It was late night when they jumped out onto the tarmac from the belly of the transport that had flown them back from the three week intensive orientation course. It had been Terry Thorne's introduction to CCB and he was still trying to adjust to the dynamics of this elite troop. He was the new boy and they had been observing him closely. It was difficult to know quite what impression he had made.

Mostly he had kept his mouth shut and let his abilities talk for him, shunning too much contact outside of the manoeuvres themselves. At night they had all sat in the communal room but he had taken a place away from the rest, reading or just listening to music thoughtfully. Occasionally someone would toss him a can of beer, bum a cigarette from him or bring him into the conversation but he knew they didn't trust him yet. These men had to know they could rely on him for their lives if it came down to it. He didn't blame them for their reticence. It was his job to win their confidence not the other way round; they had already proved themselves.

Terry had been assigned to CCB 2A. The twenty man battalion was divided down the middle into two mirror halves which were rarely assigned together outside of extreme emergencies, little short of a declaration of war bringing them into concert action. Each division of ten men was divided again into two teams of five and between these parallel groups there was an intense rivalry. Often the two prepared for an operation together and were not informed until the eleventh hour which of them was to be given the actual active duty. At other times they fought side by side, taking shifts, for example, where surveillance was required. That was when the competition became exceptionally fierce. It was essential to the regimen that each team was a closely knit machine and that all the disparate personalities were extremely close and in synch. No one much liked a new member to break in; it set them at an immediate disadvantage.

The commanding officer of 2A, Captain Simon Howe, was a cool competent Sandhurst graduate with that elegant disdain that was always hard for men like Terry to deal with. There was a presumption of class that immediately gave men like Howe an invisible edge and set men like Terry back a few paces. It irritated him that he felt inferior in some unfathomable sense but he was as much at the mercy of the social conditioning as everyone else. One thing he knew for sure, however. Howe was an exceptional soldier and officer. It was not necessary to warm to the man to work with him and obey his orders.

Howe's second in command was a tough Glaswegian, Steve McTavish, to whom Terry was more naturally drawn. He was the type of soldier that was a dying breed: as hard as guts but with a humanity all his own. You might have to dig deep to find it but you always knew it was there and, while he had your measure, he also had your interests at heart too. He was the sort of bloke Terry was familiar with from back home, a man's man who would never give you any quarter but would be at your back in a ruck. That type of bloke seemed eminently easier to handle for Terry Thorne than the smart wordplay of an officer like Howe.

The other two were young, not much older than he was, and close friends despite their lack of an obvious common ground. Oliver Townsend was another public school boy, Jerome Akuba a Londoner from Brixton. They rarely addressed Terry unless it was to be crude or put him down by calling him a series of predictable names: Roo, Wallaby, Sheila, Oz. They aped his accent. They walked around with perpetual sneers of mockery and swaggering belligerence. Terry knew the drill and that it was essentially similar to how he would treat a new man joining a tightly drilled team like this one. They were testing his mettle, pushing him as hard as they could and waiting to see how he handled himself when he finally lost it. As he would eventually. When it did happen it would not be as easy as most run ins of this nature that Terry had encountered. These guys were the best and he couldn't expect to get through this unscathed. He expected a painful thrashing sooner or later - but he knew one thing for sure. He'd leave them equally bloodied when the time came.

Leaning into the open door of the helicopter, he went to haul out his gear, shouldering the barge Akuba gave him as he too reached in at the same time. Akuba, a giant of a man of Nigerian ancestry, towering over Terry, was reputed to be a real killer. Terry was not about to let that reputation impress him. They all were. That was their job. Ramming back and withstanding the charge, he lifted his pack, shooting a menacing sideways glance to the other men.

Townsend went off into a fit of manic laughter. "Oooh, look at Sheila! Something's upset him. That time of the month, is it? How are things down under?" Terry just gave him a middle finger and strolled off, unwilling to let them wind him up unnecessarily at this juncture. His sights were firmly set on the waiting vehicles, a hot shower and shave back at the barracks - and a night without male company. He'd had enough of them for the past couple of weeks.

"Stand to, Thorne. I want a word with you..." He heard Howe's correct clipped tones and spun round, dropping his pack to respond with a salute to the senior officer.

"Yes, sir!"

Howe surveyed him thoughtfully. "You conducted yourself satisfactorily..."

"Thank you, sir!"

"Don't get over excited, Thorne. When I say satisfactorily that's exactly what I mean. Nothing to shout about. You've still got a lot to learn..."

"I know, sir... And I intend to, sir," Terry answered respectfully but with a hint of challenge. He wasn't letting them bring him down. He'd done what they'd asked of him. It was their job to bring him in line and teach him what he needed to know quite as much as his to learn.

"You had better - and quick about it. My men don't have the time or the inclination to nursemaid you. In a real action you have to be operating to our standards. We don't give chances. I'm reserving my judgement about you at the moment. Do you know what my gut instinct tells me already? It tells me not to take my eyes off you. Do you want to know why?"

Terry eyed him up. "Let me see...I'm Australian. General Wallis, who hates my guts, queered the pitch for me. And I'm of Irish descent..."

Howe laughed off his retort. "None of those bothers me in the slightest. We're all renegades in CCB. That's why we're here. No, that's not the reason. I don't trust you because I think you're after my job. Simple as that."

Terry grinned. "They all are."

Howe raised an eyebrow. "Yes, but I suspect you are the only one who has what it takes. I intend to watch you very carefully..."

