Chapter 2: Just For One Day

Fort Benning Georgia, 1949

Sergeant William Brody was recalled stateside in 1949. The Army had downsized but Bill had performed well, had distinguished himself in battle and had risen to the rank of Staff Sergeant. The Army was rebuilding. US citizens were afraid of ‘Reds under the bed’ and there was sabre-rattling in Korea.

Bill was assigned to the Infantry School at Fort Benning as a senior Drill Sergeant. Farewelling Heidi Baumgartner in Berlin had been emotional but they both knew that their relationship was temporary. As much as he cared for her, there was no way that Bill was bringing Heidi back to the USA. He cherished her company deeply but every time he saw her son he was reminded of Heidi lying on that bed in the basement under the Russian Command Post servicing an endless stream of Russian soldiers.

Bill never really settled into the peacetime Army and took solace at the local bars and whorehouses but maintained his discipline and exemplary behaviour. All was fine and Bill was looking forward to another posting to a combat unit when Madeline Drinkwater entered his life.

Lieutenant Madeline Drinkwater graduated from the WAC Training Centre Fort Lee in December 1948 with one goal in mind: to marry a senior officer who was going places. Women were being recruited into the regular Army to fill non-combat positions to release men for front-line service. Lieutenant Drinkwater was posted to Fort Benning as an Administration Officer and appointed OIC of the Personnel Office.

Madeline was popular and was chased by most of the line officers at the post but she wasn’t interested in any of the young bucks. She was looking for a full-bird Colonel at least and she had her eye on a few. Her cause would not be helped if she gained a reputation as a ‘bed jumper’ so she behaved herself publicly.

Privately Madeline had a penchant for rough trade, not the fresh-faced young officers and soldiers who were in the majority at Fort Benning.

Staff Sergeant William Brody was just the type she was looking for: a highly decorated combat veteran who was ruggedly handsome, mature and physically fit. She’d seen him in his tight-fitting uniform with his ‘Brown Round’ campaign hat and spit polished boots and she got wet just looking at him.

Madeline was big-breasted, slim-waisted, wide-hipped, long-legged and was incredibly pretty with flaming red hair, full pouty lips, high cheekbones and deep green eyes. Her ‘pinks and greens’ did not conform to the dress manual but no one was going to complain or tell her to dress by the book. Her dress of the day was a forest-green coat tailored to fit her figure with a contrasting light olive-drab coloured skirt with a slight pinkish hue. She wore her skirt just above her knees which was contrary to regulations. The Army issued her beige nylon hosiery and brown leather shoes with low heels but she wore fifteen denier fully fashioned stockings with kitten-heel brown pumps that she purchased herself.

Bill Brody took an instant dislike to Lieutenant Drinkwater. It wasn’t that he believed that women had no place in the Army; in fact he thought the opposite. He’d been impressed by the work carried by the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps in Berlin. But Madeline Drinkwater carried herself with a swagger she didn’t deserve. She’d been in the Woman’s Army Corps less than a dog watch yet she talked like a veteran and was an obvious dilettante.

Lieutenant Drinkwater accepted Bill Brody’s aloofness and hostility as a challenge. When Bill rejected her advances she bombarded him with busywork; a seemingly endless river of paperwork which Bill hated. She found excuses for him to have to report to her office, usually on the pretext of reviewing one of the recruit’s personnel files. These subtle advances were rejected however so Madeline hatched a plan that was a little less subtle. What Madeline wanted Medline got!

Staff Sergeant Brody got the word that he was required to report to the OIC of the Personnel Office at 1830 on Friday when he was freshly showered and shaved and wearing his dress uniform ready for a night on the town. He knew that it would be more busywork involving a pointless review of some jar-head’s personnel file. The rest of the NCOs had left for town when Bill stormed across the parade ground to the Administration Building.

The building was deserted. Being Friday evening the married men were home with their families and the single guys were blowing off steam in the dens of iniquity in Phenix City. The only light came from under the OIC’s office. Bill could smell Madeline’s perfume as soon as he walked down the corridor.

