Desert Gifts
Introduction:
Typical man goes off to war and woman cheats, man becomes injured and finds a helpful nurse.
Please realize this is not meant to be a happy go lucky feel good Christmas tale. If you are looking for such tale then you may want to skip this one as it includes divorce, war, death, and a man who loses everything before finally discovering young love. It is light on erotica compared to my other writings. If this still intrigues you then please read on. This is what I wrote for CAW 9 before deciding not to participate. I release it as I always want to write something like this and appreciate feedback. I apologize if I got any military jargon wrong; I researched as much as I could.
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Chief Warrant Officer John Gillespie was sitting in the pilot’s briefing room when he heard the news. 1-211 Attack Battalion would redeploy to Kuwait then continue their rotation as opposed to going home for Christmas.
“That’s bullshit!” Chief Warrant Officer 2 or CW2, Frank Spillane a red haired Irish American replied to the news. “Fucking President got on national TV and said we’d all be home.”
John thought about reminding Frank of his duty and the job was done when the commander said it was done, but Frank was a hothead and needed to vent. Best to vent around the other pilots as opposed to the brass which would get him lit up.
‘Merry Christmas.’ John though. He’d be getting another gift of sand dunes courtesy of the US Army. This wasn’t John’s first Christmas in the sandbox as an Apache pilot. The one thing about being a ‘gun bunny’ as the ‘lift kids,’ or cargo pilots, like to call the Apache pilots, was there was no better place in the world to be a gunship pilot than in Iraq. Nowhere else did the gunship do its fulltime mission of slinging hot lead at the oppressors of liberty.
John was on his sixth deployment since 2001, four times to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan. His life felt like a rotating door, home only long enough to train-up with the next unit then be off again. John got to the point he only signed six month leases, why get stuck with an apartment when you would only live there for 12 months. Most of his life was permanently in one storage unit or another. John had managed to consolidate his entire life down to a 10 x 15 storage room to include his 2006 FLHRCI deep cobalt pearl and brilliant silver pearl Harley Davidson Road King. John modified the bike removing the rear pillion and replacing the seat with a springer saddle. When asked about a bitch seat John would remark, “I don’t pickup bitches so I don’t need a bitch seat.”
John’s martial life took the Army typical nose dive once the biannual rotations to war zones started. Christy his blond bombshell of a wife got pregnant during John’s second tour. John came home for R&R leave and by the time he made it home after deployment Christy was ready to pop. Thirty days later she popped and John moved out filing for separation. The doctors did the math and either Christy was the second person on Earth to immaculately conceive a child or the bitch cheated on him. The little bastard was born in early December, Merry fucking Christmas.
The State John and Christy were living required a 12 month separation period prior to a divorce so John did what John does best. He walked into his colonel’s office and requested to be deployed to war. The commander was able to find John a unit to deploy with and in a week he moved his shit into a storage room and was off to Afghanistan. “Don’t you want to be with our son?” Christy had the gall to ask him.
John returned from that deployment and got to spend the next six months fighting Christy’s lawyers in divorce court. Bitch cheated on him but since she wrote his name as the father on the birth certificate he got nailed as the father of the little bastard. The liberal Judge took him for $2,500 alimony and $1,500 in child support, damn near fifty percent of his paycheck. Of course the bitch took the car and everything he left in the house, which was why John bought the Road King.
John fought the paternity of the child finally getting his name off the child’s birth certificate nearly two years later. He went back in have the child support removed and demand that Christy have to repay the $36,000 in child support. Christy’s defense finally broke down to “But John is the only father he knows.” It was bullshit as Christy had the real slim ball father living with her. John’s private investigator provided the photos and video of the bastard calling the other guy daddy. Finally, John scored a win with the Judge none too happy about Christy perjuring herself. John got the alimony and child support nullified but no recuperation was ordered. At least this would be a Merry Christmas and John would for the first time see a full paycheck as his gift. Well that was till his mother called pissed off about her “not being allowed to see the grandbaby.”
