FIRST KISS (First Mike Magee Novel - rough draft)

Chapter – SUMMER OF ‘69

Young girl, get out of my mind

My love for you is way out of line

Better run girl

You’re much too young girl!

-“Young Girl”-

(G. Puckett)

I gave Janny her first kiss.

It was innocent enough.  She’d come home from being out with her friends at the mall, slamming the door on her way in and then doing the same to her bedroom door.  Concerned, I walked over to her room and knocked softly.  Hearing only sobs, I turned the knob and found her sprawled face-down on the bed, her body convulsing sporadically as she let out her grief.

“Janny-girl?” I called softly, sitting by the side of her bed.  “What’s the matter, Princess?”

“GO AWAY!” she yelled, then pressed her face back into her pillow.  Instead, I sat there, stroking her hair, marveling at its texture.  She came from Nordic stock, with hair that was thick, golden-streaked, dirty blonde to offset her perfect, tanned complexion.  To top it off, the girl had more curves than someone her age should be allowed.

I said nothing and soon her sobbing stopped.  The sunlight that filtered through her window began to fade.  I knew I had a ton of schoolwork to do, but Janny was more important at this moment.

After a while, her breathing became regular and I bent down to kiss the back of her head, figuring that she was asleep.

As I got up, she said, “Why are all boys such jerks?”

I stopped and asked, “What do you mean, Janny?”

The young girl slowly turned over on her bed and patted the empty spot next to her, so I sat down.  She put one of her throw-pillows in my lap and laid there, so I began stroking her hair again, pulling the strands from her face which was damp from tears and sweat.

“Gary Carrolton,” she began.  I could feel her body tense as the anger welled up once more.

“What about him?” I asked softly.

“He’s a jerk!” she growled, venomously.

“We’ve established that.  What did he do?”

“He… he said… he told me…,” she stuttered, beginning to sob again.

“Told you what?” I asked, quietly and calmly.

“He said I was a lousy kisser!” she wailed, turning toward me and burying her face into my belly.  I held her and let her cry some more.  Jan shook silently against me as my hand caressed her hair and back.  I let her work it out until she turned to get tissues.  Janny sat up, blew her nose and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Go wash your face,” I told her, “then we’ll see if you’re a lousy kisser.”

“How are you going to do that?” she cried, defiantly.

“Just go wash your face, girl!” I commanded.  Reluctantly, she got up and went down the hall to her bath.

It was June of 1969.  Tom and Carla asked me to watch the house and their daughters.  I’d broken my leg in a car accident on the way home from college over Memorial Day weekend and wasn’t able to work the construction job I’d lined up for the summer.  Tom, my Uncle, owned the construction company, and told me that he’d give me their old VW to replace my car and pay me the same wages if I’d watch the house (and their two daughters) while he and his new (and third) wife, Carla spent the summer in Europe.  Since I didn’t have many other choices, I agreed.  If given the choice between construction and house-sitting next year, I would probably take the construction job.  It’s… less complicated.

Janny came out of the bathroom and stood at the entrance to her room.  I patted the bed next to me and she reluctantly came over and sat.

“What happened?” I asked.

Janny let out a long sigh.  “After we went to the mall, Jenny, Melanie, Mary and I were sitting over at the shelter in the park behind school so that Mary could smoke a cigarette.”  She looked up sharply at me.  “You won’t tell Mom and Dad, will you?”

“No, it’s none of my business what that girl does,” I said to her, then added threateningly, “As long as YOU aren’t doing it!”

“Ewwww!  No, I’m not!  Smoking’s gross!”

“Anyway,” she continued, “these boys came up and asked Mar for a smoke.  Then they started flirting with us and we found out they were juniors at the high school.” 

I nodded.

“Well, Mary and the guy that bummed her smokes began to make out.  Mel and Jenny said they had to leave, as did all the other guys.  I decided to stay and make sure that Mary didn’t get into trouble.  After a bit, Gary Carrollton comes up and we find out that the guy kissing Mary is his cousin, Jeff Rheinbach.  So Gary starts flirting with me and he’s like, really popular and I thought it was really cool that he even noticed me and stuff. 

“He told me he always thought I was pretty and was being all nice and stuff.  He put his arm around me and asked if he could have a kiss, so I gave him one.”

“And?” I asked after she’d paused for a bit.

“And he told me, ‘That’s not a kiss!’ and tried to pull me to him while trying to get his hand up my skirt!”

The room was now dark as twilight slowly shut out the evening.  I could hear her sister watching Garfield Goose on TV and knew I had to finish fixing dinner for them soon.  Jenny shuddered and I put my arm around her to hold her.

“What happened next?” I prodded, suddenly very angry at this clumsy young kid for upsetting my step-cousin.

“When he tried putting his hand up my legs and pulling me to him, I tried to push him away.  His mouth came over mine and it was gross the way he tried to kiss me!  I struggled and finally shoved him off of me, yelling and screaming at him until his cousin came over and told him to stop.”

“Well, at least his cousin had sense!”

“Yeah, well, he laughed at me and told me I was a lousy kisser and that he’d let all the guys know!”

“You’re right.  He’s a jerk!”

“He sure is!”

I held her for a few more minutes and we sat in silence until Leslie called up, asking when we were going to eat.

“In a little bit!” I called down.  It was cooking in the crock-pot, so I wasn’t too worried about it.  I just had to make some rice to go with the curried beef I’d prepared.

“Mike?” queried Janny in her insecure, little-girl voice. 

“Yes, Janny?”

“Would you… are you going to show me what you prom… um… would you… you know… like… um… kiss me… and tell me… you know… if I’m… um… any good or not?”

“Janny, I…”

“I know, I know, I shouldn’t have asked!” she said, huffing and getting up off the bed.  “I should have known better than to believe you’d follow through with your promise!” 

I sighed, grabbed her arm and pulled her back down.  This time, she sat on my lap.

I looked down at her for several moments and she did the same with me, her eyes searching; not fearful, but sad, wondering and searching.

“Show me how you kissed him the first time,” I said, breaking the tension.

Janny moved up to my face and gave me a peck on the lips.  It was a very sisterly kind of kiss, quick and perfunctory.

“That was it?” I said.

Janny’s face fell and she wailed, “I am a lousy kisser!”

“NO!  You are not!”

“You, you just said!” she replied, sobbing.

“No, I just asked if that was it.”

“Yes!” she huffed, folding her arms over her chest and trying to turn away from me while sitting in my lap.

“Jan,” I called softly.

“What!”

“Look at me for a moment, please?”

She pouted a little longer before she slowly turned towards me.

“That is a kiss.  It’s a good kiss that you’d give to a brother, your sister or your parents…”

“Okay,” she said, looking down.

“Do you want me to teach you how to kiss a guy?”

Janny looked up, an unbelieving and earnest look on her face. 

“Yes,” she stated.  “Would you really?  Honestly?

I took her face in my hands and caressed her cheeks with my palms. 

“Sometimes, you need to start out with someone a little older and more experienced,” I said.  “Lots of my friends learned how to dance and to kiss from their older siblings.  You’re the oldest and so you have to break new ground.”

Janny nodded.

“Please?” she asked.  “Teach me?”

I smiled and pulled her face to mine.  And kissed her.

Her lips were soft and pliant, pressing so tentatively against mine.  I knew right away that this was a mistake and that there was more emotion behind this kiss than either of us realized.  She was going to be a high school freshman in the fall and I, a junior in college – if my draft deferment held up.

We heard Leslie at the bottom of the stairs calling out, “I’m HUNgry!” but kept kissing.  This wasn’t just any kiss.  I’d certainly never been kissed like that before!  It broke in a root-beer soda pop, bursting-bubble, sweet and palpable kind of break, releasing all sorts of smoldering passion behind it so that it hung in the air in a way that you could taste and smell. 

We both sat there for a moment, staring in disbelief at each other and wanting to do it again, but knowing her sister would be coming through the door any second.  It wasn’t until she took her arms away that I realized they had been around my neck.  She got up and turned on her lamp.

“I’d better go start the rice,” I said, and left the room.

That night, after I read Leslie her bedtime story, I knocked on Janny’s door.

“Come on in,” her muted voice called back.  I opened the door.

“All cleaned up?  Teeth brushed and ready for bed?” I asked, stopping short.

She was laying against her stacked pillows, wearing one of my college tee-shirts, her long, tanned legs jutting out from beneath the hem.  Janny was reading one of her mother’s romance novels and sipping on some water.  As I walked in, she raised one leg until her foot was flat against the comforter, revealing most of her thigh.  She did it in an unconscious, innocently seductive sort of way, because there was nothing in her look or body language that told me she was trying to seduce me.

“I’ve just finished the chapter,” she said softly.

“Okay.  Lights out in five.”

“Mikey?” she called.  I didn’t cringe for once – I hate being called Mikey.  Hell, the only thing I disliked more was being called ‘Mickey’, which is what my last step-mother called me.   She and dad were currently getting divorced – neither my father or uncle being very good at commitments, marriage or both, each of them having been divorced several times.

“Yes, Jan?” I replied.

“Kees me gooodnigh?!!” she quipped, quoting Topo Gigio, the puppet mouse from the Ed Sullivan Show and putting her finger up to her mouth, giving me that shy-little-girl smile while twisting back and forth.

I smiled and walked over to her bed, bent down and hesitated.  I was going to just give her a brotherly… erm… step-cousin-ly peck, but she put her arms around my neck and we kissed again.  It wasn’t a French-kiss, it wasn’t anything really sexual, but it was sensual – filled with passion and electricity.  It was one of those kisses shared by two people that love each other instantly and utterly, but are afraid of the sudden rush of feelings inside.

The kiss lasted almost a half-minute.

“Good night, Janny-girl,” I breathed.

“Good night, Mikey,” she breathed back.  Her arms left my neck and she crawled under her covers, giving me a glimpse of her panty-covered behind.  Again, it was erotic and sensual, but not sexual in any raw, perverted or pre-planned sort of way.  If anything, she was totally innocent of knowing she was the least bit enticing.  I tried hard not to think about it, especially since I hadn’t found many prospects for girlfriends at college.  The women there were either girls from strict backgrounds that used college as an excuse to rebel against their parents; were easy, stuck up and shy or; they were hippie-feminists that couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be treated like women or, well, they said “equal” but I saw it as “superior.”  Either way, I hadn’t dated much because I just didn’t find anyone that I clicked with.

