Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  “Getting warmer,” said Gary, unable to hold back his smile.

  Ride stopped cold. “A woman? This is about a woman?” He was now on full alert. “Now you’ve got my attention!”

  Over the years, the two men had made it a habit of steering each other towards any golden opportunity to nail down an impressive, exotic, or acrobatic woman that would also represent something of a challenge. It was not so much about getting each other laid, but about putting them on the hunt for a woman worthy of some monumental or impossible pursuit.

  More often than not it got the men into some sort of trouble, or at the very least, a memorable adventure.

  “Read the names again, Ride.”

  Rick read the tasking order more carefully. You are to report to Sergeant W. Hayman, of 1st Brigade…he read.

  “Your lips are moving, Rick!”

  “Is this the Sergeant from our in-brief last month?

  “The one and only.”

  “Hymen?”

  “HAY-man, HAY, Man,” Gannon corrected.

  Sergeant Rideout dove over the Master Gunnery Sergeant’s desk and grabbed his head in a vice-like grip. Master Guns Gannon tried desperately to free himself, but Top Sergeant Rideout was stronger, and laid a disgustingly wet ‘doggy kiss’ on Master Guns’ face.

  “Yuck! I hate it when you do that.”

  “Just my way of saying ‘Thank you’ in advance,” he grinned wolfishly as he stepped back from the desk and righted himself. Gannon wiped his face and considered climbing over his desk to have at Ride, but he thought the better of it, and maintained his composure.

  “I’m going to tag that beautiful Aussie six ways from Sunday,” Ride announced proudly.

  Knowing what he knew about the assignment, Gannon thought about saying something to the contrary but decided to let Ride enjoy his fantasy a little longer, as it would likely be his last in a very long time. So he played along. “Like you did that security guard in Fiji? What did she say to you at the airport?”

  “Va–Raaa–Waa! It means she wants to fix you, boy!” Ride said, imitating the accent of the other Fijian security guard at Nadi International Airport, who had explained what the large, sexy black woman had said in her native tongue, offering the Marine a ‘Fijian handshake’. Ride still had a few of the scars in his back from her long finger nails. He wore the scratches down his back with great pride.

  “I still don’t believe you went with her. She was a monster!”

  “Oh yeah!” Ride replied, enjoying the memory of his weeks with Shasta, and their nights dancing at the Black Marlin Bar in the resort his unit has been billeted at during the exercise. “She was a fine specimen, with more stamina than any other women I have ever been with.”

  “You still in contact with her?”

  “No fuckin’ way. Are you kidding? How would it look for the boys if their Top Sergeant settled down with just one woman?”

  “Yeah, that would be the end of the legend, and the book.”

  “That’s right. There would be no more chapters in: ‘The great schtupping spots of the world!,’” he said, without even a pretense of modesty. That the boys were always ribbing him about adding “new chapters” to the book with each exploit only egged him on to score even better the next time. He loved the notoriety, and thought that it bolstered his effectiveness as Master Sergeant.

  “Hey, what was that expression she had, about me?”

  “The one they use in Fiji for useless idiots?”

  “That’s the one. Something about ‘eat him’?”

  “Put him in the pot!’” he said, with the accent.

  “So I’m now three up on you. You still have not delivered anything tasty my way, in over six months. Have you lost your touch, Ride, or are you just getting greedy?”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m still working on your Chinese order,” said Ride, of Gary’s long standing goal of bedding a beautiful Chinese woman.

  “Anyhow, shouldn’t you be somewhere?” asked Gary, looking out his window at the parking lot where an Australian Military Police SUV was just pulling into a parking spot.

  As the two buddies stood there, looking out the window, Sgt Wendy Hayman got out of the left, passenger, side of the Land Rover just as the sun broke out from behind a cloud.

  The sunlight made her blond hair suddenly golden, transfixing the men with her beauty just as she had held the theatre of newly arrived Marines when she had briefed them on the Robertson Barracks Standing Orders, alcohol policy, local ordinances and long list of ‘things not to do while in Australia’.

  She was stunning.