“Mom, it was another asshole’s child.” John tried. Oh the ass chewing he took for that one followed by his parents no longer speaking to him.
Fast forward to present day and John now drew the mission of being one of the pilot’s who provided convoy security to some of the last vehicles pulling out. John would be flying with one of the lieutenants in the unit, a bright young blond woman named Jennifer West. Lt West was attractive at nearly 5’ 8” tall, blue eyes and a well proportioned athletic build. John saw her most mornings working out in her gray and black physical fitness gear in the camp gym. She would smile and chat with him, she calling him John and he responding with Ma’am based on their rank. John may have had over 20 years in the service but a snot nosed lieutenant still out ranked a Chief Warrant Officer 4. John played the game; she would not be the first or the last lieutenant he flew with.
The mission was to be a typical overhead security mission or Air Weapons Team as the Army liked to call it. Bottom line it was the Apache’s job to pull the ground pounders ass out of the fire when they poked a nest of enemy. The gunship was loaded up with a full magazine of 30mm rounds, 2.75” Hydra 70 rockets and since there would be no refueling along the route an external fuel tank. Lt West jumped in the front seat and John took the back, their call sign Reaper 26 with Reaper 6 the company commander his wingman.
The twin GE T700 engines roared to life with the whine of the engine soon replaced with the beat of rotors. Checks were made and soon the two Apache Longbows lifted off the pads like a pair of raptors going out for the hunt. This was the moment of life that John enjoyed the most, the 17,500 pound fully armed and lethal bird under the command of his fingertips. John rolled the aircraft into a close right trail position off the command bird as they accelerated to meet the ground convoy already enroute.
The two Longbows made a low pass over the line of 35 ton Caimans slowly marching south. Soon the radio cracked with the check-in of the Air Weapons Team with their supported ground forces.
“Annihilator this is Reaper 6 approaching your six O’clock.”
“Reaper 6 this is Annihilator 6 welcome to the party.”
“Roger Annihilator, we’re beginning our sweeps.”
The Apaches loosened up their formation and begun deliberate reconnaissance along and ahead of the heavy armored vehicles clearing for a possible ambush. The gunships were expected to stick with the convoy most of the way south progressively clearing the path for the heavy vehicles.
After an hour of running with the Caimans the gunships received a call from Annihilator.
“Reaper 6 lead vehicle struck an IED and we are being lit up from multiple locations.”
‘Shit,’ John thought. ‘The enemy must have waited for the Apaches to pass then setup in position to attack the convoy.’ Their intelligence officer warned about this type of attack. The two Apaches made a low and fast 180 turn back toward the convoy as the commanders cleared engagement areas via radio. John opened the distance between the two helicopters allowing his commander’s bird to make the first run against the enemy. He could hear the chug-chug-chug of the 30 mm chain gun over the radio as his commander’s bird buzzed over the engagement area. Lt West and John coordinated their attack and he soon followed suit his own Apache Longbow spitting out a deadly stream of 30mm lead.
The commanders coordinated again and decided to send some Hydra rockets into the enemy location to scramble them up and force them out. Both birds send a stream of rockets in a thwap-thwap reverberation. Quickly the enemy fire from that position ceased. But a second location a few hundred meters away turned fire to the raptors hovering near the Caimans.
Reaper 6 coordinated an attack pattern with the ground forces as both birds spit lead at the enemy to suppress their ground to air fire. A few rounds hit the commander’s bird and John realized these were not average enemy but well trained and coordinated cadre. Soon a second barrage of Hydras joined the bursts of 30mm and the ground to air fire ceased. With the one side taken care of the Apaches turned their deadly gaze to the other side of the road where tracer rounds were coming from a burm.
When they moved into an attack by fire position John could see the enemy lift something large. “Shit! SAM.” He called over the air-to-air frequency as his commander’s bird jinked right. John already had command of the chain gun with its look and shoot capability placing the recital on the man with a SAM. He went to squeeze the trigger but was a heartbeat too late as a bright flash emitted from the location of the SAM followed by the peppering of John’s 30mm.