When he entered it was if she had staged the encounter, which she had. Madeline had one of her long legs stretched out, her foot on the desk, her skirt hiked up and she was stroking the wrinkles out of her stocking. Her skirt had ridden up her thighs and Bill guessed that those translucent white nylon panties through which he could see her trimmed pubic hair were not regulation.

“Sorry Sergeant, I just can’t keep the wrinkles out of these damn nylons or keep my seams straight. The Army buys such cheap hosiery,” Madeline said by way of explanation as if it was perfectly normal for a female officer to be showing off her undergarments to an enlisted man in a deserted office.

Bill stood at parade rest and admired Madeline’s long coltish leg. She might be an opportunist who was in only the Army to catch herself a trophy husband but she was one sexy woman.

Madeline put her foot down but her skirt remained rucked up on her thighs but she pretended not to notice. Bill also noticed that she’d taken off her jacket and tie and that her shirt was unbuttoned at the neck exposing her décolletage.

“I’m sorry to have to bring you in on a Friday evening but there are some anomalies in these personnel records that we need to address. It could take us quite a while,” Madeline tapped a red-lacquered manicured fingernail on a stack of files and smiled at him wickedly.

Bill had had enough; it was time to get this over with. The bitch wanted to taste a battle-hardened veteran then let her have it and then she might leave him in peace.

“I don’t think we are going to do anything of the sort Ma’am,” Bill sidled up to Madeline and unbuttoned his fly and freed a burgeoning erection.

“What the hell are you doing Sergeant?” Madeline pretended that she was shocked.

She looked at the long thick veiny weapon and licked her lips in anticipation; her panties already damp.

By way of an answer Bill put his hand on the back of Madeline’s head and pushed her face into his groin. She opened her lips and took the proffered phallus in her mouth. Bill looked down at her pretty face, her red lipsticked-lips drawn along his sleek shaft as she suckled him. She worked her tongue on his glans and Bill’s penis grew to full tumescence.

Her mouth was warm and wet and she was good. He could smell her perfume and he saw that she was stroking her cunt through her transparent panties while she sucked his cock. The musk of her sex rose to his nose and he inhaled it and sighed. He enjoyed the feel of her red lips on his cock, her tongue tickling his fraenulum. He gently placed his other hand on her head and guided her face up and down on his big cock.

Madeline had sucked her fair share of cocks but this one was exquisite. Straight from the shower it was clean and tasted a little of Lifebuoy soap and his body smelled of Old Spice aftershave. It helped that Bill was ruggedly handsome and had been elusive. Now that she had him in her mouth she intended to enjoy him. She slavered at his cock whilst she tickled her labia through her silky panties. Her clitoris was distended and ached to be touched but she denied herself that privilege so that she could prolong the encounter.

She took her hand out of her lap and worked at Bill’s belt, unbuckling it and dropping his trousers down around his polished boots. His briefs followed and Madeline was able to cup Bill Brody’s substantial scrotum while she sucked his cock. She stroked his sac and manipulated his testes gently, inducing ringlets of pleasure which combined with the deep carnal delights emanating from his penis. She could feel Bill’s cock trembling in her mouth and guessed that he was about to climax.

Madeline spat out Bill’s penis and leapt to her feet and Bill pulled her in close and kissed her. Her lipstick tasted decadent and wanton, her breath was sweet, her mouth wet and warm. Their tongues intertwined as they groped at each other. Bill’s hand went under her skirt and found her pubis swathed in diaphanous nylon panties that were wet with her secretions. He teased her labia through the gauzy fabric and Medline whimpered into his mouth and squeezed his cock in her soft hand.

He pressed her against the desk, her buttocks resting on the edge as it cut into her ass. She hopped up and Bill helped her so that she was sitting on the desk with her arms draped around Bill kissing him passionately. He groped at her blouse and freed her breasts and she guided his mouth to them. The flesh was soft and creamy, her teats like ripe berries. He lapped at her tits and took her nipples in his mouth and suckled and nipped them gently with his teeth causing Madeline to shudder and groan as waves of pleasure radiated from her bosom.

