." Slowly kneeling down in front of him, Frank started pulling down the other man's shorts. "But I think we'll keep this for the grand finale. For now, trust Uncle Franky, he'll know best."

With speechless amazement, Joe watched his comrade lean forward and smile at the erect dick in front of his face. Not that this was the first blow-job he got, nor did it really feel much different.
But this was his best friend on the floor in front of him, and the way his lips gingerly teased his cock indicated at much more expertise than decent for any man. Looking down at the back of Franky's head in his lap, those utterly familiar dark curls in such unfamiliar place, there was one predominant thought on Joe's mind:

How the hell did this happen?

----

"What do you mean - a hotel room?", Franky had asked incredulously as he had first heard where they would spend the night.

The two of them had just returned from a mission to some remote jungle in the southern Guandong province, learning upon arrival that their local base was practically overrun by re-enforcements. So instead of trying to haggle some decent cots out of their staff officer in charge, Joe had pulled a few strings and gotten them a room in a small local hotel instead.

They wouldn't stay much longer than a night or two anyway, but both Sergeants intended to make the best of it. Which meant a prolonged shower, a clean uniform and a night out on the town. And of course, if possible, some charming company, where the hotel room came in most handy again.

"So it's going to be red scarf night once again?", Franky wondered with anticipation in his voice, referring to their way of signaling that their mutual room was currently 'occupied'. "Now that's what I call a real friend."

"Let's wait and see what the place is like before you thank me", Joe tried to dampen his comrade's buoyant mood. "I only know the place from the outside and the bar, so I don't know what bug-infested hole we might have been put into."

"Is there any place in this god-forsaken city you do not know the bar in?"

"Sure", Joe replied evenly, shouldering his bag. "All those they don't have a bar in to begin with."

Laughing amiably, the two scouts went on their way from the airbase to the hotel. It wasn't more than a few minutes away, but judging by the surroundings, it could have just as well been on the moon.

As soon as they had passed the Hunchback Snake of the Midday-Sun, a nearby bridge that spanned an arm of the Yangtse river, time seemed to have rolled back into the middle ages. While the quarter they were coming from was comparatively modern and even had electricity in parts, this one was plain ancient.

Low, two-storied houses crouched along the narrow alleyways, almost surreally opulent in their red and blue lacquered carvings that seemed to encrust every free surface. Their curved roofs had sagged a little with age, and now instead of calm balance, they gave an impression of merrily drunken curves dancing atop the architecture.

Across the road, lines had been drawn, hung with everything from lanterns over laundry to straw-hats and drying duck-feet. The already moist air was heavy with the pungent smell of the countless little stalls on the road that sold food in all stages of preparation. People seemed to buzz everywhere, an inherent calm quality to their labor. On shaded balconies, old men were sitting, playing Go or Mah-Jongg, drinking tea and berating the rest of the world.

It was a world very unlike the one Joe and Franky came from, but none of them felt uncomfortable in the least. On the contrary, they felt more at home here than in the airbase - there was so little they knew about this part of the world, and all they didn't know meant another adventure waiting for them, another part of the map to chart.

Their hotel was in a more remote part of the quarter, close to the area where the slow-flowing river turned all ground into a swamp only mosquitoes and bamboo could feel at home in. Originally having been the warehouse of a British trader, it had lost its original purpose over the years, and had been changed and adapted to the local tastes several times already. For a few years now, it served as a hotel for foreigners who couldn't afford one of the more renowned places in the center of town and were too smart to turn in anywhere close to the harbor.

It was a good place, but if Joe had known what kind of indecencies his decision would trigger, he just might have picked something different.

----

"Darn."

Franky's mumbled curse made Joe smile. He had somehow expected this as soon as his comrade started rummaging through is stuff.

"Rats. I've forgotten to buy new shaving soap", Frank explained as he came back into the bathroom. "Mind if I borrow yours again?"

"Not at all", Joe replied smirking, like every time when they had had the chance to shave in the last two months. "My soap is your soap."

The two men had been most pleased to learn that their hotel room actually had a bath of its own, and not a toilet
in the yard and nothing else. Due to the colorful history of the house, they even had a bathtub and a real shower, a mirror and spare towels at their disposition. Admittedly, the water was a little green and came from a dark tin barrel on the roof, but given the sweltering climate, that was more than enough. Considering the quarter they were in, even running water had to be considered pure luxury.

