Shipping Out

All characters are over 18. The main body of the story is about a first time experience of a young man and a mysterious lady he meets by the river. That's why I categorized it as "First Time".

The only kernel of truth is that as a kid, I used to listen to the older gents at my dad's bar talk about the War. One of them was a radioman/navigator on a B-26 and was stationed in Shreveport.

My thanks as always to LarryInSeattle.

*****

It was too hot for walking, even along the river. Earlier in the week the temperature had topped one hundred degrees. Here it is the middle of September and the temperature is over a hundred. Al shook his head in disgust, adding that fact to the others on his mental list of why he hated Louisiana. In the back of his mind, but not as far back as he'd have preferred, he was certain that before long, he'd give almost anything to be back in Louisiana. This was not the tony part of the riverfront. The good people of Shreveport would wave their flags, rummage through collapsing old sheds for scrap metal, collect kitchen fat, and drive on tires that were more the fading idea of what a tire should be than an actual tire. Just don't ask them to welcome a bunch of enlisted men from across the country to the nice parts of town.

Al and his compatriots had not been shunted to the colored part of town, they were white after all, but it was clear they were large parts of town where they were not welcome. The bull neck cops and worse, the MPs, made sure they stayed in the unofficial, but all too real, designated areas. At one time, before the Depression settled its haunches over the country and decided to rest a spell, this stretch of riverfront sported an asphalt path. Now the chunks of broken asphalt lurking under the weeds were more hindrance than help as far as an evening stroll was concerned.

The uneven pavement, the goddamn heat, and the fucking goddamn mosquitos rendered the idea of a relaxing stroll along the river a bad joke. Al had been shocked at how frequently the F word was tossed about. And he was from the Bronx for Christ's sake. Some of the rubes from East Armpit, Iowa still blanched at the word. Al was beginning to find it a pretty fucking useful word.

He fingered the new stripes on his sleeve, wondering how much he cared if he got busted for being caught out of uniform. He hadn't mailed the letter to his mother telling her of his graduation and promotion. If they busted him back to corporal so what? He compromised. He unbuttoned the dress jacket (dress uniform was required when in town on a pass) and loosened his tie but did not shuck the jacket off. An unexpected breeze puffed under his jacket. It felt like a blessing from God Almighty himself. He flapped his coat trying to dry his shirt off.

"Careful sugar pie. Some drunk redneck will mistake you for a duck and shoot your ass before you have a chance to win the war."

Al jumped, staring down the path, trying to make out who had spoken to him out of the gloom. He cursed the lack of street lights. Goddamn it, he hated the entire damn South, not just Louisiana.

"Over here."

It sounded like 'oovah heah' to Al, who was totally oblivious to his own thick Bronx accent. He spotted her when she waved, a dark shape against the faint light escaping from the painted windows of the bars. They weren't painted because of the war and the blackout. The town's good Baptists didn't appreciate their neighbors peeking in and catching them knocking back a few. The Catholics didn't give a shit but the Baptists sure did. The windows of Shreveport's bars had been painted long before Herr Hitler and Mr. Moto came looking for a fight.

"Come on and sit down. Take a load off, soldier."

Her voice was low, not high pitched and chirpy like so many girls. Having nothing better to do and not wanting to admit he was lonely, Al angled his way up the small embankment to the chipped concrete bench. He brushed the bench off, mindful of his dress uniform, and sat. The woman crossed her legs the other way and shifted to face him.

"Let me guess, seventy-two hour pass and too far from home to use it?," she clucked her tongue in sympathy. "That's the army for you. Shipping out, huh?"

Al said nothing and the woman tossed her head back and chuckled.

"Good for you sugar, never hurts to be careful but I'm not a German spy honey pie. The whole town knows you boys are taking off for Florida day after tomorrow." She shook her head. "All you boys, the ones you haven't buried here leastways, and your bright shiny Marauders are off to war. Your bunks will barely be aired out before the next batch arrives, needing to learn a rudder from a bathtub and a sextant from a zipper." She gave her head a toss and straightened her shoulders. "Sorry, sugar. Tonight's not a night for reflection. Tonight's a night to forget about this crazy mixed up old world."