John jinked left having lost sight of his commander’s aircraft but was a moment too late. John saw an orange fireball erupt near the nose of his gunship followed by a hard sock in the face. Master warning lights emitted and the whoop – whoop of the low rotor sounded in John’s helmet. John attempted to steady the aircraft using the instruments inside of the gunship but the various multi-function displays were flickering with unintelligible information and his standby attitude indicator had rolled over.
Then the aircraft’s nose dug in hard before flipping several times and rolling. A brown dust cloud engulfed the aircraft as it crashed into the ground. The troops on the ground watched in astonishment before swinging their guns and unleashing hell to the enemy who just took down one of their guardian angles.
John must have passed out during the crash sequence as the next thing he remembered was being carried away from his destroyed Apache on a stretcher. The aircraft looked like it just got into a fight with a tornado and lost, but most worrisome was the nose looked like someone just reached up and punched it hard. The gunner’s portion of the cockpit was scorched black, peppered like a shotgun hit it and crumpled.
“Where is Lieutenant West.” John managed to bark out through a sore and possible broken jaw.
“I’m afraid she didn’t make it chief.”
John despised the use of chief as the person who maintained the aircraft was the crew chief. A warrant officer was addressed as either mister or Chief Warrant Officer, but both the pain in his jaw, chest and the grief of the loss of his platoon leader just overcame the hardened combat aviator. John wept at the news.
John woke again in Kuwait and was informed that he was stabilized but his injuries required that he be MEDEVACed to Landstuhl for further treatment. Honestly John felt lots of burning and numbness but did not think he needed to be MEDEVACed out of country. That was until he tried to sit-up and realized that his body was not under his control.
“Careful there Chief. You don’t need to injure yourself anymore.” A young corpsman stated.
“What’s wrong with me?” John ordered the corpsman.
The corpsman glanced around nervously before finally answering, “Sir you have numerous broken bones, bruised organs, and we fear you may have broken your back.”
John only now realized that he was immobilized, strapped down to a backboard.
“Did they recover Lt West?” John asked.
“Sir, I don’t know.” With that John passed out again.
In Landstuhl John went through multiple surgeries and recovery. The doctors told him he had a spinal cord injury that caused a loss of mobility and most feeling below his waist. The doctors explained it as a partial injury of the lower “L” level which was most often associated with inability to move the legs and loss of feeling. Once John was able to function they MEDEVACed him to Brooks Army Hospital in San Antonio where he would go through Physical Therapy to teach him how to live with his condition. They would also process his retirement and disability since a pilot who can’t walk is no good to the Army.
Brooks was where the Army sent all its young doctors and nurses to learn how to treat soldiers. It was like flight school for doctors and John was assigned to a young Captain who looked like her was barely old enough to spell his name, much less join the Army. Dr. Walkings was his primary physician who took care of his day to day medical needs. He was also assigned to a Specialist, Dr Chambers and his nurse Lt Sandy McLain an auburn haired beauty with deep green eyes, full lips and a smile to die for.
The Specialist saw John once a week and it was Lt McLain who took care of the daily chores of physical therapy. Since John would need to know how to live on his own the first thing Sandy, who preferred to be called by her first name and not Lieutenant, did was to removed his catheter. There was John with his wily out as Sandy’s soft hands handled him and slowly removed the catheter from him. When it snagged he felt a sharp pain and let out a yelp which scared Sandy.
“You felt that?” Sandy asked confused.
“No, you pulled and I felt like yelping.” John gave a smart ass reply.
Sandy looked at John for a moment then realized his sarcasm for what it was.
“Well that is a good sign.”
“How the hell is that?” John asked.
“Most people with lower L SCIs loose all feeling below the hips.”
John figured out what she meant really quickly. He was lucky to still have feeling in his wily.
“That means there should be no need for a bed pan.” Sandy smiled.
“And I’ll be running the Boston Marathon when?” John asked.
Sandy laughed, “Well you can participate in a wheelchair.” That caused John’s mood to sour.
