Chapter 8
You want to put WHAT on my penis?...
Zach sat on the edge of the low, rail-less deck with Cage on his right and JAM on his left. Max and Ragnor sat on low beach chairs in front of them.
They were all swigging down longnecks, having been banished by Commander MacLean to a perimeter of no closer than ten feet from his precious grill. They had been giving grilling advice which had not been appreciated by MacLean. Touchy, touchy!
Sammy was a short distance away, near a sand dune, blowing bubbles that Madrene had given him, thus giving Zach a short breathing period. Zach figured that should occupy him for, oh, say, five minutes. The kid had the attention span of a gnat.
“How’s the WEALS program going?” Max asked. All the SEALs had nicknames. Torolf’s was Max...short for Magnusson.
Zach rolled his eyes.
“We’re treatin’ them with kid gloves, and they think we’re torturin’ them,” Cage said.
“Wait till next week when we start IBSes.” The hated Inflatable Boats, Small were the bane of every trainee who had ever tried to be a webfoot warrior, though necessary in the field.
Some considered that phase of BUD/S even worse than Hell Week.
“I ’spect we’ll have a dozen DORs the first day.
That bell’ll be ringin’ like a Salvation Army Santa. Talk about!”
“And Britta? How’s she doing?” Max asked.
“She’s holding up,” Zach said.
“Holding up what?” Geek asked with wide-eyed innocence as he joined them. Sometimes Zach suspected that Geek wasn’t as naive as he pretended to be.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” he snapped.
“Hah! Like your mind isn’t there most of the time,” JAM commented. He ducked when Zach tried to swat him with his free hand.
“As to your question, Max, the WEALS will train for one year, under less stringent conditions, and have weaker bodies in general...” He shrugged. “Would you want one of those covering your six in a black op?”
“Hell, no!” the rest of them said.
“Still, there might be a place for them. No, there will be a place for them,” JAM, ever the fair one, said. “This country is in anti-terrorism mode, and probably will be for the next century. We need every breathing body we can get to help with the good fight.”
JAM’s defense of the WEALS program wasn’t surprising, and he was right. This country needed every able-bodied man...and woman...to fight the ever-increasing tangos in the world.
“Besides, I suspect the one-year WEALS program, if it succeeds, is going to end up being a two or three-year deal, just like SEALs,” Zach speculated.
“What’s the latest with Arsallah?” Ragnor wanted to know.
“Still making lots of noise. Our government doesn’t deal with terrorists.
..at least not publicly, but the Afghan government is now claiming Sammy belongs in his native country.
And the Department of State is on my tail, too, wanting me to grant concessions to avoid alienating the tenuous government there. ”
“I’m thinkin’ it’s a Taliban pride kinda thing,” Cage said, tugging at the stupid gold loop in one of his ears. “The U.S. representing some imperial warrior kinda monster tryin’ ta destroy Afghan culture.”
“In other words, a propaganda nightmare,” Geek remarked.
“What kind of concessions?” Max asked. Being a fairly new father, Zach suspected that he was more conscious of the paternal instinct. “Surely not a shared custody because you gotta know, once they get him, they’re never letting him come back.”
“I know. Ironically, to Arsallah, Sammy is racially impure. I’ve gleaned this from bits and pieces Sammy reveals. When Arsallah looks at him, he doesn’t see half-Afghan, he sees half-American. No blood bond there.”
“And worse,” JAM added, “Sammy was fathered by a Navy SEAL, number one on the Taliban hit list.”
“I don’t think they would use Sammy as a suicide bomber, nothing that drastic, but my greatest fear is that they would use him in some political way. Train him to speak against America...and me, representing the U.S. military.”
“When do those bodyguards hired by your father arrive?” Geek asked.
“Monday. Plain clothes, of course. Two in Sammy’s vicinity at all times until this whole mess settles down.”
They all nodded their understanding of the need for protection.
“You making any progress with your son?” Ragnor asked.
“Not much,” he answered honestly. “He resents me for not coming for him the instant his mother died. And he resents me for having abandoned his mother, too, when she was pregnant. Not that he says so in those words. In his potty mouth lingo, he pretty much says, you humped my mother, then left.”
All the guys grinned.
“It’s not funny.”
They still grinned.
“Dickheads,” he muttered and took a long draw on his beer, meanwhile checking out Sammy. He was still blowing bubbles, but he was blowing them at some sea gulls that were trying to pick a few crumbs left on the beach. The gulls ignored him.
“I’m ready to ditch this party after we eat...if MacLean ever gets that filet done. How about a lift to the Wet and Wild?” JAM was speaking to Geek.
