Part Twenty-seven
Nightmares

Ray pulled back from the kiss, a little breathless. "It looks like my strategy worked." I started trying to open Ray's shirt. "Well, you are an eager beaver tonight."

"How the heck do you undo these shirt studs?"

Ray laughed. "Step back for a minute, junior, and work on your own duds. I'll get these off." I stepped back and started jerking off my clothes. I was done about the time he got his jacket and shirt all the way off, so I knelt down and started unlacing his shoes. "Walter!" Ray started jerking at his belt. "Damn, kid! You're in a bigger hurry now than I was back in Tokyo."

I didn't reply, I just pulled his zipper down as soon as he got his waistband unbuttoned, then slid his pants and boxers down to his knees. Ray's cock was already half-hard, lifting out of his pubic bush, and I dived right in. "Jesus!" Ray sort of collapsed back against the door as I took him half-way down my throat and started sucking hard.

I couldn't stop. I had to be as close to Ray as I could get, as quickly as possible. I loved him so much, and I had to show him, and I had to get the feel of Flagg out of my mind.

Usually I'd been sort of slow, and almost thoughtful when I did this with Ray, but tonight I was... Um... Ya know, sometimes those Build Your Vocabulary things in Reader's Digest come in handy. Voracious, that's a good word. I just sort of devoured him. Pretty soon Ray was panting, then he started shoving out to meet me. There had been a time when this would've been almost too much for me, and I would have been pulling back to keep from choking, but not now. I grabbed Ray's ass and plunged down on him, all the way, and just held him, working my throat muscles like I was swallowing. Ray cried out, grabbing my hair, and thrust once more. When he came, he gushed so far down my throat that I didn't taste him at first, not till he pulled out a little. Then the last few dribbles coated my tongue, and I almost cried with something like relief.

Now I was feeling weak, and I leaned against him, holding him, my face against his thigh. I felt him stroking my hair. His voice was thick and breathless. "Walter... My God, kid." He bent down, slipping his hands under my arms, and lifted me to my feet, pulling me into his embrace. "Shit, that's the time I've ever felt like I was being ravished."

"Well, I'm sorry, but..."

"Are you kidding me? It was fantastic." He kissed me. "C'mon, help an old man over to the bed. We'll sleep in here tonight, because I don't think I can make it back to my room."

He kicked his way out of his pants and underwear, and we sidled over to the bed and fell down on it. As soon as he was prone he groaned, "And of course I forgot the lights." I started to get up, and he pushed me back down. "Nope, you just lay there, baby boy. If anyone ever deserved a little rest and pampering, it's you."

I watched him as he shut off the light by the door, and in the bathroom. There was just enough light coming through the window for me to make him out as he came back to the bed. As he lay down beside me I plastered myself against his side. Ray hugged me. "What's gotten into you tonight, Walter?"

"Well, if you play your cards right, after you've had a little rest, it could be you."

I was trying to get him to laugh, but all he did was smile. "I'm serious, Walter. You'd been getting better, but now you're nervous again--all tensed up." I shrugged. "Baby, I told you that Jocelyn doesn't mean anything to me. You don't have to be jealous, you aren't going to lose me."

I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my face against his chest, thinking, That's not how I'm worried I'll lose you, Ray.

After a moment he said quietly, "That isn't all of it. It's Flagg, isn't it?"

I froze. I mean, I fell in the pond in the middle of an Iowa winter once and my lips were blue when they pulled me out, but this was colder than that. I could feel my blood freezing in my veins. I thought desperately that I had to say something, to deny it, if I didn't want to see Ray either dead on sitting on death row.

He continued talking. "I should have known, I guess. Of course you're upset. Seeing someone you knew in Korea couldn't help but bring it back to you." I started shaking with relief. He didn't know. Well, he didn't know that Flagg was the one. He just thought that seeing someone who'd been around the MASH when it happened had brought back bad memories. He held me tighter, stroking my back. "It's all right, Walter. You're safe now."