A tiny drawback had been the fact that they only had gotten a room with a king-sized brass bed - but on the other hand, considering their plans for tonight, maybe that wasn't too wrong at all.

So they had drawn sticks on who would get the first shower. Joe had won, and while he happily got rid of two weeks grime, Franky had went out on a little mission to find out where 'it was at', as he put it. Whatever 'it' was, it seemed to be pretty important for a good evening, and given his previous picks on where to spend their nights, Joe knew the planning to be in perfect hands.

Now Frank had returned and taken his shower, while Joe already was scraping the last remnants of hair out of his face. His friend was still searching for his razor and, like always, finding out that he had run out of shaving soap some weeks ago.

Wearing only his white boxer shorts, Frank sneaked around his comrade to snatch the soap from the little board above the sink. As it wasn't the largest of rooms they were in, he had to place his hand on Joe's naked shoulders for support, Frank’s body leaning against his for a moment.

Of course, there was nothing to it, Joe found. Just a fleeting touch of two friends, skin on skin that didn't mean anything. Except, maybe, the fact that the touch wasn't at all that fleeting, and indeed developed a rather lingering quality...

"What?", Joe asked, a little snappy as he couldn't really figure out what his comrade was thinking.

Looking back at him via the mirror they were standing in front of, Franky grinned, slowly separating from Joe again.

"Nothing", he replied calmly, but there was a sparkle to his dark eyes Joe found utterly unnerving.

He knew that sparkle, he had seen it often enough - it was there in is friend's eyes every time Frank had laid eyes on a girl he fancied. The fact that Franky always got what he wanted in that regard made Joe feel rather cautious.

But not further reacting to that scene, the Irishman went over to the bathtub and sat down on its rim, starting to brush up some foam and shave.

And Joe tried to return to the last bit of shaving he still had to do before they would hit the town. But his thoughts were with Frank, and the way his touch had lingered on his naked skin. Of course, he tried to convince himself, there was nothing to it. I'm just seeing ghosts.

Franky is a good man, a little too outgoing some times but definitely not one of those who were into other men.

Washing the last bits of shaving foam off his face, Joe looked at his image in the mirror.

Well, he added mentally, Franky might not be 'one of those', but he might definitely be one of those carefree natures who didn't mind if their lovely turned out to be a little more than they had expected, as long as the fun was the same. And seen under this light - there indeed had been moments on their campaign, especially at the campfire at night, where Joe had wondered if Franky hadn't been staring at his rear.

Turning around abruptly to stare at his comrade, Joe found the other man still sitting on the bathtub, smiling - and staring at his rear.

"You're staring at my ass!", Joe exclaimed incredulously.

"Yup", Frank confirmed with a nod, giving a soft sigh. "Such a shame."

"Stop that!", his comrade ordered, then gathering his thoughts a little, he asked: "What shame?"

"That it's going to stay virgin forever."

For a second or two, Joe just gaped at his friend's leisurely comment. His mind just didn't want to process the thoughts that would lead to utterly unwanted implications.

"What?!", he finally exclaimed, too stunned to find anything more eloquent to say.

"Now don't act so surprised, Joe", Franky replied, continuing his shave as if they were discussing the latest cricket match. "Walking around with a face like yours surely has gotten you quite a bunch of indecent proposals over the years."

"I... of course. But not by men."

Raising one of his thick eyebrows, Frank finally stopped shaving his throat.

"Well," he stated matter-of-factly, "You've gotten at least three from me."

"WHAT?!"

Grinning at Joe's exclamation, Frank shook his head.

"You're not dealing very well with the subject, are you?" Giving another soft sigh, he continued: "I've suggested at least three times that we might share a little more than your shaving-soap, but each time, you only laughed."

"Of course", Joe all but shouted. "I thought you were joking!"

"What a wonder of selective perceptions you are at times, Joe Sullivan."

Silently, Franky returned back to shaving his throat, apparently considering this subject closed.

But still, Joe wondered how much else he had missed concerning his year-long friend and comrade in arms. So he actually does fancy me, he wondered, still staring at his image in the mirror. What did he mean with 'a face like mine'? I don’t look like a girl, do I?

