Spring Of Manhood

Prologue

I am a soldier. I suppose this describes me better than any other sentence.

I am a European soldier, living in this hectic turn of the millennium, experiencing the life and the world at their full extent... Or at least, I do my best to try.

I am a

continental

European, so forgive me for my poor English; it's not my native language. But I am proud of it, since it is far better than most of my countrymen, and the reason for that is going to be part of my story.

I am the last offspring of a family of soldiers. Both my grandfathers fought during World War one, the first in France, and the second one on the Alps, and won it; both of them came home, but the youngest survived just to die during World War two at El Alamein. Gold Medal.

My father was young enough to be a partisan. Survived a German reprisal in 1944, and at the end of the war was in the regular Army when peace was almost as hot and the communist armies were camping on our eastern borders.

He stayed in the Army all his life, and moved his family all across the country, as Army families do everywhere in the world. I grew up like that, moving once every three years, and came to know my homeland – and the Army - quite well.

Once, during a Regimental parade in one of the many garrisons we have been living in, the Colonel asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.

I did not hesitate a second; I proudly looked at my dad's ranks, and announced: "I will be a Captain!"

My father almost choked.

I was five.

I stuck to my word. I joined the Army in 1982, won my admission to the Academy and joined my first unit in 1987.

The world had changed in between those years.

We are a middle power in Europe. Contrary to the French, and thanks to the British, we had no colonies from which natives wanted to kick us out; contrary to the German, and thanks to the US, we had no major parts of the country to re-conquer; and contrary to the Brits, we had not a great imperial tradition to defend. So our post-war commitment had been minimal, and our Army had been a big garrison one.

But in 1982 we first went to Lebanon (which we never really left), and after that crisis started to arise everywhere in the world, closer and closer to our mainland... And ever a peace-loving establishment as ours started to build up.

When I got my first platoon, we were not a garrison Army anymore.

Understand me: we are not the US Army. We don't go everywhere, and we don't go there as heavy as they do. But we go to quite many places, many more than we can actually afford. Actually, in percentage (manpower abroad vs. total manpower) we were the second most committed nation in the world during the last ten years.

So, I have seen quite a lot of action.

I enjoyed it. I felt like I was taking an active part in the building up of a better world... Or at least in keeping the mess as far as possible from my home.

I believe serving overseas made me a better human being. It thought me, in the hard way, how to better understand the others, their strengths, their weaknesses and their peculiarities.

Coming to understand different peoples, also helped to better understand individuals close to me.

Women, in particular.

You must understand this: in order to achieve my main objective, joining the Officers Academy, I always studied like an idiot. I am not an idiot, I am a normal guy, with a slightly more than average IQ, but I always engaged with the most skilled counterparts, and in the most challenging schools: it was a matter of pride.

It was difficult. It took all of my energies and most of my time.

No time for girls, at my high school, I'm afraid.

Look, I wasn't a nerd, not even a geek. I found time for sports: skiing, swimming and judo. But almost no time was left for dancing, going out, flirting...

Hell, the problem is that I can't even remember girls I liked and couldn't get. I didn't even

notice

them!

I was just too committed. I always thought that if you really want something and you know it's difficult, then you have to commit yourself enough.

Enough, at the time, meant

completely

.

I managed.

When I marched into my first Unit, I was a confident soldier, but a lonely one, with no girlfriend back at home.

That also helped me in doing well. I become a good soldier, and a decent commander. I was ready when the game became serious.

And during time, I realized that the Army also did me well.

Almost suddenly, I was not shy anymore with girls; I grew self-confident, and knew how to behave, so I was ready to approach them, and to conquer them.

This is my story.

Spring of Manhood

I wasn't a virgin, when I joined the Army. I was just very inexperienced, while most of my colleagues were boosting scores of girls scattered all over the country.

But my first experience is rather enlightening, I suppose, about my unreadiness when it came to girls.

I completed my High School in an extremely good school in the Northwest, one of the safest and richest areas of the country, but not one of the most exciting.

