The Box - 16. Chapter 16

April 18, 1943

As usual, it’s been a long fucking time since I’ve written in here, but this has been a really busy week, and my brain is all messed up so I figured I’d come back to this diary and lay things out. It kind of helps me keep perspective. When I go back and read what I wrote, things seem clearer.

I went to a party on Friday night with all the guys. It was at Seamus Boyle’s house again. The weather was nice, spring is definitely here, and their house is on a bunch of land with a really cool garden, so most of the time we were outside. We had a really good time, and all of us got really really drunk, all except Nathan. I couldn’t figure out why, but he just didn’t seem as into drinking as he normally did. That and he was pretty quiet. But I kind of wrote it off to him just being moody and figured that since he wasn’t drinking, he could drive me home.

I flirted with a bunch of dolls, and even made out with, get this, Kim Alpers. I guess she missed me. We snuck off down one of the little paths and found a place to make out. She grabbed my dick through my pants while I fingered her pussy. It was fun, it was nice, but it was meaningless. She seemed to get that after a while, and we stopped and went back to the party. The whole thing was kind of weird. Nathan seemed kind of pissed about it, but he got over it quick enough.

Anyway, I was really blasted, so he decided it was time to take me home. I fought him on that, but since he had to pull over twice while driving me home so I could puke, it seems like he made the right decision. He got me home and stripped off all my clothes and put me to bed, then got ready to leave, but I stopped him.

“Spend the night,” I said.

“You’re horny,” he told me with an evil grin.

“Fuck yeah,” I said, and pulled him into bed with me. We’d been getting each other off constantly since January. It was almost a daily thing. Sometimes we’d just grind together until we’d blow, sometimes we’d jerk each other off, but usually we just blew each other. I liked it a lot, but we never seemed to take it any further.

I knew I was developing major feelings for him. Fuck it. I knew I had fallen in love with him. I could tell he really cared about me too. We never talked about it though. With Aaron, and it was really hard not to compare the two, he’d freaked out about us, then dealt with it, and we’d gotten closer and closer. It had taken him forever to admit he was in love with me, even though now I know he’d loved me for a lot longer than that. Nathan was different. We never talked about anything. He was such an easygoing guy; he just did shit with me and enjoyed it. It was like it felt good, so he did it. There weren’t any of these internal, wrenching crises that Aaron had, or this major emotional involvement like I seemed to get. He just fucked around and had fun with it.

Part of me thinks that’s fucking ridiculous, that he definitely feels things, and that he should express himself. But as I write it out here, it doesn’t sound so stupid after all. Maybe I’m just turning into a total punk, where I act like a girl and have to talk about how I feel all the time. That really bothers me.

But back to my Friday night. So he ends up on top of me, grinding away, and I can feel his big dick rubbing against mine, and I decided that I really wanted him to fuck me. I hadn’t been fucked since Aaron had been home, and I really loved this guy and I wanted to show him how good I could make him feel. So I pushed him off of me, getting a surprised look, and pushed him flat on his back.

“You want to be in charge, eh?” he teased.

“Yeah,” I’d said, almost a pant, as I grabbed the Vaseline. I started lubing up his dick. Damn it was thick. This was going to take some work.

“What are you doing?” he’d asked nervously.

“I’m in charge,” I’d said, acting all severe. I got him really lubed, and then I squatted over him and started lowering my ass onto him.

“You’re going to, uh, do that?” he’d asked nervously. But by the time he’d finished his sentence, the head of his dick was pushing against my hole.

“Yeah,” I’d said, and then focused on opening up enough to take him. Damn it hurt at first. I mean, Aaron’s not small, but he’s on the thin side. It took me a while to actually do it. Nathan just had a concerned look on his face the whole time, but I was too drunk to care, and in too much pain to do anything about it. Finally I took him, his whole huge cock, in my ass.

I leaned forward, nuzzled my mouth into his neck, and just moaned softly as I started to ride up and down on his thick pole. It hit my spot; hit me just right, shit it had to, it filled up my whole ass. It felt so good, so terrific, to be with him like that, to feel him inside me. I heard him moaning and panting, felt his arms around me, stroking and caressing my back, felt his hips helping out by thrusting up into me.

I was getting really close, really close, when I felt him tense up and growl as he blew his load. Damn did he blow. After he started, I started, and we just writhed together on the bed, fucking each other until we were both finished and sated. After we were done, I cleaned us off with a towel and curled up on his chest like I like to do sometimes. Only he’d felt really tense.