  “Uhh…!” was all that came out of Rick’s mouth as he gawked out the window. He gulped in amazement as he gazed with longing at the vision before him. Then he pulled himself together. “Thank you, Gary,” He said reverently, as if he was thanking God for a gift from Heaven. That was all he could say before heading out to meet her, now enthusiastically embracing his task of integrating with Host Nation military personnel.

  When Top Sergeant Rideout reached the parking lot and approached Sergeant Hayman, Gunnery Sergeant Gannon was still watching from his office window. As he did so, the ridiculous image of Rick Rideout and his Fijian girlfriend running naked across the resort’s golf course in the middle of the night, his junk flailing about like a fish-whacking club as he chased after her, flashed across his mind.

  Quite a Marine. But that nudity thing keeps getting him into trouble, Ride just can’t help but show off his monstrous cock, Gary thought to himself. But when he saw his large friend standing close to the Australian MP, Gary wondered if the petite woman could handle the large black man who now had her in his sights.

  Ten days later, after touring a variety of very sleepy Australian Army posts up and down the Gold Coast, from Sydney to Cairns, Master Sergeant Rideout had largely given up on his quest. The problem was that his quarry was so professional and serious, keeping to their itinerary without deviation, that he had no opportunity to work his charms on her. They spent six to eight hours a day on the road, first covering the vast distance from Darwin to Sydney, and then shorter distances but with multiple stops at armories, bases, outposts, and a few notable landmarks along the way up the east coast, from Sydney to Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

  In the evenings, while he was left on his own in whatever barracks or hotel had been arranged for him, she and her Corporal were always busy or had private commitments of some kind, and did not seem to want to elaborate on them.

  This frustrated Top Sergeant Rideout to no end, and made him want ‘Windy’ Wendy Hayman that much more. Perhaps it’s that faggy Corporal Guay, the driver, who is making it ‘three’s a crowd’, he thought, as they pulled out of the small town, Charters Towers, on their way back across the endless plains of northwest Queensland on the narrow two-way Flinders Highway. With 2370 kilometers between their current position and the MAGTFA at Robertson Barracks in Darwin, Ride felt like a hostage who was in for some serious torture.

  The Aussies he had met on the tour had been very welcoming and seemed to have the beer light on every afternoon, along with the ubiquitous BBQs, which was one aspect of Australian culture that Rick really appreciated. He had enjoyed Grade-A Australian beef and kangaroo, along with lots of barbequed garlic bread and a wide variety of beer and wines. But this had not quenched his thirst for sex.

  And then the most remarkable thing happened.

  As Corporal Guay drove along the sun-baked A6 highway, approaching the small town of Richmond, Ride realized that he was actually enjoying the trip, getting to know Australia and the relaxed ‘caravan culture’ lifestyle that these somewhat crude, yet relaxed and friendly people enjoyed.

  For once in his life he was enjoying the company of a beautiful woman, and the seemingly gay man, without feeling the need to fuck the woman or distance himself from the gay man.

  It was at that moment when he truly relaxed and embraced the Aussies, that he felt a strong connection with the place. His nine-month rotation wit
h the MAGTFA now looked like a pleasant, perhaps all-too-short, assignment.

  As he watched the endless sea of golden grassland and parched tundra pass by he thought about taking a week or so off, and going out on his own for an Australian ‘walk-about’, where you head out with no destination in mind and embrace the people and experiences that life presents along the way.

  In his somewhat philosophical reverie, his normal degree of USMC alertness had been abandoned, so he did not pick up on the subtle clues that could have warned him about the conspiracy that was taking place around him.

  As he sat there, looking at the map book, he did not pay any attention to the silent communication that was taking place between the driver and Sergeant Hayman, or the secretive nods the two exchanged as they agreed that the time has come.

  He had not picked up on what they were up to when, at a gas-station stop in Richmond, the Corporal had deliberately shielded from Ride’s view the packages he had picked up from a business just around the corner from the gas station, while Sergeant Hayman had fuelled the SUV. So he was totally unprepared for what came next, after the trio had driven another hundred kilometers to the west from Richmond.