All my friends were in my same situation: too much study, too few girls. I had no siblings, and the few girls of our class were either uninterested in flirts (too much studying as for us, I suppose), or engaged with guys from other schools or from the University.

Our few coming outs were boys-only things, involving lots of biking and wine tasting, lots of fantasies about girls, projects about girls, but few or no girls at all.

But anyway, there are always exceptions.

There were three pretty girls in my class.

The top-scoring one (in our special hit parade) was a petite brunette, strongly engaged with an older guy at the University, and she was studying really hard 'cause she wanted to manage into the most exclusive Medicine faculty around.

No.2 was a block of ice. A southerner, actually the daughter of one of my dad's men, very pretty but only ready to discuss homeworks... Got enough already, thanks.

No.3 was far more human. Quite pretty, athletic, muscled, long light brown hair, grey eyes, nice breasts, long legs, and a maybe slightly oversized bum. Friendly, not a heavy student (one of the worst in the class), but a clever and intelligent girl.

The kind of girl people was talking about as a "not serious" one, just because she was told having fucked a wild boy who was in our class two years before (the year I was not there yet), and eventually lost the year due to his poor score. Everybody was laughing when she claimed to be a "virgin", since it was pretty clear she meant she was a Virgo.

And

she was engaged.

Well, I care nothing if she had been fucking a bad guy two years before, and I was not engaged myself, so I had no problems. She was pretty and friendly, and I was horny and frustrated like only an 18-years-old boy with no girlfriend can be.

Problem was, I had no idea how to approach her, nor the time (or the courage) to try my chances with her.

Our final exams were closing, and tension was mounting. Final score at those exams was fundamental for the admission to University (or to the Academy for what I was concerned), so we were all quite stressed.

Silvia (that was the girl's name) was the only daughter of a policeman, and somehow was closer to my thinking than most of my other friends. One day we had a long discussion during the Philosophy lesson about the cold war and the international situation: it was the time the Soviets were deploying the

SS20

missiles against Europe, and President Reagan was pushing for Europeans to deploy Cruise missiles, the so-called

Euromissiles,

to counter them. There was a lot of unrest everywhere; I remember bad incidents at Greenham Common, in England, but also at home the debate was heating up. That time, most of students my age were quite left-wing and seemed to honestly believe that the Soviets were just defending themselves from "American Imperialism".

As it came out, only Silvia and I were in favour of getting those missiles deployed (the teacher was quite pleased with her class, and unpleased with Silvia and I), and we got a lot of shit from the most militant guys.

That happened on the last hour of the day.

When we left the school and I was walking towards the bus stop, I heard hooting behind me, and saw an ugly orange French car boarding the sidewalk. Silvia was a few months older than me, and got her driving license already, with a small car as a bonus from her dad, to go to school during the week and reach her boyfriend during the weekends.

It was quite a surprise to be invited on for a lift home.

Nothing happened, just small talks going home, but that became a habit: every morning Silvia would pick me up at my place to go to school, and then she would take me home. I got a friend, enjoyed sharing the car with a pretty girl and saved the bus money.

But, if possible, I got ever hornier.

Understand me: it was late spring, and girls' cloths were getting more and more brief... Apparently, Silvia had no bras in her closet, and her skirts were all very thin and transparent. Not to mention her ultra-tight jeans.

But still, that was just friendship. She behaved as an elder sister, clearly implying she was a woman and I was a boy... There were eight months difference between us, but the point was that she was engaged with a boy five years older and going to get married after the exams. Oh, well!

Right. The exams.

"What about preparing the exams together?"

The proposal quite surprised me. I was sailing my way with some distinction, but I was far from being the guy you want assistance from to prepare an exam. Typically, I was ok in most subjects, excellent in three and a catastrophe in two (including philosophy, wonder why).

But, as it turned out, we had the same subjects assigned for the final exam.

What would you do?

I chose against my better judgement for the first time in my life.

And I did well.

We set up our base at her place.

Silvia's mother loved me (that was going to be an embarrassing constant with my girlfriends), and since at the time they were building up a countryside house out of town, we ended up quite often being alone in their city flat.

