Goddammit!
Here
he was again, under the shower and with none other than
SSgt Alex Turner in the stall opposite. They were bloody
Royal Engineers and couldn't even fix shower stalls with
fucking doors?
And
why on earth was he always carefully planning to avoid having
a shower at the same time as that goddamned bastard when
ultimately, it never worked out. Tom turned his back on
the other man and listened with growing desperation to the
whistling and humming from behind. Trying to drown the sound
of that deep voice with hot water pattering past his ears
and drumming onto his short hair.
Goddamned
motherfucking bastard!
Keeping
his eyes scrunched shut, Tom reached blindly for the shower
gel to sluice the caked mud off his skin, when the currently
hated voice cut across the running water of a dozen shower
stalls.
"Hey,
Tom! Throw me your shampoo, will you? Just ran out and got
to keep the mane clean,"
Tom
groaned when the subsequent chuckle reached his ears.
"Sure!"
If
anyone noticed his strangled voice, he could always use
the strenuous exercise as an excuse. Running twenty miles
in full gear across a natural terrain obstacle course was
no walk in the park, even for him.
Bloody
'mane', what a lame joke. Alex Turner's hair was crew-cut
short and blond. White blond in fact. Pissin', bleedin'
sun bleached blond above a deeply tanned face and ... and
skin ... and those …
"Fuck!"
Tom hissed, glad for the running water. Making a long show
out of washing. Bad enough having to turn round in a moment.
Of course that dickhead had to be in the opposite stall,
the inconsiderate prick. Didn't matter that Alex was his
best mate, getting regularly plastered together on Saturday
nights in the pub round the corner.
Yeah.
Fuck. Sure. Whatever.
"Are
you blind and deaf or just piss-poor slow, Tom?" That
voice again, this time with much more authority and a hint
of laughter. Nice, loud, dark, resonating in the showers.
"Jesus,
can't you let a guy wash the muck out of his own hair first?"
Anger, that was good, worked wonders; stupid jokes did,
too. Lots of shoulder clapping, arm wrestling and beer guzzling
was equally useful. Getting smashed when off duty and drowning,
killing, obliterating thoughts of The Impossible.
Tom
employed his annoyance to great effect as he whirled around,
soap suds clinging to his smooth skin. Not a scar worth
mentioning, not a blemish that could be used for identification.
Instead expanses of honey bronze over a muscular broad frame.
Tom
looked good, the girls told him. He was positively devastating,
gushed those who tried to get into his pants; he was a goddamned
tease and useless prick they snarled later, when he left
the nightclub without them. He would soon be running out
of believable excuses.
"Here's
the bloody shampoo and get going, Alex, I'll need it back."
Not looking, just not looking. Blessing the soap in his
eyes, thankful for the hazy film before his vision.
"Cheers,
mate." The blur in front of Tom's eyes moved closer
and then the traitorous soap abandoned him, washed out of
his eyes by a rogue stream of water. Deserted by the merciful
filter, he was left defenceless and presented with a vision
he could damn well do without.
As
if he even needed to see Alex to know exactly what he looked
like. A knowledge which instantly dried his mouth, constricted
his throat and made swallowing near impossible. The rest
of the physical reactions that followed without fail were
too terrible to be considered.
Shit.
Again. Yet a-fucking-gain.
The
inevitable happened. He had to turn his back immediately
or he'd race out of the room in terror at his hardening
cock. He could hear the accusations in his mind.
Raving
poofter. Screaming fag.
Her
Majesty's Men