As I closed the door to her room, I turned and saw her smiling, with a far-off, dreamy look on her face.  I have to be more circumspect with this one! I said to myself.  She had a crush and I’d have to be very careful not to hurt her.

The summer progressed in much the same way.  Leslie was active in sports and I had to shuttle her around, usually dropping Janny and her friends off at the mall.  There were several sleep-overs at the house because I didn’t mind them staying up late and giggling all night long, talking about boys and watching scary movies.

Calculus was kicking my butt, though.  I don’t remember if I was too busy to ask for a tutor or too proud – probably both.  Either way, I didn’t pass, so I couldn’t take Calc II for the second half of summer school.  My deferment went out the window and I got my notice in mid-August.

I was to be sent off to the Army just as most of my friends were heading back to campus.  Uncle Tom and Carla returned from their trip and I gave them the bad news.  Tom, to his credit, tried to pull some strings, but came back empty-handed.

“That’s okay, T,” I told him when he expressed his apologies, “I don’t mind going.”

Janny-girl was more upset that I expected.  She asked me to take her and her friends to see a movie at the drive-in.  Tom and Carla were relieved.  Mary was going to the movies with Jeff in his car and they wanted me to chaperone, as did Mary’s parents.  I agreed, even though we were in separate vehicles.

It wasn’t Mary that anyone had to worry about, though.  Jeff was a gentleman and they were actually interested in the movie.  Janny-girl wasn’t.  We sat in the back seat and watched for about 10 minutes before she crawled into my lap and kissed me hard and passionately.  Then she opened her mouth and I felt her tongue snake against my lips.  Reflexively, I opened my mouth and our tongues battled each other for a very long time.

Neither of us really did anything other than kiss and caress each other, but it was the most erotic, tender night of my life.  We both fell in love in the back seat of that Beetle.

During the drive home, Jan held my hand and I kept stealing glances at her.  Her long hair was parted in the middle and hung down to just below her shoulder blades.  She had put on some makeup and curled her lashes in a way that gave her the wide-eyed, Marsha Brady expression that was all the rage with girls that year.

“Do you really have to go into the Army?” she asked me after singing along to a song on the radio.

“Yes, unfortunately,” I told her.  “Just the reserves, though.  I should be out in two years.”

“I’ll wait for you,” she stated quietly but firmly.

I stopped at a red light and turned to her.  “Janny-girl, you don’t have to do that.  Don’t put your life on hold for me.”

“I want to, Mikey.  I… I think I’m in love with you!”

Oh God! I thought.  Conflicting emotions ran through my head.  She’s too young!  She doesn’t know what she’s saying!  And yet, I felt the same about her…

I thought about it for a moment and the light turned green.  She let go of my hand so I could shift and then took it again as we drove.

“Janny-girl,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully, “I love you a lot as well.”  Damn it, that didn’t sound right!  I was “in” love with her too… but she’s too young!

“Janny, don’t put your life on hold for me.  You’ve a lot of fun and growing ahead of you.”  I blurted, fumbling around, looking for the right words.  “If a guy asks you out, go out with him.  If you fall in love with someone else, it’s okay.  Let me know and I’ll understand.”

I could see that she was tearing up.  She pulled her hand away, grabbed a tissue out of her purse and looked out the window as we drove home.  She didn’t say a word to me after that, not that night and not for the week leading up to my heading off to boot camp.

Tom and Carla took me out to dinner on my last night at home, treating me at one of the better steak houses.  Tom and I sat up and talked a little, with him thanking me for all I’d done with the girls that summer. 

“The girls really bonded with you, Mike,” he told me.  “Especially Leslie.”

Leslie?  I chuckled inwardly.  All I’d ever done with the seven year old was to read her a story every night and take her out to the park during the day.  Generally, she stayed at her friend’s house or was out in the back yard playing dolls with those same kids.  I felt like I barely knew her and told Tom that.

“Well, she’s daddy’s little girl,” he said, meaning she had him firmly wrapped around her finger.  “She told me she was upset that you were having to leave.”

“Well, she’s been no trouble at all.”

“Make sure you write to the both of them while you’re in boot camp, okay?”

“Sure, Tom.  Not a problem.”

I felt like telling him about Janny and how fragile she was, emotionally, but I never found the right moment.  I was also upset that she’d quit talking to me.

“Well,” said Tom, getting up out of his chair and stretching, “it’s time for bed.  When do you catch the train up to the AFEES Station tomorrow?”

“I have to be up there at four,” I told him.  “They want us to spend the night and then be at the Station for indoctrination at 7 am.

“Well, I don’t have to be up until 9 am,” he said.  “I’ve a meeting with a contractor in the afternoon, so Carla will have to give you a ride to the station.”  He held out his hand.  “We’re proud of you, Mikey.”

“I know you are, Tom.”

”Your dad call you?” asked my Uncle, leaving off the “did” as always.

“Yes.  He’s in Switzerland, working on some sort of contract.  He said he’ll try to make it home for Thanksgiving.”

My Uncle laughed.  “I think he’s working on more than just a contract!  Sandy’s has been trying to grab all his assets in the divorce, the skinny-assed little cunt!”

“I never really liked her,” I said, agreeing with him.  “She was a gold-digger, for sure.”

“I agree.  Why he hooked up with one of those hippie-types is beyond me.  You know what started the whole divorce thing?”

“I think it was an argument they had over the War.  He saw her on TV at some protest and chewed her out.  She said he ‘didn’t own her’ and felt she could do what she wanted.  That argument woke me up!”

Tom laughed.  “Yeah, and you’re not the lightest sleeper in the world!”  I laughed with him.  That much was so very true!

“Anyway,” continued Tom, “He wanted me to tell you how proud we both are that you’re not trying to sneak up to Canada or anything.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Sir.  But I would have preferred to follow in your footsteps and joined the Navy or like Dad and be in the Air Force.”

“I know.  But we’re still proud of you.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

“You’re welcome.  Oh, and before I forget… If they offer you OCS – Officers Candidate School – take it.  You’re too much of an independent spirit to work on an enlisted crew.”  He smiled to soften the slight reprimand.

“I’ll keep that under advisement, Tom.”

We shook hands and then Tom surprised me by giving me a hug.  I went upstairs and saw that the light was on in Janny’s room, tempted to pop my head in and tell her goodnight, but the light went out.  Shrugging my shoulders, I walked down to my room, crawled into bed and listened to Tom and Carla make love for about a half-hour before the house went quiet.  Janny’s room was next to mine and I heard her switch on her lamp again.  She was a night-owl like me and would put on her headphones to listen to music when she couldn’t sleep.  Unlike me, though, she was a morning person and would be the first one up. 

This past week, she’d made herself breakfast and then left the house until early afternoon.  I missed our breakfast chats and spending time with her.  All I had to do was go over and apologize.  For several nights, I’d dreamt that she’d come in here and kissed me, forgiving me

I was still upset that Jan wasn’t talking to me and uncertain about how to close the rift between the two of us.  After tossing and turning for 20 minutes, I decided to go over to her room and talk.  I was just reaching for the light when I heard a soft knock at my door.  It opened and a soft voice called out. 

It was Jan.

“Mikey?”

She didn’t wait, but opened the door and quickly shut it, then walked over to my bed.  She stood there for a few moments, looking at me.  My eyes had grown accustomed to the dark whereas she’d just come from her room.  I could see that she’d been crying.

“Mikey,” she said softly, “Like I’ve told you each night this past week, I’m so sorry I’ve been such a bitch.”  I was about to tell her that she hadn’t been when she continued.  “I know you’re asleep and you can’t hear me.  I wish I had the nerve to say this to your face.  Every morning, I tell myself that I’m going to get you alone and tell you everything in my heart, but I’m afraid that if I do, you’ll laugh at me for being a little girl and having a crush on you.  I’m not and I don’t.  I love you.  I will wait for you.  Please believe me!”

Then she lifted the covers and got into bed with me, holding me tight and continued whispering, “God, I am so glad you’re such a heavy sleeper!  I’m going to miss lying next to you.”

Then she bent over my face and kissed me lovingly on the lips for a very long time before snuggling against my shoulder and falling asleep within moments.

Chapter – THINKING OF YOU

Well, I keep on thinkin’ ‘bout you,

sister Golden Haired Surprise.

And I just can’t live without you,

can you see it in my eyes?

- America

I laid there, awake most of the night, watching her, wondering what she was doing here.  When she turned over, she grabbed my arm and pulled it around her, my hand just below her breasts.

I was sweating and in a panic.  If Tom caught her in here with me, he’d probably shoot me, Uncle or not.  But I smelled the sweet perfume in her hair, the warmth of her body next to me and listened to her heartbeat and knew I was in love as well.

Jan rose at 6 am and quietly slipped out of my bed, bent to give me one more lingering kiss.  I’d been catnapping all night and her movement woke me.  The kiss surprised me even more because she ran her hand through my long hair with a tenderness she’d never expressed before, whispering “I love you” once more before slipping off to her room.  A few moments later, I heard the shower running.

I dozed off for a little bit and awoke about an hour later to the smell of bacon and eggs.  I got up, pulled on some sweats and went downstairs.  Jan and Leslie were in the kitchen with Carla.

“Mom?” said Jan.

“Yes, dear?”

“How did you and Tom know you were in love?”

Carla laughed.  “Oh, I don’t know.  It just seemed to happen.”

“How did you and Dad know you were in love?”

There was a wistful, hurt note in Carla’s voice.  “I don’t know if we ever did know, dear.  Now, what’s with all these questions?  Are you trying to tell me you have a boyfriend?”

“No!” she said a bit too defensively, then she relented a bit.  “There’s this boy I like, though I’m not sure if he feels the same way about me.”

”I’m sure he does, honey.  Who is it, someone from your class?”

“N-no.   He’s older.”

“Older?”  Carla’s voice took on that worried, parental tone.  “Just how much older?”

“A couple years,” replied Janny, non-committally.

“Like how much older,” asked her Mom, cautiously.  “What grade is he in?”

“He’s going to be a… a… junior… this year,” replied Janny, hedging her reply.

