"Seduced By The Sea - Intermission"
by Griz
umgriz@protonmail.com
22 June, 2024
Hi, Sailors (and the fans of sailors, as I hope all of us are);
I'll be damned if every time I find five little minutes to myself to sit and get caught up with Zach, Tom, Rondo and the USS Nimitz, someone calls my name. Being in demand, even on 3,000 acres in Central Montana, is highly overrated. I need to learn from the livestock: listen, but don't acknowledge. Just keep eating.
This is not really a chapter; just an acknowledgement that I'm falling short of responsibility and obligation to my literary friends (that includes you, Bud). This current state of affairs will endure until July. I should've checked in sooner, but the plans of mice and the best-laid men.....well, you know how it goes.
Please continue to support Nifty. Trust me on this: I've been approached by the webmasters of three other gay literary sites to move to them with my stories. They're all subscriptive sites. Nifty is not. nifty.org survives on donations. Yours and mine. I toyed with the idea of going to a subscription for these guys, but that was shot down like a Russian plane over Ukraine. So, I'll stay here and toy with your minds, instead.
Time on a ship is wasted on nothing and on no sailor. The Nimitz is a very long city at sea. It's the island of Manhattan without the annoying attachment to New Jersey. In the few days since coming aboard for a cruise back to the States, I've met many of the thousands of women and men who have their own jobs and responsibilities, but only one commitment: the protection of the citizens of the United States of America and her hallowed founding documents.
I've made other commitments in my still-young life. I'm fully capable of looking at a person and saying to them and myself, `You're it. You are the one who matters. I will do my best for you and with you'. I said that to the woman I married. Perhaps not in so many words, but the intentions were there, and I honored them for as long as she and I were comfortable and happy in our relationship. Rachel presented me with an opportunity---and one I welcomed---to remain in a commitment to her and, possibly, our child together. Slowly, surely, I saw the possibilities of a family on my horizon. Quickly, surely, that was blurring the lines between a possible fantasy, a goal and a probable reality.
US Navy SEALs analyze everything before acting. Well, except one SEAL I can think of, and in one incident. I didn't wait to analyze Tom Donaldson before becoming the lead pin facing the bowling ball that he is. He came for me, and being a SEAL, I didn't run. Use all the metaphors you want, but the bottom line: Tom Donaldson and I have established and shared an improbable but growing connection. I have all the time in the world over the next twenty-eight days until we land Stateside to analyze Tom, myself, our `something'; and with my land legs eventually back, see what our joint mission can be from day number twenty-nine until whenever.
So. I have time, sure. I also have an arm's length of playlists on this old iPad, future Backgammon matches in which I will beat Rondo's ass, and an opportunity before or after for Rondo to fuck mine. And I have Tom, our salutes and handshakes, runs and sprints on deck, and a fuckton of seductive thoughts about him to enjoy while I'm also seduced by the sea.
You find the most curious and unexpected things on a warship: an Olympic gymnast, medic and fellow Montanan who captures and plays `keep-away' with my heart, and a straight, stud-fuck peer captain who will share a different organ with me. This all is just.....happening. You honestly think I want to know how or why? Nope. These are things this SEAL has no intention of analyzing before acting.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends; once more.