"Joe?", Frank suddenly asked into the silence, making his fellow scout almost jump out of his skin. "Does that mean you have never really considered any of my... proposals?"

"Of course not", he replied firmly, still wondering what the hell he had done wrong to deserve this special kind of attention. "That would be... unthinkable."

Finishing his shave, Frank grinned.

"Does that mean you've actually never even thought of kissing a man?"

"No."

"How can you tell you don't like something when you've neither tried it nor thought about it?"

Joe just snorted at his friend's see-through attempt.

"Do I have to kiss an ugly girl to know I don't want to kiss her?"

Rising from his spot on the bath-tub, Frank walked over to the other man, smiling.

"I'm not an ugly girl; I am not even ugly." Flinging his shaving-knife into the wash-basin, he took one more step towards Joe, close enough to feel the other man's breath on his exposed chin. "What are you afraid of, Joe?"

"I'm not afraid, I am appalled."

"Oh, of course. So proper." The scout's voice was dripping with sarcasm as he added: "But if so, dear - why are you now staring at my lips?"

"I... am not", Joe started to object, instantly knowing that he was only making a fool of himself.

He had indeed been staring at Frank's lips, some amused kind of dread inside of him wondering how they would feel, pressed against his own. He honestly had never in his whole life considered that men could be more than friends to him, especially not Franky.

And yet, so bluntly faced with the subject, he had to admit that there was at least a spark of curiosity awakening inside of him. As much as the fact angered him, but still...

Though not quite understanding his comrade's silence as an invitation, Frank didn't consider it a rejection either. Taking another step towards his friend, he was now close enough to the other man that their chests all but touched, their faces mere inches apart.

"Tell me you're not curious, Sky Captain", he said mockingly, referring to his friend's call-sign. "Say you don't want to know..."

For a long moment, the two men just looked at each other, vibrantly green eyes staring into equally expressive brown ones. As if time slowed down to a crawl, Joe could have sworn later he remembered every single detail of the instant for the rest of his life.

The way the bamboo outside the window to the yard bent in a light breeze, the child that wailed out in the street. There was a young mulberry sapling growing outside on the bathroom's windowsill, not much taller than a man's hand. In his chest, his heart beat hard and slow, like the beat of a giant drum, in his face, he could feel Franky's breath like a subtle touch.

"I hate you", Joe finally replied equally softly, the time around him returning to it's natural speed. "You just know me too well."

And without leaving Frank any chance to answer, he took his friend's head in both hands, kissing him right on his lips.

"Wow...", the Irish scout said with a soft giggle as they separated, "Is that the way you kiss your girls?"

Instead of an answer, Joe took a step back, looking at his comrade, his heart still pounding wildly.

"If that is how you kiss your Polly, it's little wonder she treats you like shit", Frank continued with a lopsided grin, reveling in the way Joe flustered up. "Heavens, even my mother kissed me with more passion..."

"Which might have been the beginning of the whole prob-", Joe started to retort, but this time, it was Frank who didn't waste any time.

In perfect imitation of Joe's gesture, he grabbed the other man's head, but where Joe's firmness had come from his need to counter his insecurity, there now was nothing but demanding passion in the way Frank dug his fingers into his friend's wavy hair.
His lips found Joe's mouth as if they had been waiting for this moment ever since they had first met, an assault that was so overwhelmingly gentle and demanding at the same time that it was close to irresistible.

Despite feeling overrun and really not inclined at all, Joe found himself closing his eyes, instinctively leaning into the other man's touch, his lips returning Frank's caresses almost on their own. Like a wave washing over him, a tingling sensation running from his neck all the way down into his toes, his body welcomed this sudden sensation, a numbing, jubilant feeling that made his nose itch, his eyes turn moist and his lips smile into their kiss.

And suddenly, Frank separated from him again, all the sweet caresses gone in an instant, leaving Joe to blink and stumble and laugh with confusion.

"I...", he tried to put his feelings into words, stopping as he realized his knees were seriously weak. Grabbing the washing-basin for support, he grinned feebly, shaking his head. "I... wow..."

Apparently, Frank did not share his comrade's problems. Instead, he flailed wildly with his arms, hopping up and down as if he had just won an inning all on his own.

"Yes!", he exclaimed exuberantly, hooting with joy. "Yes!"

Still holding tight to the wash-basin, Joe shook his head, a wordless question on his face.