Carla let out a sigh.  “Honey, you have to be careful with older boys – especially boys that age.  They’re all emotions and hormones.  I should know!  That’s the same age your father was when we first met.”

She softened the tone of her lecture.  “Have you two gone out yet?”

”One date,” replied Janny, then quickly backpedaled when her mother began to object.  “It wasn’t really a date either.  We were with Mary and a couple other people.”

“Oh?  And did Mike know about this ‘date?’”

“He… he was there.  Chaperoning.”

“Really?  Mike went with all of you?”

Janny, I thought, don’t dig yourself in too deep with your half-truths!

“Yes.  He said it was a condition of allowing me to go out on the date.”

“He didn’t say anything to me about it!”

“I know, Mom.  I asked him not to because I’m not sure about this guy yet.”

”Well, trust your gut instincts, dear.  If you aren’t sure about this guy, then he’s probably not right for you!  Now, I’m going to have to talk to Mike about this.  I don’t like it when-,”

“Mom, no!”

“What?”

“Don’t talk to him about it.  I made him swear not to tell you and I don’t want him to get into trouble with you for lying about it.  Mrs. O’Brien asked him to go to keep an eye on Mary and Jeff.  She wanted Mikey… Mike… to sorta keep an eye on everything as a pre-condition, just like you did.”

“When was this?”

“A week ago, when we all went to the drive-in.”

“Ooooh… so that was the reason for the makeup!”  Carla laughed and kissed her blushing daughter on the forehead.  “I thought you were trying to look all grown-up for Mike.”

“Mom!” cried Janny, feigning disgust.

“Yeah,” cried Leslie, both women jumping after forgetting she was there.  “Mikey’s mine!”

They all laughed, just as I made my entrance, faking sleepiness and grabbing for the coffee cups.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” called out Leslie. 

“Hello, mop-top!” I called back, kissing her on the forehead.  Leslie giggled and blushed, then gave her sister a smirking smile.

“Good morning Carla,” I said, giving my step-aunt a hug.  Teasingly, she grabbed my butt and pulled me into her before planting a big kiss on my cheek.  I tried to prevent my morning woodie from pressing into her but she pressed her thigh up against me. 

“Ooooh… did Auntie do that?” she whispered in my ear.  With a laugh, she let me go and then laughed again when she saw I was blushing furiously.

“Good morning, Janny,” I said, trying to appear less embarrassed than I was. 

“Morn,” she mumbled, then began cleaning up.

“Jan,” I called, making her stop and look at me.

“Yes?”

“Before you head out today, I have some things I want to give to you and your sister.”

“What things?”

“Just come up to my room before you leave,” I said, pouring another cup of coffee. 

“What time to you catch your train?” asked Carla.

“At 11,” I told her.

“Train?  THAT’S TODAY?” cried Jan.

“Yes.”

Jan burst into tears and ran out of the kitchen.  Leslie looked all sad and hurt. 

“You’re leaving?  Today?” she asked.

“Yes, mop-top.”

“How long will you be gone?”

I smiled and picked her up from the kitchen chair and sat her on my lap.  “For about nine weeks,” I told her.

“How long is that?”

“I should be back for Thanksgiving.”

“When’s that?”

“A little after Halloween.”

Her eyes were as big as saucers as she tried to comprehend how long that was going to be.  Then she threw her arms around me and began to cry, begging me not to go.

I held her and comforted her for a bit while Carla stood there, sipping her coffee and smiling through her own tears.

“Come on, mop-top,” I said, “Time for me to give you and your sister some things.”

Leslie crawled off my lap and held my hand as we walked up to my room.  I knocked on Janny’s door and she told us she’d be “right there.”

I gave Leslie a copy of my high school senior picture and a tape recorder I’d purchased to record my classes.  Leslie had always been fascinated by it and loved listening to the playbacks.    She squealed and put her arms around me, giving me a kiss, then ran out of the room (and past her smiling mother) to set things up in her room. 

Janny slid past her mom halfway through and was a little upset that I’d given her little sister the coveted tape recorder.

“Come here, night-owl!” I said to Janny.  She came and sat by me on the bed.  I reached under and pulled out a box.

“This was mine in college,” I told her.  “Dad and Sandy gave it to me as a graduation present.  I won’t be able to use it, so I want you to have it.”

Janny gasped.  “You’re giving me your AM/FM/shortwave radio?”

“Yes.  And it’s stereo, too!  Here’s the headphones.”

Jan threw her arms around me for a hug.  “Oh, that’s wonderful!”

“And,” I said, pulling on the fabric of the shirt she was wearing, “since you like wearing my shirts so much…”  I reached into my drawer and handed her a stack of them, along with a couple silk dress shirts a girl once bought me.  After two months of dating, she decided that I didn’t have enough ambition, so she dumped me for the team quarterback.

Janny teared up and ran out of the room with the shirts and box. Carla smiled at me while leaning against my doorframe.

“That was very nice of you, Mike.”

I shrugged.  “I won’t be able to use them in boot camp and they’d probably get stolen anyway.  At least they’ll get some use.”

Carla looked down the hall and saw that both girls were preoccupied in their rooms with their new gifts.  Then she stepped inside and closed the door.

“I have something for you,” she said in a very sultry, seductive voice.

An hour later I left the shower, still somewhat in shock.  While she wasn’t a relation and maybe only 10 years older, Carla was still technically my aunt.  It was a helluva going away present from her.

*   *   *   *   *

I rode in the back seat of the station wagon, with Leslie and Janny on either side of me.  We parted tearfully, with each girl promising to write me every day and everyone giving me kisses and hugs. 

Carla looked a little shocked when Janny gave me my goodbye kiss, which was long and clingy, but then did the same to me, explaining to the girls as they left that this is how girls said goodbye to their soldier-boys.  That caused Leslie to run back to me and give me a long, tearful kiss goodbye as well.

Chapter – BOOTCAMP

For its one-two-three

What are we fighting for?

Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn…

-Feels-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag-

(Country Joe MacDonald)

Bootcamp was tough, but I lived through it.  I was offered OCS the first week and signed up for it.  Carla and the girls wrote me every day (even though the “letters” from Leslie were usually only three or four sentences long).  The letters from Janny were chatty, telling me all about what she and Mary O’Brien had been up to that week.  Carla wasn’t real happy with Mary’s boyfriend, thinking that the two were a ‘bad influence on Jan.’

Carla’s letters were flirty and suggestive at times, but nothing outright was said about her final “goodbye” to me.

It was about the fourth week in when I got a letter from Jan, the envelope written in her handwriting, with little hearts dotting her “i’s” and with a light scent called “Charlie” that was popular that year. 

Dear Mikey, she began…

I’m sorry I haven’t sent this letter off sooner, but I’ve rewritten it about a dozen times since you left.  Heck, I’m still not sure I can send it to you because I’m afraid you’ll think of me as a silly high school freshman with an unrelenting crush on a college guy.  But here goes anyway:

I’m sorry I was so mean to you.  I told Mary about our drive home after we went to the movie that night and told her what you said.  She saw it much differently than I did and explained that you were just trying to keep me from getting hurt.  She said that you were being considerate and caring about being away for so long and that you were right.  It would be a shame for me to miss out on all the high school stuff.

I can’t say whether or not I will date.  Mary keeps trying to fix me up with guys, but I just can’t seem to get into them, you know?  And, heaven knows, they don’t know how to kiss at all! (she put a little smiley face after this)

I miss you so much.  You don’t know this (because you’re a damned heavy sleeper and snore like a saw mill! Giggle) but I (she scratched out three sentences here and rewrote them) would come into your room while you were asleep and just look at you and talk to you.  I still don’t know how to put those same words into a letter, but I just want you to know that I will wait for you, no matter how long it takes!

There, I said it.  I’d better get this into the mail before I lose my nerve (again)!  I’ll try to “borrow” Tom’s camera and take some pictures for you soon, just as soon as I can get the money for the film and developing. 

Take care of yourself for me.  See you at Thanksgiving!

Always yours,

Jannielle

I found that I was crying at the end of that letter, causing one of the assholes in the company to begin making fun of me.  He had a bloody nose and lip before they pulled me off of him, which earned us both some PT time.

They considered my application for OCS while I was in boot camp, asking me if I would be willing to finish my AA degree via correspondence courses.  I agreed.  Then they took us out to the firing range and that started a love-hate affair that lasted all during my life; I discovered how much I loved guns – or, more to the point, shooting them.

Up until that week, Sergeant ‘Dickie’ Dickens, our D.I., didn’t think much of me.  According to him, I didn’t follow orders well and “had a wee problem with authority.” 

Dickens was a transplanted Irishman whose parents had moved to Chicago from County Sligo when he was 13.  He’d been a troublemaker and involved in gangs (and, rumor had it, that he ran guns for the IRA) until he got into big trouble about eight years back and was given a choice between jail and military service.

“I knew which side me bread was buttered and opted for the bigger punishment!” he told us during orientation.  He was a hard-assed son of a bitch, but you respected him.

According to the Sarge, I was a natural marksman.  I hit within the quarter-sized bulls-eye on my very first six shots, impressing him.  On the fifth week, we had a marksmanship competition between all the companies in the battalion.  I took it, hands-down.  Then I was set up to take on the battalion sharpshooters using a scope.  Dickens took me to his house that weekend to give me some pointers on scopes, since I’d never used them before.  We then went to a private firing range that weekend (the Police range in a town where his brother-in-law was a cop).  All he ever said was “Whew!” when we tried out various targets.  Then he slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Mike, me boyo, you’re going to get a steak dinner from me and the Missus if ya win this contest!”  I did and they did.  It was right after that when I was given a series of tests.  A week later, I was called into his office.

“Mikey,” he said, his west-country burr soft and formal, “have a seat, lad.”

“What’s the deal, Sarge?  Am I in trouble or something?”

“No, it’s not that, lad,” he said, sitting back in his chair and looking at me.  “You know,” he began, “when I first laid eyes on yer sorry soul back when you lads first arrived, I didn’t much care for ye.”

“Oh?” I said sarcastically, “I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Och,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand, “I know it ran both ways, but I had me job to do.  I didn’t give yer but one chance in five of making it through the 9 weeks in one piece, yer know.  You aren’t really military material.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” he responded, his wooden chair creaking as he leaned his bulk forward, “you don’t accept orders – or authority – well.  You question everything and you have to have the reasoning explained to ye.  I was ready to boot yer arse out o’ here by the fifth week.”

