It had been a long haul -- eight weeks of Basic Training followed by twelve weeks of Advanced Training as a radio operator. There had been a couple of weekend passes thrown in, and one three-day pass to Houston right after Basic. But there'd never been enough time to go all the way back home to Georgia, until now.

It was January, 1957, and Tom had two weeks' leave before reporting for his permanent duty assignment at Ft. Dix, New Jersey. He was very pleased. He had an assignment close to New York City, training in an army specialty that was challenging and fun, and now, at last, some significant time -- his first time since enlisting -- away from the rigors of army life.

He was happy and horny. Unfortunately, there wasn't a girl waiting for him back home in Augusta, because he was visiting his parents' home, and they'd only moved to Georgia, from his childhood home in Indiana, around the time that Tom had joined the army.

Still, he was at last going to meet his long-time pen pal, Millie Barkley. Millie was from New York, and they'd been writing letters to one another for more than three years now - since back when both of them had been high school students.

Millie had eagerly agreed to fly down from her home to visit him and his parents in Augusta. They'd never met - never even spoken on the telephone until arrangements for this meeting had been made a few weeks ago. He wondered whether Millie would be as pretty as her pictures indicated -- and whether she'd be as warm and willing as her frequently steamy letters suggested. But he wasn't going to get his hopes up too much. There was a big difference, he knew, between flirty letters full of suggestive phrasing and a real-life romance. It remained to be seen whether the two of them would really hit it off as a couple.

Anyway, Millie's scheduled week-long visit was still several days away. It was going to take the greater part of the next two days for this Greyhound bus to trundle him across five states. When he finally arrived in Augusta, it would be three more days before Millie was due to fly in to meet him and his parents.

So now he sat by the window, only a few hours east of Ft. Hood, Texas where he'd boarded the bus. He had a new John D. MacDonald paperback in reserve, and a carry-on bag full of cookies and fruit. His uniform coat was stowed away overhead, and his tie was pulled askew for maximum feasible comfort. Too bad that showing up in uniform was required to get the reduced fare -- he'd have preferred jeans and a sweater.

Outside, the bright January day was fading into a brilliant sunset that streamed through the bus' rear window. With the coming of dusk, the bus quickly became chilly, and Tom stood up and pulled an army blanket out of his duffle bag, stored overhead. He was an experienced bus traveler, and he well knew that the heating and cooling systems were spectacularly unreliable. The blanket would assure him a reasonably comfortable night.

Somewhere just after crossing the Louisiana state line, the bus pulled in for a 45-minute rest stop and Tom gratefully got out, stretched his legs, and enjoyed a hot dinner in the not-too-seedy restaurant adjacent to the bus terminal. He wasn't sure what town this was, but it was a decent-sized city, and the bus station had three buses loading and unloading while he and his fellow passengers were going inside. Tom figured it must be Shreveport, and that some of these people were making connections here from other north-south routes.

Sure enough, when he re-boarded the bus, there were a number of new people coming aboard and searching for empty seats. A pretty young woman wearing a U.S. Marines uniform stopped in the aisle next to where he sat and asked whether the seat next to him was taken. When he said it was not, she stowed her small suitcase in the rack overhead and joined him.

She was about his age, perhaps a year or two older, and appeared to be Hispanic. She was no trainee, though, as she wore corporal's stripes on her uniform. He watched her settle in, covertly looking her over with carefully disguised interest. She was very buxom, and not too tall, so the immediate impression was that she was heavy, but on closer examination, he realized that she was an attractive young woman, and quite trim despite her outsized breasts.

As the bus got underway, he introduced himself to his new seat mate. "I'm Tom Sutter," he said. "Major General, U.S. Army."

The girl smiled at his feeble witticism, took his outstretched hand, and said "Delores Gallegos, Broad-Assed Marine!"

He smiled. She had no trace of a Spanish accent, so he decided that despite the Hispanic ancestry, she was probably as established a third-generation American as he was. "Going home?" he asked.

"Afraid not," she replied. "I've been home, and now it's back to North Carolina for me. 'Returning to duty after ten days' liberty. How about you?"

"Home for me," he answered. "Two weeks off after finishing twenty weeks of initial training... Then I head for a new assignment in New York. Right now, I'm going to Augusta, Georgia."

"Well, we're gonna be together for awhile," she said. I change buses in Atlanta."

