Sometimes everything just falls apart, no matter how hard you try to do the right thing for everyone around you. Sometimes all the signs are there, but you're so busy doing your job as provider and protector (because that's a damn man's job, after all) that you miss them all...
When Jenna became pregnant again after the miscarriage of our first baby, she seemed happy, but she had no idea how a woman carrying my child must feel. I guess I didn't notice how little she was involved in the planning and preparation. My third deployment to Iraq was imminent, and I chalked up her apparent lack of enthusiasm to the fact that after my son was born, I'd be eating sand in the middle of the desert with my platoon of 27 hard-nosed soldiers, not knowing how long I'd be there or how many original parts I'd still have with me when I returned.
I knew it was hard, and in hindsight, we probably had little right to pretend we could function like any other normal family, but Jenna seemed to be doing her best, and I couldn't ask more of her. Because I was pregnant, the Marines actually managed to get me home after ten months, so Killen was five months old when I returned. I spent my entire teenage years dreaming of the day I would get married and become a father to a boy. I was completely beside myself, experiencing feelings that men like me should never feel until the moment you hold your own child in your arms.
It is this permission to become human again, to be vulnerable and to love without shame, that is the true miracle, and it wasn't long before I realized that Jenna wasn't experiencing this miracle with me. During my deployment, Jenna's mother, Carrie (with whom I got along well), practically became my live-in nanny. She looked after Killan all day and even stayed with me many nights. I was happy for Jenna to have the help she needed, but I later learned from Carrie that Jenna's postpartum depression was so severe that at one point she couldn't even get out of bed to feed him. She couldn't ignore his crying for so long that she was finally forced to call her mother and confess what was going on. Jenna kept her illness a secret from me so as not to burden me with a problem I couldn't do anything about from a desert on the other side of the world.
But I could tell from her voice alone during every phone call or Skype conversation that something was seriously wrong. The woman I was talking to wasn't the girl I'd fallen for in high school and married between graduation and leaving for training camp. Every conversation with her reeked of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and made me feel like my wife had been replaced by a complete stranger. I couldn't wait to get home, get to the bottom of Jen's problems, and give her the help she needed to overcome them. The therapy sessions and medication seemed to help somewhat, but her bond with Killan just wasn't developing the way it should have, and eventually, Carrie had to take on the primary responsibility of raising him. The cycle of long deployments and returning home to deal with Jen's illness continued for another five years until, after my last deployment, I found only Carrie and my son at home. Jenna had packed all her things and left, unwilling to confront her decision. I was devastated.
All I ever wanted to be was a tough soldier, husband, and father, and now here I was—no longer a Marine or a husband. I desperately wanted to extend my contract after my eight years were up, but given the situation at home, I couldn't in good conscience continue being away from my family for months on end without being able to do my part to fix things. My entire military career had been about solving problems, and yet I was completely unable to deal with the biggest problem of my life. My resignation was accepted under the circumstances, and now here I was, a former Marine trying to navigate life not only as a civilian but also as a single father.
Carrie did her best to support me through my transition by being available to look after Killan as much as possible. However, at some point, her loyalty to her daughter had to take precedence over her love for her grandchild (especially after the divorce was finalized), and her daily presence in our lives eventually dwindled to the usual weekends and holidays.
As Carrie's presence diminished, my buddy and best friend Nick stepped in and took his rightful place as my most important friend, my best buddy, my loyal companion. The rest of our platoon called us "husbros," and we just brushed it off since none of us really disagreed. Nick had been "more than a friend but less than a wife" since high school, and our emotional connection wasn't a big secret to anyone who knew us, and we didn't try to analyze it too much. We were too straight to sleep together, so we were content just to be buddies who loved each other in every way, and that was that. Nick's retirement just a year after mine allowed him to move to a place only a five-minute walk from my house. From then on, anyone who didn't know us and had seen us at McDonald's or Dave and Buster's would have easily assumed we were a gay married couple raising a child.
Killan grew up to be the kind of kid you'd expect to have two tough Marines in your life. Between me and "Uncle Nick," Kil was physically focused and years ahead of his peers in agility and speed, making him a star in his youth soccer and hockey leagues. At 10, he was just under 5 feet tall, but beneath his typical pre-pubescent physique lay a power and strength that was actually quite frightening. We constantly had to remind him that he wasn't like other boys, and he had to keep his "superpower" in check to avoid seriously injuring his peers. He tried. He really tried, but bloody noses and minor broken bones seemed to become increasingly common topics of conversation over the years, and the only small consolation was that Kil needed full padding and helmets for both sports. Nick and I worried about the potential carnage if he ever decided to take up wrestling or, God forbid, boxing.