Madeline wrapped her stocking-sheathed limbs around Bill and pulled him closer and he delighted in the feel of her silky nylons on his flesh. These were no Army issue nylons she was wearing; they were expensive sheer and sexy stockings and he loved them. He ran his hands up and down them as he nursed at her breasts and she delighted in the feel of the Sergeant’s rough hands on her limbs and his lips and teeth on her sensitive teats.

Bill opened Madeline’s labia and was stroking her clitoris through her saturated panties. Fiery circlets of delight spread from her sex into her belly. Bill’s hand stroking her legs was evoking deep sensual feelings and his fingers thrummed her clitty through panties wringing forth wave after wave of pleasure. She tore his face from her bosom and kissed him and he returned the kiss ferociously.

His cock was hard and pulsing in her hand, she could feel the steeliness of it, the manliness of it, the dangerousness of it. She wanted it inside of her.

Madeline opened her legs wide and guided Bill’s cock to her panty-clad mound and eased aside the silky gusset and nestled the head of his penis in her labia. Bill pushed forward and his cock lid into her sultry tight tunnel.

They both moaned into each other’s mouths. Bill’s hand went to her breasts and he tweaked her nipples as he slowly worked his cock in and out of her warm clammy quim. Madeline wriggled her buttocks so that Bill could get all of it inside her and also so that his pubis pressed on her clitoris. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his torso and let him fuck her.

Being fucked brutally by this manly hero was so much better than the foppish West Pointers who treated her like a porcelain doll. She ripped open his blouse and raked her nails down his chest and her heels down his flanks then she pulled him closer, her silky stockinged limbs caressing his grazed flesh.

Bill liked that she was rough. He didn’t like the woman and the coarser their coupling the better as far as he was concerned. He bit her lip and tweaked her nipples harder, then grazed his fingernails down her breasts. Madeline howled as the stinging pain combined with the lecherous pleasure radiating from her tits and her cunt. She bit him back and smashed her cunt into him, scratching him, encouraging him it ravish her.

He moved his hands to her legs and held them apart and began to fuck her hard and fast, staring into her burning green eyes. He hated this bitch and fucking her like the slattern that she was gave him more pleasure than he thought it would. Her cunt clung to his cock as he thrust is in out of her tight passage. It was like her cunt was reluctant to release his shaft from its tight grip.

“You fucking animal!” Madeline hissed; her eyes bright with lust.

Bill raked his fingers down her legs laddering her stockings and scalding her flesh. She reached for him and brought his face to hers so she could kiss him violently as her orgasm began to build. She wrapped her legs around him and lifted her ass off the desk to meet his thrusts and she sensed that he was close to extremis.

Bill battered her bruised cunt with his aching cock as it began to spew his scalding issue deep inside her. Madeline screamed obscenities around Bill’s kisses, calling him a barbarian and a hoodlum and a predator as her orgasm exploded in a mighty bloom of carnal delight and coursed through her whole body.

And that was when the MPs entered the room.

Madeline cried rape and Bill’s defence was laughed at by the jury members and the military judge. Bill Brody’s defending counsel was atrociously ill prepared and ineffective at the court martial. Madeline presented as a ‘peaches and cream’ ingénue: an attractive, inexperienced young officer who knew so little of the world at large and of the Army particularly. She was easily overpowered by her brutish subordinate as she worked alone in her office that night.

She presented each day very demure, her uniform worn exactly as per regulations and makeup toned down. She cried a lot and made goo-goo eyes at the Judge Advocate, a grey-haired Colonel who she knew was about to make Brigadier General and take up a position in the Pentagon. They would later marry and she would bear him two spoiled brats.

The scratches on her body, her bruised lips and bitten nipples were evidence enough of rape; not to mention her torn clothing and battered vagina. She had defended her virtue valiantly as was evident by the bruises and scratches she had inflicted on Staff Sargent Brody’s body.

The MPs testified that the Staff Sergeant had forced the Lieutenant onto the desk and was holding her down and was raping her while she struggled beneath him and screamed obscenities at him because that was what they thought they saw. During their rounds they had heard Madeline howling and moaning with anguish and she had cried rape when they burst through the door to her office.

Bill didn’t stand a chance and was sentenced to fifteen years at the United States Military Prison, Fort Leavenworth with no hope of parole.