No, she didn't jump on me. She really wanted to

study

with me, and I wanted to pass the damned exam too... This was real life, not a sexual fantasy (sigh!).

But still...

The most typical of the study room, and the most typical of the desks. Two students, one book to study together on. Two chairs very close to each other.

One boy and one girl, both swimmers and with broad shoulders. That means two shoulders too much to read comfortably with.

Already the second day, I just passed my arm across Silvia's shoulders to get closer, and she did not react.

For almost a week we studied like that, even in the early summer heat. I just enjoyed her young female scent, the contact with her skin... And dreamed a lot.

Then, one day, while studying the structure of planet Earth, I moved my right hand, from the tip of her shoulder, down to her collarbone and further south.

No reaction.

I knew the structure of the Earth, so I didn't need to concentrate; I ventured down her chest.

Silvia wore an old tee shirt, a

Fruit of the Loom

one, with that lovely oval rounding teenager girls' perky breasts... It was old and thin.

We were close to the iron nucleus of the planet, when I reached the upper outskirts of Silvia's fleshy right "nucleus".

It was the first time I touched a woman's breast. It was warm and soft, and still so full... I couldn't resist. I got a handful of her tit, holding tight. There was no mistake now: I was fondling her breast.

No reaction.

I squeezed delicately her tit, feeling a fast growing erection in my jeans. Gosh, what a sensation: I felt something growing hard against my palm. It was her nipple, growing as fast as my dick, only in a far less restrictive environment... I was expecting Silvia to slap me on the face any moment, or at least to protest...

No reaction.

I was mesmerized. I was openly playing with the tits of a very engaged girl, who already many times pointed out she was not only not interested in me, but in none of the boys of our class... And still, she was apparently only interested in my explanations about the Earth's iron nucleus!

We went on for almost an hour like that, with me having no idea about my next step, and Silvia showing her best interest into geology.

Then her mother was back. We got a fresh coffee, and I went home, flushed like if I just got my first

sexperience

...

And I had indeed.

We went on like that for a couple of days, rehearsing Contemporary History and Natural Sciences (our assigned subjects), with Silvia tossing the pages and me probing her breasts without any sign of a reaction from her.

I was mesmerized by her lack of returns, either positive or negative, and really had no idea how to proceed. Gosh, I was so excited and frustrated at once!

The situation was further complicated by the fact that her mum was at home quite a lot, leaving me no ground to try and play more heavily and to trigger some sort of a reaction by my unnerving and teasing schoolfriend.

I tried to unlock the stalemate by inviting her out for a pizza on Thursday night, but her fiancée was coming from the University and she was understandably busy that evening... And of course the same was for the entire weekend.

Too bad.

I spent my weekend studying hard maths (that exam was written and we rather prepared it alone) and planning harder about my next move; I was far more successful with my maths.

We met again on Monday, and it was quickly clear to me that the situation was still unchanged: I was allowed free trips on her chest, and got no returns; Silvia's mum was also constantly around, leaving me no options but going on studying.

To my surprise, it was Silvia who finally broke the stalemate.

"Mum," she asked her mother when she took us a coffee, "Do we have any Cola around?"

"I think there are some packages down in the cellar," was the answer, "I am not sure."

Silvia smiled at me, and suggested: "What about going downstairs and having a look? It would be nice to get something fresh."

I was all for it. The history of the Workers' Movement before the Great War was getting on my nerves, and my poor dick was hurting inside my jeans; having a walk in the cellar seemed to me the most appealing of the ideas.

Silvia's home basement was quite old... I could understand their desire for a new house in the countryside. It was dark and humid, and the air smelled of dump.

Silvia walked ahead of me in the corridor leading to the cellar, and I could admire the shape of her legs, very evident through her thin skirt in the dim light of the naked bulb in the ceiling.

Suddenly, there was an odd noise, and Silvia jumped.

"Oh my God!" she shrieked, "A mouse! There is a mouse!"

It was like in a Disney cartoon: the girl jumps in the air yelling with fright, and ends up in the astonished boy's arms, while the poor, harmless mouse looks puzzled and then disappears laughing.