  Suddenly the Land Rover lurched off the road and bounced across the rocky tundra.

  As he flailed for something to hold onto, he looked at the driver with wild-eyed surprise.

  “What the fuck!? What are you doing? Stop the car!”

  “Relax, mate, we’re almost there.”

  “Where?”

  “The end of the line. HOLD ON!” said Corporal Guay as he steered the Land Rover onto a large rocky dome-shaped outcrop and headed right for the cliff at the far side.

  “What are you doing!” shouted Master Sergeant Rideout as he grabbed hold of the hand-grip above the door and stared in disbelief at the rocks as they grew large in front of the windscreen. The Land Rover took flight, and flew off the rock dome towards the rocks.

  “Wheeee!” shouted Sergeant Hayman, as if it was all a great deal of fun.

  Gravity took hold of the Land Rover and its wheels came into contact with the scoop-shaped path on the far side of the precipice. As the vehicle settled heavily onto its springs, Corporal Guay steered violently to the right and the vehicle swerved away from the rock face which, an instant before, Top Sergeant Rideout thought he was about to be splattered upon.

  With his heart racing and bouncing around some place between his teeth and his throat, Ride saw that the Land Rover had landed in some kind of trench that had been invisible from the rock dome. The narrow channel led towards a curving line of trees ahead.

  The trees seemed greener and more vibrant than the dried-out, parched trees that he had seen in the dried-out creek beds and sandy gullies along the side of the endless, arrow-straight highway.

  For a fleeting moment, he attributed the sudden vividness to the near-death experience he had just been through, and was just about to comment when the Land Rover came to a sudden stop and the two Aussies leapt out of the vehicle as if in a panic, leaving the Marine sitting alone in the vehicle, dazzled.

  He could not believe what he was seeing.

  There, in front of him, was his beautiful Australian blond stripping out of her clothes.

  That Corporal Guay was also stripping off his ‘uni’, was lost on Ride. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Sergeant Hayman. But the beautiful woman, now in her panties and bra, was not the only beautiful sight. Beyond her, beckoning even more invitingly than a woman’s spread legs, and somehow offering to quench an archaic, basic need in his soul, was what he would later describe as an oasis.

  He was momentarily frozen between two worlds: one, the disciplined world in which he had to restrain himself, be the embodiment of technical proficiency and high moral fiber as a Senior NCO in the United States Marine Corps; the other, the ancient, basic, natural humanity that this magical place was awakening in him.

  “Come on, mate! Get out of your uni! If you don’t have a ‘cozzie’ then go in your skivvies! Last one into the billabong is a Dag” shouted Corporal Guay.

  With that, the two Aussies ran bare-foot over the sandy ground towards the cliff’s edge.

  Ride watched Hayman’s firm ass jiggle athletically in her stark white panties and he saw her final foot-plant on a rock from which she propelled herself into the air, tucking her legs up under her bottom before disappearing from view.

  The concussion and sudden spray of water into the air from her perfectly executed cannon-ball, and Guay’s own dive off the ledge, broke Top Sergeant Rideout out of his trance, and into motion. Somehow stripping out of his clothes on the run, he stripped completely naked, inspired to abandon all modesty as he threw himself into the inviting pool.

  After shouting in satisfaction when he breached the water’s surface and swimming around for a while in the refreshingly cool water of the billabong, he climbed out of the water and sat on a large, flat rock. The billabong truly was an oasis, with the joyful sounds of Sergeant Hayman and Corporal Guay reverberating off the rock walls at the far end of the long, boomerang-shaped lake. Ride was in his own head-space, communing with a long lost friend – the earth herself.

  Still nude and completely unashamed, he enjoyed the feeling of the water beading off of his muscular body as the warm sun dried him. His love for nudity was generally hard to satisfy as a Marine, but here in his oasis it felt absolutely appropriate. Being nude out in the unexpected and very private place in which he found himself made him feel more grounded than he had in a very long time. He felt as though he had gone native, and was better for it.

