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He stopped smiling right away and looked at my face with great interest, his eyes full of desire.
“Now you,” I said, and then I laughed again.
“F**k Riley, I can’t do that.” The fire’s light made his cheeks turn pink.
“Go on,” I said as I poked him.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then let it out without opening his mouth. He still made a noise with the back of his throat that you couldn’t hear.
I laughed out loud. “Good thing you’re not a woman; you could never get away with faking it.”
“You often pretend?”He asked, and then his eyes grew wide with fear as he realised what he had said. “I’m sorry, don’t answer that.” That was a bad question.
“I’ve been with a lot of men who didn’t have a clue what they were doing.” I believe that every woman has learnt how to fake it over time.
“Oh.” He went back to poking the fire in an awkward way.
We heard a boat’s horn not too far away, and we both got up and ran to the door.
“Stay inside and get dressed,” he said, putting on his wet T-shirt. He left the cave and waved his hands in the distance as he threw me my trousers.
He pushed me back when I tried to follow him.
“Put on some clothes before you come out here. They’ll see.”
“Does it really matter?” I could just tell them they were wet, I said to myself as I stepped into the wet trousers.
He looked at me for a second, frowned, and then looked back at the boat.
As I zipped up the crotch, he said, “You don’t want those pervs looking at your panties.”
The boat dropped anchor next to the cave, and I could see Mason’s posture change right in front of me.
The carefree, relaxed attitude was gone.
The Lieutenant had returned.
“I can’t believe you brought p**n magazines here instead of clothes or food.” I lay on Jake’s bed and flipped through his magazines while he sat down next to me and looked down at the page.
“I have a whole stash; my roommates and I trade them off.” I turned to look at him and made my best “what the heck?” face.
“How do you do it when there are a lot of people around?”I asked, remembering my earlier conversation with Mason.
“I don’t. We have to go to the toilet to do it. It’s not very nice. I know how to have a quiet one in the middle of the night, but it’s not easy and I can’t really get my magazines out. So we mostly just go to the toilet. “She’s my favourite,” he said, pointing to the middle page spread. “Spread” was the right word to describe the picture.
I made a joke and said, “She looks mad.”
He lay down next to me, squeezing into his single bed while I flipped through more pages of naked women. I took my time reading the short paragraphs and descriptions on each page.
We looked up when the door opened, thinking that one of Jake’s roommates had come back from the cafeteria earlier than expected. But when a general walked in, we were both shocked into silence.
He looked around the room until he found us, and then a dangerous look crossed his face. At first, neither of us did anything, but after a few minutes, Jake jumped to his feet and stood at attention.
“What’s going on here?” He asked coldly.
I sat up in Jake’s bed and looked at the general, then at Jake, and finally at the p**n that was lying out in the open.
“Rivers, when I walk into the room, you stand up straight.” He yelled angrily.
I got up and stood at attention.
“Can I talk to you, General Sir?”Jake asked.
“Permission granted.” The general walked over to him and stood right in front of his face.
“I’m sorry, General Sir, but your visit is very unexpected.” He looked at me and then back at Jake.
“Yes, I can see that,” he said with a sneer. “You know that male and female recruits can’t mix in private quarters.” I rolled my eyes and waited for him to give me more laps or go cry to Mason. “Did you just roll your eyes at me, Rivers?””Shit.”
I said, “No, sir.” I kept my eyes completely still, even though I wanted to roll them again.
“This is black pigeon calling for red dog,” he said over the walkie-talkie. I turned to look at him, but his eyes stayed on Jakes. The general sounded arrogant, like he was on a serious power trip.
“This is red dog answering black pigeons call.” I knew right away that it was Mason’s voice.
“Lieutenant Sir, I am asking you to write a disciplinary for Rivers.”
“What the hell! A punishment! That is so messed up! This is my second one, and what for? Are you trying to get me to leave?”
Jake slowly turned to look at me, his mouth wide open.
“Eyes to the front soldier,” the general yelled, making Jake look away. I was furious, and my whole body was pumping blood around with anger and shame.
“I can hear her.” What has she done in general?” Mason didn’t seem happy; I could picture his disapproving look as clearly as day, since I’ve memorised it so well.
“Caught her alone in shed thirty with Jake.” He looked down at the p**n and said, “Their position was compromisable.” After that, she started to back talk.
There was a buzz from the radio around us, but Mason didn’t try to respond.
“Sir?The general asked, looking at the walkie-talkie to see if the connection was still there.
“I’ll write it down,” he said quietly. “General, you have my permission to punish them however you see fit.”
The general gave us a wicked grin and put his walkie-talkie back in his pants.
“Tomorrow Rivers.” He said the words slowly, promising death. “You have to do ten extra laps of the assault course, twenty extra laps of the track, and then finish the day with one hundred push-ups. I can’t wait to see you in pain. Now get out of here. If I catch you two mixing again, I won’t think twice about sending you away.
I waited until it was dark to clean up the mess I made with the general. He was a hairy, upper-lipped jerk who let the power go to his head, and I was really angry.
I stomped through the staff quarters a little harder than usual and yanked open his door as if I were trying to take it off the hinges.
He was sitting on the couch with his legs up, eating from a noodle box and other food boxes that were scattered around. He stopped using his chopsticks and looked up from his food, rolling his eyes.
“I had no choice, Riley.” He said this without swallowing his dinner.
“Who does he think he is, that slimy little weasel?” I threw my arms around to make my points clear and almost yelled at him.
Mason kept eating and watching TV.
“Are you paying attention to me?”I yelled.
“It’s hard not to hear you,” he said in a bored, dry voice before shoving a dumpling into his mouth.
“You gave me a punishment.” Another one.
“Can you calm down? You’re not going to be sent away. I won’t let that happen, but you need to be good. I can’t help you when you’re clearly doing something wrong.