“Fun?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he’d said insincerely. Then I felt like shit, like I’d ruined our whole friendship. I rolled away onto my side and forced myself not to cry like a big weenie. He must have gotten how upset I was and he spooned up behind me, wrapping those big strong arms around me, and I just put it all aside and went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning with his arms still wrapped around me, and I got really nervous. What was he going to say when he woke up this morning? Would he be pissed, would he be disgusted? I got up to go pee and brush my teeth; my breath tasted like puke. When I got back to my room, he still hadn’t moved, so I got back into bed and turned away from him again. I felt his arms wrap around me again, felt his mouth on my neck as he murmured, a low growl, into my skin. “Morning,” he’d said cheerfully.

“Morning,” I’d said kind of nervously. His hands started to explore my body, one playing with my chest, the other playing with the hairs of my treasure trail. In no time at all I was hard as a rock. I instinctively moved back into him and felt his hard cock stabbing me in the ass. That made me kind of nervous, because of how he’d reacted last night, so I tried to move away, but he wouldn’t let me.

He took his hand away, the one that was playing with my trail, and used it to line his dick up with my hole, then he started to push into me. “Is this OK?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s very OK,” I said, as I moved back into him, welcoming him inside. It still took me some time to take him, but not as much as the night before. Once he was in, though, it was magic.

He was incredible. He moved in and out of me so slowly I thought I was going to lose it. When he’d get all the way in, and his cock was jammed against my prostate, he’d do this thing where he pushed in a little bit more, little stabbing thrusts, before he’d pull back and thrust in again. Then there were his words. “You feel so good,” he kept saying, over and over again. “It’s like we’re one person.” And other shit like that, which I only sort of heard. He kept up that slow pace, maddeningly slow, until he finally couldn’t stand it anymore. I’d been there a long time already. He picked up his pace, faster and faster, until he brought us both off in an orgasm that was so intense, I almost blacked out.

Afterward, he stayed inside me and let me feel him panting, his breath against my neck. It was heaven. I felt him go limp and pop out of me, and then I rolled over and lay on his chest. “I thought you didn’t like it when we did it last night,” I said.

“I’d wanted to do that for a long time, I just wanted to make sure you wanted to. I was nervous because you were drunk,” he said.

“Well, I wasn’t drunk this time, and it was the bees knees,” I teased. He smiled at me, but still seemed nervous. “You were worried I’d be all mad this morning?”

“Yeah,” he said, and leaned in to kiss me.

“That happened to you before?” I asked. Then he got really nervous, almost lost it completely. Wow. I’d really hit on a touchy subject there. “I’m sorry. Forget I asked.”

He relaxed, and we just lay there for a long time. “It happened before. I fucked a guy and he got all weird after that. We were really close, then after that, we weren’t as close anymore.”

I wanted to ask him who he fucked, but that would probably send him to the moon, so I left it alone. “Not this time. This time, I feel closer to you than ever.” He kissed me, and fucked me again, then went home. I went down to get breakfast and that’s when the other shoe dropped. There, waiting for me, was a letter from Aaron.

“You got a letter from Aaron,” my mom had said enthusiastically. I opened it up and there were two letters. The first was to me, and it basically talked about what he was doing. He was over in Australia, and they were getting ready to ship out. He didn’t know where. He said he was fine, but he missed me, and missed being at home. It was a basic letter you’d send to a friend. At the end of the letter, he said he enclosed another letter to Sheila and asked me to deliver it.

“Who’s Sheila?” My mom had asked.

“Some girl he used to date,” I said, lying. When we were kids, he used to tease me and call me Sheila, said that was my girl name. The letter to Sheila was for me. It was all I could do to finish eating, and then I rushed up to my room to read the letter.

1999

“I think this is it,” Brad said. He’d gotten the letters in date order, not that there were many of them. He handed me an envelope that was yellowed with age, and mauled from being lugged around. It said “For Sheila Only” on the outside. I pulled the letter out and it was dated March 1943, which was close to the date of the diary entry, so I paused to read the letter.

March, 1943

Dear Sheila,

I’m almost too embarrassed to write this letter. I’m such a creep, the way I treated you when I was in town. If I don’t make it back, I want you to know that what I did, how I acted, is something I’ll regret for the rest of my life.