"You do that, sir.  And I'll be watching you. Enemies closer, hey?" He turned towards the base and the army transport vehicles.

"I didn't dismiss you, soldier!" Howe replied. Terry spun on his heel and stood to attention again, but still managing to convey an attitude. "Final part of the operation. The Golden Lion. Eight thirty. Informal dress - clean duds."

A slight frown crossed Terry's features. "I...have plans for the evening, sir. Prior engagement. I'm meeting someone else..."

"...That so? Someone of the female persuasion, no doubt? That was not a request to dine, Thorne. It was an order. It's a little tradition of ours. First night home is for the boys. The girlies can wait. You're not the only one who hasn't shot his conkers in a couple of weeks..."

Terry took a deep breath. Penny would do her top over this. Too bloody bad. This was his career and she would have to learn to accept that. "Eight thirty it is, sir. See you there...."

"This girl. Serious?" Howe's face was impassive but Terry knew the question was loaded. He paused before answering. "In what way, sir?"

Howe rolled his eyes at Terry's evasive answer. "Serious, in the sense of ...are you planning to get down on one knee...?"

"No, sir. Serious in the sense that... she's a dead cert, sir. I don't have much time to waste on courting, sir..."

That amused Howe. "Keep it like that. Last thing you need at this point in your life is responsibilities to some clinging female and the prospect of a few brats on the way. I prefer my men unattached..."

"...That go for you too, sir?" Howe was married to a rather stunning wife with two small children. He gave Thorne a warning stare back. "Dismissed, soldier..."

"Yes, sir!" Terry saluted before picking up his back pack and marching away. He could see Penny tomorrow. What difference did one night make?

Penelope Wallis lay on her bed listening to Joan Baez's 'Love Song to a Stranger' and dreaming, as she always did these days, of Terry Thorne. Since the night she had met him in that Cheltenham club back in late June, he'd been the highlight of her summer. Here she was, a few weeks before going up to Oxford and she couldn't care less about her future. All she knew was she hadn't seen him, touched him, kissed him, had tender mind-blowing sex with him, for fifteen long days. She was burning up with unrequited lust, incapable of any lucid thought that didn't revolve around imagining his naked body and what she wished he was doing for her - and what she wanted to do for him. He had completely driven her insane.

It hadn't taken her long to realize that Terry Thorne was not your usual Chav. Sure, he might be the world's best piece of rough but he was also highly intelligent - although he kept it fairly well hidden most of the time-  formidably skilled, one of Daddy's super-soldiers with physical, technical  and intellectual capabilities that few men had - and that was discounting his performance between the sheets - and deliciously arrogant. But he had another side, a tender and surprisingly sentimental lover with his limpid eyes and rather desperate neediness. You could wrap Terrence Thorne around your little finger so easily even if he did seem to be calling all the shots in their relationship.

She let her mind play back to Greece in August. She had planned a trip with friends; he had flown over and joined her there and they had taken off alone island hopping. It had been the best time of her life, bar none. The long hot days had been one blur of passion and sun, swimming in the clear waters by day, going crazy together in nightclubs drinking far too much and smoking weed on the beach until dawn.

Or having sex in pristine little guesthouses, the old wooden beds creaking as Terry gave one of his usual sterling performances. The guy was just sex on legs. He could get it up whenever he wanted it - which was usually far more times a day than any bloke she had ever encountered before. And he took his time, using that beautiful penis of his like a velvet ramrod. She shivered at the memory. But it wasn't just about sex. Simply lying next to him, wrapped up in his strong arms made her feel like no man had ever done before. She was crazy about him. Completely off her rocker.

He was due back tonight and he had told her he would meet her at the usual place. He daren't call the house in case her parents answered and his distinctive accent would alert them straight away to the possibility that she was seeing someone who was socially unacceptable. Penny had no wish to embroil herself in their rigid upwardly mobile neuroses nor did she want to cause any trouble for Terry in his career. In a few weeks she would be up at Oxford in her own rooms and Terry could drive up whenever he wished. Until then they would have to creep about and keep this all under wraps. But there was something deliciously wicked about all this subterfuge. She had a secret lover whose existence- if it were discovered - would probably give her father a heart attack. How totally hip was that?

Stretching out, she breathed deeply and closed her eyes, imagining him lying with her, his weight depressing the small bed. He would be touching her - Terry was so tactile always holding her hand or arm around her shoulders or fingering a lock of her hair. She imagined his big frame, the taut muscles, the inviting thatch of hair on his chest and the thicker growth below. She imagined his cock lying drooped across his well shaped thigh and how thick and long it was even flaccid, pushed forward by the swell of his testicles. They were so heavy and wrinkled and obscenely large that she regularly found herself staring at them and wondering how he ever managed to keep his own hands of them. His casual acceptance of his sex intrigued her. He just laughed and said he'd had this cock all his life - what was there to get so excited about?

But she wasn't fooled by his nonchalance. He liked being a boy quite as much a she liked being a girl. Her obsession with him made him proud. She had observed the shy smile that flickered across his succulent mouth when she ranted on about his charms. Penny had read in Cosmo that men had a fragility about their virility and their life style was usually primarily about proving themselves as men either to women, against other peers, within their chosen career, or to their families and friends. Even the alpha males like Terry Thorne liked nothing better than to hear that he was a source of adoration in the eyes of the woman whose body he was craving.