Sandy returned each day and worked with John teaching him to get in and out of a wheel chair. Soon the sponge baths ended much to John’s dismay and she taught him to get in and out of his own bath water. John of course asked Sandy, “Will you join me?” She just gave him a sweet smile.
John became more and more mobile and was able to take himself down to the dining hall and get his own meals. He was also working his upper body and core in the weight room by the end of six months. That is when the efficient little administrative officer came to see him. “Chief Gillespie?” The pencil thin desk jockey spoke.
“That is Mr. Gillespie as I don’t wear a headdress.” John corrected turning around and seeing the oak leaf of a Major. John remembered the joke when he was told as a young pilot, “Why do majors wear oak leafs? It comes from the Garden of Eden when we learned to cover our pricks.”
“Can I help you Major?” John asked.
“Yes, um Mr. Gillespie, I have your discharge and retirement orders as well as your parting awards.”
“So the Army is kicking me out.” John replied dryly.
“No. You are being retired Chief umm Warrant Officer.”
“Great.” John replied.
“Here is your Air Medal, Purple Heart and Bronze Star from Iraq.” The Major unceremoniously presented.
“Drop them in the trash on your way out Major.” John replied curtly.
“Well… uh.. How about I put them over here?” The Major replied before offering good day.
Sandy came bobbling up shortly after the Major left.
“Hiya John.” Sandy bubbled.
“Yeah hi.” John replied.
“Why so glum?” Sandy asked.
“Just got my retirement orders.” John replied.
“That’s great! You’re outta here then.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” John replied.
Sandy hated to see John so glum. “So why you so sad then?”
“All I have known has been the Army. What am I suppose to do now?”
“Enjoy retirement. See the world. Settle down with someone nice.” Sandy offered.
“Not ready to retire. Seen the world, met new people and killed them. I tired settling down and the bitch was a cheater.” John retorted.
Sandy was taken aback by John’s gruff response and just gave him an adoring stare.
“I tell you what. How would you like a little pussy tomorrow?” Sandy asked.
John was stunned and it took nearly a minute to respond, “You’re some full service nurse.”
Sandy just smiled.
The next morning John woke to mewing and when his opened his eyes there was an orange fuzz ball on his chest and Sandy looking tenderly over them.
“Wha…. What the hell.” John spit out.
“A little pussy.” Sandy replied, “Names Jinx.”
John couldn’t help but stroke the fuzz ball which started purring under him. “Somehow I figured pussy to mean something else.”
Sandy put on her best show of indignation, “Chief Warrant Officer! I don’t do that. At least not until after the first date.”
John smiled, “Chief Warrant Officer, Retired.”
John was released from Brooks and decided to have his stuff shipped from his storage unit to San Antonio. One of his friends from the unit offered to help and John gave him the Road King for his efforts. It was not like he was going to be riding it again. Without the ability to move his legs there was no way he could hold up the bike or shift. Maybe later on he could get a trike with modified hand controls. ‘A fucking trike is for old men and cripples.’ John pouted.
John found an apartment complex and Sandy volunteered to come over and help him unpack. Her kindness and help during the past six months had made them real close and wore down on John’s normally rash behavior toward women since Christy. It did not take long to unpack the few items that John had and Sandy even helped him assemble his bed. The Wounded Warrior Project helped him find and purchase a Van with modified hand controls so he could get around.
Soon with everything put away John asked, “Sandy, you want to get something to eat?”
“I thought you would never ask.” Sandy replied.
They made their way out to John’s van and as he entered he just looked at Sandy.
“You know I don’t know where anything is in San Antonio having spent the last six months in a hospital.”
They both laughed and Sandy directed him to a local Italian restaurant. They ate drank a little wine before making their way back to John’s apartment. John had learned to live with a new environment being wheel chair bound; opposed to seeing people’s faces he was now more apt to get a face full of ass or crotch. Sandy had a nice full ass with a beautiful hips and John didn’t mind a face full of her crotch. Other people not so much and he hollered “Excuse me.”
Sandy walked and John wheeled back to his apartment before they stalled outside. “Want to come in for a nightcap?” John asked seductively.
