Author's note: The following incidents are probably mostly fictional, even just plain fantasy. All sex involves living humans aged 18+, even the civilians. The story contains multiracial, bisexual, and anal elements; if you object, stop reading. Views expressed are not necessarily the author's. Information may not be totally accurate. It is just a story, folks.
The first chapter,
FotoFun: Angle of View 01
, contains necessary background info. Read it first.
*****
FotoFun: Angle of View 02
If you gotta have one
have a Big Red One!
*****
The time: after VietNam
The place: Fort Riley, Kansas
The situation: About as good as could be expected
The one thing dependable about Army life is that is
is
dependable. This is state socialism, folks. Everything important is controlled from above. Everything necessary is supplied, free or cheap. Goodies at the PX (Post Exchange store) are subsidized. Room and board are provided for those lacking resources. Hours are fixed. Hierarchies are well-known. A place for everyone, and everyone in their place. Be here now - it is almost Zen.
Dependability and continuity. Do things "by The Book." If you stick to The Book you can never be faulted, never be blamed - your career is set. If you do something crazy that is not in The Book and you fuck up, well, that is just too bad. If you do something crazy and you succeed, your maneuver goes into The Book and you get promoted just to get you out of the way. That is how it works.
Hey, revolutionaries: you are NOT going to infiltrate the military and transform it from within. It is bigger than you. It will devour you. How to survive here? Another Zen thing: Go with the flow.
--- Ben's appointment
Ben Beahr caught me emerging from my DivArty darkroom a couple days after re-uniting me with Darcy T'oussaint. I saluted smartly. I had to take the public role-playing seriously. I mean, it's the fucking Regular Army!
"Lieutenant Beahr, sir, good afternoon. Anything I can do for you, sir?"
Ben lazily returned my salute. "At ease, Specialist Carson. Yes, there is. Lieutenant T'oussaint requests another meeting, outdoors this time, some place secure, if you catch my drift." His thin smile and crinkled eyes suggested the direction of the drift. "At your standard rates, of course."
"Why, yes sir, I believe I can arrange that. Do you have a time in mind?"
"We're off-duty this Saturday. She has a Sunday shift, and we're otherwise occupied most weekdays, same as you, so the soonest Saturday, the better."
"Got it, sir. This Saturday is fine, but for the best light we need to shoot either real early or real late in the day. Dawn and dusk are the magic hours for outdoor work."
"Hmmm, early or late? Which would you recommend?"
"There's different dynamics." (I looked around; nobody was in voice range.) "A dawn shoot starts cool so exposed flesh shows goosebumps and, ah, stiff nipples. And we only get good light till the sun is up just so far, so it tends to be rushed. A dusk shoot on a warm day starts more comfortably and I can extend past sundown with flashes and reflectors. Less hurry-up then."
Three senior DivArty staff officers walked by. Ben and I shut up and saluted. They were safely down the hallway before we spoke again.
"Let's do a dusk shoot, then. No need to rush. And we may have someone else with us - an independent observer, if you will. Well, maybe not
too
independent." His smile was not quite a smirk.
"Yessir, an observer, oh boy, sir," I taunted, throwing another snappy salute. Ben brushed it away.
"Don't be a smartass, Ron. Where do we go and when do we get there? Meet at your apartment? Maybe the four of us will all ride in your van?"
"Yeah, be there at four-thirty. We'll work on the setup together, y'know, picking angles, positioning lighting gear, stuff like that. Nothing hard but it has to be done before we burn any film. I use a farm a half-hour away; it's sheltered from prying eyes. I'll pack blankets as groundcovers. You and your 'companions' should wear comfortable clothes and bring warm coverups in case we run late. Bring hot and cold drinks, and snacks, too, say three pizzas - they'll stay warm on the van's engine cover. It'll be a working picnic."
"Got it. Four-thirty, your place, fully provisioned, don't be late, right?"
"Roger that, sir. Don't forget the Anchor Steam."
"Good enough. Carry on, Specialist Carson." We exchanged ironic salutes and went our ways.
.
--- outdoor session
I had configured my old Chevy van with a single wide bench behind the front buckets. The rear area was open for crates of power supplies and batteries, lighting gear and reflectors, tripods, blankets and tarps and frames, a cooler for film, folding chairs, stools, and tables - all the usual impedimenta needed for location shoots.
Ben's red Mazda RX5 pulled into the next parking space. Ben and a taller woman emerged; Darcy squirmed from the tiny rear seat after tossing two small duffels to the ground. Her Haitian eyes squinted at the sun.