I looked at him steadily and without expression and he grinned at me. 

“I see,” I said, breaking the tension. “and just what changed your mind?”

His eyes grew misty and a small smile appeared on his lips as he began wistfully, 

“Twas that day on the firing range, it twas!  You and your fine sharp-shooting skills.  I ne’er seen a man take to shootin’ a rifle like you, lad.  You said you never shot before?”

“Nope.  That was the first time I ever picked up any sort of gun.”

“Lad, you dint pick up that rifle, you seduced it, stroked it and all but made love to it!  A bleedin’ nartural, yer were, indeed!

“Yes, by golly,” he continued, you did right by me after that.  I picked up a nice pot-o-gold from the other boyo’s I did – though you didn’t hear that, got it?” 

I nodded.

Dickens laughed and offered me a cigarette.  I shook my head negative and he smiled.  “Good boy.  Tis a bad habit they be, smokes and drinkin’.  You’d be best to avoid both for what you may be in store for.  A third unsavory vice would be women and whorin’, but I’ve wiffed your mail and you’ve got three or four lasses writin’ ya that are so wet, they drip like faucets, so I’m too late there with the wise words there.”

He pulled an unfiltered Camel from the pack with his lips, lit it and took a couple puffs before getting to the point.  “I’m afraid I’ve got good news and bad for yer,” he said, blowing a cloud of smoke up toward the ceiling.  I waited.  Dickens took three more puffs as he stared up at the fluorescent light fixture and the textured soundproofing.

“The bad news is, they sort-of denied your going to OCS,” he breathed, letting out another cloud of smoke with the words.

“Shit!” I groused.  I was really counting on it.  I didn’t relish the idea of being a grunt and figured I was smart enough to get on someone’s staff.  Hell, Tom and my Dad were already pulling strings with some staff officers they both knew in Washington.

“Wait.  What did you mean by ‘sort of?’”

“The good news is…” he said, ignoring my question and taking another puff then blowing towards the ceiling before stubbing out the half-smoked cancer stick, “The good news is…”  He frowned, reading the flimsy in his hand, “You’re being given an officers rank of first lieutenant and assigned to a special unit after graduation from boot camp, reporting to some godforsaken gyrine camp outside o’ DC that I ain’t heard of. 

“What?  When?  Why??”

“Don’t celebrate too much!” he admonished, watching my face, “that promotion always comes with a price – most likely a 6 year hitch instead of your two!  I’d almost say that you were going to Special Forces or the Green Beret’s, but they don’t promote like that, they don’t train with gyrines and I’m not privy to certain key information… just yet.”

My eyebrow shot up.  “Oh?”

He smiled.  “Master Sergeant Padraig Casey Dickens has more than one trick up his sleeve when someone tries to adopt one of his fianna!”

“Fee what?”

“Oh, Michael, Michael, Michael!  Yer mean ta say you claim the blood of the Fir Bolg of Eire and ye don’t know what the fianna be?”  He shook his head.  “Tis a sad, sad thing they don’t teach the young ones about the heritage!  Go to the library and look it up!  Any questions?  Good!  Keep your nose clean, Mikey.” 

He called for the corporal and shuffled papers; his way of dismissing you.  Something inside me said he knew more than he was letting on.

On the last day of Boot Camp, Sgt. Dickens pulled me aside and ruefully said that his grapevine passed the word he was to “mind his own business concerning a certain Corporal Magee” so he had no further information for me.  He then gave me an uncharacteristic hug and said to “stay safe” once again.  I was dismissed and told to join formation.

Tom, Carla and the girls weren’t able to make it to my graduation from boot camp, so I sucked it up as I watched all the others in my battalion hug family members and girlfriends.  Two days later, I boarded a train and headed back to Tom and Carla’s house the Sunday before Thanksgiving, shuffling through the letters I’d accumulated in the past 9 weeks as I rocked along the steel rails.  The girls had written me daily and I’d written back as often as I could, but far less than I should have. 

Carla, Janny, Mary and Leslie greeted me warmly at the train station.

“MIKEY!” they’d shouted, running to me as I stepped onto the platform.  I had to drop my bags when Janny and Leslie jumped into my arms, kissed me frantically and fawning over my uniform.  The girls were genuinely proud of me and had me come to school with them where I was paraded around school like a trophy.  We also took walks through the neighborhood.  As much as I wanted to wear my old clothes, they insisted I wear my uniform when with them.  It was still my Corporal’s uniform, as I hadn’t received any official notification about the officer’s commission. 

*   *   *   *   *  

“You seem preoccupied.”

Carla came around the couch and handed me a glass of cola that smelled strongly of rum.  I’d been back at their house for about 2 days.  We’d had dinner and the girls were getting ready for bed.  Uncle Tom was at a town meeting about some sort of variance he needed on his property.

“I’m curious about what my next assignment is,” I told her, looking at the packet of orders on my lap.  I wasn’t sure whether or not I could open them, but the flimsy on top indicated that I was to report to Langley, VA.  The only government office I knew there was the CIA.

“Why don’t you open your orders and find out?” she said, sitting next to me and taking the packet off my lap.

“Actually,” I said, stopping her from opening them, “I don’t want to find out just yet.”

Carla put the packet aside, tucked her feet under and sat facing me on the couch, her eyes carrying an amused, predatory look.  I couldn’t help but notice that Janny was a younger version of her, curves and all.  If this was what Jannielle was going to look like in 16 years, a lot of guys were going to be in deep trouble! 

Carla’s hair was a bit darker than Janny’s, but she wore it long and parted in the middle like her daughter did, except that she wore the front in long bangs that hung down to her eyes.  With the dark makeup and eyelash extenders, it made her look a bit mysterious.  Tom had chosen a very beautiful, but very down to earth lady for himself.

She smiled and sipped her drink once more.

“Jannelle is quite taken with you, you know.  She told me about your ‘date’ at the drive-in.  She’s also told me she is going to ‘wait for you’ and I believe she will.”

I gave her a wry smile and sipped at my drink, nearly choking at the amount of alcohol in it.  I swallowed and closed my eyes to recover.

“I know,” I said, the two words coming out rather hoarsely.  “I feel much the same about her, but I’m worried about the age difference.”

“I am too, if I can be honest.  I don’t want to see her hurt.”

I turned to my step-aunt.  “Carla, you don’t have to worry.  I’ll be a perfect gentleman with her and I’ll try my best not to hurt her.  The trouble is, I don’t know what the next few years will bring.  I’ll probably be away a lot and I don’t want her to miss out on all the high school activities just because I’m not there.”

“That’s sweet of you, Mike, but she’s going to do what she’s going to do.”

I sighed.  “Yes.  Yes she is.”

“She’s very much in love with you, Mikey,” confessed Carla.  “Both the girls are, I think, but with Leslie, it could just be puppy-love.  But with Janny, it’s different.  She has the same look that I had when I was dating her father.  Don’t hurt her and don’t tell her you’re in love with her if you aren’t.”

“That’s the problem,” I began, but I never got to finish.  Janny and Leslie chose that moment to come bounding into the room, pushing me over so that I sat between the two of them.  Carla laughed as she got up from the couch and turned on the TV and left me alone with the two girls.

Jan snuggled under one arm and Leslie held my hand on the other side of me.  When she determined that no one was looking, Janny pulled my hand down onto her breast.

I caressed her until her nipple threatened to break through the material, but I didn’t allow it to go any further than that.  We watched the movie, laughed, made fun of the characters and generally had fun until it was time for bed.  The girls protested, but Carla reminded them that it was only Tuesday and that they still had school in the morning.

I was tired as well and headed off to my room.  On Friday morning, my Father and his new girlfriend would be coming, along with my brothers, to pick me up.

Boot camp, with its incessant drills and interruptions, had changed my sleeping patterns.  My eyes shot open when I felt the bed move.

“Hi Mikey,” I heard Janny’s voice whisper in the darkness.  The bed creaked as she wiggled a bit and crawled under the covers with me.  I almost said something, but she continued whispering.

“I wish I had the nerve to tell you all these things to your face, but I’m still afraid that you’ll laugh at me for being a silly little girl.  But I do love you.  With all my heart and soul.

“I told Mary about you today and she thought that you were probably going to hurt me.  We were working on our psychology term papers – you do know that I intend to become a psychologist, don’t you? – anyway, we were working on our term papers and she said that you probably weren’t going to want some inexperienced virgin when you finally decided that you did like me, so I am thinking about having sex with other guys.  Oh, it won’t be for a few years yet.  I’m not going to just flop on my back for the first guy that wants to do it, but I’m going to have sex.”

Janny got under the covers with me and pressed her very naked body into mine, guiding my arm around her.  “Do you know what I’m studying in psychology right now?  Communal relationships.  All sorts.  From Indians – Native Americans, I mean – to the hippies.  They call it polyga- no, wait.  That’s someone that marries several people at once.  Polyandry and polyamory, I think.  I’m studying now about this tribe of Indians where the women decided who to sleep with that night.  You know what turned me onto it?  You did!  Yes, you!  You left some of your books here and a notebook with a bunch of writing in it.  I’m not sure if it was a journal or just short stories you were trying to write because it seemed like it was a little bit of both, but some of the things you wrote did things to me.”

I could feel movement as she wiggled and put an arm down between her legs.

“The oddest thing was, it turned me on!  Mary wants to be a vet and she was writing about the mating of dolphins.  She got turned on too.  So you know what she and I did?”  Janny giggled and began to describe in detail how the two of them learned to explore their bodies.  I know what I wanted to do just then, but I didn’t dare move.  In a few moments, her story trailed off as she uttered a series of cries, turned her head into the pillow and screamed.

When she finally calmed down, she turned on her side and spooned against me.

“I’ve… I’ve discovered… I’m a… very… sexual person… Mikey,” she gasped, still a little out of breath.  “I’ve… got all these ideas… running through my head… and… I wish I could… talk to you about them…”

Her voice trailed off as she fell asleep.  A little later, her arm wrapped around me and her hand fell onto my… well, she gripped it and I think it stayed hard the rest of the night.  At 6 AM, she was gone.  It was probably her getting out of bed that woke me.  I laid there and masturbated as I thought about the events of the night before.