  For a glorious few minutes he sunned himself inclined on the rock looking and feeling very much the Barberini Faun statue he had first seen while on deployment in Germany. The statue of the mythological Satyr, the powerfully muscled god-like being of ancient mythology, had made a strong impression on him when he had seen it in the museum district of Munich. Ever since he had first seen it, it had been something of his personal avatar, the image of a fully satisfied, heroic figure reclined in naked splendor, relaxing in the sun.

  The mood changed suddenly when Corporal Guay and Sergeant Hayman returned from the water, and sat in the grassy area near Ride’s rock.

  They could see that Australia had gotten to the man, and that he was forever changed. But they were a bit surprised to see an American so comfortable with his own nudity.

  “Mate, any chance you can find some togs to cover that donger up? It’s rather large and frightening,” said Hayman.

  It took Ride a minute to understand, and then he felt suddenly awkward. He had crossed the line, having mistakenly thought that that Sergeant Hayman’s panty-clad swim had meant that nudity on his part was somehow appropriate.

  He covered himself and got up awkwardly to retrieve his clothes. He returned a minute later wearing his shorts.

  “Sorry if I offended you, Wendy.”

  “It’s not me you offended, I actually don’t mind seeing a digger’s dongo. No, it’s my little Corporal you scared with that doodle of yours,” she said, with a smile.

  Rick looked at Corporal Guay, not sure what to say.

  “Relax, mate, you’re not my type.”

  After ten days together, Sergeant Rideout still did not know for sure if Corporal Guay was gay or not, and had to ask.

  “So are you gay, or what?”

  Guay snorted in disgust. “I’m gobsmacked you’re asking me that question, Mate,”

  “Why?”

  “Well, even if you Yanks get all wobbly about gays, and pretend that you don’t have any poofs in your military, it’s not something we care about one way or the other in ours. We’ve got some, but who cares? That’s their business. As for me, Mate, you asked, but I’m sorry I have to let you down. I go for the Sheilas, Mate.”

  Feeling even more embarrassed, Ride looked at Sergeant Hayman.

  “Isn’t it dog’s balls, Ride?” she asked.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Obvious, mate. Isn’t it
obvious?”

  “What?”

  “Corporal Guay and I are lovers. He’s my bloke,” she said, taking Guay’s hand in her own.

  Ride looked at her, then at Corporal Guay, and then back at her, trying to take it all in. “I had no idea. I actually thought he was gay.”

  “A poofter? My Dickie? You are a Drongo, aren’t you? I knew you were a Root Rat, always looking at me like you wanted to get your hands on my Mappa-Tazzi, but I thought you knew that Dickie and I were ‘having a naughty’ every chance we got.”

  Rick noticed a cringing expression in Cpl Guay’s face, as if something Sergeant Hayman was saying had made his stomach turn. Something’s not right here, and it’s not about their relationship, Rick thought to himself.

  Having some difficulty following the Australian slang, Rick was relieved to finally understand why he had been left alone so often on the trip, and it made him feel a lot better.

  He just smiled, and shook his head, fairly sure that ‘having a nasty’ meant having sex, Australia’s version of American’s ‘doing the nasty’.

  After some small talk about what a billabong really was, he felt the need to be on his own for a while. Comprehending all the Australian slang was too much of an effort, and with his recent social faux-pas in mind, not to mention that the prospect of bedding Sergeant Hayman had just been ripped from his future, Top Sergeant Rideout needed some alone time.

  “I’ll be back in a while,” he said, and then he got up to explore the terrain beyond the billabong, on his own, to think about what it was about the place that made him feel so attached to it.

  Working his way up from the billabong, he found himself back at the top, facing the boundless desert. A long, flat horizon was bisected by scattered hills in the distance. Otherwise it was the endless tundra of the Outback.

  Rideout strode athletically across the desert plain, feeling the hot breeze on his face, cooling the sweat running down his forehead. His pace slowed as he walked, changing from that of a marching Marine to one of a serious desert traveler, going in rhythm with the land. You have to go slow but steady to keep from sweating so much, the voice in his head told him.