She stood and sat back down beside him, the fingers of one hand trailing over the back of his neck. He could smell her perfume, something soft and floral, not overpowering and sickly sweet. She rested her other hand on his chest. He hoped she couldn't feel his heart pounding.

Like all recruits, Al lied like a sonofabitch about his sexual prowess. The truth was that at nineteen his experience was limited to a couple of feels of a sweaty boob through the top of a sweater or blouse, not even the nipple mind you, just the top of the boob. Sophia, his girl, had touched him through his trousers the night before he left for basic but that was it.

Her hand drifted down from his chest. She leaned closer and rested her arm on his belly, the fingers of that hand began to caress his side. Her fingernails made a soft sound on the fabric of his shirt. The side of her face was warm on his chest. Her breath smelled of cloves.

He twisted to meet her. They kissed but only lightly, a bare touching of the lips. He reached for her.

"Careful of my hair sugar. I can't afford to get it done more'n once a week."

He rested his hand on her shoulder, not sure if he should try to feel her breast or not. She moved before he had a chance to decide.

"Hand me your jacket, honey," she whispered. He leaned forward and pulled his arms out of the jacket. She folded it and placed it on the ground. He opened his mouth to protest but she knelt on it before he could form the words.

"I know you're too much of a gentleman to want me to risk ruining my stockings sugar," she purred as she reached for his belt.

Al was in shock. He froze as she unbuttoned his belt and unfastened his trousers. He was hard already. He'd gotten hard at the touch of her fingers on the back of his neck. She fumbled in the gaping fly of his trousers. Her fingers found the opening of his boxers and her cool fingers touched his prick. He moaned softly into the night air. The bullfrogs did not appear to mind. They continued their croaky serenade.

She freed his prick from his shorts. Al stared at it. He never imagined his prick like this, sticking out his pants with a pretty woman wrapping her fingers around it. He grew up in the Bronx. He hadn't needed an army barracks to hear about blow jobs but if he was honest with himself, he still wondered if it wasn't a bunch bullshit. Would a woman really do that to a man?

She leaned forward and took the crown of his prick into her mouth and his question was answered. As far as he was concerned, it was answered in the best possible way.

She pushed her mouth over his prick. He was amazed when he felt her nose bump against his belly. When she pulled her mouth back, her hand followed. Her other hand rested behind his back. She pulled him toward her mouth, urging him with her hand to fall into the rhythm of her slowing rising and falling mouth and the maddening grip of her fingers.

Al was a nineteen-year-old virgin. He would return to the barracks with tales about how they had fucked for hours but in truth it was barely a matter of minutes. For a virgin getting his first blow job, he did admirably. He ran through the line-up of his beloved Yankees. Who was the hottest hitter this season? It looked like they'd face the Cardinals again. The Yanks had swept them in '28. He saw no reason they couldn't do it again.

Sitting on the bus, half-asleep, riding back to the base, he wonder if he should have focused on the Yankees losing seasons, not the wins. No sooner had he imagined another Yankee sweep of the series than he came.

He came so hard it frightened him. He was sure she had broken something inside him. It felt so good but hurt as well. His balls contracted and felt like they were lodged someplace near his stomach. The outpouring from his body was so vigorous, so voluminous, it hurt his prick. It felt like it would explode from the pressure.

She did not seem to mind. He was so lost in what was happening to him he had no concern about whether or not he was breaking some rule of polite society by cumming in her mouth. That would be a worry for another day. At the moment, her nose was pressed hard against his belly, one hand pressed to his back, the other squeezing the base of his prick, trying with little success to control his output.

He felt something warm flow from her chin and onto his balls. His body jerked a few more times and it was over. She held him in her mouth until he grew soft. He sat there panting, confused and delighted and, for the first time in weeks, totally unperturbed about the future.

She kissed his prick, right on the top of it before rising. He saw her lick her fingers clean.

"You stay safe sugar, hear me? You stay safe now. I'll pray for you. I pray for all of you."

She turned and walked away. Al never knew her name.

The next morning in the showers, he stood baffled by the hoots and hollers of his buddies, until he looked down and saw he had bright red lipstick smeared on his cock. He looked up, a genuine smile plastered on his face, shrugged and stepped into the shower.

