Ocean Devil

By Jim Parks
There is a house near the U.S. Naval Base at Yokosuka, Japan, where an ocean devil can get clean, really clean. Forget your quickie California shorty where the ship is on water hours and making a lot of steam, her hull groaning from the constant strain, the evaporators churning out feed water distilled and converted from sea water, the turbines whining, the shafts spinning and the screws biting through the water as she rocks and rolls, rolls and rocks - in a hurry to go nowhere in particular, just a spot on the water for duty and more duty.

Maybe she's looking for submarines, pinging the ocean depths with her sonar. Maybe she's watching out for rockets or other ships or aircraft. Maybe she's looking to meet up with another ship and relieve her on station so she can go to join the picket around the carrier battle group and get underway replenishments - groceries, fuel, the mail, ammunition, tools, parts and last but not least, the movies, the all-important movies.

But water - water to drink and cook and wash the ass, the dungarees and shirts and socks, the dishes and pots, pans and steam-jacketed coppers - comes second to the water needed to feed the boilers, power the turbines and condense to make the round trip again and again and again.

Sometimes the crew went dirty and ate cold cuts and pea soup packed in the middle of World War Two while the old man drove the boat across hundreds and hundreds of miles of ocean. When she's pressed, really pressed, walking the dog, the snipes down below in the engine rooms and boiler rooms catch a bath in a bucket while perched on the deck plates over the bilges. They make the feed water; they use it, too. Temperatures hover around 140 degrees on a good day in their spaces. The California shorty method is for deck rates, for office pinkies and for officers. You get wet, turn it off, scrub and rub with a washrag, then rinse it off. When things get out of hand, a Master At Arms wearing a badge of his office and carrying a riot stick will tap on the shower partition. It's the signal to turn it off - now, or he'll write you up. You don't want to have to explain to the Captain how you fucked up his Navy by using too much feed water when the MAA told you turn off the water. No matter what you may say, he just won't see it that way. Here come the judge, shipmate.

They take this stuff seriously.

Why?

Because any vessel exudes an odor, an odor of lubricating and machine oil, fuel, bilge, brass polish, gunpowder, fresh paint, burned and freshly welded and fluxed steel and the garbage that passes for chow in her galley. That odor is pervasive, all-encompassing, almost unnoticeable after one has spent a week or two in her inner spaces, only coming up for fresh air at chow time or for the odd turn around the fantail. It's a total luxury to wash it off if only to hit the rack, that odor of the ship and the sweat, powdered paint and rust, grease, oil and goo you've accumulated since your last dance with the shower head.

So it was a little bit of heaven for Riley when she made Yokosuka and he went over to get clean - really clean - and get some leg.

Now Riley was a proud sumbitch. He had made his crow and lost it half a dozen times, but got it back for his exemplary service in the engine rooms. He was a first class petty officer, cock of the walk, a Machinist's Mate who knew every part, and loved every part, of her propulsion system, generators, blowers, boilers and turbines. He got along good with the snipes. The other shipmates, well, they didn't have much understanding of what made her tick; however, he didn't hold it against them.

His latest peccadillo had been with a j.g. - a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, who had dared to come directly to him to talk about some inspection forms that were due for turning in to the Bureau of Ships. He had violated protocol in a very gauche way. Everyone knew Riley didn't like officers. For an officer to address Riley, he was expected to make his move through the Chief Petty Officer. He should have asked the Chief, then let the Chief turn around and say, "Riley, Mr. So and So wants to know about them there inspection forms and everything. You know anything about it?"

But this guy had no sensitivity whatsoever. He actually interrupted a shipmate who was talking to Riley about a certain problem with a worn ball valve. He didn't even say "Excuse me, men," or something respectful. Anything, any gesture would have sufficed, but, no, he made no attempt to show that he was a shipmate, just that he was another paper pushing officer from nowhere.

Forget him, Riley decided.

Irked, he made a terse reply. "I've already told someone else to do that, sir." He was lucky the old man was an ex-engineering officer who knew him personally by reputation and former experience. They had served together in another ship of the same class.

When the Executive Officer asked the old man, the old man told him, "Ah, fuggedaboudit! Riley is a proud sumbitch. Hardheaded fuck. Let it go, Sam."

They both shrugged.

Riley felt his roscoe stiffen as he alighted from the tiny taxi in front of the bath house. Inside, he told Mama San he wanted two girl, sex massage, numbah one boom boom and sleepy time.