Sandy grinned a sweet smile before leaning forward and pressing her full, soft and pink lips against him. John wished that he could stand up and kiss her back correctly but had to concede to his seated predicament. Sandy pulled away all too soon before saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
John went inside and Jinx mewed at him. “Yeah, yeah. I bet you’re hungry too.”
John and Sandy continued to see each other on a regular basis with each date a little more steamy than the previous: Dinner and a movie, dinner and a walk on the river, and finally dinner and a movie at John’s apartment. John also learned to get around much better and he and Jinx came to an agreement. Jinx would get in front of John’s wheelchair and he would not run over Jinx’s tail. John also became involved with volunteering with the local Wounded Warriors.
John and Sandy sat on the couch watching the movie and as was the norm she leaned into him and he started kissing her. She wore a light cashmere sweater like shirt, a blue skirt and long black leather boots. Her full breasts heaved gently as she breathed their shared kiss breaking the rhythm. It was then John placed a hand on her knee and she leaned into him some more. They kissed again this one sloppier with tongues fencing for position as they explored each other’s mouths. Sandy moaned slightly when he pulled away nibbling gently on her full lip. John’s hand already moved closer to Sandy’s crotch gently caressing her thigh, her hand caressing his face.
Sandy kissed John again before asking, “Shall we move this to the bedroom?”
John was shocked with the boldness but at the same time could feel the heat of lust burning. “Yes.”
He pulled for his chair and Sandy stood up pulling off her cashmere before trotting off toward his bedroom. John looked under his chair for Jinx before following. The poor cat seemed to just love perching under his wheelchair.
Sandy had already dropped her skirt and boots and turned to face John in a matching pair of red lace bra and boy-cut panties. John could feel his manhood stir at the sight and he was relieved it actually did work as this was the first time in many months since the old boy made a movement. John pulled the chair close to the bed before undressing himself. John wore just a polo shirt and a pair of jeans which once he pulled them off out popped his wily.
Sandy was already crawling on his bed like a cat and licked her lips once her eyes feasted on John’s johnston. He pulled himself to her and they laid back carefully onto the full sized bed. Sandy leaned in her auburn hair draping around John’s face as she kissed him deeply and her soft hand soon found his meat. Her touching his erection set shocks throughout John’s body and when she carefully started stroking it John’s eyes nearly rolled back and he uttered a pitiful moan.
Sandy looked adoringly at John before she pulled her lips from his and softly surrounded his manhood. The feeling of Sandy’s hands was mind numbing but her lowering her mouth to him was mind blowing and John hollered out in bliss. Sandy’s auburn head bobbed gently up and down and John became stiffer and stiffer.
Sandy sucked hard on John and pulled her head off with a soft pop before crawling up. She slid a hand between her breasts releasing a clasp as her bra fell forward and her well proportioned breasts swung forth happy for the release. John moaned. Sandy then sat up on her knees and lowered her panties her nicely trimmed auburn bush lightly covering her mons. John gasped at the sight of her as she wiggled out of her panties.
With little fanfare Sandy hovered over John and sank herself onto him. Her velvet wet smoothness surrounding him completely, her vice like muscles squeezing him tightly. Sandy then slowly bounced on top of John their fingers intertwining her breasts out of sync with their body. John could only sit underneath Sandy and allow her to set the pace. Any chance of him trying to push his hips up to meet hers gone with his irresponsive legs.
Sandy set a slow antagonizing pace, squeezing and rocking on him until she threw her head back her womanhood clamping down hard and milking at his cock. Sandy was motionless on top of John who was whimpering with his own orgasmic build. Sandy looked down before falling forward her hips slapping him and her pussy fucking him at a maddening pace. John screamed as he released a heavy load of his seed deep into Sandy.
John and Sandy set a pace of seeing each other continuously before Sandy moved in with him. It was shortly before Christmas when Sandy told John.
“I’m pregnant.”
Finally, a gift that John could enjoy and he hugged and kissed her with tears of joy.