The next night, she did the same thing, telling me that she loved me and wishing she could say these things to my face.  I felt bad, just lying there and not talking to her as well, but she had to work some of this out for herself first.

“You know what I was reading about today?” she whispered into my ear.  “I was reading about something called BDSM in your book.  I didn’t like all of it and didn’t understand some of it, but when I told Mary about it, she brought out some of her dad’s magazines and there is this model called Betty Page who likes getting tied up and stuff.  Mikey, when I saw that, I immediately thought of you and of you doing that to me and I had an orgasm without even touching myself!  I’ve never had that happen before!  Gods, it was totally…” she trailed off and then finished, “You know, I think I’m going to be a sexual therapist of some sort, not just a psychologist.

“But, I want you to be the one tying me up, Mikey.  I want you to be the one ravishing me.  I want you to…”

She shifted around on the bed and began to lightly caress my chest and belly.  “You know, I was also reading some stuff about South Seas natives that have no words for marriage or war.  Daddy thinks that’s absurd because he believes everyone has war and that everyone should have marriage.  But these people don’t.  They just sit around and talk about it and they decide who to have sex with that night.  It doesn’t mean they don’t love someone special, it just means they can talk openly about it and have sex.

“I wonder how you’d feel about that, Mikey?  Would you live like that?  Would you be able to feel comfortable enough to have a partner you could talk to and be able to love her, yet feel comfortable with her having sex with someone else?  Would you feel comfortable having sex with others?  Mary confessed that she wouldn’t mind fucking you and, when I thought about it, I had another orgasm just imagining you doing that!  Would it turn you on to watch me having sex with someone else?  I know I’d probably enjoy watching you fuck her.  I sat in her closet a couple weekends ago and watched her and Jeff fuck on her bed.”

Again, she began to masturbate, but she also kept caressing my chest and belly, slowly moving her hand lower until she grasped me.  Janny gasped and then orgasmed, shuddering against my body almost violently.  I came as well and that set her off again.

As she held me, we both drifted off into sleep.

Chapter – LITA

“You're an untamed youth that's the truth with your cloak full of eagles
You're dirty sweet and you're my girl.”

-“Bang A Gong (Get It On)”-

(Mark Bolan  -  T.Rex)

My days with Jan and her family were a whirlwind.  We celebrated quite a bit until I had to head to my own home, now that my family had returned from a trip overseas.  Jan begged to come with me and her parents relented, so she spent the remaining time tagging along with me, giving my friends plenty to jest about.

Each night, she would sneak into my room and talk while caressing me and masturbating herself.  Each day, she acted like a shy little flower, no matter what I did to try and draw her out.  It was very frustrating, to say the least.

The day finally came when I had to report back for duty.  There were tearful farewells at O’Hare and then the short, two-hour flight into Dulles.  There was a Marine Gunny-Sergeant standing with a cluster of other kids my age.  When I approached, he took my orders from me without a word, tore them open, read for a moment and then handed them back.

“Stand here with the group and keep quiet, Sir,” he told me in sotto voice.  I grinned as he called me “Sir” as I still had my corporal’s uniform on.  I went to the spot where he pointed and we waited.  I dug into my opened envelope and read my orders, surprised that I’d been promoted to Lieutenant upon arrival here!  I wondered how many of these others were the same.  It didn’t take long to find out.

One more plane-load of passengers departed from their gate and two more men and one woman joined us.  He had the woman stand next to me.  “Fall in!” barked Gunny and we did.

He led us out to an ugly gray military school bus that held four other enlisted; two Army, one Air Force Non-Com and one Navy.  They barked at us “Boots” to hurry it up and sit down.  The woman of the group sat in front of me and simply turned to look out the window, ignoring the blasts of the Navy guy across the aisle from us.

“Too good for us, honey?” he snickered at her.  “Come on, you boots!  Get the lead out!  Move it!  Move it!  Move it!”

Hey buddy,” asked Navy, turning to me, “got a smoke?”  He was tall, probably around six-three or four.  He had golden blonde hair cropped into a crew-cut and an easy arrogance about him that said he enjoyed giving orders.

“The name’s Mike, and I’m sorry, but I don’t smoke.”

“That’s a pity, Boot.  It might have gone easier on you if you did!”

I turned and gave him a withering stare, but he ignored it.  Instead, he moved to the woman in front of me.

Navy sat next to the lone female on the bus and began to flirt.  She wasn’t bad looking, I thought.  I couldn’t tell if she was Asian, Mexican or Puerto Rican from her looks.  She had mocha colored skin, almond eyes and thick brown hair that she tied in a bun.

“So, what’s your name, honey?” asked Navy.  She ignored him and continued to stare out the window.  “What’s the matter, Boot?  Too good to talk to your superiors?”

She turned, gave him a once-over and snorted a derisive laugh, then turned back to her window.  Navy didn’t seem the least fazed by her dismissal.  Evidently he was used to getting his way based on his looks and arrogance, so he kept up his patter.

“You know, honey,” he continued, lifting his arm to the seat back, “Where you’re going, you’re going to need a friend.  This training ain’t the same as that kindergarten y’all called boot camp.”  She looked as if she were going to say something, but decided that silence would be the better part of valor.  Navy was undeterred and his arm slid across the back of the bench seat until his hand rested on her opposite shoulder, making her noticeably stiffen.

“Y’all know that I’m a Navy Seal, dontcha babe?  Yessirree, I can kill a man with just a flick of my fingers!  I could end up teaching you a lot!”

I saw her snort silently with laughter and shake her head.  Navy’s hand squeezed her shoulder and she stiffened even more.  I looked to the front of the bus and saw that the Gunny had his hat over his face and was sleeping.  Most of the other guys were either talking or doing the same.  I was tempted to intervene, but I didn’t want to make waves and cause trouble before I knew what I was getting into, so I kept quiet. 

Navy kept pushing, though.

His fingers caressed her shoulders and I could see her coloring.  He kept up his jabber about what a real man he was as he toyed with her.  When his fingers began to drift downward, her resolve to remain silent broke.  She grabbed his fingers in her hand and turned to him.

“I’ll ask you just this once.  Stop.”

Navy ignored the growl in her voice and the venom in her look.  He managed to free his fingers and, just as she relaxed, he grabbed her in a hold and kissed her.  She came up hissing and spitting, but before she could scream or do anything, I grabbed him by the front crop of hair, which was longer than the rest of the cut – just long enough to get a good hold before my arm went around his neck and I jerked him violently back into the seat.

“Navy, the lady asked you politely to leave her alone.  That means you remain a gentleman, keep your hands to yourself and go back to quietly sitting in your seat on the other side of the aisle before you get hurt or worse, I have to report you.  Got it?”

He gurgled and nodded in the affirmative.  When I let him go, he whirled to turn on me, but instead, collapsed in a heap, writhing in pain.  The woman’s leg was still jutting out where she’d caught him in the kneecap.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, her eyes never leaving Navy, “but I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

“I can see that,” I said.  “The name’s Mike.”

“Estrellita Reyes,” she told me.  “My friends call me Lita.”

“Pleasure to know you, Lita,” I said, sitting back.

She smiled, but continued watching Navy as he slowly got up.  He cautiously bent his knee a couple times while holding himself up by gripping the backs of two seats.

“When we get off this bus,” he growled softly, “we are going to take care of this and I’m going to kick both your asses.  After that, I intend to make both your lives a living hell for as long as you’re at camp.  Got it?”

“Go sit down, Navy,” said Lita, giving him an enigmatic smile.  “I don’t want to have to report you for sexual harassment.”

Before the squid could reply, the Gunny barked, “Everything all right there in the back?”

“Just fine, Gunny,” called out Navy.  “Just having a friendly little conversation is all.”

I looked up front and noticed that the Gunny hadn’t removed the hat from his face.  Navy sat down, back against the window and glowered at the two of us.  It was right about then that I noticed we weren’t anywhere near Langley and we were, in fact, on a country road and heading over some hills.

“Lita, do you have any idea of where we’re going?”

She looked out her window and her brow furrowed.  “No, I don’t.  And come to think of it, we should have been at Langley by now – or, at least, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the beltway.  My dad was stationed there when I was a kid and used to grouse at the horrible traffic around D.C.  We don’t appear to be anywhere near there and,” she looked up to the sky, “judging by the position of the sun, we are heading Northwest instead of Southeast.  We’ve been on the road for almost an hour, while Langley is maybe only 20 minutes from the airport.”

She made a decision and turned.  “HEY GUNNY!”

Gunny slowly removed the hat from his head and turned.

“Where the fuck are we going?” she asked.

“You’ll know when you get there,” he said, then sat back and pulled the hat over his eyes again.  Navy snickered, pulled his ballcap out of his back pocket and pulled it over his eyes.  He laid back and pretended to sleep.

We arrived at what looked like a camping retreat.  When we got off the bus, the Gunny dismissed Navy and two others, leaving him with a Marine corporal, an Airman 1^st Class and an Army Sergeant for assistants. 

“Welcome to Camp Nowhere, men, erm, people,” he said, greeting us, “Where this camp is or what its actual name is, is of no concern to anyone.  It just is.

“I will be giving you bunk assignments,” announced Gunny.  “When I call your name, you will get your kit from Airman Loxley and report to your bunk.”

The bunkhouses were a series of cabins that had a common room dominated by a large fireplace.  Overall, it looked like a scout camp or a church retreat.  On either side of the front-commons area were separate sleeping quarters with four double-bunks each.   On the back side were the shared showers and toilet.

 “Inside, you will find new uniforms on your bunks.  They do not have any rank or insignia on them other than your name.  For now, that’s all anyone needs to know.  You will stow your gear, remove the outfits you are wearing and don the uniform of the day on your bunk.  Is that clear?”

“Sir, yes Sir!”

“Y’all sound like a bunch of gir… babies!  I asked you if that was CLEAR??”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

“Good!”

Gunny called off names and assigned quarters.  The last two names on his list were Lita’s and mine.  Gunny called us over to him to stand close. 

“I’ve got a problem with you two,” he said in a low voice.

“What’s the problem, Gunny?” asked Lita.

The Gunny worked his jaw a bit, trying to figure out how to say this.  “Someone in HQ fucked up – pardon my French, ma’am. 