I guess I was just infatuated with the Marine Corps. They taught us that the Corps was everything, the end all and be all, and I bought into it hook, line, and sinker. I was living and breathing it. Now that I’m in, now that I’m here and the reality kicks in, I can see how stupid that was.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Marines, and I’m proud to be fighting for my country, but I love you too. When I think about how much more fun we could have had when I was home if I’d just been able to be a normal person, it rips me up. And it rips me up even more to think about all the fun we could have had on the train ride out to San Diego. I can’t believe I blew you off, blew off that chance.

But what rips me up more than anything is to know how much I hurt you. Don’t write back and tell me I didn’t, because we both know that’s bullshit. You love me as much as I love you, and you were nice and put on your happy face so you could send me off to war without a guilt trip. I’ll bet you wanted to beat the shit out of me for the way I treated you, and for all the things you guessed I did. Instead, you were the nicest person ever.

I hope you’ll forgive me. Please. If you were here, I’d be on the floor, on my hands and knees, begging you. Please forgive me. I love you so much it hurts, and I miss you so much it’s almost unbearable. God, I love you.

Aaron.

“At least he figured it out in the end,” Robbie said with a scowl. I hadn’t really thought about how this would affect him. I guess he felt responsible, since Aaron was his uncle, and Steve was my father.

“Most men do, only some take much longer,” I joked, looking at JP. It was so easy to tease him, and so useful to change the topic and make a touchy situation less painful.

“Why don’t you keep reading?” JP asked me, pretending to be irritated. I smiled and picked the diary back up.

That really freaked me out. So he figured it out, saw right through me, but only when it was too late, only when he was gone. I probably wouldn’t see him for years, if at all. I’d be joining up in a month or two, and unless I got shipped out to the Pacific, we probably wouldn’t run into each other. I don’t think guys got leave to go home, and even if they did, it was almost a given we wouldn’t get it at the same time. He’d thrown away our last chance to have meaningful time together, and now he wanted me to forgive him for that.

I pulled out the pictures we’d taken at the lake, after he told me that he loved me, and smiled. He loved me, and he wanted me to forgive him. I loved him, and I would. Yeah, he fucked up our time together, but he was just being a dumb ass. I’m looking at a picture of him, of his tall body with its soft skin, his trademark grin and outgoing personality, and remembered what it was like to be with him. Then I sat down and wrote him a long letter, disguising my handwriting to make it look like I was a girl, and got it ready for the mail on Monday.

I sat up here in my room, mooning about Aaron, when I heard a knock on my door. I put all my stuff away in the box and said, “Come in,” expecting it to be my mom. It wasn’t, it was Nathan.

“I know it’s only been a couple of hours, but I miss you,” he said. God, he was cute, only he’d flashed me that grin, the same one as Aaron had. That really bothered me. I looked at him and realized that I was in love with two men at the same time, and they were brothers. I felt like total shit. “Is that OK?” he asked nervously, sensing my weird mood.

“That’s awesome, but I don’t think you really missed me,” I said, flirting to hide how messed up I was. “You just want to fuck me again.”

“Well yeah,” he said. He gave me his adorable, shy grin, and even blushed a little bit. In no time at all, my pants were off, so were his, and he was in me, fucking me with that massive dick of his, bringing me off in yet another orgasm that made me see fireworks. We fucked all day, and all night, and all day again today. Finally he went home, saying his dick was sore. I know how he feels. My ass is so sore I can barely sit down. But I’m smiling, because it was awesome.

So what happens when the war is over and all of us are back in Claremont? What happens then? I’ll have to choose between them, between the two brothers. Holy shit. There’s no way I’ll be able to keep them from finding out about each other. They’ll probably both agree on one thing and one thing only: they both will hate me.

What a nightmare I’ve gotten myself into. But that’s nothing compared to the real issue. The real issue is, given that choice, which one would I pick? Would I pick Aaron, with his amazing body, and his charm, or Nathan, amazing in his own way, with his shy cuteness that seemed to bring out the extrovert in me? The guy who I’d been best friends with for years, or his little brother who was taking me to another planet both emotionally and sexually? I have no idea. No fucking idea at all.

Tomorrow we’re taking these tests for the military, all the guys my age, anyway. They say it’s to see what we like to do and what we’re good at, but I think it’s more important than that. My mom seemed to think so anyway, which says a lot.