He survived. Not all his buddies did. Now, he was an old man. His wife was gone. His kids were grown and scattered. There was only Al and a handful of others from his bomber group left and few of them were fit enough to attend the reunions. He forgot a lot of the war, a blessing he was happy to accept. He lost his cherry in Puerto Rico, the night before they took off for the leg to Brazil. They lost three planes on the leg from Brazil to the Azores, lost many more before they left North Africa for England.

Al never forgot his crewmates, never forgot his classmates who had sweated beside him in the Louisiana heat and humidity learning Morse code and the secrets of radio navigation.

He never forgot those few minutes by the Red River, on a chipped concrete bench in late September of 1942 either.

---

Stan walked slowly back to the house he shared with his mother. It wasn't the heat that slowed his steps as much as the overwhelming sense of sadness that hovered over him. He'd been unable to shake the sadness. No amount of hard work, no amount of prayer, of cooling off in the river, of fishing, nothing had penetrated his sadness.

He had gone down to volunteer on December 8th, almost a year ago now, like hundreds of others. He was home in time for the President's speech to Congress. He had stood in line with the rest. He knew one of the sergeants behind the long wooden table. He made sure he was in another line. Still, when he got to the desk, the man leaned over and whispered in the ear of the sergeant facing him. The unknown sergeant had looked up at him with a cold face that grew redder by the minute. He had handed Stan his papers back, looked around him and hollered, "Next!"

Stan had refused to move. Asked why, the man he knew answered, "Moral turpitude. If we need your kind to win, we should surrender."

No one questioned why he wasn't in uniform. He got some stares from strangers but not his neighbors. His mother was a widow. He was an only child. He was a welder, a job considered vital. None of that mattered. He wanted to serve. He wanted to do more than buy bonds and wave good-bye. One of my kind, he often pondered that phrase. No one knew better than he that the sergeant was "one of his kind". The man hadn't minded "his kind" as he sucked his dick. The burly sergeant had a talented mouth himself. It made no sense.

He eased open the door of the tool shed. That door had the most well oiled hinges to be found in the county. He popped a clove into his mouth and then slipped off the wig. He ran his hand over the stubbly crew cut, the only hairstyle that made sense for a man in the heat of Louisiana. He undressed quickly, examining the knees of his stockings for holes before packing them away in the old leather valise that smelled of mothballs. He quickly pulled on the white work shirt, jeans, and boots. He sniffed at himself, making sure the scent of his perfume remained on the dress and not on his body before easing back out of the shed. He crossed the yard and clumped up the steps.

When he opened the door his mom yelled from behind her closed bedroom door.

"That you, Stanley?"

"No, ma. I'm a burglar."

"Don't be a wiseacre young man. You been drinking?"

"No, ma I haven't touched a drop." He smiled to himself thinking, "of booze at least."

He stopped in the kitchen, spit the clove he'd been chewing into the trash bin, drank lukewarm water from the tap, and climbed the back stairs to his small bedroom. He bit back a groan of relief when his cock, tucked between his legs and held in place by underwear too small for him, was freed from its prison. His mother couldn't manage the stairs anymore. He stretched out on the bed naked, no longer afraid his mother would catch him unaware some morning.

The room was hot, hotter than the night air. The heat of the day remained trapped under the sloping eaves. The curtains hung limply. There wasn't so much as a breath of a breeze. The window screen rang softly as moths beat against it, trying to reach the dim light of the bedside lamp. Stan left the light on. He wanted to gaze at his cock.

He didn't hate his cock. He got a kick out of dressing up and it made it easier to find a dick to suck, provided the light was low and he kept the guy at arm's length. He always shaved before he went out but even with a heavy layer of make-up, he didn't dare give in to his desire to be kissed. There was no way to completely hide his stubble. He didn't dare give into the desire to let a date, that's how he thought of them, hold his head.

