When this hunk Marine
Drills you through the ground
Who do you call?
STUDBUSTERS!
Part I
Every once in a while somebody asks me how the Studbusters got together in the first place, and every once in a while I unbend enough to tell them.
The where is the Marine Corps base at Pendleton—good old Southern California. Orange County, about an hour and a half from the sleezy heart of Hollywood. Harker and I were recruits there, twenty years old apiece, a pair of tough young street kids from the east who’d met on the bus, striking a conversation up because there wasn’t much else to do on the bus and talking was better than being bored. Similar backgrounds even if the cities were different you know.
What’d we talk about, that first exchange? All the chicks we dicked, in detail—what else? I wasn’t exactly lying about it, at the time I could be into cooze on occasion; so what the fuck if I embellished and exaggerated? That’s how a story gets to be a story, right?
And Harker, hey, if he’d been laid by as many girls as he claimed to be, in as many original and unique ways, he’d have been dead long before he ever made it to twenty, you’d better believe it I knew that the minute he began his third narrative, all about these twins and their Aunt Rita on a Minnesota farm: I knew it was a lie because it happened to be straight out of a little-played rock number by a little- played rock group of the mid-sixties, ur-Jim Morrison who’d gone nowhere.
There was no point in challenging Hark about it, pointing out how he simply was doing the lyric with a lot of fucking and sucking added on, not if I wanted a friend in those cold Pendleton barracks—and I did want a friend there, oh, yes. There is always safety in numbers when you are going into the Great Unknown, the hell with how muscular a stud you think you are, how self-sufficient and resourceful.
So the two of us swapped lies for our mutual gratification, going through almost all of Basic that way, putting up with the geek from San Francisco in the bunk to my right and the fat schmuck from Atlanta in the bunk alongside Hark’s. Those guys were a cinch, actually. Sergeant Jenner was something else again. Sergeant Richard Jenner, a bastard from the word go.
Twenty-six, I figured—no older; not much less. Huge: my guess was 230 pounds. Maybe 240. A recruiting poster, whether he was in full dress or fatigues, with that just-so bristle of hair cut with military precision just-so on his squared-off head, with a natural set of bulging muscles down his arms and chest, the kind most body builders would sell their souls to the Devil for. Tall—but not the ungainly basketball player tall; we’re talking six two, six two and a half tops.
Enough to be real imposing. Enough to make that muscular bulk sit in high proportion on his massive skeleton. Adonis couldn’t have looked so perfect But Adonis had to have had a better disposition.
I’d heard of D.l, tempers, of course—part of that “Great Unknown” I mentioned before. I thought I was prepared to be chewed out at the drop of a hat I could handle it What I couldn’t handle, not well, anyway, was how overboard Sergeant Dick went with the abuse, even if it was for the most part strictly verbal. The man was sadistic, reveling when the sharpness of his tongue and the power of his lungs could reduce a recruit to a quivering lump of wimpy jelly—when he could uncover some flaw in a kid’s psychological makeup and use it against him like a stiletto, plunging it into the heart and twisting it sharply before yanking it out and watching it bleed.
That fat boy from Atlanta I was telling you about? Jenner had him pissing buckets down the inside of his pants more than once, making “fun” of a really unfortunate bladder condition until finally the would-be Marine couldn’t take it anymore, running in front of a truck, damaging himself severely enough to eliminate himself from the Corps.
It put him in a hospital for four months; then, afterwards, in an asylum for another six years. Last I heard he’s still not “all there” even now, and probably never will be, the rest of his life. Thank you, Sergeant Jenner, sir, thank you very much!
Did The Dick (as he was sometimes called, behind his back) give a shit? Voice regret? Offer apology?
Are you crazy?
The day they took fatso away Sergeant Dick laughed. Whistled. Hummed. And put us through the kind of long march that turns every last bone in your miserable body to rubber. When you finally collapse onto your barracks’ bunk you expect to sleep for years.
Only the Marine Corps’ favorite Torquemada has you up doing exercises in less than four hours, yelling those one two three fours right in your face, bad breath rocking you back on your heels. What a monster.You can imagine the dreams I had, all those dirty ways I could make him pay for the aching torment he was putting me through. Putting everybody through. Over and above the call of duty, they call it Over and above.
What’s his name from Frisco was the next to crack up and out blowing his cool and actually attempting to mash the D.I.’s handsome nose with a set of brass knuckles. The swing didn’t come close to its target Jenner as quick on his feet as he was strong, his hand snapping shut around Frisco’s jabbing wrist twisting it away.