June 4, 1943

So much has happened in the last month or so. I graduate from high school tomorrow, and then on Monday I ship out. I’m joining the Army, not the Marines, and not the Navy. It’s OK, I guess. It wasn’t really my choice.

A couple of weeks ago I was hanging out in my room and my mother came up to talk to me. She had this serious look on her face. “Daddy wants you to go over and see him tonight.”

“What does he want?” I asked. Last time, he’d summoned me over all that crap with Jim, but we were tight now, Jim and I, so I knew it wasn’t that.

“I don’t know, but you have to be there at 8:00,” she said. “It’s not negotiable,” she added, to stop any of my arguments. I was worried then, not because I’m afraid of my grandfather, but because I was worried that he was going to try and talk me out of joining the service. I figured I’d get this big long spiel about going to college. Either that, or he’d try to get me to work for him, and that wasn’t happening.

I went over there like I was supposed to and greeted both my grandparents formally, then my grandfather had led me into his study, which always had that ominous feeling about it.

“I’ve arranged for you to join the Army,” he’d said. “Men in our family have served in the Army for generations. Your Uncle Jack was in the Army.”

“I hadn’t really made up my mind yet,” I’d told him. I mean, the Army wasn’t bad or anything, but it was my decision.

“Well it’s all arranged,” he’d said, pissing me off.

“Don’t you think I should get to pick which branch of the service I want to join?” I’d asked him caustically.

He’d given me his withering look, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t scare the shit out of me. The look turned into a glare, and then he mellowed. “Well then, which branch did you want to go into?”

I thought about it. I didn’t see myself as a sailor. I didn’t want to go through all the shit that Aaron had gone through with the Marines. I didn’t need anyone breaking me down and rebuilding me. In the end, I’d probably have picked the Army. “I guess the Army is fine. I just wanted to choose.”

“Well it appears that you have, only you are fortunate that we think alike,” he’d said pleasantly, now that he’d gotten his way. “You’ll be going to Officer Candidate School. When you graduate, you’ll join the Army as a Second Lieutenant.”

“I thought you had to go to college to be an officer?” I asked.

“They need more men than that, so they set up a school to train bright young men. You scored over 120 on your IQ test, and your aptitude tests checked out as well,” he told me. Plus he probably pulled a bunch of strings, only he didn’t tell me that.

“Thanks, Grandfather,” I’d said fatalistically. Might as well cave in gracefully.

“You’re welcome,” he’d said, and that was that.

So on Monday, I catch a train to Fort Benning, Georgia and start this odyssey that Aaron had put into motion a year and a half ago. It would be easy to blame him for me having to leave, but I’d have gone anyway. I just didn’t want to. I was really happy here. Nathan was like a tonic. He could make my body explode when we had sex, and when we weren’t fucking; his calm, easygoing demeanor seemed to rub off on me. It helped me keep my temper in check.

June 6, 1943

It’s late, and I’m sitting here in the bathroom writing in this diary. Nathan is sleeping in my bed, and I didn’t want to bother him. He wanted to spend my last night here with me, and I’m glad he did. Today has been a total emotional drain.

My parents had this big party for me, and invited the whole family over to say goodbye. It was really a lot of fun until the end, when everyone had to leave.

My uncle had given me one of his “man hugs” and told me he was proud of me. Whatever. I still think he’s a nitwit. My aunt had given me this cool, delicious hug. “We are so proud of you,” she’d said to me. Damn. I was so tempted to drag her off and fuck her. Only now that Jim and I were tight, it bothered me that I’d done that to him. I couldn’t do that again. He was a friend now, and you can’t fuck your friend’s mother.

Jim had given me this big, monster hug, and we’d both actually cried. Amazing how in just a few months we’d gone from enemies to really good friends. He was going to college before he joined up. I found out that he hadn’t done as well as I had on the IQ and aptitude tests, so the only way for him to go in as an officer was to get some college under his belt. A year or two at Ohio State should get that done. Still, I could see the envy in his eyes, the resentment that he tried to hide because he cared about me. It must really be tough to see your friends and family going off to war, when you can’t go yourself.

I guess he could run away and join up, but I remember how I thought about doing that and how one of my grandfathers, if not both, would have fixed that before I even left the state. Jim was trapped, and I felt sorry for him.

My grandmother and grandfather Crampton were relatively easy to say goodbye to. They were such cold, rigid people that it was hard to feel much affection for them. They’d always given me the impression that we were just progeny, not people, there to carry on a dynasty regardless of whether that was what we really wanted to do with our lives or not. I really won’t miss them.