Before the war, before gas coupons, he'd managed to make it to Dallas on occasion and even once took the train to New Orleans. It had been in New Orleans that he'd met the sergeant who had grown to take such offense at "his kind". Stan had said nothing when the man told him he was stationed in Shreveport. When they bumped into each other back in Shreveport they ignored each other. Not every trip was a success but enough of them were for him to realize he wanted more than to blow a guy in an alley. He wanted to touch and be touched, kiss and be kissed. He wanted to make love. That seemed like an impossibility for the duration. Yet another reason to feel depressed.

He dreamed of moving to New Orleans. He could find all the work he wanted in the shipyards and, in his spare hours he would have a helluva lot better chance at satisfying his other needs. He dreamed of it but he knew he wouldn't do it, not as long as his mother was alive. He would not abandon her.

He fondled his cock as he recalled the firm muscles of the airman's side, muscles he had tickled beneath the man's shirt. God alone knew how he had longed to see the airman naked. He pictured them skinny-dipping in the Red River. Splashing out of the water, laughing, shaking their head to clear the water out of their ears. He could see the man, see his skin sparkling like diamonds as the sun glittered in the water drops. He would use both hands to rub the water off his face and dashed the drops trapped in his short hair.

His armpits would be thick with black hair, his chest firm, with a small cross of hair. His belly would be taut, smooth except for the dark line of hair that would lead Stan's eyes to the man's cock jutting out of the thick black curls.

He could see all of this. He could see the man's cock grow beneath his gaze, see the heat build in the man's eyes. He could hear the hiss of pleasure as he flicked his tongue over the young man's nipple. He would taste his cock again. Only this time the man's hand would hold his head as he sucked him.

He would lie back in the coarse grass and the young man would fuck him and they would kiss. Stan had never been fucked, even on his trips to the city. He dreamed of it. On occasion, he would go to the trouble of finding something to push into his ass. Not tonight though, tonight he simply dreamed of it as his fist began to pound his cock.

When he came, it was with the usual mixture of relief and regret, regret that all his pleasure had been confined to memory and fantasy. Reality was his cramped room under the eaves of a small house near the wrong side of town. Reality was dressing up as a woman in hopes of satisfying what was becoming the least of his desires.

He cleaned himself off as he always did, wiping the jizz off his chest and belly and eating it. He fell asleep wondering if he would have still ended up like this if his dad had survived. There wasn't much available on the subject in the Shreveport public library but what little there was suggested his perversion arose from having an over-bearing mother.

Some weekends Stan would stay home or take his mom to the cinema. He could only invent so many girlfriends. Once or twice a month, he told his mother, as she shuffled toward her bedroom, that he was going out for a couple beers. He'd detour by the tool shed, wait to ensure the lights were off in the house, check for any stray neighbors and head for the park along the river bank.

Al survived the war. Stan, the "woman" who had taken Al's cherry, at least as far as blow jobs were concerned, did not.

It wasn't Stan's fault. He had not grown careless or foolish. It wasn't even a serviceman, just some back bayou Cajun in town for the work and the money. Stan had asked him not to touch his hair. In the heat of the moment, the man grabbed his head and the wig came off in his hands. Stan should have run but he wanted his wig. It had cost him a train ticket, a lot of money and a lot of embarrassment. He was grabbing for it when the man punched him in the throat. He lay on the ground gasping for breath as the man began to kick him. He thought it was kind of funny that the man still had a hardon.

The man may not have intended to kill him. Who knows? It doesn't matter anyway. A couple of the kicks connected with the side of Stan's head. Steel-toed work boots do a great deal of damage, whether intended or not.

Stan's body was found the next morning, half in the Red River, half out. If his body was supposed to have floated away, it failed. The stockings he took such good care of were ruined. If he had survived the beating, the loss of his stockings would have pissed Stan off more than the loss of his wig. The cops didn't look for his killer, not after they realized it was a man in a dress not a woman in a dress. They got a lot of fun watching Stan's mother's face as she identified the body of her son, lying with his head oddly distorted and his body clad in a muddy dress.

She only outlived Stan by a few months. The neighbors knew about Stan of course. Shreveport was as much a small town as it was a city. They avoided her, mostly because they had no idea what to say to her. It was a few days before anyone noticed the papers piling up in the yard. A few days in the Louisiana heat does some powerful things to a body. The cops gagged and puked when they pushed open her door. That would have pleased her.