She thought about tonight. A few beers in some country pub in a village far enough away for no one to know her. Then she expected he would drag her into the back seat of his car - he would be desperate for a shag after a few weeks away. Penny shivered. He might even do it against a wall down some country lane or even as they had once done, in a cubicle in the ladies' toilet in a pub. Terry might prefer a more romantic setting conducive to seduction but he would take what he could get when he was randy. And she loved it. Her friends would squeal when she told them later how she'd blown him in the car or let him stick her knickers in his pocket while he lifted her up against a stone wall, skewering her and groan lewdly in her ear - or mutually masturbating each other in the dark at the cinema while they almost sucked each other's tonsils out. It was just so sordid and dirty, and totally and utterly exciting.

Imagine what her parents would have thought had they known? 

"Penelope, darling, I'm off out to the W.I .later. If you're free why not come along? We're planning the harvest celebration and we so like to get the younger members involved..." Annabella Wallis popped her head round the door. Her daughter jumped off the bed and immediately managed to look guilty.

"Can't. Going out..." she answered without much enthusiasm.

Annabella gave her a piercing look. "Are you dating someone? You're awfully occupied these days...we never see you and you'll be off to University in a few weeks..."

"I'm out with my friends. Some of them are leaving this weekend. Can't I even say goodbye to my own friends without you getting at me?" she whined truculently.

Her mother sighed. "Don't start that voice, Penelope! Don't be too late. And don't drive if you've been drinking." She walked out and closed the door firmly behind her. Penny ran over to the music system and rewound the tape, locking the door and slipping out of her robe to stand naked before the mirror, posing provocatively. Then she chose some sexy lingerie from her top drawer, put them on before checking herself out.

"Terry, you are going to burst out of your skin...!" she pouted as she eased her narrow hips into a tiny micro mini and buttoned up a tight blouse. Then she settled down to perfecting her makeup, her eye on the small clock radio near her bed. "Six thirty...only two hours to go..."

How long since I've spent a whole night in a twin bed with a stranger,
his warm arms all around me?
How long since I've gazed into dark eyes that melted my soul down
to a place where it longed to be?
All of your history has little to do with your face;
You're mainly a mystery with violins filling in space.

You stood in the nude by the mirror and picked out a rose
from the bouquet in our hotel
And laid down beside me again, and I watched the rose
on the pillow as it fell.
I sank and I slept in a twilight with only one care -
To know that when day broke and I woke that you'd still be there.

The hours, for once they passed slowly, unendingly by
Like a sweet breeze on a field;
Your gentleness came down upon me and I guess I thanked you
When you caused me to yield.
We spoke not a sentence
And took not a footstep beyond
our two days together which seemingly soon would be gone.

Don't tell me of love everlasting - and other sad dreams -
I don't want to hear.
Just tell me of passionate strangers who rescue each other
from a lifetime of cares.
And if love means forever, expecting nothing returned,
Then I hope I'll be given another whole lifetime to learn.

'cause I took from you oh so many things it makes me wonder 
how they could belong to me,
And I gave you only my dark eyes which melted your soul down to a place
where it longed to be...

"Well, look who's here...!" Oliver Townsend lounged on the banquette with his feet up on a stool, waving an empty pint glass. "Get the drinks in, Oz, make yourself useful...!" He always had that upper class mocking way about him that even made a fair request sound like a class criticism of the other man's lack of social graces. Terry gave him the benefit of a cool stare but did as he was told, ordering five pints of lager and carrying them over on a tray.

"Here you go, lads...don't drink it all at once...your dicks are limp enough as it is..." he muttered as he slopped the glasses onto the table, setting one before each.

"Oooh, hark at Oz, hey? You think you're some kind of stud then, hey? Thought all you could find worth shagging back there were sheep...they've gotta be more appealing than those big tough Australian sheilas though surely...?" Jerome added with a roll of his eyes.

Terry didn't respond to their goading. It was pretty standard fare and, to be perfectly honest, much like what he would have indulged in towards a new man in his company. That's just how it worked in any army outfit. It was pretty much how it worked with men in general. . He could also sense a slight changing in the tone this time. The insults were normally of a sexual nature these days. That usually implied a more affectionate camaraderie was beginning to emerge between them.

"Thanks, pal," McTavish responded, shaking his head at the usual banter. "Take no notice, laddie...they're just a pack of dogs. They're afraid that you might queer the pitch for them with the girlies..."

The other two snorted at that. "Him? You stark raving mental, Scottie...? "Jerome laughed.

"Unless he fancies a bit of kangaroo meat himself...? What's your problem, Steve? Your wife not giving it up?" Oliver laughed.

"Watch your mouths, you bastards....she bloody well won't be after tonight. I walk in, the kids jump all over me, Mo puts down my tea and then I tell her I'm going for an hour's kip and then out again. She nearly bit my head off. And then I got the silent treatment..."

"Jesus Christ, I fucking hate that! Tell me, gentlemen, anyone here see any advantage in marriage over bachelorhood?" Oliver asked with a grin. "Sir, would you have anything useful to add to the debate from your vast marital experience...?" he addressed Capt. Howe who had so far said little. The captain gave him an amused look.

"None whatsoever for a halfwit like you, Townsend. It takes a real man to appreciate a real woman. Not sure you're quite there in your personal development yet..."

"Hope I never am, then. Hey, Jojo, let's up the stakes. Ten quid says I'll score before you tonight..."

Jerome, always a big hit with the ladies, chuckled. "It's in the bag already, mate. Look at those lovelies up there already eyeing me up..." he indicated a few young ladies at a table on the other side of the room. "Oi, Oz...you're in. I feel lucky tonight..."