Nick and I decided to combine our home gyms into a single one, and since Kil was no longer using the basement as his personal playroom, we completely renovated it into a fully equipped gym with all sorts of weights, racks, machines, and even a shower, so we could have sold memberships. Kil wanted to turn his occasional workouts into daily rituals right away, just like his dad and uncle, and he wasn't about to let anything stop him. We had no choice but to become his personal trainers, as neither of us was willing to let a ten-year-old run wild on a playground where he could get hurt.
Kil's training was characterized by the same Zen-like focus he displayed on the field. I knew he'd inherited at least some of his focus from me (I wasn't a high-ranking Marine sniper for nothing), but I also knew the rest was his way of coping with the pain his mother had inflicted. Behind every consistent A and B on his report card, behind every pass he caught and ran towards goal, behind every slapshot that found the back of the net, and behind every bead of sweat he shed while taking another powerful shot, lay another moment when he didn't have to think about it.
These moments, and the temporary respite they gave him, made him addicted. Kil's therapist had warned me for years that his abandonment issues would manifest one way or another, and if they were going to, they were going to. As a father, I could think of a dozen other destructive things he might become addicted to, or unhealthy behaviors he might develop. Nick agreed, and we both did our best to give him the support and encouragement he needed. In just three years, Killan had transformed from a skinny little boy into a 5'9" alpha male with 150 pounds of muscle on a body that looked like it belonged to a porn star. He was about to start high school as a very attractive kid, with all the privileges and perks that would come with it.
Speaking of porn: My cheesy, backwoods dad never made sex an uncomfortable topic for me, and we had a healthy and open relationship with it as soon as I was old enough to understand. Even if not, eight years in the Marines takes away any reservations you might have about your own body or sex anyway. That's why I've made it my goal to raise Kil the same way.
If you view everything to do with sex as shameful or embarrassing, you end up raising a little beta slut, not a real alpha. I knew Kil had had a very healthy relationship with his left hand for a few years, which Nick and I had encouraged a lot, but we felt he was ready to take his passion to the next level, which is why last Christmas he got a selection of pocket pussies and a giant bottle of lube under the tree and was as excited as a five-year-old with a new Transformers playset. I was a single guy with an insatiable sex drive, and Nick was just as bad, and neither of us saw any reason to pretend to Killan that we weren't fucking pussy at every opportunity.
Kil knew, and I was happy to fuel his lust sessions by playing the porn Nick and I had just watched on the big-screen TV so he could jerk off when he got home from practice, or the non-stop parade of top-notch pussies he got to see in and out of my bedroom. I know he heard a lot too, hearing me like a fucking rabbit through the thin walls of my room right next to his fucking, and often I knew he had his cock in his fist, timing his orgasm perfectly with mine, and it made me come even harder knowing my boy was going at it like a champion, just like his dad.
A boy like Kil, who was made for procreation, should by now be drowning in a sea of pussies all his own. His cock barely gets a chance to dry between reproductive sessions, and he's on the phone and texting girls every minute in between, right up until the early hours, yet he remained strictly focused on nothing but grades and sports. Nick and I encouraged him to go to parties and socialize at every opportunity (and there were plenty of opportunities between football/hockey parties), but he showed a remarkable disinterest in actually approaching the opposite sex, even though he was perfectly capable of talking to girls (and adults), having been raised from a young age to have a playful attitude.
Kil was certainly capable of some of the most masterful flirting ever seen from someone his age, when the rare opportunity arose. As the son of a Marine, he was always "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am," so he was admired not only by his peers but also by adults. Despite all the positive attention, he remained socially withdrawn. His Uncle Nick and his best (and practically only) friend, Branch Nolan, the quarterback of his team, were the only people besides me with whom he spent the little free time he allowed himself outside of school and sports.
Summer was drawing to a close, Kil had just celebrated his 13th birthday, high school was just around the corner, and I was determined that my boy would arrive at school with the legendary reputation of a master cock, just like his father. I wasn't quite sure how to awaken Sleeping Beauty from his spell, but Nick and I were confident we could devise a plan to finally get my boy's cock wet and take his virginity.