She took his money, led him to a cypress and paper cubicle, bowed and smiled.

Riley stripped.

On the cheeks of his ass were two propellers, one for the left and one for the right. The skin over each of his shoulder blades was emblazoned with a Geisha, each holding a parasol. In accordance with Naval Regulations, his tattoos stopped at his wrists so that the sleeves of his uniforms covered them. No images protruded past the collar of his t-shirt. But all was colorful in fair territory. He had multi-colored cobwebs on his elbows to signify that it had been a long time since he'd had a drink, that he was very dry; hinges decorated the interiors of his elbows to show his facility at bending them. Twin serpents coiled around his arms, twining across his pectoral muscles and ending rampant, fangs bared, just under his clavicle. On his belly, a full-rigged clipper ship ran before the wind with every piece of canvas available bent on her poles under a full moon on one side and a blazing sun on the other. Naturally, there was a circle with a dot in the middle on the left pectoral, a square on the right, and the compasses extended in the middle under the snakes's heads.

Riley had ridden Navy ships plying the Western Pacific for nearly twenty years between Pearl Harbor, The Philippines, Japan, Korea, Guam and Midway. The tats represented quite an investment. If he'd bought books worth the amount of ink used to draw the designs upon his body and had read them, he would be a knowledgeable man, indeed.

But Riley was a sailor. He traveled light. If he couldn't get it all in one bag, he didn't need it.

He descended the stone steps into the area of the cleansing bath where two giggling black-eyed Japanese country girls, their shiny dark hair done up and held with combs and chopsticks, waited for him under the foaming, sudsy surface, their ample breasts floating up to meet his gaze. He slowly walked into the near-scalding water, then immersed himself, letting the warmth soak into his body. He suddenly felt as limber as a wet dishrag.

A thrill of pleasure ran up his body from the base of his scrotum to the back of his skull, up and down his belly and ended in a deep, groaning smile as he stretched and growled.

The two girls cracked up. They'd caught his act before. Then he got out of the water and sat on a low stool, his lanky legs and knees coming almost to his chin, his back and neck exposed to the ministrations of the two women. They scrubbed him down fore and aft, from the top of his burr head to his toes. They worked on his ass, his cock, his nipples, forced curlicued corners of rags into the depths of his ears, made him snort a menthol solution up his nose and blow it, and then poured bucket after bucket of steaming water over his body as he sat perfectly still and let it all happen to him. They were just getting warmed up. The led Riley to the cooling pool where the water was distinctly chilly and the three of them waded into the cold water together, laughing at each others' goosebumps and the way the girls' nipples turned almost inside out.

One of the girls, whom he arbitrarily called Susie, weighed his dick in her little hand, it having shriveled to a pitiful dimension, and said, "Sailor man too much cold. No can do. Anyway, I think so!"

They all died laughing at the remark.

Back in the cubicle, Riley laid out on the narrow table with the tight poplin sheet on the thin pad and a girl took each end of his frame, working cocoanut butter into his fingers, toes, feet, wrists and hands joint by joint. He began to melt. The trapezoid muscles behind his neck loosened and relaxed. They stretched and stripped all the massive muscles of his limbs, kneaded his pectorals, abdominals and glutes.

Next, the spine. Susie mounted to the table, pulled down a trapeze, and worked up and down each vertebrae with the heels of her tiny bare feet. He watched her body jiggle in a full length mirror mounted on the wall. With each rotating step, you could hear Riley's back snap, pop, re-align, and snap again.

"How it feel, Sailor Man?"

"Heavenly," Riley croaked.

His mind wandered. There was high school, the little obligatory legal jam, courtesy visits from the military recruiters, the only one of whom he got any good vibes from having been the Navy guy in his pegged gabardines and spit- shined oxfords, the Dixie cup white hat jaunty and cocky on his head, a sharp-talking hipster who snapped his gum and plied Riley with non-filtered cigarettes and fresh coffee, his sea stories all about adventure and far away places - Naples, Haifa, Spain, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Japan.

The names of the places tripped off his tongue as if he was a railroad conductor announcing the local milk run. The juvenile judge suggested he make a choice and he chose enlistment in the Navy.

He found it a home and a feeder; he never looked back; he never complained. That town on the Kansas plains was a very dim memory as he rolled over for Susie's kisses and the other girl's ministrations to his cock.