"You are.... perfect!", Frank replied, his face flushed, his eyes beaming. "You are..."

Instead of searching any longer for words he couldn't find, Franky walked up to Joe again, pulling him into another kiss, as wild and joyful and passionate as the first. This time, Joe didn't even try to resist, curiosity finally mixing with excitement, squashing all reluctance he might still have had between them.

When suddenly, Frank's tongue licked across his lips, demanding entrance, he only hesitated for a single thought. But then, he fully gave himself to the new sensation, meeting his old friend Franky on a whole new perspective.

Kissing a man was different, that much was sure.

Even freshly shaved as Frank was, there was a distinct scratch around his lips, something that made Joe's lips tingle with sensitivity. There was the other man's body, now tightly wrapped against his own, so different in stance and structure than any he had held unto that day. No gentle curves, but clear lines, muscle underneath skin, all so much like his own body and yet still so amazingly different.

Frank's scent, underneath the shaving-soap they shared, was warm and earthy, something Joe had never before thought of as being any quality worth to mention, much less as being any quality at all.

This time, when they broke their kiss to catch some breath, Frank didn't release Joe from his embrace. Smiling widely, his face still flushed, the Irishman recited softly:

"In the chrysanthemum garden, follow the beautiful path. Once there is poetry in beauty, and music in the touch, then know that you are home."

"Beg your pardon?", Joe asked, still light-hearted and rather confused.

Laughing gently at his friend's bewildered expression, Frank shook his head, explaining:

"It something an old man in Shanghai told me when I asked him on how to separate good lovers from perfect ones."

"And, did it help?"

Instead of an answer, Frank only rolled his eyes mysteriously, grinning.

"He was an old pervert, and smoking opium as if it was a competition. But he was a wise pervert."

This time, it was Joe who laughed softly.

"A wise pervert. Sound like a source you'd take your wisdom gladly from."

Laughing with him, Frank hugged him tightly once again, gently kissing the other man's shoulder.

Still somewhat giddy, Joe suddenly froze as he realized what that part of warm flesh actually was, pressing so distinctively against his hip and thigh. Feeling his comrade's cock hot and mostly hard against his leg, only separated by the thin fabric of their shorts, slammed the fact what he was doing right here into his mind like a shot plane hitting the ground.

But as instinctively as Joe tried to jerk away from his friend, the other man didn't let him go. A little frown appeared in his face, and his voice was unusually serious as Frank said firmly:

"Don't. Just relax." Smiling as he saw the face his comrade made, he added conciliatory: "You didn't seriously expect that your kiss wouldn't show any reaction with me, did you?"

"I...", Joe tried to reply, but most of his concentration was eaten up by his gargantuan effort to ignore his best friend’s erection pressing against his leg. "I didn't think in that direction, no."

Now Frank chuckled softly, nudging his friend's crotch gently with his hip.

"Alright, so I've got a boner. That surprises you, as little as that reaction should surprise any healthy man. Can we now go on?"

"Franky, please!"

With a determination that bordered to violence, Joe pushed his comrade away from him, and Frank let him go. There was no way to hold a lover, as the saying went. So he gave his friend the moments he apparently needed to sort out his feelings, and watched impassively as Joe paced through the small bathroom.

It took some moments, but when Joe turned around to face his comrade again, Frank was still standing next to the door, his arms crossed in front of his chest, a smirk on his lips and a neat tent in his pants.

"You're really serious with this", he said, a little surprise in his voice as if he had thought this was all some sort of practical joke.

"Of course I am, do I look like I am joking?"

Frank's last words were accompanied by a short shake of his hips, a movement that made the tent in his shorts sway most prominently.

"No. You look like you are..."

"Hot?", Frank suggested tongue-in-cheek. "Horny? So dazzling you can hardly hold onto yourself?"

"Yes!", Joe exclaimed, only to immediately amend: "No! I mean, horny, yes. Obviously so."

Snickering, the young man sat down on the rim of the bathtub, wiping his face in a gesture of plain insecurity. Then, he looked up again, asking:

"Do you love me, Franky?"

"Heavens, no!", the other man burst out, laughing softly. "At least, not in the way you mean right now. I fancy you, yes, madly so. But my love is of the utterly decent, brotherly, manly-man kind."