“Yeah, I’m in the mood for a little...dancin’.” Cage waggled his eyebrows to indicate it was more than dancing he had in mind, though the Cajun did love his two-step.
Geek’s face turned red. “Sorry. I’m not going in that direction.”
“Oh?” Zach said. “Big date?”
He hadn’t really meant anything by his question, except Geek’s face turned even redder. Geek gave the impression of being sexually inexperienced, but, hell, at his age he was no virgin. So, why the embarrassment? The other guys must have thought the same thing because they were all staring at Geek.
“I’m setting up a website with some help from a friend,” Geek said.
“And that makes yer face turn red as boiled crawfish?”
“Could this friend be of the female persuasion?” Max asked.
“Yes, it’s a girl. I have this...uh, invention that I want to market on the Internet. She’s just helping me set up the website.”
Ragnor, also a computer expert, tapped a forefinger against his closed lips, thoughtfully, before he inquired, “And the name of this site would be?”
Geek put his face in both hands.
Now every guy in the group was on red alert.
“Mon Dieu! This has gotta be really bad...or really good,” Cage observed.
Geek mumbled something.
“What?” they all asked.
Geek raised his head and glared at each of them in turn before revealing, “It’s
There was stone silence, expect for the ocean sounds.
Finally, Cage exclaimed, “Say what?”
And Zach said, “Uh, I think you better explain, Geek. Otherwise, we’re gonna think you’re putting a glove on your cock at night to keep the little guy warm.”
“Bullshit!” was Geek’s reaction to that. “Listen, have you ever heard of hand waxing?”
They all shook their heads, except for Cage who frowned and said, “Isn’t that the crap they have in beauty parlors and spas, where people put their hands in warm wax before getting a hand massage?”
Amazing! Zach thought. Where does he learn this crap?
Geek nodded, no doubt thinking that would be the end of the interrogation.
Not a chance! Not when there was the mention of penises and something warm.
“It’s sort of a massage kind of thing, like Cage said.
You put your hand in the warm wax, then take it out.
As it dries, it shrinks and hardens, but not like a face mask.
..more like a tight, form-fitting rubber glove.
But the neat thing is when you pull it off, slowly, starting at the wrist, it’s a really sensual sensation. ”
More silence as everyone let what Geek had said sink in. Then there was a communal smile.
“No way!” Cage said.
“Hot damn!” JAM said.
“Form-fitting? I like the sound of that,” Zach said.
“If it was Cage pulling this stunt, we’d just laugh it off,” Max said.
“Hey!” Cage said, pretending affront.
“You’re right,” Zach said. “Coming from Geek, it must be true. Holy shit!”
“You’re not saying that you expect men to put their penises in that crap, are you?” Ragnor asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Geek said, no longer red-faced, “and I’m gonna make a mint on it.”
“I, for one, volunteer to be a test subject,” Cage said. “Anyone else?”
They all raised their hands.
“Do you want any investors?” This from JAM.
“You can’t tell anyone about this,” Geek emphasized.
Hah! The Navy SEAL grapevine would have it on the news by tomorrow night. And they’d have more volunteers than the Navy had swabbies.
Still laughing, Zach glanced over and didn’t see Sammy, at first.
But then, he noticed him going inside, to play with Ivan, he supposed.
Noticing his concern, MacLean came up and told him, “Ivan has a Playskool Viking ship set out with about a gazillion little Vikings. Sammy’s probably playing with Ivan.”
“Little Vikings!” Ragnor and Max exclaimed at the same time.
Laughing, Zach went inside.
He didn’t find Sammy right away, but he found something else.
The little people were naked, and bouncing, and, oh, my!...
“Britta,” Zachary called out as he came through the scullery and into the solar where he came to a halt when he saw what they were watching on the box. “What the hell are you guys doing?”
“Watching an orgasm,” Britta said, lifting her chin defiantly.
The four of them...Britta, Hilda, Madrene and Kirstin...were sitting in the solar, still watching the man and woman having orgasms. What did he think they were doing?
“I can see that,” Zachary said, then smiled. “Madrene, the boss is gonna kill you if he sees what you have on the tube.” Just then, Zachary seemed to notice Britta’s face and hair. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”
She was not sure if that was a compliment or not.
“Nay, Ian will not be upset with me for watching Sex in the City,” Madrene told him. “He knows that it gets my sap rising.”
“Way more information than I need to know!” Zachary laughed.
“Why were you calling me?” Britta asked him.
“Oh. I need your help.”
“With what?”
The other women chuckled as if they had a pretty good idea what he needed help with. Orgasms, no doubt.
“Sammy,” Zachary said.