The only variation was that I noticed no mice, laughing or not. Silvia was up in my arms, clenched at my neck and breathing heavily, shacking like if she saw a ghost.

I said she was an athletic girl, as tall as me (well, maybe a couple of centimetres taller), and not on the skinny side. I mean, about 70 kilos of thick bones and well-developed muscles. Nothing to manage lightly.

So, I held her firmly and tight to me, trying to balance on my feet. I had her underarms on my right arm and her knees folded around the left; her skirt had skipped up her legs, and I was enjoying the contact with her naked thigh skin, while her heaving breasts were almost pushing against my face.

If it wasn't for the weight, I could have signed for a full month in that position...

"Ehi, calm down!" I laughed, as a real man does when defending the lady, "There is nothing here."

Silvia held herself tighter, folding my shoulders, and I felt her breath in my ear.

"Are you sure?"

I didn't want to let go of her, but I couldn't keep her in the air forever, so I lay with my back against the wall, still holding her tight.

"'Course I am. Come on, don't be scared: I'm here."

What a phrase. Cary Grant would be proud of me.

"Hold me tight, Roberto," she whispered in my ear, making me shiver, "Hold me, please..."

Well, how clueless can an almost-eighteen boy be? There was a limit to my shyness, and I knew well Silvia was not a stupid girl.

I breathed deep, and I closed my mouth on her lips.

They burned.

I felt her naked arms clenching around my neck, her fingers playing with my hair, and finally, our mouths met.

My knees shacked when our tongues made contact, and then intertwined.

I could not believe it: we were kissing!

How romantic: my first actual French-kissing session took place in the dampest and smelliest of the basements of my city.

I let go of Silvia's legs, and she slowly slipped with her feet back on the floor, her full body pressing against mine. With my right arm I kept holding firmly her shoulders, while my left hand slipped around her hips and then down on her firm bum.

From our mouths to our tiptoes, we were pushing against each other as hard as we could. I was tasting the humid warmth of her mouth, and at the same time I was fondling her shapely buttocks, slowly pulling up her skirt, while Silvia was clearly probing my crotch with her thigh.

I had never been so excited before in my life, I wanted that moment to last forever...

I WAS KISSING A GIRL!

I knew I was at a turning point in my life; I was savouring a moment that was to stay fixed in my mind forever... I wanted to exploit the situation at the maximum extent, and in the meantime I didn't want to run the risk to spoil the moment.

I was enjoying it, but again, I had no idea what to do next.

Again, due to my lack of experience, I ended up leaving the initiative to Silvia.

She kept her naked arms behind my neck and her body against mine, but she parted her lips and smiled at me, joyfully.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

"Hmmm..." I muttered, "Yes, I do. I like it a lot."

"Good..."

I felt her leg move against my crotch sensually, and there was no doubt she was probing my erection through my jeans.

I kept both my hands on her large, firm ass, feeling her hard, muscled buttocks through the thin material of her skirt under my fingers, while her hand slipped down my shoulder and between the two of us, until she reached down to my fly.

God, Silvia was touching my crotch, testing the dimension of my engorged cock!

"Hmmm... Yes, I can feel you like it," she hissed smiling, "Wow, you really do..."

Not knowing what to do, I just resumed kissing her deep, and started again lifting the hem of her skirt. As before, Silvia didn't stop nor encouraged me, but readily answered my kiss.

I was exploring the depths of her warm mouth with my eager tongue, when my fingers reached the hem of the skirt and came to contact with the soft skin of her upper thighs.

I felt her shiver.

I tried to suck the air out of her mouth, and she jiggled. My hands reached the fold between the thighs and the buttocks.

Her hand clenched on my crotch.

I moaned in her mouth, and she answered in kind.

I grabbed her naked buttocks tight, and pulled her full body against me. She didn't resist, not even when I got hold of her thin cotton panties, and started moving them aside.

I started sipping her saliva, and it tasted wonderful. At the same time, I started exploring the crack between her buttocks: it felt warm and damp. I moved my fingertips further, and I reached the first curl.

I was touching her pussy!