After a half hour of cat and mouse give and take, she had him begging for release. He thought of a red-tailed hawk soaring higher and higher, then finding prey and swooping down, its talons bared and ready to snatch and grab the struggling animal below it. Then he lost all control. He howled and arched his back, slamming his heels into the surface of the table, unaware of whether he was experiencing extreme pleasure or extreme pain.

He was lost in the sweet torture of the moment. They showered together and lay down for a short nap.

When he awoke, he was treated to a romping, thumping rowdy session that left his nut sack empty, swinging, slapping and slathered with spunk.

After they washed him for the last time, he dressed in his freshly cleaned and pressed Hong Kong tailored gabardines and his newly spit shined shoes and hit the street, headed for the Farmer's Grill. Inside, all was loud and smoky.

The snipes from his watch were dominating the scene. They had taken over.

Japanese girls played electric guitar and drums at full volume, shouting out American tunes.

"Here one for all soul brother," a tiny woman with an electric guitar shouted into the mike. She chanted, "The best thing in life are free But you give'em to birds and bees. I want money - that's what I want. That's what I want..."

The drummer slammed the floor tom three times at the end of each verse, then crashed the cymbal. Conversation ebbed and flowed around these outbursts as if they were the bow of the ship cutting through green, angry waves, rising and crashing into the troughs just as violent. Riley ordered a Lucky Tiger and hunched over the bar, watching one of the go go girls dancing barechested in a g- string in a bird cage above his head.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was the j.g. Who did this schmuck think he was? Some captains made the rounds of the bars with a junior officer to buy drinks for those they thought were doing an outstanding job, but they never stayed, and they never shared the drinks with their men. They drank up and took note of all hailings, then cleared their skirts and got out of the place immediately.

This nut wanted to sit at the bar and talk to him - in the middle of all this, this Valhalla, this - liberty!.

Exasperated, Riley said, "Yes, sir, what do you want, sir?"

His voice sounded like a computer-generated spoof of a man from outer space. The j.g. let his face fall. He'd had this ridiculous get happy grin from his eyes to his chin. Now, he lost it all to the corners of his mouth as he sat there in his gaudy costume of a starched white shirt with black epaulets emblazoned with gold braid, two tiny service ribbons on his chest, his hat tipped back on his head like a baseball cap, its gaudy eagle and crossed anchors riding a spray of blonde curls.

Suddenly frowning, he signaled the bartender, ordering another round for he and Riley. Riley ignored the drink. He would drink what he wanted, when he wanted. Yeah, now that he was screwed, blued and tattooed, he was out to get snot-dripping, commode-hugging drunk.

You bet.

But he was god damned if some j.g. was going to start setting the pace.

Fuck that conversation.

He looked back into the caged girl's nearly naked crotch, digging the area where her vagina melded into her butt crack, watching the play of muscles in her legs and back, the way her abdomen flexed and the bounce of her little budding breasts.

Stuff.

Stuff like that was worth fighting for.

Pussy, prestige, money, booze, guns, running fast and free - all that was worth fighting for.

The j.g. poked him in the upper arm with his elbow, as if to get his attention. Riley didn't study trouble; he just didn't understand why a motherf_____ thought he could start poking him for the price of a beer. Wrong. He turned to him scornfully and said, "SAY WHAT? HUH?"

The j.g. was repelled. He recoiled.

"G'head, man. Spit it out," Riley shouted rudely, putting his face less than an inch from the j.g.'s, showering his countenance with flecks of saliva.

"Riley, what do you want out of life? What is your problem, man?"

"I already got it, sir. I got a home and a feeder. Got no problem. What do you want?"

"I..."

"I could have sworn you were looking for a dick to suck," Riley said, evenly, hissing.

"Now, look here," the j.g. started to say.

"No, bitch, you look here," Riley said, giving him a quick uppercut with his left hand, then smacking his forehead hard with the tiger claw. The j.g. keeled over backward. He never knew what hit him. After the Marines got through with him at the brig, they brought him to sick bay and patched him up a little bit.

Most of it didn't show.

Marines know their job.

Two days later, he was standing tall before the old man. The yeoman read the charges - committing mayhem, striking a superior officer, failure to comport himself in a military manner; the old man looked at him with a wry smile.

"How do you plead, young man?" Riley stood mute for a long moment, staring over the captain's shoulder board with the three broad gold stripes at the chart room chronometer, then dropped his eyes to the service ribbons on the old man's chest that matched those he had earned serving in the same ship with him.

"Guilty, sir."

"Very well. I have no choice but to find you guilty. You will be..."

That crow flew away again.