JP was so cute. He was all dressed up in a suit and looked like such a little man. When he went to say goodbye to me, he held out his hand to shake, but there were actually tears in his eyes. We’d grown pretty close, he and I. I guess all those times I damn near drowned him in the pool meant something to him. Anyway, I pushed his hand aside, picked him up, and gave him a big hug. I could tell by his reaction that I totally snapped him out. But then he gave in and hugged me back.

After all that, I dragged Nathan up to my room and we fucked and fucked and fucked. Only it wasn’t fucking, it was making love, and we both knew it. After the third time, we were lying there, spooning, and he dropped two massive bombshells on me.

“I’m really going to miss you,” he said.

“I’m going to miss you too,” I told him.

“I really care about you,” he said. I’d kind of blown that off until he flipped me around so I was facing him. “I mean that.”

“I know you do,” I’d told him. He was trying to get maudlin, and I was sick of that, so I was trying to play it off, only it was just pissing him off.

“I’m trying to be serious, God damn it!” he’d said, almost shouting. “I’m trying to tell you that I love you.” Then he’d gasped, as if the big secret was out.

“I know you love me,” I told him with a grin. “I love you too.” Then he really smiled, then he kissed me, and we made love again. It was funny how with Aaron, once he’d admitted it, sex had gotten so much more meaningful. That didn’t happen with Nathan, and I figured out why. I’d learned from my time with Aaron, and I learned how to read people better. I’d known Nathan was in love with me, only with him, I didn’t need the words.

Then he got somber. “Seems like every guy I fuck ends up going off to war.” Then the clickers locked in place. Aaron was the other guy. Aaron was the guy he fucked, the one that freaked out on him afterwards. The thought of them together was so erotic I was hard in an instant. I know that’s pretty kinky, getting off on two brothers fucking. That’s incest. But those two, man, it would be erotic as hell. He got that I figured it out and got all nervous. “Pretty gross huh?”

I took his hand and guided it to my rock hard dick. “No, really exciting. Think you’d be up for a threesome?” I made it into a joke, and that eased things. Then he made love to me again, and it was heaven. I know tomorrow morning, well, it’s after midnight, so technically it will be this morning, I know it will be one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do.

First, I’m going to have to say goodbye to Nathan, and I do love him. It’s going to be hell. Then to top that off, I’ll have to say goodbye to my family. My mom will be the hardest, because she’s an emotional basket case, and because we’re so close. She’s been such an amazing force in my life. She’s taught me to always stand up for myself, to never put up with any shit, and she’s always been there for me. I think the coolest thing about her, though, is how fair she is. When she’s wrong, she’s able to see it, even when she’s really really mad, and then she makes it right. That takes a lot of class.

My grandfather Schluter is next, as far as hard goes. He’s been retired for a while, and that means he’s had a lot of spare time. He spent a lot of it with me, and we’ve become close. He’s got such a logical mind, an educated mind. He doesn’t jump to conclusions, he doesn’t go off on emotional rants, he looks at things like a professor would. I hope he spends more time with Billy.

Then Billy and my dad, well, they’ll be tough too, I love them and all, but I’m not as tight with them as with my mom. I feel bad that I won’t be around for Billy. He’s a good kid, and he’s not such a shit-disturber as I am. My dad, well, he’s a good guy when he’s not squeezing pennies. He loves me, I know he does.

I don’t know when I’ll write in this again. I’m not taking it with me, just in case someone figures out how to break it open. There’s enough in here to get me sent to Leavenworth.

1999

“I wonder if your dad fucked his brothers?” Brad asked Robbie, teasing him.

“Very fucking funny,” Robbie said.

“You know, since incest isn’t really a taboo in our family...,” Matt said as he ran his hand across Robbie’s shoulder. We all laughed at that. All except for Robbie.

“Does that bother you?” I asked Robbie.

“Yeah, that’s pretty gross,” he said.

“They were young guys,” JP said soothingly. “I’m sure it was just hormones raging. I think it would be a mistake to judge them too harshly.”

“He said you were cute,” I told JP, smiling.

“He was right,” JP said, smiling back. “So are we done reading it?” He seemed relieved.

“No, there are several more pages,” I said.

“But he said he didn’t take the box with him.” Brad said.

“Well, evidently he found a way to write more,” I said. JP tensed up again, as I read on.