Villawood Montana, 1959

The bullying started six months into the experiment.

Flagg read the men’s diaries every Monday and was pleased with how the Study was progressing. The six men had created their own hierarchy led by William Brody. Bill allowed the men some freedom, letting them wear civilian clothes, live in their own houses, use their first names but he still maintained discipline and structure.

There was friction between Brody and Flintock but that was to be expected as they were both alpha males but Brody maintained his position as the person in charge and exercised his superiority by issuing orders through his ‘company clerk’ Wesley Meakins.

Meakins had assumed some superiority by association, being Brody’s ‘Girl Friday’ which was an interesting choice of words given what Flagg knew about Meakins and the other subjects didn’t. But he was despised by the others for toadying up to Bill Brody.

Flintock and Benning had bonded because of their technical skills and looked down on the others because they were specialists who provided essential services and the others were expendable as far as Flintock and Benning were concerned. Meakins and Steele were considered the lowest in the pecking order because of their roles as clerk and nurse. Snitterman was a good cook which was good for morale but being a clerk was a function that anyone could perform and Steele’s medical prowess was seldom needed although he tended to cuts and bruises and coughs and colds and had once had to stitch up a deep gash on Benning’s forearm.

Whenever menial tasks were required to be completed they fell to Steele and Meakins even though Brody had directed that the tasks should be shared equally. Brody had become broody and aloof. He joined the men for meals and for drinks in the Copperlode Bar but during the day he remained cool and distant.

The men were doing an excellent job maintaining the town and were enjoying their new found but limited freedom. As Flagg had expected, independence and liberty came at a cost. The men enjoyed all the luxuries of free men with the exception of female companionship.

Staff Sergeant Brody had requested that ‘women of ill repute’, meaning prostitutes, be provided now and then but Flagg refused. Part of the study was to see how the men would survive living in isolation with limited freedom but with no means of sexual release.

Flagg also knew that Brody was reading the diaries before they were submitted and he had no real problem with that and as far as Flagg could tell the entries had not been edited or censored. The men expressed their gratitude for the freedoms they had, their secret resentment and jealousies for each other and their anguish at not being able to enjoy the comfort of an intimate other. This was made all the worse by the way Villawood was presented to them.

There was evidence of the fairer sex everywhere: the mannequins in the department store, his and hers ablutions in public places, a playground for children, female clothing and accoutrements in the store. The magazines and lingerie catalogues had been passed around and were now tattered and torn. Flagg refused Brody’s request for more. He wanted the men totally isolated from the outside world but with total freedom inside the fence that separated them form society and emancipation.

Brody had requested the men’s Personnel files and after some rumination Flagg had acquiesced. He wanted to see what Brody would do with the information contained therein.

As for the six inmates, life conformed to their established routines of work, rest, exercise, meals and drinking at the Copperlode Bar in the evenings, telling war stories and embellishing their sexual exploits and of course wishing they had female companionship. Tales of loose women and of girls who had offered their virtue for some scant reward during the war were oft repeated. The men encouraged Brody and Flintock to tell their tales of comfort women and women of pleasure. The idea of having women kept solely for pleasure was intriguing.

Everything changed the day the men went to the department store one Saturday afternoon. The men had been drinking in the Copperlode Bar and someone had suggested that they go to the store to get some new clothes as the ones they were wearing were six months old. Their clothing was clean and pressed, Brody insisted on it, but it was becoming threadbare.

That was another menial task that had fallen on Sam Steele. He had been delegated the task of laundryman as well as having to tend bar in the evenings and weekends.

The men entered the store and the first thing they were confronted with was the two mannequins. The lifelike dolls were a blessing and curse. They were a blessing because they were the only representation of femininity in Villawood and a curse because they reminded the men of what they were missing.

As they stood staring drunkenly at the two lifelike dummies Buddy Flintock remembered what Wesley Meakins had said to Sam Steele the first time they had entered the store.

“You still think Sam could fit into that suit?” Buddy pointed to the blonde haired, long-legged, big-breasted and slim hipped mannequin wearing the dark pencil-skirted suit.