After a moment he said softly, "Walter? I know that you don't deliberately lie to me, but I can't help but feel you know more about who hurt you than you let on. I really wish you'd tell me."

"No, Ray."

He didn't try to press me--he knew why I wouldn't tell him. No, he didn't ask again, and he was still, but somehow I knew that he lay awake a long time, staring up at the ceiling. I know he slept, though, because he had a nightmare later.

Sometime during the night he started twitching. I woke up quickly, and held on to him tightly, debating whether or not I should wake him up. He was muttering under his breath. "Stop it, stop it... God, hydrangeas of all things. Chunjin? Why... Mrs. Whitt... no, not... not... Never killed anyone. In combat? Yes, ma'am, I guess so." There was a pause. I thought about waking him up, but I always heard it wasn't good to wake someone up suddenly out of a bad dream, and this was a BAD dream. Ray was twitching and sweating.

"The least? Well, I guess Captain Marco, ma'am." A pause. "Not him? Well, I guess Ed Malvole, ma'am." Another pause. "Yes, ma'am." His hands moved. I used to play a lot of charades when I was a kid, and I got pretty good at it. Ray looked like he was stretching something between his hands. His arms lifted a little. I was leaning over him, watching him worriedly, and I realized that his hands were moving up on either side of my throat.

Suddenly I was afraid, and I'd NEVER thought I'd be afraid of Ray. I said sharply, "Ray! Wake up!"

Ray jerked, gasping so sharply that it was almost a shriek. His eyes snapped open, darting around frantically, and I knew that he didn't remember where he was. He was still muttering under his breath. "No! Ed, sorry, Ed, didn't want..."

"It's okay."

He blinked and focused on me. "Walter?" His hands fell down from my neck as he put his arms around me, pulling me back down. "I was having that dream again."

"You have a reoccurring dream?"

"Yeah." He laughed softly, but it was a pained, confused sound. "God, it's the weirdest thing. I can't help but wonder what a psychiatrist would make of it."

"What's it about? And don't try to tell me I don't want to know, or I'd be bored."

"How about I just don't want to talk about it?"

"That's better, but it still won't work."

He was quiet for a minute. "How about if I tell you my dream and you tell me all of what happened to you?" I pulled back to stare at him. "No, I really didn't think that would work." He sighed, pulling my head back down to lie on his shoulder. "Well, it's very jumbled, like dreams are. Half the time I'm one place, and the other half I seem to be somewhere else entirely. It starts out so boring. My squad is being held up by rain, and we're waiting it out in a hotel meeting room." He chuckled. "They're having a garden club meeting, and the place is full of middle aged and elderly ladies in flowered dresses and hats, and the lecturer is talking about hydrangeas."

I turned my head so I could look up at him. As he kept talking, his expression became more tense and puzzled. "But sometimes we weren't in the meeting room. No, it was A meeting room but different, and the people... Walter, I don't know why I'd be thinking of bald heads and moustaches when I'm thinking about a garden club. The speaker gave me a trowel..." slow blink. "At least I THINK it was a trowel. It was long and sharp, anyway, and someone else said 'No, make him do it with his hands', so she gave me a scarf. I could understand a trowel, but why a scarf? And then she asked me who in the squad I disliked the least."

"Captain Marco."

He stroked my hair. "That's right--Marco. He was a good leader--no bullshit, but a little easier on some of the squad goof-offs than I would have been. But the speaker said that we'd need Marco, who else? And I said Ed Malvole, because Ed was a pretty good guy--a little loud and crude, but he'd do anything for his friends. And the speaker gave me the scarf and told me to..." His eyes widened. "She told me to kill Ed. Just like that--kill him. And I put the scarf around his neck and started to twist it, and Ed just sat there." His expression tightened in pain and horror. "Then I heard you, and I woke up. God, I've been having that dream ever since we escaped and made it back to our lines. During the daytime I can almost forget it."