Terry pulled a face. "Not me. I want an early night. I'm knackered..."

That brought cat calls all round. "Oh no, you don't, sweetie pie. No man is excluded, except the married blokes - unless they want a bit of extracurricular. They are the rules, mate...let's see the colour of your money, Thornie..."

Terry groaned inwardly. He knew the score. "Sarge...you gonna let them lead me into bad ways...? An innocent colonial like me...?" Terry called Steve McTavish in for support.

"Don't bring me into it, pal...You already got a girl? That what's bothering you...?"he answered with a grin. "She gonna give you grief for being a naughty boy? Looks like we got a pussy here, lads..."

Townsend and Akuba pricked up their ears. "What's this? You've got a girl, Oz? Over here? Christ, not one of ours, I hope... Shouldn't be allowed. How thick are her specs? What does she see in you...?  "

"My eight inch dick..." Terry responded smartly. That brought a round of jeering.

"Woo, fighting talk, soldier boy...! Anyone got a tape handy...?" The two other young men tried to grab Terry's groin

"Piss off, you perverts... Remind me not to bend over in the showers..." Terry replied, fending off their assault. "You sure you two're not pooftas...?"

That comment merely heightened the challenge. "You know there's a tradition in the regiment? New women have to be vetted by your team...Shared even..." Townsened cackled wickedly.

"That so? Then you show me yours and I'll show you mine..." Terry grinned, draining his pint and handing it across. "Reckon that's yours, Olly...do the honours, eh, mate? 'Bout time you paid for something other than a bang..."

Oliver rolled his eyes but went over to get in a new round. Jerome shunted along the row nearer to Terry. "So this bird of yours...you got pictures...?"

"You dirty fucker...!" Terry replied. "She's just a girl, right? No big deal..."

"You going round later... after this? Expecting a bit of late night honey, eh...?"

The captain coughed. "Akuba....give it a rest...!"

"...So you're not interested in picking up a few sweet things for a bit of post-op relief...? Come on, Oz...I know this great club...might even find someone to take you on...She'll never know. It's not like you're married or anything...as you said...she's just a girl..." The full scale attack had begun. He knew they wouldn't stop until they had him either misbehaving or down permanently as under some woman's thumb. That was always a big deal to men like these.

He hated to appear like he was pussywhipped. Because he wasn't. Penny was just a girl. Sure, he liked her. The sex was good. She was smart and funny and intelligent. Yeah, he liked her a lot. She was his girlfriend. Sort of. But it wasn't going anywhere. She was off to Uni soon and his career would take him all over the place. It was never going to last. The devil was already whispering in his ear.

"Go on, Terry...you owe it to us married boys to fly the flag for the troop..."McTavish goaded.

Terry held up his hands, making his final attempt at resisting what he already knew was inevitable. "Look...some other time, huh?"

"So...she is more than just a few kicks, then? This girl of yours? " Howe asked him over his glass. Terry winced. This might just go against him. That was the final push he needed.

"Well, I don't suppose a couple of dances would do me any harm, eh...?  I'm warning you, I'm a great dancer, boys...and birds love that....I'll already be at the gates of paradise when you two are still trying to get some poor woman on the floor...."

Despite his braggadocio, Terry actually did nothing more culpable during the evening that followed than drinking too much and having a few overly familiar smooches with some of the local girls he met in the night club. Later, refusing the offer he received from one of some afters at her place - with a wry look of regret- he waited until his companions were otherwise engaged and then slipped out, taking a taxi cab back to the base before finally collapsing exhausted into bed where he slept twelve hours round the clock, not emerging from the sheets until mid afternoon.

Lying there, nursing a sore head and a parched throat, wishing he had the energy to get up, have a pee, eat something, he gave some thought to Penny. It made his head ache more.

They had had an arrangement to meet the night before; he felt pretty rough about having left her in the lurch. It wasn't his style with women. He might be a bit of a lad in his way, but he treated a woman with respect when he was dating her - and he wasn't one for cheating. If he wanted to taste something different, he moved on properly and finished one relationship with dignity before he asked someone else out. But, it wasn't as if he'd done much more than cop a feel, give a bit of tongue and rub his raging hard on against a shapely thigh. You could hardly call that unfaithful. Although he suspected Penny would have a slightly different interpretation of fidelity than he did.

He would have to try and contact her today using a friend of hers who took messages and try to pre-empt the inevitable conflict when they did get together. He had a feeling that his girlfriend would be none too pleased about the turn of events. And he needed to get laid and quick. He could cut glass with his erection.

Groaning to himself, he dragged his body out of the bed and staggered to the shower block, clad in nothing but a white towel slung low about his hips.

"You back, Thorne?" Terry didn't even open his eyes wide enough to find out which of the men on his floor had addressed him as he loped past.

"No, I'm just a fucking mirage of loveliness..." he muttered, scratching his belly as he dropped his towel and flipped on the shower jets.

"Bastard, I only asked...!" the man replied. "Just going to ask you how the show went..."

"Like I can tell you?" Terry retorted and pulled across the curtain. He'd had enough of this guy already. His hangover was not conducive to small talk.

"Looks like you drank a bit too much last night, mate...couldn't get it up after that skinful? That what's giving you the hump? There's no need to take it out on me, mate..."