Watching Joe sit on his bathtub, Frank walked over to his friend, asking calmly:

"Hey. If you were appalled, I'd quit in a second. But I only see that you are worried, afraid, confused, and that is something I do not understand. It is not you, if that makes any sense. What are you afraid of, after all?"

Again, Joe snickered softly.

"I am afraid I am too curious to say 'no'." Waiting a moment to let the implications of his last words sink in, he then added with some kind of desperate amusement: "I trust you with my life, Franky. How couldn't I trust you with... this."

"So your problem is...", the Irish nudged gently as the pause grew to long.

"I... I'm not supposed to want this"; Joe replied, his hands gesturing empathetically. "How am I to face Polly ever again if we - "

"Polly!", Frank exclaimed in mock outrage, "How does this incredible bitch manage it to make our lives hell even though she's a hundred miles away?! Who is this Polly-person anyway?"

----

Who was she, anyway, Joe asked himself for probably the twentieth time this afternoon. Looking down in his lap where Frank was still busy swallowing his cock, she seemed like a memory from a former life.

An annoying, mostly unpleasant memory at that.

A memory better ignored, especially when the immediate present was so much more pleasant.

Shivering once more with delight, Joe's hands dug deep into his comrade's dark hair, guiding his head to the pace he needed right now.

This was... evil. Bad. Unthinkable.

And indescribably hot.

There was a directness to Franky's touch, a straight-forwardness deeply rooted in the intimate knowledge of the needs and desires of the male body. Rarely had Joe found a partner in his love-play who had managed to set him aflame so easily, and plain lust more and more overcame his instinctual aversion.

A deep sigh, intense enough to qualify as a groan, finally made Franky look up from his work. Grinning, he didn't let go his friend's cock, instead circled its head with his tongue for a moment longer, enjoying Joe's bulging eyes at both the sensation and the sight.

Propping his arms on his friend's legs, the young Irishman straightened up, still smiling deviously. His eyes sparkled with plain delight at being with Joe, and yet at the same time were filled with a smoldering fire that made the other man's breath go hard.

"See?", Franky said after a long moment of cordial silence. "It's nothing to fear."

Intentionally pouting back at his comrade, Joe shook his head.

"I'm not afraid", he said, smacking his now rock-hard cock against his belly, grinning at the satisfying sound. "Does that look afraid?"

"Not really", Franky amended, still kneeling and looking up at Joe as if he was some angelic apparition.

A little hesitant, Joe reached out for his comrade's face, gently cupping his cheeks with his hands. It was so incredibly odd to touch a face that was familiar to him like no other in such a different way. Not that the touch in itself was different, but it was meant different.

Before, if they had touched at all, it had been in something they called 'mutual maintenance', looking for splinters in scrapes or tending to wounds. But never as a caress.

And there was no doubt that this was a caress, as gentle as Joe held his friend's face, as trusting as Franky leaned into the other man's touch, closing his eyes.

Slowly, Joe leaned forward, placing his lips on Franky's, taking great care, not to be swallowed by his friend's encompassing passion once again. This time, he wanted to explore, wanted to learn, wanted to cherish the fool-hearted adventure he had embarked on.

And explore him he did, indeed. With an enthusiasm that only fresh lovers could come up with, his kisses seemed to look for every possible variation two mouths could come up with, his tongue carefully caressing the other man's lips like a blind man's touch.

And despite his blazing desire to hurl Joe onto the bed and get to the real thing, Franky held still. Like a yearling not yet really broken in, he shivered with suppressed urge to move, to get active again. But Joe's caress held him as tight as any chain, curiosity and a strange kind of gratitude at his comrade's affection making him wait to see where Joe was going to.

When the two men finally separated, there was a distinct reddening around Joe's lips, an almost feverish shine to his eyes that made Frank gasp for breath. This was just the way he had imagined his friend would look in his private dreams, Joe's already improbably beautiful face infused with that certain, somewhat serene look that promised a long night filled with giddy pleasure.

"And what now?", Joe suddenly asked, his voice a little husky but only appropriately so.

"Whatever you want", Franky replied, eager to make him enjoy this first time in the selfish hope Joe would then be more inclined to embark on a second such adventure one of these days. Or a third, for that matter.

Biting on his lower lip, Joe seemed to ponder his option for a second, then smiled and ordered:

"Rise."