“With a little help I’m sure he could,” Wesley giggled.

“Oh come on guys knock it off,” Sam dismissed the comment as a jibe and started to walk towards the men’s clothing section.

Victor Benning stepped in front of Sam and blocked his way.

Sam was slightly built, his voice high pitched and almost effeminate. During boot camp he struggled with PT and battlefield training and had been assigned to the medical corps.

“I reckon you could fill that suit nicely,” Victor pushed Sam in the chest towards the mannequin.

“What do you mean with a little help?” Buddy turned to Wesley.

“Well she’d have to put on a wig and some makeup otherwise she’d just be a man in a dress,” Wesley sniggered.

Victor produced a hip flask, took a slug and passed it to Buddy who took a swallow.

“Don’t call me ‘she’! You’re the fucking Girl Friday!” Sam sniped at Wesley.

“And I’m not putting on the fucking suit!” Sam wailed.

It may have been Sam’s bellicose attitude, it was certainly the alcohol but it was also a need to bully intimidate that fired Buddy’s resolve to force Sam to wear the suit.

“You’re wearing the fucking suit Sam!” Buddy growled.

“Who wants to see Sam wear the suit?” Buddy asked drunkenly.

Victor went along with everything that Buddy did, Wesley was a toady who pretended he was someone special because he worked directly for Brody but the others knew he was a cowardly wuss. Dale Snitterman was the closest that Sam had as a friend but seeing Sam being bullied by the others meant that he was being left alone so he joined the bullies.

They all raised their hands.

“Sergeant! Stop this idiocy please,” Sam turned to Bill Brody and begged.

Bill had little time for any of them but he’d read their diaries and had their personnel files and knew them all intimately. He should have put a stop to it but he found the situation amusing.

“Put the fucking suit on Nurse Steele,” Brody took out his own hip flask and took a slug.

“You guys are joking right? Sergeant? Surely you’re joking?” Sam could sense the situation was getting out of hand.

He’d been the butt of their jokes for some time now but this was really going too far.

“Wesley! Help me! Convince your boss that this is just plain ridiculous,” Sam turned to Wesley for help.

“Wesley? You mean fucking Wendy. You can help Sam get into that fucking suit and then you can put on that dress. Then you two ladies can come back to the Copperlode and serve us real men some drinks and snacks,” Brody chuckled and the others joined in.

Except for Wesley Meakins.

He had suddenly become pale and was speechless. Staff Sergeant Brody had called him Wendy. How did he know about Wendy?

Bill Brody turned to Wesley Meakins and hauled him by the collar.

“I know all about you Wendy; now git to gettin’ sissified with your girlfriend here,” Brody hissed in Wesley’s ear but the others overheard and were very interested.

“What’s the story Sarge? Why’d you call Meakins Wendy?” Victor Benning asked.

“Let’s go back to the bar boys and I’ll tell you all about it. You two ladies better show up wearing those fucking clothes or else I’ll beat you into them,” Bill hissed at Sam and Wesley and stormed off followed by the others leaving Sam and Wesley alone in store.

Sam couldn’t believe what was happening. What had he done to infuriate Bill Brody? The others had been teasing him for weeks now and he was used to it but why had Bill turned on him? And what was the story with Wesley Meakins who stood there looking totally dejected.

Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands - North Pacific, 1944

Wesley Meakins knew that he was gay as soon as he entered adolescence. He’d been an average student and found employment as a bank clerk when he left school with no real ambition other than to live a comfortable life and keep his homosexuality in the closet except for when he met up with his friends at Newport, Rhode Island on the weekends.

He and his friends all stayed at the same hotel which tolerated gay men. Wesley frequented the Pink Parrot nightclub where he performed as a drag queen to supplement his income. Being effete and quite the accomplished mimic, singer and actor Wesley performed as the drag queen Wendy Wayne three nights a week.

When the United States entered the war Wesley wanted to do his part but did not fancy storming beaches or being shelled in a foxhole and so he joined the USN as a clerk. His good fortune prevailed and he was posted to USS Polari an auxiliary repair ship which spent most of its time anchored in Pacific island lagoons following the battle fleet but out of harm’s way.