Penny was up early on Saturday morning much to her mother's surprise. Usually her dates kept her out into the small hours and the girl never surfaced until midday. But her inquiries over breakfast were not successful. Penelope merely snapped some comment back about "Going shopping - why, is that a crime or something?" The girl was in one of her moods. Whoever she was seeing must have annoyed her in some way. Annabella decided not to provoke her further and left her daughter to her bad mood.

Alone in the kitchen at last, her mother having gone to the supermarket and her father playing a round of golf, Penny sat idly stirring her tea cup and wondering if everything was alright with Terry. She knew he has been away on some SAS secret thing. It occurred to her that his day job was fraught with danger. Could he have been hurt in some way? Was that why he had never showed? She had waited for two hours the night before giving up. Unsure whether to be angry or anxious, she had no idea what she was going to do now until he contacted her. This was the sort of moment she had always feared.

Up to now, Terry had done most of the running and always found ways to get contacts through to her. She wasn't sure how she could go about getting to him discreetly. Another thing was niggling her though. Was he cooling off now that he was really settled into his new commission? Had their summer love affair been simply that, a pleasant interlude to keep him occupied while he was waiting to begin the real challenges of his life? It was hard to be sure. He wasn't exactly the sort of man to speak of love or let her know what his feelings really were.

Terry was an enigma to her in many ways. When they were alone together, he was the perfect boyfriend, tender, funny - and very highly-sexed. He was the kind of man who never let her go when they were together, his hands always on her, constantly muttering into her ear a steady stream of romance and erotic talk. Yet he could sometimes go days without contact; it did not seem to bother him if they did not see each other regularly. She always wondered what he was up to when he did not call. It wasn't always work, she knew that. These SAS boys were highly trained but they were also treated like the elite force that they were - and that meant for the most part, light hours and duties when they were not on active or gearing up for something.

Penelope knew already that despite the fact that Terry was very fond of her, maybe even believed he loved her, she had a rival for his affections. His career. He might fancy the idea of a settled relationship and someone to come home to in one part of his emotional makeup, but she could sense already that he was not really ready for the compromises and adjustments that went with commitment. That scared her. She knew she was getting in deep and was aware that this man could hurt her profoundly, even if he didn't mean to. It was no longer for her just a sexy lark with a horny stud. Penny was falling in love with Terry Thorne.

Another fear she had was concerning his fidelity. Terry had never given her any actual reason to doubt his devotion but she saw how other women reacted towards him. He was always a beacon for female attention - and he both knew and enjoyed it. Many a time, she had seen him flirt with other girls, even when she was around. Not that he had ever taken it too far but it begged the question of what might occur when she was not on the spot. Terry had a very healthy sex drive and was experienced with women. How much temptation would he realistically withstand? Especially if some little bitch set her cap at him?

It was later that morning when she had met up a few girlfriends in town and was wandering round the stores that she received a warning that seemed to go some way to answering that particular question. One of the girls, Helena, arrived late, having been recovering herself from a hangover. She slunk into the café where they were all having lunch, wearing dark glasses and looking pale.

"God, I drank so much last night!" she groaned as she sipped tentatively on a strong coffee.

"Where did you go?" Penny asked.

"Raffles...there were a lot of officers in last night. Saw that guy you used to date...Terry something or other...the Australian bloke, you know? When did you finish with him? Bad move, girl. He's gorgeous..." Helena added. "Doesn't seem to be missing you, though, babes. He was very busy with some little slapper...she looked like she was going to come on the dance floor with what he was doing to her..."

Penny's face gave her away instantly.

"Oh God....! Oh God...you're still seeing him, aren't you? Me and my big mouth...I'm so sorry, Pen...! My head's not woken up yet...was he being a naughty boy...? You two still together?"

Miriam drew her hand across her own throat telling Helena to shut up, and put her arm around her friend. "There could be a perfectly good explanation, Penny..."

"...Yes, I'm sure they will be. Terry can always talk his way out of anything..." Penny stood up and made her excuses, the lunch with friends suddenly losing its appeal for her. "I'm sorry... but I'm suddenly not in the mood for shopping...I'll talk to you all later...after I've castrated a certain bastard I know..." She ran for the door.

"Bloody hell, Helena! Could you not use your head for once?" Miriam exclaimed as the other girl winced.

"I never expected them to last... so I just thought...you know? God, he was all over this girl last night. I'll bet he gave her one later. It was like a cattle market in there ...You know what those SAS types are like on R and R. Total head bangers. You could smell the testosterone from outside the club... Well, if he's been playing away then she's better off knowing it sooner than later. Surely she didn't imagine it was going to last once she goes up to Uni? Like he's the type who's going to wait until her Christmas hols for his next shag...?"

Up to then, they had gone out of their way to keep their relationship a secret, but Penny was too disturbed by what she had heard to wait until he had finally got round to calling her. At least he was okay. That was one of her worries allayed. But her anxiety for him had quickly been replaced by anger. Helena's bombshell had at least revealed he was back and in one piece - which made what he had done last night even worse. They had a date and he totally forgot about it to go on the town with another woman? Try talking your way out of that one, Terrence Thorne, she mused to herself as she took a bus out of town towards the barracks where he was stationed. It hardly mattered whether or not they were rumbled now. This was the last time she was going to be seeing him anyway. After she had given him a piece of her mind and a knee in the bollocks, that was the last she intended to having to do with him. She didn't give a shit if anyone found out. She hoped it did get back to her Daddy and ruined his bloody career. That's all he deserved.

Or so she told herself.

