Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

drifting further from that course. Who would he be, by the time this thing was over?
    Long minutes dragged by. Eventually Daniel said, "This doesn't have to go any further, you know. Being here with me, it doesn't commit you to anything." All trace of sleepiness had vanished from his voice. He sounded tight and controlled.
    Jacob lay there like a stupid, silent log.
    Daniel reached out carefully and switched off the lamp. In the sudden heavy darkness he said, "You should get some rest. Don't worry about things, all right? We can just be shipmates from here on. I won't tell. Lots of guys take a fling, maybe, and decide it's not for them. I know not everyone..."
    "Shut up." Jacob hated hearing Daniel backing away carefully from demanding the things he had a right to expect after the last two hours. That tentative care suddenly made Jacob feel stupid. This was the man he had prayed for each time the Gageway shuddered from the near miss of a torpedo or rang with the strike of rounds against her deck. For a moment Jacob was back there in sickbay, with the smell of blood and shit. Back in the moment when they brought Troy in with his face a bloody mask, and his hair so like Daniel's. And as he ran to help, Jacob had felt the catch of his heart in his throat, the thought, "We never had the chance..."
    Things might look different in the morning, but it was still night now, and they had both survived to come to this place. Jacob reached over, took one of Daniel's hands between his own, clutched it to his chest like a teddy bear, and tried to find that elusive thing called sleep.
    ****

CHAPTER 6
    November 1942
    The Gageway heaved and rolled in the grip of a powerful storm. With slowly improving skill, Jacob timed his steps down the passage so he only rarely rebounded off the bulkheads like a marble in a chute. His stomach lurched a little, but at least he wasn't one of the poor fellows who lay groaning from sea-sickness in their hammocks. There was nothing good to give them. The doc handed out ginger, and some of the fellows thought it helped. But there were a few of the men who had clearly joined the wrong branch of the service. A couple had even ended up in sick bay with a tube in their arms for dehydration from all the vomiting.
    At least Jacob's watch was over. Working for four hours around those guys had come close to doing him in himself, even though he'd grown up with summers around boats on the Jersey shore. He'd had to make his way on deck and spend fifteen minutes in the fresh air and salt spray, until ordered below by one of the deck crew. The storm was continuing to pick up strength, and the decks were awash with water.
    Jacob thought ruefully that this was his last clean uniform, now stiffening with salt to the knees as it dried. He would have gone back, undressed, and fallen into his berth but it was a Tuesday and they weren't at general quarters. Which meant that Daniel would be waiting for him in the linen storage locker. In four months they had found a rhythm for this... thing they were doing.
    There wasn't much privacy and there wasn't much time. Some days the most they got was a brush of shoulders and a quiet hello, as they passed on their separate duties. Sometimes they were at general quarters for day after day, catching sleep with a pillow and blanket thrown down where they could find space, and didn't even have that much. But if there was no duty and it was a Tuesday, the storeroom was a small piece of heaven.
    It was risky. Damned risky. That door didn't lock, although Daniel had a bit of wooden wedge they could jam in next to the latch. But since it opened outward, that wasn't as secure as it might have been. They mostly kissed, and touched, hands eager and becoming ever more skilled in bringing each other off rapidly. They stayed fully clothed, even though Jacob sometimes ached for the sight of Daniel's skin. Nothing too obvious. So that someone stumbling upon them might turn a blind eye.
    Actual sodomy was a different story. A couple of men had ended up in the brig, two months ago. They'd been taken off the ship in chains, headed for the stockade, and maybe a prison sentence. Jacob hadn't dared look them in the eye, for fear of what he would see. That night Daniel had cried, standing at the port rail. Jacob had been oddly grateful for Daniel's breakdown, because in trying to be the strong one for a change he'd gotten over the feeling that he might puke, or scream. He still sometimes remembered those