Being far away at sea USS Polari became a heterotopic space where some men sought the companionship of others. Despite official prohibitions of such behaviour the CO turned a blind eye provided the men carried out their duties to the best of their abilities. The ship was required to remain away from port for extended periods as it was a vital element supporting the fleet and the crew worked long hours under harsh conditions and had little to do in the way of recreation.

The tradition of dressing as women for entertainment, including theatre shows, was more common on ships on boringly long inactive voyages than it was in the army or air force. Wesley Meakins let Wendy Wayne out of the closet and dragged up for concert parties in a troupe of three. He impersonated the singer Ann Sheridan and his two shipmates were Rita Hayworth and Katharine Hepburn.

The ship’s company was amused by the three crossdressers who were very good at their art of female impersonation. The crews of other warships tied up alongside the Polari for periods of maintenance and repair would come on board and attend performances, the sailors eager for any distraction from the long periods of boredom broken by short periods of terror which constituted war at sea.

It was a loose secret that the ‘sea queens’ would offer sexual favours after the show in secluded spaces below decks and many a ‘straight’ sailor succumbed to their feminine wiles. ‘Any port in a storm’ was a phrase often uttered by men starved of female companionship and sexual gratification.

Wesley was enjoying a peaceful war until his good work got him promoted to Petty Officer and a posting to USS Antilles a Lexington Class aircraft carrier where he got a taste of the real war. But being on a ship with such a large crew there were bound to be other homosexuals and Wesley’s ‘gaydar’ soon located another sailor of the same disposition. But it was to be his undoing when a Chief Petty Officer caught the two in flagrante delicto.

Meakins was given the option of paying bribes to the bellicose Chief Petty Officer or being beaten by him and his homophobic buddies and then brought before the mast. Under great duress Wesley stole cash from the Pursers safe and doctored the books to hide his crimes. He got away with it for a while but his crimes were eventually discovered.

His defence at the court martial that he was being blackmailed by a Chief Petty Officer was not considered an excuse and most of the Board found his blatant homosexuality distasteful although some were briefly amused by his anecdotes of performing as Wendy Wayne. It did him little good however and he was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment, the harsh sentence due to the Judge Advocate’s hatred of gay men.

In Leavenworth Wesley kept his homosexuality a secret for fear of being beaten or killed by men who hated faggots although he sometimes found himself on his knees in the ablutions block fellating a bully.

Wesley’s secret life however was fully chronicled in his Personnel file and that file was now in the possession of Staff Sergeant William Brody.

Villawood Montana, 1959

“What the fuck is going on Wesley; I can’t believe this is happening,” Sam stood in the middle of the department store entrance dumbfounded.

“We’re being bullied Sam, that’s what’s happening,” Wesley said forlornly.

“The Sergeant knows about my past, that’s for certain,” Wesley sighed.

“Past? What past?” Sam was confused.

Wesley gave a Sam a condensed story of his exploits on board the USS Polari, leaving out the part about having sex with the sailors. He amended and edited the story explaining that he and three others and been performing drag shows on the ship to break the boredom and entertain the ships companies.

“Bill Brody has some files locked in his safe that I can’t access so I’m guessing he has our Personnel files in there,” Wesley opined.

“What has that got to do with anything?” Sam was still confused.

“Don’t you see Sam it doesn’t matter? You and I are the weaklings and those other four men are big and strong and in control and they want us to dress up like women,” Wesley sounded exasperated.

“Dale is my friend,” Sam said pouting like a spoiled child.

“Dale has joined the others. We have no friends. This place is just as bad as Leavenworth. It’s a gilded cage,” Wesley sighed.

“But why make us dress like women?” Sam was still confused.

“To bully us, to mock us, to tease us and to belittle us. It’s just another way of exerting their superiority. They want female company but can’t have it so we will be the next best thing. It was will be harmless fun. We’ll serve them drinks and prance around a bit and they’ll slap our asses and make lewd comments and then we’ll take off our makeup and dresses and everything will go back to how it was,” Wesley began to undress the mannequins, carefully putting the clothing into a shopping trolley.