At the gate, she easily got through the patrol, flashing her driver's licence and saying she was here to see her father. Penelope had been on the base many times before and was not totally unknown to the young sergeant who was in charge that afternoon. He let her in, warning her that she had best stay to the main paths and go straight to the HQ. Penny smiled back, pouted prettily, made her way in that direction and then veered off in the direction of the unmarried quarters. This was the first time she had seen Terry's accommodation, but she knew where it was.

At the entrance of his block, she was stopped by a corporal. "Can I help you, Miss?" he leered.

"I've come to see Lieutenant Thorne."

"What's your business, Miss?" he enquired.

"None of yours. I'll only be ten minutes...give me a break, hey?" Penny turned on the wide eyed blonde bimbo charm; it was what these idiots expected of her and it always seemed to work.

The man leant forward conspiratorially. "First floor, turn right. He's in room 12. Far as I know he's still there...no sign of him this morning...but he's still signed in..."

Penny smiled her thanks and headed for the stairs, drawing a few surprised stares from young men who passed her on the way up. Well, she was making it public now. She hoped this got back to her father. That would screw up his chances at least. Sweet revenge.

It occurred to her as she made her way to the first floor that, despite the evidence to the contrary, it was possible he had still not returned from his night of sin. She knew that they had plenty of scams to hide their errant behaviour and his apparent signing in could have been faked. He'd done it when he'd been with her before now. Maybe he was still lying in bed with some tart even now. She would soon know.

Reaching the first floor, she followed the instructions and found his door. It was slightly ajar so she pushed on it. There was no one at home.

Stepping inside tentatively, she closed the door behind her and sat on a chair to wait for him. He must be around the place somewhere or his door would have been locked. Terry wasn't the kind of man to forget something like that.

For a few moments, she sat stiffly, staring at the closed door, but as time elapsed she found herself looking around, observing his private world. The room was very orderly, almost obsessively so, but it did not surprise her. Terry was a deeply disciplined man despite his surface veneer of laid back charm. Penny had already detected that he used the Aussie easy going working class boy style to mask a more serious and even melancholy man beneath. He occasionally allowed her to see glimpses of the person she suspected he really was but it was obviously a part of himself he kept well under wraps.

Although his bed was unmade and looked as if he had only recently got up, the clothes he must have worn the night before were folded neatly on a chair with his boots lined up underneath. In the corner was a kit bag which was still full; he had obviously not had much time after he had returned yesterday before he had gone out for the evening.

On the walls of the rooms were a few photographs in frames - she was surprised that he had gone to the trouble to actually mount the snapshots. It seemed the sort of thing a woman would do. Men normally just stick things up with a pin, scatter them about or even just stuff such mementoes into a drawer or their wallet. But Terry had methodically chosen his images, bought frames and proper picture hooks, lined them up and hung them.

Standing up she went to look at his private collection of memories. She was there, posing in an arty black and white shot that he had taken of her one day. She had worn only a gold chain that he had given her, was pouting into the camera clutching a sheet to her nakedness, her long hair falling provocatively over her shoulder and covering one eye a la Veronica Lake. Her heavily made up eyes were enticing him. The picture was important to him. It was in the middle, in a place of honour. She had scrawled her name across the top left hand corner on an earlier occasion when he had first shown her the shot. Love you.... Penny...

It had to mean something to him especially to risk it being seen by other men who might recognise who she was. He had to care about her. This had to mean something. The other photos appeared to be family and friends back home in the main. It seemed a fairly lower class family in her eyes, a humble tawdry home in the background. It irritated her somewhat that he was from such a blue collar background even if at times it was that very rough edge of his that turned her on most. She might accept it in him, enjoying the more earthy lovemaking and manner, but she didn't want to find herself down the line having to socialize with people like the ones on the pictures. They looked very low brow to her eyes.

Walking her fingers over the surfaces of his desk and cupboard, she fingered the few items there, all arranged orderly and well free of dust. He seemed to need very little about him: a brush, a bottle of aftershave that she opened and sniffed- immediately feeling aroused by the smell that was already associated with him in her brain -his wallet and keys. Each item was lined up as if he had taken time to stop and arrange them. It seemed borderline obsessive behaviour.

There was a bottle of Scotch on a small shelf which was otherwise full of books. She scanned the titles. Most were non-fiction and heavy political and military volumes, autobiography, war history, international affairs; the few novels were literate ones, not the usual light reading the army types she knew indulged in. There was a large Spanish dictionary, the kind you used if you were advanced in a foreign language. There was so much about Terry she didn't really know. Did they ever talk in a way that went beyond just the smart repartee that led to making out?

"Penny...what the...?" She spun round at the sound of his deep voice. Terry was standing at the door in nothing but a white towel, freshly shaved by the looks of it and smelling of shower gel and shampoo. His hair was wet but already beginning to form its wayward curl. She thought she had never seen a finer sight in all her life. Suddenly her intended purpose disappeared and she forgot what had brought her to his rooms.

"Terry...I just....where were you last night?" she blurted out. "I was worried. I thought maybe there had been some sort of accident..."

He grimaced, stepped inside the room and closed it behind him. She noticed that he turned the key in the lock before returning to face her. "I'm really sorry, Pen. I'd been looking forward to seeing you all week. The lads dragged me out to a bar, got me ratted and we ended up in a club. I know it's no excuse but that's how they are. They have all these fucked up rituals after a show - it's hard to explain. If I don't bond with them now, I never will. I just have to show them that I'm part of the team - even in these puerile drinking and pulling games..."