“You’re the first female we’ve had here, not to mention that you two are the first two ‘officers’ we’ve had in-residence.  I’ve only got one bunkhouse available.”

“There are two bunkrooms – one on each side, aren’t there, Gunny?” asked Lita.  “And they are separate?”

“Yes ma’am, but-,”

“I don’t see a problem unless Mr. Magee here objects.  As long as he stays on his side and I on mine, I have no objections.”

“The baths are shared, Ma’am,” interrupted the Gunny.

“Is that a problem with you, Magee?”

I shrugged.  “If we work out a schedule, don’t see one.”

“There,” said Lita, “dilemma solved.”

She picked up her bags and I picked up mine.  We headed into our bunkhouse and she took the left side.  The Gunny shook his head and pondered why they let women in the Military.  He wondered how much trouble this one was going to be, especially since our commissioned status, as he knew, was honorary.  “Damned Company mucks!” he muttered.

I spent the rest of the next two hours unpacking, moving the unused bunks to one end of the room, contemplating my new fatigues and setting up a desk.  From the noises emanating from my opposite, she was doing the same thing.  I drew up a schedule for showering and was about to go over and talk to Lita about it when I heard water being turned on in the bath.  I shrugged, then jumped as the bath door on my side opened and a sign was placed on the door:  “Ladies”.  On the other side was written “Men.”

I smiled and walked out into the common area, contemplating starting a fire when the Airman-First came in.

“Assembly in five minutes, Sir!” he said, before making a swift exit.  I went into my room and cracked open the bath door.

“Assembly in five!” I shouted as loud as I could.

I heard an “Oh shit!” and hasty rinsing.  I put on my new uniform and then headed out to the grinder – a dirt area in front of all the buildings with a flag pole in the center.  Most of the others had gathered there and were lounging around.  The Gunny strode up with his Corporal and shouts of “ten-HUT” went around as we gathered into formation.  I took the end and we were just straightening up when Reyes came running out of our bunk house, buttoning her blouse (and obviously braless), her hair still dripping wet, but neatly pinned up under her cap.

The Gunny walked along the line looking at us and smiling at Lita, shaking his head.

“My name is Master Gunnery Sergeant James Lester Dahlman!” he barked.  “As far as any of you are concerned, I am the God-damned Commander-In-Chief!  I am not here to be your babysitter.  I am not here to be your nanny.  I am not here to be your fu-, er, your friend! (pardon ma’am).  I am here to train you for your special assignments.

“You are here because you were all fu-.”  He paused, obviously flustered at having a woman in the group.  “You are all here because you had some sort of talent that didn’t fit in the normal military parameters.  You will be trained further in that talent.  You will be pushed to your limits, you will be used, washed-up, spit-out and I will sh-, I will ride you until your excrement smells like roses!

“Should you pass this eight week phase, you will go on to your next phase.  Should you manage to get through both phases, you will work with the group that has requested you.  Most of you won’t last through these next four weeks and, if you make it completely through, God help you, I don’t know what they will do with you then, other than get you killed or worse!

“Until you pass muster… until you make it through the next weeks, I AM GOD!  Do you understand that?”

“YES, SIR!”

“Did I hear you ass… gentl… ladi… Did I hear you people say something?”

“YES SIR!” we shouted loudly.

“That’s better!” he grunted.  “I will ride your asses until I am satisfied that your shi…”  He shook his head and muttered to himself before continuing menacingly. 

“I will do everything I can to break you of all your nasty little habits and encourage you in all the things we find important.  I don’t care if your mommy doesn’t like me.  I don’t care if your sister don’t like me.  I could care less about your family or personal problems.  Please understand that this is nothing personal between you and me.  I just don’t like you!  I don’t like this job and I don’t like what they – meaning the powers-that-be of whatever agency wants your sorry asses – expect of you, so I’d rather see you all fail!  Nothing would give me more pleasure than to hand you all diapers in the form of discharge papers and tell you to go back to whatever hole you crawled out of! 

“You think that, just because you made it through boot camp, that you are soldiers.  You think that you have achieved something.  Well, I got news for you.  You ain’t shit!  You’re nothing more than a bunch of slightly disciplined apes.  I, and the other people here, are here to turn you from apes into something resembling soldiers over the next weeks.  Once you manage to make it that far, I will try… try… to turn you into combat-capable men… and, erm, women.

“You will learn hand-to-hand combat.  You will learn to go for days without food and water, living off the land, finding ways to adapt, learning what kinds of vegetation and other delicacies you can eat to survive.

“You will learn to make yourself disappear into the underbrush.  You will learn to use every weapon I can think of – or, at least, the designated weapon for your assigned profession.  You will, ultimately, learn how to stay alive in any situation I come up with.

“Overall, you will learn to hate me and despise me.  I really don’t give a fu… flying hoot how you feel about me.  I’m not here to be your friend, I’m here to teach you how to survive and stay alive.  If you make it past me, then that WILL be something!  Got it?”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

“Good!  Now, lets do a little run prior to dinner.  COMPANY, LEFT FACE!”

We turned in unison, with Lita heading up the column.

“At an easy jog… hup… hup… hup-two-three-four!”

We ran a good two miles in a circle around camp before doing double-time over to a larger, well-lit building.  We stopped in front, were called to attention and then dismissed for chow.  Inside were the rest of the enlisted from camp as well as a few others were standing behind the chow line – including Navy.

We walked through the line, picking up vegetables, bread, meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  When Lita and I got to Navy, he scooped up a large portion of mashed and, before putting them on her plate, spit in them.

Before he could slap it onto her plate, she grabbed his hand and slapped the hot starch onto his shirt.  He jumped back, cussing and swearing.  She tapped the spoon onto the serving table, knocking off the rest of the potatoes onto the floor on Navy’s side, then scooped up potatoes for her plate and mine.

“Gravy?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She put gravy on our potatoes just as Gunny came storming up to us.

“Is THERE A PROBLEM HERE?”

“No, Gunny,” replied Lita calmly, looking him right in the eye, “Navy here must be hungry.  It seems he drooled in my potatoes, so I invited him to eat a little.  He’s not very good with a spoon, so I don’t think I’d let him handle a fork for a bit.”

Gunny’s eyes narrowed as he looked from Lita to me to Navy.

“Pawelski, do you have a problem?”

“Sir?  NO SIR!”

“I’m glad to hear that, Pawelski.  Because if there was some sort of a problem, I’d make it MY problem.  Understood?”

“Absolutely, Sir!”

Navy, aka Pawelski, turned beet red.  “May I be excused, Sir?”

“For what, Petty Officer Pawelski?”

“SIR!  I spilled some potatoes on my uniform, SIR!”

Gunny looked thoughtful, then shook his head.  “Not until the line is clear and people have had their seconds.”

Navy shot us a look filled with daggers.

After dinner, it was free-time.  Lita and I headed back to our bunks.

“You handled that well,” I told her.  “I would have punched him out.”

“Oh, it’s not over.  It’s never over with guys like him.  He’ll keep going until they transfer him out, he gets disciplined, hurt, or he gets revenge.”

“That’s an interesting observation,” I mused. 

“I’ve been… different… all my life, Mike.  People either accept me or they fight me.  There’s rarely anything in between.”

We walked and talked until we got back to our cabin.

“Want to head over to the club for a drink?” she asked, leaning against the door.

“Thanks for the offer,” I told her.  “Actually, I’m bushed, even though a couple good scotch & soda’s sound great right now.  I think I’ll just go read for a bit.”

“Scotch & soda?” she said, laughing.  “Isn’t that an old man’s drink?”

I shrugged.  “I developed a taste for it when I was living at my uncle’s.  I’m not big on sweet drinks.  They make me sick when I have more than three and I won’t drink enough of a sour drink to even get a buzz.”

“What about beer?”

I shrugged again.  “I’m okay with beer and some wines, but most American beers leave me wanting something more.”

Lita laughed and her teeth shone in the moonlight.  She was very attractive, even with no makeup.  With some effort, she’d probably be hot, but she seemed to be one of those feminist types.  I suspected something more, but I liked her as a friend and didn’t care.  I could live with her secret.  I felt she would be a good person to have at my back.

“What kind of beer do you drink?” she asked.

“I traveled to Europe a couple times, once in between my junior and senior year in high school and for a semester when I was in college.  They allow anyone over 16 to drink there, but my funds were limited, so I drank the local beers.  Tuborg from Belgium, Newcastle Ale and Watney’s from England were the three I liked.

Lita nodded.  “Expensive tastes.”

“Here, yes.  Over there, well…”

She laughed.  “So, what’s this book that has you so anxious to get inside?  Are you sure you couldn’t walk with me to the club for a couple shots?”

I laughed.  “My dad just sent me a bunch of newish Heinlein novels and is all hot about some guy named Tolkien and his bobbits or hobbits or something.  I was going to kick back and relax by heading off into another dimension.”

“Okay,” said Lita reluctantly.  Before she could continue, I went on.

“But, like I said; I could use a few shots.”  I held out my arm.  “Shall we?”

“Why, Mr. Magee, I’d be delighted!”

Lita linked her arm in mine and we chatted amicably while walking to the EM Club.  As “officers”, I wasn’t sure we were supposed to be there, but since it was the only club in the compound, I didn’t think they’d mind.

There were only three other people in the bar, including the bartender.  I bought the first round and Lita challenged me to a game of pool, beating me handily.  She racked them up again and I bought another round because I was the loser.

Before we knew it, it was 9 pm and we had about 20 minutes to get back to barracks, get showered and get in our bunks before lights-out.

As we walked back, I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye.  While I didn’t react quickly enough to stop the kick, it was enough movement for Lita to react.  While I sat on the ground shaking my head and wondering what freight train had hit me, I watched as Lita took on two larger, shadowy figures.  They fought dirty, but she was better, throwing kicks, dodging swings and clubs. 

I whistled as loud as I could and lights came on all over the compound just in time for me to see Lita deliver a kick to one masked face and then get grabbed from behind.  Before he could let go, she grabbed his finger and twisted.  There was a sickening crack and he backhanded her with his other hand, knocking her to the ground.  She laid there, panting and I came over to her.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said, breathing heavily, “Did you see who it was?”