Within seconds the brass was clattering onto the floor and the punk’s cry of pain was silenced by a knee and a fist a lot better at the attack than his own. Every last ounce of air was sent flying out of those lungs, then every last bit of consciousness was removed from that stupid brain, all within the space of a single second.
An extended stay in the brig was predicted, followed by a dishonorable discharge and, as a prognosticator, our beloved Sarge proved to be as accurate as Nostradamus. Don’t misunderstand me here, please: I am not claiming that our fellow recruit did not deserve such a fate. What I am claiming is that he did not deserve the beating which Jenner so enjoyed, particularly since his bloddied opponent was already out of it. The way he kept knocking him down again, and again, and again.., there are limits, man. There are ethics.
“Shh,” Harker whispered after Lights Out that night “People like that always get theirs. Sooner or later they always get theirs.”
I wasn’t so sure, especially since my turn was next the result of one of those insignificant minor infractions that can’t be helped—or that have been fixed as a deliberate set-up. The particulars are unimportant What is important is that Sergeant Dick came down on me hard, physically and authoritatively, cancelling a liberty I’d been anticipating for weeks, putting me on demeritous report and assigning me punishment detail not just in the latrine.
In the latrine.
When Harker, against his own better judgement came to my defense, he found his face flushed down on one of the bowls a couple of times, and once again I had the company of a friend when no one else was around to share the sorrow.
“That sonofabitch,” I said, holding my wounded buddy. “He didn’t have to humiliate you like that, that asshole, that prick.”
“Just hold me, man,” Harker whispered, something I was glad to do, considering everything. As you might by now expect “holding” became groping became licking became kissing and sucking and everything else that goes with it our hands and tongues and cocks released and utterly unrestrained. This was a guy I cared for, damn it a guy who’d stood by me and vice-versa, and there was no other way to demonstrate our affection for each other. Our solidarity—and I do mean sol-id-arity!
Since this isn’t what an artist friend of mine refers to as a Joan Crawford Romance, I’ll spare you the intimate details of this particular intercourse and go on to tell you how it came about that we “got” Sergeant Dick just like in those dirty dreams.
PART II
First thing you have to be told is that we finally did wangle that liberty I mentioned, about two weekends later, and headed on up to LA., free for 72 fucking hours. Free!
But not very flush, not after a few beers and a fast and probably rigged game of cards. Liberty sans luchre is not much of a liberty, believe me.
“There is a way,” Harker did want me to know—if I was willing to, ah, let my hair down a little and look the other way when it came to morality. After all, husky young studs such as ourselves did have a service to sell, so to speak.
“Whore out, you mean.” It was enough to give a guy the willies, especially a guy from a poor but honest background. Church-going family. Making it with a pal in need was one thing. Going down on a stranger for money, “I don’t know..
“Who said anything about ‘going down’ on anybody?” Harker was adamant about that “We’re ‘trade,’ man: They go down on us. We just lie there and smile.”
“Nothing else?”
Nothing else. “Except,” he added, not entirely the afterthought he tried to make it seem, “if the customer wants you to fuck ass. I don’t see anything wrong with that if I’m the fucker and he’s the fuckee.” Hark didn’t mind shit on his dick.
Shit on his dick, though: ugh. Yuck. No way.
“You had my shit on your dick,” I reminded him, grinning, digging him in the ribs a little, buddy-like.
“Don’t push your luck.” Was I game, or did I want to spend the rest of the leave sitting around the bus station reading day-old newspapers?
… Fuck it Yeah. I was game, why the hell not? As long as I wasn’t going to get my ass reamed and as long as I was going to get my wallet stuffed, let it rip! Santa Monica Boulevard, Harker and Co, were on their way, rock-hard and horny.
“We can do better than Santa Monica Boulevard,” Harker wanted me to know. He happened to have “connections.” namely an old family acquaintance who operated an extensive and collect call service—”better that than standing around on a street corner going ‘hi, sailor,’ right?”
Right.
A quick phone call, a bus ride nearly as quick and we were ushered into the presence of a friendly grey-haired chap I’m going to name Lyndon in the interests of discretion. Those of you who know the Hollywood scene won’t have a problem guessing who I’m talking about those of you who don’t, hey—what difference does the real name make?
None for the purposes of this story, believe me. The pertinent facts are that Lydon was amenable to our plans and why not? He already had Harker Hine’s eight by ten glossy in his “catalogue,” under brunettes; his new buddy from Pendleton could be offered as a sight-unseen “bonus package,” a guaranteed “ten” for those adventurous enough to go for yet another kind of Great Unknown.