"And did you? Pull?" Penny asked him bluntly. He smiled.

"Of course, I bloody didn't! Okay, I smooched with a few tarts. Kissed a few more. I was pissed out of my skull...but nothing more than that. I wasn't looking for more than that, sweetheart. I'm not pretending I was a saint last night...but I didn't do anything really bad..."

If he had tried to lie, Penny knew she would have hated him. But he hadn't even tried to disseminate. That was so Terry. He was incapable of the usual crap guys used to get out of trouble, always brutally honest and guileless. He was not an angel. But he was not a bastard either. That was why she loved him so much. Who wants a choir boy anyway?

With a roll of her eyes, she sauntered forward slowly, eyeing him up. Reaching over, she took the edge of the towel where it was tucked into the waist and flicked it; the material slithered to the floor. Terry grinned and looked down. His erection was instantaneous. "You see how much I've missed you...?"

Penny grinned softly stroking his penis with her fingers. "You can't expect me to do this here...? On the base?"

His voice dropped to a husky growl as he pulled her close. "Can you think of a better turn on than fucking here? You know you're the only attractive woman in a mile radius? Imagine all the sweaty little perverts wanking in their bunks thinking about us getting it on..."

Her insides melted just at the sound of his voice - never mind the words he was whispering into her ear as he drew her back to the unmade bed. There was something incredibly wild about the moment - he was stark naked and totally unconcerned; she was fully dressed and itching to be free of everything so that she could lie flesh to flesh with him. They fell to the bed. His large hands raked up her short skirt and yanked down her panties. He was in no mood to take anything slow. She needn't have worried about him. Terry was as horny as any guy who had a healthy sex drive and no action in weeks. He had waited for her. Last night had just been an annoying blip for them both.

Penny let him strip her and rolled  beneath him to lie wantonly sprawled out, legs apart while he burrowed down to taste her, lapping greedily at her sex before pushing her down to suckle on him. She felt completely under his control, ready to let him do whatever he wanted to her. That was how he made her feel. She was beginning to lose any sense of self she had when she was with him. There wasn't anything she would refuse him.

As he parted her legs even wider with his knee and then thrust eagerly into her, she imagined her father in the mess after golf only a few hundred metres from where she was having sex with a soldier in his command. The ultimate thrill. He would burst a blood vessel if he knew what she was up to. There was a real chance that someone would have seen her enter - and even that they would get caught. An image of her father opening the door and watching as Terry fucked her hard came to her. It made her even wetter. She thought she'd better not think about that implications of one too much.

Then she stopped thinking completely as a violent orgasm seized her and Terry went into overdrive. She wondered how far her voice carried as he suddenly covered her mouth and grunted: "For Christ's sake...shhhhh....!" Then she felt the shudder as he came, banging into her in arrhythmic bursts, grunting gutturally into her ear.

They hadn't used a condom. Again. 

The fierce heat of the day was beginning to swell the brain as he mingled in the crowded market where there was not even an inch of shade outside the awnings of the vendors. He supposed he should be grateful for the ghutra but it was irksome and he felt conspicuous even as the disguise was meant to camouflage him. His light eyes and relentlessly North West European features seemed to be thrown into sharper relief by its framing his face. The long flowing robes of the bisht were a further encumbrance, slowing him down, making him sweat with the unfamiliar heaviness of the material and style. In short he felt vulnerable and uneasy as he scanned the milling throng for the target.

When it was revealed, it happened in seconds: Terry saw the flash of a sudden, jarring movement from the corner of his eye and the sun bouncing off gunmetal. He composed himself for a split second, hit the ground, rolled and fumbled with the skirts of his, the time seeming to unfold slowly as he went for his concealed weapon.

He was quicker than he thought he had been and even in his constricted position, lying on one side, squirming out of the view finder of the enemy gun sight, he managed to empty a chamber dead centre and hit the target straight between the eyes. The screaming crowds all stopped and activity fell away. A path opened through and an instructor stepped forward with a clip board, an incongruously officious moment that inexplicably made Terry feel embarrassed.

"Not bad. Eleven seconds. But you would have been dead in seven. Still, puts you ahead of most of them - but you need to speed it up. Take a break and then report back at 1330. We are doing another set up and this time you break ten..."

He kept his thoughts to himself but the tight lipped scowl on his face revealed his state of mind clearly. This playacting and prancing about in foreign dress was ludicrous to him, like some glorified Boy Scouts' jamboree. There were times when he wondered if the Regimental training programmes weren't completely out of touch with the real world, designed primarily to humiliate and waste the skills of the soldiers involved. He found it hard to equate the melodramatic scenarios in fancy dress with the reality of deep cover in enemy territory on a real active posting. If he had really been under fire the cardboard target would have been dead. Flowing bisht or not.

There was a strongly held belief in the service that most guys in the Regiment were unbalanced. Terry suspected that there was a strong foundation for this opinion. He wasn't sure whether that unstable element of their psyche had been inherent before their selection or whether the regime they were put through pushed them over some edge between reckless machismo and arrogant disregard for human life - mostly their own, but if necessary anyone else's who stood in their way. He wondered which edge he personally was on and whether what had appeared to him all his adult life as a burning desire to be the best in an honourable martial profession was really a distasteful need to be the cock of the bully boys. Maybe his father had been right after all.