“No,” I told her, “they were wearing ski masks.  But I’m willing to speculate.”

“What the FUCK is going on out here?  Magee!  Get off that woman, NOW!”

“He’s fine, Gunny,” called Lita.  “We were jumped by two guys.”

“WHAT?”

“Two guys in ski masks and black outfits jumped us while we were walking back from the club.”

“So,” said Gunny, “did you get a look at them?”

“Yeah,” she said sarcastically, “They looked like thugs wearing ski masks.”

“I mean…”  Gunny looked pained and angry.  “Do you know who the sumabitches might be?”

“I’ve… no idea,” she responded.  Gunny looked at me.

“It would be pure speculation on my part, Gunny.”

“Fine.  Have it your way.  But if this becomes any bigger of a problem, then it’s not going to be fun… for either of you!”

“We understand, Gunny” said Lita.  “Could you have cookie bring me a bag of ice for Magee’s knee?” 

She helped me up and I limped back to the bunk house.  When we got inside, she sat me on the couch and pulled the leg of my trousers up.  “Not too bad, just a sprain.  It’ll hurt in the morning, though.”  She answered the door and took the ice, wrapping an elastic bandage over it to secure it to my knee.

“Here’s six aspirin.  You’re going to need it.”  She handed them to me and I downed them with a glass of water.

“Lita,” I said as she headed to her room.

“Hmm?”

“You nailed both of them guys pretty good right at the end.  Why didn’t you tell Gunny?”

“Mike Magee, I’m surprised at you, being Irish and all!”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you have some sort of prayer that ends; ‘and if you can’t turn their hearts, turn their ankles so that we may know them by their limping?’”

I laughed.  “That we do.”

“So, tomorrow we will know.”

I slept with a rock gripped in my fist, under my pillow. 

I awoke to a knock on my bathroom door and Lita calling out.  “Magee, if you want to take a shower, you’d better do it now while there’s still some hot water!  They turn the heater off in five minutes!”

“What fuckin’ time is it?”

“Oh-dark-thirty.  Get your ass in gear, boy!”

I looked at my watch and saw that it was twenty-eight minutes before six.  As I rolled out of bed, I yelped as my knee buckled from under me.  Lita rushed in, wearing only a towel on her head and around her body.  Right in the middle of her cleavage was an angry looking bruise.

“Are you okay?” she said, kneeling next to me.

“My knee feels like… like… someone kicked the fucking thing!” I groaned.

“Let’s get that wrapped up.”  Lita ran across to her room and returned a little later with several elastic bandages, wrapping them around my swollen knee.  “You need to get over to the medic,” she stated.  “Let me get dressed, then we’ll get you dressed and I’ll help you over.”

Looking back at the whole thing, I probably should have been embarrassed by a girl… no, a woman… dressing me.  She was kind enough to ignore my obvious interest in her and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“That’s for being a gentleman.  Now, off to sick call!”

The medic looked at it and said, “Thankfully, it’s sprained, not broken,” then iced it to reduce the swelling.  “How’d it happen?”

“I… tripped on a rock on the way back from the EM Club last night.”

“Okay.  You’re on light duty.  Keep it wrapped up and report to your bunk for today after roll call and keep it elevated.  It’s odd, though…”

“What’s odd, Doc?” I asked, putting my arm around Lita and limping over to the crutches he was retrieving from the closet.

“You’re the second person this morning that had that happen.  You’ll need to tell the Corporal where that rock is so it can either be covered or dug up.”

“Who was the other person that hurt his ankle?” asked Lita.

“Seaman Mannion.  He came in late last night with the same injury.  Caused him to fall into Petty Officer Pawelski and made Pawelski trip and break two fingers.  His’ cheek looks like someone kicked him good and hard there as well, though he said it was from it hitting the ground.  Say,” he said, looking at Lita’s chest, “did you fall too?  That’s a nasty contusion.”

“No.  I got that a couple days ago from training.” Lita lied.

We went to roll call.  When we got there, we saw Mannion and Pawelski and glowered at them, but they both ignored us.  Gunny also gave us some looks.

“What happened to you two?” he asked Mannion.

“Tripped over a rock on the way back from the club, Gunny,” said Mannion.

“And you, Pawelski?”

“We were drunk, Gunny,” mumbled Navy, his face so swollen he could barely talk.  “Manny knocked me over and I fell onto the rock.  Broke my finger and almost broke my cheek!”

“Too bad you didn’t break your neck,” mumbled Gunny, looking from him to Lita and me.

“Mannion and Magee, you’re on light duty and bed rest for today.  The rest of you report to the arena for martial arts instruction!”

“But Gunny,” said Mannion.  “Casper ain’t back yet, so how can we have Martial Arts instruction?”

Gunny smiled enigmatically.  “Casper ain’t coming back.  We have us a new instructor.”  He then turned to the rest of us.  “Our new instructor has been involved in martial arts from the age of 7, won enough competitions to decorate every wall in camp and holds black belts in just about every form of hand-to-hand combat.

“You will pay attention.  Your instructor is potentially deadly.  Your instructor doesn’t look like much, but can snap you in two if needed.  Your instructor is the reason Casper ain’t coming back cuz he was beaten by… well, you’ll see.”

Gunny chuckled – not a good sign.  “You will listen and learn as your instructor has actually been teaching martial arts since the age of 12.  Your instructor holds the record for the number of wins in a single year.  I’m not supposed to tell you this, but your new instructor took on a street gang in Chicago and put a dozen of them in a hospital before the rest ran away.  Your instructor -,”

“Hey Gunny,” someone called, “enough with the buildup.  We get the idea.  Just show us which one is Superman, ‘kay?”

Everyone laughed and Gunny colored, then composed himself.

“Without further ado, may I introduce your new Martial Arts instructor:  Ms Estrellita Reyes.”

There was a collective gasp and murmur from the crowd as Lita stood to her full 5’ 3” and strode up next to Gunny, whose barrel-chested figure made her look even smaller and more frail than she was.

“As Gunny told you, I’m an expert at Martial Arts.  I beat twelve other so-called experts that the military threw at me while I was in boot camp – not just other girls, but seven other guys, most about the size of Gunny here.”  She got a laugh as she patted his belly.

“Sarge only got one thing wrong,” she continued.  “I’m not potentially deadly, I am deadly.  I didn’t put twelve gangbangers in the hospital, I killed six of them – the ones that raped my little sister, then murdered my lo… my girlfriend.

“I would have killed more of them, but the police arrived by then.  Please note that I will teach you skills you will need.  I will teach you how to fight clean, then I will teach you how to fight dirty.  If you try to fight by the book, the only thing that will get you is dead.  I learned that much from competitions.  Those competitions are the cleanest fights you’ll see and they still fight dirty.  On the street or in combat, it’s a different story.  Fighting dirty is the only way to fight!  Do it any other way and you don’t just lose, you’ll be dead!

“And,” she continued, “if you’re small, like me, you learn quickly to pick up ‘equalizers’ when you’re fighting the enemy.  You learn that there is only one goal and that is to win the fight or die trying… because you will.”

She looked at us and let her eyes settle on Pawelski.  “Now, who wants to be the first in the ring with me?”

“Ms Reyes?” called out one of the black guys in the group, “What the heck is an ‘equalizer’ anyway?”

She chuckled.  “Why, it’s anything that will increase the odds in your favor during a fight!”

“Such as?”

“A brick, rocks, dirt, a baseball bat, a piece of pipe, a gun, a knife…” she told them.  They got the picture.

“So,” she said, “who’s going to take me on?  These are 32D’s.  Who wants to cop a feel if they win, eh?”

There was a murmur and a couple guys prodded Pawelski.  The guy next to me said, “He’s the best of the old-timers here.”  Navy wasn’t going for it.

“I hurt my fingers and cheek last night,” he said, sounding like his mouth was stuffed with cotton.

“I won’t touch your face, Pawelski,” she said sweetly, smiling.  “I want to leave you something to attract the girls with.  I’ll just go through some basic moves.

“Hey Gunny,” I called out, “I’m on light-duty and have to keep my knee up…”

“Yeah, you’re dismissed, Magee,” he called.

“You misunderstood me, Gunny,” I replied, “If someone brings me two chairs and a pillow, I can prop it up.  I want to watch this.”

Gunny smiled.  “That’s the kind of spirit I like to hear!”

Lita spent the rest of the morning teaming guys up and teaching them some rudimentary holds and throws before she took on Gunny and an Air Force Sergeant, handily beating them both.  Pawelski shied away again and I thought I detected genuine fear in his eyes, though it might also have been cunning and hate.

After Lita was through, Gunny was all smiles at her and told her to take the rest of the afternoon off.  She helped me back to my room, then sat and talked to me about what had happened the night before.

“I don’t think they will bother us much anymore,” she said.

I smiled.  “Why didn’t you tell me you were the new instructor?”

“You never asked.  By the way, what’s your specialty?”

“Marksmanship.  I’m here to learn more about being a sniper is what I’ve been told.  Gunny and that Marine Corporal of his are teaching me and four others.”

“I wonder if I might get to sit in on those classes?  I sucked at guns in camp – probably because I didn’t much like them after what happened to…”

“I’ll tell you what,” I interrupted when her words drifted off.  “If they don’t or if your classes conflict with mine, we can teach each other after hours.  Deal?”

Lita smiled and held out her hand.  “Deal!”

We sat there for a bit, letting the pregnant pause give birth.

“Mike?”

“Yeah, Lita?”

“Thank you.”

I looked up at her.  “For what?”

“For… not being an asshole.”

I laughed.  “What makes you think I’m not?”

She smiled and sat back, making her chair creak.

“Well, you haven’t tried to hit up on me or peek at me in the showers for one…”

“That’s because the hole I drilled in the wall lets me watch you without opening the door or moving from my bed.”

She threw a book at me.  “OH, YOU!”

I laughed and so did she.

“Seriously, though.  Most guys would have tried to hit on me several times by now.”

“Well, I guess I’m not ‘most guys.’  Besides, I’ve got someone special back home.”

She smiled.  “I sorta figured that.”

“Oh?  Does it show that much?”

“No.”

“How’d you figure then?”

She rolled her butt and reached onto the seat.  “Well, seven perfumed letters for one…”

“HEY!  Those are mine!”