Wondering what his friend was up to, Franky did as he had been told, rising to his feet while not moving even half an inch further away from his comrade. Now standing in front of Joe, his throbbing hard cock all but poking at his face through the thin cotton of his shorts, Frank wondered what kind of passion he was awakening in his old friend.

But apparently, there was no need for concern, for after a tiny moment of hesitation, Joe reached out, gently caressing the hard bulge in his comrade's pants. Franky could see how much this moment irritated his friend, there was this quick blink and wavering smirk to his expression.

Joe looked up, something not so unlike anticipation in his eyes as well as a silent question Frank couldn't name. But then, before either could say a word, Joe smiled and took the waistband of Frank's shorts with a delicate and very deliberate motion. Slowly, as if to cherish each second, he pulled down that last concealing piece of clothing, taking great care not to wedge in his comrade's dick more than necessary.

Despite having dreamt of this moment so many times already, there was an almost electrifying quality to Joe's touch in Franky's eyes.

Still sitting on the rim of the bathtub, Joe smirked at the almost vibrantly erect cock in front of his face. This was odd, weird and utterly unprecedented. But intriguing, in a way. Enticing.

Gently laying his hands on Franky's hips, caressing his skin, he worked his way towards his comrade's dick. Fascinated by the simultaneous familiarity and yet utterly different perspective, he barely noticed how Franky grew even harder under his touch, his breath going deeper and deeper.

Only when Frank's fingers suddenly dug into Joe's shoulders for support, the young scout looked up.

Seeing his Irish friend dazed with passion made Joe grin widely, and encouraged him even more to try and make Frank moan.

Now not taking off his eyes of his friend, Joe started to massage the other man's cock serious, with what expertise he had been able to gather on his own body. And apparently, that was quite a lot. In what seemed to him like no time at all, he had Franky moaning, barely able to keep his hips from thrusting forward.
With fascination, Joe realized the head of Franky's cock was already glistening with slick moisture, and so sensitive even gently rubbing across it with but one finger made the other man shiver in lust.

In what felt to him like malicious glee, Joe gave his friend enough of a break so he could catch his breath again. Sitting calmly on his bath-tub, Franky's cock still firmly in his hands, he waited just long enough for Frank to open his mouth, trying to say something.

Then without warning, Joe leaned forward, swallowing as much of the dick in front of him as he could. Franky's attempt at intelligible language fizzled in another moan as Joe's tongue found all the right places along his dick, making his little remnant's of rational though wither away like snow in a bonfire.

Working on his comrade's dick, driven by the plain curiosity if he would be able to make Frank come like this, Joe didn't relent one bit, not even as the other man struggled to remain standing.

But in the end, it was Franky who pulled away. His face flushed, shivering all over with barely controlled desire, he managed to pull his cock free from Joe's grasp.

"I...", he stammered huskily, "We..."

Then his thought better than to try and talk, and instead pulled Joe up from his bath-tub, kissing him ferociously, this time their naked bodies pressed against each other for the sheer lust of feeling skin on skin.

When they finally separated, Franky shook his head in bemusement, gently tousling his suddenly so eager companion.

"Bed", he declared firmly, and Joe didn't mind one bit as Franky pulled him out of the bathroom.

----

"Commander, we have detected enemy vessels approaching fast!"

It took Joe Sullivan a second to make sense out of that information. But then again, he was standing on the landing platform of a British aerial fortress under the command of Commander Frank Cook, with the mysterious forces of doctor Totenkopf at his heels and a seething Polly Perkins at his side.

Unfortunately, the young officer's comment made perfect sense.

Just as unfortunately, it also brought into unpleasant focus that both Franky and Polly seemed intend on skewering him with their looks, though with utterly different reasons each.

Joe was still thinking of something brilliant to say to defuse the situation as the first grenade hit the fortress, its wobbling reverberations making it an all too conscious fact that they were some thousand feet above the ground.

Luckily, it was also interrupting enough that both Frank and Polly decided that saving their lives was more important than ripping his head off, at least for the time being. All of them fell in stride to run for the fortresses bridge, and the only thing Joe could think of was Polly's face if she should ever learn just how long he and Franky had shared their bed...

----

the end

 

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to: Osiris Brackhaus

HOME * LIBRARY