Free Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume by Various Authors

to stare at Daniel. Daniel's eyes were calm but his mouth had a rueful twist. "I don't think that. Nothing like that. I told you I knew what I was halfway through Boot Camp."
    "But?"
    "I wish I wasn't." It came out in a rush.
    "Ah. I can't help you with that. Being the same way myself and all."
    "Do you ever wish differently? I mean, you seem so... so comfortable with it. So not bothered by it. Don't you ever think it would be easier to be normal?"
    "Sure I do." Daniel's voice was bleak. "I stood in front of my father while he told me I was a degenerate and a disgrace to the family and that the Navy had damned well better make a man out of me or I wasn't welcome back home. Of course I've wished I was normal. But it's not going to happen. I've known since I was a kid that it was going to be boys for me. Or men."
    "So what do we do?"
    "Well, I know what I want to do." Daniel sat up in the bed but made no move toward Jacob. "I want to get another three or four hours of sleep. And then I want to take you in my mouth again and give you the best blow job you've ever had."
    "I meant after that."
    "After that you can return the favor."
    "Daniel!"
    Daniel sighed. "I don't know. If you mean long term, when we get home, what do we do, then I don't know. We have to be careful, that's for damned sure. If they catch us, it's not just a discharge, it might be the brig. Or even prison. But one thing I do know. There's a war on. Those men on the California, they didn't know on that Saturday night that by Sunday evening they would be dead. Normal or queer, it didn't matter. Given the choice, don't you think they would have rather had this, what we have in this room, than died without it?"
    "I guess so."
    Daniel tried for a smile. "If I'm going to float around on the Pacific waiting for Jap planes and subs and torpedoes, then I'd rather have as much fun as I can along the way, before I buy the farm."
    "Don't say that. You're not going to die."
    "I hope not. But I wouldn't bet my last dime against it. And if I do, I want to go out knowing I actually lived first."
    Jacob nodded slowly. Then he kept just nodding, because it made sense and yet he couldn't wrap his mind around it. He wanted this. God, did he want it. He'd been thinking of nothing else whenever he had a private moment for the last few weeks. And yet he was still lying here staring at the ceiling while Daniel lay an arm's length away. What kind of coward did that make him? Why did the picture of his own father saying degenerate and perversion suddenly seem so real?
    "Come on, Jacob," Daniel said quietly. "Just get some rest. It's too dark to find your way across town now anyway. I won't touch you. Relax and sleep a while."
    Suddenly dizzy with fatigue, Jacob rolled on his side and tried to do as he was told. The sheets were soft under him. True to his word, Daniel lay along the far side of the bed, a careful distance away. Jacob stretched out his legs, feeling almost as if the bed was swaying. His world was swaying. What was real?
    All that time on the Gageway had taken him farther from his father's house and the store and his college classes than he had realized. And he wasn't sure there was a way back. He'd joined up in dogged determination to take Brian's place. To do his duty, to make the Japs pay, maybe to become the man his brother had been before returning home to the weight of his father's expectations. But every day he was drifting further from that course. Who would he be, by the time this thing was over?
    Long minutes dragged by. Eventually Daniel said, "This doesn't have to go any further, you know. Being here with me, it doesn't commit you to anything." All trace of sleepiness had vanished from his voice. He sounded tight and controlled.
    Jacob lay there like a stupid, silent log.
    Daniel reached out carefully and switched off the lamp. In the sudden heavy darkness he said, "You should get some rest. Don't worry about things, all right? We can just be shipmates from here