If I “took” to the experience, what the hell: my picture could always be added to the collection, in the back, under “sometime things…?”
“Some of the best stuff is in that department,” a new voice interjected, a young stud with flaring lats encased in a tee-shirt so tight at first I thought its stripes were just painted around the periphery of that incredible 45-inch chest unexpanded. Eye-catching enough but only the beginning. On top of all that definition was a face that artists and cartoonists would drop their crayons over, anchored by an eternally youthful pugged-up nose and a set of dimples activated by the drop of a smile.
My impression was this dude smiled a lot. I liked him a lot. So did Hark.
“My nephew,” Lyndon announced, introducing us. The name was Ryan. It fit. It fit good.
In order not to stare at him like a groupie I made a point of flipping through his uncle’s plasticized album, reacting to the sight of more than a few well-known young actors and models, along with several real-live Olympians and one up-and-coming young boxer.
“Oh, yes,” the proprietor confirmed, nodding. “A lot of our ‘employees’ like to keep in touch with their, how should I say, roots? Not only the famous ones, either.” We wouldn’t be the only Marines on the roster, Heinsie and me; for instance, this one on page 51 and that one on page 57 and over here on 63…
“Turn that page back a minute.” Harker’s voice went suddenly husky with chilled astonishment. Mine couldn’t even speak. Were we actually looking at a picture of someone the both of us knew only too well?
“This guy’s last name—the real one—that wouldn’t happen to be Jenner, by any chance, would it, sir?” He wouldn’t happen to be a D.I, down at Pendleton now, would he?
What we were asking for was information an entrepreneur like Lyndon wouldn’t ordinarily agree to give out—but it was obvious to everybody present that the two babyblues were all too familiar with the phiz in real life, the hell with the Kodacolor, the cat was already out of the bag and there was no putting it back in.
What difference would the confirmation make in anybody’s life, anyway, the rationalization went. Ryan’s uncle couldn’t imagine the interest being anything other than a point of information: a pair of butch studs like us surely weren’t thinking of hiring Sergeant Dick for anything like the purposes he was usually available for.., were we?
“Maybe.’’
A shake of the aging head, while the nephew grinned. Oh, those dimples.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Lyndon extrapolated. “Aren’t you boys ‘tops?’ The both of you?” Well, so was our D.I. “He doesn’t let anybody plow his ass; certainly not two recruits from his own platoon…!”
“Let?” What did “let” have to do with this? Explosive laughter was spraying from the nephew’s beautiful mouth; he understood precisely what was in our filthy minds.
Vengeance?
Revenge!
Sex!
Gang-rape, to be exact—in the case Uncle Lyndon hadn’t yet caught on.
“Against his will?” If we were amazed to find out that Sergeant Dick had a secret life, Uncle Lyndon was twice as amazed at what we proposed to do about it He was even more shocked that Ryan not only seemed to approve, but apparently wanted to be a co-conspirator.
“Damn right ‘against his will,’ unk,” he grinned. Opie on Mayberry RFD was never so all-American innocent. “You ever hear of a real gang-rape that had the consent of the victim?”
Some gang rape that would be!
Still. Lyndon and I shared the same curiosity. Why was Ryan so all-fired eager to help these gyrenes in this jerry- built plot against their sergeant?
Easy. “I’ve met the dude.” In our new-found friend’s opinion, our dear old D.I, was due a little bringing down, a little working over. Authority is always better when it experiences the other side of the coin every now and then. Besides, he added with a gesture in our direction for his uncle’s benefit “the only way this is going to work is if Jenner has someone he isn’t going to recognize right away opening up the door.”
True. One glimpse of Harker or me and the jig would be up long before it even got started. Once the hood was on the falcon, though…
“All right,” Hollywood’s most successful male-order businessman consented, reluctantly, “he ought to be calling in for his next gig any minute now; I’ll have him there at what eight?”
“Eight” was just fine, and “there” would be Ryan’s place in the hills, happily volunteered. He could hardly wait until we saw the playroom; until we found out how simple a matter it’d be, making the wildest of dreams come true.
By the way. Did either of us Marines happen to notice this interesting little hand-written notation on the back of the sergeant’s open-bloused photo? All about how as a topman Jenner hated only two things—being French kissed and tickled under the arms.
And of course he doesn’t suck.
“I certainly hope not,” I remarked, my chuckle absolutely evil.