"Shit, that was tight! When do you get your T-Bird out of the shop, Judi?" Darcy stretched inside her tight denim jumper and shook her toned dark body.
"Next week, no sooner." The woman looked at me, then at Ben.
"Oh, sorry. Hey funky Ron, I mean Specialist 5th Carson, meet deadly Judith, I mean 1st Lieutenant Cadigan. She's a whiz kid in PsyOps at Division G2."
G2 is Intel / Security: the spook shop. PsyOps is Psychological Operations, which means propaganda and disinfo. So Judi must be a professional liar.
"PsyOps, huh?"
I appraised the striking redhead: A lovely face with piercing green eyes and a neutral expression; great curvaceous body, not far under six feet tall; pale skin swarming with freckles; thin red mid-thigh sundress matching her fluffy hair; dark sandals on lean, sinuous feet at the end of long runner's legs.
"Should I believe anything you say? Should I avoid saying anything to you?"
"You and I have nothing to hide as long as you're not a Commie tool or dupe." The humorous crinkling of her eyes and lips belied her stern voice.
"Oh, he's some kind of tool, all right," Darcy laughed.
"And he was a dupe for Roxanne, no shit," Ben added, naming an underground cartoonist's girlfriend I had obsessed over years before. "But as a Marxist, she was more into Groucho Marx than Karl. And bite marks. Lots of'em."
Goddam Roxanne the sex-marxist. Bite marks, claw marks, bruises, rope burns - I needed antibiotic ointments after every session with her. But I gave as good as I got. Of course her guy Clay found us out. And of course he wrote and drew me into his most vile comix as the most vile evil character. Sure, I deserved that. What a way to be immortalized!
"Tool and dupe, yeah, that's me," I sighed. "But don't get me going about Commies. Maoists ruined my radio career. That's part of why I'm here in-"
"Shut up, Ron," Ben interrupted. "Tell that story another time. Let's get this show on the road or whatever." He extricated beers, thermos bottles, and pizza boxes from his Mazda's little trunk.
"Okay, later then," I said. "But who's Judi and why's she here?"
Darcy blushed. "Well, she's sort of our other roommate."
I stared at Ben. "You dawg! A hot L-T trio, right here in River City? Lord have mercy!"
Ben smiled. "What can I say? Life is good."
We loaded Ben's supplies and the duffels. Ben and Darcy snuggled on the bench seat; Judi rode shotgun.
"You don't have to tell me the Maoist story," Judi said as we headed out. "I read your file. You were going to engineer at a new San Francisco community radio station but it was hijacked by Reds who only let ideologically pure dupes on staff. They dumped you, planted joints on you, got you busted. You couldn't get real jobs after that so you eventually enlisted. Poor baby."
I shrugged. "Shit happens. Here I am. It all works out."
"That's very Zen of you."
"Nichiren Shoshu, actually. Close enough. And no, I don't believe that stuff. It makes a nice distraction, though. The best way to get through a hundred pushups is chanting a good mantra."
I cut through town traffic and took the highway out to a county road across the prairie. I kept my mouth shut until then. I looked across at Judi.
"And do you have a story?"
It was Judi's turn to shrug.
"Like you said, shit happens. I have Ivy League degrees in communications and psychology. I made some, umm, shall we say, sub-optimal personal choices that forced me out into what passes for the real world." She waved a toned arm at the countryside. "I have a talent for making shit up persuasively. Those lousy personal choices and my weakness with truth are tied together and made me what I am today. When I'm through with the Army I'll probably be in public relations, spin-doctoring, shit like that. All from bad choices."
"Is Ben a good choice?"
"Your buddy Benjamin's family and mine go 'way back. We grew up close in Seattle but he wasn't in my path of destruction, wasn't in the thickets I mowed through, so to speak. He was safely neutral. He's slick, y'know; he'll be a chief of staff somewhere someday, running things from backstage."
Yes, Ben was a sly one. Maybe I will tell his 'kingmaker' story later.
"But anyway, the Army did its thing, and I got sent here and I ran into Ben, and he just seemed a safe refuge. And with Darcy..."
Judi glanced at me and then stared at the horizon.
"Maybe I'm a sucker for safe refuges. This works for me now. That's all."
We rolled down sunflower-lined roads. The engine drowned Ben and Darcy's whisperings. My eyes occasionally wandered to Judi's well-turned legs.
I shoved a tape into the stereo and called to Ben and Darcy over the engine noise. "Hey, that Topeka band that used to play the clubs around here? Jim taped them jamming in his barn last week. Their new song ain't bad."
Yeah,