"Have you told anyone about this?"

"Only when I was being debriefed, when it first started." He grunted. "Flagg was up my butt practically every moment I was there. I started to wonder if the man was human--he never seemed to sleep, get tired, or show emotion."

"You told him?" I was terrified of the idea of someone like Flagg having a glimpse of anything that made my lover vulnerable. Did this have something to do with what Flagg had referred to about Ray being his ticket to a cushy job?

"Didn't have much choice, baby. There was no way he was letting me out of there till he had an explanation of why I woke up yelling, and I was just too tired and jumbled to make up a plausible lie." He sighed. "I'll tell you the truth, I was afraid he'd recommend a section eight discharge. I didn't want to end my service like that."

No, he wouldn't have wanted that. Ray didn't like war, he told me time and again what a sickening waste of life it was, but he was proud to serve his country. An honorably gained wound would have been one thing, but he would have seen a 'diminished capacity' discharge as an insult.

"How did he end up working for your stepdad?"

"I'm not certain. From what I gathered, he came back just after I did. Mother says he dropped by right after I broke off with them, just to check up on me, he said. Somehow I can't envision him worrying about my well being." He laughed shortly. "Flagg strikes me as having about as much tender mercy in his nature as a cross between a jackal and a cobra. Anyway, they had drinks and it came out that he was ex-CIA, and currently at liberty. Having a former spook for his security team would give Johnny an extra bit of cache, so they hired him." His tone was grudging. "I have to admit, he does his job well."

Without thinking I said, "He had almost everyone at the MASH convinced he was a clown."

"Really? That's something I never saw in him."

No. He doesn't feel like he needs to act a fool when he's in complete control of the situation, like he was at the debriefing. Oh, damn, Ray. He's letting you see more of his real self than anyone else. That scares me. "You know, Ray, you ought to talk to someone about those nightmares. I talked to a really nice head doctor back at the MASH, and it helped." He raised his head to look at me. "It did. I was pretty bad... right after. I got better." I sighed. "Then I got worse. I think I might write to Sidney and get his advice on someone in Boston. You could see them, too."

"I don't know, Walter." He sounded uncomfortable. "I've never talked about my feelings much."

I squeezed him. "You do with me, some."

He kissed my forehead. "That's different." He sighed. "I know it's archaic, but in the circle I grew up in, one simply did NOT go to a psychiatrist. It would be considered a great social stigma." He laughed shortly. "God, my mother would have a fit! I'm tempted to do it just for that reason."

"Think about it, okay? Maybe this could be an 'I will if you will' sorta thing."

His hand slipped between us, sliding over my bare belly. "I can think of other, more fun things we could play that with."

I sighed as his fingers ruffled my pubic hair. "Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to distract me?"

"Probably because I am. Is it working?" His hand slid lower and he gripped me, beginning to stroke.

"Yeah." I pushed into his hand. "It's working, for now. But I don't forget things easily, Ray." I closed my eyes, laying against him as he squeezed and petted me. That's part of the problem--some things I can't forget.

I threw a leg over Ray's thigh and started humping against him, rubbing against the solid muscle. I kissed him and said, "Whatta ya want me to do, Ray?"

He put his hands on my ass, pulling me tighter against him. "Just love me, Walter. That's all I need."

So I did. I thrust against him, kissing him, till I came. Ray used a corner of the sheet to wipe my sperm off his belly. When I reached down to caress his half-hard cock he took hold of my hand and kissed it, then pulled my arm across his waist and held it there till I relaxed. When he let go I didn't try to shift. He whispered, "It's not that I don't want you, baby. I think that dream just has me a little frazzled. Let's just hold each other and sleep, okay?"

"Sounds good to me." We settled down, but I didn't really sleep again. I dozed a little, but every time Ray shifted or even breathed a little deeper than usual I woke up and watched him, waiting to be sure that it wasn't another dream.