They enjoyed a pleasant conversation for quite some time, before Tom again noticed that the bus was becoming very cold. "Jeez, they don't know how to keep these damned buses comfortable," he complained. It's cold as hell in here!"

"Yeah," Delores agreed. "Nothing like trying to sleep sitting up with cold feet and a too-tight, too-hot tunic!... Where's your coat?"

"Like you said," Tom responded, "... it's terribly uncomfortable wearing those tight jackets for hours on end... But, hey, look - I've got a blanket... Want to share?"

Delores looked at him and her mouth curved into a wicked little smile. "Hmmm. The blanket would be nice - especially since I could take off this damned coat... But I don't know how safe I'd be under there with you."

Tom feigned a shocked expression. "Are you kidding? 'First thing they taught us in Basic Training, don't mess with no U.S. Marines! They're tougher, better-trained and far more bloodthirsty than any of us ordinary U.S. Army grunts!"

"Well, Tom, it's an attractive offer." Without another word, Dolores gratefully peeled off and folded up the tight, heavily woven winter Marine uniform jacket. Imitating Tom's own informality, she loosened her tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her standard-issue olive drab blouse.

Then she gratefully took a corner of Tom's ample blanket and stretched it over herself, so that both of them were side-by-side, covered to the neck. "Ah, that's more comfortable than I ever expected to be on this bus!" she purred.

The moonless night surrounded them in darkness. Earlier, a few of their fellow passengers had been using overhead lights to read, but all of these gradually were turned off until the bus was churning through the northern Louisiana night, with nothing but the bus' headlights and distant starlight to show the way.

"Toasty!" Delores said, after a long silence. "I'm gonna try to get some sleep," she announced. She put her seat back into a moderate recline, careful not to disturb passengers behind them, and then turned away in her aisle seat so that her back was facing Tom. She pulled her short little legs up into a fetal position on the seat and Tom thought he could make out, in the darkness, the sweet swell of her ample left hip under the blanket.

Tom pushed his seat back into a similar recline and turned on his side, so that he faced Delores. They were going to sleep, spoon-fashion, but he carefully avoided pressing his body against hers. He fell asleep warmly aware of her nearby presence but not touching her in any way.

In the wee hours, Tom awoke when the bus pulled to a stop in some tiny, closed-down town. He was surprised to find that the body of the sleeping Delores was tightly pressed against him from neck to knee.

She gave no sign that she was awake, and Tom, with some quick reckoning of where he was located in relation to their double seat, determined with some relief that it had been Delores' body that had drifted in close to him, rather than his own body's migrating toward her.

Still, the waking realization of how tightly they were pressed together had an immediate stimulating effect. He felt himself growing hard, and worried that his sleeping seatmate would notice the intrusion, too.

Trying to pull away, Tom found that he had already given almost all the ground available to give. When his groin was separated from Delores' warm bottom by a few millimeters, he felt the surface of the bus' outer wall on his own back. Immediately, the sleeping girl's ample bottom slithered back into place, snugly against his hardened penis. She wiggled momentarily, and the rock-hard organ found itself snugly lodged between the cheeks of her upturned ass.

"There are layers and layers of clothing between us," Tom thought. "Nothing can happen. Well, the worst thing that can happen is that she'll wake up and get pissed at me for trying to dry-fuck her."

"Well, if she does wake up and gets pissed, I'll just point out to her that her ass is 'way over here on my side of the seat... So just who is up against whom, here, anyway?"

Finally, the bus' inexplicable long-term stop at the fast-asleep hamlet ended, and the driver re-boarded and drove back onto the highway.

Tom was wide awake now, wondering how far from dawn they were and what would happen if Delores were to wake up now. The bus rumbled over some rough sections of road, and Tom's still-hard penis was unceremoniously jostled against the sleeping girl's warm buns. God. Her body was so deliciously hot that he feared she might awaken and throw off the blanket at any time.

"Tom?... You awake?"

The disembodied voice came so unexpectedly that Tom had no opportunity to consider pretending to be asleep. "Yeah."

"Feels nice."

"What?" Had he heard her right?

"Feels nice, safe and warm like this."

"Uh. Yeah. I... um... I'm sorry about the..."

"S'OK... That feels... nice, too."

"I... ahhh... I didn't do it on purpose. I just woke up and..."

"Put your arm around me." She said it in a whisper, lest other nearby passengers hear her.

Tom carefully placed his left arm over hers, his hand over her left hand, his forearm resting chastely on hers.