“I didn’t open them, but…” she sniffed, “Hmmm… Chanel No. 5.  This must be your older lady, probably about 35 or so, but built like she was 10 years younger.  High maintenance though.” 

She tossed me the letters from Carla and sniffed the second group.

“Hmmm… Charlie.  Same last name as… Carla, was it?  Probably her teenage daughter that you’re banging on the side.  A little young for you, though.  Jan, right?”

She tossed me Janny’s letter and sniffed the next three in succession, then looked at the return address on the first one.

“Mikey!  This one isn’t even out of grade school yet!  Shame on you!” 

She tossed me Leslie’s letters.

“These smell like home cooking, so it must be from Mom.”

I laughed as she threw me the rest of the letters, then she sat there as I opened one up.

“Why don’t you get your letters and we’ll read together?” I said.

“I’ve got to do some cleaning on my side,” she said abruptly.  “I’ll come get you for dinner.

I read the letters from my Mom first, then from Leslie and Carla, saving Janny-girls for last.  I’d just begun to open them up when Lita poked her head in.

“Chow time!”

Lita walked with me over to the chow hall, strangely quiet and subdued.  I didn’t pry and generally made small-talk over dinner, figuring she would open up to me when she decided the time was right.

That happened on the way back to the cabin.

“Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about being abrupt earlier today.”

“Oh?”  We were walking slowly.  Well, she was walking.  I was hobbling along on crutches.

“Yeah.  Well, letters are sort of a sore spot for me.”

“Why?”  I looked down at her and saw that she was crying.

“Well,” she said, trying to cover it up, “Remember when I said earlier that I’d been protecting my girlfriend… from gangbangers that were shooting at us?”
“Yes.”

“The reason I killed four of them is that they killed my sister… and my best friend.”

“Oh, I see.”

“My sister and Melinda were the only family I really had.  Everyone else is either dead or I’m dead to them.”

I thought about throwing out a platitude that nobody’s family is ever “dead” to them, but decided it wouldn’t help the conversation, so I remained silent.

“The reason I’m in the Military is that I didn’t stop going after the gangbangers, Mike.”

“Oh?”

“No.  I vowed to get as many of them as I could before they got me.  But I got caught.  Fortunately, the judge knew my family and took pity on me, offering me either jail time for assault or going into the Military and doing some good with my aggressions.”

“Lita, I don’t really care why you’re here.  We all have our reasons.  It’s just up to us to make the best of the situation.”

Lita smiled and hugged my arm.  “Thanks.  I needed to hear that.”

“But I was serious.  When my knee is better, I’d like you to start training me and I’ll reciprocate as much as possible.”

“You got it!”

I wrote to Mom, Carla and the girls that night and asked them to write a letter to my friend, Lita.  I told Carla and Janny what I thought was going on with her and said that this woman needed some friends to confide in.  I expected Carla to be generous, because that was her way.  Janny, I didn’t know about.  I was expecting a jealous retort, quite honestly.

It took two more days before the swelling in my knee went down sufficiently that I could start my training. 

Gunny handed me a rifle and began to talk.  “Boy, this here is a Springfield M-1 Garand with a specially-machined barrel.  It shoots a 30-06 XXX grain bullet.  With the special sites that have been added, you should be able to pick off a quarter-sized target at 600 yards with little or no problem and a target the size of a human head at 1100.”

I put the gun through its paces and fired at the target, getting a little wider spread than anticipated.

“Not bad for your first time with a scope,” said Gunny.  “You’ll get better with practice.”  Believe me, I got plenty of practice.

Lita did too.  She soon had about 8 guys rapidly advancing in tactics, finding three who had actually put in some time at a dojo.  In the evenings, she taught me tai chi first (until my knee was properly healed), then basic holds, then more advanced stuff.  On the weekends, during our “free” time, I took her down to the range and taught her how to use a rifle, how to use a sight and how to adjust it all. 

At the end of the 7^th week, we were given our “final” and I was again paired up with Lita.  We were to head out into the brush with only our indoor clothing on and 5 lbs of “stuff” we could carry from the table in front of us.  I grabbed two mylar blankets, a bottle of water purification tablets, a jar of petroleum jelly, a hunting knife, some jerky, a couple votive candles, a box of matches and a spool of twine.

Lita grabbed a light wool blanket, some jerky, a slingshot, two candy bars and a compass.  When it was weighed, she was over her limit, so she left one of the candy bars.

“I would have left the blanket,” I told her as I put my stuff into various pockets.  “It weighs too much.”

“Hey, I gotta keep warm.  I’m a warm-weather girl, Mikey.  Born in Puerto Rico.  I was only in Chicago for a couple years.  It’s November and they expect us to be out in this weather?  Shee-yit!  I’d rather be sunning myself on the beach and sweating than having my teeth rattle in my head!”

We rode in a chopper to our drop-off point and were given a set of instructions.  Instead of heading back to the base, we were told to head in the opposite direction, set up a camp for the night and then head to a set of coordinates on a map and “capture” the bunker there.

We headed off in the thick brush until I found a spot to rest.  Then I looked at the map.

“We need to get to here by nightfall,” I said, pointing to a point on the map.  “Let me see your compass a moment.  I took some readings and measurements.  “Yeah, we have a good 6 miles, as the bird flies.”

“Shit, that’s no problem, Mike!” said Lita.  “We could do that in our sleep after this past 9 weeks!”

“It’s not quite as simple as it sounds.  If the topography of this map is correct, we have to make our way down, then up, some pretty steep terrain.  There’s a spot over on the next hill that seems pretty flat and that’s where I’d like to camp.”

We had started at 9 am.  It was now almost 10, so I looked for the best route down into the valley.  There was no use to us slipping down the hill and spraining an ankle or anything.

Brambles, brush and saplings tore at our clothing.  By noon, we were tired and thirsty, so I headed for the creek.  It was a small, weak stream that tasted of iron.

“Shit.” I said.

“What, did you lose the purification tablets?”

“No.  I’ve got them.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“What are we going to drink out of?”

Lita stopped and laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Here,” she said.  “I thought of that when we were at the table.  I considered a canteen, but it weighed almost 2 pounds.  Then I saw the collapsible cups, but Mannion got them before I did.  So I’ve been whittling away at this all morning while we’ve been hiking.

She handed me what had been a piece of a rotted stump where she’d cut away the rot.  It still smelled, but it was worth a try.

It leaked.

“Damn!” she spat.

“Hey, it was a good idea and a good try,” I said.  “I didn’t even think about it until now.”

I slapped my forehead.

“What?” she asked.

“The mylar blankets!”

“What about them?”

“We can use that to gather water, drop the purification tabs into them and drink!”

It took us until about an hour before sundown to get to the spot I’d picked out.  As the sun dropped, so did the temperature.  I laid one mylar blanket on the ground and put Lita’s blanket and the other mylar sheet atop us.  It didn’t stop the cold that was seeping up from the ground.

“Mike?” Lita said, shivering under the blanket.

“Yes?”

“H-h-hold me?”

I pulled my blanket close and lay against her, hoping that our combined warmth would get us through the night.  We were in just our fatigues and what few items we had been allowed to carry.  As I’d opted for the mylar blankets instead of the thin wool ones.  I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake.

The sun was almost down when I made a decision.

“Lita?”

“Y-y-yes-s-s-s-s?” she shivered.

“I’m going to try something a little different, okay?”

“D-d-does it i-i-i-nv-v-v-v-volve building a f-f-fire?”

“No, but it does involve keeping us warm.”  I got up and began to work quickly.  Lita protested but watched with interest as I piled up branches in a criss-cross pattern on the ground.  I piled leaves and pine needles atop that until there was a bed about two feet thick.  I laid one mylar blanket across that, then had her lay down on it and put the wool blanket over her.  Working quickly, I created an angled lattice-work of branches above and put the mylar blanket atop that, then covered her with as many branches and leaves as I could.

“Keep an opening for me, will you?” I said, dumping on more leaves and pine needles.  We now had a four-foot mound surrounding us.  I crawled inside and moved around until I was under the wool as well.  She hugged me and shivered a little less as I closed up the entry point and lit one of the candles.

In about 10 minutes, we were relatively warm.

“Where’d you learn that?” she asked, still hugging me.

“Boy Scouts and back-yard fort building,” I told her.  “More of the latter, actually.”

“Well, I’m glad you remembered it!”

There was a long pause and I thought she’d fallen asleep.

“Mike?”

“Yes?”  I felt her shift against me in the dark.  “Would you have done this if I were a guy?”

“Probably,” I told her, not really knowing.  “I like being warm.”

“Good, because, as you probably know…”

I raised my finger and touched it to her lips.  “Hush.”

“But…”

“HUSH!”

She sighed.  “I just wanted to say that…”

“I’m pretty sure I know what you want to say.  But if you say it, and they find out, they’re going to ask me under oath if I know.  If you say anything, I will know and I’ll have to answer honestly.  And if I answer honestly, I won’t be able to live with myself if I ruined your career.  They have some stupid rules and stupid ideas and I don’t want any part of it.  I don’t care what you do in your personal time as long as you do your job properly.  Neither should the government.

“But they think that you might be blackmailed, so they make it a crime for… some folks… to be in the Military which, if those… folks… truly want to contribute, puts them in a Catch-22 situation that then allows them to be blackmailed.  If the powers-that-be just didn’t care, it wouldn’t matter.”

“What if I were a guy?”

“It still wouldn’t matter.”

“What if I were a guy, here?”

“I don’t know, Lita.  I’ve never knowingly been in any situation like that.  But I’d still give the same advice.”

She looked at me with those almond-shaped brown eyes and then smiled and kissed my forehead.  “Thank you.”

“Get some sleep.”

The next day, we got a call on the radio and we were given our objective.  We were one of two teams to reach them.  Pawelski and Mannion beat us by just a few minutes.  Everyone else failed either due to fatigue, exposure or lack of sleep, all of them technically getting “killed” because of silly mistakes.

After that, Lita and I separated to our respective assignments, but we kept in touch with one another via my family.  They’d taken to her and, Carla- along with Janny – wrote to her almost as often as they did to me.  When she first got the letters from them, she thought they were for me.  I assured her they were hers and she burst into tears and hugged me.

I don’t know what was in them, but I get the feeling that Lita and Janny talked quite a bit about me.