Desert training was more to his taste than the icy wintry terrains and he had generally enjoyed this recent couple of weeks on manoeuvres. But he knew that they were being geared up for a major outing back home and when he rejoined his squad the following week, they would be on intensive preparation for something real. It seemed already like months since he had had a private life which hadn't revolved round the men in his troop, constant physical and mental exhaustion - and wallowing in filth, sweat and dirt.

Back at the camp, about as basic as you could get in this rudimentary set up on the fringes of a small oasis town in a friendly Gulf state masquerading for their training as a hostile one, he called in at the latrines, wrinkling up his nose in distaste at the stench from the overflowing chemical toilets. Men were disgusting when they dropped even the veneer of civilization, which they seemed to do at the drop of a hat if the circumstances allowed. Was it really necessary for soldiers on manoeuvres to descend into squalor to make the experience more valid? Terry had a side to his nature that was highly sensitive to order and cleanliness, assets that seemed to be noticeably lacking in most of his comrades. They would crap on the floor of the wash room if there wasn't a free cubicle. He sighed and took a leak, trying not to remember where he was and what he was doing.

So he thought of Penny instead. Since she had gone up to Oxford, they hadn't seen a great deal of each other apart from a few brief weekends, grabbing the chances whenever they presented themselves. When they had been together, they had naturally as a consequence of separation, spent most of their time in bed. They hadn't even really talked a great deal, filling the silences with more sweaty passionate interludes, or dozing with a joint while their bodies recovered for the next onslaught. It seemed impossible for them to get past the need they had for each other's bodies at the moment; Terry was beginning to wonder if that was all they were about underneath. It wasn't Penny's fault any more than his. What did they really have in common, to be truthful?

Penny was embarking on a new life at university, throwing herself into the social whirl there with the élan to be expected of a young would be debutante. She had told him that this Oxbridge generation was known as the la jeunesse dorée - the golden youth. Well, it was for those upper middle class kids of privilege in Thatcher's Britain where class ruled supreme. Penny had made many new friends, was involved in all of the leading groups at her college, had joined a rowing team, the theatre group and was definitely one of the young faces of the year. She talked incessantly of cocktail parties and soirées. To Terry it sounded like some Twenties era film. He doubted the average university student lived this sort of experience at their provincial red brick alma mater.  It was hard to imagine that Penny wouldn't meet some other Hooray Henry type, a minor royal, a future captain of industry or even a prominent Rugby or cricket player - and her summer of illicit sex with a working class Australian soldier would fade into the annals of  her pleasant holiday romances.

Of course, the sex was what kept her coming back for more. Terry knew she wouldn't be having anything better from the wankers she was meeting up in the ivory towers. You want a man to make you feel like a woman? Then Terry Thorne knew he could fit that particular bill better than most. He wasn't complaining. He needed sex - a lot of it - and as dirty and raunchy as she would allow, especially coming off the back of some of the work he was doing. Living with men and performing at this level of physical and intellectual intensity day in day out was highly stressful and took its toll. Sex was the best tension reliever he knew - and it had the added advantage of restoring his sense of male primacy that some of the humiliations of army life sapped away. That thought shamed him somewhat. Women were not simply there for a bloke to use to prove his virility.

Yet, he didn't know a guy who didn't do just that as often as he could get his hands on a woman. He would be back in Cheltenham in about six days and would give Penny a call. Hopefully they could squeeze in a few days before he was back in intensive training and he would make a real effort to explain how he felt at this time in his life. There would be a long separation in the near future he suspected and he wanted her to know that he would like to think she would be there for him when he returned. If she saw other guys he wouldn't blame her - but he wasn't interested in finding out. In his head, she was his girl even if he wasn't entirely sure anymore what that meant. Did it mean he was faithful to her?

So far he had been technically. But it was more through a lack of opportunity than any strongly held belief that he was now off the market. What was his emotional bond to Penny? He hadn't a clue. He liked her. She turned him on. He looked forward to being with her. She was witty and sharp, intelligent and challenging. He was tired of vacant pretty girls who would agree with anything he said and just hang off his arm. Penny would never be that kind of girl.

But it wasn't love. Or rather it wasn't what he hoped love might be like. He knew his experience on that particular merry-go-round was very limited. He doubted that he himself had ever really been in love. Sometimes he wondered if he was capable of it. At others he suspected that it did not actually exist. But somewhere deep inside him was a vein of sentimentality that required him to believe that it just might be out there for him. That there could be a woman for whom he would do anything, give anything up, feel satisfied simply to be at her side for the rest of his days, a girl who would share his hopes and dreams as he would want to share hers, on whose beloved body he might father children that they could raise together and for whom they would build a safe and happy home.  In fact his secret heart contained all the usual pipe dreams that tough guys like him ought to have no need for. But underneath it all, he felt that without this in a man's life, then every achievement or victory he won, both over himself and the competition out there, was for nothing in the end. For who would ever care about what he did if he had no one to come home and tell it to?

Well, he had Penny. But did she care about him deep inside? He knew she saw him mostly as the fulfilment of a fantasy she had. His reward for being just that was the privilege of fucking a top drawer bird like her, to put it crudely. Somehow he couldn't quite see her ever understanding what his needs were or hear himself ever explaining to her what he felt inside. On the contrary, he suspected that she would find such revelations tiresome. It might detract from his image as 'The Hard Man Stud'. A weary feeling of desolation crept over him. Here he was, surrounded by men and dating a beautiful, desirable woman. Yet he still felt alone, adrift on a sea of doubt, trying to cling to his career as the only life raft of certainty in the storm.